Don't camp the spawn point [CLOSED]

[panspermia]

Warnings: Potential violence
Location: Atop the spire
Characters: Peridot, Greg Universe, eventually Agent Washington
When: The day after their deaths/disappearance, respectively
Summary: So, we got murdered. How 'bout that.

Everything hurt.

Greg registered that fact, before even registering he was awake. All parts of him ached just for being in existence, not the least of which was the throbbing in his head, muddying his thoughts from processing anything more than how deeply uncomfortable it was to be--

--alive.

He tried to open his eyes, and was met with further assault on his being, light attacking him and blurring out the world. He groaned, and felt it rattle through his chest in a piercing burn. The sound choked out with a whimper, and he curled on himself a little. Was he really alive? Was this how it was supposed to feel? Or was this actually just how things turned out, after...? Sucking in a breath, he felt newly-repaired lungs complaining for the effort, and Greg creaked his eyes open again.

It was... a nice place. Bright, and clean, and green, and... familiar. Greg blinked, and attempted sitting up, only to be hit with a wave of nausea. Oh wow, everything is terrible. Why is everything so terrible in such a nice place. Oooorgh. He curled in on himself further, waiting for the illness to pass, or at least lessen. It took a long time.

This was the spire, right? The garden on top. He had only been here once before, the months ago when he'd arrived. Since then, he'd only been to the lower levels, checking to see if missing friends had ended up like Wash had said. Slowly, carefully, Greg looked down to his chest. Even as it throbbed with sharp pain, it was in perfect condition. No wound, no scar, not even a bruise. Just like Wash had said, after all. So he really had...

For a long time, Greg didn't move. His brain was running in circles, trying to process all that happened, to remember it, to forget it. He'd died. He'd died. And now he wasn't dead. Regenerated. Weakly, he felt fingers nudging at his stomach, just making sure. Eventually, he gave sitting up another try--a creaky, queasy process, but successful in the end. It was necessary, just to properly take stock of everything, ensure he hadn't spawned a new haircut or outfit or something. But no, everything looked just the same as ever. He kept finding himself gingerly rubbing at his chest, double and triple checking that really nothing was there. Clean, smooth, kinda hairy, untouched skin.

He'd died, and he was back. And that meant... everything was fine? Was that how it was? That's how the Gems did it. It didn't even phase them. And here he was, good as new. So he should feel. Okay. Everything was... okay. He just had to go back to living, like nothing had happened. Return to his apartment, to his girlfriend, to--

"Rose--ooohohoooo, ow, oh, okay, no..."

Getting up too quickly brought another crash of vertigo, and his knees buckled under the effort, leaving him reeling on the ground again. Rose didn't know. Rose had seen--he was a human, she didn't know, she'd think... he'd left her to think the worst, he should have warned her. Even now that he was awake, he couldn't even get up, could hardly even move to let her know. He couldn't keep leaving her waiting. Damn it.

Comments

[diediediediediedie]

Cracked. Cracked cracked cracked cracked cracked. Craaaaacked.

Peridot had expected Rose to shatter her Gem, just completely powderize it. Crush her such that even her limbs couldn't reform. Bubble her. Sprinkle her in some kind of unbreakable case and then bury her at the bottom of a well and THEN bubble her. Use her shards to power...something, like Lapus Lazuli and the mirror.

Perhaps she'd underestimated Rose. Underestimated Rose a second time, that is. Judging from the paining sickness in her abdomen, the foggy cloud-y feeling in her head, and the fact that she seemed to have very little control over her limbs, as if they were suddenly all the wrong size, Rose had simply cracked her and left to regenerate, no doubt part of a larger plan. She was so good she could form her revenge while racked with grief and rage.

Jasper, at least, had been right to respect her.

Except...when Peridot finally managed to reach up and feel her Gem, it was fine. The parts of her that could feel in the traditional sense were tingly and unresponsive -her limb flopped around a bunch before she could properly bring it to her head- but the data from her touch-stumps told her that...there wasn't a single blemish to be found on her gem. Examining her arm through the sunlight told her that she hadn't regenerated: It looked exactly the same as it had.

Then what-

The groan to her left caught her attention, familiar in a way that her neurons couldn't placed. She turned her head, let her vision adjust to the change in light, squinting a little. Slowly, the image of the human next to her swam into focus and-

She wheezed. It was maybe supposed to be a scream or a word or just a moan of exasperation at the way nothing made sense but her vocal box seemed to want to cooperate as much as the rest of her. She tried a few coughs to clear it, and finally managed to choke out a word.

"You-!"

[panspermia]

The sounds of movement somewhere nearby only dimly registered, in a far-off, white noise sort of way. There was too much going on for it to properly process. At least, however, until a word choked out. Someone really was here, but who--

He saw her, and everything went cold. Everything, except for that spot in his chest, searing with a shock of pain. Panic caught in his throat as a grunt of fear while his patched up heart tried to leap right out again, to get away from her. She'd come and found him, come to do it again, why, why, what had he done, wasn't it enough, why would she bother with him still?!

The thought of escape overwhelmed his thoughts, but his body had gone numb, barely responsive, legs utterly useless. She'd come and found him when he was already weak, unable to defend himself--as if he'd been any better before, why again, what did she need--

"No--stay away--" He pushed out, scrabbling against the garden floor, anything to get him away from her. "Please, don't..."

[diediediediediedie]

Humans.

Didn't.

Regenerate.

That was part of why they were so weak and helpless. It was why they needed Rose to fend off the army! It wasn't possible! It. Was not. Possible! And yet here he is, plain as day! The man she killed! The one who jumped in front of Rose like his permanent demise hadn't meant anything!

He had defied the laws of physics to come back for revenge!

"How did- You aren't- I killed-"

She scrambled, ignoring the pain and numbness and the fact that her body did not seem to be under control. She bolted, and stumbled, and grabbed for a nearby tree, ending up on her face with only a branch, which she flopped over on her back with. If it had to be her only shield then-

Why was he begging her to stay away from him?!

"What-What are you? WHAT ARE YOU!?"

[panspermia]

His breath came in shallow bursts. He couldn't protect himself. He'd tried to protect Rose, but now Peridot was here, which meant... which meant...?

She was running. She was trying to get away from him, and looked weakened in a way he felt, and she was screaming. Shaking, Greg pushed himself onto his elbows, to really look at her. She was confused. Scared.

He'd died, and left her and Rose alone. She'd arrived here, with him. So then...

Greg stared at Peridot, both of them weakened, confused, disoriented. She'd put him here, and had ended up the same for it. What... was he supposed to feel, about that...? He had too many things to say, yet none of them were finished, none actually put together into coherency, none that she would be willing to listen to. Peridot liked to gather information. And all he could say for sure were the facts.

"People don't d... die here." His voice was raspy, quavering. "Ev... everyone just... comes back here."

[diediediediediedie]

"...What?"

It was all she could manage in the moment, but the full impact of what Greg was saying slowly sunk in. "Then...you can't die. Then Rose must have-"

But what did this mean? It meant it was likely Rose had smashed her for one. And sent her to the same place her human had gone? Perhaps so that he could get the drop on her? But no, he was in no shape to do anything to her. As she felt in no shape to do anything to him. She...may not have known. She demanded that she fix him, right? But...he knew? But he jumped in front of her anyway?

"Then...then why!? Why did you do that?!"

[panspermia]

"Why...?"

It took him a while to process what she meant. What did he do that needed explaining? The--oh. Right. In retrospect... it was a pretty stupid move, wasn't it?

"I... w-wasn't really thinking clearly, I guess." None of them had been. It certainly hadn't been an attempted act of heroism, on his part. He just wasn't thinking things through. "I just... I wanted you two to stop fighting."

Greg grit his teeth, and did his best to make eye contact. There she was. Peridot, who had killed him, tried to kill Rose, tried to take his son. Peridot, who he was stuck here with. He looked away. He had to remind himself to breathe.

"Do you... do you get it? There's no point in fighting, here. It, it won't make a difference."

