THE GOOD DOCTOR

If I was a necromancer, I would be a fucking coward.

[ravenayres-blog]

dallascosta:

He’d risen early that morning all thanks to a too-easily-bribed guard whom Dallas had convinced by way of a heavily lined pocket to let him out two hours before breakfast. He was restless, on edge and in need of a release, of some way to blow off all the steam turned rage that coursed through his veins. It was frustrating, feeling like this, like he couldn’t control himself. Like he was spending every second on the verge of losing it. And the only thing that made him feel even semi-normal were the pills, given to him by an angel in a white coat with a taste for good whiskey.

These days, though, he couldn’t make it four hours without a dose. His hands would start to twitch and sweat would bead down his temples. And like a strike of lightning the pain would rip through him all at once, tearing him inside and out from stem to stern. But what was even worse than the throbbing of his shoulders and the aching of his knees was the look on Raven’s face each time they made the exchange. 

He’d always hoped it wasn’t one of judgement, that she didn’t look at him with pity or contempt for using her because in reality, seeing her was actually one of the best parts of his day. Even if he’d never admit to it. And the thought of her looking at him and seeing anything other than the all-too-charming asshole with the best stash of whiskey in Purgatory was enough to make him want to throw his already broken and bloody fist through the cement wall of his cramped cell. He had no reasoning behind such a feeling, such a will for her to think the best of him (as best as anyone could think of Dallas fucking Costa), but nonetheless he tried. 

For some reason, he hoped. 

“Better than you look,” he smiled that smile reserved for her and her alone. It was one that graced his face rarely, only ever showing itself when his eyes landed on those chestnut locks and baby blues. The motivation behind it didn’t elude him, in fact, it was all too obvious whenever Raven was near. She was a comfort, like slipping on his favorite leather jacket or crawling into a warm bed. Satisfying and addictive and he always came back for more. “Got one of those for me?” he took a few more steps and crossed in front of her where she sat atop his bed, hands deep in his pockets as he spun around. He tried to hide them, the cuts and scrapes and bruises, but no matter how far down he pushed his hands, the welt on his left cheek was evidence enough. 

He’d been in another fight. He was in pain and he needed relief. 

But he played it cool, bent at the knees and relaxed down onto his bunk beside her before he lifted one arm up to rest behind the back of his head. 

“I could use a smoke after the day I’ve had.”

The thing about prison was that it was hell. It was a different hell than war, a different hell than heartbreak, but it was hell all the same. And in this hell, she found herself clinging to the people and things that made life seem easier. Made life bearable. Of everyone in Purgatory, Dallas Costa was the biggest relief. He was a supply line to an easier time, to a mouthful of whiskey and a weight off her shoulders. He offered her some temporary peace, and that was enough to endear him to her.

After all, Raven — no matter how hard she tried — had always struggled to separate fondness for the abstract and fondness for the tangible. Despite their deal, despite what he had to gain from doing it, Raven felt that every hand-off was a gift. It was a promise honored, and for that, she was grateful. In spite of herself, she was beginning to feel comfortable. Perhaps, if she had been paying attention, she would have done a better job of reinforcing her walls; of shoring up the keep. But it was hard to focus on any one moment when the ending was so clear. Hard to live in the present when the future was laid out.

They had returned to Earth to die, slow and prolonged deaths. All of them. Every Dallas Costa, and every Raven Ayres. But maybe that, at the end of all things, was what had begun to break her down to begin with. What good were her walls in a place like this? A place where no loss was unexpected because they were surrounded by death and violence and the inevitable. Without hope for something better, Raven had no reason to be afraid, and so, Dallas had begun to slip through the cracks and under her skin. Just enough to worry, and just enough to reach over and offer him a cigarette.

“Yeah, clearly,” she stayed sitting on the edge of his bed despite the urge to lean into a more comfortable position. She started to bite the corner of her nail but stopped abruptly when she noticed what she was doing. Instead, she quickly lit another cigarette to give her hands something to do. Raven leaned forward to rest her cheek on her hand and she gave him a good looking over.

“Listen, I don’t mind taking a look at you. I mean, not for nothing, but looking better than me isn’t anything to brag about and — man, fuck me for saying it but — the pills aren’t gonna do much but rot your gut.” Still, she shook the bottle of pills and set them down next to his leg with a shrug. “I don’t know, forget I said anything. I’m just saying, I don’t mind taking a look.”

[ravenayres-blog]

send me your character’s medical records for quality doctor content

[sassanachwrites]

I’m not a great swimmer, but I wouldn’t have let you drown.

Milo (via blackwidow-rps)

[ravenayres-blog]

ludomire:

There were few moments in his day where Ludo felt truly at peace. The nature of his own fractured psyche, mixed in with the very real dangers of the prison, culminated to form an individual who even in the most quiet of environments always had one eye open. It was exhausting, to be that alert. One of the few times he did seem to finally find some form of inner peace was ironically enough in the middle of a fight. It was hard to worry over outside troubles when you were face-to-face with two-hundred pounds of bone and muscle, all working together fluidly to ensure your own destruction. 

There was more to it though than just the threat behind the imposing force in front of him, in a fight he could completely surrender himself to his own instinct, allowing his body to take full control as his mind honed in on just one thing: the man in front of him. He had become sort of an addict to it in his time in Purgatory, never able to fully shake the allure of such a mindless form of freedom. On days he wasn’t physically ready for a fight he found himself seeking them out, and although it may not have been the same, he could still appreciate the beauty in such a brutal dance. 

It was on a day such as that when he found himself quietly spectating in a brawl in cellblock F, it was not a planned one, instead it was simply the result of a clash between two inmates who were too pissed and bored to find anything better to do. Unfortunately for Ludo it was a complete shitshow, too messy and frantic, no fluidity at all, just two brutes wildly wailing on one another. When the alarm sounded Ludo showed little surprise, and while the other spectators frantically searched for the closest exit, Ludo was already through his. One of the few advantages of a having a mind under the constant stress of paranoia, was that you usually had your exit plan sorted out well before you needed it. 

Little did he know his exit would soon become quite the opposite of one. 

He isn’t two steps into his new surroundings when something catches his eye. Through the mass of prisoners who’d made it, he catches a glimpse of a figure down the hall. The huddle of bodies move shortly before he can get a really good look at just what he did see, but his reaction is immediate regardless. His heart clutches in his chest, and he stumbles back into a body behind him before being immediately getting shoved forward. He pays no mind to none of this however, his thoughts too wrapped up in the ghost he tells himself he didn’t see, but cannot shake from his mind. 

Without fully realizing he’s doing it, he begins cutting through the small crowd, his eyes glued to the spot he swore he saw her. Which perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise to him, her control of him had always been something that’d shaken him. Since the first day he saw her he was drawn to her like a moth to flame, aware he’d more than likely get burned, but reveling in the allure of it all the same. Little did he know in the end it would be him that’d bring about his own destruction. 

When he’s pushed away the last obstacle in his way, she’s only a few feet from him, the smoke of her cigarette entangling him, proving to him she was no simple trick of his mind. And to be honest he’s not sure what would have been worse, but as he stands their completely frozen, haunted by the sight of the woman who once meant everything to him, he decides this- this is worse.

“Raven,” he hears himself call out, his voice barely above a whisper and cracks with the weight of emotions that now flooded through him. 

Raven Ayres was no longer young, no longer full of promise or potential. The hope in her had expired and soured in her soul and left her tired.

She was someone else now, a ghost, a shade. A poor imitation of a better woman who had been left behind. Abandoned time after time, the only one left standing. She was older now than her parents when they had her, older than Ludovic Mire when he died alone against the rocks, older, too, than Lena and her bad heart. Raven Ayres hadn’t just survived, she had outlived completely. Surpassed, overcome, and let herself wither into dust.  The only one left alive — or so she thought.

For nearly a decade, loss had defined her. Driven her. She poured herself into medicine, she poured herself into Lena, she poured herself another glass of whiskey, she poured and she poured and she poured herself into the things that would distract her from her loss and her fear and her loneliness until there was nothing left. Until she felt empty. Until she lost herself too.

This new woman, this shade, protected the softness inside. The gentle girl, the bleeding heart. She protected her as much as she could, but there was no protecting her from this — the sound of a familiar voice, the feeling of her heart in her throat, of her tonsils swelling. Her own name was a weapon against her, wielded by a dead man. Or maybe his ghost. Or maybe a stranger who shared the same sound, the same voice. Similar enough to shake her, but not enough to wound her.

She looked up at the man and the face and the way that he held his shoulders and his neck and the color of his hair and his mouth and she knew that it was him, but it couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be him, because she had buried him — dead and buried like Lena, like her father, dead, like Fox was sure to be. Raven squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, setting herself, bracing herself against the sudden and hot fire that burned from her heart and up into her teeth.

“Yeah,” she spoke as if breathless, as if the air had been sapped from her lungs. She spoke, and her words dripped with inky betrayal. “You look like,” just like him. But his eyes were blue, not brown, and his face was not so soft or young. Her eyes softened and narrowed and her heart broke and she took a long nervous drag of her cigarette, but her stare did not falter. All the women inside of her stared out at him, and for a moment, they were silent.

When Ludovic Mire died, she had lost so much of herself. Consumed by grief and denied the answers she so desperately needed answered. She came to understand what it meant to lose something that wasn’t hers to lose, and she came to understand that that some wounds would never heal. But Ludovic Mire was not dead. Which means that he had never died at all, and nothing had been lost, and nothing had been gained and she had suffered and she had mourned and she had lost so much of herself for nothing. She wanted to reach out and touch him, she wanted to slap him across the face, she wanted to ask him how or why or what or how, again.

Instead, she rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm and bit down on the side of her cheek to keep herself from saying or feeling or doing any more than she could.

“What the fuck is this?”

[lifeinpoetry]

Do you feel heaven closing itself // to you like a clamshell snapping shut?

Kaveh Akbar, from “Portrait of the Alcoholic with Doubt and Kingfisher,” Calling a Wolf a Wolf (via lifeinpoetry)

[ravenayres-blog]

juniperdemarco:

It was the light that woke her first, her snoring turning into grunts of protest. She could have slept there all day. The hospital style bed couldn’t have been classed as comfortable, but it was more comfortable than the one in her cell. Probably easier to get one decent bed for the sick than to get hundreds for their cells. Cheaper. That was all it came down to. They were an exercise in cruelty and cost reduction. The rich on the outer rims had treated their farm animals better than this. Probably because you could get decent money out of a good cow.

But those weren’t the things Juniper thought about when she woke up in a sleepy haze. Her thoughts were summed up more accurately by her words.

“Motherfuckin’… ugh, damnit.” The words slipped from her lips in the form of a distant groan, the fog of her nap weighing her down like concrete boots. She rolled over, groaning as she remembered her arms; the one that was handcuffed beside her and the one that had just had a makeshift knife inside it.

The woman had been cursing too. At least they were in this together. “I’m awake, fuck.” She was grateful at least that the rest of the room was quiet. It was peaceful in here. The walls filtered out the background noise that she couldn’t. Since she’d lost her hearing in her right ear, when a lot of people were talking at once, it all sort of blended together. The good news was that she could fall asleep practically anywhere by lying on her good ear.

“Blood,” she yawned, noticing it had been dripping down her arm thanks to the guard’s shoddy bandage job while the doc had been out of the room. “You should see the other guy,” she said, deadpan. To Juniper, that counted as a joke, mostly because the other guy was just fine. “Can you do something about this?” she picked up her wrist, gesturing to the handcuff. “Don’t have a cow or anything. I only hit people who deserve it.” The other guy had deserved it. Or he would have, if she got a decent hook in before the son of a bitch who’d come at her. “S'his fault. Thought I was ignoring him. Just my fuckin’ ear. Couldn’t hear him right.” At least it meant he was the one who’d get into trouble. She would be getting into enough of it on her own without a needless fight to her record, but it had accomplished one thing. It had brought her to Raven. She would have needed to come here eventually anyway.

Raven had always been opposed to violence, in theory. Opposed to the mindless brawl or the types of fighting that came from talking and not listening. But in the years since her license was revoked and in the years she spent in the shadows of Wrotham, Raven had become bored with it. Numb to it. But then, she had to be. The only people willing to be her patients were the ones at the wrong end of a fist, of a gun — the only ones who called her Doctor were the ones getting hit. If she gave it the thought she deserved, she might have been grateful for those rowdy few.

And maybe she would have been grateful, too, that those rowdy few were the ones who would come to love her most of all. Or that she would come to love them just the same. But Raven hadn’t given it the thought it deserved, and so she felt no gratitude. It only made her tired. She was tired of seeing her people beaten and bruised; tired of watching them bleed.

This woman, however, was no friend— but she wasn’t a foe either. As she watched the blood drip down her arm and as she watched her settle into talking and talking and talking, Raven wondered if the same men who did this to her had done this to Pyre or Theon or Thane. Either way, it sounded like she, like them, probably didn’t deserve it. But then, it was becoming clear that half the folk in here didn’t deserve it half as bad as they were given. It was almost as if the guards forgot it was bad enough to be left to rot.

“I don’t really care who you hit,” she paused. “As long is it was hard.”

Raven sat down on the rolling stool and scooted towards the other woman, pulling her tray of supplies along with her. It seemed the guards were always bringing her bleeders who looked worse off than they really were. She decided it was better that they were scared of the consequences rather than there being no consequences at all.

“And I can’t do anything about that, but I tell you what, if you’re the type who’s lookin’ for a fight, I know a guy.”

She brushed her hair behind her ear and then reached for the woman’s arm. As always, Raven was half joking. She had always been the type to keep herself entertained above all else. But then, the more fighters ready to give Dallas a whalloping meant more reason for him to keep their agreement going, and the idea of doing any of this sober was enough to make her want to die then and there.

“Aside from this, you got anything else you want checked out? It’s starting to look like they only pull in the ones who, uh, piss ‘em off. I guess. I don’t know,” she paused. “And remind me of your name?”

[ravenayres-blog]

pyrecoren:

His entire body hurt, aching more and more by the second with every new punch that was thrown his way. There were two guards holding his arms and another throwing the hits, the jackets to their sleek uniforms, familiar in an unsettling way, thrown off to the side to not get tainted. It was obvious from the spit at his feet and the cheap, hate-laced insults that left their mouths why these guards had picked him out to beat on. According to record, Pyre must have been with a decade-long military man with overwatcher training on his record. He knew he must have also been a man who abandoned his post to travel the galaxy, only to show up months later and kill dozens at a gala. No, it wasn’t a question of why they were beating him–his only question was when it would be over. 

As his senses dulled and faded, the pain changing from unbearable to numbing, his thoughts floated elsewhere, to the only other thing–rather, people–on his mind. No matter where he was or what he was doing, Pyre’s thoughts always went to them. It had only been a few days since his arrival in Purgatory, but their separation felt like an eternity. Especially in moments like this. 

