Chapter Text
It wasn't movie season yet, not by a long shot. Peck, they'd just finished movie season. But one could never start planning soon enough.
Fresh ideas were hard to come by and Conductor had learned long ago that one needed to take good care of any idea that did come by. Ideas were like fragile little orchids - if you didn't tend to them properly, they'd wither and die. You had to write them down, feed and finetune them to make them grow until it was time to put them to use.
So here he was, milling around the studio eyeing props and writing down what he had and what he might need, eyeing the filming rooms and sketching out potential setups, eyeing costumes and trying to picture them in different scenes.
The studio was quiet... eerily quiet. No obnoxious disco music shaking the floor, no owls or penguins talking, no crows trying and failing to blend in. No sounds but his own footsteps and the noise of a pencil scratching against paper.
Well... not quite the only sound. Because he wasn't quite the only person.
"Ah cannae believe we picked the same pecking day fer this", he growled.
"We have a history of doing stuff like that", Grooves said, inspecting the contents of a crate. "I'm surprised we didn't accidentally move into the same house."
"We just cannae avoid each other. Universe wants us to be together."
Grooves smirked. "I want that too, darling."
Conductor flushed red. "Peck off", he mumbled and tried to focus on counting his rubber knives.
Five, ten, that one looked too sharp to be fake, fifteen, twenty, curse this peck neck of a penguin and his pretty smile, twentyfive...
His idea was pretty simple, straightforward. Two rivals teaming up to take down a common enemy.
A conductor and a train robber. Established enemies with a history. He had to make that clear right away, show that these two despised each other.
But then... in the middle of their battle, they discover that a passenger has been murdered. And so they team up to solve the case and catch the killer... and they must do it before the train reaches the next station, because otherwise the killer will use the opportunity to escape! Yes, he liked that part!
He wrote it down with a flourish and grinned happily.
So... he himself would be playing the conductor, of course. He needed two other main roles: The robber and the killer. He hadn't done a female villain in a while... maybe Piper? She'd done well in the last movie, her performance had been pretty good recently.
...But Piper was really more suited for innocent roles, she did well when playing friendly, sweet characters. A murderer was completely out of her range.
Kayley, Kayley could do it. Kayley was a good actress, one of his best - as evidenced by the fact that she was a crow, and unlike the rest of her brethren actually did a decent job of posing as an owl. She certainly had the owls fooled. Not Conductor though, even if she thought so - he quite frankly didn't care if his workers were owls, crows or capybaras as long as they did their job. So Kayley as the villain...
...Ugh, but Kayley was his lighting specialist, she couldn't do that and play the main antagonist at the same time. Lark was the obvious choice for the robber, of course... although finding costumes in his size was always a pain. Maybe if he used the old marauder costume, added a bandana and a proper hat... what hats did he have?
He craned his head looking for the correct box, spotted it on a shelf not far away. Cracked it open to reveal a quite frankly revolting amount of hats crammed into it. They expanded as soon as he opened the lid, like a timelapse of a yeast dough.
One of them caught his attention. It kind of had to - it was bright blue and covered in sequins.
"Oi, Grooves! One of yer pecking penguins got our stuff mixed up again!", he shouted and tossed the hat over to Grooves without looking. It bounced off the penguin's back.
"Oh! I've been looking for that!"
"Well, ya're welcome. Now keep yer crap away from mine, Ah dinnae want glitter on me stuff." That hat looked decent enough... black leather, woven headband, nice tarnished buckle...
He made a quick note of it and put it back in the box. Hopefully it wouldn't disappear between now and the start of filming.
Grooves was dusting off something that looked like a big red plastic star. Conductor had no clue what he was planning to use it for, but it looked exactly like something only Grooves would use. Peck, that thing was tacky!
He knew what Grooves' plan was. Two aspiring movie stars turning from rivals to friends, with a heavy focus on color symbolism - red and blue combining into purple as a sign of friendship and solidarity. No clue how a big red plastic star figured into that, but Grooves' number one ability was putting stars into everything.
"Darling, do you know if these come in blue?", Grooves asked, pointing at the star.
"What's the serial number?"
Plastic scraped against wood as Grooves tilted the prop in search of a sticker.
"...3721-49001-646-05."
"A 646 usually comes in different colors, so yer chances are good. What are ya trying to do?"
...He wasn't sure what was weirder: That he was genuinely interested or that Grooves volunteered the information without hesitation.
"I'm thinking about splitting the whole stage into two sides. Make everything on the right side red, everything on the left side blue.The characters stick to their respective sides. And the merging of colors into purple is kicked off by them crossing that line at last", he explained.
Conductor hummed as he opened another box, this one containing bandanas.
"Why would they do that?", he asked, digging through folded fabric.
"...I'm not that far yet", Grooves admitted.
"What ya meant to say was: 'Ah dinnae know how to write a decent plot with good reasoning'", Conductor said. This bandana was pretty good... but purple? If he himself was playing the conductor and he was wearing his usual outfit for it, complete with his purple tie... maybe he shouldn't give the robber a purple accessoire as well.
Or... maybe he should? Subtly foreshadow the fact that they'd end up working together from the very first scene?
