[House has to huff a laugh. This is a stupid conversation and there's nothing overtly funny in Will commentary, but really.]
You think my mind isn't broken? I'm running around with a guy who tried to murder and lobotomize me, a cannibal who's got me slated for his menu as soon as his boyfriend says 'go,' and said boyfriend who empathizes with serial killers enough to become them in his dreams and murder me.
[House makes a sharp, flicking motion with the bone in his hand.]
I'm stuck in a whole goddamn universe that doesn't make sense. Where I can't trust even my basic senses. I barely sleep, I'm starving myself because the thought of eating makes me sick, I can't help wanting to chew on everyone in this goddamn building, and every time we talk about sex all I can think is I couldn't even get it up right now if I wanted to.
The only things I would've had to look forward to back home are my team leaving, getting Wilson's girlfriend killed, prison, and Wilson dying. Here, it's dying, or getting sucked into some insane data collective and watching this keep going on and on and on until the machines just give out. That's what all of us are racing toward. Those are the end states.
[He cuts himself off because he's ranting now.]
You wanna cherry pick reasons you should go in the suit instead of me, don't make it about who's more broken. You just broke a different way.
[ Will listened to what was said and what wasn't said; it was a curious mixture of both heart-break and also a small, important crack of light in the shadow of self-loathing. After all, didn't they always say that half the problem was admitting there was a problem?
He didn't discount what it meant that House would admit to such things, and Will wasn't about to get into a discussion around 'my trauma is greater than yours' because each of them had survived through the impossible. One wasn't any greater than the other. Back home or here. ]
You know, it really is remarkable that either of us even continues to function.
[ He said, which wasn't an answer to House's last comment but nor was it a flippant avoidance of the weight of their conversation.
It was remarkable that either of them managed to function. Will had Hannibal, but if House weren't in the equation it was all together possible that Will would have allowed himself to sink beneath the surface and given over to the beauty of the darkness.
He sobered then, brows furrowing in a pensive expression before he continued. ]
I just want to end this. Free the collective and let them rest, free those of us who have worlds to go home too, ensure no one else gets dragged here and then ... let it end.
[ Then he looked up, once again making that rare eye contact. ]
But I want to see it through, to that end.
[ He was going in the damn suit, he'd manipulate, fight, tackle, hog tie House if he had too. But this was as close to a promise as he could give, and perhaps that House would accept, that Will wasn't getting in that suit with the intent to leave. ]
[House's tense posture sags a little bit. He's wound up, but he's exhausted from that outburst.]
Dude, it's a miracle anyone functions. Kids like Elric, Brown, and Quark have been here longer than me.
[And there are days when it seems like all of them are handling this place better than he's ever going to. It's half a joke when he says that he's just a regular guy from Jersey, but it's half-serious. Most of the people here are from insane, futuristic, magical, techno-enhanced worlds where they're fighting wars, living in the apocalypse, or fighting super villains and monsters regularly.]
I just wanna solve the puzzle.
[The admission is quiet, vulnerable. There's an echo of the little boy Will had met in House's dream. He just needs to know the answer, then he can rest. And getting in that suit is part of maybe getting the answer, of being right there to get it. There's no way that he loses. If it works, then he gets in and he's the first one to interact with NIMA, use it. If it doesn't... then he doesn't have to deal with losing a friend who might not come back.]
[ Deep within, the jaded voice in Will Graham's psyche was pointed out that he was being played. Unfortunately, Will wasn't really listening. He wasn't about to alter course on his plans, but he was starting to feel a definite sense of guilt and internal conflict around what he intended to do.
It was not going to help his insomnia any!
In fact he glanced down and away, probably exposing more of his sense of guilt and conflict than he intended too, as he changed the subject entirely. ]
That experiment was all of us. [ He said in a quiet tone. ] The one you keep referring too. It was the product of the participation of everybody who was willing to risk it going wrong.
I didn't do anything other than ask for help.
[ You know House, ask for help? That thing you're kinda bad at admitting you need? ]
[House is looking for any and all cracks he can worm his way into. That flashed look down is satisfying, but half of this is genuine. Then Will goes and changes the topic on him and the puppy eyes are pulled back in favor of the fundamental argument.]
You came up with the idea, you organized it, you executed it. Own it, Graham Cracker. I'm not praising you just to stroke your ego.
[ Will looked ready to argue the point again, but he stopped himself and glanced off to the side. If he kept the conversation going, it would just continue to be uncomfortable, so he was going to let House get in the last word and move on.
