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

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

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?

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[ though he may never admit it, he'd been glad to sneak onto the dropship and had fallen to earth, surviving the radiation-soaked land. the ark had been a place of entrapment, suffocating him in a manner that made him feel like he was being floated for a good portion of his life. to read the public address and find it essentially be an ark of itself had his posture stiff, his anger brewing, and a hell of a lot of pent up frustration at his current predicament. ]

[ so, to the bar it is. and he sits there, on the stool by the counter, glass and bottle on the countertop. bellamy's not drunk yet, but he intends to get somewhere close to it before he stumbles his way home and collapses on a soft surface of his house. ]

[ once addressed, he looks to her, eyebrow arching slightly. where his mind goes is the public address, but not everyone here may feel the same anger he does toward that particular announcement. ] You talking about the bar or the bullshit announcement?

[ dutch has never been on the ark or anything close to it until now, given that this place is just like that -- but she'd grown up in a royal harem, protected and doted upon and taught how to dance and how to enchant a prince. taught how to kill, too, but none of the other girls had learned that particular skill.

it isn't the ark bit that bothers her so much as the manipulation, but she's in a similar emotional state to bellamy. ] Not interested in your opinion of this watering hole.

[ the announcement, obviously. ]

[ that'd smart if he was a guy with a sensitive ego. bellamy's opinion of the "watering hole" is simple — it's nothing to consider having an opinion of. it does, however, seem to serve as a decent middle ground, even though bellamy finds himself wondering who is here of their own accord, and who's been recruited and manipulated like him. ]

[ he tips back his glass, liquid coating his throat and cooling that bubbling temper of his. it's there, that instinct to act out, be impulsive and stupidly reckless, but he can't be with his people here — not anymore. ]

It's bullshit. [ his eyes narrow, then he looks at her, elbow resting against the countertop. ] I'm going to take a wild guess and say you think the same.

[ fortunate, then, that bellamy isn't a guy with a sensitive ego. dutch isn't in the business of pandering to any man's ego, after all. whether he likes the bar she enjoys frequenting or not doesn't concern her in any way.

but she does want to hear people's thoughts about the whole bullshit announcement and the stunt the people here pulled, keeping them in the dark, not telling them anything -- it's not their intentions that bother her but the means of it. ]

Guess my poker face isn't in good working order.

[ because yeah: she thinks it's bullshit, too. her lips press together, and she tips her head to the side a little, considering. ] So what are you gonna do now, stranger?

[ given how this place has panned out, he wouldn't be surprised if the poker face she thought she had wasn't her own. the life he's been confused about, the one that's almost a little too picturesque for him, is still a patchwork of odd shapes and textures, but he's beginning to wonder what's true and what's not about himself. a poker face can be a part of the mix. ]

[ his hand circles his glass, finger swiping against the smooth and cold surface. he doesn't lift it up to drink, despite wanting to. instead, he looks at it, as though that glass contains an answer — which it doesn't. it's a glass from here, from this bullshit town that's reminding him too much of the ark. ]

I'm going to to enjoy my drink, and sit on my ass and do nothing. [ deep, rich, monotonous. he sounds a little tired, a little annoyed. he sighs, and looks at her. everything about him suggests he's going to do the opposite. why he doesn't say so — it's obvious to him. they're still in enemy territory. ] What about you?

[ 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. ]

[ 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?

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?

[ 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. ]

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?

[ 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.

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.

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

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