Work Text:
Paperwork. Paperwork was the end of him; Nothing quite crushed the soul like looking through numbers and trying to put them together in some coherent manner, alone in the only semi-usable room that wasn’t preoccupied by movie scenery or its gear. Where were the times when he could simply give a call and have that special three-layered light right at his doorstep the next day? At what point did every single thing include a form to fill, before and after?
The Conductor gave himself a second to sit straight and stretch his back, but that only made him look at the clock and get even more frustrated. The owls must have been ready with their make-up soon. And he, the supposedly responsible movie director, should have done this in his train.
Grooves - the Conductor dropped back to his unhealthy stooping as the name came by, like it way too often did- was probably feathers deep into his own shootings right about now. Getting ready to win that award that rightfully belonged to the Conductor, nonetheless. Getting ready to brag about it, too, if he knew about the troubled production his rival had at the start.
Or, as proven by the next two seconds, not spending his time doing any of those productive things.
There was a knock on the door, a heavy one with no sense of care or privacy. The studio had exactly two birds that had the strength and personality to do so, and the other, the Conductor had to admit, was already in that room.
“What?” He squawked, after doing his longest silent screech yet. As expected, Grooves took that as an invitation and swung the door open like no one’s business.
“Just me, darling.”
Just me, darling, the Conductor mocked, nothing in DJ Grooves was merely “just”, but ultimately he did nothing to stop the penguin from waltzing in like his mere existence was a permission to do so.
He took a look at him eventually, and realized he had a suit on. Silvery and glittery if you looked from the right light, but a suit it was nevertheless; it took another look to note the normal shoes and the pulled-back hair and then realize, that this was “the manager”, not a surprise wardrobe change. Grooves had talked non-stop of this role in his new movie in production.
“You know, I didn’t believe when they said you’d be here. You haven’t used an actual office in ages,” Grooves begun, to which the Conductor let out an involuntary snort.
“Like you’d know,” he shot back, even though Grooves wasn’t wrong; It was just easier to disagree when he was already in such a bad mood.
"Spit it out, I got stuff to do."
Grooves, being Grooves, simply laughed and made a seat out of the Conductor’s somewhat neatly organized work desk. The Conductor wanted nothing more than to push him off and hope he’ll hit the center of the earth, but came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth it; that, and his plans would have gone down the drain anyway, as something drew his eyes to the penguin’s chest and made him freeze. Dear heavens.
“Just came by to see a friendly face,” Grooves said, then leaned back to his arms like he owned the damn table. “And to borrow a pen. Mainly that.”
The Conductor should probably have had some questions to voice, taken how unbelievably stupid and out of the place it was to come all this way just to request that, but was that a tie on his pecking neck? Was it supposed to look like he’d never tied one before in his life? Oh my goodness. You can’t just throw it around your collar and truss it together.
“We had a little accident and now we’re kinda out of them,” the penguin continued. The Conductor decided to not focus on the tie for his own mental health and instead wonder what the peck you had to do to get into such an accident.
“I could go and search up the storage room, but why to do that, when I know you’re always so well prepared?”
The Conductor was not feeling well prepared at all at the moment, taking his whole paperwork dilemma, but he didn’t hate the flattery. Very well.
“Fine, ye inept catastrophe,” he growled. Grooves found something low to hum while the Conductor searched through his drawers and spent some serious amount of willpower to not sneak in another glance at Grooves’ neck.
“I want this back, then,” he stressed after somehow managing to find what needed through the mess, to which Grooves merely flashed an unpromising smile and snapped the pen out of his hand.
“Of course! When have I ever not returned something?”
The Conductor gave him his meanest, most dubious glare he could manage, and Grooves took that as a sign to jump off the desk and continue his day. The tie glinted alongside his movements and burnt itself into the Conductor’s brain.
“Thank you, darling. See you around!”
“…Hm.”
Had he ever even tied a tie before? If he said nothing, would it affect Grooves’ movie? Not that it made any difference to the Conductor. It wasn’t his business, after all, even if that little mistake brought some nasty tingling to his throat. Not his business, no reason to act.
Grooves was almost at the door when the Conductor gave up.
“Wait! Wait. Stop.”
Grooves turned around and the Conductor made his way to him, then clasped his hands together with a deep breath.
“What’s that?” He pointed, and Grooves tried to follow. Confusion.
“What?”
“This!” the Conductor grabbed the tie and shook it in front of Grooves’ eyes.
“What happened to this? Who hurt ye? Why does it look like yer nonexistent grandkids dressed you?”
For some bloody reason it took a moment more for Grooves to get what was going on, but when that happened, his peak opened into a small “o” and he had to rise his wing onto the tie for a better look.
“I think I did it well enough,” he claimed, laughed a little, but it didn’t ooze with confidence as it normally would. The Conductor inhaled and shook his head.
“Oh, bloody... Yer’ a complete embodiment of chaos,” he gnarled through his peak. There was a millisecond war he went through with himself, after which he stepped forward and slapped Grooves’ flipper away from his new working area.
“Just a pecking second.”
Grooves didn’t protest, merely kept his astonishment on, when the Conductor undid that oppressive knot and tied the whole package into a new, proper bind. Cross, fold, loop, fold, another loop and done.
“There. A disaster prevented,” the Conductor breathed out. He tightened the tie into perfection and stepped out of Grooves’ personal space.
“Now get out of me room. I have…” - the Conductor checked the clock- “Ugh, two minutes, if everything goes as precisely as it possibly could. Which it won’t, but whatever.”
Yet Grooves didn’t move, not right away, just watched his tie with both of his hands like it was something he had never before seen in his life.
“Would ya look at that,” he nearly gasped out. The Conductor waited, arms crossed, for Grooves to be ready with his staring.
“Thank you, darling. It sure is better.”
“Of course it is,” the Conductor hissed, then harried him back to the door before turning around.
“Go create new problems. I have work to do.”
Grooves’ steps on his way outside were light, just as his goodbye, where the Conductor could have very well heard some kind of satisfaction. Only Grooves had the talent to carry himself like that after such an encounter.
And maybe, maybe, the Conductor could have given himself a chance to enjoy his good deed of the day, if a minute after that another bird wouldn’t have popped in and declared that the actors were ready for the shooting. The Conductor hit his head to his papers.
—-
The Conductor wasn’t good at knocking doors when in a foul mood, so he kicked this one open and bathed a second in the confused stares of the fellows behind it.
“Grooves! One of you peck necks took Charlotta’s costume!”
There were only few penguins left in DJ Grooves’ dressing room, the annoyance himself included, who did not rise his gaze from the mirror nor lower his grip from the comb.
“Good morning, Conductor,” he said, brushed an eyebrow to his temple. The Conductor was this close biding a good morning back, but decided against it at the very last second; Instead, he stormed straight to the clothing racks.
“What do we pay to these birds, if they so pecking often put the costumes through a pecking mixer? I swear!”
No one raised any vocal concerns when the Conductor hauled the costumes back and forth like the rack was a picture book and mumbled something once in a while under his breath. The chatter of the penguins mounted back to its usual volume and a relative peace went on.
The Conductor had practically turned around the first rack and now moved to the next, when Grooves’ fancy manager suit shimmered at the corner of his eye.
“Hello there, sweetheart.”
“What’s up, peckface.”
“So, what does it look like?”
Since Grooves couldn’t mean much else, the Conductor assumed they were in the topic of his missing garment.
“Red leather suit. Has some gold in it.”
“Your leather or my leather?”
“What the bloody peck do ya think?”
Grooves chuckled, then moved to some another rack to mess about.
“Just to be sure, darling.”
He had to stuff his flipper into the depths of the costumes and slide them to the side at least twice before the Conductor realized that he was offering his help.
“No, peck off me territory, I got this!” He assured, maybe a bit too bristly than what the situation called for, but he was stressed and that was a good enough excuse. “I’m a parent, I was made for this bloody thing. Go get ready for yer stuff or whatever.”
“Oh, I am ready,” Grooves insisted and made no attempt to back out of the job.
The Conductor slowed down his own business, just to take a look at his co-worker and what he saw as ready; all nice and dandy he was, sure, almost a perfect replica of what pranced into his office the other day.
Almost.
“Ye’re not,” he huffed, then picked back up on his pace.
“You forgot yer tie.”
He expected an answer, but an uncomfortable silence followed instead. The Conductor shot him another look and saw him no longer meddling with the clothes, yet he still stood in front of them with the most uneasy posture. Alright then.
“What?” the Conductor sighed, made the hard decision to give his proper attention to Grooves. An almost inaudible “uhhhh” could be heard from the penguin’s mouth, before he too turned. He put a flipper into his pocket and pulled out a blue tie, all the while leering at his preparing actors like he was about to do something illegal. Which wasn’t out of the question, taking his inability to do anything sensible with ties.
When he spoke proper words again, they were almost a whisper.
“I… Still kinda can’t do it.”
The Conductor couldn’t decide which one them was the bigger idiot: The Conductor, who didn’t realize that this would still be a problem, or Grooves, who had not put forward the effort to make it less of a problem.
When that thought-caused prostration was over, steam begun piling up.
“Why do you even have it as a part of yer costume?” He rasped out, realized only afterwards that he had lowered his voice near to Grooves’ tone. Oh, why did he let his stupidity stick to him?
“I don’t know!” Grooves whisper-shouted back. “But now we’ve shot with it and it’d be terribly inconsistent if I did it so differently this time!”
The Conductor took a deep breath in, a deep breath out. He could have very well left Grooves alone with this little problem of his - what in the world would he get out of it? It wasn’t even a direct ask for help, Grooves had too much pride for that - but then he remembered that he had no self-control when it came to ties and animalistic instincts kicked in.
He exhaled and snatched the tie out Grooves’ hand, who barely had the time to gasp when the Conductor thew it around his neck and jerked him closer.
“Yer' a pecking disaster. You know that?"
“…It has its perks.”
The Conductor brushed that off, whatever it was supposed to mean, and focused on making quick work almost till the end of the tie; then a thought came by, and he had to think.
“You know what?” He said, undid his work while he was at it. Grooves’ peak hanged slightly, enough to signal confusion.
“Uhh…”
“You are gonna keep having this problem and I’m gonna keep having to act like yer bloody mother, so we’re gonna take two minutes of yer life and teach ye a thing or two, eh?”
“If you insist?”
"Oh, I do."
The Conductor took him by shoulder and pushed him out of the clothing jungle - a vanity was as good as any place to teach one of the most important skills in life - but as soon as they left, Grooves went stiff and fell behind. Conductor had no other choice than to stop as well.
“Grooves? I’m not doing it for you every pecking time.”
“Sweetheart, darling, I just realized there’s birds in this room.”
The Conductor looked around, saw the same five or so penguins that were there when he burst in, one of them snapped his stare back to himself when the Conductor gave him his but other than that, they were all pretty focused just on shouting at each other and getting the preparing done. If getting attention was what threw him off. Somehow.
“So?”
“So, It’s terribly embarrassing! I’m supposed to set up an example. Conductor, ties are a part of their dress-code.”
“Okay, rewind, embarrassing? Grooves, ye could marry me and yer crew would still praise the ground you stand on!”
The Conductor would have been mortified in Grooves’ current place, yes, but he wasn’t gonna say that out loud. Not when his natural instinct was to disagree with him, and especially when he was at least partially right; Grooves was the shine in the sun everywhere he went, life of the party even when there wasn’t any, it’d take a lot for his followers and fans and whoever to hold his mistakes above his glimmer even for a second.
That might have just got through to him, as he gave a quiet (maybe even a bit nervous?), laugh after apparently taking a second to progress what just had been said.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but I do have an influence.”
“Great! C’mon.”
Grooves not protesting this time was a big enough permission for the Conductor to push him back into the proper light and drag him closer to the nearest vanity.
“This is easier with a mirror,” he explained, placed the other hopefully somewhat comfortably face to face with it and his new teacher, “look that or look what I do, and yer gonna put it so damn deep into yer mind ye gonna see it in yer sleep, aye?”
