Piper 90: Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goneawaymod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
goneawayworld2021-04-10 09:37 pm
goneawaymod) wrote in goneawayworld2021-04-10 09:37 pm
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.]]
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.]]
no subject
Okay. You're right.
[ He breathes slowly through his nose. One breath, two. Another. Again. ]
Tell me about it again. How it happened.
no subject
[ God. Fuck. Okay. ]
Okay. Okay.
[ She lifts her head, but doesn’t tuck the small veil of hair between her and him behind her ear just yet. Her eyes settle dead ahead on the younger South, still sitting there with wet eyes of her own, full of hurt and rage at a world that would wear her down relentlessly over the next two decades in ways she didn’t really understand, that day. Back then, the idea of ever hurting her brother would have been ridiculous; if that kid could hear this, hear everything she went on to be...
The little girl wipes her eyes. South bites her tongue. ]
I knew the Meta would be coming for us one day. Command kept me updated on its whereabouts, who it attacked and when. I knew that it’d catch up to us eventually and I knew when it did, it wouldn’t stop until it got what it wanted. Everyone else it attacked for an AI died, but they were alone, and...
[ Breathe. ]
I thought that maybe, if I let it take Theta, then caught it by surprise, we’d be able to hold our ground enough to escape. It wouldn’t chase us if it already had Theta and— and I’d finally have you back. I wouldn’t be playing fuckin’ second fiddle to an AI anymore. We could leave together.
So when it came... I waited. I— I didn’t expect it so soon, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? I’d have done the same thing even if I’d had longer to plan.
I just... I stood there, around the corner, just waiting. I heard every goddamn time you yelled for me and I said nothing, did nothing.
[ For a brief second, there’s a flash of North’s voice in the air, him calling for South, saying he needs help, asking if she’s okay, but South grits her teeth and cuts it off. Forces the memory to stay where it is.
She’s not watching it again, especially not with him. Nope. ]
no subject
Okay. I guess I needed to hear that.
[ He blinks and gazes outward for a bit, starting to retreat into his own thoughts. ]
I guess the best thing now would be...for me to have some space. Me and Theta.
no subject
[ She nods, weakly. Buries her face back in her knees, her arms circled tight around them.
She could say, again, how she never wanted him to die; but what’s the point? He did die. She failed to save him, because she was the reason he was in that position in the first place. Saying it again feels like it’d be another manipulation, because it doesn’t matter. Intentions don’t matter when the actions themselves are so completely irredeemable. ]
Are you actually gonna use that time to think, this time? Because you said that before, then when we talked again, this all started.
no subject
But, really, she's right. That's what he did. ]
I have to, don't I.
[ It comes out dry, low—almost sarcastic. It's not a tone he affects often.
He immediately feels bad and is quick to add in a warmer tone: ]
Look, I...I just have to sit with it and...do my best.
no subject
[ She flinches, again, where he can’t see her face. ]
...you’re allowed to be angry with me, you know.
[ She hugs her knees even tighter. ]
Yes, you have to think about it. You have to fuckin’ deal with it, because— because even if that’s not me, anymore, even if I would never do that again, that was me. That happened.
A-And— and if, when you do, you realise that... that you need me to leave you alone, that I need to stay away, then you have to tell me. You can’t just pretend.
no subject
[ It comes out low—half statement he's trying to convince himself is true, half question. ]
I mean, of course I'm allowed, it's just that...
[ He pauses, shakes his head slowly. ]
We already don't really talk to mom and dad. You know it's not just because we were on the run.
[ He closes his hands into loose balls, running a forefinger against each thumbnail. ]
I didn't want to lose you, too.
no subject
[ Her shoulders shake a little before she forces them to still again, swallows back the fresh tears that spring to her eyes. She tries not to read too much into ‘didn’t’, but she can’t quite ignore the past tense even as she tries. ]
I-I know.
[ He’s all she has. He’s all she’d had for years, really. Sometimes she’s not even sure she’d have survived their teenage years without him, even if his existence was the cause of so many of her problems. And yet none of that stopped her making the worst mistake of her life. ]
I-I’m not— I’m not going anywhere if you don’t need me to [ not want, need ] but you— you have to make that choice. You have to let yourself make that choice. Be angry, be hurt, be— be honest.
no subject
[ That one is a whisper.
He slowly, carefully stands. ]
I'll let you know when I want to talk again.
[ With that he heads over to the little girl. They're not really here together, not in the same plane of existence, but he bends and presses an air-kiss where her forehead sits. ]
no subject
[ South lifts her head part-way when she feels him moving, just enough to barely peek over her knees. Watches him walk over to her younger self, watches what he does, then buries her face firmly back in her knees before he can tell she’s watching at all. It takes all of her strength not to just burst into sobs.
It’s all over, isn’t it? She has to let him make the choice, she has to deal with the consequences of what she’s done, but it hurts. It hurts more than anything else could ever hurt. ]
I-I love you, Drew.
[ It’s muffled, weak, strained. She doesn’t expect a response, but she has to say it anyway. She loves him and she’s sorry, but neither of those things can change what happened. Neither of those things can turn her back into the person who would never have hurt her brother in a million years. ]
no subject
As he passes by her, he doesn't respond to her words, just gives her a pat on the head and light ruffle of the hair before he goes on through and leaves the room. ]
no subject
[ That does it. She barely holds it together until he walks out the door before she breaks, tears streaming freely down her face, salt tainting her tongue as she lifts her head to gasp for air as pitiful, all-consuming sobs follow. Her fingers tangle into her own hair, tugging at the roots.
It’s an all too familiar rush of emotion. The memory shifts to the inside of a shitty motel, leaving North out in a different hallway than he walked into and South curled up on the floor of a twin room, back against the door, still sobbing. ]
no subject
no subject
[ The sobbing isn't quiet. It's the kind of sobbing that comes from raw emotion that is simply impossible to contain.
She'd been in denial as much as he had, in the end, and the truth hits her like a wrecking ball.
Around them, the memoryscape starts to fog and fade, but she never stops sobbing. ]