[diediediediediedie]

A slow progression of understanding played across Peridot's face. She became uncomfortably aware of an absence in her head that she had been too busy with other thoughts to notice.

"Then...then even if I had taken out Rose Quartz...she never would have stayed down. There was no way I could have won..."

Rage twisted her face into a scowl and she snapped the branch in half with an effort too monumental for a Gem to ever need.

"They lied...They lied! The shadows- They never told me! YOU-" She looked up, as if she was trying to look into her own head.

"Hmph...They're gone."

[panspermia]

Greg cringed, at her anger, her action, and most especially her intent for Rose. Whether or not she could have really destroyed Rose, the intent and desire was all there.

But, she said something else important. The shadows. Greg's brow furrowed. "Gone...? You mean..." Deals didn't last through death. He couldn't be sure what to make of that.

"The shadows just want this war over. Like that Lux guy, I guess." With some effort, he got back up to a proper sitting position. "We're not getting out of here until one side wins. Fighting against each other's just going to make it take longer."

[diediediediediedie]

The flash in her eyes was more annoyance than anger, but she still turned the brunt of it on Greg.

"It's not that simple!"

She doesn't even know why it's not that simple, but it isn't. The way she had felt while she was shadowed...The Homeworld Gems vs Crystal Gems war had been simple until the arrival of the Steven. The Lux and Nox conflict had been simple...until she'd felt the effects of the shadows.

She turns away from him to sulk. "They spoke to me when I was on their side. I had useful powers! I knew what to do with them! I escaped Rose twice before but when I had the shadows..."

She's made an attempt to stand up and succeeded though her legs were shaking, knees nearly knocking together. She couldn't exactly walk yet, but she was only shaking and not swaying. "...It was like I was the bravest Gem in all the wor-"

Suddenly it was like she snapped out of a trance. "Why am I telling you this?"

[panspermia]

For a while, Greg didn't speak. He just sat, watching the ground, chewing at his cheek.

"I dunno. I've never felt powerful, myself. I've just found other ways of being worthwhile." Small ways. Hopefully helpful ways. But never powerful ways.

With a heavy sigh and a hand through his hair, he chanced another look at Peridot. It was a little easier, with her turned away. "So, maybe I'm talking out my butt here. But seems to me, if all the power in the world gets you here with a guy like me, it's not worth a whole lot."

[diediediediediedie]

"Well, that's fine for you. You're a human. Though allying yourself with a Gem like Rose Quartz was a prudent move, I admit."

She still couldn't seem to will her legs forward, though she really wished she could. "Please don't talk out of your rear end. That's disgusting. And anyway, it was HARDLY all the power. I witnessed that shadowed human do things I thought only Gems were capable of while I was left with a barely functional healing ray."

Nope, she can't stand any longer. The burning pain in her abdomen brought her slowly back down to the ground. "Perhaps it would be MORE prudent to ally with the more powerful side."

[panspermia]

...Huh. That gave him a thought. Greg's brow furrowed, as he mulled it over. "Oh... man." He pressed a hand to his forehead, frustrated as he tried to put it together. "Dang it... there's a really good fart joke in there somewhere, but it's not coming to me." This is the worst thing that's happened today by far.

"Ahh well..." He gave up, sagging into a sigh. "You're talking about Aaron, aren't you? I dunno... when I met him, he was pretty badly hurt. I bet he would have really liked a healing ray, around then." This, being said as someone without any knowledge of Aaron's old magic.

"Healing's a really great ability to have, if you ask me. It means... you can take care of the people you care about." Did that mean anything, to Peridot? To any Gems, aside from the Crystals? There had to be something they cared about, wasn't there? "I've seen a lot of my friends get hurt. If I could heal that up for them, even a little, I'd take the chance in a heartbeat."

[diediediediediedie]

"...What's a 'fart?'" Humans and their strange ways. Whatever it is, it sounds nasty.

Peridot tilted her head to the side. "No...he said he'd given up healing magic for the shadows. If he'd wanted what he had, he would have kept it." This was logical. "All my allies and I come back from having their bodies destroyed on their own. My enemies too, apparently. Healing is quite simply useless to me!"

