itscurtains | Week Six

Entry tags:

act 3,
week 6

Week Six

[Last week, in It's Curtains, the weather changed, and with it your fortune in Dads. Discord took Salieri out - or perhaps Salieri took Discord out - and left the survivors with that much less impulse control. Nonetheless, a visit from a new friend might have provided a little bit of much-needed hope?

On Sunday morning, you'll find that the other side of the second floor has opened up - as well as the actual intended path to reach the roof garden. You can finally stop climbing up that rope every time you want to have a picnic or secret lover's rendezvous!

Outside, the weather seems to have calmed down. It's sunny again, with rather a lot of clouds. Though it's warm, the atmosphere seems very...still.]

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

(( Be sure to submit your memory regain and your AC for this week! As always, Hester's office hours and the merch booth remain available. ))

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[He chuckles quietly, then gently pulls her in to kiss her head through the blanket hood, before taking his arm back and pulling the nightstand away from the wall, so she can use it as a table.]

Well, let's see if we can get you feeling a little better. We've got... some aspirin tablets, for your head, a little bit [he emphasizes, pointedly] of cough syrup to help you get some rest, and some food.

[He's a little sheepish, having been worrying about what she even liked to eat, and whether she'd throw it back in his face. The way she'd screamed out 'Dad!' - not Ben or Benj or Benji - he'd thought it had been another hallucination, at first, something he never thought he'd hear from anyone, never would have dreamed to ask, but...

Yeah, when the adrenaline had faded and both her and Spongebob were safe and looked after, there'd been an embarrassing ten minutes of just sobbing in the restroom.]

I... wasn't entirely sure what you might like, but I kept it light for you. Turkey sandwich, some apple slices, and a glass of milk, to help you get your strength back.

[That guilt is settling back into her stomach pretty quickly, and she eyes him carefully, as if she might figure out what the trick is here. But it’s not a trick.

Just like Salieri had, when she’d fallen apart during the first motive. Like the Balladeer had, when he found her drunk under the bleachers. Like Discord had done, with a little bit of extra nudging from Salieri, but still, had done.

He was taking care of her.]

Thanks. It all looks good. [Its probably not what she would have picked, but if she picked, Farrah, who isn’t supposed to eat processed sugars, would have eaten an entire bag of gummy worms and washed it down with a diet coke. So this definitely is better.]

Are you feeling okay? I’m… [She can’t say she’s sorry. She swallows.]

You didn’t feel good last night.

[As if on cue, when she asks him if he's feeling alright, he inhales to speak and starts coughing, leaning away from her and burying his face in the crook of his elbow. The fit is brief, but his face is flushed bright when he turns back to her, and his voice is a little hoarse.]

I'll be fine, no need to worry about me.

[He clears his throat, and bends one leg up onto the bed so he can face her, his expression serious.]

...Can we talk? About this morning.

[Farrah doesn’t want to push it too far right now, but she does say, a little firmly, before she begins to eat her sandwich—]

You should rest too.

[Since he’s bringing up this morning, she tries to take extra long chewing on her sandwich, to put it off as long as possible. But, eventually, there’s not really much more to chew, and she has to reply or it’s going to get weirder.]

I guess so. You’re mad, aren’t you?

...No. No, not mad, pet. [He'd been mad, before. In both senses of the word. And while he was sure he'd had the strength in that moment to stop the car with his bare hands, to lift the whole thing off the ground if need be, it wasn't anger inside him.]

I was scared. Worried. Sad.

[He settles back a little, leaning against the headboard and the wall.]

Do you want to tell me what you two were doing out there?

[He'd heard it and overheard it from Spongebob, but he'd been too emotional, too volatile, with the adrenaline ripping through him, to hear it from her.]

[She drains the glass of milk, putting off speaking for a while. She even wipes her mouth when she’s done, just delaying for time like a child who doesn’t want to go to bed.]

I couldn’t sleep. And… I wanted to stop hearing and seeing things. And Spongebob was in the hall too, and so miserable—- I wanted to drink until I didn’t care about the illusions. I wanted to drink until I didn’t care about anything anymore.

But… it just made me sad. And I thought of everyone else, dead, but—- together. And so—- I told Spongebob I didn’t want to live anymore.

But the stupid sponge put my seatbelt on. And then he couldn’t manage to crash. And then—- you—— I couldn’t let him hit you!

[He listens, without interrupting her. He wants to reach out and hold her, but he'll wait and see if she wants to come to him. It makes him think of the yawning void that had opened up beneath him, the overwhelming desolation when he saw Lucy at his feet - by his own hand.]

...I know. What it's like, to feel like everything good in your world is gone forever. It's not even pain, it's emptiness that sucks in everything around it. It's like part of you is dead and rotting, and no one really sees it.

I lost my wife three times. My daughter three times, although I didn't recognize her the last. And I didn't survive it. In fact, I welcomed the boy who- ...killed me, because in every meaningful way I was already dead. I had lived for months thinking that humanity itself was a plague to be wiped out, myself included.

And then, when I finally got what I wanted, I woke up here. And I met all of you. And I remembered what it was like to feel love, and hope, and happiness, only to remember what it felt like to lose it again, here and in my lost memories at the same time.

I honestly might not have survived last week, or the week before, without your father. But Farrah... I wouldn't have survived Sunday without you.

You're not alone. Just please, promise me you won't do something that foolish again.

[Farrah starts off munching apple slices while she listens to him. You’d think the whole dead and rotting talk might be a little off putting for a meal, but she doesn’t seem to mind. But when he mentions losing his wife— and then his daughter, she stops. And when he brings up his own death, Farrah outright drops the slice she’d been munching on onto the floor.

She doesn’t go get it. Let Ruddiger have some floor apple as a treat later, he deserves it.

She pushes herself out of her blanket nest, tensing just slightly at the mention of her father, because she still misses him so badly, and she was so close to seeing him again, so close to being by his side once more. At what cost, though?

Benj’s right here, right in front of her. She can’t just ignore that. She can’t just forget about him, this poor man who has lost everything, even himself, yet still loved her. She’s a foolish girl, for letting her loss cloud that. And he still loves her, despite all the foolishness.

She doesn’t know how to convey all of this. Doesn’t, and can’t convey the love and loss in her heart all at once. But she can press herself against him like the lost child that she is, desperate for love and safety.]

I promise.

[He doesn't expect her to crawl into his lap again, but he welcomes her, burying his face in her hair. Holding her, she can feel the way he's trembling, trying to stay strong as she presses herself against him, so little and lost, burning hot from her fever and the blankets.

He rocks back and forth once, to settle her in better, smoothing her hair where the blanket hood has caused it to frizz out of her braids. He presses a gentle kiss to the bandage on her forehead.]

Lost in the darkness,
Silence surrounds you.
Once there was morning,
Now endless night.

I will find the answer.
I'll never desert you-
I promise you this-
Till the day that I... [His singing softens, cuts out.] ...die.

[She snuggles up to him, allowing herself to feel safe once more. She lets herself trust again, listening to his song, and his heartbeat.

She feels dizzy and hazy as she looks up at him, and squints when he finishes the song so abruptly.]

…Dad?

[It's less that it's abrupt and more that his voice leaves him, goes hoarse around the lump of tears in his throat.

That same knot that grows, when she calls him that. He'd almost thought he'd imagined it, when she said it the first time.

The way he'd imagined Johanna, little and sweet cooing 'Dada! Uppy!' the day before.]

...Yes, love?

I’m sorry. [She hadn’t wanted to say it before, because she hadn’t entirely meant it. But she is. Not necessarily that she tried, but]

I’m sorry I almost made you feel like that again.

Oh, shhh... shh shh shh...

[One hand brushes the frizz of her hair back off of her face, smoothing down the wavy locks. The other rubs her arm gently, as he reassures her.]

I don't need you to apologize. You already promised not to let it get that bad again, that's all I need.

I'm just glad you weren't hurt badly.

[She hugs him as tightly and as fiercely as she can, trying not to think about how stupid she was. Trying not to think about how awful it would have been for him, if she’d have succeeded—- how awful it must have been for her to even try.]

Because of Spongebob. He put the seatbelt on me.

I tried to get a cartoon character to help me die, and he probably saved my life instead.

Then I'm glad that he did. And I'm glad that you chose him to help you.

[He thinks about, but doesn't mention, the SQUIP and Connor. How the SQUIP had seen a way out, in the poor boy's pain, and tried to take advantage of it. If Farrah had found someone else last night, someone who had been waiting for an opportunity to present itself, there might have been no chance of saving her at all.

When he thinks about that, his arms remember the weight of Lucy's body, her blood soaking into his shirt as he cradled her to his chest.

He sucks in a deep breath when Farrah hugs him tighter, then rests his cheek on her head, breathing in the smell of her and reminding himself that she's alive. She's safe.

He's not alone.]

...Do you know what I thought, when I stepped out in front of you?

[Farrah’s also trying to remind herself that she’s alive. When she’s very quiet, she can hear her heartbeat thrumming in her ears—- and with her head so close to him like this, she can also hear his.

She chews on her lip when he asks the next question.]

No. What?

...I thought.

[His voice is a low, soft rumble, one that comes as much from his chest as it does from his mouth.]

'Please, God, take me instead. Let me save them. Let me do something right.'

[He takes a slow, deep breath.]

[She stays there, still for a few moments, just listening, her eyes closed. It’s almost like she’s asleep, and then she speaks.]

And I thought—- Holy Shit, Spongebob, we’re gonna kill my dad.

And I wasn’t hallucinating.

...It wasn't my best idea.

[He'll concede that much.]

You should finish eating. You'll feel better.

[Not in a couple hours she won't.]

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Week Six

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