interstellar5555 | 005 ✽ We be all night

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005 ✽ We be all night

Who: The willing from Pride and Virgo
What: Want to know what party sucked? The solstice party. Want to know what party won't suck? Luci and Luce's.
When: Jan 8th
Where: The basement of the club Blue Heist
Warnings: None planned besides possible/probably intoxication

A little while after the disaster at Naomi's, those who had attended might find themselves approached- by Luce on Virgo's side, by Luci on Pride's, or perhaps by someone who had heard about it from either of them. The subject of conversation?

Another party. One that involves another mingle of both labels, without being used for any ulterior motives.

Those who seem up to it are given a time and place. Blue Heist is one of the clubs around town that has what could be called a "basement level", for private renting and parties available to anyone who has the cash to spend on it. It's a pretty simple set up, nothing extravagant like the party at Naomi's... Which is absolutely on purpose, let no one tell you otherwise. There's a reason any mics or karaoke equipment has been pointedly removed. All the music is on the system already.

Nope, tonight it's just dancing and drinking, with a couple of rooms to the side that have cheesy movies playing in case you're tired out. No closed doors, no poison at the bar, no murder.

And if you want to take a moment to maybe have a talk to someone on the opposite label to discuss or apologize for the events of the prior night... That's fine too.

Just be careful. Both labels are still under watch, it seems, with a few bodyguards from both sides around the perimeter here and there.

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For a moment, it might look like Greg didn't even hear the question, spacing out in the chair. He finally scratches at his hair, sighing.

"Yeah. Fired." That's what they call it. "Penthouse practically echoes."

Tiger is quiet for a few more moments. He buries his head in his arms, folded on the couch.

"It doesn't make any sense why they do that," he complains helplessly.

"No, it doesn't." They worked hard. They played well. They didn't kick up a fuss--well, Krieg did, but the rest... Greg's spent a lot of time wondering, and coming up blank. His popularity is through the roof, yet he can't even predict if that will keep him around if his band is gone.

Looking over at Tiger, curled up, he decides the last thing this kid needs is his worries piled on top of his own. Greg stands up, and goes over to sit next to him.

Tiger sits up a little bit when Greg moves, accommodating his move. He stares at Greg, unsure of what to do. Part of him wants to just curl up in his lap but that would be really weird? What are these strange feelings. Instead, he just slouches down on the couch, close beside him.

"I think Garnet is my friend now," he says, eventually.

"Yeah?" That actually gets a small smile out of Greg. He shifts on the couch, resting his arm on the back behind Tiger. "Glad to hear it. Garnet's good people." They've only really and truly spoken the once, but... she won him over fairly well with it.

He nods a little, apparently agreeing, even though a few months ago he would have had a very different answer. Garnet had seemed really scary then. She still does now, sort of, but in a totally different way.

"She said she knew me...like you do," he says, more quietly.

That confirms it. She doesn't remember Greg, but she remembers Tiger. Or Steven? But Tiger...

"Do you think you ever knew her? Like that, I mean."

"I dunno," he mumbles, sinking down against Greg's side without really thinking about it. It's just something he really wants to do for some reason. "I can't...remember. But...She said really nice stuff about me."

The leaning weight feels natural, Greg doesn't even think to question it. "I remembered her a little, too. I think... her saying nice stuff means you gotta be pretty good." It had sure felt like the world to him, at the time.

That catches Tiger's attention right away.

"...What do you remember about her?" he asks, kind of surprised but kind of not. Were they all connected somehow? The reality barely sounds possible.

"Not a ton," he admits. "She looked a little different, but it was definitely her. I think she's the leader of..." He blinks, caught off guard by his own word choice. "...something."

"The Crystal Gems," he mumbles, a mix of wistful and dejected. He wishes he could remember. He feels so messed up.

The name sounds... not familiar, so much as right. Like when you string words together that would make a neat TV show or band name. Greg glances down to Tiger's stomach, hidden under his gaudy outfit.

"She had gemstones in her hands, too."

"She said there were more of us, but...I don't remember them either. They all have gem names and stuff, it's kind of silly..." It's not really silly, but it sounds like the sort of thing that would be fictional. Heroes named after gems, magical powers and stuff.

He wishes it were real.

"I've been seeing a lot of magical stuff like that. It's pretty wild. I used it to help write a few songs, even. The Crystal Gems..." He hasn't remembered any names, up to this point. Just women in different colors.

"You've been in some of them, too."

Tiger hesitates for a little while before answering, looking up at Greg from his place leaned against his chest tiredly.

"Can you...tell me about them? What you saw about me..."

Greg rests his arm around Tiger. He doesn't have a lot of memories of him--not as many as he'd like, at least.

"I saw you're really funny. I was telling you how I... how I met your mother, but you'd heard it so many times you made your own story." He closes his eyes a moment, taking a deep breath. "In a lot of the memories, I'm scared, because you're always running doing something dangerous and brave. But you always come back safe."

That sounds kind of like the complete opposite of the reality he's living right now. He never thought he could resent himself so much - for being better, for not sharing whatever that quality he had with the person he is now. He doesn't always come back safe, either. It doesn't feel like it, anyway.

He doesn't seem comfortable with that answer, but he doesn't say anything about it. He shakes his head to himself a little, looking down because it makes it so he doesn't have to focus on the back that they are making a lot of body contact.

"I think you were a good dad," he says, which is sort of an understatement to the feelings he gets from his actual memories. "Better than my...the other one, I guess."

The dissonance between the Steven in his memories and the Tiger at his side is enough to bring to question if they really are the same--it has for a few months, in fact, but Greg's sure of it now. They're the same boy, just... one got raised wrong.

For just a second, Greg's arm tenses around Tiger. "You remember me?" He never said anything like that, before.

Tiger goes tense too, the realization hitting him. He hadn't said something about this before? He'd just...had it really only been Greg talking about things? Had it only been Multiverse? Where did this mutual understanding of the situation come from?

He's horrified: both that he'd never shared any of this before, and also that now he's almost certainly going to have to. Where this an animated medium his hair would probably be poofing in alarm.

"I...yeah?" he manages, blushing furiously.

Edited 2016-01-14 00:06 (UTC)

Contrary to expectation, Greg doesn't prod him for further explanation. He just chews at his lip, and gently holds Tiger against him.

"Before any of this, I was so sure I'd never want to be a dad." There's something really different in having your own strange, untrustworthy visions, and hearing someone else say they've seen it too. "I dunno if I can be the guy you remember, even though I... I really want to be now."

"You already act like him," Tiger says in a small voice. It's true, isn't it? Nothing Greg has ever done has seemed out of sync with the bits of the good father Tiger remembers. The only difference is that the one from the memories is older, which hardly seems relevant from that perspective.

"No kidding?" It feels like he hasn't gotten a whole lot of sense of himself through the memories. But maybe that's a confirmation by his simply not noticing.

"I see him in you, you know." Or rather, he's sure Tiger doesn't, but he thinks he ought to.

Talking about that always makes Tiger uncomfortable, that much is clear. It's nearly impossible to see 'Steven' in himself a lot of the time - maybe because his other self seems to be characterized by love and happiness, while Tiger seems to constantly struggle with both of these things. There's a sense of peace in his memories that he's not sure he's ever felt as he is now.

Is he really even the same person anymore if he's been changed that dramatically.

"You always say that," he mumbles, obviously hurting from whatever conclusions he's coming to. "You and Garnet both did, but...everything is messed up now. I'm...I'm not like that, even if I could...could have been. Somewhere else."

It's true, a person had to do some squinting at first to notice. Everything about the Steven he remembered was bright and energetic, instead of this frightened and faded boy beside him. But now, it simply struck Greg with how immense the shift in circumstances is between the two versions of the same, confused child.

"You don't have to try and be like him. That's not how you get to be that way." Whatever kind of a parent Greg was, that's not who Tiger had. "But you should know, both of you come from the same place, even if you're in really different places now."

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