week 6, post trial

[robitussin]

[Their numbers keep falling. Three people have died already this week, with two more on the way tomorrow. With the outburst the townspeople gave them once the results came through... If anyone were feeling downhearted, it's to be expected at this point. Things continuing at their current pace is a frightening thought, after all. Like last week, the offer to spend time together or meet in a central location doesn't come.

Hawks and Dabi wait for the morning in their cells, but the rest of the tourists are free to wander about the town as they please; free to rest, to talk with each other, and to try to gather strength wherever they can. So, where does the evening find you, Cartesio?]

Comments

[robitussin]

...That's fucked up, but I assume you know that.

[A beat.]

You got any recommendations for getting around that?

[amburere]

Kurogiri wasn't thrilled with it either. [ Dabi honestly... kinda agrees. ]

His villain name is Blackmist, but there was one part of his body that was his core. Besides that, heard people have tried to vacuum him up before. He's not with us anymore he got captured. They probably have him in a large glass jar to keep 'im contained.

[ Or the equivalent of one. ]

[robitussin]

...Are you honestly trying to tell me that a vacuum is our best bet here?

[amburere]

Why not? [ ..........like, really. ]

Get a big one.

[robitussin]

[A long moment passes, and then:]

I can't believe that we've reached the point that I'm actually taking you seriously here.

[amburere]

If it works, I want the credit. [ This is ridiculous, he knows. But he's from a world where a literal washing machine in human form is among the top ten heroes. Whatever works! ]

[robitussin]

[It gets a laugh, weak as it is.]

Right. I'll tell Robert to write another editorial about you.

[amburere]

Good. Need anymore advice from the leader of the Villain Vanguard?

[robitussin]

[She's not sure whether the answer is yes or no, but she leaves it for a moment in favor of...]

You've always been more than that. You know that, right?

[amburere]

[ ................. ]

I'm just Dabi. That's all I am and that's all I want to be.

[robitussin]

...Then I have something else to ask that person, if I can.

[amburere]

What?

[robitussin]

[It feels... almost irrelevant, after all that’s happened, but the idea of not asking, not knowing, is worse.]

This place, these people... Did any of this matter to you at all?

[amburere]

Fires don't burn forever. [ It's a shitty answer, and Dabi knows it. But it's been years since he knew how to properly express his feelings, and almost that long since he's cared that he can't.

They mattered for the time, maybe. But what's left unsaid is that even when the flames are long gone, there's always ash left behind in their place. ]

[robitussin]

...I don't know what that means.

[For all that she normally pushes him to tell her more, to open himself up crack by crack, this time... It's more a statement than a question, spoken with a tone of defeat. After a moment:]

Anything else you want to say?

[amburere]

Ask me again next time. [ That might be a better way to put it. ]

Yeah. There's a DVD in my room you should take. Got it from the abandoned electric store, had to melt a door for it.

[robitussin]

[She hears that, but she doesn't respond.]

Okay. What's on it?

[amburere]

Security footage from Cartesio Electronics before we were here. See for yourself. The ghosts had said something about black space in the lodge, right? [ Dabi didn't go to those things, but Hawks did so he has the general gist of what was said at meetings. ]

There's something like that on the video. Wasn't sure what to make of it. Could just be errors on the disc, but at the end the footage showed the office rapidly decaying in twenty minutes.

[robitussin]

...Errors on the disc sound too convenient, but I'll decide when I show it to everyone, I guess.

[She nods along.]

Anything else?

[amburere]

[ A nod. He would have done more digging if murder plans hadn't superceded everything.

As to her question, he pauses. It didn't really matter but-fuck it. ]

When you grab the DVD, you'll see a flower. Water it, if you want. [ Asking her outright is too much, but he had to make some attempt for reasons he doesn't understand. ]

[robitussin]

Okay.

[And then...]

Didn't really think you were the type for flowers. I learn something new every day, I guess.

[amburere]

I'm not. [ When they started talking, he had gone to a lot of lengths to be careful about what he said in earshot of Hawks. But now he's tired, more tired than he's felt in a long time. ]

They're my mother's favorite— an autumn bellflower.

[robitussin]

[Something about that gets her voice to grow... not quieter, but softer somehow.]

I don't know much about plants, but I'll take care of them.

[amburere]

Thanks.

[ The first and last(?) time he'll offer that word with sincerity. That settled, he doesn't have anything more to say. He's said too much already. ]

Cya later, huh?

[robitussin]

[She's sure he's the last person who wants to see this, but... All the same, hearing that means she has to rub the heel of her palm across her eyelids quickly, blinking, before she continues.]

We will. I promise.