noonegetsleftbehind

[noonegetsleftbehind]

I miss being here. Gonna try and come back a little this week if the pain allows. Thanks to all who are sticking with me 💕

[noonegetsleftbehind]

I’m still alive somehow. I’m just exhausted from the hospital and surgery again. I’m dealing with a lot of pain and unpleasant things currently along with this awful heat (it is 88 degrees in my apartment right now WITH ac) so I have honestly just been laying in bed and playing da.te ever.ything on my Xbox while I recover.

I miss being here and writing, but I need time to just mindlessly lay around for a bit. I’ll try to be around soon. I apologize for my absence and delay on replies etc.

[noonegetsleftbehind]

Bear with me I’m gonna unfortunately be spotty depending on pain and what happens. Was back in the ER today and guess what ya boi has?

I, unfortunately, get stones fairly frequently and chronically. I also, unfortunately, hardly ever am able to pass them. 95% of the time I require surgical intervention and a stent. Soooooo…. Gotta call my urologist in the morning. For now? Pain central my friends. Pain central and I’ve had 4 different pain meds. Gonna be a long night etc.

My activity will depend on my pain levels and my ability to concentrate. I may be on sometimes just to distract from the pain. I may also need surgery again so it depends what goes on from here.

[noonegetsleftbehind]

YOU HAVE UNOOOOOOOOOO

Everyone go bother @fcrrokinetic and @lordheis to see if they have UNO.

[noonegetsleftbehind]

Everyone go bother @fcrrokinetic and @lordheis to see if they have UNO.

[noonegetsleftbehind]

I’m a GODDAMN FREEDOM FIGHTER!

[noonegetsleftbehind]

"What's the matter? You don't like them fighting?"

[noonegetsleftbehind]

RE observations with friends… the Piers Nivans edition

[noonegetsleftbehind]

"I wasn't mad."

His head is leaned into the crook of Chris' neck as he speaks. A lot's changed since their early days. A lot's changed since the days where they both knew everything for sure. He's been thinking about that first kiss a lot.

"I know I sounded like I was, but I wasn't. I was just scared."

It'd be exactly like him to miss the opportunity of a lifetime because of nerves or because he felt a need to keep up appearances. The idea that Chris even liked men, let alone liked him, had seemed too much to hope for once upon a time. But, now that China is over and done with...now that stability has come to blanket the globe, if only for a short while...

"Could you do it again?"

He says it so quietly, like he's hoping to pretend he said something else if his request were to be denied.

It catches Chris off guard. He's not expecting the younger man to lean his head into the crook of his neck, nor is he expecting it to feel so perfect and like it belonged right there. He draws in a breath, a smile playing on his lips to the rest of the other man's words.

He turns, hand coming up to cup his palm to his cheek, fingers sliding around to come to rest at the back of his head. He locks his gaze with Piers's, taking him in. His voice is a low murmur, a flash of that smile briefly appearing back on his lips as he speaks. "I thought you'd never ask..."

Chris hesitates only a moment as he leans in, eyes closing just as their lips meet. His movements are gentle yet firm in the kiss. When he finally lets their lips part, his eyes meet with Piers's again. His voice is a hushed whisper between the two of them, his hand still cupped on the other's cheek. "How's that?"

[noonegetsleftbehind]

"You made a promise to a dead man. But promises made in graves carry strange weight. She was born of mold and miracle, a child formed from the same rot that hollowed out villages and reshaped corpses into monsters. You said you'd protect her. Raise her like your own. But how many times have you stood over something that looked human until it wasn't? Rose Winters. The innocent face of a new age of bio-terrors. You hold her hand with the same one that pulled a trigger on her mother. You want to believe she's different. That innocence survives genesis. But you've lived too long to trust purity. You've buried too many friends torn apart by things that smiled before they changed. And what happens, Chris, when the miracle child twitches the wrong way? When her voice deepens with something ancient? When her eyes glow with hunger? Will you hesitate? Will you wait for her to ask why, just before you pull the trigger? You promised Ethan. But what is the promise of a man who's spent a lifetime burning down every miracle that science ever tried to build? You call her your charge. But she is your reckoning. She is the question you've dodged since the first time a comrade screamed and sprouted teeth. What does it mean to protect a future that might devour the world? You survived Raccoon. You outlived the BSAA. You've faced gods made of flesh. But this is different. This is a child with her father's love and her mother's blood. And the day she asks what she is, you better have more than a loaded gun and a practiced lie. Because she won't stay small forever. And you don't get to bury this one."

The words sting, driving a knife into his heart and twisting it before pulling it back out again. He knows he's bleeding out. He has been for years. Chris did his best to hide it all and disguise it, but it was all spilling out. He'd become disenfranchised over the years since Piers's death. He still fought, but the things he believed and fought for had changed over the years.

Bioweapons had always been the enemy. See one and take it down without a moment's hesitation. They were to be taken out immediately and by any means necessary. He'd watch them destroy so much and so many and had been face to face with so many. He'd become numb to the people they once were, the families they once had and everything that reminded him that they were once human and more often than not were innocent and didn't deserve this. He'd turned that off a long time ago or the guilt would have killed him.

Things had changed. Piers's death had been the catalyst into him beginning to see the people behind the weapons. The innocent lives. The tragedy of it all. It was all so much and he drew the line at Rose Winters. A baby. Just an innocent baby whose father gave his life to save her.

"She'll bury me before I ever bury her.... I made a promise and I intend to keep that to my fucking dying breath. As long as I'm alive, Rose Winters will be protected to the extent of all my skills. I won't let anyone or anything harm her." He takes a long drag of his cigarette, exhaling slowly through his nostrils. "The BSAA went too far. I don't have a damn bit of allegiance anymore. I'll be damned if I let anything happen to her."

He pauses, taking another few drags. "As for the future? She'll know what she is. A human. A girl. Loved by her parents. A gift. A special light in the dark who's just a little different from the rest of us and it's that light and difference I will give my life to protect. She'll know the truth. She's no monster."

[noonegetsleftbehind]

sorry for the absence especially right when the fandom should be alive and flared up. stupid physical and mental health have been tanked and a lot of stress going on so i just have not had the spoons to even be on my laptop let alone be present here. i am here tonight, though. gonna try to be around a little bit tonight before i have treatment tomorrow.

[noonegetsleftbehind]

Is this finally it? No, it can't be -- not for him. He's probably smart enough not to bank on impossible luck or a name, but experienced enough to know he'll find something -- though what is there to be found in a snarling, slavering horde? The wall had given way, admitting them like a flood of snapping, writhing, rabid bodies.

But there is something else. Something that cannot have come in from the cinderblock wall at his back, or been conveniently waiting in the rafters above. Something has threaded its way through the thronging mass of infected -- no, something has been admitted, the mutant bodies parting before it like a Red Sea of meat and hunger.

A glimpse is all he gets: a red stare and teeth; maybe in the low light he can tell it's a false face.

"Run."

The bark of a shotgun earns him space, and the hail of lead detonates a shower of viscera. They crush forward once more, pursuing the target among them that is living, breathing, uninfected flesh, utterly ignorant of the shape that moves among them with nightmare speed. If Chris looks back, it does not move as its ostensibly human form should; it is too fluid and quick and precise. It cuts the front line down like a sentient land mine moving at warp speed, forcing the masses back into the dark outside in a cacophony disturbingly dominated by the sound of cracking bone and tearing flesh. It is enough for an escape -- but barely. A few, oblivious to the threat, break off from the main push through the wall and begin to circle the building --

-- And then there are guns. The sound of six pickups with mounted guns and varying levels of sheet-metal armor had been drowned out by the horde, but now the former has encircled the latter and begins to mow them down in a hail of heat and hate. In the ebbs of the gunfire-roar, Chris can hear voices; they are indecipherable but clearly urgent. The infected are still coming.

Well, they are until one of the trucks barrels through the fringe, thumping and banging, metal against meat. Beneath the blood splattered across the right front door, in the flickering of muzzle flashes, there is a crude black spray-stencil that might be some sort of animal skull with wings. There are six tally marks forward of this design, on the dented fender. The gunner is shouting; it's not English, but the motions with his free hand are clear: Come to us, get on, we have to go!

None of this made any sense. Chris was running on pure adrenaline and instinct. If he didn't move, he was doomed. If he stopped and looked back it would be his last mistake. He didn't have the time nor the luxury to question anything. He didn't even have the comfort of a choice. He was cornered into following the motioning hands. If he needed to make a move or escape this, he quickly reasoned that he would have more time to figure out an exit there than he would here.

Chris makes a run for it. Finding her, he catches his breath and finds the words to break the silence. "What the fuck?!"

[noonegetsleftbehind]

Comes running from seemingly nowhere just to throw herself at and hug him.

“I got you-…”

He doesn't even question where she came from or when she got to his house. Chris is barely even keeping himself standing at this point. His thoughts are drowned out from the loud sobs choking out from his body. Years worth of pain and grief are all flowing at once. Everything that had once held him together was fraying at the seams.

Without thought, his arms wrap around her tight. He clings to her as if his life and his very breath depend on it. His whole body shakes with every gasp and sob as Chris breaks in her arms.

