The Fear principle (Accepting)

This was definitely not working out as planned.


Jaguar waited, patient, expectant for Crane to open his eyes, to come forward. She was not quite hoping that this would change things, certainly not transform his fears, but to expose him just a little, while giving him what she thought would be the comfort of brightness... maybe it would at least be a first step.


When Crane began to scream, she started towards him, still talking soothingly.


"Hush, Crane...Crane, List is always here. He is always within you, and he will always be there to support you and love you, but he cannot always be the one to face your fears. On the outside he is holding your hand and he will help you all his life, but in your thoughts, he does not belong. He-"


She was so mentally focused on what was happening within the context of Crane's mind that she wasn't prepared at all on the outside for what List was doing with her body. Within her thoughts she felt the floor shake, and as her physical body, within the cell, was thrown to the ground, her mental projection flickered. Immediately she attempted to extract herself from Crane's thoughts, but with her own body on the ground, the breath knocked out of her, it was difficult to summon concentration.
 
It took three seconds to put in an override code that ignored security protocols and snapped the doors open for him - three seconds Jeremiah could not spare. As soon as the door was out of the way, he rushed inside, taking in the scene. Jaguar was on the ground with List kneeling over her, his arm extended and her head still rocking to the side against the floor from the impact. As List drew his fist back again, Jeremiah pushed forcefully, though carefully, into List's mind and the young man's body just stopped. He was frozen, breathing and alive of course, but unmoving, his arm still drawn back.


Jeremiah moved past the two on the ground to Crane's side, taking Crane's head in his hands and slipping through his defenses. Jeremiah maneuvered his way, not into Crane's thoughts, but into the very center of his empathy, and tugged Crane's awareness with his own back to where List was still frozen. Jeremiah assisted Crane in reinstating List's mental presence inside his head, until the boy went quiet and still, then moved away and pulled List's body over until they were in physical contact as well. He released them both to their own devices after that, knowing that their priority would be each other, and went to Jaguar's side.


"This is why I am always watching." He said turning her head gently to the side to see the damage - List had only cautious her jaw, probably damaged his own hand but not broken anything on her - even as he assisted her retreat back into her own head. "Come back, Miss Addams. It's all right to come back now." She was only just beginning to lose the vacant look in her eyes, but she was almost back.
 
It took another thirty seconds or so before Jaguar was able to summon the focus and energy to drift back into her own mind. She became aware of her surroundings again only gradually, at first aware of the ground beneath her body, and then of Jeremiah's hands on her head and face. The memories then come back to her first in trickles of images and thought, then more fully as she recalled her failed effort to help Crane, his terror and what she can only assume to be List's violent response to defend him.


The failure was not just embarrassing but serious, because now it would take considerable more effort before either List or Crane would trust her again, if they ever would. This was a major setback.


And Jeremiah had witnessed it. Not only witnessed but come to her rescue, this after her attempt to emphasize how little she needed him watching!


"I'm okay," she said as soon as she could get the words out, trying to muster a dignified tone, and was embarrassed when her voice came out weaker than she would have liked. "I'm fine."
 
Jeremiah kept assisting her gently until she was fully present in her own mind, and looking up at him in a familiar way that meant she did not want help. He ignored it, for once, and denied her wishes, just checking her with careful, gentle hands to be sure nothing was hurt too badly. He finally helped her up to her feet and let the twins be, guiding her to the doors.


"You're all right?" He asked, once they were out of the cell and the doors closed behind them. She had said she was fine, but he'd wanted the haze and the adrenaline to go away just a little before confirming it."Here," He put a hand on her elbow and guided her forward, not gripping or holding on tight, just supporting her. "Let's go and get you some ice." She was going to be sore, that much was sure, and if she needed the rest of the day off, he would give it to her. He doubted it was what she wanted, and wouldn't dare remove her from all cases, as she would only be more mad at him and stir crazy on top of it. So he just sent her gentle waves of reassurance and concern, and did his best to help how he could.
 
