ataraxion | first story

[ When the feed switches on, Roy is sitting, as always, in his bed in the medbay. His tablet is seated on the table in front of him, and Roy has his arms folded neatly on his lap. ]

You know, I think life on a spaceship in space should be the least thing from boring. [ He pauses, and chuckles, a bitter sound. ] But then again, there's never anything to do for a guy who can't walk. It's a good thing I'm so good at entertaining myself.

[ He cracks a smile. It's an ugly expression. ]

I've been reading. Useful things, these tablets, the way they store so many books so you don't have to bug anyone else to try to bring you some while you're stuck in bed. [ Dramatic pause. ]

There's this book I read about a young man named Werther. He falls in love with a girl named Lotte, and she has the most beautiful black eyes. [ His smile softens at the edges. ] He's passionately, deeply in love with her, and he would have married her, but from their very first meeting she tells him that she's already engaged to another man, named Albert.

Werther tries, oh he tries, to be a good friend to both of them. But he loves Lotte too much, so eventually he has to go away to somewhere else. But he can't stay away for long, so he goes back to Lotte and Albert and realises they have gone and gotten themselves married. [ At this point of his narration, Roy laughs, and he turns away from the camera, looking off to the distance. ] Lotte tells Werther that she can't see him much anymore, because she's married now, you see.

"Life's blossoms are only appearances. So many pass and leave not a trace, so few of their fruits set, so few of those ripen." Or so Werther says. There's nowhere left for him to go. He can't have her; he can't kill Albert so he can have her; he can't stop loving her either. There's only one thing he can do. So Werther shoots himself in the head. [ He looks back to the camera, looks beyond it, and takes a glass of water and sips at it. ]

It's the best possible thing that could've happened to him. [ Is Roy talking about Werther anymore? He doesn't even know himself. ] If he didn't shoot himself, he'll be constantly reminded of what he can't have, everything he has lost. You see, there's nothing quite so painful than to have to keep breathing when every breath turns out to be... [ he makes a gesture in the air ] hollow.

[ A pause, and he smiles again. Changes the subject. ]

On the subject of books, I'm looking for a poem by a man named Keats. Something about a nightingale? Does anyone know it? [ He tilts his head, and gives another hollow smile. ] It won't stop bugging me.

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[ Merry pauses, and takes those words to heart, to ponder them. ]

I suppose there aren't words to describe it. That moment after the crushing ache is gone.

When you remember what living is for, again.

[ When you learn that there are people to live for, yet. When the cloud of one's own despair brought to the front of one's mind by the Black Shadow is gone at last.

The thing most like it, Merry thinks, is the triumphant blow of the horn Eowyn and Eomer had gifted him, those rising notes of bright hope. Nay, of victory and hearts thrumming in unison.

Merry knows of despair, of worthlessness. It is one of his closet demons, one he will always fight. The way Frodo would ever fight the hold the Ring had held over him for so long. ]

[ He looks at Merry for a long moment before he closes his eyes. Roy is barely conscious of what he's doing; not when he turns his head and reaches outwards, his hand stretching towards the far distance as if trying to hold onto something that's just barely beyond reach.

Then he drops his hand, rubbing his knuckles against the sides of his eyes. He laughs to himself, a burbling thing, and his eyes are fierce and bitter and almost hurt as he lifts them up to Merry. ]

That's easy enough for you to say. [ His voice is hoarse. ] Pretty words, hollow in the middle.

[ His hand clenches on the blankets, the white of his bone showing against the skin. ]

[ His instinctual reaction is one of hurt, but he takes another moment to think on it. ]

That is true enough. It has been some time since I have been brought so low by my despair and grief.

[ Years, it has been; though some of those cares are rekindled, and those worries returned, he still has the calm and the deep assurance that these, too, will pass. Meriadoc meets those eyes, hurt and aching, and finds himself feeling that hurt and ache for him. His eyes show kindness, and gentless, but also empathy, should one care to look at the creases in the corners of so young a face, and the ache of a phantom pain on one shoulders. ]

I would help you find your light, if I can. [ Perhaps that light is an end, the light at the end of a tunnel, at the end of a voyage–to a land of peace and light, but Merry thinks this grief will find its end without the ending of one great story of this man, at least. ]

Edited 2013-07-27 06:35 (UTC)

[ Some time, the young man says, and Roy wonders if it's true. If it's possible to have that empathy for him; to have felt such hurt and despair and to have moved on beyond it. He knows, intellectually, that it's true; that there are people who have moved beyond it. But at the same time, he doesn't want it to be true, because if that's the case, it means there is hope for him.

And Roy has gotten very, very tired of hope.

So instead he says: ]

I don't like light anymore. [ He tries to keep his words casual, but there is far too much viciousness hidden in the corners of his mouth and eyes. ] I'd rather have darkness, so there's nothing else to be seen.

[ Merry doesn't quite know what to say. To him, darkness has come to mean cold and loneliness and evil. Darkness means the sun will not rise, and the deep struggles and aches and terrors of an eternal night with the tortures of the Black Breath. He can't fathom wanting that.

But he knows well enough that such things are not everyone's experience. ]

I wish you peace, then, however you may find it.

[ A pause, and a tentative smile. He feels oddly young again, like a child, trying to talk to this man. ]

I hope I might see you again, before that time comes.

[ He is ever young, and hopeful, and full of joy, but he is not stupid. He knows (or, at the very least, strongly suspects) what this man truly wishes for ]

[ Merry takes him by surprise again. ]

Why would you want to? You don't even know my name, much less me.

[ This, of all things, is perhaps the one Merry expects to be the least surprising. ]

There are a great many people whose name I don't know, or can't remember, that I honor and care for. [ So many died, so many are lost, he wonders which ones he never knew, and which one's he has blocked from his memory elst the grief become too much to bear. ]

And you are very kind, and I should like to know you better, before you go.

[ If you go. The protest is strong in Merry's mind, but he will not voice it here. ]

Forgive me, for being over-friendly. I do not wish to burden you unwanted.

I'm not kind. You don't really want to know me better, because I'm an asshole. [ A little flatly, and his smile is sharp, trying to prove his own point even while saying it. ]

You're unbelievable. What's the use of caring about people you don't even know?

If you weren't kind, you wouldn't be telling me and trying to keep me away.

[ Merry isn't the best psychoanalyst, but this looks an awful lot like Frodo before sailing. He shrugs. ]

I think you want to leave. Permanently. But you are hurt, and you don't want to hurt other people the way you are hurt, so you push them away.

[ He laughs, but it's soft, and rather self-deprecating. ]

We are well matched in that, I think. I refuse to be pushed away, and I will carry that hurt with me to the end of my days, because it is worth the smiles that come with it.

[ He smiles again, more genuine this time. ]

Little use, I imagine, but it's nice to know that someone cares enough that they don't mind the hurting.

In any case, it is not as though I can flip a switch and stop caring. Might as well make the best of it.

[ He is, perhaps, a little too cheerful, but that is his way, to drown hurts with happiness, and carry his grief quietly. War makes life so much more precious, even if you don't know who it belongs to. ]

[ I think you want to leave. Permanently. But you are hurt, and you don't want to hurt other people the way you are hurt, so you push them away.

He doesn't even know this person's name, and they have seen through him so completely. Roy barely realises it, but his hand is clenched so hard that his nails are digging into his palm even through the layers of blanket. He can't breathe- can't, because this stranger is calling him kind, telling him he's a good person and stripping him bare, exposing his muscles and nerves and hurt into the cold, cold air.

Roy stares at him, without speaking. He lets him finish, trying to calm his breath, his voice. (He shouldn't be able to feel anymore. He doesn't want to anymore. Why is it so difficult to have what he wants even when it's something that should be simple?) ]

You don't know anything about me. [ Strangled, and he's leaning in, eyes flashing. Angry. ] You don't know anything.

[ I almost made a small girl into a murderer, he thinks wildly, the words on the tip of his tongue. I nearly forced her to kill me unwillingly because I'm a selfish bastard, he thinks, and his shoulders shake from the very thought. I'm a terrible person and I don't deserve to live.

He stares at the stranger for another moment before he leans back on the bed. Picks up the tablet and lifts it, almost theatrically. Then it holds it over to the side and drops it to the ground.

It switches off. ]

I-

[ That's all Merry manages to say before the connection is cut, and he flinches back at the sharp crack of it hitting the floor before the device powers off. He can't help but feel a bit awful, since it seems like he'd hurt his new... friend. He'd have to keep an eye out for Roy.

He would sincerely like to meet the other man, and perhaps be more helpful than this terribly botched job over a simple communication device.

Merry wants to laugh a little bit, he really ought to stop caring for people. ]

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