video 2am

[abys_keeper]

[Keeper is standing guard-- or rather floating guard near the train station and beaming from ear to ear]

Elan! Elan, Elan!

KAZOOOOOOO!

[and he pulls it out of his bell and plays]

Comments

[trashylittlesecret]

It's not - it's not that kinda feed. Shit. Sorry, I didn't mean to get you all excited about food. Tell you what. When I teach you tomorrow we can go catch something outta the moat.

Don't you sleep?

[abys_keeper]

Oh. [he deflates, almost literally. There's even a sad kazoo noise]

I sleep but only a little because it's dangerous in the deep in the dark where anything can come and get you and there is no Aby to tuck in my bell.

[trashylittlesecret]

[the sad kazoo earns a tired chuckle]

Yeah, but this isn't the deep and the dark, bud, it's an apartment building, and if you think Scorpia's gonna let anything get in your place, you've probably got another think coming.

[tuck in? does that mean they slept together? and does THAT mean -- no. no, he's too tired to think on that, and asking would be rude.]

When I couldn't sleep at night I used to read books under my covers. Can you read?

[abys_keeper]

Scorpia sleeps at night and she doesn't come in the water. I don't know how deep the sea dark goes.

[there was a boundary but there wasn't. It was all a little hard to understand]

No! [he beams]

[trashylittlesecret]

I should see if I can find you some books on tape or something. Then you can have a stereo outside your tank and listen to 'em at night. For now, though, I really gotta get back to sleep, okay?

[abys_keeper]

Mmmmm. [he wasn't sure about that. Everyone wanted him to be in his tank at night. At night was the best time to be out and free. But he could tell that Richie really wanted his rest]

Should I sing to you?

[trashylittlesecret]

[Christ, he can't remember the last time anyone sang him to sleep. it's strange how much the request shakes him, stirs up the awareness of just how little he was actually nurtured. it feels odd to ask, and his face twists with embarrassment]

I mean.... If you wanna. Just... leave the kazoo out, yeah?

[abys_keeper]

Okay! [ he sang low, vibrating almost, a song of the deep blue and the endless night]

[trashylittlesecret]

[at first, Richie can't help but think it's a little creepy... like those things Keeper is afraid of in the endless dark and deep are going to slither out of the shadows of Eddie's living room and drag him out of his Murphy bed and back into the blackness. but then something shifts - either the sound or his perception of it - and the song becomes soothing. it could be Charm magic, he realizes, but knows Keeper wouldn't use it to harm him. they've come a long way from a hapless, tactless, curious jellymer and a paranoid, monster-shell-shocked human. now they're friends, plain and simple, and that is a magic Richie has known most of his life and will always trust. he drifts off cocooned in his blanket, smiling just a little.]