ʟᴀʀʀʏ "ʙᴏᴅɪᴇ" ʙᴏᴅɪɴᴇ Ⓧ ᴘʜᴏᴛᴏɴ . (holodecked) wrote in beyond_evo, @ 2018-09-02 21:06:00 |
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CRYSTAL: Crystal wished that she could see the the stars from the ground. Above the blanket of thick, nuclear cloud cover everything looked almost normal; there were stars and the blue haze of the stratosphere encapsulating the troubled little world and when she was flying that high and it was clean, she could see the stars and nearly, nearly, forget that all this existed. On the ground it was different. The air was thick and the stars were gone. Down here was where the people she loved were, though. Down here was where she needed to be if tomorrow they were going to hit a Raft, of all things.
It was hard to forget what had happened in previous attacks on those places. Mimic and Wolfsbane, Firstar. Cal, Rahne, Angel. Three people that she had respected deeply and admired tremendously had all died together in a rescue attempt on a Raft, three of the X-Men, the longest serving team members and those that, back then, all the rest of them had thought would lead them out of this mess. They had been lost and the gap that had left behind had never been filled. Not ever, by anyone.
She might die tomorrow. That was the simple truth of it. Crystal knew that she might die on this mission and like many of her peers she had at some point made peace with the fact that her life could end at any moment out there in the fighting so she was making a few stops tonight to see people she loved dearly and tell them as much, she had seen Colin already, and Tommy, she would see her team in the morning anyway and knew they were probably doing something much similar to her tonight so she put that off. Her last stop was to see Bodie, though. She walked from where her home (bed) was located in the labyrinthine wind of the Abbey to where his home (bed) was. No one had much of anything these days, their homes were little more than cubby-holes, beds in corners, crates, plastic buckets holding up makeshift tables, oil lamps and candles because electricity was precious and fire was more reliable. Crystal knocked against his door and when he called for her to come in she slipped through the door quickly and quietly.
“I wanted to say goodbye,” she told him with a tired smile. “Something might happen, at the Raft, and I didn’t want to go without seeing you. Everything will be crazy tomorrow, so this might be--” Crystal made a little motion with her shoulders, a nearly-shrug, an almost-sigh. This might be it, was what she had been going to say but she let it trail off and away because admitting that this might be the last time they saw one another was horrible. Crystal was, generally speaking, a fairly warm, bright sort of woman, despite everything she held onto a smile and a can-do attitude but the reality of it was she was sad. She was so very sad, inside, and she didn’t know what to do with it, how to live with it other that to take that sadness and keep it neatly pressed between the pages of her optimism, her liveliness. What good would it do, after all? To whom would it be a benefit? No good, not a single person.
Admitting that she was worried, that she harboured doubts, that didn’t feel good. But she didn’t want any more regrets on her conscience. It would be better to go into the mission clean.
BODIE: None of them were feeling particularly positive about the mission tomorrow. Even those who weren’t going along were all tied up in knots about it because of what had happened in the past, the catastrophic failures and the losses they had suffered as a result. Cal, Rahne, and Angel were among the most prominent but they had lost many more to such assaults and Bodie for one couldn’t immediately recall the names of every single person who had fallen in those attempts. That didn’t mean that any one person who had been lost meant any less than anyone else whose name he could recall, it was merely a reflection of the numbers, the volume of them. If nothing else it was heartbreaking to try and remember them all, it meant reliving those deaths in a way, revisiting that grief that they had all tried so hard to put behind them at least enough so that they could function moving forward. It wasn’t easy but nothing was in this day and age, they had all lost so much and felt those losses keenly, the wounds were still raw even now, no matter how many months or years passed they continued to feel the pain of them.
All they could do was try to carry on to the best of their ability, keep on living for those who had fallen, to honour them but also to ensure their deaths were not in vain. Bodie tried to do that every single day. If he was honest with himself there was a part of him that still couldn’t comprehend how it was that he of all people had survived this long. Even with the growth and strengthening of his powers it was sometimes difficult to understand just how so many capable and formidable fighters had lost their lives and yet here he was still drawing breath. At some point along the way Bodie had had to tell himself there was no answer, no explanation, at least not one that would satisfy that part of himself (it was that same part that had made him think so little of himself in his younger years) and it was best to leave it alone. Move on, focus on something more constructive, do anything and everything in his power to make a difference.
For him that had been developing and maintaining the shield around the Abbey, consistently feeding into it and ensuring that their haven, their sanctuary, was not discovered by the enemy. There were plenty of strong fighters here to defend them if it came down to a fight but it was Bodie’s job to keep that from being a necessity and so far so good (knock on wood), he had done just that and that, if nothing else, was something he could be proud of.
That shield was always in the back of his brain somewhere, he was always aware of it to one degree or another in order to keep it up and running because the holograms were strongest when he was concentrating on them. In the past that had been the only times he could summon and hold them, with every ounce of his focus, every scrap of his attention. That wasn’t the case anymore but he knew how bad it could get if he let go altogether. Bodie wasn’t about to take that risk. That didn’t mean he couldn’t do something else at the same time though and he knew it was best to keep himself occupied given what tomorrow would bring, the unavoidable risk to every single person going along. So he was sketching, conservative as he was with his supplies now there were times when he simply had to cave to the urge and tonight was one of those times. There were smudges on the pads of his fingers and one thumb as he shaded, he had always been a messy sort of artist but the end results had never reflected that. They had always looked a lot more collected and organised than the artist himself.
When Crystal arrived and let herself in he sat up, taking his back from the wall against which he had been resting and the book was set aside as well. Those smudged fingers were wiped against the legs of his pants as he got himself to his feet and moved closer to her. Of course she was worried, not just because she had been there when they had lost Mimic, Wolfsbane, and Firestar, but because she was smart. It was smart to be afraid. No matter what some other people thought Bodie had always believed that fear did contribute to survival because it was fear that pushed you to fight, and fiercely at that.
“Goodbye sounds a little final,” he said, hands still on the tops of his thighs for a few moments before he let his arms hang at his sides instead, standing closer to Crystal now so they could keep their voices dropped, the conversation a private moment between the two of them. He wanted to say that they shouldn’t say it but as he looked at her, reading that concern in her eyes and seeing the way she was holding herself he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “But you’re right,” he said, dropping his gaze from hers for a few moments, giving himself that time to think of the right structure for what he wanted to say next. “We don’t want to take any chances, or take anything for granted.” He was looking at her again then, and he gave her a small smile. It barely lasted a second. “They’re lucky to have you with them tomorrow.” His throat felt dry. “Even though I wish you weren’t going.”
CRYSTAL: It was a little final but that was one of many problems in this world, they didn’t have the luxury of not treating things with finality. Pietro had died before she had gotten to say goodbye to him and she still felt the sting of that under her skin, at all times she recalled finding out he was gone, how the ground listed, the dizziness, knowing that they had parted ways and she had made the stupid assumption she would see him again, that they would be together again. Then, just like a light going out, he was gone. The absence of him and the absence of a final goodbye haunted her. Crystal didn’t want it to haunt any of the people that she loved if she didn’t come back from this mission, she didn’t want any of them to regret not saying goodbye if she went on this mission and she died. Optimism and her can-do attitude took her so far and she clung to them with desperation but at a certain point realism had to come to the fore and that time was now, on the eve of a terrible mission to a terrible place. Seeing one of those places had been bad enough. Watching her team die in one of those floating hellholes had been enough, too much. If she was going to die in one of those prisons then she was going to do it having said goodbye to the people who would miss her, exorcising them of her ghost before it could come back to haunt them in the first place.
“I wish I wasn’t going, too,” she admitted. “But I have to, we all have to do things we don’t want to do, don’t we?” None of them had been spared that fate, it was the way of the world now, they had to scrape their way through it together, pushing themselves to do sometimes terrible things for the good of all.
Crystal watched him for a moment, he was saying exactly what she was thinking. About chances. About taking things for granted. His small, pallid smile made her smile a little too, just as watery and short lived. “I’m lucky to have you,” she told him. Then she kissed him. Just stepped forwards and pressed her mouth against his for a moment before pulling back to look at him again; she was lucky to have him and in the face of doing all the things she didn’t want to do, she did something she had wanted to do for a little while.
BODIE: Even though the thoughts were there in the back of his brain Bodie had been trying (mainly by sketching pretty much constantly for the last few hours or however long it had been now) not to think about it at all, at least not on any conscious level that he was truly aware of. He had been trying to keep those thoughts in the background somewhere, he had tried to bury them with lines and curves and shading, angles and perspectives and lighting. It was a trick from days gone by that he hadn’t abandoned and probably never could, at some point he had decided not to try because he knew himself, knew that he had to have some kind of crutch and art was much better than anything else he could fall back on. It was certainly better than isolation or hiding behind his hair like some sort of nervous introvert teenager.
On some level he knew the distraction hadn’t really worked though and looking at Crystal as she stood before him told him as much because he couldn’t help but think how much it would hurt if she didn’t come back from that mission tomorrow. They had all lost so many people perhaps they should have been used to it by now but what person could get used to such a thing and still call themselves human? True, they weren’t human in the traditional sense but Bodie was a man, a flesh and blood being with a finite amount of time on this earth and a vulnerability to a great many things. Human was a dirty word to a lot of mutants now but Bodie still considered himself human, at least in part. If any of the people on that mission tomorrow didn’t come back it would hurt like hell. If Crystal left tomorrow and didn’t come back it would be agony.
Whatever words he might have been about to offer by way of response were dashed from his brain completely by that kiss, that press of her lips to his, something that might have been small and rather insignificant to (or coming from) anyone else but that wasn’t the case here and now. As she looked at him Bodie looked back at her, still feeling the ghost of the warmth of her lips on his, understanding without the need for any words what had just happened and why. And that was why he moved in, closing what little distance remained between them, and kissed her back. There would be light smudges on her cheek from where his fingers brushed as he brought his hand up to touch her face, brushing her hair back. Crystal had decided to do something she had wanted to do for a little while and Bodie saw no reason not to do the same. If not now then when?
Possibly never.
It didn’t last long, it lasted only a few moments longer than her own kiss, but Bodie hadn’t wanted her to go off on that mission not knowing for certain how he felt about what she had done and without the right words to convey his feelings he had chosen instead to rely on actions. Beyond that it had felt like the right thing to do.
CRYSTAL: At least, if everything went wrong there was this one moment. There was this one quiet, gentle moment between them where she had expressed to him in some way how she felt about him, he could know if she didn’t come back that she had feelings for him that were more than friendship. Crystal’s heart beat a little faster when he touched her face and kissed her in return and she didn’t care about smudges on her face anyway, she probably had dirt on her from flying as it was, never completely clean, not in this world. It didn’t matter because in reality, they had danced around one another for a while, the war had kept them apart, pushed them apart at times, her grief had been terrible and long lasting, even now there was a shadow in her heart over what had been lost, but this entire world was built on loss now, they had all lost almost everything to the Sentinels. Crystal didn’t want to lose this too, this opportunity to express how she felt.
It hadn’t exactly been an expectation that he would reciprocate and she hadn’t had time to think about whether he would or not, whether he did, she had acted on instinct, but if nothing else she felt a calm come over her in the aftermath of his kiss.
Crystal smiled at him softly, her expression warm and gentle in the dim light of his room. It felt right to be there with him. Still gazing at him she reached out and touched his hand, linked her fingers with his gently. If this might be the last time she saw him, and she truly had to prepare for that possibility if they were attacking a Raft, she wanted to have as much connection as she could. And she loved his hands. “What are you drawing?” she asked him, her voice a little thick with emotion before she swallowed it down, buried it under that smile. “Can I see?”
BODIE: One moment was much better than nothing at all, much more than most had managed to seize during the War and its horrendously difficult aftermath. Bodie certainly never could have expected or anticipated it and even after the moment had passed he could scarcely believe that it had happened at all. But unlike how he had been in the past he simply smiled and felt Crystal take his hand, giving her fingers a light squeeze with his own after that contact was made. They didn’t have much time, they both knew that, and spending it together in any capacity was a blessing, something not to be taken for granted. Bodie was done taking anything for granted, all of that had stopped a long time ago now. He had always thought he had nothing to take for granted anyway but the War had shattered such illusions and taught him (the hard way) just how wrong he was. It had taught them all.
These little moments were the most precious, the ones that would endure even if the world ended tomorrow, because they were pure and light and so much more than this wretched world in which they lived. If spoken aloud Bodie knew the words would sound strangely spiritual almost but it wasn’t that. And yet it was more than that. He couldn’t explain it. It was just what he knew in his heart, it was what he felt.
“Of course.” There had been a time when Bodie had been incredibly protective of his drawings, almost afraid to show them to anyone, but those days were behind him as well. The fear and the anxiety that had held him back before all of this were gone and those were the things that had kept him from sharing what little he could bring to the world. Nowadays he was much more open and generous with them, people could browse through the pages of what he had drawn even if they had no specifically asked for permission to do so. Perhaps it would help Crystal to see what he had drawn. That was the hope anyway.
With her hand still in his he crossed the short distance to where he had been sitting and scooped up the book even as they lowered themselves to sit, turning it for her to see. It was a bird in flight, he wasn’t even sure what kind and if anyone had asked he wouldn’t have had an answer for them and ultimately it didn’t matter. The species didn’t matter. Bodie had wanted to draw a bird, any bird, and there it was, wings sweeping and feathers gently ruffled, head turned with the light just catching its eye. “You can take it with you,” Bodie said to her, his voice hushed, little more than a whisper. “For luck.” Or just to have something from home with her while she was away, a little piece of the familiar in a place that was anything but.
CRYSTAL: It never ceased to amaze her that he could create anything at all in this wretched world, that he had the capacity to produce art in the midst of such horror and abject grief; Crystal knew that he had lost a lot, just as she had, but he could still create art and perhaps it was the same way she was still able to smile and, at times, mean it; they had to eke something out of all this, they had to have something that helped them carry on otherwise they would have gone the way of however many they had lost in battle now, or those poor souls who had been found in the Tunnel water supply, unable to carry on, the weight of all this too much. Bodie’s drawings, though, were much more impressive than a simple smile. Crystal admired them greatly, she still had one he had gifted to her for a birthday -- she couldn’t remember what age -- on the wall of her own bunk.
As they sat down she raised her free hand and wrapped it around his so that it was encased on both sides by her smaller palms and delicate fingers, it didn’t feel odd to sit close beside him and hold on like that; it wasn’t that they never touched, they were friends, they had been friends for years and Bodie was precious to her for that fact but there was a degree of intimacy after they had kissed and in the quiet hush of the pre-mission night she wanted to hold onto, and hold onto this moment before it was over. If she had learned anything in these last years it was that time was precious, time went by so quickly, it slipped past, through all their fingers, and before hey knew it they were on the verge of the end. There was no one she would rather be with at this moment though, right here, the night before she went on a dangerous mission that she might not come back from. There was no hand she would rather be holding.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, looking at the bird he had drawn, it was so realistic she thought it might flap those delicate little wings and alight off the page completely, she wondered that it didn’t. His offer that she could take it with her was touching and it made her heart swell, her chest getting tight as she sat with him. “It’ll get ruined,” she whispered back to him, not refusing, just reminding him that if she took it with her it was probably going to get ripped or get blood on it, any number of things. “It’s too lovely to ruin.”
BODIE: Back before the school had fallen and they had all been chased out into the ruins of the old world Bodie had been very particular about gifting those drawings. Nowadays he knew it was silly to be so precious about such things, that giving just a little light and distraction (maybe even happiness) to another person was a gift he couldn’t afford to not share and while he didn’t share them with just anyone he was much freer with them now than he ever had been in his younger years. Looking back now it seemed so stupid, wasteful even, it was certainly a shame that he had spent so much time on them and kept them shut away in books and boxes, rarely letting them see the light of day for fear of what others might think. Crystal had played her part in bringing him out of that mindset, whether she realised it or not she had done a lot to bring him out of his shell in general.
It’s too lovely to ruin, she said to him and his brow furrowed but the warmth didn’t leave his eyes. Silently he shook his head and he almost wanted to let out a breath of a laugh but he refrained because it wasn’t funny. It was anything but, really, it was sweet and thoughtful and everything he had always associated with her. Of course she was concerned about ruining it, something as simple and -- regardless of what he thought of what they brought to people in brief moments -- ultimately unimportant as a drawing. She wouldn’t have been Crystal if she wasn’t.
