—MENTAL LINK.

[iuno]

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!

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[iuno]

[ oh, christ. not this again. Darlene was the first moment the connection hit him, and Juno had taken that with all the grace of a cat being thrown into a bath; he's since swallowed it. he doesn't need to panic. instead, when he feels more of the same — another one of those things on the edges of his mind trying to reach across a too-small gap — he goes sharp, hard, dark. a building in terrible disrepair and a KEEP OUT sign barring the entrance.

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. )

[justttkidding]

[ Oh, well, that's inviting. November notes the edges, the everything that basically screams to keep away.

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. )

[iuno]

[ that's different. Darlene had backed off resentfully as soon as he lashed out at their connection; Richie kept his distance and watched Juno light his own pyre with that cold, unsettling curiosity. this guy — the last one, slotting neatly into place like he's meant to be there — he sidesteps it entirely. just ducks under police tape without a moment's pause, and Juno doesn't like that at all.

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. ]

[justttkidding]

[ If Juno is planning to make this uncomfortable, November is going to enjoy seeing how he does it.

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? )

[iuno]

( Unfortunately, yeah. ) [ his resentment is a sharp taste, acidic and sour. ] ( Darlene and I woke up together; Richard came looking for me when we made it planetside. )

[ 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. ]

[justttkidding]

[ Darlene, the other piece in their particular puzzle. The odd close but not close feeling they all have now that the puzzle is completed. No longer are there phantom limbs or minds lingering at the edge of his mind. He feels relief– fabricated by the symbiote, something he's gotten better at distinguishing in these past couple weeks.

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. ]

[iuno]

( Richard, Richie. ) [ a sort of mental shrug. he's used to people whose names he got from a file, the cold demeanour of a professional. ] ( I'd call him Gecko but I've tried that with families and it's more trouble than it's worth. )

[ 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. )