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

[goneawaymod]

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.]]

Comments

[infailtration]

The crying is just as strange when it's against his shoulder. But she isn't pushing him away, and she's letting out her grief and probably a good bit of anger at herself. It's a good sign, York knows. So he holds her quietly, one arm locked around her shoulders and his other hand stroking up and down her back.

He doesn't say anything else, at least not yet, but hopefully it's clear that even if he got angry over the scene before that's not all there is here.

[ownperson]

She hates that she's crying in front of him, in front of anyone. The memory is violating enough to have seen by other people, the memory of a moment where she realised she was truly, truly alone for the first time in her life and it was all her own fault—but crying, here and now, in front of York?

It's fucking mortifying, but she can't stop.

The last time she cried on someone's shoulder it was North, and the thought of that conversation sends her into a fresh wave of sobs because it had meant so much, she'd been open and honest about deep-seated insecurities she never thought she'd share with him, and he'd reassured her that she hadn't always been this, been the person who let her brother die to save her own skin. It had meant so. fucking. much.

Only to know, now, that it could all just be bullshit.

"H-He never fucking forgave me," she mumbles, quiet and muffled and her voice shaking. "He shouldn't. He shouldn't, but he— he let me think he did, and— and— fuck."

[infailtration]

Just when York thinks she's winding down something sets her off worse, but as long as she doesn't let go he'll stay where he is. What he doesn't expect is for her to start talking, and he has to strain a little to make it out.

"Wait... what?"

For fuck's sake, North, if you did the 'everything's fine now' lying to yourself and everyone around you bullshit about something this big?

He shouldn't jump ahead of things, though. "And what, South?" he prompts her gently, hoping she doesn't lock back down.

[ownperson]

"He didn't. He fucking didn't, he's just been doing that stupid thing he does, lying to himself, trying to make everyone happy, and— and now I don't fucking know if anything he's fucking told me is anything but fucking bullshit."

It's insecurity talking, as much as anything else. She's been re-building herself from almost the ground up, trying to figure out who she is, now, and so much of the foundation of that was built on everything North said, the way he sat and talked her through it all.

But if he could let her think he'd forgiven her for what she did all this time, then what else might he have been lying about?

[infailtration]

"You can't know that for sure," York begins, not wanting to believe that North would lie to himself and his twin about something that important. Not wanting to wonder if North's been lying to him.

But he can't be sure she's wrong, either. That 'stupid thing' North does is causing problems, isn't it? York sighs softly.

"When you wake up from this, go talk to him. I'll come with you if you want."

[ownperson]

"I know him, York. Better than fucking anyone," she says; the hand of the arm hooked around him grasps tight at the material of his coveralls for a moment before she makes herself let go. "I know."

And then she's quiet, for a long moment, besides the sound of her quieter sobs and sniffles that make her feel so pitiful and pathetic.

"...why would you even want to help?" Help her, is the implication. After everything he just saw, after everything she's done, when she still hasn't even given him back his goddamned AI...

[infailtration]

South lets go of him and York finally pulls back, sitting on his heels. It's a more complicated question than she might think.

"It's for both of you," he says softly, because even if he's pissed at North right now he still loves the giant idiot and South is the most important thing to North.

But also?

"And because I know there's more to you than that. You used to have our backs. I'm not gonna blame it all on the Project, but you can get past this shit and be a better person. It might even make you happy."

[ownperson]

She snorts; it's quiet, though, weak. Her usual attitude is lost to her, right now. The energy she needs to keep it up is faltering under the pressure of everything she's been made to relive.

She scrubs at her face, as if that'll get rid of the redness and not just make it worse. It's a state she never wanted anyone else but North to see her in.

"...I'm trying," she says, and feels like she's said it a thousand times recently. She tries and she tries but everything seems to crumble apart again the second she thinks it might actually be getting better. "I've been trying."

[infailtration]

"I know. I could tell." He smiles slightly, lopsided because of his scar. "Everybody thinks I'm an idiot, but I do pick up on shit like that."

[ownperson]

She tries to huff, but it's just as lacking as the snort was. She just ends up sniffling, instead, though her sobs have tapered off, now.

"...think I need to talk to him alone," she says, after a second. "Told him we need to, anyway. He can't keep doing this."

She's seen it so many times. She should have known, she should have known.

There's a longer silence, then, as she wars with herself internally before finally saying, "...might need someone to talk to after, though."

[infailtration]

"Makes sense." Then, a little gentler, "You can come to me."

He needs to talk to North again, too, especially if South's right and not just being insecure. Which he supposes he'll find out soon enough.

"Let me know what he says either way, okay?"

[ownperson]

She nods, swallowing a lump in her throat. She shifts from sitting with her legs curled to her chest into a much looser position, trying to regain some sense of normalcy, stop feeling so vulnerable.

"I will," she says, then, quieter, "...thanks."

[infailtration]

"You're welcome. The trick now is just..."

He trails off, noticing that the other South's breakdown has stopped like the volume of the memory was muted. And slowly it starts to dim and fade.

"...this, I guess. See you back on the rig, South."

[ownperson]

She gives him a mock salute in response, another attempt to reclaim some of her usual attitude, and then breathes a sigh of tangible relief at being released from this stupid shit, and... maybe at something else. Maybe at a quiet, internal realisation that she might have more people to lean on here than she thought, despite everything.

She'll... think about that later. She has tougher conversations to have with people besides herself, first.