~ Tнє Pαяα∂σχ Hσυѕє ~ now back to regularly scheduled chaos

"Seconds are a relief, at points, torture at others," Kid said. He wished that the tone of his voice was less a reflection of himself and more of L. But it seemed to slip in anyway. Regardless, he did think that it was probably for the better that L was in the House now. It was something. Even if that something wasn't a lot.
He didn't mention the House's tendency to blink in someone very short periods and very quickly close to their death. It didn't seem appropriate.
"Did you want to go into a room?" he asked instead. "Or would you prefer to ... catch up here?"
He didn't mind either way, but was more curious about L's answer.

Matt | Hallway | mintedstar/fur |

Matt blinked into the House, tugging at one of his sleeves. One of his hands was covered in red paint, the other in glue, and he was sitting on the floor, looking completely at a loss for what action to take next.

"I don't think this is how you're supposed to put this together," he said hesitantly, shaking his hand and splattering paint on the floor. He paused, realizing he had blinked, and looked up, spotting the person watching him.

"Oh, hey," he said, waving with his glue hand. "Sam, right?"

Asami | Living room | mintedstar/fur |

Asami blinked into the House, looking remarkably human for once, and holding a small mug full of a dark, steaming liquid. She was staring into it, eyes narrowed in concentration, but as soon as she felt the change in her surroundings, her fingers loosened, and the mug fell to the floor as she glanced up.

She looked around, pondering, and then looked back down, staring at the dropped mug and the coffee staining the floor. Annoyance flitted across her brain, not registering on her slack features, and she clumsily knelt down, trying to make her cumbersome human arms do what she wanted.

| Eurydice | Blanket Fort |

Eurydice nodded. It seemed like the place itself had been nice. Just the other blinkers had quickly escalated the situation. She'd like to try it again someday. Not that she necessarily wanted to be stuck coming to this place, if it could be so bad, but maybe she could make the best of it. Especially if Orpheus was going to try to make it better. "Hmm." She hummed in acknowledgement.

She watched him carefully, taking in the sincerity of his statement. She wasn't used to his way of talking, the way he just said things and there was no barb to watch out for.

"Wait, what was that?" Eurydice tilted her head as she watched Orpheus pause, looking at something under the couch. She scooted over, reaching out for it too.

Nico forced himself to hold Kelsier’s gaze, forced himself to see the anger there, forced himself not to flinch away. He knew that when Kelsier looked at him, he saw Hades. He knew that Kelsier couldn’t see him, not anymore. And he also knew that Kelsier hadn’t betrayed him, not really… because he was still trying to protect him, even as he spat obscenities and curses at him. Because he was confused. Because he was broken, despite promising that he was unbreakable. Nico had known from the start that it was a stupid promise to make, but somehow Kelsier had convinced him. Somehow, he had believed that Kelsier truly was impossible to break.
“I remember the beans you made me, still,” he added after a moment, shaking his head just a little bit. “When you rescued me the first time. I remember waking up and they were the first thing I smelled, and I was half certain I was dead. How else would I be somewhere warm, clear from zombies, and able to smell actual food cooking? But… it was you.” He shook his head, sighing a little bit. “Like I said, whoever made this isn’t as good as you. But… maybe that’s nostalgia talking.”
How much was talking hurting? How much did it help? Nico could never tell, but he tried, sometimes.
“You know… I was pretty dumb when we first met,” he managed, forcing his voice to sound lighter than we felt. “Do you remember me asking you what you would do if I had started the apocalypse? That was… pretty dumb. But… your response convinced me. It made me want to trust you, more than almost anything else. And I need you to know that I still trust you. I always will, I think, even if you still hate me fifty years from now. I’ll trust you, and I’ll protect you, just… just like how you promised to protect me. I… I want to do that for you.”

“That makes sense,” Orpheus commented, content to forget about the chess game for a few moments while they continued their conversation. They were done with the first game anyway, it seemed as good a time as any to take a short pause to finish what they were talking about. It was amazing, in Orpheus’ opinion, that L was able not only to follow the game and keep those thoughts in his head, but that he was able to have a complex conversation while doing it. Orpheus knew he had more or less done the same thing, but he wasn’t following the game very well. He was just moving pieces around and hoping for the best as he tried (and failed) to defend his king. He was under no illusion that he was going to win the next game, he just hoped to last a little bit longer.
“I think you would like Eurydice,” he murmured after a moment, catching L’s gaze. “She’s… well, she’s a little bit cynical, but I have a feeling she’s kinder than she acknowledges. Sort of like you, actually, though she hasn’t told me her reason for being cynical. Maybe she doesn’t have a reason… I suppose she doesn’t actually need one…” he trailed off, blushing a little bit again as he realized he had let his thoughts slip.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the House has to try us out with several people before things click,” Orpheus mused, glancing at L. “I suppose I got lucky, meeting you on my second ever blink. I didn’t have to wait very long at all to meet my closest friend.” A ghost of a smile hovered over his lips. When he had first met L, he had liked him. He had wanted to see him again, but he hadn’t let himself consider the detective a friend. Now, though… he shook his head a little bit, watching L’s expression carefully.
“I know why you might not want to be known by very many people,” Orpheus murmured, not looking away, “But I’m grateful you’ve been willing to let me start to.”
What came next was more surprising than Orpheus had words for. No type of intelligence had ever been ascribed to him, and… he hadn’t even really thought that there might be different kinds. Of course… there were book smarts and street smarts, but he (admittedly), lacked both. He wasn’t particularly well read, despite his skill with words, and he knew he was easy enough to take advantage of because of his tendency to think the best of people.
“I’m good at music. And I try to treat people well. And I’m glad it comes across, but I doubt very many people – at least that I know – would agree to that being a sign of intelligence. But… thank you. And thank you for believing that, not just saying it.”
Orpheus held L’s gaze for a long stretch before allowing his own to drift back to the game. “Advice may be helpful,” he admitted, awkwardly scratching at his neck. “I’ve never known how to strategize, but I figure what I attempted to do was… not the best course of action.”

No less than a couple seconds late, the Doctor blinked in as well. For a second, she was looking at the scene of the House though a pair of what was probably welding glasses. After a second of looking around, she pushed them up and over her face, so now she had a bit of a better view of the living room overall.
"Hello!" she said brightly when she saw Asami. "Spill something?"
She looked down at the ruminants of the mug, but didn't try to help out just yet. She wasn't sure if it would be welcome or if it was more likely to be something that Asami wanted to do herself.
"What's your name?" wondered the Doctor. 

Asami | Living room | mintedstar/fur |

Asami sat in her crouched position. trying to make her fingers curl around the handle of the mug. Her face was slack, as always, but there was an intense concentration in her eyes as she tried to make her complicated human digits cooperate with her.

Finally, she wrapped her fingers around the handle and stood up, only to immediately lose her grip and watch the cup fall back to the floor with a dull *thud* on the carpet.

In a motion as close to frustration as she'd ever gotten, her head split and morphed into her parasite form, and she flung the mug against the wall, letting it shatter.

"Tachibana Asami," she answered calmly, one eyestalk turning to look at the stranger. "Do you have a name?"

Rue | Bubble Room

Rue landed nimbly, her eyes flicking over to Noah for a moment as she did. The problem was that she didn’t know him well enough to know whether she was doing the right thing, here. She didn’t know how to tell him that she was sorry he was dead, she was sorry that his death had taken something wonderful away from him, but her situation wasn’t remotely the same. She didn’t like this...this almost tension between them. And she did know it was there, breathing down their neck like a predator just dying to tear them apart. Stalking them like a Career.
They probably needed to talk, she knew. They’d had their conversation after the first one...it had been a start. But she still had the uncomfortable sense that he was upset with her.
She tried not to stare, but it was hard. She thought again of the way he’d looked when he’d found out what she’d done, she imagined the decay and death that had consumed him as they’d yelled at each other, each convinced they were in the right. Really? She still believed she’d made the right choice. She still wouldn’t take it back. Give it a couple hundred years and maybe she’d feel differently, she knew that, but now, she didn’t want to imagine him being right. Was it possible she really wouldn’t be her anymore, eventually?
Dead things don’t live, Rue. We rot.
She thought she’d never forget those words no matter how long eternity was.
She took an unnecessary breath and looked away, rubbing her arm a little. The spirit of the competition seemed to have faded a little, though she tried to hide it with a smile. “Hey, how did you do that?” She asked curiously, watching as Noah made more bubbles somehow with his hands. She tried to copy the movement, but for some reason it didn’t seem to work.

“I think we get to make it into a nicer blanket!” Orpheus replied, obviously excited by the idea. It looked fun, even if he wasn’t entirely certain what they were doing. The instructional pictures were helpful, at least, and Eurydice seemed to have a grasp of what to do.
Orpheus shifted, helping her spread the two pieces of fleece out as far as they would go, careful to line up the fringe so they could tie it together when it was all spread out. It took a little bit of adjusting to line it up perfectly, but when they had done it, he looked up and shot Eurydice a wide, genuine smile. “There we go,” he murmured, settling on the far edge of the project. His back was jammed up against the couch, but he was trying to give Eurydice as much room as possible without kicking them out of their little fort.
“I can start on this side if you take that side? And… we’ll meet in the middle!” He grinned, then frowned a little as he realized that wouldn’t quite work. “I think… we’ll actually end up on opposite corners. But I’ll end up where you started.”

| Eurydice | Blanket Fort |

Eurydice lined up the edges of the two fleece pieces closest to her, working with Orpheus to make it as smooth as possible.

If Eurydice started where she was and Orpheus started where he was and they both went in the same direction, they would end up just where they started, one corner away. But if she switched to the other corner of her side and went the opposite way, they would meet in the middle. She picked up one of the scissors and looked down at the edge of the unmade blanket, considering it.

Making up her mind, she scooted over to the other edge. Not wanting Orpheus to assume she was just scooting away from him, she said, "If I go the opposite way, then we will."

She started cutting the first strip, only cutting it in a little bit. Eurydice set down the scissors and gave it a test run of tying it- no, too short. She picked up the scissors again and cut it a little longer.

“Sorry…” Nico’s voice was soft as he stared down at the food he had brought with him into the little tent. “I don’t know if I’m helping or making things worse, and…” he let his eyes close, trusting the fact that Kelsier had been slightly less violent in the past several days. He had started out trying to attack Nico, but in recent days he had just stared at him, glaring and tense and looking every bit like he thought Nico was an enemy. It hurt, but Nico didn’t want to give up on him. He didn’t think Kelsier would actually attack. The first several times when he did, it was because Nico had gotten too close, or Nico had said the wrong thing, and those attacks were barely more than warnings to back off.
“It’s just-” whatever Nico had been about to say was cut off as weight forced him onto his back, a strong hand grabbing his throat. His eyes were wide and surprised and he froze for several long moments, panic turning the blood running through his veins to ice. He couldn’t help the tiny stab of betrayal that nicked his heart, nor could he change the fear that shone bright in his eyes.
It took too long for him to start struggling, for him to override the panic etching itself into his brain, stealing his breath faster than Kelsier’s hand could. He pushed against him, trying to get him to lift his hand, trying to get free…
He didn’t feel the other Kelsier. There was only him and the Kelsier who was pinning him down, the Kelsier who looked at him like he was worse than a stranger, the Kelsier who might very well kill him if he didn’t find a way out.
“Dad,” he managed in a soft, too-high voice. Dark eyes searched Hazel, grasping for anything that might make this better. “Let me up,” he gasped, pushing as hard as he could against Kelsier’s hand. He was at a bad angle, and he didn’t want to hurt Kelsier. And he was smaller, anyway. It would’ve been difficult to pull Kelsier off even if he weren’t the one pinned.

Theta seemed particularly interested in this description of an animal. He wondered where they where found and if it would be possible for him to see them.
But he was starting to get the impression that Orpheus was from another world. And perhaps they were on Gallifrey, but Theta was starting to doubt that as well. Instead, he looked around and asked, "What should we do then? If these aren't actual animals, but just ... images of them? then maybe we should try and find out what to do next?"
He wasn't sure what the deal was with the bee thing, but he was hoping that whatever it was that Orpheus and him wouldn't find out. They probably weren't nice people.
But that still left him to wonder about what else to do. What else this place might want them to do.

Czes - Living Room - mostly The Doctor and Asami, really everyone in the living room

Czeslaw blinked into the living room just as he was reaching out to take something, and his knuckles hit the wall.
"Ow," he said, after a moment's delay. After so many years of immortality he had stopped making such exclamations for little bruises and cuts and accidents, but he had realized just recently that that weirded other people out. So now, as forced as they were, they were making their way back into his vocabulary.
He had been reaching up to take something from Isaac, but now he was gone, along with Miria and the street around them. It was like the buildings had closed in around him and turned into the walls of the living room, trapping him instantly in the Paradox House.
"It's been a while..." the kid murmured to himself. The next thing he saw was the coffee splattered across the floor. A warm welcome. He kept an eye on the other blinkers standing around the coffee, but didn't interact directly. In a way, he was inserting himself into the situation without actually saying anything. Were greetings even necessary here, where everyone already understood they were stuck together without caring to be? Czes only took out a deck of playing cards from his jacket pocket and seated himself on the chair a few feet away.