[MINGLE] One-Man Show

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Inari Shrine and elsewhere
WHEN: 25 January 2019 through ?
OPEN TO: All opted in characters
WARNINGS: Please warn in the subject line of your comment as needed, and remember to move anything turning adult to a new post.
IMPORTANT NOTES: Final reminders and informational links are here. Please label all top-levels clearly so that there is no confusion who they are open to and what they are for, and DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR TAG!
Have fun and ask questions here!

Comments

[retributes]

For anyone who’d come across the network post roughly a week back might have been able to put two and two together.

There was always going to be the phantom pain that followed, and Lucy stood there in absolute silence, horrified, as pale as Desmond, visibly shaken. Always, it would always shake her, seeing her own death play before her very eyes. Like the last time Lucy felt sick to her stomach. No blood seeped between her fingers, her hand unconsciously pressing to her stomach where he’d slid his blade home. The scarring underneath her clothing, hidden, it was a tender area, and for how hard she was pressing to it that didn’t help it much.

Her eyes closed, squeezed shut, as if that could wipe the memory from her mind. No, it only made it worse. When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t looking at anyone, her gaze was rooted to the ground, her breaths trembling. For the most part... she was holding herself together. Until she turned away from everyone, no real direction in mind, and there was a small stumble in her step.

They needed to get out. Where was the way out? Where were they supposed to go? Why were they all seeing these things? What the fuck was wrong with this place and whet had been the point of the simulation on New Year’s Eve? Was this just another simulation?

[moderndayassassin]

Desmond knows Lucy's leaving, and he wants to follow her, but he also knows it's not something he can do. This is going to just keep going in a circle for them, every time things start to get good. He glances at the others, guilty ashamed side looks, and walks the opposite way. One of them, Ashley no doubt, will go see to Lucy. Desmond just leaves the shrine by himself.

[connatural]

And in this moment Ashley has her answer of who she's offered to kill of Lucy goes missing.

Well fuck.

Ashley may have been raised by her mother, but she's her father's child in so many ways and dammit, she is not empathetically prepared to handle this. She kills things and solves problems. There's nothing to kill here, all threats in text aside.

Sighing, she turns to head after him, because if Lucy really does feel the way she said, then fuck him for walking away at this moment.

"Hey! Desmond. Do not make me launch myself onto your back and use a sleeper hold to keep you here," she says, hurrying after him. Probably not the best way to get his attention but dammit, she needs to get him turned around, heading back for Lucy and fixing this.

[moderndayassassin]

Desmond has a whole host of issues, and running from his problems was top of the list. But in truth, part of his anxiety at the moment is that for the first time other people knew. It has been quiet between them this entire time, because there is nothing he can say to another person, to describe the complex emotions involved in this situation. And now his worst moment is public, and it could mean a lot of terrible things that are swirling in his head.

When he hears Ashley say hey, he tenses, coiled like a spring. He expects an attack, honestly, and he doesn't plan on fighting back. What she says though confuses him, and he turns partly toward her. "I can't stay, you have to know why." He gestures toward the freaking shrine and what it all meant. "I'll only make her feel worse."

[connatural]

"If you really believe that, then I apparently I know more about her than you do," she says, straight forward and being downright honest, even if in a cruel way. "Let me start this with two things," she says, closing the distance between them if he doesn't flee.

"One, you need to know that I told her if you hurt her again or she went missing I was going to take you apart piece by piece,' she says, her tones almost lighthearted in making that admission. "Two, and I want this answer, what the hell was that thing, and am I wrong in thinking the way you were moving, you were fighting it? Because that's how it looked to me, as someone that's apparently going to be taken over by the bad guys and turned into a weapon against everyone, including my mother. So tell me what I was seeing."

Her voice cracks, still not handling that any better than she had the moment she saw it, but she wants to be right in how it seemed, that voice that seemed to be coming from the ball in his hand. Not for his sake, or hers, but Lucy's. She's not good with these things, but she will fight for others to have what makes them happy, and from things Lucy told her, she thinks he might be able to do that.

If he doesn't walk away.

[moderndayassassin]

Desmond stays where he is and watches her warily. He likes Ashley, he has from the moment they met, but now she's not Ashley, she's Ashley-who-knows and that makes it all unpredictable. "You wouldn't have to take me apart, Ashley. If anything happens to her I'll slit my own damn throat." It's not a joke and he fully means it. He's already walking a tightrope in his life right now. It wouldn't take much.

He considers his response to her. "Juno." He practically spits her name. His monster. "She's the being that was talking. She was in control of my body. The Apple in my hand is a powerful object of ancient technology. Only a few people can touch it." Him, obviously, and people who shared his DNA and others with special blood. They're already this far, so he might as well tell it. "I tried to fight her, but I couldn't.

And I ...." This part is the real problem. "I gave up. She showed me that Lucy was working with the enemy from day one, a mole in our midst. And that she wanted the Apple and if she got it, the world would end." It would be an easy thing for him to do, to blame Juno, to say it was fully her control, that he had no say. But Desmond isn't picking the easy route. "So I stopped fighting." And let Lucy die. He looks away from Ashley. "Juno was setting us all up. I followed her instructions to save the world, and I did, but I died doing it. And I had to set her loose on the world in exchange." So that was the sad little story of Desmond Miles, and in extension, Lucy.

