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ceaseless-watchers-special-girl · 1 year ago

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i am fuelled on caffeine and 9 full hours of sleep. i have been piecing together evidence from all these different parts for the past half an hour. let's theorise.

ok so what i can't stop thinking about is the "you didn’t come for me when I called." EXSQUEEZE ME??? slip called out for nureyev? when why where how what???

i can't help but feel like this has something to do with hadestown being a song that is told again and again, an inescapable tragedy. i am OBSESSED with that idea after listening to the soundtrack, it's such a good idea and makes it exciting for both the audience and the people working on the production!!! but back to your fic.

was slip dragged down to hadestown and he called out to nureyev, but nureyev never came for him? SLIP EURYDICE CODED???

but then slip is the king of hadestown so surely he's hades?? so maybe he works his way up and he drags nureyev down so they can be together again, and the cycle starts all over because this means that juno comes down to save nureyev.

but who tf is persephone??? if slip is hades, nureyev is persephone surely??? but nureyev is also eurydice??? *screams*

buddy said something about how something has happened to persephone. nureyev was absolutely fine (to my knowledge) when she said that, so that points to what mia said about benten being persephone. especially with him saying they have FLOWERS??? wtf??

makes so much sense for nureyev to be the one slip is after though. he's created this whole place so he can get to nureyev, so they can be together again, but in doing so he's turned himself into someone nureyev can't love.

maybe none of this is coherent idk. i'm just. i remember i said something about slip being vaguely eurydice coded and you and jay were like hmmm. interesting. and then you fuckign throw this in my face. fuck you. how am i meant to piece this together WHAT IS GOING ON—

@smidgen-of-hotboy explain. rn

SONG FOR A CAGED LOVEBIRD: PART 10

wahoo!!! yippie!!!! part 10 and over 10k written!! let's go!!!!

this part is like. lowkey weird to me. and i don't know why. lmk if any choices i made here were a bad/weird idea bc i feel like some of them might have been lmao

MY PERSONAL CARTE BLANCHE CREW: @smidgen-of-hotboy @ceaseless-watchers-special-girl @urjover @one-joe-spoopy @waters-and-the-wilde @demonic-panini @the-private-eye

Nureyev struggled to get his jaw working as he stared at the man across the room.

It was Slip.

Slip Jackson.

How was he…. How was he here?

He knew he had known this man when they were kids. They had been close, Nureyev supposed, from the fragments of memories he had of him.

Until the winter got a hold of Slip, and he disappeared into the night.

Nureyev never saw him again.

Slip had changed. He was taller, of course, and not nearly as skinny, his hair shot through with white and grey, perfectly complimenting the neat black suit he wore. His eyes looked harder. Not so much careworn as workworn, sharp and clever. His mouth was set into a stunning grin. In the buttonhole of a suit jacket was a perfect, red dahlia.

Nureyev had to look away at that point. He couldn’t look at that dahlia without thinking of his dahlia, left behind on the surface, probably was wondering where he was by now. Probably out in the snow looking for him. Probably confused and scared and- why are you like this, why do you make these choices that hurt other people and only benefit you, what’s the matter with you-

“What’s the matter, Petya? Don’t you remember me?”

He shook off the guilt and tried to think. He couldn’t remember a lot of their time together. He remembered laughing, an echo of a feeling warmer than the glow of the sun, braiding flowers into long, auburn hair, and splitting an apple, fresh off the tree, with a small, bone-handled knife, the same one he carried now in his left pocket. Nothing concrete. Nothing to explain why he now stood in front of this man, who was now the king of the Underworld.

He shook his head slowly.

Slip’s grin slid slowly off his face. His voice was far deeper than Peter could ever remember having heard before. “What do you mean? I thought you’d be happy to see me again.”

There was a faint sense of panic bubbling up in him now. He began to get the strange sense that admitting his lack of memory was a bad idea, but he just kept shaking his head.

“Well, then. Allow me to jog your memory. My name is Slip. Slip Jackson. We knew each other as teenagers. We were practically inseparable. Spent every day together. We were in love. We were going to run away together until I caught pneumonia one night and passed away. That would be as much of the story as you know, I think.”

Nureyev liked to think he remembered most of the big pieces of his time with Slip, but the two of them being ‘in love’ was new. He examined his memories a bit more closely. He did seem to recall a few shy kisses, huddled in the alleyway behind a bar, and maybe a few cuddles. Nothing concrete. Nothing to suggest they were ever in love.

“What I would like to know from you, Petya, is why you didn’t come for me when I called.”

The confusion must have been obvious on his face, because Slip sighed deeply before continuing.

“Oh come on, I know it’s been a long time, Petya, but I didn’t realize you would have forgotten so much about us! Surely you remember our little games and the fairy tales we liked to tell each other.”

Nureyev opened his mouth to speak.

And then the vague fear cemented itself into solid, steel panic.

He couldn’t speak.

His throat and lungs had already felt strange, empty and airy and wet and sticky all at the same time, like the air in them wasn’t escaping through his nose but his throat instead. He initially thought it was just a side effect of being- dead? Was he actually dead? It didn’t matter. Whether or not he was dead, there was nothing coming out of his mouth.

He tried again in case it was a fluke, but with the same results. Nothing.

His voice was just.

Gone.

