Author: incanted | There are now one dozen Bells.
They and most of their friends are all here on Planet Rainbowsand II, to celebrate the addition of Sarion, the elf one, and Aurora, the one with a sister. |
Author: incanted | Aurora has been abandoned by Cam and Jellybean, so she goes looking for Amariah. |
Author: dark_light | Amariah is over here! With Path the Don't Touch Me Shoulder Owl too. |
Author: incanted | "Hey," says Aurora, and she summarizes her difficulties. "So far the consensus seems to be that I should read Brilliance's mind, but - you don't read yours, do you?" |
Author: dark_light | "I do not," agrees Amariah. [Hey sweeties, you wanna come meet Aurora for a bit?] |
Author: truthwright | [Sure!]
Her sweeties appear, Kas fully clothed, Petaal as a white ferret on his shoulder. They have their aura out; Petaal appears extremely pettable to Amariah, and moderately so to Aurora. |
Author: incanted | "How come you guys don't have mindreading set up?" Aurora asks. |
Author: truthwright | "Didn't ever feel like it, I guess," shrugs Kas. |
Author: dark_light | Amariah reaches out to scritch Petaal. "It hasn't been a problem for us." |
Author: incanted | "I can imagine - well, not in much detail, but approximately imagine, looking in on Brilliance's thoughts and finding something staggeringly unassailably special to the point where everything else is a triviality. But I have no idea what you're doing." |
Author: truthwright | Petaal wriggles happily.
"She's petting me!" she says, turning up her aura of pettable. |
Author: dark_light | "There's that," says Amariah, "although it's not - I'm not sure. I can think of key events but they're not timed right to be causative instead of just emblematic. Like, I know I'm intensely important to my sweeties - they separated to save Path, to a first approximation humans just don't do that..." She taps her chin. "...It could have to do with my parents. They're still together and they shouldn't be, everybody else is divided between divorced and happily married. Maybe I have something un-standard installed about lack of - relationship freedom." |
Author: truthwright | "...Lack of relationship freedom meaning what?" says Kas. |
Author: dark_light | "Oh, Aurora's having more than Bell standard trouble adjusting to nonmonogamy," says Amariah, "so I'm thinking aloud about that a little." |
Author: incanted | "Your parents are - stuck somehow and that's bad and you don't want to be stuck or to get anyone else stuck?" Aurora hazards. |
Author: dark_light | "My mother's a witch like me, and witches in general are keenly aware of human partner mortality. As long as Ranata likes Charlie, she can't bear to leave him, because then he'd die at some point without her - I don't even have my afterlife figured out yet so I can't reassure her on that - and she'd never have the chance to change her mind. I don't have this problem because I have pretty much always considered the correct solution to be to research immortality. Which I successfully did even before getting minted." |
Author: truthwright | Kas hugs Amariah.
"Because you're awesome," he says happily. |
Author: dark_light | "I am awesome! So, maybe that's why I'm off-baseline on comfort-with-poly? It's not even just a matter of whether I need to mindread my sweeties to know they love me - I also sleep around more than a standard Bell, I need to give Cam a spin one of these days, I have this habit now of testing boys out for the rest of us. And that has nothing to do with reading anybody's mind, it's just fun and I see zero benefit to choosing not to have that kind of fun." Amariah nibbles her lip. "I wonder if you'd get much mileage out of talking to Golden. She's got to have some model of us in her head; she can't pull it off because, vampire, monogamous-as-hell husband, etcetera, but she's got a monogamous Bell's perspective on the poly ones." |
Author: incanted | "I guess I'll try her," laughs Aurora. "I ought to meet everybody anyway, right?" |
Author: dark_light | "That's the spirit. I got in on the ground floor of the Belltower, it must be kind of overwhelming to get pealed and find yourself one of a dozen, huh?" |
Author: truthwright | "Being one of lots is fun," Kas contributes. Petaal nods her small fuzzy head. |
Author: incanted | "I'm glad no one's trying to, like slow-drip all the new stuff into my life lest my head explode, but it's a bit much, yeah," laughs Aurora. |
Author: dark_light | "We might need some kind of procedure for slow-dripping when there are still more of us," says Amariah. "A smallish welcoming committee to go through the Bellbook with the new Bell and so on. And then a party." |
Author: incanted | "The Bellbook?" |
Author: dark_light | "Goddesses all! You haven't even been to the Belltower, have you, you've never left this world, you don't have a Janegem - we need some kind of checklist," mutters Amariah. "Jane, the book, please?" The Bellbook appears before her and Amariah catches it out of the air and hands it over. |
Author: incanted | Aurora reads the entire book, and then she writes in it. |
Author: truthwright | Kas reads over her shoulder.
