PCs: ERHARD

[chaoscontrol]

Comments

[chaoscontrol]

[Shadow looks so conflicted. Like he desperately wants to say something, but can't.]

Doctor... I can't... I'm not allowed to say. But... Watanuki... he takes the pain of everyone's deaths each week for a reason.

[cryosurgeon]

Shadow, even... even if he can bring everyone back, do you really think it will happen before someone retaliates against me for what I did? Or that we won't make a huge mistake and end up with the Watanuki I saw in my vision? There's so many things that can go wrong, we're going on five weeks into this mess, and we still can't effectively solve anything. It's going to fall apart, no matter what we do.

[chaoscontrol]

I won't let them hurt you. I'll keep Terios manifested and by your side all week if I have to. I feel like we're close... Please. Just hold on a little longer!

[cryosurgeon]

....

[Erhard presses the gloves and the letter to his face, shaking against the threat of fresh tears.]

I just want to be with Sherlock.

[chaoscontrol]

Please, Erhard. Don't do anything stupid. Holmes wouldn't want that for you and you know that. I promise you, you will see him again.

[cryosurgeon]

... I don't know how much longer... I can hold on....

[He took a life. Deserving or not, his hands are stained. He lost the innocence he'd only just discovered.

And he doesn't regret it one bit.]

You saw what I did.

[chaoscontrol]

... Everyone has their breaking points, Doctor. Everyone.

[cryosurgeon]

And if I hadn't... if I'd just stayed apart from everyone, like I planned....

[He remembers the warmth of Sherlock's hand in his, the sound of sleeping breaths next to his on the pillow, and he has to choke back a sob.]

It hurts.

[chaoscontrol]

[Shadow pauses, then summons Terios again. The wolf jumps up on Erhard's bed and lays his head in his lap]

Then he might still be dead anyway, and you would have never felt those wonderful warm feelings. Pain... is the price we pay for happiness.

[cryosurgeon]

[Erhard sets down the letter and rests that hand on Terios's head, eventually petting the wolf gently. It helps to blunt the force of his grief.]

... did he really leave my room to protect me? Was that part of her fantasy true?

[chaoscontrol]

[The wolf has very soft fur, even if he does smell a little like motor oil...]

That does sound like something he would do.

[cryosurgeon]

[Erhard doesn't mind, it's not like he can smell much anyway with his nose and sinuses clogged from all the crying.]

... he'll hate me for giving in to my own darkness. Riku... everyone warned me, but I didn't... I couldn't....

[So much for wolf-petting easing his mind. The tears start rolling unheeded down his face again. He can't help it, the thought of Sherlock turning away from him in scorn at the blood on his hands is too much.]

[chaoscontrol]

[Shadow grabs the box of tissues from nearby and places them on the bed next to Erhard. Terios whines and nuzzles Erhard more]

It's in the past, now, Doctor. You can't change what has already come to pass. All you can do is learn from it, and move forward.

[cryosurgeon]

I'm a killer now. I had the right, but I should've let Emi do it....

[He takes a tissue and blots his eyes with one hand, rubbing Terios's head with the other.]

I think I'm stuck in a mental feedback loop. Every time I try to let go, a part of me says I don't deserve it. It... sounds like my birth parents' voices.

[chaoscontrol]

This game... is not exactly ideal circumstances. Or normal, by any means.

[Shadow sits on the edge of the bed, looking down]

I tried to blow up the planet. I succeeded in blowing up the moon and flooding several coastal cities. The people back home... they still forgave me. Even though I didn't deserve it -- how could anything I do, even saving the world, make up for it?

[he looks up at the ceiling]

I still don't have the answers. I don't know if I ever will. But I don't think you'd ever kill anyone were it not for the construct of this game.

[cryosurgeon]

Would you forgive me? Do you think Sherlock would forgive me?

[He stares down at the hand resting on Terios's head. He swears he can see the blood that isn't really there.]

If I live through this, will I ever recover? I've never felt like this before, I don't even recognize myself anymore. I've dissociated thinking about how I'm just an instance of 6350, usually only for a few minutes but once for over an hour. This on top of it? I'm afraid I'm losing my mind.

[chaoscontrol]

I already forgave you, Doctor.

[though that does a concern for Shadow]

... Dissociate? Like having an out of body experience? Or unreality? [he pauses] I don't believe that being from a "fictional" universe makes us fake. One day.... One day I'm going to find a world where the Foundation is fictional.

[cryosurgeon]

Derealization, I suppose... like this is all just a dream, that I'm a real person in a cell at Resurgam, dreaming about murders and the Foundation. There's an actual diagnosis of derealization/depersonalization disorder in the DSM-5, it's a neurosis. It's... I guess I'm just having difficulty processing the fact that someone created me specifically to suffer repeated traumas.

[Yeah, that's kind of a kick in the ass.]