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[cross_and_bow]

Jane tells everyone what happened regarding the Alethian afterlife.

And little tidbits about surrounding events, too.

Bella has been hanging out in the Jarvis she knows better, mentally composing a treaty for the Vxaabli demons, and as she hears the story she slowly, slowly tenses up like a spring.

Comments

[cross_and_bow]

"Yeah?"

[toblameforit]

"...So you know the part where the majority of his problems are basically my fault, right?"

[cross_and_bow]

Bella shakes her head. "I know you cloned yourself and he's what you got, I don't know many of the details about what happened after that. I mean, for most of my relationship with him you were dead and I didn't like to poke at sore topics, so I got into a habit of not inquiring too deeply into his childhood."

[toblameforit]

"Oh. Well - I was twelve," he says. "And I cloned myself. And I didn't really... have any idea what to do with him, so mostly I just left him alone with Jarvis, I didn't even give him a name or anything, it was actually kind of a hilariously ironic exaggeration of my own childhood. And now he has mega issues, which: no shit he does. I mean, I grew up, he grew up, we worked it out... but I definitely know the score when it comes to ineffectual guilty thoughts."

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet nods.

"Did he tell you what happened after - Vampire Me woke up?"

[toblameforit]

"Yeah. Well - yeah."

[cross_and_bow]

"I don't remember it - I wasn't there - my continuity of experience has a discontinuity when I died and picks up again after Golden swung through the Downside catacombs to wake me up. I'm not even sure it makes sense to be guilty. But I'm not sure it doesn't, either."

[toblameforit]

"I'm pretty sure I know what Sherry would say."

[cross_and_bow]

"Yeah. I know too. But that doesn't leave me confident that he's right."

[toblameforit]

"I'm not seeing where you're gonna get a better expert."

[cross_and_bow]

"Maybe. Anyway, now he's - not okay. And either I'm seeing a lot of it because on some level he's connecting me with her even if he wouldn't endorse that intellectually, or he's just - generally traumatized, but then you have special-properties-as-relate-to-Sherlock and he's not traumatized at you as far as I know, that's why you're the one who's doing minting here, and meanwhile the other Bells with Sherlocks don't have this going on, and I keep kicking myself for being jealous because that is in no way healthy, helpful, or an appropriate focus for anybody's emotions about the topic, but I am."

[toblameforit]

"...Do you want a hug?"

[cross_and_bow]

"Might as well."

[toblameforit]

Tony takes off his work gloves, drops his safety goggles on top of them, and hugs her.

[cross_and_bow]

Hugs.

If hugs were going to fix the problem it would already be gone, but even ineffectual hugs are pleasant.

[toblameforit]

"Yeah, I really don't know what to do about the jealousy thing," he says. "Us Tonies get a little of that, but it's about cool shit the other usses have invented and we fix it by inventing more cool shit."

[cross_and_bow]

Bella's floating crosslegged in midair again. "Shell Bell and Pearl have daemons now," she says.

[toblameforit]

"...Should I be figuring something out from that?"

[cross_and_bow]

"And," Bella continues, "Pearl's daemon reportedly preened Shell Bell's hair. Which was presumably adorable because everything about Shell-Bell-and-Pearl is adorable, and is also - I don't know. I don't know what the factors are but there is a big chunk of me saying that because I'm Shell Bell's alt and because my boyfriend is her girlfriend's alt I should be able to have any thing she has, and I can't. Steph didn't even want to say hi - and apparently she didn't say hi to you either, so that's probably not a matter of the specific thing - but today Sherlock decided he doesn't want to figure out a mindreading protocol after all, too, and it's not like it was ever tried so I can't claim to miss it, but."

[toblameforit]

"Well, I mean - you're alts but you're not the literal same people," says Tony. "The impression I get from that crowd is that Pearl is so close to Shell Bell because she was kind of - forced to be. I mean, not in the obvious bad way that that sentence implies, but their world used to be pretty immensely fucked up and when things are immensely fucked up sometimes it makes you kind of - grab onto people a little harder than you otherwise might've."

[cross_and_bow]

"There was actually also an obvious bad way part. Shell Bell started out straight," remarks Juliet, looking at the ceiling.

[toblameforit]

"Yeah, that too. But it's not ongoing or anything."

[cross_and_bow]

"Yeah. What do you mean about the fuckuppedness of the world making Pearl and Shell Bell grab on harder? I don't think I get it."

[toblameforit]

"Okay, I'll put it another way," he says. "Sherries get really intense about stuff. Pearl gets extra intense about stuff because there's always been that life-or-death thing for her, more than there's been for the rest of us because we didn't grow up with teenage gladiators on live TV every year. Like, talk about reminders of mortality, damn."

[cross_and_bow]

"I'd think being a vampire would be a pretty significant reminder of mortality. I guess it's different in kind."