h2no | IC contact

[he stops, frowns. immediately doesn't like where this is going.]

No. [he doesn't ask why, even if he is a little curious.] An' if he didn't he would've had his reasons. It's not my business to know everything that happens to him.

[Quatre wonders if Archie has some idea of what had happened, given how quickly he reacted. Never one to take a hint about what isn't his business, he keeps going.]

No, I'm sorry. That's not fair to Blue. [To drag him into it more, that is, so instead Quatre just goes super blunt.] I wanted to ask about what happened in January in Maurtia Falls.

[he doesn't, but he knows of the tree people in de chima, knows blue works there and also figures that if blue didn't share it, he won't and that it's none of his business. he's overfocused before and it did no-one any good.

at the question, he sighs. does quatre like being punched with extreme anxiety? it's impressive how little archie's showing it physically. get wrekt you little nerd.]

...How much do you know already?

[He doesn't, actually!! He winces just slightly when his own words hit Archie, hands fidgeting when the first wave of anxiety comes back to him, but otherwise keeps his eyes on Archie, face as straight as possible.]

Not a lot. Kaneki's notes had a basic outline. People turning into plant matter, trees. Something similar to Pokemon attacking the city. [He saw the reference to the 'relic' in there, and furthermore heard it straight from Red, but... he's more interested in how Archie would describe it.

...But it's also not fair to leave Archie hanging.] ...I know about your role in it. I should have been clear about that.

[he thinks for a moment about how to answer.]

My mental involvement ended the moment I unknowingly got too close to the fuckin' thing. Unfortunately, my physical involvement went a little further.

[he shrugs, though that anxiety is still there, not diminishing, only building. it's almost nauseating.]

It was a powerful relic from the world Magnus Burnsides came from. You can ask him for more details about it, because I wasn't really told much. Anyway, this thing was a psychic-- it could latch onto your mind and warp how you think. Apparently maybe three people in their world can resist it, and it goes without saying I'm not one of them. It warped my beliefs and who I am and pretty much forced me to commit all the atrocities I did when I was under its thrall.

[it's taken him a long time to accept this and even then he's not quite all the way there.]

Like making me think the way to do what I wanted was... yeah.

[Archie's anxiety is swimming inside his stomach, but Quatre gets his own homegrown sense of deja-vu while he's at it. A psychic object that alters how the user thinks, something only a handful of people are capable of mastering (master, even if Archie says resist, because the secret to the ZERO system was never trying to fight it but rather learning how to keep your humanity while steering it). It sounds too familiar, as familiar as the dread that's welling up inside him.

He realizes that it's already been a year since he destroyed the colony.]

You're wrong. [He's said it before he's aware of saying it; it's what he means to say, just earlier, a little blunter than he intended.] That may all be true, but it doesn't mean you weren't involved.

--Would you like to get your tea? [it really is an inconvenient amount of anxiety, huh.]

[that makes him look over to quatre like he's actually paying attention for the first time since he arrived. by this point he's well used to - and fully understands it - when people want more information from him, don't believe that they're told. he didn't believe what he was told at face value either. part of him does hate that some specific people thought he was even capable of doing something like what happened an he can tell it still gnaws at the back of their mind the way it takes over his, but let sleeping houndooms lie, right? it's not his place to go digging for an admission like that, and it's far easier to just assume off the bat everyone still hates him!

anyway,] I'll get it later.

[the tragic waste of some assam tea. oh well.]

I'm gonna go ahead and assume you're ain't here to drop something vague like that then leave.

[and yet he sounds a little hopeful. please leave? forever?]

[Quietly, Quatre thinks that Archie probably should get the tea now, but he's not going to insist. (He's also not going to leave, sorry for your lots.)]

I've made a mistake like that before. [He laces his fingers together where they rest on the counter; he still doesn't quite trust himself to keep his hands from shaking any other way.] I encountered something that I couldn't handle and destroyed something that I was supposed to protect. There's nothing I can do to change that, and I can never expect to be forgiven for it.

[Did he come over to Archie's house just to quietly drop that bomb in his lap??? Yes.]

