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[forthebothofus]

So.

Does age still matter if you're technically dead? I know I'm alive now and all but... just wondering what happens with the count.

[Guess who's birthday it is.]

Twenty-seven. I never got that far. Is it cheating to count it now?

Comments

[helluvachin]

[He will just ignore that first part.]

It's your birthday? Why didn't you tell me?

[Time to find a present!]

[forthebothofus]

[Denial never helped anything, Zack. Of course it won't stop her from denying her birthday.]

I never said it was. [Pause.] And you never asked.

[helluvachin]

[It's not denial. It's just ignoring pessimism.]

Wait, then I missed your birthday?

[Pause.]

Okay, then when is it?

[abstinentzombie]

I don't see why the fuck not. But I always thought birthdays were pointless anyway.

[Coming from the woman whose birthday was never celebrated.]

[audio]

[ignitethestars]

[This is relative to his interests.]

You overcame death? How? You must tell me!

[forthebothofus]

Nope. You didn't miss it.

[Hey Riah. She's smiling. Not that he can see it, but he'll prob be able to tell from her tone.]

Does it matter when it is..?

[forthebothofus]

I see it as a year survived. I don't celebrate it. Hell, I don't usually acknowledge it, but I'll still keep count.

[Only now she's technically dead.]

[audio]

[forthebothofus]

Hey, I don't have to do anything.

[Abeni's never liked the word 'must', no matter what the situation is.]

Not like I know how I did it anyway. People come back in this place. I just happened to die before I got here instead of after.

[helluvachin]

Good.

[Hearing the smile in her tone is enough to make him do the same.]

Yeah it matters. It's your birthday.

[Which is important, at least to him.]

[thii2ii22tupiid]

Start over counting at when you were brought back.

[abstinentzombie]

That's a good way of looking at it.

[audio]

[ignitethestars]

[He would like to enforce his point, but he manages to calm himself and back down some.]

... Then it is the place, not you which can transcend death?

[He will have to look into that.]

[forthebothofus]

That's... not something that's ever really mattered before, Zack.

[It's the day she has an extra drink at the bar or does something small for herself but never mentions or explains. This time it's been brought up just for the question that goes with it.]

[forthebothofus]

Yeah, but I died, so that logic doesn't really work anymore.

[helluvachin]

It matters to me.

[audio]

[forthebothofus]

If it's me, I dunno how. There's no way I survived what happened. One second I'm bleeding out with a dozen knife wounds in my front, the next I'm here, shirt bloodied and ripped up like it'd just happened but no wound.

[And this is why she's thinking this is some kind of afterlife. Maybe all of them are dead; she's just the one to remember it.]

What's got you so interested?

[forthebothofus]

[She actually chuckles a bit at that.]

Happy first birthday to me then.

[forthebothofus]

It's today.

[abstinentzombie]

Eh. You're technically alive now, too. Maybe you just won't age anymore, lucky you.

[forthebothofus]

Guess I just carry on like before then. It'd be weird to not age though.

[helluvachin]

Knew it. Now I got some work to do.

[Her present won't make itself after all.]

[abstinentzombie]

It would, yeah. But hey, no wrinkles.

[forthebothofus]

[He's so cute when he-- hang on. What'd he say just now?]

Wait. What?

[forthebothofus]

Kicking ass when I'm eighty? That doesn't sound too bad.

What about you then? When's yours?

[abstinentzombie]

...My birthday?