"I do know how to write that! I just... haven't worked out the details yet! What, do you expect me to believe that you have a complete script already?"
And if he did that, if he unified the two rivals by giving them both a splash of purple, then maybe he could create some contrast by putting the villain in... what was the opposite of purple again? The... complimentary color?
"Ah'm close", he said, which was of course a complete lie. Peck, he hadn't even cast his main villain yet.
It had to be Kayley! Or Piper! Those were the only decent female actors he had! Unless he could convince the lass to come over... but she'd just returned to her home planet a few days ago and unlike his train passengers, she couldn't just be pressganged into movie work at a minute's notice.
So... Kayley or Piper? If he picked Kayley he'd have to do all the lighting by himself, but if he picked Piper he'd have a hell of a time making her look threatening.
Which one of them would look better in... whatever color, what color, what color... come on, Conductor, you had art class in school, you know this...
"What's the complementary color of purple?", he asked, because surely Grooves would know.
"It's yellow, why?"
"Just wondering." Yellow... did he have any yellow dresses? Which box were his dresses in... "What shade?"
"Depends. What shade of purple?"
Conductor looked down at himself. "Me own tie."
Grooves, who'd been busy writing down part numbers, paused and turned around.
"...Just wondering, huh? No ulterior motive whatsoever?"
Ugh, the guy was smarter than he looked. Or maybe Conductor just hadn't been very subtle.
Probably that, to be honest.
"Do ya know the answer or nae?!"
"...I do, but I'm not just going to give it to you. If I'm helping you with your movie, I want some help in return!"
What?! "That's nae happening! Like Ah'm gonna sabotage meself by helping ya!"
"Then why would I do it for you, darling?"
"Because ya're gonna lose anyway!"
Grooves' eyes narrowed in anger. "We'll be seeing about that. But don't expect any help from me unless you're willing to pay your debts."
With that, he turned around again and went back to writing.
"Fine. Suit yerself, peck neck! Ah can do it without ya!"
His box of dresses was... it was that one right there. And he found lots of dresses in various shades of brown, grey, maroon... the closest thing he had to yellow was apparently beige. Was beige yellow enough?
"Is beige a shade of yellow?"
"...Darling, what did I just say?"
"Ah'm just talking to meself!"
"Sure you are. Since when do you care about colors anyway?"
Conductor opened his beak. Then paused, closed it again.
Yeah, why did he care? What even was this idea? Unity through matching accessoires with the antagonist wearing the opposing color? That was...
Oh. Oh no. That was a Grooves idea. He was... he was thinking like Grooves.
And he liked the result!
He bit his teeth together.
"...Fine", he hissed. "Here's the deal. If ya can get me a decent-looking dress that's nae completely out of place in a western and has a shade of yellow that compliments me tie, Ah'll help ya in turn."
And Grooves, that bastard, immediately got to his feet, beelined over to a random box, opened it and pulled out a yellow dress.
"This should go well with your tie", he said. "Although I didn't take you for a dress wearer."
"It's nae fer me!"
"No? You're missing out, they're comfortable. You'd look good in a pencil skirt, I think. Anyway... you're doing complementary colors. Do you want to use them for contrast or for harmony?"
Conductor blinked. "Uh..."
"Are these outfits worn by partners or enemies?", Grooves clarified.
"Enemies. The heroes are both gonna be wearing black with purple details and the antagonist is gonna be yellow - apparently."
Grooves nodded. "Then add black details to your antagonist to tie it together. Just be careful not to overdo it, a yellow like this is easily overpowered."
He held the dress out and Conductor snatched it up to examine it. Thin fabric in a very nice, gentle shade of yellow. He held it next to his tie... peck, it really did go well.
The dress itself was... well, it wasn't awful. He'd have to ditch the beaded belt and hide the flower-shaped buttons somehow, but other than that it wasn't too bad. A little too frilly for Conductor's liking, but it would probably work... for Piper. Not for Kayley, no way she'd fit into that.
"...Do ya think this is too soft of a color fer a bad guy?", he asked, because this was so... so friendly. It wasn't threatening at all.
"Hm... depends on the villain. Your murderer, I'd assume?"
"Aye, exactly."
"...If the heroes are wearing mostly black, it might work. You've got the potential to establish a theme here. You've got a crass, foul-mouthed train conductor and a robber, whom I'd assume is not exactly polite and mild-mannered either. They're both wearing black with purple highlights. So they have a lot in common and they're both being portrayed as tough, rude people. I'd suggest that you make the villain as distant from that as possible... make them polite, affable and dress them in bright colors. In fact, ditch the black details. Make the details white, really push the contrast", Grooves said. "Show it in the way they speak, too. Give your villain a soft voice and high-class vocabulary."
That sounded... honestly, it wasn't too shoddy. Could he make that work?
Maybe Piper was perfect after all, with her harmless demeanor... what if that was the twist? What if this killer's whole deal was that she posed as a sweet, weak young lady that nobody would suspect? And then the heroes would discover the truth and she'd smile oh so sweetly before pulling a gun on them...
