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savetheearth2013-09-24 08:29 pm
theearth) wrote in savetheearth2013-09-24 08:29 pm
Entry tags:
- !open,
- !plot,
- #action,
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[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.]
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.]
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
... 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 subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
Which it does. More than he really cares to admit. He can't deny this is where part of him feels he needs to be. As much as it pains him -- as much as it rips his heart out to admit, he's right where he needs to be now.
He'll still deny it. He'll still dig his feet in, grunt and curse and carry on.
But right now, that's not needed. That's not what his charge needs. This man needs him to be strong, be connected. A pillar. And that is what he will be. For a moment, he sits like that, his forehead pressed against Benjamin. Just breathing. Steadying. They can do this.
"Let's get moving."
no subject
Harding can try to deny it all he wishes, but Benjamin will be right there to remind him - this is where they are supposed to be.
Comrades in arms. Together.
He nods, moves to stand back, and then hesitates.
"A moment."
His arm is still robotic, but - it feels like he can change that. He only needs to figure out how, as he did when he changed the buzzsaw back to a hand. Benjamin stares at his arm, concentrating, trying to remember the feeling when he wished for a hand again, and one simply was.
Somewhat miraculously, it works. His arm shifts, transforms, and though it still feels heavy and off, it appears to be human once more.
no subject
He can't help being angry he's been forced into this. But at the same time, the rightness of it all is reassuring. Something to fall back on. A nod of his own, as he straightens. Joints pop, but he ignores them.
He waits, arching a scarred brow. The look turning slowly to shock as everything shifts. He mutters something to himself, before stepping over, and taking the other man's hand in his, examining it. There's nothing intimate or romantic in the gesture. He's just checking it over.
When he's finally satisfied, after he's run his fingers over the arm, over fingers and apparent tendons, he lets it go, nodding.
"Right then. Let's go."