(o) as above, so alone

// the edge is getting closer, it's a long spiral down. it's so fun to fly 'til you hit the ground
i think i'm getting too close, i think i'm getting too close //

He is forced to wait. Forced to go against his gut instinct of simply flying to Stormbreak and demanding that they give him his husband’s body. So he does what Sunjata’s always been good at.

He copes with it.

Specifically this time with a bottle he’d taken from the VlamVloed after ensuring that the twins were watched and taken care of, because he’s likely not coming back tonight. The bottle’s half gone already, his fingers drumming along the neck of it, his wedding ring clinking against the glass as he peers into the dark below. The sun has just set and it’s certainly 5 o’ clock somewhere, despite how he’s started much earlier than this.

One hand braces against the edge of the bone bridge, his clothes a bit crumpled, his shirt ruffled and the first two or three buttons unbuttoned. He feels like he looks like a wreck. It’d be accurate. It’s exactly how he feels.

To stave off the thoughts rebounding in his mind, he takes another swig from the bottle and turns away from the dark depths below. He could probably fly down there, explore what it was like to be swallowed up by the abyss, it might be the closest thing to how the cage around his heart feels. But he doesn’t. And instead, he sinks to the ground of the edge, his back pressed against the side of the bone bridge, the bottle set on the ground beside him as he runs his hands through his shorter hair (he’s cut it since Longheat, when the temperature had been just too much to keep it the mane of hair he’d had before), but it’s still enough to be able to tighten his fingers into, taking the moment to try and inhale a deep breath, long legs drawn into his chest.

it's hard to get to heaven with my head in my hands

SUNJATA

Isla

"Sunjata, don't--" He's already slouched down against the side of the bridge by the time Isla gets within range - and he's not going to jump, despite what it looks like, thank fuck - so the medic can catch her breath, if she had any. She'd spoken with Wessex, so she knows (from a factual standpoint, anyway, there's no way she could possibly know how he's feeling), and it's part of the reason she's gone to look for him right away. No one wants to wait around to try and collect their loved one's body, right?

Either way, upon finding only babysitters and excuses at the VlamVloed, the Remedy has gone searching. And now she's found him, fuck, but he's not in any state to negotiate with anyone. "Shit," she says eloquently, trotting up to crouch down near him. "You shouldn't be out here by yourself, Jata. Come on - I heard the news. You should be somewhere safe for tonight."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

// the edge is getting closer, it's a long spiral down. it's so fun to fly 'til you hit the ground
i think i'm getting too close, i think i'm getting too close //

Sunjata, don’t--

Don’t what?

He knows what it looks like. Of course he does. But all he’d wanted was open space and everywhere else had been too cluttered, too many people, too busy for him to actually manage to deal with this. So he’s picked here – contemplated flying instead of jumping. Only because Wessex had told him that he’d be back. If he was really gone, though…

Luckily we don’t get to find out.

So instead, he swallows hard, sluggishly tilting his head toward her voice, red rimmed eyes staring blankly at the other side of the bone bridge before he manages to lift them to her. “Where’s that, exactly?” He asks, slowly, his accent thick as it pulls and tugs on the words, as if he has to remind himself not to slip into Korofi.

He misses being as strong of an Attuned as he once was, able to partially shift into a chimera of his different creatures, to make his edges sharp and pointed so that people would stay away. But all he gets now is himself, dropping his hand from his head to the top of his knee, sucking in a sharp breath. “’m not really in a spot to be around other people.” He manages to keep his gaze on her, even if it wavers occasionally, face flushed from the alcohol, curled up against the wall in a tangle of his own long limbs with the bottle beside him.

it's hard to get to heaven with my head in my hands

SUNJATA

Isla

"Well, if you don't want to go to the Vlamvloed, we can go to my place. I'm sure Cal wouldn't mind. We'll leave you to do whatever you need, I just don't feel comfortable with you out here by yourself..." And for good reason, just to look at him.

Reaching out, Isla offers to take his hand if he wants, and she shifts to sit with him against the bridge. "All that is assuming you're able to walk..." Because it doesn't matter how strong Isla might be; logistically, she's not going to be able to hold Sunjata up.

"I'm so sorry about what happened to Nate, Jata," she whispers, frowning and gazing out across the bridge. "I'm going to help to get him back to you, though. I promise. We're not going to leave him alone in Stormbreak. They can't keep him."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

// the edge is getting closer, it's a long spiral down. it's so fun to fly 'til you hit the ground
i think i'm getting too close, i think i'm getting too close //

“Why not?” He asks, his voice flat as he tears his attention away, the hand rising to pinch the bridge of his nose, to press at the temple where a headache is starting to form. “Think I’m gonna jump? Tried to a couple’ve times. Never worked before.” And it hadn’t, and despite the discomfort and upset and rage in his chest, Nate would still come back. At some point. Eventually.

He huffs a sound of annoyance, not directed entirely at Isla but the situation in and of itself, the hand on his head dropping so that he might be able to gesture around. “I walked here, didn’t I? Besides. I can fly. Or crawl. Or slither.” He’d manage, he always did.

He doesn’t exactly expect the apology to hurt as bad as it does, though, and he frowns, drawing his legs up tighter, closing himself off so that he can try to focus on holding his tongue. It isn’t Isla’s fault. None of this was. It was kind of his wasn’t it?

He’d given them the dragons. The scars are still healing on his neck from where he’d given his shift up.

“I’m only here, doing this, because Wessex wouldn’t let me leave to get him.” But gods how he wanted to. How he needed to.

it's hard to get to heaven with my head in my hands

SUNJATA

Isla

"I was worried, yes," Isla admits softly, tucking a lock of fair hair behind her ears. "But that aside, it's mostly because I'm afraid you'll accidentally get hurt, and there will be no one around to help. At least if you're getting wasted inside, you're safe." Safe-ish. Isla isn't sure how good at processing alcohol Sunjata's body is at this stage in the game, but she bets it'll still hurt in the morning.

Giving a wan smile, she nods to him. "That's true, you can," she agrees. "Well, if you don't want to go anywhere, then I'll sit with you until you're ready. We don't have to talk," She pats his knee and sits up a bit so she can cross her legs. "...Wessex is right. Hear me out though--" Because if their roles were reversed Isla would probably have a few words to say about that.

"What happened isn't just a you-and-Nate thing. It's a Stormbreak and Hollowed Grounds thing. We'll have this conversation again when you're sober, but... I want to go with you," she says. "To Stormbreak, I mean. It's important that we get this right, so they don't do anything to Nate's body, or to start the war."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

// the edge is getting closer, it's a long spiral down. it's so fun to fly 'til you hit the ground
i think i'm getting too close, i think i'm getting too close //

She makes a good point but there’s some stubborn part of him that doesn’t want to agree to it, so instead of saying anything at all, he’s silent in the face of it. If she’s that concerned about him, then he’ll go with her. Just not yet. And maybe, instead of arguing about it he can explain what brought him to the Bridge in the first place. “It’s too enclosed.” He mutters, drawing a tight breath into his pained chest, unfolding himself slightly now that he knows that she isn’t going to make him go anywhere. His hand leaves hers (he doesn’t know when it had gotten there), and falls into his lap with his other hand, fingers idly turning his wedding ring on his finger as he works his jaw, the muscles feathering as he grinds his teeth.

She’s right, too, but it hurts to hear it again. It feels like he’s failing his husband by not being there right away, by having it take so long for him to hear about it, by having a huge part in it when he’d thought it’d go a different way, until the Huntsman showed up.

Maybe he should have stayed. “Feels like it already has.” He mutters, before his frustration gets the best of him again and his hands curl into fists in his lap. “And the whole fuckin’ point of me doing half the shit I have was to protect him and I just… It feels like I gave him a one-way ticket.” Does it make sense? To Sunjata it does. But he’s never been good at his words, and he’s drunk on top of it, and he doesn’t exactly know how to explain the tangled feelings he has torn up inside him. “We can go… Together. I need him back.” His hands clench and unclench before he sucks in another sharp breath.

