snowblindrpg | Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

[ Sometimes it’s best to lie still and dissociate from everything, letting the conversations and whimpers turn into auditory soup. Because talking and thinking and interacting will make him confront what he’s done, willing or no. It’s almost worse not knowing.

His spell of lying on the ground and focusing at a wall is interrupted by the noise coming from the next cell. The sick crunch.

He’d been so happy, knowing at least their cells were close.

Shapes rush by his enclosement, motion jerking him to attention. Motion, fear, and Beckett’s pained voice. Beckett’s pain. God.

Rhys shoved himself up immediately and pushes himself at the separating wall, scratching with flesh and robot fingers at an impassible barrier. ]

What are you doing, what are you doing?!!

[ Angel doesn't hear either of them, for obvious reasons. She isn't out for long, though - the static people are remarkably efficient, and by the time they leave the only sign anything happened at all is the mess in the bathroom and the dried blood making her hair tangle awkwardly around her ports.

It takes a moment, as she stirs, for her to take in the scrabbling from the cell next door and the broken figure crawling at the entrance. One hand wipes the blood from her nose, and the other splaps lightly at the wall between her and Rhys. ]

'M okay. It's f-fine. Beckett...

[ Because of course she's more concerned about him than by anything she just tried to do to herself. Why wouldn't she be. ]

[From the other side of the bathroom comes the thudding of a fist pounding at the wall there. Enoch's gotten up on his toilet's tank and is doing his best to try to get through to the neighboring cell. All he's doing is bruising his hand.]

Angel!? That didn't sound fi- Beckett?

[Oh no. That crunch was the worst sound, first of all, but second Beckett was here and he sounded awful. What if he made him sound this way? What if it was Angel or Rhys? The pounding stops as Enoch sinks against the wall.

Why are Angel and Beckett hurting while he can do nothing but listen? Why is the chance it was his fault- or any of theirs - all too real?]

By "fine", I hope you mean-...really, truly fine. Mostly unharmed.

[Oh look, the gang's all here. Beckett hauls himself up to a sitting position - those tend to be the least painful, at least while he doesn't attempt to straighten his back - and looks, still dazed, between his companions in their cells. Should've known, of course, and for a moment red drifts down over his vision. A fury so acute it drowns out the pain.

He can barely move, but he snarls, a rumbling beastly sound. He spits out a mouthful of blood and runs a tongue over his broken teeth. Speaking is going to hurt, but by God he has a thing or two to say.]

Listen - listen to me. Don't do anything. Don't. Best - best you can do is refuse. Not responsible for - for anything they made you do. Guilt gives them power. Don't.

It wasn't just - I can handle guilt!

[ Sort of. If living with it even while it tears you into shreds inside counts as handling it, anyway, and it totally does. ]

But I thought, if I died, I might end up back in town so I could describe this place to the others, and perhaps the admin would recognise it and get everyone out. It'd be worth-- I can still--

[ But she can't try again, not with Rhys and Enoch listening. Not with Beckett watching. She can't. Instead, she scoots forward to press herself against the barrier to her cell, as close to Beckett as she can get.

This is effed up. He's effed up. ]

I'm sorry.

[ That's for all of them, in one way or another. ]

[she hadn’t answered the question. Enoch emerges from the bathroom and makes his own hesitant way towards the front of his cell.]

Angel, that wasn’t a- Is she all right?

[even as he asks this, knowing Beckett would still be focused on Angel over himself, Enoch can’t keep his eyes from filling with visible worry, even through their red tint as he sees Beckett’s pained posture and expression. He rests a hand on his cell barrier, as if trying to reach out to him.]

...And is there anything I could do to comfort you?

Edited (Found a quick edit I could do!) 2018-04-26 23:59 (UTC)

[Beckett does not, just at the moment, have the presence of mind to comment on how Angel's situation - not able to get herself hurt in the sight of those she loves - is a familiar one, though odds are he'll remember. Just at the moment, though, the full power of his disrupted concentration goes to speaking clearly and loudly enough to give Enoch a status report:]

Fine. She's - they won't let her - hurt herself. I'm, I'm fine. Just pain. Means nothing. Had worse.

[He's so confident about it. There's even an edge of contempt there, as if physical torture of this sort is beneath his notice. And it is. He will not be toyed with this easily.

He reaches right across the barrier and takes hold of Angel's hand.]

Can't. You can't. Don't die. This'll pass. Always passes. [His hand is weak and shaking, but he forces a squeeze.] Just pain.

[ Rhys has been scrabbling against the wall all the while, though the efforts weaken when he hears that Beckett has her, has her stable as she can be. One nail is cracked and torn from the bed, leaving a thin bloody trail as he lightly scratches the barrier. ]

You always -- you always say that. Beckett. You -- you do.

[ He curls his hand back into a fist and drives his knuckles into the barrier, pushing until they go white. ]

Can you stay with her? Can you stay with her?

[ Because there's that uncomfortable implication hanging between them all. ]

[ For a moment - just the briefest of wee baby momentlets when Beckett's hand crosses the barrier - Angel considers asking him to help her with a second attempt. It'd be quieter, less messy, and maybe they'd be quicker than the static things this time --

But then there's hand-holding and people are fussing and Beckett is straight-up telling her not to die and uhghghgh. She gives his hand a squeeze in return, then turns her head to look back at the blood splatter in the bathroom. ]

I don't need anyone to stay with me, I'm fine.

[ Especially if she is potentially responsible for Beckett's current state. Because yeah, Rhys. Uncomfortable. ]

[Enoch sinks down into the corner where he’s closest to the others, cradling his bruised hand. She’s safe. But he can’t easily forget the way she reassured him before surrendering herself to the pit. Leaning into that corner, as close as he can be, he’s still utterly helpless. He’s so tired of losing people he loves.]

You might not need it, but...do you not want him to stay?

[Beckett can hardly move, as well. If he can be encouraged to stay, to not strain himself...]

[Does he always say that? In the current edge of delirium, everything they say - about what he says, about whether he can stay, Angel saying she's fine, Enoch asking - swirls around in Beckett's mind and settles in quite the wrong shape. He gets an implication all right. He makes a choked-off sound of distress.]

Damn you, I'll stay. Didn't want to leave. Had to. I had to. [His fingers twist into frail claws around Angel's hand.] You understand. If death was the way out - you understand.

If you can, if you can. Beckett, only if you really can.

[ The distress is a white-hot jolt of shame, burning within. The kind that makes him wonder if damaging his port directly would act faster than static-figure intervention. A direct line to the brain is just oh-so-convenient.

But he can't.

It's not the way out.

He scoots back, fist still clenched 'til it shakes. ]

I'll stay back, I'll shut up. Anything that helps.

I think... we're all getting some wires crossed.

[ And that's fine. It's good, even, because uncrossing them is a Constructive Thing That She Can Do. Maybe. She places her other hand over Beckett's, to reassure herself as much as him, and takes a breath. ]

Beckett. Do you know if - if it was any of us that did this to you? Or do either of you remember anything? I know I don't, but...

[ The last part is obviously directed and Enoch and Rhys. Sure, she might not remember - but different people have different reactions to drugs, don't they? So maybe it didn't blank out everything for them. Yeah. ]

I remember nothing.

[He flinches at the sound of distress in Beckett's voice, but his words tell him the same thing they told Angel - he's thinking of the wrong instance of not staying. And while Enoch would love to talk about that, that's not what's at stake here. And he knows talking about the facts is something that will be good for Beckett, too. This is how he focuses. (And, judging by his conversation with Angel earlier, how he does, too...)]

Nobody seems to remember any- even the victims can't remember faces or marking patterns.

Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

hope it’s okay to have a helpless interloper too

we're ALL helpless here,

it's the family reunion nobody wanted!

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ZAE TOLD ME TO SKIP HER THIS ROUND SO I DID

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cw fingernail gore

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cw suicidal ideation

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