( sometime late at night, crammed into a bed alongside lexa, clarke's mind drifts. through the past five days, most of which she'd spent sleeping and learning; clinging to familiar faces, the ones she'd chosen a world ago to align herself with, not the ones randomly assigned here. truthfully, she hadn't thought of rust, mat, or kaji since reuniting with bellamy, not consciously. but the attachment ran deeper than choice.
she stumbles upon rust almost by accident. but it wasn't one, not really. )
(I don't think there's six of us.)
( those holes in her soul — the ones that had absolutely nothing to do with the friends and family she'd left on earth — they're still there. eased since landing on the surface of hyrypia, but now suddenly agitated, like wounds with salt rubbed in meticulously. those broodmates she'd never met left a keen sense of longing in their wake. )
[ He's awake—had been awake when it happened, that feeling of being ripped in half and patched sloppily back together. Edges where there shouldn't be, gaps for the wind to whistle through.
Loss. The word is loss. ] (I'm real fucking tired, Clarke.) [ It has the weight of confession, or maybe that's the underlying emotion: exhaustion too heavy to throw off. Heavy as an anvil, heavy as an eyelid.
He's toying, in a cat-and-mouse sort of way—Rust being cat and mouse both—with the thought of getting drunk. Condensation pearling on the notion. Maybe pass out. Maybe come to, pretend for three precious seconds things have changed. Bypass the natural comparison, the insult that would be to Sophia.
Sharper, one of those fresh edges: ] (Next time you decide to burrow into my skull, how about telling me something I don't already know.)
( there's something like guilt; the result of being chastised when unexpected, and flinching away from it. there's holes in her heart where people used to be, a creeping sensation of loneliness despite being cuddled up right alongside someone she loved. the drive to connect, to scramble for the remnants of those close to her had been instinctual, and she hadn't expected such a rough rebuke.
but there's no shaking her that easily. try again rust. )
(I didn't even find out their names.) ( a hint or another sort of guilt. she'd been so wrapped up in lexa and bellamy, the heady rush of feelings around both of them, she'd never sought out their other parts. it eats at her, two names on the tip of her tongue, but forgotten before they were properly learned. ) (Did you?)
[ Bitten-off anger gives way to devastating calm. He doesn't need another reminder of how young she is—I didn't find out their names, like it mattered, like if she'd just said hi to them in the proverbial fucking halls this would've turned out differently. ] (No.)
[ There's a pinprick of self-reproach, second-hand memory of watercolored jungle—slavering greens—and a cold hand closing around his. COHLE, TRAVIS C. stamped on a set of dog tags. He should have learned their names, if only so someone would remember.
He gathers the feeling up, carefully, and lays it aside.
Thoughts pressed urgently on her, the sensation of hot breath: ] (Listen, they were strangers. We're all strangers. Just because you're in pain, don't be fooled into thinking it means something.)
Edited (added some profanity) Date: 2017-08-06 06:41 pm (UTC)
( this is clarke griffin wounded. nursing the sharp ache in her chest, struggling not to let it fold in on itself; compound until she's brought to tears, left feeling at fault for her inaction. she doesn't even have the words to describe the sudden rip in her conscious, and is left feeling the frustrated guilt she'd felt every time they'd lost someone. asking questions like what could i have done?
ultimately, she's treating this like death, and rust's disregard for the not-strangers, but also not quite friends they've lost rips into the reserves of bitter anger welling behind the more immediate press of mental anguish.
snapped, accusatorially: )
(You don't actually believe that, do you?)
( most strangers wouldn't have learned what it felt like when you held your daughters body within seconds of meeting you, rust. )
[ The crackle of her mind isn't so kept, right now - when she reaches for his. Rather it's the test of a door that is at present the only thing between a room ( palace ) ( open grass plane ) ( a city ) ( home ) on fire - there, just the other side. Sicker, hotter, a fever taking hold in the blood stream. The way a body wants to purge itself of something it doesn't know how to fight, so it burns itself up.
And for all that is her whole mind, she isn't talking about it. She's going to keep not talking about it. She might have her tongue against her teeth, but she will not talk of it. ]
(Are you capable of not breaking your knuckles when you swing a punch?)
[ Not is he trained, just is he able to hit. Her only concern, right now, is that. ]
[ There's that hot-stove reflex when she reaches out to him, faster than fear or thought. For a second Rust is snatched away, his mind given over to instinct.
