Post by Admin on Aug 8, 2009 10:26:52 GMT -5
Lay Down Your Burdens
Suji:
OOC: Luce and Suji quietly split during the game of hide and seek.
Suji took a deep swig from the bottle she'd nicked back in the "base." Now that her blood alcohol level was back in the toxic regions, she could barely taste the sting of it once more. The sand underfoot shifted uneasily, but Suji generally managed to stay upright. Once they reached the waterfront, however, she plopped down less than gracefully. A small hilly dune behind them would block them from view, unless the hide and seek team came looking all the way over here.
Suji yanked her shoes off roughly, relishing the feel of the dry sand under her bare feet. Her mind was in a lovely hazy state, and everything seemed okay in the world. As if she might as well be on Spring Break in her first year at college (or, God, would she be in her second year by now?) and this was entirely normal. "We should stay here. I bet the sun bathing is killer," she said to Luce, holding out the liquor bottle.
Luce:
Luce shook her head at the offer of the bottle and leaned back in the sand, eyes on the moonlit ocean. There were still a few sounds of partying behind them back towards the bonfire but it was winding down as the night passed the midway mark which was 3 am in Luce's mind. "I tried the drunk thing. Didn't like it too much," she said quietly, "bad memories and all that."
She picked up some sand and let it run between her fingers. It made a little pile under her hand. She picked up some more sand and began adding it to what would soon be a mountain, she was sure. There was a breeze coming in off the water that made the sand fall in small fan and a few grains were even blowing into her eyes but she didn't mind the feeling too much.
"It's nice here," she admitted, "but I want to go home." It was an odd statement to hear coming out of her own mouth. What the hell did home mean? She supposed it meant Vegas. "But it is going to feel less like home without you there. Sure I can't change your mind about the whole Dallas thing?"
Suji:
Suji shrugged at Luce's refusal, and set the bottle in the sand an equal distance between them. She twisted it back and forth, digging it deep enough so that it wouldn't fall over. Though the noises drifted from the party were still present, they were far enough away that she could hear the gentle lapping of the bay against the shore. Suji looked over at Luce playing with the sand. She was content just to shift her feet back and forth, feeling the oddly yielding roughness of the texture on her toes.
She snickered lightly when Luce said that it wouldn't feel like home without her. Did it really feel more like home for Luce, for the weeks Suji had been around? She couldn't know. "You only want me to stay 'cause I've already got a foot out the door," she smirked, then felt bad because of how cynical it had sounded. "But nah. I need something new." Suji looked out over the water, eyelids fluttering momentarily. "It's nice that you've got a place you call home though. When you don't, everything kind of just gets flattened out, bleeds together. I keep hoping I'll hit higher ground or something and it'll stop..." She shook her head; she was rambling.
"What makes Vegas a home? 'Cause if it's the desert, well, I'm sure there's got to be some desert in Texas."
Luce:
Luce shrugged. "Not sure. Not even sure it is. I guess it is the closest thing I have to it though," Luce said still playing with sand. She had a very strong desire to either pour out whatever was in that bottle or go down to the shore and try to bring some water back so that she could build a sand castle. How long had it been since she'd built one? A long time she supposed. She wasn't a kid anymore. She was all grown up and killing, hurting, rescuing, saving other people's kids now. And her own? She supposed she didn't have any, never would. Except-
"What happened in Indonesia?" she asked, thinking of Eva and Andrew. She hadn't really talked to any of the kids since they had shown up at the base. She hadn't been given much time to. But she had watched at least two of them. She had never been quite brave enough to approach them. Eva might remember her but Andrew certainly would. And now they were gone...kind of. Beyond her reach anyhow. Sedra had them now and Luce wasn't supposed to go anywhere near her. That part of Rian's "punishment" was still firmly in place...as it should be she supposed.
She looked up at Suji, wanting to take her mind off her own troubles. "How come that kid was so mad at you?"
Suji:
Suji let out a heavy sigh. She rubbed the back of her neck, twisting her hair into a ponytail and pulling it over her shoulder. "We needed a pilot to get everyone out. They were training the kids to fly. Well they were training their Yeerks." Suji massaged her temples. "We realized that if you didn't have a Yeerk in your head, the seat of the ship would detect it." The pleasant fogginess was drifting away.
"I had to hold down that kid, Tobin or whatever. I held him down while Drake got Robert, and we had him reinfested so we could leave." Though Suji's voice wasn't emotional, it was strained. "He was screaming the whole time. Up until Robert took over. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't the worst part of the mission, but it was bad."
Luce:
Luce stopped making her sand castle and looked over at Suji. She was staring and others might find the situation awkward but Luce seemed to be oblivious to such social subtleties. She wasn't, she just chose to ignore them when they seemed to get in the way.
Right now she was trying to decide how she felt about what Suji had just said. Disgust? Maybe at one point but not really, not now. She didn't really have a right to judge anyone else. But it was more than that. She was starting to see the gray now. She used to live by absolutes, yeerks were bad, kill them. It was easy and it was naive in its own way. She had thought she was such a bad ass soldier but she had been hiding from the realities of the war in a lot of ways.
She wasn't so naive anymore. If Suji had helped infest the kid then she probably felt like she'd needed to. And the kids had gotten out. Tobin was alive and free and much more likely to stay that way than he would have been living in that farm. So maybe, if the good outweighed the bad, they could call it a good day, a win.
"What was the worst thing?" she finally asked after the silence had stretched on for a couple of minutes.
Suji:
Suji shook her head. For a moment she felt close to tears, and she had to assume that was from the alcohol. She drew her legs up, and crossed her arms over them, resting her chin on her arms. It was a little too fetal for her liking, but it beat crying. "Just the Drake thing. Just... I've seen people die. But that." Suji shook her head slightly, though she couldn't move it very far because of her position. "It was so fast. So utterly random and pointless. I've never felt so completely powerless."
That made Suji stop. Was that the truth? Really? She remembered Toby's owl swooping down on her own: the claws biting into her tiny body. She remember falling like a rock through the air, hitting the soft bed of pine needles below. But still... Indonesia, the crocodile, that had been worse. At least when Toby had almost killed her it had been her. Ultimately she had lived (just as she could have died) on her own will (plus a stupid mistake on his part). When she saw her teammate get swallowed whole by some prehistoric beast, her willpower had been useless.
Suji couldn't get stuck on that again. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "He's kinda cute though, don't you think?" She looked over at her friend and smirked, obviously trying to change the subject. Grasping the neck of the liquor bottle, Suji took another gulp.
Luce:
"Drake or the crocodile?" Luce asked, giving Suji privacy and space by following her into lighter topics. She turned back to look at the ocean and began assembling her little mountain again. "I...don't know," she finally answered, frowning.
Was Drake cute? Had she thought anyone was cute? She really didn't go around trying to figure it out and most people knew better than to bring the topic up with her. She really wasn't interested and it just annoyed her to be forced to waste time on something that was normally so trivial. Most people's emotions didn't seem to run much deeper than their thoughts and whatever feelings they thought they had were gone before they had even figured out what they were. So Luce really didn't like having to talk about such ephemeral things with people she normally didn't even like much to begin with.
This happened to be an exception. She liked Suji and respected her enough to know boy's were not the only thing on her mind. So she gave the question some thought and began to realize that she didn't find Drake attractive at all. Or Rian. Or Ray. Not really.
Now Luce was the one who was unconsciously curling into a fetal position as she began to track her own reactions to people back as far as she could remember. "Mmm." It was a sound of slight disapproval and if she had been paying attention she would have recognized it. Her mother had often made a sound like that when looking at phone bills or a paper that Luce had gotten a B on. It was a sound that said, not what I expected to see and it carried a slight tone of disappointment.
"You know, I never really thought about it until now, but I don't think I see men that way. Does that make me gay?" she asked, her voice tripping a bit on the last word. It was a label she had never thought to apply to herself and she didn't much like using it now. It carried too much weight...too many implications and expectations that she had no interest in fulfilling. It felt like an identity outside of her own, one that she would be forced to take on if she began applying the word to herself.
When there were so many other things that Luce felt she was and so many other things that she was expected to be she really didn't like the idea of taking on a mass produced identity. And it would be for no other purpose than to help define an aspect of her life that was no one else's business anyway. Besides, if she was getting technical, she should probably try to invent a word for someone who was attracted to aliens.
Suji:
Luce actually seemed to be giving it some thought, where Suji had expected (and prepared herself) for being laughed at. In fact she wished Luce would have just joked with her about it. Then Suji could have made it into a joke too. That'd been the intent. The fact that Luce was taking her serious with it meant that for the moment she had to entertain it as a serious thought. Did she really think Drake was cute? What the hell did 'cute' mean any way? Puppies and kittens were cute. Glitter was cute. Drake was a slightly gawky if dreamy-eyed teenaged boy.
