talking to ghosts

[ninjavampire]

Who: Miggy & You??
What: Miguel stays behind to do dead honoring activities
Where: the Pole to start
When: Late October, Early November (Day of the Dead time)
Warnings/Notes: themes of mourning, though it can be lighthearted also

Miguel would be reluctantly absent during the action around Halloween. A strange enough decision, given his first instinct would be to throw himself into the fray as a distraction.

But as of late, he couldn’t hide that something was eating at him. The gloomy spell over his mood seemed more intense than months prior, burning away his patience and making short tempered remarks and the flashing of fangs more easy to let slip. He'd done okay keeping things somewhat under lock, but it was clear now something was definitely wrong.

And so, after some tense, but persuasive conversation just convincing enough to accept staying behind, Miguel finds himself idle on a quieter and lonelier Pole for a few days.

((prompts incoming - brackets or prose are fine))

Comments

[ninjavampire]

"Oh. Uh..."

Horrifying Raptor Hands Spiderman still had a beating heart in there somewhere as well, it seems. His shorter fuse came with an equally reduced fuel source to keep it going. So, it burns out. He rubs the back of his head, pondering how to explain what was going on to a woodland creature with no contact with human civilization beforehand.

"Well, this is a holiday back in my dimension." he begins, a little stiffly at first. Not pissed off, at least. The appearance of the CLAWS was mostly a surprise reaction, rather than trying to be aggressive. His very literal sharp ends disappear back into their appropriate sheaths once he settles.

"It's supposed to be about remembering your family that's passed. And... celebrating life, and all that." he waves his hand around in a weak attempt to demonstrate celebration, lacking the energy for an Encyclopedic description to Some Guy he didn't even like that much. "Not really in the mood for a party."

He internally debates switching the subject to the mission to get this conversation to end faster. He is extremely not used to being vulnerable out in the open like this.

[ninjavampire]

"The help is appreciated." he replies in the sort of fake-cordial tone that can only be perfected in the grayest of 45th floor offices. Then, with more insistence: "But I need to get this done."

One would guess that Spidermen might have some innate sense of how to weave things together, given the animal of choice, but the actual flowers made all of this a lot more delicate and time consuming. And its been ages since he's ever had to touch silk or webfluid.

Miguel was clearly working through something in the process of twisting all the little green wires into shape.

[ninjavampire]

Well, that was a quick way to get him to look up from his task - enough hear the story, at least. He doesn't laugh or smile, or do anything to smooth things along. Miguel is feeling barely fit for cordial conversation, much less pleasant ones. But the dark, tumultuous look on his face mellows a little. Particularly when he catches the hint of near-tears at the corners of her eyes.

Maybe it would be a little healthier if Miguel realized that a cry here or there was healthy. For both of them. He's not ready to accept that particular advice, though. He blinks back, evenly.

"I'd argue not to pick a fight with any lab holding volatile chemicals."

He's not sure why the appalling breach of lab safety by shattering a bunch of beakers was the first thing that came to mind. He goes back to carving.

"There are a lot of ways you can make toxic fumes by accident."

[thismaskismybadge]

The response is enough to unglue her feet from the floor so that she can drift into the doorway. The way she leans shoulder-first against the frame, arms crossed loosely, is a far cry from the more deliberate posture she used to have when standing there in his boss lair.

"More trouble than he used to, thanks to how our powers have been affected, but nothing I couldn't handle. Really just some aches and weird marks that'll be gone by morning."

Not necessarily an answer you should trust from Gwen, admittedly—she always was resistant to medical attention even when a fight did go wrong, would hide injuries if she could—but this time it's the truth.

[orivodika]

Boba takes the candy and pops it in his mouth. It's only kind of spicy, but good anyway.

"That works," he says around the candy and starts digging through the bag for all of the spicy candy he can find, the spicier the better.

"Do you have red flowers? And gold ones?"

After a few minutes he'll turn back to Miguel, his pockets filled with sweets.

"Can we set it up in my room?"

It would be-- nice. To have.

[ninjavampire]

"... Markings?"

He crosses his arms, gears ticking more quickly now that he was fully awake.

"Are we talking Runes? Poison? Some octopus are venomous and the variants of the squishier kind get inspired."

Follow up questions. Gwen had been one of the most consistently on-mission Spiderfolk the few months that Jessica had mentored her. Things like 'tends to underplay injuries' has a way of floating up to his ears. Though that wasn't exactly an uncommon trait among them.

