revivalproject | (Network) awake from blood-thick dreams

Richie spit his drink out, surprised at the casual mention of getting fucked. For someone who dished it out, it was almost hilarious that someone could get him with something so minor. Maybe it was the lack of pants. That definitely changed things a little. Maybe.

"Ah. Well, you can feel free, here. Not like I'd force ya to do it. But we look out for each other around here and the Agrii are babysitters it seems like. You can cut loose if you want. To get drunk. Or the other thing. Not with me, of course.

"Not that you aren't beautiful! I mean. You are great. I'm just gay."

She'd never made anyone spit out their drink before, and something about it was just hysterical. Aeon laughed, though she did at least have the manners to hold out a cocktail napkin.

The term Richie'd used gave her pause. 'Gay'? Clearly he was happy enough. It had to be some sort of ancient Earth slang that had fallen out of favor in Bregnica. She frowned a little in thought, trying to remember when she'd seen him before this: ah. The town meeting ... and the young boy she'd been talking with, the fast one, had made him upset about ... oh.

It clicked into place, and she smiled. "There are some very attractive men here. Seems like we're both lucky. And I don't have to worry about sharing the women with you."

Richie burst out laughing. "Lucky for you I only have my eye on one man specifically. The rest is all for you. I promise. And have a great time with all the women. Seriously. There are a few really cute ones, I think. I mean, objectively I think they're pretty great?"

He snickered, proud of himself for taking this whole moment in stride instead of breaking out into hives.

"Either way, I am happy to be your wing-guy."

"One specifically? Sounds like fun. Does he know?" She smirked knowingly. "If not, I'm good at matchmaking. If you need a hand." As for his remark about the women, her smirk turned into a grin. "As for the pretty things, I know. I've been flirting with a few of them."

Even if she was starting to realize her heart might belong to someone else, there was no harm in a little fun.

Richie laughed and blushed as he hid his face in his drink. Even now he can't help but get bashful about it. "Yeah. Yeah, he knows. We're taking it easy right now. Real easy. We're good friends so it's a little bit of a change, you know? Whole new world minus the carpet."

He smirked and looked up at Aeon with a wink.

"What about you? I can wingman myself. Who are we working on?"

The carpet remark sailed right over her head, as any good and loyal flying carpet should, but Aeon still smiled back.

"I'm not sure. I've flirted with a few of the ladies - Lauri-Ell is beautiful but she's not ... let's just say I'm pretty sure the kind of fun I have in mind is the lowest thing on her list of priorities. Lark's a pretty thing, but the city was hard on her. I don't want to scare her."

Which left ... a hole in her chest at the thought of her final and strongest option, and she heaved a sigh. "Your friend, the one you're going slow with. What was it like for you in the city?"

The alcohol was slowly but surely doing its work, and her reservations about sharing feelings and emotions were dissolving as surely as the last ice chips floating at the top of her glass.

Richie had to think about that before answering. "Eddie and I are used to things being fucking weird for us. But this is... this is something else. Not to mention the fact that the time I'm from, he's dead. Got killed right in front of me. He was grabbed just before that so... Yeah. That was also a rough conversation. Knowing you're only still alive as long as you're here? The minute you go back you're gonna get skewered?"

Richie's whole face went dark with that memory. Even with Eddie alive here he is grieved just thinking about the past. It still hurts as bad now as it did then.

"It's all just. A lot."

"That's terrible," she acknowledged, taking another drink - a deeper one, as she was reminded of how many times death had come for her. She didn't remember all of them directly, just faint echoes that haunted her dreams sometimes, but ... it was enough.

"I take it where you're from, there's no system in place to revive him, or ... replace his body?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

He blinked at Aeon for a moment, surprised by the question. When he finally let it compute, Richie just shook his head mutely. God, where did all of these people come from? He definitely had gotten the boring Earth.

"No. No, unfortunately. You... Where you're from they can do that? Revive people? Or just...swap bodies?"

"It's ... not quite a swap. I don't know exactly how it works, I just know that it's a system the Monicans have had in place for -" For how long, exactly? She wasn't sure. How many times had they brought her back? When was the first? Everything was fuzzy, like trying to remember your first steps, or the first book someone ever read to you. "- quite a while. They keep our DNA stored in a secure facility called The Relical, and when someone dies, their DNA gets recycled. Cloned again. You wake up just like it's a new day, and usually they take the memories of how you died. You just ... remember up to a certain point, then nothing. It keeps the people that have been brought back a lot from - oh."

The drink was starting to make her warm, and she pressed her hands to her cheeks.

"From losing their minds."

Richie couldn't help but laugh. Not because it was particularly funny but because the combination of Aeon getting drunk and the frankly fucked up shit she was talking about was wild. He shook his head and held his hands up to show he didn't mean offense.

"I'm not...That is really rough. Sorry. I just. Man. That is some way to live. Reminds me of that whole like...existential riddle about a transporter. Like if they copy you exactly and destroy one copy to make another in another place, did you die and your clone live on?" He shuddered and finished his drink in one gulp.

"Hate that shit. I can see why people would lose their minds over it."

(Network) awake from blood-thick dreams

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cw: death and related cloning

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