driftfleet | Є004

Entry tags:

Є004

Who: Elena + You
Broadcast: video
Action: marsiva
When: rite nao!!

[Elena is curled up on one of the couches.]

So is anyone else starting to get a little worried we're not going back to our ships? I thought maybe this would last a couple of days or a week at the most, but...

[She shakes her head a little with a sigh.]

At least they gave us some entertainment, I guess.

[If her tone of voice is any indication, she doesn't find that all that comforting.]

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I . . .

[Hmm. Well. A few people, now, after calibrations. He isn't sure how many. And Ino, but he doesn't know she knows. So the obvious answer--]

My - friend. From home.

And that's it? You haven't told anyone else?

[...Okay, she's definitely starting to suspect this being at peace with it thing is a little bullshit. If he was at peace with it, wouldn't it come up more without hesitation? Why hide it from people?]

Some people might have found out. With the dreams.

[He doesn't understand the issue here. At all.]

"Might have."

Meaning you know they have and you're avoiding talking to them about it, or you really can't remember?

[Don't bullshit her, son. She can hear your heartbeat over the communicator.]

I know some people found out, but I don't know if everyone remembers every dream.

[. . . So he's avoiding talking to them about the possibility. Yes he is.]

Caesar, I don't know how you died, but...

[She knows that when you die this young, when there are vampires involved, it's never pretty. It's never easy. It's always abrupt, too soon, and tears at the people left behind. She's watched too many people die again and again and died herself enough times to know that's just the way it is. He's not going to be some magical exception to that rule.]

You can't just have people see something like that and... [She almost says "say nothing." But that's not the worst thing Caesar is doing. Not really. Her brow furrows as she shakes her head a little.] ...act like it's nothing. You can't do that. That's...That's not okay.

[His expression is . . . not conflicted, exactly. It's more like he's honestly too confused to emote. He isn't sure whether she means it's not okay for him to do it to himself or to other people, or if it's not okay to act like it's nothing, or what; he's not sure why it matters, one way or the other, to her. It's not as though he's proven himself to her. She doesn't understand the value that he made for himself, surely, or the goal he set and failed at. She doesn't understand that he'd do it again.]

[It's confusing. He feels lost, adrift, because people keep telling him things like this that he simply isn't equipped to comprehend. Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever.]

Then what--

[He ducks his head down, looks away.]

What instead?

You...

[Elena shakes her head a little. She's not really an expert on this when you get down to it. She's died twice. Both times were traumatic in their own right. She still mourns her humanity even now, something that she doesn't talk about with anyone because not many people here know the truth. (As for back home, how could she complain when other people were in the same boat as her without saying a word about it?) But she at least recognizes there's something inherently not okay with not talking about it or pretending like it doesn't matter.]

I lost a lot of things when I died, but I'm still around. Caesar, if you leave here... [She purses her lips.] You're just gone. You can't act like that's nothing. This is your life we're talking about and that matters.

You matter.

[It's true. If he leaves here, if things don't work out in this bizarrely magical way, the way he still has trouble believing in some days . . . then he's gone. That's true. And it's not nothing, he knows that, but it just.]

[It feels like nothing sometimes. He failed, didn't he? Why should he have another chance, just because someone wants him to? Why should he be upset about losing his opportunity to live when he lost it fair and square? No one stole it from him. He just lost it.]

[You matter.]

[He sighs.]

If you say so.

[It feels like a slap to the face and the look crosses her face briefly. Not that he means it that way or that she even has a right to it, but it still stings. It still hurts to hear him not even come close to accepting what she says, but simply allowing it to be.]

[She shakes her head slowly, but at a complete and total loss of what to say. If he argued with her about it, she'd know what to say. If he agreed, she'd know what to say. But just letting it hang there and let that be that...]

[What do you even begin to say to that?]

[He doesn't mean to hurt her. That's not what he's trying to do. It's just that - it doesn't feel real. It doesn't feel like something that's true. So no matter how many times people say it to him, he won't believe it.]

[She's trying, though. And if he says anything else, he's pretty sure he'll hurt her more. So - he just needs to not say anything else.]

[The smile he gives her is faint, apologetic.]

I'm sorry. I think . . . I'm going to go for now. Excuse me.

[He nods, and hangs up.]

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Є004

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