towerofanimus | Once bitten twice shy

Entry tags:

Once bitten twice shy

Characters: The Ψiioniic and YOU
Setting: hall on the 2nd floor of the dorms to start with, after that we can move elsewhere
Format: Prose preferred but I'll match you
Summary: Ψ is finally venturing out again
Warnings: Probably not but with the trolls you never know when it'll end in bloodshed and violence

It took a day or so before Ψiioniic was willing to venture out of his respite block again. Not that the room felt all that safe, considering Signless and Suzaku had attacked him in his sleep. Still safer than the rest of the tower, though.

When he did finally poke his head out, he was very wary and nervous, much as he had been when he'd first arrived in the tower. At least his had his powers firmly back under control, which made him feel a whole lot better about his ability to defend himself.

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Romeo saw Psiioniic and smiled, he was so glad the troll was back to normal too. It had taken a while for Romeo to be brave enough to move about the tower but having his real body back was enough for him to be really happy.

"Mister Psiioniic!" Romeo ran down the coridoor towards him as fast as he could, "You got your horns back!" They had lost each other just before Molly had attacked him, and Romeo was trying not to think about that at the moment, and Romeo wondered if Psiioniic had stayed safe or if someone had got him too. He hoped not, he hoped his friend had managed to stay safe.

He flung his arms round the troll when he reached him hugging him tightly, so glad to see him alive.

It had taken Naminé a little while to convince herself to visit; after the whole experiment fiasco was over, she'd found herself with lingering doubts, especially about whether or not she even should be allowing herself to make friends. It was what she'd wanted, yes - it was the one thing that, over her whole lifetime, she'd never been able to stop craving. Regardless of whether or not it was right for someone with no heart to try to have friends, she couldn't deny that she was concerned about Ψiioniic. After all, he'd had it very bad when it came to experiments, and she could well remember some of the... disconcerting ideas she'd had about the surgery victims when she was under the influence of her own group's experiments. She hadn't acted on those thoughts, but surely she wasn't the only one who'd come up with such things. That aside, once she'd realized that her own effects were wearing off, she'd been eager to find out if he'd also been so fortunate. If that hadn't been enough to convince her, on top of that she remembered all too clearly how... fragile he'd seemed over the network.

Even if she wasn't sure she could never truly be friends with someone (no heart to accomplish such things with) she could still try to make things a little easier for him, couldn't she? What was wrong with that? ~~A lot of things, probably, but her concern for his immediate comfort outweighed her fears for his long-term comfort, at least for the moment.~~ So it was that she made her way to the hallway on the second floor of the dormitories, hands clasped uncertainly together and mind distracted.

It took Ψiioniic a moment to identify the small human running towards him; Romeo had been the first of them taken for changing, so he hadn't seen much of the boy in his normal body.

But his voice was still the same, and so were his eyes, so by the time Romeo actually reached him Ψiioniic had spread his arms, welcoming the hug. He had to use his powers to brace himself a little, he was even frailer than usual after everything that had happened, but they worked exactly as they should have.

"Romeo! I'm tho glad to see you're okay. I wath worried about you." He hugged just as tightly in return.

He saw her coming, and immediately broke out into a wide, relieved smile. As crazy as everyone had gotten before he'd been killed, he'd been worried about the shy human girl. She'd seemed so defeated when he'd spoken to her on the network, and then he'd never had a chance to actually see her.

"Namine! Look, I'm back to normal," he said, gesturing at his grey skin, dual-coloured eyes, and doubled horns. "How are you? Are you okay? Did anybody hurt you?"

Naminé raised her head sharply, surprised to be addressed - she'd been looking at the ground as she walked and wasn't expecting to see Ψiioniic out and about in the first place. Once she saw him, though, her relief was obvious. "Ψiioniic...!" She hurried closer, smiling genuinely as she looked him over. He was good as new, apparently, and she was very pleased to see that that was the case. "You're okay!" That had already been established, of course, but she couldn't help saying it.

It was kind of ironic that he was asking her if she was alright. "I'm fine, nobody hurt me." Unless one counted the experiment... or that incident with the purple-blooded adult troll, but he'd only acted threatening, he hadn't ACTUALLY hurt her. ...All the same, she thought it might be a good idea to ask Ψiioniic about it (or perhaps warn him if he wasn't aware that such a person was in the tower) but that could wait. "I was part of one of the experiment groups but it-- it wasn't that bad." Compared to what happened to him, anyway, and she could still manage to smile as she said it, even if the smile was a little smaller. "I think that's why I was feeling strange. I'm sorry, Ψiioniic, I know I wasn't acting right before." But, more importantly, "What about you? What happened? How did you...?" 'Get back to normal' was what she meant; something going on in one's mind was one thing, but physical changes were entirely another.

It had been a while before Aradia had been willing to leave her respiteblock as well- though hers only took hours instead of days out of concern for what might be going on in the tower. She didn't want anyone else to get hurt, especially now that she'd stopped seeing, feeling and hearing things at every turn. So currently, she was making her way down through the levels of the tower, on the lookout for anything or anyone that might need her intervention. Those thoughts immediately take a backseat, however, as soon as she sees Psi- Psi as he had been before the experiments, not the poor, hornless troll they'd returned to them, barely even able to control his powers. She's relieved- so, so relieved- and bounds down the hallway toward him excitedly.

"Psi! You're back!"

Vivi had kept a low profile during the experiment madness. People had just been going crazy and he'd been too frightened to even attempt speaking with them. Now that things had (apparently) settled, he had left his room, staff clutched tightly in his hands.

He saw the troll and approached cautiously, peeking out from under his hat. He was so intent on keeping an eye on the adult that he didn't keep track of his own limbs, resulting in his foot getting caught on his staff and sending him flying face-first on the ground at the troll's feet.

"You weren't the only one acting strange," Ψiioniic told her soberly. "The whole tower lotht it's collective mind, ath far as I can tell. I wath... eventually killed, and for thome reason I stayed dead a week thith time, but finally last night I woke up and I wath completely back to normal. And so wath SS and Suzaku, thank the godth."

He'd been so terrified that he would return and find Signless and Suzaku still out to kill him. He really could not handle the idea of having his moirail attack him again.

((I'm sorry I never got a chance to put up the log for Sollux and Aradia to kill Ψ! Are we still assuming that it happened, or would it be better for me to assume that it was Signless who eventually tracked him down and killed him instead?))

"Aradia..." Ψiioniic wary, hesitant, but still glad to see her acting normally. Everyone in the tower had gone crazy, or so it seemed, and he'd been dreading the idea that he might be attacked again, especially by people he knew. Signless had seemed back to normal, but that didn't mean everyone else was. "Yeah, I'm back. Good ath new."

"Whoa, careful!" Seeing the strange little creature go flying, Ψiioniic hastily reached out with his powers and caught him before he could hit the ground hard. With a twitch of his fingers he gently lifted the alien upright again, and set him down on his feet before withdrawing the crackling red and blue power. "Are you okay?"

She sucked in a breath. So she really wasn't the only one to think of such things. "Who-- killed you?" Although the mention of Signless and someone else whose name she didn't recognize being 'back to normal' insinuated that they'd been involved in the experiments too, and she could guess, but she also had to hope that her guess was wrong. Being murdered was one thing, but being murdered by a friend, especially a close one, was... something else.

"I don't... I don't really want to talk about it," Ψiioniic admitted, his voice a little shaky. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, fighting one of his headaches. "I'm trying not to think about it much. They weren't... nobody wath acting like themselves. It wathn't really them who attacked me, and I don't want to be... scared of them."

Being frightened and wary of people like Sollux and Aradia and Suzaku would be hard enough.

Being frightened of Signless would shatter his diamond past all saving.

"...I understand." She let out a little sigh. If only she was better at not saying the wrong thing. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. That was thoughtless of me." That was what she got for not having a heart, she supposed, although she wished it hurt other people less. "I guess... since everything's back to normal, it'd be better to forget." At least, back to normal for now. She knew she was trying to forget how she'd felt, what she'd thought. None of it would do any good.

My, but it had been awfully quiet about. Fran would have been convinced the tower's ranks of rescued strangers were a sparse number, if it wasn't for all the names she'd seen outside dorm doors.

(Little did she know there'd actually just been absolute chaos blowing over, but hey, ignorance is bliss.)

But hey look here's some strange dirtied-yellow-themed fellow she can add to her mental roster of people met.

_{"Hm, I wonder if non-humans are common here? There was that parasite before, and now..."}

Have a weird stitched up girl with bolts sticking out of her head examining you, Ψiioniic. She's so far neglected to actually say a proper hello.

((It's okay! Um, I think for the sake of not assuming too much, the latter is probably better.))

"Thank goodness..!" She stopped just short of him, hands rising a little as if she meant to throw her arms around him, but instead dropped them almost immediately, fidgeting slightly. She couldn't just assume it was okay to hug him like that, even if they were friends. Still, the want to do so was obviously there, even as she smiled up at him, her expression radiating relief. "So you're... you're definitely back to normal now? Everything as it should be?"

((works for me. Signless-mun just went on hiatus so that thread's not going to get finished, but we live together so we can talk it out. Or maybe just Sollux will have killed him, since they're the same mun, lol.))

He hesitated for just a brief moment, but then reached out to stroke her hair, his posture open to indicate that he would welcome a hug. He had to trust people. If he was going to spend all his time scared of his friends, he might as well stay locked up in his respite block. Besides, she hadn't hurt him, it was just that so MANY of the people he knew had aggressed him before he'd finally been killed.

"Yeah, good ath new, at least it theems like it," he assured her. "Powerth all working fine again, and I feel normal. Have you theen Kanaya, is she doing okay too?"

Ψiioniic studied her in turn, just as curious. She appeared human, though he'd never seen one with stitches all over like that. "There'th quite a lot of races here," he told her. "I'm a troll, there'th several of us. Are you okay? Did they experiment on you, too?"

For all he knew there were several groups of people who'd been taken and altered, after all. It hadn't occurred to him before, but considering he hadn't been venturing out much after he'd been so terribly violated, he might not have heard if there were others like his group.

"No, it'th okay," Ψiioniic assured her, sensing from her tone that he'd upset her. "It was sort of the obviouth thing to ask." He reached out to her, smiling. "I'm really glad to thee you again, though. Especially since I can actually see you properly, now! Not being able to thee right was really disorienting." And more than a little frightening.

Her return smile was rather self-conscious, but a smile nonetheless. "I'm really glad to see you, too...!" Or, you know, as glad as she was capable of being. "I'm sure it's nice to see again." She wouldn't know what to do with herself if she couldn't see, but realized just in time that saying that was not exactly a good idea. In fact, saying a lot of the things she thought of saying seemed like bad ideas, now that she was inspecting them with a more critical eye. She'd opened her mouth to speak her original thought, but shut it again.

She starts a bit at the response, indicating she probably hadn't realized she'd been making observations aloud. It's impulse to always babble them, back when she had her cadre of assistants to hang on her every word.

"Hm, interesting~." Getting to observe the biology of several unfamiliar sapient species? Oh, she can handle that. "No, no, I just arrived here~. I'm perfectly well and unaltered, as far as I can tell."

..now that the idea is raised, Fran's not sure how she'd feel about someone ~~other than her creator, of course~~ futzing around with her body. She can at least rest assured that if 'they' decide to alter her, she's perfectly equipped to take steps to turn herself right back to normal.

((Okay! Either way works for me!))

"I haven't seen her- I actually haven't seen anyone but my roommates- I think everyone might still be trying to get over things..."

The ruffle to her hair is welcomed with a slight, pleased sound, and she beams up at him, glad to see that he does, in fact, seem back to his usual self again. The slight shift in his stance isn't lost on her, and she hesitates once again before throwing herself forward, arms wrapping around him and giving a slight squeeze. Cheek pressed somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach, she breathed a sigh of relief at the proof that he was solid and in fact, not a hallucination- and therefore really an honestly alright.

"Good. Should we... go look for Kanaya and the others? See if they're okay too."

Romeo smiled and hugged even tighter before letting go. "I was worried about you too Psiioniic!" He grabbed onto the trolls sleeve. It was strange to him, usually adults were people to hide from, at best to listen to and do as they said, at worst to avoid before they could hurt them. But Psiioniic felt more like a friend than an adult and a month without being able to touch or hold anything made him want to reach out, just to remind himself what things felt like.

Vivi let out a yelp at suddenly being lifted, head whipping back and forth around him to stare at the colourful energy that had saved him from (another) concussion. "W-Woah-!"

Once he was set down, he dusted himself off and glanced up at the troll, blinking his glowing eyes. "Y-Yeah, thank you, mister uh..." Tilting his head he asked shyly, "Wh-what's your name? Ehe..."

Milagro just so happened to turn the corner down the hall when Ψiioniic finally came out of his room. He was back to normal. She felt relief wash over her, that she wasn't the only one, that everyone had to be back to normal, right? Stupid smile plastered on her face, she called down the hall.

"Ψiioniic!"

Then she ran to go give the poor troll a hug. She's wanted to do that for a while now. There is no escaping Milagro hug time.

It was equally strange to Ψiioniic to have a child as a friend - though he'd lived on Alternia before the Condesce had ordered all adults off the planet, there still wasn't much mixing between the age groups. Kids kept to themselves with their lusi, and adults had more important things to do than deal with them.

It was even stranger to him that he didn't mind at all having Romeo clinging to him. Trolls were aggressive by nature, and didn't generally let other people close to them, let alone allow them to hamper their movements. Not unless they were in a red quadrant, anyway.

Well, maybe that was why it didn't feel wrong. Ψiioniic certainly felt a great deal of pity for the human, even though the human was far too young for him to be considering a quadrant. It didn't even feel like pale cheating on his moirail. How odd.

Not that he was complaining, not in the least. He happily slung his arm around Romeo's shoulder and let the boy hang on to him. The contact was pleasant, reassuring. "Ith everybody back to normal, then? What happened to you after we got separated? I'm so thorry, I don't know what happened. I think I got lotht in the future visions."

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Once bitten twice shy

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