Week 9.

[trustharder]

WEEK 9 For the first time since your stay in the Vault began, no one died this week. That doesn't mean there weren't casualties among you, however – namely, trust, interpersonal relationships, and comfort in the group dynamic as a whole. Hopefully no one else pays the price for it. Saturday is given to regrouping and sleep; there aren't any bodies to be found on Sunday morning. You're safe for now – unless your dreams have told you otherwise... SURVIVORS REMAINING: 10

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY
[OOC: Welcome to week nine of Trustfell! Save your threads for coins; don't forget to submit your memory regains! There is no activity check this week!

THE FINAL INVESTIGATION BEGINS ON THURSDAY!
THIS IS THE LAST WEEK TO REDEEM COINS!
The text and calling posts are still active, for the sake of contacting the jerk who's keeping you here, to be used at your leisure!]

Comments

[goodforsomething]

[Stan's willing to let that go for a while - to be honest, Bruce was so quiet that he didn't even notice him at first. But he came up to have a conversation with the others, not harangue Bruce into one, so he'll just go about his dark magic rituals and let him have his peace.

The others don't show up. Eventually he blows out the candles, tucks the mirror under his arm, and goes to return it to its spot under the pew. The Kingmaker knows about all this already, so there's little point in hiding it. It's just habit now.]

Ghosts aren't pickin' up.

[amygdalae]

[Bruce glances up to Stan when the other speaks to him, eyes a little red-rimmed, but nothing else to indicate just exactly how he feels right now.]

Hopefully they're alright. [When he speaks his voice is nearly inaudible if it hadn't been for how quiet the chapel already is.]

[goodforsomething]

They don't come every single time. Might just be busy.

[.....]

I'll check in with Colress, his little guy might know somethin'.

[amygdalae]

[A nod.]

...let me know how that goes.

[Well, if Stan wants to anyway. Bruce isn't going to go after him if he doesn't.]

[goodforsomething]

Sure, sure.

[...this is terrible.] You eaten yet today?

[amygdalae]

[There's a pause, but eventually Bruce shakes his head.

...yeah, no need to explain himself there. It's not as if any excuses he'll make will stand right now.]

[goodforsomething]

Okay. I'll make ya somethin'. You wanna stay here, or come to the kitchen with me?

[amygdalae]

[Another pause, as if Bruce is considering, but eventually he shakes his head again.]

I'll stay here.

[...at least in here there's less people coming in. Bruce isn't really in the mood for people right now.]

[goodforsomething]

[Well, that's why he asked.] Okay. Back in a minute.

[It takes a few minutes, in fact, but Stan returns with a sandwich on a plate and some water. Simple stuff - it's better that way. He hands it off, then leans with his arms resting against the back of the pew rather than sitting.]

[amygdalae]

[Bruce stays exactly where he is in the minutes between Stan leaving and him returning. He takes the sandwich and water with a quiet 'thanks' and starts to go through them slowly as Stan apparently waits for him.

...even though Bruce knows he should be hungry his appetite is barely there, and it shows pretty damn obviously. His bites are more like nibbles, and he's taking very small sips of water too.]

[goodforsomething]

...found Mouri in there tryin' to stick his key cards in everything.

[Stan doesn't find it easy to just sit in silence. He doesn't seem to expect any input from Bruce, though; he's content to just talk to him.]

Guess it makes sense. Feels like there's a big storm comin' pretty soon. All this time here...almost feels good to get it over with, one way or another.

[amygdalae]

[Bruce remains quiet as Stan speaks, still slowly eating his sandwich and drinking the water that had been brought over. It's clear that he's listening, if only because there's nothing else to listen to in here, but there's still not much of a response on Bruce's end.

...he does let out a shuddering breath, though, the one indication of something before he quietens down again.]

[goodforsomething]

Ah, we're gonna be okay. I'm pretty sure I've gotten outta worse than this before. I ever tell you about the time I had to chew my way outta the trunk of a car?

[Stan gives a dry chuckle, one hand moving to his lower lip.] Still got the scars from that...

No idea if I'm gonna have somewhere to live or what when I get back. But you still got that invitation if you want it. Don't even have to hang around with me - Gravity Falls is a pretty good place for startin' over. Good enough fake ID and they won't check anything. Iiiiii know I talk about how weird it is a lot, and it's fuckin' crazy! But it ain't such a bad place.

[amygdalae]

[Stan talks some more and Bruce listens as he continues to eat. He feels like he should say something but he doesn't quite know where to start and where to end. There's just so much inside of him, so many things bubbling inside that he refuses to let it spill over. Nobody needs to know his problems, after all. Everyone has better things to do than to deal with his own.]

...I worked for the military.

[It more or less comes out without much thought, mostly when Stan brings up the fake ID portion. Bruce doesn't quite know where he's going with this... but then again, never really knows where he's going. All he knows is of the monster inside of him and a life of pain he's resigned himself to, even without any of this happening.]