[noonegetsleftbehind]

"Yes. You will die alone. But not because no one came for you, because when they did, you couldn't let them stay. You've lost more than most ever will. That is true. And no one blamed you for building walls to survive. But over time, you stopped letting anyone knock. You stopped believing you could be seen without being dissected. You called it protection. But it was quiet exile. You remember their names like prayers. You speak them like proof that they mattered. And they did. They do. But grief is not a grave, and memory was never meant to be a cage. Piers isn't gone. You keep him breathing in every mission you don't walk away from. In every risk you take to feel close to something real. You still think ghosts are phantoms. But no. They live in your rituals. In your cigarettes. In your silence. In the space where joy used to be. They are not watching for vengeance. They are watching to see if you'll ever let them rest. Because right now, they can't. Not while you keep them trapped in the pain you won't erase. You carry them like blood in your mouth. And still, you wonder why it tastes like rust. You built your ghost story brick by brick and called it duty. But Chris, even the mission has stopped saying your name. And what waits for you now doesn't want to be saved. It only wants you to stay."

Goddamnit, he knows it's true. He knows Piers would tell him to let go. He knows Piers would want him to move on and live his life and be happy and keep fighting for the right things, but he couldn't. He couldn't let him go. He couldn't say goodbye. He couldn't move on. He couldn't let himself truly live outside of burying himself in nothing but his work to stay afloat.

The mere thought of Piers or his parents not being able to rest in peace simply because he can't let go makes his fist ball up tighter. It only takes a moment for the grief to swell to anger inside of him. He doesn't know how to let it out and it all comes roaring to the surface as his fist punches the wooden railing of the deck of his house where he was. With the physical lashing out came a very pained low roar that rumbled in the dark of the night with a strained word. "Fuck!"

With the anger gone he's left with nothing else. No choice. He tries to choke it down and he can't. It's too much. It's threatening to drown him. In the quiet dark of the night, only the moonlight glinting off the waves of the lake out back to illuminate him, Chris is reduced to tears. He gasps and sobs, his whole body shuddering as he lets it all out.

[noonegetsleftbehind]

"And so you remember. Like it's a duty. A ritual. The one order no one had to give you. You remember their faces, their blood, the silence after the screaming stops. You call it honour. But it's penance. You think if you carry it all, the weight, the names, the smell of burning skin, then maybe the dead will rest. But they don't. You remember because it keeps you angry. And anger is easier than despair. You remember because forgetting would mean letting yourself live. And you don't think you deserve that. You call it memory, Chris. But you wear it like a wound you've decided not to heal. That's not strength. That's surrender dressed in fatigues. So tell me, when you've remembered them all, when the roll call is complete, when the list of names finally runs out...what name will you say last?"

The truth was he didn't think he deserved to truly live. Not like others and not like what he wanted for those he loved that were no longer here. Chris had long since decided that. It stayed with him and he attempted to keep it well hidden.

Memory was definitely a wound that he'd decided not to heal. He couldn't. He wouldn't even dare. If he let go of the memory of his parents or of Piers... It would be as though they never existed. It would be as if Piers died for nothing. He couldn't let that happen.

He exhales smoke slowly through his nose, a noise akin to a frustrated sigh as one of his fists balls up. "Isn't that obvious? Since everything else is such an open book... Why couldn't you tell me that the goddamn answer is there will be no name said last. None. They'll all be gone and I'll die alone, right? Believe me. I accepted that a long fucking time ago."

[noonegetsleftbehind]

Happy pride month from....

D A T A S S

[noonegetsleftbehind]

"Because you never ran. You stood your ground. Every time. Even when it wasn't enough. Even when it never would be. And that, that is what this place feeds on. Not your strength. Your endurance. Your refusal to die when you've already buried everyone else. You think you weren't punished. But you were. You survived. And every life you couldn't save became another stone in the grave you've been digging inside yourself. You were never spared. You were chosen. Not to lead. Not to win. To remember."

The thought of all of this, everything he had been through, being punishment for him filled him with a rage he didn't know quite how to describe. Every death. Every person that got left behind. Every life that he cared for, loved even, just gone as his punishment for daring to exist in a world like this. His stomach churned.

He lit another cigarette, a silent rage brewing within him like a hurricane ready to set landfall. Taking a drag he exhales through his nose, voice flat and strained. "Damn good thing I'm so good at remembering then."

That's all he could do anymore. Remember. Remember his parents. Remember his fallen comrades and team. Remember the one he loved the most, eyes on him for the last time and there was nothing he could do. Remember.