merry christmas; i could care less [ open ]

[postictal]

Who: Real Tim, Mirror Tim + YOU / Real Frisk, Mirror Frisk + YOU
Where: All the heck over my guys
When: 12/13 - 12/20
Rating: PG to start with, will edit for anything higher
Summary:
The Story:

[Just kidding starters are in the comments.]

[Let me know if you want something closed cooked up special, etc., or hit me over at arrpee. I will match prose or brackets!]

Comments

[interpersonal]

And make someone smile it does.

Elena spends a lot of her time in the library. It's a comfort to her, however illusory. She spent her first night in Wonderland going through its stacks, and she's even made her own makeshift little nook whenever she's in an investigative mood -- not that this place ever wants her to find some decent answers. It just never stops her from trying, because who will she be if she doesn't?

Anyhoo. Elena's close enough to hear Tim and his banjo. The sounds make her curious enough to follow the source, and she's quiet until the song concludes. At which point it's probably obvious she was standing there the whole time. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snoop, but you're pretty good."

[postictal]

Hey, no one's told him to shut up because libraries are supposed to be quiet yet, and that's all the incentive he needs to keep playing, that patina of holiday-cookie cheer smoothing some of his edges, easing some of his corners, relaxing the tension clasped in his shoulders and lining his face.

And thus, having an audience isn't as unwelcome as it would normally be. He still glances up with something like shock - that someone would find him worth listening to, and that someone would stick around after.

He doesn't quite smile, but he does almost look...

Touched, maybe?

"Didn't know anyone else was here," says Tim, an apologetic twist to the side of his mouth. "Didn't, uh...I mean, I know libraries are supposed to be quiet, yeah?"

[interpersonal]

Elena rarely takes it personal if someone doesn't smile back at her, especially in Wonderland. The longer she is here, the more she becomes aware of its brutality, and she's aware this realm of magic favors no one: none of them leave unscathed.

But she can tell he isn't upset about it either, and so she ventures to take a step forward.

Amusement crinkles some of her expression.

"Usually, but I find that in Wonderland, if it's too quiet for too long, that might not necessarily be a good thing."

Like a calm before a terrible storm. She likes the music better.

[postictal]

Okay, she’s got a fair point. Considering that he can remember full well the last time something breached the quiet of the library, maybe this isn’t so bad. It’s not someone hurling molotovs at the stacks and smacking people in the face with a shotgun, which is something not much, but something.

“I think the, uh, storm has already started breaking.” He nods at the instrument in his hands, unwittingly falling in line with her mental metaphor. “I swear I don’t usually play in public.”

So things are already a little off. But - hey. No weird White Queen dreams. Right?

“Still better than last year.”

[interpersonal]

"Tell me about it. I'll take the fact we can sleep restfully at all as a win."

His comment shows both understanding of how Wonderland operates, and how long he's been here -- at least long enough to have experienced Ewaymas once before. The passage of time here is strange to Elena; it feels all too short and endless, all at once.

She glances down at the banjo and gives another little smile.

"Well, whether you usually play or not, you can play at all. That's a step up from me. I couldn't even master chopsticks on the piano."

And Damon really tried.

[postictal]

“Never wanted to learn?” He can’t blame her there. After everything burned, the motivation to pick up another instrument felt...trivial at best, really. Only with the promise of essentially infinite time had he seen the point in picking over the ashes and wondering if maybe he should give it another shot.

He’ll never be the most talented person here. But it’s soething he still finds he enjoys doing.

“I mean, we’ve got all the time in the world here.”

[interpersonal]

"That's true. I guess writing has always been my creative outlet."

Her brother, Jeremy, was the real artist.

Elena gently lowers herself down to sit across from him. She thinks she's seen him around, but with how reclusive she's been lately, she hasn't had the chance to meet a whole lot of people. "I'm Elena. I should've probably started with that, huh?"

[postictal]

Can’t fault her there. He’s not exactly a social animal himself. It takes some magic-spiked holiday cookies to get him out and about enough to warrant commentary from people passing by. He’d mind it more under more ordinary circumstances, but since when are circumstances in Wonderland ordinary?

“Tim. One of, uh...two Tims, actually. And not just ‘cause of the Mirrors.” Tim D. and Tim W. That brings the total up to four. Six, if you count the additional occupant renting room in Tim’s own skull. And, presumably, his double’s.

[interpersonal]

"Looks like I need to start brushing up on my Tims."

The light smirk fades a bit, since she's aware it's a lame joke and honestly, that's more Damon's forte. But since he mentioned it ... Elena grows contemplative. "Have you ever met him? Your mirror."

[postictal]

Honestly, the number of Tims just seems to be going up. He's taken back to tacking his last initial onto things, odd as it looks to some people, because otherwise he might be mistaken for a sarcastic kid with a knack of technology. Or, uh. Something.

The pace of his idle strumming slows and ceases.

"Not face to face," he says at last. "He likes to talk. I try not to listen."

He likes to write on glass in a way that Tim has to acknowledge - or try to do the same to Jay. Hell if he even knows if Jay's still listening. He shoots a look back up in Elena's direction, wary and contemplative.

"What about you?"

[interpersonal]

Elena can't imagine those messages are easy to ignore.

But she also doesn't want to prod him for too much information when they've only just met.

"Uh, no. Not face to face or through the mirrors, but she does like to talk and mess around with those closest to me. I've just rarely heard of reals interacting with their mirrors in the same way, and I've always wondered if that meant something."

Beyond avoiding playercest.

[postictal]

They are when you paint over the mirrors. It's easier than breaking them, and it removes the temptation of -

He doesn't listen. That's the bottom line. He knows better than to listen, but the question of whether Jay knows better, as always, rears its head. Tim's idea of self-preservation runs in more or less the opposite direction as Jay's; Jay, who is and continues to be someone Tim would protect, regardless of all else.

"She likes to talk to your friends too, huh?"

[interpersonal]

"Not lately," Elena rectifies in admission. If she really thinks about it, her mirror went quiet around the same time that Bonnie left. It can't be a coincidence. "But weirdly enough, that's worse somehow? You don't know what they're up to when they go quiet."

Just like Freya's mirror never talked to them, and when the time came, she crossed over to take what she wanted, which was Elena's blood. All of it. It's what makes her so skittish about the mirrors crossing over so easily.

She prefers when they're on the other side of the glass.

[postictal]

She’s not wrong, is the thing. Part of why he’s able to work with the people he doesn’t wholly trust the way he does now; if you’re tigy there with them for every step of the way, then you control what they come away knowing. You control how much they learn and when.

But then, not everyone is Tim’s special brand of paranoia.

“Might mean the Queen got sick of her,” he offers, though that’s just as unsavory a thought, if for entirely different reasons.

[interpersonal]

"She does seem like the kind of person who would do that in one of her tantrums," Elena offers back wryly. Perhaps it is an unsavory thought, but it's one that would let Elena sleep a bit better at night. Now if only the Queen could get sick of Freya's mirror...

Elena startles herself out of those dark thoughts, swallowing a bit.

"Anyway, um. I'm sorry to interrupt your playing. It was just a nice distraction."

And it's nice sometimes to tell people when something is appreciated? Even if it's not intended.

[postictal]

"Hey, I'm happy to be a distraction." Even using the word colloquially feels like a shift in a direction he can't wholly quantify. Artificial cheer or not, playing again is something he's seldom indulged. If other people think it sounds like something worth listening to, maybe it's not as stupid a hobby as he got to be convinced it was.

It's a thought.

One corner of his mouth twitches, the closest thing he comes to a smile on a semi-regular basis. "And it's not like I'm not performing a full set here."

[interpersonal]

Elena's smile is a bit more overt. It's ... nice? To meet new people and step out of the sad bubble she'd once again created for herself. She'd made a promise, long ago, that she wouldn't be gloomy graveyard girl anymore. She's found herself slipping back into old habits, but she wants to do better. And maybe it just starts with meeting someone outside of the library playing a banjo.

"In that case, consider me guilt-free."

At least about this.

She tucks a strand of hair and tips her head in the library's direction to signal her reentrance to it. "I'll see you around?"

[postictal]

All things considered, there are worst first impressions to make. Like sleepwalking into someone, or watching your coded message from six months ago abruptly get paired to your username, or showing up on the network as a man-goat thing and accidentally traumatizing said goat’s children by admitting that you’re wearing their dad’s soul like a Halloween costume.

Meeting someone outside a library isn’t too bad, really.

“Yeah.” That actually doesn’t sound terrible. God help him, he’s not being nearly surly and unapproachable enough. “I’ll see you around.”