Teddy can tell he’s giving both them and -- their guitar, actually! -- a little room. With how they’re feeling between the startle and just — everything that happened - it’s unexpectedly good to be granted it. It reminds Teddy, though, cutting solid through the fog, that at no point have they actually felt unsafe around Wrench -- barring just now, and that was as much the noise, and the spectres of the days before. More often the opposite, and it could easily not be that way.
Also: it’s not convenient, as much as it's careful. Now that their guitar is laid flat, Teddy carefully nudges the whole thing, case-and-instrument-tiered-cake, to the right: so Wrench can move over, so they can shift in to let him see and annotate. When he circles the word, Teddy tries to think of how to explain, pursing their lips, and gestures widely at the house or maybe the whole surrounding neighborhood in a sort of demonstration.
There's an us here and a them, in Teddy's mind. Everyone new to the town, and then the townies -- the neighbors, the residents. People who think -- or are willing to pretend -- that the two of them have always lived here, or at least, for some time. The ones who want houses like this with lawns neatly trimmed to the centimeter of HOA rules; no real, non-decorative trees or wild animals to speak of; cocktail parties and new appliances.
Who believe in the pictures on the wall, like the one her gesture sort of ends at. She likes it probably the most of the fake pictures, because there's a story there -- she's laughing, her actual open-grin laugh that takes up half her face, not pretty-for-the-camera; there's motion blur at Wrench's edges, like he's ducked too slow into a timed photo, and he hasn't quite reached where she's sitting on the hood of the car, so instead he's just posing, arms crossed, like he meant to do that. It's cute: it looks almost like it could be real. She hates it, even more than she likes it, because it looks like it could be real. This place didn't just stick them in frames: it somehow made them into puppets in this weird play.
That's why it's everyone. That's why it's They. Whatever the hell this is, even if it is the 60s, people here still have to know this is all wrong. That something's going on. But they like their nice houses and they're afraid of -- something. Communism. The doctor. Whatever bigger thing this is. So they shut up.
That and the fact that Teddy went to bed and woke up in a basement, which is more important to tell Wrench.
The thoughts are all a mess, prexistent, in their head -- it might be half a moment or it could be minutes of thinking -- except for that last. Right. Focus. There was a someone more than anyone else.
doctor, Teddy writes, taking the time to make their print as neat as possible, despite their shaky hands. Then, with a sudden thought, they turn to the back of the couch, where there's a console table on which they've set their evening medication: it's easier to take it down here. That way, they'll remember no matter when they want to go to bed.
There it is. On the upper right of the label stuck onto the amber bottle. Next to a little not-quite-cursive blue pre-printed Dr, the name Pollock typed out incongruously above her proper prescription for zonisamide. She turns the bottle toward Wrench, and taps next to his name.
It reminds Teddy that in -- Jesus. A handful of days -- they're going to have to refill this medication. Prescribed to them by the person who strapped them to a chair and drugged them. If they ever have to go to a doctor...
They shiver, almost convulsively, their teeth chattering a little, and it's not, they're pretty sure, the drugs. I looked up information. Just records they scribble, this time just trying to get it out. I was here They sign "here" as well, insistent, turning to look up at Wrench, guilty and fearful of everything that implies. Someone had to get in without anyone -- without Scout -- noticing, or at least ...without anyone remembering they noticed. Had they done something to Scout and Wrench? Could they come back at any time? If Teddy hadn't dug around, would they not be able to get in?
They turn back, writing, I woke up -- ??? Basement. Strapped down.
Suddenly remembering -- they've been having trouble identifying sources of pain all day, and it might've done some nerve damage, that or the muscles just hurt worse -- they lift and turn their left arm over to show Wrench, the dark, black-singed centerpoint of a blistered pink squarish ring of burn on their forearm, right above where their wrist had been secured.
No sleeping, they sign flatly, one handed. They probably should have cleaned and covered it but it had been hard to even get up.
cw for mild paranoia(is it?) and post-kidnapping trauma; selfblame; electric burn description
It reminds Teddy, though, cutting solid through the fog, that at no point have they actually felt unsafe around Wrench -- barring just now, and that was as much the noise, and the spectres of the days before. More often the opposite, and it could easily not be that way.
Also: it’s not convenient, as much as it's careful. Now that their guitar is laid flat, Teddy carefully nudges the whole thing, case-and-instrument-tiered-cake, to the right: so Wrench can move over, so they can shift in to let him see and annotate. When he circles the word, Teddy tries to think of how to explain, pursing their lips, and gestures widely at the house or maybe the whole surrounding neighborhood in a sort of demonstration.
There's an us here and a them, in Teddy's mind. Everyone new to the town, and then the townies -- the neighbors, the residents. People who think -- or are willing to pretend -- that the two of them have always lived here, or at least, for some time. The ones who want houses like this with lawns neatly trimmed to the centimeter of HOA rules; no real, non-decorative trees or wild animals to speak of; cocktail parties and new appliances.
Who believe in the pictures on the wall, like the one her gesture sort of ends at.
She likes it probably the most of the fake pictures, because there's a story there -- she's laughing, her actual open-grin laugh that takes up half her face, not pretty-for-the-camera; there's motion blur at Wrench's edges, like he's ducked too slow into a timed photo, and he hasn't quite reached where she's sitting on the hood of the car, so instead he's just posing, arms crossed, like he meant to do that.
It's cute: it looks almost like it could be real.
She hates it, even more than she likes it, because it looks like it could be real. This place didn't just stick them in frames: it somehow made them into puppets in this weird play.
That's why it's everyone. That's why it's They. Whatever the hell this is, even if it is the 60s, people here still have to know this is all wrong. That something's going on. But they like their nice houses and they're afraid of -- something. Communism. The doctor. Whatever bigger thing this is. So they shut up.
That and the fact that Teddy went to bed and woke up in a basement, which is more important to tell Wrench.
The thoughts are all a mess, prexistent, in their head -- it might be half a moment or it could be minutes of thinking -- except for that last. Right. Focus. There was a someone more than anyone else.
doctor, Teddy writes, taking the time to make their print as neat as possible, despite their shaky hands. Then, with a sudden thought, they turn to the back of the couch, where there's a console table on which they've set their evening medication: it's easier to take it down here. That way, they'll remember no matter when they want to go to bed.
There it is. On the upper right of the label stuck onto the amber bottle. Next to a little not-quite-cursive blue pre-printed Dr, the name Pollock typed out incongruously above her proper prescription for zonisamide. She turns the bottle toward Wrench, and taps next to his name.
It reminds Teddy that in -- Jesus. A handful of days -- they're going to have to refill this medication. Prescribed to them by the person who strapped them to a chair and drugged them. If they ever have to go to a doctor...
They shiver, almost convulsively, their teeth chattering a little, and it's not, they're pretty sure, the drugs. I looked up information. Just records they scribble, this time just trying to get it out. I was here
They sign "here" as well, insistent, turning to look up at Wrench, guilty and fearful of everything that implies. Someone had to get in without anyone -- without Scout -- noticing, or at least ...without anyone remembering they noticed.
Had they done something to Scout and Wrench? Could they come back at any time?
If Teddy hadn't dug around, would they not be able to get in?
They turn back, writing, I woke up -- ??? Basement. Strapped down.
Suddenly remembering -- they've been having trouble identifying sources of pain all day, and it might've done some nerve damage, that or the muscles just hurt worse -- they lift and turn their left arm over to show Wrench, the dark, black-singed centerpoint of a blistered pink squarish ring of burn on their forearm, right above where their wrist had been secured.
No sleeping, they sign flatly, one handed. They probably should have cleaned and covered it but it had been hard to even get up.
The idea still sounds like a ...lot.