TDM - OCTOBER 2020

[robbies]

TEST DRIVE MEME - OCTOBER 2020

Everyone's entitled to one good scare.
CW: Violence, death, mouth trauma, vomiting, needles, razors

---

“Help me. Please, help me…”

A child’s voice, calling out for aid. There’s no rhyme or reason for when it comes to you. It’s so quiet, a whisper in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind. Were it not for the sharp, stabbing pain it pulls out of you, you could ignore it. You could even pretend it’s just your imagination.

It all happens so quickly and powerfully. Left in the dust, your brain struggles to process it all. Blacking out is the least it can do, but it’s also all it can do, and it does so before you even have a chance to fully register just how young the voice is, and how deeply, heartbreakingly lost it sounds.

When you finally awaken with your bare feet tangled in soft sheets, a layer of fuzzy fleece or slinky silk clinging to your body like another layer of skin, the sunlight pouring in from the window next to your bed momentarily blinding you, and the cries of happy children playing baseball outside of it carrying faintly, it all becomes very clear—

Something is horribly wrong.

---

OCTOBER 1st.

It becomes very clear very quickly that this isn’t a simple kidnapping. If you’re twenty years old or older, the bedroom you wake up in is very clearly a couple’s bedroom — with separate beds like a modest, modern couple of course! A similarly lost and confused stranger is in the other. They are your counterpart, for everything in this room has a matching counterpart — the nightstand and lamp each of you have beside your beds, the framed pictures on the wall, even your pajamas. If you’re under twenty years old, your room is smaller but more personalized, filled with comic books, model kits, stray baseball cards littered around the floor. Dolls, fashion magazines of people dressed from a bygone era, stacks of vinyl records neatly arranged next to a record player. And then there are the pictures. They’re everywhere in the house — in a frame on your nightstand, hung on the walls, stuck in the photo albums and scrapbooks lying on your desk or tucked away in drawers. Here you are on your wedding day, exchanging vows with your partner. Here’s you sitting in a fishing boat with one of the younger members of your house. Here’s a picture of you at ten years old getting ready for the first day of school. All of the photographs are aged, sepia, even yellowed and dusty in frames hung for a long, long time. By the time you make it down to the living room, you’ll notice that the television is on; someone must have forgotten to turn it off before they went to bed. On it, a cartoon pack of cigarettes and accompanying cigarette dancers prance around a black and white pumpkin patch, joined by dancing skeletons, ghosts and witches as a cheerful little earworm blares: ”Thirty days til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, thirty days til Halloween—“

---

GETTING TO KNOW THE NEIGHBORS.

As you get acclimated, you gradually begin to learn more about this strange new world you’ve found yourself in. You’re in a neighborhood on the east side of a town called Santa Rosita located… somewhere in California (wherever or whatever that might be). The year is 1961. If it wasn’t clear enough, your neighbors are more than willing to humor you if you ask. Even if you accost them with questions and demands. Sure, you and your family are a little kooky, and you have a very overactive imagination, but the key to any good joke is playing along! And how could something like “I’m from the future, from another world” be anything but a joke? A. AUNT MYRNA'S PARTY CHEESE SALAD. Over the course of the week, your neighbors will come by unannounced, each with a new homecooked meal to welcome you to their cozy little side of town. Meatloaf, potato salad, lamb chops. Gelatin molds — lots of gelatin molds. Someone even comes by to drop off a gelatinous yellow lump of pineapple, green peppers, celery and yellow cheese swimming in a soupy mixture of sour and whipped cream. “It’s my aunt Myrna’s recipe!” they gush once they drop the casserole tin into your hands, proceeding to rattle off every ingredient. Well, at least you won’t be starving anytime soon. When you bring it back in to your kitchen - and its cheery wallpaper and its floral patterned Pyrex dishware, you and your new...family(?) all stare at the cheese salad, the gelatin, the curiously frosted meatloaf spread. A smorgasbord courtesy of the insistent generosity! Who will take the first bite?

