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WHO: Tifa and OTA
WHAT: Nooot a great reaction to the executions and figuring out how to cope
WHERE: B Natural - her bar
WHEN: just after the executions, while she's on the job - backdated
WARNINGS: execution talk, definitely some PTSD, burning bodies mention, probably other death talk (mass murder, attempted execution, etc)
Notes: if you want a custom starter, feel free to PM me or hit me up at

sixflights or wildcard Tifa! She'll be at the bar all day and a biiiit distracted.

For Tifa, this is just like any other day. It starts out with her going to work at the new bar, ready for another day of dealing with people asking for all manner of drinks, another day of listening to conversations and whispers as she wipes down tables, another day of preparing for the inevitable fight. In fact, she's in the middle of wiping down one of the tables, after a patron party has just left, when it starts. At first, she doesn't think much of it. This is probably just more propaganda of some sort, maybe another cry out against the Head, but most likely it's the Head condemning the actions of the rebels, etc.

It isn't until she's finished the last wipe that she really starts to take in what's happening. It's a subtle shift in her at first, her eyes narrowing as the broadcast goes onward with the mayor. No. No, this can't be what she thinks it is.

Except it is. It's nothing short of a public execution and it's far worse than what she almost went through with Shinra. The screams echo through her ears, reverberating through her bones, and suddenly she's not listening anymore; suddenly, she's watching Nibelheim burn, smelling the charred flesh of all the people Sephiroth brutally murdered, feeling the hot breaths of air against her skin, and knowing that she can't help. Her eyes blink and she's transferred to her own almost-execution, the gas chamber she's been tied and locked inside. She'd gotten lucky and she knows that quite honestly. Any longer in that chamber and without Sapphire Weapon cracking the chamber wall, she would have died, suffocated by the gasses pouring in.

Would she have screamed? Probably not. She was choking on gas. There wasn't enough air to breathe, let alone scream.

It takes her a few minutes to pull herself even remotely out of her memories, but as soon as she can, she heads straight for the stairs down to the basement.

"I need some time," she says to anyone she passes on her way down and even though she has one hand pressed to her head and looks like she's about to fall apart at the seams, she won't stop anyone from following her or trying to offer any comfort or support they think might help. Right now... well, she needs to get out a few attacks on one of the punching bags down there.

LATER ON she makes her way back upstairs, having gotten at least some of her pent up emotions out in the basement in some form or other. Now she just has to make it through the rest of the day before she can go back to the dorms or the warehouse or somewhere else and just... stop thinking about all the people and machines that can do horrible things like this.

"Sorry," she says absently as she shakes her head to pull herself back to the person standing in front of her. "I didn't hear a thing you said. Did you need something?"

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The lone patron remaining in the bar doesn't make a move to follow her - at least not for a few moments.

She's not the only one who needs time to process what they've seen, even if his reasons are a bit different.

He knew this was coming. Maybe not these events specifically, but a lifetime spent on a world where everything was trying to kill you breeds a certain skepticism about anything that seems too good to be true. He knew the other shoe would drop eventually. Now, he needed to figure out what to do to survive it.

He was drawn away from that thought process by a loud thud. He turns towards the stairs at the back of the bar's taproom as another impact echoes up from below.

A few moments later, Tifa'll here a voice from behind her.

"Would you prefer a moving target?"

In hindsight, Tifa should probably have been more aware of the people around her, especially down in the basement. But he's made it down without her paying much mind to him and by the time she does, he's speaking and making his intentions known anyway. Luckily, he doesn't seem to be a bad sort, but only time will tell on that one.

"Maybe," she answers, offloading the beginnings of her limit break onto the poor punching bag. "I might break this if I keep this up."

She doesn't particularly want to hurt him, especially not for the sake of her emotional issues, but at the same time... he doesn't look like the kind of guy who'll break from a couple of hits and leg sweeps. She can't exactly suplex him like she used to do at home.

Standing just a hair under seven feet, with numerous visible scars criss-crossing his heavily tattooed tree-trunk arms ... yes. He looks as though he can take a punch or two.

"Most likely." He agrees with a small nod, taking the last few steps down the stairs into her gymnasium.

Edited 2020-01-23 00:52 (UTC)

The basement doesn't have too much in the way of furnishings. It's mostly just a spot for meetings and "safe" talks. So this is something Tifa feels a bit more comfortable doing. More than she would upstairs and definitely more than outside.

