nexus_crossings | Icy Mirrors and Mistaken Identities

Icy Mirrors and Mistaken Identities

Unlike the sudden freeze of last Winter, this year there has been a subtle chill, a gradual progression of frost across grass and stone. It nips at your skin should you forget to wrap up, but is otherwise harmless. That is, apart from one section of the Nexus.

It seems to wander in the blink of an eye. Here one moment, gone the next. Sometimes slyly, sometimes by placing itself directly in a traveller's path. Either way the area is shrouded in a thick fog that is staggeringly luminous, suggesting a strong, obscured sun is trying to get through but only succeeding in illuminating the air itself. Even the most frequent Nexus visitors soon find themselves lost. It's eerily still, there is only the sound of your breathing, of your footsteps crunching frost and thin ice.

As you venture further you spot silhouettes standing in the distance. Drawing closer you find tall slabs of ice are scattered throughout the misty landscape. They all tower over you, and the perfectly cut surfaces all shine like mirrors back at you. The more you walk, the more of them seem to have erupted from the earth, until you catch yourself moving in the corner of your eye. At least, you thought it was yourself. You soon find yourself wondering: Are you alone?

((Winter Event! Hurrah! This event allows you to bring out a doppelgänger for your character to cause chaos or try out a different side of them! Details can be found here. Or for questions and plotting, the OOC post is here. Threadhopping and mixing up characters and doppelgängers is definitely encouraged. Feel free to ask me anything and, most importantly, have fun!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It's fine. We'll figure this out."

Josh is glad there's A direction that seems to have less of those godawful ice mirrors than the rest of this place. It's as good a direction to go in as any with nothing else to go on in this place. The cold is starting to seep into Josh's clothes. He hadn't been dressed for an hours long excursion outside. This was supposed to have been just a quick trip to get food.

"We can't stop her if she does." There's sympathy in his tone and in those green eyes when he looks over his shoulder at his friend. "...I uh...I don't. Very well. If we're bein' honest."

"O-okay." Adia is going to let Josh take the lead on this, both literally and figuratively. She tucks her useless PINpoint away and adjusts the scarf around her neck, trying to keep out more of the cold.

It's the answer she expected, not that it makes it any easier to hear. She squeezes his hand a little, at his admission. "So... so what do you do, then?"

"I don't...always know it's not real. So, I treat 'em like anyone else. I tend to assume most shit I see isn't real unless it proves it is. Touch. Things I can touch, things that hurt me. Physically. That I know is real. but I don't know half of my friends in the Nexus are real or just more hallucinations, waiting to turn from nice to nasty the minute I let my guard down."

Josh doesn't want to tell Adia what he does. How he screams at things to get away from him because they're not real. How he digs his nails into his hands until he breaks skin to see if they disappear or not. How sometimes even that doesn't help.

"So I just act like nothing is real."

It sounds hard; both living like that and admitting it to her. She wishes she had something to say that would ease his burden, something sympathetic, but her own mental issues seem insignificant compared to his. "Things that can hurt you?" she echoes instead, her voice soft and uncertain. "Even in the Nexus?"

You're way too much of a wimp to try that, her doppelganger scoffs. Adia hazards a glance back. The other her is still there, but not quite keeping pace. Some of the fog has obscured her features.

She remembers her hand in Josh's. "So you know I'm real," she says with a small, relieved smile. "You've known since the Halloween party, when you helped me with my make-up." She looks him in the eyes. "Josh, if I'm ever nasty to you, it's not me. It would never be me."

"They can, if you let 'em. I want them to. Prove they're Real. It's worth the pain."

It doesn't work though because the people who are real refuse to hurt him, just like those that aren't. Still Josh feels like it's a good system. He hasn't thought of a better one, at least.

"Yeah." Josh exhales a breath that condenses into a cloud in front of his face. "Everyone's nasty to me. Even Chris. I think those might be dreams though. Hallucinations. Sometimes, it's hard to tell."

