Odis
Fennel had been in the dorm kitchens when they saw.

Maybe "Saw" Wasn't quite right.

Fennel had been in the dorm kitchens when they *Saw.*

Something was wrong. Terribly off and terribly wrong. The gardens were being subsumed by a violent static, something not of this world and barely in it, something not unlike what had been terrorizing Newton's Cradle for months and had knocked Fennel themselves into a coma.

The static was thrashing violently, mindlessly. Like an animal in pain. And it *Was* In pain, Fennel knew, somehow. Knew without knowing, with no way to be certain of it. They just Knew.

Fennel had been Seeing and Knowing a great many things recently.

Before they knew it, they found themselves pitying the poor thing. *Armando,* They recalled the students having named it. They weren't sure they liked the name. But they liked that it was being thought of as a person, of some kind. People might empathize that way.

Where were they? They snap themselves out of reminiscence.

They're in the garden. They can still see Armando, faintly. They have a tray in their hands with warm tea and fresh fruit. Their clothes aren't warm enough for the weather, they note, suppressing a shiver for fear that they might drop something off the tray.

The tea isn't for them, anyway. They'll probably be back inside soon.

Fennel wasn't expecting it — them? — to talk.

They took a startled step back when they heard the voice, croaking out their name, but it didn't take long for them to come to their senses. They were standing in front of a living thing, not a tornado. One that had been in their head. It perhaps shouldn't be surprising that... They could speak.

Fennel decided to think of Armando as a "They" For the time being.

They cautiously stepped forward, toward the surprisingly human features they could just barely see within the messy distortion. "Mmhm," They nodded, "That's me." They tried to gauge how close they could get without being put back in a coma or something. The distortion's shape was hard to parse, so they just decided to stay where they were.

They sat down in the grass, still slightly wet from a rain shower earlier in the day, and placed the tray of refreshments in front of them.

"I brought you some tea... If you drink tea. Fruit too, if you want some." The bowl of fruit wedges was obvious enough on its own, but the tea was still in the kettle. They let their face rest in a light, comfortable smile, and poured two cups - one for Armando, and one for them. "What's your name?"

"Basil!" Fennel exclaimed. "We're both named after herbs, then!" They grinned widely. It took some grit to be friendly, considering what they were looking at, but they wanted to try. After all, Basil had said their name. They were a person, though an unusual and pained one.

Fennel took a step back, leaving the fruit and tea at a comfortable distance for Basil to take, and sat back down in the grass.

"I saw you from the window. Up there." Fennel pointed. "You seemed upset. Hurt, maybe." It felt a bit weird to ask the giant static monster if something was wrong — clearly it was — so Fennel spent a moment finding another way to ask.

"Do you need help?"

Cw// ||discussion of death/mercy-killing||

||Fennel cupped their hands around their mug of warm tea, holding it as if it were the last source of warmth in the whole world. They looked down into the tea and took a long swig. It burned their tongue a little.

"You're frightening," They admitted. "It's hard to forget you're dangerous, that if I get too close I might get hurt." They swallowed the clump in their throat, hoping dearly that Basil wouldn't get upset. "But I'm not upset. Not *At* You, anyway. You don't want to hurt me, you just..." They trailed off. Basil shouldn't need anything more to get the message, they thought.

They didn't hate Basil. In fact, they weren't upset at all. They'd lost a great deal, but they jumped in front of a bullet. It would be ridiculous of them to expect not to be hit. Yet even still, assigning Basil no blame at all was wrong too. Basil was lashing out, and continued to do so even after knocking Fennel into a coma. Fennel didn't want that to last. 

"You're hurting. You lash out. That's normal, Basil, it means you're alive. I don't hold a grudge for it — I can't — but..." Tough love, Fennel told themselves. They hoped it would work. "...You know you can't keep lashing out like this. I'll help if you let me, but I need to know how."

They thought about seeing Amelie for the first time after they woke. They thought about the Amelie they remembered from their comatose dreams. She had been a pile of flesh, alive by nothing more than force of will, in pain Fennel had no words for. But she had been alive, and she had Fennel to thank for that, and Fennel had wondered, occasionally, if perhaps letting her die would have been a better decision. They sipped their tea to occupy themselves with the warmth.

"I can't save any more people."||
John
The words seemed to resonate into the void, echoing just slightly into the vastness as it shifted around. The well meaning words of the person they know they'd hurt – *Is this feeling familiar, Basil?*

"I don't know if I can, either," He finally admitted. "We are similar, though – the two of us, not, me and Levvy. We're both emotional people, powers wise. Right? I didn't see that one wrong?"

Not that it was easy to see in there. 

"What are your powers like, Fennel?"
Odis
Fennel paused. Talking about their powers felt difficult. They didn't know if they'd ever done it much, and their memory of actually using them was... Spotty, at best. But they nodded.

"I get into people's heads. Make them see and feel and believe things." That was the most straightforward way of putting it. They didn't like talking about 'hallucinations' or 'delusions' or 'emotional manipulation' — it made their powers too abstract, too clinical. What they had read in their file suggested to them that being clinical about their powers would diminish the damage they had caused.

"I've hurt a lot of people with them." Their tone was flat, like they were just stating a fact. They couldn't feel remorse for it without remembering it. "But I don't want to hurt people, so I don't, anymore. I hope."
John
"I get that," They said. The void itself seemed to take a seat, dangling his feet over the chair and staring out at Fennel. Static climbed over the floor, lurching out as Basil's claw-like hands reached out and pulled it back, tangible.

