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 Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 1:46 pm
He’s back again — it’s been days since the call — he’s made his peace with it. He actually bothers to knock this time, only to let himself in, in spite of that. Being obstinate for obstinates sake. As if holding onto one tiny defiance makes worth the thousand cuts to his soul for doing this—
“So…Headache…” Politeness ground down in mortar and pestle, gritty, and grave. “How much would....”
Oh ********, he couldn’t do this, he didn’t want to do this!! What kind of sick freak wanted to meet Headache?!! Of any and everyone!! The voice on the other end of the line could’ve asked for anything; the hollows left ear, a queen's heart, his own head on a silver platter! He would’ve endeavored, and he would’ve endured, and he would’ve done it!!
And not a one of those tasks would have cost him nearly as much as this one was now.
“Ehm…sorry…” It was hard to feign deference, harder still to suck it up and go forwards with opening his mouth and asking. “…I was just…tryn’ t’see if your time had a price? N’what that might be…if ah..you’re down for meet n greets with the public?”
Apparently his boy's Headache had ‘fans’!! And saying so out loud would make him lose both nerve and lunch so he bit his lip and took a soldier's pose.
At ease with his eyes downcast.
Waiting.
For the buzzing to swallow him — to flee the scene — to release a relieved breath the second Headache said no!!
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 1:49 pm
Headache had expected their last exchange to be the end of their business together. Albite, ever the typical senshi, was such an unwilling deliverer of goods and Headache had no other leads on Faustite. Nor was it particularly moved to action in the hunt for the missing General-King; it was simply too costly for Headache to waste its hour or so of visiting Destiny City on actively looking for Faustite. Headache found it a far better use of extremely limited time to obtain as much energy and as many starseeds as possible, and if it encountered Faustite along the way? Well enough.
But the bonded youma was ever so hungry for starseeds; having a fetch boy in Albite would have been terribly convenient — and mollifying, for the senshi's proper place was in servitude. Paying back a debt left infinitely unpaid.
Surprise was perhaps an overestimate, but Headache regarded Albite quizzically when the senshi crawled back into his office, all deference with an undertone of shame. This one wanted something — obvious enough — but wanted to play vague about it. Dance around the topic in the way that most humans did when they thought they wouldn't get what they wanted by telling the truth.
Headache looked up from its work, once again in Faustite's form, and blazing eyes set on the haphazard imitation of a soldier before it. Headache tsked, its voice a perfect imitation of what Albite hadn't heard in ages now. "My time always has a price," it reminded him. "You're building your debt by being coy about what you want.
"Provide details. How long? With whom? I won't meet with just anyone." Particularly if 'the public' entailed a royal senshi. The squid youma made that mistake once already.
"If you're capable of exacts, then I'll quote you my price."
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 1:49 pm
<******** you ******** you ******** you ********—
The petulant undercurrent of his thoughts winding into his words, into the way he fidgeted, before finally glancing up to settle a glare on — his husbands stolen features — the voice that lived in his head even beyond its cease of use.
I wonder how much he enjoys taunting me like this, if he really has the ability to enjoy it? Or if this is just in his nature.
The same way it’s in mine.
“About two weeks from now, for thirty minutes, with some soft, blond, curly-haired mirror twink named Mark?” He rushed the answer out, shrugged through the details. And if it turned out that they needed to call the meeting off sooner? That the mirror Senshi was wasting their time? Headache got a free starseed, and the prince of questions wouldn’t hear about a missing *anyone*, not so long as that ‘anyone’ was just another corpse in the Rift with a neatly dispatched soul fed straight to the monster's maw.
It was real hard to complain about bad customer service iffn the person complaining was dead, right?
“The location’s mine t’determine…the timelines kinda flexible..waiting on a call…n’imma crowd source some info before risking you..” he was being considerate, in a way. Trying to trick himself into valuing Headache as something like an asset, at least until his husband was returned to them. Adding his own brand of sugar to the bitter medicine to make it easier to swallow.
“I’ve got, hah, contacts on the other side. Not that I wanna waste ‘em on a comet tail of a lead if all you’ll say is no?”
He needed the answer first, and he dared to move closer, if only to give his feet something to do. To feel the real enough heat of his missing fire…
“It’s important, Bugs. This guy? He knew Faustite. Seemed real insistent on — ah — offering to help? But only for a price. Since everything has one? Like you said….”
Nothing was ever free.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 1:50 pm
Two weeks from now. Fine.
Half hour. Fine.
Soft, blond, curly-haired mirror twink named Mark. What?
The name and description of the Dark Mirror senshi matched nothing at face value, Headache thought. Seldom had it met Dark Mirror senshi, and most of those it met lacked blond hair. There was the Raptor, who oft crossed paths with Faustite up until she didn't. There was the moody-looking one with his pet boy, but that one had black hair. Unless Albite meant —
"Remarque? The Mirror Prince?" Not spoken with any tone of deference for the senshi's station, but with a dose of inquisitiveness. No senshi of any sort deserved to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its master, but Remarque was the only one it knew of that most closely matched Albite's shoddy description.
