towerofanimus | Inevitable explosions

Entry tags:

Inevitable explosions

Characters: Shion, Reno, retrieval units and open
Setting: Infirmary, during the Orange Collar checkups then the next day in room 2-12
Format: I'll start in prose but switch if you want
Summary: - Shion finally explodes, this takes part in the infirmary during his collar check, he gets taken down by retrieval units, sort of open to anyone in the infirmary at the time.
- The next day Shion wakes up and finally breaks down; closed to Reno
- After his talk with Reno Shion goes to eat, open to all!
Warnings: Berserk Shion, death, lots of angst. Broken people, lots of sadness. Probably mentions of death and Reno's work before the tower.

[Infirmary] Days had gone on, Shion had spent all the time he could in the library or training with Reno. He had done as his roommate had told him, ate and slept when he had been forced to. A shadow wearing Shion's body unable to feel anything but numbness and muted rage.

He had nodded and made no comment when Reno had told him they had to go for their collar checkups, he walked in a daze to the infirmary. As they waited he took in the room, a hospital but one he would never trust. Ran by people much more suited for death than life.

These people who seemed to obey the tower rulers every whim. They had been the ones to hold him in that room, to kill Nezumi...

Even if it wasn't these specific people, they would do the same thing. Shion knew, if they were ordered to they would do the same thing again. They didn't care and they would hurt Nezumi without batting an eyelid. Hurt him for Shion's crimes, hurt him for Shion's mistakes.

The anger and hatred that had been kept muted by numbness surged to the surface. What if they still had him, were still hurting him. Despite Reno's words that it couldn't have been Nezumi it might have been. Shion couldn't risk it, he couldn't let this go on.

Reno was taken for his check and Shion sat alone, his thoughts churning, anger rising. These people, they had hurt Nezumi, Shion hadn't been able to do anything about it. He had been chained up, unable to reach them, unable to reach Nezumi.

He followed them into the examination room, letting them hook the bag of liquid onto his collar. The weight on the back of his collar made him pause, he pulled forward. His mind flashed back to the room, chained to the wall. Nezumi dying.

"No..." It started as a whisper, the anger rose up within him. Closing his eyes all he could see was darkness and though he tried to fight it, fight the urge to scream, to hurt them. Telling himself it was just the tube, he was not chained anymore.

Blood, Nezumi falling to the floor again. Shion let out a cry of rage and leaped at the man overseeing his collar check, his hands reaching out, to find the man's neck. One of them... responsible for hurting Nezumi.

They would pay, they would all be punished.

[Room 2-12] Sleep paralysis was always terrifying and this time Shion was trapped for an hour. Trapped unable to move, he wasn't even sure he could breathe. The darkness was suffocating and he woke up with a gasp, the events of the day before crashing down around him...

Hit him hard, he sat up slowly looking at his hands. What had he done... What had he been thinking...

[Cafeteria] Shion left the room, sensing that Reno needed to rest, needed to be alone. Shion had put a lot on him the last month, but he was going to make an effort to change that. To help his friend out as he had helped him the last few weeks. Shion knew he owed him his life, or at least his sanity.

He made his way down to the cafeteria, everything seemed clearer. The world was no longer hidden, out of reach. The numbness was gone and Shion felt everything, every emotion was sharp. His eyes were still red from crying and he was worried about his friends. About those he knew, about everyone.

More people would have arrived, they always did, a lot of the faces he passed he didn't recognise. He didn't quite smile, he still hurt too much.

But it was different, the numbness, the bubbling rage, the despair, they were gone. It was going to be... well perhaps not alright. They were still stuck here, they were still going to be hurt and killed. But... it didn't seem so bleak, he felt alive like he hadn't done since sometime in that awful week.

He felt human. He grabbed a nutrient bar, since that was all that there was to eat, and sat at a table. He ate it, even if it was simple he was hungry. He looked around nodding at the people he saw in greeting. He felt a little self conscious and he was exhausted but... He wanted to be here, to see people.

