etrayamemes | TDM 001

Entry tags:

!tdm

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:

Learn someone's biggest secret

Get into a fight

Tell someone something that you've never admitted out loud to

Throw a drink on someone

Win a game of pool in the apartment building's recreation room

Cheat on a card game without getting caught

Hug a new friend

Get stabbed

Steal something important to someone

Pull off an elaborate prank on a stranger

⏵ 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.

⏵ OOC ⏴
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.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ They've built a cavernous hospital room, just for Noelle. They've given her a little communication device. How kind of them.

The last time Noelle tried to leave a place like this, it went horribly wrong. This time, she fills out the stupid bio, uploads an out of focus picture of her ragged face, and swipes until she gets bored.

She doesn't get bored. Instead, one of Noelle's many hearts drops into one of her many stomachs. ]

you survived

[ Krouse only had one heart. He hasn't heard from it since the world burned it out of his chest with one last, terrible star.

If he was holding anything, he would have dropped it. Could have done something with the sound of a thud or glass shattering. But all that he has is a floating picture of a face he never thought he'd see again while he was awake, two words burned into the air underneath it.

It can't be her. It's not her. It's some hideous fucking joke at his expense, like a hundred other fucking jokes.

He didn't even have a picture of her. She always hated having her picture taken, even before. They wouldn't have let him keep one even if he had it. He can't stop looking at this one, the soft blur of shoddy focus smoothing out the detailed of her cracked lips and hollow eyes. The burn over his eyes does the rest, until it's barely a shadow of her face cast on a dark wall. ]

whatever game this is supposed to be, i'm not fucking playing

who is this

[ He doesn't get it. Idiotic of Noelle to assume that he would.

She wants to scream, to tear down the walls of this newest cage. Fuck its natural light and its stupid comms device. It doesn't even run Doom.

The fact that Noelle is able to hold back is the first win she's had in a while. Not that it matters, when Noelle has long understood that her two options are places like this, or not being alive at all.

Who is she? That's not something Noelle can answer. Like an old save file, something overwrote the person called Noelle Meinhardt a long time ago. ]

sorry. you've been through enough

i'll leave you alone

[ Only one person bothered to tell Krouse she was sorry, after. He hadn't taken it well. But as much as he hated her - hated fucking all of them - he doesn't think she'd do this.

There had been this other game he used to play by himself, early on. It didn't have a name. It was just something he did when he couldn't convince himself to sleep otherwise. The game was, he'd tell himself that nothing that was happening was real. It was all just some messed up dream, and as soon as he went to sleep in it, he'd wake up to weak December sunshine through the frost on his window. He'd think about what a fucked up dream that had been, for a minute, and then he'd forget all about it.

He stopped needing it when he started being tired enough to sleep anywhere, any time, dropping into fitful spells of a few hours here and there to keep him going. There was never enough time to work himself back into true insomnia.

He'd started playing it again in solitary, before the trial. Sometimes, at the lagging end of a conditioning session wearing off, when sleep wouldn't come with the docile obedience he'd been promised, he'd still do it.

Sometimes, if he was lucky, he'd dream about her. ]

wait

[ It's not her. It's not. He knows it's not. ]

what build was i going to use for the tournament

[ It'd be easy for Noelle to instantly answer that message.

Once it became clear that she was forgetting things, like the taste of pizza or her mother's face or the reason why she was sitting in the mangled limbs of a newly-dead animal, Noelle began fiercely protecting the memories she had left. She used to replay them to herself, in each bedroom that became a warehouse that became a cage. Mars, buying Noelle a donut at the coffee shop, happy to look after her and never making a big deal of it, not ever. Oliver, studying with her for history, even though neither of them really cared or were any good at it. And, most importantly, the tournaments. Every tournament, meticulously catalogued, the prize of her collection, the few times she ever felt good about herself.

Krouse could be talking about any number of tournaments, but Noelle isn't stupid. The tournament is always the last one.

It's a while before Noelle responds, not because she doesn't remember, but because she knows answering will only hurt them both. That's all Noelle ever does anymore. Hurt people. That's why she has to stay locked away, forever. ]

you were practicing with an illusion subtlety assassin hybrid class. your plan was to lie low in the beginning. invade the dungeon and bank on the fact they'd deal with the rest of us first. but you'd make a play using your magic in endgame. cody gave you shit for it but it was a decent strategy. didn't really play to the rest of the team's strengths but it's good to have a trump card no one expects

it would have been cool to see it

[ There's only a handful of people anywhere who'd even heard the strategy. There's only one who would have cared enough to remember.

