Welcome to Gaia! ::

Aftermath

The pendant dumped him outside the infirmary, and good thing it did. Leslie slipped to his knees, an exhausted and shaking mess. When was the last time he'd slept? Days? When was the last time he'd eaten something besides meat?

They took him in, put him in a bed, and stuck a sentry outside his door.

Funny how it was a little bit familiar.

Medicated

No wonder America had been a loopy baby bird. The drugs hit Leslie like a freight train. He hid under the sheet, quaking like a leaf, but at least he was warm.

Nightmares

Relentless waves. They've given him a bucket for the side of his bed, and the worst part is remembering how much he'd just wanted to eat, at the end. How much he wanted to just eat, and eat, and eat, and it didn't matter what. It didn't matter who, because everyone had just been meat.

What You Had & What You Lost

The guard outside his door had given Abbi a bland look, used to this sort of affair. Drama queens and kings, this whole island. But Miller was cleared for visitors: he just wasn't clear to leave.

Abbi would read on his chart that he'd come back from a mission in a state of exhaustion, was currently on pain-killers and sleep-aids, and was in fine enough shape minus a few wounds here and there: a criss-cut under his left eye, angled cuts on his palms (not coincidentally at all in the shape of a pendant), and a number of bruises and lacerations. His arms were bandaged from elbow to wrist, but mostly to prevent picking.

Leslie himself was curled up under the covers, physically recoiling in a flash of terror at the sudden sound, evident on his face. His eyes didn't meet Abbi's for more than a second or two-- a look at her, then away, at anything but her.

"Hi 'Bbi," he mumbled, quaking like a leaf. "Hi."

Something was very, very wrong.

What You Had & What You Lost

A bland look from the guard warrants an honest greeting, though subdued. Working in the Infirmary awards the girl perks like getting to know others, especially the ones who work guard duty. She knows the guard today, not very well, and promises to have a chat with him when she's done with Leslie, to smile at him and offer something kind for all the hard work he does. But today she only mumbles a greeting and hurries forward.
The chart is picked up and checked with clinical quickness (exhaustion, lacerations, contusions, injuries sustained on promotion), the girl determined to figure out what is wrong from paper. But when she finds no answer, when she looks at her friend in his cot all jumpy and lacking his usual bravado, Abbi realizes that records won't show people.
Maybe that's why she'd rather be a nurse than switch to the Life Division in pursuit of being an actual doctor. Because she wants to heal people, not save the day.

Without a word, and honestly its so hard not to speak when she's got a million questions and he's said hello and he'd called her something odd and she wants to ask what's with the new nickname, she sets the chart back down. Even though she's dying to ask why everyone was giving her new names lately, she moves slowly over to his side of the bed and keeps her mouth shut. She does smile, just a little, because that will hopefully do something to ease him, but its edged with worry she can't shake.
She is uninvited by him, but the girl still sits down next to Leslie and draws her knees up. Shoes are kicked off, a warning that she will stay, before she gives him a hesitant smile, silently asking if she could stay.

What You Had & What You Lost

Slowly, his hand crawled across the sheet, shooting out to grab hers, if offered, squeezing it tight, still shaking, chewing at the inside of his lip.

Leslie wanted to go home, but he was already here. Sometimes he forgot, and felt a deep sense of loathing (more, even, than usual, which was no small amount). Sometimes he wanted to just let whatever that had been come back and take charge, because at least them Leslie had felt like he'd deserved the victories he'd extracted. That he had earned the violence he had exacted with a force akin to justice.

But that just made him remember the aftermath of each one, as each target was eliminated and not even by him, but he enjoyed it, then. That sense of pride, of hate, of violence and a job well done the only emotions Leslie had connected to a warm, lifeless corpse.

With his free hand, Leslie scrubbed at his face, and began to cry. Again. He had been doing it a lot.

Leslie was not a brave or courageous or good boy. He was just a boy.

"I don't want to remember," he whispered, "but i do, I do, I do, I do. Repeating and over and over, repeating and over. I remember."

The other side of the bed

When he rolled over, suspicious, the sheet was curled around him like a protective hood, with enough slack to pull down to hide his face entirely.

"I want," Leslie said, mournful and terrible, "to want the meat." He said meat like an expletive, like a filthy pejorative. Any and every swear and insult-- racist, sexist, homophobic-- was not taboo to him. But meat was.

She'd understand. He shook, like a scared dog, unable to look at her and ashamed, of everything. "Shake's 'k. I'm sorry, it just keeps." A hiccuping sob. "How can you be- how can you- how are-" Normal? After that? How did she go on, and function?

What You Had & What You Lost

A hand is always offered to Leslie, sometimes not in the clearest manner but certainly one that is there. Either palm out to swat his shoulder or with wiggly fingers in hopes of grabbing a fistful of hair for retribution for pulling her pigtails, Abbi always has one hand out for him. She really does view him like that broken dog she'd seen in his visions, part of her always aware that he needed a little coaxing from time to time. But only now she cannot be as playful as always.

When his hand latched onto her's, Abbi says nothing and scoots further up along on the cot. There isn't much room, but she and Leslie are tiny things and she knows they'll fit. Her knees pull up as she butts him with one shoulder, just as he begins to cry. She feels a little bad about that, but only does the motion again, a little softer.
She is here, and she will wait. She nods once, squeezes his hand and waits.
Normally she's terrible at that, but Abbi thinks she's starting to figure out something about what other people need more.