[spiders in my head]

[reckoner]

Who: Gaelio Bauduin, a very bad time, you...? like. it could be you. i'm sorry if it's you.
Where: Around Shehui (see prompts)
When: Day 187
Open/Closed: Open!
About??: warnings for uh. . . tl;dr and a VERY BAD TIME. Including bloody imagery! McGillis Fareed dropped disappeared. This is a problem for Gaelio Bauduin. AND MAYBE YOU, SUCKER.



[ A - OUT AND ABOUT ]

[ Four days ago, his telepathic nudge rebounded, making certain what he has spent every hour since struggling against: McGillis Fareed had been released. The pain of it a guarantee, but with Qri missing, he had room to suspect Shehui. Julieta had torn her signet from her chest. Having assisted through that, it's unlikely that McGillis would had replicated the experience -- this not the successful experimentation of Ein and his A-V. But, if Shehui had take notice...

But, the monitors were unreceptive and unhelpful. Four days, and he sleeps less and less, three of them in the throes of migraines born of sending nudge after word after demand, each and every firing back. He takes more shifts here and there, the first at the bakery, knowing for which he'd signed up.

So you might have seen him there, a terse employee. You might have seen him storming through the halls, approaching the apartment that once bore that name, along with Yusuke and Carmilla. You might have been in that apartment and questioned. Severe, but restrained, not yet on the brink.

Maybe, instead, having a slight existential crisis in a supermarket, staring at a shelf for fifteen minutes without moving. Or, with twitching jerks of his chin back over his shoulder, convinced of someone in the periphery. Someone who might, indeed, flicker, until he looks.

Still, nothing too alarming. But... ]


[ B - HADAN ]

[ But by the evening of the fourth day, flowers cover more and more of the city. The bakery's closed in mourning. Hadan, explained a citizen. We bid farewell to the lost. Thick, redolent petals. Throbbing skull, straining eyes, conversation cycling through his head, a broken and jarring loop.

Fate had a hand in bringing us here, or we would not be here. That the two of us were chosen for it...

At a corner, he leans a dizzy moment against a post, hand braced in woven stems. ]

The machinations of a parasitic witch, after all.

[ Beneath his breath. His fingers beginning to fist.

You might reassess when and where you want to kill me.

Tighter, white-knuckled. But they had stepped past the constraints of her Fate, seizing their own, or hadn't they? What else if both kept trapped, regardless of the rest, if speech exposed, if he only killed his enemies, but

My enemy, the facts of our births assuring it, but... my only friend. All that I know of friendship.

But he isn't here. Truce dissipated, fleeting steps toward understanding stopped against a precipice, no path forward.

Is it possible we're meant to understand something in this world before we'll be able to return to our own?

What had McGillis understood? Leaving him behind once more, to stew in incomprehension. Perhaps they had gotten it wrong. Perhaps losing his resolution yet again had been a misstep. But whether he was meant to understand him or meant to kill him, one anomaly remains: he can do neither without him. ]

Then why --

[ Gaelio wrenches the flowers from the post, swinging out and back, ]

-- am I still here?!

[ slamming his fist into the side of a building. Pain ricochets up his arm. He looks down, dully, as blood seeps from his knuckles, around the petals clenched.

It's only then he notices he almost hit someone in the process. ]

...Sorry.

[ He doesn't sound it, but in that moment, he doesn't sound much of anything. ]


[ C - GHOSTS ]

[ Close to midnight, less likely any would walk through this park. The night's close to temperate in this regulated climate, the snow gone with the season. Gaelio sits against a tree trunk, directly across from a bench.

The bench is empty, unless you step close enough for the illusion to catch. He does not intend for it to catch, but he's sloppy with the spread in the moment, with control. Evidenced enough by how the two figures that materialize keep shifting.

A serious young man, slight and uniformed. Or, without arms, without legs, protrusions down his spine. Sometimes his eyes glow red. An imperious woman. Or, weeping and bloodied, dying.