Maybe it's different. As long as I'm here, I don't have to see the people that I hurt. I don't know what I'd do if they arrived here. [If they arrived here and knew who he was. The upper levels of OZ's hierarchies knew their identities, knew which pilot was in which Gundam, at least at that point in the war. How long before the word gets out? How far can he trust that it would stay classified, like Duo said it was? Did he deserve to have it stay classified? He doesn't know.] You're stronger than I am, I think. You're the one living with it. But I don't think it helps the people you hurt to say that.

[So that's why he's here. He just wants to share his thoughts with someone else who might see where he's coming from. Neat.]

I never thought I could handle it. I didn't even know it existed until I got too close to it.

[quatre doesn't say he tried to handle it, but that's the gist archie got. he knows he'll never be forgiven either. he wonders how similar their situations are.]

To say what? What I was told was the truth? [he closes his eyes for a moment and-- the things he's always thinking of, what he did with the relic that he can remember are there again. fresh like he'd just come out the porter-- reaching out to grab angela and jonathan, blue and so many others. just standing by and watching the wood take them over, i was conscious the entire time, they'd told him. the one's that had survived it, anyway. you don't just hurt the people you care about, you kill them--

archie shakes his head.] I wasn't the one that let the relic get away from me. There were people around meant to guard it, but they still left having to fucking talk to everyone on me, because evidently losing everything up to and including my life for someone else's mistake just wasn't enough.

Does it help them to know that? [he asks, and the worst part is that he doesn't even sound like he's throwing it back in Archie's face; he's legitimately curious, a little distant. Does it make a difference to know that his actions were out of his control? Does that make it better for them, to be victims of bad timing instead of malice? After thinking it over for a second himself, he grants] I can see why it might matter to the people you knew personally. [Why it matters that Trowa kept whispering that this wasn't like Quatre, that something had gone wrong.

Was it the scientists' fault for designing the specs in the first place? Instructor H's, for leaving them behind on Quatre's computer? They may have had a hand in it, but that doesn't erase Quatre's. Does not being in control of his actions mean he's not responsible for them? Maybe under the strict definition of the word, but it doesn't change the fact that if he hadn't been there, hadn't been in the cockpit, there would be a few more colonies floating in space.] But it sounds like a lot of people lost everything that day, because of someone else's mistake. Denying your hand in it doesn't change that.

Is that my call to make? I answered people who asked. Most people asked.

[some didn't. he's still bitter at the "attempts" lucretia made to explain it while he was dead. they were trying to keep their own secrecy when-- well, he didn't care about his own death, but there were a lot of people who deserved to know why they had been hurt so cruelly.]

I told them if they wanted to know. Like I said, the people the relic came from didn't really try. I had to actively pursue them to find out why they even had a rock that makes people in its proximity go Zubat-fuck crazy and they sure as shit didn't tell anyone else. You want info about that? Talk to Burnsides.

[he exhales a little-- not really sure how to proceed without seeming like he's in too much denial.]

I know what you mean. I was the face of it. No matter the truth of the situation, I was the one that actively did it all. Nothing will change that.

[and that's why he hates this conversation, because he hates thinking about how one mistake hurt so many people and it's all tied to his presence. it's why his first response when coming back out the porter was just... despair. he didn't want to be here anymore. he still doesn't, but not as badly as a couple of months ago.]

...I don't know what else you want me to say.

[There's a swirl of familiar, depressing emotions coming off of Archie. Quatre's paying more attention to that than Archie's words, keeping his eyes closed a beat longer than he should when he next blinks, trying to steady himself under it. It's the same. It really is the same, the same storm of feelings he felt on the beach with Heero once everything caught up with him, that he felt every time he thought about Trowa, when Trowa's eyes first stared at him without recognizing him, all the way through the moment when he hesitated before activating the system again. But Archie's... ungrounded in it, maybe. He hasn't had the war and the day-to-day escape of the company to throw himself into, for redemption or distraction. The people he hurt are still here, some still living in his house, but Archie still doesn't know what to do with himself about it. Maybe this is the future that Quatre is looking forward to once the war ends and he has to face the tens (hundreds? he never looked it up, could never bring himself to) of thousands of people that he displaced in a moment, the conversations with Trowa that don't have the threat of immediate destruction hanging over them to keep them focused on other things. He'd deserve it if it is.]

No. It's not really the relic that I'm curious about, [Quatre says, a little gently. A little absently, like he's fighting a stomachache of his own. Heero would know what to say, or what he expected Archie to say. Quatre doesn't.] I'm just-- just curious, I suppose.

[He squeezes his hands together again.]

We can never change what we did. All we can do is find a way to make it up to the people we hurt. Not forgiveness. But some way to atone, to pay it back. I tried to do that myself, by protecting what I could, even if it meant confronting my own relic. [Well, confronting it by using it to direct troops into battle to prevent a nuclear winter on the planet. It really loses something without all of the details.] I don't want anything from you. I don't know if the others might.

Edited 2018-10-14 23:54 (UTC)

[he's right, and if he had voiced any of that, archie would be... surprised? ish? at how he's got him read. he's aware it's probably more obvious than he thinks it is-- thogh he wonders what set this off. maybe he saw a news article? over heard people talking about it? archie hates that quatre is being somewhat understanding about it. it's partly what's making him want to kick the kid out. don't try to understand him, just tell him he's shit and deserves all the issues he has. tell him what he thinks about himself.]

I did and am doing everything I can. It's still not enough-- it'll never be enough, but I can't do anything about that.

[the fact that quatre understands it just makes him want to reject it all the more. it would be easier for him if he'd just come in and asked invasive questions. maybe archie should've been honest and just said he doesn't want to talk about it. he should be grateful that quatre is being relatively pleasant about it, but he just wants to tell him to fuck off. even that feeling is one he hates-- he told himself he had to be honest about this and just accept what people took from it.]

If they do, they haven't told me. [it goes without saying he kind of wishes they would.]

No, it won't, [Quatre confirms, like they're just two guys commiserating over their shared horrific mistakes.] So we'll just have to keep working at it. All we can do is make things better for the people who are still here.

[Keep trying to make up for it, forever. Throw their entire lives into working for other people, because it's the only way they can think to face themselves later. Idly, he remembers what Heero told him about the aftermath of what they'd done at New Edwards, when he tracked down each of the family members of the people he had killed and offered them the opportunity for their revenge. If Heero told him that facing ZERO again was what he needed to pay back the people of outer space, it must have been a good start.]

Maybe they won't ever tell you. It doesn't change what you need to do. [He glances off to the side, like he's consciously drawn himself back into the present instead of whatever half dissociative daydream he was in before.] Your tea will help you feel better, you know.

No shit.

[it comes out far more bitterly than he'd intended, but... this is a rough topic for him. he's tried as hard as he can to be as responsible about it as he can, but he's not perfect. he slips up like this, then feels bad about it later.]

No, it won't. Tea isn't going to stop me feeling shitty about killing a bunch of people and laughing in their face while the screamed in agony.

[his expression crimps. he's trying to act surly, but it's clear he's just... really scared of the concepts they're discussing.]

Are you done?

No, I guess that's true. [Quatre frowns slightly, like he actually thought it... might? Heero would be better at this, he can't help but think again. Heero probably would have just told him what to do and be done with it.

...Is it better to laugh than not to feel anything at all? To do it because you calculated it as the most expedient way to stop a war? That's certainly not something Archie can answer for him. He can feel Archie's fear, and he says more gently,] That's all I wanted to say. Don't quit.

[he sighs, irritated on top of everything else. he doesn't want to be, but he is.]

I can't, [he says, both confident and assured that he's accepted his fate and won't, but also feeling like he's implicit in something he never wanted. this wasn't his choice and he had to ignore how he felt and step up where it felt no-one else did.] but you can go now.

[That's an interesting mix of emotions off of Archie (well, not the irritation, that's pretty par for the course). For a moment, Quatre tilts his head in curiosity; resignation and certainty may not be the most pleasant emotions, but it's probably a good sign that Archie's feeling them. But then Quatre nods, satisfied, and steps back from the countertop.] Alright. Thank you for having me into your house. If I shouldn't come by again, please say goodbye to Alberta for me.

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