Teddy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tedandroses) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
abraxaslogs2024-06-01 03:00 am
tedandroses) wrote in abraxaslogs2024-06-01 03:00 am
Entry tags:
there are nights you say you don't remember [open!]
Who: Teddy and (you?)
When: backdated from just post-Event through May (and into the first weeks of June if it works better for where you want to run into Teds!)
Where: Around Solvunn, in the Horizon, Nocwich
What: Post-event feels; May-early June catchall
Warnings: Nothing major: some feelings of derealization. Re-remembering distressing events. If that needs to be upgraded I'll mention in the subject lines.
Teddy opens her eyes, blinking. The sky was falling down, and --
Their cheek is pressed into the dust, hard against the rock, and when they try to push themself to a sit, it feels like they haven't used their joints in -- they were thinking years, but no, that's wrong; the whole thing was wrong. They were trying to wake up. They were trying to...
Oh. Oh god.
It comes crashing back like a wave: the storms, the crater, the fog. And the memories. All the memories Teddy still -- or can now recall -- the terror of knowing they were losing. Pushed roughly to the forefront: not just the things they'd lost but those they'd given up to Sam in desperation to not lose it forever.
Sam -- Teddy shouldn't even know Sam. Much less, feel the instinctive urge to thank him as he's hit by an onslaught of memories of his home and family that tumble over each other so intensely he sits back down hard. He shouldn't know -- so much -- about so many things --
People are moving. People are telling them things; their voices don't feel like real sounds, but some part of Teddy's brain interprets it for her, and she gets back to her feet and allows herself to be directed toward the carts going to Solvunn. Her eyes catch on even more familiar forms, even beloved, heading in other directions, and she knows she's never looked at them here: can feel that her body recalls but does not know being embraced, jostled, laughed with.
That knowing feels like a great wave lifting them off their feet and shoving them underneath the water over and again. (They shouldn't know what the ocean feels like.) They want to be sick. They want to scream. They can't do any of it: just let it roll them over. They sit, silent and finally, blissfully unthinking for the ride. It's not until they're back in Solvunn, safe under blankets, that they burst into stifled, hiccuping sobs until they can't breathe.
Far above, the Abraxas skies are blue and cloudless like Teddy's never seen.
>> HORIZON
>> SOLVUNN
>> NOCWICH
[OTA! If there's nothing that catches your eye/you want something slightly different let me know at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
wingedvoices and I'll start one!]
When: backdated from just post-Event through May (and into the first weeks of June if it works better for where you want to run into Teds!)
Where: Around Solvunn, in the Horizon, Nocwich
What: Post-event feels; May-early June catchall
Warnings: Nothing major: some feelings of derealization. Re-remembering distressing events. If that needs to be upgraded I'll mention in the subject lines.
Teddy opens her eyes, blinking. The sky was falling down, and --
Their cheek is pressed into the dust, hard against the rock, and when they try to push themself to a sit, it feels like they haven't used their joints in -- they were thinking years, but no, that's wrong; the whole thing was wrong. They were trying to wake up. They were trying to...
Oh. Oh god.
It comes crashing back like a wave: the storms, the crater, the fog. And the memories. All the memories Teddy still -- or can now recall -- the terror of knowing they were losing. Pushed roughly to the forefront: not just the things they'd lost but those they'd given up to Sam in desperation to not lose it forever.
Sam -- Teddy shouldn't even know Sam. Much less, feel the instinctive urge to thank him as he's hit by an onslaught of memories of his home and family that tumble over each other so intensely he sits back down hard. He shouldn't know -- so much -- about so many things --
People are moving. People are telling them things; their voices don't feel like real sounds, but some part of Teddy's brain interprets it for her, and she gets back to her feet and allows herself to be directed toward the carts going to Solvunn. Her eyes catch on even more familiar forms, even beloved, heading in other directions, and she knows she's never looked at them here: can feel that her body recalls but does not know being embraced, jostled, laughed with.
That knowing feels like a great wave lifting them off their feet and shoving them underneath the water over and again. (They shouldn't know what the ocean feels like.) They want to be sick. They want to scream. They can't do any of it: just let it roll them over. They sit, silent and finally, blissfully unthinking for the ride. It's not until they're back in Solvunn, safe under blankets, that they burst into stifled, hiccuping sobs until they can't breathe.
Far above, the Abraxas skies are blue and cloudless like Teddy's never seen.
>> HORIZON
>> SOLVUNN
>> NOCWICH
[OTA! If there's nothing that catches your eye/you want something slightly different let me know at
no subject
Teddy hadn't gone into the Horizon before -- before everything. They hadn't learned how: now, the idea of not knowing seems a little strange. And a little frightening. What if everything they feel, recall, even their instinct to try it is completely delusional, like -- trying to fly because you remember vividly being able to do it in a dream?
It's not trying to fly, Teddy finally tells herself, after a day of poking around trying to be useful or at least occupied. If it doesn't work, it just doesn't work. There's no falling. At the moment, she needs to believe that. Even the Horizon feels so absent. So much does right now: but this one might could be fixed.
She closes her eyes, settling into a focused sort of mindfulness, thinking about it: about how it felt to enter the Horizon back in that world.
