towerofanimus | wake up, show appreciation [Closed]

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wake up, show appreciation [Closed]

Characters: Asch and Sheba
Setting: Sheba's dorm, backdate to the morning of the 20th
Format: why is this even here CLOSED
Summary: Sheba takes a while to get back to the party. Asch is a worrywart.
Warnings: Typical Animus warnings for talk of death and dead people. Possible Asch zappings.

[The day after she died, people started coming back. At first he was relieved, until he realized that she wasn't among them.

And the next day, too - he ducks into her room in the morning, but there's nothing, only her name on the door as the promise that she would return, someday.

The third day she's there. It's impossible to tell if she's awake or not, so he stands there for a long moment, just watching, feeling like something inside him got wrung out and drained. His shoulders are slumped, and he drops to his knees next to her bed.]

Took you long enough.

[And he leans forward and, briefly, squeezes his arms around her shoulders. And even knowing that she can probably read his mind - it's saying things that make them true, and he did promise, in an unspoken way, to always give her truth.]

I don't know what I would have done, if you hadn't come back.

[And with that whisper, he lets go, turning around and sinking down, until he's sitting on the floor with his back against the bed. He'll wait there - he can wait for a long, long time.]

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[He's almost kind of resting himself, but still alert enough to hear when she moves - and then a scream and augh lightning why did he ever get involved with a girl who can zap lightning. He's immediately gasping for breath, waiting for the sparks and his head to clear - his left hand has automatically gone to his right shoulder, which ached as it was and now feels like it's gotten cauterized under the bandages.

One way to stop the bleeding, some distant part of him observes.]

Damnit, it's just me!

[He doesn't get the hallucinations, or maybe he simply doesn't notice because the feeling of being trapped in his body is more upsetting than anything that could happen outside. Asch shifts to turn back towards her bed, not wanting to try looking over his shoulder after Jenna sliced deeply enough to cut up some of the muscle.

He tries to keep his voice calm; it might not entirely work when he's still got tingling in his spine and his injury makes him want to grit his teeth, but he tries.]

It's just me.

[Her heart is still pounding, her own breathing sounding heavy - almost too heavy for her to make out what he's saying. She turns towards him and stares blankly for a moment or two, tears streaming down her cheeks as she tries to will herself into calming down. It's not easy, it's not really working.

He speaks again. She blinks.]

Asch..? When did you... I thought you were...

[Well, at the very least, no one ever has to worry about Sheba having a monster sneak up on her in her sleep. If the smell of singed hair and flesh is anything to go by, she's more than proven that she can take care of herself.

And, still sort of disoriented - her last memory, other than the panic of the sleep paralysis and the... other things, is of shadows, and voices, and him. She frowns through her tears, too numb and panic-stricken to realize that this is the Tower's idea of living and not some sort of twisted afterlife. Some small part of her had been convinced that if she died because her collar's fluid turned clear, that would be the end.]

I thought I told you to outrun them..! Idiot!

[She's totally out of it. Not that he didn't worry about the same thing for most of the last few days, but still.]

You're not dead, Sheba.

[Keep it simple, hope she doesn't zap him again, so on and so forth. He relaxes a bit, letting his hand slide off his shoulder.]

It took you three days to get back, but you are.

Three days...?

[For a few moments, she can't do anything but repeat the words. Three days of nothingness - no. Three days down below the residential levels. Three days as nothing more than a faintly pulsing orb of light. Three days of waiting for Jason to put her back together again...

She shudders and draws her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around her legs and trying to make herself as small as possible. She's trembling, and she doesn't want to show this weakness in front of anyone, but...

Three days, lost. It's better than the alternative - better than what she'd believed to be true - and yet it's still terrifying.]

...sorry I kept you waiting.

[Her voice is small.]

[There's a pause, then, ignoring the protest in his shoulder, he hauls himself up onto the edge of her bed.]

You came back. That's what's important. I was...

[So afraid you wouldn't.]

Jason did something to scare them off that night, but there's still a few around. People started coming back after that, but apparently those of us who didn't actually die don't deserve the attention.

[He tilts his head slightly so she can see his collar, still somewhat faded.]

[I was, too - she probably doesn't need to say it. What she'd feared had been made obvious enough by her earlier comments.

She tenses when he hauls himself up, but forces herself to keep from bolting - or worse, from calling down bolts. This isn't some night terror, this is Asch, so any time she wants to stop shaking, that would be really great. It's not happening quickly enough for her liking and she tightens her hold on herself to try and speed it up, though she shifts her head a bit so she can look at his collar when he tilts his head so she can see.

That doesn't look good. She pulls one of her arms away and reaches out to brush her fingertips over the slightly faded color of it.]

Do you hurt at all, or feel dizzy or weak or anything? [All things that had happened when her collar had been too light.]

[He's a bit surprised that she reaches out, curled up as she is, but he doesn't pull away from what is, for all intents and purposes, her hand on his neck.

The question, though, makes him look a little startled, and it's then that he reaches out kind of absently, hand on hers to pull it lower.

It doesn't occur to him to let go.]

I suppose so - a bit weaker, and tired. I didn't really notice. I guess I'm just used to it.

[That his body isn't giving up on him, slowly but surely, is still new enough that he has to think about it.]

Edited 2013-08-24 07:56 (UTC)

[She blinks twice, startled when he takes her hand - she never pegged him for the hand-holding type. Then again, she never pegged him for the type to worry so much if she got hurt, either. She looks down at their hands a little awkwardly before looking up at his collar again.]

That's how it started. [Her voice is still quiet - she doesn't particularly enjoy recalling the week before, but she has the feeling she should get used to it. It's not something that will be easy to forget, and if there are still a few shadows around and his collar is still light...] Sleeping a lot sort of helped, until they started standing around the beds. Then I'd be even more weak when I woke up.

[Her frown is one of concern.] Be careful, okay? [He's used to it and that's not good, because if he's become so accustomed to ignoring the occasional weakness, he'll only notice something's wrong when it's really, really bad.] The glamour simulates things like illnesses and fonon separation, so it can be hard to tell when some other force is acting on you... but please be careful.

[He squeezes her hand slightly before letting go - there's enough awkward there for him to cue in on it, eveen as bad at things as he is. Instead he reaches up and puts some pressure on his shoulder for a while, in case it decides to start bleeding again.]

I'll be fine, provided you're a little more careful with your thunderbolts.

[Because yeah, ow. He'd like to wait another couple months before the zapping happens again. Not that he really regrets it even a little.]

Sorry about that. Sometimes I... see things, or feel things, while I'm waiting to be able to move again. [She shudders. The hallucinations were never pleasant - a side-effect of sleep paralysis, most likely. She doesn't really know how they, but they were as constant as the numbness in her limbs the more she died.] ...but, that was you before, right? When you came in... You hugged me and you said something. I wasn't imagining that, was I?

[It's an easy out of Asch wants to take it - Sheba looks doubtful, and she would certainly believe it if he said it was just part of the hallucinations. But before she can dwell on that too much, her gaze wanders to his shoulder.]

...what happened to your shoulder? You weren't hurt before... um, you weren't hurt three days ago.

[It's an easy out, but he doesn't take it. It would be obvious if she read his mind, anyway.]

You didn't. I was afraid that I wouldn't see youagain, and so when you came back, I...

[And here he blush, because at least in retrospect he can realize when he's probably gone too far. Honesty is hard, when a lot of things about emotional connections still scare him a little.]

I said that I didn't know what I would have done if you didn't come back.

[As for the arm... He shifts a little, tilting his head as much as he can to check the spot of bandage visible through the slash in his clothes - it's not blood-soaked yet, at least. Maybe the zap really did cauterize it a little.]

As for this, you might want to tell Jenna to save her protectiveness for the people you actually need to be protected from.

People come and people go... that's a part of life here. You know that, Asch.

[They've both seen people arrive and vanish, sometimes in the same month, sometimes after a little longer. Sheba is certain that even if she were to disappear, Asch would be able to keep going. She'd kept going after Felix had vanished, after all, and Asch was better at letting go than she was. That was why she'd died and he'd survived last week.]

You would have gotten over it. [She looks down. Parting ways is going to be what's waiting for them in the end anyway - Auldrant and Weyard have absolutely nothing to do with each other. It's probably better that they get accustomed to that idea sooner rather than later, since they have so little time left.

And then he mentions Jenna, and she lets out an exasperated sigh.]

She did that? [Why do her closest friends have such terrible tempers, why.] I'll talk to her.

[Then a thought - if he's hurt like this, then what about her...?]

Was she injured at all?

Doesn't mean I have to like it.

[Sheba's the one who taught him again that holding on could bring happiness. It's very hard to let go of the few constants he does have, and if he's being honest, it's mostly ignoring his feelings that he's good at.]

She's not hurt, as far as I could tell, but her color was a lot more drained. She might not have survived the night; I didn't exactly feel like following her around to watch.

[It's harsh in an honest way, outlining the worst case scenario. He's pretty good at that.]

[Sheba is silent, and then she nods. She can't really argue that, because inevitable or not, she would be upset, too.

If she's being honest, she's still upset about Felix, and still worried to death about Jenna and Ivan. She could wake up someday and they would be gone, and it would hurt. She knows by now that they're not the Jenna and Ivan from her world, but they share so many of the same memories that it's easy to forget, that it would still as sharp a pain as it would be if they had been her friends...

Hearing that Jenna may not have survived is hard, even after what she did to Asch. She makes a small noise of discontent and curls up in on herself again, arms wrapped tightly around her legs and her chin resting on her knees as she stares dully ahead. Jenna, dead? If they died the same night, perhaps they returned the same day. But if she didn't return at all...

Her stomach lurches. You can fix this, echoes in her mind, and she bites her lip. There's still time. It sounds like Jenna.

But why haven't you saved us yet?

She's just remembering. It's a memory - it's not real... No. It is real. Maybe it's more real than anything else in the Tower. More real than the face she wears now, that much is certain.

Help them. There's still time. Sheba wonders - if she dies again, will she hear their voices again? Will they tell her what it is she needs to do?

...that's a dangerous path to be following, she knows. But she can't help but wonder.

There are tears in her eyes again. She shifts her head to bury her face in her knees before her crying can become really obvious and tries to even her breathing, tries to keep herself from trembling. It doesn't work, and she's still too numb - numb all over. She wishes it would just stop.

Asch will probably note that Sheba really isn't in the best state right now. There's too much to think about and too much time to dwell on it, and it's catching up with her and crashing down on her all at once.]

Edited 2013-08-28 06:58 (UTC)

[He can see her falling, somewhere into her own darkest thoughts. She's hiding her head and she's shaking and he doesn't know what he's supposed to be saying, right now. Maybe it's better to not say anything.

He reaches out and brushes his hand along her back instead, trying to give her a soothing gesture to hang on to.]

[When she feels his hand on her back, she looks up at him, just briefly, her vision blurred by tears - ]

Sorry about this... Please don't go...

[It's all the warning he'll get before she casts aside all regard for personal space and shifts over a little so that she can bury her face in his shoulder, her arms wrapped around his arm. It's not quite a hug, but if the brief touch taught her anything, it's that she needs to feel that someone is there. Being left alone - though it's not really alone, as he is here, it's just that she feels alone and is too focused on the memories and the voices - leaves her unable to catch her breath and compose herself.

Hopefully Asch won't mind the damp clothes, because the tears aren't going to stop right away. But the trembling, at least, lessens; she's not completely still, but she's at least not shaking as badly as she was.]

[He starts a little, when she gloms onto him. The shoulder she buries her face in is his injured one; it tenses with pain at first, and even though the rest of him relaxes, it remains hunched under her touch. He's pretty good at ignoring the pain, though. His hands just kind of hang awkwardly in the air, like he's not sure whether to hug her back or not.

At least the bandage will keep her tears out of his injury.]

Idiot. Of course I'll stay.

[He adjusts slightly under her, lightly nudging her head off his injury and in more towards his neck, then loosely puts an arm around her lower back. However long she needs; it's not like there's anything else in the Tower that can't wait a day. The timer's not that far down yet.]

[She should probably apologize for going for his injured shoulder. She will, later, when she's less miserable and can actually realize what she's done. But for now she simply doesn't resist as he adjusts so that her face is buried in his neck rather than his shoulder, and she loosens her hold on his arm so that she can put an arm around his back as well.

She laughs - but it's sort of a dull laugh, a mirthless chuckle - and doesn't raise her head.]

You keep calling me that lately...

[Provided he doesn't end up shifting again or asking her to back off because of his injury, she'll stay that way for a long while. Mostly, she's quiet, save for the occasional sob or sniffle. But as time passes her trembling lessens and then stops entirely, her breathing evens, and she's finally able to raise her head and look up at him. While there are tears in the corners of her eyes, she mostly seems to have it under control.]

Thank you for being here. I'm... not sure what I would have done if I'd woken up alone.

[Hidden under the covers and not come out for three more days, probably. But a potent reminder that she isn't alone - the fact that someone was willing to be here and let her get it all out - while it doesn't wash away the memories and doesn't wash away the fact that she knows her friends are out there, somewhere, in need of her help, it does keep her from focusing solely on things that are, for the moment, out of her reach. They've said it's not too late, and that she'll be able to help them, so she can work towards that. But if she were alone... she would likely be dwelling on how close to impossible such an undertaking would be.

She takes another breath, and it's then that she realizes which shoulder she'd initially gone to. Her eyes go wide and she looks to Asch apologetically.]

I'm sorry. I should have been more careful...

You keep deserving it.

[The quip is half-hearted, really; he's sure she already knows that she was being stupid without him having to tell her. He gently rubs her shaking shoulders with his good arm, smiling faintly when she apologizes.]

It's fine. In the long run, I'm probably better at dealing with this kind of handicap than most people.

[He chuckles faintly - it's an attempt at shifting the subject away from the horribly depressing things, at least.]

I was originally left-handed, so it won't be as hard to learn to use that again as it would be for someone who was born right handed. It'll be a few months until the muscle heals, so I'll just have to switch back.

[He doesn't mention the chance that he'll die before it becomes a problem. It's always a possibility, but he's been fairly good at not dying so far. Hopefully his luck won't run out quite yet.]

[She can't help but chuckle, and this time the sound is less hollow. If he thinks she's an idiot now, it's probably a good thing he never met her while she was traveling. The Tower has taught her to be a little more cautious than she ever had been on Weyard, which now that she thinks about it - it's a little strange. On Weyard she could have died permanently, had thought she would more than once, and yet in so many ways she'd been much more reckless.]

That's a useful skill. [Her voice is quiet, but she's latching onto the change of subject and running with it.] Does it take much effort to learn to use both hands?

[There's a small part of her that is endlessly frustrated at her own lack of skill - there were enough people in the Tower who couldn't heal that she wasn't quite as self-conscious about it now, but with Asch in need of healing and her being completely unable to do anything about it, she feels that small, familiar sting of resentment that none of her Psynergy is useful for healing.]

...I can probably talk Jenna into healing your shoulder, if you want. She should apologize for injuring you.

[Volunteering her friends' skills is the next best thing.]

I didn't really master it until I got a similar injury to my left shoulder.

[It's said with a bit of a chuckle, in spite of what he's actually saying. You kind of learn to laugh at horrible injuries in the Tower.]

That's really when I switched - most people will still instinctively use their dominant hand, which is the hardest part to break from.

[He scoots across her bed until he can lean back against the wall, his feet dangling over the edge. His good humour goes a bit sour.]

I don't particularly want healing from the person who injured me in the first place.

[She can understand where he's coming from. She's not sure she would want healing from someone who had hurt her, either. But she'd like to see his injury taken care of, and as she can't get it done herself...

Well, she could always ask Alex. But she's not sure she wants to open up that particular can of worms. Asking Alex for a favor was a surefire way to get a headache, and then the both of them would be in his debt, and that's not something she wants to subject Asch too, either.]

Of course, sorry. I just thought... [Her voice trails off and she sighs before continuing.] Without Felix here, she's one of the few people I can trust that knows how to heal. I wouldn't want someone I know to be a traitorous snake to be doing that... [She thinks about it for a few moments.] Maybe you could ask Xion or Yu?

Natalia and Tear can both heal, you know.

[Well, she already knew about Tear, from the Tear before. He shrugs the shoulder that isn't damaged.]

It's fine. Either it'll heal, or I'll die before it matters.

[Morbid but true. A new body wouldn't have any trace of the injury.]

Go to one of them, then.

[Her voice is firm and her eyes are narrowed - not in a glare, just enough to show that she's serious.]

As soon as you can.

[She's not going to dignify the "I'll die before it matters" with a response. Just because death wasn't permanent didn't mean it wasn't traumatic, and given that she knows the time spent unable to move gets longer and longer with each death - and she knows what that sort of thing does to Asch - she won't just let him die.]

It's fine.

[He's godawful stubborn, though. At least the scars will be matching.]

If I was the one who was injured would you let me get away with just saying "it's fine"?

[Honestly. Sheba just doesn't understand why he's content to leave the wound as it is, when it's possible to get it fixed up.]

You came here because you were worried about me, didn't you? ...I worry about you too. So, please... have someone fix it.

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wake up, show appreciation [Closed]

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short tag is short because he's not the mindreader sorry

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