because i highly doubt i will be writing any considerable amount more of this, i'll just post the raw, unedited, text document i wrote during several work shifts to give it some semblance of life. necessary knowledge before reading: this takes place in the distant future of the cowboy bebop universe, with the smallest bit of halo influence. and its pretty messy.
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lavernius had gotten the call saturday afternoon. he was in the middle of work, and it was reggie, so he had ignored it. then he got the messages. he supposed it was his own fault that the man had resorted to telling him the news via text, but it consisted of only two lines: butch is dead. there will be no service. he wasnt particularly close to butch flowers, despite everything, so it got left on read for a few days until the second call came in.
"lavernius," is what greeted him in that infuriating accent. "ive got the place mostly swept up. you should come collect your belongings sooner, rather than later."
he had the communicator tucked between his ear and his shoulder, ducking into a stockroom to answer. "...what?"
"since i will no longer be staying here permanently," the old man drawled as if it were no big issue at all. "its best to make sure you dont have any valuables stored away."
lavernius felt his eyebrows pinch together. "what things? i havent been there in years."
"your room," was the clarification. "butch had kept it in top shape."
"oh."
bereavement was three days, which was bullshit, since it took that amount of days plus two just to get to the planet by spacetrain. each subsequent day after official leave started by lavernius making the tedious process of calling out. each call got more and more annoying, with his boss insisting that hes had enough time to grieve and that it was time to return to work.
"my uncle just died, asshole," was the last thing he had said on the very last call before pocketing his comm because that was not the exact term he had used when requesting leave but, well. then he turned back to the task at hand.
new zanzibar is one of the smallest planets in the solar system; in its heyday, its economy thrived due to the mining and processing plants. these days, only old retirees and guys who gave up stayed there. coming back, lavernius felt like he had regressed. all his old friends had moved on with him, so he spent most of his time sitting out on the steps of the porch, like when he was younger or out by the river--reception was best there.
he only had some scattered belongings in his old room. he could have been off the planet by the next day. but then, reggie revealed the surprise.
"he left this thing for me?" lavernius had asked, incredulously, when the old man had opened up the hanger. The MONO was a one-seater, but it was still pretty sizable, even with the wings tucked up on top. An old thing, it had been modified and refitted by Flowers himself, with a shiny aqua coat that got polished frequently. well, before everything, that is.
"it would have been yours sooner," Old Man stated, in that annoying tone. "had you stuck around after graduation."
lavernius walked around the spaceplane, already planning the cheapest route back home to coagulation. "is it fast?"
"he named it great sword. slices through the air mighty quick, it does."
and with that, he was tossed the keys and the old man set off to god-knows-where. apparently, he was moving in with a relative. gary, or something. he seemed in good spirits, lavernius thought, despite the untimely death of his husband. though, he couldnt judge too hard, not when he himself had left with hardly a word of thanks.
had a dream that was supposed to be an episode, on tv, of a crossover between red vs blue and ed edd n eddy. the episode started off showcasing the lives of the cu de sac kids in a post-apocalyptic world, sleeping in abandoned structures peacefully. they were also collectively a motorcycle gang?
suddenly theres a quick gust of wind that disturbs jonny. its revealed to be two invisible people as one uses ed’s head to jump up onto a structure. its felix and locus, on the move to their target. felix keeps going on about how this is an easy job and what he’s gonna buy with the money. locus tells him that he should focus on the task at hand.
they continue through the countryside before coming to a farmhouse, where their target is supposedly at. the dream deviated from there but it was implied they were hired to kill the entire extended family there because they were infected with the zombie virus.
went to visit my dad and the bf brought his bag with him and i asked him "why are you bringing that?" and he was like "every time we go over there you bring back a bunch of stuff you left behind" and i thought i had nothing left. i thought everything i had left behind i was okay with leaving forever.
but then my brother showed me a box of my old clothes and i found all of my roosterteeth shirts that i thought were lost to time. and i am. im finally reunited with my felix shirt.
Your name is Lavernius Tucker and your leader just got shot.
No, you think as you take a moment to stand in shock, he's not really your leader. He's just the guy who took the blame whenever shit went wrong. And, you suppose as you turn frantically to your other teammate beside you in the second after, he can't really take the blame for this, seeing as he was literally just standing around, not doing anything; having just hopped up on a pile of rubble about two seconds ago on his way across the pothole littered street.
"Holy fuck!" you say as your hand goes to lower the rifle your teammate had held up—where did he get that?—and in the process you nearly slap it out of his hands. You turn back to the cement wreckage-structure your not-leader was standing on only a second ago, and call out. "Church, are you okay?"
You get no response.
You had your back turned for a mere second, and that was all it took for Caboose to up and nowhere literally shoot Church off the wreckage he had hopped up on to. You had taken only a moment to raise your water bottle to your lips before you had heard the gunfire, and turned just in time to watch Church stumble back and fall behind the rest of the rubble he had been standing on.
"Talk to me!" you try again. You make to run to him, but stop in favor of roughly grabbing the gun from your stupid teammate before he decides to shoot anyone else before actually approaching the ragged cement at the base of the structure. "Church!"
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^^^ more of that scrapped fracas fic. this was the very start.
He held your hand before you died that first time. Had ran to you, chucking off his helmet, skidding to a stop on his knees beside you. Shock clear on his face, he tried and failed to get a response.
Angrily, he lashed out at Caboose.
He turned back to you in the split second after, you having found your voice. You had wanted to reassure him, truly you did, but then his attention was on you. The whole of it, unbridled and uninhibited. Suddenly, it became too much. You thought maybe it would have been more bearable had his helmet been on, visors made formality in social situations, so when you shifted in your feeble position and caught his eyes (they were a different color back then), you said the first thing that came to mind.
“I’m not gonna make it,” it was a little slurred and it took a little while to conjure, but you managed. Too bad your words seemed to have the opposite effect you were going for. Tucker had the most expressive face you’ve ever seen. You could read his every thought with a face like that—and you usually did. So when it seemed like he was cracking at the seams at your declaration, he probably was.
You panicked. “Tucker—” you didn’t know what to say. “There’s something I need to tell you.” Was there?
At his inquiry, all logic left your mind. His earnestness, the way he shifted, his entire focus on you. His whole existence seemed to singled down to that exact moment, ready to hang off of your every word. You remember—it felt defensive when you told him you hated him. Strange.
His face had crumbled and he released your hand. You didn’t know what to do then, cold so suddenly, so quickly, it left you reeling. (You had a body to call your own back then, flesh and bone; yours for the short time you had it.) Without any words left to utter, you decided to let unconsciousness take you; it felt cringy to think about. Alpha was a bitch.
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^^^^bullet time. i wrote it in second person because of the fracas fic.
i deleted the original installment of the fracas series a long long time ago because it featured the abandoned concept that church really was just a gay robot. and when tucker questioned him about it church just. didnt answer. and that was fracas.
eventually, church was supposed to Go Missing and came back Different. i never got to explore it much but tucker was always afraid church would disappear and never come back. thats what was supposed to happen. alpha was taken away and epsilon was supposed to take his place with the hopes of no one finding out.
basically all the AI in canon were also supposed to be AI in fracas, who were planted to live human lives and not even know it. church not really caring and brushing off his gunshot wound is in his programing.
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