[panspermia]

It was a very long, very quiet walk down. Greg didn't talk much; there wasn't anything he wanted to talk about, and also he suspected he might really be ill if he opened his mouth too much. Instead, he focused everything on putting one foot in front of the other and staying upright. It was a tall tower, after all, and Greg still wasn't steady on his feet. Having someone to lean on (heavily) on made a huge difference.

Wash also helped in ensuring Greg kept actually moving. There was a part of him that dreaded returning to the apartments, to everyone. He could only imagine how upset Rose would be with him, for pulling that stunt, for being so careless, for making her think he'd...

And the guys, they were likely upset, getting jerked around like this... what the heck was he supposed to say to them, to assure he was fine and skip everything awkward? Couldn't there just be a way to pretend like everything was normal? Maybe, if he didn't say anything at all, things would be normal. His body was back to normal, after all. So maybe he could just pretend.

It was stupid, he knew. Not a word of it was said to Wash, but just having his friend there made sure he didn't stall any more than needed, in spite of the pit of dread in his gut.

When they finally made it back, there was no one inside Greg's apartment. All that had changed was Rose's sword, gone missing... well, that wasn't a big surprise. He needed to find her. She was probably out somewhere, alone, and she couldn't be, not anymore, he needed to let her know. There was a small chance--faint, unlikely, but still the smallest possibility--that she hadn't run off and shut herself away. Maybe, just maybe, Bones and Casey were looking after her. He had to check, before he went looking.

Exhausted, uncertain, afraid, Greg let Wash push open the door to the shared apartment room.

[unrecovered]

It was a very long walk down. Part of Wash was grateful for the chance to organize his thoughts; the other part knew that he ought to be looking ahead, trying to figure out how to explain what had happened to a bunch of people for whom death was a pretty permanent thing. (Well, except for Bones in extremely specific circumstances, evidently, but he was fairly certain that didn't apply here.) That was not going to be a fun conversation.

He did look at his communicator, flicking it open inside his helmet with an eye movement, to check the date. According to that, he'd been gone about 24 hours - 36 at most. That was not a hell of a lot of time - probably about as long as Greg had been out of commission, which meant the only two people in the city who knew that death wasn't permanent hadn't been around to pass that information on.

Yeah, this was going to be a fun conversation.

They stopped by Greg's apartment first; Wash couldn't say he was surprised to find it empty. Some people didn't handle grief well, and he didn't know Rose well enough to know how she'd take it. Avoiding the space they'd shared together was a fairly standard reaction.

He took the lead when it came to the shared apartment, pushing the door open and kicking it shut behind him once they were both inside. He led Greg over to the couch, only letting go of him once Greg had settled in. No use getting him this far just to have him keel over, after all. "How're you feeling?"

[oldfashionedfutureboy]

Too damn quiet. The whole apartment was too damn quiet- even Casey was keep'n to his room for the most part, keep'n to himself and Bones couldn't rightly blame him. Loss was rough. He'd tried to make himself available to the kid but- Wash was miss'n and all he could think of was the dark and the whispers and Greg-

Greg was dead. Even in a world fulla magic a gutwound would kill a man quick if it went in that vicious. Aside from a mild anxiety attack when the jar of green bits that'd been left over from Rose's disposal of Peridot was suddenly empty, Leonard felt himself living in a familiar haze interrupted only by the comings and goings of Casey and the clink of ice in the glass. He knew that path well enough to monitor it, though. Curb the bad habit. Limit the crutch to when he was alone, when Casey was quiet and settled in his room and didn't seem to need anything. No one was hurt- no one needed him. A drink or two or five wouldn't kill anyone.

When he wasn't work'n and he wasn't drink'n in the evening- he alternated between knitt'n and bak'n. Pies just weren't the same without Greg perched to one side, picking at the strings and wipp'n up some kind of song to go along with the pastry. Without Wash sitt'n on the sofa and ask'n about every little thing that went into the pie and how long it'd take to be done. He'd tried to bake earlier in the day, couldn't manage.

