redshiftlogs | cause of death: being too darn normal

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cause of death: being too darn normal

WHO: Cho Takahashi, with a closed prompt for Finnick, Peter, (and Diego?) and open prompts for other people
WHAT: cleaning the kitchen, exploring, walking her cat (not even sorry), staring at the wreck out in the desert as the sand builds up
WHEN: late July/early August
WHERE: mostly the mess hall and random walkways, the observation deck with the best view of the crashed ship, and anywhere else you want her

NOTES: I'm not an action-spam person. It's not natural for me to write, and writing long face-to-face tags with it ends up feeling like a chore. I don't mind reading it, though. (Just please don't use tiny text for your brackets.) So don't feel that you have to write prose if you're not comfortable with it. You can write brackets and I'll write prose and our styles just won't match. I don't mind if you don't.

Cho is in the kitchen following the first half of this post and before she makes the monumentally bad decision that leads to the second half of it. It's not necessary to see her post first to find her there. She's turned on a GPS beacon so that everyone can have access to the kitchen, and she's playing music.

A - kitchen - 21 July
Even after it's clear that she's probably not going to get any more interest in the kitchen (or maybe it's just too early and she should wait it out) Cho can't make herself want to leave. There are things to do here! Something to accomplish! Eventually a small cabinet turns up some unidentifiable cleaning solutions and gloves and a pile of rags. Which just renews her determination. She can start with cleaning, with the job that no one ever wants to do.

She sets her new phone up on a counter, so she'll see it if she gets a message. Then she pulls her old phone out of her pocket, and finds a suitably peppy playlist, depositing it at a very specific angle in a deep bowl to increase the sound output. Music always helps. Then, she gets to work, with her plan of action being to first rid every surface of dust, and then to scrub them to a gleaming shine.

After which, maybe, if she's very brave, she'll venture into the refrigeration unit. Or maybe not. Might need a safety suit for that one. Definitely at least a mask.

B - kitchen - after 21 July
Her experience has sobered her, but not killed her enthusiasm entirely. Yes, she almost died. Yes, it was utterly awful to experience and she never wants to do it again. But it doesn't mean she can just bury her head in the sand and ignore... everything. Not an option.

She keeps on going back to the kitchen, even after the power cut. Emergency lighting is better than nothing, and Peter helps her get a generator hooked up to keep power to the refrigeration units going, so the things that she's already gotten together don't spoil. That would just be a hell of an insult on top of a hell of an injury. If anyone wanders in hungry, she's very happy to make them something, welcoming the distraction. Some small shred of normalcy. It's not much, but she'll take it. The rest of the time, in those general vague breakfast and dinner hours, she's sitting at one of the large tables, sketch books and sheets of paper spread out around her, occasionally powering on her tablet to make a note or add something to a digital document before turning it off again to save power. There's something going on in her mind, and she hopes it turns out to be something useful.

C - random safe walkways
If Marmalade hates this place at full power, he really hates it in emergency mode. More specifically, he hates not knowing what's going on while everything is dark and scary and making odd noises. Which makes him restless, which makes Cho nervous. She had no desire to let him out when everything was more or less working and she didn't know what lurked on the agricultural level. Now that it's all breaking down and she does know, she's even less inclined.

But he's still determined. Which is how she ends up organizing limited excursions. It sounds better in her own mind if she says it that way. Even though it amounts to walking an inquisitive little cat through an abandoned creepy science fiction city with a leash and harness made from two silk robe sashes, because this is apparently her life now. Right. Leaning into it.

It doesn't get any more normal a couple of weeks after the blackout, when the cat is joined by a hedgehog with a second leash and harness apparently made out of an unraveled scarf. Bizarre is the new normal and this is just... it's whatever it is.

D
observation deck with the view of the crashed ship
It's a strange thing to be drawn to, even she can admit that. Doesn't stop her from wandering up there every few days. She's not foolish enough to venture out into the desert to look at it. Which is not to say that she's not foolish at all. Recent experience provides a whole lot of evidence to the contrary. Still, it's a morbid fascination, and with no real concrete reason not to, she's leaning into it.

So she just sits, and watches, occasionally poking the fingers of her hand through the slots in the side of an animal carrier on the bench next to her, also angled to give its inhabitants a view of the wreckage. When she hears footsteps behind her, she doesn't turn around. "What do you think is out there?" It's a question she's been asking herself a lot, and never coming up with a good enough answer. Maybe someone else will have a better insight than she does.

! WILDCARD

Wandering around in general, hanging out in her room, any other location or activity that you're interested in that I haven't talked about. Feel free to either come poke me to plan something, or to just go for it here and we'll make it work on the fly.

29 July
what is day and night? - exploring the Glow with Cole - agricultural levels

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Cho thought she'd feel better after getting a response to her call for help, but somehow she just feels worse. So much worse. Finnick and Diego and somebody she doesn't even know, they're going to risk their lives to help her, and if something happens to them, it's going to be her fault. How could she be so stupid? How could she not realize what was happening until she was so deep into the trees that getting back to the entrance was impossible? She's seen the movies about the killer crocs and the giant snakes and the dinosaurs. How did she turn into the dumb person who goes after the noise outside of the camp at night and never makes it back?

She's connected the three of them through a shared audio channel, and now all she can do is wait. Right? Now that her heart is slowing slightly, she's able to look around and see what's surrounding her in this room. It's a laboratory of some kind, that much is obvious. The technology is advanced, but some is recognizable. She gets to her feet, knees knocking, very grateful for the chunky and relatively low heels on the boots that she's wearing. It made it easier to run over uneven terrain to get to safety, and it will make it easier to run over uneven terrain to get out of this whole mess.

The windows have heavy shutters over them, but there is a dull glow of emergency lighting, and she can't help but wonder if maybe she could get these shutters up if she tried. There must be a control for it somewhere. Just a little crack, so she can see the outside, so she can be of some help. She has to do something. So she forces herself to stop crying, and she takes a deep breath. One foot in front of the other, flinching at every little sound, looking for the window controls.

"I think I might be able to get these shutters up a little bit," she tells them, forcing her voice loud enough to carry down the line. "There can't just be one of those things, right? can-- be recon?"

Peter's split off from the other two rescue boys and webbed himself up to the ceiling, where he is currently perched while he tries to get a better idea of what they're up against. So far he's avoided being detected by whatever these animals are, not that they'd be able to get to him on the ceiling, but hey. That still counts as a win.

"I think you're right, I think the one that was chasing you might have been like, a scout or something. There's kind of a lot of trees in the way, but I can see... three, maybe four more? Hey, did you guys ever see that really old movie, Jurassic Park?"

No, they probably haven't. Different planets and alternate universes, Peter, come on.

"Uh. Never mind. It's lizards, it's-- it's really big lizards."

This rescue was already off to a good start huh.

Finnick doesn't know Jurassic Park, or even the concept of seeing a movie as it's understood in Peter's time. That comparison means nothing to him, and he's about to say something to the kid who'd volunteered to be their scout, but Peter corrects himself almost immediately and says something Finnick does know.

"Lizards."

He'd known they were going to be facing mutts. He's fought mutts before, in two different arenas, and he'd been expecting them here ever since he first heard the unsettling noises from these overgrown indoor woods. But there's nothing reassuring about the words 'really big lizards'.

"I'd like the odds better if there were fewer of them," he says, speaking softly to avoid attracting the mutts' attention. "Can you see what they're doing?"

Peter webs himself over to a new spot on the ceiling for a better look. The trees are still obstructing his view for the most part, but he can see a little better from his new position.

"Looks like they're just hanging around, maybe trying to figure out how to get in. We've got one up by the door all pacing around and stuff. I could probably drop in and distract them long enough for you guys to get her out of there."

He doesn't do so yet, deciding it's better to wait and see what the other guys want to do.

"Why would you bring up Jurassic Park right now?" Cho hisses, her voice high and thin in distress. That is the last thing she wants to be thinking about. Mostly because of the way it ended for almost everyone.

Ha! Yes! Cho finds a wall panel to control the shutters. She's able to raise the metal plating, and after about a foot, she's able to stop it again. She's not a huge fan of what she sees. "Oh, God..." The glass must be treated on the other side, which would make sense, and thank goodness it is, or she'd be having a very real problem right now. "So... I managed to get the window shade up a little bit. Enough to see into the trees. You, um-- you know the raptor pack in the movie?"

Yeah, she does not come bearing good news, guys.

More than almost anything else in his life, these moments are the ones Diego feels the most right and comfortable in. Dealing with threats, saving people? That's been his life since he was a kid, a choice he continued making even after he left the father that had shoved that choice on him. He hates that the one in danger is someone he knows, and that he knows is by all accounts fairly defenseless when it comes right down to it-- but at least Cho used the resources at her disposal and now has a whole damn team of people trying to get to her.

Peter and Finnick are no substitute for any of the siblings he was raised and trained with for all of his life, and he isn't in sync with them the same way he is with Allison and Luther, but-- it's fine. They'll figure it out and get Cho out and back to safety.

"Where did you get in, Cho? This door on the east side?" That seems like pertinent information to know. "Finnick, you want to get her, while Peter distracts them, and I cover you?" Seemed easy enough, on the surface, right?

"Diego?" She's surprised to hear him on the line, but also glad. He was nice to her, and he's a military type of guy, even if he wasn't a soldier. She never did get a really clear answer on that one. Not that it matters. Not a whole lot matters right now, except getting out of here with all her blood on the inside. "I came in through the door on the corner right in front of the entrance to this area. It's on the east side, closest to the north side. I think there might be another one further down? I haven't been there yet."

She sounds distracted, and her breathing is far from even and calm. The reason for this is something she's about to expand on. "These guys are big. Maybe... four feet tall? They look solid. Like... a monitor lizard. Bulky. But they're walking upright. Their claws look-- pretty bad, guys. You're going to be two against one. You need to be careful."

Finnick doesn’t know many of the references they’re making, and he’s reminded for a moment of having to ask what a canary was in the arena. Monitor lizards, raptor packs, Jurassic Park, none of it means anything to someone from Four, but big, solid, and claws certainly do. Finnick eyes Diego, considering the ability of knives against something like Cho’s describing.

In the arena, he’d expect that it would be possible to fight off the mutts, but nothing about this place suggests the Gamemakers’ usual twisted logic that a good enough tribute should be able to put on a show and either die entertainingly or overcome the odds against them with the weapons they’re provided. He doesn’t know the rules here, if there are any. But splitting the mutts up sounds like the best chance they have. They’re not trying to beat the things, they’re trying to fend them off, and those are chances he likes better.

“Cho, we’ll get you. It’ll be okay.”

They don’t need her panicking while they try to save her. He’s seen how that ends too many times to think it will go well.

“Think that’s best, Diego. Just let me know if anything’s coming for me.”

It sounds like Diego and Finnick have worked out a game plan, and Cho hits them back with some good good lizard facts. This isn't so bad! I mean, so far.

"Okay. Okay, I can work with that. Visibility kind of sucks, so I won't know if I've got the attention of all of them. So uh, keep your eyes peeled just in case I don't look delicious enough to them. I'm goin' in."

Time to kick off Operation: Save This Lady. Peter detaches himself from the ceiling and free falls into the trees, and upon landing promptly webs a lizard's dumb legs to the ground.

"Hey you-- uh. Lizards! Come at me! ... Yeah, that's- Wow, I'm so glad I'm not fighting people right now."

A lizard won't judge his terrible trash talking as much. This is fine. His stupid shouting, as far as he can tell, manages to attract the attention of the lizards. Step one is going pretty smoothly! He webs another one down before turning and bolting deeper into the trees, and some lizards bust ass after him. There's your opening bros, GO GET IT.

He notices Finnick's dubious look at his weapon of choice, particularly after the description of the things they're fighting is given, but Diego isn't phased. He trusts himself, and both his skills and abilities to do what he said he'd do.

Diego doesn't like putting a kid in that kind of position, but, well-- at the same time? He'd been doing exactly that kind of thing for years by the time he was Peter's age, and Peter was here. Volunteered. He knew the risk and accepted it, so that seemed as good as any willing acceptance.

He watches the teen descend and... start shouting at the lizards. Oh, god, he's gotta talk to him about that later. Finnick is on the move toward the entrance to get Cho and Diego is nothing but a flurry of movement and action. Of course, some of those lizards didn't chase after Peter, they caught sight of the other two and at least two of them split off to go after them.

One of Diego's knives nicks the one that seems to have set its sights on him in particular and the shriek it lets out is ear-splittingly loud. He winces and turns his attention back to the murder-y model in time to see one of the lizards heading toward him. It's barely a second's worth of thought as he realizes he's too far away to do the guy any good so instead he just shouts into the comm, "Finnick, left!"

