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undiscovered country
May. 19th, 2020 11:33 amWhat if kinda vaguely like The Martian but varrai & so far none of the fun parts?
CN: grief, funeral
"There's no goddamn way this should have fucking happened! There were safety factors within safety factors! There are plenty of risks, but this one should be fucking impossible!"
Sarai nods.
"I know."
She feels numb, like thoughts arrive slowly after breaching a protective barrier, but she does understand. Viren doesn't have to keep yelling.
"We need to learn a lot more about surface weather conditions, and fast! We have to redesign the suits, and the protocols, immediately, so this can never, ever happen! I hate making pitches and calls but this is earthshatteringly important so..."
"Those are good ideas," Sarai tells him, "But they don't all have to happen today. They probably can't. We can take some time to be sad."
Viren just growls, "Fuck you!" and leaves. She doesn't see him again til the funeral.
***
Sarai is still numb.
She was drinking, but it didn't seem to help, so she stopped.
Viren, of course, doesn't do numb. He only does distracted, or plummeting into the abyss. She watches him try unsuccessfully to stave off the second option with an alarming volume of alcohol until the bar closes. Then she invites him to keep doing it with tolerable wine on her couch.
Because he shouldn't be alone, and because she doesn't want to be, and everyone else at the funeral knew Harrow and loved him, but it's not the same.
They dated pretty seriously before they started working together and decided to to put that on hold. But Viren has always been an immutable touchstone in Harrow's life. Not just the emergency contact and next of kin, although he is that. A guiding light and a place to land, if not always a soft one. Another vital part of their perfectly imperfect love.
She has shared a lot with Viren over the years. Now they get to add tears, and snot, and this all-consuming pain. It feels like the grief shattered her soul, and came back to grind it to dust.
Yet some persistent, unimportant parts remain... and one of them hopes Viren isn't going to throw up on her very nice and expensive funeral pants. At this point he's mostly just crying in her lap, but sometimes he chokes out words.
"We can't... can't even bring him home!"
"Yeah. That sucks!" She smacks the table and topples her mostly-empty wineglass. It fucking hurts. "But... well... First corpse on a new planet? You know he would think that's kind of cool."
Viren's eyes widen. He wipes his eyes and sits up.
"That is cool! That's really cool." He reaches out and they hug like they'll never let go. "We'll make it mean something."
CN: grief, funeral
"There's no goddamn way this should have fucking happened! There were safety factors within safety factors! There are plenty of risks, but this one should be fucking impossible!"
Sarai nods.
"I know."
She feels numb, like thoughts arrive slowly after breaching a protective barrier, but she does understand. Viren doesn't have to keep yelling.
"We need to learn a lot more about surface weather conditions, and fast! We have to redesign the suits, and the protocols, immediately, so this can never, ever happen! I hate making pitches and calls but this is earthshatteringly important so..."
"Those are good ideas," Sarai tells him, "But they don't all have to happen today. They probably can't. We can take some time to be sad."
Viren just growls, "Fuck you!" and leaves. She doesn't see him again til the funeral.
***
Sarai is still numb.
She was drinking, but it didn't seem to help, so she stopped.
Viren, of course, doesn't do numb. He only does distracted, or plummeting into the abyss. She watches him try unsuccessfully to stave off the second option with an alarming volume of alcohol until the bar closes. Then she invites him to keep doing it with tolerable wine on her couch.
Because he shouldn't be alone, and because she doesn't want to be, and everyone else at the funeral knew Harrow and loved him, but it's not the same.
They dated pretty seriously before they started working together and decided to to put that on hold. But Viren has always been an immutable touchstone in Harrow's life. Not just the emergency contact and next of kin, although he is that. A guiding light and a place to land, if not always a soft one. Another vital part of their perfectly imperfect love.
She has shared a lot with Viren over the years. Now they get to add tears, and snot, and this all-consuming pain. It feels like the grief shattered her soul, and came back to grind it to dust.
Yet some persistent, unimportant parts remain... and one of them hopes Viren isn't going to throw up on her very nice and expensive funeral pants. At this point he's mostly just crying in her lap, but sometimes he chokes out words.
"We can't... can't even bring him home!"
"Yeah. That sucks!" She smacks the table and topples her mostly-empty wineglass. It fucking hurts. "But... well... First corpse on a new planet? You know he would think that's kind of cool."
Viren's eyes widen. He wipes his eyes and sits up.
"That is cool! That's really cool." He reaches out and they hug like they'll never let go. "We'll make it mean something."