Jaguar doesn't want Jeremiah to help her. She doesn't want him to touch her or treat her like she's fragile, and she certainly doesn't want to be those things. Jaguar thought about protesting, but her head and jaw was throbbing, her limbs not yet strengthened, and so she allowed him to lead her along without fighting him.


This was so mortifying.


She can feel him transmitting reassurance to her and hates that he thinks she needs it, that maybe she actually does. Nodding more firmly, she tells him, "Yes, yes, I'm fine. This...it was just a shock, none of this is necessary."
 
Jeremiah gave her a look that told her to just stop speaking and let him decide what was best for the next few minutes. "You were tackled, a fully grown man punched you in the jaw, and it's possible you've hit your head on the ground. Heaven forbid you put aside your pride for ten minutes to ice your wounds and regroup."


He stopped talking after that, and just brought her down in the elevator to the infirmary, leaving her at a chair to sit or stand as she pleased and retrieving cold packs for her. He handed one to her and moved her hand up near her face to indicate it should go on her jaw, then put the other on the back of her head for her to hold, and then stood back with his arms crossed to indicate that he would stop touching her now.


"You don't appear to be concussed, so you may go about your day once you've sat and iced a while," he said, instructing rather than inquiring about how she felt again. "Afterwards, I expect you to take medication to keep the swelling down. Now. What happened?" He wanted to keep making sure she was all right, but he knew well enough that she would never let him. Trying to force her into taking the normal amount of care for herself, or letting him do it for her, was impossible. He had a feeling his chances of ever having her trust him enough to speak with him had just dropped a significant degree. There wasnt much Jaguar hated more than appearing, or being treated as, weak.
 
Jaguar's cheeks slowly flushed as Jeremiah lay it out plainly to her that she was not okay, that she was not fooling him in the slightest by insisting that she was. As he eased her down into a chair, she tried not to let herself slump or otherwise show weariness or pain, although she was keenly feeling it. Taking the cold packs and holding them lightly as Jeremiah had instructed, she let the cold seep through her skin and soothe the bruising already forming.


She was pretty sure she had hit her head, from the way that it was feeling in the moment, but she wasn't about to tell him that. Nor did she feel like going to tangle with Jack or god knows, Mason, or even to have a conversation with Rinji at this point. But to let Jeremiah see that would be emotional suicide.


She closed her eyes briefly but then immediately opened them, hating even this momentary slip as she searched for words.


"I had gained Crane's trust enough for him to let him look in his mind to try to stop his headaches. There is List in there, safeguarding him, keeping him afraid and all his fears in darkness. And so I...made it light and asked List to leave, but Crane went hysterical and List...I guess he attacked me."
 
Jeremiah listened carefully, pulling back any calm or reassurance he might have sent her because she was most obviously not taking well to it. For a long moment he was silent, and when he made sound again it was in the form of a long, quiet sigh. He touched his fingertips briefly to his forehead, resisting the urge to run them back through his hair, and just looked at her.


"Have you read their files?" He asked, careful to keep any disappointment or condescension from his voice. He didn't want her to think he was upset with her, only worried. "Carson Tyler Reynolds," He recited, "Age twenty-four, suffers from a mental illness similar to retardation. The subject has a stunted ability to process and retain information, and has difficulty telling between right and wrong, or between what is real and what is imagined."


Shaking his head, Jeremiah took a seat next to her. "He has little to no control over his empathy, and it hasn't helped his illness. His mind is soft, impressionable, and with so many strong minds around, he gets taken over. If he senses one of them too strongly, he takes on their feelings and thinking, and coming back to himself leaves him drained - that is what causes his headaches, Miss Addams. Not any bad memories he's tucked away. If anything, his brother's presence in his mind has been keeping him safe, if only because List is in close enough contact and has strong enough will and desire for Crane's empathy to latch onto, so that it doesn't drift any further. . . Their codependency isn't exactly healthy, but it will take a lot of work strengthening Crane's control before we can even try to separate them with any positive results."
 
Reading files was not Jaguar's forte. She skimmed them, of course, enough to know the most basic facts, but in depth reading was to her a waste of time. Most files had information which was incomplete, incorrect, or misleading, and it was her experience that it was better to go in with few conceptions and to discover people for herself. She couldn't truly know what she was getting into until she experienced herself the person and how they worked, and no file could ever really tell her who someone was or what would work best for them.


