logsinthenight | Losing Family [Catch-all Log

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Losing Family [Catch-all Log - Open]

characters: Bucky/Soldat and OPEN
location: Aziraphale and Crowley's house, around Beacon, the church, etc
date/time: First half of March, up to the Wild Heart event
content: Soldat lost some really important people and is reacting poorly
warnings: Excessive sadness, a temper tantrum at one point, varying levels of ability to actually verbalize, and the usual disassociation for a Soldat post

I. Ferry Fears (Open)

It's normal to visit the ferry on the day it arrives. Soldat always helps unload, and this month they have things they badly want, anyway. They frown at the smell wafting off the lake as the ferry drifts up through the melting ice. They know that smell-- they know it very well. Why does the ferry smell like weeks-old dead bodies?

Well, that's a question quickly answered. Leaping on board even before the ferry docks-- thanks, superserum!-- Soldat is faced with... actual weeks-old dead bodies! What a surprise. They crouch to investigate them, because of course they do, looking for signs of cause of death, alert for potential danger still on board. And that facial structure and rotting clothing is... familiar. That curl of blonde hair. That--

"--holy shitting fuck," Soldat whines, scrambling back with a start. That would be the decaying body of one Misty Day, right there. But they saw her just this morning. She's fine. They, uh, dash out a quick text message to her on their tablet (Misty please tell me you are okay) and then pick themselves up. Gingerly. And start looking at more bodies, giving that one a wide berth but keeping it in the corner of their eye anyway. Other bodies reveal themselves to be other friends, including a Crowley and Aziraphale, and, wedged into a corner of one cabin room, their own rotting corpse-- metal arm still shiny and undecayed because the damn thing doesn't even rust.

"What the fuck," they mutter to themselves, before finally, warily getting busy hauling getting supplies off the boat. Maybe a little more quickly than usual. They wanna see people's faces in person, after this.

II. Frantic Searching (Open)

Only there are a few faces missing. Aziraphale is nowhere to be found (again) and Crowley is missing from his bed and Mewtwo is not at the armory. Soldat checks in with the others-- Sora, Misty, Ellever, anyone they actually know and find comfortable to talk with actually-- with one of the questions: "Have you seen Crowley? Tall, copper hair, kind of an asshole?" "Have you seen Aziraphale? Kind of round, white curls, awful bowtie?" "Have you seen a tall blue cat-like person that floats and talks in your head?"

Even after the weekly bulletin with Lucius and Aziraphale confirmed in the obituaries, that doesn't mean they're not coming back. Right? And Aziraphale will be pissed as hell if Soldat managed to lose Crowley hours after his untimely demise. So they keep looking, keep asking around, keep checking the various outlying buildings and holding up their lantern fully unshuttered to the dark woods in search of a glimpse, an echo of a voice, a goddamn scent of Crowley or Mewtwo. (Fully unshuttered means anybody passing by can catch a glimpse of that little green crack, too, for those inclined to be nosy and who might know what that means.)

III. Church Vigils (Open)

When the search falls short after a few days, Soldat's routine changes. Patrols are cut a little short. Visits to handlers are brief, a quick assurance for Misty and dropping off a meal for Javert. Lunches or dinners at the Invincible are made to go. Meals, network scrolling, and weapon maintenance all take place in the church, a pew near the back, while Soldat waits for Aziraphale. And maybe Crowley. And maybe Mewtwo. Maybe even Lucius.

After the first week, it's Crowley and maybe Mewtwo. And a fixed, carefully neutral expression. They go through two notebooks, writing not memories of before they died, but memories of a former handler and technician. Those are precious, too.

IV. Rattling Around the House (Semi-open, close CR only)

Four hours twice a day are set aside for sleep. Mostly, in the empty house, Soldat does not in fact sleep. They pace around. They make little armies of origami animals. They cook mounds of food and plow through it without tasting it, to make up for the nervous energy and the lack of sleeping.

They can be found here during the two four-hour segments of the day they normally sleep, if anyone wants to come by. Only close friends get an answer at the door, though. People Soldat doesn't feel comfortable being nervous and only partially verbal around don't get to come in.

V. Packing Up (Semi-open, close CR only)

After the second week of church vigils, Soldat stops going. Because no one stays dead that long unless they really are dead. After that, patrols and handler visits don't happen at all for about three days. One of those days is spent out in the woods behind the village punching trees and making a big, noisy fuss outside of the immediate earshot of anyone who might worry. One is spent in blank moroseness, locked up in the house, out of energy to make a fuss.

The third day is spent slowly packing up all the personal things that belonged to Crowley, Aziraphale, and themselves. (Including a weird-ass little ghost thing that seems to like being petted on top of the head and occasionally followed them around the house during their pacing. It's kind of cute, and it used to be Crowley's, so apparently Soldat is looking after it now.) Friends can come in this day, too, if they want to help in the packing.

Packing complete, Soldat starts sadly carrying armfuls of things to Misty's cabin or back to the general store.

VI. Back to Normal? (Open)

After that, things even out. Soldat is staying at Misty's house now, though the torch remains in front of Aziraphale and Crowley's house since she has her own. Their routine resumes, exactly as if they never stopped it. Patrols are on time and thorough, meals happen actually at the Invincible, they return to practicing at the gymnasium on days when there's no combat classes, and they actually sleep again.

Still kind of quiet, though, with little casual conversation and no singing under their breath, and there's been no catching various friends with a song and a dance like had maybe seemed like it was becoming a thing now and then. Soldat's going to be a while actually getting back to happy, sorry friends, but they never turn down company.

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Less of the soldier pulling a fast one and more like the universe out to make sure what Sora wants is just out of his reach. That's reassuring, though. "Gonna have to see if Dr. Solis has any favorite foods," Sora comments, and that's the end of that.

Speaking of! "We could walk to her place first and use her kitchen to make you something. C'mon, we can decide where we go on the way. We gotta feed the new guy." And Sora is going to do that impatient frog bounce between them and the door until they get moving, c'mon, let's go see Misty! He's not seeing the sinking feeling just yet. Misty will be excited to see them, right?

Subtle flinch at the word "doctor" as always, but there's enough going on inside their head that it's brief, and their brain skates right past it. "Yeah. Yes. Let's. Go to her place." The sooner they submit for punishment, the sooner it's over with. They probably deserve it, anyway.

Soldat finishes off the last of the soup in the canteen, then has to fight off the unexpected urge to gnaw on the mouthpiece, as if there might be one final drop in there. Instead, they screw the cap back on and follow Sora, at last. "Tell me what happened? Did they call you?" There were a lot of people hurt, people who'd need healing. Fjord knew to call Sora, if anyone got called at all.

... Man, why do they look so down? Misty is going to be so relieved! Sure, there might be a yell, but Sora's weathered through so many worried yells in his life that he hasn't realized that people might have different reactions to them.

Soldat can keep the canteen. Must be hungry, they were lingering on it for a while. Sora pushes the door open and waits for them to pass through. "They did." Sora looks at the ground. "It wasn't good, not gonna lie. They told me what happened and I kinda. Choked." Froze. Deer in the headlights style.

"They snapped me out of it, told me to call someone else." He shakes his head. They weren't exactly mean about it, but it became pretty obvious pretty fast that it was too much for Sora in more ways than one. "I called Misty. She was awesome, told me what to do."

Soldat nods, as if unsurprised, but not annoyed or upset about Sora's reaction, either. "It was pretty messy. A lot of people would have choked, too." Maybe not Soldat, but they're also kind of a mass murderer. They've seen a lot of bloody battles. The one they saw in Sora's memory had been surprisingly clean, no acid burns, very little blood... yeah, it's not a surprise Sora froze up.

It does not even occur to them that it had to do with their own dying.

The last gets another nod. "Misty is good at that. Direction. She makes a very good handler when needed. Smart that you called her." Gonna make her even more mad at Soldat, probably. But smart for Sora.

Sora laughs weakly. A lot of people would have choked. He's trying to know that it's okay to just be a lot of people, but people needed him. Easy to say he should be better to himself when there isn't so much depending on him being strong enough to do things like this.

This really, really isn't the first time Sora's had to sit through the deaths of his friends. Not in this life, not in the last one. Mickey and Donald had to run off first and remind Sora there was still a war going on. Riku and the lady in blue had to remind him that there were still twelve more darknesses to fight. He always needs someone else to go first. Remind him that the world doesn't stop turning if someone dies.

