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[Albert had been busy. He tries to keep busy in general, just to keep himself sharp if anything seeing as Vatheon doesn't really require currency for the necessities. For this, though, the necessities are something completely different as far as Albert's concerned. He's taken odd jobs left and right, anything he can find, to earn enough starfish tokens for whatever it is that Walter needs to do his work. To get Albert out of here and on a path to save his family. He'd finally managed to save up a large enough sum that he felt he could contact Walter and get that list the doctor had never sent him. Scattered as he is, Albert just assumed he'd forgotten.

He'd been mistaken.

No matter how many times Albert scrolls through the SFC contact list he can no longer find Walter's name. He'd been warned about this, warned that people could be whisked back home without any warning, but for it to be his one chance, the only hope he had here for the future...

He nearly crushes the SFC in his grip, the device only being saved through going careening against the wall and bouncing to the carpet with a sad 'tink'. It's not cathartic enough. Not by a long shot.

Rage still roiling and mind gone white, the cyborg clamps his hands on the edge of his kitchen table, sending it through the plate glass door of the little yard his apartment had been built with. It splinters in two with a sound crack, the glass tinkling to the ground all around it with a calamitous noise as Albert stands panting and glaring as if the now wrecked table was the cause for all his woes.

If only it were that easy.]

[Jet rarely spent a whole lot of time in his apartment. He'd spend a bit of time there after he woke up then go out for most of the day then come back in the evening, most of the time after he'd eaten. However, there were some days when he just didn't quite make it to step 2, they were few and far between but they were known to happen.

It didn't particularly matter what he'd been doing because it was instantly left behind and forgotten when he heard the loud crash from next door; from Albert's apartment. Yeah, things had been on thin ice a bit since their argument, but that instantly didn't matter in the face of the other cyborg potentially being in trouble.

Jet dashed outside and hopped the fence that separated their patios, freezing a moment as he took in the sight of the busted door and table, but then he made his way through the furniture carnage.]

Albert...what the hell happened?

[Jet doesn't get a response right away. Albert simply stands there, still poised as if he'd just thrown the table immediately before and the look on his face draining from rage to hopelessness at seeing Jet picking his way through the shattered glass and splintered wood. It's a slow transition, Albert going from battle-ready heat of the moment hackles up fury to slowly sink into a chill, the lines under his eyes from constant worry and stress becoming more pronounced, seeing Jet not as he is but as a ghost, a wavering vision of what he now had no real hope of preventing.

He finds himself shaking, trembling just slightly and folds his arms tightly to keep it from continuing. For all he feels full of every raging gamut of emotion, the words that leave his mouth are quiet, clinical, and completely without emotion.]

Doctor Bishop is gone.

[Jet froze with the words, things sliding into place as he processed them.

Saying the teen had been less than thrilled with Albert and the doctor's 'scheme' would be an understatement, but that didn't mean he was unaware of how important it had been to Albert, how much of his hope the older man had put into it.

Even Jet had put a small, though tentative, amount of hope into it as well.]

Oh.

[He closed the rest of the distance between them, noting the tenseness of Albert's posture. Jet reached out and put a hand on the German's arm.]

Sorry.

[All of it, every drop of hope he had in him had been banking on Walter and now he's left reeling, as if the world decided to keen cruelly under him, knock him from his feet, keep him down and disoriented and unable to do anything. Helpless and useless in the face of insurmountable fate.

He feels sick, his folded arms doing little to stop the trembling as Jet's hand on his arm can verify. He's struck dumb, staring sightlessly at the mess he's made of his apartment with his tongue feeling like cotton and his head whirling, grasping at straws, any glimmer of hope left, but coming up with nothing.

And still he swallows. He clenches his teeth. He turns to Jet and brings both hands to the other cyborg's shoulders, disregarding his quaking fingers.]

I won't give up. I promise you, I won't give up.

[He wants to tell him it's okay. That it was pretty much impossible from the start and even Jet found it impossible not to give up for more than a few minutes at a time. What could they do in the face of death that had already come? It was one thing to avoid it, but to change it? It seemed like a stupid thing to strive for.

But that wasn't what Albert needed to hear. The German was always there for Jet when the American needed him and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to do the same thing. He could feel Albert still shaking even as he gripped Jet's shoulders and it honestly sent a chill through the teen; he was usually so calm and collected. But even walls broke down with enough force put on them. This time Jet needed to be the wall, he might be the one facing death...but if there was one thing he'd learned from being with Albert, it was that the dead had it easy, it was the ones left behind who had it bad.

He brought his hands up to cover the shaking ones on his shoulders, his voice even when he nodded and spoke.]

I know you won't.

[Jet sure as hell wasn't going to let him, if only for Albert's sake than his own.]

We'll figure something else out, it'll be okay.

Edited 2013-08-01 06:30 (UTC)

[He wants to scream, to ask how it will be okay, what that something else is because he has no more answers, but it dies in his throat. He knows Jet must be asking himself the same things, struggling not to give up hope, and he needs to be the support. He needs to be stalwart and solid when everything else is crumbling.

He's not the one that's going to die. He's not the one that has to live with that knowledge, knowing whoever's in charge of this place can transplant him back there on a whim.]

We'll figure something else out...

[He parrots the words, his speech coming out vague and uncertain. It's unnatural for him to be so hesitant, so shaky, but even as he berates himself for not keeping it together, for not being the support he needs to be, he can't stop the feeling of helplessness that threatens to engulf him, that he's failed and there's no hope and this is all just paltry words and comforts with no meaning other than to desperately keep one guttering candle alight in a hurricane wind.

He can't give up, he can't, but what if he fails regardless?]

[There wasn't much else he could think to say, words rarely ever seemed to work for him and they all sounded lame in his head when he considered them. There had to be something, something he could say or do to make Albert feel better and keep from falling into that depressive slump he knew his partner was prone to finding.

Gently but firmly, Jet moved Albert's hands off of his shoulders and tugged him close so he could wrap his arms around the shorter man's shoulders. This felt right. A thought occurred to him causing a shock to run through him that made his stomach drop to his feet and his heart leap to his throat; he was holding on to Albert tightly, tight enough to remind the other man Jet was still there and wasn't going to let go, but he was also holding on as if his hold would keep everything-the both of them-together.

Albert was one of his oldest friends, all of the cyborgs and Gilmore were his family, but Albert had been there from the start. Where he bolstered Albert up and did everything he could to keep that darkness and sadness that seemed to nip at the older man's heels from getting any closer, Albert kept him balanced and weighted; he tied Jet down enough to allow the teen the freedom he wanted, but didn't let him fly off and destroy himself in his overeager desire to live and live life on the edge.

But he had gone too high this time and if he got sent back to that or Albert couldn't re-tie that rope, then Jet would loose all of that. He couldn't sit back and let that happen, he had to keep hope and make Albert keep hope as well; just the thought of anything less, of failing, was like some crushing weight that threatened to snap his wings and strangle him with his own suicidal split decision.

His hold tightened and he turned his face so it was buried in that soft white hair. Normally, he'd feel all kinds of self-conscious, but right now he couldn't find it in him to care.

[At first the tightened grip is a comfort, tethering and encompassing, reminding Albert that Jet's not gone yet, that they can still beat this one way or another. The older cyborg's arms encircle Jet's waist, holding him close and tight as he buries his face against the familiar shoulder. Even with Albert being the one comforted, his grip is protective, possessive, as if telling the whole world no, not this one. He's mine and you can't have him.

But when he feels the light pressure of Jet's cheek and nose in his hair, it occurs to him again that Jet isn't just trying to comfort him, he's trying to stay, whether conscious of it or not. He's holding on for dear life for the same reason he'd screamed at Albert when the German had first arrived. Because even though Albert still pledges to save him, still refuses to give up and stop fighting even as the darkness of impossibility closes around, it's a possibility that however long they have here in Vatheon could be as long as they have left.

He want's to apologize again but he can't get the words out, knowing that it's not what Jet wants to hear right now. It would be a signal of defeat. Instead, Albert raises his head carefully and presses his lips to Jet's. Its gentle and slow and protective, showing everything Albert wants for the younger cyborg. That he loves him, no matter what the future holds. That he's here as long as Jet will have him.]

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