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I don't know. Sometimes it feels like I'm just fooling myself into functionality.

[stop?? talking??]

Or that-- someone else should be here, having a nice day with a friend. Pipes. Trailcutter. God, Skids. They all deserve it more than I do.

Riptide... [:(...] That's...not how things work. I mean--we. We don't know who deserves what? And, and anyway, it's...not always up to us. And-and if it is you here, why not...make the most of it? For the ones who aren't? [her eyes wince. this sounds pretty saccharine aloud; it's nicer in text.]

No, we don't, but I know they did.

[he groans and donks his head down onto the table.]

I didn't even get to say bye to Pipes! We were meant to be roomies and go on the Lost Light together but I had to be stupid and get knocked out!

Oh, Riptide... [she tsks, then reaches over and pats his head.] That sounds awful. I'm sorry. It's not your fault, though? I mean, I can't imagine you'd ask to be knocked out?

I literally started the fight, so yes? Kind of?

With the intention for all that fallout, though?

No. I didn't really think it through, you know. That's kind of my thing.

[he sighs and leans back in his chair.]

I don't know. I probably wouldn't have survived the attack either, but... he died alone. He never wanted to be alone.

[she stays slumped forward, resting her chin in her cupped hands, frowning.]

I'm not sure he'd have wanted you to die, too? I mean...I don't know. If there was a choice in the matter. And if the roles were switched, would you?

No, but-- it's... ah, during the war, the Decepticons had these really big bad guys. Like... five of them, I think? They were known as Phase Sixers. They were the guys they'd send down to planets to completely obliterate them. Those guys show up on the battlefield and no-one makes it back, no matter how outnumbered they are.

[riptide's accidentally talking them up-- the phase sixers were unimaginably powerful but they didn't quite destroy planets. he's just going off rumours and from having seen the results of one of their work.]

Pipes died to the hands of one of them. Got crushed like he was nothing. I doubt Overlord even noticed he'd killed him.

[why are there five of them if they're called sixers, Cecelia wonders, squinting at him as he explains.

she grimaces.]

They sound dreadful. Brutish.

Yeah. He's ugly on top of it all.

[riptide leans back, sighs.]

I got told after Pipes died setting off the alarm. He died alone, but saved a lot of people in the process.

That was very good of him. Heroic, even? There's lots of stories of that sort of sacrifice. It's admirable, but not...not enviable, if you get what I mean.

Yeah, I understand.

[he sighs.]

Then Trailcutter? He was trying to do the right thing and got torn to pieces of because of it. Skids... I don't know he died. No-one would tell me.

[:(...]

That's dreadful. I'm--I'm very sorry, Riptide. Truly. To have experienced so much loss is abysmal and...and I wish it wasn't a fate you'd have had to endure at all. You or your friends. I'm, uh. Well. Nothing I've seen or done compares at all, so maybe...saying any of that seems kind of pointless? Or just naive, I, I don't know. Sorry. Words.

I don't even know why I'm telling you all this! What next? I'm gonna admit I kinda liked all of them?!

...

[he just donks his forehead onto the table.]

[she winces at the gentle donk-sound, chewing on her lip. she reaches over to pat his head again, but quickly thinks better of it, withdrawing.]

...Um. Want some tea? I can make tea.

[muffled:] Please. Do you have booze? Put booze in it.

[she pauses halfway up out of her seat to think about that.]

Uhhh...I...I don't know? I don't think so. I'd have to look. But, uh...there's honey? Do you like honey?

Yeah.

Just dunk a load of it in there. Ugh. God. I never got to tell any of them...!

[she hastens to fetch the honey as well as the tea box from a cupboard, setting up over at the stove with the kettle.

after a beat of this business:]

...Would writing it out help at all? The things you wanted to say, I mean. I know it doesn't seem sensible, considering that they're...y'know. But! But...I mean, for me, whenever I've had such things weighing on me I couldn't get out anywhere else, I'd...I'd write it all down. And it helped.

It's part of why I write so much. Sometimes I just...need it out there somewhere. Not even read, because gods, I'm an embarrassment? But just...out of me.

[...]

I hear similar effects can come from screaming into cushions, but I never took to that one. I get powder everywhere.

I--

[see, his initial instinct is to reject the idea of writing anything out at all, but he stops himself. he frowns.]

--Could try? [he makes a face.] I don't think they make pillows big enough for me to scream into.

[snort.] Yeah, no, you'd have to stick to a more human-sized state for that one.

[she fetches mugs, having to roll up on her toes to reach them with a little grunt. there.]

But really. If you find any benefit of this tutoring? Perhaps that'll be it. A means to...just blowing off some steam in a way that's just your own. You can even crumple it up or throw it away when you're done; I've sometimes burned pages out. Keeping it isn't the point, after all.

No-- you're right. I should try it.

[he sighs, tearing the page off he'd been writing on and opening up a new one. taps his pen on it.]

...I don't know what to write.

[she looks over her shoulder to see this, feeling a little blip of pride mixed in with pity. looking back to the oven in some effort to give him privacy:] Then write that. Sometimes...even that's a start, and you discover that the words and shapes that follow happen beyond your own waking thought. Like...like the spirit of you moving ahead of your hands and eyes.

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