Arrival broadcast

[neversets]

Who: Apollo + Others
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: Now? Until shuffle?

Broadcast
[The camera shows a handsome, very built man sleeping in a bed. And it continues to show that for a very long time. Either is started broadcasting very early, or he's doing a very good job of pretending to be asleep when he's not.

When he does move, he sits up carefully, pushing his hair back from his face. He's wearing cargo pants and a plain white t-shirt that seems somehow too... mundane on him.

He gets up after a brief stretch and moves over to the communicator, picking it up and clicking it off without offering a word.]


On ship
[Apollo eventually emerges from his room, a bit somber and subdued. He wanders around in bare feet, moving quietly along the metal hallways. When he finds a window, he leans his hands against it, looking at the distant star at the heart of this system with undisguised longing.]

Comments

[video]

[passingthrough]

[With just a glance for a moment she thinks she's seeing Magneto. Not the youthful, brunette she's come to know here, but someone more akin to the one from world. Maybe even him exactly and she perks up, watching the figure as he shifts. But even if there are some general similarities it doesn't take much to realize it's a stranger instead. She could leave it there, but she's watched the man this long. It seems only right to respond.]

Not having the best day?

[video]

[neversets]

[ For a long time, he doesn't reply. He comes over and watches the screen, shakes his head slightly and then turns it off.

It's about ten minutes later that he opens a video link back to Kitty, looking a little bit sheepish. ]

I'm sorry. I just, needed some time and space to make myself human again.

[video]

[passingthrough]

The Marsiva is probably a good a place for that as any. Do you know where you are? [He responses almost feel like someone who has just returned, but there could be other reasons for that.]

[neversets]

[ He shakes his head slightly. ]

No, just what I managed to find on the communications device, messages being sent, that sort of thing. What my... augment is telling me.

[passingthrough]

Yeah, that part's unsettling. [If she hadn't already tried to rip it out with great failure, she would be trying that.]

I say that like the rest of it is totally normal and expected or welcome. [Which it's obviously not.]

[neversets]

[ His hand drifts up to under his hair and behind his ear where a few spots of silver appear on his skin, marking where the augment is. ]

I have a daughter. At home. She's only six and I'm a single father. We were home alone.

[passingthrough]

[Her gaze falls to the floor for a moment. That's not good. Kids shouldn't get caught in the middle of these things. Her mind rests on Charles for a moment before she moves on.] No one who comes here knowing people from home have been missing even if they've already been here for months. I'm not sure why, but maybe you're here and there somehow.

[And maybe he's not. She doesn't even know what the party line is on this for the Fleet or if there is one. The story at the prison was unsettling more than comforting. A duplicate who wouldn't commit crimes was supposedly in your place.]

[neversets]

Relative time disparity. Time passes faster in one place than another. The Narnia effect.

[ He takes a slow, deep breath, eyes closed, and then lets it out. ]

So long as she's not alone. She's had one dad walk out on her, I won't be another.

[passingthrough]

[She nods along. There's no way to be sure that's it, but it's...reasonable? Not a bad thing to hold on to when you can't do anything more proactive about it in the moment. She never likes hearing about parents being separated from their children. It came up with Castle and Beverly too even if Beverly's son is older than her.

Kitty also wasn't expecting a two dads situation, but it's nice it came up before she asked about her mom or something.]

It wouldn't be by choice. [Not that it makes losing someone hurt much less.] It's a lot to take in on top of everything else to take in.

[ video ]

[precedented]

[ He crosses his legs, sitting quietly for a few minutes before speaking. ]

It is hard to be away without your knowledge.

[neversets]

[ Apollo replies when he's gone and had a think and done some research and worked out that he doesn't actually feel like exploding everything. He's angry, but not beyond a low simmer.

He sits there looking mostly calm. ]

Yeah. I have a daughter. She's six and on her own. I'm not okay with that, even knowing she'll contact her aunt Angie to come get her.

[precedented]

You don't have to be.

[ What a strange thing. A father, worried for their child. ]

[neversets]

I wasn't asking for permission.

Consent is for sex, not emotions. And I'd be getting angrier, but it won't do me any good, and would waste a lot of energy.

[precedented]

[ He cocks his head, a foreign movement. ]

It may not be "good". It may be a waste. But it is your freedom to express, is it not?

[neversets]

I could. But I can't afford to be wasting charge busting things up when I don't know when I'll next have a chance to get some.

It's my freedom to not express it as well. Losing my cool won't achieve anything, and it'd cost me, so I'm not doing it.

Shit.

[ He turns away from the camera, shoving his fingers through his hair. ]

As if it wasn't bad enough to have one parent walk out on her.

[precedented]

You're not dead.

[ A little softer. ] So long as that holds true, you haven't walked away.

[neversets]

No!

[ There's a brief spark of light in his eyes, deep behind his pupil. ]

You walk away without being dead. You turn your back on the people who love you and walk out. Death is forgivable. Abandoning your child isn't.

[text]

[ecclesiophobic]

Good luck finding a way out of that ship. I couldn't, nor has anyone else that I've heard of.

[neversets]

I haven't been trying to get off the ship. I don't really have any where else to go right now.

[ecclesiophobic]

No home to go back to, or no world?

[neversets]

I assume smarter and more advanced people than me have tried to get home. Right now, on this ship, I have a bed and food and a hot shower, which is nice.

I want to get home. Terribly. But if wishes were horses, we'd all be swimming in horse shit.

[ecclesiophobic]

Enjoy the food and the hot water; most of the ships have shit food and the heat doesn't last long.

My mistake. I've met a fair few people here who have no home to go back to. You're being more even-tempered than most people, myself included.

[neversets]

I can make any water hot water, that isn't an issue for me.

I'm a very even tempered guy. Angie always thought they took out the bit of my brain connected to my temper, so it takes a lot to send me rampaging and furious.

Being angry isn't going to help. But being well fed and rested will.

[ecclesiophobic]

Good, reasonable way of looking at it. [Well rested is so foreign that Kurt's almost forgotten what a good night's sleep feels like.]

Mind if I ask about this mysterious 'they'?

[neversets]

They should probably be he. Henry Bendix, the psychopath who was in charge of making me.