un: Eve 🔪; video

[wroughtandtempered]

[ the video opens to a large, serpentine beast with a wolf's pointed ears pulling back from the camera, having apparently started the recording via booping the phone's screen with her snoot. she flicks out a forked black tongue once, then lays her head down on her paws and says slowly: ]

What do you do when you feel like garbage, and you can't do anything to fix why? When you've just got to wait it out.

...I don't know how long I'm going to be waiting, so. The more ideas the better.

[ a beat, and then she adds: ]

Thanks.

[ —before reaching out to tap the phone again, this time with a paw. animal lovers, enjoy that brief full-screen shot of pink snakewolf toebeans before the feed cuts. ]

Comments

[schrodingerscockroach]

[Wash has his own traumas and people not coming back is the assumed thing that must be disproven. And Wylan has never shown any inclination to fight for Wash like Wash does for him. But Wash never required that to care.]

[Wash pushes his shoulder down again.]

It is my business. Eve doesn't like what she heard and I know enough about poor health and what heart stopping does to your brain to know better.

Do you want to know what it's like?

What happens to your brain when your heart stops?

Because I do.

[daturameloxia]

It would stop stopping if people left me alone. We won't have to find out what happens to the brain if the heart stops if people simply leave me the fuck alone!

[Wylan doesn't curse. It's just Not A Thing he does. Sure, he finds other more creative phrases, but he never dips into the pool of vulgar words like this.

In case it weren't obvious, something is very wrong with the noodle.]

[schrodingerscockroach]

That goes back to my point on how are you supposed to be strong if being around people makes your heart stop.

[daturameloxia]

[Nope back to full struggle mode. Trying to kick Wash in any area he can reach, trying to get up to his feet, trying to do anything to get upstairs where his pack and his minimize potion is.]

[schrodingerscockroach]

[This is why his wrists and ankles are bound, it's rather easy to keep a hand on his shoulder and knees to keep him down.]

It's like trying to hold sand when your hands keep spasming. Sometimes you can keep the sand there, keep it for a while. But then your fingers twitch and so much sand is gone in an instance.

What's worst is you have a sense that something is wrong. That isn't the right amount of sand still in your hands. Or. Maybe it is? What amount should there be?

But the sand is your thoughts. Your memories. Your knowledge. Over and over, you start to realize something is wrong, but you can't. Keep. Enough sand to figure out what.

That's what happened when my heart stopped.

Do you want a life where you can't even remember what nitroglycerine even is most days?

[daturameloxia]

Let go of me. [Have some more wiggling!]

I don't care! What has knowing what nitroglycerin is done for me in the past beside making my father more angry? Make him beat me more?

I can hate him now. I can kill him when I see him, now. And I will. I will drown him with my own two hands and that doesn't require knowing any chemistry or physics.

[Wylan's heart skips a beat and for a moment he seems almost drowsy before he blinks through the sensation and focuses on Wash again. He doesn't remember what he was just talking about, but he blames that on Wash.]

[schrodingerscockroach]

What is the point of strength if you can't even keep what you love?

[That's his point right there, Wylan!]

[daturameloxia]

He will finally be dead!

[Oops is he shouting. Yeah he's shouting.]

I won't have to fear him any more, I won't keep taking pictures of him with the memory camera. He will be gone!

[schrodingerscockroach]

He won't be.

You won't let him go. I'm proof of that. Most of our time together, you don't see me.

[daturameloxia]

I do see you. I just hate you because you're just like him. [He'd cross his arms if he could.]

[schrodingerscockroach]

I'm not.

But it's sad I could believe that isn't just the mindfuck that makes you think that.

You spend so much of our time together deciding I'm going to act like him, think like him, be like him despite all my efforts to prove that isn't the case.

That's why killing him won't get rid of him.

You will let him rule you until you die. Because his power over you isn't dependent on him being alive. It's fully dependent on you choosing to live for him or for yourself.

You are choosing him every single time.

[daturameloxia]

You know he beat me while I was a child? Beat me until the bruises started showing? He ruled my entire life until he realized he could drown me in the canal and I would only be labeled as victim of the harbor.

[He shakes his head. He doesn't want pity.] Once he's dead, he'll stop ruling my life. And now I'm capable of killing him with my own two hands. No matter what you say.

[A huff.] I want you to leave me alone and never darken my door again.

[schrodingerscockroach]

I know.

And I know revenge. And I know anger. I know killing for it.

I lived it. I did it.

The Director ruined my life. Killed many of my friends. Made me blow up their dead bodies and kill those who were alive because they had been so destroyed by him, it became me or them. He ripped my mind apart. Stole a third of my life.

The Director is dead. Has been for years.

But it wasn't his death that stopped his haunting.

It's when I chose my happiness over my anger and fear that did it.

Killing your father was never about bringing you peace. It was to stop him from being a threat and revenge. Never peace.

[daturameloxia]

[Wylan is quiet for a long moment before he responds.] If I agree with you, will you go?

[schrodingerscockroach]

No, because you'd be lying to my face.

I told you, I choose my obligation and even if you hate me, I'm going to take care of you.

[daturameloxia]

[In reward for Wash's honesty, have some silence.]

[schrodingerscockroach]

We need to remove the alchemy.

You gonna tell me how or am I menacing the scientists for more reasons? You know they're working to free Choco. Are you going to slow down their work by not telling me the truth?

[He's rather not, but....this could kill Wylan, and Choco wouldn't want Wylan to die. And bring trapped in something is likely more annoying her than traumatizing her.]

[daturameloxia]

[Have some more silence for the guilt. Though Wylan does, at least, chew on his lip.]

[schrodingerscockroach]

....being real strong for her, aren't you.

You'd rather be allowed to hurt yourself than make it easier for her to be helped.

[daturameloxia]

[There is a quiet moment when the real Wylan shows through,] As soon as I heard she was gone, I...

I knew I needed to be stronger. And I found a way to be stronger.

[He sucks in a breath.] I've been working almost the full week straight.

[schrodingerscockroach]

I worked for a week straight before I got all my surgeries once. I was always a high constitution bastard.

But then I was asleep for four days straight. No one could wake me up. I had to be hospitalized.

You think that will help her?

[daturameloxia]

I've been trying to come up with a low threshold explosive that will help her away from her kidnappers. Something easy and small. I thought it would be helpful if I could make something coin-sized.

I didn't have a chance yet.

[Primarily because he wanted to help Eve with a distraction, which led to this interaction.]

The alchemy helped me stay awake and I haven't needed to eat either.

[schrodingerscockroach]

[Choco has so many options when she's cornered, he's pretty sure explosives would not make a difference. She may LIKE the explosives, but it wouldn't decide anything.]

You do know she's not helpful, right?

You also probably didn't need to eat because you haven't been and your body will just stop feeling hungry. The sleep thing is bad and its obviously been affecting you.

[daturameloxia]

[Wylan visibly deflates sitting back. So everything he's been doing this week has been entirely useless. Instead of tears, though, the self-hatred takes off instead. Will Relius even like his samples?

Would anyone?

And now he's blown his chance to work independently in the apartment.

Wylan ducks his head, chest heaving.] Just go away.

[schrodingerscockroach]

[Not HELPLESS, whoops.]

She would probably think they're fun. I do too.

But she wouldn't want you doing all this for her.