usually the result of conflicting tides
vortex
follows otherwise. context is 97% recommended.
precedes counterglow, which doesn't exist yet, but will soon.
lotrips AU
Bean/Elijah, Orlando, Viggo, David
PG-13
1000 words
I lie, therefore, I disclaim.
for atomic_fiction, prompt was:
everything was ugly but your beautiful face
it left me no illusion
-all because of you
He decides to do it because David is everywhere. Across from him on the train, behind him at the bakery. He's stopped telling Elijah, because he is afraid of the way Elijah folds in on himself, and fear like this is strange to him, sinking into his ribcage, making something new and animal scream not yet.
The dreams keep accelerating, and now new ones: David in the Company building, with his fingernails pressing crescents into his palm, shoulders curled in, trying to fight out the noise, the force of everything, and then the explosion of silence when he walks back into the sunlight hollows out places for it to echo.
But more importantly, there is David leaving the train station, rising from the rubble and stretching his legs into a new world, and something empty is unfolding like wings.
And things that are not dreams at all. Times when he is awake but suddenly in the Old Colonies or standing in a tall building or on a ship. Wherever David is, he's getting closer, and something in Sean is unsettled from more than a forged newspaper article and a few strange visions. He has to talk to someone about this; he has to know what's going on.
Sean doesn't have to be Prescient to know he shouldn't do this. It's not safe for them to meet. There's a reason they scattered after the escape. So much energy in one place - a Company Empath could find them in a heartbeat.
He goes anyway.
--
Orlando was the strongest. Most people could either send energy outwards or draw it in, but Orlando had a mind like a whirlpool and a tidal wave at once. He was a king of infinite space.
Every now and then, Orlando's dreams would bleed into Sean's, and it was such a vast place. Supernova blinding and black-hole dark. To be that overwhelmed, all the time - Sean didn't think he could survive it.
He still doesn't.
--
The lobby is lit by a fluorescent bulb crackling green. It smells like ancient cigarettes and suddenly Sean wishes he'd brought a pack. He hesitantly presses the buzzer next to JONATHAN BLANCHARD, and waits. And waits.
"What," a man barks, voice thick like he's just woken up.
"I'm here -" Sean falters. "I'm here to speak with Orlando."
A pause. "Bean?" Viggo, Sean realizes. It's Viggo.
"Yeah."
"You shouldn't have come here."
"I know."
"He's been expecting you all week."
The lock clicks open and Sean starts up the stairs.
--
In the end, all that space and power meant Orlando had to do more tricks for Them. Planting ideas and hijacking minds and predicting everything from peace treaties to weather reports. So he was always drugged. Ones to keep him quiet, and ones to keep him sane, and ones to trigger this and stop that and light these neurons on fire.
But everything was untested, and while Sean's eyes were just swelled and sticky, Orlando started to lose the edges of things.
-The good oracles were always blind, Orlando said one day, as the shapes faded together.
--
The flat is almost empty. There's a sofa, a desk with one small lamp on it, some bookshelves. Doors yawn here and there. Everything is dark around the edges.
"What brings you to the South Island?" Orlando asks conversationally, like he wouldn't know, like he hasn't seen most of this already, and maybe put it all together (but maybe not). He walks carefully towards where Sean is slumped awkwardly on the sofa. Viggo immediately vanished after letting Sean in - probably making tea. He has a compulsion. The thought comes from nowhere, but it is bright and shaped like one of his own, fitting into the puzzle in his head.
"A compulsion to make tea?" Sean asks out loud. Orlando smiles.
To do something with his hands, Orlando amends.
"I forgot what it was like," Sean says. "Having someone in my head, like that."
"Does it bother you?" Orlando asks, sitting down slowly beside him.
No.
Orlando reaches out towards him, his eyes empty and wandering over Sean's shoulder. Sean swallows and folds Orlando's fingers into his own. You know why I'm here, yeah? Sean says.
David.
--
-Do you trust me? Orlando asked, one day, wide-eyed and blank, lying on the floor of their room. The footsteps were heavy in the corridor, and Sean knew he was next.
Sean flinched as the key scrambled in the lock. -I don't know.
-There's a plan.
Click.
-Things are going to move very quickly.
The door opened.
-Keep up with me now.
--
Is he really dead?
Orlando sighs.
"I keep seeing him. I keep - wandering."
When he went, Orlando says, I felt it in him.
"You were wrong," Sean insists. He squeezes Orlando's palm and lets part of himself go for just a second, for just long enough for Orlando to see: David, the phoenix, the wanderer.
Orlando pulls away, doubled over and gasping. "I'm not talking about death," Orlando snaps. "I'm talking about Leaving."
--
-Travelers.
-What? Sean asked, blurry from exhaustion.
-Pay attention.
-I don't understand.
-Everywhere. They go everywhere. They push you out and they take it from you. We have to be careful. They'll want to stop us. You have to lock yourself in.
-How?
-Just keep holding on.
--
"That's not David. That's a thing - that's something else. Sean, you have to-"
The buzzer rings. Something flickers, a single frame in Sean's head: the lobby, bottle-green and too small. Then Viggo hits him.
"Hey," he says, planting his hands on Sean's shoulders. "Come here. Tell me about Elijah."
Again, the sharp noise of the buzzer, and the impatience of a dog on the scent.
"He's here," Sean mumbles. The contrast is slipping. The dark corners are circling.
"We can stop this," Viggo says, and his eyes are the only bright thing, bright and mad, lighting up vast and ambitious places in Sean's mind. "Make him stop, Sean."
Something cracks. Then it floods open with more light than everything, and noise that is nothing at all.
--
follows otherwise. context is 97% recommended.
precedes counterglow, which doesn't exist yet, but will soon.
lotrips AU
Bean/Elijah, Orlando, Viggo, David
PG-13
1000 words
I lie, therefore, I disclaim.
for atomic_fiction, prompt was:
everything was ugly but your beautiful face
it left me no illusion
-all because of you
He decides to do it because David is everywhere. Across from him on the train, behind him at the bakery. He's stopped telling Elijah, because he is afraid of the way Elijah folds in on himself, and fear like this is strange to him, sinking into his ribcage, making something new and animal scream not yet.
The dreams keep accelerating, and now new ones: David in the Company building, with his fingernails pressing crescents into his palm, shoulders curled in, trying to fight out the noise, the force of everything, and then the explosion of silence when he walks back into the sunlight hollows out places for it to echo.
But more importantly, there is David leaving the train station, rising from the rubble and stretching his legs into a new world, and something empty is unfolding like wings.
And things that are not dreams at all. Times when he is awake but suddenly in the Old Colonies or standing in a tall building or on a ship. Wherever David is, he's getting closer, and something in Sean is unsettled from more than a forged newspaper article and a few strange visions. He has to talk to someone about this; he has to know what's going on.
Sean doesn't have to be Prescient to know he shouldn't do this. It's not safe for them to meet. There's a reason they scattered after the escape. So much energy in one place - a Company Empath could find them in a heartbeat.
He goes anyway.
--
Orlando was the strongest. Most people could either send energy outwards or draw it in, but Orlando had a mind like a whirlpool and a tidal wave at once. He was a king of infinite space.
Every now and then, Orlando's dreams would bleed into Sean's, and it was such a vast place. Supernova blinding and black-hole dark. To be that overwhelmed, all the time - Sean didn't think he could survive it.
He still doesn't.
--
The lobby is lit by a fluorescent bulb crackling green. It smells like ancient cigarettes and suddenly Sean wishes he'd brought a pack. He hesitantly presses the buzzer next to JONATHAN BLANCHARD, and waits. And waits.
"What," a man barks, voice thick like he's just woken up.
"I'm here -" Sean falters. "I'm here to speak with Orlando."
A pause. "Bean?" Viggo, Sean realizes. It's Viggo.
"Yeah."
"You shouldn't have come here."
"I know."
"He's been expecting you all week."
The lock clicks open and Sean starts up the stairs.
--
In the end, all that space and power meant Orlando had to do more tricks for Them. Planting ideas and hijacking minds and predicting everything from peace treaties to weather reports. So he was always drugged. Ones to keep him quiet, and ones to keep him sane, and ones to trigger this and stop that and light these neurons on fire.
But everything was untested, and while Sean's eyes were just swelled and sticky, Orlando started to lose the edges of things.
-The good oracles were always blind, Orlando said one day, as the shapes faded together.
--
The flat is almost empty. There's a sofa, a desk with one small lamp on it, some bookshelves. Doors yawn here and there. Everything is dark around the edges.
"What brings you to the South Island?" Orlando asks conversationally, like he wouldn't know, like he hasn't seen most of this already, and maybe put it all together (but maybe not). He walks carefully towards where Sean is slumped awkwardly on the sofa. Viggo immediately vanished after letting Sean in - probably making tea. He has a compulsion. The thought comes from nowhere, but it is bright and shaped like one of his own, fitting into the puzzle in his head.
"A compulsion to make tea?" Sean asks out loud. Orlando smiles.
To do something with his hands, Orlando amends.
"I forgot what it was like," Sean says. "Having someone in my head, like that."
"Does it bother you?" Orlando asks, sitting down slowly beside him.
No.
Orlando reaches out towards him, his eyes empty and wandering over Sean's shoulder. Sean swallows and folds Orlando's fingers into his own. You know why I'm here, yeah? Sean says.
David.
--
-Do you trust me? Orlando asked, one day, wide-eyed and blank, lying on the floor of their room. The footsteps were heavy in the corridor, and Sean knew he was next.
Sean flinched as the key scrambled in the lock. -I don't know.
-There's a plan.
Click.
-Things are going to move very quickly.
The door opened.
-Keep up with me now.
--
Is he really dead?
Orlando sighs.
"I keep seeing him. I keep - wandering."
When he went, Orlando says, I felt it in him.
"You were wrong," Sean insists. He squeezes Orlando's palm and lets part of himself go for just a second, for just long enough for Orlando to see: David, the phoenix, the wanderer.
Orlando pulls away, doubled over and gasping. "I'm not talking about death," Orlando snaps. "I'm talking about Leaving."
--
-Travelers.
-What? Sean asked, blurry from exhaustion.
-Pay attention.
-I don't understand.
-Everywhere. They go everywhere. They push you out and they take it from you. We have to be careful. They'll want to stop us. You have to lock yourself in.
-How?
-Just keep holding on.
--
"That's not David. That's a thing - that's something else. Sean, you have to-"
The buzzer rings. Something flickers, a single frame in Sean's head: the lobby, bottle-green and too small. Then Viggo hits him.
"Hey," he says, planting his hands on Sean's shoulders. "Come here. Tell me about Elijah."
Again, the sharp noise of the buzzer, and the impatience of a dog on the scent.
"He's here," Sean mumbles. The contrast is slipping. The dark corners are circling.
"We can stop this," Viggo says, and his eyes are the only bright thing, bright and mad, lighting up vast and ambitious places in Sean's mind. "Make him stop, Sean."
Something cracks. Then it floods open with more light than everything, and noise that is nothing at all.
--