032. Video

[foolishwren]

<sub>[Beep beep! What's that, Lassie? An incoming message?! Oh, looks like it's coming from one Hal 'Otacon' Emmerich's PokeGear! How lovely. What does the nerd have to say toda-- .... HEY, THAT'S NOT OTACON!]

[The screen blips into life on a face that's bruised, scraped, and... freckled?]

[Once its owner is sure the thing is on, she withdraws-- making herself a little easier to identify. Sheepish smile and all.]



[Behind her appears to be a standard little camp set up in the woods-- nothing... really fancy. But she's not the only one there-- somewhere behind her, there's.... some shirtless guy wandering around and his indistinct bitching about something or other can be heard.]

[The mat-furred, sleepy Growlithe in her lap just looks content to be there, although it's obvious he's had it as rough as his owner.]</sub>

So. Uh.


_{[Her voice is a painful-sounding croak-- hardly more than a shadow of what it is normally.]}

Apparently I'm a wanted criminal.

... Anyone know what I did? ... Was it awesome?

I love that mugshot. It's so majestic.

<sub>[Yeah, she's making light of it, but her heart's not... really into it. Though it's sort of hard to tell the difference between that and the plain old exhaustion that's obviously leaking into her every movement and word.]

[... Meanwhile, in the background, Liquid has noticed that the camera's on and has started flexing his manly man-muscles at it in true Photobomb fashion. Heather doesn't notice yet.]</sub>

Uh... anyway... I'm not... sure how long I was gone, and my 'Gear is uh... pretty thoroughly broken-- Hal's off in town getting stuff to repair it with, so... if anyone... like, tried to contact me, m'sorry, I probably didn't get it...


I uh... really hope everyone's all right.

_{[She probably doesn't need to clarify that she's talking about that fog. Now that she knows what had happened wasn't real, and that others had experienced their OWN nightmares... well, let's just say she's really hoping she didn't knock anyone's skull in. ... And the question "DID I knock anyone's skull in?" is implied at the end of her statement.]}

......

_{[And around that time, her Heather Senses pick up on Liquid's trolling behind her, so she reaches out to turn the camera off while looking over her shoulder.]}


Liquid, get the fuck out.

_{[End feed.]}




[Locked to Kaito and Rise]

[Another video feed, a little later than the first one, but not by too long. Otacon apparently was able to fix the 'Gear enough that Heather could receive those two messages that had been waiting a good week and a half to be received by this point.]

[And... judging by her hardly-disguised guilty expression, she's more than feeling the weight of guilt for worrying her friends. Especially since she saw Rise just the previous day and hadn't... even known how ... candid a message she'd left days before.]

[After a couple seconds, she breaks into a sheepish, crooked grin.]

Uh... hey, guys...


... I got your messages...



[Locked to Harry, James, and Mary]

<sub>[This one's in text, because she knows good and well that James at the very least will be freaking out over how she looked in that video feed, and she's not sure she can take his quiet concerned expressions.]

[But she can't avoid sending this-- if she saw Silent Hill in that fog, then she's... pretty sure that they'd have seen something similar. ... Well, she's not sure about Mary, actually, but given the connection... better safe than sorry.]</sub>

are you guys alright

(typing is hard, sorry for no caps)_

-heather

Comments

[video;]

[foolishwren]

_{[He is lucky! AND YOU'D BETTER APPRECIATE THAT, LAWYER MAN. Heather doesn't feel guilty for just anybody!]}

Well, I-- ... whoa, wait. Come again?

_{[He'd... been seeing someone other than her? ... Well in hindsight, that makes SENSE, she wasn't the only person hallucinating after all, but-- ... well, now she's curious. Who would he have thought was BEATING THE EVERLOVING SHIT OUT OF HIM aside from her?]}

[video;]

[cheapblusuits.livejournal.com]

[He knows how, er...rather irresponsible Heather is, so he does! It's certainly out of character for her.

...aaaand oh, balls, he didn't mean to say that aloud -- Phoenix looks surprised for a few seconds before glancing away, his expression caught between embarassment and...an almost wry smile, but when he turns back to Heather, there's sadness in his eyes.]

_{...her name was Dahlia.}

[So quiet, almost a whisper.]

[video;]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[LOL YEP.]

[Aaaaand THERE'S the reason he reacted so weirdly when Heather had told him about her mother. Brows pinging up, Heather repeated him a little incredulously.]</sub>

Dahlia?

<sub>[Could it...? .... No. 'Course not. There were a lot of people named Dahlia.]

[Though she'd be lying if she said she didn't have plenty of (old, otherlife) memories of the one she knew beating up on her...]

[But no. This was somebody different.]</sub>

... Who... was she?

[video; turns out they're the same Dahlia. HEATHER I AM YOUR FATHER]

[cheapblusuits.livejournal.com]

She was...my girlfriend, back in college.

[A pause. Then, to clarify;] Dahlia Hawthorne.

[Another pause.

...which turns into a drawn out silence, strained and only punctured by Phoenix occasionally squeezing his eyes shut and glancing more to the side than he already was. What had Dahlia done to him? Leave emotional scars running even deeper than the ones Edgeworth had given him? Noooo!]

[video; WUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT holy crap Heather has two daddies]

[foolishwren]

_{[... The thought of Dahlia Gillespie being ANYONE'S girlfriend (although Heather was pretty sure she HAD gone to college...) was so crazy that she actually snorted a little, though like every other normally-mirthful gesture she'd made that evening, it was distinctly mirthless.]}

Hawthorne, huh...

_{[She looked back to Phoenix was both... surprised and unsurprised to see him... acting like that. The part of her that was a little more immature was a little unnerved by seeing a grown man shy away like a kicked dog-- the part of her that knew how trauma worked and that it didn't discriminate was not shocked at all and just felt... empathy.]}

... If you don't wanna say anything about it...

[video; THAT WOULD BE THE BEST and creepiest THING EVER]

[cheapblusuits.livejournal.com]

[He shrugged, making a noncommital sound and taking a moment to collect his thoughts. In all honesty? He had no idea how to describe Dahlia to anyone, because a part of him was still so far steeped in denial that he almost didn't want to say anything -- not because he didn't feel comfortable talking about it, but because that would like admitting that what she had done...had actually happened. There was a reason why Phoenix never talked about this, despite usually being such an open book.]

...she killed her ex-boyfriend. Doug Swallow.

He wasn't who she wanted to kill, though.

He just...got in her way, I guess.

[...and one more, long pause.]

_{...she wanted to kill me.}

[video; ~*~CROSSOVER TIEM~*~ someone should write a fic about it.]

[foolishwren]

_{[Heather was silent. It's not the worst thing she's ever heard, but it sure as heck does explain a few things about Phoenix. ... Namely one of the reasons he always seems so whipped by everybody. And why he hadn't fought back when Heather had gone after him...]}


.... I'm sorry, Phoenix...

_{[Another pause.]}

... What happened to her?

[video; ....if no one else does I might just take you up on that]

[cheapblusuits.livejournal.com]

[He shrugs for the upteenth time, far gone down memory lane and not meeting Heather's eyes.] It's alright. _{It's been three years...I should be over this, huh?}

[...he takes a moment to answer that next question, and by the time he does, his eyes are back on the screen, but they still have that faraway look to them.] She was...arrested. My attorney, Mia Fey -- she proved my innocence, and implicated Dahlia instead.

...I don't know what happened to her after that.

[video; ffffffffh oh god I would lol forever]

[foolishwren]

... Three years isn't that long.

_{[Grinning hollowly, she adds--]}

All that... stuff back then happened much longer ago than that, and sometimes I still don't think I'm over it.


... It's good she was arrested, though.

[video; "SUP HEATHER LET ME HELP YOU KILL MONSTERS also lol I am not just some random guy trust me"]

[cheapblusuits.livejournal.com]

...I guess. _{But really, I'm just...I'm just overreacting.} [After all, Larry went through more girlfriends than underwear, and HE never seemed put off in the slightest.] ...you went through so much more than i did, anyway.

... [Silence and a stuff nod are the only responses to that last statement. Because unlike Heather, Phoenix doesn't hate his Dahlia.]

[video; ":I IF YOU START TALKING ABOUT PARADISE, I'M GONNA BUST A CAP IN YOUR SKULL"]

[foolishwren]

_{[That? Got a FIRM shake of the head.]}

S'not overreacting.

And it doesn't matter what anybody else went through.

_{[Starving orphans in Nigeria didn't mean that you should feel bad for being miserable if you couldn't afford more to eat than a can of soup every few days.]}

[video; "...WELCOME TO PAAAARADISE /guitar"]

[cheapblusuits.livejournal.com]

... [does Phoenix believe that? No, not really. The whole fiasco has given him a little bit of a self-esteem issue, whenever he's not in court. But that earns Heather a smile -- genuine, and not strained -- anyway.]

It's still pretty pathetic.

[You think you have it rough now, Phoenix? Just wait until next year. Dahlia ain't done with you yet, lawyer-boy.]

[video; "..... ok if it involves guitar solos it's fine"]

[foolishwren]

_{[Another shake of the head, this one more insistent.]}

No, it's not.

And I'm quick to hand out the 'pathetics' when it comes to judging people, so when I say that's not pathetic, I mean it.

<sub>[Getting bent out of shape for three years because your girlfriend breaks up with you? Yeah, that's pathetic. Because your girlfriend cheated on you? Depending on severity, a little less pathetic. Because your girlfriend tried to KILL YOU? UM. DUH.]

[Poor Phoenix. ... Just... poor Phoenix. If it helped any, if Heather knew this, she'd totally have offered to beat her up for him. .... Not that he'd... you know... like that.... but it's how she shows she cares!]</sub>

[video; "Sweet I was wondering what I would do with my guitar other than bash monsters with it"]

[cheapblusuits.livejournal.com]

[No, no he would not have! Because Phoenix can't hate Dahlia, not now when he's still pretty enamored with her, despite the whole "lol tried to kill you bro" thing, because he's an idiot. He won't ever be completely over her, but it's too bad I didn't app him after the third game; five years and recently Hannibal Lecture-ing her back to the afterlife might have made him a bit less wibbly when it came to the subject.

...not that Phoenix ever ISN'T wibbly when it comes to personal matters, but I digress.

And, in all honesty, Heather's support means a LOT! But...]

...but, I mean, what if it was my fault? What if I did something...did something, something that changed her? _{I knew Dahlia. She would never do anything like that. She couldn't.}

I know it's stupid to think about it now, but...I can't get it out of my head. [Especially not with the recent nightmare episodes. And with Mia dying only a year ago. He felt he was to blame for that, too -- why was it that every woman who held his heart had something horrible happen to them?

So, yeah, pretty much, have a slighty-on-the-verge-of-panic Phoenix, who really needs to get this off his chest.]

[video; "... I think we need a monster-fighting rock solo."]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[Wow... and within five seconds, Phoenix had gone from 'pretty reasonable' to 'Stockholm Syndrome Victim'. Was EVERY sweet-natured guy out there like this?! First Otacon... She's starting to think she should be getting the lawyer and the nerd together for some communal guilt-complexing time.]

[Heather shakes off the slight shock-- she supposes she really should have seen it coming... if he'd just laid there and taken that beating from her. Even the most laid-back of people would have at least fought back a little, right?]</sub>

Wh-- ... I-- ... hang on a second, all right?

Sometimes people are just rotten. And they're good at hiding it! How do you think the people who hurt me got away with it so long? _{[... Not that... her Dahlia had really been that subtle. In her case it was more that people didn't do jack shit about what was right under their noses. BUT THE POINT STILL STOOD!!]}

I don't know, maybe you killed her dog or something, but I'm gonna guess that if you're in the dark enough to wonder about it, you didn't do anything that justified her trying to kill you!

_{[This was the guy who'd just sort of laid there and let himself be whaled on, after all. She finds it hard to buy that it could have been his fault, and she has a feeling it's more along the lines of his girlfriend being a total fucking psycho.]}