“I can draw another one.” Bodie smiled softly at that, keeping his eyes on Crystal’s face. He wasn’t really thinking about the drawing anymore beyond giving it to her and if he had to free the sheaf from the book in order to make sure she took it with her he wasn’t above doing that. “I’d feel better knowing you have it with you,” he said to her, some part of him feeling bad for trying that tactic but he knew Crystal better than a lot of people here could ever guess, they had a history and a long one at that and he understood how her mind worked. How her heart worked. “Please?”
CRYSTAL: Clever, really. Bodie knew her well enough to know that if doing as he asked would make him feel better she would put aside her worries and follow through with it; if he wasn’t concerned about the drawing being damaged -- which was her primary issue of contention, she didn’t think it was going to be an easy or safe mission at all -- then she wouldn’t be concerned about it either. It was strange given how detached to material things they had all become as necessity had swallowed up sentimentality, but she thought she would feel better having it with her too. It wasn’t as though it would do her any good while she was fighting, it wouldn’t make her powers stronger, it wouldn’t make her quicker on her feet or more agile in the air, but like many things intangible she thought it would bolster her emotionally; Bodie would be with her, lines his hands had drawn would be pressed close to her heart, against her rib cage, the little bird with the light in its eye would be caged, for a short time, in the material of her jacket and when it was all done she could give it back to him, set it free.
Crystal nodded after a beat. Once, and then again. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, I’ll take it with me.” Her hands squeezed his back a little and she was smiling lightly, wondering despite herself if this would be the last time she saw him, if these would be the last words they said to one another. “My good luck charm,” she said, then.
Luck might not be a thing that some believed in but it had to play a part in things these days, surely. They were lucky to have made it this far when so many people, incredible people, so strong and experienced, they had perished but others hadn’t. They hadn’t. Yes, they had fought hard. Yes, they had learned and adapted. But wasn’t it lucky that they hadn’t been felled by a stray bullet? Wasn’t it lucky that they hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Didn’t that factor into it somewhere? Whatever it was, luck, divine intervention, Crystal was grateful for it and she hoped that it would hold out just a little while longer. She didn’t want this to be her last moment with Bodie, she didn’t want to say goodbye. Not really.
BODIE: It was a sneaky trick rather than anything clever and if something terrible came to pass Bodie wasn’t sure he would forgive himself for stooping to it. What he could (should) have said was that he wanted her to have something of his to take with her and without anything more substantial and meaningful like a piece of jewellery she could wear, some sort of physical token, all he had was one of his drawings. It was fitting though, it worked for him and therefore for them, because art had always had such a big place in his heart, in his life in general. When the rest of the world around them fell to pieces and burned away to nothing at all art was still art. It was steady, constant and unchanging, and it was as reliable and reassuring now as it had ever been. What he really wanted to say was that the bird was for her anyway, that he wished for her to keep it even when (not if, it was when) she came back, but the words stuck in his throat in a fashion not unlike how he had been when they were younger and the world was cleaner and brighter, before the sky had been blackened and the earth had been scorched.
Just for a moment as they sat there on his meagre little bed it was like stepping back in time, like being in the past. Those times never lasted, it was hard to see past all the grime and grit of the world they lived in now but every now and then, in moments like this one, Bodie thought anyone could be forgiven for forgetting, just for a few seconds, that they were at war and likely always would be. Sitting quietly in the company of a loved one made all of that melt away, just for a little while, and things felt better.
The moment would pass, it always did, but Bodie planned to treasure it while it lasted. He looked into her eyes as she smiled at him and called the picture (him?) a good luck charm and told himself to capture every detail perfectly in his mind’s eye because, not unlike Crystal, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was the last time they would see one another. That cast a cloud over the moment, and rather a dark one at that, it was practically black, but she was smiling at him and it was hard to feel anything but warm and comforted in the presence of a smile like that. It was hard to face the fact that soon she would have to go and she might leave his room for the final time and that would be that. So he was going to keep on holding her hands because he didn’t want to let go, because he didn’t want to say goodbye either, not now and not ever.