week 6

[airlockedmods]

Week 6

[Six weeks. Twenty-three Champions whittled down to just seven. Where the halls of the station once felt crowded and loud now they're empty and echo when someone speaks too loudly. Again, the Champions will find themselves experiencing strange dreams on Sunday night but outside of the usual wake-up call there is no new floor announcement from CECE.

Like the trash compactor last week, the infirmary is pristine and sterile once again. As if nothing had ever happened.]


Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday



(( Welcome to Week 6! Don't forget to submit your memory regains and turn in your benefactor threads for sweet loot, too! There's going to be no AC this week.))

Comments

[playthedamncard]

[Something like a smile plays on his lips, small, sad.] Sorry, I should have let you sleep in.

[le_mat]

[he is not prepared for a look like that first thing in the morning, and burrows his face further down, ignoring all his aches]

Did the mornin' announcement already go off?

[playthedamncard]

In another couple minutes. Guess my memories woke me.

[The heat of the sun and the crunch of sand. He gets out of bed properly, so if Akira wants to hog the whole warm space, he can.]

You can stay in here if you want today.

[le_mat]

[he doesn't hesitate to drag over the now free pillow and roll into the warm spot]

Hmm... no, I gotta get up too.

[he's in no rush to do so, though. He takes note if what Kaiba said, about memories waking him]

... up for talking about it?

[playthedamncard]

Oh? Are we suddenly interested in sharing memories? [He means nothing by it.] Perhaps later. ...Needs time to sort itself out. A matter of months, though. Not just days or a handful of weeks.

[He grabs a pill container (full of oxy) from off his desk and rattles it in Akira's direction.] If you need something to take the edge off, I've got some.

[le_mat]

That long...

[His was just a few hours, and were things he already knew from context. The feeling of dread in his belly is less to do with what he now remembers, and everything with what he still doesn't. The Grail, his friends, his entire world.

But for now, he is too warm and content to mull over it]

Yeah, please. You are a saint and a scholar, Seto Kaiba.

[Cuz no fucking way was he going back in the infirmary]

[playthedamncard]

Don't let anyone I know back home hear you say that; they'll never believe you. Besides, maybe we should thank whoever is in charge of the dumbwaiters for handing out items like this.

...Hn, speaking of. I should see what other potentially inappropriate but vaguely useful items I got this morning. You want to go check yours later?

[le_mat]

I should. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll send me something useful. Like a gun.

[He finally sits up, curious what Kaiba got]

cw: mentions of child abuse

[playthedamncard]

An airsoft gun, perhaps.

[He runs a hand through his hair, moving over to the dumbwaiter. A couple different drinks and edibles, a body pillow--that he tosses at Akira, let's not talk about the condoms...

When he picks up the switch, he nearly sets it aside with everything else. It could be anything, belong to part of anything, for anyone. But before it leaves his hand, he stops cold and brings it back up. It's not coincidence, not at this point. It even looks used, not like some cheap new plastic replica.

For a moment, that voice that isn't his bubbles back up. Losing is death, this is the perfect game isn't it? To hammer home the lessons he'd tried to shed. Caring is weakness, nothing matters more than getting ahead, the long and ceaseless lessons day in and day out, the crack of the switch in front of his face to keep him awake and going because the consequences for doing otherwise would be worse--

If it had showed up another time, he knows he wouldn't feel this stabbing pain. Because the past is the past and needs to stay there. Gozaburo was buried with Alcatraz, laid to rest with the destruction of the duel tower. But after all that's happened, catching him when he's weak, surprising him when he's vulnerable, this feels like a deliberate act of provocation.

And it makes him furious.

He glares into the camera, not focused on yelling at CECE but past her to the overseers--to one in particular.] You don't scare me. You can't scare me with him anymore. I watched him burn. Do you think you're so damn clever, Petuu? You're going to have to come up with something a little more original, because someone else already beat you to this little game!

[le_mat]

[Akira snickers at the pillow hitting his head- and so is surprised by Kaiba's sudden turn. He startles, eye wide as he watches him snarl at the camera]

Wha-

[He rolls out of bed with practiced ease, all his earlier sleepy contentment shed in exchange for a fight he can't possibly understand]

Seto, what is it?

[playthedamncard]

[He doesn't, at first, reply. It doesn't seem like he's even heard Akira, focusing his tremulous rage at someone he can't even reach.]

You can dig all you want, but if you want to come at me, then come at me instead of playing around! Come up with something new! I don't care! He never got what he wanted, and neither will you.

[le_mat]

[He knows better then to try and touch Kaiba right now- he could lash out and honestly, Akira isn't sure he could take him right now. So instead he looks for what in the dumbwaiter could have set him off.

... like before, he doesn't need the details for his blood to go cold when he sees the switch. He moves, putting himself in Kaiba's sight line, but far enough away to not be seen as a threat]

Seto... put it down.

[playthedamncard]

[It's a good thing Akira's not closer, honestly, because he's not sure what he would have done. That flash of anger redirects at Akira for a very hot second--but it's Akira. Who has only ever tried to help. This isn't what they need first thing in the god damn morning, and the anger melts into a simmering shame. He shouldn't have reacted. It's nothing. It's the past. It's been ground into fine dust. Is this what he's become?

He reels back and gives the rod a throw, listening to it bounce off the door, clatter to the floor, come to rest against the trunk. Sits himself heavily on the bed. Max had gotten close to some of the more painful truths, so had Prompto, even Manaka, and they were all dead now. He doesn't need Akira to concern himself on top of it all.]

It doesn't mean anything.

[le_mat]

...it doesn't.

[He pads across the room, kneeling and picking the rod up. He can see the signs of wear on it, can feel the weight in his hand, and wishes there was anything he could do to balm this pain. But it is long past- well past his reach.

So instead he pauses, thumping the switch against his hand a few times, making a soft 'thumpthump'... before taking hold of the other end, planting his thumbs-]

Snap.

[playthedamncard]

[He should have been able to. Maybe a week ago, two weeks ago, but he's so raw that it's up to Akira.

And maybe for once he shouldn't beat himself up about it. He manages not to flinch at any of the noises, and he sinks down a little when it's snapped.]

Thank you.

[le_mat]

[Akira shoves the pieces in his pocket, intending to toss them later, before making his way back to Kaiba, urging him to sit]

It's...

[Not okay]

...not a problem

[playthedamncard]

It is. But I appreciate it anyway. [It's not quite an apology, but it sounds like one anyway. Because he's been apologizing a lot lately for someone who's never made a habit of doing so, to Akira who shouldn't have to deal with any of this.]

[le_mat]

...I'm not going to pretend I know what happened. I'm not going to ask either, cuz that's your business. But... tearing down adults that think they can't be touched is everything I've fought to do. So... even if it's just a little thing, I want to do it.

[playthedamncard]

He's dead twice over, and I refuse to be haunted by his ghost any longer. She can't make me. ...I shouldn't be so furious about it.

[le_mat]

Why the fuck not?

[It's an earnest question]

[playthedamncard]

Because it's the past. It's dead and gone and buried under so much rubble at the bottom of the sea. I am free of the shackles of my history. So this...this shouldn't mean anything to me.

[le_mat]

Burying something isn't the same as being free of it. All it does it give it time to rot and poison everything around it.

It's okay to be pissed. And to hate, and to struggle and yell. There's no such thing as being better then all the nastiness inside you, and all the things you went through. You burn it for fuel and make something new out of it. As long as that's not all there is- and I know there's way more in you then that.

[playthedamncard]

I spent a long time in his thrall, being shaped and molded into exactly the way he thought an heir should be. But I am better than all of that; I have made myself better than all that.

[le_mat]

Yeah, but you're still human.

[playthedamncard]

Wouldn't it be better to not be? To be something more?