first blueprint

[takeitsleazy]

[he'd had plenty of advance notice about the moon: first from Merlin, then from Hades, and then, the previous evening, from that strange little bird. he didn't know what to expect, but whatever it was, he knew that whatever gave him his power - and his guess was his Eternal nature - was going to be weakened even more than it already had been.

he had to prepare.

so he'd spent part of his first paycheck on something very, very important. a hoodie. on a whim, he'd also grabbed a few other things: some snacks, a few books, and a box of paper clips.

he manages to make it home to his apartment before the sun starts to set, and feels pretty positive and confident about this whole thing. he lines the books up on the coffee table, and puts the snacks which require refridgeration in the kitchen. but as the sun sinks, so does his mood. suddenly, everything starts to look daunting. strange. larger, somehow. something inside him begins to wind up into knots, turning and churning, creating sea changes. what's happening? he doesn't know. but he's --

-- oh. frightened. great. he tries to pace it away, but that only makes the knots worse. soon his stomach hurts, and even glancing at the junk food is a bad idea. he retreats to the bathroom, where he shucks off his suit coat and dress shirt, pulling on the hoodie to stare at himself in the mirror. He tries to will even just his eyes to look the way they really do. Nothing. Not even a faint glimmer. Just ice blue and floating black, wide and human and scared.

Michael pulls the strings tight on the hood, making its tiny little round black ears stand up, and retreats back to the couch, falling over on it sideways. His 3M slides out of the pocket of his pants, and he stands it up against a few of the books to look into it]

[just. staring. congratulations. he's on a couch full of emotion.]

Comments

[bigbadrose]

"Adopted. You're generally protective of her, she's always your backup, and let me ask you this. Remember how she made Derek with windchime--" Rose devolved into giggles again, that was never going to get old. "You know..." All the giggles, but she tried to breathe. "I once created a paradox that nearly destroyed the multiverse, and would have, but both the Doctor and my Dad sacrificed themselves to stop it. My Dad said he couldn't be there to take me to ball games or picnics or movies or watch me graduate or get bronze in gymnastics, but he was my Dad, so it was his job to fix any of my mistakes, yeah?"

A nod.

"Right yeah, think they come from the same origin. Word-wise."

[takeitsleazy]

"So you're saying I helped her get rid of Derek for the same reason. ... I can follow that. But she's not my child, she's just my friend. And friends can do that kind of thing, too, can't they? I mean ... I tried to sacrifice myself for Eleanor and I know I'm not her father. Adopted or otherwise. We're just ... friends. Also, what do sex and carpets have to do with -- you know what, I don't want to know."

[bigbadrose]

Rose thinks about it. "Maybe. It's different. Fathers and daughters and friends though." How to pinpoint it? Rose really couldn't. Her father rescued her even after turning his back on her once, rescued her multiple times, took her in as his own, gave her a job, home, life, tried to help her repeatedly even when she didn't deserve it. It was confusing and complicated. "Your friendship with Eleanor and Janet is different too, yeah?"

Rose shook her head. "But see, it does faze you that Janet got weirdly corrupted with Jason, and not that Eleanor has... err sexual relations, yeah?? That's a more father-daughter-y thing. Although the Doctor would definitely be weirded out by the TARDIS getting married or having a rebound fling too," Rose nodded.

[takeitsleazy]

"Eleanor's history doesn't bother me because it's her history," he clarified. "She was already an Arizona trashbag - her words, by the way, not mine - when I met her. Janet ... how do I explain this. Ah. Would you marry a smartphone?"

[bigbadrose]

"I fused my heart and soul with the TARDIS," Rose answered blandly, but quirked her eyebrows in deep amusement. "So only Eleanor's history doesn't bother you? What if she was here and decided to snog or shag the Doctor now? You originally didn't think her getting it on with Jack would be weird, but was that only because you weren't thinking of how it relates to you??"

