revenance_rpg | But the architects only drew blanks

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But the architects only drew blanks

WHO: Even and Aeleus.
WHERE: Traverse Town, Aeleus's part of the teashop apartments.
WHAT: Even requires an urgent Feelings Consultation, viz., what is this feeling so sudden and new (it's not loathing; he'd recognize loathing).
WHEN: One medium-sized breakdown after this. Late afternoon.
Warnings: None as yet!

In the late afternoon, when the town is quiet, there comes a knock on Aeleus's door.

Even is not looking his best. He's looked worse, certainly, but aside from the signs of persistent sleeplessness, his expression seems awry, as though his facial features have come unconnected one from the other. He looks lost.

He feels lost. Thus, Aeleus.

"I - I need your advice."

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Fortunately for Even and his needs, Aeleus is in as opposed to going out and patrolling the streets until he finds a sufficient quantity of Nightmares to be rid of. More importantly, he recognizes that things must be sufficiently urgent for Even to have actually stirred himself from the labs, and so he gestures Even inside without much further ado.

(The fact that it looks like Even is in severe need of sleep doesn't go unnoticed either, but he can only take care of so many things at one time.)

"I can't promise to have all the answers, but I'll do my best."

"...Thank you," he says after a pause not unlike an engine sputtering. He's aware that this is atypical, that generally banging on people's doors unexpectedly and demanding their attention to deal with personal issues is frowned upon, but he's aware enough of his own emotional state to know that he can't resolve this on his own, and Aeleus has expressed dissatisfaction with the occasions when Even gets himself stuck in a feedback loop. And there's simply no one else he can talk to.

"It's about Xion," he says, and sticks again. There are too many next sentences battering at his teeth.

It's atypical, yes, but that's all the more reason that he should see to it that Even is capable of at least venting the majority of whatever crisis is weighing so heavily on him. Besides, that Even is asking for help is a good start, and so he's more than willing to help unknot things.

Of course, he also doesn't realize that Xion is a Replica, so he's missing some very vital context. Even may have to put up with a series of clarifying questions before they can get very far.

"What about her?"

"She's a Replica," he blurts out. "She's one of my Replicas, only I had no idea; she was from before my Riku, and the changes I made, the data I gathered - some of it was from her, only she wasn't a success; I broke her, just close enough to be her, to know what was happening to her, but not close enough to be stable - and then she was gone and not even I remembered!"

His hands are shaking, a part of him notes distantly, a sign of extreme stress, fear or anger. Or maybe all three. He doesn't know. The part that watches is standing in the middle of a hurricane made of the rest of him, and it's going too fast to see what it's made of - like an electron.

The fact that Xion is a Replica is, to be quite honest, news to Aeleus. Still, the fact that he had been unaware of said fact until just now is of less important than Even's emotional crisis, and so he places a gentle and hopefully steadying hand on Even's shoulder. Regardless of how the situation may end up after this point, there is still on person who can be relied upon to be at least fairly emotionally stable.

"Take a deep breath, Even. Everything will be alright, I promise. Now, who was some of the data from?"

There are, after all, an awful lot of 'her's that could be applicable in this situation, and Aeleus would much prefer to have an accurate assessment of the situation and all the assorted variables beforehand.

The breath Even draws in can only be described as 'deep' in contrast to the breaths preceding (and following) it. "From her! From Xion! I made her, she was the prototype, and then I forgot her and died and didn't fix her!" Not necessarily in that order.

Aeleus's hand on his shoulder is more comforting than Even would care to admit, in general. The contact is familiar. It's good that something is. "And it matters," he adds, getting to the heart of it, "it matters and I don't know why!"

"It may be tied to having forgotten?" Aeleus answers after a moment, although his hand stays right where it is. He suspects Even would snatch it back, otherwise. "Or perhaps it's that you consider it a personal failing to not have realized that she was a Replica in the first place. Either way, it certainly seems as if you care for one reason or another."

There's a moment of silence, and then he speaks up again, since not being able to fix her before seems to be another fact of significant importance.

"And you can fix her now, if she consents to it."

"Care? Nonsense. I can't -" But that's not true anymore, is it? He's not Vexen now. He can. Theoretically, it's possible. "I don't -" I don't care, he wants to assert. She's just a project. It means nothing. Only clearly it does mean something, and Aeleus is the one who knows about that kind of thing. "What do I do about it?

