Nick sorta wished that he had had the chance to have a proper goodbye with Axel, but, all in all, he'd gotten a better sendoff with Axel than he had with Beryl. Or any of the people that he'd lost and he hadn't had the chance to say goodbye to. The fact that he'd been able to have a conversation with Axel - as lethargic and monosyllabic as it was - was a relative luxury in these times, and he had to admit that being able to talk to someone without the shroud of island drama and conflict immovably looming over was them certainly something to be relieved about.
Like, okay, of course the realities of the island had still loomed over them. But they'd be able to joke and gel and interact and all that stuff, their pre-island chemistry was still there. After a while, talk about fear and preparation and having to be paranoid around each other could be temporarily shelved, and that was relaxing as fuck. Nick was certainly overanalysing this and placing way more importance on his relationship with Axel than was justifiable because of what he represented and how Nick had, somewhat unfairly, placed a lot of symbolism onto that conversation.
So yes, he sorta wished that Axel hadn't used that sudden return of island chaos to slip away and that the flight or fight reflex that this island was so good at producing hadn't been triggered yet again, but honestly, Nick wouldn't complain too much about it. He would take small blessings wherever they arose, rather than thinking about the what-ifs and the narrow missed opportunities. He'd try to, at least. Sorta hard to impose that kind of internal discipline on his brain, especially when it alternated between pounding headaches and crippling self-loathing and settled on very few more serene places in between.
But hey. Worth the effort. Probably.
Axel had seen what was going on before Nick had, and Nick froze in place for a few seconds, staring in confusion as he processed the scene, trying not to be governed by his instincts too much (because fuck them, they hadn't done much to prove their trustworthiness), and trying to work out what to make of this scene. How best to intervene. Who was to blame.
Nick realised he'd never get satisfactory answers for those questions, least of all the last one, and had to fall back on that old shortcut of loyalty. Walking up behind Garnet, he wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her off. Knowing it'd likely be quite scary, justifiably so, he tried talking with a soothing and conciliatory tone. "Alright guys, break this up!" he said, knowing that the words would sound hollow and ludicrous leaving his lips, even though he had not intended them as such. He didn't have his knife on him though. That was still in the back of the cave. He'd need to grab that later.
I Came In The Name Of The Dead, To Bring My Neck To The Blade
(Day 3, Post Announcement, Private until Goose and Fen Post)
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There was weight against Marco's jaw. Firm, uncompromising weight pinning his head to the side. Restricted his breath and all but denied any movement but to rub his cheek in the mud, downward eye shut tight. In one beat he was afraid. Garnet made him fully aware of the difference in their strength. If she really desired it this could go her way. He was armed but she was bigger, fitter. There were ways for him to die in the dirt here.
In the next he reflected on how he got here. The shudder in her body when he sprayed over her face. Hesitation in the pin and what came after it: nothing. If Garnet desired it she could end it right here, thematically it made perfect sense. Yet there was no finishing blow. Marco made her fully aware of the difference in their strength.There was no desire in her. Only anger that could not survive reality.
He pitied her.
Pity did not equal mercy.
The weight was dragged away. Nick's voice reached his ears but turned indistinct as he stared at his blood misting Garnet's glasses. There were flashes of her eyes moving underneath.
So he bared his bloodstained teeth in an expression no one of reasonable mind would call a smile. The muscles of his face were too tense. His eyes were dull. Unsatisfied. It pained him to force his voice out. "I remember that. The, the shock, when you see what you did."
Marco swallowed copper. A weak laugh passed his lips.
"It's not so bad. Sorry. Maybe next time you'll get your own Kayla."
In the next he reflected on how he got here. The shudder in her body when he sprayed over her face. Hesitation in the pin and what came after it: nothing. If Garnet desired it she could end it right here, thematically it made perfect sense. Yet there was no finishing blow. Marco made her fully aware of the difference in their strength.There was no desire in her. Only anger that could not survive reality.
He pitied her.
Pity did not equal mercy.
The weight was dragged away. Nick's voice reached his ears but turned indistinct as he stared at his blood misting Garnet's glasses. There were flashes of her eyes moving underneath.
So he bared his bloodstained teeth in an expression no one of reasonable mind would call a smile. The muscles of his face were too tense. His eyes were dull. Unsatisfied. It pained him to force his voice out. "I remember that. The, the shock, when you see what you did."
Marco swallowed copper. A weak laugh passed his lips.
"It's not so bad. Sorry. Maybe next time you'll get your own Kayla."
Garnet kept Marco's head pressed down, barely able to snatch a glimpse of his face from her blood-splattered lenses. What she did see, though?
A snarl. Feral. Eyes that said more than a thousand words could, and yet that didn't stop him from speaking, more and more.
Burly arms wrapped around her, hauling her right off of Marco and then her feet. Garnet immediately twisted, trying to wriggle clear, because she was not about this, not from being dragged away from one murderer by another.
And still Marco kept. Fucking. Talking.
"Fuck you." Garnet spat, seeing red both literally and figuratively. How dare he? How fucking dare he? Acting like he was better because he'd killed Kayla! Acting like it was somehow Garnet's failing for not understanding how ever-so-fucking-enlightened he was because he'd lost his actual fucking grip on reality and murdered a person in the process!
She wrenched herself from one side to the other, trying to break Nick's grip.
"I won't ever."
A snarl. Feral. Eyes that said more than a thousand words could, and yet that didn't stop him from speaking, more and more.
