Domino Dancing (Neph!)

[Cheesigator]

I wasn't cut out for that.

With each heavy step digging into deep sand, chilled with the night air while the cold water danced over to soak his black pantlegs, he felt himself drifting further and further away.

The undersides of his wrists itched as a few escaped rivulets rolled down, every breath felt hollow and his ribcage creaked and sighed as he moved. Muscles felt raw and stretched taut from another stressful night, another mission. The only reassuring thing out here on the beaches of Ryun was the cooling touch of the glass bottle of beer in his hand as he trudged along the shore.

The cut above his eye had wept and made him squint, and before he knew it he was wading waist deep through the water, clumsily reaching up to push the facemask off to take another swig. This was a variety that he could only get in Ryun; he'd had it before, something of a local brew. It tasted a bit like sour tangerines.

Jutting out of the cold waters before him was a large rock, tapered to a point that overlooked some of the waves. During high tide it was probably swallowed whole he would imagine; but he didn't know anything about that. All he knew was the rough feeling of the grit cutting into his palms as he started to pull himself up it, his bottom half drenched and weighing so heavy he fell back down once or twice because of his inability to focus.

The world swayed and danced with the ebb and flow of the tide, and eventually he pulled himself up to the top of the rock, letting his legs dangle over the edge, sprays of seafoam tickling his bare feet. He had no idea what time it was, 3? 4?

He went to take another swig and realized the bottle was gone. He could've sworn he had it a moment ago though? Damn. He'd have to get more when he went back to the hotel room.

As he sat up there, the cold wind against his bare chest only somewhat sobering, he realized he needed to cover up and awkwardly fumbled with his mask, still barely hanging to an ear by one loop, to put it back on. At least out here on the beaches of Ryun he could see the stars. Like the stars he could see in the wife's eyes, the reflection mesmerizing as he stood over her, breath labored in the finally still night.

"Sorry," He said. "Sorry." A few more times, as if she could hear it, with tears mixing with the blood dribbling down his face.

Vander I just wasn't cut out for this.

"I don't know why, I don't know how
I thought I loved you but I'm not sure now
I hear the thunder crashing, the sky is dark
and now a storm is breaking within my heart,"

At some point, in its waterproof case strapped to his forearm, he had started recording on his comm, while the backing track he'd made a few nights ago in his apartment played low. His head nodded slightly off to the music, some of his hair clinging to his face either because of a cold sweat or sea water.

Sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry it had to be this way.

"All day all day, watch them all fall down... All day all day, domino dancing,"

I'll take you with me, I'll remember. You won't be forgotten.

"All day all day, watch them all fall down, All day all day, domino dancing, All day,"

As he sang his chin started drifting closer and closer to his pallid clavicle, his nodding to the beat softer and softer. The sounds of the waves crashing against the rock were so soothing and rhythmic, it made it so much easier to drown out the sound of her shriek still echoing in his ears. Like a soft blanket, a cold blanket slowly wrapping around his shoulders to bring him into its darkness and serenity.



With a rather pathetic plop, Loa fell off the side of the rock into the ocean as he fell asleep sitting up.

[nephero]

Late nights were the worst nights.

No, scratch that. Late nights that had never been intended to be late nights were the worst nights. It wasn't as if Ren had wanted to be out in the wee hours of the morning - he'd had dinner, his evening glass of wine, had even gotten all comfy under his freshly laundered comforter, the lights out and soothing noise playing from his comm.

That had been at 10pm. It was about 2:45 when he'd decided staring up into the dark of his room was doing nothing for him. It was frustrating, especially when this had been the pattern all week. Nothing seemed to help - endless playlists and meditations and lavender scented bubble baths and more wine than he was used to chugging down on a weeknight all seemed to be about as effective as a caffeine IV drip.

Because of course. Why not. It wasn't as if he had anything important to do at work, certainly nothing that required higher faculties or quick thinking or anything else closely resembling a working brain. Nah, he could get along just fine without any of that. It'd served him well the past three centuries, after all!

No, no. That wasn't how he talked to himself. Not anymore. Slow breath in, slow breath out. Insomnia happened. He'd be cranky and he'd have a headache, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. He'd been at war with far less sleep before, after all.

Still, staying in the apartments wasn't going to help him get to sleep or not climb the walls. He needed out, somewhere that wasn't still up and running and humming and alive.

Which was precisely how he found himself wandering the black sand beaches Ryun was famous for. Inky darkness, the faint promise of a sky on a clear night, and the steady roar of rolling, heavily sanitized waves against the shoreline. Ren reached down and pulled off his boots, carrying the pair with one finger through the back loops. Bare feet always made it easier to move, and the sand against his bare feet felt... grounding. Like a drink of cold water on a hot day. He took a deep breath again, let it out, and commenced to wander through the night.

