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possibilistfanfiction · 7 months ago

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arcane prompt "hospital"?

[jinx deserves the world, also it's nice to let cait use her girlboss disposition for good sometimes, yknow. ao3 here.]

///

you hand caitlyn a cup of black tea she probably thinks is beyond shitty; it's all they had at the cart in the courtyard, and you still have no idea how to make proper tea anyway. still, she smiles — small, and residually scared, but genuine — in thanks. she's been crying, you can tell: her eyes are red-rimmed and the sweater of vi's she'd thrown on in the middle of the night is rumpled around the sleeves, like she'd used them to wipe her tears.

'she's going to be okay, right?' you look at vi's still, bruised form in the bed. 'they didn't, like, tell you really bad news while i was gone or something.'

caitlyn steadies herself. 'no,' she assures you. 'she's going to be just fine.'

'okay,' you say, and you trust her because she loves vi and because she's a doctor, and mostly because at this point caitlyn wouldn't lie to you. you scoot your chair forward and lace your fingers together with vi's hand, the one without an iv taped into it, and squeeze gently, just a hello. the doctors had explained that she's on a lot of medicine to keep her comfortable, plus the anesthesia from her surgery, so she's not going to wake up until midday at the earliest. but just in case she can feel you, you want her to know that you're there. you remember coming out of the worst sedations, medication that was wrong for you or just way too high a dose, to vi slumped next to your bedside, her big, strong hand steadfast around yours. 'did you see her x-rays or medical history or something?'

'i didn't intend to,' she says in way of an answer.

'ah.' you fiddle with vi's fingers. 'gnarly, huh?'

she puts her tea down on the small table near the bed and runs a hand through her hair before she scrapes it up into a messy ponytail. 'i knew, in theory,' she says. 'we've talked about things, of course. i'm able to help take care of when her chronic back pain flares, and how she really should have a surgical repair on her bad shoulder. but, i just, well. i suppose i comprehend the breadth of it now, more completely at least, the details in a way i can understand.'

you don't know; you don't ever want to know, not like that. vi still has nightmares about prison, still doesn't eat enough sometimes, still refuses heating pads and advil sometimes after a hard shift. 'yeah.'

'and i suppose, too, that it's hard to know how much she's hurt, even if it's so much less bad now.' she shrugs, helpless, and looks at you. 'i just love her.'

it had been terrifying, to get a call in the middle of the night from the fire department: vi had been in a building when it collapsed, and she was hurt and it was, potentially, very bad. you're not sure who they'd called first — you or caitlyn — but she'd texted you a minute after and offered to pick you up so you could both wait at the hospital while vi was in surgery. it had taken two hours before her dad came out and explained that vi had some internal injuries that still needed more fixing in surgery, as well as a few bruises and scrapes, but she would recover fully with time.

'you should move in with each other,' you say.

caitlyn pauses for a few moments, but then she lets out a quiet laugh. 'how long have you been holding that in?'

you shrug. 'you guys have been together for two years. i know vi wants to.' you don't mention that you hack into caitlyn's person email on occasion, just because you like to be nosey; you don't mention that you'd seen her and vi send property listings back and forth the last few months. 'i know she hasn't said anything to me because she doesn't want to upset me, or make me think like she's choosing you over me, or whatever.'

caitlyn considers it calmly. 'she would never do that, you know.'

'yeah.' you do; it's the thing you know most in the world. 'i also know that she's scared that if she doesn't help me at much, i'll have another episode.'

that, caitlyn has no response to.

'i've talked about this a lot in therapy.' you squeeze vi's hand, just in case she's listening too. 'at first i couldn't manage any of it without her, for sure.'

vi had spent her first month out of prison visiting you in your tent in the scariest part of town, not pushing, just bringing you food and warm clothes, comfortable blankets; she'd sit with you for hours if you'd let her, even if most of the time you talked to voices only you could hear and saw things she never would. finally, you agreed to go to the hospital with her, and from there it was more months of getting clean, and trying different medications, and really lame group therapy, and coming to terms with your diagnosis. vi was there as often as she could be, clean-cut for once while she went through the fire academy. you don't remember many details, but when you'd finally gotten released, she'd brought you to this small, rundown one bedroom apartment that she'd made as nice as she could. the first night you were home, she fell asleep in bed next to you in less than a minute, a few tears on her cheeks, seemingly of their own accord. it's always been a measure of love you'll always be a little in awe of.

'but, like, i remember my meds on my own now. i have a system.'

caitlyn's smile is honest-to-god proud. 'that's no small feat.'

you try to act nonchalant, but she's right: most of your medications have side effects that require other medications to off-set, and it's a nightmare if you don't coordinate them properly. 'and, like, my graduate program is going well, and i have friends, and i like climbing. i feel, not good, i guess. maybe i'll never feel good. but i feel real, and most of the time the world feels real too.'

caitlyn lays her hand on top of yours, and vi's.

'anyway,' you say, clearing your throat so you don't cry. you run your free hand through your hair, grown out some now after your "interesting decision," as vi had said, last year during a meltdown. 'vi can move out, and ekko can move in to our apartment. he's —' your boyfriend? your best friend? your favorite person, other than vi?

caitlyn smiles gently. 'he is.'

'he knows what to do, if i need help.'

'and i know you want to live with vi, and i know she wants to live with you.' even though you invade their privacy by checking emails, you'd never spill the beans that they've both individually been looking at rings. 'i can manage, without her there as much. i don't think either of us ever thought that would be our reality, which is why vi hasn't brought it up. i know she's still scared, probably forever. it was scary.' you take a big breath and then let it out; when you'd first gotten your diagnosis, it seemed like you would never get to be a full, independent person, and then it would be a death sentence. 'but i want to try. i can try.'

caitlyn squeezes your hand, and vi's too. 'i believe you will do wonderfully, in both my professional and personal opinion.'

'oh. really?'

she nods. 'you haven't had a full blown episode in over a year. i see you manage your days, and your impulses. clinically, you're actually a great patient. personally, you're a pain in the ass sometimes, but not because you're unwell.'

'just because of my stunning charm and incredible sense of humor? my flair for the dramatic?'

'something like that, sure.'

you laugh. 'thank you, so so much.'

she rolls her eyes but she's still fond of you, especially in the early morning light. vi's eyes are both bruised blue, but caitlyn had told you that surgeons had finally fixed her broken nose after it broke again this time: you're pretty sure vi hasn't been able to breathe properly since she was, like, twelve. at the very least she'll snore less, so a win for all of you. 'we found a house we want to put an offer in on,' she admits.

'yeah?'

she nods. 'it's not too far from your place, and it's right on the park.'

you scoff, just for posterity. 'fancy.'

she's unfazed by this point. 'we — well, vi was going to tell you, but i know it's fine if i do. we know you and ekko want to keep your current place, and i'd actually like to sit down with both of you and see if there's any way i can assist with your rent or other budgetary items.'

you're definitely, 100% about to cry, all of a sudden.

'she is so proud of you, for even being able to consider pursuing increased independence.'

you sniffle.

'but, the brownstone we're looking at also has a fully finished basement, with a bedroom and a small living area, its own bathroom. we've planned for it to be your space, whenever you want it, for any reason, for however long you'd like to stay. a night, a year. you will always have a home with violet, which means you will always have a home with me too.'

you have to do your deep breathing: sometimes kindness, especially given freely, is what makes the world slide most off-kilter. there are always voices telling you that you don't deserve good things, that caitlyn, and vi, and ekko, and vander, and even caitlyn's parents, when you go over to their giant ass mansion for celebratory dinners or parties, are lying to you. but you put your head down against your joined hands and count to ten, whisper it aloud, and then sit back up. caitlyn is waiting patiently.

'how big is the house?'

she laughs, heartily, and pulls out her phone to show you pictures and specifications. it's beautiful — not that you'd ever expect less of caitlyn kirammen — but she also tells you the plans she has to decorate, and your chest aches with a happiness so tinged with grief when she casually explains things vi wants in each room too. it's a life you never dreamed you'd get to have, and you know vi has probably been having total menty-b's about all of this, but she deserves a home more than anyone you've ever met.

'it's fine, i guess,' you say, after caitlyn finishes showing you their plans for the patio and yard.

caitlyn laughs. 'up to your standards?'

'could use more neon.'

'keep it confined to the basement, and you've got a deal.'

'ugh.'

'the only request i have is that you not blow it up.'

you pretend to contemplate. 'that's reasonable, i guess.' you look around at all the monitors proclaiming your big sister's strong heart and lungs and brain, despite it all. 'vi's gonna be so relieved that we don't have to have a heart to heart when she wakes up.'

caitlyn looks at the still planes of vi's face adoringly. disgusting, still. 'she'll be difficult enough as it stands, i'm sure.'

'total pain in the ass.'

////

you spend the first night after vi moves out in your apartment with ekko, and you fall asleep with your head tucked into his chest, safe still, even now. that weekend, you haul a duffle bag of your stuff — clothes, toiletries, a quarter of your lab, a few cans of spray paint — to vi and caitlyn's new house. neither of them are home yet, vi stuck grumpily on desk duty for the evening and caitlyn's meeting running over.

but your key turns in the lock, and your favorite snacks are stocked in the pantry. eventually, they both get home, and they're happy to see you, and caitlyn laughs at the improvements you've already done to the walls of the basement. vi ruffles your hair and you bully both of them into ordering tacos like you want, even though they have plenty of things you could cook at home. caitlyn is polite enough to let you curl up with vi on the couch, just for tonight, and you fall asleep, safe and warm, there too.

#arcane #arcane fic #caitvi #jinx. babygirl no1 #vi... getting stabbed in any universe... it's more likely than you think #SISTERS! it's all a love story!

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canarydarity · 7 months ago

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(I’m actually so beyond glad this was the one you landed on, because this is my second favorite rancher song of all time behind strawberry wine. It’s so tango pov dl to me)

The leather Tango had grabbed and hastily stitched into something resembling a pair of gloves was near falling apart by the time he’d gotten even halfway through clearing the smouldering pile of wood that used to be their home. They were so incredibly caked with soot and so thoroughly speckled with splinters that Tango knew he’d throw them out the second he was done here; a day or two ago, he might not have minded, would’ve shouted to Jimmy just toss ‘em if he’d asked—it wasn’t like they were any short on leather.

But that was yesterday and this was today, where the amount of things they had to call their own had suddenly become precious few and far between. They were poorly made, they were pockmarked with holes, and the inside of each was slick with a coating of the sweat coming off of Tango’s hands, and having to throw them away was going to hurt like a bitch.

Tango grabbed at another slab of wood, dry as the Sahara amidst a record-breaking drought and charred to hell and back, and hefted it over his shoulder, tossing it in the pile his brain had labeled unsalvageable—the one growing at an alarmingly fast rate.

He looked towards where he knew Jimmy to be at the exact moment he felt his health get knocked down a tick—not even half a heart, not even a quarter, just one singular oof. Jimmy was trying to wrangle the cows that had gotten out in the chaos—a task that would’ve been less difficult if they weren’t all terrified out of their minds and reluctant to let themselves be penned once more. Most of them had scattered towards the back edge of the property. Jimmy had been coaxing one out of the tree line, walking backwards, speaking quietly; his foot had taken a dip into some uneven ground, not having been watching where he was going.

Etho had stopped by, earlier in the morning, when the unsalvageable pile looked manageable and the damage—not yet inspected—could still be spoken of with a tentatively hopeful maybe it won’t be so bad. He’d watched Tango sort through a pile of ash and come up empty but for a book charred beyond use, a handful of cobble slabs, and three pieces of dried leather.

He’d asked have you thought any more about what you’re gonna do? And Tango had heard I think you need to express yourself physically, Tango. And Tango has, like, proper ‘hold me back’ energy right now. And you’re not really going to let Scar just get away with it?

Of course he wasn’t. But he also heard Jimmy address the crowd of spectators—you just want to see destruction.

Tango had waved Etho off with a half-hearted yeah uh-huh that was more sound than word, too gelatinous to meld into any mold, sliding around in his mouth unable to keep any one form.

How many of them actually cared if the ranch was razed to the ground? How many of them had just wanted to watch something burn? How many had been hoping for something more exciting to happen next—front row seats and eye for an eye for an eye.

Tango pulled another plank from the wreck, and a puff of ash came free with it, making him cough and choke and hack, waving his poorly-gloved hand in front of his face trying to ban the cause. With each wave, he saw the ranch as it was when he’d finished it, as it was lit entirely aflame, as it was now, collapsed in on itself. He saw horns that were being kept away and club meetings with childish signs that said no ranchers allowed. He saw him and Jimmy, the two of them, further and further from a finish line everyone else kept moving out of reach.

The fire may have been put out, but something was still burning, and these people he might’ve once considered allies, friends…Tango was watching them fan the flames. No neighborhood watch to the rescue, this time, but calls of higher, higher!

His eyes watering from the choking and the smoke, Tango pulled off one of his “gloves” and scrubbed at them, which only made it worse. He was squinting and swiping at his wet cheeks when Jimmy called I got another one! Tango turned to watch him fence in another cow—so far, he’d managed to wrangle three—and threw up a hand and a smile that came out more like a grimace, hoping to convey some amount of good job! Jimmy smiled back regardless.

They were an active house fire, dry and piled high with kindling for the winter and ready to be consumed without a trace. What could Tango do but hope—no, beg—for rain?

(Shameless plug, but also, if you want more like this I have this fic here that builds on some of these ideas more in depth^^)

#worm writes #I’m lowkey so glad I reblogged that post cause it’s. given me an excuse to try and get writing again with little pressure #I don’t hav to write much! but I get to write a little something and think in that context again #hopefully I’ll answer a few more of the ones I was sent #and if anyone wants to send me a number 1-100 I’ll still take them!!!!#ask game #Spotify wrapped ask game #team rancher #jimmy solidarity #tango tek #solidaritygaming #solidaritek

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regarding-stories · 2 years ago

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The dark abyss that is Andor

There were several things that led to Andor.

On the one hand, Disney screwed up its Star Wars intellectual property by handing it to complete hacks for Episode VII to IX, leading a potential cash cow to attract less and less viewers over the course of three increasingly bad installments. Seriously, The Last Jedi is one of the worst disappointments I've actually watched, and not only was I thinking "This can't get worse..." every five minutes only to be proven, "Yes, it can!!", it completely killed my appetite to see IX (and I would have left the cinema at that one's sheer stupidity). With VII, I saw it once with some initial excitement in a cinema when it released and a strange feeling afterwards, and I never revisited it. VIII I saw on two separate long-distance flights because I couldn't stomach the thing in one sitting. IX I didn't see at all, but devoured YouTube videos ripping it apart. Clearly, Disney had a Star Wars problem.

The other thing is the reboot that was The Mandalorian, especially season 1. The Mandalorian had a penchant for not very strong logic in its writing that you still accepted because you had so much damn fun and loved the characters. Given the fact that it clearly pulled lots of viewers into Disney+ that were loving its vibe that was true to the core of Star Wars, Disney management saw the fact that theaters and theme parks were closed due to COVID on the one hand and that big Star Wars movies were at risk of actually losing money on the other hand, and they did what executives are wont to do - they decided that if it worked once, it will work again and declared they will pump out TEN Star Wars series in the near future.

Meanwhile they cancelled also their ongoing series of "A Star Wars Story" movies that started with what could be called "Episode III.5" - Rogue One. Rogue One was plagued with production problems, so much so that seeming key scenes from the trailer weren't in the movie. "I rebel!", anyone?? Still, it turned out to be something new - a new kind of Star Wars story. It took the idea of a war movie (or its modern equivalent, Band of Brothers) and put it into the Star Wars cinematic universe. It did without an actual Jedi (kinda-sorta) and it showed a strong performance of Diego Luna as the morally gray Cassian Andor. And... (spoiler alert) ... it killed its whole cast in its finale.

I know people that say Rogue One is their favorite Star Wars movie. (But other people dislike it.) I hold it in high esteem. The way the resistance is portrayed also seemed to be somewhat subversive - both to its previous image on screen and to what is portrayable on screen for mainstream audiences in general. It became clear that unlike in the original three Star Wars movies resisting an empire is, on the ground, a dirty business and not just about big battles or commando raids. (Which then happen anyway. Because Star Wars.)

Then followed the lackluster Solo and the third installment Yoda was never made as Star Wars increasingly lost its ability to draw crowds into seats.

And thus it came to Andor

Now what do you do with a character that (spoiler alert? really?) dies. You make a bloody prequel. Which is funny. Andor is a prequel to Rogue One which is a prequel to A New Hope. Prequels, like sequels, carry the risk of rehashing the original material without adding anything to it (Solo ...) and being trapped by the inevitability of what has to happen next, curtailing its writing (Kenobi ...). But Andor season 1 betrays none of that. (Talk about being addicted to prequels, Disney...) It is a strong piece of cinematic art in its own right.

And yes, I'm saying art. About a Star Wars series. That's how I feel about it. Andor not only has strong execution, it has depth. It was a show that made me pause it and think about what just happened on screen. It's a show that gets deeper if you know about history, unlike most shows that actually reveal their shallowness to the knowing eye. (Looking at you, The Man in the High Castle. Boy, I hated that tripe.)

But even before we get into that, let me say how I impressed I was with its set and costume design. Whereas the Book of Boba Fett gave us cyberpunks on floating scooters, Andor poured a lot of heart into how everybody looked in their various environments, creating a more rich and varied Star Wars society by portraying various strata thereof, from the life of imperial senator Mon Mothma to the middle class living literally in her shade somewhere on the middle levels of planet-city Coruscant to the mining town labor class that we find Cassian in. It flawlessly cuts between different well-thought out locations, including, of all things, a holiday resort.

This is paired with some very strong performances by similarly strong actors. I mean, we all knew Stellan Skarsgard would deliver, sure. But Denise Gough absolutely kills it, acting-wise. Her delivery as a villain is perfect, the way she manages to always look so sour and annoyed already is quite something, how she normalizes evil into a technocrat career. Every flinch of her face conveys books of information to me as the fascinated viewer. She is at the heart of this series, and worth the price of admission alone.

And let's not forget Andy Serkis' heart-rending performance. Really, we're being spoiled. People are seriously acting, not just standing in front of a camera wearing costumes! In Star Wars!!

And yet, if it was only that, it still wouldn't have impacted me as deeply as it had. There's one more layer to this, and it's the massive bottom of the iceberg that is Andor. I haven't forgotten, even though I'm writing this a year after watching it.

(And definitely spoilers from here on onwards.)

Life under fascism

The second half of season 1 however can put deep horror into any thinking person's mind. It radically departs from previous portrayals of the evil Empire. It's not relying on cheap gimmicks like Episode VII where we see a village razed by the First Order. (So evil. So cliche, too. Also murdering Max von Sydow. Tsk, tsk. They had to get him off stage before any good acting happens...) Andor creeps under our skin and then reaps havoc.

(This part of this entry will become increasingly dark. You might not want to read on. Because fiction is one thing, and comparing it to historical reality is another. This is an actual trigger warning. Proceed with care.)

The first half of the season is standard fare, almost. Cassian gets himself in trouble and there is really no redeeming quality about it. He also gets everybody else into trouble. The Empire in its heavy-handed hurry to eradicate resistance actually creates it in the first place. And still... the lack of compunction about torture, about going victim by victim, vanishing people into its torture cells, breaking them... this is merely an overture. No hero is born here, but evil wears its mask imperfectly.

Cassian escapes his small world to eventually live the good life on a resort world, getting laid, pretending to be someone else. Instead of being caught as the fugitive and murderer and partisan he actually is by now, he simply gets caught up in the arrest of somebody else. The way the Empire "perpetrates justice" not only gets him arrested while having done no wrong (in that cover identity), he also gets sentenced by a court that doesn't even pretend to actually care about due process in any way. There's a machine of oppression, and instead of competently catching him, Cassian becomes caught up randomly in one of its many gears.

And while this may seem random, it's brilliant. It's one of the many reasons why resistance exists. Because the Empire's overreach is everywhere, grinding up people just living their lives while trying to perfect its control. The corruption of the desire for power leaks through in its banality.

What follows is Cassian's imprisonment, and this segment is brutal and horrifying on a deep level. The more you know, the worse it gets. Cassian is transported to a prison facility where he's forced into repetitive labor to make equipment for the Empire. There's a set of steps every labor team has to execute, and the team with the lowest quota gets punished with electric shocks. Day after day.

This is "Vernichtung durch Arbeit." ("Destruction through labor.") This is what the Nazis did to their political opponents. Before there was a Holocaust, there were concentration camps. And prisoners were made to work - the cynic motto across the gate of Auschwitz was "Arbeit macht frei." ("Labor sets you free.") People would gradually be ground down until they gave out in one way or another, fell sick, die of exhaustion, broke psychologically. The series never tells us its "inspiration," it just goes through similar motions. With the veneer of a super-clean techno prison over it.

Not only that, the very scene reminded me of what I read in a book about the Holocaust. Towards the end of the war the engines for the new secret weapon jet planes or rockets were manufactured by prison labor. Crews of malnourished prisoners would each execute a few pretrained steps and crank out more jet engines in slave labor than was previously done in the Reich's armament factories. This was the culmination of the Nazi system where all labor-intensive things like the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall or the underground factories of Dora-Mittelbau were erected by and on the back of slaves that were themselves gradually killed in the process.

Without ever breathing a word of what is portraying, Andor portrays the same. Skillfully, horribly so.

The devil is in the details

Some way into this horror, everybody gets their sentence doubled. The counter simply goes up. No explanation. Total helplessness in the face of total control. The deep gut feeling of "No one gets out here alive" or "It will never end" begins to descend. That number was a sort of life line for people to brave another day. And it lies!

As unbelievable as it may seem, people did get released from concentration camps, especially those on "lighter charges" like "antisocial behavior." But nobody really knew how long they had to stay or if they were to be released. Often, initially told they had to do 3 to 6 months depending on their conduct, and yet most people never left alive. A quick read in a book behind me says that 8 million people were sucked into the system, 7 million died, 200,000 left by being released by the system itself. The idea you might be released one day added false hope that in itself could create further psychological torture if it was dashed over and over again.

Then there is the "divide and conquer" approach to prisoner management. Work crews are led by other prisoners, rebellion and resistance is quelled within the ranks. This Andor merely hints at, but the Nazi oppression system skillfully created hierarchies to make sure a comparatively small detachment of guards could handle a large mass of inmates which could overwhelm them if acting together.

But it doesn't stop here, not in Andor, either. Eventually we learn that the Empire starts to eliminate the prison population. Rumors start to spread that an entire floor of the super prison was eliminated by electrocution. Just like the real Nazis the space Nazis start to construct yet another death machine to eliminate opposition.

And this leads to that sub-plots final chapter, the prison revolt. There are a few historical mass escapes, even from Nazi death camps. There's also the heroism of the two uprisings of Warsaw (including the ghetto uprising). Left with nothing to lose, left with nothing but death ahead, the prisoners overwhelm the guards.

And this happened in real life, too. It's probably based on the historical case of the death camp inmates that were forced to run the gas chambers and crematoria themselves. This is part of the Holocaust itself, the Nazis had finally dropped all pretenses and resorting to kill people in an industrial manner. And these people knew that eventually their whole detachment would be killed. They knew too much, were witnesses to this massive crime against them and humanity itself. They were also among those destined for death. Like in an antechamber of hell itself they were merely bidding time. So they managed one of the few mass escapes on record.

While Andor doesn't stray as far down the road as actual history does, it knows how to cite history for those who know. It's not made up of whole cloth. It actually is referencing the real history of the most inhumane version of fascism, but it does not put the fact in your face. But if you know, its chamber of horrors becomes so much deeper.

And that's why

This is what makes Andor an absolute masterpiece. It recreates the conditions without blindly copying the source. It adapts, but you can feel how deeply inhumane the circumstances are that it depicts. It gives you the bloody creeps, and even if you don't know how much it is rooted in darkness, you will still feel it. It shows. It tells. But it never spoils the source material.

This is art. This is the deep craft. The banality of evil, the careless, uncaring attitude of evil towards those it deems unworthy and not human. It's all on display. It switches us into the place of Cassian and of Andy Serkis' character as it draws us in as audience. We don't see what happens on other floors. We don't have the information advantage. We can only imagine. We are subjected to the fact that we can only imagine it. And so we share a bit in the plight of these characters. Sometimes not showing a thing is the highest accomplishment of movie making.

And this is why I'm pissed that a series that was planned for five seasons was already cut to play out in two. Because we need more of this and less of more Jedi doing backflips. Just like Loki plays on a completely different level than the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Andor leaves all of Star Wars in its dust. If Rogue One was the attempt to tell a different kind of story in the same universe, Andor is the attempt at a different level of depth.

And this, more than Rogue One, makes it clear why they fight.

Watch it if you can.

And sorry if I horrified you.

#andor #andor series #cassian andor #rogue one #star wars

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baelpenrose · 2 months ago

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UAE Book II, Exile's Path: Chapter II: An Unexpected Friend

As Itene follows Marcus into a bar full of mercenaries from all over the world, they meet an unexpected ally in the city of bronze and blood. Thank you to @canyouhearthelight and @writing-with-olive for their beta reading this chapter.

Marcus

Liza had asked them to fan out through the city and scan the area. He’d also been asked to take Itene with him and teach her how to do a little more of what he did - his task was merely to check the garrison and see what he thought of Sargonny’s soldiery.

So, with Itene in tow, he’d sauntered into the barracks to watch them drill. “Okay, so, this is going to sound really basic, but when they’re drilling, watch if they lead off on the same leg in basic formation drills - if the steps are the same length.” He took it in - they were, which he didn’t like. “Even basic stuff like that tells you how long they’ve been drilling together as a unit, how tight discipline is. It took me weeks to get the sweepings troops to a decent level at that, and it impacts how fast a shieldwall can form, how well it holds together as they move.”

Itene nodded. “Right. And we’re figuring out how much of a problem this is if we have to fight, but we’re not fighting them in a big formation, right?”

“Right, but odds are if they’re good at phalanx drills, for a city guard, they’re also drilling at squad level, which we’ll see in a minute. One sec.” He saw them snap into a near-perfect shield wall and cursed. “Yeah. Yeah, I really don’t like that. They’re really good.” The formation broke into smaller elements, each entering into smaller drills.

In addition to forming a decent phalanx, each man seemed capable of more complex maneuvers with their spears. As they watched, the soldiers got into groups of three, practicing locking off small gaps between low walls in a training course. “They’re drilling locking down alleys. Problem for escapes,” Marcus narrated.

Then the soldiers wheeled in sharp about-face, spinning spears vertically as they pulled shields in tight to their bodies and turned. The resultant maneuver allowed them to turn around, keeping covered, and thrust in more or less the same motion, which Marcus didn’t need to explain to Itene was a bad, bad sign.

Their swordsmanship, practiced with shortswords that seemed to Marcus like only marginally longer, curved versions of the Imperial gladius, was of slightly lower quality. “Too much emphasis on cut - makes sense for a place without much armor, and for curved blades it makes sense, but…why not make blades for stabbing? Makes more sense with a shortsword. Especially for fighting in ranks. Problem is, they’re still damn good. Look at the way they handle those shields - and the blades are sharp on both sides of the curve, you can tell by how they’re holding them. Means if they get close they can slash you along the back. By the way, you remember how to counter that, right?”

“Step in?” Itene asked, and Marcus grinned, proudly. Despite being familiar with the technique on shorter blades, the girl had struggled with avoiding the ‘wrapping’ strike for many of their early bouts until she’d adjusted to simply flinching into it with the rim of her shield before it got any power behind it.

“Shove to one side, dip, and hack the side of their knee. Then come back up and cut their throat.”

“How do I rate the overall swordsmanship, by the way?”

“You can tell by how smooth the movements are - what do I say about that?”

“Haste is the fencer’s enemy?”

“Yeah, they’re smooth, they’re not in a hurry, they know what they’re doing. These guys have been drilling their basics for a while. I don’t know if they’d be good duelists, but in groups of two or three they’re capable of covering each other and being a real menace. They never open up when they swing, either - shields never move from covering them.” It was a key point he’d drilled her on, over and over - don’t move your shield when you swing, if you do you leave yourself open.

Overall, these men wouldn’t have been out of place in the first rank of most Imperial armies, which worried him. Sargonn troops were good quality, and he didn’t like their chances confronting better than two thousand of them. Or even trying to slip a cordon of them.

That was a problem unto itself, to be certain - he especially hated the fact that if big groups of those men cornered them, he’d be fighting a bunch of interlocked shields and a bristling line of spears. That would be a miserable affair that was basically guaranteed to get everyone hurt, and damn hard to counter.

“I think we’ve seen what we need to of these men. Thomas will case the city and figure out patrols - I just wanted to know what we were up against. Next step is to get an idea of what kind of hired muscle the slavers have.”

Itene stretched, the leather and chain Marcus had forced her to wear clinking in the heat. “Where do we go for that?”

Marcus gestured, his own armor’s weight more comfortable to him only by virtue of being adapted to it. “A bar. Mercenaries of the type who’d take that job tend to gamble, drink, and wench when they’re not on duty. Oh, and if I say, you’re running back to the inn.” Marcus added, as an afterthought, ugly thoughts of the Fortunate Exiles filling his head. “None of these are men who expect to die any way but awful, and that tends to do things to a man’s morals if he doesn’t have a higher cause to dedicate himself to.”

“Will Thomas be there?”

“Honestly, I doubt it since he’s supposed to be looking at what we’re breaking into, but knowing him, no guarantees. If you see him, ignore him. He’s got his job and we’ve got ours. Focus, by the way. If I say, you go back to the inn. Keep your eyes on the exits. Stuff goes wrong, I kill everything in sight and you run.” Marcus had thought about it, and decided he liked his chances better taking on the entire Sargonny Guard than he liked his chances of sleeping in the same camp as Liza if he let anything happen to Itene.

From what Marcus could see, the mercenaries were kept more towards the outer edges of the city, where Marcus had watched the soldiers file their way back towards barracks in the inner part of the city after drills in the outer ring. The bar they went to was a disgusting sort of place, the kind where men could dice, drink, and attempt to whore all at once. Luckily, that kind of environment was exactly what he needed to see men fighting so he could observe what he had to expect of them as opponents.

He didn’t even have to wait long. Itene had her hood up, Marcus didn’t. Better, he figured, not to have a teenage girl being super visibly a teenage girl in a room full of mercenaries willing to work for slavers. He watched as a group of men, arguing loudly over a stack of coins and a dice roll, drew short-hafted axes and swords on each other, and leaned back with a smirk as he watched the ensuing brawl.

“Okay…ooh, no, that was sloppy.” Marcus heckled the fight as it happened. “Come on, take his hand, he’s giving it to you!” The man he’d shouted at did not, in fact, take his antagonist’s hand, but swung an ineffectual cut at his shoulder, before being brained by a club.

Itene looked at him. “Bad?

“It has a sort of ugly pragmatism. Look at the guy - the big one, with the scar - he knows what he’s doing, he’s just crude about it. Again, ignore how bad it looks, pay attention to if its smooth and decisive.”

Itene paused, and Marcus paid attention to the fight - then Itene blinked. “That skinny Hykranian. He’s a problem.”

“He’s one. Who else?”

“The Nistrian? And the Imperial…the big Ydrani?”

“Yep. That’s pretty much every serious fighter in this brawl - the others are mostly amateurs - though if that young Ghuli lives long enough he’ll probably be a force someday, he’s got the instincts for it.” The violent efficacy of the fight was obvious, several men were unconscious, four were seriously injured, and three were dead when it ended. Oddly, no word from the guards - at least two of whom were in the bar.

“Why aren’t the guards doing anything?”

He’d already noticed that the guards had little interest in breaking up fights between the mercenaries -

“Maybe they simply don’t care about people who aren’t citizens of Sargonny, or maybe they’re not getting paid enough.”

“Nah, you should hear the way these guys are talking about Sargonn women, the way guards get about any time they look at Sargonn citizens - it’s not pay. We’re beneath the law here.” Itene’s voice sounded bitter, and Marcus realized she was thinking on the past.

Non-citizens…you got what you paid for. Slaves got even less.

Which, Marcus reflected, did work out for him in one respect. They had come with money to pay for what they needed, and Sargonny did want traders to keep coming here to buy and sell goods.

He called for a drink to the bartender, smiling slightly. “I was thinking about starting something, you know.”

Itene blinked. “With who?”

Marcus looked around, counted, and then said, almost nonchalantly. “About…all of them.”