Burly arms wrapped around her, hauling her right off of Marco and then her feet. Garnet immediately twisted, trying to wriggle clear, because she was not about this, not from being dragged away from one murderer by another.
And still Marco kept. Fucking. Talking.
"Fuck you." Garnet spat, seeing red both literally and figuratively. How dare he? How fucking dare he? Acting like he was better because he'd killed Kayla! Acting like it was somehow Garnet's failing for not understanding how ever-so-fucking-enlightened he was because he'd lost his actual fucking grip on reality and murdered a person in the process!
She wrenched herself from one side to the other, trying to break Nick's grip.
"I won't ever."
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Garnet was small and light, relatively easy to pick up, even with how much she was thrashing and flailing. Marco didn't help. That comment - okay, Nick was clearly missing a lot of context - did not sound good. It sounded unnecessarily provocative. Either Marco was telling Garnet to go and kill someone like he'd killed Kayla - which was bad - or to go and find a replacement for Kayla or something stupid like that - which Nick was pretty sure was worse. They were both bad, though. Sorta hard to compare them, though. Different types of badness.
Still. It was bad. Sorta thing Nick would say when heated, so he got it, that was cool, but they'd need to have a chat later. That wasn't good. Nick made a mental note.
He let Garnet go, releasing her abruptly from his grip, wanting it to be a surprise for her so she wouldn't use her suddenly restored full range of movement to attack him or something. Nick set her on the ground, a few feet away from Marco, in the direction of the entrance so that if she was so inclined she could run off without feeling cooped in. Better to provoke flight rather than fight, Nick supposed. He kept his hands at the ready, able to catch her or - if need arise - deck her to the floor if she tried anything stupid. Which, hey. Emotions were high. Things were tense. There was blood and stuff here. Stupid decisions were sorta to be expected in this situation.
"Just...okay, guys, I know I can't exactly be trusted to be a neutral arbiter here," Nick continued, suddenly out of breath. It was slightly dizzying not being one of the protagonists in a fight, exhausting in a way that he actually wasn't used to. It just wasn't a sort of strain that he was used to. But it was true. With the murders to his name and the fact that he was, well, hardly impartial in this dispute, he knew he would be trusted by, at least and at most, exactly half the people in the cave. Still, he had to try. "But...let's not beat each other up. We're..." Well, not better than that. They weren't. "We don't need to get violent."
Still. It was bad. Sorta thing Nick would say when heated, so he got it, that was cool, but they'd need to have a chat later. That wasn't good. Nick made a mental note.
He let Garnet go, releasing her abruptly from his grip, wanting it to be a surprise for her so she wouldn't use her suddenly restored full range of movement to attack him or something. Nick set her on the ground, a few feet away from Marco, in the direction of the entrance so that if she was so inclined she could run off without feeling cooped in. Better to provoke flight rather than fight, Nick supposed. He kept his hands at the ready, able to catch her or - if need arise - deck her to the floor if she tried anything stupid. Which, hey. Emotions were high. Things were tense. There was blood and stuff here. Stupid decisions were sorta to be expected in this situation.
"Just...okay, guys, I know I can't exactly be trusted to be a neutral arbiter here," Nick continued, suddenly out of breath. It was slightly dizzying not being one of the protagonists in a fight, exhausting in a way that he actually wasn't used to. It just wasn't a sort of strain that he was used to. But it was true. With the murders to his name and the fact that he was, well, hardly impartial in this dispute, he knew he would be trusted by, at least and at most, exactly half the people in the cave. Still, he had to try. "But...let's not beat each other up. We're..." Well, not better than that. They weren't. "We don't need to get violent."
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Marco rose shakily without looking away from Garnet's face. "We didn't need to get violent." A blade pointed her way. "She attacked me."
She was still judging him.
"You charged me. You screamed at me. You threatened me."
They weren't the same. Garnet didn't care about living. There wasn't anything waiting for her at home worth fighting for, she was just hurting people because it made her feel better. And you know, maybe that's all it ever was, maybe she never cared about Marco, or Shauna, or Sam, it was possible she didn't even care about her dogs. At the heart of it all she just wanted to feel better than other people. He didn't have any more evidence, but he didn't need it.
"Wh-whatever you dreamed up to make this easy on your conscience, it's fake. I didn't even touch you until you punched me in the face."
Marco didn't care if he was better than Garnet. There was a whole monument filled with the names of better people back in DC. When they added his it would be the right one, in the right place, right under Min-Jae Parker.
"So you can take your hypocrisy and Fuck. Off."
She was still judging him.
"You charged me. You screamed at me. You threatened me."
They weren't the same. Garnet didn't care about living. There wasn't anything waiting for her at home worth fighting for, she was just hurting people because it made her feel better. And you know, maybe that's all it ever was, maybe she never cared about Marco, or Shauna, or Sam, it was possible she didn't even care about her dogs. At the heart of it all she just wanted to feel better than other people. He didn't have any more evidence, but he didn't need it.
"Wh-whatever you dreamed up to make this easy on your conscience, it's fake. I didn't even touch you until you punched me in the face."
Marco didn't care if he was better than Garnet. There was a whole monument filled with the names of better people back in DC. When they added his it would be the right one, in the right place, right under Min-Jae Parker.
"So you can take your hypocrisy and Fuck. Off."
Nick released Garnet and she stumbled, having to take a few more steps to correct her own momentum. She whirled around, putting both killers firmly in her field of view. Her seething anger boiled so fiercely that she almost had no room to be pissed at Nick too. Beryl and Jeremiah. Both of them were her friends, there was a great argument that Garnet should be way more angry at him than Marco.
But Marco had ran off from her. Marco had decided he'd rather murder someone than believe what Garnet had to say. It created resentment and responsibility both. If only she'd been more convincing, if only she'd kept a closer eye on him, or hadn't fallen down, or—
He was responsible for his own actions. If he wanted to act like she wasn't treating him like his own person, he could have the responsibility for Kayla.
And the consequences too.
He spoke, and Garnet's already flushed face went even redder with anger. That's what it came down to?
She hit me first, mister, honest!
"Yeah. I made up you being a murderer."
She wasn't any less pissed. Actually she was more pissed, but there were two of them and one of her and she couldn't take them both on. She just couldn't.
There were still few things that stoked her rage more than being told she didn't have a right to be angry.
"You don't get to make it the first day of the rest of your life just because you came out. I attacked you? You killed Kayla!" She jabbed a finger at Nick. "He killed Beryl and Jeremiah!"
Garnet spat on the floor between them both.
"You're both garbage. Go to hell."
She backed up, then turned and ran.
((Garnet Barnes continued in Please Refrain))
But Marco had ran off from her. Marco had decided he'd rather murder someone than believe what Garnet had to say. It created resentment and responsibility both. If only she'd been more convincing, if only she'd kept a closer eye on him, or hadn't fallen down, or—
He was responsible for his own actions. If he wanted to act like she wasn't treating him like his own person, he could have the responsibility for Kayla.
And the consequences too.
He spoke, and Garnet's already flushed face went even redder with anger. That's what it came down to?
She hit me first, mister, honest!
"Yeah. I made up you being a murderer."
She wasn't any less pissed. Actually she was more pissed, but there were two of them and one of her and she couldn't take them both on. She just couldn't.
There were still few things that stoked her rage more than being told she didn't have a right to be angry.
"You don't get to make it the first day of the rest of your life just because you came out. I attacked you? You killed Kayla!" She jabbed a finger at Nick. "He killed Beryl and Jeremiah!"
Garnet spat on the floor between them both.
"You're both garbage. Go to hell."
She backed up, then turned and ran.
((Garnet Barnes continued in Please Refrain))
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Nick was angry. Furious. Hurt. Garnet might have known Marco well enough to judge his actions, might have had enough of a conversation with Marco to develop her own views and appraisals of what he'd done, but she hadn't had that conversation with Nick. She just knew what the announcements had told her. Saw fit to make her verdict based on that faulty evidence. On disreputable hearsay, basically.
When Garnet jabbed her finger at Nick, Nick scowled. Blinked. Garnet was wrong. Not about the facts - he did have blood on his hands, that's how he'd ended up as such a damn pariah - but about the point she was making. Nick wanted to grab her again, march her to the terrorists, demand they show her the footage, just so that he could prove her wrong, just so that he could hear someone admit how wrong they had been about him. Just so that he could hear someone admit that, hey, they'd been stupid in taking Danya at his word, that they shouldn't have been so quick to rush to harshness, that it was both the right thing to do and the wise thing to do not to provoke people without hearing their side of the story.
But that anger went as quickly as it appeared, leaving just a dim shadow of that rage behind. He shook his head. Blinked again. This time as a sort of cathartic substitute for his anger. He could have yelled back at Garnet as she left. Could have torn apart her arguments with a clinical zeal as she went. If she had refused to stay and listen, well, Nick could have charged at her and kept her in the cage to listen to him. But that was petty. Pointless. Like his impulses were searching for more and more flimsy excuses to justify acting out and lashing out against those who insulted and threatened him.
He let Garnet leave the scene, not even blinking at that final parting insult.
Nick sighed when they were alone again. "Next time, Marco...I don't know what happened while I was with Axel, but that comment about Kayla...don't say provocative shit like that please. Like, don't use the people you kill for verbal jabs." Nick shrugged. He was being a hypocrite, criticising others for being hotheaded and incendiary, and hypocrisy clearly wasn't something Marco was in the mood for at the moment. He would always be a hypocrite when it came to commenting on other people's shortcomings, but there were far worse things about Nick than his occasional veering towards hypocrisy.
When Garnet jabbed her finger at Nick, Nick scowled. Blinked. Garnet was wrong. Not about the facts - he did have blood on his hands, that's how he'd ended up as such a damn pariah - but about the point she was making. Nick wanted to grab her again, march her to the terrorists, demand they show her the footage, just so that he could prove her wrong, just so that he could hear someone admit how wrong they had been about him. Just so that he could hear someone admit that, hey, they'd been stupid in taking Danya at his word, that they shouldn't have been so quick to rush to harshness, that it was both the right thing to do and the wise thing to do not to provoke people without hearing their side of the story.
But that anger went as quickly as it appeared, leaving just a dim shadow of that rage behind. He shook his head. Blinked again. This time as a sort of cathartic substitute for his anger. He could have yelled back at Garnet as she left. Could have torn apart her arguments with a clinical zeal as she went. If she had refused to stay and listen, well, Nick could have charged at her and kept her in the cage to listen to him. But that was petty. Pointless. Like his impulses were searching for more and more flimsy excuses to justify acting out and lashing out against those who insulted and threatened him.
He let Garnet leave the scene, not even blinking at that final parting insult.
Nick sighed when they were alone again. "Next time, Marco...I don't know what happened while I was with Axel, but that comment about Kayla...don't say provocative shit like that please. Like, don't use the people you kill for verbal jabs." Nick shrugged. He was being a hypocrite, criticising others for being hotheaded and incendiary, and hypocrisy clearly wasn't something Marco was in the mood for at the moment. He would always be a hypocrite when it came to commenting on other people's shortcomings, but there were far worse things about Nick than his occasional veering towards hypocrisy.
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Emprexx Plush
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Marco watched Garnet leave. When Nick spoke he didn't look, or when he finished. His legs felt like they were about to collapse. The pounding in his chest was enough to shake his body apart. Bile and blood mixed in the back of his throat, too potent to swallow. Out of all her incoherent screaming, Garnet was right about one thing. They were both garbage. Marco wasn't certain he believed in a Hell, but if there was one they were going there. They were killers. Selfish. Angry. Dangerous. Spiteful. Arguing against any of that, it was pointless. Marco had never pretended otherwise. He accepted he'd done wrong, even told her as much, but it wasn't enough. Garnet didn't care. She'd made up her mind before she ever laid eyes on him.
"It wasn't a jab. It was a fact. She wants to stop the game. There's only one way it stops."
Being right didn't make her better. One of these days he was going to hear her name on the announcements, either as the victim of her own high handed idiocy or because she snapped. That anger she didn't even try to control around him would break with someone who wouldn't fight back, and she'd do it. Didn't have to be on purpose. Accidents happen. He should know. "If she doesn't learn that...if she doesn't think..." He was sick to his stomach. Garnet infuriated him. She was a hypocrite, an idiot, but...it was so hard to sort through feeling this real when he'd spent so long repressing everything that wasn't shame or fear, but once the numbness of how little he meant to her wore off she still meant something to him. In a way she would probably never understand, he was trying to help her. "I don't want her to die, Nick." Little pops of tension cracked as his neck turned to face Nick. "If I did, she'd be dead."
There were opportunities. So many opportunities. He could have hurt her so much worse in her anger, all wild limbs and impulse. Marco wasn't a fighter, but he'd seen what knives do to a stomach. Vivid memories of how they felt cutting through the soft flesh of one's throat played in the back of his mind. Even the face, the eyes...he'd swung for extremities. Swung with flats and tips, did things he thought would hurt or at least scare her, but he didn't try to kill her. She didn't understand, and for his own conscience he didn't need her to; Marco wasn't a good person. That didn't mean he had to make every bad decision that presented itself though. what he'd done to Kayla was wrong. What he imagined doing to Garnet, to Axel, that was grayer but it was still probably wrong. Violence in the name of survival was a new kind of pre-occupying impulse. If it wasn't obvious by now, he acknowledged that he was weak to fixation tinted with paranoia. He could beat it though. He would beat it.
Some day a long time from now, Marco wanted to be a good person. It wasn't clear what that looked like, but it sounded like a nice goal. Salvation was for the living, though. Until he walked out of this place, the balance between fear and necessity was the best he could manage.
"It wasn't a jab. It was a fact. She wants to stop the game. There's only one way it stops."
Being right didn't make her better. One of these days he was going to hear her name on the announcements, either as the victim of her own high handed idiocy or because she snapped. That anger she didn't even try to control around him would break with someone who wouldn't fight back, and she'd do it. Didn't have to be on purpose. Accidents happen. He should know. "If she doesn't learn that...if she doesn't think..." He was sick to his stomach. Garnet infuriated him. She was a hypocrite, an idiot, but...it was so hard to sort through feeling this real when he'd spent so long repressing everything that wasn't shame or fear, but once the numbness of how little he meant to her wore off she still meant something to him. In a way she would probably never understand, he was trying to help her. "I don't want her to die, Nick." Little pops of tension cracked as his neck turned to face Nick. "If I did, she'd be dead."
There were opportunities. So many opportunities. He could have hurt her so much worse in her anger, all wild limbs and impulse. Marco wasn't a fighter, but he'd seen what knives do to a stomach. Vivid memories of how they felt cutting through the soft flesh of one's throat played in the back of his mind. Even the face, the eyes...he'd swung for extremities. Swung with flats and tips, did things he thought would hurt or at least scare her, but he didn't try to kill her. She didn't understand, and for his own conscience he didn't need her to; Marco wasn't a good person. That didn't mean he had to make every bad decision that presented itself though. what he'd done to Kayla was wrong. What he imagined doing to Garnet, to Axel, that was grayer but it was still probably wrong. Violence in the name of survival was a new kind of pre-occupying impulse. If it wasn't obvious by now, he acknowledged that he was weak to fixation tinted with paranoia. He could beat it though. He would beat it.
Some day a long time from now, Marco wanted to be a good person. It wasn't clear what that looked like, but it sounded like a nice goal. Salvation was for the living, though. Until he walked out of this place, the balance between fear and necessity was the best he could manage.
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"Facts and jabs are not mutually exclusive, mate." Nick didn’t want to think about the arguments Marco was making - that there was only one way to stop the carnage, that that was to give into it and get it over with as quickly and mercilessly as possible - even if his instincts showed that, on some level at least, he agreed in practice. Thinking candidly about that sort of discussion was just going to be depressing. Debating that sorta thing struck Nick as, well, pretty useless. Academic discourse was fun and all, but when the more pressing concerns were things like not getting your head smashed in or getting enough water to make it through the day, he didn’t see what he personally could add to that conversation. Best to take each day as it came, letting things go as they would.
