Funeral Service for Adaman and Hodaka Morishima

[giddyundertaker]

[ An hour or two after the first trial's end, Hild and the Undertaker set out to invite as many people as possible to the Restaurant for the funerals of our dearly departed friends.

Why the restaurant of all places? Because there aren't enough chairs and tables elsewhere.

Indeed, some of the tables have been moved against the wall to make room for the seats. The chairs have been set up in four rows of six, like an improvised theater or a church. To the side, a small buffet has been set up courtesy of Obi, Mafuyu, and Hild. As for the main event? Two tables have been set up and decorated in black fabric and white flowers. In lieu of a live viewing, two drawings referenced from the profiles have been set up in the center of funeral wreaths... They're not the best, due to the artist's handicaps, but it does look like Adaman and Hodaka at least.]

Comments

[bootyhunter]

Not helping, bud.

[Cue another disgruntled, masculine noise.]

Look! I don't wanna get into the biology of it all. I'm not bionic! I don't get that stuff, baby.

Sometimes I just wanna be sad! So I don't have to be sad later. Capeesh?

[Not only have the children been sent to a potentially watery grave, there were a whole twenty-five other people in that box of clear glass. His conversation with Eleanor indicates that there were several batches before their own, hundreds even, and the just the thought of it makes him burn right up.]

I... I'm bushed, man! I don't wanna sleep in my bed 'cause it...!!!

["Reminds me of someone I barely remember."]

I've got all these thoughts I've never had, or, at least, used to ignore! I'm not a sad guy, but this place. Is. Sad!

And I don't wanna joke about that right now.

[dullshooter]

…Of course this place is sad, mate. It just killed two kids.

[In another conversation that could be a deadpan quip, but here it’s just said with an air of resignation.]

Look, I [’suck at this’] wanna make sure you don’t go off the deep end. The way everyone was staring at these mirrors last week? [The way Hodaka did] Just short of delusional.

[And he can’t entertain that again.]

Thing is there’s no booze here and all I’ve got is a toy gun. But if you want to be alone I can leave you to it.

[bootyhunter]

I won't.

[He's not the kind of person to hurt himself over something like this, or kill another person. Someone had tried, and in the end, what?

Neither of them had gotten out alive.]

Whaddya mean by delusional? You think those people were holograms?

That's my guess, too. More hostages means more mouths to feed, and the Mayor doesn't seem like he'd be into payin' anything forward. Plus, I...

[If that was really Scarlet in there, she wouldn't have looked at him with such a neutral expression. There would have been an air of surprise to it, worry, or even disgust.

It's what he's telling himself from now on.]

I don't think it was her in there.

Actually, I'm positive. It had to have been someone or something else.

[dullshooter]

Impressive. You went for the complete opposite of what I was saying.

[Misfire runs a hand over his face.]

Look, it doesn't matter whether they were there or not; they couldn't hear or see us, so staking out the place is - was - completely pointless. Thinking anything could be done by just sitting there and watching, in case 'something' happened, when there was absolutely nothing else to do outside of bumping off someone else - that's what I mean by delusional.

[He's agitated, but not exempt from being the target of it. He did stay there, worried Grimlock might do something and that everything might go horribly wrong, after all.]

And the more you read into whatever it is, the more you come up with conspiracy theories about it, the more you're giving an opening for Fontaine to get right inside your head.

[bootyhunter]

[Misfire carries on, speaking pragmatically for once, and of course it is now that Dandy drifts. Back on the Aloha Oe, his spaceship covered in a cheery coat of paint, it's easy to lull back into creature comforts after a short grieving period. Things always seem to return to the status quo, which could stand to be a little better here and here... But all things considered? Are pretty great by Dandy's standards

Well, for the most part.]

Then what do you suggest I do?

[He yearns for human connection, a sense of unity.

Alien hunters are supposed to come in threes. Here, who are the other two?

Dandy's own penchant for eye candy and flirtation, foolhardy as it may be, stems from a deeper wound with an ugly nature.]

Feel nothing?

cw: mention of lobotomies, or adjacent

[dullshooter]

No, because that's stupid and anyone who says that is trying - and failing - to sound cool. That, and you didn't get the one of us that's a neurosurgeon to make it possible. You should -

[He tries to think of something. He can't. He lowers the nerf gun, useless in the first place, to his side.]

- I don't know.

[And he doesn't. He thinks about Krok, his only frame of reference, someone who couldn't cope with loss to the point he stopped believing it happened - and they all just played along with that. It was easier, just go along with it. There's a metaphor about sleepwalking.

But he didn't wake up. And it kept going. And going. And it's frustrating, seeing someone you've spent the last how-many-years-with keep denying the situation, pretending otherwise, and you're all in on it but you have to pretend otherwise, even though it's not helping, and maybe if you called it quits the first few months in it would be easier to rip the bandaid. But it's been years, and instead of gently waking, you're going to have to use a slap.]

...Don't get caught up in it?

nsfw im so sorry

[bootyhunter]

[He senses that sliver of legitimate concern, cocking a curious eyebrow upwards. They are cut from some threads of the same cloth, these two, consistently spelunking about with the threads of FOOT-IN-MOUTH and SHITFUCKERY shining from within for everyone to see. But Dandy and Misfire share another bond, another unspoken connection that is less obvious to anyone unfortunate enough to encounter them both at their worst.]

Settle down, I'm not gonna whack anybody.

[And that is that their fragile inability to wrap their emotions in a sealed coffin, burying them beneath the surface.

Dandy's mouth curves into that shit-eating grin of his, toothy and well-paired with his loud hairdo and all-too-confident gait, but...

Today it takes a little longer to pop up. His unholy ability to pop right back up from a horrible event, like a singular, wayward boob bouncing free from a restrictive cup...

Has been hindered.]

If you want me to feel better so bad, find me a hot date!

[dullshooter]

[In any other instance, this would be met with a groan. But here, now, Misfire laughs.]

What? Am I not good enough for you? Way to hurt my feelings, man.

[bootyhunter]

[Ah!!! Good. The smokey haze of jokey-jokey is working... Time to disappear behind it and ignore all of his problems again!]

Somethin' tells me I'm not your type.

[dullshooter]

That's beside the point. It's just nice to be wanted.

[bootyhunter]

You are!

[Dandy raises an eyebrow.]

Just not like that.

[dullshooter]

Next you'll be saying I have a great personality.

[bootyhunter]

I'm not even sure I'd go that far.

[dullshooter]

Ouch.

[But fair.]

[bootyhunter]

You're pretty tall, though! And a lotta girls like that in a man.

Actually, for some of 'em, that's all they're lookin' for. Maybe try your luck with one of those!

[dullshooter]

You think there's a limit for 'too tall'?

[bootyhunter]

Don't think so! Well, I dunno, not liiiike... Absolutely?

This place is pretty slim pickins, though. Plus, everybody in this looney-bin's got wacky opinions.

[dullshooter]

Are you just saying that 'cause none of them are interested in you?

[bootyhunter]

[Like that's ever stopped him before.]

...No?

[It causes him to reflect on the fact that there were twenty-five at the start, and now there are... Well, less.

This gives him pause.]

[dullshooter]

...Something's going on. You're thinking again. I can hear the sounds of struggle.

[bootyhunter]

That's just my stomach.

[Lies!]

I haven't eaten all day.

[dullshooter]

You should probably do that before you keel over and die of starvation.

[He knows that's a thing. He doesn't know to what degree.]

[bootyhunter]

Yeah.

[It's not true.

It's not true, and he knows it.

But it would give him an out.]

Maybe I'll go do...

That.

[dullshooter]

[Misfire nods, feeling like this awfully fumbled exchange should just be laid to rest right about now.]

Yeah. Go on, get.