Gaelio sits, stares. To his left a piling of flowers, some taken from the buildings in fits and starts, some purchased. To his right, a rather stereotypical bottle, as though a drunken hobo in a park -- but it's wine and it hasn't been uncorked. In his lap, his hand is a pulpy mess, blood still dripping. He might have lashed out against the inanimate a few more times.

The woman speaks: We were both losers, weren't we? If we hadn't been, he wouldn't have...

But her voice fails, gurgling blood. ]

Rest Carta. Please, I --

[ The young man interjects, eyes red, buzzing through his head, around him: If you weren't going to kill him, you should have let me die.

That shuts him up, as if struck. When he puts his head in his hand, he leaves red streaks on his cheek, in his hair. ]

I know. I know. I know. Ein... What should I do?

[ A haggard question, meant for the dead, but on hearing someone (y..ou?) approach, chin snapping up and eyes fixing, it's as though he asks you. ]

Comments

[reckoner]

[ Hardly almost, then, but throwing punches in the vicinity of anyone was less than ideal. His capacity for recognizing that might be compromised, but enough of it sticks, enough for sense and speaking what he should. As to that, though it should not make much difference who might have been in the crossfire, his recognizing Ray -- Noctis -- further pierces the building storm in his skull. Not enough for guilt or shame, but for clarity, a wrenching out of that voice and the tumult of being yet again left behind.

It jerks him into the eye, a moment's calm, composure long enough for this. Gaelio pries the flowers from his damaged hand, mechanical in pocketing what he can of them, but the rumpled and stained heads poke from the fabric. In doing so, his eyes don't leave the bottle in Noctis's hand. ]

I assume instead it will help.

[ His tone flat, more observational than curious. ]

How strong is it? How does it work?

[ Not yet intrigued by the mechanics of whatever that liquid is, but he has his reasons for the inquiry. One connected to his arguable disobedience. Though not exactly taking it hard, or whatever the opposite would be, he pulls his hand closer to him. If not out of reach, then not inviting assistance. ]

[armigers]

[ His whole body is jolted by the sudden tug, his own fingers latched tight around the elixir as he struggles to control the immediate reflex to move away. The flowers again are cause for curiosity, eyeing the broken buds with veiled interest and wondering if it's anything as simple as a break-up or something more soul-shattering. The death of someone close, the loss of something intrinsic to himself, a feeling he knows all too well, so he resists prying -knows how easy it is to clam up in that instance. To avoid talking about it. To bury the grief down, cover it in laughs, teases, everything else, but with Gaelio, it seems to have manifested itself in something manic and unbridled rather than quiet avoidance.

It's why Noctis answers him more carefully than normal and with none of his own usual bumbling attempts at rakishness. ]

Pretty effective and works almost instant. Just break it like this-

[ A quick demonstration so the other man doesn't have to traipse around the city bleeding everywhere. The glass easily cracks in his grip, dissolved with the liquid inside that turns to fumes, and the wounds start to close up, healed by Noctis' own magic imbued into it, something that doesn't need to be pointed out. It's best if Gaelio just thinks it's common medicine and not the effects of an arcane bloodline from another world. ]

Better?

[ Hopefully, the gesture won't read as intrusive, though Noctis is trying to chip away at the layers surrounding whatever is going in on with this guy without outright asking. ]

[reckoner]

[ It is intrusive.

Both as read and in actuality, as the subjectivity of perception makes the difference meaningless. Arguably no less intrusive than grasping his hand to inspect the bottle, but he's not of a mind to be wholly fair, for objectivity. He looks with disproportionate intensity at the bottle, but a portion of that misleads -- rather, it's more of a struggle to keep focus, and the effort feeds into it.

Yet, he does not grip tightly, and when the glass fractures then disappears, his fingers loose with a jerk of surprise. While once Gaelio would have attributed such a feat to the possibility of advanced technology, having no foundation for a belief in magic, now, he's less inclined to think common medicine, even in place like this.

He frowns down at his other hand, the skin mending, blood left without its source. ]

You shouldn't have wasted something like that.

[ Disapproval, stern and strained, rippling in his voice. It seems clear that it could have helped with worse wounds. Given how the bottle had diffused alongside the contents, then likely it couldn't be used in parts. His teeth tighten against a sigh, and he reaches his clean hand into a pocket, fishing for a cloth.

