Let's give the boy a hand.

[toheirishuman]

[Another week, another murder, another twisted execution. Three weeks this had gone on now, and it was getting harder and harder to stay positive about it. At the end of every trial, John always told himself that this would be the last time. That it wouldn't, couldn't happen again. And every Friday, he was proven wrong.]

[Why was it always Friday, anyway?]

[He guessed, on the plus side, a majority of them had been accidents. That was...heartening sort of, he guessed. At least most of them hadn't actually been cold-blooded killers.]

[He wasn't sure if anybody had some kind of post-trial cheer up planned this week. But frankly, he didn't really care. Unlike last week, there was no uncertainty in John's mind over whether or not he wanted to be alone for a while. The answer to that was "absolutely." So once they're released from Monobear rock, John immediately takes to the skies. He doesn't really have a particular destination in mind, so when he winds up on Chandler Beach he has no real complaints.]

[He lands in the sand, immediately curling up on himself. And for a while, he stays like that. Just curled up in a ball on a private beach on an island where technically all the beaches are private because NOBODY LIVES here but you know what...]

[But eventually, the ball method of coping stops helping. Actually, it only takes about five minutes for John to jump to his feet and start angrily shouting at the sky. Mostly indistinct, angry swears at nothing in particular. And all those rocks and shells he's been saving up in his sylladex ever since he got it back are finally coming in handy. Because he sure is hurling them as hard as he can into the ocean. Thisis one heck of a temper tantrum he's throwing at...the moon. Since there's nobody else here.]

[As usual though, his tantrum doesn't last long. He burns himself out even faster than he got bored of the ball method.]

FUCK!!!

[With that final swear, the loudest of all of them, John flops backwards into the sand. His glasses go flying, landing in the sand a few feet away but John gives precisely zero fucks about that. It actually makes it easier for him to cover the top half of his face with his arm as he lays there, panting and resisting the urge to just start crying in frustration now.]

[He regrets ever complaining about his time on the ship now. He'd take that over this hellhole of an island any day.]

Comments

[timelymaid]

[ Flying off without talking to anyone after the trial and execution was probably the clearest "leave me alone" sign in the universe. For better or worse, however, upon seeing John fly off Aradia decided to ignore the neon flashing sign of teenage angst. Not that this could really be classified as such - it was the third week of murders and executions, and accidental or no, they were...difficult on people. Aradia herself tended to have an easier time of bouncing back than some of the others. Compared to Jimmy and Juniper and Sam and how they'd acted throughout the previous trials, how they'd reacted to each subsequent death, Aradia Megido may as well have been made of stone.

That wasn't entirely the truth, although she found herself at ease with those who had passed. She'd told John himself as much once, hadn't she? That she had learned to be at ease with the cessation of being in any form - a truth which hadn't changed since coming to this place, although the enforced killing was...distasteful.

And she had told him something else back then, too.

Please believe that I would never take joy from the destruction of any soul.

That hadn't changed, either, even if she could smile during the interludes of peace and even during the investigations and trials. Aradia's feelings on death and dying were complex, colored by her own life and deaths as well as her aspect and class. She had grown up with death whispering in her ears, and she had died with those same voices, becoming one of them. Becoming all of them, in a strange way, as she looped back to herself again and again to correct the things that went awry, dooming herself a hundred thousand times.

She didn't follow too closely, at first, but she landed on the beach in time to see the screaming at the sky. Instead of approaching immediately Aradia just wrapped her arms around herself, watching. After John's arm went over his eyes, she approached, scooping up the glasses and kneeling down by his head. ]

John.

[ Move your arm so she can just hook these back over your ears, please, which might be a bit awkwardly done since she's doing it sort of upside down and she never wore glasses anyway, but. ]

You know, I don't think the supermarket actually carries these. If you break them, you're out of luck.

[ It's a pretty mild statement, and she's not actually trying to chastise him too much.

It's just words for the sake of saying something, sitting in the somewhat muddy sand (at least the snow is even further melted now, nearly gone, true to Monobear's suspicious as hell word) after watching the death of yet another "classmate". ]