He can feel himself rotting. A vital part of his soul is slipping into the floor and its sinking with the grime and filth. He’d consider it a tragedy, but since it’s happening to him, that sentiment seems self-serving. But still, what a waste. An ex-Prime, hiding in an organic bar filled to the brim with degenerates and wanna-be criminals. He stares into his glass, swirling its contents before downing it in one go. It’s vile and does nothing to numb the emptiness.
Why did he even come here? He can’t seem to really recall. He shifts in his seat and realizes he can’t breathe, not without gasping, and his chest feels like it’s collapsing and exploding simultaneously. That’s right. There was a fight even if the details are fuzzy and he can’t remember who threw the first punch. Or who threw the last. But he is bleeding. Bleeding all over the dingy countertop and he half-heartedly tries to wipe it off, only smearing the mess further. I need a fucking rag, he thinks.
He looks at the bartender, who is just a slip of a thing. More ghost, than girl. Her hands constantly tremble and those small, breakable fingers fiddle with the arrangement of bottles behind the cabinet. Her kind is dying out, some sort of disaster. At least that’s what he heard. The last of her generation, on the verge of extinction and here she was, a miracle, working for table scraps at a seedy bar on the edge of her solar system.
But that’s the nature of surviving, isn’t it? There isn’t a reward for making it out alive.
He waves her over and she flinches, red eyes flashing with an unmistakable emotion that he reads far too quickly: fear. She backs away, muttering in an unintelligible wispy and desperately quiet voice, tears forming in her panic. His optics narrow into thin, irritated slits. “Stop sniveling. Get me something to clean this up ... I'd appreciate it.” He adds, tone softening in hopes that she would take it as an invitation to calm down. She hiccups, nodding furiously and part of him would be astonished if she didn't start bawling once she hurried out of sight.
A hand suddenly grips his shoulder. He should have jumped. Maybe even stand and whirl around with enough anger and pure drunken rage to fuel him. But he sags effortlessly, all too aware of the EM field. It wraps around him, familiar and tastes like the closest thing to coming home.
“Elita.” He keens her name and his voice cracks, edged with static. Those delicate subvocals are straining to keep down a brokenness in his voice that sounds too close to worship.
“I don’t know what to do”, he babbles. “Please.” The tightness in his chest is suffocating and he clenches his optics shut, heaving ragged breaths. “Please, help me.”
PLOTTED STARTER : ELITA-1 @conrchy
