worthallthis | The Last Voyages: IC Inbox

Steve just comes over - fortunately it's only a matter of a few steps - to drop to his knees next to the mattress. He reaches out first to touch Libby, giving her shoulders a scratch, though it's B he's looking at with deep worry when he says, "Yeah, it's - I mean. People are talking."

But he could care less about people, right now. "How about you?" he asks, softly.

He looks back down again, at Libby, who thumps her tail at them both. "Talked to the Nurse. Actually got an answer, too. Apparently they think I'm a fine addition to their crew here." His voice is extremely flat, saying that, because if one of the Nurse's favorite Assistants is one of their most miserable, that's really saying something.

"The. The death thing," he adds, "is a choice. Not gonna just kill anybody who don't agree, only people who ask for it."

Steve's still chewing on the first bit of information - and how B seems to be taking it - when B goes on to the next.

Which, the first thing he has to say is, quietly, "Good. I - that's how I wanted to take it, but you never know."

And there had been a part of him that had been very, very scared that it had not been meant the way he'd heard it. (He really is reliving that vision of B dropping dead an awful lot these days. And he doesn't even have the eidetic memory anymore.)

He finally shifts closer, fitting himself into the space at B's left side, even if he's got to gently nudge a dog this way or that so they can sit hip to hip. He runs through about ten different things he could say in his head, discards them just as fast, before he finally settles on, "I know it's not how they meant it. But I think people like you being here are important."

He isn't sure this isn't the wrong thing to say, too, but it's out, now, so it's what he's got to stick with. He does add, "You know not to abuse the power you have. And you're doing everything you can to take care of the rest of us, and - it's good. You're good, B. You're so good." It doesn't surprise Steve. Not in the least.

Libby obligingly shifts her hind end over to make room, and B drops his head onto Steve's shoulder, hair half-hiding his face, but not moving his hand from Libby's fur yet. "I'm not good. I don't feel good. I'm selfish and scared and. And I don't want you to die, Steve."

He may have followed that thread about the Admiral not allowing that particular choice, there. And still remembers clearly making that choice for him, once, and never quite believing that Steve actually thought he'd done the right thing.

Steve's mouth twists; yeah, there is a difference between good and okay, and clearly B took it to mean the latter. And Steve knows he's not okay.

"Well, I'm not planning on it," he says, probably not-very-helpfully, though his voice sounds a little concerned, a little confused. His arm snakes around B's waist - frankly, it pretty much always does that, when they sit close. It's practically an unconscious reflex by now, trying to keep him close, give him comfort. "You just said the Nurse won't do it as a punishment."

Which is good, because Steve's not exactly promising to never get in trouble. But it sounds like he won't be executed for causing trouble, if it's got to happen again. And he knows it might, even if things are quiet(er) for right now. "So I'll be okay."

No, Steve. He definitely took it to mean the former. Being selfish like this is not a thing good people do.

But he curls into Steve's grip all the same, tangling his fingers into Steve's shirt. "You said wardens couldn't leave someone dead. I couldn't leave you dead, either. If that's your choice. I. I don't know what I'd do."

"I - " He pauses, has to parse that just a little, but, "I would never ask you to. B, I - "

He had. He had asked so many wardens to leave him dead, if it came to it. He remembers when they hadn't respected his wishes. He remembers just feeling... well. Of course they hadn't. He'd stopped asking, after a while.

But he'd eventually told Yara she could bring him back, if she needed to. He'd promised himself to her, and he's broken that promise a hundred times over, he knows, but he'd wanted to keep it.

He's made a promise to B, too. And he wants to keep that.

"I know you'll bring me back," he finally says, softly. "It's what I want. It's how I get to stay with you." He isn't sure he can bring himself to say in so many words that he hadn't wanted it for a long time. (He's pretty sure B already knows, without Steve explicitly explaining why. That won't help.)

For one wild moment B doesn't believe him, remembers the way Annie talked about the Barge and how he almost understands her now on the Clipper, remembers how Steve talked about that choice and how it was denied before. But even he can tell he's being irrational, so he gulps down some air for a minute before he say something really stupid, and wrestles some sense back into his brain.

He makes Steve happy. He's said that. B's seen it. So maybe he doesn't want to die anymore. (Steve never said it out loud, but B is observant, and he knew Annie; he worked out the edges of it, at least.) Steve's said he wants to stay with him, and B believes that, too. Can't stay with him if he's dead. Steve doesn't break promises if he can help it. Steve doesn't lie. He omits things, sometimes, but he doesn't lie.

(But seriously, Jersey? No, that didn't count, that wasn't to him.)

"Okay," he says finally, thickly. "Okay. Just. Had to make sure." He swallows once more and adds, "Not sure Annie ever forgave me, honestly."

“I am. You saw how fast she graduated after that,” Steve says, quietly. “And she couldn’t have, if you hadn’t brought her back. Now she’s free. That was you, who did that. Who made it possible.”

He knows Annie hadn’t been grateful at the time. He can’t blame her. But Flotilla - leaving Flotilla, losing what she had there - had kicked off something in her that had snowballed into graduation, and that could never have happened if B had left her dead on the deck of that ship.

“I know you never had a permanent inmate - before me, I guess,” he has to correct himself. “But you’ve helped a lot of people already.”

B thinks she probably would've been yanked back by the Admiral regardless, so he just presented a handy face to blame. Someone who made the actual choice for her instead of letting the Admiral take his usually course. But Steve knows Annie better than anyone except maybe Godric, so... "I hope you're right."

Right now, he has a hard time seeing how he's helped anyone. The litany from before Flotilla keeps going around and around in his head, how all his attempts to help only ever hurt. But he can also see how he's still not exactly rational right now. He doesn't say it out loud. He doesn't think he could handle Steve trying to argue the point with him right now.

Besides, he has one more piece of news, which will probably help Steve realize why he's in quite this bad of a shape. "Nurse said they. Decommissioned the Barge. She would... not be allowed to continue in the shape she was, they said." He swallows. "They killed her, Steve. Or good as."

Steve's arm tightens around B a little, wishing he had more comfort to give, that he could convince B that he really had done all right, in the end. He knows it was a hard choice - that calling it hard, really, is an understatement. He knows he loves B for making it, even when he's still clearly afraid it was the wrong one.

But what he goes on to say about the Barge sort of eclipses everything else. Steve doesn't have the rapport with the Barge that B does, clearly. He'd often just thought of the ship as an extension of the Admiral at best, and the Admiral is far from his favorite person. But he knows better now, academically, even if it's been hard to convince his gut; more than that, he knows what the Barge means to B, and what it means, too, that the Authority has had it decommissioned.

Without talking to any of them.

"Oh," he says, softly, and it's like he's feeling a hundred things at once, feeling trapped and dismayed and angry - but the one thing that takes precedence is the way he shifts, turning, reaching for B with the other arm to tug him close in a hug, try to fold him against his chest and maybe curl his fingers a little into B's shirt in lieu of squeezing him too hard. "Oh, no - C'mere."

Libby hastily scoots the rest of the way off B's lap as he turns to curl into Steve and bury his face in his shoulder. There's fear there, of being stuck on this damn ship, of being at the mercy of the Nurse for the rest of their lives. How could there not be? His mind sees paths and outcomes and knows where that ends up. If the Authority already took their ship apart, then they don't have much chance of sending them all back to it, do they?

But mostly, right now, there's just grief. His home is gone. Again. All his people are scattered on other ships. He's probably never going to see them again.

At least there's Steve. Thank god for Steve, making his demand of the Authority, to keep them together. He clings to Steve's shoulder for a long few moments, and finally lets go and really sobs, near-silently but with violently shaking shoulders.

There's nothing he can do but hold B through it, and Steve both hates that fact and has to be grateful that at least he can do that much. It's not enough, but it's something. Right? It's something.

But it's not enough.

He thinks maybe it's a good thing that all it does take to graduate here is the semblance of being happy. The mask. Because he doesn't think he's going to be actually happy about this entire mess... well. Ever. It's not like he has any love for the Admiral, but he also can't deny that the Barge was home. He'd hated it for so long, but after all those years, it had been the place he belonged, more than the world he'd come out of the ice into.

And it had been home for B, more than it had ever been that for Steve, and he presses his nose into B's hair and doesn't know what to say, except, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm here. I love you."

He can't even promise he won't disappear, he knows that just him alone is not enough, but he is here now, and he loves B, and he wishes he could do better than hold him through this, but by God, he will do at least that.

It helps, though. It always helps. Knowing that here, he's not alone. He doesn't have to figure it out by himself. Someone here trusts him, supports him, even loves him. He has to believe this Steve means it. His dumb smile every time B kisses him says he means it. The way he'd said you're it for me, now even before B got up the nerve to kiss him. Maybe one person isn't usually enough, but that's more than he's had anywhere else. And he can build up more people here. He can. He's not entirely forgotten how to be friendly.

He finally gets himself back under control, his head tucked under Steve's chin and his arm curled under that, fingers hooked into Steve's shirt, like a child. But it's okay. If Steve had a problem with him losing control over his emotions like this, he wouldn't have stuck around this long. B loses the plot a lot, after all.

Still, he finds himself saying, "Sorry," anyway, in an undertone.

"Nuh-uh," Steve murmurs softly, trying to nip that right in the bud. "Don't be sorry." His voice is gentle, rather than argumentative, but he still means it. This is a legitimate thing to be anything but sorry about. "You feel things. Because you're a person. So feel them, okay? Even if they kinda suck sometimes."

Steve is really bad at those little comforting sweet nothing phrases you're supposed to tell people when they're sad, but he is, at least, always honest. And he's honest when he says, "I'm - gonna miss her, too."

He rubs one hand up and down B's back slowly, holds him with the other. He wonders if he made the right choice, letting the Authority put him back in the system, insisting they stay together. On the one hand, it led them here. But on the other, they're together. And he would always rather be in hell with this man than in heaven alone. (Hah. Who is he kidding. He's not going to end up in the latter, anyway, alone or otherwise.)

He wants to get a warm washcloth for B's face, but that would also mean getting up and he doesn't want to do that just yet, so he stays put, pressing his mouth to the top of B's head for a moment. He wants to get angry - will get angry, later. At so many things. But not right now, when B needs him to be calm and strong.

B shuts his eyes and smiles a little, huffs an almost-laugh, at the first. He almost comes up with something glib and silly, but then the last admission kneecaps him again. He shudders out a sigh, forcing himself to stay relaxed and not sob again.

When he thinks he can without wobbling too much, he says, "You lived on the Barge for... for years. So much longer than me. It's gotta be. Be like the end of an era, for you." And not even a happy era, for most of it.

"Yeah," Steve admits. "I didn't... really think it would end." Maybe he means his time on the Barge. Maybe he just means the Barge. (He kind of means both, really.)

He isn't entirely sure how he feels about it, but he does mean what he said. He will miss it, even though it had its problems. Even though he hated so much about it. You can still miss things you hated. Sometimes their absence seems to hit harder, even, when they're gone.

"I'm sorry," he says again, softly, because he figures there really is nothing else he can say. B lost his home. Lost his friend. Lost a lot of friends. Steve's sorry, even though he's glad they're together. "We won't forget her. That's gotta count for something."

Not enough. But something.

It's never enough. Nothing B can do is ever enough. He heaves a shuddery little sigh, turns his face further into Steve's shoulder, and says quietly, "We'll remember. We're both really good at that."

Not just from the serum. They've both lost so much. They're the only ones left from their time, from their war, in a way from their universes. Since neither of them is ever going back. They've got a lot to remember. It's not enough, but it's something they can do.

The Last Voyages: IC Inbox

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