hate_gettin_older | IC Inbox for Come Sail Away

"Because then you get to smell like something tasty too! Oh my god, when I was a teen, there were these body sprays that made you smell like vanilla sugar and creamsicles and all kinds of sweet stuff! I wasn't sure how much to use, so I used to spray myself down and there would be this just cloud of fruit scent following me around." She laughs to herself, and hops up on the counter to sip her own drink. "I was as bad as a teen boy with Axe body spray! Except I did actually shower so like, not quite as bad!"

"Axe ... body spray?" Okay, now he just looks confused.

(He has a very strong personal referent for axe and it is not related to personal hygiene.)

"Oh, duh! Sorry, it's like a really, really strong men's deodorant that teenage boys use instead of showers! They spray it on them so and think it hides their body odour, and it super, super doesn't! ... I just realized I don't know if you guys had deodorant. Did you? How far into your apoc where you? If it bums you out, we totally don't have to chat about it, but it won't bum me out to hear about it!"

"Tell you the truth, I dunno," he says. "Might be extinct, or they might have still had it in the Front. They had a lot of shit we never saw."

A pause. "Tanya once said they for sure still had soap, cause anytime someone Front came back to the Tail section, they were always clean."

Somehow, the words Front and Tail trigger a memory, and Flan snaps her fingers, pointing at Edgar. "Wait, wait wait wait, were you on a train?? Was your world on a train in a like, endless snowy apocalypse??"

"... Yeah?" He blinks at her. "Someone else tell you about that?"

"Sorta! So, you know how sometimes something real in one world is a story in another? Like how Dr Watson is a real person on the ship, but he's also in a bunch of stories? Your universe is like that in my universe. We have this movie called Snowpiercer, and it's like, directly about the part in your world where guys left the Tail and headed for the Front to get back a kid who got stolen." Flan has to bring her voice down some 'cause it's always heavy hearing that your world is fiction in another, and also Edgar did say he got killed at some point and Flan is feeling bad that she might have saw that happen and totally didn't realize it was him.

Please forgive her Edgar, but Chris Evans was in it and he had a beard.

He's staring at her.

"Two kids," he says, numbly. "Andy and Timmy."

Oooooofff yeah okay, okay, he's learning this one the hard way.

"Fuuuck right, two kids, and- yeah." Flan gives him a sympathetic look and pats his shoulder. "I'm really sorry man. I totally didn't put it together until just now. And I won't say anymore about it unless you ask, 'kay? I know it's a lot to find out someone else knows way, way more about your world than you know about theirs."

"... Yeah."

He still sounds a bit numb; he's still staring at her, or past her, or through her, like he's not sure what he's seeing is real.

And then abruptly --

"A movie?"

"Yeah. And a prequel TV show but I heard it was really bad, so I didn't watch it."

"Christ," he mutters, and rubs his temple.

After a moment he remembers that he's got a drink in front of him, and downs about half of it at one go.

He gets another pat on the shoulder and then Flan sets her own drink in front of Edgar. "Here, I'll be your personal bartender tonight and make sure you get home safe. It's the least I can do."

"Thanks," he mumbles.

And pauses.

"Did, uh. Christ," muttered even lower, "I got no fuckin idea how to ask this."

"As insensitively as possible." Flan recommends. "I don't know if it'll help but it might!"

"How did it end?"

He looks up at her. "The movie. How did it -- like, where did it stop?"

"It stopped when the train did." Bad joke but it's true...

Flan grabs the vodka and starts making another drink. "Okay so... stop me if this is too much but here's what I remember. Uhhhhh god I'm so sorry, I'm shitty with names, he was played by Chris Evans, the bearded guy who lead the Tail-"

(Curtis, Edgar supplies.)

"RIGHT, Curtis! So and the security guy- yeah Namgoong and Yona make it to the front, and the evil bald dude- Wilford! So Wilford reveals that it was all rigged from the start, and he was behind the rebellion as an excuse to kill a bunch of the Tail. This is also when we find out that the train's running out of parts, so they're replacing the parts with the kids, which is why Timmy and Andy got taken and like, Curtis sticks his arm in the machine to rescue Timmy but they can't rescue Andy, and then they blow up the engine and Curtis and Namgoong shield Yona and Timmy with their bodies, and the train derails into the snow. Yona and Timmy survive, and when they leave the train, they see a polar bear in the distance, so you know that they've got a chance out there and they won't freeze to death. And that's the end."

Edgar's quiet during her retelling, only supplying the names as she brings up the people. There's a short silence after she finishes speaking.

He knew most of this already, from meeting Curtis at Milliways. But Curtis couldn't tell him what happened after his own death; he had only hope that Timmy and Yona might have survived, that something could live in the cold outside when the train was gone.

And now Edgar knows, and has no way to tell him.

He wipes a hand across his mouth, rests his forehead against his knuckles. "Thanks," he whispers.

Flan slides off the bar and just pulls him into a tight hug. "I'm sorry. I wish you'd gotten to hear this from somebody who was like, really into paying attention to everything. That would have been way nicer."

And with a pat on the back, she adds- "Y'wanna just pass out in the pillow pit for a while? I feel like this is a pillow pit situation."

He leans into the hug, because after that he really kind of needs one.

"Yeah," he mumbles into her shoulder, "pillow pit 'd be favorite."

A beat. "Can I bring my drink?"

"Oh my god, absolutely! Here, you give me like, three minutes, I'm going to put your drink in a water bottle so you can drink while lying down. It's top-tier, totally worth it." He gets another tight hug and pat.

And true to her word, Flan fills two water bottles (and grabs some regular water bottles 'cause hydrate or diedrate) and teleports Edgar and herself straight to the pillow pit. It might not be the flirty little maybe-hook-up she envisioned when she texted Edgar but honestly, chilling out with a dude while he's processing a lot of emotions is pretty good too.

IC Inbox for Come Sail Away

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