Endless Cycles

Cole sprints out of the front door and into the forest without a singular fuck

Mailman sighs and begins walking towards the house casually

Cole starts walking out of the forest with an entire deer on his shoulder

Mailman is now on the porch waiting patently

Cole walks inside with the deer on his shoulder and waves at MailMan, "Hi MailMan"

Mailman dismisively waves a hand and waits

Cole runs outside and closes the door, "What....what do you want"

Mailman sighs as he stands up from the seat. His voice sounds a hint different, "I'm not here for blood this time but becuase someone in your house here thought it was a good idea to throw me under the bus."

Cole raises an eyebrow, "What do you mean? How did you get thrown under the bus?"

Mailman adjusts one of his gloves, "Luna had went to speak with my boss and told on me showing up at the house and getting to lochlan."

Cole groans and shakes his head, "She's always sticking her nose where it doesn't belong...."

As Mailman continues Cole can pick up on a mix of anger and pain seeping in as his composure starts to shake, "And if she keeps running her mouth then my job is going to become more difficult and take longer. Not to mention each time she rats me out I have to spend hours enduring the concequnces." Mailman removes the glove to real nearly perfect hands. But across the top of his hands are long straight lines like bruises stretching to under his sleeve, starting from puncture wounds at his knuckles. Is voice sounds as if he is speak through gritted teeth, "As you can imagine I'm more than just upset about these turn of events."

Cole stares at the bruises as he rubs his arms as he nods, "I uh...i could imagine" Cole blinks as he shakes his head, "I'll make sure that i..." Cole's eyes seem to drift into the forest slightly then back to MailMan, "Handle that accordingly"

Mailman puts a hand sternly to Cole's throat, "If you don't things under control i'll make sure you reinact every night I have to suffer."

Cole's eyes seem to fill with fear as they flicker to grey, "Got it, i'll get it all under control she won't stand in your way anymore"

Mailman huffs as he lets go and puts the glove back on, "Don't disapoint me Ernesh." He turns and begins to walk off the porch.

Cole nods, "I won't" Cole's eyes start to leak tears as he heads back inside

Cole walks back inside and leans next to the hallway entrance, silently trying to calm down

Lochlan walks in and sits in the corner

Cole's eyes quickly flicker back to being hazel as he glances over at Lochlan

Lochlan looks over at him, "they made macaroni in the kitchen, it tastes pretty good if you want to see."

Cole's face contorts as he looks like he might cry

Lochlans faint smile lowers some, "...Cole?"

Luna walks through, but pauses to announce, "okay, deer's all chopped up and processed. Gonna make some sausage tomorrow."

Then she walks on towards the bathroom.

Cole is struggling to not cry as he nods and barely manages to get out a "mhm?"

Lochlan begins to look worried, "What happened? Is everything ok?"

Cole nods as a few tears slip out, "Everythings fine, just...uh...chopped some onions...."

Lochlan squints, "There's something clearly wrong."

Luna walks back in looking refreshed and not covered head to toe in deer blood. Hinata joins her as they relax on the couch together.

Cole shakes his head as his face slowly returns to being neutral

Lochlan growls, "I'm not stupid. I know something was wrong."

"Something up?" Luna looks over.

Cole shakes his head as he clears his throat, "Nothing"

Lochlan sighs, "He looked like he was about to break down in tears. What is the issue?"

"Did Joshua come by again?" Hinata asks

Cole shakes his head, "It wasn't Joshua, it wasn't anything" Cole sighs, "It's fine, really"

Lochlan looks at Cole, "Ok. Then look me in the eyes and tell me that."

Luna is typing notes on her phone.

Cole's eyes seem to twitch and shake as he barely looks Lochlan in the eyes, "It's fine"

Lochlan's face turns to worry as she looks away, "Something happened. You are not fine."

"I can't think of anyone else who'd cause this. Hang on." Luna mutters

Lochlan quickly responds, "All the people I know would be Joshua, Max and Andrew, Mailman, Gambit, or possibly Icarus." (edited)

"Mailman? But last time he was around, Cole was in control. He was all for protection of the house."

"Rowan, Cole's chill with."

Cole folds his arms, "Nothing happened, it's fine"

"And Max and Andrew, there would've been a lot more evil bullshit talk, they're very over the top." Luna mutters.

