goneawayworld | 3..2...1...CONTACT!

Entry tags:

3..2...1...CONTACT!

Who: The New Hires
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.

Contact.

It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.

The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.

To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?

And if they were there, who was in theirs?

[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.

They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Adult Brand pinches the bridge of his nose and swears steadily while kid Brand does a search of the room, checking under the bed first and spiraling out to prod at all the locations something could conceivably hide while Rune waits on the bed.

"I fucking hate this place," he finishes as his child self climbs up on the bed with Rune, who happily tugs him into the blanket nest.

"Okay," kid Brand says. "It's safe."

"I wasn't scared," Rune says loftily. Kid Brand shoves him.

"You were having a nightmare," he says. Rune sticks his tongue out.

"You were having a nightmare."

The exchange, rather predictably, leads to a tussle and increasingly loud protestations from Rune as Brand pummels him with a pillow.

"You're preaching to the fuckin' choir there," South says with a shake of her head, folding her arms loosely. "I'd leave if I could, but doesn't look like I get that choice."

Even she can't help the amused smirk that settles on her face at the two youngsters' antics. South knows adorable kid shenanigans when she sees them, and its funny to see Brand, of all people, as a kid, play-fighting with his lifelong partner after coming to check on him after a nightmare.

"Y'know, my brother used to climb down from the top bunk to mine when I had a nightmare. Didn't do a fuckin' perimeter sweep, though," she says, snickering just a little, before her head tilts just slightly.

They were in separate rooms. How did Brand even know Rune was having a nightmare? She doesn't ask, not right off, because that feels like it violates their 'we don't talk about shit' agreement—though she is apparently in his head right now, which makes that feel a bit of a null point.

Brand makes a noise that is just barely more of a chuckle than a scoff.

"I must have just learned how to do one," he says, shaking his head. "Still textbook."

Before he can say anything else, the door to the hallway opens and the light flicks on. Brand -- adult Brand -- automatically looks that direction and...well, it looks like someone got through his guard with a cheap shot. He looks stricken, almost sick.

The man in the door, squinting in the light he'd turned on, wore dark red silk pajamas and had dark hair salted prematurely with gray. He bore a strong resemblance to Rune, though his eyes were decidedly orange rather than Rune's blue-gray.

"...Brand," he says after a moment, "stop trying to kill Rune. Rune, stop doing whatever it was you were doing to make your Companion want to kill you." He rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "...It's three in the morning. Why are you even awake?"

The look on Brand's face gives South pause, her brow furrowing with a mix of confusion and concern—because hey, look, they may be mostly sparring buddies, they may not do the talking thing, but she's been forced into re-learning basic human compassion recently and that's a look.

It doesn't take a genius to realise the man is probably Rune's dad, family resemblance is a telling thing, even with those eyes. Maybe he sounds like a dad, too, but that's not something she can make judgement on; her own dad was never the most parental of men.

And then there's the word Companion; that's not a word that fits naturally in that sentence. Rune Senior could have just said 'to make Brand want to kill you', or 'your friend', or whatever. Companion's specific.

If she wasn't asking questions before, though, she certainly isn't inclined in this moment. "Uh, you okay, Brand?"

Brand doesn't answer for a few moments, just watches the man as he strides from the door to the bed while the boys talk over each other to answer his question. As he passes the unseen Brand and South, he trails a faint scent of the day's cologne, something sweet and earthy with hints of sea salt and musk. 'Ambergris' the memory echoes, in case South doesn't know, as if Brand could forget.

Brand's face shuts down, expression going completely blank, though he doesn't take his eyes off of the man as he tucks the two boys under the covers without even suggesting Brand go back to his room.

"Yes, all right, I see my mistake," he tells them as he presses their heads back onto the pillows. "Sleep. We can discuss this when we're all awake, not just you two." The two boys chorus their agreement, settling in together like puppies.

"I'm fine," Brand answers South tonelessly, like it's not a blatant fucking lie.

The furrow in South's brow deepens as the scene plays on, and, okay, the kid versions of Brand and Rune snuggling down together is objectively sweet as hell, but that's kinda not the point, here.

"How fucking busted do you think my bullshit meter is? Look, you genuinely don't have to tell me shit, this is all weird and invasive as hell, but at least don't insult me by pretending you didn't just look like you were gonna be sick until you turned your face and voice into stone."

She knows the signs of someone suppressing something, her brother does it enough and sure, she knows North's tells better than anyone else's, but the transition from 'stricken' to 'toneless total bullshit' is kinda noticeable.

