she watches him, for a moment, and then reaches to adjust his blanket.]
You aren't. Kaveh, Nahida, Setsu and Matsui were not, on their return. [the void isn't unfamiliar because he's pretty decent at keeping his emotions up and away from people, but.] ... I'd like to know what happened. It may be an insight into what will happen when I am taken.
[ he doesn't argue, but there's the sense that he wants to.
... but. out of respect for shenhe, he sighs, quietly, and nods. if he closes his eyes for a second too long, it still feels lke he can see - might as well recount the details.
they come objectively, paired with that void of emotions. like it's just clinical fact. just another case. he folds his hands lightly in front of himself, and begins. ]
... The more we explored, things were strange. We found notes. Body parts. The mother came down the stairs where Gerard and I were and started clawing her face off, crying for her son. She attacked me.
[ his emotions persist, there - despair, and an awful, aching sense of guilt, the kind that grasps your ankle like a manacle and drags you down into the depths, despite the perfectly clinical delivery of information. ]
Gerard got her off of me, and I managed to incapacitate her long enough for us to get away, at least for a little while.
[she listens with her usual amount of calm, watching him quietly.]
... He is braver than he seems. [she says, after a moment. she feels that guilt, that despair, and holds it.] You got away.
[she gently adjusts his blanket again for him. her instinct is to touch him, trained by touch week, but she's not sure he's really okay with that. so. she doesn't, for now.]
[ point blank - gerard was the mvp of their little group of nerds for a lot of reasons.
he nods, though, letting her adjust the blanket - his emotions settle back down again, into something smaller, more tender. ]
We managed to stun her, together, and ran back upstairs and locked the door. From there, we met up with the others. Everything in the house was normal, except for the eggs - there was yolk coming down the stairs. We decided to go to the garage, to grab something to arm ourselves with, and to get away.
[ he shifts a little bit, now, pulling back whatever he was fiddling with - the lexus key. pressing the button to fold the key in and out, and there's a slight huff of something like amusement, though it is lacking any real warmth. ] I'm pretty good at driving.
[ there's another stab of guilt, but he ignores it. ]
The car started in the garage, and when we went to investigate it, Gerard found the body of the child in the trunk. Before we could really do anything about it, the mother returned - she was scratching at the door and screaming. I felt this odd sensation, like someone breathing down my neck and scratching it. [ a pause, his nose wrinkling. ] I still feel it now.
the key is easy enough to play with. shenhe might notice, if she's observant, it's in a consistent pattern. 1,2,3,4. almost a rhythm. ]
There was an odd painting in the garage that appeared in the back. I went to go speak to the woman to try and see if I could calm her down - I'd tried to do the same right before she attacked me, before.
The other three went for the painting, and a large man came out - nearly ten feet tall. His right arm was an axe, and he started swinging at us immediately. Monika said that they'd run into him before, and that was how Simon got hurt, initially. [ simon your EYE
this is all still so clinical, but now there's a steady clip underneath a void - guilt and that crushing, yawning despair. it's like peering a light into the darkness and seeing it swallowed whole. ] We got Monika and Simon back into the car. Gerard stabbed the man with the axe - his name was Jonathan. The father, of the family. But, even though Gerard stabbed him, he didn't die.
I rammed him with the back of the Lexus. Twice. He still didn't die.
[ a pulse of something else, this time - a bitter, bitter anger. ] He just wouldn't die.
[she's noticed that a few times, actually - the way he taps a 1, 2, 3, 4 rhythm when he's stressed. instinctively she taps it with him - against the side of her leg, in time.
he just wouldn't die, she thinks.
the anger makes her startle, a little. it isn't his fault, but she immediately brings her hand up to the red ropes, holding one tightly. nothing on her face changes, but she very consciously goes void with her own emotions again.
don't think too hard.]
They never do, when they're supposed to. [she says, quietly.] What then?
