He sort of just… detaches, from the meeting at large. It devolves into arguing and yelling and cheap shots and a whole roomfull of egos crammed together each trying to one-up each other. He realizes his points are going to be falling (mostly, not entirely, but mostly) on deaf ears, and it does seem like he and his team, such as they are (his, now), are going to be alone.
He gives
Julia Davis a small smile. Not alone. They would have each other.
Everyone’s priorities lay elsewhere. Everyone’s opinions are varied. He shifts back, out of the meeting, out of himself, dissociating in a way he hasn’t had to do since he came to Hoenn. There’s a curl of dread in his gut, combined with the sort of sick satisfaction that comes from fine-tuning a survival skill that you hope you never have to use again.
Josh Dragomir keeps waggling the promise of
equipment over their heads like a dog biscuit, expecting everyone to come to heel at the assurance of a shiny new toy. As though they’re all children.
It doesn’t work, unsurprisingly. But points to him for trying.
Someone leaves. Inconsequential.
Tensions are high. People are cursing. The Slateport crew wants to leave, apparently. Also inconsequential. Those with little importance reveal themselves in the brightest way.
Talia Celes says he’s right. Knock him over with a feather. He gives her the ghost of a smile.
He listens when
Callan Young begins to fill them in on Primal Points. This is why they’re here, after all.
“Heard.” LANCE VOLLANS brings up the Petalburg v. Fortree thing again and Memo has to resign himself to realizing not everyone has the context. He’d wasted enough time harping on that point to no avail.
“I’d rather not leave things to chance. Call me a worrier.” Maybe he was picking up more from
Alexei Ivanov than he thought.
Then his cousin walks in. And it seems like he’s meant to calm everything down, but things only get worse, somehow. He makes brief eye-contact with
Sénon Game to show that he’s not being ignored, then turns to
Laurence Anderson as the Head Ranger speaks.
More preaching on unity and clarity (he’d already tried, it wasn’t new.)
(He was so far dissociated that he didn’t even realize
Josh Devlin was talking about
his Cyberchase Hell and when Lars asked for reports he visibly winced in pain.)
Lars quickly goes to work with orders and assigning units in particular directions. When it’s time for his instructions, he says again,
“Heard, sir.” Because
of course he’s going to do his best to protect everyone, why else would he be here?
He can feel
Kaida Adachi bristling from across the room like she wants to jump the table and rip his throat out with her teeth. Sorry, Kaida.
Things heat up again. Like a pot of water constantly being moved on and off a lit burner. Someone else leaves. Inconsequential.
The councilwoman chimes in, in particular councilwoman fashion-- repeating known facts in a measured voice to sound important. Inconsequential.
You’re still here. Your body is still here. Don’t go too far. Don’t. Then someone throws a
fucking pie. It’s the vulgar woman from before (inconsequential). What a joke. A sickly smile crawls across his face, a feeling like relief-- not exactly, but close to it-- worming over his skin.
Not my monkeys, not my circus.He has to tamp down on a series of delirious giggles that threaten to spill over. Pinches his lips shut and breathes measuredly, trying to think of anything that’s the opposite of funny. Verb conjugations.
The councilwoman yells in a surprisingly un-councilwoman voice. It drives him closer to cracking.
Don’t lose it. Don’t lose it.This is fucking crazy.
“This is our lives, now,” he whispers hoarsely to
annalise henderson , turning his shaky smile on her.
ollie morales chimes in and
is trying to direct the meeting back towards productive rationalism. It seems like a losing battle.
“I think people are going to be panicked, no matter what,” he says, in response to the brunette’s theory about not needing evacuation.
“I don’t want to rely on assumptions and then have it be too late.” He looks at Lars, again.
“Has the League tested this before? In a controlled setting? Would it be possible to see the reports, or run another test, to know what we’re jumping into, here?” His voice is calm and hollow.
Kaida looked at him and he cracked, a bit, but fell in the opposite direction. Instead of wanting to burst into insane laughter, he wanted to cry. Or puke. Or both. It was a mad dash to shove himself back out of his body, to float above it again.
Please, don’t, he shot back at her, mentally-- but obviously, she wasn’t a mind reader.
His name being mentioned is a knife at his throat. He can’t breathe. He
has to breathe. He imagines the physical motion of hands pressing down on his lungs, forcing them to exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Kaida talks. He makes no attempts to include himself beyond the mention of his name.
Then, making good on his promise,
Josh Dragomir gets up in front of everyone and dangles his shiny new toy in their face.
They’re neat. They’re
very neat. What all they have to do with the situation at hand, Memo doesn’t really know, but they are, definitely, neat. He helps himself to a pair, body moving fluidly despite the numbness that’s settled into his very being. Funny how you can fall back into your habits.
“Thanks,” he says to Josh.
He’s ready for the meeting to wrap up. He’s ready to get back home and… cry, maybe, he doesn’t really know. Probably not super great and tough and ideal, but, who gives a fuck. Maybe this wouldn’t have gone so ridiculously AWOL if more of them cried more often. His face falls into a mask of peace as he addresses Lars for a final time.
“We await your word on how, when, and where to set up the Primal Points, sir.” wearing> the boy knits you a sweater of his eyelashes and you give him PTSD
> to lars: asks if they can see reports/data from prior primal point usage or run a test run, if there's time
> to anna: welcome to the black parade
> takes a pair of sunglasses
