#timesprites

— — —

Your days always begin with chaos. 

The sun never sets, which in turn means your sleep schedule isn’t defined by night and day, but is instead defined by when you can no longer will yourself to keep moving. Your hours of nonstop work are often ended by the loud thump of your body hitting your mattress. The curtains close. Fade to black. 

The Under never slows down. There are always a million Timesprites buzzing about, breaking things and summoning things and throwing shit around. When the “open for eternity” business model of the Under meets your struggling sleep schedule, there is no good time to wake up. Shit is always going down. Or up, depending on how much magic the Timesprites manage to throw around. It doesn’t really matter which direction it’s going. You’ll still be tasked with cleaning it up. 

The absence of rest is horrible news for you, but great news for the MC, who practically writhes whenever there’s not something exciting happening for him to watch. You’ve watched him bounce around spacetime far longer than any other Timesprite has, and the entire time you’ve never seen him slow. He’s an unstoppable force. You’re just the unlucky thing he’s dragging along. 

He’s a peculiar man— if you can even call him that— one you’ve tried to unravel for however long you’ve been in the Under. The two of you are certainly close, you’ve spilled your guts to him several times in the lulls between work. Your work, it should be specified. You’re not sure he’s ever applied himself to any situation. Ever. 

Exhausted, and sometimes drunk, you’ll talk talk talk. Sometimes you’ll tell him you love him and you hate him and you wish you were dead, but most times it’s just yearning. You want to go back home. He looks around your room as you talk yourself to sleep, gaze drifting from the items you’ve found and been gifted from Timesprites. He’ll finally look at you when you finally go silent and wonder if he’s condemned you despite your innocence. Then he’s gone. 

The promise of eternity tends to force feelings out of a person like that, but he never discusses anything of his past. You have your theories of course, the same ones whispered amongst the actors and Timesprites, but nothing’s ever certain. 

You hear the whispers about him. You hear just about every damn word uttered in the space you look over, so it’s no wonder you’re in on all of the gossip. The loyalties, the betrayals, all of the silly little factions and groups that waddle about, all of the buzz floats around the space like nothing. But when the discussions grow quieter, and the heads tilt down, you can tell the topic’s changed. You lower your head too and near the muttering. You have your two cents, after all. 

I heard someone talking backstage, Sean muttered, turning to you as you handed him his blazer behind the curtain. Talking about Him. They said that when he gets bored with the acts, he just turns them to mud. You laughed at that, and this seemed to ease Sean’s mind a little. You’re the one that knows the most around here, the source of comfort for the acts and the residents that risk fading away. The highest rung on the ladder people genuinely trust. Most of them just want to go home. You gave up that a long time ago.  You watched Sean’s eyes crease into a soft smile as he threw his blazer on. Kind of funny, huh? You nodded, peeling back the curtain for him and watching him walk on stage, the smile slowly fading from your lips. 

The MC is usually the one to wake you up, letting you know about a situation unfolding somewhere in the Main Stage before it gets too bad. He’s the one to wake you up today. 

There’s a knock at your door, and you turn in your bed, staring at a poster on the wall. It’s an artist’s rendition of Gerald. Oh, how you’d kill for a day without a mention of that fucking dolphin.

You meditate on your hatred for a second. It slowly slips away as your eyes drift closed.

There’s the knock again, and this time, the MC’s voice carries under the door. “The chandelier broke.” He announces unceremoniously, handing you the first task of the day. “Not the hour this time, a Timesprite—”

“Yeah.” You blurt, stretching and fumbling for your mask beside you. “Yeah, I’ll get on it.”

“You’re great.” He praises, but you can tell by his tone it’s not something he really means. You think about suffocating yourself in your pillow. “I’ll be around.”

There’s a noise from outside, a light whoosh, and you figure he’s gone. 

You wonder how exactly the chandelier broke. You wonder what exactly ‘broke’ entails. You wonder if he just stood there and watched it happen.

He probably did. 

You know he did. 

You slink out of bed with a long sigh.

You throw the mirror a sideways glance, then let your gaze linger for a few more moments as you sling your robe over your shoulders. When you try to remember what you looked like in the Over, you’re usually unsuccessful. So instead, you stare at the form you’ve been granted, simple and lifeless. Whatever grip you had on what you once were seems to slip away.

— — —

Standing over the foyer from one of the above balconies, it’s easy to tell what happened with the chandelier. You think about how “The Chandelier fell and crushed four dining tables,” would have been a more accurate statement. 

A giant onion lays a few yards away from the mess of crystal, sparkling shards sticking out and catching the lights from the stage.

‘Somebody threw a big ass onion at the chandelier,’ would have also sufficed. 

Go fucking figure. Granted, it’s something you probably would have done when you were still green. When your mask was a toy and the whole Under was yours to explore.

You take your mask off and drag a hand down your face before getting to work.

The few Timesprites that notice and recognize you as you step into the foyer take a moment to fix a few plates and vases with you, but as soon as you turn to assess the chandelier, they all seem to conveniently scatter. Much to your dismay, the entire chandelier doesn’t fit on the inside of your mask. 

The magic in the building isn’t buzzing like it usually is at the top of the hour, so the job is much harder to do. You finally make the decision to shrink the chandelier in order to fit it onto your mask and repair it then, before blowing it back up again and fixing it up to the ceiling. It takes a good moment for you to figure all this out, including how the hell to rig it back up to where it had fallen from, but after a long moment of sweat and tears and cursing so loud the performers on stage pause to watch, the foyer is free of broken glass and fallen chandeliers. 

There’s a brief moment of quiet. The only thanks the Under will ever give you.

As you turn to go backstage, you watch a Timesprite chuck an onion at Apple Pie Bundy. 

You thank the Timesprite under your breath and slip into the shadows behind the curtain.

— — —

The MC looks over at you from the small model hotel that he’s inspecting. Your offer for another Timeloop, one you’d snatched up and polished with Coleman’s help. You were proud of it. Everything was ironed out and ready to be put on display for the guests. All he had to do was nod.

He stares at you for a moment, watching you stand there, entirely still, expectant. Eager. You, at least, still have a purpose in this place, even if it’s just doing what you’re told. Though you’ll never be able to tell, he enjoys watching you flit around, snapping at the guests and the actors, disbanding whatever mess is stirring up before the whole building comes down. What’s left of it, at least.

You think the fire inside you is down to an ember, but he disagrees. He sees it when you yell, and when you cuss, and when you come to him after a tireless day of work and babble nonsense about the Over. 

He watches it flare up whenever a new act is brought in, your efforts to accommodate whichever poor soul is trapped here. He watches you care, and something in him starts to do the same. 

“You’re going to work yourself to death.” He chimes. You stifle a groan as he quickly juts off-topic. “I almost didn’t wake you up this morning. I wanted to see what would happen if you got a full night's rest.”

“You’re the one who watched it happen.” You mutter, eyes flicking down to the hotel you wish he’d focus on. “You could have saved me the trouble and stopped it.”

He just shrugs, mask perking up to the door as the opening notes of Wet Food carry in from down the hall. He stares out for a moment as he listens. “Everyone seemed to be having a good time. I’m not one to stop guests from having their fun.”

You struggle to find cohesion in whatever point he’s trying to make. “Mhm.”

He’s never been a buzzkill, this you know. A bit of a suck up, at least to the Timesprites, letting them do anything they want as long as they have their fun and sing praises to the place. 

“My point is—” He chimes, turning back to you. “You’re worrying too much about everything. In a place like this, things are always happening. People are just having fun.” He waves a hand through the air with purpose, as if it’s proving his point even more. “You need to relax.”

“I’ve done everything else. The only thing left for me to do is worry.” 

He pauses at that, then looks down at the small hotel in his hands. For once, he’s out of witty banter.

“Sorry.” You blurt, even though you’re not entirely sure what you’re sorry for. There’s an awkward silence that has you shifting your weight between your feet. 

“Tell me about the hotel.” 

“Oh—” You perk up, looking down at the hotel and then up at him. Right. “—it starts when a storm comes through the Florida Keys.”

— — —

Scratch stands beside you as you watch the MC introduce an act on stage. The two of you watch his form saunter around the spotlight with little amusement. The charisma wears off after a few years. He recycles jokes. He laughs at nothing to fill silence. His confidence is becoming very quickly aggravating. 

You turn to Scratch, taking a sip of your drink. “What’s the thing you miss most?”

“From the Over?” 

You nod, and he leans back on his heels, letting out a hum as he thinks. “My hair.”  

You laugh at that. Good answer.

He turns to face you fully, echoing your question back at you. “What do you miss the most?”

You know your answer. “Genuine nature, I think. Like, actual birds and trees and stuff. Not… artificial.”

He nods, humming in approval. “You should rig a little something something, get a Timeloop in the forest somewhere.” He nudges you with his elbow, and you grin. You could if you wanted to, but you’re not sure how much that would console you. It would be the same as a window from a prison cell. You can look out, but you’ll always be trapped. 

The curtains part, and you both stare at Helvetica and Tina as they do the same act they’ve performed for what you can only assume has been years. There’s a long beat before Scratch speaks.

“You don’t think we’ve all died and gone to hell, do you?”

You’re not entirely paying attention to him anymore. The question catches you off guard. “Hm?”

Scratch turns to face you fully. “What if this is hell?”

You shake your head. You’ve thought about this, too. “People can get out of here. There’s always the opportunity to leave.” He tilts his head at that, and you continue. “You know, really die. Turn to mud, rest your soul. All that shit. They don’t have that in hell.”

He considers this for a moment, before turning back to the stage. It’s hard to read a skeleton’s face, but you can assume he probably understands. Silence settles over you as you both watch the act. He draws a breath like he’s about to say something but stops before anything leaves his mouth. Another bout of silence. You can tell there’s something he wants to ask, and you’re almost certain you know what it is. 

“Can you die?” 

There it is.

You draw a breath, a shaky one, and he turns again to make sure he’s not said anything wrong. You’re still watching the act as you shake your head.

“Nope.”

— — —

You had a habit of telling yourself you weren’t really tired until it was too late. Usually a staff member would help you to your room, but this time around, it’s the MC who you’re stumbling down the hall with. He watches you in silence as you fumble with your doorknob three, four, five times before the door finally opens. 

You collapse onto the bed. “Thanks.” You mutter into your pillow, not even bothering to shed your cloak as you quickly go still.

He closes the door, leaning into it as it shuts. “Good night.” 

He doesn’t sleep like you do, or drink, or eat. Dreadfully human things, something neither the acts nor a large lot of the Timesprites do. 

Despite the drastic differences, there was still solidarity between everybody else there. They were all in the shit together, thanks to him. Somebody had to keep it all running, had to keep the chaos at bay, and that someone just so happened to be you.

He figures if you had been brought in later, it probably wouldn’t have unfolded the way it did. If he had brought in any one else before you, you probably wouldn’t have been brought in at all. There was nothing interesting about you, at least not in the way that most people were in the Under. You couldn’t sing or dance or perform. You weren’t anything extravagant, you just were. 

The reason your unlabeled job had been handed to you was dumb luck. You were the first human brought into the Under, but you weren’t picked with any intention. You were here before Timesprites. Before anyone else but him. Before he’d really cracked the system, and before he had any clue what he was doing. 

You were a first attempt, a shoddy and misguided try. His first reach into the Over, just to see what would happen, and he happened to grab onto you.

It was a long time of adjusting, of course, but after a while you settled into the place and took it upon yourself to manage the things that he seemed to not care about at all. You coordinated the acts and helped log the staff, you shuffled around and handled all of the dirty work around the Under that he was too distracted to even think about doing.

He wonders, for a moment, if the Under could take a break. Just for a day— maybe an Over holiday or otherwise— to let you sleep in. A day where the chandelier doesn’t fall and the curtain never opens to serve as the ‘thank you’ he’ll never say to your face. 

There’s a moment of silence as he slows in the hallway, and then he chuckles to himself. 

What a ludicrous idea.