He gags, coughs again, tries not to lose his balance as his retching bends him over his knees. And then it's out, and...
Everything's quiet. Inside Gaeta's head, for the first time in years, there's no buzzing, no static, no weight. The vivid dimensions of his losses have been pressed flat. Just facts now, distant and analytical: my planetary system is gone. My family and friends are gone. I am dead, and all of humanity will soon follow.
It doesn't feel like the morpha did, which wrapped all his thoughts in padded cotton. The grief was still there; it just didn't hurt when he bumped into it. Now there's a hollow absence he wants to prod like tonguing the spot where a lost tooth ought to be.
It's insane. Impossible. Pyotr just reached inside him and ripped out an actual feeling. And if Gaeta gives him more, he thinks with a faint wildness, he won't even want to prod the empty spot anymore.
"Please," he begs. Even his desperation feels a bit muted, he notices. "Take the rest."
cw: emeto, mention of past drug use
Everything's quiet. Inside Gaeta's head, for the first time in years, there's no buzzing, no static, no weight. The vivid dimensions of his losses have been pressed flat. Just facts now, distant and analytical: my planetary system is gone. My family and friends are gone. I am dead, and all of humanity will soon follow.
It doesn't feel like the morpha did, which wrapped all his thoughts in padded cotton. The grief was still there; it just didn't hurt when he bumped into it. Now there's a hollow absence he wants to prod like tonguing the spot where a lost tooth ought to be.
It's insane. Impossible. Pyotr just reached inside him and ripped out an actual feeling. And if Gaeta gives him more, he thinks with a faint wildness, he won't even want to prod the empty spot anymore.
"Please," he begs. Even his desperation feels a bit muted, he notices. "Take the rest."
Take everything.