Adia Costas (
chiron_survivor) wrote in
nexus_crossings2017-03-06 09:04 pm
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Now you're just somebody that I used to know.
Adia is sitting at a computer terminal in the Plaza with a pint of cookie dough ice cream and a carton of boxed wine, watching cute animal videos online and occasionally wiping at her red-rimmed eyes with the back of her hand.
It's every bad break-up cliché, but Adia does not care. After recently experiencing the (second) worst day of life, she needs a break. And unfortunately, the only place she can get that is the Nexus.
She clicks on a thumbnail of a hamster eating a tiny burrito and takes a swig of wine while it loads. "How do you get over someone," she asks the Nexus unhappily, "When they've clearly gotten over you?"
It's every bad break-up cliché, but Adia does not care. After recently experiencing the (second) worst day of life, she needs a break. And unfortunately, the only place she can get that is the Nexus.
She clicks on a thumbnail of a hamster eating a tiny burrito and takes a swig of wine while it loads. "How do you get over someone," she asks the Nexus unhappily, "When they've clearly gotten over you?"
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"Well..." he starts, unsure himself where he intends to take his next words. His palms rub together idly as if they might spark a thought.
"There was a time -- a long time ago, way back when I was alive -- when I had to get over someone I fell real deep in love with. She wasn't human, just like Caspar ain't human; She was a lady from a far-away place, another world I never got to see. We spent a long time ignorin' reality before we finally admitted there wasn't any hope for a future together. There was just too much in the way, too much difference between us. So I said my last goodbyes to her, and after that I pretended she was dead. I imagined I'd never see her again, and for me I guess that made it easier. It was too much to think that she was out there livin' a happy life while I went back to one I didn't really like."
Laughing quietly he puts his arm around her and once more jostles her in an attempt to inject a little hopefulness.
"I know it sounds selfish. You're supposed to want the person you love to live a happy life no matter what, right? But sometimes it don't really work out like that. Sometimes you gotta find a new way to convince yourself there's no goin' back even when you think there oughta be. Don't think too bad of me for suggestin' it, hmm?"
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His jostle doesn't do much for her stomach, but she isn't afraid anymore, at least. It's hard not to feel safe in the presence of an undead knight with a heart of gold. Isidor was right about him. ""No, of course not," she tells him earnestly. "I'm glad it worked for you. But I don't know if it's something I can do..." She rubs at her eyes. "It's hard to pretend that he's dead when I see his face everywhere I go."
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"Naw, Adia, it ain't sad! Don't you worry, hun, you're just drunk. And I know you see your man everywhere, 'cause I felt that way about Farina, too." Maybe not quite so literally, as the person he loved wasn't a clone, but he's not going to let those facts get in the way of bullshit advice. "But, listen: I managed to get over her eventually, and I know you can get over Caspar. Just try this..."
Harrow takes in a deep breath and lets it sit in his lungs for a few seconds. One of his hands sweeps in a large arc, showcasing the Nexus as he says, "Rebound! That's what you need. A rebound relationship. Somethin' short, somethin' that ain't meant to last forever. Get with someone who gets your mind off Caspar, then go your own way! Maybe try someone who ain't like him at all? Someone you never thought you'd be interested in?"
His palm presses against his chest as he chances an example. "Like, for me, I was crazy about this one girl about two years back, right? Relationship was great, I was happy as hell, 'til one day she decided she didn't wanna be with me anymore because I couldn't give her kids. Up and left without so much as a goodbye. I was all torn up about it." He's not going to linger on any details for drunken minds to run with. When it comes to breakups, the less he says the better. "Right away I let myself get swept up in a romance with someone I never would'a seen myself with: a dude. And... It was real different! But different was what I really needed at the time. I forgot all about my ex and focused on someone who was new in all sorts of ways. It was like all those bad feelings never happened!"
Suddenly his brows lower and in a severe voice he hisses, "And when that low-down dirty motherfucker cheated on me it didn't matter half as much, 'cause I only went with him for a couple'a months. He doesn't matter. It didn't matter! I got right over it like it was nothin'." That is definitely an argument to convince Adia and not Harrowheart. Definitely.
Sighing, he raises his eyebrows and once again takes on a gentler tone. "What I'm tryin' to say..." he explains, "Is that maybe you oughta get a girlfriend?"
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"Um." It's her turn to think about what to say. There are a lot of things she could comment on, and if she were more sober she'd have a lot of questions, but Harrow has already revealed enough about himself. It's her turn now. "I don't like girls," she starts, then blushes and adds, "Not that there's anything wrong with that! And women are way prettier than men, anyway, but... well, uh, actually I have a boyfriend right now. His name's Will and he's... he's not like Caspar at all."
And then she blushes, but not in a romantic way. She looks ashamed. "I met him... um, a few months after Caspar died. Except I was trying to move on, not... not use him as a rebound." Although he totally fits the bill. Tall, blond, extraverted... everything Caspar isn't. And isn't it funny that she's here, in the Nexus, seeking the company of ice cream and boxed wine and a eclectic group of friends instead of being with him instead? She hadn't even thought to turn to him for comfort...
"I, uh... I didn't know Caspar had resurrected. When I started dating him." She picks up the ice cream again and picks at it with her spoon. "He's, um... he's nice." Oh, ouch. She might as well say he has a great personality, too.
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"So you met this Will guy and you're goin' with him, but –" Suddenly a thought occurs to him and his eyebrows rise quickly. He leans in slightly to ask, "Wait. You think Caspar knows about this? I mean, you said you were bein' interrogated... Did you mention Will at all? 'Cause if I was Caspar and I found out my girl 'moved on' from me just a couple'a months after I 'passed away,'" big air quotes, "I'd be pretty hurt. Like... Maybe he thought you betrayed him? And he had to go have a good robo-cry while drinkin' robo-wine and eatin' robo-ice cream?"
A few seconds pass before he thinks to add, "Not that you betrayed him. I mean, you thought he was gone for good. I'd be hurt if I were him, but I wouldn't blame you or nothin'. I think? Maybe. I-Idunno." Great show of confidence from the death knight here.
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She cuts herself off her panicked tirade, forces herself to calm down. Harrow didn't know. She shouldn't take it out on him. "I... I don't know much about what happens when Cylons resurrect. They relive their death, so isn't painless. But I... I can't imagine him like that, even how he was before. I never saw him cry." Her lower lip trembles. "He used to tease me for getting upset if someone got hurt in a movie. Not in a mean way, but..."
Harrow's lukewarm assurances don't do much to bolster her mood. "I should have waited longer," she says morosely. "I wasn't ready to move on, as much as I wanted to. B-but Will was so charming, and passionate..." She hunches in her seat, her voice becoming small. "...and I was really tired of being alone."
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"Don't beat yourself up for movin' on – or tryin' to. It's normal, it's natural. Even if maybe you weren't ready for it, it ain't like you did it to make things worse. Right?" Right. "But what I wanna hear about right now is Will. How'd you meet him? What do you see in him? In what ways is he better and worse than Caspar, discountin' the whole robot thing?"
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Unfortunately, all the wine in the world can't ease her guilt. If she couldn't have let go of her feelings for Caspar, then the least she could have done was not drag someone else into her mess. It surprises her anyway that Harrow has a bunch of questions about Will, but maybe talking about him will absolve her somehow. "I met him at a fleet-wide meeting for science types. He's a chemist, and he works at the water treatment plant. He, um... we weren't friends for very long before he asked me out. I said yes, because... well, because why not? He made me smile. He brought me out of my shell... I was surviving, but... but I wasn't living, you know? He made me care about things again."
She frowns a little and adds, "Caspar was quiet, like me. He didn't like parties, he didn't like to argue. Will is about as far from him as a person can get. When he sees an injustice, he fights it. He fights it with all his heart." She thinks of how Caspar pushed her away rather than answer her question. "He's not a coward."
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His brows furrow and his nostrils flare. "And Caspar's a coward? How? Is he a coward 'cause he killed himself? Is he a coward 'cause he slipped in and took you to safety when he saw the woman who was interrogatin' you was gonna take it to the next level? Or is it because he shoved you away when he was savin' your life?"
He prods his own chest with his thumb and says, "'Cause if you ask me? It sounds like Caspar was braver than I was. Sounds to me like he tried to make sure you were gonna keep livin' a free and happy life without him and his problems draggin' you down. I think you're underestimatin' how much he's tryin' to do to keep you alive."
He shakes his head and looks away for a moment, focuses on the other people passing by in the plaza. "Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he is a coward, and callin' him that makes it easier to forget about him. Sounds like he wants you to get over him, too." He shrugs one shoulder dismissively. "So maybe it's best you go on rememberin' him as a coward."
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She trails off. It's pointless to repeat what Harrowheart has so clearly stated. She thinks back to the interrogation room, to the convenient timing of Caspar's arrival. What a coincidence, that he would be there, and at a time when she needed someone the most.
And then she crumbles, a sob of misery leaving her before she covers her face in her hands. "I never said he was a coward," she chokes behind fresh tears. "Will's not like him at all... but he's not like me, either. I'm the coward."
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"N-no, no," he tries weakly even as Adia is accusing herself of being the deeply flawed person in the equation. Is she right? May– No, no, it doesn't matter! It doesn't matter if she's right, only that she's openly weeping in public and he caused it – if only by proxy, and even then by accident. Watching her cry into her hands like that feels like a crime. He glances around, positive someone's going to be coming for him for doing this.
