∎ ETRAYA MODS ∎ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
etrayamods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
etrayamemes2024-02-23 01:16 pm
etrayamods) wrote in etrayamemes2024-02-23 01:16 pm
Entry tags:
TDM 001
 ⏵ arrival⏴ Arrival goes as anticipated. Characters awaken in the pristine, new hospital, greeted by Aurora and potentially getting a rundown of what's happening depending on their approach to being dropped somewhere new. The door to their room opens, and new arrivals are left free to explore their new environment. Or what exists of it anyway. Exiting the hospital will show that there isn't much of anything just yet. Generally, Echo can build new facilities before new arrivals awaken, but it appears that this time… well, it didn't happen. The apartment complex exists, standing just beside the hospital, and there are a few facilities that are half constructed, companion bots carrying around rebar and other necessary bits and pieces, but they're not quite ready. Oops. But maybe, just maybe, one of those half-built facilities is familiar - a childhood home, a favorite supermarket, the run-down garage they worked at as a youth, a grounded spaceship in the middle of one of the massive bridges connecting land over rivers. The companion bots will offer quiet apologies if approached; they were expecting new arrivals to touch down, but not quite this early. They'll be ready soon! A few more days at most, they promise. In the meantime, do not stray too far from the hospital. While most of Etraya looks habitable, they have not finished verifying that it's safe for its new inhabitants. The apartment building and hospital are safe, and the land directly around them is fine, but beyond that? Stay away. But hey, the hospital's cafeteria is fully stocked with cuisine from across the multiverse! Please feel free to settle in, choose an apartment, and get to know your new friends.  ⏵ water you doing?⏴ Decide not to listen? Well, the companion bots had offered their warnings. Etraya is a new establishment, one that received newcomers before it was ready. And as such, the land has not quite been prepared for their arrival. Wandering off the land the apartment building and hospital are settled on comes with very, very poor results. Take a step down into the river below, and you'll find yourself uncomfortably hot. Or cold. Or hot and cold, because whatever that 'water' is, it wasn't meant to be played in. The only way to resolve the temperature regulation issue, as Aurora informs, is finding a buddy to cuddle up with. Those who are lucky may have a nearby friend they're familiar with and don't mind leaning a shoulder against. Those that don't? Well. . . have fun having a very uncomfortable conversation with a stranger, asking them if it's alright if you lean into them or hold their hand for a bit. Any physical contact will do, as long as it's directly skin-to-skin. Except that's not where the contact stops. Characters will find that, for the next several hours, they'll feel everything that their companion feels. Frustration, anger, amusement, homesickness that comes from being so far away from their families and friends - all those feelings? They're not your feelings, they're our feelings now. No explanation is given for how the empathy bond and the temperature regulation are related, but it may have to do with how since they had decided not to listen, it was time to test how well they could cohabitate with their new friends.  ⏵ bonding bingo ⏴ Maybe it feels a little too much like Obi-Wan had when receiving Leia's message, but all new arrivals are their universe's only hope. Except they're not the only ones arriving, and not the only ones who are trying to keep their worlds safe. Instead, they've arrived with several others who carry the same weight on their shoulders. And they aren't meant to go through this alone. The people they've arrived with are both their new companions and their competition. Both comrades to fight beside and enemies to battle against, depending on what the specific mission of the month is. But currently? They're here to bond. It's important to get to know those who they'll be spending the next unspecified but lengthy amount of time with, isn't it? To that extent, Aurora's hologram waits just inside the hospital's front doors, offering bonding bingo cards to those willing to participate. It's not necessary, but she does specify that this is one way to get ahead: cooperation is important, especially given what they're going to face together. Bingo cards are three long and three across, and offer a multitude of activities you can do to check each box off. Some examples include:
 ⏵ matchmaker ⏴ When the earpiece is put on, a nice green HUD(head-up display) lights up in front of new arrivals. It asks them for their name, which is fairly standard for these. Except it seems it wants them to put together a profile to help pair them off with other new arrivals. For some, this information may autofill with what Aurora was able to discern about them from watching them in their home worlds. But some lucky individuals may catch their profiles before they're posted live, and have the opportunity to edit out information included in fields, even if they're not able to clear it out entirely. Welcome to Aurora's idea of matchmaking. Have fun getting paired off with a buddy or four, with your profiles exchanged between one another. Maybe they're the perfect match. Maybe this is a nightmare in the making. Welcome to our first TDM! We're excited to have you here. For more information on character arrivals, click here. For any questions relating to the TDM please reply below. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ. |
cw: ableism
They're holding each other up. Two survivors, pulled from the wreckage. Noelle's fingers release Krouse's tank top, and she finds his shoulders, instead.
She's still holding them when Krouse says everybody else, when Noelle pulls away in stricken horror. She shakes her head, like that's supposed to make a bit of difference. ]
No. No, you were supposed to go home, too.
[ The hollowness has fled Noelle's voice, replaced by a tight, desperate urgency. Her grip tightens again. There's motion, underneath the palm that holds up Krouse. Tentacles begin to churn. Noelle has to say what she needs to say quickly, before she throws up. ]
I wanted you to have a life. Ever since I worked out Coil couldn't fix me. Longer than that. I don't know, it's - it's all mixed up. Not all the moving around I made you do, or figuring out how to buy meat wholesale, or - or any of that.
[ After a while, every time Krouse came into visit her, he'd smell like smoke. This was after hanging out turned to visiting, because you don't hang out with sick people. Noelle knew he did it to relax, to calm himself down before having to see her. She's sure of it.
I'm still happy to see you. Noelle hears him say it, even if she can't register it, can't understand it. It nestles into a corner of her heart, where guilt washes over it like the tide. ]
no subject
Hey. Hey, hey -
[ He keeps one hand on the nape of her neck, brings the other up to cup her damp cheek. Her face fits to his palm like that's all his hands are for, fingers long enough he can steady her jaw at the same time he wipes futilely at the tears pooled under her eye. ]
You never made me do anything.
[ His urgency matches hers, spurred on by the panic he can see over the panic he can feel stirring under him. He knows exactly how dangerous it is to be inside the reach of her tentacles when she gets like this. He doesn't look away to line up his retreat. ]
And it's okay. I'm okay.
[ He ducks in, impulsively, touching his forehead to hers. Their noses brush together, and another spike of bittersweetness sprouts even in the midst of his overwhelming need to convince her that he made it out, somehow, in some way that matters.
You were my life, he doesn't tell her. You were my whole life. Where was I ever going to go? ]
There are a lot of things I'm sorry for. [ He tells her, gently. ] But staying with you isn't one of them. It was never one of them, Noelle. I stayed because I wanted to.
no subject
She cups her human hand over Krouse's, and for a second, she thinks about coaxing it off her face. The second passes. Noelle leaves it there, and she leans, ever so slightly, into the touch. When Krouse touches his forehead to hers, she doesn't pull away.
He doesn't get it. That's the Krouse she's always known. Sweet, underneath all the barbs and bravado. Earnest. Too full of feeling to see the big picture.
How does she explain to him that he shouldn't want to? That what he wanted, what he really wanted, all those worlds ago, was a girlfriend, and now Noelle is barely a girl? She doesn't want to be dismissive. She just wants him to understand. Maybe it's cruel, to ask Krouse to share in the worst fucking knowledge of all time, but Noelle can't bear it alone. She's been alone for too long. ]
If you stay, [ she says slowly, methodically, rough voice quavering over shaky breaths ] you'll have to go back to the way it was. You know how it is. If I leave this room, everyone else will see a monster. They'll try to kill me again.
So - so I have to stay here, except I don't know how long I can last. I don't even know how long I can keep talking to you like this. I'm going to get hungry, and then I'll destroy this place, and - and -
[ The faint gurgle of a stomach, churning. Noelle can hardly speak over it. Her voice drops to a whisper. ]
- It's not fair. To any of us.
no subject
She's telling him she wants him to go. Abandon her like everyone else, turn his back and close his eyes and walk away. She thinks she's being fair, like she always wants to be fair, one of the things about her that made her give him a chance in the first place. ]
Then it's not fair.
