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[themuseabandonsyou]

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Delievery in November

[glitchinthesystem]

[ On Orpheus door step he will find a small package. When opened it's just a package of guitar strings with a note attached. Which reads; ]

Orpheus. Got this with your name on them. I think they do some magic stuff. Figured you could use them.

-Glitch

[ ooc; this is what the threads do! + dream - When attached to a guitar they help with sanity when played. These strings are going to Orpheus. ]

Dec 25

[laminae]

[On the 25th Orpheus will find a gift has been left outside his door! According to the tag it's from Fern, and inside the meticulously wrapped package are several wood carved guitar pegs.

Merry Christmas, Orpheus!]

January 1st text; un: fern

[laminae]

hey uh
i know you got some crazy magic music skills?
how powerful is it?

text; un: lyreplayer

[themuseabandonsyou]

Oh! I never really thought about it in terms of power. Sometimes things just happen when I play and I don't really think about it that hard.

What are you trying to do?

[laminae]

um
getting rid of a vein cocoon thing
you said your music can make plants grow, maybe it can make veins go away?

[themuseabandonsyou]

A vein cocoon thing?
I can't say I've ever done anything like that before, but I can try it now?
Where are you?
I can be there as soon as possible.

text; un: fern

[laminae]

DUDE
THE SONGS YOU GAVE ME WERE PERFECT
IT ALL WENT PERFECT

text; un: lyreplayer

[themuseabandonsyou]

Oh! I'm so glad to hear that. Which ones did you wind up going with?

[laminae]

Always and A Thousand Years
he liked them so much we did a duet!

[themuseabandonsyou]

Oh, perfect! I had a good feeling about those two. I'm so glad he liked them, and I'm sure you did a great job with it.

[Delivery]

[laminae]

[A few days before Valentine's Day Orpheus will find a package at his door.

It's a box of chocolates! And it comes with a handwritten note:]

Hey,

I just learned about this rad human holiday where you give people stuff if they're important to you, so I hope you like chocolate!

And if this isn't how the holiday works, sorry. I'm trying my best here.

-Fern

action;

[advanced]

[It's been a while since the laboratory, since he got back and found both men that he'd tried to rescue, since he walked away from Steve Rogers again. And he's not doing well. In fact, he's doing pretty damn poorly, even by his ridiculously low standards, and he's not sure what the hell to do to alleviate some of this nervous tension that's driving him to keep moving even though his exhaustion.

He keeps making patrols around the town, even though it's useless and he has no idea what he's looking for, wide perimeter searches that take him to both familiar and unfamiliar territory. It's while he's on one of the loops of places that he's been before that he rounds a particular corner and hears a guitar. Hears a voice.

He very nearly turns and runs, memory of that voice singing to him and what happened.

But he's met Orpheus since. He knows it's not the same man, not the same creature, and that he doesn't intend harm. The sound of it still arrests his feet, though, freezing him in place just staring at Orpheus.]

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus is not feeling particularly well today either. He's recovered from the lab and the existential crisis that came with it well enough, he guesses, but some days he just... misses Eurydice, misses Hermes and Persephone, misses the band and the bar, misses home. And the only thing he really has that he can do about it is sing, and play his guitar, sitting on the edge of a retaining wall on the college's campus. He doesn't notice Stefan approach, eyes closed and lost in the song. ]

You ain't never been blue; no, no, no,
You ain't never been blue,
Till you've had that mood indigo.
That feelin' goes stealin' down to my shoes
While I just sit here and sigh, "Go 'long blues".
I always get that mood indigo,
Since my baby said goodbye.

[ A flock of assorted birds has gathered around him - crows, songbirds, pigeons, and it's only when a little sparrow lands on his shoulder that he opens his eyes to look over at it, and only then that he notices his audience.

He stops playing abruptly, putting his hands over the strings to stop their vibration. ]

Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't notice you there. You didn't - you're okay, right?

[advanced]

[After the first few frozen moments, the initial panic response fades when he realises that his will remains his own. Orpheus' voice is clear, but Bucky feels no compulsion to walk to him as he had when the man had become a creature, which means he was likely telling the truth about lacking those powers.

And then--

--the song creates a hollow sort of echo in his chest, like a phantom pain. It conjures up images of bright red lipstick and cigarette smoke, of the smell of pomade in his hair. Nothing more substantial than that, no truly concrete memory, but... he knows that song. He knows it. That's what serves to keep him in place until all of a sudden it stops, even the vibration of the strings silenced in a heartbeat.

He doesn't look particularly okay, dark smudges under his eyes and a rumpled look to his clothes, a habitual tension in his shoulders. But he's ignoring the question to ask his own, voice quiet.]

What was that song?

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Well, Stefan isn't running away or trying to stab him or anything, so that's probably good? He does look a little - confused, or distressed, or something like that, though, and Orpheus looks at him with a mix of curiosity and concern. ]

It's called Mood Indigo, and it's by Duke Ellington.

[ As it becomes clear that the show is over for now, the birds that had gathered around to listen start to fly off, though the sparrow on Orpheus's shoulder stays for the moment, preening itself. ]

Why, do you know it?

voice; un: wuwho; March 28th

[royalfling]

Hi, Orpheus!

[ Wu doesn't sound great here. His voice is thick and slow, and a little hoarse. ]

Uh, I know you're probably not feeling great right now. I'm not. I wanted to see if you're okay, which you're probably not.

[ A beat. ]

What I'm saying is that I know that Sam killed you. I know this because, uh, he killed me too, and I saw what he did to you, and I'm so, so sorry. If you need anything, I can probably get it for you. Mako could bring it over or, or something.

un: lyreplayer | voice

[themuseabandonsyou]

Oh, um, hi Wu!

