[IC Contact -- Snowblind]

[bookofnope]

[There is a click noise. It sounds as though it might be judging you.]

Comments

@totheark; text; Mid-morning 162

[0thingsonmymind]

help

jade▒s
n▒twe▒l ?sick?
wh▒t do ?

voice;

[bookofnope]

[Shit. Bad time. And it's morning, too. He wouldn't even be awake if it weren't for the screaming, and he sounds it.]

Wha - what d'you me▒▒▒▒▒ happening to her? Is ▒▒▒▒▒▒ not like the other things?

Day 165, text while they talk

[warriorscribe]

[Because that remark, in the way he said it, cuts him in a way he can't handle right now.]

Beckett, they just lost their mother. That goes beyond uncomfortable. Listen to me. There's no sense in twisting this knife for information they've said they don't have. I know you want answers, we all do. Do you think we're lying to you out of grief, that we're hiding something?

text;

[bookofnope]

[There are perhaps three people in Norfinbury who can get Beckett to back off and listen to them, and Enoch is at the top of this short list. But now is a bad time. And this is a bad subject to try to curb him on.]

Do you think I'm doing this to take out my frustrations on the child? They're here along with all of us. Their survival hinges upon these answers the same as anyone's. People are reluctant to talk about death and the dead. Even if it's merely that there's something you're shying away from thinking about, I need to know it.

@totheark; really early morning 163

[0thingsonmymind]

*Once everything has calmed down and the network is back to normal, Beckett will get a copy of this in his in inbox. Along with a link to these conversations.*

voice;

[bookofnope]

[It's still early enough for Beckett to be mostly alert, only just now starting to sink into the lethargy that sunlight brings. He's still rattled, though, and his voice is subdued.]

What do you think - another personalised effect, like those Jade and I experienced?

night 174; @guardian; text;

[phaseshifter]

I'm back. And I was about to apologise for worrying you, but I think if I seriously said sorry for dying then you'd do that one face you do so intensely that it'd get stuck that way. :P

[ it's hard to keep these things casual without resorting to "sup brah, not dead"

the worst part of dying, tbh ]

text;

[bookofnope]

[Pardon him a moment, Angel. It might be a long moment. He needs to fall over and cry in relief for a while.

Yeah. Literally.]


Is there a reason why you always use text when I happen to be the most desperate to see your face?

@ofcorpse; night 175; text

[exequies]

Do you have to die before you can become a vampire?

text;

[bookofnope]

[Wait, what?]

It used to be an absolute in my world, yes. But things got a little strange.

Why do you ask?

cw: mention of suicide

[exequies]

Mostly the types that come out of their graves at night to terrorize the nearby populace. Villagers and the like, you know? Break into their homes to drink their blood, or slaughter their cattle. Some people say they're made through suicide.

[But he knows that's not true, at least.]

That sound about right?

hotstud_xxx; text; Day 182

[rubikscomplex]

[After destroying the magazines he has, ripping them to shreds. After all but screaming at Amber, even though House knows it isn't her fault. What follows is numbness. It's helped along by the extra Vicodin he's taken. House doesn't have any other friends, none that he feels like he can talk to. What he does have, though, are frenemies.]

tell me about your apocalypse
what happened?

text;

[bookofnope]

[He's not prepared for this.

It's been a horrific night, but for once, Beckett has escaped Norfinbury's madness relatively unscathed. He's been focusing very hard on this fact, almost deliberately keeping himself out of the loop.

And here is the loop coming right for him. Of course it does.]

Why the sudden interest? Not enough local horrors for your tastes?

Day 181 audio; @dreamsnhonor

[heroproceeding]

[ It would be so much easier to leave a text and just leave it at that. It would be so, so much easier. But Zack isn't a coward. And he isn't about to try and make this less than what it was. So, one deep, shaky breath later. ]

About what I said before.. The whole.. control thing.

[ There's a long pause. A really... really long pause. Then a bare whisper. ]

I'm sorry.

