thegalley_tlv | [002.b. - spam/network]

Entry tags:

cho gonou

[002.b. - spam/network]

cw: eye & hand injury, likely some self-destructive thought processes in tags

[open/spam, the infirmary]

Gonou does not fight back when his punishment is given, nor when it is carried out. The Infirmary is busy, the cries of pain from the beds around him disorienting; he gets up, after a few minutes of rest have cleared his head enough that he doesn't think he'll fall, and tries to find his way to a seat away from the beds. He's slow and clumsy, his one good hand held out in front of him to avoid running into anything important. Eventually, he finds a wall, and turns to plant his back against it and sit down there.

He hopes he's out of the way. He'll just -- take a little time to rest, here, and hope that at some point someone will arrive who's able and willing to take him back to his room.

[open/spam, afterwards]

He's been assigned to hard labor at the oars, but even though he heals a little faster in this body than he had in a human one, the stump of a hand takes more than a few days to heal over enough for a prosthetic to be fitted on it. He's spending a fair amount of time in his room, practicing mapping the space, practicing listening. He's trying to keep his fresher socket cleaned and bandaged; he knows the routine, even if it's harder one-handed, and harder still blind.

He goes to meals. His ears flick with paranoid speed when he's in a crowded room, trying to track the multiplicity of sounds around him, trying to feel out the echoes of the space; sometimes he walks into something, and sometimes this means he drops the tray he has to balance in one hand. When he does, grimly determined, he'll drop to his knees and do his best to clean it up.

Once or twice, he's allowed into the yard, but he finds that space even more overwhelming than the mess hall, and lingers very close to the door, keeping his head down.

After the first week, he adds rotations on the oars. Wherever he's seated, quietly, he'll ask the name of the person beside him.

Network, audio, a few days after the mutiny

[Gonou's voice is soft, a little hoarse. He just has one thing to ask:]

Who's still alive?

... Please don't reply in text.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You should finish your food," Jedao says, with a gentle nudge. "Then we'll ask?"

"...yes," Gonou says, and reluctantly pulls away. The meal shifts aren't that long. He does need to eat. His fingertips linger for a moment on Jedao's hand, regardless, before he can bear to let go and fumble for his spoon.

Jedao stays mostly where he is, leaning warm and solid against Gonou's shoulder. And if he needs the solidity just as badly, still unused to having only his eyes for sight - well, there's nothing wrong with that.

[Handwave/timeskip or bring in either of the Advocates?]

[I lean handwave & close the thread there unless there's something that you'd prefer be threaded out when they're alone together! Gonou would definitely tell Jedao about what he saw of the mutiny, at least, and tell him about his plans to enable Xie Lian getting his hands on the Gavel before that happens if he gets an opportunity.]

[I do have a thing or 2 I think would be very cute! And Jedao would have some Thoughts about the Gavel plan. Skip to after maybe some raging/screaming in the semi-private room?]

"Here. They came with me. Can you smell it?"

He puts Gonou's hand around the smooth surface of a small clay flowerpot, and rubs one of the leaves enough for a faint scent of wild garlic to trickle into the air.

[sounds good!!]

Gonou's still for a moment, fingertips mapping the pot. He bows his head in a brief struggle against emotion.

"They -- I'm glad," he whispers, and raises his head, turning it in Jedao's approximate direction and trying for a smile. "It's lucky I gave this to you. My plants didn't." Not that he'd been particularly attached to them, except in the way that caring for a little living thing every day breeds attachment.

Jedao drops a very quick, very light kiss on that ghost of a smile. "I'm glad you gave it to me too," he agrees. "It's so stupid. But I'd be worrying about it if we left it behind." And it's nice to have one thing that he doesn't have to worry about.

"It's not stupid," Gonou says firmly, and turns his head, lifting his hand to find Jedao's cheek so he can aim his attempt at returning the kiss. "It's -- it makes me feel better, too. That something's okay."

Maybe that's too much weight to put on a sprouted garlic clove, but it's just a plant. It won't care.

(He's desperately glad that Jedao's not left behind, too, but-- he knows better than to assume that any one of them on this ship is okay.)

It is, at this point, that the gravity in the room drops to zero.

"What - fuck, what -" Jedao exclaims, startled into something almost like a laugh.

Gravity vanishes, and the proprioception Gonou's been relying on to keep him oriented while freshly blind vanishes in a swoop of awful vertigo.

He lets out a strangled noise of sheer panic and grabs for Jedao's shoulder, not even considering his claws.

Jedao catches the pot in one hand and Gonou's waist in the other, making a sharp squeak of a noise that is definitely not all bad as Gonou's claws pierce sweater and skin, the inky oleic smell of his black blood glinting suddenly in the air.

"I got you," Jedao promises, brain catching up to his reflexes a second later. He feels as adrift as ever but he at least knows how moving in microgravity works. "You're okay, I got you."