Imagining their domain back in that world, or the times they had wandered into someone else's.
It takes almost no time; like it is, in fact, a thing their mind knows how to do. They aren't in their domain. Or -- obviously -- they don't actually have one. In front of them is just...empty land and afternoon light. A sort of close haze clings nearby, but they can see what looks like different landscapes beyond.
It feels a tiny bit disappointing that their home isn't there: it was nice. And weird, admittedly; it sort of melted if you wandered too far, but even that was kind of cool. They seem to remember that you should forget things the first time, but -- they're starting to think maybe some experiences aren't entirely real or not real, especially when it comes to this place.
She's wearing new -- different -- clothes. It passes a quick inspection: a black t-shirt cut into a cropped tank, bearing the Death arcana like a screenprint, high-waisted jeans, a grey and red flannel shirt tied around her waist like she'd recently shed it. And -- she blinks and smiles at the realization- a binder. (God, if only she could wear that back out of here.)
On a whim, Teddy closes their eyes and tries to imagine the simple idea of home. The idea brings up more emotion than they're expecting -- though they should have, really -- a collage of memories and ideas that Teddy stubbornly tries to whittle down to a real visualization. When they open them again, their baby attempt at creating something in...the real Horizon, whatever that means...makes them smile, bemused.
It's a little like a confused AI tried to interpret all the input and spat out the simplest, most repeated ideas, which is fair enough, she reckons. It's still mostly just land. It looks a lot like behind their house in Kentucky, growing up.
On the left, though, where it should just be grass and an old doghouse that had only housed a dog for the first three years of Teddy's life, it sort of segues into Theo Prime's vegetable garden -- exactly as she'd had it the summer Teddy had stayed with her grandmother to help out. It's showing growth about right for the season in Solvunn, and it wants weeding.
In front of them, back in the Kentucky part of the yard, an axe rests against the stump her father'd always used as a chopping block. The firewood is only half done. Teddy's chest clenches painfully for a moment.
She takes a breath and says, "all right," and sets one of the pieces of wood up. Hefts the axe, recalling momentarily how proud she'd been to learn to do this the first time, and swings it down hard. It's a little under practiced, but the axe still splits the wood.
It feels good. It feels, ironically, realer than a lot of things have. She sets up another one. This time the movement's smoother.
After a while, she decides to explore a bit. She's not quite to creating a whole house, clearly, but the reason she'd come here was only part to feel a little more connected.
It was also to, hopefully be a little more connected. Teddy doesn't know if they're going to be welcome everywhere in the Horizon, or even most places. Hell, Teddy doesn't know if everyone they want to see that isn't in Solvunn even wants to see anyone from that time, or if everyone remembers the same thing. But fuck if they're not going to try. They turn left from their little patch and start walking.
[Find Teddy or have Teddy walk in on you! Be bothered by chopping wood! All and any types of responses totally welcome.
You can also find Teddy a bit later in the month/into June when their domain is a bit more built out if you like~]
no subject
Something Teddy has learned -- and that their body knows before their mind does, sometimes -- is that finding something to do, to help with, to fix is much better for them than thinking about whatever it is that's bothering them.
Even though there's a part of him that stubbornly wants to lie around just another day, sit with the heaviness of everything he gained and lost over him like a blanket, he feels guilty and restless after just a little while.
Besides, Teddy needs to get the ritually-blessed tea that serves to (and as far as she can tell, relatively effectively) keep her seizures at bay. She really ought to check on the family that runs the little store downstairs, too -- an odd thought, Teddy realizes wryly, when it's they and their neighbors who were a large part of her going so easily to the Singularity and -- well, they're fine, sort of, and it worked, didn't it?
But it's unsettling, thinking that they've lost weeks, and what if --
Maybe they're not all fine, anyway: Teddy'd said he was going to ask around about anyone who might have showed up unexpectedly or might have gotten left behind, and he intends to.
And yet, regardless of those what-ifs, Teddy does still care. In the few weeks before all of that, they'd settled into Solvunn as a whole. Caring about their neighbors has never been something that extended only to good friends for Teddy, and these are their neighbors.
It does feel better, anyway, to get out into the sun -- to actually see Solvunn in the sun. She sits and sips her tea, people-watches for the length of it. She takes note of where things are still fallen down, in need of repair, or where people look extra harried.
For the next few weeks, that becomes their routine: offering a hand where they can, playing that game of oh I couldn't ask that of you/it'd be no trouble; I'd welcome something to do/well if you're sure, now, if you could just for a moment -- that's almost a first language to them. Corralling kids too young to be in school while their mothers work on something, keeping them busy with a game or a song; fixing a fence; running errands: whatever they can do to fill the days.
It keeps Teddy busy, and it gets him better acquainted with who works where and who knows who; he does ask about people being left behind or showing up unexpectedly (this, unfortunately, gets nothing but slightly concerned looks and assurances that no one would let that happen, but no useful information).
She also starts to recognize names and hear a little bit of gossip this way too: snatches about the Council, and the school, and a visiting healer whose name seems familiar but not in a way Teddy can put a finger on. She's usually quiet and industrious while she works unless someone wants to talk, and she files the information for later.