Oooh, that was perfect, that was perfect! And... what if he pushed it even further, what if her strategy worked and one of the heroes died?! Then the other one could avenge his former enemy... and he could script a nice dramatic death scene and put a shot of a gravestone at the end of the credits...
"Ahem", Grooves said and oh, right.
"Fine, what do ya wanna know?"
...
Grooves sighed.
"Reasons for them to cross the line", he said, not making eye contact. "Truth is... I've been thinking about it for almost two weeks and I can't think of anything."
Hah! Called it!
"Knew it. Dinnae worry, peck neck, Ah'm on the case."
Reasons for them to cross the line... two opposing movie stars in a place that was split in half, each sticking to their own side, but then one crossed the line...
Well, the answer was almost blatantly obvious.
"To argue", he said. "Obviously. When Ah first entered yer side of the studio, why did Ah do it? To start an argument."
"But... it's supposed to be the start of their character growth", Grooves pointed out, though he wrote it down nonetheless. "The moment when they cease to be enemies!"
"Why? Why would that make them cease to be enemies? If anything, wouldn't that make it worse? Ya were pretty pecking pissed at me back then."
A huff of frustration from the penguin. "Yes! That's why I need a good reason for them to enter each other's side without pissing each other off."
Ah. Okay. Conductor could see the problem.
"What ya need to do is stop forcing the matter", he said. "That's nae the moment they cease to be enemies. That's the moment they cease to be seperated. They cross the line, but that makes it worse. They fight. They fight physically. They both return to their side with", a flash of genius shot through his mind, "with a colored handprint somewhere on their body!"
...Okay, where had that come from? Didn't matter, keep going! "See, ya shock your audience. They think that this is it, this is the moment when the heroes set aside their differences, but instead it just gets worse! But at the same time, it is the start of their character growth. They cross the line, they get marked in each other's color. And..."
Grooves had stopped writing. But he was listening with wide eyes and a tilted head, paying full attention.
"And... that's what does it. Nae immediately. But their fighting... the physical fighting, that alters them both. Fer the worse, that is. They destroy each other's side, steal each other's things. The neatly seperated stage becomes a mixed mess. They realize it, they realize that their fighting is... is holding them both back, is making it impossible fer either one of them to become a star. So they start cleaning up together... and then that is when stuff starts going purple. Their attempt to reestablish the boundary ends up destroying it for good."
...
"I... I like that", Grooves said slowly. "It's... a lot more aggressive than what I'd normally go for, but... I have to admit, it sounds like it might work."
"Course it's gonna work, it came from me. Although... Ah guess yer imput was somewhat helpful, too", Conductor admitted graciously. "It gave me a few ideas at least."
"Why, thank you. I must admit, I wasn't expecting you to admit that so readily", Grooves said and paused. "Although... I seem to remember that I got my overall idea from you to begin with. And you got yours from me. Combine that with what just happened and..."
He blinked.
"Uhm. Darling, I think we're pretty much writing each other's movies at this point."
...Peck, that was actually not wrong. Conductor had gotten the whole 'robber and conductor team up against a killer' idea from Grooves. And Grooves had gotten the whole 'two rival stars color-coded red and blue which unites into purple" idea from Conductor.
And now Conductor had basically given Grooves his entire plot from beginning to end. And Grooves had practically single-handedly created Conductor's main antagonist.
...So... what did that mean for the end result? If he won with a movie that had been heavily influenced by Grooves... was that even his victory still? Would he end up with an award that was only partly his?
That wasn't going to work! He didn't like that!
"So... should we switch?", he asked. "How do ya feel about doing a western next year?"
"Not good, to be honest", Grooves admitted.
...Honestly, Conductor didn't like it either. He'd already built up a mental picture of everything he wanted out of this, he couldn't just hand it over to this peck neck. And then what would he do, take over Grooves' stupid color nonsense? What was he supposed to do with that?!
"Aye, me neither. But if that's the case, we need to set some rules now, otherwise there's gonna be an argument. And nae the fun kind."
"Agreed. I would say... that the award belongs to the winner and the winner only, but when the winner gives his acceptance speech, he has to mention that the loser helped. That seems fair to me."
Conductor clacked his beak in thought. That... didn't sound too bad in theory, but...
"That way, only the loser gets recognition", he pointed out. "Ah'll have to tell everybody ya helped me, but ya will nae have to tell people Ah helped ya."
"...So me winning is just flat-out not an option in your mind? I guess I should have expected that. But you are right. How about we also mention each other in the credits?"
"Ya mean like a 'special thanks to'? Aye, that would work."
And he offered his hand to Grooves.
"Wanna shake on it? Those are the rules and we're both gonna stick to them?"
Grooves took his hand and shook it, giving it a slight squeeze as he did so. Huh, he gave a nice handshake - firm, but not crushing, and his hands were surprisingly soft. Had they ever shaken hands before? Conductor caught himself lingering in the touch for longer than would have been necessary.
"Accepted. Pleasure working with you, my darling."
...
Conductor smirked, looking down at his notes. He grabbed his pen. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Grooves do the exact same thing. So many new things to work with, ways to expand, little details being filled in bit by bit...
Ideas, you had to write them down and feed and finetune them to make them grow... and this one was growing nicely.