The future settles in around you, all the things you saw when you were asleep. A man named [[Paul Richards]] is going to win the lottery. [[Ben Spark]] is writing a new album. [[Rainy]] got a job for the paranormal intellegence unit of the FBI, and she's hunting vampires in Las Vegas. He was your taxi driver last night. He carefully did not look at you in the rearview mirror when [[Ben Spark]] climbed directly into your lap and pressed his lips to your cheek and drunkenly informed you that you're his favorite person.
Paul didn't tell anyone. You thought he should get some kind of reward for that. He's still asleep against your chest, drooling a little. It's tempting to [[wake him up]] but he's very sweet like this, not running directly into danger, not getting himself [[killed]]. He's safe until [[tonight]].Your sister's always been paranoid. She calls pretty often. You usually don't pick up. You haven't spoken properly in years, not since you made it big and she became a cop. A long time ago she was going to drive to a base in the middle of the desert where a man was waiting to kill her, and you sabatoged her car. It went off the road. She never got the full use of her knee back.
You thought maybe you should stop trying to [[help.]]
She might call later. You could [[pick up]].Your nieces play in the snow. Their noses are bright red, and one of them points at the other, looking at [[your brother]] and shouts "She matches!". He grins, uncomplicatedly happy the way only [[willfully ignorant->forgiveness]] people can be. [[your father]] named him after Rudolph Valentino, the actor, and resented the reindeer. Your brother used to wear antlers on Christmas, out of spite. Petting his hair does the trick, and he shifts, looking up with bleary eyes. (text-colour:purple)["Hey."] He manages, voice a little cracked. (text-colour:purple)["You're still here."]
(text-colour:yellow)["You're on top of me."] You deadpan.
He realizes that he is, shifts a little, muttering a swear word or two, and your chest clenches painfully. You're not sure if you should [[stay]] or [[go]].There's an alleyway and stumbling feet, a person shoving him against the wall to kiss him and then sinking their teeth into his neck. He doesn't object, just makes a soft suprised noise, willing to accomodate, but they don't [[stop]]. The thought of anyone hurting him makes you sick to your stomach, and you want to [[wake him up]] to make sure he's still breathing. but can you really [[do anything?]]You could do a few things. You could [[ask her to be careful]]. You could [[invite her to coffee]]. You could [[tell her you that you love her]]. You could argue about [[your brother]] and feel a little bit better for it. You miss her sometimes. You miss her terribly. The fact that you're worried puts her more on alert, and she goes [[looking for trouble]]. She hears a little rasping noise in a gutter and climbs down in after it. You could [[plot the time and call her]]. You could [[plant a weapon in the gutter, just in case]]. You could [[do nothing.]]No one would think you two were siblings, with her shock of fluffy blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. You're tall, mixed-race, dark haired and broad-shouldered. She's exactly 15 minutes early, and she sits with her coffee, which she ordered too-hot (text-color:blue)["Because I'm going to be waiting a while, my brother's always late"]
You could [[prove her right]], or you could [[prove her wrong]].Everything you do makes things spiral out of control. It feels like you're rolling dice and risking that snake-eyes will make everything worse. Sometimes you intervene and you've escaped one thing, but worse happens. The only thing you've done is lose the knowledge of the future, instead of changing it. You can't help anyone. You can't help [[Ben Spark]]. Can you really [[do anything?]]Rudolph is a good man, and sometimes, you really hate him for it.
He's a real Christian, one of the ones you swear are only real in hallmark movies, the ones who really believe in love and [[forgiveness]] and decency.
He would live much longer if he didn't. He'd sit in his stupid house in [[Virginia]] with his white picket fence with his horrible [[wife]] and maybe he'd make it another couple of years.You should ask something normal, like [["Do you want coffee?"]] and not [["Do you want to go to Vegas with me and elope and maybe get a cat?"]] or [["I've been in love with you for years"]] or [["I'm scared your partner is going to kill you."]]"-I need to go."
"Oh." he looks a little crushed.
You wonder if this is stupid. If you're just drawing things out. what use is [[just one more night]]?You could stop them. You could be there in the alley, rush in and scare them off.
Ben might still die. you might hold him in your arms while he bleeds out, and you can see it, you can see him look up at you. He looks at you like you're the whole world, and then he never looks at you again. Can you really [[do anything?]]
