you can't handle the truth

[bouchonne]

WHO: Whoever wants
WHAT: Kickoff of the truth plot!
WHEN: Right now
WHERE: The dining hall
NOTES: Feel free to use this to post open starters with prompts! Or make your own logs. Or create open posts on the network. Do whatever you'd like. No rules just right

If only the cooks had screwed up the soup. The problem is that it's a particularly nice soup today, full of fresh summer herbs, nicely seasoned, and plentiful. And so it's quite likely that you grabbed a bowl - maybe even got a second helping - and so ingested the potion that a devious hand had tipped in there earlier that day.

The effects begin to set in within twenty minutes of ingesting the soup. They may be mild - your tongue stumbling when you go to tell a little white lie...or they might be strong, and you might be overtaken by a sudden hysterical urge to tell deep truths to anyone who might listen. Or perhaps you skipped that soup, and instead, you're surrounded by babbling, confused people who want to tell you their life stories.

The potion's effects will last for up to two days. And they may at times be stronger, and at times weaker. Here's hoping you'll do minimal damage to your reputation in the meantime.

Comments

[bouchonne]

"Yes," Byerly answers - as though it had been a damned question, as though he's somehow compelled to answer. It's asinine, it's foolish, it's humiliating -

"You don't have to prove anything to me. I don't care if you're here morning and night. You're doing fine."

And then he gives a grunt of sheer frustration and rage as he tries to march himself into his office before he does any more harm.

[altusimperius]

"Are... you all right?"

Something tells him no, Byerly isn't, and normally he wouldn't be able to trust him to say so. "Do you need a healer?"

[bouchonne]

"No," By bites out. "I'm not all right. And a healer won't help. I'm - "

He shakes his head. "I'm cursed, like the rest of this damned place. Cursed to tell the truth."

[altusimperius]

"Cursed?" Well that's got his attention. "Cursed to-- by who? How?"

[bouchonne]

"If I knew, don't you think I'd - " He gestures as he searches for the words, and then his honest lips come up with - "Still be completely unable to do absolutely anything?"

He grunts in frustration, rubs at his eyes. "Fuck," he mutters, and then, for good measure, "Maker's breath."

[altusimperius]

Oh, this is bad.

Stunned into temporary silence, Benedict watches Byerly carefully for a moment-- this is someone who's sharp-tongued enough when he isn't compulsively telling the truth, and Going There doesn't seem like the best way to cap off the evening.

"...would you like some water," he says instead of anything involving opinions or feelings, figuring it's an excuse to get himself out of the room and to, potentially (it's a pipe dream) help flush out whatever toxins are causing Byerly's sufferings.

[bouchonne]

"Yes," says Byerly, his voice muffled by his hands. "Please."

[altusimperius]

Giving a tight-lipped nod, Benedict rises from his desk and goes out. It's only a short trip to the so-called Peace Room and its jug of water, so he returns about a minute later and holds out the glass with a vaguely sympathetic look.

"I hope someone isn't trying to kill all of us again," he remarks, and then gives a little start. He hadn't meant to say that aloud.

[bouchonne]

"It'd be an indirect way to do it if they were," Byerly replies. The comment from Benedict isn't such an odd one that it discombobulates him; he accepts it with as much equanimity as he accepts the glass of water.

"This isn't Val Royeaux, after all. Plenty of people here have secrets, but most of those secrets are petty and inconsequential."

[altusimperius]

"You know that for certain?"

Again, not the strangest thing he could've said, but he hadn't intended to, and panic flashes in Bene's eyes.

"I think I've been cursed too."

[bouchonne]

A dry laugh. Byerly goes and sits, and dips his fingers into the glass of water to dab on his temples.

"Grand," he says. Then he looks up and asks dryly, "Any secrets you want to get out now?"

[altusimperius]

"I," Bene stammers, his mind racing, "think you might know them all." Or perhaps not, but there was nothing resting at the immediate forefront of his mind to spill, which is a small blessing.

"This could be bad."

[bouchonne]

"Well, you know all of mine, as well."

He leans back on the couch, stretches himself out and flings an arm over his eyes.

"So I suppose this room is safe enough."

[altusimperius]

"I do?"

It's an alarming thing, to hear it stated outright. "You trust me that much?"

[bouchonne]

By grunts, not moving his arm. "They haven't exactly been shared in moments of trust, have they?" he responds. "And it's not like I have that many of them. Secrets. A man lives a nasty, petty little life, that's not a secret, just something that people get uncomfortable talking about."

[altusimperius]

Rather than stand around like a fool, Benedict sinks back in his chair, letting Byerly's answer ash over him.

"You're not that nasty or petty. I think you just wish you were." He winces.

[bouchonne]

The arm lifts away from his face a moment so that he can squint at Benedict's face, instinctually searching for dishonesty. He doesn't see any, and so he shakes his head and says, "I'm speaking about my life, rather than my character. Though your defense is - " Appreciated is what he intends to say; it comes out instead as: "Unexpected."

[altusimperius]

"It's a life we have in common," Bene answers, with that same uneasy, furrowed-brow concern he had when he first said something he hadn't meant to-- he can't control it, but it's happening anyway. "Sometimes the way you speak to me reminds me of my mother, and it scares me because I'll never be enough to-- to make you happy."
He presses a hand over his mouth and tries to lean on the arm, but keeps going despite his effort. "I wonder if it's because your family treated you the same way. I remind myself of her sometimes too."

[bouchonne]

Now the squint over at Benedict is confused. Indeed, the comment confuses him enough that for a moment, Byerly is even able to ignore that comment about his family. "To - make me happy?" he asks, altogether baffled. "You - Maker, Artemaeus, you have no responsibility for making me happy. Is that what you've been trying to do?"

[altusimperius]

Would that he could take a moment and consider his response, but there are no such mercies to be found this evening.
"I have to be worth something to someone," he quickly replies, "I'm not a lovable person. If I can't be useful, why was I allowed to live?"

Some lessons, it seems, are learned a little too well.

[bouchonne]

Byerly sits up fully now. "Because you committed no crime worth dying for," he responds. Then he shakes his head - "And that's - You can be useful without being some sort of...poppet for my pleasure. I can value you without you needing to bring me happiness."

[altusimperius]

"I don't know what else to do," Bene continues, answering in rapid-fire rather than his usual hesitant humming, and it's becoming more and more apparent to him that he has no control over how this conversation pans out. "And I want to make you happy. Your work is important, and I feel like I'm doing something worthwhile."

He buries his face in his hands, resigning himself to the outpouring. "...and I want to be the poppet for someone's pleasure." Quickly looking up, "not yours."

[bouchonne]

Byerly gives a noise of dismay. Not something he wants to consider, think about, or engage with. Maker preserve him.

"I didn't mean it - in that way." He rubs at his eyes again. Then he tries to drag his mind back, and he says, "I want you to do good work. But - for the sake of winning this war. Not for my sake. Not to make me happy. I've done nothing to earn that sort of kindness, and it's - Maker, I don't know. Not something you could even achieve. Do you understand?"

[altusimperius]

"My loyalty is to you," Benedict replies, lowering his hands, "that's what you've said. Is that true, or isn't it?"

[bouchonne]

"Yes," Byerly says, brow furrowing, and then clarifies as the question comes into some focus - "Not to me personally. I meant that you owed loyalty to this office, to the fight against Corypheus, over the mages' cause. As does everyone here."