hey mom, dead mom, i need a little help here

[nothingcanstop]

[ ...All of that happened, huh. That's the sentiment each and every week, and it's no different this time. Except, this time they've lost more people than before. Five.

The gathering invitation is slipped under everyone's doors, but it specifies something a little different. ]



[ That's a good two hours or so of difference. Enough time to wander around, for sure.

But, in the garden, at the appointed time, there's a variable arrangement of fresh-cooked food. A good amount of beef stew, some Chinese hot pot, and...watermelon? Just, an absurd amount of watermelon, cut up and set on plates. All the food's set on tables that seem to have been moved from the library, and the ground is littered with blankets, for those who don't want to sit on the grass.

And yes, she did not lie. There is, indeed, a variable fuckton of alcohol. (And coffee, for our underaged.)

This has become routine. But, we're still here. We're still alive. ]

Comments

flowers

[fivestagegod]

[Birkin never shows up on time to these things, preferring to wait until most people have cleared out and then coming by to see what's left; "what's left", tonight, is apparently Rin, and she looks sort of out of it, and that's fine, honestly.]

I'd ask if you're okay, but then we'd both have to be annoyed with me for asking pointless questions.

[mouflon]

[ There's a movement at Rin's lips, like she almost smiles. ]

It's fine. Sometimes people just say things to start a conversation. This isn't even in the top ten times I've been not okay in my life, anyway.

[ ...She says this, but her fingers bunch in the grass. By the end of her sentence, she tosses a handful of it toward nothing, like the saddest shower of confetti there ever was. ]

[fivestagegod]

I'd actually imagine it wouldn't be.

[From what he very vaguely understands about Rin's life, it is not precisely great!

Speaking of, ]

So how dead are you, in this future we were supposed to be trying to circumvent?

[mouflon]

[ She snorts at that, and now she really does smile — but the expression is so bitter that it might be more fitting to call it a grimace. ]

Only slightly less dead than Fugo would have been. Life, soul — all of that gone, so there'll just be a husk of a dead body left on the outside.

Actually, the two of us were pretty much looking at the exact same picture.

[fivestagegod]

Count me among you, actually.

[He shrugs a bit; god, he's been here for six weeks and still has no idea what to do with his face.]

Main problem I had with mine was less that I'm absolutely dead and more that I took my wife and kid out with me.

[mouflon]

Wow. That sucks.

[ ...She means that with all the sympathy in the world. But, you know, what do you say to something like that?

Rin settles her chin on her knees again, evidently comfortable enough to go back to looking at nothing. ]

For me, it's... You know, after the first trial, Winters asked me what I saw myself doing after... the revolution, I guess. After everything. And it tripped me up, because it's hard for me to imagine that there will be a life for me at the end of it all. But just because I've always known I could die fighting, that doesn't mean...

I just can't die until I've accomplished this one thing. Does that make sense?

[fivestagegod]

Absolutely.

[It does sound like he means that.]

For what it's worth, there's no guarantee that that's going to happen, and it's not something that has happened. It's a projection based off of our current timeline, so that means it's definitely changeable.

And honestly, I think if anyone's going to pull something like that off, you're probably one of the most likely.

[mouflon]

...Yeah. I meant what I said to Fugo, when I told her how stupid she was. Just... knowing, that'll change things. For all of us.

[ It's not a guarantee of anything, but even so, it's a hope to hold onto. ]

...Thanks, though. Promise me you won't take this the wrong way, but it actually means something to me to hear you say that. You know, since you're not the kind of person who would say something you didn't mean just to make me feel better.

[fivestagegod]

Ah, there you go again. One of these days we'll get through a conversation without you saying I'm a jerk.

[It's light, though; more banter than anything.]

No, I get it. Good to know.

[mouflon]

Wh- I'm not calling you a jerk. [ She lifts her chin up off her knees to aim a tired sort-of-glare right at him. ] It was a compliment... I like that about you. I know I'm not going to get any bullshit if I come to you for an opinion.

