What Do You Normally Do When I'm Gone?

[runes_brand]

Who: Brand & you!
What: Rune goes home. Brand reacts.
Where: Around the Rig
When: After Honeyplank & the Riot
Warnings/Notes: Brand-typical swearing, TBA

Brand is on his way to lunch when the bottom drops out of his world. Between one moment and the next, Rune is gone.

Rune's not dead, he tells himself over the hammering of his heart. He's not dead, he's fine, he's fine, he's back home, he's with Addam and the kids, he's fine--

He's running before he even realizes he's in motion, though he's not sure where. Toward the hole in the center of him, probably.

He's fine, he's fine, he's fine, he's fine...

--

He stuffs Rune's sheets in the vents so that Jorgmund can't take them and toss them in the wash. They're sweaty and gross, Rune runs hot at the best of times, but Brand isn't thinking straight. He's desperate to keep what he's got. How long is he going to be kept here alone? Rune said he'd been here a month before Brand showed up, was he going to be here long enough to even them out? Longer?

Bile rises in his throat, along with the urge to scream. He hates this. He hates being separated from Rune, he's always hated it; everything feels sharp and bruised and wrong when he can't feel Rune's existence on the other end of their Companion bond. He doesn't know how Corinne did it when Kevan died, he doesn't want to know.

He wants Rune. Fuck, he just wants Rune.

He leaves their his their bunk to go find somewhere else to hide. He can't be here right now.

Comments

[ownperson]

South's been coming down to the training space more often than usual, lately; as often as she was back when North and her weren't talking when she first arrived, and for exactly the same reasons.

It's one of the quieter times of the day, when most of the other New Hires are busy doing other things—not everyone has a borderline addiction to running training, after all. She's only just arrived herself and she's ready to get warmed up, get into her routine, but she does a cursory glance over the room to see if Brand's around, as has sort of become a habit. Sometimes he's here and they can go a few rounds, sometimes he's off with Rune, it's a toss up.

He's not on the sparring mats, he's not around the exercise equipment, she doesn't hear anyone around the shooting range... alright, looks like she's on her own, today.

She only realises she's not when she's getting herself set up to do some lifting and sees the shape of someone hunkered away in the corner, behind one of the storage racks. Brow wrinkling, she sets down the weights she was setting up and steps closer to try and get a better look.

"...Brand? What the fuck are you doing back— there..."

She trails off as she actually takes in what she's seeing, which is Brand, hiding in a corner, looking like he's having some kind of breakdown. Oh. Shit. What the fuck.

[runes_brand]

Brand starts when South says his name. He hadn't heard her come up. That's probably a bad sign for how up in his own head he is right now, but he can't manage to focus past the hole where Rune's supposed to be to care.

"South," he says in acknowledgment. Then, because he can't be fucked to answer her question with anything round about, he explains, "Rune's gone."

[ownperson]

South's eyes widen; he doesn't need to say anything else, the realisation settles into her features barely a second after the two words are out of his mouth.

Maybe they never really talk, but what they have shared has told her more than enough, and words don't say as much about what Rune means to Brand as the way he acts with him. Around the rig, in the memory she saw...

"Oh. Oh fuck. Like— disappeared gone? Are you sure?"

She asks, but she gets the feeling he is. That he wouldn't be this messed up, hiding in a goddamned corner, if he wasn't certain Rune wasn't here, because if what she's seen is anything to go by, if he thought Rune was somewhere else and in reach, he'd be out there trying to find him.

That maybe he knows in whatever way he knew that Rune was having a nightmare all the way in another room, in that memory of his.

[runes_brand]

He and Rune hadn't told anyone about their Companion bond, save for alluding to it as confirmation of each other's identities during the whole Babadon't mess. So South asking if he's sure Rune is gone isn't mocking, even though it makes him want to start swinging.

"He's not fucking here!" he snarls. "These bastards don't have access to the kind of power it would take to hide him from me!"

That's all the fire he has in him for the moment. Brand slumps back down into his miserable hunch.

"He's- he's back home. People say that happens sometimes."

He has to be, because if he's dead then Brand is never going to be okay again.

[ownperson]

South doesn't back off or even flinch; instead, she just crouches down and nods. If he's sure, he's sure; at this point she'd put money on there being something more than just an uncanny closeness going on here, between the memory and the way he phrased that. The power it'd take to hide Rune from him...

Magic bullshit, that'd be her guess.

"Yeah, I've heard that. About people going home." God, she's so bad at doing feelings stuff, and this some messy, fucked up, feelings stuff. She digs her teeth into her bottom lip for a second, then sighs. "Look, I could pretend I know what the fuck to say here, that I could say anything fuckin' helpful at all, but I don't, and I fucking can't. I'm bad at this shit. And I'm not gonna fuckin' patronise you by spitting out some fucking platitudes that don't mean shit."

She scrubs a hand over her face, taking a deep breath.

"So, he's gone. You're fucked up about it. I— I kind of know what that fuckin' feels like, not... not exactly, just." Fuck. She sounds like an idiot. She means it, she really does, but it probably sounds like one of those bullshit platitudes. "Just— what would help, in this exact moment? Anything at all? Or do you just need to freak the fuck out, be pissed, scared, talk, whatever?"

[runes_brand]

South confirming that people sometimes just go home is...good. Brand's been telling himself that, but he's been telling himself that so frequently that the words have all but lost their meaning.

"I don't know," he says in answer to her question. "This isn't supposed to fucking happen. Nobody fucking experiments with this shit because it's a good way to get punched or set on fucking fire."

The Tower and Mayan might experiment with it because they're horrible old bastards, but fucking with a Companion of Atlantis (New or otherwise) is a good way to get a lot of very powerful people very angry very quickly. The creation of a Companion might make some people uncomfortable, but the care and keeping of one is something all Atlanteans take very seriously.

"...Don't let Jorgmund drug me," he says finally. "I'm not going to be at my best. I'm going to have trouble sleeping. Don't let them fuck me up more than they already have."

[ownperson]

South pulls in a breath between her teeth for a second, and then nods. She can do that. She's not naive enough to think that her position as one of Jorg's 'agents' is actually worth fuck shit, but Wash was right, they think they have to keep her happy to keep her 'on side' (ugh) so... if she caught wind of something like that, well, she's in a unique position.

She doesn't say any of that, though. There's some cards you have to keep close to your chest.

"I won't let them drug you or do fuck shit to you," is what she does say, and it's firm with the note of a promise. "Best thing to do is not draw their attention. You not at your best is still gonna be better than most assholes, chances are they won't notice anyway. They're idiots, remember?"

It's not an attempt to add levity, because there's no real levity to be granted in a situation like this. She knows that. It's a simple statement of fact: Jorg are fucking idiots.

"When I lost my brother, I was practically non-functional for... a long time." She drops this into the conversation without fanfare, because it's easier, that way. It feels less... artificial, than making it a big deal, even if there's purpose behind it. An attempt at empathy. "Different situation for a lot of reasons. Me and him don't have... whatever weird thing clearly connects you and Rune. And he was dead, not just... gone. But what I do know is it fucks you up to be torn away from the person who has always been there. So... yeah."

She shrugs, as if it's not a big deal. As if she's not currently dealing with the fact she might lose him all over again, even now he's alive.

"Be as fucked up as you're gonna be. Jorg can go fuck themselves. And if at any point you need to hit something, or drown your fuckin' feelings in booze, whatever... well, whatever works, y'know."

[runes_brand]

Brand takes a moment to absorb South's promise, and the revelation of having gone through the loss of her brother. It's a lot to process, even if she is trying not to make it a big deal. No fucking wonder she's wary of talking about things; they look similar enough in age that he can't have been too long dead when she ended up here and got him again.

"Alcohol's a depressant," he says finally, in a manner that suggests he'd been a killjoy as a teenager and Rune's hangovers frequently met with open curtains in the morning. "I shouldn't risk it. But...thanks."

He lets his head fall back against the storage rack with a 'thunk'.

"You're right. They're idiots. They won't notice I'm a fucking mess unless I make them notice it."

[ownperson]

“Exactly! And you’re not an idiot, so you won’t,” she says, with not a smile, but a slight smirk at Jorg’s expense. She shakes her head a little at his comment about the alcohol but the dude’s not wrong and well, past her probably could have done to remember that, but that’s... a whole thing she absolutely shouldn’t think about, right now. “And... I, dammit, uh.”

She coughs, scratches the back of her neck. Looks a little to the side.

“I also know sleeping in an empty room that isn’t usually fuckin’ empty... well, it sucks, so uh, if you need to crash somewhere else for a couple nights before you can face that, my brother’s... not sleeping in our room at all, right now, so... yeah. His bed’s free.”

Sleeping in the silence after North died always fucked her up, hell it still does, even now. She can never quite sleep right, always struggles to get herself back under after waking up in the night.

It’s worse again since he stopped coming by even once a week, so he can think. She expects it to get worse when he inevitably stops thinking and tells her he’s cutting her off, because if she expects anything less than the worst, there’s room for her to fall apart further.

Which she extra shouldn't think about right now, anyway. The offer is for Brand's benefit, if he needs it, not hers.

[runes_brand]

Brand makes a noise that's almost a laugh at South cheerleading his lack of idiocy. He's aware enough to notice the awkwardness of the offer -- that's why you keep at least once nice person around in your circle, so you can make them do the awkward shit. Too bad this situation didn't allow for South to go find one; she had to muscle through it on her own. Marks for trying.

"Thanks," he says again. "I'll take you up on it. In a couple days maybe, I wouldn't want to keep you up. No reason for you to lose out on sleep just because I can't."

He's tried, last time they'd been separated. Sleep is a necessity, he tells Rune all the time that it's not something you can replace with coffee and problem-solving, but he couldn't. Fucking. Sleep.

South's right, sleeping in an empty room that shouldn't be empty sucks, and Brand's empty room is inside his head.

[ownperson]

That gets a snort out of her, "I'm already losing sleep, Brand, wouldn't be anything new. And even if I wasn't, 'm used to sleeping with a chronic insomniac nearby. It's... whatever. But yeah, whenever you're ready; he won't be back any time soon, so... offer extends for as long as you need it, and all that."

Her teeth dig into the inside of her cheek. At least Brand's not likely to ask about North's indefinite absence, especially not in the state he's in. A part of her almost wants him to, but it's a stupid and selfish part of her that she pointedly ignores. He's in the middle of a goddamn crisis, and they don't talk, and it's not the same.

Losing North's her own fault. Him losing Rune like this isn't. It's not the same, even if knowing that she might be losing North for good, this time, even whilst he's alive, is enough to make her feel lost, detached from reality.

All she ever wanted was her own life, and now here she is again, wondering how she's supposed to live without him.

Whatever. She does her best to keep what's going on in her head out of her face, giving Brand a shrug, if a little too long after finishing her sentence.

[runes_brand]

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on which part of South you're asking), she's right about Brand's current inability to consider why she's got a spare bed free. He might later, when he's trying to think about anything else he can to distract himself, but not now. Now he only sighs and offers no further objections.

At least last time, he could fantasize about shanking the Tower while they'd been alone in the car. He wouldn't have, of course, because the Tower was protecting Rune and Rune had told Brand to stay behind, but he at least had an unpleasant face to pin the blame on. Maybe he should take a look at Jorgmund's org chart, find one here that he can blame.

Fuck, he just wants to go home.

I'm not going to be good company," he says, as though he ever is. "You wanna go back to what you were doing, go ahead. But..." Fuck, this is pathetic. "...I wouldn't mind company either."

[ownperson]

South gives a needlessly dramatic roll of her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, you say that like either of us are what anyone calls 'good company' on a fuckin' good day, let alone on a bad one."

She shifts to sit down properly, instead of the 'ready to get up at any time' sort of crouch she was in. It's not like she doesn't spend most of her days training anyway, and the fact Brand actually came as close as that to asking for the company? Nah, she's not going back to what she was doing.

But she'll save them both some dignity by not saying it outright.

[runes_brand]

Brand snorts in acknowledgment that she's not wrong about how both of them are generally shit company, but only by most people's standards. By their own, there's no one -- well, no one currently on the Rig -- that Brand would rather sit with right now. South's not going to fuss over him or act like it's a big deal, even though it obviously is. She's just gonna sit. Maybe they'll spar once he feels less like he's dying. It's...good knowing that there's someone who isn't going to treat him like he's made of glass just because he's walking wounded. He hates that shit.

He doesn't do anything so obvious as lean against her, but he does breathe a little easier and uncurl just a bit.

"...Thanks."

[ownperson]

South shrugs one shoulder, lets her head drop back against something behind her with a thunk. "Eh, don't mention it."

The subtle change isn't lost on her, but she says nothing else, because she doesn't need to. They've said all they need to say right now. More, really, than she knows she'd usually have ever said.

So, she just... sits. Company without coddling or expectation.