The Resurrected Love Company [Beast Wars/BtVS crossover April challenge]
Title: The Resurrected Love Company
Pairing: Dinobot/Buffy Anne Summers (Beast Wars/Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Species: inter (transformer/human)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: As the species specification explains, transformer/human mechanics, though no detailed connection; basic cuddling, licking, nuzzling, that kind of thing-I didn’t want to get into uber-technical details.
Genre: angst, humor, romance-uh, general
Spoilers: To be on the safe side-entire series of BW (with a concentration in season 3) and BtVS (with a concentration in season 6).
Summary: Megatron didn’t mean to resurrect Dinobot, just to clone him; Willow had every intention of bringing Buffy back from the dead. Neither one appreciate their new leash on life.
Notes: In response to the April challenge, using an experiment of BtVS/BW that’s been bugging my mind. 3rd person POV, mixed between human and transformer. (Feedback would be heavily appreciated for this experimental fic.) Edit suggestions from (see first comment please, weird tech. difficulties going on during posting).
Disclaimer: I don’t own Beast Wars, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and their related characters/locations.
"So, how’d you die?"
The mechanized raptor merely snarls, turning further away from her. Smeared in dirt and blood, black dress practically bathed in it, the human tosses blonde strands back, looking at him clearly through green eyes.
"What, still sensitive ‘bout it?" She smirks, lips raw from nervous, detached chewing. "All right then, what’s your name?" The raptor tail flicks sand at her, then nothing more. "Come on, I know you can talk, I know…I just know," presses the girl further, eyes clouding over and growing murky as she paused, unsure, unwilling to examine. Then she reverses into flippancy, not wanting to share too much. "Maybe it’s just my Slayer sense." She tilts her head again, remembering a certain bleached vampire. "Or maybe it’s your whole sci-fi look that just screams mad genius."
She needn’t have bothered; he still will not look at her.
"I’m Buffy." And as she leans forward, he raises his head and looks at her, eyebrow arched, and the girl muses that her name transcends all boundaries: everyone thinks it ridiculous.
"…Dinobot."
The girl laughs. And just when Dinobot looks like he’s about to snap, their whole world twists around and fades, both waking up in equally small rooms.
"Buffy?" Dawn’s voice is meek and worried, seeing her sister all tangled up in bed, eyes fixated on the ceiling with fists clenched.
"Chopperface?" Though Rattrap’s tone isn’t the least bit playful, the sight of Dinobot curled up and raking lines in the steel floor is jarring.
Both Dawn and the Rat would agree that the night after resurrection does not look good on either of their respective relations.
&&&
They continue to meet in dreams. Buffy felt obligated to explain that it was probably her fault, she dealt with more of the supernatural than Dinobot, that she had some experience with seer-like dreams, that she really was just a walking-magnet for crap like this.
When Dinobot says he doesn’t care, she’s too tired and just wants to see some comfort, some understanding in his words. Only later does she realize he is tired too.
&&&
He recites history tracks. She recites her Watcher:
"One girl in all the world...."
"Autobot and Decepticon...."
But they have little interest in the details. And so they deal with culture clash, with Dinobot left puzzled by references and inopportune laughter and rants heightening in shrill madness-for surely the human is insane, smashed into pieces, still garbed darkly and dirty, forever complaining of want for a shower. (Of course, he feels cracked too.)
"Do you guys have showers?" She taps a bare toe against his tail. "Stainless steel, or something?" Experimenting, she presses her whole foot, smearing dirt and blood on his tail, pouring fresh blood as she slips too hard on boned ridges. "Guess not."
"CR tanks," Dinobot murmurs, lifting his tail and licking the new blood; how strange, it tastes powerful, almost like energon-no, better.
Buffy pictures it, then she lights up. "Like a bathtub?"
Dinbot pauses in tasting, remembering Megatron’s quarters. "Yes, like a bathtub...."
&&&
"There are some studies into your Earth culture from where I come from."
"So…you’ve heard of Heaven?" Buffy’s throat goes raw when she says the H-word.
The robot shrugs, explaining that it was only a small recognition of the term, he was more interested in the more war-like aspects of Earth, including any mythology.
Buffy shrugs in turn. "Still, you probably know more about the Bible than me." And then, "What’s your Heaven, Dino?"
