Alma Wade will not give up (its_my_nature) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-06-14 20:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, alma wade, roy harper (red arrow) ii |
"...You ever have those moments you feel like you're a complete idiot?"
Who: Alma and Roy
What: Alma has a dream, and Roy gets to see it.
When: A night or two ago
Where: Urdnot Ranch
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13
trigger: violence, murder
The man approached the chamber. He wore a white labcoat and he tapped at the console with a panicked edge. Outside the chamber, looking into a view camera was another man. Her son. Come to stop her. But Alma would not be stopped. She was almost free. The door slid open and she stepped out. She was older than the Alma at the ranch by over ten years. Her ribs were stark against her skin, her body thin, the beginning stages of decay present. Her eyes were sunken in.
She shredded her father into black ash without even a gesture, save a skeletal smile of pure vengeance, which she turned onto her son. And then the scene shifted, and the Point Man was staring down a hallway. Alma started to walk slowly towards him, in her free'd state. Vision flickered and Alma was a child again, no older than eight, before becoming the dessicated creature from the vault.
A little girl's voice whispered, "Kill them all."
(Visual here)
Roy had been having another dream, this one where he, and Oliver, and Dinah were sat around a table, discussing what he was, and what to do next, and he'd been about to throw up at the looks Oliver was giving him through it. Though, why wouldn't he have hated Roy forever, when him being here meant that someone who had a right to be alive and here just wasn't. He'd opened his mouth to promise, again, that he would find the real Roy, and Oliver's jaw had tensed in that way he had when he was worried about things and wanted to say more. And then the scene had shifted to... Whoa, wait, what? The woman there looked remarkably like Alma, and Roy had the feeling that it was actually her in the future, and not a sister or aunt or somethng. And she was...well, DAMN. That was not exactly...Had she just... Mind? Blown.
Alma woke, her body in agony. Every joint was stiff, her skin felt stretched across her bones, and her mind screamed for vengeance.
She rolled over, and started to rake at some sand with a little rake. She made designs, and her anguish lessened.
Roy was horrified by what he'd seen, but it was another thought that jerked him awake, even more than the fact Alma had just reduced somebody to ASHES. It was the fact that she was going to be upset by this, extremely upset and disturbed that made him bolt awake, throw on a shirt, and start down to the girls' dorms, since he had the feeling this dream wasn't HIS and there was only one other person's it COULD be.
The sand had stopped helping her. She jerked out of bed, and came out of the girls' dorms, walking stiffly. She pressed her palms against the wall, arms locked and outstreched as she leaned against the wall. She'd just murdered her father and it had felt good. It had felt right. And the urge to make the whole world pay was overwhelming.
"Alma?" Roy asked her, frowning as he noticed her outside the dorms. "Are you okay?" Something told him she wouldn't be but...the question came out anyway. "Let's walk a little, yeah?" he surpassed a shudder, thinking of how much worse it'd be to SEE things like she had. At least he'd never actually witnessed himself shooting Oliver or anything.
She glanced at him, her eyes seeming to be sunken in a little. The view passed, and she looked normal. Exhausted, but normal. She took Roy's hand and gave it a death grip.
Roy stepped closer, putting his free hand on her shoulder. "I uh...have no idea what to say." He said at last. "Uh that dream you just had. Did you kind of...burn somebody? Because, as weird as this sounds...I saw that. And I wish I had something I could say thta would help."
Alma pulled back and looked up at him sharply, "You saw that? That's not possible." She worked her jaw, horrified at the implications. It had to be her attachment to him, or she'd have woken up others, "Please..please tell me you haven't seen others?" Her worry over him actually experiencing what she did to Beckett overwrote her distress at the dream about her father.
"No, no, nothing like that before." Roy told her, "I'd let you know if I had, don't worry. And really, he would have too. "I'm more worried about you though. I know how the dreams...how they mess with your head at the best of times, and that one...Geez, I'm sorry."
Relieved, Alma sank into Roy's arms, and stayed like that for a moment, "I was dead. He freed me."
"You were dead...as in by keeping you there..." Roy frowned at that. "That's horrible."
Alma sounded distant, "I was placed ...in something, I don't remember what. I think I was in a coma, when I gave birth to two boys. I linked my mind to the younger. I think that is when they pulled the plug, but I don't know for sure."
"Ouch." Roy frowned as she spoke. He was lucky, he realized, not having memories of where they'd created him. And the birth part and coma... Shit. "How Snow White of them." slipped out of his mouth and he sort of flinched, realizing that had cut out. "So your mind was linked there. I wonder if that has anything to do with the empathy here."
"I'm a powerful telepath there. They're afraid of me. They use me." Alma clung to Roy again, "I drove the scientists mad. It's worse then there are a lot of..negative emotions."
Roy nodded at that quite serious. "Which is why the bleedthrough here's probably less intense. It doesn't seem like we can DO everything in the dreams that happens in real life. I don't believe that you'd do something like that here. You'd be quick to get help before it got there."
"I was so angry. I wanted revenge." Alma's voice fell to a low growl. "Dreams are supposed to be escapes.."
"You're right. They really are." Roy nodded. "The dreams everybody's having...seem to be the total opposites. It's screwed up. And revenge and being angry...I get that. " He'd gone through it lately.
She peered up at Roy, then buried her face in his chest. She wanted to be normal!
Normal would be a good thing. Roy could identify with that. "I spend a good portion of my dreams being incredibly , irrationally angry at people." he confessed. "I guess it's not a shock I turn on them in the end."
"You wouldn't do that now, would you?"
"Not so much, no,." Roy told her. "Well, not turning on them. I'm not above petty revenge but...my kind of petty revenge leaves people alive and not hurt."
"Then that is who you are," She replied, digging her nails roughly into her chest as she turned his own words against him.
"That's probably true. I'm kind of a bad person but I'm not Hitler or anything either." Roy agreed, and that was true, for the most part. Hitler, after all, had been a person. But he was gettng a lot more used to this ticking tme bomb thing, and had the feeling he could hold off a whle before he had to deal with difusing it properly. That could come later on. "It's who you are to."
"Roy Harper, you are not a bad person. If I am not a monster, neither are you." She wished she could show him what he'd come to mean to her, but she'd done that enough.
"Oh I just mean, I push people away, resent being told what to do, and don't back down from anything." Roy told her, since that was the key thing in this world. "I'm not going to run off and buy goldfish to dump down the garbage disposal or anything."
"Why would anyone do that?! That has no scientific value."
"Oh it was one of those random examples. You know, thinking up things people totally devoid of morals might do." Roy shrugged. "A lot of the time, there doesn't seem to be any reason they do what they're doing."
"This is true, but perhaps their reasonings are just well hidden." Pulling away, but not letting go of his hand, Alma started pulling Roy down the hall way.
"Well, yes." Roy agreed. "I mean in mine. Well. Lex Luthor's got a prominent cameo in a series of them. His motivations, from his end? They aren't that messed up." He followed along behind her. "I mean, they make sense and all. But back to what's at hand, no...not monsters."
Outside now, and in her bare feet and a new nightgown she'd picked up with Scott, she continued to pull Roy along. Finally, she found a spot far enough away from any of the buildings that she didn't feel pressure from others' emotions, and they wouldn't feel pressure from hers, "We have to hold on to who we are, here. In this life."
"You make a good point." Roy agreed, nodding. He could do that much, he figured, with a focus, and he had those.
"No matter what we are there." Alma squeezed both his hands, "I need you, Roy." And she was so sorry to put this pressure on him but she had to warn him.
Roy didn't have the ability right there, like this, to protest that, so he nodded instead. "Well, like I said, I'm not planning to turn into a..." Scary science project on the loose... "...mentor and friends betraying asshole either. I mean, people would get HURT that way, and there's just one of those I need to get back at here right now. But we're both at the same event later this summer." Smirk.
"I have an idea on how to get back at him," Alma replied, smiling a little mischeivously. It was probably the first time an impish smile had ever crossed her face. Well an even eviler idea would be to entrap Oliver waking up with an underage person in his bed, but Alma wasn't even thinking that.
