waste of words

[Zetsu]

"Wow, so we're going to threats now, are we? Pulling weapons out, huh? Fuck, I'm this close to losing it. I know I'm not the only one here who can do math, but somehow no one else has put two and two together that there's at least 50 of us and only one who's getting off the island. So stop freaking out about getting out of here alive. Only one of us is, right? Quick headcount, one, two, three, four. Four of you. Which means that at least three of you are freaking out and ruining my day for no fucking reason."

Irene gripped the harpoon more tightly, and jerked the point up a little. Not much, not enough that it wasn't still pointed at Roy, but it was noticeable.

She looked at Rachael. "Can't trust us? Why can't you trust us? There's no reason to betray you! We're all gonna die anyways!"

Now Johnny. "Pointing a gun at me, Badass? It's okay. I know you won't shoot me, because you're gonna die anyways so what's the fucking point, right? And you know I'm not gonna shoot anyone cuz I'm just gonna fucking die. It's just a little game we're playing, right? Like, I've never gotten to play with real guns before. It's kinda cool and exciting. But scary, y'know? Except you are thinking about shooting it. You done fucked up."

Dan was cool. Dan gets it.

She got up, walked over to Roy, and shoved the tip of the harpoon in his face. "Here's a question for you, dude. If you're so concerned about security and surviving and you're so sure that I'm actually pointing this fucker at your face because I mean business, why aren't you killing already?"

[Pippi]

Hey, so, uh. Had there been something funky in the knockout gas the terrorists had hit them all with? Some sorta crazy pills dissolved into the water bottles? God, maybe this was the shittiest timeline and all that bullshit about chemtrails really was true.

Roy wasn’t feeling much different, let’s make that one clear, aside from the omnipresent crushing feeling of despair over the fact that there were people dying around him constantly, but that was kinda like the kid who hung out with the popular kids and sat at their table that nobody really liked and was just a kinda irritating thorn in his side, until he decided to make racist jokes or read off a list of all his dead friends, which was when he became a very large thorn in his side.

Anyway.

Roy was smart, smarter than he looked, smarter than people gave him credit for as well. Lacking in common sense? Maybe. Liable to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation? Sure, whatever. But he was fucking intelligent, and the past three days hadn’t done anything to lessen his smarts.

So he couldn’t have been the only one who saw that Irene was talking out of her ass, right?

From the sounds of it, she’d already decided that everything was fucked and there was no hope. And, hey, whatever, you do you and your dumb nihilistic bullshit, Roy didn’t care. Just so long as you didn’t come along and tell anyone who’d listen (and then anyone who wouldn’t as well) that they were gonna die. Just so long as you didn’t keep on trying to remind them that there was only supposed to be one person left at the end of this, cause, dude. That wasn’t a fun thing to keep thinking of. And just so long as you didn’t point your goddamn weapon at someone and get all pissy and defensive when they got aggro at you. Did Irene seriously not realise what she was fucking doing?

Or maybe she was just that fucking dumb.

Roy looked down at the harpoon’s tip for a solid few seconds before looking back up at Irene with a face like thunder. Man. He hoped she hadn’t noticed him flinch when she’d shoved it in his face. Cause right now, he wanted real badly to keep that calm veneer up, to look like he actually knew what he was doing, rather than flailing blindly, trying to act like he thought a leader should. He vaguely sensed Dan standing up, vaguely noticed Johnny’s gun pointed at Irene, vaguely heard Rachael forgotten and alone next to the tree, but all his focus was on Irene.

“Cause I’m not a fucking psycho, that’s why. I’m not gonna go around murdering anyone who gets within five metres of me. Cause if you’re right, and people are just gonna start killing indiscriminately, I’m not going down in history as one of the guys who jacked off Danya just cause he told us to. And if you’re wrong, which you are, cause you’re a fucking idiot, and there’s a chance we can get out of this hellhole, then I’d rather not do it alone.”

He didn’t think he was shouting, but maybe he was. He couldn’t tell. His heartbeat was loud enough that he was near certain everyone around him could hear it. His hand was wrapped so tight around the lipstick gun he thought it might burst.

“Hey, let’s say you are right, though. Maybe I should start. Maybe I should be trying to get rid of the worthless fucks who just wanna cause chaos and shit cause they get off to it. Sounds to me like you already think you’re dead, so, y’know. Leave. Get the fuck outta here. Or I’ll break your goddamn neck.”

That was just intimidation too. For the moment.

[Maraoone]

You know, he'd hoped that the gun would've done something. Anything. It was a real one, after all. A Real Actual Weapon. That could kill, if his finger twitched. And, Irene was an odd one, that had always been obvious back in Denton, but. Like. Every person was supposed to have this innate sense of self-preservation, the one that set off alarms and panic lights and such whenever an Actual Weapon was pointed at you. Like, Johnny knew he had that sense from prior experience, and he assumed it to be true of everyone else.

So, why was she here? Why was she not running? Why did he still have to point a gun at his friend?

And the thing was, Roy also apparently did not have this sense of self-preservation, this desire to not die. Just kept stepping closer. Closer. Shouting threats about breaking her neck.

In hindsight, Johnny would've realized that this would have been his chance to actually live up to being a Badass. Like, he could've just stepped in between the two, never mind the mere inches of air separating the tip of Irene's harpoon from Roy, and he could've just put his foot down. Said 'Stop'. All while not killing people. It would've been perfect. Iconic.

And, he'd gotten roughly 30% of the way to that. He'd stood up. Taken a few steps towards them. Kept the gun trained on Irene. And then he stopped. Frozen. He hadn't really thought of a plan of action after this. Or of any contingencies. What if she went for it? Or what if he went for it? What then? What if they went for him instead?

So, he froze. Thought. Hesitated.

And the worst part of it all? This quarrel had captured all of his attention. All of it. So, he hadn't heard a word Dan or Rachael said. For a moment, a crucial moment, he'd forgotten her.

[Cicadan]

"We're all gonna die anyways!"

Rachael didn't look at Irene, but she listened. Words of reason sluiced easy into the ears, like the words of a forgotten lover. Daniel, his name is Daniel. Was.

Past tense. Present tense. Harpoons. Guns. Adrenaline.

The void in Rachael's body contracting at one with her heartbeat.

She lurched backwards, quiet sans heaviness to her step. She was on her feet, recoiling like a dragged marionette, moving faster than she even thought possible, away from all the eyes that had momentarily forgotten she existed. Life sought life. Not death.

Dead girl running keeps running. Hits a tree like an ugly sack of flour.

Rachael didn't scream even as she felt and heard and saw her own bone snapping, right where shoulder now melted incoherently into arm, sagging skin on the flank.

She hadn't ever realized she could move this fast. She ran not seeing, not hearing, not knowing.

((Rachael Langdon continued elsewhere))




It's about time we wrapped this up.

[Courtography]

And no one listened to him. Dan wasn't sure what to do about that. Normally if he made some remark tarnishing a couple guy's manhood they'd be defensive and not about to get in a fight with some chick.

Circumstances really had changed.

He was dumbfounded. And angry. Why was getting kidnapped by terrorists and a few people getting weapons enough to turn a bunch of normal kids into a bunch of violent morons?

His hands were fists. He could feel his face glowing red.

"Hey there's no need to. Just quit it you idiots."

He heard running and thumps behind him. He ignored them. He was too busy trying to make eye contact with Irene and Roy.

They couldn't be this stupid. Dan wasn't the smartest guy in the world, but next to these two right now he was like Stephen Hawking or Einstein.

[Zetsu]

"Fine then."

Fine then.

Fucking fine.

((Irene Djezari continued in Carp Diem))

[Pippi]

Roy felt a grim smile slide onto his face as he watched Irene scurry off, like when you turned over a log and a bunch of weird, creepy-ass bugs hurried back into the dirt where they belonged. He realised he was nodding, as if he’d done something he should be proud of. And you know what? You know fucking what? He was proud of himself. Irene had been a threat, both mentally and physically, considering she had been waving her harpoon around like nobody’s business. Maybe he hadn’t looked super great, threatening to break her neck and all that shit, but hey, it’d got her packing. That was what counted. Keeping the other three safe? He could tick that one off of his checklist.

If Roy had been a petty man, he would have flipped Irene off as she stalked off.

Hahahaha, who was he kidding, he absolutely was that petty. Roy raised his middle finger high in the air at Irene’s back, and MAN did it feel satisfying.

He could feel eyes burning into him, though, so he turned around to see Dan and Johnny, looking so much like the Heat Miser and Snow Miser respectively he almost burst out laughing. Which… would have been pretty fuckin’ tricky to explain to them. Or most people, honestly. Listen, sometimes you ended up trawling into the weird side of YouTube at 3am, what’s it to you.

Roy decided to tackle Dan first. Not, like, literally, idiot, although he could still probably have done so even with a broken arm. ‘Angry and pissed’ just seemed like an easier emotion to deal with than ‘entire world collapsed around him,’ was all.

“Okay, maybe I coulda dealt with that better, my B and shit,” Roy said, giving a masterclass on how not to apologise to anybody. “But, bro, listen, she was gonna sink us into the mud if she’d stayed around, you know that right? I got her to fuck off, that’s all that counts, an-

Roy stopped dead in his speech, and it felt like he’d stopped dead full stop. He was pretty sure his heart had decided to pack it in, at the very least, cause he sure as hell couldn’t feel it beating. He’d noticed, as he was talking to Dan, the tree, and he’d also noticed, or, y’know, hadn’t noticed, the person who was no longer sitting underneath it.

“Fuck. Shit. Guys, where the hell’s Rachael?”

Keeping two out of three people safe was pretty good, but he didn’t want good. He wanted perfect. This couldn’t be further from perfect.

[Maraoone]

What if Irene decided to just press the harpoon? What if she just lunged for him? Badass Johnny was big, that came with being badass and all, but was his size enough to stop 100 or so pounds of fury and frustration? How was he supposed to treat Roy if he got wounded? How-

And then Irene just left, and all his hypotheticals went to waste, thankfully. Badass Johnny let out one long exhale of relief. Although it didn't really put away all the hypotheticals, remnants of those what-if's still remaining. Because they were important questions to ask, important scenarios to prepare for in the future. Because, as he just figured out from that crisis dry run a few seconds ago, he was so not prepared for life and death moments, and that was so not Badass. Dealing with humans was honestly a lot more complicated than mimics or vampires or whatever.

He wasn't even paying attention to Roy's half-apology for almost getting them killed or whatever, because at least they weren't killed. But then he stopped. Roy stopped. And asked a question that choked his airways.

He looked back at the tree. No Rachael. Looked 90 degrees to his left. Nothing. No green sweater upon green. Turned 360 degrees. Ran his hands through his hair, eyes wide. No trace of her.

"Shitshitshitshitshit. Shit."

He turned around once more, hoping that maybe he could get a glimpse of something moving in the horizon. Some clue to follow, like last time. Nothing. No foot trails, no scraps of cloth, nothing.

He turned to Roy.

"R-Roy, have you- did- did you see her? Hear her? Please, did you?"

[Courtography]

Irene left, which solved one problem.

It didn't really solve anything else though. Roy made it sound like he was going to act like that to anyone who came around. And while people were stupid and decided to kill their classmates, they'd probably need every sane person they could get to stop those people from coming around and attacking their group up until the military arrived.

If they did.

But that wasn't the main issue now. For all his talk about how Irene and Roy were idiots, he was one too for not noticing Rachael running off until someone else pointed it out. She wasn't really helpful to the group and had pulled a gun on them, but Johnny seemed to care for some reason.

He looked down at his sneakers.

"Fucking shit," he muttered.

[Pippi]

“What? Me? No, I didn’t see shit, I-“

Was too busy calling Irene a piece of shit idiot asshole. That was what you were doing. That was what you decided to focus all of your attention on, rather than the people you claimed to be protecting, wasn’t it? Coulda just left the crazy bitch with a harpoon burn herself out and piss off, but nope, you just had to call her a crazy bitch and waste a whole bunch of time and energy on that whole fiasco.

“… Goddamnit…”

Real smooth moves, slick.

There was a medium sized rock a few feet away from Roy, and boy fuckin’ howdy, did it look real tempting to just punt into the undergrowth right about now. But he managed, just about, resist that urge. He’d already lost his temper once today, and so now was the time to make up for that. Kicking a rock in a show of anger probably wouldn’t make him look like a cool, calm and collected leader, able to bounce back from any setback. Plus he might break his foot as well as his arm, and that’d just fucking suck.

“Alright. Alright, okay, uhhh…”

Roy ran his hand along his jacket, double and triple and then also quadruple checking to make sure his lipstick gun was still there, before moving it back up to run it through his hair. They could sort this out. They’d find a way to find Rachael again, safe and sound, like nothing had ever happened. Yeah. Just had to calm down and think. Think. Fucking think.

Okay, he seriously needed to stop looking at that rock.

“We need to head out, and quick and shit. We’re not gonna find her if we just stand around here, not like she’s just gonna waltz back in here like she’d gone for a piss break or something like that. She’s probably gonna head to somewhere secure, what’s the closest, like, sheltered place on the map?”

Man. All this for a girl who’d pointed a freaking gun at him yesterday. This world was fucking nutso.

[Maraoone]

While his friends spilled their empty words, their words that added nothing, helped nothing, Johnny's eyes kept flicking back and forth, hoping for some flicker of green, some rustling of leaves, something. There wasn't even a breeze. Nothing to deceive him.

And then Roy had an idea, an actual good idea, and while it was barely anything, it was something, and Johnny was willing to cling onto any idea, any hope that could bring Rachael back.

So, with his hands shaking, he dug into his bag, wasted 30 long, painful seconds, 30 seconds that could be used running for Rachael, looking for her, keeping her safe, 30 seconds she'd be using to run from them, hide from them for some reason, and then he pulled out his map. Scanned it over.

"Uh... uh, there's- there's a cabin. Maybe she could've gone there?"

[Pippi]

"A'ight, cabin's our first port of call."

No time for humming and hawing. They needed to make a decision without pissing about, and when their plan was as complicated as 'pick a direction and hope for the best,' then choosing the first location offered was as good as anything.

Lipstick gun in his pocket, phantom feeling of his bag still on his back. Roy was as ready as he'd ever be. He glanced across at Johnny and locked eyes with him.

"We'll find her."

Sure, Rachael was the girl who'd pointed the gun at him, but she was so obviously more than that. She meant a whole bunch to Johnny, and Roy had spent the last two days trying to make sure Johnny and Dan were doing good and shit, so if finding Rachael again was gonna keep Johnny in good spirits? He'd move heaven and hell and a bunch of other really heavy stuff to do so.

"I promise."

But she was more than even that. Was she a hardened murderer with the thought of nothing but putting bullets into peoples brains on her mind? Was she fuck. She was a person. Another kid. A kid who'd been worrying about homework and relationships and other mundane shit only a week ago. Someone who, basically, didn't deserve to be constantly pissing themselves on murder-dickhead-terrorist-peninsula.

"Let's go!"

And y'know what? If Irene had been, like, held at gunpoint, and Roy was the only one able to save her? He'd still do it. He'd still do it in a heartbeat. Call it a flaw, call it a weakness, call it whatever the fuck you wanted. It was part of Roy, and it was gonna remain a part of Roy, for as long as Roy was gonna Roy, and Roy didn't see himself stopping Roying any time soon.




Roy.

((Roy Benson continued in Now, Wait, Wait, Wait for Me, Please Hang Around. I'll See You When I Fall Asleep))

[Courtography]

It didn't take long for the other two to decide on a plan. Dan didn't argue. He didn't have a better plan, and it would probably be smart to get out of there in case Roy really pissed off Irene and she came back to finish things. Not that Dan really thought that would happen, but it could.

He followed Roy out. The cabin was the goal. Better than lying in that mess hall, Dan guessed.

(Dan Liu continued in Now, Wait, Wait, Wait for Me, Please Hang Around. I'll See You When I Fall Asleep)

[Maraoone]

Johnny's hands still trembled as he stood, picked up the gun - Rachael's gun - and took one last look around him. He hoped beyond hope that she had just gone to take a bathroom break, or that maybe she'd just hidden from them, and any minute now, she'd pop up and say 'Surprise!' And they would all let out their sighs of relief, and she and Roy and Dan and him would go back to lounging around and not giving any fucks, or maybe they'd be able to find Daniel, and he and Rachael and Johnny would be reunited, and if this was all a prank, then she really needed to show up right about now because Rachael, this wasn't funny anymore. None of it was funny, the silence, the incoherence, the violence, this was all some fucked up prank that needed to stop.

But life continued. And nothing came towards them.

The worst part of it all was that it was so sudden. No lead up, no crescendo, no expectations. One minute, they were worrying about Irene and her harpoon, and the next, they were worrying about this. And then his heart plummeted as he remembered that Rachael had said something, murmured some words, but he'd been so focused on Irene, Roy, on his fantasies of bravado, that he'd forgotten her. She'd slipped through his fingers, just like that.

And he wouldn't let it end like that, he couldn't, because that was simply too cruel. This simply wasn't how stories were meant to end. Maybe it was a test, or something like that. She'd run into them, and now they'd have to run into her. Simple as that.

It had to be as simple as that.

So, he set the gun down. Left it behind. Nodded at Roy, at Dan, and followed.

(("Badass" Johnny Lancer continues in Now, Wait, Wait, Wait for Me, Please Hang Around. I'll See You When I Fall Asleep))