driftfleet | 004 - Text; oh space balls

Who: Clay Terran and ALL of you!!
Broadcast: Yeh
Action: On the Vanquish!
When: January 2nd

[Clay was having a good time exploring the temples. He was all about them temples. So, of course, he feels very bitter about having to cut the exploration short due to catching a cold. A cold. And on top of that, one of his crewmates is gone. He was about to tell Koushiro that hey, the captain caught a cold too, and... well. Normally he'd bounce back from all this and move on, but with the cold quickly and progressively getting worse and worse...

So he's in his bed, covers up over his head and very. Very. Bored. And it's only been a day since he was ordered bed rest! He could be exploring the temples more. He could be learning about the salt mines. He could be continuing his research for his star charts, but no, that has to be put off too. Ugh, this will mess him up...

With a groan, he rolls over, pats for his device, and decides to type since he doesn't want to cough in everyone's faces:]

what do u do to entertain yourself when youre stukc n bed 4ever

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

yeah yeah im hyrdreatd

got a lot of water but no oj :(

but thanks!! ill see u later then

[It takes him some time, but Stefan makes his way over to where Clay is with his messenger bag, filled with books... and some Vitamin C, just because of that OJ mention. He gives a small nod as he pulls his bag and sits on the opposite side of the bed.]

Hey. How're you holding up?

[GROAN. As he sits up a bit, pulling his pillow up with him so he can lean back against it, and tries not to cough everywhere.]

That. That's about how I feel.

[Sympathetic wince] Alex was the same way. Sorry you got stuck with this too.

[He pulls out a couple of novels - both bad knock-offs from books set in a galaxy far, far away - as well as the bottle of vitamin C.]

So. I know we don't have oranges, but I can order as much vitamin C as I want, so I brought some over.

[Oh man. Clay reaches out to take the bottle as if it were some kind of holy grail or something; them lacking a lab support and all, they don't have access to stuff like this.]

You're a life saver, really. Thank you, Stefan. [He gives a big smile - He can't be as enthusiastic as he usually is, but he can still give genuine smiles.] I've been thinking about needing some vitamin C around here ever since one of my crewmates came down with this.

No problem. [He returns that smile, leaning back a little - it's no problem to him, since he's a paranoid panda who has two more bottles where that one came from.] I figure, until you get a proper lab tech? Text me what you need, and I'll order it in.

Pay me back in whatever. [Friendship?? Emotional support? Stef doesn't mind, but he knows it could be one-sided without clarifying!] My ratings're still really good, for some reason, so I can afford more than what I need.

That's really nice of you. Right now, the only thing I can think of are just vitamins and supplements in general, if there's anything other than the C around. I don't want anyone here suffering from deficiency. But if there's anything else, I'll definitely let you know.

[And, well. He could say that Stefan gets his ratings by both being like the sun and having an adorable love life, but eh. That was embarrassing last time he was caught about the sun thing, so no more.]

Sure. I'm not in any rush.

[Ignorance is probably bliss in this case. Stefan might be in denial of why his ratings are sky-high...]

In the meantime, I've got novels, and if you actually want it, stories from back home.

[And Clay raises his eyebrows at that. Oooh, he can never pass up the opportunity to hear about legit stories from other peoples' home worlds, especially his friends.]

Oooh, I wanna hear more about those. The stories from home, I mean. You can just leave the novels here when you leave or something. Give me something to do when I'm alone and really bored. [Which will definitely happen. He gets bored fast.]

[He laughs at that mental image. Because, knowing Clay, it would happen even with the chaos that can happen on the ship...]

Alright, well... a long, long time ago, in nineteenth-century Virginia, there was a guy named Stefan Salvatore. He lived with his widowed dad and an older brother, Damon, who had gone off to fight in the Civil War. [For the Confederacy, alas. Not that Stefan wants to dwell on that sorry thought.] With the exception of that looming war, his life was set. He was gonna go to Harvard, study medicine, and be the best doctor the world had ever seen.

Except, uh, a couple of months before his eighteenth birthday, a war orphan from Atlanta comes into town. Her name was Katherine Pierce.

[His throat gets a little dry, and he pauses, longer than he normally would to catch his breath]

She is - she was the most gorgeous girl Stefan had ever laid his eyes on. "My first real love," he would tell his diary, over and over again. Unfortunately? Damon kinda thought the same thing, and Katherine, well... she claimed that she loved them both.

[He pauses, long enough to ask,] You in the mood for Civil War-era romance? It'll get a bit messy.

[The moment Stefan says the name of the character, Clay watches with rapt attention. He remembers the slip-up Stefan made when they were in the temple, "Well I'm Stefan Salva -", and it immediately stays on his mind when he hears that name again.

Salvatore, huh...

And it's a good thing he said that name, because romance is the worst genre for him. But... he's curious. Very much so. So Clay nods a little instead.]

Kind of? [Honestly, no. It's something else that he's interested in.] Go on, what happened?

Well, they fought over Katherine. She strung them along and convinced them that they had an exclusive relationship with her. They'd try to prove to the other that she loved only one of them.

Stefan would uh, he'd spend most nights with her. One morning, however, he woke up with this bloody gash on his neck and this searing pain he couldn't ignore. That was when he realized his beloved Katherine was a vampire. [He rubs his neck unconsciously] Idiot still loved her, and since... she wasn't the only vampire in town, the town council was plotting to kill them once and for all.

So Stefan went to talk to his father, to call off the whole thing because vampires couldn't be bad. Except Stefan's dad decides to spike his drink with... ["vervain"] this thing vampires were weak to.

When Katherine came to sleep with Stefan that night, she bit on him again, only to collapse in pain. [He lets out a slow breath] Mr. Salvatore comes in, and he takes Katherine away, because he "didn't raise his son to be so weak."

[He pauses again,] Both Stefan and Damon died that night, trying to rescue Katherine from their father. They raced after her, only to hear the sound of gunfire echo through the night. It was the last thing they ever heard.

[...

wow.]

No offense, but Katherine sounds like a jerk. Also your dad. But, um... sorry, man.

[At least, he assumes this is the same Stefan he's talking about. Why else would he let that name slip, and use it here now? And... well, if he's wrong, he can just blame it on him being sick and kind of delirious.]

Oh, they were. [Stefan gives Clay a small, knowing smile. At this point, he's not even pretending that he and Salvatore were two different people. Not... entirely.]

I don't remember much after that. See, the truth is, Stefan Salvatore got a second shot at life, and well - when a guy gets reincarnated into someone new, the puzzle pieces don't fall together so nicely.

004 - Text; oh space balls

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