The train is a standard modern subway car. Above the seats, where advertisements would normally be in a train, there are instead photographs of different scenes. They depict different people—some familiar, some unfamiliar, some Ingo himself. There's an uncomfortable air coming from them, including those which are not overtly negative...
[He is of course going to look at every single photograph, or at least as many as he can before the train stops, in the following priority order: pictures of Ingo, pictures of anyone else Saturn recognizes, and then the strangers.]
- Emmet looking directly at the viewer, not smiling. - Ingo and Emmet as teenagers, with a sulky Ingo in a vaguely emo-goth aesthetic. - Ingo sobbing on the floor of Da Vinci's workshop as she crouches near him. - Chandelure lighting a darkened room with two beds. - A younger Ingo entering a doorway to see two people intimately entwined (anything explicit obscured by the sheets). - A cellphone with an unread text message notification. - Ingo splayed out on the ice, pained, bleeding profusely from a major chest wound. - A snake-headed man, and a woman with scales down her face, smiling fondly.
I will let you pick which picture of Ingo he finds most immediately worthy of investigation.
As you linger over the picture, you understand something:
She doesn't make it a secret that she thinks you're making a mistake, getting invested in her. So, are you? You don't know what it's like to be successful in love. You know she's hurt you, and tried to get rid of you. Maybe you're just someone's plaything again. But that can't be true. One day, surely. If you tell her you love her, she will look at you with love, and not pity or disgust or discomfort. If Emmet believes in her, too, it's not just a delusion.
[Saturn stands there with his arms crossed, looking at a random empty seat nearby rather than the photo. Sharpedo just watches him. He is too new a team member to be exposed to these feelings! But that's probably for the best.
Finally, he hops up onto one of the seats like a complete asshole to touch the photo physically, and say aloud:]
. . . It wasn't. You weren't. However I may or may not get on with her, I also believe in that. Disgust . . . no.
Touching the photo doesn't get you any additional information or reaction, after you already lingered over it, but perhaps your words are absorbed somehow. At least Sharpedo has heard them.
You touch the picture, and you understand something:
For a long time after you appeared there, it was hard to feel anything. You had so little to hold onto. It was hard to find enough stimulation to muffle the void inside. That made you careless, even if you knew it wasn't safe. What were you protecting by keeping yourself safe? Nothing worth all that much. And yet, impaled by that terrifying claw, you were screaming internally: Not now! Not yet! There is still hope! Don't kill me without letting me remember the value of my own life!!
[Goddamn he wants to hug Ingo right now. That can be his reward for doing what he needs to do in this place! He can wait! But it sure would be nice. In any case, he actually smiles at this, even though it's a bit watery.]
I'm glad, you know. That there was still hope . . . I hope now you know it. I'll help you remember it, but it isn't only that . . . your life since then has been valuable.
[He steps away. Is this train moving? Has it been waiting while he does this?]
[nnnNNNNNNN he wants to look at all of them but he does feel a little bad knowing he's here to help and can't actually do that if he spends all his time peeking . . . ONE more. One more! But how can he choose just one more?! This is terrible! He can guess who the snake-headed man and scaled woman are, at least, and he's unlikely to get any information out of that that Ingo wouldn't just tell him. Teenage Ingo is so cute . . . stoic Emmet he feels he can kind of predict . . .
You tried. You tried very hard. You were determined to be the best boyfriend you could for her. You thought nothing of yourself, and even found it an exciting challenge to respond to her ever-heightening demands. Even in that moment, where you hesitated, you let her convince you that she was what you should focus on. And for what? After all that, hesitating was still too much. Her rejection of you didn't come long after that. She saw into your heart and saw that you cared about your brother more than you cared about her, and nothing else mattered after that. You didn't even let yourself perceive that as the reality for a long time. That was the one thing that wasn't going to change, whoever your partner was. If that's the dealbreaker, then what?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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- Emmet looking directly at the viewer, not smiling.
- Ingo and Emmet as teenagers, with a sulky Ingo in a vaguely emo-goth aesthetic.
- Ingo sobbing on the floor of Da Vinci's workshop as she crouches near him.
- Chandelure lighting a darkened room with two beds.
- A younger Ingo entering a doorway to see two people intimately entwined (anything explicit obscured by the sheets).
- A cellphone with an unread text message notification.
- Ingo splayed out on the ice, pained, bleeding profusely from a major chest wound.
- A snake-headed man, and a woman with scales down her face, smiling fondly.
I will let you pick which picture of Ingo he finds most immediately worthy of investigation.
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[He considers, and then goes to take a closer look at the one with Da Vinci.]
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She doesn't make it a secret that she thinks you're making a mistake, getting invested in her. So, are you? You don't know what it's like to be successful in love. You know she's hurt you, and tried to get rid of you. Maybe you're just someone's plaything again. But that can't be true. One day, surely. If you tell her you love her, she will look at you with love, and not pity or disgust or discomfort. If Emmet believes in her, too, it's not just a delusion.
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Finally, he hops up onto one of the seats like a complete asshole to touch the photo physically, and say aloud:]
. . . It wasn't. You weren't. However I may or may not get on with her, I also believe in that. Disgust . . . no.
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Now he goes to investigate the bloody chest wound photo. Yeesh.]
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For a long time after you appeared there, it was hard to feel anything. You had so little to hold onto. It was hard to find enough stimulation to muffle the void inside. That made you careless, even if you knew it wasn't safe. What were you protecting by keeping yourself safe? Nothing worth all that much. And yet, impaled by that terrifying claw, you were screaming internally: Not now! Not yet! There is still hope! Don't kill me without letting me remember the value of my own life!!
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I'm glad, you know. That there was still hope . . . I hope now you know it. I'll help you remember it, but it isn't only that . . . your life since then has been valuable.
[He steps away. Is this train moving? Has it been waiting while he does this?]
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He picks the text message.]
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[Primly. And then he finally resists temptation and goes to sit in a seat, with Sharpedo settling next to him.]
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