khuioduan | A stoic mind and a bleeding heart

[In the early twilight hours of a very hot and muggy morning, there's video on the network showing nothing but a dark wall. It might be some kind of misdial, except misdials on the network in Aifaran aren't possible. A prank, maybe, but X's name is attached to the video. What kind of prankster doesn't remain anonymous?]

Can we --

[He cuts off, with a pained yelp like he just stubbed his toe on something. He's still not in frame.]

-- go to hell.

[For anyone who's known X longer than a couple of minutes, the fury in his voice, the ragged scream, even the phrasing -- all of it is so incredibly uncharacteristic that X seems to frighten even himself.]

No. No. You're all wrong. Your family was wrong, you're -- you are better than you think you are. It can't be over. Nothing is ever over, not even when -- you think you're safe, you know, you think you know what life is all about, and then you look up and there's fire in the sky over your home and you never see it again. But let's face it, who am I to lecture upon what is reality and what is myth?

[If it sounds like the haggard and broken rambling of someone who's insane, that's because it is.]

No, wait -- sorry. Sorry, I'm… I don't. I don't know.

[The camera finally moves, slowly, and X appears. He looks terrible. He looks like a child who's woken up from a night terror, drawn in and crying, desperate for help. The sight of his own face on the camera makes him stare.]

Oh.

I'm sorry. I'm -- I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. I swear, I didn't mean to.

[The video cuts off there. Whether on purpose or by accident is anyone's guess.]

(OOC: It might take X a bit to respond to anyone, so please feel free to threadjack each other in the meantime!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Although Devin had seriously considered fleeing the continent after hearing X repeat his own words and screams, he knew he could not. Factors beyond their control have led them to this situation, and the burden of Devin's life on X's shoulders is more than the reader should have to bear. The vampire is the only one, ultimately, that can untangle his own life for X.

That decision made, he then had to figure out how to help. Devin has so little experience in how to provide comfort - how to be a friend, and a pillar to lean on. He's expertise is in pushing people away. It took time for him to calm down, and then to settle upon what he thinks is most likely to order the chaotic violence of his life.

Quietly, Devin makes his way to the Dreaming Bridge and X's room. He has a sheaf of paper bound with cord in one hand as when he arrives. He's not expecting to encounter a guard. Pausing, Devin gives Zephyr a look that is as sharp as it is haggard, and speaks loud enough to be heard through the door.]

X. May I come in?

Edited 2018-06-09 03:31 (UTC)

[X jerks in surprise. Was that -- Devin?]

... Yes.

[Valdis, he knew, would have approached him eventually. She confronts threats head-on. She can't leave problems alone once she knows they're problems. Devin, though -- Devin avoids his issues. Devin doesn't let problems become problems, and when he fails at that, he has no emotional backup. He runs.

He didn't run this time. He's here. Right outside the door. Has... has he seen the network today?]

[While Devin has indeed made a habit of running from his problems - and in many ways running from himself - he's never had such a literal opportunity to do so. Leaving X awash in his bloodstained life would go against Devin's mandate to protect people from himself, however, and so he's here.

He takes a steadying breath before entering, closing the door behind him quietly. The neutral mask he wears is carefully crafted, and thinly maintained. Perhaps it's stupid to even try to hide from the reader. For a moment, Devin stands there in silence.]

I don't know how this usually works for you, [he begins without preamble, voice quiet,] but I could only think of one place to start.

[Devin crosses the room smoothly, almost too effortlessly, and holds out the sheaf of paper: T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. It is the book he reads to deal with his worst nightmares, the ones in which he sees the infinity that awaits him painted with the loss of friends. The vastness of eternity is woven with loneliness and grief, drifting anchorless through time, until Devin Parker ceases to exist and he becomes something else.]

[Devin's neutral mask is met with open surprise, tinged with a little fear as the vampire crosses the room. X doesn't say anything, doesn't answer the implied question, but he leans forward to take the sheaf of paper when Devin offers it.

Four Quartets, by T.S. Eliot.

All at once, X's face crumples and his eyes sting with tears. It's a book he'd never heard of before today, but seeing it now brings both the warm nostalgia of a comforting friend, and a crash of existential terror. Devin's here, Devin's here, because his concern for X outweighs his fear of himself, and he came with a gift that means as much to him as it does because he knows it'll mean a lot to X too. Devin's feelings mix with X's own and tears become sobs.]

Thank you. [X's voice is slightly muffled through his hand.] Thank you so much.

[Devin is not one inclined to tears, seeing as his strategy is usually to bury his emotions rather than acknowledge them. He is not unaware that his life has been marred by tragedy and the violence of his own hand. Never did it cross his mind that someone would cry over him. Or are those sobs not entirely X's?

...Oh. No, he can't think on that now.

The vampire is so utterly ill-equipped for this. He closes his eyes for a moment, stifling the urge to walk right back out the door, and slowly walks forward instead to take a seat in one of the standard dormitory chairs that furnish the Bridge.]

If you are to be saddled with my nightmares, you should at least have the remedy for them, [he says softly, clearly uncomfortable and genuinely sorry at the same time.] It may... bring some order to what you'll remember. [Devin sighs heavily.] But some things I've never found respite from.

[It is a warning and an apology both. The scars his family and Bobby left on him were not all physical, and they run terribly deep.]

[X wipes his eyes with the back of one hand and stares down at the poems in his lap. His vision's still blurry enough that he can't read the title, but he remembers exactly what it looked like, right down to the scratches of the ink.

The odd thing, the really odd thing, is that -- Devin's life has been terrible, strings of bad luck interspersed with conflict and desperation and pain, but the part affecting X more than any other is exactly the part Devin uses Four Quartets to escape from; that he's staring down the barrel of an endless life he can't share with anyone, filled with nothing but the same misfortune and conflict and desperation and pain. It sounds so achingly lonely that even the thought of it makes X's eyes sting.]

My husband, he -- [X puts a hand over the book in his lap.] -- he's... like you, he's... he'll live a long time.

[In other words, the book won't just help the part of X that's Devin. It'll help X, as well.

He curls in on the bed, pressing his eyes into his knee.]

I don't like how hard it is for you to trust.

[Said very small and quiet.]

[In the midst of the terrible events of today, Devin can find some small measure of relief that the book will do X more good than just to deal with his past. Even knowing that, he finds it difficult to see X in this state, whomever his tears are for. He looks away.]

And I don't like that putting my trust in people also paints a target on their backs. [It's probably a pointless argument. X knows this about him. X knows everything, and Devin grimaces. He doesn't trust the reader yet, but at least he knows that's his fault and not X's.] Or on mine.

Too many people who should have been... reliable, were not. [He knows it's an incredible understatement, but to say it more openly is too difficult right now.]

[X knows. He knows this about Devin, knows Devin's life, knows Devin's mental obstacles and the retreats his mind has chosen to cope. Devin's known betrayal worse than anything X ever has. Of course he has issues with trust.

That doesn't make it any easier for X to handle.

He inhales, swallows around the lump in his throat, and peers up at Devin through tear-stained eyes that, hopefully, won't detract too much from his point.]

You said... you don't know how it usually works. Usually, if I help, it... helps. It helps me, I mean, to try and help you. You can't see your own pain anymore, like how you stop noticing a smell when it doesn't go away. If I can help, even a little, it... helps.

['Helps' is starting not to sound like a word.]

A stoic mind and a bleeding heart

action; some time after Valdis has seen X

action;

action;

action;

action;

action;

perma-action;

no subject