12439/Punching The Library Card

Punching The Library Card
Date of Scene:	15 August 2022
Location:	The Velvet Room - Library
Synopsis:	Gabby catches up with Jon. They talk about nightmares, and the Old Ones. Gabby knows where Not-Rien has gone.
Cast of Characters:	Gabby Kinney, Jonathan Sims

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Gabby Kinney has posed:
Where does one go when they want to find The Archivist? Where else? The library. Of course there were other places to find him as well, to check with Cael or the like for him, but in this case it was easy enough to hunt him down. Gabby had been out hunting for days now. It was a welcome distraction to the nightmare she'd had that had left her with lingering memories that were just not wanting to fade away entirely.

It was also great practice at being able to locate someone by scent alone. At least Jon's scent was far better, and much less disgusting than the Not-Rien.

Tugging at the half-gloves she wears when in costume, or else out riding her motorcycle, she enters the library with a little sniff of the air to assure her she was on the right track. "Jon, you busy?" she calls out even as her eyes skim over the room to locate where he might be. In the stacks? At a desk? Asleep on a stack of books?

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon is not in any of those places, not technically. He's standing at a white board covered in acronyms, with lines between them and various notes scribbled along the lines. His handwriting is surprisingly neat and easy-to-read for a doctor, so it's easy enough to make out some kind of shorthand, even if it's hard for someone else to read.

    Jon startles at Gabby's voice, but relaxes as he turns and realizes just who it is. There's an oddly furtive expression on his face, like he's been caught doing something wrong. "Ahh... Gabby! Not terribly busy, no, just trying to work a few things out. How are you?" A pause. "Well... I heard about the nightmare. So not well, I expect?" His tone is sympathetic.

    He's wearing his sky blue skirt and emerald t-shirt, his nails painted black and red and his hair dyed in a brilliant rainbow. He looks like he has his right arm back but it smells... odd. Wrong. Overly meaty, somehow. It smells like Lydia, oddly enough. He absently runs a hand through his hair and comes away with a blue-black feather that he frowns at and flicks away; it disappears before it hits the floor.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney pauses with an eyebrow arched to stare at them a long moment. A deep breath is drawn more out of habit than intending to scent him--but it was one and the same for her at this point. A little crinkle of her nose comes as she frowns drawing her eyebrows together while fixing him with that gaze.

"She did your arm, huh? What's that going to cost in the long run?" It was a question worth asking. She'd at least been among the group helping to locate Lydia when they became aware of her late night modification hobby. Another absent tug is given to her left glove while her fingers clench and relax almost spasmodically. It clenches again when her hand falls back to her side.

A glance is cast aside as she approaches to regard the white board as a good thing to look at besides Jon. "Yeah. It was... It was a dream," she hazards with a somewhat flat, tired voice. She almost sounded older than she was right now. The energy she usually exhibited was muted underneath something else though she otherwise seems mostly all right. Mostly. Her left hand twitches again before she flashes a grin.

"I mean I told them off and they got pissed off at me about it, but I don't think there was any other answer to what they offered."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon hesitates for a moment, brow furrowing, right hand clenching. "I didn't ask her to," he says, tone clipped. "She just--" He stops, and clenches his jaw. Takes a deep breath.

    "Sorry. You don't know. Umm. Lydia... attacked me. Changed me into a--well, a harpy. We mostly reverted the changes, but the arm won't seem to stay away. And I keep getting feathers. And..." He shakes his head. "That, I suppose, is the other answer to whatever you were offered. 'Take the power and attack your friends.'"

    They sigh, and peer at Gabby more closely, noting the tiredness and the body language. The twitching of her hand. "Rien told us some things about the nightmare, the names you got and the general idea of the things." They gesture at the whiteboard. The acronyms /do/ include 'TRW' and 'TBE.' "But do you want to tell me what happened? How you're handling it? She was light on details." They cross to a nearby chair and sit down.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"My options were 'watch the world burn' or 'join the fight to kill everyone'," Gabby states matter-of-fact. She'd mellowed just a bit having lived an alternate life, however breif a time. All those memories and emotions were hard to shake off. The little twitch of her own left hand on occasion made it a further reminder. It's shaken off with a quick shake of her head.

"I didn't really give a lot of details I guess. I was still a bit raw from it at the time. Once I denied them they tortured me for..." Pausing, she thinks back. "A long time. It felt like a long time. I *felt* pain for a long time," she clarifies further to them.

"Sorry to hear about the Lydia thing. She's a friend so I know that's gotta hurt. I mean. Either way it'd hurt but being a friend and being worried and ..." She trails off realizing she's babbling, potentially to evade the questions herself. A wry smile is given apologetically. "Yeah let's talk I guess."

"I was me but not me. It was a war zone against Apocalypse. That's what they called him."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Trust me, the third option isn't always apparent to people." Jon shakes his head, and then says, "Lydia's--well, we're dealing with it. Rien is tracking her down to whatever lair she's got now." He's not dismissing all of that so much as... putting it aside, to listen to the nightmare.

    "Appropriate name, war against 'Apocalypse.' And you were part of this... battle?" He quirks a brow, glances at the board. "Rien mentioned 'The Risen War' and 'The Blackened Earth.' Was Apocalypse connected to one of those?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney closes her eyes. The memories were there, still fresh, and disturbingly similar to the stories she'd heard from others in the past. From Hope, from Rachel, from Bishop and Cable. Was that their future she'd seen? Or just an alternate world entirely?

"Yes. No. Both? He was... what he is. He offered both options but they were talking through him. I don't think he was real though I get the feeling he IS real, too."

Lifting her hands she runs them back through her hair a moment. A gesture to help ease some tension as well as just put herself back in touch with the here and now. "Yeah, my team was part of the war. We were going for a final push. Our Hail Mary. I had to let my teammates suffer and die so I could get to our target because if I didn't the world would end. I had..." Her left hand drops to stare at her open palm just regarding it. "I'd lost my hand a long time ago. Some fault with the pods we slept in, healed in. It was replaced with a spike so I could continue to fight."

"Can you feel a phantom hand when the real one is still there?" The question is asked while glancing back up toward Jon uncertainly. It had been bugging her for awhile, that odd feeling of 'not there' only for it to BE there. Given their own experience, maybe Jon had more of an idea about that.

"Ah... Anyway. I made it to Apocalypse. I was supposed to set the charge to blow the place before he could hook his computer system to match up with his fleet orbiting. He gave me the option: Join him as one of his Horsemen, or he would beat me until nearly dead and leave me to watch the world burn. I chose to attack the computers to buy more time. So maybe someone else could succeed where I hadn't. That's when they came out and began arguing. The ..." Her eyes narrow. "A black flame, and a soldier."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon reaches out his right arm and flexes the hand. "Oh, yes. My magical prosthetic... it doesn't feel much of anything. Pressure is about all, the sense of something there. So having /feeling/ in this hand, in this arm... it's strange. I was trying to play my guitar and I actually kept fumbling with it, I'm not used to actually /feeling/ the strings." He shakes his head. "It's odd, but it's very possible."

    He listens to the story, quietly, nodding in places and not interrupting other than answering the question. "The Fears, I take it? Coming to offer options? Well, at least they're predictable."

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney flashes a wan smile at that only to nod in acceptance of what she had learned. The hand would be an issue for awhile. It was the smallest of issues, really, but it did constantly remind her of the dream she'd lived through.

"Yeah. They talked about the Endless Fight and the flame was talking about wanting to watch the world burn. Just watch it." She shrugs a bit letting her attention shift back to Jon. "The soldier kicked and beat me while the flame burned me. It hurt. Nanomachines aside, it hurt. Actual pain until I woke up."

Her head shakes again and she offers a slight smile. "It still feels unreal. I feel like I've lived another life, and given I've known people from other timelines..." She trails off leaving it hanging. Perhaps she didn't really need to put it into words that she might have just been given a glimpse of another timeline where what she'd gone through was real. Instead she lets out a sigh. "Other than that. I found where the copy-Rien has been hiding."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "It's... possible you saw another timeline," Jon concedes. He gestures toward the board. "These things--or at least the form they're taking--come from another timeline entirely. One in which the /only/ supernatural thing in existence is the Old Ones, and normal humans are the only known sapient life form. No aliens, no mutants, no magic. No superheroes." A pause, thoughtful. "I wonder if that's why they're coming at us like this? They're used to dealing with people who don't have other options, who have no way to fight the Fears except with the power of another Fear. Hmm."

    They shake their head. "Anyway... I know the feeling of looking at another life and--I don't know, wondering how much of that's possible? Was that /me/? I actually had the chance--I was /in/ the timeline the Fears came from. I could have gone to help another version of me, maybe even stopped the Fears coming here. But the repercussions..." They blow out a breath. "Who's to say what that would've messed up? So I left well enough alone."

    He sighs. "I'm sorry they hurt you. That you have to carry all this around now. We can /hope/ they won't come after you in some way, since you told them off. I don't know how... determined they are, about this. But... you found the Not-Rien? Where?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney reaches out to place a hand on Jon's shoulder giving it a little squeeze reassuringly. "It's not your fault. I know whose fault it is... and honestly, this is not the first time I've been tortured. It hurt, yeah, but I can accept that. The rest is what had me unsettled." Offering another grin, more reassured, she adds, "I survived, and I'll continue to survive. I just feel a bit--" She falters there. "Older? I guess. I felt the same after coming out of Limbo years ago, after pretending to be a demon for a bit."

Dropping her hand away again she crosses it over her chest with the other while allowing herself a pleased grin at the news she'd provided. "She's staying at a closed down strip mall. And hunting," she adds with her smile slipping away looking more than a little annoyed. "I stopped her from getting a kid, fed her a flash bang. It seemed very effective. Whatever you guys did when you chased her out, she's weaker from it. Injured, and I think maybe starving a bit."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon smirks. "I understand /that/ too. I don't know if you heard--I sort of fell out of reality and came back home through Hell and the Astral Plane. Ten days for everyone else was ten /years/ for me. If you experienced it, if it /feels/ real--then who's to say it isn't? If you're anything like Rien, at some point you're just going to... stop aging. You're going to look younger than you really are, and experience things those around you have no idea exist. I suppose the question is how much of it you retain--if it fades into just being a dream, that's something else entirely."

    He frowns, then. "I was in Hell when they tracked it down. The... Not-Them?" He pauses, then nods, seeming satisfied with that moniker. "And--eating people? Eugh. We'll have to move on it soon, I suppose. Do you have any reason to think it might move?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney frowns deeply at the knowledge of where he was. She could understand that though, well enough. It's taken in stride even if it does worry her quite a bit. She offers a weak smile that doesn't quite make her eyes. Those still looked a bit tired. "I know. Probably in my twenties I'll hit the pause button and... then who knows. That's part of why I joined up with you guys," she points out gesturing around her with a hand. "I'm gonna live a long time unless something kills me. And I'm hard to kill. So even if others move on one way or another at least one of us will be around that knows a few things." That was part of her reasoning at least.

A little shake of her head comes at the question. "I don't think it realized I know where it's holed up. I followed it to where it was hunting in Hell's Kitchen *after* I found it's place. It was a good distance away. And after a small fight I ran away so for all it knows, I stumbled across it by accident and fled."

"Went back a few days later just to check. Things still smell..." A pause comes as she looks disgusted. "'Fresh' isn't quite the word but it hadn't faded any. It's still there."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Several of us are going to last for a long while," Jon says with a smirk. "Your sister, Chas, myself... Lydia, presuming she survives whatever judgement Chas has for her. Which makes this an /excellent/ place for those who are going to live a long time, so we can at least have each other for company. So long as we don't get... mmm... we need to make sure we still have mortals involved, you know? So we don't get all... above the world."

    He nods once, then, sharply, and gets up and walks over to the whiteboard. Under the heading 'IDNKY' there's 'NR,' which he erases and replaces with 'NT.' Then he notes down something in shorthand, murmuring to himself, "Eats people... hunting in Hell's Kitchen... but /not/ near its nesting ground." He glances up. "Where /is/ it... nesting?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney draws a deep breath. Some part of her wants to just outright say it. These were people she trusted and she always disliked when others held back information from her. The other part of her, the part that whispered of wars fought long ago elsewhere, was a bit more cautious. "I'd rather not let your Watcher know," she hazards. "No offense. Maybe I should hold off until we're all here to go. I'm not trying to do the 'Oh no and I'll take care of it myself' thing. Just." A shrug comes. "Trying to be cautious."

"Which I know is a rather cold take on things after just declaring we'll all know each other for a very long time," she acknowleges with a small sad sigh.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon chuckles. "No, that's fair. I, ahh..." He pauses. One might note that his eyes don't glow weirdly green anymore, though that's not necessarily a total comfort. "I wrested the power away from Nyarlathotep, I appear to have... cleansed it, somewhat? Chas says he can't sense the Old One on me anymore. But it /did/ turn on me, after I thought I had it under control. It fair to worry."

    They pause, in writing something on the whiteboard. "I can't feel it... /feeding/ anymore, so that's... something. I still want to be rid of it, if I can. We'll see, I suppose. But if you'd rather wait and tell Chas and Rien, I understand. Though, if it helps--the Ceaseless Watcher and I Do Not Know You appear to be bitter enemies. If anything, the Watcher would be likely to want to run off and deal with the thing as soon as possible."

    He glances over again. "Caution's good, though. I, ahh--hmm. I feel like I should at least tell people what I think will help us battle these things. If you'd like to hear?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney considers that a long moment only to slowly nod. And inhale? She was trying very hard to get used to this whole 'smelling people' thing. He did smell slightly different and the eyes were a bit of a reassurance, slightly. "Maybe. Though I've seen from the two that came after me that they can work together at times. ... I can see how those two are kind of opposites, though," she considers only to shake her head.

"It's fine. For now I'll hold onto the information until we decide to go after it. At least at that point it'll just be all of us knowing. Though," she adds, "I will make sure to let Red Robin know in case as a back up. He's good at backups." A fond smile is given at that even as she reminds herself it's long past time to visit him too.

"Sound fair?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon grins and nods. "Besides... what I don't know can't be plucked out of my head or tortured out of me, hmm? And Lydia might still--" He stops, and frowns, and shakes himself. No, nope, not going there. Noooope.

    Now he's going to be thinking about that /all day/. Ugh.

    "Red Robin knowing as a backup is an excellent idea." He caps the dry erase marker he's been using and straightens, trying to shake off the disturbing thoughts. "He'll have some idea what to do with the knowledge, if need be. But I'd be remiss if I didn't--hmm. So far as I've seen thus far /everyone/ has gotten two offers. The illusion of choice. Pick one or the other--choose, because you do /have/ to choose. I thought, leashing the Watcher, I was taking a third option--but not entirely. I didn't really need to. I had all the power I needed all along."

    He puts his hands on his hips, takes a deep breath. "They're liable to come after you directly now. The way the Not-Them came after Rien. The thing I've figured out, looking at all the different people who've been touched by these things is that they're coming at us through our darker sides. The things we fear, the things we hate about ourselves. That's what the Mother of Puppets and Ceaseless Watcher offered me, more than anything. A way to sate my curiosity, or to keep everyone I loved safe--by controlling them. Taking away their choices." He shakes his head. "What's helped me, what let me wrest the power from Nyarlathotep, is... accepting that. Accepting that, yes, I'm curious enough to get in trouble. That some part of me wishes I could put everyone I care about in glass jars to keep them safe. That I can be a nosy, manipulative bastard even if I'm incapable of lying now. But I don't have to let that... control me."

    He smiles. "You're partway there already, I'd guess. Maybe all the way there--maybe I'm preaching to the choir, hmm? You did better than I did--you just told them to fuck off and stay fucked off. But it's good to keep in mind. If we can handle our fear, they won't have any hold on us."

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney opens her mouth to respond. Nothing immediately comes out though. Instead her head tips downward with a thoughtful expressionas the words offered are mulled over. Was she ahead of the game? Maybe a bit. "I had a different upbringing than most. Rien's is similar but also different," she points out. "Fear was just there. Always there. That didn't mean we didn't stop moving though or try to find a way around or through it."

Glancing up again with a more genuine smile she can only nod in apparent agreement. "It takes a lot of practice. I guess I've just had a lot already. Though, Logan once did tell me 'there's always a choice', even when it seems like you've only got one or two. There's always a choice that is YOURS. Being true to that is what's important."

"Okay I ad-libbed the last part, he doesn't talk that much, but that's the gist of it." Speaking of choices, and being true to herself, she uncrosses her arms to open them up in quiet offering of a hug. "I'm glad you're back, Jon."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Yeah, I, uhh... well. I got touched by these things when I was eight. I was a nerdy brown queer kid in England in the 90's. I grew up with fear--and then I learned how to treat its worst effects. Maybe that's part of why I've done better than others." Jon shrugs. "I just... I want everyone to be able to handle this as well as they can. I don't want anyone else going the way Lydia did."

    A moment's pause and then he walks over to go ahead and wrap Gabby up in a hug. "I'm glad I'm back too. I missed you all /so/ much." He laughs. "You don't know how much you depend on people until you're /truly/ alone, hmm?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney hugs tight for as long as they let her. She needed a hug, too, and it did feel a relief to have him back and apparently without his unwanted passenger along for the ride. "Yeah, I do. I've been really lucky to have awesome poeple in my life even when I've lost others." One last squeeze is given before she lets him go free once more.

"We'll get Lydia back. We're already batting a higher score rate than these Old Ones, and we'll continue to knock them down, I know it. We just can't give up." Here her grin broadens. "I think we're all stubborn enough to manage that easily."