lostcarnival | An Inquiry

An Inquiry

Who: Jimmy and Foster
What: A friendly conversation over lunch.
Where: Cave Jail
When: Backdated to Day 92

Jimmy played it off as bringing Foster something to eat. Bringing the prisoner his daily meal and all that. He'd even packed something for Foster. Grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato, tucked away in his bag with a few bottles of water. (Foster had kind of stuck out as one of the ones always going for the vegetarian options in the cookhouse lines.)

Honestly, though, he was curious. What had prompted Foster to go that far off the rails like that? Sure, somebody could do little stupid stuff for giggles, but something as big as putting the whole carnival at risk? Jimmy was wondering if there was an ulterior motive. And there's only one way to find out.

He'd asked permission from Sans, only to be told 'If that's how you wanna waste your life, go for it.' So here he is. About to head into the cave where Foster's being held. Wish him luck.

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It's fairly astute of Jimmy to be aware of the difference between 'unpredictable' and 'violent.' Then again, how often have the two gone hand in hand?

Luckily, even if Foster were inclined to violence, there's a handy barrier in place. Literally.

"There are bars," he observes testily from the dark.

Or maybe it's just 'tiredly.' Either way, it's audibly impatient.

"There are? That's.... Oh. There they are." Jimmy mutters as his eyes adjust. The full light of the summer sun made going into the dank cell more than a little disorienting at first.

"Anyway, I've got some lunch, if you want. I don't think anyone's brought you a meal yet, have they?" Jimmy moves closer, hoping he was right and that Foster isn't the violent sort. But he's still got the sandwiches out first, so Foster can get them with minimal risk.

The only thing about to experience violence is those sandwiches.

At least, if Foster can bring himself to take them. Which he's--

On the one hand--holy fuck, he is so fucking hungry. But there are layers to his reluctance: mistrust, a suspicion that's part hope, part fear--that Jimmy's magnanimity has an ulterior motive; worthlessness, the awareness that he's undeserving of generosity, of kindness, of eating; a perverse, reflexive instinct to do exactly the opposite and not eat, to deny himself food--because he's not hungry, because he isn't allowed to eat, because he's still looking to die and starvation is, in fact, one way to do it.

He moves, abruptly, to take the sandwiches, then stops, pulling his hands back, conflict visible on his face.

If, you know. Jimmy can even see it. He's literally drooling--not that surprising, if you know him, but he forces himself to look away from them, every muscle fibre in his body ready to follow the first impulse he can decide on--but he doesn't move.

"..................no." His answer is so profoundly delayed that it's impossible to tell if it's a refusal or a confirmation of Jimmy's suspicions.

Yeah, Jimmy's confused now, but he's rolling with it. "I'll just leave the sandwiches here by the bars, and you can have them later, if you want. They're wrapped, and I'll leave some water with them." Maybe Foster's still vamp enough that Jimmy should open a vein? Who knows. Jimmy doesn't, anyway. But he's at least done what he told Sans he was doing: Dropping off something for Foster to eat.

"I wanted to see how you were doing in here. Make sure that you were okay, see if you wanted to talk... That kind of thing." Jimmy's not expecting Foster to be chatty, but Jimmy does want to see if he can get some kind of idea why Foster tried to destroy the Carnival.

Even if Foster were still a vampire, there is literally no way he'd willingly ingest so much as a drop of Jimmy's blood--or anyone else's, for that matter.

Leaving the sandwich by the bars makes Foster's predicament... harder, but also easier. If he's leaving it there, his choices are a lot simpler, because the sandwich is going to be there either way. Which means now he's either got to eat the sandwich, or sit there and deal with Jimmy's tedious concern while it grows cold.

And when it's put like that--

Congrats, Jimmy. You win.

If nothing else, Foster is actually eating the sandwich.

Voraciously, in fact. Hunger is easy enough to ignore--no matter how awful--it is as long as you have no other options. There's a reason that one of the most common 'depression meals' is a nap.

But once you start to actually eat--

Oh God. Of God, he has never had a more necessary, more delicious, or more tragically insufficient sandwich in his entire life. Not that he could admit that to Jimmy out loud, for a number of reasons. But the fact that he's reduced to actually licking his hands once he's eaten it... probably says it well enough.

But it's a little awkward now... because he really, frankly, does not want to talk.

Especially if Jimmy's going to pretend his motive is concern.

"You're still here." It's blunt: a subtle cue for Jimmy to leave. He's giving him a chance to do so on his own--before Foster has to say something neither of them are going to like.

Well, that answers the question on whether or not Foster'd been offered anything to eat. "Good thing I brought two, then?" He lays the second down where the first had been, and backs up a bit. Bars or not, no point in getting in grabbing range.

"Yeah. I am. I wanted to make sure you'd gotten something to eat, and if regular meals should be a thing. Which... looks like it should be." With the way Foster's inhaled the last one, Jimmy's half tempted to count his fingers. "But... I'm... Curious. What was the plan? You don't really strike me as the 'Just want to watch the world burn' type, really. So... What was it?"

It was, in fact, wise of Jimmy to get away from the bars before asking a question like that.

"I don't?" Foster's tone is openly disbelieving, on the verge of derogatory--Jimmy would have gotten a less discouraging response if he'd said he didn't think Foster was a natural blond.

"Why wouldn't I be?" He's spinning a fiction as he speaks--gesturing like he's outlining a basic truth instead of... what is, frankly, just a central desire to keep one more person from asking about him as a 'person.'

He snatches up the other sandwich--just in case Jimmy decides to have second thoughts about it, really--and takes a bite, barely chewing it much at all before he swallows and continues where he left off.

"What are the pre-deceased known for if not having nothing to lose?"

"The pre-de-what?" Jimmy tilts his head, trying to follow Foster's train of thought. "Oh. Oh. You're...." There's a flash of pity across his face, as he figures it out. Foster's dying, or something like it. Just a moment, though. Foster's already worked up enough and this will probably irritate him more.

"That doesn't explain why you tried to kill everyone in the Carnival as well." Okay, maybe the pathetic, half frozen hellbats are bothering him more than it should. "Especially with something as impossible to control as a Mushi infestation."

Foster has the rewarding opportunity to see and hear Jimmy's understanding click into place, that moment that he loathes and loves in equal measure--a kind of vindictive, validating moment. He is not surprised to see that Jimmy pities him.

But he's surely not happy.

Disgust bubbles to briefly fill his chest. Black and sticky, tarlike, encasing his lungs. Jimmy won't get it, even if he explains it. So why bother?

"So? Why does it have to make any sense at all?" For all the talk about how others experience so much via feeling, it's as though the people around him are incapable of feeling anything meaningful. It makes no sense to him, honestly. But he knows that's just his defect. He's the one with the disease.

"Maybe I just didn't want to go alone." It's a baldfaced lie, one so egregiously false even Foster can't say it without some kind of bitterness or contempt creeping into his voice, though his expression hasn't changed at all.

"No, it doesn't have to make sense to me. Does it make sense to you?" Because that's the core of it really. If getting a head start on ending his pain is what Foster wants badly enough, then it's going to happen. There's only so much anyone else can do to stop him.

"That's what I'm concerned about. That you decided to take the rest of us with you when you did." If Jimmy died here, he'd never get home. Never see his family again, or stop himself from saying yes.

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