She didn't seem to be ill from any other effects...

[ninjavampire]

Well, the tepid approval was still approval. It was nice to see him enjoy things. Lucky was way too dour for someone his age. Miguel's expression softens into something like a warm contentedness while watching him dig around to find the preferred sweets and stuffing his pockets with it.

"Gold and orange, yes. We'll have better luck finding some of the Pole's plants for Red if we look around. Not exactly traditional, but..."

If Lucky's person would like it, then it fits well enough. He gives his own display a glance, internally debating if his ghost vigil had lasted long enough. He can be forgiven for giving the living kid in the room a little attention. Just for a while.

"...Yeah. Let's go."

[orivodika]

"I need red," Boba says firmly. He's not willing to negotiate, red is the most important color to have.

He starts to leave, but-- "Are there any candles left?"

Mandalorians burn their dead. Boba didn't have the chance to do that on Geonosis, all he could do was dig a grave marked "J F" with scrap, but maybe he can do something better here.

After he's able to grab candles, if there are any, Boba will start leading the way to the room he's been staying in. There's a dresser he can start setting things up on. Having seen Miguel's, he's already beginning to plan out the shrine in his head.

[branchifer]

Awkward.

He's not sure how to extricate himself from the situation either. 'Not really in the mood for a party' makes it sound like he wants to be alone.

But saying 'I'll just go,' feels sort of abrupt when Miguel just sort of opened up? Like 'You just admitted you're grieving on a special grieving holiday with an altar dedicated to grieving but it's super awk so I'm leaving immediately.'

In a weird way it's like Branch's catankerous asocial-ness is clashing with his trollish sense of how he's supposed to over-aggressively empathize. Supposed to. Even if he's always been bad at it.

But. Branch has also been on the other end of that when he wanted to be alone.

Counterpoint: he also sometimes thought he wanted to be alone when he really didn't want to be deep down.

(Why leave the door open? Forgetfulness? Wanting to let people in but only people other than Branch?)

He thinks of something.

"My people like to give gifts. Back home, people would still leave gifts for someone they didn't really know for something like this." He doesn't know if it's okay or not. "On this holiday, can anyone leave a gift for a person who's gone? Even if they didn't know them? Or would that be, like, offensive?"

[ninjavampire]

Meeting Catrina had been one unexpected but not entirely unwelcome distraction, in the end. The guardian of this particular holiday would have a lot to say about Death, in a way one could try to find some peace with it. And it would feel a little out of bounds to contradict her too much. Or maybe he was just not feeling that argumentative.

"Well, she felt old as dirt." he begins. "All the bones helped with that. She talked like she had her phase of crazier years a long time ago, and sort of settled into whatever this is. Being a Guardian. Or the more modern version of it."

Settling into her role as the well-humored danse macabre mistress. It felt like something of a joke in of itself that he somehow always ended up finding people who want to try and pull him into their comedy routine.

"It was hard to tell if she could actually do anything with ghosts or if she was just messing with me. There was definitely some kind of magic. Hard to tell with the rules of this dimension."

He looks at the candles for a moment. He should probably tell Jack, eventually. But if he sat around here long enough... Maybe he could know for sure.

[ninjavampire]

"We'll get something red." Miguel assures him, seeing no harm in it. Surely, there'd be some kind of red flower around that they could use.

The candles wouldn't be a problem. He overprepared a bit in making his own display, so there was the extra candy, extra candles, and a few other extra things left in the room. A box with some spare wax ones plus the appropriate bases will be carted along in the crook of his arm during their walk down to the kid's place.

The clasps click open and he hands them over for Lucky to start to arrange the things how he preferred. He seems satisfied to be the silent observer here, letting the kid take charge in how he wanted to put things together. Making a mental note of the differences or similarities with his own.

Felt a little odd to be invited in, remembering how they first met. But he'll accept it as a positive development.

[ninjavampire]

Frankly, Miguel didn't lock the door because he wasn't expecting for people to come in and actually check on what he was doing. In the lab, sure. In his own personal quarters? Maybe a few would see that he closed down his workspace and get a bit curious, but mostly be busy with other more important things. So he thought.

But instead, he was here. Branch was here. Branch just made a strange offer that very effectively throws him for a loop, and his brows raise up.

"A gift?"

Was this a joke? Was Branch about to turn this very weirdly exposed moment for the both of them into something annoying? Say sike about everything, and go knock something over for the chaotic fun? After an even more awkward beat of staring at each other, expecting the punchline and never getting it, he slowly realizes that's not what's happening.

"I... suppose that's all right." he starts, cautiously. "The point is to leave things that they would like if they were to visit."

Something that only Miguel knows, really. But he's not outright rejecting the idea.

[branchifer]

Branch considers asking whether they like puzzles but also knows that means continuing to ask about someone Miguel might not want to talk about. He figures the gesture might work best without qualifiers, without prompting Miguel to reveal more that maybe he doesn't want to talk about.

Besides, lots of people like puzzles.

"I'll be right back."

His room isn't exactly close since it's a random hole in the wall but changing size to enable swinging off surfaces or walking where most appropriate helps and he's finding the shifts a little less disorienting after spending the morning practicing.

When he comes back, he has a box in his hands. When he sees Miguel again, he shrugs a shoulder awkwardly. "My grandma and I used to do a puzzle everyday. She loved them and it helped calm me down. I was an anxious kid."

That's what happens when you grow up in a cage surrounded by looming, giant would-be-murderers.

He looks at the box with an expression that's soft and sad. "I've got a little puzzle corner for her where I still go to do them with her." Every day. Like she's still here. "I made a new one here, even though I don't have her picture with me."

He's running off his mouth but he's struggling with feeling vulnerable here too. You can't be kind without leaving your heart wide open after all but the byproduct is leaving his heart even more open, whoops.

"The yetis have been nice enough to remake puzzles at my size if I like them. Although apparently with this new size magic thing I can grow and shrink stuff with me so...here."

He holds the puzzle out. It looks a tiny bit crude, like the yetis had to cut and glue everything, including the box and its cover, with teeny tiny exacto blades or something. Truly they're masters at what they do to actually build puzzles at such a tiny size.



He didn't pick it knowing about Miguel's situation. He missed who he was speaking to. He picked it because it was one of the ones he liked the best. He thinks his grandma would've liked the design too. That's why he requested it.

"I don't know who - uh...or-or if they liked puzzles but -"

He huffs out a little breath, decides he's already talked way too much, thinks better of saying anything else and holds it out and up with both hands.

[thismaskismybadge]

"No, nothing like— it's just, you know," she makes a sort of pincer motion with one hand, as the closest approximation she can make, which really isn't close at all, "the suckers are all... sucky. Super-powered sucky. Makes for some very weird skin damage even through the suit. Nothing dangerous. See—"

She tugs her gloves off and a sleeve up, showing the raised red irritation on her arm. Annoying, but not dangerous. Simple enough for even her slowed healing factor to heal up by the next day.

She pulls her suit and sweater sleeve back down afterwards, stuffing her gloves into the pocket of her sweats. "If his octopus was venomous I'd definitely have learned the hard way a long time ago. Believe me."

[ninjavampire]

Looking at it felt like a punch to the sternum.

Miguel in the midst of trying to process all this could never get himself to cry. His eyes remained stubbornly dry, even as it felt like his chest was being flipped inside out trying to confront everything he worked so hard to lock away. Even if it felt like the right reaction.

The forlorn look on his face was the closest he’s gotten in a while. He squeezes his eyes shut, takes a breath in, and regains his composure.

“Yeah. That works.”

A hand reaches out to take the box and look at its contents.

“This kind of game isn’t that common in Nueva York. All relegated to hard light and holograms, for the most part.”

The subtle, comb-like ridging on his palms were more discerning without the suit, and he could feel the imperfections right away on his fingertips. This hand-carved game couldn’t be more different from the machine world they both came from.

“Kids have more fun with something physical to move around, I think.”

[changechild]

:We'd either get along well or hate each other immediately,: Need speculates dryly. Is this a goddess, she wonders, or at least a goddess as Need understands them. Either way she might or might not be the kind of entity who wants to take Need away somewhere. They're already past the lady's particular date though, so Need probably doesn't have to warn Nyara away from specific symbols in a hurry.

There's magic in the petals, but she hasn't really made a study of how that works here and can only speculate so far. :Well, she gave you a flower that called me, but I'm easy to call, so it might not mean much.:

She hesitates. Should she tell Miguel that she's lost sons and daughters too? It's not the same. Need's losses, even the most recent one, don't hurt her in anything like the same way even if she reminds herself as strongly as she can. It would be making this about herself, and sharing information that she can't take back without crossing a very serious line. Volatile as this young man is he might not even take it in the spirit it was intended.

