savetheearth | [General Log] Tuning Towers, Sept. 22 onward.

Entry tags:

[General Log] Tuning Towers, Sept. 22 onward.

Who: Any and all!
Where: The site of Tuning Towers (and/or en route accordingly), at the heart of the business district in Locke City's downtown.
When: September 22nd and onward.
What: Following that mysterious buzzing sound to its strongest point! Perhaps you made plans with numbered associates for a trip downtown, or perhaps you went a-wandering alone to follow the noise yourself - surely you'll hardly be the only one.

[Tuning Towers, the third-largest building in the United States and Locke City's most prominent feature, from a tourist perspective in one sense and quite literally by another - look up and marvel, if you will, should you not be a bit too distracted by the circumstances.

Even if you needed to focus to tune into the buzzing in your brain at the start of whatever trip you took, you'll find that by the time you come close enough to the tower to feel a rising sensation of tremors beneath your feet - unnoticed, as far as one can tell, by the crowds, which almost never lack presence around the building - you'll be able to hear it very easily without even trying. It isn't terribly intrusive in the first couple of days after the return of the lights in the sky. As September moves on and into October, however, the intensity will grow all the more overbearing.

It is, indeed, even worse if you enter the building - only the ground floor is accessible to the unauthorized by the tower's maintenance and management or personnel of the companies making use of it. Apart from that, among the indoor crowds, you'll find nothing unusual on the ground floor - and if you'll find that the buzzing loses its strength the higher you go if you take a trip up to one of the observation floors.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The question was a joke, so the answer shouldn't make him smile slightly. And yet, it does, even though he's no closer to discerning the reason his friend is hiding behind a hood.

Perhaps it's simply an eccentricity that the other man has - it isn't as though Benjamin truly knows him all that well, whatever his feelings tell him otherwise. Of course, those same feelings tell him almost immediately that, no, that's wrong, he's clearly hiding something.

But he just as clearly doesn't want to reveal it, so Benjamin won't push, for the moment.

"No. I'd rather hoped you would be interested in attempting to discover the source behind this-" He gestures absently, slightly irritably, at his ear. He'd meant to go on, but then realizes he has no way of explaining the buzzing that no one else can hear without saying exactly that, and so stops there.

The smile just earns a grunt, and his shoulders hunch up all the more. He's totally not embarrassed. Totally. He has this all under control. But... in all honesty, if he were any less at lease, the hair on his neck would be standing straight up.

Instead, he just keeps his hands in his pockets and pretends nothing at all is amiss.

"Buzzing crap?"

Eloquent as always, Harding is. He doesn't want to mince words. If they're here to do a job, they need to go do a job. He gives the building an up-and-down look, his eyes narrowing.

"They just going to let us march in there?"

Oh, no, nothing amiss at all. The hunching is certainly not obvious, nor is the tension in the air.

But Benjamin is going to do his best to ignore it. Awkward as this is, he still wants to get to the bottom of this buzzing, and it wouldn't feel right looking into it with anyone else.

"To put it bluntly, yes."

He eyes the building as well.

"There are parts that are public. We can look at those first, and go from there."

"Then why are we wasting time out here."

It's not a question. No sooner does he finish speaking than he starts forward, all but marching toward the building. He doesn't look back. Part of him has decided he doesn't need to -- it's the part of him that somehow, oddly enough, trusts the other man will follow. That someone will have his back.

"Keep up."

Not that he intends to leave him behind... which feels as if it doesn't need to be said, really.

No, it isn't a question, so Benjamin doesn't give a response.

He doesn't bother protesting that he has a bill to pay, either - merely leaves leaves enough cash to cover his lunch and a decent tip, and gets up to follow Harding into the building.

"You couldn't leave me behind if you tried."

Not that he believes Harding would. Quite the opposite, in fact, which is one of the reasons why he'd called him in the first place.

No, no he couldn't. Could he? Maybe before their meeting, he could. When the other man was nothing more than a face, a complete stranger. But now... now everything was different, and he could no more turn his back on Benjamin than he could sprout wings and fly.

... okay, ignoring the fact he'd just met a man who could talk to fish, that last part held true.

"Uh huh."

He doesn't so much as break stride as he heads inside. It helped, at times, to look like you belonged somewhere. He doesn't know whether or not they'll be welcomed, but he figures it can't hurt. "What are we looking for?"

Precisely. That meeting changed everything, and now... now Benjamin would not allow himself to be left behind, were it even possible. Whatever this is, he is fully convinced that they're in it together.

Benjamin keeps up with him, keeping his pace purposeful as well. At least, right up until he feels the now unfortunately familiar sensation of an echo. He can hear the sound of a heart beat, suddenly louder than that persistent buzzing, and his step falters.

