Windrose June Mingle!

[passingthrough]

Who: SS Windrose + Visitors
Broadcast: Unlikely
Action: SS Windrose
When: June — anytime!

[Now featuring bathroom rank II for all your bathtub and and additional ten minutes of water per hour needs! We also have more and faster shuttles! Just last month we made it to actual double-sized beds for all your double-sized fun. Special features include a hanging medicinal herb garden in the cargo bay complete with bacon-flavored kelp and Officer Snuggles the resident security fox!

Please enjoy your stay. Unless you're The Stalker. There's a sandwich bag waiting for you.]

Comments

[pain_train]

[She rolls her eyes. These are some critical hurfdurf levels. She is not even in the mood to try to argue about it, so she'll cut straight to the chase.]

Winter, shut the fuck up and hold my hand.

[reconstitution]

[ He shouldn't be surprised at Wrath's attitude, but he is, just a bit. Nothing bad, she's just.. unpredictable. This is pretty much best case scenario to how he imagined this visit would go.

With a nod, he reaches out and puts his right hand palm up next to hers. ]

[pain_train]

[She curls her fingers around his firmly. Though there's a little weakness to her grip, a twitch of the muscles because of her nerve fibers being not properly coordinated.

Quietly:] Please stop hurting yourself. You're already hurt enough.

[reconstitution]

I'm not.

[ He tightens his grip on her hand. It's not forceful, just there. ]

[pain_train]

[She squeezes his fingers.] There's no amount of pain you can feel that's going to absolve you. You know that. That's not how it works.

[She knows that too.]

[reconstitution]

..I know. [ He's going to die with his ledger bleeding red. ]

[pain_train]

[Another little squeeze of his fingers.] All you can do is keep moving forward and act positively, right?

You can't move forward too well when you're limping around and bleeding. [She gives him a crooked smile.] Sorry about that.

[reconstitution]

They're physical injuries. They'll heal.

[ They're just taking their sweet time. Then again, he doesn't really know how long it should normally take. ]

[pain_train]

You know what I mean.

[Don't be obtuse.]

It's easier to hurt than it is to be here, huh.

[reconstitution]

Easier for who?

[ None of this is fucking easy, and he wants more than anything to trade places with her. ]

[pain_train]

For you. Watching you hurt yourself isn't easy for me. [Another hand squeeze.] Because you're really important to me.

[reconstitution]

You're important to me, too.

[ It absolutely kills him to know that he's the one that did this. He broke one of his best friends like a twig. ]

[pain_train]

Thanks. It feels... really good to hear you say that. [She closes her eyes for a moment.] I have nightmares, sometimes. [She probably shouldn't tell him this, but it's hard to think.]

[reconstitution]

[ She's one of the most important people to him here. He doesn't say it, but she must know, right? She's seen a side of him he doesn't like many people seeing, and she saw him at his worst.

His mouth tightens to a thin line, jaw tensing. He has a notion as to what her nightmares are. ]

Me too.. When I can sleep.

[pain_train]

[Wrath is very good at reading people, far better than she realizes. But there are certain blind spots she has. It's difficult for her to think around the embedded fact of you are nothing. Why would anyone care about a non-person who isn't even an effective soldier any more?

Nightmares seem to come with being what they are. A particular sort of powerless nightmare, being a passenger in one's own body.]

I sleep all the fucking time right now and I hate it. Because of the chems.

[She even drops off in the middle of conversations, sometimes.]

Can I help, though?

[reconstitution]

Sleeping is important to recovery, isn't it?

[ It's why she's sleeping so much and why he's tired all the time. Sleep is something he's trying to ignore, but it's getting increasingly more difficult when he can't use exercise as an excuse.

It must be ten times worse for Wrath, who can't even get out of bed.

He shakes his head to the question. ]

Not really a way to help it.

[pain_train]

That's what I keep hearing. [She gives Winter's hand a little tug.] And you have to recover, too.

[She's not going to argue with that, because sometimes, there isn't a way to help. It's fucking awful, and all you can do is try to keep going and endure. She's done that march before, too.]

Will you stay with me for a while? If I fall asleep? [And maybe that will finally convince her stupid brain that Winter is all right. That this is him, not the construct wearing his face that tried to smash her head into the wall.]

[reconstitution]

Working on it. You get better, first.

[ He knows that Wrath's healing is a little different than his. How long is she going to be bedridden? He wants to ask, but he's pretty damn sure whoever is seeing to her wouldn't want to talk to him.

Now that he's here, he's not planning on leaving until someone makes him. ]

I won't leave.

[pain_train]

Don't be dumb. You're gonna get better before me. My back was already super fucked up, and that wasn't your fault. [Maybe she won't get better at all. That still might be for the best.]

[She grips his hands a bit harder. Gratitude. It's a relief to hear that he'll say, that he can stand being around her after what happened and she doesn't make him feel too bad.]

Thank you.

[reconstitution]

No, I just made it worse.

[ He still feels like a monster posing as someone's friend, but at least she's not dead. It's a horrible fucking compromise, but she's here and she doesn't hate him.

He moves his hand in her grip so that he can lace their fingers together. ]

Don't thank me. You wouldn't be here if it weren't for me.

[pain_train]

[She's had a lot of time to think about blame.]

I made it worse by trying to stop a hostile even though I know I'm disabled. Because I couldn't admit that I can't do my job any more. [Because if she can't do the job, what is she? Nothing. She is nothing. She knows this.]

[It feels good when he holds her hand like that. It also hurts, but in a way she thinks is good. Maybe it'll be all right.]

It wasn't you.

[reconstitution]

Just because I wasn't in control doesn't mean I'm not at fault. I'm still going to remember hurting them.

[ Honestly, Wrath did her duty and did it well. She went into a fight that would have been impossible to win in her condition. Yet she managed to do the most damage early on. ]

..You probably saved people from dying.

[pain_train]

That doesn't make sense. You didn't make any choices that led to this. [... Wait what.]

... Do you remember fighting me?

[Though it does make her feel better, that she did something, even if it wasn't much.]

[reconstitution]

No, but I know what you did.

[ He cheated and looked at the network. He's been able to piece some things together, at least. ]

It'll come back.. eventually.

[pain_train]

The knife you gave me did the job. [Is that weird to mention?]

There are things I don't remember doing. Bad things. Probably even worse things I haven't found out about, but I'll never know.

What do we do? [Because if this is a question off responsibility for things like that, Winter isn't alone in it. Wrath has that same dilemma. So does Tenno, though it's not for her to tell Winter that. But at least he's holding on to her hand. It means they're not alone.]