ataraxionlogs | And darkness be the burier of the dead

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And darkness be the burier of the dead

CHARACTERS: Heather Mason, the bereaved
LOCATION: the Oxygen Garden
WARNINGS: gloom?
SUMMARY: Heather forgoes her usual grief reaction of KILL SOMETHING and tries to make something instead.
NOTES: wiiiiide open. Come share your Hotspur feels, folks. edit: so, um, it's been pointed out to me that the gardens are hydroponic. All the resulting inaccuracies within are the fault of myself and my head full of Sunshine (and that can be taken in several ways, can't it?). /crawls off to vomit in shame

[Heather'd had plans for after the jump. After spending all of them so far either feeling angry and sorry for herself or flitting around trying to play helpful hostess – trying to be someone she wasn't – she'd had something to sink her teeth into. Something to do. One message, short and sharp, and it should have scared her but instead it had given her a purpose. She'd been excited.

That seems almost indescribably sick, now.

Missing that purpose and waiting to hear on something that might give her another, she haunts the gardens. Keeps her hands busy in an effort to still her mind. Barefoot and with a bottle – one drink for her and one for Hotspur, because somehow she doesn't think he'd approve of her using it to numb herself – and a patch of garden she's commandeered for the purpose, beneath a sketch someone's left. With her hair still wet and dark earth on her pale hands, she replants what she's stolen from other plots. Rosemary for remembrance, of course, and iris for faith and valor. If there were poppies they're either hiding or long since pillaged, and what wouldn't she do for some edelweiss?

It's tempting to stake it out, fence it off, make a big deal of it. Make it official. The Max Southey Memorial Garden. But somehow it seems truer to his memory to call it what it is: an attempt – possibly futile - to scrape something good out of the terror.]

Did I ever tell you I was sort of a saint? [Her voice is flat as she digs, buries roots, pats soil. The water she gives the plants will do in place of tears.] Back where I'm from, I mean. Saint Alessa. Kind of a crappy one, as far as saints go. And of a really terrible religion. But it counts, right? There's a saint mourning you.

Just so you know.

[She won't ask to see his body. Bad enough that her last image of him is sad and troubled, rather than the lively, laughing man she'd met. Who'd made her smile and listened to her rambling, who'd talked with her about dreams. Who'd complained of chicken pox scars in places no man should have scars and apologized for lowering the tone on the same breath. She never did find that ice cream to share with him.

She doesn't know what they'll do with him, either. Once they're done with whatever it is they're doing. Sliced his flesh and scraped his bones to see what they can see, trying to cut information out of a man who'd never have held anything back, not if he thought it could help someone. Airlock, she supposes. It seems right.]

Give you the stars.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Crouched down as she is, when she turns her head at the sound it's the rabbit she sees first. That's novel. The place is turning into a regular petting zoo.

"Buddy, no. You're gonna end up something's lunch-" she's reaching for it, her mouth spinning a little bit of cover for her impulse to pick it up and snuggle the hell out of it, before she notices -

Well. Yeah, that's awkward.

"I. Uh. S'this your rabbit?"

Gold, Mason. Pure gold.

For his part, he looks absolutely horrified to see her reach for it, and worse, to see Lodewijk sniffing back. The only thing he can think is that she is gonna tear his rabbit to shreds or swallow Lodewijk whole or one of so many other gut-churning things that he doesn't even hear what the hell she says, not at first.

"Don't touch 'im," he snarls, tense, ready to react the moment she moves -

Aw, fuck. There's a twitch of his hand around the lead, thinning of his lips as her words catch up to him. If she didn't know it was his rabbit before, she sure does now.

Well, his outburst has the desired effect - she pulls her hand back as quickly as if she's burned it. And okay, she knew that eventually she'd run into him and it was going to suck, but being angry was once thing. Fucking snarling at her over a goddamn bunny - that was just something else.

"Alright! Jesus Christ." In her head, she'd thought maybe she'd try to apologize. Explain, maybe, if he was willing to hear. But if the whole goddamn ship knows about the demons and he's still blaming her... What comes out of her mouth is a layer of anger slapped up to cover the hurt. "What the hell is your problem?"

Lodewijk picks up on the atmosphere and, once she moves, jerks away to bound behind the skewed shadow Netherlands' boots make on the floor. It's only once his rabbit is back by his side that he bothers to say anything, voice low and quiet - far more calm - but no less severe.

"An' stay there, too."

A long breath as he stares at her, all hair-trigger coiled, and thinks back. Right, his problem. That nets her a much more annoyed stare in answer. His problem, what the hell kind of question is that.

(That he's still afraid she'll take any little thing he says and twist it into something barbed and festering, for starters.)

This would be so much easier if he'd just say something. Give her something to argue with, something to push back against instead of just standing there staring her down, like she's some sort of freak who should just crawl off and die. Like she never had that idea herself and needs his fucking help to get there. But he doesn't, and after everything that's happened she's just too goddamn tired to fight against nothing.

"Look, I don't expect us to be pals. I know it was terrible, and I'm sorry for that. But we're probably gonna have to work together here so can we just - can you just try?" She talks to the floor, because she can't meet his eye. Her voice is quiet, carefully measured, and a little defeated.

"It wasn't exactly a picnic for me either, you know."

It's irritating, her downcast gaze, how meek and quiet she is. Irritating, and wrong. Or maybe it's irritating because it's wrong, hell if he knows why. Not only is her manner alarming, it makes him feel like he's kicked a puppy when he hasn't done a damn thing so far.

But he guesses that even if this is a ruse and there's still a demon cackling around somewhere in there, she's not about to lunge forward and tear out his throat. So from a safe few meters away he slowly kneels to the floor and tries to catch her gaze, debating with himself. Paranoia versus self-preservation.
Does he really want to know more?
"Really." Not exactly a question so much as something bordering on an accusation, but the way he's frowning (expectant, impatient) says fine, here, I'm listening.

Well that's something. It's a hell of a lot more than she expected, really, and as much as she doesn't want to see the look on his face she meets his eye. Wouldn't do to seem disrespectful or like she's hiding something when she's trying to level with him.

"You see everything." Her phrasing is intentional - much easier to make it this is what happens than this is what happened to me. "And they don't sleep, so there's no peace. No getting away from it. It's just constant. They just do what they do, and you have to watch."

She looks back and - outside of the weird downtrodden shit - she seems normal. Human. Very human. He allows himself to sit, and doesn't call back Lodewijk when the bunny starts off in the direction of the nearest plant to sniff at.

Partially it's because he's riveted to her words, taking them in, turning them over, dissecting them just as much as he is the way she's sitting. The other part is that Lodewijk has decided that the nearest plant to sniff at is in the direction opposite hers. After more quiet staring, he finally decides on something to say. There's a lot that could be said.

"You see everything," he repeats, glancing down, like forming the sounds on his own will make it clearer. His gaze snaps up to her when he finishes the thought. "Just you, or did everyone. Uh. See it, like that."

Almost before it's out, he scraps it, amends: "I wanna know which kinda demon that was. One-a yours, or - "

He shrugs, one-shouldered. There's really no way to prove anything, he assumes that much. Fuck, does he ever despise faith sometimes.

She's trying hard to hold it together, conscious of the fact that broadcasting just how much talking about it bothers her wouldn't play well with this crowd at all, and but for the way her shoulders slump to curl in on herself a little and the fidgety way her hands pluck at the fabric of her skirt, she's doing okay. Kinda. But if she owes anyone an explanation it's him, so she gives a brisk little shake of her head.

"One of the other ones. The ones from where I'm from... they look like monsters. Most of 'em can't even talk, let alone spin a bunch of bullshit to the people you-" abandon ship, abandon ship "-know. More likely to just straight-up try and eat you."

Between picking apart the facts she gives, trying to stay neutral when she brings up spinning bullshit (he doesn't quite manage it, expression flickers dark and angry anyway), and the prospect of navigating through a potential conversation full of emotional landmines, he's lost for what to say.

He busies himself with digging out a cigarette while he mentally charts each path it could take, tries to think of the safest, most practical course. Lights it, inhales. Maybe he should explain why he's asking in the first place. Begin at the beginning and all that.

"Still dunno if you're normal," he admits, even though, goddamn, like she would tell him if she weren't. "Y'said shit about summoning, before - that."

Oh.

Well, that's fair enough. She doesn't know that it's really summoning so much as assisted remembering, but whatever is was it hadn't worked and she has no desire to try it again.

"Same as I was when you met me. No extra passengers. Just... really fucking embarrassed." A pause while she thinks and tries to keep her eyes from wandering too obviously to the rabbit. "I mean it's just me. Always has been, except for that jump."

He narrows his eyes at her when she says she's embarrassed, skeptical and a bit offended, until he realizes that she has to be talking about something else the demon did. Either way, it's not something he wants to keep thinking about; he casts his eyes to the floor midway between them and wills away the faint heat high on his cheeks.

Back to practical, Nederland.

"Maybe..." While she could be lying, flat-out, the Heather he first met sucks at it. Instead he looks up and voices the more likely option. "Or you're wrong, an' just think you're normal."

Um, no. Heather hasn't thought that for years. But she know that's not what he means and knows better than to verbalize it. Instead she pulls her knees in close to herself and shoots for practical.

"Yeah, maybe. S'why I'm trying to find out if anybody's got any idea how to make the cure. And there's a guy who knows about this stuff, he said he'll teach me."

It's easier to look at his face when he's not looking at her, but she kinda wishes she hadn't. She's been operating under the assumption (choosing to, if she's honest) that he was just angry. This is way harder to navigate.

"I don't ever want that to happen again, but if I don't know how it starts it's hard to know how to stop it. I'm just gonna... try everything, I guess."

Her immediate, earnest agreement is not something he's anticipating, and he has no fucking clue what to do with it now that it's here in his lap.

He stabs his half-finished cigarette out on the floor in one violent twist and calls over his rabbit (and though he doesn't realize, Lodewijk doesn't get mangled by any translator; his language is on full display, if only for three syllables) as backup. For the next few moments he pets the fuzzball, trying to gather his thoughts. And maybe all this shit is getting to him after so much time spent shoving it away only for it to be shoved right back in some manner or another, but a different question keeps overriding the logical ones.

So he asks it. Demands it, whatever.

"What would you have done."
He's wondering why he's asking this at all... but he needs to know.
Some part is what should I do, if - the rest is bitter, angry, filled with what should I have done.

Edited 2012-06-13 08:16 (UTC)

“You mean if I'd been on the other side?” She shrugs, trying not to telegraph any of the things she's thinking about the sweetly gentle way he handles the rabbit, or the way the sound of his own language in his own voice curls warmly into her ear. Every self-preservation instinct she has is telling her to bail, to cop out with an I don't know. Another part wonders briefly if he's looking for reassurance that he did the right thing – and that she could give, because as much as she cares for Tillman he wanted his wife back so much that she doesn't know if he'd ever have taken the necessary steps if Netherlands hadn't planted that seed of doubt – but she's worried he'd take it as an attempt at flattery, a sign that there's still something rotten in her trying to manipulate him.

“I met a guy once. Spoke to him before I saw him. He made me think we were on the same side, that we wanted the same things. That he was trying to fix things too. And when I saw him, there was almost nothing human left in him. It wa pretty obvious he was beyond saving.” From the tone of her voice she may as well be reading a cereal box, but she wraps her arms around herself like she's trying to stay warm. “He attacked me, and I killed him. His daughter killed my father, so I guess I just thought of it like balancing the scales.” She lifts a hand to her mouth, bites at her knuckle for a second. “So I don't know that I should get a vote on that, really. I'm not very good at being objective.”

A swift nod is all she gets for confirmation, and once she begins speaking, he keeps his physical focus on Lodewijk. Despite that, and despite his gaze sliding toward her only to stick on that halfway point on the floor between them, he's not missing a single detail of her story.
Your eyes give you away, Belgium always laughed.
Even once she's finished speaking, and he's full of things he could say, he keeps his gaze trained on that spot. Lodewijk bounds out of his lap toward her and he lets it happen, watches it all as he picks up his half-finished cigarette and he thinks on everything she had to say. It's not exactly satisfying.

"I wasn't askin' if ya were good at a damned thing," he grouses, re-lighting his smoke. "Was askin' what you'd do."

Heather doesn't lie if she can help it. Partly because she's terrible at it - though that may just be that she's never had the practice - but largely because the lies in her life (and there have been a lot of them) have only ever lead to terrible things. But with his refusal to let her avoid the question he's putting that urge to lay her cards on the table directly in opposition with her most basic desire - that to survive.

But maintaining a heartbeat doesn't necessarily mean surviving.

The rabbit hops nearer and she extends a hand tentatively. Slow and cautious, like you would with a strange dog, though it's not the rabbit she's worried will get spooked and bite.

"I'd try to find out if they could be saved," she says, and the words roll off - damning herself turns out to be surprisingly easy once she starts - "and if it looked like no, I'd kill them."

Lodewijk has a better sense of who (or what) is dangerous than he does, and his grimace, once he remembers, is at himself for being a moron about it. About Lodewijk, about this whole damn thing. He waves his smoking hand: petting is fine. For now.

Oh, maybe that's what she meant with that story. His head tilts, slightly, eyes narrowing as he really looks at her for the first time in a long time. And before he even thinks about it, the practical presents itself.

"How?"

Because he had a hard time even making a dent in that thing.

Edited (icons) 2012-06-15 17:01 (UTC)

The fact that he's not trying to take her hand off helps her decide that wave means go ahead and not go away, and now she's starting to understand that whole deal where they take pets to visit kids in hospitals. There's something incredibly calming about that touch, the warm soft fur under her fingers.

"I don't know," she says, honest and simple. "If they were the ones I'm used to... aglaophotis forces them out, or a flauros can trap them. But I don't have either of those. There's the seal of metatron. That's just a symbol so it'd be easiest but I haven't had the chance to test it." Not as herself, anyway, and they'd stopped Alessa when she tried. Of course, maybe that was a sign that it would have worked.

"I don't know about the other kind. I'll ask. From what I heard if you destroy the body they just leave and try to find another one, but there's got to be a way."

Just because he's letting it happen doesn't mean he's not keeping a hawk's eye on every little motion she makes, and every little twitch his rabbit makes. Luckily all Lodewijk does is flop at her feet and yawn.

She might as well be speaking another language, given how little he understands about the demons from her world, but the last part is easy enough to follow. All he can do is sigh and rub at the bridge of his nose, though - there's no good way to say I still don't trust you, but it's stupid to admit if it turns out he's right.

"Iron. That worked." He purposely locks eyes with her for the next bit, which probably does give his wariness away. "An' Christo, sorta."

Yeah, she remembers Christo just fine, along with the look of sadness and regret and resignation she copped when she flinched at it. Her hand is still petting at the rabbit - almost unconsciously now - when she sighs.

"Yeah, but all they really do is tell you if one's in there. Iron hurts, pisses them off. Christo lets them know you're onto them. Better not to give them a reason to go after you until you have a more permanent solution. If they're all like her it'd be all the excuse they needed to kill you."

Does that help, Netherlands? Not only can she hear it, she can say it right back. Hell, she'll drink a cup of holy water and read the exorcism herself, if someone'll jot it down for her.

Christo lets them know you're onto them - for some reason that jabs at him more than anything else she's said, and the rest washes over him, noted, heard, but not thought about too much even if it's the more sensitive information.

And while it does help, she's just launched the conversation onto something almost as rough.

"You - " No, wrong way to start that. "How do ya know that much. About what it thinks."

She shakes her head, pulls her limbs in closer. Curls in on herself, like that'll keep the memories out.

"She let me see. When there was nobody around to mess with, she started showing me things. When she figured out how much I hated it she just... left it on. Like an open feed." All of a sudden it's hard to meet his eye again, but she makes a special effort. "I didn't want it."

Fuck. His frustration is written all over his face, even as he tries to wipe it off...

He shoves his hand over his eyes as he soaks that in, rubs the information into his temples like someone might rub a particularly stubborn poultice into their skin.

"How much."

Her hand moves up to rub at the back of her neck, the rabbit momentarily forgotten. It'd probably be better for both of them if she could just lie - only what she wanted, or I don't remember, but she can't bring herself to do it.

"Everything," she says, and it comes out a whisper. She takes a breath and tries again, because she at least owes that much. "Everything."

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wow this got tl;dr

i love your tl;dr

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