( open ) what do you do when the monsters look just like you?

[motivation]

Who: dutch + OPEN
Where: weaver's, the woods
When: end of june to july 11th
What: dutch drinks, tries to come to terms with what they've all learned, and gets her clearance
Warnings: n/a (will update if necessary).


WEAVER'S (end of june, early july)

[ dutch doesn't like being manipulated. khlyen had done it for years, had made her kill for his affection or attention. this is a very different kind of manipulation, but it still stinks of it. they'd withheld information, so had khlyen. they'd done it with good intentions, or so they claim, the same can be said for khlyen.

it doesn't help that khlyen is dead, that understanding why he'd done the things he had means that dutch doesn't, can't hate him anymore. hating him had been easy. she wants to hate the people here as well, but can she? she's not so sure.

so dutch does what she does to cope: she drinks, she looks for someone to fuck or to fight. right now, she's content to do the first and idly consider the second. depending on how far into the night it is and how many stronger drinks she's talked the bartender into giving her, she might unbend enough to ask whoever sits closest to her at the bar: ] What do you make of it, then?

WOODS (july 11th)

[ freedom means a lot -- it had meant something when she'd been a killjoy, able to cross contested jurisdictions, a warrant enough to get her in and out of almost any place. it still means something, and she doesn't want to be stuck in this town for a moment longer than she has to.

if she has to play by their rules a little longer to make freedom easier to achieve, well. acing the test should be fucking easy.

she's at the spot, having completed the target practice already and breathing harder from her run. she's watching someone fight an abbie, waiting for her turn because of course she's decided to go for the death-match option herself. ]

You looking to fight one of them, too?

Comments

[motivation]

[ dutch is pretty sure she knows what's real and what's not. being a killjoy, khlyen training her, the harem, running away after khlyen had killed her husband the night of their wedding, those things happened. johnny and d'avin, alvis and pree, those are people she knows matter to her. none of them are here -- and there are people here who matter to her, too, but they matter because the people in charge made her believe that she's known them.

it feels no less real for all that she knows it wasn't, and she hates that she can't control her feelings as much as she can her own mind. the punching bag doesn't really help, not really. if anything, it only provides temporary relief. ]

I doubt I'll keep my dance studio running.

[ dutch loves dancing, but for all that she was trained to dance, she's not a dancer. she's a fighter, a killjoy. that had been her choice and she needs to figure out what choice she wants to make now. keeping quiet isn't it, but she's not yet sold on an open revolution, either.

doing nothing is definitely not it, either. but then he doesn't really strike her as the type to do nothing at all, so despite his words, they're in the same boat. ] Maybe I'll try sitting on my arse as well. Though it'd be a pity never getting to see yours.

[ he probably has a great butt. ]

[dominance]

[ he looks at her, eyebrow slightly cocked, lip curved upward. it wasn't something he expected to hear her say. the moment she'd turned and asked him for his opinion, he'd prepared himself to be in for a dry conversation about how much they hated being here, and how much they loathed being played. ]

I don't dance. [ and he says it with an amused smile. ] Never have, never will. Assholes in charge aren't going to make that any less true.

[ the one thing bellamy blake is glad about keeping is his memories of his family. mom and octavia feel too real to be manufactured. if he woke up in the hospital with the desire to break out into a dance when he's the world's biggest hater of dance, he'd be pissed. ]

[ — a little more pissed than he is right now. aren't the guys in charge lucky they didn't give bellamy blue sued shoes? ]

I might stay here for a while to make sure I don't randomly feel compelled to break out into dance. Good thing you're here in case I do, huh?

[motivation]

Pity.

[ dutch knows only two outlets for the anger she feels burning under her skin at the manipulation: fighting and fucking. neither offers anything more than temporary relief, but she's already gone more than one round against the punching bag tonight.

she's not looking to fight bellamy. she's open to the second option, though somehow, she figures he won't go for that. maybe not a bad thing as such. ]

I bet you could do a great jig.

[ a beat, and in response to his last comment, she adds: ] Who says I'd stop you?

[dominance]

[ his shoulders lift. ] Guess we'll have to wait and see.

[ considering how this place has messed with them, perhaps she would've, if she remained convinced the life she had here was real. although, it can't be entirely black and white — bellamy recalls enjoying going to class before he had to drop out of college. it's an opportunity he doesn't have back home, and never will. here, though, he can live the life he was meant to if the bombs hadn't gone off one hundred years prior. ]

[ it's that thinking that's dangerous. it's that thinking that has driven him to anger over being here. messing with him, giving him opportunities, reasons to stay — he doesn't like it ruins his one-man mission to get back home and save those kids from the grounders. ]

[ his hand grips his glass, then loosens. ]

What's your studio called?

[ it might sound random, but he's trying to piece something together. ]

[motivation]

Guess so.

[ this wouldn't ever have been her life. it isn't anything like her real life -- but some elements are still the same. she's fought. she knows how to dance. the memories they've given her somehow fit what she can do and who she is. what khlyen had made her.

she tips her glass back, emptying it, and gestures at the bartender for another. ]

Dansation. Why?

[dominance]

[ he firstly gives her a shrug for an answer. he knows why he's asked, and he finds that his memory has bits of that name in it. it's not overly powerful, like the school and the college that's here, but it's there, somewhere. like a memory that's whispering "i am here." ]

[ tapping his glass against the countertop, he still his movements. ] Trying to see if I can place it. Can, kind of. But I know it's still fake. It doesn't fit anywhere else in my head. [ and that's the weird part. he doesn't like how he can't place it in his memories of the ark, of a dilapidated earth standing on its last legs. dance studios don't belong in his post-bombs life, but it fits, somewhere, in the one where he's always been here. ]

It's fucking weird.

[motivation]

You don't say.

[ she thinks maybe she remembers him as well, remembers seeing him before. she doesn't remember everyone who's ever set foot in the studio, or who ever allegedly set food in the studio. it's probably better that way. she's not even sure the human brain is meant to hold that many memories, an entire second life.

there are some things from her real one she would have wanted to forget, once upon a time, but the truth is that even the bad and the terrible memories are part of her story, part of who she is. after khlyen, she doesn't want anyone holding pieces of her story hostage again. ]

Weird's too sweet, if you ask me.