[After that, survival overrides all other reason, to a point where the hands on him lead to an animal scrambling that hinders more than it helps. Underwater, he latches onto the slippery body of someone else, grasp finding shoulders to cling to with bloodless terror. The water is dark with disturbed silt; he can't see anything.
It isn't the first time he's faced his own death. In some sense, he had faced it every day with the Alliance, each time he buckled himself into the starfighter and put his hands on the controls. But that always felt like an even gamble: he could fight his way to victory so long as he was skilled enough. He had a chance. It was that razor's edge he appreciated most, splintering hot and vital through every nerve and bone, because it taught him to value how hard it was to keep himself alive against all odds.
This isn't a fair match. It's simply drowning, dying, lungs filling with water to replace all of the air that was there before.
Cain clings to the other body like a child, arms wrapped around broad shoulders and legs intertwined, desperate not to be alone as he drags his would-be savior down with him.]
no subject
It isn't the first time he's faced his own death. In some sense, he had faced it every day with the Alliance, each time he buckled himself into the starfighter and put his hands on the controls. But that always felt like an even gamble: he could fight his way to victory so long as he was skilled enough. He had a chance. It was that razor's edge he appreciated most, splintering hot and vital through every nerve and bone, because it taught him to value how hard it was to keep himself alive against all odds.
This isn't a fair match. It's simply drowning, dying, lungs filling with water to replace all of the air that was there before.
Cain clings to the other body like a child, arms wrapped around broad shoulders and legs intertwined, desperate not to be alone as he drags his would-be savior down with him.]