An odd tingling spreads over his arm, and it feels - heavier, as though it were no longer made of flesh and bone. Shocked, Benjamin stares at his arm, but whatever changes are occurring, for the moment, they seem to be only internal.

And then he can see the skin of his hand ripple a little, and realizes that he has no assurance that they will stay that way. With the number of tourists milling about, heading to the observation decks or the restaurants and gift shops, not to mention the employees heading to the non-public sections of the building, there are far too many people about for this to be happening in public.

He mutters something about echoes, and changes his course, heading for the bathroom.

Damn right they're in it together. As much as it galls part of him to admit. They're here to do a job, and he'll be damned if he leaves a man behind right now. He'll deal with the consequences, the unease, and all the uncertainty, later.

He's watching the people around them, his eyes flicking from one face to another, as he presses on, head held high and limping stride sure. At least until the buzzing grew stronger. He actually growled a little, under his breath, holding up a hand to his face, as if intending to push the feeling away through contact. He glances back behind him, in an unconscious gesture -- an unwilling bid to check on the other man.

Only to be smacked in the face with memory, the weight of it so staggering and choking, he nearly stumbles. He has to catch himself on a wall as it runs through his head.

Optimus.

There isn't time to really ponder over it. He knows it -- like he knows his own name. Like he knows the color of the sky. The surety of it all, of that leader, the impact of it, feels as if it could move the earth itself.

But his shadow is fleeing. And what can he do but follow.

"Where are you--!"

How very like him, to put the job first, to feel more at ease when they have something concrete to accomplish and anything uncertain can be dealt with later. Benjamin's beyond wondering how he knows things like that now - he's starting to accept that he merely does.

He can hear Harding shouting behind him, but he can also feel something shifting under his skin, and knows that he doesn't have the time to respond.

He also knows that he will be followed, as surely as he knows his own name, so when he barges into the one person restroom, he doesn't bother to lock the door behind him.

And it's just in time; it's only moments later that his hand and arm change - folding in on themselves and shifting somehow to become obviously robotic. And there, quite clearly, is a robotic arm ending in a buzzsaw.

Indeed, he does fully intend to barrel in after him. His hand is on the door, ready to shove it inward and demand to know what's going on here. But, even though instinct is screaming at him to go forward, even though the growing part of him focused on these... memories... is urging him forward, he pauses.

Dammit, what if he's getting sick in there or something? Should he go check it out? Does the guy need his privacy?

But -- what if he's needed?

He curses. Loudly and colorfully. The memories are shoved aside for the moment. He'll deal with them, later. When there isn't trouble looming. A deep breath later, he backs into the bathroom. That's right. He turns around, and limps backward through the door, his eyes on the walls. He's inside. He's here and ready to be useful if needed. Yet there's privacy, all the same.

"What happened?" It's less of a question than it is a demand.

He's absently aware of both the cursing and the door opening again, but Benjamin is far too occupied with staring at his arm, torn between shock, horror, and - curiosity.

The rest of them have been memories, vague feelings, knowledge that he can't explain getting - well, all right, save for the sudden X-ray vision that seems to only kick in whenever it's most inconvenient for him, but even that was something minor, a small change unnoticeable to the outside.

This is far different. This is - Benjamin isn't sure he knows how to handle this.

"In this case, I believe looking will do far more than any explanation I could ever attempt."

He can't explain this concern. This sudden, inexplicable, undeniable need to protect this other man. Something is wrong. He needs to be there. He needs to defend. He wants to step right up and rip the problem away, place himself directly in its path, and punch the offending issue until it stops moving.

He doesn't know exactly where it came from, this urge. He's not sure if he appreciates it or not.

But he strides forward, reaching for the other's shoulder.

"What is it? What happened?"

Well. Harding might not be sure if he appreciates it or not, but Benjamin certainly would, were he aware of it. And were there anything that Harding could actually do. And provided he didn't place himself in undue risk, or - all right, perhaps appreciate wouldn't be the most accurate term.

But it would be a familiar sense of fondness, which would be far more welcome than the familiarity that Benjamin is experiencing now.

He turns, showing the robotic limb, complete with buzzsaw, that his arm has transformed into. It feels - wrong, strange, but at the same time, it too is familiar.

"I'm not entirely certain I can make it go back." His voice sounds far calmer than the situation warrants - but better that than to panic.

He's about to stride forward, to reach out and physically turn the other man toward him. He doesn't like this. Doesn't like feeling as if there's a threat somewhere. He never really has. It sets off all kinds of alarm bells, putting him in an even worse mood than before.

It has to show on his face. Except the angered expression quickly turns to shock, seeing the robotic limb. Shock... and then something else.

