[ Not a thing? That caught her off guard. She'd expected something—a fragment, a flicker, at least the edges of it clinging somewhere in his memory. But nothing?
Sharon paused, turning the encounter over in her mind. The memory slipped involuntarily through that connection between them, just a flicker of it: a massive, beast of a man, tearing through grilled fish in a single bite, like it was nothing at all. ]
Vander, it wasn't... [ Its creation is worse than how it acts? ] You looked scarier than you were. [ Warwick had been intimidating at first, but he wasn't so far gone as only to be a monster. He wasn't just a thing driven by hunger and instinct as she'd feared. ] You were still in there. You even gave me some good advice.
[From his end, there was a shying from the images of the encounter. It was the first time he had seen himself like that, and it was as jarring as it was horrifying. To think that he had become that beast on a flippant dismiss of his corpse (or mostly dead body)... there was a well of despondent despair.
He withdrew from the connection to exist on the edge of it. This was what Jinx and Viktor saw when they looked at him, was it?]
Did I? Glad that it was a worthwhile discussion.
[That was what Silco had always seen, huh? A monster. At least he had a face for the dark boiling anger that existed in him.
A warm tendril of pain leaked into the link. He quietly nursed it unspoken]
[ Vander pulled away from the connection at the imagery, and she felt the sharp curl of guilt—that wasn't what she'd been going for. Good job, Sharon. ]
I know it's... [ She falters, suddenly uncertain. ] I know what it's like to see a part of yourself you don't like—or even remember. Someone others might see as a monster.
[For now, he remained distant in the connection, playing over what she had shown him as if he could study and dissect all those changes. Aside from between the eyes, there wasn't much left of his original frame; even those eyes weren't his anymore, replaced from... something.]
Ah, you've been turned into a bloodthirsty murderous monster by someone donating your corpse to science too? [That's what he was now. Though, somehow, he wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't all that unique in this place provided the odd amount of personal suffering people endured.
For her part, though she wasn't aware of it, she had finally forced him to acknowledge that he and the beast were on a collision course with each other, two separate lives merging at the edges for now.]
[ His body, given over, reshaped into something unrecognizable after death. No choice in the matter—he'd had that stolen from him. The thought of it turned her stomach, a wave of horror breaking over her, tangled with a quieter, more distant grief. Not something she's lived through, not in that way—but still... ]
No, Vander. [ She breathed out, the words heavy with sympathy that carried cleanly through their connection—threaded with something older. ] I was turned into a bloodthirsty, murderous monster by my own family when they decided to burn me alive for religious purposes. [ The memory still lived in her. It didn't fade, no matter how she'd tried. It sat in her chest like the fires never went out, like the heat was still there, waiting to catch. ]
I know it's not the same, but I... I do understand. At least a little. I used to see what I became in nightmares, thought it was just that. Just something my mind made up. [ A quiet, shaky breath followed. ] It wasn't.
[ And in the end, there was no separating from it. She hadn't defeated the monster. She'd had to accept it—had to let it in, even while it fought her every step of the way. Because, at the end of the day, her darkness was always meant to be a a part of her. ]
[There was a brief sense of familiarity to the pain that she had endured that family had betrayed her in such a way, that she had been forced to fight back. Burning alive was the most painful way to die; screams like that never faded from memory...]
I don't understand. Was the monster what became of you after the burning, or the monster was always there and emerged due to the burning? [It was easier to focus on her, on the pain that she had suffered, to step back from his own pain so that he could push it down and ignore it until he could be alone and work his way through the traumas that he had seen today, experienced before, remembered more and more.]
It's what I became. They burned me, and something in me gave way, like-like my soul fractured, and I became... something else. Just a body full of rage, and hatred, and pain. [ Alessa's body never healed. It never would. Years—decades—spent confined to a hospital bed, sustained by machines she learned to control, in a world that was as broken as she was. ]
I could be. [ The admission was quiet, but certain. ] I know exactly how to hurt people, especially the ones who hurt me. [ A thoughtful pause. ] But most of the time? I'm not. The monster I could've been is held in check by the one I chose not to become. The anger and the hate is still there. And the pain... you don't forget that. But I'm more than it now.
[There was a sense of sympathy for her, and a part of him that he could not explain ached with a sense of familiarity. It was unjust to do that to someone regardless of what anyone believed they deserved or was for a proclaimed greater good.] I'm sorry you were forced to endure that kind of pain externally and internally. You deserved better, so perhaps it is a small blessing in disguise that you came here.
[He listened, considering her admittances. Wasn't that the way of most of them? Knowing how to hurt those that hurt them once they focused enough.] Sometimes we aren't given a choice of the monster we become; it's forced on us by those we thought we could trust.
[He was quiet, distant in the Murmur for a time.] No. But... there's still time, I suppose.
