jodi duncan. (fanimal) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-01-07 04:45:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ! log, ethan young, jodi duncan |
WHO: Ethan Young and Jodi Duncan.
WHAT: Discussion of tracking chips and hypnosis.
WHEN: 6 January 2013, lateish.
WHERE: Girls' dormitory, room 3a.
WARNINGS: Things get kind of weird and not fuzzy and cute for a while. Also, the usual sadness and feels and emotinos.
STATUS: Completed log.
IVI was just as Jodi had remembered. A stack of clothes she'd forgotten still even sat on her desk, waiting to be put away in her drawers. In some ways, that was comforting. In others, it was disturbing. She still didn't like the oppressive heat any more than she had before. She didn't like how so few people were milling about now. Having spent most of her first day back laying in bed, occasionally reading over her phone, now that she and Ethan were alone in the room for a while, Jodi was forcing herself to attend to some of the rituals of self-care she had wanted to ignore in favor of feeling sorry for herself with her quilt pulled up over her head. She had sat up, eaten a handful of stale Cheerios from a box she'd left in the room and combed her hair. Then, she had started on repainting her chipped toenails. "I'm sorry I'm not much fun right now," she said dully. She wondered if Ethan was wishing he could run away from her, not have to deal with her grieving and listless. She wanted to say that she'd understand if he dumped her (had either of them really signed up for 'comfort you after your friend was murdered'?), but she was selfish enough not to voice that thought out loud. "It's okay," he said. Ethan was sitting on the opposite end of the bed, flipping through a copy of The New Yorker that he'd found on Daisy's side of the room. He knew it was Jodi's, and the pages were creased. She must have thrown it. He couldn't quite bring himself to finish reading any of the stories, his eyes wandering off the page after the first few paragraphs. Ethan wasn't entirely sure how to process everything, and it was leaving him distracted. Jack and Kier were two of his closest friends at IVI, and Ethan hadn't yet seen either of them. He'd already seen Anthony, who was one of the first rescued and, characteristically, insisted he was fine. He only really knew Daisy through Jodi, and Marine through Jodi and Alex. Ethan grieved for Marine, he wanted to make sure that all of his friends were okay, but he was most concerned about Jodi, and he felt selfish for it. She had been safe with him nearly the whole time, even if she had been upset. But then he remembered that Jodi talked about how her powers and Jack's were both useless, and what the kidnappers had done to Jack. It could so easily have been her. He wanted to reach over and rub Jodi's shoulder to comfort her, but he didn't want to mess her up while she was applying nail polish to her toenails. Instead, he sighed and flipped the magazine shut. "Jodi, can I ask you something?" She didn't look up from her toenails, painted a dreamy pink, right away. Jodi felt rather like a startled rabbit, certain that nothing good could come of questions that needed to be prefaced. Was he going to say something terrible? Her mind was going through worst case scenarios. She was about to get ditched, or worse, though she wasn't sure what worse would be. She wiped away a smudge of polish on her big toe before making herself look up. She screwed the lid back on the bottle. "Yeah, sure," she said. "Anything." "Your chip," Ethan said. He rubbed at the back of his neck, where his own chip had been implanted months ago. At first, Ethan hadn't liked the idea of being watched, and it had seemed pointless when they were already at IVI, but when his team leader had put forward the possibility that they might be able to use their powers, he didn't want to be left out. In the end, he wasn't. He'd done all he could to help, and so had Jodi. He looked over at Jodi, eyes focusing on the tattoo behind her ear instead of at her eyes. The spot where her chip had been implanted was hidden under her hair. "Do you think you'll keep it?" Unconsciously, Jodi mimicked Ethan's gesture, pressing her index finger to the small chip under her skin. She had never intended to get chipped, had always been against the idea, on principle. She didn't want the IVF to know where she was all the time, it was bad enough they had her here in Australia. And though she'd only told him she had reservations, not really tried to influence much, she hadn't wanted Ethan to get it, either. But when the kidnappings had happened, she'd accepted it without hesitation, without even thinking much. She hadn't given it any thought since, consumed by thoughts of her missing friends, and now, her dead friend. She supposed, on giving it a moment's thought, she was probably safer with it, if they ever left the compound again. She also supposed she would never be completely comfortable with it, because her second instinct was to want it removed. "I hadn't really considered it," she answered after a moment. "I don't really like it, but I guess it is proven safer." No one with a chip died, she added in her head. "I just can't help thinking about Astrid and Vanessa," Ethan admitted. "And how they had the chips, and what happened to them --" He stopped himself before he could say it wasn't as bad as what happened to Jack, Kier, and Damien. What had happened to them was still awful. There wasn't really comparing magnitudes of trauma. "I mean, we found them so much sooner. I know it's weird to feel like they're watching us, and I don't want to be that kind of boyfriend that tells his girlfriend what to do, but -- I'd feel better if you kept it." Again, Jodi didn't answer right away. She stared, somewhat blankly, at a bare spot on the wall, thinking over what he was saying and pressing against the lump. She understood where Ethan was coming from, of course, and she would have wanted him to keep his chip too, if she really felt, instinctively, that it was safer. But a niggling part of her still doubted the IVF's benevolence, even when IVI seemed like the only safe place on earth. If she had been in a better state, she probably would have told him that she would think about it, but ultimately, she'd make the decision for herself. Right now, though, she felt a little lost, unsure of how to navigate chip or no chip, safe or not safe, when she was struggling with Marine is dead, and the dream of a happy world for me with her. So the guidance felt good, it felt right. "I think I'll keep it. At least for now," she said, finally filling the expansive silence. Now, Ethan reached out and placed his hand on Jodi's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Thanks, Jodi," he said. "I know it's not a perfect solution, but we're just. We're not safe right now. As Vols." He pushed the magazine aside, then scooted over on the bed so that he was next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "I wish it wasn't true. If I could, I dunno, hypnotize everyone in the world into leaving us alone, I would." Jodi nestled her head against Ethan's shoulder and pulled her knees up to her chest, careful not to smudge her nail polish. "I know," she murmured, and went quiet again. She wondered a little if her long silences bothered him. It wasn't as though they had to have constant chatter between them -- sometimes she, at least, was perfectly happy to be occupying the same space, even if they were doing different things. But it seemed to reinforce the idea that she wasn't very good company right now. She was trying to be a little brighter and more enjoyable company, for him, but it wasn't working very well. Mostly, she felt a cold, painful sort of numbness, like her fingers felt when she went out too long in winter without gloves. "Ethan? Do you think you could do something, for me?" she asked, voice quiet, mostly because she wasn't really sure if she should be asking. "You'll probably say no." Ethan shifted his weight on the bed, unsure of what Jodi could be asking of him that he might refuse, especially when he had already given her so much. "Try me." She hesitated again, searching for how to put her request into words. To think of a way to say it without sound weak and selfish, even though she knew that it was both of these things. But there had to be an upside to having a boyfriend who did hypnosis, right? Even if Jodi was fairly sure that you were supposed to feel the pain of things, that you needed to do that to get over it, the idea of feeling so miserable, indefinitely, was unbearable. "I just feel... like, really terrible. About Marine. About Jack and Kier being sick. About everything. About how you're right, it's not safe for us and maybe it never will be, and what kind of future do we even have? "And it's like... it's only been a few days and I don't want to feel like this any more. I know I must suck to be around. I feel bad for you. I want to be like, the person who handles things okay, not the person who just wants to stay in bed all day and doesn't even want to eat." The words came tumbling out of her, once she started, and she had to bite her lip to stop herself. "Can you make me feel like that? Even for a little while?" It was some time before Ethan responded. He kept his arm steady on her back, but inside his head, parts of his brain were fighting with each other. He remembered after Daisy was recovering from Anika's attack, when he'd offered to use his powers to fix her, and she said she didn't want him messing in her mind ever, even if it was to help. He thought of all the close calls he'd had with Jodi during the months they'd been dating and even before, how they'd tried so hard not to activate his powers by accident. "Are you sure?" he asked, slowly, quietly. "Is that really what you want?" Was she really sure? Jodi took a moment to at least pretend to be considering it, even though she had already thought about it some, on the plane, while falling asleep. She let herself really concentrate on how she would never see Marine again, never share clothing or songs with her again, never talk to her about boys and powers and home again, never tell her of another dream she'd had. She thought of how now, they might never leave IVI, about how five other vols, whom she'd known less well, were dead. One of them had helped her, in the nightmares. She thought of the faceless victims in London, killed -- why? To prove that she and Ethan and all of their friends were evil? Her throat felt tight, and she stared into the bright light in the ceiling, and blinked, and her eyes were dry. "Yes," she said. "It can't possibly make me feel worse. And I trust you." Ethan swallowed, pushing down his doubts. He'd spent so long being afraid of his power, and even now he wasn't completely comfortable with using it. With Zhou had been one thing. Jodi was different. He took a deep breath and, tentatively, reached out to cup Jodi's face with his free hand. For the first time, he drew her face towards his, to look into her eyes. He'd seen Jodi's eyes before, in photographs, but he wasn't prepared to look her face dead on in real life. They'd already had sex, but somehow this felt more intimate, more forbidden. He had Jodi's mind in his hands. She'd asked him to do something, and she trusted him to do it. He could tell her anything, make her believe anything, do anything. She was just there, in the trance that was so familiar to him and yet foreign on her. Ethan opened his mouth to give the command that Jodi feel better, but then he found that he couldn't do it. He turned his head away, releasing Jodi from the trance. He looked down at his socks and squeezed Jodi's shoulder again. "Sorry, Jodes," he said. "You're just going to have to deal with this the old-fashioned way." Jodi had been anticipating what it would be like, looking into Ethan's eyes, moving her hand to rest on his, and then she had been nothing at all. It was a comfortable sort of blankness, a place where there was only him, and when he looked away, she blinked in confusion as all her feelings moved in to fill the void. It took a moment for her to process what he'd said, and then, she felt a little frustrated. She'd asked, nicely, she thought, and it wasn't very often she asked Ethan to do things and he refused. She supposed that this would replace sex as the notable exception. Then she felt guilty for her frustration, because she'd known when she asked that he wasn't comfortable with his powers, that anyone smart would probably have reservations, and he had tried. "That's okay," she said, looking down at her own feet, her freshly-painted toenails. "I shouldn't have asked, I'm sorry." She was quiet for a moment, wondering if he felt weird. She didn't, really, and she didn't feel compelled to do anything, which was how she knew that he hadn't asked her. With a sigh, she rested a hand at the nape of his neck, where she'd feel his tracking chip, if she searched for it, and pulled his face to hers, doggedly avoiding his gaze. That felt natural, after spending so much time with him. "Maybe you can cheer me up in other ways." |