"Yes." He understands. "There's - no point. Not just no point in trying to fight, but in taking any action. Because nothing happens. Over and over." He squeezes Jedao's hand. "You try to move your hand but it doesn't work. Try to resist and it's just worse. So. Nothing. And then someplace else, they say there is a point, and I know it's true. And I can move my hand. So I should."
"No one breaks conditioning in the moment," Jedao tells him. "Echo damage doesn't happen in the logical part of the brain. But now you've got some mixed messages on the visceral level. You have to live with that -"
And if Nico thinks he deserves to suffer for his failure, well, the toll is miserable. Let that be it.
"- but it's also an opportunity. If you want to work on reducing your freeze response in the future, there are ways to do that."
"It's easier for me. Should be easier, to use logic. Our brains... regrow stuff. Reroute. They did lots of tests, and I could still think, even after them. Remember stuff. Pick up languages. Unnatural abilities, not dangerous but still inhumane." The last is a quote, but he'd spent years hearing it, with variations. Most of the time, he can hold on to refusing to think it's anything bad.
"The response... might be safer to keep it. They're not going to be any happier with us, at people who fight. It's sensible to be paranoid, because it's true."
"I don't think that necessarily follows. Children's brains are far more flexible than an adult's, especially for learning new languages. But you still can't teach a child to speak with - I don't know, just vocabulary flashcards. Even if they can pattern-match between script and image perfectly, they couldn't speak the language unless they heard it used in conversation. Just because it's easier for you to learn new things doesn't mean every method will be effective at inculcating every kind of knowledge."
He massages Nico's hand half absent-mindedly, the way he sometimes does for Fives after a long session of dueling practice, digging gently into the palm, working down the fingers. Partly just to have something to do, partly to give Nico a constant source of shifting sensory input that isn't just his pain.
"I think...it would be safer, in the long run, and less demoralizing for you, to have more ability in the moment to chose. To use your strengths, and be logical based on the situation. To be able to be still without being frozen. I think that's achievable for you. If you don't want to work on that - or don't want to work on it yet, or with me, I won't be angry, or disappointed, or anything. I'm certainly not an expert."
But on the other hand, he's not an expert. He's not a doctor. Jedao knows as well as anyone that an amateur can be less threatening.
"Recalibrating your brain is a big deal, and it's yours to decide what you want to work for and how and when. There's responses I'm still not ready to deal with, that I might never be. And you probably shouldn't make that decision while you're recovering anyway. But I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't give you the option."
Nico listens, even as his eyes close again. He always listens, but he's well aware that some people's words have more weight than others, for logical reasons and not. Even when Jedao says things he doesn't know how to believe, they mean something. It means even more that he's here - though he's not sure that feeling is entirely his, not as mixed up as everything feels at the moment.
"I can see the threads that tie up my decisions, too." As well as he can see anyone else. "The reactions that seem reasonable from past experiences. Fear. Being able to process information before knowing it. If I don't learn how to do something, being able to hold onto the possibility that it could've changed anything. Knowing when that's true or not. After... Maybe someday." Not an evasion, this time, but it's an option he'll save to think more on when he can think more clearly.
"It hurts. Don't leave?" Something he knows Jedao can't change and a request he suspects is jumbled up with remembering another's feelings, but he desperately doesn't want to be alone. He can feel the edge of sleep, the half-rest distorted by pain he remembers so well, and, alone, he's not sure he'll be able to hold onto any reality.
Jedao leans over, presses a soft kiss into Nico's hair. Good boy, he thinks, for thinking about it, for not pushing himself too much. But he doesn't say it, too scared it would only sent Nico down a new spiral of denial and imposter syndrome.
"I won't leave," he promises. "I'll be right here. Would you rather have quiet, or my voice reading something for background?"
He struggles a moment, but, "Reading? If you don't mind...?" Sounds can too easily transform into something else, on the edge of consciousness. He remembers being sick, listening to a story. A good memory, one that had never happened. He pats vaguely at a pocket, remembering.
"Missy." He should check to make sure she's okay. He can't forget.
"Missy found Scott," Jedao tells him, since he's had more than time to keep up with ongoing public announcements. "She was unhurt when she reported it to the network. She's aware that Flood's the one making trouble, and whatever she decides to do, she won't get taken by surprise. Do you still want to talk to her before you rest?"
Nico might; it's a turbulent moment. Jedao isn't pushing him to wait, only giving him all the information he has.
Nico breathes out some of his sudden tension. She has the information, her choices will be informed ones. That's the important thing. His death isn't an important factor, he can tell her later. When he can think more clearly.
