12584/We Need to Talk

We Need to Talk
Date of Scene:	25 August 2022
Location:	The Velvet Room - Sitting Room
Synopsis:	Lydia and Jon have a much needed talk. It's gets a shaky start, but in the end they hug it out.
Cast of Characters:	Lydia Dietrich, Jonathan Sims

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Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    After Cael's visit Lydia decided to bite the bullet and send Jon a text. <We should talk,> it begins. <I need to apologize to you but I don't want to push you. I'll be in the VR's sitting room tonight if you want. Let me know if you don't and I'll give you more space.>

    After all this it's heartbreaking to Lydia that she's managed to so thoroughly destroy her friendship with one of her best friends, so she's made herself a Manhattan, and desperately wishes she could get drunk. If Jon decides to come, they'll find her at the bar, nervously mangling a napkin.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon doesn't respond immediately. He gets the text and ignores it at first, continuing his work. He's actually in the Velvet Room's garden, working in the greenhouse he and Chas built, tending tobacco seeds. He glances at his phone when it buzzes, then shakes his head and goes back to carefully watering each small container, making sure each seed--not even seedlings yet--gets the right amount of water. Summoned water, of course, magical water. That's the whole idea.

    But as he finishes up he sighs and goes back to look at his phone again. "You can't avoid it forever, Sims," he mutters to himself as he glowers down at the phone. So he cleans up and wipes his hands, picks up his phone, and heads into the sitting room.

    He's wearing jean shorts and a grey t-shirt, the sleeves rolled up, as much skin exposed as he's comfortable with. There's still an odd outgrowth of flesh on his right arm, stretching down from the shoulder, like the wing Lydia gave him and the summoned magical arm are warring with each other. There are a few black feathers in his hair; a couple of them fall off as he comes in the door, disappearing before they hit the ground. Mute evidence that what Lydia did to him hasn't entirely gone away, even if his form is mostly as it should be.

    He walks over to the bar without looking at Lydia, putting up a hand as if to forestall her speaking. He goes behind the bar, pulls down the Judgement bottle, and pours himself a shot. He downs it, then pours another one. And another. Four shots of Spirytus later, he turns to Lydia, still holding the bottle, brown eyes hard but otherwise expressionless.

    "Alright," he says. "Talk."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia looks a little surprised to see Jon enter from the garden and looks at him quizzically trying to judge thier state of mind. It doesn't look like he found her accidentally, especially when they go in for those four shots of liquor. She looks a little worried at how much they're drinking but otherwise keeps silent until Jon turns to her and orders her to talk.

    She nervously fidgets with the napkin as she formulates what it is that she needs to say. She thought she was ready for this, but it's becoming clear that she really wasn't.

    Her lips press together trying to fight back the urge to cry until she finally sobs, "I'm so sorry, Jon." She shakes her head. "I don't expect you to forgive me, because what I did was unforgivable. I want to make amends but... but I don't know how. Or even if I can."

    She looks up and gestures at that stub of an arm that refuses to be healed and the gestures. "You still have some threads of Viscera in you. I know it's probably too early for you to trust me with this, but I still have enough power to pull those threads out and free you of its influence." She looks desperately at Jon, "Or... or... I know you've been trying to heal yourself with sunlight. I can direct you to the exact points of where it's at and see if you can do some direct cleansing."

    "You're still hurting from it," she says, her voice filled with concern and sadness. "I did this to you. The least I can do is offer to undo it somehow."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon tries his best to keep an impassive countenance as Lydia speaks to him, but he looks away as she gestures at his arm, pouring and then downing another shot. As powerful as the alcohol is, it's clearly only /just/ affecting him; a byproduct of his new physiology. There's a reason mortals find Asgardian mead so strong, after all.

    They swallow, frowning toward a distant point of the room, hand tightening and then releasing around the neck of the bottle. "I don't--" A pause. "Well, no. I do need the apology. And maybe I need the help fixing what you did. But what I need most is--why? What... /happened/? I... I /think/ I know. But I need to actually... know."

    A pause, and then, "And this is /not/ a bloody statement, I'm not--maybe, /maybe/ I will take a statement from you about this, but not--not about what you did to me. I can't--I can't live with that in my head for the rest of... however long I'm going to live. So just... just... tell me what happened. Like a normal... person. Doing that." It's more for himself, and his own magic, that last bit, than Lydia.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia takes a breath and nods. Exhaling, she says, "Yeah. I understand why you wouldn't want to take a statement about that. I... I can barely stand to remember it myself, I can only imagine how you feel about it." Once again she presses her lips together. "I /do/ want you to take a statement from me, whenever you feel ready. I... there's another thing I did outside all those that you've witness. I need to confess that sin. I need you, or Ma'at to pass judgement on me. People have, for some reason, been too kind to me. Even Cael. I should be... no. I /want/ to be punished for what I've done."

    "As for why... It... I was out of my mind." She looks down at the napkin and starts slowly tearing it apart into little strips. "When I went through the High Priestess, she showed me Raven telling me that what we had was a ruse. A clever ploy to show the world that she turned a new leaf, all the while just secretly doing all the evil terrorist things she'd been doing before."

    "It hurt. It was the worst pain I had ever felt and it was all I could do to try to wrestle with the feeling." She lets out a sigh at the memory, trying not to cry. "So I heard a little voice in the back of my head telling me to just.... let go and let the Predator take over. I mean... not literally, but you get the idea. So I did. It was the worst mistake in my life."

    "Suddenly I didn't care anymore. I mean, sure, I stopped feeling bad about Raven, but I didn't realize how easy it was to stop feeling /anything/ about anybody but me." She pauses long enough to take a drink of her Manhattan. "All those good things that I tried doing. It was less about doing those good deeds than it was about putting on a front to avoid arousing suspicion, and maybe proving to myself that I hadn't completely lost my moral center."

    Still tearing at the paper napkin she continues. "When I had my dream, Viscera gave me power to escape Too Close I Can't Breathe. Once I had a taste of that power, I couldn't refuse. The Predator was always seeking power, so I stood no chance when Viscera gave me that choice. I didn't even /see/ that there was a third choice. One that would keep me my own person."

    "From there, after I woke up, Viscera was always in the back of my head. It wasn't whispering per say. It was more like.... it was feeding me images, pushing urges onto me, triggering intrusive thoughts. The more I used the power, the stronger its influence on me became and the harder it was to resist. The images it showed me..." she shudders. "Horrible, terrible things. If you thought what I did in the warehouse was bad, you should have seen the stuff it put in my head. I think the only reason why I didn't get worse, was because there was still a part of me resisting, trying to tone it down."

    She's silent for a moment, as tears comes to her eyes. "As for what happened to you... After you found the shop, that gave Viscera ammunition to amp up my paranoia. You... you saw how bad it got. I was on the edge at that point, constantly fighting its urges and images, and making it hard to think clearly. It must have been digging around in my desires and my mind because it finally found a seed that would let it take over."

    "See, I never understood why you wanted to keep your missing arm missing," she explains. "It was always baffling to me. It... I was going to talk to you about it one day, if the subject ever came up, but pre-lobotomy it was always just one of those things that I had accepted as being just /Jon/. In there was a desire to see you healed."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "When you showed up that day, it was like... '/Finally/ I can heal that arm of Jon's', and since The Predator was in the drivers seat, how /you/ may have felt about it never really came up. So Viscera took that seed and just kind of... blew it up. Cultivated it. Twisted it. Used it to take over. I was kind of helpless to stop it at that point. I mean... I was still /me/. Kinda. I just... couldn't resist those urges anymore. Those images. It told me to do those horrible things and I just couldn't tell it no."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "My arm is still gone for the same reason Cael has tattoos on her hands and neck. For the same reason Marc has a tiny scar over his heart." Jon holds out the green arm, not looking at Lydia. "Who I am is not in spite of my scars, my pain. It is /because/ of it." A pause, and then he holds up his left hand, showing his wedding ring, then turns over his wrist show a tiny tattoo of a blue butterfly. "The same way I bear these, as a testament to my love. Pain and happiness are both fleeting, but they make us who we are."

    He shifts his jaw, frowning. "I'd hoped--" A pause. "I know something about hurting someone you care about, about... violating them... without wanting to. About..." He swallows. "I think I've told you Agnes' conception was not... consensual, on either end. Her mother forgave me--said there was nothing to forgive, in fact, that Elias had just used me to hurt her. But it took me /years/ to forgive myself. That's why I refused to believe she was mine, even when she was right in front of me. Because I still felt guilty. So I--" He heaves a sigh. "I understand that you can do something you'd /never/ do, because of mind control, or something in your head, or... whatever."

    A brief furrowing of their brow. "But it sounds like... like it was all the same thing, getting worse and worse. A refusal to face pain, and fear. A belief that--well, if it was still you on some level, maybe some part of you thinks that you know better than other people, what they need? How they ought to live? Not that it'd ever go to that point, normally, but with all the stops pulled out..."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia looks up from her napkin and nods at Jon. "Like I said, I was going to ask you about it sooner or later. I wasn't really /frustrated/ by it. Just a little confused. But also, it wasn't my body. It wasn't my place to tell you what you should do with it. It wasn't until I let the Predator take over did it become something more than an idle curiosity."

    Her eyebrows furrow as they tell her about Elias and Agnes' conception. "Oh, Jon. No. You never told me about that. I'm so sorry. At least you got Agnes out of that. She's a gift. Nothing good will come out of the horrors that I did."

    "I..." Lydia stumbles, "What Chas did to me, burning out The Predator, I feel more myself than I had since I became a vampire. The Predator to me was like what Viscera was to it. It was arrogance and pride and /hunger/ and belligerence. It was many things that I was not, and at some point I had to accept it as part of me, or else I'd be fighting it for the rest of my life. Sure, my clan has techniques to put it to sleep for a while, but it's /taxing/ to do so and I had to be in the right frame of mind to do it. Over the years it'd become easier and easier until I could have put it to sleep permanently using a technique that Hatshepsut had developed for her clan."

    "You never really got to know me before I became a vampire," she says. "I'm... not a brave person. You know that. I never wanted to be a hero. I only really wanted to go on missions with the Brotherhood because I wanted to help. I threw up after the missions. I had /nightmares/ about them. I never wanted to be a superhero, but that /arrogance/ The Predator gave me told me that I should."

    She shakes her head, "I'm not going to refute that there were times when I thought I knew better than everyone else. I did. I wouldn't have pre vampire, and I wouldn't now." She lets out a dry chuckle, "I'm just some schmuck who's dabbled in magic and got in way over her head. I want to help people, sure, but my version of helping people is teaching kids how to read, trying to instill them with my love of books."

    "I'll be the first to admit that I'm not cut out to do this, Jon." She waves an arm towards the gardens, "I'm not strong like you all are but Chas told me that I owe it to the team to stay with you, so... I'll do my best."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "If you're not cut out for this, then you're not cut out for this." Jon says it bluntly. "Not everyone is. That doesn't make us better than them--even plenty of brave and heroic people aren't cut out for /this/, specifically." He gestures around the room. "Just like I probably wouldn't be cut out to be an Avenger. All that... publicity and glad-handing." He shudders, and shakes his head. "Book-signings sound like a nightmare best avoided. I can't fathom how you do that."

    He finally looks back at Lydia, frowning, letting his anger bleed through his tone. "So you had best figure out whether or not you can do this, or whether you really should walk away from the team." He puts a finger on the bar. "You know what this place is. It's a prison for the worst things in Creation, and /we/ are evidently meant to be the Wardens. If you can't cut it, then you shouldn't be here."

    He frowns more deeply. "Or you could get the fuck over yourself and face down your fear. I had a 17-year-old kid out facing the angels in the last battle, while you were performing the Great Seal. He wasn't supposed to be there. He wasn't a vampire, or a homo magi, he wasn't even a trained cop like Cael. He was a fucking /kid/, but he went out there to defend New York because he thought it was the right thing to do. He died, but he had /zero/ regrets. I cannot imagine what he might've done, if he'd had the power to back up his guts."

