Copia remembers walking down the street, on his way to -- christ, he doesn't know. He doesn't remember. Somewhere besides the Ministry. Somewhere nice, probably, with drinks that have little umbrellas in them. He sort of just picked a direction.
Clearly the wrong direction, in retrospect -- the few moments of retrospect that he'd had before passing out from the kind of pain that the human brain is built to tap out of. Copia's off switch did precisely what it was meant to do, and the last thing he remembers, is --
Fucking Friday the 13th.
You'd think it would be a lucky day for the Satanic ministry, in that Sabrina the Teenage Witch kind of way, but no, it turns out it's kind of just shit for everyone.
Anyway, Copia was quitting today one way or another, and while the idea of dying scares the shit out of him, he didn't have the energy to do much about it besides hope it ended quickly.
....
Does death usually smell this much like disinfectant? Or have to involve so much bright fluorescent-humming light? Actually, Copia thinks he detects a little bit of shit beneath the disinfectant, which might track with some things he's heard about Hell, but really, Hell smells a hell of a lot like--
Copia opens his eyes in a hospital.
Well. One eye. The other feels glued shut. Much like the rest of Copia feels like it's stuck in place, like glue or tar, or....bandages.
He's not dead.
"I'm not dead," he announces to the room at large, his voice a hoarse rasp, throat dry and disused. "Just in case there was, uh, any confusion about that. I am. Very alive."
He feels he ought to clarify. The last thing he wants is anyone mistaking him for being dead and winding up dead anyway, in a glass coffin in front of a bunch of gawkers.
Damn, he's thirsty. Is anyone even here? Mr. or Mrs. Psaltarian, maybe they would come to see him, or the ghost of Nihil or Sister -- and as he wonders, Copia struggles in the bandages and casts that swaddle him from head to toe just enough to get a look from side to side, at the corners of the room.
It's the question that has been at the forefront of Perpetua's mind from the day he was brought into this strange new world of decadence and sin: when do I get to meet my brother?
He's asked, of course. The Psaltarians have probably heard it at least a dozen times each, but there was always some reason why it wouldn't work out. Scheduling was a big one -- as the new face of the Ghost project and the ministry at large, there was so much to be done. Rehearsals, meetings, photoshoots, interviews... Even in between the different legs of the tours, there had always been something.
Today was supposed to finally be the end of that. Very much ahead of schedule, but he wasn't going to wait until December if he didn't have an actual reason to. He's spent so much time watching and listening to Copia through screens and speakers, mimicking his performances, his mannerisms, trying to become a worthy successor while wondering what the man is really like. How could he not? He's spent a lifetime wondering what his family might have been like and why he ended up in the care of the Catholic church. To have only some vague answers is almost worse than knowing nothing at all.
He arrived just in time to watch an ambulance tear away from the front gates, walking into a scene of panic and chaos. Hardly the surprise Perpetua was hoping to give his twin -- seems the surprise is all on him.
At this point, he's unsure how many hours have passed. There had been a small group of them waiting at the hospital while Copia had been in surgery -- the Psaltarians, a few staff members. In time, Perpetua found himself urging them all to go home and rest. After all, the doctors said he was stable, but unlikely to wake up soon or for very long. He's a night owl. He'll stay, and he'll call as soon as Copia wakes up if they're not back before then.
Admittedly, this night owl has been dozing off in his chair. It's been a very long day, and now a very long night. He sits with his arms folded across his torso, head drooping forward as he rests. The sounds of beeping monitors and nurses doing their rounds have become less and less disruptive to him, but when a strained, rasping voice comes from the hospital bed across the room, Perpetua nearly leaps out of his chair.
"Well, uh, good!" An anxious laugh, and he creeps forward toward Copia's bedside, hands clasped together in front of him. Shit, this is hardly the sparkling first impression he was hoping to give. He thought he'd say something cooler, at least. Instead, to try and smooth things over, Perpetua grins as he peers down at his brother, something he thinks must look friendly and not just unsettling.
"Ah... Hi. It's really good to finally meet you. Even if the circumstances are... Well, they are pretty fucking bad. But you're alive!"
Copia's face - at least, what's visible of it, which is one eye and a slit of mouth left visible through bandages - goes on a bit of a journey.
It begins at startlement, from the sudden movement, and then realization of the absolute nightmare standing in front of him, fucking V, the impostor and hack who took his fucking job for no reason at all, but he finds himself only briefly passing through loathing and settling instead at unsettled, and maybe even, humiliatingly, intimidated.
Because in person? Looming over him with that weird fucking grin under a grim bony half-mask? V looks kind of inhuman and kind of unhinged, and Copia's heart monitor beeps faster. He doesn't know if the painkilling drugs he's probably on are helping him stay calm, or making the impression hit worse.
And then he talks, and has the nerve to sound happy to see Copia. Fuck him.
"I-it's you," Copia says, with all the intelligence and delicacy of someone on a morphine drip, the audible surprise imperfectly concealing all the feelings swirling around in his bandaged, aching head. "What are you doing here?" The emphasis can't seem to decide if it wants to be on you or here. "Don't you have, uh," he reaches for a reason, trying at least a little bit to force politeness the way he did in the office, "important Papa things you should be doing? Which I, I know all about, you know, because I did them, before you started doing them, instead of me."
It's a lot of words out of a very raspy throat, but Copia will be damned before he asks V for anything, including water.
Perpetua isn't exactly sure what he expected his reaction to be, but Copia certainly seems shocked. Which makes sense. Was it a bad idea, being the one to stay behind and watch over him? Probably. But it had felt like the right thing to do, even if it was selfish. Someone had to stay, and at the time, he figured the others would be back before Copia even woke up. Part of him had hoped for a moment like this, however brief, where they could meet one-on-one.
"Well -- I was coming to visit. You know, Mr. Psaltarian said we were both too busy until December, but that seemed, well, fucking ridiculous." Perpetua shifts his weight between his feet, his own heartbeat racing as much as Copia's, if not more. "We pulled up just as the ambulance was driving off. What was I going to do, go tour the ministry like everything was hunky-dory? Sheesh." He's pacing now, hands behind his back, avoiding his brother's eyes. Even after all the thought he'd put into this over the last year, now that he's here, he feels as though he has very little to say.
"I sent the others home sometime after midnight so they could rest." But I wanted to pray for you. Instead of saying it, he clenches his jaw, then lets out a sigh. "As for important Papa things, this is as important as it gets, don't you think, Frater?"
He's not quite ready to admit that he doesn't know what he's doing, or that the parts of his job that aren't about going on tour or recording music are almost completely unknown to him. It isn't as though he hasn't asked! But... it's probably best that Copia doesn't have that to worry about right now.
"The nurse said you'd have a sore throat from the breathing tube. But they said everything went very well! Uh -- would you like water? Or... Hm. Actual food might not work, but I could get you a smoothie or something." Perpetua turns to look at him again then, offering another toothy smile.
Or. Well. Friday. Copia doesn't actually know what day it is. Or how long he's been lying here unconscious with a breathing tube in, all his bodily functions relegated to machines or monitored by them. Anyway, today, or Friday, of all days, Papa decides to come and see him, and if he had just avoided that accident, he could have avoided this fucking situation, as well.
They had almost missed each other. Just like he'd almost missed -- well, whatever had hit him. It had looked big.
Anyway. Copia hadn't died, which leaves him here, very literally a captive audience to his shitty replacement, his brother he'd never had the chance to know and hate for normal reasons, instead of the ones he's stuck with now. Who is acting like seeing him is the most important thing he could be doing, while flinging the title of Frater in his face, both of which leave Copia awash in a swirl of emotions that are mostly 'pissed off,' and anything more complicated than that is getting ignored more firmly than paperwork.
He ought to behave, at least to V's face. He needs to at least pretend to be polite, for now. Or he'll have a disappointed ghost to deal with later, he's sure. He needs to -- to take charge of the situation. Retain some kind of control. He should tell this impostor to get out, that he'll wait for the Psaltarians to come back, even if he has to wait until morning, and he can let the nurses deal with giving him water, he--
"You came today?" is what comes out of Copia's parched throat instead; whether 'today' is accurate or not, it feels true. "I was leaving today. The Ministry. I was going to take a--"
He breaks off there to give a powerful and painful hacking cough. Fuck, it feels like he's got cracked ribs. ...which is probably because he does.
"A--a va-va--huegh-ech-ekk," he coughs out, the word catching in his throat and coming out an ugly dry hack instead.
"Yes, or, well, yesterday at this point." Perpetua shakes his head. It's beside the point. "I happened to be in the area, and I thought even if you were too busy it'd be nice to finally get a look around." Never mind that this was the sole reason he was in the area, and the whole surprise element was more to try and circumvent any meddling than anything. Is his excuse believable? It hardly matters when their first meeting has been reduced to this. Really, what is Copia going to do about it?
Listening to him try to talk is painful enough, but when Copia starts to cough, Perpetua can't help grimacing. Knowing the extent of his injuries, he can only imagine the amount of pain he's in, even with the painkillers he's no doubt being flooded with. If a nurse doesn't come by soon, he'll have to flag one down to make sure he's taken care of. But for now, he's perfectly able to step in. Whether his twin actually wants his help remains to be seen, but he's no longer asking.
"Vacation?" he asks, stepping over toward Copia's bedside. "Yes, I heard. I believe Mrs. Psaltarian was attempting to cancel some of your reservations." It's there that he cracks open a bottle of water, pouring some of it into an empty cup. Then he places a bendy straw in it and leans in close to bring it to the other man's lips.
"Little sips." Perpetua's trying for helpful and soothing, but that's never really been his strong suit. "You don't wanna choke."
If he didn't know he was coming, Copia couldn't be trying to avoid him by leaving, could he?
Does he want the water badly enough to take it from V. That is the question that haunts Copia behind his widened, staring, mismatched eyes. He doesn't. He should refuse. Will refuse. Fuck V and fuck his water and his Grammy nomination and his Bohemian Rhapsody performance and all the shit he has stolen from Copia, shit that was his shit that V fucking took. Fuck him --
-- but Copia opens his mouth for the straw, because his throat really does fucking hurt, and apparently, he's at a point where his pride will cave.
V's probably not trying to poison him. Copia saw him open the bottle. It would take a really crazy scheme for this to be attempted murder. So Copia takes a little sip, with an undignified mleh sort of sound, and it's awkward and it's ugly and Copia really wants it to be over, he feels like he's giving up something by doing this, taking a symbolic loss by letting Perpetua give him this, but fuck it, it's really the least V can do after, you know, taking everything that Copia liked about his job away from him.
He sips too hard and chokes it back up, spitting water over bandages and blankets. He is the dignified leader of the Ministry, chosen (albeit reluctantly) by Papa Nihil and wielding supreme administrative power in a shadowy Satanic organization that's grown larger than ever, and he gags and coughs with watery eyes and it is his own damn fault, fucking up in precisely the way he was just instructed not to.
"Fucking ow," he grits out between coughs. "Shit, whatever hit me must have been really bad. Because--hck--this? This is--"
How had V put it a moment ago.
"--pretty fucking bad!"
He can't even drink through a straw! Copia's in a mood, steaming and grouchy, and he stops straining forward the limited few millimeters he can in the bandages and instead slumps back into the pillows and also a miserable state of self pity.
It is odd, seeing eyes just like his staring back at him. Odd, but comforting. One of the sisters who'd raised Perpetua had sworn there was something evil in his eyes, that they were a sign of something dark within him. He'd spent a very long time trying to prove it wasn't so, but hey. The old crone knew more than he did after all. Smirking at the memory, he tries to read what little of Copia's expression he can actually see. It's pretty obvious he's not who his brother hoped to wake up to. But even if he was at the top of Copia's list, he can't say he'd blame him for being in a shitty mood anyway.
