[dopplegangland drabble]
Dec. 9th, 2011 12:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
handsomesempai posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thegokaicrewLength: ~200 words
Pairing: Sid/Joe, ???
Rating: worksafe, non-explicit
Notes: Post-rescue, shortly after Sid first regains consciousness (as an extra note, he's not able to see when he first wakes up). Also I have not stopped having feelings about the Zangyack.
They won't be coming after me, will they? you ask Joe, clutching his hand tight, the horrors of captivity all too fresh in your mind. I can't go back there, Joe, I can't, and you can't see him but you can tell from the way his hand moves in yours and the sound of his hair brushing against his shoulders that he's shaking his head.
No, Joe says, don't worry, sempai, you're safe. They think you're dead, that's why the Emperor's idiot son came back to fight us. With him gone, no one's going to come after you.
The pounding in your heart slows, and you find your ability to breathe again. He's dead?
Yes, says Joe, and you nearly tremble with relief. And yet in your chest there is this small, dull ache, an empty hollow, like your heart knows it's supposed to feel something else about the prince being dead but can't quite remember what.
Whatever it is, you don't think it matters much now.
You let it go, and focus instead on the warm strength of Joe's hand around your own, and breathe.
Pairing: Sid/Joe, ???
Rating: worksafe, non-explicit
Notes: Post-rescue, shortly after Sid first regains consciousness (as an extra note, he's not able to see when he first wakes up). Also I have not stopped having feelings about the Zangyack.
They won't be coming after me, will they? you ask Joe, clutching his hand tight, the horrors of captivity all too fresh in your mind. I can't go back there, Joe, I can't, and you can't see him but you can tell from the way his hand moves in yours and the sound of his hair brushing against his shoulders that he's shaking his head.
No, Joe says, don't worry, sempai, you're safe. They think you're dead, that's why the Emperor's idiot son came back to fight us. With him gone, no one's going to come after you.
The pounding in your heart slows, and you find your ability to breathe again. He's dead?
Yes, says Joe, and you nearly tremble with relief. And yet in your chest there is this small, dull ache, an empty hollow, like your heart knows it's supposed to feel something else about the prince being dead but can't quite remember what.
Whatever it is, you don't think it matters much now.
You let it go, and focus instead on the warm strength of Joe's hand around your own, and breathe.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-08 08:28 pm (UTC)BREAK MY HEART A LITTLE BIT WHY DON'T YOU. ALL THE STUPID ZANGYACK BARIZORG FEELINGS.
...NO, JUST GIVE ME THE SID/JOE OKAY <3333333333
no subject
Date: 2011-12-10 08:25 am (UTC)And it's not that Sid feels any remaining attachment to the prince. What's happening is essentially that he notices the absence of attachment but doesn't know that it's attachment that's missing, just that there's an absence where there used to be a feeling of some kind. My justification for this is in the way that I think Barizorg was created – to me, the idea of destroying all the human parts of someone and leaving only their skills doesn't quite make sense if you give it a moment's consideration. Skills are more than just cognitive, after all, especially with something as physical as swordsmanship where there is a lot of reliance on muscle memory. So I think that in order to preserve Sid's skills, most of his internal physical structures were left intact, and his body was not changed that dramatically on the inside when he became Barizorg. The drastic changes are to the exterior and then also to his personality and behavior; he's essentially brainwashed and reprogrammed, and at the core of his identity is absolute loyalty and obedience to Warz Gill. All his actions and emotions stem from that programmed loyalty. Because his loyalty is programmed and not voluntary, the resulting emotions that he feels toward Warz Gill are not genuine, but he still feels them. And he spends years like this – just based on how the timeline of gathering the crew together goes, I'd say Sid has spent at least three years of his life as Barizorg. So during this time, his body becomes accustomed to the emotions Barizorg feels (I am going with the idea that emotions are not just in the brain but felt in the body as well for this). When Sid is recovered, the programming is erased, and he doesn't have any memories of his time as Barizorg. So in this situation what happens is his emotional reaction to hearing about Warz Gill's death is incongruent with what his body is accustomed to, because he's only very recently stopped being Barizorg. He notices that there's something off, an absence where the programmed feelings would be, but since he has no memory of his reprogrammed existence he doesn't know what the absence is for, just that it's there. And he ends up concluding that it doesn't matter that much because the only person it would make a difference to at that point is Warz Gill himself, and he's dead.
For bonus points, this is actually the happiest possible ending I can conceive of to the whole Barizorg storyline, barring Barizorg and Sid splitting into two separate bodies and going to live peacefully on tropical islands with their respective manfriends.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-10 08:45 am (UTC)/this icon is saying "we would like moar pls"
Date: 2011-12-08 09:04 pm (UTC)