#anyway the image of martyn (the one life series guy canonically aware of watchers) on a stage is STRONG

[theminecraftbee]

Martyn sits on the edge of a stage. He’s poked himself out between the closed curtains, their weight pressing against his shoulders, so that he can reach the outside again and stare out.

The lights in the theater are off. Someone’s here, though.

Martyn nods and then, as loudly and obnoxiously as possible, drinks out of a can of soda. “We’ve still got a few more weeks, right?” he says cheerfully. “You don’t gotta sit here waiting. Uh, shoot. What was the thing Tango said? Go home? It’s done? What are you doing here? I think I did that wrong, it’s a reference…”

The things sitting in the back of the theater say nothing. Martyn gestures with his soda can at them. “Hey, you try remembering your movie references when you weren’t even the one who made ‘em! It’s harder than it looks, you know.”

Many eyes slowly blink across the members of the audience who have never left. Martyn leans back. He lets the curtains dig into his shoulders. They’re heavy, is the thing. The curtain, when it’s closed between the stage and audience, it’s heavy. He’s not meant to be hanging out of it.

He’s not meant to know it’s there either. Typically, characters in a stage play don’t know they’re being Watched.

Some of them do, though.

Sometimes, the audience is even the one who fucks that up for them. Funny, that.

He sips obnoxiously from his can of soda again. “You know, staring at me won’t make it happen faster. I’m not even the one who sets, you know…” He waves his hands around. “I just show up where I’m told! Hang out! Kill people! Die.”

If he’s bitter about that—and he’s not in the business of lying to himself, so sure, he’s bitter about that—he doesn’t let it show.

“I’m not even supposed to be out here. I’m supposed to be backstage,” he says. “Take what you can get, yeah? If you start talking to the characters, you don’t get to complain when they come out here and taunt you for Watching when there isn’t a bloody life game to Watch.”

The things in the back of the theater say nothing. Martyn tries to drink from his can of soda again, but it’s out. He crushes it between his hands and throws it out into the crowd in a moment of rash defiance. It’s not really fair, though—he doesn’t mind half the audience, really. One of the nice ones might be in the seat that’s slightly sticky now. Bit rude of him.

Of course, he can’t get off the stage to fix it. That’s not how this works. Just because they felt the need to make it so Martyn could move the curtains—

He sighs.

“One of you want to go out to the vending machines and get me another? There’s nothing backstage, you know. Nothing back there at all.”

Something moves.

“Thanks,” he mutters. “Thanks. Few more weeks to go, right? Few more weeks to go.”