fandomtownies | Groovy Tunes, Tuesday

Entry tags:

Groovy Tunes, Tuesday

Raven had the door propped open in an attempt to keep the whole store from being overrun with cookies every time a customer came in.

Also, it seemed like a pretty nice day and Raven had spent the weekend pretending to be very small and now felt the need to make everything feel open and expansive.

She was sprawled out behind the checkout counter, eating festively frosted cookies, and avoiding thinking too hard about what her double apparently had gotten up to over the weekend.

The stereo was, as usual, extremely unhelpful.

Kick out the gloom
Kick out the blues
Tear out the pages with all the bad news
Pull down the mirrors and pull down the walls
Tear up the stairs and tear up the floors
Oh just burn down the house!
Burn down the street!
Turn everything red and the dream is complete
With the sound of your world
Going up in the fire
It's a perfect day to throw back your head
And kiss it all goodbye!

"You think you're funny," Raven said. "But you're not."

[open! icon is for the expression, Raven is currently blue]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It was a totally normal day and a totally normal roomie thing to do is surprise your bestie at work with lunch. Lunch being a truly ridiculous number of Hot Pockets, also super normal, check.

"I come bearing lunch!" Kathy declared, swanning through the door. Cookies followed in after her. "And cookies that are totally not floor-cookies!"

Raven raised her eyebrows. "And just how many people are you expecting for lunch?"

That was a hell of a lot of hot pockets.

"I..." Kathy looked sheepish. "Some of them are for me?"

And the rest were for the army that Raven had hidden in the back room?

"I just thought you might be hungry."

"Uh huh," Raven said, frowning. "What'd you do?"

She'd met Kathy. Kathy went overboard on feeding people when she was feeling conflicted or out of sorts -- or guilty.

Kathy's eyes immediately dropped to the floor, followed immediately by her plastered-on smile. "I..." She set the tray on the counter to start wringing her hands. "It's about the fight. On Sunday. With the other Fandom people."

"You went to fight?" Raven had slept through Monday's radio broadcast. "Kathy, that's great!"

GOD RAVEN READ THE ROOM.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "It really wasn't. Because when we got to the cave to fight the cultists, the one I ended up fighting--" She swallowed convulsively and the following "was you" came out in barely a whisper.

Raven tilted her head with a fond sigh. "Kathy. Are you feeling guilty for beating me up?"

Kathy nodded, then shook her head, then let go of her hands long enough to seesaw one of them. "I did...worse than beat you up," she whispered, hoarsely.

Raven shook her head. "You did -- oh."

She had no idea how she felt about that.

Kathy just hunched over further, unable to meet Raven's eyes. Her own burned with unshed tears that she refused to let fall. That would be unfair, making Raven feel bad for her by crying when she was at fault.

That incredibly healthy thought process courtesy of Mr. Li.

Edited 2017-12-20 02:19 (UTC)

"I guess it's kind of fair," Raven said slowly. "I mean, after I killed your family. . . ."

Ah, gallows humor.

Not helping Raven!

"I didn't do it...not out of some twisted vengeance...I..."

Look, you broke her.

"I guess the other me deserved it," Raven said. Sorry, Kathy, she was processing out loud. "Hardison said she wanted to destroy the world. Hell, the other you just about had a heart attack just looking at me."

Edited 2017-12-20 05:55 (UTC)

"The other me was one lollipop short of a guild," Kathy muttered. She probably wasn't ever going to be fond of that girl, no.

"It isn't a matter of deserve or not. I don't care what that you did or didn't do. I don't kill! That's been my one rule from the beginning! And not only do I break that rule, an alternate reality version of my best friend is my first victim!"

“Right,” Raven said. “And killing is definitely always bad. Even when it’s someone trying to end everything.”

Wait, why was she arguing that it was okay Kathy killed her?

Kathy wasn't sure! It definitely seemed like a poor plan though.

"Yes!" Kathy said, exasperated. "Killing should be the very last resort, when you've exhausted all other options! And I didn't. What if it had been brainwashed you, instead? Sparkle was there and a couple other people from town! What if it had been you?"

"It wasn't," Raven reminded her. "It was some extra-creepy evil version of me. I bet the brainwashed people weren't extra creepy and evil."

"I don't know," Kathy said. "I didn't really interact with any of them." Instead she'd beelined over to Raven, hoping--what? Just seeing her would make Raven suddenly recognize the error of her ways?

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know it wasn't you, but I'm still so sorry. I love you and I hate that I..."

"Yeah," Raven said. She wasn't super into that part, either. "You know, the other you spent the weekend calling me Sarah."

Well, there was a punch in the gut. Kathy made a noise like a gasping fish for a second. "...Why?"

Raven shrugged. "Because she was terrified of the other me," she said. "But part of her still knew we were basically sisters."

"But how did she know Sarah's name?" Kathy asked.

She didn't think Raven would use it deliberately. That was just a bit too far and too much for Kathy to be okay with. She absolutely did think of Raven as a sister--just not that one.

"Terrified?"

"She had it written on her," Raven said. "With all the other important stuff. And yeah. It's probably a good thing you killed her; apparently she was really awful."

As Hyacinthe and Ada could attest.

"It's not a good thing," Kathy said, sharper than she meant to. But her heart was breaking at the idea of her writing Sarah's name on her arm with no idea why it was important, just that it was. "She needed to be stopped, but not like that. It was an ugly death and--I'm sorry, I don't care how awful she was, I just can't bring myself to ever think of a version of you dying as a good thing. I can't."

Even if she could logically see where it might be true, this was Raven.

"What -- what was she like?" Raven asked. "Hardison only talked to her for a couple minutes, and the other you was -- well."

"Strong," Kathy admitted, rubbing at her cheek. It was still a little swollen, but not broken, thank goodness. "Uhh, violent."

She looked away. "Cruel. Said we were just food to be devoured, but she could have just been monologuing, you know?" And then she shivered, remember how close she'd been to having her guts on the floor with Raven's kick. "Dangerous. That's why I zapped her. Because I couldn't win the fight. And then I kept going because I was scared to let her up if she were faking."

"She probably would have," Raven said, biting her lip. It wasn't super nice to hear about how nasty a version of her had gotten. (Especially knowing how nasty some people might think she'd been, back in Kathy's world.) "If she was that determined to destroy everything."

"So, I just kept using the Materia on her," Kathy said quietly. "Until she collapsed. Bleeding. Like I said." Kathy blew her bangs up out of her face. "Cruel and ugly."

Her. Not Raven.

"But . . . I'm not sure what else you think you should have done."

"Stopped!" Kathy cried. "I should have stopped."

"And then if she was faking, she might have killed you." Raven shook her head. "I'd rather her dead than you."

"Well yeah, but I'd be happier neither of us dead at all," Kathy said. "I just... maybe it's more selfish than anything else, I just never wanted that on my hands." She looked down at her wrist. "More than I already have."

“Of course you didn’t want to. That doesn’t mean you didn’t have to.”

"That's the thing," Kathy said. "I'm not sure I had to. I keep thinking there was something else I could have done. I should have found another way. But it all happened so fast and then it was just--done. Over. Raven was on the ground and a brain-breaking tentacle was coming up from the floor and..."

She shook her head. "And even if you're right and it had to be done, I don't know if it's better or worse that I was the one who did it."

"She'd still be dead," Raven said. "I'm not sure if it matters that much who did it."

"Yeah," Kathy said, a little miserable. "Still, I just wanted to--tell you? I guess? I don't know. I know I'm making it weird and I'm sorry, I'm just--ugh. It's dumb and I feel bad, like I failed at being your friend."

"That's pretty dumb," Raven said, smiling slightly. "You're the one who taught me how to be a friend in the first place."

She'd had friends before Kathy, but not friends, if that made sense.

It made sense and now Kathy was leaning over the counter to drag Raven into a clingy, squeezy hug. "Yeah, but you took to those lessons amazingly. I love you, Raven. So much."

"I love you, too," Raven said, hugging back. "There's no one I'd rather have kill me if I go evil."

"If you go evil, I'll be the person leading the charge to find a way to make you come back," Kathy swore. "I'll find some way to make sure you don't hurt anybody while I am tearing up the multiverse finding ways to bring you back to yourself."

"Well then, I promise to let you know first thing if I decide I need to destroy the world."

That was the evil part of the evil Raven, after all. Just wanting to kill things wasn't bad at all.

Right?

If there was one thing Kathy could agree with her other self about, it was that wanting something didn't make you bad, it was how you acted on those wants. Raven had murderous impulses. Sometimes she straight-up wished that she could kill people. But she didn't and that was what counted.

"And who knows?" Kathy said. "Maybe if you make a good enough case for it, I'll help."

. . . Okay, but what if she sometimes did act on them?

"Ah, so that's where my clone fell down. She wasn't persuasive enough."

When was the last time she had, though?

"Exactly," Kathy said, nodding. "She didn't even try an appeal to emotion or her audience. I'm disappointed."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Groovy Tunes, Tuesday

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject