subnautica | [OPEN MINGLE: SEPT 8-16]

[Don has seen laboratories like that before.

He was strapped down to a table in one, blades glistening in the ceiling above him, the whirling noise of a saw grating on his brain. In the semi-darkness of the dreamscape he can feel Bishop's eyes behind his dark sunglasses, and he can hear the chilling sound of his voice as he revels in the idea of flaying his brothers open, peeling scale and shell from skin. His stomach contorts, but when he screams it's a familiar name.]

Roderic!

[He feels like he's gotten a glimpse into a shared private hell, and he knows he should feel ashamed to have seen it, but the terror is so visceral and real that some part of his mind almost believes that the room he's seeing is meant for them both.]

Edited 2016-09-25 23:13 (UTC)

[ oh fucking christ in mary's cradle--

that's don.

it sure as hell snaps him out of his self-pity as he looks away from one of the tubes - that's his tube. he knows it is. - and makes his way to his friend's side.

oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, his mind goes while he tries to think of what to do. what should he do? what can he do? he tried to make someplace safe and instead he got a mishmash of what his mind thought as home. (which really says something about him.) now he's frantically trying to weave his way for the expansive area, ducking between tubes and carts full of needles and tools he knows all too well.

when he finally gets to don, he decides the best thing to do is reach out in hopes of grounding him. remind him that this won't hurt him, that nothing will happen long as he's around. if lia can do it for him and ackerly - despite the odds and the dangers and the boys trying to keep her safe from them because she was a good person, through and through. - then the least roderic can do is pay back the kindness to another friend in need. ]

Don! Don! It's fine! [ not really, not yet, but it will be.

he's determined now to get rid of this place. at least a good chunk of it. he tries to will away a bit of the metals and the cold with the dark panelled wood and warm white walls. that hazy smell of sterile chemicals and sickly sweet body fluids gives away, just a bit, to the smell of lavender and smoke. ]

No, no - [- it's hard to tell whether Don's repetition is him trying to brush aside Roderic's concern, or simply some memory coming back to choke him, but he mumbles the word a few more times even as Roderic reaches out to him, and there's a presence behind it, comforting in the yawning abyss of Don's own existential horror.

He can't help his choked-out sentence, even as the world Roderic's mind created blurs at its edges, replaced in parts with something altogether more normal, more comforting:]

Who did this to you? Who did this?!

[There's a surprising rage in the gentle Turtle's voice, and his fingers curl against Roderic's shoulders, vague impressions in the dreamscape following his motions. It's Raph's fury that Don draws from now to support himself, and something of the red-masked Turtle is echoed in his softer brother now.]

[ the look on his face soon falls to something a little sadder, a little more tired. like he knows this was going to happen sooner or later with the way he acts and the way he keeps to himself. he understands that don means well with the question. he knows he does with the tone, the protectiveness, the inquiry. don means well.

he tells himself that and still. the cold, hard feeling in the bottom of his stomach ain't leaving anytime soon ]

The scientists. [ the word is all but spat out. there was no way in hell he was going to describe them as 'family' to don. the urge is there. the strange pressing feeling from being in the lab and remembering what was done to him makes him want to say it out of fear but fucking that.

not after what he and the others had been put through in the garden. not after what he and the others went through in the grove. not after what happened to melody and henry.

alright. he takes a deep breath, trying to reign in his feelings since the smoke almost smells like fire now from his frustrations. ] I mean- They had to. It was how they made me.

This was how I was born, Don. No parents. No 'when ma and pa fell in love' spiel. [ he makes a gesture to one of the tubes where... something was growing. ] All of this and then some.

[The horrible puzzle that is Roderic's behaviour begins to snap into place, like a Rubik's cube in the hands of an expert. There had always been behaviour that the man had exhibited that Don couldn't place, and, suddenly, awfully, he understands why. That reticence about his home, the discomfort with his own life, the way Don's family seemed to have hit something for Roderic...]

... Shell, I'm... [Don's beak works silently a few seconds, trying to find something appropriate to say. He remembers Leatherhead, covered in tubes and bruises where they'd had to rip sensors off his flesh from his stay in Stockman's lab.] Shit.

[He's sure his sensei would allow him this one, anguished curse.]

I didn't know. I... I'm so sorry... [He wants to hug Roderic, some primitive urge to shield him viscerally, but there is no way to shield him from this.]

Why? Are you some kind of... [He gropes for a meaningful term to apply to his friend, and all of them are awful.] Weapon? Experiment? Was that all you meant to them?

[ roderic laughs.

don can forgive him for sounding a little shrill and a bit hysterical when he laughs, right? it's just… he didn't want the truth to come out like this. especially to a friend he had just made. he didn't want to scare him off when he finally figured out why roderic was so weird in the worst way possible. ]

A genius. An agent. A hero. Someone who could do good for the government if I applied my powers the 'correct' way. Someone who was born to do great things. I was made for a reason. [ there's a hollowness to his voice as he says, repeats, the words to don.

roderic remembers the spiel the scientists gave to him whenever he had doubts, whenever he got scared, whenever he tried to resist being strapped down to the table for 'corrections.' he had to remember them. it was the only thing he could cling to at the time when back in the garden or the grove and-

fuck. he finally looks away from don, rubbing his eyes and suddenly feeling very, very tired. ] I believed them too, you know? What else was there to believe back then when all you knew was experiments and tests and scores?

[ he really wanted to be a hero. he wanted to mean something and now… he doesn't know. ]

["I was made for a reason."

Don has always struggled with the nature of his own existence. Sometimes, he wonders if there was some mechanism by which it had been almost obligatory, a part of how his world was destined to unfold. Other times, he wonders if it's just pure coincidence. Maybe, somehow, it's a little of both.

Roderic has a definitive answer for this question. It's a perverse thought to have, and made even moreso by the fact that the man wanted no part of this kind of life, but some tiny part of Don is jealous that Roderic has an answer for why he is the way he is.

That sure doesn't push the hatred for these scientists away any, though. They're a stain on the face of science. To take sentient life and twist it into a meat puppet for their own desires... it's antithetical to everything that Don thinks science stands for, and it wipes another dark smear over the ivory tower façade that he'd seen falter so many times before.]

Whatever you've achieved is still part of you. [He says this with a deep conviction, the kind that comes from knowing that no matter how achievements are earned, they are still real.] Whoever made you... that doesn't get to define you anymore. Not here.

[The cosmic mistake - the providence - that resulted in the Turtles may have begun their story, but it didn't write it. Don feels the same about Roderic. No matter what monster crafted him, Roderic has a will of his own and a meaning that has transcended those things.]

[ they didn't define him anymore.

huh.

he's heard that a lot. from ackerly after they escaped from the base. from lia whenever she helped soothe his fears away. from calia upon revealing to him that she was actually reality lost.

it's been told to him, time and again, and he's always found it difficult to believe. not because he wants to be stubborn, god no. it's just- it's just he finds himself set in his way, like the way the marks of the garden and the grove are set in him.

but hearing it, time and again, has helped. it helped him accept it. it helped him believe it more. it helped him think maybe there's a chance and he won't feel like a fraud for it.

hearing it from don after all he had seen here is… a comfort. a relief even. ]

I know. It's just- Fuck.

[ the lab is a distant memory now, opaque and yet see through like one is seeing it through frosted glass. the apartment takes over, his feelings of the others dominating his thoughts, and soon Don and him are in a room that is littered with half-eaten takeout and rolls of cloth that is scattered across the furniture.

it also seems… distant. like how the furniture is out of reach, how the takeout is turned in a way that one cannot see where it came from, how the photos found in the room seem to have only a dark-haired boy and a girl with the bluest eyes. ]

Shit! I'm sorry, Don. I don't- I didn't want this to be the way you found out.

[As messy as it is, the new place feels far more like home, or at least a kind of home. It's something Don can place in a world that has kindness and family - warmth and food and comfort, messiness that can only come from being casually lived-in.

And yet, there's still something about the place that feels faraway, like it hasn't quite gotten to them where they are. The distance remains, even if it's an entirely different kind.]

Would you ever have wanted me to find out? [It's a sincere question, and Don says it gently, in a way that doesn't seem to imply judgment one way or the other. His own mind's influence pushes at this world gently, adding the soft noise of sewer water through tunnels, the distant rumbling of subway trains: Don's own version of a home that he doesn't have anymore.]

Honestly? No.

I wanted this place to be a fresh start. I didn't want any of this... [ to come back. to menace him. to haunt the very dreams he had come to cherish since it was one of the few times he could think clearly without the lives of others pressing up against him. he wanted to get away from it all when everything had come crashing down, make a new life for him here since it was impossible back home.

it's selfish and he knows it is. maybe this is a weird yet fitting punishment for him.

he looks to one of the photos and it's changed just enough: the guy is now scowling and the girl looks sad. to him it almost feels like their eyes are following his every moment.

at least there's something comforting in hearing the sounds of the passing trains, the running water. almost feels like they were back in new york. it helps take off the edge that he feels as he speaks, explains. ]

Explaining my, um, powers was stressful as it is. How I got them and how I came in the first place? It's a topic I don't like to talk 'bout. [ considering their environment right now. ]

[Don leans forward a little, bracing himself on his elbows. It serves to make the space a little more intimate, even though he knows that Roderic's dreamscape is probably empty. There isn't anyone else to hear. Still, though, he wants that same kind of privacy for him as he'd expect for himself during one of his many talks with his father.]

It's been weird for me too, talking about... about who I am. Where I came from. I'm still afraid people will use that information against me. It was always like that before; you couldn't really trust anyone, except your family.

It took me years to have human friends I really trusted. [Now Don feels a little weird, like these walls are judging him. Are those eyes in the wallpaper pattern?] So... I understand.

We don't have to talk about it. [After a pause, which feels especially long right now:] If it ever helps, though... I mean, I wasn't kidding about the weird parts. Look at me. [He laughs, just slightly awkwardly.]

[ after this, roderic decides, he and don are either going to pig out on some pizza he'll make with his own two hands or just drink whatever sugary concoction that others has made.

the subtle changes to his home, or what he thought was his home, is not lost on him. he sees the eyes looking back at them, subtle and sharp in both gaze and judgement. man, the dreamscape sure knows how to fuck with some people, doesn't it? he almost feels a lick of anger on don's behalf, wanting to shoo them away to give him space but.

it's hard.

all the same, he listens to don's words carefully, keeping his head down as he tried to absorb the information and let it seep through his skin and bones, tried to force the feeling of trust and safety into him because don wants to help. that means so fucking much to him and there's a lot he wants to say, so much he wants to say, and all he can offer when he opens his mouth is instead a feeble, ] Maybe one of these days.

I appreciate, Don. I really do it's just- [ he bites on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from saying what he originally wanted to say. either because it was too crude or because he didn't want to lay himself bare too much as it is.

it's been a long day for them both. ] -I guess it's just bred in the bone. Gonna take a while before I can scoop it all out and put something decent in it. Thanks though. Really.

I'm... I'm glad you're here. I'm glad we... I... I'mgladwe'refriendsifyouthinkwe'refriends.

[ his face is red as a cherry tomato as he blurts that out. he looks both embarrassed by his own inept social skills and relieved to have said it at long last. ]

[OPEN MINGLE: SEPT 8-16]

I can't even decide I want to tag them all but One for now

eeee im excited for this but at the same time soRRY BOYS

YEAH this is kind of awful. But also beautiful. Beauwful?

that's the perfect description for this scenario and bOYS.

I'm already hurting this thread is gonna be great.

It's great and terrible \ o /

In other words - the best. ;v;

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