singillatim | Hot Potato (party log)

Hot Potato (party log)

Who: Chloe Frazer & any and all party people!!
What: Harvest Celebrations/Halloween Party/Ruby’s Birthday/Rat Marriage/Big Communal Cooking Party so Chloe doesn't burn down her house
When: October 12
Where: At Chloe’s house on Greene Street

Content Warnings: Food descriptions, probably.
Other Notes: Feel free to make this a mingle and reply to other characters!

Chloe had wondered whether to go through with the harvest party once Lalo had disappeared, but as they say, the show must go on. There's still a lot worth celebrating, and people need something hopeful after the mess last month. Luckily her house had made it through everything all right.

The poster had said to wear a costume, so she's hoping to see a lot of those, and she’d recruited some people to help her put together the menu exactly to Lalo’s specifications, so unfortunately no one is safe from British Potatoes. There are even candles for the birthday cake.

Chloe herself is dressed as a sexy lumberjack, with one of Lalo’s old flannels tied in a knot under her breasts and denim cutoffs made from the jeans Kostya had gotten blood on (shh). She's got a fire roaring, because otherwise she’d freeze.

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[ Kieren has to laugh. Wow.. ]

Ah, so then sports was your go-to. [ Kieren's still taking the mick, of course. ] Maybe that... actually makes you a weirdo by default.

[ The last part actually has a little bit of fondness to it. Hey, Kieren's all for weirdos. And there's Eddie. Who's from the eighties. Also a weirdo. One of his favourite weirdos. That's his best mate. Was his best mate. That one still stings. ]

I'd go with Chuckie, but that'd be too cruel. [ Particularly because it reminds him on one particular character. But— ] Uh, actually— that's the nineties, so bit before your time, actually.

You're practically an old man, now. You should be... what, in your thirties by my time. Nearly forty, probably. [ A beat. ] 'Old Man Chuck.'

Nah, I know Chuckie. Loved that one.

[Edwin flatly refused to see it with him, and it took him a couple more decades to understand why.]

And we did a little birthday do for thirty, me and my partner. [He needs to stop using that word with people who don't know co-owns a business.] Guess it was around 2000. So we'll have do one for fifty, this year.

[If he ever gets back. If he and Edwin make it out of Hell. If, if, if.]

And before you ask- [A slightly more serious look, as though he's about to spill whatever bush he's been beating around.] -yes, I look good for my age.

[ Kieren's head tilts slightly in questioning, something in his smile dimming slightly. It doesn't at up. It doesn't make sense— if he's from the eighties, then—

we did a little birthday do for thirty His face is frozen as he listens, processing, struggling.

He only has himself for context. Only has what he is to go off: something half-alive; partially-deceased. Some terrible thing that's neither truly one thing, nor the other. Something he can't look at in the mirror every morning before he puts his cover up on. He couldn't even look at himself when he took the cover up off to come to this party.

Charles isn't that. So, then— ]

But you're not— [ Like me, is what he wants to say. But he doesn't. ] I mean you're— you don't look different. Or, well—

[ Help him out here, he's begging you. ]

[Charles has never been shy about it. Thirty-four years, and "ghost" is just what he is. And sure, maybe he tried at playacting a bit when he first got here, pretending to be a living boy with this strange new body, but it lost its spark before it even started. The last people who knew him as a living boy made sure that he didn't stay that way. Living Charles isn't someone he can go back to.

So, it's with a cheery little wink that he says, ] Yeah, little perk of being here. Got a body for the first time since 1989.

[Or, like, 99.9% of one, most of the time. It's trying so hard to be a body, he can't really fault it.]

I'm a ghost, normally. Been haunting London for the last few decades.

[He says it like he always does - like it's been a lark. Like it's something fun and enviable. Otherwise, people might think about the part he'd rather they ignore: that being a dead boy means he's a boy who died. And he'd rather not see their faces when they do.]

Edited 2025-02-09 22:01 (UTC)

[ Kieren, on the other hand, is stuck in some sort of stun, lips parted to the point he's just about gawking and he has to shut his mouth. He presses his lips together. He's— he's so okay with it all.

It reminds him of Amy, and there's a pang: he misses her so much. ]

So, what— you just... you ended up here and had an actual body again? Otherwise you just— you looked like this anyways?

