[He said he wasn't gonna do it immediately!! And also there's no way Lup will let him once she knows. Shhhhhh don't worry about it.]
Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm not saying you did it on purpose. Could be death magic, what the fuck do I know anymore, today's been a goddamn mess.
[But he makes it outside, physically a step outside of the boundary of the house, taking a moment to look and see if anyone saw him before sticking his hands in his pockets and beelining out of there as nonchalantly as he's able.]
Death magic? (She laughs, but it sounds a little strangled,) I think– wouldn't you associate something like that with malevolent ghosts? I really don't–
(But then he steps out of the house and Lucretia's words fail her, because she feels that separation so keenly in her soul it almost... hurts. It feels like the memory of being wounded. It feels like dying, except that nothing happens to her, and she remains where she is in the wood chip, paralyzed. Dying lite.
Taako's hand joins her in his pocket. She knows he didn't put it there for reassurance, more out of habit, but it's still nice. Lucretia simmers, trying to get used to the floaty feeling of being suddenly disconnected. She realises with a jolt that she has no idea where they're going. The house has been north, south, east and west for her. She can't remember the world beyond it.)
Uh, (she says, and her voice sounds rusty, a little squeak of sound from his pocket.) Yes? I– suppose that I did. Am I still here? Can you still hear me?
But he keeps strolling along, meeting back onto the trail he took out here, and glancing around to make sure no one saw him.]
Huh? Lucretia? You there?
[He doesn't wait more than a few seconds before he laughs, cutting off any anxiety she's probably experiencing.]
I'm just fucking with you, I can hear you. You all good? Hang on, got an idea.
[He takes his hand off the wood piece to retrieve his headphones from his other pocket, plugging it into his phone. As he makes it back towards people, he's gonna look nuts if he's talking to himself, but if he talks into the speaker on these no one's gonna care.]
There we go. You still feel like, the regular level of dead?
(It's long enough for Lucretia's stomach to plummet, so she doesn't laugh in response to his little 'joke', she just puts her face in her hands for a moment and sighs. Hilarious, Taako.)
Yes, I'm 'all good'. (Relatively speaking. She has no idea what he's doing with his phone and headphones because that's all taking place in another pocket and she's too skittish to put a toe outside of the wood chip. Lucretia's pretty sure she could come out, like, whenever, she's just going to wait until they've stopped for a bit or something. That's all.)
Still dead, still... here, some how? Honestly, I have no idea how any of this is working, logically speaking. (Probably best not to question it.) Where exactly are we going?
[He chuckles when she responds, obviously not thrown by his own stunt. You're a gem, Taako. Truly.
That said, he appreciates her not manifesting right here, because that's more of a stunt than he can handle right now. He continues chattering as he moves.]
Sweet, ghost heist achieved. Look at that, we slapped the rules of ghost whatevers. Take that, nature.
[Right, she asked him a question.]
Oh, and we're heading back to my place. Or well, our bus. It's where Lup and I live so it's home for now. You sure you don't wanna pull somethin' on her? Because it would seriously rock and she'd loooove it, trust me.
What exactly do you mean by 'pull something on her'? You mean a prank?
(That's so... childish. Lucretia secretly thinks it sounds kind of fun.) ... What exactly would we do? (She definitely doesn't want to hurt anybody, but something innocent like a scare could be okay.)
[Nothing is innocent with the Taaco twins, but seeing as she's about to be living with them, this would be a good lesson to learn now.]
Oh man, all sorts of things. Could you possess the bus and hit her with water from the sink? What if you borrowed me for like 5 min to do some creepy shit? Do you think you could throw things-- not like hard stuff, like pillows or whatever. We have soooo many options here and all of them are fucking fantastic. If you don't have a pref I'm gonna keep spitballin' forever my dude.
I could fog up a mirror, and write on it, (Lucretia chimes in, catching on. This is making her feel a lot better about her current circumstances. It works as a distraction for now, so she's happy to throw herself into the idea of it.)
Or if I moved your arms again, you could pretend not to know what was happening and we could get her that way, too. Honestly, if we're looking to cover our bases, Taako, I feel like we should do a little bit of everything.
Man, you are devious! Yeah, no, I got this. We'll pull out the stops- moving stuff around, the words, and then you possess me for a bit until she flips. Then I'll intro you, natch. She'll think it's rad as hell and know you're cool cuz you started by dunking on her.
[That's how you ensure you're friends. Or something.]
(Lucretia knows she just suggested half of this prank, but she can't help but cover all of her bases anyway. She doesn't really want to freak anybody out, at least not seriously.) She won't get very scared, and try to run or anything will she?
[This is the point where he'd clap a hand on her shoulder if he could, but like... ghosts. You can't-- you just can't Ghosts like that. It's unfortunate, considering how handsy a person he is. He'll just have to squeeze the piece of wood a bit in his pocket, like a little hug that he will refuse to acknowledge going forward.]
Babe, we're ghost hunters. We go through creepy buildings and create dumb shit all the time. Besides, I think her fight or flight reaction is literally all fight, so the worst it could go is she punches me in the face. Just promise if you see a fist coming, you'll duck.
[He will take that blow for the sake of this gag, though. As far as he's concerned this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and he has never been more into something in his entire life. Even if she breaks all the bones in his face he thinks he'd be satisfied.]
(Oh, it's really nice though. Just a little acknowledgement of her being there. Lucretia puts out a little thread of herself, stretching it outside the confines of the splinter and touching his finger with it when he squeezes the wood, but she's not going to tell him she did that and who knows if he would ever notice otherwise.)
It's Lucretia, (she says after a beat, clearing her throat.) But okay. I cannot promise I'll duck if I see a fist though, because there's really no need– I mean, it will just go right through me. So you're on your own, there.
I'm down, though. Where is your bus?
(It feels like they've been travelling so far... in reality, they've been walking for about five minutes, but to Lucretia it feels like an eternity. She can't feel a single inch of the house any more. They have truly left it behind.)
[It's fine, all displays of affection can be passed off nonverbally and without embarrassment. Taako's real good at that.]
Lucy, you're gonna have to get used to the nickname schtick, I don't think I've said a full word in like 20 years. And be patient, almost there, though I do appreciate the eagerness.
[But they're close, having parked in a more central location before the twins set off on their own. He goes another block before swinging right into a parking garage, and up another flight of stairs. It looks fairly nondescript on the outside- just so they're not mobbed 24/7- but that doesn't stop it from being a cool blue and black, painted by the twins themselves. The top seems to be wider than the bottom somehow, but he doesn't seem to be explaining how.]
Wwwwelcome to casa del Taaco, please wipe your feet on the stairs before entering and pick your jaw off the floor.
[Wait, he thought of something else as they reach the threshold.]
Hey, have you ever seen a bus? Do you know what a bus is?
It's only one more syllable, (she protests, but she can tell that isn't really the point, and so she decides she's probably going to give up. Nobody has given her a nickname in... who knows how long. Maybe that's good, maybe that means they can be friends. If anybody would actually want to be friends with a ghost, that is.
Is Taako going to take her back to the house after they finish tricking his sister? A sobering thought. This is the most fun she's had in ages. She falls silent as they keep walking, brooding a little inside of the wood chip and only pipes up again once he's brought her up the stairs toward the bus. Only then does she venture out of his pocket and out into some kind of visible form. She's a little tough to see in the direct light, but she's certainly there, rippling slightly in the breeze.)
I've seen a bus, (she says, and elbows him fruitlessly,) but not one like this, this is so... so cool.
[See, friend nicknames. It's not just Taako steamrolling over shit, probably. Maybe it's both.
He shivers a little as her elbow goes right through him, but he laughs it off.]
Uh, yeah, everything about me is cool including my house bus. Bus house. Bouse. I'm getting that painted on the side.
[He steps inside though, and presses past the initial car through a curtain into the living area. This is how it becomes apparent how it's bigger- the top expands when stopped to give more space. There's a table to the right, a hanging bar on the left to hold coats and additional clothes. The middle is an expanded kitchen, an oven on one side and a sink on the other. The hall there extends back to where it seems a bedroom rests in the back, and more off in small rooms to the sides.]
Anyway, welcome to bouse, bet you've never seen one like that huh? C'mon, take a look around, regale me with how cool it all is.
(Because who would want to live in a bus? Lucretia's been haunting a huge, abandoned three-level house for decades, and even that became a little claustrophobic over time. She follows him inside and drifts slowly along every wall, rippling through his and Lup's appliances, the clothes hanging from the bar.
