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[reargunner]

ᴛᴇxᴛ | ᴀᴜᴅɪᴏ | ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ | ᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ



Leave a message if you want. I'll get back to you when I pick my comm up.

Or I won't.

Comments

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Yeah, you're right. Obtainable for me in some world," he agrees. "I just - I don't know. The weird shit that happens here - with the shoes and the ice and whatnot - that hurts less than the stuff that could be more normal. Like the cruise. Like this fucking port. Always takes me a while to get my head back on straight after. That's all."

[reargunner]

"Oh, yeah."

So that's it. He shrugs a bit and taps a little ash away over the side of the railing. Alexei tends to find those kinds of things more annoying in the aftermath than not. A little taste of freedom to remind him that he doesn't actually have any. Knowing that Jacob can technically leave any time he wants does add a certain note of hollowness to the concern, but he decides to not lash out with that.

Alexei just closes his eyes for a moment, breathing in deep through his nose.

"Weird shit always ends up feeling like a bad dream after."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

Jacob knows that he's still trapped here. Going "home" means back into the lion's den, and part of his graduation is knowing he can never return. He has no other place to go, and getting off on any old world is as risky as heading out into a port, only there's no Admiral to fall back on, no papers, no identification, no knowledge of the culture, no anything.

He knows he can leave, but that's a small comfort.

He doesn't look over at him, letting him have his peace.

"Yeah. Breaches are a headfuck like that, too."

[reargunner]

"Haven't really been hit by one of those too badly yet."

Breaches, that is. They've either been avoidable or, like the last one, he simply hasn't been conscious for it. Not to say he's not aware of them happening, but the Narrenschiff being a thing not long after he got on board the Barge still eclipses most other events that have taken place thanks to the Admiral's poor directional skills.

"Probably better that way. I have enough going on without having my head fucked with like that too."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

Jacob breathes out. "Got - a couple of friends that way. Which helps. But it feels like cheating when the side effect is just another life that makes no sense. My first one? I had some sort of wolf with me but she was also my soul? I don't know. Fucking weird."

[reargunner]

"Having another life stuck in my head sounds like a fucking nightmare to deal with. Hard pass on that."

Even if it did forge new relationships, he'd always doubt that anything about them was real when the life they came from never really existed.

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Hopefully you're down for the next one," he remarks. Because those relationships are everything to him, but like all relationships, they're hard fought and hard won. He cherishes them, but he doesn't know if he'd want to go through everything again.

"Last time, though, Ro and I were married," he remarks lightly. "Kinda - got me thinking..."

[reargunner]

"Whatever it got you thinking, that's your personal business."

He's not quite in the right sort of frame of mind to be speculating on things like the future and marriage with any kind of optimism. Alexei just shakes his head.

"If I'm lucky I'll never have to deal with it. But it'll probably get me at some point."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

Something like hurt, like pain, crosses Jacob's features and he looks away, nodding. "It will suck but - you've got a while until it happens again. They space this shit out."

He glances over the railing, following the light of the ash. "Or we'll get kidnapped again or whatever."

[reargunner]

"Or whatever. I know how it works here."

A shrug.

"It's gonna happen if I like it or not, so either I worry about it or I don't give it space in my head." He's going to choose the latter, with more than enough complicated shit taking up space in his mind without concerning himself with maybes and potentials or worries about being kidnapped again.

"Rather focus on what few good things I got going for me on this shitheap."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Yeah? What do you have going on?" he wonders, his hands on the railing as he fully leans his weight on it.

[reargunner]

There's a brief pause as he takes another drag of his cigarette.

"Time to do the things I want to do without some asshole breathing down my neck." Smoke wisps lightly out from between his lips while he speaks. "Friends. Abel, when he's not got his head up his ass."

When things are good between them they're really good. Just. Things haven't always been good lately.

"Florian."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

He smiles a little, just a moment, to hear someone's name in there who isn't Abel. Not because he doesn't think they could work together, but because Alexei needs to have other people to rely on. Other people who are important to him in different ways.

"Yeah, that shit's worth keeping around." Jacob always had a problem with time, but he's glad Alexei doesn't.

[reargunner]

Another shrug. He turns his head away slightly so Jacob doesn't see the flicker of embarrassment. He doesn't discuss his relationships with many people for a reason.

"You find what good things you can when everything else is complete bullshit. Gets real dark otherwise."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Yeah, I know," he agrees. "Was that way for me the first few months I was here. It's - why I asked Norton for Mae," he admits. "Got me out of my room, gave me something to do. She couldn't feed herself, so I had to do it. She couldn't open the door and walk out, so I had to. Baby steps, man."

[reargunner]

"Found myself things to do. I'd be kicking holes in the walls otherwise."

He knows his own temperament. Rotting in depression in his room just isn't his thing, at least not as a long term problem.

"Never liked hanging around in the cabin. Doesn't feel right."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

It's the way Jacob used to be.

He's glad that Alexei's escaped it.

"Good. Glad you got shit to do." He shifts a little on his feet. "But uh - speaking of Mae, I should go check on her. You gonna be alright, Alexei?"

He asks not because he's worried about him now, but because everything has seemed so goddamn weird and off. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do or say, but he isn't going to leave him hanging like he did at port.

[reargunner]

He lets out a little snort.

"Yeah."

And then he puts his cigarette out against the railing before flicking the butt out over the side.

"You know me. I'm always all right."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Uh huh. Yeah. Bout as much as me." He gives him a mock of a salute.

"Thanks for the drink, though. I needed that more than I thought. See you around. We still gotta do that ice fishing," he tells him as he heads for the door.