“You do that then,” Grooves answered, still in his somewhat shy self, but he did try to smile right after. He glanced at the mirrors, the Conductor somewhat unintentionally followed the suit, and scared the previously staring penguin back to work with another glare. He cleared his throat.
He showed how each end of the tie should first be crossed, then folded, then twisted. Showed another twist, narrated out loud what he did, doubled over and twisted once more before unraveling the complete work for Grooves to do.
The bird started slowly, took turns in looking at the mirror and down to his collar, and did indeed manage to make his very own tie with little verbal help. The Conductor couldn’t help but be proud of himself.
Grooves admired his end result, from the mirror and from the hand and then together with his suit. Didn’t look bad, the Conductor had to admit.
“Well then,” Grooves gave a small laugh. It was a fairly nice sound, definitely better than watching him grow white out of thinking he’s somehow going to lose face.
“Thank you, sweetheart. Should I credit you in my movie? Want your face next to mine?”
The Conductor tried to hold his laugh, so whatever snorted out of his mouth was closer to a deflating balloon than anything else, but since no one commented on it, he decided to never think or bring it up again.
“Tempting, but I’ll pass. Now, if you excuse me, I was in here for something, wasn’t I?”
No birds gave them additional attention, or if they did, they were smart enough to keep it among themselves. Good, since there was only so many death glares the Conductor could shoot before he had to actually go and murder somebody to prove a point. Either way, Grooves wasn’t traumatized, and that’s all he really needed out of it. Apparently.
They found his costume, the Conductor realized he was as much as few minutes late from his imprecise schedule, and eventually made it out of the room. He had a moment or two to think on his own before he had to use his vocal personality on his own birds, and while that was happening, his adrenaline faded little by little and brought in the realization that he had, in fact, been friendly with Grooves in front of so many actors and may or may have not shattered a teeny tiny bit of his own image in front of them.
Luckily, and unluckily, he didn’t have to think on that much longer, as a pair of Grooves’ penguins walked past; they weren’t in costumes, he noted, then noted that they had ties, then remembered that Grooves had literally said that the ties were a part of their dress-code and that he could have very well, all this time, left the whole fiasco for the peck neck’s own crew members to handle.
—-
Guts were on fire, sweat drained down the fingers, lights shined too bright. The Conductor teared the tie off his neck and tried again.
The owls spoke, he talked with them, about actors and Gallant Blackswarl’s maiden display. At some point he had to snap how Johnny would get fired if they had the same kind of chaos with the lights next year; if something went wrong with the reviews, that was an excellent subject of blame - ugh, what was the deal with this tie!?
The award ceremony was the highlight of every year, it was like a second home to him, he had no reason to worry. After all, he created only masterpieces, the best of the best! Yet, now… He hadn’t been this nervous in ages.
Nervous, that sounded so wrong, he didn’t know how to be nervous! No, even though he lost the previous year and had some extra pride at stake, no, even when all the other contestants were in producing colored films as well and he was no longer at the very peak of the ever-evolving film technology, no, even when Grooves’ new production had been praised to the moon and back in every pre-review out there.
And still the fingers did not function, only trembled and refused to tie the damn tie properly, in front of all these owls, even, despite the fact he had done it million times and stood in that lobby million times more and he just need a bloody mirror, why didn’t he choose the right suit in time, everything is spewing into a pecking gulch-
“Nervous?”
The voice came so close from the Conductor’s side that he could almost feel Grooves’ breath in it, and for that he jumped and turned around. Grooves only laughed, because of course he did, this all was nothing but fuel for his stupid ego and the Conductor’s job was to put himself together and act like he did on daily basis.
“Bah! None of yer business!” he answered and turned back to his crew, where owl feathers perked upright and a handful pair of eyes watched him wide. What, was it a fight what they waited for?
