AN: Kas - Laundry day~ See you there~
Kit - Eeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. We decided you lovelies deserved far more of State of Mind. Sorry it's been neglected, we got absorbed with other projects.
Kas - We'll make time stand stiiiiill~
Kit - ...We're watching Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. It's really, really good and when that duet scene comes...
"Randy!"
Randy, who had just returned from one of his quicker jobs, immediately rushed to Danny at hearing his voice. "Danny? What's wrong?" Because that was a very worrying tone of voice.
Danny gestured to where Andrew lay on the bed, looking peaceful. "He was doing some experiment in his alchemy lab and I heard an explosion and he was passed out and he hasn't woken up since."
"How many hours has it been?" Randy was dropping his bag and checking over Andrew at once, looking serious as he inspected the man. "Harder to tell when it's sleep or coma with ghosts..." Goddamn death. Checking the eyes, however, showed he was very out of it.
"M...ooore than twenty four hours," Danny replied softly, worrying his lip and biting at it. At that, Randy paused, slowly taking a calming breath. Right, they couldn't panic. That would be the last thing to help him. Snatching Danny, Randy was quickly teleporting them to Andrew's alchemy lab.
"Where did you find him and in what position? Did you clean up any chemicals? Vidya, give me any books he was working with at the time."
Danny flew over to a spot on the ground. "He was right here. It looked like he was blasted back. There weren't any chemicals to clean up cause they blew up, so they must have gotten evaporated." He was careful to not touch the ground, floating in the middle of the room.
"And he complains about me when I work with dangerous chemicals," Randy tsked, flying after Danny and studying the spot. Nodding, he studied the table next, eyes scanning over the scattered objects that were lying around. "What the hell were you messin' with..." Seeing a book floating next to him, Randy was quickly reading over the page it was open to, eyes slightly widening. "Seriously?! Ugh- Ugh!" Randy shoved the book in Danny's face, looking annoyed. "He was messing with his speed healing, which, shockingly enough is connected to a ghost's core and state of mind!"
Danny floated a bit closer, toying nervously with his scarf. "What does that have to do with speed healing?" Taking another deep breath, and calming himself down, Randy gently nudged Danny back towards the bedroom.
"Me and Andy...don't have speed healing. We never could figure out why. I thought he had stopped tampering with it, but I guess not..." Randy nibbled at his lower lip, settling down on the bed next to Andrew and tugging on a lock of his hair. "I...don't know what to do here, petit mec..."
"I..." Danny sat down beside Randy with a small frown. "There is one thing. When Nocturne came to Amity, and did the thing that made everyone fall asleep, I was able to go in peoples' minds and wake them up. You said it's his mind that got messed with, right?"
"...You can do that?" Just how adaptive was this kid. He knew he could overshadow video games like Technus, but now he could enter dreams like Nocturne? Danny was...something else. "I mean, it could work... What he was messing with was meant to bring his mind together, kind of like a calming potion, or something. If he messed it up, it could have shattered the mind instead... If we peek in on his dreams, we could at least get a better idea of what he did, and try to fix it. Maybe even try to shock him awake."
"Would he even have any dreams?" Danny stared down at Andrew, giving the man a small poke and a frown. "I mean, shocking people awake was how I did it last time."
"Well, maybe not really dreams," Randy mumbled, tilting Andrew's head and checking his eyes again. "But if you can enter the mind like Nocturne, then we'll find some form of him inside his mind, dream or not."
"...Okay. So you just...overshadow him, and slip in, and... I'm gonna stop using that as a metaphor." Randy snickered, taking Danny's hand and linking their fingers together.
"After you then, mon douce."
"Wha- Me- Okay." Danny concentrated, turning both of them intangible before flying into Andrew.
"...Well...this was unexpected." The two stood in a dark room, almost blackened by the drape in front of a window. When Danny floated over to the window, he pulled the curtain back only to reveal a gloomy thunderstorm that raged on outside.
"...I thought he hated cliches."
Randy snorted at that, taking a look around the room to see it was...rather sparse. It seemed to be made of stone, with nothing but a few things lingering around. "He actually convinced you of that? Have you read his books?" The room itself...almost reminded him of...of... "Andy, darling, are you here?" There was a quiet noise, similar to a hiccup, before it was silenced, and there was nothing but the sound of Danny's breathing.
Randy glanced to Danny before hovering in the air, circling around the room a moment before glancing back to the storming window. Taking a breath, he started humming a gentle, comforting song under his breath. There was a shuddering breath, and a quiet sigh, the atmosphere of the room getting just the slightest bit lighter. A few moments and there was a curled up figure in all black in the corner of the room, Randy flying over while still humming soothingly and comfortingly. Settling down in front of the figure, Randy gently ran a hand through the hair before pressing a kiss to the forehead.
The Andrew - or whatever this was - leaned into the gentle touch, looking up at Randy, and Danny as the teen came closer. The tear tracks on his face were obvious, and his eyes were red and puffy, but it looked like he wasn't crying much, at the moment. "What- What are you two doing here?"
"We're...kind of hoping you could help us explain that." Randy cupped the man's cheek, absently looking him over and studying him. "You were experimenting with alchemy, and your speed healing. Danny says you've been asleep for over a day, so we came in here to try and wake you up. Do you remember anything?"
Slowly shaking his head, he stared at Randy. "No. N- A day?" Randy gave a nod, as well as trying for a reassuring smile.
"Yeah, but it's okay, because we'll wake you up in no time. We're good at fixing stuff like this, yeah?" Randy tilted the man's head up, eye narrowing a small amount. "You're younger...and human." Not younger by much, just a year or two, at most. The skin, however, was certainly human, if a bit pale. At the mention, Andrew's lip was quivering and his eyes were starting to shine with tears again as he stared up at Randy, as though he may disappear any moment.
He clung tightly to Randy, burying his face in the man's shoulder. "Don't leave me." Randy, rather startled, only hugged the man back before looking to Danny very panickedly.
"Hey, hey, no, it's okay. It's okay, Andy, I'm not gonna leave you. Stuck with me for forever, and mates, and all that, yeah?" Rubbing at the man's back, Randy looked to Danny pathetically, a clear look of 'help me on his face'.
Danny looked to Andrew, gently taking his hand. "Hey, Andy?"
Andrew looked back up at him, blinking in confusion. "I'm not Andrew." What. The hell. Randy sighed, and, really, this was going to be a long day.
"Would you mind telling us your name, then, darling?"
"Sorrow."
"...Cliches, indeed." Gently pulling Sorrow into his lap, Randy twisted around to where he was settling against the wall, leaning against Danny heavily. "So what I think has happened is that whatever you - 'Andrew' - was experimenting with caused your mind to shatter. Considering we're ghosts and our minds are vastly different, I suppose that means your emotions have been...separated." A long moment of silence. "It's like that Teen Titans episode." At the reference, Sorrow only blinked in confusion.
Danny leaned back against them, nuzzling against Sorrow. "Do you know what the others are, then? Or who?" Sorrow seemed to be thinking about the question heavily before he finally looked at Danny and gave a shrug. Randy gave a quiet chuckle, kissing at Sorrow's forehead.
"So, for now, I suppose, we just have to try and find the other emotions... If we can talk with each of them, maybe we can figure out a way to wake Andrew's consciousness." A glance back down to Sorrow. "So you don't have any idea what's going on, then?"
Sorrow gave a small sniff, and a shake of his head. "No. I don't know. I'm sorry." Randy only gave the other a peck of a kiss, nuzzling against his cheek a moment later.
"It's alright if you don't know anything, darling. This is a very strange situation, after all. Would you like us to stay with you for a little longer?" An apologetic glance to Danny because, really... Even if he knew they should be moving along, he couldn't bring himself to leave an upset and depressed Andrew all on his own. Especially one who went by the name Sorrow. Danny only gave Randy a small smile and a small nod because...he really didn't want to leave An- Sorrow like this. Sorrow only gave a small nod, curling up tighter in Randy's lap.
"So...do your physical appearances change depending on which emotion you are?" Randy sunk down a little more, quietly running a hand through Sorrow's hair, scratching at the scalp.
Sorrow gave a small shake of his head. "I don't know- This is all so new. Nothing like this happened- I barely knew I existed!"
"It's alright. I imagine this is rather confusing for you," Randy soothed, kissing the man's cheek again. "You look a bit younger than the current Andrew, though. Seventeen, or so, if I had to guess." Would there be a reason as to why Andrew's manifestation of sorrow was this age? Did something happen that was so bad it left this much of an impression? Even now? Giving a quiet sniff, Sorrow tucked himself closer and nodded, hiding his face as best he could. At their side Danny was giving a small frown as he did the math. Sorrow was seventeen. About then, Randy would...be...
Seeing Danny's expression, Randy gave him a curious nudge, head tilting in silent question. Danny quietly mouthed to him, 'you.' Randy blinked, looking to be confused before realization hit. He had died at twenty-one...when Andrew...was seventeen he had... "You've been through so much, my love..." Randy tucked Sorrow under his chin, rubbing at his back. To think that event made that much of an impact on him...he hadn't even realized Andrew had known about his death at that age. Sorrow seemed to calm down, leaning against Randy and Danny equally.
Danny tilted his head at the two and gave a small smile, quietly humming. After a moment, he was taking up the tune he'd heard Randy hum, adding his own pieces of song into it. Randy hid a chuckle, rather amused, and, really... His mates were something.
They were like that for a good while, Randy finally nudging Danny and quietly gesturing to Sorrow, who was asleep against him. Danny gave him a small nod, scratching Sorrow's scalp before standing and giving a small stretch. "So if that's one emotion, how do we get to the next one?"
"...Well, there's a door over in the corner," Randy pointed out, speaking quietly as he lifted Sorrow into his arms. Setting him down on the single bed in a corner and tucking him in, Randy nodded as he kissed the man's forehead. "We can try that, I suppose. If anything too bad happens then our powers will probably kick us out in a self-preservation instinct. Probably."
"That would make the most amount of sense," Danny said. "So, to the next one, then?"
"To the next one, then," Randy grinned, taking Danny's hand and opening the door quietly. "We should be careful, though. We don't want to startle the emotion if he's anything like Sorrow." With that, he took a step past the door, Danny right beside him.
"Oooh, I haven't seen you two in here, before. This is going to be fun~"
"...Oh dear god..."