logsinthenight | Losing Family [Catch-all Log

Entry tags:

Losing Family [Catch-all Log - Open]

characters: Bucky/Soldat and OPEN
location: Aziraphale and Crowley's house, around Beacon, the church, etc
date/time: First half of March, up to the Wild Heart event
content: Soldat lost some really important people and is reacting poorly
warnings: Excessive sadness, a temper tantrum at one point, varying levels of ability to actually verbalize, and the usual disassociation for a Soldat post

I. Ferry Fears (Open)

It's normal to visit the ferry on the day it arrives. Soldat always helps unload, and this month they have things they badly want, anyway. They frown at the smell wafting off the lake as the ferry drifts up through the melting ice. They know that smell-- they know it very well. Why does the ferry smell like weeks-old dead bodies?

Well, that's a question quickly answered. Leaping on board even before the ferry docks-- thanks, superserum!-- Soldat is faced with... actual weeks-old dead bodies! What a surprise. They crouch to investigate them, because of course they do, looking for signs of cause of death, alert for potential danger still on board. And that facial structure and rotting clothing is... familiar. That curl of blonde hair. That--

"--holy shitting fuck," Soldat whines, scrambling back with a start. That would be the decaying body of one Misty Day, right there. But they saw her just this morning. She's fine. They, uh, dash out a quick text message to her on their tablet (Misty please tell me you are okay) and then pick themselves up. Gingerly. And start looking at more bodies, giving that one a wide berth but keeping it in the corner of their eye anyway. Other bodies reveal themselves to be other friends, including a Crowley and Aziraphale, and, wedged into a corner of one cabin room, their own rotting corpse-- metal arm still shiny and undecayed because the damn thing doesn't even rust.

"What the fuck," they mutter to themselves, before finally, warily getting busy hauling getting supplies off the boat. Maybe a little more quickly than usual. They wanna see people's faces in person, after this.

II. Frantic Searching (Open)

Only there are a few faces missing. Aziraphale is nowhere to be found (again) and Crowley is missing from his bed and Mewtwo is not at the armory. Soldat checks in with the others-- Sora, Misty, Ellever, anyone they actually know and find comfortable to talk with actually-- with one of the questions: "Have you seen Crowley? Tall, copper hair, kind of an asshole?" "Have you seen Aziraphale? Kind of round, white curls, awful bowtie?" "Have you seen a tall blue cat-like person that floats and talks in your head?"

Even after the weekly bulletin with Lucius and Aziraphale confirmed in the obituaries, that doesn't mean they're not coming back. Right? And Aziraphale will be pissed as hell if Soldat managed to lose Crowley hours after his untimely demise. So they keep looking, keep asking around, keep checking the various outlying buildings and holding up their lantern fully unshuttered to the dark woods in search of a glimpse, an echo of a voice, a goddamn scent of Crowley or Mewtwo. (Fully unshuttered means anybody passing by can catch a glimpse of that little green crack, too, for those inclined to be nosy and who might know what that means.)

III. Church Vigils (Open)

When the search falls short after a few days, Soldat's routine changes. Patrols are cut a little short. Visits to handlers are brief, a quick assurance for Misty and dropping off a meal for Javert. Lunches or dinners at the Invincible are made to go. Meals, network scrolling, and weapon maintenance all take place in the church, a pew near the back, while Soldat waits for Aziraphale. And maybe Crowley. And maybe Mewtwo. Maybe even Lucius.

After the first week, it's Crowley and maybe Mewtwo. And a fixed, carefully neutral expression. They go through two notebooks, writing not memories of before they died, but memories of a former handler and technician. Those are precious, too.

IV. Rattling Around the House (Semi-open, close CR only)

Four hours twice a day are set aside for sleep. Mostly, in the empty house, Soldat does not in fact sleep. They pace around. They make little armies of origami animals. They cook mounds of food and plow through it without tasting it, to make up for the nervous energy and the lack of sleeping.

They can be found here during the two four-hour segments of the day they normally sleep, if anyone wants to come by. Only close friends get an answer at the door, though. People Soldat doesn't feel comfortable being nervous and only partially verbal around don't get to come in.

