theairlock | It floats away, a small wish with tears and a little regret

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!round 2

It floats away, a small wish with tears and a little regret

[ After the entire trial, Clarith gets to work. If Rii-san won't make the memorials, she will, and if Rii-san does, she'll supervise. And then, she'll slip a letter under each door. ]

Please join me in the gardens for a funeral and then a wake in the first floor rest area.

- Sister Clarith

[ When people arrive, Clarith is waiting with her Levin Bible in hand. Afterward, they can all file into the rest area, where hopefully someone has made food! She's sure someone would have, but she wanted to just... Get the funeral done. ]

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[The noise scares the shit out of Junpei. It's hard enough to try to chop carrots with his left hand. Were his right not already a robot hand, he probably would have lost a finger. He tosses the knife aside and runs out into the dining room, ready to see another body or a murder in progress or a knife or a gun--]

Jesus--Church!

[Yeah no he's going to try to grab and keep that chair down.]

What the hell?!

[HIS CHAIR NOW. There's plenty to spare! But at the grab and tug he slams it back down to the floor and all but snarls at Junpei.]

She was gonna live!

[Junpei blinks in the face of Church's rage, and when his mouth falls open at first, it's without an answer at the ready. He breathes in, then asks stupidly:]

Angel?

[He used up half his brain at the trial. He's been trying--not not to think about it, to break apart the grey obscurity he feels about the fact that she's gone, but it's like beating a wall with already tired, already bloody knuckles.]

[As before, it's only the very tip of the iceberg. So many more things are backed up, waiting to stupidly tumble out of his mouth if he can only wrangle his tongue into saying them, we're never beating PAL or he never had a choice or they were good people or how many more or]

She said she--she told--I thought I got through to her, and the only reason she's dead is because he's a fucking FUCK!

[Words are hard. They're hard to do anything but spit out at the top of his lungs.]

...That's not true.

[Junpei's fingers tighten on the back of the chair--five of them turning white around the knuckles, and the other five showing nothing human at all.]

That's not true, Church.

HOW IS THAT NOT TRUE?! That fucking AI of her fucking dad decided to fuck them over because they're--they were fucking good people!

If it were just him, they wouldn't--they wouldn't both--

[If it were only about beating Jack, then Angel didn't have to die. If it was only what Jack wanted...]

He said it, didn't he? That asshole--he didn't want Rhys to die. He wouldn't have wanted to lose--Angel, she said she was his weapon, and what they did--

[Something's starting to come out at the edges of that impenetrable blankness.]

They did it to save us. And to save themselves. Because they didn't fucking trust us.

No, they-- [He stumbles over that, because to his blindness, it comes from left field. He's left blinking. Still angry, but...now confusion is taking hold.] What--he couldn't just let Jack-- They trusted us enough to figure out the tri...

[It's a surprise to find, on the other side of that businesslike wall he put up, anger twinned with his grief. Angel was his friend, she said so and after five weeks of being worn down--]

They could have trusted us to help them before it came to a trial.

[He believed her. He's such a fool.]

What, so the psycho AI could just go fucking shank someone else while we run around giving them platitudes?

No, so that we could actually work on a solution because secrets kill people, Church! We keep using stopgaps and sleepovers like we can stop the wheels from turning, when the only way to stop anything is to stop this goddamned game!

Every weakness we have, every flaw in our minds and our memories and our fucking bodies, they're going to use that to get what they want out of us whether we want to or not! And the only way we can get in front of this at all is to tell each other what to expect, to pool what we know until there's enough to jump this--this fucking wall!

[He snaps an arm out at the literal wall, at the ceiling--at PAL.]

Do you think it's a coincidence that this keeps happening every Thursday night? Rhys and Angel just--decided to do this right when the network needs their weekly two-parter. We're not the ones killing one another, Church. But keeping shit to yourself--it sure hands them the fucking knife.

At least if we knew--at least if we could protect people directly instead of running around guessing--they'd be more likely to screw up and give us an opening.

Well the fuck do you want, another tell-all secret sharing feelings session, when apparently the last couple didn't air everything out enough? Like I'm gonna stand up and go, oh, fucking man, I'd totally murder the shit out of someone if I could see my girlfriend again? Or like--we'll just keep giving and giving more of ourselves to the rest of the gang until we don't even have anything of ourselves anymore? You think that's what's gonna get us the hell out of here?

And what's your fucking knife, huh? Or have you seriously told us every little thing that could possibly be used against you?

[Junpei's mouth opens, and for a second, nothing comes out. Then the anger smacks back into him and he hits the chair with his fleshy, vulnerable palm.]

Fine! The goddamn love of my life was the mastermind behind the first game I was in! She put me in there--she drugged me and kidnapped me and made me see--[So many awful things, the first human corpses of his life, blown to pieces, unidentifiable. He shakes his head.]--made me think I was going to die--to save her own life. Like my feelings--my feelings for her, for--for myself--she knew everything about me and she still--she used--!

[Abruptly, Junpei peels himself off the chair and stalks a couple steps away, fists clenched, shoulders bowstring-taut.]

I want--I want people to stop LYING to me, Church! If Angel was gonna spend five weeks begging me to let her trust me, then why didn't she?!

Maybe because she didn't want to do this anymore!

[It's not even anger--oh, there's still plenty of that, but the outburst is one brought on by another pain, crumpling the expression on his face.]

Maybe because she didn't trust herself anymore--how can you trust other people or let them trust you if you don't even trust yourself anymore, man? Maybe there was just nothing any of us could ever do for her or say to her--maybe--maybe she just saw a fucking inevitable end and decided she was tired.

[He doesn't have to see Church's face to hear it in his voice, the hurt twanging through both of them like resonant strings, anger and bitterness and loss. Junpei grits his teeth, holding onto it, all fire and lashing-out.]

I hate--

[But there's nowhere for it to go. No Angel. No Zero. He held what Ardyn does for three days, but he's not Ardyn. Junpei can't sustain anger with no target but himself.]

I hate this.

[He doesn't soften, doesn't relax, but his head sinks between his shaking shoulders.]

How are we supposed to be champions of anything if... if all we do is lose?

Because some people love a fucking tragedy.

[And ain't that just what this is, a god damn tragedy. He thumps the chair down on the floor again in frustration.]

And we're the fucking actors in this fucking farce of a play.

[Just like that, there's a target again.]

When I get my hands on the show-runners here...

[When. Not if.]

I don't care if it takes nine years. I'm going to track down every single son of a bitch that made this possible--that threw us in here like trained rats and told us to swim--and I'm going to make them wish they'd never been born.

[He whirls to point at an overhead camera.]

And that includes viewers like you!

[You're welcome.]

I told her I was gonna kick down the network doors, and I wanted her to come--she wanted to live long enough to see that happen.

...I'm still gonna break this fucking chair, and I think you should totally break something too.

God, I want to. But I use these chairs, Church. I'm attached.

They'll be fucking replaced in the morning like it didn't happen, just like everything else around here.

I'll know it's not the same chair, dude. Just because things turn out okay doesn't mean it's okay!

Maybe they fix the damn chair, it could be the same chair, it's the fucking future!

Don't hurt my chair! His name is Chair Bear and he Cares about my Derriere!

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It floats away, a small wish with tears and a little regret

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