[ Orpheus's voice has a similar quality to it, raw and hoarse and plainly exhausted, though he makes the effort to muster some enthusiasm to greet a friend. Whatever good cheer he can summon quickly goes away, though, when the topic at hand becomes apparent. ]

Oh. Oh, no. I'm so sorry. You saw? [ He sounds a little horrified - what was done to him was bad enough, but someone having to witness it, before being killed themselves? ] I don't need anything, I think, but thank you for offering? Are - are you okay, though? What happened was, um.

[ He doesn't really have the words for it. Terrifying. Horrific. Monstrous. None really seem to cut it. ]

[royalfling]

Yeah, I-- I'm sorry that happened to you. [ A beat. It seemed really important to talk to Orpheus about what happened to both of them, but now it's difficult, more difficult than he would have thought. ]

I did see. He, ah, showed me. I think as a threat.

[ He grimaces at that, shaking his head ]

I'm okay. As okay as I can be. This flu is awful, and he broke my arm, but Korra's healing it for me.

Are you okay?

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ It is difficult to talk about, and Orpheus isn't really sure how to respond. How do you talk about someone witnessing your own messy death? ]

I still don't know what he wanted. He said he was teaching someone else a lesson? Someone I'd been nice to.

[ But how was killing him and Wu supposed to prove anything? ]

I'm okay. All of me kind of hurts? But I don't think anything is broken.

[ He has some raw, angry-looking scar tissue around his neck now, but that's nothing he doesn't already keep covered anyway. It's fine. ]

I'm sorry about your arm, though. It's good you have someone to help, at least? Who's Korra?

dreamwalking, sometime before april 8th

[endoftheverse]

[Lucifer walks into a rather strange dream.

He had known just who it belonged to, of course, but it does catch him a bit by surprise. People hammering away in the dark, walls of rock all around them, razor wire, the howls of angry guard dogs—

He walks, hands in his pockets, and looks for a particular poor boy with a lyre.

Just to say hello, of course.

He'd love to see more into the son of a muse he's murdered.]

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ The place is strangely empty, for all the noise of pickaxes swinging and distant machinery rumbling away. No workers are visible anywhere on the streets, no lights are visible in the windows of the buildings, no work songs rise through the air. A sense of crushing loneliness pervades, until one lone voice cuts through the air. ]

Eurydice?! [ Orpheus wanders through empty alleyways and thoroughfares, looking terribly small and confused and afraid, boxed in on all sides by darkened, towering skyscrapers. His voice echoes off the walls, bouncing back at him almost mockingly. She's not here. No one is.

No one except Lucifer, of course. ]

[endoftheverse]

[How interesting. Fascinating. This isn't Hell, not even close, but there's certainly a sort of odd feeling about it. It's not Lucifer's first time being underground, in a world away from the one walked above. He flies from his spot to the place he feels the dreamer has rushed to, and sits with one leg crossed casually over the other as Orpheus rushes into the scene.]

I don't think she's around.

Wouldn't that be nice, though? A dream come true.

[He looks particularly eerie, bathed in shadow, the sharp of his cheekbones pronounced.

Unintentional, honestly. He's just a frightening being with little effort.]

Voice | and now for something completely different | April 19th

[endoftheverse]

[It admittedly... takes Sam a few days to drum up the courage to message Orpheus. He'd been wrestling with himself over the importance of it, of whether... Orpheus would never want to hear another word from him again, or if Orpheus would want an apology. What happened was impossibly traumatic, impossibly horrific, and it was all done with his hands. Didn't matter if he wasn't the one driving. It happened.

Ultimately, he supposes he should at least say sorry — and if Orpheus wants to slam the offer back in his face and tell him to get the fuck away from him in every aspect of interaction, then good. Sam's not exactly of the opinion he doesn't deserve it.

Still, it's not without a shaking hand that he calls.]

Orpheus... It's Sam.

I just — I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. For everything that had happened to you. I owe you explanations, too, and I will tell you anything you want to know... but I know sometimes explanations don't really matter. And that... that you might prefer for me to shut the hell up and stay away from you. I'll absolutely do that, but... you deserved an apology. You deserve a lot of apologies.

So I just... wanted to at least give you those, first.

I'm so, so sorry.

voice | un: lyreplayer

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ One might think the voice that Orpheus hears on the other end of the Fluid would be achingly, uncomfortably familiar to him by now, after it's been haunting his nightmares for weeks, and one would be kind of right. Hearing him introduce himself alone is enough to send shivers down Orpheus's spine, but as Sam goes on to explain himself, Orpheus finds himself relaxing slowly. The way he talks is almost completely different to the way he did before, slow and superior. It's like he's a different person. ]

Oh, um, hi Sam. It's... [ He catches himself, before saying 'it's okay,' because it's kind of not. Unconsciously, he reaches up and touches the scar that rings around his neck. ] I don't want you to shut up or go away. I'm okay talking about this.

Are you... feeling more yourself? You sound really different.

voice

[endoftheverse]

[He's relieved... and then guilty about being relieved.

Breathing out shakily, he pushes himself to speak.]

Y-yeah. Yeah, I am. I, um...

I sound really different because you weren't, ah... You weren't speaking to me. [His fingers curl on his phone at the memory, so clear in his head.] I know he said he was Sam Winchester, but he wasn't. He's — an archangel that's been possessing me.

[It sounds nuts. It always sounds nuts.

But then again, everything Lucifer does seems impossible.]