Don't be. I'm who I am now because of what I've survived. [ Without it, Sharon never would have existed. It was tangled, messy in a way that was difficult to explain, but it's honest. She knew she'd deserved better—they both did—but she didn't know if she could accept any blessing here, not yet. Not while she struggled with Chris's death.
A flicker of agreement moved through the connection. She knew. And now trust was a difficult beast, one only made marginally easier by the tethers. At least, for her. She imagined Vander would need more time. He's only had a couple of months to adjust.
It doesn't come as a shock that Vander didn't agree. Before the merge, she'd seen Alessa as something monstrous—why would Vander see that otherside of himself any differently? He was disconnected from it. ] You'll get there. [ The conviction in her voice didn't waver. ]
Aye, but I think I can imagine how you may have been without that suffering that you endured. [It was pointless though, wasn't it? They had all suffered. Sharon, Jinx, Vi, him, Silco... they had all become the monsters they had to be in order to survive for better or worse. It made them who they were, and the fallout remained a stain on them all.] Suffering builds character I was told. [The Doctor.]
With Silco here, Vander had not allowed himself to tether easily to others. It was to protect them from what might come to pass. If he failed those he wanted to be close to again, it would completely destroy him. They didn't deserve the baggage that he carried either, hidden under a logical and friendly exterior.]
Maybe. Or maybe it will swallow me again, and it won't matter who I was. [That was a possibility, though his impressions of the beast were hazy at best.]
[ That caught her off guard. ] Can you? Because I can't. [ She couldn't even begin to picture who she might've been without it all. She'd been nine, both times, just starting to figure herself out before everything got ripped away. What grew in its place hadn't felt like a choice, just what was left. ] Maybe it shapes you, but that doesn't make it better. Nothing can.
[ Suffering might build character, people loved to say that, but when it cut this deep, when it left wounds that never really closed, whatever it built felt small. Insignificant. Not a single piece of it made the pain worth it.
She sighed, worn. There was every chance the beast could swallow him whole, and she'd have to be stupid to assume that part of him mirrored anything Alessa had been to her. Still... ]
You're two sides of the same coin, Vander. [ Her voice steadied, even if the thought behind it didn't soften. ] It'll hurt, embracing that. But I think you'll come out better for it if you can. [ Whether he wanted it or not, it was already part of him. ]
That's because you're shaped and clouded by the terrible things that happened to you. I know you just well enough to see what could have been, I suppose. [Of course, he could be completely off base with that, but he liked to think that he was a good judge of character. He saw the way she teased and trolled, and while that was likely shaped by those same experiences, there was a joy to it that should have been cultivated and nurtured when she was young. Just like his girls.] Pain is the great memory maker; it's a deeply engrained survival mechanism. Shape is just another term on the same vein.
[Now that he was aware of the beast, what it looked like, even how it somewhat acted, Vander couldn't put that awareness out of his mind. It lurked at the edges of his consciousness as more than a dark shape or occasional presence. Now it was so real, so threatening, so tangible that it took on a whole new level within him.
Like discovering the proverbial monster under the bed was real, and it was just a matter of time before he'd be dragged under and consumed.]
Is that what you saw? Just me wrapped in more muscle and hair? [He rubbed his face with the heel of his hand, shaking his head. If he lost himself, would there be anything left? Could Viktor fish him out again?] It would reduce complications if I was absorbed back into it...
[ He could see what might have been. She wished she could, too. The only thing she felt certain of was that she'd have been much, much shyer. Beyond that, it was like staring into a fogged mirror, trying to make out the shape of her own face through the blur. ]
That is what I saw, but... [ She faltered. Then, a sharp, sudden alarm spiked through the connection. ] No—no, Vander, that isn't what I meant! I'm—I'm talking about... [ A small, frustrated sound slipped from her. ] When I merged with my darkness, I thought it was going to be one or the other. That maybe I'd stop existing as myself. But it wasn't. I'm still me, but I'm more.
It was like opening doors in my mind I didn't even know were there. I don't see why it couldn't be the same for you. The beast is just a part of you, split off by a wall and a door—a door you can open. You could still be yourself, but more.
[He had the benefit of having raised daughters, seeing them as they were and what the harshness of the world had changed them. Everyone grew up, filled the space that they were meant to, but they could and would be shaped by experience. Perhaps he was off-base. Who know.
Instinctively he drew back on the Murmur, once again existing on the edge of it yet still engaging from there. He was protecting her as much as himself.] The darkness inside of me is mine, and I own that. Losing control of it gained me plenty and lost me more. [That was purely him, the monster he had leashed for a long time.
The beast was and wasn't him. They merged along the fault lines of one another's lives, united in the agony of their creation. He didn't know how; he didn't know why; he didn't even know when. The information was there, but his brain froze out questing for it. Those memories were...]
