wilderlogs | [OPEN] A Tale Told By an Idiot

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[OPEN] A Tale Told By an Idiot

Who: Revan and Whoever
What: Misled by the badass title, Revan attempts to read The Sound and the Fury
Where: Philly library
When: Towards the end of the Philly stay
Warnings/Notes: The Sound and the Fury is basically a nonstop parade of awful, so if you want, we can just stick to Revan not knowing what golf is or whatever to avoid dealing with early/mid-20th century race and gender issues and horrid people being horrid to each other.

[Anyone less stubborn would have given up days ago. Revan, on the other hand, is seated at a table in the reference section, surrounded by books pulled from all over the library, none of which seem to have any relationship to each other. A copy of the Concise Oxford, still large enough to brain livestock. A single-volume history of Germany and another one about the state of Mississippi. The official rules of golf. A biography of Thomas Jefferson and a history of Cambridge, England, both pushed off to one side. Harvard Observed: An Illustrated History of the University in the Twentieth Century, published of course by Harvard University Press. Several slim books about Easter, all obviously for children. And so forth.

Directly in front of her, stuffed full of flimsy paper bookmarks printed with the library's hours pilfered from the circulation desk, lies the cause of all the trouble: an unassuming paperback copy of The Sound and the Fury, with all the terrible stock photo cover design a cheap reprint of a classic entails. Revan herself is scribbling something in a spiral-bound notebook with a ballpoint, her surprise at the sheer amount of paper in the city long subsumed by irritation over this maddeningly incomprehensible book she's found.]

Why does it even matter?

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[If Dixon weren't trying to save the battery on his iPod and weren't bored to absolute death of playing solitaire, he'd probably continue avoiding the library. He's been keeping to himself, sluggish from the morgul wound and embarrassed after that whole network incident, figuring that when they get a move on someone will have the decency to come fish him out from under the counter at the Wawa and let him know.

But there might at least be something to ease the boredom in the library, and last time he went in there he found some magazines and comics, although foolishly forgot to bring them with him. He manages to track that one Mad Magazine issue back down and even a volume of Preacher he hasn't read yet, which brightens the day considerably. He straggles around the aisles, nosedown in the adventures of Jesse, Cassidy and Tulip, when he stumbles on Revan.

He surveys the scene in front of him with alarm at first, and then puts the pieces together. He pauses in the aisle like he's not sure whether to say hello or not, given that he's spent the last few days fashioning himself into the team's resident jackass. Even moreso than usual.

But he wants her reassurance and whatever company they had, so he gives a soft wave.

Anyone who's done five and a half years in high school knows the look of a reprinted classic from the canon. Dixon isn't sure which one it is, but the sight of one is a little like running a hand vacuum at a cat. He bristles and waves a hand at it.]

If it's in one of those it probably don't. [He considered, for just a second, figuring out which book it was and bullshitting that he knew what it was about to seem worldly, but even he's not dumb enough to actually commit to that scheme.]

[While not entirely insensitive to Dixon's self-inflicted social wounds, Revan knows the only way he'll learn is if he cleans up the mess himself. To her mild horror, she's caught herself wondering if this is the sort of feeling a master gets about a troublesome Padawan, even if there's no way anyone as hapless as Dixon is would have made it out of the Enclave.]

Hmm? What do you mean?

[Judging a Book By Its Cover, a seminar led by Jason Dixon.]

We read books like that at school where I'm from. And they're awful. Every last one of them. You don't even learn anything you can use. [At least home ec had some illusion of utility. No one's every managed to say anything about lit classes that's penetrated Dixon's thick hide of resentment.] But I don't think I read that one. They're all like that, though.

[He meanders a little near one of the chairs.]

Can I sit down? This stabbing thing's a bitch. [He's giving her an open to shoo him away, hoping she won't.]

[It seems natural to her that someone should ask her permission, and Revan nods at the chair.]

How's the wound? Have you seen one of the healers?

[She'll drag him, not even metaphorically. Just watch.]

Not great. Healers can't seem to do anything about it, but those plants help. [He's trudging on, refusing to be more of the slow one in the group than he already is.] I been through worse.

[He ranks it about a six on the normal-to-"literally on fire" scale, but her mentioning it does seem to jar it back awake, and he shivers with a sudden chill.

He takes in all the different books, the dictionary and the children's books and everything else. Some of those have to be for reference to the one in front of her, but the children's books stump him.]

I never asked. You got kids at home?

[Oops. Revan hadn't meant to make it worse, but she just purses her lips in a moment of sympathy rather than comment and draw more attention to it.]

The Jedi are a celibate order.

[Unsure where "I built and programmed an assassin droid who loves me to a really disturbing degree" falls on the parenthood scale, Revan elects to leave that part out, along with the awkward explanation it would entail.]

The crew did pick up a teenager in the process of running a Sith blockade. [That's the short version, anyway.] She's a handful.

I hear teenage girls are. My sister supposably gave my dad all his gray hair, though I wasn’t around when she was a teenager. [Despite the idle chattiness, there’s an edge of suspicion in his voice. He hadn’t forgotten the way too much responsibility Revan thinks is normal for kids, and hopes the girl isn’t getting caught up in it.

He looks back at the book, still entirely unable to guess what it’s contents are, given the spread of research materials.] So what’s happening in it? The book, I mean?

[Not that she can remember any of it, but given how the Dantooine Council talked about her back before she'd known her real identity, Revan is morally certain she caused a whole lot of headaches during her own adolescence.

Dixon can stay vaguely suspicious about Jedi child-rearing practices, because Revan doesn't much want to talk about home, anyway.]

Nothing. Nothing is happening in the stupid book. There's no plot. It's just three men having nervous breakdowns over their sister, who is quite frankly better off far away from the lot of them.

[The Great American Novel according to Revan.]

See, told you, they’re all boring and pointless. [He actually looks super pleased with himself at his prediction, as if it’s a point of pride to disregard all these classic novels. He roots through the lady’s handbag he scrounged up from the clothing store and pulls out the magazine he grabbed. ] I don’t know how into funnies you are but if you ever want to unwind I’m bringing some along. Playing cards, too. Figure it’ll get boring sitting around campfires pretending to all be friends.

[His stuff is her stuff, or even just squad communal stuff. He isn’t possessive.]

Besides, I’ve got to have something going for me, since my personality ain’t going over so well.

[Revan's starting to read the table of contents of his copy of Mad--which she'll understand even less than Faulkner--when Dixon slides in with some sadly accurate self-deprecation, and her eyes flick back up to him.]

No one's at their best right now.

[Leave aside for a moment the question of whether Dixon's best is capable of making him any friends who aren't putting in a concerted effort to embrace the light side of the Force.]

Have you apologized?

Edited 2018-06-02 02:25 (UTC)

I’ve been trying to, whenever I run into them. I’m kind of doing a tour, actually. Like trying to hit people up individual. [He takes a deep breath. It hasn’t been easy with the people on the other side of the mirror, but at least he spoke to the ones on this side of it. Not looking for absolution as much as just getting everyone on the same page: he feels like shit about it and he can’t promise he won’t flip out again and he’ll try his best, whatever that is. However meager that is.

It’s a strange brew, to feel responsible for one’s actions and yet completely at the mercy of some external force that controls them, and yet when it comes to his moods Dixon’s capable of a strong grip on that cognitive dissonance.]

But if you think it’d be better to just talk to everyone on the mirror at once I could probably do that. [He doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but he knows his judgment is horrible, and he trusts Revan’s. She’s smarter, wiser, more thoughtful, more stable, calmer. She’s like a tightrope walker to his staggering drunk.]

No, one-on-one was the right call.

[And they were probably even sincere apologies, too. Revan's starting to get Dixon's measure--his problem's not ego, it's the lack of it. His sense of self gives way to whatever strikes it, whether it's her commanding presence or his own fear and anger. No one ever taught him how to weather a storm.]

If we're talking advice...next time, just walk away. Someone can dangle bait, but you don't have to take it.

[A half-smile flickers across his mouth (it doesn’t get anywhere near his eyes) when she tells him it’s the right call. He takes his victories where he can.

It’s the next thing she says that twinges, though, and the ice pick feeling in his back stand with sympathy to the flinch in his brain. It’s advice he’s gotten before. It’s advice he stopped trying to follow as soon as it became clear that back in Ebbing he was free from any sort of real consequence. Now the muscle’s atrophied from a barely-there status to start.

Consequences matter in a small group. They matter even more when you’re trying to - not impress someone really - make par with someone whose approval you want.

It’s all easier said than done.]

Do you ever get that impulse to just fuck someone up?

[Revan blinks, considering her life.]

Constantly.

[He snorts a little.]

You got a trick for taking that advice you gave?

[Revan goes distant as she thinks, trying to come up with an answer besides a Jedi platitude about emotion and control. Someone must have had a discussion about this with her when she was a child, but all of those memories are gone, at best locked behind a door she can't open and at worst wiped away forever. Who the hell is she to be giving advice to anyone about anything, really?

She's all Dixon's got, is the answer. He isn't Force-sensitive. He doesn't need to worry about the dark side whispering in his ear...or about the possibility the people giving him advice are merely pretending their sanctimony is wisdom. For all their posturing about walking in the light, the Council sure didn't manage anything so basic as honesty. Maybe Revan doesn't have it in her to be uplifting right now, but she can give him the truth, as unpleasant a gift as that is. She sighs and her eyes focus again, seeking his, and the weight to her words has nothing to do with him.]