Brand has never had to tell anyone what happened. Everyone in New Atlantis knows -- fuck, even twenty years later it's blood in the water around Rune. Brand doesn't know anything other than the fallout himself because he was unconscious for most of it and he'd rather die than ask Rune to relive so much as a second of it.

The man puts the first of the two staves on the bedside table, then pauses when he spies the second.

"Brand, did you bring a weapon for Rune?"

"Yes," kid Brand says. "In case he needed to run ahead. I've been teaching him about hitting bad guys in the knees."

"Rune's father and the household staff were murdered when we were fifteen," adult Brand says, his voice still flat and his face still locked down. His eyes are still locked on the man on the bed, who's smiling and gently ruffling his child self's hair. "We still don't know who, or why, or how they kept anyone from sending up an alarm."

That'll teach South to call out his blatant lies.

Well. Shit. That's dark. Especially when they're still watching the memory, of a Brand who was already so prepared to protect his partner even so young, a Brand and Rune who aren't aware of the losses in their future.

Everyone who you were raised by and around being murdered by unknown forces for unknown reasons is...

"Fuuuuuck," South says, because yeah, yeah that'd do it. She'd have been satisfied with a 'this is making me think about other things' or even a 'nope, not okay', but that certainly makes a point. "...sorry, dude, that's... well, you obviously don't need me to tell you that's fucked."

There's no over the top pity or anything, because that's not what South does, and it's not the kind of thing she'd appreciate in his position, and he doesn't seem the type who would either.

It's clear she's not going to pry further. It's a damn good answer for why he's clearly not okay.

"Yeah," Brand says, more softly than he would under any circumstances other than while watching a memory of the man who raised him. It's almost a shame that South didn't try to show him pity, at least then he could punch her and stop fucking feeling everything.

Rune's father (South might get the impression of the name "Lord Sun", the same way she got "ambergris"), passes by the two invisible watchers again, turning the light back off and closing the door behind him. The memory around them begins to fog and fade away.

South follows Lord Sun with her eyes instead of looking at Brand, now, giving him about as much privacy as she can when she's in his memories. Funny how such an innocent memory can make you feel all sorts of other things you don't want to feel. Bitter-fucking-sweet.

As the memory starts to fade, she expects whatever this is to just end, but the darkness of Rune's large bedroom is instead replaced by the darkness of a much, much smaller bedroom. There's a bunk bed against the wall and the bare minimum of furnishings for a couple of kids.

South's eyes widen. "...you've got to be fucking kidding me."

A flash of colour illuminates the room and the silence of the night is broken by the distinctive whizz-pop of a firework cutting a path through the sky. On the bottom bunk, a head of messy blonde hair pops out from the covers, which are quickly thrown back. A young girl, lanky like she's recently had a growth spurt, sits up on the bed and waits, for a while, until the next whizz-pop fills the air and suddenly she's scrambling to her feet, clambering up the ladder to the top bunk without making any effort to be quiet.

Brand sharpens, pulling out of his own head.

"Looks like it's your turn," he says, since this certainly isn't one of his memories. The coltish blond seems much more likely to be South than anyone he knows.

South groans dramatically, dragging a hand over her face. "Ugh, it is. This is my fuckin' childhood bedroom. Or, well. Mine and..."

"Drew!" the young South whisper-shouts, perched precariously on the top rung of the ladder and shaking the lump beneath the covers, another head of blonde hair, poking out just beyond them. "Drew! Wake up, idiot!"

'Drew' groans, sleepily dragging his covers tighter around him. "What?"

Younger South shakes him more aggressively. "Fireworks! C'mon!"

It doesn't take a genius to know who it is in the top bunk. You'd have to be pretty goddamn stupid not to guess, really. South's arms fold tight under her chest as she watches, the hand not tucked into the opposite elbow digging its fingers firmly into her bicep.

It's not like it's a bad memory. Just— bitter-fucking-sweet.

"You're gonna hear my real name, or, well, part of it," she says with a sigh.

Edited 2021-04-19 19:25 (UTC)

Not having to look at Lord Sun being alive has at least allowed Brand to put away all of the feelings his memory had brought back up. He snorts, then shrugs.

"So? People change their names. I'm not going to start fucking using it unless you do."

He doesn't elaborate that Max had shed his old real name like a snakeskin, or that Layne swapped out their original pronouns for something new. That would be talking about stuff. Instead, he gestures at the lights outside the window.

"This a particular holiday, or...?"

"Good, that's the point. No one else on the rig knows it besides my brother. Like to keep it that way, y'know?"

As soon as she says fireworks, 'Drew' sits up, barely awake, to let the young girl take his hand and pull him towards the ladder. She starts climbing down, hopping off three rungs from the floor and landing with a loud thud whilst he's still at the top.

The second his feet touch the ground, she grabs his hand again and drags him out of the door to a half-laughing, half-startled yelp of, "Tasha!"

They don't stop to put on shoes or slippers or even socks. The twins run outside, bare feet on concrete, pajamas too thin for the cold and too small for kids growing as quickly as they are, making it out just in time for another whistle and pop to break the air.

The real South shifts on the spot as they're dragged along with them. "Probably some holiday. It's kinda hard to place this, I used to uh. Used to drag him out of bed for fireworks whenever they happened. We were pretty fuckin' poor and fireworks were a free show, so..."

She shrugs, dismissively, as if it's not important enough not to elaborate on, but it had been a little tradition, of sorts, until she decided she'd grown too old for such 'childish' things.

Brand grunts in acknowledgement. People have reasons to change their names or keep their old ones close to the chest. But given that this is apparently important, he adds, "fuck, only two people call me 'Brandon' these days anyway, and one only does it to annoy me."

Not necessarily the most accurate assessment of the Tower, but fuck him.

Brand glances around at their surroundings as the twins who were South and her brother drag them outside. He shrugs again in response to her answer.

"I probably wouldn't know it anyway; I've only got a vague grasp of human holidays."

"Huh. Y'know, I never would've guessed Brand was short for anything." Especially paired with 'Rune', which she hardly considers the most typical name, either.

The younger South, Tasha, drags her brother over to a nearby wall and he gives her a boost without a word shared between them, helping her clamber up onto the top of it. She reaches down, hauling him up after her, a team effort to get the best vantage point possible. It's clumsy, they're still just kids, even as tall as they are even at this age, but they know what they're doing.

They perch on the top of that wall, heads angled towards the sky, tired eyes widening with wonder at the colours bursting over the dark tapestry of the night sky.

"Eh, depending on when you're from, you'd probably know even less. This was like, the 2500s? And on a colony planet. We had some local celebrations other colonies didn't have, too," South says with another shrug, because talking about the mundane details of the memory is easier than watching the seamless teamwork and tired joy in the kids' eyes with any real focus. Her own eyes betray some of the emotion running under the surface.

Things had been so simple, back then. Not that she realised it at the time, no; childhood felt complicated, when she was living it. Their home life sucked, there was pressure coming at her from all sides to be more like North, they were surrounded by an intergalactic conflict that could have come down on their heads at any time... but all of that's simple, in hindsight, compared to where things ended up.

"Surprise," Brand says dryly. Most people probably wouldn't think it was short for anything, at least before Addam showed up and started using 'Brandon' all the time. It's not as annoying as when the Tower does it, so Brand lets it lie.

Brand watches the kid versions of South and her brother and nods. "That'd do it. I'm from the early 2000s. Earth's chucked a few robots at Mars, but that's about the extent of its planetary expansion."

Fireworks are still the same, though. It seems there's nothing humanity loves more than making things blow up all pretty.

"Good night?" he asks, because that seems a relatively safe question, without getting into anything that would be too much like talking about stuff.

"Mars is a colony itself and has been for fuckin' centuries by my time. Weird to think we all used to just live on one tiny fuckin' planet, sounds cramped," she jokes.

"Don't fall asleep," Tasha says, elbowing Drew in the ribs. "Don't wanna explain why you fell and cracked your head open."

"I won't," Drew says, elbowing right back, with less force. Tasha grins at him, leaning against her brother's side and dropping her head on his shoulder. It's the kind of easy, uncomplicated sibling affection South barely realised they'd lost a lot of, over the years. Mostly because of her.

South shifts on her feet, unfolding and refolding her arms. "...yeah, this was a good night. They always were. We'd be so fucking tired the morning after, but it was worth it, y'know."

"Still got plenty of room on Earth for nasty fuckers to hide in," Brand says. "Especially when they've got access to magic. It's going to be a pain in the ass to chase them around space."

Assuming magic works in space. Brand has no fucking idea. But they'll still have their money, and that will work out there as long as there's other people to take it.

There's not much to watch, other than the kids and the fireworks, and the woman who's memory this is. A 'good night' probably means that no one tried creeping up on the kids. Brand still keeps watch on their surroundings out of training and habit.

"Mm," he agrees. Then, "fuck, we're going to start sounding like old people if we keep reminiscing about childhood misbehavior."

"Can't tell if you're expecting to live a really long time, or you're just real optimistic about how early you're getting space travel."

