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thisavrou_log2016-04-04 05:22 pm
forwardmomentum) wrote in thisavrou_log2016-04-04 05:22 pm
there's a room full of people in your head [closed]
Who: Miles, Ivan, and Clark
When: the evening of 4/5
Where: Miles's office/room on J deck
What: Miles's sense of identity finally collapses. Ivan and Clark throw him in an ice bath.
Warnings: trauma/PTSD, suicide mention, general mental illness, emetophobia warning
Somewhere in his mind, in the late hours of the night, Miles thought the semi-familiar surroundings of the office-cum-personal space he'd gotten as a rank bonus in January might provide comfort in a storm of panic. It doesn't, really. Not as much as he'd hoped. The soft, cool tones of the walls and furniture and floors, ones that Ivan picked for him, don't quite feel like his own. Nothing does, right now. He opens and closes his hands again and again, fingertips touching to palms, but they fail to make a circuit.
It's impossible to pinpoint how it all started, or when. Earlier than the last month, certainly. Since he arrived on the Moira -- no, it was before that, wasn't it? All the way back on Earth. Maybe it doesn't matter. It doesn't. It's all a blur -- there are no points in time, only stitches missed, and Miles, oh, he's missed at least a few, he's sure. He can't find them all in the wash of panic that crept in on him, echoes of conversations with Mark heavy in his ears, but he's losing the distinction between Mark's voice and his own and his own, and when it got too loud he stumbled out of his office in search of better shelter. Drowning himself in work no longer works, and sleep -- sleep wouldn't take him back no matter how much he begged and pleaded. He does beg and plead to an empty room, but the only echoes are in his own mind; everything in this room feels crowded and unwelcome, and he's suddenly too aware of the smell of recycled air in his lungs and mouth and his stomach twists in on itself.
He doesn't start crying until after he's bolted from his room on J deck to the bathroom to throw up what little food he's eaten in the last twelve hours. Most of it is just bile. People who describe bile as sour, Miles reflects distantly as he rests his forehead atop his good arm on the toilet seat, have never heaved until there was nothing left in them and then some. It's bitter as hell. It's late enough that there's no one else in the bathroom on this deck, for which Miles is deeply relieved. There are few things more humiliating than half-lying on the bathroom floor, alternating between hyperventilation and vomiting, with undignified sobbing running as the background track. After about an hour of that, resting his forehead against the toilet seat while he tries to catch his breath, he decides that if his stomach is going to continue to put up a fight, they can duke it out in his room. That's what the wastebin is for.
He drifts between crying and hyperventilating on the bed and crying and hyperventilating in his chair and, just to mix it up, paces endlessly and unsteadily while he talks to himself, rapidly and urgently. What about, he couldn't say. The words seem to evaporate as soon as he gives them breath. He gnaws at that hangnail on his thumb until the skin there is red and swollen and bitten away, the rest of him eroding along with it. It feels like it, anyway. He feels lost, falling endlessly, hands grasping at thin air when he tries to tell himself who he is, or why he is... He's Miles, right. He's Miles. But which Miles? Who is Miles, anyway? Somewhere along the line, between those frenetic deaths and near-deaths, real and imagined, in the space between sleep and waking, he'd lost total and utter control over himself, his memory, his personhood -- parts of the last month he's almost certain he doesn't remember, others, he couldn't banish from memory if he wanted to. He hadn't meant to let Naismith out, all those times, he'd just come out -- maybe it's just that Vorkosigan wasn't up for the job, eh? -- he'd been determined to keep Admiral Naismith on the shelf during his time on the Moira, far and away from the rest of them, just to keep things simpler. But it never had been that simple. He never had felt whole. And just what would you do without the little Admiral, Miles?
But it's not like that isn't him. They're all him, aren't they? But he isn't any of them, not here. Not without Barrayar, not without the Dendarii. All the hyperventilation and tears in the world wouldn't scrub that away, just sending him into an endless tailspin. It's like gum you've chewed so long it's lost its meaning, or a word you've said so many times it's lost its flavor. No furious working of the mouth serves to retrieve it.
There's a distinct shift somewhere in there, although he can't quite put a finger on it. He seems outside himself, watching the war going on inside his own head, some tesseract of consciousness he can almost reach out and touch. The shortness of breath, the reeling dizziness, the painful tightness in his chest and the roiling nausea in his empty stomach, they're all there and he can feel them, but they're happening to someone else. Someone else. Ha. He's always someone else. He certainly must be now.
He can't remember how long he's been sitting in this chair, but he must have sat down before he fell out of himself, because he hasn't moved since. He feels frozen without the chill, a soft paralysis of the body. Stuck in time, maybe, one of those skipped stitches. He couldn't move if he wanted to, but that's fine, he reflects distantly. After endless motion and nothing but, feeling it happen from a distance now, he doesn't want to move at all. Moving won't bring an end to this. He's not sure what will. Death, maybe -- he thought about suicide, even if only briefly. The knife his grandfather left him lies half-unsheathed on the table, a mere arm's length away. But it wouldn't do him any good, he knows that. He'd only come back, and even less whole than before. What was it Sans and Chara had talked about -- resets? A reset sounds nice. If only he were as capable of it as Sans is convinced he is. He'd laugh, if he could access that part of himself.
Time has no meaning -- it's hours on hours that he sits in that chair, eyes unseeing and locked on the middle distance, hands curled and shaking in his lap. He ought to put his broken arm back in the sling, but the cast will have to do for now. His back hurts like hell, every joint stiff and aching, but he barely feels it all the same; he's vaguely aware that the shallow, labored breathing has left him dizzy and light-headed, but that's someone else's head, someone else's lungs. They're only attached to a name now.
