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—MENTAL LINK.
DESPAIR you can't save everything | STUBBORN i just have to think it's all for something |
BITTER no one has ever been happy forever | GUILT but all of this was my fault! |
DESPAIR you can't save everything | STUBBORN i just have to think it's all for something |
BITTER no one has ever been happy forever | GUILT but all of this was my fault! |
DAY :027 - AFTER JUPETER DO THEIR DANCE.
[ -- after all is said and done, he's there. Of course he's there, living in the umbra of Juno and Hadrian's whirling dervish of emotions and physical longing. The way they ache for one another makes his teeth and his stomach and his chest hurt in ways he's never experienced before, while he balls his hands into fists and covers his ears, as though a physical barrier will be enough of a defense for him to settle behind.
Enough of a defense to keep him from feeling the echoes of Hadrian Black's everything for Juno Steel. He wonders if the rest of his stupid "team" feels it too, or if it's just him, feeling like his ribs just got pried open and his skin flayed from his bones. Laid out. Exhausted. Scrubbing at his eyes, to hide the telltale signs of how overwhelming it all was.
He's glad neither of these stupid adults can see him, and his thought breaks between both of them -- ]
What the fuck did you do to each other.
[ He doesn't understand; he's never
been in loveknown a relationship, not like this. It's never pinged on his radar.( He never wants to love, if this is how it feels. ) ]
And why'd you have to do it so LOUDLY.
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indignantly: ] ( Nothing! ) [ since he's still, emotionally speaking, bleeding all over the place like someone knifed him and left him in an alley, he realises almost immediately that this isn't going to convince anyone. instead, he tries a much more compelling explanation: ] ( I was— We were just— )
[ he's off-balance from Nureyev, hasn't managed to shake his keening distress and it makes it too easy to get flustered. he needs to pull himself together. what does Bakugo care about their personal drama, anyway? he got a decent read on that kid and he's really obviously not the type to get involved in someone else's problems — unless they affect him, Juno realises. oh god, he's Nureyev's Brood. this timebomb is one of Nureyev's, that's a disaster, that's stupid and. and it's unfair. in the wake of that fumbling conversation with Nureyev, with all the awful bruising heartache on Juno's chest right now, that just seems... unfair. the one connection Juno actually wants, and it's so much easier for someone else.
he grits his teeth; digs his heels into anger, irritation, rejection. he's got plenty of practice with pretending not to be injured, it might as well come in handy here. ]
( The grown-ups were talking. Alright? And I didn't ask for a goddamn audience. )
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[ It's easy to call Black out on the pretty things he says. It's easier to cover his own heartache, to push aside the gut-wrenching sickness that creeps up on him when two people so obviously in Need of one another bleed against each other and he's caught in their undertow. Swallowing blood-emotions like he's drowning in them, until he remembers how to fight back against it. With fire, burning away at whatever's leeched off Black and carried Juno with it, crisping at the edges of their shallow connection methodically. ( Let him GO. ) ]
Why'd you do that to each other?
[ This, though. THIS, he clutches at. A child's hand curved around a favorite toy, fingers worrying at the cape until a brief loss of control burns it to cinders. Annihilates half of the plastic-cast body of his hero and idol, and he feels like this. Why, Juno? He doesn't understand you, doesn't understand a single thing about you. Doesn't know why he doesn't just let you go the fuck away, to lick your stupid self-inflicted wounds. ( He blames Black, though. It's the easiest solution - blame Black, who feels so much for Juno. It's his fault, the stupid fuck. ) ]
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( It's complicated, and also: none of your business. )
[ despite that, he's clearly not done; there's the impression of someone drumming their fingers on a hard surface, weighing their words because they can't keep their mouth shut. getting caught up in Nureyev's orbit just made things worse, and his head is such a mess right now that he'd talk to anyone just to get it out. ]
( We— ) [ false start. he casts it aside and tries again, deciding fuck it, deciding that if Nureyev won't admit what the root of their problems is, then someone else might as well know. that it might even help Bakugo to just ignore their little knot of hurt and heartache next time it comes around, which it will. he knows it will. ]
( Look, I screwed up. I did something terrible, because. ) [ there's a pause like a hitch of breath, and then that black feeling of self-loathing surges up in him, a vague sense of the same bitter glass-edged laughter from when Bakugo first met him. an awful mix of amusement and anger, bitter and dark and poisonous. too much there to get through the distance they're trying to maintain from each other, something too vast for their thin connection, but it's embedded deep in Juno. some enormous, festering wound of a thought. ] ( Because why wouldn't I? I always do. )
[ it's not that he doesn't want to fix it. the fact that he hurt Nureyev is plainly something he agonises over, but to him, it can't be fixed. he knows how this works. he's afraid of how it always ends. and so it seems like some line he can't convince himself to cross, like a wolf that paces its cage even when the door is wide open because it's so much harder to leave. ]
( And he knows that, I don't know why he won't just admit it. So if you want an answer, go ask Hadrian. )
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And that's what keeps him at bay.
That faint, barely-there sense that Juno's just waiting for the hit. Denying him that is a lot sweeter, then. ]
Don't you dare look down on me like that.
[ The words are a whipcrack, lightning in the sky. ( "None of your business", you made it his business. ) Don't you DARE dismiss him, he'll come back a thousand times harder if you do.
Even now, it's spurring him forward. Harder and faster, the words tumbling from him -- his mind to Juno's, even as his mind fractures and schisms and handles a conversation with Hadrian Black at the same time. It's a little too much, in one go, for such a new hosts. One who hates that he can juggle two conversations at the same time, one that hates how he reaches out mind-to-mind because it's the easiest way for him to hear the answers he's given and to miss none of the nuances. He doesn't miss that inky, sticky-thick pain that Juno bleeds. It feels like that fucking villain, the one that ate him up and tried to crawl inside of him to wear him, like some puppet. Juno feels like a puppet, being worn by something darker and sadder. ( Why's he like this? Why's he have to be like this? What does Black see in him? Why does he CARE so much? ) ]
Ha, [ the laugh is small, mean, bordering the edge of something he's tucked away deep, ] You're both useless, it's a wonder you made it here at all.
[ ( Rooms away, he stands over Hadrian Black; ready for a fight. ) Here, he braces his toes up against Juno Steel and snaps his teeth at him. Jockeys and jostles his mind, gets in his face. ]
What makes you so sure that he knows? I'm talking to him now, and he seems more like some high-class moron you're giving too much credit to.
some nebulous time, introductions and whatever
His brood is just a little larger.
It's no longer just him and Richie anymore. The feeling of a phantom limb has faded in a part, connected like healed nerves, the solid and tangible weight of muscle, tissue, bone, a mind. So he reaches out, polite at first. The symbiote wants to know this person and that feeling transfers directly to his core, despite being a hollowed out human. ]
( Well hello. Pardon if this is an intrusion. )
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he doesn't like this. doesn't want it, won't let it in. if these people want to try and reach him, they'll get the worst of him. ]
( You know, you're supposed to knock before barging in on a lady's space. )
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And he just breezes right through anyway. ]
( Ah, I do apologise. ) [ He doesn't sound very sorry. ] ( Should I just back out and start again? Seems like a waste, when we're off to such a wonderful start. )
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but it's fine. he's nothing if not stubborn, more than enough to make this an unpleasant experience for both of them. and he's not in the mood to play this game, either, so he'll be blunt: ]
( What do you want? ) [ there's a heavy exhaustion on his mind, weary, resigned. ] ( If this is some kind of obligatory Brood courtesy, then fine — hi, Juno Steel, not interested. )
[ he means it, with bedrock certainty; no curiosity in him, not for this. his focus is elsewhere too, split between the neon city he left behind that he misses the way you'd miss a vital organ torn out of you, and quick-flash impressions of an unnamed person that the Nest knows as Hadrian Black, his sharp smile and smooth voice. white-hot longing and guilt like a knife left to stay in Juno's gut. ]
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After all, he left discomfort back with guilt, regret, and shame when he signed his contract. In most ways, it was really helpful, since he feels no instinctive awkwardness or the lizard brain signals of fight or flight in a situation like this. ]
( You could see it as obligatory, though truly I'm curious. It's a pleasure to meet you, Juno Steel. ) [ He says it without any sarcasm, because this sort of cat and mouse game is his favorite. Someone please stop him. ]
( I'm November; you've met our other colleagues? )
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[ he'd like to be able to call them both by surname for that little bit of extra distance, but they both have siblings; it'd be too confusing to be worth it, in such a small and close-knit group as the Nest. and now it seems his third ball-and-chain either doesn't have a surname or isn't going to provide it. there's something about the name, other than it just sounding completely fake. something about November. he's a little like — not Peter Nureyev, but Rex Glass, maybe. ]
( You should know I'm not much of a fan of the whole telepathy shtick, so I'm gonna ask again before I just hang up — what do you want, November. )
[ talking about telepathy, Juno's mind takes a sharp turn for something else, this sensation like plummeting to the bottom of a cold black lake. little shards of things he's deliberately dragged up: days of torture to extract something from him as someone would pull a tooth without anaesthetic, painstaking, slow, cruel. the moment his eye burst in its socket and he hadn't even noticed through the pain in his head. a woman's voice, the thin hiss of it that makes him nauseous.
those are his associations with telepathy, whether he likes it or not, and he holds onto that fact so that it's clear. but he's exaggerating them at the same time, knows those things are there close by and pulls on them. shaking November's hand with a palm full of broken glass. ]
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Still, it feels the same. As if it came from him, even though it could never. ]
( Richard? Did he honestly introduce himself that way? )
[ Something tells him no. So it's kind of funny. ]
( Would you prefer I find you outside of our heads, then? We're all stuck together, like it or not– I see you're in the latter category. I'd like to know who I'm connected to. )
[ He doesn't flinch at the cold or the dark or even the broken glass. Instead he offers his own brand; nothingness. The deep of a river, frosted over so one can't see the bottom, can't tell what the pull of the current would be. Juno can push and push him away if he wants November doesn't see the point in it, not when they're here, not when their past can't follow them to this planet so outside of their own universes.
But he's an unfeeling monster on Earth, so perhaps he's not the gauge to go by. ]
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[ it's strange, trying to get a grasp on a person through the impressions that the connection gives you. very much not the way a detective should be approaching something. the this is, Juno knows he's a black hole, he's always known that about himself. but that sort of void is destructive; he's a grave dug into the earth, the weight of a tar pit pressing down. always a brand of emptiness that's made in violence. and November, tracing out the shape of him with the tentative touch of the symbiote, is just... blank. smooth as glass. the space between burning stars that isn't really black.
he doesn't know what to do with that, even though he's dealt with people who are made like voids before. Miasma was a suffocating vacuum; Nureyev is silk and velvet. November is similar and not at once, and Juno has always preferred something that he can run up against, the kind of surface he could find purchase on.
deciding that he's prodded with the symbiote too much, he reels back, like he's strangling it with its own leash. snaps himself back into place. ]
( Do whatever you want. I'd go powder my nose to make a good first impression, if I'd had the time to take anything with me when I got grabbed. Since I don't, there's nothing for you to interrupt. Come find me or don't. )
039, v early.
But no. Like a spider in the corner of the room, once he's noticed he's unmistakably there. Not rifling or projecting or doing much of anything, just present and waiting. Juno can probably pick up that he's tired, run down. A lot's happened lately, and nobody got much sleep. They all have to pack up and move this morning, and usually this is the time of day that Elliot would catch up on his z's.
He doesn't know how to start this conversation. ]
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so he ignores Elliot, even once he's noticed him lingering there on the edges of his awareness. rolls over and pretends he's not paying attention. his irritation is ticking away on a countdown timer, though, and it isn't too long before it eventually hits the limit: ]
( What do you want, Elliot. )
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[ Hey, it's an honest answer. He's had a craving for a couple days now — think the next destination of the pilgrimage might be a McDonalds?
Something bubbles up, an emotion, a memory, it's not even clear which of them it belongs to. He seems to consider reaching for it and again, doesn't. There's some monotonous noise in the distance, muffled monologue — again, it's not clear which of them it belongs to. ]
( There's this thing I can do now. Where I can make people feel calm. Pleasant. If they let me. )
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( I'm guessing that's a symbiote thing. )
[ it gets a little curiosity out of him, at least, through the static haze of annoyance and exhaustion. these symbiote abilities are a bunch of bullshit and even when they're right in front of him, he tends to treat them with the same disdain and skepticism he would any kind of supernatural. but Elliot's makes a sort of sense. they're already dealing with a parasite in their brains, it hardly seems a stretch that it could alter a person's mind like that. ]
( Gotta admit, it doesn't sound all that useful if they have to let you do it. )
[ there's a thread of impatience underneath his chatter: what do you want. he can't imagine anyone who's met Juno Steel already coming to him if they don't want something out of him. even if — he considers — that something is to give him a shot of sedative so he's not a low-grade headache in the back of their mind. ]
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[ That last bit is mostly tacked on like an afterthought, he's not really paying attention to what he's actually saying, because this isn't the point of anything, this isn't why he's here at all, this is the offer of a paracetamol before he cuts out your heart.
Fuck, he's so tired. ]
( Hadrian won't wake up. )
[ And there it is. ]
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[ although he's prone to restless anxiety, on any given day Juno's mind, for the most part, holds itself steady. it's not necessarily a good thing, since it's usually consistent in a feeling something like being pinned to the ocean floor by the crushing and insurmountable weight above him, but it's fairly settled at its core. resigned.
this is not settled. this is a black hole opening up inside of Juno's ribcage, the roaring force of it; the gravity and a terrible yawning chasm of such emptiness that it's violent. he's never once been truly afraid that Nureyev was dead or otherwise gone, because Juno was always there to intercept the bullet and Nureyev always promised— (there are vague memories that Juno's tangled snarl of thoughts catch on, more sound than image, a voice that is Hadrian's but not quite. a different pitch, tone, feel. it's warm and low and sincere: I won't leave you here, do you hear me? I promise you I won't disappear.) and so the thought of him being gone is... unthinkable. it's unacceptable.
Nureyev has too much to offer the world to just— just fall asleep and never wake up again, like the others left behind on the Station. it's too dull for him. he wants too much, he's the one that could actually make something worthwhile out of himself out here (Juno is so in love that it hurts) and if anyone deserved to just fade into the background, it's Juno. those are pointless thoughts, useless, but they come anyway: that this is somehow Juno's fault. it always is, isn't it? or that he could have stopped this somehow, that he shouldn't have been a stress on Nureyev's mind, shouldn't... but Nureyev will still be asleep no matter what Juno blames himself for now. that doesn't stop the background hum of something much worse, like the low tenor of a plucked string, a feeling Juno has never put into words because he doesn't want to examine it too closely, just — I should have died. I should be dead. I wish it were me.
painkillers won't fix this. by delivering the news, Elliot may as well have gutted him. ]
( Where is he. )