googledox: (154)
Brainiac 5 | Querl Dox (post-zero hour) ([personal profile] googledox) wrote in [community profile] trans_92012-06-04 01:39 am

Action Is the Antidote to Despair [massively bendytimed before Rebellion]

Despair was a funny thing sometimes, in that it could be all-encompassing, overwhelming. It could fill your entire being like water dripping down into the grooves and craters of a pockmarked surface, creating a flat uniform plane of itself.

He hadn't quite felt this way at first. First, he'd just been numb. He'd been numb when he'd tried to give Jeka his flight ring and she refused and as Jeka had been taken away to the pods for healing after what his mother had done to her. He'd been numb as he was given medical treatment and turned away all visitors, including Brenda. He'd been numb when facing the Council and demanding he be imprisoned for what he'd done to Daniel and Punchy and the others. He'd been numb in their face of their compassion and insistence that he didn't need to be locked up, that probation and psychiatric treatment and monitoring were enough in light of his guilt and his treatment of his mother.

When he heard the news that Punchy had died before he had the chance to thank him for trying to save him, for talking him down out of despair at the lowest moment of his entire life, that was ironically when the despair came back full force. It felt terrible.

It also felt good to feel, to not be like his mother. That was the fine line between them, thin as the edge of a knife but a difference that, like the edge of a knife, cut down deep to the bone. His mother wouldn't have shed a tear over the death of Matthew O'Connor, but curled up in his cot in the Brig, Querl Dox wept wretchedly over the passing of the most ridiculously-named superhero he'd ever known.
punchedoutdestiny: (...hmmn.)

[personal profile] punchedoutdestiny 2012-06-04 06:06 am (UTC)(link)
While Querl weeps, two figures approach the cell. One goes through the process of opening it - and then leaves with a tip of a hat. The second figure, however, was someone Querl had spoken to earlier.

Simon's arms are folded as he approaches the entryway to the cell, then leans on the side of the doorway.

"Everything hit you all at once?"
shes_intense: (pic#3280930)

[personal profile] shes_intense 2012-06-04 06:09 am (UTC)(link)
By the time she laid eyes on him she'd had - in her estimation - at least a day and a half to stew, and every hour of it had just made her madder.

Brenda hadn't let Querl out of her sight until they'd hit medical, clinging hard to his hand until someone, she didn't even rememeber who, gently tugged them apart and ushered her off to be washed down. By the time she'd been bandaged up, rehydrated, re-dressed, he'd begun refusing visitors. She was exhausted but hadn't been able to sleep with anything resembling soundness, anxiousness and anger rolling together in her guts.

When the news of his self-sentencing reached her she'd arrived at the Brig and met with cooperation rather than any resistance upon demanding to be let in to see him.

Looking at him now, though, coiled in a ball and crying, it was hard to keep her anger at a boil. She'd fume at him later...

For the moment she sank on her knees next to the cot, reaching out and sliding one warm thin hand over his shoulder, a gentle anchor on his arm.

"Hey."
shes_intense: (pic#3280938)

[personal profile] shes_intense 2012-06-04 06:20 am (UTC)(link)
"They could either let me in or watch me let myself in after I suplexed them and took the keys." she quipped, rubbing her hand along his arm. "They chose wisely."

She sighed.

"They're not doing it properly because they don't believe you deserve it. You can make them do it, but you can't make them do it WELL."
shes_intense: (pic#3280968)

[personal profile] shes_intense 2012-06-04 06:38 am (UTC)(link)
"Seeing as you've just spent the last several months being royally screwed with in every concievable way and that basically everyone thinks this wasn't your fault, has it occured to you that maybe you're the one in this situation who's looking at things the wrong way?"

She shifted her weight, sitting up on her knees and wrapping her arm around his body, leaning over to press a kiss to one temple.

"I know you can't just 'stop' feeling guilty and awful right now, but no one who is supposed to act in the best interests of this crew believes you should be here, and for what it's worth, with all I saw, I still think they're right."
Edited 2012-06-04 06:39 (UTC)
shes_intense: (pic#3280949)

[personal profile] shes_intense 2012-06-04 07:03 am (UTC)(link)
Brenda snorted, sitting back but keeping her hand on his arm. "Dying or going irrevocably insane are not valid choices, at least not the kind of choices that ANYONE would have asked you to consider, for starters."