When: the evening of 4/5
Where: Miles's office/room on J deck
What: Miles's sense of identity finally collapses. Ivan and Clark throw him in an ice bath.
Warnings: trauma/PTSD, suicide mention, general mental illness, emetophobia warning
Somewhere in his mind, in the late hours of the night, Miles thought the semi-familiar surroundings of the office-cum-personal space he'd gotten as a rank bonus in January might provide comfort in a storm of panic. It doesn't, really. Not as much as he'd hoped. The soft, cool tones of the walls and furniture and floors, ones that Ivan picked for him, don't quite feel like his own. Nothing does, right now. He opens and closes his hands again and again, fingertips touching to palms, but they fail to make a circuit.
It's impossible to pinpoint how it all started, or when. Earlier than the last month, certainly. Since he arrived on the Moira -- no, it was before that, wasn't it? All the way back on Earth. Maybe it doesn't matter. It doesn't. It's all a blur -- there are no points in time, only stitches missed, and Miles, oh, he's missed at least a few, he's sure. He can't find them all in the wash of panic that crept in on him, echoes of conversations with Mark heavy in his ears, but he's losing the distinction between Mark's voice and his own and his own, and when it got too loud he stumbled out of his office in search of better shelter. Drowning himself in work no longer works, and sleep -- sleep wouldn't take him back no matter how much he begged and pleaded. He does beg and plead to an empty room, but the only echoes are in his own mind; everything in this room feels crowded and unwelcome, and he's suddenly too aware of the smell of recycled air in his lungs and mouth and his stomach twists in on itself.
He doesn't start crying until after he's bolted from his room on J deck to the bathroom to throw up what little food he's eaten in the last twelve hours. Most of it is just bile. People who describe bile as sour, Miles reflects distantly as he rests his forehead atop his good arm on the toilet seat, have never heaved until there was nothing left in them and then some. It's bitter as hell. It's late enough that there's no one else in the bathroom on this deck, for which Miles is deeply relieved. There are few things more humiliating than half-lying on the bathroom floor, alternating between hyperventilation and vomiting, with undignified sobbing running as the background track. After about an hour of that, resting his forehead against the toilet seat while he tries to catch his breath, he decides that if his stomach is going to continue to put up a fight, they can duke it out in his room. That's what the wastebin is for.
He drifts between crying and hyperventilating on the bed and crying and hyperventilating in his chair and, just to mix it up, paces endlessly and unsteadily while he talks to himself, rapidly and urgently. What about, he couldn't say. The words seem to evaporate as soon as he gives them breath. He gnaws at that hangnail on his thumb until the skin there is red and swollen and bitten away, the rest of him eroding along with it. It feels like it, anyway. He feels lost, falling endlessly, hands grasping at thin air when he tries to tell himself who he is, or why he is... He's Miles, right. He's Miles. But which Miles? Who is Miles, anyway? Somewhere along the line, between those frenetic deaths and near-deaths, real and imagined, in the space between sleep and waking, he'd lost total and utter control over himself, his memory, his personhood -- parts of the last month he's almost certain he doesn't remember, others, he couldn't banish from memory if he wanted to. He hadn't meant to let Naismith out, all those times, he'd just come out -- maybe it's just that Vorkosigan wasn't up for the job, eh? -- he'd been determined to keep Admiral Naismith on the shelf during his time on the Moira, far and away from the rest of them, just to keep things simpler. But it never had been that simple. He never had felt whole. And just what would you do without the little Admiral, Miles?
But it's not like that isn't him. They're all him, aren't they? But he isn't any of them, not here. Not without Barrayar, not without the Dendarii. All the hyperventilation and tears in the world wouldn't scrub that away, just sending him into an endless tailspin. It's like gum you've chewed so long it's lost its meaning, or a word you've said so many times it's lost its flavor. No furious working of the mouth serves to retrieve it.
There's a distinct shift somewhere in there, although he can't quite put a finger on it. He seems outside himself, watching the war going on inside his own head, some tesseract of consciousness he can almost reach out and touch. The shortness of breath, the reeling dizziness, the painful tightness in his chest and the roiling nausea in his empty stomach, they're all there and he can feel them, but they're happening to someone else. Someone else. Ha. He's always someone else. He certainly must be now.
He can't remember how long he's been sitting in this chair, but he must have sat down before he fell out of himself, because he hasn't moved since. He feels frozen without the chill, a soft paralysis of the body. Stuck in time, maybe, one of those skipped stitches. He couldn't move if he wanted to, but that's fine, he reflects distantly. After endless motion and nothing but, feeling it happen from a distance now, he doesn't want to move at all. Moving won't bring an end to this. He's not sure what will. Death, maybe -- he thought about suicide, even if only briefly. The knife his grandfather left him lies half-unsheathed on the table, a mere arm's length away. But it wouldn't do him any good, he knows that. He'd only come back, and even less whole than before. What was it Sans and Chara had talked about -- resets? A reset sounds nice. If only he were as capable of it as Sans is convinced he is. He'd laugh, if he could access that part of himself.
Time has no meaning -- it's hours on hours that he sits in that chair, eyes unseeing and locked on the middle distance, hands curled and shaking in his lap. He ought to put his broken arm back in the sling, but the cast will have to do for now. His back hurts like hell, every joint stiff and aching, but he barely feels it all the same; he's vaguely aware that the shallow, labored breathing has left him dizzy and light-headed, but that's someone else's head, someone else's lungs. They're only attached to a name now.