He comes back slowly, the feeling of startlement—a tree from which a flock of birds has taken wing—fading but not gone. ] (Uh-huh.) [ Preoccupied. His concern is for the mission first: has she seen something, is her cover intact, are they in danger.
His attention is something else entirely, drawn to the conflicting sensations of resistance, infestation. His instincts thrumming hold on and too late.
Well, he hadn't thought her mind a fire he could warm himself by. ] (What's going on?) [ Asked with piercing focus. ]
[ She wants, tensed in long grass, she waits, for him to return back against her mind, trying to cool or temper it. No more than opening a window, to let air into a hot room, but it is a attempt. ]
(I require distraction. Immediately. But my normal recourse does not suit me well right now. )
[ Because going into the quiet of her own mind, right now, is the complete opposite of herself. Swings back instead, this need to drive herself out of her own skin. ]
[ Misato is as forceful and merciless as she comes without warning to flip through whatever pages of his mind is open to her with the feigned nonchalance one might wear when reading a magazine in the hospital waiting room, belying the honed focus with which she seeks something that would finally pin down her interest. The surrender, the cowardice of nihilism, both leave a bitter bile in her mouth that she generously shares with him, and books, books, books—until she comes to a date that stops her in her tracks: January 3rd. ]
[ It's catastrophic, it's sacred. A day plucked out of time: nothing before or after. Laying bare his grief.
Baby girl, words that would knot in his throat if he tried to speak them now. Punching their old number into a payphone, over and over like some kind of ritual that won't take effect. Sunset that day, a mocking pink. And the curly hairs at the back of her head. And touching and not touching Dora's corpse with gloved hands. And a whiskey bottle seized by the neck, burnt-sugar green and the first mouthful the only homecoming he'll know.
Antlers.
A tricycle's handlebars. Intact. ] (My daughter's.)
[ Rust loses the voice in his head.
Images slide by: Sophia on her trike, laughing as she lifts her feet from the pedals—the car lurching around the bend—her eyes closed, her body twisted, her blood in the driveway, the car radio blaring—he yells at Claire not to touch her then does it himself, rubs her arms like she's cold.
Some of it's pulped newsprint, some of it so vibrant it'd bleed color. ] (She's dead.) [ Redundant, by the time he can shape the thought. ]
[ The flip side of the coin: a phone that never rings. Footsteps as heavy as responsibility, the sound of doors opening and gently closing late at nights and early in the mornings, these scraps of her father she collects. Alcohol can taste so sweet until it tastes like nothing at all, until nothing tastes like anything. Absolution in measured doses.
She neither flinches nor turns away from these images he imparts, piecing them together for him like a puzzle, drawing in the gaps when the image is incomplete, comparing the fleeting joys in his life to her own. And Sophia is beautiful, colored in through his eyes, the most beautiful. Her twisted form in death is an aberration, something that betrays a fundamental law, and she is angry most of all, angry on his behalf and angry at him for showing her the world through the eyes of a father, how it exists only to be a stage upon which his daughter stands.
Sorry would be the appropriate response here. Sorry I didn't know. Sorry I opened I wound I don't know how to mend. It isn't what she says. ]
(Are you trying to keep her alive?)
[ The flip side of that, of course, or are you trying to bury her away? ]
[ She shouldn't - make demands, take others in hand, like she used to. She isn't a Queen or the rebel leader with her armies of those ready to tear themselves apart for her cause - their cause, really. She has no right to ask for even the slightest things that she does.
But she does it, anyway, so here she is back: like a stray animal that has learned once this is where there will be food and she comes back here licking some wound she won't express. So she seeks ( viciously, determinedly, by teeth and claw and holding desperately ) for that place to press her back into the wall.
He's it, apparently.
( She isn't thinking about why he's it - that might be like missing something - and that she might be being selfish in the cruellest sort of way. ) ]
[ After the celebrations, after the feasting and drinking and lingering chatter has finally ceased, there is finally rest and silence. Silence punctuated only by the sound of soft sleep-breathing and the occasional flapping of the tent's fabric in the breeze.
Gildor sleeps for a while, initially from exhaustion over the stress the evening brought him, but at some point in the middle of the night, (or morning? he's not really sure) he finds himself wide awake. The mind is so fickle. He tries for a bit to fall back to sleep, to match his breathing with Lakshmi's as she slumbers sprawled halfway over him, unbothered. When it proves futile, he grows curious - perhaps another host or two is in a similar sleepless predicament. He reaches out and- ]
(Mr. Cohle?)
