History Obliterates [closed]

[singthesong]

Steven is finally gone, and the Balladeer is alone with himself.

He needed this. He hates to be alone, but he needed this. For days the knowledge (and lack thereof) of what he's done has been crawling under his skin like a physical itch - the one assassin he should be most familiar with, and all he knows is what Greta relayed to him second-hand, from a search somebody did on their cell phone. It's funny. It's really very funny.

One way or another, he ought to know everything about this lost assassination. Either it's his job, or it's his. So once he's alone, he takes himself to a library and gets out every reasonable book he can find, plus a few documentaries on DVD. There seems to be a lot of ridiculous conspiracy theories surrounding the whole thing; sadly, he can't quite convince himself any of them could be true. If Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy, the Balladeer would never have any connection with him at all.

(The stop at the liquor store is an afterthought, a whim built on memories of a thousand morose drinking sessions he never joined. He wonders bitterly if Sam would laugh, and buys whiskey the man could never afford.)

He goes home and spends the day reading. At some point, he opens a bottle. He meant to eat something with it - that helps, right? - but instead he ends up putting one of the documentaries on to watch. He just needs to know.

He loses track of time.

Comments

[andhiswife]

Greta briefly hides her face behind her hand, giggling helplessly in mingled embarrassment and delight. She's never going to get over the fact that everyone else knew. There are probably Rifties she's never even met who would just know her as the woman Iman's in love with.

She's not entirely sure how she ought to feel about that. It's been refreshing, existing on her own terms instead of in constant relation to her husband... but to be similarly associated with Iman is a thrill. Not least of all because Iman isn't someone to be trifled with.

"She likes you, too," Greta says, glancing down at her texts. "In fact..." her smile widens for a moment as a few more missives come through, and then she shifts to face the Balladeer, her expression sobering a little.

"Listen," she continues with a bit more gravity, "this isn't a promise, because none of us can make promises about this sort of thing. But if we figure out the Rift, and people are able to go home on purpose, you can come with us. To Iman's world. You're invited. We don't want you going back to your universe or getting left behind here, and--and I don't want to lose you, so..." oh dear, she's tearing up again. She pulls in a deep breath and makes sure she has control of herself before finishing, "if you want to, and if we can make it happen, you're with us."

[singthesong]

Of course, the whole thing resulted in the Balladeer thinking of Iman as "that woman who loves Greta" for a good while. It can go both ways!

He shifts, withdrawing a little into himself at the sudden seriousness. Are they going back to talking about sad things? But as Greta goes on, a smile breaks across his face. "Really? I always - I was gonna try to stay here, if I could." Of course he's thought about it. Everyone else worries so much about going home that the topic tends to surface. Some days it seems almost inevitable, settling like a cold stone in his gut. More often, he puts it out of his mind, or tells himself that he'll remain in Manhattan forever if he has to. And honestly, as long as he can convince himself of that, he doesn't mind the idea.

It isn't perfect. New York would seem emptier without the other Rifties. Of course he has local friends too, but he never tells them much about himself. After the revelations of recent days, he knows he never will. Hiding so much feels strange, and a little lonely. But it would be better than going home. He would have made do.

But going home with someone else?

He could go with Greta and Iman. He knows it isn't certain. Nothing is ever certain, even when you live a life entirely free of Rifts. But it's a possibility.

The Balladeer nods. He would be tearing up too, he thinks, except that he's cried an awful lot today already. He's a little bit of a mess. "Thanks. I'd like that."

[andhiswife]

Staying in Manhattan would be a step up from returning to his universe, in much the same way as it would be a step up from returning to hers. There's nothing good waiting for either of them, making it a rather low bar to clear.

But all the talk she's heard about escaping this place has been couched in terms of bypassing the Rift (or, less often, harnessing it), not destroying it. As long as it's capable of acting on its own whims, there's no reason to think that it wouldn't. There's no guarantee that it wouldn't send someone straight back to a universe where nothing awaits them. It's already proven itself to be capable of just that.

The Balladeer might be perfectly happy to stay in Manhattan, but as long as the Rift is here, he wouldn't be safe. Iman's universe, on the other hand, is full of clever people who understand all this multiple universe stuff. Even if it isn't technically beyond the Rift's reach, maybe they could make it so. It's something to hope for, at least.

After the week he's had, the Balladeer could probably use something to hope for.

She wasn't sure if he'd concede to deserving as much - not if he still thinks of himself as a disaster waiting to happen - and she beams in a watery mixture of approval and relief when he nods. "You're getting another hug," she announces, leaning forward to give him just that. Did he even get hugs before he came here? Probably not. Well, he's getting them now. "You're welcome," she adds. Then, "Of course you're welcome."

Her phone buzzes in her hand, and she lifts it to read Iman's texts from over the Balladeer's shoulder. A moment later, she lets out a delighted huff of laughter.

"Look, see?" she says, pulling back and holding her phone a few wavering inches from the Balladeer's nose. "Iman says 'Beth's family'!"

[singthesong]

The Balladeer cups his hand around Greta's, drawing the phone back a few more inches so he can focus on it. "Hahaha! I'll tell her!" Or...maybe she knows already? She probably does. How do dream demons work?

In all seriousness, though, that's so nice. Have he and Iman ever even talked without Greta mediating, outside of dreams at least? She didn't have to say anything like that about him. "Tell her thanks," he says, letting the phone go again and leaning back. That means more even than the invitation to her world. It's more real. Escaping Manhattan is wonderful to think about; it also might never happen. But here, right now, he has people who think of him as family.

"I never had a family," he says casually, words still flowing much more freely than normal. It's not an absence he ever felt keenly. Even the other buskers know he hasn't got one, though they assume some long-distant tragedy, filling in the gaps of his past for him. "Not to be depressing! It's fine. But that's...it's cool."

(For all that he was claiming Oswald's family earlier, they don't occur to him right now.)

[andhiswife]

Greta snorts out a laugh. "She meant you-Beth, not Beth-Beth," she says, though after a moment, her expression turns thoughtful. "Though I s'pose it's sort of the same thing." She considers it for another moment, then nods judiciously. "You should tell her."

She leans back beside him, her attention divided between him and texting Iman, until he mentions not having a family. At least that part isn't really news to her, but she still winces in sympathy and shifts to face him.

"That's not so unusual, back home," she says with an absent little nod. "Fathers run off or pass away - half the time after they've remarried someone awful because their first wife..." she trails off, then makes a face. Ugh. She doesn't need to be thinking about this. The knowledge of her own death isn't quite stale enough for her to feel even a begrudging, pitch-black amusement over how bloody typical it was.

Enough of that. "Anyway," she continues doggedly, "you have one, now, so you'll have to get used to it."

[singthesong]

The Balladeer nods along to Greta's explanation. All he knows about her world is from her own song, but that all fits with the genre conventions he'd have expected. It's strange to hear them applied to a real world though. He of all people probably shouldn't think so, but there it is. "Why does that happen?" he asks, half-rhetorically. "Is your world just like...like, half normal women and half evil stepmothers?"

There's not really any reason he can think of to be an evil stepmother. Who acts like that? Maybe they were all brought up by evil stepmothers and are just repeating what they learned from them?

That's actually sad. Nevermind, he doesn't want to talk about that anymore. He waves a hand as if to clear the air. "No, no, you know what's weird? I don't think I have parents."

[andhiswife]

How does that happen? Greta frowns dubiously. Granted, her world has its fair share of normal people living out their lives, but you don't really hear about them. You hear about good people and wicked people, and while the latter tend to get their comeuppance, it usually takes a while. Maybe that's why some people just take the wicked path from the get-go, she thinks as she retrieves her drink. Job security. A tidy ending you definitely deserve. These aren't small things. She knows that, now.

She's glad when the Balladeer changes the subject, but her frown still fits, so she keeps it on. No parents? She'd assumed he had some kind of family and had just forgotten them, somehow. In light of recent developments, though, he might be suggesting he never had them. Is that even possible?

"... Nooooo," she says in answer to her own unspoken question. "You must. Otherwise, where'd you come from?"

[singthesong]

"I don't know!" The Balladeer waves a hand, to indicate that the idea of him knowing his own origins is patently ridiculous. Where does anything in his universe come from? "I've never been any younger than this. Unless like...I'm just a weird second personality."

The identity of the hypothetical original personality is obvious. The Balladeer frowns, a shade of his former gloom crossing over his face again. "That's the one that makes sense, isn't it?" Okay, that's not quite the right phrase. No explanation is really going to make sense. Nothing from his universe does. And Lee Harvey Oswald spontaneously developing a second personality - of a musician - is frankly bizarre. None of the other assassins did anything like that. He's pretty confident in that judgement; surely someone would have said something.

Also he simply cannot picture Booth being anything other than slimy and smug.

But then, him spontaneously bursting into existence is even stranger, right? "Beth was upset about not having a name," he remembers aloud. "She worried a lot more about that stuff than me. I should've listened more to her."

[andhiswife]

Greta's frown deepens into a disapproving scowl as the Balladeer sinks into something a little too close to his previous misery. "No. Stop that," she says, giving his shoulder a good, solid poke. "You're you. You've never been 'second' anything."

Her expression softens a little when he brings up Beth again. Hey, there's another thing. "I can't imagine Beth belonging to Oswald," she muses, wrinkling her nose distastefully. "She has to be yours. He'd probably have someone completely different. Different animal." She's not sure what kind, and to guess would be to insult some perfectly innocent sort of creature, so she doesn't.

Instead, after a few considering moments, she says, "Could be magic." That's a safe bet as often as not. Even here, where magic ostensibly shouldn't exist, it's still all over the place because the Rift keeps letting things through. Who's to say it's not some kind of magic that makes the Balladeer's universe work the way it does? "You've got time travel and dead people who won't stay dead. Sounds like magic to me."

[singthesong]

He shifts backwards at the poke, batting idly at Greta's hand even as it teases a small smile out of him. "I'm sure I've been second something. But yeah, yeah. He's not a - " What kind of bird is Beth, exactly? Beyond 'some kind of parrot'? "Not a birdy guy," he concludes with a shrug. He can't imagine any part of Oswald is bright and winged. Thinking of himself that way seems strange too, if less so. He's never had much in common with birds, except maybe the kind kept in cages. In order to...sing for other people's amusement.

Hm.

The Balladeer frowns thoughtfully into space for a few moments, until the topic of magic stirs him out of it. "Maybe? I don't know what else you call that." Stagecraft? That doesn't quite fit; whatever audiences may have been watching, he experienced it as real. There were never any people in black skirting around him, setting up the gallows and changing one time period out for another. He's not sure if that would have been better or worse. "And I hear people's songs, too. Never thought of it as magic before, but it's not typical."

[andhiswife]

"Second oldest," Greta says after a moment's thought. "Of the two of us, here. I beat you by a day." Given that the Balladeer's actual age is a mystery, that seems as good a milestone to judge by as any. Not that it matters, really, what he might be second of. She's getting distracted.

What were they talking about? Magic, that's right, and she hums knowingly into her glass when he mentions his song-related abilities. The Rift might dish out magical powers, but the Balladeer's always spoken of that one as if it's one he's always had. And that makes sense. It's not as if she found him clutching his head over all the foreign melodies he was suddenly hearing.

"See?" she says. "Maybe you're magic, or... I don't know." She's back to gesturing with her glass, a bit more expansively now, but it's okay because the glass is emptier. She won't spill on his couch. "Different. Special." She takes a pensive sip. "I s'pose you'd have to be, if you're a narrator."

[singthesong]

"Ahhhhh, yeah! That's right!" It's a funny coincidence that they arrived so close together. Lucky for him, too. The Balladeer's quiet for a moment, turning her phrasing over in his head. "Does that mean that's my birthday now? I think that makes sense." The only other dates that are significant to him are days that other people died, and he certainly doesn't want to choose those. Birthdays aren't something he's thought much of before, but it seems like a fun, normal thing to have.

He just shrugs over the thought of being magical. He doesn't think of himself as magic or special. It's always seemed natural. Sure, none of the assassins heard music. But he never cared what they did, so it all came out the same!

Being a narrator is a different matter. "It helps," he agrees. "If I had to ask them their stories first, it'd never come out right. They lie. That's why they need a narrator." He takes a sip of his drink, rather wishing as he watches Greta that he had a little more alcohol. Maybe they're meant to meet in the middle. "It was never supposed to be for just any normal person, but I guess there's no reason it would've turned off when I left."

[andhiswife]

Greta blinks. That's right; if he doesn't remember anything of his past - or doesn't even properly have one - then he doesn't have a real birthday. It doesn't strike her as a tragic loss compared to the other things he's been lacking (she wouldn't know the concept of a birthday party if it bit her on the nose), but at least it's easily replaced.

"I don't see why not," she says with a wry smile. Come to think of it, she could almost call her arrival date her birthday. It's when her old life ended and her new one began. But birthdays aren't all that significant to her way of thinking; why bother changing it?

She attempts another sip and realizes she's emptied her glass already. Well, that won't do. She gets to her feet, pauses a moment to make sure she's steady, then toddles back to the kitchen for another, absently nodding along to the Balladeer's words.

"It seems more like the sort of thing the Rift would give someone," she says. "But if you already had it, and the Rift didn't change things at all, it must be part of you."

She tops off her drink, then gives the Balladeer an assessing look. She didn't miss the rather envious look he was giving her glass before. "D'you want one? You have to have another muffin if you say yes. Those are the rules."

[singthesong]

The Balladeer's not inclined to throw himself a birthday party either, but if he's going to start moving through time like a normal person, he wants to track it. Most of his life has been rooted in observance of anniversaries. Trading them out for some happier ones sounds nice.

"That'd be an awful thing to get out of nowhere!" He turns to follow Greta's departure, tossing an arm over the back of the couch to face her more clearly. "God, I can't imagine just having to deal with it all of a sudden. Weird enough getting used to big crowds." For his own part, he doesn't mind his ability in the least. It can be inconvenient at times, but so can any sense. He'd never wish to lose his sight simply because the sun was too blinding.

And hey, now he's found a good pair of sunglasses. "Gabriel can make things quieter for me now sometimes. Like...like earplugs." He gestures at his temples, where earplugs certainly do not go, and chuckles. "It's the only way we could even talk, he just about wiped me out just in that dream."

The deal only takes him a moment to consider. "Yeah, sure." The muffins are good. And so is the booze! He hadn't been having much fun with it before, but actually having drinks with friends makes him understand the fixation a little better.

[andhiswife]

It does seem a bit dramatic for a Rift Enchantment. "I would have found you doubled over under a tree," Greta guesses, wrinkling her nose. That's assuming it would have kicked in immediately. She's not really sure if that's how it works. It took her a while to notice her own Rift thing, but then again, hers is a bit more subtle (if not downright vague).

"Oh, good," she says in response to the tidbit about Gabriel. She'd thought he might be able to help on that front, but hadn't thought to ask for a follow-up after the Balladeer had been to see him. "Though - hang on, does he turn down the volume on everyone?"

Drinks made, she carefully carries over both glasses and the requisite muffin, setting the whole collection down on the coffee table. "I mean," she clarifies as she flops back down on the couch, "is he turning down himself, or turning down you?"

[singthesong]

The Balladeer picks up the muffin, idly peeling off the paper. "Himself. He can turn it all the way off, it's creepy. Like talking to a doll." He likes Gabriel a lot, but he thinks he'd prefer only interacting with him over text message to having the angel turn off his ability entirely. A few minutes with a silent Gabriel is one thing, but to have the entire city suddenly go quiet around him sounds like a nightmare made real.

He takes a bite of muffin, chewing with a thoughtful air. "I've been thinking about asking him to do it to Johnny. So we can talk. I feel bad about..."

There's a lot of things he feels bad about, at this point, so he just waves a hand to encompass all of it. "I didn't even know I could do that." If you'd asked him before, he would absolutely have put money on Johnny in a fight between the two of them. He's never thrown a punch in his life. But apparently his body can still do plenty in the wrong hands.

[andhiswife]

'Creepy'? Greta arches an eyebrow, but doesn't comment. The lack of real music in this universe puts her off sometimes, too; it's not as if she can't appreciate how odd the loss would be if it was fresher, and more intensely localized.

Her expression sobers when he brings up the fight, and she considers reiterating that it wasn't really him, and that of course he'd never do those things. Instead, after a few moments' thought, she says, "Well, it wasn't really a fair fight. No one wanted to hurt you. It was still your body, even if someone else was in it."

Oswald, it goes without saying, had no such reservations.

"I'm sure Gabriel patched him right up," she adds. Johnny's injuries may have been worse, but he didn't have to carry them as long. "How's your head?" She reaches over to push his hair up and away from the fading mark above his temple, to show that she's not referring to the alcohol. "It looks like it's healing nicely."

[singthesong]

The Balladeer tilts his head to one side, the better to let her see the wound. "It feels fine." It looked a lot better this morning, at least, though he hasn't paid it much attention since. It's good that it wasn't such a bad cut after all. He may not have been tending to it very closely. "Think it hurt Steven more than it hurt me."

He knows by now that Steven hadn't meant to hit him quite like that; he never would have suspected he did. It must have been scary. Head wounds bleed a lot, enough that he'd just thrown out the shirt he was wearing rather than make any effort to clean it. The kid feels worse than he should about it.

"It'd be okay," he says idly, turning his attention to his bruised knuckles. "If I did get hurt. That's better than someone else - he'd kill someone if he thought it'd help."

[andhiswife]

Steven had been rather upset about the wound, despite their attempts to reassure him. It probably wasn't even the worst of all the damage the Balladeer sustained. It looked alarming, but there wasn't much to it. There might be a pink mark for a while, that's all. The damage to his hands was probably the bigger problem, considering how he spends his days - and Oswald's the only one responsible for that.

She pulls her hand back and tsks softly. "I wouldn't call it better," she says, giving him a pointed look. "We wouldn't let Oswald kill anyone just to spare you a few bruises, but we don't like seeing you hurt, either." She can't even imagine what that must have been like: waking up covered in cuts and bruises from a fight he didn't remember - a fight he didn't even take part in, really. It's not fair. With a nod towards his hands, she adds, "Just because some rogue took your body for a ride doesn't mean it's okay that you have to carry all that around afterwards."

[singthesong]

"Well...no, I guess not," the Balladeer admits, only slightly grudgingly. There's still bitterness there, but he wouldn't honestly argue that he deserves to be beaten or anything. Oswald might be a different story. "I just wish he'd been stopped faster." Johnny was a mess. Even if Gabriel fixed him up right away, he still shouldn't have been like that in the first place.

The muffin is pretty much gone, and he reaches for a bottle. Just a little more - he's not really trying to drink himself into insensibility anymore. "He didn't break a finger, so I don't mind. People've been looking at me weird though." He gestures to the bruises on his face. The big one, he thinks, is probably from Iman. She did mention being a boxer.

[andhiswife]

"If it happens again, he will be," she replies evenly. It's not something she wants to consider - she'd much rather it never happened again - but it's an easy enough reassurance to offer, because it's true. Should Oswald make a reappearance, there won't be any time wasted with wondering what's going on. They'll know who he is, and they'll know to keep him contained.

She winces a little at his bruises, even though they're fading. Not for the first time, she wonders if one of them should have tried to wheedle Gabriel into patching the Balladeer up, too. It had felt a bit risky during those first few days, in part because she wasn't sure Gabriel would feel charitable towards the body that beat Johnny half senseless (regardless of who was steering it at the time), and in part because she wasn't sure the Balladeer would concede that he deserved to have his injuries brushed away.

She's not sure if it's worth suggesting the idea, now. Gabriel doesn't have a monopoly on healing people, but the Balladeer's far enough along the natural road that it seems less urgent. It does still look a bit dramatic, though. "I suppose you could tell people you were mugged," she says. "If they asked." She frowns in broody indignation as another thought occurs to her. "No one's been bothering you, have they?"

[singthesong]

"Oh, no." The Balladeer seems a little surprised at the notion. "Why would they? They don't know."

Actually, he's not certain of the climate anymore. Back home, he'd have had a much better read on peoples' current thoughts about assassins; as it is, he hasn't been thinking about it at all. But it was only fifty years ago. He's living with the children and grandchildren of the people who would have formed his lynch mob given the chance.

And, mostly, they've just been concerned. "That's mostly what they think. I didn't come up with a story about it, but I haven't been telling them otherwise either." He frowns faintly. "Sort of what I do with most of my life." To everyone. Like with everything, the story's bizarre enough that he's not sure they'd even react poorly right away. It might take a little while for people to realize they should.

[andhiswife]

She'd meant something more along the lines of 'pestering for details,' but of course people wouldn't - not the locals, anyway. The Balladeer's injuries might be impossible to ignore, but that doesn't mean New Yorkers would go so far as to actually question him. On the other hand, if she hadn't known what had happened, she probably would have been relentless.

Maybe it's just as well. He can let them think what they want, and save himself the additional trouble (and heartache) of having to explain the whole mess over and over again.

"Well, your life is a little hard to understand," she says, not unkindly. "And with the way some people here feel about people like us, it's not always a good idea to be too...," she wrinkles her nose, "forthcoming." Even without all the Oswald business, she wouldn't blame the Balladeer for keeping his origins to himself. It's not as if she launches into her background with the check-out woman at the grocer's or what have you. Then again, all of her actual friends are fellow Rifties. She hasn't been mingling with the locals as much as the Balladeer has.

Regardless, it's not worth dwelling on. "I told Iman I'd show you a movie," she says with far more sobriety than she actually possesses. "D'you want to watch one?"

[singthesong]

"Ah, yeah? I dunno." The Balladeer waves his glass, watching the alcohol slosh. "Most've my busker friends know I'm not from around here." To say the least - he may not sing his own his life story, but he's not as cautious as some about telling people he came from the Rift. That would require too many lies; he can hardly even remember the name on his own ID half the time.

Those are his only real local friends. It seems like a lot of people to him, but he knows his perspective is skewed. "But you know. Lots of ways to become a busker." Some of them have pretty interesting backstories of their own. You don't dig too hard.

And, speaking of, a movie would be a good change of pace. "Sure. What movie? The only ones I've got are..." He turns to look for the Oswald documentary, only to see that Greta's moved it somewhere. "...not good."

[andhiswife]

Greta wrinkles her nose. She wouldn't have them watch one of those miserable things; that ought to go without saying. "Noooo, no," she says with a little frown. "Not them. 'S on Netflix. We just have to... get to it."

So, it's just a matter of making that happen. She stares at the darkened television screen for a moment, as if hoping it might turn on and connect to the internet as a personal favor to her, then turns her head to cast about for a laptop. "How do we get to it?" she muses, as if it's a far more intriguing puzzle than it really is. She supposes she could just use her phone in a pinch, but the screen's awfully small, and one of them would have to hold it unless they came up with a way to prop it up.