[ shenhe touching her ropes helps, because it keeps fei du just as focused. he's so, so controlled. he's always been controlled, to the point that it's unhealthy, and this is no exception. that anger he feels dissipates like it shatters, melting off into nothing as he pushes the thought away, and keeps his gaze on her hands, instead, watching her tap.
(but it's always like that, isn't it? the abuser never seems to die? never seems to face consequences, because no one looks close enough?)
he takes a breath. ]
... The mother burst through the door. Monika tried to get her to attack her husband, pointing out what he did - he was the one who killed the child - but it was no good. She started to attack us, too, while the husband was trying to attack the people in the backseat. Gerard leapt off the top of the car and engaged with her, but she had a knife, and she threw him off, so I -
[ another violent hit of emotion - guilt, again, nausea, sickness. he lifts his hand, now, and reaches up to cover his mouth, and keeps it there. ]
[ she's... gotten better at this. a little. not great, she's still not really all that sure how to handle people who are in pain like this, but unfortunately with the way this place works, she's gotten some practice.
so when he stops and covers his mouth, she pauses. takes the bright and painful emotions that she's feeling from him (too much, they feel like too much) and tries to swallow them down, breathing in deep, and exhaling out slow. she gives him calm, and relaxed, she gives him meditation.
this is how it used to be for her. she knows. this is what the ropes are for. (we lost everything that made us special, big girl - it's what the ropes are for.) ]
[ the meditation, the calm and relaxed, helps. the guilt emotion is so painful that it feels like it's going to swallow him whole, and he's holding onto the edge of a cliff trying to fight it back. isn't that always what it's about? push it back. push it back.
he inhales. exhales. you are past it. has he ever been past it? has he, for a single second, ever been past this? no. he never lets himself. not when the house he visited today was like a mausoleum the same way his is. not the way he finds his calm in a 1-2-3-4 beat of a slow, hopeful song, like he can relive it. like he can remind himself. you couldn't save her.
it's years of suppression that helps. slowly, he manages to seal it back again, that guilty, horrible, miserable feeling that threatens to send him spiraling back into the past, and shakes his head, slowly.
all of the hurt, swallowed up like it's nothing. it is nothing. he's fine. he continues, clinical. ]
... She died. The father continued attacking us. I rammed him one more time, and then when Gerard got in the car fully, we took off, out of the house. I broke the car through the garage door, and directly outside of it was a lake. From there, we had to break free of the car and swim out. The water changed from lake water to the consistency of egg yolk. As we were trying to swim out, something grabbed onto... all of us, I think. I don't remember. It had me by the throat.
[ double choking!! ]
But, we were all able to swim out to the shore, and when we did, we were far from the original. house. The mother and the child were both gone. [ to the bottom of the lake. ] And the father was still alive, staring at us from the distance. We dragged ourselves up a pathway that led to a small house.
[silence, from shenhe, who is just deliberately and carefully blank. a little bit of her own guilt curls up in a wisp and then settles. this is hilariously on brand - she doesn't know how to help, and she when she tries, she makes it worse. she doesn't feel bad about it. she just accepts that, as he boxes up all his emotions and seals them away.
the only thing she can offer is the calm, so she gives it as much as she can, watching him with aurora eyes that are just a little darker in color than they were before.
this time she doesn't say anything, she just nods. keep going, she's listening.]
it's fine, though - this is normal for fei du. there is no making it better, ultimately, because he just won't let himself. he won't even admit anything's wrong. he shakes his head as she nods, though, dropping his hands into his lap. the emotions are still just an empty void. ]
... That was it, more or less. I had found the key to the house earlier; we went inside. It turned into an egg. I passed out after that.
[the more i play shenhe the more i'm like she's a flurry character in disguise
she's still quiet, and then she carefully stands up. she scoots over to him, and sits down next to him. shoulder to shoulder. she rests her hand on his arm, careful and telegraphed, and taps one, two, three, four.]
