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[withintenfeet]

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[withintenfeet]

I was kind of hoping you'd forget about that.

[ He says it with good humour, even though his voice is strained with aching exhaustion.

He's quiet for a moment, still; it's not even that he doesn't want to talk, really, he's just - very much out of practise. ]

That was...horrifying.

[hippie_ninja]

Felt like home for a little while. Which says something about why I came here, I guess.

What happened to you during it?

[withintenfeet]

It won't be like that once you're finished.

...There was - rage. Visions. Some of them were good, especially in the beginning. Voices I've wanted to hear again.

[ Voices he never will, for the most part. ]

But mostly, it was - I heard him, and I kept seeing - it was like I was in Hell, instead of here. [ A beat of strained silence, and then some awfully bleak laughter. ] So. Home.

[hippie_ninja]

But not once you're done here, either.

[Although Jesus is pretty sure he'll never be able to fit into a world without the walkers again.]

[withintenfeet]

[ He...swallows hard, because this is not really a conversation he's had.

But he probably should, right? He should say it out loud. Someone he cares about - so quickly and so deeply because apparently that's never going to change - ought to know. ]

Jesus, I'm - I'm not changing anything, with the Barge. I know where I'm going, when I leave.

[hippie_ninja]

What do you mean?

[He thinks he knows. And good lord are there some complicated feelings churning in him at the thought of it.]

[withintenfeet]

I...accepted something, when I died. Chose something.

The Barge is a reprieve, not an escape.

[ What hurts, right now, is saying this to someone. For all the dread, all the regret, his voice is steady with unwavering conviction. ]

[hippie_ninja]

[It hurts to hear. He thinks of Maggie, who cried as he told her...well. This same thing.]

Zerxus...

Me, too.

[withintenfeet]

[ The sharp intake of breath is -

Deeply hypocritical, probably. ]

...Can I come see you?

[hippie_ninja]

Please.

I'm in 201.

[withintenfeet]

[ ...Jesus gets a knock on his door in like two minutes, because Zerxus is literally a door down. ]

[hippie_ninja]

"That was fast," Jesus says when he answers the door. "Did you run?"

He's teasing. He knows where everyone's cabins are.

[withintenfeet]

"I was going to ride Tempus, but he's in a mood." He can tease back, but he's staring at Jesus with a profoundly vulnerable expression. (It doesn't help that he's dressed down - a loose vest and trousers, that's all.)

[hippie_ninja]

Maybe he's overstepping. But he can't see that look on Zerxus's face and not hug him--so he pulls him close, just wraps his arms around him, just holds him. Two dead men walking.

[withintenfeet]

He feels, instinctively, that he should pull away. But he's too damn tired for that, so he closes his eyes and returns the embrace instead.

[hippie_ninja]

"What's wrong?" He asks softly, still holding onto him, just for a moment longer. Who knows how long since Zerxus has been held?

"We decided the same thing. I didn't expect that. I'm...worried about you now. Isn't that stupid?"

[withintenfeet]

People have been more tender with him on this ship than he'd ever expected to experience again, but he's never allowed himself to linger in it like he does now.

"I think..." He chews on what he wants to say as he finally steps back, just far enough to meet Jesus's eyes. "I think we're both much better at accepting our own fates than anyone else's."

Suffering has always been so much easier to bear than to witness.

[hippie_ninja]

It's been such a long week. He's relived the worst moments of his life, at least some of them, and he hasn't had time to so much as begin to process them.

And a good man is going to Hell. And Jesus himself is going to die. And none of it is right but they've accepted it, and it will happen.

He holds Zerxus's gaze, feeling his heart sink. "I think you're right. I don't want you to suffer, Zerxus. I don't want you to be dead."

[withintenfeet]

"The universe will be a worse place without you in it." He can't say that for himself, not anymore; he has so little control over what he will become, what he will do.

"And that isn't even why I hate the idea so much, not really." The knight in him baulks at one less compassionate warrior, certainly; the rest of him just can't handle losing another friend.

Knowing they would part for good eventually was one thing; it surprises him, a little, how much worse this feels.

[hippie_ninja]

"I'm a drop in an ocean." He's done all he can for the Hilltop, for the colonies. He was miserable trying to fit a role he was never built for.

"I told someone that this way my death means something. I wouldn't have been able to come here if things weren't over for me back home." It didn't help make it any easier for Maggie but maybe it will for Zerxus.

[withintenfeet]

He does nod, because that's at least -

It was better, the second time he Ring of Brass fell around him. They walked in with clear eyes, ready to die for something that mattered.

"I know what a difference that can make." But there's more he wants to say, and after a beat of strained hesitation, "And only you get to decide what you're ready for. When you're finished. But there are more choices here, more paths to take -"

It's the first time his voice loses some of that gentle steadiness, starts to turn rough with emotion instead.

[hippie_ninja]

No one will cry for him at home. He's a body in a box in the ground when he would have preferred to be burned, and things will go on without him.

Here on the Barge two people are so moved by his death he can hear it in their voices. It's startling.

"There are for you, too," he says, and if there's a note of pleading in his voice, who can blame him? "The mistakes you've made, the choices you made, they don't have to lead you to Hell. Not anymore."

[withintenfeet]

He isn't hearing voices anymore, but that almost doesn't matter because Evandrin's, tender and desperate as the embraced between the planes, rings so fiercely in his mind. We can fix this, we can find another way, please. At the time it was the only way to save his son.

But there was another moment - a gift, from his brother, the mercy of a clean death - where he could have let go. Dead, but far beyond the devil's grasp; dead, but perhaps not forever. "I know I don't. I knew that before the Barge."

It sounds absurd, he knows, and his best explanation is, "I can't just leave. I don't know if it will matter but I have to try."

[hippie_ninja]

He understands that. He's been the one doing the absurd thing, the desperate thing. He's' seen it pay off. He's also seen it fail. He doesn't regret trying but he never would have been able to live with himself if he'd stopped before he tried.

Sometimes, every now and then, he sees little glimmers of truths beyond his natural aversion to getting close to people. Sometimes he can hear a warning in his head: This one will hurt you.

Zerxus could fuck him up bad, just with the earnestness in his voice. Just with the fact he'll face down the Devil and try to make things change.

Yeah. Getting close to Zerxus would be a mistake.

"So," he says anyway, knowing all this. His smile is soft and heartbroken and strong. "The Barge is all we have, then. It's all we get. I think we should make the most of it."