dear_mun | Muse is getting lonely without cast... [SO:TL

Your face will stick like that.

[If it hasn't already, that is.]

[Well, cue instant shock and maybe a good dose of sheepishness.]

Yeah... Uh... Yeah, you're probably right.

[He pauses awkwardly, then adds:]

How are things?

[And then kicks himself mentally because that just sounded stupid.]

You're still stuck out here, huh?

[He feels as if there's something he ought to say to the kid, but can't work out what the hell it might be. Also still feels strange around him, like there's something that connects or should connect but doesn't fit right. Something that makes his head ring if he thinks on it too hard.

Still, from what Willard's seen, Lugo's not a bad guy.]

Yeah...

[Lugo looks up and smiles a little bit, worn, maybe a little sad. Mood swings aren't uncommon for him, these days, but this is less like a mood swing and more like instant relief. Like he's getting what he asked for in the first place.]

You too? Sorry it's been so long since I tried to... call you, I guess.

[Walker. Sort of. Willard just has that air about him, even if he's not nearly as relaxed. He's already been broken. And something about that just feels less... threatening, maybe.]

Hell, I'm just glad to know you're still hanging on.

You were in pretty bad shape.

[Willard hadn't been able to hold out much hope for Lugo after their last encounter, and there's a sense of relief in seeing him again. Some guys make it through, after all. Even if there isn't much to make it through to.]

Things treating you a little better?

Figure I can make it through a lot... I've been through a hell of a lot even before I got here...

[He has his theories about his seeming immortality... how he can recover even in the most dire of situations. But it's something for another time. Right now, he has someone to speak with... someone he can actually admit that he cares about on a very deep personal level, which feels strange. He'd always thought he cared about everyone he knew this way... but this man is like a brother to him, even without knowing a thing about his past.

Walker. The memory drifts by again, and though he waves it away like errant smoke from the end of a cigarette, it still seems to hang, persistent, impossible to ignore.

Lugo looks to the man with a familiar sort of ease, relaxed, unhurried and trusting.]

Life's... life. I'm bored. Always bored. How about you, man?

['Been through a lot'? From what Willard's heard, from the way the man presents himself, that's an understatement. There was the look of (horror) terror Willard had seen, there was the guilt, the searching for someone who wasn't there (someone Lugo seemed to see in Willard, and that didn't make one goddamn bit of sense but what the hell did around here?).

And there's that story he'd told. That motherfucking story. Willard still hears echoes of it, winding through his consciousness, entwining with his own memories. Sometimes, in passing instants, confusing what he saw with what Lugo had said. Think too hard about it, start to see the splinters, start to feel fracturing right down to the heart (if heart exists if soul came out of that darkness out of where jungle grew rotting abundance for death but the darkness was never in jungle alone). And if any of it's true - of course it's true; he'd heard it worked into Lugo's voice, can see it now in distance and something shifted out of place - then yeah, 'a lot' is a mild way of stating it.

Shit. Willard shakes his head, trying to clear the thoughts. He didn't come here just to drift off.]

It's been quiet.

[And it's been difficult to start talking with anyone, sometimes hard to even see them. With Lugo, though, there's that persistent sense of recognition, a feeling of being recognized that Willard rarely finds. It's unsettling, but there's also something welcome about it.]

Sounds like you might be headed off to something, at least. Any idea where?

Hell.

[There's something so casual in his tone as he says it, but a spark of clear self-doubt in his eyes that wasn't there before. Sure, sitting around sucks... but being put into a situation that could easily tip him over the edge... was that better than twiddling his thumbs? Either way, he's sure there will be a mark left on his soul. A brand that won't be easily erased, just like the persistent stench left on his skin these days... Burning. Death, maybe. He feels like he can smell it, wonders if anyone else can.

There's something... adoring in his eyes. He watches his fellow soldier with a sort of puppy-like loyalty, showing with a weird clarity that he'd gladly do anything asked of him. And there's a wordless feeling there... the slight lift in one side of his mouth, the way it pulls up just a little bit higher, eyes so dark they almost seem black under their tired, heavy brows. It's in the soft lines that gather and darken, split his forehead. I missed you.]

Better than limbo, I guess. But, I worry sometimes. I've just been alone too long. Starting to do funny shit to me, you know?

[His hand slips up to his chest, kneading just a little left of where his dog tags rest, useless these days. There's no chain of command. No authority. He'd never thought of just how much he'd miss that back when he was on the field bitching about it.]

Loved everyone I served with, in a way. Even if they pissed me the fuck off. So it's fucking good to see your face, man. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Maybe.

[Being alone can be tricky; Lugo's right about that. Willard knows what being alone can do to you. What being stuck inside yourself can do. And what it's like to float far from anyone, surrounded by others but knowing you can't touch them and that can't do a thing for you, knowing it's just you and the words and that oncoming action writing itself into your blood. He's been alone for a few years, now. Mostly, he thinks he's gotten used to it.

But it sure can fuck you up.]

You get back around people, I'm sure you'll be all right.

[It's hard to look at this guy for too long. Willard has to turn his head every once in a while just to make certain he's still standing on solid ground, because something about Lugo isn't here. Or it is here, but it's also elsewhere, a sense of worlds and place overlapping. A sense of being overlapped.

And the longer Willard looks, the more difficult it is to ignore the expression lighting the guy's face. Something more than recognition. He's seen it before, and it occurs to Willard that this guy is a little like Lance (the way the kid started to watch him, hell, as soon as Willard had grabbed the surfboard; the way the kid kept watching him, even after the girl), and maybe that explains the connection. Part of the connection; he'd be willing to bet there's no making sense out of all of it.

Is it worse seeing that look from Lugo, or is it easier because Willard suspects it's meant for someone else? As much as Willard does desire and maybe need the familiarity, the rest of it... Give it a name. It's affection, it looks like adoration, and it's damned unsettling. He doesn't want to be too close to anyone. Doesn't want anyone to see to far into him. Safer for everyone to be separated, and contact - not only physical - burns, contact recalls how much there is to lose and makes everything seem a little more... human. Broken and beautiful and alterable.

But there's so much more decimation than there is beauty. There's so much more emptiness than warmth. And what can those affections do? What can they amount too? The darkness is still waiting; nothing can hold that off.

But sometimes. Sometimes, he still wants to try. Sometimes the hollow can be altered, if only for a short while.

Shit if he knows how, though. And there's a question with this that he might as well ask, because it's got to come out sometime, and Willard would rather have a clearer sense of the situation.]

Look, I've got to ask... Who do you think I am, John?

[He'll be alright... He clings to that assurance for the moment, leaning on it as best he can. Where Willard can't quite keep eye contact, Lugo is locked on him, watching, almost like he wants to get closer, but he's just barely keeping himself physically distant.

He can see the wheels turning in Willard's head... and when that question comes out, well... it takes a moment for Lugo to process it. When he looks at Willard... well... part of him sees the slight, hard-faced, lost looking little man who bears the name, goes as Ben to Lugo... But at the same time he sees the heroically built, blond haired, blue eyed Captain he misses. He sees Walker's chiseled jaw... the piercing gaze. He sees them both, even as different as they are in build, gesture, movements.

It's painful in a way.]

You're you. And... at the same time...

[He pauses for a moment, thinks about how to say this, how to express it without saying it a little too blatantly.]

You're Ben. And you're Martin. Martin Walker. My Captain. Theirs too. I feel like... I feel like I know you without having to know you. And I'll bet you feel the same way, somehow. I'm not going to ask you how or why. I don't even know how I feel this way, myself.

[He pauses a moment, then finds a nice place to sit, putting his back against the wall and staring off into middle distance, softly unfocused. He's strangely aware of his own heart beating, the breaths that warp the graceful arch of ribs, tiny cells shuttling oxygen and nutrients here and there in the vast and winding transit system of his blood vessels.

His eyes focus, and he looks back to Willard, long, but not hard... almost dreamily, like there's a face looking back at him that he hasn't seen in a long, long time.]

I fucking miss him every day. Adams too. And I fucking hate Walker at the same time. He... All of this is his fault. But how can I blame him? I think to myself, "I had everything taken from me. I had all of my dreams ripped away." But didn't the same fucking thing happen to him?

Everything he trusted... everything he even knew a thing about just got so twisted up and fucked. He did things he never thought he'd ever have to do.

[He lowers his head, then, falls silent.]

All right.

[Better knowing, anyway. And it almost makes sense if he doesn't try to think about the details or implications. Just take it for what it is, like every other crazy thing around here.

He's starting to wonder whether it'd be better for him to keep away from the kid. It can't be right, standing in for someone he's not. Can't be helpful to prompt belief in something that isn't true. And seen from outside, it seems an awful lot like helping construct a lie. As far as feeling it goes, though...

In everything Lugo has said, there's been something too close to truth. That's why it shakes Willard the way it does. Why he's reluctant to abandon the kid. Maybe Willard is somehow close to this other guy. Maybe close enough that if a man had been shaken up pretty bad, he could honestly blend the two together. It isn't all that far-fetched, even. Think about the guys in the jungle. Think about the kid who'd seen every officer as one. Think about the soldiers who insistently mistook living men for comrades they'd lost.

