I, I can't keep these memories out of my mind, and some kind of madness has started to evolve...

[wrathfulkhan]

Characters: Gene, Jackie, Peridot, Alex, and Miles...as well as whoever's unlucky enough to bump into 'em.
Date: February 8-12
Location: Throughout Keeliai
Situation: Memory share, event, which means...[shadow the hedgehog voice] DON'T TOUCH IT!
Warnings/Rating: Child abuse, gore, torture, mayhem, substance abuse, fringe science, brutal murder, and SPAAAAACE.

A. [Gene] | Jade Dojo | closed to Bakura
The dojo was still in disrepair after the hurricane, so Gene had gone out to his workplace (well, one of them) to help put things back together.

"Hey," he says as he walks up. He looks a little shaken.

B. [Gene] Sky Sector | closed to Raine
Gene likes Raine, and he hasn't seen her in a while, so when he sees her in the park, he actually grins and waves. Most un-Gene-like behavior, but he does consider her to be one of his closest friends. "Raine!" Because goddamn, but he needs a friend right now.

C. [Jackie] the Golden Koi | closed to Brigid
Brigid had been coming to see him when he closed up the bar sometimes, and so every night when he was wiping down the bar and cleaning glasses he kept an eye out for her. Sometimes her duties at the shelter kept her from coming, but sometimes they didn't.

D. [Jackie] Sky Sector | closed to Valdis
Sometimes all Jackie could do was laugh a little when he remembered that he was friends with a bunch of cops. He never would have thought it possible before. But at least when he sees Valdis, he's able to put the disturbing memory he relived the previous night - and all the baggage of the one he got in return - out of his mind.

E. [Jackie] Fire Sector | closed to Danny
Okay, Jackie's relived that twice. He would rather not do that again. Living through it once - and, well, not really living through it - was bad enough. So he's walking down the street with his hands jammed in his pockets, trying to give everyone a wide berth. Not touching people means that there's not going to be any accidental whatever-the-fuck, right?

F. [Jackie] Water Sector | closed to Raine
Over the course of about two days, Jackie is starting to look a little unhinged. Well, depressed/terrified/deeply traumatized, but wouldn't you be if you had to relive your own death over and over? That's why he's so glad to see Raine.

"Oh, man, Raine," he says. "Please tell me you know how to make this shit stop."

G. [Peridot] Substitute 221B | closed to Conan
Oof, sometimes Peridot regretted deciding to keep this house. She was beginning to think the house wasn't hers at all!

Mostly because of the Conan. What a pain! At least the Steven had been nice. The Conan was just...well, a brat! He's not very gneiss.

And speak of the...annoying human child...there he is now. "What do you want?"

H. [Peridot] Water Sector | closed to Elizabeth
Ugh. Stupid Conan.

Peridot's fuming, kicking small rocks as she walks down the street. She's also muttering to herself. The little angry slice of pie is in what is almost a cartoonishly bad temper.

I. [Alex] Earth Sector | closed to Conan
Alex had gone out to go speak to some kedan as a sort of goodwill jaunt post-hurricane (as well as trying to sneakily get information. Hey, spies gotta spy.) When he turns and sees Conan nearby, he's a little surprised. "Haven't I seen you around the station before?"

J. [Alex] Fire Sector | closed to Heather
It's nice to go talk to Heather sometimes; the two of them have a tendency to dance around each other, which is something he's missed since being here. Granted, he still keeps his secrets to himself, but that's okay. Even just a little sparring is good.

"Hello, Heather. How's it going today?"

K. [Alex] Wood Sector | closed to Bakura
Okay, well, this is getting weird. (Getting, he says, as if he's used to the bullshit all over Keeliai.) Actually, he is not on board with any of this, so he's keeping as wide a berth from other people as possible. He hangs onto his secrets tightly, and if they come spilling out of his head, he's going to be so mad.

L. [Miles] Wood Sector | closed to Yorda
Everything sucks. Everything really sucks. Everything has sucked, is sucking, and will continue to suck until further notice.

Miles is really not a fan of his memories being shown off like home movies. Especially since they all seem to be from that one fucking night. Like, why? Why?! Why couldn't they be nice memories of college? Or dating Beatriz? Or hell, he'd even take Afghanistan over this. At least he didn't lose any fucking limbs in Afghanistan!

But hey, there's someone familiar. "Yorda," he says. "You doing okay?"

M. [Miles] Earth Sector | closed to Costigan
Okay, Miles is 100,000% over this whole nonsense.

And yet, the Dreaming still isn't done with him. Why would it be? Why would anything since that one stupid night in Colorado ever be easy for him? God! He's so sick of this!

Anyway, here's Wonderwall Costigan.

