orderfromchaos | 13. Lucky penny

[The memories reintegrating is exactly as strange as last time, fluid and roughly granulated at the same time, like having mud dragged through the crevices of his brain. He gulps for air, grits his teeth, pieces of him that are non-contiguous fitting forcibly together, gear teeth biting and grinding untill they snap and start to turn, the quiet weeks with Tessic like a deep breath in his chest, the barge a cacophany smacking him and then sinking inside, stones skipped into a river: Elsa, wary and brittle and bright; Vin with her severity and her old eyes and leaf-dappled shadow; Iris and the careful space between them like a fur coat, warm and safe and guilty; Hannibal like a cold hand on his shoulder; Abigail like the rocky ravines back home, harsh and amazing and beautiful. He clenches and unclenches his fists until it's easy to breath again, then gets up.]

[Spam for Elsa]

[He goes to see her first, in person, knocks on her door, relieved it's still there.]

I'm back. I don't know - I'm back.

[Filtered to Abigail, Helena, Vin, Jean, Iris, Bucky and Derek]

I didn't mean to go. The admiral - I was just home, I didn't ask for it, I didn't remember. I know - after what happened it might have looked like that, like I was running away, but I really didn't.

Just. So you know.

[He's run from a lot of things in his life. It's a character flaw he's aware of. But he didn't, not this time.]

[Public video]

How many of you saw parts of your future back during that flood where all our timelines got mixed up? Or any other time, for that matter?

I mean. What are we supposed to do with that? Knowing it's coming, but not when or why or how exactly. Should we do anything?

[A frown, a glance away, not biting his lip but kind of wanting to.]

Do you believe in fate, I guess, is my question. And what does it mean if you do.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey, man. Welcome back.

I don't know. All the fate stuff...would kinda defeat the purpose of the Barge, wouldn't it? In a way?

Would it? I mean, if you choose to do something, to go down a path, does that make it less your fate, or more?

I used to.

[He feels kind of sick about it, because the only time fate or destiny or any of that ever really came into his life was when Allison broke up with him, and then when she died.]

I don't really know any more. It feels like - it's too big to hold onto.

[He's not good at explaining, and looks vaguely embarrassed.] Sorry. That doesn't really make sense.

[Iris has been weaving corn dollies out of coloured plastic straws, filched in handfuls from the pub, and she's in the act of hanging them on the tree in the level eight common room when Dillon's message comes through.

If it were anyone else, she'd put it down to simple chance. She grins quietly to herself, hangs up the green-and-pink Sheela-na-Gig dolly and reaches for her comm.]

I'd be surprised if any of us 'ad been under that impression, Dillon my love. Elsa weren't very 'appy but I don't think anyone thought you'd leave 'er by choice.

'Ow'd it go this time?

[He's not sure what catches him more off-guard; that he's relieved to know Dillon is here again, or that he was one of the people he reached out to specifically.

Especially on that subject.]

I don't think anyone thought that. Mostly there was the usual concern.

[There's weary tension in his voice. The last time they had a conversation he was in a place of attempting to try and close off, be harsh and hostile. It passed, of course, but now he's...if not as worse, then distinctly a different kind of "not good".]

Meaning coming to the Barge and going down another path is ultimately our real fate? I don't know. I'd like to think the choices matter. That it's not all some kind of...pre-determined stuff.

No, it does. I think.

Sometimes, at home, it feels like it's too big to get away from. I don't even know what it is.

[Deanna was his soulmate, but he killed her, and maybe that sealed all their fates -]

[He blows out a slow breath. He would have, a year ago. Maybe. But he didn't. So that's okay.]

Quiet. I got airlifted out of the cemetary. Taken somewhere with - enough shields for me to think, a little. Without the chains and the shock chair and all.

I was only gone a couple days.

Oh.

Well. Good, then.

And you're having a lousy week.

[This is not a question.]

Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.

[Dark and quiet and sad. He once set a boy on a path he had no capacity to escape. He could see it, all the way down to the swift brutal end, one of many possibilities, a fate he was never supposed to have. And Dillon was being eaten alive from the inside out by a thing that hungered for destruction, so he made it happen.]

[He thinks about denying it, but...really, what's the point?]

Yes. I'm not supposed to leave my cabin. Warden's orders. I think he's told all the other wardens as well, so you may as well know.

How is Lady Elsa?

Well, that sounds better than last time!

[She's relieved as fuck to hear it.]

I liked the chunk of future I got in that flood, most of it. I've already altered it significantly, mind you. It's my experience that very little's immutable.

Edited 2014-09-03 23:37 (UTC)

[She just stares, for a moment, because that honestly hadn't even occurred to her.] ...I didn't think you did. Honestly.

[And then she grins.] I'm just glad you're back. Have you talked to Elsa yet?

[Stiles is silent for a moment. It isn't hard to pick up on Dillon's mood, and he wonders about what happened at home while he was there.]

I'm not sure which is worse sometimes.

[Fortunately - if unsurprisingly - Elsa is in her room when Dillon knocks on the door, and although she's still careful and controlled and doesn't usually do things like this ever, she more or less throws her book aside and hurries to the door.

Hurries. She doesn't run like a maniac, thank you.

But she's been worried and she's still worried, for plenty of reasons, but she opens the door and Dillon looks... fine, more or less, and that's a relief.]

You're back. [Part of her wants to - well, not pull him into a hug, probably, because she's still sort of uncomfortable with touch with is everything to do with her and nothing to do with most other people, but maybe she wants to put a hand on his shoulder or something, either to or for comfort. She even gets as far as reaching a little towards him before jerking back with an embarrassed little smile.] How was it?

[she means are you okay u_u]

Don't worry about it. It happens.

[Guess who's still sort of bitter he apparently was here before and then poofed.]

Mm, Elsa missed you.

[if she hadn't been talking with Kyoko last week about a world where she was apparently some Monobear-killing assassin who shot herself in the head with a stun gun, she would have a snotty non-response about "of course life happens whether you like it or not"

but she really doesn't like the idea of 100,000 volts coursing through her brain]

Maybe there are different kinds of knowing the future.

Which flood was this?

I don't think I want to know. My fate, I mean. I thought I knew, but it didn't work out the way I thought it would.

Are you okay, man?

Yeah.

I think. I think it's worse when they don't.

But don't quote me or anything.

[He smiles, the kind of tight little smile with no happiness in it.]

Yeah. I - same. Sort of.

I just wish I knew what I was supposed to do, you know?

[Soft, wistful rather than plaintive. He has resigned himself, more or less, to muddling through, has consigned the dull terror of failure to a dusty back corner of his mind.

Yeah. Except now I'm thinking.

[And that's terrible, ha ha. He grins, a little askew.]

Which parts changed?

Um...end of February? I was myself from my own future on the barge, and I remember what I did and what I said, but I don't really remember what he remembered, if that makes sense? And some people were themselves from previous floods, or breaches, or themselves after graduating, or whatever.

[Well - put it like that.]

I think you're probably right.

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13. Lucky penny

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