(Open) Don't you dare say his name...

[summertimeblues]

Who: Richie Tozier (summertimeblues) & you lucky guys
What: Dealing very poorly with torture, dying, and coming back to life. He didn't sign up to be Jesus
When: Mar. 25th-27th
Where: Olympia, Thesa Station, Flona Cove
Warning(s): Drug and alcohol use and abuse, mentions of gore/death/suicide, sad pod crying, icky feelings.



I: Thesa Station

[There's a relative quiet among the sleeping. It is, in effect, a graveyard. People are here to show their respects, to mourn and to yearn. Today though, wherever you might be, there's a serenade rattling the air between the glass chambers. A guitar thrum mimicked through slaps on the metal to support the rollicking vocals of Elvis Presley. Back from the dead and ready to slide and shake in those blue suede shoes.]

Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone
Little Joe was blowin' on the slide trombone
The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang
The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang

Let's rock! Everybody let's rock!

[If you round the right corner, you won't find the King. But you'll find Richie Tozier, seated between in a row of about five pods: there's a handsome man in cowboy boots, a black man cut and battered and bandaged to bits, a thin mousy type with a jerry-rigged cast on his arm and rounded specs, a stunning woman whose red hair spills around her in a halo of curls, and a balding man who, even while sleeping, belies a unquantifiable charm and steadiness. He's having the time of his life with a half-finished gin bottle in one hand as the other busies itself playing drums and beats. He's pale, poorly slept if the purple punch bags under his eyes are any indication, and there's a still smoking cigarette butt laying its ash on the floor next to him. But he's seemingly in good spirits, high on the music.]

Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Ro—hey! Hey you! You know this next part, get in on it!


II: Friends in Low Places.

[The bars are that sweet shade of not-too-busy-not-too-slow. Richie slips in and out of the crowds with no difficulty and no recognition. He avoids Shades Darker (hasn't gone back to work yet), avoids places he knows. Sticking clean to the unfamiliar. This place wasn't home and even months later it was failing to pick up any kind of coziness to wilt back on.

But as determined as he is to stay solo and shrug into shadows, he can't help that rising sense of panic. Of emptiness. If he shuts his eyes too long he can hear those howling voices again. He's no man of god but those three days suspended in some ghastly in-between place have left him with doubts. There doesn't have to be a god for there to be a hell.

He doesn't want to keep marinating on it. Desperate and suddenly shaking in the hands, he moves to take a seat at the bar. Someone's just settled in and made an order. Richie slips coins on the counter.]

Make it two. Put 'em both on my tab.


III: Take out your trash

[It would have done to exercise a touch of caution. Sadly he's long since parted ways with the word for the evening. Still frightened, still angry, still too squeamish to go see the people he used to know, Richie's spent the night skipping from bar to bar. To back hall. To alley. He's had a hell of a lot to drink. Smoked something he didn't know the name of, took a couple pills that were offered with glitzy promises for whatever coin he could spare. He'd had a fair bit to spare and lord, it all flew out of his hands like your Auntie's cockatiel making a break for the open window. And he got his party, his fun and his romp and his blissful cloud of forgetfulness. For a few hours, he wasn't Richie Tozier at all. He'd drifted and wandered and basked in the blank beauty of a world he didn't comprehend.

And the journey ended with him folded up in a cobblestone alley. His head lies knocked back against the building's side, legs crooked to the side as he sleeps deep. It's frigid cold, he has the coat and gloves and boots, but passing out sometime around four am with no hurry for shelter leaves him as cold and stiff as a statue. A nasty shock for anyone taking a nighttime stroll or hustling about in the break of dawn.]


IV: Flona Cove- wildcard-ish

[Eventually, even the city itself seems to press in around him like a vice. He'd made the trip out to the Cove a few times, once with the herd for that festival and again with the two girls to check on those dead birds. The train ride over makes him smile, thinking of the way Ann and Haru had gossiped and giggled. The spark is fleeting. He exits the train in the same silent stupor he'd boarded it with.

He'll spend the day exploring. At the beach, he might take out a boat just for kicks, pretend it's January in California and he's got to hit the water before he forgets which coast he's living on. He might check out the tourist traps. Wind up in a gambling hall for shits and giggles. Or he might drift to that little cave with the cool pool, just to sit and think and fill the air with swilling smoke as he works through yet another pack for the day.]


V: Homecoming - closed to previous cr

[It takes a lot longer than he'd be proud to admit. Richie wasn't brave by nature, particularly not when it came to making the big breaks and mends. He was better at playing shit off like nothing mattered and all he cared for was getting his chucks in before meeting his Maker.

Well he went to do it didn't he? And that fucker hadn't showed. Now he's back on soil, and he's wasted a lot of time skirting the small issue of his miraculous return.

Eventually, he figures he ought to make a few rounds. House calls, then.

The knock at the door only comes after two minutes of fussing and a near abandoment of the whole plan. He'd slinked about five steps away before the guilt got the better of him and he finally could raise knuckles to the wood of that door. When it opens, he stands in the frame of it stiffly. His smile is wan and his hands stick doggedly to his pockets. He can't even use his own voice to say hello, coward that he is.]