"Alright." He squeezes Nico's hand again. "There's also water if you're thirsty, I should have said that at the beginning - not cold anymore, but it's there."
He has enough awareness not to shake his head. "I'll drink - later." He's pretty sure he'd be sick if he tried to move, and his chest burns at the thought.
He can't fully fall asleep, despite the exhaustion, but he can drift along the edge; occasionally snapping half-way alert when he's dragged into old memories, before being grounded in the present again.
He's got a book Quentin recommended to him, already most of the way through thanks to the long vigil. He finishes it and starts over from the beginning, sips a little of the water himself when his voice goes scratchy. But he doesn't leave, and he doesn't stop.
"You're here." He blinks, sorting through slightly less confused senses. Not an auditory hallucination, good, that would be... troubling.
"Your cabin." That makes sense too, it fits. He coughs, biting his lip to push away the nausea that comes with the movement. Very slowly, he reaches up to feel a clump of hair with his fingers. His head hurts, but - "Already dead." He's pretty sure if he'd been alive when shot in the head, it would hurt a lot more.
"Yes, just before. We were....wizards." Jedao manages to keep most of his nonplussedness out of his voice. It's not distaste, just a complete disjunction of worlds.
"Magic doesn't make sense." It gives him a vague headache to think about, outside a world where it all had made sense. And his head hurts enough as it is.
He's quiet for a bit, not asleep, but lying still apart from his shallow breathing.
"I had a few families. Before." There's always only one 'before', for him, the demarcation of his new life. "It wasn't always - good." In some cases, more of an understatement than others. He's sure it's not shocking, probably not even surprising. But he hasn't said it, before.
Not shocking, no. And Jedao was an even worse father this breach than last, and now, here -
"If you don't want me to use those terms, then I won't," he says finally, with a certain circumspect deliberation. Nico is observant enough to know that he'll think of them anyway, that the obverse of the statement is that he entirely considers Nico his family.
Nico generally reacts to the comments of family like he does anything else that suggests someone cares, mainly by appearing not to hear them. In a guilty way, it's easier to talk about now with the memories of the confused hurt and suppressed edge of resentment from the breach.
He makes a slight twitch, which could be a shake of his head. "The words... t's not a problem. But I don't know what they mean." He has memories and plenty of example, but still nothing that makes him feel like he understands.
"When you asked me whether some people are good, we mentioned resemblance clusters," he murmurs, although with far less academic enthusiasm than he did then.
"I think the words can mean very different things for different people. For me, when I say it..."
He rubs his thumb over Nico's knuckles, breathing slowly.
"I suppose I mean people I'm...more attached to than I can explain. More than I can logically understand. In ways that will always stay with me. My sister died almost four hundred years ago, and it still hurts to think about her. It still - comforts me, more than any ordinary object should be able to, that the barge gave me back a deck of cards she once gave me as a present.
"When I say it to you - you make me want to do stupid, emotional things, you make me want to tear anyone who hurts you into little pieces and feed them to the barge cats, even though it wouldn't do anyone any good at all. I won't, but I want to. I want to keep you with me forever, because I know if I live another four hundred parts, part of me will remember you with that same raw ache that never fades. I'm so fucking proud of you, and it doesn't matter what you do or where you go, because you're my son, my brilliant brave somber boy, and that means you're perfect, even when I know people aren't perfect, that's crazy."
He breathes.
"After the last breach, when part of you wanted me to hold you even after you felt like you knew that you didn't deserve it - I know there isn't very much space for irrationality with you, and also that you always deserve what you want, but maybe that's a thing it could mean for you. Maybe not. But I think that's....something close to how a lot of people use it. Bonds bigger than sense. And you use the word 'family' whether it's blood or not, because the feature being described is that it's hard to explain. I'm sorry if that's....worse."
Nico's breathing is only a little uneven as he listens. He's since glimpses of four different lives, now, and he never discards resources, even when they hurt. There are words, somewhere. There's stuff he'd known how to say as a werewolf and ideas he'd understood without thinking as a wizard. They're not his, he can't use them for - this, but he thinks that remembering might help. At least a little. At least it lets him understand why he wants to speak.
"The world isn't real, doesn't feel real. I don't mean solid stuff, or not knowing what's there and where I am -" Most of the time he doesn't mean that, anyway, even if sometimes he loses track of his belief in any sort of reality, lost in pain or just the dark of the night when it can be hard to believe in anything... But that's not his point. He knows that, even if he's trying to figure out how to articulate his point as he goes. "But that's only part of the world, the big part is shared between people. They define what things mean and that makes them real, but when it falls apart and you can see from the outside, it's all just threads and it can be ripped apart and remade so easily and there's nothing -" He takes a breath, trying to match it to Jedao's, he remembers all Cate's lessons.