And that talk about Walker and blame strikes a chord. The pain in the ass kid with radio, the spear sprouting through Chief's chest, the mud (those eyes and his blood still some blood dripping where kurtz - and where is he did he ever go ever really escape - threw the head), the empty eyes of... None of them had known what they were in for. And that was the nature of war, yes, that was the nature of fucking insanity, but they'd given their lives for an absurd mission that they'd never understood. And for a while they hadn't meant anything but then they'd started to become real, then he'd started to see them as people, and now sometimes he remembers and wonders what he had missed, what they missed. Because even Lance didn't make it out, not really; the kid's head had been shaken out of place.

A little like this kid.

Jesus. Stop it. He's got to stop letting his version of reality (not even the word for it reality what's real is overlapped what's real always loose the slow progress of a thousand snails and a handful of dust) bleed into Lugo's. Lugo can say whatever he want, but shit's confusing enough without Willard falling into this blur, as well.

Drawing closer, Willard drops into a squat almost in front of Lugo. No sense letting the silence grow any bigger.] I can't speak for this Walker, but out where the dark's in the open, we all do things we'd never imagine. See shit that shouldn't exist.

And for what it's worth, every time I look at you, I see something I feel like I know. Not that I do know you; just that something about you's familiar.

It's not the worst thing in the world, either.

[He can't talk about missing anyone (do you ever miss yourself, willard?), doesn't know whether he does miss any of them. His reception of the world has been cold for a while now, and though he'd eventually drawn a little closer to the crew, it'd been hard at times to remember they were human. To remember what human meant.

Or had he been trying to defy that? Had it taken effort every time?

There're too many pieces to sort out, with no hope of finding an answer. He tries to shove them aside, focusing his attention on Lugo. If he can just keep centered there, maybe this'll work out all right (the motherfucking laugh that is).]

Edited 2013-08-13 05:13 (UTC)

[Lugo begins to lean forward, his eyes watching Willard's face - Martin's confused expression sort of superimposing itself in impossible ways - and sort of trying to gauge him. He gets up on his haunches, spine starting to arch slightly, legs spread wide for balance. He places a hand on the ground, feeling the soft scrape of sand between his fingers before he splays them out, the press of pebbles against his palm as he leans forward and takes the weight. Bones bear up and muscles flex beneath tanned skin, creating little ripples in what was once smooth-looking skin. The smooth, cut path of a vein begins to rise along the curve of his bicep.

The world around him seems to be... breathing, maybe... Expanding and contracting silently with each brokenly perceived second that passes, each moment he draws just that little bit closer. Everything is moving at the pace of a broken video tape. Inching. Sounds draw themselves out like so many needles. His left hand is traversing what feels like light years. Each spec of dust cuts like a knife, impacting blunt against the ridges of his fingertips. His knees touch the ground and his feet slip back, spine lightly arched as his fingers finally - though hesitantly, always hesitantly - meet skin.

He's warm. Somehow, this is unexpected. Lugo swallows hard, brow deeply furrowed, and he realizes belatedly that the hollow feeling in his chest is a deep, unexpressed want. The world is bending under the weight of this moment, cracking. The seams are splitting right here beneath the weight of his right hand, and still... Lugo only knows a want. One of man's most primal needs.

The entirety of civilization is built on contact, after all.

Hollow. Always so empty. Lugo thinks that his own voice sounds like the wind as he speaks. It takes so long for him to realize just what he's saying.]

I see you.

[Simple enough... and he does. The tattered picture of Walker isn't looking at him anymore. He sees a man from a completely different time. Before people locked their doors at night, before the food was polluted, and when cigarettes were really made out of tobacco. A man from when war was first becoming the horrible, dishonorable shit show he's always known it as. He sees the same sort of horror reflected in this man's eyes as the bodies - desiccated and swinging, grinning with such pretty white teeth - hung in the desert. The same horror he felt peeling his skin back so easily.

The noose around his neck is getting so tight... or is it just that he's getting a little choked up? The shell of an ear against his fingertip, the soft brush of hair, warmth and the distracting scratch of stubble in his palm.

He needs to be strong. He can't be getting all cracked up like this, like a little girl. He blinks a few times to clear his eyes, sighs.]

I stopped running because I had to. Sure, it doesn't make shit any better... but hey. At least you can finally catch your breath, you know? I can fucking see it. If you're tired, man... you should just let go for a bit. Let yourself be... be human for a little while. You have to, or you just forget how eventually.

[Though he thinks of drawing back, this clarity is nice. Like somebody has taken the cover from off his eyes. He can focus without striving to make the effort. He remains, thumb gently stroking a cheekbone once, then settling.

