[OPEN] The cake is a lie

[chronomancer]

Characters: Jade!Eridan and YOU!
Setting: Cafeteria's kitchen.
Format: Action.
Summary: ...in which Eridan tries his hand at the arcane, mystic majicks of baking for the sake of his matesprit. It goes as well as you'd expect.
Warnings: FLOUR. FLOUR AND BUTTER EVERYWHERE.

[...well. That sure just happened.

Eridan blinks slowly, as the cloud of white slowly descends onto the floor. He'd never known bags of flour were even explosive. Like. Okay. Maybe he'd tugged a little too hard. Maybe. But that's not a good enough reason for it to explode on his face. The recipe he was working off from didn't say anything about exploding bags of flour.

He just stands there for a moment, W E L P all but written all over his face. Somehow, he thinks, this little project might turn out to be a little more complicated than anticipated.]
 

Comments

[chronomancer]

Well, true. But the way I see it, we actually have enough to go on to make things good, right?

[He shrugged.]

Besides, it beats not having a world to go back to.

[tohko_amano]

Well, that's true..hopefully we'll be able to make things better soon.

[Tohko looked a little concerned at that.]

..How was your world destroyed? Or do you believe the letter they gave you?

[chronomancer]

Eh, I was having a bad day.

[He smirks like he's joking. And he is. Except he's telling the truth for once. Best lies, those.]

[tohko_amano]

[Okay, now you've got Tohko puzzled. That smile usually means a person is joking. But why would he joke about destroying his world?]

..How did you having a bad day destroy your world?

[chronomancer]

[Deadpan. The most flawless of all deadpans.]

It was a really fucking shitty day, lemme tell you.

[He arched an eyebrow.]

I mean, the universe went and ended.

[tohko_amano]

[Deadpans, sadly, were Tohko's greatest weakness. Once you knew this, it was really easy to tease her.

..Well, that, and if you knew the proper buttons to hit with her.]

That does sound like a pretty horrible day. How did one universe end where you came from? I don't think you yourself could have caused it.

[chronomancer]

You'd think huh?

[He shrugs. Unbeknownst to Tohko, Eridan is testing the waters with himself, as much as he is with her. This is the kind of conversation he could have, right? He needed to get through it without losing his shit. It was funny, really. Half a sweep ago, he'd been terrified to even talk about this. But the cat had been out of the bag for so long, that what did it really matter now.]

Eh, I just reset the whole thing.

[tohko_amano]

[Tohko would be more than happy to help work him through this. Even if she didn't realize that she was.]

But if you reset the whole thing, that doesn't mean that it's destroyed. It's just..reset.

[chronomancer]

[She's not really helping him work through as much as she's helping him test his newer and improved bullshit skills.]

Think of everything that makes you, you. Like the people you've met, the friends you've mad, the things you've fucked up. Everything that you are. Now imagine an asshole comes about and takes it all away. And then makes sure it'll never happen the same way.

[He arched an eyebrow.]

You'll still be there, won't you? Or maybe you won't. Maybe the circumstances that lead to your existence will never happen, so you won't exist, in the new world. But suppose you do. Except you don't meet your best friend, you don't live where you once did, you don't learn the things you did. It's just reset, sure. But the world that was won't ever be, and if that ain't the meaning of destruction, I don't really know what is.

[tohko_amano]

[Because Tohko loves being a lab rat for that.

At that, Tohko sighed.]

Even if I wouldn't exist, or, even if I wouldn't exist as I do now in a new universe, that's better than everything being destroyed. True destruction is not even having a reset. One move, and everything's destroyed. Things can't come back, even differently, like they would in a reset.

[chronomancer]

[Everyone does. Honest. Eridan smiles, just a ghost condescendingly.]

You've never talked with another universe's version of you, have you?

[tohko_amano]

[Tohko returns the smile, but hers is actually genuine.]

I haven't..but I imagine that the experience might be interesting. I might be annoyed or mad at an alternate version of myself..but the experience would still be interesting.

I'm guessing you have?

[chronomancer]

Yup.

[Eridan moves over to wash the rag again. It doesn't quite need washing yet, but it gives him something to do with his hands away from her view so she can't see how badly they might start shaking every now and then.]

What you don't understand is the idea behind the reset. Things don't come back, because they never went away in the first place. You're simply discarding something that didn't work out. And then there's no one left to look back and remember how things were before. You are literally destroying everything so you can start back from scratch.

[He gives the rag a nice, savage squeeze, before turning back to last bits of cleaning.]

You'd think you'd know them, huh? 'cause they're you. Except they're not. And anything you know is worthless because they're not you and their universe doesn't follow the same rules yours did. It can be very infuriating.

[tohko_amano]

[Tohko keeps cleaning as he speaks, and, before she replied, she threw away the used paper towels, sighed to herself, and then replied.]

I'm not sure if 'destroy' is the right way to put it..but you are bringing everything back to the beginning to be remade from scratch. However, while I might not know the me in a different universe, and while things may be very different than how I know them, it's better than total destruction.

However..I'm curious. Why was a reset button even made in the first place?

[chronomancer]

...you're making me wonder what kind of destruction you're familiar with, if you'll discount anything else but it.

[The question seemed genuine, though her attitude was starting to irritate him. He couldn't tell if it was because she was irritating or just because he was looking for an excuse to blow up on someone. Either way, he focused on keeping his tone and his expression pleasant.]

It's a long story.

[tohko_amano]

Well, when I think of destruction, I think of utter destruction. The end of everything, with no chance for even a reset.

And it's alright if it's a long story! We have time..I think.

[chronomancer]

I think your problem is perspective.

[Eridan paused, however, at the last bit. He stared at her a moment. Then he offered a very wry smile. The corner of his lip twitched a little though.]

...uh. You know. Most of the time, when people say something it's a long story, they sort of mean it as a polite way of saying they don't actually want to talk about it.

[tohko_amano]

[Tohko looked a little puzzled at that.]

What's wrong with my perspective?

[She then sighed and smiled.]

I know. I mean two things when I say that we have time for a long story. First, I mean it literally. I am a book girl, so I'll listen to most of any story I can get my hands on.

The second meaning is this: I'll listen to whatever terrible things are in that story, and I'll help you out with them as best I can.

However, if you don't want to tell me that story right now, that's fine.

[chronomancer]

Is that why you're so nosy?

[tohko_amano]

What? I'm not nosy! I'm just curious about things sometimes!

[chronomancer]

Uh.

[Eridan tilted his head to the side.]

...that's. Kind of the definition of nosy.

[tohko_amano]

But it's not like I force people to tell me things or pry when people tell me that they don't want to talk!

[chronomancer]

Yeah, no. That's not being nosy so much as it's being an asshole.

[tohko_amano]

I'd imagine that it's probably a combination of the two. However, it still has nosiness in it.

[chronomancer]

But it's not the same thing. Which is kind of my point.

[He arches an eyebrow.]

You're nosy.