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Joy and Other Things Also
[Nick had never really thought of himself as a guy who liked drama, but damned it he wasn't getting used to it. Even without their various catastrophes the missions and errands they went on with the Vaultie weren't exactly walks in the park. He'd gotten up to more nonsense with those two than in the preceeding 80 years. Couldn't complain, though, he's also been happier than he's been in that whole span.
The last foray they took into the virtual space had been a rough one for a variety of reasons. (Not the least of which being how close they both came to being overwritten like a spare USB drive.
In truth, Nick felt he ought to be a little more hesitant to load himself back in, but he wasn't really. He was a little hesitant to load Hancock in with him, but once the ghoul had demanded to come along, Nick couldn't tell him no. Nick needed the interface to debug his emotional capacitance (Joy) and check the registry changes that program had written into him. The moment he'd casually mentioned that was what he had on the schedule, Hancock insisted, and so here they were. Nick had put it off for a week or two, just to give him time to convalesce, but he couldn't exactly put it off forever.
When he was finally starting to get buffering problems, Nick bit the bullet and hauled his paramour along with him to the seventh floor. Having those pods installed in Neon Flats was useful, if a little...tangentially traumatic. Without the drama, the VI turning things into a haunted maze, and the Vaultie dressed up in Hancock's skin with his rabid Id behind the wheel...well, it wasn't so forboding. It was just...a little dusty.
Nick loaded in first (after double checking the locks on the doors) and then Hancock did at his liesure, and despite all the strange errors, the environment seemed stable. The representation of his CPU, that great, big dark, domed room with a consetallation of thoughts and templates above, loaded in crisp and clean as anything. That was a good sign, even if the plinths and the walls failed to load in around them. ]
Don't say I didn't warn you: this is going to be one boring date.
[Nick stops at the podium and pulls up the menus and an array of windows. His processes are all running as intended, the only odd man out is Joy, so the only one who will load outside of him will be her...unless his thoughts start really wandering.]
Just doing diagnostics today, not a daring heroic to speak of.
The last foray they took into the virtual space had been a rough one for a variety of reasons. (Not the least of which being how close they both came to being overwritten like a spare USB drive.
In truth, Nick felt he ought to be a little more hesitant to load himself back in, but he wasn't really. He was a little hesitant to load Hancock in with him, but once the ghoul had demanded to come along, Nick couldn't tell him no. Nick needed the interface to debug his emotional capacitance (Joy) and check the registry changes that program had written into him. The moment he'd casually mentioned that was what he had on the schedule, Hancock insisted, and so here they were. Nick had put it off for a week or two, just to give him time to convalesce, but he couldn't exactly put it off forever.
When he was finally starting to get buffering problems, Nick bit the bullet and hauled his paramour along with him to the seventh floor. Having those pods installed in Neon Flats was useful, if a little...tangentially traumatic. Without the drama, the VI turning things into a haunted maze, and the Vaultie dressed up in Hancock's skin with his rabid Id behind the wheel...well, it wasn't so forboding. It was just...a little dusty.
Nick loaded in first (after double checking the locks on the doors) and then Hancock did at his liesure, and despite all the strange errors, the environment seemed stable. The representation of his CPU, that great, big dark, domed room with a consetallation of thoughts and templates above, loaded in crisp and clean as anything. That was a good sign, even if the plinths and the walls failed to load in around them. ]
Don't say I didn't warn you: this is going to be one boring date.
[Nick stops at the podium and pulls up the menus and an array of windows. His processes are all running as intended, the only odd man out is Joy, so the only one who will load outside of him will be her...unless his thoughts start really wandering.]
Just doing diagnostics today, not a daring heroic to speak of.
no subject
Behind him, Nick gives the lab tech a weary look and leans back in the chair. The tech explains the purpose of the exercise, stress testing, but Nick doesn't listen. The wash of overwhelming presence has become the new baseline and finally, one of Nick's thoughts rings clear as a bell through the space around them.
Stress test, yeah, no shit.
Nick lets out a long breath and closes his eyes. As he does, the whole lab fades away, suddenly transparen around him. The tech carries on speaking, explaining that they should start with something simple, to get the settings calibrated for the best odds of capture. The capture from Nick and Hancock's side is crystal clear so, apparently, that wasn't required...which is good, because Nick fails utterly.
He's meant to conjure some simple memory, something clear, something immediate, but the memory he reaches for makes something twist in his chest. There's a flicker of color, washing over the space--this is a memory Hancock has seen, one he walked through himself. A new year's eve party, with a song playing that sits on his last nerve, a shining swath of red--even the most mundane, half remembered details are new, brilliant, bright and colorful in ways that ViMa can barely contain. It's moved constantly reshaping itself to hold all of this, to collect every scrap, however blurred or inconsequential, to fill itself with the world. Block by block, bit by bit, ViMa records faster than the tape can play, eagerly devouring everything, gradually developing the ability to predict, to expect--the pain in his chest is agony, cutting and terrible, but there is no reference for pain, for sensation, and all ViMa knows is that it is regardless of what it is.
Before more than a few bars of that song solidify, before more than the vaguest shapes of their apartment can form around them, the whole thing unravels. Everything comes apart and shifts to the black inside his eyelids and he sighs. The sound is clear but they can feel the judder in his chest as he does. He wants to think of something else but he's been stuck in the same five minutes for weeks. He can't find his way out of them so, why not?
Plenty of good stories begin at the end.]
Detective? Are you ready?
Yeah, just, give me a second.
Take your time. Any memory will be fine, even something as recent as the walk into the building. We're recording regardless, but this will help us decode the data later.
Yeah, right--recent.
[He resigns himself and, with the ease of breathing, the world shifts. It's hard to tell if he falls asleep here or if his ability to visualize is just exceptional, but the streets of Boston form around him. He's walking, hurrying through a crowd that seems to be trying to get in the way. It's like a fish headed up stream but he has a mission and it keeps him nimble. The air is crisp and the sounds, the sights, the presence of all that life has ViMa straining to take it all in. Banal as it is to Nick, it's a wonder to the synth he's loaded up into. It's the most beautiful thing it's ever seen.
Nick checks his watch as he walks, narrowly avoiding a pair of delivery guys carrying some sort of food that he can't identify. Nick's never been able to, either, but Takahashi's noodles were close. It's cold out, the air is crisp and just a little biting and Nick has a red coat folded and tucked into his right arm. The streets are familiar to Nick, both of them. Hancock might have trouble picking them out at first, given that they're intact, but if there was any question it's answered as Nick rounds the corner and comes to a busy intersection.
It's a six way by the river, an absolute nightmare of a light for everyone involved. Just the sight of it inspires a spike of irritation in Nick, but it's gone just as quickly. He's got enough pep in his step to override that one little nuisance. He comes up to the crosswalk, caught in a small crowd of frustrated pedestrians waiting for the traffic to clear (unlikely) and the crosswalk light to flash on. At the far corner, ahead of him, is the soda fountain that Nick finds himself checking, habitually.
The fountain is bright and shiny, the tiles aren't bleached by the nuclear winter or the endless beating sun that followed. Right now they're hale and whole, cheerful and bright, as colorful as the rest of the city isn't and almost an eyesore on the far corner of the street. Nick's tall enough that if he stretches up just a bit, he can look across it all and see the folk on the opposite side of the intersection. When he spies her, his heart soars, lifting and drifting away--she spots him and immediately lifts both her arms to wave. Her pink uniform sets her apart from the crowd as surely as the red coat in his arms marks him.
Seeing Jenny in this moment is so full of surprise, of delight and fondness that isn't not hard to see why ViMa based the whole experience of Joy around her. In that moment, she's the very embodiment of happiness for both Nick and the synth, but that hard clench in his chest threatens to throw both of them out of the recording. The light changes, the cars on parallel to them start impatiently easing into the intersection and Nick desperately wants to hurry the people in front of him along.
He can't just shoulder his way through, he still has his badge on, but he can dip around a few of them to get closer faster. Jenny is already crossing, headed toward him from the opposite side of the street, eager to reclaim her coat and head to dinner. She does neither. A car swerves through all the lanes of the road, through the oncoming traffic and into the crowd of pedestrians--Nick narrowly avoids being hit but the people who don't are almost tossed into the crowd. There's a panic and Nick, ever the cop, reaches for his service weapon and tries to catch the plate on that car.
He doesn't have the former, and he already knows the latter.
