Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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A Hand, Forced [Republic]

[Please see this thread for details!]

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Coruscant
2230hrs, Zhellday

The show had almost went off without a hitch. In all honesty, it was something for which he could be grateful these days, that almost and so close, considering the way things had been turning out for him, as they had been for some time. It was ruining him, it was putting his mates at a distance bit by bit, and he’d just started to notice, when they’d declined the invitation to stick around for an ale or two… that had lately been four, or more likely ten. It was all that was left, when the pain pills stopped working, even if it was temporary, despite the fact that it got worse when he drank. The finite numbness was only a trick, but it was preferable to what getting help meant, no matter how much they had in so many indirect words begged him to get help.

They were afraid for him, but worse still, they were becoming afraid of him. At least, that was what he thought he could see. Even De’arin, who had been his friend since shortly after he had arrived on Coruscant at the age of thirteen, was pulling back because no matter how much Jannik feared what was happening to him, no matter how terribly anxious he was about the change that getting help would bring, he feared the prolongement of solitude more. Maybe, they thought, leaving him alone would give him the shove they thought he sorely needed.

But instead he drank, and he drank, until the bartender cut him off and sent him on his way, out into the cool air of Coruscant at night, before he was entirely too far gone to get himself home. The ‘tender had a stake in the well-being of Jannik, too, for the music the young man made had been good for business. A promise to take good care was extracted from the musician with the soft, chestnut curls, and he left, an alcoholized lope in his gait as he went. Of course, it was hard to take care when your mind had other ideas, for not more than two blocks from the cantina did the world light up before his eyes, plunging his mind into a horrifying sight and clamour of violent sound and actions that pulled a blood-curdling scream from his lips, scrambling several steps back, begging frantically in a chorus of ‘no, no, nononon-NOOO… get away, get a-WAYGET…’ before it sent him crumpling to the duracrete in a faint, his head landing hard in seemingly finalizing smack…

...and every eye of the Coruscanti nightlife was on him as he went down. There was an uproar of shock, disturbed chatter, laughter, holopics and video. There was no hiding, now. Though he would not remember it later, he would never forget seeing his face on the holonet for it, and the shame and ostracising that followed.

-------------------------------------------------------

Two Days Later
Coruscant Medical Center

Eyes fluttered, though lethargically with heavy eyelids. Consciousness had not been at a premium for over forty-eight hours, and medical staff had checked up on him, continuously, around the clock in that time, the worry over the velocity at which his head had made contact with the duracrete being their primary concern... but so far, all his body had been content to do was sleep. So sleep they had let him, continuing measure of his vitals, and discussing amongst themselves what they had seen and heard from the multitude of media footage gathered by onlookers. There were those that wished to speak with him, about what had happened that night - CSF and psychiatric personnel amongst them - and they were chomping at the bit for the moment he would awake.

But neither of those was the first that came to him when he finally came to, when his eyes managed to fully open, and the groggy groan that followed gained the attention of the nurse that was just about to leave the room, her rounds finished. She did not waste time in telling... whoever it was that 'the handsome young man with the curls' was awake. Jannik was not yet cognizant enough to recognize what was going on, otherwise, it was certain he would have blushed. But by the force, he was thirsty, and words to gain a substance that relieved that thirst were the first that came out of his mouth the moment he half-focused on the being that came into the room next, as his head came alive with a deep aching.

"Water, please." He rasped, his face immediately twisting with pain as he said it, and his hands went, shakily, to his noggin. "Ach, my 'ead... uunnghhhhh..."

The blurred figure turned back, poking his head out the door, words were still difficult to comprehend, but next thing Jan knew, he was being sat up slowly, and having water fed to him, bit by bit, until he held up his right hand in a gesture to stop, for the first time seeing his hand, and the I.V. in it...

...and then, De'arin. Jan blinked sluggishly, his head still throbbing. There was too much light in here.

"De, I..." He began, only to be cut off by the sound of his best mate's voice, and the expression on his face, coming into focus, and... and the quetarra case poking up from behind his back, and he began to realize that it was possible to feel worse.

"I'm not staying, Jan. I... I can't." De looked over his shoulder, toward the door, then back to Jan. De looked uncomfortable, and a little on edge. "I just came to drop off your things, let you know that..."

Jan sighed, and looked away.

"I hae an inkling tha' this was comin'."

"Jan..."

"Shut up, De... just... " Jan's face turned toward De again, now creased with pained anger, his eyes becoming wet with hot tears, the volume of his voice raised and straining. "...do what ye came t'do, an' shove off. I know we're done. Take th'band, and do whatever th'frack ye want wi'it. Go live y'life, go an' love Shayenne..." He choked, at those last few words, but continued on. "...an' don'worry about being fearful on account o'me, anymore."

"I'm sorry, Jan... If you would've just..."

But Jan turned his face away again, and listened, waited for De to leave. Labouriously, he curled himself up to one side of the hospital bed, and fed the knuckles of his left hand between his teeth, and let the tears roll like fire down his face.
 
Over the next three hours after a small meal, Jan was host to a couple officers from the CSF who wanted to log an interview with him over the incident, the details of which he was fuzzy on until they began discussing the details with him, the doctor who flashed a light in his eyes and prescribed pain medication, and a psychiatrist who had come to just say hello to gain some familiarity for later follow-up once Jan was on his feet.

He took all of these meetings with an air of indifference, ate a snack, and then slept again, for another two hours, before waking to a short visit from a nurse, followed by being left with the sterile silence of the room. This left him with a lot of time to think, at least until he would be discharged, in the afternoon. Jan had moved from the bed to a chair, and went for his quetarra, glancing at the other bags that rested alongside it, dismissing them as nothing that mattered and taking his quetarra to the chair with him, and settling in to strum away to a lullaby from a vague memory of a woman whom he could only assume was his mother. The tune had always been a comfort, always the place to which Jannik returned when life was unsettled or uncertain.

He had been living in denial for a long time now, avoiding taking the steps he knew he needed to take, and now, his hand had been forced. There was something wrong with him, and the more he thought about it, the less he believed that the psychiatrist would be of any help. Well, maybe some, but somehow Jan didn’t think that any of the number of pharmaceutical cocktails the man could prescribe would make the visions and voices cease. The visions were too real, and the voices were… not crazy, by large. They often read like a dull laundry list of to-do’s and the like. He just wanted them to stop. He wanted life to be sane, and normal again.

Life had other ideas, as life was always wont to do, and as Jan played the comforting little tune, humming along to the picking of the strings, a visitor he had not been told to expect slipped into the room, and crossed to the bed, taking a seat on it. Jan had glanced, but not for more than a second, and had otherwise ignored the newcomer, continuing to play his quetarra… until it became apparent that this visitor wasn’t just an audience, and wasn’t going to leave until Jan stopped pretending there was no-one there.

The playing ceased, and Jan left his arm draped over the body of his instrument, while tucking the pick between the strings on the farmost end of the fretboard.

“I don’t know wha’ y’here for, but…” Jan raised his eyes to finally look on the individual, and the words were stolen out of his mouth, for mere moments, only to be replaced by completely different ones. His face blanched.

“...oh, y’have got t’be frakin’ kidding me.” He said, the words coming out in a slack-mouthed breath.

The Jedi, it seemed, had come to him. There really was no avoiding it, now. Jan continued to stare.

“I… I’m goin’ta need a drink.”
 

Jsc

Disney's Princess
A Jedi visitor indeed.

She was a tall blue-haired woman with edgy purple sunglasses. Dressed in a red catsuit and black leather jacket with Republic Navy markings. She was not modest and her walk did all the talking for her. Accompanied by two Jedi Knights in much more tradition brown, she took a seat across the room. The diva dismissed her two Jedi friends and remained alone with Jannik for now. She did not speak at first but her deep blue eyes swirled with a predators curiosity. Preferring to observe this man for the sorry state he was.

She took off her sunglasses and observed the man with a piercing stare. Sitting vividly like a statue.

@[member="Jannik Morlandt"]
 
As soon as he had spoken, the clearly-marked Jedi left, leaving him only with what looked like a teenage rebellion that clung-to and had never even tried to leave. And she was staring. Jan sharply inhaled at the sight of the woman and his eyes darted down to his quetarra. He held the breath a moment, two moments, three moments, before exhaling again, and raising his eyes, only to find her still staring, like he was some freak on display. With the way things had gone, that might as well have been the truth.

“S’pose you’ve come t’gawk at’the man who made a right fool o’himself. As if th’holoreports weren’t enough.” He said, his voice scratching in its usual lilt, his face regaining some of its colour. He slipped the pick back out from under the strings, and began plucking softly at the strings, again, his fingers placing themselves to the chords of the lullaby he had been playing a small handful of minutes prior. “Go on, then. Have a gander, take y’fill. Sate y’curiosity. I’m not gon’ta vanish. I'm not goin' anywhere.”

The usual kindness and joviality that marked Jannik Morlandt seemed to be on vacation, rightfully so. Yet, it was true that a lot of the fallout was his own fault, and all he seemed to care to do was get lost in his music, and drink himself stupid. He was still trying to ignore the fact that the Jedi were here, in a way, by not talking about it a’tall. Still avoiding the unavoidable.

@[member="Karen Roberts"]
 

Jsc

Disney's Princess
"No Mr. Morlandt. You're not. You're not going anywhere. So maybe the question I should be asking is, ...just where are you trying to go?"

She crossed her legs and got comfortable. Though her face remained stoic, if musing. It was clear she wasn't going anywhere. Her blue eyed stare, her long legs parting, and the way she remained so perfectly still. Like the bedrock from which even her small chair might gain support. She toyed with her glasses before returning to stare at Jannik's sorry retort.

The Force was waiting.
 
At her question, the strumming stopped and he sighed, his eyes going to the window and away from her. He didn’t give a word of an answer for several minutes, the events of the past couple days from what he last remembered to since he had woken today flipping through his mind.

“I hae’nt been trying t’go anywheres a’tall.”

And that didn’t, in any way, say that he didn’t know where he should be trying to get to. He knew. He just wanted it to go away and not have to deal with it. Not have to admit that life had chosen his path for him, and taken away the other options by force. He swallowed, blinked rapidly a few times over, and slowly wrenched his head around to look on the blue-haired woman, again.

“An’ I don’t suppose you have any insights as tae where I should be trying tae go, do ye, missy?”

He wanted to see what she would have to say, if anything at all, or if she was just being cryptic and looking to play with his head. Like his head hadn’t been messed around entirely too much (in his opinion) already.

“D’ye even know why I’m here?”

@[member="Karen Roberts"]
 

Jsc

Disney's Princess
She didn't blink. Just toyed with her sunglasses,

"You're here because of the choices you made for yourself. Just the same as all of us. It is choice that defines us. You are here because you, choose to be."

She waved her hand around the room. Non too pleased with the grand décor.

"Well? Are you happy? Does this lifestyle please you? Is this hospital everything you dreamed it would be when you woke up this morning?"

Her eyes scanned the room. There was nothing here. Just an echo. Then nothing. Not for ether of them. So she sighed, twisted her sunglasses around her fingers, and moved to stand.

"Destiny is not something you find at the bottom of a glass Mr. Morlandt. It is something you grasp with both hands. It is something dangerous, illusive, and brave. ...And though it surprises me to say it, this universe has chosen you to be a bigger part of things out there. Whether you know it or not, you have a gift. And that power and invitation is not something to be taken lightly. It is something to be seized with a full purpose of heart. It is something to be proud of. It is something that can complete you."

The blue-haired woman frowned and placed her sunglasses back over her eyes. Moving to his bedside and removing a card from her pockets.

"So. If you would put aside this trivial nonsense. grasp at life for something new, and conceive of a greater purpose than drowning under your own dead wieght? ...Then meet us here. At the Jedi Temple of Coruscant's front desk. The destination is on the card. The journey you must make for yourself."

She moved to leave and stopped at the door. Placing her hands easily in her jacket pockets.

