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last online Feb 3, 2022 1:17:46 GMT
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Post by Hades Black on Nov 10, 2021 6:14:02 GMT
"I don't know about them, but I do know me. I know that I have a big heart and I like to help. You seem like someone who's a great friend and who's very loyal. You...you just seem to be someone who's worth every moment. Someone...someone that we can befriend and care about, I guess. Why should we have a reason to be around you? To interact with you?"
Hades looked towards her and smiled. "We may get nothing to you, but to us, we get a meaningful relationship. Some people just care in this world and you happened to stumble upon a lot of them." He tilted his head, confused. "Did you really rob a place with a nerf gun? That's some Home Alone bullshit right there and I think that's wild." He grinned. "Was it painted black to look like a real gun too?"
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played by AJ
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last online Apr 3, 2024 3:20:50 GMT
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Nov 10, 2021 20:54:10 GMT
Post by Tayla Smith on Nov 10, 2021 20:54:10 GMT
Tayla sniffed, her masked face still buried in Cerberus' fur. He was such a good boy. "I don't know why you'd want to be around me and interact with me. Befriend me and care about me. I'm not worth it. I'm a shit friend. I bleed all over the apartment without realizing it, I'm the one asking for all sorts of help and shit... I don't understand how a relationship with me is a meaningful one. To me it just sounds like you're voluntarily sticking a leech on your arm." She couldn't help a chuckle when he asked about the nerf gun. It was so stupid. "No, not as fancy as that. I grabbed a bunch of stuff from a store, including the nerf gun, and just walked out. Opened the nerf gun, for some reason decided to stick a dart in and cock the thing, and shoved it in my hoodie pocket. Which I also stole, I stole the hoodie. But yeah, pointed the gun inside the hoodie at the woman who would become my roommate and to her credit she stayed calm and actually helped me out instead of panicking, even when I accidentally fired the dart at the windshield and blew the whole thing. She's great. Got me to a place where I can actually buy shit instead of needing to steal it." Tayla got quiet again, and stroked the fur of the big dog, just taking comfort from the tactile nature of things. "I still don't understand why she wanted to help or hang around with me. Why she still does, why she doesn't find another roommate that doesn't come in randomly bleeding without realizing it. You know we got this little tray by the front door that I stand in and check myself over in a mirror before I walk into the rest of the apartment now. To make sure I'm not going to stain the carpet. Well, she didn't set that up so much as me. I felt bad when I saw the cleaning bill last time." Tayla was starting to calm down now. Cerberus may not have three heads, but he was triply effective at being soothing, and the shift from more sensitive topics was helping as well. Hades Black
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played by KingJ
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last online Feb 3, 2022 1:17:46 GMT
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Post by Hades Black on Nov 11, 2021 2:11:54 GMT
Hades smiles. "A parasitic relationship is having a child. Not that a child can be a parasite! But, it can be beneficial for both parties. Maybe they like to mother you and you're giving them a lot of ammo to care about you." He shrugged. "But I don't know. I'm not them."
He got up and awkwardly walked towards Tayla and Cerberus. He sat down near Tayla and reaches for her, making a pleased noise when he touched her arm. "I would like to hug you, if you're willing to let me do so that is. I want to apologize for bringing up a sensitive topic this early into the therapy session. I didn't realize it was something that needed to be waited on and I'm sorry for hurting you emotionally. It was supposed to be a light session where we learn about each other and not me diving into heavy issues. I'll understand if you want to not do this again or wait a few weeks for the next one if you wanna keep doing this." He said, genuinely apologetic.
"As for your roomate...she sounds pretty cool. Did she ever tease you about the nerf gun? And you trying to make it easier on her is pretty good. I'd suggest also getting a buddy to check the bits that you can't see or reach comfortably. Erebus or Lyon do that for me because sometimes I get cuts in areas that I don't feel and I don't realize I'm bleeding until they sit me down and start stitching me up" He grinned.
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played by AJ
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last online Apr 3, 2024 3:20:50 GMT
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Post by Tayla Smith on Nov 11, 2021 2:33:41 GMT
Tayla didn't realize that he'd move until he touched her arm. She was so absorbed in Cerberus' fluff. She instinctively flinched at first, her mind flashing back to the years there, as His little science experiment. She figured that would probably come up at some point during this whole thing. She didn't leave it at the flinch though. Instead, she shifted, reluctantly let go of the dog, and wrapped her arms around Hades. "You're stupid, you know that? You, Felicity, Miguel, all y'all. Stupid. I'm only good for getting in trouble and getting other people in trouble." She hugged him tight, and despite what she just said, whispered something else as well. "Thank you." With the same sound it made going up, Tayla retracted her mask into the neck of her suit and wiped the tears from her eyes, without letting go of Hades. "It's okay. You didn't know. Besides, that's what this therapy shit is for, right? Finding that stuff and dealing with it. Right?" She sighed. "I suppose we'll have to talk about the time I spent in neo-hitler's universe soon, won't we? I'm... I'm still shocked you actually believe me and don't think I'm just nuts." She paused, and pulled back from the hug and looked him in his eyes. She knew he wasn't going to make eye contact. She knew those milky eyes couldn't see anything. But she felt that if she looked in those eyes she could tell if he was lying. She hoped she could tell if he was lying. "You... you do believe me, right?" Hades Black
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played by KingJ
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last online Feb 3, 2022 1:17:46 GMT
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Post by Hades Black on Nov 11, 2021 2:59:16 GMT
Hades tucked the flinch away to be talked about at a later point and happily pulled her closer to just hold her. Cerebus grumbled and wiggled until he was laying on their laps, head on Tayla's lap and tail wagging slowly. Hades rubbed her back and chuckled at being called stupid. "Ah, but we're stupid folks who won't let you go anytime soon" He teased.
His smile soften and he gave her a small squeeze on her shoulder as a way of acknowledging the thanks. He did relax a bit when she accepted his apology and kept on rubbing her back, needing to give her some form of comfort outside of the hug. One that kept on going as neither party had let each other go.
He nodded at her question and smiled. "It's a way to have you process it and understand it, yes." He blinked and felt her pull away a bit from the hug and faced her direction in mild confusion. He gave her a small smile that met his milky gold eyes and tapped her cheek. "I believe you. I have no reason to not believe you."
He shrugged and ran a hand through Cerberus' fur. "It's odd, yes, but I've heard some crazier shit than someone hopping through universes. My nephew created a sentient slime when he's 5. Honestly, it's...tame. So far from what I've heard at least. It's tamer than what Honos does. Kid made a snowball launcher out of snow, sticks and rocks for the past three years. Don't know how honestly. But yes. I believe you. Hard not to when I hear the pain and fear in your voice every time you talk about it. No one that traumatized can create a place and lie about it like that. No one can sound that traumatized about a fake world either. I should know...my traumatized ass has heard what that sounds like for about 25 years." He made sure to point out. "You're not alone anymore. I believe you and I'll most likely always believe you. You're not one to fib for shits and giggles anyway."
He pulled her back into the hug and set his chin on her head for a small moment. "...Do you wanna do a lazy session next week? Just talk about small things and play a card game? We can talk about one story you want to share and I can share it too while playing Go Fish. Loser buys the next session's drinks if you're game."
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played by AJ
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last online Apr 3, 2024 3:20:50 GMT
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Post by Tayla Smith on Nov 11, 2021 3:29:19 GMT
"Probably made a trebuchet launch system. Snow is very malleable, he could make whatever structure he needed, sticks provide more stable support framework and the rocks provide the needed weight." He was telling the truth though. She wasn't sure if what she felt was entirely relief, or if there was disappointment mixed in. Honestly, a part of her just wished that she had been in a nasty accident and just made it all up because she hit her head just right. "That sounds nice. But..." She pulled back and stroked Cerberus' fur. "Do you want me to just lay it all out? The facts. Of what happened. I... I feel like I... I'm less emotional right now and I feel like you should at least know what you're working with. I think... I think I could lay out the facts of the last five years or so. Hades Black
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played by KingJ
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last online Feb 3, 2022 1:17:46 GMT
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Post by Hades Black on Nov 11, 2021 3:42:15 GMT
He shrugged and continued to run his fingers through Cerberus' thick and long fur. "If you feel like you're able to share, then go ahead. I do want to do a light session after heavy sessions so that you can mentally heal and recuperate. I don't want to make you feel like you're dreading going to these sessions. It's not healthy and it makes talking about things and healing from them a whole lot harder. Honestly fighting against many things makes it harder and a lot more painful. I want you to tell me when it's getting too much and that you need a break, okay? Promise me you'll do that, in case I can't pick it up or am too dense to see it."
He really wanted her to do that because he didn't want her to treat therapy like his nephew does. He didn't want her to treat it like his older brother too. Or other people he knew who hated therapy. He wanted her to feel comfortable to talk and not dread coming to see him. He wanted her to know she can use him as a support person or a safe person. He wants her to feel safe. That's what he wants. He just hopes she's willing to help him help her make it safe.
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played by AJ
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last online Apr 3, 2024 3:20:50 GMT
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Post by Tayla Smith on Nov 11, 2021 4:21:47 GMT
((TW: We exploring Tayla's trauma now and it's not pretty. Torture and rape.)) He believed her. She looked in his eyes again. Those eyes that couldn't see but saw so much. She rubbed Cerberus, feeling the mild static that the suit gave her as it tried to process each individual hair and translate that into signals for her brain to interpret but not getting it quite right for some reason she hadn't quite figured out. And she felt like she was safe enough to lay it all out. She took a deep, shuddery breath, and launched in. It started with what she'd already covered. The accident, how she was culpable but nobody really believed that, her hunt for Nihila and how that ended. "And then... I was alone. It was done. I stopped her. But I... I wanted to fix it. To make it all better. So I started looking for ways I could. I looked into time travel and that was too theoretical to make anything work, and besides the amount of energy required to actually alter reality was ridiculous. Back then, I was like Timothy Smith here, I was a living dynamo, but I would need dozens of me to actually be able to change things. The fabric of space-time, it's just... it's just too sturdy. It likes to be the way it is. But see, that's when I figured it out. I didn't need to change things. I just had to go somewhere where they were already different. It would still take a shit-ton of energy, sure, but I could power that. In about a year I had a working prototype. Tried it, and presto, I had a hole in reality that led to a different universe. "The prototype broke, almost immediately after I went through. It just couldn't handle the energy strain. Now that would have been my main concern, if I hadn't been picked up by the Aegis police state on patrol. Apparently I was out past curfew. There was some... some tragedy, some disaster that had wrecked a bunch of the city, and one guy stepped up and just, well, apparently took over the world, slowly but surely. Never caught his name, just called him The Tyrant. He was smart though. Figured out I was from another universe and took a personal interest in me. It started with interrogations. Trying to pull as much information as he could from me. He did it in person, too. Never saw his face, he always wore this ostentatious white and gold mask and suit. Looked like a fucking Power Ranger. Well, he did most of it in person. Tayla swallowed. She hadn't told anyone about this next bit. "I apparently had too much spirit, so he wanted to break that. From what I could tell, I became a "reward" for people that had proved themselves in his service and didn't have enough of a conscience. He had some device, a collar thing that kept me from using my powers, I'd be strapped down in a cell, without any clothes, and... well, they'd be let in to do what they wanted. The nice ones just beat me. The not so nice ones..." She figured she'd leave that to the imagination. "After about a year of that, something changed. It wasn't so much torture as... experiments. Taking samples of my blood and urine, spinal fluid, hell even just flesh. There was one day when he brought in this machine and hooked it up to me. It wasn't a nice hookup either, there were needles and clamps. He flipped it on and I was in the most excruciating pain of my life for about... I don't know how long. It felt like an eternity. And then it all stopped. Not the machine, that was still humming away and doing something. But the pain. Along with everything else. That's... that's when it happened. I couldn't feel anything anymore. I think my nerves just... burned out? I'm not sure. But whatever that machine did... it also broke my powers." She held up a hand, and a little light like a penlight lit up on one finger. Then she realized she couldn't see. "Um, can I touch you?" Getting a nod, she reached out and placed a hand on his arm. She focused, and with great effort sent a tiny little spark into him, the equivalent of a static electricity shock. "That's about all I can do now. That and I can make a little bit of light come out of my hands. About what a cheap flashlight can make. So. Yeah. That's fun. "So, two years as his captive. One just being tortured and used, the other being experimented on like a lab rat. Most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference, I think. I could. I could tell when he was taking notes. But, hey, one day, after those two years, I was rescued. There was this underground resistance that thought I would be this savior for them. A hero from another world, come to right the wrongs. I needed a lot of help getting out but on the way out I made them take me by a lab, I wanted to see what he was experimenting on me for. I couldn't figure out any of it but I grabbed what I could, which was this suit. I spent the next two years making this suit work for me, learning how to just... live again, and deciding what I wanted to do. "I eventually came to the conclusion that there wasn't anything I could do for that world. That my best bet was just to... to move on. So I remade my portal device. I couldn't power it anymore, so I convinced the resistance that detonating the local power plant would be a great way to hurt the Tyrant's all-seeing security network and give us an opportunity to strike at him directly, but..." She sighed. "I'm not proud of it, but it was all a lie to get me enough power to open another portal so I could go through. I did that, I went through, and I was here. Got arrested again by Aegis almost right away, but they were much nicer and I bet if you ask they'll give you the files." Tayla stroked Cerberus nervously. It was the first time she'd really laid it all out like that for someone, and it honestly felt nice that someone else knew it all. "So. Yeah. That's what we're dealing with." Hades Black
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played by KingJ
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last online Feb 3, 2022 1:17:46 GMT
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Post by Hades Black on Nov 11, 2021 5:04:09 GMT
((TW: Light mention of rape as well.))