Krouse sinks into a crouch, wrapping his arms around his knees and hiding his face inside of their shelter like a little kid. His breath comes in a wet, torn rush, the hitch of a sob threatening to spill over into a wave of them. He doesn't let it.

He's not even sad. He's too much, a tidal wave of impossible feelings. Months of thinking about her every single fucking day, about the vast span and depth of the ways he'd fucked up. All the ways he'd let her down, right up until the fucking end.

He'd promised he'd be with her. He owed her that much, and he couldn't even get that right.

All the things he wanted to tell her - every useless fucking apology, every worthless confession - tangle up in a hard and bitter knot in his throat. He wishes he could choke on it.

Krouse flicks the transmission channel to voice before he can tell himself that he should shut the fuck up and leave her alone. There's nothing he could possibly say to her that she'd want to hear.

But he wants to hear her again. He wants to see her more than he wants anything else, and if there's one thing he knows about himself now, it's that he's always been a selfish fuck. ]

Noelle?

[ It's only been a couple hours at most, for Noelle, since she last saw Krouse. Before finding his profile, she hadn't been thinking about him much. Not because she didn't want to, or didn't care. She just hadn't gotten there yet.

She could have forced her way through the regenerating rock, given enough time. Mars could have helped. She was always so good at playing support classes, even though Krouse liked to cut down her skills. She always made sure Noelle ate.

Marissa always looked so pretty in the light of the sun.

Noelle hears the voice of the only person who still calls her by that name. Somewhere, in whatever is left of her mind, a dam breaks. Emotion rushes in, and this time, it's all hers.

When Noelle screams, it only comes from the mouth in her upper half. She lets out wordless howl after howl. Occasionally, it coalesces into something like syllables: no, help, why. She screams until her throat hurts, and then she rips a pillow off the bed, buries her face in it, and screams some more. When she pulls away, it's stained with spit.

Krouse is still on the line. Once she quiets down, Noelle switches to audio, not because she wants to, but because that's what you're supposed to do. Instinct guides her, like it always has. ]

Hey, Krouse.

[ Noelle's voice comes out hoarse and ragged, sandpaper scraping over a rock. She still can't bring herself to confirm or deny that it's her. Krouse will recognize the voice anyway. ]

[ The wait is interminable. Krouse stays huddled throughout, dropping his weight to the ground to sit with the crushing pressure looped around his ribs. Her face keeps floating in front of him, inert and unresponsive, and he starts convincing himself that this is it. He's finally lost it. Gone cracked and dissociative, peeled off into a parallel unreality constructed out of the broken pieces of the mind that used to be his. He's seen it happen to some of the others. There were times he wanted to ask Teacher if he could make it happen faster. Lever his power into the fragile seams of Krouse's brain and wrench something apart for good, disconnect him from everything that made him think or made him feel.

But that was never going to happen on purpose. Krouse is too useful as he is. His higher functions need to be preserved. And maybe it isn't even Teacher who does it. Maybe it's just that fucking place, and the things that happen to get you there. The things that happen to you in it.

He's halfway there when she breaks through, ugly and raw. ]

Oh, fuck.

[ Krouse jams his palm across his mouth and bites into the heel, muffling the snapped off noise that followed that creaking whisper. He screws his eyes shut and presses them into the hard caps of his knees until it hurts worse. ]

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck -

[ A mumbled litany against the skin of his hand until he pulls it away, lurching half out of his miserable curl. His eyes snap open as he straightens his spine, flashbang clarity burning through the deadening numbness of conditioning.

Noelle's here. He doesn't understand how. He doesn't fucking care how. Her wrecked little voice said his name, and there's nothing else that matters. ]

I missed you. Fuck, I - I fucking missed you. So fucking much, No'.

Edited 2024-02-24 20:02 (UTC)

[ There's Krouse's voice, again. He doesn't sound too good. A memory bubbles up in the sea of Noelle's consciousness. Not in the way that her power used to show her things, like an unskippable cutscene. More like how normal people hear things, and then think about things that remind them of what they heard. Probably. Normal people are so far from Noelle's situation that she doesn't quite remember what life is like for them.

It's another memory of their last tournament. Krouse hands her a laptop worth two thousand dollars. He says it's a gift, and even though they're in a room full of people, the look on his face is just for her. He's never that earnest with anybody else. Noelle takes the machine, but she doesn't know how to thank him, never knows what to fucking say, doesn't know how to be in a relationship. And Krouse doesn't know, either. He has no idea how sick she is.

So she hugs him instead, and she still doesn't really like how it feels, but maybe, with practice, it could get better.

They never practice, and she never gets better.

That's neither here nor there. Noelle has to, as always, fucking snap out of it. So that's what she does, and she does it by listening, by searching for the puzzle pieces embedded in Krouse's sorry speech, and putting together what she finds.

He missed her. He says it like it hurts. That's not something you say after a few hours of being apart. Krouse never talked like that after missions. Sometimes those took days. ]

How long has it been?

[ There are two answers to that question. Noelle will want the practical one. She doesn't need to hear him say, sick and sorry, forever.

But it's forever, because once you're in forever, it doesn't really matter how long you've been there. He's missed her like this since they told him. He'd have missed her like this until the day he died, which he at least knew would come sooner rather than later. Everyone on the same ticking clock, with most of them just not lucky enough to know about it.

That's why the offer made here didn't come as a surprise. It's why he didn't care about it. His world had already ended. Why should he care about anyone else's?

And maybe that's exactly why she's here. Krouse doesn't believe in good things happening anymore. But he can believe in the concept of leverage, the way he's broken underneath it.

He wipes his nose with the back of his hand and sucks in a hard breath, then pushes up to his feet. His limbs feel loose and electric as he rolls back his shoulders and tightens the tie of his sleeves around his waist. ]

A few months. [ He tells her, quietly, tamping down the rasp of his voice. ] Where are you?

[ He's lasted a few months. That's good. It sounds like those few months haven't been easy on him, but then again, neither have the past two years.

Noelle could fantasize about the life that Krouse could have, after. He wouldn't have to look after anyone anymore. Probably wouldn't even have to move around so much. She pictures him in a public park, smoking, looking at ducks. It's a stupid fantasy, and has nothing to do with how warm and wet her eyes feel.

Krouse asks Noelle where she is like he doesn't know. Like there isn't only one place she's ever been since the Simurgh. Noelle looks around at the several beds that have been crushed under her bulk, at the knocked-over stands for blood bags, at the trays that could hold some pills and perhaps a little cup of applesauce. ]

The hospital.

[ The rasp is starting to fade from Noelle's voice, replaced instead by a pronounced hollowness. ]

It happened. Mars did it. If - if you don't want to come back, I get it. It was nice to hear that you're okay.

[ After all, what's even left for him to see? She made her play. She gave herself over to her power, and she still failed. ]

[ Of course it's the fucking hospital.

Krouse stares at the ground in front of his feet as he twists his hands into the rough fabric of his sleeves. He counts out three seconds, one after another, before he opens his mouth to speak. ]

Noelle.

[ He's grateful for the veil of residual calm Teacher gave him. Grateful for the opportunities he's had to clarify and refine his focus on who did what, and when, and to who. He's grateful he'll never fucking see Marissa again, so he can put her as far from his mind as possible. ]

I'm coming to see you.

[ Krouse doesn't blame her for thinking he wouldn't. How could he? When did he ever do enough to make her believe anything else? Hadn't he almost wavered when it counted the most?

He's thought about that a lot. He can play it over in his mind a hundred different ways, trying to remember the exact inflection of what he said, the specifics of what he'd been thinking. Sometimes he thinks he never could have made another decision, that all he needed was an excuse to do what he'd planned to do as soon as they pulled together one last time. Sometimes he thinks she could tell he almost faltered. Sometimes he's sure that's why she left him behind.

He's always sure he deserved it. ]

I want - [ his voice cracks, a little ] I want to see you. Please.

[ Why? What on earth is there for him to see? He doesn't even look at her when he steps into a room anymore. Noelle has told him so too many times.

