deadly_ned | 006 - Sour Apple

What do you do when you're living in a wide-awake nightmare and every single breath you take you wish with all the desperation you have that you could undo something you once did but didn't mean to because you didn't understand the consequences?

I know things are better now that I'm on the Barge but I don't know how long it's going to be until I can wake up without feeling panicked that it's all been nothing but a dream or that the Admiral will look at me and think I don't deserve to be here any longer.

And I don't know how precarious my position really is. We're all just...teetering, waiting for gravity to catch up with us until we take the final plunge and I know this is morbid but that's who I am. Morbid...Ned, who's surrounded by death and can't get away from it.

Maybe I just need sleeping pills.

[Ned is Affected by the flood and is more of a basket case than usual. He's been an unwilling guest of the American government since he was nine and revealed his secret gift and for the last twenty years has been a neurotic shut-in with limited access to non-military personnel. And he doesn't bake pies.]

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deadly_ned

I'm....allergic?

[The Piemaker was not, in fact, allergic]

surfaceshine

Um.

[Okay.]

What about gloves?

Gloves are involved. Usually. Yes.

I mean could you wear them and be alright to touch him?

Possibly. It's a risk.

One I don't feel comfortable in taking.

Then you're gonna need something else. Can you write yourself a post-it?

A post-it telling myself I'm really not real and this isn't the reality I think it is?

If... that's what it takes.

I write myself coordinates when I need reminders. They only make sense to me.

Coordinates of..what?

Depends on what the reminder is, doesn't it?

I suppose it does.

I have to think on what makes this more real than anywhere else.

Do you have someone you trust enough to call, maybe, that could tell you you're real?

Here, I mean, obviously.

No.

No, there's no one.

Of course not, that's why you're bringing it up to the entire boat.

[This to himself, and a moment of hesitation. Then:]

I could, you know.

You could...what?

Be trustworthy enough to tell you that you're real, anyway.

You would do that.

You would just answer back in the affirmative, whenever I needed, about whether this place was real or not.

Of course.

What would I need to do to get you to do that for me?

Ask. I wouldn't even make you say please, unless that would make you feel better about it.

Please.

Please will you be a rock of stability in a universe I'm not so sure even exists?

Yes.

This is real, and you exist in it.

[. . .] I'm not saying I know what this is like for you, but I get it more than most would.

This is real.

This universe is real.

And I'm not an...instrument, or a tool here.

Yes, it's real. And no, you're not.

Is there something I can say, some word or name or something, that would make it easier to believe?

..Digby.

That was the, um. The name of my dog, when I was nine.

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006 - Sour Apple

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