Welcome to Gaia! ::

The rage had gone, the adrenaline was starting to wear off. As he stepped through the portal into unfamiliar surroundings, Jordan was starting to realize how tired he was. Tired, and sore, and anxious, he needed to find -

Jordan?

Ferros! Jordan stumbled slightly, but kept going. Not blocking the portal would be good, not falling over when Harrison was still leaning on him would be good.

I could not reach you, the weapon said plaintively. You needed me and I could not get to you. Even as they spoke, Jordan could feel Ferros stretching out and latching closer onto his self, the parts where they overlapped and interlocked snapping back into place more tightly and completely. I will not be separated from you again, Ferros rumbled, an edge of ferocious possession in his thought.

I hope not. God, I hope not. The rush of sheer relief at being able to hear his partner's voice again was astonishing.

I will not allow it. A beat of silence as Ferros assessed his human's condition. You are exhausted. I am very tired too. Go and find your other mate and we will all sleep.

Wha - Jordan almost stumbled again.

Boilfriend, whatever. Sleep, Ferros prodded.

There were so many people he wanted to see home safely, even if this wasn't quite the home they were used to, but Jordan was tired in a bone-deep way, and he was pretty sure that if he didn't catch Rep now the other Sun would start getting skittish again. He glanced around the arrival cavern, noting several familiar faces with a degree of relief. There, red hair and a scowl. Jordan made his way through the crowd. "There you are. I lost sight of you back there," he said.

Rep was watching the other people arrive with a sort of cruel irritation. Normally he'd have been glad to see them arrive, right now though he was simply rhyming off all the reasons in his head why they hated him and hadn't really deserved to come back in a petty sort of way.

As Jordan and Harrison came through the portal, he felt that old familiar clench of anxiety. Clearly they'd found each other, they didn't have much use for him. He could have died. And they wouldn't even have cared. And why should he even care if they did? He shouldn't be gay in the first ******** place, he should man the ******** up and get back to liking women, but he was too ridiculous to even do that. No, instead even seeing them both filled him with a childish amount of ******** relief. He was useless, he was smitten.

"Yeah, I'm sure you did." he stated, almost standoffishly. He was tired, he was feeling absurdly sensitive. He wanted a shower, a change of clothes, a hug and a sleep. What was he, ******** five?

the calm, warm voice was a momentary reprieve from the endless cycle of self-derision. He took a very slow deep breath and seemed to breath out some of the tension in his posture. "Sorry. I'm in a shitty mood. I think I need sleep pretty ******** bad."

Maybe it would. It probably wouldn't. It was hard to get out of this ******** cycle. Harrison looked about as down as he felt though. The pang of shared misery was delightful, misery loved company and Rep's current misery wanted ALL THE ******** WORLD to know its suffering. "Don't ******** say hello then." he snapped at the moon hunter.

"Give me a minute, asshat," Harrison said, feeling slightly better in spite of himself. He winced as Jordan put his hand on Rep's shoulder, and leaned away from Jordan guiltily. "Don't. You- shouldn't... me and Rep were in that flower room. I shouldn't have even been...I mean, you could be-"

Infected and headed straight for plant zombiehood.

"Me and Rep both oughta get to the infirmary."

So they weren't all dead, at least.

Exhausted wasn't a good word for it. It barely began to cover what he was feeling as Jerry limped his way out of the portal and into what would become their new home. As though on auto pilot, he listened to snippets of what had happened.

Was... everything destroyed up above ground?

His guitar...

Sasha's flute...

Molly's violin, Otto's drums, everything he had been looking forward to...

The hissing in his ears was back and he rolled his head, Roar desummoned and around his neck again and he limped his way to a bed. He was covered in blood. Some was his own, some... wasn't. He was pretty sure he had a shiner, and who knew where his glasses had gone. He should probably shower, but had no energy left for it.

His leg hurt.

Part of him wanted to find Sasha and Candace, Jordan, Harrison, even Rep but... again the hissing. He picked at his scar as he sat heavily. How could he while mostly blind? Who wanted to find him anyway? If he had died out there, would anyone have even cared? Probably not.

Don't let Simon see you limping. Never mind everyone was pretty battered and torn up. Lame horse. He couldn't even aim his weapon right at the end. What good was he, unless they wanted to orchestrate a sing-along?

He didn't feel like singing.

Wallowing in misery, he lay down, curling up to try to ignore the headache. If anyone wanted him, which he doubted, they could come find him.

On the bright side, it seemed Killzone would be too busy to hover over him. Alone time at last, more or less.

"You're a real piece of s**t," Harrison snarled, "You think I'm dicking around? Were you listening? We were supposed to be Quarantined in there and bugs aren't the only things that can make a puppet out of somebody. ...You understand what I'm saying, or am I talking too far above your education level?"

"Neither were the rest of everybody in both our ******** divisions, but it didn't do them much good either. You and me are headed to the infirmary."

He swallowed something ugly, and added to Jordan,

"...and I guess he's right. I coulda- you...better come too," even though the suggestion that he'd killed Jordan made his stomach drop. Something nastier in him rebelled against the feeling. If Harrison was dead, what did it even matter.

"Glad that's resolved," Jordan said dryly. He was probably just going to have to learn to let the two of them snipe at each other as a normal form of communication. "Let's go, the sooner we get checked out, the sooner we can get some sleep."