So reframe the terminology. Did she think Drake was attractive? She felt a prickly discomfort inside of herself. Finding someone attractive didn't mean anything, and most of the time it wasn't supposed to. Attraction was nothing but a cocktail of hormones, current conditions, and availability. She'd found Riley remotely attractive, might have even warmed enough to Rian to find him attractive after the Dam mission. But it wasn't as if attraction precluded some sort of action taken.
Yeah but you didn't kiss Riley or Rian.
-I also didn't watch either of them be eaten by a crocodile!
Which was a fair point. Luce spoke again, and Suji snickered lightly over at her. "No, having a fucking Controller girlfriend makes you gay."
Luce:
"Thanks," she said dryly. "Here I was, giving your question some serious thought and you didn't even wait to respond to mine," she chided but she was actually relieved. Wasn't sure she wanted to take on the gay title and go around waving a fucking rainbow flag anytime soon, wasn't even sure if such distinctions meant anything anymore, but she was glad not to have to talk about it. Joking. Humor. Easy way out but sometimes you needed it.
"Last time I ask you anything," Luce said, giving up on her sand castle/mountain and laying back on the sand so that she could see the stars. They were amazingly clear out here. But they were actually amazingly clear almost everywhere now a days. The yeerks had cut back drastically on the amount of cars on the road. There were still some, but not many so air pollution had dropped way down.
Luce had once read that if insects disappeared the world would crash in three months or something like that, but if humans disappeared the world would revert back to what it had been in three years. Well, on the surface anyway. Their pollution would still be stored in the ice caps, a record for whoever found the empty planet that they'd been here. It probably wasn't true anyway, there was really no way to know something like that. But she'd liked thinking about it at the time, liked thinking that a beetle might be more important than a human.
Well this wasn't exactly what the pseudo-scientists had meant by humans disappearing, but it seemed the world really was recovering. In some ways at least. If it wasn't for the fact that the yeerks had worked very hard to exterminate most wild life she might even claim they'd been better for the planet than humans had.
"If we ever win nothing will be the same," Luce said looking up at the stars and knowing what was up there, at least some of what was up there. She contemplated the sky for another minute or two, "and she isn't my girlfriend," she said, a bit uncomfortable with that title as well.
Suji:
Suji laughed at Luce. Slowly she unwound, stretching out her legs again. "Maybe. But nothing will be the same if lose either," she intoned with a shrug. "And whatever you say." With a sigh she leaned back as well, huffing as she hit the sand. She closed her eyes, and felt herself swimming slowly through the darkness behind them. It was inky, but soft, welcoming. She wasn't as drunk as she'd been before. It just felt like floating--maybe what it would be like to drift through the water not far away.
"How much did you ever hear about Chicago?" Suji said in an exhale, a sigh. "I feel like I can't shake that place off my back, no matter how hard I try." Fuck. Again, slipping into the serious side of things. But she couldn't help it. Her mind was going and going, whirling in the space that existed underneath her eyelids. For now she just had to ride that wave, stay afloat, pretend not to know that there was no land in sight.
Luce:
Luce had to think about it. That whole thinking thing was getting a bit harder as the night went on. Especially now that she was laying down. This day had started early and would probably not end until they were back where they'd started. She swore to herself that she was going to go to sleep, no matter what they were talking about, if she saw the sun rising. But she could stay up a bit more. She had survived worse.
"I remember that Chicago's faction leader is a..." she tried to think of a diplomatic word remembering the promise she'd made to Cassie a long time ago to respect faction leaders. But then again, who was here to hear her? If she couldn't speak plainly with Suji who could she talk to? "an idiot. And she accused you of murdering someone. Or maybe two someone's. I wasn't too clear on that. To be honest I was too busy being angry on your behalf," she said laughing a little.
"Why? How much of it was true?" She strongly doubted that it was a complete lie. For one, she didn't think Raven had the imagination to think up something so elaborate nor the balls to spread the lie even if she had come up with it. And for another, Suji herself had made enough allusions to the incident in her time here that there had to be some story behind it.
Suji:
An idiot? Suji smiled unpleasantly. Maybe not an idiot. It might be a smart choice to choose hiding from the war rather than fighting in it. But it wasn't the responsible choice. If she wasn't stupid then she was, at least, a shitty soldier. A worse leader. She didn't deserve the power she had, whether you counted that as morphing or being the head of a faction.
"Enough of it," Suji answered. "There was a kid that joined us who tripped my alarms as soon as I met him. I just thought he was kind of a coward, or using us for getting the morphing ability, or something. Just not trustworthy. Turns out he was some kind of serial killer, and he targeted Raven. And because she's a stupid fucking cow," Suji practically spat, angry especially because it meant the responsibility with dealing with Toby had to be passed to someone else, "she was an easy target at that. Pregnant, you see. Refuses to morph because she thinks she could lose the kid or something. Getting pregnant in a war in the first place..." Suji felt her jaw tighten.
"Anyway. We finally caught him. His sister let Raven go. That night I came back and killed the kid. Raven, of course, hated the idea of killing him. I 'went against orders.' Her fucking boyfriend would have done it if I hadn't. So that was even more reason that I had to. He--Riley or whatever--is the only thing close to a real leader that Chicago's got. And I don't think she could live with it if Riley-dear killed someone right under her nose. Kid had the fucking morphing power though. What the hell can you do?"
Suji took a long, long drink out of the bottle. The world was spinning more now, less of a single swelling wave as she got through about in the dark. "She gave him the damn morphing power after I told them he couldn't be trusted. You don't just... give that fucking technology to someone you mistrust. And when you give it to anyone, anyone," Suji knew she was rambling now, impassioned, but she couldn't stop herself. "-You take responsibility for them. You create them. Give them the power to do really fucking terrible shit. And that means that if they do, you fucking own up and you put a stop to it. You don't hide behind pacifism to piss and moan about killing being wrong."
Suji clutched at her temple with one hand. "The best part though, the best part was how fucking self-righteous she was about it. Like she was better than everyone because she didn't do bad things, like all the other lowly specimens. Even though it was her job, as a leader to do that shit so other people wouldn't have to. What a fucking coward."
Luce:
"You killed a-" she stopped herself from saying child at the last minute. When the sentence played itself in her head it sounded accusatory and it wasn't meant to be. "fellow animorph?" she finished.
It wasn't really a question that needed to be answered. The story made it evident what she'd done, at least in that regard. Luce was just speaking out loud, trying to put some framework to what she'd heard. "And...Riley agreed with your decision but...left it to you to do. Raven didn't, therefore also leaving it to you to do."
She looked over at Suji and had to move her own elbow out of her way to be able to see her friend's face. It didn't reveal much, it never did. But..."why did you do it? And I don't mean why did it have to be done. You've made it clear you thought he was a security risk and I agree with you. But why did you do it. Why not force Riley? Raven?"
Suji:
Suji sighed. She listened to the words come out of Luce's mouth, let them wash over her. Luce had it right, at least as 'right' as the situation had ever been. When Luce finished, Suji dropped the hand that had been clutching her temple back to the sand. It hit the grainy soil with a dull plop.
"Raven never would have done it. This is the woman that chose to have a baby while maintaining her title as 'faction leader.' She would have called Cassie, and furthermore tried to rope her into figuring something out. Cassie..." Suji couldn't help but feel another minor flash of anger, rooted deeper still. She'd never have had to deal with this if it weren't for Cassie's decision to assign her there.
"Cassie might have come to good sense and realized he needed to die, but she probably would have humored Raven for a while in the hope that either of them could think of a better solution. And in the time it might have taken for Raven to actually get an order to get rid of him, he could have likely escaped. At one point during the whole mess he'd even broken into the blood vials, and there was no telling what he'd acquired."
The resources it would take to keep an Animorph imprisoned for an indefinite period would be staggering. Suji thought of David handling guard duty and shuddered.
"Riley is... Riley's a bit more complicated, but it still comes back to her. He's the only leader they've really got in Chicago. I don't know if Raven could have lived with her baby-daddy or whatever going against her wishes and killing a kid. I couldn't risk his authority being undermined in a spat between them. For all I know she might have gone ballistic and tried to send him away. In any case... I just couldn't jeopardize his position there. Better for me to take the fall." There was no trace of self-pity in her voice. There was still plenty of anger, however.
Luce:
"You're too damn practical for your own good sometimes you know that," Luce responded to her long list of explanations and reasons. The long speech had worried her. Not because Suji was wrong but because she was right. Too right.
She had sat there and thought all of that out. And not once had she mentioned what it felt like to have to kill someone. No feelings, just logic...well there was anger but Luce didn't think anger was very helpful. Who was she angry at exactly? Raven? Riley? Cassie? Herself? Probably all of the above.
"Why was it better for you to take the fall? You said it yourself, it was Riley's and Raven's responsibility. So you take the fall just because they might...break up? Because it might endanger the stability of their relationship and so the whole faction. If that were really true then they aren't fit to be faction leaders in the first place." Great, now she was getting angry. At least her anger was slightly more useful. She was angry at God and the Universe and everyone knew that if you railed against the world long enough and loud enough it would change. If only.
"This is all hard enough. We are all going to have to...have already done things we aren't proud of, that will give us nightmares but..." Luce tried to figure out what her point was or if she even had one at all. "They signed up for that too. I guess....just don't take on more sins than you can carry is all, especially if they rightfully belong to someone else. I don't want...to have to worry about you."
Suji:
"Of course they weren't fit to be faction leaders." Suji had to fight to keep herself from snapping at Luce, and the liquor made it that much harder to reign in her temper. "Raven signed up for it, signed up for protecting people, and she wasn't ready to. And I could never-" And Suji's voice changed, stronger, less forced, "I will never let someone put other Animorphs in danger if there is anything I can do to stop it. Raven might need to learn a lesson or two about responsibility, but I couldn't let her test that out on her faction, on all of us."
Luce made it sound like Suji had just decided to pick up more than her share arbitrarily, like she'd carried an extra load instead of making Raven and Riley do their work for themselves. It wasn't that simple. "I don't imagine that I can always stop people from having to go through tough shit, even if I'd want to. But I didn't have any choice. Backing off and waiting for the kid to escape on the principle of 'if's not my problem' just isn't really a choice at all."
Her friend had probably meant it simply as a way to look out for Suji. Maybe she thought Suji was heading down a path of trying to martyr herself over and over rather than letting other people have to experience what it was like to close your eyes on your morality. Suji didn't think that was the case, though part of her certainly acknowledged that it was a tempting thought. At least in that case she would never have to rely on someone else to make a tough call.
Luce:
"Don't get defensive Suj," Luce replied. "I said I agree with you. I get it. I just...I'd rather lose Raven, maybe even a faction, than you. It isn't the big picture, I get that so I guess it is a good thing I wasn't the one who had to make a choice. There is a reason I'm not a faction leader or leader of any sort. I don't want to have to make those choices, I don't think I could." Luce stopped talking. There really wasn't much she could say. Suji had done what she had to. They all did things that they had to and if it hurt them later, well they just had to learn to live with it or not. She wasn't doing her any favors by trying to protect her and she was starting to feel like she was just digging a deeper hole anyway.
She searched around for a neutral topic and was coming up blank. She listened to the sounds of the waves beating endlessly against the shore while birds and other animals she couldn't recognize the call of called to each other. There was a low, far off sound of people talking, the few die hards from the party were still around, determined to greet the dawn it seemed. She wondered how many of their hide and seek team mates were still back there and that seemed like the only neutral topic of conversation. "Um...Seeley, is he cute?"
Suji:
Suji did her best to let the anger go, but it wasn't really like letting go of anything. The burning, bitter hate was still there, and it was hate, she couldn't deny that. Perhaps not for any one individual involved in all of it, but it laid there, festering. The best she could do was box it up again, shove it back in the corner where it'd been collecting dust. The idea of carrying that feeling around, that poison, made her feel sick. But she couldn't get rid of it either.
What had happened in Chicago had cut through her, gnawed at the very bones of who she was. To give up how she felt about that, to accept it, to put it in the past would be to deny her most ingrained beliefs and values. Leaders needed to protect those they lead. And if they couldn't, they forfeited their right to lead. Suji would never abide herself to follow an order that involved letting someone like Toby live to hurt them another day.
Luce changed the conversation and Suji was glad. That helped at least shift her mind away from Chicago. "Seeley?" Suji thought for a moment. "I don't know. Ed was cute. That Kameron guy was a little boring. Seeley... I don't know if cute is the word, but he had a definite tall dark and built thing going on." Suji smirked. "Which girl was the cutest?"
Luce:
"S-" she stopped and looked over at Suji. "You're trying to trick me." She thought back over the night. "I think that...um...Greg was the nicest person we met and the one I admire the most." She was doing her best to sound objective. "And I like his accent. It is one I haven't heard in a long time. Reminds me of being a kid. Just one of those things that brings you right back. Kind of like hearing the pokemon theme song but better and less annoying."
But her mind had been running along two tracks as she spoke and she randomly changed topics. "You know what is weird. I never dated anyone in high school. Just wasn't interested. Girls or guys, it didn't really matter. And I wonder what I would have been on my own. Like, is this just because of Jals or is it me? And...Jals was in a male body before it took over mine. So do yeerks even care? It is just really really weird to think about."
Suji:
Suji smirked. "I never dated anyone either. No one met my standards. I don't even think I knew what my 'standards' were. It probably required some Grecian notion of beauty." It was almost painful to think about how... petty she'd been. "I wouldn't have poked a skinny kid like Drake with a stick, let alone kissed him. Then again, never had to worry about crocodiles eating people in front of me."
She thought about Jals for a moment in uncomfortable silence. Thinking about Jals made her think about Sedra. She didn't say it, but if Luce was wondering if Jals preference had transferred to her, well, then how likely was it that his feelings for Sedra did too? Stockholm syndrome, that was what she had thought about back on the bus. "It's a good question," was all she answered, neutral.
"Do you think most of these kids will even remember a free Earth?"
Luce:
"They will if we win," was Luce's only response. She didn't want to think about a whole generation growing up in this even though she knew it was the most likely thing. She honestly couldn't see this war playing out with a clear winner anyway. Humans would always find a way to free themselves, especially when their were yeerks out there like the YPM around. And yet, the yeerks had gotten inside humanity, literally. She wasn't sure there was a way to kick them out now. And what would they do with them? Would they all go? What about the YPM? Would yeerks be forced back into the pools and shipped off. She could just not imagine what an ultimate win by the humans would even look like at this point.
"Ug. I'm about to fall asleep right here in the sand. In fact that seems like a really good idea right now." She closed her eyes, telling herself she was just resting them. Her dad had always said that. I'm just resting my eyes. And then he'd fall asleep. "This day has been too long, fun, but too long," she said, the words devolving into a mumble by the end.
Suji:
"You should probably head back to camp. I wouldn't want to be found out here by any rambunctious refugee children." Suji didn't move from her spot. The sand was comfortable, and the sound of the waves was something she wasn't sure she'd get to hear again any time soon. And how often did she get a bit of free time, free from having to worry about the next mission? She was in an in-between space, and it was nice. Even going from NYC to Chicago, or Chicago to Vegas, hadn't been like this.
"I'm going to lie here and sober up a bit more. Still not tired." Which wasn't really true. She was exhausted. But it wasn't the kind of weariness that even a good night's rest would fix. Maybe several months worth of rest... but the prospect of ever getting that seemed very, very small. Lightly, she tapped her fingernails on the bottle next to her, listening to the clinking noise.
Luce:
"Alright then. Night Suj." Luce said the words but the thought of moving was so unpleasant. It would be much easier to just lay here, the sand was comfortable and she was already laying down...but oh well, a night sleeping in the sand, even if it was warm out, would mean an uncomfortable ride tomorrow. Sand had a tendency to get into everything. She was sure the damage had already been done and she'd be shaking sand out of pockets and out from under straps all day tomorrow as it was but there was no reason to get it in her hair.
She rolled onto her stomach in preparation for getting up and again, just stayed there for a while. She looked like she was trying to make a sand angel, except face down. Her cheek was against the grit of the sand. It is probably already in my hair. I don't have to move. It was always so easy to justify staying in bed when you were already there. So easy.
"Ok, I'm getting up," she said to Suji and herself. She put her hands under her shoulders and pushed against the ground. "Ug, sleep, did they mention where we could pass out?" She asked as she got to her feet. "Or should I just wander around hoping someone will let me crash in their bed?"
Suji:
Luce said goodnight but didn't move. When Suji didn't hear her rustling at first, she looked over. Then Luce rolled unto her stomach... and stayed there. She almost wondered if Luce had fallen asleep like that. She had to be tired, but she wasn't drunk any more, so Suji doubted it. Eventually she got to her feet.
"I don't remember. I figure they have to have extra beds somewhere. You could always ask Summer." Suji smiled a bit deviously. Earlier when she'd asked who Luce thought was the cutest, Luce had started with an S. "That or find Greg. He might still be running around."
Luce:
Luce rubbed her eyes and stretched the muscles in her back and shoulders as she yawned. Her spine cracked with a satisfying crunching sound and a release of pressure.
She only raised an eyebrow at Suji's suggestion. "I'm too tired to do anything about it even if she said yes," she responded, deciding not to outright refuse Suji's assertion, having a feeling it would only make it look more true, not less. "Besides, I think my girlfriend would object if she ever found out."
Her mind briefly flashed back to the girl in New York. She had come so close to making a mistake there. And the fact that her reason for stopping was a controller offered her no comfort. But for better or for worse, and gods most days it looked like worse, she had chosen Sedra. She would just have to see where that choice took her.
"Oh well, guess I'll figure something out. Night."
Suji:
"Night." Suji listened to Luce walking away, could hear the quiet whisper of the sand sliding under her feet. It wasn't long before she couldn't even hear that, and she knew Luce had gone on. She was alone. Suji closed her eyes and sighed.
There was more to that story, Suji thought darkly, pained. Sophia. She hadn't said anything about Sophia. Maybe Luce had interpreted that information from what she had said... but even if Luce had, it wasn't the same as admitting to it. And she wasn't so sure she'd want Luce inferring something like that about her, even if it happened to be true. Especially if it was true.
Just then she heard the familiar shifting noise of sand grains grinding other sand grains. "Luce?" Suji called, turning her head to look towards the noise. But the figure that came around the dune was much shorter than that. She sat up, and now as he came closer, Suji could tell who it was. Tobin. She felt her body stiffen. His face was pulled taut into a scowl, and she expected that much. But it was more than that: not just anger, but confusion too.
Immediately she understood.
"How much did you hear?" She asked, eyeing him.
"You killed someone," he said, and it wasn't really an answer, but it was answer enough. Whatever warmth that had returned to her bled out again. She actually felt as her eyes went dead behind her eyes: a sensation she was familiar with, the mask sliding down. Still, he walked towards her, circling until he was between her and the water. She could see the moon reflecting off the waves far out behind him.
"Yes," she replied. She didn't deny it, but she felt vulnerable and guilty--fresh guilt, that was, for Tobin having heard her admit it. He had already had to deal with his supposed rescuer forcing him to be a Controller. Now one of the 'heroes' had murdered someone. He couldn't think they were all like that. They weren't. She couldn't let him think that. "They're not all like me. The rest of the Animorphs. They're... better."
His brow was still furrowed. "He was an Animorph. The guy you killed."
Suji wanted to wince, but the mask was still down. "Yeah. That was a mistake." Not mine, she wanted to add, but didn't. She didn't want to look like she was whining. God, the only thing worse than living with what she did would be complaining about it too. Tobin's eyes moved over her slowly, and the stare was recognizable. He was judging her. Maybe in time he'd learn to hide it better--like she did. Maybe not though. Perhaps it'd be better if he didn't.
"You did what you had to do," he said very clearly. Still, Suji felt herself freeze. He continued to stare at her, and she was stunned.
"...excuse me?"
"Just like back at the plane. You did what you had to do." Suji felt her heart breaking, and an uncomfortable lump rose in her throat. Looking away, she covered a short, sobbing gasp with a fake cough. With one rough wipe she rubbed away the tears that had started to form in the corners of her eyes. For a moment she couldn't look up, could only look away from him, doing her best not to break down in front of this kid. It was somehow worse than Luce. Because he should have been yelling at her, screaming at her that she was a killer, a murderer. Not validating her choice. Suji trembled slightly, though she willed her eyes to stay dry--and they did.
"I'm sorry for before--sorry I screa-"
"Stop!" Suji cut him off, glared at him, felt her lips pull back over her teeth in a frantic snarl. Tobin stepped back quickly, shocked, and he even looked mildly frightened: as if being scolded or yelled at was going to be followed by some kind of punishment. This time Suji couldn't hide her wince, and she took a breath, composing herself. "Don't. Come here." Suji gestured towards the spot where Luce had been sitting. Tobin hesitated, but eventually walked over and sat down.
"You never have to apologize for that. What we did was wrong." Suji swallowed, her hands tightening into fists. "What I did was wrong."
Tobin didn't blatantly look over at her, but he was watching her from the corner of his eyes. Another small act he hadn't learned to conceal. "You didn't have a choice," he said, and in it she heard her own voice from the day before, from the bus.
"I didn't have a choice," he quipped back, and the rest of the bus was silent. Pairs of eyes peeked over the backs of seats. Suji looked him up and down, regarded him. His back was straight and his chest was inflated, undoubtedly burning with fury that was only barely contained. But it was contained. And that was admirable.
"Neither did we."
"There's always a choice," Suji replied, though she knew it was hypocritical. She didn't look at him when she spoke, stared at the water instead, trying to ignore the way he was still watching her, sizing her. Her gut twisted. No. No. He couldn't look up to her. She had to convince herself that that wasn't happening, not even subconsciously. "It's just that sometimes... a lot of the time... none of them are very good."
Suji:
"Then how do you decide what to do?" Tobin asked, though she had a feeling that he already knew the answer. Maybe he just wanted to hear it. Maybe he knows you need to say it, she thought, and rubbed her temples for a moment.
"You protect as many people as you can." There was more she could have said. Something like, people say it shouldn't be about numbers, but in the end, if you save five lives by letting one go, that's... that's better than vice versa. But she didn't. She didn't get to give this kid a speech about morality. That wasn't her place. She looked over at him, and he immediately looked away, realizing he'd been caught staring. "I really am sorry about what happened back in Indonesia," she said. Earlier today (or yesterday by now) she'd been sure that she had nothing to apologize for.
But she did. And she meant it. She was sorry.
"It wasn't your fault," he said, looking back over at her, watching her a little less openly. "It wasn't."
"Maybe not. But someone owes you an apology. Consider it delivered." She replied dryly, and then lifted the bottle next to her for another swig. She shouldn't keep drinking. She was going to have one hell of a headache tomorrow. Well, unless she morphed it away... she took another gulp.
When she set the bottle back down, she saw that his eyes followed it. She arched an eyebrow. "You want some? It tastes like licking the inside of a rusty gas tank." Again he had a slightly guilty look on his face, as if being found out.
"No- um-" Suji smiled, a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth, in spite of herself. The trace of guilt made him look like a kid. Really a kid, on the inside too--one that hadn't been through hell. "Sure."
"All right then." She lifted the bottle by its neck, and he shifted his weight to take it. Before he could, she tipped the thing sideways. The liquor splashed around inside, and poured out, darkening a tiny pool of sand where it hit. He was surprised by this, but before he could react more than that, she stopped pouring. Holding the bottle up to the moonlight, she gauged how much was left. "All yours," she said, and handed it over to him. She'd dumped at least half of it what had been in it out.
There was still enough to get a kid his size plenty drunk, but she wasn't going to have alcohol poisoning of a minor on her conscience. He took the bottle warily, as if she might decide to take it away again.
"I wouldn't have drank it all you know," he said, voice so perfectly indignant that it actually made her laugh.
"Oh, I'm sure you're right. Bottoms up." In an effort to prove himself, he gave her a stern look before raising the bottle to his mouth. His eyes locked on hers for a moment, and then he tilted his head back at a sharp angle so that the liquid would pour fastest. Suji could have warned him. But she knew it would have only seemed patronizing to him. He wouldn't believe her unless he tested it for himself.
The look of disgust mixed with agony on his face when he got a rather large mouthful of the liquor was priceless. Maybe she should have felt bad--she felt only the slightest twinge of guilt--but mostly it was just funny. He quickly righted his himself, pulling the bottle away. To his credit, he didn't spit the horrible liquor out, and managed to swallow it. Unable to control the contortion of his facial features, for a moment he just sat there and panted.
When he regained some of his composure, he glared at her for a moment. She expected him to snap at her for not warning him, but he didn't. He didn't even complain about the taste. In fact, staring at her again, he took another drink. This one was much more restrained, but still, she was vaguely impressed. The kid made his point.
"Don't drink it too fast," Suji said eventually. "You'll start feeling it soon, don't worry." Deciding to trust her after how horrible the drink had tasted, he lowered the bottle to his lap. He stared down at it for a while, and Suji wondered if he was going to be sick or something. It was the first time he wasn't staring at her.
"Do you know why I was a Controller when you guys rescued everyone? Even though no one else was?" He didn't look up as he asked it, and his voice was gentle, fragile even.
