( closed )

[tricksune]

Who: Yusuke Kitagawa (tricksune) and co.
What: general catch-all, currently custom prompts only, but feel free to pm me if you'd like me to write you one!
When: march, possibly april
Where: various
Warning(s): will warn in threads

Comments

[desistor]

[More urgent matters, wow. Come on, kid. Give him a little credit. He doesn't argue when Yusuke insists—no point in it, he knows the type. But he'd had to ask. Instead he laughs, once, without humor. A breathless and self-effacing thing. Grim and gallows in its delivery.]

Wish I could say I didn't know the feeling.

[His experience with this sort of thing mostly involves being left with no time for anything but leaving the remains behind to be Processed away for good. No time to spare for the bodies, for the sake of those still living. Not exactly the same situation, now. But...better to be here than not, he figures. And better the two of them than no one at all. They'll figure something out.]

Lets see...

[He catches up to Yusuke in a few deliberate steps and crouches down in front of the body, bracing himself against the ground with the Transistor propped up beside him—suppressing the little flip of vertigo that comes with recognition, the fresh twist of horror as the gore-streaked face resolves into a friend. (Time for that later, he knows, when this is done and Yusuke's been looked after and no one else is at any more risk of joining ol' Rich in the Country. He takes a good look and it hurts, sure as shit. But he breathes it in and buries it deep.) Still, without looking away—quietly angry, edged with incredulity—]

...the hell did they do to 'im?

[Why? Never seen anything like it. He exhales, and seems to notice something. Or...the lack of it. Frowns, for a few seconds, gone quiet. Then, absently—]

No Trace... [Is he disappointed, or not? Would it help, to be able to speak to him one last time? A weak warbling echo of his old self, before he slots away for good? Maybe he'd hoped, at least. for a few last words. To better understand what the hell had happened, here. Or...for Yusuke's sake, if nothing else.] Guess he's too far gone.

that's a very rude icon for this ftr

[tricksune]

[ Look, there's better things to do than drag a body around. He could be with Red, or out looking for people, or... literally anything that isn't this. He doesn't stop Boxer as he approaches their friend (what's left of him), silent as he seems to assess. What words of comfort are there to share, anyway.

He's not sure what Boxer's looking for—Richie's long gone without a trace, yes—but if nothing else, he gives him the moment to hurt. It'd taken him some time to recover his own footing, and it seems to slip again now that he's here, right in front of the body again.

But anger is something he can relate to, a fizzle of emotion that he hasn't afforded enough time between the grief and disbelief. There's a line of tension threaded through his response as he shifts his weight, eyes narrowed slightly. ]

They were tortured.

[ Yusuke finally closes the distance for himself too, crouching and gingerly reaching out to touch the crook of his elbow, like it might scald him. On the contrary, it's not warm at all. ]

Even the survivors are battered... it's unthinkable.

[ Unjust and unkind and utterly despicable. To use people like this—he'd thought he knew human cruelty back home, but it always goes so above and beyond his expectations. His expression hardens with scorn; better anger than inaction. (Though it stings still to say survivors, somehow callous to the body in front of them right this instant.) ]

Something to be dealt with later.

[ Retribution could wait. After a pause, he tries to squirm a hand under Richie's shoulder, slowly so the skin might not rupture. ] Mind his head.

my range is very limited, I gotta work with what I can

[desistor]

[Torture. Not a hard sell, from the evidence, but still. Not an easy one to swallow. He's silent through the catchup and silent through the implied retribution can wait. Yusuke doesn't say as much aloud, but it's not hard to read between the lines. Can't really blame him for wanting to get even. But it's a surprisingly measured attitude from a kid. It's easy, understandable, and pretty damn dangerous to kneejerk toward the opposite. To want to even the score right away, to put things right again. Or at least to understand it, to put the pieces together, stop things for spiraling out into something far worse.

(Some fringe group, hunting people down to take their lives and use them for their own ends. For....what? The good of the city? Feels ironically familiar, in a way, once that part comes to light. Life's funny, that way.)

But...one thing at a time. No real chiding, yet, despite the sharpish studying look leveled Yusuke's way for the news, and the declaration, and everything that comes with it. (One thing at a time.) Still, carefully—]

Whole city's wise to them, now. [Ought to help this from happening again. Or...well. Here's hoping, anyway.] Ought to slow 'em down a little.

[He leaves the Transistor leaning against the wall and moves to counterbalance as Yusuke carefully shifts the body. Hesitating only briefly when the state of the body protests the treatment. Rich isn't (wasn't) too big a guy, even when he was at his best and better at keeping all in one piece. Yusuke—though wiry—is tougher than he looks. So, between the two of them, it shouldn't be too hard to get him up and out to somewhere a little more dignified than collapsed in a corner. Figure it out from there.]

On three.

