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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You know who else is trying to lay low? A certain ghost boy. Mostly because he wasn't used to dealing with multiple people who knew about the half-ghost thing.

It was weird.

What was even weirder was that no one seemed to mind the ghost thing that much.

So Danny figured the best thing to do was avoid people until he figured some things out. Weird how he nearly walked right into a guy he vaguely recognized.

Conan spots Alex up ahead, and promptly attempts to vanish into the crowd. If he could make it another half block without being spotted, he could slip into an alley and take a short cut to get home.

After their last meeting, he was sure Alex had all kinds of questions he would prefer not to answer.

Mo's since been given the rundown on what his being here means - primarily that it's a temporary thing - and while Alex now knows that Mo survived and all turns out okay, he's under no illusions of what his inevitable disappearance might mean. Alex clearly missed him, and Mo's sure that only having him here for a few weeks will seem a little cruel in the aftermath.

There are also advantages to being in a place where one apparently doesn't remember it upon returning home.

"How did you prepare your team for missions when you knew you were going to lose people?" Mo asks out of the blue one evening, when they're in private.

Heather is still dressed as a whore, from the night before. She's comfortable in her role. The Ban Om people don't bother her, but she does steer clear of them, walking over to find Miles contemplating the ocean.

Nothing wrong with the ocean, and at least the waves have a rhythm to them.

"Good morning, darling." She says, stifling another yawn. It was a long night.

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."

"That... is a surprise," is all Kylo manages to get out when Jackie just walks up with that announcement. He looks him up and down, and shakes his head.

Same old Jackie, as far as he can see. But something fundamental must have changed.

"What brought this on? Are you no longer afraid of yourself?"

Yeah, that's not going to work, Conan.

Alex spots him and follows the kid down the half-block. "Hey, Conan."

Busted!

Don't, Mo. Don't do this.

Alex has been worrying himself sick, trying to find a way to fix this, to make him stay. There has to be a way. There has to. And while he knows that Mo is alive, that everyone's survived, losing him again will be almost like he's died, and that's just too cruel for words.

The question seems to be abrupt, but he knows that Mo's been stewing, too. They know each other too well to keep things like their anxiety hidden for long. "Every mission for Medusa was one where people could die," he says quietly. "That was just the way it was. It's always been that way, my whole life. One wrong move, one piece of sheer bad luck, and someone could die, if they were lucky, or be tortured if they weren't. That's just...the way it is. You know that. That's the way it's been with David, with Marie, with the kids. We tried to protect them, but we knew that something could go wrong."

Letting themselves avoid the issue of Mo leaving isn't going to help. It's especially not going to help Alex; Mo won't remember, so maybe him broaching the subject is unfair. Even so, it's necessary. They both know Mo's time is limited here.

He nods at Alex's answer. "I do know that. I'm just hoping you know there's quite a significant difference between losing someone on a mission and me going back to where we come from. It might not feel like there is one, but there is. First and foremost, you haven't made any wrong moves, because there are none to make. You can't blame yourself for what some run-amok spell does, and if you do I'm making you take another Rorschach test," he teases gently.

Alex scowls. How dare he make sense?! It doesn't change the fact that he's going to blame himself for this.

"I don't care. All right? There has to be something I can do. For God's sake, Mo, you can't leave."

Shame he doesn't know about that whole artificial-soul-gem fiasco...although maybe it's a good thing. He'd go a little crazy trying to make it work.

That's... somewhat more vehement than Mo is expecting, if he's being honest. Then again, Mo is from after all of the chaos and catastrophe was over and done with, and Alex will be going back to pain and uncertainty when he returns. The magic that brought them here, he decides, is a sadist of the highest caliber.

The psychiatrist in him wants to be rational and detached, and the friend just wants to make the hurt go away. Good thing Mo has had a lot of practice being both.

"Alex." Mo puts a hand on Conklin's shoulder, as if to remind him that Mo is still here, that he hasn't gone anywhere yet. "If we spend all our energy worrying about something we have no control over, we're not going to have any time to actually spend together. Who knows how many days I've got here? No one." He sighs, and offers the spook a sad smile. "This is going to be a lot harder on you than on me, but I'd much rather enjoy the time I have than borrow grief from a time that hasn't happened yet."

Jesus. Mo's talking like he's got a terminal illness, which he might as well have. It's true, they don't know how long he has here, and that's killing him.

"Wow," he says, looking at the psychiatrist and trying a shaky smile. "For the best in your field, you're kind of shitty at this, you know?" It's a return to form, or an attempt at it - sarcastic deflection, always Alex's strong suit.

Because it's always been rule number one: never let them see you cry.

Ah, there it is. That's classic Conklin, even if they've circled back to avoidance.

"Well, I'm fairly certain that my degrees don't transfer or apply in an entirely different reality, so perhaps that's to be expected," Mo replies wryly, squeezing Alex's shoulder and then letting go. "Regardless of my skills or seeming lack thereof, we should still talk about this."

Well, what if he doesn't want to talk about it? Congrats, Mo, you've returned to your patient as he first arrived to you: stubbornly avoidant.

"Okay. So talk." Because he wants to hear what Mo has to say so he can formulate his own plan of attack, so to speak.

Well, at least this is some semblance of normalcy. Ish.

"I get the easy end of things, here. I won't remember this, and I won't be left in a strange place without anyone from home again," Mo begins. "So, perhaps I've no right to force the subject, but I'm worried about you. You know that I'm going to be fine, and that's more than you knew before. And yet, it seems to me like that knowledge hasn't helped you any. What is it that you think will happen when I leave that I 'can't' be allowed to go?"

Something else occurs to him. "Or what is it that you want so much of me that you can't stand lose?"

No, no, no no no. Abort conversation. He never asked for this.

"Knowing that has helped me," he begins. "I'm not...worried about what's going to happen at home anymore." Then he sighs and rubs at his temples. "I've missed you. I've missed everyone, really, but I've especially missed you. You understand me. I don't have to...I don't know. I don't have to hide who I am, with you. You already know about all the darkest parts of me."

Great. So much for that plan. Conan turns around to face him.

"Hello Mr. Conklin."

Strictly speaking, that wasn't a direct answer to either of his questions, but it's close enough. Mo would like to be able to say something like 'I'll miss you, too', but he can't, because Alex won't be anywhere to miss when the psychiatrist returns home. Alex will be there, and Mo none the wiser.

And Alex will come back, too, someday. Their friendship isn't reality-dependent. So why, when it's just the two of them, is it so damn hard? There are things Mo might like to tell Alex, but he has the feeling that doing so and then vanishing would just make it all worse.

"I do at that," Mo sighs. "I'd stay if I could, Alex. It's not my intention to leave you, and we both know it's not up to either of us when that happens. You're stubborn as hell, but telling the universe at large that I'm not allowed to go anywhere is a whole new level of denial." Honesty on that point is probably best; this is out of Conklin's control, much as it pains him, and thinking he can change it will only add insult to injury. "And you're right, you don't have to hide who you are, so you don't need to hide why this upset you as much as it does."

Alex grins, a little ferally. "Watch me." His job is to plant himself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world, 'no, you move'. He will move cities and mountains and world-turtles to keep Mo from leaving. He's done the impossible before. He can do it again, for just as good a reason.

Oh, Jesus Christ, Panov, don't make him spell it out. He doesn't even know what he'd be spelling out, and he certainly couldn't - like a first-grader trying to spell pmeumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

"I can't even begin to explain why it upsets me. It just upsets me."

That's going to hold water about as well as a sieve, and he knows it.

With all of their greatest troubles solved, Mo would very much like to watch Alex accomplish just that, and make it possible for him to stay. The old spy could get absolutely dogged about some things, and it's part of why Panov likes him as much as he does - he holds to his convictions - but it also makes changing his mind about things extremely difficult. Maybe it's folly for him to even try to get Alex to admit he can't keep Mo here. Maybe his rapidly evaporating time will be better spent just being there.

He's going to have to be very careful about what he says and does next, so he doesn't leave his friend a complete wreck. Alex may be in Keeliai for a long time, and though Conklin is used to hiding who he is, though he's one of the best in the business at it, Mo hates the idea that he'll be forced into hiding once more when he leaves. It isn't good for the other man.

Mo sighs again, and pulls Alex into a hug.

"You're a stubborn idiot," Mo tells him. "You either know what the source is and don't want to tell me, in which case I will remind you that being evasive is unnecessary; or you really don't know and I'd like to help you figure it out, but you have to let me help."

Alex is going to be a wreck either way, honestly. It's honestly just a question of whether he's going to be a car wreck or a total trainwreck.

Then Mo hugs him, and his brain turns into a broken Mac Quadra ~~which is ever so slightly anachronistic, but that's the sound his brain is making. accept it.~~ There's little else he can do but hug him back.

After Mo's said his piece, he winces, just a little, remembering those old words from when he'd been in the darkest depths of his alcoholism: I can't help you if you don't want to be helped.

"That's dirty pool, Mo," he mumbles into the psychiatrist's shoulder.

"I'm not sure I have the luxury of time in which to play clean, so deal with it," Mo replies, tighten his hold by a fraction.

Since he's gotten them started down this road, they have to push past the worst of whatever is going on or Mo will be leaving Alex with an open wound. Unlike some of the temporary Foreigners, Mo wasn't dead back home. The chance to see loved ones here was a gift and--

Oh. Well, that's an idea.

"You're not going to lose me, all right? Not for good, and there's nothing you can do or say that's going to change that."

Alex laughs a little at that. "All right. I guess I have to give you that one." Laughing at imminent doom. What else can they do?

Mo knows that Alex already walks around with a bunch of wounds in various stages of healing. What's one more? He can avoid it like he avoids most things. It's fiiine. Everything's fine.

"I know it's not for good, which...well, it doesn't make things better, but at least if neither of us remember the pain, it's like it didn't happen, right?"

YEP. HIS EMOTIONS RIGHT NOW 100% DO NOT MATTER BECAUSE HE WILL FORGET THEM SOMEDAY.

Mo has to close his eyes for a moment. Briefly, he's angry in a way that rarely comes to him - this whole situation is terribly cruel, and whoever created the damn spell that brings them here had no regard for the damage it would inflict on people. He's all for fighting the good fight, but tearing people from their homes and dangling those they care about on a short leash is so selfish he nearly yells.

He can easily admit that he's more than a little biased about Alex's well-being.

"No," Mo says, sharper than he means to, and winces faintly when he shifts just far enough away that he can look Alex in the eyes. "It still matters, right now, for you. Just because you'll forget it later doesn't mean it's any less important, Alex.

Damn it all. Against his better judgement (the judgement of the psychiatrist, not the friend, he notes absently), Mo tilts his head to touch their foreheads together. "You, and all that you encompass, are no less important just because you're stuck in a different reality."

Don't fucking cry, Alex.

He's about to argue, more for the same of argument than anything (because being contrary is how he shows that he cares), when Mo gently bonks their foreheads together. Alex is very temporarily speechless.

"Why the hell do you think I'm worth anything, you crazy old fool?" he murmurs with absolutely no rancor.

Edited (tactical errors) 2017-03-15 23:57 (UTC)

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

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no subject

oh, fuck me, i'm crying now.

:c ;~;

[aol voice] goodbye.

well there went my heart and we're only four tags in

JUST RIP OUT MY HEART AND EAT IT WHY DON'T YOU DAENERYS

I'm a vegetarian

It's ok the one on the show was made out of jello

Technically jello isn't vegetarian, it has gelatin in it :P

VEGAN JELLO IS VEGETARIAN

no subject

I have never successfully made vegan jello and it makes me sad because I like jello

that's the saddest thing i've ever heard tbh

no subject

[mac crash noises intensify]

/calls computer repairman

he has entered kernel panic

BSOD

y2k bug hits