emptynesters | [MISSION: A KNOCK AT THE DOOR] - An xxx Years Later Meme

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[MISSION: A KNOCK AT THE DOOR] - An xxx Years Later Meme

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72
WHEN: DAY :001
SUMMARY: The Hosts return from Research Vessel "Whaligoe".
WARNINGS: Disturbing imagery. Y'all know the drill. Please include any applicable warnings in your subjects lines as this one won't be maintained.

MISSION: A KNOCK AT THE DOOR

STATION 72
DAY :001

HOME SWEET HOME
AND JUST LIKE THAT, YOU'RE BACK. The tingling, half nauseated sensation of punching through the multiverse fades as the windowless stealth ship passes into the Station's landing channel. With a slow-motion jerk, forward motion ceases completely. After a few minutes - harnesses being unbuckled, kits roused from their racks -, the rear of the ship unfolds and there is the hangar deck. Everything is exactly as you left it days ago.

A voice bloom in your head. It says:

( You'll have to tell us everything soon. )
Not that there's much to tell. In the last - it's hard to say, but years? Surely it can't have been a decade - span of your life, you've been to a dozen worlds in a dozen universes. You've seen stars collapsing, you've watched empires crumble; you've seen peoples at war, the end of a dynasty, and the beginnings of new settlements in far flung places. The Whaligoe, a sprawling deep space research ship at the edge of a now distance universe from which you've just returned, is hardly the most exciting place you've ever come back from.

But maybe Cathaway's curiosity has something to do with your (easily won) cargo: sixteen large, heavy canisters carrying what the Whaligoe's crew had nicknamed 'Datafuel.' What they're needed for is a mystery. Why handling the canisters triggers some low sense of revulsion doesn't make much sense either.

( For now, rest. ) says that achingly familiar sensation of Cathaway - of warmth, of pleasure, of belonging somewhere that you never expected to but do. ( And welcome home. )

ALL GOOD THINGS...
THIS IS HOW IT IS: There are more Hosts on the Station now then there have been in a long time. It'll be years yet before until anyone could call Station 72 crowded (would that even be possible, with the way the Station adapts for its occupants?), but it's no longer the strange half-breathing entity it once was. There is life here. Sometimes it doesn't feel like being divided from everything that ever was or will be. Sometimes it feels like this matters. Sometimes it feels like this is the right thing. Sometimes it even feels like the moment before opening a door and that the things waiting on the other side are better. It feels like maybe this is ending. Maybe that's what hope is.

The Gardens have grown dense and beautiful. Life Support sprawls through a half dozen corridors. The hum of the Station is a cat's pleased purring. Sometimes, that feels good.

THE STATION
12 HOURS LATER

...MUST COME TO AN END
SOMETHING ARRIVES in the space between spaces. It's as a needle piercing flesh. It's the snap of a finger breaking. It's an animal scream.

It's a scream.

The Station screams.

Gravity twists. Sleeping hosts are dumped from their beds. Ships in the hangar slide against their moorings, tethers snapping. Corridors writhe. Walls become ceilings, ceilings floors. And then it all snaps back. A panic stricken moment of stillness is pursued by the rancid melting tang of go, go, GO--! in your bones.

The first strikes from Enemy ships against Station 72 feel like being set on fire. You know this more intimately than anything else you've known in your entire life: You need to escape the Station.
THE CAGE - Getting to the Hangar deck to the ships should be as easy as wanting to be there and turning a corner. But if the mental link alarm burning Hosts up isn't indication enough of something being wrong, the Station's interior makes that impossibly clear. Once recognizable corridors melt and twist into bizarre shapes; open doorways become collapsing tunnels; vast cavernous spaces appear with splintering pathways leading across them. Garden plants meld with walls to create unexpected jungles, gravity shifts, a swimming pool stands upright without emptying. Hosts will never find themselves faced with a dead end, but they will discover a veritable labyrinth before them. They are pursued by a constant certainty: move quickly, because all around them Station 72 is coming unravelled.

THE MENAGERIE - ...which is made more complicated by fact that as the Station falls to pieces, the shared mental link of the Hosts begins to go haywire. Symbiote abilities merge and mutate. Memories and feelings and shared hallucinations disgorge themselves across the station. The texture and intensity is so extreme that it would be easy for a Host to get lost in them. Maybe they're familiar memories; maybe they're completely alien; maybe they're a dangerous distraction or maybe - just maybe - they're the Station's last desperate bid to pass something important along before it's too late.

Only a handful of Hosts converge on the Hangar Deck, but it's clear from the straining sensation of every air molecule that there's no time to wait around. As the Hosts board back onto the stealth ship, portions of the very surroundings begin to melt as quicksilver: the floor, the exterior walls, neighboring ships. Through these pools pass a cacophony of shapes both strange and familiar. The Enemy comes in many forms.

--Which are rocked by an explosion, a host evaporating in a shocked impact that seems to destabilize one of the primary quicksilver portals. Standing in the doorway leading to the armory, The Prince reloads the Albark rocket thrower. "Leave!" he barks, aims again.

Three things happen at once: ( Open it! ), says a voice you know and the Prince fires; the quicksilver portal bursts around the second explosion like a wound and the void it opens to isn't the dark of the In Between at all and from it the Dark looks back like a wolf in the dark with eyes like rasping scissors snapping wide which with every star in the universe says

I SEE YOU.

and the Hangar Deck collapses beneath the shuttle as the boarding ramp screams closed. The ship falls like a stone. It falls forever.

A PLACE WITH NO NAME
DAY :003

SYMBIOSIS
THERE'S NOTHING on the stealth ship's long range sensors. The universe you've fallen into is as empty as-- twin narratives exist in the mental link. One is bone still, the outline of a place that used to be. The other is the too loud mish-mash of information that leaked through the symbotic link during Station 72's collapse. It's confused and unfiltered. It's how to fly a ship; and it's a girl's face that isn't your species and you've never seen her, but you miss her anyway; and it's an ocean you know; and it's exactly how many dry rations are packed into the shuttle's cargo; and it's the echo of an animal screaming and it's--

Quiet. It's mostly very, very quiet. There's no dread, no fear, no burning ache of the world ending. It's empty.

Open it, someone said. So someone does: a canister of Datafuel is cracked open and from it spills something wet and horrible. It's run through with ropy white filament threads.

Someone opened a Host's head once, you know (you do know, even if you weren't there). It looked something like that.

Anyone who touches the 'Datafuel' falls immediately into a comatose state. It lasts for twenty hours. When they wake up, they know where to go.

IN A MIRROR, DARKLY
THERE ARE NO WINDOWS in the stealth ship, so when it jumps to the logged coordinates it's impossible to tell where or what it's jumped to. It's quiet. With a slow-motion jerk, forward motion ceases completely. After a few agonizing minutes - does anyone move? does anyone do anything? -, the rear of the ship unfolds and there is a hangar deck.

It isn't the one you left. It isn't attached to corridors you know. This place is quiet like a shed insect skin.

In the cold low standby light of the shuttle's interior, one of the previously comatose Hosts (maybe it's you) says:

"Welcome to Station 144."

((OOC Notes: Welcome back! For ~~one night only~~ however long you yahoos want to keep a meme alive for, your sybmiotic home away from home is...well, some version of it is around anyway. Did you play in the game, but don't want to play the same character? Go for it. Want to play the same character, but say they're a different version than the one you played in game? Have a party! Didn't ever play in S72 but want to noodle around? Have at it! Just want to pick up more or less right where you left off? I ain't gonna stop you (although I might gently recommend that Some Time Has Passed since we left Hyrypia).

For anyone who needs a reminder on how the game works, info links are in the navigation below. No, this isn't any kind of game canon. It's a meme, Jan. Don't overthink it.

Have fun. :)))

NAVIGATION • PREMISE • SETTING • FAQ

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( HOME SWEET HOME )

[ Is this home?

It is by now. Or it's as close to a home as Vax has, and returning to it is a pale shade of the relief he'd once felt upon entering Greyskull Keep or Whitestone or Scanlan's Mansion. He is safe here. (Is he?) He can put down his daggers for a few moments without something alien and angry leaping out at him.

