Ripslinger anxiously eyed his surroundings. It was dark, cold, and dank down here. There were many other airplanes. They were all smaller models; he was by far the largest one there. They were all in cages too, some of them swaying idly in their prisons. Ripslinger, who was accustomed to sizing up other planes to see what they were good for, had the distinct feeling that a lot of those here were not far from the end of their powers. Beyond all hope. Some seem to have forgotten themselves completely, and float half-comatose through their nightmare like empty shells, their eyes hardly ever even opening anymore. Others became aggressive in their fear and despair, sometimes attacking the adjoining walls of the cages trying to get at their neighbors or charging at the front if someone new was brought in or being taken out. They were all still individuals, they would tell themselves. Everybody has their own way of coping. Yet, if aggression couldn't mend their troubles, then they often begin to drift toward the only other way out. 

The dim, florescent lighting strained and hurt their eyes. Ripslinger squeezed his shut, trying to give them a respite, but then they snap open again at the sound of thrashing and someone starting to scream. They all looked on in horror as one of their own, a CF300 Prime, repeatedly bashes himself against the walls of his prison. Not to escape. But to end it. He just couldn't take it anymore. Everyone wanted a way out. He chose death as the brownish-black of the plane's life essence began splattering against the walls and floor of the cell. A cacophony of anguished cries began echoing about the room. 

“No! Oh Chrysler, help us!” some cry out.

“Stop!” shout others desperately. 

Stop crying, please! Riplsinger squeezed his eyes shut again and turned away.

But they were all afraid. 

“Shut up! You should be happy for him!” a Cessna half-breed snarled.

The doomed CF300 finally collapses in a pool of his own vital fluids, his form mangled and crushed. He rose again, his nose slowly pointing up toward the ceiling and pausing, as if willing himself to remember what the sky and sun looked and felt like before crashing back down again.

“You mindless fucks can all rust away in here!” he growls, his wide, deranged eyes staring around as he laughs, gurgling and choking before finally falling still and silent. 

Ripslinger turned away, eyes still closed, lightly bumping the side of his containment with the tip of his nose cone.

I'm not getting out of here alive.

Ripslinger sucked in a breath through his intake as his eyes sprang open. He jumped up from his sleeping mat, dashing blindly forward until he hit a barrier. His engine snarled as he pushed, rearing up and scrabbling at the bars, biting at them before giving up. He felt a sobering fatigue come over him as he finally realized that he was awake, his eyes closing part way as he went back over to the sleeping mat, burying his nose under the blankets and shoveling them over his body to try and hide how he trembled. 

Little did he know, Dusty was about to make his way in, but paused at the sight of what seemed like Ripslinger having another dysphoric episode. He stared as Ripslinger calmed down and hid under the blankets, his expression blank except for a shadow of weary concern. 

XXxx

The last few days had been an absent-minded blur for Ripslinger, one simply just blending into the next. For once through this whole ordeal, he actually had some privacy at the moment. Both guards had gone somewhere and had yet to return. It was pointless, in his opinion, to be watched so closely. Despite his earlier actions it wasn't like he was going to chew through the bars. He'd hoped they stayed gone for a while so that he could languish away in peace instead of having to endure eyes constantly boring holes into him, although it was kind of fun to intimidate the in-room guard. What was his name? Martin... Mike … Mark, whatever. It was certainly more interesting than mindlessly playing solitaire for hours on end or sitting and trying to recall and replay every race he'd ever flown in his head. Although chess; he had yet to beat the little blue forklift. Whether he was begrudgingly impressed with her or disgusted with himself, he had yet to decide. He wasn't sure what triggered it but since the fight he had some new visitors besides Clarice and Dusty. 	

Dottie would come around at least once a day and they would play; the last two times had ended in a stalemate. Out of everyone, surprisingly, she seemed to have the least reservations around him. She had this casual aloofness that was a breath of fresh air compared to the seriousness of his other visitors, the Corsair by far being the worst. 	

Skipper had only come by twice, and the two would sit and make death threats and show their contempt for one another until by some weird turn of events a perfectly civil discussion would ensue. Topics were anything goes, but Ripslinger could always be counted upon to think up new and different ways to send the old warbird off in a rage at the end of each one.