Before he can so much as breathe, the doors on the back of that expensive sedan open and two familiar faces lean out. They have semi-automatics and they're gunning for him. He dives out of the way, crashes hard against a car trying to escape the intersection. His shoulder cracks and pain shoots down his back as it comes free from the socket. They fire a few rounds, aiming for him and hitting bystanders and that desperate car. Not a single bullet grazes him but they force him onto the other side of that car, make him put the engine block between he and them.
The crowd panics, there's screaming and chaos, but Nick can see, clear as day, when the gunmen spot another familiar face. He peeks them from behind that shot-up car and everything just. Stops. It's like the color drains out of the world, like time as a concept goes with it and that is so familiar to the synth. It's cold and it's lonely, and the sound of that gunshot hits him like a punch through the chest.
In movies you often see cops run toward victims, trying to save them, to press on a wound and get them to a hospital. What movies neglect to mention is that the exit wound is always larger than the entry and the mafia doesn't shoot to disable.
One round. Fired.
The slug hits Jenny just below her temple and, in that same instant, bursts out the other side. The contents of her skull are reduced to a splash of bloody pulp; they paint the street, the steps of the soda fountain. She collapses and Nick--well, it's not like the movies. There's no way to stop that bleeding. He stares, frozen in horror, jarred by the abruptness of it all. He doesn't even notice the gunmen slip back into the car but he hears it peel away.
Just as clearly as ViMa learned joy, it recognized the desperate, numbing loss that Nick suffered. The cruelty of indifference, the abruptness of death. But with context, with the complexity of a world around it, a thousand new shades of meaning and consideration opened up for the synth. It learned mortality on the back of joy. It already knew how to be bereft and it wanted, desperately, to share that with Nick, who could never get the hang of it.
The memory stops there--the file cuts off and Nick's not about to load the next one. The current Nick and Hancock are freed from the confines of the perspective and are left standing in that intersection, frozen in time, surrounded by figments of people long dead.]
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But it's impossible to live on one side of the coin alone, isn't it? To understand what it is to feel, one must feel in every shade, paint in every color to understand the true freeing break away from rigid binary. That conclusion Hancock is resisting feels softer, warmer, kinder-- is the message here that he gave Joy a gift that no one else could? That the gift of Becoming to a digital intellect simply must be accompanied by pain? His mind struggles to balance every skewed variable behind his active observations.
So the meet cute with ViMa and Valentine was a hit, they fit into the broken edges of each other, fused into something new? But Nick Valentine is a whole person on his own, he has his own bliss to balance against whatever travesty was the catalyst of this entire situation. Nick's Joy didn't get a whole album, just one scorched photo.
What is the right thing to do here? Should he show her the missing photos? Does he owe them to her? But having the whole compilation is actually the crux of Hancock's issue. Having the complete story is so much more painful than just knowing the ending. It drives that splinter of cowardice so deep beneath his skin that he still can't dig it out. Does he want Nick to understand that?
The memory snuffs off, and Hancock isn't surprised; the connection between these two entities started with pain, the pieces of thier existences that they cannot forsake, reaching across the abyss for connection. Catharsis has new levels when blooms across a barren consciousness learning to Be. And Nick Valentine... feels like he has the weight of the world to get off his chest. Feels like he needs someone to talk to. Someone to listen. And that someone (becoming a someone in doing so) is ViMa.
A new memory starts to play, Nick in a sea of unimportant, unhelpful figments-- but each boring sound and faint flicker of color is beautiful for the synth-mind; it's very much like the perfect kind of high, making every detail bright, colorful, fantastic, and Hancock already understands the trade off of addiction too well to avoid the looming conclusion.
Every High comes with a Come Down, you don't get one without the other. That's just the math.
And his math is good. It's difficult to recognize the familiar location at first, so far rewound through time as it is. Somehow the familiarity is tailed too closely by a chilly dread. His sharp intuition insists there is something lurking, some bloody dash to underscore his understanding here.
Seeing how Nick remembers the original Jenny on the other side of that crosswalk certainly does explain why ViMa scooped up her image so fondly, kept it close to the core of him. His heart, shinning inside him if not beating.
