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 Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 11:35 am
Lysander didn't much like the pod rooms, they were far too quiet, the low opressive hum of machinery and the rows upon rows of still and silent people was like something from a horror movie. He was honestly glad that somehow he'd managed to get Ros on duty with him this time because the first time he'd stayed in the lightest part of the place and hadn't gone far at all.
"They look dead." he said. "I don't even think they are breathing."
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 6:10 pm
Roswell was, when all was said and done, not good with tedium. He could feel himself slowly going mad.
"There is absolutely no limit here on jobs that involve sitting in one place doing nothing for hours," Roswell said, pacing instead. "But I agree, sir, that it's morbid. How many are down here?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 2:42 pm
Lysander walked a little more boldly through the pods with Ros there, less afraid of the oppressive sound of death all around them. "It's not that boring." he said. "More like gut wrenchingly terrifying."
He frowned at one of the pods. "This one's a lady. Susana Thwaite." he read. "And another, Lauren Worthington." Somehow giving them names made them a little bit less scary, though he still sounded on the teetering edge of a scared freakout. It was a bit like watching one of his horses walk around with its ears back, just knowing it was going to spook.
"Oh look this one's a guy. They've got the same name as..."
He trailed off.
"Uh Tom?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 2:48 pm
"Same name as who?" Roswell asked, coming over to see. When he saw what the pod contained, his entire body went completely stiff, and all color drained from his face.
The peaceful face resting in the pod wasn't just any face. It was his face, his face as it used to be before his eye had been maimed. The hair was different, of course, a cheery pink. The clothes were neatly kept.
"Oh, no," Roswell said, "Oh no."
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 3:06 pm
Lysander laid a firm hand on Roswell's shoulder, steadying him while steadying himself. "I thought they wouldn't recruit him." he said. "Didn't I read something about.. addictions and things like that?" He'd always thought Fred was a good sort of guy, well natured. He'd just fallen in with drugs. The kind his company hadn't sold. Mostly. He'd said he'd quit but no one really believed it.
"What if he doesn't wake up?" he said anxiously. "Don't they?..."
He realised that wasn't helping at all. "Why would they bring him here too, why on earth would he agree?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 3:11 pm
"He didn't use drugs," Roswell said in a strangled way. "When we were younger, yes, but he never used them after- never mind. Can you read his vitals? He's not gone, is he? How long has he been like this?"
He knew Lysander probably didn't know the answer to any of this, and was on the verge of tears.
"I don't know why he would. Nothing he did every made any sense. I was never going to see him again. I didn't want him dead. What if he wakes up?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 3:16 pm
Lysander who had been a good boy and read all of the requisite paperwork by this point answered the obvious question. "If he wakes up he gets to be stuck here with the rest of us I suppose. At least he'll cheer things up a bit, he was always nice to be around, he used to tell me lots of enjoyable facts."
He wasn't sure he believed Roswell about the being clean thing though, the man had always seemed a bit artificially cheerful and jumpy around him.
"I think the goddess granted your wish." he said. "Maybe you are meant to protect him."
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:01 pm
"Protect him? Who's going to protect me from him? Lysander, you don't understand, he'll go after you, if he gets me alone he'll start fights, when I said those things I just wanted to let go of the situation, not bring it here!"
Roswell was in a complete panic.
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:10 pm
Lysander gave Roswell a confused but tolerant look as if he'd hit his head. It was a look that said he thought the other man had had a bit of a shock and was probably being a bit unreasonable and that he was going to be very patient and tolerant of that fact.
"Protect you from your own brother." he said levelly. "I think that's a tiny bit dramatic Roswell, I don't think he'd do anything like that." The idea of the nice man he'd met coming after him was even stranger still. "I don't think he'd come after me, he was always really nice to me. I thought he liked me don't you think?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 3:12 pm
"Of course he can be nice, anyone can be nice. Ted Bundy was nice! Everything's...it's hopeless no matter what happens now."
He was really relying on Lysander supporting him, at this point.
"You a*****e," he snapped suddenly at the pod, "you've done it on purpose," and then quieter, wiping his eye, "...Don't die, please don't die."
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 3:45 pm
"I don't think he's Ted Bundy somehow, he was never strange or anything, just courteous." He didn't let go of Roswell, slinking his arm around him steadying without a word about it.
"He'll be all right." he said. He couldn't imagine how it felt to have a twin and he couldn't understand why they'd fallen out so much. He'd felt distant to his siblings most of his life being one of the youngest, but he had always told himself it'd have been different if he'd had a sibling his own age.
He squinted into the glass. "What does it say on his neck?" he said. "I don't remember him having a tattoo."
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 3:55 pm
"He's got them all over," Roswell said, feeling more like Tom whenever his brother invariably showed up in his life. "It's because he doesn't care about being identified. Another one. It's probably a rabbit, or a card deck, or-"
He froze up again, the feelings concretely justified.
The tattoo just said TOM.
"God. I didn't think," Roswell whispered. "Even though they told us. He thinks I'm dead, Lysander. I don't know how he heard about it."
Fred was the only family he had. The only one who would have cared, except they'd been long-estranged.
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 4:17 pm
"He showed me his arms once!" Lysander said as if this had been the height of his day (which it had). "He had a lot of very nice tat-" he he trailed off as he realised what the tattoo actually said.
It was one thing to be told that you were dead to the outside world and that you couldn't go back, it was another to see it writ large on another human being. For the first time since arriving on the island he realised the gravity of grief involved. His parents might not worry at first but they'd worry eventually, they'd know something was wrong. And then what? Would they look? Would they grieve? He'd joked about them not caring but would they?
"I didn't think it would all go like this." he said.
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:05 pm
"It's easy to tell the difference between us, but it wasn't always." Roswell said slowly.
"...I couldn't hear anything, while I was in there. Could you?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 11:47 pm
Lysander shook his head. "I couldn't hear anything, all I remember was the...weird dreams I had in there. Like, being killed in a big..sort of group thing where I didn't know who I was. Really strange."
He peered in at the peaceful looking man. He could see the similarities between him and Roswell, they were impossible to miss. "I can see it." he said. "You both have the same jaw, the same nose. Everything."
He sighed. "The same sort of hair choices."
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