Alma Wade will not give up (its_my_nature) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-06-04 16:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, alma wade, wrex |
Turtles can grow to great size, but their brains are still very small for their heads
Who: Alma and Wrex
What: Wrex catches Alma stealing equipment. Alma's empathic abilities act up.
When: Last night.
Where: Urdnot Ranch
Status: Complete
Rating: PG for Kroger
Alma had thus far found nothing unusual in her blood. At least nothing she could find with a basic high school level microscope. Naturally, the ranch lacked a micron microscope, which could have told her more. So she had no idea if she really was becoming that thing in her dreams, or what Project Demigod might have done to her genes. She rested against the little table she'd set up in the mess hall, and rubbed at the bandage she'd put on her thumb.
"Ms. Beckett, I genuinely hope you have a good reason for tripping all the alarms in the science lab." Wrex's gruff voice came from behind her, where he was standing there leaning and glaring down at her. He didn't look like he'd been asleep at least, which was a plus. If he'd been woken up, things would have been MUCH worse for her.
She lifted her head and gave him a reluctant smile, "I needed some equipment." Sadly, she added, "I am used to better."
"This place isn't set up to be a high-grade science lab, kid, it's just for high school students to learn from." Wrex was getting tired of people telling him his technological equipment was junk. What did the hell did they want? He funded this whole thing himself. He sighed, and sat down next to her, "You could have asked."
"It is...it's strange." She looked down at her thumb, "You would not understand. You are not a science project."
"Hey. None of that talk. You're not a science project, you're a kid." Wrex looked at her thumb, too, and sighed, "I wish you'd stop cutting yourself. You're going to bleed all over my stuff."
"I had to look. But this microscope isn't strong enough. I cannot..can't.." She sighed, hands dropping into her lap, "I have dreams."
The dreams again. Wrex didn't want to think about the dreams. He'd spent a good chunk of the day before trying to distract himself from the dreams with computer things and that hadn't worked. Today he'd worked the rage off with a round of boxing. Roy'd been having dreams and that man had contacted him, worried that Roy 'had issues'. He wondered how many others were having them, and was beginning to see that ignoring them wasn't the best way to handle this. Not if he was going to help other people.
He let out a long sigh, and shook his head, "I have dreams, too. They don't have to mean anything. Everyone is having them, but not everyone is breaking into science labs to look at their blood under a microscope."
Not everyone dreams about being a killer, or of having powers that can drive men mad. But she didn't say that. She felt uneasy, worried, and scared, and was broadcasting those feelings on all channels. What was worse was the strange feelings washing over her. Protectiveness, anger, worry, a small dose of confusion. She looked at Wrex with suddenly wide eyes, "You're angry."
His expression ran through a series of emotions from confusion to annoyance, but eventually settled on something resembling a kicked puppy. After a long sigh, he nodded his head, "I am, but not at you. I'm angry at the life you had before you got here. I'm angry at the people who chased you."
He paused for a moment, then admitted with a somewhat disgruntled look, "... and I'm a little angry at my dreams, too."
He wasn't sure where these other emotions were suddenly coming from.
She could feel the anger. Negative emotions overwhelming positive ones. She squeezed her eyes shut. She thought of calming things. Roy. Which hurt and also made her feel really nice. Feeling safe. She thought of that feeling. Safe. Not angry. Never angry. Anger led to terrible, horrific things. She didn't want to be angry, "I hurt people..kill them..I want revenge for what they did to me." How many times had she said those words, and how many times had she failed to really get across the urgency of how real it all felt and how scared she was she'd become that thing.
Wrex felt like he was being wrapped in a blanket of emotions that he wasn't sure were really his. The anger he'd felt over everything had gotten worse, then ebbed away entirely, and he looked at the girl in front of him with a bit more sharply.
He'd seen a lot of wierd stuff in his life, and dreaming about being a turtle man was certainly at the top of the list, but he almost thought that she had something to DO with how he felt right now. There was some urgency, and a deep level of despair, and he wrinkled his brow.
"...In my dreams, I am a gigantic turtle man. I have a shell on my back, and scars on my face. I'm angry. Turtle men are always angry, it runs in their blood. I kill gigantic things. I kill my own father. My other ... turtle... men... combined, are so dangerous that they practically neuter us," He admitted, with a completely straight face.
"Turtles can grow to great size, but their brains are still very small for their heads," Alma replied, tilting her head. "I also do not believe they can get angry. Perhaps you dream of being something else entirely due to repressed anger of some sort? Are you infertile?" The psych degree? Finally paying off.
The warm and fuzzy and general protectiveness he'd been feeling where definitely getting replaced with annoyance, now, "Yes. But that doesn't have anything to do with it. You dream of killing people and hurting people. I dream of killing people and hurting people as a giant angry turtle man. And I'm not alone. Shepard has dreams of me being a turtle man, too."
He pressed his lips together into a thin line, "It's ridiculous. But if you're so sure my dream can't be real, then your own dream probably isn't, either."
What's the operative phrase here? "Touche." She rubbed at her thumb, then started gathering up the slides, wanting to dispose of the ones with blood on them, "It was be easier to discount if it did not feel so..real."
"Look, kid. Let's think this through. Even if you were some kind of monster somehow. Aren't you afraid of becoming one?"
"I'm terrified." And a wave of terror swept through the room.
Wrex shuddered, then lowered his voice, "You're really doing that, aren't you?"
"I do not..know what I am doing!"
"You're terrified. I can FEEL it." Wrex blinked, "I mean. I feel it in me. It's becoming my fear."
Alma's eyes widen again. She got out of her chair and made to bolt for the door. She couldn't stay here. She was a danger.
That absolutely wasn't happening. Wrex got up and put one very strong, very heavy down on top of her shoulder. "You don't have anywhere to go. Don't be stupid."
"I'm going to hurt people!"
"No, you aren't." He replied, gruffly, "You're going to master it. Whatever this is. You're going to be a better person."
And Alma actually believed him.