Gonou, meanwhile, is trembling like a leaf. Jedao's just become his only reference point for the entire room around them, and even though he can feel that his claws are digging into skin (he can smell the blood, oily and a little chemical rather than the meaty metallic of human or youkai) - even then, it takes several seconds for him to force his hand to loosen its grip and pull his claws away from the cuts he'd left.

"Do you," he manages in a voice half an octave higher than usual, "know what just happened--?"

"The room's still here, everything is here," he promises. "It's just the gravity that's gone off. We're floating," he explains. "Drifting a little. It'll probably be another twenty seconds before we bump into the ceiling, and then I can push off and get us back somewhere we can hold onto."

Gonou hadn't known that the ship's gravity could turn off. In fact, he hadn't known it wasn't real. He nods tightly and occupies himself for several long and dragging seconds considering ways to create false gravity (simulate vast mass? Well, the ships don't have a layout that fits normal space...)

... he has heard about other functions on these ships falling, though.

"If the gravity isn't working," he says, finding a new and unfortunate cause for alarm, "can we trust the air?"

Jedao swallows. "I don't know." It's different to think about, now that he probably actually needs to breathe. "If the air goes, don't panic. Don't try to hold your breath - it won't work, and it'll rip your lungs up, trying. Maybe an Advocate's shield could hold air in?"

"Maybe. When it went on the Barge it was only gone for a few seconds, I heard," Gonou says, trying to even out his voice. He's holding Jedao's shoulder more carefully now, but he's holding just as tightly.

"So. Don't hold my breath if it goes, and don't panic for at least the first few seconds...."

And after that, maybe panicking would be in order.

"This morning I saw it happen with the temperature. A stretch of hallway just went bitter cold, but it only affected about thirty feet, and then - past that, it was just normal. You'll have fifteen, twenty seconds before you get woozy and pass out. Try to get to a different area. Bang on the mirror if you're in your cabin."

If it's the Oars - stars, they'll all have to hope it's not the Oars.

If it happens anywhere where the prisoners are chained down or locked in-- Gonou's lips thin, but he doesn't say it aloud. Better not borrow trouble.

He nods again -- perhaps irrationally, talking about possibly losing air is making him feel calmer about losing his orientation in space -- and tilts his head in a direction that may or may not be 'up.'

"...are we about to hit the ceiling?"

"Yeah. Impact in - okay, three, two, one."

Impact is a very hard word for a very gentle bump, in this case. Jedao twists them just a little as they get there, and pushes off with the side of the arm still holding the garlic pot. He gets in a little kick as they go, setting them on a gentle spin as they float back down towards his narrow bed.

If he weren't a prisoner, he thinks - if he had his proper mothpushes - and even so. It's almost like dancing. Dancing in the air.

Gonou is clinging closer than most dance partners, still a little shaken and very disoriented by the movements that don't make intuitive sense to him. They're floating in the opposite direction now, he can tell that much, not too fast, but spinning slightly.

He's very glad he's not prone to motion sickness.

Carefully, he probes down behind them with one foot, looking for anything he can hook it around and stay.

"Don't wiggle," Jedao tells him, but fondly. "We're spinning so I'll hit first, I can get hold of the bed frame. Just -"

He doesn't really get the chance to say more, though, because a proper push, even a small one, sent them down faster than they went up. Jedao tucks the flowerpot under the bed - on the floor, but even if it floats a few inches, it can't get any higher, and should be safe - right before his back hits the mattress, and he grips the frame with his now-free hand, the other still solid around Gonou's waist.

"There."

Gonou, prisoner to momentum, hits Jedao a second after Jedao hits the bed, and very nearly bounces right back off. Jedao's grip on his waist stops him before he can go airborne. He clutches blindly over Jedao's shoulder to anchor his claws in the mattress. There. Okay.

"Okay," he says aloud, slumping with relief, at which point it hits him that their place of sanctuary is in fact 'clinging to each other on Jedao's bed.' He can feel his cheeks and ears go hot.

"I have seen zero-grav porn," Jedao muses, warm and wry in Gonou's ear. "It seemed like a lot more trouble than it was worth, though."

Gonou turns considerably redder at that bit of information, tucking his face down against Jedao's shoulder in what he's aware is a futile attempt to hide the blush.

It's one thing to realize he's in a not-unwelcome compromising position and another thing to have Jedao bringing up logistics.

He takes a deep breath, and attempts, lightly, "You'd need some creative use of rope just to avoid drifting away--"

But, also: voice dropping to a lower, equally wry register, he confesses, "--not that I know what goes into porn." Other than, obviously, sex. It's probably easier to get videos where Jedao comes from, but he's never really had the chance to flip through a risque magazine, either....

"I think the drifting was supposed to be part of the appeal," Jedao admits, dubiously. And they had been very...acrobatic. But he wouldn't want to worry about it, and he's probably supposed to fuck in zero-gravity, which is weird to think about.

Creative use of rope, on the other hand -

"Really?" he asks, not derisive, just surprised.

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