hadriel | ♫ text

Wow I can't believe you deleted my text.
I worked really hard on that joke for like two minutes.
Anyway I try not to think too hard about ghosts in the morgue, but if he was around, I hope he wasn't pissed.
He didn't get all burnt so I'm sure they got something off of him.
If there was anything to get.
I don't know how the case turned out, I didn't work that one.
And you know, the cops don't always tell us.

two minutes???
please for the love of god tell me ur exaggerating and u did not actually spend two minutes thinking up that pile of hot garbage.
i cant handle this shit rn mnm.
im fragile.
wait wtf the cops dont tell u? that bs.
id want to know.
dude ud have a fuckin blast workin at the morgue back home.
ppl die in all kinds of crazy ways.

Of course I'm exaggerating.
I spent five minutes.

[And now he's just being a shit?]

I mean, I guess the cops might tell us if we, I don't know, sought them out about it.
But for the most part I just kind of leave it alone.
God, how do pathologists even function in your world?
I guess they have to use something to figure out if it was magic or not?
How often do people get like, gored by unicorns or burnt up by dragons?

STOP IT.

[HH leaves him hanging for a good ten minutes or so. But then:]

idk any pathologists. is that what u are?
but yeah theres uh.
well im assuming theres shit to determine that?
idk i didnt go to fuckin law school.
well ig i was a pi but look i dont solve fuckin murders and shit.
ok first off unicorns are fuckin mythical beings and if a unicorn gores u u absolutely deserved it. no one investigates unicorn murders.
they just get a license to kill by virtue of being like hella pure or w.e.
dragons are relatively rare too. they mostly keep to themselves but the first job me and the rest of the guys worked was this shitshow where a dragon uh.
holy shit the dragon fuckin robbed the bank. i just realized that was a thing.
anyway so had to deal w. that. she did kill some ppl then and then a bunch more later but i dont want to get into that rn.
it was fucked up.
anyway yeah i figure the police have probably figured out a way to sort that shit out by now.
u should just come home w. me and find out for urself. lol.

[Michael will get to all of the rest of that in a second. First things first.]

I want to.

[He sends it without thinking too much, but no, he's serious. Are there things he'd miss about home? Yeah, sure, of course. But Laura's better off without him around, if he's honest, and if he goes home, he's going back to what might turn into a nasty cat-and-mouse game with a serial killer. And if it does, it's not going to end well.

And all this is assuming he doesn't remember Hadriel, because if he does, well. Going home alone would be even worse.]

[...OH.]

really?
youd ditch ur entire world for me?

[He thinks about this answer for probably less time than he should.]

I mean, it's not like I'm ditching a whole lot.
Not to say I wouldn't ditch a whole lot?
I mean I'd definitely be sacrificing a really good friend and a place with kick-ass Thai food.
But back home there's some pretty bad stuff waiting for me.
In yours, there's at least one really, really good thing.
I don't know, that math adds up to me.

christ. ur making me all emotional.
i love you.
ftr im from fuckin nyc. we have kickass thai food in spades.
but im sorry abt ur friend.

[This isn't the right time to bring it up, but Harlan wants to ask about Michael's family. They're not in the picture anymore, but jumping ship into Harlan's world would mean closing that door forever. It's a big decision, and not one they should talk about over text on a public network.

Later, then. Partly because thinking about that reminds Harlan that there's probably a million reasons why Michael shouldn't come home with him, and that might not even be an option because they might not remember each other, and even if they do, Plane Shift might not work, or there might be a monumental difference in time, like what if months pass again, or years, or decades even, and what if Michael thinks that Harlan forgot about him or gave up on him or moved on, and come to think of it, it's sad that Michael doesn't have more to leave behind, but it's not like Harlan did either, and the guild could get by without him, but what if one of them dies, not here but permanently, what if Michael dies while Harlan isn't there, or while Harlan is there, that could happen, he could just be gone one day, that's going to happen eventually, maybe years from now or maybe tomorrow, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen right now.

Okay, stop. That's enough.]

i love you.
tell me more gross morgue stories.
or abt ur friend.
i miss thai food.

I love you, too.
And I also miss Thai food.
That wasn't meant to sound like it was tacked on to the other thing.

[Whatever, Harlan knows what he means.

Bringing up Laura was maybe a bad move, he thinks. If he's honest, she's the only person he's really going to miss. The only one he'll feel bad about leaving behind. But really... she's better off this way. She's better off not knowing that her best friend was a serial killer. How much would that even fuck with a person? And it's not like he'd be able to keep it hidden forever.

She told him once that she didn't care about whatever his past was, and that she had some secrets of her own. Michael's pretty sure she didn't know what she was saying.]

I can talk about her I guess. [God damn it.]
We met at a bus station.
It was like, the middle of the night.
I think I was actually asleep?
I just remember I was the only person in there waiting, and then I heard someone else come in.
And I was thinking there was no way this person was going to come sit near me because there was like, a whole bus station?
But you can probably guess what happened next.
She said some dudes were following her and she just wanted to pretend we knew each other.
But both of us suck at fake conversations so we ended up having a real one.
That's not a really exciting story, sorry.

i get it. thai food is number two on my list of life priorities too.
its like u then thai food then jf.
then dark souls.
i want to play dark souls.
im stuck on the fucking moth boss again tho and its not helping.
u kno a video game is too hard when u could kill the fuckin thing irl no problem.

[Assuming his magic ever comes back, that is. But he's trying not to think about that right now.]

its a good story. thats a good way to meet someone.
whats her name?
and y were u in a bus station?

Maybe you can play Skyrim instead?
Go yell some people off a mountain, that's always fun.

[He's helping.]

Her name's Laura.
I was at a bus station because I was taking the bus.
From NYC to Columbus.
This was a couple years before I came to Hadriel.

lol. thats not a bad idea.
its not as fun as dark souls tho.
it gets samesy after like ten mins.
idk.
this doesnt matter.
shit i forgot u lived in nyc.
i live in brooklyn.
i wonder if any shits the same.
my apts next to a fortune cookie factory. it smells like fortune cookies all the time.
itd be cool to meet laura. i bet shes cool.

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he's embarrassing

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