towerofanimus | another day and i could've gone mad [open]

Characters: David and you!
Setting: Hallways and floor 28, specify which in the subject line.
Format: Starting action, will match.
Summary: David's ...really not coping well with recent events and revelations. At all. He's practically falling apart, really. He decides to go to the music room to try creating...something to clear his head. As much as it's possible for a possessed kid to clear his head, anyway.
Warnings: Probably language in threads, potentially mindfuck and mild insanity. Also David being an arrogant prick.

[He knew that he hadn't escaped the labyrinth without a fresh set of mental scars.

Though, that much would have been obvious to anyone who knew him. David was barely keeping himself together--stressing the word barely. The maze and the "game" had been one thing, but the punishment...he was hardly sleeping, and when he did, it was fitful. What he saw still terrified him, still enraged him--but like hell would he admit it. The whole thing had been shown to the network, it wasn't as though he needed to say it even if he wanted to.

And then the network post from one of their oh-so-gracious "benefactors"...he hadn't contributed to the discussion, but he'd read it.

He still refused to believe the bulk of it.

Even as she spoke incessantly--still offering facetious comforts and coaxing, cajoling platitudes while trying to encourage him to lash out, or to trust her, to give in to her once again. He knew better.

He muttered refusals and demands for Yggdrasil to shut up--apparently to himself--in an attempt to get her to stop, if only for the moment. David looked around himself fitfully, still having an apparently one-sided conversation. That damnable twisting in his chest was as bad as ever, and his shadow was writhing even more than usual.]

A long climb up from here....no, nononono we had an arrangement Yggdrasil, we had a deal, leave me be, NO!

[It continues rather like that. He starts up the stairs--quickly, still apparently talking to himself. After a while he arrives in the music room. After a bit of digging, he had a pile of--fairly recent!--electronica equipment scrounged together. Synthesizer, turntable, sampling keyboard, drum machine, vocoder(not really his area, but it might be useful to experiment with)...not a bad spread. Not bad at all. He can work with this.

He cycles through the sampling keyboard's loops and picks one, adjusting some levels, running the sample through the synth to add to it, filter it, adjust it a bit further further, pitching it just right...after a few moments more of tinkering, he has the foundation of something he likes. A bassline comes together.

David moves on from there. To his slight surprise, Yggdrasil is speaking a bit less--and when she does speak, he's finding it easier to ignore her. It won't last, but for the moment, he welcomes the reprieve.

It won't do if his hands keep shaking, and more than a few sour notes are produced due to mistakes before he finally gets it under control. The failed notes are cleared, and fresher beats are cycled in to replace them. His head bobs to the beat, slowly, as he continues working.

Care to interrupt him?]

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[he seems to stop for a moment, before throwing another switch and continuing.]

... Of course. Should I not be? Really now, John, I'm not sure what to make of a question like that. Do explain how you mean.

You were talking to yourself on the way up. Nearly screaming, in some parts.

[Well... he is a Lalonde...]

...Tell me the truth this time. Are you okay?

[he doesn't look up. there's another beat before he answers.]

... I suppose that would be how it looked to others, wouldn't it...

Regardless. It's nothing that I'm incapable of handling on my own.

...David, let me tell you something.

In my world, I don't have you, David. I have Dave Strider and Rose Lalonde. Both of them always insist they've got things covered, but... they never do.

Enough terrible things happen in this tower, okay? I don't want you bringing more on yourself.

... gods, Rose's father barely changed you at all. I shudder to think of what my mother's parental style did to the poor girl...

[I'm your mother.

he already knows all of the things that John is saying, and what he's taking false wonder at. he remembers them. John's presence and the people they're mentioning seem to have pushed Yggdrasil to talk up a storm again, however. he shakes his head, only a half-facetious gesture. almost trying to deflect this topic.]

Between the game-- [he almost spits the word, utter vituperation and a touch of despair dripping off of it] -- and the tower, I do believe I'm rather set where problems are concerned. A pile of frankly Jupiterian magnitude, and all for me. A Von Neumann assortment of anguish! Self-replicating and self-perpetuating for no other purpose than to make things difficult--my, rather like the game itself.

I might even venture that it quite possibly is fucking Jupiter, it certainly couldn't make the damned mess any more absurd than it already is.

But it's my burden. Mine alone.

[If rolling one's eyes could make a noise, John would at present be drowning out a lawnmower.] It doesn't have to be your burden, David. You just said that it's massive, whatever it is [because it was obviously not the after-effects of the game or the Tower's influence that caused him to babble grimdark words] -- so why are you trying to carry it all by yourself? You know, I wouldn't mind at all sharing it with you. Even though you're not the Dave I'm used to, you're still my friend, and friends help friends.

The thought is appreciated, Egbert, but what currently plagues me is something that no one can help me with.

[almost icily.]

...Then the least you can do is tell me what's happened.

... Very well.

[Egbert or not, this was John. He could do this, loathe as he was to do it. Besides, he knew there was hardly any point to trying to dissuade either John or an Egbert from something like this.]

Do you want to hear it recounted from the beginning, or... ?

[just. trying to buy a bit of time to figure out how to start on this.]

[Good call, Lalonde. There was no way John was backing out now, after he'd gone through all this bellyaching to cut to the heart of the matter. Regardless, he only nods, face still serious.] Yes, please. [But, of course, this is clearly not a thing that can be easily explained. John'll let you take your time.]

[Unfortunately for David, he hasn't...quite run into the issue that happens with this yet.]

~~She first appeared to me in my dreams, years ago...~~

[he stops. his voice usually sounded...hollow, it was normal now for it to echo. this was different. he knew it worsened if he said the word house, and if he spoke of ~~minotaurs and labyrinths~~ and the like it was worse still, but...

When he spoke of her to others, it was the same as the latter. Not hollow at all.

~~It was as if a growl had filled the void at the edge of his words, as if a terrible beast was lurking beneath the surface.~~ This can be taken as a contrivance on the author's part, having come so far in the work but still wishing to avoid David's confrontation of the matter with outside help for as long as possible. Thus, a barrier of communication is constructed. Alternatively, or perhaps additionally, it can be acknowledged as a representation of the emptiness of his words and the barely concealed rage that drives him--]

Shut up.

[he says it harshly and quietly, clearly not speaking to John. He isn't asking, he's demanding.]

... I hadn't expected that.

[For a moment there, John feels a bit of bizarre, probably-incorrect satisfaction; of course he was concerned for David, of course he was, but can you blame him for finally getting a straight answer out of a Lalonde? ...That in mind, he probably should have expected what happened next. John doesn't respond immediately to David's insistence, because he's obviously not talking to him, he's talking to... whoever he's talking to. Or was talking to, on the stairs, John is willing to bet.]

[Either way, it's obvious David can't explain what's going on without intervention. Time to go for Plan B.]

...Can you write it down?

... I shouldn't see any reason why not.

Then try doing that instead of saying it, since you get so much... um, resistance.

another day and i could've gone mad [open]

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forgive me i didn't retrieve my HoL copy for this, it's going to be bad

No worries, I haven't read mine in quite a while anyhow.

Excellent.

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