fridgetothefire | 015 ☣ Voice + Spam

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015 ☣ Voice + Spam

[Private to Alex, Bruce, Ben, Cass, and Pietro.]

I'm going to be okay.

[Private to the above + Riddick, Felix, Cassel, Rhade, and Dean.]

Let me know if you made it. Please.

[Public, a day or two after.]

If anyone who got hurt is still laid up, in the infirmary or wherever else, and wants me to bring them some books from the library, I'd be happy to.

I can read to you too, if you want, although I can't make promises how long my voice will last.

[It's still a little bit hoarse from screaming, but Anya knows all about painful, boring recoveries. She imagines most people on the barge will have more company than she used to, but it can't hurt to offer.]

[Spam for Erik]

[After a night of deep, utterly dreamless post-adrenaline-crash sleep, Anya manages to drag herself into out of bed, because she can't stand the thought of more trail rations when she could get real breakfast. And there in the hall, just stepping out of his own room, is Erik. He's not her father, he never was and he never will be. But he's something like it, and he told her stories once, trying to protect her from the man who keeps haunting her all too literally. After a moment of staring, Anya flings herself at him and clings on tight.]

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[He cups the back of her head again, holding still, holding her close. He's not naturally predisposed to comfort, but he's gleaned enough from flood and port memories - and disposition is nothing compared to his determination.]

You scare me just as much. [He sounds a little rueful at that - he remembers the early days, remembers learning what she did and knowing that Charles was afraid she'd kill him, too. He should be more afraid now; he almost thinks he'd let her, if she needed it. But what really frightens him is how much he cares. He'd spent so long determined never to be a father, never to risk being what other Erik Lensherrs have been - but he wants to be a father to her. And that is just as terrifying to realize.]

Oh. Well. That's alright, then.

[It makes her laugh a little more, wry self-deprecation at the part of herself that is genuinely assuaged by the leverage. She hasn't stopped crying, but the worst wracking sobs subside a little, and she sags into his hold, hunched shoulders relaxing a little farther.]

Edited 2013-06-10 17:27 (UTC)

[He lets himself smile, huffing out a laugh against her hair. She can lean as hard as she needs - he had most of the last day to recuperate. Even if he hadn't, he'd carry her wherever she needed. Well - he'd try.

The thought makes him smile a little more, and he starts rubbing her back again.]

It's going to be all right, Anya. [At least for a little while, at least till the next horror; it doesn't feel like a lie.]

[She believes in all sorts of things she used to know weren't true, like innocents and second chances (even if she hasn't thought the latter through and admitted it yet), and she believes it with all the unspoken caveats he intended, and maybe without a few of them. She's been cycling up on balance for awhile now, however deep the dips, and they're on the upswing.

It's so strange to hear him laugh, feel the puff of it, something out of the mossy-green cyrillic-clatter memories of her earliest years, like chick down in her hair and stretching to reach the handle of the village water pump. She chokes on a fresh wave of high, thready cries, face red and stinging. She feels a little hollow when they've all careened out of her, still damp and dripping here and there where she was scoured clean.

She doesn't move for a little while longer, even after all the tears she has are soaking peacably in his shirt. She just stands there awhile longer in his arms, half aware of her breathing gradually settling out to match the pace of his hands rubbing her back.]

Edited 2013-06-12 16:24 (UTC)

[He says nothing else, offers just strong arms and a steady presence. He doesn't know what else to give and things that right now, maybe that's all she needs. So he stares over her head and rubs her back, hating how miserable he feels to know she's crying. This is what it was like in his memories, he knows - in those other lives, the ones he has slowly been forgetting but never will completely. He raised a little girl so many times, and several of them were Anya specifically. This is the daughter the Admiral has been giving him, over and over, and maybe this is the only time that he could allow himself to think, maybe.

That's where his thoughts linger as she calms down, and he has to start blinking them away when he realizes her breathing is returning to something like normal. His voice stays soft.]

All right?

[She pulls back, not far, not in rejection, just reestablishing herself as a person with space. She scrubs a sleeve over her face, muttering.]

I look such a wreck. All I wanted was some stupid pancakes.

[Close enough to alright.]