[ That inky blackness is back, except it's not all black now. There's a bright hint of green swirling in his thoughts, and it's prodding Rust gently in the side of his temple. ]
[ This evening, at this hour, Rust's mind is the threat of snow—horizon blotted out, a portentous weight to the air. He's neither asleep nor fully awake, memories of Claire grafted to his thoughts. Claire when last he saw her, her face tightly in check. Wondering if it could go white as a knuckle.
Gildor's mind falls across his, a shadow shot through with Gildor's voice: pale, pale lilac, a texture like pilled cloth. Accent like the clink of teacup against saucer. The green doesn't blend, smears over it mossy and messy and tasting of black pepper. ]
(Surveilling my thoughts.) [ That's that. He musters nothing in return, not even annoyance.
He'd be content to sink the conversation like a stone. ]
[ Gildor has no such contentment with ending conversations so early in their start. ]
(I suppose that's better than allowing them to wander idly at night. The mind grows melancholy when tired.)
[ He pauses, and when Rust doesn't reply he's quick to continue- ]
(If you can't sleep, I have several magic spells that can help. Lullaby, Sleep, Deep Slumber...) [ He prattles off the their very uncreative names. ] (Actually, they're all the same spell with varying degrees casting complexity and energy behind them. Would you like one?)
[ his nickname has already become him, or else kaji would have never bequeathed him of it. ]
(Two agitators conspire with their rival. The manager catches wind of it. They wind up dead. Almost as if they're mocking your intelligence, Mr. Holmes.)
[ Taxman whispers across his mind, and with it comes the sensation of eyes trained on his back. Deliberate disregard, the careful motions of lighting a cigarette. Then he remembers, the understanding not particularly gratifying. He hadn't thought that'd stick. ]
(That's all it takes, huh. I'll do anything, long as my intellect's implicated.) [ Offhand anger coupled with sour humor, resentment turned inward. Kaji knows him, after all. In a way.
[taxman. the word materializes out of a low riding cloud of hovering smog. yes, yes, that suits rust better, though kaji does not yet understand why. ]
(The first step toward change is awareness, then acceptance. I'd say you still have some work to do.)[ his blithesomeness is too humorous, only because rust serves a harsh juxtapose. who exactly is the stock straight man here? ](I watched a servant enter what looked like a secret door. I assume what they have behind these walls is a highway of passages connecting the kitchen to the rest of the ship. Authorized access only, of course.)
[ Mmhmm thrums through the link, more in time with Kaji's patter than in response to it. There's something else, a realization slowly taking form, the heaviness in the air before snowfall.
Not yet. ]
(Well we've been up here a little over a day. How familiar are you with the ship's layout?) [ Rhetorical; as good as a “yes” to the question Kaji hasn't bothered asking. ]
[ The truth he'll wrestle with later: he welcomes it, mind flooded with heat and light and purpose. Fire's destructive purity. ] (This about the murders?)
[ Rust's alert, not insomnia-alert—those droning nights, consciousness like a wound that won't be stanched—but eager. Itching for detail. ]
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timeasmymeasure
day 007
Date: 2017-07-31 06:49 am (UTC)she stumbles upon rust almost by accident. but it wasn't one, not really. )
( I don't think there's six of us. )
( those holes in her soul — the ones that had absolutely nothing to do with the friends and family she'd left on earth — they're still there. eased since landing on the surface of hyrypia, but now suddenly agitated, like wounds with salt rubbed in meticulously. those broodmates she'd never met left a keen sense of longing in their wake. )
james bond theme playing in the distance
Date: 2017-08-02 06:08 pm (UTC)Loss. The word is loss. ] ( I'm real fucking tired, Clarke. ) [ It has the weight of confession, or maybe that's the underlying emotion: exhaustion too heavy to throw off. Heavy as an anvil, heavy as an eyelid.
He's toying, in a cat-and-mouse sort of way—Rust being cat and mouse both—with the thought of getting drunk. Condensation pearling on the notion. Maybe pass out. Maybe come to, pretend for three precious seconds things have changed. Bypass the natural comparison, the insult that would be to Sophia.