"Secondly, if you hadn't remained alive and in the thick of all her crap that bitch-" she doesn't deserve to be called anyone's mother "-would have probably taken over the entire ship eventually. There would have been no one to weaken her defenses, I'd be dead because she'd have no use for me, no one could have gotten a signal out, and she would have gone on to kill even MORE people and enslave everyone else for her little torture experiments."

"So, no, I do not accept either of those 'options' as having been more viable, Querl. If only for the purely selfish fact that I'm still breathing because you didn't give up and die, I don't accept that. But I also don't think you HAD any other genuine choices."
shes_intense: (pic#3280966)

[personal profile] shes_intense 2012-06-04 07:22 am (UTC)(link)
"Tough noogies. I'm cutting you off, mister." She replied, a playful smirking tone worming its way into her words. She reached up to stroke her fingers through his hair, voice softening.

"I'm not asking you not to feel guilty, Querl. I'm not even asking you not to accept any consequences. Just... not THESE consequences. I'm sure there's some more constructive way for you to feel a sense of atonement, and you'd be doing me a favor not making me come down to the brig every time I want to see you."
punchedoutdestiny: (Cool guys don't look at explosions.)

[personal profile] punchedoutdestiny 2012-06-04 07:28 am (UTC)(link)
"I can understand that," he answers as some old memories start stirring up.

There's a pause, then he speaks again. "I...realize it's not the best time to bring it up, but I came to see if you'd reconsider being brigged."
shes_intense: (pic#3280930)

[personal profile] shes_intense 2012-06-04 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
"Of course I do."

Her fingers squeezed a little more firmly on his shoulder.

"All I wanted for the last day and a half was to see you and know you were okay."
Edited 2012-06-04 07:38 (UTC)
punchedoutdestiny: (You're full of crap!)

[personal profile] punchedoutdestiny 2012-06-04 08:39 am (UTC)(link)
"Because of all the stuff you've done before this happened!" The response is a snap. "You - you're one of the older crew! You helped pave the way so people like me and others here can communicate with each other, can live decently - the list goes on!"

Simon raises from the odor frame. "You're a good guy - it don't take a rocket scientist to see that, 'cause I'm sure as hell not one. And dealing with all that happened to you in that other part of the ship - that's bad enough, I'd think. Sure, you did some bad things, but they weren't your fault. The people you did them to don't blame you. That, and..." He sighs, running a hand through his hair. "You'd do a hell of a lot more good out among the rest of us than sitting around here."
shes_intense: (pic#3280932)

[personal profile] shes_intense 2012-06-04 03:00 pm (UTC)(link)
"I loved you way before all of this kidnapping and mad science happened." she murmured, thumb setting up a gentle stroke along his bicep.

"I feel the same way for you now that I did then, except for also being inexpressably grateful that we lived and wanting to hug you until approximately the end of time."
shes_intense: (pic#3280934)

[personal profile] shes_intense 2012-06-04 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
"Okay, so maybe we won't be around to see the collapse of reality." she smiled a little, moving up off her knees and sitting in the edge of the cot where she could lean over him and slide her fingers between his. "Can't hurt to try anyway."
shes_intense: (pic#3280938)

[personal profile] shes_intense 2012-06-04 04:01 pm (UTC)(link)
"I just know that focusing on your pain and guilt and steeping yourself in it by cutting out other things... it gets you stuck in that bad moment." Brenda said gently, squeezing his hand. "Those feelings will be pretty fresh for a while, they'll be on your mind all the time, but the further you come from that low point, the more perspective you'll have and the less it will weigh on you."

"But you have to allow yourself to that distance. You have to not double back and hate yourself for not feeling bad anymore when you start to turn a corner."

"As for consequences, what did the council suggest?"
shes_intense: (pic#3280968)

[personal profile] shes_intense 2012-06-04 04:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"That seems pretty reasonable." Brenda murmured.

"Did they say for how long? I know maybe on the outside it seems like being spyed on every second would seem like prison minus the room, but ... well if Stacy can watch you, she was watching all of us all the time anyway. And it would be temporary. It probably wouldn't be as bad to live through as whatever worst case scenario you're pondering."

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