ximilialog | [Mostly Open] So we'll press, and press 'til you can't take it anymore!

I. we are free (the guiltiness is yours) | CLOSED TO CLARA

[Newton wakes up peacefully, as himself, for the first time in a while. It was pretty terrifying in the last few months to do that — because he always woke up feeling like the precursors had been a bad dream... only to lie in his bed like a man with a severed spine, hands and legs at the mercy of something else. But today... today his hands slide up from his stomach to his face, and he touches the stubble on his chin himself. With his own hands. Him.

It almost doesn't feel real. He remembers Finn and Blue, the TARDIS, remembers everyone's voices as Clara's face swam into focus...

He remembers the train, the explosions, the screams, the Doctor's blood on his knife — Alina's blood Peter's blood Daisy's blood —

The beeping of the heart monitor quickens, as he looks around the blurry room; his glasses must've been removed while he was sleeping so soundly, and his hand nearly moves to start scrabbling for them near any nightstand. But he also realizes there's a brown head of hair, a familiar little shape in a chair next to him, and his stomach lurches as his heart flutters. He remembers the way his muscles burned when he'd desperately clamored for control over the dagger in his hand; he remembers the tears pouring out of his eyes as the precursors tried to peel his quivering control from his body, remembers the feeling of being a weight on her where he'd pinned her to the train floor.

Stop, he pleads with himself. Stop thinking about it.

He reaches toward her with shaky fingers, unsure if she's awake or if she's just... quietly watching him, wondering if he's even Newton Geiszler anymore.

Swallowing hard, he expects the worst. Maybe it's good his glasses were placed aside, so he doesn't have to see the look she'll give him.]

We've g-gotta stop meeting like this.

[Some credit where it's due: there's an inkling of humor in there somewhere, under the struggle to get the words out.]

II. you must fix your heart! | CLOSED TO INFIRMARY WORKERS/PATIENTS*

[Newton asks that there be no visitors. Pleads, really.

The bedrest time in the clinic is just a precaution, just like the time he'd had a seizure and winded up in this same predicament. Left in this quiet little infirmary, the curtain drawn around him for 'privacy' that he doesn't particularly feel he deserves, he sits and stares at the hanging sheet in front of him mostly... He thinks about the little pamphlets he'd seen in the PPDC's infirmary before, the ones about common reactions to trauma, or whatever.

First, a relief to be alive. He definitely feels that. Even when Gwen had found him in Sedorum, he had — always wanted to live, and it makes him wonder if that's a super selfish thing of him, when something so dangerous had been in his head.

Second, the stress, fear, and anger. The not being able to stop thinking about what happened. Mmmyeah. That's strong. Strong feeling there.

Third, an alertness, being constantly on guard. Sharp reactions to sudden sounds or sights.

Considering he almost jumps out of his skin when someone who works in the infirmary draws back the curtain to look in, that is also a factor.

His hand goes over his heart with a gasp.]

C'mon, you gotta knock if you're visiting.

[There are blood tests, and brain scans. There's medications and all that.

Sometimes food shows up, and he picks at it with a frown, like a sullen child who won't eat their vegetables.]

... Maybe I should be in the holding room still. I mean, as a precaution, right? Like how people have to quarantine when they get the superflu. [He stabs weakly at what he's pretty sure is a slice of carrot.] Until all the scans are complete and we know for sure there's nothing left in there. I don't feel them but it's not like that always mattered, you know? They've always been there — maybe they'll always be there, like when you get mono and you'll always have that in your blood? Maybe the precursors are my Mononucleosis. Mononucleosis I got from drifting, and I can never get them out, and they'll just always have some foot in the door that I can't control...

[The poor carrot is just a mushy orange blob now.]

[OOC: *If your character is too stubborn and will sneak in anyway to check on him or question him, feel free to tag into this prompt anyway!]

III. and you must build an altar where it rests | OPEN / MULTIPLE LOCATIONS

[When he's finally cleared, it's with a refill of his antiepileptic medications (because his brain is still a shitshow with frayed edges). He gets to put his clothes on — clothes that were pushed somewhere neatly in a drawer that make him look like him. His jewelry, his glasses, they're all things that at least help him feel a little more like himself and not someone floating outside of their own body. Maybe everyone else shares the same hesitancy at letting him loose into the station, but... gotta start somewhere, right? He can't just live in the infirmary all his life, waiting for the day he snaps back into being 'okay'. His vitals are good, he can answer questions clearly, his head hasn't turned 360 degrees and he hasn't vomitted pea soup at any priests.

So... He's released from care. With the promise of checking in frequently for crucial follow-ups.

And now he's just.

Out. Free to wander in his own body, among people he'd tried to kill. (They'd tried to kill.)

Okay, obvious first decision: locking himself in his room for days. He does that very well, lays on his bed and watches Titanic and The Wizard of Oz and Jaws, like, twenty times. Then he puts his music on and turns it up so loud on his earphones that he might as well be dead to the world, or at the very least get his hearing checked after.

But that's really not a super great way to live, is it? And that's exactly what he's supposed to be doing. Living.

He's not really sure how he ends up here at some point, standing just outside the doorway that leads into the mess hall, but he does. It almost looks like some idiot middle schooler too scared to step out and perform for their talent show, but really, it's just some thirty-something year old man who should know how to do this. He can hear people talking in there, hear familiar voices laughing or grumbling or having easy conversation. The idea of stepping into that space and instantly souring the air makes him feel kind of sick. What kind of looks will he get? What kind of things will they think? He wrings his hands together, breathes out deep, and — ]

Iiii can't do this.

[— turns on his heel to try for a beeline to his bedroom.

Eventually — with some likely coaxing, though — he does.

Step into the mess hall.

And it very much feels like stepping onto a school stage, with all the lights pointed at you.]

IV. it comforts me much more | OPEN / KITCHENS

[Imagine: you're going to the kitchens to get a late night snack, and you here a pathetic little sniffling noise in the room.

Nobody around, but there's definitely a quiet little hiccup somewhere that sounds suspiciously melancholy.

A ghost? A haunting, in our Ximilia?

It's more likely than you think.

But upon investigation, if you're so bold, you'll find the source of the restrained bawling: Dr. Newton Geiszler, PHD PHD PHD PHD PHD PHD, curled up behind one of the counters with a carton of ice cream under one arm. Ah, the case is solved. Just a sad little man who is having a small mental breakdown while spooning rocky road into his mouth.]

V. we lay in the foundations | WILDCARD / OPEN STARTERS / ETC.

[Once he's gotten a little more comfortable with being out and about, he can be found in places like the sunlight room or the kitchen for thoughtful thousand yard stares at the walls, and most certainly his own room, though... he seems to be avoiding the labs currently. Maybe just a touch too difficult, going into a space he'd shared a lot with Hermann before things went to shit. Or maybe he just can't stomach seeing the perfectly tidy desk he used to work at. Maybe it's just a sick reminder that he's an idiot scientist who flew too close to the sun, no matter how desperate they were for what he'd learned all those months ago on Earth.

(God, there's a mission approaching soon, he thinks; he can't he can't he can't.)

Feel free to find him around the station, or message him, or whatever method you prefer. He doesn't really... start conversation currently, not like he used to, but it's a work in progress.

We'll get there. Just takes a little duct tape and time.]

Edited 2022-05-30 00:45 (UTC)

（ odd hour of the night, or just the (frankly, insane) time he gets up for his morning routine? you decide.

but itachi is here regardless, and is making tea and a series of small side-dishes for the morning's meal. about the third time the Hiccup of Melancholy occurs, he opts to speak — ）

Would you like breakfast?

（ yes, newt, he knows it's you. you aren't subtle, you little weirdo. ）

[At the sudden sound of Itachi's voice, there's a choking sound, one that implies a man has nearly suffocated on ice cream going down his windpipe.

After a sputtering rasp, and a thumping hand on a chest, the kitchen counter speaks in a congested voice:]

Uh...!

It's not — me.

► Mostly Open (Get! up! coward!) | POST-PRECURSORS

IV

no subject

ii

no subject

slams in here

no subject

iv

no subject

ii

no subject

iii.

no subject

II

no subject

V. wildcard - the sunlight room

iv