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He was still here.
How many days had it been now? Four, five? Probably five.
Five days of... this. Five days of silence. Five days since Sesa had last seen Elliot somewhere other than here.
After Elliot heard the news, he sat down at his desk and simply didn't get up again. Sesa hadn't seen him go to his dormitory. Hadn't seen him eat. Hadn't seen him do anything except sit there and work. Or pretend to, at least. Like hell he had that much to do.
Whenever Sesa came down to their office, the sight of Elliot's back greeted him like a wall. In the mornings, he was always already there, and he was still there when Sesa left in the evening. If Sesa hadn't been paying attention, he could almost think Elliot wasn't moving at all. That he was nothing but a terribly convincing mannequin; a perfect replica of him, frozen in time.
Of all the ways this could have gone, Sesa supposed this one made sense. It's not like he'd expected Elliot to burst into tears; spill like a broken bottle of beer and let all the sadness and grief bubble to the top like foam and seep through the cracks in his hardened facade.
Frankly, he had expected nothing. Had expected that Elliot would just shove it all down, feign at indifference; swallow it like a rock and let it sit in him forever, heavy and nauseating. Invisible and unknowable from the outside, giving Sesa no leverage, nothing to latch at.
At least this act was something. Five days was enough to point it out. Too long to be just one of his quirks; one of his episodes. At least Sesa now knew Elliot felt something about it, thought about it, even if unwillingly; processed it in whatever complex, self-flagellating way he processed anything.
It was late when he came down that night. Despite the substantial workload and numerous changes the department was facing, it was empty and quiet now. Thick black shadows lingered in the corners, watching them like an impassive audience. The overhead bulb above Elliot's table cast a perfect circle of white light around him, reflecting pale silver in his hair.
Elliot didn't look at him when he approached, or even when he plopped down in the chair closest to his and rolled over to his desk. Elliot was so still it didn't even seem like he'd heard him, though Sesa was hardly subtle or quiet. He was simply quietly writing in his slanted, narrow handwriting, nothing but tiny movements of his wrist. Whether he was actually focused, or whether he hoped the lack of a reaction would encourage Sesa to leave him alone, he didn't know. Probably the latter.
Well, he could just let Elliot be. He was unpredictable, intolerably difficult when he wanted to be; a complex system with no instruction manual, no applicable theory. Sesa knew this would be like pulling teeth. His or Elliot's, he wasn't yet sure. But they'd passed the point where Sesa could pretend he didn't care a long, long time ago.
He cleared his throat.
"...So," he said. "What's the big plan? How long are you gonna do this?"
Elliot didn't react. His pen continued moving, undisturbed. There was no reaction for so long that Sesa thought he might not respond at all. But in the end, there was something - a small shift of his shoulders, and a quiet sighed breath.
"...Do what?"
"Sit here."
Elliot shot him a quick sideways glance. "I'm working."
Sesa raised a questioning eyebrow. "Are you really now?"
Silence again.
Elliot looked bad. Probably still perfect to anyone else, but Sesa knew him too well not to notice how unkempt he seemed by his usual rigorous standards, creases in his shirt and tangles in his hair he would never normally permit himself. There were deep dark circles under his eyes, accentuated further by the dense shadows falling across his cheeks.
"Did you go to sleep last night? Or the night before?" Sesa prodded. "And when did you last eat?"
Elliot clicked his tongue and gave him another look, sharp and cold as an icicle. "You are severely mistaken if you think that is somehow any of your concern. I strongly suggest you worry about your own affairs and don't poke your nose into mine."
Sesa didn't relent. He rolled his chair even closer and placed a hand near Elliot's own. Not quite touching him, but almost.
"...Elliot, c'mon," he said in a quiet, soft voice; that 'hey, it's me, after all' tone people tend to develop over years of closeness. The kind of tone that should certainly get Elliot's attention.
Still, he didn't budge.
"Leave, please. Take what you need and go, if you need anything at all other than to waste both of our times," Elliot said with a dismissive wave.
Sesa sighed. This was going just as poorly as he had expected.
After a moment of pondering how to salvage the conversation, he nudged Elliot's hand with his own.
"Come get a drink with me."
Elliot didn't respond, mutely staring down at his notes.
"Just one," Sesa said, leaning in. "You need to stretch your legs, and I need the company, because I don't even know where to find a drink in this goddamn place."
"I'm not in the mood," Elliot said flatly.
Sesa sighed again. "...Look. If you come, I won't bother you anymore. You can come back right after, and I won't talk to you for as long as you like. I'll let you sit here until moss starts to grow on you if that's what you want to do, and I won't say a word about it. Okay?"
That got his attention. Elliot looked at him from under his brows - cool, probing; a thorough evaluation of the pros and cons.
"...Fine," he said in the end. "One drink. And then you'd best leave me be."
Without her, there was silence.
Before he set foot on the new landship, Sesa had expected chaos. The buzzing, entropic energy of newness and strangeness, people trying to find their place and get used to a new way of life.
Instead, everything was static and quiet. As if her absence was a tangible, physical entity; a great black hole that sucked up all light and sound.
No one talked about it because they didn't know how to. Somehow, the feeling of what had happened simply permeated the air, as if the ship itself was whispering it through the air vents, humming it in inaudible frequencies.
The one who finally said it out loud, gave it real, definite shape, was Closure.
When she stepped in front of all of them, standing in a semicircle on the ground floor of the barren new engineering department, it looked as if the weight of responsibility and grief might cave her in. Like she was a child wearing a parent's coat, too long and much too heavy, expected to somehow fill the shape of it though no amount of wishful thinking would make that possible.
Closure cleared her throat.
"Um...I'm sure some of you have already heard, or realized, by now, but..." She awkwardly shifted on her feet, not knowing where to look. She chose the floor, in the end. "Kal'tsit is- I mean, Doctor Kal'tsit is, um... gone." She squeezed the last word out like a hairball.
In reaction, there were no gasps, no weeps. The only cry came from the ship itself, its engine humming and its chassis wailing deep underneath them. A mechanical, mournful elegy.
Closure stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat, her eyes tracing the neat, simple lines of tile. Easy to comprehend, categorize, process. Unlike her absence.
"...Look, I don't know what to say to make it seem okay. I'm just a mechanic. I don't know how to do something like this," she said with a wobbly smile. "If she were here, she would know, because she always knew. She'd say something brief and poignant, something that would help us all feel better. She'd say this is just one of those things everyone must go through. And that we shouldn't be sad, because this is nothing but the final journey we all must take. That death is just another step, or something like that."
She sniffled, and Sesa could see her lip quiver. She looked young then, and unbearably sad; so much so that Sesa had the urge to go over and hold her, tell her it was going to be alright even if it wasn't true.
"Well, I guess the most I can say is this: she died how she lived. Protecting Rhodes Island and the people within. So the best we can do right now is to keep working, keep squirming and fighting, and doing our share of good in the world. That's what she'd want. For us to carry on, and be better and stronger people."
Silence lingered around them, heavy as cold morning fog.
Closure's shoulders slumped with a shaky exhale, and she quickly rubbed at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.
"I'm sorry, everyone. I know for many - well, all of us - she was... very important. I'm sorry," she said, voice tight with the tears she didn't let show.
Nobody knew what else to say. Some people sniffled; some mouthed something soundless and forlorn. They wrung their hands, shifted tensely side to side, stared at the ground with watery gazes.
Among them, all the hunched, grieving people, Elliot stood like an obelisk. Poised and statuesque as he stared ahead. Sesa could only guess what he was feeling, because his face betrayed nothing. He stood there, in that terrible silence, unshakable and cold as stone.
The old Rhodes Island bar had been familiar, comfortable. Worn in its joints, and wonderful because of it. There were weird, old stains that told entire stories; names and phone numbers scribbled on the undersides of tables with knife or pen; years-old flyers no one bothered to throw out. Everyone had a favorite table, and memories they had made there.
This new bar really wasn't a bar yet. It was just a big room, some stacked chairs, and a few boxes of liquor, most still taped shut. No spots to pick favorites from. So Sesa pulled two chairs up by the window, and they sat there, facing the passing night outside, holding their lukewarm drinks in their hands.
There, surrounded by boxes and emptiness, they drank and drank. Elliot didn't get up after the first glass like he had promised, stuck too deep in whatever thought he was wading through. As if he'd forgotten Sesa's presence entirely. So Sesa poured him another one, and then another whenever his glass was empty again, and neither one of them stopped.
The darkness outside was vast and absolute. Elliot only stared at it, unseeing and uncaring, and said nothing.
"You lied to me. You said that after one drink you'd-" A hiccup. "-you'd leave me be."
"Yeah, you're right. I lied," Sesa huffed as he stumbled into the room and led Elliot to the bed, a hand around his waist. Close like this, he could smell him: the lingering traces of his perfume; the familiar smell of his hair; the gin on his breath. "I trust you'll find it in your heart to forgive me, won't you?"