It has to be okay, he knows that now. But in the moment? It sure did hurt to know that the best he could do was call someone else.

"She's really good." He has to be as good as her. No, he needs to be himself, go at his own pace. If he goes at his own pace, people die. "She's going to be happy to see you. Hope she's not too mad."

"Oh, she's gonna be mad." They sound absolutely certain of this. "At least I warned her this time I was going into a fight. Last time. Last time I just disappeared for two days. In the middle of the siege." This time she'll have had two and a half days of not worry and uncertainty, but two and a half days of time to get her rage up that they'd let this happen.

They also sound resigned, quite like they do in fact figure they deserve to be raged at. And it also doesn't really occur to them that she might have worried he wouldn't come back.

Sora laughs. "Yeah, I'd have been mad too. Gone for that long, not knowing if you'd come back? Not even a warning." He looks down at his shoes. No more snow to crunch around it, just that weird transitional gray green brown mess between winter and spring.

"I'd have gone looking for you if I could have, if I didn't already know where you were." Again, it's what he does. "I'd still have gone after you if I didn't know if it was just gonna make things worse." And even then that's not really much of a deterrent. Regardless of whether it would make things better or worse, Sora would have gone after them at some point. He's not good with waiting. (Desperate? Yeah. Kind of the story of his life.)

"I know." And it's sweet. Actually not an alien feeling, for once-- Steve was the same way. Steve went miles into enemy territory on the off-chance his old friend might be alive, to find them. Even handlers would hunt them down, if they disappeared, though not out of love.

Would they have told Steve no, if they'd known? Would that have told him to stay where it was safe? They don't know. "Just. Don't get yourself killed looking for me. Okay? I'm sure I ain't the only person who needs you."

Sora thinks about that as they walk toward the bonfire. Need is a very interesting word for it. He knows he's liked. He knows people want him around by now - he's a doofus, sure, but when people say it, he does try to listen and believe it, even if it kind of hurts in a way he didn't quite expect. (Is it normal for relief to feel so good it breaks his heart a little?)

But need? Sora needs other people. He's never expected other people to need him around in return. The world will turn without him. It will. It has to.

"Uh," he says quietly. How does he put this? "I'll find you and bring you back before croaking? That much I can promise." Look. Frog pun! Please think that's funny, soldier.

Soldat pauses, digests the pun, and then groans a little, looking skyward as if for some kind of help from the inky darkness. It's a pretty standard reaction to a bad pun, really. "Kid. No. That was terrible. No croaking jokes, c'mon." Especially not after they just did. This death really is harder to shake off than the last, between the pain and the sense of failure.

(~~Not failure. Food. Food isn't failure.~~ This thing is really not makin' sense. No. At least it has a bigger vocabulary than the Asset. Fuck you. Oh, thanks, great timing to learn swearing, asshole.)

The hunger isn't even getting better as their stomach works its way through the sandwich and soup. It should, if only for a moment. Something is absolutely different about this hunger, and about that voice. They stop walking again for a beat as they realize what it is. "Aw, fuck, I think this eating thing might be. Because I died again."

Sora smirks, then laughs. It connected, at least, and that's the best anyone could ask for, punwise. "For now." Mostly because he just burned a brain cell coming up with that one! He'll take his small victories.

And Sora will look at them kind of funny. "Oh, like... how we don't come back the same sometimes? The voice and the hunger's a part of that?" It seems obvious as soon as he says it, but he did have to say it out loud to put it together. (It's something he thinks about a lot.) "That seems... specific."

"It is specific. Daylight lost the color yellow. Winters, the guy from the last group, he wound up with scales I think. It's. It's weird shit." And they don't even know about Rosinante's ribs yet.

What the fuck are they even supposed to do with this. Keep eating until they pop in the hopes of not being hungry for a few minutes? Or is it not a thing that can really be fixed? Is it even real, or is it just their brain playing tricks? Soldat rubs at the bridge of their nose wearily. "Let's just. Keep going. Find Misty." Get the expected yelling over with.

Sora's thinking the exact same thing. Does their metabolism keep up with all that food? Will they just pop like a balloon? "I'd say start chewing gum, but if it's that bad, I think you'd probably swallow it."

