jackabeelounge | SURPRISE YOU'RE DEAD

SURPRISE YOU'RE DEAD

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.

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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!

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???

...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...

[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]

[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.

[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.

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?

...Uh...

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

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

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.

...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.]

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.]

[...Jane's expression sours.]

What in the heck is the use of that?

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

Not exactly my favorite thing!

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

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

[Max flops backwards in the sand as well. Let's just lie in the dirt and talk about how much we want to die!]

It took me forever to try killing myself when I first got here. I thought - [He snorts.] - I thought maybe the others would show up. I didn't want to die. It's just -

[Kinda funny, in retrospect. In a way that's sort of really not.]

[That's the best plan! This is how friendships are born amongst the damned.]

...It. Took me a couple of attempts to actually get the knife in. I'd forgotten how much it hurts to be stabbed.

[But it hurts. Oh, boy.]

Can - can we die here, too, Mister Max?

.......oh.

[...oh. He'd taken in that she showed up alone from the start, he guesses, but he wasn't on-site to watch the others appear; he'd thought perhaps her murderer would come in later. Max sighs, still staring up at the grey sky.]

Oh, hon.

[He's quiet for a moment. Hypocritical of him, given what he's just confessed, but at least he didn't feel like that when he was alive. And she's just a kid.]

Yeah, we can. But you just respawn, good as new. It doesn't stick.

[Yeah, you. When you don't want other people to die, that means you die. Hah. That's totally how it works.

She heaves out a breath.]

...Sounds like it gets boring after a while.

Yyyyyyyyeah.

[He takes his glasses off, setting them aside to press the heels of his palms into his eyes.]

There's a little more going on now, with all these new people. And I guess there's the centipedes, sometimes big centipedes come and eat me. Kinda seems like just me though, so you're good.

[...Oh God, she turns so pale that the content warning jettisoned itself out of the thread.]

Jesus Christ - please tell me you're joking, that's - that's not funny. That is so the opposite of funny.

[He flaps a hand in the air.]

Hey, don't worry about it. They won't bother you. Haven't bothered the other ones, anyway.

...Why?

[That's. Why have giant monster bugs only targeting one person that's fucking weird.]

Because this is my own personal hell, which I've somehow sucked you all into like a horrible black hole of a human being.

[Well, he says it with the utmost confidence.]

[Rolls her eyes.] I doubt you did it on purpose.

I wouldn't know how.

But it's kinda shitty that I wanted other people here in the first place. I know what it's like to be here.

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cw: suicide

cw: suicide

cw: suicide

cw: suicide

cw: suicide

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cw: centipedes???

cw: centipedes indeed

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