The Fifteen Strangers Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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15strangers2018-12-13 02:52 pm
strangerpeople) wrote in 15strangers2018-12-13 02:52 pm
Entry tags:
HAVE A NICE FLIGHT
[The thing that jolts you awake is the sudden drop.
Maybe you gasp. Maybe you hold onto your seat as tightly as you can. Whatever you do, it doesn't help your stomach, or stop the overwhelming scent of flowers from tickling your nostrils. Nor does it unbuckle your seat belt, as you are strapped into a seat that is...well, it's comfortable, but not helpful when you don't know where you are.
You'll figure it out soon enough. You're inside a strange room of some kind, and opening the windows reveals nothing but clouds, lightning flashing across the sky...and a moon as red as blood. Its light seems to be much stronger than any light that comes from within the place you are now, which seem to flicker and lose power at the worst intervals.
Not only that, but you're not alone. There are 14 others with you, and only those 14. And--you have power. You don't know what it is, not yet. But instantly you know you have a power. It's just a matter of you figuring out that power, since the doo-hickey you find in your room doesn't help you figure it out.
And yes, you're flying. If you don't know what an airplane is, well. Welcome to the future, friend. It's looking to be a not-so-great one so far.]
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He steadies himself with a hand against Yurick's shoulder, making the mistake of not signaling that he was coming up from behind him.]
We're on a god-damned airplane, aren't we.
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Yes, we are. Stars, this is such a mess, Jonathan. It's too much like before.
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[Who cares how they look right now? He's just going to keep standing here maintaining that hug. Maybe clinging a little. Okay, not maybe, definitely....]
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The last thing I remember is dozing off in your mother's car on the way to the train station with you and Nagisa. We were going on a mission in California.
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[Yes, Yurick is warm. Not the sort of warm that comes from another world's fire magic coursing through a grave-chilled body, either. He's not just warm, he's alive. Abruptly, Jonathan untangles himself from the hug, holding Yurick in front of him by the shoulders. His eyes are wide, his expression stricken, his face suddenly white as a sheet.]
Listen to me. If this works anything like last time and you get spat back out there and then, you have to run. You can't go to California, and you can't let us go without you either. I know the Church is counting on us, but you and Nagisa, you can't - you can't, you have to stop it from happening somehow!
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[Yurick knows he and Nagisa were at the... wedding, thanks to what he learned from Vita. They survive the mission. So why does Jonathan look so afraid?]
Besides, you're asking me to change the timeline! What if that makes things worse? You... you marry Vita sometime after we return, all three of us are there, right? That's all that matters.
[Married. Jonathan is married. Stars, Charlotte must be a wreck, and Yurick's feeling really off-kilter, too. He's happy for his brother and Vita, but... it hurts. Much as he wanted to be rid of the mercenary life, he's still nothing more than a mage for hire, conscripted by the Church. It's all he can offer to the world that's become a refuge for him. Still, he's falling behind those he loves, stagnating in his emotions no matter where he goes. The pain's his own fault, he knows that, but even if he could magically be rid of his feelings he wouldn't do it.
Because they're all he has left.]
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[Changing the timeline may be the only hope he has to set things right. His inaction, his denial... it's his fault that everything went wrong.
His hands may be a bit too tight on Yurick's arms, now. He is seeing him, he knows where they are, but he is, too, seeing a dim clearing among old oak trees, seeing the same awful tableau that's haunted him since it all went wrong.]
If you really believe that they can't find anyone else, then... just... don't let me pretend he's getting sick. Even if I don't believe you, tell me it's just like with Lucy. Tell my mother to check for that, not for... God, Yurick, you have a chance to save so many people so much pain, please....
[He knows he isn't coherent. He can't be, not when Yurick is standing here baffled and angry and alive. Sure, Nagisa isn't with them, but there has to be a reason for that, too. His greatest sin and greatest mistake might yet be undone, if he can only make his brother listen.]
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Jonathan, you're scaring me... you're not making any sense! How did we pay, and who's sick? What do you mean it's like Lucy? Stars above, all these fragments, you're not coherent... are you ill?
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[He smiles sadly, and loosens his grip, letting his right hand fall back to his side.]
