29. » spam + text

[tolaywaste]

spam } barge, day 1

[He died. He was alone. He was in the dark. There was not much air because the heat of his passage strangled it out, and then there was nothing, because his head was cut off by . . . something. Some monster.]

[Some man.]

[Marsh.]

[He remembers the way his body tried to keep breathing, even though it absolutely couldn't. And he remembers waking up, as alone in life-after-death as he was in death. More alone. Erik is gone. Charles is gone.]

[He trembles when no one is around, feeling hemmed in by the airless levels and the close quarters. But when people are nearby, he acts bigger than he is, a cornered animal reminding other animals that he is still more dangerous than them. Look at him sideways, stand too close to him, and he'll lash out with his fists or his powers. There's madness in his eyes and a scar on his neck, and he is alone, alone, alone.]

text } end day 1

Fuck loyalty. Nobody's loyal.

spam } port, remainder

[Now it's too open. He is practically agoraphobic after the close quarters of the broken-down Barge; it's too bright out here, and the people look at him with suspicion as he looks at them with fear and aggression.]

[It won't be long before he tries to pick a fight with someone he shouldn't on the ground, but before that his fear will get the best of him. He'll stick close to the few people he still knows and trusts. Everyone else will be attacked, no questions asked - maybe a couple answered.]


( ooc; text refers to this; alex's backstory here. encounter him anywhere, let me know how much damage you're cool with your character incurring. return tags coming from letslip. )

Comments

[fridgetothefire]

I was scared you'd gone too.

[She was a mouse for months; it's so easy to find in herself, not quite the shrinking shadow she was in the alps, someone smaller but more noticeable. Her voice is quiet, above a whisper but only just, and her fear is very real. They've lost nearly a third of their people in the last week, indiscriminately, wardens and inmates alike, so many of them close to her. She was so scared, the moment she looked for him and didn't find him. Her hands are held together in front of her without the water bottle, like she's holding herself in instead.

This is the best promise that she will not abandon him: she needs him too badly right back, and if she is a little more resilient than him, she makes up for it with her lack of stoicism, peeling back her ribs to show the quavering quickness of her nervous heartbeat. She'll never turn her back just to prove she can. It's not the kind of thing her pride is interested in.]

[letslip]

[It's hard to believe Anya for anything. She's manipulative, even Alex knows that, despite his general blindness to subtlety.]

[But at the same time, there's the beating heart of her. He can see it, bright as the sun in front of him.]

[Besides, it's not like he has anything left to lose. Everyone's left him already. Everyone but Ben and Anya.]

[So he snatches the water bottle out of her hands and clutches it to his chest. The plastic crackles under his grip.]

Whatever. Just . . .

I didn't go anywhere. So don't freak out about it.

[fridgetothefire]

[Even if he goes nowhere, she is afraid of losing him. He is so brittle now, so battered. She wants him - she wants him as her weapon, yes, as her other pillar, and Ben's. She wants him because his obvious and voracious loneliness and lack of belonging is nearly a match for her own. She wants him because he is a mutant she can control.

But she also loves him, loves the golden wild vicious brightness of him, unreservedly and occasionally in spite of herself, and the two sets of feelings are not extricable from one another. He is shifting now, in this moment, searching for his balance after the seismic of event of another abandonment, and she aches to comfort him even as she works to keep her claws in him.]

I can freak out little. It's freaky, all the people coming and going all of a sudden, the door, Arthas collapsing, Dean crumbling, the power screwing up, all of it. It's freaky, and I can't freak out around Ben, can I, so you just - you just have to deal with it, okay.

[True, true, true. More than she meant to use but it pours out, and she isn't hysterical, not that, but a little strained. Some part of her needs him, depends on him. She breathes, slowly, in and out, pulls some of her composure back. It helps, that he's here, just here, even if he wanted to sulk, the taut line of his shoulders, the stubborn jut of his jaw. Alex is still here. She looks at him, at the physical and individual reality of him, scowling and clutching the water, and blows out a slow breath, marginally calmer.]

[letslip]

I just have to deal with it.

[He scoffs, breathing out even as she does. His exhalation is bitter, hers relieved; but maybe his is a little relieved and hers is a little bitter, too. Maybe they understand each other better than he wants to think.]

You could freak out around Ben if you wanted to deal with the aftermath.

[Which he says callously, as he considers whether her doing that would make him wring her neck for real. The thought calms him. He grins.]

Don't ever tell me what to do like that. [Not don't ever tell me what to do, because, well - Snow was proof. He liked it. Just a little.]

[fridgetothefire]

I wouldn't do that to him.

[Fierce, stung, offended. She is struggling; she has a volatile side, though not so pronounced as Alex's. Ben trusts her, he needs her to be sure. So. She barely hears his bristling beside that accusation.]