station72 | [open]

CHARACTERS: Murphy & OPEN
WHERE: Red Coast
WHEN: DAY :028 - :032 (see headers for specifics).
SUMMARY: Seviilia goes into a coma, Murphy is left as the last Elnath
WARNINGS: Most likely mentions of past violence and death.

NIGHT, DAY :028 | OUTSIDE THE BARRACKS | CLOSED TO LEXA

[It's late. Most of the other hosts are asleep, and Murphy was heading that way himself when he'd caught sight of the ocean again. The change in the water had already been pretty during the day, but now with no other light to compete against the bioluminescence, it's even more beautiful.

No other light, that is, except the bonfire. Where the brish might be alien to him, the fire lit high in the cliffs has a sharper tug of recognition: the grounder encampment outside Camp Jaha, waiting for Finn's execution. He doesn't let his thoughts stray too far that way, but there's a sense of foreboding all the same. The village is waiting for something, an atmosphere which is almost too quiet, heavy, and even as he stays watching the swirls and eddies of bright colour out in the water, he can feel it pressing down. He doesn't know that he wants to see what they're waiting for.]

DAY :029 - DAY :032 | THE BARRACKS | OPEN

[It isn't a vigil. He doesn't sit at Seviilia's bedside to watch over her, make any hopes or prayers about her wellbeing or recovery. He occupies a space opposite her bunk, hunkered down against the wall, and it's more about not really having the strength to leave. She'd torn a hole in him. All his broodmates had, one by one, but Seviilia had been the last, and now there's no one left to try and hold the edges closed with. The remnants of her ice in him are already fading, but after the first day what's left doesn't even really feel like pain anymore. A numbness, instead. Fatigue carved bitter down into his bones.

He's been left alone again. He really shouldn't have expected anything different.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He doesn't need to ask what it's typical of. He knows well enough. He'd been used to loss and loneliness well before this, most of his life shaped by it, carved through. The pure plain fact of this, away from the pain in his head, wasn't any different. He shrugs.]

Universe sucks like that.

[A beat, and a wry, bitter tug of his mouth.]

Sorry, multiverse.

Multiverse. Universe. Is there really a difference?

[ She doesn't seem to think there is. It's all part of the same thing. It's all the same shit. She walks over and after a moment, she settles the tips of her fingers against Seviilia's forehead. She' been strange and weird and cold, but she'd actually seemed to care in her own weird way. And now she was gone. ]

I feel like I'm the universe's shittiest treadmill sometimes.

[One's way, way bigger than the other. But he'll grant her it hasn't changed much, existing in it, except his perception of how big everything was. All the extra space was just filled with the same crap.

It's a chord of understanding ringing between them, but something about hearing his sentiments out of another mouth just makes it feel weighted. Dragging downwards. Even like this, knocked to the ground by the pain of the hole ripped inside him, he can't help the instinct to brace. To try and pull upward, instead of just letting them both fall.]

"We press on." [He says, after a beat of silence, watching Asuka reach out to touch Seviilia. He moves one hand, a lazy, small gesture that flickers in Seviilia's direction.] She gave me that.

[Gave because it hadn't been a matter of told. She'd been in his head, in his memories and her own, the torn up landscape of his mind churning around the grief he felt for Emori. She'd helped him start to rebuild. Ironic that if she hadn't, he'd probably be even more of a mess over her being gone.]

Don't touch the swords. [Skipping to this dry, pragmatic warning for the blades he'd laid on Seviilia's body, hilts tucked under her crossed hands.] They're magic, they'll rip you apart or some crap.

[ If she falls, she falls. But she can't, really. She's already hit rock bottom once before. She knows what happens. She knows how it ends. It's not something she wants to go back to or revisit, so she has no choice but to keep moving and try to drag herself out. She purses her lips.

"We press on."

Right. ]

Yeah, she said something similar to me. Not like we have much of a choice, though, right?

[ Her hand lingers and then she pulls it back with a little huff of breath. ]

Don't worry, I'm not stupid. I'm not gonna touch her rune bullshit.

Could always give up. [He shrugs.] Some people'd say that's a choice.

[But she's not stupid. Just stubborn, belligerent, combative. He can recognise those pieces in her, has to wonder if she'd be the same as him. Gun pressed to her head, prepared to take a quick death over slow starvation, dropping it from a sheer inability to pull the trigger.]

But it sucks just as much.

[ There's something hauntingly familiar in hat. The decision to just... give up. The knowledge that it might finally end some of the pain, that maybe it would be better to be nothing than to feel like nothing. She flinches slightly, as if struck. ]

I don't want to give up.

[ Slow death by starvation and dehydration. She'd tried that. Once. ]

[Familiar, again, and the corner of his mouth twists in a bitter kind of smile. He half wonders what Seviilia would say, seeing them talking. If she'd known this commonality too.]

Then you've chosen. Might as well own it.

[You're right. I am a survivor, he'd said to Jaha, however many months ago that was now. A lifetime. But he'd taken it and he'd made it his.]

Guess so.

[ She's not... bitter, exactly. Just resigned and a little angry. ]

And everyone else who gives up - I guess I just have to remember them. Right?

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cw: attempted suicide

cw: attempted suicide

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