[closed]

[She went back to Olympia sooner than she should have, but she wanted to help assist with the cleanup (and Wyver made her physically ill to be around), and she wanted to find her stupid roommate. A few calls later, a few auto-replies, and she's been about as useful as a brick.

Needless to say she's been staying on the Station more often than not, as though she's more likely to sleep in the smaller quarters and not a very empty house.

She left Gulliver back in those quarters, not exactly on purpose. He'd probably meant to stop her from wandering out, barely awake and a wobble in her step, but she got out somehow nonetheless, so she's moving around Thesa in a nightgown and bare feet and probably looks like the living dead (still not as pale and cold as Koltira though.)]

[The Station isn't a place Merlin likes to be, all things considered. It's cold and clinical and so... unlike anything he can understand or relate to, it's good for showing up to check on who's awake or not maybe once every couple months and then avoiding it altogether the rest of the time. Usually, he wouldn't be up here at all without the spreading rumor that more people are waking up, but...

Well, it's been months in this place without a familiar face, and he's goddamn lonely. It seems like everyone he's met and liked well enough in his time here is leaving, too - whether they've gone back into stasis or they're moving back to Olympia without him. It's been a while since he had to acknowledge feeling this alone.

So. Sulking in the Station. He pokes into the stasis unit but doesn't linger, eventually winding up just sitting in a corridor nearby the sleeping quarters. He doesn't want to stay up here too long, but he doesn't want to go back to Wyver yet, either... so it's while he's sitting on the floor staring at the wall across from him that he catches the movement of another person out of the corner of his eye. Ah?]

...Are you alright?

[She almost steps on him. On purpose. She stops walking and stares down at him and there's very definitely the need to inflict pain on him because he's right there and he's talking to her, so clearly he doesn't know any better.

Stupid boys.

(She imagines crushing the heel of her foot onto the top of one of his. It's the only reason she gets any words out.)

Her voice is flat.]

Do I look alright?

[It'd probably be a safe question to answer if this was a normal situation.]

Well, not really, no. [He has the decency to sound a little hesitant about it; telling girls they don't look well while they're wandering around like this at this hour is rude, isn't it, so— here they are. She really doesn't look... her best, though.]

Do you... need anything? Glass of water? I'm quick, I could get you one.

[She's quite suddenly crouched down so that they're nearly toe-to-toe and she's definitely in his bubble-space, looking him dead in the eye with barely any flicker of emotion.

It probably would've been smarter for him to have already moved. Now, if he tries, she'll slam her fist to the wall next to his head to block his path.]

A pity. And here I thought I looked fantastic.

[Oh, alright, there she is. Merlin glances to the side a few times, like he's not sure if he should stare right back at her when she's clearly having some kind of very bad night. Ah.

And then she's punching the wall?! Alright, cool, he'll stay where he is...]

You know, I've seen worse?

[merlin,]

[Her head tilts to one side and she watches him like he's a specimen.]

Are you up here sitting alone in this hallway because you have no friends?

[Her tone definitely isn't sympathetic. It's definitely mocking.]

[Well - she really does cut straight to the heart of things, doesn't she? Merlin doesn't think to say something like that must be what she's doing, not him; she's not exactly wrong. There are people in this world he likes, that he's friendly with, but he has nothing to tie himself to. Except-]

I do have friends. They're in there, sleeping.

[Except stasis, which is unknown and more than a little frightening, but it's been nearly 6 months now and all of his loved ones are still in there.]

[She flinches. Can't help it, really. She's been over the whole her-friends-from-her-world are sleeping thing. It's everyone else. The ones who've gone back to sleep. Nearly everyone she dared to get close to.

Her fingers crawl against the wall, her arm still blocking him partially in.

Her gaze jerks away. She's fine. She can cope with this.

In a perfectly sane, normal way.

Oh dear...]

Why would they wake up? [She snaps, laughing airily.] For you? Like you're important? Like you matter to them?

[This, you see, this is definitely more obvious projecting. He frowns, tilting his head away just barely, just in case. He can sympathize with this, probably, but he still doesn't want to become an actual target for violence.

Hmm.]

I'm not— I'm just thinking. Can't a person come up here to think? [a beat.] As if any of this happens because it's good for us.

[Jokes! It's been 6 months.]

[She came up here because Wyver is awful and her house in Olympia is empty and lonely without her dumb ex-roommate. Who needs thinking. And who needs Feelings or Connections.

For the moment though, he's safe from the threat of violence, because she's getting back to her feet and spinning away.

(He's right, of course, but she's hardly going to tell him that.)

She's still laughing.]

No, they can't. No one's useful when they're thinking.

[Sure whatever that makes sense. Anemone...]

[He slumps a little, when she moves away. He doesn't even bother to pretend that's not a relief, he's a noodle who doesn't want to get punched...]

Well, I'm not trying to be useful, so I suppose I'm on the right track.

[Ugh, not another one like him. She looks down at him.]

If you're not trying to be useful, then what good are you?

[There are definitely some issues to work out here, Merlin knows. But he doesn't know what they are—besides the educated guesses he can make right now, this conversation—and he isn't sure if it's his place to do anything about it, anyway.

And she is being a little rude to him, on top of that.]

Sitting on the floor on some impossible moon ship? Not much, I have to admit. Everything I was useful for went up in smoke with the rest of the world.

[The Station's definitely been her new habitat as of late. Until more people flow back to Olympia, she just... can't function right now. And with... everyone gone...

Dammit.

She never wanted to become reliant on people, and this is why. Because they don't stay, whether or not they had any choice.

(And yet here she is, reliant on Rhys.)

She's taken up in one of the lounge areas, not so much reserving it as she was biting anyone's head off that dared to bother her. She was hardly in the mood.

So she's waiting, legs folded under her, light, comfortable clothes--not quite her nightclothes--and someone that Rhys hasn't met yet: Gulliver comfortably snug in her lap.]

[Honestly there is no safe place for him.

She grins at him, like she's already analyzing his weaknesses and filing away his comment about being only "useful" back home.]

Oh? And how do you figure that? Surely you can adapt whatever skills you had on your world to this one.

[Yeah... hmm... he doesn't want to do that, though? He hasn't sat on his ass for 6 months, but it hasn't been a grand effort to help save this world.]

The person I'm supposed to help is still asleep. Can't be much use to someone who won't get on with it and wake up already.

[ Rhys takes a little longer than the fifteen minutes he promised, but in his defence it's because he had to stop by the station kitchens and grab the ice cream promised for their aforementioned pity-party. He grabs two small pints, one for each of them, and when he shows up he's in light clothes more fitting for a humid jungle climate than an environmentally-controlled space station.

He misses his custom suit :c

He's also missed Anemone, and when he sees her and the...stuffed toy? in her lap he calls out, holding up one of the ice cream pints. ]

Hey! Sorry I'm late. I was grabbing provisions.

[Except that "stuffed toy" looks up when Rhys enters and blinks twice at him, settling further into Anemone's lap and then just staring.

Anemone, though looking quite out of sorts, still smiles when she sees ~~him~~ the ice cream and holds out her hands.]

It's fine. I wasn't timing you or anything.

[Hmmm.]

So you're their... caretaker?

[Her caretaker (and boyfriend) is asleep, so she can kind of relate.]

[Ah... despite all odds that makes him smirk. So. Lowkey ribbing his sleeping comrades can still combat just a little loneliness, who knew.]

Something like that. He'd certainly be dead by now if he didn't have me.

[She echoes the smirk and crouches across from him again, this time not in his bubble space. There's still a... hostility about her, like she's holding onto it as hard as she can, like it's a security blanket. She can't let go, can't get soft.

But.]

I had someone like you. I'd certainly be dead without him, too. [She props her elbows on her knees, chin in her hands. What a weird little man he is.] What's your name? [Because evidently NOT getting people's names had previously caused her some "trouble." Lesson learned.]

[Ah, finally, the thing they can connect on instead of calling each other useless (or rather, Merlin just taking it while she calls him useless) - that whole caretaker/cared for thing. It's something.]

Merlin. Arthur is the one I'm waiting for.

[Which he only offers because it's topical... never mind remembering that.]

[She blinks.

Stares at him strangely.]

Merlin? Wait, I know that name...

[And probably not for the reason most people have heard his name--isn't that a nice change?

In one, single instant, all her hostility is gone and she actually looks delighted.]

You're one of the people that worked on that cure!

[It is actually very refreshing, and he makes it obvious - at first he looks a little tired, like he doesn't want to explain himself again, but then he perks up when she knows his name from something else entirely.

Thank god.]

That was me, yes. Spent days making myself sick trying to help make the others not sick. I don't recommend that method to anyone else. [it was......nasty] Were you? Sick?

[closed]

Nov. 26th -- Merlin

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Nov. 27th -- Rhys

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject