ataraxion | NINE: video

Entry tags:

NINE: video

[The room Taylor's sat in is dark, unidentifiable from the wall behind her, but soft, blue-tinged light from another source washes over her face intermittently. It highlights how drawn she looks, pale, tired. She's a mess, really. Even by Tranquility standards.]

It's January, right? Been counting on the jumps since I got here. [She isn't slurring as she speaks, but the lack of focus in her expression and sluggishness to her movements makes it clear she's inebriated to anyone who knows what to look for.] Guess it doesn't matter though. Just start calling them by numbers. I was meant to turn twenty in December. Be an instructor back at the Academy. [She frowns for a moment, taking a drink out of an unlabelled bottle.] Or maybe they'd have terminated me.

[Another pause, and she shifts off to the side for a moment, putting the bottle down. When she comes back into view she’s holding something else – a mask. Her mask, an mongrel canine face, beaten, bruised and bloody. She holds it up, hanging off the fingers of one hand.]

Turns out these show you ghosts. Hallucinations. Whatever. If that isn't fucked up enough to get you thinking don't touch them, you're a fucking idiot. [Very evidently angry, suddenly, half a snarl on her mouth. She looks at the mask again, then drops it to one side.] Didn't want to see my old man the little he was around, sure as fuck didn't want to see him here. Thing I've been thinking, though - what do you see, you wear someone else's?

[She doesn't hold the second mask up for the camera, but it's there in her hands, looks like a modern military gas mask. She's quiet for a long while, like she maybe forgot she even had the comms running, all of the anger and energy drained out of her again.]

Tommy's gone. Gone last jump. Told him he would, cause everyone goes. [A thin smile, strained, sad, and then gone again.] Guess I didn't wanna be right.

Threaded | Flat

[ it is a blow. it is loss upon loss and tommy had offered his banner to alayne, had sworn to protect her. he'd been a man of honor and robb had looked to him the way he had looked to the great jon, trusted him like he was of westeros.

to hear he is lost for true, not just hidden away in his rooms, it cuts robb like a thousand knives. ]

I'm sorry, Tyke. Truly I am.

[Well. There's a lot he could respond to here - he could withdraw within himself, get defensive over her saying that people who used the masks to see those ghosts are idiots; he could get angry at her lack of professionalism; he could tell her to get off the network until she's sober.

He doesn't. Instead, he speaks with a voice that's almost...gentle.]

You're...probably tired, Tyke. Perhaps there's something I can do for you.

Edited 2013-01-09 22:33 (UTC)

[ sulu wore his mask. he would still be wearing his mask if spock hadn't ripped it away from him. seeing tyke with hers make him shiver, and he isn't sure if its because he's afraid or if he's jealous. ]

Maybe you don't see anything.

[ yes this is going to be a healthy conversation. ]

Which Academy?

[Any sort of reassurance is not something he's about to do over the entire damn network. And she's important enough, right - got enough people watching her back, at least Kirk and all the rest of fucking security - someone else has got this.

Though he does use video, Gardens in the background, thinned, worried lips and curious eyes peering back as he answers one thing, quiet:]

Never worn anyone else's. Mask.

I know you'd probably rather hear from friends, but if you'd like to talk to a stranger, let me know. Sometimes it's easier.

[ She sounds concerned, of course, but it's surprisingly light and direct - no point in being patronizing. ]

[ admittedly ever since seeing cas with the mask, dean's been curious about them. but as much as he wants to ask about it maybe now's not the time. ]

Being right's kinda overrated. [ pause. ] And I guess sayin' he might come back ain't much of a cheer up either, huh? [ wow, okay shutting up now. he's no good at this. ]

[ it takes derek a long time to answer. derek's good at recognizing pain in others. it's what drew him to isaac, how he found erica, why he chose boyd. like calls to like to some extent, and he recognizes something familiar in tyke.

but that doesn't mean he knows what to say.

so there's a bit of a pause when he finally picks up his comm and hits reply, derek trying to decide what to say. ]

What do you mean, you see hallucinations?

[ He's not any good at this. He's not -- never has been, maybe never will be. But Tyke's his CO, his teammate, and his friend. He has to try. (And he had liked Tommy, too -- they'd had a lot in common.) ]

Tyke- [ he starts, and suddenly the name feels wrong, like it's a mask, too. He's not sure where that came from and shakes his head, pushing on... only he doesn't say what he really wants to say, because he doesn't know how to. ] You want me to take yours?

