[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

[skyward_eyes]

Well, if it's halfhearted, there is no way at all that Nida is actually going to let go of him. He's learned that there is clearly some power to hugs. Of course the comment that he had died has Nida scoff a little and twists his hand just enough to get some skin between his fingers and gives him a strong pinch. No doubt enough to make most people wince, though he doesn't assume it will have as much weight here.

"I don't know, you seem pretty alive here right now," Nida countered. More than... no, he isn't thinking about his parents and kneeling in a pool of blood. That's not what he wants to think about. At all. "You're alive now, and older than you are then, which definitely gives me some serious questions that I'm going to put aside for right now."

At last he releases his grip of Jason and looks up at him, a haunted look on his face. "I got to admit, your death was definitely a bit more brutal than my own, but you're here now, you're alive, and you're moving. I don't know who that maniac who did that to you was, but staying in that moment lets him have power over you. Lets him keep having power over you. Yes, what happened was traumatic and I can't imagine anything worse than that, to be forced to confront your own death, again, but I do know what I saw in that young man he was beating. Strength, defiance, refusal to lose. Have you gotten less strong with age? Have you decided the maniac gets to win when you're alive, you're strong, and there are people who need you?"

Because Nida isn't buying that, isn't buying that Jason is that weak. Sure, trauma and PTSD (PTDD?), but for right now, he needs this guy able to move, able to work himself back to the village from wherever they are. It's cruel, it's using him, and Nida doesn't care. His first priority is to protect these young man and get them back to where they belong. Trauma can be processed when they are safe. And speaking of safe...

"So long as I have strength in my arm, you're as safe as you can be," he says, taking a step back. A hand comes up to touch the bo tied to his back, and he can't help the confident look that comes with it. "I mean, this thing isn't up to dragon killing standards, but the worst I've heard about out there are either cave wolves or wendigos, and to be honest with you? The forest I was raised in was full of those. I'm still going, so clearly that's not a threat."

It's confident, it's possibly arrogant, and maybe just a tiny bit of a bluff. Mostly because from what Nida's read Wendigos here and back home aren't even on par with each other, but he's going to use every bit of his training to exude confidence right now. He will get Jason and Billy home safely. Get them home so they can decide whether they went the shadow of the men who hurt them controlling their lives. And frankly? He's stubborn enough to make sure that those shadows don't.

[demiurgency]

The video is brutal. It isn't just what they're watching, what he can see--he can't look away, how can he, fixed in place with horror and the knowledge that if he does, it isn't fair, that Jason had to live this and he just has to watch--it's what he hears. The sickening thump of metal against flesh, that monster's laughter, Jason's struggling breathing, the gurgle of blood in his lungs. Billy is frozen for a moment afterwards, stomach roiling with nausea, fear, sorrow, and while Nida moves instantly to follow Jason as he walks away it takes him a second to follow suit. He comes up just as Nida takes that step back, moving into the space left, a hand on Jason's arm as he looks up, fresh tears still in his eyes and streaking his cheeks.

He has never died, but he knows that every time he goes out there, every time any of them go out, it's a very real possibility. Cassie still haunts him. And still, they make that choice. Teddy was right about one thing. Billy is a hero. He knows what's out there and what's waiting, and still. His voice is soft, quiet, but there's an intensity to his words that speaks to sympathy if not perfect understanding.

"I know. None of us are ever really safe. Not when we do things like this. And not in places like this, where we don't even know the rules. But Jason--I don't want you to go. You shouldn't be alone. And we're stronger together. Please stay." They need to stay together. Billy can't even express how strongly he feels about that, just wills Jason to understand as he looks up into his face, that hand closing around Jason's.

[scathefires]

There’s so much Jason wants to say, so many arguments he wants to offer in response to everything Nida says: that the Joker has unshakeable power over him anyway, turned him into the Red Hood; that he doesn’t need Nida’s protection, because he can handle himself; that nobody needs him, or even wants him, for that matter. And yet none of those words come out with his usual snark and snappiness, the path between mind and mouth paralyzed with the shock of revisiting this trauma, all of the energy and focus he can summon up funneled into holding the pieces of himself together.

What finally breaks him is Billy - his words and the compassion Jason can clearly read in his expression, the gentler touch, the I don’t want you to go, please stay. All things he wanted from Bruce when he came back to Gotham yet knew, instinctively, he would never obtain. Jason looks into Billy’s tearful eyes, and the thin threads keeping him composed unravel in an instant. Jason can feel it coming, an avalanche of the feelings he’s worked so hard to keep buried over the last six years, and he buries his face behind his free hand. Only a single strangled sob tears out of his throat, stifled behind his fingers, before Jason course corrects, gasping in deep, panicked breaths in an attempt to bring himself back. A few long moments pass before he’s composed enough to show his face again, rubbing tears away from his reddened eyes with the heel of his palm.

“You know that dying like that wasn’t even the worst part?” He inhales another deep, shaky breath, rubbing his tearstained hand against his jeans. “I was brought back - came to underwater, something called a Lazarus Pit.” Disoriented, screaming at the memory of being murdered. “And I thought - I knew what I was getting into when I put on that cape and mask. I knew I’d prob’ly end up dead sooner instead of later. But I’d worked with a partner, and I thought surely he would’ve cared enough to do something about me bein’ dead, when that time came.” Jason’s eyes squeeze shut, spilling new tears down his face, which he hastily wipes away while shaking his head.

