† 009 [31 july, shortly after fitz's post]

[klutziness]

[even though the feed is garbled, rikkus' frustration and something akin to fear are clear in her voice]

Don't be ▒▓▒▓ing idiots. Get to medbay or somewhere not en▒▓neering! Trust me, you don't want a▒▓ of what's here.

[there's a short pause]

I need my engineering cr▒▓ on deck though. Stay together, stay safe. Find Fitz, stick with him. He'll ▒▓▓▒▒▒

[the feed abruptly cuts to white noise]

Comments

[dogbane]

when is the last time you won a fight against exploding in a giant fireball plus or minus imploding vacuum of space using technology you didn't know shit about?

can you tell me how you managed

because that would make any of your fucking arguments sound actually sane

short of that.

[forgodssake]

we are losing William

listen to Gunnery, listen to Flight
listen to what's happening in Engineering

[dogbane]

not to be rude but

you could be equally well-served by shooting yourself in the head and taking a walk out of the airlock.

you know, leave the rest of us out of it.

take your friends!

[forgodssake]

please continue to be a ridiculous muppet
maybe you won't scare everyone off the only choice we have left available to us after all

[ BYE FELICIA. ]

[dogbane]

jesus fucking christ.

i know you're probably off the charts in terms of standard intelligence measurements and probably have some kind of degree in sciences that are completely irrelevant to any at hand, but

if you really think that's the only choice we've got left, that's



well, at any rate, welcome to name-calling. my best friend's kid has got a broken leg. i am glad you think yourself qualified to euthanize him.

[forgodssake]

[ hello felicia ]

I think it's the only choice we have left because I'm paying attention to what is happening around me and allow me to repeat myself:
we are losing

and in case you haven't noticed, we have in fact survived jumps before
quite a few times actually
you could make yourself useful and start preparing said children for grav couches

[dogbane]

[hello

butt]

losing sucks

dying sucks more

this jump is not going to be like every other jump, it was the idea of one charlotte daniau who thinks it is likely we will die

your explicit preference of gory mass death over capture is noted as is your decision to be a condescending cunt. the fact you've made your choice does not mean no one else has got one.

text. 1/2.

[forgodssake]

[ He actually deletes his entire message upon the realisation mid-sentence that William is acting out for a reason, probably, and you shall never see it!! ]

you got me there

telepathy. 2/2.

[forgodssake]

Did you kiss your mother with that mouth.

[ Here, Charles crouches as a silent presence within the other man's skull, monitoring how much of this vitriol aimed at him is genuine. Not really there to kick him unconscious or rearrange anything. This time.

Just making sure. ]

[dogbane]

Piss off.

[William doesn't think about his mother, thanks to the amount of cognitive noise otherwise filling his skull. There's Takeshi's tiny broken leg, the hubbub of Medical Bay, bleeding, tremoring in the floor, and the distant roar of collisions. So much fear.

And mingled in with all that, the urge that is uncharacteristic for William, to run out and punch one of those Jump enthusiast motherfuckers in the head.]

[forgodssake]

In a moment.

[ He doesn't think there's a hell of a lot he can do. Not unless he wants to compromise the leadership of the medical bay because William's feeling fighty, not to mention the fall out that would be of him apparently putting someone who was mean to him in a coma.

He's sunk commands into William's brain before, but not in direct conflict with an ineffable space demon.

Fuck. ]

You're not thinking your own thoughts, William. You have impulses and feelings that aren't coming from you. It's happened to you before, and it's happening now.

[dogbane]

Lovely! And suppose these impulses and feelings were inclined to agree with yours.

We'd still be having this fucking brain conversation, wouldn't we?

[He's angry but his hands are gentle on the pain pills that he's dividing for child-sized doses.

--and it's telling, too. Even before the first flicker of uncertainty to reach William's mind, it's important to note that Heather isn't so very far away.

She isn't in William's field of vision, as Charles can see through his mind's eye, but a distinct presence behind him, hanging over Takeshi's shoulder. And underneath the heavy sediment of fear, frustration, the remote cacophony of destruction elsewhere on the ship, William knows what Heather wants. She'd rather die than be taken. She'd rather die than Takeshi be taken. She has lived on this ship long enough to have the right to this choice; she has been Takeshi's mother long enough to have the right to that choice. And anyway, the fact it's what she wants would ordinarily be enough.

Not today.]

Who do you bloody think you are?

[forgodssake]

Illogically, your friend. But not as much as Heather is.

[ He won't admit to anyone in writing that he is terrified of what would happen to Raven, at her weakest now, if they tried to surrender. It's not the bigger picture.

But he understands it, and what William knows what Heather is going through. ]

You're acting out concern for her boy, but you know what she wants for him. And you don't care, do you. It's making you not care.

Come on, William, you can resist it.

[dogbane]

[William wavers. But then Takeshi's voice pipes up dimly in the clamor behind him, and he hardens.]

It's got to have been at least forty seconds.

Piss off time.

[And underlying that, some unkind thought about what Charles' concern looks like, in comparison to, you know, the infinitessimally thin but extremely cold layer of ice that his lack thereof has come to resemble in their recent acquaintance.]