"What's a device, anyway?" |
Author: incanted | "Brilliance is shaped like you when he's being a human, but he's also a deck of cards and a staff thingamabob sometimes," says Aurora, "and he was made by some people, who were seriously shitty, to have a lot of magic and destroy planets with it, which he was not on board with. And he attaches to a sorceress - me - in some way that I do not fully understand, but we have some magic privilege sorts of things with each other, like, this classy dress I'm wearing, that's a thing devices do is outfits. Not wardrobes, just specific magical-girl-type outfits called Barrier Jackets and this is mine." She tilts her head. "He sort of is also the Barrier Jacket, but not in a lot of detail, he said." But she pets the material of her skirt anyway. |
Author: truthwright | "Awww, that's cute," says Kas. |
Author: incanted | "He's kind of skittish about it because the people who made him were so shitty, but we're managing," shrugs Aurora. |
Author: truthwright | "People who make Jokers usually are. We deal." |
Author: incanted | "Do you usually have to spend four hundred years hopping around the universe in deck-of-cards form unable to pay significant attention to anything but not blowing up whatever planet you're visiting because you've got a control program installed after having only coincidentally escaped attempts at torturing you into being an obedient weapon? Or, not that exactly, but I was really hoping that was worse than the usual, because it's bad." |
Author: truthwright | "...I think the other new one's the only one who comes close," says Kas. "You'd have to ask them which one's worse." |
Author: dark_light | "For reference, we think Shell Bell's got the lousiest history of us, I think that holds even versus Sarion, but Sarion's competitive, so's Golden for a bit of it, but Sarion's got a trickier fix ahead of her and Golden was patched as soon as she found out her husband was alive, everybody else has had lesser or briefer shit happen to us. You?" |
Author: incanted | "...I think I'm basically untraumatized. I mean, the preventing Brilliance's control program from destroying the world when it turned out to have possessed Lexi was bad, but it didn't last long and I didn't find out Lexi was involved till it was over." |
Author: truthwright | "There's a pretty big gap for us between Brill and the demon with all the torture, and the next bunch down," says Kas. "Micaiah and Jellybean are the closest we've got to 'basically untraumatized', and, you know, they still had dads."
"We're probably a little ahead of the pack, actually," Petaal points out, and Kas nods.
"But Queenie might be ahead by more, after that thing with Voice." |
Author: dark_light | "Voice is the one who got Shell Bell," Amariah explains. "That template is - we're not sure about it, or at least there's no consensus. It's a Joker's-little-brother template, cropped up three times, Beast has one and Queenie's is Voice and Micaiah has one. Angela got Micaiah's little brother out young, though, she thinks he'll turn out all right. But he does not get to be in a room with Shell Bell." |
Author: truthwright | "It's really sad," says Kas. "I don't think we should have brothers." |
Author: dark_light | "Sweetie," says Amariah, "the kind of people who make you shouldn't have children, period." |
Author: truthwright | "But then there wouldn't be us, and I like that there's us." |
Author: dark_light | "Well, yeah," says Amariah, "frankly my parents should never have gotten married to begin with but that doesn't mean I don't like existing." |
Author: truthwright | "I like you existing, too!" |
Author: incanted | "I bet you do. Thanks for your help, I'm gonna find Golden," laughs Aurora, and she goes looking for Golden. |
Author: pythbox | Golden is over there! Coincidentally, so is Liselen, who is walking around the party with an adoring Lexi on his back. |
Author: incanted | "Hi, Lexi, hi, unicorn," says Aurora. "Hi, Golden." |
Author: lexicality | "This is Liselen!" says Lexi brightly. "I am riding a unicorn and this is the best day." |
Author: luminous_regnant | "Hi, Aurora." |
Author: pythbox | "Hi, Aurora!" says Liselen. "Your sister is really excited about unicorns, it turns out!" |
Author: incanted | "There was a period when we were twelve when she pretty much wallpapered our room with art of unicorns," says Aurora. "I'm not particularly surprised. Anyway, Golden," and she summarizes her quandary yet again. "And Amariah thought I might want to talk to you just to figure out how you're modeling all the poly Bells." |
Author: luminous_regnant | "I'm not sure I'll be very helpful. I am mostly accomplishing the feat by modeling them as not vampires." |
Author: pythbox | "What's the difference with vampires?" wonders Liselen. |
Author: luminous_regnant | "It's an imperfect difference. Stella's Alice is a vampire; I'm not sure if it's his ingot power or sheer template attractor that leaves him capable of non-monogamy while mated. The literal original succubi who mated settled down when it happened and it doesn't seem to have affected Alice at all. But for the most part, vampires acquire mates and then no one else interests us." |
Author: pythbox | "Oh," says Liselen. "'Template attractor'... is he one of the ones like Isibel's demon?" |
Author: luminous_regnant | "Alice is, yes. The template calls themselves Jokers, now." |
Author: incanted | "Now? Was it something else before?" |