"Adia, no..." he tries again, his voice hardly above a whisper. "No one's a coward here, I-I promise. Everyone's just confused. You're just confused. That's how life is. No one knows what's goin' on until things are said and done, and even then sometimes you need another person to point it all out to you."
One of his hands rubs at her shoulders to distract her from her feelings. "The thing that matters most is what you do once you do know. S-so maybe we oughta focus on that? Hmm?"
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"All this time, he never contacted me, never showed any sign that he was still out there, but maybe... maybe he was doing what you did with your alien girlfriend. He was pretending that I was dead, or that... that whoever he is now, he isn't Caspar anymore." She remembers the only answer that he gave her, that Caspar died, and the broken look in his eyes when she mentioned resurrection. "It probably hurt him a lot to see me again. To break the illusion..."
She exhales deeply, then sits up straight, squaring her shoulders and looking at Harrow with a determined expression. (Or as determined as one can look while drunk.) "Well, if that's what he wants... okay. I'll pretend Caspar's dead, too. I'll move on... if not for his sake, then mine."
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"Now, hold on a second, there," he says, his voice warbling with uncomfortable laughter. "You don't gotta actually abandon him just 'cause of how he's actin' to cope! Don't you think, if he's out there hurtin' 'cause he can't have you, and you're sittin' here hurtin' 'cause you can't have him, that the solution might be to... Y'know..."
His floating hands come together and his fingers intertwine.
"Maybe get back together with your man, so no one's out there lonely and cryin'?..."
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To think, she almost entertained the idea of trying to find Caspar again. Good thing Harrowheart set her straight.
>B[ !
Eventually his swings his attention back to Adia, but he can't help looking totally incredulous. He opens and closes his mouth numerous times as he tries and fails to say something appropriate, until finally he manages something.
"Girl, are you shittin' me?" He stares hard at her a while before his eyes flit down to the box of wine, then back up to her face.
"How drunk are you right now? Am I gonna have to tuck your bad-decision-makin' ass into bed and get back to this conversation when you're sober? I am, aren't I?"
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Her thoughts stall out when he finally speaks. And maybe it's the wine, or the fact that she's already had such a horrible day, but instead of asking what he means, she grabs the ice cream pint and slams it so hard on the computer desk that the spoon goes flying out and clatters onto the floor.
"What do you want from me, Harrowheart?! I'm following your advice! You think I can just waltz into the nearest basestar and find Caspar again? I'm not some... some big guy with axes and floating hands! I'd get killed. Worse than that! Not to mention what my own people would do to me. Getting called a traitor would be the least of it!"
She sniffles angrily and grabs the spoon from the floor and shoves it back into the pint. She's crying again, out of frustration this time. "Caspar's the Cylon, he's the one with all the power on our world. He's the one who could have done something about his feelings if he wanted to. If you want us back together so frakkin' bad, maybe you should be talking to him and not me."
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When there's silence between them he sighs through his nose. He begins to shake his head as he presses his lips together.
"No," he says quietly. "No, you're right. You're right, and... I'm bein' a jackass. I came in here treatin' your problems like some kinda fuckin' story that's supposed to have a happy endin', not like it's your life. Just... Don't listen to me, Adia. You just do what you gotta do."
He stands from where he had been crouching and looks down at Adia with a final sigh of regret.
"I'll leave you alone to do it. And... I hope it works out for you, whatever it is you choose to do."
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It feels awful.
"Harrowheart..." She stands up unsteadily, gripping the back of her chair for balance. "I shouldn't have snapped at you, you were only trying to help." She looks up at him earnestly after wiping at what's left of her tears. "I-- think our situations aren't as similar as we thought at first, but... that's a good thing. Because... because even if I don't get a happy ending to my story, that doesn't mean you won't get a happy ending to yours. Okay?"
She picks up the pint of ice cream, gently this time, and offers it to Harrowheart as a peace offering. "Um... if you don't mind sticking around a little longer... do you want to watch some animal videos with me?" Maybe what she really needs is someone to sit with her for a little while and remind her that she's not alone.
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It melts him instantly, and he can't help but smile. He nods in small, slow motions. Yes, Adia. He would love to stay and watch adorable animal videos with you. He would also like to give you a big, long hug, which she's getting unless she's swift enough to dodge it. To his bosom, Sweet Adia. Be trapped in his emotionally-warm, physically-cold embrace.
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She smiles up at him, her grief a mere shadow around her eyes instead of an all-encompassing eclipse, and sits back down. "You can pick the next video if you want. I already watched all the ones on this channel."