justlittle | inbox - Mask or Menace

I found him in the desert outside Jeopardy. Just walking.

I don't know what happened to make him forget everything.

But I do know I wasn't the first one to find him. Someone calling himself a general told him his name was FN2187 and to find you.

General Hux.

no one else who'd call themselves a general would call him that

fucking

okay

i'll deal with him later

walking around jeopardy

maybe this has to do with that creepy guy out building sand castles in the desert

Jadus?

I don't think so. But it's entirely possible. I can't get a good read on him, even after living and working with him.

I hope Finn's alright. Has he shown any sign of remembering anything?

you live with that guy?

man, i'm sorry

but i can't think of a reason why he would, either, and i'm kind of grasping at straws here

but no

no, he hasn't.

i showed him his room, his paintings, talked about archie...

did he say anything to you?

It's fine, mostly. He's in and out so often, and honestly, so am I. It's easy for us to avoid each other.

No, he didn't. But I picked him up in the RV we painted together and there was zero recognition.

He didn't know who I was, or who you were. Didn't even know who he himself was.

well he didn't port out, that's for sure

so i need to figure out what the hell happened to him

i need to undo it

there was nothing else in the desert when you found him?

Nothing else, just him. I could go back and look. I remember where I ran into him.

okay but don't go alone

i don't know what did this to him, and i don't want whatever happened to happen to you

I'm not sure who I would trust to bring with me.

I would have to explain to whoever it was what I was doing that far out in the desert.

then i'll go with you

just give me some time to get archie here and get finn set up so i don't have to worry about him, and i'll come out and meet you

Alright.

I'll wait for you at the Jeopardy porter complex.

i'll give you a heads up when i'm on my way

[ An hour later Bean gets a message to that effect with an ETA of 20 minutes, and 19 minutes after that, Poe is jogging out of the Porter building, looking sombre. ]

[ Bean is waiting in the parking lot, standing outside his big, camouflage painted RV. He straightens when Poe arrives, and opens the door to the RV for them both to go inside.

He heads straight for the driver's seat, pulling up the special rigging he's designed to allow him to drive the thing. ]

Thank you for coming.

No problem. [ He watches Bean climb in and then climbs into the passenger seat.

Normally he'd offer to fly the thing, but Bean was the one who knew where they were going. ]

This your place?

It's part of the contingency plan.

[ He and Finn had bought and painted it together, and Bean had installed an array of computers and radio frequency scanners in the back. It was their mobile base, where they could get away from the government monitoring-- or so they hoped.

It was also Bean's only form of transportation, besides his bicycle.

He heads out of town, towards the open desert where he had run into Finn. ]

How is he?

Not great.

[ Poe seemed far more closed off than usual, but then, perhaps Bean wouldn't know him well enough to notice. ]

Confused. Hyper vigilant. Lost. Didn't recognize me or Archie. Don't think he really trusted us, either, so much as didn't know where else to go. But we're going to find out whatever happened to him, and we're going to fix it, and get him back to normal.

[ Bean doesn't know this "Archie" person, but he can infer from context that he must be another friend of Finn and Poe's. ]

If we can. [ Poe can be the optimist, Bean will fill the role of the eternal pessimist. He turns the RV away from town and heads back out into the desert, the ride becoming bumpy as he abandons the paved roads of the city. ] Without knowing how he got like this, we don't have much hope of knowing how to fix him.

That’s why we’re going to find out what happened.

[ Poe’s optimism was always a strange beast. He didn’t have faith in everything, but when it came down to things that had to be done? Either you did them, or you didn’t. And saving Finn was not up for debate. He was doing it. Even if - especially if — everyone else thought it was impossible. ]

Even death doesn’t stick, in this place. We’ll fix him. We just need to figure out how to do it.

I've heard that. [ He peers at Poe sidelong, expression curious. ] Is it really true?

[ A thought occurs to him, that Poe probably won't want to hear, but because the thought occurred to him, he has to say it aloud, to examine its validity. ]

If Finn died, would his memory be restored upon revival?

Yeah. It’s true. I’ve seen it. Technically I’ve done it but none of my deaths really count.

[ For someone who just mentioned deaths plural, his expression gets very hard at Bean’s question. ]

I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. There’s always the chance that he doesn’t come back. And more importantly, I am not going to kill someone just because they don’t remember me. He’s scared, and thinks he’s alone, and I am not letting a single damn thing happen to him, even if it means losing him again.

[ He hadn’t meant to say “again”. ]

...

[ Bean had been about to counter Poe's argument with a, "Well, it's something to keep in mind as a last case scenario," until that "again." That, coupled with the "deaths," plural, really cements to Bean that Poe has been through more here than he can really ever know. It was enough to spur him to create Base One. Sure, Bean and Finn had jumped straight into the idea of a secret base, but they shared that paranoid, military-kid background, and the mindset that goes along with it.

What could lead to a mindset like Poe's, but innumerable suffering?

When Bean speaks again, it's softer, kinder. Like he's talking to someone he cherishes, and somewhat pities, and wants to hide from the cold, harsh truth. Someone like Nikolai, or Sister Carlotta. ]

Fine. It won't take us long to get to the spot where I found him wandering. He said he was trying to retrace his steps, so whatever happened shouldn't be too far from there.

[ He’s grateful that his slip didn’t encourage follow up questions, and pulls out his comm to start looking at a map. ]

Depending on who or what did it. But we should be able to find evidence regardle—-

[ He froze, staring down at his phone. ]

Oh, shit.

[ Bean continues to drive, resisting the urge to glance over at Poe again. ]

What, what is it?

I think I might know what it is.

Bodhi just posted about a creature he knows about back home.

[ A second later, he’s having this conversation. ]

A creature did this?

[ Bean is quiet while Poe has his conversation with Bodhi, trying to listen in for clues as best he can while still focusing on driving. ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject