[Solo] Vigil (Evan)

[Inle-roo]

Day 1

Evan had only known that Tuck had gotten podded because he had been in the right place at the right time and in the right frame of mind to bully the Life hunters he had heard snickering about "that dumb Moon who forgot how to count days." He couldn't believe it at first. No, that wasn't necessarily true. He knew something had happened on that mission to set Tuck on a path away from him and Stormy and even Heidi, but Evan hadn't seen him since Tuck had left the labs and Tuck had never responded to his texts.

He figured Tuck had just needed some time alone. He could definitely understand the need to get off the island for a little while. It was too much like a fishbowl here, and it made it hard to escape from anything. He hadn't expected this, though. He was torn between disbelief (and guilt) and anger (and guilt).

Well, at least he knew where Tuck would be for the next week. Evan would be right there waiting for him.  

[Inle-roo]

Day Two

Maybe it was selfish, but Evan was glad for Stormy's company even if it meant she would be down here suffering on the cold, hard floor with him. He wanted to keep an eye on her, and now he could do that without actually having to leave. He might have been disappointed in her choices, but he could never bring himself to be mad at her. He was glad to see that she had come home safe, too. It would be nice to have someone to talk to even if he wasn't really in the mood for it. It was nice to have the option.

He couldn't just talk to Tuck's pod all day, after all, and the voices in his head weren't always the best company.  

[Inle-roo]

Day Three

His body, sorely mistreated by both himself and the things he had encountered in his nearly week-long tear through the Haunted House, was healing. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost feel broken skin knitting itself back together. He was in that kind of delirious stage of exhaustion where he could actually picture the skin being sewn back together as if by a microscopic needle and thread. There must have been hundreds of them, because everything hurt.

This was penance, too. This was a reminder that he couldn't let his guard down, not even for a second, not even around the people he thought he knew best because they were still people and therefore unpredictable. He hadn't expected Stormy's passive lashing out at Tuck that had broken up their team, even for just a mission's worth of time. He hadn't expected Tuck to run.

He hadn't expected any of that, and so he hadn't been prepared to step in and take charge of the situation. Maybe if he had dug his heels in and insisted they took Tuck, maybe Tuck wouldn't have gotten hurt. Maybe if he had, they wouldn't all be in the pod room now.

Maybe if he had been better, his friends and brothers would still be alive. He would never have come to Deus because he wouldn't have had a reason to.

He looked over at Stormy in her nest of pillows and blankets and sleeping bags and remained sitting upright against the wall.  

[Inle-roo]

Day Four

It was almost a relief when Sasha came for him. She had been one of the last people he had expected to see before the week was out, but her demands had left no room for argument. That was good, because he would have argued that his place was there in the pod room with Tuck and Stormy and he couldn't leave because he couldn't, not until Tuck was up and they could all leave together, and in his stubbornness he might have destroyed whatever fragile thing was growing between them.

It wasn't friendship, not until the moment she had insisted on taking care of him and only because that wasn't something that allies did. He wished he had been in a better state to appreciate it, to let her know how much it meant to him that she cared enough to take care of him. More than that, she wasn't trying to keep him away. She knew what he was doing and even if she didn't approve, she let him do it anyway.

It made him want to stay in her bed and listen to her little snores and feel the way she fit so well against him. Maybe not for the rest of the week, but just a little while longer.

Instead, he carefully untangled them and quietly slipped out of her bed, pressing a whisper-soft kiss to her cheek. He dressed and crept out of her room, heading back to Stormy and Tuck with new resolve. Whatever was wrong with him--whatever caused him to keep failing the people he cared about so spectacularly--he had to fix it. He didn't want to fail her like he'd failed everybody else.