When he tugs out a strip of torn cloth, white, once torn from a shirt sleeve, he blanches. Shoves it back. ]

...Thanks.

[armigers]

It's no problem.

[ Words muttered quickly, easily waving off the matter of 'saving' any his elixirs. This is exactly what they're for, and he'd rather use it on others than himself. He's sturdier than the average person, even powered down like this, and considering the mood the other had been in moments ago, he thinks he made the right choice.

Once the particles clear up, Noctis tries to inspect the wound, only catching glimpses between Gaelio's fussing about -a cloth pulled out then pushed in again, the reaction not lost on him. He still feels like he's treading too far where he shouldn't have and doesn't know where to go from here. Cheering others up had always been Prompto's things, tending to wounds had been Ignis'. He hadn't really been left with a 'place,' only a role to fulfill that he can't even do at the moment, but it's not as though he can ignore or turn a blind eye to someone else suffering, knowing the extent to which that gnawing pain digs and digs. ]

I mean, you helped me out before...

[ Simple entertainment but also the gifts he'd left for him on Sunsu. They had some kind of rapport going even if it hadn't been ironed out completely.

His boot toes one of the flowers that had come loose from his earlier tantrum, wondering if this really is about loss and mourning. ]

I didn't thank you yet for the gifts. [ A small, quiet sound flees his lips, almost close to the start of a laugh. ] You saw right through me, didn't you?

[ Because it's easier to twist the conversation this way and that than nail in whatever's bothering him -easier to take his mind off it completely. ]

[reckoner]

I've never helped you.

[ Snapped out, both whipped off tongue and an expulsion, but in that, rushes exhaustion. The unsteadiness that had first tilted him toward the lamp post does not now weaken his knees or spin the ground, but it spots in his vision, spots that waver with the throbbing persistent in his skull.

And as if masochistic, self-flagellating, when he shuts his eyes and takes a measuring breath, he sends another telepathic prompt to that signet. As with each other, it pummels back into him. With the severity of his headache before, it's like a gong's blaring. Enough left of muscle response to grimace.

Through it, he knows he should apologize for that response, but when he opens his eyes to focus again on Noctis, manages only a weak wave of his hand, which then passes over his forehead. Right-handed, leading with it, instinctive both in violence and this weary gesture -- so blood spots his bangs, red dark in violet.

It wants to bubble out of him, to crack: I've never helped anyone.

Better, better to latch onto what Noctis next offers. ]

I didn't thank you, either.

[ Tired, but reining in, trying. Trying also to remember precisely what he'd gifted him. Less than two weeks since, but it feels longer. The book, he must mean the book. Gaelio can't smile, but he appreciates the laugh. ]

Yes, but I had the benefit of a lens.

[ Meeting Prompto first. Not that Noctis hadn't been a remarkably poor liar. ]

[armigers]

[ That response doesn't surprise him much, having lashed out in anger enough times himself while trying to process his own grief. He still isn't sure if it's out of his own system yet, but there's nothing around to really trigger his lesser impulses, having settled into a growing numbness with the present situation, the futility of having any kind of reaction to it, knowing it won't lead him anywhere, won't get him home any faster, won't bring back his powers. It's easier to keep busy.

And somehow, even when expecting this kind of reaction, he can't stop himself from flinching as though he'd been lashed, his body jerking with sudden surprise before his fingers claw at his own neck, a nervous tick as he fumbles internally about whether or not he should let the man be, leave someone else to handle this -but he might not have anyone else.

No, wait, he remembers the girl. Quiet, strange, liked eating alien objects. Or at least seemed interested in sampling them. ]

Could say the same about you. Picked up a thing or two from one of your friends.

[ He assumes they're friends anyway. Co-workers? Comrades? Lovers? What the hell does he know? She hadn't really expressed how she knew Gaelio. Only that she knew him.

Maybe she'd have better insight into ...all this. ]

[reckoner]

[ Consumed in his own tempest, he neither intends nor expects Noctis to flinch. So young, so expressive, so nearly sentimental to witness. So incapable of artifice, though he would have it shield him.

Gaelio's eyes are dull as he watches the recoil, nails scratching up, these apprehensive movements born from the crack of his tongue. Though the cloud, the muffling, should pierce the pang of reprimand. Guilt that would temper him. His earnest fishing instructor, a boy of two names, squandering his medicine and lingering after to offer something he shouldn't concern himself with.

Lips part, close. He would say nothing, but that Noctis speaks again, suggesting a lens of his own.

Now his gaze goes murky with confusion, a darker cloud. Only one here he could call friend, resisting it otherwise while that track kept unsettled and salted. His enemy, his friend.

I've not killed my allies, or even attempted to. Only my enemies. Not properly, I will give you that.

...

My enemy, the facts of our births assuring it, but... my only friend. All that I know of friendship.

But unfathomable that he or they would speak it to another, that, outside of beginning encroachment here, the association could be made. ]

I haven't any friends here.

[ Matter-of-fact, but constriction in it. ]

I'm incapable. What do you think you learned?

[armigers]

[ Should it surprise him that Gaelio thinks himself without friends? Not really, considering how he's been renouncing Noctis' meager attempts at offering vague comfort to him. Someone like Prompto could probably pry him open, get him to spill, wedge a smile loose from his face, but Noctis is treading on uncharted territory, fighting to come up with some response that won't make the guy feel even worse than he probably already does, which is probably an impossible feat.

But he tries- ]

Blonde lady, doesn't talk much, kind of weird. We both kind of agreed you were even weirder.

[ He might be embellishing that, but it's the sort of conclusion anyone would come to if they'd been around Gaelio for longer than a few seconds. From how he and Noctis met to everything that's happened after, including present circumstances, he's still trying to piece together who he is and what sort of role he may have played in his world. Certainly no commoner given how much he struggled at catching fish and how intent he behaved when executing frivolous tasks as though he were approaching them like an alien. He'd never really seen him laugh or relax either, let his guard down. ]

I'm guessing you don't plan on ever telling me more than that.

[ And Noctis himself is not the most perceptive person in any universe to find out nor does he feel invasive enough to actively chip away at someone's layers even if he would like to see the guy in better spirits. ]

I just came here looking to bother McGillis at the bakery anyway.

[reckoner]

Julieta.

[ The only other person capable of insight, right or wrong, from their own world. Mikazuki wouldn't, far from the type, and Gaelio can see well enough that he barely registers to him. She's the logical conclusion and he should have anticipated it, but for the impediments in his current reasoning.

And at any other moment before these last days, he might have smiled, or come near, with his next echo. ]

Weirder, huh...

[ Not now, though his voice might be less tight. ]

She's simple, like you.

[ Part of what made Noctis such a bad liar. Maybe.

The sort of simplicity that can still surprise even him. Earnest, straightforward in everything but name and profession. Gaelio blinks at the statement, eyebrows jostled up, ]

Did you want to know more?

[ A strange notion, and he might have expanded, but -- McGillis.

All expressive progress rebounds, slamming back into tempest and stone. The thudding in his skull remembers its intensity, his eyes narrowing against it. Against the truth, too. ]

He's gone. Even if it was open -- he's gone. He's --

[ gone. His voice clipped, until it cracks, breaking off. All that had kindled the violence of his fist against flower and stone threatens once more, blazing, dizzying, exhausting. Cycled conversation, vows and confessions, spit all at once, cacophony. Gaelio turns his head, shuts his eyes, inhales in a nauseous rattle. ]

[armigers]

[ So he inadvertently hit the nail on the head, but it makes sense. The bakery is close by, the crushed flowers, Gaelio's erratic behavior. Even worse is the implication that something bad may have happened to McGillis. Was he killed or kidnapped or what?

The color drains from Noctis' face as he contemplates the possibilities. He and McGillis had spoken not too long ago, idle conversation. Nothing really revealing. Noctis had also left him a gift outside his door for Sunsu -gratitude for all the free 'taste-testing' he got to do for him. If he'd been under any kind of duress, he hadn't shown it. Not to mention, he's capable with his shape-shifting abilities. He'd easily taken out a pack of rabid wolves without any trouble, compared to Noctis who couldn't get his own shape-shifting abilities under control.

It would take a lot of force to bring a guy like that down, so- ]

-How? What happened to him?

[ He can't keep the edge of worry and desperation out of his voice, the sound of someone who's lost too much. Who always stands to lose more. He may not have been as close to him as Gaelio, but McGillis had always been unexpectedly generous with him, more than Noctis probably deserves. He had no obligation to help him out all those times, so if there's anything he can do to help him in return, he'll do it. ]

[reckoner]

[ Only as Noctis reacts, this emotion as raw and unfiltered as all the rest, does Gaelio remember the association. That name had triggered Gaelio's regression, with little space for thought and connections beyond his severed own. The initial silence draws his attention back, both scattered and concentrated into an imploding point. Back to paling skin, white, horror, distress, concern.

A young man with ties, ties as severed. Like this, a boy fraught and grasping.

On one of their more recent rendezvous, that man had continued his practice in shaping a dragon while Gaelio provided a shroud, the appearance that he continued to sit with a book. He lacks confidence, the explanation, and Gaelio refrained from a snort, reflecting on claims to fame as hunter and fisher. More pressing had been to dissect what rose in him, complicated, to see that man exert himself so for another. As though attached, as though fond. Perceiving utility and intending to hone it, or with sentiment beyond it?

Despite everything, because of everything, he had been unable to settle on an answer.

Now, impossible.

This memory, and another, and another, as Noctis asks of him. Gaelio considers saying nothing, turning away, the weight of this abruptly too much, and somehow, the thought of sharing it even heavier. ]

Qri. Isn't that what it means? Try to message him. It won't be pleasant.

[ Gaelio does it, too.

He can't seem to stop himself anymore, even with the migraine of days, and the agony of rebound reverberating back through it. ]

She's well enough for that, wherever she is.

[ Bitter, with a sour pull of his mouth, eyes watering from the pain of this last failed attempt. Preemptive, as he glances up, he tugs thumb and index finger below his eyes. ]

Maybe it was an oversight, to keep me.

[ No mystery in this: he's not talking to Noctis with that. ]

[armigers]

[ Even though he knows it's futile, Noctis tries to reach out, a psychic message sent to empty air, receiving nothing but a similar twinge in his head in response. Gone without a word or a trail, just like that, and for any reason? Who knows? The fact that they had all been brought here randomly attests to how unpredictable things run, and maybe Qri is the only person they can confront, but Noctis is having a hard enough time swallowing down the fact that he lost someone else -someone he was starting to grow close to, maybe even trust in some respects.

His dad, his kingdom, Jared, how many more? It's a question he's wrangled with since the first time he'd ever witnessed anyone suffer on his behalf, the servants who shielded his body, the scent of their blood still too fresh in his mind, memories he wish he could erase permanently. If only there was something he could have done to help McGillis, but how could any of them have known? They're still not even sure what exactly happened to him.

Eyes squeeze shut as he tries to get a hold of himself, assess the situation. That's what his friends would have told him to do, but he doesn't have their calm presence to guide him, so he's on his own here. Ask Qri. That's the only solution at the moment since the man is no longer around, unless he is and someone only managed to remove McGillis' signet -but that would mean knowing about it in the first place. ]

What do you think she did with him?

[ As innocent as sending him back or just simply disposing of him because he wasn't useful? The former would make sense, and he'd be happy if that were the case. Relieved. No one deserves this fate. ]

If he went back, that's good, isn't it?

[ Words spoken out loud as though to reaffirm himself of that fact. Maybe Gaelio won't see it that way as it means he's left behind and alone; he'd feel a bit shaken himself if Prompto disappeared, his one remaining thread to his own world. Having to endure it all on his own, not knowing when he'd be able to get home...

His expression continues to grow sullen and quiet, unsure what he can say to Gaelio, if there's anything he can say. Maybe he's already said too much, and he's kicking himself internally for bringing it up at all. ]