V. Packing Up (Semi-open, close CR only)

After the second week of church vigils, Soldat stops going. Because no one stays dead that long unless they really are dead. After that, patrols and handler visits don't happen at all for about three days. One of those days is spent out in the woods behind the village punching trees and making a big, noisy fuss outside of the immediate earshot of anyone who might worry. One is spent in blank moroseness, locked up in the house, out of energy to make a fuss.

The third day is spent slowly packing up all the personal things that belonged to Crowley, Aziraphale, and themselves. (Including a weird-ass little ghost thing that seems to like being petted on top of the head and occasionally followed them around the house during their pacing. It's kind of cute, and it used to be Crowley's, so apparently Soldat is looking after it now.) Friends can come in this day, too, if they want to help in the packing.

Packing complete, Soldat starts sadly carrying armfuls of things to Misty's cabin or back to the general store.

VI. Back to Normal? (Open)

After that, things even out. Soldat is staying at Misty's house now, though the torch remains in front of Aziraphale and Crowley's house since she has her own. Their routine resumes, exactly as if they never stopped it. Patrols are on time and thorough, meals happen actually at the Invincible, they return to practicing at the gymnasium on days when there's no combat classes, and they actually sleep again.

Still kind of quiet, though, with little casual conversation and no singing under their breath, and there's been no catching various friends with a song and a dance like had maybe seemed like it was becoming a thing now and then. Soldat's going to be a while actually getting back to happy, sorry friends, but they never turn down company.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sora nods. If it turns out that he leaves before Soldat does, he'll offer to bring it back to their cabin with him.

"Yeah, no worries." He smiles. "Been eating a lot, actually. Trying out new recipes. I'll bring some here next time. Do you want anything? I think I'm making pie next."

"You know I’m not going to turn down food," Soldat says, a little absently, looking out across the church, as if someone might appear there while they speak. Nothing happens, of course. "I'd like to try your pie. If it's any good, you'll have to teach me." Can't have Sora knowing how to make something they don't, after all. And cooking together is a good friend-type activity.

"It's gonna have to be, I'm making it for Mr. Hughes' birthday. It's at the end of the month." Sora puts his leg up and rests his foot gently on the pew in front of them. His posture is horrible, but he sticks his notebook on his thigh and continues writing. "I was thinking about cupcakes for my birthday. It's in a week. You want some?" He'd been planning a dinner, but isn't sure if he'd want to celebrate it if Soldat's in a way. He's definitely down for handing out some food, though. Meeting people is just as good as a party, to him. Same purpose.

"Your birthday?" That's shitty timing, ain't it. Soldat will have to squeeze in some time to make him something, between church visits. They're worried and distracted, but Sora is still important. Maybe a good time to give those blueberry cupcakes of Kal-El's another try. It's a good thing no one has told them about gifts for birthdays, either, or they'd be feeling really bad right about now.

For now, it's enough to ask, "What day?"

"The ninth." Sora looks over and smiles at the Soldier. He's very determined to continue celebrating his birthday like nothing's happened, but they know that. He'd like to give them an out to continue their vigil. "It's not my real real birthday, though. Enough's time's passed that it's August 14th back home."

He chucks up a deuce. "I'm gonna be twenty. Twenty-one's the important one, though."

They'll just bake during the time they're supposed to be sleeping, it's fine. "Too much of a pain to keep track of two sets of dates. March 9th it is." They tap their pencil on the edge of the notebook. If Sora happens to look at the writing, he'll see a messy kind of scrawl interspersed with some extremely neat handwriting. The messy bits are hard to read, but the neat bits appear to be categorizing some kind of battle training regimen.

"I'm celebrating both dates, you know." One for him, one... also kind of for him, but also for Skyler, and anyone else who doesn't feel like celebrating their own birthday. He figures that the August birthday is probably going to be much bigger, though.

And yeah, Sora is going to try to focus on his work, but he'll eventually tilt to the side and peek at what they're writing, as long as they aren't too secretive about it. He already knows that they're open to talk about anything, but it's nice to give them some space. (Not that he's really the type to.)

"What's that?" He assumes that the scrawl is memories, so... Do the different handwritings mean anything? "Something you're doing for Mr. Javert?"

"Memories. I told you about that." Nope. Nothing to do with Javert. There's no way Soldat would put any of their students through this kind of training. They pause to frown at their own writing. It's not unusual to find they've swapped handwriting styles, swapped languages, or gone entirely unintelligible in these notebooks, but they haven't had a lot of people looking over their shoulder to notice. Go ahead and ask, Sora; it's not like Soldat is in the habit of not answering. "Some of this one might be fake. Trying to pick the pieces apart."

"Ooooh." He sort of assumed that it'd all go down a little more... organized. He keeps forgetting that their upstairs is just as jumbled up as his own, if in a different way.

He squints at the regimen, which caught his eyes as the clearest landmark, then runs his eyes up and down the pages, watching as this notebook takes a mildly House of Leaves turn. "Tell me about this one. How can you tell which ones are fake and which ones are real?"

"Hard to tell. This came back as part of the green-eyes hallucinations, in October. Some pieces match other memories, can be corroborated. But not all of it." They glare a little at their own writing, at the mess of it.

They trace a finger along a line of neat block letters, trying to think back to when they wrote it, and the glare goes a little more cold. "Fuck. I think that's the Asset." Is that what causes the changes? The three of them bleeding together when they write? The language is easy enough, their brain is still pretty scrambled and doesn't always give the right language when asked for it, and some of the language shifts are legitimate because of locale or mission details. But the handwriting changes?

"Is that bad? Does the Asset not remember things right?" Despite everything, Sora has a lot of faith in the Asset, if only because he doesn't want to believe that they don't have the capacity to lie. He cranes over and leans in, actually looking at that training regimen, maybe invading their space a bit. Oof, that's some rough stuff.

"It's just not supposed to get out. Even if it's just in my hand to write shit. That's dangerous." Is that normal? Has the Asset been writing things in all these notebooks? Sorry, Sora, they're gonna start flipping back pages, looking for that particular handwriting. It does, in fact, show up a few times. Always, from the looks of it, to detail particularly nasty bits of training or missions, and for most of the attempt at writing a programming memory.

Attempt, because it stalled out into frantic, black-out scribbling halfway through, even with the Asset's help. Soldat stares at that page for a long moment before closing the notebook entirely and resting their forehead on their upraised knees, imagining the first steps of making an origami owl and keeping their breathing in check. That particular memory always freaks them out.

It's open long enough for Sora to get a good look at the memory. So long that Sora both gets a chance to read and process more than a few offhand lines and get a very awkward, sick sense that he isn't really supposed to see that. So long that he notices that the soldier probably shouldn't have paused that long, and turns just in time to see them go completely fetal. Okay! They're already sitting! This is fine.

Sora pauses, not really sure what to say, or if he should say anything, but decides to go with short, useful, and true things. "Hi. You're with me. None of that is happening right now."

"I know. I know. I'm okay." They're not really okay, but this is the kind of not-okay they're familiar with, as opposed to the "losing all my family" not-okay. And it's not a full memory malfunction, just a kind of burning panic they have to control. "That was programming. That memory. Only have a couple of them. The. Words. They do things to me. I don't know what. Just something bad."

It's been a week since Naminé's put Sora's memories back in his head. Among the stones was a memory of a strange dark world within a computer. And with those memories came the story of a security program named Tron, who was somehow connected to another program named Rinzler in a way Sora was never able to figure out until last week

Tron was his friend. He remembers that now. Tron was programmed to do good. He learned so easily about friendship, and trust, and hugging. He learned, eventually, how to dance.

Rinzler... was his friend too. He was. But programs don't have hearts. They only have data. Programming. Rinzler didn't remember him.

Rinzler moved so gracefully. Almost like someone had taught him how to dance.

"Is it okay if I see?" Sora wants to know. He feels like he needs to know what happened. "Just so, um. I don't. Want to say anything. That hurts you."

"No danger of it. You don't speak Russian." Which means, honestly, reading it won't even be a danger. The world might auto-translate it for him-- it's all written in the Cyrillic alphabet-- but won't give him any means to speak the letters out loud in the proper way. And it has to be the proper way, in the proper order. They know that, somehow.

But they do slide the notebook off their lap and onto the pew between them and Sora. Read if you want to, kid. "Twenty-sixth page, back side. Not all there. Couldn't get it all out before it fell apart. Crushed the opal." That would have given Sora, or anyone else, the correct sounds of the Word, so it had to be destroyed.

He'd like to joke "not yet", but it wouldn't actually be a joke? He's doing some things, okay. Asking the Librarian for some books. He knows almost three languages conversationally, and the spirit's language is a work in progress. Why not a fifth?

He flips to the proper page and reads silently. It's... a good thing that they crushed it. It's not worth knowing the whole phrase. Especially considering the regimen, and the patterns. He's not going to pretend he's ever been through anything even remotely like this, but he knows what it looks like to be convinced of something that isn't true.

He closes his eyes and commits the words to memory. Okay. Off limits, now.

He silently hands it back. "It's better gone," Sora says, and that's all he has to say about that.

Please don't learn Russian, Sora. That would just be weird. It's nice, as it is, not having many people in town who know it. Feels safer. Try French or Mandarin instead, they can still help you practice.

"Yes. It is." Soldat knows two more of the Words now. Still don't now what they do, but they know them. There's seven, now, locked up tight in the back of their mind. Still incomplete. Still unknowably dangerous.

They finally uncurl and take the notebook back, closing it up. They're almost to the end of their allowed time here. Supposed to go home to sleep. (Or not sleep, as the case may be.) The empty cabin sounds horrible and haunting, though, so they ask, "Want me to walk you home?"

But how's he supposed to be friends with the Asset if he doesn't even try to speak their language? Soldat, he has an issue, and this issue has everything to do with his infinite hope for others. He's going to try even if it's incredibly hopeless.

Sora looks at Soldat a little blankly, then back at his own notebook. Hey, do what you gotta do to cope. "You know me, I love company. That's three hours of walking for you, though." Is that really okay?

The Asset understands English just fine, Sora, and Beacon translates anyway, c'mon now.

Three hours of not pacing around the house unable to sleep sounds pretty great. "Not if I run." A good sprint sounds kind of good, too, actually. Hell, maybe sprinting top speed back along the path back to the village will wear them out enough that the quiet won't bother them. It's worth a try.

They drop their feet down off the pew and collect their plate from the Invincible. They can stop by there on their way out. "It'll be fine."

No thoughts, head empty, friendship now!!! He'll get the picture someday.

Sora will watch them get up, then put away his notebook in his backpack and shift it onto his back, getting up from the pew. He'll wait for them at the door.

One in three. One in three. Sora closes his eyes. There's a letter winging its way to Dr. Solis about that, actually. "You could stay with me for the night. I know you want to catch them if they come back to the cabin, though."

For about two seconds, it's tempting, but then Soldat shakes their head. "Got to keep to places where they can find me. Just in case. Thanks, though." Their hand comes down gently on the top of Sora's head, not ruffling, just landing there for a moment. It's touch, okay, touch they think they can manage. "Thanks."

Then they step outside, towards the Invincible first to deliver the plate. Then they can head out to Downtown.

"Anytime." Sora's head bobs under the hand, and he doesn't do the thing where he play bumps the wrist off, although he does shake out his hair a bit after the hand leaves. It's fine! This is good. Get them used to the idea that normal human interactions are things that are theirs to have if they want them

Sora will tag along, hands in his pockets. It's warm enough now that he only needs a sweater, but he prefers Soldat's coat. "Make sure you sleep, okay?"

Soldat helps a little, making sure they didn't muss up the spikes too much. They are in fact capable of fixing hair as much as mussing it.

The smile falters a little at the request, but they answer as honestly as they can: "I'll try. Promise." It's the best they can do, but it's not nothing, at least.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Losing Family [Catch-all Log - Open]

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squints.... wait.... this is a pretty good place to end................ maybe.............?

fadeout works :3 good spot