multiversallogs | i wrote this song while i was drunk

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i wrote this song while i was drunk

Who: Jae and you.
What: Sorting his head out, getting back to work.
Where: Various places around town, including bar hopping and slice of life activities in Creekside, at work at the Vault, Anarchy 99, and the radio station, and at a temple in Brock Marsh.
When: Over the next week.
Notes: Would you like to bump into Jae somewhere? Note the location/vague timeline in your tag and it shall be so.
Warnings: Unpleasant thoughts about rape culture, drug use.

In the aftermath of attempting to help Megan and his encounter with Hilmi, Jae has a difficult time processing the series of events as things that happened to him - because things haven't happened to him. Things happened to Megan. Sure, if you hit a vanity with a sledgehammer, it's not just the glass that's cracked, but he's still not the fucking mirror; Jae's reeling from the turbulence. So is everyone else who knows (well, maybe not Sonja) and everyone else who will know - and more people will react to what Jae did, and so on, and so on, like ripples, because every time anyone does something violent or cruel, the whole of their world feels it. Society didn't become soulless overnight. It took a hundred million weeks like these and now, even when people feel the backlash, they don't seem realize it.

It's normal.

(It's horrible.)

Jae buys a couple of tabs at the Vault before his shift and rolls all the way through it. If there's one thing he appreciates about Baedal, it's that so much more is perfectly legal (or at least, perfectly unregulated), and the ecstasy (or space ecstasy) he can get is pure, none of this shit cut with coke or speed like he had to worry about back at home. It's a good night for everybody, which is fortunate; it's always good when he works whether or not he uses any enchantments, but this week, he's not even letting his subconscious do anything - he feels like there's a great gaping wound somewhere intangible inside him, and the stitches keep splitting. He just doesn't want to bleed anymore.

While he's been made one of the floor staff family with ease at the Vault, his experiences at Anarchy 99 have been more - well. It caters to dwarven metal. Still, there's a fair amount of enthusiasm for his style ("Just put some more INXS on it"), and when one of the waitresses asks him what happened that one night with Hilmi (because he hasn't come back), he just shrugs. Jae isn't sure if he should be feel fortunate that she's the only one who noticed they walked out back together, but while some of the girls liked Hilmi, some of them really didn't, and she decides to interpret that shrug as him having done everybody a favor. The notion of it makes him uneasy - but it's not like he can correct her and not lie, so he just stays quiet, and thinks about the same thing he thought about that night. That if somebody comes to arrest him, he'll just go. The notion of being locked up is like a suffocating nightmare at the end of a long and dark hallway on his head, but what's even more terrifying is the idea of becoming the kind of person who wouldn't take responsibility for doing something awful. (He'll ask Ilde for Sonja's number, he decides. He'd rather apologize to her than the police, and he knows enough about the military to know speaking to someone's commanding officer is as good as.)

Too much liquor, long nights, and investing in a pill cutter; Jae almost feels human again, losing himself in work. The radio station is a hilarious disaster, but he likes his boss, as much of a lunatic as she is. That he's at the bottom of the ladder again makes him feel like even more a child, stumbling over himself and his magic and his emotions as he is in this strange place. But there, it's not as bad. He hits the bar across the way from his flat in Creekside, he buys groceries and a new pair of sunglasses, and then he comes home ("home") and lays on the floor and stares up at the ceiling and pretends his head spins because he's been drinking too much.

He doesn't sleep for two nights, and then spends the third up and reading the book that appeared in the arrival room with him. It's the first time he touched it since he shoved it in the back of his closet when he moved in. The next evening, he goes to one of Shada's temples in Brock Marsh, and doesn't do anything beside sit quietly in the back.

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(He is vastly underestimating how much of a difference that will make to his cold resistance.)

"You don't like swimming?" Shrieky asks this as if he hadn't even considered the possibility that someone could think that this was an acceptable outlook to have, "How can you not like swimming? What don't you like about it?" He folds his arms, waiting for an explanation.

He is probably going to try and haul you underwater Jae. The pressure to come splash about with him will be on now until the end of time.

"I'm a little claustrophobic, and the feeling of being submerged in water freaks me out."

He sounds sheepish when he says it, because it's true - though not the complete issue; he also just hates being seen without all his clothes on. It's not body image issues (well, not really, he isn't enormously insecure, but he also doesn't think he's anyone's Adonis), but rather control and intimacy issues. It just wigs him out.

"I like being at the beach just fine."

Edited (WORDS WORDS WORDS) 2012-01-26 05:58 (UTC)

Shrieky's first instinct is to nay say on this and declare that being in water isn't claustrophobic or freaky, but he resists the urge. Reaching up, he rubs his eye a little uncomfortably, "Sometimes I feel the opposite of that now. As if there's far too much space and too many directions around me, here."

He drops his hand back down, and looks at Jae earnestly, "I mean, I do like it here? But it's quite overwhelming, so I suppose I can understand what your problem with it is."

Well, he couldn't understand the problem exactly, but he understood that moving from land to sea and vice versa was quite stressful.

"It sucks being taken away from what we know."

Which is a very gentle, understated version of Jae's true feelings (extreme fear and resentment), but he's too good-natured to cling to anything that dark and stormy for long.

"You're really a mermaid, aren't you."

Shrieky's eyes flick to Jae for a moment, and he very briefly attempts to put up the image of a man who is a little irritated by this question. It doesn't work though, the encounter up to this point has been too good for him to be able to wantonly turn on his bad temper now.

"Of course. Did you think I was merely a delusional human being?"

He actually manages a faint smile at the end of that question.

He smiles in a way that's a little sad - because they're stuck, because people lack understanding, because, because... well, it's not a depressed sad, anyway. It makes him think about the division at home, and the cracks in his secretive armor this place is making.

"I've met a lot of delusional human beings," he admits. "You're the first mermaid."

"Well, that makes sense. You don't like to be in the water, and that is usually where mermaids live." Shrieky observes. He doesn't pick up on any of the melancholia in Jae's expression, so his own smile stays mild and pleased. He's rather enjoying the course which this whole conversation has taken so far.

"You know, I really dislike humans. I mean, normally, back where I'm from." He folds his arms and frowns, regarding Jae quizzically for a moment, "It's strange here, not being able to tell with people. I mean, I am assuming that you're not human, because you seem kind. I can't tell though. I could just be entirely wrong about everybody who I meet."

He almost balks. "Er - well, as far as I know I am. Human."

S..orry? Jae doesn't know what to say about that. (And he is human, for as far as he knows. This is merely an ominous narrative remark akin to foreshadowing, ignore it for now.)

Shrieky frowns, and makes an expressive little gesture, "That's exactly what I'm talking about! At home... no human would ever have asked me if I was all right. Even when I was in great need of help, I can't imagine a human ever wanting to help me."

He folds his arms across his chest and leans against the wall, deep in thought, "People act so different towards me here. So I don't know if you're offering to help me because you're a kind person... or if it's because now I have legs, and you only just figured out that I really am a mermaid."

"I know a lot of nice humans." His parents, his insane agent, his neighbors, his co-host at home - a whole world full of nice people. (Who don't know what he can do.)

"I think here, because we're all alike in being abducted, we have something in common no matter what we are." A beat. "And I'd offer to help you anyway."

"Yes, but you've always been one of them." So of course they've all been nice to you, Jae. Shrieky feels a little pang of resentful jealousy, as he considers this, but he pushes it back down, because choosing this point in the conversation to decide to be Jae's enemy could jeopardize his future trip to the beach, and he doesn't want that.

It is in this spirit that he resists the urge to point out that Jae would say that he'd help him either way, wouldn't he? Because right now he's almost a human, and Jae saying that he wouldn't help him would be weird. Instead, he just nods, looking not particularly convinced, "I do appreciate it. The offer, I mean, even if it didn't sound like it just then."