Howdy partner.

Comments

[originallutece]

Settle down, he isn't doing anything of the sort.

[Though he's kind of annoyed he's being blocked, but once more under the shirt, dear friends, once more. At least Rosalind is amused; she presses her lips tight together, biting back a slight smile.]

He's--

[She hesitates for just half a second, then:]

. . . concerned about you. He's trying be comforting in the only way he knows how. He's an infant, he's simplistic like that. Scratch him behind the ears, he'll settle down.

[She sips at her whiskey, still biting back a smile. This is nice, honestly, and silently she thanks her stupid pet for the distraction. It's much easier to talk about him than it is all the heavy subjects that surround them, even if the distraction only lasts for a moment.]

[summertimeblues]

Mind if I get that in writing? [Richie pulls a face as the little beast finally succeeds. His stomach yoinks back to plaster against his spine the minute that cold snout rubs skin, but there's no dodging. Richie grits his teeth and adjusts his legs, get the squeeze of that weight off the worst of his muscles without raising its ire. Tentatively, he pats at its head. Scritches behind the ears like she says.

Finally it quiets down, happy with the most minor of concessions. Richie frowns down at it but keeps petting. He shoots Rosalind a quizzical look after a moment.] This is all a bit more sentimental than I pegged you for. What's next? Any pitter patter of little orphan feet I should be listening for?

[Still on with the bullshit. It really is safer to stick with. He's not sure how to broach the tough stuff again. If he'd even like to. Drinks seem better. They've been doing him such favors lately.

Richie takes his whiskey, and takes it solid. The shot is drained at once.]

[originallutece]

Help yourself if you want more. And bring over the bottle if you do.

[She's still nursing her first glass, though it's getting easier to down it the more she sips. She isn't quite tipsy just yet, but the world is becoming a little quieter. More easy to manage. Though even through the haze of alcohol, she wrinkles her nose after a moment.]

And no. Good grief, no, I couldn't stand-- Darwin was a gift from the Natha. They dropped an egg off at my doorstep; two weeks later, he popped out. Perhaps I'll take one in if they come in an egg as well.

[Though babies aren't, perhaps, as out of the realm of possibility as she pretends they are. But that's a headache for when Robert comes around; she certainly won't bother of thinking of them right now. No, today they've far more pressing issues to think about (or avoid thinking about).

She glances down at her glass, contemplating it for a long few silent seconds. Then, her eyes still trained on it:]

We can talk about it, if you'd like. Dying, I mean. You aren't the only person in the room to go through it, and I suppose there's comfort to be had there. But if you'd rather not, I shan't force you. But either way, I'll thank you not to ignore me when I send you things. Even a brief text would have been acceptable.

[summertimeblues]

[He might as well make good on that. More sounds brilliant. He's weighted down at the moment though, so he has to wait for the little bugger to stop being so damn needy. Then there's the matter of the absolute baloney she's spitting.]

An egg? [He looks down at the hippo.] What the fuck...you're pulling my leg.

[She carries on though, and further protests die in his throat. Richie sits in silence. His strokes to those leathery ears become dreamlike. Slow.

Not the only one, huh?]

It wasn't here, was it? [He intones quietly. Not looking her in the eye.] You're still bandaged up and I came out...clean.

[Suddenly he snorts.] Well. Of the new scars. The ones that did me in, anyhow.

[He leans forward to set the glass down, cupping the hippo's face in his hands and rubbing it like a dog's. His jaw is locked tight, but he supposes it's not so fair to clam up now.]

I came around eventually, didn't I?

[It wasn't like he was trying to ignore people. Just delay. Just wait. He hadn't been ready to see anyone, and he's not sure what to call Ros in the first place. It just seemed like another knotted mess he couldn't parse until the frame of mind was right for it.]

[originallutece]

Eventually.

[It's an echo and condemnation all at once. Yes, he'd come around eventually, in his own bloody time, languidly strolling up to her door and offering one of his funny little voices. How generous. How considerate, to throw her a scrap like that. How remiss of her not to get on bended knee and thank him for his graciousness, bestowing such information upon her.

(She's being unfair, she knows. He doesn't owe her anything, and coming around to see her instead of shooting off an impersonal text is a far sight better than she deserves. But still she thinks all of that bitterly, her hurt and terror and fury of the past two weeks shoved down and hid under an icy facade. She can't do a damn thing about those who hurt her, so why not take it out on everyone else?

And yet . . . and yet Darwin snorts and works against Richie's hands, his black beady eyes staring up at him. He's heavy and bulky and a little dim, but there's nothing but comfort in the way he presses up against him, like a dog who wants desperately to make things right).]

It was an explosion for me.

[She stares out the window. He isn't looking at her anyway, but it doesn't matter.]

A man, a rival who had an obsession with me, was paid to sabotage one of my machines. His promised price was to get his hands on all my patents, as well as anything else he could grab on his way out. He ransacked our house afterwards, taking my personal effects right along with our inventions and ideas.

[Her portrait of Robert, her diaries . . . it sends a shiver of revulsion through her, even now, but Fink and his hideousness isn't the point here.]

We didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. There was no point in running. So we stood there and waited for the inevitable, like bloody sheep on the line to the slaughter.

It was painful for you, wasn't it? It was for us-- for me. It was agonizing, and it felt as though it lasted for an eternity. The books always describe it as such a quick thing, because of course people want it to be that way, so neat and fast. But no. Every second lasts an hour, and the worst part is that you know what's happening. You know you're dying, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

And you think--

[She smiles thinly, still looking out the window.]

You think, this can't happen to me. You think that you're immortal, because of course people die every day, but not you. That's just good sense. You were supposed to last forever, because of course you've known all your life that you were secretly untouchable. But no. One moment you're alive, the next there's nothing. Just like that.

[There's nothing. She'd never believed in God as a child, too scientific to give in to the rites and rituals of worship, but her death had only confirmed it. There had been nothing there. Just a void, just blackness, just her own agony as she came back together and woke again.

She drains her glass and sets it down on with a hard thunk. Rosalind rises, heading to the liquor cabinet and grabbing the bottle, bringing it back to set it down on the couch between them. She talks as she does all this, her voice deceptively even.]

And then suddenly, impossibly, you wake up. And you think at first that perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps a miracle occurred. Perhaps somehow, impossibly, you were whisked away at the last second, saved by something, and you don't even care what, because it doesn't really matter.

But no. You died. And now you're going to have to live with that, because it changes you.

[She looks at him.]

Did you see your body?

[summertimeblues]

[He does shoot her a look at that. If there ever was a time that warranted a little headspace, reeling from the resurrection bender was surely it.

It's a thing Rosalind should be firmly intimate with. And is.

As the tale goes on, he does stop avoiding her gaze. It's a transfixing story, and palatable enough that he doesn't need ten thousand clarifiers for the jargon. Almost everybody had some wacko nomenclature for all their particular powers and rules and strange lands. Rosalind comes from a place with sense. Mostly.

That doesn't make the details any less grim. His heart is picking up the pace just picturing it. She waltzes through the narrative in her clipped Oxford-Cambridge-London sniff but it all sounds like words that could have come out of his flapping Yankee jaw. His forever moment hadn't been dying itself. He'd been too hazy to realize what was happening, even if some wiser and distant section of his mind had known—

(it felt like floating)

—it had been in the aftermath. The screaming. The Storm. Being nothing and being wrenched apart.

And the waking up, that had been when the shock had come through clear. The drugs were gone and the surprise was doubled. He couldn't have died because here he was! Just look, boyo! Those were flesh and blood hands, that was wet sweat dribbling down his temple, can't you hear the whish-whoosh of air sweeping in and out of his mouth, his funny nose, can't you see his eyes are prickled and red? Alive, sir, he's alive all right! Just a short nap in the emergency room, quick stint on a stretcher, and right back to it!

But he'd woken up next to Percival, and he'd died too. Richie's wounds hadn't just healed up or scarred over. They'd been wiped clear. System rebooted.

His eyes drift over the woman's form. Comely, but marred. Yet there's no signs of there being a blast in her past. Pardon the turn of phrase. And that taut muscle in her jaw, that foggy look in her eyes...that was were you saw the real scars. That was the polygraph test in motion right there.

The air has evaporated from the room when she's turned to ask him about the corpse. Richie's hands have balled up to fists. His stomach is pulled tight and his teeth are grit. Eventually, he speaks.]

...No. [Richie purses his lips. Reaches up to rub at his forehead, brush the thick locks back from it. That dainty, blink-and-you'll-miss-it scar is there, souvenirs from the back hand of a Teenage Werewolf, but nothing more than that. Just a regular miracle man, modern day Jesus strolling out of the tomb. Where was his stigmata to show off to the unbelieving?] I know I wasn't such a pretty face anymore, a week or so's worth of torture is a real wringer of a makeover, but...the gas did me in, I think. Smoker's lungs, you know. Didn't stand a chance.

[He drops his hand. Worries the hippo's weird ears some more.]

How long ago was the blast, Ros? [And then something's knocked a switch in his head. Lights on, ding ding ding.] ...Is that what scattered your atoms?

[originallutece]

[She smiles, and it's odd, because it's a smile he's never gotten to see before. It's not arrogant or smug or cruel. It's just . . . tired. Tired and quietly pleased that he's caught on.

It's the smile of Ros, not Madame Lutece.]

Yes.

[She tips her head, glancing back at him. His form is just a little blurred, softened at the edges thanks to the alcohol. But still Rosalind reaches for the bottle, pouring them both another round with the grace of a woman who was born and bred into it.]

I was . . . mm. Thirty-seven, I believe-- yes. Thirty-seven. October 31st, 1909. We were two weeks in on doing the right thing, for once in our lives. Can you imagine that? Me, acting selflessly. Pouring all my efforts into helping a man I loathed because I owed it to him, and what I got for it was an explosion and a subpar--

[A beat. Her mouth twists into something like a smirk.]

You'll appreciate this, I think. One of the first things I did after waking was find my funeral photographer, just so I could haunt him. I terrified him, of course, but frankly, given the photos he took, he had it coming.

[And so she could tell someone who murdered her, but whatever.]