[ he doesn't push her away or ask her to stop - just holds very still. shenhe will find he's very tense, like he's holding himself together.
the tapping surprises him a bit, like he didn't even realize he was doing it too. his own hand stops, and he turns to look at her, expression a little surprised momentarily as his emotions swirl somewhere in that deep emptiness into a mix of things. a little confusion, a little recognition, something quietly sad. he takes a deep breath. ]
... Sure. [ mm. ] You would have to speak to the others if you wanted any other details - we weren't together the entire time.
[ that's not the point, and he knows it, but still. ]
[this is such a butthole thing to say but she's not really into lying, so. her loyalties are probably pretty clear in general. she settles where she is, not moving her hand. if he asked her to stop she would, but this makes her feel a little better about him being safe.]
[ because when that woman started choking him, fei du could have died, because he was so far out of his body that he was just letting it happen. the traumatic flashback had been too much - old memories that were hidden and buried that he dug out with a rusty knife now present themselves to the front of his psyche.
he doesn't let himself linger on it in the moment, though, and jokes, quietly: ] Even if he left me to lift a grandfather clock by myself.
[ he's too clever to just hulk it out. who is he, luo wenzhou? her little heh gets him to smile a bit, too, more naturally. ]
There was a crushed egg, inside. [ but, that natural smile - it starts to fade, there. ]
I suppose there was one other thing. [ and after a moment, he feels around in his pockets, and pulls out a small handful of what appears to be egg shells. or - at least, the pieces of one. one that must have been shattered almost beyond recognition, because those pieces go back into his pocket.
the other one, though, just has one crack in it. broken, but not destroyed, and it's painted! it's painted with a little face. the crack goes through it, but it doesn't ruin the effect - the cutely painted face looks a lot like this guy. fei du's voidlike emotions change a little, when he does - they soften, around the edges, almost automatically. ] We ended up in a field on our way to the house full of eggs. Some of them were broken, and some weren't. I picked this one up because I recognized it.
but, he turns the egg a little bit, looking at the painted surface; the bloom of affection in his emotions, though muted, is present, underlaced with something quietly sad. ] My ge. Luo Wenzhou's police partner, Tao Ran. After my mother passed away, he looked after me when my father wasn't around.
Will he be alright? [or was it one of those things where he doesn't know and now he's. here, with no way of knowing. jesus, imagine people knew they were dead.]
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she watches him, for a moment, and then reaches to adjust his blanket.]
You aren't. Kaveh, Nahida, Setsu and Matsui were not, on their return. [the void isn't unfamiliar because he's pretty decent at keeping his emotions up and away from people, but.] ... I'd like to know what happened. It may be an insight into what will happen when I am taken.
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... but. out of respect for shenhe, he sighs, quietly, and nods. if he closes his eyes for a second too long, it still feels lke he can see - might as well recount the details.
they come objectively, paired with that void of emotions. like it's just clinical fact. just another case. he folds his hands lightly in front of himself, and begins. ]
... The more we explored, things were strange. We found notes. Body parts. The mother came down the stairs where Gerard and I were and started clawing her face off, crying for her son. She attacked me.
[ his emotions persist, there - despair, and an awful, aching sense of guilt, the kind that grasps your ankle like a manacle and drags you down into the depths, despite the perfectly clinical delivery of information. ]
Gerard got her off of me, and I managed to incapacitate her long enough for us to get away, at least for a little while.
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... He is braver than he seems. [she says, after a moment. she feels that guilt, that despair, and holds it.] You got away.
[she gently adjusts his blanket again for him. her instinct is to touch him, trained by touch week, but she's not sure he's really okay with that. so. she doesn't, for now.]
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[ point blank - gerard was the mvp of their little group of nerds for a lot of reasons.
he nods, though, letting her adjust the blanket - his emotions settle back down again, into something smaller, more tender. ]
We managed to stun her, together, and ran back upstairs and locked the door. From there, we met up with the others. Everything in the house was normal, except for the eggs - there was yolk coming down the stairs. We decided to go to the garage, to grab something to arm ourselves with, and to get away.
[ he shifts a little bit, now, pulling back whatever he was fiddling with - the lexus key. pressing the button to fold the key in and out, and there's a slight huff of something like amusement, though it is lacking any real warmth. ] I'm pretty good at driving.
[ there's another stab of guilt, but he ignores it. ]
The car started in the garage, and when we went to investigate it, Gerard found the body of the child in the trunk. Before we could really do anything about it, the mother returned - she was scratching at the door and screaming. I felt this odd sensation, like someone breathing down my neck and scratching it. [ a pause, his nose wrinkling. ] I still feel it now.
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The child was... [in the trunk. she doesn't like that! but she purses her lips, and then nods. okay.] That may last a while.
[regretfully. she just remembers what happened with kaveh.
but... anyway. continue.]
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the key is easy enough to play with. shenhe might notice, if she's observant, it's in a consistent pattern. 1,2,3,4. almost a rhythm. ]
There was an odd painting in the garage that appeared in the back. I went to go speak to the woman to try and see if I could calm her down - I'd tried to do the same right before she attacked me, before.
The other three went for the painting, and a large man came out - nearly ten feet tall. His right arm was an axe, and he started swinging at us immediately. Monika said that they'd run into him before, and that was how Simon got hurt, initially. [ simon your EYE
this is all still so clinical, but now there's a steady clip underneath a void - guilt and that crushing, yawning despair. it's like peering a light into the darkness and seeing it swallowed whole. ] We got Monika and Simon back into the car. Gerard stabbed the man with the axe - his name was Jonathan. The father, of the family. But, even though Gerard stabbed him, he didn't die.
I rammed him with the back of the Lexus. Twice. He still didn't die.
[ a pulse of something else, this time - a bitter, bitter anger. ] He just wouldn't die.
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he just wouldn't die, she thinks.
the anger makes her startle, a little. it isn't his fault, but she immediately brings her hand up to the red ropes, holding one tightly. nothing on her face changes, but she very consciously goes void with her own emotions again.
don't think too hard.]
They never do, when they're supposed to. [she says, quietly.] What then?
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(but it's always like that, isn't it? the abuser never seems to die? never seems to face consequences, because no one looks close enough?)
he takes a breath. ]
... The mother burst through the door. Monika tried to get her to attack her husband, pointing out what he did - he was the one who killed the child - but it was no good. She started to attack us, too, while the husband was trying to attack the people in the backseat. Gerard leapt off the top of the car and engaged with her, but she had a knife, and she threw him off, so I -
[ another violent hit of emotion - guilt, again, nausea, sickness. he lifts his hand, now, and reaches up to cover his mouth, and keeps it there. ]
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so when he stops and covers his mouth, she pauses. takes the bright and painful emotions that she's feeling from him (too much, they feel like too much) and tries to swallow them down, breathing in deep, and exhaling out slow. she gives him calm, and relaxed, she gives him meditation.
this is how it used to be for her. she knows. this is what the ropes are for. (we lost everything that made us special, big girl - it's what the ropes are for.) ]
You are past it, now.
[she says, firmly.]
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he inhales. exhales. you are past it. has he ever been past it? has he, for a single second, ever been past this? no. he never lets himself. not when the house he visited today was like a mausoleum the same way his is. not the way he finds his calm in a 1-2-3-4 beat of a slow, hopeful song, like he can relive it. like he can remind himself. you couldn't save her.
it's years of suppression that helps. slowly, he manages to seal it back again, that guilty, horrible, miserable feeling that threatens to send him spiraling back into the past, and shakes his head, slowly.
all of the hurt, swallowed up like it's nothing. it is nothing. he's fine. he continues, clinical. ]
... She died. The father continued attacking us. I rammed him one more time, and then when Gerard got in the car fully, we took off, out of the house. I broke the car through the garage door, and directly outside of it was a lake. From there, we had to break free of the car and swim out. The water changed from lake water to the consistency of egg yolk. As we were trying to swim out, something grabbed onto... all of us, I think. I don't remember. It had me by the throat.
[ double choking!! ]
But, we were all able to swim out to the shore, and when we did, we were far from the original. house. The mother and the child were both gone. [ to the bottom of the lake. ] And the father was still alive, staring at us from the distance. We dragged ourselves up a pathway that led to a small house.
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the only thing she can offer is the calm, so she gives it as much as she can, watching him with aurora eyes that are just a little darker in color than they were before.
this time she doesn't say anything, she just nods. keep going, she's listening.]
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it's fine, though - this is normal for fei du. there is no making it better, ultimately, because he just won't let himself. he won't even admit anything's wrong. he shakes his head as she nods, though, dropping his hands into his lap. the emotions are still just an empty void. ]
... That was it, more or less. I had found the key to the house earlier; we went inside. It turned into an egg. I passed out after that.
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she's still quiet, and then she carefully stands up. she scoots over to him, and sits down next to him. shoulder to shoulder. she rests her hand on his arm, careful and telegraphed, and taps one, two, three, four.]
Thank you for telling me.
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the tapping surprises him a bit, like he didn't even realize he was doing it too. his own hand stops, and he turns to look at her, expression a little surprised momentarily as his emotions swirl somewhere in that deep emptiness into a mix of things. a little confusion, a little recognition, something quietly sad. he takes a deep breath. ]
... Sure. [ mm. ] You would have to speak to the others if you wanted any other details - we weren't together the entire time.
[ that's not the point, and he knows it, but still. ]
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[this is such a butthole thing to say but she's not really into lying, so. her loyalties are probably pretty clear in general. she settles where she is, not moving her hand. if he asked her to stop she would, but this makes her feel a little better about him being safe.]
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he laughs a little. ]
I was very, very lucky Gerard was there.
[ because when that woman started choking him, fei du could have died, because he was so far out of his body that he was just letting it happen. the traumatic flashback had been too much - old memories that were hidden and buried that he dug out with a rusty knife now present themselves to the front of his psyche.
he doesn't let himself linger on it in the moment, though, and jokes, quietly: ] Even if he left me to lift a grandfather clock by myself.
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He is brave sometimes. [a pause.] You lifted a grandfather clock by yourself?
[jesus just dunk on both of them at the same time shenhe chill out]
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[ he isn't even going to fight that ]
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[ he's too clever to just hulk it out. who is he, luo wenzhou? her little heh gets him to smile a bit, too, more naturally. ]
There was a crushed egg, inside. [ but, that natural smile - it starts to fade, there. ]
I suppose there was one other thing. [ and after a moment, he feels around in his pockets, and pulls out a small handful of what appears to be egg shells. or - at least, the pieces of one. one that must have been shattered almost beyond recognition, because those pieces go back into his pocket.
the other one, though, just has one crack in it. broken, but not destroyed, and it's painted! it's painted with a little face. the crack goes through it, but it doesn't ruin the effect - the cutely painted face looks a lot like this guy. fei du's voidlike emotions change a little, when he does - they soften, around the edges, almost automatically. ] We ended up in a field on our way to the house full of eggs. Some of them were broken, and some weren't. I picked this one up because I recognized it.
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shenhe tilts her head to look at the one with the face on it, curious.]
Who is it?
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but, he turns the egg a little bit, looking at the painted surface; the bloom of affection in his emotions, though muted, is present, underlaced with something quietly sad. ] My ge. Luo Wenzhou's police partner, Tao Ran. After my mother passed away, he looked after me when my father wasn't around.
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That was kind of him. [silence, as she sort of enjoys that bloom of affection. even if it is sad, it's nice to feel.]
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[ his taotao. it's part of what makes the cracked egg so sad - he runs his thumb over the top of it, gently. ]
He was just hurt fairly badly, and was in the hospital.
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Will he be alright? [or was it one of those things where he doesn't know and now he's. here, with no way of knowing. jesus, imagine people knew they were dead.]
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