twenty-two ♢ spam & voice & spam

[versusnurture]

spam } dillon

[Like rising through the very top layer of the ocean, which is sunny and hard to distinguish from air until you reach air and realize what all you've been missing. It's so bright and beautiful even in the dull light of her room once she opens her eyes that it makes her smile at first. Before she remembers.]

[And then she thinks, in the grand scheme of things, in the grand scheme it wasn't so bad. She's been done seen worse things, it isn't so terrible, it's not, it isn't. She's okay. She's been okay. She will keep being okay.]

[She's thinking this as she sits up, as she begins to whimper, as she claws at the blanket around her throat as if it's trying to suffocate her. A scream begins to bubble up in her chest; try as she might to smother it, she can't quite. It keeps trying to be names, Ben Hannibal Will Daddy, and then in the end it's nothing, just wordless crying. She claps her hands over her ear and the open space. Hear no evil, she thinks, and help me, but she's forgotten how to move.]

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I heard there was a memorial. And it's over.

Is it over?

public } spam

[She's in the greenhouse, looking for rosehips.]

[This is insane and she knows it. Not just unwise, but insane. The smell of them makes her sick ever since, ever since, and the song makes her crazy, but she hums it anyway, because the memorial is over and she knows she's the only one mourning him. So she touches the flowers and looks for rosehips and mourns in flat silence.]

[Later, the same silence carries her to the chapel, where she sits in the back. She wishes there were raised seats, a hidden place, but this is what there is so this is what she takes. It's probably an awful thing to do, to pray to something that never was a god and that she never believed in for someone who never understood, but she does that anyway, too. For Ben, not for Hannibal. Even she would never pray for Hannibal.]

Comments

[orderfromchaos]

[He hears her breathing change, and it's like seeing the sky for the first time after weeks in Hesperia, a weight of worry like a hundred tons of concrete whisked away, only then she's panicking, and he scrambles over, sketchbook lost on the floor, flinches only a twentieth of a second before he yanks at the blanket and then catches her arms before she hurts herself - facing her, not from behind, not that, not that, and he is a little giddy with terror at the thought of pushing calm at her when she is already so volatile, so brittle, and in the end he doesn't dare, nothing beyond the involuntary ankle undertow of his palms on her skin, the pressure of her pisiform bone wedged against his lifeline.]

Abigail. Abigail. You're awake, you're on the barge, it's okay. You're okay. You're okay.

[She's not okay, of course. All gods are liars. So are men. But he says it anyway.]

[versusnurture]

[She remembers him even through the fear, which is so strong that it's hard to imagine any memory could breach it. But it's Dillon, a sense-form-psyche memory. Her body remembers what it feels like to be pushed and pulled by his innate search for entropy, and so she calms, just for a moment, she breathes.]

[She lets her hands fall from her ears. She can hear him. You're okay. You're okay. He tells her the same thing she tells herself. They're both liars.]

[Panting, she smiles, animal and wide-eyed.]

Dillon. Dillon.

[She grabs his hand like she's drowning again.]

[orderfromchaos]

[He squeezes her hands, and his are warm, speaking more slowly than he usually does, grave and measured, no matter how nervous he is.]

It's me, I'm here. You can breathe, Abigail. You can. One at a time.

[versusnurture]

[One at a time. She breathes in, then out, then in again, vaguely conscious of the fact that she's regulating her breathing. Five seconds in, five seconds out. Her lungs feel constricted, but better all the same.]

[She squeezes her eyes shut, then forces them open again, squeezing Dillon's hands.]

It's okay. I'm not - I'm not dying, you won't have to - bring me back to life again.

[A joke. A bad joke.]

[God, she wants a hug. (Where is Hannibal?)]

spamhouse

[godsays]

[ He half-considers vanishing.

The way he's behaved towards her is shameful. In more than one way: in presence, and in absence. She probably doesn't want to talk to him. He doesn't know what she's been through in the last month.

What makes him move towards her is the thought that follows on the heels of that one:

He shouldn't assume what she wants. What she's thinking. ]

Are you looking for something? [ It's not a challenge, like those words could be. More of an offer to help. ]

[versusnurture]

[Seeing Zane - seeing him, not just knowing he'll be there, not just assuming his presence somewhere on the Barge far away from her - is strange. Disorienting, after all this time. The notes catch in her throat, and she swallows them down.]

[She's afraid. Is she? She thinks she must be.]

[Wetting her lips, she tries to speak once, fails, and tries again:] Rosehips.

[godsays]

[ He's not as good with the names. He remembers how they grow and what they look like, what nourishment they need and how to help them flourish.

But. Names.

