Take me to the surf... {OREGON}

[rumour]

Rumour sat on the beach, pushing her bare feet into the sand and listening to the waves as they gently lapped on the shore. It was night – this she knew because she had left her bed only an hour or so before, unable to sleep despite trying for hours. Despite listening to the heavy, relaxed breathing of the man next to her, whose gentle rhythm was so often a lullaby, Sleep tonight had been a reality denied to the brunette. So instead she had slipped from the bed and dressed, leaving Ever to snore quietly until morning, and gone for a walk. Now here she was, on the beach, the glowing end of a cigarette barely lighting her features when she brought it to her mouth. The glow of lamplight on the boardwalk didn’t reach her, and did nothing to illuminate the identity of the silhouette.

But Rumour liked it that way. She was painfully aware of the bruises, bandages and healing lacerations that littered her skin as freckles might decorate the alabaster of a redhead. She didn’t like going out into crowds at the best of times – but even less so when she looked like the victim of a plane crash. A mugging. Of domestic violence.

Laying back in the sand, Rumour pushed one arm behind her head and lifted the cigarette to her lips with the other, inhaling as deeply as her bruised and broken ribs would allow her, before blowing it out into the darkness above. She had once loved to look at the stars, to lie on her back and wonder if other people were doing the same, staring out into the wide unknown and wondering if life was any different, any better for the people out there. The same way she loved water now, the closeness and comfort of her bathtub, the weightless feel of floating and the way noise was muted beneath the surface, she had once loved the escapist properties of staring into space. Now.... without being able to see them, the effect was somewhat lost. But this was not a new feeling. This was not a new revelation. It was one she had grown used too.

Finally stubbing out the cigarette when she started inhaling the stub, Rumour shoved the cooled end deeper into the sand, burying both it, and momentarily her fingers, in the cool weight of the sand. She shifted her head at the soft sound of footsteps, but thought nothing of them at first. She was too far down the beach to be seen, and most people would just leave her be. It was dark, and she was intent to let them pass without saying or doing anything. If it was someone who wanted something they could ask. She had nothing for a thief to take... and short of killing her, she doubted there was little else anyone could do to her.

That was until a dog landed on her chest and started licking her face.

[Oregon Thorne]

Oregon had a headache and much to his dismay, it was not a headache that could be fixed by the normal methods of downing tylenon then falling into a restless sleep. For the past five years, his headaches had been harder and harder to get rid of, and recently, they were near unshakable. Lancing pains seared through the line of his forehead, reverberating about his skull as if his brain was being beaten from the inside with some sort of cooking implement, most obviously a frying pain. Yet he felt that if it were that alone, he could deal with it. He could take pain, get used to it, learn to block it out. But amidst those pains, with each debilitating throb, a dozen voices sounded, whispers at the back of his mind.

These voice would rise and fall, sometimes address him directly by different names, while at others they would talk amongst themselves, as if he wasn't there, as if he wasn't actually in his own head. He hated it; being a spectator of conversations taking place in his mind, the mind he owned and was meant to have complete control over. There were times that their whispers, even barely audible, became an immense distraction, taking all his concentration. He couldn't drive, could't talk, couldn't read...just couldn't think.

And on such nights he walked, aimlessly, just doing everything he could to clear his head. He'd tread streets, parks, beaches, even pushing himself beyond his bodies limits, continuing even tired. It was easier than trying to sleep. He'd done so alone, occasionally getting food, finding shelter if it rained, but he'd never find company. He'd wander, and do his all to just put their words from his mind, just so he couldn't hear what they were saying any longer.

That was, of course, until he had 'Batdog', the animal he'd brought for one Rumour Everly, who, despite it being her dog, stayed with him. Housing complications were a nightmare. And so the energetic boxer puppy lived in Oregon's three room student flat, barking, sprinting about, whining at the most awkward times of day, and Oregon, too nice, a slave to the dogs will, catered to his every need; two good meals, walks twice a day, and then more if the headaches started. He wasn't about to leave the dog cooped up while he got to stroll for hours on end. Not to mention Batdog hated solitary confinement. He'd yowl and bark...and no doubt pee all over his guitar.

So he no longer walked alone. Just as he wasn't that night.

'He has no place to decide what is right.'
'He is one of us, of course he does.'
'He remembers not who he is, therefore his actions are as flawed as any of their kind.'

Voices, voices, voices. Constant voices. Oregon frowned, running a hand through his hair. The sound of the sea was about him, waves lapping gently at the shore, the sound at least a little soothing, but not enough to block out everything he heard. But that noise, combined with the sand under his feet, it was more relaxing than adding to wispers with the sounds of traffic and blaring car horns. It gave him at least some rest.

'He should listen to us more.'
'He'd be more useful then.'
'We'll find a way to control him.'

Looking to the sky, Oregon narrowed his blue eyes, and shouted, making as much noise as he possibly could – 'SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP.' He then took a deep breath, rolled his eyes, and sighed, looking back to the beach he was on, at the mini-dunes about him. They didn't listen, but he found his attention torn. Something stopped him going back to just walking aimlessly; and that was the lack of Batdog, and the paw prints leading off in odd directions.

'Shit', he managed, before starting up at a jog, following the most traveled path, the one most raught with the dog's footsteps. He couldn't believe he'd been so distracted he'd forgotten to check where his puppy...or well...Rumy's puppy had got to.
'Batdog?! Batdog?'
His voice wavered a little as he jogged, and prayed the dog wasn't headfirst in a dumpster somewhere, so happy he'd found a piece of rotting meat to sniff that Oregon's calls may as well have been silence.
'Get your nosy ass back here Batdog! Don't make me sing your theme song!'
Still nothing. 'Fuck...fuck...fuck.'

[rumour]

-and random time warp forward, BUT IN SAME TIME CONTINUEM muhahah-

The last thing that Rumour was expecting tonight, as the girl rooted through her filthy jeans in search of a last cigarette from the rumpled and rather crumpled packet, was to be pounced on by an oversized and slobbering Boxer. At first, Rumour fought the dog off, no idea who the mutt was, her new found sight providing no clues as to the dogs identity.

Wrestling with the oversized bundle of energy, Rumour rolled in the sand, trying to get him off and away from her. Truth be told in those moments the girl was scared. The world was a new one to her. It was one she was having to get used too. Her father, only a few short weeks before had tried to kill her, but instead of dying she had woken with her sight, the return of her fox... and a man who had somewhat freaked out at her change. Fleeing from the motel she had taken to sleeping in a warehouse near the beach, sneaking in and out through a broken window, most nights she woke up changed and frightened, plagued by nightmares of a new kind.

Finally, her eyes picked out the bat shaped collar hanging from the dogs neck and she rasped it in her fingers, staring at the engraving for a long moment before the letters made any sense. ‘Batdog.’ A small smile, a true, genuine smile crept over her lips then, the fear falling from her pace to be replaced by happiness at the recognition of the canine as she wrapped her arms around its neck, hugging. The smile felt foreign to her, not remembering the last time she had shown that emotion. Despite herself, Rumour discovered her cheeks to be wet as she pulled away from the exuberant boxer, ruffling his ears.

Turning her head though, the last thing she wanted to hear was Oregon’s voice getting closer. The blonde may indeed be her best friend, but Rumour had somewhat vanished for the last two weeks. She hadn’t seen or called anyone... and she didn’t need him seeing her in this state. Standing, she wiped the sand from her jeans and shirt, tugging a little at the hole in the fabric, the red tinge to the material standing out against the white, despite her best attempts to wash the blood out in the ocean, and attempted to get Batdog to go back, whispering in his ear about going back to Oregon, and being a good dog...