And what if it isn't the same? I was never meant to live. There is something tragic about existing like that, though... aside from the obvious, I don't know what that is.
[ Vander was right—it had all been him. The darkness, the beast. Death had changed something in him, though, carved into him alongside the experimentation and the loss. And when the question slipped from his lips, Sharon recoiled just slightly, turning it over, worrying at it as she considered it. ]
I don't know, Vander, but... you're here right now, thinking and speaking to me. You were in the dream, too. I don't think it's an either-or situation—not here.
[His instinct, as always, was to comfort, to draw Sharon back in a protective gesture. He did reach along the Murmur between them for that purpose but withdrew again soon after. He didn't want to risk hurting her or causing pain.]
Who knows. I can't say I understand what's happening to me one way or another. [He was trapped between two modes of existence, yet he now knew the mercurial other.]
I suppose I should be satisfied with whatever time I have left.
You might not know what's happening to you, but you're not... [ This wasn't her place, but... ] You don't have to go through it alone. You don't have to figure it out alone.
[He did, in a sense. The problem was the building paranoia and the fear of losing control, of hurting anyone he cared about. He'd done it before, and he had spent years after grappling control, only to realize here it was for naught.
People were in danger because of this, the duality of who and what he was.]
Just keep your friends safe, yeah? That's what matters to me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2026-04-09 02:22 am (UTC)It wasn't your good vibes—it was what you said in the dream, when you were... different.
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Date: 2026-04-09 05:19 am (UTC)[He hummed again then sighed.]
I don't remember any of that. I don't remember being that beast, though I've been assured its creation is worse than how it acts.
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Date: 2026-04-10 03:26 am (UTC)Sharon paused, turning the encounter over in her mind. The memory slipped involuntarily through that connection between them, just a flicker of it: a massive, beast of a man, tearing through grilled fish in a single bite, like it was nothing at all. ]
Vander, it wasn't... [ Its creation is worse than how it acts? ] You looked scarier than you were. [ Warwick had been intimidating at first, but he wasn't so far gone as only to be a monster. He wasn't just a thing driven by hunger and instinct as she'd feared. ] You were still in there. You even gave me some good advice.
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Date: 2026-04-10 07:01 pm (UTC)He withdrew from the connection to exist on the edge of it. This was what Jinx and Viktor saw when they looked at him, was it?]
Did I? Glad that it was a worthwhile discussion.
[That was what Silco had always seen, huh? A monster. At least he had a face for the dark boiling anger that existed in him.
A warm tendril of pain leaked into the link. He quietly nursed it unspoken]
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Date: 2026-04-13 11:08 pm (UTC)I know it's... [ She falters, suddenly uncertain. ] I know what it's like to see a part of yourself you don't like—or even remember. Someone others might see as a monster.
He wasn't one.
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Date: 2026-04-13 11:59 pm (UTC)Ah, you've been turned into a bloodthirsty murderous monster by someone donating your corpse to science too? [That's what he was now. Though, somehow, he wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't all that unique in this place provided the odd amount of personal suffering people endured.
For her part, though she wasn't aware of it, she had finally forced him to acknowledge that he and the beast were on a collision course with each other, two separate lives merging at the edges for now.]
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Date: 2026-04-14 01:16 am (UTC)No, Vander. [ She breathed out, the words heavy with sympathy that carried cleanly through their connection—threaded with something older. ] I was turned into a bloodthirsty, murderous monster by my own family when they decided to burn me alive for religious purposes. [ The memory still lived in her. It didn't fade, no matter how she'd tried. It sat in her chest like the fires never went out, like the heat was still there, waiting to catch. ]
I know it's not the same, but I... I do understand. At least a little. I used to see what I became in nightmares, thought it was just that. Just something my mind made up. [ A quiet, shaky breath followed. ] It wasn't.
[ And in the end, there was no separating from it. She hadn't defeated the monster. She'd had to accept it—had to let it in, even while it fought her every step of the way. Because, at the end of the day, her darkness was always meant to be a a part of her. ]
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Date: 2026-04-14 03:45 am (UTC)I don't understand. Was the monster what became of you after the burning, or the monster was always there and emerged due to the burning? [It was easier to focus on her, on the pain that she had suffered, to step back from his own pain so that he could push it down and ignore it until he could be alone and work his way through the traumas that he had seen today, experienced before, remembered more and more.]
Do you consider yourself dangerous?
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Date: 2026-04-17 02:08 am (UTC)I could be. [ The admission was quiet, but certain. ] I know exactly how to hurt people, especially the ones who hurt me. [ A thoughtful pause. ] But most of the time? I'm not. The monster I could've been is held in check by the one I chose not to become. The anger and the hate is still there. And the pain... you don't forget that. But I'm more than it now.
[ And then, certain: ] You are, too.