Apart from Dusty, Clarice was his most frequent visitor. It didn't take Ripslinger long at all to discover her short temper. All it took was one wrong word or look to set her off. He could see why Dusty thought it was amusing to annoy her, although Ripslinger doubted he ever took it to the levels that he himself did whenever she came around. She was full of the same sentimental, idealistic nonsense that Dusty was constantly spouting off about, but thankfully, she just wasn't so mushy about it. Her often contemptible attitude seemed to balance that out rather nicely. 

The girl currently in question, was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the hangar, her back propped against the wall across from the front of Ripslinger's cell. A pencil was scratching and scribbling on paper for the last hour. If the P-51 had ears they would be bleeding. Behind seemingly relaxed lips, his teeth were sanding down on each other as he desperately attempted to use mind control to make that pencil break. He was facing away from her, but he was still monitoring every move she made from the corner of his eye.

“What are you writing about in there?” he finally asked.
	“I'm not writing, I'm drawing,” she answered without looking up, “Can you sit up a little more?”

“Nope.”

“Don't be an asshole, sit up so that I can see you better.”

“No.”

Clarice sighed. Another long silence followed, and she ended it by clapping her sketchbook shut. Not closed, but shut; loud enough to make any normal bystander jump and look around at her clear demand for attention. To her disgrace, Ripslinger was not a normal bystander by any stretch of the imagination. Clarice's lips pinched together when he didn't even regard her with a glance. She stopped herself from chucking the sketchbook at him when she noticed that he seemed to be in deep thought. 

But what about?

She cleared her throat, hoping that he'd look at her, but he remained motionless. She cleared it louder, but then ended up straining her throat so much that it put her into a coughing fit. Somewhere along her choking Ripslinger spoke. 
	
“What is it?” His voice wasn't harsh, but not an invitation for her to give him a long explanation either.

“What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing to concern yourself with.” 

“You looked worried and angry” Clarice raised her voice a little, so sue me for making that my 'concern.'”

He didn't back-talk her, just tightened his lips up more, closed his eyes, and slewed his body away from her.

“Why don't you go on home; it's late.”

“You know you should really try looking at someone when you're talking to them.” Clarice stuck her elbow into her knee and rested her chin in her palm, "You should also work on expressing your thoughts and feelings with others. You'd feel better.”

“Not all of us can be Dusty Crophopper,” he eventually murmured. 

It was out of jealousy mingled with admiration, not dissing for once. Though Ripslinger being Ripslinger, no one would ever tell the difference because his voice seemed to have only one tone.

“Don't be like that,” and Clarice honestly couldn't differentiate whether she sounded convincing or not, because she felt charmed and uncharmed by his aloof and cynical attitude. “You can open up to us. I know you don't feel like it but we're not your enemies, it's not like we're going to back-stab you with it or anything.”

Then Ripslinger snapped back around so fast that she had to eat her gasp back. 

“I never agreed to being a part of your your stupid little gang!”

Even after everything, Ripslinger didn't exactly despise being a piece of her life, or any of the others, really, but to be grouped in with them was a life he'd never properly fit into. They were know-nothings who would never understand, know, and completely accept him or try to, but oddly this human girl seemed to have a sense of him. She seemed to accept him; try to understand, to want to get to know him. He simmered down.

“What is it that you truly want from me, of all people?” Ripslinger asked at length. 		

His whisper was thin but rough, and dizzyingly humid. Clarice reared her head back with her breath tight, still able to be unnerved by how fast the switch could flip with him, but at last drank it all in. 

“I don't want a-anything from you....”
    
Clarice closed her mouth and stood confident to prove her fearlessness, but her twitching eyelids and shaking fingers spoke other lies.

“...Then what,” Ripslinger's jaw clenched. “is it? The way you talk to me...” he spat. “...The way you look at me,” he squinted, slowly turning with his eyes remaining locked on her to exaggerate his disgusted confusion. “Dusty may deign to give himself away and by extension the rest of us, but I will not, will not be another accessory for your obsessive studying and speculations to circulate around, human.”

Clarice had been squeezing the life out of her arm in an effort to keep her mindful and in the present, yet soon enough she released it to let it breathe.

“...Don't flatter yourself...” Clarice's fists shook at her thighs. “You think that's what I want? How hopeless a chase would that be? That's not what I want from you, of you, or to make of you!”

Ripslinger's curiosity won the war against his upside down smile and evaporated his expression into anxiousness. 

