nOPE

But it is really cool before they're served, so, there is that.

You win some you lose some. Atsinni really enjoys the cheeseburger and fries though!

They have a little more time to kill before their mall shift is over and Atsinni is going to spend it in a massage chair at the Brookstone.

Well, that's nice.

<You should maybe time food for when I'm being like I was earlier, I probably wouldn't care as much. - Or don't, I don't know, I don't have good judgment, do whatever.> He doesn't have a better articulation than "earlier" because he is unfamiliar with the word "dissociation" in this context.

<Worth a try.>

When their shift is over Atsinni heads out through the Nordstrom and nods to his supe. You can't hear the screaming at all from inside the store.

Bus home and back in the apartment. They can finish the dragon book.

Cool. Books are cool.

They were going to try not sleeping, so when the dragon book is finished and propped up in an empty cardboard box - Atsinni did not anticipate the need for a bookshelf - the TV can go on. No Steven Universe, how about Avatar.

Avatar is nice! Parts of it are upsetting in ways that have nothing to do with horrible memories and are nice and distracting, and parts of it are just funny. It should have more music, though.

Atsinni cannot accommodate this but they can binge Avatar all night. He sips water but does not insist on snacking in the middle of the night.

That makes the night the best stretch of continuous hours of consciousness he can remember ever having.

Oh good. He'll get the hang of having a human eventually.

Once the sun is up it is hygiene and breakfast time and back to work.

He succeeds, this time, at dissociating so hard it doesn't really feel like it matters. Also at spending most of the morning not having thoughts at all. Somehow it is still not an experience of transcendent bliss.

Well in the bookstore they are going to read a book about MEDITATION, how's THAT.

That is probably useful. He tries to pay attention. He's notably worse at that.

Atsinni buys the book about meditation and after lunch reads it again in the atrium with the fountain where there are comfy benches.

Somehow this experience is the exact flavor of nice that feels like the only proper response is sobbing. He isn't sobbing. That feels very wrong and he has no idea how to react to it. He would really like to stop existing.

<I'm not going to start sobbing in the middle of the mall, everyone will notice.>

It feels like Atsinni keeps being mad at him for things that aren't volitional and that bothers him because he doesn't really want to feel like being a good person requires putting a lot of effort into not thinking anything that might lead to having feelings Atsinni doesn't like. Obviously he isn't suggesting that Atsinni should do stupid things just because all his preferences are warped by demons and he's vaguely offended.

Also he would like to stop existing even more now and possibly do things to their body that would kill a normal person just because he ought to suffer horribly. Or possibly because it's familiar and he'd like to feel in control of it and he's not totally not a masochist. (Actually he's pretty significantly masochistic, it just hasn't historically helped much because demons are pretty good at noticing when things are pleasant and not doing those things again. He hasn't noticed this is an axis people vary on.)

<You're my first host, I don't actually know what a normal amount of reacting to your thoughts would be let alone whether it'd apply to you.>

<I don't either. Are you aiming for normal or are you aiming for something else?>

<I dunno. I want to do my job and experience cool human stuff but within that constraint it'd be nice if you were - calmer, happier, something like that.>

<That would be nice.>

<I think I imagined it'd be really easy to figure out how to take care of a human! I'm not sure why I thought that, presumably most people's humans have less going on than you and they're still usually upset about everything.>

He's of two minds about that. On the one hand: it feels like maybe it could be as easy as not repeatedly intentionally doing things you already know are upsetting. Sure, there are compelling reasons to ignore him and act without regard for how he feels, but that's not "it's hard", that's "I have chosen to do something else instead".

On the other hand, he's ended up hurting enough people with good enough intentions that it seems plausible that someone could have the best of intentions and still do worse than nothing. Since if he recalls correctly, well, he's done it himself. And noticing that something is hard is compatible with not trying to do it.

But then on the third hand maybe none of that applies to whatever is up with other people, there aren't compelling reasons to ignore what other people want, unless maybe there are, he doesn't really have any idea. Maybe it does apply. It's - probably specific to Yeerks if pretending to be normal involves not crying and everyone in the Pool is obviously miserable? Maybe? Maybe that's not right, he's wrong about basically everything, the idea occurred to him but he can't evaluate it at all.

In lieu of words he just sends the idea of a shrug.

<Oh, I think most humans just really don't like Yeerks in general, is what's up with them. Some of them are chiller about it and those ones are the ones who weren't as restrained since they aren't going to try to do any murders. I'd really rather it didn't upset you when we eat things but I can't suppress hunger the way I can suppress being sick to your stomach with emotions you're having and I'm not. Also I like food and there is not other equally fine stuff that is not food that I can do instead to accomplish experiencing tastes and not being hungry. I'm trying the not sleeping thing! We didn't watch any more Steven Universe because you hated it!>

<I appreciate that when it doesn't have any bad effects you try to be nice to me.> Which is a completely different thing from actually prioritizing it, it doesn't seem like most things can be achieved without making any tradeoffs ever, although maybe he's wrong about that? But it doesn't seem like this thing can be. And obviously it's perfectly reasonable to make all the tradeoffs in one direction because if you have two people and have to hurt one of them why not pick the one who deserves eternal torment. This train of thought does not crash into a flashback and die but it does come with some relevant sense-memories. He isn't being sarcastic, he's entirely genuine, although he's refusing to consider head-on whether he cares that that's what he deserves or whether he's even correct that he deserves it, and he's very bitter at no one in particular.

It seems like if people in general just really don't like Yeerks and are being forced to tolerate them then it's not really a mystery why they're very upset. Maybe. Or maybe human emotions work some different counterintuitive way. Who knows. He's not saying it's wrong to hurt people, of course, he has no idea how he'd tell if it was wrong to do that, it just seems plausible that there might be an easy way to achieve it, or at least to avoid this one particular category.