3 - open spam + public + maintenance filter + private to Elsa

[orderfromchaos]

[Open spam]

[Dillon looks like he just crawled out of a vat of blood, ash, and partially coagulated human organs - because, as it happens, he did. There are strange patterns in the carnage, pathways where muscle fibers wriggled across his cheek to clump together or shards of bone forged thin wedge paths across his drenched clothes to rejoin a scrap of synovial cartilage, concentric webs of extraneous blood vessels plastered over his pants in bizarre, gridlike patches. His eyes are raw, and his cheeks are streaked, almost clean from sobbing. He's slumped against the wall, dripping dark ruddy muck, gulping down air, starting and staring furtively around, one hand braced against the wall, the other reaching out to no one, taut, shaking.]

- Winston!

[Another gulp, involuntary, unsteady. He pulls his hand back, almost covers his eyes, remembers it's filthy just in time. His eyes flutter closed, and he groans, then tries to stumble to his feet, but he feels nearly catatonic, cored out by the horror he's observed - absorbed - and bereft without the others. He's on the barge. He's - some species of safe, here. No one stays dead long enough to drag him into it. He laughs, quiet, brokenly, with the space of one breath.]



[Public, later]

[His hair is still damp, and his skin looks pink, a little raw. He's been scrubbing and scrubbing. His eyes are deeply, terribly sad, but he can't quite look straight at the screen.]

I'm sorry for the - mess. If you saw it. It's not. Anyone on the barge. I'll clean it up now.



[Private to the maintenance crew and possible future maintenance crew]

That shouldn't - it's not in you guys' job description. But if I could borrow some supplies. That'd be good.



[Private to Elsa, also later]

Please tell me you're okay.



[OOC: multiple respondents to his arrival totally okay; if any flood is good for wibbly time, it's this one.]

Comments

private

[bothfoulandfair]

I'm fine, [More or less, anyway. She's better off than the people who are affected by this flood.] What happened to you?

private

[orderfromchaos]

[His breath blows out slow, shoulders settling a little in visible relief.]

Went home, for a little while. I didn't mean to, it just - happened. How long has it been for you?

Re: private

[bothfoulandfair]

A day? [He has to have been affected by the flood, but she doesn't know how, except that he looks and sounds awful.]

Where are you?

private

[orderfromchaos]

[Damn. It's been weeks for him. A few months. Two sixths of his soul resurrected, and quite a few others besides. Still - better. Better than he wasn't gone when she might have needed something.]

Just. My room.

I'll come find you.

[He wishes the windows opened in this place. No matter how clean he is, he can still smell it.]

Re: private

[bothfoulandfair]

Alright. [But she sounds unsure, like maybe she should still be the one going to find him. After all, he had helped her when she'd been miserable and scared, and he hadn't been afraid of her. He understands what it's like to feel like a monster, and as much as she wants to be alone, it's nice to know that there's someone she can talk to, if she wants.

And she is worried for him, regardless of her feelings about herself and the Barge in general.]

I was in the library. I can wait for you.

private -> spam

[orderfromchaos]

[The library. It warms him and makes him ache at the same time; he'd wanted her to get out of her room more, and she'd liked it, once she let herself. Now he's the one doesn't want to be seen. But he wants to be alone with himself and his childhood room even less, so he nods, a little jerkily, tries to let go of a little more tension, heavy breaths out.]

Okay. Thanks.

[He skulks a little, looking for her, keeps his shoulders hunched and stays close to the edges of bookshelves. He sits next to her without a word when he finds her, draws his knees up and holds them tight, as if he could contain himself that way.]

spam

[bothfoulandfair]

[It's a fair thing to be happy about, honestly. This is the first time she's ventured out to anywhere particularly interesting since the last flood, and it had mostly been out of necessity - she's already read most of the books in her room.

She looks like she wants to say something when she finally sees him in person, but whatever it was is interrupted by him sitting. This is definitely not a posture she's used to seeing him adopt, even if she still feels like they don't really know each other all that well.

It's also been a long, long time since she's ever been in a position to comfort someone else, and she doesn't know what to do for him. He's not Anna, and the last time she'd had to comfort her, they were both much, much younger. Anna had probably skinned her knee or something, and this is definitely more important than that.

So she's quiet for a very long time, keeping her distance a little before finally finding something to say.]

What happened?

spam

[diealone]

[Jack hears the shout, and recognizes the voice if not the name.]

Dillon? [He knows there's a flood on, and this is happening before he's been told there's multiple timelines at work, so for all he knows, Dillon's either been affected or just needs help. That alone is more than enough to get Jack moving.

It still doesn't really prepare him for the sight that's awaiting him though and there's the briefest second where he pauses, takes it all in, wonders what the hell happened to him before he's running over and crouching two or so feet away from him, reluctant to crowd him in case he's disoriented, or doesn't recognize him. His voice has his usual rough, worried/angry/frustrated tone that somehow passes for bedside manner.]

What happened? Are you hurt?

[It's not... really clear how much of this blood is his and how much is someone else's. :|]

spam

[orderfromchaos]

It's not mine.

[A little bit cracked, his breathing ragged, although it doesn't ever quite reach 'hysterical laughter' - he hasn't the energy. He says it again, choked, mournful.]