"No," she answered truthfully.
Suji:
OOC: Luce and Suji quietly split during the game of hide and seek.
Suji took a deep swig from the bottle she'd nicked back in the "base." Now that her blood alcohol level was back in the toxic regions, she could barely taste the sting of it once more. The sand underfoot shifted uneasily, but Suji generally managed to stay upright. Once they reached the waterfront, however, she plopped down less than gracefully. A small hilly dune behind them would block them from view, unless the hide and seek team came looking all the way over here.
Suji yanked her shoes off roughly, relishing the feel of the dry sand under her bare feet. Her mind was in a lovely hazy state, and everything seemed okay in the world. As if she might as well be on Spring Break in her first year at college (or, God, would she be in her second year by now?) and this was entirely normal. "We should stay here. I bet the sun bathing is killer," she said to Luce, holding out the liquor bottle.
Luce:
Luce shook her head at the offer of the bottle and leaned back in the sand, eyes on the moonlit ocean. There were still a few sounds of partying behind them back towards the bonfire but it was winding down as the night passed the midway mark which was 3 am in Luce's mind. "I tried the drunk thing. Didn't like it too much," she said quietly, "bad memories and all that."
She picked up some sand and let it run between her fingers. It made a little pile under her hand. She picked up some more sand and began adding it to what would soon be a mountain, she was sure. There was a breeze coming in off the water that made the sand fall in small fan and a few grains were even blowing into her eyes but she didn't mind the feeling too much.
"It's nice here," she admitted, "but I want to go home." It was an odd statement to hear coming out of her own mouth. What the hell did home mean? She supposed it meant Vegas. "But it is going to feel less like home without you there. Sure I can't change your mind about the whole Dallas thing?"
Suji:
Suji shrugged at Luce's refusal, and set the bottle in the sand an equal distance between them. She twisted it back and forth, digging it deep enough so that it wouldn't fall over. Though the noises drifted from the party were still present, they were far enough away that she could hear the gentle lapping of the bay against the shore. Suji looked over at Luce playing with the sand. She was content just to shift her feet back and forth, feeling the oddly yielding roughness of the texture on her toes.
She snickered lightly when Luce said that it wouldn't feel like home without her. Did it really feel more like home for Luce, for the weeks Suji had been around? She couldn't know. "You only want me to stay 'cause I've already got a foot out the door," she smirked, then felt bad because of how cynical it had sounded. "But nah. I need something new." Suji looked out over the water, eyelids fluttering momentarily. "It's nice that you've got a place you call home though. When you don't, everything kind of just gets flattened out, bleeds together. I keep hoping I'll hit higher ground or something and it'll stop..." She shook her head; she was rambling.
"What makes Vegas a home? 'Cause if it's the desert, well, I'm sure there's got to be some desert in Texas."
Luce:
Luce shrugged. "Not sure. Not even sure it is. I guess it is the closest thing I have to it though," Luce said still playing with sand. She had a very strong desire to either pour out whatever was in that bottle or go down to the shore and try to bring some water back so that she could build a sand castle. How long had it been since she'd built one? A long time she supposed. She wasn't a kid anymore. She was all grown up and killing, hurting, rescuing, saving other people's kids now. And her own? She supposed she didn't have any, never would. Except-
"What happened in Indonesia?" she asked, thinking of Eva and Andrew. She hadn't really talked to any of the kids since they had shown up at the base. She hadn't been given much time to. But she had watched at least two of them. She had never been quite brave enough to approach them. Eva might remember her but Andrew certainly would. And now they were gone...kind of. Beyond her reach anyhow. Sedra had them now and Luce wasn't supposed to go anywhere near her. That part of Rian's "punishment" was still firmly in place...as it should be she supposed.
She looked up at Suji, wanting to take her mind off her own troubles. "How come that kid was so mad at you?"
Suji:
Suji let out a heavy sigh. She rubbed the back of her neck, twisting her hair into a ponytail and pulling it over her shoulder. "We needed a pilot to get everyone out. They were training the kids to fly. Well they were training their Yeerks." Suji massaged her temples. "We realized that if you didn't have a Yeerk in your head, the seat of the ship would detect it." The pleasant fogginess was drifting away.
"I had to hold down that kid, Tobin or whatever. I held him down while Drake got Robert, and we had him reinfested so we could leave." Though Suji's voice wasn't emotional, it was strained. "He was screaming the whole time. Up until Robert took over. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't the worst part of the mission, but it was bad."
Luce:
Luce stopped making her sand castle and looked over at Suji. She was staring and others might find the situation awkward but Luce seemed to be oblivious to such social subtleties. She wasn't, she just chose to ignore them when they seemed to get in the way.
Right now she was trying to decide how she felt about what Suji had just said. Disgust? Maybe at one point but not really, not now. She didn't really have a right to judge anyone else. But it was more than that. She was starting to see the gray now. She used to live by absolutes, yeerks were bad, kill them. It was easy and it was naive in its own way. She had thought she was such a bad ass soldier but she had been hiding from the realities of the war in a lot of ways.
She wasn't so naive anymore. If Suji had helped infest the kid then she probably felt like she'd needed to. And the kids had gotten out. Tobin was alive and free and much more likely to stay that way than he would have been living in that farm. So maybe, if the good outweighed the bad, they could call it a good day, a win.
"What was the worst thing?" she finally asked after the silence had stretched on for a couple of minutes.
Suji:
Suji shook her head. For a moment she felt close to tears, and she had to assume that was from the alcohol. She drew her legs up, and crossed her arms over them, resting her chin on her arms. It was a little too fetal for her liking, but it beat crying. "Just the Drake thing. Just... I've seen people die. But that." Suji shook her head slightly, though she couldn't move it very far because of her position. "It was so fast. So utterly random and pointless. I've never felt so completely powerless."
That made Suji stop. Was that the truth? Really? She remembered Toby's owl swooping down on her own: the claws biting into her tiny body. She remember falling like a rock through the air, hitting the soft bed of pine needles below. But still... Indonesia, the crocodile, that had been worse. At least when Toby had almost killed her it had been her. Ultimately she had lived (just as she could have died) on her own will (plus a stupid mistake on his part). When she saw her teammate get swallowed whole by some prehistoric beast, her willpower had been useless.
Suji couldn't get stuck on that again. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "He's kinda cute though, don't you think?" She looked over at her friend and smirked, obviously trying to change the subject. Grasping the neck of the liquor bottle, Suji took another gulp.
Luce:
"Drake or the crocodile?" Luce asked, giving Suji privacy and space by following her into lighter topics. She turned back to look at the ocean and began assembling her little mountain again. "I...don't know," she finally answered, frowning.
Was Drake cute? Had she thought anyone was cute? She really didn't go around trying to figure it out and most people knew better than to bring the topic up with her. She really wasn't interested and it just annoyed her to be forced to waste time on something that was normally so trivial. Most people's emotions didn't seem to run much deeper than their thoughts and whatever feelings they thought they had were gone before they had even figured out what they were. So Luce really didn't like having to talk about such ephemeral things with people she normally didn't even like much to begin with.
This happened to be an exception. She liked Suji and respected her enough to know boy's were not the only thing on her mind. So she gave the question some thought and began to realize that she didn't find Drake attractive at all. Or Rian. Or Ray. Not really.
Now Luce was the one who was unconsciously curling into a fetal position as she began to track her own reactions to people back as far as she could remember. "Mmm." It was a sound of slight disapproval and if she had been paying attention she would have recognized it. Her mother had often made a sound like that when looking at phone bills or a paper that Luce had gotten a B on. It was a sound that said, not what I expected to see and it carried a slight tone of disappointment.
"You know, I never really thought about it until now, but I don't think I see men that way. Does that make me gay?" she asked, her voice tripping a bit on the last word. It was a label she had never thought to apply to herself and she didn't much like using it now. It carried too much weight...too many implications and expectations that she had no interest in fulfilling. It felt like an identity outside of her own, one that she would be forced to take on if she began applying the word to herself.
When there were so many other things that Luce felt she was and so many other things that she was expected to be she really didn't like the idea of taking on a mass produced identity. And it would be for no other purpose than to help define an aspect of her life that was no one else's business anyway. Besides, if she was getting technical, she should probably try to invent a word for someone who was attracted to aliens.
Suji:
Luce actually seemed to be giving it some thought, where Suji had expected (and prepared herself) for being laughed at. In fact she wished Luce would have just joked with her about it. Then Suji could have made it into a joke too. That'd been the intent. The fact that Luce was taking her serious with it meant that for the moment she had to entertain it as a serious thought. Did she really think Drake was cute? What the hell did 'cute' mean any way? Puppies and kittens were cute. Glitter was cute. Drake was a slightly gawky if dreamy-eyed teenaged boy.
So reframe the terminology. Did she think Drake was attractive? She felt a prickly discomfort inside of herself. Finding someone attractive didn't mean anything, and most of the time it wasn't supposed to. Attraction was nothing but a cocktail of hormones, current conditions, and availability. She'd found Riley remotely attractive, might have even warmed enough to Rian to find him attractive after the Dam mission. But it wasn't as if attraction precluded some sort of action taken.
Yeah but you didn't kiss Riley or Rian.
-I also didn't watch either of them be eaten by a crocodile!
Which was a fair point. Luce spoke again, and Suji snickered lightly over at her. "No, having a fucking Controller girlfriend makes you gay."
Luce:
"Thanks," she said dryly. "Here I was, giving your question some serious thought and you didn't even wait to respond to mine," she chided but she was actually relieved. Wasn't sure she wanted to take on the gay title and go around waving a fucking rainbow flag anytime soon, wasn't even sure if such distinctions meant anything anymore, but she was glad not to have to talk about it. Joking. Humor. Easy way out but sometimes you needed it.
"Last time I ask you anything," Luce said, giving up on her sand castle/mountain and laying back on the sand so that she could see the stars. They were amazingly clear out here. But they were actually amazingly clear almost everywhere now a days. The yeerks had cut back drastically on the amount of cars on the road. There were still some, but not many so air pollution had dropped way down.
Luce had once read that if insects disappeared the world would crash in three months or something like that, but if humans disappeared the world would revert back to what it had been in three years. Well, on the surface anyway. Their pollution would still be stored in the ice caps, a record for whoever found the empty planet that they'd been here. It probably wasn't true anyway, there was really no way to know something like that. But she'd liked thinking about it at the time, liked thinking that a beetle might be more important than a human.
Well this wasn't exactly what the pseudo-scientists had meant by humans disappearing, but it seemed the world really was recovering. In some ways at least. If it wasn't for the fact that the yeerks had worked very hard to exterminate most wild life she might even claim they'd been better for the planet than humans had.
"If we ever win nothing will be the same," Luce said looking up at the stars and knowing what was up there, at least some of what was up there. She contemplated the sky for another minute or two, "and she isn't my girlfriend," she said, a bit uncomfortable with that title as well.
Suji:
Suji laughed at Luce. Slowly she unwound, stretching out her legs again. "Maybe. But nothing will be the same if lose either," she intoned with a shrug. "And whatever you say." With a sigh she leaned back as well, huffing as she hit the sand. She closed her eyes, and felt herself swimming slowly through the darkness behind them. It was inky, but soft, welcoming. She wasn't as drunk as she'd been before. It just felt like floating--maybe what it would be like to drift through the water not far away.
"How much did you ever hear about Chicago?" Suji said in an exhale, a sigh. "I feel like I can't shake that place off my back, no matter how hard I try." Fuck. Again, slipping into the serious side of things. But she couldn't help it. Her mind was going and going, whirling in the space that existed underneath her eyelids. For now she just had to ride that wave, stay afloat, pretend not to know that there was no land in sight.
Luce:
Luce had to think about it. That whole thinking thing was getting a bit harder as the night went on. Especially now that she was laying down. This day had started early and would probably not end until they were back where they'd started. She swore to herself that she was going to go to sleep, no matter what they were talking about, if she saw the sun rising. But she could stay up a bit more. She had survived worse.
"I remember that Chicago's faction leader is a..." she tried to think of a diplomatic word remembering the promise she'd made to Cassie a long time ago to respect faction leaders. But then again, who was here to hear her? If she couldn't speak plainly with Suji who could she talk to? "an idiot. And she accused you of murdering someone. Or maybe two someone's. I wasn't too clear on that. To be honest I was too busy being angry on your behalf," she said laughing a little.
"Why? How much of it was true?" She strongly doubted that it was a complete lie. For one, she didn't think Raven had the imagination to think up something so elaborate nor the balls to spread the lie even if she had come up with it. And for another, Suji herself had made enough allusions to the incident in her time here that there had to be some story behind it.
Suji:
An idiot? Suji smiled unpleasantly. Maybe not an idiot. It might be a smart choice to choose hiding from the war rather than fighting in it. But it wasn't the responsible choice. If she wasn't stupid then she was, at least, a shitty soldier. A worse leader. She didn't deserve the power she had, whether you counted that as morphing or being the head of a faction.
"Enough of it," Suji answered. "There was a kid that joined us who tripped my alarms as soon as I met him. I just thought he was kind of a coward, or using us for getting the morphing ability, or something. Just not trustworthy. Turns out he was some kind of serial killer, and he targeted Raven. And because she's a stupid fucking cow," Suji practically spat, angry especially because it meant the responsibility with dealing with Toby had to be passed to someone else, "she was an easy target at that. Pregnant, you see. Refuses to morph because she thinks she could lose the kid or something. Getting pregnant in a war in the first place..." Suji felt her jaw tighten.
"Anyway. We finally caught him. His sister let Raven go. That night I came back and killed the kid. Raven, of course, hated the idea of killing him. I 'went against orders.' Her fucking boyfriend would have done it if I hadn't. So that was even more reason that I had to. He--Riley or whatever--is the only thing close to a real leader that Chicago's got. And I don't think she could live with it if Riley-dear killed someone right under her nose. Kid had the fucking morphing power though. What the hell can you do?"
Suji took a long, long drink out of the bottle. The world was spinning more now, less of a single swelling wave as she got through about in the dark. "She gave him the damn morphing power after I told them he couldn't be trusted. You don't just... give that fucking technology to someone you mistrust. And when you give it to anyone, anyone," Suji knew she was rambling now, impassioned, but she couldn't stop herself. "-You take responsibility for them. You create them. Give them the power to do really fucking terrible shit. And that means that if they do, you fucking own up and you put a stop to it. You don't hide behind pacifism to piss and moan about killing being wrong."
Suji clutched at her temple with one hand. "The best part though, the best part was how fucking self-righteous she was about it. Like she was better than everyone because she didn't do bad things, like all the other lowly specimens. Even though it was her job, as a leader to do that shit so other people wouldn't have to. What a fucking coward."
Luce:
"You killed a-" she stopped herself from saying child at the last minute. When the sentence played itself in her head it sounded accusatory and it wasn't meant to be. "fellow animorph?" she finished.
It wasn't really a question that needed to be answered. The story made it evident what she'd done, at least in that regard. Luce was just speaking out loud, trying to put some framework to what she'd heard. "And...Riley agreed with your decision but...left it to you to do. Raven didn't, therefore also leaving it to you to do."
She looked over at Suji and had to move her own elbow out of her way to be able to see her friend's face. It didn't reveal much, it never did. But..."why did you do it? And I don't mean why did it have to be done. You've made it clear you thought he was a security risk and I agree with you. But why did you do it. Why not force Riley? Raven?"
Suji:
Suji sighed. She listened to the words come out of Luce's mouth, let them wash over her. Luce had it right, at least as 'right' as the situation had ever been. When Luce finished, Suji dropped the hand that had been clutching her temple back to the sand. It hit the grainy soil with a dull plop.
"Raven never would have done it. This is the woman that chose to have a baby while maintaining her title as 'faction leader.' She would have called Cassie, and furthermore tried to rope her into figuring something out. Cassie..." Suji couldn't help but feel another minor flash of anger, rooted deeper still. She'd never have had to deal with this if it weren't for Cassie's decision to assign her there.
"Cassie might have come to good sense and realized he needed to die, but she probably would have humored Raven for a while in the hope that either of them could think of a better solution. And in the time it might have taken for Raven to actually get an order to get rid of him, he could have likely escaped. At one point during the whole mess he'd even broken into the blood vials, and there was no telling what he'd acquired."
The resources it would take to keep an Animorph imprisoned for an indefinite period would be staggering. Suji thought of David handling guard duty and shuddered.
"Riley is... Riley's a bit more complicated, but it still comes back to her. He's the only leader they've really got in Chicago. I don't know if Raven could have lived with her baby-daddy or whatever going against her wishes and killing a kid. I couldn't risk his authority being undermined in a spat between them. For all I know she might have gone ballistic and tried to send him away. In any case... I just couldn't jeopardize his position there. Better for me to take the fall." There was no trace of self-pity in her voice. There was still plenty of anger, however.
Luce:
"You're too damn practical for your own good sometimes you know that," Luce responded to her long list of explanations and reasons. The long speech had worried her. Not because Suji was wrong but because she was right. Too right.
She had sat there and thought all of that out. And not once had she mentioned what it felt like to have to kill someone. No feelings, just logic...well there was anger but Luce didn't think anger was very helpful. Who was she angry at exactly? Raven? Riley? Cassie? Herself? Probably all of the above.
"Why was it better for you to take the fall? You said it yourself, it was Riley's and Raven's responsibility. So you take the fall just because they might...break up? Because it might endanger the stability of their relationship and so the whole faction. If that were really true then they aren't fit to be faction leaders in the first place." Great, now she was getting angry. At least her anger was slightly more useful. She was angry at God and the Universe and everyone knew that if you railed against the world long enough and loud enough it would change. If only.
"This is all hard enough. We are all going to have to...have already done things we aren't proud of, that will give us nightmares but..." Luce tried to figure out what her point was or if she even had one at all. "They signed up for that too. I guess....just don't take on more sins than you can carry is all, especially if they rightfully belong to someone else. I don't want...to have to worry about you."
Suji:
"Of course they weren't fit to be faction leaders." Suji had to fight to keep herself from snapping at Luce, and the liquor made it that much harder to reign in her temper. "Raven signed up for it, signed up for protecting people, and she wasn't ready to. And I could never-" And Suji's voice changed, stronger, less forced, "I will never let someone put other Animorphs in danger if there is anything I can do to stop it. Raven might need to learn a lesson or two about responsibility, but I couldn't let her test that out on her faction, on all of us."
Luce made it sound like Suji had just decided to pick up more than her share arbitrarily, like she'd carried an extra load instead of making Raven and Riley do their work for themselves. It wasn't that simple. "I don't imagine that I can always stop people from having to go through tough shit, even if I'd want to. But I didn't have any choice. Backing off and waiting for the kid to escape on the principle of 'if's not my problem' just isn't really a choice at all."
Her friend had probably meant it simply as a way to look out for Suji. Maybe she thought Suji was heading down a path of trying to martyr herself over and over rather than letting other people have to experience what it was like to close your eyes on your morality. Suji didn't think that was the case, though part of her certainly acknowledged that it was a tempting thought. At least in that case she would never have to rely on someone else to make a tough call.
Luce:
"Don't get defensive Suj," Luce replied. "I said I agree with you. I get it. I just...I'd rather lose Raven, maybe even a faction, than you. It isn't the big picture, I get that so I guess it is a good thing I wasn't the one who had to make a choice. There is a reason I'm not a faction leader or leader of any sort. I don't want to have to make those choices, I don't think I could." Luce stopped talking. There really wasn't much she could say. Suji had done what she had to. They all did things that they had to and if it hurt them later, well they just had to learn to live with it or not. She wasn't doing her any favors by trying to protect her and she was starting to feel like she was just digging a deeper hole anyway.
She searched around for a neutral topic and was coming up blank. She listened to the sounds of the waves beating endlessly against the shore while birds and other animals she couldn't recognize the call of called to each other. There was a low, far off sound of people talking, the few die hards from the party were still around, determined to greet the dawn it seemed. She wondered how many of their hide and seek team mates were still back there and that seemed like the only neutral topic of conversation. "Um...Seeley, is he cute?"
Suji:
Suji did her best to let the anger go, but it wasn't really like letting go of anything. The burning, bitter hate was still there, and it was hate, she couldn't deny that. Perhaps not for any one individual involved in all of it, but it laid there, festering. The best she could do was box it up again, shove it back in the corner where it'd been collecting dust. The idea of carrying that feeling around, that poison, made her feel sick. But she couldn't get rid of it either.
What had happened in Chicago had cut through her, gnawed at the very bones of who she was. To give up how she felt about that, to accept it, to put it in the past would be to deny her most ingrained beliefs and values. Leaders needed to protect those they lead. And if they couldn't, they forfeited their right to lead. Suji would never abide herself to follow an order that involved letting someone like Toby live to hurt them another day.
Luce changed the conversation and Suji was glad. That helped at least shift her mind away from Chicago. "Seeley?" Suji thought for a moment. "I don't know. Ed was cute. That Kameron guy was a little boring. Seeley... I don't know if cute is the word, but he had a definite tall dark and built thing going on." Suji smirked. "Which girl was the cutest?"
Luce:
"S-" she stopped and looked over at Suji. "You're trying to trick me." She thought back over the night. "I think that...um...Greg was the nicest person we met and the one I admire the most." She was doing her best to sound objective. "And I like his accent. It is one I haven't heard in a long time. Reminds me of being a kid. Just one of those things that brings you right back. Kind of like hearing the pokemon theme song but better and less annoying."
But her mind had been running along two tracks as she spoke and she randomly changed topics. "You know what is weird. I never dated anyone in high school. Just wasn't interested. Girls or guys, it didn't really matter. And I wonder what I would have been on my own. Like, is this just because of Jals or is it me? And...Jals was in a male body before it took over mine. So do yeerks even care? It is just really really weird to think about."
Suji:
Suji smirked. "I never dated anyone either. No one met my standards. I don't even think I knew what my 'standards' were. It probably required some Grecian notion of beauty." It was almost painful to think about how... petty she'd been. "I wouldn't have poked a skinny kid like Drake with a stick, let alone kissed him. Then again, never had to worry about crocodiles eating people in front of me."
She thought about Jals for a moment in uncomfortable silence. Thinking about Jals made her think about Sedra. She didn't say it, but if Luce was wondering if Jals preference had transferred to her, well, then how likely was it that his feelings for Sedra did too? Stockholm syndrome, that was what she had thought about back on the bus. "It's a good question," was all she answered, neutral.
"Do you think most of these kids will even remember a free Earth?"
Luce:
"They will if we win," was Luce's only response. She didn't want to think about a whole generation growing up in this even though she knew it was the most likely thing. She honestly couldn't see this war playing out with a clear winner anyway. Humans would always find a way to free themselves, especially when their were yeerks out there like the YPM around. And yet, the yeerks had gotten inside humanity, literally. She wasn't sure there was a way to kick them out now. And what would they do with them? Would they all go? What about the YPM? Would yeerks be forced back into the pools and shipped off. She could just not imagine what an ultimate win by the humans would even look like at this point.
"Ug. I'm about to fall asleep right here in the sand. In fact that seems like a really good idea right now." She closed her eyes, telling herself she was just resting them. Her dad had always said that. I'm just resting my eyes. And then he'd fall asleep. "This day has been too long, fun, but too long," she said, the words devolving into a mumble by the end.
Suji:
"You should probably head back to camp. I wouldn't want to be found out here by any rambunctious refugee children." Suji didn't move from her spot. The sand was comfortable, and the sound of the waves was something she wasn't sure she'd get to hear again any time soon. And how often did she get a bit of free time, free from having to worry about the next mission? She was in an in-between space, and it was nice. Even going from NYC to Chicago, or Chicago to Vegas, hadn't been like this.
"I'm going to lie here and sober up a bit more. Still not tired." Which wasn't really true. She was exhausted. But it wasn't the kind of weariness that even a good night's rest would fix. Maybe several months worth of rest... but the prospect of ever getting that seemed very, very small. Lightly, she tapped her fingernails on the bottle next to her, listening to the clinking noise.
Luce:
"Alright then. Night Suj." Luce said the words but the thought of moving was so unpleasant. It would be much easier to just lay here, the sand was comfortable and she was already laying down...but oh well, a night sleeping in the sand, even if it was warm out, would mean an uncomfortable ride tomorrow. Sand had a tendency to get into everything. She was sure the damage had already been done and she'd be shaking sand out of pockets and out from under straps all day tomorrow as it was but there was no reason to get it in her hair.
She rolled onto her stomach in preparation for getting up and again, just stayed there for a while. She looked like she was trying to make a sand angel, except face down. Her cheek was against the grit of the sand. It is probably already in my hair. I don't have to move. It was always so easy to justify staying in bed when you were already there. So easy.
"Ok, I'm getting up," she said to Suji and herself. She put her hands under her shoulders and pushed against the ground. "Ug, sleep, did they mention where we could pass out?" She asked as she got to her feet. "Or should I just wander around hoping someone will let me crash in their bed?"
Suji:
Luce said goodnight but didn't move. When Suji didn't hear her rustling at first, she looked over. Then Luce rolled unto her stomach... and stayed there. She almost wondered if Luce had fallen asleep like that. She had to be tired, but she wasn't drunk any more, so Suji doubted it. Eventually she got to her feet.
