bailey lim. d2 fin

calla
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just a litle creacher

bailey lim. d2 fin Sept 20, 2020 23:06:04 GMT -5

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Post by calla on Sept 20, 2020 23:06:04 GMT -5

BAILEY ALEXANDER LIM
eighteen

I don't know why the memories grow while I shrink.
I don't remember what I wanted to say.
I don't want to say what I remember.

— Dunya Mikhail, from ‘Buzz’, The War Works Hard (trans. Elizabeth Winslow)

~~tobias~~

Last Edit: Sept 22, 2020 23:02:23 GMT -5 by calla

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calla
RP Tutor

2,122 POSTS

Pronouns: she/they
last seen Apr 27, 2024 19:59:46 GMT -5

just a litle creacher

bailey lim. d2 fin Sept 22, 2020 23:00:59 GMT -5

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Post by calla on Sept 22, 2020 23:00:59 GMT -5

B A I L E Y

He starts working when he's nine. Just a few odd jobs at first, running favours for the neighbours to scrape together a little extra money. It starts because he wants to buy his little brother a birthday present, half-brother mind you, but still. When Tobias was born, just four years after Bailey, he'd taken it upon himself to be the Best Big Brother Ever. And that isn't a promise he can go back on lightly.

But his biggest obstacle comes in the form of oil stained jeans and that old beer smell. Because Bailey's dad never stuck around but Tobias' dad does. Just for a few years, off and on. Enough to disrupt their fragile little household every few months. At least Tobias doesn't seem to like him very much, because he cries whenever he shows up, and there's a part of Bailey that's glad. He can take him outside to calm him down and that way they stay away from the adults. Because Bailey doesn't like the way his dad talks to their mom, or the way he makes the thin walls of their house shake, or the way he takes what little money they have and wastes it on Games betting. He's angry when the tributes he picks don't win and he leaves cigarette burns on the couch, and then on the threadbare quilt, and then on the inside of Bailey's arms.

The neighbours watch from their porch when Bailey turns twelve and Tobias' dad slams him into the front stairs.

A stern-faced woman with a clipboard shows up the next day, and her hand sits on Bailey's shoulder like ice. She talks to their mother first, and then their neighbours, and then finally Bailey. He barely remembers what she said, he had just gotten back from school and had one of his quizzes folded in his back pocket, practicing how he was going to ask to tack it onto the mini fridge because that's what Jamie said his mom always did with his. Except he never gets the chance to even ask.

The woman takes Tobias to the orphanage first, and it happens so quickly that Bailey barely even has time to pack a bag for him. He hands his little brother a plastic bag with his hand-me-down rainboots and his favourite blanket and ruffles his hair, tells him he'll be right behind him. He doubts Toby fully understands what's going on. He was always the rowdier of the two, never quite settling, so Bailey just assumes he's going first because he needs a little more time to adjust. He ignores the instinct that tells him that he'd probably adjust better if his big brother was there with him.

But Bailey was the man of the house, his most important title, one he wore proudly, so he doesn't fight when he has to stay behind and pack the rest of their things. And he was a smart kid. He knew what was happening. His mother was there lying on the couch that morning, still disoriented, and he grabbed the quilt from the bed to drape over her before he left. He'd always thought, years after, that she'd looked sad lying there, but she didn't fight when the boys were taken. And Bailey didn't hate her for it, still doesn't, just wants her to be okay without them. He tells the neighbours to look out for Tobias' dad as he locks the front door behind him.

And so when a woman comes back for him later that day, not the one that took Tobias, but a different one, he goes easily.

It takes him about 20 minutes to figure out Tobias isn't at the orphanage.

The bag Bailey packed for him is there, and so is the jacket he was wearing, but Toby isn't in any of the rooms or in the backyard. Bailey knows because he checks them all. Twice. Everything gets foggy there, and he can only remember the sharp taste of his panic and the way it had lasted and only dwindled away slowly for weeks. Because there's no leads. No signs. It's like Tobias just disappeared and he doesn't understand it. No one listens to him either. He tries to tell the owner that his brother was supposed to be there too. She just looks at him confused, says there was only one child in the Lim house and he almost screams out of frustration.

It’s not like the orphanage is a bad place but it isn’t a good one either. And children are so cruel when they're young, once they latch onto why he's so distracted, all kinds of rumours pop up, all about where Toby ended up, most of them involving a knife and a gutter, but he doesn't believe any of them. Then when they realize he won't rise to the bait, they start asking him about his scars instead, and why he's there, and where he lived before. He just keeps his head down, still looking, still working, and he tries to keep to himself more often than not.

He still blames himself for it years after. If he had just stood his ground a little more, insisted on going with him. If he had just been able to stand up to Tobias' dad and forced him out of their lives so they wouldn't have even needed to be separated in the first place-

He still looks for a long time.

By the time he's fifteen, there for only three years, the orphanage is overflowing. Stifling. No one really notices when he leaves and he's okay with that.

He bounces from place to place, makes friends fast and tries to just focus on surviving. He drops out of school at sixteen to pick up another job and it's okay, really. Right now he needs the money more than he needs the education. Sure, he's smart, but it wasn't like he was eager for school. He can get just as far without it, he's doing fine now and he'll keep being fine.

And he is fine.

Now he works at one of the little libraries on weekends, re-shelving books and working the main desk for the little old lady that runs the place. She's sweet, let's him work overtime when he needs it and lets him call in sick whenever he needs to. Which happens to be once in a blue moon. Living in Two is too expensive to miss a pay check like that, work is too important because it's what keeps him on his feet, always moving, always bustling, always distracted.

Some things look better in the light, and some things you can only think about when you're by yourself in a dark empty room. He still has Tobias' blanket folded away in his closet and he knows it's stupid, that it's probably just a lost cause, but he can't bring himself to get rid of it. It's the only thing he has that reassures him that Toby ever existed in the first place.

But then at six o'clock it's over to bartend at The Birdcage, one of the little hole in the wall places where the management isn't too picky about resumes. Bailey started working there when he was still underage, not that it really mattered, he wasn't the one doing the drinking - he just made them. He learnt fast though, because he always does.

The weeks are a little busier. He's a busboy at a diner most of the time, graduated from dishwasher last year and now his shift is just long enough to cover the lunch rush before he heads to the corner store that's just a block away from his flat - fourth job: check. The midnight shifts aren't too bad though, not really. Usually it's just teenagers that come in for condoms, or the rare student on a late night snack binge.

The flat is barely a flat, though. It's a cheap place, crammed with weird knick-knacks and even weirder roommates, but they make it work. All four of them. At least they all get their own rooms and they all get their own mattresses, sleeping on the floor like kings and queens - technically renting, technically squatting. Clarke says the technicalities don't matter. It's still something.

It's still home.

And Bailey fixes the kitchen sink when it breaks, every month on the dot, and sometimes he isn't hopeless at cooking. Clarke's... helpful when it comes to leads on Tobias. But he's mainly just there to hotbox the bathroom. Aspen brings so many faces through the door that he gets whiplash, but he still welcomes her company. Even Jackal’s a good kid once you get to know him. Bailey's the one that found him at The Birdcage and brought him home, got him a job and tried to pretend that he wasn't replacing Tobias.

He knows that as Tobias grows up he'll get harder and harder to recognize. He doesn't even know if he'd be able to recognize him himself anymore. Bailey has a life now, and if Toby is still out there, then he must too. Maybe he doesn't even want to see Bailey again.

It hurts to think about so most of the time he just doesn't. He keeps working, keeps himself busy, and that's enough.

Because it's the little things - the sneakers he's had since he was 15, one of the first and only non-essentials he'd bought himself, all snug around the heels now but still wearable. It's the the left elbow of the jacket he's patched over thrice because it keeps catching on the random nail in the wall the flat uses as a coat hook, or the way he keeps promising Clarke he'll smoke with him but he never slows down enough to try.

He can't afford to slow down, never has, but it's less and less about making the rent payment now. He thinks his younger self would be disappointed with him - wearing himself down like this but still no closer to finding his brother.

And when he stops, and when he breathes by himself under the window of his little room, he thinks he might be a little disappointed in himself now too.

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calla RP Tutor 2,122 POSTS Pronouns: she/they last seen Apr 27, 2024 19:59:46 GMT -5 just a litle creacher	bailey lim. d2 fin Sept 22, 2020 23:02:48 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by calla on Sept 22, 2020 23:02:48 GMT -5 love me d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris
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d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris RP Tutor 3,269 POSTS Pronouns: he/him Member is Online	bailey lim. d2 fin Sept 22, 2020 23:50:40 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris on Sept 22, 2020 23:50:40 GMT -5 IT'S A MYSTERY BABE also choke me out this is so gorgeous prose, power, PAIN, thank you very much!
	all my girls got their lace and their crimes