That's right, I never did explain... my grandfather loved one of Dracula's victims, Lucy Westenra. She was... she was turned slow. It looked like anemia, or some kind of hemorrhagic disorder, or even leukaemia... and that's what Mom thought was wrong with Nagisa when we got back from California. I didn't... I should have known, but....
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Nagisa... turned? He's a vampire?
[That means something went wrong. If Jonathan's worried about both of them, though... well, Yurick's no stranger to blaming himself.]
It's my fault, isn't it? I failed somehow, and that's why he....
CW: mention of 1940s-typical anti-Japanese racism
[The sickness in his voice isn't just from where they're standing.]
I fucked up. He got hurt, badly, and I... the hospital out there didn't want to "waste blood on a Jap". I made them use me, so I wasn't... it was one of the doctors. The vampire we were sent there to get rid of was one of the doctors. I was too out of it to notice anything except that he'd come back in with a syringe and he did something to the line in Nagisa's arm, I thought it was a sedative....
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[Anger sharpens his fear, leaving him trembling. Nagisa only wanted to help, and the very people he tried to protect betrayed him and left him at the mercy of a monster.]
... I'll make certain he stays behind. The two of us can kill the vampire, we're both experienced on the battlefield.
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[If you thought you'd seen him hopeless at the Base, Yurick, you ain't seen nothin' next to the stricken, desperate look on his face right now.]
There has to be some way to stop it. There has to, that has to be why we're both here, I... God....
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[He holds his brother by the shoulders and gives him a little shake.]
Tell me everything. If Nagisa's the one who turned, why did you say we both paid for your mistake? How was he hurt in the first place?
cw: mild vampire-media-typical gore, a near miss with vomiting, kinda-sorta-maybe-PTSD
[He can't meet Yurick's eyes, and doesn't make any move to break his hold on his shoulders.]
He knew. When we were all busy finding reasons to stay in denial, he was doing research, and he knew, and he tried to get as far away as possible when it hit the point where he'd... change.
[Wide-spread old trees. Moonlight. Plumes of fog in the air from their breathing - a small form crumpled on the ground with no such evidence of life.
He isn't back there there. He isn't there. He isn't. He's standing on an airplane like nothing he's ever seen. Revisiting this is making how that makes him feel even worse. It's easy to hide everything behind "no problem!" when he doesn't have to think about it. It's easy to live for the future when he can focus on the present, and it's easy to accept the past cannot be changed when there isn't a piece of it standing before him with his face the very picture of determination. ]
When we caught up, he was already... you ran to him, I tried to stop you but you broke away and... he was disoriented, when he woke up. Starving. They always are when they first wake up, and you were right there, and... and I can't teleport, I couldn't do anything -
[His voice breaks, and he breaks away from Yurick then, one hand flying to cover his mouth as the other stops him from falling against the nearer wall. He doesn't actually vomit, but it's a near thing.
There's so much blood. It's not that blood bothers him, but blood on his brother's face, blood coming from his brother's throat, blood steaming in unreasonably cold air - eyeshine just as red in the headlights of the car - ]
I wanted to give you both a better chance, a better world, and instead... instead I got you both killed. Please, I don't want to talk about this anymore... I mean, it's not like I can change it.
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No wonder Jonathan is begging him to stop the mission. Yet even as vampires, their brother didn't slay them as he was likely ordered to do by the Church. They were still at the wedding, standing by his side as family. So they turned, but they didn't become monsters.
Yurick chuckles without humor.]
At least in my case, that solves the problem of my other condition. But... if I need to stop it, if I can... though I worry if it's truly our fate, can it be changed? Will it simply happen at a later date, on some other mission? We're too useful to the cause to stop hunting, Jonathan.
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["...made of choices..."
Isn't that what he's always believed in, fighting fate whenever possible? He'd made that clear, hadn't he? Wasn't that something they'd agreed on? He's leaning against the wall for support, at this point, and turns to face Yurick as best he can.]
Charlotte's working on the issue with - you know.
[He gestures at the right side of his own face, vaguely.]
She'll get it fixed, you know she's capable, come on... don't just....
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[Yurick sighs.]
I'm not being fatalistic, Jonathan. I'm a realist, you know that, and reality is often cruel. I'm not giving up but I have to be prepared for the worst. If turning gives Charlotte more time for research, gives me more time, then... I suppose I can live with it.