westwhere | tell me all about your problems

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tell me all about your problems

WHO: Five, Alina, their guest of honor + OPEN to anyone who wants it feel free to discuss
WHEN: hours after the Unhalad/Anurr conflict while they're busy with the "rescued" (extreme judge-y quotation marks) miners
WHERE: one of the bathing rooms in ye ol' cursed farmhouse
WHAT: Five kidnaps a forest person, Alina joins in and they play 20 questions, Five loses his temper and yadda yadda it's a situation
WARNINGS: here be a hostage, possible violence(??), definite language... less so because Alina wanted to be a good cop so thank her

For someone who spent years (decades) working on an equation to bring him home, Five has surprisingly little patience. He's spent the last few hours pacing the room where he took the old man, his frustration growing by the second since he started to relent to the woman who inserted herself into the situation. Maybe he should feel lucky that it was only one, considering he decided to do this inside the farmhouse, but thankfully the rest of their merry band seemed to be preoccupied. He can't imagine how much slower this could possibly go if word spread to the others.

Alina insists on treating their guest with kindness, coaxing answers from him instead of letting him handle this on his own. It doesn't take long to escape him that he only seems to respond to her. And is that really surprising when he's restrained himself from appearing as the threat he is?

What they manage to pry out of him is deceptively vague, and only reaffirms some of his assumptions. Anurr's followers are essentially a cult of worshippers. They only seem to have hostility towards them because they've taken up residence in this old building, which is what they get for following Haltham. And the wolves and voices terrorizing them are simply the wind.

It's the mocking smirk that finally breaks him.

"Is that all?" His head jerks up from where he's been listening from the other side of the room, and he barks out a laugh as he breaks into a wide, incredulous smile. This asshole. Then he shakes his head and stares at the ceiling, feeling that building frustration boil over.

"This is waste of time," he tells her, pointing as he paces back to the man tied to the chair. It's with restraint that he doesn't grab him by the throat and throttle him right then and there. "He wants to be avenged so badly, let him! I'll grab a sword and we'll give them a reason."

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Alina is learning fast that people in this world can be say everything and nothing in a single breath. It's like getting pieces of a story from many different people in the wrong order. Everyone already assumes you have the last piece, so they continue as if that's sense enough.

It's not.

But what they get is what they get.

Once they've exhausted the man of questions and gotten the answers they're going to get, Alina settles back to let go. The smirk is done with them. It's all that needs to be said to let them know that this is one secret they're barred from. If he even knows the answer. It's always hard to tell.

Five is a step ahead of her, though, and he's already back in front of the man. "Five!" Alina snaps at him harshly. "We're not doing this. We're not spilling any more blood. He answered our questions, now we take him home."

The temptation to blink away and back with a sword is so tempting that he nearly does it before she barks his name. He has one. He knows where it is, so it wouldn't be any trouble at all, the man would be dead before he could take another breath. And that would be satisfying for about a minute before he remembered that he's trying not to solve all of his problems with murder.

Although when she suggests that they take him home, he still looks at her like she grew a second head.

"He didn't answer anything. Could you make any sense out of that?" No, he's still pissed. It's been hours and all they got was 'the wind.' The man is silent now, so he must be satisfied with himself.

There's another option. He just really doesn't want to go there.

He runs his hand through his hair, trying to let some of his inner rage quiet down. The man gets another sharp glare and then he takes a breath and looks back at Alina. Arguing in front of hostages is one of the first things you learn not to do, so he crosses his arms and seems to come back to the reasonable side of logic.

"Let's take a break."

Fox hates this. Not in the kind of way that one hates pickles or getting sunburned, but in a deep, utterly soul crushing way. He was furious with everyone, and furious with himself for not being able to do anything about it, for all his high-minded ideals.

It wasn't even a new kind of fury. He'd felt this fury from a very young age, for a very long time. It boiled and bubbled and brewed every so often, but never extinguished. His ideals were a direct 'fuck you' to the injustice that the world imbedded so fully around him.

Most injustices he personally could do very little about. But there was one, at least, that he could address. Right here, right now. Because if Mingyu wouldn't address it, wouldn't apologize, then it was Fox's job. It was Fox's fault in the first place, after all.

He held on to that responsibility deeply.

So it was with a grim determination that he sought out Five, trying to ignore everything else in the house that he clearly had no fucking say in. How could he, when he had no alternatives to offer?

He caught sight of Five emerging from a room, and jogged down the rest of the way down the hall to catch up to him.

"Hey. Five. Are you, uh, are you busy? Could I borrow you for a minute?"

Frustration seems to be a common sentiment in this house. What had seemed like a well-timed stroke of luck has led absolutely nowhere, and involved people Five never intended. If he’d been hoping for an outlet, if not a breakthrough, he hasn’t found it behind the door he just exited. The only option left to try puts a bad taste in his mouth and sours his mood that was already nearing abysmal.

One step into the hall and movement catches his eye. He looks up sharply to see Fox approach, seemingly in a hurry to catch him. After their last meeting, he’s one of the last he would have expected to willingly seek him out, and his eyes narrow accordingly.

Is he busy? That would have sounded like a joke if he didn’t already seem so tense. Five sways slightly away from the door, but never takes his eyes off of him, watching for a sign of what he wants before he asks.

Unable to reach a conclusion, he nods his head. There’s an unease about him, but it somehow seems unrelated. For whatever reason, that manages to make him more uncomfortable than the idea of being caught doing something he’d have to deal with explaining.

“What is it?”

Fox rubbed the back of his head with his hand, brow furrowing a little as he looked off to the side. Great. It was one thing to decide something had to be done and another to actually be able to put the words together in a way that didn’t sounds stupid. He glanced down the hall, then behind him, not exactly wanting this particular conversation interrupted.

“An - um- an apology. A proper one. I kind of fell into this place a little blind to some shit, and, ah…

His gaze fell back to the floor, not quite able to meet Five’s. He was never super great with eye contact in the first place, and it got harder when he knew he probably needed to do it.

“… Mm. I didn’t know. Is the point. About why you were upset. I thought you guys had gotten into a fight or something. Not…” he trailed off, sighing, then finally forced himself to raise his eyes to Five’s gaze.

“I didn’t know about the Lotus tattoo. I didn’t know that he even had it, and I think he would have preferred I never did, but… I hadn’t seen it, yet. That kind of magic— it’s fucked up, to put it bluntly. It’s dark shit. It’s a terrible thing to use on someone, and it’s not good for him either. I just wanted to say that I’m - that I’m sorry. For what he did. And that I’m going to do my god damned best to make sure he never feels like he has to use it again.”

It seemed likely that this would have something to do with Mingyu the moment he saw him. The man was bizarrely focused on making things right between them, and apparently Five had made him curious enough to pry into what should have been left alone. Likely his own fault, if he's been aware of his continued involvement. Which means they've been discussing him, again, because of course they have. What on earth could be more important than figuring out what kind of grudge he has against his boyfriend?

His timing is shit. It isn't easy switching gears from what he was just doing in the other room to listening to him try to give an earnest apology. Which is odd enough on its own. Five does nothing but heave an exasperated sigh at first, about to loudly declare that he's wasting his time on trivial matters, but when he hints at what caused the sudden urgency he goes still.

So he heard about that. Five hates that it brings him right back to that moment, when he was stupid enough to let his guard down and allowed someone to get a good look at who he really is. Memories that had never really faded for him brought back in stunning clarity. Mingyu really didn't know what he was getting himself into when he showed him that tattoo. And yet, here Five was actually considering...

When Fox finishes speaking, he's met with silence. The last time he snapped too easily, and he's more careful this time around. It's only eventually that he settles on a reply.

"He really tells you everything, doesn't he? Or did you see?" That's an important distinction. While it's not unexpected that he would clue Fox in on who he is, there's a line he should know not to cross. A part of him wants to find Mingyu that very moment to hear it from him, but he still stands there with his eyes locked, like he's busy weighing his words over in his mind and deciding what they're worth.

"Are you all caught up now?" Try as he might to be calm, he recoils from being seen as a victim and he can't help how it slips into his tone. They still formed a deal that's been working for them. Forgiveness was never a part of it. Unfortunately, he's being put in a jeopardizing position where he can't ignore the possible implications.

Fox has never been very good with people. Try as he might, he always managed to put his foot in his mouth or miss context cues or honestly miss tone altogether. Partly this was because he didn't really care what people thought about him. He cared what they thought about his magic, but that was a seperate element altogether.

Mingyu, though...

Fox cared far more about what people thought about Mingyu than he could really even admit to himself.

"Ah-- No. Not really? Um - I kind of. Found the tattoo. And uh, put two and two together." He wet his lips, brows knitting to look down at the ground. Words. He could string words together. This was a talent he had. Might have had. Maybe.

"I didn't need to see anything else. I can, um-- I could see what it did by looking at it. The tattoo, I mean. I, uh.. kind of specialize in them." A pause. "Specialized, I guess, according to him. Past tense. Which is the reason he made it in the first fucking place. He wouldn't - he wouldn't even have it. If it wasn't for me. Wouldn't have had the tools or knowhow to make it, and wouldn't have wanted it anyway. I'm not-- Look, I'm not trying to 'catch up' or like... fill in details or whatever. And you can tell me to piss off. I just - I wanted you to know that I knew it was fucked up. That's it. That something I caused, indirectly or not, was really fucked up."

His shoulders sank into a helpless shrug and then he sighed. "It's fucked up, and I'm sorry."

If he is telling the truth, and Five is willing to trust him, it should come as a relief. His personal traumas aside, the things Mingyu saw could easily cause trouble for him if he's choosing to share a roof with the rest of them for the time being. He still stares for a while, looking for any tells that he knows more than he says. Fox at least doesn't seem like a good enough actor that he wouldn't be able to see the signs if he'd learned more.

That doesn't make it less strange that he found the tattoo and immediately assumed it was used on him. Unless he's seen that kind of reaction before and he was giving off signals. Either way, Five clearly doesn't look like someone who is used to being apologized to. He doesn't really know how to handle it.

"Do you want me to blame you?" That seems to be what he's getting at. Maybe he'd rather be responsible, but Five doesn't see the point. He's said he's sorry plenty of times to his family, and it never once made him feel less guilt for what he caused.

Fox shrugged and kind of looked away again.

"I don't know. I guess. If you want someone to blame, yeah. Mostly I just... I don't know, it was probably a stupid idea, I just feel like if we're actually going to survive this place we gotta be level with each other, you know?"

There was an awkward pause as Fox had no idea how or what he was supposed to say now, before he suddenly remembered:

"Oh! And, uh, I met your sister! She seemed nice. Nervous, you know, but nice. Some, um, real potential with her abilities, you know? I never uh, had siblings, but it's good she's here, yeah?"

This was his very very awkward attempt at small talk. "Attempt" being the important classifier.

"Stopping bullets is neat..."

Five hears the words coming out of his mouth, really he does. They just don't make a whole lot of sense. Yes, what Mingyu did to him was genuinely horrific, but Fox doesn't seem to know the extent of it. Yet he seems bound and determined to make up for the whole incident. How are those two even together? Does it stem from some sort of shared interest in magic? He shouldn't speculate, aside from the assumption that he doesn't really know all of what Mingyu gets into if he's so morally righteous.

Which makes it that much harder to blame him for the tattoo. Five is so thrown by his honest approach that he nearly forgets that they're still standing out here in the hallway, in reach of something he'd probably be outraged by. He's fully aware that he isn't an easy person to get along with, and he doesn't try to be. There are plenty of people who would be more receptive to him, so why is he putting himself through this?

This isn't the first time Fox has tried to level with him, as he calls it, and he still doesn't have a clue how to handle it this time around. But before he can tell him to take a breath, that he's not out to cause trouble for either of them, he goes and brings up his sister.