It's easy to startle them while they're working. More than once, Teddy's thrown themself full force into a chore or an errand instead of thinking, and jumped nearly out of their skin when someone came close or said their name. "Sorry, just -- focused," they apologize with a slightly rattled grin, and turn to see who wants them.
He starts to spot people, too: some that he knows he spoke to at the meetup at the tavern, and others that they know they didn't.
Later, as it gets toward evening, when they're not in the middle of a promise, they'll circle back, hoping to catch a familiar face.
no subject
Stepping through a portal for the first time is a bit unnerving, but exciting, as well; the marketplace square turns out to evoke the same response. It's both like Solvunn and unlike: like it's been flipped into a magical night market version of itself or a Ren Faire reenactment. More color and technology, different plants and glowing potions, people in all different genres of clothing from homespun and loose to exquisitely tailored and that evoke a completely different period, or, at least, that would at home.
They have a little bit of coin that some of the odd jobs they've busied themself with for the last month had gotten them -- one of the men they'd been helping fix his roof had waved away a protest, saying avuncularly that they might want it for Nocwich opening up, and he isn't wrong, though they can see almost immediately they'll have to be wise about it. That's not what's important, anyway. Now that they're here, they can tell they're being a tourist, wide-eyed taking in almost everything except what's directly in front of their feet. But seeing a new place, experiencing the culture, the differences, the smells and tastes and colors and different people and opinions -- that's what Teddy wanted, really.
And maybe, maybe, spotting people that he shouldn't know to miss but does. It's a low, long-shadowed sort of light even with all the lanterns, but as he browses, Teddy keeps a hopeful ear and eye out for friends. There's a little, overly optimistic part of himself (which he's internally screaming shut up! at) that half jumps at every red herring of a voice or shape that can't be found in Solvunn.
Then again, Teddy can always be distracted by music and performance. Later, they're drawn in by a talented group taking their turn in the spotlight. Maybe they can spend just a little to have a drink and sit to watch the show. "Decisions," they muse out loud, frowning at the multiple options of a nearby vendor.
no subject
"Teddy, mate," Zagreus says, giving her a grin as he approaches. "It's good to see you. What did those poor pieces of wood do to deserve such punishment?"
no subject
"Has anyone ever told you not to do that next to people with sharp things?" Their eyes are fond nonetheless. Zagreus has always been nice to them, if a little baffling, but maybe they're just as baffling back in all their human-ness, and his easy mate feels nice, especially right now.
"It's good to see you too. Nice 'fit." She gestures at his clothes. "Hey -- we match." Teddy waves at the sort-of skull-shaped print on her own shirt with a smirk.
Only, she knows then, inexplicably but inherently, that they don't: not that way.
Eh, doesn't mean she can't make the joke.
Teddy purses her lips and looks back. "Wasn't finished being firewood yet?" she suggests. It's not the only answer, but it is an answer.
no subject
"And I suppose we do match! You'd fit right in back home," he says, leaning over to admit the design on their tunic. He hadn't really seen designs like that on cloth before. Whatever technique was involved, the result is impressive. "I have to say, it's nice meeting a mortal who properly appreciates a aesthetically appealing skull. They don't seem to be very popular in Solvunn for some reason."
later in the month!
But when things even out a bit and he pulls himself away from aiding with small repairs around the commune, he pays a visit to the Horizon. When he comes upon a small house built into a hilly domain, part of him feels like he instinctively knows who it belongs to, like it’s some distant memory he can dredge up if he just tries hard enough. He digs deep into those memories, searching for a name and a face as he wanders right through the door. If the owner of the domain is in, they’ll take note of his arrival.
In a way, it reminds him of his own home—modest, but comfortable, and clearly created from the memory of a well-loved place. Of course the instruments catch his eye first and foremost, and he grins as the memory comes to him. He remembers Teddy—his fellow musician, and fellow Solvunnite. Seems like their first official meeting is going to have to be in the Horizon.
He creeps over to the piano and flips the lid open. He doesn’t know how to play, really. Never had the money for lesson and only ever had eyes for the guitar anyway, but he is from the era of the synthesizer. He’s loitered around enough music stores in his lifetime to have the opportunity to mess around on a keyboard or two, and he has the ear to pick out a tune.
So with a chuckle, he finds the proper keys and taps out the beginning synth part of Van Halen’s Jump. It’s basic—one hand, no real chords, and it’s sort of the only thing he’s ever managed to teach himself. It’s gotten him kicked out of many a music store too, so he’s going to put the skill to to use.
“Hey, Teddy!,” he calls out. “You better come save me from my inability to play the keys before I break out Heart and Soul. Or worse—Chopsticks.”
I handwaved a little bit here about things they might've talked about -- lmk if it needs an edit!
She smiles; even though it's an Arcana sign, she does appreciate an aesthetically appealing skull. "Well," she says, practically, "I think most mortals don't like being reminded of death, and skeletons usually only...happen when something is dead. Or really badly wounded. Especially skulls."
"But I like finding them, when something's just died naturally in the wild." He touches the canine skull that sits on Zagreus's shoulder like an epaulet in a sort of reference to animal bones -- it's probably a nod to Cerberus, Teddy realizes belatedly, from the three of them together, and the little he knows of Zagreus and where he's from. "Death happens, you know?"