She hasn't put on her gloves and likely won't - she doesn't want to add to the scars across his body, after all - but she knows how to throw a punch properly at least. Shaking out her hands, she settles into her normal fighting stance before launching a punch at him.

"I knew they - it - was bad. But this is... nightmarish. It's something Shinra would do."

And almost had done to her. That's the part that's getting to her. It's not what or why they did this. It's the fact that only a few short months ago, Tifa was escaping from her own almost-execution. She was almost one of these examples. Shinra and the Head are chillingly similar.

He’s seen death before. A life ended, being the one to have to do it. The carnage of a disaster, broken bones and fat and flesh. But it was never like this. A show, nothing but a point to be made, a public display. As the images of the executions flash across the screen, Tidus doesn’t watch when the blade comes down and through Vergil’s neck--he can’t, though the act of what he does witness is enough to finish the decapitation for him.

A hand presses across his mouth. He forgets temporarily how to breathe.

Tifa moving is what draws him out of the daze. Her muttered words, sliding off away into the back. Tidus doesn’t stop her, but when he can guess she isn’t coming back up any time soon, he does the only thing he can think of and clears out the bar, whatever noisy and obnoxious way he has to, their drinks and half-eaten food be damned. A mess left behind, but Tidus doesn’t care as he turns over the OPEN sign to CLOSED. Inspects the drinks on display but doesn’t know what she would want and takes some water instead as he heads down to join her.

He could ask her then, but when Tidus sees her and the onslaught being put onto the punching bag, the offer leaves him. Feels the heat of a rage of his own house itself more clearly in his throat.

“We’ll stop the bastard,” he says first out of anything. “It won’t get away with any of this.”

The executions didn’t change his mind--it just made more plain the cruelty they already knew the Head and everything under its control was capable of.

Edited 2020-01-23 01:59 (UTC)

These aren't the first deaths Tifa has ever seen, but they sure are bringing back some powerful memories. It's a trauma reaction on her part, an instinct that keeps screaming at her to get away, remove herself from the flashbacks. She can't fully and that part eats at her a bit, more and more until Tidus' footsteps down the stairs start to cut through her thoughts.

Their roles are reversed this time, with her being the one in tears and needing to punch something until she can regain her composure. For him, it had been about losing someone important. For her... it's memories and the knowledge that this almost happened to her.

"We will," she agrees firmly, offloading a couple of limit breaks in a chain. First a couple of hard punches and then a spinning leg sweep. She stops it at that, managing just to rock herself forward onto her arms and knees with her fists curled into balls on the ground. "It's so much like Shinra... Everything it does, how it thinks. It's like being back in that chamber--"

Cutting herself off at that - she's said too much as it is, but at least Tidus knows a bit more of her history than most - she pushes herself back to her feet and turns towards the punching bag once more. She doesn't have the Dragon's Claw equipped, but that's probably for the best. She wants to punch the thing, not slice it into ribbons.

He sets the glass down on the first surface he comes by, knowing she won’t need it -- not yet. Tidus never wanted anything, food or drink, at his worse. Just the pain and exhaustion, and the latter is likely what she’s searching for than the former. A release before punishment, because that’s what both had meant for him.

It’s both a strange yet understanding state to witness her in, if only because he’s been made aware of a glimpse into the horrors that have been a part of her life. Still, she's always managed to come off as composed. And now?

Well, he respects her just the same as he’s come to. This doesn’t change anything. Not one bit.

"Anything you wanna say, you know it won’t leave this room." It’s a promise, as well as a reminder. "I closed up the bar and left the music running. No one’s going to hear a thing."

It was just them, and he didn’t plan to leave her alone so easily.

Tifa will need the water as a refresher later, once the memories and trauma aren't so close in mind. She doesn't want to lose her cool, doesn't want to just be punching without relief, but right now she just can't shake it all off. Her fists connect with the bag once, twice more and then she grips it tightly with her fingers in an almost desperate bid for something to snap her out of it.

Tidus' words about closing up help her focus. At least she doesn't have to worry about the other patrons for a while. Just herself. And probably Cloud, once he hears about it all. Once she tells him why she's reacting so badly.

"Shinra almost did that to me," she says finally, her eyes locked on the punching bag. If she takes her gaze off that, closes her eyes for even an instant, she knows she'll just drown in it all. "That's the last thing I remember. They tied me to a chair, locked me in a chamber, and poured gas into it. I got lucky. I unlocked my restraints, but if the city hadn't been attacked, I probably would've died there."

The executions are hitting her a little bit harder just because of the slightly more personal nature. She has literally been there.

