[Plot] Sea of Monsters

[Will Stanton]

"Right. Then, just, y'know, drop it, rather than taunting me with it, OK? Can we do that, please?" Will grumbled.

[Miriam Bell]

"I'm not--wait. Hold on. You really do want that, don't you? You're upset because you don't remember, not because I did anything?"

[Will Stanton]

"I have no idea if that's why I'm upset, because I have no idea what happened, Miriam! You're saying you did things too close to Her, so I just have to assume you were...were...letting people fuck me for pennies, or letting the biology class vivisect me, or working as a toilet in the men's room of Maldon station. You're talking about crossing lines; you don't know where the lines are or how they were drawn!"

Will was full-on shouting at this point, animatedly waving his arms around and pacing for emphasis, the other Wills cowering back some from him.

"And If I've blown up at you over Her, I am sorry, but I was tortured. For months! And made to love it. And made to hate loving it. And made to love hating loving it. Everything I was, everything I am was twisted, burnt, exposed and reconstituted at the whims of a madwoman who shares your face. For petty revenge, for...for sick perversions, for...just for the fucking hell of it; I don't know why, I can't justify it or make it make sense. So yeah! It was kind of a big deal. And when you imply that that can be...can be skimmed off like scum from the surface of a pond, so you can enjoy having an expensive dress which talks back is....is just...it's so far out of line it's in an entirely different queue."

He was in full throat now, not just yelling at Miriam but the whole world around him.

"And here I am, trying, once a-fucking-gain, to figure out how to do the impossible, only this time it's not just my future that's being jeopardized but everyone else on the mission, everyone else here at the school, quite possibly everyone else here in this dimension, if I can't figure out how to do something a billion times harder than anything I've done before; things that were only hypothesized by yet another villain I ended up at the beck and call of, and being taunted with things I can't remember is not exactly helping me reach my happy place!"

Will panted, legitimately out of breath, shaking from anger and tension, as his rant got away from him, saying more than he meant to say.

[Miriam Bell]

Most of the color drops from Miriam's face.

"I... what? Skimmed off? No, that's... I never meant to imply anything like that. I thought you brought it to the surface to... I don't know, process it or..." she shrugs a bit helplessly. "You've compartmentalized things with the mirror before and I just... I thought maybe having one of you carry a burden might ease it on the rest of you. I... god, Will, I'm sorry."

[Will Stanton]

"I process it every day; it's not something that goes away. Yeah, sometimes I try to more actively reclaim parts of me that were scorched, but that doesn't mean it's not always there, lurking in the background, always there to color anything I say, think or do.

It's the harshest dividing line in my life, Miriam. More than when my powers manifested, more than my first marriage, more than the birth of my daughter, more than being shunted through a black hole into an alternate dimension, more than Sam wrenching me out of my mental box. There is who I was before She got a hold of me, and who I was after, and all the therapy and coping mechanisms and medication in the world is never going to change that."

He was clearly still angry, though the focus of it had gone off of Miriam, onto...the world itself, one supposes?

[Miriam Bell]

"No, but you could probably do without someone wearing her face rubbing it into yours." she swallows hard against a lump in her throat. "Maybe I'll... better go find Sam to help you with this... I don't... this... I don't know what to do. About any of this. I don't want to abandon you but I can't fix this, I can't even stop making it worse just... by being me and being able to see the line from me to her if I just... stopped giving even a single shit and lashed out at all the broken, hurt pieces in peoples' minds instead".

[Will Stanton]

"I can't shoulder your persecution complex. I've got three or four of my own I'm buckling under the weight of," Will grumbled.

[Miriam Bell]

"That's not..." she sighs. "I'm sorry. I always do that. I'm selfish. I just don't know what to do, Will. How to make it hurt less."

[Will Stanton]

Will tried to wave her off; a gesture which was pretty obviously affected and not heartfelt. "I've dealt with this since long, long, long before you were born. I am not a broken vase that needs repairing; my demons are my own."

[Miriam Bell]

"But they... don't have to be." she says and awkwardly closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around Will. As far as hugs go it's a little stiff, not from insincerity but lack of practice.