Author: luminous_regnant | "Whistles. As in 'bells and whistles'. When enough of them collected they objected to being - subordinated to our template in this way." |
Author: pythbox | "Huh," says Liselen. "'Bells and whistles'. Sounds like something you'd hear in Armethalieh." |
Author: incanted | "It's an expression on Earth. It means nifty little add-ons to something that's functional without them but better with. And it's super cute. I'm glad I wasn't already used to it, that'd be annoying to switch away from." |
Author: pythbox | "That is kind of cute," Liselen agrees. |
Author: luminous_regnant | "Anyway, I don't think you can possibly be as monogamous as I am or you'd be repelled by the very question," says Golden. "I can live with gatherings of this sort only with some difficulty, and you'll notice I left my husband home." |
Author: incanted | "You have the standard history, though, so if you're different it's because you're a vampire, or because of Edward in particular, and if I'm different it's probably because of Lexi," says Aurora. |
Author: lexicality | "Just you wait till we find some Lexis without Bellas and I start explaining all my characteristics by talking about how I have a sister and it's all her fault," says Lexi. |
Author: incanted | "I'm glad I have you! It just means I wasn't plucked whole from the Standard Bell Mold," says Bella. "And I want to know how. You know I'm self-obsessed like that, I have to know how I tick, you're part of how I tick." |
Author: pythbox | "...What's the difficulty with gatherings like this?" wonders Liselen. "Is it all the people having sex in that room over there?" |
Author: luminous_regnant | "Not exactly. Cam is the one Bell besides myself my husband can tolerate being around for any length of time. He finds the others unsettlingly like me while not being me, and has comparable problems with the fact that they are dating people who do not stand in a similar relationship to him. To be fair, Edward is not particularly popular with the other Bells or their loved ones either. Or did you mean me?" |
Author: pythbox | "I meant you," laughs the unicorn. |
Author: luminous_regnant | "While I can logically appreciate that if I had never met Edward, and if I were not a vampire and therefore subject to various features of vampire psychology, I would most likely not have been alone forever, it's somewhat difficult emotionally to observe eleven might-have-beens not one of whom comes home to anything like my husband." |
Author: pythbox | "Oh," says Liselen. "I guess that makes sense." |
Author: luminous_regnant | "It would be different if we were all dating unique people. It wasn't so bad when Stella was the only alt I knew about, although her Alice did not make a particularly good first impression. I'm the only one with a unique person, until and unless Pattern picks up someone who doesn't match," says Golden, shrugging. |
Author: incanted | "Is she looking?" |
Author: luminous_regnant | "If she were actively looking I'd expect her to loiter around the bevy of extra Sherlocks more than she does." |
Author: pythbox | "Not the extra Jokers?" wonders Liselen. |
Author: luminous_regnant | "The extras are significantly older than her - which has never been a problem for us, even me, but is not an enticement. And also both default to female pronouns, although I'm given to understand the underlying situation is more complicated." |
Author: incanted | "Also, don't they work for her?" |
Author: luminous_regnant | "Queenie does. Ghosty is - helpfully visiting. I don't believe that would be an obstacle were Pattern interested, but she doesn't seem to be." |
Author: pythbox | "...What do female pronouns have to do with anything?" wonders Liselen. |
Author: luminous_regnant | "Except for Cam, and sort of Amariah but she claims it's only because daemons don't count in the same way, we're all straight," says Golden. "Shell Bell's special circumstances." |
Author: pythbox | "And straight means... you don't want to date female people?" the unicorn hazards. |
Author: incanted | "Given that we're female," clarifies Aurora. "If Cam were straight he wouldn't want to date male people." |
Author: pythbox | "Oh," says Liselen. "This sex stuff is complicated." |
Author: incanted | "It gets worse," laughs Aurora. |
Author: pythbox | "...How's it do that?" |
Author: incanted | "...I'm not sure how close to zero you're starting here." |
Author: pythbox | "Really, really close!" |
Author: luminous_regnant | "I don't believe I'd contribute particularly effectively to this conversation," remarks Golden, and she wanders off. |
Author: incanted | "Uh, well," says Aurora. "...Can't you magically sense sex things, is that not helping you out any here?" |
Author: pythbox | "Being able to feel pain doesn't make you a good healer," says Liselen. "I sense things, but I don't really have context for them; before one of you fixed me, I couldn't even be as close to you as I am right now without feeling like there were bugs under my skin." |
Author: lexicality | "I'm perfectly unicorn safe," says Lexi smugly. |
Author: incanted | "Yes, Lexi, sometime you can visit Thilanushinyel and see if any herds of unicorns want you to frolic amongst them and be fitted for flower garlands. Meanwhile, um. Okay. So, a majority of people - at least humans - are only interested in having sex with people who are not their same gender. Some people don't care either way, some people are only interested in people who are their same gender, some people don't want to have sex with anyone even after they grow up, and this is all complicated by the fact that gender is only usually a one-or-the-other thing." |
Author: pythbox | "Wow," says Liselen, blinking at her. "How do you sort it all out?" |
Author: incanted | "Look," says Aurora, "this is weird, where do little unicorns come from if unicorns can't be anywhere near nonvirgins unless they're patched like you?" |
Author: pythbox | He sidles uncomfortably away from her. |
Author: incanted | Aurora shrugs. "Never mind, then. I'm going to go talk to Angela." |
Author: pythbox | "Okay," says Liselen. |
Author: incanted | Angela's not hard to find. There she is! She gets the same explanation. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | [Love, have you met Aurora yet? She's trying to figure out how Bell-Joker relationships tend to work,] Angela tells her husband. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | [I haven't! I was distracted,] he says merrily. [Should I come and help?] |
Author: jovahs_heiress | [If now's a good time.] |
Author: yovahs_kisses | [Just a moment,] he says, and there is a pause, and then Micaiah appears and gives his wife a hug and a kiss. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | He gets these back in equal measure, and a wing wrapped around him. "Specifically, Aurora doesn't seem to understand how I'm so calm about you sleeping with other people." |
Author: incanted | "And I pretty much expect at this point to hear, 'But I don't know how much help I'll be, because I had a special circumstance that isn't like anyone else's special circumstance yet still made it particularly natural for me to fall into that pattern'," says Aurora, sighing. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Well, that's not exactly what I was going to say, but I did start out particularly motivated and with a general understanding of Edori habits. Though I believe many Edori are faithful to single lovers while they have them, it's not the norm, and they don't generally marry." |
Author: incanted | "Motivated because of the god thing?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Yes - not only did I expect that Micaiah had been chosen for me by someone smarter and better than myself," Angela snorts ruefully, "I also found that he'd be my requisite partner if I ever wanted to be Archangel. I later learned differently, but not before I was thoroughly attached by other means." |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "I love you," sighs Micaiah, snuggling his angel. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "And I you." |
Author: incanted | "You are just preposterously cute. But - like, alts are one thing, putting Jokers in a room together is apparently like putting magnets in close proximity - but other people?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "There was that time with Phebe... that was a problem," murmurs Angela. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | He presses his face into her shoulder and sighs unhappily. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Phebe is another angel at the Eyrie who doesn't like me," Angela explains to Aurora, settling her wing more snugly around Micaiah. "She interpreted Micaiah's - availability - as an opportunity to hurt me. And for political reasons I can't just announce to everyone that it isn't. Angels are often inconstant, but associated mortals, not so much. She believes that I forgave him for a betrayal, and her too, and I managed to present this in a way that so far doesn't have her telling the tale far and wide." |
Author: incanted | "My question is more about why it isn't a betrayal. I mean, maybe he never promised not to, that takes care of the technical sense of betrayal, but - you guys are married, you're going to have a baby, and you're not - keeping yourselves to yourselves. I don't completely get it." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "As it happens I do keep myself to ourselves," says Angela lightly. "Several of us do. I don't think Rose has looked outside her marriage for company, and I have no certain information either way about several of our other alts." |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "Cam fucked all of us a while back," Micaiah offers. "He's fun, I like him." |
Author: incanted | "Are there any Bells you don't like?" |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "Nah, don't think so," he says. "But some of them I haven't talked to much, so I don't have an opinion about them one way or another." |
Author: incanted | "Fair enough. I guess that's all I'm getting on my quest for information here, huh?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "I'm sorry I can't be more helpful." |
Author: incanted | "It's all right. I'm not sure I ought to even bother with Aegis, I know she and Sue grew up together and that's the mother of all special circumstances, but maybe Stella will have something to say. Or either of the ones with Sherlocks." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Stella and Alice met when she was your age and I don't think they began with any special circumstances at all," agrees Angela. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Micaiah hugs his angel and grins. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Angela wraps him up in arms and feathers and beams. |
Author: incanted | Aurora goes and looks for Stella. |
Author: self_composed | Stella hears the standard spiel.
