Glamour Failure

[animusmods]

Characters: any
Setting: all around the Tower
Format: any/party-style
Summary: A general mingle log for the reaction to the beginning of the Idealism event.
Warnings: PG-13; please include any more detailed warnings in your threads if necessary

Comments

[brbtalkingtogod]

Yes Enoch?

[warriorscribe]

...What would your answer have been?

[brbtalkingtogod]

I don't know if I have an answer. It's not like I ever had to think of my existence ending before until now.

[warriorscribe]

*Oh. So he hadn't understood before, but...he was starting to realize what it was to have something so intrinsic altered.

Best he didn't experience any more of that at the tower's hands.

So there was another squeeze from him.* It won't happen. We won't fail.

[brbtalkingtogod]

... Failing is not an option, huh?

[Lucifel smiled at Enoch, appearing a bit more relaxed than a moment ago.]

[warriorscribe]

*Not that the smile was visible. But he did seem more relaxed in other ways, and Enoch pulled back from the hug, his hands on Lucifel's shoulders.*

No. It never was.

[brbtalkingtogod]

Did I make it sound like it was?

[warriorscribe]

No, no, not at all...

*Man, not being able to read faces was tripping both of them up, wasn't it?*

[brbtalkingtogod]

... It's certainly a problem that we don't have much of an expression right now.

[warriorscribe]

That it is. ...We should be grateful it's the worst of our problems...

*Enoch looks towards the door, towards the sounds of sobbing and screaming and the hushed, fervent attempts by those who had kept their heads to calm the others.

For the first time, he trusts Lucifel with a doubt, in this gesture.*

[brbtalkingtogod]

Yeah...

[He looked in the same direction, then back at Enoch.]

Do you want to help them?

[warriorscribe]

I do, but...

*He looks down at his own hands.*

[brbtalkingtogod]

[Lucifel leans down a little to look at Enoch. No, he won't let him look at his hands.]

But? That sounds very unlike you Enoch.

[warriorscribe]

I was part of what did this to them...

[brbtalkingtogod]

Isn't that more of a reason to help out then? I thought that's what's usually done.

[warriorscribe]

*There's a long moment before Enoch nods.*

It is. ...It hurts.

*He's already tried to help some. He has hurt people before, in the name of a mission grander than any of them, but this is the first time he's in a position to take the consequences on an individual level. And it isn't so much that he outright wants to avoid it as simply seeing their pain up close hurts too much, so much it's hard to try to help for too long. It was why he ducked into the bathrooms every so often. It was why he had found himself on floor 101 in the first place. Time to gather his thoughts and pull himself together before he came undone in trying to prevent it in others, knowing his actions had caused it.*

[brbtalkingtogod]

"It hurts?"

[warriorscribe]

*Enoch could only nod, breath heavy and damp as if holding back tears. How could he describe this pain to Lucifel?*

[brbtalkingtogod]

...

[... Oh well. This time it's Lucifel who is embracing Enoch. It not like this isn't awkward for him anymore, maybe not as awkward as it was in the beginning to him.]

[warriorscribe]

*That does pull him out of that train of thought. He didn't expect this. Quietly, he leans into it, holding on tight while he tries to pull himself out of this downward spiral of thought. He won't be fit to help these people if he remains stuck on his doubts, but that's easier said than done, now that he's allowed himself to admit them.

Somehow, when you were trying to pretend they didn't exist, it was easier to internalize their impact.*