lifeaftr | minecraft is unrealistic

Entry tags:

minecraft is unrealistic

Who: Héctor, anyone
What: His spirit is as dead as he is.
When: July 25th
Where: Enso
Warnings: Mild injury, and a truckload of d e s p a i r to start with.

It's mid afternoon, one year and then some after he first arrived on the beaches of the island. The thirteenth month. Thirteen's been said to be an unlucky number. Certainly it's not doing him any favors.

As good and kind as everyone is... it's just not enough. Not every day. There's only one thing that ever will be, one thing which he always seems to be denied, one way or another. Granted, not much about his situation is new, when it comes down to it, but then neither are these deep black moods. There were no failures this year. No bridge. Nothing to try. Everything's perfectly fine until he can't fake it anymore, because everything is not fine.

He had four pleasant days with his family, after so long dreaming of them. Was that it? Is that all he'll ever have? And there's no reason for it, seeing as there's very little he can do someone else can't do better. Of course, if he hadn't been so stupid, he would have had many years with them before being drawn to this world, not only four days... stupid, stupid, stupid. He's always been stupid. It explodes outwards as anger first, for a few minutes, but that's hard to sustain for him. So...

He's just lying on the ground, in the leaves underneath a tree, no smile on his face and cracks spiderwebbing through all the bones of one hand. Don't punch trees if you have no padding on your hands, you won't like the results. He doesn't want to get up, he doesn't want to goof off, joke around, play games, none of that. There's... nothing. No point at all.

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"Right, right, you know what I meant. I'm not the best at... actually asking before I barge in."

He folds his arms, resting his chin on the long bones and is quiet for a moment. Not long.

"Do you want a few lesson some other day?"

"Always useful to learn new things, if you're up for teaching someone with no experience in farming or cooking at all." He lived on a college diet, and then he lived on a diet characteristic of someone who ate on the road frequently. None of that was ideal in terms of learning some useful adult skills.

He learned to survive. That was mainly what he had going for him.

"That's fine. It's all pretty simple." He's miles away from his usual tone, though he does sound less blatantly miserable. "Lucky for you guys I was alive before appliances and electricity were a thing, I guess. That's probably half the reason I have the slightest idea what I'm doing."

"Hey, I used to work in construction. Doesn't mean I had any idea how to work with raw materials. It's a learning curve."

He's pretty old, then, huh? Technically, anyway. He...does he count as all that old when you stop aging once you die? Do you stop aging?

He needs to stop thinking about this. Afterlifes don't really hold much promise, in his opinion, so he just kind of hopes that in his world, there isn't one.

"It's not hard." He's shooting for encouraging, in a subdued way.

"It wasn't what I did for a living, actually. Just a few times when we needed the extra money. Anyone can learn how to cook." Maybe not be a master chef, but at least make something edible. "Or grind corn, that's easy. Doesn't take much strength, I mean... look at me."

"What did you do for a living?"

Making conversation, right? Good stuff, normal stuff. That's probably safe enough as a topic of discussion. God, but Tim has no idea how normal people are meant to relate to one another. He's never been normal or relatable, in his experience.

"I was a musician. Played music for parties or weddings or in church... whatever came up. It was a pretty small town, sometimes I'd go a while without anyone needing a guy with a guitar." Two guys, but. Hell. If anyone deserves to be edited out of the story, it's Ernesto, not Héctor. He grimaces for just a moment. "But that's not as useful where we are."

"It's not always about useful. People used to do live music at Denny, I think." Mira, he's pretty sure. Tim...he'd never have that kind of confidence in his skill to commit to something like that, but she can't be the only one to want to, right?

"You like doing it?"

He smiles a bitter smile. Music. A blessing and a curse.

"I loved it. Some part of me still loves it. Which is crazy, there's no reason I should. That's--that's a long story." A beat. Another wincing face. "Okay, no, that's not true, not exactly a long story, but it's... something. It's complicated."

Which more than likely means it's not a happy story. He's never one to hold back any good feelings, that's just plain silly.

No reason he should love it, huh?

There's not enough context to know for sure what he means by that. Something bittersweet. Something difficult to reconcile, maybe. He won't pretend that he's any good at this, talking about shit. But he's learned to try.

"You don't have to get into it if you don't wanna. But if you do, I mean...it's not like I'm doing anything time sensitive."

"It's not the worst thing some people on Enso have been through. But it's... not great, either. And it's mostly my own fault, no matter what anyone says. You sure you want that on your head?"

It's surprising, really, how few castaways ask him why he's such an eyesore. Why he looks like shit and can't be bothered to remember to change clothes more than once a year.

"Anyone who wants to turn shit into a contest over who's had it worse isn't someone you need to talk about your problems to," says Tim, speaking as someone who was that kind of person until life taught him one better. "And they're not someone you probably wanna talk to at all, period."

Tim shrugs with one shoulder, offhand and deprecating.

"If it makes you feel better, I've got pretty bad memory problems. Might as well tell this stuff to someone who's got a fifty-fifty chance of forgetting, right?"

"You've got a point there. About myself, anyway." A shadow of a grin, also self-deprecating. "I'll talk to anyone, I'll talk their ears off. Haven't you noticed?"

Memory problems. That gives him a start, throwing him off for a moment. Well. Here goes nothing. "I wrote some songs of my own, once. Went on tour with my friend, I'd known him for as long as I could remember, since we were still losing baby teeth. We were out to become famous, he was obsessed with it. Only he wasn't quite as good as me. My songs were what was going to bring us success. He didn't think he could do it on his own. So when I said I had enough, I wanted to go back to my family..."

He trails off. Take it away from him, Tim. Figure it out on your own. Use your imagination, and don't make him say it.

Someone else can talk. Tim's better at listening, anyway. He resists the urge to dig at a cigarette. He's been trying to quit. He's still not really sure about what else he should be doing with his hands, though, so eventually he slips a flip-knife from his pocket and opens it and closes it without any seeming pattern to the motions.

It holds everything in place and keeps his thoughts from drifting while he listens.

"He didn't like the sound of that, I'm guessing."

"No."

It's surprising even himself how steady his voice stays, talking about these things. It's only been a year since he learned the truth. He can count on one hand how many times he's gone over it with another person. Most of his friends who happen to have been murdered knew straight away... this, his situation, it's something else entirely. Something unresolved, because he's been trapped on a goddamn island since finding out.

"And that was it. That was my death. He went on to become famous with mangled versions of my songs, so..." He fiddles with the rim of his hat, also wanting to keep his hands busy. "I don't play anymore."

"He killed you?"

Héctor doesn't spell it out, but he doesn't need to. That was my death. A jealous partner, a disagreement. It's easy to pull together the pieces.

"Low blow." Tim blows out a breath to the effect of well, damn. "Don't want to, or afraid to?"

"He poisoned me." And who drank the poison, naive, trusting his 'friend'? This idiot did. He had everything he wanted, he walked away, he deserved what he got.

"I don't want to. I don't want to enjoy it. But I still do, no matter how hard I try."

"Jesus." It's said with a sort of blunt acknowledgment. Fucked up, but not all that surprising. Given that murder is, apparently, involved in this backstory, it was never going to be pretty.

"That's not really something you can change."

"I know. It's part of who I am. If I hadn't changed by now, it's pretty deep rooted."

The music, it's not just in me. It is me... Cheesy, dumb lines from a young boy more than a hundred years ago, but he meant it. He always means what he says.

"Y'know you don't have to run from that." Pretty sure that isn't gonna make it any easier, or magically fix anything, but he has to say something, right? "I mean, I don't think anyone here is gonna try to poison you over music."

...well, given some of the shit that happens here, maybe that's not the best statement to make.

"On purpose, anyway."

"No. I mean yeah, I know that. It does feel... good to play, once I pick up a guitar and go for it, but... music tore apart my family for almost a century. My stupid music."

He's already said so much, may as well go for broke and keep it up. Air out all his dirty laundry and maybe... feel a little fresher tomorrow.

He goes on, a man full of sorrow. "You know they banned music from the house so they wouldn't be reminded of me, ever. Because I abandoned them and it hurt them all so much..."

"Your friend wrecked everything. That isn't your fault." You can't be expected to do much from beyond the grave if you're dead. There are exceptions to this, sure, but the point is that they're exceptions.

"Your family didn't have the full story. You didn't abandon them. You died. Unless you're pals with a necromancer, how's any of that on you?"

"You don't understand."

He doesn't have a throat and yet it feels like it's closing, he's choking on his own words.

"I did die. But before that, I left. They begged me not to leave and I went anyway. To play music, to make the world happy, when I should have only cared about making them happy. They... they were my world. My wife. My daughter. Especially her."

"Yeah, but you didn't mean to leave them forever, did you?" He wouldn't be betting on that, based on the way he's talking about them. "You wanted to do something for yourself, and it went badly. That's not your fault."

Who anticipates their best friend poisoning them. Seriously.

"I know. Dying wasn't my fault. Leaving was."

He'll sit in the dirt all day and say it--he'll be a broken record for a thousand years. It seems skeletons develop odd habits when they're upset, because he's clutching his own collarbones miserably.

"I shouldn't have. I should have stayed home and made something of myself in Santa Cecilia. I could have gotten a real job, there was nothing stopping me."

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