Well. Yeah. He probably does. The thought reminds them of the abandoned firewood, and they squint a little at the axe.
"Do you have much of a relationship with your family," they ask, which must seem apropos of nothing, "or are gods not quite like we are about that?"
no subject
He feels the presence in his domain before he sees or hears his visitor, and lifts his head: he's still getting used to how the Horizon works, a bit. He can't be here every day, or even if he could get away with it, he doesn't want to get himself used to living in a dream state. It seems like a quick route to not being sure of reality. Again.
Then the first couple paired notes of Jump tap themself out on the piano -- it takes Teddy a second, but only a second: both because it's a pretty popular song and because, in what can only be described as both hilarious and unsettling time shenanigans, Eddie and Teddy's dad have a good handful of overlapping musical preferences. If her memory has manifested Van Halen -- or Zeppelin, Guns N' Roses, Kansas -- right alongside bluegrass and country singers in a pile of cassettes somewhere, she won't be surprised.
So they already have a suspicion about who it is who's trying out the piano, leaning around the corner from the kitchen, chewing on their lower lip. When they hear Eddie's voice, though, they can't help breaking into a wide grin.
Teddy's re-found some of the people she was close to in the whatever that was the last 800 years -- and mostly what she's found is that they're in other territories, with other lives to get back to. It's lonely; more than Teddy wants to admit, especially because the majority of other Summoned aren't new, and these weren't the first or closest friends they had made. That's not their fault. Most people seem to want to dub what they do remember as a fucked up mass delusion. Teddy doesn't disagree that it's messed up; there's a lot to work through, and she certainly doesn't love the experience being forced on them.
But they have -- mostly, aside from becoming pretty annoyed at humans for making the same mistakes over and over -- a lot of good experiences and strong feelings in those memories that they really don't want to forget the same way they forgot this reality.
Eddie though. Teddy knows Eddie lives in Solvunn: he just hasn't run into him yet. The thought of being able to actually see a good friend -- here, where they could theoretically see anyone, but especially someone they can see again back home...
Well, it's a little overwhelming, but fuck if Teddy's going to put that all out there at first glance. "Are you joking?" she calls back, rounding the doorway and leaning on it. "Do you know how many times I've played Heart and Soul on this piano? Or one just like it." As if to demonstrate, she sits down on the edge of the bench and taps out the left-hand side of Heart and Soul, glancing over at Eddie with an amusedly expectant expression when the second player C-C-C is supposed to come in.
"Hi," she adds, after a second, softer and behind a smile.
Looks good to me!
Death happens indeed, but Zagreus doesn't quite experience it the same way.
"Or, most mortals. Glad to find there are some exceptions," he says, with a grin at Teddy. "And yes, of course. I don't think gods and mortals are very different in that regard. Though...depends a bit on the family. I admit mine can be a bit messy..."
no subject
He beams when Teddy rounds the corner, clearly pleased that they aren’t questioning the strange stringbean of a man in their domain—a pretty good indication that they’ve likely retained some memory of him.
“Well, if you’re anything like my friend Ronnie and the eight years of piano classes her grandma made her take? Probably more than anyone should ever have to,” he muses. He laughs and rolls his eyes as he taps out the right-hand portion of the song. He can do that, at least. It’s just a few easy notes, after all.
“Hey,” he echoes with a grin. “How did that, uh…whole magical mystery tour ordeal treat you? No extra limbs or anything, right?”
no subject
She moves the wood so at least Zagreus has a place to sit in this very under-developed domain, and sits on the ground next to the stump with a little gesture. Teddy's never been much afraid of a little dirt, either, for that matter, and especially not dirt that isn't even ...real. "You either fear it or face it, I guess. I think a lot of us do a little of both." Certainly true of her right now.
"No? The stories they tell about gods -- well, in my world, at least, I don't know about here -- either seem like they don't really have families, or they do, they're enormous, and they're all fighting all the time. At least that's how I remember it."
Teddy lifts an eyebrow. "...Politics at the dinner table?" they ask, wryly. Might as well get the real myths from the source.
no subject
Well. For a certain value of 'live', anyway.
"And I'm sure mortals never ever have really big families that fight all of the time," Zagreus says dryly, giving Teddy a sardonic grin.
Zagreus might not have met many mortals before coming to this realm, but that didn't mean he hadn't read a lot of histories and epics. Petty familial squabbling clearly wasn't the exclusive domain of the gods.
feel free to drop if this is too old!
It's like that, the way they immediately recognize Eddie. They're aware they haven't met properly, in this reality -- but the echo of -- Jesus. Multiple centuries worth of friendship hovers softly. There's space in Teddy's mind to re-learn who this Eddie is, to be sort of aware that they might have to, but the idea of not recognizing him is almost laughable. Sort of horrible even. The cluster of close friends that are suddenly -- not, one or the other or both -- is like a hole in Teddy's chest that they just have to ignore, all the time, and Eddie showing up on their piano bench feels a little bit magical in comparison.
"Yikes. My mom's a piano teacher, but Heart and Soul was not on her repetoire. Probably she heard it enough with me letting my friends play the piano."
