hfm_logs | Don't camp the spawn point [CLOSED]

Entry tags:

Don't camp the spawn point [CLOSED]

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.

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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?"

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?"

Edited 2015-09-12 08:23 (UTC)

"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-"

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...?"

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.

"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.

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.

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."

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."

"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.

Edited 2015-09-13 15:17 (UTC)

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."

Greg's brain said to stand up, to keep going, to get out that door and search. His body, however, was still shaking and weak, and all too ready to give in to Wash's hold. He fell back onto the couch with a grunt.

"I have to find her," he insisted. He meant to sound stern, frustrated, determined, but he mostly just sounded desperate. He was trying his hardest to get that firm, armored grip off of him.

"She's spent long enough thinking I'm--I have to let her know." Did he actually remember her screaming as he fell, or was he just imagining how it must have sounded? Real or not, the sound rattled through him.

"Oh come on, that wasn't my-" And then Bones was hugging him, armor and all, and Wash shut up. Bones being emotionally distraught wasn't surprising; somehow, the hug was. He hugged him back, gently - the armor could cause damage if he squeezed too hard, and nobody needed that right now.

Oh for- "Then call her," he ground out, putting his hand back on Greg's shoulder to prevent any further escape attempts. "Or I will. Either way, you're not going anywhere."

Right. Time to regain some composure. He patted Wash on the back and stepped away, moving past the sofa and his knitting to the kitchen. There was bound to be shit for pie in there, somewhere. Apple. They had apples, he remembered that much. "Call her. She hasn't been answer'n when I tried to get ahold of her, but I ain't you. Soon as she hears your voice I'm sure she'll come runn'n."

That did beg the question. "The green one. Peridot. Was she up there where you found Greg?"

"Or one've us can go look for her. Seriously, if you tried to run out right now you'd prob'bly trip and fall headfirst into the sewers or somethin'." Or get attacked again. Or kidnapped worse with the luck they've been having.

Peridot... Casey hasn't even seen this woman, but it's pretty clear from his face that if he does he's going to make her eat her own hair.

...He really should have thought of calling her. He should have done that as soon as he was awake. Why didn't he think of that, why is he so STUPID?!

Greg shut his eyes, trying to steady his breathing, and came up short as Leonard said Peridot's name. He couldn't do this. He couldn't talk about it, couldn't listen to them talk about it. He needed to--needed to find Rose.

"Don't... don't worry about her. L-leave her out of it."

One more time, he pushed Wash's hand away. Getting up was harder every time, but he was going to keep doing it. "I'm just... I'm going down the hall." He couldn't call Rose with them crowded around, listening. If they couldn't be in person yet, they at least needed to be alone.

"She was," Wash replied, brow furrowed. He stopped when Greg spoke up. Greg didn't want to talk about it, Bones was asking, and Casey looked like oncoming murder; the story was starting to come together, and it wasn't a good one.

Then again, any story that involved one of his friends dying wasn't a good one. He'd had plenty of experience on that front.

He moved around the couch, wrapping his arm around Greg's waist again. "C'mon. Your old room's still empty." He kept quiet as he dropped Greg off, closing the door behind him, and took a few minutes to stop into his room, shedding his armor and undersuit and pulling on casual clothes. It didn't fix anything - he'd still need a shower, bandages for his hand, a good night's sleep, anything to get the taste of Chorus' war out of his mouth - but it would help Casey and Bones if they could see his face.

It was a fair few minutes before he headed back into the living room, casually trying to fix a very bad case of helmet hair. (A haircut. He needed one of those too.) "Why were you asking about Peridot?"

Right. Don't talk about it. Leonard could do that, especially if he had a pie to mind. Slicing apples never took up so much of his attention before but- awkward situations be'n what they were-

May as well slice extra. For Casey and for Wash. Yeah. He could do that.

"...Cuz last I saw Miz Rose had reduced her to a fine green mist in a truly inspired application of her magic, most of which I'd kept in a jar so said bits wouldn't 'mindlessly regenerate.'" A beat passed. "Remind me to never, ever piss Miz Rose off."

Casey can do not talking about it. Not thinking about it was not an option for him, not when he wanted so badly to have a turn smashing Peridot's face in, but. Apples and apple pie definitely went towards soothing that impulse.

Not all the way, but enough for now.

Casey didn't say anything but caught Wash in a hard one-armed hug when their paths crossed on his way to the kitchen. He was back, Greg was back, things had to get better from here.

He'd seen that jar. He hadn't totally understood what it was at first, but that hadn't been the worst part of the conversation he'd had with Bones that night. The tiny bright spot of the whole thing was that Peridot got what she deserved but now...

"Guess that means she's out there somewhere. Think she's gonna go after Rose?"

Wash sucked in a breath through his teeth when Casey hugged him. Between fighting Locus and fighting a slew of Mantises, he'd taken some pretty hard hits today. The armor protected him from the worst of the damage, but it didn't prevent him from bruising. Still, he lowered an arm and hugged Casey back, keeping his still-bleeding hand away from his clothes.

It was a moment or two before Casey let go and Wash headed for the hall closet and the first aid kit-

Which wasn't there, he found when he opened the door. Huh. Someone must've moved it. Paper towels from the kitchen were a good enough substitute; he folded several up and pressed them against his hand while he listened. It was pretty damn obvious by now what had happened, but he needed confirmation before he acted on it. "This is Peridot's fault, isn't it. Greg didn't tell me anything"

Bones finished slicing two apples and set them on a plate before setting them aside for Wash and Casey to nibble on while he worked on the rest. One good pie took quite a few and he needed to get on it. Without a mandolin he had to work by hand- not that he rightly minded the extra work. Something to keep his hands busy while he went over none too pleasant news.

Not that he missed the stiffness OR the bleeding hand. Wash what the hell did you get yourself into?

"Casey, why ain't the kit in the closet? G'wan and grab it if you moved it." God knows he didn't. "Or grab the one from my room, should be on the counter in the bathroom."

Whichever was easier.

"Greg..." It's never easy, this bit. So he pared it down. Made it simple. Clinical. "...suffered penetrating abdominal trauma with damage to the stomach, spleen, and kidney that resulted in massive hemorrhaging. I didn't get there in time t'do much of anything. From what Miz Rose said- Peridot was attack'n, Rose was gonna defend herself and Greg...took the bullet for her."

"Mmmph, not sure," said Casey around the apple slice he popped whole into his mouth. "Uh, musta moved it when I was lookin' for somethin'. Forgot to put it back. I'll grab yours." With that, he sprinted towards Bones's room.

He'd put the regular kit back when Bones wasn't watching.

...And he may have hung back a little bit while Bones explained what happened. Half because it had been bad enough hearing it the first time...and half because he wanted to see if he could hear what Greg was saying to Rose through the wall (he couldn't.)

Oh well, he brought the kit back once he was sure Bones had finished and grabbed another slice.

Wash raised an eyebrow as Casey bolted out of the room, waiting until he heard a door slam to look back at Bones. "You know he's lying, right?"

He quieted down at Bones' explanation, slowly closing his eyes. That...that explained a lot. "Greg defended her," he said after a few moments. "On the spire. Or- he didn't tell me what happened, at least. He said it was an accident - a mistake." Probably because he knew that Wash would put a knife through Peridot's gem if he'd found out what happened - an option that was still on the table, as it turned out. Evidently Wash wasn't as over the idea of revenge as he'd thought. "The way he's been acting, I wouldn't be surprised if he blames himself."

"He ain't the only one." He tipped his head back to the sink. "Run your hand under the tap."

It wasn't much, but it'd be a start. Little things. If he focused on the little things he would worry less 'bout the big things. Like death. Dy'n. Coming BACK from that. "...has it changed all that much? Com'n back from it. You're a soldier and prolly braced for that shit but Greg's-"

He trailed off. "Trauma is trauma. I dunno that he has a way t'cope. I dunno that you got one either." The less said about his own inability to cope? The better. "Why on God's Green Earth would he blame HIMSELF for do'n the decent thing and try'n to protect the woman he loves? In what bizzaro mirror universe is THAT a thing that he oughta feel?"

"Just because I don't immediately announce that I'm bleeding doesn't mean I'm lying," Wash groused, tossing the bloody paper towels in the trash and turning the sink on.

He stopped and stared, incredulous, as Bones kept talking. Was that what he really thought? "At some point, we're going to talk about what you think of soldiers, because that was the single most fucked up thing I've heard all week."

The comment about coping mechanisms didn't go unnoticed either, but he just leveled Bones with a flat stare. The level of hypocritical bullshit in this conversation was staggering. "Because he has no self-esteem. He died, and it hurt the people he loves, so he thinks it's his fault, regardless of what actually happened."

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