Let's All Make Believe

[decoy73]

Abe admitted it. Wow. No bullshit, no beating around the bush. Just "yeah, I totally pointed a gun at you for no reason."

"Well, thanks. I'm still a little pissed, though, given how I could have been perforated. I don't know what exactly happened with Forrest, though. Weird, huh? Can't stop thinking about her. Guess it was the fact that we still had travelled together for like, four days. Don't even know if I should think about it." She shook her head. "Sounds callous, but I think it might be dangerous to think about things not directly in front of you."

[Grand Moff Hissa]

"Yeah," Darlene chimed in, not entirely sure if she was on the right track but not about to let the opportunity pass, "it's better not to think too—to get caught up with the past. Because, because it's too sad and it doesn't help."

That was sort of a hypocritical thing to say, given how Darlene was almost always thinking to herself what Jonah and Max would do if they were still around, and missing them, and going over the lessons she'd learned from everything up to this point, and worrying and wondering about past decisions, but luckily nobody else was in her head so they wouldn't realize. What she actually wanted in making that statement was to get the others to not worry about whatever had passed between them, to cling to her little moment of peace and transient happiness for a while more. It seemed like they were ready to let it all go, just so long as they got a hair more encouragement. Darlene could do that.

She didn't know who Forrest—wait! Wait, no, Darlene did know who Forrest was. She was so used to being unaware of who was being talked about that she tended to just assume she had no clue by default, but how could she forget who Forrest was when it was her giant house full of strangers getting drunk and doing drugs that had been the background to one of the weirder and more stressful nights of Darlene's entire life? She had drunk beer, and she had seen a girl getting half naked in a big circle of people, and she knew a lot of her classmates had snuck off and had sex, and she had done what she could about a sweaty abandoned shirt. Ace would know who Forrest was right off the bat too, were he here, and thinking about it Darlene was pretty sure she remembered hearing Forrest's name at some point not so long ago.

This did not solve the mystery of Abe and Forrest, and Christina and Forrest, but Forrest, aside from having wild rainbow hair, was a major druggie and probably not to be trusted because of that, right? So Darlene wouldn't ask, and wouldn't worry, because they were all here now and nothing bad had happened—well, nothing bad had happened to her, yet, directly due to the actions of the people in this circle—and that was good enough, right? She decided that it was.

Having moved on past the lumpy part of the log, Darlene was now kind of by the end, which gave her jagged loose wood to pick at. She snapped off a splinter as long as her index finger almost and then flicked it into the flames. It took a moment to catch, old and crumbly and damp and starting to rot as it was, but soon enough it was burning just the same.

"We should," she started, before stumbling and starting again, "we should just try to keep safe. And be as happy as we still can."

[Sunnybunny]

Humming again, Sakurako moved her bags into the little shopping cart and out of Rennes's way. Hooking her feet around the base of it, she yawned. She thought, and listened, and wondered if Abe also realized he had what it took for real comedy. Like, Madison Square scale. Being able to casually joke about killing his off-and-on-or-something girlfriend was...

Something incredible and chilling.

Did he see her, feel her absence all the time?

The reason she would never ask was why she was so shocked that Christina had. You just didn't go poking in people's skeletons in that way, her just asking Thomas was up all those days ago nonwithstanding. There were years of friendship and trust there.

Doubtful this would end in Abe and Rennes being closer.

Hell, she was doubting it wouldn't end incredibly poorly.

"You should do whatever keeps you going. Every time I get to chill and talk with people, I'm as happy as can be." Happier than she deserved, happier than should have been possible in her state. "But... sometimes that isn't the safe thing."

Living wasn't surviving.

But you had to survive for the chance at living.

"You guys want some Cheez-it crumbs?"

Darlene hadn't wanted to hit the vape when she offered last night, but the sad remains of snacks wouldn't hurt anyone's lungs.

[dmboogie]

Christina couldn’t stop thinking about Forrest, huh? Fucking Christina couldn’t stop thinking about Forrest, huh? Four days together, wow, they were basically hashtag besties, weren’t they, which is definitely why Abe was able to gunpoint her away without literally any complaint from his girlfriend, or any mention of the messy business after.

