#eldon rp

[walkinkaijublue-blog]

     "I'd be lying if I said everything was peachy right now."

[walkinkaijublue-blog]

oops } open ;

——  {{         “  Uh...  don't  be  alarmed,  but I                            think I just got shot.  ————  ”

[walkinkaijublue-blog]

breaking it off }} drabble (or starter idk???) ;

    ❝ I lied, you know. ❞

            He says it mostly to the room. Or, more specifically, to the empty space beside him, where his bed sheets were still pristine and untouched,  only slightly wrinkled by his own settlement beside them the evening before. Some part of him wanted to tousle them, to bring a sort of lived-in disorder to the ugly, yellow-white linen. His bedding was all standard issue, from the sheets to the blankets to the pillowcases. All ugly, varying degrees of yellowy-white, to gray, to a hideous shade of green. Sometimes, he was embarrassed by them—they were a testament to his frugality, and he had long since learned that such a quality was anything but flattering. He would find himself lost in the idea of people laughing at him behind his back, whispering to each other and shaking their heads as if  to say 'look at little Eldon Pheyst, too broke to buy his own bed sheets'. He would imagine people calculating the cost of his pills and his hospital debt, adding up the numbers and trying to discern just how much of his salary was wasted on cripple upkeep. He would imagine himself being pitied.

            But most of the time, he was logical. Not in the sense that he was unembarrassed, but in the sense that he knew no one would come into his room. He tried to be careful about who he allowed to enter, and even more careful about who he allowed to get too close to his bed. The amount of intimacy associated with sharing a bed was immense, and sharing his own bed even moreso—even the notion of someone else touching his pillow gave him heart palpitations.

            And yet, the other side of the bed was sacred ground. He was abhorrent of the idea of a another human being there, and yet he refused to venture to that side even in slumber. His bed was made for two, and he occupied precisely one half, absolutely refusing to touch the other because it was meant to be empty. It symbolized a closeness he could not begin to fathom, something he considered far beyond his narrow realm of understanding. If he were to stray into it, he would be claiming it as his own territory. He would be violating that sacredness, and it, in turn, would symbolize an acceptance of his own loneliness. It would mean that he gave up entirely.

            He'd nearly crossed into the other side of the bed before. Months ago, when Jessie had left him. His hand had hovered over it, trembling with a desire to twist up the sheets and pull them to him. But he didn't. He couldn't. He left them be and there they remain, only touched when he re-makes the bed and presses it down sternly into wrinkle-free perfection. His fingers strayed to a wrinkle, now, and smoothed it out slowly. His words felt like they were still stuck to the fabric, hovering there and waiting for the inevitable continuation of a painful thought—no, a painful understanding of thought.

            "About this, I mean." He drew his hand back, folding spidery fingers into his palm. Spidery fingers that punched phone keys. That traced over jaw bones and shirt sleeves, that pressed into that comforting space between shoulder-blades when he allowed someone too close. When he allowed him too close. "About everything." His eyes turned away to look at everything else in the room—at the barren shelves and walls, at the boxes stacked in the corner stuffed full of a life he was leaving and waiting to be either burned or buried. He swallowed with difficulty, and his fingers now plucked at the fabric of his slacks. "About.. about wanting you, and missing you, and feeling better when you were around. I lied about that."

            He looked at the barren side of the bed again. No one had ever slept there, especially not the man in question, and yet it symbolized him perfectly. It symbolized the thin, fragile barrier he put up between himself and crippling loneliness, the nights of lapses in judgement and invasions of privacy, of boozed-up trust that made his skin crawl to remember and yet spread an alien kind of warmth through his bloodstream. His shoulders trembled, now, and he turned his eyes sharply away. Now he stared at the blank space that once sported an old, worn-out Kingdom Hearts poster. "And I'm sorry. It was wrong of me." His eyes rolled slowly downwards to the floor. His lab coat was there, neatly folded on top of a stack of all the other clothes he planned on getting rid of.

            For a moment, he admired it. The Kaiju blue and coffee stains, the frayed edges of the cuffs and the patch on one of the elbows from an experiment gone awry. That coat was made of memories. It practically radiated them, spilling out both good times and pad until they pooled on the floor, flooding the room up to his ankles. He shuddered and drew his feet up to set on the sideboard.

            "I was desperate, and alone, and I needed somebody to—to distract me." His fingers coiled around his write wrist. He could feel the scars, raised and rough beneath the soft pads of his fingertips. "From what I wanted to do to myself." Blue eyes flitted to the newspaper on his nightstand. A blurry image of a strung-up corpse. Hong Kong had found Dr. Lussac's body, and what a spectacle it was. "And to others." He swallowed so hard that it was audible, and pressed his eyes shut. Why did he do this to himself?

            Eldon felt like he was going to be sick, and this wasn't even face-to-face. It was cowardly. But how was he going to say that to his face? How could he look in his eyes and say this, confidently, without breaking down? Without folding like a cheap suit under the weight of his own desperation for company, and taking everything back as just another one of his self-destructive examples of his own fragile psyche? He didn't know. So, for his own safety, he'd chosen this method. It was better than nothing.

            He opened his eyes, then pulled off his glasses to set them on his nightstand. Over the picture of Dr. Lussac's body. In this pits of his stomach, he swore he could feel her manicured nails strumming impatiently on his insides. Have you been taking your pills, Dr. Pheyst? I don't feel them in here. "And I.. I want to thank you, for the time we've had together." An attempt at a smile that he was sure looked as grotesque as it felt. This immediately faded into his typical frown. "You've been great company, and a.. a decent influence." Words were getting a little harder, now. He wanted to say less and yet more, to cover all his bases without fucking up and admitting to what he was trying his best to block out.

            His fingers reached over to the ID badge beside him. Today was the last time he'd ever wear it. He had turned in the appropriate forms for resignation. "You're a fantastic person." He picked up the badge, and began to toy with it between his hands. Even without his glasses, he could see his own printed face. So healthy and animated, so excited to be there. One of the few times he'd ever smiled from ear to ear. He often found himself staring at the picture, now, and wondering what happened. "I bet some day you'll make someone very, very happy."

            Eldon put the badge down. He was supposed to have turned it in with his forms, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. It was a precious memory, and it deserved to be buried with the coat. He'd already picked a nice place to bury them. Underneath a lovely little tree he'd seen growing in an abandoned lot on the fringes of the Bone Slums. It wasn't beautiful, but the simplicity of it was something he admired, and he didn't want to bury what was left of the good in him somewhere ugly.

            "I'm not going to ask you to forgive me." He looked at the empty side of the bed. At the cell phone perched on the pillow, open. In an active call. He offered it a thin, weary smile. "I'd really prefer if you didn't. I think it'd be much better for us both if you absolutely hated me for this." And maybe hurt me for it, he added to himself, not daring to voice such a thought aloud. Eldon was sure he deserved to be beaten to all hell for this. He damn well deserved to lose his other leg. To be able to do this to another person, it felt so.. so inhuman.

            And yet he knew it was one of the most human things he'd ever done. Insensitivity and destruction, chaos and betrayal, self-ruination... it was all so human. People did it all the time. But somehow, he felt like a monster. A monster with its paws wrapped around a smiling mirror of himself, claws pressing into throat and jaw until all the life drained from his fragile body. "It would be, ah—it would be therapeutic, I think." He felt a chill run down his spine.

            He ran his fingers through his hair, then groped blindly for his glasses and pushed them slowly back onto his face as he rose unsteadily to his feet. Absently, he wondered if his voice would sound quieter on the line, now. Even if it was on speaker. "Don't try to find me," he said, rolling up the newspaper and throwing it in the trash. "It wouldn't do you much good, and it'd be a waste of time." He put the stacked clothes in a box with a crude drawing of a coffin. For the sake of organization, so he knew what to bury and what to burn. The ecologist returned to his bed to place the ID card at the top, and his fingers trembled as he began to seal it up. His head hurt.

            Slowly, he picked up the phone and stared at it. He'd be burying this, too—he'd purchased a new phone, with a new number and everything. It was still a cheap piece of shit, but it was a different cheap piece of shit. That was what mattered. "This, uh.. this phone will be paid for until the end of next month, though." He ran his thumb absently along the many scratches on one side, around the charger port. From the million times he'd tried to plug it in while plastered. "I won't be using it anymore after today, but I heard some people take comfort in listening to answering machines, soooo..." He was cautiously holding the phone away from his ear. The volume was down low, because he was afraid to hear what the other man's reaction would be. God, he was so fucking afraid. He had to end this now before he took it all back just to save his own ass.

                                                                                     ❝ I guess this is goodbye. ❞

[walkinkaijublue-blog]

alternative employment }} +habbinalchau

    This was a poor decision. This was a terrible, no good, very bad decision that rang sharp in his lungs and tore apart at the fabric of his conscience, fraying it and burning the fibers into something akin to his ashen countenance. He hadn't slept in days. He'd been evasive. He'd kept Herc at arm's length and he'd kept the resignation papers he took from the man's desk well-hidden, waiting until the right moment to turn them in. Today had felt like a good moment. Today had felt like he would just leave it like a suicide note and disappear, and he damn well almost did it. He got as far as the door to the Marshal's office before he chickened out and shoved the papers into his bag, instead favoring a hasty retreat to the door and out into the muggy Hong Kong air.

    He was wearing nice clothes. He wanted to make a good impression when he set this awful idea into motion, and so he pulled his bag close to his side and tugged at the fabric of his maroon herringbone blazer, eyes downcast and lips pressed into a thin line. The farther he went from the Shatterdome, the heavier his heart felt; he knew he would be coming back that evening, but after that, he was unsure. It all depended on how this meeting went.

    Once upon a time, he would have lost his mind if he'd had to leave the Shatterdome. He'd have done anything to stay in his lab, in his safe little ecosystem that he had built around himself, and he would never have dreamed of abandoning it. The lab was his safe place. It was the only home he had. And that dependency was what got him in this mess in the first place--he'd been so attached to it that he'd killed an innocent woman over it. Or rather, he'd let his psychopathic companion do it, and then went over to his house and willingly ate part of her in some fancy-ass French dish he couldn't remember the name of.

    He'd thought, at the time, that eating her would confirm her death and that would erase his guilt. But he was wrong. Now the Shatterdome was haunted, and his lab was especially tormenting. Once his haven, it was now something akin to hell that tore at the very fiber of his being and made him sick to his stomach. He'd had six episodes this week. Six. Twice, he had two in one day, and all of them were because of the stress his lab caused him. He couldn't remember the last time he ate, or drank, or slept more than an hour. He'd nearly forgotten to take his medication that morning, he was so out of it.

    He sort of wished he had forgotten. He deserved the agony of rejected organs for what he'd done.

    The ecologist did not take long to get to the Bone Slums. His fingers trembled as they twisted into the strap of his bag, pulling it closer, ever-conscious of pickpockets. The bones of the Reckoner loomed over him, illuminated by the lambs suspended in its hollows and casting him in its enormous shadow. He suddenly felt terribly, terribly small.

    "I fucking hate this place." He pressed his eyes shut and took a deep, shaky breath. Being near the Reckoner, when he was so unstable, made it nearly impossible to keep himself from breaking down. But he had to. He had business to attend to, and he had to stay strong. A weak mind on the path he journeyed would spell complete and utter disaster, and he knew it. So today he had to be stronger. Today he had to straighten his back and rub the fog of sleeplessness from his eyes, tighten his tie against his throat, and keep walking until he reached the one place in Hong Kong he swore he'd never visit again.

.    Quietly, he stepped in to the building, and his eyes traveled across the golden logo on the floor. His fingers trembled harder. Blue eyes trailed slowly across the room, until they settled on the red-coated back of the man he'd come to see. He felt like he was going to be sick. "Do you remember that offer you made to me ages ago?" The phrase broke through the din of work, and suddenly all was silence. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. "I think I've... I've finally got an answer for you." He spoke loud enough to be heard, but was careful to keep the tremor from his voice. His eyes flitted down to the floor. To his nice, polished leather shoes. A gift from Dr. Lecter.

    He forced himself to look up, and he saw his reflection in a familiar pair of dark glasses. "And that answer," he said, swallowing, "is 'yes'."

[walkinkaijublue-blog]

i can't stay here ; {{ d r a b b l e }}

    Eldon could see her, sometimes.

    The woman he'd murdered. Funny how a guilty conscience can turn a mind mad--he swore, sometimes he could see Dr. Lussac in the corner of his eye, staring over her clipboard as she jotted down notes. Sometimes he saw her in the mirror. In his lab. In the flickers of shadows just before he turned on the light in his bunk. The woman was a regular visitor in the flickering gaps between his sanity and his sense.

    He was glad that Herc wasn't around to see him like this. That no one was around to see him like this. The ecologist had locked himself away in either lab or bunk, back and forth, refusing to do much beyond feed his macaw and try to avoid Max at all costs. That fucking dog always managed to get around him, though--even now, it was sprawled near his desk, snoring to disrupt the deafening silence his lab often created. Graham was asleep as well; Eldon wasn't.

    He didn't recall the last time he slept. He'd read somewhere that after a few days, the body starts shutting down without rest, but he didn't care--he kept a steady diet of coffee and nothing else, and his fingers trembled violently without fail. He found himself shaking like a leaf when he wasn't paying attention, as of late, and he wasn't sure if he was cold or if his body was just confused.

    Eldon was sad to admit that he was right about the taste of fear. It ate him right back with a vengeance, and the only distraction he had to offer himself was his daily conversations with Herc--usually, he tried to keep them as text. Because he knew for certain that if he slipped up, if he cracked and Hansen heard, it would end in disaster. No one could ever know what he had done. What he'd allowed to happen.

    That was a secret only he and Dr. Lecter would share.

    But the problem with this secret was that it was unbearable to keep--he wanted desperately to talk about it, to scream at the top of his lungs, but there was no one he could talk to. Even if Hannibal was the one who helped him, voicing his concerns to the man was the worst thing he could imagine. If he opened up, if he exposed that vulnerability, what would Dr. Lecter do? Encourage him? Tell him it gets easier over time? That it gets easier after the first time?

    That was what sickened him. That he knew, deep down, this wouldn't be the only time he'd do this. If his life was threatened by forces he could not control, he would control them or destroy them. He just hoped that he'd never have to do it with his bare hands. If he was already guilty for making Hannibal do it, he was sure that trying to do it himself would break him.

    He was broken enough already, and breaking down more and more every day. He'd had two episodes in the past few days, each vicious and exhausting, and he'd been a nervous wreck ever since. It took all of his willpower to sound relaxed on the phone. To pretend he was normal. If anything, his calls with Hansen were like practice; he used the other man to see how well he was at faking it, and he was a welcome distraction from the chaos of Eldon's muddled thoughts.

    That was why he was so open. So easy. Because he was desperate, and Hansen was a outlet so he could try and pretend everything was okay. He was scared for what the other man would do when they saw each other again; if he noticed something wrong, he'd refuse to let it go, and Eldon didn't have the strength to resist an interrogation.

    But if he told Herc, the fear would eat him alive. He'd have to get rid of him, too.

    "I can't do that." He pressed clammy palms over his face, letting out a ragged sigh. "I can't, I can't, I can't--I'm not going to!" The ecologist's nails pressed into his ashen skin, trying to pull him back to his senses. It didn't work very well. "I just--c-can't tell him--or a-anybody, I have to--to--"

    And here, his head lifted, staring through the gaps in his fingers. His lab, once a safe place, now felt like it was haunted by the guilt he harbored. He trembled. "I have to leave the Shatterdome." His voice was quiet. Quavering, as he felt tears welling in his eyes. All this that he'd worked so hard for, now making him so profoundly miserable that he had to abandon it or go insane and fess up--it was heartbreaking.

    Quietly, the ecologist dropped his hands and procured his phone, looking through his contacts and staring at one in particular. 'Chau'. His eyes pressed tightly shut, and he dropped his forehead onto his desk. "I have t'wait." He shook his head, and his voice was slurring as he tried to speak through the beginning of a hysterical breakdown, "I have t'wait for Herc, so m'not--m'not gone before he gets back." He set his phone down, then buried his face in his hands and collapsed into himself.

    This was going to be a long, long few weeks.

[walkinkaijublue-blog]

firstwithfire replied to your post:firstwithfire replied to your post:firstwithfire...

God. Now Herc is…really really wishing he could witness that. Really.

Ha, ha, ha. Suck it, Herc.

[walkinkaijublue-blog]

firstwithfire replied to your post:firstwithfire replied to your post “ooc } i’m...

Herc is laughing all the way to the airport. And thinking about that kiss for way longer.

Ten bucks says Eldon's thinking about it for longer. Although he has the luxury of the privacy of his bunk to come to terms with it, and this he takes full advantage of.

Full advantage of. With the radio on. Yeah.

[walkinkaijublue-blog]

"They want a pilot. A goddamn Marshal. Someone to trot out and show off. They don't care that I've got shit to do. The face of our loss, they called me." Herc's jaw tightened. "They want me to talk about Chuck and Stacker."

    Oh. Eldon felt his shoulders tense up and knew that he was pissed off, and this time he didn't feel the need to question it. How could they do that? It was like if they made Eldon take off his leg and have a chat about recovering from amputation. "That's--" He paused. Swallowed. Wondered how to put this into words. "--fucked up."

    Yuhp, nailed it. 'Fucked up' was the perfect phrase for this situation. Making him use his loss as a way to recruit kids, so they could have losses of their own? It made him sick to his stomach.

    Almost nervously, he extended his hands, taking one of Herc's and patting it a little awkwardly. "If you, um.." His lips pressed into a thin line, then he offered a small smile. For once, he was going to be genuine. "If you need to call me at all, you can." And he let Herc go. Drew his hands moreso towards himself, and into his pockets.

    "I know how awful it is to.. to, ah.. open old wounds when you're not ready to." And he did. When he first came home for the funeral, his aunt made him talk about the incident at the funeral, and to the press, and to damn near anyone who would listen. He was her "little survivor" that she was taking care off, and some sick, twisted part of her liked to see him squirm. "It fucks you up if you don't talk to anybody."

    Hence why he was one of the few people who never left around holidays. Hence why he had a list of medications a mile long. Hence his personality issues. Sad, how only now he knew how important it was to talk to people.