[The picture sharpens. Whatever went sideways entails, it had to have been bad to give Leo nightmares like that. He knows the memories that give form to his own certainly are.]
[...maybe that's the in. Maybe that'll help.]
I've had nightmares like that before. Not about the same thing as yours, probably, [hopefully,] but- the kind where your body wakes up and your mind doesn't for a bit. The kind that take your worst memories and trap you in them.
So I know it's probably the last thing you want to talk about, but I also don't think you should be alone in this.
[It's one thing for Huvrye to carry the weight of his memories alone; he's an adult, and much of what happened were his choices and his fault. Leo's a kid, stuck a dimension away from his family. He shouldn't have to be alone with whatever is keeping him from resting.]
[Leo listens, eyes on his lap. Huvrye says he's had nightmares like this too, so he must get it - why Leo doesn't want to sleep, at least not sleep so deeply that he dreams, because whenever he dreams it always ends the same.
Part of him wants to give in to that, to tell someone and maybe actually have one good night of sleep. Another part thinks that this is his punishment for being such a colossal screwup that he very nearly ended the world.
Part of him doesn't want Huvrye to know he's that much of a screwup.
But he thinks he also isn't being given a whole lot of choice here.]
...Well... I mean, if you want to know my tragic backstory so badly I guess I can tell you.
[He says it with overdramatic flair. Like this is just a joke. Like it's not that serious. Maybe that's how he can play this: get it off his chest, while making it sound like it's nothing really to worry about. Yeah, that'll work.
(He knows it won't work.)]
It's... a lot to explain, though... I'm not sure where to start.
[The more time Huvrye spends with Leo, the more he figures out how the teenager works. The jokes, the redirects, the confidence - a lot of it is natural, but sometimes there's something else. Something beneath the surface that Huvrye hasn't tried to dig into, because Leo deserves his space.]
[He's pretty sure they've hit the Something Else, especially since there's another joke on top of it. A little dramatic flair, like Leo hadn't woken up screaming ten minutes ago. Yeah, this is going to be bad.]
Start at the beginning of whatever caused this. If I have questions, I'll ask.
[Leo takes a deep breath. Lets it out slow. Okay. He can do this.]
So, uh... there's these... aliens, called the Krang. Their whole deal is that they go around to different planets and destroy whatever civilization is there, and then they... well, I don't know what they do next. Strip mine for minerals, maybe? Pretty cliché MO, if you ask me.
[He says all this lightly, but Huvrye may notice that when Leo says the word Krang, he stiffens up.]
Anyway, they showed up to Earth centuries before I was born, and some mystic - uh, magic warriors locked them up in a thing called the Prison Dimension. Kind of like how this place is a different dimension from both of ours? Except the Prison Dimension isn't populated, it's... [Cold, desolate, ruined, smells like rust and rot-] a prison.
And for whatever reason no one ever destroyed the key, so... someone tried to steal it.
[He listens, and he definitely notices the reaction to the name. That's what's in his nightmares, isn't it - these Krang things.]
[That's certainly a place to stop the story, and Huvrye can put the pieces together.]
I'm guessing they let the Krang out.
[Why else bring up prison and a stolen key? He doesn't think a near miss with civilization-destroying aliens would get the kind of reaction that Leo's had so far, nor would it make for screaming nightmares. A close encounter, however...]
[He'd like to think the answer is no. He's pretty sure it's not.]
Yeah. Don't ask me why, some people are just crazy.
[He has no idea what the Foot Clan's obsession with unleashing horrors on the world is, all he knows is that his family keeps having to deal with it.]
But that's... they wouldn't have even had the key, except I...
[He shivers. Pulls his knees up close and props his head on them.]
I was acting stupid. Being a show-off. My older brother, he grabbed the key and I knocked it right out of his hands. Sent it flying right to the enemy.
[He curls up tighter, and he wants to stop, but he's on a roll now.]
Then this guy shows up from the future, and tells me hey, great job idiot, you doomed the whole planet and your family with it! [Casey hadn't worded it like that, of course. But Leo's head did it for him.] So we tried to stop them before they could let the Krang out, but I was... cocky, and stupid, and my big brother had to save me, and they... they turned him into this thing. Infected him with some kind of goo, and they had control of him.
I... was supposed to be the leader, and I just kept screwing up, and everyone got hurt. Especially him. That was... that was on me.
[Leo curls up, and Huvrye drops his arm off the back of the couch, wrapping it gently around Leo's shoulders. Hopefully it'll help anchor him while he recounts an event that just keeps getting worse.]
