multiversallogs | it's three am in the mornin

Who: Jae & Hilmi.
What: Confrontations.
Where: Anarchy 99.
When: Friday or Saturday night?? COUGH COUGH some time in between when Hilmi got back and the 15th, and after Jae and Ilde spoke.
Notes: Megan. :(
Warnings: Violence, disturbing imagery, discussion of rape and abuse. Will add more if needed.

There's no heroic, white knight desire fueling Jae's search for this other man, and as he leaves the coffee shop near the Valhalla, he wonders if he should wish there was. Maybe then, if he had those sorts of compulsions, he would be even halfway equipped to do this. Not for the first time, he weighs his options and thinks about handing this off to someone else - but he discards it. This isn't a fight. This isn't him going off like a cowboy in a terrible movie - Jae isn't going to go threaten him or intimidate him, he just needs to talk. He needs to see Megan but he can't just go to her when she's as screwed up as she is and ask her what's gone on, or try and - and what, put her in a tower? He needs to have answers, something tangible to work with, a starting point. Hilmi, Ilde said, is part of their resistance group, an assassin. He uses his powers to fight for them - surely, someone like that won't want to have accidentally used something that terrible against this innocent girl, especially one who isn't human. Surely he knows how to reverse it. He can't imagine someone in his position being heartless enough not to have some kind of failsafe for emergencies. Yeah, he rubs Jae the wrong way and no, Ilde doesn't like him, but Jae's biased over Six and Ilde shouldn't be expected to have to put up with anyone, anymore. Jae's got faith.

So it's with that in mind that he ends up all the way back at Anarchy 99, because of course this guy's old job was here, in a club Jae's already employed at. The bar manager is gruff but friendly and helpful, and Jae skirts through the club, eyes peeled. He should just be able to catch Hilmi on his way back out.

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It should snap Jae out of it but it doesn't - he hears Hilmi, yes, but it only fuels how taken over he is by this. Hilmi wants him to stop? Well, fuck, Jae wants Megan to not be dying. He looks down at him, expression blank, emotionless, the perfect opposite of the lightning storm he's causing inside the other man's head.

"You're the only one who can make it stop."

Though he speaks in Korean, it doesn't matter: his words are like a brand, slicing through to him, more magic than anything verbal. Jae isn't fabricating anything that's happening to Hilmi. It isn't mind control. It's just taking what's already there and forcing him to recognize it. (Amplified past what a human could experience and not suffer a psychotic break over, true, but that's just another downside to being an escaped lab rat - not even Jae himself realizes how improperly overloaded his power is.)

Finally - and it feels like aeons practically, even though it's only been a few moments - thoughts of why he's really here are enough to capture the corner of Jae's attention, drawing his focus back from the dark chasm of sense-memory he's left himself drift into. Megan. He's wasting time. And he's got another errand, too - one Hilmi can help with.

Might as well get him to serve at least one purpose.

Still speaking in his mother tongue, words a living, demanding enchantment, Jae takes another step forward, shoes making a soft scuffing sound over the ground, and then: "What happened after Ilde died?"

She'll never ask him herself. Because she's never speaking to him again.

Though his tongue feels far too thick in his mouth and the air around him is too solid to breath, he manages to gasp in a breath. He doesn't know how to stop what's happening to Megan, and for the love of god, he doesn't want to talk about Ilde.

But he can't fight what's happening, doesn't even understand it, and the answer might as well be physically ripped from him. He sounds as weak as his magic, broken and miserable; he can't say more than a few words because he can't remember much else save, "I carried her."

And that's what happened. She died, he carried her out. And he doesn't know why, because he hates her. She's every horrible name he can think of, he wants to scream at her and fight her, but no matter what punishment Jae is serving up, knowing he had a second chance to see her again and threw it away on some stupid fling with Megan is a far worse punishment. All he can do is repeat himself: "I carried her."

It's not good enough, he knows that instinctively; Ilde doesn't care about herself (why?), she wants - that other woman, Sonja, her war, their everything -

"What happened to your army?" Fuck, cough it up. The very sound of Hilmi's voice makes Jae want to - want to -

Something like step on his throat flashes through his mind and he recoils inside, just a little, but it's still not enough to stop him. Not yet. Jae wants this out of him, even though talking about the apocalyptic world he's probably dead in fills him with such terror like he's never known - but of there's nothing in Hilmi that would ever want to say it, then he's just not going to, no matter how hard Jae magically twists his arm.

That's where his friends are: back in the fucked-up world. When Jae digs his fingers in just a little further for an answer Hilmi doesn't have, he sobs and shouts furiously, "I don't know!"

But he suspects: they're probably dead or dying without Sonja to lead them, they've probably suffered the same blow he did. He starts searching for a way to fight Jae off, not to hurt him back but to flee. He needs to get away from this and clear his head, not answer questions about home.

"They're probably dead, okay? What the fuck do you want from me?"

"I want you to go away."

That, at least, works for the both of them. It's spit out like a military order, hard, and Jae steps to the side, circling around him so Hilmi can scatter free.

"Stay away from the river."

And Ilde.

(The only way away from the river from where they are - that doesn't send him tumbling into Hellsing territory - is towards the Spatters. But what the fuck does Jae care?)

The moment Jae steps aside, Hilmi scrambles to his feet and takes off at a stumbling run; he doesn't need the warning to stay away from the river. He knows better.

And tomorrow (or maybe in a week), he'll look for work somewhere else. Because it's not the river he needs to stay away from: it's this bastard. Sometimes, there are worse beasties in the world than the ones you're fighting. So he runs for the Spatters, and he'll work his way north to Gallmarch, perhaps, but he's not crossing the river.

Should have asked Megan to teach him that teleportation trick before he screwed her.

Though Hilmi runs, Jae doesn't let go until he's far enough away that his untrained grasp can't hold on anymore - and even then, it's going to linger. Jae at his worst left people dead with that trick, and the survivors permanently speaking in gibberish and thinking in colors.

He'll be feeling his own torn up thoughts and memories for a good while - Jae only woke up what was already there.

Good luck getting them to go back to bed, Hilmi.

it's three am in the mornin

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