[ Kieren can't help but feel a pang of jealousy, and his jaw tightens a little. It didn't give him any sort of gift. Didn't make him fully living, didn't make him fully dead either. Just... kept him like, static between the two.

But he feels awful for that jealousy, and he doesn't know what to do with it. He doesn't know what to say. His head ducks a little. ]

You just look— normal.

[It's a puzzle that Charles doesn't have all the pieces to, but he's perceptive enough to know it's there: something bitter and sad behind Kieren's plain surprise, in the stiff way he holds himself. A Halloween costume that isn't a costume. Charles knows how it must sound, and how it must look. But he still shakes his head, slow and soft.]

I'm not sure it's really real. There's no pulse, or anything. [He taps at his wrist with a crooked smile.] All my senses are dulled, except for fucking cold. Like I just got it so I'd have to keep it alive like everyone else, yeah?

[Grass is always greener, ain't it?]

And I don't- [Oh, this is the complicated part. The part he always lets Edwin explain.] I only looked like this back home 'cause I tried to. I had to try every day, for thirty years, to keep being myself. 'Cause ghosts are made of thoughts and memories and stuff, right? And if you get yourself trapped up in the bad ones, that's what you'll be. Just- a picture of the worst thing that happened to you.

[He's made much of his career on helping ghosts who that's happened to, but the threat never feels any less real.]

Gotta keep my head from getting all dark, or I won't look so normal anymore, yeah?

I— I mean, it... looks real enough. [ What he means to say, what he really wants to say— it's hard to get out. What Kieren wants to say is that it looks same. Charles can look in a mirror and see himself, how he's always been. Kieren doesn't get that luxury. Even when he's coating his skin in cover-up mousse and sticks his contacts in, it's not the same. Not really. He still sees the tinge of corpse-like colour at his mouth, he lacks natural tones of skin colour he once knew. Charles looks like he's alive, looks real. Kieren'll always look like a corpse playing dress-up, and he knows it.

And he can't help but feel wounded by that, and he tries to hide the expression of it. His lips press together, his smile is tight and strained. His body is some unnatural, alien thing. He knows it sounds so... shallow. Because even Charles's situation isn't perfect. Kieren doesn't know what would be worse: to be dulled to everything, or be only half of something.

He can't decide. He's already been both.

Kieren swallows, nods his head along stiffly in understanding as he follows along. ]

So, like, how you died, then? I'd— I'd say for most people that's the worse thing to happen to you. [ He... can't actually relate. Maybe for Amy, he'd agree. But for Kieren? No. No, dying wasn't the worst thing that happened to him. Dying was— relief. ] I'd have a friend like that, if she'd been like you than... like me. She told me she thought it was so unfair, like she'd 'been benched before she'd even had a chance to play the game'.

[ Amy might have turned into a picture of the worst thing that ever happened to her. But instead Amy's— well, she's Amy. Meeting this second life with full on gusto. Sure, she'd done the whole moping thing for a bit, but it's like she'd moved on. Kieren never really did. ]

But... for me and her. Wh-what I am— [ He can hear the affirmations in his head and he cringes: I am a Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferer, and what I did in my untreated state was not my fauly. ] This— this is me. It never stopped being me, I just— I wasn't there anymore for— three weeks. And now I am. Again. And— I guess I have to live with that now. Just... something that's—

[ He gestures, helpless. He doesn't know. ]

Something that's a little different.

[There's not much use in pretending problems don't exist. Which isn't to say anything about Kieren is a problem, of course - just the way he's made to feel about it. Charles has met all manner of supernatural entity that couldn't give two shits if there was green slime dripping down their face, but that's 'cause they can't be seen and judged by the living. They aren't trying to mesh into that world anymore.

A world Kieren sees Charles as still fitting into like a puzzle piece. "Privilege", they'd call it these days. He passes as alive, the way he never did as anything else.]

I'm sorry that happened, mate. [Well, he's not sorry that Kieren's not dead dead, unless there's how he wanted to be. Mostly he's sorry that Kieren's so sad.] Death's hard enough when it's working the way it's supposed to, and not fucking it all sideways for people who don't deserve it.

