![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_longshot posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsArthur monologues in the boys' bathroom until he's joined by Haller, and together they discuss the challenges of maintaining their disguises and the ethical implications of inhabiting borrowed lives.
The boys' bathroom smelled like adolescence — burnt Axe Phoenix, stale mop water, and the ghost of Marlboro Lights smuggled in under hoodie sleeves. A crushed Mountain Dew LiveWire bottle sat abandoned in the corner. The flickering fluorescent above the sink cast shadows like prison bars over Arthur’s face — or, rather, over this universe's version. He’d tried not to look in the mirror.
Really, he had.
But the hoodie’s drawstrings itched like a noose, and the eyeliner was starting to smear under his left eye like a single, ironic tear.
He needed to see how bad it was. The mirror was cracked in three places. A sharpie’d scrawl near the soap dispenser read "THE VOID SEES U", with a little broken heart. Inkstains on his fingertips indicated that Arthur was the author.
He leaned in, forearms on the sink, and stared at his reflection. The hood was up. Naturally. His hair hung in sad, emo curtains, and he looked like he was about to drop a mixtape.
"There you are,” he murmured, voice softer than usual. Secretive. "Edge Incarnate."
No one answered.
"You’re a walking Hot Topic clearance rack with a tragic backstory and a notebook full of eldritch poetry, aren’t you? Hoodie of Shadows. Boots of Alienation. I like the studded bracelets."
He touched the glass. His throat tightened.
"I don’t want to control you. That’s the truth. Not even a little.”
Arthur straightened, brushing the hoodie flat with careful hands. He stepped back, adjusted the eyeliner just enough to preserve the vibe.
"I’ll keep your seat warm. That’s all."
The rusted swing of the bathroom door interrupted his monologue, and the dark teen turned with a perfectly practiced dour expression.
"Um, hey. You've been in here a while. Are you okay?"
The boy who'd entered was a mirror opposite in caste and color scheme. Bright letterman jacket, dark hair neatly clipped and styled, the image of the stereotypical jock. As the door swung closed behind him, Jim set his hand against the wall and tapped twice.
Arthur didn't turn. He tilted his head just enough to catch the jock in his peripheral vision – slow, deliberate, owl-like. An incongruous smile, complete tonal whiplash, might have flickered across his face. Hard to tell beneath the mop of poorly dyed black hair that fell in an uneven fringe over the teen's face. It was gone in a blink, if it even existed.
"Okay?" He echoed, voice thin and grave. "No one's truly been okay since the Pep Rally Incident of '99. They still whisper about it."
Despite the lack of return signal the tension eased from Jim's shoulders. In this world he couldn't even rely on what little psychic sensitivity he had, but just that little hint was enough to confirm who he was dealing with.
"I hope that's you moving on to improv. I signed on for a science problem, not the consequence of paving over a mass grave." Then, because his inner teenaged girl couldn't help herself, Jim added, "You might've gone a little heavy on the eyeliner."
This earned a genuine laugh. The dour mask shattered completely.
"Please," Arthur said, sweeping a hand over his smudged eyeliner like a trophy. “Lonershot here has got a beautiful soul. You should read his poetry — heartbreak tangled with eldritch metaphors. He’s just trying to find himself. But honestly? You’re gloriously terrible at this.”
He circled Haller once, sizing him up.
"The entrance? The pause? 'Are you okay?' That’s not jock concern — that’s guidance counselor vibes. You’re meant to nudge me and say, 'Writing vampire poems again, freak?'"
He stopped, locking eyes with Jim.
"And the walk. Too stiff. No slouch, no swagger. You’re carrying yourself like a math problem to be solved. Loosen up. Less PhD, more golden boy. Though, the jacket’s good — solid Varsity Blues energy."
Frowning, Jim tried to adjust his posture. This succeeded only in making him look like someone who had been told to relax.
"You'd think it'd be easier for me of all people to pretend to be someone else," he muttered, making a face. "I'm thinking too much. Stereotypes are just a form of schemata we use to filter the world. That's useful shorthand in media, I guess, but real people aren't like that. This kid isn't necessarily arrogant just because he's a jock. If I make that assumption and I'm wrong it might damage his relationships. I don't want to mess up his life."
Arthur’s flash of dry amusement dimmed into something quieter, more still.
"You’re not wrong," he said, voice low with a gentler weight. "These kids don’t get a vote. We’re borrowing their faces. Their lives. That matters — good on you for feeling it."
He glanced past Jim, toward the door, then back again.
"But we’re already in the scene, Jim. And if you think you can mess this kid up . . . that means you can shape something better, too."
It was a relief that the preferred hairstyle of Arthur's alternate was "protective"; the less Jim could see of the teen's face, the less surreal it was to hear Arthur's words coming from it.
"This kid doesn't need anything from me. That's why I agreed, I guess. He's got some family issues, but otherwise his life is great. Normal. Never lost anyone. Never killed anyone. What a novelty." Glancing down, the counselor briefly rested a hand against the letter embroidered on his jacket. "'First, do no harm,'" he said. "It doesn't actually mean don't hurt anyone -- it means don't actively make the situation worse. That's what we're doing here. Slow the damage until we can find the source of the bleeding." Jim looked up, smiling crookedly. "Fortunately, if there's one thing David can do, it's take up space. I'm an expert at existing until someone more interesting takes the wheel."
Arthur's grin turned lopsided.
"Jim, pretty sure we got the casting backward here. You would dazzle as the brooding goth. Here —" He rummaged through the many dramatic pockets of his alt’s black trench coat and produced the aforementioned Sharpie. "Go write something bleak on the walls. I’ll run distraction."
Then, quieter:
"Besides, you’re not gonna wreck this David in one day. Most of us take longer to break than we think."
The telepath studied Arthur's face for a long moment. Then, softly, he laughed. "See, this is why you're the actor. I'm definitely too in my head about this. But if you need a nihilism translator . . ."
Accepting the marker, Jim turned to the mirror and tried to remember being eighteen. What would have been the last thing he wanted to hear at that age?
Jim pressed the sharpie to the glass and scrawled:
WHAT IF THIS IS AS GOOD AS IT GETS?
"You need to ground the concept," he said, turning back to Arthur. "After all, what's scarier: the void, or the grim inevitability of peaking in high school?"
Arthur read the words once, twice, and let out a low whistle. "Wow. Bleak and legible. I’d frame it if we were actually here."
He pulled the Sharpie back from Jim, uncapped it with a dramatic flourish, and scrawled directly underneath:
THEN MAKE IT WORTH REMEMBERING.
He capped the marker, stuck it behind his ear, and met Jim’s eyes in the mirror.
"Worst-case? Yeah, they do peak here," he said, quieter. "Assuming the science project doesn’t end the world first.”
Then the grin again, sharp and bright.
“We, on the other hand, get the void of being forty-something. Now —" he gestured toward the eyeliner smudge beneath his left eye — "you said something about makeup critique?"
The boys' bathroom smelled like adolescence — burnt Axe Phoenix, stale mop water, and the ghost of Marlboro Lights smuggled in under hoodie sleeves. A crushed Mountain Dew LiveWire bottle sat abandoned in the corner. The flickering fluorescent above the sink cast shadows like prison bars over Arthur’s face — or, rather, over this universe's version. He’d tried not to look in the mirror.
Really, he had.
But the hoodie’s drawstrings itched like a noose, and the eyeliner was starting to smear under his left eye like a single, ironic tear.
He needed to see how bad it was. The mirror was cracked in three places. A sharpie’d scrawl near the soap dispenser read "THE VOID SEES U", with a little broken heart. Inkstains on his fingertips indicated that Arthur was the author.
He leaned in, forearms on the sink, and stared at his reflection. The hood was up. Naturally. His hair hung in sad, emo curtains, and he looked like he was about to drop a mixtape.
"There you are,” he murmured, voice softer than usual. Secretive. "Edge Incarnate."
No one answered.
"You’re a walking Hot Topic clearance rack with a tragic backstory and a notebook full of eldritch poetry, aren’t you? Hoodie of Shadows. Boots of Alienation. I like the studded bracelets."
He touched the glass. His throat tightened.
"I don’t want to control you. That’s the truth. Not even a little.”
Arthur straightened, brushing the hoodie flat with careful hands. He stepped back, adjusted the eyeliner just enough to preserve the vibe.
"I’ll keep your seat warm. That’s all."
The rusted swing of the bathroom door interrupted his monologue, and the dark teen turned with a perfectly practiced dour expression.
"Um, hey. You've been in here a while. Are you okay?"
The boy who'd entered was a mirror opposite in caste and color scheme. Bright letterman jacket, dark hair neatly clipped and styled, the image of the stereotypical jock. As the door swung closed behind him, Jim set his hand against the wall and tapped twice.
Arthur didn't turn. He tilted his head just enough to catch the jock in his peripheral vision – slow, deliberate, owl-like. An incongruous smile, complete tonal whiplash, might have flickered across his face. Hard to tell beneath the mop of poorly dyed black hair that fell in an uneven fringe over the teen's face. It was gone in a blink, if it even existed.
"Okay?" He echoed, voice thin and grave. "No one's truly been okay since the Pep Rally Incident of '99. They still whisper about it."
Despite the lack of return signal the tension eased from Jim's shoulders. In this world he couldn't even rely on what little psychic sensitivity he had, but just that little hint was enough to confirm who he was dealing with.
"I hope that's you moving on to improv. I signed on for a science problem, not the consequence of paving over a mass grave." Then, because his inner teenaged girl couldn't help herself, Jim added, "You might've gone a little heavy on the eyeliner."
This earned a genuine laugh. The dour mask shattered completely.
"Please," Arthur said, sweeping a hand over his smudged eyeliner like a trophy. “Lonershot here has got a beautiful soul. You should read his poetry — heartbreak tangled with eldritch metaphors. He’s just trying to find himself. But honestly? You’re gloriously terrible at this.”
He circled Haller once, sizing him up.
"The entrance? The pause? 'Are you okay?' That’s not jock concern — that’s guidance counselor vibes. You’re meant to nudge me and say, 'Writing vampire poems again, freak?'"
He stopped, locking eyes with Jim.
"And the walk. Too stiff. No slouch, no swagger. You’re carrying yourself like a math problem to be solved. Loosen up. Less PhD, more golden boy. Though, the jacket’s good — solid Varsity Blues energy."
Frowning, Jim tried to adjust his posture. This succeeded only in making him look like someone who had been told to relax.
"You'd think it'd be easier for me of all people to pretend to be someone else," he muttered, making a face. "I'm thinking too much. Stereotypes are just a form of schemata we use to filter the world. That's useful shorthand in media, I guess, but real people aren't like that. This kid isn't necessarily arrogant just because he's a jock. If I make that assumption and I'm wrong it might damage his relationships. I don't want to mess up his life."
Arthur’s flash of dry amusement dimmed into something quieter, more still.
"You’re not wrong," he said, voice low with a gentler weight. "These kids don’t get a vote. We’re borrowing their faces. Their lives. That matters — good on you for feeling it."
He glanced past Jim, toward the door, then back again.
"But we’re already in the scene, Jim. And if you think you can mess this kid up . . . that means you can shape something better, too."
It was a relief that the preferred hairstyle of Arthur's alternate was "protective"; the less Jim could see of the teen's face, the less surreal it was to hear Arthur's words coming from it.
"This kid doesn't need anything from me. That's why I agreed, I guess. He's got some family issues, but otherwise his life is great. Normal. Never lost anyone. Never killed anyone. What a novelty." Glancing down, the counselor briefly rested a hand against the letter embroidered on his jacket. "'First, do no harm,'" he said. "It doesn't actually mean don't hurt anyone -- it means don't actively make the situation worse. That's what we're doing here. Slow the damage until we can find the source of the bleeding." Jim looked up, smiling crookedly. "Fortunately, if there's one thing David can do, it's take up space. I'm an expert at existing until someone more interesting takes the wheel."
Arthur's grin turned lopsided.
"Jim, pretty sure we got the casting backward here. You would dazzle as the brooding goth. Here —" He rummaged through the many dramatic pockets of his alt’s black trench coat and produced the aforementioned Sharpie. "Go write something bleak on the walls. I’ll run distraction."
Then, quieter:
"Besides, you’re not gonna wreck this David in one day. Most of us take longer to break than we think."
The telepath studied Arthur's face for a long moment. Then, softly, he laughed. "See, this is why you're the actor. I'm definitely too in my head about this. But if you need a nihilism translator . . ."
Accepting the marker, Jim turned to the mirror and tried to remember being eighteen. What would have been the last thing he wanted to hear at that age?
Jim pressed the sharpie to the glass and scrawled:
WHAT IF THIS IS AS GOOD AS IT GETS?
"You need to ground the concept," he said, turning back to Arthur. "After all, what's scarier: the void, or the grim inevitability of peaking in high school?"
Arthur read the words once, twice, and let out a low whistle. "Wow. Bleak and legible. I’d frame it if we were actually here."
He pulled the Sharpie back from Jim, uncapped it with a dramatic flourish, and scrawled directly underneath:
THEN MAKE IT WORTH REMEMBERING.
He capped the marker, stuck it behind his ear, and met Jim’s eyes in the mirror.
"Worst-case? Yeah, they do peak here," he said, quieter. "Assuming the science project doesn’t end the world first.”
Then the grin again, sharp and bright.
“We, on the other hand, get the void of being forty-something. Now —" he gestured toward the eyeliner smudge beneath his left eye — "you said something about makeup critique?"
