milliways_bar | (no subject)

He blinks again, then nods a bit.

"You are probably right, but... I tend to focus on working. It is my consuming passion."

He glances down at the laptop, his eyes dark.

Serena watches him a moment... then speaks, low and gentle. "Perhaps it has consumed a bit overmuch?"

"It isnt something I can stop. Or, rather, that I will stop..."

He sighs.

"It is important, and I have to do it, have to keep trying to do it."

"And why so, if I may be allowed to know, sire?" A slight tilt of head.

"Ah, it's Bruce."

He glances at his work again and then nods.

"Due to some rather unfortunate circumstances, I share mind and body with other personalities, which are far less friendly and far more deadly than I am. MY goal is to find a way to lock them away for ever, or tyo simply eradicate them, or make my mind whole again."

"We all have our inner demons, Bruce. Yours are simply more... active. Are they really that bad? Or rather, how bad they are?"

He removes the glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose.

"Each one is different. Joe Fixit is Abrasive, lecherous and disohonest, and casually violent. Green is savage, innocent, and like as not to destroy whatever he touches. Savage is pure rage. Professor is a little better than the others, but his arroagnce makes mine look like nothing and his self righteousness makes me seem a very meek man."

He blows out air then smiles.

"I suppose they may not be entirely bad, but together or apart, they are very good at disrupting and destroying my life."

"And, how they come into control?" Serena somehow moved to sit close, all interested, concerned and comforting, looking up at him... jasmine, she scents of jasmine.

He blinks when he notices her closness, and swallows, suddenly nervous.

"Ah... hm, when I get stressed or too afraid, or angry. When I lose control, basically, they gain it."

Serena offers a little coy smile to dispell the tension... "You will not lose control now, will you?"

He smiles reflexively and shakes his head no.

"Um, no. Just nervousness. Joe and the Professor got all the smoothness with women. I am the geek of the minds."

He gulps but smiles a bit.

"Maybe I will have the chance of talking with them, later, another time. Now..." She leans a bit to his arm. "How exctly did they come to be?"

He blinks again, but goes on. She is oddly soothing and he finds himself almost smiling at her.

"When I was a child my father was mentally and emotionally abusive, and I learned to hide and supress any emotion I had. Thus a lot of anger and pain gfot surpressed. As I grew older, I developed mutiple personalities, but my supression was so great that none of them could come out. Until, one day, on my job, there was an explosion. The explosion filled me with radiation. The radiation changed me, unleashing a connection to power that I hadnt known I had, and also awakening a latent shapeshifting ability. Thereafter whenever I am angry or out of control, one of the other personalities gains control, and my body schanges shape."

Scary enough, the medieval lady understands most of that, or at least the general lines. "And it still happens today. You sought several ways of curing it, but each had a flaw, a weakness, a secondary effect..." Guessing? Well, its fairly obvious to her, the logical path.

He blinks.

"Yes... how did you know?"

"Seemed logical, if you work so intensely at it, and have not yet found a solution." No, she is not reading his mind.

Well, maybe a little. But nobody needs to know that.

He nods.

"I guess you're right. It might be impossible. It might be something thsat only years of therapy can cure. It might be the only end csolution will be death. But I havent stopped trying yet."

He grins an off-center grin, the kind some people who have been too alone for too long grin.

"I wont stop as long as I have any hope at all."

"Do not forget to let your friends help you."

He smiles faintly, his eyes slightly darker again.

"I try not to get them involved too much. Being involved with me tends to lead to people's lives ending up in ruins and/or death."

"And it always hurts, no matter how much you try to distance yourself from certain emotions." Serena reaches up, touching his cheek lightly...

He nods, glancing at her. He smiles faintly.

"Always. You seem to understand more than most do."

He swallows then.

"Ah. Can I get you something to drink?"

"Do not worry about that." She smiles and nods. "What are you working on, right now?" While she watches him, Serena takes the chance to scan his mind and spirt; she can see the split personality signs easily... the question to her is, there are split souls as well?

He nods to the laptop and turns it so she can see it. It is full of scientific equations.

"I have been working on a new method of attempting to gain control. A neurological merging of the brainwaves that have become so chaotic in my mind."

His mind and body seethe with energy, but the different pieces are all him, different expressions of desires, fears, angers, lusts. All born out of Bruce Banner's mind and heart.

The woman actually shudders. "You realize that such a thing, if not performed with extreme caution and absolute perfection, can have some very unplesent consequences?"

He cant help it, he snorts slightly, a tisted smile on his face. But one of his hands goes to her gently.

"Sorry. But I know that. I dont long ago, but I do now. I have endured quite a few of those consequences before, trying things, before I knew the whole story. I wont try this unless I know exactly what the dangers are and in as controlled a circumstance as possible and that I have a better than 95 % chance of succeeding. Otherwise... I have caused too much damage, too much death as myself and as them... I wont willingly do so again."