fridgetothefire | 009 ☣ Private Messages + Zero spam

[Private text to Lua, Ben, and Alex, with a voice version sent of the same message sent to Cass]

I have a decent stockpile of non-perishable food, bottled water, and an extensive first aid kit in my cabin, 5-13. It's in the cupboards under the window seat. You've all got access. Take it if you need it.

[Private text to Pietro]

Are you busy?

[Private voice to Erik]

If you're not dying, talk to me.

[Despite the demand, her voice is strained, shaky, raspy. She's not going to cry, but she's already been screaming tonight.]

[Zero Spam - arrival - OTA]

She sprawls onto the floor of her cell with a thud, off-balance from the sudden shift in velocity, her hair in a wild mess as though she were caught in a windstorm, her face shocked, her breath coming in shallow gasps. After a few moments of stunned stillness, she drags herself to a corner and curls into as small a space as she can. Keeping her eyes open, She focuses on a point on the far wall, counting her breaths as they slow, trying to figure out what on earth to do next.

[Zero spam - later - OTA]

She's pacing, with long, mathematically precise strides, a look of furious concentration on her face. She's standing rigidly upright, taking up more space than usual, exhausting the confines of her cell. Pained flinches twitch across her face but she doesn't let it break her stride. Sweat trickles down her face but she only brushes it out of her eyes, refusing to even strip off her overshirt. She can see the fire, feel it, hear the jeering. But her body isn't damaged, isn't small enough, doesn't fit into the horrors of memory. She moves and it responds. Step-step-turn, step-step-turn, step-step-turn.

[Zero spam - some other time - OTA]

She's shivering hard, but it's better than the heat. She's learned that practicing her drills to keep warm - anything strenuous enough to get her short of breath - will lead to visions of Castiel choking her again, struggling uselessly while her vision blurred black, caught in a limbo of dying and not quite getting there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She's not a warden anymore.

[She promised she'd tell Lua if she needed anything, but what would she even ask for? She doesn't know.]

[ That— that's not good, he doesn't know what to do with that. He takes a step back, pushing his fingers back through his hair. ]

There has to be someone else. One of the other wardens, someone has to be able to let you out. [ He reaches for his comm again, thumbing through to try to find a warden as he talks. ] The Admiral — or whoever it is, I will not let him keep you here.

[She smiles a little. It shouldn't be a surprise but it still is, people caring enough to fight for her.]

Thanks. We'll - something. It's not terrible yet. [Though she knows what Zero has been doing lately.]

I just freaked out a little. It was really - sudden.

[ He nods, sympathetic, but something that comes up on the comm catches his attention, makes him go still. He looks up at her. ]

Warden items aren't working right now. [ Right now, he says because he doesn't want to alarm her, like she can't tell that he's panicking. ] But this can't be indefinite, and you won't be alone down here. I'll stay. We'll find a way to get you out.

[Her mouth thins, pinched tight, because she understands the motives behind that word choice, but she nods.]

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. [ He nods, repeating, hovering close to the bars. He's handling this worse than her already, he knows. He doesn't even need hallucinations; this is what he's afraid of: his family, trapped in harm's way, with no way to fix it. ]

I'm sorry. [ For quietly freaking out here. ] What can I do? Do you want water, or—

[She's spent most of her life trapped. It means that she hates it, profoundly, and the open-ended sentence has her terrified, but she's capable of functioning well despite it.]

Read back through the archives, as far as they go. What's the longest anyone has ever been left in here, and at whose discretion?

[ Oh good, something he's better at. ] I'll find out. [ He nods and sets to work, thumbing through the archives on his comm at top speed. ]

Seven days. [ He says eventually. ] It looks like the doors open automatically — possibly at the Admiral's discretion, but still like clockwork — after seven days. There have been re-incarcerations, but no continuous periods longer than that.

Okay. Okay. Assuming the barge is still here in a week, that's - I can handle that.

[But can you really, someone whispers, a weak little thing like you?]

You've survived your whole life with our father. What's seven days in here compared to that?

[I treat you like one of us, he says, he rumbles, he lies. She twitches, breathes through her nose, and does not glare, her face settling into an innocuous mask.]

Nothing. It doesn't matter.

[ Except even he can pick up on the change in body language, there. He tenses, his worry spiking again. ]

Anya. Focus on me. You are strong enough to get through this.

[Liability. Incompetent. Hindrance. Her eyes flick up to him, hurt and angry, her voice quiet and low, just a thread above a stage whisper, only half-aware of saying it out loud.]

Don't you mock me.

I'm not. [ His brows half pitch, taken aback slightly. ] Anya, I would never.

[She grinds the heels of her palms into her eyes, a rough noise of frustration and struggle in her through, then glares up at him again. The lines of his face, the stark white hair, the breadth of a grown man - it doesn't fit anyone else, and Zero blurs away anything that might contradict it. Meddling interloper, she hears, it's your fault we are in this predicament, and why can't you ever be useful?]

I'm going to kill you, father.

[It's hissed, furious and yet banked, the way her defiance sounds in her own head, biding her time, laced with the satisfaction of knowing, this time, remembering the noises his lungs made as blood frothed through them.]

Blame me while you can, because I'm going to destroy everything.

[ She can't see the flinch, the way his expression crumples in an instant at those words. Father. Of course. He knows that they bear a certain resemblance, he's looked in the mirror and seen his father and hated that fact plenty of times before, but it's so much worse to hear her say it to his face, with such venom. ]

I'm not him. Anya, it's Pietro, it's your brother— [ Your brother who's really no better than your father, he thinks, and he feels small suddenly, and she doesn't seem to be listening anyway. He takes a step back, then another. ]

[Why can't you be more like your sister - Pietro is your responsibility - if you don't fix this then I will deal with you - stay out of sight, it does not concern you -]

Shut up. Shut up. Pick one, you don't even care what's possible or contradictory as long as you get to punish me, do you think I can't tell you're stacking the deck, do you think I'm stupid-

[She's curled away from him now, glaring from within the hunched recesses of a defensive posture, eyes flicking away in fear every once in a while, mumbling her bitter litany to herself with barely a pause for breath, more pain in her voice than anger.]

[ It's the pain in her voice that is the tipping point, for him. He can handle yelling and cursing and even hurling abuse at him if it gives her an outlet, but he won't hurt her. He backs away until he finds the wall, pain and indecision writ on his face. He can't leave her, but he can't stay here and make this worse for her, either. ]

I'll get help. [ he promises instead. ] You won't be alone.

[ And, with one last wounded look her direction, he speeds off toward the stairs. ]

009 ☣ Private Messages + Zero spam

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