[ He concedes, level and soft. For years, he strung her along with fragile hopes and real promises. When she'd spit them back in his face, that had been fair. The best he could do hadn't ever been good enough. Hindsight made that clear. He can't do that to her again, as much as he wants to, half a dozen arguments for ways they could get around it already putting themselves together unbidden.
So he tells her the truth. ]
Thing is, No', I don't really care if it's fair. [ He holds her gaze, dark eyes intense and steady. ] I just care about you. And whatever happens, or doesn't happen, I want to be here.
It wouldn't be like it was, okay? It wouldn't. Because I won't be like that. I won't make you do it alone. Not ever again.
no subject
But that's not quite what he's doing, not this time. He knows it's going to be bad, whatever it is that happens when she steps outside that door. (At some point, while Krouse was talking, if turned to when.) That doesn't seem to matter anymore. So she won't write him off, not yet.
He wasn't that bad, at the end. Good enough that Noelle didn't want to hurt him. It's still her and Krouse, against the world. ]
Like I said, [ Noelle replies, slowly. ] it wasn't just you.
[ She's not saying yes. She's not saying no, either. Call it a probationary period. ]
It was that whole stupid world. [ Noelle's mouth twitches, the corners of her mouth upturned in bitterness. Her cheek moves underneath Krouse's hand. ] We should've gotten to kill Coil. What did he ever do to that bug girl, anyway?
no subject
But she's giving him the benefit of the doubt one more time. Just one more time. Krouse blinks back a fresh surge of disbelieving tears, squeezed out by the clench of the raw pulp of what might be what's left of his heart, after all. ]
I don't know. [ He shakes his head slightly, forehead rocking against hers. ] Not enough.
[ It never made any sense. The Undersiders had the best deal of all of them. Coil was a bastard, but they were the bastard's favourites, no matter how hard the rest of them tried to measure up. He's run it back over and over, and he still can't make it add up. Villains are always double crossing each other, but why then? Why had Skitter been so determined to fuck everything up right when things were starting to work?
There'd been that girl, but it couldn't have just been that. Skitter didn't act out of the goodness of her heart, if she even had one. Just another excuse for doing whatever she wanted to do in the first place, a cascade of dominos that happened to put her on top every time.
If Noelle asks what happened with Skitter after, he'll tell her. He hopes she doesn't ask. He wants to tell her almost anything else. ]
You showed them, though. [ There's an almost-dreaminess in how he says it, wounded admiration cloaked in the trailing shroud of grief. ] You made them all have to face it, how screwed up it all was. They couldn't cover it up.
[ He still didn't know all the details, but he knew bullshit when he heard it, and he could read between the lines of what they asked him. It wasn't just the so-called heroes she'd taken down that had them pissed off. It was bigger than that, more important. ]
cw: suicide implications
Besides, she's too busy trying to figure out if Krouse is proud of her. Mars couldn't understand why she hated the world, didn't get that Noelle was being genuine when she said not yet. She wouldn't have forced Marissa to pay, just like she isn't forcing Krouse to pay. Just like how she still kept talking to Oliver after they'd worked out what he'd done, albeit through a computer screen. If she ever hated them, that was the thing in her brain. Hating the world, she's come to realize, is her.
To the extent that division matters anymore. Noelle knows what she did, when she ceded control of her body to that thing in her head. ]
Okay. [ Noelle says, and now, she's taking special care to make sure her voice is only coming out of one of her mouths. ] I guess that's good. Their world is so fucked up. I know the hologram woman says we're supposed to save it, but.
[ Noelle shrugs, a tiny movement compared to the rest of her. Krouse will know what she means. It's a little difficult for her to care about that place, and besides, Noelle has a more pressing concern.
Bile collects in the mouths of her lower heads. She doesn't have a lot of time to ask, but it's still good to check and make sure. ]
You're not afraid of me? Even though I wanted to kill them?
[ Noelle remembers New York. She remembers Boston. She remembers the cage they put her in, after, and how that was supposed to be for the best. ]
no subject
No.
