returnjourneylogs | when is a sibling not a sibling?

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when is a sibling not a sibling?

Passengers: Grace, Jason, a big pile of depression
Location: The Peregrine's gym, specifically, The Pool (tm).
Date: Like a day after leaving Bhujerba
Summary: Finally catching up after the Port, about the Simulation, inmates, wardens, and various other goings-on
Warnings: Probably discussion of depression, trauma & death.

The planet they'd left behind was so beautiful, so bustling with people and full of life and sunshine, it was difficult to leave it all behind and return to the cold, quiet emptiness of the Peregrine and be thrust back into space. Truth be told, there was a traitorous little piece of her heart that had wanted to stay behind; to give up on what was clearly a failed venture at wardening and attempt to avoid the inevitable return to her life on Earth, and the deadly consequences of doing so.

But of course, what would be the point of that? Her presence would curdle the people around her until she spoiled everything, as she always does, eventually. Even now, what little progress she had made as a Warden was as good as gone, thanks to the horrors of that Simulation. She hadn't gotten past it; not even a little bit. The others around her were returning to normal, so she had pretended to do the same, but it was getting harder every day, not easier. Little mistakes turned to large ones. She said things she didn't mean, made tasteless jokes and expressed thoughts she would never normally admit out loud. She felt her emotions like scrambled eggs in her head, her limbs heavy with the weight of poisonous memories.

Sometimes she felt a sharp pain in her leg. Sometimes she'd get lightheaded. Sometimes she dreamed about lying in the mud feeling her body dying around her while her mind just screamed.

Even the solitude of warehouse patrols didn't help-- too much noise. She'd ended up relying on an old trick from high school: turn incorporeal, sit at the bottom of the pool for hours, feeling nothing, hearing nothing, holding her knees to her chest, pretending not to exist. Not a permanent solution, she knows; for that, she'd have to die again, and Grace was very much not looking forward to going through that again. But it helped.

For a little while, it would help.

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Jason was an expert at not thinking about things until he had nothing left to do but think about things. Usually, distractions were plenty. Hell, being Robin was a distraction in and of itself. He thought about that one sometimes now that he'd become so detached from Gotham. Thought about it in those times that he didn't have anything to do but think. He also thought about newer problems. Like Area X. Like all the bullshit he had pulled, his inability to help another person he cared for. And how fucking real that all felt.

He knew that Grace wasn't actually his sister. Hell, Jason barely knew her. But the feeling stuck. The guilt. The helplessness. The rage. How fucking fast he was to lie through his teeth and go against his word; how quick everything went wrong. Because of him. Strictly because of him. And that was just the start of it.

Unknown to Grace, it seemed, Jason had been let in to the gym where she decided to sit herself at the bottom of. He'd just been in the washroom and when the teen padded out, his immediate response was to dive in, which he almost did--but noticing the way she sat. Well, bodies don't do that. So, Jason instead walked around the pool and sat at the edge of it in her direct line of sight. And he waited.

It's strange, being incorporeal underwater. Everything still sounds the same, muted and distant and distorted as it normally is, bringing Grace childhood memories of bright summer days diving for pool toys. But of course there's no sun here, no warmth, just the buzz of weird space fluorescent lighting and the echo of every sound in this section of the gym against the cold tile. There's no pressure, no instinctual hold-your-breath thrill, no purely freeing feeling of gravity's lessened grasp. It's just another space to exist-but-not-exist, it's just a lot quieter, and a lot more lonely.

Or it would be, if nobody else showed up. But there are footsteps, of course, and for a moment she refuses to admit that reality, that maybe if she held very still and kept her eyes shut, they wouldn't notice her. And after several heartbeats (she presumes; she can't feel hers in this form) she finally allows herself to see the person who's interrupted her-- and of course it's Jason. Of course.

"I was here first," she says, and it's strange to hear the petulant sibling attitude come from her in the first place, much less in the distorted, spine-shiver-inducing whisper-warble that serves as her voice in this form. Much less coming from someone underwater, who shouldn't be able to speak at all, to say nothing of breathing. But that's no issue for someone who can choose to only partially exist.

"So cry about it," he says instinctually louder because, yanno, she's under fucking water.

It's not entirely snappy but it has some attitude that Jason immediately regrets through an exhale. Not exactly how he wanted to start this whole thing but to be fully honest... he wasn't exactly sure how he wanted to start this whole thing. Wasn't sure about a lot of things. Like how is she in the state that she is and all sorts of what the fuckery but after everything he's seen, and Raven especially, it kinda subsides quick. Even if the voice was... uncomfortable.

"Didn't see your name on the entrance, so." Jason shrugs. He was an only child by blood but he was really good at being a shithead little brother regardless.

"Yeah, well." She mutters, burying her face against her knees. She knew someone would interrupt her solitude sooner or later; well-meaning or no. At least it was Jason.

And also, oh no, it's Jason. Who she's barely spoken to and more-or-less entirely blown off at least once since the awkwardness of the Simulation deciding to make them into people who mattered to each other more than just about anything else in the world, and then the resulting shedding of that reality, which had felt about as pleasant as peeling off a wet swimsuit. All told, Jason now ranked pretty highly on the I'd Rather Die Than Have To Make Direct Eye Contact With These People Ever Again (Thanks To Stuff That Happened In The Sim) list that Grace has posted on the backs of her eyelids at all times.

There are so many names on that list. Hence: bottom of the pool.

"If you jump in, don't try to touch me." She doesn't look up. Why would she need to? Who else would she be speaking to?

Jason's quiet for a moment, rolling his eyes. She reminds him a lot of Raven. A lot of Raven, and not just because she's a spooky motherfucker who's all shadowy and shit right now sitting at the bottom of a fucking pool. A lot of problems. Not a lot of faith in herself. It's the Raven he remembers, at least. Quiet and weird but loyal to the people she liked.

He was never nice to Raven.

Raven scared him.

But grace isn't Raven.

"Lemme just go get some cement shoes so I can sink to the bottom with you," sarcasm, of course. Jason pulls a little closer to the edge of the pool, but that's about it for now. "No one was good at Talking About Things back home, either."

Grace tilts her head to the side, resting her temple against her knee, so she can see him through the haze of water. There's something about him that reminds her of one of her best friends back home. Ruby. It's the roughness; the sarcasm, the urge to keep others at arms length, to push them away before they can be rejected. A safety mechanism. Ruby is tough, loud, brash and bold, and she's definitely not everybody's cup of tea, but there's nobody on earth more brave, more loyal, more dedicated to her ideals and protecting the people she loves than her. Grace misses her attitude, now that she's unfathomably far away from it. She sees it in Jason; the pain, the strength. The unwillingness to turn away.

Maybe that's why she liked him so much so immediately. Even before the simulation made them... who knows. Something else, maybe.

"Talking always goes wrong, when it's me. Time's the only thing that really works. Make a bad thing into the past, it'll hurt less." Maybe a less-than-responsible thing to say to an inmate, but from her perspective, true.

Edited (one of these days i will learn to type good) 2022-05-22 01:04 (UTC)

He is, he is... pretty much exactly like that. Although his loyalty can waver, but maybe that's just because he holds some things in far higher regard than others. He's flawed, if nothing else Jason is impossibly human. But he struggles with that when he fucks up, because deep down Jason has heart and a lot of it. He cares, he cares intensely. Maybe that's why they've been avoiding one another. It's not all on her, on Grace. He's been avoiding her, too. But Jason being... Jason, finally had enough. Time to confront it. Deal with his own shit.

Anyway, he doesn't give a shit that she's a warden. She's Grace, and she's being honest right now which is far more valuable than spouting some bullshit because it sounds good and its what you should say. "Time just acquaints you with the pain," he shrugs, "becomes a part of who you are. Doesn't change a damn thing. But..." He leans back on his hands a little and looks up to the bright lights above, "I get it. Talking, not talking, either option always blows up in my face too."

"You like action instead."

It's a statement, not a question, but it feels better to talk about Jason than it does to talk about herself. Pulling her fingernails out with a pair of rusty pliers would feel better to Grace than talking about herself, to be fair, but. It's always been something she's enjoyed, receding into the background and letting other people take the forefront, immersing herself in other people's lives and stories for a while... anything to not be herself, even just for a moment. It got her through a lot of painful recovery, after the accident, and it became a habit afterwards, reinforced through the positive attention gained by showing interest in the lives of others.

Never underestimate how much people love talking about themselves.

He's silent for a moment or two. Yeah, he did. Actions made real changes. Words lied, manipulated, and promised things they could never keep. Time just prolonged everything. But he also knows deflection when he sees it.

"But you don't." It's less statement than her acute observation. He's not exactly sure when it happened or how it happened, but his casual wander in here just to get her to talk turned into concern a lot quicker than he'd be willing to admit. Cause clearly she was struggling. What with being at the bottom of a fucking pool and all.

