Seasons - Lucifer's Voicemail

[dadbeatdad]

Why hello there. You've reached Lucifer Morningstar. Sorry I can't come to the phone right now. Leave a message after the tone and I might get back to you. Make it good~ Byyyyyyye~

Comments

[bluediligence]

N-No, it's — um, I don't mind. [ Korone smiles briefly. It's genuine enough, though it's also something of a bandaid smoothing over that momentary stammer. ]

[ Squishing Ringo transitions to fidgeting, tracing small circles across the toy's fur with her thumbs. 3 clockwise, boop, 1 anticlockwise, 4 clockwise, 1 anticlockwise, 5 clockwise… ]

Being able to hide the list has helped? But it doesn't — it just, all it does is slow down people like Relius … [ who saw everything the moment he deigned to look at her, and used it, and please hold: there's been a minor oopsie on the Thought Process Monkey Bars. A missed ring. A fumble and a slip. She trails off, both words and fidgeting left hanging, incomplete. ]

[dadbeatdad]

[Lucifer gently reaches over and squeezes Macaque's arm. Just a small confirmation he understands his feelings and is here too. Then Korone talks about Relius and trails off. Oh. Uh oh. Okay. He reaches out slowly to wave not too close to Korone's face to see if she would react.

Then he gently moves his hand to settle on the nearest hardest surface and starts to tap a steady sequence on a four beat. Tap tap, tap tap. Tap tap, tap tap.]

[castaside]

The arm squeeze helps a little. He reminds himself that this is done, in the past, and nothing to be angry about. The point is to get them gone.

He reaches out and stops Lucifer from waving his hand, saying "just wait" mildly enough, then stops Lucifer's finger from tapping. "The Fibonacci sequence is better." He taps the floor himself: one, one, two, three, five, eight...

[bluediligence]

[ Like Relius.

Three simple words.

Two. That's all it took. Two. One. Just one. Her name. The true name, true blue, too blue, shattering into ones and zeroes and shrieking static static static and that — that's where they're stuck. A voice that isn't their own caught strangled and silent in a throat they do not have. Lines of code. They don't. They don't breathe. Computers don't breathe. They don't feel. Can't feel. There's nothing to feel, nothing to feel with, only memories and it hurts.

Glazed blue stares past them. Through them. A minute passes. Two. Are the lights on? Is anybody home? Every breath, any breath is a thin, hitching spasm, too tight for comfort, skipping like a broken, forgotten thing. Shadows flicker. Little things, wisp-like; gentle as fallen feathers and sharp as knives, coiling close around her.

(Maybe it's a good thing Macaque stopped him?)

(one, one, two, three, five, eight)

They don't tap back.

(one, one, two, three, five, eight)
(one, one, two, three, five, eight)

Chest aches. (one, one, two, three, five, eight)

The shadows settle.

Fingers tense. (one, one, two, three, five, eight)

A faint twitch, slow as molasses. Fingers. (one, one, two, three, five) (four plus thumb) Four fingers and a thumb on a hand. Flex. Curl like they've forgotten how. Chest aches. (one, one, one, one — one, one, one one — one, two, three, four — one, two three, four) Remember to breathe. Remember how to breathe. Four count. Box breathing.

C'mon. Unstuck. Breathe. Four count. Fibonacci.

Lashes flutter. Glazed. Teal bleeding into blue one drip (one, one, two, three, five, eight) at a time. Th…ey? … They waver — too heavy, unsteady and unstable and fuzzy, listing dazedly in their … seat?

Their seat. Chair. Table. Seat on a chair at a table.

Lashes flutter. Teal eyes open, unfocused, focusing. Close again. Open. Fingers curl, uncurl, still so slow, and — still, still slowly, so slowly — they find the table-top. With their fingers. And also their forehead, a wobbling waver slumping into controlled crumple.

Tap. Tap. Tap, tap. … Tap, tap, tap … Following the sequence. The sweet, sweet Fibonacci sequence.

Chest aches. Tight. Loosening. Can't find their tongue. They definitely have one, where is it? Give them a moment.