[ He tucks a strand of her hair behind a ear bubbled with scar tissue, amazed all over again at the impossible privilege of being allowed to do so. The unsolvable puzzles of a broken world fade back into noise. They're nothing compared to her question, and to what he knows it costs to ask. ]
I'm not afraid of you.
[ All that time he'd spent being afraid, despite his best intentions. The dull adrenal blurts of instinctive fear when one of her mouths snapped or her limbs twitched too close, the helpless heartbreak fear when she'd start to cry, the worse fear when she'd stop. Fear of breakdowns and their aftermaths, the ever widening trail of bloody wreckage they left behind. The fear that kept him up at night and the fear that kept him out of reach and the fear that kept him going. It's all just ash, crumbled away.
When she held him in her mouth, she didn't bite down. ]
I wanted to kill them too. [ He lays his thumb along the sweep of her jaw, the graceful line of that strong bone. ] And you didn't hurt me. Even when you couldn't see me. You kept me safe.
[ The only thing that hurt him was himself, and he can't blame Noelle for that. Krouse smiles at her, faint but unwavering, the glow of a faded nightlight at the end of a long, dark hall. ]
Hey. [ He says, with a conspiring lilt. ] Do you want to get out of here?
no subject
Krouse pulls back, still touching, and Noelle looks. There is no judgment in his gaze, no disgust or fear. Noelle can be confident on that front. She trained herself, over the years, to sniff those things out with exacting precision. She knows. There is only a softness, one that Noelle had always been so terrified of naming. She doesn't name it now. That's not the point. Instead, she lets it blanket her, as if someone is tucking her into bed after a long and terrible nightmare.
By the time Krouse speaks, Noelle already has her answer. For the first time in years, she believes him.
It doesn't make up for anything. Not for the weeks and months and years spent alone. Not for the way he used to look at her, like he was looking at a photograph kept in a shoebox in the back of his closet.
The door is still open, just a crack. Fluorescent light streams through. She can't carry the ledger through it, so she casts it aside.
Do you want to get out of here? She does. She does, and she does, and she does. Are you asking me out on a date, Noelle nearly asks, but can't, because her jaw has opened up in a way she doesn't remember, a sensation as new as Krouse tucking her hair behind her ear. Noelle nods, burying her face into the crook of Krouse's neck, hugging him close one last time. Her throat makes a strange noise, rough and unpracticed. She says, choked: ]
Yes.
[ The noise resolves into laughter. Noelle lets Krouse go, and begins to lower him to the ground. ]
Just - [ She takes a breath, deep and shaking ] - just give me a second. I'm going to throw up.
[ Krouse can leave. He can stay. Noelle's voice sounds strange between her ears. There's so little shame in it. ]
cw: body horror, ableism
He loved her laugh the first time he surprised it out of her. He loved it every time after. He loves it now, dusty and sweet.
When she draws him away he takes it with him like a crumpled note tucked into his palm. He goes without clinging, but his fingers skim her arms one more time on the way down, like she holds onto some faint gravity he can't resist until he's pulled out of her orbit. ]
Okay. [ He says, on his way down. ] I'll give you space.
[ Time and necessity eroded so much of Noelle's privacy. Her body turned into a traitor, spilling her secrets out in angry scrawls of mutation. The worse it got, the more Krouse had to see, knowing how much she hated the new wet and bilious intimacy forced on her.
But as he backs up, bumping into an as-yet intact hospital bed and hoisting himself up to sit on its edge, he watches her face to judge if he'll look away. He's already seen everything there is to see about her, inside and out. He knows what her bones look like, glistening and raw. He watched her tear open and knit back together, spew bodies and blood with equally frantic urgency. There's no shadow left behind the curtain. There's just her. There was only ever just her. ]
cw: body horror, ableism, emeto, minor character death
It's going to look like you. I'm going to kill it.
[ Krouse has seen the worst of what her body can do, Noelle knows. But it's different, now that they're not in a fight. Harder to look away. At the very least, Krouse deserves a warning.
