http://thethirdhalfa.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] thethirdhalfa.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] trans_92010-10-23 05:51 pm

New and Old Wounds [Closed]

Dani had an amazing ability to focus if she needed to. Just to focus on that one thing and let everything else take the back seat. However, she needed to HAVE that something that could be the focus without it just leading right back to what she was trying to ignore.

At the moment, she didn't really have it. All of it was too heavily connected to the problem she was having; namely that Jake had ordered, at some point in his timeline, for his cousin to kill his brother to get rid of Iniss. Dani could see his thinking of why he'd done it. While she didn't know EVERYTHING, she knew enough. She didn't think it was right or reasonable, but she understood the thinking well enough.

But that didn't change the situation. Tom was freaking out because Jake had ordered him killed and she was freaking out because she'd been reminded of old wounds and it was very hard to keep a level head.

She had gotten Iniss and Tom away from the situation. Phased them right away and had a blissful few minutes until she found an isolated corridor to finally stop in, well away from Rachel and Jake and all of them.

She pulled away from Iniss then, moving her hands to rub the heal of her palms to her forehead, trying to get herself under control. She DEALT with this. The wound was OLD. Tom was the one who needed help, not her. She just had to get herself to CALM DOWN.

((Bendy-time to after this.))

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
"Maybe we can do that sometime." He smiled faintly, allowing it to fade into a grimace as he looked at her. Could he ever be ready for this? Really? "I trust you. Just do it."

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 07:33 am (UTC)(link)
It took everything in him not to fight her. Everything. But he made himself stay still, made himself allow it, even as the cold settled into his bones and consciousness faded.

He felt very much like he had when Tom had been on painkillers while his leg healed. Somewhat distant and removed from everything else.

Tom, lost somewhere in the far reaches of his mind, deliberately not thinking, tensed unconsciously at the new presence in his mind.

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
He sighed, audible only to her. < I can hear you, Dani. Please leave me alone. I don't want to think. >

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 08:02 am (UTC)(link)
< I'm not mad at him. He did the right thing. Rachel was still going to follow it. He was right. She was right. Just leave me alone, Dani. It doesn't matter. >

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 08:16 am (UTC)(link)
< please Dani, leave me alone. I don't want to think. I just want to stop for awhile. I'm tired. I'm tired of fighting. I don't want to do it anymore. I just want to stop. Even if this works, I'm not who he remembers. I can't be anymore. Rachel... I don't want to think. Please Dani... >

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 08:31 am (UTC)(link)
< I- > Tom shuddered, an almost physical thing, drawing back further into himself if such a thing was possible.

He was tired. So very tired. He'd held it all together for so long, through everything. Through Temrash. Through watching his brother be teased and taunted and lured into the group that had shoved a yeerk in his head. Through everything.

On the edge of his mind lingered the image of his father sitting on the dock and the cool hilt of a Nazi dagger in his hand and the panic near breaking pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease the joypainangonyrush of the dock breaking and his leg shattering and the hospital room with his mother telling him she loved him alivesafealivesafesafesafe "Get out of here, midget. Get out of here and leave me alone!"

Jake told me to kill you.

And then they shoved his head in the pool and the yeerk slithered into his brain and his life ended.

< I want to go home. >

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 09:04 am (UTC)(link)
Tom shivered, making a low moaning sound that should have been vocal but it wasn't and couldn't be. Like a wounded animal more than a person. Iniss played this game, mostly for good memories. Temrash had tortured him with memories of hosts he'd broken. He responded unconsciously to her memories with one of his own.

Following the girl to a meeting, foolish thing to do. Logical only to his 14 year old brain. Following the girl. All that mattered was the girl. Silly reason, silly choice. Visser Three in all his Andalite grace, beautiful and horrible and inescapably alien. Fighting and struggling and screaming and fighting and choking on the liquid from the pool as they shove his head down and pain in his head so bad he's sure it's going to split in two. Clutching at his head helplessly, on his knees. They're watching. Chapman, the girl, the Visser. They're all watching him cough and struggle and shiver and try to get his legs to listen again. Temrash taking control and starting to scream and scream and scream until his voice should have been raw and breaking and empty. < You're just a body, Tom. No one can hear you but me. See what I know? Soon you'll be nothing but a memory, a echo lingering in this body. I'll make sure of it. > Can't see, can't hear, can't speak, can't feel. Temrash controls all of those things. Vision and hearing are just as easy to take away as his voice. Losing one sense at a time, it's a game, Temrash loves to play it until he's begging for mercy or death. Over and over and over and over again. And no one noticed anything was wrong.


< I'll just hurt him again. > He shivered again. Thinking of Jake, thinking of his hand on Jake's wrist on the first day of first grade for Jake. Thinking of warmth and trust and I'llalwaysprotectyou.. Thinking of the guarded look, the lack of trust, so much timeandspaceanddistance between them as though he may never be able to close it again, and both of them broken and neither knowing how to reach out and bridge that gap without memories and pain coming between them again.

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
Tom was still, as silent as possible. Not thinking, not moving. Not doing anything. Just existing for several long moments of complete silence. It was a defense mechanism, non-thought fill his head so he could take a step back and not feel for a moment.

< It doesn't make it any easier to know I have. > The words were soft, and if he had eyes, he would have closed them.

< I don't want to think. I don't want to put the pieces together, because Iniss will know and Jake will be hurt. I don't want Jake to be hurt. I just want everything to stop. >

He wanted First day of school, Jake's hand in his. Trust and faith and belief that everything would turn out ok. Loving his brother with every single part of him. "I'll protect you Jake."

< If I stop, I can't hurt him anymore. I can't hurt Rachel. I can't hurt any of the rest of them. It will just keep going. I'll keep hurting them. I don't want to hurt them anymore. It's so hard. >

And yet, helplessly, unable to fight her anymore than he'd fought the yeerks, he thought of seeing Jake, and talking with Jake, and crying so hard that Iniss couldn't bury. Of Jake's hands on his face and brushing his tears away. Of showing Jake his favorite place on the ship. Of playing video games with Marco. Of talking with Sam and making friends that were his friends. It was almost harder to matter again.

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 09:49 am (UTC)(link)
< He did the right thing. I know he wouldn't have ordered it lightly. I know my brother. > But she could feel his thoughts, she knew what he was thinking. She could feel how tired he was, how young he still was. But he was pulling himself back together.

He had held himself together for Jake for so long, and even if the act of getting back up again hurt so deeply it would probably linger for the rest of his life. He would do it. Because Jake was more important than all the yeerks and all the battles and orders and moral event horizons in the universe.

maybe I am just an echo, lingering when I should have faded. But if I can give Jake anything, I'll stay a little bit longer. I have to.

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 09:56 am (UTC)(link)
Tom paused, quiet once more. < You can read my thoughts. >

It was a quiet statement, an almost depressed one. Most would have rejected it, but Tom had long ago gotten over not having privacy. Yeerks took that to an entirely new level of invasive. Dani was at least trying to help. < Maybe. I don't believe in happy endings anymore. Jake needs me. I'll keep going. As long as I can. >


He was trying, that was all he could give her.

[identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com 2010-10-24 10:09 am (UTC)(link)
His fingers clinched into fists, eyes closed tightly and filled with the tears Iniss had kept him from shedding in response to Rachel's assault.

< I know. >

NothingnothingIamnothingbecauseifthereisnothingitcan'tbreak

It was a hold over from Temrash. A hold over from the intensive training. His fingers dropped to the bed, tracing slow circles on the living fabric, letting her feel what he was feeling and the conscious effort it took not to burst into helpless sobs every time he moved his hands. Because he couldn't, always, and for a long time the ability to move his hands was paramount to becoming president. No freedom at all, tempting little dribbles of lies and cages and screaming because he could and listening to the girl next to him hum a hymn because her lips were her own and she could and the guards wouldn't stop her as long as she was quiet.

< I'm still here. > that's all the strength I have