You Have a Beautiful Brain (But It's Disintegrating)
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family
Summary: Cognitive dissonance is not a pleasant experience.
Author's Note: Yeah… I think the Lutece's are my favorites in BioShock: Infinite.
Disclaimer: I don't own BioShock: Infinite. It belongs to Irrational Games. The title comes from the song "Medicine" by Daughter.
[-]
Robert stepped through the tear.
[-]
It was like taking a bat to the head.
One minute he was loosening his hold on Rosalind's hand (she had taken it to steady him), and the next he was clutching it as the world spun, his vision went blurry, sounds melted and twisted and slowed and then, eventually, sounded like he was hearing them from underwater.
His vision didn't cut out so quickly, though, that he didn't have a chance to see Rosalind's face.
It was, of course, extremely similar to his own; that was to be expected. She was smiling a small, satisfied smile that for her may as well have been a grin. That lasted for maybe a second or two, the smile and the happiness in her eyes quickly devolving into a concerned frown and alarm.
"Ro-"
One syllable before everything fell apart.
[-]
Everything was a sea of confusion.
Or perhaps it was more like a marsh of confusion: Whenever he seemed to get his footing, the ground sank beneath his feet. Memories blended and evaporated and shifted and evaded him, nothing solid staying with him long enough to process. It was a rush of images and sounds and pain, interrupted periodically by sudden and brief but total grasps on his surroundings.
[-]
There's a wall-
Pain.
Why am I wet?
And sticky to boot.
I'm lying down.
It would be more comfortable if his head wasn't pounding.
When did I get here?
A day ago? A week ago? A month?
Why am I here?
Maybe to… Possibly… What was he thinking about again?
Who is-?
[-]
And then, starkly, a moment of clarity:
A woman was sitting on the edge of the bed (green sheets with spots of red), sliding something sharp under his skin (it stung but didn't hurt half as badly as the steady beat in his skull). Her name was Rosalind, she was very similar in appearance to him, because she was him, an alternate version of him, because he had spoken to her using their (respective) contraptions, and he had crossed into her reality at some point in the relatively recent past-
The pain went from a throb to a sharp stab, and more wetness, from his nose-
Oh.
The sheets were just green- the red was blood. His blood.
[-]
The clarity descended abruptly back into confusion.
Realizing that he was covered in a copious amount of his own blood, Robert did what most people uncertain of what was going on did when confronted with the same situation: He panicked.
He tried to sit up, but his head spun dangerously and he fell back again. There was a slight pressure on his chest, a hand, and the woman-
What was her name?
I knew it a second ago.
Where am I?
-was trying to keep him down, talking to him, but his brain couldn't process the words. Dimly, though, he could tell that she was distressed as she pressed a bit of cloth beneath his nose.
Blood-
Bleeding, he was bleeding-
Why am I-
Injury, illness, had he been attacked or was he sick-?
Where am I?
[-]
Then there came the adjustment.
[-]
What Robert knew and what this reality wanted to know were two different things.
It felt like his true memories and the ones the new reality were attempting to force on him were at war, pushing at him from either side.
The new memories said that Robert had a twin sister and had lived with her his entire life. The old ones insisted that he had been an only child.
I have a sister-
No, I have a double from another reality-
No, I have a sister-
I don't!
The pain increased, and he bled even further.
The new memories couldn't even make sense of what he had been doing with the contraption and the tears, who he had been talking to on the other side as it contradicted the idea that he and Rosalind had always been together, and attempted to repress all old memories associated with it altogether.
Either side pulled or pushed, tried to force his mind to accept the new reality while he simultaneously clung to the old one.
[-]
In one of the moments of clarity, Robert had a few seconds to wonder if he could die from this.
[-]
As his grip on the world around him waxed and waned, Robert could hear Rosalind talking (even if he did forget her name rather often).
So uncertain was he of what was going on, he couldn't tell if she was talking to him, to herself, to a doctor- all unclear from his perspective. Robert tried to talk, but it was futile; his lips moved, sometimes he made noise too, but if he said anything intelligible, the words were as lost on him as hers were.
It was a shame. Likely, Rosalind was trying to help, trying to comfort him (and possibly herself), but if anything her voice increased his confusion.
She, me, she is me, but I am me…
They were the same- but no, they were twins.
He was getting very accustomed to red everywhere.
[-]
I am here.
But 'here' is not where I was before.
Here is a different place-
But he had always been here.
No, I was somewhere else before-
No, no, that was wrong. He had always been here. Where else could he have been?
Another reality, another place, because this is Rosalind's reality and mine-
Mine-
The pain came like clockwork, but Robert was used to it now.
[-]
Piano.
His mind threw anchors that dug into the notes of the music. It grounded him, gave him something to hold onto as he steadied himself.
And steady himself he did. Clarity came gradually, and it was much more solid this time, not something that would be easily ripped out from underneath him. Robert could feel that the bleeding had stopped (or at least significantly reduced).
I am Robert Lutece.
No pain.
I am a physicist.
Nothing.
I went through a tear.
There, just a little bit of a throb.
I am in a new reality.
Little more this time.
My double from this reality is Rosalind.
Stronger now, and he was bleeding again.
We are not siblings, though we are- genetically- nearly identical.
The clarity was starting to slip. Robert stopped, backing away from those thoughts and meditating on the music again. The pain faded, the bleeding disappeared along with the confusion, and he was relieved.
Meditating on that which is not consistent with what this new reality wants me to believe, he thought, and grimaced at the brief flash of pain that came with it, causes me pain, confusion, and spontaneous blood-loss. It merits further study, if I'm ever capable of standing- and thinking- normally again.
[-]
Eventually, the music stopped and Rosalind returned.
Robert tried very hard not to think about who she was and how they had come to be together, and found that this kept the undesirable side-effects of his arrival in this reality at bay.
"You play," He remarked, and almost laughed to see how she nearly jumped out of her skin upon hearing him speak. "Surely you didn't forget I was here?"
"Certainly not," Rosalind remarked, walking over to the bed and examining him carefully. "I just haven't heard a coherent word from you since you arrived."
"How long ago was that, precisely?"
Rosalind hummed thoughtfully. "…A day and a half, perhaps? I haven't kept an eye on the clock."
Robert, who had been trying to keep still for fear of triggering those familiar symptoms again, pushed himself up a bit and looked down. The sheets, as well as the front of his shirt, were still bloody- though it would seem that Rosalind had changed the former at some point, as the stain was lesser and the sheets were now dark blue and white. "I seem to have caused you quite a bit of trouble."
"That depends on what you mean by trouble," Rosalind retorted breezily, pulling down the sheets and balling them up before setting them aside. "If you mean that you've inconvenienced me, then I assure you that I wasn't inconvenienced in the slightest while looking after you. Alternatively, if you meant 'trouble' in the sense that you caused me a great deal of concern, then yes, you did."
Robert smiled. "My apologies."
Rosalind gave him a small one in return. "Kindly don't do it again."
He didn't miss the concern in her eyes. If anything, it was comforting.
[-]
The clarity was solid, but his footing was off.
Robert didn't descend as far into the pain and confusion as he had before, and the nosebleeds were considerably more manageable (relatively speaking; they weren't as devastating as before, but some were strong enough to make him dizzy and stain his clothing noticeably).
"Cognitive dissonance," He said to Rosalind as she removed the needle from his arm. Evidently their blood was compatible, at least enough so that his body could accept a transfusion from hers without issue. It was, unquestionably, what had kept him alive, as Rosalind claimed that the initial bleeding had been severe. "My mind is struggling-"
"-to create memories where none exist." Rosalind gave that little smile at his raised eyebrow. "I wrote the same line, recall."
"The brain struggles so badly that it is…"
"Overheating, perhaps?"
"As close as I suppose we can come with a metaphor, for now. But as such, the physical toll manifests in extreme hemorrhaging and pain."
"And death, had I not done something to rectify the blood loss." Rosalind paused, having just finished taping a piece of gauze down over the needle hole in his skin. "Was that too blunt?"
"Goodness no, I was thinking the same thing."
They had already discovered through their whispers through the metaphorical wall that Rosalind was the blunter of the two of them anyways. And despite the fact that the subject at hand was the grim subject of his mortality, Robert was quite thankful for her candor.
"At any rate, it seems the dissonance clears in time." Rosalind said with a note of satisfaction in her tone. "You should be able to move around soon, once your strength is back."
"It wasn't just that, I think." Robert said, reaching up with his right hand and rubbing his eyes. "The music… Seems to have helped as well. It was very grounding."
Rosalind's eyes brightened with interest. "Hm. It merits further study."
Robert smiled. "Precisely what I was thinking. When I'm up and about, I look forward to studying it with you."
-End