Let's all hold hands and sing Kumbaya

[notzubats]

Who: Everybody! It's a planet mingle!
Broadcast: If You want!
Action: On the Holding Hands plant!
When: From June 23 until whenever we need a new mingle.

[At long last, the fleet has arrived to a new planet. This means it's time for a mingle guys! Get in! ]

Comments

[axiomed]

[ He softens. ]

Well, I'm free now. Just -- [ He glances at the slugs. ] Let me put these away. I'm worried they might wander off.

[brainiest]

I can't imagine they'd be happier with anyone else.

[ She does move back, though, giving Charles a little bit of room. ]

From what I've seen, the connections people share can be just emotional or they can be based on memories. It reminds me a little of the shard I had before I came to the Drabwurld. When you trained enough you unlocked the ability to share your memories with anyone you wanted.

[axiomed]

[ Charles nods absently. ]

We had shards like that. In a mirror. Apparently it contained our soul. We could remove shards at will, showing other people our memories. I could even remove my . . . paralysis. But I chose not to.

[brainiest]

I don't blame you. I mean, for making the choice. I know it's not the same but there are lots of things I could do to change parts of myself, inside and out, but I don't. Sometimes it's better to work with what we have than try and become something we're not.

[ Hermione could take her own memories away and make herself someone else, but she doesn't. She could take all her pain away, could heal her scarring, could become an entirely different person... But she doesn't. Some power should never be given. ]

[axiomed]

[ He smiles. ]

I didn't think you would, though many would not be able to fathom it. At this stage, I don't foresee myself changing all that much.

[brainiest]

Which is good. I like you just the way you are- not that my opinion is most important.

[ When will she stop putting her foot in her mouth, she wonders. ]

[axiomed]

[ His expression flickers. ]

I disagree. Your opinion is . . . very important to me.

[brainiest]

[ There's a moment where Hermione pauses and blinks before she feels a gentle flush rise up. She might be a little used to people asking her for advice, but this is different. It means something a little more to her. ]

Then - I'll have to keep giving it, then.

[axiomed]

[ He smiles. ]

Please do. I appreciate your opinion. And honestly, I get carried away. It'll be good to let the air out of my ego now and then.

[brainiest]

I don't think I'm a good person to stop your ego growing.

[ Really, she thinks she must be the opposite; all she does is big it up... ]

[axiomed]

I'm sure you can, all the same. I can be rather insufferable.

But never mind about that. Your opinion is important to me. Surely you saw that.

[brainiest]

The people you love are meant to be insufferable. That's how you know they love you.

[ Relaxing, she blinks back her emotions before she smiles, stepping forward and reaching to touch his hand, only touching her fingers to his knuckle. ]

I know. I mean - I can see it, I saw. I'm just still worried about pushing too hard.

[axiomed]

I have noticed that trend.

[ He turns his palm to clasp her hand. A memory flits by of Charles in a wheelchair and a woman with pointed ears talking together. She's appreciative of his beard. ]

If I ever felt that way, I'd let you know.

[brainiest]

It's a good thing I'm used to it.

[ Hermione presses her hand against his, and she doesn't pause - she just closes her eyes, drinking in the memory before she tilts her head up to look back over at him. ]

I'm glad. I've done so many things that people hated me for and they never said a thing... I don't think I could bear it here.

[axiomed]

I'm still ruled by old fears. I've made some steps . . . but Hank reminded me that I'm far from healed. My sense of trust is broken. My sense of family is broken too.

But I am mending. It's slow but it can be accomplished.

[brainiest]

My best friend once told me I was far too trusting.

[ And then she hesitates, pausing, before she tilts her head up. ]

Can I show you something? I mean - a memory.

[axiomed]

I've been told that many times.

[ He nods, not bothered. ] Certainly.

[brainiest]

[ She hesitates, but then... Her fingers press into his.

It's a memory about how much trust can hurt, and, really, she thinks that's the message she wants to give Charles; that she does trust too much, but she thinks she's stronger for it. She offers him Gilgamesh, explaining why he proposed, why he wanted her, and the emotions that are tangled up with them are almost horrific.

Hurt, pain, anger. Most importantly, most noticeably? Betrayal, and self-hatred - hatred that it's her power that someone wanter, her power that someone was trying to take, not her.

She thinks, maybe, Charles can understand. ]

[axiomed]

[ Charles can understand that. His power is a gift. It's limitless, it's deadly and it is insidious in nature. Humans - People fear it while ungodly powers wish to possess. Even now, he remembers the crawl of Eris' touch as she waited for him to break and now this strange oracular Bill that wandered into his dreams. His fascinating, controlling gift.

His own memories bleed through, of Lucciola. His favourite team member. A shy boy, whom Charles had encouraged and supported. He had wandered into his heart - an effect from the omnipotent agencies that kept them in play. And there, Lucciola had shied away from him. Had quaked at the sight of Charles.

No. Lucciola had shied away from his power. Because Lucciola was a good person. Charles knew it. ]

[brainiest]

[ Knowing how people see you because of your powers is terrifying; they could either love you too much or hate you for everything you had. Harry had started to hate her, and the memory of that prickles in her mind like some kind of burn - You swore to me, you swore and betrayed me. You swore and I, like a damned fool, loved and believed you, and now, look - and she had hated herself for the power she'd had and the strength she had given up, for all the pain and hurt she'd caused.

She also hated herself for what she couldn't do; she was Marchioness, she was leader, she was everything, but she was weak. At the end, she was weak, and she hated it. She was even weak when Gilgamesh offered her ultimate power; she could have saved or ended the world and all she wanted was his smile.

Leaning forward, she shifts and wraps her arms around Charles, holding him gently, trying to smother back her own memories and her own feelings of suffering and uncertainty to bask in Charles, pressing her emotions towards him - her love, her concern, her tenderness. The things she feels for him that she can't hide.

She supports him and she loves him and most of all she isn't afraid of him. ]

[axiomed]

[ Don't hold back, he murmurs, I'm fine. And he is, in a way. He's certainly much improved. The past is in the past and for the first time, he truly believes that. He wraps his arms around her, soothing. ]

[brainiest]

[ The problem is that thinking of home, thinking of the Drabwurld and the people - it brings up more than just her happiness. The emotions are buried together, twisted up like some kind of shrapnel in her heart, and Hermione doesn't want to bare it all to Charles. She doesn't want to make him suffer all the things that her mind goes through, because it isn't fair. There's so much pain and hurt that she tries to hide - and it just feels wrong.

It feels wrong to put that on his shoulders, even now.

You don't have to. It comes before she can do anything else, her fear and her worry prickling at her and most obvious through their connection. I'll find some better ones, some happier ones. ]

[axiomed]

[ I know that, his reply comes, touched with genuine amusement. It's a sentiment he's heard before. It's certainly one he repeats often enough.

Good and bad are often linked together. You can't separate it. That's what made your time there so special. Even when it hurt. ]

[brainiest]

[ It would be easier if I could. I know how to use my memories, I learned, but it's not the same. It's harder to pick the good ones from the bad. That's what gets her the most; she feels oddly powerless with something that she should be good at, and it's frustrating. It makes her want to stamp her feet and get dramatic, and that - well, that makes her think of one Dorian Gray.

It's a tangled web of feelings, but the most prominent one is love - overwhelming, desperate love, the kind that's borne of true concern and affection strangled with the fear of loss, and it's mixed in with memories of tea and cakes and jam, the sharp taste of sugar in her mouth. It's tied up with dancing at a theatre opening, of making potions together, and of seeing the most foul portrait known to man, twisting with her heartbeat and the way she's desperate to hold herself back, the fear of doing to Charles what she did to Dorian prickling at her senses.

She felt like she overwhelmed Dorian with her love, and she's still a little afraid she might do the same here, too. ]

[axiomed]

[ That part isn't as hard as it sounds. Our control over our feelings can mete out what kind of memory passes through, he replies. That's his theory and he's seen it at work with the locals and other people. He should probably inform the Fleet, he thinks distantly.

Charles could never be overwhelmed by love. He's starved for it. Even now, with the little help he has provided Bucky and Bucky's reaction to him is like water to a thirsty man in a desert.

You deserve good things, he had said, I can't remember when someone did something good for my mind.

And Charles was hopelessly lost in that sentiment, clung to it with a fervor that surprised him even now. ]