"I don't remember. I figure they have to have extra beds somewhere. You could always ask Summer." Suji smiled a bit deviously. Earlier when she'd asked who Luce thought was the cutest, Luce had started with an S. "That or find Greg. He might still be running around."
Luce:
Luce rubbed her eyes and stretched the muscles in her back and shoulders as she yawned. Her spine cracked with a satisfying crunching sound and a release of pressure.
She only raised an eyebrow at Suji's suggestion. "I'm too tired to do anything about it even if she said yes," she responded, deciding not to outright refuse Suji's assertion, having a feeling it would only make it look more true, not less. "Besides, I think my girlfriend would object if she ever found out."
Her mind briefly flashed back to the girl in New York. She had come so close to making a mistake there. And the fact that her reason for stopping was a controller offered her no comfort. But for better or for worse, and gods most days it looked like worse, she had chosen Sedra. She would just have to see where that choice took her.
"Oh well, guess I'll figure something out. Night."
Suji:
"Night." Suji listened to Luce walking away, could hear the quiet whisper of the sand sliding under her feet. It wasn't long before she couldn't even hear that, and she knew Luce had gone on. She was alone. Suji closed her eyes and sighed.
There was more to that story, Suji thought darkly, pained. Sophia. She hadn't said anything about Sophia. Maybe Luce had interpreted that information from what she had said... but even if Luce had, it wasn't the same as admitting to it. And she wasn't so sure she'd want Luce inferring something like that about her, even if it happened to be true. Especially if it was true.
Just then she heard the familiar shifting noise of sand grains grinding other sand grains. "Luce?" Suji called, turning her head to look towards the noise. But the figure that came around the dune was much shorter than that. She sat up, and now as he came closer, Suji could tell who it was. Tobin. She felt her body stiffen. His face was pulled taut into a scowl, and she expected that much. But it was more than that: not just anger, but confusion too.
Immediately she understood.
"How much did you hear?" She asked, eyeing him.
"You killed someone," he said, and it wasn't really an answer, but it was answer enough. Whatever warmth that had returned to her bled out again. She actually felt as her eyes went dead behind her eyes: a sensation she was familiar with, the mask sliding down. Still, he walked towards her, circling until he was between her and the water. She could see the moon reflecting off the waves far out behind him.
"Yes," she replied. She didn't deny it, but she felt vulnerable and guilty--fresh guilt, that was, for Tobin having heard her admit it. He had already had to deal with his supposed rescuer forcing him to be a Controller. Now one of the 'heroes' had murdered someone. He couldn't think they were all like that. They weren't. She couldn't let him think that. "They're not all like me. The rest of the Animorphs. They're... better."
His brow was still furrowed. "He was an Animorph. The guy you killed."
Suji wanted to wince, but the mask was still down. "Yeah. That was a mistake." Not mine, she wanted to add, but didn't. She didn't want to look like she was whining. God, the only thing worse than living with what she did would be complaining about it too. Tobin's eyes moved over her slowly, and the stare was recognizable. He was judging her. Maybe in time he'd learn to hide it better--like she did. Maybe not though. Perhaps it'd be better if he didn't.
"You did what you had to do," he said very clearly. Still, Suji felt herself freeze. He continued to stare at her, and she was stunned.
"...excuse me?"
"Just like back at the plane. You did what you had to do." Suji felt her heart breaking, and an uncomfortable lump rose in her throat. Looking away, she covered a short, sobbing gasp with a fake cough. With one rough wipe she rubbed away the tears that had started to form in the corners of her eyes. For a moment she couldn't look up, could only look away from him, doing her best not to break down in front of this kid. It was somehow worse than Luce. Because he should have been yelling at her, screaming at her that she was a killer, a murderer. Not validating her choice. Suji trembled slightly, though she willed her eyes to stay dry--and they did.
"I'm sorry for before--sorry I screa-"
"Stop!" Suji cut him off, glared at him, felt her lips pull back over her teeth in a frantic snarl. Tobin stepped back quickly, shocked, and he even looked mildly frightened: as if being scolded or yelled at was going to be followed by some kind of punishment. This time Suji couldn't hide her wince, and she took a breath, composing herself. "Don't. Come here." Suji gestured towards the spot where Luce had been sitting. Tobin hesitated, but eventually walked over and sat down.
"You never have to apologize for that. What we did was wrong." Suji swallowed, her hands tightening into fists. "What I did was wrong."
Tobin didn't blatantly look over at her, but he was watching her from the corner of his eyes. Another small act he hadn't learned to conceal. "You didn't have a choice," he said, and in it she heard her own voice from the day before, from the bus.
"I didn't have a choice," he quipped back, and the rest of the bus was silent. Pairs of eyes peeked over the backs of seats. Suji looked him up and down, regarded him. His back was straight and his chest was inflated, undoubtedly burning with fury that was only barely contained. But it was contained. And that was admirable.
"Neither did we."
"There's always a choice," Suji replied, though she knew it was hypocritical. She didn't look at him when she spoke, stared at the water instead, trying to ignore the way he was still watching her, sizing her. Her gut twisted. No. No. He couldn't look up to her. She had to convince herself that that wasn't happening, not even subconsciously. "It's just that sometimes... a lot of the time... none of them are very good."
Suji:
"Then how do you decide what to do?" Tobin asked, though she had a feeling that he already knew the answer. Maybe he just wanted to hear it. Maybe he knows you need to say it, she thought, and rubbed her temples for a moment.
"You protect as many people as you can." There was more she could have said. Something like, people say it shouldn't be about numbers, but in the end, if you save five lives by letting one go, that's... that's better than vice versa. But she didn't. She didn't get to give this kid a speech about morality. That wasn't her place. She looked over at him, and he immediately looked away, realizing he'd been caught staring. "I really am sorry about what happened back in Indonesia," she said. Earlier today (or yesterday by now) she'd been sure that she had nothing to apologize for.
But she did. And she meant it. She was sorry.
"It wasn't your fault," he said, looking back over at her, watching her a little less openly. "It wasn't."
"Maybe not. But someone owes you an apology. Consider it delivered." She replied dryly, and then lifted the bottle next to her for another swig. She shouldn't keep drinking. She was going to have one hell of a headache tomorrow. Well, unless she morphed it away... she took another gulp.
When she set the bottle back down, she saw that his eyes followed it. She arched an eyebrow. "You want some? It tastes like licking the inside of a rusty gas tank." Again he had a slightly guilty look on his face, as if being found out.
"No- um-" Suji smiled, a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth, in spite of herself. The trace of guilt made him look like a kid. Really a kid, on the inside too--one that hadn't been through hell. "Sure."
"All right then." She lifted the bottle by its neck, and he shifted his weight to take it. Before he could, she tipped the thing sideways. The liquor splashed around inside, and poured out, darkening a tiny pool of sand where it hit. He was surprised by this, but before he could react more than that, she stopped pouring. Holding the bottle up to the moonlight, she gauged how much was left. "All yours," she said, and handed it over to him. She'd dumped at least half of it what had been in it out.
There was still enough to get a kid his size plenty drunk, but she wasn't going to have alcohol poisoning of a minor on her conscience. He took the bottle warily, as if she might decide to take it away again.
"I wouldn't have drank it all you know," he said, voice so perfectly indignant that it actually made her laugh.
"Oh, I'm sure you're right. Bottoms up." In an effort to prove himself, he gave her a stern look before raising the bottle to his mouth. His eyes locked on hers for a moment, and then he tilted his head back at a sharp angle so that the liquid would pour fastest. Suji could have warned him. But she knew it would have only seemed patronizing to him. He wouldn't believe her unless he tested it for himself.
The look of disgust mixed with agony on his face when he got a rather large mouthful of the liquor was priceless. Maybe she should have felt bad--she felt only the slightest twinge of guilt--but mostly it was just funny. He quickly righted his himself, pulling the bottle away. To his credit, he didn't spit the horrible liquor out, and managed to swallow it. Unable to control the contortion of his facial features, for a moment he just sat there and panted.
When he regained some of his composure, he glared at her for a moment. She expected him to snap at her for not warning him, but he didn't. He didn't even complain about the taste. In fact, staring at her again, he took another drink. This one was much more restrained, but still, she was vaguely impressed. The kid made his point.
"Don't drink it too fast," Suji said eventually. "You'll start feeling it soon, don't worry." Deciding to trust her after how horrible the drink had tasted, he lowered the bottle to his lap. He stared down at it for a while, and Suji wondered if he was going to be sick or something. It was the first time he wasn't staring at her.
"Do you know why I was a Controller when you guys rescued everyone? Even though no one else was?" He didn't look up as he asked it, and his voice was gentle, fragile even.
"No," she answered truthfully.