pc catchall for junpei (crashout)

[uncurtained]

IM PUTTING THE TIMON GIF IN HERE LATER YOU CANT BEAT ME

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W5, WEDNESDAY;

[crashout]

[After that disaster of a night, Junpei leaves the others to do as Junpeis are wont to do. That is to say, his team split up and he went to shower and dissect his notes and information and not sleep even though he should probably take a nap. As it is, later in the afternoon he's up and he's on his way to hunt down Beck. The first place he's going to check is her room though and he'll knock on the door to patiently wait.

He also has a book under his arm? Hm.]

[uncurtained]

[She opens the door after a few moments. It might take a few seconds longer than normal because of the injury, but she looks about as good as she can after all that happened overnight. Since her shirt is a lost cause, she's in her alternate outfit, a simple black dress with a bird print on it. She's showered as well, of course, so all that remains of the goop is the stain it's left on her hair and skin.

When she sees it's him, she raises her hand in greeting, stepping back to let him in.]

How are you holding up...?

[crashout]

[He follows her inside but he shrugs at the question.]

I should be asking you that. Come on, go sit...I don't want to be the cause of ripping your wounds open or something. [He's keeping the tone light but he's serious, too.] Dick fixed it, right?

[uncurtained]

I won't, promise. I'm being careful.

[But she doesn't want to worry him any more, so she's heading over to the bed to do just that. She gives him a nod.]

As much as he could, yeah. [...] What book did you bring?

[crashout]

Good. [He follows, but he looks a little startled like he'd forgotten he was even holding a book.]

Oh. Uh. Well...[He looks a little sheepish but he holds it out to her. It's a poetry book called The Princess Saves Herself in This One.] I thought you'd probably be bored if you had to lay low for a while until the gashes healed and I was browsing and found this. Kinda made me think of you.

[...] I can take it back if it's not your style though.

[uncurtained]

...It sounds like it has a happy ending. I think we could all use that.

[She takes it with a grateful little smile, setting it on the bed.]

Thanks. It was thoughtful of you.

[crashout]

Don't mention it. [There's a half-smile.] I've...been thinking about happy endings lately and what we can do to make sure people get one. Figured some independent study was in order.

Plus it's a nicer distraction, isn't it?

[uncurtained]

Yeah, it is. I’ll tell you if it’s worth reading afterwards.

[...]

We’re getting closer to that, aren’t we?

[A happy ending.]

[crashout]

[There's a nod and he's settling on another part of the bed.]

...I want to think we are, but it's hard to tell. Depends on how the next 10 days go, right? We've got everything we need, but we still have a while to wait.

[uncurtained]

Then... We just can’t lose sight, right? We’ve made it forty days, what’s another ten?

[She means it to sound optimistic, but she can’t hide the tired and stressed edge it carries.]

[crashout]

[Mood. And it's why he watches her quietly before he looks at his hands.]

I keep thinking about something Shiraishi told me that he heard in the room he and Hizamaru broke into. "You will answer to our truth." But what is that truth?

...but you're right. Even if we don't feel like it, we can't lose sight of what's ahead. [A beat.] Even with everything that happened, do you think it was worth what we did?

[uncurtained]

...We could try to do a task for a hint. Polly knows more about the demons than the others, apparently.

[She thinks about it for a moment.]

I know it will be, for that jar. It just... It’s hard to accept that when we don’t have the result it’s going to help bring yet. I mean, with what happened to Higekiri...

[crashout]

You heard about what happened to her yesterday didn't you? You think we could try to get a task from her? Or maybe one of the others can help with at least knowing about the ritual or...something. I've never done a task for them.

[But there's a frown.] ...I'm still really worried about that. Something's wrong, and I haven't figured out how to fix it yet.

[uncurtained]

Maybe she’s calmed down by now. It can’t hurt to ask her, right?

[If she doesn’t answer or can’t help, they can figure it out from there.]

I’m going to see if Carlos can help out with that at all. I just... hope he won’t do anything reckless as we look into it.

[crashout]

I wouldn't mind going to see her and see what we can do together. If it's both of us, we might be able to get something done, right?

[There's a flicker of something in his expression when she mentions Carlos but he nods.] Let me know if he has any ideas. [...] In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out how to get close enough when he won't let any of us touch him or anything.

[uncurtained]

[...]

Get close enough for what?

cw: cannibalistic tendencies ig

[crashout]

Anything. [Like. In general, he means, although...]

...Wei Wuxian seems to think that Higekiri's developed a taste for flesh.

[uncurtained]

...Yeah, he told me, and why he thinks that.

[She sighs.]

[crashout]

...I don't want to kill him. [Slowly, but there's hesitation there.] But we don't know what's really wrong either. We thought about maybe locking him up somewhere, but we come back to the part where we can't get close enough to put him in a cell.

[uncurtained]

[Almost immediately:]

We aren't going to have to kill him, okay? No matter what, we'll... We'll figure out a different way. That's not how this story goes.

[crashout]

That's what I want to believe. I really, really do, but...what if? I've had a lot of people tell me just to kill them to make sure the people left alive are the right people.

[uncurtained]

The difference is that leaving him alive isn't going to hurt any of us. He stopped getting worse after that injection, right? So...

[She takes a breath.]

I'm not giving up on him.

[crashout]

...neither am I. [It's just. Scary.] Whatever we can do to fix him, we'll make it work.

[uncurtained]

[She nods, taking a breath.]

Sorry. I don't mean to jump down your throat, just...

[She's worried.]

[crashout]

No, hey...you're not. I'm pretty worried, too. [They're only human, after all, on this fucking crazy ship.] We'll try everything we can whether he likes it or not. I promise.