vestigechat | inaugural tdm of unspecified duration.

Entry tags:

!tdm

inaugural tdm of unspecified duration.

				
				VESTIGE TEST DRIVE MEME

WHAT IS THIS?

Vestige

The Box

invite-only

horror jamjar

Good Quality Suffering™️

ongoing

no official start date

literally nothing but this TDM

all powers intact

items

Intro + Friending

EDIT 5/20:

DISCORD SERVER

 PROMPT 1 ► just your ordinary cabin in the woods 

⬛ARRIVAL + GENERAL PROMPT

 PROMPT 2 ► who's up for some fighty-fight, kids??

⬛MONSTER HORROR.

packed

A child's drawing, of what appears to be... shit, what even is that? Is it a bat? Is it some kind of... reptile? We just don't know. (result! warnings for gore/violence.)
A light-blue paper face mask, the sort used in hospitals for patients who have a cold. Maybe you guys should've brought masks too. It sure would keep all this dust the hell out of your nose... ( result! warning for body horror! )
A buzzsaw blade, dusty but intact. ( result! warnings for gore/violence. )
A music box, covered in faded yellow flowers. I wonder what music it plays? ( result! warnings for gore/violence and Alarming Children. )
A funeral urn. But... It seems that someone glued it shut around the edges? I guess that's one way to make sure nobody spills grandma. ( result! )

 PROMPT 3 ► congratulations, you fucked up

⬛SURVIVAL HORROR.

easy

smoke

here

 PROMPT 4 ► "escape"? never heard of her.

⬛PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR.

try

The first time your character ventures into the fog, they're just turned around and sent back to the cabin.
The second time, they hallucinate things that they don't want to hear. Something they fear, something that hurts them, something that stresses them the fuck out. Maybe a character's worst fear is wildcats and they hear one growling just out of sight in the mist. Maybe instead they hear a loved one crying for help back in the direction from which they've come, drawing them back to the cabin. Or maybe they hear the voice of someone they admire berating their cowardice or stupidity or something, for running away from the cabin in the first place. The goal is to psych them out and send them running back to the place where the action is happening.
The third time, it's the same but full-blown visual or even physical hallucinations. Basically anything that might lure, scare, emotionally wound, etc. them into going back to the vicinity of the cabin.

 THE LOOP ► a note on replayability

left unbothered

sunrise

burnt

fall unconscious

reawaken in a perfectly undamaged cabin

CODE BY TESSISAMESS (patreon)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Thing is, Mace wouldn’t be able to identify that as selfishness even if he tried. Even if they didn’t have this between them — even if he weren’t so hopelessly compromised the way he is now — just the fact that Ian’s linking his own pain to Mace’s existence is something that could not translate as selfish to him.

But he can see the effect all of this is having on Ian now, see it in his eyes when he drops his gaze, in the way he has to swallow and lick his lips before he speaks, and in the way his voice goes suddenly hoarse.

Okay. Okay, it’s too much, that’s all right. ]

Yeah, we can.

[ Agreeably, because Ian’s right; all of this is getting to him in a way that needs some sleep to balance it out, or at least an attempt at sleep. Draws back just enough so that he isn’t so much in Ian’s immediate space, but not far enough that it feels sudden and empty. He doesn’t want to let go of Ian’s waist, feels like his arm belongs there — but reluctantly pulls it back so that he can finish washing the rest of Ian’s upper body, fingers pressing in firm and soothing, working out whatever kinks he can find.

One palm rests briefly over Ian's left breast, and then he's lathering himself up right after in quick, perfunctory scrubs. Puts the soap into Ian’s hand again in case he wants it for anything else while Mace rinses himself off.

The air in the bathroom after he turns the water off is heavy with more than just the moisture, and Mace gives Ian a searching glance before ducking away into the laundry for something to dry them with. Silence something he’s used to, comfortable with, and confronted with having to fill it — he’s a little out of his element.

He’s not normally as talkative as he’s been with Ian the last few hours.

A minute later, he reemerges with the sole bathrobe he’d found hanging there earlier, and a towel. Wraps Ian up in the robe, mainly because it’s the quickest way to get him dried and also because there’s something about the way he looks — open, bare, forlorn — that makes Mace want to bundle him up and hide him away. Then he slings the towel around his own waist, saying quietly: ]

There’s somebody's clothes in the hamper, but.

[ They can wear them in the morning, when (if) they wake up. Or he can grab them now, if Ian wants, but sleeping in the almost-nude isn't something Mace minds. He holds out his hand again, nodding his head toward the bedroom outside. ]

[ He can't seem to decide whether that new distance is welcome or not. Whether he likes the idea of having set up a boundary and pulled back, or whether he's discontent about how he immediately misses it. He shouldn't be. They've known each other for two fucking days, two days.

Then again, they've almost died slightly more than once per day. Near-death experiences cause trauma bonding. Still, though, it shouldn't make him want to act like they're in a god damn relationship. It shouldn't make him want to be familiar with one another in that way that touch becomes a constant, a second-nature, an easy-as-breathing.

Hard to keep from feeling that way when Mace takes care of him like a lover would. That- actually doesn't even feel like a fair assessment, because he's been one of those before. Had one of those before. The care and dedication on display now surpasses anything he'd given or received.

Two days.

The water stops. The robe goes on. He combs his fingers through his hair, pushing it back and away. It won't last long, it inevitably winds up succumbing to gravity and falling around his ears like a wet dog.

