tramitem_log | May Support Group Thread

Entry tags:

May Support Group Thread

Who: OPEN (Including to all the new characters who app throughout the month)
What: Bureau Run, Non-Mandatory Support Group
When: There are meetings at various times during the week, whatever works for your character between 8 am and 10 pm
Where: There are meetings at various locations around NYC, whatever works for your character
Rating/Warnings: We ask that players put appropriate warning labels in the subject lines of their threads as they become necessary

There’s a generic spread of food on a table off to one side of the room: donuts, muffins, bagels, and cookies; coffee, lemonade, water, and because one of the Different asked for it, hot chocolate. Maybe you’re hungry enough to try it—it’s free after all.

Or maybe you can’t stomach anything, given the event you’re attending.

The space is a local rec center. The beige-painted cinder block walls and the fluorescent lighting are a terrible combination. Maybe they are reminiscent of the public school you attended in your youth?

Why are you here? Curiosity? Maybe the Bureau official will say something that will help you make sense of things? The meeting was interesting—who knew there were so many people like you, receiving memories of a past life? The group was led by someone from The Bureau—the Department of Medical Services. Some people are staying in their chairs and chatting—they must know each other from previous meetings. Some of them are gravitating towards the food.

How do you feel about tonight? Has it helped you come to terms with the dream of memories you’re having? Maybe it’s time to talk to others, get an understanding of their experience.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"That's it!"

Anthony snapped his fingers and pointed to the other fellow, certain now that he did have the answer and this wasn't some new worry inducing memory bubbling to the surface.

"Grace and I hit the clubs now and then, but before I even met her I used to play in a few. Former pianist."

With the answers all laid out for him Anthony stopped pacing and held out his hand, hoping to turn this confrontation into more of a friendly meeting.

"Anthony J. Crowley. And don't worry... I don't see any reason to tell anyone out there what goes on in here. Besides even if we did I doubt they would remember it for long."

He didn't say this bit out-loud but it was strongly implied with a look towards one of the Bureau agents, memory wipes seemed to be a thing.

Relief washed over Wei Wuxian as the other figured it out. At least he could count on things not going past these walls. Finally a smile spread across his lips as he took the other's hand.

"Wei Wuxian. And thanks..I've been kind of freaking out about what others might think about all of this. I still am not sure its even real."

After shaking the hand he reached up and rubbed the side of his nose in embarrassment, a habit of his. "Sorry about getting all..antsy."

"I think antsy is natural given what we've been through. First time I showed up here," He looked to the table filled with goodies and drinks like it might attack, "I made a wonderful first impression by causing that table to collapse. Bagels and coffee... everywhere."

Anthony smiled, finding the humor in the incident now that it was well behind him.

"So long as you avoid doing anything like that then I think you're ahead of the game."

"Yeahhh..I think I'll be fine then. Violence isn't really my thing. I know karate but that was more for protection then destroying tables." Club life can get rough when jealous boy and girl friends are around, and Wei Wuxian liked to flirt with everyone.

He turned to the other man more fully, "So tell me...the first time someone has a vision..are they always really violent and disturbing? Or am I just that unlucky?"

Why did everyone automatically assume the table incident had been violent in nature? He had reached for a cup of hot chocolate and the entire thing had spontaneously collapsed. It had been mortifying but not violent. Anthony thought to correct that but... eh, maybe it was for the best people thought he was a little rougher than he was.

"My first memory wasn't violent. It was disturbing... And it doesn't make much sense as a memory."

He hesitated to ask. After he had experienced his first memory talking about it had been the last thing on his mind but not everyone was him. It could be refused.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Anthony paused then offered, "I was a snake," like that might offer them the foundation of a shared traumatic first memory.

"A snake? But I thought these were supposed to be memories? So you were a snake in a previous life?" So maybe his dream wasn't quite as crazy as he was thinking. At least he assumed he was human based on his memory.

If he even accepted that these were memories which he really didn't want to do. "I saw..a lot of death."

It was the most troubling thing he had ever seen in his life. He didn't want to accept that what he watched was something he might have lived through. He never knew his parents in this lifetime so the last thing he wanted was to think he might have experienced losing parents in a previous one.

"THE snake. The one from the Garden of Eden."

Anthony clarified as he assumed most would have at least heard the story before and could work out the details of the serpent tempting Eve into tasting the forbidden apple on their own. It had been a terrible shock to a religious guy like him but... had to be untrue. There was no way he was actually a demon.

Death actually sounded worse. At least all he had done in his memory was cause the fall of humanity... he sneered, unhappily. But, death brought to mind all sorts of grim images like the sorts you see in gruesome war movies, the ones he usually found himself looking away from.

"Was it a war?"

"Ah.." He tried to absorb that knowledge. He didn't have a lot of knowledge about religion having never attended church as a kid but he knew enough to figure out what he meant. That certainly made this guys story seem a lot more interesting then his own.

He shook his head, "I don't think so..." He took a deep breath and it was a little shaky when he let it back out. "I just remember there being bodies everywhere..and fire..Everyone was wearing these really old world style purple robes. At least the dead ones were..The ones doing all the killing were obviously from some place else. But I just remember seeing these two bodies in particular..they were dressed much nicer. A man and a woman.."

He hesitated, bringing his hand up to run a hand through his hair. "I got the feeling they were important to me..and that I was hiding or something to keep from ending up like them."

That was a heavy memory, more in line with Alec's retrieving a dead girl from the water than his obviously religious inspired one. Very grim too.

"Must have been some kind of raid."

Vikings came to mind next but it could have been any sort of people really. Raids like that happened all over the world and the purple robes hinted that this group must have been well-to-do. In the past purple was a very expensive color.

"That's a Hell of a memory."

Anthony shrugged and amended that statement.

"Apparent memory. We're told these are memories but even if they feel real they might not be."

"I really hope its not real..." Even if it wasn't a memory of his own, thinking that anyone would have to live through something like that made his body shake.

"I mean does it really matter if it is? So what if I lived it..that's the past right? So we shouldn't have to think about it anymore. Why is it coming back to haunt us now?"

Perhaps that was what really upset him the most. Was he supposed to uproot the good life he had right now because the him of a few hundred years ago had a rough time? That didn't seem fair..

Anthony didn't know if it mattered or not. Some times those feeling were absolutely overwhelming, threatening to take over everything he was, but there were other times when it just felt like a strange dream, barely remembered and quickly forgotten. There was no best way to look a it.

"Some people agree that whatever you are remembering doesn't matter. Others think they aren't really memories at all but implanted some how for vague and undefined reasons... It's up to you really. You can chose to believe it all or not."

"Implanted? So..all of this could be like some sort of lab project? We are just their guinea pigs?" Okay so that thought might be even worse for him. He doesn't want to be anyone's lab rat.

This was all just maddening. He was going to have some really stiff drinks tonight to try and forget everything. "And these meetings? Why do you come to them?"

"It's a theory. Like everything else we can't prove any of it."

But he had felt the need to mention it due to family reasons. Can't have Alec thinking he was entirely insane, believing all this weird stuff that was just appearing in his head.

"I avoided them for a while, popped in just long enough to meet some people and then left. I began to think that wasn't such a wise idea. Better to stick around to keep an eye on things. You never know what one might learn at one of these meetings."

Anthony managed to snag a hot chocolate from the nearby table without causing the entire display to self destruct and took a sip before asking a question of his own.

"What about you? Given that you don't want anyone to know that you are here, among the lunatics, why did you come?"

"Curiosity? I guess I just wanted to know what it all was..not that I feel like I'm getting any closer to answers."

Wei Wuxian shrugged and looked around the room again. "I mean I'm here because they think I am one of the lunatics right? I just hope none of the lunatics feel like telling the people I work for. I don't think they would look kindly on this kind of stuff at my job."

His boss was a pretty understanding guy but the clients probably wouldn't like someone who was labeled as crazy.

"How many of these..visions..have you seen?"

"I don't know everyone so I can't say for sure that no one would let it slip that you were here but, most of us are in the same position. We all have people out there who just wouldn't get it."

He frowned, clearly thinking of several of those sorts in his own life. Family could be tough.

"I've had four of those memories by now. You would think it might have started to make some sense but its only become more confusing. My memories don't really seem to connect. Maybe I was a few different people," he scoffed remembering that first dream, "or creatures before I was myself."

Now before he scared the poor guy too much Anthony drew back and gave him a pitying look.

"Don't worry. That doesn't seem typical. You will probably only have memories from that one life and they won't all be bad ones."

"Well I hope the next one is really great to make up for that last one.." He frowned and then shook his head. "No..I mean I hope I don't get any more. One was enough." The thought that he could have four and all of them be as bad as the first is terrifying. He would like to sleep again sometime in this lifetime.

"How..frequently?" He wanted to make sure this wasn't going to be a common occurrence. If he did have to have them perhaps one ever couple of months wouldn't be so terrible.

Lack of sleep was a common problem among the Different. Those memories did like to make themselves known in the dead of night.

"Well... I've been having them for a month. One month, four memories, that's about one a week... only I had two of them in the same week. I think other Different have had more memories or less... There isn't much of a pattern really."

Another sip of coco was had before the drink had been given too much time to cool off.

"The strangest thing is the items. People wake up one day with earrings or pets that their former selves used to own. That happened to you yet?"

"What..? NO..what could I possibly get from that kind of place? And a month?? I'm going to have to do this again in a few days?" Too much. This was way too much for him to handle. He was already starting to panic. It happened when he was walking to work one day, what would he do if it happened while he was on stage?

Wei Wuxian was never the kind of person to freak out about anything. He had always managed to keep his cool no matter what the situation. But this was a lot of information to take in. He had come here hoping that this was just an isolated incident that he needed help getting over. He never thought he would learn that there was this many people with this problem and that it was going to happen again with that kind of frequency.

"How can someone just have something from a dream? That's impossible!"

Anthony thought to himself that Wei was handling this news better than he had. There had been panic, lashing out, dramatics... He had insulted Mr. Fell to the point of making him storm off without eating his cresant, or had it been a bagel? Didn't matter really. Wei's voice might have raised and taken on a undertone of 'do not want' but he hadn't yet flung himself dramatically into a chair and tantrumed like a child so he was doing about as well as one could.

"I wish I could have told you something else, that this is just a phase and it will go away soon, but we really don't know much about it."

He shrugged but looked around for a chair just in case one would be needed.

"There's only more theories on that. Maybe some one breaks into your house and leaves it, maybe it's magic... I haven't seen it happen personally. Maybe if I do I will have a better answer."

"This really is crazy..Maybe this is all one really bad hangover nightmare and I'm still actually in bed." maybe someone slipped him some really nasty drug at the bar. He would almost accept any other answer at this point.

He looked at Anthony again, getting really close as he studied him as if making sure this wasn't just a figment of his imagination. "You sure seem real though.." Which meant he wasn't in bed, wasn't dreaming and this wasn't a bad trip.

"If I wake up tomorrow in purple hanfu I'm going to be really pissed off."

Anthony scrunched his nose and craned his neck away as he was advanced on and studied like some difficult to comprehend artistic painting.

"I could pinch you if there's any doubt?"

Wei Wuxian recoiled away as if he was shot. "Please don't."

There was a sigh and he turned to the table, retrieving another cookie. "This sucks." He took a bite and then grabbed another one and a bottle of water. "This food does too." He was really craving something more substantial now so that he could eat away his worries.

That was abrupt. Bit of a shame really but... didn't he have enough of those sorts of problems as it was! So why then did he incline his head towards the door like this was an invitation.

"We could take off. There are plenty of restaurants on this block. Get you something other than cookies and lukewarm bottled water."

Wei Wuxian perked right up at that idea, a smile finally coming to the corners of his lips. "So we don't have to stick around? We can just go? Because I'm all about some real food right about now."

There was a bounce in his step as he sauntered back up to the other man. He thought he was stuck here until some sort of school bell went off or buzzer or the troops just dispersed.

Wei had a very nice smile as it turned out and that was good to see, better that he be smiling than panicking.

"Of course we can go, whenever we want. There aren't any bouncers at the doors. All this is optional."

Something which Anthony was equally grateful for as sitting around being lectured would have been a real drag.

"We could head next door. I don't know about you but after a few minutes in one of these meetings I always feel the need for a glass of wine."

Anything to make the day seem more normal again!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject