thisavrou | video 04

(The feed comes on to Eddie sitting there looking very, very cross. He has a piece of cloth wrapped around his face, covering his nose and mouth, but anyone would be able to recognize him well enough by now. His grey eyes are fierce. Oh yeah. The entire ship is in for it.

He puts his hands up and tips his body to the left side of the screen.)

Nooooooooo Eddie. Mold in space is crazy, Eddie! Why would mold exist in space, Eddie!

(He tips his body to the right side of the screen and crosses his arms over his chest.)

Well guys, I don't know. Because I know how water and bacteria work? Because this isn't the first time I've experienced basic plumbing.

(And back to the left he goes, those hands up in the air now.)

But Eddddddie! You're just being paranoid!! Mold? On a ship! That's dumb!

(And he swivels back to the right.)

OH, I'm sorry. You're right. Why should I not be paranoid in a setting where we have next to nothing on the biological expectations of things like fucking mold?

(Eddie turns his eyes back to the camera, now just looking plain old unimpressed. He raises a finger.)

Not to say I told you so, but I totally told you so. It's kind of super hard to see, but I started having an asthmatic fit in the hall and I was like, wow, this hasn't happened in a while. And then I noticed that it was where one of the pipes had burst. And I was like, huh. Coincidence? Probably not. And guess what buckos? Mold. SPACE MOLD. Because guess what? If humans can exist on a ship, then so can bacteria and stuff like spores. Honestly. I should never listen to anyone.

We have plants here, guys, there's organic material everywhere. There's dinos running everywhere. Probably shitting in the pipes. There's actual shit in the pipes, by the way, at least some of them I assume. Organic. Material. And! On top of that! It's wet! (Wow uh, Eddie really can shriek, can't he?)

So what do we do? You should all wear face masks. Mold can cause a lot of serious health hazards. You can get respiratory infections, which if left untreated, can and WILL kill you! If your throat feels funny, that could be the mold! If your head feels funny, probably the mold! Keep your nose and mouth covered. Make sure your living areas are properly dried out. Gosh. Be careful!

(How does it feel to be parented by a literal twelve year old? Cause that definitely just happened.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Would it really be so terrible to fade away?

(It hits him hard. Somewhere between the gut and his heart, and it balloons up inside of him. It's empathy on the deepest possible level. Maybe Eddie doesn't have brothers or sisters, but his friends may as well be close enough, and he couldn't imagine....

He shuts his eyes, and then he's quick to flip the feed to video instead and private.)

Do you want to go for a walk or something?

A walk through all the mold? Isn't that dangerous?

[There's a notable dent in the chipper exterior, though perhaps most indicative is the way they're not facing the camera at all. The ACE has been pointed at a patch of fairly innocuous flowers - innocuous save for their strange, cerulean luminescence.]

I'm flattered, but I'm really not worth that risk.

It is. But it's not everywhere. We can go to the Greenery.

(Eddie always found that the Greenery was soothing no matter how shitty he was feeling. Maybe that's because there was a very special place there in his heart, but that was neither here nor there. Maybe some of that goodness would rub off on Chara.)

You are worth it though.

What a coincidence. That's where I am now.

[There's a quiet snip, a low ripping sound, and a weed tumbles into view, torn up from the roots.]

I'm afraid you wouldn't be very safe here, either. There's all sorts of dangerous plants here. All manner of poisons. Most plants are toxic when consumed, did you know?

[You're being creepy again, Chara. You ought to stop that.]

I'd not be surprised if there was mold here too.

(Oh yeah, sure. He's already making his way down town. Walking fast. Faces pass and he's Chara bound.)

I'm not safe anywhere, Chara. (This is said very calmly, very quietly.) Not on this station, not back home, not in the Greenery, not in my room. I'm only safe when I'm with my friends.

And you're my friend.

(And that's because Eddie had an impossibly thick spine when it came to his friends. He would face far worse than mold. And plants. Poisons. Chara wasn't deterring him. Not when Chara had been there for Eddie during the worst moment in Eddie's young life. Arguably.)

Uh-huh. I knew it. Don't eat anything weird. The least you can do is not traumatize me too badly. And I know CPR now so!

(Don't make him use it!! Please?)

I wouldn't either, but it should be okay.

I'm not sure CPR is adequate for the removal of toxins.

[It's said rather listlessly, all things considered. In some ways, that's a good thing. It means they're not contemplating anything actively. More just...wondering, wishing, for all of it to cease in the same way one might idly wish for an irritating tone in the room to cease.]

Who taught you that?

Probably not. But it's what you're supposed to do in a lot of situations if someone has collapsed.

(Eddie was still learning.)

Someone at the medbay.

(He's been going there lately. Learning things. Trying to learn things. Trying to be useful.

He's soon making his way into the Greenery. It doesn't take him long at all to find Chara. He falls down onto his knees right next to Chara, and it's funny how such a fussy person could drop himself around so precariously. He;s facing Chara, and automatically, he opens his arms up for a hug.)

[...]

[Sorry, Eddie. At the moment, they can't muster anything but a slow, protracted blink, a bowing of their head, a lowering of their shoulders. It's not that they can't abide touch, at the moment; it's that they can't honestly recognize the difference between nervous uncertainty and genuine starvation for physical affection.]

Have you ever heard of an Echo Flower?

(Well thankfully Eddie can swoop in when he needs to. He shuffles forwards on his knees and leans in to wrap his arms loosely around Chara. He didn't want them to feel trapped, at the very least, but he's almost one hundred percent sure Chara desperately needs a hug right now.)

No, I haven't. What is it?

[It's hard to register it. It's happening, they know, and they can tell that it's happening, that something's fallen across them and that there's that weight laid up against them, and there's the even stranger knowledge that they're not compelled to simply slap him away.]

[When they speak, it's low and even, almost listless.]

It's a flower that repeats the last thing it's heard, over and over.

[They pitch their voice upward slightly, so the glowing bloom at their knees whispers, an echo of their tone: over and over and over and over and over and over and ]

They had them Underground.

(His hand curls gently against the back of Chara's head. Not to trap. To soothe. He strokes slowly down, lifts his hand, and repeats the motion. He doesn't need Chara hugging him back right away. He'd let them take their time with it, as always.)

Oh....Then I bet a lot of those flowers probably didn't...have a lot of great repeating last messages, huh?

(He couldn't imagine they would, anyway. Not if they were down Underground, and not considering the violence of Chara's world. Eddie shifts slightly back, looking down.)

What- is that one?

[It isn't altogether clear, why this form of contact is non-invasive, why it does not bite or sting or provoke a flinch, a terrified sound, a scuttle back and away. Perhaps it is because he is a child, the way they are, and thus not nearly as intimidating.]

[Perhaps it is his earnest nature. The fact that he means it.]

Most of them contained the wishes of the monsters who wanted to see the sun. They didn't have stars, Underground. All they had were sparkling stones stuck into the ceiling.

[The flower nearest to them whispers quietly, nearly inaudibly, and their expression pinches. For some reason, they seem unable to look at it directly.]

[It hisses the words out in calm repetition, even if one must lean in to listen:]

["I miss you."]

video 04 | Hay Fever

3/3 back to public text ha ha

too bad buddy going back to private also video

the most private video ever encrypted to hell and back

dungeon levels of privacy

darkest dungeon privacy electric boogaloo

it is so private that even i dont know what they're talking about

and also a cw: suicide ideation

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