IC contact for lastvoyages

[cactusy]

[If I don't have an active post up, feel free to use this post to have your character call, videochat, text, or knock on Shaw's door.]

Comments

dated to March 30th-ish; open to both Steve and B!

[cactusy]

When Shaw first wakes up, she groans quietly, rolls over, and buries her face in a pillow, a position she does not move from for several hours. Eventually, though, she'll resurface and read the note.

She doesn't send Steve or B a text, but she doesn't leave, either. Whenever she's next checked on, she'll be lying on her back, staring blankly at the ceiling.

[worthallthis]

B doesn't have food when he comes by, but when he unlocks and opens the door, he suddenly wishes he did. He does, however, have the dogs, so Libby and D will have to do for now. "Good morning," he says from the doorway, dogs on their leashes clearly sniffing hopefully in her direction. "Can we come in?"

[cactusy]

"We have to stop meeting like this," she deadpans, because goddamn buddy, you've had to help deal with her dead body two times in a row now. "It's your place; I'm not gonna kick you out."

She flops an arm off the bed, wiggling her fingers at the dogs.

[worthallthis]

"Technically it's Steve's place, but he never uses it since he lives with me," B says, but he does come in. "Dogs incoming," he warns, letting their leashes go when he closes the door behind him and both of them come to jump up onto the bed, trying to vie for petting and even face licking. "Just tell them no if you don't like it."

[cactusy]

She lets out a small oof when a paw lands on her stomach, but doesn't shoo them off. There are two dogs, and she has two hands, so both Libby and D get copious amounts of pats and scratches.

"Getting kinda sick of this," she says, still staring at the ceiling. "Tell Greer he should restart."

The idea that this is just another simulation is at the forefront of her mind now, post-breach. But she is, perhaps, choosing B as the person to say this to because she wants to hear him tell her that she's wrong.

[worthallthis]

Dogs get petting, D licks her face, though Libby is polite enough not to lick anything but fingers. B comes to sit at the foot of the bed, unclipping leashes so they don't smack anybody. It also gives him a second to put together who exactly Greer is and match it to her particular brand of trauma.

"Wish I could, but I'm pretty sure this ain't the simulation. You got out." He pats her foot gently. "And I'm pretty sure nothing they did was as weird as putting you into the zombie apocalypse, right?"

[cactusy]

"Could be mixing it up," she murmurs, closing her eyes for a moment. "I hope you're wrong."

She wants to hear him tell her she's wrong, without telling her she's crazy (no matter how crazy she feels). But she also wants him to be wrong. It's a confusing little contradiction, even to her.

"Sorry," she says wryly, swallowing. "Guess it's kind of shitty to tell someone you hope they're not real."

[worthallthis]

"I don't think you're hoping I'm not real so much as the situation," B muses. "Besides, there's a chance my deal will make that happen, anyway. If I go through with it." Guess who's the first person he's ever told that to is? Her!

He pats the bed and Libby and D both settle down, D sprawled across Shaw's chest and Libby against her side. "But if it helps, I don't think I'm wrong. I feel pretty real."

[cactusy]

"That makes one of us." But she frowns a little, shifting to sit up on her elbows and wincing at the movement. "Your deal will-- is this because of that 'going to live on another world' thing?"

[worthallthis]

"No, that's not my... original deal. Original deal, that I bargained for when I called the Admiral to take me back, is that the serum never takes in me. I die back in World War 2, either on that table being experimented on or in a long fall from a train. Which means maybe I don't exist anymore, because I came to the Barge seventy years after that." He shrugs a little. "I don't know."

[cactusy]

She studies him for a long moment, her arm curled around D to keep him cradled against her chest. She's clearly woozy, and clearly disoriented, but her eyes are more focused than they were a few minutes ago.

"Steve know?" she asks, after a pause. She doesn't sound indignant, or upset. And if the answer is no, there's nothing in her tone that indicates that she plans to tell him.

[worthallthis]

Which may be one of several reason he told her. Getting her outside her own head right now seems like a good idea.

