itstopped | Re-Entry 08: Video/Spam

Help!

[The cry goes out while the video is still turning on. The picture, when it appears, is chaotic: Felix Gaeta, ashen grey and soaked with sweat and tears of panic, but only for a second before the shaking camera turns on what looks like an empty Western ghost town, caught from a high vantage point, shingles visible at the bottom of the screen.

Not empty. There are snarls and yowls and a terrifyingly organic sound coming from below.

Felix's voice cuts in again, tight with fear. He's not a hero. He's not a fighter. He's the one at the controls, and for all that he's usually good at staying calm in a crisis, it's a lot frakking easier when there's a console between him and it. He sounds a little hysterical.]

SOS! SOS! I'm pinned down in the-- oh, gods-- [There's another furious roar from below; his voice hitches, the camera shakes.] --the CES. Something attacked us. I think Dean is dead. I--

[There's a scream from underneath, unmistakeably human. The communicator drops against the shingles--] Dean? [--and cuts out.]

[Open Spam for Level Two/Infirmary, Later]

[After it's all over, after they've done what they can with Dean's corpse and patched up whatever needs to be on the survivors, Felix is set adrift into the aftermath. He should get cleaned up and then stay with Dean, he knows, or else he should get back to work and keep something like this from happening again. But he can't seem to make himself go to the latter just yet, not with Dean dead less than an hour, and the former...

He's always known that the death toll exists here, but he's never had to really confront it before, not in a way he couldn't brush off and ignore. The truth is that it scares him more than almost anything else about the Barge, even here, even now. It's not ignorance; it's not that he's never seen anything like it before. It's that he has.

The pull to sit by Dean's side and wait is powerful, but in the end, he winds up haunting the door to the infirmary, still red-eyed and disheveled, constantly peeking inside.]

((Right after/congruent with this, obviously.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Closing his eyes, the Piemaker ran a hand through his hair, actually thinking on Felix's words.]

People care. No one would be here outside this infirmary if death was an inconvenient vacation away from life.

If you die - if you die - someone is going to care.

I'll care.

That's not-- [He grits his teeth, exasperated.] What about when you die? Will you care then?

I'll be dead. And I think, if I had a choice, I wouldn't be coming back.

[Then why are you even arguing with me? he wants to ask, and looks like he wants to ask, but doesn't.] But say you do. You're here.

If I do come back, I'll...try to think of it as a gift and not a curse.

And say it happens again.

Then I'll have to take a hard reexamination of my daily habits and figure out why I'm dying so frequently.

And that would be the major takeaway from your untimely death.

I know I'm one of the lucky few who gets to come back. I'd...make sure that second chance wouldn't be given in vain.

Frak. [He sighs and hides his face in his hands, heavy and exhausted. He should have known this would be the conclusion regardless. Dealing with Ned really is like dealing with himself.] Naturally.

[Hugging the doorframe, the Piemaker looks Felix over, wishing he could do more to help]

Let me feed you.

[It's such an incongruous response that he actually almost laughs, looking up with a quiet little sound of disbelief. He shakes his head after a second and softens, not entirely ungrateful.] I can't... [He amends:] I'd rather not leave.

You stay here. I'll bring food to you.

Pie? [He smiles tiredly, leaning back against the wall again.] Racetrack said good things about it.

You know Racetrack?

I can bring pie, if you. If you want.

[Oh, well, not everyone got pyramid-side seats to their first-day blowout. Good to know. He nods.] We worked together for four or five years, before this. [And because he did hear their conversation:] Eating the same algae mush and everything. She was pretty frakking happy about that pie.

I'm happy to have delivered...that pie.

I can bring one too. But it won't be algae mush flavored so you might have to...adjust.

She's new. I'm not. I've had a few months to eat other things.

What have you eaten in those few months?

Whatever they put in front of me in the mess. [Which isn't bad, but he would eat it even if it tasted like cardboard, after all those years of seaweed.]

Let my inmate and me cook for you.

[He's quiet for a second, but then he relents.] Thank you. Not now, but...

No. No, not now.

But later.

Re-Entry 08: Video/Spam

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