"The Matrix," he ignores the girl’s giggle, lost in how the girl described her heaven: warm, safe, complete, whole; her lust for it. Anything else is Hell, she explained. "And the Pit, the Inferno…that is our Hell." Her eyes darken, and then she and Dinobot wake up again.
&&&
The Maximals plus the Widow figure Optimus will understand, coming back from the dead as well. Depth Charge only cares so far as Dinobot still reeks of Rampage. Even if he had returned through a cloning attempt gone wrong that still went unexplained and defied logic…still, Optimus would understand, even if their ways of return differed. He had to; Dinobot is not dealing as well as Optimus did-well, it was more of a show really, as only Dinobot would know. Optimus and he…talked a while, after the transwarp explosion.
They do not reference that time as they meet on the riverbank.
"Dinobot…do you miss it?"
No answer.
"You were there longer," Optimus concedes, leaning back, as if Dinobot had answered. Optimus carries on, just…talking. Not reporting on what happened in his absence, but telling it. You were missed, he says.
"There have been dreams."
"Not nightmares." The larger bot notices the word choice, does not question.
Dinobot bows his head: "They have been…good dreams."
&&&
One time, they rant:
About Megatron and Faith.
About Rattrap and Spike.
About Optimus and Tara.
"She is a witch?"
"Also called a wicca." Buffy explains that Tara gave her a magical check-over after crawling up from her grave, but it was subtle: just herbs and smoke, no flashy lights and stuff. Tara’s low-key and sophisticated like that.
"Can’t tell if she’s lying when she says I’ve just got a major sunburn from passing right under Mother Nature’s nose, and that’s why Spike’s chip goes wonky." The girl shifts, folding her legs. "Tara doesn’t lie." Tone change. "She has no reason to lie to me."
Buffy ignores Dinobot’s veiled warning about treachery keeping the wits sharp-it hurts her head.
"Not that I’m complaining, I like it when Spike and I spar…fight, whatever." Dinobot does understand that at least; understands combat, understands an innate thirst for it; he knows the hunt and the kill, huntkillhuntkillhuntkillhuntkillhuntkillhuntkillhuntkill.
He knows about monsters. Dinobot never sees the child she was, if only because he cannot remember being one. Cybertronian growth patterns are funny that way.
&&&
Buffy and Spike either go out on her front porch, or to his crypt. She’s been getting quieter and withdrawing even more from her sister, and the vampire’s worry intensifies.
Yet....
"Did you see your mother?" Spike misses Buffy’s mother, and has no doubt she’s in Heaven, but he’d still like to know all the same.
She doesn’t answer, not moving an inch from his chair in front of the small television, her tapping foot not lessening in rhythm. The tapping vaguely reminds him of some velociraptor from the movies.
"I don’t see why you protect those sods," he growls, "they don’t deserve it, they deserve the truth," Buffy keeps tapping, "such as it is."
"…eams."
"What?" Spike moves quickly, kneels by the chair. To the naked eye, Buffy’s lips aren’t moving.
"Dreams." She turns to Spike, with a brilliant smile that tears, and it reminds him of sweet, mad Drusilla. "I’ve been having dreams, ‘bout a dinosaur spat from techno-hell, but he gets all grumpy when I ask if he’s in to heavy metal." Here she giggles. "Last night I screamed at how he was still all grotesque when we dream because, ya see, his metal really is, y’know, grotesque, all gnarled and stuff and jagged looking, and I mean really jagged; make the wrong move when you touch him, and you get this," she raises her hand, displaying the large cloth wrap around her entire palm, blood beginning to seep through again; Spike had noticed it before, and figured it was just some typical demon she had tangled with.
As he moves for the first aid kit and replaces her bandage, Buffy continues, "So I screamed at him because he wondered how come I never get the shower I always ask for whenever I dream with him, why I’m always dressed the same way if I want red silk so bad, or that flower-pattern dress. He didn’t really mean anything by it, he wasn’t being cruel, just curious and finally asking because I always ask for a shower; but I snapped at him, I haven’t snapped at Willow and Xander, at the world, I haven’t snapped at the right people like you say I should." Buffy bites her lip, then confesses, "He’s died too, and came back to life."
"Has he?" Spike tightens the bandage, and it is done. Buffy nods. "The Matrix is Heaven, Pit and the Inferno are Hell, but the Forge is Purgatory, and he says he went there, because he had done wrong, but he died like me, because he had to, because he had his duty and his job, he had to protect, that’s all he could do. So The Powers That Be from his world thought he could pay off his debt and sent him to the Forge, and lately we’ve been wondering if maybe his resurrection was actually a job from the Forge. Well, okay, I was the one who thought of that idea and told him; he’s very grim, you see."
"Needs cheering up, does he?"
"Doesn’t take very well to it, though." Spike smirks; definitely like sweet, mad Drusilla.
And then, "Sleep over; Dawn’d like seeing you Saturday morning." He agrees, and they walk back to Revello Drive together, but Buffy does not mention her dinosaur again.
&&&
Finally they spar.
Dinobot may be sharp all over, but the girl is sturdy, and as fast as him. She’d boast faster. They whirl around each other for a time, and Dinobot snaps at her and she dodges, but in such a way that she wonders if he’s just messing with her. Just when she’s about to make that accusation official, the raptor charges into her stomach, taking advantage of her tendency to talk too much, and the girl is satisfied by the thought of him just being strategic.
Sand splashes above, and Dinobot has the girl on her back, but she has his jaws in her grip, working her damn hardest to split them up. She stretches away from Dinobot’s swerving claws as she does this, but her footing’s getting lost. He snaps his neck up and away, swinging Buffy completely over and slamming her back down, loosening the grip on his jaws. She rolls to the side, avoiding a kick, and they back off from each other, recovering their ground.
Then they charge again.
"We should fuck."
Angry red, dripping streaks up and down Buffy.
"What?"
Armor dented, tail held defensively in front.
"Sex. Intercourse."
Parry, dodge, plunge.
"Spike’s been getting more and more tempting, and Rattrap wants you."
Jaws clench dark dress, and pull; the dream ends, before anything is seen.
&&&
Battles with Megatron continue, and Rhinox still runs tests on him, Depth Charge hovering sometimes, always curious about that damnable scent of X.
Dinobot won’t even entertain the idea of being a lab experiment, his mind is too withdrawn. Other than fighting and advising on combat, giving into Rhinox’s examinations without arguing, answering questions when he could, Rattrap was correct: he was not there. Not there mentally, not when it counted. Rattrap was correct, it was still like having a ghost wandering around the base.
And this ghost is sleeping more often when there is a chance for it, pours over data tracks on Earth when there is call for it. This ghost is blind to the Vermin, yet remembers that girl’s theory about physical intercourse forcibly repairing the mind, and Dinobot snarls.
&&&
After the demon danced away and the songs revealed her actual sojourn into Heaven, leaving hurt friends in the wake, Buffy rushes to bed. As she fades, she senses Dawn about to knock on her door, to talk to, to check up on. The girl is about to fight the fade away, but the knock never comes; Dawn has changed her mind. With a sigh, Buffy drifts off.
In the sleep desert, the girl tackles Dinobot; they spar and tangle, and he leaves her with a swollen cheek.
"I didn’t know your metal was so cool...." Buffy is kneeled down at Dinobot’s side, pressing said swollen cheek against its non-mangled area. He only gives a thoughtful hiss. The girl is strange according to Cybertron’s records on her race. She’d be classified an anomaly, a myth come to life-but to Dinobot, she is more akin to Predacon and Maximal alike, and perhaps that is why her presence is ultimately a natural thing.
&&&
A specific virus aimed at transmetal 2 technological vulnerabilities, the gist of what Rhinox is saying.
The point is a severely injured Dinobot stuffed in the CR chamber, all Maximals plus Widow certain of Dinobot being a "may" or "may not" in desire when it comes the life and death arena. The majority are violently against a "may not," and equally distressed. Yet Optimus has his duty-he calls a guard of the Ark, prepare for a Predacon assault with one of their own down now. Bedside vigils won’t be any help, and he looks at Rattrap, who only thinks it would be just like the slag-spoutin’ Saurian, dying on them a second time.
Dinobot’s arms sting, and his head hurts, even as he is choked into unconsciousness.
&&&
Buffy remains completely still as Dinobot continues his approach, nosing her neck, shifting through hair at her shoulders. The girl thinks he’s looking for something, and she is curious, simply curious. She notices that Dinobot’s eyes are colored a muted red, and he looks even more wrecked; he’s hurt. Buffy reaches, edging around his arm and touching a hinge at the elbow. It seems dislocated.
"What happened?"
No answer, and it’s not just Dinobot being closed off; he is nuzzling the whole left side of her neck, snout rubbing up and down, and it is as if all the metal has turned malleable, to the point of no cutting. And Buffy finds her eyes closing, leans into the touch, inexplicably. She is only curious.
Pondering: sentience resembling something human seems to have left Dinobot for a time. It seems what he would call his "beast mode" has taken over, though she has never seen him transform, never, it’s the same pseudo-science that must be keeping him twisted-looking in the first place, that keeps her dirty and bloody and dressed in black. She thinks that though possibly overtaken by the beast mode, it seems any feral nature has been channeled into a more unexpected aspect of the Velociraptor.
Buffy wishes she had thought to read up on dinosaur sex, or love, or mating, or shit like that. Yet when Dinobot switches to the right side of her neck, and the girl leans in that direction, eyes still shut, there is reconsideration. She is merely sexualizing something that’s probably innocent, this is almost like a puppy lapping up attention-except she’s pretty sure she can smell sex, even animal sex, but sex is not a universal thing. Technique will differ from species to species, this could be Velociraptor sex, and if it is, it would be harmless to her human mind.
And then she pulls him down.
A puzzled hiss, then adaptation, and Buffy still think it’s innocent, Dinobot’s just licking and nuzzling the entirety of her body, and she leans into the whole sensation. Metal feels like liquid steel, and she remembers scars on her neck. Buffy wonders if he’ll bite at all, and right there. The girl strokes in between ridges on his neck, and she wonders if it was some pressure point because Dinobot stops, settling next to her, curling up as if to sleep within a dream. Buffy curls into a tighter ball, into him, clawed arms making room for her as she presses her ear to his chest. She is, as ever, curious; there is no beating heart per se heard from his chest, but lively crackling, like the spark of a firework.
"In my country, we blow up these things called fireworks; they’re not weapons, just showy lights celebrating our independence."
Dinobot’s mind seems to have returned, for he sneers, muttering something about obnoxious Maximal holidays prodding at old festering wounds.
Uncurling a little, Buffy stretches up and places a small, quick blushing kiss on Dinobot, then curls back up and hides her face in his firework-like chest. He tasted like copper, like solid blood; she picks up no response from him.
&&&
Despite the overwhelming air of relief upon seeing their first ex-Predacon step out repaired, Dinobot looked disturbed, and immediately shut himself up in his quarters. Least to say, the Maximals shared in an equally disturbed silence, and Rattrap was the first to react, switching to vehicle mode and speeding on his wheels to Dinobot’s room. Stopped in front, he snapped; Rattrap began going through all the nicknames he had ever thrown at the raptor-some new ones here and there-calling all manner of challenges, anything to provoke an argument, a growl, a snarl, anything. His tirade further stopped any reaction from the others, they watched the spectacle, caught up in morbid interest.
To the untrained eye, Rattrap was simply screaming at an uncooperative door; simply screaming at Dinobot’s ghost-it was if he were still dead. Lately, many were thinking he might as well be.
&&&
One would expect Optimus to snap as well, but again he had died as well. Nothing more than frosty words with Dinobot, but then the raptor responded later, on conditions of privacy.
The riverbank again.
"The dreams have stopped."
His commander looks at him. "Have they?"
"There was nothing last night...."
"You left the CR chamber last night...." Dinobot’s optics snap to him, blank, silently asking about the implication.
"Near death experience, perhaps you do not want it to end?" Optimus’ tone was hopeful. Then he bowed his head. "I’m sorry; we’ve been left to our own thoughts, we’ve all wondered if you wanted...."
"It is not…I have not wished for my death, it is just," Dinobot’s words are halting, Optimus’ apologetic eyes not helping, "things are…detached." Optimus closes his optics, nodding, listening. "The dreams were whole," muttered Dinobot.
Quiet, and then, "What were the dreams about?"
Just when Optimus is sure he won’t be getting an answer, the raptor spits out: "Homo sapien. Female. Presumably modern, more in tune with those who allied themselves with the Autobots."
His commander is surprised, then contemplative, "You did…die saving the humans-"
"Optimus, the girl and I had sex."
The larger of the two freezes and gapes down…into Dinobot’s smirk. Optimus rolls his optics, slamming his hand on the Earth, causing a slight vibration strong enough to bump the raptor up.
"I’m relieved you still have that twisted sense of humor, though I’d have to say Rattrap’s finally corrupted you."
"Well," and Optimus looks at Dinobot again, unbelieving. "That brought your attention to the…actual nature of it all…in the CR, there transpired a strange brand of intimacy as I dreamed." He stares at Dinobot. "It felt as if the beast mode had finally taken over," Dinobot looks down, growling, "I’ve never been able to transform when with the girl, and her appearance is always stationary, always the same thing, and occasionally she repeats herself, especially when considering her own hygiene-"
The raptor stops completely, giving out a frustrated hiss. "To the point; my beast mode took over, though in a direction decidedly different from feral aggression."
"Did you mate with her?" Dinobot slumps down, flat on the ground.
"Never mind," amended Optimus, sighing. Dinobot spoke, but it seemed to Optimus he was talking to himself, saying thoughts aloud: "The girl is insane, yet as I earlier described, things are detached, suggesting a certain break with reality in my mind." The raptor is up and pacing, talons clacking against the rocks. "So I have apparently conjured up an imaginary friend," Dinobot’s claws clench into fists, unclench, "who echoes a small number of my own Cybertronian sentiments and caters to my bestial pleasure, but...." And the raptor goes still, back to Optimus, who feels a sense of the calm before the storm.
"But she was real, she was alive, I felt her!…" And he shudders, head bowed down and a single claw covering his face, realizing his word choice, and its failure to convey all actuality.
"…This will not affect the war, Optimus." His commander understands a vow, and an end to the conversation.
Yet on the way back to the Ark, he cannot help but to offer Dinobot the possibility that perhaps tonight the dreams will return. The raptor merely grunts.
&&&
When Buffy didn’t have the dreams, she did not leave her bed. Just stayed in, making up a lie about not feeling so well; sick, she explained. She chokes down her sister’s soups and teas, but refuses medicine. She found some content in listening to Spike spend time with Dawn downstairs. He went up to see her, even though Buffy just buried under her pillow and wouldn’t look at him.
She supposes now is a good time to bring up the age-old idea of the shit hitting the fan after sex, but the techno-raptor was never Angel or even stupid Parker and it wasn’t sex and he wasn’t fuckin’ real.... Buffy curls up and tries to remember if she ever had imaginary friends in addition to Gordo-the-pig when she was little, but as a curled up ball, her head recalls the feel of solid blood with a crackling firework beneath her ear.
&&&
The nights are blank again, as numb as the real world.
But Dinobot wakes up with a cross beneath his claws, and Buffy finds a potted flower that shoots thorns when Spike approaches.
The dreams still do not return, yet they are equally disturbed and content with the items.
The girl keeps the flower in the open, makes up some lame-ass lie about how and where she got it. She’s interested enough to try to look up information on the flower, but spends more time seeing if she can tame it-the plant can shoot with deadly accuracy after all. That’s the main thing, Buffy would like to keep it from shooting at Spike whenever he goes near it, would like to see if she could get it to attack on command. Instead of a guard dog, a guard alien flower thing.
The raptor wraps the cross in its chain and keeps it hidden, hidden at all times. It is not as if he could forget about it though. After he had stashed it away and joined the other Maximals, some comment of the Vermin’s enflamed him. They fought and threatened each other, and Dinobot was positive it was the first and only time Optimus would let them get away without a lecture.
Things shifted further toward attachment.
&&&
The shit still hit the fan.
Warren murdered Tara, Willow skinned the bastard alive, but she’s still snapped and out of her mind. She says everything hurts, the whole world hurts, and that to be rid of the pain, the world has to die.
Buffy takes issue with that.
But the Slayer has to deal with a whole brood of magically summoned tree-monster-things surrounding Willow as she casts her final spell. Angry red crackles straight up into the air, taller than any skyscraper, lines more jagged than Dinobot’s edges. Buffy wonders if Willow has any idea how close she actually is to ending the world.
Dodge, parry, plunge. She wonders if the tree demons are willow. Dodge, parry, plunge. Buffy has the feeling brute force will not work here, but luckily she has Xander. She’s doing her damn hardest to keep the monsters focused on her and not him, she needs to give him safe passage to Willow. She’ll do what she does best, hunt, kill; she’ll pave the road for what Xander does best: he’ll talk to Willow, Willow whom he’s known since the time of Barbies and kindergarten crayons, whom he shares a whole other world apart from Buffy’s. Dodge, parry, plunge.
Dodge a speared branch, yet straight into the path of a stray dagger of red energy, and before it leaves her crumpled on the ground, the red crackling seems to shoot straight up her sword’s length and into a direction far from the conflict. There are screams that are not her own, and before everything blacks out, Buffy hopes the red her sword accidentally directed doesn’t strike down any passing airplanes.
&&&
"Are you slaggin’ serious!?"
"You don’t seem to be arguing with anyone in particular, Vermin," replies Dinobot curtly as he reaches for the nearest control panel, joining everyone else in trying to right the ship.
"After everything, after every slaggin’ thing…we’re gonna crash again!?" Vermin is right beside Dinobot, crazily pushing buttons and calling up status screens that continually flash "NEGATIVE" over and over again.
"Shut up Rattrap," says everyone but Dinobot. The raptor has just once again viewed the ship’s camera; some jagged red blast had hit them point-blank, though pinpointing the attack’s origin was too difficult at the moment.
"Find an Autobot shuttle, it’s not mentioned in the tracks ‘cause we’re supposed to find it and get off this rock with it-but no, we just get the damn thing off and then get blown up," and Dinobot can marvel at how the Vermin rants while making such concentrated, deft movements. Optimus shouted orders, and the Vermin still went on, mentioning Tigatron and Air Razor and even Depth Charge.
When there was a sudden jerk, the strongest yet, the ship tilting, practically going upside down, and everyone had to hold on to something-well, Dinobot felt a distinct impression of déjà vu.
&&&
I’m not dead; that thought popped up in Buffy’s head as she sat up, warm beach sand sticking to skin below her sleeves, everywhere in her hair. Sitting up, she first noticed were the dark billows of black smoke, the smell of burning metal made her nose twitch. Metal? Green eyes followed the trail; the smoke drifted from a huge hulk of metal. Oh, shit, an airplane did crash, thinks Buffy as she gets on her knees and rises, but before she runs off, she looks behind her. Xander’s all right, Willow seems well enough-Xander’s cradling her, tear tracks drying against Willow’s cheeks amid the crash’s heat, and they’re both fixated on said crash. Willow seems to be back in her head, not apocalyptic anymore; Xander clearly reached her. All of their eyes meet for a second, then Buffy nods and runs for the plane. She’s not exactly the most careful sort, just barreling in through a torn side, and even as the girl is in a rush, she notices that the plane’s not a plane at all. Oh, it’s some vehicle indeed, but it’s not an airplane, where are the airline seats? Maybe it’s some top secret government thing, Buffy thinks, and then she hears someone boom out, "Damage report!" The girl makes a beeline for the voice, calling out that she’s here to help. And she’ll bring more help, she’ll call 911 and get an ambulance, but first just bring out the most wounded-and she just feels completely stupid as she gapes at a bunch of robots in the center of the crash. They’re gaping at her as well, probably at how stupid she is. But no, they’re gaping at her like she’s gaping at them-like looking at a different species entirely.
Gravelly laughter sends a chill down her spine, it’s sinister, but not B-movie cliché. Buffy turns toward the irritating sound, wondering how the hell is anyone laughing at this time, thinking only sinister B-movie villains laugh at this time, but life’s telling her that she’s been closer to this sort of laughter more than once lately-and there’s Dinobot.
She’s never heard Dinobot laugh before, and hell yes that is a chilling sinister thing to hear and see, and he’s there, he’s there, looks solid and twisted and oh so very real and Buffy laughs. She drops to her knees and laughs along, holding her stomach because the laughter bangs against cracked ribs, the cloth still full of wooden splinters; his laughter heightens in response to her growing laughter, even starting to sound mechanical, more chilling. Footsteps sound behind her, and Buffy bites her lips briefly to look back and see Willow and Xander stumble in, and she waves to them, pointing Dinobot out to them, then her lips burst back open and the laughter rings again. They do not touch to validate reality, the laughter is enough proof, and everyone just stares and stares at their resurrections, thinking them insane, and maybe they are, but things have never been so clear, things have never made such an audible click.
End?