[cw: possible cws of some extremes: child death, depression/suicidal ideation, self-harm, gore, possibly more. So note comment subject warnings.]
[This is his nightmare. Letting someone into his brain. For multiple reasons. There's fear over them seeing the worst of what he was and the judgement and disgust being beamed right into his brain, there's shame over some of the ways he coped, there's worry that his trauma might cross over and hurt someone else.]
[But the seers say he needs to go. They warn him of terrible visions of what will happen if he stays behind and his brain of course volunteers the mental images along with those warnings. An explosion engulfing the whole world.]
[He keeps picturing it from above, his legs in view, what it would look like if he were hurled into the air over it. Only this time it doesn't just swallow a few blocks. This time it spreads out over the whole world.]
[It's enough to override everything else. What's his discomfort in the face of billions of lives? Maybe his resistance to telepathy will protect him and whoever he winds up joined at the brain with. And it makes sense he might be one of many pieces in the victory puzzle. He knows what he's worth (next to nothing) but he's become powerful enough to give cosmic entities like Korvak a little bit of a wedgie, however brief. Given that the machines can channel powers, his might be useful.]
[So he volunteers and puts himself into rotation, hating every second of it. When it's time for his first mental link-up he nervously makes his way into the cockpit, feeling woefully under-prepared. The last time he just...jumped into something, it... it didn't go well.]
[Understatement.]
[He's the first one there. He waits, trying to re-familiarize himself with the controls, going over the simulations in his head, hands going through the motions over top the glowing projections and levers. When he hears that he's been joined by someone else, he doesn't look up.]
Ten year old me would've loved this but I feel like I'm going to puke.
[This is so much different than just fighting something himself, with his own body, and his own powers, and his years of experience doing it. He feels like he's going to have a panic attack. A bunch of precogs told him he has to prevent his worst experience, times so many times over he can't even count it, and he has to learn to pilot something more complicated than a forklift. He's had adolescent nightmares about doing this with no pants in front of math class.]
Move Out - Locked to Jason
[This is his nightmare. Letting someone into his brain. For multiple reasons. There's fear over them seeing the worst of what he was and the judgement and disgust being beamed right into his brain, there's shame over some of the ways he coped, there's worry that his trauma might cross over and hurt someone else.]
[But the seers say he needs to go. They warn him of terrible visions of what will happen if he stays behind and his brain of course volunteers the mental images along with those warnings. An explosion engulfing the whole world.]
[He keeps picturing it from above, his legs in view, what it would look like if he were hurled into the air over it. Only this time it doesn't just swallow a few blocks. This time it spreads out over the whole world.]
[It's enough to override everything else. What's his discomfort in the face of billions of lives? Maybe his resistance to telepathy will protect him and whoever he winds up joined at the brain with. And it makes sense he might be one of many pieces in the victory puzzle. He knows what he's worth (next to nothing) but he's become powerful enough to give cosmic entities like Korvak a little bit of a wedgie, however brief. Given that the machines can channel powers, his might be useful.]
[So he volunteers and puts himself into rotation, hating every second of it. When it's time for his first mental link-up he nervously makes his way into the cockpit, feeling woefully under-prepared. The last time he just...jumped into something, it... it didn't go well.]
[Understatement.]
[He's the first one there. He waits, trying to re-familiarize himself with the controls, going over the simulations in his head, hands going through the motions over top the glowing projections and levers. When he hears that he's been joined by someone else, he doesn't look up.]
Ten year old me would've loved this but I feel like I'm going to puke.
[This is so much different than just fighting something himself, with his own body, and his own powers, and his years of experience doing it. He feels like he's going to have a panic attack. A bunch of precogs told him he has to prevent his worst experience, times so many times over he can't even count it, and he has to learn to pilot something more complicated than a forklift. He's had adolescent nightmares about doing this with no pants in front of math class.]
I don't even have a freakin' driver's license!