Pyre’s mind floated to Fox, to their fight in the desert, to the raged misunderstanding that had clawed from Pyre’s throat. The guilt ate at him, adding to the numbness he was feeling; Pyre had looked Fox in the eye and said that he wished he was the man with the pressed jacket tossed to the side to not get dirtied with blood. His mind floated then, strangely, to Thane, to their training sessions in the cargo bay of the Concord. Right now, Pyre was going against every basic instinct Thane had engrained in him fight back no matter the costs. He was sure a twisted hint of a smile must have appeared on his face. It seemed crazy, even now, the amount that he missed Thane. The man who had threatened him relentlessly for–Eretreia. 

And then, she was dancing and smiling in his thoughts and–no, he didn’t want to think. Not anymore. Not of them, not of her. Why couldn’t it all just stop? 

A strong next punch, one causing him to stumble back against the weight of the men holding him up, seemed to be an answer to his prayers. If his vision going dizzy and his skull stinging from the blow weren’t enough of a sign of the severity of the blow, Pyre could feel the blood seeping down his forehead in the next moment, mixing with the sweat that was already there. There were muttered curses from the guards holding him, and at a point they dropped him, clearly arguing with their companion, though their words were muddled to Pyre. 

But, before he could stumble back completely against the wall to rest or take a moment to register the aches of his body and mind, his arms were being grabbed again, only this time he was being dragged down the hall and in an unfamiliar direction. Soon enough, he was being shoved into a room, and through the brief glimpse of it he got through the curls and blood dripping in front of his eyes, it appears to be a doctor’s office. One of the pushed him in the direction of a cot, and Pyre didn’t hesitate to sit on it, his bones aching in protest to the shift. They were spitting instructions at someone Pyre assumed to be a doctor, and then spitting at him not to try anything, as if he was capable of it after what they’d done to him. 

In the next second, they were gone, and suddenly it was just Pyre, the mystery doctor, and the silence that spanned between them left in the room, in which he could hear said doctor rummaging through things across the space. With the silence, came the pain, and then the thoughts. Back to the crew, Always the crew. Eretreia, Thane, Fox, Orion, Raven–

“Thank god,” he heard, and his entire body was numbed to the core. It suddenly became impossible to breath. Pyre knew that voice, and his head snapped up as fast as it could manage to see the figure in front of him, swinging his hair out of his vision so that he could see and be sure. 

Raven. 

It was her, in the flesh, and despite the blurring of his vision that hadn’t completely subsided, Pyre had not a shadow of a doubt that yes, it was her. She looked different from the last time he had seen her at the ball, hair pinned up and a loose smile on her face teasing him, but it was Raven nonetheless. Alive. Here, in Purgatory. 

“Raven,” Pyre let out a breath, his voice shaky and uneven, not entirely a result of the beating. He could feel the tears alright pricking his eyes. His worst fear was that they were all gone and he was truly alone. Here was proof that it had not come true. “Raven, I–you–you’re alive.” It was the most intelligible thing he could manage in the moment. “I thought–oh god–you’re alive.” 

Before he could tell himself not to, for her comfort or for the pain in his body, Pyre reached out to wrap his arms around her middle. The first sob escaped his throat when he buried his face in her shoulder, and in that second, Pyre wasn’t thinking about the blood he was surely getting all over her clothes or the aches in his muscles. “I thought I was alone,” he whispers unevenly, the blood mixing with his tears, blurring his vision even further. The admittance alone makes him let out another sob, and he doesn’t try to fight it or any of the consequential ones. “I thought–you all—you’re alive.” 

When Raven Ayres agreed to join the Concord’s crew she had been prepared to die. Ready, even — almost impatient. She decided that dying on a suicide mission to save the galaxy would be a good way to go. It would be easier to swallow that way, for her mother anyway. For herself too. But of all those who were dead and killed, Raven had survived it all. Against all odds she was alive, and in some ways, she was thriving. Thriving. It seemed impossible, but the ragtag crew had given her a reason to live and above all else, they had given her a reason to fight against the current. To fight against her broken heart, to accept it, to embrace it, to be more than it.

Her time was limited, she knew that. It was limited for all of them. The Benefactor had proven already that they were expendable, and beyond that, they were going to be left to rot here. She couldn't imagine any of them would last long in a place like Purgatory without hope. But then, maybe they would. After all, she had been swayed by hope before.

And there was no man who embodied her hope more than Pyre Coren.

If Fox was her fire, Pyre was her heart. And seeing him now, she felt the tears burn in her eyes and she bit the inside of her cheek until the lump in her throat choked down and settled into her stomach. No tears escaped but in their place, a hard, sharp exhale of a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Her fingers curled in his hair and she pulled on her lips with her teeth.

“I’m fine.”

Her voice was hushed as if speaking any louder would burst the bubble of relief. As if speaking any louder would reveal the shaking in her voice or the chattering of her teeth.

Raven pulled away — just enough to lower herself to his level until they were face to face — and rested a hand on his thigh and the other brushed the hair away from his face. From his wounds. His blood stuck her scrubs to her skin and made her stomach churn. Raven Ayres was not a squeamish woman by any stretch of the imagination — no surgeon was. But something about him now, the way he held himself and the way he sobbed, was different than anything she had seen before. She had watched her loved ones die, but they had never shown her fear like this.

For a moment — less time than she needed, but not as long as she imagined — Raven just looked at him. At every welt and freckle. As if she could see the rest of them in him as if she was trying to find a way to reverse the damage done.

She had seen him look worse. Well, maybe not worse. But closer to death. Compared to that, this was nothing. But this was different, this wasn’t suffering out of necessity or duty. This was something different, something full of hate. She knew better than to hope that this would be the worst of it. After all, they were in prison and he was a cop — lawman gone bad. It was hard to imagine any of them having a bigger target on their backs.

Would it be worse than what had been done to Fox? Would it be enough to kill him, or worse, would it be enough to break him?

If she didn’t find a way to protect them — if they didn’t find a way to protect themselves — what was the point in any of them surviving? There had to be more than suffering. She wanted to believe there was more than suffering. Her jaw set and something in her eyes steeled. If Pyre was her softness, then she would be his strength. She would do all she could to take the weight off his shoulders, to ease his suffering and his fear.  

“I’m fine, and you will be too. Let’s clean you up,” she tried to smile, but her mouth was set into a worried line and her brows were more furrowed than she intended. Gently, she touched the skin above the cut on his forehead. He would need stitches, but it could have been worse. It would be worse later. She bit the inside of her cheek. When she spoke again, it was softer. A bedside manner that hadn’t been seen since she nursed Lena into dying. “You’ll need a few stitches, but who doesn’t love a man with scars?”

Raven’s mouth twitched with anxiety as she rushed back towards the iodine and the cotton swabs, she opened a drawer and found the tools she would need to patch him back together. There was no movement wasted, and when she settled back in front of him she sat beside him with the tools on the metal cart beside her.

“This is gonna hurt.”

[ravenayres-blog]

raven ayres + moodboards

[ravenayres-blog]

date: January 12th, 2178 starting location: cellblock F, level beta availablity: closed to @ludomire

Down the hall, two men were fighting.

She had grown accustomed to the sounds of knuckles hitting flesh. The sound of bones crunching and the sudden groans of men as they broke and bled. Now, it wasn’t so much shocking as it was an inconvenience. A group of inmates rushed towards the sounds of fighting, but Raven hung back and pressed her back against the wall. In the two months, she had spent in Purgatory, she had learned that the key to survival was staying as far away from the prison’s chaos as possible — but sometimes (most times) it was something that couldn't be helped.

Raven was close enough to hear one of the powerhouses hit the ground, she could hear his weight bounce against the ground and settle and when she craned her neck to see, she could only guess that just because one of them was down didn’t mean the other was out. That was the nature of Purgatory. If the prison didn’t kill you, something else would. Madness or men or filth. As if on queue, the alarm blared and the gates to the block shut.

It was amazing how quickly the guilty and the more guilty could be separated.

A few inmates managed to slip past the closing gate. Smart, she thought. Anyone left on the other side would be punished the same as the men who were fighting. That was always the case. The planet had been abandoned and left to rot, and so had they. There would be no mercy, there was no more room for it.

By now, she knew better than to ask how long it would take before the gate would open. And she knew the prison well enough now to know that she was in a dead-end block, fit only for playing cards and trading for smuggled cigarettes — the latter, in her case. Moments like these made her wonder if her smoking habit was worth it or if she would be better off quitting, but then she remembered Purgatory and she decided that there was no use in denying herself the few small pleasures she had left. Something that, if all else failed, might at least speed up her slow march to an end — and sometimes, the idea of that was all she had.

Without much thought, she lit her cigarette and let herself slide against the wall until she was sitting on the cold, grimy floor, and resolved herself to wait.

[jesse-custer]

[isabellelightboob-archived-deac]

[ravenayres-blog]

DATE: DECEMBER 30th. LOCATION: BETA LEVEL. STATUS: CLOSED TO @dallascosta .

Sleep had never come easily to her. Her father had always said that she had gotten this — along with so many things — from him. Even as a child, she would lay awake and do her best to count the planets backward and forwards and she imagined sheep jumping over the edge of her feet and she imagined the walls of her room being painted black until her head was nothing but silence. That silence was always short-lived, and in the end, falling asleep had always been a hard-fought victory for Raven. But it didn’t end there.

Over the years, Raven had collected ghosts for herself. The kind of ghosts that waited in dreams to remind her of better nights and better days and a better version of herself. Sometimes, in her dreams, she would kiss her wife and sometimes she would fuck her and always always always she would wake up alone. Other times, she would dream of Lena dying and relive the moments she wanted to forget, and every time, she would wake up more tired than before.

The cure for both ailments, was, of course, a quick nightcap. Or more, maybe. Depending on the night. But then, a quick drink was Raven’s cure for most things. Doctor Ayres’ magical elixir: two fingers of whiskey before bed and maybe one to wake up and maybe a few more just to make it through the day.

And so — as she had last week and the week before and the week before that — Raven Ayres sat at the edge of Dallas Costa’s bunk and watched the burning end of a cigarette. She had been waiting there the better part of an hour, but it was hard to know anyone’s schedule. For the most part, Raven’s time in Purgatory was built on routines. She woke up, she went to work, she waited, and then she waited a little longer. But once the day stopped being about medicine and started being about prison, Raven felt lost.

People had their own patterns and it would take more than two months to nail them down.

