InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "WEEZY!"

ɑgɛɳt ɱѳɓiuร (jetskiing) wrote in noexits,
@ 2022-01-04 08:22:00

Entry tags:

!log/thread/narrative, marvel (tv/movies): sharon carter, ₴ inactive: mobius m. mobius 2, → week 028 (schmigadoon)

schmidagoon - day three
WHO: Sharon Carter & Mobius
WHAT: Doing some investigating around the town, talking to the school marm, awkwardly singing a song about letting the light in, and DYING A LITTLE INSIDE
WHERE: Near the schoolhouse
WHEN: Day 3
WARNINGS: No, it's just very WTF but what isn't around here
STATUS: Complete

It wasn’t very far into the week, but the fakeness about the whole town seemed cloying somehow - all of it seeped into the skin, and seemed to both smell and taste just as cloying too. Maraschino cherries and cotton candy, but underneath something sour. Bitter. Horseradish, maybe - the whole thing was just weird. But better than being spit out into a puddle of goo and unhooked from a machine that was sucking your energy, he guessed.

Even if the sun looked far too bright still, in that fake lemon candy sort of way - it shone high in the sky and the clouds were puffy (also fake, resembling cotton wool just hanging there) and probably wasn’t an actual sun, but Mobius had no idea what it really could be. Maybe asking around would help - or exploring more, which he was keen on doing since nothing, technically, was trying to kill them and they had all week.

To assimilate themselves with singing. He’d do his best to avoid that - he didn’t exactly have the music in him. Today was more of a fact-finding mission - and while he hadn’t exactly made a ton of friends here yet, he seemed to take a shine to Sharon Carter for some reason. She’d volunteered to help with the temporal research and now they were out here - research, strictly research. Because the more info they got about the various Derleth timelines, the better.

“I’d say it’s nice to get fresh air, but - who knows how real this is,” Mobius chuckled. “It’s an improvement from last week though, I guess. Do you want to see if we can question anyone?”

“I’ll take it over the PMS from hell,” Sharon agreed easily.

The werewolf situation from last week had not suited her at all. It hadn’t been the worst week - the aliens that had required silence or they would attack were certainly up there in the worst week. Being murdered by ghostly Margo and Eliot had also been up there. But this was not fun in another way. She’d avoided musical interludes a couple of times by simply leaving the room when the music had crescendo’d, and she was hoping that spending the time with a particular purpose might keep any additional music from starting up.

“I do feel a little out of place though, like I’m on a film set that I shouldn’t be on. I suppose the bright side about any of these situations is that it’s only a week - and so far,” she paused, reaching out to rap her knuckles against a wooden stand that was intended to look like a set of bushes. “So far nothing is trying to kill us, so that’s a plus. Do you think if we talk to some of the town people here that it’ll give us anything?”

That was the thing about this place - you could just reach out and touch stuff, like it was all a Backdrop to Life. Or knock the movie set down - he wondered what would happen if they attempted that, but then again, Mobius also wasn’t reckless enough to try and thus potentially endanger everyone. Not when they were all at some kind of tentative truce with the week, walking in slowly so as not to disrupt the energy flow and suddenly cause an explosion of chaos and peril.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” he said. “Maybe we could try the school? Presumably there are some educated people there?” Some might choose to go straight to the top and ask who was in charge and then request a meeting - but conducting something of an investigation by checking a few sources seemed like a better idea.

Mobius had done a lot of investigatory work, anyway - he was tasked with studying variants and learning how to be one step ahead of them, providing those coordinates to the Minutemen so they could swoop in for the pickup. This was just an analysis on a bigger, more confusing scale. “I also need as much info about this Derleth as possible, for the research,” he added, scooting past a lady walking her dog - she wore one of those bustle skirts, padded for fullness, and her smile was only a touch unnerving. Then again, what wasn’t unnerving about Derleth in general.

“Let’s start with the school,” Sharon agreed. It seemed likely that someone who was educated might be most amenable to questions generally speaking. It might irritate the people in the town generally, and if someone higher up was somehow aware of what was happening, then they might close things down or, even worse, get dangerous despite the calm appearances of things. She’d been here long enough to not quite trust anything that seemed calm.

