thebastion | Day 255

Entry tags:

Day 255 - Yeah no

When: Day 255, midday
Who: The Helmsman and anyone who trips over his prone body
Open/Close: Open
Where: The middle of the Bastion, facedown
What: You know what's nice? Grass is nice.
Format: I'll match
Warning: Blood warning/minor self harm in Aoi and Disciple threads

Ever since he'd been brought to the hospital in the middle of the night by Aradia and the Disciple, the Helmsman has been quiet. His throat has been in no condition to really speak, which had been one thing, but besides that... Any attempts to speak with him have just earned a narrow eyed look and thinned lips, although he'd gone along with attempts to feed him and put him into some cleaner clothes.

Apparently, today's the day that changes because anyone going about their business in the Bastion is liable to notice the gray-skinned and horned alien laying facedown in the middle of the little settlement. The clothes he's wearing are far too big for his food-deprived skinny body but despite what it looks like, he is breathing and is alive.

Don't mind him, he's just gonna be here for a while. If you trip, well, that's your problem. Suck it up.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Now trying for an afterlife spin? His mind isn't keeping its story straight now. He shouldn't be bothering with all of this, really. Maybe he should just go along with it for once, pretend he really has been rescued and Dii really is alive and things can maybe be okay for a while longer.

Problem with that is that it's always more disappointing when he comes back to reality.

So the alternative choice is just to say nothing at all, wait it out in stubborn silence like he was at the hospital, but... He's a sucker for the people he cares about. So many sweeps, and that hasn't changed. So he replies again.

0f c0ur23 1'm 4l1v3. 2h3'2 t00 9r33dy t0 l3t m3 d13. 1 2h0uldn't h4v3 t0 expl41n th12.

"How was I--I mean I could...gather that she wouldn't. If she kept you alive this long. Emissary thought that's what happened. She said her empress kept her alive for a thousand sweeps and--it's complicated and honestly makes little sense."

She breathes in slow, then lets it out in a rush.

"You still think I'm in your mind. Okay. I don't know how to prove I'm not. Except it's a really long hallucination but I guess it isn't in the grand scope of things."

Little sense... He'll say. There's a tired sigh, and energy moves his hand almost like he's thinking of touching her knee. It vanishes in an instant, however, and his hand flops down lifelessly against the ground.

He'll stick to making words. Those can't disappoint him.

D0 y0u h4t3 m3??

It makes her breath catch, the thought that he might reach for her, but she doesn't seem disappointed that he doesn't. She reaches for him instead, hand just resting on his softly.

"I don--Do you think I do? Do you worry I hate you? Oh Psiioniic. Dear, I'd never hate you. Nefur." The pun is pushed out almost awkwardly, so unused to the playfulness inherent in it. She tries to smile as she says, "You're my Psiionic. My 22. My tuna."

That's her hand. He knows it too well, and he hates that his mind knows it too well, because he knows there's no way to prove it false, no way to show it for the lie it must surely be, and he starts to shake. It's suddenly a horrible feeling, mind trapped in his own body and forced to feel the shaking and the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He wants this to be over. He wants this hallucination to be done with.

He tries to make the words form again, but it's just a tangle of energy that falls apart and clings to his horns in jagged messy lines.

He's hurting again, maybe mental, maybe physical, and she snatches her hand back like it might burn him. The tangled mess of psionics just makes her nervous, worried.

"Shh shhh," said Disciple, "Shhh I won't touch you if it's too soon. I promise, you have my word. I didn't meant--to hurt you, if I hurt you."

All the ways to comfort him fall short, mostly because she remembers holding him in her arms, brushing her hand through his hair, nudging him with her elbow when he started sparking, and pressing leg to leg when he was withdrawn, when being engulfed in her and them was too much. Her words seem to fall so short.

"I was just...touch can be comforting. Sometimes. You know...Shooosh. I'm sorry Psii..."

It's hard, it's hard to get the words out when his throat and his tongue won't cooperate. Everything he tries to say just comes out garbled and broken. It's so fucking frustrating. This is in his head, shouldn't he be allowed to speak just fine?

The sparking increases, and the words it finally eventually forms are 1m 20rry 1m 20rry 1 m2122 y0u

It's just noises right now, noises and broken attempts at words. Her shooshing only gets louder, trying to pacify him in the only way she can. He's not a harm to anyone but himself right now but she knows the harm he can inflict on his own body and mind when he feels low.

"Oh--Oh Psii, I missed you too," whispered Disciple, rubbing at tears on her cheeks with rough palms, "You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing in the world. I know you don't think I'm real, but I am, I am. I purromise."

Eventually, the shooshing seems to do its work, and he chokes back his words with a hiccup. His throat is sore, but he ignores it- it's easy to ignore a lot of things because he hasn't known anything else for a while now. It takes some breathing, rasping down through his throat and into his lungs, for him to craft words again.

Why w0uldn't y0u h4t3 m3 1f y0u w3r3 r34l? He can't understand it.

Her hands curl in her lap simply to keep them from reaching for him. Had he ever seemed more pitiful? She reads his words but they simply make her shake her head, slow and sad at first, then insistent.

"Why would I hate you? I can hate so many people, the Condesce, the Grand Highblood, that executor, why would I hate you? For not saving us? Is that what's in your head right now? It wasn't...I couldn't save us. Him. Her. You," whispered the Disciple, eyes on empty hands in her lap. Empty because she couldn't hold onto anyone.

"If you don't hate me for not rescuing you, why would I hate you for not being able to do the same. For anything. I've never hated you. Nefur. Annoyed perhaps, when you take the world on your shoulders and act like you know my thoughts. What I think and feel when we both know it's not true. Well mostly. You know my thoughts like he did, but you tended to overlay your own insecurities on them." Her voice steadies as memories fill in old details, renew her grasp on him.

"I'd never hate you. You know me. You know I wouldn't. You just have to get past the part of your mind that blames you for everything."

Edited (word failure) 2014-12-05 17:14 (UTC)

This really is the nicest hallucination he's gotten by far. (Because it has to be a hallucination, has to be.) Telling him she doesn't hate him, doesn't blame him for anything... Telling him she's real. Insisting she's real.

The shaking starts up again.

What if you are real? This doesn't seem to comfort him at all.

It's hard to just watch him shake but she promised she wouldn't touch him without permission and he hasn't given it. Her shoosh starts up again, only to fade when the psionics crackle back to life.

"...Then you have a second chance. We both do. I was sure I was dreaming in there, only my dreams never captured the sheer...horror of it. If you weren't real, I was still going to save you. But you are. I am."

She takes a breath that sounds like a sob, then shakes her head, as if to clear it.

"We don't have him or her, but we have each other."

1 d0nt w4nt 4 23c0nd ch4nc3

It's selfish but it's true. Everything is ruined, everything is fucked up, that he only found any meaning in living by pure fucking spite. He needs that or he needs death, and he knows only one of them would happen.

A second chance. What is he even going to do with one?

"Are you sure you're my tuna? I thought he was all about twos. Though maybe it's not your second chance. Maybe that was when we found you, led you away from your old life. Maybe this is your third."

She keeps talking, keeps trying to work her way under the walls he's built to keep the world out. She wants to pry them loose, get to the person she knows is still in there underneath.

"I know it's not the same. Nothing...will ever be the same after that. After it all. It's selfish to ask you to keep living," admits the Disciple, "But I got you from that fish bitch in the end, and you're here. She may not have let you die, but she didn't really let you live. I can let you live."

Yeah... He was- is?- all about twos. But this is too much, he doesn't know what to do. This is so much more than two and he's scared. He draws in on himself, psi crackling over him to help draw his legs and arms up against his chest.

wh4t w0uld 1 d0

wh4t w0uld 1 d0 1f th12 w42 r34l

That's a good question. What does he do. What does she do? She has no idea and that's sort of scary in a way. Liberating in another. She has nothing to run from. The people here are kind enough. She has a hive, tip top of the building just like she thought he might like. Not easy to run from, but easy to defend. She doesn't have the answer he craves, but maybe that's the answer.

"I don't know. Based on your current behavior, you're going to either decide I'm real and in which case, we both cry some more because we're emotional idiots. You decide I'm not real and I sit beside you until you feel hungry, thirsty, or tired. Beyond those two option, it's hard to say. We pick ourselves back up. We stay by each other. Same thing we've always done."

Her lips curl into a smile she's not sure she feels. It doesn't quite reach her eyes.

"Just without the specter of the highbloods. Without the rest of them. ...It'll be hard. You and I lived, for some definition of it. It'd be easier to do it together."

Awkwardly, weak and soft, he moves his hand to lightly touch her knee with just the tips of his fingers. The words come a moment after.

1'm 2c4r3d

Scared of this being real. Scared of having to continue living, of facing an uncertain future and having to deal with everything again.

His touch, soft and hesitant, sets off a tremble through her. She blinks back tears and nods. It's quiet for a little, as she gathers up her words.

"I'm scared too. I don't know what to do either but here we are. Making the best of a shitty situation is what we do best, right?"

That feels fake, even if she really feels that way. Fake and off, because she's so scared, so tired. Relentlessly hoping is exhausting. Waiting in the skyway for something that shouldn't have come. Would she have spent her life out there among the islands, wasting away, staying alone, separate from these people? She's not sure.

Having someone to take care of is exhausting too, but helpful. It gives her reason to stay close, not to run, not to hide.

"Can I touch you? Just quickly."

Making the best out of a shitty situation... Is that really him? When, once upon a time long ago, he was the kind of person who murdered others just to keep his powers under wraps? When he was living without knowing why? It's not what he does, he knows that much. Signless, Disciple, Dolorosa... It was their strength that he was leeching from.

The request seems to make him shrink back a little again, but soon enough he gives a nod of his head.

With permission, she shifts to hold the hand he touched her with. It's warm, like she remembered. It's scabbed in some places, scarred in others, like he always was, but more. Everything about his pain is more and he's trying to be less.

She raises his fingers to her lips and kisses his fingers, where the scars overlap. It's soft and quick and as unintrusive as possible while still being there.

It's such a familiar action, one he hasn't been able to do or receive after so many sweeps of his own hands consumed and trapped by biowires that leeched him of all he was worth. Against his will, he starts to cry again, dragging in wheezing gasps and choking out quiet sobs.

No one's touched his hands in so long.

She doesh't shoosh him time. There are no gentle paps. She holds his hand in hers, forgetting that it was supposed to be a quick touch. Her pad of her thumb brush over the back of his hand, tracing scars and the traces of biowire.

"It's okay. It's okay to cry Psii."

It shouldn't be okay, he shouldn't be allowed to, times like this almost make him wish he wasn't so goddamn stubborn. If he wasn't so stubborn, maybe he'd be like any other Helsman. He could be broken and numb to the pain and misery. It'd be a fucking break.

But he's not. He's not broken, he's not numb, and all he can do is cry all the harder, tears flooding down his face. He'd hold her hand if he could but he's still too weak for that. All he can do is twitch his fingers bit by little bit while the rest of his hand spasms with each sob that wracks through his body.

She holds on for him. He's crying but it's okay. Maybe it was Signless that taught her that was okay, after the sweeps where she'd learned to bury it inside. Probably him. It hurts to think of, but a good hurt. Somehow.

She leans in close, her hair sweeping a curtain around them that doesn't quite conceal, but it feels private. It's pitiful in a way that makes her feel protective, instinctively knowing that this isn't something someone should see. Too many sweeps of calling this weakness, knowing what softness of heart it implies. Behind her mass of hair, she doesn't cry, not yet, though she blinks away tears. This is for him.

He cries for a long time. He cries until his eyes are all dried out with nothing more to give and until his throat isn't capable of anymore. It hurts, to cry himself out so much. He hasn't cried like this since... he can't remember. He's always had a little bit more in him. But this is it, this is everything he has in him, and soon enough he falls quiet with wheezy little gasps.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject