entrancelogs | Kid never much cared to speak of it

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Kid never much cared to speak of it - open

Who: The Kid and YOU
Where: The bar
When: Evening
What: Kid has come back to life after dying for the first time. He's not okay.
Rating: PG-13, descriptions of violence and gore

He comes to with a jolt.

It's like waking up, but harsher, more painful. In fact he can fool himself into thinking he's just waking up for a few moments. The rush of air and light and sensation, the forceful expansion of his lungs, the heavy thud as his heart starts again. First is the disorientation. He has no idea where he is, how long he's been asleep--asleep? No, something's not right. He's not in his room, for one thing. What happened...did something happen last night? Was it even last night?

No...

No, wait.

The miner. No. Not "the miner." Tom.

He'd followed him to the edge of the forest and--and they'd fought and--

He raises his hands above his head, stares at them.

He'd died. After everything he's been through, after everything he's done. After the Calamity, after restoring the Bastion, after Zulf's betrayal, after finding Zia again, after saving Zulf, after walking through the rows and rows of Ura warriors, after choosing to leave the ruins of Caelondia behind...

After coming here, all the people he's met, all the events, all the times he almost, almost...

He'd died, at the hands of someone he knew. He curls his fingers, digs his nails into his palms.

He'd promised himself months ago that he would survive this place, that he would go home and see them all again. That they'd all live out a long life aboard the Bastion, or wherever they chose to settle. No one knows what really happens when people go home. No one knows what dying here means for those people who leave. No one knows how it affects them. Kid never thought it would be without consequences. He told himself that he would survive. Just in case.

He failed. He didn't just die. He failed. He couldn't survive Wonderland. He couldn't even stop Tom from killing more people.

He failed.

---

He stays in his room for three days. Doesn't talk to anyone. Doesn't acknowledge that he's back to life. Doesn't check the network. Doesn't do much of anything, except turn his hammer over in his hands, sleep, stare out the window.

Eventually he can't take it anymore. Nor can he take the liquor he's getting from the closet. He needs to breathe.

He finds his way to the bar, keeping his head down the whole way there so he doesn't have to look at anyone. At the bar he finds the darkest, quietest nook, gathers all of the Caelondian alcohol, and starts working his way through it, one slow glass at a time.

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Souji's died before--this is his third go-round--but it doesn't get easier. He's learned that the hard way. Even a few days after reviving, he's still out of it, like he's drifting around in a dream. He goes from place to place in the Mansion, looking for people he knows. It isn't to tell them what happened or even to let them know he's back. He just wants to see people he's found himself linked to.

There are a few people who hang around the bar, so he eventually finds his way there. He stands just inside for a moment before he notices Kid tucked away in a corner, drinking.

Souji's first instinct, after taking in the way Kid is ensconced, is to let him be. He seems closed off behind the alcohol he's gathered, not wanting company, though he usually doesn't seem to mind it. That's enough to tip Souji off to what happened and he stops himself mid-turn toward the door to leave. If Kid died...

With slow, but confident steps, Souji turns back around and moves toward where Kid is sitting. He feels more centered with the thought that he should be there for someone, if he's wanted.

For all that he has completely isolated himself and is on his way to a good buzz, he is also extremely alert. He is taking stock of everyone who comes in, everyone who comes too close. No one's going to catch him off guard, especially not Tom. Hence why he has his hammer close by.

So he notices as soon as Souji comes into the bar, notices as he wanders around, and notices when he starts to head his way. Kid tenses unintentionally. He wanted to see Souji and talk to him, but he's...he's not sure if he's ready for people yet.

Then again, wasn't that part of the reason he left his room? He'd been suffocating.

He looks up as Souji approaches, expression guarded.

"H'lo."

If Kid were to insist on being left alone, Souji would respect that. But while guarded, Kid isn't being actively hostile, and that's close enough to an invitation.

"Can I drink with you?"

He could use a drink, and the Caeldonian alcohol Kid's given him before has been pretty effective.

He looks slowly between Souji and the bottles of alcohol. He certainly can't drink all of it on his own; not without dying again. And he does not want to repeat that experience.

"Yeah. Go 'head."

He gestures to the seat across from him.

Souji sinks into the seat offered and pours himself some stabsinthe. He'll give it another try and maybe this time it won't kick his ass quite so quickly.

He takes a drink and has to spit out one of those needles that Kid warned him about last time before he speaks again.

"We're both here."

Not necessarily okay, but here.

Kid, for his part, is working his way through a bottle of Mender's Mead. It's instinct, mostly. It was always his mother's go-to drink when people were upset or injured or...on the brink of death. It just seems appropriate.

The hard stuff is in reach.

"Yep." He downs a swig of mead. "We're here."

He doesn't bother to ask if Souji is alright. What a stupid question.

Normally, Souji would invite Kid to tell him about it. Just saying things can sometimes help a lot. But maybe, in this case, it would be easier for Souji himself to speak first. He's not used to that order of things, though, so they sit in near silence for a couple minutes before Souji opens his mouth. The swallows of alcohol he takes in the meantime help make it easier.

"I feel really stupid, you know?" Souji turns his glass in its place on the table, watching the light bounce off of its surface. "Staying alive should be really easy."

Kid is fine with the silence; he welcomes it, in fact. It's enough just to see other people and to know that they're living and breathing. To know that he himself is alive and breathing.

He glances up sharply when Souji speaks. Stupid. Yeah.

"'Zactly how I feel. Stupid."

Stupid, lost, like a failure.

"You're not, you know."

He rubs his forehead and takes a swig of his mead. His grip tightens on his hammer.

"Yeah, but...ain't that easy."

He can objectively understand that it's not really his fault that he died. It's Tom's fault. Tom, the murderer. Kid can't blame himself unless he also wants to blame everyone else who fell victim to Tom and his pickaxe.

But it's just...hard. He's Kid. The Kid. The Kid who casually carries around shoulder-mounted cannons and mortars. Yet one guy with a dinky little pickaxe...

He shakes his head.

"I know."

Souji definitely knows. He has six gods inside of him and he died without getting the chance to summon any of them.

He doesn't want to lecture Kid, but this bears saying: "But we have to be alive now."

Kid growls faintly into his bottle. "I know. Can't be mopin' around. I jus'...it feels like it don' even count. Ain't s'pposed t'get second chances. Jus' don' even feel real."

None of it feels real; everything feels plastic and ten thousand miles away. His own body, the air he's breathing, the bottle in front of him. Even dying feels fake. It's as if everything up till now has been a joke, just a story told by someone else.

"...That's kind of how everything here is." Souji takes another swallow of his drink. It's going to his head, just like last time. He really doesn't mind, though.

"'S different now. Feels...more. Like I ain't even..."

He doesn't want to voice his concerns. He's not a religious person; more agnostic than anything, muttering a prayer in a dire situation or when it seems appropriate. But you don't need to be religious to see the horrifying parts to coming back to life. To see--feel--that it's all so wrong. That death is supposed to be final.

Is he even really himself anymore? Is he even Kid? He's thinking of some of those time travelers, who came back...different.

He shakes his head again and takes another drink.

Souji watches Kid as he thinks and then decides not to voice his thoughts.

After taking another drink himself, then another, Souji decides to slow down and switches the stabsinthe for the mead. He likes that a bit better, anyway, and he'd like to be semi-sober for at least a little longer.

"I guess I can't tell you to just not think about it."

Kid, meanwhile, switches out the mead for Cinderbrick Stout. He needs something a bit stronger. He has no real desire to be sober. Not for a good while, not until he's ready to deal with all of this. Whenever that is.

"Ain't really that easy. Ya say not t'think 'f somethin', jus' makes ya think on it even more."

Souji nods. His thoughts exactly. Besides, even if Kid could ignore it, that wouldn't make the problem less real.

"It doesn't get easier, either."

He sort of slumps at that. No, he didn't think it would get easier. How could it ever get easier to deal with the fact that you died? How could you ever come to terms with that? How is he ever going to wake up in the morning, knowing that he's not supposed to be here?

"What do I...what do I do 'bout it?"

Souji wishes he had something useful to say. All he knows of though is: "Keep on going."

'Don't give up.' That's really the best advice he has. It's how he's managed, at least, though he knows it's not much, and might not be enough for everyone.

He's quiet for a long while, drinking his liquor, rolling that over in his head. Keep on going. Something tells him it's not that simple.

But...

Wasn't that how it was at the Bastion? Everything had been destroyed, everyone was dead, and there were so many times he just wanted to stop, to give up and lie down. But he never did. Rucks had a job for him, and Kid always did it. Always kept going, because what other option did he have? Rucks had offered hope, even though he'd known all along what the Bastion truly existed for.

Kid had gone as far as he had and done all the things he had done because it was all he possibly could do.

And he supposes it's all he can do this time as well.

"Keep on goin'."

Souji nods.

"I don't know what else to do except that."

He'd had a lot of opportunities to ignore things, to just leave things to happen as they would, to give up. He never would have considered himself the type to interfere in anything in the past, but since the last year he spent at home, he'd realized there are times when he just can't let the world move past him. If he does that, he might as well not be existing at all--if he does that, the choice of existing might be taken from him.

That lesson was too well learned by the time he arrived in Wonderland for him to let himself give up, to not involve himself, to not think there was something he had to keep going for.

Kid nods slowly and takes a long drink of the stout. He's quiet for a few moments.

"Yeah. Figger I don' know either."

All he's ever done is kept going. It's either that or just never come out of his room again. And then what is he going to say to Zia and Rucks and Zulf if he ever does go home.

Souji looks at the mead in his glass, turning it slowly on the tabletop. "Do you think there's any other way?"

He makes an indiscriminate sound. "Figger some folk would say th' healthful thing was t'talk 'bout it. Remember Martha sayin' somethin' like that."

Psychiatry was never really a thing back home, and it wasn't like there was a therapist on the Bastion. The idea just seems kind of...silly to him.

Souji knows that talking about things works for some people. It doesn't work for everyone or for all topics, though, at least not in his experience. Sometimes just being in a place with another person is better than talking about whatever's bothering them.

"You already have. You don't have to anymore, if you don't want to."

Kid nods and finishes off a glass of Stout. "Yeah...think 'm all talked out fer now."

He's tired, and at this point, also pretty drunk.

"But...thanks. Fer jus...fer bein' here."

Souji offers a small smile to him. It's helped him, too.

"Is it okay if I stick around a little?" Souji taps the edge of his glass. "I'm not drunk enough."

Kid smiles for the first time, just faintly. "Yeah, 'course. Th' company's nice, anyway."

"Thanks."

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Kid never much cared to speak of it - open

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