“If whomever is there doesn’t know anything to help us, then we can figure out if there is someone else that might. Honestly, it would require a bit of time, but there’s a cafe over there and a couple of coffees and an hour spent watching people might give us the next target.”

She’d decided to wear the dress that had come with her from the 1950s, deciding that even if it was a few decades past most of the looks in the town, it would call less attention than her normal attire. Even though it didn’t really feel as if anyone seemed to notice much. “You’ve been here a few weeks, what questions do you still have?”

It at least wasn’t far to their destination - honestly, everything seemed clustered very close together in the town. A general store, the inn, that one-room schoolhouse; many of the buildings were adorned in that over-the-top kind of quaint way too, with gingerbread trim that reminded Mobius of wedding cakes for some reason. The lawn, the grass, was also bright green - an odd neon pickle shade, and there was no way it wasn’t artificial turf.

“A coffee stakeout - I like it,” he chuckled. “People watching is generally interesting anyway but here? It seems like a trainwreck.” You just couldn’t look away. Though he sort of hoped that the townspeople weren’t brainwashed - like if it was some Stepford Wives sort of thing or not; either way, he supposed maybe he and Sharon could acquire more answers through spying and good old-fashioned asking.

His suit was at least outdated enough to blend in, sort of - and the theater on campus seemed to have a selection of other period clothing. Sharon’s dress was nice, however - very retro, though from what he knew of her was liable to have multiple firearms strapped to her beneath that thing. Not that he was considering it much, because rude. “My questions mainly have to do with how we’re traveling, exactly. We know the Derleth timelines are colliding but how - is there some kind of portal at play with the reset mechanics, or what? Have other Derleth’s been to this Derleth? And so on and so on.”

“And even if you don’t learn anything useful, you’ve at least had a cup of coffee,” Sharon gave a breathy short laugh. Although who knew if the coffee was any good to the standards either of them were used to. She didn’t really know much about where Mobius came from so she couldn’t say.

She offered a demure smile to a trio of ladies, well aware that their eyes were staying on Sharon and Mobius as they walked towards the school. “A town like this is sure to have plenty of gossip,” she added softly, not looking, but staying aware of the trio as they neared the school. “Perhaps we could take advantage of that as well.”

It was clear too that Mobius had a better understanding of the idea of timelines than she did. Probably a result of the Tempad that he had access to. His questions seemed good, but unfortunately everything he was asking felt better suited to someone like Strange, maybe, or Stark. Sharon knew her areas of expertise and it wasn’t quantum physics or timelines or anything like; infiltration and disguise however, that she could invest in and maybe it would be worth doing if some of that gossip turned out to be useful.

“Most of these lie way outside of my knowledge, but could it be a combination of some sort of loop along with a portal? We’re looping - we reset at the beginning of every week to exactly how we were when we arrived - however we’re also traveling to different locations? Except for the weeks we’re in the void - which… maybe that’s the closest we get to something that’s ‘set’. That we actually return to repeatedly?”

“It’s definitely a loop,” Mobius agreed. “You know - something like how the Theory of Relativity says that warping time is possible to the point where it folds in on itself, making a time curve of sorts. Or the loop, actually. Honestly, messing with time so much to the point where you’re creating loops is something I’m all too familiar with - but I just don’t know if the mechanics of how it’s being done are like it was back home or not.” Was He Who Remains also at the helm of this bullshit?

A variant of his, perhaps? He supposedly said there were multiple out there - and all of this was hitting a little too close to home for Mobius.

“I won’t go off about all that though - the gossip part may reveal even more tidbits, stuff that I can’t science out,” he added, because anyone who discounted gossip as a way to suss out info was clearly an amateur; there were certain aspects of small town life to be taken advantage of. “So - let’s see what we can discover.”

At the schoolhouse, the head teacher (school marm?) with her navy blue dress and Peter Pan collar was carrying a stack of books toward the door. “Hi, sorry to bother you but - “

“Oh, are you new here?” so asked the school marm. “New to town, just married? Congratulations!” True Love, it was so beautiful - cue up the chirping bird sound effects.

What.