You could make it in time. He could throw himself into your arms, and you could press him back against the wall and forget about everything, forget about this fucked up mess of a situation. You could have him, and you could take him home, and take care of him. [[just one more night]].The future will move on without you. You can perform, do your shows, don't answer calls, live a scripted life. You can see everything coming before it happens because you've decided what you're going to do in advance. [[Ben Spark]] dies. You never told him you love him. Are you sure you want to [[give up?]]There's a car accident. The bassist of Lake Effect Kid is trapped inside the car, sick with hypothermia, bleeding out. He has a traumatic brain injury. His hands don't work again. He's asked to leave the band. In the course of the next several months, they pull his name off of every piece of music he wrote. He attempts to sue. He loses.
Ben Spark is alone. He's desperate. He decides that if he can't get his music back legally he's going to steal it back. He breaks into every holding place, every storage facility, every records location he can find.
The night of the Grammy's, he breaks into his ex boyfriend's house. The security guards shoot him. He bleeds out in the bushes.
You wonder if there's [[anything you could have done to prevent this]]. At least this way, it wasn't your fault.
//-fin-//
You knew she was going to do this. She always does this. It makes her future impossible to act against- you move, she moves, she's in more danger. You can't keep her safe and she keeps escaping by the skin of her teeth but you're sure that one of these days she's going to die and it's going to be your fault.
[[Ben Spark]]'s not half as bad as she is, but still, it's hard to keep chasing these trails and seeing where they end. Can you really [[do anything?]](text-colour:blue)["This isn't a great time."]
(text-colour:yellow)["Actually I think it's the perfect time to ask you what the fuck you think you're doing."]
She pauses. (text-colour:blue)["I know what I'm doing. How do //you// know what I'm doing."]
(text-colour:yellow)["That's not important. Stop doing it."]
(text-colour:blue)["I think it's important. Almost as important as whatever dark abomination dragged a tourist into this gutter last week."]
(text-colour:yellow)["//Rainy//."]
(text-colour:blue)["//Romeo.//"] She says your name in her lilting, mocking tone, and you missed this. You really, really missed this. Despite everything, she's still your sister.
Your completely infuriating sister with absolutely no regard for her own safety in any way shape or form. Fucking Christ. She's worse than [[your brother]] sometimes. You wonder, occasionally, if [[Ben Spark]] would be worse. You never get close enough to intervening in his futures to know how it would go. After all, this isn't really happening. You're not really in this gutter, talking to your sister. You're still in bed. She looks at the gun, and then looks at the ceiling.
(text-colour:blue)["Hey is this a trap?"]
You're not sure how you're supposed to answer that. But either she [[takes the gun]] or [[she doesn't.]]Can you really [[do anything?]]One of your sisters hurt you. She used to corner you, bait you, and you'd fight till she could justify lashing out with whatever she happened to have in her hands. One time it was in the kitchen with a knife and you had to go to the hospital, but every time, Rudolph would pull her aside, and she'd turn on the waterworks. She would cry and cry and get hysterical. She'd get treatment for poor impulse control, go to therapy, do anything to prove she regretted it.
Rudolph thought she meant it. Rudolph thought she'd changed. Rudolph thought that you should hate the sin and love the sinner, and (text-colour:orange)[//Rara loves you, Romeo, she just can't control herself.//]
It was even worse when she hurt [[Rainy]], because she just shut it off inside her head and pretended it hadn't happened.
One of the things you've learned over the years is that people who are looking for the power to hurt others will find it. When you were 18 her future dissapeared, her soul sold to something, some hollow shell left where there was once the last vestiges of Clara Rhodes.
She might kill your brother, if he ever figures it out. He hasn't [[yet.]]He smiles, hazy, and it's like the sun coming up. Like it always is.
(text-colour:purple)["Yeah. You got anywhere to be, handsome?"]
You could. You could make a pot of coffee and then tell him you need to [[go]].
(text-colour:yellow)["Not for another couple hours."]
(text-colour:purple)["Well-] he leans in to kiss you, and it's disarming, how easy this is. (text-colour:purple)["I can think of a few ways to fill the time."]
You could forget about the [[coffee]], get distracted. When he's smiling at you like this you think it'd be easy to just [[tell him everything]]. Like maybe somehow he'd understand. But maybe he wouldn't. maybe you'd try everything and still lose him. Maybe he'd just leave. Can you really [[do anything?]]Ah, fuck. You said that out loud. You're desperately trying to think of a way to backtrack, but he just laughs.
"Who's wearing white?"
You don't know. You could go back to sleep and check, but you think maybe you'd rather find out on your own.
[[//-fin-//->Restart]]"Oh." He says. Ah, fuck. You said that out loud. You're trying to think of a way to backtrack, but he just smiles.
"Do you wanna get coffee sometime?"
You do.
