Streets of Fandom near Graveyard, Friday Morning

[chosehumanity]

Another week gone, another couple of days spent hauling bodies from a hospital to a funeral home, waiting for them to reanimate. Mitchell had strayed onto the island early, wandering. His own thoughts were a messy jumble; he could use some quiet.

He wasn't even sure when he'd wound up so close to the graveyard, but there he was. ('It's a bit like raising an army, isn't it?' Seth had giggled about the last fledgeling. Somehow that had felt utterly, utterly wrong - they were working to improve the world, here, not raze it to the ground - and he'd been out of it since.)

"Some days, my soul's confined and out of mind, sleep forever," he sang, softly, and mostly under his breath; a little louder, he added, "Sometimes my darkest friend is me again, have you ever--"

He didn't quite realise anything strange was going on.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah? Isn't that just... greasy twenty-year-olds paging through old copies of Spiderman? Seeing a real girl must've given them a heart attack."

Oh, because that wasn't stereotypical at all, Mitchell.

[vanillajello]

Kate rolled her eyes. "Don't be lame, Mitchell," she said. "The princess has very nice, non-greasy fans."

She did not. She hadn't even had fans before she'd gone around the store getting people's email addresses.

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell snorted out a laugh. "The princess goes around dressed in a pink viking novelty costume," he pointed out. "With a heaving bosom."

[vanillajello]

"You are not supposed to notice the heaving bosom," Kate retorted. Even if she acknowledged it would be really hard to ignore. "I distictly remember being called a floating head or something by you, once."

Forever ago. She'd known practically nothing about him then.

She shrugged a shoulder. "Anyway, sex sells, and who is little old me to change the rules?"

[chosehumanity]

"I'm not noticing," Mitchell said, holding up a hand. "Seriously."

Seriously. That had to be established.

"And you're like fifteen!"

[vanillajello]

Kate rolled her eyes again. Of course.

"Chill out, it's not like I want you to notice." Because she found the thought of that creepy on so many creepy levels. Creepier than creepy Gene, even. "And I'm seventeen."

[chosehumanity]

"Still too young to be prancing about in YouTube videos," he argued. Stupid weird big brotherly tendencies. "When I was your age--"

Mitchell stopped speaking abruptly. Then:

"The young man stands on the edge of his porch. The days were short and the father was gone..."

Fandom had perfect timing.

[vanillajello]

Kate blinked.

Then she frowned, almost as if she was offended. "Do not," she said, "start singing at me."

Yeah, because that was so going to work.

[chosehumanity]

"There was no one in the town, and no one in the fields. This dusty barren land had given all it could yield." Mitchell was giving her big I am so sorry about this eyes--

... Well, a little bit, at least? Tiny all right, not my first choice eyes, at least.

"I've been kicked off my land at the age of sixteen, and I have no idea where else my heart could've been."

[vanillajello]

Kate exhaled a long-suffering sigh and decided to just wait this out. While looking like she was judging him.

And trying not to feel the dread that came from realizing that if this was happening to him, then it could happen to her as well. That was just a whole world of no.

[chosehumanity]

And here Mitchell had been banking on his somewhat temperamental Fandom-resistance to keep him blocked from stuff like this.

Especially songs like this.

"I placed all my trust at the foot of this hill, and now I am sure my heart will forever be still. So collect your courage, and collect your horse, and pray you never feel this same kind of remorse."

This was really not a time where he wanted to be singing about his own childhood or any guilt done up since then. Seriously.

[vanillajello]

Well, at least Kate was looking a little less like an ice princess and a little more like she was actually listening and processing?

Or maybe that wasn't a good thing for anyone. Either way, she'd rein her expression in once she'd realize she was actually showing some emotion, even if she had no idea what that emotion even was. The weakest hint of compassion, or worry? Whatever, it was going to get erased.

But not yet.

[chosehumanity]

"Time went on, and I fell myself. I had had nowhere to stand, and now nowhere to hide. And I said, Well, humanity, you are my accuser, now look in my face; your oppression reeks of your greed and disgrace-- so one man lives and another does not."

Bernie. Well.

At least Mitchell wasn't dancing?

"How can you love what it is you have got, when you took it all from the weak hands of the poor? And in the end I said yes sir, yes sir, yes it was me. I know what I've done, 'cause I know what I've seen. I went out back and my eyes went black-- I said 'You haven't met me, I am the only son.'"

He shut his mouth and stopped.

"...Well, that was disturbing."

[[ music disfigured and stolen from Mumford and Sons. my apologies, boys. ]]

[vanillajello]

Kate pulled herself back into her shell, at that. "Yes." Really disturbing. And why was everything on so many levels today?

She had a sharper remark to make, but when she opened her mouth... "Thank you for this bitter knowledge, my guardian angel who left me stranded." Yeah. She was not immune this time around either. Fuck. "It was worth it, feeling abandoned makes one hardened, but what has happened to love?"

Kate was completely prepared to just clamp her hand over her mouth at that point, but it seemed Fandom felt that short burst of song was enough. For now.

['Scuse me while I omit one of Rufus Wainwright's plurals and sneak in a pronoun.]

[chosehumanity]

And here was Mitchell, looking taken aback, for all that. "Kate..." What was he going to say? 'My feelings for your species are kind of messed-up right now'?

[vanillajello]

Kate didn't really have anything to say to him right now, either. Not that that stopped Fandom, of course, but she tried to fight it this time. She was pretty good at keeping things locked in and keeping her face blank, so she thought she had... about one-third of a chance at stopping herself from singing.

She was half successful. The few words came out, but they didn't really sound like singing. They came out all clipped and as short as possible.

"Go, or go ahead and surprise me."

She mostly just looked annoyed.

[chosehumanity]

He took a breath. "I don't want to be the boy who has to fill the silence," Mitchell-- well, it wasn't clipped and short, not like Kate's, really, but it was still closer to his speaking voice than anything.

Dammit. He'd hoped to have put all of this drama behind him. Words came more frequently after that one, more in tune, and leaving him frowning at himself.

"Ah, the night keeps calling, and it whispers to me, softly, come and play. I'm safe up high, no one can touch me, but why do I feel this party's over?"

He believed in this effort... right?

[vanillajello]

Kate was just gritting her teeth now. She half didn't even hear him anymore, putting too much effort into keeping words of her own in. Goddammit, Fandom.

She should have been leaving. Why was't she leaving?

[chosehumanity]

"When it's good, then it's good, it's so good till it goes bad," he sang, and he found himself sounding... disappointed. "Till you're trying to find the you that you once had; I've heard myself cry out, 'Never again', broken down, just trying to find a friend..."

Which was about that, for that, and at this point, Mitchell really had no idea how to brush that one off.

[vanillajello]

Kate almost said something now. She opened her mouth and everything, but Fandom interfered and she let it. Whatever.

"'Leave me be,' he said." She let it flow out, dark and mocking. If she couldn't control the words, she'd control the tone. "'Leave me here in my stark raving sick sad little world.'"

[chosehumanity]

"How can you say that your truth is better than ours?" Ah. So the island still had some in for him anyway. "Shoulder to shoulder, now sister, we carry no arms. The blind man sleeps in the doorway, his home; if only you had an enemy bigger than your apathy, maybe you could have won."

[vanillajello]

This was getting to be a little exhausting. A lot exhausting.

"Whatsoever I've feared has come to life, whatsoever I've fought off became my life." Kate didn't even care anymore. Whatever. This was all just a massive ball of whatever. "Just when every day seemed to greet me with a smile, sunspots have faded, and now I'm doing time."

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell took a deep breath, and shook his head - mostly trying to shake it off, like he could just shrug Fandom weirdness off like the rain.

Predictably, it didn't work.

"I know that things are broken, and though there's too many words left unsaid; You say you have spoken, and like the coward I am, I hang my head," he replied. Coward? He didn't feel he was a coward. "And carelessly, you speak to me in jest; you don't even look at me doing my best. And all these things I can't describe, you would rather I didn't try."

[vanillajello]

Kate shrugged, at the words, at the situation, at everything. "Distance, I'll keep my distance," she sang, though it felt like a lie. She wasn't sure why. "These things I never seem to mean --" Oh, bingo. "-- so I leave the murder scene."

... Okay, ow. She almost, almost winced at herself, there.

[chosehumanity]

Yeah, there was a slight flicker of guilt-and-hurt on Mitchell's face at that one.

He swallowed, and echoed her shrug. Didn't mean anything, yeah? "Spare me your judgements and spare me your dreams, 'cause recently mine have been tearing my seams. I sit alone in this winter clarity which clouds my mind." Bernie was still bleeding out on the pavement, and the masses were still bellowing for him despite it all. "Alone in the wind and the rain, you left me."

[vanillajello]

Well, maybe they could both look a little hurt while feigning indifference at it all. "I'd love to sit and watch you drink, with the reins to the world, gripping a smoke..."

She shook her head, tried biting on the inside of her lower lip, but she was lacking in the energy to keep things in.

"But why'd you have to break all my heart, couldn't you have saved a little bit of it? Why'd you have to break all my heart, couldn't you have saved a minor part I could've clipped and saved and planted in the garden?"

She seriously objected to how melodramatic and stupid the island was making her sound. Or, actually, she objected to all of it. That may have influenced how dry and sarcastic the final addition came out. "Damn you, guess I'll have to get a new one."

[chosehumanity]

What were they even arguing about, at this point? Mitchell had the feeling they were wandering off the path somehow, except he wasn't really sure what the path had been to begin with.

He blamed the melodrama, himself.

"Lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all, but lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall," he sang, and winced internally. (And externally, actually. The oh god, the drama was as visible on his face as it was on hers.) "Lend me your eyes I can change what you see, but your soul you must keep, totally free."

He could swear the island was just doing it for the heck of it, now; and making him pace around Kate in a broad circle at the same time. (Experimental choreography. Bah.)

[vanillajello]

Kate was eyeing the pacing with a look of pure what the fuck are you doing now, but she didn't actually get to voice that.

"I don't know what to do 'cause it's always been you who helps me to make up my mind."

Ugh, was that even remotely true? She supposed occasionally yes, but. Whatever.

She'd meant to grudgingly ask him for a job at the movie theater, originally. It had been a vague idea, come from how she'd quit her debt collecting gig the day before. She didn't quite feel that would be happening anymore.

[chosehumanity]

Give it a week. He was long overdue for losing his status as Vampire Employee of the Month anyway, not that he knew that.

Mitchell's foot halted mid-pace as he found, to his relief, that he was regaining control of it. He jerked it back like he'd been burned, taking a full step back after that. He gave the whole situation a jerky shake of his head.

"Jesus!"

No, that wasn't singing.

[vanillajello]

Kate gave him a sour look. "Can we call it a day? Now would that be okay? Can we just go our own separate ways?"

Yeah, she looked even more sour when she realized she hadn't stopped singing even if he had. That would sadly keep happening to her all day.

But at least she got to sing what she wanted to say.

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell ran a hand roughly through his hair, trying to focus. Right. Okay. Fine.

"Fine," he said. "Fine, whatever you like, Kate." The anger took him by surprise. "Whatever, right?"

He took another step backwards. Going, now.

[vanillajello]

Kate didn't move. She'd do that once he was gone, probably. Maybe her legs felt wobbly, or maybe she was making some sort of a point. She didn't know.

"Yes, Mitchell, whatever," she replied in short, clipped tones. Being able to speak wasn't much of a consolation. "Just a stupid human, right?"

[chosehumanity]

"Yes," he snapped. "Thuggish, and self-involved, and cruel. And you, you don't even know what the fuck you want from anything, so whatever."

[vanillajello]

Kate managed not to wince, though she wasn't sure how. "Because you're such a fucking paragon of knowing what you want, Mitchell," she retorted. "Really. I'm so impressed you didn't get whiplash from how fast you decided to start hating on humanity."

[chosehumanity]

"I tried to be like you," Mitchell shot back. One foot at a time, he was walking away, one step back, then another. "I really did. I thought that you lot were good, something to look up to. Fool me once, yeah?"

[vanillajello]

"Well you didn't try hard enough!" Kate snapped, standing still, as if frozen except for her face and mouth. "People are assholes but that's part of the deal! What, do you think you're somehow better than us now?"

[chosehumanity]

"It doesn't take much," Mitchell snarled back, "To be better than the lot of you!"

He was going to regret that later.

[vanillajello]

"Well." Well. That stung more than it should have. "You're definitely still human when it comes to being a dick to people who give a shit about you."

She shook her head, pulled on a mask of indifference.

"I don't think I deserve any of this, but... Whatever."