openish } but nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight

[choosetruth]

Who: the After the End Times crew and maybe YOU??
Where: ASGARD! Sort of.
When: Throughout the event
Rating: PG-13 for violence and swear words probably
Summary: Shaun makes poor sartorial choices that lead to his demise. Georgia does not handle it well. Thank fuck Mahir and Maggie are here to be the adults they need.
The Story:

[Starters in the comments!]

Comments

[shorthair]

"Yeah. The armor's been screwing with people since all this started. It was the armor. You couldn't have known. Armor's supposed to protect people."

She's seen it. People put it on, and they rush out like they've forgotten every bite of their sense, and Clementine stays hidden because that is what she does. She lets other people die so she doesn't have to, because a lot of people are dead so she could live and so she'll survive. She doesn't understand anything else. She's the one capable of walking away from a friend she can't move while she screams and is torn apart in the background--

Clementine doesn't have much faith in Georgia's ability to survive right now (and that's scary because she doesn't want them both dead, and then Shaun comes back to her gone and then what? It starts all over again. How terrifying to love someone so much). Not with this loss, this grief, this pain, this complete uncaring about anything else because the person she loves more than anything is dead. Because nothing else can matter when that's true, and it will be true for nearly two days now.

She considers reaching out to Georgia, but she knows Georgia isn't helped by touch at all so she keeps her hand at bay and she turns toward the closet. She'll make this place defensive as fuck to keep Georgia safe until Shaun gets back and she can want to live again.

[choosetruth]

"He was acting like he used to act." Maybe that should have tipped her off, but Shaun being an action-loving dumbass is normal for her. He's just usually careful underneath all the bluster.

She looks over at Clementine, curious in spite of herself. When she sees what Clementine is doing, she looks back down. Clementine is worried. It makes sense. She'd probably be worried about herself too.

"I'm not going to let myself die. I wouldn't--I can't let him come back to a world I'm not in."

He's already gotten to live in one of those. She won't put him through it again.

[shorthair]

"Then it must have been worrying. How he acted before," Clementine says, because people running straight into danger is so strange and foreign to her. She can't wrap her head around it. She's grateful she didn't put any of that armor on herself, because the idea of feeling it- it's terrifying too.

She pulls out literal wood planks from the closet. Her gaze darts over to Georgia. Of course, there's worry. She's scared for her. She wants her to be okay. She wants her to want to fight but she can't- she won't beyond a need to get to Shaun again at the end of it all. And she will. There's a sharpness to Clementine now, older than her age.

"If I had been a fucking ice giant, you'd be dead too right now. You barely looked up when I opened the door." Her voice cuts off on emotion. She doesn't understand it. It's scary to think of loving someone so much, and it's scary to think she never will love anyone even half that much. She'll survive every loss. No one will ever mean so much to her that she will trust them as wholly as these two trust each other, that the world will fail to make sense to her without them. She swallows a flinch, pulling up the planks in her arms. "You're not okay right now. You don't have to be. I'm going to make sure you make it to see him again."

[choosetruth]

"It was an act." Shaun had fun running into danger, but he was never stupid, for all that George consistently told him he was. She worried, of course she worried, but she also trusted him. He always came back to her. She knew someday he wouldn't, but that day had always seemed so far off. Until she'd found that needle in her arm and realized that all her plans had always been pointless.

She could protest that a frost giant would have made more sound than Clementine, but it isn't really the point. The bigger problem is that she has trouble accepting help. Especially from Clementine. She's a kid, competent or not, it's Georgia who should be protecting her. But Georgia's just not capable of that right now. She can't do anything but stare at Shaun and feel useless.

She tilts her head, not quite a nod, and looks back down at him.

ohp sorry clementine just boarded up the door some

[shorthair]

The Event where they went into Georgia's world helped give Clementine more perspective on how- how things could be the way they were even with zombies running around, why someone would put on an act like that. She knows it was an act. She knows it must have been terrifying, completely terrible for Gerogia to watch her brother be taken over by something that made that act real.

The Frost Giant would make a larger noise, and Clementine doesn't know that Georgia would have moved fast enough still. What happens if what comes tomorrow is quieter, is quiet like she is? What happens then? She only wishes she could set up good traps too, but she's sure other people will come to check on them. She stops briefly in front of Shaun's body, glancing down at it under the white sheet. Her eyes burn, and she shakes her head to rid herself of tears, which will just make it hard for her to see.

"Sorry, Shaun." Her voice is low, raw, attached to that endless pit in her that's so used to people dying that it's never stopped wailing inside her.

Another pause, hands are fists. Her eyes burn more. She swallows it down. "Sorry, Georgia, that you had to lose him at all."

And then that's that as if it's so easy to compartmentalize again.

Clementine doesn't really make it an option (to accept it or not). She's going to do this so she does, literally boarding up the door with those wood planks, leaving just enough room at the bottom for a person to fit through going either way. It won't stop a beast, but it'll slow one down at least and give warning. She doesn't think to stay because she knows she can't help any more than this. Nothing else will matter for Georgia until he gets back.

[choosetruth]

"It's not permanent." Her voice is distant. She sounds very lost, but the sound of nailing up wooden planks does catch her attention. It gives her something to focus on, something more concrete and less all-encompassingly painful as losing Shaun.

"...are you literally boarding up the doors?"

She sounds a little more focused, at least, though she's still hardly back to her old self.

[shorthair]

It's hard to hear Georgia feeling, sounding so lost when- when she's one of the most capable people that Clementine has ever met, but she thinks it's- Everyone has their breaking point. What bigger- what greater than this? Her brother has died. People should break over something like that.

It means she's human. She's real.

Clementine glances at Georgia from under the current plank.

"Yeah. I don't know what's gonna come next, but this at least means it'll take them longer to get to you both. It'll mean they'll have to make noise," she says, and then pauses as she holds a nail in her mouth and hits another nail with a hammer. "There's enough space at the bottom that a human can squeeze through. Humans can suck too, but I figure other people are gonna want to visit. I'd do traps but again... other people, visiting. I'd hate for them to be pissed at you cause I set shit up outside."

[choosetruth]

"I'm not that far gone." Her tone is dry, a little more focused than it was before. She isn't. She's dull, slow, distracted, but she's not going to let herself die, not when it means Shaun would come back to a world without her in it. "Really. I'll be fine."