in heaven everything is fine

[omniavincit]

WHO? William, his existential crisis, and you!
WHAT? Just a person who's alive doing living person things.
WHEN? During William's post-death recovery; honestly as long as your char's on BASE at some point this month, you're good to go.
ANYTHING ELSE? Warning: pretentiousness. I play a Westworld, what do you want from me.

If you have an idea for something else/want to plot some shenanigans, I'm on plurk at smugfrog! OR JUST SLAM DOWN A COMMENT.

Comments

flies are buzzing around my head

[omniavincit]

He stands at the end of a hallway. This time, it's incandescent, the walls swirling with stars as the woman in white beckons him forward. “Which do you prefer?” she says, and the moment branches into possibilities.

William makes a quick calculation.

On the train, Logan looks him up and down, wolf-whistles. “Billy shows his true colors.” His grin is infectious; he sweeps the black hat off the counter and places it, like the cherry on a sundae, atop William's head. “Now repeat after me: slap leather, cocksuckers.”

“I'm not repeating that.”

Logan, as he sometimes can, lapses into fondness: flings an arm around William's shoulders and shakes him a little, back and forth. Scotch on his breath. That's Logan's primary scent: expensive. “We are gonna kill so many of these motherfuckers.”

They do. At first it's exhilarating: a shootout high in the mountains, beady-eyed men with faces gnarled as tree trunks and bullets glancing off rocks. He and Logan fight shoulder to shoulder, Logan trading guns with him when he forgets to reload. The men die quietly sometimes, sometimes in strings of curses.

One of them William injures—a bad shot—and when he begs for his life, Logan kicks him off the side of the fucking mountain.

Logan gets bored. They ride back into Sweetwater and gun down a woman outside the brothel. Her blood's almost as bright as her clothes. The girls inside scream, striking some dissonant chord in William. The Sheriff shows up right on schedule, and Logan's glee is palpable even as William abandons him to his bloodlust.

They say these things are over quickly, but it doesn't seem to end. He crouches out of sight—sick of it all of a sudden, not scared but bone-weary—as the bodies fall. When he emerges, he nearly trips over her.

Another woman lying dead in the street. A few feet away, whatever she was here for sits covered in mud.

William picks the can up off the ground.

(The trip leaves a bitter aftertaste. A year or so later, when he reads of the park shutting down, he feels an almost shameful flush of relief.)

He looks in on the pods sometimes, reassuring himself with Dolores' vitals before he steps into the room. Taking a headcount and wondering. He never stays long: as disorienting as waking up had been, William doesn't imagine puking on a stranger's shoes would have improved the experience.

Elsewhere, he's likely to approach anyone he spies alone—particularly in the mess hall, where he may even break off eating. “Welcome back,” he says softly, no trace of irony. His eyes are black, yes, but his irises have lightened to a deep blue. In another day, it'll turn icy. “Want some company?”

[mylawn]

Alone is exactly where 76 wants to be right now, as being brought back from the dead is not exactly pleasant or comfortable, to say nothing of the wider implications. He'd known that COST was able to do this, but somehow hadn't really thought about what it might be like to go through it himself. The loss in the arena was humiliating enough, and even though time doesn't pass on BASE the way it does planetside, he can't help but feel a little stir-crazy. He can train, sure, but his mind is always on the mission, and the inconveniences he might have caused by blowing it in the one arena (no pun intended) where he's supposed to be the expert.

That's not even touching on what Angela is going to have to say.

So naturally, he takes his meals by himself, not exactly in the in the mood to entertain company, but a little too exhausted to outright reject it. He responds to William with a noncommittal grunt, but then seems to relent a little, gesturing that he's welcome to take a seat.

"Only if you're done coughing up the black stuff."

Possibly that's a joke.

[omniavincit]

“No guarantees in life,” William says, with a there-and-gone smile.

He sits. It'd be hard to miss the air of solitude that clings to the other man, barely disturbed by William's presence, and on an ordinary day he'd take the hint, but fuck. His head's swimming, spilling over with images sharper than the taste of whatever it is he's eating. More immediate.

It's automatic, by this point: his eyes seek out the tattoo some of them have, that network of roots mapping part of the body. A mark to match his own.

He makes it a few minutes without saying anything. Then, the world's easiest guess: “Was it a good fight?”

[mylawn]

“First sign of it and you’re out of here.”

But he says that casually enough that it’s clear it’s intended to be a joke. He knows he’s kind of a sight for sore eyes, so he’s not about to begrudge any of his fellow resurrected for still getting the chemicals out of their systems. He’s not sure whether or not he prefers to talk about black goo over what happened in the arena. 76 stalls for a moment by taking a bite of the nondescript protein bar he’s summoned.

“Could’ve been better, obviously.”

The truth is that 76 is embarrassed, though he’s not about to say so outright. The arena was supposed to be his area of expertise, and though he’d had a few good rounds leading up to this one, the fact of the matter is he hadn’t really expected to die.

“You?”

Always easier to turn the conversation around, if possible.

[omniavincit]

He waits for the other man to elaborate, waits until the pause strains the bounds of comfort. “Regency?” he prompts, neutral. He tries to hide his curiosity, but there's no mistaking how intent he is on the conversation.

“Me. There was no fight.” William resists the urge to gesture at himself, no further explanation required. The answer comes without hesitation, though, his impenetrable gaze settling on 76. “I ran afoul of a house matron. She bit off one of my fingers.”

Here he pauses, hand tightening on his knife. His voice colors with shame. “I watched her eat it.” It's not the memory—grotesque as it is—that disturbs him, so much as the fact that he stood there, not blinking, not screaming, because etiquette demanded it. His anger forever in check.

Well. Not forever.

William comes back to the present—the meal they're eating—too late. “Sorry, my manners...” He waves his fork idly in the air, not particularly apologetic. “They're out there somewhere.”

[widow_of_the_crag]

She doesn't mind the company, as she didn't return here for the quiet or to remain idle. There had been various plants and potions that she had left behind before the mission, things that she needed now, especially with the influx of the wounded and dying. For most of the day, she would look in on others and heal them as they needed, but for the brief moments she was alone, she could write down her different ideas and potion ingredients.

Jeyne had heard that William had been killed, and while she didn't know him well, she had wanted to reassure herself that he was all right. His approach is welcomed, as is his company. She offered him a smile, nodding to a chair next to her. "Of course. How are you managing? Any pain?"

[omniavincit]

She's so young. She clearly knows her stuff—she's flitted in and out of his sight all morning, intent on some task or another—but he keeps coming back to that thought. It doesn't help that they're sitting in what basically amounts to a school cafeteria. She shouldn't be tending the wounded, pledging her life to a cause when that life's barely begun.

But so much that shouldn't have happened has.

“Good as new,” he says, smiling as he takes a seat. He remembers his ink-splotch eyes too late—he's not shy about them around the rest of the recently revivified, but this is different. He looks down at his tray.

“The eyes and the, uh, leakage should wear off in about a week. Then, medical science willing, I go back.” William sounds—not happy, but heartened by the prospect. His smile turns crooked. “I was the first to die.”

[widow_of_the_crag]

It was a better option than the life that she had left behind. It was hard to think of herself as young after all she suffered through. The loss of a husband so suddenly and the realization of her mother's complicity had aged her, turning her once naive heart into something more cynical. This wasn't the life she had intended to live, but it was better than being a prisoner and forced to live with one of her husband's murderers.

The world was not kind, but at least in this one, she was actively trying to help someone, even if it was only herself.

His eyes are startling to look at, and she does her best not to stare. Death wasn't permanent here, as far as she knew, but she had never seen the after effects up close. "Is that what they told you?" She asked, not certain how much she believed them about this, but who would know better?

"Yes, I know. What happened? I haven't heard very much, only that you died."

[murdocksboy]

It took Matt longer than he wants to admit (and a close call with a panic attack), just to get out of the pod and away from the filth. Between the nightmarish vision and the horrifying implications of what's happened to him, he ends up isolating himself for the better part of his first two days of consciousness.

His body finally overrides his mind's disgust at the very concept of eating, however, and forces him to make his way to the cafeteria. Between the his general rumpled state and the black stains covering his clothing, he very much looks the part of something that crawled out of a grave. He certainly feels that way, although it's the fault of lack of sleep and food, and emotional malaise, rather than any failure on the part of COST's medical facilities.

The plan was to find the first edible thing available and then skitter back off into hiding, to read his Bible and ponder the realities of resurrection. He isn't expecting to be greeted, and especially not to be offered company. The voice isn't familiar, but it's appealing in its humanity, and that's enough to make him turn toward the man and attempt a weak smile. "Thanks. You uh...you too?"

[omniavincit]

“Yeah.” It's unperturbed, strikes an odd note of satisfaction, as though William's stepped back from the experience. As though he's taking it in like a view. “William.” He doesn't offer his hand. His gaze is intent, probing—he looks to the man's bare skin first, trying to pick out any sign of a tattoo.

He's slower than usual, finding a table in the nigh-deserted mess. Careful to make some noise.

“You look pretty terrible,” he says, not unkindly, once they're seated.

vultures circling the dead

[omniavincit]

He wears white gloves. A clean pair each morning, turning his hands up at the wrists, tugging them on just so. Economy in thought and movement. The creases in his hands are stories unto themselves.

William always wanted meaning, and it was always there—a structure underlying everything. He strips away the extraneous, beholds teeming metropolises and sees parallels and perpendiculars, lines that cut through the debris of daily life. Looking to the sky, he knows the heart of every star: a reaction.

Death is orderly. Like untying a knot, what he can do to the body.

He's a good man. A man with a cause.

Peace, a note sustained forever.

As promised, he spends hours brushing up on video games. His interest dies long before whoever he's pushing around on the screen; his eyes tire. It's possible to find him seated in front of a frozen screen, chasing shadowy branches with his gaze.

Other training is more of an indulgence—he knows that if he puts himself in the position of fighting a duel he's already lost, but he practices with the rapier anyway. His footwork gets better, verges on good. Whether new or just newly alive, other recruits are welcome to cross swords with him, although he can only go so long before black sweat starts to soak through his clothes.

Then there's one day he goes to the gun range—making sure it's deserted, making sure nobody's there to see—and picks out an old pistol, just for the feel of it in his hands. Comfortable, still. Natural. He doesn't know whether that's him or—him once removed, the man in whose shadow he seems sometimes to be walking.

Or if it makes a difference.

SLAMS THIS DOWN

[withimagination]

Eames approaches quietly. He usually does, because it's his job to be this quiet, to observe and remain unobserved. He was originally going to go practice some video game genres he's never tried before. But people have always been far more interesting to Eames, and so, once he's within William's vision, he sits down near him.

"The endless gaming gets a little tedious, doesn't it?" he asks with a small smile. He's tired from back to back missions, and he's lonely, though he'd never admit it. Being the new one here is difficult sometimes. His hair shines with glitter still; the droids are relentless.

HELLO FRIEND

[omniavincit]

At the first sign of movement, William turns—swiveling to look at Eames as though this might be his only chance. As though the source of the disturbance might vanish with a shift in light. His eyes—blue on black—are wide, and then, once he's registered Eames' presence as human, briefly averted.

“Too much of a bad thing,” he says wryly, gesturing to the screen with a flick of the wrist. The controller's still in his hand; for a second he's tempted to toss it. Instead he sets it on the floor. “But it's what I'm best at.”

Neither false modesty nor self-pity. And only a hint of resentment.

“You must be new.” He smiles, offers his hand. “William. They explained what's going on with the eyes, I hope?”

[withimagination]

"That gets the best of us," he says, taking his hand and shaking it. He sits back then, crossing one leg over the other and letting an arm rest on the back of the couch casually. He glances over the other man quickly, looking for signs of death.

It's so odd, but at the same time familiar. Like waking up from a dream, they're just... awake now, the only signs their black eyes, sweat, the mark that looks like roots climbing around their skin.

"Eames. I'm sort of new... I was here a while back. I got transferred to another cell, and now I'm back."

The other cell had talking objects. It was a ride.

"And they did. Must be difficult. Actually dying."

His voice isn't soft, more conversational.

[prizeneck]

Of course, Mamoru is there, rapier in hand, held loosely by a hand on his chest. Laid on a gym bench, shoulderblades neatly slotting around its edges like he's done it all his life (he has), a towel stained in black and grey under his head.