“But he didn’t. He didn’t care. That maniac? He’s called the Joker, and he’s killed enough people to fill entire graveyards, and he’s still alive.”

[skyward_eyes]

See, here Nida thought the worst part to not being dead anymore was the aching hole in your heart when you thought about dying, and knowing you'd have to do it again? But clearly he's mistaken, because this partner of Jason's? Nida ever meets him, he'll break the guy's jaw. No questions asked.

"And he shouldn't be. Some people forfeit the right," Nida admits with a shrug. "I assure you, he ever appears here, you will have to race me to seeing he doesn't last the day."

Yeah, he doesn't think he's going to get approval from Billy for that, the guy is too nice. Too good. But at least he's got Jason opening up, even as Nida is taking a further step back. Billy's got this. He... he needs to find a way to get them somewhere safe. Has to get them moving.

[demiurgency]

It's that raw, choked sob that makes the tears spill over all over again, and Billy reaches up without hesitation, hugging Jason. His own powers don't kick in, and maybe that's silly, but right now, all of that conflict Jason's turned inwards, struggling against himself. It's a struggle Billy understands. He can wait.

When Jason pulls himself together finally, dragging that hand down his face and wiping it on his jeans, Billy steps back just a touch, enough to give him space to compose himself, one hand still resting lightly on Jason's forearm in sympathy as he wipes his own tears away with the other. It's horrible, what's happened, to Jason, to Nida. All of this. It's horrible. And Nida might be surprised, but Billy doesn't disagree with him at all. "I'm sorry," he says softly. "You deserved better." A better partner, a proper end to all of that. Not...coming back to find out that you were never even avenged. Coming back to find out you were just another death in a long list that someone just kept letting get longer.

[scathefires]

Jason isn't used to being on the receiving end of affectionate touch - he's never had enough of it to find it familiar, but even though he doesn't know Billy well, Jason doesn't shy away from the hug. It's exactly what he needs, exactly what he's spent so much of his life convincing himself he doesn't need, and he returns the gesture without hesitation.

He's not sure he'd agree with the assessment that he deserved better - he wanted better, he wanted to mean as much to Bruce as Bruce meant to him, and that clearly is never going to happen. Jason knows this, but can't seem to move past it.

"'SOK," he says, even though they all know it's not. "I mean - I can't do anything about it here. I can't do anything until I get back home." He shakes his head, mouth pressed into an unhappy, thin line. "I'm sorry you guys had to see that. I hate these assholes so much."

[skyward_eyes]

"What's a little death between colleagues?" Nida shrugs off. He's not trying to make light of it, not really, it's just... Well, after everything he saw, it's not like he cares so much. Better to focus on someone else. On his new team, because clearly these two aren't going to get back on their own very well.

At least, Nida notes mostly to himself, he once had people who cared about him. This guy clearly lacked even that.

"I don't suppose there is any chance that asshole was still in the building when it exploded?"

Small cosmic favors maybe?

[demiurgency]

"You don't have anything to apologize for," Billy assures him, an echo of Nida's words. "I'm sorry you had to watch it. I don't know what the Observers are trying to get out of this, but it's really messed up." To say the least.

Once he's sure Jason's at least got himself mostly composed, Billy takes his hand away, wrapping his arms around himself. At least he's wearing his coat, but wherever they are, it's cold. "I don't know how we're gonna get home, but we should at least try and get back to the village. Do you guys have any idea where we are?"

[scathefires]

"No," he says to Nida's question, "unless I got really lucky with the last thing I did in Gotham before I got dragged to Wonderland, the Joker's still alive." Jason frowns. Why is it that this one piece of human trash is so indestructible? Why does he keep being allowed to hurt and kill people who don't deserve it while he never pays a real price for it? "Prob'ly too much to hope for."

Jason rubs a hand over his face, takes a deep breath, and sighs it out. "I should've expected something like this. Something similar happened at the last place I was in - somehow I got turned into a sixteen-year-old again, thought I'd just come back from being dead. Didn't remember anything about my life after that happened." He folds his arms over his chest and shakes his head. "Must just be one of those things that sadists find entertaining."

As for the question of where they are ... Jason shakes his head again. "I've never been out this far from the village," he says, though now he wishes he had ventured out more. He glances at his wrist device for the time, shades his eyes with his hand as he scans the area, checking the direction of the sun. "Unless I'm real turned around," he says, pointing, "north is that way."

[skyward_eyes]

"You're probably better oriented than me. Time's passed enough that I can't figure it out from the sun alone," Nida sighs, but mostly his attention is on Jason. He's... he's still too fucked up to not want to focus on someone else and their problems.

"This isn't the first strange place like this you've been? Fuck. Maybe the universe just hates us. A lot."

More than he would really appreciate doing the math on actually.

[demiurgency]

"Is north the way we're supposed to go? I'm not even sure where we've ended up. Hang on, I'm gonna call Tommy back, he's been leaving me a ton of messages that didn't get through," Billy answers, stepping away from both of them just a few feet. "Don't go anywhere yet."

He doesn't want to leave Jason or Billy entirely, not sure what either of them will do, but they need more information. They need to figure out how to get home, and he...really needs to hear his brother's voice, right about now. He'll talk to Tommy, see if he can get some info on where exactly they've ended up and how to get back to the village, and then...no, there's no and then. One step at a time. That's all they can do. That's all he can focus on, just now.