"Why anyone, person or machine, could think that public executions like that will really stop anything... Murder doesn't get you anywhere."

Part of that is absolutely the traumatized teenager speaking, the girl who watched her own town burn to the ground and very nearly died herself during it all. Teenage Tifa was so heartbroken and distraught over it all, so filled with rage and hatred, that she had wanted nothing more than to kill Sephiroth for what he had done. She hadn't succeeded, but even if she had... there's a difference between killing to prevent more mass murder and killing just because someone's in your way. Or because they're a threat to one's rule.

Edited 2020-01-24 03:03 (UTC)

It’s a sickening story. It’s a sickening reality. He can’t know what that must have been like, and Tidus listens to Tifa’s story with a hole in his gut, eyes closed. In ways, he knows he’s seen this kind of ugliness in others back in Spira. In different forms, different methods, but always by those with too much power.

There were just some out there -- human, non-human, AI or otherwise -- who didn’t care.

“It’ll work on some people,” he expresses quietly. How couldn’t it? To see the extremes that the city is willing to go to in order to ‘punish’. “If there’s nothing you think you can do, seeing something like that -- it’ll scare anyone. If I was still just a guy who played blitzball, it’d scare me. I wouldn’t do anything.”

And it’s one of those times Tidus can reflect and see how he’s changed, but now it isn’t the time for anything but the present. A heat taking to his words, anger before fear.

“But we already know it’s sick. We know it tears apart the people it copies…”

Disgust drips from that truth. His eyes are open again, glaring tightly at the ground with his hands balled into fists.

“It doesn’t care. This thing or Shinra, whatever it takes, it’ll do what it needs to control people, right? Try to scare us. But it won’t.” Tidus raises his chin, looking at Tifa and her form at the punching bag.

“Let it think it worked,” he almost spits out, volume rising. “We’ll tear its control from under it, then we’ll tear it apart.”

It probably should scare her more. The executions did scare her, to a point. But a lot of that was more being frightened of what might happen to other people, rather than herself. If Cloud got hurt, or if they caught him, she wouldn't know what to do without him. It was bad enough trying to find him on Gaia, when she broke out of that chamber. He could still be anywhere. Here, though... if she ended up here without him...

Her fist thuds against the bag another time.

"We have to," she agrees. They have to find a way to stop it. "I just... keep going back to all those memories. You know Midgar? How it was separated into 8 Sectors? Each Sector had two pieces, one above the plate and the slums below. Shinra dropped the plate on Sector 7. Killed everyone instantly. Just to stop the rebel group. And then they tried to gas me."

It sounds like those two events were at the same time, but they weren't. She's just a little bit lost at the moment. But she'll figure it out, get out of those memories, and find a way to help Cloud stop the Head.

"We can't let the Head do the same thing. They think they've cut off the resistance leaders here and we can let them think that. But we can't let them win."

"They won't. Everyone thinks the Head is so smart, but is it? We're all working together under its nose. The Heart--" The Heart, those dead. The derision in Tidus's voice lessens to mention them, pausing, his head tipping slightly. They were stupid, so so stupid -- but no one deserved the deaths they got. "They were careless," he continues with. "They knew one of their top guys got taken. And they still risked it."

And he'll never understand why, not for what the meeting ended up amounting to: a whole lot of nothing. So many lives risked, and for that?

"But now we have that guy, and it's only a matter of time we finally figure out how the chips work." He believes it, and he spreads out his hands as he talks. "As long as we're careful, no one has to suffer what they did. No one has to go through what you did either, Tifa."

No more public displays of power. Of fear. Of trying to silence them through disgusting and inhumane means.

What's getting to her now is two-fold. A lot of it is that she's worried about more people getting killed because the leaders got upset about something. It's so much like Shinra. But it's also about her memories, remembering the people who have died, a town burning, the plate falling, the screams, the smells, holding her breath because she was choking on gas. It's overwhelming.

But the more she thinks about it, the more she worries about the Head getting to Cloud. She isn't the group leader. Maybe she has to be while Cloud is AWOL, but she doesn't want to be. And even beyond that... she cares about him. The thought of losing him is unbearable.

Ironic that she's now having a breakdown over the possibility of what actually happened to Tidus. What had she told him then?

"We fight harder. We stay alive. And then we take them down."

It's exhausting to know she has this fight to do here and then again when she gets back to Gaia. No rest for the weary or something.

"Sorry... It's a lot to handle."

The heat in Tidus eases some with a quiet exhale of breath.

"It’s okay. Sometimes… you need time to pick yourself back up."

Wasn’t that how it had been for him, when she had told him that too? When she had been the one supporting him not with kind words or with promises, but by extending him the means of finding a way of continuing in a way that wasn’t being -- well, a moron about it?

But he had just been tired, more than physically. It was an offer he hadn’t really accepted in the moment, or been able to grasp as the real help it could be. Was. Is. He didn't want to think about fighting.

He picks up the drink then, pushing himself off from the wall and walking over to her, holding it out for her to take should she maybe want it now.

"I know it doesn’t feel like it," especially not after a broadcast like they just witnessed, "but you’ve got time. Just do what you need to."

Fight until exhaustion. Sort out her own head. Whatever she needs.

She's starting to feel better. Slowly, bit-by-bit. Thankfully, there are people like her and Tidus here, people who get it, even the nasty bits, and are willing to help in any way they can. She had been there with him in the only way she could be; for as much as she wanted she could tell him everything was fine and give him kind reassurances, she knew, better than most people, just how rough it really is. Now he's returning the favor, with support and a path to move forward, just as she had done for him. It's helping to pull her back out of her own nightmares and give her something else to focus on.

So when he offers that glass of water, she takes it, wrapping her fingers around the cup like a lifeline and slowly tipping it back to sip on it. She can't just gulp it down; as someone with a physical hobby, she knows better than to do that, as it would probably send her body into shock. Better to take it slowly, just like they'll have to do with life here.

"Thanks." His words also help and she knows the truth in them. "And thanks for taking care of the bar for me. I've appreciated your help since you signed on."

This is an added bonus. She's been lucky with her employees so far and this one? This one just catapulted himself to the top of her trust list.

"I think I just needed to talk it out. My head's clearing a bit. It's all still there, but... it's better."

It's not exactly a smile that he gives her, but there's a pull upward of his lips, more understanding than anything else.

"We're all just people who got brought here out of our own messes into another," he remarks in a voice close to tired. At least, so it seemed to him. Their own messy worlds and their own messy issues, but Tidus was glad he could at least help this much, after the distraction that working at the bar and Tifa's lessons had given him. Bar and grill work never felt exactly him, but then, what was these days? He was never going to be a sports athlete ever again, that was for sure. He didn't want to be -- not for this place.

He raises a hand in gesture as he speaks.

"You've got friends here, right? From home. You wanna talk to them? I can clean up here," he offers. "And if you want me to take some more shifts for the next few days, I'll do it. Maybe not this time," he goes on, "but...if you ever need it."

An offer for the future at least, if not the immediate one.

Tifa huffs out the barest hint of a laugh at his first words. He's all too right there. Each of them had another fight back home, people to save and a world to change. It's not much different here and at least a lot of people are willing to work together here, without too much tooth-pulling.

"It's okay," she says with a shake of her head. "Cloud will find out soon enough."

He doesn't know exactly what she's been through and she's not entirely in the frame of mind to explain calmly right at this moment.

"Going back to work will give me something else to focus on." For as much as she appreciates Tidus' help and offers, she needs things to do right now. All the better to distract herself anyway. Even if Tidus already closed up, there's still a lot to do to get the bar ready for opening tomorrow.

Oh boy, going back to work? There's a brief flinch across Tidus's face, a cringe before it turns sheepish. He rubs at the back of his head.

"Uhh... hope the customers I chased out didn't take it personally."

Did he overreact? Probably, but he just did the first thing that came to mind, and the idea of 'manning the entire business on his own' hadn't been it. Regardless, he spreads out his hands in an eager motion.

"I'll help clean up!" Well, it is his job. But also it's more of a mess than usual...

It is almost twenty minutes after Tifa comes back up that Nida parks his motorcycle outside, takes off his helmet, and steels himself at the door. Bars are, well, sorta forbidden places for him. But today is different, and this is important. Tifa is important to Cloud and Zack, and thus important to their own underground movement. And Nida's thought process once that broadcast went down? Centralize himself to the units of their fight. Make sure that one of their resources wasn't alone.

And Tifa was going to have a bit of a time, wasn't she? Something told him that after that broadcast, people would be drinking. So he had jumped on his bike as soon as work was over and raced over to the bar he'd never put foot in, and now here he was, finally pushing in with a helmet tucked under his arm.

"Tifa," he says, greeting her softly as he comes to the bar. "What say after you close up we go for a ride. You know, just see the sights. There's this really beautiful place out in the barrens past the city, good for clearing the head."

A way of saying, without actually saying, that he can give her a lift to the warehouse. Better not to say things out loud when there might be other ears associated with the bad guys to deal with.

People probably were going to need drinks now more than ever. But Tifa took her five or ten or twenty minutes to clear her head before she got right back to it. She'd needed that time and while she still looks rugged and worn, she no longer looks like she's about to snap. So Nida comes at the right time to catch her and talk.

She nods at his suggestion, being able to read it for what it is. It would probably be best if she took some time off, closed up early today, and headed out to the warehouse. This place is safe enough to a point, but something in the warehouse just feels less under the Head's eye.

"I'd like that. Thanks," she says. "Won't be much longer. I think I need a break anyway."

It might be a little bit longer, but she can close up an hour or so earlier today. She can't exactly be a good bartender if she can't focus on her job and right now she's having a hard time focusing.

Some time later, she finally manages to get the place shut down, and if Nida hangs around looking bored she gives him something to do. Wiping down the counter one last time, she grabs her stuff from the back and makes her way back to where Nida is waiting.

"Ready?"

The having something to do is beyond valuable. Nida's so insanely uncomfortable to be in a bar. Too much of a temptation. He keeps looking at the bottles. Or he does until Tifa has him start cleaning dishes. That Nida's good at. Not like he doesn't fall back on cleaning up over community dinners. He's not a cook, he's a cleaner. But when she starts cleaning up he finishes, shoos people out for her, and then waits by the door.

And when she approaches, he holds the helmet out for her.

"As I'll ever be. You ever been on a bike before? I can try not to go too fast. Should warn you, it's pretty loud on one. Can be hard to hear the world outside of the bike."

They can talk in privacy, he means.

Tifa straps the helmet on and then settles onto the bike with ease. She's done this before. Not many times, but more than this.

"Cloud's taken me out for a ride before," she answers, waiting for him to get situated. "My ears can handle the noise."

The privacy will be good for them, she thinks, and he shouldn't have to worry about going too fast for her. She's had a lot worse at this point. Like driving an escape car while Cloud fends off a bunch of Shinra goons on his bike. Or that car they left behind at Nibelheim.

See, he'd be SUPER impressed by Tifa's driving experience. And he would so wanna hear about it, whenever he can. But for now he gets the helmet on and smiles.

"Hold on."

He knows she's strong enough to do so, so he pushes forward and pours on the speed quite quickly. Once they're on their way and settled and sighs. And speaks into the microphone he had secreted in the helmet. Yes, he made some modifications. And there is a receiver in her helmet too. Ain't he thoughtful? He's glad for it now.

"So I guess your guy's plans are going to matter a lot more now."

Tifa hangs on easily enough, her strength and balance keeping her in place no matter how much he speeds around. They are far enough when he speaks again that her surprise isn't as easily heard or seen.

"Handy," she says at first. Whoever came up with this was right on the money. "I guess so. He's always been a good leader." Whether or not he believed it of himself, Tifa always saw that in him. Maybe he hadn't made it into SOLDIER. So what? He was turning into a hero anyway.

"You're not getting cold feet, are you?"

She wouldn't blame him if he didn't want any part of it after that horrific display, but it's only strengthened her resolve.

Well Nida will be glad to know he was right on his duos to rig the system. He felt it was the best choice, the best way to ensure some privacy, seeing as he made sure the range on the receivers and transmitters were hella short range. If Tifa were to lean too far back, she'd lose him.

"I was trained as a spy and assassin since I was a child, Ms. Tifa. I don't back down from a vital mission. Especially when the lives of people I love are on the line. For Seifer, Rinoa and Squall? I'd die to see them home and safe. I'm raring to go, I just need to be pointed in a direction. And we definitely need to start looking into securing vital people for the planning process. Sooner or later the Head is going to figure us out. But me? I'm a born rebel. Even before my training. I grew up in a town that became annexed by a foreign power. They killed my parents for fighting their hold. I would disappoint them if I didn't fight just as hard for this place."

Cloud, as he tended to be while between jobs nowadays, was at the bar. He'd tended to occupy a small corner of the counter during the daytime, usually either half-watching the TV while he waited for his phone display his next courier job, or reading whatever papers were lying around while doing the same.

Being here... it wasn't bad. Watching Tifa as she worked, assisting with whatever required more than one person, even moving behind the bar on occasion to allow Tifa to see to things elsewhere or take breaks was easy. It almost felt natural- a world of difference away from the travelling they'd done back on Gaia, but... nice. Of course, it wasn't ever long before his phone alerted him to the next thing. He'd always have to leave, but he'd always be back.

It was natural.

Except the broadcast that interrupts some trash TV today wasn't exactly... anything of the sort. He... recognises three figures. Marie, of course. Someone familiar. Someone whose name he didn't know, but he's sure he's seen that face before. The last person... V...

Shit, V.

They weren't allies. Weren't friends, of course not- he'd made that quite clear when they'd met, for the fact that V threw his lot in with a bunch of murderers, the same way he had, not so long ago. But...

Shit.

He's staring at the screen- and he fires off a message from his phone. Then.. then he hears the door to the back slam. He gets up, his eyes a glare as he looks around the bar. The few patrons actually there don't even raise their heads. So he takes off into the back after her- brows tightly furrowed in concern.

"Tifa..."

Time? What?
He reaches out, taking her by the shoulder just as soon as she's landed her first punch, and the weighted bag shudders.

"...Tifa, stop. Hey-"

Of all the people who had to follow her downstairs, she's the most conflicted about Cloud. Sure, she's grateful as always to have his support when she needs it most. But this is following in the wake of some pretty terrible memories, memories that he doesn't know about yet. As soon as she hears his voice, she knows she's going to have to explain more than a few things to him and it won't be easy.

The tears in her eyes slip down her cheeks, just a few of them, and she wipes almost angrily at her eyes.

"It's just like Shinra," she begins, her voice shaky with the weight of both her emotions and her memories. "Try to stamp out anyone who opposes them. Wholesale. Because lives don't matter, just appearances."

In a way, this is an echo of all of her feelings about Shinra and the Head. This is nothing new. Except there's that haunted look to her eyes and the way that she can't quite meet his gaze yet. She bites down on her lower lip, hard, and sucks in a breath of air through her nose. Her foot's in the door now. It's only a matter of time before he asks the right questions or she just spills it.

She can't keep holding everything in.

[She looks like she's about to break down. He knows why- but he doesn't- he'd thought that something like this, even as upsetting as it is, wouldn't cause a reaction quite like this. It's not like he's expecting no response. That would be stupid, but one quite like this, when there's tears in her eyes, her cheeks are red and her skin irritated, angry- her voice wavering.]

I know.

[His voice is small, and it doesn't seem enough of a statement. So...]

Did you know any of them?

[That would explain it...]

[ he doesn't understand. how could he? she can't expect him to know about things he hasn't experienced without being told about them. selfishly, she hopes vincent will let her work through most of it with cloud and if cloud hasn't put it together yet, then vincent must have been doing exactly that.

it's both good and bad.

she lets out another harsh breath and shakes her head. ]

Not personally, no. Cloud, I...

[ she sucks in another shaky breath, like that alone will steady her.

it doesn't. ]

Remember when I first got here? When I said I'd just been to the Northern Crater? That was really a few days before. Shinra... got a hold of me and Barret. Everyone else escaped. But they... they wanted to make an example of us. They almost did.

[ somehow barret had escaped and through sheer luck tifa had broken herself out. well, luck and a bit of flexibility. ]

Sometimes I can still feel it. Being trapped in that chamber, choking on gas. And then I thought... what if... I know what we're doing is important. I understand that and I've accepted it. I know the risks. But what if we get caught, too? I just...

[ she pauses again, squeezing her eyes shut. the real problem isn't entirely for herself. there's also the part of her that's afraid for cloud. her voice is soft when she responds, but no less full of emotion. ]

I can't lose you, too.

Dean hadn't been around long enough to know or understand much about the executions or the people that he was working for but he knows a thing or two about death. far too much for his liking actually, so Dean knew what shock looked like.

Dean smiled. "Dean Winchester. I just started but you look like you could use a drink."

Shock is definitely it. The sad part is that she probably should be used to this sort of thing by now. But for all that a part of her is, she's also still just dealing with her own personal reality. She'd been there, in the place of those who were executed, except she'd been lucky and had managed to escape. Those people... weren't so lucky.

She gives him a wan smile in response, remembering that name. "I think we all could, after what we just had to watch. But we're still on the clock. Maybe after that..."

After that, he's probably right; she's not much of a drinker herself, but sometimes it's just the thing.

"I'm more of a punch things type anyway."

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( OPEN )

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cw: talk of gassing, probably murder talk forever in here

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After she comes back up.

/latest forever

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downstairs.

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