( The water ripples; Frank's eyes track it immediately, because he's searching the water already. Searching for her, searching for the tendrils of hair, searching for the body that keeps slipping out of his grasp before he can reach it. That pattern of rolling synchronistic waves carries his eyes up, up, up to the glass beyond. To the figure standing on the other side of it.
The closest thing to sign language Frank knows is military hand signals. It doesn't exactly lead to a wide variety of conversation, and it doesn't really translate here — but the round of charades stills him. The water ebbs and flows, pushing and pulling at his waist even as his body stands stock still, no longer a churning force to send it moving around him.
Which means the movement is coming from something else. The back and forth pressure is coming from changing water levels. Stopping for even a second to think makes that clear.
But there's a part of him, an irrational and feral part, that does not want to care about this. That part glances down, distressed, in denial, searching through the brackish waters filled with debris and detritus of former office life, looking for her. He wants-
Christ. He just wants-
The soundproof glass muffles the animalistic snarl that escapes his lips to reverberate around the room. He slams his fist into the locked door, not because it'll accomplish even a hint of getting him out, but because he needs the outlet. Twice more it escapes him, knuckles pounding on unforgiving wood until they crack and split, his mouth twisted with the rage of it all.
And then it dies down, and two or three seconds of utter stillness passes before he drags that hand over his face.
The water inches up his sternum., and for a second, he thinks about letting it take him. Drowning in it, letting his body wash up beside hers — but hers isn't here. It isn't real. It can't be, he knows, not just because he remembers seeing them put her to rest back home, but because the corpse here still had all her face intact. That's a pretty lie; it's wrong.
Dying here just means dying in a world completely separate from his kids, from his wife. He doesn't really believe in an after anymore, but there's a comfort in the thought of going into the ground beside them. He needs to get his shit together.
He peels his hand away, and settles his eyes on Wrench again. It's a long look, and there's no real attempt to communicate in it. There's no help me, there's no who are you. It's simpler than that. It's just a point of connection — two people alive, making eye contact, aware of the present moment, living it together. Wrench on the outside looking in, Frank with water sloshing around his soaked clothes, trying to drag him under. Just two people, the end. Wrench is a witness to this stupid god damn moment of vulnerability and idiocy and lethal danger, and Frank's resigned to letting that be the case, too tired on every fundamental level to care.
And then he breaks eye contact, and begins what feels like a fruitless search for some kind of key, some kind of escape hatch, some kind of card or remote or something that might trigger the locking mechanism on the door. )
no subject
The closest thing to sign language Frank knows is military hand signals. It doesn't exactly lead to a wide variety of conversation, and it doesn't really translate here — but the round of charades stills him. The water ebbs and flows, pushing and pulling at his waist even as his body stands stock still, no longer a churning force to send it moving around him.
Which means the movement is coming from something else. The back and forth pressure is coming from changing water levels. Stopping for even a second to think makes that clear.
But there's a part of him, an irrational and feral part, that does not want to care about this. That part glances down, distressed, in denial, searching through the brackish waters filled with debris and detritus of former office life, looking for her. He wants-
Christ. He just wants-
The soundproof glass muffles the animalistic snarl that escapes his lips to reverberate around the room. He slams his fist into the locked door, not because it'll accomplish even a hint of getting him out, but because he needs the outlet. Twice more it escapes him, knuckles pounding on unforgiving wood until they crack and split, his mouth twisted with the rage of it all.
And then it dies down, and two or three seconds of utter stillness passes before he drags that hand over his face.
The water inches up his sternum., and for a second, he thinks about letting it take him. Drowning in it, letting his body wash up beside hers — but hers isn't here. It isn't real. It can't be, he knows, not just because he remembers seeing them put her to rest back home, but because the corpse here still had all her face intact. That's a pretty lie; it's wrong.
Dying here just means dying in a world completely separate from his kids, from his wife. He doesn't really believe in an after anymore, but there's a comfort in the thought of going into the ground beside them. He needs to get his shit together.
He peels his hand away, and settles his eyes on Wrench again. It's a long look, and there's no real attempt to communicate in it. There's no help me, there's no who are you. It's simpler than that. It's just a point of connection — two people alive, making eye contact, aware of the present moment, living it together. Wrench on the outside looking in, Frank with water sloshing around his soaked clothes, trying to drag him under. Just two people, the end. Wrench is a witness to this stupid god damn moment of vulnerability and idiocy and lethal danger, and Frank's resigned to letting that be the case, too tired on every fundamental level to care.
And then he breaks eye contact, and begins what feels like a fruitless search for some kind of key, some kind of escape hatch, some kind of card or remote or something that might trigger the locking mechanism on the door. )