...it's not mine.

spam

[diealone]

[Christ.

He takes a breath, tries not to think too hard about what the hell happened to whoever's blood (and debris) it is. Dillon's freaking out enough as is, and Jack can be something he can lean on until he's calmer.]

Well, we still need to get you to the infirmary. Or at least a shower. Can you stand up?

spam

[orderfromchaos]

Yes.

[No. He tries to push off the wall and promptly crumbles.]

M'just. Tired. Long day.

[Ha.]

spam

[diealone]

It's fine. [And it might sound dismissive, but it's not. Focusing on Dillon with a certain kind of ferocity is keeping him from thinking too much about the wreckage on the deck.

It had been difficult enough to deal with the fact that there were bits of flesh and blood on him after Arzt had exploded. He really doesn't want to spend too much time thinking about whatever the kid's been through.]

I can get the stretcher if you need it.

spam

[orderfromchaos]

[He puts a hand on the wall, a dark awful handprint, steadies himself a little.]

No. No, I can - I just. Want to get somewhere with a shower. My room's 1-19. Or heck, the inmate showers, I don't care. Whatever's close.

[shakenandlimp]

Dillon! Dillon, man, are you all right, don't worry about the deck for five minutes, tell me you are all right.

[orderfromchaos]

I'm not hurt. I'm not -

[His voice chokes off. He chose to do it. I have faith you'll make the right choice, Tessic said.]

[shakenandlimp]

You look a fright-- like you have been in the company of ghosts, and not friendly ones. Where are you, I will come help you swab away whatever the mess is. You are back, lad, it's all right.

[orderfromchaos]

I have. I - they aren't ghosts any more.

[Dillon has probably mentioned, a time or two, that he can bring back the dead. It's not such a big deal, on the barge - not like he ever has to, although he might have spared someone a death toll once or twice. He's remembering, now, how much it weighs.]

The platform on the stairwell. Between levels one and two.

[He's so tired of having to decide, and he feels cowardly, for how relieved he is, but he needs it anyway. He gets a mop and he goes. He's less nauseous that he feared, when he finds his own smeared tracks, half an eye glaring up at him with a scraggly tail of nerve behind it. He wrings out the mop.]

[shakenandlimp]

[Bush has never seen anything quite like this; he has seen similar. Cannon-shot turns a head, a chest, into something like this. A deck can have deep pools of blood; it can run from the scuppers in torrents. And he has seen, in his second service, the worst the sea can do to a man. But this is... more than any of that.

He has a mop of his own and some sturdy plastic bags, one of the blessings of the barge.]

We should have a burial.

[orderfromchaos]

They've been buried before.

[There's a harshness when he says it, though not for Bush. He still doesn't know if they should have done it, reached into horror and disturbed their rest. But then - he thinks of stumbling hollow-eyed refugees, crawling out around them, cleaned and clothed and fed by Tessic's waiting employees, after everything they'd endured. How could he not have done it?]

spam

[versusnurture]

[Her book hits the deck with a quiet thunk, her hand resting on his shoulder instinctively. They weren't - close, exactly. Not exactly. But there was a measure of understanding that happened, that let her know one or two wilder parts of him. And she's not nearly as disturbed by viscera and bone shards as other people might be.]

[She squeezes his shoulder, a light pressure.]

There's no Winston here.

Dillon. Do you need help?

spam

[orderfromchaos]

[She isn't a terrifying vertigo blank like the barge, she's alive, and real, cracked and put together in ways he had - not nothing, but almost nothing to do with. Her presence is grounding, her touch moreso. Abgail Hobbes. His friend. He has friends besides his belligerent wayward soul pieces and his former jailer.]

Abigail.

[Breathed out, shaky. Not quite a question.]

I. Don't know. This is the barge.

[He doesn't need confirmation, the pieces trickling back to him through the miasma of recent events, but it would be nice.]

spam

[versusnurture]

This is the Barge.

[She nods. It's a solid sort of thing to do, nodding, a mutually recognized gesture of yes, you're right and no, you're not crazy.]

Which means you're safe, or only in temporary danger.

What about Winston? Is Winston safe?

spam

[orderfromchaos]

[A harsh, cracked laugh, one gulping breath's worth.]

Does it matter? If he dies I'll just bring him back again.

[That's cruel, that's - arrogant, it matters. Somehow. Breathe.]

He's okay. He'll be - he's my least stupid friend.

[And god knows the shards tend to be their own worst enemies.]

spam

[versusnurture]

[She smiles thinly at that. Well, it means something. Not a lot, but something.]

[She crouches down next to him now, taking his face in both of her hands.]

Do you feel safe, or only in temporary danger?

spam

[orderfromchaos]

I almost never feel like I'm in danger.

[He should be afraid of the vectors, maybe. Probably. He is afraid of them, but he's afraid of what they'll do the world, not to him. He closes his eyes with a relieved little shudder, leans into her hands.]

But I feel. Poisoned, I feel so sick, Abigail. You know that story where Thor goes to the giants, and they make him drink from a giant's mead-horn, only he can't ever finish it because it's magic and really it's the ocean? I feel like that, like I've been drinking the ocean, and the whole ocean is death and I -