xp_logs | Jean & Darcy | Astral Cleaning

xp_darcy posting in

Jean helps Darcy repair the worst of the damage done to her mind in the aftermath of Arise, X-Man and some unwanted traps are discovered.

Content Warnings: Discussion of mental manipulation.

Darcy startled as a knock sounded on the door. "Just a minute!" she called out, hurriedly pulling her hair into a messy bun and crossing the few steps to the door. "Jean? Did I lose track of time again? Wait, manners, come in, have a seat." She stepped back from the door and ushered the redhead in, babbling nervously. "I wasn't sure how this would need to go, but uh.. bed or chair? Limited seating options right now, sorry. And I have mm.. water or gatorade, if you're thirsty? Thanks for helping me." She perched on the bed, giving Jean a wan smile.

"Of course. Anytime, " Jean said. As she stepped inside she could feel the anxiety radiating off of Darcy so she tried to make things as painless as possible.

"I'm okay, thanks. And I'll take the bed," she added with a smile back.

"I'd....um...also recommend you take the chair. The astral plane can be a little discombobulating. Some people like to hold onto the armrests. For comfort."

"I.. yeah, sure, I can do that." Darcy moved the few steps to the chair, getting comfortable before wrapping her hands around the armrests. "I'm more concerned about what she did to my mind than I am about being.. discombobulated? Should I have a wastebasket on hand?"

"It wouldn't hurt," Jean said with an honest shrug. "Especially since it's your first time." Everyone reacted to the astral plane differently. Barfing wasn't out of the question.

"Alright." Darcy got up and grabbed one, and a pillow from the bed for good measure. "Way too familiar with this position lately, but at least I'm not on the floor next to the toilet," she huffed out a laugh and got repositioned. She wrapped one arm around the pillow and her free hand around the armchair. "Okay. I'm.. I think I'm ready, let's do this. I need to know, and I need to get any surprises out. I miss everyone."

Jean nodded sympathetically. "Take a deep breath and close your eyes," she said gently.

"This may feel a little strange."

Darcy followed her instructions, taking a few deep breaths and then closing her eyes. Her stomach flipped in upset, and when she opened her eyes again she was standing in a space wholly unfamiliar to her. She was still staring at the various things she could see when Jean appeared in the corner of her eye. "So.. this is the astral plane? It's... different, to be polite."

Jean laughed. "It's okay. You don't have to be polite. I've heard it all. Well...mostly," she said. She was wearing the same outfit she had on in the real world. They appeared to be in the middle of a quiet, tree-lined city street. It was early morning, and the sun painted the buildings awash in oranges and gold. In the distance, people mulled about and cars passed. A finch landed on a tree, peering down at the two of them before fluttering off.

"We're in a waiting room, of sorts, between my mind and yours. I figured it'd be better to let you adjust first before we go in. If you need to stop at any time, let me know and we can come back here, or leave entirely. It's your call."

"No, I... it's nice. A little unsettling, but nice. I can't imagine my mind being as serene as this is. We should go though, before I lose my nerve." Darcy turned to Jean with a grimace. "It's not.. it's not that I don't trust you, I'm just really concerned about what's in there. The bits I've put together on my own.. well. It's a worry, is all. Needs to be done, though."

Jean nodded. "I understand. One thing to keep in mind is that this is your house, for better or worse. Your subconscious may try to stop you out of fear, or pain, but that's totally natural. If you need my help, let me know," she said. The sun had set while they were talking, leaving the stars to twinkle in the sky overhead and for street lamps to turn on.

"Are you ready?" she said.

"Not sure I'll ever be," Darcy replied honestly. "But I'd never forgive myself if I ended up hurting someone because I didn't." She walked briskly towards one of the nearby buildings that'd caught her mind. The interior had steps similar to the mansion's, and the hallway they turned towards was the familiar route Darcy took to her suite every day. She put her hand on the knob with a deep breath, and pushed the door open. "Well, it's definitely familiar," she said dryly. "But unless someone's done some redecorating while I'm gone, it's a much bigger mess than usual."

Darcy's suite was normally kept fairly tidy. Rumpled sheets, maybe a pair of shoes kicked into a corner or an extra blanket half-hanging off the couch. The room in front of them, however, was more of a disaster zone. Dishes in and near the sink were covered in slime, the table covered in papers and debris. Her couch was mostly fine, but the blankets were in a heap on the floor and one of her throw pillows had a long slash in it, and the overall feeling of the room was grimy. Even the window hadn't been spared, sporting a broken pane while small shards of glass littered the floor underneath.

Jean glanced around. "Is this where you feel most comfortable?" she said.

"My bedroom more than in here, but.. yeah. It's home." Darcy shrugged. "I mean, the farm is still home-home, it's still y'know, my family and part of my heart. But I haven't been there for more than short visits in over a decade. Here's.. I don't know. Setting down some roots of my own? The mansion's my life now, and my room... it's usually a cozy place to rest and recharge. There are a lot of good memories in here." She shook her head in disgust, taking in the state of the room as she started rolling her sleeves up. "Not that you'd be able to tell, looking at it right now. Well, it's a little early, but I guess I need to do some mental spring cleaning."

Jean nodded. "Do you want me to help or would you rather do this on your own?" she said. The slight undercurrent of anxiety was still a bit palpable, so Jean wanted to work under Darcy's terms.

"Am I going to remember things as I clean? If so, might be best if I do most of it. I don't.. well. I'd be a little mortified if you ended up getting a face full of me being intimate with Doug or L-La--her," Darcy said with a bitter twist to her lips. "The window might be safe enough to start, though. She did violate my sense of mental safety. I'll start on the dishes." She rummaged around, handing Jean a broom and dustpan from under the sink before eyeing it with distaste. "Gross," she muttered under her breath, pulling on a pair of gloves before getting all of the dishes stacked on one side of the sink. As hot water filled the side, she started scraping slime off the dishes. "Are there ways to build up mental shielding? I know I'd probably never be able to block someone like you or Emma, and I did the basics when I moved in, but is there an option of.. more? Defenses, or ways to trap?"

"Sure, we can work on strengthening your mental shielding and teaching you a few tricks," Jean said. Her attention flickered toward the broken window and the shattered pieces of glass rose up off the floor.

"But that can take some time. We should probably start with assessing and fixing the damage first."

The floating, broken pieces of glass began to piece themselves together like a jigsaw puzzle while Jean herself swept the dirt into a dustpan.

"As for remembering...it depends. Everyone is different. It never works the same."

"Yeah, that's fine. I feel like this is going to be a process. The therapy will probably help with most of this eventually, but if she left anything nasty behind I don't want to be surprised. Or for someone else to find her hooks and turn me into an actual meat puppet. One of the things Kevin has me doing during quieter moments is reading through old mission reports, so I have an idea of things we might go up against." Darcy started scrubbing the dishes, letting the memories that bubbled up wash over her as she got them cleaned and on the drying rack. "This is just every day stuff? Cooking with Terry, leaving treats in the kitchen, dropping a bag of sweet potato puffs at Marie-Ange's desk during a long day at work." She wiped down the area around the sink once she was done, leaving the gloves to dry.

"I think the papers are the things I've been putting together. I'll try to get them in order, and then we can see what sort of state the rest of the space is in?" The chair scraped lightly across the floor as she sat, taking in the pile of papers in front of her. She focused on sorting first, gathering the pages with writing that weren't damaged and getting them into stacks before turning her attention to the rest. Whole first, she decided, hand reaching out and connecting with--

n o t h i n g

"Let's take a drive." Darcy's voice and facial expression were flat, eyes blank as she finished the phrase. "Ready to go?" She made no move to stand after the swerve, just sat staring ahead with her hand flat on the empty pages in front of her.

Jean crossed the room in under a moment. After taking another moment to assess, she tried to pull her hand away from the page.

"Darcy?" she said gently, not wanting to startle her. "Darcy. Are you okay?"

Darcy startled to attention as Jean called her name. "I.. Jean?" She looked around, wide-eyed with concern as she took in how dingy the room looked. "Why are we in my room? Did I come back early? How did it get so dir--" Her voice cut off as she stood, hand moving away from the pile as she suddenly remembered. "What the fuck. A trap? That. That's vile, shit. Sorry for cursing, just. How do we get rid of that?" She stepped away from the table, eyeing the papers like a particularly angry predator.

Jean tilted her head thoughtfully. "No, curse words in this case are absolutely appropriate," she said. She picked up the blank piece of paper. Unlike Darcy, the trap didn't work for Jean because it wasn't set for her.

"Perhaps I should help sort through these, if you're okay with it. The blank pages appear to be things she doesn't want you to remember. But sometimes..." she held the paper up to a lamp, and words slowly started to form as the lamp heated up the paper.

"Sometimes the mind has ways of keeping a hold of things. You're stronger than she thinks."

"That's brilliant," Darcy breathed out. "If there's a trap on it for me... yeah, best to not, I guess? I'll go check the status of my bedroom and the bathroom while you sort those?"

She took a few more steps back from the table and turned, heading towards her bedroom. The mess was honestly not as bad as she expected, based on the living area, but.. "Hey Jean," she called out. "Think I see a partial trap on my desk, after you're done sorting. My work laptop's here, and it's got.. something.. half a cage, maybe it wasn't finished?" She turned to her bed instead of touching anything on her desk, frowning as she took in the disarray. It was quite overwhelming, rips and tears with chunks of stuffing and foam littering the space. "Not even sure where to start," she said mostly to herself from her seat in the middle of the mess, hands plucking and discarding items as she blinked back tears.

Rising from the desk, Jean started toward the cage when she caught the glint in the corner of Darcy's eyes. She sat down in a chair next to her. A box of tissues appeared in her hands, and she offered her one.

"I think we should take a break. She...had a while to cause damage. It's going to take time to fix. But there's nothing wrong with that. You've already made great progress. I'll be here to help you, as long as it takes. Okay?"

Darcy took one of the tissues, worrying it in her hands as she looked around the room. "Thanks. I wish I knew why she did it in the first place. Wish my trust in her hadn't been so terribly misplaced." She shook her head, voice wobbly as she continued. "I hate that I'm a danger to myself and others because she put this shit in my brain, and I hate that I opened the door and just welcomed her in even though I should've known better. I half did this to myself, and I can't even blame it on not knowing she had some... questionable ethical tendencies, when she wanted to get her way."

Jean studied Darcy for a moment or two. "You wanted to see the good in her. To hope that you could help her be better. There's nothing wrong with that. She abused that trust. She used you. And that is very wrong. And it's all on her," she said.

She looked down. "I tried to see the good in her too. She used to be...and then she wasn't. But what she did is not okay. It's okay to feel guilty. Or to try to think of ways you could have done it differently. It's normal," she said, folding her arms.

"The difference is not letting yourself get wrapped up in it, and trying to find your own way of moving on."

Darcy laughed through her tears. "That's what Dr. Stearne said. And Helga too, when she gave me a verbal ass-kicking for wallowing around in guilt and shame. Then she told me if I had time to drown in self-pity, I had time to start helping out and stuck me with peeling and cutting up veg for dinner." She wiped her eyes with the tissue in her hands. "And yeah. I wanted her to have turned a corner. For herself, mostly, but for the rest of us too. But since that didn't happen..." she trailed off, gesturing around the room. "If we can find the worst of the traps and disable them, maybe it'd be safe enough to come back? And I can work on the.. cleaning aspect, I guess, with therapy and time, and maybe another astral check down the road?" Darcy stood, pausing a minute. "How do you feel about hugs? I could use one, and you were her coworker for ages, so I imagine you could too."

Jean reflexively took a step back, folding her arms. "I..." she stuttered. "Sorry. I-I'm...not big on that right now. It's not you it's...what happened with--"

Tucking her hair behind her ears, she looked around and quickly composed herself. "But yes, disabling the traps, the therapy, and the cleaning sounds like a good plan. Maybe a check with Emma too, to be thorough."

"No, that's fine. I'm having some issues there myself. Less with casual touch, more.." Darcy grimaced. "Anything that would push a PG-13 rating for a movie towards R is pretty much out for now. Can meditation and visualization actually help with cleaning up my mindscape, even if I can't access the astral plane alone? If so, I can work on that alone and in therapy. And.. yeah, Kevin will probably prefer both of you doing a scan. Not in an insulting way, but to minimize the chance at something hiding." She tapped her chin for a minute, thinking. "My desk probably needs to be looked at in general, not just my work laptop. That's.. if the traps manifest around things I'm around a lot, or things that represent what they would affect. My phone and planner? Probably my tablet, too."

Jean shook her head. "No, I agree. Best to get a second opinion and look at everything," she said. She rubbed her forehead, letting out a breath before giving her a smile.

"In the meantime...do you know how to sew?"

"Basic darning and some embroidery. Are you okay?" Darcy didn't want to upset her by prying, but she didn't want Jean hurting, either.