[takeitsleazy]

He shifted uncomfortably, feeling some new, fresh knot of hell start to tie itself together beneath his ribs. "I don't like to think about anyone kissing or screwing anyone, Rose. It's all very ... foreign and disturbing to me. I mean - look at kissing. You mash your food holes together. Gross."

There's some other layer to this, something he isn't completely aware of, something he isn't sure he wants to unearth. You know: the part that Rose probably had pegged by the third or fourth time he talked about her. How fond he is of her. How protective.

[bigbadrose]

Oh definitely. And being Rose, she wanted to dig it all up and make a mess of it. Especially because it was similar to her and the Doctor and equally why the Doctor tended to repress his feelings about Rose and et cetera.

"Spoken like someone who's never been kissed," Rose smirked darkly at him. "We use our mouths to talk and whistle too, of course they're used for pleasure. And snogging."

A beat... and luckily for Michael, Rose unfortunately derailed her own thoughts. "Although the Doctor can taste chemical composition with his tongue, so he's always licking wood and blood and things, I have no idea if he snogs. He once flirted with a treeperson by breathing heavily on her. Weird, right?"

[takeitsleazy]

"He can taste it? Now that's interesting. I wonder how that works. I'll have to ask him about it sometime. Do you think he can still do it here, or do you think he lost it, the way I lost my other dimensions?"

He reaches out and brushes his fingers over the tips of the crayons in their box, laid out like waxy stadium seating, enjoying the feel of it, but knowing there should be more to the experience.

"All these colors ... They're great, but there are so many you can't see..."

[bigbadrose]

"No idea. You'd have better luck asking him. He tends to downplay anything out of his control like that."

She hummed quietly watching him with the crayons. "Tell me about them?"

[takeitsleazy]

That was an interesting little insight into how his other roommate's mind worked, and Michael filed it away for later contemplation. He sat up, then shifted on the couch, stretching back against the cushions and putting his long legs up on the table, one arm draped across the back of the couch. He had no idea that someone might interpret it as an invitation to come snuggle, too lost in thought as he stared up at the ceiling, recreating the lost palette in his mind.

"The best thing is, they're concepts at the same time that they're colors. Instead of red, orange, yellow, et cetera, you've got anger, confusion, joy, envy, sorrow, pride, and vulnerability..."

[bigbadrose]

Yeah, Rose is already there, oops.

"Vulnerability?" she makes a face. Clearly the worst color ever. "What is that, like a really terrible lavender?" A quiet hum. "How does determination taste? Crowley said it wouldn't make a good candy. Originally I was thinking of these super exotic rare flowers that are said to have a sort of orgasmic scent, but when I was trying to think of how to recreate it, he brought up the Doctor and that threw me way off."

[takeitsleazy]

He thinks about it a little. His favorite color is closest to blue in the way chai is like cocoa: they share similar enough traits to justify the comparison, but it's still a really awful one. It's all he's got though.

"More like..." He takes her wrist and turns it over, pointing to the hollow of her wrist where the pink of skin meets the bruised color of veins. "...that but really, really not. I'd say pink is the most basic component if I really had to pin it down."

He lets go of her and closes his eyes briefly, calling up the taste of determination. "As for determination, it's salty, and kind of umami ... like tinfoil without that weird feeling you get when you bite it. And Rose? I don't know if you've noticed, but you're like Pavlov's dog when it comes to You. Know. Who."

A pointed look. He's got your number, gurl.

[bigbadrose]

"Eugh," she instantly makes a face and reacts to the color of vulnerability. "That's even worse than I thought."

She likes the idea of determination's taste, but as for the reacting like Pavlov's dog to the Doctor...

She just lightly punches Michael's arm, since she remembers that he's human now and more fragile, especially with the new moon. "I am not!!!" A very annoyed huff. "I shut down the conversation entirely, because he thought I would want to have a sweet to tempt the Doctor with and make him all--" a face scrunch, and her cheek twitched in pure irritation, as she faltered with words to describe it. Randy. Susceptible. "Weaker to suggestion, and the very idea of it..." she growled low and dangerous, hair on the back of her neck standing on end like an angry wolf with raised hackles, "I would never do that to anyone," she growled more darkly than ever. "But especially not him."

