spit_it_out | OOM: Upstairs

Bruce’s room at Milliways is comfortable, if a little sparse. He’d asked for the cheapest they provided, which Bar had listened to with something that felt like amusement. He’d told her to cut him a break, please, that he might find himself paying rent on the cell in the Security office too. Maybe that had made her sympathetic, maybe not, but this is the room he ended up with.

It isn’t large, but it’s not a broom closet either. There’s a carpet, and a double bed, and a wardrobe, and a dresser. His tastes usually run to cool and modern; at least, such taste as he’s quantified. But this is warm and friendly, wood furniture and pale cream walls. He’s not sure he likes it, because he doesn’t feel it fits. It takes a while to figure that out, and then he spends ten minutes wondering when he became a man that notices anything about his environment. It only takes ten minutes because his brain is rearranging the order it files things like this in – the answer to the query was when the Other Guy happened, because that’s pretty much the answer to everything, these days. He doesn’t need ten minutes to come to that conclusion.

So, he’s in a room that doesn’t feel like it holds him right, but he should be used to that. Hell, he found this bar when entering his cabin on board a freighter, so who’s he to complain? But the tiny space in the bowels of a rolling ship felt more right than this, a cocoon of sorts, and perhaps that’s because he knew that if he turned anywhere on the ship, it was likely to sink the thing. Being in his cabin wouldn’t make a difference. In Milliways though, it bugs him. He should be able to come up here to get away from downstairs, and not feel like turning was more likely, right? Maybe it’s because if the Other Guy showed up while he’s in his room, no one would see. He’d break the place before people had a chance to run away, and then he’d break downstairs before anyone, even the powered people he knows about, got him outside, or near the cell with his name on it. There are people that live here, people who can’t escape because they’re dead, and he has no idea what the Other Guy would make of them.

Probably the same thing he makes of everything. People don’t mean anything to Him. This whole place is a house of matchsticks, to be knocked down with a sweep of his huge, green fist. Bruce has been wondering if the pieces would remain anchored to this asteroid, or whatever it is they’re resting on. Or if they’d fly off into space, to get swallowed up by the end of the universe. It brings his heart rate to an uncomfortable peak, because he shouldn’t be wondering things like that at all.

He sits, night after night, on a mat by the bed. The metronome clicks away, and his legs are crossed, and he’s focusing on the air coming up from his abdomen. He does this every night to re-centre, to make tomorrow all right. The problem is, it reminds him of Canada. It reminds him of the experiment just like this, where he sat, calm and peaceful, and counted each breath…right up the moment he said, yes, come on. And the beast had replied with his customary roar, quiet, held within the recesses of Bruce at first, and then louder as muscles popped and bones stretched; and then louder, when the lungs became strong enough to voice it; and then louder, and it always hurts so much. But it’s glorious too, a freedom he wishes he didn’t need. When it happens, he doesn’t have to hold anything inside any more. It’s always the last (guilty) thought before Bruce is gone, and the Other Guy comes out to play.

It remains the only time he’s brought him out when he was calm. He hadn’t known it was possible until then. And what he learned was that his human body didn’t hurt so much when it came back, though he still needed four times as much food as normal. The fact the tiny house was still standing said a lot.

But that isn’t the point here. The point is that meditation isn’t working. His room feels wrong, and the meditation makes him think of controlled turning. And then he’s horrified, because it occurs to him that maybe some part of him wants to. Just to stop the worrying about when it’ll happen. Just to give in, and let the Hulk try and break him out, to end the rough sandpaper of stress over his exposed nerves.

He breathes. It can never happen. He must not let it happen. So he tries again; in, out, concentrating on his centre. But all he feels is the walls closing in, and the scratch of generic, hotel room carpet on the side of his bare foot. His mind thinks of the universe outside the window, endless destruction, a loop of explosions and fire, the furious last stand of every world before they fall into nothing.

And in the back of his mind, the monster stirs.

This isn’t working.