One—

[Two—]

[tricksune]

[ When the world spirals out of control, like it's spinning right off its own axis and straight into the nonsensical void of space, there's a few tricks he's learned to keep himself on both feet. The first is to realize that nothing is too absurd. Life is strange. The second is to stay rational despite it. There was nothing he could do about the extremists right now. The body needs to be moved. Boxer is here to help, and he has a point—whoever did this wouldn't be able to move with the same impunity that'd let them make the kidnappings to begin with.

So, they do what they can, where they can. He shoots the same sort of look back, almost severe in its determination to get to the next step, whatever that may be. He can't say what that is, but it can't be enough of a roadblock to lose traction completely. They have to get through this day to the next, somehow.

One. Two.

—A few things happen on three. They manage to hoist up Richie's body. Yusuke feels his skin twist off his muscle, ripping under his hands.

And then, all at once, it vanishes. The corpse evaporates out of his hold wholly and completely before he can even fumble to catch it, because there was nothing to drop in the first place. The sudden disappearance has him stepping back, inertia threatening to tip him over now that nothing's weighing him down.

He keeps his balance, but his composure wipes blank. He stares at the whole lot of nothing between them for a long, long time before his gaze wobbles up to Boxer instead.

What? ]

[desistor]

[For a second, or two of them, it feels like the sick shift of tearing skin means they're losing their grip. That they're going to need to brace themselves for a much messier job, in a minute. But there's no catching something that isn't there. And there's no body to hit the ground. Nothing to lose their grip on in the first place.

Knocked for a loop and suddenly relieved of Richie's weight, he rocks himself back into balance. ...physically, anyway. Just about everything else takes a little longer to adjust. Kneejerking opposite Yusuke, he lifts his head for a look around instead of down—as if expecting the body to materialize in eyeshot, or something. Then, once that impulse has passed, to see if anyone else is as surprised by this turn of events as they are.

But the locals in the background don't seem to have noticed this disappearing act at all. Going about their business without a blink.]

Um.

[So much for staying rational. As Yusuke recovers, he holds his hands up, palm out, as if in surrender, or demonstration. (Nothing up my sleeve...) Or, maybe, for the sight of the blood spotted on his fingers, soaked into the wraps on his hands, as if to prove there'd really been a body there to begin with. (There was, of course there was. There are smears of blood and worse still there to tell the story. But...nothing else. No Trace. No neat nightmare pile of Processed white blocks. No body.)

Wasn't his doing. (So what—) Dumbly, he shakes his head.]

...I got nothin'.

[tricksune]

[ Yusuke blinks out, curls his fingers into his palm a few times like that might summon something solid to touch again. There's blood and an unpleasant sensation tingling through his fingers still where the skin had sloughed away under it, but no wounds, no body, no nothing. (Not so accidentally, it happens when none of the locals seem to be looking, all too busy with their eyes turned elsewhere, on other issues, on the living and those that still need to be taken care of.)

He looks over Boxer's hands, staring hard into his empty palms and the dots of dark red seeped here and there, same as his. From the blankness in his expression, it's clear Yusuke has absolutely nothing to offer either.

After a few dumbfounded seconds, he lets his hands drop to his sides, shaking his head. ]

...Me neither.

[ Maybe it's the straw that breaks the camel's back, but he laughs softly, cracked. A mirthless smile curls under the lip of his mask, hugely resigned. ]

Are we losing our minds, Boxer?

[ The day had gone from harrowing, to gut-wrenching tragedy, and now to something downright surreal, the sheer amount that's out of their hands beginning to reach a boiling point. ]

[desistor]

[So much for that. Well. Maybe Rich would prefer it that way, anyway. Can't really ask, anymore.

Uneasy, he drops his palms and shifts on the spot and mirrors Yusuke's tight smile, breathes out in a grim little huff. Short and subdued.]

Good company, at least. If you are, then so am I.

[Wouldn't be the first time this place made with the illusions and hallucinations and whatnot. At this point...nothing to do but roll with the punches.

(Though now, with the shock fading and the immediate confusion settled down, he's got to wonder. It feels at least a little like the teleport tech the Orbiters use to get them from point a to point b. Even if it is...what for? Covering their tracks?)

Mystery that it is, it's honestly fallen quite a few rungs down the matter of priority, right now. Richie's up and gone, however it happened, but Yusuke's not. Kid's a real mess. Rather than spend more time grasping at straws, twisting themselves into knots about what they can't change and won't make sense of, here— Boxer claps him carefully on the shoulder again and cants his head back the way they came.]

How about we get you cleaned up a little? See if things don't start making a little more sense.

[Get him off his feet and away from the boiling point for a minute. He won't insist Yusuke leaves the cleanup efforts here and now—even if he's not far from suggesting it, anyway. But if nothing else, the kid needs a sit down and a second to process. Maybe a little of the first aid they're passing around for good measure.]