trans_9 | Katzenjammer [Open]

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Katzenjammer [Open]

Aside from the comatose state she reached after Cassie finished her post-exorcism first-aid, sleep hasn't come easily to Eva since the possession. What little she's gotten has been interspersed with nightmares, so it's while all the Animorphs are sleeping that she slips out of Cassie's house and finds herself at the Drunken Dragon.

It's all too much. Too much going through her head and too much space alone in there. When she woke up it was because she was thrashing in her sleep and accidentally smacked her head into the bedpost. She found that she was clawing at her scalp while she dreamed.

She needs to feel a little bit out of control again, by her own doing, because that means less control that other people can take away from her. And she needs to dull the knowledge of how many bad memories she dredged up for Marco by going and getting herself possessed.

"Wine. Whatever you have. Keep it coming," she says, then, as if clarification is necessary, "I'm going to get drunk."

(( OOC: Open post but since Eva's going to be bemoaning the state of everything everywhere, please poke me first if you want to throw a character she's never met before at her. ))

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"Can we get them helmets? Or you know, body padding." Might not help completely, considering the Andalite tendency of involving children in intergalactic warfare and the current situation involving yet more space aliens.

Really, E.T. was much more difficult in real life.

He startled a bit at the touch, closing his eyes. "I.."

She didn't know. He was being selfish. Every moment was borrowed-stolen-time.

But he wanted to hear it. He wanted someone to tell him it was ok. He could be selfish. He could stay. "Eva."

He wanted to cry.

She pulls him in close, the way she used to pull Marco close when he was little and had skinned a knee, or Peter after a particularly hard day. "I'm right here, Tom. It's okay. You're okay."

It's worse, in it's own way, than pushing him away.

He caught his lower lip between his teeth, shuddering in her arms. It would be so easy to bury his face in her hair and cry. So easy. Closest he could hope to get to having his mom here.

"Eva." He swallowed hard and pulled away, head down to hide the tears in his eyes. "I can't."

"Can't what, Tom? I'm your friend. It's alright to talk to me." Normally, Eva's a believer in letting a wound alone unless the information's volunteered, but she knows how hosts are. She knows all about not feeling like you're even important enough for the sympathy someone would have to muster up to hear your grievance.

"It's not. It's not." He shook his head, trying to stand and finding his legs a bit less stable than he thought they would be. "I can't."

He couldn't. And he couldn't explain why. Just that he needed to go and he shouldn't have come.

He couldn't break down. He couldn't. Not now.

And as always, there was that tiny little voice, the one that sounded like Termash if he stopped to think about it. He'd promised.

He brought his hand to his face, shoulders shaking. "I've...I gotta...I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't-" He turned for the door, trying to get out, get air back in his lungs.

Everything was wrong and nothing was right. Pretending that it was only lasted so long.

"Okay, okay!" She stands up and resists the urge to grab his wrist - no need to bring back memories of restraint - and instead puts her hand to his shoulder. "You don't have to talk to me. You can, but you don't have to."

And more quietly, "sit down. Please."

She sits back down, slumping a bit. "I've had a very long day and you're the only company that really understands why."

Beneath her hand, Tom's entire body shuddered, muscles spamming like someone who had just been electrocuted. His hands were shaking. It took him a moment to even realize it. He squeezed them into fists, keeping his head down to hide his face from Eva and the rest of the bar's patronage.

He wanted to cry, but his eyes were dry again.

He shivered again, but didn't take a second step away.

Not fair.

He didn't look at her for several long moments, pulling his compusure back into place. "ok."

The word tasted like ash on his tongue, eyes closed tightly as he spoke.

"Sorry."

She practically buries her face in her wine jug for a moment, breathing heavily. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you on that. Sorry. I've been drinking and it makes me stupid."

She takes a long drink after that, pauses for a moment as if to say something, then takes another. "I've just had a great track record for today, haven't I? I'm such a ray of sunshine, such a pick-me-up."

He settled, quiet for a moment as he finished his glass and just letting her talk. "It's ok. No harm, no foul. I'm fine."

He closed his eyes, exhaling. "You had a bad day, like you said. Anyone would. Being free for a little while lets you forget how helpless you can be. No one expects you to be perfect, Eva. Least of all me."

"Okay," she nods, still looking away and starting to tap her fingers on the jug again. "Perfect? How about I work on basic autonomy before we start bandying words like 'perfect' around?"

She takes a deep breath. "What do I have to do to get rid of this vacancy sign on my head? What do I have to do so that this crap stops happening? I thought it was over, I really did. When does it - I thought it was - I - never mind."

