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semiferals2021-01-05 10:24 pm
EPISODE ONE
[ The flight itself wasn't supposed to be too long - only six hours or so. And up until it all went sideways, it'd been fine; some of the kids had paired off, making small talk with those sat closest to them. Others kept to themselves, tuning out with headphones in or with books. A couple of boys a couple of seats from the front had fallen asleep on each other. Some faces were plastered to the windows, as if there was much else to see other than the vast expanse of ocean.
One minute it'd been smooth sailing, the next there'd been turbulence. And then that's worsened considerably, and it'd rapidly become transparently clear that they were taking a one-way, nose-first detour into the Pacific. Though perhaps by divine intervention or sheer, what're-the-odds chance, the plane had gone down a couple of miles from an island's shoreline.
Some woke up practically washed ashore, others weren't so lucky, left to flounder for any floating debris large enough to hold their weight. Regardless of where or how they woke up, one thing was abundantly clear. They were all equally, undeniably fucked. ]
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(So are these the relatives who were too smart to go chasing after Granddad, he'd asked, or the relatives so crazy even he ran away from them? and Rex had tilted his hand and shrugged, which he figured for a little of both.)
Rex--
Fuck.
Okay. First things first. Having dragged himself as far as the treeline, he peels off his sodden jacket and sits down to go through the pockets. He doesn't have everything he'll need, but what he does have seems mostly intact, which is a relief - there's waterproofing, and then there's prolonged immersion in the middle of the goddamn Pacific, but he's not thinking about that too hard right now, no.
To be fair, the fact that he has half a dozen water purification tabs zipped into his collar is probably also down to Granddad, ultimately. But still.
His phone, predictably, is toast. Cassian sticks it upright in the sand like its own tombstone, while he goes on with his inventory. The empty beach is surreally beautiful, like a painting in a psychiatrist's waiting room. He runs down checklists in his head, trying to concentrate on the information and not on the sense memory of pine needles underfoot and his dad's voice telling him--
It takes a lot of concentration, is the point. Enough that he doesn't pick up on someone approaching until they call out to him, at which point he stops thinking at all. He's on his feet, the phone in his hand because it's the only solid object in reach but the weight of it is better than nothing, the hard casing and the gritty places where the screen is cracked at the edges and it's the kid who was sitting in front of him on the plane, the guy with the glasses and the messy hair who'd been fussing with his own phone and Cassian breathes out, vision swimming a bit as he lets his arm fall to his side.
"Hey," he rasps, and collapses back into the sand.
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Of course, he drew to an awkward halt when Cassian got up and held what appeared to be a cellphone like it was a weapon.
And well... Sure, it’s just a cellphone, but he backs up a few clumsy steps on instinct. Too used to threatening gestures and what usually came after them, Llewellyn’s instincts were firmly settled in the flight category rather than fight. He opened his mouth, intending to make an attempt at de-escalating the reaction when Cassian rasped out a greeting and fell back onto the sand.
Oh, no. “Uh... Hey—” He moved closer hesitantly, rather feeling like flopping onto the sand himself. The only thing that keeps him from doing that was the nerves still buzzing in a quiet panic over the whole situation. “Are you um— okay? Well, not okay. I don’t think that’s possible, I mean... With all this.” He might have been rambling (he was definitely rambling), but Cassian would have to forgive him.
“Just—are you injured or anything?” He finally came to a halt and gave in to gravity to drop onto the sand. Close enough to observe and see if he should be worried, but far enough to give him a chance at a head start if Cassian didn’t want company.
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This was too much, and it honestly didn’t seem real for all he knew it had to be. “Oh— and I’m fine, I think.”
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He manages a saner smile, leaning back on his elbows. "Sorry for freaking out at you. Didn't see you coming."
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“It’s fine, I mean— I’d have freaked out a little too if someone walked up on me and I didn’t see them.” Maybe not in the same way, but the point stood. “I’m uh... Llewellyn Watts, who’re you?”
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It hits him a second later that this last might sound like a come-on. Well, fuck it. He flops over backward, one arm over his eyes, and mutters, "Not that it's any of my business."
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He paused, thinking on the matter of spelling their names with what might have been another small grin, “Mm... We could, but I’m not sure that I could remember uh— how many L’s my own name has at the moment.” He gestured at his head. It might have been an attempt at a joke, or he was just being honest about post-plane-crash brain fog.
Lucky for Cassian? Llewellyn doesn’t generally notice things that could be a come-on unless they’re pretty obvious. As it was, taking the sweater off to get it to dry faster was logical. It made sense. But... Nope. “You’re probably right?” He frowned a little at it, before shrugging. As uncomfortable as a wet sweater was, he’d feel more uncomfortable without it. “It’s fine, it’s like... not that bad, anyway.” Compared to everything else, right?
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He drops his arm, blinks at Llewellyn over it with the widest earnest-puppy eyes he can manage at the moment, and adds: "That's what my dad says." Not that this guy seems like the violent type - or even, like his cousin Bobby, the type to turn everything into a pissing contest - but 'overserious nerd' is always a better look than 'condescending asshole'.
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Because surviving in his prior conditions was one thing, surviving here where he had no idea what to expect? That was something else, something that he was probably starting to panic about. So rather than be angry at the insistence, he instead had to find out more.
“I uh— didn’t know that.” Llewellyn responded, fussing with a sleeve again. “Did your dad say why?”
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He tries not to think about it too hard, even as he says it, because (the flight attendant who spoke to him in Spanish, the skinny-looking twins, that cute guy with the ponytail, the two little girls chattering excitedly across the aisle, all that ocean, God) that way lies panic. Instead he focuses on his own sodden sneakers, grounding himself in the moment.
The sandy, squelchy moment.
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He hoped so, because the thoughts of the others not making it made him feel ill if his shift in expression were anything to go by. Rubbing the back of his neck anxiously, he shook his head a moment or two later. “No... Just you so far?”
He glanced back at the shoreline, brows furrowing a little as though he were actually hoping he might spot something he’d missed before now. “We should look though, there might be others...?” His tone suggesting he hoped as much, but wasn’t exactly optimistic about what they’d find. He’d been let down a few times now in the ‘trying to find someone missing’ department, and a plane crash made for pretty bleak odds.