She kept all of this in the front of her thoughts as she looked up at Jeremiah, knowing, though he did not openly show it, that he was not pleased with her.


"I read files. I don't always trust or believe them," she said bluntly. "You can't know everything until you've tried something."
 
Jeremiah fought the urge to simply smack a hand to his forehead and leave this room. No, he had to stay calm. He was better than that. "I understand the notion of not wanting to enter into things with bias or expectation," he said instead, trying to find at least a little bit of common ground so that he could try reasoning with her. "But you cannot start such an extreme task with a patient without knowing their medical history." It was difficult, not raising his voice, but he managed. "If you had taken the time to discover Crane's mental defects were from birth, this would not have happened. If I must, I will write up the histories myself so as not to burden you with unwanted information." And it was even more difficult to keep sarcasm out of his voice.


Sighing softly, Jeremiah pushed himself up out of the chair and walked towards the door. "I have to get back to work," He said, "As should you." He paused in the doorway to look back at her. "After you take the necessary steps for your health. If you need anything else, you know how to reach me."
 
Jaguar's chin lifted at his sarcasm, and she bit back her own caustic response, instead saying nothing. It would benefit her little to argue with him when she had clearly already been wrong about one thing in all this. She had no intentions of reading files further, but she would at least look over the twins', if no one else's. Just so there weren't any other nasty surprises.


"My health is fine," she assured him under her breath as he started out the door. "I won't be needing you."


She damn well better not, anyway. Once in one day was more than enough.


She waited only a few minutes after he had left before heading straight to Mason's cell. Screw Jeremiah. Fall off a horse, get back on, wasn't that the saying?
 
Jeremiah made his way to the elevator and let it descend towards him at its usual speed, unhurried now. He leaned against a wall once it began moving, letting himself sigh and relax his posture for the ride up, but the moment he reconnected with the light surveillance he'd been doing on Jaguar, he stood straight again. It was an effort, even while alone, to keep from glaring at the wall. With that defiance on her mind and the direction she was moving, he knew where she was going.


Miss Addams, he sent to her, careful to keep any irritation from his mental voice and presence, If you set foot in that room alone I will override protocol and drag you out by your ear just to make a point. She feared that his presence would make her lose any respect or power she had with Mason Cooper, even though Jeremiah had told her he would only be in a position to observe and wouldn't make a nuisance of himself. Even still, if she disobeyed him Jeremiah would make sure she lost face.
 
Dammit why was he always WATCHING her? How friggin obsessed was he, how little did he trust her?!


Get off my back, she snarled back at him. If you're really so fascinated in everything I do, just go ahead and lay one on me already, don't constantly rape my mind! Is that why do you want to watch Mason so badly with me, pick up some new tricks?


As soon as she thinks this, she regrets it. It is entirely too strong of an implication towards her past with Mason, entirely too aggressive and uncontrolled a response. It was exactly the wrong thing to do to prove how strong and unbothered she was by all of this. Any moment now Jeremiah would come to apprehend her at the cell door, demanding to know what was going on, maybe even suspending her for the day...shit, why did she have to do this to herself?


Slumping against the door, she covered one face with her hand as she waited wearily for his response.
 
Jeremiah had been about to press the floor number for Mason Cooper's cell, but when Jaguar's mental communication ended and he put the pieces quickly together, his hand had frozen hovering near the numbers. It made sense, after he considered it. The strength of her emotions so contrasting to her usual calm and control. The severity with which she fought to work with the man. He'd hurt her, and she wanted revenge - worse than that. She wanted answers, just like anyone who was hurt and lost would rightly seek.


. . . Wait there for me. He responded to her finally, his voice softer and quieter, filtering through with calm and soothing feelings, a sense of some sort of friendship mixed in with the hope that she would take to that better than she would pity. She never wanted pity, never wanted anyone to think she was weak and needed it. I'm coming to you.


He pressed the correct floor, and thought quickly and calmly as he descended once more, so that he could collect himself before the doors opened again. It was going to be difficult, helping this stubborn, willful girl without her simply getting angry at him and shoving him away. Still, he knew that he would do what he could to assist her, even if it meant that she would hate him afterwards. He had grown used to the idea that he would never be quite 'liked' by anyone. It was why he had always tried so hard to stay distant and masked, but this woman . . . this woman had been his weakness for too long. He was going to have to learn all over again that he would never be able to 'connect' with normal people.


((gtg to work. Bye!))
 
He knows.


He knows, or he has a good idea of what had happened, what was happening between them still. Jaguar doesn't need to hear him say anything explicit to know this. Jeremiah knows or suspects something, she can hear it in the sudden gentleness of his tone, and how can she deal with this? How can she look him in the eye now knowing that he knows?


He would want the whole story, every detail, maybe even demand it from her mind. He would never let her work with Jeremiah now, even with him there. How did she keep screwing herself over so badly, screwing up her one chance to understand what had brought her to where she is now?


Jaguar waited, numbed, for Jeremiah to come up to her, already dreading what would happen next.
 
When the elevator opened on the right floor, Jeremiah took a quiet breath, let it out slowly, and finally started walking. He didn't have to walk long before he found Jaguar, sitting on the floor outside Mason Cooper's cell, and looking as if she thought the world were about to end, or as if it were already crashing down around her. They were silent for a long moment, just looking at each other.


Eventually, Jeremiah just held out a hand to help her up. "I wish you would stop looking at me as if I've brought a firing squad." Was he so horrible? He supposed he was, if she kept consistently acting this way. "Come back to the living quarters with me and rest a while. You deserve it." Not 'you need it'. Not 'I'm ordering you.' Just, 'you deserve it'. She didn't take enough breaks, and it was true that she deserved rest after all her successes, even through her failures. Even if she wouldn't ever stop looking at him this way, he just wished she would take better care of herself.
 
Of course there he was, again. Always on her back, always in her head, following her, doubting her, trying so hard to protect her...and why? To save his job, his own ass? Because he truly thought she needed saving? Did he genuinely care, or was it just his duty prodding his conscience?


Jaguar didn't want to use the energy to even attempt to find out for herself. She looked back at him, then took his hand, allowing Jeremiah to pull her up with less resistance than usual. It was very much unlike Jeremiah to suggest that she use working hours to rest, and more so for her to agree to do so. But if she were to go into Mason's cell now, she knows very well that between her injury, her shaken state, her anger and embarrassment with Jeremiah, Mason would eat her alive, even if he never lay a hand on her. She couldn't see him, not today, and maintain the image she wants with him. So slowly she followed Jeremiah down the hall, not saying a word.
 
Jeremiah was silent as they walked, taking Jaguar's lack of speech as a sign that she wasn't quite ready to do any speaking with him. He waited for her at the elevator, only glanced at her when she came in to stand a few steps away, and pressed the button for the right floor. The ride was somewhat tense going all the way up, but he ignored it, instead focusing on trying to figure out some sort of strategy.


Jaguar was difficult - she always had been. There were almost equal parts of her that were broken and headstrong. She couldn't admit that she needed or wanted help because she had never been offered it, and now he had more of an idea of how badly the world had wronged her. She wasn't the worst victim of the Killing Times, but one's pain couldn't be accurately compared to another's. If she was hurting, she was hurting, and no comparisons would make that stop. But because of her bull-headed nature, she wouldn't accept his just coming out and saying that he thought she shouldn't have Mason Cooper as her student anymore. He didn't want the man in the building anymore - but he didn't have that authority.


When they reached a vacant set of rooms, he unlocked them and led her inside, waited until she'd taken a seat on the pristinely made bed, and just stood nearby. He didn't know what to say, still didn't know what to do, and finally he moved away to pull a chair closer and sit down facing her, bracing his elbows on his knees and his fingertips steepled at his jaw.


". . . Tell me what I can do to help you." He wasn't going to deny her Mason Cooper, nor was he going to demand anything from her. For now, he only wanted to help. If corrective action were necessary, he would make the decision when it came.
 
It was not the statement Jaguar had expected. For Jeremiah to ask her how he could help, leaving this in her hands, rather than to tell her what to do, to ask something of her, was more than surprising, and for a moment Jaguar could only blink at him, adjusting her defenses to taken in the possibility of actually giving him a genuine response.


Help her...letting him help her. It went against all her instincts, against every desire, and yet he was asking, genuinely seeming to want to do so. He was giving her the reins, and god was she tired of holding them alone.


Jaguar let her shoulders slump slightly, considering her response, and when she answered, her voice was tired, quiet, but she still had a question of her own. "Jeremiah. What do you think you know, or what have you seen in me, that you would ask me that?"
 
Jeremiah wasn't expecting her to do this easily, but he hadn't quite expected the question. Still, he knew that he should have. Jaguar had always hated not knowing, and that was most likely why she was so insistent on treating Mason Cooper. It wasn't unexpected of her to try and control the situation by turning questions back at him, even subconsciously.


"I know a little more about you than you think, Miss Addams." He began, quiet but sure that he should tell her, in the interest of full disclosure. "I was the one that scouted you when we were young, when you were at the orphanage still. I never dealt with you directly, but I sent the right people your way, people that would help guide you in controlling the raw strength you hold."


He sighed softly, looked up and met her eyes. "I tell you this to emphasize how familiar I have become with your reactions to certain things. And I believe you wouldn't have spiked as strongly as you did when you met Mason Cooper than if someone had broken your arm in two. Before you hinted at a connection between him and the word 'rape', I had already known something traumatic had passed between you, likely some time before I ever knew your name. I could very well go hunting through his memories to find out just what that is, but I would rather not. I would rather you had faith enough in my trust in you to tell me yourself." But he didn't hold his hopes too high. Jaguar was too secretive for that. She held her cards too close to the vest.
 
....what?


Jaguar had braced herself for Jeremiah's suspicions and prying, for facts he might have pried from her thoughts unbeknownst to her or from other people's, even from her files, though how any such information would be in her files when she had never told another soul than Jack was beyond her. She had prepared herself mentally, as much as she could in such a short time, for his assumptions, correct or not, and thought she could come up with a response to them, whatever they might be.


But this confession of his, she had not been prepared for. JEREMIAH had been the one to bring her here, to recruit her and begin her training? He had been the one to basically save her life, send her on the path she lead now?


Why would he do this for her? Was that why he was so protective now- he knew her as the child prodigy he had been guiding and shaping for years now, the investment too valuable to be destroyed?


She barely hears him as he refers to his assumption of her rape, of this being a connection between her and Mason. It seems to her that this revelation means something huge, either that Jeremiah is above all others, to be trusted for having done so much for her...or else that because he has never told her the truth of what he is to her, then he is not to be trusted at all.


She struggles with this for almost a full minute without speaking, and then a test comes to mind. Difficult to give, harder still for him to pass. She speaks slowly, without emotion, as she lifts her eyes to his, closely watching his every move.


"He broke into my house when I was ten years old. He murdered my family and then he kept me hostage for hours. He hurt me and he raped me. Repeatedly. Maybe it was days, it seemed endless to me and my memory could be inaccurate. When he was bored, he left. That is who Mason is to me. But I am an adult now, in control of my power, and he can't harm or affect me. I am an empath and he is not. I am free and he is enslaved. The past is nothing but a memory, and has nothing to do with my present."
 
Jeremiah had suspected, since the first meeting she had with Mason Cooper, that something like this was the true reason she had reacted so strongly to him. He had known, more recently, but knowing it for himself still somehow did not prepare him for hearing it out loud, in her own voice. He was, for the most part, surprised that she had actually told him, but also because of the gaps in information that were quickly filled in. Jeremiah was not a person that liked seeing anyone hurt, even if he had accepted the reality of the Killing Times long ago, but it didn't make it any easier to accept the fact that a member of his staff and somehow he had been 'close' to for years had been hurt that way.