[[//-fin-//->Restart]]You have to stop and think about this one, because it makes your throat close up. You've seen it again and again and again. It could happen again [[tonight]]. Ben tripping into traffic. Ben being shoved backwards into an exposed pipe in the back of a nightclub. Ben getting hit and then it doesn't stop, it just keeps going, steel tipped boots against his ribs. No one calls an ambulance.
You must be making quite the facial expression, because Ben reaches out his fingers to touch your cheek. "Are you okay?"
You should [[go]]. You don't want to. Your heart's tight in your chest and he's right here.
Try again to say something normal. [["Do you want coffee?"]] or something.
Unless you still want to [[tell him everything]].It all falls into place. Ben gets back to his apartment and his partner's already there. He asks him where he's been, and Ben tells him he doesn't have to answer that. That Bishop doesn't own him.
You don't want to think about the next part. Ben stays in the bed without moving for a while after Bishop leaves. He pulls the blankets around himself and curls up a little. You don't have any way of knowing what he's thinking, or maybe you do, because he pulls himself up enough to go to his cabinet and pull out the flannel he stole from you [[your first night together]]. He pulls it on, and falls asleep with his headphones in, your music on repeat.
Or maybe Ben doesn't go home. Maybe he goes back out to another bar and goes home with someone else. It can have [[nothing]] to do with you. He's perfectly fine.
[[or maybe he isn't.]]There was a bar in Atlanta. You weren't on tour, weren't supposed to be there at all, but you'd seen him lean into another man's space. He'd caught Ben's chin, tipped it back, asked him if he could hold his liqueur.
You could have done nothing. You could have [[let it happen.]] But you [[didn't]]. Ben's none of your business. You've spent a handful of nights together, and all of them were stolen time. Sometimes he gets too close to getting hurt and you can avert things if you just step in. But it's the observer effect- every time you move his whole future changes again.
If you keep doing this, he could get hurt worse. Can you really [[do anything?]] is it worth it to keep risking him? He could be fine. [[or maybe he isn't.]] But either way, this is his future, not [[yours]]. You don't have a place in it. He could be. He's right here. all you have to do is [[wake him up]].
Or you could [[do nothing.]]He's got a knack for getting himself [[killed]]. You've seen it so often. He's reckless and he's trapped in a bad situation with a man who's slowly becoming a monster. It seems too egotistical to convince yourself you can [[save him.]] What are you doing? What's the goal? Buy another couple weeks? A month? a year? Can you really [[do anything?]]He fucked Ben in the bathroom and turned on the pen cam in his pocket. Ben got plastered over the news on his knees, on shitty porn websites and the tabloids. Ben pretended it didn't bother him, but you know it does.
You could have let it happen. But you [[didn't]].It took you a few too many drinks to get the courage to do this, but you staggered into the bar and slapped a hundred down on the counter, asked the bartender for a double, keep the change.
Ben turned around, fast, didn't say your name out loud to spare any risk of somebody recognizing you. He seemed confused. He kept trying to ask if you were okay till his would-be hookup got pissed and ask if you knew each other.
(text-colour:purple)["...yeah."] Ben said, looking at you like he wasn't entirely sure that's the truth. (text-colour:purple)["Yeah, we know each other."]
It would have been so easy to drop your name, maybe spook the guy. Instead you looked him over and snorted.
Ben looked tired, but a little amused. (text-colour:purple)["Well, there's the complete lack of manners. Seriously, man, are you good?"]
The other guy got up, looking annoyed. "Sorry, sweetheart, you're not pretty enough to wait around for whatever this is."
You could have just let him [[go.]] But, well. [[That's not really your style]]If you hadn't said anything at all the man would have stormed off and Ben would have looked after him and said (text-colour:purple)["Well, I'm super not getting laid tonight."]
You would have looked at him, drunk, and then hummed and started for the [[exit]]. He worries too much. He would have followed you. (text-colour:yellow)["He could do better than you, anyway."] You told him, slurring, (text-colour:yellow)["Even if you were just a garden variety pickup artist and not a creep Mr. Pen-cam. You keep that shirt on during sex or is it just to drop the pen under bathroom stalls?"]
The man started blustering, denying it, and Ben sighed. He took his drink off the bar and poured it on the pen.
(text-colour:purple)["oops!"] he said. (text-colour:purple)["Guess I can't hold my liqueur."]
The guy took a swing at him, and Ben caught him easy, kneeing him hard in the stomach. He tossed a bill on the bar and looked at you.
(text-colour:purple)["We should probably-."] he points at the [[exit]].He holds your arm, guides you out into the light, and looks up at you as you move along.
(text-colour:purple)["Hey, what are you doing here?"]
(text-colour:yellow)["Attempting to get drunker."]
(text-colour:purple)["You okay?"]
(text-colour:yellow)["Am I ever?" ]
He sighs. (text-colour:purple)["You wanna talk about it?"]
(text-colour:yellow)["If I offered to make out with you would you turn down the big concerned puppy eyes?"]
He blinks. (text-colour:purple)["You're //really// drunk, huh."]
(text-colour:yellow)["You're going to do something annoying like tell me I'm too drunk to kiss you, aren't you?"]
(text-colour:purple)["It's like you know all my lines."]
(text-colour:yellow)["You're a frustratingly good-hearted person."]
He stops. That threw him for a loop. You've never been nice to him before.
(text-colour:purple)["You're really worrying me now."]
You [[exchanged some more lines]], talked your way in a circle, but he was there and gold in the streetlight, and in the end, you gave in.
[[You kissed him.]](text-colour:yellow)["Are the compliments too out of character? I can try to insult you."]
(text-colour:purple)["Romeo."]
The sound of your name in his voice is really far more distracting than it has any right to be, so you ramble on.
(text-colour:yellow)["You have terrible cheekbones. The crinkles you get next to your eyes when you smile aren't cute at all. Your hair is the wrong length."]
(text-colour:purple)["//Romeo//."]
His tone is more firm this time, and he pulls you to a stop.
(text-colour:yellow)["What?"]
(text-colour:purple)["I don't care if you insult me or compliment me, just... tell me what's going on in your head."]
You look at him.
(text-colour:yellow)["You're much prettier up close."]
He blinks at you. (text-colour:purple)["That's... not what I was expecting."]
(text-colour:yellow)["What were you expecting?"]
(text-colour:purple)["I don't know. I'm starting to think I should check you for head injuries."]
You stop. (text-colour:yellow)["Wait. wh questions."]
(text-colour:purple)["Who what where when why? How, if you shuffle it?"]
(text-colour:yellow)["I'm not supposed to ask those."]
(text-colour:purple)["You can ask me anything you want."]
(text-colour:yellow)["No. It's the image. I need to. Arch an eyebrow at you. When you say something and I need clarification. As a power move."]
He snorts. (text-colour:purple)["You don't need power moves with me."]
You realize you believe him.
(text-colour:yellow)["--There's only one rule I wanted to break."]
(text-colour:purple)["What rule's that?"]
[[You kissed him.]]It was every bit as warm as you thought it would be, and he threw his arms around your neck so enthusiastically you nearly fell over. He steadied you with his thumbs in your belt loops.
(text-colour:purple)["I should probably take you home."]
(text-colour:yellow)["Come with me."]
He knows you wouldn't stay home if he just let you go, so he goes with you. He's a little worried you're going to wake up in the morning and [[remember you hate him]], but you don't, so you take him to bed.
It's less awkward of a morning that you'd expected it to be. He seems pleasantly suprised. You let him steal your shirt.
You've seen him a few times since then. He's got a knack for getting himself into trouble. Getting himself [[killed]]. It's never a matter of doing it once. He's got a knack, but you can keep interfering. You can interrupt him, you can knock on his door before his partner gets there, you can take him home before anyone else does. But you're running against the clock. Eventually you're going to have to make up your mind. do you want to [[do anything?]]
You could start and [[wake him up]]. This could be the first day of the rest of your life. It already is. How much time are you buying? you could [[stop]] the vampire attack, but maybe you won't. You're buying time, at best. One of these mornings you're going to have to make a decision. You're in bed with him again. You could [[tell him everything]]. You could decide that he isn't [[yours]], and give up. Can you really [[do anything?]]You could start talking. You could tell him that when you bought his first album you played it till it broke. Your gift works on investment- you don't have to know someone to care about their future.
You cared about his music. You cared about every note he wrote and every word that ended up sung by the man they were about. Bishop Dreyfuss. Singer, egotistical, grandstanding, talented, brilliant, cunning even when he wasn't smart.
Ben played bass. Ben wrote the music. Ben poured his heart and soul into it and Bishop used him, hurt him, broke his heart and then dragged his way back into it when Ben tried to pick up the pieces. And if that weren't bad enough, Bishop's violent. He's shoved Ben into back walls and you know what happens when you throw around a body till it breaks. You've seen Ben die. You've seen Ben die a thousand different times.
And you haven't said anything before now. Because if you didn't make up your mind and stick to your course the world would shift out of control around you, because there are no constants, you're your only constant, you can make up your mind. You can decide what you're going to do and see only the options where you follow it. So you've never known how things could go if you'd given them the chance. If you decide you're going to get involved, you risk everything. Can you really [[do anything?]]
Is this [[worth the risk?]]You kiss him one more time and get up to get the coffee. He looks really happy like this, coming out of the bathroom in your shirt with his hair a fluffy mess. You try not to think about the tiny scar above his hip you could use if you need to tell his parents Bishop shoved him into an instrument crate. It's one of the few pieces of information you have that you can trace back to a video of Bishop lying about Ben having "just a bruise".
You've zoned out too long. Ben's looking at you, a little worried.
(text-colour:purple)["You okay?"]
It's not too late to [[go]]. It's not too late to [[tell him everything]]. But can you really [[do anything?]]Here is the nature of the observer effect: the world knows when you're looking at it. The future changes in the process of being observed. If you act on the world to change the future, it changes, but it's not a world you know anymore.
You're getting a little tired of living in the future. But you could still [[go]]. Can you really [[do anything?]] They'll be other nights. maybe [[just one more night]], and it'll feel right to make a decision. To say something else.
Or you could [[take the shot.]]You tell him everything.
He listens, wide-eyed and more than a little horrified, but he believes you. You tell him you kept it from him because it's his future and not yours. It doesn't have anything to do with you. He looks at you.
(text-color:purple)["It could have something to do with you."]
You've loved him so long that he feels like coming home, and you know that you're going to have to figure out the future as it comes, but for once, you think that's going to be okay.
[[//-fin-//->Restart]]She pauses, considers for a moment.
(text-colour:blue)["I love you too."]
Maybe it could be this easy.
[[You Wake Up]].Caroline is a fucking nightmare of a human being. You'd say you didn't know how she hit it off with your brother, but well. You do.
Despite the big soft puppy eyes and the overactive empathy, deep down, your brother is angry. He's angry at your mother for not doing more to protect you, he's angry at [[your father]] for being dead, he's angry at the world for not being fair. Caroline understands him. Caroline's angry too. Caroline liked him when he played punk music and screamed on a stage.
You're not sure she ever loved him. She certainly doesn't love him now. She wastes too much time checking the bullets to see what kind you've loaded, looking for silver, and the darkness starts to rise around her ankles. She's pulled under. [[You Wake Up]].She waves off your attempt at help and continues down the sewer, mumbling about suspisious guns and sketchy attempts at help. She's never been a particularly easy person to help. You don't know how she's managing this walk with her cane.
You could have [[left her a sign that says "TURN BACK"]] or you could [[try to close off the gutter]].(text-colour:blue)["Ominous, but nonspecific."]
Try another sign. Maybe [["RAINY DON'T GO DOWN HERE"]] or [["NATALIE RHODES DON'T GO DOWN HERE"]]You leave a massive metal grate over the gutter, carefully manuevering it down to make it look blocked off. She looks up at it and gives it a good hard shove and ah. Right. Your sister has always been much stronger than you are, cane or not.
[[She continues on.]](text-colour:blue)["You know all this does is tell me that one of my family members is down here? So I absolutely have to go down here."]
Fuck it, maybe you should just [[leave her a letter]].(text-colour:blue)["Now that's just bizzarely specific. You know leaving my full name down here is only going to make me curious, right?"]
Maybe you should just [[leave her a letter]].While she's reading, tentacled darkness reaches up, grabs her legs, and pulls her under. [[You Wake Up]].The darkness rises around her feet, and she looks down as it occurs to her that she's not walking on concrete in an inch of murky water anymore, but on something soft and seething that's wrapping around her ankles.
(text-color:blue)["Ah. That's not good."]
[[You Wake Up]].She looks pleased to see you despite being twenty minutes late, like it's a validation that maybe all these years apart haven't seperated you as much as it's felt. Like maybe she still knows you after all.
And maybe she does, because she recognized you, even with the sunglasses and the beanie and the best attempt at tossing your usual style- which really isn't much of an attempt. When the key part of your aesthetic is jeans and flannel and you have tattoos over every inch of your body, what are you going to do? [[wear a bro-tank?]] [[wear a suit?]]She looks pleasantly suprised.
(text-colour:blue)["What, didn't try to catch a cat-nap?"]
(text-colour:yellow)["Oh, so you're making fun of my narcolepsy now, are you."]
She rolls her eyes. (text-colour:blue)["You're not going to convince me that offends you, I know what you look like when you're offended."]
(text-colour:yellow)["Do you?"]
It's a little sharp, like acid coming up your throat, because it hurts you too. How long it's been, how much you've missed her, even though you see her in your nightmares all the time. Love for you is always a broken scale, a seesaw that won't ever lift you. You'll sit on the ground and look at the people you love, hold them high, and you'll always know them in a way they'll never know you. It hurts when you think about it. You try not to.
She doesn't even blink.
(text-colour:blue)["Of course I do. I saw the interview last week."]
Ah. [[That.]]
She takes your silence as its own answer, sips her coffee.
(text-colour:blue)["[[So what's this about]]?"]Your father hit you when you were younger. He beat the shit out of all his kids, but especially you, because you were mouthy and angry and never shut the fuck up. No one stood up for you. Your mother was drunk, your sisters were protecting themselves, Rudolph wasn't around.
You knew your odds of living much longer under his roof weren't good, so getting kicked out wouldn't have been so bad, but your odds out alone weren't good either. You dated casually, tried not to care enough to see anyone else's future, tried not to sleep and see your own. You cheated on a guy with a temper and an angry streak, and he drove you out to the desert and slammed you into the trunk of his car.
You're still not entirely sure how you survived. There's a part of you that's certain you didn't. You remember his hands around your neck, the metal of the car's bumper, the dust of the desert and the dark of the trunk, and then the cold white light of the hospital. You only know what happened next. You know your brother came home to try to get your father under investigation, agreeing to work for him to rake through his files. Your eldest sister decided to solve the problem a little more directly, with a handgun and a staged home invasion.
You wished either of them had asked you what you wanted.
Not that you'd have known what to tell them. You wish they'd protected you when it [[counted.->forgiveness]]
There's a reason the only one you still want to talk to is [[Rainy]].Your tattoos get a //lot// of looks, and before you even sit down Rainy's getting up to take your arm and guide you out again.
(text-colour:blue)["Have you ever been subtle in your life?"]
You don't acknowledge that with a response, just give her a look, because she'd know, wouldn't she?
(text-colour:blue)["Is this about my stint at the NSA again? Look, it's not stalking if it's public information, so really, I didn't stalk you half as hard as I stalked everyone else-"]
(text-colour:yellow)["That isn't half as reassuring as you seem to think it is."]
(text-colour:blue)["Oh, I wasn't trying to be reassuring. Anyway I dig the tats! I thought I saw them when you did that wet-button-down thing for the sexiest man of the year contest, but I didn't look at all that much, because ew."]
You roll your eyes. Your sister used to drag roadkill in off the side of the road and drop it in soil to moniter it's decomposition process. She's the last person who gets to say "Ew" about anything. She smiles at you, a little, like she's reading your thoughts.
(text-colour:blue)["[[So what's this about]]?"]She starts laughing at you, immediately, so loud that you attract attention, and you sigh and offer her your arm, which just makes her laugh louder.
(text-colour:yellow)["For your fucking knee, Rainy."] You deadpan.
(text-colour:blue)["What a gentleman!"] She proclaims, in a shitty British accent, and you glower at her. She just grins and takes your arm.
(text-colour:blue)["You know, the real problem is that you still have to wear sunglasses. You look like you're a man in black."]
(text-colour:yellow)["Well you'd know, wouldn't you?"]
She hums, glancing at you sideways, but doesn't confirm or deny the point. She just shrugs.
(text-colour:blue)["[[So what's this about]]?"]You try to think about where to begin, and then the dream shifts. It fragments, it breaks, it spirals off into a thousand outcomes, things you could say, ways she could die, ways you could fuck this up, your sister's body in a gutter, bullet wounds, seething darkness. She's curious. She's a scientist. If you tell her the future she'll go looking for it. She'll find it.
[[You Wake Up]].[[Try again? ->You Wake Up]]You were on "Dawn in the afternoon"- a talkshow with the host Dawn Baster, bubbly blonde //bitch// with a sharp tongue and a faux-sympathetic edge that always makes your skin crawl. But you have a contract, and an album to promote, and you have to do these stupid fucking shows.
The problem is that people love romantic drama, and you have one ex, publically.
Tobi Smoke is america's sweetheart. She's pretty, short and big eyed and perfect, writes pop-country songs about heartbreak. She was a teenager with a guitar, and now she's older and she still sings like an angel.
Dawn absolutely loathes her.
You got through maybe ten minutes of banter- pretending to flirt while she pretended to take you seriously- before she decided to go for the kill.
"So there's been rumors that Tobi Smoke has the hots for yet another punk star- Do you feel like you set the bar for all her future relationships?"
It's absolutely everything you can do not to flinch, not to get absolutely furious. You just force that sharp-edged grin.
(text-colour:yellow)["Well I always set the bar, Dawn. But i'm not terribly punk these days. Did you even //listen// to the album?"]
She splutters, and you settled back, pressing a ring coated hand to your chest.
(text-colour:yellow)["Frankly, I'm a little offended. It seems like basic genre checking ought to be included in the basics before you drag somebody in here. Don't you have people you pay for that kind of thing? Well, if you do, don't blame them for your fuck-up, it does say post-punk on my wikipedia page. But really, Dawn. If you're comparing me to whatever two-bit garage band wannabe stole his mom's eyeliner this week, you should at least check your sources."]
So. Well. [[That happened.->prove her wrong]]Another figure falls into your mind. Your brother's sitting at his desk, looking over files. He realizes that all of the witnesses he's called in speaking to Rara have suddenly decided to talk. Many of them regretted it later.
He's looking at transcripts. He notices that each time, before a witness suddenly decidided to spill their guts, Rara just...told them to.
He starts digging. Every time she's ordered a witness to tell her something, they've complied. More orders. (text-colour:magenta)[//Calm down. Tell me your name. Talk to me. Just start from the beginning.//]
Something she's doing is forcing people to talk.
Your brother believes very firmly in the fifth amendment. He's furious. He goes storming into her office. He makes his accusations. She gets up from the chair.
[[You Wake Up]].He made a bad first impression.
You saw him for the first time in [[Tobi's]] future. She fell in love with him over [[her boyfriend's]] head, threw herself at him when things fell apart. She could have explained [[what happened]], but, well. [[she didn't.]]
You saw her break her own heart, and it was easy to blame him. He wrote a particularly cruel song about her that she listened to on repeat. Of course, that's not really why you hated him.
You've always been a jealous bastard.
He thinks he made a completely different bad first impression. You met him in person for the first time because his band opened for yours. He lost a trunk of his cables, was rambling around, trying to find them. He saw you and immediately called you by the name of your most popular song. You pretended to be annoyed, even though really, he almost called you by the name of your least popular album, because he's listened to them all. He was sweet. You found him his cables.
And then you [[got into it]] with his lead singer backstage.October Smoke wasn't shy, when you met. She'd been trying to date someone who was also in music, got set up with //you//. You were too quiet, and she pulled your sunglasses off your face and asked you point-blank if you were bored or just not interested.
The truth was, you hadn't been on a date in years. She declared that coffee wasn't working and invited herself back to your hotel room, and you'd gotten along just fine from there.
You loved her. She told you she liked her pronouns, her body, but really preferred to be your boyfriend, not your girlfriend. Gender in the public eye's not fun. You've been in the closet your entire life, mostly to avoid anyone linking you back to your home and the name //Jennifer Rhodes//, a domestic violence incident that hit the news before you got out of the hospital. And that's why you don't date, really, to spare yourself any explanation before taking your pants off, but she understood. It was always easy, with her.
You saw her future, and you weren't in it.
Sometimes things fall into place out of order. The aftershocks and then the earthquake. The exact details of the breakup weren't set yet, but it was a virtual certainty, and the more you focused on it, the more set in stone it became.
And then you [[saw her die.]]You've never hated a human being as much as you hate Bishop Dreyfuss. Not your father, not your sister, no one. You hate the way he lies in interviews about where Ben got his bruises, you hate the way he's cruel when no one else is around, you hate the way he sings the songs Ben writes about him.
You hate his stupid, perfect voice, and you hate how much Tobi loved him. How much Ben still does. How little he cares about both of them.
You hate the way he fucks fans, girls who are starstruck enough to worship him and too young to know better. He lies to Ben about it. He's a scumbag on every level, and you hate him so much it renders you nonfunctional. Frankly it's no wonder that when you met you [[got into it]].She gets into a fight with her boyfriend, like she has a hundred times before, only this time, she tries to walk away, and he grabs her by the hair and the back of her necklace and pulls, hard.
It snaps, and she's in pain, and she turn around and swings, blind, shoving him off before she runs-- she has nothing else to do, doesn't know where to go, so she [[shows up at Ben's door.->she didn't.]]Ben barely managed a "what happened" before tobi threw herself into his arms. They didn't make it to the bed, just sprawling out on the couch, and she forgot herself and everything else in his arms, and then she left.
It could have gone differently. The futures that weren't disspear off in your memory, dream remnants. If she'd told him, Ben would have been done with his band. He would have been on her side. He would have supported her.
You should [[focus on the present-->remember you hate him]]Bishop came over to introduce himself after the show, a little too eager to get into your good graces.
(text-colour:red)["Hey there. Rhodora, right?"]
(text-colour:yellow)["That'd be the name."] You say, cold, looking over the top of your coffee. (text-colour:yellow)["Dreyfuss?"]
(text-colour:red)["Bishop Grey,"] He holds out a hand. (text-colour:red)["I'm the lead singer for Lake Effect Kid."]
