ph_memes | MINGLE - Post-Op(era) Recovery

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After the Fall of Efrain With the Prince of Sorrow's Song dead and gone, the opera dissipates, spitting its victims out on the summit of Crane's Ridge where the Dance of Celestine was held some months before. It's getting late, and there is no one yet in town to run the train. Some will brave the trip home simply for the sake of collapsing into their own beds and achieving some sense of normalcy. Others will do so with the hope of returning with help. But many others will simply say "fuck it" and camp out on the mountain, still fitted with extra firewood from the festival and the means to build temporary structures in nearby storage sheds. The journey down will be safer in the morning, and there's solidarity to be had in a cool spring night spent under the stars.

Oh, look, there's even some non-perishable food and wine from the Dance. Combined with what can be hunted or foraged, as well as snacks and drinks stolen from the concession stand, there's plenty to go around. This might even be a little bit fun! Anyone up for another game of Never Have I Ever? Maybe a little Truth or Dare? Or perhaps you just want to chat and unwind with your friends. Whatever the case may be, have fun. This is your time. After darkness, there is a dawn. At the death of Sorrow, there is joy.

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"Boss, noooooooo!"

He sees it happening. He runs as fast as he can, but it's too late. The deed is done.

Falling to his knees...because he tripped in his haste...Alexei grunts, picks himself back up, and rushes up to Capo to make a grab for the knife in his hand.

"Cap, youse doin' it wrong! Dem chunks'a meat should be smaller for a stew! Gimme dat, I'll show ya..."

You want a sous chef? You got a sous chef, Capo. Alexei won't let you get rid of him.

Agent Carolina says lots. She just doesn't use her voice.

She hugs back. She does nice things with her hand in his hair, and he sighs--it feels nice, but mostly that nice feeling makes him take a deep breath because he feels like the air is cleaner when he breathes it in, just outside and clothes and that vaguely girl smell. Nicer soap and nicer skin and even sweaty they don't smell as bad as guys do.

(The stage had lots of lights. Enough to make anyone sweaty.)

Point is, her nice smell and her hand in his hair and her hug say many things. Lots of things. When she talks without her voice, she's very loud.

She says she is sad. She says she's his teammate. She says she is glad he hugged her, because she needs to be hugged a lot...maybe not all at once, though.

She says she is very tired, and she does not feel safe.

...okay, she doesn't say that last part. Caboose just doesn't feel safe, either. That's why he's camping with such aggressive comfort.

Lifting his head, he shifts so he's holding on to her still, but resting his head on her shoulder instead so he can look at the fire.

"You can rest. If bad people come, I will think about..."

He knows what things can make him angry and mean. O'Malley things. Kittens covered in spikes--except now he has something else. Things he doesn't want to remember or think about, like the Halloween costumes on the stage that look like armor, and Carolina being sad while she was there, wearing those Halloween costumes and...

"...I will think about the music." he promises softly, relaxing against her a little bit more. "It will help me."

Nothing could make him angrier right now than the music. All that sad music and Carolina being right there with all that sad, sad music...that will make him angry.

A funny thing can happen when a large chunk of your emotions get ripped out of you. Like clearing away a tangled overgrowth to expose the seedlings underneath, other, more pleasant things start to surface.

Are they feelings, too? Gaeta isn't quite sure. In an academic way, he's noticed that Pyotr didn't tear everything out of him. What's left behind is blunted, yes. But not gone like the grief is gone.

As Neil plays, Gaeta smokes a cigarette and watches with an almost dreamlike appreciation. There's no awkwardness or anxiety left like there was at Merrymeet. None of that self-deprecating embarrassment over feeling like a teenager at a school dance. Just this: Neil looks good.

"I'm doin' it jus' fine!" Capochin argues, pulling his arm away and shooing Alexei lightly. "I'm doin' it the way my Ma taught me. Best chef in all'a Drain. You can argue wit' me all ya like, but you don't argue with Mama Bastone, and you damn sure don't argue with her cookin', you got that?"

With a raised eyebrow and a hard look, he passes Alexei a clean knife and gestures to some vegetables. Capochin's annoyance quickly fades, and changes to an air of mentorship--- one he hasn't shown in a very long time. "You don't cut rabbit as small as ya do beef or chicken. It'll dry out. When ya do it right, it oughta almost look like chicken wings. But it cooks up faster than you expect. Trust the process, you'll like what ya see. Bizzyboy's honor."