[Hey Alice, Aurora is confused about how Bells manage to go poly and wants examples to go by.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Mmkay,] says Alice, and appears almost instantly. As is starting to be a pattern, the first thing he does is cuddle his Bell. |
Author: self_composed | "But I don't know how much help I'll be," says Stella, snuggling her Alice back. |
Author: incanted | "Because you have some kind of special circumstance?" |
Author: self_composed | "No, because I was not quite secure enough for my liking and my reaction involved turning Alice into a vampire. I mean, there were other reasons, but that one was in there." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice sighs. |
Author: incanted | "...Oh." |
Author: self_composed | Stella kisses Alice's cheek. "Sorry," she says, and it's not clear which of them she's addressing. "You'd think being able to read his mind would've done it, and it did, mostly, it jollied me along for months, I probably could've done with nothing but if I'd had to." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...no, hang on," he says, "didn't you say you didn't make me a vampire so I'd be in magical vampire love with you forever?" |
Author: self_composed | "I made you a vampire because I thought you'd like it," Stella repeats. "...It occurred to me in the first place because Golden seemed. Like she felt - safer." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Did you not think about maybe telling me that," says Alice. |
Author: self_composed | "I probably should've. I probably would've if - no, I just should've, plain and simple," sighs Stella. "It's not like you were doing anything that made me feel unsafe." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Would've if...?" |
Author: self_composed | "If you hadn't wanted it to be a surprise and there'd been a conversation about it first. We spent the next several days pretty distracted." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "And then you just... kept being distracted," sighs Alice. "Until now."
He hugs Stella.
"I love you," he says, less happily than usual. |
Author: self_composed | "I love you too, I'm sorry," Stella murmurs. |
Author: incanted | Aurora's going to take a couple steps backwards now with a very uncomfortable look on her face. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I liked that the hurting part was a surprise," he murmurs, "but maybe - not the rest of it." |
Author: self_composed | "I'm sorry," repeats Stella quietly. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He sighs again, and cuddles her a little. |
Author: incanted | Aurora thinks she has learned a potentially valuable lesson here. She leaves. |
Author: self_composed | Stella's not so readily disentangled from the situation. She pokes at Alice's thoughts, when enough of a silence has elapsed to make her nervous. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He loves her. He loves her a lot.
But that's kind of the problem, isn't it? He loves her, and he can't ever stop doing that, and that is something she made happen on purpose, and when he asked her if that was why she made him think it wasn't, but then it turned out to be part of it after all. |
Author: self_composed | [I'm sorry,] she says again. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I know,] he says, hugging her gently. [I just don't know if—I don't know what to do about it, I don't know what you can learn from this, what you can do differently to make me not so sad about it, it's not like this is the kind of thing that happens twice.] |
Author: self_composed | [It's - ugh - it's not logically impossible to stop being a vampire. If you want to stop your ingot power will probably help, even though we can't send you through Downside like Nathan.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [...okay,] he says. [I - don't even know if I want to, but I kind of feel better knowing it's an option.] |
Author: self_composed | Stella shivers and hugs him. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He cuddles her. [What's up?] |
Author: self_composed | [I wanted it for fucked up reasons. That doesn't mean I didn't want it.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [You can have feelings about that,] says Alice, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. [And, you know, all things considered, I'd rather know about them than not.] |
Author: self_composed | [I think I freaked out Aurora. I think she's glad she heard that story because it means she's got fair warning against turning into me. I don't like that. I don't like that you might want to stop being a vampire specifically because you don't like the bond effect as opposed to any of the other effects.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I still love you,] he says. [I still would love you, if I stopped being a vampire. I just - wouldn't - be forced to.]
It is an interesting fact of Aurum vampire physiology that they do not cry. |
Author: self_composed | Stella is silent. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He hugs her.
[C'mon, I know you're thinking something in there, it's not like you ever stop,] he says gently. |
Author: self_composed | [Today of all days I am doubly glad that you cannot read my mind,] Stella murmurs. [Everything I'm thinking makes me feel like a terrible person and I am glad I can be a terrible person in private so it wouldn't hurt to look at myself more than it does.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I don't think you're a terrible person,] says Alice. [I love you. And I don't want you to hurt yourself, but - I want to know.] |
Author: self_composed | Stella swallows.
[I love you too,] she says first, because that's easy and definite.
And:
[Everything I can think of to say sounds defensive like I'm trying to have a fight and I don't want to have a fight.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Okay,] he says. [So now I know you don't want to have a fight.] |
Author: self_composed | [Okay, um. I am pretty good at having many reasons for doing things. And things that aren't exactly reasons but are positive features of the decision, or negative features of the alternatives, that I note. If the only facts of the situation had been that you would like turning into a vampire and I could be sure that you weren't going to wind up mated to anyone who wasn't me, then that would've, honestly, I swear, sufficed to induce me to turn you, if it had occurred to me. But yes, the reason the thought entered my head was because I wanted to be surer than I was that I could trust you, and that wasn't even all for personal relationship reasons even though that was there what with all the conversations we kept having about how you couldn't be sure you weren't going to fall for someone else as hard and suddenly as you did for me. We had only recently met the Joker and I did not get along with him and I didn't have Mary repeatedly explaining to me about how harmless Jokers with coins are or nearly a dozen other examples of the template telling me how harmless Jokers with Bells are. All I had to go on was you and him and the idea of you turning into what I knew of him made me sick and Golden was so completely secure. She knows like she knows arithmetic that she has Edward forever and always so long as they both shall live. His actual personality might not be my cup of tea, but you, you I love, and all I knew was that I had you as long as your brain didn't do anything else sudden and unexpected like it had already been shown to do. When you fell for me. Or anything unpleasant. When the Joker - existed.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [That is kind of fucked up,] he sighs, hugging her gently. |
Author: self_composed | [Yes. You asked.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Yeah, 'cause I wanted to know. And now I do. And it's kind of fucked up,] he says. |
Author: self_composed | [Yep.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He cuddles her some more. |
Author: self_composed | Stella clings. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice hugs her and pets her hair.
He loves her, too, but he's not sure that helps right now. |
Author: self_composed | It's better than the alternative. She keeps up a shallow read, looking for anything else to grab hold of. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He doesn't like feeling like Stella wants fucked up things, but the fact remains, those were some pretty fucked up reasons for wanting to turn him. And he's glad he knows what they are, now, and glad she's not trying to tell him they're not fucked up, but it still doesn't feel resolved. He doesn't really know what he wants. Maybe he wants Stella not to want fucked up things, but she's still Stella and he still loves her, fucked up things and all. He doesn't want to change who she is to make himself feel better; that seems like a bad, and also terribly ironic, solution. |
Author: self_composed | [I would offer to turn into a vampire too but I don't think you want me to become more monogamously inclined than I currently am.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I really don't!] he says. [That would be worse.] He sighs again; hugs her some more. [I think I'm gonna stop being a vampire. It doesn't feel right anymore.] |
Author: self_composed | Stella swallows.
[Okay.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Are you having feelings again?] he asks, snuggling her. |
Author: self_composed | [Constantly.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I love you. I want to know about your feelings. Even if they're sad feelings that are going to make me sad.] |
Author: self_composed | [Mostly variations on the theme that you've already heard. I am not as sure as you are that you will still love me. If I were we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Then I'd better stop being a vampire,] says Alice, ['cause then you'll know.] |
Author: self_composed | [If you're right. If it stays.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [If what stays? Me loving you? I'm a Joker,] he says. [We love. I loved you before; I'll love you after.] |
Author: self_composed | Stella swallows. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I will,] he says, [I know I will, why are you the only one who gets to know things about yourself?] |
Author: self_composed | [Years of practice, template specialty. If you're going to do it do it and I can stop holding my breath.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I don't know how - I'll go figure it out,] he says, and he teleports somewhere. The Joker's asteroid is the first place that comes to mind.
Awww, the Joker must've been here already in this universe. That's cute. |
Author: self_composed | Stella finds an unoccupied corner of party, and turns invisible just for completeness, and holds very still, and reads. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | It's going to need an evil to dig vampireness out of his torching template. He doesn't have any on hand, and it would feel vaguely weird to ask Stella to give him one, since she's so unsure about this in the first place. So he sets himself on fire.
It takes him a few tries, about thirty stars' worth, but he manages an evil in the end. He uses an existing star to declaw the new ones - ever since the Jokers were let in on the secret, some of them have taken to carrying all their coins declawed, even the hexes - and then uses one of those to declaw the evil.
Then he designs the wish.
He wants to stop being a vampire. He can get rid of his also-permanent air filter while he's at it. He should also be immune to vampire venom, because it seems not-impossible that he might want to get bit at some point; he'll take the Joker's version of immunity, which is linked to his regeneration and therefore hurts a lot, that's always fun.
He can go either way on the brainspace available to vampires, but the depth of emotional processing - he's keeping that, in some other form that won't lead to him still having a mate bond by accident. He bets his power will help sort that one out. He wonders what Lazarus would say about its attitude to his mate bond now. They are probably not snuggling so happily anymore.
Is that it? He thinks that's it. |
Author: self_composed | Stella can't think of anything else. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Okay.
Alice wishes.
Then he sets himself on fire again. |
Author: self_composed | He may or may not notice the read flickering away for a split second.
After that she recovers her resolve and forces herself to watch. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He burns; he torches.
He comes back human-shaped and human-brained, although a somewhat bigger human brain than most, and bigger in unusual directions. It's a good shape for his mind to be. He likes it.
And he still loves her, just like he knew he would, but now loving her doesn't hurt anymore. It doesn't feel like something that was forced on him. It's all his, all him, all real.
He loves her a lot. |
Author: self_composed | [I love you.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I love you too,] he says happily. [Oh, I know what I forgot - sensory stuff, wow, being a human is so muffled. Wanna come make me another evil? Better start out at pentagon, though, my pain processing's gotta be back to human levels too.] |
Author: self_composed | Stella obligingly appears, de-invisibled, and takes one of his hands in hers, and starts in medium pentagon range. Flavor of the day: mock vampire venom. She thinks he might appreciate the irony. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I love yoooou,] says Alice, hugging her. And hey, now he can hug her and she won't squish! |
Author: self_composed | They already had that patched. But yes, he can hug her.
She slides up the positive integers, head pillowed on his chest. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He gives her the squishiest hug his human body is capable of delivering and loves her a lot. |
Author: self_composed | Up-and-up-and-up. He smells a little different now; she hadn't particularly noticed the change the other way, it was so gradual, but there it is. It's not disagreeable or anything. She doesn't mention it. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Through pentagons to hexes, through hexes to stars. He keeps right on snuggling her. It feels different, moving around in this body. He likes it a lot. |
Author: self_composed | Snuggles and agony beam and her own simmering-down anxiety. Stella closes her eyes. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He loves her, he loves her, he loves her he loves her he loves her. There's not much room in his head right now for anything else. |
Author: self_composed | She carries on right up into evil range. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice produces evils. Evils and love. |
Author: self_composed | She stops there unless it is suggested that she should do otherwise, in either direction. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | After three, he says lazily, [Okay, I'm done, back it off.] |
Author: self_composed | Half-half-half-half-until she's in pentagons again and shuts the beam down. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice wraps his arms around her and kisses her on the cheek. Snuggly snuggly snuggly. |
Author: self_composed | Snuggles. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Snuggles!
[I love you,] he says, and designs himself vampire-level supersenses to work with his human body, and uses one of his new declawed evils to both implement them and add them into his torching template.
Mmmmmmm, snuggles. Also, kisses. They should definitely be kissing right now. |
Author: self_composed | Kisses. Kisses are good. Stella approves. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Kisses! Lovely kisses. Many lovely kisses.
[Do you still not want to fuck on the Joker's asteroid even when it's not technically the same one?] he asks. ['Cause if so, maybe we should go somewhere else.] |
Author: self_composed | [I am too relieved right now to care.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Awesome,] says Alice, and kisses her again. |
Author: self_composed | Kisses kisses kisses! |