In an alternate timeline, Abe took a deep breath and shut up and just ate the Cheez-It crumbs, because after the terrorists had treated him to lunch it’d been a nasty shock to go back to ration bars and he could really go for some flavor action, but that wasn’t the beautiful world he lived in, so he opened his goddamn mouth, despite the other girls’ best efforts to salvage a chill mood.

“No, no no, hold on a second, you guys should all hear this, maybe you can do me a solid later or something,” Abe said, gesticulating wildly with his hand that wasn’t holding his gun, speaking in a near-breathless stream, “So a couple hours after Christina fucked off, me and Forrest were just hanging out, y’know, carving love poetry into trees and shit, as you do, when suddenly some fucking manlet, uh, Zach, he comes outta the bushes with a, uh, sharp thing, I dunno what it was but it was big and sharp, and all of a sudden he’s stabbing my girlfriend and she’s screaming for me to do something, and I did something, but that son of a bitch grabbed her at the last second so the something wound up happening to her, instead of him, and now she’s dead and everything thinks I did it instead of that midget, so, like, if you see him, I wouldn’t complain if you blew his head off for me, haha,” he finally finished with another forced laugh.

As much as he hated the guy he really wasn’t all that personally invested in killing Zach himself, he wasn’t like Axel in most ways but especially not that one, and at least now if one of the girls wound up killing him he could pat himself in the back for providing a lil’ motivation.

Mood thoroughly killed, Abe could’ve stopped there and shrugged and flashed an awkward smile like, ‘whoops, sorry about that, let’s get back to the party’ but an ugly little lightbulb had flickered on in his head and it sorta just rode his rambling momentum and whooshed away.

“Too bad that Nick wasn’t around to rush outta the trees and stick her in the neck and take all the blame again, huh?”

He regretted that last bit more than any other of the bullshit he’d said, which was really saying something.

[decoy73]

He just up and admitted to blowing off Forrest's head. She did not think it was that easy. Of course, as Christina had said to Forrest, knowing exactly what happened was impossible without actually seeing it. Hell, even then, you couldn't see a thought process. So it was entirely possible that Forrest's death exactly happened as Abe said it (giving him no reason to lie), and equally possible that he decided to up and kill her, or because he accidentally discharged the gun while jacking it or something and made it up to look more sympathetic. Even more so that it was his first and only kill, and it left Christina still distrusting of Abe, but only because of what he'd done to Christina specifically.

"That's ..." she didn't know what it was. Honest? Maybe. Brutal? Definitely. Interesting? A little. But any word she used likely wouldn't help her, especially when Darlene had already chewed her out once for what she said. In this situation, it was one time too many. It was the reason that Christina should have made it clear that she was speaking rhetorically.

It was also the reason that Christina laughing when Forrest's name was announced was a secret to be taken to the grave.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Darlene had never liked Cheez-Its. It was absurd for that to be the thought that was sort of bounding around in her mind shoving everything else down, but there it was. They were a weird mix of flavors where they were salty like cheese and they were sharp like cheese and yet they in no discernible way resembled cheese. And when you chewed them, they turned to this sort of mushy paste that got stuck in all the nooks and crannies in your mouth, giving you that slightly off-putting flavor whole minutes after the fact!

She couldn't remember what the last actual food she'd eaten had been. It had been something at the hotel, probably. The breakfast buffet had been real nice, but she'd liked it enough she'd wanted to try everything, and that made it all blend together as to what had come when. It was sort of painful that she didn't have that memory to pull up and cling to, that she was pining for cracker sandwiches even by now, but it was what it was. And a thing that she could cling to was that the last real food she'd had—the last real food she would ever have—was something better than Cheez-Its. So, grateful as she was at Sakurako's magnanimous offer to share an incredibly limited resource, Darlene was going to decline.

She pulled another big splinter of wood off the stump and tossed it towards the fire, but her hand was shaking and she missed, landing it in the dirt outside the ring instead.

Oh, right. There was also what Abe had said, wasn't there?

The smoke from the fire was not so thick and pungent as to sear Darlene's nostrils. It wasn't harsh like cigarette smoke, or the horrible vape device. It wasn't quite as mellow as fireplace smoke (there was something too strange and wild about it for that) and when the wind shifted right it prickled but didn't make her blink. It smelled like hot dogs and s'mores. The breeze was carrying the smoke now, twirling it into little circles, but that wasn't what was making her eyes itch and start to water on the edges.

Was she mad? Of course! But it was in a different sort of way from how she'd been mad before, and yeah she was upset at Abe for what he'd said but she was also, even more, upset at what had led them to this point together, and at the fact that he could hurt her like this in the first place, because after all it only stung because it was true.

Darlene looked right straight at him and didn't blink even with the stinging.

"Yeah," she said. "It's, it is. Too bad. I'm, I'm sorry that that—that you had to, that's awful. I'm sorry. Nobody should, not you or Nick or anyone."

She pulled her lower lip in a little and caught it between her teeth as she looked away again, gaze falling back to the flames, everything else distant for the moment. The gun was still tight in her hand, but it hadn't even twitched the whole time.

[Sunnybunny]

Several things happened, nearly all at once. Rennes opened a door, Abe walked through and... maybe shoved Darlene in it too? Remembering which kill the two of them were talking about wasn't something she could do at the moment, because all she could think about was-

Just how much she'd let Sean down by letting Zach anywhere near him. Even knowing that she'd lied about him changing, hearing it confirmed hurt. Hadn't their friendship meant anything to him? It wasn't even because he was trying to go home, he'd met those requirements. According to Abe, him and Forrest had essentially been just like this when he'd ruined it.

Sakurako's mouth moved underneath the cloth, her tone was normal. All the hate in her heart found it's way to her eyes. "Killing that cowardly little pissant is on my bucket list." It felt good to say. Right and true. god inside her agreed and applauded. "He didn't pull a trigger or throw a durian but him stabbing Sean in the face then running away like a bitch is why Justin could even get near him or shoot Thomas. He'd done this whole song and dance about "changing his ways" the day before."

Maybe then, he even meant it, but if intentions meant jack shit out here they'd all be home already.

"He didn't even throw a token sorry out, and they were supposed be friends." Even Ace had done that, and they weren't anything. But she wasn't thinking about him at all, remember?

There weren't supposed to be any more tears to cry about this. Sighing, she looked up at Darlene.

"I'm sure Nick's learned to kind of live with himself by now, if what you guys are implying is what I'm thinking you are. Speaking from experience, you can hate yourself for killing someone you love and keep going... for the rest of your life."

For Christina not to have any blood on her hands, she sure could kill a mood.

[dmboogie]

Abe was expecting Darlene to get defensive or downright pissed, and he could’ve handled that. Maybe he’d back down, or maybe he’d do something stupid like guesture around himself and go ‘it’s cool, we’re all killers here’, which would have definitely made things worse and also wasn’t accurate now that Christina had joined them. But like, either way, he had a vague plan of action to deal with it, it was well within acceptable parameters and all that beep-boop shit.

But she looked at him, straight in the eyes, and apologized. Not for anything she’d done, just, for everything, and it felt like truth, and the truth was that none of them deserved what was happening, and Abe knew that, he obviously knew that, but there was a difference between knowing it and feeling it, and he’d already established how weak he was to Darlene’s psychic damage, so yeah, he was feeling it.

Abe had been off-balance ever since Christina showed her omen of a face, and it’d only gotten worse the more he talked, ‘cause he just couldn’t stop dwelling out loud, had to make sure everyone knew what sorta bad shit he’d been up to, except for the biggest killer detail, of course, ‘cause he’d never technically lied but he’d killed Forrest twice and only the first time had been an accident, but no one else needed to ever know that, he had to be his own PR guy, right? Since he was being honest about everything else they had no reason to doubt him there, not like they cared either way.