… The shadows stir again.

But this time it's to pulse 'hiiiiii hello hi' in morse code. ]

[dadbeatdad]

[Lucifer stops from waving and stops tapping too. He sits there, watching the shadows, the small restrained, and shallow breathes. The lights flicker, shadows move, and nothing else happens. He waits as Macaque taps the Fibonacci sequence over and over and over. He doesn't feel confident enough to join in the tapping this time. He listens and memorizes the beat of the sequence. One, one, two, three, five, eight.

Then the shadows start to pulse. A series of shorts and longs. Morse code. Lucifer counts the pulses and translates quickly.]

hiiiiii stop. hello stop. hi stop.

Um. Hello. How are you?

[castaside]

Macaque watches patiently while things settle in. He's getting used to this, the wait, the change. He doesn't worry at all.

When he sees teal in those eyes, he smiles. His shadows pulse gently in response to hers, and he speaks with both them and his mouth. "Hello Tiánxīn."

[bluediligence]

[ Perception — reality — trickles through in drips and drabs. Hearing's still funky, fuzzy and throbbing, strangled out by the coil whine — no, the ringing. No chips or wires or code; they're flesh and blood and that was a panic attack. Sh…hhhhhey? they, yes, they shake their head a little without lifting it. Draws in a deeper breath, coaxing and soothing their tight throat and burning chest, You know how to do this. You can do it.

It takes a hot minute. … Another hot minute, on top of however long it's already been. Oh well. There's no rushing soup. Papa is right there and Lucifer is safe; they don't have to try to rush.

They rediscover their fingers. Tap, wiggle, flex. Their hands. Tap, wiggle, flex. Leverage themself up slowly, gingerly, a little at a time, inch by inch, from total face-on-table faceplant to face-on-arms, up up up until they're mostly sitting upish. They're still all droopy and visibly out of step of step with the body they're working to settle into, blinking and squinting like a sleep-drunk owl. (It probably does not help that their glasses are lopsided.) ]

Whh. [ Blink. Blink. ] Wh. [ Phbbbt. C'mon, words. They shake their head again, and as they do so blue — the same shade as Korone's eyes — bleeds across their hair from root to tip. ]

We - [ yes!! ] 'rrr, we're - [ YEAAAAH ] here. N'thoup — no, s'soupy, we're here n' soupy. Heylo, Papa, Luci-oji …

[ Their shadow waves brightly! Cheerfully! Hello!! ]

[dadbeatdad]

[Lucifer watches the way Choco's body moves as if it's re-learning how. Or rather, the one inside is learning how. Or is remembering. Or something to that affect. Still, he watches through all of the hot minutes as he tries to fully grasp what he's seeing. Finally there are words and he's called uncle or middle-aged. Both draw emotions out of Lucifer he will process later.]

Hello there. Are you alright there? Do you need or want anything? Water? Food? A bean bag chair?

[castaside]

Macaque just smiles as Koronai situates themselves.

"Lucifer, this is Koronai. They help run the system in heart games and things like that, and they're wonderful."

He turns toward Koronai. "I'm here when and if you're ready for touch." They could leap into his arms and that would be fine. In the meantime, his shadow reaches for theirs and holds its hand out if they want to take it.

[bluediligence]

[ Unlike Korone, who tends to be easily embarrassed by compliments and shy of chirping around others, Koronai reacts with a beaming, albeit still woozy, smile and an adorable burbly chirruping sound. Why yes, they are wonderful, thank you for noticing! ]

[ They slowly, clumsily wiggle and flex their fingers, hands, wrists and elbows and shoulders, toes and ankles and wings. There's so much to having a body, gosh. It possibly says something that they haven't even tried to fix their glasses yet, and their words drip more than flow. ]

We're — hm, limbs … corporeality oopsie … Koronai's okay. Wants scooping and squishing flat? Pancake? Compressed into a zip file? Please. [ Their shadow reaches for Macaque, making the quintessential 'child wants uppies' gesture. Leaping will commence when they feel less like so much wet cement. ]