(text-colour:yellow)["Gotta earn your stage name, and I don't shake hands. I know who you are."] You don't like it when strangers touch you, and you already don't like him. You don't think you would have either way, with that fake smile and the ass-kissing.
Your bassist cuts in to offer to be your hands, distracts him with a greeting, but Bishop looks hurt enough that Ben cuts in.
(text-colour:purple)["We killed it out there, so you're going to have to get used to calling him Grey! Hi, I'm Ben Spark."] He introduces his band, names each member of yours. Your drummer compliments him, but your guitarist- well. Faith's a little more for productive critique than compliments.
"Might have a little work to do, you swapped a chord and a few times //won't find out what I know// came out sounding like //won't find out THAT I know.// but hey, solid performance."
(text-colour:purple)["I got nervous and mixed up the chords,"] Ben lies, and //his// guitarist jabs him in the ribs with her elbow.
"I changed the chord because Grey here was doing something stupid with his voice and I thought the changed chord would make it sound better. Improvisation. Spark just followed my lead."
(text-colour:purple)["I would follow you anywhere,"] Ben tells Nila, solemn.
She raises a fist at him. "Do you like your ribs where they are?"
You could always tolerate Nila. From you, that was a compliment.
Bishop looks distinctly unhappy while Ben tries to duck away from her, running around each other like siblings. (text-colour:red)["The crowd liked it. And no one passed out on stage,"] he smiles.
You don't indicate you're upset, but your band tenses. You remember that show. It was one of your first. You hadn't been sleeping, weren't used to the ups and downs of narcolepsy, weren't on any medication. You hadn't talked about it publically before then, but you weren't left with much choice afterwards. You broke your nose.
You keep your tone mild, but you're //seething//.
(text-colour:yellow)["The crowd doesn't know your music, but you ought to. Experimentation's for the studio, Dreyfuss, not for dragging your band along with you mid-performance."]
Bishop's drummer is a tesosterone pumped tattooed //ape// of a man, a white frat-boy looking motherfucker who can always be counted on to take the bait, and sure enough, he does.
"You suggesting we don't know our own music?"
Still, he's not your target.
(text-colour:yellow)["Oh, no, no insult to you. I'm suggesting that //he// doesn't know your music." ]
(text-colour:red)["I'm the one who wrote it,"] Bishop snaps, and //oh//, //fuck// this guy.
(text-colour:yellow)["oh, were you? Funny, since you're the one who apparently doesn't know your own lyrics."]
(text-colour:purple)["It was a stressful night what with our amp cables going missing, Bishop has a lot of words to remember!"]
Always the peacemaker.
(text-colour:yellow)["You mean it was a stressful night because your idiot bandmates kicked essential equipment under someone else's car and then couldn't be fucked to help you look for it?" ]You shifted your attention back to Bishop. (text-colour:yellow)["Real trial, making someone clean up your messes for you while you do- whatever it is you do that isn't writing lyrics."]
(text-colour:red)["Is this how you treat all the new bands that sign with the label?"] Bishop asks, sharp.(text-colour:red)[ "I'm sure the record company is thrilled with accusations of hazing."]
(text-colour:yellow)["Oh, no. Usually I can expect a little professionalism, but you seem determined to be a half-cocked little asshole, so I'll bite. You know a score's a music sheet and not just a tally of how many bruises your overinflated ego can take before you pop like a balloon, right?"]
Ben turns and grabs Bishop's elbow before he can move but it means letting go of his drummer, and of course, he charges forward.
So you pulled the top off of your coffee cup and flung the entire cup of coffee directly into his face.
So it could have gone better. But you try not to think about Dreyfuss. focus on [[Ben Spark]].Her car goes off the road after her brakes are cut. A fire starts from her backpack in a national forest. She gets sick after eating something someone made her at home. You don't know how it happens, because she doesn't. She dies without knowing who was trying to hurt her. Sabatoge, Poison, a hundred staged "accidents" that aren't accidents, because no accident happens 100% of the time. She doesn't make it.
You don't know how to stop it. So you try to tell her.
You explain the future- the way that things spiral outwards and how you don't know how to save her. You can tell before you've finished talking that she doesn't believe you, and the soft sincerity in her voice when she reccomends seeking help for your psychiatric problems just about breaks you in two.
So maybe that's why you hated Ben. Ben, who could be there for her on the [[worst night of her life->what happened]], Ben, who fell in love with her over [[Bishop's->her boyfriend's]] head. Because you couldn't. Because you lost her.[[Of course, it could have turned out differently.->You Wake Up]]