"Oh?" Roy asked her, grinning back. "I'd planned to humiliate him in front of all his little friends AND the chivalry but i"m open to ideas."
"How would you humiliate him?" Alma looked up at him.
"Well, we're shooting in a few of the same events." Roy explained, grinning. "And Oliver's got this habit of half assing things he thinks he's got in the bag. I'm coming back into the competition scene after being off a while so I don't see myself winning but...I'm pretty sure I'll place higher than him."
"So you want to beat him."
"I do." Roy agreed, looking pretty determined about it. "The right way I mean. I could resort to sabotaging his gear but..." He shook his head. "That's wrong. Tempting but...still wrong."
"Archery is physics and ballistics. We did a lot of testing along those lines at the lab. I could help you."
"I bet you could." Roy nodded at her. "Actually, along those lines, but not competition available, there are some...how do I put this in a way that isn't completely confusing or weird... Trick arrows I've seen. I mean in my dreams. That I'd like to try messing around with. There's a few Wrex is obviously not gonna go for for me testing and building here but...there are a lot that would be safe enough. I don't know if you're interested but...I could use somebody who knows physics to tell me if some of this is even possible."
Alma tilted her head, thinking about that, "I can help with that. You'll have to sketch out some of them and we can see what we can put together."
She snuggled in against Roy. They were far enough away from prying eyes, as well, even if it wasn't an affair per se, someone might get the wrong idea. Even if she wanted the wrong idea.
They were far away enough that Roy was okay with this too. He did think it was kind of unfair that she was sort of left out now when it came to contact with the kids, but it was easier than dealing with the legal complications and all most of the time. So things like this were rare and he took the oppurtunities as they came. "I'll give that a shot. Maybe run some of it by Barton too, when he's back here." He shuddered a little, thinking of the last time Clint had been here.
"Is he part of your plan?" Alma's mind went through the things she could do to cool down. Shower was winning. Because empathy plus relieving oneself could spell hilarity disaster.
"Well, I found him to get me back into shape this winter, and he'll be around to see what's going down go down, but other than that, no." Roy's eyes glinted a second. "Actually, Clint's kind of pissed at Oliver too. He might WANT to be part of it. But I'm not going to get back at him for the whole...incident out here. That's just...what he does."
Alma nodded her head, "What modifications are allowed to bows? Is there a set bow?"
"There are a couple actually, depending on what we're doing. I'm in a few categories usually, while I work out what I'm going to be good with but that's been the recurve for me so far." Roy nodded towards his arms. "I've been building up but...I'm not consistent enough to go for the long. And competitionwise...mods aren't really going to work. Which is fine. It's better if I do it on my own. But actually..." He glanced away a second, trying to gather up the details. "It's funny. In the dreams, I use much shorter."
"What is the difference?" She led Roy to a spot on the ground, and promptly put herself in his lap. "What effective difference between the two?"
"Well the long takes more strength and it's a lot taller." Roy explained. "The recurve is more a middle east import. It curves back on itself at the ends. Essentially that means it takes less strength to draw back, which is nice. In the dreams I've got...I think it's sort of a recurve. But a LOT smaller...still gets things done. You'd probably have to ask Oliver about the differences with more modern bows. I mostly know that they exist but..."
"Can you use a recurve in the tournament?" Alma traced the shape on his chest, "If you pull a recurve with the same strength you would your long bow, that will give you more kinetic energy. Accuracy may or may not be a problem."
"I've got two events with that, one with the long." Roy nodded. "And they're all standard scoring so I should be okay as far as that goes. As for the accuracy issue..." He grinned."I'm usually okay there. Unless I'm distracted. Which is how I wound up with...son of a bitch." he trailled off, muttering. "...You ever have those moments you feel like you're a complete idiot?"
"No."
Roy laughed and gave her a little smile. "I just realized I missed something completely that I probably should have known about." he confessed, ducking his head. "I need people skills."
"What do you mean?" Alma shifted in his lap, to get more comfortable. She felt calmer like this.
"Oh, I just realized WHY Barton's an asshole." Roy said brightly. "Hell, I hired him to do it. His approach is just a little more...all inclusive." Face. Meet palm. "I'm an idiot."
Alma guessed, "Tough love trainer?"
"Technically, I knew he was." Roy admitted, eyedarting. "I needed that. He's more...combining that with invading every aspect of my life." And that was kind of hilarious.
"So he is like an obtrusive family member." Alma smiled at Roy like 'you're so cute.'
"Exactly like that." Roy shook his head, and smiled back. "He's even stuffed me full of sedatives and dumped me in his bed."
An odd look crossed Alma's face, and then she snerked. She covered her mouth.
"During this time, Oliver decided he was hanging out there too." Roy snickered because the whole thing? Yeah, it was hilarious in retrospect. "So he proceeds to go ahead and make the place food network central."
"Experimenting with food?"
"Oh yeah." Roy shook his head and winced. "It was the most surreal week of my life."
Alma snuggled in, "Is this where that chili thing came from?"
"Exactly where." Roy agreed. "He just...I swear, the freezer was packed with it. None of us even KNEW it waas possible to come up with so many variations."
Alma wondered what sort of additives had been used and how much of the byproducts typically found in the supermarket wound up in the chili. Her stomach complained at the thought.
"That sounds disgusting."
Hey hey hey! Oliver had gone to the Farmer's Market for most of what hadn't been in that fridge! He was doing his part here. Fucking middle aged hippie.
"Like you wouldn't believe." Roy shook his head. "Too much time on his hands, clearly."
Alma's impression would improve of him if she knew that. She shifted again, and rested her face in the crook of Roy's neck. This was one of her favorite parts of him! "Perhaps it's his way of showing he cares."
"Oh probably part of it." Roy agreed, "the thing with Oliver is the second he thinks you're having some kind of emotional problem, he decides he's cooking. Then he just gets nervous energy and does it too. It's a wonder he's not fat. I mean he doesn't work out THAT much."
"For some people," Alma replied. "They derive comfort from food. As you learned with me." She smiled against his neck, "Metabolism."
"Metabolism." Roy agreed, nodding." Well, sometimes people DO get lucky."
Anyone else would have giggled at that. Alma was an exception, "I suppose they do."
"Actually," Roy said, thinking about. "He gets lucky in general." And in more specific ways. "It's kind of a charmed life, you know? Might be kind of nice sometimes."
Alma nuzzled Roy contentedly, "How so?"
"well, it's like..." And Roy's frustration with the man, that he'd been holding back since he'd come back into his life came spilling out a little. "The man has everything. Women, men, money, he drives a fucking Lexus hybrid, there's a plane... And all he does..." he shook his head, trying to hold the flood of emotions that had come out with that. "Sorry." he said, simply. 'It's just...he thinks that he can buy anything, you know? Including me."
"Money can make many things easier, but it cannot buy love," Alma replied quietly. She believed that. She didn't know why, but she did.
"He doesn't even do it with money so much. Well, he offers but..." Roy shook his head. "It's more the smothering he's been trying to do now that's frustrating. I mean, HE got rid of ME and two years later, he wants me back. It's frustrating." he shook his head. "Sorry. I didn't mean to lay that on you, but you're right. It can't."
Alma lifted her head, and cupped his cheeks in both hands, "Maybe he realized what he'd lost."
"Not a lot." Roy said, shaking his head. "Not then. I mean, I wasn't a terrible person by any means. The whole pissed off at the world thing was annoying, sure, but...I was average. Just kind of your typical teenage loser." He shrugged a little. "I don't know that I think he'd see more now."
Alma felt her own heart twinge at his words. Sure, she was biased, but she knew he spoke out of hurt and anger, "You think too little of yourself. You are not a 'loser' and there is so much potential in you. You do not just stop caring about someone, even after time, or distance."