She's still got that instinct not to do this sort of thing in front of a kid. She's a parent. She needs to be strong, a role model, an impervious adult who can't be cracked. But she's badly damaged and the events of the day have rubbed some of the polish off her facade.

He laughed softly, humorlessly, hands curled around the glass. "You're doing better than a lot of people. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction."

He still woke up feeling hollow and spoke to the voice in the back of his mind expecting to hear an answer. She was doing great. He could swear his forehead had a big neon sign that said 'Tenet needed, apply inside.'

"I don't know. I really wish I did, Eva. I'd get signs for all my friends." He swallowed hard, smiling weakly. "You thought it was over. Done. Finished. You'd never have to worry about it again. That you'd won, that whatever you'd suffered to get to this point, it was done. And then it wasn't, and you'd forgotten how weak it made you feel. How helpless."

It could never be over. Never. Not so long as everything seemed desperate to remind them that they weren't alone in their heads, much less the universe. "Sam and Dean know a lot about demons. They're apparently common in their world. They might know of some way to protect yourself from things like that."

He hasn't been a kid for a very long time.

Helpless. It's her least favorite word in this language and sadly, one that she feels fits well tonight. She folds her arms on the bar and buries her face for a moment. She'd broken, before, at the zenith of her helplessness, when she thought Marco was infested. Every moment she's powerless is another step down the slippery slope, back into that sort of disaster. It's hard not to think if this, then that, if helpless now, helpless when it really matters.

"I still worried about it. I'd sleep better if I didn't. I don't sleep well."

She shakes her head a bit. "I heard. I'll talk to them more about it. But then what? If I protect myself from aliens and demons then what's next, telepaths and magical spells?"

It gets tiring, being scared all the time.

He understood. He understood what it was like to feel completely broken and empty. Barely having enough strength to stand up when the Yeerk slithered out and left the host alone. He'd wanted to break so many times, to given that last shred of sanity and just collapse into a boneless heap of nothing. But he hadn't. He still wasn't. As fragile as that balance seemed at times.

"It's hard being alone." The words were soft, directed at the wineglass. "I keep...waking up and expecting someone else to be commenting on my dreams. Sometimes I almost miss it. Like I need that second voice to explain things to me. It's easier. But... You're your own person, Eva. You always have been. As scary as it might seem, as much as the nightmares might trouble you, nothing can ever take that away from you."

He glanced up. "Perfect safety in an imperfect world is perfectly impossible. Sam and Dean can help you. Let them."

It's times like these that she wonders if it would be such a horror to be repodded, now that everyone know she's uninfested. No one would have to worry about her and she wouldn't be able to do any damage, or be victim to whatever fright of the week is going around.

"Except for everything that can take that away," she says bitterly before taking another drink. Every time she tries to lay still it's the same thing, the same terror that floods over her even though she knows how irrational it is. And yet she knows about that moment waking up, too, if it's not from a nightmare, the sudden realization of how utterly alone she is, how private everything is, and the inexplicable pang that comes with that. It should be relief, a hundred percent relief every time, shouldn't it?

She wants to tell him he's being stupid, that she hasn't been her own person in a long time, but she knows how difficult it is for Tom to think that of himself and doesn't want to snatch that away for a momentary bid at preserving her comforting den of self-pity. "I just don't know anymore, Tom. I want to just...delegate everything to someone else. Lie in bed and let Peter take care of me and have no one else know or care where I am. But I don't actually wan that either."

She sighs heavily. "I don't like asking."

"Except that. But when you stop fighting...well." They both knew what happened then, he played the glass between his hands, rolling the cool curve of the cup against his palms.

It should be, it wasn't. It never was all you thought it would be. It was disconcertingly lonely.

"I know. I do too sometimes. Just...stop. You know? Just...stop fighting so hard and give up. Go to sleep and not wake up." He stared at the glass and the liquid sloshing inside it. "But Jake's still here."

It was a simple statement, but it said a lot about where his head was. "Sometimes we can't help asking, Eva. Sometimes, not asking hurts the people we're trying to protect more, you know?"

"Then you might as well not exist," she finishes for him. Funny, how despite the fact that that's such a horrifying prospect, there's something inviting about it, something familiar. The months she spent unresponsive with Edriss were the unhappiest of her life, but they were also the easiest.

"Not die. I wouldn't want to die. Came close enough to that a few too many times," she says with a bit of a shiver. "But I think I worry Marco more than I comfort him. And it's hard to look unfazed. It's tiring."

But it's her job. It's her job as his mother and as the person he rescued to live up to that image he must still have of her, even if they both know it's impossible. It's her job to protect him when there's not a thing she can do to accomplish that goal.

She thinks Marco's dead in her timeline. It haunts her even though he's here alive and relatively well.

She gazes somewhere into the abyss of her drink. "I know. It just can't help but feel like losing."

"Yeah." Then you were just an echo. Just an empty shell that dreamed it might have once been something, rather than nothing.

He had flirted with giving in only twice, once right after his father had almost died, and the physical therapy had been the sweetest torment he had ever experienced, and once after Rachel, but Dani hadn't let him. Sam and Dean hadn't let him. Everyone kept forcing him to matter and he couldn't explain in any words they understood that he didn't.

"I think it'd worry him more if you weren't here to worry over. He was always very much your son more than Peter's. He might seem like a grown-up and like he's got it all together. But he still needs his mom."

He stared at the reflections against his palm. "I think...I'm pretty sure anyway, that bit just makes us human."

It really is the worst trap of the Yeerks. Not only do they break you down, make it unbearably hard to do the most basic things, make you forget who you were and how to interact with people, but then they open your eyes to the other possibilities, that irresponsible, careless surrender. And you spend your free life seeing through stark contrast how exhausting doing and being are.

But then again, how much do you matter except in relation to other people? How can Tom not matter when so many people care about him? How can Eva? It's not like caring's even in doubt, just hard to not feel responsible for everything, after years of being responsible for nothing. Eva knew plenty of former hosts who felt guilty for the actions of their Yeerk, but she finds that stupid. Instead she just feels zealously responsible now.

She nods slowly and chews her lower lip. "I guess there are worse things to be than that."

Some of them wanted you to give up, wanted the sweet taste of surender. Termash had. Termash had broken every host he owned. And somehow that made it easier to fight, easier to foracbily hold the shards together and asset individuality. Iniss had allowed him to exist on such a limited level, had encourged that limited existance.

Had made him want it, had made him desire it, because it was better than what he had. It was a trap, a dangerous one, an easy one to fall into.

How could a full life be reclaimed when for so long, it was the half life he'd fought for?

"Much. We could be Andalites. Or Helmacrons. No human ego has any chance of standing against them."

Take it while you have it. Use your freedom or someone will take it again. Easy mantras, easy to internalize, hard to follow up on. 'We live each day to kill off death', a Guatemalan poem says. Some days that's all living is. Living each day free to kill off slavery.

She'll be more confident, more pigheadedly autonomous in the morning. After she sleeps.

She snorts. "Edriss once got a pretty fantastic jab in about Visser Three and Helmacrons. I like to think she was tapping my razor-sharp wit."

One moment at a time. His life since he had been fourteen had been lived one moment at a time. One exhausting, horrible moment at a time with barely a moment taken to remember to breathe.

"I never understood the infighting. Iniss stayed away from it for the most part. He said that was the quickest way to assisted suicide. Wit requires being clever, they're not very clever, she probably did." He smiled faintly, making an encouraging noise. He wanted to hear the rest of the story.

"Oh no, she was clever. She just wasn't especially funny. Even when she picked up sarcasm from me, she was just so heavy-handed about it. Me, I'm just naturally hilarious and subtle at all the right moments," she says with a silly grin, back into playing the part, back to being cast-iron Eva. "Have you ever had to sit through one of Esplin's tirades? It's like watching a bad Shakespearian actor try and sink his teeth into King Lear. You're cringing and laughing at the same time." Internally, of course.

"Did she try to make jokes? Iniss still can't do jokes. It's kinda pathetic. They're pretty..unsubtle for a creature that tries to exist by dissembling. When they're not pretending to be someone else, they're pretty suck actors."

He took another sip of the drink, shaking his head. "Rants, but not his speeches. They were something of a legend around the pool, though. People would talk about his latest confrontation with the bandits. You?"

"Even when they are actors! Personally, I'm a little offended that no one noticed when I stopped joking about pop culture. Clearly the answer wasn't that I was watching less TV, it was that I had a slug in my head ." She shakes her head and laughs.

"Oh God, I was subjected to so many of his speeches. And the rants, too. Edriss and I used to sit back and correct his grammar and point out his lies," she says, then stops a bit short and takes a drink. Not time to be thinking about the scarce good times with Edriss. "He had bombast down, all right."

"Well, you know. Noone commented when I stopped playing basketball either. Hobbies come and go, or something like that. No one thinks to blame alien brain slugs." He smiled faintly, finishing the last of the liquid in his glass and rising to get another one. Or at least a refill.

"What was he ranting about? Aside from the poor state of the Disabled Hork-Bajir Alliance?"

Katzenjammer [Open]

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