Upstairs, room 1001

[2goodarms]

It's late. Maybe. Late enough for Curtis to dim the lights in his and Edgar's room, anyway; he's been trying to follow the cues of the rest of the building, switching off the lights if he notices they're dimmer downstairs, or turning them on if bright light from the hallway starts to seep under their door.

It feels like controlling the movement of the sun. Controlling some small chunk of the world.

He doesn't know if he likes it.

But if he doesn't do it, it makes the time distortions feel even worse, so he'll just have to suck it the hell up.

The ambient noise on either side of them is all well and good, but hearing another person breathing an arm's length away calms Curtis way more than he expected. While he's not asleep yet, he's blinking drowsily at the ceiling, not much longer for the waking world.

Comments

[2goodarms]

"Yeah, seriously." He scratches the back of his head. "Last time we talked she was taking measurements and shit. She's got this technology that's way ahead of anything we got."

[hate_gettin_older]

He swallows.


"... What's she asking for it?"

[2goodarms]

Silence, for a long beat.



"Nothing." His voice starts to bend, taking on that note Edgar heard the day he arrived, before it snaps back into place. "Just somebody to talk to. Her husband died something like -- I don't know."

He draws his thumb across the note, a slow back-and-forth.

"I think she's lonely."

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar is not at all sure how he feels about that angle.

"So how come she ran off, when ...?"

[2goodarms]

Curtis cuts off that line of inquiry with a quick shake of his head. "Long story," he says, and rolls over so he can stretch down and set the note on the floor. "It's handled."

[hate_gettin_older]

A slightly huffy sigh. "Fine, whatever."

He leans back in his own hammock and yawns.

[2goodarms]

The yawn's contagious: soon, Curtis is yawning, too, stifling it with the back of his hand.




"You know I'm glad you made it here, right?"

That prickliness isn't all because Dejah's a front-sectioner, he knows.

[hate_gettin_older]

"Yeah." Softer. "Me too, man."

A beat, and a slightly crooked grin.

"Someone's gotta look out for you."

[2goodarms]

He snorts again, louder this time. "Yeah, yeah."

Curtis worms further down into his hammock, fumbling his blanket over his shoulders.

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar burrows under his own blanket, and smothers another yawn.

It'll be all right, he thinks drowsily. If this Dejah really is like she's claiming to be, then ... well then they'll see. Maybe she'll turn out to be a good person to know. It could happen.

And if she's not, well, he's here to watch Curtis's back. So that's all right then.

"Gnight, Curtis."

[2goodarms]

"Night, Edgar."

A couple more yawns later, he's out.



Sometime during the night, the scene shifts; the blonde's hair darkens, her eyes lightening to a brilliant blue. Nose to nose, she presses a brief kiss to his lips and smiles. See you later.

Nam drove the first spike into that wall, cracks spidering from the point of impact (you tail-section hick) to let Curtis' memories trickle through. Maybe that's the best he can do to patch up the hole: imagine someone else with him, someone he met after death, in that moment before the planet froze.