Some distant, unfocused look.

As if he's been smashed in the face with a load of bricks. And, in a way, he has. It's nothing so dramatic as what Benjamin has encountered. But, suddenly, painfully, abruptly, he knows the face he's been seeing in the mirror for fifty years now...

... it's not the face he should be seeing. His face should be... metal. Rugged, worn, mechanical. As the rest of him should be. He can see it in his mind's eye, and it drives the words right out of him.

Oh, it's quite obvious. It's a look that Benjamin hasn't seen, except perhaps for the very first time they met, running into each other in that park - but that had been no where near this extreme.

And yet, it's something for Benjamin to latch onto, to shake him out of his own shock and grab on to this other man as though he were a lifeline.

Well. It isn't as though he hasn't already done that already, to some degree, but in this case, it's specific. That look is shock, but it's also knowledge. Harding has realized something, and Benjamin suspects that is the same thing that he's trying to grasp.

"This is familiar, the metal, the mechanical... You know it too, you must, it's - as it should be."

As soon as Benjamin says it, he knows that it's true. It's the feeling that he's been trying to figure out since that first echo that'd told him that his other self wasn't human, since he'd seen Chris's own robotic arms, since receiving X-ray vision.

"It's the rest of me that isn't."

What the hell can he even say to this?

It's the rest of me that isn't.

The same sentiment echoes in his head, bouncing and getting louder until it's a rushing in his ears. He feels as if he's been knocked off his feet, like the bottom just ripped out of the world. His breathing becomes rapid.

His hands reach out, and grasp the other man's shoulders, holding on. He's real. He's solid. Whatever is happening here, whatever is happening to him... it's happening to Benjamin too. To someone else. He holds on, too, only distantly realizing he's being grasped in return.

It's the rest of me that isn't.

"It's... I'm not... me."

Incoherent. Gruff. The words choked out like broken glass. Like air can't force its way out of his lungs enough.

"... Mechanical? Us?"

Just what the hell are they?

Dimly, he's aware that he should be concerned about the robotic arm. That the natural response to someone in this situation should be something like horror, an instinctive desire to cover it up, to make sure that no one touches it. If nothing else, he should be especially concerned about the buzzsaw and anyone coming into close proximity of it, let alone this man who means so much to him.

But it isn't.

He spares only a thought for the buzzsaw, and even then it's only that it's no longer a hand, and he can only grasp Harding's shoulder with the one he has left.

As soon as he thinks that, the buzzsaw shifts, changes, and a hand re-emerges. It's mechanical, the same as his arm, but it's a hand nonetheless, and Benjamin rests it gently on top of one of Harding's hands gripping his shoulder.

"Whatever we were, it was... I - remembered, the feeling that though I wasn't human, I liked them. I wanted to protect them. I think we were soldiers, in a war that I can't recall."

The idea scares him, more than his arm changing.

He doesn't pay the robotic arm, or the buzzsaw, any more attention than he would a regular arm. It's as if part of his brain has already accepted them as part and parcel of the whole -- of the person they're attached to.

And this person will never harm him. He knows that. More than he knows his own name. He holds onto that thought, suddenly not caring where it comes from or how true it is. It's surety. More than anything. He knows this man. Knows he would sooner harm himself than anyone else.

Whatever they are... that remains unchanged. For what good it does them.

His grip tightens, almost as if he's intending to jerk the other man closer. Something more stable and real to hold onto, in the midst of all this.

"I was... I'm a soldier," he manages. His voice sounds dry, raspy. "I have always been a soldier... Even like. Like that."

Before this started, Benjamin would known that to be true as well. He would have said there was very close to nothing that could make him harm anyone else. But with everything he's starting to remember, with everything that's been happening to him - he can't be certain of that anymore.

No, that's not entirely accurate. It's still true as far as this man is concerned.

His hand shifts, sliding over the other man's shoulder, down his arm, and back up again. Partially it's to check for any signs of changes similar to Benjamin's own, to feel for anything mechanical - and it's partially for reassurance.

"Yes." His own voice is horse as well, and he clears it. "Somehow, that stayed the same about you. I'm not surprised."

Any other time, any other place, he wouldn't be caught dead, holding onto a relative stranger like this. But this isn't any other time or place. This is somewhere neither of them can control. These are circumstances neither of them can control.

The urge to protect is too strong to ignore. His fingers dig into the other man's shoulders, bracing him. Even when the hand rubs at his own arm, he holds on.

He has to. This is what he does.

His eyes lock with the other's -- good eye and bad unwavering. Somehow, he knows, he must be the anchor in this.

"And you?"