He eyes the hamper. Puffs out a breath. ]

Let 'em look me in the dick when they kill me in my sleep.

[ He sleeps nearly naked at home anyway. If it's his last night on earth, or their last night together, might as well go for the full experience, right? Pretend-normal. Fast-forward fantasizing about being on that level with one another, rushing through first kiss and first fuck and showering together and now sleeping together. Give it another week and they'll be engaged.

He takes Mace's hand.

Another new habit they're adopting like it's not unusual. Standard procedure. Expected.

The cabin is dark. There is no moon. The bedroom light beneath the crack in the door is the only welcoming sensation, the rest of it from the hallway down seems to loom in. It feels vulnerable crossing between bathroom and bedroom. Feels like it's no man's land, and the pressing sense of being watched increases tenfold from some source near the front door he can't see through the dark.

Shutting the door and locking it behind them is a relief.

That last dresser slat remains unused, and he holds it up along with some nails. ]

Think we should...?

[ Hammer that god damn door closed too, like the window? Maybe see if it takes a little better than just the dresser did? Might not make any fucking difference, but it might give their minds at least enough illusion of safety that they can fall asleep. ]

Edited 2020-06-06 10:53 (UTC)

[ There was a movie, from the same era as the others they’ve talked about: the story of a bodyguard falling for his charge, and vice versa. Happened within a matter of days — and Mace thinks that his earlier comment about not being a prince, but a bodyguard instead, was right on the money.

Hey, Hollywood had to get their ideas from somewhere, right? It’s not impossible. And there’s something about being so completely focused on someone — of spending hours on end with nothing but their safety on the forefront of your mind, protecting them first with weapons and then your body, flesh tied to flesh and the mind following suit.

The intimacy of knowing what they sounded like in the throes of red-hot agony and white-hot pleasure, both inflicted by your own two hands —

Ian takes his hand, and the darkness in front of them loses all meaning and horror. He can sense something in the emptiness of the cabin around them, and it loses any element of trepidation for Mace. They can't have this. ]

They look anywhere near your dick, I’ll fuckin’ kill ‘em in my sleep.

[ Spoken with dead-seriousness, as he takes the remaining slat and nails, picks up the hammer from where he’d left it, and goes to work hammering the door shut right in his little towel-toga.

There’s definitely a world of difference between someone managing to push a dresser out of the way, and manually tearing off a barrier; besides, it’ll give them some measure of peace, anyway. The placebo effect exists for a reason, after all, and if they’ve only got one more night of sleep ahead of them — at least it’ll be a sounder one.

By the time he crawls into bed next to Ian, he’s finished doing the last perimeter check of the night, and the mattress is devoid of anything but Ian’s long, robed limbs and the sheets. With the added protection of the blankets around him, from what Mace can feel as he slides himself underneath them too.

The room around them is dark, almost pitch black because there isn’t even the light from underneath the bedroom door anymore, and somehow it feels slightly colder. A chill hanging in the air that hadn’t been there before.

Mace wordlessly draws as close as he can to Ian’s side, and after a beat, lays an arm carefully across his upper body. It’s so vastly different from the way they’d slept the night before. Ian with his fresh, charred wound, and Mace laying flat on his back like he was back in an army regulation sleeping bag. Separate from each other, a formality brought about through pain. Now they're practically nestled together.

In the dark, his hand finds the back of Ian’s damp hair, and he runs his fingers through it slow and lulling. ]

Edited 2020-06-06 12:08 (UTC)

[ Mace earns a soft, breathy laugh for his troubles. He's not sure what to call that - jealousy, possessiveness, in any case he's never had whatever that is, either. A partner feeling guarded on behalf of his body. Can't think about it too much right now.

He wants to offer to take up a hammer. To nail in the other side of their board. He knows, though, the look Mace will shoot him just on instinct. This time he gives in without a protest, allows the fatigue to carry him to the bed. To shake out the blankets and pillows so that they aren't sleeping under dust.

When Mace climbs in, Ian spends all of thirty seconds contemplating whether or not he should even try restraint here. Gives in too quick and rolls over onto his side, backs himself up until he's pressed against Mace's chest.

Yeah, the arm wrapped around him is good. Feeling him across the span of his back and his shoulders is better, safer somehow in a way that doesn't make any sense.

Fingers card through his hair.

He exhales.

The panic from earlier has faded down to a soft, sad creature in his chest. It's an improvement, but it still drives him to speak after a few quiet minutes like this. ]

I don't do this. Back home.

[ It's an admission, almost guilty sounding. ]

I don't... Date. Or... let people...

[ In. Take care of him. Hammer his nails. Plaster themselves around his back so that he feels secure. He gets that security from himself back there.

Can't say why he felt the need, but there it is. A confession. ]

[ He almost says, let people make puns around you, because Mace is many things and self-aware is one of them. He knows how odd his sense of humour is, and nine times out of ten, it’s only for his own benefit. Ian’s taking up that last slot, though; even what he’d said earlier had been to get a smile out of him, something to gainsay the approaching panic he could sense welling up.

That, and maybe a measure of — possessiveness, for lack of the right word. Mace isn’t generally an old-fashioned guy, but the thought of some son of a bitch trespassing over such a vulnerable area of his partner’s body evokes a certain knee-jerk reaction of fuck no out of him, straight from the heart. And … for the duration of their stay, and as long as Ian gives him the green light for it, that dick is nobody else’s business but Mace’s.

