lucetilogs | Luceti Valley

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Luceti Valley - The Second Log

Who: Everyone
What: The second part of the experiment. Things begin to unravel.
When: August 7th - August 10th
Where: Luceti itself
Summary: Check out the mod post for more. This covers Day 6-9!
Rating: Varies with thread. Please move explicit stuff to appointments post with appropriate warnings.

Luceti Valley continued in its own merry little way. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer. A new tax hike had ensured increasing animosity between both groups, despite the protests of the every charitable Lord Mayor. But on the sixth day, something happens and people begin to notice things are unusual. Idle thoughts that if thought about too much is bound to get you a visit to the police station for an hour or so. Or worse, it may just get you committed.

Meanwhile, the asylum continues to gain more and more patients. Those that are trapped there will find escaping difficult, but there may be more to this place than they first assumed...

On the tenth, battle breaks out across Luceti Valley. People begin to exhibit powers and abilities they didn't know they had. The police begin rounding up these people to lock up. If they resist, its bound to come to blows. Even though no one has regained their memories of their true self yet, it becomes apparent that some trickery is afoot, even if they might not know the source or why.

Note: This is the second log! There will be a third and final event log for the aftermath. There will also be two separate logs specifically for finding John and defeating Zompano. For those of you that signed up, we'll be randomizing the results and replying to the selected characters later tonight. In the meantime, keep enjoying the event! If you have questions, direct them here.

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[--!

He couldn't breathe, but what was air when you were staring into the eyes of a man blindly acting on instinct. Barnaby choked under Kakashi's hands and struggled fruitlessly for a hold on the man upon him. The reaction was far beyond the shellshock, the invisible scars left behind by the vicious war a decade before, that he had seen Kakashi deal with time and time again.

This was something more. It was a movement in the score that he had never witnessed before.

It cemented a feeling that had been nagging him all week, one that he couldn't quite place a finger on any longer.

Something wasn't right.]

[ Do you feel guilty he says, do you feel guilty.

He's put together in halves, with one half broken and the other perfectly formed and Kakashi thinks he should know this man, should know why he's condemning him with hate in his mismatched eyes that flash back to the moment Kakashi finds himself standing with lightning coming out of his hand, cutting straight through a girl's chest. Lightning and guilt and Kakashi's left eye is pounding, head spinning as much as it's felt cracked open as he gasps for breath, eyes wide open but not seeing what's right before him, not realizing that he's got his hand wrapped around a throat and is crushing a windpipe in his grip when all he can see and feel is lightning and a girl who stares at him with shock in her eyes.

(Do you feel guilty.)

There are hands clawing at his arm and Kakashi suddenly realizes that this is not a dream, and when he blinks again he sees his lover under him. Sees his hand wrapped around the column of Barnaby's neck, fingers digging into the soft flesh. He can feel the surge of Barnaby's heart in his hand and it's just like the feeling of her heart bursting open (but that was a dream, that wasn't real, this is, this is real) and Kakashi's gasp is a ragged sound in the back of his throat. He releases his hand and recoils, moving so quickly for a moment he's almost a blur of silver and black in the shadows, retreating from Barnaby to the edge of the bed as he just stares at his lover in horror. In shock.

(You could have killed him.)

His entire body shakes as he tries to control the panic that rises up the back of his throat and wraps itself around his lungs, making his breath shallow and far too fast. ]

[Barnaby gasped and choked the moment clean air could enter his lungs and start to pierce its way through the thick fog that had settled over his consciousness. The weight that had settled on his chest lifted-- literally-- and once more he wasn't pinned down by a force that he couldn't readily perceive. The pain from the steel-like grip of his hands and the burning in his chest as he coughed were welcome reminders that he was alive.

They were more welcome than the adrenaline that surged through his veins, set his nerves on a livewire, and threw him upright and into a readied, light footed stance that he didn't recognize.

He could hear Kakashi breathing, and could barely make him out as a blurred shadow in the dark. Without his glasses he was half blind. It was incidental.

He said nothing. Not yet. Not with his chest heaving and a lightheaded unsteadiness that made him wonder when his legs would fail underneath him.]

[ This can't be happening.

(But it is.)

This can't possibly be happening.

But Barnaby's all the way across the other side of the bed and on his feet, shaking with his hands raised in self-defense, ready to fight back should he be attacked again. By the one person who never should raise a hand against him. By the one person who never would have hurt him, because Kakashi loves Barnaby with every shred of his being, and you don't hurt the people you love. Or try to kill them in the middle of the night.

And yet. There's a look on Barnaby's face that shouldn't be there at all. A look that's filled with as much shock as it is with fear. A look that's a little too close to the one like the girl in his dream when he held her heart in his hand. ]

B-Barnaby...

[ Kakashi manages to say, and the name comes out choked as he tries to gain some shred of control over his ragged breathing.