Grooves hummed and walked back to the Conductor’s line of sight, and the Conductor, against all of his own will, noticed how fine he was that day. Sure, Grooves looked his very best more often than not, even when it wasn’t a festive situation, but today he had something very tuxedo-like and light and pristine and it did work for the Conductor’s tastes; he stopped thinking about it when his fingers continued their shaking and he felt his tie and how it didn’t go how it was supposed to.
“May you by any chance need a spare pair of hands? You’ve been suffering for some time now,” Grooves said, nudged his head towards the problem on the Conductor’s collar. The Conductor would have very much liked to set up into flames and fume, since he sure as peck knew his own ties thank you very much - he pulled them off better than he breathed air, the nerve on Grooves! - but at the same time the tying was harder than what it had been for the last few minutes and he was left with nothing but to drop it off with flying sparks.
“As if I care,” he growled, with the sort of hushed tone you did not hear from him on normal basis. Grooves gave a pleased smile.
He worked slower than the Conductor, at some point the owl had to even take his hands from his pockets and his stare from everything else and hold the tie so it wouldn’t slip from Grooves’ grasp, but the progress wasn’t painful and the end result was pretty. To be honest, the Conductor was surprised. Positively, because a part of him was happy for the successful work, and negatively, because that’s how he had to experience everything at the moment. So he told himself, at least.
Grooves beamed. Might have been proud, too.
“Well, thanks,” the Conductor huffed, it was probably proper.
“You didn’t make a mess. Congrats.”
“Only the very best for our beloved Conductor.”
Grooves took a few steps back, and the Conductor got an another good look of him. There was something familiar in his suit, he realized, but it didn’t look like any garment he remembered him wearing on previous award ceremonies. At least he had, for sure, never put on a tie in one before.
“How did ya throw this one together?” He almost snickered, almost, as he still wanted to be mad but somehow couldn’t be.
Grooves, on his part, followed the Conductor’s gestures and looked at his suit like it was the first time he was doing so.
“Oh? Since the Manager’s character is such a hit, we thought I could take some pointers from the guy for tonight.”
Ah. Now the Conductor remembered. Grooves smiled again, wider, and swayed himself from side to side.
“Oh, don’t say you like it?”
“ And what if I do?”
The words came before the Conductor could consult them, made him wish for a time travel trip the very second after. Too bad no amount of wishing withdrew his mistake nor stopped it making its way to Grooves, who beamed like he was made out of stars.
“Conductor! My, two compliments in the same day?” He gasped with a pleasant laugh, and okay, maybe something in it made the Conductor happy for a lone second, but luckily grumpiness was right behind the door and he didn’t need to suffer from it longer than that.
“Don’t test yer luck, Grooves,” he snorted back, tried to look like he hadn’t been in a semi-good mood just about now. But Grooves knew him better than the Conductor would have ever wanted to allow, he saw right through him, smiled more as he did.
“Oh, darling, do not worry. I’ll accept these memories in their twos. Any more and my heart might explode.”
The Conductor’s heart might have just exploded as well, without any reason, it just felt like that. Conductor couldn’t explain. He couldn’t explain anything.
They talked a moment longer, the Conductor forgot how it started but it ended up in debating who would be responsible for changing the light in the room 223 back at the studio, till a some bird came in and requested Grooves somewhere else.
“Suppose they’ll open the doors soon enough,” he said as his goodbye and tipped his invisible hat.
“May the best bird win. That being me, of course.”
“In yer most outlandish dreams, peck neck.”
They shared a small laugh, together, excuse you, he couldn’t help himself - and then he was gone in his fancy suit and his fancy tie and the Conductor couldn't help but feel just a teeny tiny bit deserted.
His owls’ tuned down chatter jingled in his ears and he remembered their existence, and the moment he turned back to them they went quiet and still as if a single wrong move could set the whole place into flames. A little staring contest was held, during which the Conductor realized he really had no way of explaining why he just ignored them to talk with Grooves, and eventually the birds came into a silent agreement to not talk about it. Ever.
They continued their discussion about Gallant Blackswarl, but it wasn’t the same anymore; the nervousness was gone, the Conductor's mind kept bouncing into million other things, and he simply couldn’t stop tampering with his new fancy tie once in a while.