Affection. Misplaced, maybe, but Lugo's always been that way. Always looking for love - approval, comfort, and meaning, as well - in all of the wrong places.]

[Something about watching the kid... Willard could almost shiver. So goddamn close.

Willard is beginning to think Lugo's really does see him this time (maybe this is a sign of stabilization? could be the kid's not so far gone, could be he's not too lost in there where he came from) when all coherent thought is shattered by Lugo's touch. Because the touch was given. Because he doesn't know what the hell it means or is meant to mean and why it feels so alien impossible one being reaching out to another without striking with what what is it understanding is it asking is it seeing the other man again this Walker and is Willard even here?

The way human contact can fuck with your brain, jam up your nerves and suddenly everything aches. Because if you can feel this, maybe you can feel everything else. Maybe anything at all can touch you, get at and into you.

And he wants to break away but he doesn't want to lose it, not yet, and a part of his brain still processing somewhere suggests he ought not to recoil that it isn't a violation after all and maybe Lugo needs solidity because who knows whether anyone here anything here is real, maybe he requires that confirmation, and Willard can withstand it not as if this is intolerable (but does it leave its own mark? what is it doing, how working at your perception to see this allow yourself to feel this now can't do any good or can it and does it matter just another thing).

Feeling only loosely in control of his own actions, Willard places a hand on Lugo's wrist, firm but without active warning, an encouragement to speak freely.

How difficult it is to look into a man's eyes... Willard doesn't glance away - he can't - and it seems Lugo's eyes are more focused and still far away, still surveying the places he's been and everything he's done. Rage and wishing and adoration in there, so he may be distant, but Willard can't believe Lugo's hollow, at least not yet (and better never be, better no one should be, all falls from under but who needs to know? all built on emptiness is a lie but what kind of truth is emptiness?).

It's moments or more than moments (and time is out of joint, out of place, world whimpered out and now there's no measuring it no seeing it straight) before Willard realizes that Lugo has spoken, and the sense filters in slowly.

Contact. solidity. What it means to breath and be called human.

(to be human is not to see be human and the eyes must close against intrusion to never have seen never have HE likes you because you're alive but what does that mean then or anymore, what you became and finally embraced or pushed away likes you because you're / and what became of colby? what became of the rest? this is the way the way the)

And if you never knew how or lost the capacity? And if there's nothing left?

Willard isn't certain that he ever ran or acted. Isn't sure he did anything but follow along and let himself be carried past decision past regret past anything that could define or hold.

But he doesn't need to say that. Can't say that.]

Sure, John. [Because that touch and that voice is connected to a name and what does that mean?] You're right about that. About remembering.

All right.

Edited 2013-08-18 06:42 (UTC)

[The movement is slow. Delicate. He brings himself just that little bit closer, swings in on a wide arc, though it seems to take ages for it to actually happen. All the same, Lugo feels like he's there instantly, lips hovering so close to skin as to pick up its warmth, knowing that his breath is disturbing little hairs, maybe sending that fluttery feeling down the back of Willard's neck the way it always happens to Lugo.

He's poised to impart some secret, however great or small it is, still cradling a cheek, eyes closed and his lips just about to brush at Willard's neck on the opposite, surrounding... soon enough enveloping. His grip is shifting. The hand in the dirt twists, and his touching hand is starting to drop a little, grazing the jaw, fingertips hooking onto the back of Willard's neck, where the hair comes in soft and wispy. He likes it, works his fingers across the dual bands of muscle holding his head up, carefully cushioning the cervical spine where it is so vulnerable.

Lugo remembers that this is a way to draw a man into his death. When did embrace become something so macabre? He thinks of how many times he's had to do this for real, though, and can't even think of a single solitary opportunity he took outside of Dubai. He hesitates, then draws Willard in, though it's something much more gentle, something that he knows actually means something other than the death of someone who would kill him if he'd not taken the first shot.

Warmth. That's the first thing he registers. The warmth of two bodies that seems to grow and build with proximity... sleeping in the tunnel, the door pulled to, though the sand is still seeping in, dust on the air, breathing it in, choking. Pressing close to Walker's impressive mass, and it's so quiet he can hear Walker breathing, Adams snoring a little... he can hear Walker's heart beating... and it's strangely comforting even if he hates the man. For now, the chill is locked away by proximity, isolation from the outside. He feels the life in this man's body, and something in him is stirring, a need to protect him and in the same breath, to serve him to the best of his ability.]

I... want to stay here. I want to help you.