"You met Vanya." That shouldn't be alarming in itself. They've be sharing close quarters, so of course she must have run across most of them by now. And yet it brings out a whole different kind of tension in him. Someone like Fox, who has a passion for magic and looking into things, could be a dangerous combination with his dear sister who is still trying to understand her abilities. ('Stopping bullets is neat...') If he encouraged her to use them when he isn't around...

"Is that what you told her? That she has potential?"

Edited 2021-06-04 00:32 (UTC)

"Ummmmmmm..." He squints a little as he thinks back to their conversation.

"Sort of?" He said a lot of things. He does not remember everything he said, mostly because he doesn't even tend to think about what he said when he says it.

"I told her that I thought I could help. She said she struggles with keeping them under control, yeah? So I said if she wanted, I could see if I could help her regulate them better. Build her something kind of like a magical focus."

This is the first time Five has heard of their meeting. He folds his arms and settles in for a new and equally uncomfortable conversation. Fox met her and immediately started talking about her powers and how to control them, meaning he must have seen her practicing. Five plainly has some very complicated feelings about anyone getting involved; especially someone this excitable.

Because she's family. Because Vanya losing control means, quite literally, the end of the world. She's been learning, but the consequences of something trigging her are high in a place teeming with the undead and threats he's yet to define. He does all he can just to keep her from being overwhelmed and it seems he's already been slipping.

"A focus. You've done that before?" He doesn't immediately reject the idea, no matter how it makes him shift like he's trying very hard to stay calm enough to have this discussion. It's important that he understands. "What she has isn't the same type of magic. We don't even call it that. How do you know it would work?"

“I don’t,” he replied simply and honestly. “I can’t know that, not without trying. But the principle should apply whether it’s magic like what I know or not. But I use focuses in my work a lot, yeah. They’re really helpful when you’re working with unstable elements, or components where you aren’t totally sure of their strength.”

Where Five feels discomfort, Fox seems to grow in confidence now that he’s talking about a subject that makes sense to him (magic, abilities, energy) rather than one that doesn’t (people, reactions, emotions). So he just glides right into problem solving mode as if the previous conversation never happened. He also had no idea that Vanya isn’t supposed to practice on her own. Sorry for being a snitch, Vanya…

“Essentially, it would work like a heat sink. Or a circuit breaker. Something tuned to her that she could sort of shunt off extra or unneeded energy into, and it would diffuse it. Since I think her abilities mostly work with sound waves and air pressure, it should work. I have a suspicion she already kind of does it, with her violin. But that’s something that’s hard to have on hand all the time, you know?”

His instinct is to shut this down before he thinks any more about experimenting with his sister’s powers. And he probably should. The unknown risk to her, to all of them, could be catastrophic. At the same time… His mind still isn’t in the right place after having to bounce around this much, and his emotions don’t know where to settle. His duty is to his family. That’s why he’s even bothered to work with these people, to help find them. To fix this. Vanya is trusting him not to steer her in the wrong direction.

Would she want this kind of help? She already spoke to him about how she almost missed the pills, so it could be a fear based decision. All he can do right now is gather information and give his opinion when they talk.

“You’re not giving her a tattoo.” Let him draw that line in the sand. He straightens up slightly, sounding more forceful with his next questions. “Has it ever gone wrong? What happens to her when it cuts off?”

"Tattoo wouldn't work for this anyway," He points out, and surprisingly doesn't flinch under the questioning. "All that would do would be to channel energy back to her, which is not what anyone wants. Can't use anything living. Best option is a high-density crystal or mineral - opal might work really well? - But it's not really something that - I mean, if it goes wrong, it just doesn't work. Like a heat sink you never bothered to actually attach to your motherboard. Can't help you if it doesn't work."

He pauses to consider the question more fully, running a hand through his hair and ruffling it as he thinks.

"I mean, focuses themselves aren't usually what goes wrong in a spell. They're kind of an inert factor. A spell might go wrong, but then it's your fault, not the equipment. I think in this case, the biggest worry would be an overload of the focus itself, but then you're talking about like, the opal or crystal - diamond maybe? Diamond could work but they are super expensive especially at the size required - anyway, it might shatter."