But the way Ian’s speaking right now, it stops him from making any jokes, droll or otherwise. There’s a note of guilt in Ian’s voice that he doesn’t understand, and it makes him want to tread softly here. Near this part of Ian that he’s choosing to expose, whether out of some swell of emotion, or just bone-deep exhaustion.

Whatever the reason behind it, it’s a show of trust that’s perhaps more private than what they’d shared here earlier, or in the shower just now. ]

Nothing wrong with that.

[ Mace’s eyes have adjusted a little bit even to the current gloom, and in front of him he can just about see the gentle slope of a neck, hair falling across a nape. He thinks of pressing his lips there — just trails the tips of his fingers there instead, a faint touch meant to be both acknowledging and reassuring, before sliding them back into Ian’s hair.

I don’t date. Was it because he didn’t want to? ]

You know, I remember reading in college … the Band of Thebes.

[ Ian probably already knows, he’s a professor. Mace presses on anyway, his voice a low, steady thrum in the darkness. ] It was a military squadron. Comprised entirely of lovers. The idea was … well, you give a man somebody to fight for. Put that somebody right next to him on the battlefield, and … he’d find himself equal to whatever it was that came their way.

[ In the end, that’d been death for the Thebians. All three hundred of them, slaughtered. But that’s not what Mace is getting at, not why he’s saying this and probably sounding like a fool for it, too. ]

Thank you for letting me.

[ Letting him do whatever is that you don’t normally let people do. He doesn’t need to know what the specificity of that is; thinks he gets it, anyway. And with that, he brushes his lips right to the base of Ian's neck. ]

[ Wellp, considering the current population of the cabin consists of Mace and aggressively amputation-happy zombie doctors, Ian's quite happy with his dick being nobody's business but theirs for the duration of their stay.

The touch to his skin, to his hair, it's incredibly pacifying. It lulls out anxiety a little, edges it closer toward rest. Soothes away some of the tension that could easily take root in his brow and in his shoulders. He's tactile, but he didn't realize that meant receiving too.

The Band of Thebes is a familiar story, but in a distant and detached way. He remembers the name, remembers vague details, but the elaboration is welcomed and immediately understood. It's another root, another tendril weaving its way into the knotted tree that's been rising in his chest. The branches have been thick and so have the boughs, filling him uncomfortably full.

Give him somebody to fight for.

If he only knew the kind of person Ian was, what he'd do if they weren't here, he wouldn't be so quick to fight for him probably. If he knew that by now Ian would've left, run for the hills, turned off his phone... if he knew Ian would absorb himself in a new project for the next four weeks to make sure whatever this was would be good and dead by the time he resurfaced again...

He's disingenuous. He feels guilty in a way he can't really explain. ]

You shouldn't thank me.

[ He murmurs tiredly, reaching up to curl his fingers around the wrist Mace has settled over him. ]

I'd have left by now. After that kiss - maybe before. The first one. I'd be gone already.

[ He's not trying to be hurtful, and he normally doesn't even talk about it, but... every time Mace opens his mouth he says the exact kind of thing that pries Ian open a little farther. Makes him want to issue warnings, protect him in kind like he'd planned to do when he peeled that dresser away from the door.

It's only fair, he thinks. He'd be an asshole for not being upfront about himself at this point. ]

[ His mouth is still pressed to Ian’s nape when fingers wind around his wrist, a careful touch that he immediately likes. More points of contact between them felt better. It reminds him of what Ian had done earlier — the gesture that had, in a way, been the first spark to their oil.

Instead of drawing away immediately, like he’d initially meant to, Mace stays where he is and mulls over what he’s hearing. Nose slightly buried in Ian’s hair, still damp from the shower, smelling woodsy and sweet.

Despite the topic, despite where they are, he’s starting to feel his own limbs go loose and heavy now, relaxed in a way that he knows means he won’t have much trouble sleeping when the time comes. The heat of Ian’s body, the comfort of the shower — the simple intimacy of post-coital pillow talk.

Although, it’s a pretty unique kind of pillow talk. But it doesn’t hurt. If anything, Mace appreciates the honesty of it and the fact that Ian’s clearly aware of this part of himself instead of hiding it away or pretending it doesn’t exist. He can also tell it’s meant as a sort of caveat, like what Mace had tried to do when he’d told Ian about Cassie, about the type of person he was.

I’d be gone already. ]

But you didn’t leave here, did you. You stayed. You … let me. So that doesn’t change why I’m thanking you.

[ Mace’s lips brush against his skin with every word, and at Ian’s chest, the hand that he’s holding by the wrist strokes his sternum from atop the robe, trying to tell him without saying so that it’s okay. Whatever he's saying, it's okay.

He's also getting the feeling that maybe they're not on the same page about what he meant by fighting for somebody, going by the growing sound of guilt in that tired voice. ]

If this were back home, though — just a hypothetical. Don't overthink it, don't worry what I'm gonna think about it. Would it have been because you didn’t want me?

[ He doesn’t want to pry but there’s a curiosity in him to know the answer to that, if only because it’s something he can’t really wrap his mind around. ]

[ Does it count as staying when he doesn't have a choice? When the alternative is - what, go hide in the other bedroom alone at best, brave the fog alone at worst? There is no other path besides staying here and letting this unfold, and it's only through that necessity that any of this even happened. It's the only reason it's still happening.

The feeling of lips at the back of his neck sends sensation rippling down his spine - not a heat like earlier, but that static autonomic sensory meridian response, tingling and pleasant hums. The breath puffing warm against him helps. It's all so much nicer than he really deserves. ]

Fuck- no, it's not that. You're fantastic.

[ He murmurs immediately, instantly, because apparently not overthinking isn't even an issue for that question.

It's the opposite, actually. It's because he does want you, and that's the problem.

He licks his lips, then softly elaborates. ]

I told you. Back at the start. I don't have anybody.

[ It's a choice. It's on purpose. Not because he couldn't, but because he knows better.

It's easier to confess this, this secret usually unspoken part, in the dark and with his eyes closed. With soothing touches that keep him grounded. With the inhibition removal that comes from extreme tiredness. It's the perfect environment to strip away barriers and allow the truth to float up. ]

[ Honestly, it counts as staying in Mace’s book, which is written mostly in medium, bold lettering, with clear diagrams and very little ambiguity. Because — yeah, that would be a feasible option from where he’s standing. Ian could’ve hidden alone, could’ve left Mace to his own devices. And he hadn’t just stayed in the cabin, but he’d stayed on the bed. He’d stayed in the shower. He was staying here and now, held in Mace’s arms and against his chest, his spine pressed to the beat of Mace’s heart.

There's always a choice. Mace had offered Ian one earlier, and Ian had chosen to kiss him back.

All the same, he's glad of the swift way Ian responds to his question, his lips curving into a smile where they’re still touching the back of Ian’s neck. It promptly does away with the new and unpleasant possibility that had begun to form in the back of his mind — that Ian, given the choice, wouldn’t have wanted what they’d just shared. Had done it only for the sake of doing it.

The elaboration, though. Mace turns it over in his head and then gives a confused little huff. His first thought is that it's disinterest in commitment, but a guy like Ian doesn't seem the type. ]

Okay, tell me if I get this wrong. You — don’t have anybody. But it’s not because you don't want anybody. You do want ... a hypothetical somebody. But if you got 'em, you’d leave, because ... because.

[ Slowly spelling it out like this is an equation and he has to show his work, except the longer he talks, the more confounding it gets. The stupider it sounds, too, because he’s missing a piece here and he knows it. His brows furrow as he tries to figure it out, his fingers tapping a gentle tattoo where they rest near Ian’s collarbone.

I’d have left by now. I’d be gone already. You shouldn’t be thanking me. I don’t have anybody. I don’t do this, back home. I’d have left...

Like all equations, it’s simple once you see it. It isn't a thesis, it's a single damn word, written in invisible ink at the end of what Ian’s trying to convey, and Mace holds up the lighter behind it and sees what he’s been missing all along. ]

You'd leave first.

[ His fingers stop and then resume, with only the slightest hitch, and his tone stays warm and low like they're still discussing shampoo. Not commitment, then, that's the problem. No, there was only one real reason somebody like Ian would want to exit a relationship first, and Mace didn't need to be an aerospace engineer to see that it started with a capital letter A. ]

Gotta say, that still doesn't tell me why I shouldn't be thanking you.

[ It's-- not that he wouldn't have wanted what they just shared, although it kind of is. If he could undo it, rewind, make it all go away instead, he might. He really might, although... fuck, it feels good. Maybe he wouldn't, maybe this is just the time where he finally shoots himself in the foot and lets himself bleed out from it. Go out with a bang, right? Really hurt before the end.

Feels weird to be analyzed out loud like this. Makes his lips scrunch up into a tight and slightly displeased little moue that Mace can't see from his perspective.

You do want a hypothetical somebody.

Indignation flares up a little. Fans up a bit more at you'd leave first like it's some kind of conclusion Mace has drawn but isn't sharing with the class. He's not gonna ask.

(The A stands for Asshole, in his opinion.)

He sighs softly at that non-question that wraps all this up in a neat bow. Still doesn't feel like Mace really gets it - if he would, he probably wouldn't still be holding onto him, wouldn't be tapping out that pleasant rhythm on his collarbone that feels nice.

Or maybe he would, and he's acknowledging like Ian has that this is pretty much it. The end, all they get before they go. All he gets is Ian.

At any rate, at least he tried. Put it out there so that he's transparent and it's known. It assuages a little bit of his guilt, and he'll be able to sleep because of it.

He's not gonna push the point. He's just gonna softly state, like undisputed fact: ]

You're too good, you know? You're really, really fucking good.

[ The question for Mace, in that case, would be: would Ian undo it because he didn’t want it, or because it would hurt to want it, and then have it taken away? But that's not a worry that’s on his radar anymore, with the way Ian had called him fantastic; and if it were, he’d be broaching it with his characteristic panache of a merrily thrown brick.

And if Mace were a more sensitive guy, it would occur to him that analyzing somebody else out loud isn’t the most tactful idea. But as it is, it doesn’t; to him this entire conversation has been straightforward from start to current point, with thoughts being laid out and said thoughts being methodically sorted through. Ergo, there is nary a prick in his conscience except for the one he’d been handling earlier.

Speaking of which. He hums at the unexpected compliment, like he’s debating the merit of it and if he deserves said merit. Debates whether he ought to explain what he meant earlier, about having somebody to fight for.

But it’s simpler to just shake his head and inadvertently end up nuzzling Ian’s nape in the process, before murmuring: ]

Wait until you see what I can do when there's lube.

[ A commercial break for his usual brand of humour. In truth, he thinks they’re both hovering near sleep right about now, what with the way Ian had sighed a moment ago, the exhaustion from everything catching up to them.

Except he can feel his mind start to ward it off, his eyes blinking quickly every now and then in the dark, and his hands still keeping up their slow touches at Ian's hair and chest. He realizes that he doesn't actually want to sleep, and it's not entirely out of concern for what'll happen to them once they drift off.

He wants this to last, this moment. It's all they're gonna get, right? ]

I meant what I said, before. I'm glad it was you. [ A slow blink, and then: ] You glad it was me?

[ God, that brush of nose at the back of his neck. It's so simple, it's so nothing, but just like every small touch from Mace it pulls forth a bloom of feeling. It transcends itself and becomes something deeper, and maybe being at the cusp of sleep just makes him more susceptible to it. Yeah, he wants this - some part of him does, anyway. Some deep and selfish, irrational part.

He's never been taken care of by anybody but himself. Not since he was old enough to know how to work the stove without burning the house down.

A stuttered laugh shakes through him unexpectedly at the quip, cutting through the tension like a knife. Derailing his thought spiral and bringing him back to the present. There's a gentle pause at the question. ]

No.

[ He murmurs, earnestly. ]

I wish it was anybody else but you.

[ Because you deserve better than this place. He wishes you weren't here to experience it. Fuck, you really are genuinely, really good. What in the hell did you do to deserve this? ]

But... if there were a million cabins like this and you had to be in one of 'em, yeah, I'm glad you're with me.

[ Somewhere in his head, there’s a part of him that’s started to keep a tally every time he gets a smile or a laugh out of Ian. Each time, it’s a win because Jesus fuck, look at where they are. Look at what’s happened to them so far, and what’s most likely going to happen to them —

Yeah, he’ll take every good part of this as a victory while he can, snatched right out of the clawed hands of this cabin itself. So that small, shaky laugh, it prompts Mace to nudge Ian’s hair out of the way from his nape with the full intention of pressing a real kiss there.

Halfway through, he gets that earnest no — and he doesn’t freeze, exactly, but it makes him wonder for the briefest of moments if Ian hadn’t wanted him after all, that same shadowy sliver of doubt from before trying to pierce its way in again. Then, I wish it was anybody else but you, and oh. Mace thinks he can see where that’s coming from.

This is pretty much hell’s hideous little backyard, and if he could somehow make a deal with the devil himself to get Ian out of here — he’d do it in a goddamn heartbeat. He knows he would. Ian shouldn’t be here even in a nightmare, forget in reality; he ought to be back at a college somewhere, booting up a whiteboard screen at the start of a lecture, in front of a bunch of dweeby engineering freshmen. ]

That was almost a very bad blow to my ego.

[ Quiet, amused, and somehow a little sad, because saying ego here is safer than saying where Ian’s words had really struck him. His heart. Although he figures that’s kind of obvious, with the way he kisses the first knob of Ian’s spine: slow and comforting, like it’s his lips instead.

And it’s what Ian says last that Mace holds onto, waiting for sleep to take him, unwilling though he is.

I’m glad you’re with me. ]

[ The only answer Mace earns is another soft huff, and it's really impossible to determine whether it's his words or his lips that earn it. They're warm, sweet, satisfying, and his skin's still buzzing with the feeling when he finally finally falls asleep.

He's out like a goddamn light. Out like they did actually get murdered in their sleep, like there's never going to be a moment where they're forced to wake up back where they were.

It's almost true.

Where he finds himself is so bright and sterile it almost feels like a J.J. Abrams movie. Tech well beyond anything he's had to see up close, light-reflecting insulated walls down long corridors. An enormous, closed bulkhead at one end, and at the other - obvious to even a layman - an airlock.

His feet carry him away from it and toward thick steel, only a small panel of glass built into it. Enough, barely, for a face. Enough, barely, for him to look through. ]

[ Falling asleep is a lot more like waking up. Mace blinks and it’s like he’s been here all along, the hallway stretching down in front of him as familiar to him as the back of his hand. In fact, he never left — of course he didn't. They’re still on-board the Icarus II, they’d heard Harvey’s retrieval of the Icarus I’s mayday signal and had elected, thank fuck, to ignore it. Just space music, in the end.

The trajectory was still on track, and they'd be on schedule for the payload drop. He’d missed his chance to send a message back home, but that was okay, because Ian had —

In the passage headed toward the flight deck, every part of his body goes instantly still when he hears Icarus’s voice call out his name into the emptiness around him: cold, impersonal, computerized. Detached. She doesn’t care.

And Mace knows with a sudden, horrible feeling exactly what she’s going to say next, and why.

Anomaly detected in airlock. Pressure levels rising at exponential rate. Countdown to automatic ejection. ]

Icarus, stop! [ He’s going full tilt down the corridor, panic lending to his speed as he takes the ladder downstairs two rungs at a time. He has to get to the airlock. He has to get to Ian. He has to — Negative, Mace. Automatic ejection required to restore pressure levels. ]

Override. James Mace taking manual control, Icarus! [ The airlock is just up ahead, and through the glass he can make out the man inside. The man trapped inside, unless he fucking gets this thing open the right way, and Mace slams into the door with a grunt, slapping his palm against the panel to get Ian's attention.

Desperate and, for the first time in a long time, afraid. ]

Ian! I'm going to break the manual seal to the airlock, hold on —

[ He hears it, too - distantly, through nearly a foot of steel and polycarbonate and shatterproof glass. Countdown to automatic ejection, and he knows on instinct there's only one thing that could eject. A backwards glance tells him pretty clearly that there's no safety gate, no secondary portal to close. There's just this. There's just him.

Him, and nothing else. Bare walls, no panels, no buttons, no levers. Nothing he could even occupy his mind with trying in a useless bid to save his own life.

There is nothing but door, glass, airlock, and empty hallway.

Immediately, the flat of his palm starts banging against unforgiving, unemphatic door. ]

Hey- hey! Hello! Wait a second, I'm in here-

[ It doesn't go anywhere. Barely, barely even penetrates to the other side. Mace doesn't need to get his attention, Ian's wild-eyed staring through the glass at him the second he comes into view of the glass panel.

He can't really hear Mace- barely, just loud enough that he can sort of piece together the words through context. His name, break the manual seal, airlock.

Override. Manual control.

Negative, Mace. Failure to vent will result in catastrophic systems failure. Extreme hydrogen content in the airlock shaft will flood back into oxygen recycling. Explosive reaction in or around oxygen filtration will guarantee incapacitation of the ship. Chances of mission completion are less than once percent. Are you sure you want to override?

He's not a fucking astronaut or anything, but he's pretty sure that's a bad outcome. It roots him in place, shocks him still, and his mind instinctively starts turning over solutions. Problem solving. There is no opening the door. There is no leaving this airlock, save for when the airlock opens.

If he holds his breath, the vacuum of space will pull the air out and his lungs will rupture. If he exhales, it doesn't matter. Oxygen in the rest of his body will immediately expand. Liquid will vaporize - he'll lose his eyes and his tongue. After fifteen seconds, if he's still alive he'll pass out. After ninety, exposure will kill him. He will freeze solid, and then he'll crack apart.

Everything about that is fucking terrifying.

He rips his eyes away from Mace to frantically search the space behind him. Any suit, any cables, any ties, anything to hold onto for even the chance that he can stay inside the ship during the venting process. It may look a little bit more like he's having a panic attack, searching the walls with his fingers, digging at gaps, looking for anything that might open. The rest of this fucking airlock is empty. Not even a fucking support beam.

It rips from his throat without him even realizing it: ]

FUCK-

[ He’s already wrenching open the panel lock on the side, punching in the numbers to prepare for the moment Icarus gives him manual control, his thumb hovering over the red enter key. And then,

Failure to vent will result in catastrophic systems failure.

Mace’s head whips back up, looking through the panel as if from a million miles away, with eyes as wide and desperate as Ian’s are. A split second to catch that terrified, blank gaze and then Ian’s turning away, distraught and scrabbling at the walls around him, and Mace feels the distress seep through the walls and into his own chest, squeezing the breath out of his lungs, unforgiving and unrelenting.

No. No, he can’t fucking let himself get lost into the panic opening up under his feet like quicksand falling away into a void. There’s got to be something else. There’s gotta be another way, some loophole — some solution, some way out of this, anything.

There’s nothing else. The inside of the airlock is bare and white and empty, no insulation lining the walls to tear, no fucking emergency suit to put on, not even a load-bearing joist along the sides to grab onto. Not that that would make an iota of difference when the airlock opened and the temperature dropped, the pressure of a sudden vacuum pulling at Ian like —

Time stretches out in front of him, interminable seconds dripping down like endless water on top of his skull. Over his head, vibrating under his rooted feet, all around him and somehow getting louder as though the voice means to drill right into his ears: Chances of mission completion are less than one percent.

Less than one percent. Meaning statistically impossible, meaning might as well give up the moment he overrides the manual lock. They’d been concerned about the mission’s probability of success when the percentage was at ninety-one fucking percent, for Christ’s sake. God, the argument that had broken out when the oxygen gardens had taken a hit — and even then it wasn’t the mission’s success that had been under question but their ability to return home.

Home. Ten billion people. Humanity’s last chance. The success rate had never gone down below eighty at any point for the duration of sixteen months. We’ve mined all of Earth’s available resources, Capa’s voice echoing in his head as he stares into the gleaming, hideous insides of the airlock, unseeing. There’s not gonna be another bomb.

Less than one percent. ]

Ian?

[ Why is he bothering to talk. Fourteen inches of reinforced steel and synthetic thermoplastic between them, almost utterly soundproof. Ian won't be able to hear him. He'll only be able to see him, like Mace is seeing him now, his lips parting violently in profile as he curses.

Are you sure you want to override?

Mace's face spasms.

His fingers close, and so does his heart, into a fist. He slams it hard enough into the airlock door to shatter the bones, and somehow doesn't feel a single fucking thing. His other hand touches the edge of the panel, and there's nothing but despair and farewell in his gaze.

Manual override: unselected. Mission in jeopardy. Resuming computer control of Icarus II. Countdown to automatic ejection reinstated. T-minus sixty seconds. ]

[ Flat bare walls. Flat bare nothing. He makes it all the way down to the end of the goddamn thing, to the airlock door thinking maybe there's a fucking knob or a handle, but there's nothing. They retreat seamlessly into the wall panels, they leave nothing behind.

Mace will get a clear, completely silent view of Ian whirling around left, then right, then absolutely nowhere. Of lips parting, face contorting, teeth bared, and clearly yelling at nothing and no one in particular. If he can read lips, it isn't hard to pick up on the word fuck.