Leaving one of the little supply sheds, there is a little cowboy with a small wooden crate of bottles, presumably beer. They're headed back toward the campsite at a jaunty little trot when they notice Pyotr, taking a few more steps before halting and walking backwards cartoonishly. They set down the crate, grabbing two bottles, and jog over to him, handing him one.

The satchel at their hip has an odd, mouth-like apparatus sticking out of it. They remove it, fiddle with a setting briefly, and then out comes a pop of blue light and a sound. A voice. That of James Sunderland, to be precise. "You holding up okay?"

"Oh, come on."

Leon tosses back a shot, though he's secretly glad for the events of like an hour ago giving him an excuse to do so and not talk about any of the embarrassing childhood recitals he could name. Sure, they weren't as traumatic as any of this bullshit by a long shot, but he still doesn't want to admit to any of it. It'd ruin his image.

"Honestly? That's probably why," Sally notes with a laugh. "They were trying to make us miserable, why would they let you do something you're good at?"

"Stiiiill counts!" Sally is altogether too pleased with herself, giving him a nudge. "At least you're a good sport."

Radar grins a little. It's the grin of someone who knows they maybe should feel kinda bad about what they did, but they don't, really. He looks over his right shoulder, then his left, and lowers his voice.

"It's what I got my girlfriend for Christm -- uh, Givingstide. I told the mayor there was a Brutok infestation up there and we oughta shut down the springs for a day so they could clear it out, only since there wasn't really an infestation, that meant Dahlia and me had the whole place to ourselves."

"Well, the objective is to get as many people to drink as possible, isn't it? Not my fault I found the perfect zinger," Sally teases.

"Mama win?" asks the brown-haired toddler in her lap, eyes wide and inquisitive.

Sally laughs. "Not yet, Gwenny, we're still playing the game." It'd be too much trouble to explain to an almost 2-year-old that this isn't the kind of game that someone wins, so she'll just tell Gwen she won when the game is over to make her happy.

Aftermath

The opera dissipates and yet it leaves behind remnants in the unfamiliar clothes that still hang from CT's frame. Exhausted and emotionally drained, CT sinks to the ground where she stands and sits in a sea of brown and fawn fabric, pooling around her like a vortex trying to drag her down, swallow her up. With one hand flat against the ground even through the material, and the other tucked into her lap, she lets her head fall lazily against her shoulder and stares into the flickering blaze of the campfire.

She's so fucking tired.

NHIE

"Never have I ever had a dad," is CT's offering to the game, after she's had a little while to decompress. "Not for tragic reasons, or anything, my moms were just very, very much gay."

Leon's not much one for games like truth or dare and as such passes the circle of braver souls by on his way to check on the others, but the weird megaphone-like thing gets his attention, as does the new person that comes carrying it. Or new to him, at least - he was stuck in that hole for a good long while. Could be they showed up months ago and he just wasn't around to notice.

Either way, point is they stick out enough that he decides to swing by after the game's died down and introduce himself. Why not, right?

"Hey," he says, gesturing to the log next to them. "Got room for one more?"

"Your mama probably just scored the highest anyone's gonna score tonight," Leon says, huffing. It's good-natured, though. "We'll just have to see if anyone can still keep track by the end."

Never Have I Ever is not necessarily a game with winners, but what's a stupid drinking game without a little competitive spirit and a lot of uncertainty as to whether anyone can actually tally up the victor when it's over?

"Anyway. How are you two holding up? It's been a long day, huh?" That last part is addressed to Gwen - Leon had tried his best to keep an eye out for her throughout the whole affair, and he's pretty sure he didn't see her subjected to any of the worse parts of things, thank God, but he can't imagine it was very fun for her even so.

if there's a book of jubilations / we'll have to write it for ourselves

Efrain knew exactly what to do with someone like Radar, who's most in his element when he can hear, anticipate, and help the people he loves: stick him in the ticket booth, just close enough for him to hear every crystal-clear note of the opera, and make sure he could never leave. The only break he got wasn't even a break -- it was just so he could get hustled onstage for five minutes, too. Then it was right back to the ticket booth to tear off more stubs as a neverending line of demons filed in.

But as the camp takes shape, Radar's finally able to check on everybody. He circles through the crowd, his whole face pinched with worry as he taps the shoulders of people he knows -- and even a couple he doesn't.

