orderfromchaos | 23. the creatures in tide pools

[Open spam in the chapel, since the kid flood, whenever.]

[When he isn't on shift at the infirmary, or trailing after Abigail like a concerned ginger puppy, Dillon is spending a lot of time in the chapel. Just - sitting, in the very front pew or the very back, wishing for saints and stained glass and stone, for something gaudy and familiar, the smell of sand and wood polish. But the chapel resists his homesickness, neat white plaster, well kept, effusively inoffensive. He tries kneeling, a couple times. But it doesn't feel right, and neither does prayer. So he sits, quiet, eyes forward on the Unitarian nondenominational emptiness, for an hour or two, watches the shadows from the little candles, tries to think about his mistakes, about his options, about nothing at all.]

[Private to Arthas]

I want to see you. Anywhere you'd rather meet?

[Spam for Jerry, backdated to after Allison's post, early the next morning on the tenth.]

[He's just sitting in the hallway, across from Jerry's door. He's not impatient. He's not even angry, really, just calm and steady. He was sloppy, he was absorbed with his own messes. But he made a promise. Allison's rambling plea for understanding as revenge didn't change that. Jerry made his choice, and now he has to face the consequences.]

[Private to Arkin, backdated to after the above]

I've turned Jerry human. I promised him he would, if he hurt anyone else outside self-defense, before you were assigned to him.

[Filtered to Abigail, Scott, Chris, Bucky, Gene, Helena, and Iris, backdated to after the above]

I turned Jerry human, and now he's threatening to leave my friends' corpses at my door like the worst cat in the world.

[He doesn't sound scared. He doesn't even sound mad. He is irritated, and a little disgusted. It was one thing with Okoya and Carter - there were actual stakes there. This is just Jerry being petulant.]

All of you could probably take him in a fair fight, but he's sneaky and mean, so keep an eye out, and kick him in the balls for me if he tries anything.

[Gift List]

Abigail - a print of Starry Night. Some clever board games - like, the kind that are actually interesting and thoughtful? Wise and Otherwise, Ticket to Ride, things like that. I don't think she got to play much as a kid. And some kind of meditative geometry game she could use for like - calm without emptiness, when she needs that. And some pretty dresses.

Bucky - a pineapple upside-down cake, and like, kevlar insert panels that work with the jacket he already has.

Bush - another pineapple upside-down cake, and good boots. Better boots? Like, comfy and insulating, modern REI science stuff, but looking period on the outside. And with the one weighted to make balancing on the fake leg easier.

Cambridge - the collected poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Chris - ridiculous Motherfucker merch. Like, a bobblehead. And T-shirts with golden-age style onomatopoeia impact balloons. A pez dispenser!

Gene - a St. George Medallion. Silver, and a strong chain.

Helena - one of those little personal fold-out cabinet altars, with an old style painting of a bible story she always liked in the panels.

Iris - a tinsel crown, the Al Green christmas album, and tickets to all past and future black-and-white Harry Hunsacker plays.

Scott - The True Story of the Three Little Pigs

Simon - myrrh incense

Snafu - altoids, warm socks with good wicking layers or whatever, and a couple collections of Far Side comics.

Steve - some really good lamps? With flexible necks so he can position lighting how he wants for drawing. Bright and not too harsh, full sun spectrum.

And give all the forties guys a bunch of girl scout cookies.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's....Scott doesn't know what it is. He doesn't know if this is right, or the most stomach turning thing he's ever heard. It takes him a few hours to respond, mostly because he's staring at the far wall of his bedroom trying to sort it out.

Jerry, as much as it sickens him to make the allusion, is like Scott: vampires are made, not born. Someone taking that away from Derek would be - monstrous. It would be taking away an intrinsic part of him. But that' snot how Jerry is.

He wishes, not for the first time, that he got to meet the other Jerry, the human one from the other Barge. Maybe then he could find his faith in this more easily. Eventually, he gets there - if still a little hesitant.]

Is it permanent?

It's not gonna expire, if that's what you're asking.

It's not immutable either. Same as any other human. Except Chris, I guess.

[Chris' uniqueness makes Scott smile a little, halfhearted but still honest. He nods, mulling it over. It's not like there's another vampire from Jerry's world to turn him again.]

Do you plan on turning him back, eventually?

If he manages to become the kind of person that doesn't want power just to terrorize people for kicks, I'm not sure it's something he'll still want to be.

Maybe the admiral will change him back before that happens, but I'm not really inclined to.

[The whole point of this is that it isn't zero; it's not just time-out.]

Edited 2015-01-01 05:02 (UTC)

It just - feels weird. Like if turning him Human's the key, then what was the point?

[He doesn't like the idea that he has to be a monster, that vampires are nothing but creatures that need to be put down.]

[There's a long pause. He looks at the private button, wishes he could flick it to, like, double private. He could ask to meet in person, but he's pretty sure he can't say the things that are suddenly crowding his throat if doesn't get them out now. He looks away, stares hard at the wall.]

When I was fourteen, there was a. Thing. A parasite, but for - you know, star power. Or whatever.

Everything is energy. And when things are organized, that - holds energy. And when you break things down, that releases it. So this thing. It lived inside me. All of us, and warped us, so everything we could do was twisted the worst way. I destroyed things. That's how it fed. And the more I fed it, the more it grew. I couldn't stop, no matter how scared or horrified I was, I tried so hard but I could. Not. I thought it was a demon.

[He's shaking, very slightly, everything in him wound tight.]

And I was so. Damn. Hungry.

[It's a primal, almost animal sound, just the memory of it, the ruthless starving desperation.]

You feel guilty beforehand. When forty-car pileups don't cut it anymore. You look at some kid and watch the patterns unravel and you think. I'm going to break your whole happy life into little alcoholic smithereens, I am going to crush you into a pit you are never ever gonna climb out of, when you're planning, you feel guilty. But then you walk up, and you do it, and there's nothing left in you for guilt because the thing that's been eating you alive from the inside out is sated, for an hour or a minute, and it's such a relief, it's the best thing you've ever felt in your whole damn life.

When we got rid of it. Christ. Like someone parked a truck on my chest and I didn't know until they drove it off. But then I had to figure out - what the power really was, and what was that thing, and what was me. What you are and what you do are more tangled up than anyone here really wants to admit. And he has to figure out - what's really him, between strength and hunger and choices and all the rest of it. Because all the choices were me. And it wasn't just the hunger that made me terrible. It was the rush, too.

[The relief, the power, the high-like release of constant gnawing pain.]

You care a lot less, with that on the line. You teach yourself not to care.

I don't know if he has to be human. But I know he can't be what he was, the way that he was, and he was locked into something just as tight in his head after all the years he's been following one way of surviving with himself. Maybe there's a way to balance it if he cares to, maybe not. He can figure out what else he wants to be after he's remembered that other people aren't there just for him.

Edited 2015-01-03 21:09 (UTC)

[The story horrifies him, but Scott doesn't withdraw. That's his real strength, in trying to relate even when he can't, in caring when he has no reason to. He wishes Dillon had come to tell him this in person, because all he wants to do is reach out and squeeze his shoulder, and let him know that it's okay.

Scott can't do that, so he settles for nodding. Dillon isn't wrong - Jerry may be different now, but if being a vampire didn't remove his ability to chose - and after his run in iwth allison, he doesn't think it did - then maybe this is the only possible next step to helping him.]

Thank you.

[He's not sure, exactly, for what. For trusting him with the story, maybe, or just for breaking it down in a way he can parse. Scott has never been ungrateful for the people who explain things to him in the way he needs.]

I won't pretend I didn't want to cut him down, in between making it harder for him to mess with people. But I don't dislike him because I can't imagine being that selfish, I dislike him because I can.

And I wanted to cut him loose, too.

[His gaze has shifted from the wall to the floor.]

I don't know what'll happen now. Maybe it'll be a disaster. But nothing else was working.

[He said he'd do something, and he did.]

If it's a disaster, I think it'll be his own fault.

[He hesitates, then nods to himself, like he's come to a conclusion.]

I think....I think you probably did the best thing. The best thing you could do.

[Scott's gotten used to that, too. To doing something, because you have to. Because no one else will or can.]

...I wanted to kill him, after what he did to people. I...[He trails off, shakes his head. It's not important how he feels about that, only that Dillon understands he's far from alone.]

I've still got a bunch of video games we haven't tried, if you want.

I'd have killed him if it would have worked.

[Bluntly. Probably he should feel worse about this. He has been learning, on the barge, to be less callous, less careless. But he has also been learning to be more honest with himself. And the truth is: he is also ruthless.

He shrugs one shoulder, and it is not actually dismissive. It is - acceptance, and a certain acknowledgement of how dubiously moral it - he - is. There's a coolness to it, not cold, but a little bit withdrawn into himself. It's one more thing Scott might not accept, and Dillon would understand, if that were the case. Even appreciate it, in some ways. But he doesn't assume.]

Yeah?

[Not quite neutral; hopeful, mild. An easy out, not to confirm it.]

Yeah.

[It's easier to shift to this, to environments where killing isn't real and means nothing. He doesn't know if he has it in him; sometimes he thinks he does, sometimes he thinks he could take a life and it would be easy.

But the second he has that thought, his stomach turns. He'd rather save them.]

Come on. You can kick my ass in Call of Duty or something.

23. the creatures in tide pools

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