8. spam

[exnihilo]

Mira sidles up to you. She's friendly, but not excessively so, not suspiciously so. She seems like a wallflower finally trying to ease out of her shell, or some similar mixed metaphor. In the cafeteria, it's 'Hey, do you mind if I sit with you?' and a small smile. In the hallways it's falling into step, one shoulder tilted awkward and shy. 'Hi. You're so-and-so, right?' In the library she asks what you're reading; on the deck she mentions the stars are beautiful. It's mild and banal, which isn't the point. The point is getting close enough to deftly tap a sticky note on your back. Don't worry, it only says your name.

[OOC: Mira is trying to do this for everyone, so David knows where people are! She also wished to remember, meaning her own past. Instead she's going to get other people's memories - critical, trivial, or things they had forgotten. Feel free to toss her one!]

Comments

[exnihilo]

I was an assassin.

[Neither shame nor pride; she just was.]

[imfollowinghim]

[He's... not in a position to judge. At all.

That's basically what he is, isn't it?]

I guess that explains it.

[exnihilo]

You would have cared, if he died.

[She smiles a little. Like - it's nice, when people have someone who cares. That's the part that sticks with her.]

[imfollowinghim]

[He laughs, surprised again by the change in subject.]

Of course I would've. He's my best friend. [His brother, the only family he's got.]

[exnihilo]

Is the difference between a friend and a best friend quantitative or qualitative?

[imfollowinghim]

Qualitative, I guess. It's not like you can measure it in feet, or whatever.

[exnihilo]

If he died. What would you do?

I mean, culturally. Funerary customs.

[imfollowinghim]

[So initially, before she clarifies, his answer is definitely, well. Different than what she's looking for, because an honest answer to that is probably somewhere along the lines of murder everyone responsible, and then I don't know.

Which should probably disturb him.

As it is, she does clarify, and so he just looks sort of confused in that way where you're not sure if you should laugh or not.]

Why?

[exnihilo]

Nobody claimed my body.

[Relayed like any other unremarkable biographical fact. It's just true. But she thinks about it a lot. It's one of the only things she knows about her past, so she picks at it, dwells and returns to the implications.]

[imfollowinghim]

[That makes him sober up a bit, because he's definitely seen a fair share of people who died without anyone knowing who they were or who they should contact to let them know what'd happened.

(And really, even if he's got people to mourn him, no one's finding his body.)

So he lets out a breath, and considers how best to explain the possible scenarios that he really doesn't want to consider anyway. Steve dying had been a very real fear a long time before the Germans had marched into Poland.]

It'd depend on how it happened. [Because, you know, war going on.] We're kinda not anywhere close to home right now, so someone'd take the body back behind friendly lines and find a way to get him home. If there was nothing left to bring home, they'd probably bury an empty casket once they figured out how to break the news to people.

There'd probably be some kinda hoopla now that he's a national hero. I don't know if I could sit through something like that.

[It occurs to him suddenly that he's not sure what they'd do with the body - if they'd try to save it for tests or burn it so no one could get their hands on the serum - and the thought makes him feel more than a little sick.]

[exnihilo]

I hope he doesn't die.

[Mira Hidalgo: remedial empathy.]

[imfollowinghim]

Me too.

[Everyone's gotta die sometime, but he'd appreciate it if Steve maybe managed not to get his dumb ass killed a month after he did.]