( OPEN | DAY 19 ) the brainiacs club

[skaikru]

CHARACTERS: clarke, sam, damon, elena, murphy + everyone who wants to meet the symbiote face to (brain) face
WHERE: Hyrypia - The Graze, an impromptu coroners tent
WHEN: DAY :019
SUMMARY: Before his cremation, Lavellan still offers a few answers to some burning questions.
WARNINGS: Mentions of character death, medically accurate gore, an autopsy, a lot of talk about brains, the symbiote is terrifying, and probably puke.

( for clarke, it seems like the next logical step. first, a rough introduction to the symbiote. second, glimpses of a brain scan from the depths of john murphy's mind. third, seeing it with her own eyes.

so naturally, it doesn't take much convincing.

they have a body. when asked, they're provided with a set of odd tools and a wealth of apologies for their loss by the hyrypian natives. and before they go about building a funeral pyre, they set themselves up in a well-lit tent and carefully remove the corpse coverings. clarke's never done this before, sam's never done this before, and as intently as they hover, damon and elena offer little advice, mostly morbidly driven moral support. murphy has a wide variety of medical supplies at his side, and doesn’t say much. but it's not hard to figure out. under sharp instruments, skin cuts like butter, and dead bodies barely bleed. it's easy to get through the skin and hair, to peel it back and reveal the white bone of lavellan's skull. it's harder to look at the dead man's face, peaceful as if in a deep sleep, while fumbling for an archaic trephine and swallowing down bile.

first, they punch holes. cautious, careful to draw back when the tool burrows too deeply. if they want to examine his brain for answers to all the questions digging (quite literally) in the back of their minds, they can't damage the delicate tissue. as bone dust flies and catches on her hands, clarke quietly wishes for sterile latex gloves — anything to buffer the sensations, to make this feel less real.

then comes the drill, held at an angle to cut relatively straight lines between the burr holes. lavellan's head wiggles under the vibrations of sawing through bone, the same tremors that run up the length of clarke's arms as she cuts, and her throat is uncomfortably tight when she asks elena to hold him still. it takes some time, but piece by piece the hard bone is chipped away, each sliver of skull carefully set aside in a bowl until they're faced with a grey layer of dura. the tissue is cut and snipped, pulled to expose the veins and the intricate tubing of lobes — the brain, the epicenter of all life, now red, and wet, and still.

it's not over. the brain is soft, threatens to break under her fingers as she claws into his skull; pushing and pulling until she can cut at the spinal cord tethering mind to body. and with a trickle of cerebral fluid, the brain is born into her hands, a squishy and floppy mess. the answer to so many questions, and disgustingly delicate.

for a moment, they all just look at it. choke on actions, implications, guilt. then: )

There, ( clarke announces, turning the brain over in her hands. on the underside, just above the base of where the brain stem had been cut, a soft bundle of white. it looks almost like particularly dead nerve endings, a tight grouping of listless threads, but that's not right. clarke uses her pinky finger to shift the elastic folds of the brain, tugging to try to see where the branches of the symbiote dig deeper into grey matter, and brush the hard black flecks embedded into the alien organic tissue. there, that's what it looked like in the flesh.

her stomach churns. nausea or nerves, the uncomfortable idea that that is inside all of us at the forefront of her mind — her distress is tangible in the air, but it's anyone's guess so far as contributing factors. she extends both cupped hands, offering a better look to those around her. )

( ooc | dogpile all in one thread, write your own starters post tent, someone eventually get clarke a jar to put the brain in or something please for the love of god…! basically, do whatever and have fun with it. )

Comments

[adamance]

Murphy is right. [Lexa doubts that Clarke will know what it means for her to say that. She doesn't need to argue with Murphy. She needs to argue with Bellamy and Clarke. The former has been here for some time, but it doesn't surprise her to hear that he lives in a state of denial. Clarke is newer, less worn by the experience. She hasn't spoken with Cathaway, hasn't mingled with Carata, hasn't seen her coalition torn down within days in the memories of someone else.

(No, she's experienced it first hand, but it's still different. Lexa saw what happened in her absence. What would happen. It's hard to believe it'd be any different. The coalition rested on her shoulders and died with her.)]

