AT THIS POINT ITll BE A BIT BEFORE I ANSWER MESSAGES AAAA, ITS CURRENTLY 2:50 THO SO NOT RIGHT NOW but my own critique: this was primarily a vent bc mmm so the first part is not in ralphie's voice much at all. It gets better tho, just had to merge into it. I really pushed a lot for Silas' character to deal with wanting freedom and stuff that I didn't really know what to do with Ralphie? Until now. These two dumbheads make up both parts of my worst emotions :DDD
want some bad vent writing with my ocs from 2 in the morning? course u do: (also yeah rip censorship. also pls don't take this too seriously this is something im constantly struggling with) Ralphie missed the days when he was completely alone. Of course, he did have some connections then too, but they were farther away. They were there if he needed them, but he didn’t. He needed nothing but the open road and the nag of worries lost to the wind. The openness of it all, the disregard. It was because of that he now worried. He knew where he would go if he was let alone, and he was not in a position to spiral downward so steeply again. Part of it might have been that he did enjoy having company. But was that really true? He loved the idea of it, the stories of it. Seeing friends together, ride or die, ready to face what they all had coming to them. He never had much practice with that. For whatever reason. It probably wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t help but think that it was indeed something about his person that put people off. What attempts he made to interact seemed shrugged off or slightly confrontational. He knew he wasn’t good at talking. It was the nerves. Gosh, he really wasn’t made for relationships. None of his conversations went smoothly. He didn’t feel comfortable talking about himself, yet still needed that outlet desperately. These were not good thoughts for him to be having late into the night, alone in a motel next to a loud group who would not shut up for a moment. He had stopped the tears around an hour ago. At this point he was mostly just tired; the morning would no doubt bring delirium and blissful ignorance of his feelings right now. But that was still yet far away. The constant reminder of what he was missing out on, one thin wall over, did not help the case to himself that he was perfectly fine. His greatest fear is that he would never find anyone. Ralphie was too broken by whatever his social habits were that no one would find anything good in him. Or, if they did, he would never mean as much to them as they did to him. The afterthought of an invitation. A passing mention. He isolated himself too much. Mostly accidentally. He did not stay in one place for very long, and took care not to stay in any sort of town for an extended period of time. Of course, that came with his trade more than anything. Not something he could help. The voices next door had died down. Oh, just for a respite. Careful listening brought them back again. He decided to turn onto his side and see if the lower volume was enough to relax him. What did he have? He had Lisa, not that she counted. It wasn’t like he ever gave her the chance to wonder off to whatever cowbeast desires she fancied. She didn’t hate him though, and she listened. Then there was /unnamed/ obviously. Though he didn’t think either considered the other a friend, they helped each other out in a pinch. She had let him stay this night for free, after all. It was turning out to not have been the best deal though, all things considered. What did Hattie mean to him? A bit. They certainly used to be much closer, very close for those few regretful days, but he would be comfortable going up to her in a crowd. They’d relied on each other in many a close scrape, and told the stories in drunken exaggeration the next night. Ralphie would not ever tell her about the loneliness. Once again, his neighbors were loud. The dull ache in his chest increased. Ralphie was tired now, though. More tired than pitiful. He could almost believe it was all just a side effect of sleep deprivation from the noise, and not from the conversation he was missing out on. He was just slow. He would get there eventually. Maybe such a large group wasn’t for him, but he would find someone that would stick. The trouble would be finding someone new that didn’t already hate him. His thoughts touched briefly on the newest bounty hunter to pick up his trail… no way in HECK. The cocky HECKER wouldn’t last long enough in the west to be able to see Ralphie again. He found himself smiling slightly at the thought. Another bright-eyed puppet of the law left in his dust. It wasn’t much of a legacy, but he did what he could. Just as he always did. There was no point dwelling on it any more tonight, when there was nothing he could do. He just needed to block out the voices and get some rest for once. Maybe get some pancakes in the morning.