The voice in his head arrives like the tripping of cool fingers at the nape of his neck. Something bristles (feathers) at the arrival. Across space and time, something older and possessive still pulls at the thread of Vax's life. Maybe someday she'll reel him back to Tal'Dorei, but not this day. For now, Cathaway's voice beckons and Vax sighs, one hand pulling at the well-worn buckles of the Deathwalker's Ward. ]

Time for a drink?

[ More like time for a scalding bath. Vax had helped lift the barrels of their hard-won cargo from the shuttle. The lingering sense of disgust and the urge to recoil still crawls along the surface of his mind, unchecked. ]

( THE END )

[ Vax's mind blares a single statement like an alarm bell: Where is my sister?

It blasts outward like a siren as he runs. The Station is folding in on itself. It's dying, Vax knows. He hears the death knell passing like a scream through his mind, knocking down all defenses, forcibly imprinting—

Everything. Anything. Vax can't make sense of it. He steps through a shadow and hits a wall, doubles over, vomits. Nothing works as it should. ]

Run. [ did he shout that or did he scream it? Vax can't tell. ] Don't just stand there, we have to run!

[ He's grown so powerful. Before this, he'd been able to step through shadow and draw another person along with him. He doesn't trust that now. ]

We need to leave.

[ Vex'ahlia, Vex'ahlia, where is Vex'ahlia? ]

( SYMBIOSIS )

[ Vax is thinking of dragons.

The quiet reminds him of the aftermath, huddled in Greyskull Keep, expecting the worst. Something terrible has happened. His mind is still a jumble, and he feels like he's been hit by a truck. There won't be bruises, but Vax feels the ache of them anyway as he sits up in the dark and quiet. ]

What now?

[ His mind stretches out, grasping, even as Vax tries to steady himself. What do they have? Who do they have?

In the back of his head, feathers, the unspooling of red thread, the prickling of disembodied anger. He is farther from Her now, somehow. The Raven Queen is the only sense he has of distance. The coordinates tell him nothing except that he's far from home. His deity is the only true measuring stick, growing warmer and colder by degrees as he travels, doing someone else's bidding. ]

You're bleeding.

[ Pot, kettle. As usual, with Vax'ildan. ]

( WILDCARD )

[ do whatever, i'm down to clown. ]

[ It's screaming in her head. A piercing, unending death knell assaulting her mind. It's dying, the Station is dying. Vex'ahlia can barely breathe under the pressure. Information, feelings, everything, anything. Too much.

Vax.

A cry, a plea. She reaches out desperately for her twin, the familiar, the soothing presence of his mind. They have to go, they have to get out of here. He should be near, but she struggles to feel him. On shaky legs Vex'ahlia manages to stand, choking back a sob she is certain wasn't her own.

Vax'ildan, Percival, where are you?

The Station shakes, sends out a surge of run that reverberates through her bones. Vex runs, blindly, reaching for the distant thread of her brother. ]

Vex!

[ Vax's voice comes through distorted, warped by the interference from the Station and by his own panic. Where is she? He can't— ]

Keep running! Think of the hanger, that's where we need to go.

[ Did they make a mistake? Was the last mission a mistake?

This is the way Emon fell. All at once, and there had been nothing for them to do but try to keep from being crushed beneath the rubble and drag out who they could. Vax isn't even sure they can manage that much. His mind scrabbles along the surface of Vex's, trying to find purchase. It's never been difficult before now. But there's too much else trying to crowd in; the death throes of the ship around them makes it desperate, and it jams every conceivable memory towards them. Keeping his mind open is almost intolerable. ]

[ There!

In the panic, the confusion, Vax's voice is like a guiding light. Bright even in the distortion of the Station's death throes.. She lets go of held breath, stumbling towards a nearby wall. For a moment, a terrible moment, she thought─ No. It doesn't matter. Her mind follows his voice, meets his own as it scrabbles against the surface of hers.

There you are.

Feet move as instructed, fractured thoughts doing their best to think hanger. But it's hard with all the noise, loud and endless, memories not her own. And then there is Emon, the roars of dragons and screams of their victims. It is no surprise this reminds them so much of it, that'd those memories would also come to the surface of her mind.

