maskormenace | [video]

Entry tags:

[video]

[ooc disclaimer: After going back and forth, and getting some very helpful feedback, I've decided to go ahead with this post, as a character beat I need to address before moving into more open/easy-to-tag territory. This truly is IC. Any and all responses if wanting to opt-in completely welcome including negative CR ones. I'm not in crisis OOC. <3 Thank you all so much for the feedback and concrit and support. I'm interested in leaving the opportunity for anyone else who might want to engage with this, but if anyone at all would prefer I move it to a private message to the scenepartners who've already consented, I will do so immediately. Thanks again <3 ]

* * *

[video. Intended as private recording maybe to be sent eventually to K-2SO. Broadcast power fritzes and sends it immediately, not just to Kaytu but to Poe Dameron—and anyone else wanting to opt-in.]

[Feed switches on. Shuffling sounds. Cassian enters frame. Leans back against the wall. That's not enough. Slides down onto his heels, braced between floor and wall. Better. Digs a hand into his hair. Stays there for a bit. Shakes head. Gets up. Exits frame.

Returns a few minutes later. Skips straight to low braced position, now with a bottle in bandaged hand. Takes a swig. Finally addresses recording.]

This thing never does what I want it to. Let's see what happens now I don't care what it does.

So. Kaytu. Or anyone with feed access.

…Kay.

I don't know how to free you.

Of me.

Bodhi. Poe. Veronica. …I never should have…

I never should have let myself… take what I… having people actually… know… notice… if I'm…

Positioning myself to have people who care what happens to me… it's way too late to have allowed that. Too late for me not to…

I can't… have other people hurt because I do. I can't do anything about that. I don't want that. Not when I…

I didn't want to abandon you again so I didn't. I've been here during the days. I go walking at night. Like the… 'heroes' they want us to be. But it's not 'heroic' to want to fight. To look for fights. Want to get… It's not…

I don't know how to do this and I don't want to be what I'm…

I made myself unfit for any of this years ago. I was never gonna get to live in the world I was trying to help happen.

I had a way out before you. What I did to you.

So to keep me alive, I gave up a clear way out. I took help and created collateral.

I'm doing no good for any universe now. I don't want to be in it anymore.

But I do harm if I leave it.

[Takes a drink. Sets it down, shoves bottle aside so it goes rolling. Hangs head for a few minutes.

Finally, back up enough to address feed without looking into.]

Pfassk it. Anyone.

How do you do it.

How do people do this.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It wasn't that he was expecting the message, exactly. But when it came he wasn't surprised. He didn't even say anything to anyone before he was up, throwing on his jacket and grabbing his carpet. This wasn't a conversation for the network. He was already on the carpet and sky bound before he replied. He needed to make sure he had the right co-ordinates.

He didn't bother with preamble.]

Cassian, Where are you?

[Cassian also sounded unsurprised.

Just flat.]

Hi, Poe.

You don't have to.

Pretty sure that wasn't my question, Cass.

You at the house?

I know.

[And he knows nothing he can say or do short of getting up and leaving right now and going invisible somewhere would keep Poe from coming to him. And he can't muster the will, or a good reason, to do that. That's not merciful on Poe either. …Which is the crux again. Yavá. Everything too hollow.]

Yeah.

I'm on my way.

[He didn't turn off the feed, but he didn't say anything more. Kept it on more in case Cassian said anything else than because he had anything to say. Not over the network, anyway.

He flew to the porter, as that was a lot faster than flying between cities, so in the end it only took him twenty minutes to get to Cassian's door. He let himself in without any fanfare - leaning the carpet against the wall as he walked straight into the house. No BB-8: he'd left the droid at home, where it would now be quietly powered down in his room, waiting for Poe to return.]

Cass?

[Cassian isn't there.

The bedroom he'd once shared with Jyn hasn't changed—probably hasn't been open—since he left it in her wake.

The spare bedroom he'd been sleeping in is sparse as his lifetime of barracks had been. All his belongings—he'd amassed a little more in this lifetime than in the last but still not much—are neatly folded and stacked methodically in a corner. There's no furniture but one bare mattress.

His comm is still on the mattress pointed at a corner… the wall Cassian had leaned on… which now sports a blast pattern of liquid spatter and shattered dark glass.

The comm had kept recording. Just stopped transmitting as Cassian's mind went… numb. It showed Cassian and Poe's conversation, and Cassian slumping back against the wall, closing his eyes, in response to it, apparently to wait.

But somewhere in there… right around the sound of the Porting that inevitably interrupted Poe's feed… Cassian's eyes had flown open… and he looked… furious. He pushed himself abruptly upright, barely wincing as his bandaged hand punched the wall to do so. He started toward the comm, reaching out to it… then with a half-swallowed shout, swiveled aboutface and hurled the bottle he still held into the wall. He vanished from frame and the comm picked up several door slams, each more distant than the last.

From trace trailing beer from the shattered bottle (and any house devices Poe could ask), Cassian had left through the back door.]

[It took him a while to even find the spare room - he'd checked Cassian's, then Kay's, then even Bodhi's, before he even thought to glance in there. A moment later, having watched through the feed on Cassian's phone, he pocketed the device while letting out a blue streak of curses, half of them not in a language easily identified on Earth.

The beer had been the first trail, but literally all of Cassian's appliances were muttering about what had just gone down - so as soon as Poe stopped tuning them out, he had figured out where Cassian had went.

He didn't bother going back for his carpet, just ran out the door after him.]

[All of Cassian's friends had probably been brought with him, at least once, to walk in the forest. It was an environment least tainted by and most deprived in his past. Perhaps he wouldn't have acclimated as well to this world from the start if he hadn't been able to have it. A lot of things had been able to be addressed here, out from under the oppression of walls and ceilings but still protected from the infinite eyes of space. He'd found things he and Kay could do that satisfied Kay's more violent core protocols, without hurting any living thing—breaking up boulders for hiking trails and downed trees/limbs after storms—something he'd never been able to find a way to do in the Rebellion where they'd simply forced Kay (willing but always unsatisfied) to stifle them. Sublimation for Cassian when he didn't know whether to try and serve this world the way he'd served the last, but whether that was best accomplished by using the same skills, focusing on the same issues, as then, or trying to rebuild himself into something new.

(He'd chosen the latter. Forcing himself not to engage with larger political forces, no matter how much sometimes that made him panic or rage or scream wondering if he was inviting horrors and abdicating those without choice, to try and focus on accepting the gift of this new life they'd been given—he and Kay and Bodhi and Jyn.)

And Jyn…

Poe wouldn't know that the glade he'd find Cassian in… what had happened there

(Do you want me to tell you what would have happened to all of us—without Scarif
If you value my life
Don't take this choice from me now
I don't want to fight anymore
I love you don't leave I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry
I choose this, and this life, and you. I'd choose it over and over again
Ets el meu amor
Ets la meva vida
As long as you want me, I'm here

BUT YOU AREN'T, JYN)

But Cassian would be caught there. Standing on a piece of ground where they'd fought and made love and slept—not just then but many times, when the disconnect was too much, trying to reconcile them in a house, they'd come out here and be something else, creatures of the forest who could blend into it and not have to carry it all in of themselves…

Hands fisted, head bowed, chest heaving, caught between looking for something to fight and tearing every root out of the earth and breaking himself on a tree… just caught.]

Edited 2018-02-04 03:46 (UTC)

[Poe was a pilot, not a tracker, but luckily the woods weren't so cute that stumbling around for half an hour didn't finally manage to have him happen upon the glade where Cassian was. He didn't call out, immediately - he'd been running, again, and his breath was coming a little too quick, his heart beating a little too fast, so he let it calm down a bit before he started walking towards him.

His mouth opened, to speak, but it just wasn't good enough. No sound came out. What the hell was there to say? He knew perfectly well nothing was going to make it better, and he didn't want to pretend that he could. So instead he just walked up until he was about five feet away and then came to a stop, watching him. His fingers worked at his side, rubbing together in an echo of his jumbled thought process before finally tightening into something decisive.

He just waited.]

[Cassian gave no sign he'd noticed Poe.

He still didn't, not looking up, no change to his tense stance, when he spoke to him.]

No good options here.

Option one: I let you try to save me. Which we both know you can't. No matter how much we both wish you could.

Option two: I try to drive you away. Which you won't buy and I don't want but how can I let you keep doing this for me.

Option three: Hit me. Or fuck me. Or something to break this moment. See if it the breaking keeps. Kill what's left of this and turn it into something else.

Option four: …

…Not gonna do that to you.

…Give me another. Please.

[Two months ago, Poe might have just hit him. And then fucked him. In whatever order. Force knew he had slept with people for less, had fucked and fought his way through his own depression since coming here. He'd understood the original message more tha Cassian likely even knew - had picked those bar fights, for significantly less reason than Cassian had. He got it. But something had changed. Poe had changed.

It didn't even really cross his mind, that he might be about to say the wrong thing. That this was exactly what had caused the rift between him and Finn. That this was probably the least healthy way to deal with this.

It didn't matter.

It was just another option.]

Option five, I give you something to fight. [His tone was dark, and low, his face set and firm and his gaze unwavering. He wasn't kidding.]

I give you a war.

[…

oh god.

Cassian had been too young, to clearly remember Jerón Andor's quarters at the Carida Academy later. But there were some things he'd always known. One was that he might have had one toy that was purely what it seemed—purely a toy. Some kind of fabric animal effigy, a remnant of his forgotten mother. Everything else, everything provided by Jerón, maybe by the Academy, certainly allowed by either, was also a tool… or proto-weapon. Stand-ins for their functional counterparts. Working to indoctrinate Cassian before he could speak.

Three children playing on a hillside. But it wasn't, they didn't, and they weren't. Lyyxo pretended to shoot Surat. Surat berated Cassian for letting him die. Cassian said everyone's job was to keep themselves alive. It wasn't a hill, it was a volcano. They didn't play, they drilled. They weren't children, they were Separatist soldiers.

Draven picking him up when he crashed and burned. Mon Mothma putting him back together when he lost the reasoning. Dodonna wiping his records. Medical straightening his nose and teeth and erasing half of his scars for Imperial eyes.

Kaytu picking him up. Holding him down. Breaking him out. Locked in with him.

If that's all the universe has left for you

If that's all you're good at

You don't know what you're talking about

You might as well be a stormtrooper

What is it you think we're fighting for?

All he'd done had been to end the war.

He'd kill himself before creating more.

He'd promised them he'd survive.

What else had he ever done that for

Cassian raised his head. Squared his shoulders. Faced Poe.]

What've you got.

Edited 2018-02-04 07:47 (UTC)

[The hand at Poe's side tensed, released, and tensed again - his jaw working silently as he tried to phrase it in his head before he just said shit, as he was wont to do. So when he spoke, his voice was far calmer and far steadier than it might otherwise have been.]

I know this place isn't perfect, Cassian, but for better or worse, it's what we've got.

But there's- something, someone - out there that doesn't want us here. When I was up in orbit, they launched a drone. Missile capable.

I signed up with the Air Force to fly, but - I'm staying to fight. Because I think it's coming, Cass. I can fucking smell it, and the last time I let people tell me that there was no danger, to cool my heels and wait for diplomacy to do its work, I watched five fucking planets explode.

[He hadn't broken eye contact, and he didn't do so now, either, even though he took a breath.]

If I can't convince you to stay for you, to live for you, then I think you'll understand when I say that you've gotta do it for the rest of them. You can't check out. Kaytoo, Bodhi-- Who knows how long any of us have got, but they deserve every moment that they get, here. Every single second of peace that we can steal for them? That's what's worth it.

If you won't take that peace for yourself - that's fine. I get it. I can't either. So we'll just fight for the rest of them.

[Some moments of silence. But of a different tone this time.

Finally:]

The drone. Tell me more about it? "Missile capable". Were they active? What did it do?

[ Ah, heartbreak. Believe or not, despite the vows the Night's Watch have, heartbreak is surprisingly common. Although it seemed more than heartbreak, here. The man's blubbers like a broken man, words barely stringing together, just barely coherent. Edd himself can barely understand it.

Or likely it's the wine talking. ]

No one wins at anything.

[ Edd is no help whatsoever, but he understands what the man is saying. Sort of. Edd can't say he's ever that emotionally wrought. ]

[The fact that the voice isn't one he already knows is a relief. Makes him lift his head without feeling quite as much of its weight, and fumble to pick the comm back up. It switches automatically to audio to match the response and he lets it.

At a genuine loss:]

"Wins"?

[Trying to remember when he'd said something about winning. Or if he hadn't, what the connecting thought is.]

What do you mean?

[His tone is audibly sincere; he wants to hear anything Edd might say.]

Exactly what I said. No one wins at anything. So better not to have high expectation of things.

[ That's literally the worst advice ever, Edd. ]

[But somehow… (dammit, shouldn't have switched to audio…) makes Cassian actually smile.]

Can't argue with that.

…Thank you.

Can I ask who this is? I don't think we've met.

Eddison Tollett. Though they call me Edd.

Hey, Edd. I'm Cassian.

It's… a ridiculous question. But… how do you tackle that?

[…he didn't know how to do this as himself, in his own life, but, belatedly remembering: skills gained for war can sometimes be adapted for peace…

Maybe modeling himself off others' identities, lives… others' stories, could be used for a purpose besides deceit.]

Tackle what?

[ That's a strange question. ]

"Winning" being fiction.

Eh....

[ Edd shrugs. It's just always his way of things, ever since he realized that if the gods wanted to give man dignity, they wouldn't let them fart when they die. ]

It's not fiction. It's just a sorry state of affairs.

Edited 2018-02-06 23:21 (UTC)

[ Bodhi isn't home, when he sees the message. He's taken Ace out for a walk, going with him to the park to stretch his legs a bit and for Bodhi to test his own new powers with the shapeshifting into different animals. Something that confuses the dog to no end.

However, sitting down and checking the network, he's jumping back up and heading home as soon as he sees this, dog trotting at his side.

Dropping the leash in the kitchen about ten minutes later, he quickly makes his way through the house looking for Cassian. When he does, in the spare room they keep - he doesn't say much - before sitting down beside him. Letting him make the first move, or say something - anything. ]

[Cassian's let his head slump back against the wall, eyes closed, bottle dropped from his hand. He could be asleep… except he doesn't react to Bodhi's arrival. Had he really been asleep, he would have startled.

Bodhi sits beside him… for a moment Cassian just sits too, feeling simultaneously grateful for Bodhi's silence and wretched to be doing this to his friend…

Inflicting his own "friendship", poison thing that it (and he) is, on this good kind person. This is a terrible reward for your goodness, Bodhi. How dare I.

But can't tell anymore which action is protecting and which is hurting the other.

Cassian's head turns a little. Then more. Then lowers to rest on, eyes closed into, Bodhi's shoulder.

And Cassian cracks, reduced to shaking with silent tears.]

[The first thing he does is pick up the bottle, and place it on the counter.

The second thing K-2 does is reach down, and pick Cassian up by the front of his shirt, lifting him up, off his feet, and holding him there. He's done this before.

Eventually, he puts Cassian down on the counter as well. so at least they're a little closer to being eye-to-eye.]

What do you want me to say, Cassian? To tell you that I don't need you? That I'm suddenly no longer concerned with your wellbeing, so you can go out, guilt-free?

If you really wanted that, I could suppress and erase all memory of you. Is that what you want?

Edited 2018-02-05 00:28 (UTC)

[Cassian's hands wrap around Kay's wrists. But doesn't attempt to break the hold—as if trying would do anything anyway. Just takes some of the weight off his shirt with his arms, and submits to being hung out to dry.

…Ugh… Cassian knows he'd made a fool of himself but being set on the counter with feet dangling like… (what, a child? what's being that like) seems a little knife-twisting.

Kay's questions silence the rest of these thoughts.

Cassian should have answers to them. Should have answered them already before opening his mouth on any of the rest.

He owes it to Kay to try…

…he fails. Sinks forward, elbows braced on knees, knocking his forehead gently against Kay's chest. He can't tolerate himself leaning on Kay in this moment; but for just a moment he can feel the familiar coolness and hide his face.

Cassian doesn't have a good answer. But Kay deserves at least an honest one.

Even if it comes out a bit of a croak.]

Sometimes.

[…he recognized his own tactic and wasn't sure he could stop it. Make Kay as disgusted, as ashamed of him as Cassian was of himself, and maybe that could be the magic middle way… not remove the memories that were part of Kay being Kay but… devalue the object of them.

(The nonsensical undercurrent: let him disappear]

You're the one that told me I shouldn't ever memory wipe myself on purpose unless it was absolutely necessary. So I should always be able to remember the war, but you think for some reason, it would be fine for me to wipe my memory of you? You are aware of how much of my personality is based off of my memories. Removing you from them would cause a chain reaction.

[Cassian knows this, of course.]

I saw how you were, when I didn't remember you. You hated it. You're only saying 'sometimes,' because you're upset, and trying to make me upset with you.

[It's now that Kaytu takes his hand and places it on Cassian's shoulder, making sure to push him upright. To not lean on his chestplate. To be force Cassian to not look away so easily.]

I will never be 'free' of you. Who I am would not be the same, if you were not important to me. Some day, you will be gone. It could be within years, or minutes. Some day, I will also be gone. It could be before you, or after you. Regardless, I have decided to take the opportunity to allow myself to be as 'happy' as I can, while still understanding the inevitability that it will end, likely abruptly and without warning.

I would like you to be able to experience the same, but you are determined that it is impossible. So I believe you require reprogramming.

Edited 2018-02-05 17:34 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[video]

[voice | private]

[voice | private]

[voice | private]

[voice | private]

[voice | private] --- > action

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

audio;

audio;

audio;

audio;

audio;

audio;

audio;

audio;

Re: audio;

action

action

actionnnn

no subject

no subject