Second Floor Common Room, Sunday Night

[puppy_fair]

Zack had been back on the island for all of a half-hour, now. Just enough time to wander his way from the Causeway back to the dorms, stop into his room, stick the gerbil into the hamster ball, and then ooze his way to the common room, where he immediately plopped himself down on the couch and proceeded to stare at the television.

There were a few missing ingredients in this equation, tonight. Such as the presence of mind to actually turn the TV on, and the notion that the gerbil would probably get more exercise if only Zack wasn't hugging the ball to his chest like a teddy bear.

Mr. Winkles attempted to scrabble up the side of his wee plastic prison, cursing humanity for the creation of the transparent torture sphere in which he was trapped. As usual, he was Not Best Pleased.

[Open, as common rooms typically are.]

Comments

[not-jaded-yet.livejournal.com]

"Well hey there sailor," Jennifer said, wandering into the common room. "Haven't seen you all weekend."

[puppy_fair]

Talking. There was indeed talking over that thar shoulder.

Zack kind of glanced back, offering Jen a shadow of a smile as he placed the face to the voice. Friendly faces, those were nice. Zack was totally a fan.

"I was off on assignment," he explained, lifting a shoulder in a bit of a shrug. See? No big deal. "The job, you know."

[not-jaded-yet.livejournal.com]

Jennifer's expression turned a bit somber. She knew when Zack wasn't giving his all.

"The job sounds like it wasn't a barrel of laughs," Jennifer said.

[puppy_fair]

If Zack hugged the hamster ball any tighter, it was going to crack right up the side. And then there would be a daring escape... or a squished gerbil. One or the other.

"It was... the job," Zack replied, chewing his lip a little. "It could have gone worse, I guess. I mean... It wasn't really a successful mission. But we learned things. That's good."

[not-jaded-yet.livejournal.com]

"Learning is good. Learning means you got through it," Jennifer said. "I'm... guessing you don't want to talk about it or anything."

[puppy_fair]

Zack's eyes dropped down to his knees at that.

"You know, I'm probably not as good at talking as I could be anyhow. You wouldn't really be missing out on anything."

Just a lot of mumble, a bit of wibble, and a sniffle or two. Which was hardly dignified for a SOLDIER, really.

[not-jaded-yet.livejournal.com]

Jennifer walked over and sat next to Zack. She reached to try and place a hand over one of his.

"You don't have to talk if you don't want to."

[puppy_fair]

"It's not that I don't want to, really..." Okay, maybe it kind of was that he didn't want to. Talking about things meant admitting that they weren't going well. Zack was terrible at admitting that things weren't going well. "We found Angeal."

That didn't sound even remotely as though it was a good thing. He moved his hand a little, so that he could hold hers. That was nice, at least.

[not-jaded-yet.livejournal.com]

"And how was he?" Jennifer asked, giving Zack's hand a reassuring squeeze.

She was afraid of the answer, but she had to ask.

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

Elena was wandering back to the dorms, after Fight Club, and noticed Zack sitting on the couch.

Which would have just merited a wave, except that Zack was ... curled around his hamster ball and looking forlorn. Zack?

Elena lingered in the doorway. "Hey," she called out, softly. Shit. What had managed to get Zack down?

[puppy_fair]

Voice. Voice in the doorway. Which... Kinda made Zack jerk a little, actually, because his head had been somewhere else completely, watching feathers fall from the sky before fire swallowed everything, staring down at a dead woman he'd been talking to maybe an hour before, same as monsters, anywhere but here.

It took him a moment before he managed to actually look up, after that jerk. There was a shadow of a forced smile on his lips. It looked wrong, set there somehow. Like someone had cut it out of a magazine and stuck it overtop a picture of someone who wanted to start screaming and to maybe never stop.

"Oh... Hey, Elena."

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

"Hi," she said. And now? Elena was going to be joining Zack on the couch.

That was the stare of someone who'd seen things they really didn't want to think about, and couldn't stop thinking about anyway. Working at ShinRa meant you got good at picking those expressions out, because all of your coworkers had them now and then. And so did you.

"What happened?"

[puppy_fair]

Zack's mouth was dry. He wanted to talk, but his mouth was dry, and licking his lips just kind of meant that everything was sticky and useless, and words were sitting like a lead weight in his throat right now.

Which meant that his reply was going to have to start as a small shrug. And then he'd work his way up to words.

"Ever heard of a town called Banora?" See? He'd managed to say something. Though it was almost too quiet to be heard.

She was a Turk. If anyone here knew what had happened in Banora, she probably would.

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

Oh. Elena had certainly heard of Banora, yes. Hometown of Angeal and Genesis. Company-funded, and half the science department lived there at one point. Also, lots of dumbapples, but that was not the point.

"Yeah," she said softly. "I've ... heard of it."

There had been an airstrike, and then, no more Banora.

"All evidence of misconduct must be destroyed."

If that meant leveling a ghost town, then so be it. ShinRa was serious about covering its tracks.

[puppy_fair]

Zack's very visible flinch probably demonstrated well enough just what he knew about those words, by this point.

No words, again. So he nodded. Little nod. And that hamster ball was absolutely not going to survive the night, with the way he was clinging to it. Banora had not been happy fun times.

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

"I don't know much," she admitted quickly. "The official report was a little thin. Genesis went renegade, and used the factory to start cloning himself. The company took the direct approach."

Leveling the entire town, natch.

"The official report said all the townspeople were deceased before the strike hit," she said, very very gently, "but ..."

Well. Official reports always said that, regardless of how true it was.

After all, the official reports also hadn't mentioned the two Turks lying in an unmarked grave. Turks never showed up dead on official records.

[puppy_fair]

Zack swallowed a lump in his throat, and then worked on making words happen again. He could do it. Just... it'd be slow, for a moment.

"Tseng must have filed that report. I mean... they were. All of them. But only just before."

Minutes, maybe. Angeal couldn't have been standing there long before Zack arrived.

[longislandiceme]

Bobby was... looking for Elena, actually, with a robo-baby balanced in his arms when he found a Zack instead.

At least the robo-baby had finally shut up, though it wasn't being so kind as to actually fall asleep.

"Hey, dude," Bobby said, with a small wave as he sat carefully down on the couch instead of his usual boneless flop.

[puppy_fair]

Zack glanced up. Another familiar voice, and another familiar face, and lo, it was his little brother.

He attempted a little smile.

Mr. Winkles attempted to gnaw his way to freedom so that he could destroy the world as we know it.

It evened out.

"Hey, Bobby," Zack replied, nodding slightly. He sounded tired, tonight. And he wasn't bothering to hide that fact, at the moment. There didn't seem to be much of a point in trying. He kinda sucked at it today.

[longislandiceme]

He sounded like Bobby felt.

"Bad day?" he guessed. "Or week?" He knew how those went.

[puppy_fair]

"Something like that," Zack agreed, nodding faintly. "Bad yesterday. But I'll live."

And then, because he couldn't help but notice Bobby's own somewhat lacklustre entrance, he shrugged and looked his way again. "You?"

[longislandiceme]

"Went home for a funeral," Bobby explained. "It was... kind of a crazy week even beyond that. And then I get back here and suddenly I'm the father of a robot-baby." He shifted said baby to his other arm- the little bastard was heavy. "What happened yesterday?"

[puppy_fair]

Zack opened his mouth as if he was going to just pour it all out, and the shut it again, thinking better of it. And he shrugged. Definitely a shrugging kind of day, today.

"It's a long story," he settled on, attempting a tiny smile. "A friend of mine is... in some pretty deep trouble, I think. And I don't know if he'll let me try to help him out of it again." He waved his hand, dismissively, even if his tiny smile wasn't completely convincing. "Bunch of stuff, you know? Crazy day. I... Uh. I'm sorry. I mean, about the funeral."

Zero attention span today. Don't mind the multi-track babble.

[longislandiceme]

Okay. He didn't want to talk about it. That was cool. "Yeah," he nodded. "Me too. I, uh. Almost didn't come back," he admitted. He hadn't told anyone else that particular detail, but Zack- probably wouldn't hit him for it, so.

[puppy_fair]

Zack hesitated for another moment, before he spoke again.

"Me too."

Awkward moment of silence, there? Yep.

"If you, uh... Ever need anything. Help at home or whatever? You can ask, you know. I mean, I don't mind."