|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 1:16 pm
Bix nodded a confirmation that he wasn't alone in this. "Not everyone does. Not everyone has people back home who may miss them. I don't know if we are lucky or they are." There was a silence then as Bix stared at his hands, then idly his eyes dragged to his tattoo which he touched and fiddled with idly as something to focus on, like other people would play with or bite their fingernails. After some breaths though he seemed to straighten, sit up and his face regained a bit of it's normal positivity. "Sorry sorry.. I'm bein a drag. That's not me." Though it was apparently. That was who Bix really was, plagued on a daily basis by what taking this job had done to him as a person and how it had transformed his life. "You got promoted and now we are NEIGHBORS." That seemed to perk him quite a bit. "Do you need help turning island scrap into furniture?? Cause Martha is my jedi master."
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 8:19 pm
"I think I have pretty much everything I need," he said, mechanically, politely, unfeelingly. "And you don't have to ******** yourself. You know? Like that's some bullshit measure of me as a friend if you think you need to do that. If you don't want to linger on it and you wanna change the subject, fine, but say so, don't--do that." He performed a startlingly dead-on impression of Bix's "WELL THEN!" face. And then, as his features lapsed back into their normal non-expression: "It's awfully ******** quiet up here. I was in the basement awhile, you know? More neighbors than you know what to do with. No doors on half the rooms." He shifted uneasily, clearly on the edge of blurting something, only to subside once more.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 8:26 am
Bix opened his mouth and closed it again but just shrugged. "That's who I am." His eyes popped and he perked in an impersonation of himself, "I DO THIS. SOMETIMES." And then, thankfully, he laughed. "I do have to censor myself. We all have to actually." He said with a shrug. "It's this life. The only place I'd feel safe with half of my opinions is like... the town I guess. Cause they don't give a s**t about that place. It wasn't always like that but now with all the crazy traitor O stuff lingering in the air I just don't.." Don't ever feel secure. "Seriously though." He didn't perkily yell this time, just genuinely segued the conversation with a wave of his hand. "This place feels like a hospital room so what are we gonna do about that?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 9:23 am
He didn't answer him, instead absently toying with the book in his hands before setting it aside and looking up. Bix had once catalogued for him all of the scars he'd earned on the route to Hunter. Taym was accruing a selection of his own, although none so drastic as those he'd seen on others. The largest was the newest, and it had been concealed both by the high collar of his jacket and his downcast face, but when he lifted his head the twisted, stark line across his throat--from ear to ear--was obvious. He'd given up pretty quickly on trying to hide it on leave, abandoned the piled-up hipster scarves and awkwardly-popped collars that weren't designed to be popped. On some days, much like the shaking of his hands, he could almost forget that it existed at all, just as he forgot the coiling scar under his hipbone, the gunshot in his shoulder, and almost, but not quite, the older marks of healed-over abscesses tracking down his forearms, dotting the tops of his feet and the inside of his leg. The scars from before the Island were the hardest to shake. "I have a daughter," he said suddenly, tonelessly. "Her name is Tuesday. I agreed to recruitment on the night of her fourth birthday party. She's five now. She'll start kindergarten this fall, as far as I know."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 10:36 am
Moments before, in the height of Bix's own rambling confessions, he probably would have cried and launched himself at Taym in some sort of undignified but laugh-worthy bro hug. Instead he gaped a moment as he processed what that meant. It meant that Taym had something precious to protect. It meant that his difficulty in coming to Deus must have been great. It meant he had someone he thought about every single day, more than a spouse or a friends group. Something in Bix swelled, pride mixed with envy, and he rose to his feet and joined Taym on the edge of the bed. "I think that's awesome." He said softly. Bix knew how much it meant for Taym to tell him even this little detail. "I think you're blessed and... I haven't used that word since I lived back at home." His eyes got a little teary but he just rested a strong hand on the other's thin back (so many bones). "And everytime some petty d**k here says something to you.. or questions your motivations.. I think you should ignore that s**t cause you have more reason than ANYONE. More than me. More than those people who got treated bad before they came here. You have something precious and amazing that some of us will never have. No matter what stupid stuff happens here, some beautiful pure part of yourself gets to live free." And there were tears now, silently sliding down his own cheeks.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 11:01 am
He cringed away from his hand just like he always did from any hand, the worse that it was Bix's, and after a pause he said, without any malice in it at all (nothing but quiet exhausion): "******** you, Bix. I'm not blessed." And he thought of a future he'd gotten a look at, of an assistant quietly reminding him of a pod ready to open, of the dark-eyed, pale-haired girl inside of it that he didn't recognize; he thought of Dwight's sisters, and of a little girl in his arms, staring with solemn-eyed recognition over his shoulder at the shape in the shadows he'd been desperate to dismiss as another hallucination. "I'm not blessed. That's why I ******** said that. You are. You and Ceres. You are blessed in the most ********, backwards, cruel ******** way that is probably never going to suck any less than it sucks right now, but you are."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 11:36 am
Bix withdrew the hand but actually scowled for a moment. It was such a foreign look on his face that it looked especially cruel and disgusted, but it was brief. The scowl faded to simple displeased face scrunches and that suited him much ******** you. Cause you are wrong. You may look a thousand years old but we are the same age, and you're just as much an idiot as me." Bix's battle-hardened hands rubbed over eachother audibly, "You get to be here and fight and be horrible and die and some good part of you still gets to live and exist. And one day they'll go to her and ask her if she wants to join here.. and maybe we've made it better. Maybe we have a town going and H and Caelius are dead. And maybe we haven't changed a damn thing. But she'll get to pick. Maybe she'll pick being a hairdresser instead. Maybe she'll pick getting a fat old belly and sittin in front of her TV.. happy and secure. Maybe no one will ever come to her and bring her here cause we've blown the place to s**t but... some good part of you has a chance to have a life cause the rest of your miserable soul never did as soon as you got in that pod." Bix didn't need to pretend anymore that Deus were saviors or that they were doing hero's work and saving the world. Yes, they saved people but at the expense of themselves. A little bit of goodness chipped away for every day spent on this island. A little bit of everyone's light faded away the longer and longer you stayed. Maybe you'd get lucky and be comfortable and delude yourself, like Bix did, or maybe you'd get lucky and die. The alternative stared them in the face every day, reflected in the eyes of their leaders. Power-hungry. Ego-driven. Hermits. Weirdos. Cripples. Bix stood now, pacing the vastness of empty floor. "I love Ceres. She's beautiful and wonderful but.." he paused, not willing to dish his girlfriend's secrets. "Her souls been bashed a thousand times too many. Mine.." he just shook his head. "We're just surviving here. I like to imagine how great it would be if we could have met off this island. How we could have had even a sliver of what you have," he waved a hand, "out there. But we'd never have met and I'd be some office shmuck with weird hair at his computer desperately going blind date to blind date and talking to my mother every day and getting a pug who I name like.. I dunno Kal-El or something." Bix snorted and then laughed, finally swiping his eyes a bit. "And she'd probably be great and.. hopefully have gotten away from home and probably with some way hotter guy who's better." His hands thrust into his pockets again. "We're not blessed. My dad was a hunter and I never knew him. The best thing he ever did for me was leave. I got to grow up like a normal person and have a life way better than most of the people on this island. This job I have now was a bed I made for myself but... I may not have ever had that chance if he didn't do what he did. I coulda been killed or," shudder, "ended up like Caelius. Some ******** twisted legacy division brat." Bix frowned and spoke softly again, this time pointing his finger at Taym like it was an accusation. "I saw.. I saw what my life could have been like having been involved with my father. I ******** sucked. So... why am I blessed? Cause I don't have some gorgeous child running free and only my own suffering to wallow in? I got plenty of that. You protect her by staying away from her, no matter how much it hurts, and she gets to have at least 17 years of carefree normal life and she gets free will and choice" And then it seemed like his burning need to speak left him in a single exhaled breath. His finger dropped and he looked almost bashful as his form deflated, "And that's a blessing."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 12:40 pm
The day of grief was raw with him, too--it was raw with everyone; it had made America weepy and apologetic and twisted Bix into a bitter, restless, anxious thing and both of these things were wrong but spending a day too wracked with regret to even leave his bed was not an entirely alien experience for Taym, at least--except that it wasn't. He'd always gone out of his way to shut it out, had built a life philosophy around studied avoidance. He'd thought it was over, but Bix brought it back around, Bix of all people, delineating the situation, divulging secrets Taym felt he shouldn't know, and saying the thing he desperately wanted to hear and desperately wanted to be a lie: you did the right thing leaving her. He opened his mouth to spit some other angry, curse-laden rejoinder--the expression was unmistakable--but instead his face contorted in sudden grief. Blindsided by tears, he was forced into silence instead, into a visible effort of steeling himself, the urge held at bay by the more powerful forces of shame and guilt until finally, when he answered, his voice was unsettlingly normal. It was a liar's voice, and it had come too easy. "I'm sorry about you and Ceres," was all he said, finally. It was not an apology. He clearly either had not changed his mind or simply refused to admit it. It was only an olive branch of sympathy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 3:49 pm
Bix's windbag, for the moment, was thankfully empty. He even smiled a little when Taym apologized unnecessarily. "Even Deus apologizing wouldn't make it better but.. hell. Not having kids isn't the worst that could happen." Especially here. It wasn't as if either of them knew if they were fertile anyway. Normal people in the real world had the same problems. "I file it under uhh.. normal relationship crap and around here that makes it a bit of a miracle. No relationship here can be normal." Bix chuckled. He found the chair again and sat down. This time he looked more himself, besides the reddened eyes that were extra obvious against his pale skin. He sat on the edge of the seat with his elbows on his knees and his legs spread in a manly perch. After a moment he huffed a short laugh to himself and glanced at Taym. "SO you picked Tuesday? You couldn't have thrown caution to the wind and made it Wednesday?! LIKE ADDAMS!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
