video; UN: TripleJ

[kyley_b]

[The hair. Oh dear god, the hair. Kyle's recognizable mass of curls has been gelled within an inch of its life and sculpted into a wavy helmet. And where are his sleeves?!]

Yo Trench, what up what up, it's ya boy Kyley-B!

So's I need a little help here - anybody know a place in town where you can get some dope-ass ink? Because, you know, if you look up 'too much swag' in the dictionary, there'll be a great big picture of my face, and attitude like that deserves the best, you know what I'm sayin'?

Help a guy out here.

PEACE!

Comments

[kyley_b]

Huh? Oh, naw, I mean like literally, she could fight!

I never died til I got here. I got pretty messed up, turned into a squid again, woke up on the beach. It sucked. [This is an abbreviated and glib version of the events.]

[hearthebell]

Oh... I'm sorry that happened.

[What else does one say to hearing about the remembered death of another?]

There are implications to spiritual immortality that some philosophies and creeds must grapple with terribly. I never thought that death was anything besides a one-way trip that deconstructed everything about a person beyond any possible reassembly.

[kyley_b]

Thanks.

I dunno what it's like in other places, but here... yeah. You come back. I dunno how many times. I don't really wanna find out.

You study philosophy? [There is a brain hidden under all that hair gel.]

[hearthebell]

Probably best, not to treat it too cavalierly.

[Absently, he reaches back to pet Lycka's tongue as she stretches her mouth wide and sticks it out.]

Philosophy interests me... many things do, to an extent. Do you study it?

[kyley_b]

Exactly, bro.

[Jealous, Willzyx nudges Kyle, who shoves at him.]

Get offa me.

I took some back in school. That's lots of shit in the Archive, if you didn't already know. Socrates and shit.

[hearthebell]

[L's brow furrows as he observes the other Sleeper and his omen interacting.]

Aren't they the better parts of us?

[What can be salvaged, if anything can? L, who struggles to connect suffering with his own mind and body, and even frames it at times as a deserving sort of balance, can see how it affects his protective orca matriarch.

She glides away from L, chirping as she side-swipes Willzyx in passing. It's gentle, maybe even motherly, an invitation to take a lap apart from the Sleepers to explore the tattoo parlor. Is that what he would have been like if he'd grown up differently? Social, playful and curious, and not lonely and prone to hyper-fixation?

Lycka's a puzzle to him that is both comforting and quietly devastating. Maybe it's the same for Kyle.]

I spend a lot of time in the Archives. I haven't come across Socrates, but it's probably because I'm always looking for something I haven't read before.

[A pause, before he adds]

I like Socrates, and appreciate him. You could tattoo "Know Thyself" just about anywhere on your body, with delicate enough work, or go for broke with the fear of death and the greatest of all evils wherever it fits.

[kyley_b]

What, these dumb things? [As he shoves at Willzyx again. Willzyx headbutts him and he stumbles.] I dunno, maybe? I use mine to take selfies.

[Willzyx makes a sad panda whale noise, and then drifts off after Lycka.]

Wasn't that also etched above the Oracle of Delphi? That's some mystic-ass shit. Which I'm into these days.

[hearthebell]

[L considers, really analyzes to the heart of the matter, whether it's worthwhile to offer to illuminating (and perhaps self-congratulatory) information about the intelligence of cetaceans.

Willzyx can't be that dumb; he knows for a fact that Lycka isn't. Are you self-destructive? He thinks it loudly, does not actually ask.]

In fact, it is. We're from similar worlds, I think. If you wanted to be funny... oh!

[He brushes aside his bangs, pressing a finger where an eyebrow should be. He doesn't actually seem to have any.]

If you put it above your eye, you could say it was the "Orbital of Delphi."

[kyley_b]

[Kyle grins broadly.] Dude that shit is HILARIOUS! Maybe I'll do that.

What happened to your eyebrows? You shave em off?

[hearthebell]

[L's shoulders crunch up toward his ears, head dipping in an awkward expression of cautious gladness that a joke landed.

It's too bad there's no true way to answer the eyebrow question that keeps the mood light. He likes the mood, so he gives it a try, anyway, brave like a chick leaping from its nest high in the trees with the bad luck of being born a penguin.]

I thought it happened to all boys when they reached a certain age? That's what I was told, anyway... your voice gets deeper, you experience new and strange urges, and your eyebrows migrate south. I guess you're still waiting?

[kyley_b]

[Kyle cackles.]

Holy shit, you're funny. We need to hang out more, bruh.

Hey, you like it here?

[hearthebell]

[L startles visibly at the cackle; recovering, his shoulders begin to relax. His features are a clash; eyes alarmed, mouth smiling cautiously as he nods to confirm that he would be open to the idea.]

It's different. I like being close to the sea, and dreaming; I never did, before. What about you? You must miss your mother, but... do you like it?

[kyley_b]

Yeah, I miss my whole family but... I dunno. It's good here. I was somewhere else before, in fuckin space if you can believe it, but this is different. I feel like I belong here.

And it is pretty dope to be by the ocean, even if it's full of soul squids and monsters.

[hearthebell]

Space?

[He seems especially and keenly interested in this; maybe, before his life's path was set, he harbored dreams of being an astronaut as so many young children do.]

So this wasn't your first afterlife experience, unless you were a highly decorated and experienced pilot.

[He doesn't know what to call Trench; since he died, he defaults, just a bit, to considering it an afterlife.]

[kyley_b]

Yeah. Which sounds cool, but mostly sucked.

Oh, no, this is the first place I ever died. I just got abducted by aliens before. Which has happened to me a lot, actually.

[hearthebell]

How many time is a lot?

[To his credit, L isn't the type to write off things that sound ridiculous. He never has been, even when he existed in his own comparatively grounded reality.

Coming to Trench has only made him more open to the myriad wild possibilities that exist across universes.]

...why did it "mostly suck?"

[Rougher and more colloquial language sounds kind of stilted and unnatural coming from him. That's not atypical.]

[kyley_b]

Uhhh, like... four times? I think four, yeah.

[Kyle grimaces.] It was a whole survival situation. We were trying to rebuild some alien city and shit. But the people were great.

That's like here too, don'tchu think? The place is kinda balls, but the people? Bro. I met so many of yous that are just great. You're pretty great.

[hearthebell]

[L would have to implicitly agree that, for some things, four times is in fact a great many. He murmurs something about how all of that must have been difficult, within the jaded context of being a Sleeper, and how everyone here is sort of special by the standards of their own world in some way.]

In Trench? I suppose... I.

[He stops, short, after stating his sentences initial noun. It's just so strange.]

I... think that people are... people. And I try not to think of them any particular way until they've given me a reason to think they're good or bad. I like you, though... it's actually too bad you have a boyfriend.

[He says it tongue-in-cheek; maybe there's some earnestness there, but L tends to be braver in situations where he knows he's safe. A partner makes someone off-limits, and therefore he's probably always going to be more honest and straightforward knowing that nothing could ever come of it.]

So... that tattoo. You're loitering, if you stay for much longer without deciding.

[kyley_b]

[Kyle shrugs it off. Aliens are no big deal. Unless they give you pinkeye.

At that little flirtation, Kyle laughs and winks.]

Lucky for you, I'm a handful. And I do have a soft spot for sad brunettes with shitty taste in music. Although I dunno if we established if yours sucks.

[He hums aloud, clearly thinking.] I guess I better not. Karkat might pitch a fit. BUT if I think of something really cool, I'll do it anyway. What about you, you gonna get anything?

[hearthebell]

[L pauses, trying to think of how to answer. He doesn't actually listen to music, not really as a deliberate or active thing. His appreciate of culture is practically nonexistent, which honestly gives him more time to obsess over murderers.

He laughs, still a strange sound from him, but relaxed. The gentle amusement of someone who invited ridicule and is being a game, good sport about it. If flirting was always like this, maybe he'd do it more.]

I didn't come for a tattoo; I came to meet the other guy with an orca omen. I suppose that makes us both loiterers.

[If there was any doubt at all that L was earnest about enjoying Kyle to some extent, the omens seem to get along nicely. Lycka's increased in size to better nudge and shepherd Willzyx around, avoiding the sharp things, looking at the colorful and eye-catching ones.]

[kyley_b]

Yeah, we suck. Let's go get somethin' to eat instead.

[Willzyx is having the time of his life, doing barrel rolls in the air.]

Why'dja care if I had a orca?

[hearthebell]

I could eat...

[He's open, and enthusiastic about the idea. The parlor's receptionist is looking at both non-customers with exasperation he's not even trying to mask.]

I'd been here for weeks before I finally met Lycka. That day on the beach, I thought there was something deeply wrong about seeing one of them isolated from others and alone. It... made me see some things differently. Specifically, that a soul might simultaneously shun a world they perceive as rotten, and still want to have a place in it. The right place, with the right pod, so... we've been looking.

[kyley_b]

Dope. C'mon! [He's just going to herd L on out.

In spite of being Jersey-ed out, this is still Kyle, and so he listens.]

You took that super literally, my dude. But I'm cool with it. We're a pod.

[hearthebell]

[Narrow and insubstantial as he is, L is fairly easy to herd when he's going somewhere willingly.]

You turned out to be really nice.

[He sounds surprised and humbled, in the way someone only could if an assumption was proven dead wrong.]

Just so you know, I don't eat meat, vegetables, tubers, or most grains, so... cafés are good for me.

[kyley_b]

Did I? Heh. Sweet.

The fuck DO you eat?