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10 BRAINS; voice
I'm not the greatest ad spokesperson in the world, but as usual, if you know science, the Genessian Scientific Research Foundation could use your help. We're seriously understaffed right now and the more people we have working, the more likely we are to find something. I'm a surgeon-turned-assistant medical examiner-turned-pathologist, there are only so many possibilities I can cover or you'd probably be getting more frequent updates, Genessia.
How many of you are from the U.S.? I know this isn't exactly the home-of-the-brave here, but I'll admit to missing out on barbecues and fireworks. Is anyone doing anything tomorrow?
locked to blaine (or action if he's around the apt or her work, whichever you want)
Where have you been?
action for toby
[ Liv had categorically refused to go into Everglade unless someone needed her help. Fortunately, there were enough healers around that it hadn't really become an issue. Not enough that anyone ever sent out a call for a medical doctor anyway. All of those people tended to end up at a hospital of some kind if they weren't healed immediately.
Which is why when she was on her way to meet Toby, she always insisted they meet at the Everglade gate. She'd found that it was kind of nice having a person around who understood why she couldn't tell her secret who wasn't also busy with work all the time (David, as good of a friend as he was to her) or seemed to think it was a big cosmic joke (Blaine, the man who infected her in the first place). As it turned out, as with back home, the more people she could trust the better she felt about anything. Even if she still hadn't found her purpose, she was still trying. THat was better than the first time- no couch-bound Liv today.
She wasn't sure where they were going today, just that they'd decided to hang out, so Liv waited by the archway gate, messing around on her phone while she waited. ]
How many of you are from the U.S.? I know this isn't exactly the home-of-the-brave here, but I'll admit to missing out on barbecues and fireworks. Is anyone doing anything tomorrow?
locked to blaine (or action if he's around the apt or her work, whichever you want)
Where have you been?
action for toby
[ Liv had categorically refused to go into Everglade unless someone needed her help. Fortunately, there were enough healers around that it hadn't really become an issue. Not enough that anyone ever sent out a call for a medical doctor anyway. All of those people tended to end up at a hospital of some kind if they weren't healed immediately.
Which is why when she was on her way to meet Toby, she always insisted they meet at the Everglade gate. She'd found that it was kind of nice having a person around who understood why she couldn't tell her secret who wasn't also busy with work all the time (David, as good of a friend as he was to her) or seemed to think it was a big cosmic joke (Blaine, the man who infected her in the first place). As it turned out, as with back home, the more people she could trust the better she felt about anything. Even if she still hadn't found her purpose, she was still trying. THat was better than the first time- no couch-bound Liv today.
She wasn't sure where they were going today, just that they'd decided to hang out, so Liv waited by the archway gate, messing around on her phone while she waited. ]
action;
[ If she didn't trust Toby now would be the time to panic. But he's proven fairly trustworthy. ]
action;
It means you don't live a life for you.
[He holds open the door and gestures inside. It's small and musty on the inside, smelling like wood, BO and beer.]
action;
When I said I'd be okay with having kids in the future before I became a zombie, Blaine was not what I meant.
[ And yet. Liv looks around cautiously. She's pretty sure this is the sort of bar that Clive would tell her to stay out of and argue against letting her into even if he was with her. Of course, if she thought she needed to talk to someone in there, intrepidity was a part of Liv's nature that existed outside of whoever's brain she'd last eaten. That never changed. ]
It's.. quaint.
action;
I like it.
[He places his hand between her shoulder blades and slowly guides her towards the bar. he picks two seats at the end and holds one out for her before taking his own seat.]
What do you drink?
action;
Liv allows Toby to guide her, taking a seat at the bar where he indicates. ]
That's.. not an easy question.
[ On an alcoholic's brain? Just about anything. Normally..? ]
Nothing flavored unless it's spicy. I can feel the burn of alcohol and I can get drunk, but my tastebuds are soundly in the deadder half of my half-deadness.
action;
[It can be more smoky than spicy but that's all Toby can think of that's outside the realm of strange mixed drinks. This place is a small whole in the wall sort of bar that mostly stocks basics so he'll let her try some things and just order something else if she doesn't like it.
Most of his money goes to drinking anyway.
Toby rises a hand and the bartender walks over. He glances between the two of them before Toby gives him their order. It's slow in the restaurant and so it doesn't take them long to get their drinks.]
action;
How often do you come here?
action;
[Though he's usually in a bar once a night. Sometimes less, nowadays but he likes bars.]
action;
[ She's not so sure about a place this quiet and dark. ]
action; (Sorry I need to redo his icons so you get his default for a bit <3)
[Toby lightly taps his ear.]
People don't realize what they say or that I have very good hearing.
[He takes a drink before clicking the glass lightly to the polished bar counter.]
While we're here, tell me why you can't accept a part of you? [He might be slightly switching into big brother mode thanks to having so many younger siblings but he is curious. It isn't how she was born but until she finds a cure it's part of her. Being a werewolf, Toby sees the world a little differently, he doesn't understand denying any part of yourself. He hunts when he feels the urge and his instincts pull more towards violent outlets but it's how he is and he's accepted that.]
action;
[ The light-hearted teasing is put to a stop when he asks that question, the smile that had been forming on her lips despite the caution she held about being in Everglade faltered, and she stared at him quietly for a moment before turning her eyes ahead. She waits for the bartender to set the drinks down and takes a drink of hers. Right when it finally seems like she isn't going to say anything, she speaks up. ]
I have to hold onto everything about who I am or I won't be able to tell who that is when I eat the wrong brain. Every time I eat one, part of that personality takes hold of me and becomes part of who I am until the next one. Half the time, I don't know if what I'm doing is me or who I last ate and I can't control it. I've lost my family, my fiance, and two boyfriends because of being this. The more "this" I am, the more people get hurt. Nevermind the active cannibalism and the fact that half the people I'm around make me feel like Homer Simpson around a box of donuts that I just need a good hard rock to get to, or if I don't eat I stop being me entirely and end up like those mindless apocalypse-starting zombies who want nothing more than to tear into every piece of flesh they're near and don't care who they scratch. There's no coming back from that, we already tried.
action;
Why not write it down?
[He takes a long sip of his drink.]
You can't forget then and you can write down each brain, each person. Things are never forgotten if they're written.
[Toby isn't a big writer or reader.]
action;
action;
[He knows someone who has a similar problem though it's through memory altercation and control. Instead of turning into different people he turns into a robot. So Toby can understand to a degree though it's nothing he's experienced himself.]
Sounds difficult. How do you do handle it?
action;
[ Which she realizes she should probably explain in case it isn't self-evident due to differing movies. ]
As in flesh starts to rot, I disappear completely, and want nothing more than to use my superhuman strength to tear apart and eat any flesh at all. I try to err on the side of brains and hope for the best.
[ She doesn't handle it well honestly, but she tries. "Hope for the best" is the most optimistic way she can think of to put that. ]
action;
Sounds like you have it figured out. [At least that's what he's getting at.]
Now you just need to stop feeling guilty about surviving.
[This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black; pot meet kettle.]
action;
[ If only it were that easy. ]
action;
[He rolls his shoulders taking a long sip of her drink.]
I've done a lot of horrible things to stay alive. [...]How long have you been a zombie?
action;
[ That's the question of the century: Is being undead really the same as being alive? ]
Probably.. going on two years back home? Plus time spent here, if that counts.
action;
[He considers her alive but that's his opinion and he doesn't weight that very high. Toby has a lot of experiance in hating what you've become. He's done that for twenty years and to a degree he still does it.]
action;
[ She takes a drink of the booze before her, downing basically the whole thing. ]
But I make it work, as long as I can find some way to give back. Everglade reminds me of what I could become if I don't stick to that.
action;
[He takes a long sip of his drink, downing it before placing the empty glass down.]
Look, my family was torn apart. I became a hit man for a psychopathic jackass. I've done things that serial killers would grimace at or run in the face of. I've eaten and murdered children, making sure that nothing was left of them. The most I could do at the time is remember their names. [He knows them all.] I became a god damn bogey man to those in the Hidden World. I've cut myself off from those I know and denied myself everything because I didn't think I deserved it.
Don't be like me. Denying anything can find a way to get back at you.
action;
She had killed the coworker who had invited her to the boat party, whether she'd had to deal with it at the time or not. Just like she had been the one to convince Lowell that Blaine had to die and Lowell had died because she couldn't finish the job. She'd definitely killed Sebastian Meyer, twice. She had never killed children, she had never become something that people feared though, and she always tried to do what was right and tried to find justice for the people she had to eat.
Not trying to tell Toby that she didn't think someone like that deserved to be forgiven was hard for her. She always acted like she knew what was the right call and it always came back to bite her. Which was pretty funny considering she's the one most people would expect to do the biting. What wasn't funny was what Liv asked next, because she couldn't live with herself if she didn't try to find out. ]
Do you still do those things?
action;
No.
[His words are gruff and terse and he quickly gulps down the next drink before he continues.] I don't think I will. [There are parts of himself that have been bred into a weapon. If he were to snap or lose control he has no idea what he'd do. So far the only casualties have been trees but Toby isn't enough of an optimist to think it'll stay that way.
If she were to ask him if he deserves forgiveness he'd automatically have an answer; no. There is nothing that will fully be able to punish him for the things he's done. He doesn't deserve to be happy. Prior to arriving in Genessia he's had to look into the faces of the families that he's torn apart.
It doesn't matter what side of the fight he finds himself on; he'll always just be a tool used for war. Toby is pretty sure that's the only reason he's still alive.]
action;
If you don't still do it and you don't plan on it, we don't have a problem.
action;
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Re: action;
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