Still, the only reaction he gave was a slight lifting of the eyebrows as she spoke, and after she was done he slid his hands over his face and kept them there, taking two slow, careful breaths. ". . . I had so hoped I was wrong." He admitted quietly, after a long silence. He didn't often want to be wrong, except in cases like these. But he wouldn't apologize, not for something he had no part in and couldn't have prevented. Jaguar would never accept such an empty gesture, he knew. She would only take it as pity.


He ran his fingers roughly along his brow and finally let them hang down again, shaking his head slowly. "But your assumptions are wrong - the past is not meaningless. It defines us to our very cores. Empaths like you and I know that all too well." She was only hiding from the truth, the truth that Mason Cooper had shaped her as a child - whether it had improved her or tore her too far down was up to her, but Jeremiah liked to think she had grown stronger through hardship.


He meets her eyes then, because he can't try to block himself out from her by hiding his face, not when she's exposed her core to him like this. "You are strong, Jaguar, stronger than most, in more than just your Empathic blood." To hold together, after all of that, as just a young child . . . Were she any less strong she would have been crushed under its weight. "Your control, however, is far from perfect. People like us have the power to break a person's mind, leave them shattered and unable to be fixed. I have seen, firsthand, what it does to a person to cause this sort of damage, and I will not see you go through it because of one minor slip-up while in session. That is why I insist on being present. . . I want to help you, if you will only allow me."


They both knew very well what kind of an effect Mason Cooper had on her. Jeremiah wanted to spare her as much as he wanted to help her towards the closure she so desired.
 
Jaguar makes herself keep looking into Jeremiah's eyes, even as her own begin to burn with the effort of not allowing herself to look away. She listens, deliberately working to keep her breathing even, her mind as blank and free of mental images as she can allow it to be, forcing herself not to think of or see any memories that are strongly threatening to come to mind.


He says she is strong. She knows this is true. Even as a child she believed this, and for that reason could not, would not let Mason fully crush her spirit. She knew even then that she was better than him, that even as he hurt her, she would rise above. She had vowed even then that one day, she would right his wrong against her.


She knows too that what he says is correct. If she were ever to destroy a person's mind, the damage it would do to her simultaneously would be horrific.


And yet does she care, if she can manage to destroy Mason? Would it matter to her if she was sacrificed in the process? Jaguar is not sure.


The past, defining her to her core. Could she break from this, or would it break them both?


"You can't speak in there," she said finally. "When you come in with me."


It's as close to a thank you as she'll come.
 
Jeremiah felt as if he spent too long just sitting, watching her, feeling a hole burning into his chest because he ached for her, felt as if some echo of her pains were digging into him and seating itself where it would never come out. He wanted so badly to help her, but with the conflicting idea of Jaguar's refusal of help, and of not wanting to push her even further away. He knew he had to resist those selfish, personal thoughts, though, and do what was necessary for her health. Even if it made her hate him.


When Jaguar spoke, Jeremiah lifted his head a bit, his eyes never having left hers, and nodded. "I had not intended to." He wasn't there to interrupt, only to act as sentinel, to remain close by in case he was needed. "I will find an out of the way space for myself and continue my own work, while observing yours as well." He still had a job to do, after all.


He was relieved, at least, that she would stop fighting him on this matter. It was hard enough dealing with everything when he had to constantly watch over her and make sure she didn't disobey his directives. Perhaps with this, after some time to calm down, she would make some progress with Mason Cooper, and with herself.
 
She nodded slowly, accepting this, the best that he could offer, the best she could hope for. It was not her desire or preference to have him there, but she could understand his point of view, the need for her safety. And it was true, she did have a tendency to veer over what was acceptable risk for either of them.


But this didn't mean that she wouldn't still push the line, if given opportunity.


"Okay," she said, still quiet, but more inwardly composed, before she stood, signalling that she was through with conversation. "Then I guess this is the way it is."


She turned, meeting Jeremiah's eyes, as she repeated, "I'm all right, Jeremiah."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 4 (members: 0, guests: 4)

Similar threads

Sora No Kami
A vicious dance with death (RP 1x1 based on the song "My R") TW: Self-loathing, Suicune
Replies
1
Views
200
Sora No Kami
Sora No Kami
Back
Top