"I have too."

His voice wasn't flat, like Fennel's, but wobbly, perhaps through the nature of the thing, or, just with something else. A fidget muttered through his hands, tapping what almost looked like crossed legs, sitting right on the floor in front of them.

"Mine are-... They're about making my emotions, um. Real, in a way. I can make them into these projections. Like, um. My happiness is, you know, pink. My anger is gold."

Basil took a deep breath, one that rattled the frame of the void.

"How bright they are depends on how much I feel them. Does that make sense?"
Odis
Basil said they'd hurt people. Fennel knew. Maybe.

*Did* Fennel know? The more they talked, the less they seemed to know. It elicited some one-of-a-kind mix of morbid curiosity and genuine concern. They were cold, sitting in the grass, but willing to endure the discomfort.

What *Did* Happen to Basil? And what happened to *Fennel*? 

Fennel took a deep breath when Basil did, unconsciously mirroring whatever passed for their body language. It took a moment for the realization to hit. "You breathe," Fennel half-whispered, shocked. Basil had seemed so... Ephemeral. Unreal. Connected to reality by the barest thread, existing as a vague manifestation of static and an aura of doom. But they breathed. They ate fruit and they drank tea. They were alive — perhaps even alive enough that there would be a person to save underneath all the static.

Fennel interrupted their own shock to engage with the conversation again. "Yeah," They affirmed, "That makes sense." They frowned a little, and gestured to the static. "So is that what... That is? Your emotions? "
John
"I do," Basil said. They reached out towards Fennel, extending a hand and letting their claws drag across the air. For a moment, they flickered, and the claw was only a hand - the hand of a boy, locked away to rot.

"I like to think I'm still a bit human. Somewhere, in here."

Something about Fennel's surprise was humbling, almost. Many of the students did not perceive Basil nor Levi as human - though, understandably so, what rational human would? - but the formation of his name on the lips of a real, breathing human, even Levi's, helped. It pulled the demonstratives of their personalities forward from the base instincts that had kept the two of them alive for so long.

A thief will always steal, Basil thought, slowly lifting another piece of fruit into the static. He was particularly fond of honeydew melons, he remembered - little things like that came back from time to time. Levi was allergic to pecans. Basil liked a dark, foresty green. That sort of thing.

"...Yes, and also, no," He finally said. "The static, here - that's all Levi's power. But my, um. My powers, and, um, someone else's, they've sort of, perpetuated it, in a way. It's this terrible web neither of us can climb out of."
Odis
"When I came out here," Fennel admitted tentatively, "I was expecting... I was expecting something else, I guess. A presence, a force of nature, that I might be able to calm or soothe somehow. But you're a wounded person— you're wounded *People*— and that's..."

It's not so different. People are animals at heart, lashing out when they're in pain and living and loving just the same. But it's not quite the same. A wounded animal, you can offer gentle comfort. A wounded *Person...*

"You're hurting. And you're... You're human enough to talk to me about it. You eat and drink and breathe and you lash out because you're in pain." They paused and closed their eyes. "And you feel guilty for hurting me." They opened their eyes again, pointing them straight into the static, squarely at the exact point where Basil's eyes are supposed to be. Their gaze, rarely for them, was piercing.

"Keep thinking you're human, Basil, because you're right. Keep talking. Tell anyone who will listen everything you know. Sooner or later, someone's going to be able to help you, Basil. It might even be me, and if it is, I'll be happy to help."

Fennel grabbed the tray, stood up, and took a deep breath. "People are listening already. It's up to you to talk. I need to go back inside now, but... I hope you figure things out. And if you need me, I'll be there. It's alivebeing on the intranet, if you didn't know already. Don't be a stranger."

Their tone was serious, but they were smiling. They had an air about them of a parent trying their very hardest to help a troubled child, to smile through the worst of times for the sake of encouraging someone more important than themselves. They didn't even know if they'd be willing, should it come to it, to risk going back into a coma for Basil's sake, but they wanted to help. Somehow.

Somehow.
Douglas
The heaviness cleared up, some, in the air. A little blue bird materialized from the static, tweeting a high, upbeat melody, coming up to rest on Basil's shoulder. They looked down at it, and there, a little smile formed on the ruddy silhouette of a face.

"This is hope," He said. His voice was almost as light as Levi's could be. He held out a hand, and the little bird fluttered onto it, it's feathers shuffling around it's round form. The bird pleasantly butted it's head into Basil's odd, spindly fingers. "I haven't seen her in a while."

No, mostly, it was anger, looming over their shoulder, golden eyes boring into the inhabitation of this horrific monstrosity they'd become, snarling, claws ripping through the veil and lashing out at the people inside and outside. Frustration, anger, rage, spite - they all contributed to the thing, and whispered more into Basil's ear. 

No, Basil hadn't seen their hope in a while.

"Thank you, though." Their voice reverberated through the static, almost echoing. A rumbling, like a clearing of the throat. "We can have real tea someday."
Odis
"Yes," Fennel agreed, "Let's hope."

As they walked back inside, they quietly reached into whatever part of Basil their powers could grasp, and tempered their anger just a little.

Basil deserved the comfort.