Tilting her head, Jean peered back at Darcy curiously. "What? Oh---yeah. It's...nice to feel useful." she said with a nod. Walking over to the ripped pieces of foam and fabric, she pulled a gold thread seemingly out of nowhere.

"So there's this type of Japanese repair work...Kintsugi. It's mainly for pottery but I like to think of it as the same idea. They take broken pieces and repair them with gold, or platinum, or silver. It doesn't disguise what was broken but shows the beauty of the imperfect and the strength of the object that remains that's still there. Whole. With a new life," she said. She held up the thread.

"If you'd like, I was thinking we could use this to make the repairs."

"I.. yeah, I love that idea." Darcy gave Jean a shaky smile as her voice wobbled. "Kintsugi is so beautiful to look at in pottery. It's fitting to use it as patchwork on memories, too." She started piecing bits of ripped fabric and material together, keeping her eyes on her task as she talked. "You are useful and valued, you know. Not just for what you can do, but for who you are as a person. I mean, I'm grateful that you're spending this time in my mind and I appreciate all the medical stuff you do on top of what has had to be some difficult and painful missions, but if you wanted to fuck off from all that for a bit I'd still be happy to hear from Jean the person, not just Doc Grey and Jean the X-Man."

Jean was silent for a few moments. "Thanks," she said quietly. '"I appreciate it. But...I don't want to take away from our time working with you."

"Open invitation," Darcy replied with a small smile. She focused on the blanket under her hands, neat stitches pulling jagged edges together. "Get free at the same time sometime after I'm back, go have dinner or do something quiet and fun where we can chat for a while." Her hands tied the ends off neatly, smoothing the area and looking at the glinting metallic thread. "This was a great suggestion. They remind me of the stars, tracing out constellations in the night sky with Jane while we recorded data."

Jean smiled warmly. "Sounds lovely," she said, two words that stood for both comments Darcy had made.

While Darcy worked, Jean walked over to the computer with the half finished cage and yanked it away from the desk. Turning it over in her hands, the cage melted into shimmering sparks, drifting out the window.

"If you ever want to see the stars again, the mansion roof's got a pretty good view."

"Awesome, I should go up there next time I feel like everything is too much so I can remember how much larger the universe is. There's some places upstate where the light pollution's really low, and the stars are so bright you practically don't need a light." Darcy watched in awe as Jean destroyed the cage, fingers pausing mid-stitch to watch before getting back to her task. "Are you able to get a feel for what the traps are for, or not really?"

"Some of it. Not all," Jean admitted. "I'll have to spend more time here. We've only just started. The blank pieces of paper I'm guessing are erased memories. She didn't want you to know certain things so she erased it." She let out a breath, furrowing her brow in anger. "She just...didn't care about the damage."

"That's my girl," Darcy muttered, voice bitterly sarcastic. "Never let it be said that she wouldn't cross any boundary if it meant she got her way." Tears dripped on the pillowcase, a dark stain on the otherwise silvery grey fabric, and her hands shook as she threaded lines of gold into the rips marring the case. "Gods, making me forget things, overlaying my memories... I guess it's a good thing she didn't finish whatever was around the laptop, I can't even imagine what sort of mischief she would've done with that. Make me reckless, keep me at odds so I wouldn't think to rely on them.. and subtle enough to make it look like just my own behavior the whole time. How would they have known different? It's not like I had a lot of interactions with most of them before I decided joining up sounded like a good idea."

Jean fell silent as she listened to the pain in Darcy's voice. "Hard to say," she said finally, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. "But it's good she's gone. We can pick up the pieces and do what we can to make sure it doesn't happen again."

She studied her. "After you're done with that, how do you feel about calling it a day for today? I think we made a good start."

"Yeah, that's a good idea." Darcy finished her stitches and tied them off neatly, then worked the pillowcase over one of the repaired pillows. She reached up and gave Jean's hand a gentle squeeze before letting her hand fall back into her lap. "Thanks for all of this, Jean. You think it's safe for me to be back in the mansion with what we got done today?"

Jean nodded. "I think so. I'll give Emma a heads up to keep a mental eye out as well for a few days but you should be safe."

Darcy closed her eyes, thinking about the way her body had felt in the chair, and we she reopened them she was back in her room at Helga's. She got up gingerly, moving things out of the way so Jean had a clear space to the door. "Thanks again for helping me with that," she said once they were both aware. "I'll let Kevin know it should be safe enough for me to come back home."