“Ah, I suppose I should have mentioned that to you sooner, Petya,” Slip said gently, ushering a barely conscious and panicking Peter over to a chair in front of the large mahogany desk at the center of the room. “Sometimes, the ways people die on the surface have…. side effects in the afterlife. I’m afraid your death is such a case.”

He settled into his chair behind the desk and began shuffling some papers around. “I am looking into a way to get your voice back but chances of a good outcome are low, I’m afraid. Past experiments haven’t exactly been promising. But in the meantime, you are more than welcome to work for me! You wouldn’t be paid, but it would be something to do to pass the time.”

Peter was staring, mouth slightly open. He was pissed now, anger rising in his heart like a hurricane flood. What kind of bullshit was this? He got murdered by the henchmen of a childhood friend/lover who he barely remembered, dragged down to the Underworld, only to be told his voice is now gone, perhaps forever. All he wanted was a job. All he wanted was to get away from poverty and trouble.

And now he was right back in it.

Slip got up from his seat behind the desk and tried to block Nureyev’s path to the door, babbling something about giving them more time to find a solution and how all he wanted was for Petya to stay a while longer.

Nureyev punched him straight in the jaw. He didn’t give a shit anymore.

Slip stumbled backward onto the floor and Nureyev glided over him in two long, neat strides. He was out of the door and down the hallway in two more. By the time he had reached the front door, several of the henchmen who had brought him here earlier were barreling down the hallway after him.

But the funny thing about being dead is that you lose a lot of what makes you human. Heartbeat. Breathing. Pain. And without those, it becomes a whole lot easier to disappear.

And Nureyev had already been a master of disappearances while living.

He was already safely tucked away in a nearby alley by the time the executives charged out into the street in search of him. More of a ghost than any of the souls here could ever hope to be. He watched as they walked straight past him, never knowing that he was only a few feet away from them. He could reach out and brush the dust off of one of their lapels, but he stayed as still and silent as a stone statute. As soon as they were gone, he huffed out a quiet sigh of relief before the anger began to fade away and the reality of his situation hit him.

He was alone, penniless, and voiceless in a strange city a thousand miles from home.

He had nothing to his name except, well, his name.

He was helpless, a child who walked into the deep end of a pool too soon and was now floundering.

In spite of his best efforts, Peter Nureyev began to cry again.

What was that saying that Buddy was always so fond of repeating? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. He supposed, in some sick and twisted way, that he deserved this. He had made this situation, and now he had to live with it. Gods, he hated that he was like this.

Pull yourself together, Nureyev. You’ve gotten out of tougher deals than this.

He took a minute to breathe and pull himself together. He had no plan, but was almost prepared to go before he noticed the figure standing off to his left, watching him. Instinctively, he leaped up and grabbed the knife from his pocket, holding it out in their direction. The figure raised their arms in surrender.

“Whoa, I didn’t mean to scare you! I’m sorry! I just- you were sitting here all by yourself, and well, I thought you looked a little lonely. Do you need any help?”

Nureyev opened his mouth to make a snarky comment in return, but no sound came out. He silently cursed his rotten luck.

“Ohhh, did you lose your voice?” The figure took a few steps closer into the light.

The knife nearly dropped from Nureyev’s hand once he saw the man’s face. This person was….

That was Benzaiten Steel. Peter would have bet his life on it.

He was nearly an exact replica of Juno if life hadn’t been quite so tough on him. Same wide and curious eyes, same nose, same jaw, same glimmer of mischief and compassion lurking at the edges of his expression, dressed in denim overalls, heavy work boots, and grease-stained shirt. Juno didn’t talk about his brother often, but when he did, it was always with no small amount of pain and grief. He had always wondered what had happened between the two of them that had caused Juno so much hurt. Now, perhaps he could find out.

Nureyev hesitated, considering his options, then nodded, and dropped the knife back down to his side.

“Shit,” Ben said, real concern lacing his voice as he dropped his hands. “And you’re new here too, aren’t you? I can’t say I’ve seen you before.”

Nureyev nodded again.

Ben blew out a long breath, clearly thinking. His brow furrowed in the same way Juno’s did when he was trying to work out a particularly tricky problem. Gods, he missed him.

“Okay then, you’re gonna stick with me from here on out, okay? Heyyyy, don’t give me that look. Everyone who comes down here thinks they can take care of themselves, but they can’t. They always need help. And I’m gonna be your helper! Oh, and where are my manners! My name is Benzaiten, but you can call me Ben. And because you definitely can’t tell me your name, I’m going to call you… Glass. Because your glasses are broken. Is that okay with you? I thought it would be. I am pretty good at naming things, if I do say so myself. I can fix your glasses when we get back to the party.”

A party? Down here? Nureyev narrowed his eyes. That seemed… suspicious.

“Ah. That’s right. Well, you didn’t hear this from me,” Ben said, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “but when the bosses aren’t looking, some of us like to have a little fun. A little wine, a little dancing, a few flowers here and there… it does wonders for the soul, I’ll tell ya. I’ll introduce you to the whole gang, Glass!”

The faintest of smiles crept across Nureyev’s face. Perhaps something worthwhile might come out of this disaster after all.

#tpp hadestown au #sorry if none of this makes sense and is entirely incorrect. just had to get my pain and confusion out there #also i know in the musical the loop is meant to start again with the same characters #but you're clearly doing something interesting with that idea. trying to figure out what it is *pulls out the red string board*

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