B. DON'T BE A SQUARE!

You can only avoid the cheer and the neighbors for so long, even as you sit inside enjoying all the amenities of your new home. The television can only turn its volume up to five, after all! One bright and sunny Saturday, the weather crisp and clear, news broadcasts and reruns of The Ed Sullivan Show are drowned out by the music in the neighborhood. Eventually it’s too much to bear — you simply must put on your shoes and go discover the source of that infernal racket.

Why, it’s the block party! Haven’t you seen the invitation — with instructions — sitting in your mailbox, silly? Wear a badge so everyone on the block can know you’re new and welcome you to their extended family!

Well! Each neighbor was supposed to set up a table with snacks and drinks and entertainment on their front lawn. Carter Mayhew, one of your Robbie neighbors, has a whole ring toss obstacle course set up for boys to play with, and his wife is cheerfully and blandly instructing a group of girls on jump rope rhymes. Colorful streamers hang from every lamppost and mailbox, balloons and party favors galore. Like you, there are even a few newcomers to Santa Rosita that are caught just as unaware of this event — though others are being welcomed in by husbands and wives and children, caught in conversations about building decks and the upcoming Halloween festivities.

Before you can decide if returning home or joining the party is your choice, a plate with chips and dips and yes, more gelatin is shoved into your hands and a party hat snapped on to your head.

“The guest of honor has arrived! Come and meet your neighbors, neighbor!”

---

THROUGHOUT OCTOBER.

Life falls into a peaceful haze for the next several days. Dull, unassuming, tranquil. As the month drags on, the spirit of Halloween begins to manifest in Santa Rosita, from the pumpkins people start putting out on their doorsteps to the smiling faces of paper skeletons pressed against their windows. And then, towards the end of the month, something terrible happens. You hear it first through word of mouth, rippling through Santa Rosita like a wave, dark murmurs accompanied by sad sighs and downturned eyes. Soon, you start to read about it. Grim business, they say. A tragedy. How could something like this happen. People stop talking about it by the end of the week. Best just to forget about it. Every day, that cigarette commercial comes on. It’s impossible to escape it. And every day, the number of days in the song changes, counting down. ”Thirteen days till Halloween—” “Eight more days til Halloween—” “Three more days til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween…”

---

HALLOWEEN.

CW: Violence, death, mouth trauma, vomiting, needles, razors

October 31st. It sneaks up on you whether you like it or not. When dawn breaks on Halloween day, things are as serene as they’ve ever been as men do yard work, raking leaves as their wives bake fresh pie and cookies in the house, the spicy scent of cinnamon, apple and pumpkin wafting through the neighborhood on chilly October wind. There’s a smile on every child’s face as they skip off the school bus in the afternoon, running into their houses to get their costumes ready. As it begins to get dark, the residents of Santa Rosita start lighting their jack-o-lanterns. One by one, little balls of light flicker to life on every porch and doorstep, jagged smiles grinning in the dark. For the entire night, nobody blows the candle inside their pumpkins out. It’s a tradition, a very old one, and traditions are just another way of saying rules. And Halloween in Santa Rosita, as it turns out, lives and dies by the rules.

A. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR CANDY.

Halloween isn’t just for the kids, although they certainly make up the bulk of who you’ll see out and about on the streets. Walking through Santa Rosita, your neighbors are as generous with handing out treats as they are with handing out gelatin molds and pot roasts, and they don’t discriminate. Adults are received just as warmly as children; the worst one can expect is a quirked eyebrow if they show up to a house without a costume.

Apples, packs of gum, homemade cookies. Chocolate bars, nickels, popcorn balls. Your neighbors hand out all sorts of treats, most of them homemade. The Robbies are no exception, and it’s their treats that seem a bit more high quality than most, some of the candy they hand out being obviously expensive, brand names. The good stuff. They drop each treat into your bag with those same pleasant, mild expressions and too-tight smiles you’ve grown used to in your short time here.

