theairlock | Week 5

Entry tags:

!round 2,
!week 5

Week 5

[As with the weeks before, life in the Fantasy Sweet returns to something resembling normalcy with shocking efficiency. The second floor rest area and ~~Adventure Zone~~ Death Orb Room are spotless again, the demon glitter has been vacuumed, the deflated orbs have been replaced. It's like none of it ever happened, like three more friends aren't dead and stored away in the guest house morgue.

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 activity for week 4, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]

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It doesn't.

I will be honest, Church, I am not sure how much longer we can go on like this. Despite our best efforts, these things just keep happening.

We have so little control. Every time we gather ourselves up and rally for a new week, PAL finds some new way to fuck with us, and we've got nothing in return.

[He feels he can be blunt and honest in this place instead of bottled up, entirely. Nobody else is there to hear it. It's bullshit, and he's calling it out.]

I want to break the fucking rules, because that might just have to be what we resort to, but what if the punishment is ending up in one of these fucking pods?

You would think I would feel right at home. [A bitter scoff escaped her.] I keep talking about how much freedom this place has afforded me but... I am just as collared as I was before. It just so happens that this cage is gilded.

[Church was right about everything, of course. Kip had attempted to instill some kind of optimism in her, but really... deep down she didn't feel it. Even her half-cocked plan with Ardyn seemed impossible and nothing more.]

The way this keeps going, we will wind up in there at some point anyway. Perhaps it might be better to do it on our own terms. To go down swinging.

[Just like she told herself she wanted to, but never had the courage to do.]

Yeah, that's the idea, fight the whole way--wait.

[He gives her a cautious look, not super sure how to proceed with that idea.] You mean go down swinging. Instead of getting picked off.

Right. That.

[Everything else had been correct, and from the sounds of it, Church understood. After giving him a brief nod in affirmation, Angel turned her head downward, fidgeting with her fingers while she tried to find something more to say.]

At best, we find a way out. At worst? We die on our own terms.

[He'd already been turning that idea over in his mind after Ardyn's memory. How Church hadn't wanted to talk directly about it, not in the high emotions of their respective memories. Not after thinking about Tex.

He hadn't considered that others might be thinking of a more permanent way out.]

I...dunno, I--death's not exactly fun. Obviously. I'm not saying don't fight; obviously I wanna fight. I just want to fight to survive, not fight for the chance to die fighting.

That is how combat is, though, isn't it? Even when you go in fighting to survive, you know that there is a chance of you dying for the whole. [She clasped her hands together, then unclasped them once more.]

I just... wish I could do something useful, is all. And if what I was talking about at the meeting was successful, but only at the cost of my own life... Wouldn't that be a good thing, at the end of the day?

["We have to win the war, Church."

At what fucking cost?]

Survive. That's useful. You're smart, Angel. And you've got some wicked powers, if you ever get to use them at full strength. We don't go in with a suicide plan; we go in with a survival plan, and then if people die along the way--

We're not at war. We don't have casualties. [He sweeps an arm, gesturing at the half-moon of pods.] We have dead friends.

[Her gaze swept over the collection of the dead. She remembered how watching Mai die had hurt, and how finding Finn dead had torn at her. Mary was her roommate, they'd sworn to protect themselves and their adjoined room. Now she was dead too. And all alone, Angel kept saying that they would get better.]

They die fighting, or they die if not this Friday, then the next. Or the one after that.

How can you stay so strong, knowing that this keeps happening, Church?

Because this isn't strength!

[Well, that was louder than he intended it to be. More vehement. He's got a hand to his chest--this, whatever this is, this isn't what she thinks it is.]

This is desperation. This is knowing that if we don't keep our shit together, we'll turn on each other, we'll lose hope, we start getting paranoid and depressed, and guess what happens then? Then we die quicker. This is knowing we're in a bad spot, and knowing that sometimes you actually find your way out of bad spots, even if it takes an unlikely act of something close to but not quite god.

Sometimes you have to hope that you're smart enough or stupidly lucky enough to see an end.

[She flinched at his tone, at the volume, but remained rooted to where she stood. Running away now wouldn't do either of them any good. And maybe Church could restore the faith that was slowly withering away inside her.]

So what do we do? How do we keep our spirits up? The longer time goes on, the more our very memories seem to be bringing us down. Half of us do not even know if they are alive. What do we do, Church?

[There is a very real and very frightened part of him that wants to scream what are you asking ME for in her face. But he tells that part of him to shut the fuck up and get the fuck out.

Because he's captain of his chucklefuck team, and if he can help them survive the stupidity storm that is their collective lives with himself being just about the only casualty, then so fucking help him, he can do it for this chucklefuck team.]

Well, if hope's a bit much to grasp for, there's always the next best thing to keep you going. Spite.

Spite is a great motivator. These guys want to see you lose it and murder each other and die? Well that's just some tough shit, Nancy, cuz you're not gonna give 'em the satisfaction. They want you to be a dancing death monkey for entertainment? Screw them, reality tv sucks anyway.

They want us to stay here in their dollhouse? We go kick their doors down. In spite of everything we're facing right now.

Do I have a plan to make that happen? Hehehell no, but I'm not letting that stop me. Do my memories suck? Increasingly, but I'm not letting that stop me. Because that would be the easy and placid thing to do. Fuck that. I wanna see this through to the end, march up to the network director's office, and see the look on that motherfucker's face.

If joy isn't working out for you, I find a potentially unhealthy dose of anger really gets the blood going.

[Church's words were harsh, and if she was honest, the speech reminded her of Jack. However, unlike the man back home, this diatribe wasn't meant to keep her down, another guilt trip to keep her compliant. Somewhere, beneath the deep, icy layers of apathy, Church's words lit a spark. It wasn't much, and already her doubts were threatening to suffocate the flame, but it was a start.]

I... think I would like to be there when you do that, Church. I want to help get you there. Somehow, at least.

You don't have to be happy, and you don't have to have your cool, and you really don't even have to be strong. You just need to have a really, really good reason to keep going, and fucking someone the hell up is a good place to start. So you stay alive, you keep kicking ass. Generally how it works.

You know. I have... never been good with spite or wanting to see others hurt but. I think I can make an exception, in this case. If nothing else, I'd like to see you kick a little... a little butt.

[That is a bit of a wicked smirk he's putting on.] Ass. It won't kill you to curse. Go on. Say something nasty.

[Is she really being called out like this. She quickly shook her head, and looked for anything that might serve as a better distraction.

Naturally, she found nothing.]

That's, um. That's okay. I would rather not.

C'moooon, what is it, personal preference? Schoolgirl giddiness? It isn't like you're tarnishing anything to expand your verbal horizons.

My... Jack told me not to. Funny, how I cannot convince myself to do it, even after all of this.

Jack's a psychotic fuckass. Just one little curse. I'll even take a 'hell'.

Church. [She let out a huff.] Jack is an... asshole, you are right about that.

[Yessssss! Fistpump!] See, we'll turn you into a little resistance warrior yet.

Resistance fighter... Jack would have a heart attack if he ever heard about something like that.

[A smile curled across her lips.]

I... kind of like the sound of it.

Edited 2017-06-16 05:25 (UTC)

[He jerks a thumb over to Finn's pod.] Hey, it's what at least one of our former Champions would've wanted.

Yeah. You're right. [Not that she wanted the reminder of how much she missed Finn.]

I wish I had a chance to get closer to him. I think... he was a really good man.

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Week 5

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cw: suicide? ideations/implications? maybe.

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