“Why?”

“We’re going to have to fight these guys eventually, might as well get it out of the way. And if the guards aren’t going to do anything about it because they think everyone who isn’t one of theirs is scum…I mean. Slavers get the protection they pay for, right?”

Itene smiled. “I can’t argue with that. How…did you want to start the fight?”

Marcus looked around. “See the server? Don’t pretend the answer is no, Itene, you’ve been looking the whole time.”

The server in question was a human of either Hykranian or Ghulian ancestry in her twenties, wrapped in small swatches of cloth that left her back almost entirely bare, and her midriff exposed, with her waist covered by only a small skirt that fell just past mid-thigh. To the degree that she had a top of her outfit, it was a band of cloth that wrapped her chest, making obvious a generous curve. When they’d seen men in similar outfits outside the city on their approach, one of them had been bleeding from multiple lash cuts.

“I actually wanted to ask, is that a ‘what she did to survive’ or…”

“No, no in the Empire, that’s a ‘what you are doing to survive,’ situation. In Sargonny if you see someone dressed close to that…we are in one of the few nations in the world that still sells people, so…”

“You know the Empire does a lot of stuff that is effectively still slavery in everything except name, right? Including…” She waved her ring, “The reason we’re here? Mine was sold several times?” She paused. “Well, it did, then we made a coup happen.”

Marcus blinked. He thought about pointing out that even at its worst, he’d seen Itene’s ring, and knew it had an expiry date for her indenture etched into it - something a Sargonn slave didn’t have to look forward to. He thought better of it. No point in comparing miseries - Baldor had taught him that much when he’d downplayed getting kicked between two ruthless warlords because of how it stacked up to Thomas’s life.

“How does getting her over here start a fight?”

Marcus paused, embarrassed. “Okay, uh. I’ve never actually wenched before, you understand - someday your mother can tell you how I was around women before I met Iris. But thugs like this get touchy. And if we just throw down money and demand attention, we’re saying we’re better than they are. Plus, after we kill them all, we can pick their pockets and make back the money. Probably.”

“Any chance we could buy her? I kinda..don’t want to leave her here.”

Marcus glanced around. “If there’s only those two guards and the bartender refuses to sell for something reasonable, I suspect we can…”

The door swung open and another man, a Hykranian with a short-cropped beard and bright eyes the color of teak, sat down, looked around, and took a seat. Unlike the others, he carried himself with the easy grace of an expert fighter, and Marcus quietly cursed to himself. “Okay. Fine, whatever. I can manage. Itene. Money.”

“What happens when the fight starts? I think you’re still a little less than clear on that.”

“Stab anyone who gets too close, and watch my back. I kill everyone in sight who isn’t the girl or the guards and the bartender. We go from there.”

That Hykranian looked at Marcus, and recognition flickered in his eyes, but Marcus could not for the life of him say where he’d seen the man before.

Marcus slapped the money down on the bar and shouted for the girl, who approached.

Several men stood up, grumbling.

The newcomer stood up, with a strange look of disappointment…

The woman walked over to Marcus, nervous expression on her face, even as Marcus loosened his sword in the scabbard.

Itene threw back her hood and drew her sword even as Marcus settled his shield on his arm, the Bull of Torin proudly displayed. Then Itene tackled the serving girl behind the bar where it would be safer, and Marcus was already in motion and could spare her no more thought as he’d already started fighting.

Marcus’s shield slid up to deflect a clumsy thrust, even as his sword swung ‘round and took another man in the side of the neck, the blade striking bone with a jarring impact. He wrenched the weapon free, working his hips as he did, and pivoted to deliver another stroke, this one striking nearly straight down another man’s chest when that one went wide, dividing his face in a line of gore and sending him thrashing to the ground. Reversing his grip and whipping his shield around tightly to catch another blade, he drove his sword into another man’s heart, kicked the body loose, and parried with the blade before striking an axeman’s hand off at the wrist - and saw the Hykranian who’d been staring at him so intently felling the Faldrean mercenary that had concerned him before with an elegant strike from a scimitar.

Not bothering to ponder his good fortune, Marcus attacked, savagely, striking a leg from another man and opening a throat, lunging past his new ally to take a foe in the gut before taking a knee to catch a blow coming in low - and then snapping up to hit his enemy with an ugly disabling strike that opened the arteries in the thigh.

He wheeled around, expecting to find more to face, instead only seeing the Hykranian cleanly striking the head off the last man - with four others clearly slain by his hand.

Aside from the screams of the wounded, the nervous pleas of the slave not to hurt her, Itene’s exhilarated laugh - there was a dead man by her too - the bar was eerily quiet. Marcus walked to the wounded men and coldly silenced them. Then he turned to the Hykranian. “You fight well. Thank you for your help.”

“Should we speak in front of the guards?”

“Do I know you, sir?”

“I know your crest, Sir Torin, and I know your name. You supped at my uncle’s house, and he asked me to come find you. My name is Ali. I’ve gained some renown…”

Marcus cut him off. “An honor. We’ll speak more later.” he glanced, meaningfully, at the guards, still living, who had watched the fight with professional disinterest. He rifled the dead men’s pockets, and came up with an honestly depressingly limited amount of coin. Probably had wasted it on liquor - or previous rounds with some unlucky slave. He grabbed the stack of coins they’d been gambling over. Maybe.

“Barkeep. If I offer you this, is it enough to buy that woman’s freedom?”

The bartender looked him up and down. “That’s about what the city will give me when they’re done fining you for making a mess.”

Marcus shrugged. He glanced at Ali. “We’re going to be here for some time, and we will be making contact with your uncle again soon - we’re at the Smooth Stone Inn. But this woman is going to need somewhere safe to go, and we’re on something of a tight schedule. Can I ask you to take her to your uncle and come back to rejoin us? We’d be honored to have you.”

Ali smiled. “I see why my uncle thought I’d enjoy travelling with you.”

The bartender said something, and must have missed that Itene was still behind him.

Itene leapt in a single, sharp lunge at the bartender’s back.

The two guards jumped to their feet, and Marcus and Ali were already moving. They never got a chance to draw.

Ali shook Marcus’s hand. “I will see you in a fortnight, my friend. There are easier ways to get from here to Arshtok if one knows them. I’ll see to it that she gets there safe. Good luck.”

He spoke to the girl, gently, in Hykranian, then in what sounded like Ghulian, and she went with him, with Marcus grabbing Itene. “See? Not a problem.”

“Who was that?”

“Xerxes sent help. Apparently we’ve got other backup. And he’s a decent hand with a sword.” Marcus whistled. He didn’t say the rest.

He’d heard of Ali of Arshtok, the Sword of the Driftshade Oasis. He’d never known he and Xerxes were related.

#found family #original fiction #under avandra's eyes #exile's path #original fantasy #sword & sorcery #fantasy #traumatized characters #writeblr #my writing

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kafus · 2 years ago

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i just went on a 2 hour long adventure to find out obscure pokemon information. again. normal tuesday for me at this point

one of the secondhand japanese emeralds i purchased, i noticed had the MysticTicket and Eon Ticket in the bag, the items to go to navel rock for ho-oh/lugia and to southern island to get one of the latis, latias or latios, respectively. i went to go check the wonder card on the save (gen 3 can only hold one at a time) and it's for the mysticticket (しんぴのチケット)!

of course i was curious about the event that distributed this mysticticket so i looked up the japanese title and managed to find an archive.org link for the event from the original, official pokemon website. but i was surprised to see the eon ticket and latias/latios prominently also displayed on the page, and with emerald listed as a possible game for it to be distributed to, no less!

it's relatively common knowledge that international versions of emerald can't receive the eon ticket because they don't have the original mystery event system in ruby/sapphire which allow it to be received, simply replaced by the new wireless mystery gift system. the only way to get the eon ticket in international emerald is through record mixing with a ruby or sapphire game with the ticket. i assumed this is how the eon ticket on this emerald was received, if it wasn't straight up hacked, but now i wasn't sure since if the previous owner truly went to this japanese event in 2006/2007, they could have also picked up the eon ticket according to the webpage...?

well i talked to some folk over at project pokemon and it turns out the mystery event system is still present in japanese emerald specifically, and not only that, they likely had a custom ROM they used in store to distribute the eon ticket to both RS and emerald! there's no photos and certainly no dump of it online, but it's likely there was a menu where they could pick what kind of game they were distributing to, similar to the custom ROM used for international RS eon ticket distributions that had language selection, which we DO surprisingly have a picture of, from a 2004 event in germany:

this event is really obscure for some reason? i had to talk to experts on the subject for more information on it, the serebii eventdex page for the eon ticket doesn't list it, and the bulbapedia page for the eon ticket doesn't mention it either, which may be remedied now that i've talked to some people about it in the near future. but yeah this was a fun deep dive

it should be noted that even though it would make a whole lot of sense through environmental storytelling that the events are fully legitimate, considering the rest of the file is fully legitimate (checked through multiple softwares), well-played and well-loved, and if they went to this event they would have gotten both tickets at the same time, but i have no way of knowing for sure since i wasn't there! however miraculously they never actually traveled to either island and all the legendaries are still up for grabs... so just for the sake of my own fun i'm going to believe these are real and not injected onto the cart, and go and catch navel rock ho-oh/lugia and one of the southern island latis for myself! :]

thank you Z.Z whoever you are!! you have a really cool file by the way, the random shiny zubat from granite cave and the ev trained alakazam that you obviously put a shitton of time into breeding considering the numerous boxes of abra and dittos in your PC are super cool!

#pokemon #pokemon emerald #pokemon rse #rse #kiki was here #kiki.txt #kiki plays games #i've injected these events on my own games before #but having a likely legitimate copy of them just feels ethereal #though nothing will ever beat the gen 3 japanese mew i have #but that's a different story lol #long post

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good-beanswrites · 1 year ago

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A drabble for an anon asking about the prisoners watching their music videos! This is focused on specifically Mikoto’s initial shock at seeing MeMe for the first time, but just know that Double comes with a whole new set of shocks as he truly listens to John for the first time ;-;

Mikoto was no criminal.

He didn’t know how to break into locked rooms, or hack into complex prison security systems. He figured there was no way in hell he’d be able to see these so-called incriminating videos that the Warden was recording, and had resolved himself to an eternity of wondering what they could be. He was shocked when he didn’t need to do a single thing to gain access to them – Es simply adjusted the computer monitor and told him he could hit play when (and if) he wished. Then they left the room.

“A-are you sure?” he called, but they were already gone.

Mikoto blinked at the screen. It showed a stretched version of his apartment couch, near his bathroom wall, broken to reveal sky above. He thought he could spot his tarot cards at the bottom of the frame. Had Milgram broken into his home to film this?

He scoffed, and hit play.

Distorted guitar started up. He flinched as his own face appeared for a moment – looking directly into the camera and making a wild expression he would never have made if someone was recording. His body tensed up more as he heard his own voice start to sing lyrics he’d never spoken before in his life. He wasn’t even a good singer, and here he was sounding like a professional.

There were plenty of ways to accomplish all of this, of course. Software could mimic one’s voice, making him say anything these crazy reality hosts wanted. A team could easily add some digital effects to a stunt double and match his appearance perfectly. Knowing that didn’t make the experience any less unsettling.

He watched himself commit a nasty murder. He watched himself return home bloodied. But it was all ridiculous. How could Milgram even claim that this was him? He’d never raised a hand to anyone in his life. Were the other prisoners’ videos as outlandish as this one?

But then, a switch.

The song shifted to a new melody. He appeared to wake up from his couch, and suddenly Mikoto got the sense that this was him.

He was struck with how familiar this new segment sounded. It simultaneously felt like a favorite song he must have played on loop not too long ago, and one that he’d never heard before. As it played, each new note and lyric felt right on the tip of his tongue.

It ended as quickly as it began. The song returned to the heavy-metal-murder aesthetic it had started with, and once again he felt like he was watching a cheap copy of himself onscreen. He watched another murder, a shower scene (had the warden seen all that? How embarrassing…) and then he turned to his bathroom mirror.

At the same time as his musical counterpart, Mikoto leapt backwards in horror.

His eyes remained glued to the screen. His hand flew up to grab the lower half of his face. It was fake, he told himself. AI and CGI and all that. It was fake. It had to be.

Something deep inside of him said “no. That’s real. That’s me.”

Something else deep inside of him echoed the sentiment.

The video was less than four minutes of music, but by the end he was panting and tugging at his hair as if he’d endured hours of prison torture. He burst out of the room. He sucked in breath after breath. The melodies still played in his mind, lines repeating in his memory as he tried to put as much distance between himself and that little television screen.

He found the others in the common room. They gave him a knowing look, but somehow he knew his experience had been very different from their own. Es approached him.

They studied his expression for a moment. Thankfully, they didn’t ask anything stupid, like “how did it go?” or “what did you think?”

Instead, they just told him, “if you ever want to watch it again, just let me know, I can get it set up for you.”

He would want to see it again. Of course, it would be better, then. He would take a moment to calm down. He’d watch it later and everything would be okay. He’d have a clearer mind. He’d pick out all the little camera tricks they used to make it. He’d be sure it was a fake, and laugh about how ridiculous he was being now.

Of course. Of course.

He nodded to Es, unable to produce any words. Es left him.

The rules in this prison never made any sense, but in this case, he was grateful. He wouldn’t need to figure out any snooping or hacking to get access to the video again. After all, he was no criminal.

… he wasn’t, was he?

#milgram #mikoto kayano #thanks again!! this was super fun to do 👀#i was so sad that they cant see their videos in canon so it made me so happy to work out how it may work/feel #you know when theres a song you used to love but its been too long and you sort of forgot the words #but as theyre playing youre like ‘ahhh i knew that’#thats what im picturing #something unnervingly familiar #as mentioned in the hcs i think john would have a very different reaction #hed be happy to see himself but upset to see mikoto so afraid of him #:(#i like to think that john watching meme is what prompts some of his lyrics in double #i think the opening shots of bring it on would convince fuuta that someone had just hacked his cameras #but then there would be shots they shouldnt have any way to get #and the same for mikoto seeing his apartment/the train station and then suddenly himself in the shower…#he probably laughs it off with the others knowing that they came back a bit more calm than hes currently feeling #so he fakes it as long as possible before having another Moment alone in his cell that night #OUGH #drabbles

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spontaneousglitterbees · 1 year ago

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“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The paper has it spelled out like sunrise over a lake; she can’t help but look at it until she has to make herself look away. Her first ‘client’, the fellow student she’s meant to be shadowing for the week, the person she is tasked with protecting if she wants to pass this class after transferring in partway through the semester is none other than–

“Ooh, bad luck.”

(Part of the TAPP AU, also on Ao3)

Ouma’s voice squeaks out from beside her upper arm so suddenly she flinches.

“Oh please, Harukawa, don’t tell me I caught you off guard. That’s like, your entire thing, now!” he sounds so jovial, without a care in the world, but his chest heaves as though he also just shuddered down to the core.

“You did this.” She states it without room for uncertainty.

“Why the hell would I do that?” he flicks his hand toward the sheet of printer paper pinned to the corkboard, the one that has condemned them for the next one-hundred-sixty-eight hours. It’s up there for the whole school to see. “It’s not even my MO to hack this school’s ancient copy machine, or whatever, I’m out for a good time. Besides, I’d like to live, thanks much.”

Maki is entirely unimpressed. “It is precisely your MO to stomp on my nerves in every way you can,” she enunciates with each step forward.

His grip tightens around the handle of his cane, still smiling. His knuckles threaten to rip themselves to shreds.

“Actually,” a voice chimes in, stern but not unkind. “It makes perfect sense, does it not? You are both in Class 79, which ought to alleviate some of the initial awkwardness.”

Silver hair catching the artificial overhead light, teaching assistant and upperclassman Peko Pekoyama overshadows the pair from behind. “Besides, as the Ultimate…” her eyes narrow, incredulous. “... Supreme Leader, Ouma is going to need a security detail someday.”

Maki glares up at her for all of a split second before dutifully lowering her gaze. It's less that the Ultimate Swordsman is intimidating than that she's so... coldly supportive. The kind of person whose praise is lined with mist and whose fury is a downpour. It'd be a shame to disappoint her, especially over Kokichi, of all people.

"Oh, but Peko-peko-chan, don't you know? Maki and I have been sworn enemies since we were kids! You'd really let that mean ol' teacher pair me up with my nemesis?! That's so cruel!" Kokichi leans in on his cane for leverage, arms crossed in front of him as he acts out the phrase in big, encompassing gestures. That's a lie. But...

