shadowglitter | ic contact

Yeah, of course. I can drop by. I don't want stuff to be weird. Part of fixing that is spending time with you. If you're okay with... spending... time... with me. Which you are. I guess. If you're. Talking. To me. And inviting me over. And. Etcetera? I'm sorry, though. Fuck. Poe's dealing with the same thing. If you want somebody to talk to who might understand. Do you want me to like, bring anything over? I've got souvenirs from my trip. And the island. If you want them.

of course i'm okay spending time with you i haven't asked because i feel obligated or anything ahhhhh i've said a few words to poe he's nevermind bring over all your stuff i wanna hear about where you were at

Edited 2018-03-14 19:59 (UTC)

[ owain doesn't really need to pry into that "nevermind", but it does strike him as something he'll have to follow up on with the dude in question. but that's for another time. archie has his focus. ]

Okay. I'll head on out. Stay on the line, Big A.

[ big A? big A. owain heads out to archie's place, as promised, constantly texting archie stupid shit about his commute on the way - that old lady's hair looks like a god damn mess, that dog has the best tail of all the dogs in the world, etc. stream of consciousness rambling about the sun for a few minutes there. he ends it with "okay, i'm at your house, bye" once he's close to the river outside of heropa, and he hangs up, knocking on archie's door a second later.

he has a big paper bag in his hands, full of stupid shit. so much stupid shit. when archie lets him in owain says yoooooooooooooo and collapses on the sofa a second later, dumpping the bag's contents out on the coffee table. there was a lot of loose black sand from the IMH island which is now just covering archie's living room, but it's fine. owain sweeps through it to get to the gifts. ]

C'mon, sit down. You want island stuff or roadtrip stuff first?

Edited 2018-03-14 20:06 (UTC)

[big a? like big asshole? he replies. all of owain's texts get a reply, so he knows he's still on the phone - though he's throwing together some prime hot chocolate for when owain arrives and a coffee for himself. he wonders if he should introduce owain to chocolate flavoured coffee...

no. that would be the end times.

he's all smiles when owain arrives, though owain undoubtedly knows him well enough to know it's not entirely genuine. it's painfully obvious how the last few months have worn on him, but he's not bringing attention to it. he flops down next to owain after bringing the drinks over, not even glancing at the sand. hoovers exist, so whatever.]

Let's go island. Chronological order. I stopped watching after the third episode 'cause I got real busy with stuff. I got a sick paycheck last month for getting some sweet rare footage. --Anyway, go on.

[ owain figures the best he can do for archie right now is, you know - be himself, make things feel the way they used to. even without everything that's happened this year they've drifted a little bit since christmas, with owain so insulated in his dumb relationship drama and from spending so much time with leo and lucina, but now that his fam have been here for a while and he's in a pretty good place in the rest of his life, he'd like to bridge that distance again.

archie made him feel good when he got here just by hanging out with him when he needed it, so noticing the weakness behind archie's smile, owain decides that's what he's going to try and do, too. ]

That means you missed the puppy episode. When everyone went off to fight in space I stayed behind like a piece of shit and imported in, like, fifty crates of puppies. There's footage somewhere of Foggy just drowning in corgis.

[ he doesn't have a puppy in the souvenir bag, but he does have a lot of cool shells and driftwood he picked up from the beach. taking his drink, he gestures at those. ]

I figured you might like these? You could decorate your room with them, or something. I know it's not a lot, but shells are cool and driftwood is, like, boners from the ocean, and I know you like the whole ocean-y aesthetic thing. Right?

Holy shit? Why am I even slightly surprised you did that? Fuck. Did you keep any of them?

[he wants a puppy? he wants a puppy so bad. mightyena, seemingly sensing this, pads down the stairs and lays its head in archie's lap. he rubs its head, looking over the other things owain brought. (ignoring that pang of guilt in his chest at the mention of foggy. wishing he could do LITERALLY ANYTHING without being emotionally crippled like that.)

ocean boners. that makes him snort, laughing genuinely loudly the way he used to.]

I'll make an arts and crafts of it. All this needs is glitter-- I'm gonna make my bedside table somethin' real special!

No, Debra wouldn't let me. [ He pulls a face. ] Did I tell you about Debra? Someone's bound to have told you about Debra. She was our producer. We hated her. "For the last time, Odin, you can't put knives in people's beds!" Whatever. Banshee. It was my show. Banshee.

[ he grins, partially relishing in talking shit about the poor, well-intentioned, middle-aged divorcee forced to babysit him when he was rich and powerful for a month, partially excited to see whatever artsy piece of beauty archie will come up with. he sifts through the rest of his presents and regrets not getting archie a sword, but he figures maybe a weapon would only make him feel worse right now, so. ssso. ]

Um, but - yeah. So, Kay won, I guess? [ he shrugs, pretty uninterested in the dude he's supposed to be dating. he leans back and takes a sip of his hot chocolate. ] It was fun. Funner than I thought it would be, honestly. I'm glad I went through with the whole thing.

[he snorts again.]

Yeah, I spoke to Peter about it. He almost inadvertently convinced me that you and Debra were having a hot, hot steamy forbidden romance. Then told me K2 won, so. I might've made him actually throw up? Accidentally? By talking about that. Oops.

[he shakes his head, taking a gulp of his own drink.]

I'm glad you had fun. I, ah-- I'm sorry I was negative about it. [honestly, even if he hadn't already been told The Deal by peter it would've been suspect that owain was just shrugging about it. archie doesn't comment on it, though.] It's too bad. I had money on Cisco, he seems more your type. Maybe Rosa? Shit, I'd half bet a secret harem ending.

[ it's stupid, how quickly he lights up at the mere mention of peter. bright eyed and rosy cheeks, the worst secret keeper. he laughs a little too hard, but it's completely genuine, and it still sticks to him even as the conversation fades into archie's apology. ]

Ah - pfft. It's not like you were wrong. Going through with the show was honestly a pretty stupid decision? Made when I had kind of an awful state of mind. I just... lucked out against all odds and it turned out to be something good. [ again, he shrugs. busies himself with his drink, puts it down back on the table. ]

Cisco is cute as fuck. I could have fallen for him for real, had things fallen differently. [ rosa is also pretty scary, so no comment, even though he's totally into scary. ] I actually painted a harem portrait for the hallway but Debra told me it'd be too inconvenient to censor the parts that needed censoring every time they grabbed footage from the main hall.

I don't really care about being right or wrong. I care about you being okay. [he says with a shrug, but drops it because-- well, it went well! no point dragging on what could've gone wrong.] He is? He made me a gun-- I feel bad I haven't used it yet. It like... the bullet explodes into foam, so it's non-lethal. He only laughed a little at my pathetic aiming, too. He's great.

[archie shakes his head.]

Fucking Debra. I didn't know you could paint... do you still have it? You could probably sell it to a fan for like... millions. Y'know? I got a couple thousand off stuff one of the famous [poe] imPorts signed for me.

[ non-lethal is good. odin wonders, sometimes, what his life would have been like if he hadn't had to kill so many people back home. if he'd be different at all. he has the sense not to randomly bring down the conversation by talking about that, though? he focuses on feeling touched by archie wanting him to be okay. ]

I care about you being okay, too. [ he shrugs back. ] But I've got too much money already, man. I think if I start losing sight of how much normal things cost, I'm going to do something stupid? Like buy a horse.

[ his eyes light up. he's going to buy a horse. ]

But yeah. You think you'd ever come with me if I do another TV thing?

Sell it and give the money to me then, [he says, joking. kinda. like half joking. archie's not entirely short for money himself, but... retail therapy, ya'll.] Or buy a horse? I want you to get a horse. There are horse Pokémon... did I tell you about those? Some of their manes and tails are made of fire. They burn you, unless they trust you. Like Pokémon pegasuses. Pokésis? Eh.

[he was babbling to avoid answering the second part, but he gets there eventually. archie shakes his head.]

No, sorry. I don't want to-- [be around odin's friends, because most of them are people he hurt when he was possessed.] --I got shit I can't just drop, y'know? No more vaycay days. Maxie would refuse to come as well, an' if he's still around I wouldn't want to leave him alone...

[excuses, excuses, just trying to avoid saying why, truthfully.]

[ The babbling is a good distraction tactic, because Odin's eyes light the fuck up, beaming at Archie with an immeasurable fondness. ]

Did you know that's the first time you've brought up pegasi with me? Like - we've talked about them since I told you about them - but only because I mentioned them first. It's nice that you remember that.

[ he scratches at his cheek, a little sheepish, but presses on. ]

But, um - yeah, I know about them. Rapidash, or something? The sweetest of names. And-- yeah, that makes sense, too. It would be fun, though. Spending a day with you doing stupid shit. [ he goes quiet. ] Hey - do you want me to stay over tonight? I don't know how far the whole company thing extends, but like - it's been a while since we've shared a bed or whatever.

Edited 2018-03-16 16:02 (UTC)

Is it? I think about it a lot, actually...

[he wants to pet one so bad

archie goes quiet again, chewing his lower lip, trying to push down the horrible feeling bubbling up in his chest. that he's asking too much, he just needs to keep this to himself. he just... can't. not right now.]

Y...yeah. If that's okay? I dunno if [peter] K2 will be upset or anythin', though. If that's-- you don't have to. I just...

[he sighs, deflating a little.]

Matt got... ported out 2 months ago. I think Maxie deserves one night without me being a sad sack of shit in his general vicinity.

Haha, what? Why would Kay care?

[ odin looks at archie like he's the idiot, has a visual moment of realization, and then just shrugs. dumb. idiot. peter's probably tired of all the spooning, so odin has no problem staying over, but-- archie presses on and mentions matt and odin's heartbroken, staring down at his feet for a moment. everybody's losing so much. ]

M'sorry. [ he doesn't know what else to say. he rubs at the back of his neck. ]

Pucci's gone, too. I still miss Loma. I know Peter still misses Jean... Poe's losing a lot, as I said. Sometimes it's easy to pretend like the porter might leave us alone, but then-- yeah. Something like this happens.

[everyone is losing so much, and here's archie acting like his means more? like it means anything? people lost a lot when he killed their friends, too. he briefly regrets asking owain to come over. he should be with peter.]

Yeah. Super wish one of the last times I'd seen Pucci hadn't been with his arm hanging off. [stupid, selfish.] Magnus got ported out, too. He-- I just... wish that he'd had longer with his friends to recover from that relic thing.

[he's staring at the floor, legs crossed on the sofa. sighs a little.]

I hope he comes back for them. They're all here, so...

Pucci'd probably like it if that was your last memory of him, honestly. Dude was wild.

[ owain flashes a grin, but like everything around here these days, it doesn't last. he's lucky for the first time in a very, very long time to be surrounded with so much good in his own life, but it's hard to forget just how transient it all might be. ]

The guy's half bear. He'll be back. He and I have so much wrestling to do. [ a beat, and then-- ] Do you think you'll talk to him if he shows up again?

Yeah. He bought me this couch, actually. Replaced the one we both bled all over. It was a fucked up week.

[he shakes his head, suddenly feeling nauseated at the idea of talking to magnus.]

I-- I'll ask him if he remembers. But... he could barely even look at me, so I think I'll just leave it after that. I don't know what would be worse. If he did or didn't.

[archie looks away, properly now. not just at the carpet, but away from owain. forcing himself to stop feeling Those Dang Feelings.

eventually, he looks back, expression eerily flat.]

Why wasn't it enough?

[ december was a mess, and owain can't determine if it was better or worse than what happened with the relic. he decides it's not really a competition. he takes archie's answer for what it is and gives him his space, letting him look away, and he's stunned, then, by the blank eyes that turn back so quickly. ]

... Do you mean, um. [ why wasn't all the regret and the repenting enough to stop the relic from worming its way in? he hesitates, pulling back in case he's wrong. ]

What-- what do you mean?

I died. My best friend broke my neck while he was begging me to stop, and I was forced to laugh in his face about it. He won't even look at me anymore because of it. No-one can, because of how it was me that hurt them.

[he looks away again.]

All I did was... get too close. I didn't know it existed, I didn't look it out. I got too close and lost-- why do people still act like I should've lost more? Is that selfish? To just be-- tired of that?

I didn't want to come back. Their families should've come back instead of me.

[ owain listens, his stomach twisting into knots. there's guilt, again, over the fear he still has of archie. a fear that instinctively flares up, despite his efforts to will it away, when he talks about-- laughing. owain exhales. ]

It's only been a couple of months. People are still grieving. You're the face of what happened - but that's all you are. More and more people will realize that, in time. It's not selfish to feel weighed down by people hating you for something you're not to blame for.

[ he smiles, weakly, but archie doesn't see it. ]

Um - I think I told you I tried to die back home. [ a nervous glance, like he's scared he's going to make this about him, when that isn't what he wants. ] My dad stopped me. Said that if I died to save someone, I'd lose my chance to save anyone ever again. Said I had to do good with my life. So.

Thinking you shouldn't be here doesn't really do that. There's no good in that. If you think you're-- a black hole, like you're just a negative existence, or-- or something, then you have to find things to do to try and shift that balance into something better. For me, it was the whole Owain Dark act. Change who I was entirely, become someone who had worth in being alive. Maybe for you - you should try and work on forgiving the people who treat you harder than you deserve? Maybe.

You're one of those people. I think. You could start there.

[archie exhales lightly. of course, he hadn't wanted to make owain guilty. he's not even thinking that he might -- he's really not thinking at all. every time he opens his mouth thoughts that he'd been repressing and refusing to think or talk about come out. it's almost involuntary. he looks down at his hands for a moment, seeing the burn marks from arcanine creeping out his sleeve. they're not bad and will likely be completely gone in a couple of months, but... it's a reminder.]

It's been a year, [he says, some form of emotion finally creeping into his voice. it's just... exhaustion. tired. after kyogre, he'd lived in fear of hurting people through his actions again and that's all he's been doing, it feels like.] and I've been trying since I got here. It feels like all I keep doing is hurting people. You know, that house we got trapped in wouldn't have been half as bad if I hadn't had to watch four of my friends die instead of me. I just want my presence to stop being so--

[he stops. thinks for a moment.]

Poisonous.

[damn]

[ Owain listens, and for a time, he feels like that's all he should do. Stay quiet, say "i'm sorry", keep some distance to the situation out of some underlying fear that if he doesn't he'll say the wrong thing. He visibly flinches when Archie calls him poisonous, though, and he knows-- he knows nothing he can say will help, he knows he can't fix this, but it hurts too much to not speak his mind. He loves Archie? He's careful when he lifts his arm forward, worried that Archie might bolt once there's contact like a scared animal afraid of being fed by humans, but he finds Archie's hand and cautiously holds it with his own. ]

You're always focusing on... the bad. On the things you couldn't prevent, the-- the unavoidable things that happened. You internalize all this sorrow and all this pain and you grieve, and when you grieve, you find a way to blame yourself for all the horrible shit you've gone through. You never focus on the good you've done, or the growth you've undertaken, or - or... or that-- that people need you. I need you. I wouldn't need you, if you were just-- just bad for me. Poisonous.

[ he drags his thumb over the side of Archie's hand, and he can feel his ribs ache with the weight of all of this. the knowledge that he won't be able to fix this, the knowledge that he's contributed to Archie feeling like this, in whatever small part. ]

You're not a malicious person. You're being punished enough for the mistakes you've made by carrying all that fucking guilt with you. Punishing yourself even further by painting yourself as just-- just-- a monster? That doesn't do anything.

[he doesn't really react at all when owain takes his hand--it's like holding onto a dead weight before archie belatedly actually reacts to it and holds owain's back. he makes no eye contact, just continues staring a hard hole into the floor in front of him.]

I wish I could, [he says eventually. he knows he's not entirely a drag, but it always feels like the bad he's done vastly outweighs the good. that no matter what he's always never going to be able to get past the bad and he'll never be good enough. that no matter how hard he tries there'll always be something new that he'll fail in and push the good stuff back down even further than it already is.] But right now it feels like I won't be able to move on from it. I can't change my way of thinking about myself when-- even though I wasn't behind the wheel, people still think everything that happened was me. Three people could've got the shot in the day before Magnus did, but they didn't, because it was me.

[he raises a shoulder in a helpless shrug.]

And it goes both ways. Especially for the people in Maurtia Falls whose friends and relatives didn't just get fixed by nanites. The actual cause doesn't matter to them, just who did the actual deed.

[ he's in over his head and he doesn't know how to help, and that's what spurs owain on to just do something. the moment archie starts to squeeze back odin clamps his hand as tight around his as he can, just trying to show that he's fucking here. he's not great, but he's here, and he doesn't think archie's a monster. that's one person, at least. that has to count for something, he thinks. ]

Time can fix - all of this. Time provokes understanding. People don't understand your role in this, not yet, but they will with more distance. You just have to wait it out, and waiting it out requires strength. Pushing through it. The second you break under all of this, the second you sign on to a future that doesn't include the version of you that it deserves.

[ "just who did the actual deed" - that still wasn't archie. that was never archie. that was the relic. ]

You were a victim.

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h2no - 2018-06-27 15:31 (UTC) - Expand

ic contact

text - at what date is the roadtrip ov er ??? science says whomst knows

its over in smarch

lousy smarch weather

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th-th-th-three months late [blasts airhorns]

new phone who dis

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