N. [Alex] Earth Sector | closed to Costigan
Alex has decided to keep well and truly clear of everyone and everything until this whole nonsense is over. He'd stay inside, but being cooped up would drive him even crazier.

---

The madness that's started to evolve is this MONSTER OF A CATCHALL, but if you want a starter, hit me up at Chatvert!

Comments

A.

[denyamenti]

"Hello hebnay," Bakura greeted absently. While the dojo was closed for the month, he was taking the time to decide on what things to restore and what things to upgrade. He glanced at Gene, and then again.

"Something on your mind?"

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene nodded just as absently, considering the state of the dojo. "Yeah. Made any more decisions today?"

[denyamenti]

"I'm half considering replacing all the floor," he answered. "Evidently it wasn't sealed properly, and has begun to rot out."

It was a considerable expense; although the dojo made a decent profit, the incoming funds were frequently but small, making large costs a bit more tricky. Plus, Bakura paid Valdis, Gene, and Penny on the high end of the payscale, which took up a larger-than-average share of the revenue (a worthwhile expenditure, as far as the thief was concerned, to not have to deal with students himself on a regular basis.)

i'm not sorry

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene considered that for a moment. "That'd probably be the best decision. After all, nobody wants to bust through the floor when they're trying to train." Even though that may actually happen during a real-world situation...

"Anything else on your mind, aside from business concerns?" It's probably not really his business, but hell, they were close enough for some variety of a heart-to-heart, right? Considering Gene had once given him a claw-to-heart...

of course not :P

[denyamenti]

"Aa, but it will mean the dojo will be closed longer," the thief shrugged. It wasn't that large of a blow -- given the dojo's daily open status, there was a fair amount of juulan in the metaphorical coffers for the interim. Bakura didn't really spend the money the dojo earned on anything beyond what it took to upkeep the place and for his own usage.

He glanced over at Gene at the question, sensing that the younger one was specifically looking for a specific type of answer. "Nothing that can be easily removed from it," he replied. "Why do you ask?"

i am however sorry for THE ETERNAL LATENESS

[wrathfulkhan]

"You seem preoccupied," Gene noted. "Even beyond the aftermath of the hurricane." So Gene may have been projecting a little, but Bakura did seem to be a little off in his own world, so to speak.

[denyamenti]

Gene wasn't wrong about Bakura being distracted, but he was hardly one to share details. Better to redirect instead, so he flashed Gene a wry grin.

"Not as distracted as you and Tony were while I was staying at your place," he said, and moved to give Gene a teasing swat of his shoulder. "And I thought I was getting suspicious looks before."

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene laughs a little, grateful for the subject change...well, sort of. He's about to reply with ribbing of his own when the swat lands, and...

...this isn't a one-time thing, is it.

He'd never wanted this to happen.

All he'd wanted was to fix the world, to make it right. Not this. Never this. Never this invasion of these monsters he'd never known existed outside of his childish visions and drawings, never the chaos and destruction and pain.

He'd wanted to return his mother to life and make sure that no child would ever have to endure what he endured again.

Instead, he is now the cause of more death, making more children orphans. Debris falls from the sky over New York as he and Tony and Pepper and Rhodes fight the invaders, destroying their attack ships, and there's no way they can catch everything that falls. No matter what, there's going to be collateral. It's landing on buildings, on the streets, and Gene hopes to whatever gods are listening that everyone on the ground had enough sense to get under cover and well inside the moment the Makluan mothership had appeared in the sky over lower Manhattan.

Somehow, he doubts that's the case.

Every life lost today is on his head, and he knows that. All he'd wanted was to fix the broken world. All he'd wanted was to end war and violence.

And all he'd done was make things worse than they'd ever been.

I'm sorry, Mother.

The light surrounds him, and he dissolves, not sure if he's dying.

I'm sorry.

cw: blood and body horror in the link

[denyamenti]

Bakura realizes his mistake a fraction of a second too late, and he can't take it back.

There's thunder in his dream, and he's excited to think there might be rain until he realizes it's not a storm but a roll of horses pounding across the hard packed ground. Things are already on fire when he wakes up. Mother picks him up from his bed mat and sets him behind the large storage jugs in the corner. "Stay here," she says, kissing his forehead. "Don't let anyone find you."

This isn't the first time soldiers have come to the village that he remembers; they'd taken someone away last time, someone they said killed others. Mother had told him to hide then too, fearful that they'd notice his strange hair and take him as well.

And then she's gone, and that is the last you ever see of her.

Bakura reels back, memories both his and not fighting for domination of his attention. "Maseh-ny iratet," he swears, grabbing Gene by the collar and yanking him close, ignoring the possibility that it could trigger another exchange. "Stay out of my head!"

cw: blood and body horror from previous link described in this tag

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene doesn't respond right away, the horror of Bakura's memory swamping the guilt from his own. He stares blankly at Bakura, his eyes unseeing. He knows well the pain of having a mother ripped away from him at such a young age, but this had been worse, worse, worse, worseworseworseworseworse.

He does not know the pain of watching your entire town wantonly slaughtered and reduced to slurry for no reason other than that they were there. Women, children, families, all slaughtered by those who were sworn to protect them. There's something different about that - different from the more intimate act of a man choking his wife to death in their home. One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. Not when you know each and every one of the dead, know their names, their quirks, their dreams.

Human flesh and blood and bone should not reduce to shining, gleaming gold.

Would even the Makluans do this, or was that level of cruelty solely a human trait?

His eyes focus on Bakura's own, his breathing ragged, and he snarls out, "What...fucking...bastard...!"

[denyamenti]

He thrusts Gene back at the exclamation, putting more space between them as he properly registers what has just occurred. He's not angry at Gene per se, but the situation, the fact that Gene is the one to see it, that anyone has seen it. He guards the memory jealously and fiercely, not out of the desire to keep it secret so much as no one else has paid the impossibly high cost that he has to bear them.

He takes a breath, holds it for several heartbeats, and lets it out again. "You should not have seen that, hebnay."

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene nods, and messes up his hair, an anxious gesture. "I know. I know." Tony shouldn't have seen what he'd seen, either, but he had, and that couldn't be undone. Neither could this.

What can he even say? 'I'm sorry' is so pitifully inadequate. A few heartbeats go by as he mulls it over.

"I'll say one thing and never speak of it again." He takes a deep breath. "The jiànhuò who ordered this and everyone who carried it out deserve to die in the most painful and drawn-out way possible. And if there was any way I could help with that, I would."

You reap what you sow. And the bastard who authorized this has sowed much that needs reaping.

[denyamenti]

"They've all died," Bakura answered, but the brittleness in his smile leaves no mistake of what simmers below an outwardly reclaimed calm.

"Died and Judged and found light enough to pass. They broke ma'at and got away with it. Why do you think I didn't care about destroying the world where that happened? What loyalty could I possibly have left to it after that."

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene closes his eyes and exhales slowly. From what he understands, ma'at is justice, and to do such a thing and have it be called just is...

He has little in the way of religious beliefs; some leftover family rituals from his mother, and infrequent ancestor worship. He doesn't put much thought into cosmic order or what comes after. But for that massacre of innocents to be called just in any universe, under any system of belief, under any deity, was too much to be borne.

Gene would have absolutely done the same.

"None," he agrees, his voice firm. "A world like that shouldn't be allowed to exist, if that was just."

Casually damning an entire universe. nbd.

[denyamenti]

He studies Gene for a moment, suspicious, unsure what to make of the unwavering agreement. Most people would acknowledge that the massacre was abhorrent, but that it could not be of the same value as unleashing Zorc on the world. And, were Bakura purely impartial, he might have been able to agree to that-- but he was not. He was as biased as one could get, and wore that proudly. Who else would avenge his kin, who even cared enough to do so, if not him?

"Damned Dreaming tricks," is all he says, apparently electing to let Gene uphold his claim not to speak about it again. Abstractly, he does know that he has one of Gene's memories now as well... it was simply drowned out by the force of his own.

Bakura suspects Gene doesn't want to talk about his shared memory either, but the thief will probably pick it apart in his own mind later.

"Are you all right?"

[wrathfulkhan]

"It keeps finding new ways to surprise us," Gene agrees. He'd talk about his memory to get it off the subject of Bakura's, even if he doesn't like it. It's painful. That had been the moment he'd realized that the whole time, he'd been a pawn, a fool, just another agent of destruction.

It takes him a moment to realize that he was asked a question. "Yes." For now. Later he can go up to the turtle's head and try to wrestle with what he just saw. But for now, he can push it all down and be fine.

"Are you?"

[denyamenti]

The knife-edged smile is back. "I'm used to seeing it, hebnay. Why do you think I sleep so little at a time?"

[wrathfulkhan]

Good point, well made.

How do you even respond to that?

"Come on," Gene says, and stands up. "I think you need a drink."

[denyamenti]

The thief makes a startled noise at that. "I don't think that will fix things, but if you want to give it a shot and buy, I won't turn it down."

[wrathfulkhan]

"It's not going to fix anything, but it's the least I can do for the intrusion." Involuntary as it was, that was still extremely private. It would have been worse for Gene, in a way, if Bakura had seen him growing up, and why he is the way he is, although it would be more of a fair trade - as though any such trade could be considered 'fair'. Nothing about any of this was fair. Judging by what they'd both just relived, fairness is and had always been an illusion.