A hand passes over his mouth.

He reels himself in.

Looks back at the glass, the door, and what he can see of Mace's face through it.

Okay. Okay okay okay. Okay. Okay.

He paces back with enough momentum that he has to stop himself with his palms on the flat of it. He looks out, wide-eyed and lips parted, but he says nothing. What the fuck is there to say? He's not gonna beg. He heard that bitch, he knows the implication.

I had to make a choice between a crew member and — Earth.
A body guard protects one person. A prince protects a country.

Oh, god.

Forty seconds. Already? Already, he wasted twenty goddamn seconds just-- doing nothing, finding nothing, accomplishing nothing? ]

[ Mace can pick up on just about everything Ian’s saying. Yelling, hopeless and evidently loud, his face twisting with it.

It’s in vain, and the thought passes through him as anathema would, poison and bleak. Overhead, the countdown drones on like nails being driven into his head one by one as Ian turns back to the door, staring back into Mace’s eyes, his mouth open. There’s no sound but Mace already knows he’s not saying anything right now.

What can he say? What the fuck can either of them fucking say? Ian's not even pleading for anything, and the implication of that is like a knife in Mace's heart. He grinds his forehead to the glass, right where Ian’s face is in a muted thump — and light bursts behind his eyes like kaleidoscope, splitting into memories that he can’t understand and doesn’t care that he can’t.

In a shower, foreheads pressed together, Mace’s arm steady and strong against the small of Ian's back. The water falling around them like a veil.

In bed, Ian’s fingers at the back of his neck, holding their faces together just like this. Heat and touch, an ache flickering to life between his ribs.

In the coolant tank, liquid ice cutting into his skin like ten thousand shards. Ian screaming through a gag as he held the knife down against his wound. A kiss. A kiss. A kiss. I don't want you think I'm anything better than I am.

Mace locks gazes with Ian as the countdown hits twenty seconds, every line in his face etched with despair, shaking his head slowly. Doesn't look away because that's the least he can do: watch the decision he's made, all the way through. Stay with Ian, all the way through. ]

Ian.

[ Sorry. Perhaps the most useless word in the English language. It wouldn’t make a difference. He doesn’t say it, just says Ian's name again instead, soundless now even to his own ears. Ten seconds. ]

[ He watches. He tracks the way Mace's forehead presses against the glass, the flat stretch of skin against unyielding surface. The distress written in every line of it. He's numb, though. Dispassionate, almost, and unable to feel anything about the sorrow clearly running through him. His heart does not break, there is no regret, there is no need to comfort him.

He's floating. Detached by his own disbelief, his shock. Humans are the main characters in their own stories. What drives men to be willing to battle, to fight, is the inability to believe they'll actually die during it. Even if they think they know, even if they tell themselves I know I could die, I'm ready to die, at their core there's always a lingering piece of hope.

Death is almost always a surprise, even when you know it's coming.

Ten seconds.

Nine.

His mouth closes, lips pressing into a line. The first real pulse of feeling sets in finally, a thundering drum beat, reverberating percussion, pure despair in his chest threatening to choke him with a sob.

Eight. Seven.

It breaks, despite his best efforts to go out stoically. Shudders through him, makes his mouth spasm and contort into a pathetic sort of twist. If he were a good man, he'd turn his back to the door so Mace didn't have to watch him go. Didn't have to look him in the eyes.

It's just, if he's gonna go, the last thing he wants to see is another person.

Six.

He doesn't want to go alone.

Five.

He doesn't want to go at all.

Four.

The first tear streaks down his cheek.

Venting airlock in three, two-

Oh god, he doesn't want to die.

The doors open efficiently, with the softest sound of metal on metal that he hears for only a second. He does not exhale despite the fact that logically he knows it would hurt less if he did. He doesn't have the time to think that clearly. It's like plummeting into the sea, sucking down a breath because you know it could be your last. Time slows down, he thinks, or maybe it's that his mind speeds up.

He's pulled backward by his shoulders, by his spine. Sucked neatly and efficiently out with no dramatic to-do, no twisting, no groping. Just standing and then... honestly, it feels a little bit like falling. Like the door and the glass separating him from Mace is the sky, and he's looking up instead of forward as he plummets away from it into the dark, into the void, away from the light and the heat.

A sharp pain in his chest. A sharp pain in every muscle in his body. His vision goes black. His heart stops. All body heat is gone in seconds.

He cracks apart like a porcelain doll. Like a dropped teacup. ]

[ This is not the first time Mace has watched someone die. He knows what that last bubble of blood welling up in a man’s mouth looks like, his gaze searching hopelessly for somebody, anybody, to help. To stop it. Nothing else in his face but the frantic, animal desire to live, right until the very last second the light is doused out of his eyes.

It’s not the first time Mace has watched someone die, but it is the first time that someone has meant this much to him, and the way Ian’s mouth trembles into something twisted and shapeless rends his heart in two. The utter wretchedness in the face he’d held and kissed, brushed the hair out of.

His vision goes wet and hazy and he’s still mouthing Ian’s name as the countdown ends, like it means something, like it means anything at all.

Doesn’t mean anything. The one person he’d wanted to protect. He doesn’t blink.

Venting airlock in three, two, one.

