Working my way backwards through canon

[underbutler]

I don't see how watching my life out of order is going to help it from being any more awful than it already is.

Comments

[aaron_agate]

((OOC, but I just wanted to say that I never expected to see any characters from that show floating around! Awesome!))

[underbutler]

[TY. There are some in the DA tag here, but I haven't seen any elsewhere :( I hope I come across some eventually!]

[mrbarrow]

Well, you can't exactly know. Doing much the same inspired mine, and lo, I am become a god. [A DEMIgod, Thomas. And fifteen. But you know. Bright sides, bragging points. Whatever.] Or some such thing. Still a bit of a Hell, you ask me, but not QUITE the hell I breezed in from.

[underbutler]

A god? And I thought I'd grown into my ego.

[mrbarrow]

Some DO have greatness thrust upon 'em.

[underbutler]

Sounds like a trick if you ask me, which you are, since you're me and here we are.

[mrbarrow]

Would either of us do differently?

[underbutler]

[Shrugs] Just make sure you're going in with your eyes open.

[mrbarrow]

Complacency does tend to signal death. Metaphorical or otherwise.

[underbutler]

Well I wasn't thinking anything quite that drastic. And how would you manage metaphorical death anyhow?

[mrbarrow]

She's made me a demigod and a child. I'm certain my mundane would find away.

[underbutler]

You really think it's going to be anything worse than we're already experienced? If anything I'm glad to get away from Downton.

[mrbarrow]

Not precisely worse but different. Which is annoying when you can't pin them down.

[underbutler]

I don't know that knowing what's in store makes it any easier to bear. That's exactly what my mun is doing, with this watching it backwards silliness.

[mrbarrow]

You do know you survive at least? That's no small feat. Mundanes though, really. Madness.

[underbutler]

Survive. [He sighs.] I always survive, don't I?

'Course once she's done looking back, there'll be more to come. And the way people have been dropping round here, I wouldn't be surprised if I bought it just before the end.

[mrbarrow]

You suppose. I was rather counting on it being me...you...us.. and the old lady left by the end. Standstill, you know.

[underbutler]

[Frown.] The old lady? [He can't mean who he thinks he means.]

[mrbarrow]

Old Lady Grantham? [Yeah, he does. He so does.]

Not that I'm saying that to her or anybody else's face, mind.

[underbutler]

Huh. You're more sentimental than I am.

[mrbarrow]

Well, not strictly sentimental so much as I've got the distinct feeling she'll be standing at the end. [He's half convinced the Dowager is some sort of ascended being. Also omnipotent.] And nothing's going to take US out and I'm half sure the rest of them are just going to tear each other's throats out someday while we watch.

[underbutler]

[That makes him laugh.] I live in 'ope. Could make a show out of it, sell tickets. O'Brien would have-

Well. Forget her.

[mrbarrow]

No surprise, I"m sure, but I like the way you think.

O'brien...Eh, less said the better there, now.

video.

[gazingup]

Things can get better, as difficult as it may seem.

[underbutler]

Strange to hear advice coming from that face.

[gazingup]

What's wrong with my face? Unless... you're not from Stormhold, are you?

[underbutler]

I'm from Downton. And my writer insists you're not the Duke. Certainly I can't see him in that get up, nor letting his hair grow out so long. But I can't deny you've a face just like his.

[gazingup]

No, not a Duke. [ A laugh. ] I could hardly imagine another sharing my face, but I promise you that I am not... well, I gather he was a tosspot. [ He pauses. ] I don't mean any offense, really.

[underbutler]

None taken. He was a tosspot. I 'ope he rots in hell.

Still. There are worse faces you could share.

[lucre]

Were you not happy as a child?

[underbutler]

Not particularly. But it's not my childhood that's the issue.

[lucre]

But it is. The ending will be a happy one if one watches oneself become a child once again.

[underbutler]

Oh I'm sure, only it doesn't go back that far. There's only five years worth of my life there for her to see, and they're all awful.

[lucre]

Perhaps she wishes that might change the second, or third or fourth, time she reviews.

[underbutler]

Don't see how that would work. It's the same things what happen.

[lucre]

Is it wrong to hope beyond what is sensible?

[underbutler]

[Shrug.] Not wrong. But it's a waste of time. I don't go round wishing things were different, and I lived it.