wearing thin — open

[mickey]

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— nightmares. they were nothing foreign to mickey serge. if anything, they were more familiar and welcomed to him than not. at least those restless nights could be expected and anticipated; part of a routine that left little room for thinking they’d ever go away. after all, he had his moments where he thought he was getting better. nights in a row where he managed to get a good night’s sleep. nights where he didn’t feel so tormented for the man he was, and the things he had done. it was after nights like those, ones that gave him such a sense of false-hope, that a bad night felt more startling.

most people didn’t remember much about their dreams. mick didn’t remember much either. he was used to seeing an abstract of scenes, playing behind his eyelids like a broken movie screen. not remembering too much about what happened in the dreams, but remembering how they made him feel whenever he woke up in a cold-sweat. he was a man plagued with such disastrous thoughts, yet he could know all the medicines in the world and find it difficult to cure. there wasn’t a way to cure him of his past decisions, or the regret that clung to him. the death that clung to him. the blood that stained his fingertips. if there was a cure, he wasn’t so certain he would even take it.

in some ways, he felt almost as if he deserved it.

they only got worse after tamara’s untimely passing; sometimes he could see her, looking at him disappointed. unhappy with the man he had become. that was a sight that was hard for him to shake. deciding he couldn’t bring himself to stay inside and try to get more sleep, the man instead took to the streets of the district. cigarette in hand, he smoked absently as he made his way along the promenade. the cigarette one of his few items of comfort.

mickey often desired comfort, yet he never brought himself to seek it out. was it because of his own pride that he didn’t seek comfort from others? was it because he didn’t think he deserved it? he would never be completely sure. maybe both. either way, working to silently console himself didn’t seem to do the trick, but only put the problem off until he’d try to sleep again. slowing to a stop by the docks, he glanced at the boats absently before looking out towards the moonlit ocean surface. guess tonight was just one of those nights.

[spoiler=tags ― updated 02/25.][size=8pt]◜BASICS ┊ BURIED MY HEART IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND ◞
‣  ❝ mickey serge ❞ | mick, serge | male [he/him] .
‣ 33 years old . | may fifth; taurus.
‣  currently the prodigy of northstar district
‣  currently co-founder/co-head of st. peter’s clinic in the district alongside lucerne nouvel.

◜PERSONALITY: ISFJ ┊ THERE WAS NO ONE AROUND ◞
‣  aloof . ambitious . blunt . distant . driven . hard-working . passionate . humble . reserved . introverted . intelligent . level-headed . trustworthy . honest . caring . quiet . gentlemanly . kind . pessimistic . unreadable . stoic . withdrawn .
↳ lover of tea and cigarettes
↳ struggles with ptsd symptoms
↳ recovering alcoholic (over a year sober)
↳ currently showing signs/symptoms of depression following his mother's death

◜ APPEARANCE ┊ BURIED MY GUILT IN A PIT IN THE SOUND ◞
‣ six foot one & one hundred and sixty seven pounds ; reference .
↳ dark brown hair kept very short on the sides and neat
↳ skinny with slight muscle tone
↳ deep blue eyes , often stoic , emotionless

◜ FAMILY ┊ I TRIED AND I TRIED AND I WAS NEVER THE SAME ◞
‣  david serge x tamara serge | father deceased . mother recently deceased
‣ only child
‣ currently claims guardianship of arlo - doesn’t consider himself arlo’s parent

◜ RELATIONSHIPS ┊ I'LL BREAK UP THE CHAIN ◞
‣  homosexual ; monogamous | a hopeless romantic .
‣ ex-fiance to elinor rose
↳ engagement fell apart after coming to terms with mick’s sexuality .
‣  ex-lover to edmund stirling-moray
↳ the first guy he had ever been with . helped him become comfortable with his sexuality before coming out of the closet.
‣ current boyfriend of vernon green
↳ currently live together . inseparable .

◜ INTERACTIONS ┊ I'M FOREVER CHANGED ◞
‣  [ 9/10 ] physically  |  [ 8/10 ] psychologically .
↳ difficulty w/ guns [ very difficult ] | difficulty w/ melees [ difficult ] | difficulty w/ hand-to-hand [ difficult ]
‣ [member=1512]elysian.[/member] | dm for any major plots .
‣  friendly or nonviolent actions may be powerplayed .[/size][/spoiler]

[LUCERNE.]

[align=center][div style="width: 430px; text-align: justify; font-family: verdana; font-size: 6pt; letter-spacing: 2.5px; word-spacing: 0px; line-height: 12px; color: #000"]Lucerne was once well acquainted with nightmares — his childhood was teeming with them. Monsters and tragedies that would have him wake up in a cold sweat, a baleful sensation that penetrated his bones. He could never escape from the feeling, left alone and awake in his bed as he’d force himself not to cry from the paralysing fear. Whilst monsters and tragedies in other children’s minds were fictitious and absolutely absurd, Lucerne had to come to accept that the nightmares would persist into the day time. After all, bottles being smashed and his father aggressively micromanaging every aspect of his life was a day time reality as well; his nightmares and reality were never really mutually exclusive.

As his age eventually caught up to a mind far beyond his years, the nightmares slowly subsided. Perhaps his father’s eventual death to his addictive personality had been the best thing to have happened to Lucerne for many years. He’d never get to see Lucerne finish medical school, or watch him follow the typical timeline of any less than average individual that he expected of Lucerne — find a well paid job, settle down and marry a soft spoken woman, and start a family by thirty — father never really knew a thing about his own son, did he? An asexual man who was married to his work.

Nowadays, father rarely crossed his mind. It had been quite some years since he had to bury him and, with that, it seemed as if he buried most of the nightmares that day, too. Perhaps the trauma would linger for many years more, an understandable result of the warping of a young and naive mind, and his struggle with substances would only continue to act as the only coping mechanism he knew to turn to whenever things began to spiral again. For now, he was in a good place, he’d readily admit to himself. He enjoyed the challenge of working in the clinic and rationing supplies, instead choosing to construct homeopathic remedies to the best of his ability to treat less severe cases and save the medicine for those who really needed it. Whilst he believed it would never amount to the true miraculous nature of science, it gave him something intriguing to investigate.

After spending much of the evening wandering the district in search of his independent hound, Faline, Lucerne enjoyed his walk before he would eventually return home to rest for the night. Addy had long accepted Lucerne’s less than ideal sleeping schedule, a man who sometimes wouldn’t sleep if it meant he could be doing something more productive with his time. Tonight he was more interested in finding his free-spirited sighthound, his roommate as he’d often call her. She’d not come home for dinner, leaving Lucerne to wonder where she could possibly be in that case.

Slowing to a stop, Lucerne quietly observed as he spotted Mickey smoking a cigarette by the dock, looking out across the moonlit sea. Barely understanding what Mickey was going through, Lucerne didn’t know what to do to support him. Hell, he barely considered that to be a possibility. It wasn’t an act of being so self-obsessed that he failed to see other people’s misery as much as it was an innocent failure to acknowledge another person’s feelings. It was always Lucerne’s greatest downfall; not realising that he was capable of helping until it was much too late. ❝ I would ask what possessed you to be wandering the streets at this time of night, but that would be rather hypocritical of me, wouldn’t you say? ❞ Lucerne pointed out as he neared his colleague and best friend, stopping nearby to look out across the dock. He’d say nothing more, trying to gauge the situation silently. 

[mickey]

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— it’d been a long time since mickey serge had been the man he once knew. it was a thought he often tried not to linger on. sometimes it was a thought that was so abstract in its own way, as if mick wasn’t even aware of how he used to be anymore. it took tamara’s biting words to truly remind him how much he had changed. if someone’s own mother found it hard to look at him, failed to see their son when he stood right in front of them, then surely that meant he was further gone than he originally thought. he was simply a shell of a man, trying hard to fit into shoes he was destined to where but would never fit.

in a way, perhaps the very thing that haunted him most was the man he had once been; the man that he could have been.

hardly anyone knew what that man looked like. turning to look over his shoulder towards lucerne, he silently watched him draw nearer. lucerne nouvel was one of the few men that knew. if he was truly aware of the stark change in mickey - he doubted that lucerne was completely unaware, he had always been an observant man - then he never mentioned it. perhaps it was because he was uncaring of the change at all, or simply unaware of what to say if the subject were brought up. while some found lucerne’s lack of such sensitive and vulnerable conversation unbearable, in a way mickey found comfort from it. he lacked the ability to express his feelings adequately as well, sometimes. he preferred the comfort of solitude; he was sure lucerne could relate to such a feeling.

although lucerne’s struggle to understand went deeper than mick could possibly ever know, the man had still been there for him in his own ways. he had watched over tamara when it was clear mickey was nearing the end of his rope; something only a true friend would do. he was there for tamara when she passed away. the smallest amount of comfort, to know that she hadn’t been alone when she’d died. “that’s never stopped you before, has it?” the words were more light than around other people; a comfortableness around lucerne that hardly many others experienced. too used to his old roommate’s mannerisms to be caught too off guard by his ways. gently flicking the ash off his cigarette, he looked out across the dock with a thoughtful gaze. contemplating.

he didn’t enjoy the idea of pouring his feelings out to lucerne. he was such a private man - they both were - and although he was often quick to chime in with his own advice, he felt too withdrawn to want to take advice from anyone else. “each day,” he broke the silence between them, shifting his weight to one side to dig out his dwindling pack of smokes. “i get up feeling more tired than i’ve ever been.” offering his pack for lucerne to pluck out a cigarette, he glanced towards his friend before looking once again towards the tide. “i can’t sleep most nights. if i do, it’s short-lived.”

the two seemed unspokenly aware of the trauma they both must have faced in their own lives; he never really had to connect the dots for lucerne to at least vaguely understand all the issues he faced related to the hardships he’d endured. perhaps lucerne related more than mickey ever dared entertain. the nightmares never stopped. sometimes it was hard to wake up and understand what was real - that he was so used to his life being a nightmare that it was hard to believe so much good surrounded him. to believe that he deserved the good that surrounded him. he felt as though he was waiting for his waking life to turn into a nightmare again, slowly reverting back to only expecting the worst to happen even while awake.

he decided not to push the subject much further. instead, he turned the question on lucerne as he bluntly asked, “what are you doing out here?”

[spoiler=tags ― updated 02/25.][size=8pt]◜BASICS ┊ BURIED MY HEART IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND ◞
‣  ❝ mickey serge ❞ | mick, serge | male [he/him] .
‣ 33 years old . | may fifth; taurus.
‣  currently the prodigy of northstar district
‣  currently co-founder/co-head of st. peter’s clinic in the district alongside lucerne nouvel.

◜PERSONALITY: ISFJ ┊ THERE WAS NO ONE AROUND ◞
‣  aloof . ambitious . blunt . distant . driven . hard-working . passionate . humble . reserved . introverted . intelligent . level-headed . trustworthy . honest . caring . quiet . gentlemanly . kind . pessimistic . unreadable . stoic . withdrawn .
↳ lover of tea and cigarettes
↳ struggles with ptsd symptoms
↳ recovering alcoholic (over a year sober)
↳ currently showing signs/symptoms of depression following his mother's death

◜ APPEARANCE ┊ BURIED MY GUILT IN A PIT IN THE SOUND ◞
‣ six foot one & one hundred and sixty seven pounds ; reference .
↳ dark brown hair kept very short on the sides and neat
↳ skinny with slight muscle tone
↳ deep blue eyes , often stoic , emotionless

◜ FAMILY ┊ I TRIED AND I TRIED AND I WAS NEVER THE SAME ◞
‣  david serge x tamara serge | father deceased . mother recently deceased
‣ only child
‣ currently claims guardianship of arlo - doesn’t consider himself arlo’s parent

◜ RELATIONSHIPS ┊ I'LL BREAK UP THE CHAIN ◞
‣  homosexual ; monogamous | a hopeless romantic .
‣ ex-fiance to elinor rose
↳ engagement fell apart after coming to terms with mick’s sexuality .
‣  ex-lover to edmund stirling-moray
↳ the first guy he had ever been with . helped him become comfortable with his sexuality before coming out of the closet.
‣ current boyfriend of vernon green
↳ currently live together . inseparable .

◜ INTERACTIONS ┊ I'M FOREVER CHANGED ◞
‣  [ 9/10 ] physically  |  [ 8/10 ] psychologically .
↳ difficulty w/ guns [ very difficult ] | difficulty w/ melees [ difficult ] | difficulty w/ hand-to-hand [ difficult ]
‣ [member=1512]elysian.[/member] | dm for any major plots .
‣  friendly or nonviolent actions may be powerplayed .[/size][/spoiler]