[takeitsleazy]

Michael, the picture of a supportive friend, giggled. "He tried to sell you aphrodisiac candy? For the Doctor?! Ahah-" The giggles doubled him over, overwhelming him. Normally it would have just been one little burble of glee and he would have been over it, but everything was amped up to eleven. Twelve, even, as it were. When he finally sat up straight, his face was red and a tear smeared his cheek. He wiped it away with the side of his hand.

"I'm sorry, I just... I tried to picture him all ... ehehehe...whoooh." He waved a hand in front of his face. "But no, no, you're right, that's just ethically all kinds of wrong. And ridiculous. Not to mention how mad he'd probably be when it wore off. He's even bigger on the free will thing than some humans I've met."

[bigbadrose]

Rose blushed furiously and hid her face in both hands, but slowly Michael's laughter wore her down and she grinned back, and even laughed softly. "Blimey... yeah. It's..." The Doctor's fierce dedication to free will was why she loved him. So there was that. "I think he, Crowley, just didn't completely understand what I was sayin'.... but yeah. He was like, 'oh everyone uses aids, girls wear makeup, guys dress fancy...'" she shuddered and huffed leaning back. "But I know what flavor I am," she picked up another crayon to continue coloring. "If the Doctor doesn't like it, that's his loss, not mine." She wondered if that was as true as she said it was. She doodled in circles making flower gardens on the paper.

"Blimey, I didn't even tell him I loved him until we were separated because--" she bit her cheek. Hard. It would probably just confuse Michael, and it was embarrassing anyway! She sighed and finished the thought all the same, pushing her hair back with one hand, "I didn't want him to feel like he had to be something more to me just to keep me around."

Her crayon snapped in half and Rose cursed in an alien language, copying the Doctor when he cut himself shaving. "And it's all like that again now, but even worse, because he's twice as old, and he still remembers me and wants me around, but--" Rose shrugged, rolled her shoulders, and neck, and then laughed, using the crinkle of her own eyes to block out and stop any tears. "What color would all this be then?"

[takeitsleazy]

"Hot Mess?" He said it without a trace of malice: to the contrary, a smidge of fondness. He'd seen it on Eleanor and Chidi, even on Janet once or twice. Smears of bright color that burned your eyes and smelled like every cheap perfume and cologne ever created, spots of prismatic joy and slashes of deep, colorless pain all swirling together. "Neon pink and orange. Like cotton candy vomit. But I gotta ask, Rose: what's with you two and age? It almost sounds like it bothers him more than you, and that makes no sense. He's an eternal being, practically. Time shouldn't mean a damn thing. You're like the dot on the I."

[bigbadrose]

"Cotton candy vomit..." a giggle and she shook her head, "Lovely."

A snort. "It definitely bothers him, not me." She doodled a Jeremy Beremy and made the dot on the I a rose again, "I am the dot on the I!" Highly pleased. And she has to forcefully squash the urge to kiss Michael. Seriously. Her self control has been getting an interesting workout since arriving here. "But I'm not eternal. You didn't meet Eleanor until she was dead, even if you got to read up her file and all that and memorize her inside out -- which is a little creepy not gonna lie," Rose colored in the loops of Jeremy Bearimy with bear ears on the Bear part and cute paws, but also some rose thorns around the Rs. "But to him..."

It frustrated her to no end. Worse than hot mess. More tangerine and red and angry. So angry.

She let go of the anger though, calmly coloring with her tongue out the side, making sure she didn't snap any more crayons.

"I've seen him die hundreds of times. But from his perspective, I can only die, only really die once. And losing me the different ways he has pretty much breaks him." Color, color, color.

Rose put down the crayon and took both of Michael's hands in her own. "It's hard to sacrifice yourself to save someone, but it's a lot easier than letting them sacrifice themselves to save you."

She dropped his hands and looked away, cheeks pink, and finally picked up a crayon and colored again. "He knows I'm in love with him. That I chose him over my family. Over a life without him. I don't think he's ever going to be okay with that." She tried hard not to cry, even if her eyes were brimming. She gently colored over the rose dot in the eye, just faintly adding pink filter and background. "He said once I could spend the rest of my life with him, but he can't spend his with me. Because he'll have to carry on after that. And I think that's just too painful for him."

[takeitsleazy]

Something about what she was saying pulled at the end of that knot, unfurling a piece of it, just enough to make him aware it was there.

... it's a lot easier than letting them sacrifice themselves to save you ...

How much might he have hurt Eleanor, when he'd tried to sacrifice himself? He'd never know. He'd snapped it away from her, maybe twice gone, now. He'd never know if it meant anything to the human who was... coming to mean an inordinate amount to him. He wasn't sure what hurt more, the thought that he might have hurt her by helping, or the thought that he'd never know if he did. He had more in common with Rose than she probably realized. Even if the four of them got to the Good Place, there were no guarantees for him. And that was okay. But at the same time... it wasn't. He knew that the real hell afterward wouldn't be the ladles, or the suns, or whatever Shawn ended up putting him through. It would be them, out there, happy without him, and him missing them like the wings he hadn't stretched in centuries.

"I think I know where you're both coming from," he said softly, ducking his head to retreat back under his hood.

[bigbadrose]

Nope, Rose understood completely. He was eternal, like the Doctor, but when he was retired, he would cease to exist altogether. No more afterlife, unlike the humans with their Hell, which was still an existence, if not an ideal one.

Rose gently pulled Michael's head to her chest and gently hugged and shooshed him, stroking his hair soothingly. "They'll be okay."

[takeitsleazy]

He'd only been shooshed twice before, and it had been completely different: awkward pats on the shoulder or a hand rubbing his back. The hug was nice. He definitely appreciated that. But when she pushed back his hood and touched his hair, that was even better. His eyes widened for an instant, his brow crinkling with surprise.

"Whoa. That's like ... a basket of puppies."

[bigbadrose]

Rose just giggles in spite of herself. "So I guess you do like human things, a lot, you just have to experience them first. Like karaoke. I mean, if anyone explained that or bowling without you getting to do it yourself, how daft would they sound, yeah?". She hummed quietly, "Or maybe you're extra human-y right now too. Whichever."

She moved her hands to gently rub behind his ears and massage his neck, dying of curiosity what else it would do.

[takeitsleazy]

The thing about being crammed into a human suit was that there was an awful lot more under the skin than there looked like - especially around his neck and torso. What probably felt to Rose like a mass of muscle knots was, simply put, just a mass of about three times as many knots as she'd think. He sank back into her hands, eyes sliding closed with a sigh.

"Whichever," he said, dreamily. Forget portals and paperwork, this was the Good Place.

[bigbadrose]

Rose giggled some more, completely pleased with how he seemed to be enjoying it, and instinctively worked away at kneading out all the cramped demon forced into a human suit, happily humming to herself. "New moon seems kinda like a--" cycle of another kind, Rose was reminded of. "Special cycle... Yeah." But for men, now, or at least they didn't have any female monsters yet. "Remind me to get you some chocolate now or full moon." Scritch scritch scritch. "For science."

Another happy hum. "And maybe a hot pack."

[takeitsleazy]

"Chocolate for science," he mumbled, half listening. It was way too nice to just be resting there, warm, comfortable, taken care of. Cared for. It was something he hadn't ever really considered. Ever. In milennia.

"A hot pack of what?"

[bigbadrose]

Understandably. Demons aren't exactly the nurturing type notably. Rose, meanwhile, was thrilled to have a physical person with audible reactions to work on, rather than just trying to keep a dying TARDIS from falling apart and using it to skip time and charge the cannon. She looks bed the TARDIS, but it wasn't the same as a breathing person, not even close.

"Just a heat pack," Rose hummed, scritching away. "It relaxes muscles. Loosens them up. Feels good. Especially if the blood's all tight and constricted. If you want, I can go get one now, yeah?"