returnjourneylogs | I know the breakdown. Everything is gonna shake now someday

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I know the breakdown. Everything is gonna shake now someday

Passengers: Alex and anyone else interested
Location: Inmate Bunks
Date: After the SIM
Summary: Alex is having a small nervous breakdown, on top of the physical effects of dying in the SIM.
Warnings: Language

Once Alex had gotten back to his bunk, he'd huddled in on himself. It hadn't been easy to get back. He'd had balance issues, couldn't grab properly, was confused, and felt nauseated. He remembered dying in the SIM--being slowly eaten alive by the plant-life and fungi.

Was that what the people he'd killed had experienced? That increasing loss of self, as he'd consumed them? Alex couldn't quite remember--or rather, he remembered too much. Hundreds of memories fought themselves for space in his head, to make themselves heard. It was overwhelming, drowning out his own voice and sense of 'who' he was.

Who was Alex Mercer anyways? He wasn't a real person after all, was he? With a groan, Alex tossed his communicator out the front of his bunk, and curled up under his blanket. There were multiple senses--multiple voices in his head--grateful that his shapeshifting was locked in one shape at the moment.

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Loki is leaned up against the wall near the door, keeping watch as best he can. Loki's as distracted by the muddled memories twisting through his mind as anyone else, but he's also aware enough to know that should any inmates lash out, he's well-equipped to take care of it. Assuming he doesn't forget how to use his magic after living the life of someone faking it...

Thankfully, Alex's entrance and subsequent chucking of his CommLink draw his attention well enough. Loki glances around to see if anyone else is a more pressing concern-- it's not as if Alex is throwing a fit or anything and he might need some time alone, after all. But there's no one else around, and something about the way Alex trudged in seemed especially dazed.

Going for polite, he knocks on the side of Alex's bunk before clearing his throat.

"Alex? Are you feeling alright?"

Considering there is just the bundle of blanket, and Alex curled up in fetal position, some would definitely consider that better than throwing a fit. As it is, it takes a few moments before there's an answer. "Alex is dead." Shakey voiced, pitch and tone changing. "What am I?" Almost like the voice, while still male, couldn't decide what it was supposed to sound like.

After some time-- it might be a couple of days, if Alex is paying attention to those sorts of things-- there is a gentle knock at the door of his bunk, and a quiet, concerned voice outside it.

"Alex? Are you okay? I haven't heard from you... I thought you were going to take the room next to mine this month, but you weren't there..."

Is he sleeping? It's hard to tell, peering through the glass of it. Grace is, at least, unwilling to try to open it without permission.

Time had lost a sense of meaning. Alex occasionally crept out to get water, but hadn't bothered with food. Easy enough to bring the water back and go back to hiding. This wasn't like 'him'.

But really, 'he' wasn't sure what 'he' was like so...

Still easier to curl up in a blanket cocoon. Ignore the thrown away communicator. Try and make sense of what was going on in the being's head.

"Grace." Acknowledged quietly, and the voice was at least stable. "You alright?" That was easier to ask and deal with, than the questions she posed to him.

[Gonna assume he's mildly more stable. Mildly...]

She's absolutely not, but she didn't drag herself out of her room to talk about herself. In point of fact, she only decided to Not Be Invisible for the purpose of checking on her inmates. Once the immediate pain of the experience faded, the importance of her mission here reared its head and reminded her of the only reason she hasn't thrown herself out of an airlock.

"I'm here," she replies, trying to sound more confident than she actually is, and failing. "Have you eaten?"

"No." It was sad flatly, and there had been a long moment of silence before Alex answered. He wasn't entirely sure why he even kept getting water except some survival instinct insisted. He didn't dare eat though--as 'eating' was caught up in his mind with 'consuming' and how horrible that really was. He'd killed people that way, for his own gain--even if it had been necessary in some ways.

The Simulation hadn't done anything except show Alex just how less he was than a human normally, and pretending to be human was pointless. He was a monster.

Well, that's concerning. Loki comes into a crouch, peering into the bunk but not coming any closer.

"You don't look dead to me." Well, no more than any other inmate. "You're likely having a little trouble remembering yourself after the simulation. But that will pass."

Time is likely all it will take, which makes Loki feel rather useless. "Do you need anything? Water? Food?"

"Alex is dead, all the same. Alex Mercer died in New York. Alex Mercer died here." He murmured. "I remember myself--what am I?" Out from the blanket cocoon looked two piercing-blue eyes.

"No, don't need anything. I shouldn't live. Not with what I've done."

Loki cocks his head. "If you're alive and have done things, I would think that means you're a person." He shrugs one shoulder, conceding, "Maybe not Alex, sure. But you're a person. A person who's been given a second chance to right the things you've done wrong."

He laces his fingers together, considering Alex's prone form. This sort of thing-- a loss of identity --is something he understands. But that may not be enough. He might have to call Claire in, depending on how this goes.

"Can you sit up? It's rather hard to talk to you when you're buried like that."

"Come with me, then, we'll get some food. We'll talk. I'd like to talk."

...Maybe not about her own experiences, but she doesn't need to tell him that right away. The worry in her voice is clear, but understated. More important is to get him out of his bed first. If he stays in there any longer, Grace suspects he might begin to pupate or something. Emerge in two months as some sort of beautiful butterfly.

God, that simulation really has scrambled her brains.

"...Or at least we could get you a shower? It'll help more than you think."

"Maybe I don't deserve a second chance. Thought I could be better, didn't realize how bad what I'd done was." Alex is murmuring almost to himself now, blue-eyes considering the other. "No, that's a lie. I knew, I just...didn't know, if that makes sense."

"You can't exactly join me in the showers." Alex pointed out, still in his blanket cocoon. He'd rarely left it. "Not very conducive to talking. Besides, what do you want to talk about? Because it better not be what we all just went through."

"I'm very patient. I can wait."

That might be a threat. Grace can hang out here all day.

"You don't want to talk about the simulation? At least get some of it off your chest?"

"No." Flat no, and final. And Alex is willing to let that silence stretch. If Grace doesn't break it, Alex will eventually do so softly. "I never want another one of those. I don't need it to walk in someone else's shoes." Very quietly voiced.

"Me neither."

Grace is quiet for a moment. William had been so sure that they were great, unique learning experiences that would expose the depths of your soul, teach you things about yourself you'd never otherwise know. All it showed Grace is that people die for no reason at all, and meaningless lives mean nothing, in the end.

Still. She has a job to do.

"But it's over now, thank goodness. The sooner you stop dwelling on it, the better, right? Put some better thoughts in your head for a while. Distance will help, don't you think?"

"I can't forget it." Alex said quietly. "I can't forget any of it...and I still hear them all, screaming. Every time I close my eyes. Distance doesn't matter..."

Loki chuckles, though it's hardly funny. "Yes, actually. I think I understand that perfectly."

But he meant it, when he said this is a difficult way to have a conversation. He grabs hold of Alex's legs and pulls, aiming to get him to sit on the edge of the bunk at least. "Come on. Up. You're going to suffocate in all that self-pity. Try taking some deep breaths out here instead."

He isn't actually sure that will help, but Alex sounds distant enough that he figures any reconnecting with his body is better than letting him drift like that. To that end, he pulls a bottle of water out of the air and presses it into Alex's hands insistently. "Drink."

There's definitely surprise in the blue-eyes when Loki pulls him, but Alex manages not to tense. Or to lash out and kick in response. He's still wrapped up in his cocoon blanket and there's a light glare at the other with no venom behind it. But he'll take the bottle, and take a drink.

Them all, he said? What in the world did he get up to in that simulation? Grace is, uh, pretty sure she doesn't really want to hear this whole story.

"Alex, I wish I could tell you that it'll all be okay... I don't know, I haven't been through this before. But there's people on this ship right now that have, and they're up and walking around. It's... horrible, right now, I know, but you can make it through. And you don't have to do it alone. We're all here with you."

