Event Log: Tears of Joy

[hadrielmods]

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the Tears of Joy event
Where: All over the city
When: April 21st-April 30th
Warnings: Lots and lots of regret

Sorrow's back! That's great, except for the sudden wave of sorrow and regret blanketing the city. And boy is it strong. It's hard to think about anything except all the times you've hurt someone, let someone down, failed. It's hard to get through your day while your mind is full of those thoughts, but you have to, right? Otherwise you might be letting someone else down.

Everything would feel a lot better if you could just find a way to make up for what you've done. A way to earn forgiveness. Do you deserve it? Maybe not, but if you can figure out the right thing to do, it won't matter - you'll make up for all the wrongs you committed and everything will be fine. So what will you do? Clean your friend's entire house? Hunt monsters and leave their heads at your ex's doorstep, like a particularly upsetting cat? Or is there something else even more drastic you can do?

Or maybe this isn't really affecting you at all - but someone else feels like they've wronged you, and they want to make it up to you. Are you going to take advantage of this? Pretend it's not happening? You do still feel kind of annoyed by that thing they did that time...

► This log covers April 21st-April 30th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you decide the only way to make up for what you've done is the final solution, please let us know here.

Comments

[aroundthecoroner]

[After being phone-banned for the foreseeable future, Michael's making an attempt to get back to his regular schedule without... doing anything stupid. It's harder to confess in person because then he has to deal with the consequences directly. And as much as he wants the consequences right now, he's at least in control enough to not tell everyone that walks in the clinic doors.

That won't stop anyone from telling him things, though. Or, you know, asking.

At the moment, Michael is distractedly filling out reports, trying not to think too hard about Rosen being in the room. He should tell him what he meant back when they had that dream together. He should tell him what that was all about.

Except no, he shouldn't. God. He's busy trying to distract himself when Rosen clears his throat. Michael flinches slightly, then turns.]

Uh. Did you... need something?

[drabsolutelynot]

A lot of my patients ended up in that same prison because of me.

[A different wing. A wing specially designed for them. But nonetheless they were there on his authorization.

He keeps staring at Michael as he says it, tone as though he just told Michael he'd lost his car keys rather than made a confession.]

[aroundthecoroner]

[Oh, now this is spooky. It's like Rosen knew what he was thinking about. The staring and the casual tone don't help.]

What are you talking about? The prison from the dream?

[He knows what he's talking about. He's stalling. Except-]

I was in a place like that once. I deserved to be there, honestly. I probably belong in a prison.

[He says it without thinking. Shit.]

[drabsolutelynot]

[He doesn't bother to confirm that yes, it was that prison. Because of course Michael would have to know it was that prison.]

The people I put there did not all deserve it. And none of them deserved the treatment they received there.

[Rosen stands up and with a quiet, uneven gait makes his way over to Michael]

What do you mean...'you belong in a prison' ?

[aroundthecoroner]

What treatment? What did they do to them?

[If it was anything like what he went through as a kid then... Nobody deserves that. Well. Mostly nobody. Sometimes he thinks he did.]

I'm not a good person. I've done some pretty terrible stuff. If people knew about it, they'd want me locked up, and they wouldn't be wrong.

[drabsolutelynot]

They were... 'fixed'. People were scared of their special abilities so those special abilities were forcibly removed or dampened.

[Rosen hadn't known about the procedures. But did that really change anything? He was still the one who had sent them there.

It wasn't until Marcus he got a glimpse behind Binghamton's facade but at the time he hadn't wanted to look. Hadn't wanted to accept that the nagging feeling he'd been having in his gut hadn't just been an old man's curmudgeonly nerves. It had been based on a reality that he had actively refused to acknowledge.

You don't know what goes on at Binghamton, and you like it that way. Isn't that what Dr. Singh had said?]

What have you done that is so terrible?

[aroundthecoroner]

Jesus Christ.

[Michael feels a building tension in his chest, the same kind of achy panic he had during the dream. It's a struggle not to just fall into it, but he's fine, he's fine, this isn't happening here and now. It's in the past. All of it.]

And you put people there? Why?

[He'll get back to his own crimes in a minute.]

[drabsolutelynot]

I didn't know that that was what was going to happen to them.

[His tone goes sharp, practically a bark before he inhales deeply, trying to get ahold of himself.]