[fivestagegod]

Breathe, will you? You're not the only one who can't take a compliment for shit.

[jesus christ this fuckin' guy]

I really do appreciate it, though. I'm not too interested in jerking you around as long as we're on the same side, and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon on that front.

[mouflon]

[ mmmm!!!

She's still pouting, but that's just the tsuntsun way. ]

...Good. Not that I expect you to go postal if you managed to last through this week, but I'm still... I'm glad you're on our side. ...Thanks, again.

[ Guess what, Rin is just as bad at giving compliments as receiving them. ]

[fivestagegod]

It seems kind of like a waste to give up now - I get that there aren't a whole lot of us left and that's probably disheartening or something, but honestly it's just making me want to see this through even more.

Sometimes you don't die because of a legitimate advantage, sometimes you don't die because you're too damn stubborn and pissed off to.

[mouflon]

[ As the kids say: mood. ]

Yeah. I mean, it's like I just said—there's something I need to finish. Whether it's back home or here, I'm not going to go out without fighting tooth and nail first.

A smaller group just means... It's probably easier to keep it together.

[ You know, like they talked about last time. ]

[fivestagegod]

[...]

Not to be insensitive, but two of our loudest dissenting voices are dead now.

[mouflon]

[ There's something so straightforward about that that it makes her laugh, a short noise like she's been punched in the gut. ]

I think it's sad that Fugo is gone, no matter how misguided she was in the end. But... I mean, look, there are some people here that I'm still never going to like, but it's not the same as the way she and Jasper were.

[fivestagegod]

I'll actually grant that Anna was a loss, given that she...

[...how do you...]

...She tried, anyway.

[Nailed it.]

But I do think that if we can avoid infighting from here on, it'll only be beneficial. ...That, and avoiding Kirei trying to kill us all because he decides he no longer cares for whatever reason.

[mouflon]

[ ... ]

I got his weapons a couple of weeks ago. Normally, I don't make a policy of giving those kinds of things to other people, but... Do you think it would hurt to let him have them back? You know, like a gesture of good will. It doesn't seem like he needs them if he wants to kill, anyway...

[ Her tone is hushed, like she's worried about someone overhearing? ]

[fivestagegod]

We'd be looking for something like that anyway now, if he were to use them. Especially since he talked about them in front of everyone.

I don't think it'd hurt anything to give them back.

[mouflon]

That's what I was thinking, too. Plus, he's the kind of person who would find a way whether he had them or not. Still, I appreciate the input. Like I said, no bullshit.

[fivestagegod]

Usually I do try. Even if Anna seemed to doubt that notion most of the time.

[mouflon]

To be honest, I doubt that. She didn't like it when people told her things that ran counter to the way she saw the world... Or the way she wanted to see it, I guess. More likely, you were hitting too close to home for her.

[ She says this with pretty much the same amount of regard as she tried, for the record. ]

[fivestagegod]

A bit of both. On the one hand, apparently I told her something during the first week that she just kept dwelling on.

On the other, I told her I wasn't in a rush to get back home and Mt. Vesuvius erupted.

[mouflon]

[ Rin chuckles at that, but it's a fragile sort of sound. ]

I kept telling her she was wasting herself on that GRANBELM thing. I'd say for her to just consider what I had to say, and for a second, I thought that maybe she actually would.

[ UNFORTUNATELY, ]

[fivestagegod]

My first conversation with her involved her throwing a box of soap at my head because I told her I wasn't interested in dying for her cause, and also that she needed to calm down or she'd paint a target on her back. ...Again, she then threw soap at me, so somehow I don't think that took too well.

The second conversation... Well, I asked her why she hadn't tried to escape by killing anyone yet, if whatever she was doing back home was so important. And apparently that crossed some major wires. She spent a while staring into middle distance and talking to herself after that one. Not entirely sure I regret having asked, but I didn't exactly know that parts of this would be the result.