Then the chaos starts, the coin flips, the new dark shadows lay beneath the faded highlights. The car doors swing open and the bullets start to rain. Hancock has to seat the irrational urge to jump into the scene, to try and stop what he knows in the marrow of his bones is coming. He's friendly with the Reaper, he can hear the guy's background music.
Too many stories begin at the end.
He sees the exact moment Nick realizes it: she's going to die, and that's so much worse than her being dead.
But then she is dead, and nothing could possibly be worse.
And while the human mind can barely comprehend this loss; the synth mind knows loss in spades. It lived there, alone, before it even knew what time was. So it isn't just Nick granting ViMa new depths; it's beyond reciprocity, it's symbiosis.
Two whole boat-loads of drugs it is, then. Hancock lets out a breath he did not realize he was holding, tries to reacquaint himself with the (approximate, digitalized) sensations of being inside his own perception. After a few quick moments of quiet, he manages to sort out the things that need saying the most:]
Listen... Thank you, for showin' me all'a that. I get it was real personal, and not the easiest to walk back through. I think I get what you're tryin' say. Before he start hashin' it though... feel like a change'a scenery? And a hug?
[ Second request has higher priority; he'd just have hauled Nick into his arms if he didn't understand exactly the dicey vulnerability of having the building blocks of your own trauma on full display. ]
no subject
Nick's relief is so complete that his wheezed laugh is almost bright. He doesn't wait for a change of scenery to reach and pull Hancock in. He holds the ghoul tightly, almost crushingly so, and the world around them unspools and becomes the domed housing of his CPU again.
Nick's never shown anyone, or tried to explain that to anyone. He hadn't been sure it was even possible to do, but Hancock is clever. Hancock loves him and he'll get the rest of it now, too. Now they can talk.]
Knew I could count on you to get the gist of all that. Sorry I had to drag you through it, wasn't even sure where to start explaining that.
no subject
Nick's relieved rupture of laughter catches the ghoul off guard but it's a happy surprise; the small grin stumbles across his mouth, lopsided, as he hurries to return that embrace with just as much soothing jubilation. It felt like a clumsy offer to him, but what else could he do? What else does he have but his genuine sympathies, his company and support? At least the gesture is well received; the way Nick holds him feels like the first crest of tepid dawn after a long punishing winter; it feels like being warm when the feeling was almost forgotten.
The tragedy Hancock anticipated so well melts like the dying season's clingy frost; after that, the domed room of ViMa's Central Processing almost feels damn homey. It's a relief. ]
When ya said it was a lot, you wern't fuckin' around. But, yeah, pretty sure I get the gist. Pretty wild, livin' inside a mind like yours.
And hey, ya don't gotta be sorry. Best I can figure, ya just want to be understood in where you're comin' from; I ain't gunna fault ya for somethin so human. All'a that... paints a pretty clear picture why you -why Joy- wouldn't wanna... let it go.
It's just.... damn hard to see it as a kinda gift, ya know?
no subject
Yeah, I figured it would be. [Nick takes a deep breath and lets it out through his nose.] Might make more sense if you look at everything except the tragedy.
That walk to Jenny, bringing her coat, was happy, in love, excited despite the world. I learned...a lot from everything around her--uh--that. It's the same with your memory.
[Here's where Nick finally reaches what he wanted to say and, even with all the context in place, he still hesitates a beat. There's nothing for it, though, except to charge ahead.]
I know you probably don't realize; something like that isn't exactly a casual walk through the park. But--well--you just handed me the keys to the kingdom. I thought I knew the shape of it before, of course, but this is a whole separate branch.
Inside all that loss, you taught me how you feel love.
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[ But the whole picture is what drives the engine of his self destruction, isn't it. That isn't something he should share, right? Does Nick need that? Is this fraction of the album enough? It shifted the foundations of Nick's understanding so seismically. Would More be Too Much? That philosophical imbalance gets booted to the back-burner of his thoughts when Nick reaches the sinker this statement, the cinch of his perspective; his truth. ]
That's one hell of a bottom line
[ Hancock's voice is raspy-soft, quiet and pensive; it's not so much conceding as rising to understanding; comprehension and empathy edging him closer, easing him into the conclusion he had wanted so badly to resist, that anything about Nick being forced to witness that memory could have been good.
But it makes sense, following each strand of the tapestry Nick had woven together for him; that memory has layered context and understanding that don't-- that can't always stick unless the fit is perfect. Another tragedy, another memory entirely (even a good one) could have shown Nick the same, but may just as easily have slipped through the weave of the sieve, leaving only moisture and grit. This time, the memory yields gold in the pan. ]
So... yeah, I get why ya wouldn't wanna forget. Bit'a mental gymnastics required, seein' as I did the original recording... but bein' a synth is a pretty unique experience, and ya gotta take the pieces that fit with ya, good and the bad. That about right?
[ His palm slots comfortably against Nick's jaw, his gaze on the synth's all warm black silk with the faintest of somber wrinkles. ]
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[Nick is so proud of him for that, so relieved. He's still processing Hancock's feelings throughout that memory, the undercurrent of love that undergirded everything else, but it's already opened a world of emotion to Nick. He'd always meant it when he said 'I love you' to Hancock, but now he really gets what Hancock meant saying it back.
For all the suffering involved--that's a rare gift.
Nick can't really bring himself to regret, or to accept apologies for his sending Joy in there.]
I'm not exactly glad I saw it, seeing how it was meant to torment you, and you definitely didn't just hand it over for me...but don't ever apologize for it.
[When Joy loaded back in, Nick had expected pain, sorrow, fear--but he'd been overwhelmed by the heart-wrenching, overflowing font of love that Hancock held. His despair and rage and irrational fury were built on disbelief, shock that those people didn't share that same font of care and adoration. Nick has never felt an emotion that powerful except for the sharp, terrifying drop of grief that took Nick. He'd been choked up, ready to break down sobbing, collapsing under the weight of that love and the sheer volume of itterations.
Joy had single-handedly gathered up every detail Hancock noticed, every thread of good to be gleaned from that place, and she'd brought that right back into him.]
The whole picture might crash me if I knew it like I knew that memory--the way you feel things is overwhelming.
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Yeah, alright, I... I really didn't grasp what it would mean for ya, givin that memory up. I didn't... I wasn't tryin' to take anything important away from ya, I just didn't want ya hurtin' -or uh, only hurtin?- on account'a me
But I feel ya when ya say it's more than that. I didn't mean to give it to ya... but its yours, it's you, now. I wouldn't wanna take it back, either.
[ It's an odd conclusion to hold, but he'll keep it, since Nick took so much care in crafting it; a thing needn't be pretty to be precious, they each understand that very well. ]
Crash ya, huh? Heh...[ that tiny scrap of something that's supposed to be laughter is so somber and heavy; they've circled around to the crux of his cowardice again, and Hancock is no longer clutching tight the comfortable desire to keep it hidden.
But it's still not easy to hammer into words he can bear to speak. ]
That's... pretty damn accurate, yeah
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I'm sorry.
[Nick swallows his pride--clearly his reflexive question had struck a nerve. At the time he hadn't been coherent enough to realize how much of a nerve, but moving through all his emotions with Hancock in tow has helped him settle onto the new bedrock beneath him.]
I know. [That he isn't trying to take it back. That he's trying to protect Nick because he loves him. That he can't just talk about something that heavy.]
Makes sense you'd be conflicted in ways I'm not. You don't owe me an explination how or why, though, I just...don't want you beating yourself up over something I came up with, something I don't regret.
Joy's bugged out, but I can fix her up. Make sure she doesn't jumpscare either of us with new faces any time soon.
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[ Hancock's not sure he can exactly accept that apology-- not because Nick mishandled it, but because the ghoul isn't quite sure his own truth has fully translated here. Nick doesn't entirely understand what he's apologizing for, and that isn't his fault because no one gave him that context. ]
I know I don't owe ya... But I... [ He draws a steady breath, lets it out like he's extinguishing candles. It's a delicate balance, wanting to explain himself and validate Nick's experience at the same time, almost in the same breath. He doesn't want to take away too drastically from the treasures he's been entrusted here... but he wants Nick to understand, too.
He has to look away before the words cross his tongue. ]
I just can't say the same as you. I can't say I don't wanna forget. And I wish I could. I wish I had that same certainty about it... and I feel ashamed that I don't, when you took it on for me, and you do
no subject
You got years of memories that hurt less, that aren't about losing someone. You want to keep it because it's them, but you want to forget it because it's tragic.
