They return to the Station literally garlanded in brassy flowers and the rising, animal pleasure of winning something. But in the evening - or what passes for it -, that pan flash of elation has passes so fully that he wonders if it was ever his to begin with. Or if it was something he absorbed like heat from the air, like sun into skin, words in a language he shouldn't know in a book he shouldn't be able to read but does and can.
There are other things to feel that should have taken precedence, he thinks after. There is a blunt numb nerve ending of something distant gone missing in the place where a stranger once was - some young silly boy he'd hardly known at all and had no connection to except by way of a half dozen others, there and gone as an image on the horizon - and in the quiet of the Station after it feels like that should have mattered more no matter what was in the air. Or that it should have mattered less. The boy wasn't in his brood. It shouldn't matter at all.
Only later, it does. In the low light of whast passes for night, he wakes up with a weight on his chest in the shape of him and for a long minute James doesn't know why it's there.
Then that too crawls out of the darkness - the lip of some wave slithering up glass smooth sand. He throws back the blanket, sets his book on the table beside the bed, and takes a walk. Eventually the Station bends to accommodate him, spitting him up wherever John has set himself. Flint has two cups and a bottle under his arm by then. He says, "You're keeping me awake," before he sets them down.
John Silver isn't in his brood either, they tell him. But the bleed of him tastes like copper in his mouth, like an ache in his hip.
They achieve a victory that only barely feels like a victory. The satisfaction of it pales when set against what it cost them to achieve it. John was never intending to lose another limb, but he feels as if the youth's death was both his own and a replication of having his ruined leg sawed from his body. The sensation lasts even when the flowers are laid aside, and the group of them disperses through the ship.
John had known the boy too well and not at all. When he sits awake, it's in consideration of the pain left in his wake rather than because John was particularly attached to his presence. He had grown accustomed to the ache of his leg. Would he be obliged to resign himself to this same pain on top of the intrusion of other minds pressing in against his own? He sees no way of escape, apart from winning a seemingly impossible war.
In all honesty, John isn't sure how the rest of his brood isn't sitting up mulling over this predicament with him. But as that thought comes and goes, the ship deliver Flint to him. John eyes the cups, settling into the electric buzz of Flint's presence.
"Well, my apologies," John answers, voice flat as he uncrosses his arms and shifts to better face Flint. "My head is too crowded to sleep, at the moment."
But it isn't truly his brood's fault to blame. John's stewing in his own thoughts without any help from borrowed nightmares.
He's slow to take a seat there on the step beside him (his knee aches - or he expects it to; it used to be harder to get up and down than it is now). "You don't say." He stretches his legs out before them, takes up the bottle and pops the latch on its closure. Pours a measure into each glass, bottle clicking against their rims.
These steps lead down into a long empty room, mottled light casting strange shadows. It should be like existing nowhere - this place like slipping between a seam in the world - but it doesn't feel as empty as it looks just like the liquor in the glass doesn't smell right but tastes familiar. The man next to him shouldn't be knit into him either, but that's true too.
"Where's the rest of your company?" Brood too strange a word. Either way they're not here. Not suffering a sleepless night where anyone can see (feel) it.
(Maybe it's an accidental mirror of John's own thoughts. Maybe it's something else.)
"Licking their wounds," John answers, forced lightness in his tone. "One lucky bastard is sleeping."
Even now, so far removed from their lives and anything familiar, John still feels the same prickle of jealousy at the way Flint can stretch out his legs in front of him. Even waking in his pod hadn't given John back what he'd lost. And now, in some kind of darkly humorous twist, he feels as if he's lost yet another limb when his foolish, youthful broodmate got himself killed.
"I thought you would be sleeping too," John adds as he takes the cup. "Most of your people are."
On Nassau, aboard the Walrus, John had slowly acclimated to being aware of Flint. He'd thought at the time that surely he'd hit some sort of maximum. But now, sitting beside Flint on these steps, he can feel every ache in Flint's body. It's an oddly welcome distraction.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
demands a s72 au.
looks you dead in the eye
There are other things to feel that should have taken precedence, he thinks after. There is a blunt numb nerve ending of something distant gone missing in the place where a stranger once was - some young silly boy he'd hardly known at all and had no connection to except by way of a half dozen others, there and gone as an image on the horizon - and in the quiet of the Station after it feels like that should have mattered more no matter what was in the air. Or that it should have mattered less. The boy wasn't in his brood. It shouldn't matter at all.
Only later, it does. In the low light of whast passes for night, he wakes up with a weight on his chest in the shape of him and for a long minute James doesn't know why it's there.
Then that too crawls out of the darkness - the lip of some wave slithering up glass smooth sand. He throws back the blanket, sets his book on the table beside the bed, and takes a walk. Eventually the Station bends to accommodate him, spitting him up wherever John has set himself. Flint has two cups and a bottle under his arm by then. He says, "You're keeping me awake," before he sets them down.
John Silver isn't in his brood either, they tell him. But the bleed of him tastes like copper in his mouth, like an ache in his hip.
no subject
John had known the boy too well and not at all. When he sits awake, it's in consideration of the pain left in his wake rather than because John was particularly attached to his presence. He had grown accustomed to the ache of his leg. Would he be obliged to resign himself to this same pain on top of the intrusion of other minds pressing in against his own? He sees no way of escape, apart from winning a seemingly impossible war.
In all honesty, John isn't sure how the rest of his brood isn't sitting up mulling over this predicament with him. But as that thought comes and goes, the ship deliver Flint to him. John eyes the cups, settling into the electric buzz of Flint's presence.
"Well, my apologies," John answers, voice flat as he uncrosses his arms and shifts to better face Flint. "My head is too crowded to sleep, at the moment."
But it isn't truly his brood's fault to blame. John's stewing in his own thoughts without any help from borrowed nightmares.
no subject
These steps lead down into a long empty room, mottled light casting strange shadows. It should be like existing nowhere - this place like slipping between a seam in the world - but it doesn't feel as empty as it looks just like the liquor in the glass doesn't smell right but tastes familiar. The man next to him shouldn't be knit into him either, but that's true too.
"Where's the rest of your company?" Brood too strange a word. Either way they're not here. Not suffering a sleepless night where anyone can see (feel) it.
(Maybe it's an accidental mirror of John's own thoughts. Maybe it's something else.)
no subject
Even now, so far removed from their lives and anything familiar, John still feels the same prickle of jealousy at the way Flint can stretch out his legs in front of him. Even waking in his pod hadn't given John back what he'd lost. And now, in some kind of darkly humorous twist, he feels as if he's lost yet another limb when his foolish, youthful broodmate got himself killed.
"I thought you would be sleeping too," John adds as he takes the cup. "Most of your people are."
On Nassau, aboard the Walrus, John had slowly acclimated to being aware of Flint. He'd thought at the time that surely he'd hit some sort of maximum. But now, sitting beside Flint on these steps, he can feel every ache in Flint's body. It's an oddly welcome distraction.