Lochlan takes a deep breath and looks over at Cole again, "If you can go down the list and tell me it is not each of those people while looking me in the eye, I will stop."

Cole exhales with annoyance as he starts going down the list, "It wasn't Joshua" Maintaining eye contact, "It wasn't Max and Andrew" Maintaining eye contact, "It wasn't..MailMan" He looks away for a brief second, "It wasn't Gambit" He resumes eye contact, "It wasn't Icarus" Maintaining eye contact

Luna nods. "Confirmed."

Lochlan's face drops as she stares

"Just now the question is, what happened to cause Cole to freak out?" This is when Luna gets a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she shrugs it off.

Cole goes quiet as he keeps his arms folded

Lochlan's voice has a hint of fear, "What is he doing to you?"

Luna growls a bit under her breath, "that god damn bastard." She is fuming in rage

Cole keeps quiet as he looks towards the floor

Lochlan's face turns a bit as she gets up and storms off to her room. They hear the door slam shut rather roughly

Luna's eyes threaten to flicker red as she hyperventilates slightly. She walks out of the house.

Cole chokes back tears as he slides down the wall and hugs his knees

He faintly hears a peice of furnature being thrown in Lochlan's room

Cole jumps slightly as he sniffles and gets up to go check on Lochlan, while composing himself

Cole walks up to Lochlan's door and knocks

The door suddenly swings open with force. Her hair is a bit messed up and she's breathing heavily. She snaps at him, "WHAT?"

Cole's eyes fill with fear for a second as he steps back slightly, "I just...wanted to make sure you were okay..."

"No, I'm FINE! Look at me in the eyes being FINE!" Lochlan cackles some

Cole steps back more as he nods and sniffles quietly, "Alright...i was just uh...worried"

Lochlan laughs, "Well don't funking worry about me bud cuz if you do then you're going either get your shift rocked by the mailman or your face replaced by own two hands using a plastic take out fork."

Cole goes quiet as he nods and starts walking away back to the living room

Lochlan slams the door again before it sounds like another item in thrown at a wall

Cole walks back into the living room and slides down the wall next to the hallway as he pulls his knees up to his chest and quietly sobs

Neither of you deserve this. No one does, if anyone actually deserves anything then MailMan deserves to get his ass handed to him. It doesn't matter how much damage you can take nor if he's been doing it to you since the start.

{- Exactly. This is what Luna intended during their conversation with Gambit. MailMan is clearly in deep with Gambit. And going on about how they're on the 'up and up' while MailMan continues to abuse and destroy was enough to get her to speak up. -}

Speaking up isn't always the right thing if it causes people hurt. Stay out of MailMan's way, Cole has a plan.

{- Cole knows we trust him more than anything else. I trust he's got this under control. -}

Trust him to get everyone killed in the process, sure!

Lochlan. Now is not the time for that type of talk.

Shut the funk up. I can say what ever the heck I want when I want and I'm not letting some mental receptionist talk down at me like i've never seen this shift happen before

And you are simply to infantile to realize that Cole is far better at infiltrating then anyone in this house. He knows not to get too close, what happened today was out of his control and unexpected. You are also acting the same way as Cole does when Joshua is mentioned, you are not as high and mighty as you think.

Too Infantile?!?!?! Hitch I know you ain't trying to compare me and mailman to them like I didn't funking love him. You're the infantile one who skips over years of information to draw a conclusion about people you don't even know!!!!!!

I know more than you know.

I seriously doubt you know more than I do about mailman.

I never specified that the information was about Mailman. 

Well I don't think you can make a fair comparison when you only have half the information.

I can make an accurate assumption with the information I have.

Accurate isn't a word I think you should allowed to use...

And I think you and Cole have similar trauma responses.

IT'S NOT A TRAUMA RESPONCE YOU OBSOLETE TOASTER OVEN

Ah so shutting down and denying anything about your emotional state being anything but fine isn't a trauma response. Got it.

SHUTTING DOWN?!?! I'm not curled up in a ball crying and refusing to speak. I am the oposite of shutting down thank you.

Did you or did you not storm off to your room and then deny how you felt when Cole asked if you were alright.

Funk you. I don't have to deal with any of this dame shift.

Don't come crying to me when no one will check on you because of your avoidant behavior.

Good. Cuz that's all i wanted. Now goodnight.