"I thought touch was enough," Adia asks quietly, her voice worried and confused. She wonders if Josh is trying to punish himself somehow. She doesn't know how his sisters died, or how he ended up starving nearly to death in a collapsed mine, but she can empathize with wanting to blame oneself for all of life's losses.

Or maybe it's a guy thing, a macho way of fighting against fear. She gives him another small, sympathetic smile. "That won't work with me. I've never thrown a punch in my life."

Maybe that's why you're so easy to push around, her doppelganger calls out, but Adia doesn't turn around this time.

There's a spot in the fog in front of them where the light from Josh's phone cuts through instead of bouncing back. Looks like they might be on the right path.

"Sometimes it is. Most times, even."

Josh nods along with what Adia's saying. When things are Bad, nothing helps. Sometimes not even pain. Her guess about his desire to punish himself isn't wrong in the slightest. No one hates Joshua Washington more than he hates himself. His worst enemies can only dream that they could hate so vitriolically.

"...Yeah, most everyone refuses to try. It makes things hard." But Josh hasn't let go of Adia's hand. Despite the discomfort he has about the subject matter, he's doing his best to keep her focused on him and not the voices in her head.

It's a small relief that he's not out getting himself beat up constantly. "You can always take my hand or something if you're ever in doubt with me," she says, squeezing his hand for emphasis. "But, no, I'm not going to hurt you."

He must be doing something right. She's stopped looking over her shoulder, although she can still hear the faint heel clicks of her doppelganger. "Who's Chris?" she asks, remembering his previous comment.

Funny, how the people who like him don't seem to want to hurt him. There's a kind of logic there, but to Josh it's frustration because the hallucinations who very much don't like him also refuse to hurt him. Physically. They can do more than enough damage emotionally.

The squeeze makes him slow his steps and look down at their joined hands for a moment.

"..Well, I don't need anyone to hurt me right now. I'm fine. ....For once." And with Adia not making any more outbursts into the fog, Josh hopes she's doing alright too. Though, she'll feel Josh tensing when she mentions Chris. He's forgotten he was the one who brought it up. But he's been gone for a while. Too long. How does he explain Chris to anyone else? Losing Chris was worse than losing a limb. He's been with Josh for so long.

He's..

"My best friend. I've known him forever. We're....really close. Closer than anyone." It's a start.

To be fair, Adia doesn't want to hurt anyone. But the thought of taking a swing at Josh is almost laughable, if this were at all a laughing matter.

She slows down to match his pace, worried about what's on his mind. Did she say something wrong by asking? It's a small favor that her doppelganger doesn't interject with some harsh comment while she waits for Josh to answer.

"Oh..." She smiles sadly. "I had someone like that. That... that must make the hallucinations pretty bad. To have someone who cares about you be cruel." Not that her own hallucination is a walk in the park, but a cruel-talking Caspar? She'd be absolutely gutted.

"Most of the people I see are people I love and care for."

The admission is quiet. A bit distant. His grip on Adia's hand tightens slightly as though he's trying to ground himself to the here and the now.

"My sisters most frequently. My friends. Chris. Dr. Hill..." Josh sighs and shakes his head gently. "It's something I've dealt with for a very long time." He glances back to her after a moment.

"Is yours changing at all? Or just you?"

She gives a sympathetic wince at the mention of his sisters, knowing that seeing them must hit the hardest of all. "I think you must be very strong, to deal with that for as long as you have." He must be doing something right, she wouldn't have known about any of this if he hadn't told her. "Was Doctor Hill your... um, was he helping you?"

His question makes her look over her shoulder. "Just me. But she's wearing a dress."

That's the best you can describe me? Her mirror image makes a face. At least tell him how much hotter I am than you.

"She's like every mean girl I ever went to school with," Adia says, ducking her head and turning away. It really isn't fair that she gets to look better, too.

"...Yeah, but he's not...the one that's here...that's not him. That--he's...He shouldn't be real."

He had thought the Dr. Hill in the nexus was just another hallucination. It certainly acted the way Josh's imaginary therapist always did. Appearing out of nowhere, twisting reality around at a moment's notice. But Chris could see him too. Everyone could. But he was still changing things. Manipulating things. Was Josh so crazy even his hallucination twisted nightmares of people were becoming real?

Yes, actually.

"My real therapist is normal....it's not the same...He's not.." A sigh that ends the tapered off attempt to explain. Josh focuses on Adia instead.

"Well, that's not so bad. I mean, you know you're not a bitch so. It's better if she's not convincingly close to you. Easier to ignore and remind yourself...she's not real." A beat, and Josh finds himself remembering another friend. One with dark hair and eyes who was always harsh but cared fiercely for her friends. He wonders, not for the first time, if Emily is okay.

He hopes she is. Hopes they all are.

"With people like...like that. Don't give them the satisfaction of a retort. Don't let 'em see that they get to you. Nothing drives 'em more crazy than to think you're ignoring them."

Josh's explanation is confusing. "Do you think he is an alternate?" It's her go-to explanation for these sorts of situations. "I haven't met him... should I avoid him?"

"No, it's not so bad," she agrees quietly. She knows that she's not a bitch. She keeps uncharitable thoughts to herself. Even when people might deserve to hear it because they were cruel to her first. No, she just turns the other cheek, and lets that one get slapped, too. And that makes her a better person. Right?

Ignoring worked out sooo well for you back then, her mirror image says sarcastically. Really got those girls to back off and stop making fun of you.

Josh is trying to help her. She focuses on that instead of a pile of insecure memories. "Do you think that's... that's a weird thing to hallucinate? Should she be someone else?"

"A what?"

That sort of explanation had never occurred to Joshua before. That this could somehow be someone else's Doctor Hill. That he could be real, and not just some sick figment of his twisted imagination. That there were an infinite possibilities of his life, his friends, his...family..

There are worlds where his sisters are still alive.

"Hngh...nnnuhhh...nnn!" Josh's grip on her hand is tight, nearly painfully so. If the AV field wasn't in tact, he'd probably be hurting her quite a bit. She's talking to him though. Pay attention, Joshua. He doesn't seem to see her when he turns and looks. It feels as though he's looking through her, to something only he can see.

"Dep...depends on w-what upsets you th'most..."

Adia lets out a gasp when Josh squeezes uncomfortably tight. She's well-aware how close he is to actually hurting her, and that, combined with his vacant stare and stuttering words, immediately put her on edge.

You had one job. Her mirror image clicks her tongue disapprovingly.

"H-hey... Hey, Josh, it's okay. I don't know what I said wrong, I'm sorry." She doesn't pull her hand away... not that she thinks she could if she tried. "I'm going to try my PINpoint again, okay? It's been five minutes." She pulls the device out with her free hand, nearly drops it onto the hard ground. "Don't let go."

She presses the button to take her back to the Plaza. This time, blessedly, it works.

He wants to articulate why it's so upsetting. Why the realization is enough to shake the foundations. How can he know what's real when any possibility of things could be real here in the nexus? How will he ever know that the Chris he sees here is the same one from his world? If Dr. Hill truly knows him the way he claims to?

What if the things Chris told him about that night were wrong? Wrong because they were from different versions of the same world? What if Josh...actually had killed like they had accused him of doing. There is no redemption from something like that. And he doesn't remember that night very well. He could have done anything.

What if...trying to start over in the Nexus is just him running from his punishment? How could Adia stand looking at him? A murderer. A monster. She might be the one seeing things right now, but he's the truly terrible thing here.

" ...Is she still here?" His voice is so quiet. So weak.

It only takes Adia a moment to adjust to her surroundings, having teleported to the Plaza many times before. She looks around frantically, but only sees the usual smattering of couches and chairs. No strange fog, no giant imposing ice mirrors...

No other Adia.

Adia sighs in profound relief. "No, she's gone, thank Zeus." But that relief is short-lived; Josh still looks miserable, even more so in the comforting familiarity of the Plaza.

What did she say wrong? She feels awful that she's upset him, especially because he was trying so hard to help her in the first place. "We're safe here, okay? Everything looks the way it always does." She gives his hand a comforting squeeze, even though hers aches a little from the way he's been holding it. "Everything's fine."

"Good job...Adia. Youuu did it."

His lips quirk at the corners as though he's trying to smile, but then seem to give up on the expression before falling back into a blank stare for several moments. He does focus on her face again though and give a nod.

"You beat her. Y..you should feel proud." Josh knows how difficult it is to fight off those things. He doesn't want her to be discouraged. He looks down at their hands. Nods. Longer than he probably needs to. "I just realized....I could be an alternate. I could be no better than one of those mirror things...."

"Yeah... I guess I did." She smiles, more for Josh's benefit than her own. She doesn't feel particularly proud, just lucky. All she did was run away. "You kept me calm until my PINpoint worked, Josh. I couldn't have done it without you."

Which makes his self-doubt all the more heart-breaking. "No, you aren't -- that isn't how it works. Even if there are different versions of you, it doesn't make one the original and the rest alternates. You aren't a-- a warped reflection of the real Josh."

She hopes she's making sense to him. An existential crisis is fun for nobody, but seems especially damning for him. "You can forget I said anything, if that helps."

"Listen--theeey don't. They don't gotta ruin you. They know what t'say. To get underrr yer skin. but they're not real. Okay? They're not...you."

He pulls his hand away from Adia so he can reach up and poke her gently in the chest over her heart. Josh is shaken, pale and sweaty. But he seems determined to try and explain this to Adia.

"Only you are...are you. And I'm th'only me. Others....they can have th'same name. But they're not me. If I'm....if I'm an alternate...then that jus' means there's better versions of me out there. Heh. Good.....fer them."

Adia nods mutely and lets him make his point. It's good advice, regardless. Even if she never hallucinates again, that sort of whispered poison is somewhere inside her, anyway,

She takes his hand again after he pokes the spot over her heart and holds it a moment before letting go. "Okay. But Josh? You're my friend. Not them." She's feeling a bit shaky herself, now that the adrenaline rush of escaping is starting to wear off, but her voice is unequivocally steady on this.

Less certain is the look she gives when her gaze sweeps the Plaza again. No fog, as far as she can see, but she didn't notice when she wandered right into it, either. "Do you want me to walk you back to your apartment? Or, um... can I get you a hot chocolate or something?" She has to repair the damage she caused, somehow. She can't leave Josh alone like this.

"...R..really?"

There's so much hesitation in his voice when he asks. Josh doesn't feel like he deserves to have friends. Not after what he did. And maybe what he did has nothing to do with Adia but it doesn't change the sort of sick person he is.

Who's to say he wouldn't do it again?

"...Y..yeah. Drink might be nice. Warrrm us up."

"Really." She smiles, her gaze soft but worried. She's not the type to abandon someone because they're having a rough time. Maybe others have left Josh behind, put off by his mental illness, and that's why he expects so little from others.

If she knew the truth, the whole truth, she'd think that he deserved better friends than ones who humiliate little sisters and then let them run off in the night to die.

"It's the free stuff, near the vending machines." She gently nudges him with her arm, turns him in the right direction. "This way. I'll make you a cup."

"Yeah...Yeah, okay."

it's himself Joshua doesn't respect. Doesn't like or hold in high esteem. Why should anyone else? His sisters always used to talk about how caring and protective he was, but they were wrong. He failed them and he failed his friends because he's a fucked up psychopath.

That's what Dr. Hill told him even.

He obediently follows Adia through the brushed off paths of the Plaza back toward the sitting area where most of the people in the Nexus congregate. in truth, Josh doesn't quite know what to say about anything that's just happened. He couldn't see the other Adia after all. He's glad she seems to be okay. Just wishes he was stronger.

Icy Mirrors and Mistaken Identities

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

Scene?

Sure! This was fun. <3