As much as he wants to approach his lover now, to tell him that he didn't mean it, to say that he's sorry and try to make it better, he's terrified that somehow his hands will take on a life of their own again and find themselves back around Barnaby's throat. And the thought of that, that he can't control himself or the ugly thing inside him made up of all the lives he'd taken as a soldier and all those years of war, scares the shit out of him. He could've killed Barnaby. He could've killed the one person he loved most in the world and not even realized it until it was too late.

All because of a bad dream.

Maybe he's finally breaking. Maybe he's going to become like those men in the asylum, who'd lost their minds to war. Who can no longer tell the difference between reality and the living nightmares that swim before their eyes even when they are awake.

That must be the case, because he'd spent the entirety of the previous day feeling like the world he lives in isn't real, even when reality quite literally smacked him in the face. ]

[Kakashi's tremorous, uncertain voice from across the bed rattled him as almost as much as what had happened just moments before. There was a desperation there, lying underneath the mellow, soothing voice that he loved to hear whispered against his hair every night. Something had broken deep inside Kakashi-- it was plain in action and word.

This was no normal nightmare.

Barnaby stood there, shaken. Not willing to move. Fragments of the suspicions that were erased, along with the memories of that day when he returned to Kakashi's arms, terribly cold in a place that resonated deep within his soul, slowly filtered back into awareness. Thoughts and ideas shifted and changed.

A man with deadened eyes illuminated in an unnatural blue lurked somewhere in the depths of the abyss.

He brought his hands to his ears when Kakashi spoke, his thoughts racing through his mind at the speed of a lightning bolt and adrenaline running full throttle in his veins.

Somehow, something broke.]

--What just...

[His voice cracked as he tried to speak.]

--what just happened?

Edited 2013-09-11 03:42 (UTC)

[ I'm sorry, Kakashi wants to say. I'm so fucking sorry.

But the words don't come out right because words cannot take back what he did, cannot undo his hand around Barnaby's neck or the bruises that will surely form there later. An apology cannot mend the trust that had been broken, or fix the shattered parts of him that can't tell what is real and what isn't, that would even attack the love of his life in the midst of dreaming. And even if Barnaby might say it's okay and forgive Kakashi for it, Kakashi doesn't know if he can forgive himself.

But one of them needs to be strong right now, and that person certainly isn't Barnaby, whose voice is as small as it is broken, shot through with fear and an emotion that makes something twist in Kakashi's chest.

He takes a breath. And then another. And very carefully and slowly, he moves a little bit closer, so Barnaby might be able to make out more of him, even though Kakashi knows he'd still look like a blur to Barnaby without his glasses. ]

I was having a very bad dream.

[ He says quietly, as an explanation.

But he's no stranger to bad dreams, and neither is Barnaby, who had often woken him up from them in the past. But he's never had this kind of a violent reaction before. ]

I... I didn't mean to hurt you. I...

[ I'm sorry.

The words catch in Kakashi's throat, and he swallows hard as he takes another slow breath. ]

I'm going to give you your glasses now.

[ He says instead, because Barnaby needs to be able to see, and not being able to probably is making this worse. Kakashi's movements are slow and deliberate as he eases over to Barnaby's side of the bed and picks up his glasses from the nightstand, then very, very slowly, holds them out to him carefully, making sure to stay at least an arm's length away.

Wouldn't want his hands to suddenly take on a life of their own again. ]

['A very bad dream.'

It was clearly more than a very bad dream. It felt more like the fire that had periodically disturbed his thoughts over the las couple of days, and it felt like the same horror of a child watching a tragedy through a crack in a closet door. These thoughts felt oddly familiar-- why?

He didn't want to think about it. Instead he looked up blindly, green eyes wide as he focused in on the hand and the offered glasses. It was a kind gesture, one that was clearly Kakashi's attempt to level the playing field. Barnaby reached out and took the delicate frames with a shaking hand, afraid that just moving would ruin his tenuous grasp of the situation.

Was this, too, just another bad dream?

He stared at Kakashi with glassy eyes once the glasses were on, focused on the new clarity-- and the look of fear in Kakashi's eyes that echoed his own.

It was clearly reflex, nothing more.

Barnaby bowed his head, suddenly tired, but remained on high alert. Something deep inside told him not to trust anything. Not even his own senses.

What could he trust?]

I...thanks.

[Those were the only words that he could manage.]

[ Silence falls between them, so thick you can cut it with a knife. And in that intervening time, Kakashi wonders what he should do, if he should stay or go, remove himself from the house and far away from Barnaby so that he wouldn't be able to hurt him at all. He had been so sure that what was happening was a dream, that it wasn't real like the rest of the world isn't real, and now there are bruises forming on Barnaby's neck, because he can't tell the difference between what is and isn't real. If he is or isn't real.

(Though this, he knows, is real, because he can see it in Barnaby's eyes.)

He takes a slow breath, then slides back on the bed again, to put some distance between them.

(Maybe he might just snap again.) ]

I'm sorry...

[ He says after a moment, a little too quietly. ]

Maybe I should go.