"Hey," he asks, "you okay?"

so come and lie beside me darling / and let's write it while we still got time [cw: alcohol]

He's not gonna turn down a beer. Or two. Maybe three, but he's gonna drink the third one extra, extra slow, because by then he's drunk enough for his hearing to get all scrambled. Radar pays very close attention to anybody who talks to him at that point; if he doesn't, he's liable to start holding an entire conversation with the things they aren't saying, instead of the things they actually are.

Still, it doesn't always work. "They're over there," he might say to you out of the blue, waving absently toward whatever you just thought about needing.

Or: "Yeah, that's what I said!" when you haven't said anything at all.

Or he might jump, suddenly, even though it's totally quiet -- only for a distant wolf howl to sound about five seconds later.

(At least he's also drinking plenty of water in between. He more than learned his lesson at the beach party last year.)

never have i ever

"Never have I ever owned a pet cat."

It's absolutely a technicality -- Bandit's not really a cat, and the barn cats back home were too feral to be pets -- but that's what the game is all about!

Oh, no, Radar's about to make it sad.

He raises his hand and asks, with full earnestness, "Does it count if your dad died when you were so little that you don't remember?"

Look, he just wants to make sure he gets it right!

Godpoke nods, gesturing to the seat beside them quietly. They tip their hat in a silent howdy as he joins them, but they don't ever utter a word. It's impossible to make out their features behind the wide-brimmed hat at the grinning bandana, but dangling from their bag is a metal ID badge that labels them as a member of the Pumpkin Hollow Postal Service. A mail carrier.

Hector would very much like to say that he, as a person, has learned better to get jealous at inappropriate moments, and that he's grown past that sort of thing. If he said as much, though, he'd be a cobdamned liar. He's off to the side, enjoying the night air and a drink, when he catches a too enthusiastic remark about enjoying company, and a familiar ~~known flirt~~ face sitting awfully close.

Naturally, he inserts himself into the situation, stepping over and putting the arm of his free hand around Capochin's shoulders, forcing a grin.

"Hey, fellas! What'cha up to over here?" He chimes in, perhaps a bit too brightly. "Dinny's smellin' awful-ee good!"

"Nice outfit," A woman's familiar baritone, penetrating the darkness long before the fire cuts out her shape. She sounds both resigned and placid. Tired but no less pleased— relieved, more like— to see her friend in one piece. Breathing comes a little easier. "Is that part of your usual hiking attire?"

Stepping carefully beside the fire, it's Ellen Ripley who takes up the spot nearest CT. She's dressed in plain underclothes and a robe she'd manage to pilfer from the Green Room, a vast improvement to her Orin's costume, which, like flesh peeled clean away from the body, glistened under the cruel stage lights. A terrible candy-red to match her muse's blood thirst. Black makeup smudges around her eyes where she's neglected to wipe them clean. Not very high on her priority list, as it turns out.

Sitting crossed-legged, Ripley's knee edges into the massive tulle jaws attempting to swallow CT.

"How are you holding up?"

"Funny how they look so different than back home, but still sorta the same, huh?"

Hector speaks up softly from where he stares skyward, his own drink mostly empty. He's settled his arms atop his knees, his own tail practically in a tangle with Capochin's own, long since having caught it and latched on. He's full, had a long evening with the others freshly-freed from the opera, and pleasantly buzzed to forget the aches of sitting on the ground... but, no matter how he tries, he can't slow the thoughts that still race through his head in any quiet moment he finds himself in.

"Ain't none of the same con-steal-ay-shuns as there were back home, that's for sure," he adds. "Some of 'em almost look the same, though. I ever tell yew about the ones Mitty told me she made herself?"

It's a good night. A nice end to an otherwise fuckass day. There's always been some comfort to be had in the night. Capochin's long wondered if it has something to do with Miss Mitternacht's influence, or because he was raised in darkness, the sun still more than he was ever made for after all these years. Maybe it's just because things are softer. People gather together, closer to sources of light and warmth, and start to settle into the peace of rest.

After a long evening of cooking, Capochin let himself get a little more drunk than he otherwise might. He's nursing a cigarette, letting it take the rest of the edge off, and is leaned up against Hector. "Ya might have, once. I don't remember." He looks up at his partner, interested. "Tell me again?"

CT snorts. "What, you've never hiked in tulle? You should try, it's very airy. And if a strong breeze catches you, you might even get a lift up the hill."

It is a relief to see her, free of the stage and whatever horror that was she had been dragged into acting out. There had been no time to find anyone, back there, swallowed up in her own performances and fruitless efforts to do anything but reel. The last few months have been a never ending train of energy sapping bullshit and it's starting to scare her, how little she has left to give each time.

Which makes that a bit of a loaded question.

With a long, weary sigh she shifts, semi-consciously, until she's sagged against Ripley's side, head falling against Ripley's shoulder in place of her own.

"I'm— holding. By a thread. You?"

"I bet. And when it's time to go home, I expect I'll see you parachuting down the side of the Ridge? Cuts your travel time in half." Ripley sighs. She'd choose deadly parachute over unenthusiastic hike any day. At leads her feet wouldn't be so sore.

Tulle and weight shift as one until CT is snug against her side. She suspects it's a consequence of exhaustion as opposed to anything else. A thread, she says, and it's that very thread which seems to keep her from collapsing. Worn thinner and thinner as Winter turns to Spring. As memories foam up from seas better forgotten, once a self-contained trickle now crashing ashore to sweep her legs out.

How long until that thread snaps?

How many times can old wounds bear to be re-opened?

She chews the inside of her cheek, having had her fill of utter powerlessness. Grasps for solutions in a world where magic squanders technology and comes up empty handed each time. The entire night, save for Fever's ballet, she'd been trapped to her audience seat. Her strength of will rended from her, leaving her at the mercy of each new performance with eyes forever opened.

CT's first performance; a reenactment of death, elegant and brutal.

Her second performance; theft.

All while she sat and watched.

She's worried.

"I figured," She murmurs, winding her arm around CT's shoulder. Bringing her in as much as her tulle allows. I've got you, said in so few words. "About the same. Angry, tired, confused. I thought I killed a woman on stage today, so that was— something."

Edited 2025-04-27 17:00 (UTC)

"And I almost thought I died. What a pair we make, huh." Separate performances, separate acts of violence, but all part of one big display from the now late Efrain. And all of it drenched in red. "...I don't think it's a good look on either of us."

Bleeding out on the floor, committing bloody murder. Does that suit anyone? Probably. There's all types out there.

She releases a breath and another thread of tension falls away with it, muscles easing beneath Ripley's arm. Her hair's in her face, but she doesn't care. At least it's a reminder that she's not wearing that goddamned mask.

She's never given Caboose the credit he deserves. She's yelled at him, disregarded him, thought of him as a liability during her hound's chase to find the Director. He was a means to an end. They all were— every stupid Red and worthless Blue that'd somehow come under Agent Washington's leadership.

They disliked her, but they followed along. Climbed into Pelicans and onto bikes in her quest for revenge. They put up with her secrecy, her paranoia, her acerbity and for no other reason than by Washington's request.

And she trampled all over him. All of them. Caboose might not remember it but she does. And here he is, comforting her again.

She doesn't deserve him as a friend.

And as if to exemplify this, Carolina has to bite back the urge to chide him for his continued mourning— you can't be sad forever, you have to move on, this isn't healthy, isn't productive, Church is gone— knowing damn well she's projecting. Words she'd like to say to herself but can't stomach doing so. You should be ashamed of yourself.

The fire crackles, pops. Carolina stretches a hand toward it. Laughs inwardly at the idea of rest. She hasn't rested a day in her life. Not during childhood dance recitals, not during school, not on the battle field and not for a second during Project Freelancer. Rest turns ambition into liquid. Rest dulls the senses and makes skill go curdled and sour. A day spent resting is a part of herself lost to the void.

Maybe she could try resting. Turn her brain off, just this once.

Carolina wants him to feel safe, too. Protected where they sit in their ramshackle comfort, knowing that if any danger should suddenly spring out from between the trees, she'll destroy it utterly.

She lets her eyes close. Her breathing steadies. Fingers loose in his hair. "You should rest too. You need it." Like how all people need it. All, it seems, except for herself. She's trying, this time. "If bad people come, we'll take care of it together."

"WOOOOOOO!!!!!"

If she launches herself off the table like she's about to go crowd-surfing, Ed will totally catch her, right?

(Okay, if not, she'll change into an otter right before impact so he doesn't get knocked to the ground.)

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Page 2 of 7

MINGLE - Post-Op(era) Recovery

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Agent Connecticut / CT | OTA + NHIE

Wildcard as discussed!!

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Radar O'Reilly | OTA + NHIE

NHIE

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Aftermath

Shooting Stars and Other Fleeting Moments

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