dinosize | anomaly 007 . post-fourth wall . spam, video

[ He's been worrying himself sick since the day came and went. Nick could be gone forever. He probably is gone forever. Stephen has been certain for weeks now that he never truly wants to go back to the ARC, but hearing that he will never see Nick again has gutted him.

He occupies himself cleaning and scouring his cabin. It doesn't even matter, does it? This is all illusion. But he does it anyway, scrubbing up every stain and erasing every bit of dust. ]

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[ Bags of trash gather out in the hallway on level 8, outside cabin 11, things from the closets and basement that he'll probably never use again. Old blankets, ripped clothes, broken equipment. Dusty novels. Eventually a nice smell spreads, like slow-cooking beef or venison, and a large pot of stew shows up on a potholder in the 8th level common room. ]

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[ Just a brief post - ] Bit of stew out in the common room on the 8th level. I made too much for just me.

It's from those things like deer, last port.

[ private to friends. acquaintances? people he's starting to know. Later. ]

Are a lot of you dead?

[ He's a few pints down. Wishing he couldn't still think. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She was on the verge of taking a sip of her beer, out of lack of anything else to do. It takes her a second not to choke; he surprised her.]

Mph. Is that what -- this is all about?

I mean. You're kinda...moody.

He called in, on the malfunction. And he was dead.

[ Stephen looks down, his jaw going tight. ]

I sort of died to save him.

...Oh.

And so, then that. Kinda ended up being all for nothing. Huh?

I'm sorry. That sucks. I'm so, so sorry.

[ He presses his head into his hands and laughs, without a trace of humor. It's so much more complicated than all of that. His feelings for Nick are a lot more twisted and angry than a best friend's should be. ]

Hey.

[She stares at him, alarmed and concerned.]

What is it? What's going on?

[ A shake of his head. That's all. It's not a mess she wants to know about. ]

Look you don't...have to talk about it, if you don't want to. But something clearly has got you down.

I'll be all right tomorrow.

[ He'll be able to push it down again.

No one wants to hear this anyway. No one wants to cope with a warden who can't handle himself. ]

Will you be all right - or, will you just go back to not talking about it?

[She can't make eye contact as she says it, because it's something she does herself. All the damn time.]

Doesn't do much good to dwell, does it?

I guess not. [That gets her to look up again. Her gaze more steely. And, empty.

Right, right. It does no good to dwell.]

[ His turn to look away. ]

He said he'd try to get here.

He -- what? [She missed something.]

Nick. When he called in, on the malfunction, he said he try to make his way to the Barge.

Can people do that, though? Can they actually plan to try and come here?

Don't know.

...Do you want him to?

It would be shit of me to not wish him a new life.

Yeah, but. [Okay she's going to go back to playing with her food again, out of a way to avoid looking at his face.] Still. Do you want him to be here, with you? Going through all this other shit?

I want him - I want him not to have thrown away the chance I gave.

Do you blame him? For whatever happened?

For being a bloody idiot?

[ Stephen doesn't even know what happened. Doesn't matter. He's angry anyway. ]

So, that sounds like a yes then.

[And she's just going to eat her stew and not ask any more questions, now. Waiting for him to talk instead.]

anomaly 007 . post-fourth wall . spam, video

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