The Twin Souls Premiere has finally arrived!
Of all the things she could have worn to the premiere of the Twin Souls movie, somehow Richard wasn't surprised that Crystal chose to put her Mizar knitted sweater on over her designer gown.
Little wonder people kept getting her and Mizar confused. It would have been amusing...if people hadn't kept confusing Richard and Alcor.
Seriously – human, demon. Why were they so hard to keep apart for some people?
Richard was standing firm that he wasn't wearing the sweater Mizar gave him to the premiere. He hadn't sold it yet, but he still thought he would. Not that he didn't appreciate having a hand-knit sweater, but one with 'Alcor' across the front?
He didn't need any more fuel to the fire that he was really Alcor in disguise, ridiculous as that was. Richard had hinted his thoughts to Alcor, and gotten an equally vague go-ahead, although he had a feeling Mizar might be a tad disappointed he broke up the set. Or she might be amused. It was hard to tell sometimes, with Mizar, when she was teasing and when she was serious.
Richard also stood firm that he needed two invitations to the premiere. It would have been four, but Pacifica had her own through being a financial backer, and Mizar's husband, though willing to put up with quite a bit, drew the line at actually attending the premiere of the Twin Souls movie.
Richard had told Crystal and Pacifica that he was inviting Mizar and Alcor so they wouldn't also invite them, and swore both Crystal and Pacifica to secrecy when it came to his invites.
Perhaps it was a bit petty and mean of him, but after the hell that was shooting this movie, he wanted a little revenge. And he had a feeling watching this movie with those two was going to turn it from painful to hilarious.
If the one meeting he'd had with Mizar and Alcor's stories about her were anything to go by, she'd drag Alcor to this, just for the entertainment of seeing his dramatics (exaggerated but heartfelt) over how much he hated the entire franchise.
Richard...might have been looking forward to that a bit.
Hey, the producers and directors had made his life miserable for more than a year now, it was time for a little payback. And he'd included a note with the invitations asking Alcor to please, oh please, don't actually ruin this premiere? This was just for fun? Because annoying and mildly terrorizing everyone who hadn't been putting up with all of them for this whole debacle (the backers primarily, though some of the other people coming could use a good scare) was one thing, but actual chaos and terror were something else altogether.
Alcor claimed he made no promises, but Richard had a feeling he knew Alcor well enough by now to trust him. And he'd have Pacifica and Mizar there to back him up.
Crystal was excited about it, at least. She'd already been excited about the premiere – this was her first big, blockbuster film, just as it was for Richard, so even he couldn't deny that excitement despite the movie they'd made – but knowing the real Mizar was going to be there?
She was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning, and Richard had a feeling that just inviting Crystal and Mizar to hang out could create more chaos than he and Alcor were capable of.
Then again, Richard suspected Crystal and Mizar had been communicating since they first met anyway...
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the hotel room door. "Hey, are you coming, or are you just going to stay in there and sulk?" Crystal called through the door. "I'm sure Mizar and I can riff on our movie without you..."
Richard rolled his eyes but opened the door. "Was having trouble with the tie," he said simply. "And got lost in thought. Let's hope the three of you don't cause too much chaos after all this work."
"So long as you get paid, you don't care if this movie gets distributed or not," Crystal teased as they made their way down to the lobby. "I think there's quite a few places refusing to show our movie as it is."
"Very true," Richard agreed. "Maybe we'll get lucky and enough will refuse we won't have to do the second."
"Killjoy," Crystal teased, lightly slapping his arm before they both paused, took a deep breath, and prepared to face the paparazzi outside.
Richard was beginning to wonder if Alcor, Mizar, or Pacifica were going to show up to this premiere. Everyone else had arrived and walked the gauntlet outside, but those three were still missing, and the show would start soon.
Then, from outside, the photographers (who had been beginning to pack up, sure everyone had arrived and they needed to get these photos back to the office) began to roar, the flashes from their cameras a veritable storm, and Richard smiled into his drink.
He should have known Pacifica would make an entrance.
Richard peered out the entrance, and got a good view of the trio. Pacifica was as elegant as he'd expected, in a slender column of a dress and with slim golden earrings and necklace.
The dress, Richard noted absently, was almost exactly the same shade of blue as Alcor's fire.
On the other hand, Mizar was in an oversized sweater, one long enough to double as a dress. And Richard was fairly sure she had made it herself, as it proclaimed "Woodzar 5ever!" across the front in glittery yarn and was covered in sequins.
Between them floated Alcor, arm in arm with both ladies, looking mightily put out as they each teased him, haughtily ignoring the questions thrown at them by the interviewers brave enough to continue their jobs in the face of a demon.
Richard could only just make out Pacifica's voice as they came closer, gliding down the carpet, informing the reporters that "Alcor doesn't enjoy this franchise at all, he's merely humoring us – aren't you, lamby-pot-pie?"
"'Lamby-pot-pie' is a declaration of war and you know it," Alcor said flatly, face set and refusing to look at Pacifica as one ear flicked like an annoyed cat.
"You say the sweetest things," Pacifica cooed, pinching Alcor's cheek to the reporter's horror, and only their friendship, short as it was, let Richard see how much fun Pacifica was having (and how much of an act she was putting on. Not with the comfort with Alcor, but with the flirting, and his friendship with the demon told him why Alcor was not just tolerating it but was teasing back, in his own way, for the cameras.).
Mizar, for her part, was grinning as brightly as her sweater dress and dancing in place with excitement, almost dragging her companions into the theater while waving at the reporters with her whole unoccupied arm.
Once the doors had closed behind them, the noise of the still-stunned and frantically shouting reporters was cut off as if with a knife, and everyone who was coming to the premiere had arrived.
Inside, the mood was awkward at best, and stunned silence spread from the door as more and more people realized just who had arrived. Most everyone who had worked on the film knew about the failed summon – and quite a few of them knew, but had kept silent, about Richard and Alcor's regular drink'n'bitch sessions (that had turned into friendship, though most of them didn't think it had gone that far).
But it was one thing to know someone who worked with on a daily basis was friends/drinking buddies with a demon and another to see said demon in the flesh, so to speak, within arm's reach and about to watch something you had worked on that you knew he hated.
Grinning, Richard started forward to greet them, only for a blur of color to burst past and attach to Mizar. Crystal and Mizar immediately began to squeal to each other, excited and happy and contagious as rainbow glitter and sugary bubbles.
Richard shook his head with amusement and changed trajectory enough to pick up drinks for the newcomers, since Crystal had their attention.
"Hey," he said once he was close enough to be heard over Mabel and Crystal's happy chatter. "Glad you could make it."
"Well, we couldn't let you suffer alone, now could we?" Pacifica asked dryly, accepting a glass with a smile. She glanced around the room, judging it effortlessly. "Did we miss most of the mingling?"
"Yeah, movie should be starting soon," Richard said. He looked at Alcor, who was eye level with Richard for once since he was floating, the height difference less obvious than usual. "Think you're ready for this?"
Alcor winced, then smirked. "Are you? I have no intention of taking this quietly."
"I expected no less," Richard replied, grinning wider yet.
Everyone filed into the theater in near silence, and Richard knew it was only how close he still stood to the demon twins that kept someone from confronting him about giving them his extra tickets.
He was pretty sure both the director and producer were questioning their life choices by this point, though. And of all the backers and those who had pushed to create this movie, only Pacifica Northwest was still calm, gliding into the theater on the demon's arm as if she owned it.
Mabel and Crystal sat at Pacifica's side, leaving a seat at Alcor's other side for Richard, which he took, offering up a tub of popcorn.
It was almost a pity he hadn't brought a few beers to share, he thought as the lights went down. Then again, this was probably best faced sober.
Alcor sat silently scowling through the opening credits, and Richard was beginning to wonder if this had actually been the best idea, when the demon began making a soft snorting.
The film was doing an aerial shot of 'Gravity Falls' as Richard turned to Alcor, a bit worried, and he looked over just in time for the demon to start snorting back laughter in earnest.
Beside him, Pacifica was already snarking. "Is that supposed to be the high school? You could fit the entirety of Gravity Falls in there, let alone just the teens."
Meanwhile, Mabel was excitedly exclaiming over Crystal's rendition of her, even if it was a rather warped rendition through the Twin Souls lens.
But when 'Al' came on the screen, all three of them began snorting. When the special effects (which Richard knew the director had fought long and hard for, for reasons he didn't understand) kicked in, making the screen around Al blurry and adding sparkles and soft effects (some of which looked suspiciously like lace and roses to Richard's disgusted eye) to the air around him, Pacifica was the first to lose it, the twins cracking up a split second later.
Like a rock thrown in still water, their laughter rippled across the theater, drawing laughter from everyone else, and from there, none of them could take their own movie seriously anymore.
They were still laughing when the movie was over, with Pacifica and Mizar teaming up to tease a still chuckling Alcor, quoting lines and re-enacting non-romantic scenes at each other, with help from Crystal and Richard.
Alcor was still making a point of reminding everyone that he still hated Twin Souls every so often, just to be sure they didn't think he'd changed his mind just because he was laughing.
By this point, even the director (whose baby this movie was) and the producer were chuckling, though Richard suspected that was at least half relief that the demon wasn't about to kill them over a perceived insult.
The newspapers were going to be full of this tomorrow, Richard was sure. Rumors and theories about why the Dreambender attended the premiere of Twin Souls, something most knew he hated by now.
But that was for tomorrow.
For tonight, this had been a great idea, and Richard was going to enjoy every last minute of it.