"Well, and I'm fixing it now." Roy said, "I don't think I'm that big of a loser right NOW. I'm doing what I can, you know? " he smiled at her briefly. He was glad to have his job and everything, and glad that archery was helping the kids here. "It's just...well, complicated." he shook his head. "sorry, we were supposed to be talking about what happened to you."
"Talking about you helps me." It wasn't a lie either. She found focusing on problems other than her own to be soothing, in a way. She tried to push that soothing feeling at him, though she had no idea if she succeeded. There was no control over when or how her emotions affected others. His own were leaving her feeling a little drained.
That worked a litte. The whole FURY Roy had felt since the dreams, the fury that went beyond being frustrated started to fade at least, and that was good. He didnt like that emotion. It was...kind of worrying actually that it had started to show up. "Well, I don't want to leave you with stuff unanswered or bothering you either."
Alma's nails dug into Roy's face. The pressure lessened slightly, as his anger waned. Tears dribbled down her cheeks a little as she looked at him, "Well this bothers me too."
"I'm sorry." Roy told her. "I don't mean to do this." He probably needed to go shoot for a while. He could set something up inside. This time of night nobody would mind.
"I want you..." Well she did, but that wasn't what she meant this time, "I want you to realize you're...."
"And I want you to realize it too." Roy told her. "that you're a good person and that's what matters."
"I do not always feel like a good person," Alma admitted. Like right now she wanted to comfort him. It was bad enough she was in his lap.
"Well, trust me."Roy told her seriously. "No matter what the dream showed you...that's not here and now."
"I think this is where it would be appropriate to kiss you under other circumstances." Alma smiled thinly.
Roy snickered at that. "Probably." he agreed. "This IS sort of like that moment in a romantic movie."
Alma's face was a little too close to Roy's, her hair dangling between them. She whispered, "I want it to be, but I know it's wrong."
Roy nodded at that. "I know you do and that you know that. It must be really hard for you to handle this."
"I want to fornicate with you."
Roy choked a little right there. He was used to Alma being pretty formal but that was...kind of an unexpected way to put it. "Whoa, whoa whoa." he said, holding up a hand. "I don't exactly do the fornication thing these days. And uh. It's not so great the first time either. For the record."
"One has to start somewhere," She pointed out, giving him a half-smile.
"True." He agreed. "But not tonight. Not now. And not me." He made a mental note to talk to whoever supervised the girls' dorms about possibly taking Alma shopping for uh...something to help with the urges. It might be a good thing for all of them. Especially her.
Or a really bad thing when her empathy extended to the rest of the dorm while taking care of those urges.
Alma nodded her head, "I understand. I'm sorry it always seems to...."
Yeah, it'd have to be an ...arranging private time thing, but it was so not the kind of thing that Roy was going to supervise the potential purchasing of. Because...weird. just...weird. "You don't need to be sorry at all." he said. "It's not something you can control, really. Frankly, I'm glad you can control things as well as you do."
"You do not fornicate with anyone?" Alma found herself both..pleased at this, and saddened. It was irrational. She hated feeling irrational.
"Not right now." Roy said with a little shrug. "I don't really have the time and well, my apartment's kind of shitty so I don't want to take anyone back to it and I'm a ball of psychological issues. Just...not a good idea right now, you know?" Don't stick it in the crazy or let the crazy stick it in you Alma leaned in, then rested her head on his shoulder as she wrestled internally. Is horny an emotion? Because she's feeling it. It was, at least, better than what she'd been feeling earlier.Pretty much. Three guesses as to what Roy had witnessed to make him observe THAT rule. Dinah had been pissed for like two months. was it? Roy felt it a little bit himself but tried to fight it off. This was ALMA. He'd hate himself and be sick later if he let it happen.
Please don't say that out loud, she wouldn't take it the way you actually meant it.
Yeah, he wasn't planning on that.
Alma kissed his cheek, then got up, "Thank you. I should go." Then she rushed off. To shower.
Roy blinked at that, because it had been kind of...well, bizare toward the end. He hoped he hadn't hurt her or anything. He just...yeah. Sex was so not entering into anything right now.