[As he talks, the subtlest of changes seep in under the lantern light. The curls under the brim of his hat droop and darken, as if wet. His eyes sink in, his lips beginning to pale. He can't give away his ability to hold a living appearance, but this strange amalgamation of flesh and ghost that this place has given him is inhuman enough to drop some of the act in like company.]

... And look at you, sneaking a sport reference in there. Thought I wouldn't notice.

Or a lot different. [ His smile is sad, defeated. Some days it's hard counting the things that have stayed the same. He knows he's still him, inside. He knows what kind of person he is, how his parents raised him, who he is. He's kind, thoughtful, perceptive. He's really good at art and he loves his family, his friends. He's drowning in a village full of people that just want to watch him drown. He's still Kieren.

But as for the rest of him? It's something that's not quite Kieren anymore, and it never will be. His head drops a little and he nods. But when he looks up, he catches it. He's good at noticing things, and it makes him inhale slightly. His throat feels tight, wait—? ]

... Well, that's a 'freak act of nature' for you. [ He's... glad he's back. Glad Jem didn't shoot him. But there's still days where he wishes he wasn't back. Wishes that maybe The Rising didn't happen, or— didn't affect him. That he'd stay in his grave and rot away. Dying was... simple. Living isn't. ] ... And what happens when your family bury you instead of cremating you, like you wanted.

[ He'll never get the answer as to why on that one. Kieren cringes a little through the dark humour of it. ]

Hey, well— they're her words, not mine. So— thank Amy Dyer. You'd like her. She's my... "B.D.F.F.".

[Not a hard acronym to work out, and he gives an easy smile.]

Got one of those too, back home. You'd like him, I think.

[They could have a quiet conversation in the corner and tsk at Charles enjoying the party too much.

The dark humor is almost... not a relief, but something close. Charles has never been able to discuss his own death with the gravitas that people seem to think it deserves, and it's nice to see that the habit isn't unique. Granted, Kieren isn't talking back on it from three decades later, but time has always only been part of the detachment. Dying that way was a shit end to a shit life, but it started something so much better. He hates that he's dead, sometimes, but he has never hated that his life was over.]

... They get you dressed up in all your worst clothes for it, too? [Dipping his toes into the question, like he's watching to see how it will take.] Folks me looking like a bloody choir boy. No respect.

[ Kieren has to laugh at that, huffing out a breath that's filled with mirth. Ah, yeah. He's gets it. Him and Amy are pretty much opposites in a lot of ways. He would have probably gotten on with her when she was living room, had she not gone to the Girls' Grammar. Opposite friends. Charles has got one, too.

The question is... surprising. But, well. Speaking of Amy: who talked about having a will and choosing her own epitaph. So not as surprising. Just not something he's used to. ]

Ah. Noooo, actually— [ Kieren makes smacks his lips together and inhales sharply through his teeth. ] They put me in my best skinny jeans.

[ It wasn't one of Kieren's most outrageous of outfits, considering his wardrobe full things that made him stand out. But it was good enough, and he supposes his mum tried her best. It was a good outfit to be buried in. Kieren winces at the thought. ]

... Still actually got the outfit, too. They... gave it back to me after they, uh— yeah.

[ The... yeah. Kieren falls short on answering, awkward and— he doesn't exactly relish talking about his untreated state. ]

Sorry, mate. Can't relate. That's rough, though. [ There's a little pause, his eyebrows lifting. ] Did they give you a nice epitaph, at least?

[The only thing Charles can imagine his dad doing with skinny jeans is telling him he looks like a fairy. Which is, incidentally, the same thing he said about most of the clothes Charles would have rather been put in the ground wearing. It's as hard to imagine having parents who approved of his clothing as it is having parents who hugged him before bed every night.]

Nah. Just some shit about being their beloved son. [Water trickles down from the ends of his hair, and he wipes it off of his brow.] Probably came with the stone.

[It's meant to be a joke, but even Charles hears how flat it falls in the wake of Kieren's comparatively glowing description of his own family. Part of him hopes that Kieren assumes he's being humble, playing down some horrifically sentimental epitaph written by doting parents. It took him years to even admit to himself that his dad was shit, though, and he's not about to start backtracking.]

My mum at least keeps it up every now and then. Getting a bit old to pull weeds, but she does her best. Can't hear the old groundskeeper's ghost trying to critique her flower choices.

