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

[fivestagegod]

A lot of things. The corporation. My life's work. What I do. What I've done to people.

Pretty much everything.

[nothingcanstop]

Done...? [ That's the first thing that gives her any pause. ] What... [ ... ] Can I ask what wasn't lies?

[fivestagegod]

[It's easier to figure that out, honestly.]

...If it has to do with the situation here, I mean it. I'm not sabotaging you. I'm not fucking over our chances at getting out of here. What I think about all of you guys is questionable but kind of irrelevant.

But I am on your side. That much has always been true.

[Mm.]

My wife and I work for a pharmaceutical corporation, in the middle of a viral outbreak resulting in huge amounts of undead. I used to have a friend in the same business who died a couple months ago. That's all been pretty accurate. I got shot to hell and back, that's pretty accurate too.

[nothingcanstop]

Those sound like pretty good groundwork.

I knew for awhile that you just kind of...see people differently. I don't care about it. I mean... It doesn't affect my opinion of you.

And...I figured there was something with your company. The kind of work you did, or...testing, or something, the more you'd talk about it. ...But, honestly... You're right. Sometimes people need to do things to survive. I still don't think it has to...that it should be like that, everywhere. But, that's not a luxury everyone has.

[fivestagegod]

Oh my god, Della.

[He sounds amused; it isn't a nice tone.]

Yeah, I've done some things for survival's sake. Sure. I like being alive, and sometimes staying alive means you do stuff that you don't want to do. But sometimes you help your best friend murder your boss so you can take over his research, and you create the goddamn virus that caused the outbreak in the first place.

I don't cure people, Della. That's the thing you're not getting. I create bioweapons.

[nothingcanstop]

[ Like the mad scientist in the horror movie. Della's fingers knit together in her lap. ]

...Why? Why...all that?

[fivestagegod]

Because it's a challenge for me, when very few things are.

[Doctorate at 14. Unrivaled intellect and talent in his field. Only one person who's ever, ever upstaged him, and she's been dead and buried for fifteen years.]

It was never about the people. It wasn't about the deaths, either - those just didn't matter at all to me, it wasn't like those were the goal.

I just genuinely love what I do, and this was one of the few ways to do it all I wanted, with very few boundaries. No restrictions, no morals. Just the challenge of creating and designing things to do whatever the hell I wanted them to do.

[nothingcanstop]

[ ... ]

Were you ever creating a cure? I don't think so, but I still want to ask.

[fivestagegod]

What I told you about what I was creating was technically accurate. The G-virus was intended to affect the human immune response, and essentially change life as we know it. Those that could bond properly with it would be essentially perfect beings - intelligent, adaptive, and functionally unkillable.

Not so much a cure for the zombie plague as it was a cure for the human condition itself, in other words.

[nothingcanstop]

[ After a few long moments, Della breathes out slowly. ]

To mutate people, William?

[ It's still William. ]

[fivestagegod]

[He notices, and he isn't sure how he feels about that.]

Yeah.

[nothingcanstop]

...So why... Why now, after all this time, are you telling me? Why do you care, that you keep lying to us?

[fivestagegod]

Because shit like this - [he gestures vaguely toward the letters, the notes] - isn't real.

It's not the first time I've had it happen; I've seen it before, I've talked about it with Al. You get sentiments like this sometimes - people being nice to you, people in the civilian sector wanting to be your goddamn friend - but none of it's real, none of it's for you. It's just for the person everyone thinks you are. Once people learn anything about what you actually are, you're fucked.

You ever tried living like that, Della? You can have anything you want, but none of it's yours. Not really. It's for some other person everyone sees when they look at you. It gets old real fast.

[nothingcanstop]

Are you mad at us for liking the person you presented to us?

[fivestagegod]

No. Not really. That'd be at least a little counterproductive.

[nothingcanstop]

Then what part of this are you mad at us for? [ ... ] What...do you want this to change?

[ The tone to her voice, it’s gotten...increasingly tired, increasingly soft. Maybe an outburst would be better. But she can’t seem to manage one right now. ]

[fivestagegod]

Just...stop, okay? Stop with all the "kindness and understanding" bullshit, we all know that's not what you should be doing right now so just knock it the fuck off.

[His words are shaking rather violently; not in a way that sounds like he's going to snap at her again, just in a way that indicates laughing and crying are alarmingly close to becoming the same thing and he's barely keeping a handle on not doing either.]

I don't know what I want. Does that make you feel any better? I don't fucking know. I guess I want to - I want to get rid of all of you, so maybe you'll stop looking at me like that. I'm tired of your fucking sadness and sympathy and everything else - just leave me to die if I can't handle things, that's how this shit works.

[He's handled things on his own before; he often has to. If not...well. He knows what happens if he can't, too.]

I just want this to fucking stop, and I want you to know so you'll knock it the hell off, and I want these people to be alive again - [more...agitated gesturing toward the letters] - and let me tell you, that's a brand new feeling and it's almost impressively intolerable... I'm just done with this. All of it. I no longer care what happens, do what you want.

[nothingcanstop]

[ For a time, Della is quiet. She just sits on the bed opposite him, watching with tired, uncomfortable eyes and a slump in her shoulders. Something like defeat. ]

...I don’t like [ while soft, her voice holds a strained aspect, as she stumbles over each word ] being told what to feel.

I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want. [ There’s a remarkable...almost bitter quality to what she says. Like she doesn’t want it to be there. ] But I won’t leave you to die. ...You should probably know well enough by now that you can’t just turn off the way you feel about someone. No matter how much you might want to.

[fivestagegod]

[He shrugs a little. Lets his eyes slide closed.]

You don't feel that way about me. That's the point. But I know you'll do what you want. I'm not going to try to stop you.

Stay if you want. I don't really care.

[nothingcanstop]

[ And yet, she doesn't move. ]

Last week, when I asked how much you meant it. How much was genuine, when we talk, not about...anything from before. But here. Was that a lie?

[fivestagegod]

[Why are you making him answer this.

He's just quiet for a long time after that's out there. Not trying to come up with something convincing to say - honestly, it'd probably be more of an issue if he could answer right away - but trying to figure out if he wants to answer at all.]

No. It wasn't.

[nothingcanstop]

...That's the person I grew to like.

Not the guy who devoted his life to saving humanity. Not the guy who sounded like an ethical, upstanding fellow, wronged by his superiors. Yeah, I liked talking about your family. Hearing about the things you were good at. But it didn't shape why I kept talking to you.

How much of an idiot do you think I am, William? I've seen you at the trials. Even before you explained that your sadistic tendencies [ ah she knows the word ] I knew something didn't add up.

[ One of her hands has found its way to her pocket again, and she runs her fingers over the edges of the letter Rose left behind. Apologies, apologies, assumptions. It's...tiring. It's all very tiring. Even for someone with boundless optimism (by necessity), like Della. ]

But you can't just turn off the way you feel. However much was a lie, the parts that weren't...I liked those. I still do. It doesn't make sense. But, it just is.

[fivestagegod]

[That gets a bit of a noise out of him.]

In fairness, my superiors did wrong the hell out of me. Multiple times. Looks like they succeeded in what they were trying to do this last time, given the whole bleeding out on the floor problem.

[JUST SAYING.]

You know I'm going to be blunt with you whether you really want me to or not. So yeah, I think you're an idiot, actually. Not because of what you did or didn't know, but because I'm straight-out telling you that I murder people and you're telling me that that's all right because you like me as a person. There is something seriously fucked up about that, if you ask me.

But I'm still on your side for the time being, whether anyone actually wants me to be or not, so it's probably for the best, I guess.

[nothingcanstop]

[ With an ever-frustrated grunt, Della's voice raises a little. ]

Never did I say that's alright. I'm just not scolding you because I think we both know that would accomplish nothing. You're not beholden to anything I say or feel, and I doubt any disapproval or...or outright disgust would change anything.

[fivestagegod]

Oh, it definitely wouldn't accomplish anything. But let's all bear in mind that I'm not a fucking idiot, and I'm pretty aware that "I murdered a bunch of people pretty much through boredom" isn't something that you personally meet by being all peace, love, and understanding about it.

I know what the normal reaction to that should be. I know what your reaction to that should be. All you're doing by trying not to have it is making me jumpy, and nobody likes that.