Actually, she stops there, and slots her arms very carefully into the arms of a sequined blazer, which, after a bit of concentration, she can make move.
[Ironically, the size of the house Lucretia had been tied to might actually make him nervous. The twins are so used to slotting into shared space, to brushing elbows and hair tickling shoulders and curling into small balls to sleep. Having a space they could be so far apart feels-- bad. It feels bad. They could live in the biggest house in the world and they'd still have a bedroom just for them, a taako-and-lup hideaway to curl into each other's arms when times got tough.
But mostly, he's busy right now watching her examine their wardrobe, and snickers as she starts to wiggle the sleeve.]
Oh, so you've got a fashion sense now. Here I thought your taste would be more like, wood.
[He looks at her though, still trying to think about the best way to dunk on his beloved sibling before her arrival.]
Oh man, you could hide in there and grab her when she goes by, that'd be funny as hell. Actually, are you like, wearing that or? If it wasn't on the hook could you like, put it on and walk around?
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Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm not saying you did it on purpose. Could be death magic, what the fuck do I know anymore, today's been a goddamn mess.
[But he makes it outside, physically a step outside of the boundary of the house, taking a moment to look and see if anyone saw him before sticking his hands in his pockets and beelining out of there as nonchalantly as he's able.]
Check it out. One whole ass outside. You did it.
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Death magic? (She laughs, but it sounds a little strangled,) I think– wouldn't you associate something like that with malevolent ghosts? I really don't–
(But then he steps out of the house and Lucretia's words fail her, because she feels that separation so keenly in her soul it almost... hurts. It feels like the memory of being wounded. It feels like dying, except that nothing happens to her, and she remains where she is in the wood chip, paralyzed. Dying lite.
Taako's hand joins her in his pocket. She knows he didn't put it there for reassurance, more out of habit, but it's still nice. Lucretia simmers, trying to get used to the floaty feeling of being suddenly disconnected. She realises with a jolt that she has no idea where they're going. The house has been north, south, east and west for her. She can't remember the world beyond it.)
Uh, (she says, and her voice sounds rusty, a little squeak of sound from his pocket.) Yes? I– suppose that I did. Am I still here? Can you still hear me?
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But he keeps strolling along, meeting back onto the trail he took out here, and glancing around to make sure no one saw him.]
Huh? Lucretia? You there?
[He doesn't wait more than a few seconds before he laughs, cutting off any anxiety she's probably experiencing.]
I'm just fucking with you, I can hear you. You all good? Hang on, got an idea.
[He takes his hand off the wood piece to retrieve his headphones from his other pocket, plugging it into his phone. As he makes it back towards people, he's gonna look nuts if he's talking to himself, but if he talks into the speaker on these no one's gonna care.]
There we go. You still feel like, the regular level of dead?
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Yes, I'm 'all good'. (Relatively speaking. She has no idea what he's doing with his phone and headphones because that's all taking place in another pocket and she's too skittish to put a toe outside of the wood chip. Lucretia's pretty sure she could come out, like, whenever, she's just going to wait until they've stopped for a bit or something. That's all.)
Still dead, still... here, some how? Honestly, I have no idea how any of this is working, logically speaking. (Probably best not to question it.) Where exactly are we going?
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That said, he appreciates her not manifesting right here, because that's more of a stunt than he can handle right now. He continues chattering as he moves.]
Sweet, ghost heist achieved. Look at that, we slapped the rules of ghost whatevers. Take that, nature.
[Right, she asked him a question.]
Oh, and we're heading back to my place. Or well, our bus. It's where Lup and I live so it's home for now. You sure you don't wanna pull somethin' on her? Because it would seriously rock and she'd loooove it, trust me.
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(That's so... childish. Lucretia secretly thinks it sounds kind of fun.) ... What exactly would we do? (She definitely doesn't want to hurt anybody, but something innocent like a scare could be okay.)
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Oh man, all sorts of things. Could you possess the bus and hit her with water from the sink? What if you borrowed me for like 5 min to do some creepy shit? Do you think you could throw things-- not like hard stuff, like pillows or whatever. We have soooo many options here and all of them are fucking fantastic. If you don't have a pref I'm gonna keep spitballin' forever my dude.
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Or if I moved your arms again, you could pretend not to know what was happening and we could get her that way, too. Honestly, if we're looking to cover our bases, Taako, I feel like we should do a little bit of everything.
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Man, you are devious! Yeah, no, I got this. We'll pull out the stops- moving stuff around, the words, and then you possess me for a bit until she flips. Then I'll intro you, natch. She'll think it's rad as hell and know you're cool cuz you started by dunking on her.
[That's how you ensure you're friends. Or something.]
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(Lucretia knows she just suggested half of this prank, but she can't help but cover all of her bases anyway. She doesn't really want to freak anybody out, at least not seriously.) She won't get very scared, and try to run or anything will she?
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Babe, we're ghost hunters. We go through creepy buildings and create dumb shit all the time. Besides, I think her fight or flight reaction is literally all fight, so the worst it could go is she punches me in the face. Just promise if you see a fist coming, you'll duck.
[He will take that blow for the sake of this gag, though. As far as he's concerned this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and he has never been more into something in his entire life. Even if she breaks all the bones in his face he thinks he'd be satisfied.]
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It's Lucretia, (she says after a beat, clearing her throat.) But okay. I cannot promise I'll duck if I see a fist though, because there's really no need– I mean, it will just go right through me. So you're on your own, there.
I'm down, though. Where is your bus?
(It feels like they've been travelling so far... in reality, they've been walking for about five minutes, but to Lucretia it feels like an eternity. She can't feel a single inch of the house any more. They have truly left it behind.)
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Lucy, you're gonna have to get used to the nickname schtick, I don't think I've said a full word in like 20 years. And be patient, almost there, though I do appreciate the eagerness.
[But they're close, having parked in a more central location before the twins set off on their own. He goes another block before swinging right into a parking garage, and up another flight of stairs. It looks fairly nondescript on the outside- just so they're not mobbed 24/7- but that doesn't stop it from being a cool blue and black, painted by the twins themselves. The top seems to be wider than the bottom somehow, but he doesn't seem to be explaining how.]
Wwwwelcome to casa del Taaco, please wipe your feet on the stairs before entering and pick your jaw off the floor.
[Wait, he thought of something else as they reach the threshold.]
Hey, have you ever seen a bus? Do you know what a bus is?
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Is Taako going to take her back to the house after they finish tricking his sister? A sobering thought. This is the most fun she's had in ages. She falls silent as they keep walking, brooding a little inside of the wood chip and only pipes up again once he's brought her up the stairs toward the bus. Only then does she venture out of his pocket and out into some kind of visible form. She's a little tough to see in the direct light, but she's certainly there, rippling slightly in the breeze.)
I've seen a bus, (she says, and elbows him fruitlessly,) but not one like this, this is so... so cool.
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He shivers a little as her elbow goes right through him, but he laughs it off.]
Uh, yeah, everything about me is cool including my house bus. Bus house. Bouse. I'm getting that painted on the side.
[He steps inside though, and presses past the initial car through a curtain into the living area. This is how it becomes apparent how it's bigger- the top expands when stopped to give more space. There's a table to the right, a hanging bar on the left to hold coats and additional clothes. The middle is an expanded kitchen, an oven on one side and a sink on the other. The hall there extends back to where it seems a bedroom rests in the back, and more off in small rooms to the sides.]
Anyway, welcome to bouse, bet you've never seen one like that huh? C'mon, take a look around, regale me with how cool it all is.
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(Because who would want to live in a bus? Lucretia's been haunting a huge, abandoned three-level house for decades, and even that became a little claustrophobic over time. She follows him inside and drifts slowly along every wall, rippling through his and Lup's appliances, the clothes hanging from the bar.
Actually, she stops there, and slots her arms very carefully into the arms of a sequined blazer, which, after a bit of concentration, she can make move.
She waves one cheerfully at Taako.)
This is nice.
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But mostly, he's busy right now watching her examine their wardrobe, and snickers as she starts to wiggle the sleeve.]
Oh, so you've got a fashion sense now. Here I thought your taste would be more like, wood.
[He looks at her though, still trying to think about the best way to dunk on his beloved sibling before her arrival.]
Oh man, you could hide in there and grab her when she goes by, that'd be funny as hell. Actually, are you like, wearing that or? If it wasn't on the hook could you like, put it on and walk around?