Inter - [ oh... fond.... help... it hurts to do like, anything but he smiles at her anyway. ] I wanted to... ow. Not good at sitting still. Well, this is easier... maybe you'll walk me back?
Thank you, Harrowhark. [ well and properly scolded. he probably didn't get very far at least so there's that. time to go be horizontal. ] I had... I'm really glad to see you.
Well - I'd be glad to see you anyway, but... you know how these sorts of things go.
[ he rubs a little bit at the inside of his arm, self conscious. ] Everything was. Mmn. Really wrong. Here, but in reverse; many of our...living were dead and our dead were...still alive.
[ harrow's smart - he won't extrapolate more than that. ] That, and... there are things I did want to talk to you about, more practically, but... that's only tangentially related.
...mm. It was an alternate version of events, here, if much worse. I was... when we first came to, we were out...investigating, looking for evidence. The case from last week, but, it was Gideon who was dead. And you had died, too - before her.
[ that's how we do it in gay people house, we die in pairs
he slows a little as they walk, because talking and walking is hard, occasionally taking breaths to make sure he doesn't like puncture a lung or something. ] It was...extremely dangerous, and the main concern was...ghosts. Ones that possessed.
[she's at least familiar with that sort of ghost. her heart stops a little when he says gideon was dead, but as he continues, she gets a bigger picture of it all.]
Mm. There were messages, everywhere, and... even when we saw people we knew, at first, it was wrong. [ thinking about it makes bixing's head spin, now. he's supposed to be able to trust his mind, his senses, and having those all spun wildly into gaslighting misery left him very, very lost. ] I believed it was normal, at the time. I even believed that Iris - a girl very close to Date - had been here... all along. She didn't even recognize him, though, and kept... saying things.
[
...
he chews the inside of his cheek, for a moment, like he's trying to decide what to say, or how to phrase it. ] Ghosts and children. Water, over and over, in almost every... any time we were in danger. And, at the end, when it was...all done, we saw... I saw -
[ ... ]
...It felt too familiar. [ the whole thing was a giant hallucination, really - but the image of that pool at the end's stuck with him. too familiar in the way harrow's story had once, too. too familiar, in the bodies of the people who were denied their chance to live to help someone else survive. maybe if he edges around it, he can talk about it. ]
[okay. yes. she can see what he's getting at. she feels a little sick, like she's going to throw up, just from the unexpected mention, the context that would feel familiar.]
[ maybe that's the nice part about it. maybe they don't have to talk about it. maybe the mention is enough - and the knowledge, too. ]
.. Mm. [ the noise is soft, agreeing; the soft blanket around a sharp thing, to ease the blow. it could just have easily have been my own. and it was, when it dragged him under. hundreds of hands, crying out for the life they never got to live. lu bixing doesn't say it, though. it doesn't really need to be said. if it was harrowhark's, then... he doesn't need to pry.
a little quieter: ] The whole thing was full... full of hallucinations and strange memories. There were plenty of parts of it I knew, and plenty I didn't.
...I only saw you once, you know. [ a little lighter. ] In one of the strangest dreams.
You, Gideon, Lavi, and Four. You were going off... on a journey, and I was your professor.
[ he shifts a little, and gestures low with his hand. ]
You were all...maybe ten years old, and I was giving you a little companion, a creature. [ and not at all a nightmarish horror ] And sending you off on a heartwarming journey.
That part, at least, was a charming, charming dream. [ no danger - which was what made it so wrong, really, in comparison. ] You were a very cute ten year old.
[ this gets him to like white guy blink very briefly but ]
Well, yes. [ okay
anyway this makes him think about the vial in his pocket and confirm his theory, however, he gives a little shake of his head: ] ... That was the point.
It was fake. I'd fall asleep, or be pulled under or dragged out of it, and wake up somewhere else - in a different life. I had to figure out that the life I was in wasn't reality. Not really mine.
*except not because we're going to fix your garbage life
anyway: ]
...I do too. [ that's a little more uncomfortable, makes him chew the inside of his cheek, prickling at sense memories. ] I'm used to relying on my brain. When it fails me, it's... well. [ a little huff of a laugh. ] What else do I have left?
[ help he can't help but snort, and the winces, and then laughs again at the fact that it kind of hurt. haha ow. god. broken bag of bones. ]
I can be quiet and look pretty without my head, but that's about it, at least here. No biochip, no brains. Just viral immunity and a nice face. The tragedy of academia!
[ as he has learned with his injuries, he's pretty squishy. he's joking, though, not too bothered. ]
When I was little, that was all I had. My senses, from computers. I've always been lucky to be grounded that way; it was difficult to be on the other side.
Feeling like I couldn't trust anything I knew, at all.
[ brain problems >:( ]
And having the physical injuries to show for it, too - that it wasn't even real, but the hurt that came from it was. [ these adventures.... terrible. ]
In the end, though, I was able to rely on someone else to help me through. There's a lesson to be learned from that, I suppose. Still - what a mess.
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outsidebones) wrote2023-02-05 05:03 pm
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Inter - [ oh... fond.... help... it hurts to do like, anything but he smiles at her anyway. ] I wanted to... ow. Not good at sitting still. Well, this is easier... maybe you'll walk me back?
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Yes, I'll walk you back. Despite you not deserving it, if you were so foolish as to come find me.
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Thank you, Harrowhark. [ well and properly scolded. he probably didn't get very far at least so there's that. time to go be horizontal. ] I had... I'm really glad to see you.
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[frowning, like she's trying to work that out.]
For what reason.
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[ he rubs a little bit at the inside of his arm, self conscious. ] Everything was. Mmn. Really wrong. Here, but in reverse; many of our...living were dead and our dead were...still alive.
[ harrow's smart - he won't extrapolate more than that. ] That, and... there are things I did want to talk to you about, more practically, but... that's only tangentially related.
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[she doesn't quite get it, since she hasn't experienced anything like that.]
You may talk to me.
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[ that's how we do it in gay people house, we die in pairs
he slows a little as they walk, because talking and walking is hard, occasionally taking breaths to make sure he doesn't like puncture a lung or something. ] It was...extremely dangerous, and the main concern was...ghosts. Ones that possessed.
no subject
[she's at least familiar with that sort of ghost. her heart stops a little when he says gideon was dead, but as he continues, she gets a bigger picture of it all.]
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Mm. There were messages, everywhere, and... even when we saw people we knew, at first, it was wrong. [ thinking about it makes bixing's head spin, now. he's supposed to be able to trust his mind, his senses, and having those all spun wildly into gaslighting misery left him very, very lost. ] I believed it was normal, at the time. I even believed that Iris - a girl very close to Date - had been here... all along. She didn't even recognize him, though, and kept... saying things.
[
...
he chews the inside of his cheek, for a moment, like he's trying to decide what to say, or how to phrase it. ] Ghosts and children. Water, over and over, in almost every... any time we were in danger. And, at the end, when it was...all done, we saw... I saw -
[ ... ]
...It felt too familiar. [ the whole thing was a giant hallucination, really - but the image of that pool at the end's stuck with him. too familiar in the way harrow's story had once, too. too familiar, in the bodies of the people who were denied their chance to live to help someone else survive. maybe if he edges around it, he can talk about it. ]
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...It doesn't sound that familiar to me, Bixing.
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.. Mm. [ the noise is soft, agreeing; the soft blanket around a sharp thing, to ease the blow. it could just have easily have been my own. and it was, when it dragged him under. hundreds of hands, crying out for the life they never got to live. lu bixing doesn't say it, though. it doesn't really need to be said. if it was harrowhark's, then... he doesn't need to pry.
a little quieter: ] The whole thing was full... full of hallucinations and strange memories. There were plenty of parts of it I knew, and plenty I didn't.
...I only saw you once, you know. [ a little lighter. ] In one of the strangest dreams.
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[even though he's a little lighter, it scares her.]
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[ he shifts a little, and gestures low with his hand. ]
You were all...maybe ten years old, and I was giving you a little companion, a creature. [ and not at all a nightmarish horror ] And sending you off on a heartwarming journey.
That part, at least, was a charming, charming dream. [ no danger - which was what made it so wrong, really, in comparison. ] You were a very cute ten year old.
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I really wasn't, Bixing. When I was ten, I preserved my parents corpses with forbidden necromanctic techniques to use them as my puppets.
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Well, yes. [ okay
anyway this makes him think about the vial in his pocket and confirm his theory, however, he gives a little shake of his head: ] ... That was the point.
It was fake. I'd fall asleep, or be pulled under or dragged out of it, and wake up somewhere else - in a different life. I had to figure out that the life I was in wasn't reality. Not really mine.
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I...dislike the way these adventures make us doubt what is real.
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*except not because we're going to fix your garbage life
anyway: ]
...I do too. [ that's a little more uncomfortable, makes him chew the inside of his cheek, prickling at sense memories. ] I'm used to relying on my brain. When it fails me, it's... well. [ a little huff of a laugh. ] What else do I have left?
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[besides her brain is. always bad.]
But I like being able to take stock of what is and isn't real.
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I can be quiet and look pretty without my head, but that's about it, at least here. No biochip, no brains. Just viral immunity and a nice face. The tragedy of academia!
[ as he has learned with his injuries, he's pretty squishy. he's joking, though, not too bothered. ]
When I was little, that was all I had. My senses, from computers. I've always been lucky to be grounded that way; it was difficult to be on the other side.
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[ brain problems >:( ]
And having the physical injuries to show for it, too - that it wasn't even real, but the hurt that came from it was. [ these adventures.... terrible. ]
In the end, though, I was able to rely on someone else to help me through. There's a lesson to be learned from that, I suppose. Still - what a mess.
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[she doesn't really want to think about or acknowledge it, but.]
If it did have anything to do with me, then - it is unfortunate to have two such incidents occur.