deercountry | (no subject)

He is silent again at this, but the space between them is tinged with simmering unease and a sharp twist of guilt. Ozpin was too slow to come to Oscar's aid, and horribly unsuccessful at stopping his murderer; he was a willing part of Willow's demise.

The person responsible... The black-eyed man. Ozpin knows horribly little about what he's capable of, and can find no bearable way to press for detail. The silence hangs heavy as he tries to find anything at all to say. Is it finished?

Willow has yet to return to them from the sea. Oscar is trapped with another host and beyond his mental reach. Their house has been fragmenting, whittled down in the storm, and he can only hope this slow decay will not continue.

He makes no commentary or protest as Stanford turns to the closet to dress them. This, to him, is familiar. He can ride along in relative quiet; the claustrophobia of inaction has not troubled him for a long time now.

Is it finished? is a good and focused question with an unpleasantly vague answer.

"I don't know." He sounds as frustrated as he feels. "A week ago I would have said he'd be the sort to call us even. It's not like either of us chose a peaceful method."

He'd guess that being ripped apart by your own atoms disagreeing about which side of reality they should exist on is probably more painful than your heart exploding, but the latter had still left Ford agonizingly aware for several long moments before the rest of his body caught up to the fact that he was dead. That seemed like tradeoff Sasha might call fair.

"But i wouldn't have guessed he'd try something like this - and I don't think he's just going to leave it."

He has no real answers, as usual.

But he'd rather not address that out loud. Instead he focuses on getting them dressed, stubbornly seeking out the least fancy, least green things he can find. He's determined to not have to ask Ozpin for help (the thought of ceding even the tiniest amount of control to him has a thread of panic skittering across his thoughts) but just ends up being annoyed when he remembers everything well enough to not have to ask for assistance anyway.

There is a pang of unease when Ford says only that it was not peaceful. But then, Ozpin has died so very many times, and almost none of those were peaceful. Very few deaths are, upon Remnant. Trench is the same.

He falls silent again as Ford dresses them from the scant neutral options in his closet, all blacks and greys and browns. This would be a reasonable impulse, were the body Ford's own; it is terribly unkind practice, on Remnant, to forcibly overtake someone's color with one's own. But the body is not Ford's, and nor is the closet, or the house, and from Ozpin's mind comes a building impatience.

I suspect you will have today as a reprieve, at least. He shall not know to look for me in any search for you.

He really cannot be more pointed that Stanford is not, at present, living his own life. The unspoken question is what Ford intends to do in Ozpin's skin.

The reminder and unspoken question are both highly unwelcome. Ford falls still in the middle of buttoning down one of Ozpin's shirts, fingers lingering at one of the buttons for a moment. The skitter of panic is suddenly more of an uneasy wave, and Ford has to draw in a careful breath before he feels steady enough to reply.

"Do you remember in Deerington, when Sleepers would sometimes fall comatose and become wrapped up in a mucous-like webbing?"

His mind tries to latch onto the thought of how interesting it is that such a thing carried over, but he forces himself to stay on task.

"That happened to Dipper and Mabel earlier this month. I just need to make sure everything at the house is still okay."

He is very pointedly not asking, half because he doesn't intend to listen if told otherwise, and half because he does genuinely believe that Ozpin won't tell him otherwise. Even so, there's a sort of anxiety hanging over him as he explains. Even he he knows that Ozpin won't stop him, the knowledge that he could is still hanging over him.

Ah. Ozpin is quiet, for a moment, but some of the irritable tension bleeds away. He cannot help his own faint curl of concern. He would wish no harm to the twins, and to leave them unattended and vulnerable, with the town in its current state of disarray...

Very well.

Oscar would want Dipper looked after, and his sister as well. Ozpin relents back to silence as Ford readies them to leave the relative safety of the bedroom. With a note in his voice beginning to turn wry:

I am not expected to teach lessons today, though you may wish to avoid the other residents of this house.

Ozpin gives his assent and Ford finally, for the first time since he woke up, relaxes. There's never been any real doubt that Ozpin would agree, but having the agreement out there and plainly stated is what it takes to finally alleviate some of Ford's anxiety.

Not all of it, but enough that he's able to finish getting dressed without snapping at Ozpin or picking another fight over something stupid. Enough that after a moment he speaks again.

"Thank you, Ozpin." Ford has never been one to express much in the way of consideration or awareness for other people, but this time he thinks to add: "Once we've checked I can retreat to the mindscape until this is over." He still remembers how meditation and deliberately stepping aside for a co-pilot works. He can definitely do it without freaking out.

But he's got more pressing things to focus on for the moment. He returns to the bedroom to locate the Long Memory, listening to Ozpin as he goes. The warning that he should avoid the housemates is met with a nod, though there's one housemate in particular he's hoping to not run into.

"Do you suppose going out the library window would be the best way to avoid Ruby?" He feels like she probably avoids the place.

Speaking of Ruby Rose. She's been up for awhile and had heard the loud exclamation of "Fuck." and had chosen to ignore it. Ozpin was a cranky old man and had probably lost at a game of chess or something.

Ruby gave it a shrug and went down stairs to start working on making some pancakes for breakfast. Things had been crazy this month and she was going to need all of her strength to protect people from the Reckoning's... reckoning.

It's only once she's got the pancake mix in the pan that a thought springs to her mind.

Ozpin didn't lose at chess.
Ozpin also didn't have ~~friends.~~
Ozpin didn't have friends that he'd invite over.

Something was wrong.

Terribly wrong.

And she had to look into it.

She dashes back up the stairs, leaving her breakfast to burn so that she can knock on Ozpin's door with both hands.

"Ozpin!? Ozpin!?

Are you okay in there!? Sigh once if you need help- Sigh twice if you're okay!"

While I hope such drastic measures would not be necessary—

And there she is, as if on cue. In Ford's mind, Ozpin sighs.

You will want to head this off quickly. A simple reassurance should do.

As though either of them believe Ruby would drop anything so easily, should she be in a mood to make well-intentioned nuisance of herself. Still: one can hope.

And there she is. Ford freezes, but only for a moment. As uncomfortable as it is, having someone else literally on board as backup is actually pretty helpful. Ozpin's insistence that a 'simple reassurance' will be enough is met with deep skepticism, but also something that can only be described as earnest hope. He really, really needs a simple reassurance to be enough.

(He also reflects, with an amusement that's not directly on but still within sight of the border of hysteria, that Ozpin did as instructed and sighed exactly once.)

"Everything is fine, Ruby." Ford is only so-so at direct lying and impersonating people, but for a single line he doesn't need an abundance of skill in either area.

That's the same reason he leaves it at one line, even though he knows it won't be enough. He needs to stall for a better excuse.

Ruby listens for the one sigh and unfortunately doesn't hear it. She does however get a verbal response and she does notice something is off. He called her Ruby. Ozpin rarely called her Ruby. It was almost always Ms.Rose even after the sheer amount of things they had been through.

She pauses briefly and while she doesn't want to assume that something terrible is happing there is a sense of worry there.

"You sure? I mean- Okay. I don't doubt you, but-" There's a pause as she gives a little sniff and realizes that something is amiss down stairs.

"If you want I'm making pancakes. You're free to come down and have some or grab a fire extinguisher. We'll probably need it for the first batch."

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cw: references to existential horror, gore, death

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