    He shakes his head. "Whoever or whatever you /think/ you are, you're a vampire now. You have power, like it or not. What was all that you told me, about you being /fated/ to be a vampire?" He gestures to one side. "Do you think that happened just so you can go to a library and read to kids? Don't get me wrong, that's important--/very/ important. But you weren't given the best fucking diction in the world. You were given speed, and strength, and magic. You made a /golem/. Before you became a vampire! Do you know how few people in the world can /do/ that?"

    Then he suddenly laughs. "Do you think... do you think I don't have nightmares? That Cael doesn't? Do you think I don't throw up? I do all the time! We're all fucking terrified, Lydia! Constantly! If the Brotherhood claimed they weren't, then they were lying or they're /fucked up/ in the head, because no /reasonable/ person wouldn't be terrified! Superheroes are terrified /all the time/! Constantly. And do you know how many people /want/ to be superheroes, and /succeed/ at it? I can tell you it is a very, /very/ low figure. Most of us didn't ask for this, didn't fucking want it, and a lot of us--a /lot/--would put it back if they could. You're not going through anything I didn't see walk into my office every fucking day of my private practice. But they were given something--a power, special tech, or even just an opportunity--and they decided to help people. That's all a superhero /is/."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia nods, agreeing with Jon. "Right. But Chas had a point when he said that me abandoning the team was /exactly/ what the Old Gods wanted, and I played into their hands once already, and I'm not going to do it again. I'm with you all until the end on this one. After that?" She shrugs. "We'll see how I do. If I want to stay? I'll stay. If you want me to leave? I'll leave. The Old Gods want us divided, and I don't want to see the world fall to them. I had a front row seat to what they do to a single person. I wouldn't wish that on anybody else."

    "Chas... I think he put a geas on me," Lydia admits. "A compulsion to face this and make things right. To undo the harm that I've done the best way I know how. It's not something I want to fight, though. I *shouldn't* run away from this responsibility, and I'm not going to. Chas' talk clarified a lot of things for me, though he was rather blunt about it. Not that I blame him, honestly."

    She lets out a little chuckle, "You forget that I was a mutant long before I was a vampire. Having power wasn't anything new to me. My power is strong enough to throw cars and stop bullets, and all I wanted to do was live as normal a life as I could." She shakes her head, "That didn't stop me from getting into situations where I had to play the hero, though."

    Letting out a sigh she says, "Most of the Brotherhood /is/ fucked up in the head. They get off on the danger, and some of them even enjoy hurting people... killing people. I turned a blind eye to that because I was /so/ in love. I thought that with my influence, I could change them for the better." She shrugs helplessly, "all it took was a broken heart for them to go back to their old ways. I still love Clarice like a sister, though. And Pete and Theo like brothers. I almost lost them, too."

    "My decision to leave was less about ability, really." She says. "It takes trust to have a successful team, trust that I so badly broken. I was surprised when Chas told me that you all... well maybe not you or Cael... were willing to give me a second chance to rebuild that trust. I'm not sure I was willing to give /myself/ that second chance." She scowls and looks down and rips another thin slice of paper off the whole. "I still need to be punished for this. Making amends, putting things right isn't punishment. That's just doing the right thing. I need to ... /suffer/. The way I made you suffer. I know I shouldn't get all biblical, but an eye for an eye and all that."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon listens to all of this quietly. He takes another shot, but besides that he's silent. Then he takes a moment to focus, eyes flashing briefly teal.

    A door opens in the wall behind him, and there's a blast of /horribly/ cold air into the Velvet Room. Beyond the door is the frozen surface of a lake, studded with bodies trapped in the ice in various poses.

    "Cocytus," Jon says, without looking at the open door. "Where suffer betrayers and traitors. Condemned to be trapped in ice for all eternity--or at least until they've suffered enough for what they've done."

    A beat, and a moment's focus, and the door shimmers and changes. Heat blasts through the door this time, and what is beyond is a plain of sand, heat waves rising off of it even as fire rains from the sky upon the people wandering the desert. "Or maybe the Plain of Burning Sand. Maybe you didn't really /betray/ us. Betray me. You couldn't have compassion in that moment, so you couldn't have been my friend even if you'd wanted to be. So--well, violence against another, yes, but also against Art, and God, and Nature, all three. Seems appropriate, hmm?"

    Jon just keeps looking at Lydia. "Every single person in Hell is there because they believe they belong there. Freed of their worldly ties, their /souls/ recognize what they need. The punishment they deserve. So... they wind up in Hell, punished for their sins."

    He shakes his head. "Most of them are fools, and aren't learning a damn thing. Because all they're doing is roaming around refusing to take responsibility for their actions. Self-flagellating, unwilling to do the /work/ that it takes to be a better person. Moaning and wailing about how much pain they're in, about what terrible people they are. Instead of figuring out what drove them to do what they did, instead of coming into harmony and balance with themselves and with God."

    He raises his eyebrows. "So... do you /want/ to go to one of those places?" He can't quite keep the scorn out of his voice. "I'm sure Rien can offer you another part of Hell if you'd prefer. There must be somewhere that they'll re-shape your body into various forms, if that's what you feel you need."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Watches Jon opens up the doors to hell with a frown. She's silent for a moment as she seriously considers her options, and what Jon says. She looks back to them and meets their eyes. "Do /you/ think I belong there?" she asks, holding back tears. "Even if those are not my hells, I'll go if you say so. Right here, right now. I'll go to the Duat to have my heart weighed, even, if you feel that's appropriate."

    "But I'm willing to put off my sentencing for the good of the universe," she says, setting her jaw. "I want you to take my statement. Not about turning you into that... thing. Not about the clinic or the warehouse. I want you to take my statement about a secret shame, and judge me. Only you have the right to condemn me for what I've done, and I'll gladly submit to your justice."

    "I /want/ to do better. I'm /trying/ to do better, dammit. I don't always see the way, and I need help with it." She closes her eyes and takes a breath. "I need /your/ help, at the very least, to teach me how to get rid of this damn thing from my mind." She lets out a little chuckle. "I have a plan to shunt it into a mason jar when it does go out, so we still have a direct connection to it, so that once you all figure out how the prisons work, we can put it into one. I'll need somebody, you or Rien, to take a look at the jar and double check my work."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon sighs, and waves a hand, and the door closes, the temperature in the room evening out. "Fuck's sake, Lydia. You don't get what's happened here, do you? Nobody seems to." He shakes his head.

    "If a police officer is the victim of a crime, they can't investigate that crime. Same for a prosector, a judge. I'm the /victim/ here. Don't you get it? I am not going to judge you for this. I'm just--not. It's not going to happen. Because that's my fucking /job/, and I am not going to do that, here."

    He looks down at the shot glass in his hand, and then pours another shot. "Do you think I want you to suffer? Do you think I want my /friend/ to suffer, the way I did? Do you think I'm that /cruel/?" A pause. "I will take your statement, and I will do for you what we do for /everyone/, now. I will show you the effect of what you've done on the world. Because /that/ is the only punishment I think is /ever/ truly appropriate to levy on someone. Kharma. The effects of what they've done. Any other suffering you may feel you need? That's what /you/ need, not what /I/ need. And I am not going to expend the effort to see to whatever you need to feel better about yourself."

    He looks back at the vampire. "I don't condemn people to Hell, Lydia. I show them what they've done, and if they're unwilling to change, I remove them from the world so they can't hurt anyone else." He gestures toward the door at the top of the balcony. "Now that I have this place to put the beings I judge, I don't have to kill them anymore. I can put them here, until they change--if they /can/ change."

    They sigh, and look away again. "I don't need you to suffer, Lydia. I need you to do the work to be a better person. I need my friend back. I mean--" They laugh, though it's bitter. "You want to know the secret to defeating Viscera? Really?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "No, I don't think you're cruel. I think you're just hurting. You have every /right/ to be hurt," Lydia says. "I don't like seeing you hurt, Jon. I will do /anything/ to see it stop. Anything at all. I owe you that much, at the very least. Tell me what to do and I'll do it."

    Something Jon says causes her to sob, tears finally coming. "Your friend?" she manages to get out. "How can I still be your friend after all that? God, I want to hug you so badly, tell you that everything will be okay. I want to be able to /believe/ that everything will be okay. I just..." she shakes her head unable to continue. A golden tendril snakes out of her twinkling ectoplasmic field and grabs a handful of napkins which she brings to her face to wipe the blood off her cheeks.

    "Yes," she says once she calms down some. "I want to know the secret to defeating Viscera."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "You're not the friend that's hurt me the most in my life," Jon says softly. "Chas summoned Michael, which let him hurt Cael, torture me, and ultimately kill me. Annabelle took away my memories, handed my daughter to my worst enemy, and killed my grandmother." He shakes his head. "People hurt each other. That doesn't make it okay, it doesn't make it right. But if you never figure out how to get past that, you'll never keep any meaningful relationships."

    They take the shot they'd poured, and then look right at Lydia. "You have to face the worst parts of yourself, the parts you want to hide and bury, and accept them. Wholly and truly." A pause. "There is a part of me that wants to control everything around me. That enjoys getting one over on my enemies, that wants to put tendrils into people's heads to get them to act the way I want. I'm nosy to a fault, I have to actively force myself /not/ to read my loved ones' minds sometimes. I can be arrogant and cocksure. I tend to presume I'm right about pretty much anything I have the slightest expertise on. I have a desperate desire to be seen, acknowledged, approved of--and on the flipside, I'm paranoid as /hell/. I don't really trust anyone, deep down."

    A pause, to pour another shot and down it. "Oh, and I'm a chain smoker, I eat too much, and I probably drink too much too. There are times in my life when I've bordered on being a functioning alcoholic. And did I mention I'm probably less sane, in the technical definition of the term, than most of my patients?" He smirks.

    Then they sigh. "The thing is... looking at that part of me, that Shadow self, and /truly/ accepting it... not in the sense of 'oh all of that is terrible' but just accepting that it /is/... I started to see the benefits to all the things I'd been trying to suppress. I defeated Michael, over and over, because I had a dozen fallback plans for any eventuality, because of that need for control and the paranoia. I'm nosy, sure--because I'm curious, but there's /so much/ that I've discovered in that way, dangers we wouldn't know about if I hadn't. I know what it is to hurt, and to be mentally ill, and that gives me compassion for people--for my patients, once, and now for the people I work with and the things we fight. And so what if I smoke and drink and eat too much? I /enjoy/ all of that. I /live/. Even back when it hurt my body, I didn't smoke around other people. I truly enjoy the flavor of tobacco and alcohol. I'm indulging in pleasure, knowing it's fleeting. So what?"

    They look to Lydia. "I can't say what your Shadow is, what you refuse to admit to or face, the things you're afraid of. That's deeply personal. But, see, the Old Ones come to us through that. Through our fear, and through the terrible things we might do to escape that fear. I had the Ceaseless Watcher for curiosity and paranoia, and the Mother of Puppets for addiction and control and a terrible fear of being manipulated--more of that paranoia. You had Viscera and Too Close I Cannot Breathe, and I can't say precisely why. Only you can."

    He shrugs. "Chas could probably help you cleanse it, pull it out of you--but you'll still be vulnerable." He taps his chest. "They'll still be able to come at you, through your heart, if it isn't strong enough. But if you /can/ face yourself, /really/ face yourself, and /accept/ whatever you see, warts and flaws and all... then you can defeat Viscera."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia scowls at Jon's explanation. "That's... I feel like I kind of did that already, with the Predator already. I mean... /before/ I let it take over. Look at where that got me?" She shakes her head. "I... don't know if I can do that. Have that kind of introspection without freaking out." She lets out a small chuckle, "I guess that's one of my flaws. I'm afraid of letting myself hurt anyone, and fear makes me freeze, or flee."

    She gives him a weak smile, "I'm not strong like you. I mean... mentally. Emotionally. /That/ should be obvious enough. I don't really know what I'm doing. I realize that now. I got lucky with the Golem and the Great Seal. I'm just kind of..." She flaps her arms helplessly. "Faking it, I guess." She shakes her head, "I'm sorry. It's difficult to be not so hard on myself after the total clusterfuck of the past couple of months."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon shakes his head. "If I'm 'strong,' mentally and emotionally..." He sighs. "Lydia, you think I'm strong because you see me here, instead of... I don't know, curled up in a ball in my bed, and maybe I am. But really, most people are pretty resilient. Something like two thirds of people come out of trauma without any lasting effects after the initial few weeks. I'm /not/ one of those people. I'm a /wreck/, a lot of the time. I'd say ask Cael, but I know she's pretty mad at you. Still. She has to live through me... just... not being okay, much of the time."

    He sighs. "But the Predator isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about /you/. About whatever flaws and faults you had /before/ you became a vampire, in /addition/ to the Predator. The fear of hurting people, the freezing or fleeing. Whatever else. I don't know. But... well... you wanted the secret? That's it. Like I said, you can find another solution, but you'll be vulnerable."

    A shrug. "But if dealing with Michael taught me anything, it's that nobody really knows what the fuck they're doing, not even the creator of the bloody universe. Not about everything. Like I said--nothing you're saying is really all that different from literally anyone else in the JLD, Lydia. Every single person on this team has something they're struggling with, everyone has something they think they can't handle, someone they look to and go 'I wish I could be like you.' Rien told me she wouldn't have /friends/ if not for me, as if--" Jon laughs. "As if I had many friends before last October, right?" He shakes his head.

    Suddenly he slumps, summons up a stool, and sits on it. "Not comparing yourself to other people would be a start. Do you know how hard it is to hear you say all this when I very nearly stepped down from leadership the other day? I'm still not sure I should be in charge. I mean--you think you've fucked up?" He gestures around. "All of this, /all/ of it, happened on /my/ watch. I have continually dropped the ball on seeing to other people's emotional needs, and it keeps leading to people getting hurt. Is it so much to ask that people take some damn responsibility for themselves?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia sits there and listens to Jon. Actually /listens/ to him, and nods along. She snerks at the mention of God being fallible and lets out a soft little, "Yeah."

    When Jon mentions stepping down a frown pulls at the corner of her mouth. "I think you're a fine leader," she says. "I think you just need a break, that's all. A chance to relax. You've been going nonstop for over a year. No, wait. Eleven years. Maybe longer. That's a lot to ask of one person."

    "I'm /trying/ to take responsibility. I'm trying to hold myself accountable for my actions." She gives out a little shrug. "But I'm just winging it, as you say." She scowls. "Speaking of which, let me know if you want me to fix you up and remove what's left of Viscera in you. It's a fix that I know I could, and /should/ do."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon shakes his head. "I've had breaks, Lydia. My last year in Hell was rather pleasant, actually. The fact remains that the team's falling apart, and that's my responsibility. Chas and Rien convinced me to stay, but it's still--" He sighs, and slumps further. "Everyone's going through /something/, is all I mean."

    For a long moment they're silent, staring down at the shot glass in their hand, rolling it around. "I thought I'd be angrier. Or that I'd hold onto it longer, at least. But I..." They bite their lip. "It's not that I forgive you. Not yet. Maybe not ever. It's just... you see what you did wrong. You want to make it better. And I don't want to hold onto the pain. I want to move /forward/. I want to be better. And it's not even--"

    He frowns. "I'm not even really mad at you for hurting me. That's--" A brief laugh. "Viscera, now. I'd rip it to tiny pieces if I could. Or your Predator, if Chas hadn't destroyed it already. But you? No. Not really. No, it's--it's that you gave up in the first place. Gave in. That you--you /left/ us. You..."