Teddy grins, pleased at Eddie's willingness to play along. It's like a baby version of any kind of playing together: the joy of an audible product of collaboration, just for the second. Music is important -- essential -- to who Teddy is: but playing and writing music with people is a whole different thing.
She pauses behind that hey for a moment, but Eddie takes it in stride, smiling.
"Nooot that I've noticed...?" The answer comes with a slightly unsettled laugh. "Um. Actually? I did come home with something new." They turn on the seat so they're facing oppositely, left side toward him. "Now, don't make this weird," they add, teasingly, as if in hundreds of years they haven't seen pretty much everyone they know in every form imaginable.
Teddy pulls their arm out of the sleeve of their t-shirt and tugs just that side over their head to show him.
Like a mix between the way Teddy used to let plants grow all over him and the tattoos he'd replace them with around mortals: ivy and ferns, in soft realistic shades of ink, cascade from his neck around his shoulder; they curl around other designs. Down his ribcage, though partly covered by the cropped binder he's wearing, there's a scattering of turkey tail mushrooms.
She pulls her shirt the rest of the way back on, hoping it wasn't, in fact, too weird. "So yeah, not exactly an extra limb, but pretty cool --"
Teddy pauses and turns back to Eddie, realizing something. "Wait. You -- say cheese," she demands, half accusatory and half delighted.
never too old!
For someone who talks so much and wears so much of himself on his sleeve, Eddie is usually pretty tight-lipped about anything truly personal. It’s not that he’s uncomfortable with sharing (he isn’t--mostly), it’s just that music and D&D usually take total precedence. Either way, he doesn’t think he’s mentioned Ronnie Ecker to…literally anyone here in Abraxas, and she was his best friend. It speaks volumes, really, that he feels like he knows Teddy well enough to share that information without a second thought. He’s been struggling to understand where to place his experiences in the crater, but at the end of the day, maybe he needs to accept that it was real enough.
Besides, it’s not like there isn’t physical evidence as well. Eddie doesn’t even seem fazed when Teddy half-pulls their shirt off. He’s experienced weirder—in the past few months alone.
“Hey, at least you got some sick ink out of it. Which—if you’re looking for more and haven’t found the tattoo place in Nocwich yet? You should definitely seek it out. I’m practically a regular.”
He arrived with tattoos, and he’s obtained a few more in his time in Abraxas—lots of little ones that evoke the macabre, all in black linework aside from a tiny pink bat that’s been inked into the colony of them on his arm. When Teddy asks him to say cheese, he’s taken a little off guard, but he grins, flashing all of his teeth. “Uh...cheese?”
It only takes him a moment to realize Teddy is aiming for a better look at his brand new fangs—his own souvenir from they time in the crater.
“Oh! these? I’m pretty sure they’re purely cosmetic. I mean, the sun hasn’t turned me to ashes yet and I haven’t felt the insatiable urge to bite my roommate, and I didn’t need an invite to walk through your door, but uh…interesting, definitely.”
no subject
"Yeah?" Teddy lights up a little, but then he follows up on their request with an appropriately cheesy grin and they blink at his fangs, jaw dropping just a little in a delighted wow.
"Uh, hell yeah, interesting," Teddy says, with a huff of a laugh. "For the record, if you do feel the sudden urge to drink blood, please warn a person. Damn, that's kind of badass." He ponders. "Also, I mean. They can't be purely cosmetic. Like. They could do some damage if you wanted --"
Teddy pauses there, brows creasing in is that edging closer to an implication than I meant or am I just a pervert and moves on. "So wait, which tattoos did you get here? I did see that shop in Nocwich. And I mean."
They make a little spread-hands gesture that's also a little bit of a wry turn over of their arms -- the various sizes, qualities and amounts of meaning or lack thereof; from a stick-and-poke Tetris piece to a carefully shaded and realistic piece of company scrip and things larger and smaller.
"I don't have too much in terms of actual money, though..." She stands up and stretches. "You know Solvunn." There's a question there: how did you go about that?
"--You want to chill downstairs while we talk? It's a little more comfy." Teddy wants to see Eddie's reaction, a little, so they're not giving away exactly that it's a practice space/extremely tiny venue/makeshift studio, if only for within the Horizon. "Also a little more imaginative than the living room."
no subject
Because they're inclined toward debate when they think it'll be taken as it's meant -- in this case, as teasing -- they tip their head a little and ask, eyebrow lifting, "and the shades in the Underworld, how often do they hang out with their loved ones? ...Excluding any epic sneaking in plans. We've got those stories. Don't usually end well."
Teddy can't help but laugh at that, a wide flash of teeth that surprises itself to her face and crinkles her eyes. "Oh, never," she deadpans, and grins, shoulders shrugging in a huff, putting her hands in her lap and sitting very tall (which isn't very tall) and faux-proper. "Mortals all have two-point-five children and happy round-the-table dinners every night where we discuss how everyone did at school, and it's always good. I'll have you know."
They can barely satirize it without laughing. "Yeah, yeah, okay. The scale's a little different, though. Or. Well. The effect." Even that's a little rich coming from someone who grew up throwing distance from the Hatfield-McCoy stomping grounds. "Though," they add, mulling for a moment. "I do have a big family --well, ish, not as big as some I know, but big enough -- and we all get on. ...Got..." It's odd to try and figure out how to talk about them; are they ever going to see them again? What's even happening back home?