The airlock opens and it’s over in a matter of seconds. The vast emptiness of space bursts apart in front of him, rips Ian out of the airlock so horrendously fast that Mace’s eyes can barely track the movement of his body as it plunges away from him into the dark. A maw opening up that devours Ian whole, until he’s not even a speck. And then that not-a-speck shatters into pieces, and Mace knows.

No. No, no — ]

—Nnnnh.

[ In the bleak grey of the master bedroom, Mace’s eyes wrench open, an ugly, formless sound still trapped in his throat, his heart pounding so hard and fast that for a moment he thinks it’s about to hammer its way right out of his chest. His left hand is fucking throbbing for some reason, fisted right next to the nightstand.

Mace swallows, trying to slow down his pulse in one slow breath and then another; he can feel where his tongue is mashed to the roof of his mouth, at the back of his front teeth; he pries his right hand away from the pillow it’s got in a death grip, raising twitching fingers to his cheeks, and when he draws them away they’re wet.

He was — why was he — ]

Ian?

[ A hoarse croak as he shifts up on one elbow, looking over to the other side of the bed that he’d somehow turned away from in the middle of the night, the blankets twisted around his ankles. ]

[ He's awake. He's awake at the same time that nn sound begins to peel from the back of Mace's throat, eyes snapping open like sudden headlights in the dark, wide and terrified and still. Speechless, the only sound being the parting of his lips and the sudden sucking in of a breath too sharp to be a gasp.

He's on his back staring straight up at the ceiling, deep dark wood that almost looked black and vast for a second. Stretching out to nothing. He wasn't sure, he wasn't-- he doesn't recognize it for what it is until his name falls from Mace's lip.

He'd been frozen - metaphorically speaking. His body's warm enough on the mattress beneath his half of a quilt, but his muscles were locked. Every single one of them tense and rigid, seized up like electric shock, heart hammering away rapidly in his chest.

He felt the pain in his lungs. He felt the pain in his body.

He was expecting to crack apart, and it's startling that he isn't. That he hasn't. That wild surprise is still on his face when Mace turns. He'll catch Ian uncomprehending, struggling to figure out why he's still in one piece, tear tracks down his cheek and chest pulsing like a panic attack in progress. ]

[ His first thought is: they’re being attacked, and his eyes immediately tear away from the fear in Ian’s tear-streaked face to the rest of the bedroom, eyes scanning the emptiness rapidly even as he throws off the sheets and swings his legs over to the floor.

Nothing. No one. They’re alone, they’re. Safe. Fine. Except for the rapid rise and fall of Ian’s chest, the way he’s sucking in air like he’s going into a panic attack, and Mace’s attention is right back on him in the next second. ]

Hey, hey, Ian, calm — Ian. I’m here.

[ Back on the bed now, one knee dipping into the mattress as he moves toward Ian, slow and with one hand outstretched placatingly. The towel around his waist had fallen off some time in the night, but he doesn’t even notice it, too wrapped up in the pallor of Ian’s face, the unmistakeable terror in his eyes.

It hadn’t been just him, then. Both of them. Crying. A nightmare? Had to be, had to — fuck, why can’t he remember? Mace has never particularly wanted to be able to remember his dreams, but something tells him this hadn’t been a normal one, even for a nightmare. And if he knew, then he could say something. Do something, other than reach out to touch Ian’s face in reassurance, or at least try to.

His hand freezes before it gets there, though, and by the faint, greyish light that’s in the room now, he can see his left hand’s swollen and bruised, an indent at the side of his palm like he’d —

Smashed it into the corner of the night table. What the fuck kind of nightmare did he — did they — just have? ]

[ That's enough, really, to break the spell. The words, the sight of something other than dark ceiling, and... frankly, just time for it to wear off. For him to blink himself back to the present, for the lingering brain chemistry of sleep to fade out and show him in retrospect how unreal that dream felt compared to this concrete reality.

His chest slows, eyes flickering up to Mace's face, then down off to the side toward nothing in particular.

Despite that, he reaches back. Wraps his hand around Mace's wrist like it's a need, like he's got to confirm concretely that it's tangible. Warm. Within reach. Once he's got it, is other hand presses into the mattress to start pushing himself back up toward the headboard to something mostly upright. His knees draw up off the mattress too, lifting to form low angles beneath the quilt. ]

I, I-

[ He starts, less a stutter and more the syllable dragging out in joined duplicate. ]

Shit- fuck, it's okay. Sorry. It was...

[ Just a dream, except he's never had a dream that vivid before. Never felt pain so realistically in his sleep before. ]

[ The touch to his wrist brings him out of his brief stint of wondering, familiar and grounding. His pulse throbs under Ian's curled fingers, and it's almost some kind of a reminder to his own subconscious, or from it.

He feels an echoing surge of protectiveness that he's not sure is entirely due to the words tumbling out of Ian's mouth, but the sound of them has him consoling him in a manner that's instinctive. ]

Shh, hey. It's okay. We're okay.

[ It was just a dream, he's about to add on, but the way it's rattled Ian (and himself, judging by the goddamn tears on his face — fuck, he can't remember the last time he cried while awake, forget in his sleep) ... he doesn't want to attach the word "just" to it.

He sits right next to where Ian's pulling himself into a seated position, Mace's legs bent at a strange, half-fold underneath him as he does so. Almost cross-legged, except one knee is drawn up. Brings his other hand up and cups Ian's face properly, now, a thumb swiping underneath his eyes gently as he leans in to try and look into them. Gauge where Ian's mind is at. ]

You with me?

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