[It's close closing in the life-long impress of the jungle and even before he can feel the closeness of a human being Willard feels the reach as roots hears breath as some dusk-born force inescapable and

too close it is TOO CLOSE into into

(somewhere there is a human here somewhere this is contact once connected with affection kinship welcome and openness how you knew or thought you knew that you belonged but that was years ago an age ago and no one no one ought to close in/ closing in is ending and/ he is not one who has called an end, can only drift half-searching)

He doesn't feel anything. He doesn't feel anything.

but once there was sensation there was breathing, open air, and now comes sense of chasm beyond him in him split within himself/ where your heart was, where your soul dwelt/ now it's only ice air blows

and how can you

how can you

how)

Break.

Willard tears from the grip (dimly notes the violence thrust at Lugo's hand; dimly regrets it), into the relief - freedom - of open air. End that pressure, that encroachment, defiance that cannot end save in misery and (cast upon the river spear breaking skin eyes lacking light) shatters. He scrambles backwards, frantic for half a moment before he can pull back on himself. Before he can remind himself that nothing's at risk, because there's nothing left to risk.

He can hardly look at Lugo. Hardly think on what has been, or even yet note the regret growing in response to his own haste.]

I, uh... [Got to collect himself. The kid merits an answer, and Willard shouldn't be stumbling all over himself like this. It's not as if the world fell apart. And now that he's free of Lugo's hold (something about it he could almost wish he might understand again, something of a contact he'll never catch the same way, about exile and the outside and how the touch amplified his own absence), the world's at least a little clearer.

Then where are the words?] You don't need to do that.

Maybe you'd better take care of yourself. [There's an attempt at conciliation in the words, though his voice is touched with a coldness he doesn't register. After all, he just needs a few minutes to catch up with himself. Just needs to lose the ice-cold absence triggered by Lugo's embrace. (What you might almost want. What will never relate.) That's all.]

Edited 2013-09-18 17:30 (UTC)

I hear that.

[Lugo lets his face fall into his hands.]

I am getting antsy at this point. Really, really fucking antsy.

Same. It doesn't help that the game I am technically in is on hiatus.

Yeah... sounds like a real bummer. I'm not even part of a game these days. Other place died.

[He shrugs heavily, then reaches out and grips the hooded man's shoulder, smiles gently.]

Damn good to see you, though.

Yeah...I remember that.

[He puts a hand on Lugo's shoulder and smirks slightly.]

Damn good to see you, too. Feel free to talk to me whenever you want, okay?

[The soldier nods slowly, though he seems at a loathe to break off... No. This guy... no matter what he may be, Lugo's not going to let him slip off into obscurity. He's a good guy.]

You act like you're going to just drop off the face of the planet or something...

[He laughs a little, claps that shoulder hard, a brotherly gesture, then peeks over his shoulder at his surroundings, returns to smiling again quickly enough.]

Life treatin' you okay?

[He shrugs.]

Not as bad as it could be. My mun could always give me a canon update, after all. I'm a monster, but I'm not that kind of monster, you know?

How about you?

Ah, not too bad. Just bored as all hell, you know?

[He chooses not to comment on the whole monster bit. Though it troubles him. The guy definitely needs a hug or something.]

Shit, you know... We should look for a place. It'd be a goddamn honor to be confused and aimless with you again.

[Hey, there's a difference between beating yourself up and finally accepting what you are.]

You could always wander aimlessly with me at The Campus. Well, once my mun gets around to posting there, anyway.

Campus... like, school shit?

[He cocks his head a little. It sounds interesting enough, though he was never really a big fan of the whole education bit. He always tolerated it, but most of his learning had really come from exploring outside of the classroom.]

Nothing... uh... difficult about getting in, right? My mun's a lazy piece of shit, you know?

[He rolls his eyes, sighs and shakes his head. True enough, Lugo. True enough.]

School-themed, yeah. Not that there are any classes, and the campus doesn't make any sense half the time.

[He shakes his head.]

You just drop in. That's it. Makes for a weird mix of people and...uh...other things.

[Lugo nods carefully, then cracks a devious little smile.]

Are the ladies worth a second glance? Any easy ones?

[He shrugs.]

None that I've noticed. Then again, I've been more preoccupied with things like the sudden flooding or the whole building being taken over by jungle overnight.

... Oh.

[He blinks and then shrugs.]

Worth a try, though... I think I'll take a shot at that, none the less. You'll have more company, you know?

Yeah? I'll look forward to it. There's one guy you should probably avoid, though.

Avoid? Anything I should... uh... know? You know, and all that.

[He leans forward, tilts his head a bit.]

Muse is getting lonely without cast... [SO:TL - Possible spoilers]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject