graveling: (enshadowed)
Angel [OC] ([personal profile] graveling) wrote in [community profile] ph_logs2024-12-05 10:18 pm

[OPEN] Moving

Who: Angel and Y'all
What: Moving Day and the Surrounding
When: Early December
Where: Yeah!
Warning(s):

1. So take your shaking bones
Eddie leaves on the ferry on a cold misty autumn morning, and Angel spends longer waiting for him to return to the farmhouse than it'll admit to afterwards, keeping a kettle warm on the stove for afternoon tea until the water's all boiled away and it's clear that how many lumps Eddie takes in a cup is irrelevant now, irrelevant ever again and Angel still doesn't want to admit it until it has to.

It has to.

And taking care of the farm, the bees and the temple all by itself just isn't going to be possible, it's not, even if its heart was hale and whole and beating in sync with Eddie's still, so something has to give.

Something has to.

Angel decides that it is going to move.

There are appointments with town hall to discuss possible new houses and apartments and townhouses (not homes, yet), and discussions of its beehives being transported into town, and paperwork to be filled out in a heavy, stiff, blocky hand as it figures out the work of transition, hoping that living in the city will be a replacement for the bustle of clucking hens and the nagging goat and it's going to need to get a stable situation set up for Arcadia, if the horse will forgive the relocation.

Angel is alone.

This is not work to be doing alone.

And that's before we get to the process of packing, of sorting through the debris of a life and a love and the twinge that reminds it that it can't cry every time it comes across a favored book or a shirt that still smells like Eddie, and that twinge is deeply painful enough to make it stop moving for seconds, perhaps minutes before it finds something to push it past inertia, even as it feels like some vital spark inside it is guttering and dimming.

This is not work to be doing alone.


2. And step out on your own
A sign on the bulletin board:

HELP WANTED MOVING. STANDARD PAY OFFERED: PIZZA AFTER WORK COMPLETE



3. Oh, the winter never stops
[This is your wildcard. It was meant for you.]
impostor_syndrome: The head and shoulders of an old-fashioned diving suit tinted purple (humanoid | diving suit)

Step out on your own

[personal profile] impostor_syndrome 2024-12-06 06:25 am (UTC)(link)
Purple hasn't had a good pizza since... well, there was some at the casino, but if demonic pizza is excluded then since before they took the job at the Company. Also, they have the day off and nothing better to do. And so here they are, in front of a stranger's house.
impostor_syndrome: The head and shoulders of an old-fashioned diving suit tinted purple (humanoid | diving suit)

[personal profile] impostor_syndrome 2024-12-06 06:49 am (UTC)(link)
They don't visibly react to getting their instructions from a walking, talking corpse, although any staring or squinting or confused blinking wouldn't show from inside the diving helmet.

"That's a lot of stuff," they comment, hoisting the nearest box onto their shoulder. "What's even in here?"

Maybe this is a normal amount of stuff for people who live on a planet and reside within horsing distance of their job to have, and they're the weird one.
Edited (wording) 2024-12-06 06:56 (UTC)
impostor_syndrome: Passport/ID style photo depicting the bottom half of an upside-down purple Among Us bean-person (bean | handstand)

[personal profile] impostor_syndrome 2024-12-06 11:44 pm (UTC)(link)
"Your life has a lot of stuff in it." There's a shrug in their voice, though they hold the box of whatever-it-is steady without straining.

Out the door and onto the cart it goes. To fill the silence, they add, "I'm not judging you for it, I'm just curious."

They're not sure if it's a touchy subject or if the dead guy's just in a bad mood. Plenty of reasons why moving could make people grouchy. Fewer of them here in this weird little backwater where you can just show up and get a job and a house, but there's still breakups and career changes and opportunities to seal your keys into a box and only notice after you've piled three more on top of it. Purple goes back for the next crate.