When I sent them there, I was sending them to a medical institution. Not a prison. The idea was to help them rehabilitate. To help them familiarize themselves with their capabilities so that they could live more successfully in their communities without danger to themselves or others. The cases that went to Binghamton were the cases that were too much for weekly or monthly treatment. The ones who needed day to day care.

[A hand reaches up to irritatedly scratch through his hair, leaving wisps of it sticking up oddly]

I had seen it for myself. A clinic. Just like I had been told that it was. But....I was tricked. I was tricked when there was no reason that I should have been so stupid.

[aroundthecoroner]

A medical institution. [Michael spits the phrase out with obvious distrust.]

And what, they all went there willingly? They all wanted your "day to day care"? Everybody's dangerous, even without special powers. That doesn't mean we lock everybody up.

[He has to remind himself to breathe. This isn't about him. Except it is. It's about people like him. The ones nobody wants to deal with, so they just send them off somewhere else, somewhere they can't bother them anymore. Out of sight, out of mind. And look what happened.]

I was in one of those places once. Before I even did anything to deserve it. That's part of what I was talking about, in that dream. It was supposed to "fix" me, too. It didn't.

[Which is all the detail he's willing to go into.]

[drabsolutelynot]

I was not sending them to be locked up! The clinic I had been shown, the regimen of treatments I was assured they'd be receiving involved no involuntary participation with the exception of cases who had previously committed violent crimes. So yes, Michael, the majority of my patients were looking for help coping with these capabilities.

[He closes his eyes and exhales slowly]

Which makes it worse. They wanted help. And they got rounded up and treated like...like cows infected with hoof and mouth disease.

[Chips implanted into their brain stems. Imprisonment. It makes him feel sick to his stomach]

Officially I worked for the D.o.D. A government contract. Patients with these types of conditions would be referred to me by regular doctors via a government channel. The mild to mid-level cases would remain in my care...but the others were referred to the Binghamton clinic, as I was instructed by the department to do. It was understood...no. I was lied to and told that there were specialists more equipped to help more severe cases there. The reality was the government was trying to eliminate a threat. They weren't referring patients to me so they could be helped. They were using me to sniff out what they viewed as potential enemies.

[His fingers grip the table so tightly his knuckles go white]

When I found out the truth I revealed the governments actions...their plans to drive Alphas underground and into extinction...to the public. Appealed to the world in the hopes that Alphas and non-Alphas could peaceably co-exist. And that is how I ended up in that prison as well.

[aroundthecoroner]

[Michael's quiet for a minute, digesting. That's a lot to take in. Technically speaking, Rosen is innocent. If he's telling the truth, then he had no idea what was happening in that place. But that isn't an excuse.]

I won't say you don't kind of deserve it, if that's what you want to hear.

[The spite has mostly gone out of him, but the event is keeping him honest.]

Though it's not like I'm a lot better. Like I said, I deserved it too. I've hurt people, or I've helped, anyway. At least I knew what I was doing.

[It's not entirely clear from his tone whether that last bit is a good thing or a bad thing.]

[drabsolutelynot]

No. I don't want you to say that.

[He cracks one knuckle, then another, trying to direct his nervous energy anywhere else]

It wouldn't be the truth and I do not have the stomach for lies right now. At least not lies like that.

[Hadriel has, whether wanted or unwanted, given Rosen the gift of time to reflect. And he had hit a wall and crashed fairly dramatically when at first he hit the solid wall of undeniable fact that he had fucked up on a dramatic scale. From fatherhood to his medical practice to his work as a government researcher. There were failures and fuck-ups all along the way that would have been more than enough for a single lifetime.

But he'd also had to get back on his feet. To start trying to improve if it was possible. Because simply wallowing is useless and in reality it is a selfish, self-indulgent exercise.]

Are you implying that you chose to hurt people?

[aroundthecoroner]

[That much, at least, Michael can understand. He doesn't like to be let off the hook for his own crimes, even if he sometimes tries to justify or excuse them to himself. He still did it, and he deserves whatever he gets.

And he at least respects that Rosen feels the same way.]

"Chose" is a loaded word. Makes it sound like I had a lot of options, and nothing pushing me one way or the other. [He hates that lying makes him feel awful right now, because he'd kind of like to do it.] At the end of the day though, yeah, I chose to.