[goodforsomething]

Yeah?

[Stan pauses for a moment, turning that over in his head.]

I think Ford did some of that. Real black-ops science stuff. Didn't keep 'em from comin' down on our heads later.

[amygdalae]

They wanted me to create something to help soldiers. Something harmless, I was told. It would help protect them.

[And how could he refuse something like that? If he could protect them in the heat of war and battle, then he could use that to help others in times of peace. To make their lives better, to cure cancer, potentially. To stop the cycle of death and destruction.

He stops eating his sandwich and lowers it down, voice still soft as he continues to speak.]

I didn't know they were lying to me until it was too late.

...I hurt a lot of people that day.

[His associates, his assistants... Betty. Betty, lying in the hospital bed so hurt and bruised. Betty who wanted to give a better life to but failed to do so. She never deserved anything from him and Ross.]

[goodforsomething]

[Stan listens quietly, head angled towards Bruce now even if he won't make eye contact. That's an old story, isn't it - the military lied and pulled off some fucked-up experimental shit. But it's far too late now for observations like that to do any good.]

Sounds more like their fault than yours. You were just tryin' to help.

[amygdalae]

It doesn't change the fact what I created.

[The monster that's part of him now despite everything, even if its not going to appear here. The Hulk still shaped his life, despite that, a force of nature that nobody can control.

A pause after that, then Bruce speaks again, an almost detached formality that Stan can probably place it as something similar to the Kingmaker.]

'Doctor Robert Bruce Banner has a dangerous alter ego within him that has killed many people and ruined countless more. The many lives he has taken has him condemned by many as a savage monster to be taken down.'

[...Stan can probably easily guess it as something related to the secret incentive that happened those weeks back.]

[goodforsomething]

[That sounds like something outta a science-fiction show. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Stan's not the smart twin, but it's not like he doesn't know about books. They've already talked some about his condition, hedging the issue, but he knew it was something like being a werewolf. Dangerous, uncontrollable.

Which explains a lot about Bruce.]

Hmmm. And I bet no one's condemnin' the guys at the top who caused it all, huh? I've seen monsters, Bruce - you ain't one. You're better than a lotta people I've known.

[amygdalae]

...you don't know that.

[How could he know for sure? They've known each other for all of two months at most. And sure, these were a harsh two months but still.

But still.]

I'm no where near a good person, Stan. [And that sure is something, Bruce addressing him with his name properly for the first time.] I've hurt so many people and killed even more. What Cherryblod probably racked up in hundreds of years when he was a criminal I did in less than a decade.

[And he didn't even want to do any of it. But it happened, anyway, because its not like he can't pretend collectral damage wasn't a thing. Harlem, New York, South Africa, Sokovia... all of those places and more.]

[goodforsomething]

That's not the same thing. Cherry made his own choices. It ain't like you woke up one day and decided you wanted to hurt people.

[He doesn't know the specifics, but that much is clear to him. Ford may have gotten the smart genes, but Stan's the one who knows people.]

...last time someone around here had an killer alter-ego, you said he was a victim, too.

[amygdalae]

He was, for what was done to him before.

[One doesn't quite forget Bates and his... entire thing, certainly.]

But it doesn't justify what he's done, just as it doesn't justify what I've done, too.

[goodforsomething]

It makes a difference. None of it would've happened if someone hadn't screwed you over.

[His feelings on the two aren't quite the same - funny, but it's easier to hold seven murdered women in his mind than the large but vague mass of people killed by Bruce's...whatever.

Stan knows he won't convince Bruce that he's a good person just like that, but by the same token Bruce won't convince him that he's a monster. All he can really do is say what's on his mind.]

Lots of guys would just take that and run with it. It doesn't make everything go away, but it's an easy out, y'know? A bad person sure as hell wouldn't feel the way you do.

cw: suicide ideation i suppose

[amygdalae]

A person like me shouldn't even have existed in the first place.

[Even from young that's what he had been ingrained into him. He wasn't supposed to be here, he was just an accident, something that was never meant to be. And isn't that so much more true now? He's nothing but a monster trying to be a man, pretending that he can have anything when he deserves nothing. He was never meant to be.

Not for the first time, he selfishly wishes that death could have been an escape for him - but he knows better. It's ironic; perhaps in this one place where he could die, even that wasn't going to be able to give him the peace he so desperately wanted.]

I was supposed to die, but I didn't. And now I can't.

[He knows. He tried.]

[goodforsomething]

[Something in that first statement seems to strike Stan; he turns and looks away for a moment, mouth twitching downwards.]

Who told you that?

[The question is quiet, possibly rhetorical. At any rate, he doesn't wait for a response before circling around to sit on the pew instead - not really next to Bruce, there's enough room there to give him a bit of space. He folds his arms over his chest.]

You can't? [Considering the supernatural stuff all around, he honestly isn't sure how literally to interpret that.]