Eyes closed, unshielded by the red lenses of his shades, he listens to the footwork; the jabs, the way the metal bends in William's hands and each intake of breath, sharper and louder each time. The noise strikes chords in his mind of previous parts of his life. Shadow fighting shadows that were in the midst of his memories.

"You're falling into a pattern," he groans out as he sits up, voice still feeling rough, clawing at his throat, with all the hurling. "Unpredictability is also something you practice."

[omniavincit]

The footwork stops, though William continues panting—his breathing slightly more labored now that he's ceased moving, then slowly tapering off. “Have you been—this whole time?” It's a stupid question, they both know it. An excuse to look Mamoru over, something lurching in William's chest at the sight of him without shades. A reminder that they're close to death, the both of them. Just not on the usual end of it.

Practiced unpredictability. It's a contradiction in terms, and his first instinct is to say so. But jazz soloists practice, poets.

“I thought”—he starts over, his steps measured as he walks back across the floor, adopts his stance—“you had to know the rules before you could know how to break them.”

[prizeneck]

"You know why kids tend to learn faster than most adults?"

He seems like he's looking around him, reaching for something that is supposed to be on the floor, when he stops in his tracks. Instead, he reaches for a bottle of water, opening it. Motions that are only successful with a lot of discipline and putting everything in the same spot over and over. Method over chaos.

"Ain't just because they're a tabula rasa, it's because they enjoy using their imagination while adults tend to lean into what they already know."

He takes a gulp, grimaces. His throat feels raw. "Your opponent knows the rules. Knows you know. You give your own twist to them, and you become unpredictable for them."

picking up every last crumb

[omniavincit]

Dolores is perfect, because she was never born. Human beings are accident sites: nothing about her is accidental. She's the only wish worth making.

Around her, the world is like a first glimpse. Canyons you feel in the pit of your stomach. Spectacular light, veined like ore or lightning. She exists at time's very edge.

She glows when she sees him. He knows she'll always look at him the same way. If that isn't love, then what is?

He sleeps soundly. The truth is: he welcomes the dreams. He dreams of a fog lifting, revealing sheets of ice the size of mountains. He dreams of a river drawn with a fingertip and carved with a knife.

He dreams he's a horse (he blames the Sergeant) traversing a desert caked with blood. He dreams a chain reaction, a fingersnap building to a sonic boom. He dream-remembers his mom's station wagon, sprawling in the seat behind the back seat, road unspooling behind him. Traveling in reverse. The blankets she let him hang from the windows.

That's when he knows it's almost over.

“I think I'm ready to go back,” he says. His eyes have cleared—two weeks and he's grown used to blackness, opacity. He doesn't realize how plain his regret is.

He touches his neck, gingerly, where the tattoo that covers his shoulder and half his back dwindles to a tendril or two. “Wonder if it'll fade.”

[circumspector]

She's been training while the dead have been rising. It's strange, watching them stumble out, disorientated, a mouthful of grief that pours out of them. Some of them, she doesn't know. Of course she doesn't. Stands to reason when it looks like she's been two months missing, that COST would get new members in that time.

Maybe it's better that she's got work to do, rather than dwell on where she's been, what she had seen, but it only sort of works. She loathes at least part of. She loathes it bitterly, the purple is bright on her skin. It sticks to her like it wanted to get crawl in, and that's a thought she has to shove down for the meantime with any distraction that comes her way. But with no one else doing training, even if the purple is glittering in her hair, under her fingernails, finding someone else to talk to in the meantime is a pleasant enough distraction.

"Maybe. But, I sort of had the opposite problem." Her training clothes are pushed up her shoulders, the cut of it exposing down her neckline and the shorts - well, there is a lot of tattoos there to see. It covers her neck to foot. "They kinda just kept growing the older I got."

He didn't ask, but there - something else for him to dwell on, too. She's sat on the ledge of some windowed walkway. Little, her feet don't touch the ground and swing back and forth in thump of heels hitting the wall behind her.

[omniavincit]

She looks half-fairytale, perched on a sill and showered in glitter. Until she calls his attention to them, the tattoos almost blend in. He doesn't move to touch them—of course not—but his eyes linger, tracing them with an intimacy usually reserved for words on a page.

“Really?” The word's a gentle awakening. William tugs on his collar, exposing an intricate branching of roots.

The thought of it spreading, spanning his body, isn't unwelcome. It's the thought of forgetting that he can't bear. “It glows, in the right light,” he says, unaware of his smile. “How young were you?”

[circumspector]

Like the best fairy tales, she's a questionable happy ending when thought about too long. But for the time being, she smiles, and echoes his words in action. "Mine too."

Leaning into the siren abilities was always a bit like shoving her hand into water looking for something you can't see, but know it's there. Unerring and blind as she reaches to draw out her power, the light that begins to build on her blue markings until they turn white. "We match, then." She doesn't move, as casual as house lights turning up. Thump-Thump go her feet. They set the glitter off, a inhuman brightness that builds inside of her, throwing galaxies about the air as the purple shimmers like a stain on the nearest surfaces. Her too pale skin iridescent in reflection, and there - for a second - she thinks she sees his shimmer in the waves of light.

"I was born like this. Before you ask, I don't know much about why me, either. Just... At random."

for dolores

[omniavincit]

He counts the days—he all but gouges marks into the wall—and still it sneaks up on him. He sits in the medbay, a pair of droids whirring and whining around him, and is pronounced fit for duty. Nobody else is ready to go back yet—given the option of waiting, William chokes out a laugh.

(He's forgotten what it's like not to miss her, fears he'll never be free of it—that even when she's standing in front of him, even when they're touching it will be a kind of longing. Three weeks, when he'd promised her not to leave.)

There's no more branching of shadows, no more whisper of leaves. He stares in the mirror and his eyes stare back, unblemished. He examines his face for changes, runs a hand along his jaw. He fears, too, that she just won't recognize him. That—unknown to him—an elemental shift has taken place.

The time comes. They send him off without fanfare, into a dream that's already fading—like breath on glass. He could swear he hears the leaves again. Then he steps off a platform, in a busy terminal. For an instant time seems to overlap, and he's in Sweetwater, handing her a can of milk. He's galaxies away, and she's his unchanging heart's desire.

He's here.

[thoughtimight]

He's told her he's arrived.

Out of sheer worry she keeps her eyes locked onto his vitals while she waits. It's strange, to be waiting for someone as earnestly as a child waits for a loved one at the train platform. William has travelled longer and farther than anyone she's ever known and yet he's eager to return. Dolores is glad for it. He hasn't lost been lost the great unknown, the heavens or to his own sense of curiosity.

Her eyes widen when she sees him. There's no question that this has all transpired to a terrible and long reality with finally some reprieve. Every bit of him from the way he stands, so uncertain, to the stubble on his cheeks is just as he left.

Grabbing the sides of his face as if he may slip away from her at any moment, she pulls him into a kiss. There are no second thoughts, only relief.

[omniavincit]

He knew how it worked, thought that meant he understood. A routine miracle, a little sleight-of-time. It was as simple as not being dead: one day following another, colorless as his blood.

She touches him, her hands framing his face. And life comes back.

The kiss—he has a vivid glimpse of her eyes, their blue a burning afterimage as his own eyes close. His thumb pressed to her hip, his fingers clutching the fabric of her shirt. It's like a breath he can't take, a shared gasp. His arm shifts, pulls her to him. “Dolores.” His voice sinks through her name, wavering. A stone flung down a well.

He brushes her cheek with his fingertips. His gaze remote for a moment, then suddenly, unmistakably present. “I have so much...”

So much to tell. So much to live for, so much he would lay at her feet.

[thoughtimight]

Even the slightest pull away from his face feels like he's slipping away from her just as quickly as death. Her grip around his face grows stronger as he speaks, momentarily unconcerned with his comfort over his proximity. Her hands clench down hard around each side of his jawline, thumbs shoving the soft skin behind his ears forward to pull him entirely into her kiss.

"Tell me..."

One hand frees itself from his face to grab a clump of his hair and grasp it tightly. William isn't going anywhere.

"Tell me here and now what you said in your message."