Unfortunately for both of them, it only seems to reassure Peko that the path forward is clear. "It'll be a fine challenge for the both of you, then. You’ll be able to focus on two objectives at once: gaining experience staying alert, and equal experience working with difficult clients.”

Kokichi scoffs in the background, of course, but it's hardly worth arguing. He tries to get in your head and stay there, after all. If anything, being ‘difficult’ is a point of pride for him. His eye still seems to twitch a little at the admission. It’s probably just the dry autumn air.

Maki, inventing new curses in her head and keeping them there, nods sagely. "Of course, Ms. Pekoyama. I won't let you down."

She looks over to her current mark.

It's going to be a long week.

------------------

The week starts off innocuous enough. The worst of it comes at the beginning of each day as Kokichi pulls his books out of his locker. Literature, World History, ... Calculus II? Each slams into the floor with a resounding thud, one after another. Some of them won't even see use until near the end of the school day, but he insists she carry them now. Spiteful little shit.

Many of their general education classes are shared to begin with, fortunately, meaning the two of them simply have to walk between classes together for a while. It isn’t quite embarrassing as much as it is frustrating for Maki. Does he even really need a cane, or is it just a ploy to get the teacher’s sympathy? They saunter down the hallway in either case, uncaring of the actual time they arrive. Five minutes late, ten minutes, even; neither incurs a penalty, a bit of an affront to her own persistent punctuality. ‘This school is his’ indeed.

No. The real trouble starts brewing during their free periods.

"The autumn leaves are home to a variety of bug species," lectures Gonta, sitting cross-legged in the courtyard. Kokichi sits beside him, dredging through a pile of leaves; pick up, flip, sort, over and over. Maki remains stock-still and focused on defense. Peko could be hiding around any given corner, assisting a teacher lying in wait for an ambush just to make a point about vigilance.

But it’s a bit hard to stay on edge when things are so… unremarkable. So normal.

"As an example, early-emerging populations of Actias luna in North America lay eggs on the undersides of leaves to keep larvae and pupas safe during winter until the adults appear in March." Despite Gonta’s better efforts choosing a more palatable bug for discussion, neither Kokichi nor Maki seems to be paying actual attention.

"Which has to be why the leaf piles make such a good crunch when you jump in'em, riiiiight?" Kokichi teases, crushing the pile of leaves he's sorted beneath the base of his palm. He throws his back into the motion with a sadistic smile. It breaks into the same mischievous laugh as usual soon after, nishishi~!

Gonta, however, seems unalarmed; perhaps he sees the un-smashed pile, the ones with even just the potential to have 'stuff on'em'. Instead, he smiles. "That might be the beetles, they love hiding in leaves."

"Ewwww!" Kokichi wipes his hand on his pants, despite the distinct lack of bug entrails on them. "Great! Gonta, you can't just ruin fall like that! Now I'm gonna be thinking about nasty beetles when I just wanted to have some fun..." he makes a point to frown, but seeing no real reaction the expression disappears as quickly as it came.

"I not– I'm not ruining fall, it's too hot out to be real fall. It's messing with the bugs’ hibernation cycles...."

Maki finds she's won a fourth consecutive mental game of tic-tac-toe with herself before she finally sighs. Would it be out of line to suggest going inside? Perhaps a more enclosed space will help her readjust to the objective.

Before she can suggest such a thing, Kokichi beats her to it.

“Yeah, it’s waaaay too hot out for September, I’m beat. Harukawa-chan, can we go back inside now?” he doesn’t bother to pout, eyes going from half-lidded to three-quarters wide seeing the barely-contained irritation on Maki’s face.

“Gladly.” She stands without hesitation, turning to Gonta. “Thank you for having us.”

“Of course, is only polite thing to do,” smiles Gonta. Kokichi is a touch intrigued.

“What are you thanking him for, I bet you weren’t even listening! You haven’t taken that scowl off your face all day.” He leans a bit to his left, accentuating the roll of his eyes.

“I knew that you wouldn’t.” Maki says simply, opening the cold glass door.

Kokichi is shocked, appalled he’d tell you, with a loud gasp! Then he shrugs a little. “Eh. I wasn’t bored, anyway.”

Gonta waves, cheerful as ever, as the door swings shut.

The foot of his cane practically skids across the terrazzo tile as Kokichi takes off down the hall.

“What’s got you in such a hurry?” Maki asks before she can think better of it; Ouma is still faster than she’d given him credit for.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Ultimate Assassin.” The reply comes quick and sharp, bitterness rising in his voice that hasn’t seen the light of day since well before the game ended.

Before she can ask ‘why now?’ or some such thing, as though there’s any logic behind what Ouma does in the first place, he’s looking at her expectantly from his perch just at the threshold of the main library doorway.

“Dunno about you, but I, for one, have homework. I’m looking for a book, silly, don’t you guys use those?” he shakes his head lightly, keeping the door open by leaning on it and waiting for her to go through. It takes a moment of the two staring at one another to determine who is going to relent; Maki walks a step inside as Kokichi beelines for the reading chairs.

Ah, the reading chairs. Only marginally more acceptable than the stiff, borderline crunchy upholstery of most of the furniture on campus. At least there’s no punishment for sitting on these. Surrounded by deep forest green carpets and a dim, subdued atmosphere one risks sinking into should they stay still for too long, the library is quiet. Starkly quiet. The sound of breathing itself seems to echo, not at all damped by the depth of archways and sub-sections of books and books upon books.

Kokichi looks idly up at the rafters, looking for something he must not find.

“What’s wrong?” Maki reluctantly asks, curiosity overpowering her better sense.

“It’s hot in here,” Ouma replies, his voice… uncharacteristically soft. It’s impossible to tell what emotion comes attached, if there is one at all.

“The air conditioning has been broken in this building all day, I hear.”

There is an awkward silence between them, an absolute vacuum of small-talk.

He takes a deep breath, only to look back over at Maki. “Welp. This place is huge, so. Might as well get crackin’, book’s not gonna find itself!” He smiles a little too wide for his face as he launches upright, looking over his shoulder and taking off into the canopy of books. “Be back in a bit!”

“Alright,” says Maki, striding over to meet him. “Where are we going first?”

Kokichi shakes his head. He’s sorely mistaken if he thinks it’ll be that easy to get rid of you. “Hmm, iunno. I’ll know it when I see it,” he chirps as he changes directions, taking a few dizzying turns before coming to a brief pause.

What is his problem? What does he get out of making this difficult for the both of you? Surely boredom can’t overtake the selfish want to do less work… yet, sure enough, he’s speed-walking away again.

Maki doesn’t need to look up to explain the sudden chill down her spine.

“Kiyo-chan! Fancy meetin’ you here,” Ouma laughs, stepping to the shelf opposite Korekiyo as Maki walks up to the two of them.

“Not exactly, Ouma, you know quite well I’ve been tasked with the maintenance of some of the anthropology department’s rarer books,” Kiyo shakes his head, adjusting his mask. “... No, I won’t be taking you to them. I was actually looking for a project on Minoan mythos in relation to pre-Hellenic…” he cuts himself off.

Really, Maki thinks to herself, it’s hard to believe this awkward kid could have been the monster he once was. That’s the thing about monsters, though, isn’t it? In real life they don’t have horns or tails like the minotaur….

“Say. What are you visiting the library for? Your field is not precisely predicated on a large literary basis, is it?”

“Kiyo-chaaaaan! No fair! Are you telling me I don’t look like I read? ‘Cuz I can read plenty, as long as it’s not BORING me to death!!” Kokichi leans on his cane, slightly swaying. “I like libraries. They’re like obstacle courses, and half the time nobody is even in them to get in the way!” he smiles. “But that’s a lie.”

“He’s looking for a book,” Maki chimes in, startling both Korekiyo and Kokichi back a few steps.

“Oh, is that all? What kind of book are you looking for, Ouma? Certainly I could be of assistance.” Kiyo nods, possibly(?) smiling, and at the very least visibly trying to maintain a less standoffish posture.

“That won’t be–”

“Binary star formation,” the two phrases come in at the same time. Kokichi continues, “and the history of their discovery.”

Kiyo stares at Kokichi for a moment, in (confusion? Disbelief? It’s difficult to tell, with so much of his face obscured and those piercing eyes ready to strike at any time…) before nodding. “Of course. I believe I recall where that one is, it was returned quite recently.”

Ouma stares idly into the distance for a split-second, an automaton re-calibrating on the fly. “Right. Duh, but I need it now, so.”

Sure enough, Korekiyo is only away for a matter of minutes before returning with a single large tome. The book seems more focused on general astronomical phenomena, but must have a chapter or two dedicated to binary stars. Should have picked something more obscure, Maki huffs at the thought, if you really just wanted to cause trouble. Let me guess, that isn’t–

“That’s exactly it!” says Kokichi, who excitedly starts flipping through the pages. Korekiyo looks like he wants to scold him, be more careful, but restrains himself from doing so. Nonetheless, the two share a look; Kokichi suddenly feels like maybe he should slow down, lest unsavory things happen to his nerves.

Just a feeling.

Things look, for once, to be going well again. Ouma is reading (or, at least, glaring at a page), freeing up Maki’s attention to better scope out the area.

… At least, until “Kiyo-chan? The text is so small, I can barely read a thing!”

Don’t get involved, don’t worry about it, Maki, you have a mission!

“Then why don’t you take it back to one of the reading areas? It’s certain to be brighter there.” Korekiyo shrugs, back to looking at the shelf ahead.

“Can’t you read it to me, Kiyo-chan? Pleeeease, you have such a nice reading voice!”

Korekiyo stops, for a moment, glaring at Kokichi. “And that’s a lie, certainly.”

“What! You’re calling me a liar! Kiyo-chan, that’s so, s-so,,” the tears start to well up, if only slightly. Is he losing his touch with the waterworks? “Accurate, yeah, but not this time! If I didn’t tell the truth some of the time, it’d make the lies too obvious! And that’s no fun at all.”

“... Ah,” says Kiyo, uncertain of how to take a compliment.

“So?”

“Oh yes, right. Hmm. It can’t be that large of a diversion, surely…”

Such is how Korekiyo winds up over by the reading chairs, telling a dubiously-interested Kokichi about disk and turbulent fragmentations. “Where the instability and arbitrary motion cause a core to split off into multiple masses of gas and dust that collapse into independent protostars,” so the reading goes, “that are close enough to one another they become entangled in mutual orbit.”

Maki can hardly say she’s particularly invested, even if it would be nice to have a better idea of what Kaito’s blathering on about half the time now that classes are in full swing. Still, something in her can’t help but hang on to this itch of unease, as though at any moment something will go wrong. She’s supposed to be watching Kokichi, but finds herself looking more at Kiyo than the surroundings. There is no danger there, anymore, though you’d have been more likely to get hurt than Ouma. But this feeling you can’t… no. That you refuse to name, this resentment, it takes residence in your bones and won’t let go. Is it because he’s been programmed as having been a killer? Aren’t you the very same? And when it really mattered, didn’t both of you decide to k–

The slightest sound makes Maki jump into action, fists at the ready to block an incoming blow, only. Huh. It seems it was just the weight of the book closing.

Kokichi sits up a little straighter, speaking a little louder (before, begrudgingly, quieting down, because this is a library). “Thank you, Kiyo-chan~ That would’ve been soooo boring to get through alone, you know? Nishishi, I’ll still be expecting your application for DICE one of these days! Best not disappoint,” he leans back in the chair, only to swing up to standing.

Korekiyo simply rolls his eyes, but there’s something undoubtedly fond in the gesture. If there weren’t, the fact would make itself known near-immediately; instead, Kiyo simply picks up the book to put it back on the shelf. “Is that all you needed, then?”

Kokichi exaggerates a sigh. “Not by a longshot, but I think I left the rest in Miu’s lab,” he rolls his head back, momentarily looking at the spot where Maki has planted herself, arms crossed. “So I gotta run. Laters!”

As Kokichi is picking his cane back up (and staring at the foot for a moment, making sure he’s placed it on the correct side for now. Working on making the ruse more realistic, perhaps, Maki posits, though she dares not say such a thing aloud), Maki nods in acknowledgement of Kiyo.

After an awkward pause, Kiyo nods back. “Miss Harukawa.”

But the pair are off again, out of the library and en-route to Miu’s lab.

The silence between the two of them is thick. Neither is perturbed by the light traffic traveling in either direction down the hall, staying steps apart but not quite identifiable as a ‘group’. Much remains unsaid between the two. Neither dares disrupt the precarious balance maintaining a stoic facade, and the awkward silence stays.

At least, while only in the company of one another.

“Hey!” Kokichi yells, swinging open the door to Miu’s lab with reckless abandon, startling a very focused Chihiro and Kazuichi sitting at the far end of a long table. “Where’s that boisterous blonde–”

“That is the best most bodacious boisterous blonde bitch to you, ‘ya shitstain.” Miu looks up from her workbench, approaching the opposite side of the long table with a haughty laugh.

“Mm, nope. Too wordy. Might mistake you for a nerd,” he teases, pointing up and down at a Miu dressed in her lab coat and covered from goggles to toe in smears of motor oil.

“Oh please, haven’t you figured out yet that I’m beauty and a brain?”

“And a nerd, yeah, I got that.”

The pair bicker like old friends, though it’s only recently they’ve had a chance to talk over their time in the killing game. Perhaps it’s easier for them to act like it never happened; it’d be hypocritical of Maki to judge.

Although…

“So you’ll concede she’s beautiful?” Maki tugs on her hair, wrapping it around her finger with a smirk. One sentence sparks a good five minutes of playful arguing, nuh-uh yuh-uh, and mild shoulder-punching. In terms of the assignment, it’s permissible, but on thin ice.

The perimeter seems clear in here, anyway, only the five of them. Chihiro and Kazuichi seem too engrossed in whatever project they’re working on to bat an eye at the two’s banter, and there’s no good angle for an ambush. Besides, it’d be irresponsible to initiate a confrontation with so many metal scraps and machines around. Still, she has to remain on alert.

… Though she can’t help but listen when she hears Miu launch into a small tirade: “What I’m always working on, dumbass, and a couple things besides. Picture this: you’re me, and you’re ‘getting a regular checkup’ because you’re ‘recovering from a traumatic experience’ and all that junk. And I’m sitting there, wasting valuable workable time between classes, just for them to call me up to do, like, the same three tests they always do? And I think to myself, man, wouldn’t it be genius if you could just step into a booth, or a pod, or something like that when you get there, and it does all of that preliminary stuff on you at once so you can just be done with it already? And this was like, two? Days ago? So you know I have a prototype.”

Kokichi looks nonplussed, to say the least.

“Haven’t you been working on anything less… totally mundane, than that? Maybe like a shrink ray, or a portal device or a body-swapper, or something exciting?”

“Well, you know I’m building an android, but we all know how you feel about that.”

“I do not need the list of features you’re giving that thing. Nobody, needs the list of features you’re giving that thing.”

“W-W, h-hey! I’m not gonna be weird about it,” Miu pouts, voice getting soft for a moment. “That’s like, totally crossing a line…” only to pick back up. “Nah, I’m not gonna load in any kinky shit until I can ask him about it!”

“Is that finally an answer to the question I’ve been asking for like three months now? We’re going with ‘robots only have dicks upon request?’”

Maybe it’s better to stop listening, actually. Not that Maki is given the choice.

“Point is, I still need a test subject! Why not you, while you’re right here? Every experiment we’ve run so far has been demonstrably fine, quit your worry-warting already ‘ya buzzkill.” Miu scoffs, rolling out a wardrobe-sized booth on a dolly.

“But Iruma-channnn,” Kokichi whines. His eye twitches, scanning the new device up and down, only more resolute that “there’s no way I’m gonna go in there unless it’s got AC!”

“That can be arranged,” says Miu, writing at the bottom of a spare paper. “Now, get over here so we can get this show on the road!”

“Nnnnn can’t make me.”

“Come on.”

“Nah.”

“It’ll be fine!”

“For you, maybe.”

“You know what? Fine. Hey Maki!” Miu calls, waving to where Maki is stationed around the corner. “C’mon, this’ll only take, like, two minutes, you in?”

Great. You’ve been Acknowledged.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Maki starts to stammer, but Kokichi has suddenly lit up.

“Ooh! Do it, do it Maki!”

“I really don’t think I should distract from–”

Suddenly, both Miu and Kokichi are peering over the table, all but pounding their fists against the wood as they chant “Do it, do it!”

If anything, their exuberance makes her want to give in less, but the coast is clear, for now… Chihiro gives Maki a withering look. Doesn’t seem like they’ll run out of steam any time soon.

“... Fine.”

Kokichi and Miu turn to one another and high-five, cheering in unison.

“Great,” Miu breezes by, opening an entrance to the box. “Come on in.”

Maki is immediately enveloped in what at first looks like a photo booth but, upon examination, has too many blinking lights and moving parts to be one. In lieu of a screen, a plexiglass barrier shows off the dim reflections of the moving mechanics, leaving the subject to back up into position. A thermometer pops out of the front panel at the same time as a blood pressure cuff restrains her left arm, a bar descending to the top of her head to record her height. Every metric is recorded on a tiny screen on the outside of the chamber.

Experiment: success. The device certainly does its job. Whether it’s been done well is questionable, but it certainly has been done.

Meanwhile, Kokichi has been lounging in quite possibly the single Good Chair in the entirety of Hope’s Peak, talking to Miu about something indistinct. By the time Maki walks out of the machine a matter of minutes has passed.

It feels like it’s been hours.

And Maki is not happy.

“Ouma? I need to talk to you.”

“Can’t it wait? I sorta–”

“Now. Ouma.”

Kokichi keeps his head down, but follows Maki’s footsteps.

“We’re leaving. Goodbye, Miu. Hope you got your data.” Maki states, perfectly deadpan. She turns, practically dragging Ouma by the wrist.

“Harukawa, I’m sorry i–”

“That’s a lie,” Maki helpfully completes the thought, marching out into the hallway. “You’ve been lying all day, making up any excuse you can to be as distracting as possible just waiting for me to screw up. But it isn’t going to work. We are going, to your room, and you will stay there, and it will be quiet. Do you understand?”

Kokichi stops walking. He does not pull away from her hand any further than the natural distance that comes as he stops, glaring up at her with an oddly-canted eye.

“You think you can ground me, Child-Caregiver? All I want is to hang out with my friends, and get to do it at a decent goddamn hour, and that’s SO bad? Aww, am I inconveniencing you? What would you rather be out doing. Huh? Would you rather be hunting me down for sport–”

Maki snaps out of her shock, shaking her head. “UGH! Not everything is always about YOU, you know!” She storms a few steps ahead.

“Well excuse me if you aren’t exactly open about your hobbies,” Kokichi scoffs, jogging up a few more stumbling steps to meet her. “If you insist on making our little forced-bonding-time absolutely miserable, I guess, be my fucking guest.”

“It’s not about fun, it’s about salvaging the entirety of this semester! Out of all of us, you should understand that!”

“Oh, so there is an ‘us’! I thought it a mere myth on the breeze, oh please, Harukawa, regale me with tales of how our miserable myriad of troubled teens that calls itself a class constitutes any kind of Unit,” he coughs on the end, running out of breath. A bit of spit drips from the corner of his mouth, hastily wiped away by a hand before he makes a big swinging gesture with his cane.

This, it turns out, is a mistake.

First, his cane clatters to the floor. In and of itself, this isn’t surprising; at least it didn’t go through a window or otherwise launch across the hall, instead dropping down at Kokichi’s side.

Then Kokichi falls down with it.

He nearly faceplants, the only buffer coming in the form of outstretched arms in front of him that immediately buckle.

Maki stifles half of a laugh. That’s what your overly-theatrical-ass gets when you try to act larger than life itself. She holds out a hand to help him back up. Frustrated as she may be, she isn’t cruel.

… But he doesn’t take it.

In fact, Kokichi doesn’t seem to be moving much at all.

Thinking fast, she immediately turns him onto his side in a recovery position. Still breathing– heavily, at that, as it’s taking up the majority of his focus just to do that much. It’s a full minute before he starts trying to talk.

“Mmaki’alls sumiki,” is about all he can say, saliva rolling down his face, eyes glassy. One eye moves slower than the other as he tries to look up at her in that disturbingly blank way of his.

He says it again.

She doesn’t know what to do.

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

You can’t react this way to a little surprise. Cool heads prevail, Maki, you know this.

She feels a hand on her shoulder.

“Maki? Thank goodness I was following you. Listen, both of you, I’ve called my classmate Mikan. She is a nurse. What I need you to do, Maki, is help me pick him up. Ouma, just keep breathing…” Peko Pekoyama commands, picking up the cane to carry with her bag as she prepares to pick up Kokichi.

There’s an upset indignant note from him, an ‘uh, no shit,’ that pierces through the existential terror. That’s a good sign. That means not every scrap of consciousness needs to be dedicated just to staying alive. “I ‘ust, ‘eed’an ninit,” he tries to speak again, getting steadily more exasperated with himself. Even so, he does not cry.

No matter how he may want to, he does not cry.

------------------

Kokichi Ouma finds himself in a hospital room yet again. Maki Harukawa, however, finally finds herself at liberty to have him out of sight as she leans against the closed door.

Now you can panic.

“Maki?” Peko asks, tilting Maki’s chin up to meet her gaze.

Nevermind.

“You did the right thing, initially. Okay? You put him in a position where he could breathe, which is probably the most important thing you could have done.”

Maki stammers, tugging on her hair with an iron grip. “I did not do the right thing, initially. That’s the problem,” she admits, shaking her head. It’s difficult to stifle the ghost of tears blocking out her vision.

“Hm? What do you mean?” Peko asks, guiding Maki over to sit in a pair of chairs beside one of the many windows on this floor.

No matter how hard she tries to stop them, once they start the words won’t stop flowing. “I mean that it’s my fault he’s like this!”

“... Maki, I saw it, it was an accide–”

“In the game, I shot him. Twice. With laced bolts, he. He just took Kaito, and was planning, s-something, and we were all so scared and I thought he was going to kill him so I covered them in strike-nine, and I shot him. Twice! And I went for a third…”

Peko is taken aback for a moment. Class 79 tends not to talk about their experiences in the simulation, so to hear things like shot and kill only confirm every terrible rumor she’s heard about the entire debacle. She blinks, once, then twice.

“Maki, I. I had no idea.”

Maki pulls on her hair, looping it around her whole hand and it still isn’t enough. “I know, I know, I’m an assassin, Ms. Pekoyama, and he’s the only mark I’ve ever actually killed myself.”

Peko is loath to let the silence spread between the two of them, yet she isn’t sure of what to say. Still, she says anyway: “I am. So sorry, that happened between you two. I assure you, I did not have an understanding of this. History, before I suggested you be paired together.”

“A-and now, now it’s my fault he collapsed, because whatever is wrong with him started because I poisoned him, because I’m a heartless, murder machine a-and,,” Maki hiccups, a hand over her face. She hasn’t even gotten this far into the story with her therapist, yet she sees enough of herself in Peko to entrust her with this secret.

“... I know what it is like to live with regret.” Peko offers. “It is never easy to choose one life over another. I don’t think that it should be, either. You should never have had to make that choice, but you did, and you made it as well as anyone could. You wanted to defend your friends, Maki, and you did. You cannot agonize about how things might have been after the fact if you want to move forward.”

Maki just stares at her hands, and cannot scrub away the illusion they are bright, bold magenta.

“... Maki?”

But Maki is far down the hall, watching Kaito close the door to that damn hospital room, because he’s betrayed me, again.

“... I hated him.” She takes a deep breath, and lets the words swish around in her mouth for a moment before spitting them back out: “I hated him. I wanted him to suffer. He was irritating, and a threat, and I didn’t– I don’t understand him, and I wanted him to get away from me and everyone I care about.” Deep breath in. “So I shot him, with a crossbow, and I laced the bolts with the slowest-acting poison I could find, so he wouldn’t know peace the same way the rest of us hadn’t.”

“Ah,” says Peko, surprised but without any tone of judgment. After all, it is Peko’s turn to think, wouldn’t that be hypocritical? “Multiple things can be true at once, you know. Just because some part of you wanted vengeance does not overwrite your intentions to defend. I’ve only ever known you to want to protect the innocent, Maki, and even if you haven’t always been that person, that is the kind of person you are becoming. Every last one of you was in significant distress at that time, and that includes you. You shouldn’t let self-hatred cloud your perception.”

Maki nods ever-so-slightly.

“What you did was. Excessive, yes, and you should not have done it. But it is in the past now, Maki. The fact that you feel remorse for it proves you aren’t ‘heartless’. You made a poor decision, with a high price. All that can be done for it now is to atone in ways you can. Sometimes, remembrance is all you can offer. But you,” Peko points at the flower on Maki’s uniform, “have a unique gift in all of this. Ouma is still alive now. In this life, you can still make amends.”

Maki sniffs, then holds her breath. In for three, hold for five, hold for four, hold forever… the tears just won’t slow. “It was cruel. I, was cruel, I don’t. I don’t want to be that way, not even to him. I-I want to. Amends, I want to,”

Peko smiles. She takes both of Maki’s hands into her own. “Then you will. You’ve already started, after all.”

The more Maki thinks of it, this whole shadowing experience has shown off facets of Ouma’s personality she hadn’t seen before. He does not like bugs, but still tolerates them out of care for his friendship with Gonta. He could have been cruel and smashed all the leaves, but he picked out any that even may have had eggs on them. Kokichi could have been legitimately cruel, yet he wasn’t. Kiyo, quiet as he is these days, is willing to accept him because Kokichi has accepted him in return. Even Miu, after she tried to bash in his skull with a hammer, has come around to not just tolerating his presence, but coming to enjoy it. Enough to make a machine for the medical wing since he, her friend, is in and out of the hospital so often… so he’s claimed.

Maki can only reconcile now that at least some, possibly all of those claims of chronic pain and complications are very real. Part of her knew this all along, but didn’t want to believe it; it’s easier, after all, to lie to yourself. Hadn’t Kokichi said something to that effect, so long ago?

Despite how irritating he is, despite his best attempts to get under her skin, despite being Kokichi Ouma, he’s… admittedly, a decent friend when it counts. And, perhaps, someday they can be friends as well.

“I still. It. It’s so stupid,” she shakes her head. “I-I better not…”

“But you want to say it, right?” Peko nods.

“I still feel. Jealous? Kaito can do what he wants, of course, but ever since the simulation it’s felt like our trio with Shuichi is… different. Like he’s choosing Kokichi over us.” Over me, she does not say. Peko can see it in her watery eyes.

“That, I’ve certainly understood,” Peko laughs. “Sometimes the person you admire can be… short-sighted, maybe. But your admiration is your own, you know. You have to own it, and, if they don’t ultimately feel the same way…” She looks off into the distance. Imagining someone, no doubt.

“... Right. Right, thank you Ms. Pekoyama.”

“Just Peko is fine, Maki.”

“Thank you, Peko.”

“Of course.”

“... But maybe they do feel the same way. You. Never know until you ask, right?”

Peko snaps back to attention. “I… suppose.”

“It’s just a matter of gathering the inner strength to ask, whether you like the answer or not. … I think you should,” Maki shrugs, drying her tears. “And maybe I should too.”

“Perhaps,” says Peko, unshaken as ever, until… she smiles, conspiratorially. “I will if you will.”

“Alright,” laughs Maki. “Deal. But I have someone I have to address first.”

------------------

Meanwhile, Kaito slowly closes the door to the hospital room. The cool air hits him almost immediately upon entering; the air conditioning must be turned up significantly higher than in the rest of the building. It’s a different room, this time; the slightly different decor is disorienting for a moment, while he allows it to be. There’s something far more important than misplaced flowers and chairs and abstract paintings at its center, though.

“Kokichi?”

There’s a disgruntled sigh from the hospital bed, and an equally disgruntled Kokichi hooked up to not-even-a-fourth-of the equipment he was last time, to Kaito’s knowledge, he actually had to stay here.

“‘eah. Yeah, ‘s me.” He even sounds tired, still slurring words together a touch at this point.

Kaito takes his left hand, the dominant side. The uninjured one.

Kokichi can barely curl his fingers around Kaito’s, for now.

“Like the worst case’a TMJ you ever had,” he tries to smile, but finds the effort fruitless to try. Out of everyone, Kaito won’t mind if you don’t pretend for him. He already knows what you are. “‘Cept it’s everywhere. Mostly.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be talking so much–”

“Tsumiki-chan said, as long as I focus on breathing, I can do what I want. Mostly wanna not-do-things, though. Boring. What’d you do today?”

“You’re asking me?” Kaito laughs, but humors the thought. “Class, mostly. Went out to train with Shuichi, he’s actually coming along pretty well. Still has trouble keeping up with me in the real world, though, lung capacity and all. Been missing Maki, though. She’s really trying her hardest for this class, you know, she’s even talking to that Peko girl right now.”

Kokichi looks away, both eyes now in-sync as he tries to look to the tile floor. “Yeah. She’s still Harukawa, alright.”

Probably not a great time to talk about it, it dawns on Kaito just a little too late.

“What even happened, man, can I ask that? Figure I may as well instead’a dancing around it,” Kaito says, just to banish the thought. To get it out of the way.

Kokichi laughs a little under his breath. It hurts, but there’s a degree to which he can’t help it. “Ask’er yourself.”

Kaito is confused for all of a moment before looking around the–

“Ah! I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you! I-I just thought I could answer any q-questions, so Ouma doesn’t have to-o…” Mikan Tsumiki, Ultimate Nervous Wreck, holds her clipboard to her chest.

Kaito is beside himself, unsure of how to get her to calm back down. Kokichi’s hand squeezes his a little tighter. Give her a moment.

“R-Right, sorry, you were wondering about his condition, right? Ouma’s, I mean. T-There’s good news! And. Bad news, which we’ve already talked about before you arrived, or. I did most of the talking because he’s having a hard time at the moment, but you knew that– Bad news we’ve already talked about, and good news.” Mikan looks up at Kaito expectantly, straining a smile.

“... Do you want me to pick one? Because I’m sure whatever the bad news is won’t look so bad compared to the good,” Kaito nods, resolute.

“Oh yeah, s-s. Sorry. Yeah. SO the good news is this is just a flare-up, probably caused by a mix of stress and the heat outside. He’s been doing a lot better in this building since we have a backup generator for our climate control,” she continues. “But the bad news is that if he doesn’t take care of his condition, he could end up in a full-blown crisis, mister,” a darkness casts over her eyes “and if you do you won’t be able to breathe on your own, then it’s back on a ventilator for up to weeks at a time, and I know how much you hate that.” She picks her head up. “But, hopefully it won’t come to that!”

… It’s a lot to take in at once.

“What. Exactly, is his condition? How could he deteriorate so suddenly?” Kaito asks despite Kokichi’s half-hearted protest.

“It wasn’t sudden. I’ve been feeling it all day… it just got too bad to deal with. That’s all.” Mikan looks over to Kokichi before he relents and nods. “Someone else should know.”

“It seems to be an autoimmune disorder caused by the program. Not one that we’ve seen before, but one that’s kind of unique because of how it happened. The device ‘taught’ his immune system to attack danger that wasn’t physically there, so it started attacking what was there instead. It seems to include some of the signals sent between muscle groups to get them to move, leading to muscle weakness that varies in severity. This would be a moderate exacerbation, I think, so it really could be much worse!”

Mikan is still working on her bedside manner. Kokichi huffs a little, amused, while Kaito is still processing.

“Is. Is it ever going to stop?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Mikan sighs, a little shake of her head. The same thing Kaito had been told about his lungs. “It’s impossible for us to know, but don’t count on it.”

“So… So what can we do? There has to be some kind of training we can do to make it a little less severe, right?” The impossible is always possible, is it not?

“Well. Physical therapy might help as part of the treatment, but it’s most important he’s taking his meds regularly and getting enough sleep,” she says. “But it’s pretty near impossible to enforce.”

Kaito looks over at Kokichi for a moment, then back to Mikan.

“Maybe, on his own. What if he had a roommate? Then we’d share responsibility.”

“You’re kidding me,” Ouma says, doing his best to sit up a little. It’s more effort than it’s worth, but that does not stop him from trying.

“It’s that, or have you check in even more regularly than you already do. Even if I have to fish you out of the dorms,” Mikan shakes her head, tsk-tsk-tsk. “It’s not a bad idea. I’ll take it up with Administration. Unless you’d rather have an aide following you around…?”

“NO. ‘m good. It’s good. Could be way worse…”

“And I’ll see if I can get you an air conditioner in your room? It is very literally medically necessary.”

“Yessss,” Ouma seems happy enough, and settles down. It’s distinctly possible he’s too tired to put up much more protest, and takes the opportunity to start to nod off.

Kaito smiles fondly, and shakes his head.

------------------

Several hours later, Kokichi wakes up to the creaking of his door. He tenses, finding that he can, even if it’d be too much to disengage himself from ensnaring wires and monitors. He doesn’t bother. A moment later, it’s clear enough who it is.

“... Hello, Ouma.”

“Harukawa.”

Kokichi stares upward, idly counting holes in the ceiling tile.

The silence is deafening.

“I’m sorry,” Maki starts, a meandering sentence unto itself that unravels slowly from her tongue.

Too slowly, for Kokichi. “Yeah, alright. For what?”

“Take your pick.” The courage she’s built up is thrown to the wind as she strives to just say it, or at least say something.

“Sure. Forgiven. Whatever. Now, what’s it you want?”

“... That’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.”

“Ooh, she catches on! Maki Harukawa, how do you do it,” he laughs. It’s a strangled sound.

“Cut it out, Kokichi, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what happened today. I’m sorry about pushing you too far–”

“You didn’t push me too far.” he says, but it sounds… hollow. Sincere, insincere, it doesn’t seem to matter; there’s no substance to it, but it’s also packed with double-triple meanings and spite.

“I’m sorry anyway,” Maki says.

This appears to appease him, if just for a minute.

“I’m sorry about pushing you around, and for blaming you for my own inability to properly focus.” she sighs. “… In my defense, you don’t make it easy, but. That’s not the point. The point is, I should not have done that. I got angry, and when I get angry sometimes I act rashly. So I’m sorry.”

There’s something bigger to that statement, of course. Something he cannot help but respond to with a brutal truth:

“I don’t know if I can forgive you. I want to stop being scared of you, but it’s not. Suddenly okay again.” He turns his head, half-muttering. “I’m not sure I’ll ever really be ‘okay’ again….”

The silence returns.

“... That’s. That’s okay. I mean, if you don’t. You don’t, have to. Respect is earned, and so… so is forgiveness, I think. I hope I can earn that in your eyes.”

“... Alright,” says Kokichi. “Fair enough.”

“See you around,” Maki shrugs, halfway to closing the door.

“And Maki?”

“Yeah?” she pauses.

“Thanks.”

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nancyheart11 · 2 years ago

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Fierce Deity is doing his best (Dad Squad)

The Fierce Deity looked over at his companions, concerned. He knew mortals were fragile beings and he was at a loss for how to help in this situation. If it had been a wound from battle he would have some knowledge of how to help, but after walking through the cold downpour the other day both Rusl and Abel began coughing, constantly sniffling, and had flushed faces that seemed to get worse the more they walked.

Unfortunately they were in no place to set up camp and both men were as stubborn as the Hero the Deity was searching for. When the pace started slowing due to both men struggling to breathe he made sure to match their speed and stay quiet about how slow they were currently traveling, with the hopes that they would soon find a place to take shelter while the two recovered.

As had been their luck so far on this quest, they soon ran into a group of monsters, which was smaller than what they had been encountering thus far. As soon as they were within sight he rushed ahead in the hopes to vanquish the enemy before Rusl and Abel could injure themselves in the conflict. With the last of the monsters slain the Deity looked back and felt the near foreign concern spike at the sight of Abel collapsing on the ground.

Time seemed to slow despite the speed with which he was moving, as hacking coughs were heard escaping Abels chest, where his hands were clenched and his eyes were squeezed tight in pain. Rusl was giving Abel a pat on the back (something the Deity was … less skilled at), before breaking into wet rattling coughs himself. He feared at this rate neither of them would make it to shelter on their own.

While they both insisted they were grown adults, both were small enough that Deity (gently ever so gently with delicate mortal organs) scooped a hand beneath each and cradled them to his side to be able to move swiftly, hoping that help could be found in time. While the sun had been high in the sky when the monsters attacked it was beginning to set by the time the forest they had been in was thinning.

He finally slowed down when they saw smoke in the air and adjusted course to head directly to the signs of civilization. He nearly sighed in relief upon the sight of a small cabin, wood stacked neatly at the side and smoke smelling of roasting meat rising from the chimney. He set the two down softly by the front door and they both broke out in a fit of coughing.

He crouched so that he could knock on the door; that was what Rusl did before entering personal dwellings and he seemed to get the most positive response from people. After a moment waiting where he could hear movement behind the door, it opened. A hylian taller than both Abel and Rusl (though still small to him) with black hair and brown eyes looked at the sash on his waist. His eyes moved up the breastplate, skin turning from a healthy tan to a more pale complexion. Then his eyes rose higher, skin losing blood to an alarming degree. When his eyes landed on the Deity’s face the hylian tipped over, lying unmoving on the floor.

This was … not ideal.

Before he could move to resolve the situation a hylian woman moved into view, saw the man on the floor and glared at him. He raised his hands to show that he was holding no weapons. (he could almost feel the sword on his back burning). The small woman crossed her arms and looked him in the eye

“Well? Ya gon help me move ‘im since ye scared ‘im face paint?”

Before he can do more than blink, a cough from his sick companions catches the woman’s attention. He backs out of her way as she frets over the men, before following her commands to bring them inside. He follows her curt instructions without question, amazed by the courage being displayed despite what he knew would be an intimidating sight, seeing as he was still covered in monster blood.

—--------------------

Abel groaned as he came to, his head felt like a Talus had stepped on it. He started sitting up and paused as a cloth fell to his lap with a muted plop. He started for a moment uncomprehending, before it clicked in his mind that he was in a bed and not a stable one.

Feeling alarm shoot through him, Abel nearly collapsed on the floor attempting to stand. A pair of hands steadying him before he could hurt himself on the wooden floor. A glance revealed the enormous hands belonged to the Fierce Deity. Abel felt relieved at the familiar face, then strange looking at his companion who was not wearing his armor, a sight so unfamiliar that Abel blinked to make sure it was real.

Rusl moved into view holding a bowl that smelled amazing, his face breaking into an easy smile at the sight of Abel.

"You're awake! How do you feel?" Abel's growling stomach got a chuckle out of Rusl as the bowl was pushed in his hands, warmth seeping into his chilled fingers.

Abel decided questions could wait after the first spoonful, which was soup of decidedly better quality than either of his companions could make. Once he'd scraped the bowl clean Rusl handed him his clothes, much cleaner than they had been in … a while.

A woman came around the corner with the Fierce Deity trailing behind her, holding several ridiculously large pieces of wood.

"Oh! Yur up then? Let me know if ya need anythin else while you's here. The big ones been an amazing help during you's recovery!" This was said with a smile which seemed rare on her worry lined face.

Abel gave a nod and let her move past unhindered. Rusl had left at some point during the exchange and came back with a bag? Then he opened it to bring out Abel’s sword, which looked more polished than it had ever been since the calamity.

His head whipped up to see a slightly penitent smirk on Rusl's face.

"I hope this helps, I always feel safer traveling with a freshly cleaned and sharpened sword."

Abel simply stared, noting that Rusl still looked pale himself. The lengths these men would go to, for someone who refused to talk about his life before the calamity…Abel felt a smile tug at his lips, unfamiliar after so long spent with despair as his companion.

#nan writes #Dad Squad #linked universe au #rusl #fierce dadity #abel #poor abel #Yeah so while Rusl and Abel were passed out Fierce took off the mask #so this lady helped three barley functional men #they were super helpful afterwards so she didn't mind

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lamuradex · 9 months ago

Text

Spooky Short Story:

Frame by Frame

Wordcount: 2285

Description:

So here’s a story the news reports might have missed. It’s about a high speed camera, a suicide, and a countdown timer. It’s also the story of what waits in the spaces unseen by the human eye, and how if you’re able to see them, then that means they might just be able to see you too.

Technology keeps getting faster. The internet connects instantaneously. Planes fly quicker than sound. Banks work at light speed. And all of this is seen as progress. But not to everyone.

None of those developments were interesting to me and my friends. Not to us. No, we were interested in seeing things go slower. Much slower. We were interested in cameras. High speed cameras, to be specific. The capturing of moments, near invisible moments, and putting them on film before they were gone.

This was our passion.

Fortunately, cameras kept getting better right alongside everything else. Because of course they did. Better slo-mo, higher definition, faster shutter speed. And we thought it was beautiful. Most people thought it was pointless. After a certain point, footage fidelity is better than what the eye can even perceive. Film can only be so smooth before the limitation isn’t with the tech but with the human watching it.

But that didn’t really matter to us. With our cameras, we could watch a hummingbird flap its wings, frame by frame, and see how it stayed aloft. We could see the tiniest actions, normally missed by the eye, slowing it all down and looking at the individual frames. Single images which made up the moving picture. We saw beauty that most people missed, and we’d always been happy with that, loving these images and sharing these miracles between ourselves. But technology could only go so far.

That was until the Hyper Eye was developed.

The Hyper Eye Camera, invented by Dr Wilson Abbott was set to revolutionize slow motion film. Within days of its announcement our boards and forums were buzzing. The Hyper Eye was supposedly able to capture 500,000 frames per second. In the span of a single second, half a million images would be captured. It even had a special storage device, custom built to hold the footage, each frame viewable in crystal clear clarity.

And so, we all hunkered down to wait. And we were excited.

Abbott was still building the camera however, promising to give regular updates on his progress. Of course, it was also going to be obscenely expensive, but only one of us actually had to buy it. Then the rest of us could enjoy the results second-hand over the net.

Fast-forward to three weeks before the official launch. We were still excited, of course, and Abbott had been chatty in the interim. Updates, updates, more and more. Then less and less, the updates slowing to a trickle, days passing between them. But this was to be expected really, he was a busy man, but rumours soon began to circulate that the project had been canned. It was a worrying thought, with everything we’d invested, but we still had hope. Then, one week before the official launch date, another update dropped.

“First full test of Hyper Eye today. Set your watches, my intrepid followers.”

That was the last post we’d ever see from Wilson Abbott, not that we knew it at the time. We were just excited to see the footage. That was until Abbott went silent. No posts, no updates, nothing. We all just assumed he was preparing for the release, too busy to post. He was a busy man.

Then along came Harper.

That was their internet handle; Harper37. An account that started posting images to their own private board, images by the thousands. The story, as Harper told it, was they had somehow hacked Abbott’s computer and downloaded an early glimpse of the test footage. It all seemed legit, as legit as illegal hacking could be, but we didn’t care. We had the footage, frame by frame. We had our entertainment.

For hours on end, Harper37 posted the individual frames as separate images for all to see. Harper also posted the test footage, the full ten seconds of it. Okay, sure, ten seconds doesn’t sound like much, not until you realise that meant over 5 million individual frames for us to work through and examine.

Yes, it was insanely nerdy, but nerdy as it was, we were excited.

The footage itself was simple. A blank wall, then Abbott enters the frame with a balloon, pops the balloon, and then leaves the frame. Apart from a small bit of balloon on the floor at the end, it was pretty much a perfect loop. And Harper37 kept posting the frames on his board, image after image, hour after hour… until his site crashed under the strain.

By this point, a few of us were finding this a bit fishy. This was a lot to hack without getting noticed, and the last image he posted before the site crashed was just an empty black frame. This all seemed strange, and a lot of people began to theorise that it was a con. Maybe he’d ask us to pay for the rest. Premium prices to keep his site running.

But no. Later that day, Harper37 posted the whole file for us to download, free of charge. It was gigantic, but each image was ludicrously high definition. All of us indulged in our little hobby, sad as it may seem to outsiders. We started working through the frames, examining them one by one, all very impressive, enjoying the fidelity of each image, even if a lot were very similar. Between the frames you could see changes the eye would simply blur into something constant. The light pulsing, or Abbott moving microscopically, or the balloon rippling against the air.

It was still a lot of images to sift through. You could track people’s progress by their comments, but it was pretty dry, even by our standards. Most of the images were barely different, and 100,000 images in (about a fifth of a second) Abbott was just barely visible at the edge of the screen. And that’s where the first black frame was, the same one Harper37 had posted. A single black frame amongst millions. But we just thought it was a moment where the light failed for a millionth of a second. Pitch black for less than a blink.

We kept going, searching, appreciating… until the news broke.

It was two days before the official release of the Hyper Eye, which we’d half forgotten about, when the local news reported the death of Wilson Abbott. His cleaner found him dead in his home, the gun still in his hand.

We were all in shock. Even so, it didn’t stop us working on the images. We sent our prayers, paid our respects, and kept on working. Around the same time, people found another black frame, another 100,000 frames after the first. We even thought we could see Abbott in this one. A strange sort of epitaph.

There wasn’t much coverage on the news, but there were a few online articles. “Professor Wilson Abbott found dead in his home.” It was clearly suicide. He had been found at his computer, with a countdown clock running on the screen. Stress over the release of the Hyper Eye seemed most likely.

Over the next few days, another few black frames were found, myself and others seeking them out due to their oddity. There was definitely a figure of some sort in the dark. A tall, thin figure. This was a little odd though, as Abbott had always been a bit on the pudgy side. But maybe sometimes the camera subtracts ten pounds rather than adding it.

We kept searching.

Within a week, someone had found the tenth black frame, approximately two seconds into the footage. Each black frame was somewhere close to 100,000 frames after the last. In this one though, we could even see a face.

It was not Abbott.

It was distant, but it wasn’t him. Abbott was dark skinned, wore glasses, and was broadly what you might call fat. This face was pale, even yellowish in places. From its position, it seemed tall, taller than Abbott, and its features were thin and stretched. Best described as gaunt. Gaunt, twisted, and half hidden in shadow.

The part not in shadow though was… upsetting. It looked broken. The skin was cracked, yellow patches like desiccated flesh. There were no visible teeth, or even lips, its lower face shrouded in darkness. The figure’s heavy brow shadowed the eyes and most of its nose was missing, like a zombie or something.

Needless to say, we weren’t happy.

Most of us thought it was a prank. Harper37, or someone similar, scattering these images through just to scare us. Harper claimed that it wasn’t him, how he’d been too busy to put the images in, especially on such short notice. But it hardly stopped us. Even with no answers, we continued to search.

As we searched, so did the police. Someone who lived near Abbott reported the police were still looking around his home. This seemed strange, as it was a simple suicide. We were also puzzled by Abbott’s countdown timer. It was a digital countdown, hosted online, paid for by Abbott, found within a few days of his death. The site just showed a timer counting down to sometime six months after the Hyper Eye’s release. And with the police still buzzing about, we were all a little suspicious.

Days went on and more black frames were found, the strange face becoming more illuminated with every image. Closer and closer. Patchy shoulders, then arms, long and thin. No visible clothing, but its skin was yellow and ragged, with red poking out of gaps. Tufts of pale hair around the head, and the mouth agape, its eyes still in shadow. Some people even believed they could see the front of a foot.

Questions and theories continued to circulate. Was it an elaborate joke or some advanced marketing gone wrong? How had Harper actually gotten the film? Had Abbott committed suicide or had it been staged? And there had been no word on the Hyper Eye camera itself, which surely should have been found in Abbott’s home.

All the while, we kept searching.

Eventually, someone found the last black frame. One every 100,000 frames for the full ten seconds, fifty black frames to examine. The unusual figure took two full steps in that time, which was enough for it to step more into the light.

It was hideous.

Tall and thin, limbs hanging and frail. Skin pale and broken, flakes hanging off and red flesh underneath. But beyond that, it was simply… wrong. Just wrong. Three fingers on one hand, but six on the other. Tufts of feeble, grey hair in small random patches. The skin that wasn’t flaking was thick and leathery, resembling scales. Bones protruded like fractures from the shoulders, elbow and neck.

You felt like it was looking right at you, through the screen. Staring with those dark, black eyes.

News spread of people deleting the files in fear. Every time you looked you saw another horrid detail. A feature out of place, a muscle, a tooth. The footage was done though, there was nothing more to see, so everything from there was left to the theorists.

That was when more news broke. Harper37 had been arrested.

The police found the Hyper Eye camera in Harper’s house, stashed in a back room. Harper screamed that he didn’t kill Abbott. He screamed about the black frames. He clearly had a few mental issues, but he was taken in for questioning.

The truth was that Harper37, real name Billy Harper, had broken into Abbott’s house and found Abbott dead. He stole the Hyper Eye and left, but had nothing to do with the death. He was quickly sentenced and punished, just a few months in prison. Of course, it wasn’t long before someone got hold of Harper’s files somehow, hoping for more footage.

And that’s exactly what they found. Harper had filmed his own Hyper Eye footage. The footage was simple, just five seconds of a pendulum swinging, but Harper had found black frames in that too, another twenty five frames. They showed the same twisted figure, this time from the side, with it turning to look at the camera over the five seconds, staring straight down the lens. Staring with those dark, black eyes.

But that was not the last image.

It wasn’t from Harper’s footage. It was the last black frame from Abbott’s original test. The twisted, hunched figure, staring through the camera, its eye sockets dark and cold. The image had been processed to improve its clarity.

Specifically, to brighten it.

And in what had been shadows, stood hundreds of new figures. They stood behind the first, each as deformed and twisted, but in new and gruesome ways. Warped limbs, harrowed teeth, black, glassy stares. Many were walking, some were sitting, some rising to their feet. And each one staring into the camera. Following it. Walking towards the light.

Many of us wrote it off as nonsense. As a joke or some trick. But others think the Hyper Eye saw something. Something we weren’t meant to see. Something that wasn’t meant to see us. Apparently the government has it now, and they’re not giving it back. There’s a petition to get it released, but I’m not worried about that.

No, I’m not worried about that at all.

Because I can’t stop staring at Abbott’s countdown timer, how many seconds we have left, and counting the black frames until then.

#writeblr #writing #writers on tumblr #writing community #lamura dex writes!#horror #short story

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iviarellereads · 2 years ago

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Artificial Condition, Chapter 1

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which we catch up with our pal.

SecUnits don't care about the news.

Murderbot never paid much attention to it, even after hacking its governor module. Entertainment is less likely to ping alarms, while news is carried on channels closer to protected data.(1) And, of course, news is boring and it never cared.

Now, as it crosses a station, it skims a newsburst while mostly just trying to get through the crowd without attracting attention. Fortunately, the humans of all sorts are too busy with their own journeys to pay it any mind. It has worried a little about security drones scanning for SecUnit specs, since they're all identical, but they shouldn't unless instructed to do so specifically, and nothing's pinged MB yet.

MB is very pleased with how well it's navigated so far.

Then, in the newsfeed, it sees… itself.

It stops near a food court, so people will think it's deciding where to eat, and pays more attention to the news. The image it saw was from the lobby with Pin-Lee's comment to the reporters, and credits MB simply as "bodyguard". The story mentions Mensah buying the SecUnit who saved her(2), as a human interest note to soften the grisly details of the body count. But, the journalists are only used to seeing SecUnits in their assigned roles, and usually in armour, so they haven't yet connected the new augmented human in the Preservation team. Which is good, because it increases MB's confidence in going undetected as itself.

The rest of the story covers how the company, DeltFall, Preservation, and three other political entities are joining forces against DeltFall, even as they fight each other over bond guarantees and jurisdiction.

Still, the newsburst is days old, and now MB wonders if the official news channels will have anything more recent. But, the higher priority is keeping moving.

On that note, MB keeps moving toward the transit ring. It can't use the typical facilities to purchase passage, as weapons scans will reveal it immediately unless it hacks the scanners, and it has no currency so it would have to hack the payment machines as well, and that's just too much work.(3)

So, MB catches a bot transport to the bot-driven transport section of the ring, and downloads some new media, and thinks about why it left Mensah and what it might want out of its life and freedom. Though, before it can have any of that, it needs to answer one very important question, and to do that, it needs to go to a specific place, with only two bot-driven transports leaving in the next cycle. The one leaving later is the better option, as it gives MB more time to talk the bot around.

I could hack a transport if I tried, but I really preferred not to. Spending that much time with something that didn’t want you there, or that you had hacked to make it think it wanted you there, just seemed creepy.(4)

On the way to the cargo transport, it does have to hack an ID-screener and some weapon-scanning drones, as well as a bot guard, but it just deletes any record of its existence, which is downright easy compared to what it usually has to do to work with company equipment.

The first dock it tries, with the bot transport leaving later, has a bunch of humans there dealing with an accident. Reluctantly, because it shouldn't be here in the first place, it goes to the other bot transport. The newsburst has it rattled, and it wants to escape into its media ASAP.

The other transport is a long-range research vessel, currently assigned to an uncrewed cargo run that will stop at the place MB needs. It's owned by a university in this system, and the cargo runs pay for its upkeep between assignments. MB would really like the twenty-one gloriously isolated cycles between here and its destination.(5)

MB finds the research transport, and pings it, receiving a return ping almost immediately. It gives the same offer it gave the first transport: all its media, serials, books, music, and some new shows it picked up on this station, in trade for a ride where it's going.(6) It offers the same explanation for its presence, as well: a free bot making its way back to its human guardian.

There was a pause, then the research transport sent an acceptance and opened the lock for me.

=====

(1) I find this a little suspect, as far as explanations or worldbuilding choices go. I'm not an expert in any sort of communications methods, but I don't feel like this tracks with what I do know about broadcasts or feeds generally or how they'd logically be laid out if they did work this way. (2) That feels like a romance novel title. Technically, it's almost exactly a romance novella title: The A.I. Who Loved Me, book 1 in Alyssa Cole's The Hive series. (Book 2 has no info yet, but book 1 was really cute, I thought. In case anyone wondered.) (3) MB being relatable again. Why do all that work just to look respectable, when you can sneak around and get your real work done in peace? (4) Gotta agree. Even if they can't retaliate against you, either of those just sounds… awkward, at best. (5) Is it just me, or does that sound like the sort of phrase that would not come true when stated in chapter 1 of a book? (6) I could question why a bot transport couldn't download its own entertainment from the feed, but MB's explanation of the feeds possibly raising alarms about bot access have already more or less answered it. As a part-human construct, it probably has access that can look less suspicious.

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #artificial condition #murderbot #secunit

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kyrodo · 10 months ago

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If you took basic psychology maybe you'd stop taking actions against people that you've understood on a 90% off fucking discount. You don't have a fucking excuse. Last I recall when R block evaded me likely using his ad, I didn't break into his house. All sorts of stupid shit happens when people get heartbroken and you haven't given people time to recover. You could have fucking waited. Stalking the same way we started our parasocial interaction, communicating the same way we were already communicating, block evading, name changing, emotional posts in places only you would check, looking him up on telegram. Invasive, ridiculously emotional, but par for the fucking course. I'm sorry, what about my actions doesn't make any fucking sense to you asshole? You know I've never looked at a wounded animal and wondered why the fuck they're crying. Cringing in pain or doing whatever it takes to cope with those emotions. The expressions of emotions I made were colorful and loud, but I didn't do a single thing to you bitch. If only you gave people more than a week to fuck off, or better yet actually wanted them to in the first place before hitting them with a fucking ruler.

How many times do you need me to remind you that your actions are purely aggressive, not reactive. You deliberately sought my attention looking for me to respond to something the moment this should have been fucking over. The moment I was finally about to get out of your hair but the iron was still hot. When a part of me would still be searching for hope false or not. And you made a fucking decision. Decisions like yours come with a fucking price tag.

Had I been dealing with anyone else in your position I was still well within my lane in the grand scheme of things that happened and what I felt. Too bad you're not most people. Only you would choose the third option not a week in after I said this was over. Not many people would hack someone they haven't even tried to talk to. That's all you. This is your answer to every conflict and every dispute that you don't actually give a fuck about ending peacefully.

I don't understand how you fucking live doing shit like that to people. Not because they deserve it but because you want whatever shitty feeling of superiority over people you don't like. I am a near endless source of words when I'm mad, some of which can be exploited by those who want cheap forms of revenge against. But your actions speak louder than my words EVER will.

How can I be so loud, so noisy, but the special bitch of the moment turns out to be you. How does that make any fucking sense? You would have been better off letting me rant and rant till my keyboard broke, poke fun at it with all your friends, block me everywhere, recover, move on talk about me in whatever demeaning way you pleased, and I would have remained the villain here whether you did me justice or not. "Oh look at this asshole who was stalking me on Twitter." You had that advantage and you threw it away. You don't understand how little you had to do to be the hero or the victim at the end of the day. But you don't know when to fucking stop.

Sometimes the best thing you can do about something is nothing at all. Maybe you should try it sometime. This wouldn't be the same tragedy if you weren't a fucking prick.

And think about things from my position for once. Whatever feeling, whatever I'm hoping for. The things I'd be self conscious about and trying to find clues on what's being discussed about me before you start instigating a fucking "zoom meeting" with me. If you had even the slightest sense of emotional intelligence, I'd have so much less to be mad about right now. Just because you like horror doesn't mean you can't be a decent fucking human being. The way I see it didn't take a whole lot of guess work to actually figure me out, you just didn't fucking care.

Even though I used to scatter information about myself to the four winds, you had more than enough immediately visible information not be a fucking bitch.

0 notes

punkscowardschampions · 1 year ago

Text

Casey & Bobby & Maggie

Bobby: [giving when Casey has left for work, Bobby has talked to Maggie but neither of these boys has talked to Janis again yet in my mind, for a time ref]

Bobby: When are you moving out?

Casey: Ask again when you reckon you’re big enough to make me

Bobby: I want to turn your room into a gym

Bobby: Aren’t you ready to leave?

Casey: top gym down the road, you’re hardly hard done by

Casey: and if I were I’d have gone, nowt to run past you before I head off nowhere, our kid

Bobby: Must be a reason you smash the place up

Casey: loads, like

Bobby: You’ve outgrown the spare room, surely

Casey: we ain’t up in the north of england no more, there’s a lack of houses going spare round here

Bobby: Have you thought about going back, you could be near [the jail your mother is in]

Casey: I get it, you’d be rid of us

Casey: but nah, I’ve not thought about making it that easy for you

Bobby: It’s not about me, they’ll want us both gone before long anyway, won’t they

Casey: I’m even less bothered about doing them favours

Bobby: Fine for me, the crying won’t bother none

Casey: his crying never has done me, newborn’s got nothing on that dickhead

Bobby: What do you hate him so much for, what’s he done to you?

Casey: what’s that to do with you

Bobby: Everything, we’re all in the same house, you can’t just leave me out because it’s dead easy to

Casey: he’s the one dead keen you’re kept out of it, have a word with him

Bobby: I’m talking to you

Casey: trying to talk us into moving out, more like

Bobby: I just don’t see why you wouldn’t want to

Casey: yeah I’m a dickhead not to be buzzing to piss away my hard earned wages on sod all but rent when there’s only so many hours of the day to put in shifts

Bobby: You get paid to be out every night, what else would you spend it on

Casey: might be saving it, none of your business whatever I am, last I checked

Bobby: What for?

Casey: leave it out with the knobhead questions, you heard what I just said

Bobby: You ain’t telling the truth

Casey: you ain’t owed it

Bobby: Why can you not talk like a normal person about anything

Casey: good one, coming from you

Bobby: Original

Casey: old ones are the best

Bobby: You can have a laugh about it when you go move in with her

Casey: will do, mate

Bobby: We’re not

Casey: I dunno what to tell you, you who started this chat, catch yourself on

Bobby: You act like you’re so confrontational but you talk about as much as Jim does, fuck all to say

Casey: I’m working, give it a go yourself one of these days and you might grow up a bit

Bobby: Literally not old enough but whatever, deflect from the fact I’m right

Casey: you’re old enough for cash in hand but nah, ‘course you’d not put yourself out there cutting some dickheads grass or walking their dog

Bobby: As you pointed out, I can’t fucking talk

Bobby: a well-known scam to go door to door with a sign begging for cash like that

Casey: convenient, that

Casey: haven’t shut the fuck up here yet though

Bobby: Yeah, it’s well convenient, made life that much easier

Casey: Jim has yours, go cry to him if you’re gutted about the turn out now

Bobby: And yours

Casey: he wishes

Bobby: You wish it weren’t true

Bobby: and that life wouldn’t be a worse pile of shit if what happened hadn’t

Casey: you’ve not got the first clue about what happened never mind the rest

Bobby: You’re delusional

Casey: bollocks am I

Bobby: You are, the worst

Bobby: at least I know I’m well rid of the pair of them, would rather be deaf than have her as a mother, you really think it could all be alright without me and you hate me for it

Casey: they’re well rid of you, and him

Casey: you pair can’t hack it

Bobby: She couldn’t handle a baby crying, and he’s drinking himself to death over, what, exactly? Being a waste of space?

Bobby: Yeah, they’re well hard and so are you, Case

Casey: what’ve you ever handled

Casey: both of you ain’t owt but the sob story

Bobby: Them, you

Casey: be more believable if he or you weren’t shut away, might as well do her sentence for her, state of what you call living

Bobby: Yeah, be her fault that

Bobby: She deserves to rot for it and she will, you need to let it go

Casey: everybody rots, save your poetry for Lucas’ class

Bobby: You’ve learnt how to speed up the process from the best

Casey: I’ll die happy and young before I settle for living in you two’s misery old before my time

Bobby: Take your own advice and be more believable

Casey: for who, what you think don’t matter to me

Bobby: Just randoms who don’t care to know your name never mind the fact you’re a miserable prick

Bobby: the easiest audience to fool is one not watching

Casey: tah for that [however old he is] year old wisdom, can get you a job here, you keep on chatting much more shit

Bobby: It’s not hard

Casey: never said it were, it’s a laugh

Bobby: For you

Casey: I’m who’s clocked in

Bobby: Stay away

Casey: make us, I said

Bobby: Haven’t you caused enough problems

Casey: don’t sound like it, you’re still only whinging about ‘em from ages ago

Bobby: You wanna talk about today?

Casey: I’ve nothing to say I haven’t already with actions loud enough even for you, but crack on if you’ve something you fancy adding

Bobby: You think a tantrum adds anything new at this point

Casey: you’ve not let it stop you up to now

Bobby: It’s the only way you communicate

Casey: I’d shake you an’ all but you obviously never learnt fuck all from her go last time

Bobby: Just what useless drunks they both are, nothing else to be gained from either but what not to do

Casey: you have something you actually wanted or just this trip down memory lane

Bobby: You’ve heard what

Casey: unlucky then

Bobby: Don’t fuck up his life just because you’re jealous

Casey: he’ll fuck up his own, he is

Bobby: Not how you want to

Casey: every way he can

Bobby: You know you’re 2nd best

Casey: least one of us knows something, you don’t know shit

Bobby: There’s no need to embarrass yourself

Casey: I ain’t, I did you in front of your little missus, calm down, she’ll get over it before you do

Bobby: You simp over her

Casey: you’ve got the wrong brother

Bobby: You are

Casey: I’m the right one to shut you up

Bobby: Then they’ll kick you out, suits me fine

Casey: he’d try, that’ll suit me

Bobby: She don’t need to with you

Bobby: so sad

Casey: can turn anything sad, you

Casey: proper knack

Bobby: Your weakness, not mine

Bobby: I can’t stand her no more

Casey: she’ll live, has to stand you for his sake but as he’s too weak to be able to keep her, not gonna matter long

Bobby: What’s that make you, never had her

Casey: 2nd, weren’t it

Casey: and her no nonce

Bobby: You’d be 3rd if she was

Bobby: but don’t worry, I’d not touch anyone from that family, least of all her

Casey: what a massive bloody loss for the lot of ‘em

Bobby: You wouldn’t be, you know

Bobby: quarter life crisis and a massive mistake to be forgiven over

Casey: I know what I’d be, tah

Bobby: Then have some self-respect and don’t let it happen

Casey: have some self preservation and don’t think you can tell me what to do

Bobby: I have, and I’ve told her too

Casey: well brave

Bobby: You two that want to sneak around

Casey: we’ve not

Bobby: Kicked off like I weren’t meant to be there

Casey: no secret I don’t fancy having you about, never did

Casey: why I’m so team Debbie

Bobby: Your mummy issues don’t matter to me

Casey: sod all does to you but Jim and his issues

Bobby: Why would I bother myself with someone who’s wanted me dead since I was a baby

Casey: don’t, like

Casey: piss off

Bobby: You

Bobby: it’s Jim’s house

Casey: he can tell me to leave then

Bobby: She will, so he doesn’t have to find out

Casey: she’ll do nowt of the sort

Bobby: You reckon?

Casey: I told you, I know

Bobby: Guess we’ll see when I give the ultimatum

Casey: you’ll see, I don’t need no guesses what’ll happen

Bobby: Better secure the sofas now

Casey: better brace yourself, yeah

Bobby: Ha

Casey: finding it funny’d be a decent start, don’t laugh you cry and you’ll not compete with him there

Bobby: You never will but here we are

Bobby: embarrassing yourself

Casey: here you are, only dickhead who reckons there’s a competition

Bobby: Tell yourself

Bobby: Who’d she pick, over and over

Casey: whenever I need her, here she is too

Casey: tell yourself whatever else you want that you reckon changes the fact even a bit

Bobby: You’re the one who can’t hack how it is

Casey: and you can’t how it’s gonna be

Bobby: You just want to fuck up his life

Casey: *he just wants to fuck up his life

Casey: can’t help himself but to

Bobby: It’s down to you and her

Casey: me and her ain’t done nothing except be mates, you’ve been ready to rub that in enough it should stick in your head, like

Bobby: She’s your brother’s missus, not a mate

Casey: she’s both and chuffed to bits with that

Bobby: You don’t have mates that are girls

Casey: ‘cause I have her, I don’t need no others

Bobby: ‘Cause girls aren’t mates

Casey: not to you, nah

Bobby: How he raised you

Casey: he never raised you, why are you such a sexist twat

Bobby: I’m pointing out your hypocrisy

Casey: go on

Bobby: You treat girls like that, then act like you think she’s special, like I’ll believe it

Casey: she is special, believe what the hell you like

Bobby: Jesus Christ

Casey: in a bit, I’ve drinks to pour

Bobby: I sure hope not

Casey: take more than your hopes to send us packing

Casey: but don’t let ‘em get too high if I’m at my girlfriend’s

Bobby: Why would I

Bobby: I don’t need your cooperation, I caught you two out, there’s no better leverage

Casey: alright, have fun playing pretend

Bobby: Backatcha

Casey: I do every night

Bobby: Exactly

Bobby: or did you think I’d buy that bit

Casey: I’m not selling you nowt, come back when you’re older

Bobby: Come back when you’re not using titles because it saves remembering a name

Bobby: but don’t

Casey: I’ll show up to get her a sign name, only ones you use any road

Bobby: You might not be able to spell but you already know how to do whore

Bobby: you can’t even convince yourself, you’re so incapable it’d be a laugh if it weren’t so SO sad

Casey: my phone can spell, same as yours can speak for you

Bobby: and all the mindless sex with all the mindless bitches will fill the hole that was left, same difference, super happy for you and whoever’s next when you scare this one off

Casey: tah, means the world to us

Bobby: Bet you wanna introduce her to Ian, don’t you

Casey: save your pocket money

Bobby: Tell her about your mummy in prison and that’s why you’re allowed to punch holes in walls

Bobby: you’re so funny

Casey: you’re as unfunny, see why you’ve no mates

Bobby: You let yourself get used for free drinks, am I supposed to envy your desperation to be liked

Bobby: I don’t, sorry

Casey: you’re desperate to copy him being a mardy git, have been since you was the little kid he still treats you as

Bobby: Or that’s the normal response to having shit family like you lot

Casey: if he cared about you having normal responses you could ask the shrink he’d send you to

Bobby: I’ll just chuck a chair the next time I have some big feelings, get one for free like you

Casey: still copying another dickhead instead of having your own personality, but least it’d do you some good

Bobby: Worked wonders for you, oh wait

Casey: get what you pay for

Bobby: Has to be something to improve

Casey: that’s a point, left it a bit late to kick off now, you

Bobby: You thinking you’re anything but the loser you were born is what’s really the baffling part

Bobby: Can’t help yourself, right

Casey: like you can’t being thick, be brain damage and that

Bobby: Wow, what medical journal you read that in

Casey: I don’t read, left that too late myself

Bobby: *can’t

Bobby: but you can wait on people, so minimum wage jobs will always be there for you

Casey: yeah, and I’d not ever reckon myself above them

Bobby: Be a really thick thing for you to reckon, like you’re capable of a real relationship

Casey: be 2nd for that an’ all

Bobby: Knowing your place is the only way to stop yourself showing all your cards and how thick you are to the world

Casey: the world don’t give a shit, you’d know that if you weren’t still acting like a baby

Bobby: Long as you keep pouring the drinks with a smile

Casey: chance’d be a fine thing, how you keep on and on

Bobby: You started it

Casey: nah

Bobby: Yeah, you let me catch you

Casey: at what, dickhead

Bobby: At what you’re always doing, waiting for her to let you fuck her

Casey: at nowt, you’ll have to keep waiting for something to run to your fave big brother with

Bobby: I care about him not knowing, unlike you

Casey: you care about yourself, he loses it you’re fucked

Casey: what you don’t get is, the day’s coming without my help

Bobby: Which is why I’m doing everything to stop you and her and everything else fucking with him

Bobby: you don’t care

Casey: you can’t stop him fucking with himself, what’s in his head’s what matters

Bobby: Like you’d do anything to help, have ever

Casey: like you’d remember

Bobby: That’s the past

Casey: where he lives

Bobby: You

Bobby: You act like I weren’t there just because that’s how you’d prefer it

Casey: you might as well have not, Jim all but carried you ‘round like another camera of his, a fucking object, ‘cause he’d prefer you’re just an extension of him

Bobby: No prizes for where he picked that up and why

Bobby: are you jealous of me or something, still

Casey: I feel sorry for you

Bobby: You think I replaced you

Casey: I think you didn’t need to be as pathetic as this, as he’s made you

Bobby: Let Ian do it instead and what

Bobby: be your brand

Bobby: it was never going to be any different, not since she crippled me

Casey: it could’ve, still bloody could

Casey: you’re [however old he is]

Bobby: She ruined any chance I had, I thought you got that, you bring it up more than anyone

Casey: he’s done the proper ruining

Bobby: You want to saint her so bad, why

Bobby: what is wrong with you, even if you hate me

Casey: his brand, that, martyrs and saints

Casey: she’s a fuck up, we all are

Bobby: She’s scum

Casey: me too

Bobby: If that’s how you want it

Casey: it’s how it is

Bobby: Then go be with her

Casey: I can’t for [however long she has left from now], when she’s out I’ll piss off sooner than you can ask

Bobby: Why

Bobby: She never asked to see you, you know she could, even after what she did, it was her right

Casey: why not

Bobby: Your funeral, I guess

Casey: still ain’t guesswork needed

Bobby: Long as it's over, then my work is done

Casey: they’ll be over before her sentence, you wanna work out what you’re gonna do then

Bobby: No they won’t

Bobby: She’ll fix it if she’s not distracted by your bullshit

Casey: they’re not fixable

Bobby: She did it before, and you know it

Casey: hope you’re at least convincing yourself

Bobby: She’s the only thing he cares about

Casey: shame she don’t feel the same

Bobby: The second chance is for him but she gets to benefit

Casey: alright, Bob

Casey: sure she’ll feel the benefit if only that

Bobby: She was about to wreck her life for no reason

Casey: his head, you mean, for reasons you can’t get yours ‘round

Bobby: Don’t act like you could give her what she’s looking for

Casey: I don’t put on no act for her, that’s the difference between me and him

Bobby: They couldn’t know each other any better, it’s been [however many years]

Casey: neither could me and her, been the same number of years

Casey: she knows the score

Bobby: Great

Casey: it is what it is an’ all

Bobby: Yeah, I could point out that it’s not the same but what’s the point now

Casey: you get it finally, there’s no point you doing none of this

Casey: well done, mate

Bobby: You think that lowly of her yet you’re obsessed with her, that makes no sense

Casey: awkward, now I’ve gotta take it back, you don’t get it still

Bobby: You don’t wanna admit it one way or another

Casey: none of your business either way, might be why

Bobby: Whilst it works in your favour, her being a slut is a-okay

Casey: gutted for you you’ve never met a real slut to know the difference

Bobby: See, transparent

Casey: yeah, sounds about right

Bobby: I feel sorry for you

Casey: see if he’ll take you to have your eyes checked before he feels too sorry for himself to go out nowhere, already a sense down

Bobby: We both know what I saw

Bobby: you’re acting like I’m the one who stropped off about it

Casey: you’re making up for lost time, it’s alright

Bobby: Like I said, all you respond to

Bobby: No wonder you two get on so well

Casey: a reason out the many

Bobby: If you liked her, you’d leave her alone

Casey: you heard, I’ve a missus I like

Bobby: One you met 5 seconds ago or one you obviously don’t like that much because you were here today with Janis so that makes it invalid

Casey: so was she before she legged it to avoid you

Bobby: I don’t know why you think I’d believe anything you said, you’re a liar

Bobby: it changes fuck all

Casey: leave it out talking to us then

Bobby: There’s nothing else that needs saying, not to you

Casey: [don’t reply like okay then]

Bobby: What did she say?

Bobby: You have spoken to her, haven’t you?

Maggie: Of course, I said I would

Bobby: And

Maggie: And it went how we expected, like

Bobby: Meaning

Maggie: She denied everything

Bobby: Well what did she say about me telling Jim?

Maggie: That’d she’d tell him herself when he’s home about Case kicking off

Bobby: As if that’s going to distract him

Maggie: No, as if there’s honest to god nothing else to say to him about the day’s events

Bobby: How fucking dumb does she think I am, as thick as him, she wishes

Maggie: She thinks you’re best to leave this all alone, to them, which I tried to tell you myself

Bobby: Er yeah no shit she thinks that’s best, ‘cos nothing will fucking happen to her that way

Maggie: What do you want to happen to her? You talked of second chances, giving her one so nothing bad would

Bobby: Dependent on her doing the right thing, learning from her mistakes and doing better

Bobby: and it’s clear she has no intention from this bollocks

Maggie: You don’t know she won’t

Bobby: If she felt sorry, she’d not be lying and deflecting to make this as easy as possible for herself

Maggie: Feeling sorry don’t mean she’d admit she is to us

Bobby: She’s not sorry, neither is Casey

Maggie: She weren’t never getting on her knees in front of you begging to be forgiven, but none of that means she’s not sorry

Bobby: I don’t need her to, I’m not being unreasonable

Bobby: That’s not how sorry people act, end of

Maggie: People don’t act the one way

Bobby: Yes they do, you get caught in the wrong, you fix things to the right

Bobby: you don’t go on the defensive

Maggie: Give her time to fix things, show she’s sorry, that’s her way

Bobby: She needs to kick Casey out, that’s the only way

Maggie: But you’re not being unreasonable? He’s nowhere else to go

Bobby: Yes he does

Maggie: Only your da’s then, come on, Bob

Maggie: what’d be reasonable about any of that?

Bobby: He’s a grown man

Bobby: and he doesn’t deserve a room the way he treats us, that’s what’s unreasonable, being that much of a dickhead and thinking nothing will be done about it

Maggie: No one deserves the man your da is and how he treats those ‘round him

Bobby: They’re the same, it’s irrelevant

Maggie: You’re wanting to condemn your brother to a punishment what don’t fit his crime, that’s relevant to you

Bobby: How doesn’t it, Maggie

Maggie: They weren’t on the sofa necking onto each other, you didn’t walk in on the likes of that

Bobby: It’s not the point

Maggie: The point is, he’ll be hurt if he’s away to there

Bobby: I don’t know why you think I care

Maggie: I think you should

Bobby: You would

Maggie: Yeah

Bobby: He deserves to rot, it’s unforgivable

Maggie: Jesus no, so few things are unforgivable

Bobby: I don’t care what you think

Bobby: you know nothing about it

Maggie: I know you’re just angry and scared for the future

Bobby: You think you know things, everything

Bobby: you’re the densest person I’ve ever met

Maggie: I don’t care what you call me

Bobby: And I don’t care about your opinion, so do one

Maggie: ‘Course yours matters most, you don’t need to trouble yourself changing it when that’s so

Bobby: I know what I’m talking about, you’re braindead

Maggie: I know my sister’ll try with her husband ‘til there’s nothing else left for her to, that’s who she is

Bobby: She’s not trying, she’s too busy with Case

Maggie: You alone’d have it be a crime her wanting to help him too

Bobby: She isn’t helping Jimmy

Bobby: and she’s not helping him

Bobby: throwing yourself at someone doesn’t fix them, however incredible you think you are

Maggie: She hasn’t thrown herself at Case and she does help Jim, has and she’ll keep on

Bobby: Defend her all you want, do it somewhere else because you’re just pissing me off

Maggie: You were pissed off ages before my mouth opened, I won’t flatter myself

Bobby: You don’t understand

Maggie: You can’t shout your way to understanding

Bobby: I’m not interested in making you

Maggie: You’re interested in making Casey homeless and Jan more sorry, yeah, I’m lacking no understanding of those bits

Bobby: Oh yeah, boo fucking hoo, poor them

Maggie: Poor Jim

Maggie: you reckon he’d want any of the nonsense, do you really?

Bobby: I reckon he didn’t want to get cheated on

Bobby: all of this is fallout from that

Maggie: None of it’s your decision, Bobby

Bobby: Do you purposefully find the most obvious shit to say to be annoying

Maggie: You’re annoyed they’re grown men and a grown woman when pointing that out suits what you want to say but not when I tell you, you’re even more annoyed how little say you’ve got about anything right now except slagging me and them off

Bobby: It has literally nothing to do with ‘say’, oh my god

Bobby: they cheated, they’re going to face consequences because he has to

Maggie: Jimmy’s consequences, not yours

Bobby: The consequences

Maggie: He might not ask them to face none, or the some he does could be properly different to the ones you’ve your heart set on

Maggie: he’s who’s been emotionally cheated on and sometimes the choice is made to go on the same as before they’d the knowing or forgive when they do

Bobby: There’s no choice

Bobby: what will happen will happen because I’ve set it in motion

Maggie: You’ve no choice in what’ll happen next

Bobby: Yes I do

Maggie: For how you act, not how nobody else’s to

Bobby: I’m the only one who’s done anything, so it will be how I’ve made it

Maggie: They’ll do what they’re going to

Bobby: Shows what you know

Maggie: Things don’t stop cos you’re done and you’ve made of them what you want for now

Bobby: They’ve both been told what will happen if they don’t stop and sort out what I’ve said, simple as

Maggie: It ain’t simple though

Bobby: Yeah, it is

Maggie: Never is

Bobby: I get it, that’s how people like you and your sister get away with this behaviour

Bobby: but it’s not happening here

Maggie: You don’t get us at all

Bobby: You’re not complex

Maggie: I didn’t say I was, I said you don’t understand

Bobby: I understand, you don’t like that I do

Bobby: same as her

Maggie: I don’t like where you’re heading

Bobby: It’s nothing to do with you

Bobby: I don’t need your approval, I wouldn’t want it

Maggie: Well, thank god you don’t have it

Bobby: Why are you still here?

Maggie: We’re friends, despite your disgraceful carry on

Bobby: Christ, no we’re not

Maggie: You wish we weren’t

Bobby: We aren’t, that’s that

Bobby: don’t act desperate

Maggie: Sure, you’re not mine but I’m yours, boy

Bobby: No, you’re not

Bobby: you learnt some signs and patted yourself on the back for it

Maggie: It’s you desperate for this to be that

Bobby: That’s all it ever is, and that’s at best

Bobby: feel flattered

Maggie: All it’ll ever be if that’s all you let it

Bobby: Do you have a point

Maggie: I’m here trying, same as she

Maggie: which is all anyone can ever fecking do

Bobby: Try not to fuck up in the first place, that’d be a better use of her time

Maggie: And what of mine, don’t trouble myself to learn no signs in the first place, is it?

Bobby: Looks like it

Maggie: Christ almighty

Maggie: okay then, grand to have the knowing of my standing place

Bobby: Sorry you wasted your time

Maggie: I don’t reckon there’s such a thing, don’t worry yourself

Bobby: I won’t

Maggie: Right

Bobby: You were 0 help with this so fair is fair

Maggie: We’ve our differing ideas of fair

Bobby: Makes no odds

Maggie: None to you, no, you’ve made that clear enough

Bobby: Don’t try for a sob story

Bobby: you inexplicably have lots of friends

Maggie: I won’t

Bobby: Bye

Maggie: Alright, bye

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