Only a decade of experience kept Sharon from blinking in surprise. From everything she could tell, there was enough age difference between her and Mobius, that she couldn’t imagine jumping to marriage, but on the other hand, she’d already observed several displays of blatant sexism, and she supposed perhaps it wasn’t so unlikely here for a younger woman to be married to an older man. Were they likely to get further if they went along with it, or should she correct? He didn’t seem so much older than her for her to claim father - brother maybe? She remembered the stares the other women had given them earlier and decided to slide somewhere in the middle.

“Oh, yes, we’re new to town, but not married. This is my Uncle,” she turned with a warm, easy smile, and reached her hand across to squeeze Mobius’ arm. “We’ve been walking about town - exploring, getting to know people - I suppose he wants to make certain it’s going to be a good place for us to settle,” she added conspiratorially as if taking the other woman into her confidence. “He’s full of questions for everyone!” She shrugged prettily as if in a what can you do but oblige them sort of way.

The chirping had slipped away - thank goodness - to be replaced by some sort of light, but sentimental tune that Sharon blatantly ignored.

“You’re not the first who have come from the outside!” the woman replied, with a titter that was as sweet as cherry pie. Mobius filed that information away for later but was also kind of dying because was he that old? He wasn’t, right? At least Sharon hadn’t gone the father route - then he’d think it’d be time to invest in a nose job after all, to finally fix this crooked thing.

“Oh, we’re not?” he continued on, casually. “You get outsiders often?”

“Sometimes!” The sentimental music was light, sweet, and had a clear sound to it. Like it should have been played in a French park right before the sun sets, or in an open field right at midnight when you were looking up at the stars and spotting the constellations. Mobius was going to do his best to ignore it, but...

The townspeople began to gather. Students, with their books and school outfits. Shit.

SCHOOL MARM: “Life’s pretty sunny, when you let the light in - “

TOWNSPEOPLE: “Let...the...light....iiiiiiiiiin - “

SCHOOL MARM: “New faces! New places! Beginning anew - a flower that grows, a moment that’s shared between me and you!”

Sharon’s smile rather visibly faltered despite herself. She’d tried to enjoy musicals sometimes as a girl, but had always found them a little too cheerful and a little too unrealistic - and not just because of the bursting into song - but because of the whole thing. In this case that thing seemed to be a town that was delighted to welcome strangers into their midst.

But she didn’t have to sing, right? There were always people in musicals who didn’t sing. That guy in The Sound of Music that always hung out at the Captain’s house, for example. Which, admittedly she wouldn’t have necessarily chosen him for her persona but she wasn’t musical literate and didn’t have a large repertoire to pick from so … it would do.

“It seems as if it’s pretty sunny here most of the time,” she said in a cheerful attempt to derail the song, or at least turn it into some sort of reprise if at all possible.

SCHOOL MARM: “It’s a little funny when you find that new friend. Reach across a barrier and invite someone in! Open a window, pull back the curtains!”

TOWNSPEOPLE: “Let...the...light....iiiiiiiiiin - “

SCHOOL MARM’S BROTHER: “Reach out a hand; you’ll find friendship for certain!”

Could they sing and help nudge the direction of the song? Mobius hadn’t even thought of that - it seemed like a good idea though. He picked up on what Sharon was doing right away and, well, in for a penny in for a pound, right? May as well do this - he wasn’t going to leave her to flail in the horror of joining in, drowning in a sea of cheer without a life vest or a buoy.

So he reached out, literally, and took the hand of the school marm’s brother (what the hell??), prepared to fully devote himself to the ridiculousness of the flash mob. “Don’t close the door, don’t shut the curtain - “

SCHOOL MARM: “We’re here for a reason, and that’s to bring joy! We shout it from the rooftops, to all the girls and boys!”

TOWNSPEOPLE: “Let...the...light....iiiiiiiiiin - “

DOG: “Bow, wow wow! Bow, wow wow!”

“Were you created?” Mobius asked, though he did it all sing-song like, just in case.

TOWNSPEOPLE, THROWING THEIR HANDS UP: “CREAAAAAAAA-TION!”

Mobius, who was for all intents and purposes not the greatest dancer, clasped Sharon’s arm and attempted to steer her away from this calamity. “Maybe we should do that stakeout now?”

Well, that had gone from bad to worse, Sharon couldn’t help but think although her lips certainly twitched at Mobius’ attempt to just join in. Influencing the song seemed to have limited success, by which she really meant none success.

She was readily pulled away, in fact it might even be possible that she was pulling him away as much as he was pulling her. The music was fading a bit, not nearly enough and so she quickly tugged them into a tiny alley between the hotel and another building that she wasn’t even sure what it was. “You know I have a better idea,” she resisted the urge to sing in the same tune as before. She was definitely not trying to bring the song to them. “How do you feel about a good strong drink straight from 1980’s New York?”

If Mobius had to slap himself to snap out of the urge to sing (though at least he didn’t feel forced, so there was that?), then so be it. But luckily they were able to just walk away without being yanked back in - even if it did seem to offend the townspeople a little. Oh well.

“Well, it was something of a conversation with the head school marm at least,” he laughed in that why is this our life kind of way. “I’m not sure if I’m comforted or not, by the fact that we’re not the first outsiders to show up here on this timeline.” Which was created for some reason - the people were created. But why? To fill space? Hopefully not for the same reason the TVA agents were ‘created...’

He just wasn’t liking the parallels here.

Maybe boozing it up would help them brainstorm. “That sounds good though, I could go for a strong drink - nineteen eighties or otherwise. Just one question though - “ Mobius paused. “...do I really look that old?”

“Well, would we call it a conversation?” Sharon laughed. She wasn’t sure they’d gotten much out of it. Although, maybe it was a little bit helpful? “I wonder if other versions of Delerth have the same problem this version does?”

It didn’t seem like maybe the last version they’d been in would have had that, but maybe their version wasn’t the only one that traveled around. She doubted that they’d get that out of the people in this town though. So it might not be a useful theory.

Her eyes widened slightly. “Oh, no! I mean, I - I was afraid married might lead to …” She waved a hand. “Awkwardness. You’re obviously my father’s much younger brother.” She made a quick face. “Sorry?”

Mobius made a face too - kind of like what, a scrunch of that crooked boxer’s nose that probably made him look even younger, but he was actually somewhat amused. “No, it’s fine - no awkwardness here,” he assured. Well, besides the fact that he was going to go through a ‘do I look old?’ crisis. Was it the hair? He didn’t know what age he’d turned silver (because he couldn’t remember) but he had to assume he’d been pretty light before in terms of coloring. Maybe he wasn’t.

“I’m sure we’ll have a chance to try for an actual conversation later - “ Now that they knew the school marm seemed to have at least some coherence. “We’ll be here for a few days still, so as long as you don’t mind teaming up with your father’s much younger brother? Could be interesting.” And they’d at least get coffee out of it. Being caffeinated seemed like one way to deal with this sheer amount of weird.

“Look it seemed an easier charade to keep up long-term than one of newlyweds,” Sharon laughed and raised her hand. “Plus no ring! We’d have to explain that, and I saw the way those women were looking at us. It seemed as if they might be considering us suspect, but now we have a reason to sit and get coffee together, and hopefully a bit more actual information and a bit less chorus from the ensemble.”

She made a face that echoed Mobius’, hoping she hadn’t made him feel too bad. But she was an independent woman! Marriage wasn’t something she particularly wanted to pretend to. She’d already done that round with Bucky in the 1950s.

“An Old Fashioned today? Coffee tomorrow morning? I’ll bring my notebook and practice my demure smile.”

“Yeah, good plan,” Mobius agreed. He just had to chuckle about it - he was easygoing by nature, and certainly not expecting Sharon to be fake married to him. He wouldn’t want anyone to be fake married to him, especially against their will - being stuck in gooey machine-ruled dystopia sounded better for some reason. “An Old Fashioned, now that’s one of my favorites. I think.”

It was actually somewhat quiet on the way back to campus, along those roads that spiraled out and twisted like a corkscrew and led to who knows where - if you went too far, you likely got turned around; there was no escape and even if there was, it would be difficult to know where to go next. Keeping it contained and figuring out the mechanics of their circumstances was his goal -

And if they had to sing a little to do it, well. So be it.