[He wonders for a moment who'll do it when she's gone, and then shelves the thought far, far in the back of his mind.]

Yikes. I got, uh— very sappy poetry. [ Kind of sweet, even if it wasn't his wishes. He wanted to be cremated. But Amy called it sweet and— yeah, she's right. ] My mate chose her own: do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[ Since he's come to know her, it's very fitting. ]

Nah, that's actually really sweet though. [ Because Amy would say the same thing. Kieren's smile is small and sad at the thought of it. ] Mine's still surrounded by police tape, considering the whole... crawling out of it. Whole graveyard's fenced off, really.

[ Still, he thinks about his own mother tending to his grave, not that she'd have had much time before he came back. Clearing away the dying funeral flowers. His head dips and he forces out an exhale, trying to shake off the thought. He'll never get over the guilt, the sharp stab of knowing how much he hurt her — hurt all of them.

He looks up and blinks, face falling in a startle at the state of him. ]

Hey, you're— [ That's... uh. Spooky. Wet and spooky. A bit. Kieren's reaching for the other boy before he can stop himself, the sleeve of his jumper pulled over his hand to try and wipe at his head before he freezes — looks a bit embarrassed. ] Sorry. You... you okay? You're—

[ He doesn't finish. He remembers what Charles had just explained: ghosts are made of thoughts and memories and stuff, right? And if you get yourself trapped up in the bad ones, that's what you'll be. Just- a picture of the worst thing that happened to you. Kieren swallows: what could be worse than dying? ]

Was it... did you drown? [ A beat. ] You don't have to answer that, by the way.

[The moment Kieren looks like he's about to fuss, Charles mentally fumbles to put his walls back up, to make things okay on pure instinct. To make himself palatable. But then Kieren freezes, and the air between them freezes, and -

Oh.

Kieren's not put off, or put out, or frightened. Of course he's not.

The bluntness of the question is somehow comforting. Everything out on the table, yeah? Spooky bits and sad parts. Kieren has to wear death and trauma on his face every day, and Charles is trying to prove it's nothing to be ashamed of.]

Didn't drown. [An awkward little smile-that's-not-a-smile.] Made it out of the water, but... I couldn't get warm. Been beat up pretty bad, too, I guess. Hell of a way to find out all of your friends are total wankers.

[ No, he's not frightened. Not of this. Not when he knows far more frightening things: the face he sees in the mirror — if he could even dare to look. There's a reason why Kieren covers all the mirrors in his cabin. Without his cover-up, even now when he's out without anything on his face, he never dares to look at himself.

It's like when Amy showed him the scars across her stomach, what disease had done to her to put her in an early grave. Kieren's just sad. Sadness that turns into visible confusion — then outrage. ]

Someone did it to you? Your mates did this to you?

[ Kieren remembers the others from the treatment facility. PDS Sufferers come from all walks of life, and all walks of death. Disease; misadventure, usually with drugs involved; even things like car accidents; the older one might have had heart attacks or just died naturally. But this...? ]

They tried to kill you?! [ He stammers in his anger, mouth opening and closing a few times before he can get the words out. He can't manage anything but a very blunt: ] What the fuck.

[And the thing is, it took him years to move past that word. Tried. To even reach it, really. They hadn't tried to kill him, he'd told himself. It was a prank. A scare, meant to keep him in line with their cruel bullshit. If anything killed him, it was the water. The rocks. The cold.

But then, he heard the same story from Edwin's mouth, beat by beat. A joke gone wrong at the hands of bullies. Maybe they hadn't been his mates, but they hadn't gone into the night meaning to be murderers. The demon had done that job for them, taking the killing out of their hands. And still, Charles considered them murderers from the first moment he heard it.

Thirty years is a lot to sit with something, and plenty of time to be told that the same applies to him.]

Don't know if they meant to. They did, though. [He stopped giving them the benefit of the doubt somewhere back in the 1990's.] Realized I wasn't white enough for them after all, when I stopped them from beating up a Pakistani kid.

[He's heard the words "hate crime" more and more in recent years, and supposes with a sort of detached consideration that it might apply to him.]

Haven't checked up on them in awhile, but I like to pretend they grew up to be proper miserable, yeah?

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Hot Potato (party log)

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cw: suicide ideation

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cw: racist hate crime