Dragons and the smell of gunsmoke. Wait─ ]

Vax, where's Percy? Have you seen him? I won't leave without him!

[ everything burns.

this is how the end feels and percy is a mess in the din of the screeching station. he's running in the direction of the hangar, the station's shrieking cries filling him with a panic that he can only be an echo of the city of emon lit ablaze. there is no mercy here, at the hands of whatever is clutching the station in its talons, tearing it to pieces, shredding it to the point where percy can't tell which way is up, which way is down, left, right, hall and door.

the hallway he's in is gristle and pulp and his fingertips dig into the foreign textures of the wall a moment, trying to find a cool spot with his cheek, but it's all fever. immolation. a brilliant, horrifying end and -

he feels it, like a cool rush of air, the soft brush of dark, swirling panic, the smell of loamy earth and something razor sharp, familiar to him enough that he snaps it up with frantic hands - made cold with nerves, black powder, soot, a trail, i'm here i'm here i'm here imhereimherehereherehere - ]

- I'm here.

[ it reaches, surfacing like a gasp and he clutches onto the muddled connection, dragging himself towards it on frantic feet. take me to them, take me to them, he prays over and over again, trying to avoid the churning of the station. ]

Thank Sarenrae.

[ If only because paying homage to his own goddess in this moment is a more complicated matter. How long can Vax rely on Her sheer spite to keep him alive, to prolong Her favor on the off chance this wild adventure yields him back into Her hands? He feels Her in the back of his head, as present as any member of this hive, and his thanks, unspoken and wordless, is likely just as keenly felt by anyone touching his mind.

Suspended between Percy and Vex, he has the sense that he's going to be pulled in two. He doesn't know where to put himself first. (Instinct always sends him to Vex'ahlia first; any hesitation is just a tribute to how close he has grown to Percy over the decades.) The Station heaves wildly under his feet, knocking him into a wall that becomes a door that Vax staggers through as his mind weaves tighter around Vex, as if he could block out the cacophony of death coming from their home. ]

Think of the hanger, Freddie. [ Vax's mind latches on, red threads binding and tightening, drawing the three of them closer and closer together. ] We're leaving and we need you to drive.

[ Cool shadow slinks in the wake of Vax's words. His thoughts on Vex'ahlia's are linked fingers, projected comfort as Vax launches himself upwards and outwards, towards what was once a corridor but is now a warped, uphill climb. ]

[ This time the sob is indeed hers, relief filling her as rapidly and violently as the Station's assaults. Vex reaches out, clinging to the connection as tightly as she can, tugging Percy in. Come back to me, to us. Red threads pull them all together, Vax's words soothing as they brush across her mind. It eases the panic in her, projected comfort and Percival's voice, the chaos as the Station lurches underneath their feet. ]

Come on darling, we have to go.

[ Vex breathes out pulling herself back to her feet, pushing off into a corridor twisted upon itself. She thinks of the hanger, but follows the thread of Percival's mind, of Vax'ildan's. Find them, find them, find them. She curls around them both, as though letting go would spell the end for them all. ]

[ the sharp ache sweetness of them both drives him forward. he clambers for the link, the brilliant red threads that stretch between the three of them, gathering them up eagerly and making his way down the melted nightmare of hallways. hangar, he thinks, hangar, hangar hangar. he's spent enough time in it that his feet seem to focus right on the path, taking over - instinct through this mess of the station now. ]

I'll be there, I promise. I'm coming.

[ he tells them, honest and trying to sooth in the panic. he focuses on not just the hangar, but where they are as well, and somewhere in the hellish corridors of the station, percival will strain to hear boot steps because mental links are fine, but god he wants to see them, to touch them both, to clutch them in his arms desperately. when he thinks towards them, it's the familiar oil-gunpowder-tang, warm, callused hand on an arm. he's here, he's present, he's among them still, he promises.

no one here will find death again. ]

[ The ship had parted for them so many times before this catastrophe. Vax's absent wanderings would deliver him to his twin without any conscious effort on his part. It had all been effortless. But now the ship is a yawning, screaming death trap around them. When it spits Vax into the hanger, he realizes he is the first arrival in the exact same moment he realizes how foolish it would be to try to run back out into the ship. There are no assurances now.

On his knees in the hanger, his mind casts out farther. The sensation of his presence becomes more solid, feathers accompanying the threads, Vax's fear metal-sharp and unmistakable. ]

I'm waiting for you.

[ The words echo between Vex and Percy, looping over and over. If Vax can draw them to him by sheer force of will, if this strange, foreign airship can grant him one last boon— ]

Quickly now. We're running out of time.

[ The Prince is mounting a last stand. Vax recognizes it and isn't sure what to do about it. But the answer is nothing, nothing until he's extricated the two most important pieces of himself from danger. (An afterthought bubbles up slowly: where is his brood? where—) ]

[ It feels like navigating a maze blindfolded, a maze falling apart around them. Screaming, burning, and being torn apart. She uses their connection to navigate, feathers brushing against her mind and the smell of gunpowder. Vex thinks out to them and it's warm, earthy smell, like wood and trees on a bright spring day. Soft yet calloused fingers carding through hair. ]

I'm coming darling, I'm not far.

[ She thinks, she hopes.

Normally she wouldn't have difficulty finding either them, but this is anything but normal. Familiar hallways are alien now as they writhe in agony, as the Station contorts on itself in agony. Vex moves with as much speed as she is able, allowing the solid presence of Vax to pull her on wards. It's all she can do but move forward, reaching for Percival as the ship spits her out at the hanger.

Her legs give as she lands, hands flying out to catch herself roughly against the cool surface. It not graceful, it's rough and her body jars from the impact. ]

Vax...!

[ He's there. She casts her gaze to the rest of the hanger, pushing up from the floor despite the sharp pangs of pain from her knees. It flits across their connection, sharp pricks in a pool of panic and fear, she'll apologize later when the danger has passed. Now, Vex stumbles towards her brother, clasping a shaky hand around his wrist. Her mind casting out to Percival again, solid, warm, a guiding light. ]

Just a little further!

[ vex's voice hits him, warm ray of sun burning pleasantly into the back of his neck. he's not far now, and he knows it, feels it because every step forward they feel stronger and stronger. when he fumbles into the hangar, it's with a shout of triumph: ] Fucking [ the hangar door seems to try to melt atop him upon his entry, dripping down with all the viscosity of honey. he scrambles forward and finishes his sentence: ] - at last.

[ his heart is hammering.

they're whole.

and he wastes no time, gathering them both up into his arms almost immediately. the relief that floods through his mind, down the delicate strings that bind them up, is chilled amidst the feverish heat of the station.

his fingers slide briefly, once down vex's cheek, the other along the back of vax's neck, as if checking for some kind of trick, some sort of daydream given to him by the station in its death throes, before he pulls away a fraction at the soft whisper of vax's mind. he tries to sooth: ]

They may have made it on board already, [ brood. closer than close. he feels the fresh panic of his own, but they are safe - a small number they are, three. newly born. softly: ] Can you feel them?

[ The minute Vex is in view, Vax flits towards. He moves so quickly, without even thinking about it. The twins are like magnets; they click together instantly. The clutch of her hand at his wrist leeches away some of the panic that has been mounting within Vax. He breathes out even as Vex casts her mind out further, flaring like a beacon.

Around them, the ship is screaming. It's death throes are stalled and buffeted by the doubling, echoing worry bouncing back and forth between the twins: will Percy make it? Percy simply has to make it. They can't leave here without him. It's unconscionable. Vax cups his sister's cheek with one hand, feeling Percival's presence rebounding and amplifying with every passing moment until— ]

Yes.

[ Vax's free hand finds Percy's bicep. The presence of the enemy is faint, but it chills his blood anyway. Just like every other time they'd crossed paths, it's an acute reminder that they're outmatched. ]

We can't stay. This isn't a fight we can win, especially if the ship is going to fall apart around us.

