C'est la mort. (Open)

[lazyinlove]

Date & Time:Tonight, around 7.
Location:The viewing windows.
Characters:Anyone who knew Peace or who might stop to pay respects at a memorial even if they didn't know her.
Summary:A memorial gathering for an Exsile who ceased to exist with the most recent world change.
Warnings:Tears, cursing, bitterness? Not sure yet. People can label threads as they come up. Everyone is free to make their own and jump around. Prose and action are both fine.


It's a waste of emergency torches, but there are a few set up around anyway, lit that soft unearthly blue of emergency lighting. The flowers are paper, clumsily folded from discharge sheets, some from the prison, some from the clinic. There are no photos. All of the ones she was in before are empty spaces, or pictures of Stanley or others who'd been holding her at the time. The music is strings, playing softly from a haphazardly tossed tablet. There are no chairs. Instead, every pillow from 144 is on the ground as seating.

Stanley isn't sitting on one, though. He's standing at the window, staring down at the planet so far below. Today, he's combed his hair. It's still in his eyes because it's too long, but he's made the effort to tame it at any rate.

He's not sure how to start things off, but if someone shows up he'll greet them. That's what you do, right? So that's what he does.

"Thanks for coming."

Comments

[anklets]

[What Stanley has done makes this all look something like a candlelight vigil, and somehow it sits worse with her than even proper wax and wicks did. Maybe it's what preceded it. She is wringing her fingers and sporting fantastic undereye shadows as she approaches.]

I saw what you said on the network. Is this- related to that? [ venturing, carefully, so carefully: ] About "her"?

[lazyinlove]

[Words are difficult. There's this enormous lump in his throat, this tight feeling in his chest, this weight on his shoulders. It's an effort just to glance up and meet people's eyes. But...it's good to see a familiar face. It feels a little less lonely. Instead of answering properly, he nods. It's about all he can manage right now.]

[anklets]

[Two plus two, and Lenalee loses grasp on her voice for a moment, too.]

Oh. [ she does not say anything else for a long moment ] I'm sorry, Stanley.

[lazyinlove]

Me too.

[He really, really is. It's all of their faults. Every single one of them. Maybe him the most. For spiriting her away somewhere strange and frightening. No one deserves what that girl got. No one. It makes him feel sick and shaky and hollow and heavy all at once.]

[anklets]

[She doesn't have much to say on death, less still a child's death. She pushes her one conviction on a thin inhale:]

To give up now would be to trample down on that girl's life, and the lives of everyone who trusted us to get this far.

[Haah. There is a smudge on her shoes, and this becomes the most interesting thing.] That sounds cruel to say, doesn't it?

[lazyinlove]

[Everything sounds cruel at the moment. The nice things people say about her. The ugly things. It's all cruel. He can only shrug in response.]

I wasn't fighting anyway.

[And this? It's hardly inspiration. He closes his eyes and presses a hand to them, trying to stave off a headache until this thing is over.]

Fuck this war. I'm out.

[anklets]

[A sentiment she can empathize with, truly. Empathy, though, doesn't do much to quell the flinch, and she cannot knit together a reply which does not ache somewhere deep in the chest, so for a while, she simply looks at him.

He's one wrong word away from utterly defeated.]

Don't give up hope, alright?

[lazyinlove]

What are we hoping for?

[It's not a smart remark. He's honestly puzzled these days, what it is that they're supposed to be accomplishing. All he's ever seen them bring around is war and destruction.]

[anklets]

For-

[ she stops herself and knits her fingers ]

I can't tell you what to hope for.

[lazyinlove]

I'm open to suggestions.

[It's not like he has anything in mind. He used to hope the girl he liked would like him back, or that he'd do better than a C on his trig exam so his dad would get off his case, or that the gelato place would have his favorite flavor that day. Shit like that. But in a situation like this, what is there to hope for?]

[anklets]

[She doesn't believe she's qualified to do that, either.]

That there's still some way yet for us to undo what's been done. We owe it to the people whose lives we've smothered. That's something I choose to hope for, if you think you might like to do the same. We can't just abandon them.

[lazyinlove]

No take backs.

[It probably doesn't mean anything to Lenalee, but he's too wrung through to translate it at the moment. She'll figure it out for herself eventually. It's probably best not to rush that moment anyway. It's pretty fucking brutal, in his opinion.]

[anklets]

[Means close to nothing, but not to him, so she blinks and then lets it slide.]

It's alright to be upset, you know.

[lazyinlove]

Think it'll help?

[She's the second person today to tell him that, but he's still not sure what to do with it. He is upset, there's no denying that. But what's he supposed to be doing about it that he's not?]

[anklets]

[Softly:] Eventually.

Take those feelings and channel them into something.

[lazyinlove]

Like what?

[anklets]

For me, it was always to try harder. Fight harder.

[But he wants nothing to do with this war, so Lenalee cannot urge him as she urges herself. His choice is something she'll fiercely respect.]

[lazyinlove]

Maybe I'll get a hobby.

[Like staring at the wall. Or doing pills. Or staring at the ceiling. Or drinking. He's good at that stuff where he falls short on everything else.]

[anklets]

[Catches onto that string of possibility:] We could dance again sometime, if you'd like.

[lazyinlove]

Yeah, maybe.

[His tone is still hollow, but it's trying to warm up for her. That was fun, before everything went to shit as usual. The memory of the night brings back thoughts of the Exsiles hired as musicians to play for them. It makes his stomach turn over, and he folds his arms across his front protectively.]

Next time prom rolls around.

[anklets]

[For all the hundreds of caskets she has seen, Lenalee does not know how to comfort him. Maybe because no one ever knew how to comfort her.]

Don't rush it. Take all the time you need.

[lazyinlove]

Someone will throw a party again someday.

[That's...all the promise he has to offer right now, right? It's easier than trying to plan something. His brain just isn't cooperating with processing information today.

Worse than usual, even. He can operate fine with a bit of a haze hanging around him, but whatever this feeling is -grief? guilt? regret?- it's suffocating.]