Just then when he was denigrating your species. Your stupid species full of jerks.

Jae doesn't look offended or uncomfortable; this is how it is for everyone, one way or another. Everyone is always mad about being mistreated, and everyone is always going to mistreat someone else, and people are very rarely going to want to look past themselves in either direction. At this point, Jae is almost numb to it in a social sense - Korean in Japan, Chongryon within the Zainichi, Zainichi in South Korea, Asian in the western world - he expects a certain degree of shit treatment, even aside from the division of the supernatural and mortal worlds and his time imprisoned at the facility. But he likes everybody anyway, because nobody's the same.

(Maybe someday he'll snap. Who can say.)

"I understand if it's weird," he says, gentle - almost humble - and he means it. "Thanks for giving me a chance."

Shrieky frowns, still leaning against the wall, his expression still slightly bemused. "You shouldn't thank someone, right after they tell you that they hate your species. You should... I don't know. You should be offended. Or angry with me."

It'd make more sense if he was. If someone told Shrieky that they hated Mermaids, then he would have been blind with rage. He would have screamed at them, he would have told them that they were wrong, and that he hated them or... something. He would have done something. And he certainly wouldn't have thanked them for accepting that he was the only non-evil mermaid.

"It is weird though." The relenting niceness was pretty weird as well, if he was honest. He doesn't know how to deal with you, Jae, "Was coming here weird for you, when you first arrived?"

"Would either of us accomplish anything by me being angry? I wouldn't ... feel better. You have a point, and a completely valid perspective."

It is both learned skill (radio work, oh god the crazies he's had to herd) and natural predisposition (he's just that good-natured) that allows Jae to come off genuine there, where someone else might sound placating or even patronizing. He's still mulling over a bit of a line in his head, wondering if the merman needs to be spoken to like a child, but he doesn't really think so.

"..Yeah." His smile is less sad, more rueful. In truth he'd had an awful panic attack and hadn't been able to so much as read the pamphlet for hours, but- "There's magic and nonhumans where I come from, but everyone has to hide."

Shrieky exhales slightly, knitting his forehead as Jae... makes far too much sense for his taste, "It's not something you choose though, being angry. Sometimes you're just angry with people and you can't help it."

Spoken as someone who is often, often angry. The idea that Jae has somehow managed to reason himself out of being angry with people when they're weird and demanding and rude to him, is actually one that makes Shrieky slightly uncomfortable.

"You mean, because of the humans in your world who aren't magical?" He tips his head slightly to the side, his expression searching, "But it doesn't bother you?"

"I know." Jae just has a lot of experience with repression, Shrieky, don't think too highly of his zen. (The last time he lost his temper he nearly ripped Hilmi's brain out of his head permanently - and before that, over a dozen people died. He tries not to go there.)

"It bothers me." He's quiet for a bit, thinking about how to explain it. "Thousands of years ago it was normal, for magic and different sorts of beings to be around. And over time, it started to become less and less common, until it seemed to go away forever. The people who still had it and knew about it stayed quiet because no one would believe them. And now the population's bigger but it's just a habit... because it would change the whole world, and nobody knows what could happen."

The cogs in Shrieky's head are gently turning, as he digests this information. It doesn't sound too terrible, comparatively speaking, having to hide what you are just out of habit. It's hardly ideal of course, but it could also be a lot worse.

There's another small thought, at the back of his head. A tiny, vindicating thought, that he needs to confirm before commencing celebrations, "So... if the people who are like that keep it a secret, then how do you know?"

Well, rats.

Jae looks flustered for the first time, at that, and wishes he was carrying something to fuss with (hide behind) as he scrambles mentally at how to reply to that. He knew it was coming, if he was to be honest with himself, because the conversation's been going there and he's been trying to function like a normal-in-context person in Baedal but-

But it's still hard. And more than a little frightening.

"I'm a sorcerer."

To Jae, it sounds completely lame. Like someone else speaking through his mouth; someone who hasn't been in hiding and desperately trying to avoid himself for years.

"Ha! Yes!" Shrieky looks absolutely thrilled by this news, any discomfort which Jae might feel about having made the revelation is completely lost on him, he's far too busy bathing in his own little victory, "I knew it! That's why you're not evil! My theory about humans being terrible holds up, because sorcerers obviously don't count!"

He stretches his arms over his head, and lets out a breath that comes out as a shuddering laugh. He can't even begin to wipe the grin off his face.

"You should have told me sooner. In the way that, when you thought I was a human, you were automatically better disposed towards me..." Because that was clearly a thing that Jae had felt, and not just Shrieky's paranoia projecting onto him, "When I thought you were a human, even though you're extremely kind, I felt very conflicted. I felt suspicious of you, and I couldn't help it."

He lets out a breath, and although the grin has finally fallen down into something a little less intense, he's still obviously pretty pleased about this revelation.

The idea of being that jubilant over someone being abnormal makes anxiety twist inside Jae. It isn't Ilde's fierce pride - that he understands, can respect, in the face of what she's suffered and what she has left, but what she has isn't a giggling joy over it. At home, all being like them offers is a big painted target. Not from humans - maybe the people in the facility were human, but they weren't run of the mill, everyday humans; witch hunters aren't normal, proxies that deal to black market ability surgeons aren't normal. Being supernatural makes you a part of the supernatural world, and in Jae's experience, everything about it is terrifying.

... So he just looks a little sad. Because even if Shrieky is being uncharitable, it's not his fault. "Well I still am human," he says, not to be pedantic but because he believes it to be true, and because it's all he really has left in terms of clinging to in terms of identity. "Witches in my world are considered nonhuman, because they're so powerful. But us guys aren't on the same vein of magic."

What can he even say about the rest of it?

The disagreement throws Shrieky for a loop, slightly, interfereing with his self affirming glee long enough for him to notice the expression of sorrow on the other man's face. He can't quite shake his happiness away, but the fact that it obviously isn't shared does force him to contain it slightly.

"I don't know why you'd want to be human, if you had a choice." And then he does frown, "Well, no, actually that's entirely untrue..." There's a short pause, before he adds, "I just don't think that you should."

"People don't get to choose."

They're born human or inhuman, magical or mundane. And that's that. (Even the people who buy and sell Frankensteined abilities are still just what they arrived as, human, baseline, the modifications as natural as an aftermarket stereo.)

"I take what choices I do have pretty seriously, though."

"You're a human, but you're not like them. What I mean is that you have... a part of yourself that belongs as much in one world as it does in the other. Doesn't that give you a choice? About how you identify - to yourself - what it is you are?"

He lifts one hand to his chin, his expression a little more considerate, now. Less inclined to shove his disapproval of humans onto someone who clearly doesn't share it. Even if he should.

"What choices do you have?"

Jae feels like that first bit is rhetorical, so he just tilts his head at it, versus responding. He doesn't feel like attempting to argue or justify - he isn't comfortable rejecting his entire life just because he has magic powers. And he isn't comfortable embracing something that's just going to end up getting him put back in a laboratory or -

- he doesn't want to think about Ilde's world.

"How to treat people."

Shrieky feels as if at some point in this conversation, he lost track of what he's been intending to accomplish. He'd gone from insulting humans, to trying to be less insulting towards humans, to being vastly more insulting towards humans, to trying to convince Jae not to be a human, and considering the fact that Jae has taken all of this with extremely good grace (despite considering himself to be human), he's now beginning to feel very slightly guilty about it.

His voice falters very slightly, as he replies again, "That you take that choice seriously, has been quite evident. As, I feel, has been the fact that I... don't often consider the same choice as carefully as perhaps I should." He clears his throat very slightly, glancing carefully to the side as he adds, "I apologize for denying your humanity. And for insulting it. I believe that you are perfectly fine in all ways."

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