Eventually, as everyone winds up doing at some point in the night, you decide to start digging into your treat bag to sample some of your well-earned goods — maybe in the comfort of your home, maybe outside on the streets. And that’s when the fun begins.

Maybe you bite into metal, the razor sharp end of a blade embedded into the apple or candy bar you’ve picked out burying itself in your gums, or splitting your tongue. Maybe it’s a needle, impaling itself straight through the roof of your mouth or a cheek. Or maybe it’s nothing that obvious. Maybe the realization that something is wrong comes moments after you’ve devoured that chocolate bar or cookie, the bitter aftertaste of rat poison hitting the back of your throat along with bile and the rest of the contents of your stomach as they rise up and out of your mouth.

Or maybe you’ll bite into plain, sweet chocolate or fresh fruit. That’s also part of the surprise. You really don’t know what you’ll get until you start eating.

B. ALWAYS RESPECT THE DEAD.

At ten o’clock, all the television sets in the neighborhood turn on, blaring to life right in the middle of that omnipresent cigarette commercial. The volume begins to rise of its own accord as your television starts to pick up interference, bursts of static squealing amidst the rising, screaming chorus of ”HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN!”

Breaking through the static, garbled and tinny, a child’s voice cries out.

“Can’t— I can’t hold them— back— Pumpkin— don’t blow the— out—”

And just as quickly as it cut in, the voice cuts back out. Commercial jingle notwithstanding, you’re alone once more. But not for long.

The doorbell rings. You can see them outside from your window: costumed children. Their masks and clothes are grimy and ragged from the muddy, slimy water they’ve been decomposing in for over a week. When they come to your door, squelching wetly as they shamble up the porch steps, they ring the bell or knock, as all polite children do. If you don’t let them in, they’ll find their own way, always by force. And once they find you, all they can gurgle in their reedy, waterlogged voices is, ”Trick or treat.”

From there, they attack.

With superhuman strength and speed, they tear and rip at anything they can get their hands on — clothing, skin, muscle, face, eyes. Being short and small, despite their strength, they're at a distinct disadvantage. They can even be thrown off, with some effort. But they don’t stay down for long, and attempting to hurt or mortally wound them only stalls them for a few moments, if that. How can you kill something that’s already dead?

Some in the neighborhood are willing to try and find out.

The only houses they seem to ignore completely are the ones with lit jack-o-lanterns still outside. They’ll loiter outside these houses, staring straight ahead at your door or window like they can see exactly where you are. But sooner or later, they’ll pass by and move onto the next house.

As long as the candles in carved pumpkins stay lit.

---

OOC INFO

Hello, and welcome to We're Still Here's first TDM! Here's a few things we'd like you to keep in mind:

The TDM is canon. You can treat this as the game's first real event and pick and choose what threads you would like your character to remember when they enter the game. For characters who app into the game, the events of the TDM will be treated like a dream. Upon awakening from it, characters will find that time has jumped ahead to December 1st. You may also feel free to use similar reality and/or time distortions to explain why the family members your characters have in the TDM aren't the same as the ones they may be assigned to in the game proper.

If you would like to have Halloween content in your relaxed housing prompts, please feel free! You are not beholden to follow our prompts exactly so long as the spirit is maintained.

There is no Network prompt listed, but feel free to wildcard one for your characters anyway.

Although the TDM is canon in the sense that characters are free to remember its events when they app into the game, it does not count as an official plot heavy event, meaning that characters will not receive regains from participating in it.

With regards to the dead trick-or-treaters: you may NPC them however you'd like, but keep the details we've listed in their prompt in mind. They are supernaturally fast and strong, will ignore houses as long as they have a lit pumpkin on the porch outside, and will try to enter each house the moment the candle in the pumpkin goes out. Additionally, they can't be killed, but they can be momentarily stalled by injuring them. By November 1st, 6AM, they will disappear the moment the sun comes out.

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Comments

beverly marsh | it

[retraverse]

i. SUBURBAN RELAPSE

[ If there’s anything Beverly Marsh knows how to do, it’s how to make a good impression — even if, and especially if, keeping up appearances is the last thing she feels capable of doing but the only defense she has. And in this time capsule town, making an effort to mingle and make nice seems vital. Having a faux family full of people who feel as trapped and confused as she does makes all this easier; it’s rare that she feels safe enough in any home to let her mask slip and it’s a relief to be allowed that here. If it wasn’t so weird, she might almost see all this as a fresh start. Almost.

She misses her friends. The Losers. They were caught up in their own kind of nightmare before she woke up in this dreamworld, but at least they were together. She can’t help but wonder if they’re out there somewhere and she just missed their names in the phonebook; they wouldn’t know to look for her, after all, not with her new married name. And if the clown is behind this (who else could it be?), then she needs to reunite with them fast. So when the block party kicks off, Beverly puts on the best dress she can find in her closet and heads out into the crisp autumn air, determined to find familiar faces in the crowd.

Her overeager neighbours make her mission harder than she thought. She’s coaxed into pinning her name to her dress, offered finger foods ranging from edible to alarming (shrimp cocktail, a pineapple cheese ball with crackers, things wrapped in ham, bacon, studded with too many olives, lurid-looking aspics, Hallo-weenies), roped into mindless small talk like what does her husband do, the names of her children, what a lovely dress, “Yes, thank you, I made it myself,” (she thinks,) until a kind soul extricates her from the interrogation. Or maybe it’s the other way around! Tag team. Either way, once they’re both clear — ]

Thanks, [ she says breathlessly, immediately offloading her plate of half-eaten hors d’oeuvres on a nearby table. ] I thought I was used to doing this kind of thing, [ networking, she means; vital back in New York, ] but I guess I’m a little rusty. Or maybe it’s easier with cocktails. [ She laughs, a soft, almost self-conscious sound, but her voice is warm when she extends a hand to shake. ] Hi, I’m Beverly.

[ She doesn’t know if you’re like her or like them, so it’s pleasantries for now. And more deviled eggs, probably. Aren’t you lucky? ]

ii. NICOTINE STAIN

[ The days pass uneventfully, at once too slow and too fast as they’re expected to lay low and play along with this charade. And she does. Gets to know her new “family,” shares her load of the chores, explores the town, chats with the neighbours. She even tries to get a part-time job at a dressmaker’s boutique even though a “housewife at her age” shouldn’t need the work. (Doesn’t your husband provide for you, Mrs So-and-So?) She feels restless, uneasy, like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop in this illusion. Whatever it is, it’s pervasive, no detail too small to be overlooked, no discernable flaw in the picture-perfect frame. But there’s gotta be something, some kind of tell because there always is, isn’t there? If she didn’t have experience with this kind of magic before — albeit a singular experience, which is more than enough — she’d think she was losing her mind. Can’t totally rule that out, either, since the last thing she remembers before waking up here was fighting an ancient shapeshifting cosmic evil, but nothing happens that’s as horrifying as that. (Yet.) So maybe this is different from the clown. Different from Derry. Even if her neighbours’ blank, blissful ignorance reminds her of the ones she grew up with.

Yeah. No. This is different from Derry. It’s gotta be. And for a couple weeks with no sign of anything weird or clown-like, she really lets herself believe that — until the morning she wakes up to the news about a body found in the river and a busload of missing kids. And suddenly she isn’t in 1961; she’s back in 1989, a year after Georgie Denbrough’s disappearance with months marked by more and more disappearances. A body found in the Barrens, body parts in the Kenduskeag. Bill insisting that that’s where his brother had to be. Betty Ripsom. Eddie Corcroan. Veronica Grogan. Jimmy Cullum. All of them.

The mingled deja vu and dread makes her go cold, her fingers numb as she lifts the paper to reread it more closely. Suddenly she craves a cigarette, nerves alight. It’s too similar to be a coincidence, yet just different enough to actually be one. Her memory’s been fucked with before. There’s evidence in her new, fake home that supports that it’s happened again. So what else could this be? She has to talk about it. Has to figure out if there’s something more to it here, just like there was in Derry.