But if he doesn't come and see her, then she'll be alone again. It'll be just like Coil's vault, except this time, she gets the dignity of some quiet. ]

Okay.

[ Should she tell him? How badly she wants someone to visit her? How, if that someone stepped through the door and waved, like she wasn't a monster, like she didn't just destroy a city, but instead like they wanted to see her, she'd probably start crying? And it'd be the good kind of tears, and she'd feel good, and she hasn't felt good for months and months and months.

The last time she tried to say that to anyone, it'd hadn't come out right. She wound up banging on the door one too many times, and so their boss put a collar around her, and Noelle practiced shutting the fuck up. She was halfway decent at it, too. For a little while.

No, saying all that is too dangerous. It would be a mistake. Instead, she chokes out something smaller, something quiet. ]

Thanks.

[ With that, Noelle waits, the great mass of her slumped and writhing in a ruined hospital room meant to fit dozens of people, a hospital room that only barely fits her. ]

[ Thanks. Like Krouse is doing her a favour. Like he wouldn't have done anything for one last chance at this, if he'd even imagined it'd be possible. ]

I'll see you soon.

[ No you're welcome. Just that promise, one he can actually keep for her. Krouse mutes himself, but leaves the channel open, the connection live. He doesn't need the extra motivation of seeing her picture to propel him out the door and down the stairs, but he doesn't want to let it go either, as if this invisible tether somehow keeps her real.

He doesn't know where she is in the hospital, but there are only so many places it could be. Drawing up a systematic overlay in his head is easy. That's not his borrowed tinker ability at work, limited as it is to communication devices, but an old skill of his own.

Krouse hunts down an operating theatre and a maternity ward first on the ground floor, urgency growing at both empty rooms. He wants to flick off mute and double check that she's still there, that she's sure of where she is, if she can tell him anything about the room - but something keeps him quiet. Intuition or superstition. If he tries to talk to her again before he sees her, and she doesn't answer -

He finds her before he can let himself think about it.

Krouse stands in the doorway, framed by the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital hallway. The smell of disinfectant mingles with the hot animal smell of Noelle's body, antiseptic and organic combined into a cocktail that used to make him nauseous. He adjusted. His body still remembers how to breathe.

Every time he saw her in the last months, the worst ones, all he'd ever been able to think about was how guilty he was. It was reflected back at him in every one of her eyes, even when she tried to act like she didn't hate him for it. He'd never been happy to see her. He should have been so happy to see her.

He's happy now. Happy in the worst way, a huge, resounding pulse of grief and joy and relief running from the crown of his head to the ends of his fingers through his thudding heart. He realizes, looking at her, that he'd stepped through every door since he lost her wanting her to be in the next room.

Krouse smiles, crumpled and wet as new butterfly wings. He blinks away the still image of her face and looks at her real one. It's the best thing he's ever seen in his life. ]

Hey, Noelle.

[ Noelle doesn't close the connection, nor does she mute herself. That means Krouse can almost certainly hear her breathe, mouth after mouth wheezing enough to support the rest of her.

As she waits, she watches the door. The robot-hologram-thing made it clear that the door wasn't locked. She could leave at any time. But the idea of setting so much as a tendril outside fills Noelle with white-hot panic. Her body remembers what it felt like to burn, and Noelle doesn't especially feel like arguing with it on that front.

The door opens. The lungs in Noelle's upper half still.

She still looks more or less the way she did before she ran off to pursue the Undersiders. The main differences are in her upper half. The skin in Noelle's face is more pockmarked, the telltale wavy, reddish texture of a healed burn. The skin on her arms, too, is redder and rawer, with scars tracing the place where her arms were once fused to her torso. The skin still sags and flaps in places, presumably from where she'd torn those arms free. Her eyes are still two hollow pits in her face; the bones in her upper half are still too prominent.

Noelle smells Krouse long before she sees him. It still doesn't prepare her for seeing him.

Krouse doesn't wave, but there's a look on his worn face Noelle hasn't seen since a coffee shop in Madison. It's not the exact same look - Krouse is too old for that and has seen too much - but it's close enough that Noelle nearly expects a salute. Captain Noelle, ma'am! And she'd told him to stop, that she was embarrassed, because she didn't know how good either of them had it. Not the best, maybe, but still good.

There is no accusation in any of her eyes. The face in her upper half crumples. Her lower half relaxes, then slows, then stills. The bovine heads look nearly peaceful, the canine nearly happy. The eyes in her upper half are warm and wet and overflowing.

Nobody has wanted to see Noelle in so long.

For once, she doesn't tell him to look away. ]

I missed you, too.

[ Krouse steps inside, careless of the door that doesn't close all the way behind him. The secret is out. Whoever brought her here knows all about Noelle already. He's not thinking about that yet.

She looks better than she did when he last saw her. No gaping wounds, no residue of char, no wild, whirling panicked rage. It's still awful, seeing what they did to her embedded in all of those scars. So little about her is like the Noelle he knew two worlds and a different life ago. Her upper half, now so much less than half, almost matches the lower.

But scars are what you get by surviving. If either of them had known that, back then, maybe they could have done something different.

He wishes he had some too. He wishes they'd fucked him up like they fucked her up, so when he walked closer he'd have something to show for the time since besides cropped hair and darker circles under his eyes.

She says she missed him, too, and maybe he doesn't need any of that for her to see it anyway. He couldn't stop his eyes from welling up if he tried, and he's not trying. The only reason he blinks is because he doesn't want to stop looking at her eyes, warmer than he's seen them since the rest stop.

Krouse stops close enough that he could reach out to touch her. Not her hands or her face, but the tangled coils of her amorphous limbs, lying still and peaceful on speckled hospital linoleum. She swallowed him up and spit him out once already. There's nothing left to be afraid of. ]

I'm sorry. [ He says, tilted up like the shock of a laugh after something terrible almost happened - ice cracking when you're too far out, but not enough to drop you; a car rushing a corner that misses by inches. ] I didn't mean to make you wait.

[ Krouse is close enough to feel Noelle's warm breath on his skin, hear the squelch of mucous-slick organs pulsing in time against one another. From here, Noelle can get a better view of his eyes. If Krouse thinks he doesn't have scars, he's wrong. His gaze isn't quite as intense as it used to be. He must be so exhausted, Noelle reasons. She wasn't the only one with a collar around her neck. Krouse's was just more difficult to see. ]

It's okay. [ Noelle says, surprised at the relief in her own voice, surprised that she believes it. ] I had to get my bearings.

[ That's a funny way of saying sob for Marissa and Oliver and Jess and Luke - and Cody, even, why the hell not. Her killers, her best friends, people she'll never see again. Noelle remembers the portal, and she still hopes they're safe, wherever they are.

Noelle keeps looking down at Krouse. It's just the two of them, again. Whether or not they're against the world is something for the world to decide.

A smooth, green tentacle uncurls itself from the base of Noelle's body. It reaches for Krouse, slowly, tentatively. It stops before it can touch him. Krouse has asked for permission like this so many times, albeit with different limbs. Noelle is pretty sure he knows what she's about to say before she says it. ]

Can I?

[ A more confident person would leave it at that. But even though Krouse is happy to see her now, Noelle still remembers all the guilt and horror. She won't ever be able to forget. ]

I - I won't absorb you. I'll take care of the clones. I know it's a risk, but -

[ Noelle cuts herself off there. She swallows, and lets Krouse make his choice. ]

[ Every version of Noelle that he imagined who knew any of the things he's done has hated him more than she ever did before. The times he tried to picture apologizing to her, she never forgave him. The only Noelles who could stand him were the ones none of this had happened to yet - the ones he hadn't happened to yet. Imagining them had been the worst of all, every fitful dream waking him slicked in sweat and guilt.

He would never have dreamed of this. She hasn't even touched him, and his chest fizzes and pops like how she used to talk about her power, before she couldn't stand talking about it. ]

Yes.

[ Krouse never begs. If anyone ever keeps something from him that he wants, or that he needs, he retreats into confidence, playing it off like he's got something tucked up his sleeve for just the occasion.

She's offering this to him freely, and his voice is pinned soft to the back of his throat, the sharp planes of his face made vulnerable by the naked appeal shining out of his dark eyes. His mouth trembles, half-parted, and he doesn't force it set. ]

Please. [ He shifts closer, no more than an inch or two, his whole body leaning towards her like water tugged by the moon. ] It's okay. I trust you.