[The Krang get out, and it's because Leo accidentally gave them the key. He couldn't have known it would doom the planet, but I messed up and it ended the world is a lot to carry.]
[Especially when it sounds like the Krang carry corruption with them-]
[There's a soft, sharp intake of breath, and then he gets control of himself again. Leo's world couldn't have turned out like his. He doesn't want to believe that.]
…The Krang couldn’t be fought. They had to be imprisoned again.
So I kinda, uh… [He looks nervous to admit it.] teleported myself and the Krang back into the Prison Dimension. And I held him there.
And then I had them close the door.
[And then, because he can feel himself zoning out, feel the dark corners of the room pressing in on him, he reaches for his most used coping mechanism.]
It was pretty cool, actually. Big explosion. I even got to drop my new catchphrase. “You’ve been portal-chopped.”
[And there it is. Trapped in a prison with a monster that couldn't be beaten, on top of everything else that had happened. Of course he's having nightmares.]
[He doesn't go for the deflection - the explosion, the catchphrase, the bravado - and stays at the heart of the matter, arm still around Leo's shoulders.]
How long were you there?
[Did anyone get him out, or did he go straight from the prison dimension to this one? How bad is it?]
[Leo shivers, and Huvrye tightens his hold, just a little bit - a light squeeze, and an attempt at comfort.]
[A few minutes. A few minutes in the prison dimension with the Krang, and Leo wakes up screaming and clutching his chest, in the same way Huvrye wakes up clutching his stomach sometimes-]
[He hopes Leo was never injured that badly. He's not going to ask for details.]
I'm glad you're okay.
[It means very little in the face of what Leo's just told him, but it's true nonetheless.]
And I'm sorry that any of that happened. You don't deserve it.
[Leo goes stiff at that, the tension obvious in the set of his shoulders.
He didn’t deserve it?]
But that’s… that’s the thing. I don’t think you get it, but I really, really messed up. [Two reallys.] Everyone died. My brothers died. The whole population of earth died!
[He’s getting really worked up now. But he needs someone to understand. Someone to get how much he did deserve it.
Someone to validate how much he hates himself.]
The only way to avert that was to give up myself and I’d do it again to save them. I’d do it again to fix everything.
[Leo isn't reacting well, but for the first time in this conversation, that's not stopping Huvrye.]
No, I get it.
[He's worked for a genocidal maniac all his life and only just recently realized that everything about it was wrong. There's something to be said about intent - the chasm of difference between Effiom's decisions and Leo's mistakes.]
You made a mistake, you learned what the consequences would be, and you fixed it. You did what a lot of people wouldn't be strong enough to do. You didn't set out to end the world on purpose, and you don't deserve to be tortured over it.
[It's calm and firm. He's not about to let Leo argue with him on this one.]
[Leo shivers against his arm again. Turns what Huvrye is saying over in his head. It doesn't all penetrate, because these walls have been up for a long time, far before he even learned about the Krang, but at the very least, the firm tone helps bring him down, just a little.]
...Well, I was being a jerk on purpose.
[Yeah, obviously he didn't want anything to happen to his family or the world. So that part's true. And maybe being a jerk isn't an offense punishable by torture. At least, he wouldn't say so if it were anyone other than him on the chopping block.
But it's still hard to believe he didn't bring this on himself.]
So at the very least, it had to be me, if it was going to be anyone.
Yeah, but that doesn't usually end the world, and I don't think you would've done it if you'd known. [Intent doesn't change what happened, sure, but the angle seems to be working - if even a little - so Huvrye is sticking with it.]
[It had to be me sits wrong with him. He'd told Leo he didn't deserve what happened, and Leo had argued with him, and brought up his self-sacrifice twice. He doesn't think-]
[Does he?]
Wait, do you think this is all a punishment for your mistake?
[Leo hesitates. If he says yes, he's pretty sure Huvrye won't like that.]
...Maybe not, uh... all this part...
[He waves to indicate the hotel. Or rather, the entire "trapped by the confluence" situation.]
And maybe not... the other thing. [The Prison Dimension.] It's not like the universe conspired to teach me a lesson. [It's not about him. He does know sometimes things just happen.]
But... I guess I feel like I made it up to all of them, by doing that. Paid my dues, or something.
[That hesitation is worrying. What did he think but not say?]
[Huvrye doesn't have time to dig into that before Leo answers. At least he doesn't think it's a punishment, though it's still worrying. He wants to ask - do you think your family would see it that way? - but he doesn't know anything about Leo's family aside from what he's been told. He'd like to think they care about Leo as much as he seems to care about them, but he doesn't know, and he doesn't want to run the risk of making things worse.]
[So he sighs, and tries something else.]
You stopped the apocalypse and put the Krang back in prison. I think you can consider them paid.
[He knows his own nightmares are heavily steeped in guilt; how much are Leo's? Would this even help? He has no idea and no way of knowing without prying.]
[Huvrye doesn't do this often. He doesn't confide in his fellow soldiers as much anymore - not since the Joba's death, and the innate understanding that anyone who really understood how he felt would be staying away from him for their own safety - and when he did, or when they talked to him, the shared theme was fighting the Corrupted. It was awful, but everyone was coming from the same place. The only teenager he'd tried to help was Yin, and their bond made things complicated and unique, and at least they had the context of the same world. He's not prepared for this, beyond the bounds of what compassion and experience with trauma provide him.]
[But he can read that bit of desperation in Leo's eyes, and it strikes him very suddenly that there are a lot of wrong answers to this question, and he has no idea if there are any right ones, or how many, or if they even exist, let alone whether he'd recognize one if he came across one. All he can do is try, and hope he makes all of this better, not worse.]
Yeah, I don't see why not.
[That's not going to be good enough, is it.]
But if they are settled, that means you don't need to beat yourself up over it anymore.
[It's obvious, but nobody ever accused Huvrye of being subtle. Plus, maybe Leo needs to hear it plainly for it to sink in. That was on me; I really, really messed up; it had to be me - Leo needs to stop sinking a knife into that wound, and maybe this will help. Maybe.]
[Or maybe he's found one of the many wrong answers and this will only make it worse. He has no way of knowing yet.]
[A small sort of relief sweeps through Leo at that, and he slumps a little closer into Huvrye. He knows that Huvrye can't promise him that he won't go back to the Prison Dimension, that he'll get to go home, because he doesn't have any power over that. But those words - you don't need to beat yourself up - sink into him enough to lighten the vice on his heart, just a bit.
It may not be enough to completely remove the guilt, it may not stop the nightmares, but maybe he can be allowed to ease up on himself a little.
[He hesitates. On one hand, going back to his empty room now feels completely unappealing. Leo is so unused to being alone that it drives him crazy; the only thing keeping him from going completely out of his mind is being able to hear other people in other rooms, or out in the hallways, on occasion.
On the other hand, he doesn't really want to put Huvrye out. It's not his job to deal with Leo and his bad brain. Even if he's done a pretty good job of it so far.
Still, Huvrye is offering. If he's offering, that means he doesn't mind, right?]
[Mark had protested the first time Huvrye had insisted he take it, so he's already prepared to argue the point to Leo.]
I don't actually need to sleep every night - it's a fairy thing - and I wasn't planning on sleeping tonight anyway. Plus, you'll sleep better on the bed than the couch.
[Something about the beds being enchanted for better sleep, according to the hotel. Regardless, Huvrye has more nightmares on the couch than he does the bed, and he doesn't think that's a coincidence.]
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[...maybe that's the in. Maybe that'll help.]
I've had nightmares like that before. Not about the same thing as yours, probably, [hopefully,] but- the kind where your body wakes up and your mind doesn't for a bit. The kind that take your worst memories and trap you in them.
So I know it's probably the last thing you want to talk about, but I also don't think you should be alone in this.
[It's one thing for Huvrye to carry the weight of his memories alone; he's an adult, and much of what happened were his choices and his fault. Leo's a kid, stuck a dimension away from his family. He shouldn't have to be alone with whatever is keeping him from resting.]
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Part of him wants to give in to that, to tell someone and maybe actually have one good night of sleep. Another part thinks that this is his punishment for being such a colossal screwup that he very nearly ended the world.
Part of him doesn't want Huvrye to know he's that much of a screwup.
But he thinks he also isn't being given a whole lot of choice here.]
...Well... I mean, if you want to know my tragic backstory so badly I guess I can tell you.
[He says it with overdramatic flair. Like this is just a joke. Like it's not that serious. Maybe that's how he can play this: get it off his chest, while making it sound like it's nothing really to worry about. Yeah, that'll work.
(He knows it won't work.)]
It's... a lot to explain, though... I'm not sure where to start.
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[He's pretty sure they've hit the Something Else, especially since there's another joke on top of it. A little dramatic flair, like Leo hadn't woken up screaming ten minutes ago. Yeah, this is going to be bad.]
