3T.

The pods were lined but finding one involved the process of walking slowly through the line of glowing pods for the person you needed to find. It was times like this, in the quiet solitude among the not-so-living, that the pods stood like tombstones. You were just looking for something familiar to catch your eye, a name, a face, a sign of familiarity among strangers. There was a unsettling guilt in passing by the quiet faces of others and wondering if anyone knew or cared they were here, and even worse, wondering how long they had and would be here. To remember and not remember that he had been here too.

…if it was better or worse that he fell out.

She was there…even then. There for when I came to this world. I was there when she left it.

It was better though that even though these people might never have a visitor, that he didn't have to be one of them to see them here and be concerned about their wellbeing as far as a moral obligation from one person to another.

He had never had to see Rin here when she had her own body. She had been good, and aside from the infirmary, she hasn't gotten into trouble – at least to his knowledge. She hadn't been punished for things, hadn't gotten off track in any way, and had gotten approval to whatever project she needed during meetings. If she had control of her own body, she would have never been here.

But she didn't have that liberty anymore.

Before, he felt Jan was the same. A good man who sacrificed everything for a stranger and his girlfriend, and would do everything to help strengthen their connection. Melvin had hoped that all his work, everything that was asked of him, would help return that in some little way, but he overlooked something somehow. He didn't know the person OUTSIDE of Rin's host body. Jan had a life, and Melvin distanced himself from his life in order to give Jan freedom and to continue his life normally without interference from a man who was already asking so much of him. Who took from that mind with having rin take hold of it, and took from that body in order for the two of them to share a brief moment of intimacy again.

But Jan was his own person, a person Melvin did not know and in his distancing to allow Jan some comfort and privacy, the man showed a side Melvin did not know. Jan somehow was violent. He somehow risked his life, Rin's life, in order to do something to Horace. There had to be something there for Horace to wind up so broken and bandaged, but it also had to be something more.

Rep was the only other person who showed so much violence that he harmed other hunters, but Rep had been sent off island. He was allowed to remain working and alive. What had Jan done to get him to no longer be seen as useful working but to be sent into a pod? What line did he cross among so much leniency on the island? Horace was healing and refused to tell Melvin at the moment, but Melvin was burning to know.

He stopped, back-peddling as he looked past a nearby pod to one behind it, and walked between a bearded man and a curly-blonde woman to a face he knew. A body they had made due with.

Jan laid standing up, eyes closed, resting. It was one of the less horrifying features that some of those podded had, but it was no less unsettling to see.

Stepping forward, he touched the class, hoping like so many scenes he watched in movies that the glass pane could somehow allow his thoughts, his feelings, his desires to be passed through to the habitant inside.

"Rin?" He whispered to her, as if speaking too loud might wake them, and he looked at their features for any signs of anything out of sorts. He looked – disheveled, dirtied, and far less pristine that usual. It worried him. Had him and Horace fought – and Jan somehow received the punishment? Should he be mad at one or the other? His feelings couldn't start to direct themeslvs anywhere when he didn't know who was to blame for Rin being away again. He had only started feeling right again with her here, and even then the small moments he was given, the crumbles of intimacy, the faint touches, the not-so-perfect smells and curves that didn’t' match up to memory, still left him feeling starved. It wasn't enough – but this….

This was like before. The panic of wanting to find that door, to rescues her, and heaving nothing from her – until Jan came to deliver him contact. To deliver that road to her, and while he wasn't exactly the door she had talked about, it was still a line thrown in his direction.

And with her, and with her telling him to listen to Jan, he had hope he could finally figure out the equation to bring her back through them both.

Now he had nothing – but it was worse than nothing. Nothing was final, but with them here, locked away, it was a hanging question of "When?" When would they be allowed back? When would he know they were here? When would he have her again in his arms? When would them being here too long would close whatever door forever that he still needed to open? When would when be too long and the threat of death finally come for not just her, but both of them?
When?

It left the future open with a looming question mark and he was powerless to do anything about it. He could not open the pod. Such a rash action would result in instant death from shock. He couldn't tamper with the pod in any way. It was a level of training that was beyond him and what would opening it do? They would be after Jan for escaping and throw him back in, or punish her more harshly for his mistake and impatience. He would be punished too, not allowed near her, and that would further handicap any attempts to help her when she did need it. He could plea – but he would have more luck calling Death on the line to see if he could come over for tea.
The door.

He had time. Endless time. Time to wait.

He had to get her door open.

Jan was a mistake. He was not a permanent body for her. He was never meant to be that. Melvin had had hopes that, if rin could become stronger, maybe she could remain. Maybe, just maybe, Jan would become more dormant, but she was still tired. Weak. Whatever connection she had with Jan was frail and she needed a body without opposition. They needed a body, and one that would allow her to come back into this world permanently .

He was given that task, and he couldn't fail her like that.

Leaning forward, he pressed his brow against the cold glass and clenched his eyes. "I keep ******** up. I should have never just…let this happen. I should have protected you again. I should have watched over you from everyone." He failed her in not watching Jan and the body she was using. Maybe she was never able to tell him about Jan because Jan was right there, and he could stop her from coming back.

He ******** up over and over and now she wasn't here. He didn't deserve her to be here to comfort him, to spend time for him, but what was important was not him being here, but HER being here. Whatever the cost, she had to return to make the exchange, that decision, the right one.
"I'll find you a safe place. A place to call your own. I'll bring you home."

He reached up, placing his palms to the cool glass. "You don't deserve any of this. To be locked away." Was it worse than being away from this body in the other place or to be trapped here in this body in a pod? Was she seeing the nightmares or the dreams that Jan was having now?


Clenching his teeth, he pressed his eyes tightly as hot tears rolled down his cheeks. "Why can't you just…stay? Why can't the s**t people just take your place? Just endless assholes and then you just…" The stupid s**t on twitter. The idiots who bickered and complained when at least they had bodies. When at least they could even touch the many people they ******** around with. The people who did nothing or cared for nothing and hoped for nothing and only complained and threw insults to each other. This island was never "comrades," was never "family," was never anything close to a whole.

Why were they outside of the glass and she was here? Why was Rin inside this body when that body didn't care about the life it ********!" He slammed his hands on the glass, and it vibrated against his brow. "********! ********! ********! ********! WHY THE ******** ARE YOU HERE?!"

He continued to bang his fists against the glass, a beating drum between each swear. <********! ********. ********? Why are you – you even doing here?"

Curling his head down, he slowly slid until he turned and rested his back against the pod, head back and eyes up as he watched the blue glow of runic lights wash up into the darkness of the ceiling above.

"You should have died." He whispered.

"You should never be here. You no good piece of s**t."

Why was he even here?