[ If Vax could physically carry the pair of them aboard the nearest shuttle, he would. Urgency pings between him and them in sharp spikes, undescored by worry. ]

[ Of course he will make it, he has to make it. There is no way either of the twins would leave without Percy at their sides. It's all she can do but be that beacon, casting her mind out and pull him into their arms. Vex's heart leaps into her throat as Percy emerges into the hanger, arms quick to gather them up tightly.

They're together, whole. Now to get out of here.

An afterthought passes her mind as they speak, soft voices soothing newly bubbling panic. Vex reaches for them, her own brood, brushing against their minds briefly. Safe, good. She breathes out as the ship lurches, groans loudly underneath them. ]

He's right. [ Vex's hands remain a hold of them, one of Vax's wrist the other Percy's arm, as she shifts up to kiss Percy. It's rushed and a little rough, all the relief and joy bundled up into one motion, one surge that races through their connection. Pulling back she hovers, fingers squeezing both of them tightly. ] We have to go.

[ There is an ache in her limbs but still she moves to stand, tugging them along with her as she moves. Urgency pinging between them all, through red threads into Vex's grip. The rapid glance between Percy, Vax, and the nearest shuttle. ]

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decisions - 2019-02-22 16:49 (UTC) - Expand

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duskmeadow - 2019-02-23 23:31 (UTC) - Expand

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faenthras - 2019-02-26 21:21 (UTC) - Expand

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decisions - 2019-03-22 02:08 (UTC) - Expand

[ red thread finds him, and percy grabs at it weakly. he's tired, half slumped into a corner and pressing his cheek against the coolness of something. his mind still feels aflame, throbbing, and there's blood staining his shirt sleeves, his throat, his upper lip, nose. he's winding a fist around that thread, pulling him closer in the dark until he can fist his hand in something real. ]

When aren't we?

[ a laugh, tired. one hand clutches, the other pushes when it finds purchase on vax's chest, like he doesn't know what to do, like he only wants to touch.

his glasses are gone, lost in the fuss, so he squints just a little until he pulls vax close enough to make out the lines of his face. ]

Edited 2019-02-09 14:40 (UTC)

[ Instinctively, Vax's hands come up to cradle Percy's face. His palms are warm, radiating faint divine energy. It's not very much. (He will never be able to do what Pike can do; her memory flares to life whenever he tries to emulate her example.) But it's something, enough to take the edge off the worst of what Percy is feeling until Vex'ahlia can try a better way to patch him together. ]

I think we're fucked.

[ Vax's tone is conversational, even as he skirts along how dire their situation is. ]

I don't think anyone knows where we are.

[ Is he supposed to be offering comfort? Even all this time later, he and Percy aren't entirely good at finding that ground together. The mental link is a shorthand, and it's left the spoken words clumsy still. There's softness, and it's easier to dredge up, but still—

Still.

Vax's hands are very gentle on Percy's face. He very much wants to find a way for them all to live. He's going to need to pray, and that's always taxing, but he doesn't see any other way for them to get out of this but through his Lady's grace. ]

Edited 2019-02-09 15:46 (UTC)

[ percy leans into his hands slowly, feels the faint warmth of healing seep into his skin, soothing away the aches and stings for the time being. his bones feel suitably rattled, his skull feels like a branding iron. reaching up fingers, he curls them around vax's wrists a moment. the fever is a soft pulsing sensation now, enough that percy feels a little more clear-headed as he looks up to meet vax's eyes. ]

Being fucked isn't anything new at this point...

[ his face turns a little bit, pressing a moment into the warmth of vax's hand for a moment more. this feels good enough, his fingers sweeping over the spur of his wrist as if to pull him down even more for further examination. his own fingertips are cold. ]

Come here. A moment, please.

[ down he means. the world still spins ever so slightly. ]

[ They have nothing but time, Vax suspects. Without Percy on his feet, how will they move forward? (Maybe on borrowed intellect, slipped from Percy's mind without asking. Vax tries not to do such things, but there are moments where the lines blur between the three of them now. It's hard to remember what's his and what isn't.) His thumb strokes Percy's cheekbone as his gaze lifts, finds his sister wrapping a bandage, finds her safe and mobile. The station had spat the twins out whole, and chewed on Percy before releasing him. Bad luck. ]

We're going to need to do something about your glasses.

