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

[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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[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.]

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?

[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.]

[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?

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 -

Shh.

[She runs her hands through his hair, her nails raking at his scalp, and pulls him close. Once she wouldn't have fathomed closeness, but it's a weapon at her disposal now. Dillon needs to be anchored in some way.]

[There is a mess all over her shirt now, the squelch of what used to be, maybe still are, bodies, fragments, bits and pieces. She ignores that and holds him.]

You can breathe for a minute. The ocean's not here.

[He cries against her, mostly silently, except for an occasional soft, hitching sob. He's surprised, in a quiet, distant part of his mind, that he has any tears left. And yet.]

...I lead them into it. I said. They didn't have to know it like me but they still drowned, we all - god.

[It feels like letting a little bit of the poison out.]

[This is one of the purposes of the Barge: it's a place to lance the poison, to draw it out. If that's why she's here for another few hours, another few days, if she's here only for this reason, to hold Dillon in her arms and let him cry, then she supposes it's worth it.]

[She rubs between his shoulderblades and nods, making small noises of understanding.]

You can help them in a little while.

[Dillon is good at helping people. Hurting, too. But there's got to be a way to turn this around.]

[Sometimes, when Dillon looks at someone really hard, he can find just the right thing to say. To make things fall into place, to make things make sense, to bring someone pease. It shouldn't be so easy, not with just words; and if anyone else said them they would not ring so true or fall so heavy, would should shine in every cobwebby corner of the dark, not without his power behind them. So when she says it, it doesn't fix him. But it's still the right thing to say. He shudders, sniffs in the way that indicates the end of tears, for now, eases.]

...thanks.

[She pets his hair into place, wipes away a trace of tear on his cheek. Pats his back and lets him go, if he wants, or lets him stay in her arms, if he wants that instead.]

Of course.

. . . Do you need a shower, maybe? [A tactful indication that he is still covered in blood and, you know. Stuff.]

Yeah. That'd be. Good.

I might need help standing up.

[He's pretty sure he can walk once he gets that far. But good lord he's tired. Like he's had all his marrow drained out into the pit with the rest and replaced with lead.]

Edited 2014-03-03 04:47 (UTC)

[She grabs him under the elbow and pulls him up with surprising strength. She's been lifting weights. That and strength and self-defense training since ages ago with Ben and Harvey; she's stronger than she looks.]

[Even though he probably can walk by himself, she keeps her hand on his elbow anyway. To the casual observer, it probably looks like he's supporting her, rather than the other way around.]

You scared me. [She squeezes his elbow a little.] But it's good to see you. Even seeing you gross.

Sorry.

[For the grossness or the scaring, he doesn't say. For both. He manages to drag most of his own weight along, but her hand is an anchor, a compass, a steady point.]

It's really good to see you to.

[Which means: thanks.]

[She wipes a clean spot on his temple and kisses him lightly on it, a friendly peck.]

It's okay. Everyone gets covered in viscera every once in a while.

We'll talk about it later. [This is not a request.]

[He closes his eyes, leans just a little into the kiss, manages a small smile. He's affection-starved, has been for years since he realized what his touch was doing. That feels like forever ago, and he's still subconsciously wary of contact some of the time.]

Okay.

[If his acquiescence is more weariness than actual agreement, at the very least he doesn't not mean it: Dillon has a lot of personal failings, but stoicism isn't one of them.]