Dr. S. Klim (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
futilecycle) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thearena2013-11-07 12:47 pm
futilecycle) wrote in thearena2013-11-07 12:47 pm
Entry tags:
[OPEN] The night won't compensate the blind
Who | Sigma Klim, Eponine Thenardier, and You!
What | Sigma and Eponine pass the time in their shelter, and later Sigma's last stand in the Arena.
When | Week 2-3
Where | In the jungle.
Warnings | Illness, drinking with a minor, death and mentions of gore in Homura's thread.
The whole of the week, Sigma had been drifting in and out of consciousness. While Eponine slowly recovered from the last of her flu and the wound on her leg, the Doctor was only growing progressively worse, as though her pain could seep into him. His whole chest ached when he took a breath and it was as though his lungs had been grated apart, filled with blood, flesh, the water from the air that suffocated him in every humid breath. Even in his sleep he coughed rattlingly.
But the girl's presence next to him kept him grounded, kept him from giving up in his battle against his own body. At the moment he laid near the entrance to their root alcove, conscious enough to watch the opening carefully, if in a daze. If anyone were to spot them he would leap on them and tear them apart like any badger or weasel, illness or no. If he had been doing this duty for minutes or days, he could not tell; any duration of consciousness slipped away from him without bias.
Comforted that there had not been an unexpected guest in some time, he turned to their stash of supplies hungrily. He wheezed with every breath, for his throat felt as though it were burning, and he could no longer endure going without water periodically.
"Eponine? Shall we eat and drink?"
*
After the girl had run away, leaving Sigma to awaken in a panic and search for her in a fog to no avail, the Doctor decided not to return to their shelter even if it meant leaving Eva behind. He could not face her motherly wrath over failing to supervise the girl, nor could he deal with his shame if he continued to travel with her - not to mention with his worsening cough he was extremely contagious. In the end, it was better for them to go their separate ways. Sigma gathered up only the canister of food a sponsor had graciously given him (he had a suspicion Eva would kill him for leaving with anything else) and set out for nowhere in particular.
Dr. Klim had found running water to refill his sponsor canister when it began: the freezing jungle rain, soaking, torrential, inescapable. The moment the water descended on his shoulders Sigma felt as though he were being picked apart by thousands of blades of ice - if the touch of another's skin on his had given him instant cool relief, this was like drowning a burn in an ice bath.
Shaking, now, and hacking as he went, Sigma rose from the bank and spun around, searching fruitlessly for a place to hide. But no matter how thick the overgrowth, the rain continued to pelt down on him and Sigma lifted his head to the sky helplessly. He was too weak to make it back to Eva's shelter in the roots, which was far behind him now - but if he stayed, he was dead. Fatigue overcoming him, Sigma curled into a pathetic ball beneath a tree and shut his eyes, coughing into his hands.
What | Sigma and Eponine pass the time in their shelter, and later Sigma's last stand in the Arena.
When | Week 2-3
Where | In the jungle.
Warnings | Illness, drinking with a minor, death and mentions of gore in Homura's thread.
The whole of the week, Sigma had been drifting in and out of consciousness. While Eponine slowly recovered from the last of her flu and the wound on her leg, the Doctor was only growing progressively worse, as though her pain could seep into him. His whole chest ached when he took a breath and it was as though his lungs had been grated apart, filled with blood, flesh, the water from the air that suffocated him in every humid breath. Even in his sleep he coughed rattlingly.
But the girl's presence next to him kept him grounded, kept him from giving up in his battle against his own body. At the moment he laid near the entrance to their root alcove, conscious enough to watch the opening carefully, if in a daze. If anyone were to spot them he would leap on them and tear them apart like any badger or weasel, illness or no. If he had been doing this duty for minutes or days, he could not tell; any duration of consciousness slipped away from him without bias.
Comforted that there had not been an unexpected guest in some time, he turned to their stash of supplies hungrily. He wheezed with every breath, for his throat felt as though it were burning, and he could no longer endure going without water periodically.
"Eponine? Shall we eat and drink?"
*
After the girl had run away, leaving Sigma to awaken in a panic and search for her in a fog to no avail, the Doctor decided not to return to their shelter even if it meant leaving Eva behind. He could not face her motherly wrath over failing to supervise the girl, nor could he deal with his shame if he continued to travel with her - not to mention with his worsening cough he was extremely contagious. In the end, it was better for them to go their separate ways. Sigma gathered up only the canister of food a sponsor had graciously given him (he had a suspicion Eva would kill him for leaving with anything else) and set out for nowhere in particular.
Dr. Klim had found running water to refill his sponsor canister when it began: the freezing jungle rain, soaking, torrential, inescapable. The moment the water descended on his shoulders Sigma felt as though he were being picked apart by thousands of blades of ice - if the touch of another's skin on his had given him instant cool relief, this was like drowning a burn in an ice bath.
Shaking, now, and hacking as he went, Sigma rose from the bank and spun around, searching fruitlessly for a place to hide. But no matter how thick the overgrowth, the rain continued to pelt down on him and Sigma lifted his head to the sky helplessly. He was too weak to make it back to Eva's shelter in the roots, which was far behind him now - but if he stayed, he was dead. Fatigue overcoming him, Sigma curled into a pathetic ball beneath a tree and shut his eyes, coughing into his hands.
no subject
"I know, Eponine. It was like that in some places at home, as well," he softly admits with disappointment. He does not bother to answer her question about the horses and moves on, for fear she might conjure up more bad memories.
Dr. Klim takes a long swig of his second can before continuing. "I studied Genetics. I fear a comprehensive explanation may overwhelm you, but it's the study of... the 'code'... the 'essence' of what makes us what we are. Why certain traits are passed on from parent to child, how our body operates, why diseases occur." Satisfied with his in-a-nutshell summary, he moves on.
"...But that also meant that there were those who studied how to create disease. When I was a little older than you are now, a devastating contagion was released by those with a cruel religious agenda. ...A genocide, Eponine." Sigma closed his eyes. "It was a quick end to everything. My parents did not make it. I took shelter, and was one of the few left alive - in the entire world." Because of his gift. His curse that let him see it all, even live whole lifetimes in the future, before it ever happened. Because he was one of the few that could have done something about it, and failed. Now it was Sigma's turn to finish his second can.
His vision swims as the can leaves his lips, he rubs his eyes to sober up. The good Doctor sighs deeply as he draws into the annals of his memories he had shut away. "...But there was another who survived with me," he reminds himself wistfully. Reaching for another can, Sigma grasps it with two fingers and swirls the full container around playfully without taking a drink. His cheeks are red with drunkeness or love. "...Her name was Diana." Sigma says her name slowly, tasting the sound, as if the bearer of that name were more precious than jewels or more important than an Empress. In that moment Sigma seemed to glow with adoration, and it may very well have been true for him that there was no other in the universe - in any universe - who had ever loved as much as he still loved that girl.
no subject
But perhaps now she was being trusted enough and at last Sigma was going to tear down the veil. She really didn't want to interrupt his story with mindless chatter - and it sounded like such a lovely story to her, full of romance and tragedy - just the sort she liked best.
She rolled over, so that she was lay next to him, just milimeters away from Sigma.
"Tell me about her, Sir."
no subject
"She..." The old Doctor stops to sigh. He does not know where to start or how to justify how much he loved her. "She had red hair and blue eyes. There was a line of light freckles along her cheek and nose... she was slim, but not tiny..." Her looks are not nearly the most important thing about her, but he explains it to Eponine nonetheless to put an image in her mind of fair, beautiful Diana. In fact, those traits may have been repulsive to anyone listening in from the Capitol, but they were lovely to Sigma. "My love, she was kind, gentle, and strong. She had much to shoulder, more responsibility than anyone should have to carry in their lifetime..."
He began to drink again, eye still shut. It's a miracle he does not spill his beer all over himself. The lip of the can lingers on his mouth for he cannot decide on what to say, each moment too precious and intimate to be shared on television. Finally, after a long swig, he begins again. "It takes a magnificent woman to love a man with no arms or eyes, Eponine," he says quietly. "My little blue bird... I wish we could have had a family. Perhaps... a little girl..." He keeps his eye shut so Eponine cannot see the sadness that has crept into his soul, though his hand rests just above Eponine's head, dipping down once in awhile as if to stroke her hair but drawing back nervously at the last moment. With as much as he had revealed and so suddenly, it was fair to say the Doctor was well and truly drunk by now. "My son wasn't hers," he says bluntly, opening his eyes and escaping the dream. It still made him sad that she could have been. He had tried to give him his mother...
no subject
She bites her lip when he talks about wanting a child - a little girl. It cuts into her, those words. A little girl, and here he was, stuck with her. Not little at all, and more woman than girl. It was a shame for him. A shame for her. She is a poor substitute for his dreams.
"Tell me, Sir." She sighs. "Tell me the rest."
no subject
And so Sigma is dishonest, looking to the ceiling to avoid lying to Eponine's face. The details are left out to spare himself remembering them. "She left me and I raised a child with another woman, a very close friend of mine." He cannot tell Eponine he gave life to his own son simply to raise him as a participant for his game, nor can he explain to her what a 'clone' is. He tells himself it was to spare her the explanation, but in truth, he was terrified she might think of his boy as sub-human. "...The human race was dying off, after all," he substitutes weakly.
There's a long pause as he considers what to say next. His long life, trapped inside Rhizome-9, was not a particularly exciting one without the death games he played. He acts as though that is the end; and the three of them lived happily ever after... "Eponine, there is something I want you to see." The wound is still fresh on his heart and it pains him to recall Kyle's face, his own face, and so Sigma tries to share the burden. "...I actually still possess a photograph of my son," he says cryptically. "When we get out of here, I would like very much to show you. I think the two of you would have made fast friends."
no subject
"Do you think so?" She's doubtful. She can't see herself being friends with Sigma's son, really. Not for any particular reason... just because. Because she doesn't seem to keep friends very well.
She curls up a little, pulling her knees up to her chest, and despite her headache and how hot she feels, and how damp her skin is, she shivers.