A wet, lurching sound gurgles from somewhere deep inside Noelle's lower half. Several mouths open, one roars, and a stream of black-green bile pours forth, thick and putrid. Noelle aims for the corner of the room, but it still splashes against the walls, pooling around the base of the hospital beds.
True to Noelle's word, a figure hauls itself up out of the pool of vomit, shivering and covered in sick like a newborn. The clone stands hunched over, his spine arcing too high out of his back, his arms too thin and too long, his hands larger than his face. His eyes are overdeveloped, bursting through the skin cauled over his remaining facial features. The texture of his skin is identical to Noelle's: wavy, pockmarked, and blistered with scar tissue. His hair is long, thin, and stringy.
He takes a step towards Noelle, one hand dragging on the ground, the other reaching for her, just as the other Krouse reached for her face moments ago. Vocalizations that are unable to become words escape his throat. Noelle whispers something just for him, and reaches out a limb.
The sound of snapping bone echoes in the hospital room. The clone does not move again. Noelle covers her face in her hands and allows herself one last, strangled sob for the road. ]
Let's go. [ Noelle murmurs from behind her hands. ] Let's just go.
cw: body horror, ableism, emeto, minor character death
It still takes almost everything left in him to stay where he is when she gives him that last clear warning. He leans forward like a bird of prey on a branch, fingers curled into the scratch of hospital sheets, and bites through the urge to offer to intercede.
He always tried to carry this for her. He pretended that he could, like this was a burden he could shift from her shoulders to his as easy as the strap of her backpack. All it ever did was make them both carry it twice.
Touching Noelle means someone dies. If Krouse didn't believe her when she said she could handle it, he should have said no. When she flexes and spews, his bent shadow unfolding in the slick mess, that no shudders in his choked throat. He believes her. He trusts her.
And if sheer force of will counts for anything in a universe that's always been indifferent to anything he's ever really wanted, some part of his stooped reflection does too. He can barely see it past the space she takes up as it gets closer, gangling and sickly delicate as it moves, but he sees the too-large eyes, the elongated span of its hands.
Nothing she could ever make out of him would ever want her to hurt. Neither of them can help it. When the unmistakable sound of bone cracking inside meat bounces off the walls, Krouse slips off the bed and to his feet, his face as skinned over with steady calm as his clone's was with skin. ]
We're going.
[ He echoes, softly, skirting around the spreading edges of vomit without looking down. There's another set of doors across the room, double wide. He pushes one open, then the other, kicking down the doorstops on each to hold them in place. The hallway they open into is wider than the one he came in through. ]
Let's get you some air.
[ There's a tremor at the edge of his words, a horrible longing buried underneath. When he turns around to face her again, he feels as shaky as the crumpled body on the floor looked, sick with the same want. One more touch. One hand on her back, or on the swell of a crooked limb. It's okay, even though it's not.
But he can't. All he can do is look at her, understanding dark and liquid in his eyes. ]
The sun's out.
[ The sun's out, and it's beautiful. The sun's out, and they're both murderers, and it'll still be warm. ]
cw: self-harm
Should she have let this clone go free? It was going to hold her. She had given it hands to do just that. The only free touch Noelle has anymore comes from her clones. Everything else she has to pay for.
A memory bubbles up like bile. Noelle rests on an unfamiliar couch. She squirms once, then moans. She is covered in blankets, but it is still so cold. She doesn't know why it's so cold. Someone presses soft, gentle fingers against her skin. They murmur, in a soft and lovely voice, about a pulse. Noelle flinches all the same.
Of course. This is what she wanted. Noelle can't find it in herself to be grateful for the reminder.
The bulk of Noelle's monstrous half lurches forward. It is no longer accurate to say that it steps. Claws drag and scrape against the linoleum, like a soldier crawling on their belly. Tentacles slither. Hooves stomp. Hospital beds and IV drips crash against one another as Noelle lumbers over and through them.
The sun's out. Noelle's nails dig further in. What will it feel like, when the sun beats down on her skin? Will it burn?
Suddenly, Noelle wants the memory to come back. She wants to remember what it was like when Marissa used to touch her gently. But the thing inside her mind is silent once again.
