lostcarnival | (no subject)

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Who: The Psionic and Foster
When: Day 139
Where: Foster's Trailer
What: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Warnings: Talk of suicidal ideation, cussing, brain disease, and wieners.

It was almost cute how Foster thought he could just ignore Psi. Well, it would have been cute if it weren't so irritating. Psi was still bruised up and still pretty sore from making cobblestone with his skull. That didn't matter though. The Psionic had to address this, because he had seen Foster at the ritual and had felt what a complete and utter mess he was. He had years worth of memories showing him a Foster that wanted to live, and he also had memories of a man that felt the complete opposite. It was upsetting, and he didn't know how he could, but he wanted to help fix it.

And so that's what leads to him barging into Foster's trailer completely unannounced.

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That's a gesture Foster's seen a thousand times, a gesture that means Psi is either going to lose his patience and slam Foster against the wall

(~~please please please please~~)

or snap in a different way, give up on him and storm out

~~go away go away fuck you just LEAVE ME ALONE~~

But then Psi speaks. Then panic floods in, actual fear showing on Foster's face for a split second--even as anger filters over, a simultaneous struggle between an emotion he only recently experienced and the only one he'd ever experienced until just recently. Suddenly everything is out of control, out of his grasp, and he's desperate, a ship pitched on violent waves and he has to get it back, has to stop it--!

"You're not listening to me!"

He snarls it, saliva flecking his chin.

He wasn't scared when the angel levelled her rapier at him.

But he's definitely scared now.

Even if Foster covers his fear with anger, the Psionic can still sense it, and though he's annoyed, irritated, and frustrated as hell, he doesn't leave, at least not yet. His anger fades, and he gives Foster a tired look.

"I'm trying to." But he wasn't, not really. It wasn't this Foster he wanted to listen to in the first place. Foster here just seemed to use words to try and make everyone else feel stupid or to confuse them, nothing he said felt like the truth. It was ominously too late. He was a threat. He was garbage. He wanted to be tossed around. None of that crap meant anything!

"Look, no one should feel the way you do, like they don't deserve a life. That's... So fucked up... Maybe it makes you feel better to think you deserve it, but that's a fucking lie. You don't deserve it, and you can fight it. You just have to stop being so scared."

What was he even afraid of? He didn't have anything left to loose. His life was practically forfeit already.

"Maybe everything I just said is really offensive to you. Maybe I'm totally wrong about you and I'm stupid and I don't understand shit! But you know what, I'd rather be stupid and full of shit and actually help the person who told me they'd rather die than go back to this."

"So that's what I'm going to do, because it's what I want to do."

Edited 2017-08-07 02:20 (UTC)

Foster's suddenly caught in a whirlwind of confusion of frustration. Psi was listening to him--he was listening, but somehow drew completely wrong conclusions!

It's so completely irrational that he doesn't even know how to react.

Which means his response is a burst of totally inappropriate, totally sincere laughter.

But as he so often does, he sobers abruptly and completely.

"Offensive to me?" It's a rhetorical question. Empty of meaning.

Consider that a metaphor.

"Don't you think it's more fucked up to imagine I don't deserve it? That 'people' like me just happen for no reason?" He breaks eye contact, bitterness overtaking him. "But then, if you think about it too critically, you no longer have any control over the situation, right? You become totally powerless. How scary."

Psi can't really think he's the same person he met in that long dream. Foster can barely imagine being him--maybe because it hurts too much to do so, but that should be proof enough. If Psi wastes his time on this--on him, whichever 'him' he thinks he's trying to 'save'--then it puts Foster in a position he can't escape. An obligation to... what? Gratitude? Repayment, for what he can't repay? What he never earned, cannot have, doesn't deserve?

It's a terrible impossibility, and he's afraid of what consequences it'll bring.

Not that it matters. He knows it won't.

"You're right, I did want to die... I don't think that's unreasonable." He's smiling, making eye contact again, but it's... weak. "But I guess the universe had different ideas." The smile vanishes.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter. It's too late."

His tone flattens to a cold cruelty.

"I'm already here."

"It's not too late!" he shouts, nearly stomping his foot in his frustration. "That's what I'm trying to say! Maybe it was before, but it's not here, don't you get it?"

"I know you're afraid, okay? I get it! The fear of failure, letting yourself hope for a solution only to get denied everything again. Do you think those are feelings only you can understand?"

His voice starts to waver. Feelings he never wanted to admit to, things he was still afraid to face. It's too much, and he has to wonder if he's even really talking to Foster anymore. Maybe instead he's simply yelling at himself. He wants to push Foster down, to make him understand, to make himself understand.

"Of course it's fucked up. Life is fucked up." He's speaking normally, but after all his shouting it just seems quieter. He wants their to be a right and a wrong. He wants the world to be fair. He wants to think that if only he were smarter, stronger, better, that he'd be able to change things. He's not that better person, and there were some things that could not be fixed and there were disasters that could never be prevented and sometimes people who didn't deserve it suffered.

"You have to accept that."

"I'm not afraid of failure," he spits--if Psi wants something true? This is as close to it as anything about Foster can ever be. Everything he does ends in failure. Psi was there when he stole the mushi weed, and failed. He was there when he tried to stop the ritual and failed, tried to escape his reality and failed. Failure is all he knows.

No, he dreams of failure. Dreams of an apocalypse, dreams of a failure of the world, of an extinction level event.

He dreams, ultimately, about the ultimate failure: a failure so absolute that he, the source of failure itself, will at last fail and die.

He is not afraid to fail.

But in saying as much, in denying what he does not fear, he realises two things.

One, he's made a very large mistake. By rejecting Psi's false notion, he has also affirmed its opposite. He has, effectively, announced to Psi exactly what does scare him--and that, alone causes him a spike of minute terror.

Two--

"....you are." He is granted a distraction--an epiphany, a misdirection, a truth. Both for himself and, more importantly, for Psi by the epiphany, and he takes a step forward, all callousness and callow confidence.

"You're trying to fix me because you can't fix yourself." Psi isn't the first person who's tried to 'help' him. People like him--they can't stand it, the idea that there is a problem that cannot be solved. That there can be punishment without reprieve, that there can be disease without cure. That there can be fate without compromise. He gets it. He gets it! He's a problem! He's the problem in their reality, the problem in his own reality--he is the problem in reality, and it will not end until he at last is ended, but even that is too much to ask! Even that mercy, that absolution is too good for him, too incomplete to satisfy the wrong he's committed by even existing!

But then what?

What does Psi want him to do?

He's not allowed to be happy. He can't accept an offer like that, knowing where it comes from, knowing how it will end.

And all of this is way too much to ever put into words, because even when he tries, he is denied again and again, as though he is speaking a different language, futilely shouting his words from across the threshold of a different world.

His eyes widen in surprised, both at vehemence with which Foster responds and at what he's saying. He knows it's true. He knows he's afraid. That's been the entire problem this whole time! That's why he's still here, why he can't make himself go back yet. The way Foster says it though, like he's realized just how small and insignificant the Psionic really is, it's terrifying. He feels nauseous and it only gets worse as Foster accuses him.

You're trying to fix me because you can't fix yourself. As soon as he perceives the words purple blooms across his face in a blush. He feels ashamed, and embarrassed. Was it true? Did he help others only to avoid his own problems? He doesn't know if it's true, but the fact that he questions it, that he questions himself, is enough. He takes a step back, putting more space between them. He has to do something, he has to say something.

"I just- I just want to help you! Why is that so hard for you to understand!?"

"Help yourself," comes Foster's reply.

In a way, the Psionic is right; Foster has released exactly how he feels, why he feels that way, and now that he knows, it lands the Troll in a place of contempt. His life is not a vehicle to make others feel better. Not like that, anyway. Psi takes a step back, and Foster takes two forward.

But the only other thing he says is... quieter.

Bitterer.

Defeated.

"Leave me alone."

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THANKS LORD ENGLISH

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