Sakurako was talking, he should listen, right, and the world was blurring (smoke in his eyes, just smoke in his eyes) so he looked away from Darlene and she looked away from him, and he laughed a bit at Sakurako’s vengeful outburst despite himself, ‘cowardly little pissant’ was the sorta insult Christina wished she could come up with.

Good to know that there was at least one other person gunning for Zach’s ass. Sounded like he’d hurt a lot of people Sakurako gave a shit about, which was less funny. Abe didn’t think he’d heard the bastard’s name on the announcements too many times, but there were a lotta ways for you to ruin lives without outright killing them, wasn’t there, like going on a friendly stabbing spree or stealing all the food and water and guns, and if it sounded like he was drawing some sorta equivalence between himself and Zach he fucking wasn’t, because Abe was himself, so everything he did was automatically justified, and Zach was someone else, so everything he did was automatically godawful. It wouldn’t hold up in a court but who the fuck was gonna put him on trial, right?

And if Sakurako had left off there maybe Abe could’ve still recovered his composure, but it turns out a case of the ‘not shutting up in time’ was going around, so she tag-teamed Darlene with some truth of her own.

No one should be going through this. Not Nick, not Darlene, not Abe, not anyone. He could hate himself for killing someone he loved but just keep going for the rest of his life, just like Sakurako.

He should have never had to see Axel be turned into a shell of a man, never had to sit there and watch as he faded away forever. He could spend the rest of his life wondering what Forrest would have said to him if he’d just waited five seconds, and hate himself for it, but just keep going. He’d seen the corpse-faces of so many people that he’d loved.

Abe didn’t know what it all meant, but it wasn’t a question of knowing, anymore, it was a question of feeling, and despite how desperately he wanted it to stop, it wasn’t. After he killed Forrest he’d been completely outta his goddamn mind for a while so that particular lil’ display of grief had been blanketed in a comforting feeling of complete unreality, but now he was fully present and he wasn’t alone and he couldn’t stop what was coming.

He’d eaten Jonah’s kindness and then Jonah fucked off and died and that was supposed to be the end of feelings, it was supposed to be a solved fucking issue, because he was going to win, and winners didn’t break down crying, and winners didn’t have smore parties around the campfire ten days into a deathmatch, he’d decided days ago what his life plan was gonna be, it was supposed to be easy. He was supposed to be past this by now.

“I… yeah,” he said, not even sure what he was responding to, or who. His eyes were so blurred he couldn’t see.

“Goddammit,” he croaked, staring down at the dirt and his shoes, tears finally streaming down his face.

“Goddammit,” he sobbed, finally letting go. “God fucking damn it all. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” His voice kept breaking.

He had to take his hand off his gun to wipe the tears away. Fucking pathetic. Amateur hour.

[decoy73]

Oh, geez. Everyone was getting emotional. Including Abe, who was bursting into tears over killing Forrest. Honestly, this outcome was ... okay? While Abe wasn't shooting himself in the foot, he wasn't shooting anyone else, either. But at the same time, if it was true, then that just sucked.

"Uh, my condolences. I guess I was a bit too strong back then. Sorry about that."

Please for the love of God do not point that gun at me

[Grand Moff Hissa]

It was just too much. Everyone was crying but Christina, who was sort of the odd one out for lots of reasons, including that she hadn't been there yesterday for the explosion and the tense attempts at medical treatment that followed, and also that she was as best Darlene could tell not armed with a gun. Maybe it should've been kind of disconcerting that the person in the best position to deal with yet another surprise murderous ambush from nowhere was in no way equipped to do so, but the other side of that was that, for all Darlene felt mostly okay about Christina, she'd only known the girl in this context for maybe ten minutes at the most which wasn't really enough time to establish trust that there wouldn't be any temptation to take advantage of vulnerability.

But now what was Darlene supposed to do? Her eyes watered as her hand squeezed the grip of her revolver so tightly, and she thought, well, what would Jonah do here? What would Max do? Probably in both cases, say something to make it better, or at least make it feel better because it couldn't really be actually better. Max would give a big long speech and it would be all over the place and sort of awkward but it would just be so obvious his heart was in the right place that it'd work anyways, and Jonah would come up with something perfect and simple and kind. They wouldn't stop any of the sobbing, but they'd transform it somehow and make it healing. But Darlene didn't work that way. She didn't have those words in her, didn't know how to find them. In moments like this, she never had any words at all, not even the apology Christina had managed.

Sometimes, though, it wasn't about words.

Darlene's left hand had gotten back to its automatic rhythm, picking and flicking, but right after the next scrap of bark flipped into the fire pit she forced a stop and pulled herself back up off the log. She'd been sitting a while, it felt like, and the awkward bumps had messed up her circulation some so her left leg was having those sharp tingles up and down it, but it wasn't so bad she couldn't slowly make her way around the gathering. As she walked, she passed directly through the smoke, felt the heat and breathed one ill-advised breath of the choking fumes, and it made her cough and imagine that her leg was prickling because tiny embers were burning holes in it but she kept moving anyways.

Sakurako or Abe? Sakurako or Abe? They were both suffering too, but the decision wasn't as hard as for a split second Darlene was making it. Sakurako was still coherent, pondering revenge. Abe was just a mess. Abe was suddenly how Darlene felt a lot of the time, which was to say not even really coherent, and he wasn't the sort of person she saw like that much, and besides, for some reason it was easier for her to try to help boys. So his was the direction Darlene headed in with her awkward, plodding steps, coughing just a bit from the smoke.

When she reached the spot in front of him, she turned, glanced back just in case to make sure Christina hadn't produced a rocket launcher from nowhere, and gave the girl the most forced smile and thumbs-up of her entire life so it wouldn't look like she was just being suspicious.

Then, Darlene turned back to Abe, and fumbled around with her hands until the gun was in the left and her dominant hand was free, and then she just held it out to him, looking at him through blurry eyes, because it was all she could think of.

Maybe it would've been enough. Maybe things would've just simmered down and been okay, but one thing Darlene had forgotten was precisely what time of day it was, and so it was that a few moments later the sound of crackling static filled the air, promising worse news to come.

[Sunnybunny]

"It wasn't."

None of this was supposed to be happening, at all.

For her part, Sakurako took out two bottles of water, sat each one near her clearly suffering saviors. She didn't have anything else left that might comfort them in any way, because it wasn't okay, it wouldn't be okay, and going home just wasn't happening for all of them. Maybe any of them.

To prove that point, a much crueler unwanted guest than Christina made his voice heard. Names, numbers, thirty of them being left alive and she could feel herself slipping into something she couldn't take once again because Princess

Blaise killed Princess

Blaise killed Princess

"Blaise killed Princess."

She felt everything and nothing, hallow and full, like ripping her hair out and shoving into Blaise's mouth and the part of her that wanted nothing more than for someone else to feel her pain swallowed her and it was uglier than anything she'd experienced because she needed space and air that wasn't filled with smoke and the family she'd made herself was dead in entirety.

Her home was gone.

Her chest was aching.

Shutting her eyes, Sakurako forced herself to pull it together long enough to speak clearly, if robotically.

"Diego's who blew up us up yesterday. I think he was gardening club, but whatever the case you should probably shoot on sight. I-"

She put on her shoes, gun in hand, thankfully already packed due to her suspicions of Christina. Slumping against the cart, she looked at the water that had given her peace and the people that had given her a chance at life. For a moment, her maddened expression softened before she sobbed, then smiled.

"Abe. Darlene. Hanging out was fun, let's do it again sometime."

Slowly, achingly so, she began to make her way away from the lake. Before she got too far away, too far out of her mind-

"Rennes? Ask less questions."

((Sakurako A. Jackson continued in Make Happy))

[dmboogie]

The whole time, Abe was desperately trying to will his eyes into fucking drying already, he’d gotten the point, alright, everyone around him had gotten the point, a lotta bad shit had happened and he was sad, boo hoo, as if that was anything special. If someone had set up a fucking Peanuts advice booth on the island there’d be a line for miles to try and get some five cent therapy, and at the end of it all Snoopy would probably jump off the cliffs from the sheer horror.

Thinking about the gruesome death of a beloved cartoon dog for a second was enough to throw Abe’s despair rhythm out of whack, because it was edgy sadness and not real sadness, y’know? Something from a trash-tier adult cartoon and not the bones of his best friends.

Finally looking up, he saw Darlene through his tears, reaching out to him, and for a split-second he thought that she was trying to take his gun, and maybe if he’d been less completely wrecked he would have panicked and shoved her back into the fire pit, but thankfully (?) even though he was existing in the world again his reaction time was shot to hell so he blinked and the moment passed and he realized she wasn’t trying to hurt him.

Abe should’ve forced his trademark little laugh and waved her away, ‘cause he was alright, really, promise, everything was fine, but he was a weak little bitch who had a need for petty little things like ‘positive human contact’ and he took her hand, still not holding the gun.

The announcements came on, and he froze, hand still in Darlene’s, and he just stayed that way. He wasn’t sure what he was afraid of. He’d personally seen everything that coulda come as a nasty surprise to him.

“Aw hell, Hel,” he'd admittedly murmured, but it was a very subdued thing, not a breaking point. It sucked that they were dead, but he was glad he’d never have to kill them. The paradox of being the winner.

By the end of it all his waterworks had finally stopped, though he still had kind of a runny nose, and he awkwardly let go of Darlene. One hand back on his gun. He probably should’ve thanked her, but he was himself, so he didn’t, and he didn’t have too much time to dwell on that anyways because Sakurako was having a real bad reaction to one of the obituaries.

He appreciated that she’d figured out which asshole was running around with a big dick and a grenade launcher, but it would’ve been nicer if she hadn’t then left them with a ‘have a nice summer’ yearbook message that woulda rung hollow even if they’d just been graduating from school and not, like, their plane of existence.

“What sorta fuckin’ better place does she have to be?” Sure, their group was gonna dissolve eventually, and better anticlimactically than explosively, but it didn’t feel great to watch the girl he’d patched up just casually limp away into the sunrise, and while Darlene was probably fine, he didn’t trust Christina to not pull anything funny now that there were less guns and eyes around.

[decoy73]

The announcement. No longer welcome, no longer unwelcome, just ... there now. Like a class bell or an alarm clock. Two crazies had gone - Amelia and Teresa. Of course, given how they were crazy, Christina had to admit that she was a little relieved at Teresa's death, even if she had stayed under the radar lately. Amelia, save her one errant shot at Christina, was nothing more than a scared high school senior. At that point, the girl who wasn't Darlene stated that Blaise had killed Princess ... and she walked off. Just like that. Injured with a gun, her chances were ... maybe? The only other issue Christina had was her last words before leaving.

"Rennes? Ask less questions."

Christina just raised her eyebrows at that, at which point Abe asked why the hell not-Darlene just left.

"Maybe she just needed some time to herself. We can try to meet back up with her whenever you guys want."

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Quietly, as the man's voice rolled through the area and upset the fragile balance of everything and everyone, Darlene hummed. It was the same tone she'd used before, for Max and for Jonah and in all these other moments back in her daily life that no longer mattered and were rendered unmemorable by dint of their sheer mundanity. Nobody had even died! So what was there to worry about back then?

Probably nobody else could hear her. It was a long, low note, unchanging in theory but in practice even though Darlene was pretty good at keeping a note steady for a long time, that was in normal circumstances and here even though the vibrations rolling through her were enough to partially mask the speech, she still picked up bits and pieces, and that made her falter.

Everyone was upset by something, it seemed like. This was true even of Darlene. Sakurako somehow gleaned their assailant's identity, which was impressive but also useless to Darlene because she had no idea who Diego was and had not even known there was a gardening club. Sakurako was mad about Princess, who Darlene did at least kind of know just because she had a name that inspired equal portions of envy and sympathy. Princess was a fun name to put on now and then, Darlene imagined, and an awful one to live in. Abe was down about Hel, which was at least a nickname. Christina actually maybe wasn't that distraught, come to think of it, but she was difficult to read. Maybe she was suffering in silence.

And Darlene? Darlene was most upset about pizza.

Well, that was skipping a few steps. Amelia was dead. She'd been killed by a friend, who Darlene didn't know by name. It was not a huge surprise—it was in fact easy to imagine how it had gone. Amelia would've made her exact same creepy request, and then the friend, this Marceline, would've sat with her, and then because Amelia was pretty dim she would've been caught off guard and just kind of quickly and easily dispatched. And that would've been the end of it, should've been the end of it, except that it wasn't because then Marceline got rewarded with a prize. She won a weapon and some pizza.

Darlene liked pizza, but chicken pizza was pretty gross. That was small consolation, though, after this many days where the highlight of her gustatory life was cracker sandwich. This wasn't the first prize that had drawn her focus (though she couldn't now remember what Arizona had won), but it did so in a much more real way because Darlene could've easily been in Marceline's shoes. She had tricked Amelia too! She had lured Amelia into the bush and had stood there with her gun, considering, and had fled instead of shooting. Rewards hadn't been anywhere on her mind. But Amelia had died anyways, by surprise, so what did it matter who did it? Maybe it would've even been nicer for her to perish in an abrupt burst of gunfire within the bush, rather than being betrayed by someone she actually cared about. Darlene was quite hungry and even chicken pizza sounded divine.

It took her a moment to realize Sakurako had just walked off, and the girl didn't move all that quickly. The other two mulled that departure. Darlene just stood there still, hanging in the intermediate space longer than she needed to. The humming had dried up sometime back when she was thinking about tomato sauce. The whole thing sent this surge of irritation at the injustice through her. She wasn't even asking much, but a couple deep breaths served to shove it back down at least for right now.

"It can, I mean, we could go after her, but, but I, it sounded like..."

The words were stumbly as always, but as she spoke Darlene came back to the moment some. She felt her greasy socks, the heat of the fire on the backs of her calves, the way her nose was a little gummy. Her hand was free again, and she felt guilty indeed that she'd barely actually registered the contact with Abe. She couldn't say if his fingers were smooth or rough (okay, probably more smooth).

"I think she wants to be alone. So we should let her."

[dmboogie]

“Yeah, probably,” Abe said, vaguely agreeing with the remaining girls. The party atmosphere was absolutely a dead horse at that point but if Sakurako had decided to postpone her breakdown until she was somewhere where Abe wouldn’t have to look away and mumble generically supportive bullshit, well, that was considerate of her, he guessed. Not really necessary, but nice.

He watched her leave, and he was able to watch her leave for a long while, which was bad for two reasons. First, she was moving slowly enough it made him wonder if she had any chance of making it on her own or if this was some sorta death limp, like a death march but with less dignity. Second, he could see her from pretty far away, which meant that anyone could be seeing them from pretty far away. They shoulda started moving the second the sun rose, ‘cause he couldn’t be the only one with a handy little scope, right?

“We’re pretty fuckin’ exposed out here though, and if she ain’t back in like an hour I’m pretty sure she’s not coming back.” Blunt but like, everybody was on the same page there. Odds were that anyone who’d woken up an optimist was long dead, probably literally, definitely figuratively.

“But whaddya say we go hang out in the trees for a bit, like, close enough so we can see the camp in case she decides that being alone sucks, actually. And while we wait we can figure out where the hell we wanna go next?” He stood up as he talked, stretched, tried to act all casual like the past few minutes just hadn’t happened despite all the sad evidence still lingering on his face. As always it was a pain in the ass to get his bags slung properly so they wouldn’t slide off his shoulders or throw his balance around, but he’d gotten a lot of practice over the past few days.

“I mean that’s assuming you guys wanna stick together, and you know what they say about assuming, it’s not gonna count your chickens for you, haha.” There was no way in hell he was gonna let himself fall asleep around Christina, or even let her get too close to his rifle bag, but for the time being she was an extra pair of eyes that didn’t seem in any hurry to get him killed.

And if Darlene left, well, that’d be a sign that it was time to stop being a nice guy and rob Christina for everything she was worth. Maybe her life. Depended on how he was feeling, really. Ow he just cut himself on that edge.