Now Look At This Net

[Namira]

((Rajni continued from Cake By the Ocean))

They'd walked off into the sunset like real badasses, except without the badass part since realistically all they'd done was yell at Tiny and leave Ollie to stew in his own murderjuice. Spending some time walking gave Rajni more time to think than she'd have liked, between dwelling on whatever the hell that was back on the beach and by the way Rajni hadn't forgotten the HELICOPTER DRIVE-BY THANKS. But anyway, Rajni had a lot going on in her head just now.

Okay there was no way to say/think about this without coming over like a dickhead, but that had never been something Rajni had cared about so she was gonna go ahead and think it anyway. There were way better travelling companions than Galahad. Like alright, he was basically sound, and she could confidently say that he wasn't likely to turn on her if only because he didn't have the balls to. She also had big time doubts that he would wtach her back or put his neck on the line for her if it came to that.

There was the fuckoff massive kicker though, wasn't there? Flip the script around a minute, if Galahad wound up in trouble, would Rajni put her arse on the line for his sake? Just needed to think back to the way she'd put Galahad between her and Tiny to realise the answer to that; she was shit, so the answer was no. So you know, how exactly was she supposed to get all judgey about Galahad and what have you? Like, it probably said something about her that she was the type of person to start sulking about what somebody else wouldn't do for her that she wouldn't do for them. So uh, yeah. Maybe she shouldn't mentally rag on Galahad so much. Not doing a backstab was actually a decently, depressingly high bar.

She'd spent some time checking over her weapon, making sure it was loaded up and trying to get its weight to sit right. So Rajni had three nets, now two. The gun worked off some kind of gas canisters and firing it blew their entire load so no extra shots. Two more and she was done. It seemed like it would be a royal pain in the arse to get the nets back into their little package anyhow, so it was probably just as well. That in mind, she had to consider whether it had been such a good idea to use one off her very limited shots on Ollie, basically out of it already.

She played back the image of netting him in her head and snortlaughed.

Rajni glanced back at Galahad. "You good, fam?"

[Pippi]

((Galahad Matthews continues from Cake By The Ocean))

Galahad also had a lot going on in his head. Which, admittedly, wasn’t exactly breaking news, he got it. It was a much different whirlwind of thoughts, a sudden rush of emotions, stuff he could properly focus on now that he was just walking with somebody who wasn’t holding him at gunpoint. It was intermingled with lingering thoughts of Oliver, worrying whether he was okay, then worrying whether it was okay to worry, but mostly it was centered around the sudden emptiness he was feeling.

People always said him and Freya were attached at the hip; turned out when they got surgically removed it hurt real fucking badly.

He had another plan now, he supposed. A plan to find Freya, something that was now actively driving him along. He could put it in the jar next to ‘Keep living’, the empty marmalade jar with the dogeared label listing it as “Really Shitty Plans (but plans nonetheless)”. This town was pretty damn big, after all. There were a lot of places to search through, all without knowing where Freya was, all whilst she was probably on the move as well, all whilst people were probably looking to shoot and loot him.

He’d find her, though. Somehow. Hook or by crook.

He wondered what Freya would do when they found each other again. Probably call him a prat or a fucker. Probably wouldn’t hug him, which was fine, it was cool, she didn’t hug people as a baseline rule anyway. She’d almost certainly let him hug her, though. Maybe she wouldn’t even complain that he was holding her for too long.

Galahad looked up as Rajni addressed him, instantly snapped out of his train of thought. They hadn’t wandered a huge way away from the beach; he could still, faintly, see the coast around the side of the two huge sheds they’d walked up to. Most likely for keeping boats and boating equipment locked up and safe and shit.

“Oh, uh, yeah, sure!” Galahad said, fixing not-quite-a-grin to his face as he looked at Rajni. “I’m just kinda, uh… thinkin’ about… uh…”

He shuffled his feet awkwardly, slowly swinging Michael down so its head was resting on the floor, grateful for the opportunity to rest and stop carrying it for a while.

“Sorry, I meant to kinda… ask earlier, but… are you looking for anyone? Or, uh, anything, I guess? I’d share, but, uh, I guess it’s pretty obvious…”

[Namira]

The huge pile of rubbish was a great metaphor or something along those lines for how things were currently progressing. Cause like, even if things in Galaraj (Rajad?) world were semi okay, everything else wasn't really now, was it?

Like, she could spend however long fucking around and toodling from place to place and managing to duck the Cool Killer Boyclub and helicopter strafe explosions, that was all... Okay so her brain went to fine and it clearly was very Not That but she was going to go with fine anyway just for ease of use. That was all well and good but, really, it was just Rajni Rajning it up, wasn't it?

