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[littletonoidea]

"This is the audio log of Communications Officer Doug Eiffel of the-- previously of the U.S.S Hephaestus, leave a message and I'll see if I can bear to drag myself away from whatever utterly engaging task I must be doing to not notice my comms--"

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[littletonoidea]

[Eiffel doesn't know what he was expecting when he said yes, but the reach makes him take half a step back automatically--

And then - he's not. He's- someone else, picking himself up from the floor to face- Jon, the Archivist, his Archivist, beating the shit out of him.

P-Please John... He coughs, rough and wet. I don’t want to die.

Neither did they.

The sense of the knife slipping between his ribs is icy cold, vicious, and the sharp heat of blood and sudden loss of pressure makes him cough, ragged and wet and fear wells hard and fast as the impossible world fades away...

...and when the memory lets him go Eiffel is still coughing, doubled over on his hands and knees, heaving and wretching with one hand white-knuckled gripping at his chest where the knife went in, where the Decima ravaged and suffocated him, but the only thing spilling from his mouth is saliva, and his shaking hands go to his throat as his breathing finally begins to-- not even out, but it turns slowly into deeper, wheezing breaths, as that memory of fear and dying crystallises into his own mortal terror.]

Wh-what-- [Speaking still hurts, ribs still twinging with the phantom stab and the real coughing fit.] What- th-the fuck?!

[extendedbrutalpipemurder]

[ elias wouldn't say he was one for lying to himself -- but he hasn't spent all that much time dwelling on his final moments. he's pieced together enough to know that Martin wasn't there and Jon hasn't experienced it.

So why think about the worst moment of his life? why relive hearing that fear in his voice? the way he had begged? how he had utterly failed to predict what the Archivist would do, or how the state of affairs was unsustainable, or even his own fear at --

his failure mocks him, as all his failures on the barge mock him. flawed. unacceptable. worth nothing but scorn and contempt

which this idiot was now aware of.

he tries to stand, ends up resting all his weight on the railing ]

I think-- I believe -- that's. enough for one day.

[littletonoidea]

[Eiffel's in no position to try and stop him. Still desperately trying to smooth out his breathing, with the panic only making his throat tighter again and nearly forcing fresh coughs out, asthmatic gasps off the tail end of a smoker's coughing fit and a sore throat as well.

When words do manage to make it between the pain and the breathlessness, they're monosyllabic at best, and the fear is still clear in his tremulous words.]

Sure. Y-yeah. Let's... t'morr'w. Okay. Hoooookay. [He takes a long breath and a disgustingly wet sniff.] Try... t'take. Iteezy. Okay...?

[extendedbrutalpipemurder]

Of course, warden.

[ it takes longer than he wants, which is to say it takes more time than immediately before Elias feels stable enough on his feet to let go of the railing.

his voice sounds shaky in his own ears. he needs to leave ]

I'll-- see you then.