(no subject)

[omniavincit]

Passengers: William and 🤗 friends 🤠 and corporate ptsd 🚫🍟
Location: Loading bay, YOUR BED???, the cabin Grace and William are gonna break into
Date: Backdated a couple days, let's say the 26th
Summary: William returns from hell his mission, please don't ask him about it (please do).
Warnings: No one's dead yet!



William gets back late—the Avro's lone passenger, dressed in the suit he hasn't worn since his first day. It's a relief to touch down, but at the same time he wishes he'd told the little ship to circle the Peregrine once or twice. Like making another loop around the block. His steps ring through the deserted bay as he hurries to the observation bubble in time to watch the ship's departure.

He stays there long after it's gone, staring—well, out into space. Culina had beautiful views, but they had—like practically everything on the planet—been manufactured. He leans over the railing, cranes his neck. Savors the lack of buzzing neon, the not-quite-chill.

Exhaustion hits all at once, and he briefly considers spending the night in Warden Command. Instead he almost sleepwalks to the elevator, then to the dorms, where he flops onto the nearest bunk that isn't visibly occupied but may very well belong to someone. Closes his eyes and lets out a groan before he starts kicking off his shoes.

...look, there were a lot fewer inmates when he left.

Comments

how ACTUALLY dare u.

[expectaspectre]

There's a few moments before Grace answers the door; from the timing, it's likely she just crawled out of bed. That, and she looks like she hasn't left her bed in days. Her hair is lanky and unclean, her face unwashed, smudges of days-old eyeliner still visible in the creases under her eyes-- and the darkness there is deeper and more pronounced than usual. She's in her pajamas. A long-sleeved thermal shirt and shorts, a blanket haphazardly gathered around herself, as if to protect whoever's at the door from having to witness her in her current state of undone-ness.

And from the way her expression changes when she answers it, it's clear that whoever she was expecting that knock to have come from, it wasn't William.

"Oh," she breathes, lightly, disappointment tinged with genuine relief coloring her voice. Her dark eyes blink, once, as if confirming this is all real. It is. She doesn't seem entirely convinced. "Are you okay?"

That's the first thing everyone's getting asked, after what they've all been through.

hehehehehe

[omniavincit]

He's shocked to find her like this, miserable and small. For a fleeting moment, seen through the eyes of the old man he'd been, she looks unbearably young. He stands in the doorway, locked up in competing impulses—touch her and don't, look at her, look away.

“Ish,” he says to her question, mustering a halfhearted smile. “I'm sorry, I—the first days back are...” A shake of his head, compulsive. He hadn't had a thought for her or anyone—even with it gone he'd been caught up in Area X, mourning the way he'd felt there.

His gaze settles on her again, the hollows of her eyes. “I'm so sorry.”

[expectaspectre]

"I died again," she tells him, matter-of-factly. "I felt it this time."

The first time, the real(?) time, it happened so quick. Headlights coming towards her, then black. Fuzzy, pain-blurred pictures of recovery came after, for a long while. Nothing of dying. Nothing of being dead. This time she felt the pain, the overwhelming terror, the panic. The blood leaving her body through a torn-away hole. This time, she knew she was dying. And it took a long, long time.

If it's possible for her dark eyes to look more hollow, that'd be what William sees in Grace right now. And it'd be why she now uses the bathroom in the dark-- so she doesn't have to see whatever the mirror would show her. Her head tilts slightly to the side.

"You think that was helpful." It's not a question. More an accusation.

[omniavincit]

He's silent a moment—a moment that seems to stretch. One thing to love breaches, that fleeting brush with a boundless universe. To abandon yourself to what could be for a day or two and dwell in possibility. Another to look someone in the eye and tell her her death was useful.

William takes a step forward, braced for her to flinch or duck away. Hesitantly he reaches—not for her but for the rumpled blanket, taking an end in each hand. Gripping it a second before draping it over her shoulders. “Why'd you go in there?” he asks, his voice worn down to a sliver. His eyes stubbornly locked on hers. “I bet it wasn't for nothing.”

[expectaspectre]

She doesn't bother to move-- remains eerily still, in fact, as he attempts to comfort her. As if that's a thing that can be done, in this moment. Maybe because she didn't experience much in the way of affection from her own family, it's harder to instinctually recognize in the gestures of others. But intellectually, she knows he means well.

People usually do, whether or not it goes that way. Still.

"I followed my brother," she replies, voice croaky but without variation in tone, like she's reading a grocery list, not recalling the memories of someone else's life that remained fuzzy in her head like a dream. "I raised him. I failed him. He was the only thing in my life that mattered, and he went in. I followed so he wouldn't die alone. Then we did anyway. I'd call that nothing."