Start at the beginning of whatever caused this. If I have questions, I'll ask.
[Simple and straightforward.]
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So, uh... there's these... aliens, called the Krang. Their whole deal is that they go around to different planets and destroy whatever civilization is there, and then they... well, I don't know what they do next. Strip mine for minerals, maybe? Pretty cliché MO, if you ask me.
[He says all this lightly, but Huvrye may notice that when Leo says the word Krang, he stiffens up.]
Anyway, they showed up to Earth centuries before I was born, and some mystic - uh, magic warriors locked them up in a thing called the Prison Dimension. Kind of like how this place is a different dimension from both of ours? Except the Prison Dimension isn't populated, it's... [Cold, desolate, ruined, smells like rust and rot-] a prison.
And for whatever reason no one ever destroyed the key, so... someone tried to steal it.
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[That's certainly a place to stop the story, and Huvrye can put the pieces together.]
I'm guessing they let the Krang out.
[Why else bring up prison and a stolen key? He doesn't think a near miss with civilization-destroying aliens would get the kind of reaction that Leo's had so far, nor would it make for screaming nightmares. A close encounter, however...]
[He'd like to think the answer is no. He's pretty sure it's not.]
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[He has no idea what the Foot Clan's obsession with unleashing horrors on the world is, all he knows is that his family keeps having to deal with it.]
But that's... they wouldn't have even had the key, except I...
[He shivers. Pulls his knees up close and props his head on them.]
I was acting stupid. Being a show-off. My older brother, he grabbed the key and I knocked it right out of his hands. Sent it flying right to the enemy.
[He curls up tighter, and he wants to stop, but he's on a roll now.]
Then this guy shows up from the future, and tells me hey, great job idiot, you doomed the whole planet and your family with it! [Casey hadn't worded it like that, of course. But Leo's head did it for him.] So we tried to stop them before they could let the Krang out, but I was... cocky, and stupid, and my big brother had to save me, and they... they turned him into this thing. Infected him with some kind of goo, and they had control of him.
I... was supposed to be the leader, and I just kept screwing up, and everyone got hurt. Especially him. That was... that was on me.
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[The Krang get out, and it's because Leo accidentally gave them the key. He couldn't have known it would doom the planet, but I messed up and it ended the world is a lot to carry.]
[Especially when it sounds like the Krang carry corruption with them-]
[There's a soft, sharp intake of breath, and then he gets control of himself again. Leo's world couldn't have turned out like his. He doesn't want to believe that.]
Oh, Leo...
[It's quiet and sympathetic.]
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He doesn't pull away, though.]
It... it ended up okay, though. We got him back. And... we couldn't beat the Krang, but we found a way to stop them.
I... made sure they were safe. So... so it's okay.
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[Especially since it sounds like Krang corruption isn't permanent, which is a miracle in and of itself.]
[But the story isn't over. It can't be - there's a chunk missing, and something tells Huvrye that's where the nightmare resides.]
How? What did you do?
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So I kinda, uh… [He looks nervous to admit it.] teleported myself and the Krang back into the Prison Dimension. And I held him there.
And then I had them close the door.
[And then, because he can feel himself zoning out, feel the dark corners of the room pressing in on him, he reaches for his most used coping mechanism.]
It was pretty cool, actually. Big explosion. I even got to drop my new catchphrase. “You’ve been portal-chopped.”
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[He doesn't go for the deflection - the explosion, the catchphrase, the bravado - and stays at the heart of the matter, arm still around Leo's shoulders.]
How long were you there?
[Did anyone get him out, or did he go straight from the prison dimension to this one? How bad is it?]
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[He shivers under Huvrye’s arm, contradicting his light tone.]
If it hadn’t been for the Alliance healers I’d still be one giant bruise right now.
[Does that answer his question?]
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[A few minutes. A few minutes in the prison dimension with the Krang, and Leo wakes up screaming and clutching his chest, in the same way Huvrye wakes up clutching his stomach sometimes-]
[He hopes Leo was never injured that badly. He's not going to ask for details.]
I'm glad you're okay.
[It means very little in the face of what Leo's just told him, but it's true nonetheless.]
And I'm sorry that any of that happened. You don't deserve it.
[Also very, very true.]
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He didn’t deserve it?]
But that’s… that’s the thing. I don’t think you get it, but I really, really messed up. [Two reallys.] Everyone died. My brothers died. The whole population of earth died!
[He’s getting really worked up now. But he needs someone to understand. Someone to get how much he did deserve it.
Someone to validate how much he hates himself.]