For the first twenty minutes, Raven hadn’t thought much of it. There weren’t many things to look forward to in Purgatory, and while it wasn’t necessarily Dallas she was looking forward to seeing, the sentiment remained. She leaned to the side and put her cigarette out against the wall. Soon, she would have her drink and he would have his pills, and they would both be better for it. But now, nearing the hour mark, she was tired of being alone with her thoughts and her cigarette was burning at the filter.

Raven leaned over and put her cigarette out on the wall, but just as she stood up, Dallas Costa walked through the door to his cell.

“You look like shit.”

[ravenayres-blog]

juniperdemarco:

Timestamp: January 8, 1:07pm Location: Medical Bay Status: Closed to @ravenayres

She’d barely been here a few days and already she’d got into a fight. It wasn’t her fault. Least that was what Juniper maintained. If someone with an Adam’s apple the size of a nutsack wanted to come forward to make an example out of her, who was she to just take it? Juniper could’ve plucked him off like fruit from a tree with her sniper rifle, but here within Purgatory’s walls, she was left exposed. She could hold her own in a fist-fight, but it wasn’t her preferred method. And that was what had left her where she was now, being dragged to medical bay by two guards with a gash spitting blood down her arm.

“Hey, easy,” she spat to the one to her right. “Not so much with the hands.”

“Easy yourself, ma'am,” one of the androids answered. “You need medical attention. We’re merely escorting you to the medical bay.”

Ma'am. She scoffed. Who did they think she was? “This? I’ve had worse shaving my legs.”

And on it went during their walk to the medical bay, all the way up until they left her hastily bandaged and lying on the cot with a handcuff on her wrist and the outside door locked ‘til the doctor came back from lunch.

“That’ll have to do 'til the doc gets there,” the human guard said. He was one of the few human guards in the place. “Try not to move too much.”

“Is this enough?” she asked, giving him the finger with her good arm. “Good thing I’m not bleeding to death…” she muttered. The guards merely rolled their eyes, but the human gave her a swift elbow to the stomach as a warning before he left. Juniper huffed, testing the restraint that kept her away from all the cabinets with the drugs and scalpels in them. This wasn’t the way she would’ve liked to be handcuffed to a bed, but what could ya do? The doc wasn’t there, so she nuzzled into the thing that passed for a pillow and closed her eyes, dozing off. She must’ve been snoring like an equidae by the time the doc finally came back.

Raven was not having the best day.

But then, most days weren’t the best in Purgatory. She assumed this was the point. After all, prison wasn’t meant to be a walk in the park for anyone. She had been given a special number of privileges and allowed little things — it wasn’t to ease her suffering so much as it was an effort to keep her useful. And for her part, Raven was grateful.

It was easier to be useful than not, and with careful finagling, she was able to keep an eye on her people. And anyway, she would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy the opportunity to patch them back up. When they came to her, it was almost as though nothing had changed. Like nothing was different.

But everything was different. Everything was new. Everything was rich with uncertainty.

Two months in and they still didn’t know who was alive and who was dead. Two months in and still no sign of Fox or Augustus. Two months in and the reality was beginning to sink in. Whoever was left unfound would stay unfound. In Purgatory there were no missing persons, only dead ones. But still, those who remained needed to keep moving. Raven knew this better than most. Keep moving, keep working, keep doing what they could. No one knew how long they would be there, but Raven had always known that they were nothing short of expendable.

Accompanied by two guards, Raven entered the room. Her hands were behind her head, an act of submission that made her skin crawl. They patted her down, just as they would before they let her leave, and left her alone to her work. Still, Raven didn’t move until the sound of the lock clunked shut on the other side of the door.

Her arms dropped and she heaved a heavy sigh. Laying on the examination bed was a woman sleeping. At least in prison it didn’t matter that her reputation was tarnished. At least in prison it didn’t matter that a man was dead. At least in prison she could be a doctor again. Selfishly, Raven thought she could get used to it.

She approached the woman and turned on her tablet. Examinations in Purgatory were different than they were on the outside. The protocol was different, the level of care was different. The only reason it was in their interest to keep the inmates healthy was so they could live their life as miserable as the confederation intended. Rotting in a cell was a better determent than taking the easy way out.

“Wake up,” once and then again louder. Raven rubbed her face with a hand. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

[ravenayres-blog]

10: Something that turns your character on for science

“Two words: good oral.”

[ravenayres-blog]

Character Development

SEND ME A NUMBER AND HELP ME DEVELOP MY CHARACTER

Memories

01: A memory from your character's childhood

02: A memory from your character's teenage years

03: A memory from your character's career

04: A memory that your character cherishes

05: A memory that your character wishes to erase

Emotions

06: Something that makes your character angry

07: Something that makes your character happy

08: Something that makes your character laugh

09: Something that frightens your character

10: Something that turns your character on

People

11: Describe your character's childhood friend

12: Describe your character's parents

13: Describe your character's former lover

14: Describe your character's present best friend

15: Describe your character's worst enemy

Activities

16: What your character does on a day of

17: What kind of books your character reads

18: What kind of music your character likes

19: What your character does when they wake up

20: What your character is like at social events

[ravenayres-blog]

theonwyndham:

date + time : november 18th, 02:15 AM location: cell blocks, level beta, purgatory status : closed, @ravenayres

The path was dark, his feet unsure. Hands scratching the surface of something, desperate to find a way out. The walls felt almost alive, humid and breathing, almost alive, like you, something sticking to his nervous fingers. He never thought of halting, his mind always urging him to go on, to move towards the light. But the light never came, never appeared. The tunnel had no end, usually. The nightmare always stopped with him suffocating to death.

Not this time, though.

He knew this room, well … he thought he did. Vaguely, perhaps. This time, the tunnel ended. It brought him to a room he did not want to step in, but did anyway. Casting his blue eyes down when his foot got stuck in something, he frowned. So detailed, realistic. He bent a little and his long, dextered fingers grabbed a card. It looked like a key. Weird, as no doors were to be seen in the dark room. The foul smell also assaulted his senses and he forced himself to push through, determined to discover the truth. Hoping that somehow, this room would held more answers.

answers to what questions, though?

Slowly but surely, he suddenly stopped in front of a pod. Heavy tubes were connected to it, a faint, yellow green light illuminating its content. It did not take much for him to realize what was happening.“Eliott…” A broken sob escaped his chapped lips, bloodied fingertips pushing against the glass. It wouldn’t break.

Thunder rang above their heads; he thought he could hear Alyx shouting for him from behind. weren’t you alone? He couldn’t turn, though. Gaze fixed on the corpse before him, and in an instant, it was looking back at him. Ground was shaking, something was happening but he did not care. Eli was alive, there. In front of him. His cold, dead hand gripping Theon’s wrist hard. “Don’t leave.” It murmured before everything went black.

–

Heart beating hestacticly, feeling as though a bucket of icy water had been dropped on his head, Theon extirpated himself violently from his dream. His companion had joined the fun, standing next to him, nails biting into his shoulder. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.” His voice was barely a whisper, not even disturbing the calmness of the prison’s night. How many times did he repeat this sentence over the past days, weeks even. Surely, his companion would soon enough request a transfer. Perhaps even regretting her decision to help him throughout this whole ordeal. Without her, Theon would never stand a chance. Purgatory was not a forgiving scene, and its complex power structure was evasive. The only thing that needed to be remembered was that the weak got killed, beaten up to death, eaten by the most powerful ones.

His pale complexion shone under the artificial lights of Purgatory, weariness now a fixture in his bones. Sitting up, he felt the goosebumps on his skin. Elbow was still killing him, and soon enough he knew he would have difficulties extending his arm to its full reach. Cursed enhancements. A man named Hisroc had told him how a pretty girl he was, a week after he woke up in this hellish place.The following moments were still a bit hazy to him; the desire to relive them nonexistent. He remembered the saltiness in his mouth, the urge to throw up and the crazy decision of standing up for his own sorry ass. Really, Theon was no threat to anyone, let alone some guy at the head of a prison gang. It was honestly the first time someone delivered a punch to his face, and Theon did not need all the repeated experiences afterwards to know he wasn’t a fan. It wouldn’t surprise anyone that the engineer did not last more than 5 days before they ate him up alive.

Though, thinking about it now, maybe he needed to thank Hisroc. The beating sent him to the infirmary, where the first good news he had presented itself in the form of Doctor Raven Ayres.

A hand touched his forehead, cutting his thoughts as if it knew what they were, and Theon forced himself to look up at Raven. Letting out a small sigh, he leaned in, finding comfort again from her presence. Sure, the deal she made, the one she refused to talk about, was about his personal safety. None of the other inmates dared lifting one finger at him the past few days. This counted for something. But her prolonged presence, steady and fierce, brought something more substantial; a couple of broken ribs, cracked fingers and skull, he could withstand it all, as long as she was there at the end. In the confined space of a prison he never knew existed before, she was the only one he was certain that survived.

All the others though… Shaking his head a little to cut through his thoughts before it went too far, Theon moved a bit, in case she wanted to sit. Their facing beds were not much, could barely hold two adults. The proximity was an accustomed thing, now. They saw each other every day, working and sleeping in the same spaces. The only times Theon did not know the doctor’s location was when he was working with technical stuff that needed repairs. The beautiful thing about human beings were their ability to adapt; soon enough Raven and Theon developed their own routine, each other’s presence now an intrinsic part of their lives. She had made him her assistant, her medical assistant, knowing well enough his only expertise were cold, metallic bodies. Not soft, pliant and hot ones.

Today’s death probably affected him more than he thought; his nightmare had never involved others before.

“You look like shit.”

But Raven had no right to judge him. She herself hadn't slept in days, and it was beginning to show. 

It made sense that Theon was struggling. It was hard for her to imagine anyone doing well in a place like this. After all, Purgatory was rife with reasons to be miserable. The mystery of who is living and who is dead, the tightly quartered cells, the watchful eyes of guards who protected less than they maimed. 

She wondered, briefly, if he was suffering from shock from the day. After all, it was difficult to see someone die, and even more difficult to know that you might have kept them from dying. When she was new to medicine, she herself had struggled with the weight of it. She struggled with it and then it became a part of her. For the sake of their foreseeable future, Theon would need to get a stomach for it before too long. And more than that, he would need to learn how to close himself off from death. Or at least, the death of someone he didn't love.

Raven gently pressed her cold finger against the bruise under her eye and slumped back onto her bed. The mattress was uncomfortable and the blankets were thin, but at least it was better than standing on concrete. And at least it was better than being dead, at least, it was for now. 

And at any rate, it was better than it could have been. After all, they had each other when they could have been alone. She wondered how long Purgatory would be to them, how long until they were separated or worse. Earth I was a planet where people were sent to rot with the soil — there was no way they would be making it out of there alive. The best she could do for now was protect who she could for as long as she could, and for now, that meant protecting Theon. 

Raven lit a cigarette and rolled it in her fingers before leaning over and offering one to him.

"Was it another nightmare?"

[ravenayres-blog]

location: purgatory medical bay date: november 11 status: closed to @pyrecoren

Raven Ayres was tired. She was tired and her joints ached, and as she looked at herself in the reflection of a first aid kit, she couldn’t help but wince. It looked as though her face was covered in one big bruise, and it nearly was. There was a faded yellowed bruise on her jaw, dark purple circles under her eyes from a broken nose, and a deep thick scab from a split lip. Lucky, she thought, that none of it had required stitches. That none of it would scar. At least, not as far as she could tell.

But the hardest part of her reflection wasn’t the violence marked on her face, but the uncertainty in her expression. In her posture, in her bones. She looked like a stranger, and it made her wonder: how did I get here? How did Raven Ayres go from nearly dead to rotting on Earth I? How did she get wrapped up in this mess? How had she let herself be vulnerable again — after all, she had always known how this would end. Before, she had nothing to lose, and now, she had everything.

The crew of the Concord had dug their way under her skin. In running from her home, she had found a new one and for a moment, just a moment, she had almost felt alive again. Like a person. Whole. But now, there was no knowing what had happened to them. No way of finding easy answers. The last thing she could remember was the sound of an explosion, and then nothing. And then Purgatory. Fitting, it seemed, for a woman who had joined the mission just to die. God, but for a woman who had ached for death, she had fought so hard against it time and time again. She could only hope that the rest of them had the same instincts. The same gut punch instinct to survive.

Slowly but surely, Raven was starting to form a list in her head of who was alive and who was dead. As the list of dead or supposed dead shrunk, she felt a weight lifted off of her chest. But the heaviest possibilities still weighed her down on her lungs. She had found Theon first, and she was nearly certain she had seen a glimpse of Alyx, but what did that mean for the others? What did that mean for Thane, for Kallia, for Gus, and Pyre, and Fox? She had picked at her cuticles until her fingers were bloodied and covered in band-aids.

It had been a lifetime since Raven had felt like this — alone, and waiting for the other shoe to drop. It reminded her of waiting for Lena to die, and her father’s lingering death soon after. She wondered if it would feel any different this time, if an unexpected death would hurt her more or less. But that kind of thinking didn’t ease any anxiety, it didn’t make her any less on edge or any less jumpy. All it did was make her feel tired and exposed, and it made her hate the Benefactor even more.

Despite — or in spite of — the possibility that most of them had died in the explosion or the capture or after, Raven found herself pouring over the medical records of the prisoners that they would provide her. But the list of patients always had redacted named, and the resources she had beyond the single examination room they allowed her were few. Still, despite the missing bits of information, Raven had been able to piece together a man who might have been Thane and a woman who might have been Cairo. Still, there was room for error and she wasn’t one to get her hopes up for nothing.

Raven jumped when the door opened suddenly. Without thinking, she covered the worst of her face with her hand and jolted up to her feet. The guards that waited outside her door almost never entered without reason, and she wasn’t typically the go-to doctor they went to when there was a choice. It was slowly becoming clear that she was only the top choice when there was a secret to hide or a prisoner with a habit of biting back. She was, after all, expendable.

She steeled herself for whatever was about to come when suddenly — her heart nearly stopped, she felt herself take a sharp inhale of breath and then stand back. As if to put herself at a distance from her own relief; her own emotion. Just behind the guard, but in plain sight, was Pyre Coren. Raven did her best to keep a stoic expression, but she had never been much good at lying.

He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, and she wondered if this was why they had sent her to him. Almost certainly, the cut wasn’t as bad as it looked, but the blood was enough to take her breath away. She wanted to know who had done that to him, and she wanted to make them sorry.

Wordlessly, Raven Ayres crossed another name off the list of the dead.

“Do what you do, and keep quiet,” said the first guard harshly. Raven’s mouth opened but sealed shut the moment she thought better of it. The first guard left, and then, after what seemed like a lifetime, the second followed suit.

She waited for the loud thwack of the door locking from the outside before moving towards her cabinet of supplies. Her fingers felt numb as she fumbled for the disinfectant and the swabs, every piece of her struggled to keep from shaking — even her hands, her unshakable hands, seemed to fail her. The relief was palpable, but a new fear arose. The same fears she had for Theon. Now that she knew they were alive, how could she protect them?

She held a bottle of iodine in her hand for a heartbeat before letting it drop onto the counter and rushing towards him.

Thank god, she wanted to say.

So she did.