Even if we returned tomorrow, we have no way of knowing who would still live. Or what would remain. You all saw what Polis became following my death. The sturdiest of foundations can fall quickly. But this is not a war we'll win in a month or a year. We can't make alliances, can't forge bonds to face a common enemy. This is unlike a war that any of you have seen. But it is like one my people know well, because we were the same when it came to the Mountain Men. We can't fool ourselves into believing that we're the solution.

[Early on, Lexa had believed that.

Things have changed.]

[deployed]

[ The comparison to Mount Weather isn't something Bellamy hasn't considered on his own. But hearing the words in Lexa's mouth makes him bristle in spite of himself, mind catching on just how high the cost of that victory had been. He and Lexa had argued around the topic before, and he recognizes that it doesn't have a place in discussion here, but Bellamy's jaw sets as much against the invocation of that enemy as the idea that going home is no longer an option. ]

So it takes time. That's not a reason to give up on the idea that we can go back to our people when it's over. I believe Cathaway when she said we can go. When it's all over, we go together.

[ No matter how long it took. Even if they returned and their people hadn't survived, Bellamy couldn't see it as a reason to give up on the idea of getting back. ]

I have to know. I can't just assume that we're going to be trapped here the way Cathaway and Prince are. That doesn't have to happen unless we give up and accept it.

[skaikru]

( so there was no doomsday clock in this fight for the universe. there's no guarantee that all the people they'd left behind were safe, or that they'd ever see them again — either back home, or in this, their new reality. it's becoming more and more apparent that, for as long as the older hosts had been fighting this war, little ground had been gained. and like all the impossible battles in history, the answer was to call in more cannon fodder.

bellamy's optimism about their return home is clashing full force with lexa and murphy's brand of realism, and as much as clarke would like to cling to those scant last few shreds of hope, it's difficult in the face of the facts. her head hurts, the subtle throbbing behind her eyes from the past day gradually building. as the three of them talk, she lifts a hand to scrub over her face, pinching the bridge of her nose to no relief.

and when answers, strategies, plans all seem to elude her in favor of tired, open-ended questions — then what do we do? how do we fight? how can we make sure we win? — clarke turns away from their little huddle. takes a step or two away to take up pacing in a small, disjointed circle.

she's a little stuck on the comparison to mount weather, as well. if their new enemy were truly a larger, more powerful version of the wallace's, the emerson's, the reapers, then...

well, they'd have to kill them all. )

[wrackful]

[Another time and Murphy might be caught more by these things: Lexa saying he was right, Clarke going quiet, stepping away to pace. Another time, when he wasn't already frayed by the tides of grief and anger shifting through the other hosts. Wasn't already cracking under the weight of this same acceptance they're arguing now, pieces of him splintering in loss, hopelessness. Another time and he might have scoffed, held back, waited. Right now there's just anger, and all of Bellamy's infuriating, painful hope makes him the one target.]

Have to know what, Bellamy? That they're all dead? [Taking a step towards him, the lash of words pulling on that old itch for violence, the desire to land a blow mirrored in physicality.] Maybe we'll get back and there'll be another neat line of graves for you to stand over. [His mouth curves cruel at the corners.] If she even gets one.

[He doesn't need to give a name. There's only one she he could be talking about.]

[adamance]

They may live now, but the only chance you have of seeing your people again is if we leave now and put them at risk. You left to save them. You must have known what that meant. By time you return, if you return, your sister will be dead. Your people will be gone. [Like Murphy, she directs her attention at Bellamy, all to make it clear specifically what she means. But she knows Clarke is pacing, she knows Clarke is trying to find a third path, a different route. That's what Clarke has always done.]

The worst part is that there's no guarantee that you'll listen. After everything we've been through together. It's like you're in denial of all of it. But acting this way is what got three hundred of my warriors killed because you refused to see reason. I will not allow that again. Not for your selfish hopes. And not for your sister.

[The same goes for Clarke, but she doesn't reach out to her, doesn't look at her. It's almost as if she's purposely extracting her attention from the other woman, so much that it's likely noticeable by the other three present.

Yes, her words are cruel. But she did think that Bellamy was past this, that he wasn't living in denial ...

She was wrong.]

