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[aibolition]

N/A
UN: USERNAMEHERE

STATUS: Student, starting Grade 11

ACCOLADES: Straight A student. Once ripped a guy's arm off.

BIO: Fluent in Japanese, learning English. If all those juicy details didn't satisfy you you're about to be sorely disappointed.

© TESSISAMESS

Comments

[badinfluenza]

She'd like to agree with him. She'd love to feel that way, but her face remains flat and her eyes are fixed on the wall like there's something, anything different there to focus on. She might not be any of those things he lists or a lot of things left unsaid, but...

Don't move. Hold still. Wait for me. Stand there. Keep quiet. Stop struggling. Obey.

"Yeah. Free."

[aibolition]

His smile drops away. Short lived that one was, but that seems to be the case these days. His own expression is back to seriousness.

"Hey," He says sharply. "If you've got shackles left, we'll break them. We've got all the time and means to do it. If there's someone pulling the chain, yank back. See how they like it in the cage."

His eyes close. His arms rise up in a stretch before slipping back down into his pockets.

"If I could get out you sure as hell can."

[badinfluenza]

Her jaw, still sore, clenches with the effort of not lashing out at him in a way he didn't deserve. He'd saved her when he didn't have to, and here he was offering himself up for some quest that didn't affect him without knowing the stakes, or any other details. It's probably the kindest thing anyone's ever done for her. She was never one to stay quiet for too long, and she glances over at him with a thin smile.

"Yeah? Some things don't get the luxury of changing. Sometimes you don't get a fairytale ending. What do you think you can you do that I couldn't in 84 years? Call me that bitch from Titanic, because that's how long it's been. If you really want to make this stop, you should go ahead and do to me what that hunter did."

[aibolition]

"Don't be so pathetic as to say something like that. Putting you in the ground doesn't do a thing."

It comes out sharp, but then, after that, he shrugs his shoulders. He pushes off from the counter to look at her properly.

"I don't know. But I've changed things older than you and probably more impossible. So grab a friggin' liferaft. I didn't drag you out of an alley for nothing."

[badinfluenza]

Imperative words, for some, but too abstract to make her feel like she needed to do anything about it. She stares back, smile maintaining like he had neither snapped at nor encouraged her.

"And if you end up like Jack because of it? Could you say it was worth it?"

[aibolition]

If he ends up Jack? If he ends up stuck in cold waters, essentially killing himself so someone else could live, begging that person to live because, despite everything, they were everything to him... Has he been able to say it was worth it...?

"Jack's a sucker. I'll swim."

[badinfluenza]

As if delighted, as if she wasn't thinking about stabbing him or maybe herself to see what he would do, Lotte claps her hands together.

"You know? Moving around in freezing water is only useful if there's somewhere in reach to move to. If you're stranded out there with nothing but the hope in others on your side, you should really just curl up on yourself and wait to either die or not die!"

Fun facts with Lotte! Who wouldn't be able to manage being in freezing temperatures at all, seizing up and sinking until she hit the bottom, never to be seen again, so she really is being so nice, sharing something that has nothing to do with her with him. Getting to ignore having to sort out her feelings about all this is just a fun little bonus.