"I'm divorcing you."
You said it so dryly and matter-of-factly, with all the grave disinterest of a man looking out the window, spotting the weather, and deciding it wasn’t his problem. The ONLY proper way to say such a line, in your VERY INFORMED OPINION.
FIDDLEFORD, predictably, made a VERY INTERESTING AND VAGUELY PANICKED EXPRESSION, like he would have choked on water if he could. He managed well enough without.
FASCINATING.
“You- you’d hafta have married me first , ya spider-handed bastard!” He sputters.
“I mean, if you think about it,” you HELPFULLY point out, “since multiverse theory is true, and there are an infinite possible number of said instances, there’s definitely a non-zero chance of a timeline where we were married this entire time. So I probably could divorce you on those grounds.”
A pause.
“Entirely hypothetically, of course.”
“Right, right.” FIDDLEFORD wheezes. “Jesus, Mary, an’ Joseph. Did ya really have to come right out the gate with that? ”
“ You didn’t have to come right out of the gate with hiding Ainsel from me for a month, and yet here we are,” you easily refute.
“... Y’know what, I can’t really argue that,” FIDDLEFORD concedes. The snake coils tighter around his shoulders, flicking its tongue out in your GENERAL AND VAGUELY ACCUSATORY direction.
“Good day to you too, Ainsel,” you bluntly say to the SNAKE-DISGUISED ENTITY.
AINSEL slaps his tongue across his eye, like some kind of gecko. (Clearly you will need to give him proper biology education later. Animal Planet and some of Sir. Batinborough’s documentaries will do nicely to start. ) “Are you going to trap me in a freezer again, doctor?”
HAHA. OH YEAH. RIGHT. THAT.
THAT DID HAPPEN.
BOY.
“In my defense, it really felt like you were trying to kill me, and I was not planning to leave you in there for thirty years. That was… excessive to say the least, but truly not my intent. I got trapped in another dimension, so I didn’t really have a way to come back for you.”
It is truly odd to watch a snake have facial expressions. Reptiles are not the most expressive by nature, but literally watching muscles ripple beneath that triangular head to form eyebrows makes you very grateful that such was not the norm.
“It would seem that we are both familiar with confinement, then- Even if that didn’t answer my question,” AINSEL replies after affixing you with a scrutinizing look. “Luckily for you, doctor, I’ve chilled out since being freed. Don’t cage me and I’ll have little reason to bite back.”
FIDDLEFORD giggles at the pun, much to your dismay. He must have been the one to nurture this sense of humor. (Of course he did. That was so like him.) BETRAYAL.
“Good, good.”
Nod.
Nod like you understand any of the REALLY WEIRD EMOTIONS that you’re processing at the moment.
Nod like you understand that distinctly unscientific cocktail of half-forgotten fears, relief, and just a smattering of guilt.
(Maybe more than a smattering. Shhhh. No need to think about that. JUST BACK AWAY SLOWLY.)
CLEAR YOUR THROAT. LIKE A PROFESSIONAL. YEAH! YOU ARE SO GOOD AT EMOTIONS. SO DIGNIFIED AND FEELY.
“Right!” Oh, FUCK, that was a little louder than you intended. Like a clap of thunder when you were going for a pen drop. “Well, um- I’m glad there’s no hard feelings. They’d be well deserved, of course , but- it’s nice to start over, so-”
Well? Go on, fucker. Say it. It’s not like it’s hard. Just words.
“-thank you.”
It tears at your throat like shards of glass, and came out perhaps a touch more distant than you would have wished, but you said it. Hazzah! Will miracles ever cease?
(You just thanked Jesus, and you aren’t even Christian. Maybe there was more to religion and the not-quite metaphorical human condition than you’d originally thought.)
AINSEL, frankly, seems a bit more knowing about that whole VERBAL CLUSTERFUCK than you’re comfortable with, but that’s probably a YOU PROBLEM. At least there’s no misunderstandings here.
FIDDLEFORD, for his part, just has that irritatingly fond SMILE on his face. (The one that makes your hands feel sweaty.) You don’t know what EMOTION that’s invoking.
Probably the sudden compulsion to find every Rubix cube he owns and deliberately unsolve them again. Or make them half-patterned, he would hate that.
“There we go, makin’ up like a real family thingy,” he hums, looking entirely too proud of himself as he scratches the snake’s head. “I knew this was the right call.”
Oh, the urge to pretend ukuleles are interchangeable with banjos in the pursuit of blind rage, how it grows by the millisecond.
“So, like, are you two old guys still having a soap opera on the couch or can I pretend I need to knock on the door now?”
ALL THREE OF YOU look sharply to the side. There is a DECIDEDLY OVERDRESSED young lady loitering by the porch, with an accompanying long, black car. (Limbos, were they called? Limb...zones? You were still behind on the slang.)
She gives you both a droll look, her little heeled foot tip-tapping on the hard-packed dirt. “I need to ask someone here something and it’s none of you.”
...HAHA, OH NO, HOW LONG HAS SHE BEEN STANDING THERE. HOW MUCH DID SHE HEAR. THE DESIRE TO BE SWALLOWED UP BY THE EARTH, STEADILY RISING.
>Switch character?
>[YOU ARE MASON PINES.]
>[YOU ARE PACIFICA NORTHWEST.]
>[YOU ARE MABEL PINES.]
>[YOU ARE STANLEY PINES.]
>[YOU ARE WADDLES. OINK.]