[r8] talking head: gustave

[loveauthority]

[ Gustave is led to a quiet room within the resort with a pair of hammocks to suit the scene, and upon one of them is where the overseer sits. She beams, shuffling her cards in hand (she will not use these), and motions for Gustave to take a seat already!!!

This is the Talking Heads room, and there are cameras. Prepare to loosen those lips! ]

Comments

[makeine]

Oh, don't worry about that! Okay? My age aside, I am your guide to a happy end. Or, well, I'm doing my best to be.

[ not everyone agrees.

but... it's a good sign for date, she thinks, that gustave is even speaking on any of this. considering it. even if it's slow, even if it's hesitant -- it reminds her of someone dear, and anna can't help but sit up properly to talk. ]

What's keeping you from it? Your reputation? That frommage thing? The cave-in you're not surviving?

[ anna remembers how her joke landed flat. ]

e33 spoilers if u haven't reached act 2... beware

[9999]

[ he can't even laugh at "fromage thing" because the whiplash of fretting over Date straight into the bleak reminder of his own demise has him tongue-tied for a good moment. ]

... The last one, really.

[ he shouldn't be scared. But he is very scared. He wouldn't change anything he did; as it turns out, death is terrifying no matter what you die doing. Gustave seems like he wants to talk about this even less than he wants to discuss his burgeoning feelings, given how he tries scurrying back to that topic instead. ]

No, I... I don't know if I'm ready, anyway. To care about someone like that again, I mean. I'm not sure how you're supposed to tell when you're ready. [ he shakes his head. ] And... I don't want to hurt more people when I go.

blessed...

[makeine]

[ ... well. anna watches him draw back from the conversation, then sits up and folds her hands in her lap. ]

You're ready when you are. [ it's soft. ] But it's scary, huh? Realizing you don't feel the same grief you used to.

[ she'll get to the death in a second. for now-- ]

Before Will, I was in love with someone for over a decade. But he didn't feel the same, and he went with another girl. [ ... ] I think I was more upset realizing I wasn't upset anymore than anything, as time went on.

[ because it's scary, in a way, to move on. but anna chose to, because will loved her back and made it known in every possible way.

her voice turns harder, more convinced. ]

But you're not living on borrowed time, Gustave-san. Plenty of people have walked away from this formerly dead, now alive, in other worlds or because they wished it so. You can do the same.

[9999]

[ a decade?! It must have started as a little kid's crush, then; she's not old enough to have a failed relationship that long. Then again, he wasn't exactly Mr. Popular when he was younger - maybe it was real, for whatever definition of real one can apply to a courtship between middle schoolers. It's at least real enough for her advice to ring true, though their circumstances were very different. He still loves Sophie, and she'd still loved him, he thinks. It had simply failed because of their circumstances. It's hard to admit he might feel attraction to someone else when he never stopped feeling it for her at all.

Alas, these thoughts stay in his head, because they're back at his mortality. Anna is very much more convinced than he is, judging by his grave expression. ]

It's not like that. I'm not ... using my wish for that. The problem I need to fix, it's bigger than just my life. That's a trade I agreed to already. [ a beat. ] ... And I don't want to live without my family. I'm not abandoning them and going somewhere else.

[makeine]

So bring them with you. Even if production doesn't go out of their way for you, which they usually do, I will.

[ no one's messing with a teenaged girl on a mission. and she's very, very serious about it.

still... even if she can seemingly leave her own world so easily (it won't be easy, when she comes to the date), for others... ]

Don't you want to live in the world you've changed, Gustave-san? You can have both, promise.

[9999]

[ slightly exasperated: ] Of course I do. Putain, I'm scared shitless of dying, but I've only got the one wish! And even that's up in the air, considering what happened the first week.

[ Date did offer to cover him if his wish did happen to be the one they lost, but 0+1 is still 1 -- plus, he's not too keen on taking somebody else's away from them. He's sure Date has plenty to wish for, too. ]

[makeine]

[ whoa french ]

Don't worry about that. Okay? It's handled. [ or will be. ] And-- to be honest, people will always use their wish for others if they don't need it themselves.

[9999]

[ eugh, he shouldn't be getting this worked up talking to Anna, but this topic stresses him out. He's been spending most of his time trying not to think about it. ]

... Sorry, I shouldn't have... [ he shakes his head. ] I want to trust you, I do. It's just... I have to be ready for what's probably going to happen.

[ it's hard to be an idealist about getting a hole blown through your torso. ]

[makeine]

If you trust me, then let's keep your worries to this room and live like you're not dying the moment you leave outside of it. Just like you have been, but I don't mind hearing you out, Gustave-san. I've seen waaaaaaaaay worse now.

[ torso blown out is small fry compared to ritsuka's dolls. ]

Kiss the guy you like and tell him how you feel. Or switch the order. Just be happy about things going well, since you deserve that as much as anyone else -- your future needs to include a second person, at the very least, no matter what.