"I did always wonder, growing up, if my parents wished they had more than just me, both having brothers and sisters and me with so many cousins. But." Teddy shrugs.
no subject
He doesn’t mention that he’s unlikely to ever return home because he’s very, very dead, but after those eight hundred years, that feels like something most people know now. It causes him a great deal of anxiety to literally have one foot in the grave and no knowledge of if his second chance will ever come to an end, but it is what it is.
“Uh, yeah, Teddy, for the time being? I think I’m gonna refrain from biting anyone.” Even as an ordinary human, Eddie still has a flimsy concept of personal space, and takes this opportunity to lean in close and whisper theatrically. “You’ll be the first one to know if I do, though. Or the second.”
With a grin, he breaks away, and rolls up his sleeves to begin comparing tattoos with Teddy. It was rare to run into people with tattoos in small-town Hawkins, and it remains a little uncommon here as well. He’s managed to talk some of his friends into getting one or two, though, and he’s happy to send more business to the tattoo shop in Nocwich.
“Uh—well, this one—and this one—the pink bat is a new acquisition…” The majority of his tattoos decorate his arms and hands, so it’s not difficult for him to point them out to Teddy: a graveyard, a skeletal hand, a sword, and the pink bat mixed in with his older, much more poorly inked bats. “The graveyard glows in the dark which is all kinds of sick. I dunno how they do it, but—definitely recommend a trip.”
“As for money—I distribute some incredibly potent weed for a woman out of the Free Cities. I probably can’t get you in on that, but you would be surprised how well Nocwich takes to busking. Just make it more interesting than whatever’s going on on the stage—not hard, most days—and you’re golden”
He feels like he does more of that than distribution anyway, especially these days when the factions are feeling even more separate and things are just rough. He rolls down his sleeves, gives a few of the piano keys one last tap (it’s always so hard to resist, and straightens up with a grin.
“It's your house,” he answers. “Where you lead, I will follow.”
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Which he wouldn't mind; it wouldn't be the first time they've talked a little more honestly. At least, theoretically. But it's just -- this is nice, it's easy and fun. So back to laughingly comparing notes it is, and if Eddie notices that little uncertain pause, he doesn't say anything.
Teddy huffs a laugh when Eddie leans in, and tips their head a little. "I guess second's okay," they tease, all faux consideration. "I'm not the jealous type."
They grin and move on. Actually, it's reassuring, here as they are in the liminal space of re-meeting outside that other universe. Teddy tends to start out a little careful of boundaries, polite, formal in the space they take up. Once they're surer someone won't react badly, that mien drops: they spread out, gesture more widely, get tactile and openly affectionate -- earlier and more readily than many people, if it's welcomed -- perform a little. Eddie leaning right into their space in this reality (or...more or less) reminds them that the over-half-century of being likeminded in that regard isn't a lie.
"Oh, those are badass," Teddy says, smiling and leaning in to see each new one, grinning widely at the horns-sign skeletal hand. "Wait, really?" She glances up at the mention of glowing in the dark. "That's sweet as fuck. I wonder..." That has gears turning in her head. "I'm definitely going to have to talk to them."
"And I thought Solvunn were the farmers," Teddy teases, about the weed. "Noted. I'm...probably not the most connected middleman, anyway. Although, I might want in on that, sometime, if you'd actually recommend it. Sometimes pot helps with post-seizure bullshit."
Huh. Has he ...told Eddie about epilepsy? He must have. In hundreds of years? Teddy can't remember, though, if they got to be friends before or after the symptoms of a seizure were largely relegated to the first moments of an Echo. At some point in forgetting everything, he sort of lost how all of it worked, it had been so long; only that it wasn't being spoken to by Gods and that, as such, he had an extra duty to the children people prayed for him to protect.
Teddy adds, "But busking! That's a great idea. Busking I can do. My band used to, the last one I was in, we were kind of a ...folk punk band, sort of?" They can't think of anyone in the 80s that does what Scrip does: usually they say things like You know the Dropkick Murphies? Appalachian, not Celtic. But he'll at least know folk. "We took the classics everyone had heard and just amped it way up." Teddy hmms. "I don't want to compete with you, though..."
"I like that attitude in a person," Teddy says with a little curl of amusement at one side of her smile. Both on their feet now, she gestures back toward the kitchen in a little formal wave. "I feel like I should give you the grand tour, or something. To your left! You'll see...uh, where you came in. And also the stairs, where there's a bedroom with a way bigger bed than I actually have, and a second bedroom because ...my brain put in space for my parents', I guess, but also, why the fuck not have company. If we keep going straight, there's the kitchen and the table." Teddy pauses to poke her head in and let Eddie do the same if he wants. It, like everything else, is about half way accurate and half wishful thinking. "And if...someone dreamed up a grocery for some reason...we can cook nearly anything. If you go out the back, there's a yard a lot like my house as a kid had, and a vegetable garden just like my grandmother's. But, back here on your left:"
The other side of the staircase, of course, going downstairs. Just an inset, plain wooden door that, when opened, swings at a slight angle to reveal concrete steps going downward and a light that Teddy flicks on. It's funny, how things work here because they should.
"The basement." Teddy heads in, pausing to glance behind themself "In real life, which this layout is kinda? this goes straight down and it's just a little root cellar. Probably had a generator and like, hot water heater, and theoretically us if there was ever a tornado, which I think there might've been all of once." As they go down, though, the stairs turn, and on the landing there are books of all kinds stacked. "But here..."
Teddy turns on another light at the last few steps, and it flickers on to show a much bigger room. Nearest them are beanbags, a worn but comfy looking couch, some speakers connected to a stereo, and a small TV with a very old Nintendo console underneath. Behind that, on top of a rug: three guitars of varying kinds and a bass on a long stand, a drumset, and mikes, with cords snaking to amps on either side. To one side there's a minifridge.
Teddy grins. "...Et voila. I dream big."
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It was possible, if a Shade had permission from Hades to travel. Like Orpheus, and Achilles. But that was a boon not often given.
"We have something in common then! Just don't ask me how many cousins I have. Too many to count, I suspect." But that was what happened when you had Zeus and Poseidon for your uncles. "But I'm glad your family all get along. That shouldn't be something unusual, among mortal or divine families, but...it's not as common as it should be, unfortunately."
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He’s quick to grin, though, and carries on easily, breaking out of Teddy’s personal space once he’s made his point about his new teeth and any future biting of others—unlikely, but always a possibility, he supposes. Eddie Munson has never known personal space, not when he decides he likes someone enough to befriend them, or dislikes someone enough to torment them. In this case, it’s the former.
He remembers something about epilepsy, enough that he just…doesn’t need to ask what they’re talking about, and it feels odd to have that information at all, but he rolls with it easily, no questions asked.
“Oh yeah? And to think it’s illegal back home,” he snorts, rolling his eyes. “Not that it ever stopped me, but uh…Come with me next time,” he insists, doesn’t ask, as if they really have been friends for years. “We’ll make it a whole thing. I’ll hook you up with a free weed sample, make enough money for a little ink, you let me hear your tunes, I let you hear mine—no competition, just typical freak behavior.”
He allows Teddy to lead him through the grand tour, answering with the occasional quip, and he really is impressed. He replicated his uncle’s little trailer rather effectively, but that was one bedroom and little else—he can’t imagine replicating something like this. The noise he utters when he spies the mystery room at last—the guitars! The amps! The mics! Even a Nintendo, something he could never afford in a million years—well, it’s high pitched and a little embarrassing.
“You just opened the gates to heaven,” he utters with true awe and reverence. “Holy shit. All we had was a garage.”
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"But. Well, I mean, I reckon for a lot of people who believe in an afterlife, whether it's like yours or a different one, it is still a comfort to think of them living on. But it's not the same as being able to ask them a question, or, give them a hug..."
And there it is, choking off the end of the sentence. Teddy rubs their eyes before tears can make an appearance and makes a face. "Sorry. Made myself think too much."
They're happy to move on to big families. Teddy laughs despite himself at Too many to count. "The stories my world has about your uncles make them sound...rather prolific," he says, trying to be diplomatic. "I try to avoid that part with all the -- you know, the teenage demigods? Do you talk to them much? That must be weird for you, having a bunch of -- what, new half-siblings and cousins who ...I imagine don't quite have the same versions of your family?"
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"Fuck yeah," they agree, nodding, and lift a hand to bump knuckles, or whatever Eddie ends up interpreting that as (did people do that in the 80s? Teddy's investigations into the past have never included casual hand gestures of enthusiasm). "I am all for more typical freak behavior."
"Did anyone tell you it is legal now?" Teddy adds as they head down the stairs. "Pot. Well, kinda. Some states have it totally decriminalized, and some of them are, you know, West Virginia." She snorts. "But the medical stuff is, back home. Taxed to shit, which I think they finally figured out."
They grin widely at Eddie's little squeak. Truth is, they've been waiting to show this part off to someone, and Eddie's the best person to show it off to: there's no point in having a fairly equipped little practice area and guitars you could never afford and a little den full of cushions and music and books if you don't have company.
"That's me, Saint Peter," Teddy says, spreading his arms theatrically.
He grins at we just had a garage. "Shit, you're telling me. One of our best practice spaces was an old barn. This? Is basically the coolest moodboard ever, yanked out of my head. I think the rug is from a venue we played once, and the guitars are from ...a lot of hours in music stores...and the stereo setup is probably just from me being a geek, honestly --"
They spread their hands in a little scale gesture. "What'll it be, playing something or someone else playing something? Your choice."
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“Uh, no, no one told me that,” he confirms, rolling his eyes. “Jesus Christ, of course they did, because even the police were using it. Let me guess—Indiana was a hold-out, right?”
Because Indiana is always the hold-out, at least from where Eddie stands. To him, the whole state is dull and behind the times, but it is still home, and he can talk shit about it as much as he want. But for now, it doesn’t matter
“Oh, we’re playing something.”
He turns toward Teddy again, his eyes wide, intense, and serious. It’s clear that he won’t be swayed and he’s leaving no room for argument. They can absolutely listen to something later, but for now, they are playing something.
