exsiliumlogs | C'est la mort. (Open)

Entry tags:

C'est la mort. (Open)

Date & Time:Tonight, around 7.
Location:The viewing windows.
Characters:Anyone who knew Peace or who might stop to pay respects at a memorial even if they didn't know her.
Summary:A memorial gathering for an Exsile who ceased to exist with the most recent world change.
Warnings:Tears, cursing, bitterness? Not sure yet. People can label threads as they come up. Everyone is free to make their own and jump around. Prose and action are both fine.

It's a waste of emergency torches, but there are a few set up around anyway, lit that soft unearthly blue of emergency lighting. The flowers are paper, clumsily folded from discharge sheets, some from the prison, some from the clinic. There are no photos. All of the ones she was in before are empty spaces, or pictures of Stanley or others who'd been holding her at the time. The music is strings, playing softly from a haphazardly tossed tablet. There are no chairs. Instead, every pillow from 144 is on the ground as seating.

Stanley isn't sitting on one, though. He's standing at the window, staring down at the planet so far below. Today, he's combed his hair. It's still in his eyes because it's too long, but he's made the effort to tame it at any rate.

He's not sure how to start things off, but if someone shows up he'll greet them. That's what you do, right? So that's what he does.

"Thanks for coming."

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"I dunno, I never read the sign out front."

He's been to wherever his mother took him, because his farther would have insisted on cutting it all off. At least moms understood about things like romantic gestures in the form of haircuts. Besides, even if he'd grown it out for someone else, he likes it. It keeps his neck and ears warm, and it's great for ducking behind when he just doesn't want to look at something.

It's just the not being able to see anything anymore part that's started sucking.

"I was going to say I'm probably better than they are, but if you don't know the name, it's not so reassuring!" His eyes start to emerge from his hair hideaway with each deliberate snip. She gives him shorter, accidentally looking layered bangs, just from how she cuts up and not straight across.

"Ever thought of just shaving everything?"

He looks nice with longer hair, but she knows personal preference is all over the place.

That gets a reaction. Okay, so he hadn't cared before, but now he's not sure he's alright with this after all. Stanley ducks out of range and puts his hands protectively over his hair.

"What are you doing? Jesus. No!"

It'd sure make his father happy if he went back home with a military cut. So it's got three strikes against it before he's even willing to give it a try. Sure, hair grows back, but he doesn't have any hats to keep his head warm. And girls don't think shaved heads are sexy unless you're a tough guy.

She has to laugh, glad he's reacting, even if it's over the top. It's a release. "Relax, all I've got are scissors, not an electric shaver on me! What exactly do you think I'm going to do to you?" Collette shakes her head, lowering her hand with the scissors.

"I don't know what you do for revenge."

He grumbles, having seen some impressively cold servings of that dished out. But she's laughing, so it's probably not the case. Stanley glances nervously at Collette one more time, but he drops his hands away and leans forward for her again.

It's a story she gathers in bits and pieces. One she wants to hear more completely from him, if he'll speak, in this aftermath of heartbreak that had always been coming.

"Why do you seem so afraid of me?" There's no malice in her asking, only the can't of her head as she tugs on her hair with nimble, rough fingers, scissors snipping with more careful precision as she begins working on the hair around one ear.

"I wasn't trying to kill you."

That's...not exactly the long winded explanation that Collette has apparently been waiting for, but it's what Stan coughs up when he's cornered. It's true, anyway. That day that he'd found her...he hadn't meant any harm.

He'd been trying to help her. Protect her. Take care of her. She was sick. He wouldn't have wanted to be left alone in an alley if he was sick. That was all. But he'd fucked it up. She knew all of that, though. The only part she didn't know, not for sure, was that he'd been trying to help her. He just hadn't wanted her to die.

"... I don't get it. Of course you weren't! What's that supposed to mean?"

What the heck had Stan been accused of by Stephanie? Collette shakes her head. "Nevermind, it doesn't matter. I never thought you were, and if anyone did, well, they're being dumb, and they know better."

Much, much better. Even Caesar, who hated to admit to any wrong, had admitted being angry at her benefactor wasn't the logical response, simply the emotional one. She kind of liked that -- but not at Stan's expense.

He glances up at her again, trying to gauge her sincerity. It doesn't seem like she's faking him out, but he's not always a stunning judge of people's intentions.

He frowns a little and nods, apparently not as concerned about the scissors near his face as some people would be. "I didn't know who to call. If...uh. If it happened again, I'd-"

Well. Actually, he's not sure that Stephanie is the one he should call in that situation. Apparently she didn't hurt Collette, either. And yeah, he'd sat outside that hospital room for way too long to make sure no one was going to collar and study her, but now that he's been here a while, he knows that was never a possibility anyway. Except for the one time that it totally was.

He rubs his face. No, he doesn't know what he could have done in that situation. But he can ask, can't he? She's right here now, and no one else is around to overhear.

"Who would you want me to call?"

"Ghostbusters," she replies before thinking, giving him a lopsided smile. "But no, sorry, right now it'd probably be Caesar." Too many of the other people had left (again). She knew Caesar would come back around to the logical things, though that left other sorts of openings. If there was a more pressing reason...

"I don't know who else. Maybe Blue? Or..."

She wants to say Gilbert. Break.

Instead she shrugs.

"I don't know. Kate Kane, maybe. Galadriel, though I call her 'Driel." Mostly women. Never Steph.

That's...a long list. Huh. Collette might be better at making friends than he is. Close friends, even. People she'd trust when she's in a vulnerable position. It's a little bitter, but still sweet overall. It's nice, the idea that it's possible. That people still find ways to give a shit, even in an ugly, horrible place like this.

"The blind guy?"

She blinks, laughing and nodding her head. "Yeah, one of them, though he can see again. It was a temporary thing," she admits. "Kind of like your super medical knowledge that's here, then gone again. Hey, do you think if I gave you a Rubik's cube, you could solve it for me?"

She taps on his jawbone, gently pushing it toward one side. She wants better access to the other side of his face, and he's still more mobile than she is.

"I dunno. Got one?"

He turns his face easily, no arguments there. If there's any stubborn bones in his body, they don't show at the moment. His eyes, still dull and stunned, start to appear from behind all those layers of fringe as they're trimmed away.

They're blue, and young. Grief is fresh and new to him. He's not sure what to do with it, so he lets himself be led away from it as best as Collette is able to lead him.

Her smile is crooked. "Used to. Used to be my brother's, actually!" Snip snip. "When I find one again, I'm totally bringing it to you. Tilt your chin down for me?"

Another light touch to guide what she wanted him to do. She's hoping the irregularities here in her cutting get passed off as purposeful layering. She squints. It sorta looks that way to her!

He tilts his head, not all that concerned about what she's doing to his hair anymore, as long as she's not shaving it off or anything. It took like a year to grow it out, he's not interested in having to do that all over again.

The Rubik's cube question makes him wonder idly for a moment. It hasn't really caught his attention, considering that it always seems to come up during emergencies. Maybe his weapon is good for figuring out puzzles, but he doesn't know. He's never tried.

"Can I leave?"

"Did you want to?"

Comes her conversational response. "I'd like to finish up the back, but you'd have to turn around for that. Long hair's sorta the in thing. We can see your eyes now. That's something, at least!"

"It's great. Just need to lie down or something. Not feeling so good."

Okay, so he hasn't seen it in a mirror or anything. But it's not impossible to see around it now. That's most of what matters anyway, right?

It's tough to explain about existential crises and grief and confusion and the infuriating helplessness that goes along with being young and useless and gentle when you're supposed to be a soldier in a war. Maybe Collette understands anyway, or maybe she doesn't. But it doesn't feel good. It doesn't make him feel good. He's not lying about it, he just doesn't know how to explain it better. This is all really new and fucked up.

Regardless of if she does or not, she's not the sort to make demands past what a person wants to do in moments where it isn't opportune. "Yeah, sure! You're good to go. I hope rest helps a little."

Not that he feels better, or he gets well soon. That's not what any of this is about.

She wheels herself back from the bench, giving him plenty of free room for movement.

Which he does. Move, that is. Almost like he sat on a spring, he bolts from the bench and presses his back up against the wall, still on the inside of the door. Entering and exiting rooms is absurdly difficult for some reason, but it's very important to surround yourself with a good, large bubble of open air.

He knows he's acting crazy, but it's hard to stop and try to be normal for Collette's sake. He was always so sane before. But these days, he's always just a handful of problems away from a freakout. Sometimes less than that. At the moment, it's more like a few hairs away.

He's got issues is a passing through, followed by, we all do. What's there to really say about it? "Hey. Catch you around later, yeah?" She can only make the offer to exist, and be there to chat, or listen, or do silly things. If she's there -- if he wants them.

"Okay."

Now is the part where he has to leave the room if he's going to. He knows that. Really.

It still takes a long moment and a couple of deep breaths before he can wrench himself away from the safety of the wall and slide through the doorway to leave.

He can see now. And he did...the thing...made sure people could say goodbye if they wanted to. Made sure that they knew what had happened. That's enough for now. It's all he can handle without losing his shit on someone, and that wouldn't do anyone any good. So he slinks away, back to the bunks, to hide for a while. No one will come looking for him. He can piece himself back together before the next big thing goes down. It'll be alright. Sort of.

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C'est la mort. (Open)

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