[OPEN + CLOSED] And sooner or later, it's over

[midnightroads]

When: Post-Carnival February
Where: Chatterbox, Tauva, etc.
Summary: Bash is not doing well. But he's coping?
Warnings:

1. And I don't want the world to see me [Closed to Ossie]
Erin and Giles have both suggested that maybe Bash talk to Ossie, but he's been a little shy, a little chickenshit about it, but like. He's finally worked up the courage to send a text. Like, nothing huge, nothing that's going to rock his or Ossie's world. In fact, it's only three words. Eight letters and a punctuation mark.

hey u busy?

This is what an act of bravery looks like.


2. 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand [Chatterbox]
Of course, there's another thing someone can do when they're upset. They can sing about it.

Bash has been hyperaware of the fact that his boyfriend's a whole bard, so he didn't really tell Jeff where he was going on this particular night before sneaking out to Chatterbox and occupying the stage. He's, uh. He's sure doing some feeling-y songs, from Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" to MCR's "I'm Not Okay (I Promise) to some early Linkin Park. Look, he's just laying it all out on the stage while he's alone. Because he is alone, right? There's no one about to walk in and see him pouring his guts out.

Right?


3. When everything's made to be broken [Sand Dollars]
Some things are a constant. Bash taking time to make coffee for people is one of them. In some other universe, he might have had a cafe, but in this one, all he has is Sand Dollars, and the time he gets with anyone who wants a cuppa.

Come say hi, he's brewing the good shit today.


4. I just want you to know who I am [Wildcard]
darkersolstice or darkersolstice#9463 to plot

Comments

immediately adds this to my sails playlist

[skaikru]

And if there ever was anything that Bash lacked in performance capabilities, the beat of the Muse song makes up for it entirely. Clarke sits and watches, and is entirely unaware of the fact she's started lolling her head to the beat until the second chorus. Music isn't foreign but it's still flooring to feel the faintest bit of emotional validation; of connection with a stranger — especially one that predates her by over 100 years — through their lyrics.

And if Panic Station sums up Bash's current headspace then, yeah, same hat, he's really reading the room.

All in all, she likes this song. Ooo 5, 6, 7, minus 9 lives. You've arrived at panic station! is going to be stuck in her head for the foreseeable future. And when the song is over, she brings up her hands to clap enthusiastically. It's an echoing sound in an otherwise empty performance space, briefly reminds her of applauding Diana Abel in the empty Bellona Theatre, but that smarts too much to dwell on. Between claps, she fans her hands around her mouth and lightly encourages: "Encore."

[midnightroads]

What follows is at least an hour, perhaps two, of music education. Blue October? Sure! Kavinsky? Definitely! Even a little Frou Frou when he's feeling impish, though his version ends up slower, more seductive. Bash is from 2017, and has broad taste.

"I got about one more song left in me, but. I think you might vibe with this one." He smirks, knowing that being a little ragged, a little harsher now than when he started will work for the song he has in mind.

[skaikru]

She's never had her own personal concert before, and that is what this moment is gradually beginning to feel like. Surprisingly not at all as awkward as it feels like it should be; Bash commands the stage, microphone, and karaoke machine and for her part, Clarke is a pretty polite audience member. Claps when she's supposed to, occasionally pipes up between songs to ask who the original writer was, and once or twice over the course of the next hour, gets up to venture towards a little refreshment station near the back of the room and comes back to put a chilled water bottle at the edge of the stage.

Sometimes she listens intently to the lyrics, and sometimes just lets the overall vibe wash over her. Some she likes so much that her mind turns towards the likes of Natsuno and Mizuki's mp3 players, wondering how to get a hold of one herself. And she's about to say something along the lines of don't stress yourself, thank you for this when Bash indicates he's out of steam and this is the finale.

But the chords and vocals of Nuclear strike up before she can speak, so she just listens and... Like is a strong word to apply here. And if vibe is supposed to be a positive thing, here it misses the mark. A year ago, fresh from the burning arms of the second coming of Praimfaya, she might have quietly wept. Whispers in the air tell the tale of a life that's gone. Desolation, devastation. What a mess we made, when it all went wrong.

There's such a thing as too on the nose. And by the end of the song, she isn't looking at him. Just the folded, interlocked fingers on her own hands, and breathing in a slow, manually controlled and forcibly calm fashion.

[midnightroads]

He finishes the song. Sets the microphone down and sits on the edge of the stage. Oh, he knew what he was doing, picking a song like that. It was aimed at her tenderest spot, and he brought that up anyway.

It wasn't meant to be cruel, but it was meant to be honest and a little pointed.

"Do you want to talk about it, sweetheart?"

[skaikru]

Times were she'd kept her name and history tightly bound to her chest, like a wound one might try to rub salt in if they knew it existed. But months had stretched on board the Serena Eteran, and Clarke's lips have loosened. Disastrously, apparently, as it's left her open to a critical hit from a five minute musical set piece.

Something something two wolves inside of her, but it's more like standing on a very thin mountain trail. One side of the drop off would unravel all her nerves, strip past skin and muscle and bone until there's just feelings. The other side is less steep, and less dangerous; almost a familiar path of compartmentalizing, restrengthening. Stoppering up cracks in the emotional dam and pasteurizing every hurt and fear into drive. It is an easy choice.

And when she looks back up at Bash, it's with a flat, impassive sort of mask.

"What, about the nuclear apocalypse?"

[midnightroads]

"About what it meant to you." His voice is quiet, gentle, but he recognizes that she's closed herself up like a fan; prying her open's simply not a choice here.

But it matters that he's trying.

[skaikru]

Bash may be approaching the subject with quiet, soft words but he's still ringing the proverbial doorbell on the topic of destruction, loss, burning alive, and dying alone. The second apocalypse was the death of most of their hopes and dreams for life on the new planet, the death of their friends and family, and for many — their humanity. It's just all death.

"I did everything I could to keep my people alive. That's the only thing that meant anything."

[midnightroads]

"Did it work? Was it worth it?" Two very different and also very big questions.

Bash is not a demigod whose purviews include Justice. He has no duty to hold Clarke accountable for any of this. He cracks the water bottle open, take a sip.

[skaikru]

"I don't really know. I think so."

And:

"...I think so." With the I don't really know heavily implied, but unspoken. Her teeth set and begin to grind after those utterances and it proves to be a hell of a lot easier to look past Bash and back onto the stage he'd just been singing on for the last few hours.

[midnightroads]

"I hope someday, you find your certainty, Clarke." He slips off the stage and starts to walk away, aware he's pushed her too far.

[skaikru]

Certainty is a flighty ideal; some days concrete and apparent and immovable like a rock, some days more like water one attempts to cup in their hands only to have it leak through fingers.

One thing for certain, however; Clarke absolutely frickin' detests the fact he had managed to rattle her and then proceeded to just try to walk away. That's her move, and It cannot stand. So as he moves, she cranes around in her seat and calls:

"Hey, Bash?"

[midnightroads]

“Yeah, sweetheart?” He pauses, turns around to face her. Calm, he’s very calm. Divine stillness, something any divinity of death and darkness can pull off.

[skaikru]

First, the very clipped, almost polite correction of — "You know my name." Sweetheart is a term nostalgically preserved as something her father would call her, and Jake Griffin isn't here.

Secondly, pushing and prying goes both ways. Clarke just lacks the tactic of softening up through music before going for the tender spots.

"Were you up there singing your heart out because the ghosts in the mirrors consumed you, Skulduggery Pleasant decapitated you, or something else?"

[midnightroads]

Bash hears her question and he laughs. What she’s trying to do is obvious, but she’s missed the mark by a country mile. Like, yes, those things happened to him, but that’s not where his tender spots lie.

“I think it was only one ghost in the mirror, the one with golden flames for eyes. But naw, that’s not a reason to break out MCR by itself.”

[skaikru]

Well. No one likes being laughed at, but Clarke brushes it off. Quietly makes a note of the one with golden flames for eyes, but moves on. She may have cast the net a little wide, but reeling it in could still yield something.

"If not dying horribly, then what earns catharsis through My Chemical Romance?"

Thank you Sharky Boshaw for enough of a pop culture education to know what MCR stands for.

[midnightroads]

He tilts his head to one side, considering her for a moment.

“You know, getting decapitated made me realize I need to be tougher, sharper, more decisive even when it breaks me to do so. I’m used to being able to solve all my problems by being kind, even when that kindness has thorns.” He pauses and then turns back toward the door. “I’m fucked up over the idea of becoming more like you.”

[skaikru]

...ouch?

That's an assessment of her character that's probably supposed to hurt. But it's more like a blunted knife digging at scar tissue than anything sharp and lancing. Something in Clarke's guts twist, but she doesn't wince — not that Bash would have seen it anyways, as he turned to leave. She swallows down the kneejerk you don't even know me, and the deeper, unkind and simple good luck. And just watches him leave.

Then sits back in her chair — leg tapping, fingers thrumming, chest tight; a lot of energy all of a sudden, and in need of a productive outlet. What could possibly have been a prime opportunity for soul searching feels more like furthering her own condemnation as a person and is thus cut short. Five minutes after Bash leaves, Clarke follows suit.