roci | TLV: IC INBOX

If he can't fill the pantry, I don't think he can give me the Roci back.

[There's a pause of several minutes before he responds.]

I want to know if he can restore my missing memories.

[ A beat. Shit, now he feels really bad. ]

Well, you caught me. Looks like I'm a selfish asshole after all.

I miss her too. But I'm not an idiot.

Ask.

Look --

All right, first of all, I'm not gonna say no. I'm no good at it with you, anyway, but if Naomi were here, she'd stare at me like I'm an idiot and say that this is a decision that's yours to make, and she'd be right. So there's that.

But I'm worried about this, Jedao. Because if you become a different person from these memories, I'm gonna miss you, A lot.

[ It's totally honest. As per usual. ]

I just want you to know that, first.

All right, now you tell me exactly what you want me to ask for. [ 'Restore all memories of every time my brain's been tampered with' sounds like a horrible idea to Holden; there've probably been duplicates made, for one thing. But it makes his head hurt. Jedao gets to make the call. ]

I know.

I'm fucking terrified.

[He doesn't sound like it. He sounds flat, serious but not really invested. Which is a good sign that it's very true.]

But the only thing worse than being replaced because I decided to face it would be eating myself alive in slow paranoia spirals never knowing whether some buried trigger was about to replace me, or had already reshaped me so subtly -

I am. Attempting precautions. Reading you in for the Auguries Will was going to be the next step.

[And he gives Holden access to this conversation.]

We haven't done it yet. I'm getting my chickens in a row.

[The request he sends as text; may as well make it easy to repeat verbatim.]

Is the admiral capable of and willing to restore my memories of everything I've been made to forget?

[Not everything he's forgotten. The vast majority of that is darkness, and lost for the thin thread of his own sanity. And not to undo all tampering. Just - to know. Just to know what's gone, to see what's been hidden. But Jedao more than anyone knows how much that can change.]

Edited 2018-05-19 04:14 (UTC)

Yeah, okay. I'm asking.

And if he's not capable now, I'm gonna ask him to put it in the queue, so he can work on it if he ever gets his head out of his ass.

[ He says this casually; he's not super pissed about the ship-jumping, because, hey, he did it once, and it solved a whole lot of problems that were very pressing at the time, and left him with a real swank ship. It's a totally stupid thing to do, but sometimes totally stupid things are really the only thing that works. ]

Thank you, James.

Let me know how it goes.

[He knows James will. But he feels like it needs to be said.]

I'll let you know when I'm ready to go with Jean.

[Just in case.]

[ A beat.

This is The Beat. The beat that Always Happens right before James Holden says something inadvisable. The beat that gives you some hope that maybe, maybe, just this once, some kind of filter will kick in and make it stop.

Alas, it is not to be. ]

While you're at it, any chance you'll ask her about psychologically healthy relationships? Stuff we talked about? [ And that he did a terrible job with? You know, that stuff?? ]

Why.

[Flatly. Dig a little deeper, go on.]

Cause... she's a professional? And I'm really not? And she seems nice?

[Softly.]

I want you to go back to my file. And check whether it was amateurs they had interrogating me.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the stuff that came before.

Look, I think we'll both agree that it's pretty stupid to just have me to talk to about it. Right? [ James Holden, the King of Reasonable and Appropriate Advice. ]

I'm talking about that.

[Shuos baby talk, or something like it. Kel talk, maybe: this is relevant. But he moves on. Sort of.]

It?

It-everything, I guess. Anything. I mean, I was thinking about... you know what I was thinking about.

You can make me talk about it, but I can't make you talk about it?

Oh, come on, you can make me talk about it whenever. You know that. I just think I shouldn't be the only person for you.

Who says you are?

In order for you to say anything to Fives, someone would have to hold you upside down and just shake until words fall out. Horseriver -- and, incidentally, you bound your soul to Horseriver? The same guy who tried to get me to go on a boar hunt the first time we met?

Anyway, you're too in love with your misdirection and games to talk seriously even with most people you actually like. Jean's not here to reprogram you to follow some crazy calendar, she's not here to pound you into submission. And there'd be a little distance. Just think about it, okay?

[Quentin's tall enough, he thinks a little bit hysterically. Or magic could do it, levitation's got to be simple in the scheme of things. His voice comes out clipped and harsh.]

My best move was always telling the truth and smirking enough to let people think I was lying. Stop fucking falling for it.

You know, you actually haven't done a lot of smirking at me lately.

You've been indisposed.

No, really! You've been very serious. And the only time I get up to really disbelieving anything, it's mostly like checking your pockets for all your stuff after you're around a friendly thief.

So I am capable of telling the truth without professional extraction.

[G O T C H A]

Edited 2018-05-29 03:09 (UTC)

Obviously?

Which is why I said you should talk to a therapist and not an interrogator?

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