#repeat repeat

- summer/fall songs but make it slightly off

babushka-yai ya - fionn regan

british bombs - declan mckenna

everybody’s falling in love - *repeat repeat

diane young - vampire weekend

hayloft - mother mother

heater - mom rock

gennifer flowers - fever dolls

grand romantic life - mom rock

in the lobby - the happy fits

jenny - walk the moon

miami - parrotfish

nothing to say - dom fera

problems - weathers

suzerainty - polite fiction

upside down & inside out - ok go

Probably, actually. Seems easiest.

On top of that, it doesn’t even fucking work that great. In the seconds between whatever gruesome demise you’ve caused yourself and waking up in the cold bath you dream of—you see—you remember—

The shade of tall trees. The way her eyes squint when she smiles. The scent of pine needles and cigarettes. The way her nose crooks from too many breaks. The one leaky part of the roof and the floorboard that’s always creaking underneath. The sound of her laughter. The. The. The.

—nothing. Meaningless tripe. Weird drudged up sensations and half-thoughts bubbled together into a stew that doesn’t exist.

Also last time you woke up you were down a hand and that seems unintentional. The eggheads are more pissed about it than you, something about needing to reset the system and how it was working so well for so long. At least they’re going to have the opportunity to finally switch to that new engram storing that was being proposed, yadda yadda yadda. They assure you it’s not a problem, you’re just going to have to switch to a new body quicker than normal.

And to be clear, it is normal. They’re the ones who told you to be reckless, you can’t be judged for dying on average once every job or two.

They shuffle you off to sit in the prep room while they hit buttons or something and you stretch out on one of the benches, examining the stump of your hand. It’s not like you woke up actively bleeding or anything, it’s just…not there. Like it failed to grow entirely. You could probably still work with it, honestly, but if they’re willing to just slap you into a new body before you get back to business…?

The shortstack they keep partnering you with would probably say that this is a sign of some kind, that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. That there has to be a reason why they offered this insane mad scientist bullshit up to you with the only caveat that you do jobs you’re getting paid for anyways. That there’s a reason they’re only annoyed in moments like these with your repeated deaths. You think she’s probably overestimating, after all you’ve had plenty of free lunches through the liberal application of extreme violence and no one’s stopped you yet. And besides that, you think it’s pretty obvious what they’re getting out of this. You’re guinea pigs for moments like this, for troubleshooting a thing they’re probably going to sell off to the highest bidder once they’ve got the kinks worked out.

Also it’s very likely they’re selling your medical data to someone, that just seems fair.

One of the younger nerds comes and retrieves you, asks you to stand in the biohazard shower so they can ‘recycle this one’. The euphemism makes you laugh, just a bit. Her eyes flicker with eager delight as one of the guards approaches you with an unholstered gun.

These dorks are about as transparent as it comes, you can’t imagine what she thinks could possibly be happening that isn’t already supremely obvious. But then again, what do you know? She doesn’t die anywhere near as often as you, maybe she knows something you don’t. Maybe she’s just scared. Probably that, honestly.