    He suddenly sniffles, and starts to cry. "I /need/ you, dammit, Lydia, and you let the Beast /eat/ you! H-how could you... /do/ that to us? If... if Raven ever... gods, if she'd ever done something like that to you, you could've come to my door and... and I'd have held you and given you ice cream and offered to go beat her up, you wouldn't be alone, why don't you /see/ that?!"

    They slide off the stool, and walk over to hold their right arm out, still crying, and not looking at Lydia. "Fix this fucking thing so I can hug you, gods damn it."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia starts to cry when Jon does. "I'm so sorry," she repeats. "I wasn't thinking of you. I wasn't... thinking at /all/. I'm an idiot for letting grief blind me. I see it /now/ but..." She shakes her head, "Hindsight is 20/20 and all that."

    When Jon comes to her she nods, and dabs at the blood on her cheeks again, scowling. "God. I /hate/ that I cry blood," she murmurs.

    "Okay. You'll hardly feel a thing." She gingerly rolls up Jon's sleeve until their shoulder is exposed. She reaches out as if she's going to pinch their skin, but instead when she pulls away, there's a little knot of off pink threads that lead into their arm and shoulder. She pulls at these threads, pulling them out of his body, and unraveling the unwanted arm like a sweater. Occasionally there's another little knot that she'll tug out but soon all that's left is her unraveling that arm. Once she gets to that point, she gives the threads an aggressive tug, and the arm falls off, landing on the floor. When she lets go of the threads, they, and the errant arm, dissipate into the air."

    "There," she says. "Let me double check but I'm pretty sure I got it all." She walks a slow circle around Jon, giving their body a critical eye, seeing if she can detect anything left of Viscera. When she completes the circle she gives them a nod. "You're clean," she declares.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    The black feathers disappear as well, and Jon slumps, sighing in relief. Then he suddenly turns and hugs Lydia, hard, with magical arm and real arm. Still crying, one might note.

    "You're better than this," he whispers fiercely. "I /know/ you are, even if you don't. You're stronger than you think you are." He sniffles, and sobs, for a moment.

    Then he steps back, still sniffling. "I, umm. I can't do the statement yet. But I'll let you know when I'm ready." A pause. "And I might--" He sighs. "It's going to be hard, for a while. Okay? I never know how I'm going to be, one day to the next. And I'll feel a /lot/ better when you can get rid of Viscera. That's the thing that really..." He shudders, and shakes his head.

    "You don't sound like that. You don't... /look/ like that. Your aura's different. So that... helps. You know?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia clings to Jon when she's finally hugged, and starts crying again, getting droplets of blood on Jon's shoulder. "It'll be alright," she says. "We'll get that /thing/ out of my head and into that Jar and we'll get it into one of those prisons." When he's just there sniffling and sobbing with her, she squeezes him tight. "Thank you," she says. "For believing in me."

    When they separate she nods. "In your own time," she says. "Let me know when I need to give you space, and I'll give you space. It's not me running away, I swear. It's me respecting your mental health."

    "I'm curious," she says, tilting her head. "What does my aura look like now? I mean... compared to before I let The Predator take over."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "More... vibrant, I guess? There was a piece of you missing, before. I can still see the places where the Old One's been feeding on your fear, but... that's different. More obvious."

    Jon sighs. "I should... get home, I suppose. I wanted to show this to Cael." He rubs at the inside of his left wrist. "I just got caught up in the greenhouse, planting things."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia grins at Jon's description and nods. "Yeah. That's kind of how I feel. Lighter. More... myself."

    She nods and steps back to pick up the bloody and torn napkins to toss them away, "Go home. Cuddle your girlfriend. I think she needs it more than you. She... she showed up at my apartment to punch me in the nose and chew me out." She just shrugs helplessly. "I didn't stop her."

    "So I'll see you when we next get together. Thank you for talking with me. I think we both needed that." With that she turns towards the hallway door to let her back out to her apartment.