Maybe she brings it up right there over breakfast in the kitchen, with whichever family member is present. Maybe it’s with one of her newfound acquaintances, another person who doesn’t belong to Santa Rosita just like her, while they’re on a walk or at the grocery store. Whoever it is, she’s always careful about how she mentions it, given that the locals don’t seem keen to discuss the tragedy after a few days. ]

Hey, [ she says, voice soft and casual, in a natural break in the conversation. Or perhaps it’s in greeting. ] Did you read that story in the paper? I can’t stop thinking about it.

iii. PLAYGROUND TWIST

[ Beverly had been tidying up in the kitchen when the television switches on with an explosion of sound, cutting through the late night stillness. It draws her into the living room in a heartbeat, as it surely must with the other occupants of the house; but before anyone can reach for the knob to change the channel or turn it off, the voice cuts through the noise. Eerie. Familiar, almost. And unsettling as hell. ]

What… [ She cuts herself off, wondering if she imagined it. Beverly glances back to the kitchen sink like a reflex before looking to you. ] Did you — ?

[ The doorbell cuts her off. Too late in the evening for trick-or-treaters, she thinks, especially in a cookie-cutter town like this. Beverly frowns and crosses the room to peer through the curtains and — that deja vu from last week’s morbid headline? Well, it’s back and live in living technicolour with the arrival of drowned zombie children on her front porch. ]

Jesus Christ. [ Faint, horrified, as she backs away from the window. They look… exactly like she’d expected them to look, just like the kids they’d found in the cistern, just like her nightmares from before. They sound like them too, with the same gurgling whispers that used to haunt her through drains and pipes.

Beverly’s probably gone as white as a sheet by now, eyes scanning the room for a weapon, something. The iron fire poker will have to do, the closest thing to the fence post she wielded in another house, in another town. (This kills monsters if you believe it does.) If those fuckers tell her to come float with them, she’s stabbing them in the face. ]

Don’t open the door. [ What did the TV say about the pumpkin? Shit, she can’t remember if the candle was lit. Why is that important? It feels fucking important. ] Maybe if we ignore them, they’ll go away.

[ Maybe the candle is lit and they do leave (but you have to wonder: What the fuck just happened?). Maybe one of their neighbours comes banging on the back door for help. Or maybe the candle went dark and it’s only a matter of time until those kids force their way in. Either way, Beverly’s bracing for the worst and being afraid won’t stop her from facing it head on. ]

iv. JIGSAW FEELING

[ wildcard! play around and in-between the above prompts or tag me with something new! fake family shenanigans on the first morning or another time are always welcome. also bev’s permissions / info post is HERE (future fake husbands may wanna take a peek). feel free to pm this journal with any questions, etc! ]

( nicotine stain. )

[sunborne]

... Yeah.

[ daylight looks up from the list he's double-checking for the trip to the grocery store. though originally buoyant at the start, more than happy to keep the conversation going even if he was doing most of the chatting, something was beginning to distract him.

he never said aloud what it was but it seems like she might have hit the target, unintended or not. ]

It's weird how everyone is... [ he makes a gesture in the air, his expression one of frustration while he tries to find his words. ] It's weird how everyone is trying to breeze by this, you know?

Where I'm from, there would be a vigil. [ nothing fancy but it is a sign of how the lost are remembered and missed. ] At the very least an article in the newsfeed to ask for a moment of silence if the logistics of hosting a vigil can't push through. We never brushed it off.

so sorry for the delay!! last week... insanity

[retraverse]

[ It's weird how everyone is trying to breeze by this. God, is it ever. Beverly's lips tug into a wry smile, acknowledging the sentiment even as her gaze drifts to scan the sidewalk around them. It's a fairly quiet afternoon, no risk of being overheard, but she thinks that even if they were, no one would pay them any mind. Carrying on after a tragedy, she can understand. People did genuinely seem shaken by the news when it first broke. But now...

Well, it's not like it never happened. But the unspoken agreement to just sweep it under the rug feels — yeah, weird. ]

No, never, [ she agrees quietly, glancing down at her gloves and tugging absently at the wrist. ] Something similar happened in my hometown when I was a kid. People were sad for a while, but it felt like they'd rather forget than do anything about it. The missing kids just... stayed missing. [ Beverly shakes her head. ] Felt like I was crazy for still worrying about it. Me and my friends.

it's fine! hope you're doing well. :>

[sunborne]

[ his eyes widen in shock at the mention of the missing children and how there wasn't much done for them. he tries to school his expression, upon realising his reaction, but it's hard. he doesn't think he's ever going to get used to how expressive human faces can be. feels like he can be read, more than ever. ]

I'm... I'm really sorry to hear that. [ he hides, unsure of what else to say but pretty passionate nonetheless, ] That sucks.

[ he adds, a bit more helpfully, ] I don't think it's crazy to worry about others. If anything it shows you're not crazy, you know? Even if it's not comfortable or easy, some things have to be remembered.

i am! you too i hope ♥️

[retraverse]

[ Beverly huffs a breath that doesn't quite land like a laugh, more like a release of some old tension. Kids in town vanishing, among them her friend's little brother, definitely sucked. Sucked more when they found out what was snatching them up — It got her, too. Almost.

But the reassurance is nice to hear, even if it's been 27 years since that nightmare of a summer. (They weren't crazy, in the end. That remains to be seen here.) ]

That's the thing, though, [ she replies, brows pinched. ] This — all this, the way people are reacting — like it's gonna spoil Halloween if we bring it up? We just got here and we're definitely way more freaked out. I mean, at least I am.

had a heck of a week but i'm back! hello!

[sunborne]

I am, too. I mean- I get wanting to enjoy yourself. If you've put a lot of effort into something, you want to see it through but- [ he grumbles under his breath, trailing off as he tries to figure out a way to express his frustration with everything: the apathy of the locals. the sudden lack of awareness of the situation. the feeling they're in the wrong(?) for even talking about this.

the most he can do is screw up his face in frustration, gesturing a bit with his hands while they continue to walk. the most he can think up is littered with curses and the locals are too close for his comfort.

he can, however, suddenly suggest something that comes to mind: ] -Do you think it'll be considered crass if we visited the families? Or one of them? [ show that they're willing to acknowledge what happened to them? ]

nicotine stain

[the_caped_crusader]

The bus crash.

[ bruce's expression is stern, watching the window as his cup of coffee steams in his hand; it might seem comforting now, considering the empty smiles of their neighbors. when he glances out of the window, the neighbor stops and smiles too wide as if sensing his gaze. he stares too long. bruce can swear he's been mowing that backyard for the past two hours. ]

Something on your mind?

apologies for the delay!

[retraverse]

[ She hums in the affirmative, glancing back down again at the paper with a frown before sliding it away and pulling her own mug of coffee closer. The photograph unnerves her and it isn't just the costumes, eerie in black and white. She remembers when the accident happened a couple days ago, the hushed conversations amongst the housewives at the grocery store. Her childhood memories are still fresh — fresher than most, for having lost and regained them before waking up here — and this all feels too familiar to her. Kids vanishing, the aftermath without the closure. Back then, the rumours varied from the innocuous (kids go missing all the time, they run away) to the insidious (kidnapping, murder). But the concern only ran skin-deep outside of the families directly affected.

Beverly isn't a mother, no matter what this town's forced on her and the occupants of this house, but that doesn't mean she can't understand what they must have felt back in Maine or here. Or what she assumes they feel, anyway, if they're at all normal. And nothing about this place feels normal no matter how hard it tries. ]

There's nothing in there about the families. [ She takes a sip of coffee, glancing up at Bruce over the rim of her mug. Outside, she can hear the nearby buzz of a lawnmower. ] It must be awful, having no leads.

[ She's easing into it gently, not quite launching into the misgivings she feels but can't describe yet. She's only known this man for a couple of weeks. ]

[the_caped_crusader]

If their families are anything like our neighbors, something tells me they're not too concerned.

