exile [closed & open]

[prince_of_beasts]

Who: Dimitri, CR, and you
What: Reunions; aftermath
When: Dec.23rd onward
Where: Around the ship
Warnings: Survivor's guilt, PTSD, delusions, suicidal ideation

1. you've got sucker's luck (Darcy, cabins)

Mornings, every morning, Dimitri paces outside the cabins. It can't really be called 'patrolling'; he's too agitated, too sunk into himself. He starts at the fifth hour, and goes until the seventh, just in case, just in case.

When Darcy wakes in her bed, Dimitri's already pacing tight circles in front of her door.

2. oh you meant so much; have you given up? (Ossie & Giles, the cottage)

He's asleep on the doorstep when the latch of the gate clicks. An ear twitches. Dimitri's up and running before he's fully registered the sound, streaking down the path with a desperate yowl.

A few moments later, a fluffy yellow cannonball slams into Ossie's chest.

3. does it trouble your mind the way you trouble mine? (Okie, Playback)

Okie's already left his cabin by the time Dimitri gets to it. Any thought of his ship phone is buried under three weeks of compounded exhaustion and hysterical grief, but a string of frantic questions leads him to Playback.

"Okie?" he calls, flinching as the flickering lights rake across the back of his skull. There's a shape, a familiar silhouette, Dimitri's heart breaks -- "Okie!" He bursts into a run and does not bother slowing down; he launches himself into Okie with a rattle of thunder, and kisses him on the mouth.

4. did you fall for the same empty answers again? (positive CR)

Dimitri searches for the people he knows. Anyone, everyone, any name he recognizes from that accursed signup sheet, desperate to know they made it back, that they didn't slip into some pocket of void on the journey between wherever-it-was and here. He knocks at cabin doors, paces through familiar haunts, occasionally remembers his ship phone long enough to send Are you back? Are you safe?

If he spots someone around the ship, though, he freezes in place, mouth open, eyes wide, face a marbled blotch of exhausted bruising, tear-stains, and bloodless terror. His throat works, but the most sound he can manage is a choking rasp.

5. oh, you're thinking too fast, you're like marbles on glass (open; pick a location or throw me your own!)

Eventually, the frenetic energy driving Dimitri has to run out. His spring unwound, he stutters to a stop wherever it leaves him:
- at the buffet, midway through reaching for a serving-spoon;
- in a stairwell staring blankly at the landing;
- in the showers on the sports deck, shoulders red from too long under water running too hot;
- in Sand Dollars, hands wrapped around a steaming paper cup;
- at night, at the edge of the upper deck, hands white-knuckled on the railing.
Always standing, wherever he comes to rest. His expression is hollow, his skin waxy, his hair greasy and limp; if he's called out to, he might look up, but his eyes are bleary and don't focus.

does it feel like a trial? (wildcard)

HMU in DMs here or bird1312 on Discord!

Comments

[crushed_pearls]

"...Christ," Erin murmurs, realization lacing her words. "I...I owe you a better version of this talk than I can give, youngblood. I cannot imagine that dead me was fucking nice - I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

[prince_of_beasts]

"No harsher than the rest." There's a bleak exhaustion behind the words. That threshold is high. "By the second week I -- I thought you weren't coming back. But -- "

Erin of all people would take the admission the way he means it, he thinks. "I'm the one who stayed behind. I have to help now, I just -- I don't know how. I'm not good at this." He sniffs and scrubs his eyes on his wrist. Pull yourself the fuck together, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, or what else have you ever been a prince for. "Um. I brought. Bread."

[crushed_pearls]

"...If you leave it by the door I'll claw it into my cabin like a goblin in a bit. All the food over there was in cans. And English. Not even the fun English like Ossie and Giles, shit was straight World War 2 rations." There's a sigh loud enough to be heard through the door.

Then: "...So yours are people you knew, huh?"

[prince_of_beasts]

Food. Why does it always come down to food? One of the things Dimitri's worst at. "It's from yesterday, but still mostly fresh. And. Jam and cheese. I didn't know what you'd like."

There's a shuffle on his side of the door, then a tap as the tray's set down behind it.

"It's the dead who haunt me," he says more quietly, leaning back against the door. "Those who were slaughtered for a lie, and denied justice or truth even in death. My parents and my godbrother are the strongest, but ... so many died that day and in the weeks that followed. I remember some of their names and faces, but most I never knew at all." He shuts his eyes, breathes deep through the ringing in his ears. "You also ... ?"

[crushed_pearls]

"...Yeah. Talked to Dedue about it, feels like ages ago but it can't have been more than a few months." A deep, shaky breath. "...Lost often see and hear things others don't. Some of it is actually there, and some...isn't. I. Was getting help, at home. Part of becoming a decent person again, and, well. Now there's Head Voice. She's complicated. We don't usually get along."