[ "We" meaning Percy, because tinkering only comes to them when Percy is offering, so present in their minds that their hands move on his behalf. ]

Just until my dear sister finishes with her other charges, [ he cautions after a moment, moving carefully to stretch out first beside and then half-over Percy. ] We'll think of something to do after we've fixed this.

[ Fixed Percy. ]

You don't need to fix me.

[ he says it softly, only after vax has stretched across him, pushed him against the wall like a shield. he doesn't object to that, the slow pounding in his head earlier had been enough to blind him even if he had his glasses. but the holy touch vax finds it in himself to give to him is enough that it dulls it to a vague pang instead of something stabbing sharp.

he slides fingers underneath the tatters of vax's clothing, finding soft under shirt and the shape of him, the warmth under his palm. he presses his face into his shoulder and lets out a long exhale through his nose, a sigh like a petulant creature. ]

She might be carrying my spare.

[ percy's learned by now, that having only one pair of glasses leads to trouble. vex'ahlia, ever prepared for most emergencies, may have them yet unless they were crushed in the chaos. ]

But if she isn't, just... do what you must. [ rooting around in his head had been his least favorite activity on the station - he'd avoided it when he could, but now... well. push, shove, needs etc. he looks up, only able to see vax through the courtesy of his being so close. ]

Are you hurt at all?

[ It's not the first time a wayward thought has slipped past. The lines between the three of them have blurred; it doesn't surprise Vax when Percy plucks the intent from his mind and bristles at it. He isn't even all that apologetic. Percy's in worse shape than him or his sister. If Vax had more to give than the divine energy in his palms, he'd have already offered it.

But for the moment, it seems to be enough to keep Percy bracketed by his body. The clutch of his palms make Vax shiver, sensation broadcast outwards as he sighs in response. ]

No.

[ Bumps and bruises. Vax has certainly had worse. ]

We'll work out the glasses situation if my sister doesn't come through. But she usually does.

[ Relief is starting to make itself known. His knees nearly buckle as he thinks of the enormity of what they just survived. (And in it's wake, the wrenching onset of grief over what they've lost.) His hands settle onto Percy's hips. ]

I think we're all going to need some sleep. We certainly didn't get much time to rest before the attack.

[ It's a true miracle Vax hadn't stripped out of the Deathwalker's Ward, that he hadn't laid aside his daggers. Their penchant for going straight to the bar had served them well in this instance. ]

[ vax mentions sleep and there's a longing wash for the warmth of the nest, for the place they'd carved out for themselves in the indeterminate time they've chosen to sleep in, bracketed against one another, a tangle of dark hair and limbs and blankets flung around. his face finds vax's neck, the curve of it, and he remains there, temples to his pulse so that he might feel it, reassure himself.

vax is alive, and as he stretches himself he can feel vex as well, trembling fingers but steady in her work. ]

Sleep...

[ but he's still fixated on one thing: alive. they're alive and as safe as any of them are ever going to be, so crudely uprooted from the station. he winds his fingers into both - a tangle of string wrapped around each of his fingers. he knots himself up in them both so tightly, listens to the undercurrent of their thoughts. ]

Not sure if I could manage that in the slightest. Not after... [ all of this. ]

We haven't lost.

[ Exhaustion feeds exhaustion. Vax feels the echo of it bounce from him to Percy to Vex and back again, highlighting what's already there and amplifying it. He threads his fingers along the bristle of Percy's scalp, shivering at the sense of Percy's face against his throat.

Every single moment reminds him that they are alive. Percy will recover. They can salvage something from this. Vax may even be able to consider that once he's fully moved passed the shuddery fear of those moments when he had stood alone in the hanger and strained for any sign of the pair of them. ]

No, we haven't. This is bad but it isn't...it's not the end of things.

[ The ghost of Emon skirts the edges of Vax's mind. They are not so poorly off as they were in the aftermath of that first dragon attack. That's not a completely implausible scale, is it? ]

We'll wait for Vex, then we can talk about sleep. I'll give you that.