:You should let me... let's call it hug you.: A wry tone colors her voice. :It's very dignified and you're not required to do anything, be at ease about that.:

[ninjavampire]

His eyes narrow as she shows the light bruising. Nothing major, like she said. That seems to satisfy his suspicions.

"Sounds like it's mission accomplished, then. You should go get some sleep. It's late."

He will, of course, not be following his own advice. Miguel instead turns back around to the arrangement of marigolds and the very engaging activity of watching wax melt over the course of the night. His obligations back home seemed to never allow him to be this idle - though, that was most certainly by design. Better to be busy than confront whatever it is he was mulling over.

"I'll need some help with all the candy tomorrow." he adds, facing away from her. Whatever the ghosts don't take is free for the living. So the 'rules' go.

[thismaskismybadge]

"You're still up."

Not that she isn't exhausted. She could lie down and be out like a light. But she's still on her feet, and so long as she's on her feet, she's alert. That's how it's always had to be, with all those nights out in the mask where she still had school the next morning. No such thing as a consistent schedule with supervillains.

(The Society was almost easier, in that way. Even though it was busy, even though anomalies could happen at any time of day, at least she didn't have to worry about splitting time with her civilian life anymore.

And Hobie always let her sleep as much as she could, once she inevitably crashed.)

She gnaws at her bottom lip for a moment, then says, tentatively, like offering a hand you can't be sure won't get bitten for your troubles: "...this is for her, isn't it?"

[ninjavampire]

"Nngh.." he growls out the noise in a half-committed attempt to sound grumpy. Of course he's still up! He's not a teenager. And he's doing it for reasons he didn't feel like explaining right away.

Miguel stays hunched over, feeling a tendon in his neck tense as he debates on opening this can of worms. He didn't look quite so sharp outside his suit, but his posture only really softens once he slumps his shoulders in resignation.

"Tonight is for her." he says in a quiet voice, hands meeting and interlacing loosely. His eyes stay set on candle light.

"Tomorrow night is for the others."

He didn't know everyone personally in TRN-660, but a collapsed dimension left no survivors to do it instead. And overworking until he finally snapped didn't seem to do much to alleviate whatever knot of guilt was twisting in on itself. Nor did it bring back the universe. So...

[thismaskismybadge]

There's a lot of things about Miguel that make Gwen want to scream sometimes. A lot of things that she feels so strongly, with such certainty, that he's wrong about. A lot of things he's done that she wishes he hadn't, that really, truly scared her. So many ways to fault him.

But this—the bone-deep grief, the feeling of fault and responsibility... it's achingly familiar in a way that makes her want to run away. It makes so much easier than she'd like to see why he does all those things, all those stupid things that make her want to shout in his face until he takes her seriously.

Your whole universe is a high price to pay for a mistake.

And so is the rest of the world she lived in.

Gwen doesn't run away. She folds her arms a little tighter, shrinking into her sweater. "I-I don't really know the custom well, but... it looks nice. I think you made the best of it."

Another beat of quiet, where Gwen chews on her lip hard enough it's a miracle she doesn't hurt herself, before she finally turns around so her back's against the door frame so she's not even looking at Miguel facing away from her.

"I don't really... remember, Peter's funeral. It happened the day after I—" she swallows, "after what happened. Religious traditions. So."

It all went by in a dissociative blur. The whole world had been so very dark and desaturated, a dull canvas of blacks and greys and blues. She remembers grit under her nails and not being sure if that was from the rubble, or from the spade when the family were called to bury the casket. She remembers shrinking away from May trying to hug her. She remembers her father gripping her hand so tight it hurt, like he was scared he was going to lose her too. She remembers thinking I'm sorry and this is all my fault on repeat.

Everything else is gone, now.

[ninjavampire]

The change in her voice lures a glance over the shoulder. Loss was another common thing shared between them, though Miguel never did too much personal comforting of his cohorts. He didn't have the attitude that made it easy to open up to, and that was fine. Cold distance was comfortable for him, too.

Facing the vulnerable expression on Gwen made it hard to just look away. Troubled and alone, and distant, just like that first time. Predictably, his instinct is to see her again - just the kid struggling with an overwhelming amount of emotional weight - and want to lend a hand.

"The reason I got the food was because Gabri had a sweet tooth." he begins. "She... also liked the animals in the parks. That version of Nueva York didn't have any around, otherwise."

Hence the very roughly hewn wooden figures, candy, and other childlike gifts.

"It's easier to carve them out of fruit, which is how I used to do them. Would make more of a mess if I left them out here, though."

This wasn't quite a funeral. It was a holiday meant to be celebrated, despite his lousy ability to be any kind of festive. Going through the motions and thinking about the things Gabriella loved made it a little easier to talk about. Pairing a little joy with the sadder thoughts.

"Do you remember some of Peter's favorite things?" he asks. "We still have a day."

An invitation. Maybe Gwen could also use some remembering of the nicer things.

[branchifer]

He doesn't know what those are. Hard light and holograms.

But then Miguel gets to 'kids' and his expression morphs to one of soft, pure empathy. Children hadn't died of unnatural causes in Troll Village for twenty years but before...

Well, there's a reason his grandma sacrificed herself to save him. Because Chef was reaching for him. They hid the kids and elders in the half-finished tunnels on Trollstices but the Bergens sometimes came in between and caught the village off guard.

Everything about Miguel suddenly makes sense. Coping with anger, intensity, and anxious control. Branch created an environment he could control but Miguel seems to like when he can control the environment around him. When it makes sense.

When the pieces fit together perfectly just like they're supposed to.

A troll laying traps everywhere conflicted with that even if it had been Branch's own way of controlling his environment and his fate.

"My grandma was great with kids. If...if this is about what a loved one would like if they visited then... then they can share the candy and do a puzzle together."

He liked that image. He knows it's what his grandma would do, draw some child in close while they did a puzzle together and happily point out the loving presence of said child's parent. He can almost hear her voice, saying, 'Look, sweetheart! Look what your daddy left you! He loves you so much.'

[ninjavampire]

"You regularly have encounters with psychopomps..."

He looks over his shoulder, forgetting for a moment that Need wasn't actually there, and feeling suddenly rather aware about the fact that he was basically talking out loud. To himself. With Lyla, he could at least see and hear the untouchable phantasm of a hologram. Yeesh.

If it drew Need, though, maybe there was some hope of the celebration having some truth to its myth in this world. He allows himself to consider the slim possibility.

At the suggestion, he doesn't recoil, but a hand reaches up to rub at the edge of his temples. Tiredly.

"Do I look that miserable...?" he asks, even though some gloom would be a perfectly appropriate emotion to feel. Unsurprisingly, he is skittish about admitting and accepting that a little comfort from someone else wouldn't be so bad.

[orivodika]

Boba puts the box on top of his bed-- neatly made-- and goes to grab a blanket from a cedar chest against the wall. It takes him a moment to find a blue one, but when he pulls it out he starts to unfold it, then pauses.

There were layers on Miguel's altar. Maybe he should do something like that? He sets the blanket aside and closes the chest.

Acting like Miguel isn't even in the room, with a concentrated furrow in his brow, Boba goes to the closet and grabs some empty plastic storage boxes to places on top of the chest. Then he finishes unfolding the blanket and lays it on top. He makes sure to tuck it in the back so it won't slip off.

Then he goes back to the candles. He puts a near each corner to help the blanket stay in place, then on the corners of the storage boxes, then a few lined up to frame the empty space in the center.

Boba moves back to the bed, glancing at Miguel for the first time since they've entered the room. He looks nervous, almost bites his lip but stops himself, and shoves a hand in between the mattress and box spring.

One by one, he pulls out three knives. One clearly from the kitchen, one a wood carving knife from the workshop, and a concerning-ly well-made shiv made from metal scrap from the workshop with the "handle" wrapped in electrical tape.

Boba now has a stubborn set to his jaw and refuses to look at Miguel as he thoughtfully arranges them on the lowest tier.

[changechild]

:Now and then. Imagine if you had an ongoing issue with... paramedics, where even the ones who appreciate you would like it if you laid down on the cot.:

Need is encouraging a sense of her presence, a kind of watchful, indistinct weight in the room. Among other things, it's very useful to let people think they can sense her attention. She's not going to go as far as providing a visual though! Miguel will just have to suck it up.

Need isn't as knowledgeable here as she is back home. If there's a spirit world, if the personality persists without a living brain, the rules therein, these and many other things are extremely variable and sometimes very difficult to discover. Anyway, the point doesn't seem to be to perform a ritual like it's a spell, to get some definite result.

:No idea, I can't see you,: she temporizes. He does seem about that miserable, but she doesn't have any other eyes in the room. Begrudgingly Need adds, :Maybe I just have a bit of fellow-feeling.: