Who: Everyone. EVERYONE.
What: The event is over.
When: From 12:01 AM on the 28th to all day after
Where: All over da place!
Summary: With the event over, people will be waking up in whatever homes they moved into, perhaps next to someone they normally wouldn't.
Rating: I dunno it could get kind of steamy :o
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He has a million billion memories of a lie and it makes him sick but he can't forget. He can't allow himself to forget - oh dear gods I could fight I tried to fight - even if it hurts, even if it kills him. His hands shake and in the murky darkness of his apartment he begins to sob, but even as he cries he's pulling himself up, grabbing his nanocomputer and his journal with trembling hands. He needs both of them now.
And Don. Don and Vivi. ... Miss Aislinn, he wants to call her again. He needs to know where they are, and oh god Helios, he remembers Helios during that night but he needs to know where he is too, make sure he's safe - and Giles, and Ami, and Litchi... He needs to find all of them and prove to himself that he isn't completely insane.
A part of him, despite the terror of knowing she's a warrior and really knowing what that means, now, wants to find Daisy too. Wants to see if some of that falsehood wasn't entirely made up.
After the initial period of time he spends desperately seeking out Don and Vivi (the two closest to him physically) and trying to care for their respective needs, he types frantically in his nanocomputer, cataloguing and organizing and detailing the memories of the whole week and as much else as he can remember about the entire fake life he'd been given. Because the sheer horror of the ability of the Malnosso to violate him like that, at such a deep level, can only be dealt with by summarily trying to reduce it to pure data. That's the only way Robert can handle it without going completely insane.
All the while he struggles with the intense guilt of knowing that he was somehow able to fight and kill. That somehow everything about Terran ethics could be stripped from him so easily, turning him into a callous barbarian who had even supported wars... even though he remembers his parents being killed and part of that makes him sick and want to do something except he can't because violence is wrong and it's better to die than fight...
... Suffice to say that if anybody needs Robert for anything, he's going to be completely out of it for awhile. Or at least until he's contacted over the journals, or someone shows up at his apartment... Expect him to be entirely unhappy if you do, though. And expect him to cry an awful lot. That's the only thing he can see himself doing for awhile yet.]
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[The anguish is somewhat mutual, though. Vivi loved being part of a huge family like that, even if it did have its troubles... and to have those happy memories reduced to a dream - no, not even that - was terrible.]
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The moment he sees her, he embraces her with a desperation he didn't know he had. He can't form words, for a moment; instead, all he does is cling to her, try to reassure himself with the fact that no matter what the Malnosso did to his mind, they didn't take her away. They didn't take his Vivi away from him. Not even in the distorted, morphed world they'd put him through.
And she was here. She was here and alive and okay.
After a moment he tries to breathe and focus, his arms trembling around her small frame.] M-Miss... Aislinn... [His voice is hoarse from sobbing, and puncuated by spaces of brokenness where he chokes on his own tears.]
... Is... is there anything I c-can do... f-for you...?
...
I-I need to... f-find Don... as w-well... and, g-gods, H-Helios, and... [He trails off, shaking and sobbing again. The memories of that night are beyond crystal clear, they're almost painfully sharp in his mind.
But he still needs to find Helios... after he finds Don. Sequential order. Prioritizing. His sanity, however, weak it is right now, is tempered by his logic and rationality, things that are dragging him back to the surface rather than letting him wallow in his misery entirely.]
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Mister Hastings... I'll be fine. You need help more right now, I think. [Idly, she'll pat his back gently. Would that help? She wasn't sure.] We need to find mister Don and mister Helios... and then you can worry about me, okay?
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... I... If you're c-certain, M-Miss Aislinn... You know I-I'll... I'll be here f-for you, if you need me.
... D-Don should be in... i-in the other apartment, if he hasn't moved...
[It's the first place to check for him.]
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[It's okay, Robert knows exactly where to look. He is already getting up, shakily, and heading back to the door to go to Room Two to check for Don.]
... I-I can't believe this could happen... [It's said mostly to himself, a distressed half-whisper; Vivi should hear it anyway, though. It's full of misery and almost-despair.
He enters the apartment, then, and begins to search it like in Don's thread down there.]
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He'd only just emerged from Community Building Three - his building, even during the alternate universe - when he sees her.
Her name is still clear in his mind, like a bell. Daisy. He remembers all too strongly how she is a soldier, a soldier with the utmost ability to kill, and he remembers how he felt he built that armour - hell, he can even remember the schematics for it - and...
...
He remembers getting ice cream with her. He remembers her smiling. He remembers her taking his hand. He remembers her... as a person, not as a killing machine in a suit of metal...
He doesn't have any words at first. He just looks over at her and feels part of himself recoil and the other part of himself... reach out. And he doesn't know what to do.
Don can kill. Giles can kill.
I could kill, then.
... Can somebody who kills... really be okay?]
...
D-Daisy...?
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He isn't even sure what he's afraid of anymore. Maybe he's afraid of losing that tenuous connection they have. She was... that other me's friend. A... a good person...
But he doesn't know who she is, anymore. He knows what that other version of her was - he knows that Daisy was a person - but was this one?
It was worth... investigation.]
... I-In general? It... it was... the most d-disgusting thing the Malnosso could... have ever done to us.
...
... F-For us...? ...
[His voice is very small and frightened, like he wants to hide, but he speaks nonetheless.]
... I... I-I wonder how much was... real.
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Even so, Robert can't find the hatred in himself anymore, can't find the anger or the violence in himself anymore - and even if he could, he'd be crushing it down, recoiling in terror and guilt and shame from it - to truly direct at the Malnosso. So it just stagnates quietly instead.]
... A choice...?
I-I... I always considered truth to be... objective. B-but... emotions are rarely c-completely objective...
[He chances a glance up at her, looking at her - or trying.]
... I... I s-suspect that... w-we'd have much to... r-relearn about each other.
... A-And. Perhaps you... w-wouldn't... w-wish to keep my company anymore afterwards. [Or vice-versa, though honestly Robert isn't even sure.]
...
I... I still remember everything... everything about that... false life.
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Well, his dogma isn't quite as strong as it has been.]
... I have... t-trouble using emotions constructively.
Perhaps you would remember that I had difficulty with even understanding them... [That had stayed mostly the same, except that false self had been more comfortable with people, to an extent.
He's used to making decisions based on cold, detached logic. To introduce emotion into them seems... foolish, and yet... That was how he'd decided to make friends here before, and so far that decision hadn't entirely screwed him over.
Perhaps it... was worth a shot?]
... A-At any rate... if y-you'd want to... p-perhaps try to build some sort of... legitimate connection...
...
W-Well, I wouldn't be opposed to it. [If you can smile, then you can't be entirely barbaric, can you...?]
B-But... much has changed, now. ... E-Even if I'm not sure how m-much of my own thoughts I can... trust, now. [Robert's devotion to his Terran values, or at least the Terran dogma of non-violence, has been weakened now, and it's left him with a profound sense of uncertainty that makes him decidedly uncomfortable.]
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