Chapter Text
Sleeping in a new place had always been hard for Dex. It’s not like his room or his bed was objectively the best or anything; his sheets were thin and admittedly crusty in some areas on account of sharing the space with three 12-year-olds, but he’d ultimately grown used to the sounds. The creaks in the floorboards next to his bed, tossing and turning on the other side of the room, the quiet footsteps of one of the triplets sneaking into his bed, trying not to wake anyone else up. Dex could sleep soundly knowing that the night would pass like predictable clockwork. Even the house’s furnace, clocks, and machines’ voices had been blocked out after so many years. New places didn’t stand a chance in comparison.
Which really was a testament to how drop-dead tired Dex was, especially considering how much the mechanics of the castle were now shouting for his attention.
Dex woke up with a start as metallic whines struck his mind, causing him to instinctively curl inward. He flinched as the sounds meshed together. How did I miss this yesterday?
“Are you okay? Not turning into a household object or anything?” Right. Dex had an audience.
“Wait, that was a possibility?”
Despite the action making his headache worse, Dex sat up, daylight filling the room through large, clear panels and coloring Biana’s all-too-awake expression. “The chances were low, but for all we know, maybe.”
“That’s… comforting.”
Ok, don’t think about that too hard.
Dex tried to clear his mind by standing up or doing anything normal honestly. Part of him felt a little bad for musing up the bed; so much of this castle felt ancient, like a time capsule, and there Dex was, stumbling around like a lost gremlin. Although… he had enough sense to shake out the bedding before going to sleep, but this whole room would need a serious clean-up before he’d rest easy.
The racket in his head didn’t seem to be dulling soon. Maybe the whole palace would need an overhaul too.
It might be a strange question, but, “Are there any mechanical systems that are notably broken around here?
“I doubt there's a mechanical system that isn’t broken somehow.”
“Any specifics?” Dex started smoothing the cover. It still seemed a little creepy to make prolonged eye contact with a piece of furniture despite knowing it was a person. He’d probably get used to it.
“I’ve heard that the lights and crystal pane controls have gotten more and more spotty over the years. It mostly affects the lower floor though.” She paused, long enough to be awkward. When Dex looked over, he was met with a look of frustration. “It’s not easy to fix things when you can barely move.”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to answer, but how long have you been in this room?”
“I hadn’t been keeping track.” Biana sighed, resting her head on her dubiously consistent arms. He bristled a bit at her nonchalance. “I used to be able to leave, but as time went on, we’ve all gotten stiffer. That’s the true nature of this curse.”
“The deterioration?”
Biana nodded. “The others help though. The more you think of yourself as an object, the more of an object you become, so it takes connections and effort to maintain what we have.”
“Wait, you said you didn’t know much about how this curse functions. How did you find this out?” Dex had an idea, but he really wanted to be wrong.
“It’s happened plenty of times. I’ll complain until the end of time about having drawers, but some people didn’t get as lucky.” Biana paused again. The nervous part of Dex worried he was going to see the curse take effect faster than he thought. Instead, she shook her head like she was dispelling a thought.
“A person shaped like a floorboard doesn’t have the best chances.”
Dex didn’t know what to say.
“Sorry. It’s a lot to take in, I know.” It seemed like she should be the last person apologizing for all of this, but Dex didn’t comment. “So, you’re looking for something to fix? How do you plan on doing that?”
“It’s a specialty of mine, I guess. It sounds like you’re having an energy storage issue on the second floor most likely.” He’d need to wander around a bit more to pinpoint where, but he supposed he had the time. Absent-mindedly, Dex wandered over to the windows. Even coated in snow, he could tell the grounds were more expansive than he gave it credit for. “Solar energy collection in a building like this starts at the top-most crystals and works its way down from there. If there was a crack, you’d probably already know about it, but internal fractures can have the same effect.” Dex stopped himself. “...It’s a complicated process.”
“Biana? Are you talking to someone?” Dex tensed up at the sound of a new voice.
“Yes. We have a guest.”
Of course, when Dex turned around he saw an animated mantel clock enter the room. The clock face morphed into that of a young man’s made up of shifting numeral marks. His surprised look quickly shifted into something colder. “I’ve heard.”
“This is Tam.” Although his eyes weren’t as detailed as some of the others, Dex could feel him looking him over. Appraising him for weaknesses or something.”Could you show Dex some of the areas that have power issues? He might know how to fix it.”
“I came here to visit you.”
Another thing Dex had never seen a dresser carving do: blush. “That’s sweet of you… “
Dex very purposely coughed into his hand. “I can try finding it on my own.”