He paused, then started rummaging in his pocket for chalk before he forgot to write down what he was thinking.

"Depending on how much energy it had soaked up, it might shatter at a very high speed, but - I think - maybe encased in leather, something elastic? I think you could probably dampen the force and contain it and not risk shrapnel."

He started writing on the floor as he talked, almost like he was mumbling more to himself than to five at this point.

"Hmm. Maybe-- Might be possible to make a redundant system? Depending on the max power levels that it needs to deal with. But something like - five gems, enchant to link to each other, so if one sink overflows it just passes on to the next--"

He fixes his expression in a deep frown as Fox shrugs off his concern and launches into his theorizing. It's similar to the way Five would dismiss someone who dared to question his work, except he doesn't usually have the patience to dumb it down for people who won't understand. Fox seems the opposite, prattling on with the assumption that it all makes perfect sense to both of them.

When he starts talking about spells and crystals he stays silent, mostly over the fact that the concept of magic is still foreign to him. Five's abilities are deeply rooted in logic, in complicated equations that he solves whenever he makes a spacial or temporal jump. What Fox does is in another language, and not knowing how it works bothers him more than the possibility that it could be a solution.

At one point he scoffs and shakes his head. All he can picture is a handful of shattering gems, and he scolds himself for getting too invested in the easy way out. His sister blew up the moon, they can't just throw something at the wall and see what sticks.

"We're not going to be testing the max power levels." If they get to that, they're already dead. He seems to realize that might be telling, so he follows it up with another question. "Who controls it? Does it work by proximity or is it something she'd have to consciously focus on?"

Fox simply nodded to the first part. He didn't have a real idea of just how powerful Vanya's abilities were, or he would look more horrified when he nodded in agreement.

"Her. But, she should be able to set it up in advance. I don't think it would be useful if anyone else had control over it - she's the one who can react the fastest. But I think - Well, I'd have to test it, but I think, for example, if she kept a low level anchor to it most of the time - like when she was talking, or humming, for example - that the link would keep even if she was no longer concentrating on it. But to be the most effective, she would have to focus - haha, sorry, pun not intended - focus on it directly."

He looked up and gave Five a shrug.

"This is all kind of new ground for me, and while I think the theory is solid, testing is the only way to verify its use. I don't think we'd need to do anything stronger than what she already does with her violin, though. Not when --" He paused, then gave Five a sympathetic wince. "I mean, with where we are, and our luck, there's a good chance that shit is going to go down whether we want it to or not. There are other power modulation techniques for spells, of course, but this is by far the safest mechanism for it, especially since as far as I understand, she can't cast magic herself." A pause, a frown, then a thoughtful raised eyebrow.

"Yet, anyway. I haven't been working on that with anyone other than Eleven, so far, but - I could try teaching you guys? You might not have it at home, but that doesn't mean you can't use magic here."

It's strange. Like most interactions with Fox, he doesn't know how to react to him. Granted, it isn't unusual for him to feel uncomfortable socializing, but it's rare for him to be this unsure of how he feels about someone. He's acutely aware that in the past, he's been manipulated into things as soon as his family is brought up, and he's agreed too quickly to all sorts of bad deals out of desperation. Only this time Fox is offering to help seemingly for the thrill of solving a problem. And that... at least makes some sense to him.

Is that what this is? Finding something in common in someone? That doesn't seem right, but the more he goes on, the more interested Five is to know. The theory is simple when it just involves accepting that magic makes it happen, but he needs more than the dumbed down version when it involves his sister.

When he comes out and offers to teach them, he finds himself nodding.

"I'll talk to her." Apparently he's going to actually take this into consideration. It's risky, and he might regret it, but he's right. He can only shield his sister from so much and she doesn't have the time to figure this out on her own. So he huffs out a breath and tries to ignore that pit growing in his stomach.

"Don't start anything without me."

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