[Will Stanton]

Will stiffened up, both literally and figuratively, as Miriam grabbed him, and didn't immediately make any efforts to return it.


"Yes, they do. You can't take these demons from me, Miriam. No one can. The thumbprint's too deep on my soul. You can't fix this."

[Miriam Bell]

"I didn't say that. Of course I can't fix this. No one can. But if I've learned a single god-damn thing it's that that doesn't mean you have to fight them alone. I can do my best to give you better memories to put to this face if you'll let me. I may be selfish, I may take your friendship and... dedication for granted sometimes but I can do better. I want to do better."

[Will Stanton]

"You've mostly been fine, as far as I can remember," Will muttered. "Only one person here has attempted to murder the other."

[Miriam Bell]

"To be entirely fair, I was already dead at the time."

[Will Stanton]

"Doesn't make it right," Will muttered. "You're not her."

[Miriam Bell]

"No, I'm not and the fact that you've trusted me as much as you have means a lot. Too much for me to be upset with you for occasionally seeing a bit of her in me at the club."

[Will Stanton]

"When you get controlling, like you do, it's hard not to see Her -- it's so easy to slide over the edge."

[Miriam Bell]

"It is. It really is." she says, holding Will by the shoulders and locking eyes. "But Will, what I might fall into is not what she did. She enjoyed your anguish. She must have, because I cannot be in your head without feeling your pain. What I did in the timeloop was nothing like that, as ashamed as I might be of some of it..." And with that said she closes her eyes and lets her mind fill Will's. At first they're blurry memories, disjointed moments of intense feelings. Excitement and pleasure, certainly, but not all of it is carnal haze. Pushing Will against the wall of her dorm and kissing her hungrily until her fangs draw blood. Desperately hugging a Will in the form of a young girl with a vague family resemblance to Miriam, crying into her shoulder while Will calls her 'Mi-mi'. Using one Will to tie another into a position that questions the existence of some joints and bones. She's indulging herself but never at Will's expense. There's some shared guilt and shame and there's definitely some moments of Miriam pushing past at least a 'verbal' objection or three. And once or twice her power does change Will's mind. Turning Will into her sister for a day in both body and mind was certainly a bridge too far for one and the ice-cold guilt that frames the edges of that memory show that she's painfully aware of it.

[Will Stanton]

Will closed his own eyes as his breath hitched, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw a little blood as Miriam's memories and recollections slam into his own mind. He weakened a little at the knees as Miriam's experiences slide into place, his own body briefly shifting towards some of the more memorable forms Miriam had called for over the past three non-existent months. Soon, he's hanging on to Miriam not just from the awkward hug, but to keep from falling to the ground himself as the same day, over and over, filled with growing desperation and guilt washed over him.

[Miriam Bell]

"I'm sorry..." she whispers, the hug growing a bit less stiff at least in part from the fact that she's now holding Will up.

[Will Stanton]

"Red line," Will managed to gasp out. "Making me think I'm someone else who really existed is a hard red line, for future reference," he said, focusing for the moment on just a bite-sized bit to handle.

[Miriam Bell]

"It won't happen again, I promise. I was desperate and lonely but that's no excuse."

[Will Stanton]

"Promises are worth the paper they're printed on," Will said, scrambling back for his own center; his own control. "Don't worry about promising something or not promising something; just behave as you would want people to see you..."

Very much a quotation from somewhere as opposed to something he came up with on the spot, but he was still pulling himself together.

[Miriam Bell]

"It's all I can do for now." she says, letting go of Will to give him some room.

[Will Stanton]

Will nodded, regaining his composure. "And no one's asking you to do more."

He paused for a moment.

"It still hurts, doesn't it? You look over and expect to see her there."

[Miriam Bell]

"Always. Even back then we'd always say we'd get out of that god-forsaken town, together. They were just stupid kid dreams of tieing a bundle to a stick and ending up somewhere better where it turns out we were secretly princesses all along but... she never did and the far away island I was send to wasn't exactly from fairy tale."

[Will Stanton]

"I mean, you've reached a place with secret princesses and goddesses and aliens and everything in between in the end. Though I guess you're not a vampire anymore, so you have to find what else makes you special."

He paused again.

"She did get out of that town, you know. With you. In you. And she's stronger, more pure, in you than she would be if you mix her with me."

[Miriam Bell]

"I know, it... wasn't right. It didn't feel right, but I just..." she shrugs a bit helplessly. "She's just a memory now. But damnit, I can dredge things from the depths of minds to make them real, why not her? Only walls and structures and things to hide myself away in."

[Will Stanton]

"Because people are more complex than things. Trust me; I'm good at the latter and bad at the former," Will deadpanned.

"But you get to decide if you're hiding or showing off, at the end of the day."

[Miriam Bell]

"It's all metaphor and psychology. I like showing myself off on a pedestal, not opening doors. But that means I can help you with the impossible. You need something that'll metaphorically hold up to outside forces and protect those within? You couldn't ask for anyone better to forge her neuroses into steel plating, aye?"

[Will Stanton]

Will paused as the subject changed again, and let it slide.

"It needs to be a mixture of the metaphorical and the actual, and there are...dozens and dozens of challenges involved. From mass to fuel to compatibility; it's mind-bogglingly intricate."

[Miriam Bell]

"Didn't say it'd be easy. And I don't know the first thing about submarines, but I reckon that's what all of them are for. And Headmistress Roboto can probably fix any the technical mistakes, put in an engine or sonar or whatever the bloody hell goes in a sub. You don't have to do all of it yourself."

[Will Stanton]

Will shook his head, with a small laugh. "I don't think I was volunteered because of a lack of sheet metal, Miriam. They're expecting a bit more out of me than just that. But size does matter in this context, and has to be tackled first."

[Miriam Bell]

"Sheet metal that's resistant to metaphors. Come on, we'll start with that and a frame work and just work our way out from that. Daunting as it may be, Samantha is right, I bet you will make a good sub." she says with the hint of a smirk.

[Will Stanton]

"Is that any way to talk to your baby sister?" Will fired back, trying to hide a bit of a blush behind gusto.

"And the 'working our way out' is the tricky bit. That's why I'm trying to center myself here, to get ready for some...heavy manipulation."

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam nods, though she looks amused at Will's deflection.

"Take as long as you need. I'll wait, if you still want my help with this."

[Will Stanton]

Will paused, as if he was weighing everything in his mind.

But before he could come to a decision, one of the Wills in a jumpsuit called over.

"He's embarrassed because he needs to go past his limits," he shouted. "We can't shift into something big enough naturally, so we need to force it upon him from outside bit by bit, like working up a muscle."

"There's, like, a thousand ways this could go wrong," a second Will chimed in. "Some of them quite painful, probably, or even with permanent consequences."

"But those are unlikely. It's more likely that he'd end up the equivalent of pulling something; getting stuck somewhere as he heals up."

"It'd give us time to work out the fuel situation, at the very least."

"I thought we were using the Lippencott addition?"

"Not waterproof. Could puncture, and then we'd be up a creek without a paddle."

The three went back to their blueprints, bickering, while the Will Miriam was talking to rubbed his forehead.

"You have my permission to bash them up about the head, if you'd like," he said, a little peeved he had been spoken for.

[Miriam Bell]

"But you're also not claiming they're wrong. Come on, let's see what we can do to you. Give us as much to work with as you got."

[Will Stanton]

Will paused a moment, and then decided in for a penny...

"Step back a bit..." he said, standing up from his cross-legged position. He closed his eyes, concentrating...and grew.

Eight feet tall. Ten. 12. 14. He started shaking a little as he kept going, continuing to rise as Miriam had to crane back a little bit to see him. Before she was relegated to knee-height, however, Will quivered a bit and came to a stop, breathing deeply as he stood tall. Giraffe-height? A little bit more?

"Six meters, give or take..." one of the Will technicians chimed in, eyeballing it.

[Miriam Bell]

"Impressive." she says, tapping her lips with her index finger. "But you're right, hardly enough for multiple people. Would you prefer pushing the limits like this or in a more... inanimate shape? I can think of ways for either..." she says, not elaborating further perhaps a bit ominously.