Dillon Cole || Scorpion Shard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
orderfromchaos) wrote2014-12-12 11:34 pm
orderfromchaos) wrote2014-12-12 11:34 pm
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.
[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.
Spam
It's worth something.
[He doesn't need to say out loud that he doesn't know what. That's probably understood.]
You ever done it before?
no subject
He had, though. A couple of times.
no subject
[The current of pain isn't gone, exactly; just ebbed and pushed away, to the back of his mind, replaced by curiosity. There's nothing that appeals to him more than power, unless it's control.]
[And then there's the fact that - maybe some part of him would feel more content about the temporary consumption of his soul if it helped someone. If it was a worthy, if nonconsensual, sacrifice.]
no subject
[He doesn't remember, not from his his counterpart, only overlapped once, and it was all vague after. But - their faces, after, the ease which which it tore them apart. Looking back, now, he can see it, not the in pieces and patterns but with recognition, as a boy who survived an addiction, through no virtue of his own.
He is so - wary, of this truth. Not because he is tempted, but because he sees what Roderick means by it, because he is loathe to give his mirror any sliver of worthiness or forgiveness, and yet - the reason Roderick wants to hear it, beneath all the hungers and hollows, is a desire to believe in something that's true.]
Every soul is glorious. Is - bright, luminous, singing. That's why it's such a terrible thing to destroy one.
no subject
Good. That's good.
[It seems worthier, this way. Something that can ache but not hurt acutely. Something he can believe in.]
I don't know if I believe that consumption and destruction are the same thing.
Does it frighten you, talking about this?
no subject
[He knows; it's his nature to know. There is nothing to put back together; there is the way the dripping light screams.]
No. Not...fear. The damage is already done. I'm afraid there's more I don't know about, but talking doesn't make that better or worse.
It - horrifies me. Humbles me too, a little.
no subject
[Humbles. He never would've thought the person who could do this to him could be humbled.]
You're not what I expected.
no subject
[This is respectful, more than anything else. Dillon has a lot of experience with people who can't or won't see past their expectations. Roderick has his blinders, but not many.
Roderick isn't quite what Dillon expected either.]
no subject
[He gives a little laugh, rueful, quiet.]
Did you expect a monster?
[Because he did. He expected - the personification of destruction. Something like that. Not this boy, who is that, but more, too.]
no subject
I expected someone...angrier. Prouder.
[Not that Roderick isn't angry and proud, but.]
Too much to listen.
He wasn't like you were thinking either, although he might have wanted to seem like it. He wants - wanted to save everyone. And he thought that meant bringing everyone in line. Compliant, and coordinated, and orderly. Not so wasteful.
The souls - that doesn't help anything. They're just addictive. He liked to think he was all-powerful, but he couldn't even control himself.
[Dillon might pity him, if he weren't so terrible, if he weren't so pathetic in his self-deceptions, if he weren't so eerily dangerous and close to Dillon himself. It's fitting, he thinks, to humble the other boy too, to rip off the smug superior veneer.]
no subject
[Most of the time. Certainly now. He listens curiously to what Dillon's saying now, the leeway he's giving his other self. More than Roderick could give to his alternate, even if he wanted to try. His other self was a coward, and he knows it. It disturbs him, when he takes the time to think about it, which isn't at all often.]
How come you're not like him?
no subject
He wants to be a god. I want to be human.
And we neither of us can really get what we want.
[No matter how much they insist they already are.]
no subject
[He's more or less just thinking aloud, now, musing on human nature - its potential, what it can and can't be. Dillon seems like an interesting case study.]
It's like you're looking at each other across a divide.
What do you think he thinks of you?
no subject
[A little harsher, now, his own contempt finally bleeding through into his voice. He has been fearful, he has been foolish. But his counterpart doesn't understand any of it at all, is arrogant and delusional and doomed.]
no subject
Yeah. Well.
Mine would think I'm a monster.
no subject
I don't know what that word is even supposed to mean anymore.
no subject
Maybe that's part of what this place is for, to wreck the lines that people draw in the sand as a matter of course.
no subject
But I can't just throw it around here. And if I'm not, then - I have to look at what I am. And decide what I do want to be.
no subject
[He does. And looks at Dillon curiously, an unintentional lie of innocence in his raised eyebrows, his intent expression.]
What do you want to be?
no subject
Cambridge says I have a savior complex.
Maybe I just want to be saved.
[Maybe saving others is the only way he can earn it.]