Kevin Ingstrom, Emotional Labor Workhorse

[likeits1999]

Actual Game Log: Kevin gets hit in the face with a lot of rocks while telling a friend that he can't stop Kevin from worrying about him.

Beckett can be found watching a herd of horses - apparently there's a stable - who are currently huddled on the other end of their paddock from him, eyeing him warily as they crop the thin spring grass.

Beckett doesn't look sad, or angry. He looks exquisitely without emotion.

Kevin: "Hey Beckett!"

Kevin picks up speed in his walk, encouraged by his finding success.

Kevin leans on the fence beside him.

Beckett: "Yes, Kevin?"
Oof.
Elder Voice.

Kevin hesitates, brow furrowing a little.
Kevin: "Hey, you okay?"
Beckett: "Nothing to be concerned with."
Kevin: "...We've all kinda... been through a lot lately, huh?"

Kevin has been sidetracked from his mission objective.
Beckett: "Indeed."

Kevin sort of pauses again for a moment, assessing this. Ah.

Kevin remembers his mission objective.
Kevin: "I wanted to ask you about like, how to do the Fortitude thing? Because I would like to become better at not dying, so that you guys have to worry less about me maybe dying. And also so that I do not do that at a bad time."
"....Also I kind of got to talk to a spirit and a werewolf and we have new theories about whether the Tzimisce thing is also the Wyrm? But that is kind of over my head."
"I thought you might wanna know about that."
Beckett: "It comes naturally to my blood; I barely remember learning it - "
"What."

Kevin smiles a little weakly.
Kevin: "So it turns out that one of my old friends I knew that I thought was just a human was actually a werewolf, and he got caught up in their whole last final battle thing that went super wrong."
"And this really important technology spirit that is also a cockroach managed to get him in touch with my phone."
"He is uh, in a place called the abyss. And he thinks that the root of the... flesh thing is down there, and is going to check it out."
"So I'm... keeping my phone charged."
"He says that Central Park was the... place where it started to leak out."

Beckett is not entirely processing this
Kevin: "..."

Kevin nods encouragingly.
Kevin: "It is a lot."
"So I kind of figured like, maybe I could try to figure out how to do the Fortitude thing and maybe I could ask your advice about that and it would be thinking about a thing that is much, much less a lot for a little while."
Beckett: "Have you told the others?"

Kevin nods.
Beckett: "Oh. Good."

Beckett will get a better description from them.

Kevin is not at all insulted by this implication.
Kevin: "It's... I don't... understand very well and we are kind of at a spot where I don't think I'm gonna before it's over."
"Not for like, lack of trying. I just am way behind and all."

Kevin shrugs casually, still leaning on the fence.
Kevin: "The important thing is that I would really like to be better at not dying."

Kevin is worried and is clearly holding back dealing with the size of this problem by very little.

Kevin is also just carefully not saying that he is kind of wondering if maybe a chance to talk about something Not Dire™ would do Beckett some good too.
Beckett: "Well."
"As I said, I don't recall ever really learning it, but I have taught it to others."

Kevin nods.
Kevin: "That's one up on me and the Celer...ity."

Kevin is trying so hard to remember correct vampire words for things, look at him.

Beckett feels a vague confused stirring of pride.
Beckett: "...well. In the past, I've had some success with, ah. Hurting the student until they learn to stop letting it hurt, is the best description."
"By throwing rocks."

Kevin :|a
Kevin: "...I think that sounds like it would work."
Beckett: "The rocks have to hit you."
Kevin: "Okay."
"...I mean, it doesn't sound like it will feel good but it makes sense?"
Beckett: "Of course it does."
Kevin: "...It will not be the first time I let somebody throw rocks at me but I suspect that you throw rocks a way lot harder than Mike ever did."
Beckett: "Fortitude is an attitude, more than any physical attribute. Stand rooted in the earth and declare you won't be moved. That sort of thing."

Kevin nods, shifting his feet in the dirt a little, thinking about that.
Kevin: "If you wanna do this now I'm up for it."
Beckett: "There were plenty of rocks by the waterfall."
Kevin: "Cool."

Kevin is Ready.
Rocks! Rocks! Rocks!
Kevin: "Okay so it's like, a state of mind, and you think about like, yeah it hurts but you are still gonna do what you are doing?"

Kevin is chattering as he walks.
Beckett: "In a sense. Become a still point, the immovable object." He has his hands clasped behind his back as they walk. "It may be difficult, given the brujah weakness - I've never taught one before. Not this, anyway."
"You have to accept the pain, not ignore it." (That's not a double meaning, sure)

Kevin nods.
Kevin: "I'll try to do that."
Kevin: "I have like, hurt myself a lot in the past, so maybe that helps."
"Skating."
"You... do a lot of the same shit over and over and eat a lot of pavement."
Beckett: "Mm. We'll see. Accepting the pain required to achieve a goal - is somewhat different from pain inflicted deliberately by another."

Kevin is hoping that maybe will like, help. Somehow. Problems math works like that right?

Kevin finds a spot to square up, having the awareness to be away from water in case he does something phenomenal and falls over or whatever.
Kevin: "I guess so. It's..."

Kevin considers what he's saying.
Kevin: "I been hurt by other people before and like, okay I guess most of this is personally and not with a literal rock, but it took a long time to figure out how to like. Deal."
"So maybe this is like. Just doing that but faster."
"...I'm good at doing things fast though so that might help?"
Beckett: "We'll see."
Beckett is picking up rocks and making a neat little pile.
Most of them are about the size of his fist.

Kevin limbers up a little, takes some breaths even though he doesn't physically need to, it's just psyching up.
Kevin: "Okay. I think I'm ready to not dodge the rock."

Kevin barely manages to avoid making a Dodgeball reference that Beckett would not get

Beckett throws the first one. It hits hard and precise, and if Kevin had breath it would be knocked out of him.


Kevin grits his teeth, eyes narrowing, he tries to focus on the pain like he would on his foot landing on the right point on the board, feeling out the shape and flavor of each burst of signals, to take it in and refuse to buckle.

Beckett is already tossing another one in his hand. Beckett hucks it. This one cracks a rib.
Beckett: "Don't flinch."

Kevin hisses, his posture faltering at first, but at Beckett's words he freezes up again, fighting himself.

Beckett throws a third and fourth in rapid succession, hitting Kevin's hip and lower gut.

Kevin is in that place where you waver between trying to get your body to relax to eat shit but your body is like how the fuck can I relax about this.
Beckett: "It hurts, but there's no reason it should. You are kindred; you feel what you choose to feel. Your body is your tool, and you are not its captive."
A fourth rock hits his collarbone.

Kevin 's fangs peek out as he tries to keep himself still.
Kevin: "It's not... personal."
Beckett: "No." A fifth, on his ribs again. "Are you ready for me to aim at your head?"
His fangs might be out a bit as well.

Kevin swallows, his throat bobbing.
Kevin: "Maybe. You good?"
"I'm... asking you to throw rocks at me so I figure I should like. Check."
Beckett: "I'm fine," Beckett says, sanguine, and throw another rock hard into Kevin's upper arm

Kevin is squinting at Beckett now, focusing more on him than on exactly how much that fucking hurts. What is with him right now? This is different from how Beckett was the last time he showed Kevin a thing.

Kevin is trying to put together the pieces he has to get the shape of this and is shifting from cosmic horror worry to my friend is hurt worry.

The rocks are coming at a fairly steady pace now, and Beckett's face is increasingly drawn and grim. Oddly, Kevin finds that the harder he focuses on whatever the fuck is going on with the gangrel, the less it all hurts

Kevin continues with that. Cautiously at first, but encouraged more and more as he's able to focus on Beckett.

Kevin finally says-
Kevin: "You're wrong, I think?"
This time the rock impacts his forehead. Kevin feels it, but - it doesn't matter.
Beckett: "Focus," Beckett tells him harshly, as a bit of blood drips into Kevin's eye

Kevin doesn't even twitch, eyes on Beckett's, realization clear in them.
Kevin: "It's not... the way you said it is."
Another rock hits his temple.

Kevin just keeps talking, as if oblivious.
Kevin: "Of course it hurts, but like, it's not like there's no reason for it to."
"I'm getting hit in the face with a fuckin' rock."
"So of course I'm gonna feel hurt."
"Cause I'm like, a person. With skin and shit."
"I gotta keep going cause I wanna do this right and I want you to get to see that I can do this right, and I wanna help everyone and not be useless."
To punctuate, Beckett hits him in the face with another two fuckin' rocks, in rapid succession.
Kevin: "But fucking hell does that still hurt."

Kevin has found this very weird zen place and is just riding it.
Kevin: "I gotta accept that it's okay that I hurt."
"Before I can pay attention to other things."
Beckett: "Focus past it," Beckett grunts, and Kevin is pretty sure he's starting to put blood into his throws. That one he felt.

Kevin does flinch.
Beckett: "It's only a body. Nothing done to it can stop you for long."
Kevin: "It can though?"
Kevin is hit by another rock.

Kevin is hitting a weird edge where he's testing his theory of how Fortitude works for him vs what he's being told, slightly nervous and giddy and scared he's gonna lose it just as soon as he found it.
Kevin: "I don't... Beckett. I don't know how Fortitude works for you, man, but it's looking like my way is. Not that."
"So far."

Kevin swallows again, settling his stance.
Kevin: "..."
"Can we stop for a second?"

Beckett is tossing a rock from hand to hand, but nod and doesn't huck it at Kevin

Kevin straightens, feeling some of the pain leaking in but trying to hold his focus on the gangrel.
Kevin: "I think I got something here, and it's that... What's working for me is that if I keep trying to be all in charge of myself and tell my body not to feel shit cause I'm the boss of it, it's not working cause it's a body and it's mine and it feels things."
"But when I'm looking at you, and talking to you, and trying to figure something out-"
"That's like. More important?"
"Beckett, I don't wanna like. Be rude to you at all ever, because I really appreciate you and everything you've done for me. But I am very bad at not being vampire rude, and sometimes just person rude-"

Kevin shakes his head. Losing his thread.
Kevin: "What I wanna say is that you seem different and I just... want to not be all weird with you while you try and not be different but you are."
"And you're kind of getting way more into the rock throwing thing than I think you would generally, so I am like. Concerned. As a friend."

Kevin is so focused on trying to untangle this very sincere thought that he is managing to ignore these truly phenomenal bruises and some bleeding.
Kevin looks like a dude who fell behind on his mob protection plan.
Beckett: "As I said, it's nothing to be concerned about. We can stop the evening, if you're done."
Kevin: "I know you said that but..."
"It's like me and the pigs, I think."
"I got... kind of fucked up and then I got all weird cause I didn't want you guys to worry about me, but then that didn't. Make anything better."
"It was just... embarrassing I guess."
"And I don't like... not being what people need me to be."
"But...."
Beckett: "It's nothing you did." This is not a concession, but Beckett says it like it is one.
Kevin: "Beckett the thing is you can tell me not to worry about you but I can't make myself not do that, right?"
"You're my friend and you've eaten a lot of shit along with all the rest of us these last couple nights, it's been extremely awful, and I know that nobody came out of any of it feeling great."
"You can't pretend to me that you're fine because none of us is, I don't think we'd be people if we were fine."
"You can tell me to butt out cause it ain't my business and I get that and I will do that, but... Please don't just tell me you're not worth concern, okay?"
Beckett: "It is not your concern." Now there's heat there
Kevin: "Because you are."
"You're worth me worrying about, Beckett."
"And honestly I'm starting to kind of feel like it was shitty of me to ask you to do this right now."
"So like, I am sorry."
Kevin does mean that.
Beckett: "Sentiment," Beckett says coolly, "is an indulgence of the young. Do you feel you've grasped enough of Fortitude for the night?"

Kevin: "I think so, but..."

Kevin shakes his head a little.
Kevin: "Sometimes that's all we got, Beckett."
Beckett: "Nonsense."
"There is always work to be done."
Kevin: "I'm just..."

Kevin winces a little as he shifts somewhat, awkward.
Kevin: "When you're on planes, they got this thing where if the plane is going down they remind you that you gotta put your own oxygen mask on before you try to help somebody else, right?"
"Like a kid or something."
"Cause if you don't then if you run out of oxygen you're not gonna be able to help them or you."
"That's what it's like."
"Helping other people is like... you gotta be okay yourself first. You can't give something if you don't got anything you yourself need in the first place?"
"It's okay to need shit, we all do."
Kevin: "And even if there's work to do, you don't always got it in you to do the work the way it needs done."

Beckett puts the rock down, carefully, and doesn't straighten as he speaks.
Kevin: "So you gotta... take that time and not kick your own ass too hard for being a person that gets tired."
Beckett: "Neither you nor I are human, Kevin. We don't need oxygen."
Kevin: "Yeah, but we got feelings."
"We get tired."
"We get scared, we get pissed off, we get hurt, we worry about people, we worry about being wrong about shit."
"God, I worry about being wrong about shit all the goddamn time, forever."
"It's just... I know you don't want anybody to see those things about you because it's never a thing we want other vampires to see, right?"
"Or even just other people."
Kevin: "And it's cool if you don't want me to see those things, but like..."

Kevin smiles weakly.
Kevin: "I just... between you and me, Beckett, you need to give yourself a break enough to recover enough to hide 'em better if that's what you're gonna try to do for me."
Kevin: "So like."
"....Be easier on yourself, alright?"
Beckett: "Charming. Lectured by the fledgling." His face twists into a frown
"We're done for the night."

Kevin: "...No disrespect."
And with that, Beckett walks off, alone, grim, and not pay any further attention to Kevin.
Kevin: "Thank you. I mean it."

Kevin says that to an empty space

Kevin lets him go, takes a long breath that he doesn't physically need, and heads back the other way while he slowly heals off these levels of bashing.