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 Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 9:48 am
Lawrence knew nothing much about the Atlantis mission other than that Melvin hadn’t come back from it. He hadn’t known it was happening when it actually went ahead, something he took as a commentary on his usefulness. He’d have done nothing but slow them all down and it had been apparently successful without his input. It was simply a fact, not something to be upset about. In the time that followed he visited the empty room he still thought of as “theirs” frequently, stopping by at varied times of day and knowing that there was no way Melvin would leave it empty so long unless he was off island one way or another. When he found himself scrubbing the place clean out of a restless and pent up anxiety he knew he had to do something to deal with things, something he’d never so much as consider for anyone else in the entire world.
Something drastic.
They’d been told in general terms that Atlantis had calmed and the sun was back out again but everything else was rumours, some people said someone died, others said a large group had been involved, others said that there had been kidnapped prisoners. No one knew anything for certain and it was maddening.
The sun was out but contrary to all his expectations it wasn’t his priority and didn’t make him feel better at all.
Lawrence flatly refused to entertain the thought that Melvin was dead, already feeling the raw and hollow ache of his space left in the world just from a few days visiting his room. Lawrence didn’t grieve, he felt the gaps left behind in his own life, the inconveniences to his every day. It was a selfish grief but in its own way was equally intolerable to him as normal grief was to others. Melvin was one of perhaps four people, two of whom were his blood relations, who mattered to him in a way comparable to the way he loved himself. In fact, to lose him was indeed to lose a sizeable part of himself and wasn’t at all something he was willing to deal with right now. That left an inconvenient option behind, one which at the very least he’d be able to do something about. It left the possibility that Melvin was still down there, still trapped in Atlantis. The only way to know or to get him back would be to go down there himself.
This was the drastic measure Lawr found himself considering.
The thing was that he wasn’t just afraid of open water, it was a visceral and bone chilling phobia, one that wrapped icy claws around his heart and brought out a primal and reflexive terror in him he experienced nowhere else. He’d almost drowned several times - not because he couldn’t swim, he was a strong swimmer when he was indoors in the safety of a pool, a place where he could feel and see the bottom - but because the reflex to escape and to survive was so incredibly strong it almost overwhelmed him, prompting him to summon his gauntlets and sink. He’d been to Atlantis once but it had been clinging tightly to Melvin and trying so so hard not to panic.
And yet he’d need to do this alone. He couldn’t let anyone else see him so afraid and vulnerable. He couldn’t ask Rodney to come either, he didn’t think Rodney would agree with helping Melvin, the two of them had never seen eye to eye in anything at all.
He had one of the sun hunters show him how to kit up in the scuba gear and how to change his water, listening intently to everything they had to say, unafraid far from the water and hoping that he could remember it all when the deep dark terror tried to pull him under. He was calm, the way he was always calm until he reached the water and donned his flippers, noticing as he did so that his hand was shaking and that even in the heat he was shivering like a small terrified dog. He was glad he was alone, resenting the way his body responded to this.
Every nightmare he’d ever had about drowning suffocated by the ocean he had ever had came back to him as the waves lapped around him like circling wolves and he found himself doubting - not for the first time - that he could do this.
<> Butch said. <>
Even Lawrences typically flat and cold resolve teetered as he walked out further into the water. As it reached his chest it seemed to sap away his oxygen, leeching the last of his warmth and breath out of him. Finally he felt his feet leave the ground and he slipped under, making a sound of startled fear and surprise that no one heard.
Underwater it was different and the true panic began, summoning Butch to hand and sinking, finding himself disoriented beyond belief, he couldn’t tell up from down, left from right, and he knew, just knew that this was going to be it, the most humiliating death anyone could suffer. He couldn’t calm himself down, all his normal reason and all his normal efforts to control himself coming up short. Even the medication which tended to dampen everything else wasn’t enough to dampen the terror that possessed him in that instant. It was all utterly stark and alien, an emotion in a place where there shouldn’t have been anything, like hearing a firework when he was an owl.
He wasn’t sure what he was more afraid of, the water or the loss of control all of this represented and he couldn’t make it stop.
And yet he couldn’t go back, if he turned back he’d have failed and he wasn’t able to fail, not when it involved someone as important to him, if he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do anything if Rodney needed him either. So he pressed on, forcing himself to reach the bottom and press himself onwards, slowly forcing himself to stop thrashing and to swim forwards. The terror was still there, twisting in his chest while his heart felt like a bird throwing itself against the bars of a cage. He was locked in combat with a tempest of emotions he didn’t comprehend and the goal was to just reach that place where Atlantis lay and hope against all hope that it let him in.
It was hell. A hell he’d never experienced, cold, dark and bottomless, alone in the ocean and alone with his worst nightmares. He’d spent so long getting used to Butch but down here there was something about the raspy breaths and the excited patient tone of the creature that made him worry. He swam close to the sand and stone at the bottom and he whispered that they’d be thigither for ever, that this would be their home, that he didn’t need to be afraid. And still he was afraid.
He thought of Rodney and the boys, wondering if they’d even be able to guess why this had happened to him, regretting that he hadn’t thought to say about where he’d gone beyond a brief note and that he’d done this to them.
It was nothing short of a miracle that he made it, pure luck in the face of adversity, one of his nine lives where he’d had every chance of never making it. He didn’t know how long it had been, but he’d never been so glad to get out of the water when he pulled himself out in the entry hall to Atlantis, pulled himself out, curled up in a ball and out of sheer reflexive adrenaline and the wild uncontrollable high of sheer bodily reaction to something primal and the relief of survival. He did something he almost never did and certainly never did because of emotion. He cried. Cried until the sobs quieted to a calmer ragged breathing and only then could move and even begin to process what he’d just done or where he’d come from and start to cope with the fact that if he was ever to get back home again, he’d need to do it again.
He didn’t know if he could do it again.
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:54 am
It took some time to be told someone was there and even more to pull himself from the dregs sleep and to walk to the gates. There the stone gates opened and he stepped through, the doors closing behind him. Rubbing his eyes, he looked in the dim light to see who had come.
He had expected a member of the Atlantis part that showed concern for his wellbeing before their departure. In no way was Lawr on the list of potential visitors as Melvin knew very well his fears of the water and had great difficulty getting Lawr to see Atlantis the one time by carrying him on his back. It was why he struggled to associate the crumpled blonde with the pristine doctor-to-be.
Worried he was injured, he knelt down beside him and shook his shoulders. "Lawr?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 11:06 am
Lawrence didn't expect Melvin to be there, he didn't expect anyone to be there, it was a crazy idea, an idea only rendered more crazy by the fact that he'd done it and thought it would work. Going back into the water wasn't an option, not for a good long while, hopefully never.
When he heard Melvin he barely believed it at all but uncurled anyway, opening one slightly red eye.
"Oh thank goodness you are all right." he said flatly and closed it again.
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 11:10 am
His eyes were red. Was he okay?
"I was never in danger. Why are you here?" He asked, moving to undo his oxygen tank and gear off his body so he could hold him properly.
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 11:15 am
Lawrence stayed pretty limp, looking drained but still managing a weak and slightly sarcastic. "Oh you were never in danger that's great. Excellent news."
And it was good news, but it was also dreadfully embarassing.
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 11:21 am
"Didn't they tell you? About why I'm here? About what happened?" He said as he pulled free the tank and mask and pulled Lawr's limp body into his arms.
"You could have died coming here. Why didn't you bring someone?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 11:29 am
"Which they exactly?" he said dryly. "The they who I don't speak to or the they who don't even like me?"
He sighed. "I need to fly around as an owl to know anything, I'm hardly center of the rumour mill."
"I didn't bring anyone because there's no one who'd understand or who I'd want to see me. I'd lose patience and it would never happen."
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 11:44 am
It was a good point. Lawr had few friends that were connected to those at the Atlantis party and those that knew Melvin did not care to tell Lawr anything about him.
"I had hoped they would have reported I was not dead or missing. I guess that is expecting too much." He held him, moving the hair from his face.
"I cannot believe you are here. No one would have been around to save you. Do you think I would want to come home to find you dead?" He squeezed him tightly at the thought. "At the very least could you have brought..." Mik and Malkam were out of the question. Rodney did not like him and Melvin wouldn't want to see him "...someone impressionable enough to not care how you handle the ocean?"
But he couldn't keep any energy for scolding up for long.
"Are you okay? Your eyes are bloodshot."
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 12:05 pm
"Well no." he said. "They didn't, but its not exactly their fault, I didn't ask them either I suppose. A little too proud for that."
He leaned towards Melvin a little and sighed. "I thought I was going to die." he said. "I don't think I've ever thought it more. There were times when I couldn't think or act. I got lost, I didn't know how much air I had left. I couldn't bring anyone because it was too much, I might end up getting them drowned too."
He closed his eyes. "I'm fine now." he said. "And they are bloodshot because of..adrenaline, I suppose." He still felt shaky and exhausted, Butch crooning and whining in his mind.
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 12:16 pm
He held him and kissed the top of his head.
"I am both proud of you and angry that you'd almost risk your life because of your pride." Panicing when diving could have had Lawr blacking out and using up his oxygen as he went adrift in Deus' dangerous waters. Then how could he get hone even if he woke up?
He pressed his legs against Lawr to hold him completely.
"What was even your plan?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 12:57 pm
Lawrence didn't argue about his pride, it was just something he'd always been unable to avoid and once again it had put him in this situation.
"I don't know. I just wanted to make sure you were alive. I just wanted to find you. If I couldn't find you down here then I don't know either." He sighed. "You didn't come back and I freaked out. Why are you down here still?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 1:46 pm
"If I could kill your pride enough to keep you alive, I would." He combed his hands theough his hair, letting Lawr be exhausted in his arms.
"Atlantis trusts me. They didn't trust anyone else. We have work to do. It needs my help. That is why I am here. I want to see it thrive. I want an alliance. I do not want to give up the trust given to me. Taken from me from selfish people. I want to protect it."
He smiled as continued to brush his hair. "Why were you crying?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 1:56 pm
Lawrence enjoyed having his hair stroked, with anyone else it would have gotten his hackles up, but with Melvin he knew he was clean and tidy and knew that he didn't mean him any harm. He wasn't defensive around him. He was rattled by his ordeal, another surprise and he could not seem to fully relax with the thought of the ocean out there pressing down all around them, dark, vast and terrifying.
He held onto Melvin's shirt with his only hand in an oddly childlike gesture, preoccupied still with the danger and the water.
"I'm not surprised they trust you." he said. "The rest of the world is full of people like me, people who'd sell it all for a nice piano, for a chance at my hand back, for a lot of things. I mean, I wouldn't now because you are important but if it had just been me...well."
"As for the crying it's a mystery to me." he said. "It was an involuntary response like throwing up or something of that description. I am not really a crier, you know that. Stress maybe?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 3:11 pm
"I think what you would trade anything for a piano or your hand. I'd trade almost anything for Atlantis. It isn't much different. It's still a selfish want for something."
"I became upset when I knew it was Kim who took advantage of the kindness of taking her to Atlantis to steal for her personal gain. That a kindness lead to selfish people nearly destroying all I held dear. Atlantis. You if the war continued. It was a lesson to be more cautious with who I share my kindness with. To know that as selfish as I am, so is everyone else. Everyone wants to gain something. But the poor girl died by the hands of Creation for us coming back to get the artifact she took from Atlantis and gave to it. If anything Atlantis should have been the one to deliver punishment as a gesture we were on it's side, but she made a mistake doing anything with a legacy either without having something on her side as leverage. She asked nothing from them, but they took everything from her. All she had done was ask for it back. I had my artifact at the very least to make a trade. I wasn't about to be kind after all. It was more upset by it. Even a Legacy has wants."
Even Atlantis had wants.
"You don't usually cry, no. You overcame a great fear to get to me. I'm sorry I can't reward you somehow. I still have work here."
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 3:29 pm
"Yes, people are fundamentally awful." he didn't seem concerned about the dead girl though. "But she made her choices, whatever frankly. If you steal from mysterious powers you run the risk of catastrophe. If primitive man stole a reactor core he'd also be in for a world of pain. These things happen and they are just, in a sense."
He gave Melvin a look of mild horror.
"Oh. Right. Well. That's fine. I'm glad you are safe. I don't need a reward."
He looked at the pool he'd come out of and moved a little closer to the other man to put him more between Lawrence and it.
"I'll just...wait here." he said quietly.
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