...will you let me take them?

[the masks, that is. he knows he isn't much good at offering advice or comforting others. so for now, perhaps he can just take away the temptation to find out those answers for herself.]

[Masks. It's easy to forget about the masks, except when it's not, and every once and awhile Sirius remembers that his is hidden away somewhere in this ship, and if he looked hard enough, he might find it, he might feel it tugging at him--

He likes Tyke, genuinely, in a way that came about sort of cheaty. Padfoot liked her first, intensely, a feeling that's bled over, and so he answers quickly, without thinking.]

You can wear mine.

[It comes out quietly, sort of gently (weirdly!), but still sort of jokey. Parents and masks and missing people and drinking. Yeah. Brilliant.]

[ she's not the right irene. she knows that her counterpart is the one snared and caught by this woman, this pretty girl and the steel inlaid in her. but she must be something special, something worth attention, to have caught the eye of her counterpart.

and so irene plays this through twice before she replies, and when she speaks her voice is quiet. ]

There's not much I can say to ease this for you. There's never anything to say when this happens, I've found.

[Six years. It's been six years that Rey has spent in Between. She fell asleep, woke up three months later only to find that she never left her pod. Same thing happens again, only this time there's so much more to process. It's easy to forget, lose track of the time she's spent on the Tranquility and the time she might've already had. But it's been six long years, and she still remembers the feeling of the mask on her face. The hatred boiling to the brim with monstrous anger. And she won't touch it with a ten foot pole.]

I would say that you should get rid of that mask, though I've yet to get rid of mine. [It might still be on her door, actually. Rey hasn't gone back to her room in some time.]

You don't like me, so I'm not gonna worry much about you hating me more for saying it.

If you've been wearing that thing often, you need to think right now about whether or not you're stable enough to be holding the position you are. Those things fuck people up, and you have a responsibility to do the right thing.

By the way, you look goddamn dreadful.

[ not really that private cause s'not like mike knows how to be really secure here but it is at least private to show that he does, in a way, want this private. he's on his own in a corner of the gardens, poking through his communicator when he watches this, and his eyes are red which means he's probably going up or coming down from something.

anyway. ]

But what if you want to see them?

[ man, this isn't going to be a healthy conversation, is it? ]

[ There's a number of things that could be said, but saying them all seems a bit wrong at the moment. Everything that comes to mind feels out of place and it takes longer than Irene will ever admit to actually speak. This is what happens when she's gone a month, isn't it? Things fall to pieces, Neal gets someone who she'd pass the reins to and Tyke loses Tommy but refuses to deal until she— well, looks like she's breaking down over the network and it feels like it twists her heart, puts it in a vice grip that threatens to force her to kill everyone on this ship.

And yet, she doesn't. And yet, when she finally does speak it's one word and then a rather lengthy pause. ]

Tyke. [ And then: ] You know better than to do such a thing. I distinctly remember you informing us how unwise it was when they appeared.

[ She's not disappointed and yet perhaps a tiny part of her is. Not that Tyke needs to know that right now. ]

I think I've finally mastered the art of brewing coffee. Would you like me to bring you some?

[There are some pains that words can't help...not that coffee can actually do that much either.]

[ Just because because he doesn't know her well doesn't mean he's clueless when it comes to something being wrong. There's just not really a good way to say it blatantly, or a way to say it at all -- isn't it always all wrong? ]

Where'd you get your mask?

Don't be sad, Tyke. Maybe you don't like me or hearing this, but I don't want you to be sad.

[ Mason would be using text right now if it wasn't clear that Tyke was drunk, but he feels awful enough that he's not going to use video. This way will help keep his irritation in check, too, he hopes. If she's dealing with the loss of someone important to her, he can't hold the fact that she didn't respond to his texts against her.

At least, that's what he's trying to tell himself. It's a little easier said than done, though he manages to keep his voice clear of any clues that he's not quite feeling that way. ]

Putting someone else's on is probably a worse idea than putting your own on.

[well, that explains a lot]

Been wondering where you took off to.

My condolences, Tyke.

Threaded | Flat

video;

[voice]

voice; TOP GUN ENCRYPTIONS 95%

video;

video;

( video )