Tenth Goal - File Not Found. [Video/potential Action later.]

[headup_stickontheice]

[Early in the morning, the feed clicks on, automatically. On it, is Cam, standing on the edge of a walkway, looking extremely distressed. He waits. He looks down, he steels himself...and he pulls back, quickly looking down as someone walks beneath it, completely unaware of his presence.

Again, he steals himself. Again, he prepares. He closes his eyes and pitches forward, landing hard on his left arm with a sickening crack. He wheezes in pain and tries to get his bearings. Someone rushes up to him, a young woman, a teacher--] "What happened? Is it your arm?" [He nods.] "I'll go get help." [She leaves, footsteps echoing. As she leaves, through his pain, Cam smiles.

Brief static. It picks up, in a hospital, with Cam, an older boy, and Maya, who some might recognize. Static flits through the conversation, until--] I'm not some loser who tries to hurt himself.

[The feed cuts.]

[ooc: The actual video can be reached by clicking the link in the cut, hitting "continue as free user," and jumping to 17:57 on the timestamp. It ends at 18:55. Warning for what you'd see, it's a kid intentionally falling from a high place to break his own arm. Short, not graphic, but unsettling to say the least. After the static, it picks up again at 20:48 and ends at 21:13 or so. The first scene is, under the cut, briefly detailed. The second is not as it has more dialogue, so it needs to be watched, and it is brief discussion of the previous injury with internalized ableism.

Last but not least Cam may or may not respond to people! This post can be used for action if they try to find him, hint he might be in his room.]

Comments

[action]

[eatmybow]

[Maya is eating breakfast and flicking through the D-Terminal when she stops. Cam is on the screen and - Maya gets as far as Cam falling forward before she realizes what's on her screen and starts running out her door, not even caring that she hasn't gotten dressed yet.

He lied.]

[action]

[headup_stickontheice]

[Cam's not even up yet. He's barely awake, in fact, and he can hear his D-Terminal doing...something. Something weird. It doesn't usually turn on by itself, does it? Maybe Lucette's playing around with it. It's too early, he's not supposed to meet Miss Shepard for breakfast yet, why's Lucette up?

Can he hear Maya? ...Dallas...?

I'm not some loser who tries to hurt himself.

His eyes snap open. Cam sits up, wearing only a t-shirt and boxers, breathing heavily. He grabs his D-Terminal just as it clicks off, so he knows for sure that he's not imagining things. Or maybe he is? Maybe, hopefully-- how else could that be happening?

In her little corner bed, Lucette sleeps, oblivious, as Cam quietly freaks out.

[action]

[eatmybow]

[When she reaches Cam's door, Maya doesn't even hesitate. She bangs on it and, when she doesn't get an immediate response, puts on her best imitation of Katie's "I'm in charge so listen to me" voice.]

Campbell Saunders, you open this door right now!

[action]

[headup_stickontheice]

[Is it possible for his breathing to go even more shallow? It's really possible, because that's what it does. Maya is there, and he realizes, realizes what she must be-- that, it wasn't a dream, so she has to be, it's because he--

Lucette's waking up in the corner and Cam realizes that if she's waking up, Ratchet and his other roommate might too, so he quickly stands and opens the door, abiding by Maya's demand and, more on auto-pilot than anything, grabs her arm with a shaking hand to try and pull her into his room, because she has to be quiet, quiet, maybe everyone hasn't seen.]

[action]

[eatmybow]

[For a brief second, Maya is going to pull away. She's going to pull away, but then she realizes that maybe it's better to not do this out in the open. They . . . seem to have that problem.

Once the door is shut, though, Maya shakes Cam off and punches his shoulder.]

You liar.

[Video]

[knightfan]

[ He thinks to himself that no, Cam's just being a moron. He's just hanging out at some walkway, as "normal" teenagers do. Some walkway he doesn't quite recognize. Yet, he can't pass it off as completely normal because Cam looks so incredibly upset that not even Seifer is capable of disregarding the scene as completely normal.

Grabbing Impmon by his neckerchief, he asks the imp if he recognizes this place. Unsurprisingly, Impmon shakes his head no. Before Seifer can try to piece together where the hell this place is—and he's not even sure why he's trying to figure out where it is, for that matter—Cam's already hit the floor. He knows logically that even if he knew where that walkway was, there's no way in hell he would have been able to do anything about it, but even so he feels this pang of guilt because dammit he's fond of this kid no matter how hard he tries not to be.

When the D-Terminal picks up the hospital scene, Seifer catches on that maybe, perhaps, this isn't something that's happening now. But that doesn't mean it hasn't happened, and so in an effort to figure out a) what the hell is going on and b) whether or not Cam really did crack his arm in half, he finally changes his D-Terminal to video mode. ]

Campbell.

[ Well, that's a great start. Hopefully the full first name name use won't scare him off, because he really doesn't want to go combing through the city to find this kid. He would, but Cam could just tell him and make it faster. ]

[text]

[headup_stickontheice]

[Seifer's response doesn't come for at least an hour after the video is broadcast, and it's not in video or audio format, but text.]

Did you see it?

[text]

[knightfan]

[ That's not reassuring. Theoretically, anyone could be replying back to him. Then again, he's not surprised after what was broadcast. ]

What do you think? Are you OK?

[text]

[headup_stickontheice]

Right now I am. Sorry about that.

[revvinguptheharley]

Yo!

Yo Cam answer your D-Terminal or I'm gonna let myself into your apartment. And trust me, I can!

[Text]

[headup_stickontheice]

Sorry doctor. I'm here. with Maya. Could I skip my appointment today? I can't really leave.

Re: [Text]

[revvinguptheharley]

Oh I suppose, since Maya is with you.

When can you pop in for a visit then? Way I see it this is exactly the sort of stuff we ought to be talking about.

[Text]

[headup_stickontheice]

Sorry.

Tomorrow. Just not today.

[voice]

[rustypistons]

[Oh. Oh. And that in itself tells a story, doesn't it? Barely scratches the surface, of course, but even that much gives an insight into the kind of life Cam had before coming here. An outcome of a life that doesn't change for the better, even when here, he thinks. He's not sure what to say, and he's not sure he should go find his roommate, certainly not going to go barging into his room. But he can't sit back and do nothing.]

Campbell-- [What does he say?] It's okay now. Is it all right if I see you?

If you want, I can go--

No.

...We'd like to talk. If that's okay with you. When you're ready.

[text]

[headup_stickontheice]

[The response is sometime after the actual broadcast. An hour. And it's not in voice format, but rather text.]

can't now. not in person. I'm sorry. Maya's here.

I'm really sorry. later?

[text]

[rustypistons]

Don't be sorry. Take whatever time with her and to yourself you need. Later is fine, so long as it's sometime. [As opposed to 'oh yeah we'll do it later except never'. Don't make him mama bear at you, Cam.]

[Action]

[headup_stickontheice]

[It's later at night when Cam actually gets back to Ratchet. He doesn't do it in text, he does it by going over and, after taking a very deep breath, knocking on his door.]

Video

[bigsoftie]

[It was bizarre, watching something like that flash before his eyes. It was like some kind of movie...but who would film that? And why did it look so real?

But more confusing, was the following scenes with the boy hurting himself. Leatherhead dealt with issues like that--not exactly like, but close. He's hurt himself plenty of times, mostly out of fear or spite. But why would Cam do that? It made no sense...

He had to help him, Leatherhead grabbed the D-Terminal, shouting out to him.]

Cam!

Video

[headup_stickontheice]

[And thus Leatherhead gets the only video response Cam sends, mostly out of fear, since it's delayed, that his friend is really worried.

So he sees Cam, in a gray t-shirt, face red and stained with tears.]

I-I'm okay, okay, it's okay, I'm okay, d-don't worry.

Video

[bigsoftie]

[Leatherhead was pretty damn worried, Cam, but he's feeling glad to see he's alright...for the most part.

Those tear-stained eyes and gray shirt say a different story, however...]

You don't look alright...

Video

[headup_stickontheice]

[So he rephrases:]

I'm alive.

[Text]

[trainsurdragons]

[Cam might be a little surprised to see a text message from Hiccup, among all the other frantic messages he's probably receiving on his D-Terminal. It's a wonder he even knows how to text, though Fearless probably showed him how it worked a long time ago.

Long story short, he saw that video, just like everyone else.
But unlike everyone else, he couldn't bring himself to answer it verbally. He wasn't good at confrontations like that. Plus, he just....didn't feel like he was the first person Cam would be jumping to talk to, if anyone.

So the message is short.]

Cam. ...please respond when you can. ...if you can.

[Text]

[headup_stickontheice]

[Like all the others, the reply is late. At least he doesn't have to switch to text now. That's good. Less noticeable.]

I can. don't be worried. I'm alright here. sorry for this.

[Text]

[trainsurdragons]

...I'm assuming that was another memory.

[It had to be, surely. Still...it was painful to watch.]

I...I'm sorry that happened.

[Text]

[headup_stickontheice]

It was. A bad one.

I'm sorry I did it.