Neither would Benjamin. As affectionate as he can be with the ones close to him, he is still a very private person, and this man - this man is still an oddity, someone close to him and not at the same time. That may be beyond either of their control, but - what they choose to do with it isn't.

That unwavering gaze calms him slightly. It shouldn't, it should be unnerving and a little too close for comfort. But it's steady, strong, and he knows with more certainty than ever that he feels safe in this man's presence. That he can trust him.

"I am not a solider. I never have been. I'm a doctor, I heal people. I wouldn't know what to do in a war."

Except apparently he did, once. Or whatever his other self was did.

Out of their control. Out of his control. Part of him still struggles against it, still refuses to acknowledge this. But he can deal with that later. After he's made safe what is his to protect.

... Where that thought came from, he doesn't really want to know. And it doesn't bear thinking on right now. He keeps the eye contact, keeps the pressure on his shoulder, grounding himself through the mess of strange memories and drives, as much as he's trying to reassure the other man.

"But you were."

As much as he wants to calm him down, denying these things is only going to drive them both mad. He can't have that. If they were both soldiers... together... maybe that explains why they feel this way. Why they're so important to each other -- comrades in arms.

"We were." His grip shifts, tightening around the other's bicep instead, a thumb almost absently rolling across the muscle. "Armies need doctors. Field medics... Do not panic now."

No. There is no point in denying this - any of this - as much as he is tempted to at the moment. It'd been easy enough to ignore before, when there were just flashes of feelings and memories, but it's rather hard to deny when there is a buzzsaw in his arm. And when he's standing before the man he knows with absolute certainty was - is - a comrade in arms.

It would occur to Benjamin to mention that perhaps Harding should take his own advice about denial, when it comes to things out of their control, but fortunately he's a little preoccupied.

"I'm hardly panicking."

It's the truth, more or less. But trying to deal with more evidence that he was in fact a soldier, that he, who'd never so much as hit another person might very well have killed, at the same time as being faced with the reality that his other self was not human, and given that there was no way for him to stop whatever changes maybe be coming, he had no guarantee of how long he would retain his humanity - well.

There's little doubt that if Harding were not here, he would be panicking.

At some point, he'd staring at his metal hand gripping the other man's shoulder, torn between feeling as though there's something right about it and as though there was something unbearably wrong. When he realizes that he isn't sure it feels wrong because his hand is metal, or because it's holding on to flesh instead of metal as well, he forces his gaze away, back up to meet Harding's.

"Perhaps you're right. Perhaps I... well. Regardless, it doesn't seem as though I have any choice in the matter, and that's hardly going to change. I will have to deal with it." He pauses, then adds quietly, "I suspect we both will."

There's no way to deny anything anymore. He wants to. More than anything, he wants this to go back to normal. He wants his life back. Not this -- none of this is what he wants.

But he's needed, isn't he? It doesn't matter if he wants it. It doesn't matter if it's right for him or not. He's needed. A comrade, a friend, needs him. And he can no more give up on that, no more turn it away, than he can fly. He can do this, at least. He can protect this. Whatever it may be.

"Good," he hears himself say. His voice is little more than a growl. "Keep it that way. Do not panic."

The last words are punctuated by squeezes of his fingers. His other self isn't too removed, as far as he's concerned. A soldier is a soldier. Giant robot body notwithstanding. He can't imagine what it would be like to be anything else. That, at least, he can take in stride. As long as he's a soldier, as long as he has his objective, he'll weather the rest of the storm.

And anchor those who can't. That hasn't change, and he holds onto it as much as he grips hold of the other man. His head lowers a moment.

There's a bare instant in which his head leans against the other's. A heartbeat. Nothing more. Then he lifts it, staring straight into the doctor's eyes.

"So we will. So hold it together. Understood?" he says, the growl still in his voice. "Hold together. Move forward."

I will not leave you.

Edited 2013-11-05 05:43 (UTC)

He is most definitely needed. From the beginning, Benjamin has denied little of this, in part due to curiosity and in part to the futility of denial, whatever his temptations otherwise - and he will not deny that he needs this other man.

It's why he's continued to try and keep in contact with him, it's why he'd called him to go on this - illplanned outing, it's why his presence is helping him keep his wits about him, even in the face of such an echo.

It's why when Harding says to keep not panicking, Benjamin believes that he can do it.

His eyes flutter briefly shut when the other man rests his forehead against his. As quick as the contact was, it's oddly comforting, oddly - intimate. There is no doubt that the gesture is meant as a source of fortitude, and Benjamin takes it as nothing more. If there is a fleeting thought otherwise - that, he will deny.

When he opens his eyes, his expression is determined. "Together," he repeats, a confirmation and a promise.

Nor will I.

[General Log] Tuning Towers, Sept. 22 onward.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)