Bent Out of Shape

[Will Stanton]

Sam, Miriam and Will had had a good night in the XUB. Mostly, at any rate.

True to their word, Will had kept Sam and Miriam supplied with drinks from the bar. She had switched from her usual Cosmos to a Tom Collins, which she joked was thanks to the universe of new possibilities opened up to her from her transdimensional joining. But it was otherwise a fairly normal night out.

Though Will had gone out of her way to avoid showing off. Where she might usually stretch across the table to grab her drink, she made a point of actually physically leaning over to pick it up. When shimmying through people back to the table from the bar, she actually asked people to move out of the way rather than sliding through tight gaps around them. Heck, she even lost a game of pool because she left herself a difficult shot and couldn't quite lean over to get the angle right. It didn't seem to affect her mood or her attitude in any noticeable way -- she wasn't doing it passive-aggressively or in an attempt to draw attention to herself or anything like that. But in the act of not drawing attention, it may have drawn attention in and of itself, at least to anyone paying particular attention.

While they were out, Will was hard at work. The cauldron had gained a lid! The designs and motif that had been around the cauldron proper continued onto the lid; silver inlays and patterns marking this as a particularly fancy cauldron. It's primary difference from a standard, ordinary lid was a thin tube in the center, about the width of an arm, presumably for reaching in/letting Wills go in and out. Little chance of being sucked through that if you're one of the unfortunate folk cursed with bones and ligaments and things of that nature. It was also apparently latched hard to the cauldron itself, so it couldn't be accidentally removed. That did somewhat break the illusion of this being one solid piece of iron, which may indicate this was supposed to be a temporary measure. Adding to that perception was the brass tubing that had been added to the bottom of the cauldron, linked up and going into the wall itself.

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam, despite her crumbing about Will's perceived condescension, does actually enjoy herself and only makes a couple of veiled needling jokes about Will's adherence to being a monoform for the night. It's only when they get back to the room - well inebriated from one too many dirty martinis - that she starts glowering again and soon disappears into her room. It's an hour or so later that she emerges again, still grumbling but having exchanged her dress for high-waisted dress pants.

"...stupid Will... always gotta blame themselves and treat me like a... stupid kid or something... just cause you're a billion years old... Ooh, look at me, I know why you react this way or that, got it alll figured out, that's why I'm a bunch of soup in a bowl." she rambles, interrupting herself with an annoyed laugh that almost turns into a hiccup. "Samm too sometimes, ooh, ancient wisdom of the blah blah raven mantle of something-something. Yeah, sure, all the authority of being in charge of a punch of mud-people with pokey sticks. Ooh, real impressive." As she drunkenly rambling she starts pulling on the clasps holding the newly installed lid in place.

"I'll show you who's scared of being all... not in control of their limbs and... stuff. Not me! Yeah. Gonna give those two some words. About... things." She manages to pry enough of them loose to start jiggling the lid and loosen the rest of them, proceeding to lean over, holding on to the rim with both hands as she sticks her head into the clay. "Yeah, talking about you two sancim--sanctomini--smartypants." she mumbles into the clay before pulling her head back out and awkwardly climbing over the lip of the cauldron.

[Samantha McManus]

Sam meanwhile has been taking a long shower. It took a bit for the drinks to really hit her, and she's still mostly just buzzed.

Still ogreish, she steps out of the bathroom in a towel that barely covers.

"...Miriam, what the hell are you doing?"

[Miriam Bell]

"Proving Will wrong." she says, wobbling a little with one foot on the edge of the cauldron and the other barely still on the ground. "Obviously."

[Samantha McManus]

"You know what? Fine."

Sam shakes her head and plods on for her room.

[Miriam Bell]

"Yeah. That's right." she says as she turns her head after Sam and probably could not explain what she even means by that. But her pointless gloating distracts her enough that instead of gracefully lifting her leg up and over into the cauldron, she slips and awkwardly slides sideways into the clay.

[Samantha McManus]

The noise is frankly one Sam was expecting, so she proceeds on into her room. She doesn't slam the door. If anything she's a bit careful with it in her current state as she shuts it.

Still, while these are occasionally her monkeys, this is not presently her circus.

