Work Text:
~ The Fourth Person
Taco blinked, rubbing her eyes. Scanning her surroundings, she found herself in a small, round room. She had gotten used to it at this point, blinking and finding herself in a new place. It happened with the second, it happened with the third, it even happened at her death. But something about this one felt .. different.
The room was brown — as plain as shipping wrap, she thought — and nearly empty. The corner held a wooden stool and an oval mirror against the wall. When Taco stood in front of it, she cast no reflection, she only saw behind her. She turned around to see a long hallway full of doors.
She opened one of the doors, and suddenly she was in the yard of a home she’d never seen, in a land she didn’t recognize, in the midst of what seemed to be a wedding reception. A large group of people gathered around the young, beautiful bride as she took the ring from the sword the groom held. The group cheered as Taco was sent into a coughing fit. The group turned to her, smiling. “Come, come!” one of the young ladies screamed. She felt speechless, backing away and running straight out of the door she came from. Closing it behind her, all she could wonder was whose heaven this was. Who was she supposed to be meeting?
She scanned her surroundings, this wasn’t the room she had come from. She, somehow, found herself in the middle of yet another wedding. This one was indoors, inside of a large hall. The bride wore orange blossoms in her hair, dancing from one partner to the next, each person handing her a small sack of coins. Taco coughed again — she couldn’t help it — and the guests looked up at her. Their smiles made her heart quicken, the crowd slowly surrounding her as she dashed through the door, finding herself in another wedding. What is this? Some sort of loop? Is she supposed to make it out in order to meet the fourth person?
The families of this wedding were pouring wine on the floor, holding hands. She turned on her heel and ran through the door again, her fear rising by the second. She found herself in another wedding, where firecrackers were lit before cheering attendees. When she ran out of that door, she found herself in another wedding, where the couple drank together from a two-handled cup.
How long does this go on? In each wedding, the attendees moved around, seemingly with no set direction, and Taco was seen as one of them. She was smiled at, but not interacted with, much like the very few weddings she had actually attended in life. She preferred it that way. Weddings were, in Tacos mind, embarrassing. She tried to avoid most of them, but when she did come, she’d usually just sit outside, waiting for time to pass.
She moved from one wedding to the next, one reception to another, one cake, one dress, one genre of music, all in different ways. The uniformity of it all did not surprise her, what she didn’t get was what this had to do with her. She walked through what seemed like the millionth door, finding herself in what appeared to be Inanimate Island before the OSC had renovated it. But, of course, there was a wedding reception. Music played—drummers, vocalists, guitarists; was this Spoiled Lemon? The guests began to dance, the groups of people with bonds that have lasted years laughing as they danced to the beat.. This was the first reception where Taco had actually known anyone, and yet this time, they didn’t even spare her a passing glance with their oddly distorted faces. Taco took a few steps back, her eyes wandering to the edge of the crowd. A bridesmaid in a long lavender dress moved gracefully through the crowd, her tight curls bouncing slightly with each step. Eventually, she stopped right in front of Taco, holding her hand out as if she were offering something.
“Care to dance?”
At the sound of her voice, Taco’s whole body shook. She began to sweat. Something told her to run, but something else kept her frozen there, staring at her beautiful almond eyes. Her dark hair framed her face perfectly, a smile forming across it. Taco’s heart almost burst. Her lips took a moment to part, but they came together in the first letter of the only name that had ever made her feel this way. She dropped to her knees.
“Microphone…” she whispered.
“It’s not you,” Taco said.
“It is me.” She crouched down.
“It’s not you, it’s not you, it’s not you,” Taco mumbled as she dropped her head onto her shoulder and, for the first time since her death, began to cry.
People say they “find” love as if it were an object hidden by a rock, but love takes many forms, and it is never the same for anyone. What people find then is a certain love, and Taco found a certain love with Microphone, a grateful love, a deep, loud, and proud love, one that she knew, above all else, was irreplaceable. Once Mic had passed, Taco let the days go stale. She put her heart to sleep.
Now, here she was again, as beautiful as the day they were wed. “Walk with me,” she said. Taco couldn’t get her tongue to move. She couldn’t do much but stare. She stood beside Mic, silent, until the taller girls lips crept up mischievously.
“Taco.” She almost giggled. “Did you forget how I looked?”
Taco swallowed. “I’ll never be able to forget your beauty.”
Mic touched Taco’s face lightly, the warmth spreading through her body like a wildfire. She motioned to the wedding, to everyone dancing together.
“All weddings,” she said, happily. “That was my choice. A world of weddings, behind every door. It never changes, Taco. The possibilities you see in their eyes.. It’s the same for everyone, everywhere. It’s like they think their love will break world records.”
She smiled. “Do you think we had that?”
“We had more than that.” Taco responded.
They walked from the reception and up a gravel path, the music fading into background noise. Taco wanted to tell her everything she had seen, everything that had happened. She wanted to ask her about every little thing, and every big thing too. She had no idea where to begin.
“You did this too?” she finally said. “You met five people?”
Mic nodded.
“A different five people?”
She nodded again.
“And they explained everything? And it made a difference?”
“All the difference. And then I waited for you.”
She studied her eyes, her smile.
“How much do you know about me? I mean.. how much do you know since..”
She still had trouble saying it. Mic stayed silent, taking Taco’s hand in hers as she lead her through another door. Suddenly, they were back inside the small, round room. She sat on the stool, turning to the mirror. Taco noticed her own reflection, but not Microphone’s.
“The bride waits here,” Mic started, running her hands through her hair. “This is the moment you think about what you’re doing. Who you’re choosing. Who you will love. If it’s right, Taco, this can be a wonderful moment.”
She turned to her.
“..You had to live without love for so long.”
Taco said nothing.
“You felt that it was taken away from you, that I left you too soon.”
“You did leave too soon,” she finally said.
“You were angry with me.”
“No.”
Mic stared at her.
“Okay, yes.”
“There was a reason for it all.”
“What reason? How could there possibly be a reason? You died. You were the best person I knew, and you died and you lost everything! And I lost everything! I lost the only person I’ve ever loved.”
Mic took her hands. “No, you didn’t. I was right here, and you loved me anyways. Love is still love, Taco, it just takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair as they sleep beside you in bed, but when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner.”
Taco felt tears at the brim of her eyes as Microphone continued to speak.
“Life has to end, Taco. Love doesn’t.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek. “I never wanted anyone else,” she said quietly, her voice cracking.
“I know,” Mic said.
“I was still in love with you.”
“I know. I felt it.”
“Here?”
“Even here. That’s how strong love can be.”
She stood, opening a door. Taco blinked as she entered behind her. It was a dimly lit room with foldable chairs and wooden tables scattered around it.
“I was saving this one,” she said.
She held out her arms, and for the first time in heaven, she initiated her contact. She came to her, ignoring all the ugly associations she had made about dance and music and weddings, realizing now that they were really about loneliness.
Loneliness was all she ever had.
She smiled, wrapping her arm around Mics waist.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“How come you look the way you looked on our wedding day?”
“I thought you’d like it that way.”
“Can you change it?”
“Change it? To what?”
“To the end.”
Mic lowered her arms. “I wasn’t so pretty at the end.”
Taco shook her head. “Could you?”
She took a moment before pulling Taco into her arms. She hummed in her ear as they began to move together, slowly, in a remembered rhythm that only they share with each other.
You made me love you
I didn’t want to do it
You made me love you
and all the time you knew it …
When Taco moved her head back, Mic was exactly how she had last remembered her, the bags beneath her eyes, the thinner hair. They both smiled. Microphone was, to Taco, as beautiful as ever. She closed her eyes and, for the first time, said what she’d been really feeling. “I don’t want to go on. I want to stay here.”
But, when she opened her eyes again, Mic was gone along with everything else.