"Rational and irrational... I know it's just a type of control. But even if it's not much control... A good day means I can hold onto that much of an illusion of a reality where words mean anything, because otherwise there's nothing." It's the peace he can find in getting lost in code or playing a game, a small slice of reality that he doesn't have to maintain alone.
"Most of the patterns I see are - real enough. Even when people say they're crazy, it's just because they don't want to believe that it's real. So it's easier to say I'm wrong. When they're right, that's when I will be crazy. Seeing patterns that aren't there, getting lost..." He's seen what that looks like. "Emotions are... hard. Because people do stuff just because of a feeling. Because I can want things that aren't true. Because they draw connections between feelings and what happens to people that aren't true - logically. But they die and it feels real." He knows he's rambling, he doesn't know if it makes any sense outside his head (he doesn't know if it makes sense inside his head), but he still has to try. Wants to try.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 06:48 pm (UTC)And if Nico thinks he deserves to suffer for his failure, well, the toll is miserable. Let that be it.
"- but it's also an opportunity. If you want to work on reducing your freeze response in the future, there are ways to do that."
no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 07:03 pm (UTC)"The response... might be safer to keep it. They're not going to be any happier with us, at people who fight. It's sensible to be paranoid, because it's true."
no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 07:34 pm (UTC)"I don't think that necessarily follows. Children's brains are far more flexible than an adult's, especially for learning new languages. But you still can't teach a child to speak with - I don't know, just vocabulary flashcards. Even if they can pattern-match between script and image perfectly, they couldn't speak the language unless they heard it used in conversation. Just because it's easier for you to learn new things doesn't mean every method will be effective at inculcating every kind of knowledge."
He massages Nico's hand half absent-mindedly, the way he sometimes does for Fives after a long session of dueling practice, digging gently into the palm, working down the fingers. Partly just to have something to do, partly to give Nico a constant source of shifting sensory input that isn't just his pain.
"I think...it would be safer, in the long run, and less demoralizing for you, to have more ability in the moment to chose. To use your strengths, and be logical based on the situation. To be able to be still without being frozen. I think that's achievable for you. If you don't want to work on that - or don't want to work on it yet, or with me, I won't be angry, or disappointed, or anything. I'm certainly not an expert."
But on the other hand, he's not an expert. He's not a doctor. Jedao knows as well as anyone that an amateur can be less threatening.
"Recalibrating your brain is a big deal, and it's yours to decide what you want to work for and how and when. There's responses I'm still not ready to deal with, that I might never be. And you probably shouldn't make that decision while you're recovering anyway. But I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't give you the option."
no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 08:34 pm (UTC)"I can see the threads that tie up my decisions, too." As well as he can see anyone else. "The reactions that seem reasonable from past experiences. Fear. Being able to process information before knowing it. If I don't learn how to do something, being able to hold onto the possibility that it could've changed anything. Knowing when that's true or not. After... Maybe someday." Not an evasion, this time, but it's an option he'll save to think more on when he can think more clearly.
"It hurts. Don't leave?" Something he knows Jedao can't change and a request he suspects is jumbled up with remembering another's feelings, but he desperately doesn't want to be alone. He can feel the edge of sleep, the half-rest distorted by pain he remembers so well, and, alone, he's not sure he'll be able to hold onto any reality.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 08:57 pm (UTC)"I won't leave," he promises. "I'll be right here. Would you rather have quiet, or my voice reading something for background?"
no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 09:05 pm (UTC)"Missy." He should check to make sure she's okay. He can't forget.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 09:20 pm (UTC)Nico might; it's a turbulent moment. Jedao isn't pushing him to wait, only giving him all the information he has.
"Or I could check in with her, or remind you."
no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 09:24 pm (UTC)"I'll remember. Thank you."
no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 09:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 09:57 pm (UTC)He can't fully fall asleep, despite the exhaustion, but he can drift along the edge; occasionally snapping half-way alert when he's dragged into old memories, before being grounded in the present again.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-25 10:02 pm (UTC)He's got a book Quentin recommended to him, already most of the way through thanks to the long vigil. He finishes it and starts over from the beginning, sips a little of the water himself when his voice goes scratchy. But he doesn't leave, and he doesn't stop.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-26 02:55 pm (UTC)"...Where am I?"
no subject
Date: 2018-07-26 05:28 pm (UTC)"You're in my cabin, on the barge. I'm real."
no subject
Date: 2018-07-26 05:43 pm (UTC)"Your cabin." That makes sense too, it fits. He coughs, biting his lip to push away the nausea that comes with the movement. Very slowly, he reaches up to feel a clump of hair with his fingers. His head hurts, but - "Already dead." He's pretty sure if he'd been alive when shot in the head, it would hurt a lot more.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-26 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-07-26 06:28 pm (UTC)"Anything happen?"
no subject
Date: 2018-07-26 07:16 pm (UTC)Jedao doesn't know what's going to be done with him. He doesn't want to care.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-26 07:32 pm (UTC)He hesitates a few moments, as more memories settle into place. They don't feel right, patches of floating unreality that he can't pin down.
"...Was there a breach?"
no subject
Date: 2018-07-26 07:35 pm (UTC)Except.
"We were family there, too."
no subject
Date: 2018-07-27 04:24 pm (UTC)He's quiet for a bit, not asleep, but lying still apart from his shallow breathing.
"I had a few families. Before." There's always only one 'before', for him, the demarcation of his new life. "It wasn't always - good." In some cases, more of an understatement than others. He's sure it's not shocking, probably not even surprising. But he hasn't said it, before.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-27 06:18 pm (UTC)"If you don't want me to use those terms, then I won't," he says finally, with a certain circumspect deliberation. Nico is observant enough to know that he'll think of them anyway, that the obverse of the statement is that he entirely considers Nico his family.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-27 06:25 pm (UTC)He makes a slight twitch, which could be a shake of his head. "The words... t's not a problem. But I don't know what they mean." He has memories and plenty of example, but still nothing that makes him feel like he understands.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-01 09:35 am (UTC)"I think the words can mean very different things for different people. For me, when I say it..."
He rubs his thumb over Nico's knuckles, breathing slowly.
"I suppose I mean people I'm...more attached to than I can explain. More than I can logically understand. In ways that will always stay with me. My sister died almost four hundred years ago, and it still hurts to think about her. It still - comforts me, more than any ordinary object should be able to, that the barge gave me back a deck of cards she once gave me as a present.
"When I say it to you - you make me want to do stupid, emotional things, you make me want to tear anyone who hurts you into little pieces and feed them to the barge cats, even though it wouldn't do anyone any good at all. I won't, but I want to. I want to keep you with me forever, because I know if I live another four hundred parts, part of me will remember you with that same raw ache that never fades. I'm so fucking proud of you, and it doesn't matter what you do or where you go, because you're my son, my brilliant brave somber boy, and that means you're perfect, even when I know people aren't perfect, that's crazy."
He breathes.
"After the last breach, when part of you wanted me to hold you even after you felt like you knew that you didn't deserve it - I know there isn't very much space for irrationality with you, and also that you always deserve what you want, but maybe that's a thing it could mean for you. Maybe not. But I think that's....something close to how a lot of people use it. Bonds bigger than sense. And you use the word 'family' whether it's blood or not, because the feature being described is that it's hard to explain. I'm sorry if that's....worse."
no subject
Date: 2018-08-02 11:08 pm (UTC)"The world isn't real, doesn't feel real. I don't mean solid stuff, or not knowing what's there and where I am -" Most of the time he doesn't mean that, anyway, even if sometimes he loses track of his belief in any sort of reality, lost in pain or just the dark of the night when it can be hard to believe in anything... But that's not his point. He knows that, even if he's trying to figure out how to articulate his point as he goes. "But that's only part of the world, the big part is shared between people. They define what things mean and that makes them real, but when it falls apart and you can see from the outside, it's all just threads and it can be ripped apart and remade so easily and there's nothing -" He takes a breath, trying to match it to Jedao's, he remembers all Cate's lessons.
"Rational and irrational... I know it's just a type of control. But even if it's not much control... A good day means I can hold onto that much of an illusion of a reality where words mean anything, because otherwise there's nothing." It's the peace he can find in getting lost in code or playing a game, a small slice of reality that he doesn't have to maintain alone.
"Most of the patterns I see are - real enough. Even when people say they're crazy, it's just because they don't want to believe that it's real. So it's easier to say I'm wrong. When they're right, that's when I will be crazy. Seeing patterns that aren't there, getting lost..." He's seen what that looks like. "Emotions are... hard. Because people do stuff just because of a feeling. Because I can want things that aren't true. Because they draw connections between feelings and what happens to people that aren't true - logically. But they die and it feels real." He knows he's rambling, he doesn't know if it makes any sense outside his head (he doesn't know if it makes sense inside his head), but he still has to try. Wants to try.
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