Now Alex met her eyes, not quite glaring at her with icy-blue eyes of his own. Measuring, suspicious. Hidden in his blanket cocoon still. "I doubt we're 'all' here with me. Other than that we've all been through something traumatic." There was bitterness in his tone.

Finally he gave a slow blink, and softly mocking laughter came from the cocoon. "Whatever I am, I'll probably make it through. Took a fucking nuke to take me out before, after all."

"That's what I mean! We're all here, dealing with what happened, together. You can rely on us to help. It's what we're here for."

The way Alex looked at her, staring, untrusting... it feels familiar. Predatory, almost, but familiar. She knows Alex isn't likely to hurt her, he's just lashing out because he's in pain. But then he says something about 'whatever he is', and a flicker of confusion crosses her face.

"...What nuke?"

"The military decided the only option to stop the viral outbreak in Manhattan was to nuke it. I stopped the commander in charge, hijacked the nuke, and took it out over the ocean as best I could. That's why I'm here, Grace--I didn't survive." All said evenly, and he's staring at her again. "I'd survived being poisoned, shot at repeatedly, slammed into the ground, drops from skyscrapers, missiles, and everything else they threw at me."

Loki watches silently. It's a relief, seeing him act like a person. He's not too far gone, it seems.

Once Alex has taken a few sips, Loki says, "Good. Take a few breaths." And once he's done that as well, "Can you tell me what happened to you during the simulation?"

Maybe that will explain this particular train of thought. He has a feeling what might've happened, given what he and Claire went through, but better to be sure.

That glare is staying, but after another minute or so, Alex'll sigh. "It's...it's not about the simulation, really. I just had happen to me what I've done to several others. I was consumed." That last part is murmured, and Alex's eyes are glaring in an almost daring way now. Challenging the other.

Loki frowns. He can tell from that tone that he doesn't mean that in the usual sense. And given what he'd seen in Area X, what he'd experienced himself, he can guess what consuming means to Alex.

"You've...merged with other people, before?" He tilts his head. "But you did it intentionally. Why?"

Alex has been too level-headed for it to be animalistic hunger, he thinks. Which means he must have gotten something out of it.

"So far, honestly? You, Satan, and Grace have been the ones I actually think I can work with." Alex said softly. "You really want to help us, right? To reform?" That daring-glare again.

"Alex died. Releasing the vial of the blacklight virus in Penn State. Shot. I woke up on an autopsy table in Gentek headquarters." A pause, and now Alex looked down, huddled back into his cocoon. "I copied him, from the ground up--and didn't find out the truth of what I was until later. But by that time I'd already killed plenty, trying to unravel the conspiracy, clean up the mess I made worse... It wasn't always my enemies, that I consumed. That's the majority, but there were times when I was just trying to survive for the next day. It was 3 weeks, from the beginning to the attempted nuking of Manhattan by the Military."

Edited 2022-04-28 01:05 (UTC)

Okay. Three weeks worth of killing. It's possible he'd actually done far more damage than Loki had both on Jotunheim and Earth, and far more directly than most of what Loki'd done. But some of it-- finding out a truth he hadn't expected, trying to fix things with violence and anger --was close enough to home that he can feel his pulse picking up.

So he takes a breath. Exhales. Picks somewhere to start.

"What do you mean by 'just trying to survive'?" He has a feeling he was wrong about the animal hunger. "If they weren't your enemies, what did you get out of consuming them?"

"Health, when I'd been damaged too much to regenerate properly." 'Alex' murmured. "I'm...not proud of it. I still hear them, when I close my eyes. Screaming in my head. I found the truth, regret it, wish to hell I could forget it. But I can't--so what am I? Now that I know exactly how it feels, what am I?"

Loki presses his lips together in an effort to hide how that description unnerves him. Hearing the voices of others in his head is something he can sympathize with, although he didn't have any part in putting them there. But it doesn't sound as if Alex had much of a choice, assuming he was even aware of what he was doing to begin with.

If he is just a virus-- if he isn't also some sort of combination of the original Alex and all the other people the virus consumed --then he's hardly sentient so much as piggybacking on the sentience of someone else. He wouldn't be a person at all, at that point, just an entity keeping itself going.

"I don't think a virus alone would have desires nor regrets, for starters. You must be something more complex than that, or you would never have wanted any truth to begin with," Loki observes. "And given my own experience during the event..." He lowers his gaze, biting back a shudder before he looks up again. "It wasn't like we were just sewn together. We were melted down and reformed like a blade. Something new made of the sum of our parts."

Tone gentle, he suggests, "Perhaps the same is true of you?"

"It sounds more like I'm Area X." Alex said quietly, after thinking a bit. "The virus basically plugs in and unlocks the Junk DNA in a being. It's chimeric, causing changes that can recreate sentience in within the cellular make-up." It was the easiest way to explain the virus without having to go into lots of technical terms.

But it had been said clinically, and like Alex was considering. He... He wasn't human. But that didn't mean he wasn't automatically not a person, right?

"It sounds like you were brave. Like you did the right thing."

She leans her shoulder gently against the side of the capsule door, her hands clasped together. There's a tiny, nearly-imperceptible wince as she does so-- as if shifting her weight off of a stiff joint. Of course, Alex is unlikely to have noticed that, which is why she allows a moment of weakness to show at all, even in so minute a way. She thinks, a moment.

"Were you afraid?" It's quiet, and a little solemn.

"I don't think I had time to be afraid. I don't remember fear..." He had done the right thing, albeit for selfish reasons. He noticed that wince, but isn't going to comment.

"That's probably for the best."

Grace hadn't had time to do more than realize that gee those headlights are coming at us very fast and oh they're not stopping-- before her own lights went out, the first time. That had been the one upside to the entire experience. That, and not remaining dead permanently, she supposed, although there were times where that felt more like a downside, and those times were much more frequent than she would admit.

But the simulation had granted her a long death, the kind she was acutely aware of for the entire duration of it, and the memory of it was clinging viciously to her brain, even now. She was afraid. The whole time, she was afraid.

"It wasn't like that in the Simulation." Alex said softly, now looking away from where he'd been staring at Grace. It was as close as he'd come to admitting he'd been afraid. He now knew--knew--intimately how being consumed felt. Which is part of why he'd broken.

He was broken.

"No, it wasn't. I'm... well, a lot of things, but. I'm angry. If the Navarch knows what's good for her she'll stay far away for a long time."

Fighting words, from someone as seemingly harmless as Grace. Surely that says something about the experience's lingering effects on the psyches of the Peregrine's inhabitants, inmate and warden alike. She's not looking at Alex, either-- ashamed to admit to something so offensive, maybe.

"Maybe," Loki nods, "It's not as if anyone really knew what Area X was either. Maybe it was sentient too."

He mulls over that explanation and feels it rubbing up against old prejudices. Ways of thinking he knew, logically, were cruel and self-centered. He'd improved upon them, or else he doesn't think he would've graduated, but he can still feel the same instincts activating at what Alex describes.

Maybe he should use that.

Loki takes a steadying breath, and begins, "I was raised as royalty in a society that already deemed itself far above all others. It was hierarchy all the way down, with clear winners and losers. So black and white, from the day I was first able to understand the differences between myself and others. I was truly convinced I was the best of the best. Or, near enough."

He gives a wry smirk, thinking on how Thor so obviously outshone him when, if nature held true, they should have been much more equal. Perhaps that should have been the first sign.

"But then I found out I wasn't part of that race at all. In fact, I was the son of our greatest enemy. In an instant, I was nothing." Loki swallows, shakes his head. "But even then, at my lowest point, I knew that wasn't true. I wanted to prove my worth despite what made me, but..." How to put this? "If I had worth, it was because of everything that made me, both nature and nurture, right? Even the bits I hadn't known about."

He reaches out, hesitant, and places a hand on Alex's arm. "What I'm saying is, I know what it's like to not know yourself. But I think there's little question that you have a 'self'. Which is a start." He offers what he hopes is an encouraging smile. "You're just a little earlier on in the process, I think."

It took Alex a moment, but then he looked at her again. And let out a soft laugh. "Anger is an emotion I'm well-acquainted with. Being angry at the world, at other people, at circumstances." He sighed. "I was angry the project I was working on was being covered up, forcefully. How dare they, when I was finally getting what I wanted. The life I wanted." A pause. "That's why Alex ran. Not for any noble cause or reason, but because he was in danger of being black bagged. Took a vial of the virus with him as insurance."

Blue-eyes flicked to the touch on his arm, then to stare at Loki a bit. Mulling over what the other was saying. Pondering it, before offering a hesitant nod. "Alex was in foster care until he was 10, then he got placed back with his mom. Because he had a younger sister. He was more often then parent though, as they were in borderline poverty circumstances. School offered him ways out, and he left when Dana was 16ish. He had a Manhattan apartment, and a cushy job--when it all went south."

A bit about the life Alex had thought was his own for a long time. Then he's dropping his gaze, and snorts at himself. "My power's are locked, but I'm a shape-shifter. Not just into other people, but into various weaponized forms. Sometimes....it was easier to sneak around. Sometimes I had to fight my away through."

"...He?"

Alex hadn't been in the habit of referring to himself in the third person, before now. And it seemed like he was drawing a distinction between past actions and present emotions. Was there really that much of a difference, post-simulation? Or was something else going on here? Best to be gentle, and most of all, careful. Grace has no intention to provoke, but obviously he was here in this space prison for a reason, and if he was indeed as volatile as he says he has been in his past (this past-Alex version of himself, anyway), then it's not just out of kindness's sake that she approaches with kid gloves.

Edited (bleh, dumb typo) 2022-05-21 03:54 (UTC)

Very likely something else going on, considering Alex was usually very deliberate in his choice of words. He always had been, when asked about himself and his story, as it were.

"Dr. Alex J. Mercer." Came the quiet answer to her question. "I'm....going to tell you something Claire, and it's not like it's any huge secret but it's only come up so far with one other warden. It's also not like I don't know you guys talk with each other."

Loki isn't sure what 'weaponized forms' might mean, but he's starting to get the picture. Alex's experience with shapeshifting lacked the fun and experimentation that Loki'd enjoyed. It was about survival. A means to an end. And it muddled him to the point that he lost his original self.

Maybe he can get it back. Maybe not. But it will still be a part of whatever he becomes.

"It sounds like you'll have a lot to sift through. Not just yourself, but what you've done." His lips lift in not quite a smirk. "I've gone through much the same thing. And what I found, I think, is that getting out of the line of fire gave me a chance to put the pieces back together into...well, who I am now."

He glances around the dorm, shrugs. "This place is safer than most of our homes, from what I've heard. It will challenge you-- you're still living a life, after all. But it's...pared down. You have the time to work things out, here. If you're willing to take advantage of it."

Loki watches Alex's face, looking for signs that he's at least pulled out of the height of the crisis. "Are you alright, for now? I think you've earned some rest."

"Does taking advantage of it mean Therapy? Because I know the Devil's already tried to push me in that direction." It was the most Alex had sounded like his 'old' self since this conversation had started. But...he, whoever he was, felt like he wasn't quite in such a...state. He was a being, a person--right? Well, it was a place to start.

"...'m not good with thanks usually." But he nodded, and moved to pull himself out of the bed briefly. "I'm going to stretch a bit, then come back. Lots to think about."

That question probably isn't meant to be a joke, but Loki smirks anyway. "It doesn't have to. But it'll probably involve talking to people. Getting to know them and letting them know you, as uncomfortable as that can be." He shrugs. "And like I said. You have time. No need to rush if you aren't ready."

Loki stood with Alex and nodded. "Of course. I'll be on shift in here for a while, if you need anything."

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I know the breakdown. Everything is gonna shake now someday

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