She was good at Rajning, she'd say it was probably one of her best verbs.

Putting it off. Doing it later. Finishing her homework at the last minute.

Cause what was she really doing, wandering around with Galahad? Not being dead, for sure, but that wasn't indefinite, was it? And like, much as she hated to admit it, John and his shit haircut probably weren't going to kick down the door and save the day any time soon, which meant... which meant Rajni needed to think about what was next.

Y'know, in...

Well, you know?

This thing.

...

Fucking hell she was still doing it.

She needed to think about what was going to happen if she saw a murderboy or stabgirl and couldn't net and yell her way out of it.

There, Rajnibrain, happy?

Fucksake.

Rajni looked back at Galahad and his axe. Made a prrb noise with her lips.

"Not really, mate. I don't... want people to die but uh. I never really... did the ... best mates thing that much."

...

Galahad had better friends than she did.

What the fuck.

[Pippi]

“Oh.”

Galahad shuffled his shoes again, quickly glancing down at them before realising that was awkward as hell and looking back up at Rajni.

“I’m sorry.”

He regretted doing that immediately, too. It was a pretty naff response, and almost certainly not one that Rajni really needed or cared about. They were in the Program for Pete’s sake; this was not really the time to be caring about how many best mates you had, how many friends you’d gotten on social media, whether you were the most popular person at school. And he kinda lowkey doubted that Rajni had really cared about that stuff, even back at home.

Still. It was something to talk about, now that they’d stopped momentarily for a breather. At least, that was what Galahad figured this pitstop was for. There didn’t seem to be anybody around, or really even anything worth taking. Maybe there would be something in the salvage pile, but as far as he could tell, it was just filled with rusted old pieces of scrap. If he wanted something sharp that could (verbally) slice things to shreds, he had Rajni to do that.

Haha. Yeah that thought wasn’t going to be exiting his brain via his mouth any time soon.

“Freya’s pretty much my only, uh, best friend, honestly,” Galahad said, gently running his thumb up and down Michael’s handle. “I mean, y’know, I had a bunch of friends from school, and I liked them, and they liked me, but… Freya was the only person I could trust wasn’t just talking to me so she could get a free lunch. Or, y’know, stuff like that.”

Of course, he would have gotten Freya lunch too if she’d asked him to, without skipping a beat. But that was because he knew that a couple of weeks later she’d get him a burger or something from the canteen, right out of the blue, then call him a prat for thanking her for it. His shoulders heaved, and he instinctively sighed at the thought.

Sooner or later. Sooner or later. The reunion had to happen, sooner or later.

“Um. Sorry. Didn’t mean to, uh, hijack the question. So, um…”

Galahad idly rotated Michael on its axehead, simultaneously eager to ask the question and desperate to avoid it. Eventually, after a few seconds that felt like eternities, he blurted it out, just before he could get cold feet and clam up forever.

“So if you’re not… looking for anybody, really… what were you, um… how’d you think this would all pan out? What are you looking for?”

Another pause, then Galahad let out a small, slightly bitter laugh.

“Aside from a miracle.”

[Namira]

Galahad apologised for nothing in a pro Galahad move that would likely get a solid 9/10 at the Galahad olympics. Rajni shrugged. It was a bit of a weird that captain sadboy himself was potentially more popular than her but like, at the end of the day did that really matter right now? Big whoop, she didn't tend to get all that close to people, bit fricking late to start getting wound up about that, wasn't it?

Freya, though, huh? Like, being honest she'd come off as a bitch but Rajni could appreciate just y'know, being you and not caring about what other people thought about that. Even if being you was being kind of bitchy. She felt like there had to be some kind of story there with Freya and Galahad, because like, come on, how did people that opposite get so close?

Actually, no time like the present, might as well.

Rajni shrugged distractedly again at Galahad's question, mind already on what she was gonna ask him and not at all because she didn't want to answer that question from him nosiree nope nopey nope.

"Fish and chips would be nice," she quipped back. "But hey, you and Freya, how'd--"

"Hello again, my patriots!"

Cocks.

[Pippi]

Fish and chips would have been real nice right about now. Really, anything would have been better than the disgusting MREs and the tasteless bread they’d all been saddled with, but now that Rajni mentioned it, he suddenly had a craving for some lovely cod and chips. It wasn’t even something he had any particular affinity for, nor any warming and soothing memories associated with it. Hell, his association with anything ocean or water related had kinda been tainted after his mum had passed away.

Maybe it was just the craving for something that actually tasted of something. Or maybe it was the association with his home country that he was longing for. He couldn’t tell. He didn’t have much time to ruminate on it further, or even reply to Rajni, before a voice cut through the air. Galahad grimaced and closed his eyes for a moment, steeling himself for the news.

He stood there, and listened. A name, the very first name on the list, filtered through the slightly muffled, slightly scratchy speakers.

He blinked. There was a clattering sound, dim and muffled, and he looked down slowly to see that Michael was lying on the ground suddenly, handle resting on his shoes. Must’ve slipped out of his grip. Clumsy, as always. That’s what Freya would have told him.

Why were his hands shaking?

“They, uh…”

Galahad slowly started speaking, still looking down at his feet.

“They… Rajni, they mess up these announcements sometimes, right? They make mistakes, don’t they?”

[Namira]

Aw fuck you, Adams Of all the things, you had to go and say that.

Absolute wank.

btdubs more people were dead, Rajni. Come on. Don't just focus in on what affects you directly, much as you're great at that, too. Don't just think about how hard a conversation this was going to be and that she had no idea what to say and how Galahad was staring down like his trainers knew the meaning of life. That was more deaths. More of her classmates killing them. And as much as some of the class were kind of shit, she'd never really thought they were this shit.

Pippa did knitting, for christ's sake. How did someone with a lame hobby like that up and kill Freya? And Kian! And fuck, Yian was dead too and Tiny, who they'd let just toodle on off, had killed nerdy Lucy and...fffuck she was putting this off.

Rip off the plaster, Rajni.

"I don't think so, mate. Soz."

...

She was so bad at this. So poorly equipped. What could she say? What was there to say?

Some comfort she was.

[Pippi]

He knew, even before Rajni’s clumsy attempt at sympathy, that everything said on the announcements was true.

They were no longer in a country that could afford to make mistakes. The Americans had run this thing countless times, over far too many years. They had to have developed their running of it into some grotesque form of art by now. There had only been one incident that had gone against script, as far as he and the rest of the world was aware, and that had been dealt with, swiftly and forcefully.

Slipping up on a name in an announcement simply wasn’t possibly any more.

His whole body was shaking now, not just his hands, and he stared at Rajni’s face, eyes wide open, silently pleading for her to give him the answers that he wanted, for her to give him a different truth, for her to do… to do something, something impossible, anything.

“That’s not… She can’t… She can’t have…”

Galahad wrapped his arms around himself, shaking so violently now he felt like he was about to come apart at the seams.

“She wasn’t supposed to go before me…”

[Namira]

She uh.

..

She sucked at this.

The thought just kept spinning round and round, circling the drain that was her head. But like, what was she even supposed to do here? She wasn't a fucking like, grief counsellor or something, she wasn't equipped for this.

Tough shit Rajni, you're what he has. You're what's here. So fucking deal, you stupid, spoiled child. Fucking deal with it. Stop making excuses and stop complaining about not having the right tools or that you don't know what to say and say something. Face up to what's in front of you and own up to some responsibility for once in your dumb life.

She breathed out shakily. Took hold of his shoulder.

"Hey. Hey! It's shit. I know it's shit, but you can't fall apart right now! What's happened, happened, alright? We're here. You're still here!"

[Pippi]

He was still shaking, and he didn’t know how to stop, and even if he did have the answers, he didn’t think they would work anyway. How could you devise a cure for something that never should have existed? He’d never imagined life without Freya, certainly not when they weren’t even in their fucking twenties. He didn’t feel empty, or full of rage or anger. All he was, was a quaking little mess, who didn’t know how to carry on.

He’d always been the weaker of the two; he knew it, Freya knew it, everybody knew it. No doubt people hadn’t expected him to last more than a day. Freya was… strong, and smart, and didn’t suffer fools gladly. She was supposed to make it to the end. She was supposed to live.

Galahad felt Rajni take hold of his shoulder, and he looked up at her, blinking so he could see her properly. He wanted to fall apart. It was all he could think of doing, all he really knew what to do right now. Sure, he was still here. He was still alive. Alive to do what, toddle along to the next location, drop his axe and flail around and get killed in some ignoble fashion?

He could have said all of that to her. But he didn’t. He was still Galahad Matthews. And so he did what he always did when someone told him what to do.

“Okay…”

He nodded once, face stained with tears.

[Namira]

That was not a very convincing okay, but most things Galahad did were about as convincing as a crocodile with a 'free hugs!' sign.

Wait, no, that was at least vaguely intimidating—ah actually fuck off Rajni. Stop doing this. Stop letting your brain lead you down these garden paths instead of addressing literally anything, literally ever.

She let go, took a breath again, closed her eyes. Rapped her knuckles on her forehead.

"Galahad. Look. Listen, mate," she hesitated, glanced away, glanced down, looked back at him. "Scream. Yell. Tell me to fuck off. Call me a wanker. Do what you need, just don't fucking roll over, you get me?" Rajni shoved him in the shoulder, hard. "You fucking get me!?"

[Pippi]

Nobody would ever have used terms such as ‘strong-willed’ or ‘steadfast’ to describe Galahad. After all, how could you describe somebody who folded like a wet paper bag whenever anybody told him what to do or who flip-flopped on his opinions based on the majority vote with any such endearing terms? To pretty much all outsiders, he lived underneath Freya’s thumb, bending to her will even if it directly contrasted with what he’d previously been advocating for.

‘Doormat’, ‘Unreliable’, ‘Whipped’, all of those were more along the lines of what people called Galahad. ‘Fragile’, too. The latter, more than anything, fit him to a tee right about now. He couldn’t exactly be blamed for it. But it also wasn’t something that would really elevate him in the eyes of his classmates.

He was fragile. And he was off-guard when Rajni shoved him. He stumbled backwards, almost tripping over Michael as he did. He stared at her accusingly, pinpricks of tears springing up again, shoulder stinging more out of shock than from the force of the impact.

“I don’t… I get it, I just don’t…”

His face was flushed, his fists clenched. As he stood himself back up, everything suddenly spilled out, all at once.

“I don’t know what to fucking do, okay! I don’t… What do you want me to fucking say? Oh, my best friend’s died, no biggie, that’s all hunky dory? And not only that, it was someone in our class? Someone I’ve known all my life? Who cares, right? I’ll just shrug my fucking shoulders and Life of fucking Brian it, look on the bright side of things! I know that… I know that people didn’t like Freya, that, that people fucking hated her! And no matter how many times I told everyone how good she was, how much she cared about me, nobody ever listened and now…”

Galahad’s voice cracked as he powered through.

“... and now she’s dead, and no-one will ever know, and everyone’s gonna remember her as this shitty, awful person, and… and…”

He was breathing heavily one second. The next, it had caught in his throat, and his eyes had turned wide.

“Oh…”

He looked down at his feet, then back up at Rajni.

“I guess nobody’ll know unless I’m there to tell them, huh…”

[Namira]

Ah, a reaction!

Shit, a reaction.

Yeah um, so, Rajni was winging this and provoking a response was, well it was good but also sort of bad because she wasn't sure what she'd been expecting in the first place. Not that this was a full on freak out, but it was something more than she'd anticipated. Count on her to get shocked because someone went ahead and did what she was provoking them to do. Ish.

Sudden guilt pressed down upon her, about as unexpected as Galahad's response. He wasn't a bloody guinea pig. He was a real person with real emotions and she was just pissing around, firing shots in the dark and hoping that they landed. Yeah, right, okay, she was doing her best, but her best was more or less a heaving pile of shite.

She didn't voice that, she just nodded slowly.

"Make it worth it, Galahad. Her sake, if it's not yours."

She breathed out, low and long.

"Look, let's get someplace out. It'll come out in the wash."

...What the fuck did that even mean, Rajni?

((Continued in P I P E S))

[Pippi]

He nodded, his actions gentle again, now that his sudden outburst had faded away. They were finishing up here, leaving the sheds and the announcement and the words spoken behind, soon to be nothing but a memory for him and for Rajni. And, he supposed, for the U.S. Army, watching their every move. He doubted this scene would stick with any of them for more than a few seconds, what with the lack of murder or deception or challenges to the American dream.

But he would have to remember it. It was the key to any sort of salvation out here.

He had no idea what to do, but then again, did anybody? He could tell, now that emotions were no longer running sky high, that Rajni certainly didn’t. She was searching for some kind of guidance, some sort of outline just to suggest how to react and where to go and what to do, just like he was.

So he had to give himself something to do. Some reason to keep on pressing forwards.

It really would have been easy to just give up and wait for the end. It still choked him up and suffocated him, thinking about Freya and how he’d never ever see her again. But if his resolve was so strong that he was prepared to die because of somebody else, then it was just as equally strong to live for them, too.

“Her sake, if not yours”. That was what Rajni had said, and she was right. He needed to let people know, before it was too late and before it was all over, who she was, about how wonderful a person she was, how brave and how loyal and protective, and how even if you disagreed, that nobody, nobody at all deserved to die like this. And maybe, by doing that, he’d find something for his own sake, too.

At the very least, he was pretty sure that if he just lay down and died, that Rajni would be real goddamn pissed at him, wherever they both ended up.

Galahad picked Michael up and adjusted the bags on his back, nodding at Rajni again, preparing to follow her.

“Okay.”

For once, he said what he wanted to say, rather than what he was told.

((Galahad Matthews continued in P - I - P - E - S))