[He's scared. He's scared he's scared he's scared he's scared. It's a constant beating at the back of his mind, keeping him from ever fully relaxing. He'd seen what had happened to his friend Ezra, he knew people could disappear and just never come back. Just be here one second and gone the next. It's why he's so insistent on being near others right now, more than usual. If he vanishes... he wants someone to know what happened. Is that so much to ask for?
It's five minutes after Erika's started waiting for him that he knocks on her door. He still knocks before letting himself in, even though they'd come to this arrangement before and this isn't the first time. He's just a polite boy.]
Hey. Sorry I'm late, I zoned out in the shower.
[He tries for a smile, tries to keep putting on a brave face for her. She has to know it's not always genuine, and he knows that she probably knows, but it's just one of those things he has to do for his own pride and sanity.
He's taken to wearing the jumpsuit more than his uniform, just because the long sleeves cover more skin in general. Skin that has a frightening tendency to reveal blood vessels, nerves, even organs and bone beneath it. His vocal chords work visibly in a semi-translucent throat, but he doesn't know enough to cover it.]
How're you doing? Are your joints still bothering you?
[Nearly five minutes on the dot, because she'd been counting. She shuts down the comm screen and lets her unaffected shoulder fall in relief, leaning back in her chair.]
Not that late.
[Erika tells herself: the translucence isn't a bad thing, on its own. Disgusting to look at, but the visible flesh is healthy, and not exposed to the air; if you twist it around, if you think about it hard enough to turn it into a different way of thinking, the gruesome sight can be a bit relieving. Watch for black blood and rot, and feel content when none appears.]
Mmn. It's about the same as this morning. [Stiff ankle and shoulder on the left side, some hard patches of skin in unimportant areas - she doesn't and hasn't mentioned the radiating pain that comes and goes in waves, but that's just pain. Nothing to be done about it, except maybe take some of the painkillers she lifted from the medbay for emergencies, but it's not bad enough to call for that.
She rotates her ankle slowly, pressing against the resistance but not quite forcing it to grind.]
[His lips twist into a concerned frown, and he only pauses long enough to unlatch his mag-boots before crossing the room and dropping down to sit next to her. He knows full well there's nothing he can do, but it doesn't stop him from endlessly running through possibilities, each more nonsensical than the last. Look, maybe applying something corrosive to the metal would work?? You don't know until you try.]
Um... I don't think so.
[He brings a hand to his forehead, pauses when he realizes that while he can see tendons working beneath the skin, he can't... actually feel anything when he tries to touch his forehead. Which means one of two things: either he's lost feeling in his hand, again, or in his forehead. Or he just doesn't even have a forehead anymore, which is frightening, but not out of the question.]
I don't... think I can feel my hand, [he admits quietly, testing it by just touching the floor. Or, rather, smacking it against the floor, as if the sound of flesh striking decking is another point of evidence to prove that it is still there.]
Careful, [she whispers pointlessly, dropping from the chair and lifting the back of her hand to his forehead.
It's faintly, eerily light. She can't resist applying a bit of pressure - the circuit-board array of copper under her skin there cuts off sensation spottily.
The temperature seems normal, though.]
I think it's fine. [Then she picks his hand up - not slowly, but with care, efficiency with an edge of embarrassment. She presses her thumb into the meat of it, then the center of his wrist, tracking up towards his elbow experimentally with steady pressure.] Where does it stop?
[He can't help but flush lightly when she touches his forehead, closing his eyes and leaning gently against her hand. Even the pressure feels kind of nice, a solid reminder that yeah, she is here. He's not alone.
Then she takes his hand, and well, that's another intimate gesture that has his opening his eyes again, looking down at his own hand. His tendons work visibly through muscle as she presses down, the pressure closing his fingers slightly through no will of his own. He still can't feel it, but that doesn't mean the mechanics are messed up. Yet.]
Ah- there. Um... there.
[She's about halfway up his forearm when he speaks up, reaching with his other hand to gently take her wrist and position her fingers a centimeter lower.]
Right here.
[Rolling his sleeve up will reveal that the flesh is more normal above that point, less translucent and ghosty. For the moment.]
Edited (IDIOT change ALL the words when you change your mind) 2018-08-09 02:08 (UTC)
[She was doing okay keeping it all practical and medical, but his flustered vibe starts to throw her a few seconds in. It's kind of - hmmm. Right there, he says, and Erika glances up to see whether he's watching before she goes for his sleeve.]
Don't watch if you don't want to. [There's an unusual gentle note embedded in her seriousness. She can't make him not try to...prove himself, or push himself, or whatever, but this is one of those ungraceful, practical things that she hopes he can just accept. Don't watch if you don't want to. Seeing yourself broken-down is a primal humiliation that laughs at strength and dignity, and Erika is willing to be present for that humiliation but not to pull him along through it.
The sleeve comes up gently, and she doesn't look too hard at the exposed veins and arteries, just glances them over for color and pulse (all good.) before looking at the junction of solidity and transparency. There - she presses her thumb into that point again, rubbing down a few times as though it would push sensation back into the affected part of his wrist.]
...It's got to be just the nerves. If the skin weren't see-through, everything would be completely normal.
[He hums uncomfortably, but doesn't look away as she starts to roll up his sleeve. Honestly, he's a little relieved to still be able to see muscle and sinew, and that it isn't just-- gone. That's happened already, too, empty holes right in his skin that someone could stick a hand through, but right now it's-- solid. Solid-ish.
It feels weird in a way he can't describe, feeling her rubbing his arm, seeing her continue down what's obviously his arm, but not being able to actually feel it. His fingers twitch again, and he wiggles them, as if that might somehow bring the feeling back, too. As if his hand had only fallen asleep.
It doesn't work, but he doesn't ask her to stop, either. It's not like she can actually feel the muscle skidding against her thumb.]
I... thought of that. About it just being the nerves, but...
[He brings up his free hand, touches his own cheek with a wince and remembering seeing his own jawbone through a hole in his flesh.]
It's... not always just my skin. But... what about you? Are you really okay?
[The whole concept of "deserving" is one that will drive you absolutely fucking bonkers if you think about it too much.
And yet:
Hajime does not deserve to experience this.
Survival is the day-to-day goal. A trailing, denied wish flickers back to life and offers a second, more distant one: find the thing that's tormenting them all. Stop it from doing so, but also - and this time it'll work, or she'll burn herself out trying - make it hurt. Impress their pain upon it. That's what revenge is. If she can manage that, she won't have to cry about it.
She watches him touch his cheek, silent witness, and feels very weird and tired.]
I'm definitely on the better end. You know how much of a mess the clinic is. [She breathes out through her nose in a short sigh, looking off and into the bathroom, where Li's tail peeks out from the crevice behind the toilet.] I'm calling "able to walk around freely" good condition, at this point. If it...
[If it gets worse, people will die. She doesn't need to say that; Hajime probably knows it and doesn't want to hear it. She cuts that off.]
[There's a lot Hajime doesn't understand. There's a lot he's not equipped to understand, whether it's because he doesn't know which questions to ask, or he doesn't have the experience to even know to ask. There's so much about her life that he doesn't know about; then again, there's a lot about him she doesn't know about, either. It's hard to sum up a life for a person who hasn't been through even the most basic of events together.
But, like he was telling Ryuji, the bonds they're forming on this station are stronger than most. He doesn't know that she's hurting, but he's seen the people in the clinic. And he reaches out with his other hand, the hand he can still feel with, and tries to take her hand away from his wrist, just holding it loosely.]
If it gets worse... we'll keep fighting it, [is what he says, quietly, and he's almost surprised to think that maybe he believes it, too. Almost.] I mean... whoever's running this station, whoever's experimenting on us, it's... it'd be pretty stupid to kill your own subjects, right? So... it'll be okay. I'm sure of it.
[He's... not sure of it at all, actually, considering people can be brought here without warning and disappear just as often, but it sounds like a good line. More importantly, he needs that reassurance himself.]
[She cannot believe that. She just - fundamentally - cannot make herself believe that.
But she can't say, "they already did kill someone, and it was fine". She can't take Hajime by the shoulders and tell him, "when you are sick, when you are really sick, optimism past a certain point will kill the parts of you the sickness can't". It would fuck her up to do that to him. It will fuck her up to see him figure things like that out on his own.
She doesn't have the right energy to smile without meaning it, but she does add her other hand to the pile, gently squeezing Hajime's between her own. He's trying. She appreciates it. She's trying, too.]
If it's not okay, [she starts slowly, sounding cautious and earnest and absolutely awkward about it,] I'll be here the whole time. Without...being disgusted. Or thinking about what you should have done. Or worrying about my own pride.
[He doesn't know what to say. He feels like if he tries to say something, it'll just come out incoherent, a jumbled mess of words that don't quite string together properly.
So he doesn't. He just-- leans forward, a little, letting his head come to rest against her shoulder, forehead close to her neck. She'd be in desperate danger of being stabbed by his ahoge if it weren't wilting a little from exhaustion and stress.]
It's.. the same for me, you know? We're... in this together. Whatever that means.
[His shoulder is still solid for now, and the weight of her leaning against him is even more of a warm, welcome reassurance that he's still here. He doesn't know for how much longer he'll be here, but right now, it's all he can ask for. Just existing.]
Yeah, [he says quietly, closing his eyes and relaxing more comfortably against her.] It... means a lot to me, too. I'm... glad you're here with me, Erika.
[He exhales and tries to pull back. Not far, just enough to try to steal a glimpse of her face.]
[There's something really uncomplicatedly nice about feeling him relax and knowing she pulled that off by her own actions.
Weird thoughts aside...]
Mmm.
[Good timing. Her expression is somber, and contemplative, but mostly painted over with tired. In multiple senses of the word. Sleep is potentially a more permanent goodbye - now she can't shake the image of knocking out and waking up next to a dead body or nothing at all - but it is also vitally important and very, very compelling.
Erika gently disengages and lies down on her back, then immediately changes her mind and rolls onto her side, lifting her arm and waiting for Hajime to settle in.]
[It goes both ways. What if he wakes up and she's a statue that crushes him to death?? Then someone would have to find both of their bodies. Gross.
He lets her arrange herself first, waiting to see how she wants to position herself before climbing in next to her. If she's on her side, he'll lay down on his back, scooting a little closer as if to encourage her to lay against him. It's nice to think about cuddling face-to-face in theory, but in practice it's just too awkward for him, and it just ends up being way too warm to sleep.
He opens his mouth, about to say something along the lines of if something happens-- but stops himself. She already knows that. If something happens, she'll let their friends know.]
The setup is pretty perfect, though. Not stifling, but plenty of contact; not weird, but actually that's less because of the setup itself and more because they've brute-forced this into no longer being weird. Funny how that works. (Good thing it works that way.) She drapes her arm across him, taking pressure off her aching shoulder (here's hoping he stays tangible enough for that at least), and puts her face in his collarbone with a little huff of relief.]
[No promises that his chest will stay solid through the whole night; already, if she listens closely, she might be able to tell that there's something missing, though not to the touch. His chest still feels solid, muscle and bone, but where there should be a by-now-familiar heartbeat, there's just-- silence.
But that's probably nothing to worry about. Organs seem to be optional right now, limited time offer.]
Good night, [he murmurs, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and just letting his arm drape over hers. He might be disappearing, but he's not feverish, and he's not in pain. Just for now, trying to get some sleep, hoping this isn't the last thing he ever does... that should be enough, right?
But the thought that this is the last thing he'll ever do just lingers in his mind, tenses fingers that are more muscle than flesh against her shoulder. There's so much he wants to do, that he just-- can't. And might not ever get the chance to.]
[Three months felt like forever and like no time at all. This feels like the close of a dream, the good and the bad. Nothing at all could happen. Everything could happen. That's life and death; this is the strange peace you make with it, wishing to wish for nothing more.
Erika doesn't let herself think about home. She thinks about one kind of silence, and two kinds of silence, and the right-here-right-now importance of Hajime's presence. She stays awake until he's asleep or still enough to pass for it, puts her hand on his arm and runs her thumb back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
[He is awake when she starts to rub his arm; he hadn't moved, not wanting to disturb her if she were falling asleep, but wrapped up in his own thoughts. About death, about things he wants to do before he disappears completely. Then there's her thumb on his arm, and there's something confusing, yet comforting; confusing, in that he never expects something like that from her, but the steady rhythm, the thought that if she thinks he's asleep, that she's doing something like this to help her is... nice. That he can be of some help, even indirectly.
It does help him, though, lulling him to an uneasy sleep. It's hard to sleep well when formless dread sparks equally as formless nightmares, but it's better than if he were alone. Erika's body next to him is more reassurance than anything his brain can conjure up. At some point during the night, he takes her hand in his, fingers resting atop the back of her hand in a loose hold.
But once he is actually asleep for good, he's an incredibly heavy sleeper. Erika will probably wake up before he does.]
[A good bit earlier than they usually, wake, to boot.
Erika's dreams go strange places. When she drops out of them at some indeterminate hour of the morning, three things rattle her awareness.
The first is weight and pressure and constriction. The stiff points of her shoulder and her ankle are now indistinct and unbearably heavy, pinning down her leg, her torso, locking movement between them like the claws of a vise. Breathing is hard; her left side is sewn together tight, pressing in, piercing if she wheezes too deeply.
The second thing; a noise on the edge of hearing, high-pitched and insistent. It pulls her out of sleep in long, jagged steps. She realizes that the noise is her own voice, a whine that starts to crest to a sobbing wail when she comes to, coming and going according to the breath on her lungs and according to -
- the third thing, the pain, seething at the surface and boiling over into shocking clarity when she wakes. She's familiar with pain, but not like this; flesh welded to metal and screaming at the contact, all up and down one useless arm and one useless leg and the infection digging roots into the tissues between her organs and around her spine and up the back of her neck. Petrifying, paralyzing, searing.
It hurts so much. It hurts so much. She can't think, and doesn't, scattered into a simple loop: feel, hurt, cry out, gasp for breath, repeat.]
[Even Hajime can't sleep through that. Her cries filter into his dreams, tightening his chest and furrowing his brow as it drags him slowly to wakefulness. He wasn't sure in the dream if it had been his own voice, but now that he's starting to become more aware, it's painfully obvious that it's not just a dream.]
E-Erika?!
[He tries to shift, realizes abruptly that she's heavy, dragging a grunt of confused pain from his lips as he turns his head. His hand comes up to try to hold her shoulder, touch her cheek, something, but there's nothing there. The faintest outline of a hand passes directly through her, doing absolutely no good at all.]
E-Erika, can you breathe? L-let me get you to the clinic, c'mon...
[He tries -- tries -- to wiggle out from beneath her, progress hampered by one (1) missing hand.]
[And then I let this sit for two weeks on writer's block so here's an extremely graceful montage scene transition to a different and less depressing part.
There's no getting to the clinic. There's setting up once more for a day of crisis - with the music the threat was less clear, raving madness and then something, but here the weight of death is tangible.
Erika manages - barely - in the bathroom once early in the day, and avoids having to do it again by not eating. The thought of trying is unappealing. It's probably not possible once the virus progresses. She tells Hajime where her tiny personal stash of pain medication is, takes a dose before her stomach goes, and the rest of the day...
It's still bad.
Being immobile doesn't leave her much to help Hajime with. She talks, mostly. Or coaxes him to. Make some noise, so you know where you are. Can you sing? Have you ever tried? Even kids' rhymes. So on and so forth, into existential terror and back.
And then.
And then the clock ticks over, and people die, but Erika doesn't. She wakes up from a groggy near-sleep, and once again expects Hajime to be gone. Once is hard, and twice is harder.
She doesn't try to call out at first. When she does, she finds that the top of her tongue went copper in her sleep. It hurts - but not the way it did yesterday. It's an aching, pulling pain, instead of a stabbing one. It could mean literally anything.]
...Hajime? [She slurs it out clumsily, not moving her neck, not trying to look around. If he's gone - he's gone. Once more, with a little more clarity in her voice, above a mumble.] Hajime?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It's five minutes after Erika's started waiting for him that he knocks on her door. He still knocks before letting himself in, even though they'd come to this arrangement before and this isn't the first time. He's just a polite boy.]
Hey. Sorry I'm late, I zoned out in the shower.
[He tries for a smile, tries to keep putting on a brave face for her. She has to know it's not always genuine, and he knows that she probably knows, but it's just one of those things he has to do for his own pride and sanity.
He's taken to wearing the jumpsuit more than his uniform, just because the long sleeves cover more skin in general. Skin that has a frightening tendency to reveal blood vessels, nerves, even organs and bone beneath it. His vocal chords work visibly in a semi-translucent throat, but he doesn't know enough to cover it.]
How're you doing? Are your joints still bothering you?
no subject
Not that late.
[Erika tells herself: the translucence isn't a bad thing, on its own. Disgusting to look at, but the visible flesh is healthy, and not exposed to the air; if you twist it around, if you think about it hard enough to turn it into a different way of thinking, the gruesome sight can be a bit relieving. Watch for black blood and rot, and feel content when none appears.]
Mmn. It's about the same as this morning. [Stiff ankle and shoulder on the left side, some hard patches of skin in unimportant areas - she doesn't and hasn't mentioned the radiating pain that comes and goes in waves, but that's just pain. Nothing to be done about it, except maybe take some of the painkillers she lifted from the medbay for emergencies, but it's not bad enough to call for that.
She rotates her ankle slowly, pressing against the resistance but not quite forcing it to grind.]
Did the fever ever come back?
no subject
Um... I don't think so.
[He brings a hand to his forehead, pauses when he realizes that while he can see tendons working beneath the skin, he can't... actually feel anything when he tries to touch his forehead. Which means one of two things: either he's lost feeling in his hand, again, or in his forehead. Or he just doesn't even have a forehead anymore, which is frightening, but not out of the question.]
I don't... think I can feel my hand, [he admits quietly, testing it by just touching the floor. Or, rather, smacking it against the floor, as if the sound of flesh striking decking is another point of evidence to prove that it is still there.]
no subject
Careful, [she whispers pointlessly, dropping from the chair and lifting the back of her hand to his forehead.
It's faintly, eerily light. She can't resist applying a bit of pressure - the circuit-board array of copper under her skin there cuts off sensation spottily.
The temperature seems normal, though.]
I think it's fine. [Then she picks his hand up - not slowly, but with care, efficiency with an edge of embarrassment. She presses her thumb into the meat of it, then the center of his wrist, tracking up towards his elbow experimentally with steady pressure.] Where does it stop?
no subject
[He can't help but flush lightly when she touches his forehead, closing his eyes and leaning gently against her hand. Even the pressure feels kind of nice, a solid reminder that yeah, she is here. He's not alone.
Then she takes his hand, and well, that's another intimate gesture that has his opening his eyes again, looking down at his own hand. His tendons work visibly through muscle as she presses down, the pressure closing his fingers slightly through no will of his own. He still can't feel it, but that doesn't mean the mechanics are messed up. Yet.]
Ah- there. Um... there.
[She's about halfway up his forearm when he speaks up, reaching with his other hand to gently take her wrist and position her fingers a centimeter lower.]
Right here.
[Rolling his sleeve up will reveal that the flesh is more normal above that point, less translucent and ghosty. For the moment.]
no subject
Don't watch if you don't want to. [There's an unusual gentle note embedded in her seriousness. She can't make him not try to...prove himself, or push himself, or whatever, but this is one of those ungraceful, practical things that she hopes he can just accept. Don't watch if you don't want to. Seeing yourself broken-down is a primal humiliation that laughs at strength and dignity, and Erika is willing to be present for that humiliation but not to pull him along through it.
The sleeve comes up gently, and she doesn't look too hard at the exposed veins and arteries, just glances them over for color and pulse (all good.) before looking at the junction of solidity and transparency. There - she presses her thumb into that point again, rubbing down a few times as though it would push sensation back into the affected part of his wrist.]
...It's got to be just the nerves. If the skin weren't see-through, everything would be completely normal.
no subject
It feels weird in a way he can't describe, feeling her rubbing his arm, seeing her continue down what's obviously his arm, but not being able to actually feel it. His fingers twitch again, and he wiggles them, as if that might somehow bring the feeling back, too. As if his hand had only fallen asleep.
It doesn't work, but he doesn't ask her to stop, either. It's not like she can actually feel the muscle skidding against her thumb.]
I... thought of that. About it just being the nerves, but...
[He brings up his free hand, touches his own cheek with a wince and remembering seeing his own jawbone through a hole in his flesh.]
It's... not always just my skin. But... what about you? Are you really okay?
no subject
And yet:
Hajime does not deserve to experience this.
Survival is the day-to-day goal. A trailing, denied wish flickers back to life and offers a second, more distant one: find the thing that's tormenting them all. Stop it from doing so, but also - and this time it'll work, or she'll burn herself out trying - make it hurt. Impress their pain upon it. That's what revenge is. If she can manage that, she won't have to cry about it.
She watches him touch his cheek, silent witness, and feels very weird and tired.]
I'm definitely on the better end. You know how much of a mess the clinic is. [She breathes out through her nose in a short sigh, looking off and into the bathroom, where Li's tail peeks out from the crevice behind the toilet.] I'm calling "able to walk around freely" good condition, at this point. If it...
[If it gets worse, people will die. She doesn't need to say that; Hajime probably knows it and doesn't want to hear it. She cuts that off.]
no subject
But, like he was telling Ryuji, the bonds they're forming on this station are stronger than most. He doesn't know that she's hurting, but he's seen the people in the clinic. And he reaches out with his other hand, the hand he can still feel with, and tries to take her hand away from his wrist, just holding it loosely.]
If it gets worse... we'll keep fighting it, [is what he says, quietly, and he's almost surprised to think that maybe he believes it, too. Almost.] I mean... whoever's running this station, whoever's experimenting on us, it's... it'd be pretty stupid to kill your own subjects, right? So... it'll be okay. I'm sure of it.
[He's... not sure of it at all, actually, considering people can be brought here without warning and disappear just as often, but it sounds like a good line. More importantly, he needs that reassurance himself.]
no subject
But she can't say, "they already did kill someone, and it was fine". She can't take Hajime by the shoulders and tell him, "when you are sick, when you are really sick, optimism past a certain point will kill the parts of you the sickness can't". It would fuck her up to do that to him. It will fuck her up to see him figure things like that out on his own.
She doesn't have the right energy to smile without meaning it, but she does add her other hand to the pile, gently squeezing Hajime's between her own. He's trying. She appreciates it. She's trying, too.]
If it's not okay, [she starts slowly, sounding cautious and earnest and absolutely awkward about it,] I'll be here the whole time. Without...being disgusted. Or thinking about what you should have done. Or worrying about my own pride.
no subject
[He doesn't know what to say. He feels like if he tries to say something, it'll just come out incoherent, a jumbled mess of words that don't quite string together properly.
So he doesn't. He just-- leans forward, a little, letting his head come to rest against her shoulder, forehead close to her neck. She'd be in desperate danger of being stabbed by his ahoge if it weren't wilting a little from exhaustion and stress.]
It's.. the same for me, you know? We're... in this together. Whatever that means.
no subject
...She's lucky that he's here, and he's himself. Warts and all.]
It...means a lot.
[Erika hesitates, then slips her arms under his and around his back, and copies the gesture, resting her face on his shoulder.]
no subject
Yeah, [he says quietly, closing his eyes and relaxing more comfortably against her.] It... means a lot to me, too. I'm... glad you're here with me, Erika.
[He exhales and tries to pull back. Not far, just enough to try to steal a glimpse of her face.]
Do you... want to lay down?
no subject
Weird thoughts aside...]
Mmm.
[Good timing. Her expression is somber, and contemplative, but mostly painted over with tired. In multiple senses of the word. Sleep is potentially a more permanent goodbye - now she can't shake the image of knocking out and waking up next to a dead body or nothing at all - but it is also vitally important and very, very compelling.
Erika gently disengages and lies down on her back, then immediately changes her mind and rolls onto her side, lifting her arm and waiting for Hajime to settle in.]
no subject
He lets her arrange herself first, waiting to see how she wants to position herself before climbing in next to her. If she's on her side, he'll lay down on his back, scooting a little closer as if to encourage her to lay against him. It's nice to think about cuddling face-to-face in theory, but in practice it's just too awkward for him, and it just ends up being way too warm to sleep.
He opens his mouth, about to say something along the lines of if something happens-- but stops himself. She already knows that. If something happens, she'll let their friends know.]
At least... we can still sleep, huh?
no subject
The setup is pretty perfect, though. Not stifling, but plenty of contact; not weird, but actually that's less because of the setup itself and more because they've brute-forced this into no longer being weird. Funny how that works. (Good thing it works that way.) She drapes her arm across him, taking pressure off her aching shoulder (here's hoping he stays tangible enough for that at least), and puts her face in his collarbone with a little huff of relief.]
I plan on it. [Mutter mutter.]
no subject
But that's probably nothing to worry about. Organs seem to be optional right now, limited time offer.]
Good night, [he murmurs, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and just letting his arm drape over hers. He might be disappearing, but he's not feverish, and he's not in pain. Just for now, trying to get some sleep, hoping this isn't the last thing he ever does... that should be enough, right?
But the thought that this is the last thing he'll ever do just lingers in his mind, tenses fingers that are more muscle than flesh against her shoulder. There's so much he wants to do, that he just-- can't. And might not ever get the chance to.]
no subject
Erika doesn't let herself think about home. She thinks about one kind of silence, and two kinds of silence, and the right-here-right-now importance of Hajime's presence. She stays awake until he's asleep or still enough to pass for it, puts her hand on his arm and runs her thumb back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
(Something for both of them to count. It helps.)]
no subject
It does help him, though, lulling him to an uneasy sleep. It's hard to sleep well when formless dread sparks equally as formless nightmares, but it's better than if he were alone. Erika's body next to him is more reassurance than anything his brain can conjure up. At some point during the night, he takes her hand in his, fingers resting atop the back of her hand in a loose hold.
But once he is actually asleep for good, he's an incredibly heavy sleeper. Erika will probably wake up before he does.]
no subject
Erika's dreams go strange places. When she drops out of them at some indeterminate hour of the morning, three things rattle her awareness.
The first is weight and pressure and constriction. The stiff points of her shoulder and her ankle are now indistinct and unbearably heavy, pinning down her leg, her torso, locking movement between them like the claws of a vise. Breathing is hard; her left side is sewn together tight, pressing in, piercing if she wheezes too deeply.
The second thing; a noise on the edge of hearing, high-pitched and insistent. It pulls her out of sleep in long, jagged steps. She realizes that the noise is her own voice, a whine that starts to crest to a sobbing wail when she comes to, coming and going according to the breath on her lungs and according to -
- the third thing, the pain, seething at the surface and boiling over into shocking clarity when she wakes. She's familiar with pain, but not like this; flesh welded to metal and screaming at the contact, all up and down one useless arm and one useless leg and the infection digging roots into the tissues between her organs and around her spine and up the back of her neck. Petrifying, paralyzing, searing.
It hurts so much. It hurts so much. She can't think, and doesn't, scattered into a simple loop: feel, hurt, cry out, gasp for breath, repeat.]
no subject
E-Erika?!
[He tries to shift, realizes abruptly that she's heavy, dragging a grunt of confused pain from his lips as he turns his head. His hand comes up to try to hold her shoulder, touch her cheek, something, but there's nothing there. The faintest outline of a hand passes directly through her, doing absolutely no good at all.]
E-Erika, can you breathe? L-let me get you to the clinic, c'mon...
[He tries -- tries -- to wiggle out from beneath her, progress hampered by one (1) missing hand.]
no subject
There's no getting to the clinic. There's setting up once more for a day of crisis - with the music the threat was less clear, raving madness and then something, but here the weight of death is tangible.
Erika manages - barely - in the bathroom once early in the day, and avoids having to do it again by not eating. The thought of trying is unappealing. It's probably not possible once the virus progresses. She tells Hajime where her tiny personal stash of pain medication is, takes a dose before her stomach goes, and the rest of the day...
It's still bad.
Being immobile doesn't leave her much to help Hajime with. She talks, mostly. Or coaxes him to. Make some noise, so you know where you are. Can you sing? Have you ever tried? Even kids' rhymes. So on and so forth, into existential terror and back.
And then.
And then the clock ticks over, and people die, but Erika doesn't. She wakes up from a groggy near-sleep, and once again expects Hajime to be gone. Once is hard, and twice is harder.
She doesn't try to call out at first. When she does, she finds that the top of her tongue went copper in her sleep. It hurts - but not the way it did yesterday. It's an aching, pulling pain, instead of a stabbing one. It could mean literally anything.]
...Hajime? [She slurs it out clumsily, not moving her neck, not trying to look around. If he's gone - he's gone. Once more, with a little more clarity in her voice, above a mumble.] Hajime?