"I screw that up too," she mutters, her voice wobbling through water and mass and space and reality. What feels like comfort to her, the simultaneous existence and not-existence of her current state, makes others feel distinctly uncomfortable. The fundamental Wrongness of it turns people's conception of what's real inside-out, sometimes, and the usual result is fear. It's understandable, of course, but being inside it is different.

It's the isolation. It's knowing that nothing can touch you, and that you're in complete control of yourself. Pure comfort.

"...Hey Jason. If you went home, right now, what would happen to you?"

"Not enough to be here as an inmate instead of a Warden." Clearly someone believed in you, Grace.

If Jason was to see Raven now, that same apprehension wouldn't exist. Even Trigon. This existence that Grace now settled herself in was... yeah, it was a bit uncomfortable to look at for the first bit, but. Death's changed things. But he could relate to yearning for control. The feeling that nothing can touch you.

"If I was suddenly alive again, you mean?" He looked away and shrugged. He didn't know. Didn't figure anyone would give a shit.

Someone, she thinks, was clearly wrong.

"What would you do with it? That second chance," she asks, staring up at him from her low angle. Through the distortion of the chlorinated pool, he looks almost as formless and wisplike as she does.

"Go somewhere? See the world?"

He likes to tackle things head-on. She's noticed that, but she's stalling. She likes to wait things out. They didn't have the same trust as they did in the sim when there was a belief that what was shared between them was familial. Somehow, that experience stuck even if he now realizes that he knows... nothing about her. Was that what she was looking for? To learn things? Or just pure deflection?

Jason leans back on the butt of his palms and lets his head roll back with a scoff. What would he do... "I'm not gonna, so why bother thinking about it?"

Grace blinks. This is notable, because she hasn't yet done that once during this entire conversation. It's because, in this form, she doesn't have the automatic bodily process that tells her to do it-- same as breathing, which, for the record, she also isn't doing. And that's a good thing, because she's at the bottom of a pool.

Anyway. She blinks, because Jason's response actually surprises her.

"Not gonna... go home?" Grace asks, genuine curiosity in her voice. "Because you don't want to? Or you think you can't?"

He takes a long inhale and brings his body forward toward the water. Jason never thought he'd be the asshole negotiating things like this--actually, no, he's done things like this before but the scenarios were different. Like, hey listen maybe put the gun down kind of scenarios but its all the same sort of bargaining in the end.

"Tell you what, Grace. You stop being some spooky shadow at the bottom of the pool and come up here, spooky shadowy if you want whatever works for you really, and we'll talk. Yeah?"

There's a long pause.

Being incorporeal is safe-- for her, not for anyone who might come close enough to accidentally pass through her. It affords the certainty that nothing can harm her. But the only other person here is Jason, and as it stands, he doesn't have any reason to do so, and she'd wager, he likely wouldn't try to hurt her even if he did have reason. If she has to be alone around someone, it might as well be someone who was her brother once.

Slowly, she rises out of the pool, not swimming but floating, her form wispy and vaporous like steam at the edges. Once above the water, there's a shift, and then she's just Grace. Grace floating in midair, but Grace.

"Scoot over," she says, slowly hovering over to the edge of the pool next to Jason, and settling down gently into a crosslegged position that shows a glimpse of the normal human kid she used to be.

He lets the silence go as long as it needs to. His body leans back again. Legs stretch out and cross. Half his calf hovering over the edge. Pale blue eyes look around, waiting. "I can wait all day, Grace. Got nothin' else to fuckin' do."

And there were ways for her to force him out if she really wanted to get him to leave. That she didn't was a good enough sign for him. Jason's eyes rose as he head the water stir and spill, they tracked her body as she rose. Can't help it. The beat of his heart as it stirred just a little faster because he knew that at the end of everything he was just a human, and he sure as fuck wasn't Bruce. But he definitely needed to get stronger. And smarter.

Getting his hands under him, Jason shifts as the now fleshy-lookin' Grace comes to sit by the edge of the pool. He also sloppily crosses his legs, his arms coming around to slump into his lap with a sigh. More silence passes before... "You gotta understand Gotham first before you understand why I'm probably not getting out of here."

Grace settles in, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. Jason has mentioned Gotham before, when he first arrived. They briefly discussed the state of their home cities as being similarly less-than-great, but there isn't a Gotham in her world, and there doesn't seem to be Arcadia in anyone else's, so she'd have to use a lot of imagination to fill in the gaps.

"You said it was a mess," she mentions. "Maybe not in so many words, but."

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when is a sibling not a sibling?

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you type perfectly fine!!!

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