“So long as you allow me access to one of these beauties, of course,” he continues, gesturing grandly to the guitars.
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It’s less that Eddie has the look of a dealer: maybe he does, in some stereotypical way, but a good half or more of the kids Teddy grew up with — and their parents — have exchanged drugs and money in one direction or another. There’s no ‘look’. Nah, the joke is more vibes. Eddie and Teddy seem in many ways cut from the same cloth, and drugs totally aside, ‘is it legal’ has never been Teddy’s main consideration about …a lot of things, really.
It takes Teddy a minute. “Oh, you mean — someone here who’s a cop back home? And yeah, I’m pretty sure their governor got all soapboxy and hasn’t even legalized medical.
“I know so little about Indiana? Like — I was born and lived 10 years in the state next door and just a hop over, after that, but about what I got is…’oh, it’s the other state you go to if you’re in a dry county in Kentucky and you need beer’. Or fireworks, according to my friends in Louisville,” she laughs. “It’s got…NASCAR? I don’t know.”
Teddy watches with a beam as Eddie takes in the surroundings; it only gets wider when he turns back with an intent look. They’d been hoping, really, that he’d say that. There are like 3000 songs he’s missed out on so if he had wanted to explore Teddy’s choice of music they’d have completely understood. But.
“Fuck yeah we are.”
Nothing really compares to playing with someone. Even writing and performing solo, they usually miss playing with a band and like to rope in collaborators; it’s more just that it doesn’t fit Scrip’s…whole thing.
“Obviously,” Teddy scoffs. “What’s the point of three guitars that only I can touch? The one on the far end’s a twelve string hollowbody,” she adds, gesturing as they make their way to the ‘stage’,
“and then there’s — the one in the middle’s more like a Super Strat, got a sweet 24 fret setup with a thinner neck so you can shred all day,” she sneaks a grin at Eddie: pretty sure this will be his choice, though, who knows! “And the one on the near end’s essentially my dream version Les Paul, with the humbuckers and that rounder sound. Just like — my kid in a candy store wishlist, basically.”
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Short of the alternate dimension that lurks beneath Hawkins, Indiana isn’t particularly noteworthy. Eddie has spent all his life with that belief, an he refuses to change his mind now. “Yeah, that’s one good thing about it. Beer is like…crazy easy to get,” he concedes. “I was working at a dive bar—heavy emphasis on the dive—before I was eighteen.”
But that was the 80s, and Eddie is still unaware just how much may have changed twenty years later. Chances are, a seventeen year old wouldn’t be hired as a bar back, and he wouldn’t be able to slip his friends drinks any time the owner wasn’t looking.
“But besides that? Not a whole lot about Indiana worth mentioning, so…”
Besides the alternate dimension beneath his small town, but he trails off, taken in by the guitars and literally everything else about this cozy space Teddy has created. He and Nanaue have a good thing going on with Goat Destroyer, and Nanaue came back from the emergent reality with some crazy drumming skills, but Eddie misses playing with other people, just jamming and figure out what works and what doesn’t. He still plays solo more often than not, and there’s something sort of sad about that. But now is his moment to fix it.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
With a grin, he steps right up and reaches for the middle guitar—the Superstrat, just like Teddy expected he might. He’s a free spirit, sure, but when it comes to some things, he’s very predicable.
“She’s beautiful,” he sighs, immediately beginning to pick out an old blues riff. Start off slow, start off easy, launch into the shredding after a bit of a warm-up. He paces the “stage” as he plays, and this is clearly Eddie in his element.
“Man, you have good taste in guitars. I wanna hear the others too. Get up here and join me.”
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It's a respectable job, and a better alternative to some others, but even in places as half-step-from-desperation as the places Teddy grew up in, and as many chances as she had to not be both as privileged and lucky as she is, she's pretty sure she could never be a police officer. Not for fucking long, anyway.
Teddy laughs, lifting their eyebrows. There were some places they played at 18 where they had to get big sharpie x's on their hands just entering; the idea of someone serving alcohol at 17 is pretty insane. They have no idea whether that's an Indiana thing or an 80s thing: both seem possible.
She grins when Eddie picks up the Superstrat, both glad to be right and genuinely pleased to see what he does. The grin relaxes into something like impressed delight, nodding along as Eddie starts with a blues progression and kicks the performance up a notch.
(If Eddie had his own character sheet, they're pretty sure they'd be able to SEE the Charisma stat spin up a few numbers.)
They almost jump a little when he gestures them up.
"Helps to have absolutely no limits but my imagination," Teddy smirks to hide that they're pleased by the remark. It's a very subjective thing, but it does bode well for them playing together that the things they like in guitars are things he likes too. "It'd be my honor." They do a little flourish at him and head over, frowning at the guitars in a half second of indecision -- this or that? -- and goes for the 12 string; almost checks the tuning before realizing they don't imagine their guitars out of tune so it never ends up being a problem.
Teddy picks up the chord progression Eddie was riffing through after listening for a moment, taking the role of rhythm at first. She adds a little oomph with the strum pattern to give him a foundation to riff around, picking a few walking notes between chords to add a little syncopation and take advantage of the paired strings.