“I just want to help," Clarice dropped her shoulders and shook her head tiredly. “We all do.”

After scrutinizing her for ten seconds, Ripslinger closed his eyes and frowned deeper. 

“...It's not up to you to save me.”

“I know that," Clarice didn't need to think about her counter to that statement. “It's your job to save yourself, and only you can do that, but I'd like to help you-”

“Clarice.” 

He cut her off and yet, his throat did not growl with any trace of hate. Her eyes climbed up to him. The usual line of emotion on his face was still there, but it had deflated some, and was even a bit strained into an old sorrow and old pain adapted into angry agony.

“What will you do? How can you help me?” he nearly hissed as he asked the second question. “How can a human do for me what no plane has ever been able to do? Because what can an outsider preach? What can a little girl who knows nothing about the misery, suffering, loss, and damnation forced down my throat to swallow every day of my life possibly give to me?”

She felt his harsh breath on her as he spoke. It was so hot and dank and the fumes from it made her nose itch, made her feel light-headed, feeling like it burned holes into her very clothes until it scalded her skin. Clarice had become so impassioned and caught up in the moment that she hadn't noticed how close she was to the bars now, or how Ripslinger had been slowly creeping forward like a snake. Her eyes sped up and down his face before she swallowed hard. 

“Then tell us!” she finally burst out, “Help us understand! Tell us what happened to you so that we can help you!”

Too close. Before she could even blink, Ripslinger had snatched her arm in his mouth and pulled her through the bars and into his cell with him. Before she could even cry out to the guard outside, he had her pinned between his nose cone and the wall of the hangar, knocking the wind out of her and preventing her from drawing breath. 

“Now this is familiar isn't it?” he asked her coldly, ignoring her fruitless attempts to get free. “Should I kill you now, or should I take my time?” He slid her further up the wall to where her feet dangled. “What do you think?” He eased up on her ever so lightly. Just enough to where she could breath, but barely enough to speak.  “You know what they kept telling me in that hellish dungeon? That we don't have souls, and yet what is it that they're looking for and trying to destroy when they cut into us, taking us apart bit by bit?”

“... Let... go...” She gasped, trying in vain to pry him away, still seeing stars from when the back of her head hit the wall as Ripslinger continued to stare straight into her wild, terrified eyes. 

“Tell me, do you have a soul?” He crushed her further into the wall and she swore she heard something crack. “Do you?!” he snarled. “I don't see one... If I slice you open, will I find it?”

Clarice could feel her blood pressure rising as it pounded in her ears, blackness starting to close in around the margins of her sight. 

“All your preachy nonsense doesn't amount to very much now, does it? Would you still try to lecture me if I allowed you the breath to do so? Or would you just start screaming for help? You and I both know what that would lead to, if they came rushing in here to see me in the midst of tearing you to pieces. Dusty would make good on that threat he made during our little fight.”

Clarice could only mouth the word “What?”

“I suppose you must hate me,” Ripslinger continued flatly. Glaring up at her, he saw the confusion in her eyes. “You must have always hated me. I've been out to kill Dusty, and you from the very moment we met. And probably still will. It's been a long time coming I guess...” he finished quietly. 

“No...” Clarice breathed out, afraid of what Ripslinger was getting at. 

“Why?” he asked her simply, releasing more pressure so that she could answer properly.

“Because... It would hurt Dusty too much, even if you are a threat,” she panted, “After all you've been through, what must have happened to you to make you like this... If it came down to that... it would break him.”

Ripslinger pondered this over for a few moments, and then allowed Clarice to slide back down to the floor, but continued to keep her pinned. His lids fell heavily over his eyes and his expression melted into somber bitterness as his eyes looked away.

“I wish you had never rescued me,” he said quietly. “I wish you had left me with the Cutters. I admit it... I admit that I have been deceived. You should feel pretty proud of yourself. I honestly thought you truly kept coming in here for me. But now I see that it was just for him.”

“No, Ripslinger... it-”

He pressed her into the wall and cut her off again.

“I was a fool, but I knew that... You never cared about me. I'm sick of your lies. Now I want you to get out, and I never want to see you again. And this time...” he pushed harder, “I mean it...”