[He has to smile, then, and settles his hands on her shoulders.]

I think my shirt absorbed most of it. [God he hopes teasing is all right.] Besides - you look fine. [No she looks like she's been crying, and he quirks his mouth at the corner in a 'well, sort of' way.]

...Do you still want pancakes?

Sorry.

[But it's a half-hearted, clunky sort of sorry, courtesy rather than remorse or any worry that he'd be mad.]

...yeah.

[He just smiles a little, one corner of his mouth lifting slowly.] I'll bring us some. If you'd like.

Edited 2013-06-13 18:00 (UTC)

[She sags a little bit, breath whooshing. It's a relief not to need to face everyone like this, even though she knows everyone else is probably still licking their own wounds. But she has spent a lot of time hiding, and it's nice to be able to - retreat, into that.]

That would be great, actually.

[He nods, then glances back toward her door, then his, realizing he's never seen the inside of her room. A brief hesitation, then he gestures to his door.]

You can wait for me in here. [His voices stays open with the offer; he's guessing she'd be more comfortable in her room, but maybe not with him.]

Thanks.

[It's warm and genuine, in spite of her streaky face and red-rimmed eyes. She scoots past him into the room, finding the same chair she favored last time and curling up.]

[He waits long enough to make sure she's settled, then closes the door - without his powers, though he likes to overuse them after ports like that - and heads for the kitchen.

He isn't gone more than ten minutes, and when the door opens again, he's got one plate stacked high with pancakes, and two others filled with silverware and those travel packages of butter and syrup. This time he does use his mutation to open the door, but he keeps it minimal, and sets everything down on his desk. There aren't many personal effects here, if he went snooping: a lot of books that he hasn't yet (or has no intention of) returning to the library, and Shaw's helmet, still situated at the corner of his desk, are really it.]

[By the time he gets back, she's sitting cross-legged with the helmet in her lap, balaced against her calves, tracing the sharp curves around the face with an inscrutable solemnity.]

[It's jarring enough that he pauses, staring at her, but his eyes drop immediately to that helmet, and as he looks, something closes off in his face.

He goes to set the plates down on the nearest table, and starts making a plate.]

Ask. [Better than ignoring it, which he did consider, for just a moment.]

[Her eyes flick up to meet his, still unafraid, and her voice is soft. She hasn't come to any conclusions yet, but she's trying to puzzle something out, how all the threads of their worlds and her barge-assisted nightmares intertwine.]

Where did you get this?

Shaw. [He focuses on the pancakes, and that makes it easier.] Sebastian Shaw. I took it when I killed him.

[She's very, very glad she convinced Charles to give her the background. It makes it easier to nod instead of pry.]

The thing in Silent Hill had this. Or something very like it.

[It's a plain comment, observational and unadorned. She unfolds, put it back where she found it on the desk, and joins him at the table.]

Edited 2013-06-13 20:46 (UTC)

[He holds his tongue for a moment, sliding the first plate to her before piling his own. He doesn't speak until he's finished and sitting again, looking across the table at her.]

Apparently it's something else I have in common across universes. [He doesn't sound particularly happy about that. Can't one thing - even one awful thing - be only his own?]

[The thing you got from Shaw is a thing you share with the worst versions of yourself. Are you surprised?]

My father didn't have one. He had the cape, though. I guess the nightmare was supposed to be a mix of Magneto aesthetics.

[If she's analytical about it, then she doesn't have to feel sad things, right? Right. BRB pouring syrup.]

[Okay, no, he just hates it a lot.]

Perhaps. [He watches her pour, ignoring his own pancakes for the moment. It's very strange, and his eyes flick toward the helmet again before settling on her.]

It's a reminder.

A reminder of what?

[It's not a challenge, exactly. She understands the impulse. But there are a lot of possible lessons to take from Shaw's death.]

Of what he was like. [Of isolation and pain, of anger and loss and, to some small extent, relief and release.]

It reminds me not to be like him. [Not to become him.]

[She nods. Good.]

Someone gave me my father's cape for Christmas. I still have it.

Why? [He's not particularly perturbed by that; it would be pretty hypocritical. But it's only fair to ask.]

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