4. filtered to flux flood!CR

[orderfromchaos]

[Filtered to Jack, Elsa, Bush, and Abigail. If your character was from the future during the Flux plot and you want them to have had some handwaved future-assumed-CR with Dillon during the flood, they can totally be on it too.]

...how much do you guys remember?

[He remembers his three days on the barge as his future self fairly clearly, but none of the history on or off the ship preceeding it. His memories of his memories are too far removed, the faintest outlines, like chalk shadows on a blackboard after its been erased. It's driving him a little bit nuts. Things don't just exist in isolation. Things have causes.]

Comments

[versusnurture]

A lot. But not much of it makes sense, and less of it fits together.

[This frustrates her, too; she remembers the feeling of being herself but not herself, more than herself, but not how she got there.]

[orderfromchaos]

I remember appearing in the hall - like that. And the days after. But I don't actually remember how the hell I ended up that way. I remember the things I said about it, but -

[But the memory of the decision and the act itself is entirely absent. This is probably a good thing, considering. But it nags at him.]

[versusnurture]

I remember what I was and what I was doing, but not how I became. Like babies don't remember their birth. I . . .

Is it better this way, do you think?

[orderfromchaos]

Better than knowing the path and not being able to change things? Yeah.

[Because, wow, is he ever sick of that.]

It's still - nagging. Like tripping over a missing stair.

[versusnurture]

Do you think it's ever going to go away? The nagging, I mean.

[orderfromchaos]

Yeah. I have to catch up to myself sometime.

[And he's not sure he's looking forward to that, all things considered. But he remembers not remembering, that he didn't have a choice, that his knowledge of the barge was sequestered away from him right before he reappeared. He's going to make that call, and walk into that grave, and bring his friends with him. Somehow or other. There is fate in this.]

[versusnurture]

So you're going to see that. Be that.

What if [I'm not] nobody's there next time?

[orderfromchaos]

I did promise to talk to you after.

[When it happens, he'll let her help pick him up, whether it's ten minutes after he reappears or ten days.]

[versusnurture]

You know I don't take kindly to broken promises, don't you?

[This is, like, 90% playful. 10% she will actually fuck you up if she's ignored.]

[orderfromchaos]

I did notice.

[His smile isn't playful so much as assured; he knows he's going to need a friend badly when it happens, and thinks it'll be good for her too, being that for someone.]

[versusnurture]

Okay, good. Don't mess with me.

[Weirdly, she's confident he won't. He's strangely reassuring like that.]

[agoodboyreally]

What do you want to remember?

[What must have been their future selves had an understanding, one he barely remembers, but something happened, something he can re-form if he has to.]

[orderfromchaos]

The...connections. The causes.

I don't know. Maybe it would be terrible, knowing that much. Feels like it must have been awhile in the future.

[Lord knows Dillon has experience with being hemmed in from knowing too much.]

But it feels so - like a really itchy tag on a sweater, you know? Bits of things that don't have any context, that don't fit.

wow a lot of things happened >>

[agoodboyreally]

I only remember pieces. I don't remember why anything happened, except for what I already knew here, now, as me.

[orderfromchaos]

Yeah. And the things I said.

[I walked into a mass grave, and they walked out. I made the call.]

Were we...friends?

[Maybe?]

[agoodboyreally]

You thought we were.

[orderfromchaos]

[He coughs out a laugh, rueful-rough.]

Close enough, I guess.

[By which he means: he'll be friendly, even if Czes wants to be wary. He's probably had worse friends.]

[shakenandlimp]

Remember... the flood? Not a thing.

[orderfromchaos]

[Oh. He swallows, glances down.]

You helped me dig a grave.

Not for anyone here. Just - thanks. Anyway.

[shakenandlimp]

...you're welcome. [He is starting to have an inkling he may have missed something important.]

And I'm sorry. Nothing very good ever leads to having to dig a grave. My condolences and my regret I can't remember.

[orderfromchaos]

It wasn't - a personal loss. But I was pretty messed up anyway.

It's okay that you don't remember it. I wouldn't want to hash it out again or anything.

[He doesn't know what he wants, or at least he emphatically doesn't know how to say it.]

[diealone]

Bits and pieces. Nothing really coherent before the flood started.

[And he sounds burnt out by and frustrated with this fact. B(]

[orderfromchaos]

Same. Like - I've got the memory of having the memories, but I never sat down and thought about them, or how things got that way, so it's all...like a dream that makes less sense the more you try to explain it.

[diealone]

More or less.

Does time travel happen often?

[orderfromchaos]

I don't know. I only got here in January. I don't think so.

[diealone]

And do you have any side effects? Headache, nosebleeds, anything like that?

[orderfromchaos]

No. But I'm sort of immortal. So maybe not a good test case.

[diealone]

... Right.

Well, if you hear of anyone getting anything like that, let me know.

[orderfromchaos]

I'll keep an eye out for it.

[diealone]

Thanks.

[bothfoulandfair]

I wasn't affected.

[So, all of it.]

[orderfromchaos]

Thanks. For - being there.

[bothfoulandfair]

You're welcome.