[deployed]

[ Murphy's words land like a physical blow. Grief and fear blossom outward in waves as Bellamy's expression contorts. The pain is only interrupted by the secondhand itch for violence, scratching it's way into Bellamy's skin. He's obliging even as Lexa begins speaking, shoving Murphy away hard as if to dismiss what he and Lexa are both asserting. ]

Shut your mouth, [ He snaps at Murphy, anger spiking hot, scorching down the red strap before rounding on Lexa.

They've argued this before. Bellamy had let the wounds of the past settle and scab over. There had been other things to prioritize. There are still other things that require their attention, but in the wake of Murphy laying into the thing Bellamy fears the most, Lexa's words reopen every old wound and drag up Raven's voice, raw, over the radio (They're gone. They're all gone.) ]

I saw reason. I saw you and the threat your people posed. I don't care about what you will or won't allow. And you don't ever accuse me of leading that monster back to my people again, when I've said over and over there's no point in going back until all this is over.

[ The coalition had been weak. The Ice Nation wouldn't be controlled. And Skaikru would have born the brunt of their ire, and Lexa would have been untouched. Bellamy knows this all by heart. The old, bitter anger chokes him, mingling with the grief that's always a breath away when Octavia's name is invoked. It clouds over Bellamy's guilt and regrets over what he'd done. There's no way to allow a vulnerability like that now. ]

I don't have to accept that they're all dead. I'm not going to give up on my life because neither of you see an easy way back to it. I'll fight this war and bury our enemy and I'll go back to my sister with or without either of you helping me. I don't have to accept that she's dead just because—

[ His voice breaks. There's a clear distancing happening, as Bellamy recedes from them. The white-hot blaze of his anger is a more effective safeguard for his mind than anything else has been. Everything else in his head vanishes behind it as he gathers his composure. ]

I won't give up. The two of you can believe what you want.

[skaikru]

( her reprieve is short lived.

even if clarke's not standing directly in the warpath, murphy’s vehemence cracks across her face like a whip. detonates like a hand grenade, with all the verbal shrapnel hitting home judging by how readily bellamy explodes in turn. he leaks, he gushes, and anger blankets the room with the intent to suffocate, the type of strangled emotions that kicks her heart into her lungs and promises violence.

by comparison, lexa’s cold, purposeful distance is all but eclipsed.

the other woman adds fuel to the fire, drags at old wounds that seem to have not fully knit together in the time before she got here. objectively clarke can see it, but bellmay’s shoved murphy, and that’s like a jumpstart to her system to move, to try to angle her way back into the fray and between the two of them. )

Are we actually accomplishing anything here? ( here, in this tent, digging at each other and reaching for answers and resolution that aren’t anywhere near within their grasp. as heavily as it rests in her bones, clarke seeks to banish all the despondent weariness from her tone, steels her voice and tries to play the objective — slightly accusatory — voice of reason. tries. )

It seems like we’re all on the same page. No one’s going home ( yet. ever. as entirely themselves. maybe they’re not all agreed. a bitter edge claws its way in. ) anytime soon. But fighting with each other isn’t going to help anything right now.

( clarke pauses to draw a deep breath that’s supposed to be calming but just serves to further rattle the world around her. attempted sensibility only went so far when they all allowed themselves to dissolve in the face of futility, grief. it feels like they’re choosing up sides, lines being drawn on the sandy planes of hyrypia. and even if she doesn’t want to openly admit it, clarke leans more towards bellamy in this instance.

words still don't feel like enough, and adds almost as an afterthought: )

Take a walk, Bellamy.

[wrackful]

[Murphy barely hears what any of them are saying. The eruption of Bellamy's mind cracks against him like a hit across the face, leaves his head ringing. Bellamy shoves him, and he only has enough focus on what's happening to keep from stumbling entirely. Lexa's words muffled, Bellamy's shouting distant, Clarke stepping in, dulled. Murphy sucks down air, but the sound in his mind doesn't lessen. It grows, spreading, shaking cracks and fractures through the barriers of ice keeping everything contained. The anger and grief he'd deliberately antagonised driving blades down to meet his own, the storm he'd been keeping choked down since the night of the play surging upwards. There's no strength to fight the pressure. Everything shatters.