At least, that had been the plan. Not ten steps in and something pricked his ears beyond the crash of the waves. Ren tilted his head, trying to pinpoint and identify it - it couldn't be Pol, could it? No, he was supposed to be in a bathtub somewhere, and there wasn't nearly enough commotion for him having been on the loose and unsupervised. That tended to get noticed very quickly.

Squinting into the dark, Ren could make out a rock in the water, just far out enough to not be noticed if you weren't looking. He took a few more steps (and a little cursing at his reduced perception abilities),  and that something-sound grew, and a few steps more had him recognizing it for the music it was. Some poor bastard had climbed all the way out there and was now drunkenly serenading the sea.

As one in a long, proud line of Deis, Ren could not judge. Still, he had to grimace at the choice of venue. While the waves were filtered, they were still beholden to the motion of the tides outside the dome. And the longer whoever the fuck that was dscided to stick around, the higher the waterline was going to get.

"Hey, buddy, you're gonna wanna--Oh, fuck."

Ren watched in horror as the distant shape of a person tilted to the side, and slowly, almost majestically, flopped right into the water.

Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck.

Desperately, stupidly, Ren looked around at the empty beach as if hoping by some miracle to spot some other passing insomniac who could help. As it was, indeed, ass-crack-o-clock in the morning, however, there was not another soul to be found. Just him, a drunk, and the murky depths of a black and unforgiving sea, utterly ambivalent to the hopes and dreams of living, breathing land-dwellers.

Ren made a soft, breathy note of panic, stared at the water where the person had gone under. Turned in circles a bit, stepped to the water, panicked some more, before finally tossing his boots to the side with a sharp, almost defiant "fuck it!"

He ran to the water before his good sense and self preservation could kick in, and fought the urge to gasp as the cold of the water hit him full force. Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it. Don't at all think about how you can't see shit under the water. Don't think about how quickly the current can take you. Don't think about getting hit with waves, turned around to where you don't even know which way is up. Don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it.

He got to the rock, one hand clinging to the surface as he looked around, and cussed again before taking a deep breath and ducking under the water, mentally shrieking to the stars about what sadistic little cocksuckers they all were in blinking up there watching him die, when he managed to grab a fistful of hair (oh he hoped it was hair) and yank it up to the surface again.

After that, it was an entire blur - all those pesky self-preservation instincts now had fulk control, and adrenaline had him swimming back to the shore as hard as his long legs could kick him. He didn't even think to adjust his grip, he was still dragging the poor drunk bastard by the hair until he was firmly on sandy shores again, and only once he was free of the waves did Ren let go and let the man's head think unceremoniously onto the sand.

[Cheesigator]

The world was swaying, murky and dark. He felt something soft billow up around him like a cloud as he settled, only barely able to open his eyes just enough to see moonlight scattered above him. Were his eyes so watery because he was crying? He cried a lot, even moreso these days. That was normal. At least it was quiet.

He closed his eyes, feeling lulled and weightless, like a child being rocked in a crib again, it felt so nice--

Suddenly there was a rush of pain from his scalp that made him grunt and groan, twisting, body movements sluggish like he was immersed in something. The pain didn't stop and in fact got worse but he was moving fast and it was hard to get his hands up to try and paw it away.

With a roaring in his ears suddenly the soft quiet erupted into the sounds of roaring waves and he hit the ground face first and his mouth filled up with sand as soon as he opened it to cough.

He just lay there for a few moments, feeling something warm and itchy on his scalp as he coughed and sputtered, groaning as he slowly flipped himself over onto his back, reaching up to wipe the sand away only to wipe more sand clinging from his hand onto his face in the process.

Some furious rubbing later and eventually he was able to squint and see the sky much more clearer than before. Fucking hell had he fallen asleep and fallen into the water?

His arms flopped into the sand and he snorted, coughed, wheezed and started laughing and coughing. Really? Really? Did he really almost drown? Holy shit he was a genius!

"Fuck," He finally croaked, slowly sitting up as he wheezed one more time, glancing down and seeing the fresh scabs on his wounds already washed off as fresh blood rolled down his arms. "Aw... Damn."

His scalp itching made him raise a cold, numb hand up to search and pull away with blood in his fingertips. Huh, if he was drowning why was his head bleeding? Did he hit a rock? Was it the waves that brought him to shore?

It was then that he heard a noise, the noise of a person behind him and he jerked, scrambling clumsily to his feet (and falling over once) before he could finally turn and see that there was another person there--also just as wet.

Loa had squirreled away most of his memories of encounters with others in Candidacy deep in the dark recesses of his foggiest memories, keeping them locked away so he could forever hide from their cruelty. Once he graduated and was chosen as a bagger he rarely came out from his apartment. Perhaps he'd seen them in Candyland, or once or twice in passing on the street, but tonight he found himself gazing upon his first encounter with an elf.

His first thought was how is it possible for nature to make something so intrinsically beautiful that no song could ever hope to capture it? and his second drunken thought was

y tho?

Had he been pulled into the water not by sleep but by the reaching hands of the innocent lives he'd taken? No, no. That couldn't be it. He didn't deserve so peaceful a death. Was that why this person came to pull him from the waters?

He put his face in his hands, rubbing tiredly as his scalp burned, head throbbed and ears rang, as he slowly sank to his knees and sat there in that deep black sand and mumbled,

"That mercy would have been better spent on someone else."

But they were right, he knew they were. His death would need to be far more painful and torturous if he was to ever hope to atone for what he'd done.

"Thanks."

He croaked between his fingers, keeping his face hidden.

[nephero]

   'That mercy would have been better spent on someone else.'

   For a long moment, Ren just stood there, hands on his knees and bent to ease his panting, all the adrenaline and the physical exertion and terror leaving him feeling like a trembling kitten. With his hearts thudding as hard as they possibly could, with every synapse poised to respond lightning-quick to danger, there just really wasn't room to understand the Aedolian language.

   It was like his entire brain was screaming at him, 'we are at CAPACITY, sir!'

   So for that long moment, all Ren could do was stare dumbly at the drowned rat of a man before him, until finally the air-raid-sirens of his own mind quieted just enough for him to hear the rough thanks. And then, all at once, everything caught up, like a tape being fast-forwarded and full of jittery motion.

   "Mercy? Were you trying to die out there?" Ren asked incredulously, eye wide as he finally straightened up, already regretting his life choices as the cold seeped in. The crash would be coming soon, and he was not looking forward to the soggy slog home. "Far be it from me to critique anyone's death plan, but mate there are simpler methods that won't end up with you traumatizing beachgoers in the morning."

[Cheesigator]

From between his pale fingers stricken in red he watched the other person pant and heave, and he coughed once or twice himself.

The guy looked pretty fit, and he glanced over his shoulder to see the rock he'd probably been sitting on wasn't really that far out? He looked back to the elf, dark brows furrowing; why was he panting so hard? He could hear the heartbeat, like this person had run sprinted for a mile or something. Oh, was he having a panic attack?

Why?

Well it wasn't any of Loa's business. Just like in theory it wasn't any of this person's business to go save him from drowning. He just felt so disappointed in himself.

"Mercy? Were you trying to die out there?"

He blinked, stirring from where he'd been staring blankly at the sand, and looked back up at the stranger, a bit confused himself because he didn't really have an answer to that question. Did he think of ending it? All the time. Had he been thinking of it this one time?

Hah. No, actually. At least not consciously it wasn't at the forefront of his mind.

He snorted and started quietly laughing, because the irony certainly wasn't lost on him even though he was drunk (though the cold water and the hair pulling seemed to have sobered him just a tad.)

"No, that'd be too cruel to too many people." He finally grumbled after giggling a few more times, struggling to get off of his knees and onto his feet in the sand with only one arm since he had to keep a hand on his face to obscure it. "Unfair."

After stumbling once or twice and finally managing to stand upright without tipping over, he brought up his wrist to see that his comm was still intact, and still recording, and he turned his back to Ren so he could press the stop button. If he actually got the sound of him falling into the ocean that might be kind of cool to put on the song somewhere.

"Figured this beach would be empty this early in the morning. Just work that late, or couldn't sleep?" He rumbled, shaking some of the water-diluted blood off his arm as he tried to focus on clotting it again--easier said than done when he felt like his head had been attacked by five feral cats.

Reaching up he wiped some of the blood out of his eye from the cut over his eyebrow, and he snorted. "Far be it from me to critique... Critique anyone's choice of how they-they spend their time." He nodded, sagely.

He was so funny.

He had no clue what he was trying to achieve here or why he was even talking to this person when he should just be heading back to the hotel. He had another mission in a few days, hell when they sent him out they sent him on errands. First go here, murder this family, while you're at it pick up some eggs, then stop over here and kill this guy and make it look like so-and-so did it and then grab some milk. Actually, yeah he should just go back to his room.

He looked up and paused for a second, looking around him with his hand still over the lower half of his face as he came to the quiet realization that he had no fucking clue where he was.

"Uh."

Shit what was it called again? He'd stayed in so many he couldn't remember which one he was at right now.

"There's a hotel. How do I get t-to the hotel?" Surely it couldn't be that far from here, right? He couldn't have walked that far.

"It, uh. Hm." He took both hands and furiously rubbed at his face, desperately trying to think of the name. "Star... The Starling? Yes. That probably. Where is that? From here."

(It was several miles, Loa. Several miles from here.)

[nephero]

   Oh, yeah, this guy was absolutely shitfaced. Not that Ren was unused to such a thing - he, too, often enjoyed the state of being commonly known as Blackout Drunk. It was a great place to be, right up until the end when he was left with a splitting headache and the sensation he had attempted to eat out the stuffing from a pillow. And he had been the tamer of the two former Raven leaders.

   Still, it was always a bit awkward to see someone get messy drunk. It was like the witnessing of such an event unlocked some deep embarrassment in his DNA, the entire line of his ancestry shuddering and trying to hide their faces to avoid looking at it directly. And man, was this guy messy drunk. Swaying and dripping and looking somewhere between passing out and bawling.

   Still, it wasn't like Ren hadn't been messy before, either. He'd just had the sense to do so in his own goddamn apartment, away from prying eyes and the gossip chain that was the general public. He supposed Sadsack here had the benefit of his messiness being contained to the wee hours of the morning when no one in their right mind was going for a day at the beach. Not yet, anyway. Cussing, Ren looked at the time. Yeah, not yet was rapidly becoming 'quite soon'.

   "The Starling?" He looked at Sadsack like he'd grown three heads. He'd walked all the way from there? It wasn't an establishment he had personally patroned before, but it was in a cluster of hotels and resorts that all circled close to the rails. They weren't even anywhere near a station, that being down the beach and west by several blocks. Whoever this guy was, he had remarkable coordination to have made it so far while this inebriated. It was almost impressive.

   "That's... a very long way to be walking soaking wet." A very long way to be walking soaking wet, and right in the middle of one of the busiest sections of the island city. Ren's mouth pressed together in a thin line, and he strongly considered his options. They could probably make it to the hospital before dawn, but on the other, Ren could feel the crash hitting him hard, and he was certain any trip there would be a day lost to the both of them.

   He'd really prefer to have his personal meltdown in the privacy of his own home, but he couldn't just leave the man on his doorstep to fend for himself, either.

   Hospital it was. Sighing deeply, Ren moved forward, shaking in place a bit as he took a very firm hold of Sadsack's upper arm to lead him away from the sands and out to the walkway.

   "Come on. This way."

[Cheesigator]

"That's... a very long way to be walking soaking wet."

Oh. So... It wasn't close by then?

Shit.

Well he supposed he could always probably go crash in a trash heap or something, sleep for a bit, and then once he sobered up he could get himself back to the hotel to wash up and sleep more later. Unfortunately it wouldn't be his first time. Even though all he wanted was a nice, soft bed right now, he had to admit he was too tired to go on a long journey across the city or something, that just wasn't happening.

Also he just plain didn't want to.

He had grunted and started to move away when suddenly this stranger grabbed his arm. He recoiled a bit, opening his mouth to say "Nn--" before he was tugged along and he realized oh, maybe this guy knew a shortcut or something? It seemed he was gonna take him to his hotel which was... Very kind of him. Even drunk Loa knew that this guy didn't owe him shit.

So as much as he hated the feeling of a warm hand on his skin, and as much as he hated that when he looked up he thought he saw a swath of grey hair and heard Vander chiding him, he was at least aware enough to know that following a local would be the fastest way to get anywhere.

The guy had already fished him out of the water looking a giant goddamn mess so what more dignity did he really have to lose at this point?

Like an ugly duckling he teetered after the stranger, realizing he didn't know what to call him and feeling far too awkward to ask. Indigo? Navy? Midnight? Midnight sounded nice. He'd go with that.

As they trudged through the city, leaving an ocean water river in their wakes, cold, wet and uncomfortable, Loa said absolutely nothing. He couldn't think of anything to say and what was there to say? He would just thank the guy when they got to the hotel and leave and they could both pretend none of this ever happened. After all, there was definitely a part of him that hoped this was all just a very elaborate bad dream.

But as he looked through his fingers at the world they passed by he still felt that not a single goddamn thing felt familiar. Had he really not passed by any noticable landmarks on his way to the beach? Well, this was probably a different route.

Eventually he noticed the streets were illuminated by a brighter light that reflected off the surface of the street and walkways. He looked up, wondering if they were getting close when he saw up ahead a looming and recognizable presence.

He stopped, resisting and pulling against Midnight before they could take another step further as he groaned. "No, I said hotel, not hospital." Like a stubborn ass pulling against the reins, he simply rooted himself to the sidewalk and refused to budge.

Had Midnight heard him wrong? Maybe, if he was this drunk he was probably slurring his words a bit. Either way he didn't need to go there, he was fine! Been far worse! He just needed to sleep dammit.