The first sip seems to go well. And then the second does not. Perpetua takes a step back as Copia sputters and coughs, watching him closely in case he needs to grab a nurse. But soon enough he's talking, which is a good enough sign to him that he's not going to choke to death. There isn't really anywhere free for him to give him a reassuring pat, so Perpetua just sort of runs his palm along the railing on the side of Copia's bed for a moment, patting it before withdrawing.
"Well -- I don't think most, uh, incidents of pedestrians getting hit by vehicles can be considered good, but... You got pretty lucky, from what I heard." A nervous little chuckle, and he sets the cup back on the table. "Everyone was very worried. Um, Mrs. Psaltarian said that..." He hesitates a moment, considering his words. "Sister Imperator had a similar incident. And that we should be glad you didn't fall off a cliff." Another laugh, to fill the silence, and Perpetua resumes his slow pacing.
What is he supposed to call her? She was never his mom, and even mother feels like something he has little claim to. For now, he'll stick with something more formal, but he's curious to hear what Copia has to say about it, about her, if anything.
...Copia's eyes flick sideways. Everyone was worried? Is that so? Not worried enough to stick around, but a little bit worried, at least, if V is telling the truth. How about that.
Nice to know that they worried. Even if it was only a little. They are family, and even if, in the ministry, being dead doesn't necessarily mean you're gone, Copia still doesn't want to be dead. He has decades more living to do.
"No," Copia says. "No, there were not any cliffs nearby for me to fall off of. Which is a good thing. I wonder if my face will look as different, when the bandages come off," he muses. It'd be a shame to get that portrait and immediately have his likeness change. It would be outdated, like his old face. "Hey, how long am I supposed to be stuck here, anyway?" Copia asks suddenly, face angling a few degrees to look at Perpetua. If he's going to be here, he can make himself useful by telling Copia what he needs to know.
"Ah... yes. I would say that is very good." As though what he did go through is pretty normal fare and his being here isn't a miracle in itself. Perpetua runs his tongue over his front teeth, crossing his arms. He has so many questions. What was she like? Did she ever talk to Copia about him, or was he a secret she took to the grave? If it was that easy for the Psaltarians to find him, why didn't she do it sooner?
"Mm. Was it a big change?" He wants details, but he doesn't want to sound like he's digging for them. "You'll probably look a little different, but the ministry can afford to pay for revisions, I'm sure. You're the boss, right?" A flash of a smile only lasts a moment before fading again, crossing the room to look out the windows. The sun will rise in a few hours now, but his weariness has been replaced with a nervous energy, overwhelmed with this desire to somehow impress his brother. You know, despite the fact that he's probably not going to be impressed by anything or anyone in this state. (Hopefully his surgeon will get a passing grade.)
Turning back toward him, Perpetua leans against the wall, tilting his head to the side as he regards Copia.
"Oh. Well, it depends on how the healing goes, but... Probably a few weeks?" He grimaces, shrugging his shoulders. "They weren't generous with details. Where were you heading, anyway?"
Copia replies to most of what V has to say in monosyllables and grunts. A noncommittal but affirmative mmn at was it a big change, because it sure was, almost like looking at a different person, but the Ministry -- well. Maybe the Ministry will fix him up, if his face comes out of this damaged in a bad way. Or maybe it won't matter as much and won't be worth the money, now that he's no longer Papa, in front of enormous crowds night after night.
But a few weeks gets a growled, disappointed scoff out of Copia, a swallowed aww and an accompanying twitch. A few weeks is bad. He doesn't want to be stuck here for weeks, especially if V is going to insist on visiting him more than once. Copia's mouth turns down with more flexibility than he expects, almost as though he's in a medium that allows him to be a little more expressive, and he huffs unhappily.
"Well," he says, "Mr. Psaltarian has a lovely little place by the beach. However, he wouldn't let me use it, so, I selected a different one. Same beach. Different house. Close enough not to be too far out of reach, but far enough to say, decisively, 'if you need me for anything, ask someone else! I am on vacation! Ha ha!'"
He gives the explanation with a flicker of brightness as he recalls his brilliant plan to detach completely from the Ministry, but sobers quickly, as he remembers just how out of reach it is. Fuck.
Maybe it was a mistake, too, to expect much in the way of conversation, but Perpetua can't help but feel a little disappointed. He should just focus on the good in this: his brother is alive, after all, despite the odds. Alive and well enough to speak with him at all. There was a time he'd call that a miracle -- now he's not so sure what to call it. Dumb luck?
"Yeah, I know, man. It's a drag." With a sigh, he offers Copia a tight-lipped smile, sympathetic. "We'll get you out there eventually, eh? Better to get you all healed up before your little summer getaway." There's that urge to pat his shoulder again, or the side of his bed, or... something. Something more than standing here with no way to ease his discomfort.
"He wouldn't? Sheesh. What a guy." Perpetua neglects to mention that Psaltarian did, in fact, offer to let him stay at the beach house sometime this summer. (He politely declined. Heat and sun are not his friends.)
"I'm surprised you didn't want to go somewhere farther away. You know? Really, uh, escape for a while." He studies what little he can see of his twin's face, wondering if they will even look like twins after, well, all of this. "But you give the impression of... I don't know. Being a little bit married to your work?"
Well, it's kinder than calling him a control freak.
A couple of things are happening in Copia's brain. One is that he's infuriated at V thinking he's married to his work. How dare he presume that Copia, whose entire life has been dedicated to the ministry since long before he was aware of his parentage, for whom being Papa was the greatest pinnacle of achievement he could imagine, and who stuck the tour out despite the administrative work being miserable and tedious and worse for coming after his time in the spotlight, is overattached to his job and would have had trouble truly disconnecting.
Another is that he's developed through experience a decent sense for when someone wants to approach closer and is holding themselves back, and while Copia isn't consciously thinking about it, he can tell Perpetua's awkwardness isn't because he wants to run. And Copia is given toward hugging himself, though not everyone in his family is the same, and it's sitting under Copia's skin like a pebble in his shoe that he hates V and hates V being nice to him and hates V saying stupid shit and there is also a part of him that wants contact, misses the attention he'd gotten so much of on the stage, and is lonely when held at arm's length by everyone he knows.
Fuck this guy. He doesn't know anything.
"I can escape," he insists. "I can -- I can leave at any time, you know. Well -- usually. Now, the circumstances are a-a little bit different. But I am not married to my work. I am free as a bird! A bird with many, many broken bones."
The irony of the current situation is not lost on him, and it only makes Copia insist more hotly that he can totally quit.
The thing is, Perpetua can relate. While he had chosen his own isolation and marriage to his work freely, it had been his way of trying to quiet the truths he knew were buried within his subconscious. Truths of who he was, what he believed -- or didn't believe. But Copia doesn't need to hear all of that right now, if ever. He holds up gloved hands in defence, unable to help but smile. This is not Copia at his best, of course, but it is fascinating, seeing the real man behind the on-stage presence he'd studied for endless hours.
So much of his own performance was, well, just copying his brother. It often felt inauthentic, because it was, and he'd felt like nothing more than a cheap copy because of it. He wonders now if Copia ever felt similarly.
"Okay, okay," he coos, shifting his weight between his feet. "I was not trying to accuse you of anything. It was just an impression." He's about to fold his arms over his chest again when his phone buzzes loudly a few times in rapid succession. With a sigh, Perpetua fishes it from his pocket, but his expression softens when he sees the messages that continue to blow up his phone.
"The ghouls are asking about you," he says, stepping in closer so he can show Copia his screen, where a group chat that had gone quiet since the tour ended is now getting more and more messages as they see Perpetua's viewing them. "Do you want me to tell them you're awake? Mm, and what about the Psaltarians?"
He peers at the screen, shifting just a smidge in the bandages and casts to get closer, paying in a renewed spike of pain to peer a little better. It's clearly text messages, though it looks more like a chat room - Perpetua has a chat room on his phone? With the ghouls? A lot of the chatty ones are names he knows, ones he toured with -- they are asking about him.
how is cardi?
is he awake yet
is he alive
can we see him
can we can we can we 🥺😭😰💀
can we pleeeeease papa
WE KNOW YOU SEE THIS
TELL US ABT CARDI
LET US IN
LET US IN
Copia looks from the screen, to V, then back again, then back to V. He's clearly seeing something unexpected, and doesn't answer right away.
"They...they want to see me," he says, and it stops being a question about halfway through. He'd thought they would have forgotten. Cleaved to the new papa and left the old one behind. Copia supposes he only has limited data; all his predecessors were dead when he took over. He is still alive, and apparently, they want to see him.
"I thought they forgot about the last Papa," Copia says. "You know. When they go to work for a new one."
Maybe, in hindsight, it wasn't forgetting so much as not wanting to talk about a brutal triple murder.
Perpetua leans in nice and close so Copia doesn't have to strain too far forward to read the messages. He scrolls a little to let him see more of them, but they keep getting pushed upward by the new messages coming in every few seconds. He grins at Copia, who clearly wasn't expecting this kind of reaction from the ghouls. See? His visiting can't be all that bad for him.
"Are you kidding? Of course they want to see you," he chuckles, giving Copia the gentlest pat on the shoulder. "They've missed you terribly. Do you know how much they talk about you? It's exhausting." A wink to show he's kidding. It mostly made him feel... jealous. Insufficient. Every bit the cheap knockoff of Copia that he worried so much about being. It wasn't like any of them hated him, but it was easy to tell this was an unpleasant adjustment.
"They did warm up to me, but I'm not you." Exhaling, he tries to put it out of his mind by opening his phone's camera, crouching next to the bed to awkwardly get them both into the frame.
"Say cheese! Or, well, just try to look like you aren't completely miserable?" Another forced laugh and he hits the shutter button a couple times before stepping away, inspecting the photos. They're not great, but they'll do. The point is proof of life.
They talk about him? To V? To a point where it's exhausting?
...
"Well, how about that," Copia murmurs. It's nice to be remembered. To not feel quite so forgotten, so easily replaced in the little group that had traveled, eaten, slept, and performed together, like a family. Maybe. Copia isn't entirely sure, but family is what it had felt like when they'd passed out into their shared Chinese takeout at 4 a.m. on the tour bus.
But I'm not you.
Hearing it loosens a knot that's been sitting in Cardi's chest since he first began to suspect his time was coming to an end. It doesn't untie, not completely, but it doesn't feel quite as tight. He doesn't even hate the pat to his shoulder. V's gloved hand is warmer than he expected, even through the bandages.
"Eh?"
He looks up just in time to hear the click, and this time he recognizes it as a phone camera -- he'd been on the other side of those plenty of times. Copia comes out wide-eyed and staring unsettlingly, shell shocked and possibly like he's being held hostage depending on Perpetua's expression.
"Fuck," he says. And then-- "...how did it turn out? Let me see."
He knows it's probably going to be shit, he looks like shit right now, but vanity is a sin and Copia can't contain his curiosity.
It strikes Perpetua as odd that Copia doesn't expect the ghouls to have missed him -- wasn't it obvious? The fans miss him, but the ghouls miss him even more. And while it had made him jealous, it also made him more impatient to finally meet him. If he was so great why was a newbie like him taking the reins? Bloodline or not, it didn't seem like he'd been ready to pass the torch.
Before giving his brother a chance to look, Perpetua sends off the selfies to appease the group chat. Inevitably they will be roasted -- he's told he takes "old man" selfies -- but this is more about, you know, proving he's alive and well(ish).
"Here," he finally says, leaning in with his phone to show him the pictures. "Not our best angles, I fear. But we'll have time to take better ones once you're a little less bandaged up, eh?"
Because, well -- he's really hoping they can get some quality time together before Copia runs off on his little beach holiday. Judging by the messages streaming in at the top of his screen, he's not the only one.
THANK LUCIFER
cardi!!!!! hi cardi!!!
tell him i say hi!!
WHOA what bones didnt he break???
🥺 is he ok papa???
This time he doesn't have to force his laughter. He's pretty damn fond of the ghouls himself, so making them happy is always a pleasure. He doesn't even feel jealous now, just... relieved. Whole, in a way. One great mystery of his life can begin coming to a close.
"Should I tell the Psaltarians you're awake? I can wait a little, if you don't want to be bombarded just yet."
"No, no, it's very good. I look very good," Copia says when he sees the pictures. "The bandages, they're very, ah, rugged."
What's worse is that he isn't even searching for a nice thing to say out of politeness. Copia means every word. Perpetua is great at taking pictures. That fucker.
He almost doesn't notice that V wants to take other pictures together, later. It hits Copia like a boomerang to the back of the head -- V wants to hang out. Doing what, the devil only knows, but Cardi has no idea how he feels about that. On the one hand: Sister was right, V is apparently curious about him, and did want to meet him, and he's not acting like a nasty conniving thief determined to cuckoo his twin out of his lifelong goals. He's telling him the ghouls missed him, and it isn't even a lie. But on the other, it's fucking V, who is still a thief, and Copia hates him.
Uncomfortable and guilty sits the knowledge that Cardi wrote a number of unkind, if uninspired, things about him on the internet, and Perpetua is here, and doesn't know.
"Eh," he says, finding a change of subject. "You can tell them. They will be here when they are here, and not a minute before." It almost comes out profound. "Besides, it's not as though I have anything better to do. I've already gotten a night's sleep, yeah? Pretty much?"
The next few weeks promise to be very, very boring. More boring than paperwork. But hey, the ghouls remember him, and are sending all caps messages about how glad they are that he's alive. He's glad that he's alive. That's not nothing.
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timeasmymeasure
wakey wakey
Date: 2026-03-20 07:14 pm (UTC)Copia remembers walking down the street, on his way to -- christ, he doesn't know. He doesn't remember. Somewhere besides the Ministry. Somewhere nice, probably, with drinks that have little umbrellas in them. He sort of just picked a direction.
Clearly the wrong direction, in retrospect -- the few moments of retrospect that he'd had before passing out from the kind of pain that the human brain is built to tap out of. Copia's off switch did precisely what it was meant to do, and the last thing he remembers, is --
Fucking Friday the 13th.
You'd think it would be a lucky day for the Satanic ministry, in that Sabrina the Teenage Witch kind of way, but no, it turns out it's kind of just shit for everyone.
Anyway, Copia was quitting today one way or another, and while the idea of dying scares the shit out of him, he didn't have the energy to do much about it besides hope it ended quickly.
....
Does death usually smell this much like disinfectant? Or have to involve so much bright fluorescent-humming light? Actually, Copia thinks he detects a little bit of shit beneath the disinfectant, which might track with some things he's heard about Hell, but really, Hell smells a hell of a lot like--
Copia opens his eyes in a hospital.
Well. One eye. The other feels glued shut. Much like the rest of Copia feels like it's stuck in place, like glue or tar, or....bandages.
He's not dead.
"I'm not dead," he announces to the room at large, his voice a hoarse rasp, throat dry and disused. "Just in case there was, uh, any confusion about that. I am. Very alive."
He feels he ought to clarify. The last thing he wants is anyone mistaking him for being dead and winding up dead anyway, in a glass coffin in front of a bunch of gawkers.
Damn, he's thirsty. Is anyone even here? Mr. or Mrs. Psaltarian, maybe they would come to see him, or the ghost of Nihil or Sister -- and as he wonders, Copia struggles in the bandages and casts that swaddle him from head to toe just enough to get a look from side to side, at the corners of the room.
eggs n bakey!!
Date: 2026-03-21 03:33 am (UTC)He's asked, of course. The Psaltarians have probably heard it at least a dozen times each, but there was always some reason why it wouldn't work out. Scheduling was a big one -- as the new face of the Ghost project and the ministry at large, there was so much to be done. Rehearsals, meetings, photoshoots, interviews... Even in between the different legs of the tours, there had always been something.
Today was supposed to finally be the end of that. Very much ahead of schedule, but he wasn't going to wait until December if he didn't have an actual reason to. He's spent so much time watching and listening to Copia through screens and speakers, mimicking his performances, his mannerisms, trying to become a worthy successor while wondering what the man is really like. How could he not? He's spent a lifetime wondering what his family might have been like and why he ended up in the care of the Catholic church. To have only some vague answers is almost worse than knowing nothing at all.
He arrived just in time to watch an ambulance tear away from the front gates, walking into a scene of panic and chaos. Hardly the surprise Perpetua was hoping to give his twin -- seems the surprise is all on him.
At this point, he's unsure how many hours have passed. There had been a small group of them waiting at the hospital while Copia had been in surgery -- the Psaltarians, a few staff members. In time, Perpetua found himself urging them all to go home and rest. After all, the doctors said he was stable, but unlikely to wake up soon or for very long. He's a night owl. He'll stay, and he'll call as soon as Copia wakes up if they're not back before then.
Admittedly, this night owl has been dozing off in his chair. It's been a very long day, and now a very long night. He sits with his arms folded across his torso, head drooping forward as he rests. The sounds of beeping monitors and nurses doing their rounds have become less and less disruptive to him, but when a strained, rasping voice comes from the hospital bed across the room, Perpetua nearly leaps out of his chair.
"Well, uh, good!" An anxious laugh, and he creeps forward toward Copia's bedside, hands clasped together in front of him. Shit, this is hardly the sparkling first impression he was hoping to give. He thought he'd say something cooler, at least. Instead, to try and smooth things over, Perpetua grins as he peers down at his brother, something he thinks must look friendly and not just unsettling.
"Ah... Hi. It's really good to finally meet you. Even if the circumstances are... Well, they are pretty fucking bad. But you're alive!"
no subject
Date: 2026-03-21 04:30 am (UTC)It begins at startlement, from the sudden movement, and then realization of the absolute nightmare standing in front of him, fucking V, the impostor and hack who took his fucking job for no reason at all, but he finds himself only briefly passing through loathing and settling instead at unsettled, and maybe even, humiliatingly, intimidated.
Because in person? Looming over him with that weird fucking grin under a grim bony half-mask? V looks kind of inhuman and kind of unhinged, and Copia's heart monitor beeps faster. He doesn't know if the painkilling drugs he's probably on are helping him stay calm, or making the impression hit worse.
And then he talks, and has the nerve to sound happy to see Copia. Fuck him.
"I-it's you," Copia says, with all the intelligence and delicacy of someone on a morphine drip, the audible surprise imperfectly concealing all the feelings swirling around in his bandaged, aching head. "What are you doing here?" The emphasis can't seem to decide if it wants to be on you or here. "Don't you have, uh," he reaches for a reason, trying at least a little bit to force politeness the way he did in the office, "important Papa things you should be doing? Which I, I know all about, you know, because I did them, before you started doing them, instead of me."
It's a lot of words out of a very raspy throat, but Copia will be damned before he asks V for anything, including water.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-21 11:34 pm (UTC)"Well -- I was coming to visit. You know, Mr. Psaltarian said we were both too busy until December, but that seemed, well, fucking ridiculous." Perpetua shifts his weight between his feet, his own heartbeat racing as much as Copia's, if not more. "We pulled up just as the ambulance was driving off. What was I going to do, go tour the ministry like everything was hunky-dory? Sheesh." He's pacing now, hands behind his back, avoiding his brother's eyes. Even after all the thought he'd put into this over the last year, now that he's here, he feels as though he has very little to say.
"I sent the others home sometime after midnight so they could rest." But I wanted to pray for you. Instead of saying it, he clenches his jaw, then lets out a sigh. "As for important Papa things, this is as important as it gets, don't you think, Frater?"
He's not quite ready to admit that he doesn't know what he's doing, or that the parts of his job that aren't about going on tour or recording music are almost completely unknown to him. It isn't as though he hasn't asked! But... it's probably best that Copia doesn't have that to worry about right now.
"The nurse said you'd have a sore throat from the breathing tube. But they said everything went very well! Uh -- would you like water? Or... Hm. Actual food might not work, but I could get you a smoothie or something." Perpetua turns to look at him again then, offering another toothy smile.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-22 03:54 pm (UTC)Or. Well. Friday. Copia doesn't actually know what day it is. Or how long he's been lying here unconscious with a breathing tube in, all his bodily functions relegated to machines or monitored by them. Anyway, today, or Friday, of all days, Papa decides to come and see him, and if he had just avoided that accident, he could have avoided this fucking situation, as well.
They had almost missed each other. Just like he'd almost missed -- well, whatever had hit him. It had looked big.
Anyway. Copia hadn't died, which leaves him here, very literally a captive audience to his shitty replacement, his brother he'd never had the chance to know and hate for normal reasons, instead of the ones he's stuck with now. Who is acting like seeing him is the most important thing he could be doing, while flinging the title of Frater in his face, both of which leave Copia awash in a swirl of emotions that are mostly 'pissed off,' and anything more complicated than that is getting ignored more firmly than paperwork.
He ought to behave, at least to V's face. He needs to at least pretend to be polite, for now. Or he'll have a disappointed ghost to deal with later, he's sure. He needs to -- to take charge of the situation. Retain some kind of control. He should tell this impostor to get out, that he'll wait for the Psaltarians to come back, even if he has to wait until morning, and he can let the nurses deal with giving him water, he--
"You came today?" is what comes out of Copia's parched throat instead; whether 'today' is accurate or not, it feels true. "I was leaving today. The Ministry. I was going to take a--"
He breaks off there to give a powerful and painful hacking cough. Fuck, it feels like he's got cracked ribs. ...which is probably because he does.
"A--a va-va--huegh-ech-ekk," he coughs out, the word catching in his throat and coming out an ugly dry hack instead.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-23 06:04 pm (UTC)Listening to him try to talk is painful enough, but when Copia starts to cough, Perpetua can't help grimacing. Knowing the extent of his injuries, he can only imagine the amount of pain he's in, even with the painkillers he's no doubt being flooded with. If a nurse doesn't come by soon, he'll have to flag one down to make sure he's taken care of. But for now, he's perfectly able to step in. Whether his twin actually wants his help remains to be seen, but he's no longer asking.
"Vacation?" he asks, stepping over toward Copia's bedside. "Yes, I heard. I believe Mrs. Psaltarian was attempting to cancel some of your reservations." It's there that he cracks open a bottle of water, pouring some of it into an empty cup. Then he places a bendy straw in it and leans in close to bring it to the other man's lips.
"Little sips." Perpetua's trying for helpful and soothing, but that's never really been his strong suit. "You don't wanna choke."
If he didn't know he was coming, Copia couldn't be trying to avoid him by leaving, could he?
no subject
Date: 2026-03-23 09:28 pm (UTC)-- but Copia opens his mouth for the straw, because his throat really does fucking hurt, and apparently, he's at a point where his pride will cave.
V's probably not trying to poison him. Copia saw him open the bottle. It would take a really crazy scheme for this to be attempted murder. So Copia takes a little sip, with an undignified mleh sort of sound, and it's awkward and it's ugly and Copia really wants it to be over, he feels like he's giving up something by doing this, taking a symbolic loss by letting Perpetua give him this, but fuck it, it's really the least V can do after, you know, taking everything that Copia liked about his job away from him.
He sips too hard and chokes it back up, spitting water over bandages and blankets. He is the dignified leader of the Ministry, chosen (albeit reluctantly) by Papa Nihil and wielding supreme administrative power in a shadowy Satanic organization that's grown larger than ever, and he gags and coughs with watery eyes and it is his own damn fault, fucking up in precisely the way he was just instructed not to.
"Fucking ow," he grits out between coughs. "Shit, whatever hit me must have been really bad. Because--hck--this? This is--"
How had V put it a moment ago.
"--pretty fucking bad!"
He can't even drink through a straw! Copia's in a mood, steaming and grouchy, and he stops straining forward the limited few millimeters he can in the bandages and instead slumps back into the pillows and also a miserable state of self pity.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-24 04:44 am (UTC)The first sip seems to go well. And then the second does not. Perpetua takes a step back as Copia sputters and coughs, watching him closely in case he needs to grab a nurse. But soon enough he's talking, which is a good enough sign to him that he's not going to choke to death. There isn't really anywhere free for him to give him a reassuring pat, so Perpetua just sort of runs his palm along the railing on the side of Copia's bed for a moment, patting it before withdrawing.
"Well -- I don't think most, uh, incidents of pedestrians getting hit by vehicles can be considered good, but... You got pretty lucky, from what I heard." A nervous little chuckle, and he sets the cup back on the table. "Everyone was very worried. Um, Mrs. Psaltarian said that..." He hesitates a moment, considering his words. "Sister Imperator had a similar incident. And that we should be glad you didn't fall off a cliff." Another laugh, to fill the silence, and Perpetua resumes his slow pacing.
What is he supposed to call her? She was never his mom, and even mother feels like something he has little claim to. For now, he'll stick with something more formal, but he's curious to hear what Copia has to say about it, about her, if anything.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-24 10:38 pm (UTC)Nice to know that they worried. Even if it was only a little. They are family, and even if, in the ministry, being dead doesn't necessarily mean you're gone, Copia still doesn't want to be dead. He has decades more living to do.
"No," Copia says. "No, there were not any cliffs nearby for me to fall off of. Which is a good thing. I wonder if my face will look as different, when the bandages come off," he muses. It'd be a shame to get that portrait and immediately have his likeness change. It would be outdated, like his old face. "Hey, how long am I supposed to be stuck here, anyway?" Copia asks suddenly, face angling a few degrees to look at Perpetua. If he's going to be here, he can make himself useful by telling Copia what he needs to know.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-26 08:32 pm (UTC)"Mm. Was it a big change?" He wants details, but he doesn't want to sound like he's digging for them. "You'll probably look a little different, but the ministry can afford to pay for revisions, I'm sure. You're the boss, right?" A flash of a smile only lasts a moment before fading again, crossing the room to look out the windows. The sun will rise in a few hours now, but his weariness has been replaced with a nervous energy, overwhelmed with this desire to somehow impress his brother. You know, despite the fact that he's probably not going to be impressed by anything or anyone in this state. (Hopefully his surgeon will get a passing grade.)
Turning back toward him, Perpetua leans against the wall, tilting his head to the side as he regards Copia.
"Oh. Well, it depends on how the healing goes, but... Probably a few weeks?" He grimaces, shrugging his shoulders. "They weren't generous with details. Where were you heading, anyway?"
no subject
Date: 2026-03-29 02:28 am (UTC)But a few weeks gets a growled, disappointed scoff out of Copia, a swallowed aww and an accompanying twitch. A few weeks is bad. He doesn't want to be stuck here for weeks, especially if V is going to insist on visiting him more than once. Copia's mouth turns down with more flexibility than he expects, almost as though he's in a medium that allows him to be a little more expressive, and he huffs unhappily.
"Well," he says, "Mr. Psaltarian has a lovely little place by the beach. However, he wouldn't let me use it, so, I selected a different one. Same beach. Different house. Close enough not to be too far out of reach, but far enough to say, decisively, 'if you need me for anything, ask someone else! I am on vacation! Ha ha!'"
He gives the explanation with a flicker of brightness as he recalls his brilliant plan to detach completely from the Ministry, but sobers quickly, as he remembers just how out of reach it is. Fuck.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-31 02:57 am (UTC)"Yeah, I know, man. It's a drag." With a sigh, he offers Copia a tight-lipped smile, sympathetic. "We'll get you out there eventually, eh? Better to get you all healed up before your little summer getaway." There's that urge to pat his shoulder again, or the side of his bed, or... something. Something more than standing here with no way to ease his discomfort.
"He wouldn't? Sheesh. What a guy." Perpetua neglects to mention that Psaltarian did, in fact, offer to let him stay at the beach house sometime this summer. (He politely declined. Heat and sun are not his friends.)
"I'm surprised you didn't want to go somewhere farther away. You know? Really, uh, escape for a while." He studies what little he can see of his twin's face, wondering if they will even look like twins after, well, all of this. "But you give the impression of... I don't know. Being a little bit married to your work?"
Well, it's kinder than calling him a control freak.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-31 03:40 am (UTC)A couple of things are happening in Copia's brain. One is that he's infuriated at V thinking he's married to his work. How dare he presume that Copia, whose entire life has been dedicated to the ministry since long before he was aware of his parentage, for whom being Papa was the greatest pinnacle of achievement he could imagine, and who stuck the tour out despite the administrative work being miserable and tedious and worse for coming after his time in the spotlight, is overattached to his job and would have had trouble truly disconnecting.
Another is that he's developed through experience a decent sense for when someone wants to approach closer and is holding themselves back, and while Copia isn't consciously thinking about it, he can tell Perpetua's awkwardness isn't because he wants to run. And Copia is given toward hugging himself, though not everyone in his family is the same, and it's sitting under Copia's skin like a pebble in his shoe that he hates V and hates V being nice to him and hates V saying stupid shit and there is also a part of him that wants contact, misses the attention he'd gotten so much of on the stage, and is lonely when held at arm's length by everyone he knows.
Fuck this guy. He doesn't know anything.
"I can escape," he insists. "I can -- I can leave at any time, you know. Well -- usually. Now, the circumstances are a-a little bit different. But I am not married to my work. I am free as a bird! A bird with many, many broken bones."
The irony of the current situation is not lost on him, and it only makes Copia insist more hotly that he can totally quit.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-01 02:54 am (UTC)So much of his own performance was, well, just copying his brother. It often felt inauthentic, because it was, and he'd felt like nothing more than a cheap copy because of it. He wonders now if Copia ever felt similarly.
"Okay, okay," he coos, shifting his weight between his feet. "I was not trying to accuse you of anything. It was just an impression." He's about to fold his arms over his chest again when his phone buzzes loudly a few times in rapid succession. With a sigh, Perpetua fishes it from his pocket, but his expression softens when he sees the messages that continue to blow up his phone.
"The ghouls are asking about you," he says, stepping in closer so he can show Copia his screen, where a group chat that had gone quiet since the tour ended is now getting more and more messages as they see Perpetua's viewing them. "Do you want me to tell them you're awake? Mm, and what about the Psaltarians?"
no subject
Date: 2026-04-01 05:12 pm (UTC)He peers at the screen, shifting just a smidge in the bandages and casts to get closer, paying in a renewed spike of pain to peer a little better. It's clearly text messages, though it looks more like a chat room - Perpetua has a chat room on his phone? With the ghouls? A lot of the chatty ones are names he knows, ones he toured with -- they are asking about him.
how is cardi?
is he awake yet
is he alive
can we see him
can we can we can we 🥺😭😰💀
can we pleeeeease papa
WE KNOW YOU SEE THIS
TELL US ABT CARDI
LET US IN
LET US IN
Copia looks from the screen, to V, then back again, then back to V. He's clearly seeing something unexpected, and doesn't answer right away.
"They...they want to see me," he says, and it stops being a question about halfway through. He'd thought they would have forgotten. Cleaved to the new papa and left the old one behind. Copia supposes he only has limited data; all his predecessors were dead when he took over. He is still alive, and apparently, they want to see him.
"I thought they forgot about the last Papa," Copia says. "You know. When they go to work for a new one."
Maybe, in hindsight, it wasn't forgetting so much as not wanting to talk about a brutal triple murder.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-01 06:36 pm (UTC)"Are you kidding? Of course they want to see you," he chuckles, giving Copia the gentlest pat on the shoulder. "They've missed you terribly. Do you know how much they talk about you? It's exhausting." A wink to show he's kidding. It mostly made him feel... jealous. Insufficient. Every bit the cheap knockoff of Copia that he worried so much about being. It wasn't like any of them hated him, but it was easy to tell this was an unpleasant adjustment.
"They did warm up to me, but I'm not you." Exhaling, he tries to put it out of his mind by opening his phone's camera, crouching next to the bed to awkwardly get them both into the frame.
"Say cheese! Or, well, just try to look like you aren't completely miserable?" Another forced laugh and he hits the shutter button a couple times before stepping away, inspecting the photos. They're not great, but they'll do. The point is proof of life.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-01 07:21 pm (UTC)...
"Well, how about that," Copia murmurs. It's nice to be remembered. To not feel quite so forgotten, so easily replaced in the little group that had traveled, eaten, slept, and performed together, like a family. Maybe. Copia isn't entirely sure, but family is what it had felt like when they'd passed out into their shared Chinese takeout at 4 a.m. on the tour bus.
But I'm not you.
Hearing it loosens a knot that's been sitting in Cardi's chest since he first began to suspect his time was coming to an end. It doesn't untie, not completely, but it doesn't feel quite as tight. He doesn't even hate the pat to his shoulder. V's gloved hand is warmer than he expected, even through the bandages.
"Eh?"
He looks up just in time to hear the click, and this time he recognizes it as a phone camera -- he'd been on the other side of those plenty of times. Copia comes out wide-eyed and staring unsettlingly, shell shocked and possibly like he's being held hostage depending on Perpetua's expression.
"Fuck," he says. And then-- "...how did it turn out? Let me see."
He knows it's probably going to be shit, he looks like shit right now, but vanity is a sin and Copia can't contain his curiosity.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-02 07:29 pm (UTC)Before giving his brother a chance to look, Perpetua sends off the selfies to appease the group chat. Inevitably they will be roasted -- he's told he takes "old man" selfies -- but this is more about, you know, proving he's alive and well(ish).
"Here," he finally says, leaning in with his phone to show him the pictures. "Not our best angles, I fear. But we'll have time to take better ones once you're a little less bandaged up, eh?"
Because, well -- he's really hoping they can get some quality time together before Copia runs off on his little beach holiday. Judging by the messages streaming in at the top of his screen, he's not the only one.
THANK LUCIFER
cardi!!!!! hi cardi!!!
tell him i say hi!!
WHOA what bones didnt he break???
🥺 is he ok papa???
This time he doesn't have to force his laughter. He's pretty damn fond of the ghouls himself, so making them happy is always a pleasure. He doesn't even feel jealous now, just... relieved. Whole, in a way. One great mystery of his life can begin coming to a close.
"Should I tell the Psaltarians you're awake? I can wait a little, if you don't want to be bombarded just yet."
no subject
Date: 2026-04-02 07:52 pm (UTC)What's worse is that he isn't even searching for a nice thing to say out of politeness. Copia means every word. Perpetua is great at taking pictures. That fucker.
He almost doesn't notice that V wants to take other pictures together, later. It hits Copia like a boomerang to the back of the head -- V wants to hang out. Doing what, the devil only knows, but Cardi has no idea how he feels about that. On the one hand: Sister was right, V is apparently curious about him, and did want to meet him, and he's not acting like a nasty conniving thief determined to cuckoo his twin out of his lifelong goals. He's telling him the ghouls missed him, and it isn't even a lie. But on the other, it's fucking V, who is still a thief, and Copia hates him.
Uncomfortable and guilty sits the knowledge that Cardi wrote a number of unkind, if uninspired, things about him on the internet, and Perpetua is here, and doesn't know.
"Eh," he says, finding a change of subject. "You can tell them. They will be here when they are here, and not a minute before." It almost comes out profound. "Besides, it's not as though I have anything better to do. I've already gotten a night's sleep, yeah? Pretty much?"
The next few weeks promise to be very, very boring. More boring than paperwork. But hey, the ghouls remember him, and are sending all caps messages about how glad they are that he's alive. He's glad that he's alive. That's not nothing.