Elliot clicked his tongue. "I will not, you stupid, irritating, bothersome piece of-"
The rest of it was swallowed by a groan as Sesa all but dropped Elliot onto the bed. He then turned to close the door behind them and switched on the bedside lamp, its dim yellow bulb doing little to illuminate the room despite its modest size.
Sesa glanced around. This was the first time he was in Elliot's new dorm. It was much like his own - small, grey, too warm when the heat was on - but there were bags and boxes still lingering on the floor, while Sesa had unpacked days ago.
Elliot took the moment to straighten himself out, sitting down on the edge of the mattress and combing his hair into place. Even like this, he swayed, far too many drinks on an empty stomach making their presence known.
The walk back to the room had been long and slow. Not only because the path was still unfamiliar, strange winding corridors that all looked alike, but because Sesa had to practically carry him. Thank god it was already so late they didn't run into anyone.
Should Sesa have stopped him? Maybe he should have, somewhere after the fourth glass, but - whatever. At least he finally got him to his room somehow. He still hadn't gotten him to talk, but this was better than nothing.
"You should get ready for bed. It's late," Sesa said.
"I don't want to."
"Well, you gotta, big guy."
"I don't want to," Elliot repeated. He stared at the ground, his hands limply resting in his lap. He hiccuped again.
Sesa sighed; watched him for a beat. Then, he walked over, knelt by his feet, and reached to untie the laces of his shoe.
Elliot bristled and pushed at his shoulder. "Stop trying to humiliate me. I can do it myself," he snapped. And even though he was slurring his words, the sharpness still carried through his voice.
Sesa watched as Elliot leaned down and fumbled at the knots, but his fingers were unsteady and weak. He was far too drunk, too frustrated, too tired, too everything.
Sesa moved his hands away. "Just let me. It's no big deal."
Elliot huffed and looked away with an indignant look, but didn't fight him any further. Not so drunk as to not realize his own current state.
Sesa untied his shoes, took them off, placed them by the door. He took off his gloves; unbuttoned his jacket, then his shirt, slid them off his shoulders, folded it all into a neat pile on the dresser. Elliot did nothing to make it easier, sitting stiff and entirely uncooperative, staring at something past Sesa's head. Sesa didn't touch his trousers, not wanting to bother to get him to stand.
Looking down at his half-nude form, it took Sesa by surprise just how weak Elliot suddenly looked: exhausted, thin, pale; eyes bloodshot, deep lines between his brows. Like he'd aged ten years in the last week.
He sat down next to Elliot on the bed. Had it been someone else, someone with less prickly edges, Sesa would have put an arm around him, pulled him close. But it was Elliot, so he simply laced his hands together and stared at them, squirming and wriggling like eels. The silence stretched out between them.
Sesa cleared his throat.
"You want to talk about it?" he finally asked.
"There is nothing to talk about."
Sesa sighed. Squeezed his fingers together till his skin turned white. God, he hated this. And he knew exactly how Elliot felt, knew he hated it too. Grief was no stranger to either of them, after all.
"...Look. I won't pretend to know what she-"
Elliot's head snapped up toward him like a whip. "There is nothing to talk about," he hissed. He then looked away again, back down at the floor, his face wilting. "And I wish you'd leave already."
Sesa stayed where he was. He once again let himself glance at the dim corner of the room: at the things Elliot hadn't had the will to unpack, as if his refusal to settle into this space, accept the new order of life, would somehow make the fact of what happened less real.
There was a bitter familiarity to it. Sesa still remembered locking himself in his bedroom for days on end after he'd heard the news of his brother's death. As if by leaving it, seeing his parents or passing by his brother's empty room, he would somehow really kill him. Then it had felt as if by staying there, in a place where time didn't seem to pass, he could erase the fact from existence; somehow bring him back through his spiteful refusal to acknowledge it.
Sesa shifted in his seat. "Elliot, listen. I won't pretend to know what she meant to you. I know that she was very important to you in a lot of ways I could never understand. But I do understand what it's like to lose someone. And I know that you're sad, and-"
Elliot's sudden laugh interrupted him. "Sad?" he asked, regurgitating the word like slime. "You think I'm 'sad'?"
Then, he was quiet again. Sesa watched him, but couldn't quite see his expression, his face hidden by a curtain of uncombed hair. He already started thinking Elliot wasn't going to talk anymore, and that that was all he was going to get. But then he exhaled a deep, deflating breath, his shoulders slumping; a breath so long and exhausted it felt as if this was the first time he'd allowed himself to breathe in a week.
