( -- closed ) you used to dream about fires.

[sospita]

Who: Juno Steel ( sospita) & OTHERS.
Where: VARIOUS.
When: This is a July catch-all. Shove a header in here if you want a wildcard.
What: There's a lot happening, okay!?
Warnings: N/A. Will update.

Comments

( desmond. )

[sospita]

[ there's a line that has to be drawn, between things he knows are concrete and real, and things that this place still wants him to believe are real. emotions, fabricated and strung between his recollections and the shape of people who, for all technical intent, are strangers to him. it's happened with sarra, with shirou - kids he's never met before in his life, who he is instinctively drawn to. made conscious of, when before he would overlook them. they're his problem now. that's the biggest thing about this whole situation that he finds that he can't stand. the people in charge made him look, and not just look, but become involved.

irrevocably involved, in a way that goes beyond just "case" or just "client" or just --

you know.

there's a man, across the street. juno sees him, and he feels the unconscious tug of i know you, before he can smother it with conscious thought. no. no, the only person he really knows in this place is the thief he shares a house with, and even then - he only knows peter nureyev through a series of invasive deep dives into his mind. rifling through his thoughts and his memories and his past like some - like some - sick voyeur. this feeling, this tug behind his ribs, telling him that he needs to study this man's face. that he looks familiar, that is is familiar... he tries to ignore it.

they both have to cross the road, to two different sides. all he needs to do is look beyond him, ignore the tug. remember that this is all a constructed fantasy to make people "safe" and "encourage interpersonal relations" and all that fool's business. all he has to do, is ignore it - and it'll go away. juno will make it go away.

halfway across the road, they begin to pass. and juno's hand darts out, to grab at the man's upper arm and force him to a halt, right there. right in the middle of the road. DAMN IT. ]

[accommodated]

[ Honestly, it's complete madness. Desmond himself isn't sure what to think-- something horrible happened with Wayward Pines, and he has memories of these people, of a life here. So instead of being comfortably numb to the truth of everything (and, boy, was that fun to wrestle with), distanced from it because he lacked any real proximity to anyone involved, he's emotionally in the thick of it. Horrible things happened to people he cares about. And at the same time? None of that is technically real.

He'd have said this was all absolute bullshit, but he has memories of Abstergo, buts and pieces he knows are real, and let him tell you, they are some seriously fantastical things to remember.

Something about an Animus and something about... finding something?

He's been trying to piece it together, but nothing comes. Almost everything he has is of this town.

And admittedly very distracted by the the time the cross signal flashes, mentally ticking off the list of things he has to do. False memories or not, he is here and he does have a job to do to help clean up the mess. He hadn't caught sight of Juno yet. So, when there's a hand grabbing a hold of him, there's a knee-jerk split second instinct to throw them off he has to fight down, head jerking up and body completely tensing, ready to tell this guy he doesn't have time for whatever this is right now. But when he gets a good look at that face... It's practically instantaneous, the recognition. ]

Juno? Juno, hey! Been a while, right? [ Desmond couldn't help but start to grin, a wash of relief coming over him, because here Juno is-- safe. Safe, unharmed, and damn had he missed his favorite gal in the whole town. Except... except no, he hasn't, and the grin stops. He felt sick, suddenly. He missed Juno, but he's never met him in all of his life until this very moment.

A car honking at them has Desmond jumping again, instinctively grabbing a hold of Juno right back and dragging them back towards where Juno had started crossing. ]

--sorry. Uh, look, I... You... you okay?

[sospita]

No, listen --

[ too late. it's too late for that; juno's hand has already closed around the man's arm, a familiar gesture between two people who are perfect strangers, save for what the town has programmed their minds to think of when confronted with one another's existence. he grabs onto him the way he might grab an old friend who just plain isn't paying attention, and regrets that he trusted himself enough to cross the road here, instead of walking on for one block more.

and now, he's been "recognized". there's no way that he can trust this sort of reaction. it's too clean, too abrupt. like someone's just slid a datafile into place and told it to run all processes, run this poor bastard's mind right into the ground. infect him with memories of some shared relationship. but, when he hears that voice say his name, he can't deny that it sounds familiar.

it's a moment of weakness, and it's just enough. he's back on the sidewalk, holding onto a stranger ( an old friend ), feeling very fuzzy. self-conscious and frantically pawing through the memories. he knew this guy, back in the city. no, not that city. the other city. the one he came from, no the one he didn't come from. what a mess. ]

I don't think we actually know one another.

[ Cautious. Reserved.

He hasn't taken his hand off of the man's arm, not yet. ] You just, looked like someone I thought I recognized.