tushanshu_logs | It has a million and one uses, fine purple mist.

Entry tags:

It has a million and one uses, fine purple mist.

Characters: Gene, Jackie, Peridot, Alex, Miles, and YOOOOUU!!
Date: All of March
Location: All up ins
Situation: ALL THE THINGS!
Warnings/Rating: Will be added as they come up

A. [Gene] | throughout Keeliai | March 1-11| open
So, Gene's having a weird month.

He's not sure if he's happy or sad that his mother's here - she has no soul gem, so he knows she'll disappear. And he wants to apologize to her, but he doesn't know what to say, or how to tell her that in becoming the Mandarin he'd nearly destroyed the world that she'd claimed was his birthright.

He can be found at tea houses, writing in his notebook and thinking, and trying to avoid being home while he thinks. He'd wanted this since he was a child, but he can't wrap his head around it.

As much as he'd wanted it, he has no idea what to do.

B. [Jackie] | Sky Sector | throughout March | open
So, Jackie's having a weird month.

Well, last month was weird too. His girlfriend's a werewolf, he killed his murderer, and Wei has shown up. He's trying to think about what to do. Brigid being a werewolf doesn't matter to him; hell, he's experienced weirder. And he likes her a lot.

He's having nightmares about killing Mr. Tong. He'd been justified, but the way he'd done it had been so brutal...and he'd liked it. He's looking a little haunted these days.

C. [Peridot] | Metal Sector | throughout March | open
Finally! Despite the garbage that passes for technology around here, Peridot's sort-of managed to get her replacement limb enhancers working! Sure, they aren't especially fancy or anything, but they're better than nothing.

Now: time to test.

Everyone is welcome to pass by her garage and enjoy the show.

D. [Alex] | throughout Keeliai | March 1-11 | open
So, Alex is having a weird month.

Aside from reliving all of that shit (and David has a Bostonian twin? What???), Mo's here, and that's all that matters. He hadn't realized just how much he'd missed the psychiatrist until the man had shown up.

He's looking a bit distracted, which is weird for him.

E. [Miles] | throughout Keeliai | throughout March | open
So, Miles is having a weird month.

He sure did have a lot of fun reliving his torture, and of course there was that incident with the Walrider. He's scared of himself, and trying to lie low.

At least he's got his laptop and his camcorder's been fixed.

H. [Jackie] | Midnight Hotel | March 13 | closed to Kylo
The thing with Mr. Tong and how ineffectually Jackie had used the Force had made him decide to get trained, even though he thinks Kylo is creepy. He needs to learn to defend himself.

"Okay," he says when he finds Kylo. "I want to be trained."

I. [Miles] | the Turtle's Head | throughout March | open
There's one thing Miles has heard calms people down - visiting the Turtle's Head. When he gets there, he sees some of those Ban Om guys meditating there, so he opts to go sit somewhere very far away from them.

He sits there, staring at the ocean, trying to wrestle with what the Walrider had done - what he had done.

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Gene has, understandably, been a little off lately. First the thing with the memory sharing, and then their parents all showing up. She had thought that Zhang showing up was the worst that could have happened. Never in a million years would she have guessed his mother would show up.

Pepper hunts him down at a tea shop one afternoon, putting a sweet bun in front of him before she sits, a mug in her other hand with a cookie across the top of it like a lid. "Gotta wonder what it says about us when we try to avoid things, that I go to the dojo and you go to a tea shop and write."

Gene grimaces. Of course Pepper would find him. She's like a bloodhound.

At least she's brought a snack. He accepts the sweet bun with a murmured thanks and looks at her. "I work at the dojo. I beat people up regularly enough that I need to do something else to avoid things," he points out. "And I need to write my thoughts out, anyway." He's been writing in his notebook - he's been so rattled that it's half-English, half-Mongolian, entire paragraphs in the vertical Mongolian script with English words sprinkled awkwardly through.

"Fair enough," Pepper concedes, only glancing briefly at the notebook without trying to read anything. She's seen him do this before, when he's troubled, but this is an extraordinary circumstance. Frankly, she's surprised that Gene is holding up as well as he is.

"If there's anything you want to bounce off me, I'm just gonna be over here eating my cookie," she tells him, and proceeds to take a bite. There questions she wants to ask, but Pepper knows this is a very sensitive subject, so she'll wait for him to give her the opening to do so.

Gene stares at his notebook a little longer before slamming it shut and putting his head in his hands.

"I killed her, Pepper."

That's quite a statement to make, Gene! Do you have any proof?

Pepper's jaw actually drops a little when Gene speaks, and she's very glad she didn't have her tea in her hands or she might have dropped it. That was not the answer she was expecting at all.

"Zhang killed her," she counters softly. "And that wasn't your fault."

Gene shakes his head. "You weren't here for Malicant," he says softly. "When it was my turn to fight it, it took Zhang's shape, first, and then hers. I couldn't fight her...I could only defend. She - it - nearly killed me. It was only because I was able to remember that it wasn't real that I saved myself."

He looks up at her, tears in his eyes. "I ran her through."

"Oh."

The word is small and sad, barely more than a sound that's startled past Pepper's control. She's heard some of what Malicant did, but understandably it's not something anyone likes to talk about. After the vision of the baby turtles, she's been less curious about it than she might otherwise be.

Malicant shouldn't be allowed to keep hurting the people she loves long after the damned creature is gone. Pepper won't let it. She won't.

"You didn't kill your mother, Gene. Malicant forced you to fight something that looked like her because he knew it would hurt more than anything else in the world," she tells him. He must know, but it bears repeating. "That's called torture, and it's not your fault," Pepper says firmly.

Gene shakes his head. "I know that, but...it's hard to look at her without thinking about it. That was the last time I saw her. When Malicant was wearing her face."

He looks at her, a little sadly. "The first time I've seen her since I was six, and all I can think about is how she tried to kill me. Even though I know it wasn't really her." Then he sighs and looks back down at his tea. "All I've been thinking about the past few years is how much she hurt me in other ways, telling me I was destined for greatness, poisoning my mind about the rings...but I can't hate her. I know that she just believed in me. She married Zhang...for me.

"So yes, Pepper. It is my fault. I don't deserve to see her."

"She's your mother, Gene. It's not about deserve," Pepper counters, more sharply than she meant, and she winces a moment after. None of this was Gene's fault, and she really hates that the way he had so few choices in his life, to the point of shaping him into the Mandarin they'd once fought against.

"The fact that she married Zhang for you, to protect you... look, your mom isn't an idiot. She's a grown woman; she made her decisions. Making them to keep you safe is what a parent is supposed to do. She must have known how much of a risk she was taking-- You need to give yourself a chance as much as you need to give her a chance." She sighs quietly. This wasn't going to get resolved overnight, of course, but she's firm on the point that he needs to see her. "You should tell her what you saw, what Malicant did. You have a chance to deal with everything that happened, together. Isn't that better than doing it alone?"

Gene looks at her after that little outburst, raises an eyebrow, and says nothing, opting to let her speak instead.

Then he closes his eyes and rubs at his temples. "I don't know, Pepper...I don't know. I don't want to put that on her. Maybe it's...better if she just goes without knowing about any of that. To her final rest." And without knowing how much of a disappointment and disaster I've become.

"Shouldn't you give her the option to make that decision herself?"

Jin is an adult, and Pepper is fairly certain she can handle what Gene has to tell her. But more than that, Gene has the chance to heal a wound he's been carrying since he was a child.

"You should still talk to her. About anything, even if it's not what you've done. This might be the only chance you ever get. Ever. She might not be back next year. At least then your last memory of her won't be killing her."

He puts his head in his hands and says nothing, but his shoulders are shaking, just a little. He's not crying. There's just something in his eye.

"I have to say something about it," he says, his voice muffled. "She deserves to know. I'm just not sure how."

Pepper nods, even though Gene can't see it. For someone who talks like it's her job, she's not entirely certain what to say or how to make this better, as much as she wants to. She can't force Gene to do something he doesn't want to, nor should she. Pepper just wants to help him, at the end of the day, even if the thing he's facing is painful.

So Pepper reaches over and very gently touches Gene's elbow, a little more tangible expression of support.

"Maybe start with 'I love you' and go from there," she offers, quiet. "She's your mom, she'll stick with you. She did everything she could for you - I don't see why now will be any different."

He wants to do something, he just doesn't know what. A million possibilities have been swirling around in his head, and he just doesn't know what to do.

He doesn't know what to do!

When Pepper touches his elbow, he gives a start, but he doesn't draw away. And he lifts his head when she speaks.

"I know she did," he says quietly, not even trying to hide the tear tracks down his face. "I just...I'm a failure. I was a pawn. We all were. And my destiny was to destroy the world, not to rule it. She should know that, but I don't want her to. I don't want her to." His voice breaks.

A million million words want to spill out of Pepper's mouth, but now of all times is when she needs to think about what she says before she says it. Think, breathe, then speak.

"There's no such thing as destiny, Gene. It's all about choices - we reach the points that we do because of the choices we make and the choices everyone else makes around us. We're a culmination of decisions, not pawns to some unknown force that prods us around a massive game board. What she should know is that you made the choices you did, and that includes all the ones you've made since coming here," Pepper replies gently. Her heart twists at the sight of his tears.

"What you did before is all part of what led you to where you are now - to who you are now, and who loves you. You screwed up majorly, yeah, but you've also learned a lot and you've really, seriously changed. If all you had to tell her was that you dropped a mothership on Manhattan, yeah, I might think about holding off on that. But you're not that person anymore, and I think she'd be proud of who you've become."

"How could she be?" he asks, his voice bitter. "I'm not proud of what I've become."

Not who. What.

"What else could I possibly tell her? That it took me fifteen years to avenge her death? That I manipulated people who cared about me for what I thought was my birthright?" He looks up at her, a slightly cruel smile on his face. "That I kill innocents because I think they've harmed someone I consider a mother?"

Yes, he's talking about Bakura.

"I've hurt enough people. I don't want to hurt her, too. Not again." Because it's his fault - he hadn't told her, he hadn't warned her, he'd dreamed it, he'd dreamed something bad and she knew to listen to him when he told her things like that, but he didn't, and she paid the price for his negligence.

Pepper's mouth thins. She understands why he doesn't want to tell his mother about what he's done, but all the same Pepper thinks she should know.

"Whatever you decide to tell her or not tell her, Gene, you shouldn't avoid speaking to her at all. Because that's not gonna help either of you, and it's definitely gonna make her wonder what the heck is going on," she replies tightly. Rather than sympathetic, her expression is hard. "You're different than you were when you got here, and you're different than you were when you killed Bakura. Just because it hasn't been that long since you grew to where you are now doesn't make that change any less important."

She leans forward. "You can tell her that two of the people you hurt the most after her love you like family, and that they've forgiven you for what you did to them. That you're working with and friends with the person you killed, and that you didn't give up trying to avenge her, no matter how long it took you. There's another side to literally everything you just said. If you're going to count what you've done badly against yourself, Gene, then you need to count what you've done well, too, or you're doing seriously crappy math."

He hunches his shoulders and looks at her. She's making sense, and he really does not want to admit it.

"I hurt everyone because of what she told me," he says tightly. "That's my cross to bear. I don't want to make it hers, too. She shouldn't blame herself for what I've done."

"Gene, she didn't just get those ideas about the Mandarin from thin air, you know," Pepper points out. "Someone had to get her to believe all that, too. The whole destiny thing got passed down and twisted around like some weird generational game of telephone. She got yanked around as much as you."

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It has a million and one uses, fine purple mist.

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oop here I go crying again on a gene tag

;~;

this sad boy always makes me cry how dare he

weh

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