driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Erik, Charles, and those aboard the Heron
Broadcast: No
Action: The Heron
When: Now

[Erik feels groggy when he wakes. How long had he slept for? Time didn’t hold the same structure that it used to for him, not when he was off alone, but he was certain he had slept before midnight… Shifting in the bed, he automatically casts his arm over the person sleeping next to him, a habit that usually leaves him bereft when it comes up empty. He cracks open his eyes, something nagging at the back of his mind even before he sees--

Charles. He jerks his hand back, confusion taking over. Charles shouldn’t be here, not in Poland. He’d left the mansion weeks ago. A rapid glance around the room (metal walls, a locker, that odd-looking hovering chair they’d spent so long building--) only serves to disorient him further. Where was he? Erik sits up, pressing a hand to his eyes as he tries to think. He had been in Poland. Somewhere remote, an abandoned house in the woods somewhere (not his house, he had already gone there and left again) on his road east, and… information rises out his whirling thoughts. A ship. This was that spaceship. He could feel it now, extending out through his senses. But that had been years ago. This wasn’t right. Something was terribly wrong.

He pulls his hand away from his face and stares at it, jaw tight. On his pointer finger was a slightly irregular silver ring. On his ring finger was his wedding band.

He remembers that his heart is broken. He remembers why he went back to Poland to begin with, why this is the wrong place. He remembers.

Something shakes apart inside him, and the Heron does the same.]

[Days ago, the two mutants on the Heron fell asleep and didn’t wake up. A few days later, their appearance started to change, Erik’s hair growing scruffier and the odd few silver threads starting to creep in, while Charles’s simply disappeared altogether. Anyone paying attention would notice they had grown noticeably older in just a few days. Now, it seems like they’re waking up. And Erik’s return to consciousness stands to shake everyone else to attention whether they like it or not.

It starts as a vibration, humming through the metal surfaces of the ship. It increases rapidly, getting noisier and more violent, until everything is rattling. Loose metal items begin to lift off from wherever they lie, floating jerkily into the air. Those closer to the walls around the edges of the ship will find less of a disturbance, though the floor still does its best to mimic an earthquake.

And then, just as abruptly, it stops. Most of it. Those vibrations are still shivering through everything, screws and spoons spinning drunkenly on the floor. Strange... should anyone investigate that closed bedroom, the culprit is easy to find.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ He chuckles softly. ]

I'm sure you have better things to do than to watch over an old man.

[ Charles smiles, genuine. ] I'll be all right. I just need to some time to work out the kinks of a ten year gap.

I never have something better to do than watch a friend's back. [She doesn't have that many friends, and she isn't going to take a single one of them for granted. She's to conscious that any one of them could vanish.] And you're not old.

Of course you'll be all right. You're tough as hell. But that doesn't mean you have to do it alone.

I'm certainly getting there.

[ He softens a little at that. ] I know I'm not alone. I was never truly alone.

How old are you?

[She gives his fingers a soft, careful squeeze. She has the strength to crush bone with her hands, now, so she's very, very careful. She's calibrated to it.] Did you fee alone?

[You can be surrounded by an entire city of people, in a room with all your friends, and still feel completely desolate.]

[ He laces their fingers together. ] I'm fifty-two now.

Briefly. It didn't last.

That's not old. [She thinks, then offers:] My med file in Proles said I was 42. So I guess I'm 44 now. [See, not that much older than her.]

[She strokes her thumb with his.] Breaking a bone happens in an instant. [Don't discount things just because the moment of injury is brief. Pain echoes and echoes.]

I didn't break any bones. Everything that happened was up here.

[ He gestures to his mind. ] I need to patch it up, but it should hold for a while.

Don't be literal. I wasn't being literal. [She can manage it sometimes, see?] All it takes is one moment to create a ghost. [One bullet. One needle sliding into flesh. One hello, citizen.]

Can I help?

I don't know.

[ He's being honest. Charles has never suffered this kind of wounding before. A lot of people had died at Cairo, and immediately after that, his very being had been invaded. ]

I believe you can, but I don't know where any of us - least of all me should start.

Okay. Then we'll figure it out together.

[She squeezes his hand.]

I've got your six, Charles. I promise.

[ He accepts that with a nod. Ten years seem to move in a blink of an eye when it comes to the simple feelings involved. ]

[She's lucky, that first Winter came back from all that memory so fast, and then Charles. She can't imagine that kind of distance; she probably doesn't even have ten years worth of memories to call her own.

So she leans up and kisses him on the cheek.]

[ Charles presses his palm against her hand. ]

It'll be all right. I promise.

[Is that like her saying that things will be okay? Like Winter saying he's going to be okay? Trying to get reality to follow the words. But she's not going to knock it. Sometimes you have to talk okay to be okay.]

That's my line. [Charles is the one who just was in the shit, not her.]