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voice (UN ????) | open to anon/misfire replies
What's that poem about how the world ends? Fire, or ice.
Funny, really, we've been at the sharp end of both in recent weeks and here we all are, still muddling along, impossible to destroy. Like cockroaches, or Twinkies. Well. Most of us, anyway.
But it seems to me that ice is more a paralytic than an ending. Perhaps a precursor to slow cessation. A numbing, which - left long enough - allows one not to even notice as all the more vital components gradually freeze. Stasis, an ending without closure. They're the worst kind, I think.
But don't mind maudlin old me. I haven't been sleeping well.
At any rate. If you knew Byerly or Dorian -
Well, lucky you. They're gone now. Stasis. I thought some people might like to know and it turns out to be torture to have to say it over and over.
And it's colder here than I anticipated.
That's all.
Funny, really, we've been at the sharp end of both in recent weeks and here we all are, still muddling along, impossible to destroy. Like cockroaches, or Twinkies. Well. Most of us, anyway.
But it seems to me that ice is more a paralytic than an ending. Perhaps a precursor to slow cessation. A numbing, which - left long enough - allows one not to even notice as all the more vital components gradually freeze. Stasis, an ending without closure. They're the worst kind, I think.
But don't mind maudlin old me. I haven't been sleeping well.
At any rate. If you knew Byerly or Dorian -
Well, lucky you. They're gone now. Stasis. I thought some people might like to know and it turns out to be torture to have to say it over and over.
And it's colder here than I anticipated.
That's all.
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[Prior's all but forgotten how comparatively underdressed he actually is. The button down primly fastened at his collar makes it easy to forget the bare stretch of his legs. The reminder's a small jolt, but not enough to keep him pressing the knee of his good leg into the mattress, pushing himself up with one hand on John's chest to keep him where he is.]
Will you trust me? [A light snap, as he works to get the bottle back on his own terms.]
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I came through the snow. Is layering so unfashionable?
[ This is pretty normal attire for him. He could lose the out shirt, though? John would shrug it off, if Prior wasn't now holding him down. It feels, distantly, like something in this atmosphere has changed and he can't pinpoint it. Has he missed a clue? Done something wrong? ]
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[Now, he can't talk, he looks like an understudy for that one scene in Risky Business. He can't talk, but he can trade a smile. Not much has changed, for his part - that little snap's a kitten playing at a bite, not a growl. Maybe it's that the alcohol has worked up to something warmer, finally, although the possibility of slipping back to maudlin's always there without distraction.
For now he's merely got something to prove, which is that his balance and coordiation are still perfectly satisfactory when it comes to pouring a drink.]
Mm, no, the panda's growing on me, too. I'm told repeated exposure does tend to desensitize one to certain atrocities.
[Very, very carefully (fortunate the bottle's empty enough by now not to be easy to spill) he leans over to pour out a measure against John's lips.]
You apologize for yourself far too easily. And here I thought you never listened to the people who told you you were wrong.
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That's the problem, it's him. He has fuzzily become aware of how Prior is i) under-dressed ii) holding him down on the bed iii) feeding him alcohol from a bottle while under-dressed and holding him down on his bed.
John stamps down on the thought aggressively, makes himself focus sharply on the insult to his t-shirt instead. Compartmentalise, defend t-shirt instead. He waits until Prior gives him a chance to swallow then rests a hand on the bottle to make him pause. ]
What do you mean atrocities?
[ Why does everyone rag on his panda t-shirt? What's wrong with pandas! ]
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Now that's the problem with the military. [Prior drawls slow, tipping a little more cherry heat into John's mouth, then inclining his own head back to take a slug. The bottle's all but gone.]
If you recognized atrocities before they happened you'd have a lot less problems.
[Teasing from a liberal left boy a whisker too young to have been caught by the Nam draft (and likely to have been summarily rejected from it). But that's not the point.]
Reckless and fun. [Prior reminds.] I suppose you can't get that downed ship out there to fly?
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[ John pushes to sit up, which is nearly a mistake because of how close he is to Prior all of a sudden, but he reaches to take the bottle off Prior and focuses on his question -- studying his expression. ]
No, they've shut me out of the systems. Probably saw me coming and knew I was trouble. I've flown something as a big, though. I flew a ship the size of Manhattan, felt it whisper to me as I guided it through the stars.
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He misses the moment he should come in with a reply, finding he has to swallow first, take a breath.]
Well listen to you. That was almost poetry. [A moment then-] There's something about it. Flight. Ships and planes and machines that fly. Taking a sheet of metal and giving it the same quality as feathers and down. We're not built for flying: we were made too solid and slow. The air's too thin up there, it weaken our bones. And we do it anyway. Defying laws.
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[ He takes a swig from the nearly empty bottle, directs his eyes away for a moment to gather himself then holds it back out to Prior -- lifts his eyes and twitches him a playful smile. ]
You know the story of Atlantis?
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[Prior takes the bottle, cradles it against his chest without drinking. Atlantis. Everyone knows the myth in some vague way, but myth and story aren't the same thing.]
And not really. I had a friend back in the seventies - into tarot cards and mushrooms and tantric sex - he said it was the last place they practiced magic on the earth. All the mystics of Egypt and Arabia, all lost under the waves. I think that might just have been a trip he had once.
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[ Atlantis. He think of the first time he walked through the gate, the way stairwells lit up to meet them -- the way doors opened to invite them in. ]
A whole city, abandoned and hidden under the waves.
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Sounds like you're starting with the unhappily-ever-after. Do you know the rest of the story?
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Not that unhappily. It's where I lived, on New Lantea.
[ You know, his fancy colony that wasn't on earth. ]
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Though, Prior pauses over this one. It doesn't gel with what John's said before. Or, not exactly.]
You... lived underwater?
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Being a little oversexed while also very repressed is a difficult combo. ]
Sometimes it was under water, mostly we kept it floating above water. You need a shield up while underwater to keep everyone from getting wet, it takes a lot of power to keep it going. Easier to float on the surface unless we need to hide.
[ Obviously. ]
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Unless you need to hide from who, the warrior citizens of Shangri-La? You told me you were on a different planet.
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[ This X-Files joke is wasted on Prior. John reaches out to close fingers around Prior's wagging hand, to lower it away from his face. ]
There are plenty of other things out there hoping to give us a hard time. I've just got one of those faces people love to shoot at.
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You might want to be very careful what kind of bar you announce that in.
[And then Prior's gone, lost to a round of helpless giggles. He grips John's hand back for moral support and tries (fails) to regain composure.]
And you make a terrible storyteller. This was supposed to be soothing.
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[ And the sight of Prior giggling is too much. It breaks through John's attempts to restrain himself and he reaches out to loop one arm around Prior, tugging him into his side to try and satisfy his jittery urge to touch him. ]
I'm already too reckless without encouragement, so I'm told.
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[Despite the dramatics that accompany this, Prior's easily caught and held. He curls into John's side, making a pillow out of his shoulder, head about chin-rest level.]
Or I imagine that's why you were telling stories. I wanted to fly. We could go to that bar where they play dares all night, have you been there? Five bucks to take a bath in a snowdrift.
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[ He made a city fly, John thinks that's pretty cool. Still -- Prior curls into his side and John holds him there, satisfied, lets his fingers toy with his hair idly. ]
You mean Frosty Tap Cantina?
[ John isn't strictly sure mixing drinks and dares is going to be good for Prior's health, but he's not his dad or anything. If he goes with him he can pick him up off the floor if he vomits. ]
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[Taking a bath in a snowdrift would probably kill Prior - something similar nearly did when they first arrived here, and his lungs still aren't quite back to their usual, sub-par norm. But he is going a little stir crazy with lack of occupation and the unchanging surroundings - he hasn't even made it out as far as the secondary ship people keep talking about. Loneliness is just another string in cabin fever's bow.]
And you took your time getting to that point. [Come on John you just tried to tell a story without a climax.] Where did you fly it to?
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Still, John rallies -- leans his cheek against Prior's hair and tries. ]
New Lantea. See, we'd been trying to keep where the city was a secret. There were some bad guys looking for us, and we can put up a cloak -- a kinda shield that keeps the city invisible. They finally found us, though, and they set up this big laser that was firing down at us. Massively strong, and nothing we threw at the thing to stop it was leaving a scratch. It was draining all the power from our shields, so we knew we had to do something. At first, we tried submerging the city under the water. The water kind of dissipated things a bit, but we were still draining power. So we knew we had to get way out of range, and fast. We'll only have thirty or so hours before the shields fail, then the city will start taking damage. Between us all we hatch this plan, we get some of our shuttles up to temporarily throw an asteroid into the path of the beam, and then we boost all the power through the city to take off before it destroys it -- launch ourselves out into space to find a new planet to land on.
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Closing his eyes, he tries to imagine a whole city in the air. It's not really possible. Even in the middle of a city, its too hard to picture all of it at once.]
Well who needs movies. Did the people in the city know you were moving it, or were they going about business as usual - picking up whatever groceries Atlanteans eat, when all of a sudden the wind started rushing through their hair? What did it feel like for you?
[He'd look up, but that might shift John from the position he's settled in, and Prior's comfortable, here.]
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[ He reaches his free hand for one of Prior's, picks it up and interlaces their fingers -- flexes them. ]
You don't really think about moving your hands, about bending your fingers. You think about what you're doing it for, right? To reach for something, move it, pick it up, steady yourself. It's like that. It knows what I want it to do, and it feels like... I'm part of the ship for a moment. When I want it to start the engines, it does. When I want it to turn, it does.
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[He lets his fingers slip from John's, tracing down across the pulse point of his wrist to make a bracelet round it, thumb and forefinger.]
It must feel wrong to be blocked off from so many things, here. I think it would feel like my hands were tied.
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