[open] cast an illusion

[franciscoramon]

who: cisco + anyone!
what: memory share event & catch-all
when: october
where: anywhere
warnings: murder, torture, bullying

MEMORIES

Feel free to either have your character text Cisco (or comment on this post but indicate a text message) about having a vision / dream of his past, or to come to where he is to discuss it.

A. MURDER {third person dream OR first person vision}

[watch here

This memory is both intensely traumatic and one that Cisco has relived many many times. Have fun with it if you want, there may be small distortions - sometimes Cisco seems to remember Eobard's demeanor being gleeful, even smiling as he kills him. There may be odd gaps here and there, as well as inconsistencies. Or you can play it totally straight, just as it happened.]

B. VIBING {first person; vision}

[watch here (memory lasts up 'til 2:30)

This memory is likely to come across in jumbled pieces at first, and then more clearly as the week progresses. What's most important is that this memory captures the subjective experience of vibing from Cisco's perspective. So at one moment the memory is of looking down at a microscope slide of sand, feeling intense unease and fear, to hands reaching out and touching the sand. Once that contact is established, there is a swooping feeling, like missing a step going down stairs or plummeting on a roller coaster, and then the world goes static-y, with strange flashes of light, blurred vision, and an eerie blue tint. The warehouse that Cisco sees feels intensely present, though sounds are a bit muffled and occasionally there are jumps and starts. The end of the vision is as jarring as the start, and afterwards there is the confrontation with Stein, and a palpable feeling of panic over being interrupted and witnessed.]

C. PRISONER {first person; vision}

[watch here

This memory is clear and vivid, accompanied by feelings of hunger, exhaustion, frustration. Feel free to supplement after the cutoff at the end of the scene a moment where Cisco begs that he's already made them weapons (the heat, cold, and gold guns) and that's enough, and also Snart threatening to just out and out kill Dante, both of which are confirmed to happen but aren't shown in the clip I linked.]

D. BABY NERD PT 1 {third person; dream}

[ Cisco can't be older than nine or so, and he's adorable. We're talking a criminally cute child. His hair is cut short, which makes his ears stick out a little, and there's a tooth missing his bottom row of teeth. He's small for his age, (looks even smaller because he's wearing what are clearly hand-me-down clothes), all round-cheeked and bright-eyed. He comes bounding up to a bench in what looks like a small neighborhood park. Sitting on the bench is a pretty brunette girl with a high ponytail and big earrings, and a boy that looks a little like Cisco, around five years older. Cisco, bubbly and excited, asks: ]

Hey Val, hey Dante, do you wanna see what I made?

[ Dante, who has a hand very obviously and purposefully perched on Val's knee, glares absolute daggers at his little brother, but before he can say anything she answers with genuine interest: ]

Yeah, totally.

[ Cisco beams and pulls the lid off the shoebox. Inside is rather ugly-looking device, clearly cobbled together with materials from a bunch of different things. But Cisco pulls it out carefully as if it's the most precious thing on earth and holds it up, explaining in a delighted rush, what it is and how he made it. He has apparently cobbled together pieces from a broken cell phone, an old malfunctioning digital camera, and a half-smashed mp3 player, into a frankenstein'd device that can take pictures, make phone calls, and play music, too. Val sits up as he explains, going from indulgent to this kid with his little doodad to genuinely excited. Cisco hands it over to her and she tests it out, taking a photo of the beaming Cisco, clicking a number code onto the pad which makes 'I Could Fall In Love' by Selena play (though only loud enough that she has to hold the thing to her ear like a phone to hear it). Then, she even uses it as a phone, calling her mom, exclaiming that it really works, and hanging up again. ]

Cisco, this is so cool.

[ She jumps to her feet, saying that she's got to go get her best friend from the corner store across the street to bring her to see it, too, and goes rushing off. Cisco just stands there, holding the thing and beaming like he's never been more proud of himself in his entire life. ]

E. BABY NERD PT 2 {third person; dream}

[ (Continued from the last one, for anyone who wants an angst component)

As this scene was happening with Val, Dante was getting more and more visibly annoyed, trying to redirect attention back to himself. As soon as she leaves Dante snatches the device from Cisco, turning it over once or twice, unimpressed. Cisco's face falls, shifting from joy to trepidation, like he knows something bad is going to happen. Dante doesn't disappoint; he tosses the thing in the air and then catches it as it falls. Cisco pleads: ]

Dante, don't!