He listened and tried to stay calm. He made sure that his hands were on Cerberus the whole time as he listened, knowing it's going to be rough. Yet he wasn't prepared to hear how rough it was. He swallowed thickly and took a deep breath to try and calm himself. He flinched at the shock and was pissed that someone broke her enough that her powers were reduced to a pen light and a little shock. He didn't noticed, but black ears started to form as shadows clung to him like a second skin. He didn't noticed how his eyes glowed unnaturally at learning that she was raped and treated like a specimen. He hated it. He hated that man with his absolute being and he only hated three people in his life. He knew that if she pointed that man out, that there will be so much blood and no one will be able to hold him back from ripping that man to shreds.
He took slow and shaky breaths and focused on her. He heard the nervous tone in her voice when she finished and hated that she felt nervous around him. He understood why, they were barely acquaintances and she had little trust in him because of it. But he hated that faint tremble in her voice and the tiniest tremble in her body, at least the bit that was touching him. He took one large breath and held it before slowly letting it out.
"Tayla. Should that man ever be in this world and you see him" He spoke, voice rough and having an animalistic tone to it, "I need you to tell me so I can rip him to shreds after making him hang by his intestines." He snarled, pissed as all hell. He moved his hands away from Cerberus and made himself raise them in time of his breathing, forcing himself to calm down before he accidentally send himself to another state.
"What you've been through is horrendous. Absolutely horrendous. We will discuss it, yes, but we will do it in small bits and have so much comfort while this happens. Because talking about abuse and torture is hard, but talking about rape is harder. I had to talk about my own torture and abuse and walked out perfectly fine, but I could not and still can not talk about how I was raped without crying and being put into a panic attack. So we are going to do comfort on that day and I'll ask for Grimr from my younger brother. Think you'll like him if hearing you with Cerberus is an indication." He spoke as calm as he could, even as tears started to well up.
He rest his hands back on Cerberus and cleared his throat, looking towards her as tears started to fall. "But I'm going to ask you a very personal and rough question and I need you to be honest with me. Have you been seen by anyone afterwards? Have you been tested for any STDs or checked to see that your bits are okay? Both the outside and the inside? I know you don't feel pain, but has your monthlies been thrown off since then? Is it lighter, heavier? Has it skipped any cycles? I'm just...this is serious and I worried. Because you can get cysts do to the constant damage. Internal scars, infections, have it completely damaged to the point of reconstruction surgery being need, etc. I need to know so that if you haven't, I can get you scheduled with the woman I've seen after we were picked up from the streets. One that my older brother still sees actually."
"I...Tayla, thank you for trusting me enough to tell me all this. I'm proud of you for sharing this because I know it's hard and it hurt and it just fucking sucks ass. You...you're doing great. So great, but goodness we're getting you cake or ice cream because you deserve it. Treat yourself and all that. It helps with healing, trust me. Goodness... you're a lot stronger than me when I first started seeing a therapist. Which is not the right thing to say as each person heals and deals with trauma differently. But...trust me when I say that you're doing great and that you deserve none of what happened. You deserve cake and a plushie." He babbled, wanting to hug her. "Can-can I hug you?"
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played by AJ
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last online Apr 3, 2024 3:20:50 GMT
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Post by Tayla Smith on Nov 11, 2021 5:27:03 GMT
The fact that Hades was... changing honestly worried Tayla a little a first. "Um. Uh. A-are you okay?" The more he talked though, the more she realized that he was just upset and mad for her. There was a quiver in her voice and tears in her eyes as she responded to him bringing up what he'd do if the Tyrant ever came to this world. "He won't," she whispered. "He can't. I don't... I don't know what I'd do if he did. Run, probably. Get Felicity, get Miguel, get you, and run." She swallowed the lump in her throat and got her emotions back under control. It... it really was soothing, to have it all out there, laid plain and bare. Sure, she'd told the Aegis people and she'd told Miguel and Felicity, but she hadn't explained what happened in detail before. She'd made generalizations, played like it was no big deal, was the tough guy. She bit her lip and nodded when he asked about getting checked out. Then remembered again that he couldn't hear her head wobble and she needed to say something. "Y-yeah. Yeah. The resistance had doctors that checked me out, tried to figure out what happened to my sense of touch too. They don't hurt anymore but the crimson tide still comes in right on schedule and normal." She looked at him babbling away and just started to realize, had it really, truly sink in, that what had happened to her wasn't okay. That it wasn't some cosmic punishment for what had happened with her parents and Nihila. That she hadn't deserved everything that happened to her. Once again, she teared up. She was mad at herself for getting emotional again, she had done so well in keeping things emotionless and clinical while she was relating her story. But just having someone else tell her that what she went through was not okay, that she didn't deserve it, it was getting to her. She nodded again. Then remembered to speak. "Yes. Yes you can hug me. I think I'd like that." Her voice pitched up higher as she tried not to cry again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm trying not to get all emotional again because we just did that but yeah I'd like another hug." Hades Black
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played by KingJ
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