It churns loose, a furious maelstrom of grief and anger, pain, despair, the eye of it rooted down somewhere deep at Murphy's chest. Lashing winds, desert sand, shards of ice, and memory after memory. Emori on a boat in the darkness, smiling. Emori thanking him for saving her life, kissing him on the cheek. Emori painted soft with firelight in the cave, promising him she'd come back. Emori begging him not to break ALIE's core, him unable to make the blow. Emori calling his name in the throne room, free, waiting for him. Emori as he'd turned away, ran, left her with the enemy filling the air above her head.]

Crap.

[Murphy presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, but it doesn't stop anything. Love and loss spilling out of him like a wound he'd been holding closed, hidden, but there's no stitching it back together now. Not here.

He shoves his veils back into place, turning to push out of the tent.]

[adamance]

[For a moment, the wave of emotions does nothing to disrupt Lexa's stoic exterior. For that matter, her interior mind tries to give off the same impression, like she's trying to hold up the wall on its own. Bellamy's willingness to lash out screams of defensiveness, but it's not that which makes her crumble—it's Murphy's memories. Not Emori but the area surrounding Emori, the reminder of Polis, of someone who had been exiled but still ended up there, all her people enveloped and swallowed whole by the first version of the Flame, of "ALIE 1.0." It's about knowing about the remains of Polis and being forced to recognize it, to see it during a time like this.

All of them had to leave something behind. Lexa—this Lexa—willingly left her people instead of dying to try to maintain the foundations she built for them. If she had known what it would mean at the time, would she have left? And is it selfish to cling to life now? She wouldn't have left. She knows that. But having a life ...

As Murphy leaves, her throat tightens even further and Lexa's fingers curl toward her palms. Her eyes close as she tilts her head forward to inhale. It's not that Emori has any special place in her mind. But they've all lost. And having Clarke here is a constant reminder of many things for Lexa, including where she wasn't meant to have Clarke. She let herself ... and it's what would have driven Titus to kill her—]

I'll remain here, Clarke. [Her eyes don't bother to open. Right now, Lexa needs to steady herself.]

[deployed]

[ Clarke's dismissal cracks like a physical blow. Afterthought or not, it rings to closely to the throne room in Polis in the aftermath of Ice Nation's attack. Clarke telling him to go, electing to stay behind with Lexa. It feels as much a repetition of the past as the argument Lexa's dredged up. Clarke's words land like a betrayal, rippling through the solid burn of Bellamy's anger. His jaw tightens, even as Murphy breaks, spilling out vibrant memories of Emori. It doesn't shake anything in Bellamy loose. It aligns with everything Bellamy had once felt about Clarke, and now feels about Octavia, and is swallowed by the leaping burn of Bellamy's fury.

He tracks Murphy's retreat, and then his attention is dragged back to mark Lexa's position in the tent, to assess Clarke's expression before bending to lift his bedroll. His hands are steady, despite the tumult of emotions choking him. Bellamy's made up his mind.

Something should be said. But the condemnation is already painfully clear in Bellamy's mind. He doesn't bother to try to find his voice to verbalize it for their benefit as he pulls down his own veil over his face, turns his back on them both and stalks out of the tent. ]

[skaikru]

( it's all a lot, and for several suspended moments, clarke doesn't feel as if she's fully in her own body anymore. murphy's swirling despair whips around her face like a cold wind, stealing the air from her lungs. she's transported home, to the familiar backdrops and the strange ones, and she doesn't know emori but in those breathless, wide-eyed moments, she knows her. misses her — that pained longing running close to the bone, reminiscent of how desperately clarke misses her mother, and then overshadowing her own homesickness by the sheer force of feelings she didn't know murphy had.

bellamy's anger turns to hurt, then redoubles back around to that chilly sort of rage that rocks her very soul. it's familiar in how it stabs, a double-edged blade she was wielding inexpertly, and unwittingly opening the door to reaggravating old wounds. something should be said, clarke feels the desire to reach out and grab his arm when he moves to collect his bedding. but she doesn't.

even the perceivable slip in lexa's fortitude lends to sending the world spinning, and she opens her mouth — ) I... ( — only for nothing concrete or conciliatory to work its way up her throat. in the back of her mind, she thinks she'd meant to say wait, don't go, already feeling a tight knot of apprehension for what reckless things two wounded people could do on an open desert plain.

but they're already gone. and the tears she'd so dutifully kept to herself come to a hilt, down both cheeks and collecting under her chin as clarke turns to gape wordlessly at lexa. she shakes her head a few times as if to ask why, how. all manner of unfinished questions with no good answers, and as the confrontational air leaks from the tent, that forcefully mustered sliver of resolve begins to erode.

when she can't summon words, clarke eventually turns her back on lexa, brings up a relatively bloodless edge of her sleeve to wipe at her face, and retreats to her bedroll; sits crosslegged at the foot of her sheets, and rests her elbows on her knees in order to bury her face in her hands. )

[adamance]

[Some part of her stirs up in frustration the moment that Clarke's back is to her. Her feelings have nothing to do with Clarke's back and everything to do with the sentiment of the two who have just left. Murphy's accepted his loss, but he's done it knowing that what he's lost lives on. Bellamy is the same. And Lexa—she's spent months grappling with the death of her coalition, with the destruction of Polis. Clarke's previous words return to her about how no one can know how she feels if she doesn't say it, but it seems that those words only matter if there's some unrealistic hope assigned to them. Or—perhaps that's some irrationality stirring in her mind.

Bellamy had shown her how her world burned after she died. Hadn't he considered the consequences of his absence? Or does it only matter when it's someone else?

As it is, the moment Clarke sits, she's hesitant to follow. At first. Comforting someone is something that she's never been suited for. Even when Clarke paced wildly prior to the battle with the mountain, she had just scolded her for being too anxious, too worried about what lied ahead. And here, where she's actually in pain—

Lexa's movements are stiff as she takes a spot beside Clarke, bending her legs up so her slender arms wrap around them. She leans ever so slightly into Clarke, but doesn't make her body language open enough to welcome her in. That's partly because she doesn't know whether that suits the situation, or whether it might seem ... presumptive.

There's a lot to say. In this moment. In future moments. But she doesn't say anything, not yet.]

[skaikru]

( clarke is aware, distantly, of lexa's movements. the hints of the other woman's agitation and conflict crackle in the air like the calm before lightning strikes, but clarke is engulfed in a blooming headache that could no longer be attributed to the tangental hangover from this morning. despite that brief expulsion of wet, hurt tears, there is a sharp pressure building behind her eyeballs that only lessens when she grinds the palms of her hands just below her eyebrows. and so when lexa settles down next to her, she doesn't look up. not yet, anyway.

the silence stretches. there's a lot to say, even more to digest and for the moment clarke is content to grapple with an existential crisis involving everyone she ever cared about dying in her absence; with wallowing in the grief and simmering anger left in bellamy and murphy's wake; with an odd sort of regret, because she'd only meant to separate the boys before they came to more serious blows, and neither of them seemed likely to return. it's several long moments and one wet, gross sniffle later that she's lifting her face to look at lexa — eyes wet, but no longer openly weeping, and mouth set in a hard line. )

You didn't have to talk about Octavia like that.

( murphy may have made the initial cut, but lexa had effectively poured the salt in bellamy's exposed wound. )

[adamance]

We all sacrificed a great deal to come here. To help ourselves and our people. If Bellamy refuses to accept the choice he made months ago, then nothing I say or do will change that. [Cold and callous and to the point. Lexa stands by her words. Maybe that's because Lexa would always stand by them. Her regrets aren't in her words, but in believing that Bellamy had believed that his statements about going home were ... nothing more than fleeting hopes, all said to make himself feel better. Perhaps she was foolish in believing they could even be that.]

Just because we made the choice without accepting the consequences doesn't mean that we failed to have the means to realize what it was that we did. Even without the symbiotes, the choice would be the same. We left our people to fight a war, and we'll continue to grow old because of it.

[skaikru]

( lexa's tone is harsh and direct, and it grates against already frayed nerves. fills in the void of lapsing patience. any desire clarke had harbored to see both sides of the argument, to understand the positions so as to better mediate, fled with their companions. the residual tension in the air buzzes back to life, a faint heartbeat of conflict not fully resuscitated. and clarke's tone dips to match in all its icy ornaments. )

There's a difference between knowing what you've sacrificed, and having it thrown in your face. ( miles of difference between knowing they'd left their people to suffer who knew what, and having a vivid picture of their graves — or lack there off — painted in vivid splashes right before your very eyes, in your mind. )

You're telling me none of that seemed cruel and unnecessary to you?

[adamance]

Bellamy and I were alone for quite some time. He was there as I came to accept what would have become of my life had the Enemy not attacked me. [Laying this out comes with a noted impatience. It's not in her expression—that remains cool, removed—but in the feeling within. Has Clarke fully understood what it meant for her that Bellamy and Murphy were the heralds of her death? She's beginning to think otherwise. Or perhaps she's feeling particularly cruel, and not giving Clarke enough credit.]

Do you truly think he knows? And if he does, why should I be asked to suffer the consequences of his denial once again?

[skaikru]

( whether she recognizes the significance of it having been relative strangers, people lexa may have still considered enemies and criminals, or deserves the credit for understanding what a blow that must have been all have to be weighed against clarke's capacity to care right now; to see past her own hurts, to feel beyond the most recent slights, to put herself in lexa's shoes. the mental link was only so good for that if they allowed each other in, and right now it seemed they decidedly weren't.

to that first question: )

Yes. ( steely, pointed, defensive. because bellamy's a lot of things, but he's not stupid. clarke wholeheartedly believes that he understands the weight of their situation because she thinks she understands it now too. the lives of their people are in jeopardy in some far-off universe, and more often than not they were on the same page when it came to survival. so yes. )

And if hoping for a better outcome is what keeps him going, you don't get to detract from that. ( righteous and demanding. she thinks, rather unkindly, that no one asked her to suffer bellamy's optimism. but bites her tongue. still experiencing the sting of angry tears behind her eyelids, clarke scrubs her hands over her face. there's still a curl of blood under a few of her fingernails, and noticing it upon drawing her palms away is like dunking her head into a bucket of ice water.

with finality taking the place of vehemence, her voice is a softer shade of angry when next she speaks. )

I just cut open a dead man's skull. In front of people who were probably his friends. I'm tired.

[adamance]

[Even without having a way of knowing, Lexa has a sense that Bellamy and Clarke haven't spoken privately about the reality of their situation. His outright denial that led to him taking his bedroll to leave is proof of it. Still, Clarke stands by him, understanding where he comes from, knowing precisely what he's doing in that moment. It twists her up inside, hitting a point of jealousy and disconnect. It makes her want to flee, but the desire feels like a pointed reminder of her weakness in this scenario.

Either way, she decides the argument that they're bound to have isn't worth her time or effort. Feeling ... lesser somehow in comparison to Clarke's people isn't where she wants to be. And she definitely doesn't want to feel it with Bellamy of all possible people.

Her lips twist down.]

You should clean up. I'll take a walk. [Lexa moves to rise, not commenting on anything. Anything she says might not even be her. She can feel the threat of surging emotions within her.]

I'll return here. [She might as well. She's laid claim to it, whatever that means now.

(It means nothing. She meant to surround herself with allies, and it feels like she's doing a fine job of losing all of them.)]

wraps this up like a present

[skaikru]

( on the one hand, she could wash her hands for what felt like the umpteenth time this evening before fully retiring to sleep off the headier side effects of vicarious distress; perhaps waking rested and rejuvenated just in time to help with the public funeral arrangements. and maybe that would be nice. but on the other hand, there's some poetic justice to be found in being as stubborn and difficult as lexa was known to be on occasion. clarke had meant it, she was tired — too emotionally drained to pick up the damp cloth and water jug bellamy had been using to sponge the worst of the plasma from between her fingers before they'd been drawn into conflict. far too consumed with forcing composure into the hum of acknowledgment tossed lexa's way to look at her, or dig into the veritable well of insecurities beneath the surface of the other woman's control. they were all deep, dark pits brimming over with quiet demons that every so often roared to life; demanded to be fed.

she's yanking on the laces of her vest when lexa leaves, and by the time she returns clarke is curled on her side in the relative dark, the picture of restless sleep if not for the palpable thrum of a conscious mind trying to sort through solutions. she's counting the minutes the other three are gone, then weighing the chances bellamy and murphy were going to return at all. and when those odds come up against her favor, it becomes watching the clock and attempting to guess when it would be well, or at least passively received to check in with either of the two. it's a less successful method than counting sheep, and for all they don't speak as lexa goes about her night time routine, there's not much sleep either. )