[ Hesitation follows. Before this place, he's only ever died swiftly. Impaled in five places or blasted to atoms, removed entirely from existence, a raft of bullets from oncoming soldiers. He's never died like this, this slow flaking away. But forever frightening as it might be, pain is no stranger. Pain he can endure.
Stephen breathes in shallow swallows of thick air and knows that not too long from now it'll be rancid with decay. The corpses of millions starting to swell and lose form.
He's been holding onto the freedom to walk outside into radioactive day and die quietly up there in the lifeless wreck of the city when it gets too much. But even as his throat goes thick with emotion and his breath stutters once - twice— no tears well. He's too dehydrated even for that. How long is he really going to be free to wander? How long will his body be able to support that sort of an escape? ]
We'll wait.
[ It's a croak. His voice this time, out loud. ]
I'll live as long as I can, and I'll let you know when I can't move.
[ It's a compromise of sorts. Wade is asking him to spare himself the intolerable. Stephen's just setting his own definition of what that means to him.
He switches back to text for a clarification, logic filtering back in through the exhaustion that robbed him of his filter - ]
If the offer doesn't stand by then, I'll understand.
no subject
Stephen breathes in shallow swallows of thick air and knows that not too long from now it'll be rancid with decay. The corpses of millions starting to swell and lose form.
He's been holding onto the freedom to walk outside into radioactive day and die quietly up there in the lifeless wreck of the city when it gets too much. But even as his throat goes thick with emotion and his breath stutters once - twice— no tears well. He's too dehydrated even for that. How long is he really going to be free to wander? How long will his body be able to support that sort of an escape? ]
We'll wait.
[ It's a croak. His voice this time, out loud. ]
I'll live as long as I can, and I'll let you know when I can't move.
[ It's a compromise of sorts. Wade is asking him to spare himself the intolerable. Stephen's just setting his own definition of what that means to him.
He switches back to text for a clarification, logic filtering back in through the exhaustion that robbed him of his filter - ]
If the offer doesn't stand by then, I'll understand.