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Entry tags:
(accidental video) | un: wrench
CONTENT WARNNGS: forced captivity, child endangerment, coercion of a child to commit violence, gun violence, homicide
The thumbnail of the embedded video is dark and still. Two figures -- a dark-haired man and a willowy and sandy-headed child of nearly the same height -- are held in shadow by a pale, ambient glow from behind.
Clicking play brings the silent scene to life. The camera pans on the two, and the older man stands with his hands clasped like a vice on the shoulders of a boy of no more than eleven. The child is no less auburn than Wrench himself, his lips just as thin and nose a near-perfect match. There isn't much chance to hold the both in their imperfect profiles before the boy's head drops and his shoulders start quaking with an unheard, hiccuping force. The man wracks him at the shoulders, but when the jostling yields no response he grabs him under the chin and forces his gaze back up.
Something in the background illuminates, and in the empty space just behind the two is a businessman in a chair. His hands have been bound behind him, chest strapped with a length of rope tied off expertly, and an improvised gag between his lips. He's is dressed in a pale silver suit and he thrashes against the restraints, his face a mask of tears and lap soiled wet with his desperate horror. The camera holds him as the star for a time, forcing the viewer to watch him flop against the unforgiving restraints like a fish pitched to dry land. To watch his forehead gleam with sweat, and the tears roll mercilessly down his cheeks. His despair is palpable: he knows exactly what's coming for him.
And then the camera finds the first two again just in time to watch the dark-haired man wrack the back of his hand across the face of the boy, who nearly falls to the ground. He picks the child up by his shoulders and stands him in front of the quaking captive. The image pans down to the handgun held loosely in the child's hand. He barely keeps his grip as he shudders and coughs in eerie silence. The first raises a fist again and the boy recoils, but instead of violence he shapes a command. He signs rapidly, and one hardly needs to know the language to understand the force of his insistence.
Defiance floods the boy's features and he squares his shoulders and shakes his head, but no sooner has he drawn that line in the sand than his leader unholsters a revolver from his own hip. He cocks the hammer and aims the barrel toward the young boy's head. Seconds pass unflinchingly and it seems for a time like the child might hold his ground. Might call the bluff for what it is. That is, until the man escalates. He crosses the middle distance and presses the gun square against the child's temple.
There's nowhere to turn. Nowhere to run from the heavy, obliterating silence, or the inevitability of what's to come. The video feed flashes a blinding crack of impossible light and the stillness is at once cut by the shrill and strangled scream of a young voice before everything goes dark.
The thumbnail of the embedded video is dark and still. Two figures -- a dark-haired man and a willowy and sandy-headed child of nearly the same height -- are held in shadow by a pale, ambient glow from behind.
Clicking play brings the silent scene to life. The camera pans on the two, and the older man stands with his hands clasped like a vice on the shoulders of a boy of no more than eleven. The child is no less auburn than Wrench himself, his lips just as thin and nose a near-perfect match. There isn't much chance to hold the both in their imperfect profiles before the boy's head drops and his shoulders start quaking with an unheard, hiccuping force. The man wracks him at the shoulders, but when the jostling yields no response he grabs him under the chin and forces his gaze back up.
Something in the background illuminates, and in the empty space just behind the two is a businessman in a chair. His hands have been bound behind him, chest strapped with a length of rope tied off expertly, and an improvised gag between his lips. He's is dressed in a pale silver suit and he thrashes against the restraints, his face a mask of tears and lap soiled wet with his desperate horror. The camera holds him as the star for a time, forcing the viewer to watch him flop against the unforgiving restraints like a fish pitched to dry land. To watch his forehead gleam with sweat, and the tears roll mercilessly down his cheeks. His despair is palpable: he knows exactly what's coming for him.
And then the camera finds the first two again just in time to watch the dark-haired man wrack the back of his hand across the face of the boy, who nearly falls to the ground. He picks the child up by his shoulders and stands him in front of the quaking captive. The image pans down to the handgun held loosely in the child's hand. He barely keeps his grip as he shudders and coughs in eerie silence. The first raises a fist again and the boy recoils, but instead of violence he shapes a command. He signs rapidly, and one hardly needs to know the language to understand the force of his insistence.
Defiance floods the boy's features and he squares his shoulders and shakes his head, but no sooner has he drawn that line in the sand than his leader unholsters a revolver from his own hip. He cocks the hammer and aims the barrel toward the young boy's head. Seconds pass unflinchingly and it seems for a time like the child might hold his ground. Might call the bluff for what it is. That is, until the man escalates. He crosses the middle distance and presses the gun square against the child's temple.
There's nowhere to turn. Nowhere to run from the heavy, obliterating silence, or the inevitability of what's to come. The video feed flashes a blinding crack of impossible light and the stillness is at once cut by the shrill and strangled scream of a young voice before everything goes dark.
OOC: Couldn't resist the opportunity to share Wrench's worst memory! He's kept his history mostly under wraps since arriving at Trench, but maybe it's time for that to change.
text | un: graham crackers
This one is... different. Though Wrench is much younger in the memory, Peter recognises him, but he can't say he knows him. The man's been a steady presence throughout his time in the Dream and here, someone who's remained when so many others have gone. There's something almost safe in the thought. The times Peter pops into John's old shop to help Luna with something or meet her for lunch, there's a quiet dose of warmth if he happens to come across Wrench there. Maybe relief, too. He's not gone, not like the others.
But he doesn't know him. Not closely enough to have gotten to see this horrible piece of his past, or to reach out to the man about it afterwards. He shouldn't. He doesn't, for awhile. Wrench's memory keeps playing out in his mind, makes his stomach turn. How old was he, there...? He couldn't have been any older than Charlie.
It keeps bothering Peter, poking and prodding, because maybe Wrench doesn't even know this got exposed. Some people don't seem to, unless someone else tells them. It... belongs to him; he should know. So the text comes a bit later that afternoon, despite how anxious Peter feels about sending itβ
Hello, I'm sorry to bother you.
I don't really know how to say this, but...
I saw a video of you. When you were younger.
I don't think it's something you would have wanted to be shared. That seems to be happening to a lot of people, lately.
I didn't know if you knew about it or not. I'm sorry.
no subject
Suffice it to say, he doesn't often look at the network. So Wrench doesn't yet know the chain of the virus currently infecting Omnis, or how a text about baking or magic or something else could have caused this to somehow spill onto the network for everyone to see.
He's tromped through memories of Peter's, so maybe turnabout is fair play. But the second his eyes scan the text and the word "younger" pings his realization, Wrench is doing everything in his power to find a way to pull down the video. Of course, it's easier said than done. He considers throwing his Omni off a cliff or into the sea or against the wall, but eventually he texts back.
I didn't know.
I'm sorry you had to see that. I could lie and say it wasn't real, but it seems like you know better.
no subject
The kneejerk is to wish he hadn't said anything, had slipped into his usual passivity, let someone else tell the poor guy that one of his most intimate childhood memories was just aired for anyone to see.
But no, no, no... it's better. It's hard, but it's better this way. What if Wrench never found out, and then months later someone brought it up...?
I've seen it happen, to some other people. Seems like this place isn't any different than Deerington when it comes to uh
showing people stuff that should be private.
How old were you?
no subject
Here, he's not so sure. And he's not ignorant to the fact it's Peter he's speaking to. As fiercely as those men cared about him, Peter cares about Luna. Wrench doesn't imagine the young man will like the idea of him hanging around John's shop once he fully considers the extent of this. And that'll put Wrench right out of a home.
He scowls at the message and considers what's best, but Peter seems curious. Empathetic, almost? That can't be right.
Eleven, the first time.
That was the first time.
no subject
Then he does (he was only eleven), and with it, something else is confirmed. Peter swallows, throat tight. He keeps seeing the boy being struck. The way someone had forced onto him the kind of decision a child should never have to make. An adult had placed another gun to that child's head.
That's... that's horrible
I'm sorry that happened to you
There wasn't anyone who could... help you? Get away from
him
It's uncomfortable, asking more about something so personal, and maybe it's a naΓ―ve question in itself; Peter doesn't know the extent of this, the reality of it. He doesn't want to ask too much, but.... he can't just turn away.
no subject
He's felt it before since his first death in Deerington. And something about Trench has only served to amplify the ache of the empathetic response. But never before has he encountered it at such a distance. He's never been hurt like this when he wasn't mopping up someone's blood, or patching a wound, or face to face with them. But he knows this ache isn't his own. It's caused by him and his story, but it's been put on him by something different.
It takes a few minutes for him to gather himself, and when he does he can hardly imagine not responding. It seems cruel, as difficult as the questions are, to keep any of the knowledge to himself. His body and his mind want to share it, as though by sharing it alone he could eliminate the ache in his chest and in his bones.
No, he was supposed to be our rescue. He was the one who got us away. Saved us from our families and gave us a new one.
This is what I did for him in exchange.
no subject
He won't forget what he's seen, won't forget that little eleven-year-old boy. The smaller Wrench joins the other ghosts within Peter, and he'll keep him there, quietly haunting.
More upsetting implications are laid out: the children, "saved" from their families (just what kind of life had Wrench come from that he had to be saved from it?) "Our" rescue β Wrench wasn't the only one.
How long were you with him?
You don't have to answer that if you don't want to. Or talk about anything you don't want to. I know this must be
a lot. Fuck
no subject
He and my husband died the same week.
I don't know why I'm telling you this. You don't want to know this shit.
Peter's just a kid. And despite what Wrench knows about how little that means when it comes to the things people do to kids and make kids do on their own behalf, he's sure he shouldn't be saying any of this right now.
no subject
It's okay. I don't mind listening.
This place keeps sharing about all our shitty personal lives. I figure the least we can do is try to help each other through that.
Maybe there was a time not so long ago, that Peter couldn't handle hearing things like this. He'd flinch right away. But now...? He's willingly approaching some of those scarier, harder things. Because he wants to... help, to support, others. It's something that's recently been blossoming in him, and perhaps he's not the same kid he once was. He can talk about ghosts, sometimes. Both his own, and other people's. Even if his heart constricts again whenβ
I didn't know you were married.
What was his name?
text; UN: TripleJ
no subject
The suit? Yeah.
Guess the alternative seemed a little worse.
cw: gun violence
cw: gun violence
Who was he? You kill him?
cw: gun violence
yeah.
i don't know why that dude was making you kill someone, but it was wrong.
cw: gun violence
You know at the time I think I was convinced it was one of those earth-shattering moments. Like my life was going to be defined as before that moment and after it. I don't know, maybe it was. But I'd kind of forgotten that's how it happened until this.
cw: gun violence
could you have repressed it or is it just like "oh. yeah i guess that happened."
cw: gun violence
I might've repressed it. The guy who made me do it? He pretty much raised me. And that's what I did for him. That was our deal.
w: gun violence
you can't make a deal at that age. that's inhumane.
cw: gun violence
Yeah, it's easy to make excuses for a kid I guess. But I wasn't a kid forever, and I didn't stop.
Re: cw: gun violence
yeah i'm not saying that was a stellar life choice. just that he used a kid and that's fucked up.
no subject
Yeah. You know, I always thought he saved me from worse. It felt like it at the time. I don't know, I guess a father figure doesn't have to be related by blood to really fuck you up.
no subject
sadly no.
i'm really sorry that happened to you.
no subject
You know sometimes I wonder what I would've turned out like if I hadn't met him. But my star wasn't exactly rising anyway.
no subject
maybe not, but you might have at least been slightly less traumatised. maybe you'd have just become a line cook, or a manager of a shoe store.
no subject
You've got a lot more faith in me than my teachers. You know what's sad? I can't remember a time when there was ever anything I wanted to be. When you were a kid, what did you want to grow up and do?
no subject
i wanted to be a basketball player.
no subject
Really? Why didn't you?
no subject
when i was little i tried out for the state team but i was too short. after i finally hit puberty that changed, but by then i realised that i was good enough for high school but not for a career.
no subject
Kids can't dream of what they can't see, right?
no subject
i guess not.
no subject
But what about now? If you weren't here, I mean. Do you still have that secret dream of what you'd be if you ignored everyone else's expectations for you?
no subject
oh god that's a hard question. i do sometimes wonder where i'd be if i hadn't been encouraged to study law by my folks.
no subject
I guess it's not so different than being here. Coming in with no expectations. Not knowing anyone. I could've done anything, but I wound up defaulting to the things I know best. Not necessarily because I like them, but because they seemed familiar.
no subject
that's human nature though, isn't it? to pick what we know.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
(private)
There's a certain level of evil we're all willing to stomach, isn't there? Even outright ignore.
(private)
yeah. yeah, that's true.