With that, he let her go, grabbing her by the arm again and tossing her away from him where she went thudding and sprawling out on the floor of the hangar. Clarice crawled to her knees, choking and coughing as her throat became irritated with her overcompensated attempts to restore her oxygen levels to normal. She was actually stunned that she was alive after that, but even more shocking was what he had been implying, and what little he had told her of his time at the mercy of the Cutters. 

As soon as she had collected herself enough, Clarice fled the hangar. Ripslinger glared at the door after her. A moment later the cowed guard was pushed into the room by his coworker. He looked up once only to get hit with the same iron stare and then looked back down to the floor again, fidgeting furiously. 

For some reason unknown to him, Ripslinger found this funny. Incredibly funny. Hilarious. He found himself starting to laugh and soon he couldn't stop. The guard outside shifted on his wheels uncomfortably, while the poor in-room guard was getting ready to flee altogether as the laughter began to take on a hysterical note. After several moments of hard, unstable laughing, he stopped abruptly and fell dead silent. 

He had realized that he was never getting out of here now. He would be stuck in this cell for the rest of his life after that. Even if he did everything they wanted, they would never trust him enough to release him. And what would be the point of trying to get out now, anyway? He had lost his freedom, his ability to fly, his dignity, his damn privacy, he thought as he glared at the guard again. What did he have left? What was there worth living for? At first he thought “revenge”, but then the question of “how” came to mind, which was followed by “what for?” Then Ripslinger thought desperately, “Dusty”, but then the others came to mind. Dusty had his people, his little pet human. He didn't need him. No. He was truly alone, as he had been for so long. And try as he might, he could not think of a single thing worth living for. 

“Hey, you,” he called out to the guard. 

“Y-yes?”

“You look like you would rather not be in here.”

“No... Honestly I wouldn't.”

“Then why don't you go and do us both a favor then?”

“Huh?”

“You don't enjoy my company and after all that laughing, I'm a little thirsty, but I'm sick of just oil or sink water. Go and get me something else.”

“I don't know... I know he wouldn't really care if I left,” Mike said, motioning toward the doors to the hangar. “But I'm not really supposed to go anywhere.”

“Oh, really?” Ripslinger rolled closer to the front of the cell, leering at him. “Then why don't you go tell him to go get me something while we sit and enjoy each others company,” Ripslinger finished, his voice low and dangerous as he gave an unsettling smile. 

“N-no!” Mike's resolve instantly crumbled. “I'll do it! Anything in particular you want?”

Ripslinger actually took a second to think.

“Coffee,” he decided. “Iced coffee, and none of that instant garbage, you hear me?”
	
“Yes!” Mike yelped before skidding out the door.

The hunt for even that kind of a drink should keep the guard away for sometime in this town. Not too long, but hopefully just long enough for what he knew had to be done now. Ripslinger went over and grabbed his sleeping mat and blankets, starting to pull them away from the far left corner of the cell. No one had noticed it because of its out of the way location, that, and he always had the blankets thrown over it, but all those times he had taken his fury out on the bars had warped them in that spot. And there, the metal had been broken and pulled back in a sharp, twisted jag. 

Slowly, Ripslinger lowered down, pressing the underside of his wing to the sharp metal, but then hesitated for a moment. He had thought about it before, but had never really gone through with it. He had always had something to keep him going, but not anymore. So why not do it? Why not end it all, the dreams, the flash-backs, the crippling fits he was plagued by? Everything else had been taken from his control; the only choice he had left now was the choice to live or die. 

“Why the hell not?” he calmly said to himself as he savagely ran his wing across the broken spike.

Wincing, he quickly grabbed and pulled the sheets over to him to keep the resulting spray somewhat contained so that anyone looking inside wouldn't notice right away. He repeated the action, dragging his other wing over the jag of metal. The feeling of the seemingly muted, yet sharp and tingling pain and the wet warmth of his fluids slowly drenching the sheets all around him was strangely liberating, Ripslinger thought in a distantly bemused way. He flexed his flaps and ailerons, encouraging the fluids to flow out faster. 

It didn't seem real, what he had just done. Like he was some formless presence looking down on the scene. Close yet separate; detached yet connected. The ever widening pool of straw-colored and red fluids mixing together on the floor threatened to spread out to where someone looking in would easily see. He pulled the blankets onto the floor to try to curb them. How much longer would it take, he wondered wearily as he slowly sank down to the floor, half on and half off of the sleeping mat. He suddenly felt so tired, and he was starting to feel short of breath...