lazybox | i was tired of january; i was tired of june

i was tired of january; i was tired of june

[Exactly who thought it was a good idea to leave the Typhon unsupervised is anyone's guess.

Then again, exactly whose idea it was to frontload the experimental hybrid's personality with deeply curious Morgan Yu is... No, that was Alex, actually. Probably not the best decision he's ever made.

The point is: There is currently one very curious Typhon with a mostly-human cognition and Morgan Yu's face running unchecked somewhere deep in a TranStar facility. And the curiosity in question isn't by any measure childlike - it's focused, intent. It's the curiosity of someone who would have mouthed "really?" at Alex's back after the whole 'bridge between our species' spiel if he'd had a mouth at the time.

Therefore, as soon as he could get out from under watchful eyes, he went after answers in the only way that was ever effective in the simulation (which, to be fair, is about all of the world he really knows).

Doors labeled "Morgan Yu" are always a good place to start, right?]

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[ It's increasingly more difficult to keep himself busy post-Talos than maybe anyone could have anticipated. There are a number of after-effects to deal with now that an earlier version of him possibly saw as an acceptable and understandable consequence of his choices (for science!), but considering he's not around now to deal with them...yeah, Morgan's a little bitter. Focus is all but impossible—he can feel his mind slipping away from the topic at hand as if they're the same poles of two magnets sliding off each other. He feels himself drifting again: away, away, away...

It's pointless is what it is. It's exhausting the longer he tries to hold on, the more firmly he tightens what little grip he has left on himself.

It's here—slumped back in the desk chair of his makeshift office, flexing a latent anxiety out of his knuckles that he still doesn't remember—that an opening door finds him.

It takes too long for the image presented to him to reconcile in his mind. Stunted cognition? It's entirely possible, who knows what he's missing besides his own memories. His experience? His full scope of faculties? His face, apparently? ]

What— [ the fuck? gets swallowed by his own stupor. Another dream? Another experiment? Is Alex fucking with him again, making faces just in case they run short of the real Morgan? Or is he the real Morgan at all (which he really doesn't need help questioning, it follows him like a cloud through his days)? Whatever it is, his mind outright refuses to accept it. ] Fuck off.

[The thing about this is that the double of Morgan in the doorway is just as startled, though it (he) is perhaps just enough less tired that he can form mostly coherent sentences.

Even if half of his reaction is reflexive.]

Fuck off yourself.

[A beat, a breath, as his mind catches up, the situation in front of him unfolding itself into something that makes sense.

Morgan - the presumably real one, though how is he to tell? - is alive. And apparently didn't know that he (not-Morgan, nameless hybrid, 'that Typhon') had been created.]

...I'm going to kill Alex.

[Possibly literally. He's not ruling it out.]

I don't know who or what you are, but you definitely haven't earned that privilege.

[ No, if anyone's going to be killing Alex, it's Morgan. This Morgan. He himself is going to be the one that gets to kill Alex, after everything he's been put through. Apparently this is just another item to add to an already diligently recorded list of ways that Alex has wronged him, but for-fucking-sure it's going near the top of it now.

He sits forward, then. Lets the angle of the chair fall level and folds his arms against the top of the desk. Some might see it as a power move, a way to gain control and focus of the room, and maybe at some point it was. Now it's just a way to ground himself: both feet planted under the desk, something solid beneath him. It doesn't help to process the image of himself standing in the doorway like some sick hallucinogenic nightmare any better. He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, hoping against hope that the other him just ceases existing the next time he looks up. ]

I don't know if this would be better or worse if it's a dream. Did Alex start pumping something through the vents? Again?

[You only get first dibs, Morgan Sr. You need to learn to share.

The Typhon folds his arms, leaning against the frame of the door, trying to project 'I know what the hell I'm about' as strongly as possible. His tone is forced casual, a frantic attempt at an even keel that he's terrified Morgan will recognize immediately for the act it is.

After all, they're probably doing the same thing right now. Whatever, he's just going to rip the bandaid and then they can work out what the fuck they're going to do about each other from there.]

So I'm guessing you didn't know that his current pet project is 'let's put human brain scans in a Typhon and see if we can make it think it's a person.'

[And that's how we're here today! It's kind of amazing to him that Alex hadn't turned to Morgan to show off his success yet.

...Whiiiiich probably means that the brain scans in question were very unauthorized. Damnit, Alex.]

[ The meaning behind the words is slow to find him—understandable given the wending twists and turns it has to take it make it to a point in his mind that can even begin to comprehend the enormity of what he'd said. It's just words at first, simple sounds strung together, and then suddenly it just fucking clicks. ]

He did what?

[ It's not loud, but intense enough to make up for it. He doesn't even raise his head at first because it's safer and quieter and he can contain himself in a space where Alex doesn't exist and hasn't torn his life asunder at every opportunity he can. But he's angry. Holy fuck he's suddenly and viciously angry in a way he's not sure he's experienced before. Suddenly he's on his feet and he's around his desk and he's closing the distance between him and...himself in the doorway in seconds that feel like years. ]

He fucking what?

[The Typhon - because that's what he is, not human, not like the Morgan in front of him - actually flinches, just barely, as Morgan gets up in his face.

But then it's like, oh, apparently that's how they're going to do this. He draws himself up, so that they're perfectly level, identical as they ought to be - ]

Don't yell at me. I didn't ask to be born.

[Except, maybe, unless, for the bits of the space between the stars behind the Typhon Morgan's gaze.

This wasn't his doing. The whole delusions of grandeur bridge between the species thing wasn't his idea. He's - ]

I'm just another labrat looking for answers.

[If he learned anything from the sim, about Morgan, the real Morgan in front of him, it's that that's all either of them ever were.]

[ There's so much wrong here all at once that Morgan can't even start to try and make sense of it. Of course Alex would lean into something like this and of course Morgan would be the one it fucked up the most.

His answer shouldn't be to laugh, but it is. It's the laughter of a hopeless fool, someone who should have given up a long fucking time ago, because this is stupid and he's stupid and of all the ways his life could escalate to a grander lever of absurdity, it's this.

And of course Alex is to blame. ]

So, what, you're here to replace me? [ He doesn't think that's it, that doesn't fit Alex's agenda. ] Now he's got copies he can fuck around with, too, jesus. How-- how long have you been here, do you even know?

[ How fucking long has this been going on behind his back, more like. ]

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i was tired of january; i was tired of june

this is perf

and then MY ass got kicked by work

no subject

no subject

work has consumed my soul, i'm extra slow i'm so sorry

nono it's fine I then got this tag and forgot about it for TWO WEEKS until I inbox cleaned today

two weeks you say... >>;