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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. |
no subject
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'.
cw: ableism
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?
cw: passive acceptance of death
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?
cw: acceptance of death
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. ]
no subject
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.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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. ]
cw: prison brutality
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. ]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
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.
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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?
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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. ]
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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?
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cw: body horror, ableism
cw: body horror, ableism, emeto, minor character death
cw: body horror, ableism, emeto, minor character death
cw: self-harm
cw: self-harm
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cw: ableism
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cw: passive suicidality
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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
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cw: eating disorder
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cw: suicide mention
cw: minor self-harm
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cw: eating disorder, ableism, fetishization
cw: eating disorder, ableism
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cw: minor self harm; body horror