Aspirin is a very useful substance

[timesbureaucrat]

Who: Kay and Narvin
What: Death Toll Reset
When: After Narvin's released from the infirmary. Todayish.
Where: Kay's cabin
Warnings: Suicide

Comments

[most_feared]

He wished that it was just nice to have Narvin home. But it wasn't. He liked him being out of the infirmary, but not in this rantless, impaired state. A political bureaucrat robbed of speech. A wildlife observer robbed of sight. Like with Parker, he just wished that people would go back to killing each other. If they weren't going to make happy fucking love bunnies at least there wasn't joy in someone's prolonged misery.

He reached over and put his hand on Narvin's and just stayed on the couch, watching the distant wall because he didn't want to cook up a one-sided conversation. He didn't much feel like it after running around like a decapitated rooster today.

[timesbureaucrat]

Narvin took a few deep, calming breaths. They'd already spoken about reset in the infirmary, but even so if he was going to broach the subject again he needed to do it with a clear mind. He never was able to shake off betrayal lightly. It wasn't that he didn't know that Ardent was capable of acting violently, so much as he never expected Ardent to callously turn that violence against him.

He unclenched his hands, leaned against Kay's shoulder, and closed his eyes, just breathing in the scent of home and safety for a few nanospans. When at last he sent a thought through the psychic link, he didn't open his eyes or move away from Kay.

I'm ready. You don't need to watch if you don't want to. Once the tranquillizer hits, I won't notice the difference anyway. He wanted Kay there; even knowing that he'd come back, death was terrifying. But it would be cruel to insist upon it. Once the injection hit, Narvin would have all of twelve seconds of fear before he'd fall unconscious. Kay would have the memory, the vision of him

[most_feared]

Neither had Kay. He still hated Alpha. He hated Alpha with a burning goddamn passion and there hadn't been a day since the man shot him that he didn't think back on him. But he was quiet still as Narvin came to.

He reached into his coat and pulled out the tranquillizer gun, placed it in Narvin's lap. "You can unload the clip to get one of the darts. It might hurt less." But that's all that he'd really offer. He'd seen Narvin die once already. He's seen Laurana die. He'd felt that desperate and frightened feeling, crawling doom, himself (even if he survived).

He would stay. He wouldn't enjoy it. ...Perhaps he'd be glad that he wouldn't enjoy it. It kept him human. But he'd stay.

[timesbureaucrat]

He picked up the gun and turned it around in his hands. He also noted that Kay was making no move to leave. Telling him "thank you" seemed somehow glib and inappropriate under the circumstances. The same phrase shouldn't be used for such wildly different actions as passing the salt at the table and staying to offer comfort and company while one died. So he leaned up and kissed Kay lightly on the cheek, unfurling a wordless telepathic expression of gratitude and love.

I'll be back in a few hours. He tried to keep all nervousness out of the thought, to pretend that it would be just like going away for a stroll for a little while.

He unloaded the clip, drew out a dart, and stared at it. He wondered if choosing to regenerate when one wasn't imminently dying was this difficult.