Noelle passes through the double doors. She follows Krouse down the hall, hunched, so that her head doesn't scrape against the ceiling. ]
Is it going to feel good?
[ Mumbled, quiet, nearly slurred. Noelle can't touch anyone. She understands the reminder. But maybe - just maybe - she can hope that the sun is going to feel good. ]
cw: self-harm
It's not the fastest way to guide them out of here, but it's also barely a decision. There's no magic in his attention that will help tether her to the earth, keep her lucid or calm, but he can't stop looking at her like there is. Every half-pivot to scout ahead for obstacles, of which there are blessedly few, comes with a hazy stutter of anxiety. ]
It will. [ He promises, pushing a rolling bed into an alcove. ] I think it's spring. It feels like spring.
[ It was winter before, not that it mattered. Almost Christmas again.
Noelle's holding herself too hard. He wants to ask her to stop; he knows what it's like to need to dig into your skin so you don't come out of it. ]
Do you remember that field trip we took for biology class? Out to the Leopold Center?
[ He barely remembers it. It'd seemed so stupid, at the time. Just another busy work box on some educational enrichment checklist, a half-day of hanging in the back of the group with Luke tuning out instructions and making the bare minimum effort to fill out a worksheet about trees. It had been before he'd really started to pay attention to Noelle. Just another girl in class, tucked in on herself with her head down as she hovered at Marissa's elbow.
But it'd been a bright, sunny day, and the air was clear, and the worst things that had ever happened to them were the kinds of things that happened to people with normal problems. ]
It's kind of like that.
[ Another set of double doors under a glowing green EXIT sign. Krouse leans up against them, hands on the push bar. ]
...here we go.
[ His voice is almost as soft as hers. He pushes back on the door, and the sunshine spills in with the clean, fresh air of a world being newly made. ]
no subject
She still can't remember the sun on her skin. They started moving her under cover of darkness early on. They were fugitives, Krouse had told her. It was going to be okay. She didn't walk right, not even in the early days, with all that growth on her legs. It was going to be okay.
Her rampage didn't count. The sun was drowned out by bullets and spears and forcefields and teeth, until it wasn't.
The doors open. The first thing Noelle does with her freedom, even before stepping outside, is flinch. But there is no army outside, no firing squad waiting to put her down. There's only a field of grass and Krouse - always Krouse - holding the door open.
Noelle steps through the door. She looks up. Squints. Her arms loosen, and her entire body - human and monster - uncurls.
If she starts crying now, she won't be able to stop. It's warm. A gentle breeze tosses her hair. For the first time in years, she doesn't smell raw meat, or decay, or death. Her animal heads yawn and close their eyes, like cats sleeping under a sunny window.
She'll look back at Krouse eventually. She trusts that he's still here. Right now, Noelle lets her body feel good. She closes her eyes, and tears still escape from under the lids anyway. ]
It's nice.
[ Hushed, reverent, and impossibly, impossibly lucky. ]
no subject
He drops back against the cinder block wall and looks up at her, his cresting edge of fear melting away under the warmth reflected off the back of her closed eyes. ]
Yeah.
[ When he'd stepped outside for the first time, it'd rolled over him like a wave. He hadn't been sure it'd do the same thing for Noelle, but he'd hoped.
It's been a long time since he'd hoped. Even longer since it paid off. It's such a small thing, this temporary reprieve. Nothing about their situation is any better, the horizon of possibilities they're facing just as bleak as they were inside the hospital. Noelle's predictions hover over them like pale wings.
But right now, they're still together, and Noelle's almost happy. He'll stay in this moment as long as it lasts, vision blurring in the glow of an open sky. He doesn't blink it away. ]
no subject
But her breathing hasn't slowed like this in a long, long time. Even her lower half is still. She never realized how exhausting the near-constant writhing was until it stopped. Her chest rises and falls, and her lower half gently pulses in time, and that's it.
It's so quiet out here. There's no collar to keep her awake. But it's not the silence of loneliness, either. The sunlight is a much nicer blanket. ]
Mm.
[ Noelle murmurs, and she doesn't open her eyes. Her head tips forward, slightly, and that's all she says for the next while - at least twenty to thirty minutes. She's so lucky. She doesn't even dream. Her lower half does snore a little, though, heavy sleep-breathing forced through twisted nostrils.
The eyes in her lower half blink open first, followed by her upper. Noelle rubs sleep out from their corners. ]
Shit. [ She finally looks down at Krouse, sheepish. ] Sorry. Didn't mean to do that. How long was I out?
no subject
When she wakes up, Krouse is cross-legged on the grass, spine gently curved and head bowed. He lifts his head at her voice, faint lines between his eyes smoothing out with the spread of his smile. ]
Not that long.
[ There's a thin strand of green that feathers out into spiky strands at one end in his hand, his fingertips stained with chlorophyll. He tucks it into his palm as he unspools to his feet. ]
It's okay. [ He tilts his head, running his fingers through short hair, her sheepishness reflecting off him. ] It's not like we've got anywhere to be, right?
[ He could have stayed here for hours, listening to the gentle snuffling wheeze of her dozing heads. It's a sound he'd never imagined being grateful for - but then, when did he ever really listen?
Concern softens his eyes, his smile closing over the flash of his teeth. ]
How are you feeling?
no subject
Noelle doesn't cry again. Her well of tears must be drying up. That's nice that something is. It would be even nicer if Krouse didn't ask how she was feeling, because Noelle stopped knowing how to answer that question a long time ago, well before the vial. There's the answer that people want, the answer that's good for you to give, and the answer that's true. Those answers almost never coincide.
Noelle looks at the skyline instead. They'll probably have to rebuild the city she destroyed. Good. She hopes it costs them a billion dollars, and even after they spend all that money, they won't forget the mark she made. ]
I don't know.
[ She opts for the answer that's true. ]
It's nice out here. That felt nice. Um. But I'm going to get hungry soon, and - I'm scared of that, still. [ Noelle shakes her head, makes a little exhale that could be a self-deprecating laugh. ] I shouldn't be, after all that, but I still am.
[ She looks down at Krouse. He looks better out here, in the sunlight instead of under fluorescent lights. Most people do. ]
How are you?
no subject
And he's not sure if hearing her voice makes him less calm. It's more like it turns up the contrast, blurred details snapping back into focus. She says she's scared, and he can think about whether he is. He can think, period, working outward from a pool of clarity surrounding her to other, less important things.
So he asks himself her question, and comes up with an answer. ]
I don't know, either.
[ His smile gets a little weaker, a little more tilted. He starts to lift a hand towards his face before he remembers there's nothing to brush back, which leaves it hanging awkwardly before he lets it fall. ]
I'm still - processing, I guess. [ Processing, like that's even close to the word. ] Telling myself this is real. I know it is, it just doesn't...
[ He drops his chin slightly, half-closing his eyes. It's a break that lasts only for a second before he pulls himself back up. ]
Both still scared of the same things, huh? Some menaces to society we are.
no subject
He's not doing that here. Krouse is scared and uncertain, like she is. When he says, in so many words, that he's not all the way sure whether or not this is real, Noelle knows exactly what he means.
Noelle shifts a little closer. She uses a tentacle to make a ring around where Krouse is sitting, not quite touching, but enough to shield him from anything that might hurt. Anything that isn't in his own head. She's still not sure what's going on there. Krouse always tried to give Noelle her privacy, so she'll try to give him his. ]
Yeah.
[ Noelle agrees, her voice softer than it ever was on Bet. She's quiet for a little while, after that. Thinking. One of the eyes in her lower half watches Krouse's braid. ]
We weren't menaces to society. They were menaces to us. [ Not yet, Mars. ] The shit Coil made you do. The place he kept me. You didn't talk much to Eidolon, but he was awful.
I'm not going back inside the hospital. [ Noelle decides, firmly, right then and there. ] Not going to save the world, either.
[ If the rest of them get to retire, so does she. ]
no subject
He couldn't protect her. He still can't. He can't even say it to her, even though they both know it.