And also, she might actually kind of understand the need to share something important, when she's shared so much already.

"As of right now, only folks who know are me, the Admiral, and now you," B shrugs. He didn't even tell Lark, when he told Lark everything else about that shitty, shitty situation. If he told Steve, he knows Steve would freak out, and that's the last thing he wants. Especially since: "I might change it, if I ever get a permanent inmate. I don't know yet."

[cactusy]

She nods.

"Okay. Why?"

It's not that she can't fathom why - in fact, she can think of several potential reasons right off the bat. She doesn't want to assume the reasons she can think of would be his, though.

[punched_hitler]

Steve finds out from B that Shaw is up; he appears a little later with some clean clothes in what he thinks are close to her size from the wardrobe and a couple of cookies bundled into a handkerchief in case she's not nauseous.

He knocks very quietly on the door to his cabin, announcing, "Hey, it's Steve," before opening the door.

[cactusy]

She's been dozing off and on, but she's awake again right now - staring at the paper taped to the wall, reading the message over and over again. It's a small thing, one that probably took him only a few minutes to do up. But it helps.

"Hey," she says when he comes in, though she doesn't sit up or look at him.

[punched_hitler]

He'd thought it up originally for B - so he wouldn't come out of his first coma disoriented and not knowing what was going on. It had seemed like something that would help Shaw, too.

"So, you're really a go big or go home kinda gal, huh? Gotta pile a coma on top of a death toll. It's shitty you don't get to just skip the toll if you've gotta be out," he says, keeping his voice soft as he closes the door behind him.

[cactusy]

"Lost all my tats, though," she says, taping a bare wrist. Still, she's not really cut up over it. That just means she gets to do them all over again, and - as she's told several people - she likes the process.

"B doing okay? I know breaches weren't great for him in the beginning, and I might've freaked him out a little."

He'd held his own just fine when she'd started yammering about restarting the simulation, but she figures he'd still probably been a little worried.

[punched_hitler]

"Yeah," Steve agrees, though, "You still have the gun, right?" So, she can just redo them. That seems like the tack she'll want to take, given what they mean to her.

He sets the clothes and cookies down on the bedside table and drops into the chair. "He seems all right, yeah." As all right as anyone, after that breach, but at least he hadn't been infected or killed. Steve is grateful for that. "How'd you freak him out?"

[cactusy]

"I told him to find Greer and restart the simulation, because this one was starting to get boring." She closes her eyes against both the memory, as well as the impulse to say something similar now, because the feeling that this can't be real is stronger than ever. But in case she's wrong, and it is--

"Stupid thing to say to him of all people. I don't know if hearing that would've made things harder for him."

[punched_hitler]

"What, zombies aren't exciting enough for you?" Steve points out casually, leaning back in the chair and considering.

"You didn't mention resetting him, so you probably didn't do as badly as you think you did," he finally decides, though of course he can't really speak for B. But that's what he'd think would be the worse option to suggest, and that's not quite how her world works.

[cactusy]

"I wouldn't do that," she says, fishing for the cookies and dragging them over rather than getting up out of bed. "Just-- telling him he's not real is the kind of slip-up I don't wanna repeat."

[punched_hitler]

"I know," he says - at least, to the first part.

And as for the second, "For his sake, or yours?" He could see it going either way, or both, maybe.

[cactusy]

"For his," she says. "Better safe than sorry, right?"

[punched_hitler]

Steve can't help the little smile that crosses his face. He won't ever object to someone else caring about B. But, "He's okay," he reiterates. "I mean, we all knew your first breach wasn't gonna be a picnic after, even without all the extra trimmings."

Dying, falling into a coma - yeah. Yeah. Waking up probably sucked. A lot. "So. He's okay. How are you? Now?"

[cactusy]

The way she pauses before answering says plenty; the way she rolls over and looks back at the sign on the wall, half-eaten cookie still in her hand, says more.

"Fine," she murmurs. "I guess."