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Date: 2026-04-17 08:07 pm (UTC)[He listened, considering her admittances. Wasn't that the way of most of them? Knowing how to hurt those that hurt them once they focused enough.] Sometimes we aren't given a choice of the monster we become; it's forced on us by those we thought we could trust.
[He was quiet, distant in the Murmur for a time.] No. But... there's still time, I suppose.
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Date: 2026-04-19 06:17 pm (UTC)A flicker of agreement moved through the connection. She knew. And now trust was a difficult beast, one only made marginally easier by the tethers. At least, for her. She imagined Vander would need more time. He's only had a couple of months to adjust.
It doesn't come as a shock that Vander didn't agree. Before the merge, she'd seen Alessa as something monstrous—why would Vander see that otherside of himself any differently? He was disconnected from it. ] You'll get there. [ The conviction in her voice didn't waver. ]
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Date: 2026-04-20 02:31 am (UTC)With Silco here, Vander had not allowed himself to tether easily to others. It was to protect them from what might come to pass. If he failed those he wanted to be close to again, it would completely destroy him. They didn't deserve the baggage that he carried either, hidden under a logical and friendly exterior.]
Maybe. Or maybe it will swallow me again, and it won't matter who I was. [That was a possibility, though his impressions of the beast were hazy at best.]
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Date: 2026-04-23 11:23 pm (UTC)[ Suffering might build character, people loved to say that, but when it cut this deep, when it left wounds that never really closed, whatever it built felt small. Insignificant. Not a single piece of it made the pain worth it.
She sighed, worn. There was every chance the beast could swallow him whole, and she'd have to be stupid to assume that part of him mirrored anything Alessa had been to her. Still... ]
You're two sides of the same coin, Vander. [ Her voice steadied, even if the thought behind it didn't soften. ] It'll hurt, embracing that. But I think you'll come out better for it if you can. [ Whether he wanted it or not, it was already part of him. ]
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Date: 2026-04-25 06:23 pm (UTC)[Now that he was aware of the beast, what it looked like, even how it somewhat acted, Vander couldn't put that awareness out of his mind. It lurked at the edges of his consciousness as more than a dark shape or occasional presence. Now it was so real, so threatening, so tangible that it took on a whole new level within him.
Like discovering the proverbial monster under the bed was real, and it was just a matter of time before he'd be dragged under and consumed.]
Is that what you saw? Just me wrapped in more muscle and hair? [He rubbed his face with the heel of his hand, shaking his head. If he lost himself, would there be anything left? Could Viktor fish him out again?] It would reduce complications if I was absorbed back into it...
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Date: 2026-04-28 02:48 am (UTC)That is what I saw, but... [ She faltered. Then, a sharp, sudden alarm spiked through the connection. ] No—no, Vander, that isn't what I meant! I'm—I'm talking about... [ A small, frustrated sound slipped from her. ] When I merged with my darkness, I thought it was going to be one or the other. That maybe I'd stop existing as myself. But it wasn't. I'm still me, but I'm more.
It was like opening doors in my mind I didn't even know were there. I don't see why it couldn't be the same for you. The beast is just a part of you, split off by a wall and a door—a door you can open. You could still be yourself, but more.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-28 05:24 pm (UTC)Instinctively he drew back on the Murmur, once again existing on the edge of it yet still engaging from there. He was protecting her as much as himself.] The darkness inside of me is mine, and I own that. Losing control of it gained me plenty and lost me more. [That was purely him, the monster he had leashed for a long time.
The beast was and wasn't him. They merged along the fault lines of one another's lives, united in the agony of their creation. He didn't know how; he didn't know why; he didn't even know when. The information was there, but his brain froze out questing for it. Those memories were...]
And what if it isn't the same? I was never meant to live. There is something tragic about existing like that, though... aside from the obvious, I don't know what that is.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-29 12:22 am (UTC)I don't know, Vander, but... you're here right now, thinking and speaking to me. You were in the dream, too. I don't think it's an either-or situation—not here.
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Date: 2026-05-01 04:35 pm (UTC)Who knows. I can't say I understand what's happening to me one way or another. [He was trapped between two modes of existence, yet he now knew the mercurial other.]
I suppose I should be satisfied with whatever time I have left.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-01 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-02 05:11 pm (UTC)[He did, in a sense. The problem was the building paranoia and the fear of losing control, of hurting anyone he cared about. He'd done it before, and he had spent years after grappling control, only to realize here it was for naught.
People were in danger because of this, the duality of who and what he was.]
Just keep your friends safe, yeah? That's what matters to me.
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Date: 2026-05-04 01:26 am (UTC)[ and that meant she'd try to keep him safe, too. ]
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Date: 2026-05-04 05:54 pm (UTC)I appreciate the sediment, Sharon.
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Date: 2026-05-05 05:40 pm (UTC)Yep. [ A beat, and then: ] Bye, Vander.