Come Sail Away IC Inbox

[crushed_pearls]

Erin's voice mail message is in a weary voice: "Erin Peters. If you called in the middle of the night and I didn't answer, I'm dying. If I pick up and someone on your end isn't dying, they will be shortly. Text otherwise."

Comments

[crushed_pearls]

I liked her in our brief meetings. I wish I had known her better. I wish I had gotten around to letting her try dyeing my hair. But she was your friend SecUnit. Do you need a friend right now?

[serialskiller]

Why? You might go away someday too.

Petulant, childish response, but it does reveal some of what's under the surface here.

[crushed_pearls]

So could you. The difference between a failed nihilist and a successful one is that the successful one is smiling. Death is the high price of living. Grief is the high price of love. Are the moments you cherished with her now nothing? Or are they still there with you.

[serialskiller]

[The answer is not immediate.]

They're with me until the next time my memory is purged.

[crushed_pearls]

There are people here who will fight to ensure that never happens against your will. I among them.

[serialskiller]

I know you will try.

[crushed_pearls]

A deep, deep sigh on Erin's end.

I will give you your space buddy. But I am here at your call whenever. Drone in person text pick your poison. Alright?

[serialskiller]

About fifteen minutes later:

I am sorry.

[crushed_pearls]

You did not do anything wrong. Grief does not always want company.

[serialskiller]

Is that what this is?

[crushed_pearls]

Eight minutes.

That is a better question than I want to admit. In a human it would unquestionably be grief. Perhaps also fear or anger or both. When those close to us leave us behind we mourn them. I know you have feelings and grief is not out of the question. I have felt it on you before in old and complicated ways when you talk about those who did not join you here. But perhaps I should not have assumed.

[serialskiller]

It's...heavy in my chest and feels like something's caught in the base of my throat. I feel cold, and my eyes keep stinging but I'm trying not to cry.

[crushed_pearls]

Yeah. Crying will help when you feel up to it. I realize it does not seem like it will help but it helps.

Erin doesn't repeat her offer but she does start, coincidentally, heading towards the cabins.

[serialskiller]

Ugh, but it's so messy and wet.

[crushed_pearls]

Yes I am aware you may recall recently when I experienced it while very small and on your body. It is messy and wet and ugly and undignified and it is also helpful.

Don't mind Erin just a-strollin' down the stairs, definitely not heading to the cabins on purpose not at all.

[serialskiller]

There. Is a silence from Murderbot's cabin. It's still holding it in, for now. It's still trying to keep it together, for now.

[crushed_pearls]

Would you like me to bring you something? Nuggets? Muppets? I can raid a bar for fruit juice if fruit juice is your jam.

Erin stands at the end of the cabin hallway so her fuckass phone doesn't give the game up.

[serialskiller]

Five minutes. Then...

Chamomile tea. Please.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin turns and goes to Sand Dollars, sending an On my way en route. She comes directly back with tea for SecUnit and an atrocity for herself that was once Earl Grey before becoming her victim.

She knocks softly.

[serialskiller]

It answers the door in its biggest hoodie, weighted blanket around its shoulders. The blanket smells like chamomile and lavender--perhaps related to its request for chamomile tea. Comforting, familiar, warm.

It has not cried yet, but its voice is thick when it speaks. "Thank you."

[crushed_pearls]

Erin gently offers SecUnit its tea. "Least I could do, buddy. I won't impose if I'm not wanted but, like I said...I'm available. Any time. You might be surprised how many others are too."

[serialskiller]

It stares at a point above her head, frowning, and doesn't immediately reach for the tea. Processing something thick and heavy as a lump in its throat before it speaks.

"If you disappeared, it would hurt a lot, too."

[crushed_pearls]

"...I'm working on that," Erin promises in a soft voice. "Not just hearing it with my ears but believing it. People keep saying it to me and I. Need to believe them. I want to believe them. But it turns out being your own enemy is a habit you can't just break in an instant."

[serialskiller]

"I wouldn't say that to just anyone, Erin. But the point wasn't about believing it, it was about saying it. I don't think I ever said anything like that to Jinx. I don't think she'd have expected me to hurt about her."

Finally it takes the tea, taking a sip to try to break up that lump.

[crushed_pearls]

"...I didn't know her well." The regrets in that sentence swarm thickly. "But I suspect, from the few times I've seen her, that Jinx didn't like herself very much. And when you live like that it can be hard to believe you'll be missed."

Erin's not trying to be talking about SecUnit with that description. But it sure does rhyme, doesn't it?

"I'm sorry, for your loss. And..." A long breath out. Erin takes a steadying sip of what is, for lack of another thing to call it, her own tea. "...I'm touched, SecUnit. I -"

(Hey, remember how there were drones at the game show?)

...FUCK.

"I won't go offering my life up again. I can't promise not to risk it. But anyone who wants it is going to have to pry it out of my hands."