[ Which, of course, only seems to encourage the older boy. Dante throws it into the air, higher this time, and catches it, but Cisco winces, clearly terrified that he'll drop it. He tries to grab it away from his older brother, but Dante gets to his feet, holding it above his head. ]

Come on, don't be such a fucking girl, I'm not gonna drop it.

[ He tosses it into the air with enough momentum to it goes behind him and he has to spin to catch it. Cisco keeps pleading with him to quit it, trying to wrestle it away from Dante, who only laughs. It's inevitable, what happens eventually. Dante hurls the thing much too high, and it's hard to say, whether he was really trying to catch it or not. Either way, it slips between his hands and crashes onto the asphalt, shattering into about a dozen pieces. Cisco scrambles to pick up all the pieces, but the lens from the camera has shattered and the casing is cracked. ]

Oops.

[ Dante shrugs, sounds absolutely unapologetic. Cisco starts sniffling, fighting back tears as he tries to fit the thing back together. He starts putting the pieces back into the shoebox, wiping tears from his cheeks as they start to fall but saying nothing, not even looking at his brother. Dante, for his part, says scornfully: ]

Seriously, Cisco, it was an accident. You gotta stop being such a sissy all the time. It doesn't look good.

[ Then he walks off in the direction that Val had gone without another word, leaving Cisco to clean up the rest of the mess. ]

OR hit me up on plurk to plot something else!

Comments

[franciscoramon]

[ Somehow, seeing his own body in a heap like that is almost worse than everything that came before it. Eobard doesn't linger, doesn't even spare a glance. Cisco lowers his hands in time to hear Lucretia's words, turning to look at her. He doesn't say anything, just looks at her, pale-faced and distraught.

Which, rudely, is exactly when the dream ends. Cisco wakes up in his bed, tears on his cheeks, and it takes a moment or two for the disorientation to fade. He covers his face with his hands, scrubbing his cheeks dry before he reaches for his phone on the nightstand and texts Lucretia, quickly, without thinking the message through first: ]

was that really you in the dream?

[ It's a silly hope to hold onto, that it hadn't really been her seeing those things happening to him, that perhaps his subconscious had filled in all those details about Wonderland and none of it was real. That would be much, much better if that were the truth. He doesn't want Lucretia to have had to choose not to give up the memory of her parents, and he really doesn't want her to have seen him being murdered, heard the stuff that Eobard said about loving him like a son. ]

[scholiast]

(Lucretia only gets a glimpse of his agitated expression before the dream sinks into darkness and she wakes with a start in a cold sweat. For a moment, she lies there, breathing hard. Thankfully Beverly isn't there, because she doesn't want to talk about what she's just relieved and seen. When her phone buzzes on her bedside table, she has to take a moment to untangle herself from the sheets (she must have been tossing and turning in her sleep) before she can fully extend an arm to reach it.

It's from Cisco.

Lucretia sighs, wiping her thumb slowly over the words, thinking hard. What she wants to do is deny any knowledge of what he's talking about. Her memories of Wonderland were upsetting, and she know he'd be able to find a reason to explain them away; it would bring him relief to know she had not seen him die like that. She wants him to have that security. He probably needs it.

Lucretia even has a baffled reply typed and ready to hit send on in the morning, but then she abruptly remembers a conversation from only a few days ago, and Taako standing in place, staring at her unimpressed. 'If you ever get to that therapist, ask 'em about this martyr complex you've got going on.')

It was. I'm sorry Cisco.
Are you okay?

[franciscoramon]

[ Well, damn. There goes that momentary sliver of hope. That means Lucretia really had seen all of it - what happened in the memory, and the current Cisco's reaction to it. No wonder she is asking if he was okay.

The answer is, of course, no, he's not. Not at this moment, and not in general. She is a smart woman. She must have realized that this was what Cisco was talking about, when he told her it is hard for him to trust people. Would she remember the way he'd told her you can love someone without forgiving them? The puzzle pieces have been there, and now she merely has seen the picture on the box, that they all fit together into. ]

it's complicated but you should know i'm not dead anymore.

[ Which is not the answer she was looking for, of course. But it's an easier one to give, than to get into how very not okay he is. At the very least, Cisco knows Lucretia will understand. She'd told him about that year when she was on her own, had to fight to stay alive and save all of her friends and the universe. There's no way that hadn't left some pretty serious psychological scars. So even if the specifics are different... well, at least she knows how stuff can change you, and linger. ]

i'm sorry you had to see that
and for the wonderland stuff.
if you wanna know more i can explain sometime but i don't think i'm up to it right now
kinda just wanna pretend none of that happened rn

but you don't have to worry about me telling anyone about what i saw
i'm not actually that bad at keeping secrets.

[scholiast]

I'm really glad to hear that.

(Maybe not the answer she's looking for, but deeply relieving all the same. She sighs, letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding as she sits up and scrubs the sleep from her eyes with a balled up fist. No more dreaming for her tonight! She's nipping this one in the bud by getting up for work five hours early.)

No, of course.
You don't ever have to explain if you don't want to, Cisco.

(That, and for once, she isn't deeply curious. Lucretia just feels sad and sick about the whole experience, and pretending it didn't happen might not be the best way to cope with that but it's the easiest option right now. Swinging her legs out of bed, she pulls up Taako's number and sends him a quick message to let him know to drop Cisco a bell later.)

Thank you. I won't tell anybody what I saw either for the record. You know me: I'm pretty good at keeping stuff from people.

(Stupid. Lucretia stares at her phone for a long moment, standing in the doorway of her bedroom, both thumbs hovering over the screen. The next couple of messages are disjointed, but only because it's easier for her to get her thoughts out if she just hits send and doesn't give herself time to re-read anything. That and she's tired, both physically and of being so anxious over every little thing.)

For what it's worth I
What happened and how that affects what you know of me and what I've done
I understand why that would have changed the way that you see me and I'm sorry that I brought all of that back up again
And I really am glad that you're okay, and alive.

I'll be around at at the usual time to re-cast the wards, but you don't have to come meet me if you don't want to.

[franciscoramon]

[ The idea of never having to explain, never having to talk about that day or Eobard or his stupid trauma or any of it ever again, is pretty appealing. And while he hadn't been angling for Lucretia to promise to be discreet, he does appreciate that she offers. He figures that the least he can do is say: ]

taako knows all about it.
& magnus saw part of it in a dream a couple days ago.
you don't have to keep anything from them.
& i guess i'll tell lup sometime

[ At this point, her being the only one of the IPRE family who doesn't know is absurd, and Cisco doesn't want to make them keep secrets for one another. But that's a hurdle to be leapt on another day.

The joke about her being good at keeping secrets does get Cisco to smile, just a little bit, which is a feat after what he'd just relived. It makes it easier, reading the texts that come next, and getting confirmation. Lucretia can tell, that it was old wounds Eobard had left that had made Cisco react the way he did to news about her manipulating and hurting her friends. But... ]

you and him are very different
i mean some of the stuff taako said you're gonna do with spying on them and pulling strings and lying about what you're actually up to, that's kind of the same, and when i found out that's when things got weird between us
but he was doing all that to hurt us. to work against us. you wanted to keep them safe, and save the world
and even tho you ended up hurting taako a lot you'd never... you know, HURT him. like dr. wells hurt me.
so it's not on you to apologize for bringing it up
it's on me to quit punishing you for reminding me of him.

and of course i'll come meet you

[scholiast]

You don't have to complete the set if you don't want to, you know.

(Having said this, she's touched that he wants to let Lup know too; Taako must have promised to keep it from her. The explanation that follows in Cisco's next couple of messages makes her pause in the middle of her kitchen, her shoulders sagging in relief as she scrolls down them one at a time, reading and re-reading. She still feels awful and sad about the whole state of affairs between them but this reassurance from Cisco is deeply comforting.

Lucretia lets herself stand in that feeling for a moment before replying. She needed this more than she thought she did.)

Thank you, Cisco.

(She doesn't know what else to say. She doesn't feel the need to expound.) Truly.

I'll see you tomorrow. I hope you can get some sleep, in the interim.