[Narrator]

Will had forbid Miriam from doing...well, exactly this. That being said, there were things he could have done to stop it outright. He probably could have prevented her from entering the clay entirely - it was all him, after all.

And yet Miriam found herself, once more, pushing through the clay and falling, head over heels, through space down towards the ground. Having been here once before, she would have a better sense of aim, so rather than landing in the middle of the suburbs somewhere, she could do a better job picking her final target.

Landing, however, turned out to be a learned skill, even when one wasn't three sheets to the wind. And so wherever she picked, she'd land with a loud, wet, *splat*.

[Miriam Bell]

And splat she does, right in front of the main municipal building. Her arms are the first thing to emerge from the resulting puddle, flailing about for a moment until they find the ground and start pushing up, elongating the blob of clay into a torso. Her hands feel around for her head, finding nothing. Hesitating for a moment, one hand plunges into her neck and tries to pull out a head.

[Narrator]

Without Sam here to guide her, Miriam had to sort of improvise pulling herself together. It was....easier than she might have thought, however. The very act of labeling herself 'Miriam' seemed to give her some sort of...form stickiness, for lack of a better word. So when she plunged her hand into her own neckline, she could feel her own hair, and was able to tug and pull and...

...well, mostly look alright. Without a mirror right here, she couldn't be sure, but she felt normal enough. And no one was immediately giving her any strange looks, though who knew what passed for normal around here?

That being said, the place still wasn't super-dense with people, just a couple milling about. No one was trying to grab her and slam her into any gnashing machinery, which was probably a good start, at the very least.

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam takes a moment to orient herself and shake off the still unfamiliar feeling of having her entire body mushed into a puddle. She does have to admit that it doesn't feel bad, in fact the feeling is at least vaguely familiar from having felt it from Will, and being more than pleasantly buzzed gives it a kind of floaty, suspended in mid-air in a warm blanket kind of feeling. No. No getting distracted. She's here to inform the Council of Wills - all two of them - what she thinks of their baby-proofing measures.

She marches into the town hall and makes right for the large chamber they'd talked to the Paragons in.

[Will Stanton]

This time, the door was closed. And a Will wearing a pencil skirt and blouse and with her hair tied up into a bun go up from a desk situated just outside, swiftly moving to intercept Miriam.

"Hold it, hold it, the security council is in session. You can't just barge in..."

[Miriam Bell]

"Good! They can all hear what I think of their security!" Miriam informs the secretary and tries to barrel right past her and through the doors.

[Will Stanton]

The secretary wrapped her arms around Miriam, trying to hold her back.

"Miriam, are you...are you drunk? You can't just go storming in..."

[Miriam Bell]

"I am and I can. If you leggo of me!" she responds, trying to drag Will along to the door.

[Will Stanton]

The secretary clamped her feet to the floor, trying to hold Miriam back. But you can't underestimate a drunken Bell's persistence, and so Miriam kept trudging forward, stretching out the secretary's arms as she marched forward, and swung the door open.

The rotunda was still mostly empty except for the two Wills, Stanton and Wyldclay, hunched together over a table on the stage in the middle and engaged in heated discussion. They turned when the door opened, briefly looking surprised -- and then groaned, resigned, as the soused psychic made her way forwards.

"Miriam..." Stanton sighed.

[Miriam Bell]

"Indeed!" she grandstands. It's the room, it begs to have grandiose words shouted into it. Never mind that she still has secretary arms wrapped around her, trailing back to the door.

"What's with all this lid and pipes and security business? You think I'm gonna fall in like some kinda toddler?" she says, slurring her words some as she stalks towards them, pointing her finger at Stanton, then Wyldclay, then Stanton again. It's hard to address a person who is actually two people who are really the same person.

[Will Stanton]

"I think you got sucked in by a process we don't really understand yet," Stanton said, crossing their arms. "And it created confusion and worry throughout. And until we actually figure out exactly what happened, putting up some kind of protection is far from the end of the world."

""Plus, it matches your comparative maturity level," Wyldclay teased, 'helpfully.'