[ To do anything she wants with him. Whatever she wants from him. He's only ever wanted to give her anything she could ever ask him for. ]

[ I trust you. Noelle hasn't even touched Krouse yet, and she already knows she holds his life in her hands. At this point, anything left to say is stuck in Noelle's throat, so she just nods.

One tentacle winds its way around Krouse's waist, but does not squeeze especially hard. Another snakes up his spine, like a stake supporting a baby tree. All the eyes in Noelle's lower half are trained on him, focusing intently on the finest motor skills Noelle has ever demanded of this part of her body.

Once she's confident Krouse will be comfortably supported, she lifts him up, then sets him in the palm of a large, clawed, scaly hand. It looks like it belongs to a cross between a bird and a primate. Noelle picked it because it's neither slimy or sharp.

She raises the hand, still carrying Krouse, up until it is level with her upper half. Krouse wouldn't have seen this part of her body this close up for a long, long time. There was always too much flesh in the way. Here, Krouse can see the warm brown of her eyes, the lines and pockmarks in her skin, the tiny freckles on her nose. She's still crying, and Krouse will be able to see that too.

He doesn't get that long to look before Noelle throws her human arms over his shoulders and pulls him close. ]

[ Krouse wasn't good at being touched. Too self-conscious and too rigid, always second guessing how he held himself in relation to anyone else who got close enough to try it. There must have been a time when he was pliant, but those childhood memories were fuzzy and unmappable.

He had to learn how to be handled as he passed through a series of blindfolds and restraints, dependent on the guidance of prison guards at his elbows every time they took him out of his windowless cell. He knows how to let himself be moved, when and where to relax in anticipation of pressure and force. Giving himself over to the mechanization of the group had been easier because of it, an extension of a principle.

It's different with Noelle. He doesn't have to convince himself to untense, the only feeling he gets when her tentacle slips up his back that of aching relief. The memory of a tentacle, even maybe this one, coiling around him and dragging him in doesn't seem to have anything to do with this gentleness.

The last person who was gentle with him was Noelle. She'll still be the last one. He's as grateful for that as he is for the gentleness at all, the ache an almost feverish warmth in his chest.

Perched in her palm, he can see every shade of brown in her glossy irises. There are so many more than he remembered. He wants to count them, one by one, until he can't forget.

And somehow he's still surprised when she pulls him in closer. It's the first time he locks up, startled awkward all over again, and then he stops thinking. He throws himself into the hug like she's pulled him freezing and breathless out of deep water, his arms looping tight around her back as he buries his face in the crook of her neck, in the soft fall of her hair, in the warm and present closeness of her pulse. His hand fumbles up to the back of her head, cradling her like the fragile and perfect thing she is.

When he starts crying again, he doesn't try to stop. It'd be like trying to stop breathing, choking off something vital and irrepressible. He gives himself over to it as recklessly as he gave himself over to her touch, and it's quiet all the same, exhausted little shudders heaving his shoulders as he dissolves into nothing but this moment. ]

[ Krouse's touch is like a meal for a starving person. Important, necessary, needed. Too much. It makes Noelle's skin buzz and her stomach churn, but those are both sensations she's long since grown used to. She won't let go.

Noelle buries her face into Krouse's newly-cropped hair, weaves her fingers into the fabric of his tank top. The first sob comes when Krouse cradles the back of her head, a place that hasn't been touched in two years. It sends a shudder down her shoulders, and when the tears come, she doesn't bother keeping them quiet. Krouse has seen Noelle destroy a city for nothing but grief and rage. He can stomach hearing her cry.

She holds Krouse like that for a while. In places like this - hospital rooms, prison cells, places to hold and store monsters - it doesn't really matter how long it is. Time is a luxury for other people. Noelle has more tears to get out, and eventually, those tears turn into words. ]

Should've done this sooner. Or told you why I couldn't. [ Her breath hitches; she keeps going. ] Didn't want things to get - [ A sob threatens to turn into a cold, choked burst of laughter. Noelle lets it. ] - weird. Fuck.

[ It's not that she's saying this to Krouse. It's more like: someone is here, and maybe they'll listen, and maybe Noelle will finally be understood. She'd like that, after everything. ]

[ Krouse has heard Noelle cry in every way a person can cry - stifled whimpers, howling grief, these heartbroken, wracking sobs - but he's never felt it. He's never been able to hold her through it, anchoring the unsteady rhythm of her hitching chest inside the circle of his arms as her tears soak into his hair.

He's wanted this. He would have done it any time she asked, pushing through the curdling clot of his fear for her sake, and to hell with the consequences. So hearing her say that she should've let him should be some kind of vindication, however bittersweet, that he wasn't wrong for wanting it.

Krouse shakes his head blindly, stomach twisting up with a spurt of acidic guilt. ]

Why would you have told me? [ He murmurs, thickly. ] I didn't - I didn't let you tell me. I didn't let you tell me anything.

[ He'd thought he did. He'd sat there with her as she ran through every ugly thought and every awful feeling, soaking them up like penance, and he'd taken every word to heart. But he hadn't let himself understand. Maybe he couldn't have understood until he was the one locked up in a room he couldn't get out of, with nothing but his monstrosity to keep him company, every eye turned on him full of revulsion he could feel even when he couldn't see it. But that'd just be another excuse, and he's past making excuses to her. ]

I should've listened to you. [ He says, even quieter, a broken and too-late confession. ] I'm so sorry, No'. I fucked up. I fucked everything up.

[ The vial wasn't really a vial. Not for Noelle. It was a little paper cup, with flowers on it. Small, easy to hold, just large enough to use it to swallow a pill or two. Krouse had to help her drink. It hurt too much to hold. Noelle still remembers. He laid his fingers over hers, tipped the cup up, and nobody else had touched her that gently since.

If it happens, he'd said, blame me. ]

Wasn't just you.

[ Noelle murmurs into his hair. It would hurt him too much to agree, hurt him too much to disagree, so there's the truth instead. ]

The rest of them didn't let me tell them, either. Didn't even want to look at me. Too busy remembering somebody else.

[ Noelle's tears slow. Her voice drops, and a little bit of that old hollowness starts to creep in. She lets her forehead rest against the top of Krouse's head, and she closes her eyes, like that even matters anymore. ]

There was a portal. I think Tattletale made it. I don't know. They had to kill me before she was going to let them use it. I hope they made it home, and then - then they'll never have to see me again.

[ When did they draw the line between the old Noelle and the Noelle she changed into? There never was a point where they looked at each other and said it. They never talked about any of it, not really. Half-finished sentences, the starts of discussions no one could bring themselves to see through.

But they did it. Even Krouse did it. You have her memories, nothing more. It doesn't matter what he was trying to convince himself of. The things someone wants to believe say as much about them as the things they really do.

He knows the difference between feeling like she was gone and actually losing her now. He never thought it'd matter. With Noelle's scratchy, hollow voice at his ear, nothing else seems like it ever could've mattered. His heart finds a new way to break, another tiny fracture in a kaleidoscopic cobweb of them.

They were supposed to be her friends. Her teammates. He was supposed to take care of her. He was supposed to make her happy. ]

They got home. [ The hollowness is catching. It echoes with regret, the complicated barbs of guilt. ] Everybody else.

[ Another promise he didn't keep. He didn't have a thing to do with it. And maybe he should take after Noelle, and find it in his heart to forgive them for what they had to do to make it out, but he's never been as good of a person as she is. The best he can do is not tell her what he thinks about it.

Krouse strokes her hair, readjusting how they're aligned. The part of her he's holding onto is still small enough to make him want to hide her, but he stops at evening them out, each of them holding each other up. ]

I'm still happy to see you. [ Earnestness cracks through the shell that threatened to envelop him. He can't help it. Doesn't want to help it. ] I know, I shouldn't - I don't deserve to be. But - I thought about you. I thought about you all the fucking time. And I know I can't fix it, but - I'm here. For whatever you want. Anything.

[ It's when Krouse's fingers run down Noelle's hair that she finally shudders, and that loosens up one final, choked sob. Every instinct demands that Noelle curl up in response to his touch, not because she wants him to stop, but because she still wants, after everything, to be less. It's a complete fantasy, when Noelle now takes up more space than even entire rooms will allow.

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. ]

matchmaker

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cw: ableism

cw: passive acceptance of death

cw: acceptance of death

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cw: prison brutality

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cw: ableism