whereabout | [s72] mental link.

( Hey. )

[ Bakugo is like an inferno down the line right now, furious and grieving over the newly discovered dead girl, and even if Elliot thinks he might be able to act as a fire blanket, he's seen what effect it had on Hadrian, wants to check in on Joshua too. So there's a sense of that along with the generic query: ]

( You okay? )

( Yeah. )

[ It's an automatic response, too ingrained for him not to give - sure, he's fine, everything's cool - but even as he thinks it, he knows that it's obvious as hell that it isn't really true.

This whole mental/emotional connection is hell on his ability to lie and pretend nothing's up.

He's made himself scarce since the murder was discovered, precisely because he should be fine. He's spent enough of his life rubbing shoulders with death, and he's seen plenty of people dead who didn't deserve it. It doesn't mess with him, even when it should (because he's too screwed up to qualify as a decent person, what else is new). This really shouldn't be any different, and he knows exactly what he'd expect from himself at a time like this - a flicker of detached, abstract sadness and a gnawing sense of disgust that it ought to be more than that.

Not this fiery sense of rage, not this frighteningly deep and powerful grief. And where the discovery brought Bakugo out, drew him straight towards the center of the action, Joshua's pulling back, trying to keep himself away from everything that's going on, as if hiding from the action will be enough to help him hide from the feelings rippling through the nest.

(It's definitely not.) ]

[ Elliot gets that though, he really does. If his connection to Hadrian and the activation of his power hadn't pulled him right into the center of the emotional maelstrom, he'd probably be doing the same thing. ]

( Yeah. )

[ Both clearly not really believing that's true but also willing to accept it at face value if it's what Joshua wants. ]

( Shit I miss movies. They have movies where you're from? )

[ Because chilling them both out with the escapism of a film right now would be an ideal way to handle this. Alas. ]

[ It's about the best response he can hope for - not being called on it, since there's no way he can hope for someone with a direct line to his brain to actually buy that line.

So, hey, he'll take it. ]

( We don't. What are movies? )

[ Aside from a thing someone clearly ought to show him once they get back to the station, anyway. ]

( So you know how it's possible to record stuff and play it back. Video? )

[ He's really not sure what level of technological incompetence he's dealing with here. ]

( So films are like, people get dressed up and they get props and they perform, I don't know, anything. Any story. Try to make it look as real as possible. Then they record it, and other people can watch. Just two hours, feeling immersed in someone else's imagination - you know it's not real, but your brain is tricked. )

[ Actually, it makes him wonder if it would be possible to watch a movie using only the hive connection and a memory. Though he isn't sure his memory of films is that good. ]

( I...okay, I get that in theory. )

[ Photography is widespread. Computers...are not, and are still a very new technology that hasn't caught on outside of the tech hotbeds.

Video, somehow, is not a thing yet, but working for the big bads has at least exposed Joshua to enough weird and obscure tech that he can wrap his mind around the idea. ]

( So...like reading a book, but you watch it? )

( Exactly. They're usually shorter, about two hours — though I guess that depends how fast you can read. )

[ He's pleased that the concept has caught without him having to like, project a cinematic experience directly into his broodmate's brain. ]

( Sometimes, when I don't want to think about anything, I just put on my favorite movie. )

( I read a lot. I can get that. )

( If we ever get off this backwater planet, I'll try and find you one to watch.
Might be weird alien shit though. )

( Everything else is weird. Why not that, too? )

( True that.

So. Did you know the girl? )

[ The one who died, who got Bakugo so riled up. ]

( I didn't. It...feels like I did, but I didn't. )

[ That, he assumes, is Bakugo's thoughts rubbing up against his. ]

( Same. Bakugo... he's kind of loud. )

( Vicious understatement. )

( I was worried he'd do something stupid — actually, I'm still kind of worried. I guess working as a team is as much about keeping him in check as anything else. )

( Maybe one of us will rub off on him. )

[ Although as soon as he thinks it, it occurs to him that with sharing brainspace, that could be a bit more literal than he'd been intending, and now he's creeped himself out a little. Whoops. ]

[ Elliot's mind goes to a similar place and he sort of winces mentally. ]

( That's the goal, right. We all become... well, a "we". )

[ Like Elliot doesn't have enough people in his head. ]

[ It's not a comfortable thought. ]

( Not sure what all of you did to deserve getting stuck with me, but sorry about that. )

[ It sounds like it could be a joke. In a purely verbal conversation, he'd probably play it off that way and it'd be easier to keep things from getting awkward. But there's a lot more sincerity to it than that. ]

[ A soft chuckle down the telepathic line, even though he knows it's not a joke. ]

Nah, man, you're cool. But for what it's worth, same.

[ We allll be fucked up in this brood, son. ]

( Thanks. )

[ "Thanks for also being fucked up" is - not quite the implication, but he's used to feeling like a complete trainwreck of a person compared to all the nice normal well-adjusted people around him.

Not feeling like such a freak of nature is...kind of nice. ]

[ Elliot doesn't even say "no problem" just sends a corresponding sort of feeling. And maybe he lets the connection stay a while longer, companionable without being intrusive, but it's the mindlink equivalent of sitting in silence. It helps him practice his shielding, and... yeah, it's sort of nice. But he doesn't say anything else. ]

[ The faint scent of damp flowers and smoke, she touches the back of his thoughts gently, giving him a moment to decide whether or not to acknowledge her. ]

( I am returned. )

( How did it go? )

[ All business, at least until they're done with business. ]

( I was able to get inside their compound, but not as close to Shee Naraxa as I wished. She has holed up in her mansion. It is a known that she was the last to see the girl. )

[ Well. That's always suspicious. ]

( There's been nothing on this end. I think we're still under the radar, but that may change. )

[ If, for instance, someone in their group acts. He doesn't intend to stop and assume they're in the clear. ]

( Thus far no one has expressed overt suspicion of us. Though even Casiria expressed some intrigue into our behaviors. I don't know how much longer our group can manage to be prudent. )

[ She doesn't have a lot of faith in the others, that much is very very clear. ]

( The symbiote shields us somewhat from the Enemy's detection, but too much smoke from our camp will quickly change the matter, I think. )

( We're nearing the point where if we want to act, we'll have to move or lose the chance to. I think most of our group is very aware of that. )

[ Or: yeah, he is completely expecting someone to jump the gun and try something any minute now. ]

( They are not careful, and they do not think about the fallout of their actions. I have witnessed more than once, their ideas of solution. I've no interest of dying here with them. )

( Anyone in particular to watch out for? )

( Sam Wilson, and all those attached to him. They will lead you to folly. )

( Duly noted. )

[ He's not passing any judgments ahead of time based on that, considering that the most important person in his world is definitely a hothead who jumps in without a plan and all. But he'll certainly be watching for poor decision-making. ]

[ She doesn't need him to believe her, that sect of their group was always all too quick to show off their recklessness. They'll make her point for her, all on their own. ]

( Shall I tell you my skills? I think you and I have a good chance to work well together. )

[ An offer, not a demand. More flies with honey. ]

( Sure, fire away. )

[ One thing Joshua will never turn down when offered: information. ]

( I came to the Hive as little more than a gardener. But the symbiote has been a fine companion to me. )

[ All couched as though it was a gift, that she did not work and drive herself into hysterics at times, reaching after what might be unlocked from the symbiote. ]

( My foremost ability is fear. I am able to inflict it to varying degrees among individuals and groups. It is a useful skill, at times, and I find more so in concert with skills of stealth. )

[ Striking without being seen, or isolating someone with nowhere to run... Both were very good uses of fear and stealth. Is that what one calls terror? ]

( It's a good combination, to be sure. )

[ Being able to get someone off your trail without killing them outright is invaluable, and he knew that even at the height of his career as the Black Fang, when he had no reservations about killing anyone who stood in his way. ]

( It has always behooved me to move carefully. )

[ Go unseen, or die, really. ]

( Where do you come from, Joshua? )

[ She does not mean in physical space, she means his skills. ]

[ One of the advantages of this entire arrangement, as uncomfortable as he finds it, is that nuance is so much easier to discern. So it's not lost on him (and it makes sense, since nobody here has heard of Zemuria anyway). ]

( When I was a child, I was taught to break and enter, kill, and escape without being detected. )

[ He's not proud of it. There's always a certain amount of self-hatred that's just part of the feeling of his mind, as much as flowers and scorched earth are part of hers. But it's far more obvious, when they're on this subject, exactly where it comes from.

And yet it doesn't call much attention to itself. It's not a cry for help. It's just an accepted fact of his world - he's a monster, and normal people shouldn't be anywhere near him. The sky is blue, bears shit in the woods. ]

( Those are difficult skills, to be given as a child. They will make you quite unlike to many of our host. I have found it hard, to find empathy in them. I have interacted more intimately with death than most of them. They find it uncomfortable. )

[ A careful shaping to this answer. A kind of warning, without the same explicit naming as her objections to Sam but... of the same vein. They won't understand. And they will hurt you with that. ]

[ That ought to sound more dire, maybe. But nobody hurts Joshua with what he is more than he does to himself. He was young when Weissmann started grooming him, yes. But he was still young when the Brights pulled him out of that life and tried to give him some kind of normalcy again, and the conclusion he came to - childish though the logic might be - never left him.

If killing was bad, and normal people didn't do it, then there could only be something deeply, irreversibly wrong with him. ]

( That's only natural, isn't it? )

[ She had never thought there was something wrong with her. She felt blameless in all the terrors that had occurred around her. Now, as the only survivor of her world, surrounded by people who did not understand it... They certainly had a way of making the rope of it feel tight around her neck. Making her feel resentful when they demanded she change: to conform to their morals, all the while bemoaning the changes the Nest demanded of them. Hypocrites.

The Nest accepted her as she was: bloodied and power-hungry and sharp and false. ]

( I suppose it is. But their fear doesn't mean that we are wrong. )

[ Doesn't it, though?

It's not...normal. Not for his world, at least, but - ]

( It's...normal, where you come from, right? )

[ He'd probably feel differently, in a case like that. Instead of just feeling...broken. ]

[ Normal. There's something inadequate in that word. It did not at all seem to describe the thing. ]

( Shall I show you? )

[ Right. They can do that, can't they? ]

( Okay. )

you care for people so much it breaks your heart...and you're lying to yourself about it.	however much you may model your behavior after a normal, decent person, you are no such thing.
you have no place in the lives of normal people.	you aren't a broken wreck. that's how i see it, and i know i'm right.

[s72] mental link.

hyrypia, 037

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