theairlock | week 7

Entry tags:

!round 2,
!week 7

week 7

[For the first time in several weeks there is no new memorial in the garden. No new body in the morgue, no bloody mess for the roombas to clean. Choromatsu is still in need of time to heal and constant vigilance but he's alive. They're all alive for once on a Sunday and, even with the terrible realizations their returning memories may bring, there's a sense of hope for the first time in a long time.

There is no new floor this week.

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

[ooc: Don't forget to to turn in your activity for week 6, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

...That's wrong.

[Junpei's voice is low, low and level, like a flat, black ocean where icebergs sleep.]

What I do doesn't... fix things.

[He's holding himself so still he thinks he could reach absolute zero, the point at which all atoms stop moving.]

Everything always happens. Everything stays happened. But things happen differently in different timelines--if you go back to the same one, maybe you get stuck in some kind of--stable time loop, I don't know, what i do isn't like that. But what I do, I visit other timelines--no, even that isn't right, is it?

[He presses his hands to his head, one alive, one gunmetal grey, and squeezes his eyes shut.]

What I do is download the information from different timelines and fucking cheat my way to victory. If I go back, I don't go back to this Yuuri's past. I relay the information to another Yuuri, a Yuuri who has a chance to be happy, I send the puzzle answers back to Kanny so she doesn't burn in the incinerator and she gives me the password to the door and we live--because the timeline where she exists is always already the timeline where I helped her. The one who lives on, lives on due to circumstance. But isn't it better that that timeline exists? That that possibility is there? That the memory... the truth of that timeline can be ours, if I bring you all with me? When I save Kanny from the incinerator, I make the timeline where she makes me what I am, so if I fix things here--then this is the timeline where they're fixed, too.

[He's going in circles--no, he's jumping lines of thought. Nothing he's saying makes any sense but what about his life does?]

And that's what I am, Church! I'm the circumstance that ensures Akane Kurashiki lives, and nothing--nothing else I've ever done--nothing I've ever tried to do--has ever made a difference. To the world, to anybody... to--to me. It just gets forgotten, and--

[And he doesn't want to talk about that right now. His eyes are burning. He's in the rec room again, the incinerator, Ardyn Izunia stole a knife from a dead man and the Titanic is sinking, will sink, has always already sunk.]

So I get gunned down two hundred and fifteen times and I trade consciousnesses with the Junpei who got that lucky two hundred and sixteenth win and I fucking kill him, because life isn't fair and Akane isn't the only one who can goddamn do what she must to achieve her goals, and it's fine because it works! If we're all here--whatever we remember--that doesn't mean that this is the time we remember it from! We already know they're fucking with our memories, they fucked with space, with time--so let me fuck it right back and do some goddamned good for someone else for ONCE!

...

...

...

NONE OF WHAT YOU SAID EVEN MAKES ANY SENSE!

Nothing in my LIFE makes any sense, the hell do you want from me?!

To not make promises to your fucking girlfriend and my friend that you can't guarantee you can keep! You can't just Rick Grimes you could save his wife nobody liked!

ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW THE FUCK IT WORKS ANYWAY EXCEPT THAT IT DOES, OR WHATEVER!

I know enough! I know enough to have pulled it off... I don't know how many times! What the fuck, Church, why do you think I can't do it when it feels like--like...

[His hands are shaking, and it's not because of his vibrator arm.]

A girl who lost her little sister and the guy who brought one back to life--how does that not feel like it was meant to happen?! I can do it, I know I can.

But it won't be her! It won't be this Yuuri, isn't that literally what you were just saying? It'll be saving some different Yuuri's different sister, right?!

She--no.

[He does the mental math again, staring down at his clenched fist.]

Who we are--we only have our own memories to trust. If I... when I reach back, when I save her--if that's what Yuuri remembers, if that's the reality we live in, then it is this reality. That's how it worked before. Two possibilities existed at the same time, and then--and then we picked the right path.

She's not like you, though. She doesn't--she doesn't transfer her existence to another version of herself. I--she wouldn't be able to go with you, would she? You'd leave this timeline for another to go........my version of time travel is way simpler.

...No. No, we were able to take Eric and Mira with us, even though they're not SHIFTers. Maybe... maybe I can't do it by myself, but Cece's psychic, too, and Queenie, even if it's magic, and... with all of us working together, there has to be a way, Church.

--A way that doesn't break my promise to you, either. 'Cause we gotta get you a win, too. I'm not... I'm not leaving anyone on this team behind.

You assholes are coming with me.

Yes, fine. Jerk. Who's the one playing with time and space now, you lived four and a half thousand goddamn years ago, remember?

[Junpei's not mad, just exasperated, and Church...wants to be mad, because it's better than everything else unnamed he feels, because it's always easier. His fists are tight balls yet, and there's still a distinctly sharp undercurrent to his words. (Junpei's patronizing him now. He was never going to come along. He just wants everyone to fucking timeline hop until--until they get it right? Maybe some people don't want to play the god damn extradimensional hero!)]

They started it by bringing us here. Or by making bodies for us and then fucking programming whole personalities into us, or whatever.

And if they can do it, we can do it. We can do it better. ...Not the programming personalities into us, that's creepy as hell. But the part where we take control of our lives back, Church, and go where we want to go.

It's funny you think any of us had control of our lives in the first place.

[That kind of strikes a nerve. Junpei frowns, then shakes his head.]

Then--then fine, we take control of our lives for the first time. After we get to the showrunners, after we put this fucking show out of commission! I don't--I don't understand why you're trying to tell me I can't before we've even tried.

Because flinging everyone across timelines until we get it right sounds like a really bullshit idea. You're so sure--you're so sure you can fix this and help everyone, and I figure maybe for once I should be the one to ground you just a little in case your idea goes horribly the fuck wrong and you make promises you can't keep.

So--what, I don't even get to try?

Do you know what happens if you try and fail? Not in a philosophical way, I mean you fuck things up somehow.

.........

Yeah.

And that's a risk you wanna take? That's a risk you wanna take with all of us? Do you really want to be the big god damn hero that badly?

It's not--

[It's not about being the hero, and a year--ten years of baggage gets stuck in the space of his mouth all at once, so that he can't even express it. He clamps his jaws together, hands balled, shoulders tense again, and then blurts out--]

For once in my life, Church, I want to make my own choice about it without someone deciding my future for me!

FINE!

[Does it matter if Junpei wants to be the hero if clearly he's got the power to be one? Junpei might not be able to change a god damn thing, but maybe he can. That's more power than Church has ever had.

Just keep being the funnyman. Be the comedy relief. Nothing else he does matters, nothing has an impact, not here, not back home. He still dies from the tank, Omega still runs off in Doc, the bomb still goes off, Heart still loses his entire people, Nari still gets ostracized by everyone, Angel still kills herself, he still tries to give his all to save a lost cause, and he still has this argument with Junpei.

It's kinda not about you this time.

One of these days he'll learn to listen to himself.]

Just...fine.

Fine.

[So there, nyeh, et cetera. Junpei stares at Church a moment longer, as if somehow he could read what he's thinking off his stupid face, but he's not that kind of esper. When he speaks up again, he still sounds grumpy, but it's a thin veneer over the kind of emotion guys don't talk about.]

So do you want to actually talk, because... because I doubt my Back to the Future horseshit's the only thing that's eating you.

[What the hell was that thing with Ardyn about? He lets the question float unsaid. They've both already said too much, probably. Aired out too many telling words.]

Of course I don't want to talk. [He slumps, because this is it, this is the anger mostly out of him, because maybe Junpei doesn't deserve it even if he still thinks making Yuuri that promise was a terrible waste that's going to get them both hurt if not killed.]

...I just don't--maybe I should stop coming to these meetings. Or opening my damn mouth when I do.

[Come on, Church. You make 'killed' sound so final.]

That would kind of defeat the entire point of having meetings for everyone to come to and talk at.

[He crosses his arms and leans back, settling in. Maybe nothing was resolved, not really, but it's like a death count's finally turned off. Nothing's changed. They're still friends.]

Come on. You're the Shield, I'm the royal advisor. Let me advise, or something.

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