Audience: White

[probe]

Comments

week 0, saturday

[probe]

[a text first!]

always <3 did you need something? or do you wanna talk in person? you had a long day...

[enfangs]

no kidding
in person? not great at typing

[probe]

sure. kitchen?

[regardless of the answer, lust is going to go there anyway.]

[enfangs]

k

[white will head over there as well! when he sees lust, he holds up a hand in acknowledgment.]

[probe]

[lust is standing in front of the vending machine and seems to be pressing buttons to bring up some snacks. the back of their cloak shifts a little, and they seem to be tapping their foot to a beat only they can hear. but they can also hear when he enters the kitchen.]

Hi White! [they turn from the machine to glance over their shoulder and their enthusiasm mellows out a bit.] How're you doing?

[enfangs]

Could be worse, could be better. I'm guessing the rest of you were watching everything that went down?

[probe]

Yeah. We have a TV, too, so we can see everything downstairs in the conference room. [plus the whole "able to see whenever" thing. the vending machine spits out two fancy coffees and they turn to hand one to white before they work on picking out some cookies, too.]

It's a lot better than all of us being in the same room anyway.

[enfangs]

Watching on TV sounds way better than being locked in there, to be honest. Wish we could just pick that option instead!

[he stretches his arms, before he takes the coffee.]

Thanks. So what'd you think? Unless I'm not allowed to ask that.

[probe]

No, you can ask. [they don't seem to mind either way, and instead they seem to go about grabbing the cookies that come out of the machine.] A lot of us tried to tell Greed that it was kind of a bad idea to have a trial if something like this happened, but they were pretty insistent anyway.

But it sure looked like Beau was guilty, huh?

[enfangs]

Is Greed a lawyer or something?

[he shrugs, frowning.]

I guess, yeah. Dunno, this whole figuring-out-who's-guilty thing is way out of my expertise. Back home, no one's hiding this kind of stuff.

[probe]

[they shrug back.]

Do people do whatever they want without consequences back where you're from?

[enfangs]

Give or take. Wouldn't say it's anarchy, but you sure as hell aren't going to get the police called on you if you stabbed someone 'cause you felt like it.

[probe]

That sounds sort of scary. It doesn't work like that where I'm from...but sometimes the police are the ones doing the stabbing anyway. [so casually said.] Have you killed people before?

[enfangs]

More than I can count, yeah.

[he's not necessarily proud of it at this point, but he's not ashamed to admit it.]

[probe]

[that's okay lust would prefer he was honest about it anyway.]

...is it something you might do here if it was an option?

[enfangs]

... I'm not going to pretend I'm a good person or that I'd never kill anyone, especially if I got something out of it. [...] But... I dunno. After a hundred years of doing it, I've gotten kind of tired of slaughtering my way through life.

[probe]

I don't think that's such a bad thing. I guess I was just kinda curious! A lot people asked why we included the dying thing in our guide and...this was why. People are going to act on their own no matter what.

[enfangs]

Oh, yeah. That doesn't surprise me. We had a shit ton of people applying to be Demans even though it wasn't a secret that we hunted down humans. Morals tend to get dropped if you reap big enough rewards from it.

[probe]

That seems to be a universal thing. [they sip their coffee.] Why do Demans hunt humans? What kind of rewards do you guys get from doing stuff like that?

[this is all just for their own curiosity.]

[enfangs]

Immortality, basically. Devouring other humans' souls stalled our aging.

[probe]

Guess that explains why you're here. All that work would be for nothing if you didn't get to live past your death. [the work being a deman and also the sacrifice, they mean.]

[enfangs]

... Well, immortal or not, living in general would, uh, be nice.

[white will continue to pretend he has nothing but wholly selfish reasons to be here, as he would die of embarrassment if he had to admit that maybe a sense of altruism plays a part.]

In any case, the era of Demans is over. Goes to show that sometimes, being a psychopath doesn't pay, I guess.

[probe]

Usually it doesn't. A life of crime never really works out anyway, and I think it's kind of nice when people have a change of heart like that.

[white won't bring up there are non-selfish reasons but lust knows his history so.]

[enfangs]

[STOP LET HIM PRETEND HE'S A SELFISH ASSHOLE WHO DIDN'T DIE TO PROTECT THE WORLD

but he squints at lust, wondering if this is. about him, specifically. in which case he needs to start denying it out of awkwardness.]

[probe]

[...they squint back before offering him a cookie.]