Nate stared, wide-eyed and slack jawed at Isaac's accusations. His brain went completely blank. There was nothing there, nothing firing off, just the hissing words spoken in Gabe's voice, over and over again.
"You killed us."
The Sprawl. The Sprawl was gone? How?? Nate had made contact to a station on the Sprawl not a week or two before the whole incident went down on Aegis VII. There was no way it was gone. That didn't make any fucking sense! Against his wishes, Nate's legs buckled and he slid down the wall, staring past Isaac as he tried to piece a sequence of events together. Normally, Nate might have regarded that information rationally, asking and prodding for information--who, what, how, why??--but the thought of Lexine and Gabe, dead and gone was too much.
"No," Nate murmured, reaching up to his face with his remaining hand. He gripped into his still slick hair, pulling and digging. "No, no, no." Flashes of memories came, old with new, twisting and melding together. "Get a hold of yourself." Nate gnashed at himself, digging into his short hair more desperately when his fingers couldn't gain enough purchase to tug with force.
"They can't be..." If Isaac was out of earshot by then, Nate hadn't noticed. He was working through frustrated grief; all that work, all that loss, just to get to some ship alone, without his friends? The ones he had to protect? He failed, badly.
"Fuck you, you're lying!" All of that frustration suddenly erupted from Nate like water boiled over from a pressure cooker. He glared at Isaac's back, that fucking RIG, fully functional and not red, mocking his own pitiful state. "You're a fucking liar!" What Gabe had said about Eckhardt, the suspicion in his voice, it created a path for Nate to charge down blindly. "You're probably one of those Goddamned Unitologists, aren't you?" His chest was tight, his RIG blinking wildly in time with his quickened pulse, and his vision was hazing over. Nate shook his head, then suddenly and sharply slammed his hand into the wall behind him. "Fuck! Fuck..." And as quickly as his temper flared, it died down, Nate's posture slumped against the cold wall.
no subject
Nate stared, wide-eyed and slack jawed at Isaac's accusations. His brain went completely blank. There was nothing there, nothing firing off, just the hissing words spoken in Gabe's voice, over and over again.
The Sprawl. The Sprawl was gone? How?? Nate had made contact to a station on the Sprawl not a week or two before the whole incident went down on Aegis VII. There was no way it was gone. That didn't make any fucking sense! Against his wishes, Nate's legs buckled and he slid down the wall, staring past Isaac as he tried to piece a sequence of events together. Normally, Nate might have regarded that information rationally, asking and prodding for information--who, what, how, why??--but the thought of Lexine and Gabe, dead and gone was too much.
"No," Nate murmured, reaching up to his face with his remaining hand. He gripped into his still slick hair, pulling and digging. "No, no, no." Flashes of memories came, old with new, twisting and melding together. "Get a hold of yourself." Nate gnashed at himself, digging into his short hair more desperately when his fingers couldn't gain enough purchase to tug with force.
"They can't be..." If Isaac was out of earshot by then, Nate hadn't noticed. He was working through frustrated grief; all that work, all that loss, just to get to some ship alone, without his friends? The ones he had to protect? He failed, badly.
"Fuck you, you're lying!" All of that frustration suddenly erupted from Nate like water boiled over from a pressure cooker. He glared at Isaac's back, that fucking RIG, fully functional and not red, mocking his own pitiful state. "You're a fucking liar!" What Gabe had said about Eckhardt, the suspicion in his voice, it created a path for Nate to charge down blindly. "You're probably one of those Goddamned Unitologists, aren't you?" His chest was tight, his RIG blinking wildly in time with his quickened pulse, and his vision was hazing over. Nate shook his head, then suddenly and sharply slammed his hand into the wall behind him. "Fuck! Fuck..." And as quickly as his temper flared, it died down, Nate's posture slumped against the cold wall.