She can't have it! [ That comes out a little more quickly and sharply than Will usually responds and almost immediately he appears to regret the minor outburst. ]
I couldn't help it. The damn thing looks exactly like my dog Winston. [ There was a brief pause before Will decided to try to explain a little more. ]
Winston was the one who kept coming home to Wolf Trap, looking for me when I was locked up. He was the one who walked miles with me one night when I had a sleep walking incident.
He was the only one who didn't ... eat any of Verger's face.
He was my friend. [ Probably the only one in Will's life who hadn't ended up corrupted by Hannibal or turning on Will in the end. ]
I sat for hours talking to the skeleton about the dogs and particularly about Winston. [ He'd needed a good mope!
However. ]
Though I guess I didn't really spend a lot of time describing what he looked like. [ And the plush really was a good likeness, even down to the mottled red and black coat. ]
[House wiggles his long, slender fingers for show.]
Oooooo... spooky. It does tell us the data collective has access to where our memories are stored on the servers, at least. Or they've got their main girl Andromeda plugged in and handing out the goodies.
[ Will tilted his head to the side for a pensive moment, then he half smiled. ]
Hannibal's mind is actually incredibly disciplined.
[ He fell silent again, brows furrowing as he struggled to find a way to explain what was inexplicable. He'd tried to talk to Jack about this and been dismissed, Alana as well.
But House ... House might be able to see around the edges of Societal norms. ]
In Hannibal's mind, there is only beauty in the death. Exaltation in the horrors and those who are rude, are less than human.
It's what made getting into his head so dangerous for someone like me. When you're there, what he visits upon his victims is ... beauty. [ Even as he said the words, there was a combination of conflict but also peace in Will's tone. ] It lifts them above and beyond anything they could ever achieve in life.
I appreciate a well-done execution. [Har, har.] Not everyone does. Most people don't. They'd take one look in his brain and run screaming. Eve's made of tough stuff. Or whoever's controlling her is.
House's words hit him hard and though he had an immediate response, he stopped himself and turned the lens to see it from House's perspective. Usually he consciously struggled to keep from empathizing too deeply with House. He knew it made his friend traveling companion uncomfortable when he went to deep.
But this time he couldn't help it. It was like missing a step on a path across a stream and tumbling deep into the water. The flashes came unbidden and they made Will smile almost sadly.
He thought about calling it out ... the need a normal person would feel to insist that a mind like Hannibal's was not easy to understand. Because, as a normal person, you would never want to be able to understand the mind of a predator like Hannibal Lecter.
It would terrify the psyche, to be able to put yourself in Lecter's shoes, follow his motivations and be able to nod and go 'that makes sense'. Will could remember how terrified it made him, each and every time he had done just that with the monsters. Walked those paths, nodded along and felt the absolute justification of their actions. The art of it, the justice ... the release.
For those predators, it was the same sort of high as what an addict received from Vicodin. House's mind would recognize the release and the reward of it. House's mind was also stimulated by the puzzle of it all, his conscious mind fighting every step of the way to insist that his patients were only ... things.
The way Hannibal saw his victims as pigs.
It all had to hit too close to home. But if Hannibal was 'not easy to understand' then House could keep a barrier between them. Keep himself safe. If Will pointed to it, he knew his friend traveling companion would yank it aside ... because House was a child at times hardwired to try to disprove anything positive about himself. A result of the constant emotional abuse he'd suffered at the hands of his father.
So in the end Will hauled himself out of the water, shook himself off and kept moving along the stones without remark. ]
That's an interesting theory. That Eve is being controlled by someone else. Is the thought that maybe it's someone outside the town borders?
[ A question to deflect, carry them forward and away from dangerous waters. ]
Edited (because this needed more words) 2018-03-24 17:50 (UTC)
[House can tell Will has retreated into his head for a moment, though the doctor isn't sure of the reason for it. He leaves it be until the ex-profiler returns. At the question, House just shrugs.]
We got from a dream chat with the collective early on that the Admin's one part of something bigger. I think she's probably the most visible portion of the AI system in the town. My guess would be whatever else it is, is our rogue AI puppeting her when it needs to. I'm not sure there's much outside this town, whether Norfinbury's some augmented reality or actual reality. Any humans that are still alive are probably underground and have better things to do than actively run an experiment like this.
[ That was something that Will realized he hadn't entirely considered. He kept focusing on the missiles striking Norfinbury, with the idea that life had gone on as usual outside the town's borders.
But what if it was Norfinbury that had ended up frozen and protected.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rubikscomplex) wrote2015-08-27 10:05 am
cw mention of suicide; disordered eating; depression... just a lot of things
You think my mind isn't broken? I'm running around with a guy who tried to murder and lobotomize me, a cannibal who's got me slated for his menu as soon as his boyfriend says 'go,' and said boyfriend who empathizes with serial killers enough to become them in his dreams and murder me.
[House makes a sharp, flicking motion with the bone in his hand.]
I'm stuck in a whole goddamn universe that doesn't make sense. Where I can't trust even my basic senses. I barely sleep, I'm starving myself because the thought of eating makes me sick, I can't help wanting to chew on everyone in this goddamn building, and every time we talk about sex all I can think is I couldn't even get it up right now if I wanted to.
The only things I would've had to look forward to back home are my team leaving, getting Wilson's girlfriend killed, prison, and Wilson dying. Here, it's dying, or getting sucked into some insane data collective and watching this keep going on and on and on until the machines just give out. That's what all of us are racing toward. Those are the end states.
[He cuts himself off because he's ranting now.]
You wanna cherry pick reasons you should go in the suit instead of me, don't make it about who's more broken. You just broke a different way.
cw: a lot of things
He didn't discount what it meant that House would admit to such things, and Will wasn't about to get into a discussion around 'my trauma is greater than yours' because each of them had survived through the impossible. One wasn't any greater than the other. Back home or here. ]
You know, it really is remarkable that either of us even continues to function.
[ He said, which wasn't an answer to House's last comment but nor was it a flippant avoidance of the weight of their conversation.
It was remarkable that either of them managed to function. Will had Hannibal, but if House weren't in the equation it was all together possible that Will would have allowed himself to sink beneath the surface and given over to the beauty of the darkness.
He sobered then, brows furrowing in a pensive expression before he continued. ]
I just want to end this. Free the collective and let them rest, free those of us who have worlds to go home too, ensure no one else gets dragged here and then ... let it end.
[ Then he looked up, once again making that rare eye contact. ]
But I want to see it through, to that end.
[ He was going in the damn suit, he'd manipulate, fight, tackle, hog tie House if he had too. But this was as close to a promise as he could give, and perhaps that House would accept, that Will wasn't getting in that suit with the intent to leave. ]
no subject
Dude, it's a miracle anyone functions. Kids like Elric, Brown, and Quark have been here longer than me.
[And there are days when it seems like all of them are handling this place better than he's ever going to. It's half a joke when he says that he's just a regular guy from Jersey, but it's half-serious. Most of the people here are from insane, futuristic, magical, techno-enhanced worlds where they're fighting wars, living in the apocalypse, or fighting super villains and monsters regularly.]
I just wanna solve the puzzle.
[The admission is quiet, vulnerable. There's an echo of the little boy Will had met in House's dream. He just needs to know the answer, then he can rest. And getting in that suit is part of maybe getting the answer, of being right there to get it. There's no way that he loses. If it works, then he gets in and he's the first one to interact with NIMA, use it. If it doesn't... then he doesn't have to deal with losing a friend who might not come back.]
no subject
It was not going to help his insomnia any!
In fact he glanced down and away, probably exposing more of his sense of guilt and conflict than he intended too, as he changed the subject entirely. ]
That experiment was all of us. [ He said in a quiet tone. ] The one you keep referring too. It was the product of the participation of everybody who was willing to risk it going wrong.
I didn't do anything other than ask for help.
[ You know House, ask for help? That thing you're kinda bad at admitting you need? ]
no subject
You came up with the idea, you organized it, you executed it. Own it, Graham Cracker. I'm not praising you just to stroke your ego.
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Or in this case, sit in awkward silence. ]
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You planning to do anything with the dog toy you got the other night? We run into Ecks again, watch it like a hawk. She'll want it.
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I mean, I'll keep it out of sight.
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I'm assuming you named it if you're that attached to it.
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Oh. Wait. ]
I couldn't help it. The damn thing looks exactly like my dog Winston. [ There was a brief pause before Will decided to try to explain a little more. ]
Winston was the one who kept coming home to Wolf Trap, looking for me when I was locked up. He was the one who walked miles with me one night when I had a sleep walking incident.
He was the only one who didn't ... eat any of Verger's face.
