theairlock | week 4

Entry tags:

!round 2,
!week 4

week 4

[Just like the previous week the status quo is restored with frighteningly quick efficiency. PAL still makes the morning and night time announcements through the PIP on each Champion's arm, and still the Champion unitards are freshly laundered and re-hung each morning in their closets. Even the glass roses Choromatsu and Takumi broke after the trial in their fit of anger have been replaced with fresh ones. All signs that there was anything amiss this weekend are completely gone.

There's a new floor to explore, their "reward" for a job well done.]

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

[ooc: Don't forget to to turn in your AC for week 3, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]

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I'm fine.

[He's... less than fine, but also this has been bothering him probably since the day he was born, and if Church and Ardyn won't let him in on their terms, he's gonna kick the door down on his own.

He grips Church's arm.]

It's not just about Ardyn. Or about me, and this... [Words escape him, and he just gesticulates in front of himself to indicate the whole, uh, everything. Starscourge often defies description.] This shit. Okay?

When you came to me last week to tell me about the morgue, I felt... I felt like I was part of a team. Like my decisions mattered. So don't back out on that now, Church, don't leave me out and leave me out because I am sick of being left out of the loop.

If you're the king's shield, then give me some goddamn fucking armor, Stark, because none of us can afford to break here.

Edited (Get more than 3 hours of sleep over a 72-hour period, children) 2017-06-08 00:38 (UTC)

[Man. There's just...emotional bombs getting dropped all over the god damn place, aren't there?

And here, staring at Junpei with a little startle and hearing him talk about a team, a team that works together to keep each other alive and halfway to sane--he sees Tucker. He does. It's stupid, and he misses his stupid fucking fuckass team, and god damn it, if they're gonna be Blues here, too, then...then he's really got to start acting the part again, doesn't he?

His surprise melts into something more sure.]

Your decisions do matter. I'm sorry that I kept--anything from you, but what I learned wasn't mine to tell, okay? But now you're here, with this, and--

You sling some webs to catch us, Parker, and I'll get some armor to lift us up. We're a team. We are a team, and maybe I've been a neglectful little shit about it lately. We're gonna learn what we can. We're gonna keep this ship afloat. And we're gonna do what it takes to get the fuck out of here. Alive, and sane.

[Junpei searches Church's eyes for another moment before letting him go with a breath of relief. He didn't wanna be mad at Church.]

Yeah. Good. Well, maybe too late for the second part so much, but alive is always something I can get behind.

[You know, despite Junpei's apparently unslakeable thrill-seeking deathwish. But details.]

I think we can both agree that so far, the obvious takeaway from this is that there's gotta be a way to save him, right? Like... this bullshit isn't inextricable from who he is. The way I understand it, all his shit's been granted him by one outside force or another.

[He spreads his hands in a 'fuck if I know' gesture.] Like I said, he isn't telling me everything, so I don't...know what this is. I can--we can help keep it at bay. But to get it out of him? Unless we figure out how the fuck PAL's done this bullshit, I don't know how we go about doing that.

Especially if it's magical.

So either we make him tell us what the fuck he thinks it is or...I don't want him to remember more of this bullshit, but the answers might be locked away in his network-induced amnesia.

You think we should... make Ardyn tell us something he doesn't want to tell us.

...

Church, do you know how to do that? Because I don't know how to do that.

I didn't say it was a plausible option!

...But he might also be more liable to explain things in...his current state. Of humanity. And feeling. Did you know he could honestly smile? Because he can. Like smile, not that kinda sad thing he does.

God, I know. It was so weird. ...I mean, I couldn't properly register exactly how weird it was, but I felt the weirdness, and that's significant.

...We could also... try to figure it out between the two of us and ask him if we've got the shape of it. See if we have enough of the pieces together.

...Better than blunt force. I've seen it from the outside, and you're feeling it right now. With some of his details, maybe... I don't think we'll come close to a whole picture, but as a united front, maybe it'll be enough.

Okay.

[...Might as well start.]

Feelings-wise, everything's... muted. Like there's something getting in the way of my receiving the right signals. Uh, all of them except anger. That one's clear as day. Might be stronger than usual, even, except I'm kind of already a pissy jerk and it's been a bad week. Or. Year.

Yeah, when he gets worked up about something--like Lee. He was...not good after Lee. That's when I first noticed something getting fucked up with his face. He was pretty startled by it, too, and that's when it seemed like he had some idea about it but...not enough that he wanted to share.

He remembered some really bad shit after, too. And went off on me when I bugged him about--you saw that mood he was in, right? It's kind of like the thing you're feeling, or not feeling, but more of that.

[Should he say about the whole 'hey if you're that irredeemable then just kill me' thing? Mmmmm not right now.]

And he's snapped at me a couple times before all that Lee shit, too, so...yeah. I believe it, about the anger. Um, let's see...when we first started talking about this whole thing, when I called him out on not sleeping or eating but he wanted to still pretend to be human, I suggested that maybe the gods that chose him decided to dick him over. Cuz. Y'know. Fickle gods. It's a trope. That maybe they made him into some kind of demi-god against his will? I still think the idea has some merit, but he still doesn't see how it all connects. Too many blanks.

...I'm not sure it's so much he doesn't see how it connects. He just doesn't want to admit it as long as there's some hope he's wrong. We were talking earlier, and he said...

[Junpei closes his eyes, trying to recall Ardyn's exact words.]

"It's something which can't be properly removed or erased." Even with all the powers he normally has. But he looked... he looked like, somehow, he thought that was his fault or something. But he also said someone had to be the one to deal with it, and he'd rather it be him than anyone else.

Of course he thinks he has to deal with it, he's the Chosen King and all that. It's his fucking job description, and he acts like it's his only reason for living. He's literally the only one who can help his people and all that. Travels the...world...

[That there is a thinky face.]

Does he have--he was, like, a healer. Does he have actual healing powers, did he say? Like, I don't know, self-healing, or some healing magic type thing?

Uh... he said he could heal, yeah, but that he couldn't use it here. I mean, I didn't ask him to clarify, and I haven't tried myself...

[There hasn't been any reason to.]

Why do you ask?

He was chosen to help his people. Heal the world, in a way. He...there's this thing. [Super descriptive way to go] This, this, I don't know if you want to call it a disease or just this evil magic or this thing that happens to people that turns them into demons. The Starscourge. He's supposed to get rid of it.

...He doesn't like it when I describe his look as, uh, demonic.

Did he...maybe get it himself? And he can't heal it from himself?

...

['Starscourge is highly contagious, Junpei. Daemons are not even remotely edible.']

He told me about that. That--that's mainly what he fights, the daemons, that's his job. They come out at night and--

[Oh. Oh no.]

Church. Church, ever since Tuesday morning, I've been... I've been sensitive to light.

[Oh shit. Oh shit.] Because the shitty stupid demonic thing in you would rather it be fucking eternal nighttime?

What the fuck.

A daemon plague and he's got it. Maybe something about that...means he can't heal people of it anymore? Which would be crushing to someone whose whole schtick is chosen to specifically do that thing.

I--I think it's more than that. I think...

['Only the chosen king can fully banish the darkness. And until I can fully harness the power of the Crystal granted to the Lucis Caelum line by the gods, all I can do is hold the plague at bay where I am able to.'

Junpei shoves his seat back and starts to pace, fists clenching at his sides.]

If he can't do it... I think his world's fucked.

['I am the only one who can truly channel the Crystal's power.'

'I accept and welcome my role, and there is nothing I would not do to save every afflicted person I should be capable of reaching.'

Stopping, Junpei pushes his hair back from his eyes.]

Shit... Shit, Church, I can't give this back to him!

Oh god. Gods, even. Maybe they did fuck him. Maybe he was chosen right up until he got what the fuck this thing is. Maybe he'll live forever because there's nobody else who can get rid of it. Which means...nothing and nobody to...kill him.

And it's just going to spread until everyone's got it and they're as fucked as he is.

[Although now Junpei is alarming him. [softly] don't]

You can't just keep it, either!

[Normally, an impassioned shounen hero speech might go here, but we're still operating on 10% Junpei today. He's got his arm wrapped around his chest like he can keep the Starscourge in by physical force.]

I--sure I can. If PAL doesn't take it back, then...

[He swallows and faces Church again.]

My earth's headed for apocalypse, anyway. And... and. And I don't have anything... depending on me. Like you guys do.

If PAL doesn't--he did last time. He decided he had his fun, someone died, and everyones powers were back to fucking normal. You're not going to have a choice in the matter.

You can't just--wait, the fuck do you mean yours is going apocalyptic?!

Uh, is now, when I'm possibly possessed by the inner demons of thousands of people, really the right time to ask me about how everything I've ever done with my entire life has been utterly meaningless?

...We are talking about this later. ~~[young man!]~~

Jesus, though, no wonder he feels like shit about the things he's done. It wasn't even really him, just...this thing in him.

But say...say we make it out of this alive and intact. And go home. Just not having it anymore doesn't change the things he's done. Whatever he's been doing for two thousand years. And if he really did cold blood murder some super important figure in his world? Do you know what he'll put himself through? You can't just...

[He hates saying it. Because Ardyn deserves...to stop feeling this and start feeling again. This is something that's going to hurt him either way, and what the fuck is he, the King's fucking Shield, supposed to do about it?]

You can't be him. You can't be like him. You can't just decide you're shouldering all that now.

...

[From the mutinous set of his mouth, Junpei's obviously considering a dramatic watch me + flounce combination. But Church is right. Junpei knows he's right. Shouldering other people's burdens--he knows what that would do to him, what it's done to him in the past, and that's not even factoring in the literal demonic fury running through his veins right now. The veins that should be Ardyn's.]

Then what do we do? We can't... he's been shouldering this. For centuries. I don't care if he accepts it, it's--it's not right, some gods choosing that for him.

I don't...I don't know. I don't know that there's anything we can do except...remind him who he is.

[His fists clench, because this is a no good very bad week for everyone, and he's been trying so damn hard not to lose his shit. So hard. Just to keep everyone afloat, like Ardyn would want him to. To slap bandaids and quick fixes on everyone and everything, to dump water leaking into the bottom of this sinking ship overboard with a rusty pail. He has to do it. He knows he has to, at the core of everything, for reasons even he can't articulate or reach. If he can't protect them, what good is he?

Which is the same thing Ardyn thinks every time someone tells him to chill out, and it's a bullshit perspective.]

There might not be a way for him to cure it, but maybe in the years he stopped looking for one. The cure for his insomnia, the lack of eating, the muted feelings, there has to be something. I don't know that we can find it here, but if there's information on our worlds stored away somewhere PAL can access, it might be a start.

We should talk to him. While he's...y'know. While he feels. I think he'll be upset but he'll be less likely to smooth everything over with stupid lies. If we put our heads together like a team, maybe we can find something to at least tide him over. If and when it goes back to him.

[After thinking about it a moment, henods. He's not happy--he'd really love to just be able to solve the problem--but they've all got to live in reality.]

Okay. Yeah. Of the three of us, he's the one most likely to have the clues to a solution. So we've got to talk to him.

[Junpei rubs at his left wrist.]

...It wouldn't... be right to leave him out of it, anyway. Okay. You're right, Church. Maybe tomorrow morning, so we've got the whole day to work things out? [Wan not-smile.] Since you two need your sleep eventually.

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week 4

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