Then again, everything about the man was shoddy. What was to say that he could remember something so simple as a name and a face? As far as Headache was concerned, Albite was only good for fetching starseeds.
And wasting time. He killed minutes like he was processing cattle.
"Make sure the meeting is indoors. And break all the mirrors save for one." One way in, one way out. Better for senshi to feel the pressure of being trapped and forced to answer for their crimes. Particularly if they had information that disrupted Headache's lifestyle.
"Yes, he knew Faustite. I was there when they met. Faustite asked him to use Mirrorspace to make a sixth spike for the Calamitous Hollow. I will meet with him again."
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 1:51 pm
Albite paused in his shuffled heel-toe stride; the act of his body being idly busy coming to a halt. Like he’d caught a stray idea and it’d taken out a chunk of his prefrontal-cortex, ending all the focus he had for movement, or breathing, or blinking morse code.
Re-mark? Remark, Remark, Remark— Was that how that sounded? How that was supposed to sound? Not Re-Mar-QUESO? Like the nacho cheese at a theater? Like a stage name? Had he been looking it up wrong this whole time? He didn’t know, he hadn’t done enough research yet, but the person on the other line had mentioned a ‘Prince of Mirrors’ and a ‘deal’ and something that sounded ‘marquis’ enough to maybe be someone who’d be present?
The guy hadn’t said he wouldn’t be, so maybe he will? Best t’prepare for ******** inevitable at this point, right?
Sure…
So Albite was going with it, going for it, nodding like he’d gotten his a** in line and his thoughts unscrambled. He moved again, he agreed. “Indoors so you don’t melt in the rain like fairy-floss…only th’one mirror…for your reflection?” The relief on his face neon bright as the hope in his voice. He was finally on a track leading somewhere! Headache confirmed as much, Royals traveling in tight circles with an entourage, and why he hadn’t thought the little lion man on the other line wasn’t just someone speaking for someone else's ********, could’ve been anybody! Maybe even one of Sir Marks underlings? Ah, a lackey?
Whatever—
“Anything else?” The way the words came out sounding like a demand for the summation of a dowry, instead of grateful. But a price had to be paid, from his hands, to Headaches. He could be both full of gratitude, and full of spite. Hating his own neediness, but unable to avoid showing his throat once more.
Especially here, in this space, standing at the edge of what felt like all possibilities culminating into one…
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 1:52 pm
"You don't know anything, do you?" Curling the fist that wasn't its, Headache rested its chin upon it. "The Dark Mirror Court travels by mirror. If there's only one mirror, we control their exit path. Is that so hard to understand?" Did Faustite actually train this oaf, or did he just pretend that he did while lying with him for hours at a time?
Sitting up, Headache assessed the boy. All meat-headed and oblivious to the basics of strategy. Oblivious to the defining characteristics of the Dark Mirror Court, which held an alliance with the Negaverse for ages.
"I would have changed five starseeds, but make it six for having to give you another assignment. Go read the Database on Dark Mirror senshi. Ask around if you have to. But don't show up to that meeting as ignorant as you stand now. You're only embarrassing Faustite by doing so, you understand."
So it was the Prince again. Acceptable. Worth turning out for, if only to measure him again. If only to see how he'd changed after that debacle in the sky that left Headache in charge of an office.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 1:53 pm
Oh s**t, am I actually learning something? From Headache!??
A raw tasting flavor of weird impossibility, but there it was. Facts straight from the bugs-as-his-boys-maw. Albites' urge to vomit only slightly curbed by fact that he was more curious than sickened by the realizations being dumped all over his head. He still likely looked green for it, sweating with barely anything on.
More sponge than man for the moment, he took his lumps, his chiding. Soaked it all in while nodding as penance. Resenting not having paid more attention when Faustite was actually around! At least not to mirror folks—-
Save the one—
But Muri was another matter entirely, and also no longer part of the mirror, and also?! ********, and now he was being given chores on top of his tasks!!! Albite flinched for that, visibly straightening, looking nervously for the nearest exit from which to flee through. Lest Headache get ideas and assign him books too!
“Six then…” Easier to acknowledge the cost than the order. To use the words that hurt far less than complimenting Headache, or gods forbid, agree that the youma was anywhere near to being right? So precise with marking out his own when it came to the Negaverse, when it came to Faustite. Because all of these were things he should’ve known! Names of Prince’s, that they had any allies at all, how creepily the mirrors functioned.
Like portals? Like doors?
That Remark was an actual person whose name was spelled a certain way instead of another—-
“N’it really — really — ******** with me.” A parting gift, because even without a mouth? He thought he might’ve found a way to scream. Knew that he needed to state his distaste as words and weave his unease into a sentence. “You being halfway good at, ah, any of this?”
Albite decides to leave it at that, to get gone while the getting was good. Lest he incur more fines based on ignorance ********, I need Faustite to come home…
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