"...That would be fine, wouldn't it?" Elliot said flatly. "Easier to swallow. 'Oh, Poor Kal'tsit. She was such a great, big person. Irreplaceable. Indispensable. How very sad this is.' That's what I should feel, yes?"
Sesa shrugged. "You're not supposed to feel any way."
"Well, would you like to hear how I really feel?" he asked. "I feel like a dog that's realized its master has abandoned it."
Elliot turned to look at him; a strange look, something stirring in his eyes. Like restless, cold waters under thick ice. "Is the dog sad, Sesa? Angry, perhaps? Hopeless? Scared? Does it want to lash out and bite whoever comes near, or does it want to cower in the corner?"
"It doesn't matter. You're no dog."
"Am I not?" he said with an amused breath. "She took me in. Cared for me. Told me where to sleep, where to eat, where to work. All I did was sit around, waiting for her command. If she asked me to perform a trick, I probably would, wouldn't I?"
Before Sesa could say something, Elliot exhaled a breathy laugh.
"Of course I would. She saved my life, after all. More than once. Without her, I would be nothing but a pile of bones buried in the desert."
He then sighed and rested his elbows on his knees. Sesa watched the orange light shine across the jagged scars on his back, interrupted by locks of hair that fell down the length of his spine and pooled on the bed.
"But I'm hardly the only one, am I? There are so many people on this ship she's saved and cared for, aren't there? That's simply what she did. That's the kind of person she was," Elliot said with a shrug of his shoulders.
"But I look at all these people, all these sad, grieving people, and I still feel like it has to be the worst for me. Isn't that terrible?” He laughed again. “I look at all their pathetic faces and think, 'Why are they acting like this? What right do they have?' They didn't know her as I did. For as long as I did. She didn't mean as much to them."
He looked at Sesa with a bitter smile. "But that's just bullshit, isn't it? Really, if you stick to the facts, I only knew her for a couple of weeks when I was a child. And now, all these decades later, when we met again, we barely even talked. She never really cared about me."
Elliot let his head fall limp between his shoulders and snickered; tired, sad, bitter like gall. "She never even liked me."
He was quiet for a spell, head hanging low. His face was vacant. "...She never even liked me," Elliot repeated in a whisper, as if the meaning of it had truly hit him just then; hit him clean through the heart. "No one likes me. Even you don't like me."
Sesa sighed, shook his head. "C'mon. Stop it. Y-"
"No, I know it's true. Of course you don't, and of course she didn't either. And you’re both right. You can both see right through me. Right to the rotten core."
Elliot took in a shaky breath and ran his hands over his face
"...You know what actually hurts? It's not her absence, or the knowledge that she is never coming back. No, rather it's this feeling like-" He placed a hand on his bare chest, dull nails digging into the skin. "- like she took something with her. Like she took my liver, or a lung, or my spleen while I was looking the other way, and didn't stitch me back up quite right. Like if you reached into me, there would be nothing there."
Sesa bumped his knee against Elliot's. "You know it's not true. There's no less of you with or without her."
"No, you don't understand, do you? There is less of me," he said in a tight, desperate voice. "Because she was the only person who knew me. Who really knew me. Who remembered me as I was."
"See, I'd always felt that as long as she was here, that unspoiled version of me would continue to exist. Whoever I was before I became… this. As if somehow that only good part of me was immortal because of her, always within my reach, just because she knew, and remembered." He swallowed thickly. "But it's gone now. Dead."
"Everything and everyone is gone. My parents. Professor. Even Issin is gone. Everyone I ever knew. And now her, too," he said. Empty, lifeless; voice brittle like dry autumn leaves. "She was the last lingering thread holding me to everything I held dear. And it's finally snapped."
Sesa had hoped he would cry. Hoped for it when they were sitting in the bar, hoped when they stumbled into the room, and hoped now. It was hard to pinpoint why. Perhaps it was nothing more than curiosity; the same kind of morbid impulse that makes people want to watch a burning house or stare at the wreck of a car crash. Perhaps it was simply because Sesa wanted to see that he could; that they were somehow on the same level, despite how much Elliot could make it seem otherwise.
But even now, Elliot didn't cry. There was a quiver to his lip, an ugly downturn to his eyes; lines in his forehead that betrayed his age. But still, nothing. Like a cloud that just wouldn't break, dark and swollen, and thoroughly unsatisfying.
Elliot closed his eyes. His hand reached out, as if trying to grasp at something ethereal; some desperate attempt to hold on to something that was never there. "I’m untethered. Lost. I feel like I've drifted away. Somewhere far into space."
He slumped; curled in on himself. Vulnerable like an injured animal.
"I think I've drifted too far. To the edge of everything. And there's no gravity to pull me back in. Nothing to pull me back to life." He spoke in a whisper; tender and frail. "I'm stranded in the dark. Cold and alone and frightened like a child again."
Sesa felt a lump in his throat.
He was a man who took pride in always knowing just what to do, how to act; always being able to think of the next line. It’s what he’d had to learn to do, after all. But now, when it really counted, he could think of nothing at all.
And Elliot’s pain, this terrible ache Sesa knew he felt, was all too familiar. He’d felt it too; still felt it all these years later. But that made it all the harder - for he had never learned how to dull it. Grief is not a well: you do not take and take until it is all dried up. Rather, it is like a tide: wild, suffocating swells at first; overwhelming, all-consuming. But one day - and it happens so slowly you never even see it - the tide recedes, and the waves hit less frequently. One day, you're no longer a boy sobbing on your bedroom floor until you can’t breathe, but a man, many years older, and the pain is now a familiar old friend. It still crushes you; washes over your head and fills your lungs, brackish and suffocating - but now you know there will always be a breath of air at the end of it.
He placed a hand on Elliot's back, though the touch could convey none of what he wished it could. "You're not alone. I'm right here,” he said, feeling childish and sad and entirely out of his depth.
Elliot opened his eyes and smiled a bittersweet smile. "...Are you? It feels as if you’re lightyears away. Just like she was. An impassable distance."
Sesa's chest ached. “It doesn’t matter." His voice was tight, choked. "Right here, right now, I'm next to you, and you are next to me. That's all there is to it," he said, and pulled Elliot against him.
At first, he simply lay there stiff in Sesa's arms, but Sesa held him, steady and sure. After a long moment, finally Elliot moved, like a frozen body coming back to life: he shifted, half-climbed into Sesa's lap, wrapped his arms around him. It was not gentle - a desperate clutch at whatever he could reach, a drowning man grasping at anything to keep him afloat. Elliot fisted Sesa's shirt in one hand, buried the other in his hair. Pulled him close, close, close, his hot drunken breaths washing over Sesa's neck.
"...You're the only one I have left now. Isn't that funny?" Elliot whispered. Against the crook of Sesa's shoulder, he laughed a sad, soundless laugh. "You're the only one."
He knew, and Elliot knew too. Two lost dogs; two distant planets, lone in an empty galaxy. Each other's only ones. So he simply held Elliot tighter against his chest and ran a tender hand over his bare back.
"Here. Lay down,' Sesa said when he started to feel Elliot go lax in his arms. He manoeuvred him onto the bed. "You should sleep."
Elliot didn't fight it, the exhaustion of the past few days having caught up to him all at once. He let Sesa settle him into place and clumsily pulled the blanket over himself.
Before Sesa could move away, Elliot placed a hand on his wrist. The touch was timid, soft; uncharacteristic vulnerability seeping through every inch of him. "Stay the night, would you?" he muttered, eyes half closed as he lingered on the brink of sleep. "It'll be... easier."
Easier. Probably it will be. Sesa knew this time - the minutes, hours of nothingness before sleep came - were the hardest. Nothing to distract you, nothing to pull you out of the dark recesses of wherever your mind wanders. Now he understood why Elliot hadn't wanted to come back to his room alone.
"Sure," Sesa said with a soft smile as he settled down into the space next to Elliot. The bed was small, not meant for two people, so their legs tangled under the sheets. "If you want, we can do this every night. We'll get good and wasted, and I'll lay here and talk until you fall asleep. And then one day, just like that, it'll be all better."
Elliot scooted closer and rested his head on Sesa's shoulder. Sesa could feel the silky-soft brush of feathers against his jaw.
"...Tsk, tsk, tsk," Elliot tutted. "You're lying again."
Sesa ran his fingers across Elliot's knuckles and turned his face to bury it in his hair. He smiled.
"Caught me."
No response came, save for Elliot's steady, quiet breaths.
Sesa reached over to turn the light off; darkness enveloped them like a thick blanket. Safe and warm as night rolled over the land, the twin moons looking down at them like the eyes of a curious, benevolent spectator.
Sesa dreamt of space.
Of vast, incomprehensible distances. Of black holes, asteroids, blazing planets. Of stars dying in dazzling explosions of light, their bright burning energy travelling to wash over him across lightyears of vacuum. And he could feel their dying scream - a blinding, violent supernova - as tender warmth across his cheek.
All through it, Elliot was next to him. They floated, weightless, crossing infinities. And though there was silence, and he knew he could never ask him, he knew Elliot felt that warmth too.