Nick continued, with a shrug, looking at the entrance to the cave, positioning himself so he would be the first person any new entrant encountered, while he continued gently chiding Marco for the some of the more antagonistic belligerence he’d displayed towards Garnet. "Anyway, I didn't catch all the context, but, well, to me, it sounded like you were either saying get a replacement Kayla - which, fuck, that ain't cool - or kill someone like you killed Kayla - which is, I guess, what you meant." Nick put the words into context - with what Marco had just said - and worked out that, okay, Marco hadn’t been as nasty as Nick had thought he was being.
Not cool of Nick to think so lowly of Marco. Probably projection.
"Still, not nice."
"Then again Garnet ain't gonna be winning any niceness rewards herself, so…" Nick shrugged. It was tricky. He sorta got where everyone was coming from. Made judgements a pretty nefarious trade. Still, loyalty. He sided with Marco, by default, like he did with all his friends, but he was going to try being a smidgen more critical. "I don't know how you two got fighting, but...thanks for the restraint. Sounds like she was looking for a chance to lash out." That was a kind of analysis Nick was certainly not qualified to make, yet he did so anyway. Just to make it clear whose side he was on.
"But she's gone now. Rear view mirror. Problem for our past selves.” Nick looked down into the cave.
“...wanna stay here for a bit?”
Nick continued, with a shrug, looking at the entrance to the cave, positioning himself so he would be the first person any new entrant encountered, while he continued gently chiding Marco for the some of the more antagonistic belligerence he’d displayed towards Garnet. "Anyway, I didn't catch all the context, but, well, to me, it sounded like you were either saying get a replacement Kayla - which, fuck, that ain't cool - or kill someone like you killed Kayla - which is, I guess, what you meant." Nick put the words into context - with what Marco had just said - and worked out that, okay, Marco hadn’t been as nasty as Nick had thought he was being.
Not cool of Nick to think so lowly of Marco. Probably projection.
"Still, not nice."
"Then again Garnet ain't gonna be winning any niceness rewards herself, so…" Nick shrugged. It was tricky. He sorta got where everyone was coming from. Made judgements a pretty nefarious trade. Still, loyalty. He sided with Marco, by default, like he did with all his friends, but he was going to try being a smidgen more critical. "I don't know how you two got fighting, but...thanks for the restraint. Sounds like she was looking for a chance to lash out." That was a kind of analysis Nick was certainly not qualified to make, yet he did so anyway. Just to make it clear whose side he was on.
"But she's gone now. Rear view mirror. Problem for our past selves.” Nick looked down into the cave.
“...wanna stay here for a bit?”
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Emprexx Plush
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There was a heaviness to depression, one that shares overlap with dysphoria. Weight around your every movement, often subtle but on occasion strong enough to turn any extremity to lead. A direct form of disassociation where on a logical, physical level you know there is nothing wrong with you, but your body refuses to respond the way it should. You feel clumsier in all that you do, and when your eyes, your ears, your nose, your skin report stimulus they feel alien. You are not receiving information from yourself but a relay of the Other, and it is difficult to understand why you're being given this information. It is not for you, there has been a mistake obvious to no one but you but you have no voice to correct it. You grow from outsider, to intruder, to thief as you are given no option but to take these impulses as your own, and eventually this body is yours again. Whether you desire it or not.
Marco was familiar with the process; confronting what weighed him down in direct terms was not like him, but refusing to name the feeling didn't dissipate it. On reflection one might assume those days were the sharpest in memory, it would seem unlikely to forget a burden so pronounced. That was half right. He remembered the weight, the fear. They were a stray thought away at all times. What happened on any given day they enveloped, though? Lost. Gun to his head he could recall little but flashes through the fog on the worst days. Maybe if he'd tried harder he could have held on, but his memory drifted aimlessly in the wake. It felt unearned; he did not put in enough effort to legitimize the spent ache he felt in his limbs, he did not deserve the rest he craved. It was all in his head. Right?
More effort had gone into the last couple of days than he'd spent in most of his life, at least as far as his memory was concerned. As Nick lectured on the heaviness settled on top of him. Familiar. Not the same. The throbbing ache in his mouth did not come second hand, it was wholly and vividly his, as was the burning in his arms, the harsh bile in his throat, the dozen other sensations that flooded him in detail as opposed to homogeneous, overwhelming exhaustion. An outcome with discernible cause rather than a burden that came and went at whims he could not follow. It was real, and it was screaming in its myriad voices for him to collapse, but that rooted reality made it almost comforting by comparison to the senseless drift that usually swallowed him.
He was waxing poetic about getting beaten up. Maybe he was a crazy as Garnet thought.
He didn't have the energy to argue the relevancy of 'nice' with Nick. "Yeah. We should stay until the rain stops."
((Marco Hart Continued In I Just Want Your-))
Marco was familiar with the process; confronting what weighed him down in direct terms was not like him, but refusing to name the feeling didn't dissipate it. On reflection one might assume those days were the sharpest in memory, it would seem unlikely to forget a burden so pronounced. That was half right. He remembered the weight, the fear. They were a stray thought away at all times. What happened on any given day they enveloped, though? Lost. Gun to his head he could recall little but flashes through the fog on the worst days. Maybe if he'd tried harder he could have held on, but his memory drifted aimlessly in the wake. It felt unearned; he did not put in enough effort to legitimize the spent ache he felt in his limbs, he did not deserve the rest he craved. It was all in his head. Right?
