wipesfaith | 05 [written/action]

[He doesn't know what time it is when he startles awake, just that it's still dark and the sensations pressing into him - his flesh pulling apart as he sinks deeper into water or blood or rock so hot it's liquid fire he doesn't know what but he can't breathe anymore - are more like memories, and they linger in his waking more sharply than any nightmare. Propping himself up on his elbow, trying to steady his breath, he looks across the gap between his bed and Marco's.

Pale moonlight reflects off the white of the bare mattress.]

Marco...? Hey...

[He already knows no one is there to hear him. It sinks in him like a rock dropped in a pond, with little ripples expanding to ones that reach much farther. Looks like that's all the borrowed time he'll get.

He switches on the light as he reaches for his journal, like it might prove him wrong. It doesn't. He sinks back down into the pillow. Weakly punches the mattress. Runs his hands through his sleep-disheveled hair. Squeezes his eyes shut. Turns the light off again, eventually. But he doesn't sleep much.]

[Then, at a more reasonable hour...]

[Written - Locked to Erwin and Levi]

I have a report to make, sirs. I discovered Marco Bott of the 104th training class to be missing early this morning. His things are gone too and his name isn't registered on the journal network anymore, leading me to conclude that he's returned home.

There's nothing else out of the ordinary to report at this time.

[This is so much easier to get out in writing. Immediately after, he'll make a more casual public announcement, because he probably ought to.]

[Written]

Marco Bott went home.

[Where he will die, and no one will see, and no one will take the time to give him a proper burial because in the end, there is nothing to distinguish him from the scores of corpses that will be reduced to little but bone fragments and ashes and lingering memories. There's a long pause that won't be reflected in the written message, as he tries to think of something worthwhile to add and fails.]

Just thought people should know.

[But some time later, an addendum will appear at the bottom of the message:]

Anyone know anything about raising sheep?

[Action]

[When he's not training at the Battle Dome or caring for his horse at the stables (recently, he's been going out for longer leisure rides, and today won't break the habit), Jean can be found at the small pen erected outside the Flame Building, where he wonders what the hell to do with the now morbidly fluffy lamb it houses. Aside from slaughtering it and eating like a king, because Marco would've gotten all offended at the suggestion. Speaking of Jean's distasteful, overdone jokes, the lamb in question probably looks a bit miffed that he's here instead of its proper owner.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I see. Thank you for letting us know.

[It wasn't even as if he'd known Marco all that well, really. Sure, they'd had an awkward mistletoe encounter, but that didn't count as knowing him the way Jean had.

But Marco had seemed like a kind boy, and there was always a sense of sadness when someone like that was sent home-- someone who had given off a feeling that, with enough time, perhaps they could have become a friend.]

I know he met a lot of people here and I figured they should know he left.

[Which...he already said, but what else is there to add? And now that Marco has gone back to their own mess of a world, where his final minutes are neatly ticking away from him already, he won't remember meeting any of them. He won't remember Jean, the way he is now. None of it will have mattered, really. Marco's borrowed time is gone and half forgotten, remembered only by those still stuck here.]