"...This choice. It hasn't been made for you. Only you can decide that."

Quiet now. She left the room and allowed the nurse to reenter. The Force had made it's invitation. Now it was up to Jannik to choose. What life would he build for himself? Only he could decide that.

@[member="Jannik Morlandt"]
 
The nurse came in again, mostly to disengage the I.V., and begin to prepare him for checking out. It was still a couple hours yet until he would have to leave.

Well, if he thought he felt like dren before, he was mistaken. And she was right.

No, he wasn’t happy. When he thought about it, he hadn’t been happy for a good long while, except for when he performed, and even that had begun to crumble under the weight of his avoidance and indecision. Jan stared at the card held in his shaking hand, the quetarra set aside to make no more sounds for a long while after the blue-haired woman had left. He buried his face in his hands and began to grieve the life he was leaving behind. The life that had left him behind.

And then, when for that time there were no more tears, he looked at the card again, then at the sterile-looking chrono on the sterile-looking wall in his unassuming, sterile room, and sighed, his shoulders slumping. Had he been staring at this card, feeling sorry for himself, and looking sorrier than he felt, for that long? Jannik set the card aside, pushed himself to his feet from the chair, picked through one bag for a set of clothing that felt appropriate for the day, and ambled over to the modest little bathroom, to begin freshening up. After a time, he felt moderately better (at least physically), toweling off and pulling on the clothes he had set aside, and packing up what little he had taken out since De had dropped everything off in the morning.

It wasn’t much longer before a nurse came by again, to help him move on out, asking if she could get him a hovertaxi to anywhere. Jan blinked. It was time. He fished the card out of his jacket pocket, staring at it again for a moment, the anxiety he felt at the finality of this choice seeping quickly into his limbs, and again, his hand was shaking as he handed her the card, she noted the destination, nodded at him with a smile, and handed the card back. He quickly stowed it in his pocket, as if looking at it again would undo him.

After a modest length of time, in which he and his things had been moved from the room to the front entrance, the hovertaxi came, and Jannik was loaded in with his bags and quetarra, to go and change the direction of his life. As the taxi pulled away from the medical center, he felt a little better, but in the face of what was to come, it didn’t do as much to ease his worried, doubting mind as he would have liked.

This was for the best, and as the taxi sped on towards his destination, his mind went back to the stories told to him in his first many months in the care of the foster system, tales of the Jedi of old that he had listened to with an imagination alive, and of the little songs he would sing amongst and to the other children, because of it. The smallest of smiles attempted to crop up on his face, as the pieces started to fit into their places.

Maybe, just maybe, it would be all right.


@[member="Karen Roberts"]
 

Jsc

Disney's Princess
The skyways were busy tonight. Dazzling streams of light on ribbons of reds and blues. Karen rested her cheek in her palm as she peered out the vehicles windows. Even from the back of the limo she still loved this place. The never ending lights of Coruscant.

"...So. How'd it go?"

Grant looked up from his papers and asked with passing curiosity. He hadn't seen Blue all day.

"Oh. Fine. Got the papers off to the press and stopped by the hospital for a visit. Kyles should get the letters in the morning. We should be all set for next week."

"I see. What did you find at the hospital? Anything fun and exciting."

Karen removed herself from the window and looked across the cabin towards Grant's musing gaze. He looked good in a tie,

"Just. ...Just a lost puppy. Hehe. That's all."

"Ah. Picking up strays, now are we? I hope this one doesn't follow you home. You know I love dogs, but visitors are more than enough trouble these days."

He smirked and ran a hand through his spiky grey hair. Grant was reading her mind again. She loved it when he did that. The subtle influence of their Force Bond was growing,

"No no. I think this little puppy will be alright. Just needs to get a little bounce back in his step. That's all."

"Mm hmm. Well then? ...I'm free for dinner tonight. How about Chinese?"

She smirked and looked back out the window. He really was reading her mind again.

"Mr. Pherson." Her eyes turned to find his, "It would be an honor. Hehe."

___


@[member="Jannik Morlandt"]
 

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