There's not much else to the memory, though it doesn't immediately end, either. South knows that they sat there until the fireworks stopped, delighting in every colourful explosion, pointing out their favourite kinds, simply enjoying themselves the way they always did on nights like these. Just a couple of kids making the best of it.

South snorts a laugh. "Fuck, we are. We're too young to act that fuckin' old."

Brand's mouth flicks briefly up in a smirk. "Magic," he said. "Rune and me could go for centuries if we don't get ourselves killed first."

That, combined with the way South's memory was petering out, seemed to be enough to pick their next destination: a city alley at night, swept clean except for Brand, Rune, and a taller man with long sandy blond hair and a matching beard. And a fourth man, dark skinned and even taller than the first stranger, silently descending the fire escape of one of the buildings. He wore an impeccable black suit, and his dark hair was braided back from his face. Brand huffs in annoyance and jerks his thumb at the man.

"He's over four hundred."

Edited 2021-05-10 21:53 (UTC)

South blinks at him, looks over at the guy he's pointing at, then back at him. "What the fuck. Centuries? Four hundred? Okay, that's bullshit, for the record. Magic's bullshit."

She's incredulous rather than annoyed, despite her typical aggressive way of being. She looks back at the new scene, already wondering who the unfamiliar faces actually are, but not asking.

"How old actually are you, then? Since clearly you don't fuckin' age normally if he can be over four hundred and not look like a bag of fuckin' bones."

"Magic is absolutely bullshit, and a pain in the ass besides."

Some of it is cool, but mostly it's annoying. Until people rely on it too much, then it gets fun again because they can't fucking concentrate to use it when Brand is punching them in the face.

"Rune and I are thirty-five," he says, which isn't completely unreasonable. Could be good genes that make him look closer to pushing thirty than pulling it. He points at the blond man. "Addam's early forties." 'Addam' doesn't quite look it either. "Atlanteans age a slower once they hit adulthood, but Mayan's the only one here who's gotten rejuvenation treatments."

'Mayan', identified by process of elimination, has finished descending the metal stairs and engaged the other three in conversation -- which is a nice way of saying that he and Brand immediately began arguing with each other until Rune bodily inserts himself between them.

"Mayan, why are you here?"

"Because he thinks he knows you better than you know yourself, and he doesn't," Mayan tells Rune. "You forced his hand, and how he's changing plans on the fly, and I don't think those plans will work. They will backfire, and he will need to step in. Do you have any idea what it will cost Lord Tower if he supports you?"

"I didn't ask for his support," Rune counters. Mayan raises his eyebrows.

"You never ask, but you're a liar if you're telling me you don't expect it," he says, which shuts Rune up. The Brand in the memory starts to muscle Rune out of the way to start fighting with Mayan again when Mayan raises a hand for peace and rubs his eyelids. "Sorry, I'm just as mad at him as you. He just had to be so clever, feeding you those mushrooms, didn't he?"

"Mayan and the Tower are about as big of a pain in my ass as magic is," present-Brand says by way of explanation. He glances up the side of one of the buildings -- the one without the fire escape. "Helpful, but a fucking pain in the ass."

Calling the way South's posture shifts again 'relieved' would be an exaggeration, but it's the closest thing. "Okay, so you're like three years older than me, but look younger. That's less fuckin' insane."

Whatever's happening in this memory sounds like a goddamn mess already. Magical politics or some shit, probably. She can't help but snort a little at how Brand is so up in this Mayan guy's face, that's probably about how she'd handle whatever the fuck this is.

"They sure fuckin' sound like a pain in the ass. Guess helpful and annoying as fuck have never been mutually fuckin' exclusive." Not long ago she'd have made an open quip about how that could sum up her brother, too, but today she doesn't have it in her.

"I could look like this again when I'm four hundred," Brand says, mostly to make South make a face. If she doesn't know his sense of humor by now, it's her own fucking fault. "Probably won't, but I could."

Mayan and Rune are still talking and it absolutely sounds like politics, complete with references to a game board with people as its pieces. The Hanged Man is mentioned, and it sounds more like a title than anything, though "Layne Dawncreek" sounds like a name. They go back and forth, with memory-Brand butting in, until Mayan confirms that there's nothing he can say to keep them out of the building. Present-Brand rolls his eyes and Mayan hands something to Rune.

"Maybe if the Tower had done a better job of 'containing' him, we wouldn't have been such a fucking inconvenience," he mutters. He glances at South and points up at the building without the fire escape. "The only reason the kid up there isn't dead like all the others the Hang Man groomed and lured into his clutches is necromancy-lite."

3..2...1...CONTACT!

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