“No, no. We can…”
“I’ll come back then.”
The clock, Tam, stiffly walked to the door although he didn’t look happy about it. Dex glanced between him and Biana. “Are you sure?”
He nodded, an action that caused his wood to creak. Before Dex could make the situation any more awkward, he followed behind. If Tam saw him flinch from the new influx of technology, he didn’t say anything.
“One night and he fixing curses and electricity problems.” Tam instead muttered under his breath as they headed through the halls.
—---
Only five minutes in, and it already wasn’t a pretty sight.
It didn’t take long for Dex to identify the castle’s main courtyard as the inner hall's main router of power, but man. He was almost impressed.
“Nearly all of the panes over here have some sort of damage.” He was getting better at reading the material, its scratchy tone telling him of the cracks in its internal structure. It’s a wonder any part of the main floor had power. “Do you know if any researchers or scientists were working here?”
“One of them is a mirror in the south wing.”
Dex had to actively stop himself from hitting his head against the wall and making the crystal damage worse. That was pretty indicative of their conversation so far.
Okay. Deep breathes. “Do you know where their chemicals would be?”
“In a separate building on the east side of the grounds. Very few researchers were targeted.”
“Targeted?” Dex’s attention refocused on Tam. “How would a curse pick and choose people like that?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Tam kept his back turned away.
“I would like to know.” He tried. “If you told me more, I could do something.”
“Like what? Disappoint us faster?”
It was like something snapped in Dex. The passive-aggressiveness, the comments; His fists clenched at his sides. Tam was toying with him and, damn, was it getting on his nerves.
“What is your problem with me? I’m trying to help.”
An annoyed ticking sound clicked through the hall. Realistically, it shouldn’t be tense. Warm light colored the space in the same jewel tones as the windows, the courtyard below was silent. Yet…
Tick tick tick
He turned to face him, steps stiff and creaking.
“Were you really expecting us to have any faith in you?”
“What?”
Dex could cross getting rolled eyes from a dresser and clock off his bucket list. Lucky him.
“Do you honestly think you’re the first person to try and fix this?” Tam asked. “We’ve all tried. What makes you so special?”
Nothing. A fluke of genetics maybe. Dex shook his head. “Part of my family is stuck here.”
Suddenly, Dex was hit with a stark glare.
Tick tick tickticktick
“Then you’re not special at all.”
…
He already knew that.
Dex quietly sat down, back against the fractured glass. It still called to be repaired, the silent voice crawling over his mind, but there wasn’t anything he could do right now. Afternoon light left him shadowed on the same level as a talking clock.
“I’m not trying to be. I just want to understand what happened.”
“You want to understand this so badly? It’s not random. It isn’t a stroke of bad luck that hit us. Our brooding “master” made a very bad enemy and that witch made it her mission to make him and everyone who had the misfortune of being around him suffer. We were left with no clue on how to fix this and the only person that might know isn’t telling.”
Dex’s eyes widened as he sat up straighter. “The master? He’s the only one that would know?”
“Or that witch decided to leave all of us clueless.” The symbols that made up Tam’s face scrunched together. “No, she’d give him something to work. It’d hurt him more that way.”
“Why would anyone do that? What did this guy do to provoke this?”
“If I told you, you’d only want to know more and it won’t help.”
“You can’t fix this.”
With that, Tam started to leave, ready to let Dex sit alone listening to walls and feigning for a dead scientist’s supplies. His tone was cold, laced with finality. A chime echoed in a hollow body. How someone so small could create so much sound, Dex would never know.
But he’d keep trying to figure it out anyway.
“No.” Tam looked back, waiting for Dex to be done already. “I can’t promise that I can do anything, but I’m not giving up. It’s all I’ve ever done, all I’m good for.”
Dex shook his head. “I can’t just walk away from a problem knowing that I spent less than a day at it.”
“You can’t fix every problem in the world.” Something in his tone softened. Not quite understanding, but not apathetic either.
Dex sighed. “I know. But I’m here and I have to try. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.”
He kept walking, wooden steps against old planks. Great. Guess Dex was going to spend the rest of his day searching for an abandoned lab in the cold.
“Are you coming?”
He looked up, surprised. “What?”
“The lab is outside.”
It didn’t feel like a vote of confidence. The words were still cold and Tam still looked like he wanted to be anywhere else, but there wasn’t an edge to it. Maybe Dex would just have to get used to it just like everything else.
He’d figure it out even if he couldn’t fix it.
