DELETED SCENES FROM 15 STRANGERS ROUND 6

[incendiarize]

[Arthur has been known to swim in the pool on occasion. Or just let himself float. It's a good way to lose himself and stop worrying so much, and it's a good way to work off a post-vision funk. So, yeah, he's headed there now.

Maybe someone else is too?]

Comments

[backuphero]

[There's only so much a man can take of the same kind of training day in and day out. Swimming indoors, with water that might turn his hair green... it's not Jonathan's usual thing, but it's different enough that it feels like flipping the bird at whatever's running the show here.

Being paranoid and staying isolated isn't his usual thing, either, after all. So he's heading to the pool on the off chance that he might run into somebody and have a chance to break the routine this place is shoving him into.]

Well, hey, what do you know - Arthur? Mind if I join you?

[incendiarize]

Jonathan, hey. Sure, let's go!

[Arthur does not like being alone. He's infinitely grateful that Caleb is letting him stay with him. And while Arthur is plenty capable of getting up to his own entertainment....it's just better to have someone to talk to.

Also, he's lost a lot of weight, it's probably a good idea to not go swimming alone. Just in case.]

i swear i'll have my paid topped up tomorrow orz

[backuphero]

[It's not a mocking gesture, the way Jonathan sweeps the door to the locker room open and holds it, he's just being dramatic for the heck of it. He glances around, and laughs to himself.]

Wish they had colors besides gray, but boy I'm glad they've got trunks here! Didn't want to have to deal with Hiyori throwin' a fit about "no wearing boxers in the pool"....

[His smile fades completely after he mentions their more talkative host. He shouldn't care what Hiyori thinks of him. He shouldn't give even a tiny little sliver of a damn.

This place has gotten into his head.]

...not like he even gets mad like a real person anymore, though. Wow I'm bad company, aren't I?

no worries!

[incendiarize]

[And Arthur isn't inclined to take it as one; he plays with explosions and is fluent in sound effects, he is absolutely a dramatic goof himself. In they go!]

Yeah, it's pretty neat how there's special pants for swimming. I'm used to just stripping down to whatever's practical!

[Which usually means undergarments and doesn't always leave a pleasant going-home-after experience. He's gonna pick out some swim trunks that fit about right.]

You're fine. You knew those guys before here, right? It's gotta be super weird for you now.

[backuphero]

I... well, I wouldn't say I knew him. We met, and then he left, and got dragged here. It was a crazy night, we had a pretty intense conversation. Link didn't talk much then, either, though.

[Old habits die hard, and this is just enough like stripping down and redressing for gym class that Jonathan doesn't even think about just casually slinging his shoes into the nearest locker, though he's a bit more careful with his clothing.

Modesty around other guys doesn't really survive Gym Class In The Era Of Gang Showers. He may be stark naked as he walks over and grabs a pair of trunks for himself, but it flat out doesn't register that being casual about doing that might be a little weird.]

But that's all in the past now, anyway. I guess having special clothes just to swim in is kind of a luxury, isn't it?

[incendiarize]

Knew him enough to know he's acting weird?

[At least that sure seems like the case. Arthur picks a locker and strips down, tossing his clothes in willy nilly - not a ton of concern for modesty here, either. He...wears a lot of layers, in the day to day. So he might be even thinner than he looks. He also wears long pants and sleeves all the time, so good job seeing more skin than he usually shows.]

Yeah, kinda! I mean, Raquna has 'em, but she's basically a princess. And plate armor's no good for swimming in.

[backuphero]

Ha! Yeah, no, if you don't sink you'll just rust.

[He sighs, and concentrates on getting re-dressed for a moment. It's easier than letting his mind wander back to Hiyori, staring at a particular drink like it held the secrets of the universe, those intense hazel eyes (with pupils) then flicking to his neck before his face - ]

And acting weird is one way of putting it. He's... he's pretty different, now. Hate to be a jackass, but I'm tired of thinking about it, can we just put a pin in that for the next while?

[incendiarize]

Yeah, I came to get my mind off stuff, too.

[So, we'll stick with the swimming discussion.]

There was this one part of the Labyrinth, the Azure Rainforest, that woulda been way easier to cross if we'd swam it. One floor was pretty much just a lake! But she'd have had to ditch her armor, and my formulas would've gotten watered down. So instead we floated across the water on these giant flowers!

[backuphero]

Giant flowers, huh... I know down in the Amazon Rainforest, back where I'm from, they've got giant lilypads, but even those aren't big enough to carry people. How giant are we talking here? Were they shaped like boats, or -

[With that last question, he turned around, and his voice caught in his throat.

He expected to catch sight of maybe a few scars. Arthur's in a trade similar enough to his own, and that comes with the territory. But this, the sheer scale... he's seen scars like this all of once. Well, no, more than once. Naoya had brought far more than one photograph, that day. "This is the history you can not prevent, and that we - that I - can not ever forget. You asked me what an atomic bomb was, back at the base... well, this is what that does."

He knows old radiation burns when he sees them, now, and the sight of scars like that on a barely-recovering-from-starvation frame is enough to shatter his composure.]

Jesus Christ. I - sorry, I just - my God, I didn't realize you'd been - what happened to you?

[His voice broke on "happened", there. What scars he carries aren't nearly so... that.]

[incendiarize]

[He's about to answer, but then that abrupt stop. He turns, looking quizzically at the other blond. Why stop? Why distress?

the new line of questioning...helps. It still takes Arthur a moment to connect the dots.]

Huh? ...Ohhhh, right. Don't look like that, they healed ages ago! Practically ancient history!

[You chill, sir, while he figures out how to tackle the actual question there.]

[backuphero]

[Of course Arthur of all people would be able to just let that roll off his back. Jonathan nods, and finds his way to the bench closest to the locker he'd chosen, and sits down.]

I, uh. I figured. You've got a good range of motion, and they don't look like new scars.

[He feels very young, somehow. Also very stupid, but that's not exactly a new feeling in this town of gray boxes.]

[incendiarize]

Yeah, they're like... Ten years old, by now? I kinda forget they're there, most of the time.

[It rarely comes up since he's in the habit of keeping covered. Everyone at the Library knows, and it's not like he's stripped in front of Ricky or Rosa, and Rune's about as chatty as Link so he didn't comment....]

You want the long version or the short?

[backuphero]

Whichever version's least uncomfortable is fine. But... ten years? Jesus, you were a child....

[Well, on the bright side, he isn't falling into time with the ticking when he talks now. And thoughts of Hiyori have been thoroughly flung out the metaphorical window.

Now he just wants to punch probably an entire army square in the teeth. There are some weapons that shouldn't be used.]

[incendiarize]

Eh, they're not that different, but the long version's all tied up in some bad stuff happening back in Etria.... Back in my world just saying Gotham would be enough.

Gotham was a mining town at the foot of Yggdrasil. It got totally levelled overnight in an unprecedented disaster and if you believe the rumors no plants grow for miles around the ruins and there's a big pit where Yggdrasil used to be that's still burning. There's only two known survivors, me and Simon.

[He's casual about the telling, it really doesn't bother him. It was a long time ago.]

[backuphero]

So it's not just Earth that's got places where all you need to say is the name and people just know, huh... still, that's....

[It's hard to focus. It's hard to understand why Arthur's so casual about this, or even how he is... it's been years, sure, Jonathan can wrap his mind around that, but this doesn't seem like the kind of thing that time should help with.

Then again, he's never known that kind of loss. Maybe it is! He doesn't know.]

I'm sorry. Know you've probably heard that a lot, but... that's a hell of a lot to go through.

[incendiarize]

....Uh. I'm from Earth.

[Hooboy. This is about to get really heavy, isn't it?]

When I mentioned Gotham, back in the Mansion, Eric, uh, Eric Lecarde, not the Eric here now, immediately asked if I was from, uhhh.... Yew Nork City? And I don't know for sure, I don't think anyone knows that. But I do know my world used to have a huge city, bigger than anything, called Tokyo.

[He kind of waves off the apology. He has heard it a lot, and it's a nice sentiment, he guesses, but as ever he focuses on the present and near future.]

[backuphero]

That... that sounds like Tokyo as Nagisa knows it, yeah. A city so big there's no horizon without buildings even out in the suburbs.

["Eric Lecarde, not the Eric here now" - God that hurts. It doesn't have any reason to; after all, the last time Jonathan saw the man he was alive and well, safe in Texas.

Part of him does wish a better adult were here, though. The thought of New York City leveled like Hiroshima is horrifying to where he wishes he couldn't picture it so clearly. Ruins, and a fire that never stops burning where there was once something named after the Vikings' world tree... ]

I - okay, before we get way too far afield, yeah, Gotham's a name for New York City, which is... it's... Paris is wrecked, so it's pretty much the city where people go to be artists or actors, or writers, things like that. That's an old name for it, but I guess he'd be the type to know....

[incendiarize]

Yeah. We only explored a tiny piece of Tokyo's ruins, but there were...there must have been no end to it, way back when. An ocean of, of I don't even know what, I have no clue what it was made of.

[He wonders if this "New York City" was anything like Tokyo. he can picture the city's beautiful remains so clearly.]

Artists, actors, and writers... I kind of hope the town name's a coincidence. The Library'd probably love to find those ruins.

[backuphero]

Who knows? If the world's changed so much that Tokyo's a sea of ruins... well, hell, maybe they'd be lucky enough to find the Met's still there underneath everything.

[A pause, just a beat, really.]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I mean. They've got a beautiful collection of weapons and armor... I've only been a couple of times, I'm from the central-south part of the country. "Austin" and "Dallas" don't sound familiar, do they?

[He can't not wonder.]

[incendiarize]

[He shakes his head.]

Nah, I don't know those names. Ricky probably would, she's from the Old World. And Raquna might know something, her kingdom supposedly goes back that far, but it's not like the whole world a been explored. They could still be out there, maybe even thriving. Just, you know, without contact with the rest of the world yet.

[backuphero]

[Jonathan shakes his own head, slowly, and then sighs.]

When I think about time on that kind of scale it just gives me a headache. I know humans are really good at surviving - hell, you're living proof - but the thought that we could go on so long that all the cities I know are either ruins or lost somehow just... it's a lot to take in.

[He smiles, then.]

Pretty egotistical, I know. Anyway, uh, I know the pool's not goin' anywhere, but right now I think jumping in would do me a world of good.

[incendiarize]

It's not like it was some slow process. Your cities probably would've survived indefinitely, without any kind of event horizon.

[He stretches, though. This was much more intense than when it came up with Eric Lecarde, that's for sure.]

Yeah, a swim sounds great.