[OPEN] Scream, it makes no sound, I could testify

[closureisformovies]

Who: Alice Dyer (closureisformovies) & you!
What: Catch-All for Alice
When: Late August, Early-Mid September
Where: Town hall, oak & iron, empty pockets, around
Warnings: Possible Blight discussion, others as they come up



1. Explaining how time has bled me dry [town hall]

Those who work in Town Hall probably know Alice as the cheerful, tallish woman who spends the vast majority of the work day chattering and making jokes of varying levels of quality. She's the kind of person that's always talking to someone and it never seems to meaningfully impact her work, as she continues to be a pretty damn decent clerk despite all her many complaints about the concept of working at all.

But after the Blight mess is all said and done, Alice seems... a little off. The first few days are the worst; her work suffers and she's clearly still frayed around the edges, but given the fact she spent a lot of the time holding down the Town Hall shelter on her own it's excusable enough. She even perks up a little, after the day Gerry picks her up to drag her straight to drinks, but she never quite gets back to full form and if you look closely enough it's hard not to spot. Her jokes are more strained, she chatters a little less, and she keeps making stupid mistakes she wouldn't have before.

And her weird behaviour is especially obvious when Dahlia's around. Wonder what that's about.

2. You say I'm vacant now when it's justified [oak & iron]

Typically Alice stops by the O&I twice a day: once, in the morning, to get coffee and breakfast before she heads into work; second, in the evening after dinner to drink and hang out where the people are. This pattern remains much the same even when her behaviour shifts elsewhere, though the observant might notice she's drinking more than she usually does in the evenings and staying longer in the process.

It's in the evenings, especially after a couple drinks, that she's at her most social, inserting herself into conversations or joining people at tables with empty seats. Maybe you're one of the lucky people she jumps in to talk to, maybe her loudmouth charm has caught your attention, or maybe you just want to tell her to shut up. Either way, she's around. Soaking up the ambient energy, trying to ignore both her own chronic loneliness and the panic that's been threatening to consume her every waking moment since Aster walked into the office.

3. If you called my bluff, I could lose your love [empty pockets]

Alice joked about something like this a couple months ago, but it's only now with her mood in the gutter that she decides to go for the drastic measures: subjecting innocent people to her attempt at stand-up comedy.

It's not exactly a polished routine or anything, and anyone from the 2010s onwards that's at all internet savvy is going to recognise some of her humour as blatantly ripped from tumblr, but she is genuinely very quick on the draw and has plenty of her own material (even if it is, also, tumblr-flavoured).

And she has fun. Despite everything, she has fun.

4. And I know I'd be fine [Wildcard]

Hit me up to plot something or just throw something at me. She's out and about.

Comments

[maximumcake]

"Teamwork is definitely more my style," and just like that, his smile is back in full force.

[closureisformovies]

He's getting booped again.

"Dunno how long it'll be before I try this again, mind you. Things are pretty busy and this was mostly a balm on the fraying ends of my sanity after all that plague nonsense and, worse," she splays her hands, "the mortifying ordeal of definitely getting overheard having a personal argument in the work break room."

[maximumcake]

Max is just about ready to let himself deflate for the night when she throws in that last little tidbit. What that? Juicy office drama? He's listening. (He grew up on sitcoms, so sue him.)

"Uh oh? What was the argument about?"

[closureisformovies]

Alice groans extra dramatically just for the full effect, dragging her hands down her face. "Mostly years old baggage hitting out of nowhere, if 'nowhere' was where a boomerang you'd flung into the abyss had been until it suddenly came back around, hit you in the face and made you think 'damn, where did that come from?' as if you hadn't thrown the fucking boomerang."

...yeah okay that metaphor got away from her a bit. Accurate, though.

"Turns out the problem with being mates with your ex is sometimes you start arguing about the same shit you used to argue with before he was your ex. Who'd've fuckin' thunk it, huh?"

[maximumcake]

Max's eyebrow slowly lifts as the metaphor goes and keeps going. Huh? Boomerang?

Oh. Oh. They're exes, now that he follows. Hm. He wonders if maybe there's more to this. All those romance books he read can't be wrong, right?

"What kind of stuff were you arguing about?"

[closureisformovies]

"He thinks I think I know better than him. Which— okay, sometimes I do, because I do—like, seriously, you'd think when someone's been working at the spooky nightmare job ten years already, listening to her about how not to get killed would be common freaking sense—but that's not the point. He takes every attempt at advice or help like I'm trying to control his life and not just be a good girlfriend. Uh. Friend. Friend these days."

And sure, the fact she's gone and made a deal with a de— thing behind his back is pretty bad, but it was to help him, and he doesn't even know about that part yet.

"Contrary to popular belief I'm not actually perfect but I'm sure not some mastermind trying to manipulate him into position so I can steal his life force or something."

[maximumcake]

Max sits and diligently listens, but you better believe that little slip sent his eyebrows rocketing to the moon. Friend? Is that really all though?

"Sounds like the kind of fight that has some history behind it," he comments as diplomatically as possible.

"I'm not judging, okay, just saying... how much of that have you explained to him. Like. Calmly?"

[closureisformovies]

"...depends on your definition of calmly? We came down from the shouting but uh—" she's pretty sure that's because he thought she was about to start crying or something, which, pathetically, she probably was. "—I dunno. I've tried. He just never hears me."

[maximumcake]

"Mmm," he hums in mild disapproval. Yeah, that doesn't exactly sound like what he was going for.

"Have you tried getting a mediator? Someone to talk you both through it?"

[closureisformovies]

"No 'cuz that'd be mortifying," is offered like it's meant to be joking, but it's probably obvious that it's not quite. "See, okay, thing is, we've only actually been talking again for..."

...wow it's almost eight months now, counting time here. Time fucking flies.

"...a few months, so it's not like this has been an issue again for long, y'know? This was the first time it turned into an actual argument again."

[maximumcake]

Max squints at her. "Okay, be honest. Do you still like him?"

[closureisformovies]

Alice actually sputters in blatantly played up offence. "Pffbt what? Me, still be into that scrawny hopeless dweeb? Don't be— don't be ridiculous! My tastes have matured since uni, thank you, I am— why does everyone keep acting like I'm tryna jump his bones again? First Colin, then Teddy, now you lot— I'm a grown woman now! I pay taxes, I've got tits! It'd be pathetic if I was still pining for my ex from a decade ago! Don't be—"

—yeah this is really not helping her case is it.

[maximumcake]

The longer she spins out her denial, the further one of Max's eyebrows climbs up his forehead, inching along like a furry little caterpillar of doubt. Even after she stops, he's still giving her that look.

"Alice..." he says as he desperately tries to keep the grin out of his voice, "You know it's okay, right? If you still like him. You don't have to pretend."

[closureisformovies]

"Nah I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be. Like I think if I pulled up a list of things that are okay you would not find 'still holding a candle for your ex of ten years who's already into your new coworker at the job you nepo'd him into' on that list."

She really cannot stop digging herself a hole.

[maximumcake]

There goes the other eyebrow to join its brother. Brothers in doubt.

"Okay..." Yeah, so admittedly some of that is pretty awkward. But still! Stop pretending, Alice, Max can see right through it. Put the shovel down.

"So, is it not okay because he doesn't like you back?"

[closureisformovies]

There is a visible struggle on her face with how to respond, this time. She hasn't hit bedrock yet, right, she can totally keep this totally believable defence of herself up indefinitely. Totally.

"Well obviously he doesn't like me b— like me like that anymore, because we're broken up and have been for ten years. And that's fine! That's— fine."

[maximumcake]

Girl... the defense is six feet underground already.

"So he was the one who broke up with you?"

Is it fine? Is it?

[closureisformovies]

"It was... sort of mutual." It's extremely hard to say if that's actually the truth, or just what she's convinced herself is the truth. Though it's obvious enough that, even were it actually mutual, she still kind of feels like she's the one that got dumped anyway.

[maximumcake]

"Sort of?" Pressing X even harder.

"So, why did you break up to begin with?"

[closureisformovies]

"It was kind of— it wasn't just one thing, yanno. The whole ~you're trying to control my life~ thing wasn't not a part of it but our lives were also just... going different ways? We made a go of it for a while after uni finished, but he wanted to pursue lawyer stuff and I didn't know what I wanted to do and then my parents died and..." she blows air and waves a hand vaguely. "Easier to split up than keep tryna force our lives into the shapes they used to be."

Which doesn't make it any less... complicated, emotionally, and maybe if those other issues hadn't been lurking under the surface they'd have tried to make it work, but... well, here they are. Even if Alice still wishes it had been different.

[maximumcake]

"I guess..." Max says, drooping. "I'm sorry about your parents. That must have been really hard to go through." And to have to do it alone, even worse.

"But things here are different too, aren't they? I mean, you're both working in the same place, living in the same town again. Maybe the time wasn't right then but it could be now?"

[closureisformovies]

Dryly: "Going on precedent he'll fall head over heels for the next hottie to join town hall instead."

She sighs. "I appreciate a good ol' reconciliation plot-line in my romances as much as the next girl, but this is real life. Y'know?"

[maximumcake]

"Are you going to be okay if that does happen?" Max asks, earnestly. Because he's kind of worried maybe she won't be. Imagine having to work in that situation?

"It's up to you but, like, sometimes things do work out in real life, too. You won't know unless you try."

[closureisformovies]

"I'll be fine. The hottie, on the other hand, might find themselves in the lake."

She wouldn't really act out quite so obviously against someone Sam liked, but she would definitely imagine it. In great detail. Multiple times. Celia may have been the subject of some of these imaginings already.

"Now what would probably kill me is shooting my shot, him predictably letting me down easy, and then having to live in this town with him 'til the bubble pops."

[maximumcake]

Max gives her a scolding look. That does not sound "fine." But he can see she isn't willing to budge so, with a helpless flop of his hands, he concludes, "You are... really in a predicament. I do not envy you..."