You don't need to feel any sort of way about how I took it. I got nothing else like it rattling around in here, it's a scene out of time for me.
[Nick finally exerts the effort to step back just enough that he doesn't have to crane his neck to look down at the ghoul.]
That old blank file? The one without the timecode--I wanted to wipe it after I found it. Don't need reminders that I'm not really alive and that's a pretty big one...but you probably feel different about it?
You want to tell me about it, paint the rest of the picture for me? I'd like that. But you don't gotta, and you certainly don't gotta right this moment.
no subject
So you're sayin... I don't gotta be sorry about you takin on that pain for me, and I don't gotta feel bad that I still feel like runnin' away from it?
[ It feels like a forgiveness he didn't know he needed when Nick shares his thoughts on that almost blank memory with no time-- he does feel differently about it, because it allowed him to understand how ViMa (how Nick) processed and experienced the world, which is exactly what Hancock's memory did for Joy, for Nick, isn't it? ]
You're damn smart and you're also right. I do feel different about it, and even though it was pretty freaky, I'm still glad you showed me. Glad for the chance to know ya better. Guess that's the same both ways, huh?
[ He chances looking back at Nick now; some of that somber shame has evaporated. He had been so certain that Nick's vice-grip on that memory meant he wouldn't understand Hancock's fickle urge to let it go, his inclination to drown it out. But he did, and he's willing to collect the details, too. ]
... Yeah, guess I could fill in the blanks for ya, bit by bit. Probably easier than downloading the whole file all at once.
It just... it's a lot. Kinda like... emotional dominos. That memory you got, for me, watching it, thinkin about it... it triggers another one further back, and one before it, and one before that, goin' back damn near nineteen years'a film.
But it's not just that. The dominos go forward, too. Every single time I failed that last request from the moment she died, until right now. And it all happens at once.
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[Watching that realization resonate with him and seeing that guilt lift off Hancock's shoulders, watching that shame bleed away, pulls Nick's mouth up in a lopsided smile.]
We can go slow, try to keep from toppling them. If they fall, well, I'll be there to help set them back up too.
[He looks like a total sap, his expression soft and adoring. When he says it this time, it has so many more shades than Nick had ever thought possible:]
On account of how I love you and all.
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[ That soft and adoring expression is absolutely cherished; Hancock recognizes the gamble Nick took here, it was the same one he just endured. Hancock might not have tried to understand what Nick was telling him with all these bedrock memories; Nick might not have empathized with Hancock's explanation of his fickle urge to abandon the memory of his mother's death; they might not have tried to understand each other.
But they did. They constantly do. ]
Yeah? Well good, makes me lovin' you much less awkward [ He doesn't always pass the phrase back like a reciprocal trade, because it's not; this time he makes a point to return the sentiment readily, and with his entire heart. ]
Guess I don't talk about her too much, but... yeah. Suppose I could fill in the better parts of the story for ya, if ya wanna know 'em. Maybe later. We still got boxes to tick off in here, don't we?
[ Those half-finished installations from his evil duplicate have been politely waiting all this time. ]
no subject
Gotta go snag the tape from the lobby if I wanna finish that.
[They haven't gotten either of the things Nick wanted to complete done, but he's not going to suggest loading joy back in just yet. That feels like a bridge too far, frankly.]
I think this might be enough virtual reality for one day.
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I ain't gunna argue that. Feel like smokin' somethin' that'll knock me on my ass after that experience. Can't believe ya just... walk around with all that bouncin' around inside your skull.
Pretty sure the feeling's mutual at this point
[ It's an odd shift in his own perspective to settle with the idea that Nick would enjoy hearing about his memories of mother-- it would have been a hard bottom line to swallow even without all the accompanying math that drove the conclusion. Sure Hancock has stories, and damn interesting adventures worth sharing... but memories of his family are not those; they're coded different, valued different. ]
Ya wanna hit the roof and split a spliff with me? Feel like I could use some fresh air
no subject
I'd love to split one. Let's go.
[The world is a sea of stars, of new and vibrant experiences, but none of them really compare to this one. To staring at the face of the ghoul that he adores and seeing that adoration reflected back. It warms the very center of his core, the cold and lonely place where he only existed as ViMA. Now he knows who he is because he can see his reflection in those black beryl eyes.]