W3 🛸 PLAYER CYOA: I HATE YOU BOTH (JAN) 🚀 DAHUT & LUKE

[dropoffs]

Comments

HELL

[riverbeans]

[Both of you are free from the prisons of your own minds now, and yet you still wander through Hell. There are things both of you must do that keep you bound to the world, unable to pass on.

Somehow, you know there is one task that comes first, as you venture into unfamiliar territory. In the process, you may experience glimpses of another's experiences, their tribulations and their emotions. Finally, as you walk forward, you can see two familiar figures in the distance.

Perhaps it's time to help them out, the way Dahut helped (?) Luke wake up?]

ARTHUR

[riverbeans]

[Arthur's soul lingers, killed by a slashed throat. All he wanted was a life free from a duty he grew to hate, and to live in peace. And yet, he was driven to despair, unable to escape his chains, tired of being alone, and afraid that he was too weak to protect anyone.

What do you do?]

[artificialsweetener]

[Wow this is a lot of grief and despair and anguish that will surely not come to haunt him when his little freaky heart is back online.

For now, though... After a brief glance toward Luke, he'll move to sit beside Arthur, taking in the radiating suffering - the feeling that this is deserved, penance for all of these failings and wrongs and hurts from two lives lived. What a miserable weight.

Considering how HIS ATTEMPTS WITH LUKE WENT!!! He won't immediately drop a net on Arthur... But he does try to call out, first. Softly, gently:]

...Can you hear me?

[riverbeans]

[Dahut will feel it—Arthur's grief and regret over the woman he's speaking to right now. Her name is Opal, a woman who came to his house. Someone he cares about deeply, but a reminder of his past sins and failures.

"I didn't even try to stop it. I just let it go. I ran after it, once I realized what I'd done. Through the gates, across the old railroad bridge. But I was too late. There were tire tracks running off the road, heading down the riverbank..." Arthur swallows, savoring this last moment before she hates him, before she knows what his cowardice cost her. "It was New Year's Day."

Her breath stops. He wonders if she is feeling the water close over her head again.

"I saw in the paper they said she drove into the river on purpose. But I knew it wasn't her fault."

Opal is breathing now, hitched and jagged.

Arthur keeps his eyes screwed shut. His voice scrapes out of his throat. "It was mine."

Silence, thick and cold. Arthur thinks of food congealing on a plate.

And so, all Arthur says in response is,]

I'm sorry.

[artificialsweetener]

[This, too, is a lot to take in. These scattered bits of memories, these little broken pieces that make up the tragedy he'd already found so endearing even in just the short week he'd known him.

Knowing that Arthur is speaking words he wants to deliver to a person that he most certainly isn't, there's a little thread of something guilty in his chest.

He reaches out with Opal's hand, stroking the top of Arthur's depressed little head.]

I'm sorry. I'm not the one you want to apologize to... [Instead, he's just here fielding the words for a distant person in a distant place, who will maybe never get to hear them, even if he hopes that's not the case.]

I'm not who you want to talk to at all, but no one here is, so let's get you up, okay?

[riverbeans]

[Dahut is trying so hard. Arthur, however, is making it difficult for him, and not simply because he's confused by this Opal not hating him for what he's done.]

Up? I... I can't.

[To be fair, this is quite possibly true, because I did injure his legs I think.]

[artificialsweetener]

[goddammit jan

Well, this is fine. He will just continue being a wildly ooc Opal. CAN HE MANIFEST FIXED LEGS?? He'll try to do that first, even if this wasn't his intention.]

I meant you have to wake up, silly! But you should really stop being on the ground, too.

GREGOR

[riverbeans]

[Gregor's soul lingers, killed by a slashed throat. All he wanted was to serve his purpose, and to provide for the people around him. And yet, he was driven to despair, manipulated by those who preyed on his desire to help, desperate for an iota of control over his own life, and afraid of his loved ones falling as he did.

What do you do?]

[rav3n]

[Okay well. HE DIDN'T GET TO DO THIS FOR DAHUT SO CONGRATS GREGOR THIS IS THE FIRST TIME HE'S TRYING TO DO THIS. At least he is used to helping people, even if it's not in these circumstances. He approaches carefully, taking in the ideas that resonate.]

It's alright. We'll get you out of here.

[riverbeans]

[In response to his words, Gregor only looks despondent.]

... You shouldn't be here.

[As he sees someone who isn't Luke, but a woman he failed.]

Leave me, Yuri. You'll be better off.

[And Luke will feel his guilt, his regret that he ever allowed her to enter his life when it ended up destroying her.]

[rav3n]

[Well damn if that ain't relatable. NOW HE HAS TO LARP THE SIDE OF AN ARGUMENT HE DOESN'T AGREE WITH time to channel Jimothelle. What would she say... Well she's a bully so--]

Idiot. I'm not leaving without you.

[riverbeans]

[Luke's attempts to larp as Jimothelle mean that Yuri, in Gregor's illusion, reaches out to grab him. He's startled, but he doesn't fight her. Perhaps deep down, a part of Gregor wants to believe it, still wants to believe that he can have a better life and even deserve it.

It's in your ballpark again, Luke.]

[rav3n]

[I

WELL

YURI IS SO TINY BUT LUKE IS LIKE A HEAD TALLER THAN GREGOR AND STUPID STRONG SO WHAT IF HE JUST SCOOPS GREGOR UP AND TRIES TO LEAVE THAT WAY

this can be a princess carry]

CHAT

[riverbeans]

[idk if you wanted to talk to each other first about anything]

[rav3n]

[Tags here first because Luke didn't break out of prison on his own so now he's like wtf (redux)]

Where...?

[artificialsweetener]

[WELCOME BACK. Dahut gives his little paws a squeeze.]

Hello! We're in Hell. [THANKS.] How are you feeling...? Okay?

[rav3n]

...Yeah. I'm okay.

[He. Thinks. That was a lot. He gives Dahut a small smile, and pulls his hands back.]

What do you mean, in Hell?

[He asks it, but as he does, his gaze drifts over their surroundings. WHO'S THAT OVER THERE... COULD IT BE A BUG MAN AND A GRUMPY NERD]

[artificialsweetener]

[He will fold his hands together after Luke takes his back, following his gaze.]

In Hell! We're dead. Again? [HE HAS NO IDEA HOW HE GOT HERE HE JUST KNOWS HE'S A WANDERING GHOST IN HELL. But oh, more figures!]

...They're probably like you and I were...

[rav3n]

You're really easygoing...

[OH TO BE SO UNBOTHERED ABOUT WAKING UP AND KNOWING YOU DIED.

But Dahut's words make sense.]

Right... the dream. [He remembers. Looking back on it, it makes more sense now. Kind of. WHERE DID THE NET COME FROM. Whatever.] Should we go help?

???

[riverbeans]

[Arthur wakes up, as does Gregor, in their respective spaces.

Dahut and Luke will understand that in Arthur's and Gregor's eyes right now, they see Dahut and Luke only as a warm but anonymous blue flame. They will not hear either of the two if they speak now, but Dahut and Luke are still free to move around.

In fact, perhaps now they should regroup.]

[artificialsweetener]

[LIL GUYS OVER THERE THEY MADE IIIT. Dahut stands with his hands on his hips even though to these other fucks he just looks like part of a friendly anonymous blue flame, and looks over toward Luke with his shrapnel. HE'S STILL JUST GOT THIS ARROW STICKING OUT OF HIS CHEST TOO. Well, that's fine. He'll keep an eye on these other nerds while he talks.]

That was pretty rough... Waking people up is hard! How did yours go?

[rav3n]

[THAT WAS A LOT... but not as much as Arthur's. Damn.]

It could've been worse. [He wants to get that arrow out of Dahut but honestly that might be worse right now so he just looks at it and doesn't comment.] He wanted to fight a lot more than I did.

[artificialsweetener]

[He really made Arthur suffer through flaming cake rain...]

Mm... It's not a bad thing, huh? Monsieur Arthur didn't really linger for long, but for the wrong reasons, I think... [Luke really gave him such a fckin hard time but Arthur is such a self-flagellating binch.

He reaches out, poking at a bit of shrapnel just sticking out of him.] You don't hurt, right?

[rav3n]

[WELL LISTEN THAT'S BECAUSE HIS DREAM WAS CUTE AND DOMESTIC UNTIL DAHYUK STARTED SCREAMING ABOUT THE POLICE BEING FAKE]

No, I'm okay. [Though now that he pays attention, he realizes that he's more okay than he really should be, even with his pain tolerance.] You are too?

[artificialsweetener]

[He just goes back to casually resting his hand against the shaft of this arrow as he has been, like a bozo, and glances from these other two bozos back to Luke for a moment.]

Mm, yep! At least it doesn't hurt, right?

[Glances back at them as they consider finding a door and then promptly abandon that.]