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 Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:01 pm
"That will be fine Miss Taryn," he said, though even if he did not like it it was unlikely that he would disagree. He had...never really had lemon, but the scent was clean and strong. He poured a cup, intrigued by it, and smelling it before carefully tasting it. It was...peculiar for tea, with the fruit coming through stronger than he probably wanted (as in, he could taste it at all), but it was not water, and it was something different than what they had been eating so he could live with it.
Was everything okay? Not really, he thought to himself as he found a place on the floor to sit cross-legged, within touching distance of Alexander but making no move to actually do so. He just needed him to be close. There if he needed to protect him. It was hard to trust other places right now, even Miss Taryn's room.
By going first he had probably been the best off of the group, but even that was not saying much. And at least he had not been going through the past few days alone. It really probably was not healthy just staying cooped up with Alexander but he needed it. It seemed like they both did. "Physically everything is fine," he eventually settled on, skirting around everything else entirely. Uncomfortable really talking about it even with the other teammates he tacked on, "this is a unique tea Miss Taryn, thank you for sharing."
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:39 pm
Taryn wasn't feeling as if they were making much progress at all. Mort was completely gone and Alex was clearly suffering. It only seemed as if Yin was avoiding the situation entirely, and she nodded to him with a soft smile. Yes, it was good tea, now how did one mediate a group?
"I'm... I'm alright," she nodded finally, "Considering what we all have seen and experienced, I'd say we're all doing fairly well to not simply be curled up in a corner of the infirmary. Such is life in Amityville..." She sipped her tea again and sighed, surveying her room of... well, they really were friends now, even if they hadn't been before. All of her boils were hurting, and she wasn't sure there was anything she could do. Sure, she had a few psychology textbooks in her closet, but she didn't trust herself to put them into practice.
"Is there anything anybody wants to... ask? Or talk about?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:05 pm
Mort indeed had many questions: Why did they have to experience something so visceral? Why had the horsemen felt the need to show them a world without them, when clearly Amityville did want them? Were they deriving enjoyment, knowing how many students they'd scarred? Were scare tactics the only way to cooperate now?
He finished his candied brains and gingerly picked up the tea cup, mouth twitching at how warm it was to the touch. "One d-day at time," he echoed Alex faintly, sipping it some and not caring that it burned everything in its path down his throat. Pain was almost a relief at this point; it jarred him, made his head go back on straight.
Unless this too was also a dream. The thought stung him in its doubt.
"Better question i-is 'want to know?'," Mort countered quietly, passing Alex and Yin a glance. He had no doubt the boils had been spending plenty of time together since then, though even if they had shared their experiences it was not even half the picture. Alex looked almost as shaky as he was in spite of that understanding look, and while Taryn and Yin were both rather composed Mort wasn't sure he wanted to continue being a downer, telling the truth or not. "Could j-just forget . . .?"
It was a lie that passed his burnt tongue, and he knew it. He'd never be able to forget something like this. But at the least he was talking more, even if he did sit the tea cup with a bit more clatter than a normal person would.
Damn his hands, damn his FEAR, just . . . just damn everything. He wanted to punch something to feel even the slightest bit useful here.
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:54 pm
Alex listened quietly as everyone said what they needed to, sinking back into the couch, staring dully towards a wall, suddenly lost in thought. This was dangerous, and had been happening far too often. It would start out innocent enough, his brain wandering aimlessly over mundane things, taking a break, likely, from Alex's constant battle to shield out any memories or images he didn't want to deal with. Ultimately, however, his brain always decided to wander back to all the far too vivid nightmarish images that Alex would really rather forget, and it would leave him gasping and trembling almost as badly as he had been when he'd first awoken. Thankfully he snapped out of it when Mort began speaking right next to him, shortly after Yin seated himself on the floor nearby.
That was good, because nobody needed to deal with him having a mental breakdown right now. Jack knew Yin had dealt with it enough already.
His gaze drifted down towards the candied brains, only half eaten, in his hand, and he held it up for another bite.
Want to know? Want to ask? He'd really rather not.
"I--I don't know if I do...Want to know, that is." He said, voice quiet as he suddenly wished Yin wasn't so far away (even though he really wasn't, and was within reaching distance). But there was one question that he'd been wanting to know the answer to at least.
"But..did anybody make it out?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 9:19 pm
Alexander had asked a good question. A better one than Yin would have asked. Then again, the questions that he had were not ones that this teammates would likely be able to answer. Is there any way we can prevent this? How can I prevent this. Do I need to kill someone to prevent this? Who? As it was it was simply nice that the other two were fine. As for Mademoiselle Temes...he had no idea if she was okay or not. But as the others seemed to not be bringing her up he did not think he was the one to do so.
So he sat there, and he sipped his tea. And he looked around at the snacks. Candied brains? Not really his thing. He stared at them, wishing for a nice rat all of the sudden. "I am sorry that I left you so early," he mumbled, and then sipped his tea, not looking any of them in the eye.
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:35 pm
"Yin, no..." Taryn said, heaving a sigh, "It wasn't your fault..." She turned then to Mort in response to Alex's question, although she hadn't meant to. All but Mort had been dead when she... well. Left.
"This isn't something we can all ignore," she said finally, looking around the group, "That just means bottling, and that's so unhealthy... it sucks to deal with, sure, but what can we do? Help each other through it. Be strong. Be thankful it was only a dream, and learn the lessons that were kind of... heaved in our laps."
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 11:19 am
"What lessons?" He grit is teeth for a moment, staring at the tea cup steam rising for several seconds before looking between those gathered with angered eyes. "Life sucks without Horsemen? Life s-sucks even with Horsemen! Standing back thinking, 'is only students let's show vision of worst fate, will teach lessons'." He slammed a fist into his lap, not caring about the ache as his voice rose suddenly, a hoarse growl that stretched the stitching of his lips.
"We want their support! Why they have test that? M'tired!" Another slam of the fist, nails digging into flesh as he snarled. "M'tired of d-dying n' coming n' dying again, tired've seeing friends die with smiles, tired've my home being taken away like it's a game, sick of it!" The zomboil's body lurched, both hands now tight fists as he trembled. Anger was the priority, but his expression belied something more tortured.
Amrita was in his vision, blood-filled tears staining her face, one eye staring up at him pleadingly as she clutched at Christof's door, numb to the pain of the wood beneath her nails. "I-I can't...I can't do this anymore..."
"D-D-Don't . . . D-Don't say be thankful for being dream. Because m-might's well've been real. Was real." His gaze ended on Taryn, for once steady.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 12:00 pm
Alex had been dealing with it. He'd been confined to a room with Yin, the one person he needed more then anybody, and they had been dealing with it together. He suddenly felt angry, and he had to drop the food still in his hand into his lap before placing both hands at his sides, balling them into fists so tight that his nails bit into his own flesh and they began to shake. He would have said something, snapped out something mean or hurtful, but Mort had already started talking, and was doing a pretty fine job of voicing Alex's own opinions, so he was able to hold it back, able to bring himself under some semblance of control. He fought with his body to just relax, to ignore the raging zomboil next to him lest he get caught up in the emotion.
"I don't know what you want me to say." He finally managed, quietly, when Mort was finished. "You all saw what happened. What part of that should I be re-telling?" He growled the tiniest bit at that last part, and closed his eyes.
Control control control..
His eyes flicked open once again, and he continued on. "And Mort's right, that wasn't a dream..it couldn't just be a dream. If it was, then I'm glad I don't have to sleep at night, I'm glad I've never had a dream before and I'm glad I'll hopefully never have to have one ever again. The pain of going through what I did..what I'm sure you both did as well.." He glanced between Mort and Taryn, "It really might as well have been real, considering how it's been effecting everyone."
There, that wasn't so bad. He managed to make it through all of that without biting somebodies head off....
(wait for it...)
...for now.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 12:34 pm
Yin could see the affect that Miss Taryn's words had on Alexander, the one that truly had his attention. But it was also hard to ignore Mort, raging next to him, even though he feared that Alexander might be hurting himself. He agreed. Agreed about a lot of things even though he did not understand them fully. That there was no reason that the Horsemen had done what they had. He was also tired of his friend's dying, even if he had not seen it. Knowing that Alexander had gone through what he had was enough. So yes, he also had troubled considering it a dream. He agreed that it was effecting everyone as if it had been real. The nightmares that had followed that night were thankfully not nearly as bad as the dream had been, they could not have possibly been that real.
That did not mean that he entirely agreed with either zomboil though. "But what other option do we have but to learn from it," he argued. "It did happen. Real or not we have to keep going because there is nothing we can do to change it. But maybe...maybe there can be a way of preventing this from happening again." He tried to sound hopeful, but as he stared down as his cup of tea he knew that he just sounded tired. More helpless than hopeful.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 5:55 pm
Taryn's heart went cold. Really? Her eyes locked with Mort's her expression blank, and she allowed the raging to continue. Of course he was angry, they were all angry. There had been no reason for the trials to continue as they had, but what could the students do? Her gaze only briefly flickered to Alex as he spoke, and she fought the urge to just stand and leave. It was her room, after all.
"You think I like to see my friends die?" she began, her mouth barely moving as she spoke between nearly-clenched teeth. "You think I enjoy having nightmares, seeing my peers sobbing in the halls, feeling as if I've lost something very important to me? I've died twice, Mortimer. Ever. One was at the hands of a Hunter that, it turns out, was never really there. I woke up drenched in sweat, not blood... and I'm grateful. So I wish the trials had gone a gentler route? Of course. I wouldn't mind if they hadn't happened at all, but you know what? We're alive. We're all alive. yes, it hurts like Hell, but if you let it take you over, you've lost. Silver lining, Mort." She turned to Alex briefly, brow and lips set into straight lines. "Yin's right, without lessons this was all for no reason, and the bastards who did it to us win. We need to see the silver lining, or we're damn well not going to survive 4 years at Amityville. You know by now what attending here entails." The ghoul's chest swelled, and the sigh that followed was laced with flickering flame.
"but I guess if you want to take it all out on me, that's fine." She turned her head down, sipping her tea again... angrily.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 6:19 pm
Taryn was too logical for his anger to agree with, even when he knew she was right and knew it was wrong to make her the target of it. It was childish, but it felt good to rage for once at something that would not automatically kill him in one fell swoop, as bad as it sounded. Mort wanted, needed a target, a face, something to swipe at to make himself feel better. It didn't help the situation that Alex was agreeing, because it made him feel vindicated in his anger, regardless of the target.
At the moment, silver linings didn't matter when it kept getting obscured by black clouds. And punching things seemed to sound better and better by the second when his emotions kept going up and down.
He wanted to leave, he didn't want to leave, he wanted to apologize, his pride said shut up and just nod, his body said nope, not moving 'cuz you're an idiot, apologize, shut up and take it, if you're gonna be a jerk might as well go full out -
His head ached something fierce to the point that he just couldn't take it.
So Mort did something abrupt and stupid, as he was sometimes known for. He lifted a hand to his forehead, gripped skin and hair, and pulled until the stitching beneath came loose and revealed his rather active, slightly pulsating brain. He then immediately picked up the still hot tea and poured it all right on top, somehow having the courtesy of doing it close enough that at best maybe a few drops splashed outside the rim of his cranium. The liquid sizzled as it hit his brain, but there was no evidence of spasming, or pain, or otherwise as the tea soaked in.
The effect was immediate. Mort's posture relaxed, a dazed look appeared on his face, and his brain's constant humming suddenly stopped. Dreamily, he closed his cranial top down, set the now empty tea cup down, pulled out a needle and thread he had gotten into the habit of carrying out, and began to restitch his head. It was just like how he had been when Natalia had kissed him on the lips.
A forced reboot, if you would.
"Mmm. Silver lining." He paused stitching and bobbed his head, breathy and chillax. "Yeah. Shouldn't let it get to me. Yeah. Good tea also."
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:12 am
Alex hadn't intended on 'taking things out' on Taryn. He was just agreeing with what Mort had to say. Though what Yin had to say made sense too, and so did Taryn's words as well. The fists at his sides relaxed, and one hand came back up to his lap to pluck up the candied brains and shove it into his mouth before he could say anything stupid, then he flumped backwards into the couch and crossed his arms over his chest as he chewed, somewhat obsessively, on the delicious treat in his mouth.
By doing this, he was quite childishly trying to ignore everyone in the room, trying to ignore the tension that had suddenly built up. But when the food in his mouth was done, and swallowed, he flickered eyes back towards Taryn.
"I'm sorry." He mumbled, before pushing himself back up straight, scooting to the edge of the couch, and sliding down to the floor so that he could be right next to Yin. He sat with his knees up, and his chin resting on them. "So...what happened after---" He started, but a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye had his head raising and turning towards Mort, and he watched the other zomboil incredulously as he first removed his skull cap, and then proceeded to pour his cup of tea over top of his brain with an audible sizzle.
Alex's jaw dropped.
"Mort what are you..??" He started, but really, it was quite obvious what the other boil was doing. It was probably a better question to ask why the zomboil was doing it. Was he...seriously forcing himself a reboot? It appeared so as when Mort began to speak again, he sounded almost...drunk.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 10:23 pm
Miss Taryn was obviously upset, and that bothered the weremantis. Ghouls were supposed to be happy, especially ghouls that he considered his friends. But really everyone was upset, and he had absolutely no idea what to do or how to deal with it. Alexander was moving down to the floor next to him, and he did not protest in the least, though it left Mort the soul occupant of the couch.
Yin was glancing up at the zomboil when he began to suddenly pull at this skin. Yin's eyes went wide and he watched in horror. Alexander taking apart his leg and foot was one thing. Mort was ripping up his skin and....pouring tea over his brain.
But the way he relaxed confused Yin beyond all reason. Worried and slightly scared he scooted a bit closer to Alexander. Did he dare ask if that was normal behavior? Alexander now seemed befuddled as well, but Yin had no clue what was going on. "What is happening," he whispered, though really probably any of his teammates could have heard him.
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Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 5:58 pm
Taryn's reaction was pretty contradictory to everyone else's. She hadn't seen Mort reboot aside from the one little crash with Natalia, but she knew his intentions. He was escaping. Thank Jack he hadn't done it during the meta or she might have torn his skullcap off herself and tossed it into the bushes. What a cowardly--
The ghoul's fingers tightened around her cup, enough that she thought for a moment it might explode in her hands. She said nothing, her mouth set into a line... until Alex joined her and Yin on the floor. Mort she wanted to kill, but Alex... he was being a gentleman. She at least owed him an answer.
"She put a pendant on Chuppi, it had to have been enchanted. She gave them everything they wanted... and then they exploded. The Hunter just... exploded them. She came to me and put something in my mouth, I don't know what it was. It didn't do anything, so she... she put something to my chest. It was just a moment of... not even pain. Pressure? Everything went-- no, not black. Nothing went anywhere. I just... didn't exist any more. Then I woke up in bed." She sipped her tea again, eyes distant.
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Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 6:14 pm
Quite blithe to everyone's reactions, Mort nodded dreamily and picked up the tea cup. "What she said. Taryn's a great leader, keepin' it together," he added with a nod, eyeing the empty cup a bit wistfully before holding it out to Taryn with a doofy smile. "More please? It's very relaxing."
Escapism is a hell of a drug.
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