[ Give Barnaby the safety of space and time apart. ]

[The physical distance only reinforced the wall that was forcibly slammed down between the two of them by a power that neither could see. Even with all of the questions and misgivings that were climbing to the surface, he knew for a fact that the emotions were real.

And that Kakashi was just as afraid as he was.

He reached out to grab his lover when he tried to pull back, almost desperate.]

Kakashi... [Please don't leave. I don't want to be left alone. ~~again~~.]

What-- [He swallowed the dry ball of fear in his throat.] --What happened?

[ What happened isn't something Kakashi knows how to put into words.

What happened was that for a moment, he didn't know what was a dream and what was real, even with his hand wrapped around his lover's throat. When all he could see was a pair of mismatched eyes belonging to the face of a man who he thinks he should know, even though his mind tells him he's never seen him before. And all he could hear was do you feel guilty, do you feel guilty, do you feel guilty (and for a moment that dragged on for what felt like a lifetime, it was all he could feel -- a guilt so large it was enough to split him in two, rend him to pieces). Nothing else mattered in that moment but those eyes and a feeling so large, Kakashi doesn't know how it didn't somehow destroy him. How he could have managed to resist it at all.

And when those eyes were all he could see and those words all he could hear, when that feeling that wanted to empty him out, reduce him down to nothing but a shell of a man that couldn't really be called a man because he wasn't even really living, Kakashi couldn't even see what was right before him at all. Even when it was Barnaby, fighting for his life.

How do you put that into words? Look your lover in the eye and tell him that you're finally broken (and maybe you always were). That you can't tell anymore what's real and what isn't, can't even rely on your eyes to tell you the truth because when you open them what you see isn't what's right in front of you. What you see is a nightmare yawning its mouth so wide inside your head you think it's enough to swallow you whole. Chew you up and spit you out into something that looks like you but isn't because you're losing your fucking mind and every moment that you spend trying to think of whether or not there's still some part of you that's not going crazy, that isn't, in fact, losing your shit, might be a moment that you're imagining. A moment that's not even happening at all.

(Maybe you're still pinning him down with your hands around his throat.)

Kakashi flinches visibly when Barnaby reaches out, jerking back away from him, almost terrified that the contact might somehow trigger another episode, something raw and violent in his own mismatched eyes as he meets Barnaby's. ]

Don't.

[ The word is grated out between his teeth in a ragged breath. ]

I don't want to hurt you again.

[ Barnaby touching him, waking him from what was a bad dream (but if it's a bad dream why is it still playing on in his head?) was enough to send him into some sort of temporary madness. (Or maybe it's not temporary at all. Maybe it's high time Kakashi gets himself off his ass and commits himself to the insane asylum.) ]

Edited 2013-09-17 04:46 (UTC)

[Barnaby suddenly wished that he didn't have his glasses. The sheer terror in Kakashi's eyes was something that he never wanted to see, even if he heard it clearly in his voice. Barnaby dropped his hand as if he were a child scolded.

'I don't want to hurt you again.']

...Kakashi...

[He didn't know what else he could say to a man who was in the grips of a waking nightmare. As much as he desperately wanted to wake his lover and comfort him for eternity, he also knew that this was dangerous materials. Somewhere, somehow, he knew that this wasn't just a man that he could swat away.

He didn't even question his reasons for thinking that.

Instead of moving any further, Barnaby just looked at his lover sadly. He didn't care that the tears threatened to overflow.]

You know that you can tell me anything, don't you?

[ That look in his eyes and the way Barnaby's face crumbles is something Kakashi wishes he never had to see at all. Wishes he could undo, because just looking at him like this hurts him in a way Kakashi didn't even know was possible before. There's an ache in his chest that goes all the way down, and he has to fight the urge to run from it, to just pick himself up and take himself out of the room and out of the house and far away from that look that shouldn't be there at all.

Words were never something he was very good at, and finding the vocabulary, the grammar, for something that seems beyond words, something so incomprehensible, feels almost impossible. He can't possible explain what's actually happening. Doesn't even know where to begin.

So he says what makes the most sense.

(Because this, at least, Barnaby deserves to hear.) ]

I think I'm going insane.

[ There's a tremble in his voice that shouldn't be there at all. ]

Edited 2013-09-17 06:19 (UTC)

[Barnaby looked away at those word and allowed the ramifications to fall on him. There was a reason that an entire afternoon was missing from his memory, but he couldn't recall why. There was a conversation with Saori and Yuuna...

About what?

The tremor in his lover's voice reflected the tremor of uncertainty that lingered underneath his consciousness. The rest of town was falling apart-- why did it have to be in his own home too? Was nothing sacred anymore?

He sucked in a wavering breath at those words and slowly uttered his reply.]

I think we all are.

[ That gets Kakashi's attention, grounding him for a moment and tempering his desire to just get up and go. ]

What do you mean?

Have you seen what's going on around town?

[He tried to speak fairly, using the topic to pull himself back to reality as well.]

People are asking questions and acting strangely. They're being picked up by the police.

...

I'm missing time.

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Luceti Valley - The Second Log

Day 8

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