SURPRISE YOU'RE DEAD

[cyan_maid]

Who: Jane Crocker and Max (OC, Airlocked R1)
Where: Deadland
When: TIME IS MEANINGLESS WHEN YOU'RE DEAD
Open/Closed: Closed
Rated: M for being dead and miserable and suicidal
What: Airlocked R1 AU - What if Jane died? TIME TO MEET THE CHAMPION PORTRAIT ARTIST

[...Well. Hell is a boardwalk in Florida. Who knew? Not Jane, at least - and not that she'd ever been to Florida to know that it's usually not as dilapidated. But hey, you don't choose where you go when you die.

At least, if you're lucky, you can choose how you go.

She'd gotten desperate, panicked. Frightened. And if her memories were anything to go by, it didn't really matter if she died, right? She was a walking corpse to begin with. There wasn't any use in sticking around...and, at least, no one would be thrown out of the airlock this week. Everyone would be safe for a little while longer. It was fine. Totally fine. Laying in this gritty, cool sand? Super fine. Hearing the ocean ebb and crash on the beach? Awesomely fine.]

...

[Jane spits a little sand out of her mouth.]

This...is a lot less fine than I thought it would be.

Comments

[cyan_maid]

...That's stupid.

[She stands up, frowning - no, glowering at her surroundings.] That's - that's it? That's all I get for dying five times? I don't even get to go to wherever the flipping shit you're supposed to go when you die in Sburb, because no one else is here, Roxy's not here and Dirk's not here and Jake's not here, unless I'm the only person dumb enough to have died and they all sorted everything out afterwards-

[Oh boy, all the frustration that had been welling up in Jane has been released. Sorry, Max, at least she's not mad at you. Makes for a fun show at least, right? Look at this small teenage girl gesture to the heavens with only the intense ferocity of someone 900% done can do!]

[theundertaken]

[I mean, he doesn't seem like he's particularly enjoying the spectacle. But he's not too taken aback either. Mostly he seems to be something of an emotional void.

At least he's dead for real on the inside!]

I mean, yeah, it's pretty shit. I think I'd take eternal torture over just being left here to rot. But hey, you're not here all by your-fucking-self, so that's something. The rest of your people are somewhere.

[He gestures vaguely back at the buildings. He doubts it's gonna be enough to save anyone, in the end; eternity's a long time, and this place is small. But they'll have a while before they end up wrecks like him, probably. There's enough shreds of the person he used to be left to not actually vocalize that thought aloud.]

[cyan_maid]

[That gets her to pause and actually...look at this guy. Really take him in. Breathe, consider what he says.]

..."My people"?

[theundertaken]

Yeah, the rest of your group who died. You've gotta be friends with like, some of them, right?

[he's jealous he's jealous he is so jealous that they kept theirs and he got nothing

but no, he isn't. that would be terrible.]

[cyan_maid]

...Sir.

[The frustration in her voice is gone, flushed out by urgency. Jane is hesitant in her approach, unsure, but steady.]

Please, tell me...when you say the rest of my group, what group do you mean? The...the other players of Sburb? Or-

[...No. Not - not the station. Not in space. Not-]

[theundertaken]

I don't...know what that is?

[He'd just thought it was obvious from context; they would have been the last group she was with. He would've known immediately who was meant, if it were him. Not that he had a group at home, he guesses.]

I mean the other Champions. From the space station.

cw: suicide

[cyan_maid]

[See, she'd had a silly thought, laying on the floor of her bedroom as she bled out - that maybe, if she died to keep anyone else from being motivated to kill, that it'd be counted as Heroic. That she'd go where the rest of the dead kids are supposed to go, whatever it's called. Dream bubbles? She'd heard about those once, from a mishmash of trolls. And she'd hoped.

And she was wrong.

Jane lets out a hard breath, like a sigh or a laugh or a sob, and sinks to her knees, but she doesn't break eye contact with Max.]

...You know about. The. The space station. H-How...do you know?

[Not "where are my dead friends". Not "let me go to my actual promised afterlife you twit". Some inquisitive natures just never die.]

[theundertaken]

[...he used to try and help people when they needed it. He would not have let this pass.

Max slips off the lounge chair to sit in the sand himself. It's all he can think to do.]

I was the Champion Portrait Artist. Once upon a time.

[cyan_maid]

B-But there wasn't-

["there wasn't a portrait artist amongst the champions"

...

Jane's head lowers.]

Oh, God. There was - there was one of these "experiments" before us...?

[It's all she can think of that makes sense.]

[theundertaken]

Yeah. Twenty of us. I wasn't the first one to die, but I'm the only one here.

[And please don't ask him why because he does not fucking know]

That's how Jay and B got stuck up there too. [He knows they don't call them that; it's not like he gave his Overseers fond nicknames either. But who they are, to him, hasn't changed.]

[cyan_maid]

[As if she hasn't heard "J" and "B" thrown around enough times anyway.]

...Jamie and Bolton. That's - [A sharp intake of breath as it clicks in her head.] I knew it, I knew no one would willingly take up a job this crazy! Not when you've got a computer wired into your arm and you're stuck in space, not...

[Her fists pound into the sand.]

Why didn't I see it until now?! Fuck!

[theundertaken]

That's what I fucking said!

[this is possibly the first real emoting he's done this entire time]

I mean, Jesus, you wanna tell me that Jay managed to act even a little okay about any of this shit? These assholes here talking about killing them like they'd be big damn heroes, and they can't even tell when people are trapped? Has anyone bothered to talk to them? Bolton's just fucking doing his dungeon master voice, I haven't fucking seen him in two years and I can tell that!

[cyan_maid]

No, he NEVER seemed okay - he just got more and more upset! And Bolton-

[They had talked, he'd reassured her, done his best - and even he didn't know what his 'bosses' had in mind as an end goal.]

...I-I don't...he didn't seem...as time when on...and they were both so rattled over the PIPs...oh GOD, how long have they BEEN out in space???

[theundertaken]

...I...I don't know.

[And then all of Max's righteous anger is vanished in an instant. He curls in on himself a little, looking away.]

I don't really know how long I've been dead, I'm just guessing. Time's not a thing here, I don't think the sun exists. They. They said Jay's hair is longer now, and B's balder, and it feels like it's been forever, and sometimes I just kinda space out for a while so it's probably been even longer than that...

[cyan_maid]

[Jane's own fury still burns brilliantly, part from finally figuring out just what didn't fit about the Overseers of their game and part from a keen hurt that two people she was just starting to like had been treated in this way - but it holds in the face of Max's words. She looks at him, eyes widening, looking for all the world somewhat lost, rather hurt.

As much as she's kicking herself for not realizing anything sooner, this man...he was their friend. And he'd heard nothing of them until the other Champions arrived asserting that Bolton and Jamie had essentially gone to the dark side. She...she really has no tact, huh?

Quietly, still hesitant, Jane comes over so she can look Max in the eyes again.]

...I'm sorry. I...it's been a bad day. I shouldn't have - you know. Started running my mouth like an idiot. [Like she always does. Stupid, stupid-] I-If it makes you feel any better, it was more of a rhetorical question. I. I'm just. You know...angry.

[Please don't be sad crazy man]

[theundertaken]

[He shifts to look at her listlessly. It's not like it was something he'd never thought about before. He just hasn't talked about it much, to anyone other than Wilson, at least. Too many of the others here hate Bolton and Jamie; he doesn't trust them to talk to.]

Hey, it's fine. It's not your fault. You should be angry. [Max scrubs a hand up over his eye, beneath his glasses. Ugh, look at him, making this newly-dead teenager fret about his feelings. Idiot.] Ffffffuck, you just died, don't worry about me.

[cyan_maid]

[And that's why you've gotten a shift. Jane...was certainly cold towards them at the start, and who wouldn't be, but at this moment there's not an ounce of hate in her heart towards them.]

...N-No, I - I have all of eternity to worry about myself. I've cried quite enough for a while, thank you.

[She wanted to sleep and never wake up, lay suspended in a dream. Not end up in Florida. But there still seems to be more work to do, so she's going to unceremoniously shove her feelings into a bottle and fling it into the ocean and deal with them when the tide rolls them back in.]

It's not like this is the first time I've died, anyway.

[theundertaken]

It can still take getting used to. But you do whatever, I guess.

[At least she's not trying to make him feel better anymore. He just feels bad about these people wasting their time on him.]

I've died a bunch of times since I got here. [No explanation is forthcoming.] But that's this place for you. How's your thing work?

[cyan_maid]

...Uh...

[She just kind of. Looks at her hands.]

...Video game mechanics. Extra lives and God Tier rules. A lot of, erm, bullshit, frankly.

[theundertaken]

That...yeah, that's bullshit. Makes total sense, though.

[Way to explain more or less everything he needs to know in three words!]

I mean, my fucking respawn point's up there, yours is down here now, but I don't think we can level up and there's no way out of here ever so the metaphor kinda breaks down.

[cyan_maid]

...It would be a blessing if I really didn't have to worry about it any more. Even if...even if I had survived at home, I'd still...

[I mean who's going to provoke you into a heroic or just death on a peaceful planet? But shit could still happen.]

[theundertaken]

I don't feel like this really counts as being dead. It's just existing.

[He says with venom. He's not very fond of existing anymore.]

[cyan_maid]

[...Jane's expression sours.]

What in the heck is the use of that?

[theundertaken]

[Max throws up his hands in a clear gesture of "fuck if I know".]

Not exactly my favorite thing!

[cyan_maid]

...No offense, but I got the feeling.

[She flops back into the sand with a groan.] And the feeling's mutual!