Noelle is trying to forgive him anyway. Looking after his feelings, like he never wanted her to have to, and kept happening anyway. She's always been nicer than she should have been. ]
We don't owe them anything.
[ He meets her assurance with his own, his smile slipped away when he wasn't paying attention.
Krouse could leave it there. Take what she's offering without making it into anything more. It might even be the right thing to do. Let all those eyes stay soft where they land on him. ]
...and you don't owe me anything. [ He spins the tufted splay of grass at the end of his fingers, words quiet. ] I know you know that. I just - I want you to know I know that.
I didn't tell you that enough.
no subject
She just wanted to sit in the sun. Nobody ever lets her. ]
Stop it.
[ Noelle says, too tired to summon any anger in her voice. There's just a resigned exhaustion. ]
Like you said. I know. And I know you know.
[ I’m okay with it. I enjoy spending time with you, and I didn’t get any impression you were having that bad of a time, either. ]
It wouldn't have made a difference, what you did or didn't say to me. Wouldn't have gotten me out of that cage.
[ As much as he likes to call himself an asshole, Krouse has always been good at coming up with the right thing to say. Or better than Noelle, at least. It's something she's always been a little jealous of. ]
So I just -
[ There's something she has to say. It's terrible. Her stomachs churn. Her tongue feels thick and heavy in her mouth. Noelle closes her eyes. ]
I want to enjoy this, okay? I don't want to hate you. Spent enough time doing that.
no subject
So he doesn't know why it is that this feels like a shoulder being wrenched back into socket, a burst of panic at the crest of the hurt when it seems impossible that this could be how it's supposed to feel, then the crashing ache of realignment. Like a terrible magic trick, stuffing the mangled rabbit back in the hat.
When she says it wouldn't have made a difference, he doesn't think it's true. Krouse has thought about the things he could have done any other way long before it ended. They've taken up a lot of his time. What he hears, what matters now, is that it won't make a difference.
They have a lot of past tense behind them. The future tense won't last long. If the only person he's apologizing for is himself, what's the point?
Maybe they can just be here, as long as that lasts. And then it'll be over, and he'll be okay with it. ]
Right. [ He says, an untethered looseness in the rise and fall of his sternum, scar tissue snapped off clean. ] Sorry.
[ He used to apologize like it wasn't the end of the world every time. That's what he tries for. He doesn't think it sounds that far off. ]
So...what do you want to do?
[ He coaxes a smile out of himself while she's still not looking. ]
I looked around before. There's a river that's pretty close. We can't go in it, but it's nice. You can see more of the woods from there.
cw: ableism
It doesn't. What do you want to do, he asks, instead, and Noelle opens her eyes. The ones in her lower half look at Krouse. She tips her face towards the sky, and breathes.
There's no rage left. Noelle doesn't have to keep it from bubbling up like bile. Which means - maybe - it's safe to want. Just a little, before the end.
The Leopold Center. They used to go on nature walks. Noelle used to spend time at her uncle's cabin. This was something she liked, once, even before the tournaments. ]
Yeah. I want - to see that. The river and the woods.
[ She'll follow him down there, although Noelle's in no great rush to move out of her sunny spot, either. ]
I should've believed you. The first time you told me I didn't owe you anything.
[ It would have saved them both a lot of grief. Noelle makes a funny sound, a choked half-laugh. ]
I just - knew how bad I was at being your girlfriend. Even before. I mean, I could barely hold your hand, and I didn't understand why you'd want to spend time with someone like that.
[ Noelle shakes her head. She tucks a few of her legs underneath her, preparing to stand. ]
It feels so dumb, now. Whatever.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
cw: passive suicidality
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
cw: eating disorder, vomiting, ableism, fatphobia
cw: eating disorder
cw: eating disorder, self-harm, ableism
cw: eating disorder, ableism, self-harm, dehumanization
cw: eating disorder, ableism, dehumanization, suicide
(no subject)
cw: eating disorder
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
cw: suicide mention
cw: minor self-harm
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
cw: eating disorder, ableism, fetishization
cw: eating disorder, ableism
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
cw: minor self harm; body horror