He was my friend. [ Probably the only one in Will's life who hadn't ended up corrupted by Hannibal or turning on Will in the end. ]
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However. ]
Though I guess I didn't really spend a lot of time describing what he looked like. [ And the plush really was a good likeness, even down to the mottled red and black coat. ]
no subject
Oooooo... spooky. It does tell us the data collective has access to where our memories are stored on the servers, at least. Or they've got their main girl Andromeda plugged in and handing out the goodies.
no subject
[ There's a cheery thought for you, House. ]
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The collective said even the people who're dead aren't with them, yet. There's still some level of partition.
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[ Will really isn't sure he feels strongly one way or the other in terms of this particular theory.
After a moment, he chuckles softly. ]
Though I feel a sense of pity for whoever is try to map a path in my head. It's got to be like trying to hack your way through a thicket of brambles.
no subject
Imagine them in Lecter's head.
no subject
Hannibal's mind is actually incredibly disciplined.
[ He fell silent again, brows furrowing as he struggled to find a way to explain what was inexplicable. He'd tried to talk to Jack about this and been dismissed, Alana as well.
But House ... House might be able to see around the edges of Societal norms. ]
In Hannibal's mind, there is only beauty in the death. Exaltation in the horrors and those who are rude, are less than human.
It's what made getting into his head so dangerous for someone like me. When you're there, what he visits upon his victims is ... beauty. [ Even as he said the words, there was a combination of conflict but also peace in Will's tone. ] It lifts them above and beyond anything they could ever achieve in life.
[ Will winced, and looked down. ]
no subject
[He watches Will closely for a long moment.]
I appreciate a well-done execution. [Har, har.] Not everyone does. Most people don't. They'd take one look in his brain and run screaming. Eve's made of tough stuff. Or whoever's controlling her is.
no subject
House's words hit him hard and though he had an immediate response, he stopped himself and turned the lens to see it from House's perspective. Usually he consciously struggled to keep from empathizing too deeply with House. He knew it made his friend traveling companion uncomfortable when he went to deep.
But this time he couldn't help it. It was like missing a step on a path across a stream and tumbling deep into the water. The flashes came unbidden and they made Will smile almost sadly.
He thought about calling it out ... the need a normal person would feel to insist that a mind like Hannibal's was not easy to understand. Because, as a normal person, you would never want to be able to understand the mind of a predator like Hannibal Lecter.
It would terrify the psyche, to be able to put yourself in Lecter's shoes, follow his motivations and be able to nod and go 'that makes sense'. Will could remember how terrified it made him, each and every time he had done just that with the monsters. Walked those paths, nodded along and felt the absolute justification of their actions. The art of it, the justice ... the release.
For those predators, it was the same sort of high as what an addict received from Vicodin. House's mind would recognize the release and the reward of it. House's mind was also stimulated by the puzzle of it all, his conscious mind fighting every step of the way to insist that his patients were only ... things.
The way Hannibal saw his victims as pigs.
It all had to hit too close to home. But if Hannibal was 'not easy to understand' then House could keep a barrier between them. Keep himself safe. If Will pointed to it, he knew his
friendtraveling companion would yank it aside ... because House wasa child at timeshardwired to try to disprove anything positive about himself. A result of the constant emotional abuse he'd suffered at the hands of his father.So in the end Will hauled himself out of the water, shook himself off and kept moving along the stones without remark. ]
That's an interesting theory. That Eve is being controlled by someone else. Is the thought that maybe it's someone outside the town borders?
[ A question to deflect, carry them forward and away from dangerous waters. ]
no subject
We got from a dream chat with the collective early on that the Admin's one part of something bigger. I think she's probably the most visible portion of the AI system in the town. My guess would be whatever else it is, is our rogue AI puppeting her when it needs to. I'm not sure there's much outside this town, whether Norfinbury's some augmented reality or actual reality. Any humans that are still alive are probably underground and have better things to do than actively run an experiment like this.
no subject
But what if it was Norfinbury that had ended up frozen and protected.
After a moment, Will actually smiled. ]
What a kick it would be to join that struggle.
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Hey, I'm going home to certain death. The odds of surviving a hundred foot cliff dive isn't high.
[ He paused and then shrugged. ]
Maybe there's a small part of me that's woken up and could enjoy a good struggle against some alien forces, rather than death.
no subject
Beckett had a similar revelation, as I recall. It made him a lot less boring to talk to a while back.
[Tenacity is something House has always respected, the refusal to give up in the face of impossible odds. That is his career and his life.]
And just as long as they're actual aliens and not magical, mythical beings from Beyond the Stars.
cw: suicidal ideation
cw: suicidal ideation
cw: suicidal ideation
cw: suicidal ideation
cw: suicidal ideation
(no subject)