[ he replies with a dark possibility. santa rosita seemed impossible, but with their days sometimes dotted with enough tragedy to make them question whether or not it was actually real. something else came to mind, though. ]

I've also never seen any of them with children, have you?

[retraverse]

[ Right, their neighbours. Seemingly normal enough, but with smiles a little too cheery and attitudes a little too welcoming. Beverly has a hard time with trust, and she trusts the illusion of safety the least; if this place was meant to be a sanctuary after the nightmare she'd woken up from, it isn't nailing it. (Freaky time travel aside.)

Her brows raise at the question. ]

Well, yeah. Going to school, playing games at that block party. But they do kinda feel like — [ Props. Everything around here feels like a TV set. She shakes her head. ] I guess I see more of them because I get ambushed by the wives and moms at the stores. They're like, really friendly. I thought it'd wear off but... [ Yikes. She clears her throat. ] Maybe this bad news'll finally shake them up. I don't know.

— nicotine stain.

[gsoh]

[ peter's fallen (back) into wearing sweater vests and shirts with relative ease, the familiarity of the fashion alone not quite making him feel like a high schooler again, but it's not far off. it's about the only thing that is familiar in a firm, solid sense — sure, he's experienced things like this before: fake, alternate and otherwise not-exactly-his realities and dreamscapes, illusions and hallucinations and things that fit somewhere in between.

he's found himself missing quentin beck and the hypno-hustler, he's found himself wanting to turn a corner and see the familiar yet-honestly-slightly-daunting figure of doc strange telling him that he, oh, who knows, said the wrong words whilst peering slightly too intently at a gaudy necklace.

it wouldn't be the first time.

truth be told, he hates it. he hates not knowing and he hates not having answers. more than that, he hates not having a bad guy to point at; make a witty comment and commentary along the lines of how the whole pleasantville, stepford wives thing is a bit cliché and overdone; and then punch a few times before enigmatically disappearing into the night to — probably collapse into bed, in all honesty.

but as it stands, he's peter parker. just peter parker — not for the first time and probably not for the last, but that doesn't mean it sits any better. to date, he hasn't encountered anyone he recognises and he's been trying to tell himself that's a good thing: mj's safe, may's safe at home, randy and fred are — not here, at least, even if peter's not sure if the word "safe" is applicable to anyone that happens to share an apartment with intense idiot, fred myers.

sure, so far the worst thing he's personally encountered has been the should-be-illegal food, but peter's also privately convinced that whilst kevin, the sentient mould he once grew from a young piece of limburger wasn't enough to win him the nobel prize, maybe linda is.

(linda being the gelatin mold his neighbour had presented him with the first morning he'd awoken here, and of which he'd eaten approximately one mouthful before regretting all of his life decisions leading up to that moment.)

but outside of personally terrible moments, outside of the fact that this place is discomforting and unsettling on a level that peter can't quite put into words, the newspaper report had been enough to give him pause. it had been enough, too, to make him feel guilty that he hadn't been — what? out on patrol? able to do anything? hadn't known? he's not sure which it is, whether it's all or none at all, but it coexists with an anger and frustration at how quickly the town seems to move on.

still, when beverly mentions it one morning quite out of the blue, when peter's still a little groggy and mentally fixated on how much terrible coffee has improved in the last fifty-or-so years, it takes him a moment to register which story she means. ]

Uh— yeah, [ he responds at length, the corners of his lips twitching down into a fleeting frown. it's punctuated by a silence, one where peter tries to decide on the correct response. instinctively, he wants to make a joke, but he finds himself cutting himself short before he gets any further than opening his mouth; and his attention shifts from beverly to the table and back to beverly again.

it was horrifying and it was sad, in as much as it could be — a little room for more or less either side depending on how real all of this was — but he's not so naïve as to assume that's why beverly can't stop thinking about it.

maybe she can't stop thinking about it because the rest of the town can. ]

—What about it?