Late Night Research and Dreams
| Late Night Research and Dreams | |
|---|---|
| Date of Cutscene: | 09 September 2021 |
| Location: | Laughing Magician |
| Synopsis: | Phoebe researches Atum, The Devourer, and has a dream. |
| Cast of Characters: | Phoebe Beacon |
Somebody misses you when you're away. They want to wake up to you every day. Some body wants to hear you say -- oooh. Oh somebody loves you!
Ordinarily Phoebe would be thrilled to be surrounded by old books -- and in a way, she was. She sat in the back room of the Laughing Magician, surrounded by the smell of earth and leather, vanilla and old wood, her eyes searching through an old Coptic tome. A notebook was full of her revisions on the subject of ATUM, primordial god, The Devourer. Her earbuds were tucked into her ears, plugged into the old, cracked smartphone, Betty Who softly playing from her mix list. She carefully turned the pages, her coffee set on the floor to make sure nothing got on the books that might hurt them.
The caffeine was rapidly running down. This was her third sixteen ounce of coffee. A look to the clock on her phone read four thirty AM. When she hadn't anything in the morning to tend to, this was about the time she would be getting in from patrols, when she would be stripping out of armor.
Before, she would be stripping out of a sweat-soaked, re-enforced wool jacket.
Before, she would be laying out on the living room floor, waiting.
She took a look in the other few pages of the book she was currently in. She'd been at it for a good six hours after John told her to get some reading done. Sectioned out on a mixture of loose leaf sheets and a composition notebook was her report. Names-with-a-capital-N information. Intonation. Phonetic Demotic incantation. Likely shapes. A brief blurb on how to best something that has evolved into a crab. She went to go grab another cup of coffee, closing the book she was in, and gently laying it to the side. Each was organized based on how much information she took from it, neat little piles of tomes and grimoires and at least one book that she was sure was bound with human flesh. That one just *felt* weird.
She passed through the door, and found the bar still lit, but empty. The smell of Silk Cuts and Scotch hung in the air, and Phoebe simply hopped the counter in order to get to the coffee pot. She poured the rest of what was brewed in, and went to rinse the carafe as Betty Who switched to Elton John.
Your Song.
She used to sing this in the kitchen on Sunday mornings before church. Charles Beacon -- her dad -- would be in an old T-shirt and pajama pants flipping pancakes and cracking eggs and dad jokes. Phoebe would be in her pajamas cutting fruit. They'd take turns singing lines and harmonize on the chorus.
You can tell everybody this is your song -- it might be quite simple but now that it's done -- I hope you don't mind that I put down in words...
"How wonderful life is, when you're in the world--" Phoebe caught herself singing along as she reached for a towel to wipe out the coffee pot, and reset the big machine for its next pot of coffee.
And holding the lukewarm coffee, she went to sit in the booth she'd usually take notes in, where she could see the door and John's stool, and typically where Chas would be cleaning glasses.
"I sat on the roof -- and kicked off the moss. Well the truth is these verses they got me quite cross -- but the sun's been kind while I wrote this song --" she mumbled along with the lyrics. Her eyelids were heavy, and the scent of the coffee brought her back.
It was a Saturday in October. It was sunshine in the morning, with fall storms moving up the coast for Gotham. She was thirteen, and wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt and rainbow pajamas and bunny slippers. She'd graduated to being able to cook pancakes by herself, and their duet was awful enough to wake the neighborhood some mornings. She sang into the pancake flipper as her dad nursed a cup of coffee.
"You see I'd forgotten if they're Gah-REEEEN or they're BluUuUuE! Anyway, what I meant is -- what I really meeeaaaaan, yours are the sweetest eyes that I've ever seeen!"
Her dad laughed at her solo, and applauded as he joined in -- and then his beeper went off. He paused, frowned, and pluck ed it off the counter
"-- a bad one?" Phoebe had asked.
"Yeah -- Narrows is looking for help. Got to go in," he leaned over her, and pressed a kiss to her head. Like a proper teenager, she rolled her eyes. "Love you, munchkin. I'll be back in the everning once clean up's wrapped. Bring your mom some breakfast so that she doesn't chase me down, okay?"
And as he went downstairs to change and exit out the back door, Phoebe called out "See you later!"
Never goodbye. Goodbye was final. Goodbye was forever. You didn't do that to a firefighter.
That came a week later, when they interred his ashes.
But for just a moment, she was little again. At almost five AM, laying on the livingroom rug for him to come home, long after he should have been home. Before she knew he was gone. Strong arms picked her up.
"'M'allright Dad... just need to walk it off." she mumbled, as someone carried her out of the Laughing Magician and up the stairs, and put the exhausted teen to bed.