So this is a little embarrassing. ]

Can you describe it? Is it like a rose?

voice

[chaotica]

It is. I'm sorry to say.

voice

[versusnurture]

[Every decision means something. Speaking is like not hiding. She considers hiding some more, then doesn't, in the end.]

[She sounds very small, and very hoarse.]

We can only have the one?

voice

[chaotica]

Of course not.

I don't believe the same congregation of individuals could be gathered, but no one will tell you how to mourn, or not to mourn.

SPAM

[themissingpiece]

[He tried not to hover when she went into coma. He tried not to worry that the Abigail he met was the same as the one asleep. He tried very hard to keep busy. He tried very hard keep his panic and guilt pushed down deep.]

[For all his trying, it only just kept him together. He approaches her in the greenhouse but stops short, unable to get any words out. He takes a second the moves cautiously into her peripheral view. Maybe he can remember how to speak by the time she sees him.]

SPAM

[versusnurture]

[It's a relief to see him. Not the heavy kind of relief that weighs you down, but the kind that buoys you up. She feels a little like she might be floating, and smiles softly at him with disbelief.]

[Reaching out her hand, she presses the other to the greatest change - the empty space where her ear used to be, covering it up again. She doesn't want him to see.]

Arkin.

SPAM

[themissingpiece]

[It takes only a few seconds for all the worry to be lifted. This is Abigail. The one he knew.]

Abigail.

[He crosses the distance between them, reaching out to take her hand.] I'm sorry, I should have come back sooner.

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[fridgetothefire]

i missed it too

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[versusnurture]

I hate it

text

[fridgetothefire]

do you want to do one ourselves?

[She promised, once, and it feels so long ago even though it wasn't, really, to take care of her if Ben couldn't.]

} spam

[semifreakingnormal]

[He smells her.

He's walking down from the deck, and he smells her. For a moment, he thinks his nose is confusing him, that it's in his head. But he inhales and he smells her shampoo, and he knows he's not making it up.

Scott takes it slow, opening the greenhouse door and easing in. When he spots her, he struggles not to just run up and hug her.]

Abigail?

[versusnurture]

[She turns when the greenhouse door opens, a sense of paranoia easing down her spine. She's afraid - just for a moment - that it'll be someone (someone else) who wants to hurt her.]

[But it's only Scott. A relieved smile, then the icy shock sensation down her spine: she trusts him not to hurt her.]

[It's enough that she can hold herself back. She runs to him and throws her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tight with a wordless noise of joy. Her friend is here.]

[semifreakingnormal]

[It takes him only a little bit by surprise. But then her arms are around him and he's hugging her tight, letting out a relieved breath over her shoulder. He doesn't shake, but he feels shaky. This time, it's in a good way.]

I'm so glad you're up.

[He's so glad she slept through most of the worst.]

[darknessb4me]

It is.

[versusnurture]

Did you get to say goodbye?

[darknessb4me]

No.

[Arthas is terse, and that's fairly usual, but the force of bitterness behind the one word is like a hammer blow.]

spam;

[videocamera]

[Andrew's not religious. He heads to the chapel because it's quiet and not used all that often and he's just sick of being in his room, anyway. He doesn't want to see anyone, he doesn't want to eat or sleep or anything. Right now, he kind of just wants to disappear. He hovers his camera and tries not to think about anything. It's harder than it should be. If the world was fair it'd be easy to control your own thoughts. Maybe he should try meditation.

When he gets there, he doesn't notice Abigail until he's already stepped into the chapel and the door's swinging shut behind him. It closes with an almost-bang as he spots her and he drops the camera into his hands so he can look at her through the screen instead of directly.]

Sorry.

[versusnurture]

[The noise makes her startle, jumping almost comically high in her pew, and whip her head around, heart suddenly beating too hard and too fast like she's dying. She's so afraid, suddenly, from a state of feeling nothing; she forgot she could feel this much.]

[And then he's - sorry. Name, what's his name, she doesn't - Andrew. It's Andrew.]

[And he's not looking at her, and he's sorry.]

[She tucks her knees up under her chin, wipes at her eyes, and says nothing. Just looks at the screen, so it might feel as though she's looking directly at him. So he can feel her stare.]

[videocamera]

[The way she startles is sort of-- excessive. He doesn't know anything more than her name, really. Doesn't know why she'd jump like that. Except maybe he'd jump like that too, if their positions were reversed. Jump or shove back with his powers, at least.

He's used to people staring at him, though. Her intense scrutiny is maybe more direct than he usually gets on the Barge from most people, though, and he's still thinking about how she jumped. His voice is low and simultaneously sullen and apologetic.]

Sorry, I didn't-- People don't come in here much.