“Wessex told me the Voice could explode his body. She just… Needs my permission to do it. And – I don’t, I don’t know. Is that an option if they don’t wanna give him back? Do we make it one?” He finally finds Isla's face again, red rimmed eyes glassy with tears again, ones he desperately tries to keep from falling.

it's hard to get to heaven with my head in my hands

SUNJATA

Isla

"Okay," she says softly, not needing to understand the specifics to know what he means. It isn't like Isla will get cold out here, and the booze will keep Jata warm for the foreseeable future, she thinks. Falling silent - because she said she would after their initial bout of conversation - the medic lets the Flood take the lead on talking, if and when he wants to. And when he does speak, she glances across at him.

"I think if this was the war, we wouldn't have time to do things like this," she confesses, touching a hand to his bicep over his wrinkled shirt. "You didn't give him a one-way ticket. Nate's a force all by himself. I don't know what reason he'd have had to stay and fight until..." yeah, that, "but he would have chosen it. You didn't let him down."

Giving his arm a gentle squeeze, Isla nods her agreement. "Together." Maybe they stand a chance, as a peaceful leader and a demigod of Frey. Or maybe Stormbreak will gobble them up like it did to Nate.

Hearing that the Voice could explode Nate's body is... it's not something she's heard, put it that way, and her eyes are wide as she sits up enough to look at Sunjata properly. "No," she says, and it's a knee-jerk reaction and she knows it. "I mean... I... no, Jata. Not at this point, anyway. I think that could only be an option if they were..."

She doesn't want to say it, not with him already so low, and so instead she gives him a small smile instead. "We will bring him home, Jata."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

// the edge is getting closer, it's a long spiral down. it's so fun to fly 'til you hit the ground
i think i'm getting too close, i think i'm getting too close //

She agrees and doesn’t make him change his mind. And she’s right, he’s a furnace right now – the flush to his skin, the alcohol thrumming through. He was already warm to begin with and now? Now the alcohol simply edges him almost toward overheating. At the very least, the air in Leafchange in the Grounds had always been cool enough to handle it, to keep him from sweating out of his clothes.

As always, Isla makes a good point, and Sunjata knows how to answer the question that she has internally that she lets out through the bits and pieces of why Nate had stayed. “He stayed because Ronin was there.” Because of everything that had happened between the Huntsman and the Flood, at least recently. And she can tell him until she has no words left that he hasn’t let the Ascended down, but it will take longer to actually understand it.

His arm is squeezed and he blinks, reaching up immediately to wipe away the traitorous tear that’s slipped out, looking away from her as she has her knee jerk reaction – one that was similar to the one thrumming in his gut. He doesn’t want to explode Nate’s body, but it sits on his shoulders all the same. The weight of it. “I didn’t know he was immortal.” He admits quietly, leaning back just enough that he can rest his head on the stone side of the bone bridge and glare up at the stars above. “What do we do if they don't want to give him back?” He asks in a whisper, sniffling before he grabs the bottle to take another swig from it, trying to drown out the feelings of failure from deep within his bones.

it's hard to get to heaven with my head in my hands

SUNJATA

Isla

Isla winces at that - because of course things are so tangled up now that the presence of one demigod is enough to spur another to fight until the death. "I see. Well, perhaps we'll have to get Nate some anger management when he comes back, hm?" It's a weak joke at best, but it's kinder to think about when the Ranger is back than the right-now where he's gone. "Either that or we can start a gang. Nate can pick fights but only when he's got good backup. Like you."

She pretends not to see the tears, knowing Sunjata well enough now to know better, though she does shift a bit so she can link her arm through his, letting her cheek rest against his shoulder. "I didn't either, until Wessex said," she whispers. "If they don't give him back, though, then we negotiate until they do. They'll want something, Jata. Assurances, revenge, whatever it is. Once we know the price we can work towards trading." No part of her intends to leave Stormbreak empty handed.

It's a long couple of beats before she continues, and when she does it's with trepidation. "I don't know that Ronin would keep him from you, either. I would hope not. For all that has happened, that kind of spite isn't like him, right? Not when it's your husband."

we're gonna separate ourselves tonight
we're always running scared but holding knives

// the edge is getting closer, it's a long spiral down. it's so fun to fly 'til you hit the ground
i think i'm getting too close, i think i'm getting too close //

The joke falls flat and Sunjata doesn’t know where to pick up any of the conversation on that – because it was complicated, it was a lot of different pieces and moving parts that had made it this way, that maybe if he had stayed he could have gotten Nate to leave before the inevitable, too. Because if there was anyone that could break Nate out of that pinpoint focus, he likes to think that it’s him. “Yeah. Maybe.” Sunjata replies to the follow-up instead, but there’s no humor in it, nothing but the bones left behind where he may have otherwise jested.

Her arm slips through his and her head rests on his shoulder and he doesn’t know that he’s trembling until he shifts, too, to press his cheek against the crown of her golden head, shutting his eyes in the hopes that it keeps the tears at bay some more. “I wouldn’t keep Remi from him if the roles were reversed.” He admits, quietly, his voice shaky as he takes another deep breath. “But that’s a lot of what ifs. I don’t know how Ronin feels. I don’t know if Safrin will stick her fingers into him just to spite me.” Because she could and he’d be at a loss at what to do with that too.

It's a tangled mess he isn’t at all prepared to handle or deal with, but the first step is first. Talking. And at least having Isla there means that he doesn’t have to fail at that too. “Guess I should stop drinking, huh?” If he wants to be somewhat put together as soon as possible to try and retrieve the Lone Ranger from the depths of a shitty Temple in Stormbreak.

it's hard to get to heaven with my head in my hands

SUNJATA

Isla

"Sorry," Isla mumbles, giving him a weak smile and leaving that thread of conversation where it lays. Perhaps when they've got Nate back and the future looks more certain there will be time for jokes, but right now it's just as bleak as it feels. Still, at least they're talking now, and the medic's smile gains a bit more warmth to feel him leaning against her in turn.

"I would agree that I think Safrin is more of a worry than Ronin or Remi when it comes to Nate's body," she murmurs, frowning out across the bridge. "But then it wouldn' really help her cause, would it?" Gods, it's all so complicated, Isla scowling and pressing her eyes shut as if to put that on the backburner of her mind for now.

And she's happy to sit that way for however long Sunjata wants, but as he speaks again, she can't help but look proud of him. "As a doctor, I would recommend it, yes," she says softly. "As your friend, I'd say you're likely to be just as hungover tomorrow regardless of how much you drink now. So you do whatever you need to do, okay?"

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

// the edge is getting closer, it's a long spiral down. it's so fun to fly 'til you hit the ground
i think i'm getting too close, i think i'm getting too close //

It does feel bleak. It feels like he’s empty handed, like he’s lost everything – his pillar, his lover, his other half. And all he has right now to feel close to the Ascended at all is the ring on his finger, the scars left behind, a few clothes they’d shared and brought from the home in King’s End – a place he hasn’t even gone back to, knowing that he was safer in the Grounds.

“It could. She’s excellent at spinning shit in her favor.” He swallows thickly. “Like how I asked her to protect him when the war started which resulted in my daughter, under the life for a life strategy. And now, now Ronin has both of them.” He feels like he should be angrier about it, but he’s simply just tired now. The rage is still there, but it feels more like a stone, a helpless void of no direction, spinning him like a top despite how he feels like he can’t move any further.

As for the rest of it, though, he takes a deep breath, his broad shoulders rising and falling with it as his head tilts slightly, shifting against her crown to peer at the bottle. “I just want to not feel it, right now. It’s not working like it usually does.” It isn’t masking it or deadening it, it’s just there. A reminder. He can’t even get that to numb itself away.

it's hard to get to heaven with my head in my hands

SUNJATA

Isla

Isla can only wince at the further reminder of all that Sunjata has done and all he's been through. There are no words to wipe it away, nothing she can say or do that will make it all better, so she doesn't try. Sometimes just getting it out in the open is enough to start to come back from it. At least, that's the hope. "I could give you something to help you sleep," she suggests. "Though I feel like that's always what I'm offering you. I don't know if it says more about you or me."

Both, probably. "...Are you staying in the Hollowed Grounds for good now, do you think? You and Nate?" She's not sure whether it's something they've ever even discussed together, but gods, it would feel better to have them both nearby, and she can't deny it. "Or just you, I suppose, until he gets back."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything