ataraxion | text | your halo slipping down to choke you now

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text | your halo slipping down to choke you now

[Jane had to do it sooner or later. It's embarrassing, yeah, but everyone will know sooner or later, living on top of each other like this.]

Hey, ship.

I need a sponsor. Like an NA sponsor. Or AA, I'm not picky. Anyone who's up for helping someone get through the 12 steps. If you have any experience--or don't, you're just interested--I'll tell you more.

Also, where can someone find a decent conditioner around here? Please tell me I don't have to keep using the one in the showers. It's giving me split ends.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She switches to audio. This guy seems okay enough.]

Thanks, but that's not exactly what I need. And what are you, a cheerleader?

Not exactly, no. They said I didn't have the legs for the uniform.

So what do you need? Tell me.

I need another addict.

[Jesse and Lisbeth can't sponsor her, she knows that. They're too close to the problem--to her.]

Or even just someone who knows the program. I left my Big Book in another universe. I probably have half of it memorized, by now, but that doesn't really help. I need someone to keep me honest.

I wish I was more familiar with it. It's not the sort of thing anyone should have to go through alone.

Yeah.

[She sucks on her cigarette like it's personally offended her.]

It's not as if it's your fault, unless this ship includes time travel and you really wanted to mess with a sixteen-year-old.

I wouldn't.

Is that what happened though? When it started?

Yeah.

[That's a lot of monosyllables, and she's annoyed with herself. But she's not proud of this, she doesn't flaunt it like a mark of how hard she is. She used to, when she was still a kid, but now it's just a weight on her. The scars of injection points and abcesses. The hospital visits, the rehab, all the things she regrets.]

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I think we all have those ideas at sixteen.

[His voice goes a little softer at that, because none of this is his business, and he's never been an addict and can't claim to know what it's like. But that doesn't stop him from caring about another human...or other species, now that he's aboard a spaceship.]

But then we get a little older and wiser - good lord I'm starting to sound like my father. Now that's depressing.

[Sometimes Jane forgets that most people feel sympathy when they hear her story. The people at the NA meetings have been there and worse; her father knows everything; everyone else she associates with knows addicts.

So this guy is a good person. She forgets how to deal with those.]

Consider it forgotten. [She smiles.] Believe me, I know better now. Hence all the quitting.

Wiser and braver.

I'm Noah, one of the new passengers, for lack of a better term.

Me too. And personally I favour 'alien abductees'. It has a nice ring to it.

And I am from New Mexico, so in a horrible way it makes a lot of sense.

New Mexico. Never made it that far west when I visited the states. But all right, now I have to ask: do you think it was really a weather balloon that crashed back in the 40's?

Last week I would have said weather balloon.

Now I'm fairly sure it was aliens.

Let's hope these are better pilots.

Well, now you jinxed it. We're all going to crash in New Mexico and die. Good work.

I'm Jane.

[Noah grimaces, because that's just a. Terrible thought.]

Nice to meet you, Jane. Sorry about the jinxing. I'll rub my stomach while turning in a circle to remove it.

And do you have a name, or can I call you Sunshine Bear?

[Because tummy rubbing.]

Noah Hill, but I'd answer to Sunshine Bear. I'm sure I've been called worse.

Noah, huh? As in the rainbow sign?

Admittedly an odd choice for parents who weren't even religious. My brother's name is Adam. What do you reckon the odds of 'Mary' if I'd had a sister?

Mary or Chastity. I'd put money on it, I'm that sure.

What about you? Any brothers or sisters? Ones that you'd claim, of course.

No. I'm an only child. That's probably why I'm such a brat. It's just me and my dad.

Were the two of you close?

[Why does he have to ask that? She's quiet for a while, too long, and answers softly:]

We used to be.

[Before she got too old to be controlled. Before he got so scared of how she hurt herself. Before everything got fucked up.]