[connatural]

"Well good," she says, her smile tight and hollow as she folds her arms over her chest. "Glad we're on the same page." Though they are words she is glad to hear from him. No, not glad, but those words with what comes after them at least settles her mind a bit.

Her brow furrows as he talks though, as he explains what it is they saw. Knowing that as with all of them they saw, there's so much more than they got in those moments. Though her eyes roll at mention of this powerful object. "Yeah, got some experience with those," she mutter, thinking about the items she's run up against in working for her mom.

Though the furrowing turns into a dark frown, shifting her weight as her head cocks to one side.

"So... a crazy ass artifact gets in your head, controls you, and then, one way or another you go along with it and kill Lucy because, from what I can tell, you believed she was working for the enemy?" Damn but there's a lot of this that is not at all like what Ashley knows of her life and future and yet hits too close to home at the same time. "And so you end up gutting Lucy, who has no problem with being vulnerable with you now, and you're just going to storm off than think about a few things beyond the moment you were psycho weapon for the enemy?"

Yeah, that is a huge part of where it is all hitting too close to home for her.

"You said it yourself. Juno was setting you up," she says, wondering how connected that could be to something or someone in the Cabal, but that's for another time and place. "Wanna here the part you're not looking at because you're reminded you killed someone pretty much against your will?"

She steps closer, glancing back to where Lucy, Ezio, and Druitt were. "I know that Lucy trusts you more than I probably would. I can also guess that she's in there hurting because she's just been reminded of you stabbing her but you're also now bailing instead of being there for her. So... Get your ass back in there, face her, offer to be there for her, and stop acting like I would. Trust me, it's the dumb way to be and you end up shutting yourself off from nearly everyone. You've got a chance not to do that. Take that path, okay?"

She knows that even without her impending death, she hasn't trusted people enough to let others in. She's still not sure about it knowing her full nature. She likes Lucy and Desmond well enough to probably try and haul him back physically, even if she would probably fail.

[moderndayassassin]

"She was working with the enemy. But she ... she had reasons for it. She thought she was doing the right thing too." Desmond's father was a huge part of that, because he's a huge part of every messed up thing in modern Assassin time, one way or the other. "It's so fucking stupid, you know? The world was literally about to be set on fire and most of the earth destroyed, and these two factions couldn't stop hating each other long enough to work together."

If they worked together, it might not have been so down to the wire. Things could have been different. But no. It had to be some Romeo and Juliet shit going on, with them both dead the same way.

Desmond glances back in the direction of where Lucy went, and he swallows, clearly torn. "What if it makes it worse for her?" There's no mistaking the look in his eyes for people who know what to look for, the longing and love and sadness all wrapped up into one. "I told her I'd keep her safe." Such stupid words from a stupid person who believed it was possible. "Before everything. And I ... fucked it all up."

[connatural]

It's not the right thing to say, and she hopes she never has to consider this but her first thought was that she likely would have stabbed her too if she had learned that.

Thankfully she's developing enough tact not to say that aloud.

"That's... sadly normal? I mean, from what I can tell, same thing in my world too, and it sucks. You both got caught up in things and ..." She gestures back with one hand. "Sadly more than you both saw what happened. But Desmond..."

Ashley is so bad at this, and she knows it. She's not got any experience with caring about anyone the way that Desmond looks when he talks about Lucy. She is a killer who loves her family and died for her mom, but in the end, she's her father's child. Dammit though, she's trying.

"Okay, and then you got screwed up and turned around and shit happened." Definitely doesn't know how to do this. "But I'll tell you this," she says, moving in closer and lowering her voice. "I have never known anyone to look at me like you look right now but I've seen it before, and trust me. When he turned on her, when he hurt her daughter to get what he wanted from her, he still looked at her that way and when he showed he'd changed? She accepted his help. Which I thought was stupid at the time," she says, folding her arms over her chest again. "But maybe it's not."

Maybe extenuating circumstances do change things and shit isn't black and white. Ashley isn't sure she believes it, but she gets where others need to.

"So go back in there and prove to her you'll do it, and that you meant it. What if you make it better? What if you trying makes it better? Besides, we know what happens if you make it worse for her. You try for the easy way out and I make you suffer like an abnormal trying to take down mankind. What do you have to lose?"

[moderndayassassin]

"I told her it was okay for her to talk about it with people. Not that she needed my permission, but." This is a small community. It wouldn't take much for Desmond to become 'the guy who killed Lucy' to other people, especially since he has avoided others since getting there. He knows she still never named names, otherwise he would immediately hear about it. And now it is out there. "I'm glad she did, with you." It seems like Ashley at least knew parts of it, more than was public that he saw.

She's not wrong. Desmond knows that. When they saw part of this video the first time, they'd been upset, but then it turned into something else between them. Lucy hadn't pushed him away. This was much worse, yes, she saw the entire incident, but maybe she still would rather he try to explain himself. Or just for once not run the second something got difficult. It could go badly, but what was she going to do, kill him?

He would let her.

"Okay. Okay I will." He's still shaken and uncertain. She's gotten a fair amount of distance now so he would have to track her down, but he knows how to do that. "Thanks, Ash." It's weird, to say that she is a good friend, because he thinks she is, but they're not exactly friends, especially not now. But she's doing the right thing at least, and pushing someone else to do the right thing. "You're a good person." That seems like a good enough summary.

With a nod at her, he starts off after Lucy.