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twotiime2 · 8 months

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Reality Adjustment, Pt. 2

[[ Discord RP log to follow. The content has been edited for ease of reading on Tumblr.

tws for: existentialism, authoritarian deprogramming, heavy themes of unreality and being unable to trust your own senses, a nightmare sequence involving body horror with sexual themes and blatant propaganda/thought control, intent toward child harm (like hardcore), mentions of pregnancy, guns.

if you come across it and i haven't warned you, please let me know so that i can add it to the list. ]]

Simon awoke with a yawn, causing his ears to pop. His seat, a very well cushioned, tufted leather chair whose wooden legs were secured to a carpeted floor with bolts, trembled and shook lightly. All around him was the quiet rumble of a loud but distant engine. Other seats, like his own, sat in pairs up and down the length of the mahogany wood cabin with its round window ports through which sunlight poured in. Between each seat in each pairing was a finely made antique oval side table with a small shaded lamp and two velvet-lined indentations to hold cups. There was even a bronze handled drawer in the front of each table, accessible from either chair. These pairs of fine antique seating were separated by a wide walkway, whose carpeting was only slightly darker in color than the rest. The entire floor had a fine checkered pattern of burgundy and dark grey.

There was no one else in the room, though, with him. Only the oddly out of place finery, and sunlight through the little circular windows on either side of the forty foot wide room, some hundred and fifty feet in length. Overhead, the wooden ceiling arched slightly, with a single rail of cherrywood running the length of the room directly overhead of the darker carpet path that ran between the seats and their tables. From this, every twenty feet, hung very small chandeliers of elegant design and their crystals being of many hues, swaying gently as they dangled from black chains and casting everything in soft rainbows that were largely lost in the daylight but when the sun caught one of them - a shard of vibrant color danced briefly across some part of the room. The trembling of the place kept the tinkling sounds of the crystals in a constant white noise that was a beautiful as it was calming.

- - - -

Simon's first thought upon waking here was, Train? That would explain the slight rumble, the nice seating, but he had never been on a train this fancy or that dared to have some goddamn chandeliers in it while it rumbled and chugged along. He checked himself over, already having moved from confusion to slight irritation; why had he gone from nearly murdering a kitten to waking up somewhere completely different, without any idea how he had passed out or where he had been deposited? This wasn't another different Consensus, already, was it?

He grumbled to himself about "Goddamn bullshit reality-hopping, why can't I just stay somewhere," while he got up to complete his personal once-over.

- - - -

He was dressed in crushed velvet, leather, and satin finery, all of it in Victorian gentleman's fashions of the highest caliber - complete with a top hat and a dainty chain which held his folded spectacles with their rounded lenses, one tinted red and the other blue. His entire outfit was a mismatched series of black and white patterns which managed somehow to never have the same color touching itself anywhere across the entire affair.

The most adorable feminine voice came from a little ways behind him as he stood to check himself over.

"You shouldn't use such bad language. Maybe you're not staying anywhere because you can't decide who you want to be."

- - - -

He whipped around, caught at an awkward angle and ready to throw the top hat to the chair, to see the girl who spoke- oh. She matched her voice, and him, nicely. Her admonishment of his language brought out a reflexive, "Uh- sorry, I didn't think anybody else was here…"

Her words made him frown, though. "What to do you mean by that? I know who I am; it's everyone else who wants me to be- to act how they want."

- - - -

She came and sat in one of the chairs nearby, maid's dress kept primly in place, despite how short it was, by her laying her hands gently in her lap. She regarded him with sympathy through eyes mismatched. "Then… who are you? My name is Castor. Miss Simone Castor. I'm one of the cleaning staff here aboard the Gemini."

- - - -

He sat back down in his chair and took off his hat, setting it in his lap so that his hands could fiddle with the brim and texture of its fabric. "…Simon Castor. Whether that's who this reality expects or not."

Being faced with a maid-girl version of himself that he thought was cute was… uncomfortable, at best. Simon tried not to look at her too much. "What's the Gemini? I was just at home- some alt-me's home, that he probably got on his Union salary- and kinda conflicted about how to deal with a fairy that looked like a kitten. In my- in our?- colors."

All his displeasure at waking up somewhere new and strange had evaporated as soon as he realized this one was a far more personal-to-him space, possibly not even real in the sense of consensual reality's… reality. This wasn't some random new place; this was somewhere that had a strong connection to him.

- - - -

Her eyes practically shone with stars as she fangirled her answer to his question. "The Gemini is the most beautiful and wondrous of all the airships, anywhere in the Imagi Nations. It's become my home, and even though I'm just a maid, I've never been happier. I meet interesting people from all over the Nations, and I get to listen to their stories and their dreams, and be there for them when they have problems, and it's… it's just the best!"

She tilted her head quizzically at the rest of what he said. "Alt you's home? I suppose I'm happy for Alt You being part of a Union, sometimes the workforce can be hard to live in. But I'm sorry they took your home? I've never seen a fairy. Or a cat. I have a stuffed bunny, but… I haven't seen a real one of those either."

Her eyes took him in more carefully.

"You seem very sad. And frustrated. But… and I know it's none of my business, but… if you know who you are… why does it matter where you wake up? Won't you still be you?"

- - - -

That… was not a reality he was even remotely familiar with. He sort of wished he could share the visual of the kitten with her, just so that she would have that experience and knowledge, but he knew he had no way of doing so, which was also just slightly frustrating.

"…I'd explain the nuances of what I said, but, I don't wanna bum you out with the details of my usual reality…" He didn't want to dull this girl-him's sparkle, what she had of it and how she comported herself. He was kind of sad that he hadn't cultivated that sort of naïve kindness, actually, which fit into her observation of him pretty accurately.

"…Every reality I end up in, if I want a chance to be me, I've gotta fit the mold… the Union- the Technocratic Union- I was recruited by them 'cause I'm- I was- talented with computers, and had connections to a group of people they couldn't track down. And anybody who's in the Union has some serious rules to follow, or else they get brainwashed into compliance, or they just get killed for being a threat to the stability of reality, the way most people know it. If I don't fit their rules, it gets way worse for me, if I'm a member of the Union in the particular reality I wake up in. Which I have been, the last couple times."

And he just explained why everything sucked for him anyway. Of course. He couldn't help himself. "…Sorry if that, uh, upsets you, Simone."

The Imagi Nations. Was he in his own head, or was this another reality entirely? Simon was finding he couldn't trust himself to know, anymore. Maybe he was just going for-real nuts.

- - - -

She listened, obviously not understanding everything he said, but Doing Her Best™️.

"So… is following all of these rules a big part of… being you? Is that why you do it? You said you know who you are… and that the only way to get to be you is to join others and follow their rules."

She looked down at her hands in her lap. "I can understand that. I always wanted to fly in an airship, but… I was never good with the machinery and the smoke and the grease and the coal and stuff. I'm good with maps, though, and I understand how all of it works! I've read many, many books on aviation and ballooning and mechanical theory… but…"

She gave a little shrug. "I'm just not a mechanic, is all. So, I found other ways to be helpful aboard ships, and now…"

She looked around, beaming with excitement. "Now I get to sail the skies in the Gemini."

- - - -

He frowned down at the hat in his lap. "…No, I… I don't like following those rules, a lot. Having structure in my life is nice, and all, but mostly I just kind of like all the cool technology the Union has. I don't want to fight monsters in the field, I'd much rather be part of the division that makes all the field operatives' cool toys." He swallowed. "Not that being in the field and fighting monsters and protecting reality doesn't feel good, you know? It's important, I know it is, I nearly got killed by a monster, myself, before all this weirdness started happening- I don't want anybody else to have to go through that. And I feel like being with the Union and following their rules and stuff is a better way to do that than trying to work with people who don't have all the Union's resources, much less by myself."

Finally, Simon looked at the sweet, kind, bright-eyed Simone, with a sort of pleading to his expression. "I guess… I guess we've both settled, rather than doing what we really want. I'm sure you could figure out a better way to operate an airship like this; it doesn't have to use the stuff you're not good with, not necessarily. Where I'm from, we also had steam-powered engines- and eventually we figured out how to produce energy in even cleaner ways, and package it up so that it could power things without having to be generated constantly. If we're anything alike in more than looks, Simone, I'm sure you could figure something like that out. You could absolutely be the pilot, not just a maid." He looked down at his hat again. "…If you wanted to. I know that can seem like- like a lot of work and responsibility, and this might be preferable to maybe messing something up and crashing the ship of your dreams."

Simon went quiet, considering his own sentiments. Much like this girl, he was good at solving other people's problems, but had a hard time translating his advice into his own actions.

"…I know I'm scared of failing, on my own. The structure of the Union is… safe, I guess, 'cause they know what they're doing and if I mess up, it's not a huge deal- someone can pick up my slack. If I were trying to do all this myself, if I wanted to do it alone, it'd be so much harder to figure out the hows and the conditions and everything. 'Cause I'm not a monster-hunter by nature, I'm just a geek with a brain that works well with computer logic. And I don't know what to do with that on my own, when I know all this other stuff is way more important. I need some kind of direction or else I get paralyzed by indecision, I guess."

He sighed, heavily.

"…I dunno. Sorry. That was a lot."

- - - -

"It doesn't sound like you need direction," she offered, kindly. "It sounds like you have a direction… you just need the… resources?… of those other people. Or, maybe some of your own!"

She smiled. "Maybe if you had your own workshop to build in, and parts and stuff to make things with, I bet you could do just as good as those other people! Better even, without their rules telling you what not to do!"

She beamed at him. "You could build your dreamship, sir! I'm sure of it!"

- - - -

Simon considered this quietly for a moment, staring down at that hat he woke up in. When he had seen the R&D Division of the Agency and what they were working on, he had been inspired- he wanted to help innovate on their ideas so very badly, to take their work and notch it up and make it function exactly how they wanted. That was what he always did when he had the chance- he took something that existed, and he wanted to make it better. With those skills, he had always broken things down by tearing into their base code and exploiting flaws, making viruses other people needed or wanted, between projects where he tested the limits of what a virus could do to the code it was built on. He was always trying to find or make better parts for his computer, so that it could do more than top-of-the-line, expensive hardware big companies peddled to consumers (apparently at the whim of the Union, based on what they thought the consensus could "handle" being added to their reality without it breaking down entirely)…

"…Maybe. I'd have to work within the rules until I had built up my resources… but the big thing is, I know what the Union can do- I don't wanna be on their shitlist. People who do things too fast and break their rules, who break away from them, they get hunted down because they're dangerous to how the world wants to work. Or… how they make sure it works? Rogue elements are likely to break the illusion of reality for people who don't know monsters exist, and then the monsters… they could do whatever they wanted. It'd be chaos. I don't want to be considered someone who would do that."

- - - -

She offered a sad, understanding nod. "I know how it feels to have to stay in your place, when nobody wants you to be yourself. You said I could be a captain? But… girls aren't allowed to be pilots. Or mechanics. I suppose… I could cut my hair very short, and… um…"

She blushed, looking away. "… I could bind… my chest…"

She swallowed uncomfortably. "Maybe if I did all of that and wore men's clothes, nobody would know it was really me! I know they say that women aren't all untrustworthy, but I… I guess enough of them are, that… society just doesn't want us doing important things on our own. I mean, what if we messed it up? Or what if we changed something important? I don't like it… but… the Nations' leaders have been in charge of how things are, since forever. They must know what they're doing, right? What's best for everyone?"

She looked thoughtful. "But… I suppose if I cut my hair very very short and hid my chest, to fit in… tried to talk with a deep voice maybe? If I put enough dirt and grease on my face and hide my hands in work gloves, maybe nobody will notice that I don't fit in, and I can do what I really want to do. Do you think?"

- - - -

Simon frowned at her.

"…I think you could do your utmost and change how people see women, here. Be unabashedly a girl and do what you wanna do, how you're gonna do it, and don't let anybody tell you they know better. If you change something important, maybe it wasn't that important- or maybe it was outdated and needed to be changed- but regardless, generally speaking, if people who have had power for their whole lives are in charge of how everyone else lives, they're not going to make the best decisions for everyone 'cause they don't have everyone's perspective. They only know what they know. "

His eyes went far away, imagining the men in Congress he had seen on TV while with his dads and how they argued, twisted the rules to their own ends, and kept anyone who didn't agree with them, down.

Simon supposed that might apply to the Union, too, even if something in his head railed against that idea and made his stomach do flips.

"What do men know about being a woman, anyway? Like, really know, not just what male doctors have studied about the objective, physical facts of women, and what they think they know about how girls's brains work. Being men, they don't know shit. So you should try and challenge those old, wrong beliefs, if you feel up to it- 'cause you deserve better, and so does every other girl, and nobody is gonna realize that, if things stay the same way they've always been."

Do "normal" people in the Consensus deserve better than a safe, stable reality?

Is that really what they're living in, if the monsters are just hiding, but still doing horrible things within the confines of the rules of reality anyway? Twisting the system so that they can get away with their crimes? Are people entitled to knowing how the world works?

It would… it would drive some people insane. It would prove some insane people to actually be entirely sane. It would have consequences he couldn't possibly account for.

Was the Union doing the right thing? Or holding the world back?

The lessons about the world the Union had imparted on him from hours of conditioning railed against the idea that the Consensus could handle their own safety, if they just knew what they were up against- but everything he knew from what little time he had as a Hunter, what Madison had proven to him, and all of his allies, was that humanity could find a way to fight anything. They had a will, and the tools to do something with it, even if some of them died in the process… some people weren't ready, but that was true of any war, wasn't it? Any change? It would be resisted until it couldn't be, and then they had to make of it what they could.

There may have been a war for how reality should be, that he had never paused long enough to think about, being fought for as long as monsters had existed.

And did the Union really have the right to decide their version of reality was the most correct one? Were they really the shepherds that humanity didn't know they needed? Or were they keeping their domesticated, normal human stock, in the dark on purpose, so that they could control the rest of reality for themselves and never really be challenged about that?

What side was he on?

Simon's mind was conflicted, and he was starting to get a stellar headache. He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and breathed, trying to halt his thoughts for a moment.

- - - -

Simone listened, seemingly struck and a little uncomfortable with the notions that he was imparting to her. After his long silence, she said, very softly - as if almost whispering to no one - "I'm only one girl. I can't change anything."

- - - -

Her soft uncertainties brought Simon back to the moment, despite his nagging headache, and with it his conviction brought from years of stories of one man, one hero, changing things because they had been empowered to do so. Because they had a responsibility to do what they could, with the power they had.

His fist very gently knocked against his forehead a few times, then came to rest on it.

"Yeah, that's true," He started, just as softly, "But- you- even if you're the first, you won't be the only one. You won't be the last. If you can achieve something you want this desperately, despite everything against you- you'll be an inspiration to everyone who comes after you, you know?" Simon put his hand down, eyes still closed against the pain in his head, but grew calmer in feeling as he spoke. "That's how heroes happen. One person decides something needs to change, so they do their best to make that happen- and yeah, it's hard, and yeah, it hurts, often- but making the path for others to follow is hard, and there are gonna be things you'll have to fight so that they don't have to. You don't think you're the person to do it; nobody who changes things thinks they're the one person who can make it happen. But nobody else is gonna step up unless someone does first. And if you want it bad enough… well, then that someone's gonna be you, isn't it?"

Simon opened his mismatched eyes to look in their feminine mirror, sympathetic but understanding of his own conviction in this principle.

- - - -

"I… I just want to be a pilot. I don't know if the world has to change for that… it'd be nice if the world were better, but… I don't want my life to be pain and hurt, to make my dream easier for someone else to get to be happy. Do I really have to do all that? Can't I just… fly? Or… or, I guess, stay a maid? It's not what I want, but at least I'm in the sky, and on a beautiful airship. I don't like cleaning, or always having to wear a maid's uniform, or do everything the custodians ask of me, or any of that stuff… but… I'm in the ship, aren't I? Does it matter if I can't fly?"

She shut her eyes and held herself. "It feels like it matters… but I'm not a revolutionary. I'm just an airship enthusiast with some self taught skill at maps and navigation and how the bridge works. My dream isn't to change the world… it's to fly."

She looked at him, lost in a whirlwind of unfamiliar thoughts.

"What do I do, to make my dream come true, even though I'm a girl?"

- - - -

Simon considered her discomfort for a long moment. It reflected in him; if anyone else were trying to tell him all of this, he would have been uncomfortable and lost on where to start, too. But he felt like he had a solid enough grip on the rules that he could work with, in, or around them, for his goals. They weren't much- he just wanted to make cool things that could help people, and keep people safe- but they were perfectly achievable if he planned right.

"I don't know how things work here. How does someone usually become a pilot? Forget about the prerequisite of being a boy, I mean, what are the steps for it?"

- - - -

She sniffled and looked up at him, confused. "A boy? No, no, boys can't be pilots, either."

She then stood, trying to wipe away the tears that had begun to form in her eyes and straightening her uniform as best as she could and stood up straight, before offering a curtsy. "Captain."

A fluffy, fat, persian cat that was black on one side and white on the other, wearing a monocle and a tiny top hat, then strode leisurely down the aisle to where they'd been talking and offered a single "Mew."

Simone nodded urgently, "Right away, sir!", and hurried away to an old-style tap-phone with a cone for speaking and another for listening, hung from the box by a cable. She picked up the listening cone and tapped the bar three times, before saying into the cone mounted to the box, "Captain Whiskers requests minced tuna to be served for dinner, with a milk saucer and yumyum paste."

- - - -

Simon had to do a double-take. This just went from reasonable to completely ridiculous.

- - - -

Captain Whiskers bid his passenger farewell with a nod and then turned, tail held high and anus proudly displayed as he sauntered back toward the bridge.

- - - -

Simon muttered quietly to himself, "What the fuck."

Once Simone was off of the phone/loudspeaker system, he addressed her again, jabbing his thumb back toward the cat-captain. "OK, nowhere did you imply this society was run by cats."

- - - -

Simone hurried over to him and hugged him tightly.

"Thank you for your help." She licked his nose.

"Thank you." She licked his lips.

"Thank you." She licked his jaw.

"Thank you." She licked his nose again.

He awoke to the frantic licks of the tiny white and black kitten with the mismatched eyes, as it stood with its rear paws on his upper chest and front paws on his cheeks.

- - - -

Simon startled and nearly threw the kitten off of him- but after just a handful of milliseconds, did not, in fact, chuck the little fuzzbutt across the room, instead reaching up to pull him off of his face after scrunching his nose up at the cat-breath and licking. "Augh, okay, okay, little guy, I'm awake," he muttered, settling the kitten onto his chest instead. "Did I pass out…?"

He cast his eyes about his immediate vicinity, trying to get his bearings again.

- - - -

Instead of answering, the kitten circled the spot he'd laid it on, on his chest, before pricking at Simon's undershirt with its tiny claws to make sure this was acceptable place to lay by happy-paws'ing the shit out of it before settling into a kittyball.

The room was dark and Simon was again in his underwear and an undershirt. It was much the same as he remembered it from waking up here last time… except with a kitten on him, and this time there was no sunlight coming through the curtains.

- - - -

Simon did his best to reach for his glasses, remembering they should have been on the nightstand next to the crystal-clock, while also calling out for his maid.

"…Otome? Hello?"

The kitten's purrs of contentment were genuinely pretty comforting, despite his earlier moral crisis over its life. He pet it with his other hand.

- - - -

His glasses were right where they should have been. Otome, however, did not respond.

- - - -

That brought a frown to his face. He gently held the kitten to his chest as he sat up, then stood from the bed, moving to the doorway that lead into the living room so that he could turn on the lights for the bedroom. What had happened? Why had he passed out? Given the time (02:22, nice), it was likely Otome was asleep… he should let her know he was awake, and figure out what happened. Or maybe go back to sleep and wait til she woke up on her own… he didn't know her schedule, after all.

After the lights were on, he turned the VDAS in his glasses on, fixing his gaze on the little kitty again. Was it still acting up?

[[ OOC REPETITION WARNING ]]

- - - -

His glasses seemed to be just… glasses.

When he flicked the lights on, every action figure and stature was featureless, faceless, white, and without discernible emblems or clothing. Like pose dolls, each one was a unisex nothing. His framed art and metal posters were all white as well, with grey writing on them.

The computer was on, its screen black and scrolling the same message over and over again, line after line, in barely visible off-black text.

DO NOT QUESTION

EVERYTHING IS FINE

YOU ARE SPECIAL

DIET AND EXERCISE

WORK IS IMPORTANT

OBEY AUTHORITY

DIFFERENT IS DANGEROUS

MONEY MATTERS

LEADERS LISTEN

DISRUPTION IS CHAOS

INNOVATION IS RISK

BODY IMAGE MATTERS

SCIENCE IS THE LAW

SLEEP BUT DO NOT DREAM

EVERYONE IS WATCHING YOU

LIFE IS TOO SHORT

EVERYONE HAS THEIR PLACE

BE WHAT IS EXPECTED OF YOU

CHANGE IS DIFFICULT

PUBLIC PERCEPTION MATTERS

TECHNOLOGY IS NECESSARY AND COMPUTERS ARE THE CORNERSTONE OF ALL GOOD THINGS IN THE FUTURE

Even the screen of his phone was doing it, though the message was different.

STAY INFORMED KEEP READING ALWAYS CHECK SOURCES

There… was nothing in his room that was how he remembered it. Even his mismatched socks, laying next to the bed beside his shoes, were only 'mismatched' by a fraction of a color… not even enough to call it a different hue.

[[ REPETITION ENDS ]]

- - - -

Oh, Jesus Christ. Simon held the kitten close, squeezed his eyes shut, and made his way out of the room, trying to get some respite from the sudden onslaught of subliminals coming from all of the media in that room. He looked down at the kitten again. Was it real, at least? Could he bury his face in soft fur and feel it purring and have some kind of anchor to sanity?

They both walked the dark hall into the room where he had met Loane, Simon fully expecting more of… that, from his room, in this room's various displays of media, and dreading it. None of this had been so blatant before.

- - - -

The kitten remained as it had always(?) been… fuzzy, soft, tiny, black and white, with one blue eye and one red eye. Upon closer inspection, however, he'd been wrong about its sex.

The hallway and rooms beyond were too dark to see, but he did hear Otome's voice, sleepily, coming from somewhere ahead and to the right.

"Sir? You're awake?"

- - - -

Simon held the kitten close as he approached Otome, keeping her softness against his hands and her warmth against his chest. "Yeah, I am. What happened? Did I pass out again?"

- - - -

"Again? You've-- I mean, Sir's been asleep for days. Ever since the accident at Sir's office. How is Sir feeling? When did we get a cat?"

- - - -

Oh, shit, Otome could see the cat! Reality had turned slightly to the left, it seemed. "Oh. I… thought I remembered waking up the day after, when Loane came to check on me. Sorry it's so late, I just, uh, I thought you'd wanna know I was up."

He waited in the intersection of the living room and the hall leading to Otome's room, for her to come out and be seen. "I dunno about the cat- but she's kinda perfect, right?"

- - - -

"I don't know… I mean… isn't she a little… different?"

- - - -

Simon scritched the kitten behind the ears. "She's my favorite colors. I'll take the 'different' as a win, on this one."

- - - -

"But… different is dangerous. Why don't we get a normal cat? We can put that one up for adoption. I'm sure some defective family will want it."

- - - -

Simon's lip curled, and he stepped back a couple of feet, trying to draw Otome closer. "…Different is good, Otome- you're different, I'm different, every person is unique, and that uniqueness is like, essential to the human experience. Are you okay?"

He had a feeling she was going to be some blank-faced propoganda-doll, too.

- - - -

"I'm fine, Sir. Could you help me down?"

He heard the faintest, familiar feminine voice from all around him, but from so far away.

"Wake up!"

- - - -

He tried to see past the darkness of the hall and actually see Otome. "Down?"

He never woke up by his own volition, he had no idea how to start now. Even if this was definitely not a good… whatever this was. Dream? Version of this reality? He couldn't tell anymore.

- - - -

"Please, Sir? I can't serve you like this."

[[ OOC WARNING FOR THE SEXUAL BODY HORROR SCENE ]]

"Simon, you've got to wake up!"

"They're inside your dreams!"

"Fight it! Wake up! Please!"

The lights around him came on, as every bulb in the house lit all at once. Everything was white, save for the cat in his hands - still as he remembered it. At the end of the hall, hanging by a series of thin chains, was a life-sized and seemingly alive woman-shaped sex doll with its only feature being a hole where its mouth should have been. Tiny hooks studded its nipples, outer labia, and its nostrils, keeping all of these places open and perky looking. Larger hooks impaled the collarbones and pelvis, to keep it upright. Its body was obviously extremely lifelike, but was still a blend of silicone and flesh, artificial in the light but real in the dark. From the blowjob-hole came Otome's voice.

"Does Sir want something to help him sleep?"

- - - -

Like something out of Hellraiser. Simon was not expecting that drastic of a nightmare-vision, and he clutched the cat close to him, shuddering and closing his eyes to try and shut out that visual- but it was too late; it already overwrote his idea of Otome and all of her strangeness.

He backed up into the hall again blindly. Out loud, to nobody, he frantically whispered, "I don't know how to wake up! This is really fucked up!!!"

He needed some clothes. He needed to get out of here. Simon definitely wished he were anywhere but in this house of horrors.

[[ SCENE TRANSITION TO MENTIONS OF PREGNANCY, CHILD HARM, MORE REPETITION AND THEMES OF HUMAN SUPREMACY/IMPLIED GENOCIDAL IDEAS, PLUS MENTION OF NAZIS ]]

- - - -

Simon fell backwards over a box, barely caught on his way down by a firm hand on his back and his arm. He was wearing his normal clothes - casual clothes from before, not the suits he'd gotten used to - and he was standing in Al's Army Surplus, having tripped over an ammo box that was tall and thin and metal and olive green… and probably from Vietnam or something. Connor shook her head at him disapprovingly. "Watch where you're going, or you're going to end up dead."

She turned her attention back to the portly old redneck behind the counter.

"Seven of them. We're going to need rounds fitted for nine mil and standard twelve gauge. Preferably something silver on the outside and incendiary on the inside. Not poppers, though… we don't want any collateral damage to nearby civvies."

The cat was gone and, judging by the light through the windows and the big analog clock on the wall, it was around 3 in the afternoon.

- - - -

Simon's eyes widened in shock as Connor caught him, Madison, the woman he'd only met through their mutual recruitment by the Agency all that time ago. He took her help to stand, shaky, and looked around as if he had no idea how he had gotten here (because he didn't, of course). "I… Connor? What'2 going on?"

Was QDiv trying to fix their mistake? Was he just traveling through his memories as his mind shattered into a million pieces, as he was physically kept in a looney bin or something? He couldn't recall ever being with Connor on a Hunt, much less against werewolves… He had to play along for a second, just to get his bearings. Again.

- - - -

"Well, I got holla' point oughtta do th' job fine. Ain't nothin' speshul 'bout 'em, 'cept theys' gonna make a real bad mess'a things when they hit. I c'n fill 'em up full'a fire juice, f'swhatcha wanna do."

She nodded, ever resolute. "Do it. We'll take six magazines for the nines and thirty two shells."

She slapped down a trio of hundred dollar bills, though the faces on them were … was that a nazi soldier's portrait on american money?

"How long?", she asked.

"Few hours. Prolly less'n three."

Connor nodded and gestured with her head for Simon to follow her out. Outside, was a civilian humvee covered in Hunter symbols… he knew they were Hunter symbols… but he couldn't read any of them.

"Once we get the rounds we need, we can head out. We know where they'll be and we know when. We just have to be there to make it happen," she said while climbing in on the driver's side.

- - - -

Simon frowned at her as he followed her out.

"I- No, Madii2on," he nearly tripped over her name, tongue getting in the way of his words again after years of not having to worry about that, "What the fuck are we doiing here? Wa2 that Natzii2 on your money? What??"

This was not a reality he was familiar with, either, even if it had all the trappings of his oldlife.

- - - -

"What do you care who's on the money? It all spends the same, now get in. We have a job to do."

- - - -

"Becau2e the natiion ii2n't run by fuckiing Nazii2, Madii2on!" He was being a little petulant, but he definitely also was not getting into that fucking humvee. "II don't know what fuckiing job you iintend two be doiing, either! What the fuck ii2 going on?!"

[[ DIRECT CHILD HARM AND HUMAN SUPREMACY REFERENCES ]]

- - - -

"Seven werewolves are laid up in Wintram Central's OB wing. They went in as a group, all pregnant and about to deliver. We're going to go down and keep an eye on them, check out the fathers to see if any of them are lycan. If they are, we wait until we have the rounds. But, if they're all human, we flash some badges, get them outside and pop them, real quiet. I already have a tarp down in the trunk. That way they can't pass on the gene to anyone else. When we have the munitions we need, we go in there and clear out the maternity ward. Mothers and cubs, one two, just like that. Seven mass murderers and however many they would have birthed, all in under ten minutes. Now get in the fucking jeep, Gemini, we've got work to do!"

- - - -

"What the fuck!" He backed up from Connor. "Werewolve2 about two giive biirth- you're planning two ju2t, ju2t off them?! No fuckiing way! II'm not gonna murder a bunch of mom2 and theiir brand-new kiid2 ju2t 'cau2e they deciided two exii2t!"

Simon kept backing up, away from both not-Connor and Al's storefront, along the sidewalk. "Nope. No way. You'd never murder kiid2, Madii2on, II know that. Fuck thii2."

Maybe if he wanted it hard enough he could go back to the cat-flown airship and get away from this mess.

- - - -

Madison angrily climbed out of the humvee, words burning themselves into her skin like brands, fresh and hot and sizzling and smoking as her skin reddened and dug into her flesh without her notice. She drew her sidearm as she approached and leveled it at his head as the words came close enough to be readable.

A mew from nearby drew his attention as she began yelling at him like a drill instructor, "Get in this truck and help me kill the enemies of Man or so I will put you down, as a traitor to your own people! You think you know what's best!? YOU!? I've killed thousands in this war for peace and I will kill thousands more to win it!"

DEATH TO THE ENEMY

BULLETS ARE THE VESSELS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

WRATH IS A VIRTUE

THE UNCLEAN DESERVE TO DIE

EARTH BELONGS TO HUMANITY

NO ONE DEFIES THE MESSENGERS

MARTYRS AND MURDERERS AND VICTIMS WE ARE ALL THE SAME IN THEIR EYES

The mew was louder this time, coming from the corner of the building. It was his tiny kitten.

"You can do this!"

- - - -

Simon socked Not-Connor in the face, putting all his force behind the left-hook.

"NO!"

- - - -

Her jaw was as hard as steel. He not only heard but felt every single bone in his hand, from his knuckles - down his fingers - and down to halfway along his palm, shatter inside his hand.

She gripped his shirt and lifted him from his feet, growling in his face.

"You pathetic traitor. I knew you didn't have the balls for this life. You never did! You were a spineless, worthless shit stain when I found you and you're even more disgusting now. Slithering around, licking the heel of every Technocracy shoe that passes by and is close enough to stick to, like the pus slime that you are."

She threw him backward, landing hard against the wall to Al's.

"All so you could pretend to be somebody, with their toys and gadgets, instead of the nobody you were when that monster nearly got your sorry ass the first day on the job."

She pulled back the hammer on her handgun.

"I've passed bowel movements with more drive than you've had since the day we met."

- - - -

Simon's heart dropped like a rock, racing like a rabbit having a heart-attack, chilling his bones even over the aching fire in his dominant hand. He held it against himself, tears welling up from the pain and fear, but faced Not-Connor (a manifestation of the Messengers?) despite it all. The iron feeling of her jaw reminded him of the ItX Terminators they had worked with, but her words only spewed fire and hate, opinions and feelings even the most advanced HIT Mark couldn't possibly have had.

She drew her gun on him on the floor. He swallowed the fear in his throat. Turned out, he couldn't banish nightmares like these by hitting them really hard, even if their spouted hatred welled up all of his own like bile at the back of his throat.

That's what she embodied. That self-hatred, that feeling he always had of kicking himself when he was down and going lower, saying these things to himself like they were true.

But this wasn't true. This wasn't even real.

None of it lined up with what he knew, and that meant anything could happen.

Simon did his best to pull himself off of the floor, trying to ignore the aches in his body where it had believed it impacted the wall and concrete. He set his jaw.

"Gue22 there'2 no rea2oniing wiith you, then."

- - - -

The first bullet tore through his left shoulder, sending white hot lances of pain through his entire left side, even as his felt his clavicle break inward and his shoulder blade break outward, with the shuddering thunder of kinetic force ripples that shot through him in waves that took only microseconds to make their way through him and back.

He couldn't hear anything but the silence of a deafening tone, stronger in one ear than the other. Then the burning sting came, of exposed tissue, and a feeling like something had spilled on him. He didn't need to look to know he was bleeding. Probably badly.

Her mouth kept moving as she no doubt gloated over how feeble and inferior he was. It was a kind of tragedy, really, that even when deafened, he still knew exactly what she was probably saying.

"▄█▀ █ █▚▞▌ ⬤ █▚▌ ◣▌ ⬤ ▐▄█ █▬█ ▅▀▅ ▀▄▀ █☰ ▀█▀ ⬤ ▀▄▀▄▀ ▅▀▅ ▐◀ █☰ ▐▄█ ▐◣ ! ▐◣ █▄ █☰ ▅▀▅ ▄█▀ █☰ ! "

- - - -

Despite everything, Simone's voice, distorted as it was, chimed over his deafness from the gunshot. You have to wake up! Please!

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on her voice through the pain, to make it clearer. He had to shut this stupid, brutal dream out, and focus on that one constant.

END SCENE

#ooc #para rp #discord rp log #somewhere in another reality...#dddne #mta rp #WOD rp #mage the ascension #hunter the reckoning #technocratic union

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cafesascha · 1 month

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Ruh-Roh, Raggy...

TW: Mention of child death

This… was not how Sascha had expected his night to go. One moment, he sat before his computer, struggling to edit the latest episode that was due to be released in just a few hours. The next, he was packing to go to fucking Narnia. Ok, not Narnia, maybe Fillory? Either way, he certainly wasn't in Kansas anymore. A thought that he found to be a little less distressing than he probably should have.

He moved as if on autopilot, with his cats Puck and Titania trotting beside him on their leashes. (Yes, he leash trained his cats. No, it isn't weird. You're weird.) Nodding every so often to one creature or another that bowed in his direction as he passed, until he finally set his gaze on the massive temple before him. Not Fillory then… He thought, taking in the obviously Greek architecture. Before he had a chance to chicken out, his cats all but dragged him inside. The pair led him to a statue that seemed to flicker at its edges, almost as if the thing didn't want to be perceived by anyone. The only way he was able to make out any features of the figure was by relaxing his eyes, as if he were looking at one of those Magic Eye pictures from his childhood.

Immediately, he knew exactly who this was, even though she was nameless and certainly wasn't someone he had learned about in school. A whisper that was felt more than heard told him he could call her Despoina, though a quiet ‘mom' escaped his lips as he sank down onto the throne before her. He suddenly realised that he wasn't alone in the temple. In fact, he was one of many apparently experiencing the same existential crisis. Just as he was about to call out to the nearest person, a figure appeared before him and placed a chalice in his hands before disappearing once more. The same voice that had been speaking to him the whole time told him to drink and take his rightful place, but did this mysterious voice have a single clue about what he did in his spare time? He knew what happened when someone drank an unknown liquid, and it was never a good thing… Then came the screaming.

Sascha jumped at the first sound of it. His eyes flicked briefly to the chalice in his hands, worried that he might have spilled something, before he focused on the men around him dropping like flies. He flinched as the sounds crashed against him, fighting against the voice insisting that they would make it through to the other side and emerge stronger from the ordeal. Finally, he threw back his head and swallowed the vile-tasting liquid in a few quick gulps, just so he didn't have to listen to the cries of terror that surrounded him. It started out as an all-too-familiar tingle, as the rush of a panic attack swelled through him. Only to be replaced by a blaze that tore a scream from his lips that he would have never thought possible. He thought, for the briefest moment before unconsciousness claimed him, that he saw a smile appear on the blurred statue of his mother.

He woke up to the sound of wind howling through broken windows and the faint smell of rot. He knew this place, even though he hadn't set eyes on it in nearly three decades. His very first mystery. The old mansion sat tucked deep in the woods behind his house. Seemingly forgotten by everyone in town except for him and any of his friends whom he managed to sucker into listening to the tales he cooked up on sleepless nights. "I heard the family living there dissapeared without a trace!" He exclaimed one day on the playground. Everyone, except for Ricky, knew he was bullshitting them. The kid hung on Sascha's every word as if it were the gospel truth, not the wild imagination of another child. So, of course, he agreed to go on the adventure of a lifetime that weekend.

He watched the scene unfold as if he were living it in the moment and somehow above it all, directing the scene. Though his panicked warnings fell on deaf ears. Overall, the pair found themselves unimpressed with the place. There were no signs of a struggle, no ghost of a final meal left behind after an entire family vanished into the ether. Just a rundown building with very little to offer in terms of something for him to solve. Still, there was one place they hadn't searched, and the younger Sascha just knew in his bones that whatever he was looking for was hiding from them in the attic. It took some convincing, but eventually, they made their way up to the third floor, being careful to avoid any floorboards that appeared unstable. He knew what was coming in this bizarre memory, not memory, and try as he might, he couldn't look away from the scene unfolding around him.

Just as he reached to pull down the ladder, he heard an unfamiliar sound – one he now recognized as the noise of rotten wood crumbling beneath someone. Ricky's sharp intake of air was quickly followed by a dull thud, and suddenly, he was alone. Dropping to his knees, he peered over the edge of the hole that had appeared where his friend had just been. “R-ricky?” While his younger self couldn't see the full extent of the damage, the part of himself that watched on in horror knew that Ricky was already gone after hitting his temple on the corner of a long-discarded piece of furniture in the room below. “I'm going to get help… You stay there!” He cried out before turning to the window at the end of the hall. If he could just find something to shimmy down, he could run home, get his parents, and everything would be okay.

“YOU LEFT ME TO DIE!” The scream shook the glass before him, causing some of the panes to crack with the force of it. Sascha turned to face Ricky once more. His one leg bent at an unnatural angle, and the left side of his face was painted red with the blood that continued to pour from his temple. “I didn't! We needed… You needed help.” He pleaded with his long-dead friend as he backed up until he felt the cool surface of glass behind his back. The divergence in events gave him a sense of vertigo. In real life, he had tried to climb down to get help but only managed to fall and snap his leg in the process. The phantom pain of impact shot through his body, even though he remained, not safely, but firmly on the third floor of the house. “You know what's funny, Sasch?” The dead boy asked, closing the distance between the two of them with shuffling steps. "I solved the one mystery you never will. What comes next.”

Suddenly, he felt like he was flying. Shoved back against the window with such force that he broke through it easily. The sting of glass breaking his skin was forgotten amidst the anticipation of impact. Except it never came. The moment Sascha should have hit the ground, he found himself back in his own body. The reassuring weight of his cats on his chest as he stared up at the now clear face of his mother's statue. “What in the actual fuck was that?!” He asked no one in particular. Choosing to stay on the ground until the sensation of falling finally subsided.

#godlingprompt001

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ladyofvoss · 2 years

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Future of this blog

I’m gonna start organizing this blog and putting the work into finally telling Thalia’s story, and with that in mind I thought I’d give a heads up on what to expect from Thalia’s story. More under the cut.

Thalia’s story is gonna deal with some heavy stuff. Not anything gratuitous like gore. More like....toxic family dynamics, existentialism, depression, PTSD, unhealthy coping mechanisms, ect. I’ve got....a lot of stuff going on, childhood stuff, identity stuff (cause it’s so fun being a black woman sometimes /s), and I’m going to be using Thalia’s story as a way for me to work through a lot of internalized trauma that I have.

It’ll feature heavy things because it feels cathartic for me to write about a character who goes through a lot of bullshit but it works out at the end. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, they get a moment of rest, they gain people who love and care about them and their feelings, they get what they’ve been wanting and needing, there’s actual meaning to all the suffering they went through (cause it’s what I want out of my life).

I recently realized angst (as a genre) is important to me as a writer because I want my characters’ negative feelings and experiences to have weight and to be taken seriously, cause I didn’t get that a lot (until recently).

If the heavy stuff isn’t what you’re comfortable with, and you feel the need to unfollow or filter tags (my format for triggers will be ‘content tw’ and ‘tw: content’), that’s fine with me. It’s why I’m making this post in the first place.

I’m not entitled to people interacting with this story, but I’m also not going to change how I write it. This is really important to me and my journey through building up my emotional and mental health.

Again, this is a heads up in case people want to dip. I won’t take it personally. I understand how important the need for escape is, and the need to tailor your online experience for your safety and comfort, especially for people like myself who are from marginalized groups. Everyone interacts with fiction differently, everyone uses fiction to meet their needs different. This will just be my way.

Thank you for your patience and understanding, friend.

#I’ll keep this pinned for about a week in case anyone misses this #cause it's really important to me that people understand #I don't wanna write a one shot about Thalia's PTSD or a character death #and have someone yell at me #the CPTSD is getting to a point #where I realize I gotta make some changes #I really wanna head off even the *possibility* of bullshit

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venting-town · 6 days

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Fuck the “ necessary “

Fuck doing things/not doing things you want to do

Fuck doing things/not doing things you not want to do

Fuck not doing things/not doing things you want to do

Fuck not doing things/not doing things you not want to do

Fuck the dominance

Fuck the submission

Fuck the versatility

Fuck the switching/swapping/ ///etc

Fuck the authority

Fuck the followers

Fuck the breakers

Fuck the leaders

Fuck you

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satanicchristiancult · 3 years

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Is there a way to make the government see how fucked up the school systems are? /gen. I mean, we sit infront of a computer all day, doing things we don’t even understand how they work or what they are supposed to do. We do this things that will “help us get into a good college”, but half of those things won’t even be talked about again. Then, we “go to a good college to get into a good job”, but most people can’t get into their dream job or a job that they at least like. We work in a miserable workspace, and then we get money to pay for things that make sure that we stay alive. Think about how messed up that is. We are the only being in the planet that PAYS to exist in it. We don’t put a price on oxygen because it would be way to hard to drain the planet out of oxygen and only give it to those who pay for it. But oh well, where were we? Oh, right. After working many years in a miserable place, you get to stay home with all the money you saved for your entire life! Oh wait, you still have to pay to exist! Cool! /s

This was originally supposed to talk about how messed up schools are, but I accidentally wrote about how fucked up life is in general, which means now you are gonna get ANOTHER post only about school!

-Mori

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naviation-xx · 3 years

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Why are you procrastinating Nav?

because doing something would imply that thing existing in reality- no longer will it be the question of whether im (simply putting) good or bad at it- it won't be the question because we'll get the answer

im not ready for it. i dont have it in me to put my all in everything and yet again realise that im good enough. id rather wither away meaninglessly than die from the inside out from the poison of not being 'good enough'

#philosophical bullshit only #definitely not an existential crisis #ask game #i was actually just avoiding listening to my political science lecture because i can never understand it properly in class- the woman speaks #too fast so i record the audio and listen to it again in parts #ew i know #tw death #tw study

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2014butmakeit2023 · 2 years

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So apparently the 2014 tumblr aesthetic is making a comeback. Which I’m looking forward to!

HOWEVER!!!!

TW: EDs, SH. Drug abuse.

Friendly reminder that although the 2014 tumblr girl era was iconic; it’s important that we leave the dangerous romanticisation of eating disorders, self harm and domestic abuse and problematic age gaps in the past.

I recognise in hindsight that these aspects of the 2014 grunge tumblr trend negatively affected me when I was younger. If you’re like me and have taken the time to heal from that mindset of ‘romanticised self destruction’ please remember not to undo the work you have put in since then.

I also understand that there are teens now who weren’t around for the initial 2014 trend who admire the aesthetic. This is awesome! (if not somewhat existential). Please don’t get sucked into the whole ‘rebellious teen who does drugs and is tragically broken’ thing that 2014 grunge tumblr pushed. This is a time in your life where it’s crucial that you try form healthy ideas about yourself. Your body does incredible things for you everyday and deserves love for that. Your mental illness and trauma is valid but does not define you. Remember to set boundaries with people about how you want to be treated and touched. Learn how to take care of yourself: which means balance! Please go out and have fun and be wild. Eat well and wholesomely. Create passionately, or study or just take the time to try things and figure out what you want. Remember to be very careful about any substances you take! Don’t take them if you’re not comfortable and if you are, make sure it’s from a reliable source and you’re in a safe environment around responsible people who have your best interest at heart.

TAKE THE AESTHETIC, LEAVE THE BULLSHIT.

I’m excited to see how this revival plays out.

#2014 #grunge #2014 grunge #2014 tumblr #2014 aesthetic #aesthetic #soft grunge #2014 nostalgia #grunge aesthetic #tumblr grunge #vogue

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border-spam · 3 years

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Leech Lord - When it's cold

TW: Dark thoughts, existential dread

Tyreen has always acted like coming here was the best decision she’s made for them, it’s pissed him off more than she’s ever appeared to notice, but then again her pretending like she isn’t picking up on his frustrations is nothing new.

She’s spent years singing this planet’s praises, how she loves everything about it and he should be thankful that his sister got them out of the cage that was their home, but she can’t lie to her twin. Never could, even though it’s not once stopped her from trying.

Troy knows her better than his own scars, and for all her intense skill in bullshitting, he sees through her every time. Even the times he really wishes he didn’t.

She fucking HATES Pandora as much as he does. Hell, maybe even more, her rage always tracked deeper through her bones than his could muster. He’s too tired to hate the way she does, it’s exhausting to burn with that dark a fury for so long.

He told her to her face the day they landed here that this planet was a shithole. He told her he wanted to go home, that staying here was not going to pay off the way she insisted it would for them. He’s told her the same thing practically every day since in one way or another, but she shrugs it off, twists it into a joke, reassures him in that silky smooth purr that it’s not that bad, that the filth of old blood in the sand and choking dry heat is worth it for what they have become.

Stars.

And maybe it would have been worth it if they had just stayed stars like she’d originally wanted, but things have changed over the years. He hates himself for believing her when he knew, just like he always did, that she was lying. Now that goal he worked so hard to reach for them both has been ripped from his grasp, now he’s stumbling behind her again as she demands he turn his cunning towards her new target - to be Gods, and Troy’s not sure he actually wants to be a God… not on Pandora.

He’s heard enough about the deities of this place from the natives to know whatever Pandora sees as holy is something far beyond his pathetic being. Shuddered as Jak-Knife wove myth of the great flood and the hunger beneath the sands, felt nausea snake through his stomach as they described something both terrible and disturbingly familiar. The eyes. The maw.

The great hunger of the mad song.

That’s not who he is even if the thrill of fear that runs down his spine when he considers it is almost pleasure, and it’s not who he wanted to be, if he still remembers correctly at least. The Troy he wanted to be is probably dead now, another desiccated corpse claimed by survival on Pandora. The possibility of that life is gone, he thinks. He’s not even really sure if he’s alive - the Troy he became in the end.

Tyreen says “We” will be Gods when she snares him so kindly in those manipulations whispered like love. “We” used to mean him and her back when they were two parts of the same whole and Mom would remind them how that would never change, but he’s started to really question if it has.

Tyreen’s “We” now rings with the dread of something he can’t quite place.

Nekrotafeyo was beautiful. Cool, rich blues marring into the same violet black you’d catch behind your eyelids just before drifting into sleep. The sky was so many colours at sunset, and plants, animals, all living things gently pulsed with a bio-luminescence that meant night was never true darkness.

Pandora is dead.

It’s just.. sand and jutting rocks in formations that don’t track naturally, that gave him fever dreams for the first couple of years about the things that must have shaped them. The air tastes like chemicals. The dirt is laced with oil, it’s vile. It’s sticky, ravenously hot, freezing cold, and it doesn’t want you to live on it.

He won’t rule Pandora as a deity, he can’t. It’s not made for that.

Pandora is a tomb, and in the back of God-King Calypso’s mind, he’s pretty sure he’ll die here just like the thousands who’ve gurgled his blessed name through their last breath in honor to their Holy Father. He won’t go in a blaze of glory, those are for the good and he’s anything but, he’ll just probably be a corpse his sister uses as a stepping stone to lurch towards her divinity.

That sounds about right for someone like him, and as the years go on, as he realises Seifa is not coming back and his friends are cracking under the burden of his existence in their lives, he thinks about it more and more.

Sometimes, on those icy cold Pandoran nights when he can’t sleep, when he’s been awake days and his eyes feel like their full of grit and joints ache with every breath, he goes outside.

Sanctum is docked near the pinnacle of the Grand Cathedral, like a thorn jutting from the tower of the twin’s shared cloister. It’s so high that the screeching noise of the night city below is almost drowned out by the wind that whistles through the gothic parapets, and sometimes when his kingdom is laced in glittering frost reflecting the glaring neon of the lights that dot the streets, he scales it.

Awkwardly clambers up the side of his ship as the dead weight of that horrible arm pulls at his spine with each twist, fingers fumbling for grip in the little rivets of freezing sheet metal as he hauls his heavy, exhausted body up inch by inch till he reaches the flat of the hull and crawls to the centre.

Throws his coat down and sits on the pooled fabric, pulls his knees up to his chest, closes his eyes, and waits as he focuses on the distorted music and crowd chatter that manages to filter from the metropolis so far below.

Lets the freezing cold air goosebump his bare skin as it leeches his warmth and creeps through the iron of his bracer, straight into his bones. Waits for his lungs to start stuttering out puffs of steamy breath as he begins to shiver under the clear night sky. Waits, and thinks about not having been born.

When he gets just cold enough, he can’t feel his broken body anymore, but he can think so clearly and he wonders if this is what it would be like. Not being in pain. Not living under the mental fog of the cocktail of drugs he relies on now just to ward off the nightmares. Not holding so much pathetic regret inside his ribs.

Not dying, that’s something else, being alive and then deciding to not be is very different and he’s not a coward. He’s not. Just… not having existed in the first place at all.

That’s not the same. That’s very easy to imagine even if you’re not a coward.

If he’d never been born so many people would be so much happier.

Tyreen would be... whole. She’d be pure, wouldn’t she. If he hadn’t taken half of her power the way he did, she wouldn’t be the way she is now. She’s told him that plenty, how it’s his fault. All of it. Mom would never have died. Dad would have stayed full of sunshine and jokes and love. Where would they be now as a family, them and Ty? Travelling the universe? Seeking out siren lore?

Leda wouldn’t be dead. Typhon wouldn’t be abandoned. Tyreen wouldn’t be whatever the fuck he’d helped turned her into. A monstrous god of her own making, or a sad child crying for her parents. He’s not sure which.

Troy has damaged so many people by being alive and there’s no goodness from it. There’s no payoff, no benefit. What’s the point of it? He’s broken. The power he stole doesn’t even work, so what was it all for? What’s he done bar cause pain and death just by existing?

Is that not exactly what a parasite does?

The COV wouldn’t exist if he’d never. The billions they’d affected would be all the better for it really, despite what they tell each other about “bettering” the lives of Pandora’s lost and the galaxy’s lonely.

Eli and Ven would have found someone better to seek help from, wouldn’t they. The Oracle wouldn’t be the shadow of himself that he is now, exhausted and so sad. Jak-Knife would probably be leading their own clan, not babysitting a pathetic excuse for a man that worked them to the bone while simmering with jealousy towards how much he wished he was them.

Seifa…

If he’d died on Seifa’s ship, where would she be? Somewhere warm and nice where when it rained the water was refreshing and not a slurry of red dust. With someone who deserved her.

He knows where she is now, a station he wouldn’t punish someone by exiling them to… and it was his fault she was there.

The back of his mind agrees that he is the crux of so much pain. He’s the one that’s the cosmic mistake.

Sometimes he’d like to ask Leda, she’d know the answer. Mom had known everything when they were small, had the answer to every curiosity or confusion from little minds, so he tries to. Whispers a question he doesn’t even understand to the stars through chattering teeth. He wishes she could hear him.

He’s always relieved when she can’t.

The cold defeats him in the end, every time. His body forces him to struggle to his feet and stiffly begin the climb back as the city below starts to quiet, shimmying slowly down the hull between handholds that bite into his icy fingers as the wind howls.

There’s a fleeting thought whenever he’s slowly picking his way down to the entry port that it would actually be really easy to slip, and he’s surprised it hasn’t happened yet. THAT would be the kind of ending he’s going to get anyway, one stupid little mistake from a hand he can barely feel, and all that would be left of him would be a mess for some poor fucker below to clean up.

He smirks at it, but knows in reality his traitorous wings would save him.

The port airlock hisses open and he stumbles into the warmth of his ship every time, he doesn’t fall, he doesn’t cease, he just passes out in the cocooning dark of his bedroom.

It’s survival instinct that does it, that makes him move and forces him back inside, but he still goes outside on those freezing nights, because maybe one night... it finally won’t.

Not that he’d get to be that lucky, he’s got a cult to run in the morning, and Tyreen would never forgive him anyway.

#Borderlands #borderlands 3 #bl3 #troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #leech lord #my writing #my hcs #seifa

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theseourbodiesrp · 3 years

Text

Bring on Many Changes (end!verse fic ft Claire Novak)

@pantslessoptimism HATES HAPPINESS

end!verse, tw: drug use, tw: death, tw: violence, tw: suicide attempt

Claire was frozen to the cabin steps, eyes wide as she watched Dean holster his gun, watched Sophie’s body fall to the road. He didn’t look up at her, didn’t acknowledge her or glance down at Sophie’s body. He just strode on, turning to speak to his second in command and gesturing at Chuck to take care of it.

The former prophet glanced up at her, taking a breath and licking his lip. She didn’t move; her hands trembled and her mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out. He moved to do as he was bidden; Dean’s word was law at Chitaqua. If he said someone was infected, then that person was infected. Infection was a death sentence, of course. No one wanted a croat in camp, no one wanted to become one. Sophie had once asked Claire to kill her if she ever got infected, kill her before she turned so she could die being herself and not a monster. Dean had done no more than what Sophie would have wanted, but that didn’t alleviate the grief and anger building in Claire.

He didn’t care, was the thing. Infection was a threat, so he’d eliminated it. Sophie didn’t even factor in, not for Dean.

“Claire, don’t. She wouldn’t want this, you know that,” Chuck’s voice was in her ear, easy and soothing. It took her a moment to register the sound of someone sobbing, and then another moment to recognize it was her. She hadn’t realized she’d moved until Chuck spoke, but she was kneeling on the dirt road, Sophie in her arms, sobbing like a broken child. His hands were on her shoulders, trying to ease her away from her friend: they still weren’t sure if the infection could be transmitted postmortem. “Come on. Shh. Just shh. It’s all right.”

She shook her head but tried to get her sobs under control. Tried to pull herself together. She took a couple of hitching breaths, raising her hands, stained with Sophie’s blood, in surrender. Chuck’s men moved the body, murmuring condolences she didn’t hear. He pulled her to her feet, hugging her tight to him. She pressed her face to his chest, not crying anymore. Her heart ached, her whole body hurt from the loss, but she refused to cry. Chuck stroked her hair and she let him tell her it was going to be okay. She didn’t believe him, but he had a nice voice.

xxx

He didn’t let her out of his sight for days. He didn’t let her go back to the cabin she’d shared with Sophie, either. After Sophie’s funeral pyre, he’d made a pallet on the floor for himself and tucked her into his bed. he told her to rest. She didn’t sleep much, but every time she opened her eyes, he was there, bringing water or food or just talking. She would have been comforted if her loss hadn’t been so monumental.

“I want to die,” she told him one night in the dark.

“She wouldn’t want that,” he countered, voice gentle.

“I don’t care.”

“She loved you.”

“She wouldn’t want me to be alone. She wouldn’t want-”

“You’re not.” He came and sat on the bed, touching her shoulder briefly. “Can you see that? You’re important to someone else.” She shook her head: it wasn’t the same. She did appreciate everything he was doing for her, wished she could find the will to live. But without Sophie she couldn’t. Sophie was the only person who remembered her from before the world ended. Half of herself had died with her friend, so why not let the rest of herself go, too?

“I don’t want to hurt you.” She murmured.

“I know.” She’s grateful that he’s not asking her to make promises she’s not going to keep. They’ve both seen enough death to know what it look like when it approaches. Sometimes it looks like cold green eyes narrowed behind a gun; sometimes it’s a blond head on a greying pillow, eyes blinking against tears in a familiar darkness.

xxx

She left Chuck’s cabin days or weeks ago. Maybe only hours, who knows. Who cares. There is a world of difference between drifting on the nothingness of loss, and drifting on the nothingness of Cas’s drugs.

The drugs are better.

“Claire?” His voice is far away, but she thinks he’s supposed to be near. She turns her head and blinks slowly. He is close, lying only a little ways from her. They are on the floor of his cabin, on a bed of blankets or pillows or something.

“Yes.”

“Just checking.” she contemplates that, Cas just checking on her. He never cared before, not when he took Jimmy and not when he came back and ripped their lives apart, and not when he let Dean Winchester ruin the world and not when Sophie-

“Do you know that you’re talking, or is that just a stream of semi-consciousness?” He asks. She blinks again; she’d been saying all that out loud? weird. She thinks for a moment, but then she feels warm and soft and she starts to drift again.

“Cas?”

“Yeah?”

“I hate you.”

“Yeah, Claire Bear. I know that.” He’s not mad. She thought he would be, but then that’s not the first time she’s told him that. His bitter laughter fills the room and she reaches out, finger tips brushing his wrist. He turns to look at her. “Do you want to die? I mean really die, not just existentially. We’re already all dead, existentially.”

“What’s, uh. Existentially?” She asks. The word tastes funny in her mouth, the vowels a little too round. he laughs again.

“You are. My own personal existential crisis.” The words are rueful, and he sits up. She tries to as well, but her limbs are heavy. Instead she just lays there and licks her lips. Breathes in and out and imagines Sophie’s laughter.

“Yeah.” She closes her eyes “would you wanna? Die, I mean. Without Dean.” There is no answer for a long time. She drifts.

“Yes,” he says finally. She doesn’t answer.

xxx

Chuck comes to check on her one night. She is laying on the floor, her nest of pillows and blankets around her. She’s half-sober, debating getting up or going back to sleep. She dreams about Sophie, is the thing. and when she’s high it’s easier to believe the dreams are real. It’s easier to believe when she wakes up, Sophie will be right there. It’s never true, but she’s not that interested in truth anymore.

“-can’t stay here, Cas. She’s just a kid.” Chuck says, his voice grim. “This is no place for her.”

“If you’re worried about my poor virgin eyes, he doesn’t have orgies anymore. Kinda awkward when your vessel’s kid is right here. right, Cas?” she says. Cas chuckles. They are starting to understand each other, in a way. He accepts all her comments about how he ruined her life and how much she hates him. He never mentions Sophie, or Jimmy and Amelia. It works for them.

“Listen. you can do whatever you want to yourself. And with or to any consenting adult in this camp. I’m not judging, you know that.” Chuck says, and there is a note of anger there that’s surprising. “But not her. She’s just a kid. Do you get that?” Cas nods, and Claire huffs, closing her eyes.

“Hey, Chuck? you’re not my real dad. Get it? Because my real dad... well. you know.” She grins, but judging from the stony silence, neither of them finds it as funny as she does. After a moment, Chuck speaks again, and his voice is lower, more raw.

“She’s what we’re fighting for, here. You get that, right?”

xxx

The grief of losing Sophie sits right next to her heart, and somehow swallows her whole. She doesn’t want to eat, but Chuck sits with her and gives her small pieces of bread and vegetables and whatever there is of fruit. Presses juice and tea on her, and she doesn’t have the heart to refuse.

Cas no longer lets her have any drugs, and she doesn’t trust any one else’s supply. He does still let her lay on his floor and tell him she hates him, though.

She’s laying on the floor and telling him a story about how one time Sophie decided pants were bullshit, so took hers off and went running around campus yelling about pantsless awesomeness. and how she, Claire, had to talk the campus cop out of arresting her. Cas chuckles at the right times, and it eases something in her just a little to share that much of Sophie. to say her name.

But then Dean walks in, and she stops talking. He glances at her, then turns to Cas.

“Resa’s making a supply run. you’re on the team,” he says. Glances at her again. “And her. Everyone’s gotta pull their weight, she can’t just mope about some dead croat for the rest of her life.” He’s gone before she can get to her feet and scream that Sophie wasn’t some dead croat, she was a person and a better person than Dean Winchester ever tried to be.

Cas catches her before she can go running after their fearless leader. He pulls her to him, trying to soothe her. But no, no. It feels like when Jimmy would comfort her for her little-girl tragedies, scraped knees and lost dolls and hurt feelings. She didn’t want to know if Cas’s heart beat in the same rhythm as Jimmy’s, so she pushed him away and ran out of the cabin.

“I hate him, Chuck,” she says, throwing herself at him. He manages to catch her and keep them both upright, no small feat when you have a small, angry blond hurling her entire bodyweight at you out of nowhere. “I’d kill him if I could.”

“Cas?” He asks, smoothing her hair back and rubbing her shoulder.

“Dean.” She buries her head on his shoulder, and he hugs her until she doesn’t feel like crying anymore. but the abyss around her heart, the absence of Sophie, burns through her until she thinks she’ll die from the lonliness.

xxx

She goes on the supply run, because you do not refuse a direct order from Dean Winchester. Cas insists that Claire stays with him. She goes where i go, Resa. Deal with it, and so that’s how they end up on croat patrol together.

It’d be easy, she thinks. She could drop her gun and walk up to the nearest croat. She’d probably get torn to shreds in minutes. And if not, at least she’d be infected, a death sentece of it’s own. She’d be able to find out of there’s an afterlife, and if Sophie’s waiting for her.

“You’re not the first,” Cas says, tone matter of fact. She glances at him; his eyes, too, are fixed on the road.

“First what?”

“To consider death by croat.” He tells her. “It’s a bad way to go. Painful and bloody. Only upside’s it’s a quicker death than waiting for Lucifer to make his final move.” She shrugs, heart squeezing tight.

“Not as quick as death by Dean Winhester,” she counters. Cas huffs, and she can’t tell if he’s amused or not.

xxx

A day or so later, she stops by Cas’s cabin to tell him she hates him. But he’s not there. Odd. She’s turning to leave when she thinks it’d be easy. He has so many drugs laying around, he’d never miss a handful of them. She’s moving before she can stop herself, taking a handful of the likliest looking pills. She goes to her and Sophie’s cabin, sprawls on the floor.

By the time all the pills are taken, she’s feeling heavy and the world is fuzzy around the edges. She smiles.

“Ice cream,” she murmurs. This is a game she and Sophie used to play, what they’d have or do if it was available. “Iced coffee. Anything with ice, really. A slushie.” She takes a breath, mouth popping open as another idea occurs to her. “Oh my god. slushie with ice cream.” Those’re called screamers where she’s from, and they are delicious. She tries to reach out for Sophie’s hand, another thing they used to do: hold hands in the dark together, because the world was fucked up and scary and all they had was each other.

Tears trickled out of the corners of her eyes, and everything was soft and dark and she was so tired. “Or maybe... you. Just you, Soph.” and then there was nothing but soft, warm dark. She let it take her.

xxx

The light is too bright and her body feels like broken glass and her tongue is parched and if this is the after life, it sucks. She tries to move, but it’s a feeble attempt. It brought him to her side, however.

“Hey,” he, the says, smoothing hair back from her face. “don’t try to move. Here,” pressing a wet cloth to her lips. “We don’t have ice, so this’ll have to do.” she parts her lips, and a small trickle of water touches her tongue. It feels like heaven.

“you gave us a scare, Claire Bear.” Cas says. He takes the cloth away, dips it in more water. Presses it to her lips again. “We thought... i thought...” But she’s drifting again.

This goes on for a while, she doesn’t know how long. Sometimes it’s Chuck and sometimes it’s Cas when she wakes up. always the cloth to her lips, and then small sips from a cup. She drifts back out before she can ask any questions.

and then, finally, she’s lucid. It’s Cas by her bed; his eyes are closed, his hands pressed together in front of him. It looks like-

“Don’t tell me you’re praying,” she whispers. His eyes open, and she’s shocked by something in them she’s never seen before. Relief? The kind that settles in your soul, the kind you were certain would never come.

No. Humanity. He looks entirely human and vulnerable and almost broken, She closes her eyes.

“To whom would i pray?” He asks, but there’s no sarcasm or mocking there. “No, i was just thinking.”

“About?”

“Are you hungry?” He evades her question neatly,. She’s too tired to press the point. She turns her head away from him, but reaches out with one hand. He takes it; his hand is warm and callused. bigger than she’s used to anymore, too; Sophie’s hand was the same size as her own. and for a moment, she wished desperately that it was Sophie’s hand and not his.

But if his was what she had, she’d take it.

xxx

As soon as she was strong enough, she left Cas’s cabin and went back to Chuck’s. She didn’t talk to him much, but he didn’t mind. He got her her own cot, put up a privacy curtain for her. Gave her as much space as she needed, but still forced her to eat and drink enough to regain her strength. He started taking to her about the camp logistics, and as she recovered, she started helping him more and more.

It was so unfair. There was an absence of Sophie that ached through her almost constantly. and yet her heart kept beating and her lungs kept breathing and her body kept going. Every day without her best friend was a day she didn’t want to live in. And yet.

Yet. The logistical work was interesting. figuring out rations and distribution kept her occupied. And she was learning to enjoy Chuck’s quiet humor. To appreciate his silences and his rambling outbursts of story teling. They soon talked a lot, mostly about the camp. Or the stories Chuck wanted to write if he ever had the time.

She still went to Cas’s, to lay on the floor and tell him things. She hardly ever said she hated him, now. She mostly talked about Sophie. Amelia. Jimmy. And Cas listened. Sometimes he’d talk about his own family, his Heavenly family. All those siblings, from whom he was cut off for ever. She even taught him the game she and Sophie used to play, even though his answers were often weird and not the point of the game. Paradise, he said. The garrison. Aramaic, which he insisted was a beautiful language but couldn’t actually prove because he no longer had his divine memory.

“Dean,” he said one day. His voice was quiet, serious. He always tried to be sober in the early afternoon when she visited; she didn’t like him when he was high. “From before. You never met him-”

“Yes, I did.”

“No, Claire. You met him when he was in the midst of a battle. He was a different person when we weren’t fighting for our lives. He was a good man. One might even say, a righteous man.” There’s a hint of sarcasm there, and she grins bitterly because she knows what it means. She remembers from being Castiel’s vessel.

But she reaches her hand out. He takes it. She rests her fingers on his wrist. “You don’t know this, but he was funny. He and Sam.... they were good men. That’s what i would have, if I could. Dean, and Sam.” She doesn’t answer, just lets her hand rest in his. After a long silence, he asks, “What about you, Claire Bear? What would you have?”

She gives a sad, bleak laugh.

“Sophie. Just Sophie.” He squuezes her hand for a moment, but that’s all. She’s surprised that she can live with the absence of Sophie. It is not the same, and not ideal, and not even what she wants. It just is. She has not chosen survival, but if that’s what she has, she’ll take it.

#pantslessoptimism #abandonall hope; you've already abandoned me #end!verse #te: death #tw: violence #tw: drug use #tw: su*icide attempt #this uh. this did not go i the direction I planned #and it fucking hurts my heart omg #long fic #long post for ts

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