"I'm not sure I can," he says, jumping topics like the other is dangerous. "Not here, with barely any materials - I don't even have my notes, I don't know what I did, what I didn't do, what happened -"

Fortunately, Aeleus is saved the 'I'm pretty sure you do care' explanation by Even's own realization that neither of them are Nobodies, and are as such, no longer incapable of such things. Still, he's willing to jump topics if Even is so very afraid that the other will grow sharp claws and pull the new (and perhaps unwanted) emotion. They'll need to come back to it sooner or later, but for Even's sake, Aeleus is willing to put it off for the time being.

"Have you tried asking her what she knows about her creation? You may not have the original notes, but you have her, and you theoretically still have anything that may have come from the creation of the more successful Replica. Working backwards may not be the easiest, but I'm certain it wouldn't post too many problems to a man of your brilliance."

"I don't have the equipment, if I could, if she would let me - and it's not as though my success record is particularly attractive where she's concerned." He's been trying, accumulating what items the Moogles are willing and able to acquire, but it takes so long, and he didn't expect this. He thought there would be time. And now - he doesn't know how long Xion lasted, once she began to degrade, but it can't have been long. There's no sign now, but that means nothing. He wouldn't have sent her out if he'd thought she was defective in the first place. She could be degrading now, as he stands here doing nothing. "If it's fixable at all after the fact, and not simply a fact of her existence at this point, which it could be, certain aspects are fixed as you recall, we proved that; she might be - broken, and nothing to be done about it, because I couldn't get this one thing right for once!"

Ever the patient one, Aeleus is perfectly content to wait until Even has gotten all his words out. He doesn't have anywhere more pressing to be right now, and it's fairly clear that Even isn't thinking well enough to structure his thoughts into anything coherent, and Aeleus most certainly doesn't want to miss anything. Not that he addresses the question of Xion at first. Right now it seems like it's the lack of equipment that the most important and thus, the matter that needs the most immediate attention.

"Even," he begins in a calm, steady tone that is meant both to demand attention and forestall the breakdown he can see looming on the horizon. "Can you remind me what both glass and iron are comprised of at the most basic level?"

Hopefully the question will provide enough of a distraction to get Even actually thinking, but if not he's glad enough to provide the answer as well. (It may be true that glass and metal bend to his will less easily then stone, but that doesn't mean he can't work with them.)

Even answers automatically. "They're both metals - well, if you count the metalloids, obviously. What are you getting at?"

He's wringing his hands, thin fingers twisting around each other for lack of anything else to do. He doesn't know how to deal with this, how to process anything but the most basic drive to fix this somehow. Everything else is...too much, too overwhelming.

Even's answer isn't quite what Aeleus was looking for, but under the circumstances, he supposes he can forgive Even for not making the jump that he'd been sort of hoping Even would make.

"Both sand and the metals belong primarily to the earth," he answers, as patiently as ever. "As such, all you should be required to do is manage to find the raw materials."

The rest will simply be communicating to Aeleus what he wants done with the various materials, but that should be easier than trying to find them in any sort of completed form, which is probably a step up from Even's current process.

Unfortunately, despite Aeleus's patience, Even is in no state to appreciate the offer.

He tries, it's true, but the wall of helplessness, for all he loathed it, was at least a wall, and its sudden disappearance leaves him nothing to lean on. Gratitude, a small flicker of hope - they're just more emotions added to the tangle he doesn't know where to start unknotting, demanding attention he doesn't know how to give.

It's frustration as much as anything else that drives the first harsh, ugly sob from his throat. It seems to have brought friends, and Even doesn't know how to stop any more than he knows anything in this strange awful world.

There's not much Aeleus can do about the tears. Nor is there anything he much wants to do about it - he knows very well that the best thing for Even to do will be to get all the crying over and done with. That way it'll at least be finished, as opposed to looming over Even's head like a great dark cloud.

The lack of a wall, on the other hand, he can do something about and he's at Even's side almost faster than a man of size should be capable of, offering a gentle hand on his shoulder. And if Even should feel the need to bury his face in Aeleus' chest, he won't mind too much. Getting damp will hardly hurt any of his clothes.

Even doesn't quite go so far as to bury his face in Aeleus's chest (not yet), but he does cling to his arms, like Aeleus is holding him up.

He feels, unromantically, like a cat with a hairball, like there's some obstruction buried in his chest that he's trying and failing to shake loose. But he can't; there's so much...

"I hate this," he chokes between sobs, and the hating doesn't help, doesn't make it easier to breathe, to speak. "I'm not a child - "

Fortunately, Aeleus is perfectly patient and makes for a surprisingly decent anchor as well. Actually dislodging the obstruction that has nested in Even's chest will take time yet, but this will at least loosen it up, or so Aeleus is certainly hoping.

And if not, he is quite content to be patient for as long as is necessary to get to the core of this.

"I never thought you were," Aeleus answers, calm and patient as ever. "But it's best to get it out."

"It's stupid," Even manages after a few more ragged breaths - and aren't there supposed to be actual tears, or something? His eyes don't seem to have gotten the message. "I don't - want - "

He doesn't want to care this much, doesn't want to feel like even Xion was only an excuse, like some part of him has been expecting...

"I should have expected," he says, achieving a coherent sentence by dint of pausing to take aim at the end of it beforehand, "that I couldn't run away from it forever."

Edited 2013-12-17 03:38 (UTC)

The presence of tears is not actually required. Or rather, Aeleus isn't going to insist that they be there. Bodies are strange things at the best of times, and with them only recently having gotten their emotions back it's not entirely unusual that things have yet to get back around to whatever passes as normal here.

"I don't think any of us could have," he answers, once it's clear that Even is done speaking. He may not be quite sure what it is that Even is speaking of, but not even he can run from the fact that they have emotions once again.

He's just a little better at burying his deep down, where they aren't nearly as immediate.

"What we - what I - did," Even elaborates. Trying to explain is incredibly frustrating, and he can't seem to line his thoughts up right, but it's better than standing here like a fool. "I thought - here - it was gone. Or like it was gone. No trace...but it's not, is it? And it's..." He makes a sudden convulsive gesture, meant to indicate how heavy it all is, how he's been afraid to so much as touch it, like a mountain balanced on its peak that might crash down at the slightest provocation.

"How do I make it stop?!"

"I'm not sure there is a way to make it stop," Aeleus answers after a long moment of silence. It's not how hearts work. He doesn't blame Even for wanting to go back to where things were easier, but if the choice is being complete or not, he'll take the former.

"There should, however, be ways to make it easier."

"Like what?" There's one way Even knows would make it stop - but he's not sure there are Heartless here, and then...well, if he'd liked being Vexen, he wouldn't be having this trouble now. (And that would upset Aeleus and thus not accomplish the goal of reducing the net surplus of unpleasant feelings.)

And now they come to the part that Aeleus is less than good with. Oh, he'll do his best, no doubt about that, but he's only managing to cope because he viciously smothers the worst of his own problems and that doesn't exactly make for a good coping strategy. Nor does it mean that he's anything remotely like someone who might be capable of offering suggestions.

"I'm afraid you may need to figure out the finer details on your own. But you needn't do it alone."

Advice based around emotions is, without exception, trite and pointless, Even concludes. If Aeleus can't come up with anything better than that, clearly it's a futile enterprise in general. But...it works, somehow. Not being alone in this is...helpful. (That's probably selfish, but Even doesn't care.)

"This is stupid," he says thickly, starting to get himself under something like control. "And I hate everything."

It often is. That's why Aeleus doesn't mean to offer any. He knows better than to offer something trite and pointless to Even of all people, especially when he has his own problems to deal with (on his own time, of course, and certainly not when Even is relying on him to help figure things out.)

"I'm afraid so," he answers, doing his best to sound relatively apologetic about the whole affair.

Even doesn't feel the need for Aeleus's apologies; after all, it's certainly not his idea to have emotions be so...emotional!

He's starting to calm down - the crying-or-something-like-it apparently was good for something - and with the relative calm comes hot humiliation at having broken down so completely. At least it's only Aeleus who saw him, but still.

"This - this didn't happen," he states in defiance of the facts, drawing himself up like that's the secret to dignity.

It might not be Even's idea, but it how life works at the best of times. Besides emotions are emotional. It's part of how they work, after all.

Still, Even is calmer now, so Aeleus is going to take that as a good enough place to start, under the circumstances.

"Of course," he answers, without batting an eye. If Even doesn't want to have it spoken of, then it won't be. It's a simple as that, and it's not like it's a thing he can imagine needing to share, either.

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But the architects only drew blanks

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