When the door swung open he was on the sofa, mug of coffee at his elbow, heather grey and yellow yarn clicking away in his fingers as he worked through twists of cabled knots. Bags under his eyes and stubble on his jaw, he looked probably about as tired as he felt. At first he didn't think anything of it, Casey was probably coming back in but- Casey was in his room.

And Wash was helping Greg onto the sofa.

What the hell.

"...Greg?"

[jonesiseverywhere]

"Some stuff's just beyond our control." Casey had said that to April once because, well, it was true, but...not about this, not about Greg. Bones had come in covered in blood with a jar of green shards and told him that Greg was dead and Casey'd tried to call Wash and...got nothing.

If he were back in NYC, he could call up the guys, play video games until his hands were sore, get Raph out and go bust some heads, wind Mikey up for a prank war, fix something big and heavy with Donnie, or...well, he'd never actually done it but meditate with Leo. Do something to get his mind off it.

But they weren't here and Bones...well, in Casey's experience you didn't break out the hard stuff unless you wanted to be left alone and the last thing Casey wanted right now was to be brushed off. So there wasn't much to do right now but go and fight the Nox. He'd made a token effort to find partners like he'd promised but...he was going out anyway because not going out meant finding trouble and finding trouble meant not being alone with his thoughts.

Though when he really considered it, and he tried not to, he knew fighting the Nox wasn't going to help this situation. He'd found one rift, quite small, not near enough to work out the deep pit of anger he felt. Most of the damage he'd suffered was when he punched a brick wall out of frustration while forgetting that he wasn't wearing his hockey gloves.

In fact, when he heard the door open, he'd been bandaging his knuckles. He pulled his fingerless gloves over the bandages and went out to see what was going on. Bones was home, so maybe Rose had come back and-

And Greg was here. Alive. Totally fine. With Wash helping him. Casey couldn't form words.

"...Wha- Greg? How-"

[panspermia]

The air felt heavy and still--it was hard to be sure how much was from the actual atmosphere, and how much Greg imagined. Personally, it felt like he was wading through tension, just to get to the couch. It was the kind of awkward atmosphere Greg would usually assume he was intruding on and back out, under any other circumstance.

Under this circumstance, though, Wash was setting him down, next to a gaping and unshaven Leonard. Before Greg could say anything, Casey was there too, staring slackjawed. He'd run over this moment a few dozen times in his head, trying to imagine where he'd go with it, yet not once did he ever actually succeed in figuring it out.

Greg tried out a disarming grin, but it became more of a little wince, hardly more than a twitch of the lips. "H-hey... hey fellas. I'm..."

The word "okay" caught in his throat. He couldn't bring himself to make eye contact, and see them staring in disbelief that he was here, he was alive, because he wasn't supposed to be. He suddenly wanted to be anywhere but here, to shrink and vanish into the couch or out in the street or anywhere else that didn't involve staring.

He focused on the door. "H-have you... seen Rose...?"

[unrecovered]

It could actually be worse, Wash decided. He wasn't ruling out the possibility of it getting worse, but for now, this was manageable. "Fun facts," he said, a little more brightly than he had any right to be at the moment, "it turns out Lux likes randomly sending people home and bringing them back, so that's fun. Also, death...isn't permanent." He paused, the brightness pretty much gone. There really was no good way to go about this. "I...probably should have told you that earlier." It had never been Greg's story to tell, and hey guess what I died once wasn't the greatest of conversation starters, in this crowd or any other.

[oldfashionedfutureboy]

"Alive." Bones finished, still staring at Greg. Alive. That- what? That didn't happen. He'd MADE it happen and it didn't happen, that wasn't how the world worked not even a magical one but Greg was back. Was alive. Was breathing. Half of him wanted to grab his tricorder and give Greg a scan- the rest went with his gut and set aside his knitting in favor of reaching out to check Greg's pulse at the wrist while the other palpated his abdomen where the wound had been and-

Nothing.

Not a damn thing.

Pulse was strong, skin was whole, Greg was exhausted and probably traumatized- there was shit about being dead JIM still didn't tell him about and he wasn't sure how to ask but. Greg.

"Wash, I dunno if those facts are all that fun." Flat. Muted against something tick in Bones' throat before he gave up on the examination all together to give Greg a quick hug. "Jesus christ, Greg." A fucking Miracle was what it was. "Rose- wandered off. Tried to keep in touch but I think- I know she blames herself. Try'n to talk her out of it didn't go all that well."

In so much that it didn't happen.

[jonesiseverywhere]

Casey should be feeling better about this than he did, right? Not dying meant they...pretty much were invincible, right?

Somehow he couldn't convince himself...It was really all in Greg's face. There wasn't a scratch on him but he still looked like he'd been curbstomped by every Nox in the city. When Bones moved away, Casey moved in for a rough hug, skinny hands gripping tight. Greg was alive and he'd come back and that's what was most important.

And Wash had been sent home with no warning or notice. And he knew that death wasn't permanent...wait a minute.

"And you know that...how?" He said when he moved away from Greg. He could guess how but...Greg looked like crap and Wash always looked like crap. Not exactly 2+2 but it wasn't that much of a stretch.

[panspermia]

Greg returned the hugs in kind, hugging Casey extra tight. He was happy for Wash to handle the brunt of the explanation, especially since he seemed to be making as light of it as one possibly could under the circumstances. It was certainly a shift in his attitude from when they'd first found things out, too. That meant it'd get easier, with a little time.

Speaking of that first time, though... "Doesn't really matter now, does it?" Greg didn't want to relive this, and Wash wouldn't either. Maybe they could have saved some strife by spreading it around, but the fact was that now everyone knew, so there was no point dredging it up.

Gritting his teeth, Greg pushed himself up off the couch again. "Sorry. I gotta go find her."

[unrecovered]

Wash straightened up and headed behind the couch, leaning against the couch back - all the better to get out of everyone else's way. He wasn't surprised to hear that Rose ran off, or that survivor's guilt had hit her pretty hard, but blames herself sounded a little too specific for a so-called accident. "Why would Rose blame herself?" C'mon, Bones, give him the whole story.

He faltered for a moment. Casey was too sharp by half. Still, he hadn't made much of a secret of the fact that he knew it. As much as he appreciated Greg sticking up for him... "No, they deserve to know." There wasn't any way to say this that would make it better - might as well spit it out. "I was the first one to test the theory. When the Nox took over the carnival, they took me with it." He sighed, looking at Casey. "Which is part of the reason why I always tell you to have backup. I didn't, and I paid for it."

Wait. Wait. Greg wanted to do what? He reached out and grabbed Greg's shoulder, forcing him back down on the couch. "You could barely get down the stairs. You're not going anywhere."

[oldfashionedfutureboy]

"And you, jackass-" He pushed off the sofa and stalked around to where Wash was leaning all too goddamn casual and-

Back in the goddamn armor where he couldn't see a goddamn thing that COULD be wrong with him but it looked no worse for wear. It was strange t'be doing this with Wash that much taller and bulkier and mov'n him wasn't gonna be easy- but Leonard took him by the shoulders to give him a shake, growling all the same.

"When I say BED rest I mean you stay in your goddamn bed or the goddamn apartment and REST! Not get poofed off to whatever crazy ass world you came from!" Like yell'n at Wash would change what happened. Though the signals might be a little mixed with how he went a little cold and still at that. Before any of them ever started living together. Jesus fuck that kinda trauma- the hell is WRONG with this place? There wasn't anymore growling then- hell there weren't anymore words as he hauled Wash in for a tight hug. Which was uncomfortable at best cuz- armor.

This place was gonna do a number on him, he could tell.

[jonesiseverywhere]

Casey broke eye contact (well, helmet contact) with Wash. He hadn't even known but...geeze, no wonder Wash was so insistent on backup. No wonder he'd flipped out when Casey snuck out that night with Rose.

...No wonder he'd let Casey live with him. He wasn't going to hug a suit of armor though. Bones didn't make that look like fun.

Besides, Greg was about to do something really stupid. He sat back on the couch and rubbed the back of his head. "Dude, we don't know where she went. You're not in shape to go runnin' around town lookin' for her."