[ There's a faint click after that. ]

DAY 199 text; @zd (gently bothers but you can ignore this)

[swatsflies]

Winter spoke to us.
Jim was amazing with asking her questions
Turns out the alter can be used as an interface
Like a computer.

[swatsflies]

I don't know if you're hiding
You have to come back soon though
Not just for others
Though they miss you
For yourself, too
You now have something like family here, right?

We got some more history about this place!
There were protests thirty years before things went to hell

evening 204; @guardian; text;

[phaseshifter]

Miss you. ♥

[ Which is all she can type without crying because thIS WOUND IS STILL WAY TOO RAW AGH ]

night 213 - @dickcheese, text

[headjacked]

If your could stop being dead that would be great, Real great. Aewrsome.




Come back soon is alli'm saying.

@totheark; text; Day 217

[0thingsonmymind]

*He's been freaking the fuck out too much to look at the network or his inbox...but he needs to send a few messages while he can.*

beckett
i know you'll probably never get this, i know how unlikely it is that you'll come back even if i can't stop hoping. but i may never get another chance to say this

thank you
for everything, for being my friend, for sticking with me and for trying to understand me instead of just brushing me aside. aside from tim...the masked tim, i mean, i think you were the only one who came close to understanding any of it.
you meant...mean a lot to me. you didn't deserve to get stuck here, and i know its terrible but i'm glad you did. i'm glad we could meet. i hope one day we can talk again.

[bookofnope]

[It's early, he gets the message just as he is leaving the night's shelter, and it freezes him in the doorway, pack slipping from his hand halfway to his shoulders. When he sees the username the first response is a sweet flooding relief - Norfinbury's only truly sweet emotion - but the message rattles him to his core.

He knows what he's looking at. He thinks of his last dreams of Anatole, what his friend had been with his mind whole around his truth. The reminder is the first unnerving thing. The second is a feeling like the nausea of vertigo. Slipping ground. Brian - who is this Brian? How does he live this reversal?

He can imagine. And prays that he is imagining wrong. He rushes to switch the voice feed on, forgetting the cold wind that keeps blowing in from the open door.]

Brian, I'm alive, I'm here.

Night 223; @whatisthis; video

[godsspeed]

[ It takes a few days before it occurs to Castiel that there are some things he needs to address. His behavior as an anomaly was... regrettable, and despite the temptation to just pretend it hadn't happened or that he wasn't responsible, there are things he has to set right.

The message arrives some time after lockdown. Castiel is sitting against the plinth of some abstract sculpture in the museum. ]

Beckett. This is Castiel. The angel.

I... wanted to apologize for some of the things I said as an anomaly. And to explain.

audio

[bookofnope]

[The angel.

Beckett doesn't want to talk. He doesn't want to be awake, honestly; he'd spent a long day in the murky haze of the shock that comes from the deepest kind of grief, at a loss he can't even explain to anyone, and all he wants is to let the world go. He stares at the tablet for a long time before answering - staticky silence on Castiel's end - and when he does answer, he sounds bone-weary, and not all there.]

How much of it was truly you?

@Enoch, video; Backdated to morning 231 (after the anomaly event)

[warriorscribe]

[In the fitful grogginess after the injection, and the clearing of his mind as the anomaly vanished, Enoch checks on Quark, then himself for injuries (nothing but a faint bruise where he'd hit his head on a rack of equipment while anomaly-dodging), and then remembers one of the more powerful conversations he'd had last night and drags his tablet over, still not quite alert yet, but alert enough to get a private conversation open.]

Beckett? Are you all right?

video; private; probably cw suicide ideation

[bookofnope]

[By all rights, he should be relieved. Beckett knows this, and it makes him uniquely nervous that he isn't. He has full insight into his own confused emotions - an unburdening, yes, but also a sense of raw loss, the feeling of something having been torn out of living tissue - regrets of many shades, and he knows the danger of all of them. They all lead back to the part of him that thinks, I should have let her take my throat.

She's dead, though, even if it were her. So he survives. He flicks the video on and finds a faint comfort in the sight of Enoch's living face. His own is hollowed out and pale, but that's normal. He always looks dead.]

This... should have been more of a relief than it is, [he surprises himself by confessing, right from the get-go.]

@hotstud_xxx; audio; Morning 242

[rubikscomplex]

[The only reason he's using audio is because it's difficult to type and hike through the snow at the same time and he doesn't want to bother with audio-to-text.]

Thomas is turning into an anomaly. I'm out. Heading south. Got a message from that better half guy for my map, said there was an open gate. We didn't find anything on the building without doors. No hollow points, and painting the walls was useless. Find anything at the garage?

night 250 post lockdown; @guardian; text;

[phaseshifter]

[ The thing about dying is that, as far as Angel is concerned, it's so much worse for the people left behind than it is for the person who's actually dying. Which isn't to say that death doesn't scare her - it's scared her every time she's been confronted with it, even back home when it was her only ral option - but. It's how she deals with these things, isn't it? Worry about other people's problems first and hers later.

So she struggles a little on deciding whether or not to contact anyone to let them know what's going on. It isn't like they can stop it. She's just going to give people one more thing to be sad or worried about, and is that really the last memory she wants people to have of her if she doesn't come back?

But she knows that Rhys isn't thinking that way, and Beckett's waiting for them. Besides, wasn't that the worst thing about when he'd died? Not getting to say goodbye? Closure is important. And after his whole thing with Lucita --

Okay, then. She can text him, if no one else. ]

Considering the time, I suppose it's obvious that we aren't meeting up again today after all. Sorry.

[ It's a woefully inadequate opening, but she sends it anyway. Before she changes her mind. ]

video;

[bookofnope]

[It's past lockdown, and Beckett had been pacing the night's shelter like a caged wolf, back and forth, forgetting that his tablet is transmitting the whole while. Rhys and Angel hadn't arrived. He'd been keeping as close tabs as possible, but now he has no idea where they are. There are a number of buildings in this area and they could be in any one of them, or they could be - no, surely they couldn't. Step, step, step. He waits for the message. He can wait another day for them to arrive, waiting is just a fact of life in Norfinbury. Just as long as they finally -

Ah. At last. The crash of relief is visible on his face as he brings up the tablet to read her message and reply. All right, that's - the tone is a little odd, flat for Angel, but it's a message. He shakes his head, unperturbed. Just a delay. It's all right.]

It's all right. You are nearby? If you need to take a day's rest, we can come to you.

[It'll be easy, won't it?]

[headjacked]

[ Rhys lags behind Angel in messaging Beckett, trapped in a sort of shell-shocked daze. He'd blame it on a dream but dreams aren't this painful.

Pain.

Maybe that's why they were late. Why they're out and everyone else is in. Isn't he slower than usual, hard to get started in the morning, limpy and full of complaints? 'Maybe' is being generous, huh. ]

It's my fault.

video;

[bookofnope]

[By the time the tablet pings with the second message, Beckett is past the moment of blazing cold shock. He can more or less process again. Or not process - he can communicate, but processing is taking its time. Congratulations, Rhys, you are treated to the full sight of the situation hitting him again, cracking the faint scab of enforced calm. He flinches, one fang catching his lower lip as he grits his teeth.]

What - what did you do?

evening 255; @guardian; audio

[phaseshifter]

Beckett, it's me - p-properly me, I mean. Can you call me when you - when you get back? I'm so sorry, just. Please. Thank you.

[ There is a lot of stifled sobbing going on in this message. Maybe even some sniffling. Gross. ]

Day 257; audio

[bookofnope]

[Oh, it's her, is it. Beckett's first response is a disinterested scoff. But at least he should tell her not to go around bothering him with those tears.]

I see it's back to our regularly scheduled emotional trainwreck sessions. How delightful.

@totheark; text; night 257

[0thingsonmymind]

*He's noticed Beckett on the network by now.*

where

voice;

[bookofnope]

[Ah. Brian.

Brian, you see, is the exception. Beckett has no interest in reestablishing the myriad relationships he has with Norfinbury's wearying, emotional humans, but Brian has always been more like him than anyone else. Not really human at all. And never a hindrance... except that one time. And even Beckett can't blame him for that one time, he finds.]

All the way back down at the hospital. But it's good to see you made it out intact.

@totheark; text; morning 265

[0thingsonmymind]

*He's seen people on the network. Beckett has to be among them.*

where
how
?

voice;

[bookofnope]

Brian.

[Brian's message is the first thing he sees when he finally wakes up and is lucid enough to look at the tablet, and it is the most welcome sight he has had in many, many days. His friend's name comes out in a sigh of untold relief.]

Exactly where I was taken from, the building by the gas station. How? I haven't the faintest. I really have no bloody idea.

@mlaurin, voice; day 265

[standing_waters]

*He's not sure how he feels about the vampire. The blood sucker deserved what he got but there's still a sense of wrongness to it. Something about how and why it all happened.
He has nothing to apologize for her, but there was one question he'd left unanswered. It seems too cruel to leave the leech hanging after everything that just happened.*

The world hadn't ended yet.

*Hopefully he can leave it at that.*

voice; very early morning 266

[bookofnope]

[It's very late, long past lockdown and midnight, by the time Beckett answers Manny's message. He sees it in the morning, but at that moment it overwhelms him. It gnaws at his insides all day, and aborts any attempts at sleep. Every time he stops in whatever he's doing, for all that time, he looks at it.

Part of it is that he doesn't want Manny to hear him begging again. And he knows that is exactly what it's going to be. And that is exactly what it is, when he answers. Whispered, breathless, desperate.]

What year is it? What date?

@Enoch, text/video attachment, night 265

[warriorscribe]

[Beckett receives a video file, rather than a call. It's accompanied by a simple text message: If Rhys is in earshot, please warn him first.

In the video itself, everything is tilted sideways; Enoch is lying down, holding his tablet up with one hand. It's difficult to tell at first glance but he's curled up tight on the floor. His eyes are red and puffy and his face blotchy from crying. His breathing is deliberately heavy, but slow, in and out through his nose in even measurements.]

All right- all right, I- [His voice breaks and his careful breathing hitches.] ...I still don't have complete control over what I say, and perhaps that's for the best right now, because I need- I need to be as much myself as I can be. I'm afraid to sleep, I'm afraid I'll wake up and be someone else again, and- and I need to do this.

I need to do this. Ugh...like my stomach is lined with broken glass...

I need to do this. I must. I must...

[He sniffs back his tears, but it takes a second more to compose himself enough to speak, and even then, his voice breaks several times.]

First of all, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for the things I said to you, Beckett, for the things I ignored. The things I didn't care about but should have. The things I did to Rhys, especially the things I did to Rhys. I could have- [He has to pause, swallowing again, as tears threaten the rest of his message once more.] I could have taken someone very important away from you.

And I don't know if you want this friendship anymore, given that. Given the way he- ...what I still do to him. But I want you to- ...If this happens again, if they twist me into someone else but, but I never come back, I want you to remember who I was. I don't want all that remains of me to be the same twisted, violated...thing it made me into.

You've made no secret of your appreciation of me, Beckett, when we talked. My forgiveness is enough, I've guided you towards empathy, everything you've said, these honors I doubt now I truly deserve... I've always been so overcome by what you say I've done for you I've never said what it is you've done for me. And I want to say these things while I still feel them. Because- one day I may not. Tomorrow I may not. And I want you to know, to remember.

[He bows his head, tucking it in towards the ball he's made on the floor, and chastises himself under his breath:] ...I can ramble around the point all night at this rate. It's all right to bring these feelings up, no matter how little I deserve to feel them. If I don't I risk never feeling them again...

Right, I- sorry, I rely on this death curse to convey the truth but it can make it just as difficult sometimes.

The thing I am most afraid of is being alone. And though I was surrounded by others, I was alone. I didn't realize it, however. I had no concept of it. I knew in some way there was a gulf between myself and those around me. The mortals I met I had to leave, and even if I didn't I would outlive them into eternity. The immortals were angelic, removed from human perspective entirely, old and already full of most of the knowledge they needed to know. But I didn't think to call this pain I felt loneliness. I didn't think to consider myself alone, you see, because I had others physically near.

[He calms noticeably - the tablet has steadied the video for him so the trembling in his hands ceasing doesn't get to be appreciated. But a tension dissolves away from him, and the corners of his mouth soften, a hint of life coming to his tired eyes.]

And then, I met you.

We're two of a kind, Beckett. The two of us were mortal-born, lived a mortal life for similar amounts of time, before gaining immortality and going on to live a similar number of years at that. A few mortal generations, enough to watch us change but not enough to forget we don't know everything. Never bereft of our desire to understand, to test and learn, fail and try again, seeking that success that will make it all worthwhile, but in a way mortals often can't afford to pursue, and in a way older immortals don't believe they need.

I didn't know how much I needed that. When I told you I'd never known anyone like you, this is what I meant. I was lonely in a way I never knew, and I- and you -...

[Bit by bit, his tight fetal position relaxes. He breathes easier, even manages a smile, high on his own emotions and clinging desperately to their warm positivity. Only one emotion can do this to his mood without fail...]

...Love. Love is what makes answers worthwhile, to me. Because the most important answers are the ones you can use to lift up the people you love. Love itself is a set of questions and answers all its own, with ever-shifting rules and no limits to what can be found.

[He pauses, taking in the abstract rambling he'd just subjected the camera to and finding something deeply comforting within its absurdity. He sighs warmly, the color in his face beginning to level out into a healthier hue. He's still clinging quite deliberately to these emotions, seeking refuge rather than free of pain. But it's working. At least for now, it's working. The stabbing agony of his guilt and loneliness and fear seem dull, for the moment.]

Yes, that's it. Love is its own sphere of questions and answers, and you are the answer to a question I didn't know how to ask. I'm not sure I can look at where I stand as both an immortal and a human the same way anymore, because of the new perspective you've brought to my life.

And thank you, thank you so much for the opportunity to experience this. Even if we were offered the opportunity to forget all the horrors of this place, you are chief among the reasons why I would decline. I could never forget you and what you mean to me.

...I strayed from what I meant to talk about, but I don't think I mind. [And at last, a laugh. It's hesitant, quiet, but fond and warm - broken, still, in its awkwardly-swallowed end, but it's real. If Beckett had heard his hysterical apology to Rhys, the contrast might be alarming. Love has always done this to him, brought comfort to him in even the worst of crises.]

But then again, perhaps I didn't. Perhaps this is the "me" I want you to remember. Yes - remember me as the man who found answers in love, and not torment, no matter what this place twists me into. Whatever you want to do with our friendship, whether you wish to have nothing to do with me after the way I treated you and Rhys or whether you want it to continue as I so fervently do, I love you, Beckett, as long as I am the man that I am. Remember that.

[It had slipped, at the mention of the idea of ending their friendship and what he had inflicted on Rhys, but when he shifts the tablet so he can end it, he's still smiling, even if it's weaker, and growing weaker still. Airing his feelings and recording and affirming who he is has given him some peace. It will not last, but it will afford him some sleep.]

night 265; video

[bookofnope]

[It's a difficult time for all of them, night, and on this one Beckett feels like his head is about to burst from everything in it. He lies back on the bed, Rhys snoring by his feet, and watches the message - volume very low - and feels, strangely, the chaos in his own thoughts ease along with Enoch's mind as he focuses on it. He doesn't realize as much at first, but the video, the ongoing talk draws him in, as he watches the reflection unfurls. Watching an understanding come about is the closest thing, the most comfortingly close thing, he gets to reaching some sense of understanding himself.

When Enoch reaches that word - love - a part of him naturally balks, but not with mockery. There are rare moments where he has been humbled - not intellectually, but in this much more human way. This feeling that he has been given something that it is not entirely within his worth to repay. That there is someone towards which he ought to strive. For a long time, that night, he sits suffused with that feeling, weighing it, like a warm weight about his shoulders.

When he finally goes to record a response, he makes a decision out of impulse, and runs with it.]

Hello, Enoch. I... [It's a little harder than he thought it would be, to begin, and in the recording his eyes shift a little, with almost boyish shyness - he's not wearing his tinted glasses, and his eyes show their natural hazel colour, though it's hard to tell by tablet-light. The focus is tight, and he speaks low, but finally clearly.] I thought for a while about how I can answer everything you've said. Your doubts and - your conviction. And I realized I never really told you about my friend whom you remind me so much of, Anatole. And I think I should.

[It would be easy to drift a little here, with the memories, but he remains very much present, focused.] Anatole was of Clan Malkavian. The Mad Clan. It runs in the blood, the madness. His was of a religious sort. He had visions, fits, obsessions... it was hard to know where the insanity ended and true faith and prophecy begun, but it was there. He saw you, saw you whole, into and through you, saw you as God did. His gift was to change people. And he... he more than changed me. He made me.

After my Embrace I ran wild, little more than a beast. For almost half a century I cared about nothing but my instincts, my pleasures. I joined a pack of bandits no different from what my mortal self might have done, if he had even that much volition, and we did everything you suppose we did and more. But I was - it's a long story, but we wound up as blood-bound slaves in the house of a Kindred scholar. Johann James Beckett. Anatole found me there. I'd been... been learning to read. I was bad at it, it came slow. My master presented some of the others to Anatole, ones who've been making better progress. It was an accident that they came across me at practice. He told Anatole - I remember just the words - "this one's hopeless, a true animal mind. He only keeps trying because he is too stubborn to understand."

Anatole looked at me once, and left. But he and Lucita came back a fortnight later and chased off him and all his household. For me. Anatole, he took my face, forced me to look at him, put his finger on my lips - do you know the Jewish folklore about the angel who puts his fingers on the lips of the newborn? - and he told me, wake up. And I did. I became... human. Still undead, still damned, but human.

[He gives a slight, shaky exhale.] I tell you this because I want you to understand what it means when I say that you remind me of him. He was my brother and my teacher, but more than that he was the one who made me... who gave meaning to my being, my life, my death. I care about many others I've met in this town, but you... you have somehow given meaning to my being here. My survival. The possibility of an existence after two dead worlds. And I... it's beyond me to find words to express my thanks for that. I can only say that you know what I do not give lightly. I can only say - you are my Kindred, whatever that means now. I want it to mean something of this sort.

[So at last, he also smiles, more weary than calm, but just as genuine. His head drops forward slightly, shoulders sagging towards the tablet, almost like he wishes he could lean his forehead against Enoch's - which a part of him does, seeking warmth and the touch of life. He goes on speaking low, even as his eyes close.] So there it is. I think that answers any questions regarding any resentment I might told against you, or doubts about our friendship. Or at least I think I've rambled on enough to send you to sleep. We do what we can. Sleep well, Enoch.

@totheark; text; Night (post lockdown) 268

[0thingsonmymind]

iam tun nels

ithink can getto
cor ner be fore
pass

soon
?to mor row?

whereare
?

283 @zd; text

[swatsflies]

[ He's including various images of the school, Russian saying "School" and "Tunnel" and SNOW. Lots of snow pics. ]

Hey! Are you with Rhys and Angel? Or Brian?/

text

[bookofnope]

[Yay, snow!!]

We're all one big happy family here for the moment. Well, one big freezing, unhealthy family. And have you reconvened with the amnesiac wondertwins?

Thank you for the pictures. I see our Russian trailblazer continues to deliver.

@totheark; text; night 292

[0thingsonmymind]

iam
back a live

voice

[bookofnope]

You've made it.

[It's been a little while longer than.. whatever passes for usual. He'd been waiting with painful tension. It flows out with the breath of the words, a relieved smile sounding in the final syllable.]

We've done a circuit of the area. Haven't gone too far, didn't know when - where - do you want to come back here?