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

[theearth]

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.]

Comments

[show_my_cannons]

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?"

[neonnerd]

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.

[show_my_cannons]

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."

[neonnerd]

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."

[show_my_cannons]

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.

[neonnerd]

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.

[show_my_cannons]

"Yeah. Sounds right."

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."

[neonnerd]

It is right. Whatever else, this is where he needs to be. For the first time in perhaps his entire life, he is starting to feel as though he belongs somewhere, doing something.

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.

[show_my_cannons]

If he knew what the other was thinking, he'd have agreed. For the first time since the military does he feel this connection. This... rightness. He never had it, after he left.

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."