#wasscared

multimuse suggestions . muse accepting

//Oohh, so I was really looking forward to seeing who might send this in! Thinking about Connor, I want to immediately say John Blake and Silvius, but this is about new interactions, so I think the following might be interesting:

       Luke felt sick.

       The kind of sick where, if he wasn’t already sitting down, he would have asked someone if there was a place where he could (or simply found a corner of floor that didn’t look like a walkway.) And, since he was sitting down, and he still felt awful, he was bouncing his leg and coaching himself to breathe in through his nose…and out through his mouth. In through his nose, out through his mouth. It would have been a much easier task if his heart wasn’t crawling up the back of his throat, slamming itself against every nerve and wall between there and his stomach. He kept at it, though. In through his nose, out through his mouth. The way they were looking at him was bad enough without him hurling all over the floor like some kid who had wolfed down too much street fair food. In though his nose, out through his mouth.

       He couldn’t really blame the lady behind the desk for her lingering side-eye or the guy for hovering over his shoulder. Luke had seen himself after he’d come inside: the windows had lent him a near-mirror view of his hair pasted down on his forehead by sweat and rain and the rip in his jeans (not an aesthetic choice— he’d tripped a few blocks back) and his lack of sleeves even though it was cold enough out that he had been able to see his breath while he ran. That one had shocked him a little, too, seeing his bare arms. He’d forgotten entirely that he wasn’t wearing a coat. And then, not a second later, remembered that he’d left it behind. And now he wasn’t cold, exactly, but he was still shivering. And they… they weren’t staring, but they were watching him. Like how you watched a snake that had invited itself in out of the cold and curled up on your kitchen floor. This was a mistake. He shouldn’t have come, or handed the guy the card (they weren’t going to give that back, were they?) or… he shouldn’t have run to begin with. He turned in place, trying to look out at the hazy drizzle and buzzing streetlights, but his reflection was in the way still, staring back at him with huge, dark eyes and breathing rapidly. Ready to pounce. Luke faced forward again and squeezed his eyes shut.

       He was bouncing his leg. His wallet chain was rattling. He remembered he was supposed to be trying to breathe so that he wouldn’t throw up. It was an…F? …a G? In through his nose, out through his mouth. If he got up, would they try to stop him? ..Were they armed? A G#, give or take. His chains striking against each other was something roughly like a high G#, the kind of delicate tink you’d hear from a wind chime. The squeak of his sneaker as he stood up was the B above that, all the way almost at the end of a piano’s keys, but with none of the melodic tuning - more like the sudden screech of a rookie saxophone player pinching their reed too tightly. He should go. Only-

Hoho, this is something that’s been on my whumpy wishlist for a while. 👀

Anyways, not great!

Post-canon, particularly post-circus where dying had been his job, Nathan likes to think he’s gotten used to death and that he’s desensitized to the point that it doesn’t matter. Even by the end of S2, he’s gone from begging for his life to boldly (heroically?) proclaiming he’s immortal, and jumping into harm’s way without a second thought. But the truth of the matter is that even though he comes back, dying is rarely easy, and even if death doesn’t hurt, resurrection isn’t all roses either. 

After waking up, his extremities are always cold and tingly, if not totally numb, while his heart gets his blood sorted out. If he's been dead long enough, he'll be stiff and a little sore, too—”rigor mortis is a bitch”—and then there are the occasional digestive tract issues while the body tries to figure out what just happened, followed by being ravenously hungry. Then there’s his “cool down period” where his power is especially active for about two or three hours after resurrection. During this time, Nathan will temporarily experience super healing and regenerative power, which gets gradually weaker as the cool down ends. This is meant to lessen the likelihood of his body becoming over-stressed by any damage it might take so soon after resurrection, but in a torture scenario...? Yikes. There are a lot of things much worse than death, and I don’t think I need to explain how Nathan would be an evil sadist’s dream.

So, TLDR... Nathan would manage for a while, depending on how hopeful he is for an escape or rescue, and he’d do it all with a laugh and a whole lot of macho posturing about how he’s immortal. But after a while, he’d get tired of putting up a front, and he has a pretty crappy pain tolerance anyway, and he’d shatter hard. Begging, crying, bargaining, everything he can do just to make it stop. Immortality is great until it isn’t, and then it’s just a curse.

Next time, huh?

Yeah, maybe Connor was right with that one. They knew what he looked like - had gathered some information on that bloke's identity and whatnot. They could continue to search for him on another day.

... However, he did raise a questioning brow at Connor once he'd catched his breath (Jesus fuck, he wasn't getting any younger!), slowly standing up straight while looking the Android over - a bit of a skeptical expression lingering on his tired features.

I didn't even reblog this yet, technically, but the standard conventions of meme logistics do not apply to Ingrid and also I was just thinkin’

        Let it be acknowledged: he'd done his best. Stood there far longer than he'd wanted to, his breathing —oh, so deliberate. Intentional inhale, controlled exhale. Purposeful cross of his arms covering the curl of his fist. (Slowly, steadily deepening furrow in his brow that he cannot control; disapproving pull in his upper lip he does not bother trying to.) And when none of it worked the way, in theory, it should have, he turned. Made every effort to remove himself from the situation without incident, a learned discipline that he detests but understood the merits of. Understood the reasons for. He’d tried. The final straw is this, the half of something hissed in his direction by one of the officers on trade for training: 

        '- never mauled my partner.'

       This is what sent Henry turning on his heel to- connect, bodily, with a wall of will to match his own. Connor must have followed him: he catches Henry’s bicep and pushes, leaving no option but to be crowded out of the room. To back up down the hall, around a corner. The arm Henry had aimed to lead with falls into alignment with Connor's collar, elbow at one shoulder and fistful of fabric at the other. It begins as a shove and... relents into a firm bracing. Holding ground.

        “I’m not letting go.”

        The veneer of anger crumbles, swept aside efficiently, though to call the raining aftermath a clean sweep would be unfair. It’s a demolition. A planned destruction, perhaps, but still comprised of collapsed arches and fractured windows, foundation ground together til it aches and creaks. Til the wind gusts straight through, shuddering. Holding on.