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

[groupiedrifter]

CHARACTERS: Precursors and you. And Eventually Newton. Hopefully!
LOCATION: A holding room in Ximilia Station.
DATE: Est. two days post-mission, after the kaiju is defeated and the orb is retrieved.
CONTENT: The precursors are revealed — and are finally removed from Newt's mind.
WARNINGS: Possession and the bodily autonomy issues that come with that. More will be added if necessary!

Closed and opened starters will be added as I go, which will be announced on plurk! But if you don't use plurk or would rather keep an eye out by email/tracking, feel free to use the tracking option and mark to receive notifs any new top level comments posted to this log! The log will involve an open starter to visit the precursors where they're cuffed/contained in the room, so stay tuned.

Also no rush once the open starters are posted!

Feel free to focus on the player plot log first and come back to this later.

CLOSED STARTER | THE DOCTOR
DARKLING'S TOP LEVEL | WHILE NEWT WAS SLEEPING...
OPEN STARTER | THE PRECURSORS, REVEALED
CLOSED FINAL CONCLUSION | THE PRECURSORS, REMOVED
OPEN PROMPTS | NEWTON GEISZLER'S RETURN

Comments

[groupiedrifter]

[He's a little twitchy still, like the adrenaline of the night they stole him back hasn't quite left him while awake, so Kovacs' sudden appearance makes him flinch where he sits. But — it's Kovacs, and whatever nerves that shows in his expression bleeds out a little when he recognizes who's visiting. Shoulders relax, and the fork clenched in his hand is dropped into the hardly touched mish-mash of food that one of the infirmary workers had brought in.

He sighs a smile.

Relief. Tired relief. He has no fucking clue what to say at first. Apologies these days don't seem widely accepted — not because people are angrily denying them, but because they feel its unnecessary, which is... crazy to him. But thank god, Kovacs' words are a blueprint he can work off of.]

Yeah, well... Revenge for getting me back into smoking again.

[He looks fine. Newton, that is. He's not bruised up, not drooling or staring into space without a thought in his head, or in some bruise-eyed coma that he'll never wake up from. Just a bunch of wires that symbolize a stable heartbeat and a brain being carefully monitored.

If anything, he just looks tired there in his flimsy little hospital gown, like a man who'd just recently been exorcised of an uncountable number of hivemind voices.

And maybe in need of a shave.]

[kovach]

[ there'd been a time when kovacs began noticing the changes in newt, small hints that grew larger, indicating that he wasn't actually himself, but he doesn't actually know exactly when those things in him began to actually take over, when it was that newt himself got stuck deep within his own mind.

it makes the relief all the greater in seeing him there now, even if he's still in recovery, that he's back with them now. ironic that he'd been so annoyed by his energy all those months ago, only to be anxious to see it eventually return. ]

Well, if that's the case, I'm not opening this pack until you get yourself out of here.

[ he gives a nod of his head, gesturing to the infirmary as a whole as he steps further in, alongside the bed. ]

Cause that first cigarette? We're sharing it together.

[ probably not good to encourage the habit, but — well, if it helps to make any of this better. ]

[groupiedrifter]

[The comment earns a more tentatively wider smile, but it's a ghost; comes and goes quick, because the energy he usually has for such beaming expressions is particularly lacking this day — for reasons Kovacs probably knows. His fingers curl in the blankets, fusses with them in some self-soothing gesture he can't help.]

What an honor, to get to share first dibs.

[But now that Kovacs is here, it's hard not to think about the fact that he's been here plenty. When the removal had happened, and before that, a standing sentry that had looked out for him. And for what? To help resurrected a little obnoxious scientist he had spent his career here rolling his eyes at? Helping out of tough situations? He owes him. Big time.

What does he say to that?

Swallowing, he tries not to get stupidly emotional. Kovacs is too tough to be listening to Newton Geiszler working himself into his fifth cry session today. But now that the precursors aren't here to prevent his pain from bubbling up to the surface, it's hard to stop the emotion from trickling into his voice when he says:]

... You knew it wasn't me?

From the beginning.

[He's in awe of it, really.]

[kovach]

[ the way he's been worried these past several days (maybe even weeks, really, since he started noticing the different behavioral patterns) surprises even him. kovacs makes it a point to try to avoid all of these close connections, an attempt that's failed more times than he can count with plenty of people on this station, but if he had to make a guess all those months ago when he first showed up, he wouldn't have guessed he'd be standing here now, plenty exhausted himself for how much he's stayed up these past few nights to make sure this body stayed in one piece.

the honesty of it all is probably one of those things someone like kovacs would have a harder time admitting to, focusing the topic on cigarettes until it's newt that shifts into the next question, prompting out a quiet sigh. ]

You know, with a world like mine, a face is just a face. Anyone can wear it. Even this one — [ he gives a vague gesture of his hand to himself. ] Belongs to someone else. And, a lot of the time, people can study someone up and down — mannerisms, ticks, wants, dislikes, anything to the tiniest detail — to practically nail an exact impersonation. But ... how do I know you are who you say you are?

[ he moves his feet slowly, stepping closer along the side of the bed. ]

It doesn't matter that they were in your head. Whatever image of you they tried to make up, whatever memories they could see, whatever voice they could mimic — it was never you. The way you care, the passion you put into everything you do, the way the world brightens up your face no matter how weird and fucked up it is, like you're just excited that the universe even exists, that you're a part of it, how you root for every person that crosses your path before they even get a single word out — that's all you. No one could embrace those parts of yourself like you can. Not even something that shared your head for a while.

[ a beat before he adds, ]

And anyone that loves you will know that.

[groupiedrifter]

[Dammit, Kovacs, it hasn't been nearly long enough since he'd woken up to be told all of this. He's such a wreck as it is — just a big emotional cesspool of 'what ifs' and 'if I'd tried harder', all swirling in a murky mess of guilt and paranoia and exhaustion — but even so, he stares through the man's words with a muteness that is not like him, lips parted with quiet shock, eyes swimming behind the glasses he was finally allowed to wear again.

It's been hard. So fucking hard. The memories he'd been barred from by them, night after night, they paint a dark, awful time where Newton had been so utterly alone in his own head, listening to creatures that he wouldn't remember come morning. The days of feeling insane, of thinking something was so intrinsically wrong with him, of assuming it had been mental illness that he was too afraid to address — and then, at the end of it all, to watch your friends suffer because of you, unable to lift a finger, unable to scream it isn't me at the top of your own lungs —

It's just been hard. And he'd felt like a prisoner in a war he'd sworn had been over. He'd expected wary glances afterward... Expected everything they'd told him to be true, despite his urgent denials, his proclamations the precursors had been wrong. And yet, like too many of the crew, Kovacs has been nothing but good to him. Even after all the eyerolls and frustrated huffs and dragging him along before he can get into any more trouble. The dreaded l-word pushes him over the edge. He knows it has, because he can feel something warm and wet escape one eye, fleeing down the curve of his cheek.

He watches Kovacs with the look of a normally loquacious man who battles for a few scattered words.]

I love you, too.

[He reaches out for his friend's hand.

And whatever face you got, he thinks, is a face I like.]

... I'm.

[His lips pinch shut, vanish, as he presses them-]

I'm sorry for all the trouble.