[JP] Marshall & Sienelis - In Stillness, Regret (Part I)
Jo Marshall
((Basement, Dungeon Rock, Hai Tac Outpost))
::Rubbing his eyes, Bear exhaled a look that crossed the lines of weary and indignant. The accommodation they were afforded consisted of two rooms on either side of a corridor underneath the Dungeon Rock, with heavy vault doors, clearly used at some point in the recent past as a storage room. Whether that was for the living, the dead, or cargo, he wasn't sure. It certainly smelled like it'd hosted a few bodies in its day, with a musty glint invading the senses.
::With no luggage, as questioned to extension — holding little more than the clothes on his back and the effects on his person — Bear chucked his jacket onto the bunk and glanced out of the doorway toward Valesha. Tired, it seemed, suited the both of them, and it wasn't a consequence of the vodka. He frowned, concerned that the expression was a modicum of actual concern for the Romulan's wellbeing, and huffed at the thought.::
O. Marshall: It's not exactly Sovereign-class luxury.
::There was a soft thump from her room, the silver case Zuccaro had provided finding a home on the small cot. Valesha turned to look at him, framed by the doorway of the small closet masquerading as quarters.::
Sienelis: I've slept in worse.
O. Marshall: There's always worse. ::He sniffed, pulling his shirt over his head.:: I can't decide if that aroma here is something dead, or if it's me.
::She inhaled, opening her mouth to answer, until she thought better of it. With a huff and a shake of her head, she crossed her arms, leaning against her door frame.::
Sienelis: You make it too easy.
::Nose wrinkling, he pushed his shirt into it and recoiled in horror, swiftly looked Valesha's way, then threw it at her in a ball of cloth. She didn't move, and it smacked her straight in the face, pulled away by fingertip and thumb to be held at arm's length. The Romulan regarded the piece of clothing with a clear look of disdain.::
Sienelis: That answers the question of how my day could possibly get worse.
O. Marshall: How could you possibly wonder if it could get any better?
::Bear winked at her with a crooked grin on his face that slid off the second he dropped onto his bunk. Boot in hand, he pulled it off and tossed it to the floor, repeating the motion with the other. Fatigue pulled at every inch of him, jamming both his forefingers into his eye sockets and rubbed them around before looking back at the Romulan in the doorway with an eyebrow curving to an arch.::
O. Marshall: What? You waiting for the rest?
::Valesha eyed him — or more accurately, the exposed parts of him — for a moment, as though giving the question some serious contemplation. Then with a wrinkle of her nose, she shook her head and made a small noise in the negative. Pushing away from the door, she flicked the shirt across the threshold and retreated back into her room.::
Sienelis: That would definitely not make my day better.
::He huffed a laugh and called after her as she left his line of sight.::
O. Marshall: You make it too easy, you know.
::The room still didn't smell any better, even with his shirt lying a few feet away in a crumpled heap on the floor. Bear eyed the bunk suspiciously, anticipating some sort of venomous viper to be sliding beneath the blankets tossed haphazardly on top. The same suspicion found him glancing around the room, into the corners with a discerning eye.::
O. Marshall: We're alive, kid. That's got to count for something.
Sienelis: Less than you might think.
::In the other room, Valesha sank down to sit on the side of the bed, staring at the solid walls around her. Without a window to look out at the stars, the stark surroundings felt close and suffocating, reflecting her thoughts back toward her, reminding her of just how far away she was from everything she held dear. How her old life was slipping away and growing more remote with each passing moment. Her chest felt hollow, in danger of collapsing under a crushing sense of isolation, and she clamped one hand, then both, over her mouth as her lip began to tremble, heat prickling at her eyes.::
O. Marshall: I'm not convinced you'd be here if that were true.
::A deep breath rattled through his chest as Bear's jaw moved with a tension he could feel in his bones. Acrid thoughts filtered through his head, a pressure on his chest, a spike in his liver. There were few times Bear could count on his fingers when the simple matter of existence was the one thing pushing him forward, and while this wasn't one of them, with so much at stake, it almost felt like it. He glanced at the empty doorway and looked back down.::
O. Marshall: You'd know better than most. When you think you can't go on, you keep going anyway.
::Valesha drew in a shuddering breath, slowly, so as to be quiet, and pressed the heels of her hands against damp eyes. He wasn't wrong; the instinct to survive had often given her just enough momentum to keep moving forward. There were those who couldn't. Who, when lost and hurt, surrendered to that sense of helplessness and despair.
::That's what frightened her. The thought of encountering that moment when the momentum slipped, when survival just wasn't enough, and there was nothing else left to struggle toward. It could happen in an instant, the drive to keep on existing giving way to a passive acceptance of the inevitable, and then... the end. She hadn't met her limit yet, but it was out there, somewhere.
::She swallowed, trying to clear her throat and nose as softly as she could, and with an almost steady voice she answered.::
Sienelis: Go to sleep.
::The response, while Valesha in it's directness, still lacked it's usual kick. Bear found himself looking at the floor between his feet, hands clasped together, elbows on his knees, as though the answers to all his questions lay somewhere just beneath the deck. Keeping busy, staying distracted had allowed him to throw himself into the momentum of getting them out, but as the dust settled and the adrenaline faded, all he wanted to do was go home.
::And home, it seemed, was the Gorkon.::
O. Marshall: You first.
Sienelis: I slept on the way here, remember?
O. Marshall: Good point. ::He glanced at the bedroll and exhaled, patting his hand on top of it.:: Shout if you need me?
Sienelis: Yeah.
::She said it without the energy for any further sniping or retorts, pushing herself back on the bed until she was tucked into the corner of the room. Her knees came up, and she buried her head in her arms, trying and failing not to think about those she'd left behind. Caedan, surely he would believe in her? He was a telepath, after all, how could he not? But then, hadn't he always said that he hadn't the faintest idea what was going on in her head most of the time? Would he believe that all those opaque, submerged thoughts had been lies? The questions tumbled around, but rather than smoothing into polished answers, they only seemed to smash into more sharp edges.
::At least while those were cutting her to ribbons, she wasn't thinking about Chris — and then, with that slip of a thought, he was all she could think about. The memory of his smile was a band around her throat, that last look on his face a knife slipped between the ribs. He should be out of the brig by now. Was he alone, somewhere? Commiserating with friends? In a moment of perfect, painful recollection, she was back on the sands of that beach, warmed not by the fire but the way he'd pulled her against his side and held her close.
::Hurt so easily turned to hate, and they'd given him plenty of fuel to feed the fire of both.::
TBC...
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Orson Marshall
Fugitive
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Fugitive
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