[Miriam Bell]

"Can it you... you... smarmy, shakespearian... guy." Clever insults are hard when you're drunk but she nailed it. Clearly.

"I think that you're being worried that we are worried about falling into your topsy-turvy land again. But we're not. Cause I wouldn't be here if I was." It's probably a good thing she still has the secretary's arms wrapped around her or she'd be swaying more than she is.

[Will Stanton]

"No, you just have a burning desire to show yourself superior to...'Tweedledee and Tweedledum'," Stanton said, rubbing his temples. "Look, if you just want a warm place to sleep it off, we can accommodate you, but..."

[Miriam Bell]

"Whadderyou talking about? Tweedle... oh! I was kidding! I mean, you were jus' going round an' round an' round in circles. You know I don't think you're stupid. You jus' get into it with yourself, you know? Remember when two of ya were fighting over your name? Wait. Oh. No that one was my fault, wasn't it? Ah bollocks..."

[Will Stanton]

"I know you say you don't think we're stupid. At least, when you're not outright calling us stupid, that is, or complaining about how stupid we are, or grumbling about a stupid situation you've found yourself in. I know that's just you being spikey, mostly, your defense mechanisms lashing out arbitrarily" Stanton frowned. "But no, I don't think you even know what to think about us. And certainly not while you're more martini than woman by mass."

[Miriam Bell]

"Okay!" she snaps a bit clearer than her previous slurring. "I may be drunk but I spend a whole lot of time inside my own bloody head so don't you tell me what is or isn't going on in there. Cause I know. I might not show it or even like it, but I do! So don't shush me cause I'm drunk cause I can't say this shite otherwise. Yeah, you're right. I do want to feel superior. To you, to Sam, to anybody out there. Cause it's better than the truth. Sam's always handled her stuff better and faster than me an' if I pretend it was easier for her then it doesn't feel so bad that I couldn't do it. That she just worked harder or did it better or didn't give up as easy."

"And it's the same with you. You're, like, a billion years old and now we made you even older and it was the right thing to do but you've seen it all and done it all, married, had a kid that's grown-up, lost it all, got it back, split in half and every which way and you're still just... you. The nicest, kindest person I've ever seen. And then you got machines that poof memories into me like... like it's a joke, like you're so much better than me that the thing that I've struggled with all my life is something that's not even dangerous to me here. Because you've figured out how to endure anything. And I know you didn' have a choice but you still made it through. And I don't think I would've..."

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, we haven't seen or done it all yet. We've barely seen or done the smallest fraction of it all," Wyldclay grinned.

"I never said you didn't think we were nice. I said you thought we were stupid. And inconvenient, and strange, and unfathomable. And we're all those things, and more. And you put up with it in your own way, which is different than how Sam puts up with it or how Sara puts up with it. But don't turn around and try to pretend that any of that is untrue.

As for the memories, I'm sorry it hurt you so much. But now you see why it's so important we tighten security here. If something so...inconsequential. To us. Can send you down this path, it's up to us to protect you from it."

[Miriam Bell]

"No that's... I don't think you're stupid. But I do treat you like you are. Without thinking. And that's on me. And fine, yeah, you're weird and annoying sometimes but what I'm trying to say is it's worth it. I'll jump into this place any day over not having you around. Or making you feel like I don't want you around. Or like it's your fault you are the way you are. And I don't want you acting like it's on you that your... your whimsy can scare me, even if it bothers me sometimes. That's not on you, damnit." she says, blinking away her blurred vision.

"Tha's all I wanted to say and that you can take the stupid lid off cause I'm not scared of this place." she huffs, hands on her hips, swaying ever so slightly.

[Will Stanton]

"We're not going anywhere," Stanton said with a huff. "You don't need to worry about losing me. It's alright that you don't want every part of me. That's part of the point of all this," he said, gesturing widely at the near-empty atrium. "I can live in here how I like, and do what I like, and it's OK if there are parts of me that you don't want. Or that Sam doesn't want. Or that Sara doesn't want. Because people can just take the slice of me that they do want and be happy with that. The lid's to stop you from falling in and getting....intense culture shock."

"Because what you saw the last time you were here doesn't scratch the surface," Wyldclay added. "There's the slices of us you want, and enjoy, and like. And that you can have. Then there's the slices of us you don't know about, but might enjoy. And then there are the slices of us that you wouldn't get. And then there are the slices of us that would repel you. It's all down here, and if you wander too far off the beaten path, you'll find things you wouldn't want to know. And yet we are all of those things, and more. And if you're scared of a couple memories of customer service, I'd hate to see what would happen to you if you opened something truly repellant."

"And part of keeping you safe is the lid. If we don't know exactly how this works..."

"You get sucked in again. And maybe you don't come out with a relationship talk and a slightly smelly girlfriend next time."

[Miriam Bell]

"It's not about the customer service..." she mutters, but somewhere in her alcohol-muddled brain she does realize Will's approach t these things is too different for them to truly understand. The same way she can't grasp how they treat it so casual to integrate centuries of memories. She probably should have been more aware of that, she did help them build part of the process for it after all. "Whatever, it's fine, it's..." she takes a deep breath that turns into a sigh in her chest.

"Keeping things from each other is... it's good. I'm too drunk to..." she waves her hand in a vague gesture. "Telepath, boundaries and... stuff. But I helped you make this! Sorta! The foundation mabby, I don't know. 'S like you're growing and it's new and difficult and stuff but I don't wanna be excluded cause you decide somethn' for me." she says, punctuating it with a finger thrusting towards Wyldclay. "You dinn't let me slam my door in your face either."

"I juss... I mean lookit this place! I's huuuge." she sweeps her arm in a wide arc and stumbles, probably to the point of falling over if it wasn't for the secretary's arms anchoring her. "And now there's doors going to who knows where or what or when? S'like you don't need us anymore. You could jus' live in here. You do live in here. Juss... entertaining us with a fraction of what you are when we grab onne'a you out. I donn' know. I'm tired and drunk but I donn' wanna safety door and only see the quem--quer---curmate--curated bits of you. You seen a buncha my ugliness ann' you're not pretenning iss not there." It's possible the alcohol is affecting her more in a body that she doesn't know how to give a functioning liver. Or it's just the last cocktail she threw back before leaving the XUB coming home to roost.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"You don't want the curated bits. You want it all?" Wyldclay said, a threatening note in their voice. "You don't want just the bits you like, or the bits that are happy and fun, you want the bits you would never, ever pull out of the cauldron?". They took a step closer, getting up in Miriam's personal space, leaning in, wrinkling their nose at the scent of alcohol. You want to decide for yourself what, of all infinite possibilities, makes you wretch and heave, or wake up screaming in the middle of the night? You don't trust my judgment here? You think what I'm trying to hide is enjoying being a couch or shoe too much? That I'm worried my ideas for how to serve as your bloodbag would make you frown with disapproval?"

They grabbed Miriam by the hair. "You do not understand what infinite possibilities actually means, Bell."

"Don't do this, Wyldclay..." Stanton warned, but Wyldclay ignored them.

"Where shall we start? How about in the word of decomposition and decay. How fun does it sound, do you, to be stuffed to the brim and overflowing with fetid waste, the rotting refuse of the world? Grease and mold and rot being shoved passed your lips, over your tongue, down your gullet, until your body is bloated and distended from the sheer mass of effluvia, doubling in under the weight you contain inside? Reveling in the rotting taste of things being pushed through your mouth, the reek wafting up from your insides, the stretch and squash of your body as you're pushed to and past your limits, until you're in danger of splitting? And then to be taken, and shoved under layer and layer of other, equally insignificant bits of waste. Maybe you do rupture, there and then, half-rotted food scraps, bits of paper and plastic spilling out into the surrounding garbage. Or maybe, this is a test, and you're stronger than that. Maybe you last long enough for the anaerobic bacteria to get to work. Everything inside you turning to sludgy, blackish soup. Proteins becoming ammonia, fats gone rancid, carbohydrates fermenting, the scent of sulfur permeating you from tip to tail. Methane and lechate filling your very soul. A stew of rotting biology and chemical reactions. And who knows how long it will last for?"

"Does that sound fun to you? A wonderful aspect of Will-dom to encourage and flourish? Something you want your girlfriend to ask for? Hell, something you want to experience yourself, alongside her? I mean, you're here, you're Of The Clay, you don't want to be excluded. Maybe we go ahead and reshape you and get you propped up, good and ready to go in the food court of the mall, mouth stretched open, gaping and waiting?"

"Wyldclay!"

"You know what, Miriam? That sounds terrible to me, too. Disgusting and demeaning and stomach-churning. I'd have no part of it, myself. Nor would that one, for that matter," they added, gesturing at Stanton. "But there's something in here, a part of me, that does want to do that shit. And because they have, I remember doing that. And I remember enjoying it. I could go on, and tell you an ode to all the different sensations and stages that you can go through; the playful feeling of the maggots and worms crawling in and out of me. That's part of me. That's part of Will-dom.

Presumably, there's a Paragon out there who finds that particularly interesting and exciting; the source for those bits of us that want to do that. Perhaps we'll have him sit in the back. But even without the...the source standing here, it's part of me. And it's part of me that you. Do. Not. Want.

And that, you'll be happy to know, doesn't generally come out, so you don't need to worry where this mouth has been next time we make out. In here, we can do what we want, as we want -- that's part of living in here, as you put it. The bits that you do not want, or Sam does not want, or any of you do not want? You don't have to deal with it. That can be something for us and us alone, fulling those parts of us without burdening anyone else with them. You don't need to worry about a Will coming out and asking you to flay his flesh from his bones or boil the vitreous humor in her eyeballs. You don't need to worry about a Will coming out and deciding no, what they really want to do is see how many of your bones they can break before you pass out. And you don't need to worry about an Ogre coming out and deciding to grind children's bones to make their bread. Because of us. Because of the Paragons. And because of your curated experience."

[Miriam Bell]

To her credit, Miriam tries. But she's already drunk and Wyldclay rattling off vivid explanations of rancid decay may well do her in even if she wasn't. So instead of fighting back against her hair being grabbed she violently vomits and collapses on all fours the moment there's the slightest slack in Wyldclay's grip. It does sober her up some at least, even if it takes her a solid minute between retching and hurling a couple more times before she can get her body to respond. She clumsily wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, every part of her limbs numb and clenching awkwardly.

"You fucking done?" she asks without lifting her head, followed by spitting out a mouthful of spit and bile. Finally looking up at Wyldclay she looks like more of a disaster than after the worst vampire-fueled escapades. About as pale too. "Got anything else you wanna get off your chest while you're pretending to hear what you wanna hear? You can keep your fucking depraved bullshit in the same box as you keep the psycho-version of me. Fucking bury it in the yard when you find it, I don't give a shit. According to you they'd like that anyway, right? Fuck you. And you too. Don't act like you're all concerned while you let him rub my face in the shit and piss. You're all the same person afterall, yeah?"

She manages to climb to her feet and angrily chucks off the secretary arms like she'd shrug off a stole. "Jus' ignore the part where I said boundaries are good. Pretend the telepath doesn't know shit about the fucking utter garbage people keep locked away in their heads. You don't gotta slam my hand on the stove for me to know it's hot. And you definitely don't have to lock up the whole bloody kitchen cause I cut myself fumbling a knife. But sure, yeah, when I said I don't want you to close yourself off I meant 'dredge up the worst thing to prove a point'. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? Lashing out so you don't risk getting hurt is the bloody Miriam Special, ain't it?"

"Sod off." she makes a dismissive downward wave by flailing her whole arm in their general direction.

[Will Stanton]

"It's not the worst part of us, Miriam," Stanton said, quietly. "It's just part of us. That person you're calling an 'utter garbage person' -- that's me. And accepting those parts of me that aren't....suitable for public consumption is something I struggled with. I still struggle with. You say that you think I've figured out how to endure anything? That's...that's not true at all. It's not even close to true. I'm billions of years old, and I'm still trying to come to grips with...with everything. With who I am, with how I present myself, with how I want the world to see me, with how I want to see myself. And I'll never fully have it."

"That's the thing -- what you think is garbage? That's just me. And sure, that one is...extreme, to say the least. Biologically...disturbing. You could have put money on it turning your stomach, because it was meant to," they said, shooting a glance at Wyldclay. "Slapping you upside the face to prove a point."

"But it happens in smaller, subtler ways, too. You want to see a little more, so I show a little more. And you want to see a little more, so I show a little more. And then a little more, and then a little more, until I cross a line, somewhere, in excitement and enthusiasm. And once that bell is rung, it can't be unrung. There's a line where you go from Will Stanton, that freaky little weirdo (complimentary) to Will Stanton, that disgusting piece of trash. And it's a line I have shown again and again that I will cross if I do not restrain myself.

Because it's in different places for different people. I would never have guessed, in a million years, that remembering one day that didn't happen to you would shake you to your core. I was shocked when you missing an arm caused you to lash out at us trying to help. I wouldn't think of these things as even approaching a line, so why even be careful about them? And that's the danger of just letting me be me. I WILL cross that line, I WILL ring that bell, and things will change and can't be unchanged. And you know how I feel about things not being able to be unchanged.

And so, no. You don't get the full, unfiltered experience, because you don't want that. And I am happy -- more than happy -- that that is the case; I can do all that kind of bullshit in here, away from prying eyes. You can pull out whatever you want from the cauldron; a me for all occasions; a me that likes almost anything. And maybe there could be more, the things you haven't thought of, but I am not willing to hurt you anymore, Miriam. And so I put a lid on so you can't accidentally stumble in, and I ask you to stay out so you can't accidentally come across something you don't want. Boundaries are good, like you say, and I'm trying to set them."

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam is quiet for several moments. Then she just says "Okay." she turns to leave. It probably should have occurred to her sooner that prying open an entry would be a literal breach of boundaries. She kind of deserved the slap upside the face for that. "I guess I'll see you outside. Colored only by my wants and needs."

[Will Stanton]

The two Paragons turned back to their work, getting back into their argument over what exactly to do.

The secretary took Miriam by the shoulders. "Come now, everything will be alright. Do you need something? A glass of water?"

[Miriam Bell]

"That'd be nice..." Miriam says, letting herself be steered by Will. She hates feeling defeated but there's only so much resistance she can put up against being (sort of) doted upon. Plus she really needs to get the aftertaste out of her mouth.

[Will Stanton]

The secretary navigated Miriam to an armchair in the lobby area, letting her sit down while she fetched and returned a paper cup with some water in it. "Just sit down and breathe for a bit."

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam drains half the cup in one go and rinsing out her mouth before spitting it out. Can't get any more undignified than she already is The rest of the water she drinks down before crumpling up the cup and leaning back, groaning.

"What a shit show..."

[Will Stanton]

"Mmm, quite," the secretary agreed.

"Well, no one's dead, and the property damage seems to be minimal, so don't think you're in the bottom quartile of conflicts just yet."

[Miriam Bell]

"Maybe. But I tried to make things right and it still ended up, as you say, a conflict."

"Fuck!" she snaps back forward, immediately regretting the sudden motion and slumping her head into her hands, elbows on her knees. "Why can't I ever do anything right?"

[Will Stanton]

"Mmm," the secretary said, pausing for a moment.

She walked over and carefully sat down next to Miriam, taking strides not to have her skirt touch the...mess that Miriam was in at the moment. "You do a fair number of things right," the secretary hedged. "You have proven to be reasonably reliable. You crossed dimensions to retrieve a wayward Will. You entered a barn to retrieve another, tracking one across the countryside. You helped craft both the mirror and cauldron, and created the framework in which we are currently sitting. You are, all in all, a positive asset and a source of strength.

Your current state, however, has you most closely resemble an inebriated Taurus in a porcelain store. Delicate work is not your forte in your finest moments. And this is...not your finest moment," she said, gesturing vaguely at the remains of sick Miriam hadn't quite managed to wash off.

[Miriam Bell]

"I just... you seemed... I thought you were pushing me away. From all this. Just because I got jealous of Sam and... and I got scared. Of wrong memories and losing myself."

[Will Stanton]

"You may not be surprised to know that we are of two minds about most things at the moment," the secretary deadpanned.

"Why are you jealous of Sam?"