wickedchouette | (no subject)

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[Alfie greets and makes nice with newcomers when he comes across them, but he doesn't go out of his way to seek them out. He's not interested in being part of any de facto welcome wagon, especially not now that more and more people are filtering their way in, either to use the Meadous as a waypoint or to settle down and stay; that can be a job for people like Meulin and Harley. He does, however, notice new houses as he passes them by, and today there's one on his regular walking route. He takes note of the name on the mailbox - Beauregard, good lord - and is all set to continue ambling onwards when a flash of movement catches his eye. Is that--

-- yes. That absolutely is his cat, leaping up onto the windowsill and slipping in through the open window.

With a sigh, he turns and heads towards the door instead, giving it a firm knock.]

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[ she - huffs out a bit of a laugh. it's hiccup-y and tipsy. ]

That's - that's easy to say. [ sniff. ] I had - I had this power, you know? They gave us powers. I could summon a creature out of my negative emotions to kill people. So I did.

I tore two people apart. I beat one to death with my fists.

And you did it because it was the best option in front of you at the time, yes?

[ she rubs at her eye. ]

Yeah. I guess. [ a pause. ] It doesn't... it doesn't make me feel any better, I don't think.

You're not as ruthless as I am, expect.

[It's not a bad or a good thing, as far as he's concerned; it just is.]

But I would suggest, if you can, that you be a bit kinder to yourself.

[ that gets her to bark out a laugh. ]

Ahah. I'm really not fucking good at that. [ being kind to herself, she means. she brushes the tears trickling down her cheek away with her arm. ]

Nobody gets... [ she starts, and then stops. and then, again, with both hands gripping the bottle tightly: ] Nobody gets how hard it was. I'm trying not to - I don't know how much right I have to be upset, you know? How much I get to agonize over this. I'm trying to figure it out.

'Cause it feels like I'm not allowed to be. They said being killed made them feel expendable, helpless, weak, but - am I not allowed to feel that way? They didn't want to die. We've got blood on our hands, blood we didn't want to spill, and if they caught us they would've celebrated, they caught a killer, but I didn't want to kill.

[Alfie neither mentions the tears, nor acknowledges them in any other way. There's no shame in them, but all the same, he'd rather give her the dignity of not being fussed over.]

Their situation sounds awful. Yeah. But your situation - yours was more difficult, Beau. They have the luxury of not doubting even for a moment if they were in the right.

[ she appreciates that he doesn't call attention to them - she doesn't want them to be a thing. she's cried so fucking much over the past few weeks. ]

They got to sleep easy. [ she agrees, sinking further into the couch. something loosens in her chest. ] They didn't have to pick people to die. They didn't have to watch the people around them fall apart and know it was their fault.

[ she brings her knees up to her chest, staring out across the room. ]

Picking who was going to die was... no matter who it was, it was going to be someone that someone else couldn't lose.

Someone told me I should've killed the people close to me. So it was just me suffering. Maybe I should've. [ she reaches up to hold onto the beanie on her head, smoothing her thumb over it like she's comforting herself. ]

Oh, for fuck's sake--

[He cuts a hand through the air, agitated.]

I do hope you asked if that's what they would have done. I am absolutely fucking positive that it wouldn't have been.

[ sniff. ]

He suggested it because that's what he did in his own game, but. [ a pause. ] He was the mastermind of his own game. He picked people to kill for him under the influence of the island he was on.

I don't think he ever actually did any kills, though. He just picked people he trusted to get the job done.

Picking people who you trust to kill for you is very different from killing people who you care for simply so you can feel righteous. The first - that's smart, right; I do it myself. The second is someone that I would not trust.

[ her gaze turns to the floor. she's still absently playing with the beanie. ]

They all would've done the same as me. [ she murmurs. she's good and tipsy now, almost drunk. ] I think... I think if I'd had to kill Phoenix I would've - I would've broken entirely.

Did Phoenix make it out all right, in the end?

Yeah. [ she says, finally smiling a little. she looks over to alfie, a bit glassy-eyed. ]

He lived to the end. He figured out it was me before we could tell everybody. He stuck with me even so. [ she sounds immeasurably fond. ] He died the first time. In our first game.

And was brought back?

Mmhm. [ shift, shift. ] The, uh. The fifth week we were there, he died. I found his killer.

And then at the end, all the dead came back to help us fight the house. We beat the house and we were gonna go home. And then we walked through the portal and woke up on a bus to the murder camp.

Did those dead come back as well?

[ she nods. ]

They did, yeah. [ another sip of her drink. ] We brought 'em back. Everybody.

I'm curious about what they thought of all this.

Who? The dead from camp?

Yes, the ones you killed. A death one is able to come back from is not the same as one that sticks.

[ she takes another drink. ] Most of them were angrier than the living.

[ she swallows hard. she'd had some... very fraught talks. ]

Mmmm.

The anger is understandable; all of it. The feelings of righteousness are not. If I had been there, and you had chosen to kill Royce, I would have killed you - but that does not mean I wouldn't have understood the position you were in, yeah?

[ she nods a little. ]

I get being mad. [ sniff. ] That's fine. I expected mad.

[ this is where she struggles, though. ] The - the understanding is what I'm after. I think. That I wasn't possessed but I was still... forced.

Mm. Would they have taken it better if you had been possessed?

Yeah. People were possessed in the first game I was in. They were possessed and they turned into monsters.