logsinthenight | The tailback of timorous souls

characters: Rosinante, OTA
location: Church, elsewhere?
date/time: 7/7 evening
content: After the dubious honor of being the first to die, Rosi also is the first to be revived in the church.
warnings: n/a for now

There's a crash out on the rocks; a rattle of glass and metal, caught just wrong on sharp granite, and then cold darkness overtakes him.

And for a moment, he thinks perhaps he dreamed it, for there is the oddest sensation of waking from a deep slumber. For a moment he thinks he still feels icy cold. But there's no wind over the water, no sharp ache in his chest. The church is comfortable and lit. How did he get here? Why is he basically just lying at someone's feet? Who-

"Uh, sorry. Hello."

A few minutes later, if you weren't present for him being tossed out the trap door, he'll just be sitting on the floor with legs bent at the knees and lantern beside him. Death is never pleasant and he needs a moment, plus it sounds like there were people looking for him. They shouldn't have, but so it goes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, fine.

[For all his problems, both physical and mental, he knows he doesn't hallucinate. His eyes are sharp, and he saw that hand lowering the door back into place. He's not going to dismiss it so easily, but he's also not going to continue going off about it with Hicks here. No purpose in doing that.]

Actually, I don't suppose I could beg a cigarette off you? I'll owe you one, once I get more from Rastus.

[Then he'll be better than just fine. Apparently dead or alive, he's still got his cravings.]

( well, that'll prove it definitively. ghosts can't smoke, no matter that they'd like to. so gene pulls out a rumpled pack of camels, one of them ones from the commissary rather than the ones you get in a k-rat, an' he holds the whole of the pack out. there's about six left in it. )

Go on. An' don't you worry about owin' anything, seems to me you've had a rough few days.

Thanks.

[Rosinante will pay him back anyway. He'll insist on it, because that's how he is. But for now he doesn't argue, he just takes one and then goes to unscrew the top of his lantern to expose the flame.

Man, this feels a lot weirder now, conceptually, than it did before and he hesitates.]

Sure do wish my lighter worked. But I guess there's something appropriate in lighting a cigarette with my own flame, or whatever this thing really is.

( appropriate or unsettlin', you go on an' take your pick. verdict's still out for him. )

Well... I guess it seems poetic in a sense. Light o'the soul an' all.

( hell, he gets out another pack of cigarettes, these ones a rumpled k-ration pack an' chesterfields besides, an' lights it off his own. there's a spell o'silence where he don't do much else than that, an' then he tips his head out. exhales just shy of hard. )

For what it's worth, I'm glad it weren't permanent.

[Yeah, there's some poetry all right. Get that smoke going by his flickering, exposed lifeforce. Why not. He inhales and exhales, savoring it. Rastus had better come through.]

Thanks. Me too. Only had a couple extra days and already I'm used to being alive again. I'd hate to lose it, especially since I've already started making plans on what to do with it.

[You're a good man, Gene. Saying something like this to a person he's barely known - that's that compassion that makes someone a medic in the first place.]

( well, ain't gallows humour the hallmark of soldiers the world over? looks like it stands to reason the commander would be much the same. that almost irreverent approach to death that comes when you've seen too much of it an' it's burned a brand on your soul you can't put out.

gene takes a seat beside him at last, a polite distance away. )

Yeah? What sorta plans are those?

Exploring, initially. Figure that's the best I can do for people here. But there's some kids who've been living in the boathouse too, and they're working on building a boat. Maybe more, if enough people help. I told them they've got as much of my free time as they like.

[Despite having just died and come back, yeah, okay, he's smiling a little. That lake might not be the ocean, but it still holds a similar promise. He loves the freedom of open water.]

Oh — reckon I talked to one of them. Sora, right?

( lord almighty, the boy had reminded him of robbie. that same irrepressible energy. )

I offered to help 'em out. Carpentry, you know.

Riku's the one I met. Kid with the silver hair. But hey, that's a big help, you're a step ahead of me! I just figured I'd chop and sand wood. You're a carpenter?

[Talk about a stroke of good luck! He may not have run across a proper shipwright yet, but someone with actual carpentry knowledge will be a real boon to them all.]

( he gives a bit of a helpless little shrug, liftin' his right shoulder up. )

Did an apprenticeship when I was about fourteen onward. I ain't well-versed in all manners of carpentry, but I reckon I can muddle. If you don't mind doin' the heavy liftin', I can probably manage the refinements all right.

( he ain't turned his hand to it since the start of the war, but. he does miss it. it's calmin', workin' on wood. the only focus bein' between you an' the grain of it. )

That's all I've been doing for them, anyway. Reminds me of my days as a chore boy before I was old enough to enlist.

[And he sees nothing wrong with that. Death has a funny way of making long mornings and sweaty evenings mopping and polishing decks and carrying rope for rigging around Marineford seem almost nostalgic. There's a simplicity to sanding planks that makes for its own sort of meditation.]

( he can't hardly imagine rosinante as a young boy, but tryin' sure brings a smile to his face. )

You were a cabin boy way back?

( anyone over 25 is practically ancient when you're a young soldier, okay. )

[A whole two years over 25, truly the oldest of old men.]

Everyone starts somewhere. It was good, though. Sure, I remember hating it sometimes when I was that young, but when I finally was able to sign up, I already knew the layout of a warship and kinda how things worked day to day.

[Plus, he's pretty sure half the reason he's so massively strong and tall is from spending his preteen years running around hauling stuff and cleaning and whatever else was needed. That's how growth works, right? Surely.]

( ancient!! his division captain ain't even that old!!

young men have always been best suited to die in war. somethin' about their willingness to take risks. an' he supposes that's true, because ain't no sane man runs towards danger for the hell of it. )

Y'miss it?

( he asks that softly. he remembers bein' on the monterey an' the sway of the deck beneath his feet. there were men that seemed like they'd been born to ropes an' riggings, an' meanwhile he'd been green to the gills hangin' off the railings above deck throwin' up fit to turn himself inside out. he'd lost a solid ten pounds between new york and tunisia. he always thought he'd ask captain amos to send him home on a plane once he had the points for it.

he almost did, you know, when he died. he ain't never would'a cashed 'em in while his boys needed him, but. he was near flush with the army an' he could'a gone home. )

Yeah.

[Softly as well, for he's fond of the sea and the ships. The last bit of sailing was out of necessity, out of desperate need for a young boy's survival, and in the years before that he hung back on the Numancia Flamingo and only helped when needed. So there's a real nostalgia that has developed in the meantime for those bright and stormy days both on the deck of a warship under his own command, or more frequently on an admiral's ship on the way to being dropped off for his own solo work. Days when he knew who he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to do, and could enjoy the great seas and winds for what they were.]

I always thought the sea was sort of the definition of freedom itself. Freedom to go wherever you wanted, if you just had the drive. Unity too, though. Everyone relies on it for food, travel, news. Everyone lived on little islands, but the sea kept us all connected, you know?

The tailback of timorous souls | OTA

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