Hm. "Well, if it turns out that it's just feeding you to feed you, maybe we can start dance lessons too. Make sure you keep on top of the extra food."

Yeah, nope, they'd wind up eating the gum. They're sure of it. "You wanna dance, kid, all you gotta do is say. Could practice more, too." The serum doesn't keep them in fighting form without maintenance. Soldat does strength training and multiple days of fighting forms and target practice. Could just add more.

They shake themselves a little. Like a dog shaking off water, almost, with the metal arm recalibrating hard, noisier without a coat or long sleeves of any kind to muffle it. "Got discipline, too. Used to being hungry." Maybe not as used to it as they used to be, when they were hungry all the time, on practically a starvation diet with HYDRA, but they can regain that discipline. They're sure of it.

Sora closes his eyes, thinks about his schedule. Can he fit any more things in it? He doesn't need that much sleep. He's not about to give up the time he uses for his independent research, or his patrols, or the time he spends with his friends. He has to get those Wayfinders done too.

"Yeah, I can do that. The dancing and the fighting." He opens his eyes, checks his surroundings in the way Soldat taught him to. "I don't want you to be hungry all the time, dude. That sucks." Protein will fill them up for longer... More of that in the stuff they cook together, maybe? If it's just a magic hunger, that's not gonna do anything, but at least it's something to try.

"Maybe little snacks all the time? So it thinks you're on your way to getting full all the time and doesn't complain as much." And that's supposed to be better for the metabolism anyway, Sora thinks.

The practice was intended to be alone, but hey, they won't say no to company. They just probably won't actively invite Sora all the time. Sometimes you just need to hit things by yourself without feeling like you have to have it together for your young friend with similar brain problems. (Or heart problems. However one wants to call it.)

They snort just a little, sounding a little more like themselves on a good day, at least. "Kid, hate to break it to ya, but I have snacks on me all the time anyway. I already eat twice as much as everybody else." They sigh a little. "We'll see how it goes."

"Oh. So it wasn't just for patrols and long walks?" Sora thinks about what he just said for a moment, then laughs. "Wait, sorry, never mind, you're always patrolling."

Brain and body are chemicals, heart is emotional, the soul is in there somewhere. In Sora's world, the relationship between all three is heavily debated by scientists and researchers, but the differences don't matter too much to Sora. He knows a heart problem when he sees it, and thanks to his reincarnation, he isn't half bad at the definitions of brain problems, either. They're connected and similar and different. He's much better at talking about them than he is at defining them.

Sora walks along in silence for a moment, enjoying the fact that he's with Soldat and doesn't have to worry about them anymore. He already feels much lighter. It... might actually be a pretty long pause for Sora, oops. If they want more conversation, they may need to get the ol' gab machine going again. It won't take much, fortunately.

Soldat gives his shoulder a little shove for the laugh and the comment. "Not all the time." Six hours out of the day, in two three-hour chunks. That's not all the time, Sora, c'mon.

It's okay, though. Walking in silence is fine. Soldat doens't separate out the brain and heart the way Sora does-- the heart is an organ that pumps blood, not the emotional center. That is, in fact, in the brain as far as they're concerned. They can work with Sora's terminology, though, everybody has their own words for things. The concept of a soul doesn't really even enter into things much at all. If they have one, fine. If they don't... eh.

So they're content to let Sora ruminate, while they wish they had their coat with the hand-warming stones in the right pocket, and listen to the chatter in their own head.

Hey, that's a whole fourth of their day! And they spend another third sleeping, ideally!! What else is Sora supposed to think, huh? Those last ten hours have to go somewhere.

Metaphysically speaking, both the organ that pumps blood and the heart do exist in Sora's world... but they've been over that, haven't they? (Wait, haven't they? The player doesn't remember, oops.) As soon as Soldat asks why Sora knows that, they'll hEAR a very interesting story about piracy, and power, and krakens, and love, and lots and lots of murder!

But that can wait for another day. Maybe someday! (Maybe someday when Sora can HOLD THAT HAND SO IT DOESN'T GET COLD LIKE HE WONDERED LIKE A MONTH AGO).

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Losing Family [Catch-all Log - Open]

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fade out, or drag in Misty?

fade-out, i think! less for raven to worry about, we got plenty of threads coming in a few days!