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And seeing people, he would.

Equius hadn't seen Shion walking around for... a while. It was beginning to really get at him. Not to the level that the absence of, say, a Nepeta would, but still. They didn't even know each other that well, they'd only spoken a couple of times -- so why was he so concerned for the human boy's well being? Normally he wasn't even concerned for anyone's well-being, besides his own. It was beginning to scare him.

Regardless, when he noticed Shion in the cafeteria choking down one of those disgusting protein strips, he was triggered into action. So, when he called the human's name in that jittery way of his, he was holding two bowls of white rice. He took a moment to breathe, fearing for a moment that his voice was too jittery, before continuing.

"...Here, eat this, if you like. It's a bit plain, but it tastes less processed than... that." He eyes the bar distrustingly.

Shion looked up at his name and his eyes lit up at the sight of Equius, he hadn't seen him in a long time... since the elevator... He had been there too.

"Equius! Are you alright?" He felt guilty about not knowing the answer to that... but there was nothing he could do but try and improve from here. He blinked when he was offered the food.

Real food... Tears filled his eyes, Equius had made it for him? "Th... thank you!" He was lost for words, that Equius would do such a thing, he was so kind even after Shion had ignored him for so long.

"Um, yes." It was more an automatic reaction than anything else. And, in the strictest sense of the term, he was alright; there were no cuts or bruises to speak of, as it had been long enough since he died that the perpetual black eyes he came here with had healed. Whether he was emotionally alright was still up in the air, so he's shoving that aside for now.

To be honest, he had made a giant pot of the stuff and just left it out for anyone to take; it seemed that people here didn't seem to have much of a conception on how to cook things. He was just about to mention this when Shion started crying; oh god crying what, why was he crying, what did Equius do to make him cry?! He attempted a feeble smile, but then failed and wiped it off his face, instead setting the rice in front of Shion. "Here."

Pot or not the fact he had thought to bring some to Shion was enough. "Thank you," he wiped away the tears from his eyes and began to eat, realising how hungry he was all over again.

"I missed you!" He didn't have many friends here and the fact that he had ignored any of them, hadn't even known if they were still here, it made him feel guilty and he wanted to do something to make up for it. "I'm sorry Equius."

"It's... it's fine," he said, once again wondering what in the world he did. He then set his own bowl down a little ways away. Even if this was a human and therefore neutral on hemospectral terms, it was still a little odd for him to just plop right down next to him. It also made it massively awkward to start a conversation, which was already one of his weak points.

"...How is it?" he asked. "I can... go back in and see if there's something tht can go on it, but..." He glanced back towards the kitchens. It was unlikely.

Shion would have been worried and sad if he knew what was going through Equius' head but since this was normal behavior for Equius he didn't think anything of it.

"It's delicious," he forced himself to slow down a little, since eating the whole bowl so quickly after having barely eaten anything for weeks was not a good idea. "Much better than those bars."

Fair enough. This thinking is par for the course as well, though -- would it be any more worrying if it was unusual behavior?

He sighed quietly and nodded. "That's true. I've had worse, and it's edible if it's that or dying of starvation, but..." Equius drifted off almost without noticing, and quickly scrambled for a way to at least finish the sentence. He's been doing a pretty abysmal job of 'speaking strongly', but hey, it's an attempt. "...I can only hope that we'll get real food again after this month is over."

Shion hadn't exactly had worse, and he had never been on the brink of starvation, a day or three without food at the most. But after seeing small children no more than skin and bone fighting against the elements to just stay alive then any food was something to be grateful for.

Something else he had failed to keep in mind this past month... "I hope so too, though at least they don't seem to wish to starve us..." He searched for something else to say, he hadn't spoke much lately either and his throat was sore with the effort. "What... Has anything... What have you been doing? Since..."

