marceline, that's too distasteful! (ydidueatmyfries) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-04-08 22:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, marceline abadeer, neal cassidy (au) |
Who: Marceline & Neal Cassidy
What: Back in Tumbleweed
Where: Marceline's home/Neal's apartment
When: April 9th
Warnings: Discussion of nuclear weapons.
Marceline, Vampire Queen, was disappointed to wake up in her own bed. The mounted trophies on the walls, the pictures, her closet, the windows of the upperlevels boarded up, everything in her bedroom exactly as she’d last seen it on Ooo. No more cruiseship meant no more boyfriend which meant no more boyfriend’s family… Sitting up, uncertain if she was supposed to let anger or sadness win out, Marceline got out of bed and went to the bathroom. Her slumped shoulders and downcast face let defeat have this one. What else could she do? Marceline didn’t mess with magic and magic was probably the only way she was ever going to see everyone else again. She did not change out of her pajamas. The house looked alright from the outside. It was a pepto bismol pink color which Marceline had completely built herself inside a cozy little cave back on Ooo. There were no stairs from the second floor to the first, though there was a ladder for guests which led up to the opening between the floors. The first floor was mostly open and contained just a living area with some of Marceline’s instruments and amps, a sofa, and a large mounted horned skull on the wall, which were a lighter pink. The carpet was blue, while the kitchen had basic black and white floor tiles. She’d put a lot of work into the place. It was when she opened the curtains of the first floor and got a face full of sunlight that Marcy, after screaming and scrambling away to recover nearly instantly, realized she had not been returned to Ooo after all. “What the glob is happening?” Avoiding the sunlight which shot like a giant laser from the open window, Marceline flew back upstairs and looked for more clothes. Gloves to cover her hands. Knee high socks for her feet. A large hoodie for her arms and shoulders. A welders mask for her face. Attempt number two was technically successful. The sun hurt but it didn’t burn her as long as she was covered. But what she saw was worse than the sunlight. She’d seen a world like this before. Before it was Ooo, before the war, the world had looked like the one that was right outside her window. There were cars made out of … car? And buildings made out of wood and brick and none of them were candy or inhabited by little mutated people or talking dogs or any of that. Someone had placed Marceline in her house in the past? Confusion was better than defeat at least. Until she spotted her tablet from the cruise. And it was still connected to the network. And there were new posts. It was then Marcy felt horror. Curling up in the corner of her little pink house, half hidden behind an amp, Marcy sent the following messages to one Neal Cassidy: Neal. Having become accustomed to the feel of the ocean beneath him as he slept, it was impossible for Neal not to notice the sudden lack of waves rocking the ship back and forth. One moment, there'd been the gentle rock, of which he'd been more than accustomed to these past few months and previously in his history with the Jolly Roger, and then nothing. Everything was still and Neal Cassidy was in a bed he'd not slept in since January. Eyes opened with a start and he stared up at the ceiling. There was instant recognition. It was the same ceiling he'd looked up at during his time in New York as well as Tumbleweed. There was a shift, where he pushed his body up in his bed, and turned his head to gaze around the apartment. His set his feet on the floor and stood. Wearing only his boxers and a tee shirt, he padded over to the window, pulling the curtain slightly to the side. His eyes cast down and he spotted the motorcycle he'd been gifted in December. It was still parked in the same spot he'd left it in. That was a good sign. Turning, he moved for the bedside table, swiping up his phone. With the tab of a button, he lit up the screen and observed the date. It was precisely the date that he expected it to be. They hadn't lost any time it seemed. A quick message was sent out to Emma and Regina just to confirm that they'd not been lost in the transition; nor had Baelfire nor Henry. Satisfied, he set the phone down and moved through the apartment in the direction of his bathroom. Over a hour later, after he'd showered and ate some stale cereal straight out of the box, he moved to pick up his phone once again with the intention to head out into Tumbleweed. He'd heard tale of the area changing the last time the populace had disappeared and was mildly curious if that was to be the case this time. And upon picking up his phone, he noticed the flashing blue light to alert him of a message. He frowned mildly and then turned on his screen again. "What the hell, Marceline..." he muttered as he saw the notification for over a dozen messages. The frown grew and he quickly thumbed through them all, his brows coming together in concern. Once he reached the end of them, he moved his thumb up to hit the call button, as he made his way back to the window. Nothing appeared to be daunting on the horizon. He tucked the phone underneath his chin, propped up by his shoulder, and waited for her to pick up. Marceline’s phone was from Ooo. It ran on magic and looked like a blue fish crossed with a bug. It didn’t have a camera, but it could call, text and had a caller ID display its black void of an open maw. When Neal called, it slithered over to her and wrapped around her wrist, scaly and smooth like a reptile. All of her regular cockiness had evaporated. “Neal? Neal, I need you to listen to me…” When Marceline spoke, it was purposeful and slow. She tried to disguise how scared she was and instead only revealed it. “I’ve been here before, Neal. A really, really long time ago. My world used to be like this. Before it was Ooo, they called it something else. The humans don’t survive in the city, Neal. You have to tell everyone to get out. They’ll listen to you. Please, please make them listen to you. I can’t protect you from The Great Mushroom War. Whatever happened, I can’t stop that. I can only help people survive what comes after.” But the more she spoke, the more strained her voice got. “I don’t want to do this again, Neal. Please, please. Just believe me and do this please.” "Marcy," Neal spoke as soon as he heard the line connect, but there wasn't a moment following it where he could interject more, and instead shifted to lean his frame against the wall. His free hand moved the curtain once again and he kept his gaze out, though his focus was upon her and her words. A deep frown continued to set in and he shook his head lightly. "Marcy, listen to me," he said once she'd reached the end of all she had to say, with a plea and a clearly difficult time remaining calm. While he didn't know much about her world, or the war she'd spoken of, he knew that many of their fellow community had come from devastating backgrounds. It didn't surprise him to begin putting together the pieces in regards to her and to make assumptions. "We're in Tumbleweed right now. This is exactly where we thought we'd go. It's alright," he stated, though that last statement wasn't something he could confirm at present. He hadn't reached out any further to find out if there was any issues. It was possible. He hoped his statement was accurate. “Neal, humans can’t survive the mushrooms. I don’t remember much about them, I was really little. I just remember that there were bombs and they all died. Badly. Only the humans outside the cities stand a chance unless you’re a monster like me, or you have powerful magic. Please. Everything seemed okay before then. I just need you to believe me and … I can build your family a house. I can hunt. I can do all those things so please don’t stay in Tumbleweed or anywhere else. It has to be in the middle of nowhere.” Marceline’s grip on her phone was a little tighter than she intended and it started to squirm. “My mom was human and she didn’t make it, Neal. Please believe me.” He glanced down in the direction of his shoulder, at the phone, and took in a breath. Bombs. Mushrooms. He let go of the curtain and brought a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, as he turned away from the window. "That's a possibility in any world that's got nuclear weapons, Marcy," he said, with a sense of gravity. He made his way to his desk chair and flopped down in it, legs kicked out in front of him, and elbow resting on the arm. His forehead leaned against his open palm. "I can't promise you that won't happen here. I haven't had a chance to read up on the news," he commented, thinking about whether he should move over to his laptop to brush up on the past three months of general world news. He knew that nothing had seemed critical or concerning when they'd left. "But Tumbleweed is close to the desert. If something happens, there's places in the middle of nowhere to go, and quickly. More likely, though, everyone with magic will put up shields. There'd be enough time for that." Probably. "It's going to be alright," he then added, a sympathetic look crossing over his features, even though she couldn't see it. "I promise." Marcy tried to form words, but she was also trying her hardest not to sob into the phone, even while hot tears streamed down her dusk colored face. She considered what he said. Magic shields might work, but she couldn’t create them and so it was hard for her to feel confident about them. If Simon were here, maybe. But he also mentioned the desert. “Okay.” Marceline pressed her lips against the wall of her teeth since they were too sharp to chew with. “You guys all live in the same place, right? I could come get you.” He hesitated for a moment with the question before taking in a deep breath. "No, we don't." He knew that this was likely going to upset her further. "Last I knew, everyone was at Emma's." A pause. He didn't want to be dismissive of her concerns. He'd known how it made him feel, and likely Baelfire too, when people were dismissive to his warnings in the Enchanted Forest. He didn't want that to be a feeling she had to go through. "If something happens, though, you go to Emma and Regina. Got it? Emma and Regina will keep you safe." “What the Glob, Neal!” No, Marcy wasn’t pleased with that answer at all. “I don’t need anyone to keep me safe! I survived the freaking war when I was seven. I don’t need their protection, I don’t want to be left alone again!” Marceline didn’t process the words that were coming out of her mouth. Unless she put them to song, they weren’t anything she normally allowed herself to think too deeply about or express. If asked, she would have claimed she was angry with Neal, but mostly she was scared. “You go to Emma and Regina’s and let them protect you!” she shouted. An eyebrow raised at the saying she barked at him. While he'd never heard it before, he could understand the meaning conveyed through the words, and he exhaled. "Fine, fine. Then you go to them and help them protect the boys." He knew Marceline was becoming attached to their family, and it was through Baelfire, but he suspected she would do whatever she could to protect him and Henry. "But that's only if something happens. And Marcy? It most likely isn't going to happen. But trust me. Something does happen? I'm going to be at Regina and Emma's side immediately." “You better,” she said. Although she didn’t really have anything to back that up with, besides being angry with him if he didn’t. She wasn’t convinced something wasn’t going to happen. Looking outside was all the reminder she needed. She couldn’t think of anything clever or particularly threatening to say that would convince Neal any more than he already was or wasn’t. Instead she did the next best thing she could think of, which just happened to be the most dramatic thing she could think of, and hung up the phone on him. Which came with the added bonus of not having to talk or think very deeply about what she was feeling in that moment. She wanted to fight something, but there was nothing to fight. So she sat in her little pink house and stewed, not doing a single thing at all. |