The only way to avert that was to give up myself and I’d do it again to save them. I’d do it again to fix everything.
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No, I get it.
[He's worked for a genocidal maniac all his life and only just recently realized that everything about it was wrong. There's something to be said about intent - the chasm of difference between Effiom's decisions and Leo's mistakes.]
You made a mistake, you learned what the consequences would be, and you fixed it. You did what a lot of people wouldn't be strong enough to do. You didn't set out to end the world on purpose, and you don't deserve to be tortured over it.
[It's calm and firm. He's not about to let Leo argue with him on this one.]
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...Well, I was being a jerk on purpose.
[Yeah, obviously he didn't want anything to happen to his family or the world. So that part's true. And maybe being a jerk isn't an offense punishable by torture. At least, he wouldn't say so if it were anyone other than him on the chopping block.
But it's still hard to believe he didn't bring this on himself.]
So at the very least, it had to be me, if it was going to be anyone.
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[It had to be me sits wrong with him. He'd told Leo he didn't deserve what happened, and Leo had argued with him, and brought up his self-sacrifice twice. He doesn't think-]
[Does he?]
Wait, do you think this is all a punishment for your mistake?
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...Maybe not, uh... all this part...
[He waves to indicate the hotel. Or rather, the entire "trapped by the confluence" situation.]
And maybe not... the other thing. [The Prison Dimension.] It's not like the universe conspired to teach me a lesson. [It's not about him. He does know sometimes things just happen.]
But... I guess I feel like I made it up to all of them, by doing that. Paid my dues, or something.
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[Huvrye doesn't have time to dig into that before Leo answers. At least he doesn't think it's a punishment, though it's still worrying. He wants to ask - do you think your family would see it that way? - but he doesn't know anything about Leo's family aside from what he's been told. He'd like to think they care about Leo as much as he seems to care about them, but he doesn't know, and he doesn't want to run the risk of making things worse.]
[So he sighs, and tries something else.]
You stopped the apocalypse and put the Krang back in prison. I think you can consider them paid.
[He knows his own nightmares are heavily steeped in guilt; how much are Leo's? Would this even help? He has no idea and no way of knowing without prying.]
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The words he does say, though, make Leo actually pause. He looks back at Huvrye, a bit of a desperate glint in his eyes.]
Yeah? Paid in full?
[Because if he's done enough, then it's over, right? If it's over, then maybe he can go home. Well, once he finds a way out of this place, of course.
(He just wants to go home.)]
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[But he can read that bit of desperation in Leo's eyes, and it strikes him very suddenly that there are a lot of wrong answers to this question, and he has no idea if there are any right ones, or how many, or if they even exist, let alone whether he'd recognize one if he came across one. All he can do is try, and hope he makes all of this better, not worse.]
Yeah, I don't see why not.
[That's not going to be good enough, is it.]
But if they are settled, that means you don't need to beat yourself up over it anymore.
[It's obvious, but nobody ever accused Huvrye of being subtle. Plus, maybe Leo needs to hear it plainly for it to sink in. That was on me; I really, really messed up; it had to be me - Leo needs to stop sinking a knife into that wound, and maybe this will help. Maybe.]
[Or maybe he's found one of the many wrong answers and this will only make it worse. He has no way of knowing yet.]
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It may not be enough to completely remove the guilt, it may not stop the nightmares, but maybe he can be allowed to ease up on himself a little.
Maybe accept the comfort being offered to him.]
...Yeah. I guess that is what it would mean.
[It's about the best he can muster right now.]
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[And then Leo speaks, and...evidently it was a right answer, or something close enough to it. Thank goodness.]
Yeah.
[He lets that settle for a bit before speaking up again.]
I think you should stay here tonight.
[Huvrye can't prevent Leo's nightmares, but he can at least make sure Leo doesn't have to deal with them alone.]
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On the other hand, he doesn't really want to put Huvrye out. It's not his job to deal with Leo and his bad brain. Even if he's done a pretty good job of it so far.
Still, Huvrye is offering. If he's offering, that means he doesn't mind, right?]
...You don't mind me taking your couch?
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[Mark had protested the first time Huvrye had insisted he take it, so he's already prepared to argue the point to Leo.]
I don't actually need to sleep every night - it's a fairy thing - and I wasn't planning on sleeping tonight anyway. Plus, you'll sleep better on the bed than the couch.
[Something about the beds being enchanted for better sleep, according to the hotel. Regardless, Huvrye has more nightmares on the couch than he does the bed, and he doesn't think that's a coincidence.]
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