More than just the one on the left. Cho sees them coming for her, and then she sees something else in the trees, and it causes her entire stomach to drop down into her feet. "Guys." Her voice is tiny and small and faltering. She tries again. "Guys! No, stop. There are more of them in the trees. A dozen? More." This is bad. So bad. She knows what she needs to say, even as it makes her lungs feel like they're fire in her chest. "You-- need to get out of here. They're hunting. They're pack animals. They're hunting you. You need to run."

Shit. Is she crying? She's crying, isn't she? The tightness in her throat says: yes, she is.

He doesn't need to hear it twice; when Diego shouts his warning, Finnick spins and throws on pure instinct. The trident goes through the mutt's throat, and thanks to Beetee, it's strong enough to pierce the thing's skin. He'll have to tell him about that, the first time he's used the thing to protect himself instead of for training or hunting.

Finnick lifts his rifle and fires a burst into the mutt, and when it drops, he presses the button on his wrist cuff, and the trident whizzes back to him. He looks around, gaze darting from one spot to another, checking his immediate surroundings, and he's just started running again when Cho calls out to them and begs them to stop.

"Cho."

He darts behind a tree, not intending to stop for long, looking to see if he can see the other mutts she's talking about.

"Cho, can you run? If they're tracking us, you might have a chance to get out while they're distracted."

It's fiiiiine, Peter's got his eyes on the lizards in the trees. In fact, he's up in these trees now, and is picking them off one by one. Picking them off as in he's snatching them up with his webs and sticking them up in the trees too. They're kind of making terrifying noises because they're pretty pissed about being stuck in webs, but it's fiiine.

If Peter hadn't been actually focusing on being stealthy right now, he'd probably have chimed in with a cheesy line like 'looks like the hunter's become the hunted' or something equally as eyeroll worthy, but nah. Once he thinks he's got them all, he drops down from the trees radios in.

"Okay, forest is clear. Now's a good time to- OOOOH THIS IS ALARMING BUT I'M FINE-" That would be Peter being ambushed by an even stealthier stealth lizard. There's lizard noises and the distinct sounds of A Tussle before the lizard flies out of the trees and smashes into the nearest wall. Because Peter threw it. It made him annoyed. Just ignore the fact that there's blood in it's mouth and it's missing teeth, it's fiiine. Because it's dead.

"I'm okay!!" He's probably okay, but the good news is that he's picked off a significant chunk of those lizards, get on outta here kiddos.

"We're getting you out, Cho." he assures her, despite her desperate attempt to get them to leave. At least he doesn't have to worry about that happening at all. Neither Peter nor Finnick seem like they're moving to do anything less than continuing regardless of what she's begging in their ears.

Diego's crouched down behind a tree, taking a moment to regroup. If there were this many of them, there are bound to be more nearby, even if they've got a good number of them tied up and dead. The problem with being designated look-out and cover-man is no one's watching you. One of the lizards has managed to stealth its way up behind him, and sinks its razor-sharp teeth into his shoulder. He lets out a cry of pain, but it only seems to fuel the flurry of movement he quickly becomes-- and elbow thrown here, a leg kicked there, and he gets out of the thing's grip; tuck, roll and he's out of it's reach and finally he sends a knife to slide across its throat, and a few more to the chest just to be sure.

"We gotta move this along a little faster, guys."

Cho squeaks, legitimately squeaks, when the lizard goes flying through the trees, crashing into them along the way, and splats against the far (very very far) wall. What the flipping heck even just happened?

Well great, now they're all going to get killed because they won't leave her, even if staying is a horrible idea and leaving her is the thing they really need to do. Something attacked Peter, Diego is in pain, and if Finnick dies doing this, she's pretty sure Annie is never going to forgive her, which pales against the fact that Annie just plain won't be able to cope.

So. Staying here and hoping they get bored is not an option, and if she makes the guys come to her, they're going to get hurt even more badly. She doesn't want to go outside. She wants to stay behind these walls, where she has the illusion of safety, where she can watch the scene unfold and feel like she has even the tiniest bit of control. But she can't. So, instead, she's running up and down the length of the windowed rooms, trying to figure out where everyone is, where all the lizards are, and realizing only after she's begun that it's fairly pointless, since she doesn't know how many monsters she has to account for, since she has no idea how many are actually out there.

Dang it.

"There aren't any windows by the door. Is it clear? Can I--" The words won't even make it out of her throat. They get caught, pulled back down, as her brain screams at her about how stupid she's being. "Can I make a run for it now?"

It happens quickly, but Finnick knows how to think and move quickly. When he sees that Peter has a large number of the mutts distracted -- even defeated -- Finnick runs for the building. The odds have changed, and they've proven that the things can be taken down. It's a risk; the movement could attract attention, but with Diego letting out a cry of pain, time is critical. He might have just lost his lookout.

He knows better than to assume that there being no more visible lizards means there aren't any camouflaged by the trees, but Finnick keeps going. They'll never be sure they have all of them, not in a place like this, and he knows some of the tricks Gamemakers use in the arena to lull tributes into false security. They need to get out.

He only stops when Cho's voice comes through the communication device again, pausing and pressing his back against a tree so that at least one angle's covered. He looks around again, listening for any movement in the trees, and there isn't any. Nor are there any mutts prowling around the building.

"Okay, Cho? I'm just south-east of the door, by the edge of the forest. You're clear. You run, I'll meet you partway and we'll get out of here, okay?"

Meanwhile, Peter's over here in the forest just stringing a bunch of webbing between the trees to trap the lizards because he's already tired of this shit and he doesn't want his dudes to get chomped on anymore. Confident that his creepy spider traps will keep at least most of the remaining lizards at bay, Peter pops out of the trees. And by pops out of the trees I mean he swings out and lands on the wall of the building just above Cho's door. Y'know just kinda sticking there, as you do.

"They can't come this way anymore, it'll take 'em a while to get around my uh, stuff I did. Go now, I'll cover you!"

In the meantime, Peter's gonna pluck a few lizard teeth out of his arm. Them's some bitey lizards.

Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God. This has got to be the worst idea she's ever had, and the fact that her hand is in a white knuckle grip on the door handle is the only thing keeping it from shaking. Finnick tells her to run, and she tries to will her body to do it, to move. Then Peter is also telling her to go, and if it's clear right now, then this is her chance. It won't stay this way forever, and she's just going to get them hurt even worse by delaying.

So she takes a deep and shaky breath, and with a whimper in her throat, yanks open the door and starts running. If there's anything out here that wants to eat her, stopping to look around isn't going to make anything any better. If it's close enough to catch her, she's toast, and nothing she does will change that. The best chance she has is to just run.

"Come on, Cho. We've got this-- just run." Somehow, as dire as the words might seem, he makes it sound more encouraging than scary, almost like he's talked people in situations like this before. He watches from his perch for her to dart out of the building and move as fast as she can toward Finnick. Peter can handle anything in their immediate vicinity, and all Diego has to focus on is getting out of here with the rest of them.

Once Cho is off, Diego isn't far behind, darting out of his spot and heading in the same direction. He catches up eventually and moves to fall in step beside her, assuming Finnick will flank around her other side so she's protected as they run.

At some point (more specifically: right after their network conversation), Jeff joins Cho in the Great Kitchen Cleanup. It's a chance to be helpful, to do something at least a little bit useful, since he's not a scientist or an astronaut or anything... And it's familiar. Circumstances aside, there's at least some sense of normalcy to be found in cleaning and organizing and meal planning.

It helps, too, that Cho seems like a sweet kid, and they get to listen to tunes! So it's really a no-brainer.

(Besides, what else is he gonna do? Keep sitting in his room, fretting and going crazy?)

"So... What'd you do?" He's still scrubbing at some particularly stubborn, persistently sticky stain, brow furrowed in concentration as he puts some major effort into it. "I mean, back home. Before getting lost in space! Were you still in school, or, like...?"

Well, she seems kind of college-aged, so that's his first guess!

Cho is currently perched somewhat precariously on the counter top in her bare feet (which she will absolutely be super vigorously scrubbing down as soon as she's off of it, because ew, feet in food prep area) to dust the top of the cabinets. It feels more secure than her chunky boots, and also less likely to leave gouges in the metal.

"Well... sort of. Oh, gosh. Do you mean just right before I got here? I had just finished my doctorate in marine sciences with an emphasis on biology and coastal preservation, and started in on some post graduate work in robotics. My actual job was with Eudio's aquarium. I designed and maintained exhibits and acquired new attractions. Eudio wasn't home, though, it was another place kind of like this, except it was in much better shape and I chose to go there voluntarily. Before that I was living in New York, and working as an adjunct professor to maintain a work visa. I was born in Japan. Teaching meant that I had consistent employment between research trips, because working on the grant proposals doesn't actually count as work within your field until you've secured the funding, but the teaching does, and I was a teacher's aide during my last two years of school. It's really not that much more difficult. I'd also started work on my doctorate there, but I still had a good year and a half to go, even with all the hands on experience. It's surprisingly political, which is sad. A lot of really wonderful minds get overlooked." She says it all with a chipper bounce in her voice, like she's recounting the plot of her favourite movie. She loves her work, and she's eager to get back to it, because it's a joy for her.

Yet here she is, scrubbing down a kitchen and trying to figure out how to bake bread with what they've got on hand, and seeming to be pretty darn happy with this level of contribution, too. There's no ocean in this place, but there are a lot of people who need to be fed. So this is where it makes sense to put her energy. "What about you? What do you do back home?"

He listens, and there's even a look of fondness that crosses his face when she mentions her doctorate. It's hard not to think about Lisa, in the moment. Brainy, adventurous, intensely curious, his ex-wife's way better equipped to handle a place like this than he ever could be.

Jeff makes a bit of a face, though, when Cho starts talking about Eudio. It's not a skeptical look, so much as a little... wince, that he quickly tries to hide. God, he's never gonna get used to the fact that this is something that just... happens. That for some people, this isn't their first dimension-hopping lost-in-space rodeo.

(That one of those people even knew him-- or a version of him, anyway?-- on some moon colony, once upon a time.)

"Uh." He blinks, trying to think of an answer that isn't totally dull compared to aquariums and robotics and coastal preservation and TRAVEL TO OTHER WORLDS. "I teach teenagers about history." A beat. "Like a teacher. I mean. I am a teacher, I'm not like a teacher--" He rubs the side of his neck, looking a little chagrined. "Soooo... there's that. And raising my daughter. Work and being a dad, that's my life! Ha-- uh. Sorry, this is my first time off... Earth... and it's really been fucking with my head." He's not usually this weird and spacey, he swears. "It's freaking me out, being so far away."

"You're a high school teacher? That's great." She sounds like she really means it, too. There's not a single nuance of her expression or hitch in her voice to suggest that she's being anything other than totally and completely genuine. Because she is. She would be nowhere without high school teachers. Education at every level is absolutely vital. You can't run before you can walk.

When he mentions being in a bad mental space, her smile falls a little, and she withdraws her hands from the top of her current cabinet, twisting the damp cloth in front of her. "Oh goodness, I can't even imagine how I'd be feeling if this was the first place I'd ever gone, and I hadn't agreed to the trip. You must be so worried." She crouches down, and then moves to sit on the edge of the counter. "If it makes you feel any better, there were a lot of people in Eudio who had also been to other places, or went home and came back again. It seems to be pretty common that when you make it home--" She does not say if you make it home. "--no time has passed. So often you just go right back to the very instant that you left."

"Yeah. It's not the most glamorous job, but I love it." He furrows his brow and amends, "I mean... Loved it?"

Ugh, no, he shouldn't think about his life back home in the past tense. And he really shouldn't dump his fears all over Cho, who barely knows him and has her own shit to worry about. It's nice of her to offer assurance all the same. He smiles appreciatively, though it might come out as more of a grimace, considering that cocktail of guilt and embarrassment that tends to follow his rambling.

Whether or not he believes he'll be lucky enough to go home the moment he was taken, that's up in the air. But it's something, at least. Some spark of hope to hold on to.

"Good to know. Thanks." After a beat, he makes a face, scrunching his nose. "I've made things weird. Let's talk about fish and robots!" And yes, he sounds genuinely excited to change the subject to fish and robots. "There must be all kinds of shit you can do here with that background!"

Edited 2019-08-17 22:34 (UTC)

"Do you need a hug?" She scoots a little bit closer to the edge of the counter. "I hope this doesn't offend you, but you look like you could use a hug." She knows that some guys don't like to deal with that, with being anything less than pillars of strength and unshakable certainty. This guy looks like someone just kicked his puppy, though.

She doesn't mind being the one to get all of his emotional spillover dumped on her. She's happy to help in any way she can, and maybe talking will be good for him. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, I can talk about fish all day if you would prefer that, but you didn't make it weird."

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cause of death: being too darn normal

rescue operation - for Finnick, DIego, and Peter

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