( 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

[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. )