Anger, embarrassment, fear...those strong emotions all hurt. They'll always hurt, and there's no Jedi technique to stop that from happening. Like you'd pull your hand back from a fire, your instinct is to do something to get away from the pain, so you yell or punch someone, you make your hurt their problem. But really, there's no fire. You're not in any danger. The feelings will pass. If there's any trick at all it's just...you have to accept the pain. You have to learn to be okay with that moment when it feels like you're burning.

[It’s hard advice to take, and advice he suspects is deeper to her than just her diagnosis of his neuroses. He only has a keyhole’s peek into her life; terms like “celibate order” don’t really mean much to him, even if he understands the word. He’s built an idea from what she gave him, and he still worries about what she said about Jedi kids. Wonders how often she thinks about it. Wonders if it’s worse not to.

He has no idea.]

You really got to use a fire metaphor? [It’s a self-deprecating joke, but it’s also a way to move away from the discomfort of her answer, to crawl back into refuge. He doesn’t know how to say that sometimes he actually thinks he’ll die from how angry or upset he gets, or that he’s been trying to just sit with grief since his dad died years ago and it feels like some kind of mental food poisoning, that he still feels like his spine just got pulled out from Chief killing himself. So he doesn’t, he tries to deflect himself and her.

And yes, he knows what a metaphor is.]

Edited 2018-06-02 20:11 (UTC)

[Don't try to pull that on a literal mindreader, Dixon. Revan would concede it wasn't the best choice if it weren't clear he's only using it to shy away from some version of the unpleasant feelings she just mentioned. Withdrawing is better than exploding, but Revan doubts he's processing things in quieter moments instead of leaving the pain to fester.]

It hurts, doesn't it?

[She asks quietly, not so much sympathetic as accepting.]

The burns? Nah, Robbie healed them up pretty good. [He knows that’s not what she’s talking about.]

[Revan just looks at him, letting the silence grow awkward...for Dixon, anyway. She can handle discomfort. Revan will meet him on his level, or try to, but he doesn't get to come to her for advice, immediately ignore it, and expect her to play along.]

[It doesn’t take him long to cave. It rarely does.

He doesn’t just want her to tell him what to do, he wants her to fix his problems. Even if he has clear instructions on what to do, somehow he can’t just do it. It’s like running into a wall.]

Yeah. It does.

[Revan is used to having people's personal problems dumped in her lap, but they generally involve more long-lost estranged family and galactic wars than they do quiet internal despair over a wasted life.]

Here's a trick for you: pain shared is pain lessened.

[She reaches out to take his hand, for no reason other than thinking Dixon doesn't get a lot of friendly touch.]

You can't force someone to carry your burdens...but you can ask for help.

[He's glad she doesn't ask him to define what it is that hurts precisely. It feels like a tangled mass, like if he tied to tease out something between fucking up on the network and throwing a guy out a window and leaving his mom with tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills for burn treatment and all this unresolved grief, like if he goes in there it'll grab him by the ankles and suck him under.

All his life he's shuffled people into place to fill the black hole inside him, the empty gravity to orbit around, indulged a reflex straddling the worlds of please help me, please fix me and please let me adore you, please let me lay myself at your feet.

Why not her? Why not her or Hiccup or Trance or any of the other people here? Why not fix other people like stars to reorient the galaxy around? Why not cast her as a sun? He realizes he barely knows her beyond the surface, has jotted in her features with conjecture and theories instead of fact, but that doesn't matter. That just means he has work to do.]

Thanks. [He takes her hand back; the gesture is needy. Revan's suspicion is correct, and the absence of friendly touch hurts, because Dixon comes from a family of affectionate people, huggers and shoulder-patters and people who rest on each other's arms, and he's starved of it.] I just figure at the speed I'm going soon I won't have nobody to ask help from.

You're not a crashing shuttlecraft, Dixon.

[She squeezes his hand, leaning in both physically and with the full weight of her personality. It's overkill on Dixon, sure, but he's not the only one in this conversation who needs convincing that the past doesn't have to overshadow the future.]

You can change course. Not overnight, not without trying, not without making mistakes, but you're not predestined to fail. No one is.

[He nods. He listens. His eyes are welled up, and he takes a deep breath to get that under control.

She speaks with enough authority that he can believe, wants to believe that she knows exactly what she's talking about. He doesn't find it overbearing. He wants her to press it further until she just inhabits his life and does all the thinking and decision-making and living for him, as if he could check himself out of his body and give the keys to someone else.]

I should go get something for my back. It's hurting like hell. [He hasn't just sat with misery sober for a while. It's taxing, and at some point he's just going to buckle under it. He doesn't want that to be in front of Revan. Either way, he feels he's going to disappoint her, either by collapsing or by retreating again from this dark place.

He pauses a good moment before taking his hand back.] I'll see you around. You want my advice, ditch that book and get one that don't have the word "classic" anywhere on the jacket.

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[OPEN] A Tale Told By an Idiot

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