Sharper, one of those fresh edges: ] ( Next time you decide to burrow into my skull, how about telling me something I don't already know. )
calm down goldfinger
Date: 2017-08-03 04:25 am (UTC)but there's no shaking her that easily. try again rust. )
( I didn't even find out their names. ) ( a hint or another sort of guilt. she'd been so wrapped up in lexa and bellamy, the heady rush of feelings around both of them, she'd never sought out their other parts. it eats at her, two names on the tip of her tongue, but forgotten before they were properly learned. ) ( Did you? )
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Date: 2017-08-06 06:36 pm (UTC)[ There's a pinprick of self-reproach, second-hand memory of watercolored jungle—slavering greens—and a cold hand closing around his. COHLE, TRAVIS C. stamped on a set of dog tags. He should have learned their names, if only so someone would remember.
He gathers the feeling up, carefully, and lays it aside.
Thoughts pressed urgently on her, the sensation of hot breath: ] ( Listen, they were strangers. We're all strangers. Just because you're in pain, don't be fooled into thinking it means something. )
no subject
Date: 2017-08-07 05:49 am (UTC)ultimately, she's treating this like death, and rust's disregard for the not-strangers, but also not quite friends they've lost rips into the reserves of bitter anger welling behind the more immediate press of mental anguish.
snapped, accusatorially: )
( You don't actually believe that, do you? )
( most strangers wouldn't have learned what it felt like when you held your daughters body within seconds of meeting you, rust. )
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From:DAY; 004
Date: 2017-08-05 02:05 pm (UTC)And for all that is her whole mind, she isn't talking about it. She's going to keep not talking about it. She might have her tongue against her teeth, but she will not talk of it. ]
( Are you capable of not breaking your knuckles when you swing a punch? )
[ Not is he trained, just is he able to hit. Her only concern, right now, is that. ]
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Date: 2017-08-06 10:12 pm (UTC)He comes back slowly, the feeling of startlement—a tree from which a flock of birds has taken wing—fading but not gone. ] ( Uh-huh. ) [ Preoccupied. His concern is for the mission first: has she seen something, is her cover intact, are they in danger.
His attention is something else entirely, drawn to the conflicting sensations of resistance, infestation. His instincts thrumming hold on and too late.
Well, he hadn't thought her mind a fire he could warm himself by. ] ( What's going on? ) [ Asked with piercing focus. ]
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Date: 2017-08-07 03:55 am (UTC)( I require distraction. Immediately. But my normal recourse does not suit me well right now. )
[ Because going into the quiet of her own mind, right now, is the complete opposite of herself. Swings back instead, this need to drive herself out of her own skin. ]
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Date: 2017-08-07 06:02 pm (UTC)He drops the questions, for now. ]
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From:DAY :014
Date: 2017-09-02 01:42 pm (UTC)( Is that your birthday? )
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Date: 2017-09-10 03:03 pm (UTC)Baby girl, words that would knot in his throat if he tried to speak them now. Punching their old number into a payphone, over and over like some kind of ritual that won't take effect. Sunset that day, a mocking pink. And the curly hairs at the back of her head. And touching and not touching Dora's corpse with gloved hands. And a whiskey bottle seized by the neck, burnt-sugar green and the first mouthful the only homecoming he'll know.
Antlers.
A tricycle's handlebars. Intact. ] ( My daughter's. )
[ Rust loses the voice in his head.
Images slide by: Sophia on her trike, laughing as she lifts her feet from the pedals—the car lurching around the bend—her eyes closed, her body twisted, her blood in the driveway, the car radio blaring—he yells at Claire not to touch her then does it himself, rubs her arms like she's cold.
Some of it's pulped newsprint, some of it so vibrant it'd bleed color. ] ( She's dead. ) [ Redundant, by the time he can shape the thought. ]
no subject
Date: 2017-09-11 12:46 pm (UTC)She neither flinches nor turns away from these images he imparts, piecing them together for him like a puzzle, drawing in the gaps when the image is incomplete, comparing the fleeting joys in his life to her own. And Sophia is beautiful, colored in through his eyes, the most beautiful. Her twisted form in death is an aberration, something that betrays a fundamental law, and she is angry most of all, angry on his behalf and angry at him for showing her the world through the eyes of a father, how it exists only to be a stage upon which his daughter stands.
Sorry would be the appropriate response here. Sorry I didn't know. Sorry I opened I wound I don't know how to mend. It isn't what she says. ]
( Are you trying to keep her alive? )
[ The flip side of that, of course, or are you trying to bury her away? ]
the support group no one wanted to have or be in
Date: 2017-09-13 05:35 am (UTC)But she does it, anyway, so here she is back: like a stray animal that has learned once this is where there will be food and she comes back here licking some wound she won't express. So she seeks ( viciously, determinedly, by teeth and claw and holding desperately ) for that place to press her back into the wall.
He's it, apparently.
( She isn't thinking about why he's it - that might be like missing something - and that she might be being selfish in the cruellest sort of way. ) ]
( What is the Americas like? )
NIGHT OF DAY 14 (OR MORNING OF DAY 15?)
Date: 2017-09-18 06:37 am (UTC)Gildor sleeps for a while, initially from exhaustion over the stress the evening brought him, but at some point in the middle of the night, (or morning? he's not really sure) he finds himself wide awake. The mind is so fickle. He tries for a bit to fall back to sleep, to match his breathing with Lakshmi's as she slumbers sprawled halfway over him, unbothered. When it proves futile, he grows curious - perhaps another host or two is in a similar sleepless predicament. He reaches out and- ]
(Mr. Cohle?)
[ That inky blackness is back, except it's not all black now. There's a bright hint of green swirling in his thoughts, and it's prodding Rust gently in the side of his temple. ]
(What are you doing awake?)
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Date: 2017-09-24 02:38 pm (UTC)Gildor's mind falls across his, a shadow shot through with Gildor's voice: pale, pale lilac, a texture like pilled cloth. Accent like the clink of teacup against saucer. The green doesn't blend, smears over it mossy and messy and tasting of black pepper. ]
( Surveilling my thoughts. ) [ That's that. He musters nothing in return, not even annoyance.
He'd be content to sink the conversation like a stone. ]
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Date: 2017-09-24 11:19 pm (UTC)(I suppose that's better than allowing them to wander idly at night. The mind grows melancholy when tired.)
[ He pauses, and when Rust doesn't reply he's quick to continue- ]
(If you can't sleep, I have several magic spells that can help. Lullaby, Sleep, Deep Slumber...) [ He prattles off the their very uncreative names. ] (Actually, they're all the same spell with varying degrees casting complexity and energy behind them. Would you like one?)
no subject
Date: 2017-09-25 03:59 am (UTC)There's a sense of being crowded, cornered. Somebody taking the seat next to you on an empty bus. ] ( Go back to bed, Mr. Helyanwë. )
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From:day 22
Date: 2017-11-14 01:54 am (UTC)[ his nickname has already become him, or else kaji would have never bequeathed him of it. ]
( Two agitators conspire with their rival. The manager catches wind of it. They wind up dead. Almost as if they're mocking your intelligence, Mr. Holmes. )
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Date: 2017-11-25 01:21 pm (UTC)( That's all it takes, huh. I'll do anything, long as my intellect's implicated. ) [ Offhand anger coupled with sour humor, resentment turned inward. Kaji knows him, after all. In a way.
Nevermind he's already working the case. ]
( Just what do you propose? )
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Date: 2017-11-25 03:08 pm (UTC)( The first step toward change is awareness, then acceptance. I'd say you still have some work to do. ) [ his blithesomeness is too humorous, only because rust serves a harsh juxtapose. who exactly is the stock straight man here? ] ( I watched a servant enter what looked like a secret door. I assume what they have behind these walls is a highway of passages connecting the kitchen to the rest of the ship. Authorized access only, of course. )
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Date: 2017-12-20 11:00 pm (UTC)Not yet. ]
( Well we've been up here a little over a day. How familiar are you with the ship's layout? ) [ Rhetorical; as good as a “yes” to the question Kaji hasn't bothered asking. ]
day - yelling at him
Date: 2017-12-10 11:02 am (UTC)( We need to speak. Now. )
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Date: 2017-12-13 10:54 pm (UTC)[ Rust's alert, not insomnia-alert—those droning nights, consciousness like a wound that won't be stanched—but eager. Itching for detail. ]
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Date: 2017-12-14 03:59 am (UTC)Where are you? )
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Date: 2017-12-15 05:33 pm (UTC)When he speaks next, it's with walls carefully in place. Thick, translucent glass without edges or corners. ] ( What is it about? )
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