You'd think that a cooking whiz of a troll would have good meals for life, right? Well, you'd think wrong -- considering the creation of meals depended entirely on availability of the ingredients, and availability of the ingredients depended on how much money he had on hand a given week. And needless to say, he didn't exactly make a comfortable amount every week. Be it an ill-timed robbery or just a bad week as far as sales and things went, there hasn't exactly been a steady stream of delicacies.

Great, they can be awkward turtles together. "...They need us alive," he noted, though this was probably obvious. "For their... experiments." It was quite a battle to finish the sentence. "...Um, I... nothing really." This was not a lie. He hadn't been doing anything but what he'd normally been doing, either messing around in the workshop floor or wandering (now that the kitchen was totally out of commission). There was always the issue with the True Equius, but that wasn't exactly the kind of thing you spoke freely about, even if it was with someone you... supposed you could trust.

"They do... Though since we just come back..." They could probably get away with not feeding them, but then again then they would be too week to be forced into experiments. Which wouldn't be good for those that were keeping them prisoner.

Shion looked at him in concern, "Nothing at all?" Had he been well? Had something happened? Had he been injured? Shion tended to take things a little too literally at times and a few weeks of doing nothing sounded like... well like what he had been doing.

Surely they weren't stupid enough to engage in a starvation experiment, right? Would they just wait and watch everyone keep dying over and over again, the only time their stomachs are filled being right after their death? It wasn't a comforting idea, but Equius realized with gradual terror that this was exactly the kind of thing that they would want to try. He clipped the train of thought there, just in case there was some mind-reading mechanism instilled somewhere in the Tower. Paranoia for the win.

"...Nothing." He hadn't taken any real damage recently, besides the average chips and scratches you get just from living in this damned tower. He's been... attempting to sort out the rest of it, but was nowhere near the point where he could share his thoughts out loud.

Shion's thoughts were sadly going in a similar direction, but he tried to reassure himself that they probably knew what happened when someone died of starvation, so that wasn't something they would have to test.

He hoped. He went back to worrying about Equius, "Nothing at all? I haven't seen you for a while..."

"I know, I... haven't really been seeking people out." How can you, in this place?

Shion nodded, understanding. After all he had barely seen anyone these last few weeks, and it was probably for the best. Hurting Reno was bad enough without adding other people to the list of those he had hurt or angered.

"Have you been alone?"

Alone? Well, of course he hasn't been alone, it's next to impossible in this tower and getting harder every day... but was that not what Shion meant? Bluh. Better just answer it, don't want to drag too much attention. "...No."

"That's good..." Shion was glad he hadn't been alone, but he made a point to make sure that Equius was alright from now on.

"...What about you?" he asked after a short delay. Should he have done that sooner in the conversation? He wasn't sure. Though, looking at Shion's bowl and his own practically untouched one (it would get cold soon, drat), he noticed something else. "...And... and you've been eating, right?" He saw the way Shion regarded that rice. "You shouldn't starve yourself, even if the available food isn't very good."

Shion looked down, he hadn't been eating though it had nothing to do with the quality of the food. "I know..." He finished off his rice, "I hadn't been but... it will be alright." He almost sounded like he believed that. "Things are better now." He looked at Equius' bowl.

"You need to eat too..."

"...Oh." That's right, he hadn't touched it. Equius had been eating -- not very well, and it was driving him insane with the lack of ingredients, but he had been eating. This was possibly going to be one of the longest perigees ever. "Um, I have been. But... never mind." The giant pot of rice was still there, and he had spent most of the time he could have used to eat making it. It was on a whim, really, it's not like he was concerned for everyone else's also-suffering mouthwagger sensory crevices or anything, baka.

Shion shook his head, "What? I mind..." He looked worried and watched Equius carefully, "What's wrong?"

The guilt at having abandoned his friends rose up again but he kept it down, focused on finding out what was wrong so he could help.

He sighed, beginning to eat. "It's not a problem. Honestly." At least, not one Shion would be able to help him with. What would he even say? 'I've been totally denying my true nature for all of my life and now I suddenly want to help people and what the hell is even wrong with me'? No. Not happening, kthx.

Shion just looked more worried, he had no idea what could be wrong but he would rather help Equius than deal with the whole I tried to kill someone yesterday, thing, that was threatening to surface again now that the whole wonder at being alive was wearing off.

"You can tell me Equius, what's wrong?"

Edited 2012-05-31 19:34 (UTC)

Bugger. No getting out of it now.

"...I've just been... acting strange lately," he said, quietly. It was deeply upsetting to have to resort to telling other people of his own problems like this; as if saying them out loud made them important, but they're not important because he's not important. At the same time, though, he became aware that he shouldn't even have let his tongue slip; a fine example of what he was talking about in the first place.

"Acting strange?" Shion asked curiously, he wasn't one too judge since he hadn't been acting like himself either. This place was enough to make anyone act strangely.

"Um, yes." He steepled his fingers and leaned his head against them, rice once again forgotten. It could wait for later. "It's... distressing. I'm not supposed to act like this."

Shion blinked, really Equius didn't seem to be acting strange at all since the first time they had met he had been helpful as well, and Shion would rather he be like this than sleep deprived. "How are you supposed to act?"

The liquid in Reno's collar had just finished and they detached the equipment, leaving him slightly bemused and rubbing his neck as he always did after one of these proceedings. Once he had been back and sane enough to use a computer, he had gone back to that Q&A post and seen what they did to the boy.

Knowing what these things did when taken off had made him sick to his stomach for along time; lightheaded and funny as well. Standing there for a while, he leaned against a wall and tried to keep from shaking. This was the first collar check since then, and that wave of nausea was coming back, stronger than ever. He was trying to focus and think of anything but the collar when he heard Shion's rage.

That had him upright in an instant and heading toward the kid. "Shion?"

Shion wasn't listening or didn't hear. He didn't take in anything apart from the roaring anger, all he concentrated on was getting his hands round the mans neck. To make him pay, to punish them all for what they had done and make sure they couldn't do it again.

The instant Reno figured out what Shion was doing, he ran over, grabbing him away from the worker, trying to pull him off. "Shion! Stop it! You're going to get killed!"

This was the last thing, THE LAST thing the kid needed, to go on a rampage.

The man reacted in a very mechanical way--certainly he tried to subdue Shion, and he did tell him to stop quite firmly, but there was something distinctly off about it, given the way Shion was acting.

A second blank-collared worker ignored the plight of the first to wheel the collar fluid out of the way of the commotion.

Shion still didn't seem to hear Reno, or the words of the blank-collared worker. He struggled against Reno lashing out to try and get him away from him, he was stopping him. Shion didn't need to be stopped, these workers were the ones who needed to be stopped.

He kicked out as well, trying to get away from Reno, not even realising it was Reno, focused only on attacking the worker.

When Shion kicked out, he hit a rather sensitive and important part of Reno, and it sent him to his knees in shock and pain, groaning.

"Shion," it was just a strangled sound, as he had curled up into a fetal position, "get a hold of yourself!"

By this point the man had recovered enough to regard Shion neutrally and address him.

"If you will not submit to your collar checkup we will have to use force."

There wasn't enough emotion in it to really sound like a warning, even though it certainly was one.

Shion barely noticed when Reno fell, the anger and rage was roaring in his ears and he could barely hear. He only half heard the blank-collared workers words not even processing it as a threat. He didn't care. He lashed out again, kicking out at the worker this time, wanting to get away from him, but also wanting to hurt him, wanting to cause him pain.

Pain was an every day part of Reno's life; he had been taught to endure it and fight on even with multiple injuries. When the pain faded somewhat, he struggled to his feet, still reeling from the kick but not out of the game yet.

"SHION!" He shouted, knowing that big trouble was about to hit when the worker threatened the kid. Again, he made a grab, trying to dodge the flailing this time and grab one of his arms.

It had been hard waiting around for Shion to come back. The turk was angry after yesterday's performance. Screw being able to understand it, he was going to have some words with the kid if he had anything to say about it. That was why he was sitting on his bed, arms folded and waiting for Shion to wake up.

"About time you woke up."

Shion looked up at the words. Reno... more memories of the day before assailed him... He had been there right? Had he been hurt too? "Reno..." Shion sounded confused, fighting back tears because...

He had tried to kill that worker... He had wanted to... All the anger was gone now, "I..."

"Oh, no. You don't get to cry." Reno stood up, looking stern and yes, still angry. Walking over to Shion's bed, he stood over it, his eyes quite narrowed.

"You got the luxury of whimpering and whining all damn month already, which is a shitton more than I'd tolerate from a rookie. You don't get to cry." His tone was low and had a professional, no nonsense note in it. Like he was dressing down a bunch of rookies after they screwed up. "Now you get to man up and face it. You get to face what you've done and live with it. You get to realize that not every damn thing is your fault, and you get to realize just how fucking selfish it is thinking that."

Pausing, he took in a shaky breath, more from repressed anger than anything, and bent down just slightly, his face in Shion's. "Assuming responsibility for something means you think you got some sort of control over it. I don't think you're capable of control, Shion. You're too damned all over the place. You wibble whenever something hard comes up. You crumble when someone confronts you. When shit happens you retreat into yourself makin' yourself a burden to others. That ain't what control is about, kid. When you got to that breaking point? Oh, you tried to get control yesterday, lettin' all that shit out that they did to you, but that's still off the mark. See, that's what they wanted, it was what they expected. They still got control of you."

Shion's eyes flickered fearfully to Reno, still desperately trying to fight tears because even with Reno angry, or because Reno was angry... either way the numbness that had covered him since he had returned from his punishment was gone, leaving his emotions raw. Everything hurt, more than it usually did even and Reno's words were like claws, talons that ripped at his heart.

Worse because they were all true, worse still because these were things that Nezumi had told him before. Echoing what the workers themselves had told him, and Shion hadn't been able to not be a burden on others, he had just become more of one.

He ignored the flashbacks, fighting to stay in the present, to concentrate on Reno. He lost the fight against the tears, hating himself for it but not being able to help it. He reached out to grab Reno's wrists, "I don't know what to do..."

Reno let the boy grab him, not shaking him off, yet. "You don't know what to do? The hell have I been telling you, teaching you? Grow a fucking spine, Shion."

Slowly, his voice started raising, the stress of Shion's crying adding on to his frustration. "You have no idea what I've been through, Shion. Things that'd make you curl up and scream." Taking another breath, his voice went even higher, just shy of yelling.

"I watched as every single fucking person in the Turks except for me, Tseng and Rude exploded. I watched as the squad leader gunned DOWN my commander and mentor and his daughter. I STOOD IN THE MEETING ROOM WHILE THE PRESIDENT AND SCARLET WANTED TO FUCKING KILL THE THREE OF US FOR BETRAYING THEM. I have LOST my fucking planet after years of fighting to SAVE IT and everyone who I ever fucking CARED about left us BEHIND. I LOST IT after the fucking Planet itself saved itself from a fucking moon sized meteor. I don't want to fucking lose you, too. So you are going to grow the fuck up and accept this."

It was a bit difficult, getting into his pocket with Shion grabbing at him, but he pulled out a small pin, obviously hand made- it was just a little pin that had been modeled after his own. Reno had probably made it down in the workshop- it was the symbol of the Turks. "Got that?"

Edited 2012-06-03 11:14 (UTC)

Shion's sobs stopped, as if they had been frozen in fear by Reno's outburst. The tears still fell but they slowly changed from tears of fear for himself to sadness for Reno. He sat still, staring at him through tear blurred eyes. He hadn't known, he hadn't got that far when he had read Reno's journal, or Reno hadn't wrote about it... But he hadn't known and he had a feeling he should have. Reno was right he had been selfish, not understanding or thinking how he was hurting Reno...

His grip tightened, though he was trying to be comforting. He wanted to apologise but sensed that Reno would not accept it, wouldn't need it. Wouldn't want it... He stared at the pin and then brought his tear stained face to look at Reno once more. "What is it?" His voice was still trembling, strained with tears.

Shion's simple question had Reno at a loss for words for a moment, while he looked at the simple pin. It had been... how many years for him?

After too long of a pause he looked up at Shion, the anger faded. "It's an offer. And a promise. I'm offering you a way to make something of yourself... whether good or bad, that's up to you." Stop crying, dammit. "You've got a choice now-" ten years ago? Maybe? Or was it eight? He couldn't remember now "Either take it..." Death wasn't an option in the Tower. "Or I'm writing you off."

Reno had been a kid himself when he heard those words, just barely old enough to be called a man. In a way, he had been just as lost as Shion was.

It was the only thing he could offer the boy.

A promise... Shion stared at the pin again. An offer to make something of himself, something more. To not just be a burden that needed protected, to be able to do the right thing...

Shion tended to over think things, to want to know all the information, to study it and dissect it before he made his decisions. But he knew that in the real world you didn't always get that luxury, you couldn't always see all the sides... Sometimes you just had to react, and do what you felt was right even if you didn't know all the facts.

Was that what Nezumi had been trying to teach him? By not telling him everything he needed to know...

"Okay..." His voice was quiet but he tried to sound decisive, "Okay..." He took the pin, because if it was a choice between this; whatever this would turn out to be, and Reno giving up on him, being disappointed in him... Being more angry at him...

His hand closed behind the pin and something inside him crumbled, broke down. Some block that had been keeping all the fear, sorrow, mostly grief inside him since the moment he had stepped inside that labyrinth disappeared and he half fell forward, clinging onto Reno sobbing fully now.

Feeling extremely awkward, Reno just patted the kid's back, not sure what else to do. Giving a dressing down was one thing, but- this particular thing hadn't been his thing.

The kid would be all right, eventually, he just needed to let it out, calm down and start rebuilding himself.

No words were needed, really.

Shion cried for a long time, all the tears that had been locked behind the layers of numbness and anger came at once. His tears for Nezumi, for failing, the pain of being betrayed by Ventus. The fear at himself, for what he had done. All came out as if a dam had been burst, the torrent of emotions threatening to drown him but he clung to Reno and the pin he had given him like they were lifelines.

Eventually the tears ran dry, Shion felt exhausted and embarrassed but... better. More human, more like himself. Like things were going to be okay, hopefully. He blinked up at Reno, "Thank you..." The words seemed too small, too superficial for the emotion behind it. But Shion had never been good at words, he just hoped that Reno understood.

Trying his best to extract himself without being obvious or hurting the kid's feelings, he just nodded. "No problem, kid."

Shaking his head at the sight of Shion's face, he sighed before saying, "Go get yourself cleaned up, rookie. Turks don't go around with puffy faces."

Rookie. It wasn't given lightly, even though Reno said it casually. It indicated a change of position, status. The way Reno himself viewed Shion. They weren't just friends anymore, nor just teacher and student. He wondered if Shion would understand the bond that all Turks shared, but he would damned sure try to show him what it meant.

Despite his general lack of understanding social cues Shion moved away from Reno giving him space. Shion indeed didn't have a clue about the sort of bond all Turks shared, it wasn't something he had ever experienced or known. But it seemed that he did sense the change and he nodded, managing a weak smile before going to wash his face, still gripping the pin tightly.

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Inevitable explosions

assuming the ingredients for energy bars are in the kitchen jksdfhk

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Infirmary

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2-12

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