made of earth

sketch board by deathtothelambs on Polyvore

The hit of cold water to her face felt like - well, cold water. At three in the morning. With air conditioning creating a slightly unpleasant draft.

Her face remained in a half-affected visage of shock (half of it was pretty real, after all, with the ice water clinging to her neck) until she blinked, wiping the residue from her cheeks and eyes with a cupped palm. Her expression soon changed to one of joy and slight pride, accompanied by an excited clap of her hands.

"Perfect! Just like the show." Her hands clasped together at her breast, caught in a repose of happiness. When a droplet of water landed in her eye, the heel of her palm came up to rub it out. As it would turn out, the drop was only a distraction, as the next hit landed icy-cold down her back. With a shiver, she picked the towel up from beside her and ran it over the entirety of her face and neck.

It was uncomfortable, but Honolulu took comfort in the fact that Libby hadn't added in the slap like she'd originally wanted.

The sigh that released from her lips was light, short, as if the sound had been made so many times before, her ability to even replicate it had diminished. 

"No, Ara." She flicked onto the next screen of her tablet, not looking up from the list of temperature fluctuations on the screen. "I told you what that one means already; now please, please, stop inviting all the Agents into your bed. I’ve been getting reports.”

The empty bottle - which had, consistently throughout the night, become passed with an increasingly alarming inexactness - finally tipped over after its long swaying dance. The neck threatened to crack, but did not break, only rolling along with its new flaw as Honolulu brushed by it, following Helena.

Her hand came to rest gently on the woman’s cool shoulder, effectively halting her.

"No, no, no, I’m sorry - " Her words were slightly slurred, but no more than Helena’s stance was wobbling. The night had been such a smashing success. She looped their arms together and brandished another grin, poking at Helena’s cheek, as if to indent a dimple and force her to smile. “Come ooon -” Another gentle jab into her cheek, a chorus of barely-concealed giggles rising between the two of them. “Come ooon, smileee!”

Strength was a finite resource, in the pedantic sense. It ran out in the same way a canteen of water did; with no estimate date of when it might finally turn up dry. One could predict and precisely measure how much of it to use per day, strictly observing the rules so as to preserve the supplies for as long as possible. You might go a few weeks with these rations, constantly thirsty but alive. This was, of course, assuming that everything go to plan and remain under your control. In the course of nature, the chances of predicting and adequately preparing for what would be thrown at you dwindle in comparison to the unforeseeable. Not only that, but while sticking to the plan called for perfect circumstances time and time again, at every bend, dip and curve, all it took was one strange and unfortunate event to shoot everything to hell. In all ways, the odds were against you.

And there was a beauty in that uncertainty, somewhere; a kind of coy and whimsical artistry in the cosmos' cruel whim.

But, see, Honolulu had planned and structured and saved her strength for months; and all it had taken was one sudden hitch to leave her at the top of a precipice with the sun beating down upon her, her canteen empty. She hadn't whined, of course, nor so much as admitted to her symptoms until she was force down into the medbay. Others had been hit with it so much worse; Jackson, Atlanta, Annapolis... But the unnamed virus had taken its toll on Honolulu's body - more than she would admit - and her energy was still being stolen from her earlier in the day and without warning. So while an hour and a half training session shouldn't have been so draining, by the time she returned to her room and settled onto her bed after half undressing, it took only a moment for her to lean over and close her eyes.

Just a little rest. Just a little nap, then it'll all be better. When I wake up, everything will be okay.

The words were morphed, thick and far away, as if someone had put a blanket over his mouth. The barest edges of a smile curved her lips. It was so funny that he should seem so quiet, when his voice was the loudest thought in her head and the brightest face playing on the back of her eyelids.

"It’s alright." Like petals the words fell, soft and slow and useless, through the space between them. She felt him draw her closer, the large expanse of his back blocking the winds and biting snow that had been whipping at them for hours. If she had the energy, she would have thanked him for being so large; she felt so warm now, from the tips of her fingers to the core of her stomach. She laughed, although the sound cut open her throat and seemed to bring blood with it.

"You don’t have to say it now. It’s okay." Her hand came up to rest on the hazy slope of his cheek, cold to her touch. Why wasn’t he warm yet? He should really get inside - She felt liquid where her fingers came to rest, slick, even under her numb fingers. Strange, that they should be so hot they turned numb. She’d have to ask Helena about that. The sound of tears - for they did have a sound, if you listened; lovely and melancholy and slow - seemed to reach her ears, although perhaps it was just the wind playing tricks. 

Death was a finicky thing. Everyone knew him or claimed to have come in contact with him, but the strange thing was that everyone who was speaking of Death was inexplicably alive. So no matter how one mourned or beat their breasts over lost loves, family members, or brothers in arms, they didn’t know Death, no matter how much they would protest otherwise.

Even Honolulu, who had been handed her cold, unmoving sister on a silver platter and wiped the blood of soldiers from her visor, didn’t know Death.

But when Ara spoke, rearranging innocent syllables into perhaps the most nefarious content Honolulu had ever heard, she felt that she was about to know Death. Ara, who knew the intricacies of her body and the labyrinths of her mind in a way no one else would ever - in a way no one could ever, despite their tries - wanted her as pale and unfeeling as her sister’s cadaver had been. She reached out through their neural link, her lips unable to move.

I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. It was an accident, I swear; Ara, please -

The woman she was supposed to protect, the soldier constructed to help her fight and at all costs keep her alive – that same person wanted her dead. And what did that say about her? It said that in the face of danger, in the face of destruction and doom and lost humanity, she was such a failure that the one person who should have supported her beyond all reason and doubt viewed her as nothing more than a corpse.

Honolulu’s eyes slid shut, liquid spilling from them in a kind of ceremonial parting gesture from not only Ara, but a farewell to the remaining hope within her.

I tried. I really did.

The link went silent.

"Augus - " Her head jerked away as the harsh cacophony of noises coming from the kitchen rang out louder, enough to scorch her ears. A pan had been thrown. "Augusta, please - " Another loud crash, and her hand raked through her hair, as if she might shake out an answer.

Her cheeks were wet and her eyes raw, but the tears had subsided. Perhaps subsided was the wrong words. The sea didn’t subside, it never stopped. The word implied that she had drifted off into a better place, that she had calmed.

No, subsided wasn’t the right word when your tears weren’t coming because there simply weren’t any fucking more.

"Please just stop - come sit down - we can - Augusta, please.” She reached out for her shoulder, to pull the woman into her. But she wouldn’t deign the touch on her skin, and stormed off. The term had never seemed so appropriate; watching her leave, she seemed to be made of more storm clouds and thunders than the sky had ever seen.

Her nose found its resting place on her collarbone, brushing over the delicate precipice as she giggled. Curled together under one sheet, she couldn’t help the blush that overtook her features. It happened every time. Her grin, so wide and genuine, subsided briefly as she tilted her head up to look at the woman she was curled into.

"Say it again?"

She wanted to hear it and watch it drop from Augusta’s lips, fall off her tongue and onto her own skin, where she would then see it permanently written. Like a scar gained from passion and pain, one she could read every time she ran her finger over it; she wanted it to be real, a fact, so that no one could ever take it away from her again. So she asked, one more time, to hear the three words and confirm that it was, in fact, true. Her smile blossomed.

"Yeah." The laughter that followed had scraped its way up her throat, leaving her swallowing blood. "Yeah, okay, hubby…"

The blood followed her syllables, coating them. The sound she had attempted to replicate as laughter was bitten off as she looked up at Montgomery’s eyes. She waited for him to crack open his face and reveal the joke.

She waited.

And waited.

It wasn’t a joke.

It was her face that cracked open then; a thousand rough waves breaking. “Please don’t -” That laughter again, bloody laughter. “Mont - ” She looked away. She couldn’t see that in his eyes. Not after everything. Luckily her tears were distorting her vision so that she couldn’t see anything.

"Please don’t say it now, I can’t - I can’t do it - not now." Her body crumpled, a decrepit building in a city that had stopped caring long ago, folding in on itself. She couldn’t bring herself to speak; every thought in her mind had split ends and tangled wires, nothing wanted to compute. Honolulu, who was normally so full of words, too many words, was drowning in the three words on her tongue.

Her whole face became a flower, albeit in different ways. Her eyes opened in the same way a rose did, widening and growing outwards, while her cheeks turned pink; blood rushing forwards and turning her skin the shade of cherry blossoms. Her face seemed to draw backwards for a moment before she softened. Her lips came to his face, once on each cold, jutting cheekbone; the same movements she’d done so many times.

"And I love you." She entwined their hands, knowing the difference between words and emotions, and remembering the similarities between thought and expression. 

He wasn’t in love. Perhaps he thought he was, watching reproductions on a tablet or old film, but he wasn’t in love with her. And she wasn’t in love with him.

But he had started to make things easier. A little better, she supposed.

"Okay… this’ll only hurt a bit, alright?" Her grip on Charlie’s hand tightened just slightly, enough for him to feel her support. As if she might transport some of her strength to him through contact; flowing through her veins and directly injecting itself into Charlie.

"I’m going to do it now, yeah? On the count of three - No surprises. It’ll be over in a jiffy." She watched his slightly crinkled face, worn with anxiety. Her remaining hand reached for her instrument, gently aiming it towards the place of injury.

"One…

Two…

Three.”