have I had five different ideas for Laurence having a Rish-style breakdown? Yeah. Do I know what this post is gonna turn out to be? Absolutely not.))

Laurence + Calvin + Em / Sam, Tim

Laurence had flinched at Sam's touch, prying his hands away and jumping back. He had a pained look in his eye that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his past, not that one would have noticed. He was in general fuming, and when he grew to this level of 'fed up' he could no longer be reasoned with or contained. He lost all of his placidity, his empathy, his rationality. He felt cold, heartless, and apathetic. He gave and gave and once he got to the end of his rope, he had nothing left for the other person. This was one of those times.

"Don't touch me," he growled, though he did soften slightly in resentment, in a brief flashback that reminded him not all of this was her fault. It was in this moment that he was somehow persuaded to go back to the dorm, with people, with Calvin--the last place he would want to be any day and especially in this mood. Thoughts raced in his head making him fume more, internalizing the weight of his emotion and letting it steep. Suddenly every wrong that had ever been done to him was in clear view, and his mind was like a broken record, replaying them over and over again.

He wanted to cry. Sure, he was a big, strong man, but he wanted to cry. The voices in his head told him he was going to be like his father--no, he already was him. This was why he was unloveable, this was why he was better off without anyone or anything in his life to show even the slightest bit of empathy to him. He scared people, he disappointed them, he didn't use his voice enough, then he did and people were silenced in fear. He was a nothing, a nobody, someone who should not have been born. Laurence DiLorenzo was a burden that made the world a more miserable place, just like his father.

These thoughts came around and around, showing not even the slightest mercy. This was very typical of Laurence's thoughts, they liked to choke him out of reason and hope. He could only save himself, and the pain made him feel something other than numb, so he was content feeling this terribly. Feeling self-hatred was better than being numb, wasn't it? He had hardly noticed when Sam led him into the dorm, and was still letting the anger smolder when he sat down at a nearby table. Calvin put tea down beside him moments later, which snapped him out of the dreamlike state he was in.

He got up abruptly, mumbling to himself, "I don't have to do this. I need a damn drink," and walking out in perfect silence, slamming the door behind him. The silence was almost eerie, and Calvin looked at Sam, waiting to see what the right reaction was to an event like such. Everyone here was a perfect stranger and why and how he was still here he had no clue. By this point he was just being flexible.

Sitting down and taking a sip of the tea he'd made Laurence, Calvin almost choked when Emily woke up and came in, adding to the tension of the night. He couldn't exactly handle all of this so he just laughed.

"You're trashed," he chuckled, "and I don't even know you. I like your legs, by the way."

She frowned, "no you don't, everyone says that."

"But not everyone has ten best friends who all look just like you from the waist down," he winked. "I'm Calvin, you must be this Emily I've heard two mentions of now."

She gasped and beamed. "People mention me?" She slurred her words but they still came out whole. "I feel so loved."

As she heard a knock at her window, she excused herself and rolled the window up, realizing it was Tim. She'd slept enough to not completely remember if what she was recalling was a dream or a memory, but she knew it featured him.

"Hey stranger," she grinned a liquor-induced smile. "What're you doing here at night time?"

As she looked beyond him, bunches and bunches of snow flurries fell from the sky, coating the ground in a way that looked nothing short of a painting. Her face lit up brighter than a child as she climbed through the window, her prosthetics making quite the racket as they banged and racked against the window.

"Ohmygosh it's snowinggg!!!!! Tim!!! Snow!!! Look!!!"

Ness / Alex, Heather

Nessa offered profuse apologies for spooking Mystery and then for blinding Heather, considering the scenarios and realizing it truly could not have been worse than this. Deciding to be an optimist, however, she grew less nervous and more amiable, smirking amusedly at Alex's comment.

"Good one," she commented, her gaze softly resting on Alex. "Awkward indeed, and nobody comes out here," she gestured with her hands, "to receive that."

As much as she hated to admit it, Nessa was nervous to be alone and much happier in the company of strangers. Her mind went numb this time of the evening, but her body still raced with energy and adrenaline it seemed to dam up during the day. It all got released around 9pm, forcing her awake and volunteering her to participate in this vicious cycle once more. If she left here, she'd only be miserable inside instead of out, and what could go wrong?

She followed his gaze to the leaf, glancing over at Heather who had gone silent. Out of sleepiness and not anger at her, Nessa had hoped. She found herself assuming more and more guilt for things these days, and she realized it needed to change.

Assuming a position as wearily philosophical as her counterpart, Nessa mused, "life is a funny thing, isn't it? Everything is in a constant state of entropy. Trees get obliterated, new ones are planted, and soon they grow into trees who get cut down all the same. Kittens become cats who pass, which turn into more kittens. It seems like the world is constantly making room for change and growth, new and better, when what we have is already enough."

-Heather would be listening the whole time, feeling kinda tired but forcing herself to stay awake while Mystery started to calmly graze, nibbling on some grass. The brunette would be listening to them chat as she pulled her phone out of her front pocket, turning it on to just look at some stuff while having her listening ears opened as always but she did feel Nessa's eyes on her, causing her to shift her gaze over to the woman then back at the phone that produced a dim light on the screen-

-Looking through each old pictures of Prince since she liked keeping memories so she could never forget them, she stopped at one particular photo, it was one of both her & her gentle giant at their first show as they were making another clear round in the jump offs when they were younger. Her green eyes still held sadness, still struggling to move on from his death as it was unfortunately hard for her to but her heart was still continuing to heal over time- "Death can be certainly cruel when it takes someone that you care so dear about.." -She finally spoke but her voice held a small hint of tiredness-

Em / Tim

The blonde had been out for about an hour, which wasn't necessarily enough to sleep off the alcohol, but enough to increase her inhibition slightly. Her inquisitive but unfocused gaze drifted between him and the serene landscape, eerily silent as flurries of snow drifted to the ground. It only seemed to be picking up, and Emily thought about her jacket. Where was it?

"Did we have a party at your dorm or did I dream that? That was a dream, wasn't it? My memory, is, like, so hazy," she giggled, still quite loopy and intoxicated. She gave a bright smile as she dizzily studied his features, unable to concentrate on one thing.

"What's going on in that brain of yours?" Her inquisitive nature was short-lived, Tim hitting her with a snowball mid-thought. She would have likely elaborated, but was focused on getting him back. She had gotten good at sensing his mood based on his energy rather than his words, though she rarely chose to utilize it. Tim handled Tim, and Emily handled Emily. If he wanted support or help, he would verbalize it.

Reaching to a nearby table to gather snow to pack, she felt it fall in her hands, not quite compactable. She smiled faintly, eyes aglow in the streetlights the farm used to light the outdoor walkways.

"This is the kind of snow you take a walk in, not make snowballs or snowmen out of. Do you want to go for a walk with me?"

Laurence / Open

Laurence was slumped over the porch railing of his rental, his eyes darker and more malevolent than they ever were or had been. He should have been shivering with only a t-shirt and sweatpants on in such frigid temperatures, but the half-gone bottle of vodka in his left hand had left him physically and emotionally numb.

The only reason Laurence was drinking in the snow was because he couldn't face Jesus. Quite literally, actually--one of the only things he'd done to give his living quarters some style was set up a chapel room that he had never used. It was more of a guilt-based obligation than a passion, but he still couldn't face the idea of having the man on the crucifix watch him waste his life away with liquor and unresolved feelings that left him a broken wreck of a man, a soul in shambles. He couldn't even drink alone without a little clay man judging him.

Laurence heard the phone ring and went pale. He knew his father's tendencies, he would call and call until he got some kind of reaction. That had always been his way, and now that he was alone, it had been happening again just like when the dressage trainer was a child. His father was a drunk. An incessant, compulsive, reckless, abusive drunk. A demon of a man who only wanted to hurt people and make them suffer for things they could never be blamed for. And Laurence was always the first on his list.

He was now crying. Nights and nights of this--no rest, no peace, no sanity. When he wasn't pale and gaunt because his father was calling from 8pm until 8am or until he took the phone off the hook, he was wide awake wondering where his father was that he wasn't calling. Laurence was at the end of his rope, clinging onto a strand of sanity that had snapped when Sam arrived home.

Smashing the bottle against the side of the house in a pained rage, Laurence watched the clear liquid melt the snow that had stuck around the glass. Then he slapped himself. Hard. Then again, and again, and again. He was broken, he was useless, he was nothing. He pretended he knew the guy on the cross in his living room but he didn't even deserve to be loved by him, he didn't deserve love period. He didn't deserve life.

It was a vicious cycle that occured, the violence invoking tears and the tears invoking a self-loathing that invoked violence, and so on until his shirt was wet from tears and snow, bruises forming on his face that only made visible a fraction of the pain he had stored in his heart for years and years.

Then came the guilt. He had grown away from this, he had gotten help, he had salvaged his life and become the man he didn't deserve to be, and now he was back here again, a relapse in judgement. He hadn't gotten this low in years, not since he had ran away from home, not since he had stood up for his mother, not since he had gotten away from his family. And now he was back where he started, his family relying on him to give what they already took from him, in an emotional debt to them that could never be given. There was no hope for tomorrow.

Laurence got in his car to go for a drive, going nowhere fast. A drive that would eventually end in caution tape, and a stretcher, and flashing lights--one that would end with him unwillingly going to the emergency room despite walking as far away from the crash as his legs would take him. The purpose of the drive was to become more broken--not to be healed.