foolishmortals | How could this happen? (afterparty)

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round 1

How could this happen? (afterparty)

[Wander has reeled back from this execution faster than Mulan's. This murder wasn't an accident, but it was still terrible all around, and it wouldn't have happened under normal circumstances. Knowing that Tadashi planned this out made it...a bit better, but it still made something awful eat at his stomach.

Speaking of which, everyone needed to eat something light today. Right after the trial, he heads to the kitchen and prepares twenty bowls of fruit salad and mixes together ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. While they're cooling off, he slides a note under everyone's rooms.]

There's fruit in the lounge, cookies coming soon. We should stick together, especially after this.

♥ Wander

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[Ford heard him. Ford heard him but Ford didn't hear him. He grapples with himself for a long, painful moment as he tries to decide whether he should tell Ford what he actually meant.

If he's going to try and trust Ford then he needs to trust Ford with all of his fears. If Ford is honest about wanting to fix things then he'll understand, won't he? Still, he can't meet Ford's eyes.]

That sounds... that sounds good. It does, but I meant -- I know this is real. I don't want it to be but I know it is.

I don't know if this is.

[He gestures between them with the hand not still trapped under Ford's on the floor.]

And I want it to be, I do, real bad, but there's always this voice sayin' it's too good to be real. That there's got to be some kind of catch.

[That moment of silence is almost deafening, and Ford feels his stomach drop as Fiddleford begins to explain what he'd actually meant.

Oh.

The spark goes out of his eyes behind his glasses. He'd gotten so caught up in trying to be a good friend, to be the friend Fiddleford deserves, that he'd forgotten that he's still technically on probation.

Slowly, his hands drop from Fiddleford's shoulders, and he rocks back onto his heels.]

I understand. I...I got carried away. Forgive me.

[Ford recoils and he thinks oh, god, I fucked up.]

I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I just -- I shouldn't have said anythin' at all. I want this to work. I do. I want it to more than anythin', I just, I'm so scared all the time, I can't help it, I'm sorry.

[Ford rests his arms on his knees, his head hanging between his shoulders now. Once again he feels very old, and very tired.]

No, no. It's okay. Really. I understand. You don't need to apologize.

[He glances up to look into Fiddleford's face properly.]

It's just...I missed this. The way you and I used to be...before everything. And it's hard to remember that it's not going to be like that right away. So please, forgive me if I forget myself.

[Everything hurts. It was so much easier when they were fighting.]

I'm sorry.

[Ford literally just told him he didn't need to apologize but he feels the compulsive need to do so anyway. Logically he knows his fears are at least a little founded, that it's not wrong to be cautious -- that's not the issue. The issue is that if he's trying to be Ford's friend again then he can't be responsible for putting a look like that on Ford's face.]

I... forget, y'know. How long it's been for you. It's still hard to wrap my head around exactly and anyway I'm real bad with time now, ever since... well I'm bad with time. Is the point.

[Ford's had so much more time to heal than he has. It's no wonder Ford can just fall back into this so easily while Fiddleford is struggling with it.]

I know. Sometimes I forget, too, that while it's been thirty years or so for me, it hasn't been that long at all for you. And...I understand. I'm trying hard to remember that.

[Finally, he sits back so his back is against the wall again.]

It used to be so easy, you and me. When we were younger. When—when I was much younger.

[Before everything went to shit, is the point.]

[Fiddleford watches Ford slump away from him and feels, very strongly, the urge to call him back. He wants Ford's hand on his back again. He wants to lean against Ford's shoulder again. He wants that grounding support and he can't get it when Ford's over there leaning against the wall and he certainly can't ask out loud for it for a multitude of reasons. He can curl up on himself though, knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them in a pale imitation of a hug.]

I don't remember you ever bein' easy.

[He attempts a smile. It comes out weak and lopsided but he's trying. He's trying.]

[He watches the way Fiddleford seems to curl in on himself and feels bad, for pulling away. But he doesn't want to be too overbearing. He's learned his lesson there. He needs to give him his space, right?

Surprising even himself, Ford lets out a bark of laughter. Oh, look at that tiny little smile. That's a sight for sore eyes.]

I think you and I are remembering college very differently.

[Ford Pines was and is as easy as Sunday morning and everyone knew it.]

You think? Because from where I'm sittin' you've always been stubborn as a mule.

[He knows, on some level, that isn't what Ford means. He's in denial but he's not stupid and Ford wasn't subtle just now. The memory of the picture that was in his envelope two weeks ago comes back to him very strongly in this moment and the tips of his ears go a little pink.

For... no reason. No reason at all that Ford should be concerned with or anyone should be concerned with other than how indignant he still is over such a blatant twisting of the truth. Because that's what it was. A misrepresentation of the facts. That's all.]

Whatever you say.

[He's not wrong, but they're also not talking about the same thing and Ford's pretty sure Fiddleford knows it. He doesn't miss that little hint of pink on his ears, either, but he's nice enough not to point it out.]

Either way. It wasn't a struggle then, or at least not as much as it is now. Sometimes I look back on those days, before...before everything, and I think they were some of the best of my life.

... I know what you mean.

[He looks away, at the wall, because it's easier to be open and vulnerable when he doesn't have to see Ford's face and try to judge his reaction by his expression.]

Things weren't so dang complicated. I wasn't... I didn't jump at my own shadow. Bein' optimistic wasn't somethin' I had to treat like trickin' myself into believin' a lie.

Wish we could go back to that.

Me, too.

[He lets out a sigh, staring down at his hands. Wishing he could pinpoint the exact moment his life turned into such a shit show.

Oh, right. The scroll.]

More than anything, me too.

Edited 2017-07-04 17:43 (UTC)

[He's quiet for a long moment, digesting all of this and everything else that's happened in the last twenty-four hours. It all settles like a lead brick in his stomach.]

Do you want to -- will you tell me about it? Back then. Any time you remember that was good.

[His voice gets very quiet.]

Because I'm so sure I never erased any of it but it's hard to tell the difference between forgettin' with age and just -- just -- it not bein' there. I can't ever trust my own head anymore. If it was missin' I'd never know.

Yes. Yes, I can do this.

[He nods, furrows his brows, tries to think. There's no shortage of good memories, at least on Ford's end, but...]

Your cube. Your Cubic's cube, do you remember? I used to scramble it for you, every time I saw it lying around. And every single time, you'd solve it within seconds. It always made me realize the differences between you and I. Or, well...how well we complement each other. Each with our different strengths. But together...we made a damn good team.

[There's a tiny, fond smile on his face, now. It's nice, thinking about those days.]

Yes... yes. I remember. I remember every time I'd solve it you'd wait until my back was turned and wreck it all over again. It got to be kind of a game.

[And acting as mad about it as he did was part of the game, at least partially (there was absolutely real frustration mixed in).

It was also probably flirtation but he won't allow himself to think about that possibility. What possibility? No possibility. It's fine. It was only ever friendly teasing. Friendly.]

You remember how we'd find the most improbable science fiction inventions we could and try and reverse engineer 'em to make sense?

[Ford chuckles, and ducks his head to hide the fact that he may or may not be getting a little misty-eyed.] I knew you'd caught on to me, of course, but...it was, it was a game. I thought more than once about taking it apart and putting it back together in a way that was unsolvable, but I'm sure you'd have found a way to solve it regardless.

[It was absolutely flirtation, a fact Ford would never deny. How else do you flirt with a married man when you're a socially stunted genius?]

Those were some ridiculous calculations we had to pull, but we did manage to make sense of one or two Willy Wonka inventions, didn't we?

[Yes, well. That's the thing, isn't it. Even back in college before he was a married man a certain non-zero amount of their time was spent discussing girls and the methods by which one might manage to obtain a relationship with one. He was studiously ignoring Ford's stunted attempts at flirting even then. That he had a ring on his finger later only made him doubly determined. It wouldn't have been kind to lead Ford on when he was taken, and straight, and very monogamous. And anyway Fiddleford has done a lot of questionable things in his life but he's not an adulterer.

Not that it matters now when she doesn't want him and will never take him back and their marriage ended with a homicidal pterodactyl robot.]

I would've. I would've solved it anyway and then thrown it right at your thick head.

Still sort of wish we could really build that elevator, though. That one was actually plenty probable if you just conceptualize it more like a rocket.

[That makes Ford laugh properly, his shoulders shaking with it.] And I'd have absolutely deserved it.

[The elevator makes him snort, and he bobs his head. That one had taken them weeks to work out, but he agrees it could have been done.]

It never seemed quite worth putting a hole in the roof, but I think so, too. Maybe we could do it here. Send us all right through the damn attic and out of this shithole.

I, ah.

[He pulls his notebook out of his pocket and flips to the very back of it.]

It's not an elevator exactly but -- whenever I'm stressed I, y'know. I design things. And if it weren't for the total lack of material I'd have got us out by now.

[The pages are absolutely crammed with diagrams of machinery. Some are fairly straightforward: a punching arm designed to knock down a wall, stuff like that. Others are more... imaginative. Others, perhaps, have rather a lot more lasers and buzz-saws than one might really need just to break out of a house.

He has to get his stress-relief somewhere.]

Wish I could. But there's just nothin' I could make with what we've got to work with that'd be powerful enough.

[Ford leans forward a little, very curious to see exactly what it is Fiddleford has been working on. He's not surprised, exactly, to see the over-the-topness of some of these designs; this is the man, after all, who built a giant underwater monster robot for attention. Who turned his house into a giant fighting robot.]

I've been thinking along the same lines, honestly. We're both geniuses. With access to the proper materials we could have figured this out by now. Makes you feel damn useless, doesn't it?

Yeah. Yeah, it does.

[He traces the curve of a purely-hypothetical blast cannon pensively with one finger.]

You really, really think we'll get out?

[holy shit Fiddleford is absolutely not doing that on purpose but Ford can't stop staring—

string theory, okay, there we go, back on track. He nods.]

I really do. No four walls can hold me for that long. Not to mention Maui. One of these days I swear he's just going to shoulder through the front door.

[He isn't doing it on purpose, even. He's just fidgeting, honest. Better this than him pulling out another chunk of hair.]

Y'know I'd pay to be there to see that happen.

Alright. [Deep breath in, deep breath out, slow.] We'll be... alright. If you say we will then I'm goin' to do my damnedest to believe you.

Well, I will alert you the minute I catch wind of it happening.

[Ford smiles, reaches forward and puts a steadying hand on Fiddleford's skinny shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze.]

That's right. We're going to be just fine, you and me. Like I said...we make an excellent team.

[Fiddleford reaches up and puts his hand on Ford's wrist. It's not tight, barely a grip, but it's grounding.]

Thank you. This... helped.

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sixfingeredstan - 2017-07-04 22:11 (UTC) - Expand

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