[ Maybe sleep would come easier if the three of them were together, bracketing Percy's body. His sister's spells may take better hold then. Vax doesn't have any contingency plans beyond that. They will need to find a place to stay, another ship, another way home. (Home that is half-station, half-Whitestone in his mind.) But for the moment, small things. Small measures of progress. ]

[ home is...

what is home?

percy paces the line of vax's mind slowly as he finds himself gradually sloping downwards into an unfit daze, palpable in it's heaviness like a hand pressing the top of his head downwards into water. it's a fight, really. percy wants to be awake when vex arrives, wants to feel her just as he feels vax right now, touch her mind more than just something fleeting, a passing brush to the nape of her neck. he doesn't rest so much as relives the heat and the pain of the station over and over again, the sensation of being torn from it so brutally sore like the blackened edges of parchment from an open flame.

he feels the way vax lingers upon emon, the chaos of the very first attack from the conclave descending down upon them. percy reaches up a hand and pushes hair back over his ear, fingertips lingering over the shell of it softly. ]

Terrifying, isn't it? [ he asks softly. ] That it's gone... gone just like that. [ the station, possibly prince... cathaway... guides he had not necessarily trusted immediately, but guides none the less. ]

[ The echo of Percy's loss vibrates in Vax's mind. He is still comforted by what they have saved: all the pieces of home he had, all that is important. The searing agony of losing the Station, losing the other members of the Nest, he's almost acclimated to it. Touching Percy keeps it at bay, just like his near constant check ins on Vex. It's a reassurance. Vax's mind loops around theirs and holds on, clutching like a lifeline. ]

We've rebuilt before.

[ They've rebuilt in the wake of dragons, just as fearsome as anything they've faced here. ]

We'll rebuild now. We're all alive. That's enough, isn't it?

[ The question is underscored by some measure of coaxing pressure, a little tug to redirect Percy's attention to the present rather than the past. ]

Stay with us, handsome.

[ Because what happens if he slips away? Vax couldn't stand one more loss. He's struck a delicate balance, accepting what's been taken because everything important has been kept. He can't accept anything other than this. ]

I'm here.

[ a reassurance, warm and brief, tugging back where vax winds around the both of them — thread soft and winding between the lot of them, a web of sensation against fingertips and wrists, around a throat, reassuring and quick to tug at a moment's notice. he lets the pull draw him back. the fever hot station's plucked at something inside of him, opened it's maw and bit down and taken part of him like an organ or a limb.

he tries not to think about it. just as he's being told to do right now. ]

Rebuilding is all I want. With Vex'ahlia. With you.

[ idle hands and devil's work — so the saying goes. he winds himself in the cat's cradle of threads that bind them. stay with us, something easy to listen to, something even easier to imagine. he soothes at the edges of vax's thoughts in turn, a silent thanks, touches the raw edges where loss lingers and holds them in his palms. cool like winter, with a precision touch. ]

[ Are you?

There's some part of Vax that wants to tangle Percy so thoroughly between him and Vex, loop red thread and soft blue feathers over and around his mind and ground him here. The loss of the Station looms over them, but it opens in Percy like a wound. Percy had learned to love places more than the twins ever had. Vax wields his affection like a balm, like a poultice meant to dull pain.

He's learned very well how to settle into Percy's mind. They've all three made space for each other, grown somehow more familiar than they had been before. And so Vax knows how to crowd, to project a different sensation to block out the blinding ache of having the Station ripped from them. ]

We have a ship. We'll find ourselves somewhere, [ Vax murmurs, though some aspect of this feels like telling a fairy tale. Vex's mind vibrates with worry in the back of his head, and Vax is keeping it carefully to himself. ] Somewhere we can make you another workroom to keep these hands busy.

[ Fingers lacing together, Vax's thumb stroking across Percy's knuckles. ]

Maybe that planet we were on a few months back. [ What Vax thinks was a few months, still uncertain about the passage of time. ] With the forests and the ocean.

[ And they'd been successful there. It would be safe, at least from their Enemy. At least for the moment.

Though Vax knows this is a pipe dream. He spins it for Percy's benefit, but he doesn't think the destruction of the Station means they have been eliminated from this fight. ]

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