More effort had gone into the last couple of days than he'd spent in most of his life, at least as far as his memory was concerned. As Nick lectured on the heaviness settled on top of him. Familiar. Not the same. The throbbing ache in his mouth did not come second hand, it was wholly and vividly his, as was the burning in his arms, the harsh bile in his throat, the dozen other sensations that flooded him in detail as opposed to homogeneous, overwhelming exhaustion. An outcome with discernible cause rather than a burden that came and went at whims he could not follow. It was real, and it was screaming in its myriad voices for him to collapse, but that rooted reality made it almost comforting by comparison to the senseless drift that usually swallowed him.
He was waxing poetic about getting beaten up. Maybe he was a crazy as Garnet thought.
He didn't have the energy to argue the relevancy of 'nice' with Nick. "Yeah. We should stay until the rain stops."
((Marco Hart Continued In I Just Want Your-))
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General Goose
- Posts: 731
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:02 pm
At one point, Nick stood at the entrance to the cave. It was about midday. The rain was pouring down, and it was sorta calming. Sorta reminded Nick of one of his favourite feelings, being all wrapped up warm in bed with a nice cup of tea. Raindrops pelting down onto the windows, the sky grey yet not stormy, the tree branch outside his window undulating almost rhythmically as it endured the elements. It all made for an oddly soothing contrast with his own warmth and comfort. Add to that a little bit of gentle and benign schadenfreude when he saw some hapless pedestrian running for shelter, and it just made Nick feel all nice and cosy.
It was a feeling that he’d never get to savour again. There was always a melancholy edge to even the most mundane and humdrum of reminisces now. He didn’t like thinking about any of his interests or past-times, because, well, fuck, it wasn’t like the island had the facilities for having one last whirl with them. Every nice thing that he remembered had gone from a source of comfort on day one to something more painful now. It was one of those little tragedies about dying prematurely that hurt disproportionately because he just had so much damn time to reflect upon them. And as much as he didn’t like thinking about it, it was like that white bear or white elephant or whatever it was. The more he tried not thinking about it, the more he thought about it.
Oh well. Nick supposed it was probably less harrowing than replaying the deaths in his head over and over again. He’d not done that too much today. Because of that whole ‘feeling guilty’ thing, Nick hadn’t tried to not think about how horrific and bloody and scarring those events were. It meant that ironic rebound hadn’t kicked in.
Nick probably didn’t deserve any of those nice things anymore. He probably wouldn’t be able to enjoy them even if he had the opportunity to partake in them again. Which. Urgh. Sorta made Nick feel pretty despondent about continuing to survive.
But still. He didn’t know what else to do.
They were running low on food. Starvation would be a bad way to die. Being famished would make a more violent death all the more uncomfortable. They had to think about that. Nick was pretty sure that would require fires at one point. Had to cook stuff, as food poisoning was only just behind starvation on the list of status effects Nick wanted to avoid. Still, that was a step that they could ponder later. And there were probably berries and discarded rations and the like that didn’t require cooking.
Also, if you ate an animal straight after it had died, that was a thing, right? That was sorta safe? Some cuisines had raw meats as part of it, and sure they probably handled the carcasses with correct training and just-in-time supply and storage and all that, but hey, it was technically possible. Still.
They needed to get the animals first.
“Marco, mate, do you have the foggiest idea how to fish? Without, you know, fishing gear?” Nick looked into the body of water before him. “I know it’s possible to fish with, like, standing in a shallow river and picking up fish that swim past.” Well, Nick had seen it in Mulan. He assumed that it was based on real life in that regard.
----
Water! Water. That was probably more urgent than food. Nick remembered that at about seven in the evening. He’d forgotten he had his watch on up until that moment, and once he remembered it, well, he’d started looking at it way too often that was healthy. Nick didn’t trust his watch completely, though. It was the best source of time he could go with, so scepticism wasn’t exactly productive, but he knew there were countless ways it could be inaccurate. Maybe the timing would get a bit faulty, maybe the internal mechanics were getting muddied by dirt and tarnished by wear and tear, and maybe the terrorists had deigned to sabotage it.
Still. Water. That was the main priority. And they were near a lot of water, and it wasn’t salt water, Nick didn’t think, but he knew that bad water could be sickening or contaminated or even paradoxically cause dehydration. So, yeah. Had to treat it first. Just to be on the safe side. Dying of thirst was the one thing that sounded worse than dying of starvation. Had to avoid that. Four bottles of water. That was what they’d had. Nick had, for once, displayed a degree of foresight. He had, bar a couple of moments where he’d drank too much to recover from a highly arduous episode, had the foresight to ration his water. That was balanced out by those times where he hadn’t been drinking a healthy amount of water, the symptoms of mild dehydration barely noticeable above, say, the headache Jeremiah had left him with.
But he was on his last one. His act of charity towards Axel had totally been worth it - spiritual and emotional health and wellbeing and all that stuff that Nick was terrible at in the best of times - but it had exacerbated the situation. And hey, if they could find out a way of getting sustainable clean drinking water, then that was awesome. Water that wasn’t safe to drink still had its uses - washing in a pinch, Nick supposed, or cooling high-end computers - but those weren’t really the concerns right now. They needed more water.
He was looking at his empty bottles. He’d kept them on hand, partly as part of an aversion to littering that his parents had drilled into him, partly as another display of uncharacteristic foresight for if he ever found a source of drinking water. It was luck that his foresight had lasted this long. If they’d been on hand during a fight, he’d probably have lobbed them away.
Nick sighed.
“Marco?” Nick called out again. “Do you have any idea how to get clean water?” Unless Marco had had the wit to take Kayla’s water - which sorta went against his whole justification for the kill - they had killed three people between them and not topped up their resources once. That was, in hindsight, silly. Though Nick couldn’t see how he could have exactly taken Beryl’s supplies. Jeremiah’s, sure, but he would have felt like a massive villain, robbing from a mute girl and a blind guy as they mourned a dead friend.
He picked up an empty water bottle.
“And if not, we can play spin the bottle, at least.”
----
At one point Nick tried a trick. He still hated the term ‘magic’, but it was so minor, so trivial, so positively unimpressive, that he felt that for once even the term ‘illusion’ was too presumptuous, too optimistic.
It was a simple one. The sort you’d do to a child. Not that Nick intended it to be patronising or anything to Marco. Not in the slightest. It was just, well, he wasn’t exactly in the state of mind himself for anything more complex, and Nick was willing to wager they were both in a mood for somewhat simpler diversions than anything more cerebral or demanding.
Nick found a lighter behind Marco’s ear. That was it.
It made Nick amused for a few moments, and then back to work they went.
---
There was one moment of fear.
It was at night. The two were just beginning to settle down. Following the relative...loudness of earlier in the day, something about their current situation - maybe the weather, maybe the surrounding terrain, maybe some history of violence that had not yet reached them on the rumour mill - meant that they were not disturbed too much. Maybe some people walked by. Maybe they then saw who was there, and they promptly ‘noped’ out of there. Nick was cool with that. About time he got some sort of silver lining out of being a killer.
Then there were noises. Scratching against the edge of the cave’s entrance. The rustling of leaves and twigs that was scarily reminiscent to the noises someone made when sneaking about. A rock tumbling from the top of the mouth of the cave. Some splashing in the waters.
Nick looked at Marco and picked up his knife. He’d left it in the back of the cave for a long time. Thankfully, he’d remembered to grab it an hour or so earlier. Just to make the whole staying up for part of the night thing to keep watch somewhat easier to do. The knife was a more effective weapon, and an infinitely more effective deterrent, than his fists alone. Holding it in a dagger grip and with his other hand out, ready to throw a punch or grab an intruder for a grapple, he walked forward. He spotted what looked like a shadow. Hard to be certain, and maybe it was his mind verging on the side of caution, because the sole source of illumination was the moonlight.
Urgh. Nick missed light pollution right now.
He stepped forward. Looking at where he thought the sound was coming from. Glanced over his shoulder, just checking Marco was on board with the silent ‘walk forward and see what the threat was’ plan. Marco was. Nick stepped forward again. Stuck one foot out of the cave. That didn’t trigger any trap or reflexive attack or something, but there was another burst of rustling. Nick paused. Swallowed. Stepped forward again. Gradually edged out from the cave, making sure his steps varied in pace and speed just in case that might throw off someone impossibly more competent than him.
He looked at where the noise was coming from.
Gulped when he realised that, oh. The sounds of the waterfall had thrown off his perception. Or the intruder had run to the opposite direction. He swallowed again. Turned around. And came face to face with the intruder. It was a squirrel. A squirrel who was looking at Nick. The squirrel tilted its head to the left. Nick tilted his head to the right. The squirrel ran off.
((Nick Ogilvie continued elsewhere.))
It was a feeling that he’d never get to savour again. There was always a melancholy edge to even the most mundane and humdrum of reminisces now. He didn’t like thinking about any of his interests or past-times, because, well, fuck, it wasn’t like the island had the facilities for having one last whirl with them. Every nice thing that he remembered had gone from a source of comfort on day one to something more painful now. It was one of those little tragedies about dying prematurely that hurt disproportionately because he just had so much damn time to reflect upon them. And as much as he didn’t like thinking about it, it was like that white bear or white elephant or whatever it was. The more he tried not thinking about it, the more he thought about it.
Oh well. Nick supposed it was probably less harrowing than replaying the deaths in his head over and over again. He’d not done that too much today. Because of that whole ‘feeling guilty’ thing, Nick hadn’t tried to not think about how horrific and bloody and scarring those events were. It meant that ironic rebound hadn’t kicked in.
Nick probably didn’t deserve any of those nice things anymore. He probably wouldn’t be able to enjoy them even if he had the opportunity to partake in them again. Which. Urgh. Sorta made Nick feel pretty despondent about continuing to survive.
But still. He didn’t know what else to do.
They were running low on food. Starvation would be a bad way to die. Being famished would make a more violent death all the more uncomfortable. They had to think about that. Nick was pretty sure that would require fires at one point. Had to cook stuff, as food poisoning was only just behind starvation on the list of status effects Nick wanted to avoid. Still, that was a step that they could ponder later. And there were probably berries and discarded rations and the like that didn’t require cooking.
Also, if you ate an animal straight after it had died, that was a thing, right? That was sorta safe? Some cuisines had raw meats as part of it, and sure they probably handled the carcasses with correct training and just-in-time supply and storage and all that, but hey, it was technically possible. Still.
They needed to get the animals first.
“Marco, mate, do you have the foggiest idea how to fish? Without, you know, fishing gear?” Nick looked into the body of water before him. “I know it’s possible to fish with, like, standing in a shallow river and picking up fish that swim past.” Well, Nick had seen it in Mulan. He assumed that it was based on real life in that regard.
----
Water! Water. That was probably more urgent than food. Nick remembered that at about seven in the evening. He’d forgotten he had his watch on up until that moment, and once he remembered it, well, he’d started looking at it way too often that was healthy. Nick didn’t trust his watch completely, though. It was the best source of time he could go with, so scepticism wasn’t exactly productive, but he knew there were countless ways it could be inaccurate. Maybe the timing would get a bit faulty, maybe the internal mechanics were getting muddied by dirt and tarnished by wear and tear, and maybe the terrorists had deigned to sabotage it.
Still. Water. That was the main priority. And they were near a lot of water, and it wasn’t salt water, Nick didn’t think, but he knew that bad water could be sickening or contaminated or even paradoxically cause dehydration. So, yeah. Had to treat it first. Just to be on the safe side. Dying of thirst was the one thing that sounded worse than dying of starvation. Had to avoid that. Four bottles of water. That was what they’d had. Nick had, for once, displayed a degree of foresight. He had, bar a couple of moments where he’d drank too much to recover from a highly arduous episode, had the foresight to ration his water. That was balanced out by those times where he hadn’t been drinking a healthy amount of water, the symptoms of mild dehydration barely noticeable above, say, the headache Jeremiah had left him with.
But he was on his last one. His act of charity towards Axel had totally been worth it - spiritual and emotional health and wellbeing and all that stuff that Nick was terrible at in the best of times - but it had exacerbated the situation. And hey, if they could find out a way of getting sustainable clean drinking water, then that was awesome. Water that wasn’t safe to drink still had its uses - washing in a pinch, Nick supposed, or cooling high-end computers - but those weren’t really the concerns right now. They needed more water.
He was looking at his empty bottles. He’d kept them on hand, partly as part of an aversion to littering that his parents had drilled into him, partly as another display of uncharacteristic foresight for if he ever found a source of drinking water. It was luck that his foresight had lasted this long. If they’d been on hand during a fight, he’d probably have lobbed them away.
Nick sighed.
“Marco?” Nick called out again. “Do you have any idea how to get clean water?” Unless Marco had had the wit to take Kayla’s water - which sorta went against his whole justification for the kill - they had killed three people between them and not topped up their resources once. That was, in hindsight, silly. Though Nick couldn’t see how he could have exactly taken Beryl’s supplies. Jeremiah’s, sure, but he would have felt like a massive villain, robbing from a mute girl and a blind guy as they mourned a dead friend.
He picked up an empty water bottle.
“And if not, we can play spin the bottle, at least.”
----
At one point Nick tried a trick. He still hated the term ‘magic’, but it was so minor, so trivial, so positively unimpressive, that he felt that for once even the term ‘illusion’ was too presumptuous, too optimistic.
It was a simple one. The sort you’d do to a child. Not that Nick intended it to be patronising or anything to Marco. Not in the slightest. It was just, well, he wasn’t exactly in the state of mind himself for anything more complex, and Nick was willing to wager they were both in a mood for somewhat simpler diversions than anything more cerebral or demanding.
Nick found a lighter behind Marco’s ear. That was it.
It made Nick amused for a few moments, and then back to work they went.
---
There was one moment of fear.
It was at night. The two were just beginning to settle down. Following the relative...loudness of earlier in the day, something about their current situation - maybe the weather, maybe the surrounding terrain, maybe some history of violence that had not yet reached them on the rumour mill - meant that they were not disturbed too much. Maybe some people walked by. Maybe they then saw who was there, and they promptly ‘noped’ out of there. Nick was cool with that. About time he got some sort of silver lining out of being a killer.
Then there were noises. Scratching against the edge of the cave’s entrance. The rustling of leaves and twigs that was scarily reminiscent to the noises someone made when sneaking about. A rock tumbling from the top of the mouth of the cave. Some splashing in the waters.
Nick looked at Marco and picked up his knife. He’d left it in the back of the cave for a long time. Thankfully, he’d remembered to grab it an hour or so earlier. Just to make the whole staying up for part of the night thing to keep watch somewhat easier to do. The knife was a more effective weapon, and an infinitely more effective deterrent, than his fists alone. Holding it in a dagger grip and with his other hand out, ready to throw a punch or grab an intruder for a grapple, he walked forward. He spotted what looked like a shadow. Hard to be certain, and maybe it was his mind verging on the side of caution, because the sole source of illumination was the moonlight.
Urgh. Nick missed light pollution right now.
He stepped forward. Looking at where he thought the sound was coming from. Glanced over his shoulder, just checking Marco was on board with the silent ‘walk forward and see what the threat was’ plan. Marco was. Nick stepped forward again. Stuck one foot out of the cave. That didn’t trigger any trap or reflexive attack or something, but there was another burst of rustling. Nick paused. Swallowed. Stepped forward again. Gradually edged out from the cave, making sure his steps varied in pace and speed just in case that might throw off someone impossibly more competent than him.
He looked at where the noise was coming from.
Gulped when he realised that, oh. The sounds of the waterfall had thrown off his perception. Or the intruder had run to the opposite direction. He swallowed again. Turned around. And came face to face with the intruder. It was a squirrel. A squirrel who was looking at Nick. The squirrel tilted its head to the left. Nick tilted his head to the right. The squirrel ran off.
((Nick Ogilvie continued elsewhere.))