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 Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 7:48 pm
Bix woke with a start, gasping and rigid, trembling as his entire body held like a coiled spring. It took a manic moment, breathing ragged with anxiety, for him to realize the nightmare had ended. He wasn't on a slab. He wasn't in the cooler. He was in bed with his girlfriend in his room as a tropical breeze blew in from the window above their heads. Bix relaxed into the sheets but they were damp now. Thankfully Ceres slept like a rock because she'd dream right through him extracting himself from her, slipping out of bed and pulling on a pair of mesh basketball shorts. The albino padded across his floor and out. He'd have a hard time sleeping in the damp spot, and the nightmare was hard to shake on the few nights he still had it. Bix headed down the stairwell and towards the main doors. He needed some air.
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:06 pm
If he needed company, too, he'd find it. Taym jumped like a startled jackrabbit when he rounded the corner of the dorms--going the same way Bix was, apparently--and almost ran smack into what, for a split second, looked an awful lot like a ghost. Sometimes Taym used Fiona as a flashlight. Luckily his night eyes were in working order tonight, because it looked very much like he would have lashed out with her without thinking. Instead, he made an undignified noise in his throat, closed his eyes, and leaned against the wall for a second with his hand on his forehead, attempting to recover. "Bix," he managed, somewhat strangled. "You don't seem like the prowling-around-at-night type." This was faintly accusatory, as though Bix were to be blamed for Taym's inability to stay off the edge of his own nerves.
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:26 pm
Lucky for Taym, Bix jumped like a small child when anything surprised him. Not only did he jump but he yelped, a small high pitched sound that sort of died into a mewling when he realized what had happened. "S'funny.." He took a step backward on his heel, "You look exactly like the type." He smiled half-heartedly and ran a hand through his fluffy hair. For once it was devoid the attention he normally spent to make it look perfectly tousled and instead was completely flat one side, and sticking out all over on the other. "Just uh.. trouble sleeping. Happens sometimes." He pointed towards the doors out. "Get some air?" Bix walked past the skinnier man without further comments, not even acknowledging that he was barely dressed and Taym may not be okay with a burn scarred shirtless guy.
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:50 pm
The accusation, which might have been met with hostility from nearly anyone else, got him a yellow-toothed grin instead. Taym was even less likely to notice the hair (his own having gotten the chop was nearly forgotten, even) than he was the fact that his companion was half-naked. Although Taym was fully-clothed--right down to the coat and scarf, over a shirt that might look familiar--he was accustomed enough to other people's lack of inhibitions to not think twice. With Bix, that is. Bix, who had a girlfriend, and who had seemed keen on putting girls into mud pits. His biases might have been in evidence, otherwise. Taym's definition of "fresh air" might have been different from Bix's, because he was no sooner outside than he was fishing for his cigarettes, trembling hands fighting with his matches. "I'd think more people around here would have trouble sleeping than apparently do, given the job. Unless they just don't take it out on prowling around like we do." Instinctively, out of old habit and not because he thought he'd accept, he extended the box towards Bix.
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 9:16 pm
"Ah.. no thanks." Bix pretty much glowed like a ghost in the moonlight. He waved away the box and moved to a low wall with the railing in it and hoisted himself easily to sit. The Sun hunter scratched the back of his neck, the burns scars fully visible now and extending over his entire back down to his waist. The scars looked almost purple in the strange darkness and moonlight. His shorts slipped low, the band of SUPERMAN boxers just visible below a rather long and jagged abdominal scar. "Well I think the trainees who are spooked are too embarassed.." He smirked. "Trying to be tough. Trying to fit in. And the old heads are either used to it.. or stay in out of habit. I.. aheh.. I guess am not immune." He scratched his side and then unprompted, "Dragon fire.." he pointed to his back. "Reaper's spear.." He pointed to his abdomen. "Oh and Caelius.." He lifted his arm to reveal a very obvious knife scar along his rib cage. "Though I don't remember but I mean.. are we surprised really?" There was a bit of routine about his cataloging of scars, with just a slight measure of showing off. It was Bix's own style of establishing himself, once more, as a serious hunter. It was self reassurance as much as anything. "What's got you up?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 9:19 pm
He had the decency to exhale away from him, and to shift downwind when it didn't do much good, eyeing him sideways through the smoke. His face, as he took in the scars, was expressionless. As was his voice, when he answered. It was the same sort of careful non-comment he'd had when Bix had demonstrated his weapon's shield, save that now it was muted, less obvious, more studied. More resigned, perhaps. There was no shock, only a dull, apathetic assessment of what a portentous thing it was that everyone around him was covered in scars.
"Wondering when I'm due for mine," he said drily. Which wasn't strictly true, but it was better than the truth. "Was just telling someone the other day when I finally got them they'd probably be from Caelius. It was a joke. Now I'm reconsidering."
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Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 10:09 am
"HA! Nope.. not a joke." Bix glanced down at the wound and touched it momentarily. "I actually don't remember it but they tell me it was him. Sort of an insanity.. merged with weapon to become giant crazy killing machine monster thing.. you know. One of those moments." Yeah. One of those moments. What that led to was what gave him nightmares now. Not scary monster nightmares or chasing or falling.. nope. Just cold metal and a toe tag. Bix looked back out at the campus. It was nice at night and you couldn't go wrong with 'tropical island' generally. Without the fog it was almost picturesque. Randomly he just said, "I miss the fog." And then he turned back to Taym, another unconnected statement, Bix was hardly one for linear thinking anyway, "So are you just one of those people who doesn't sleep a lot?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 11:07 am
Taym was one of those people with a tendency--possibly frustrating, depending on the audience--to pause before he spoke, as though he were turning the words over and examining them for cracks. "It's too quiet," he said finally. "I never sleep much at the best of times but I'd kill for traffic or crickets or... something. Wish it would rain again." He glanced over at Bix, expressionless, but again with the habitual eye avoidance, the careful looking away; even when Bix had been demonstrating his scars Taym had looked at him sideways and like he was leery of being yelled at for it. "Unnatural to sleep in the ******** silence. Can't possibly help with the being spooked situation. You don't have any white noise and your head tries to fill it up." He made a distracted movement of his cigarette, idly indicating the empty air, some imagined subject. "I guess when you've been here long enough the only s**t it has to fill it up with isn't the most expedient for getting a good night's sleep. I'm sure I'll find out." He already knew. The things he'd had before the Island weren't great for filling up that silence, either, but Bix didn't know that yet and Taym realized he both did and didn't want him to know.
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Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 7:58 am
"I grew up in the boonies. Nothing but crickets out there so I guess I'm okay with the quiet. And to be honest? It sounds awful I guess but the stuff we do and see.... only some of it really stays with you. The ghosts and ghouls and monsters all kind of run together.. it's the real shocking things, few and far between and mega ******** up..." Bix didn't use the F word often, but only for lack of need. ******** up was really the only accurate way to describe these things. "..mostly horseman related, but they are the things that creep up. When I'm stressed or especially worn out and weak." Bix sighed. "I think running the tournament must have run me down. Had my recurring morgue nightmare." And brushing past that, "Did you have fun in the tournament by the way?" He brightened a bit for a new topic, though he didn't expect much 'fun exhuberance' from Taym on the matter. Rejam pokemon is eating my life save me
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Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:38 pm
iloveyouDIE i am jealous and wish it were eating mine T__T He eyed him for a second at the morgue comment, but the obvious change in subject was enough. He went with it, mulling the words, trying to find something nice to say, which didn't come naturally. "I think people are going to talk about that for a long time," he said finally. "I feel like organizing something like that must be a bit like herding cats, and it went off without a hitch. Impressive." Which was awkward, but the best he could do. A sudden grin. "I hope you won't take it as a personal insult that I was glad to be eliminated in the first round to spare myself further public humiliation. Friend of mine had a better run, but she hails from your division, so." Friend. The word felt alien in his mouth, the grin dissipating instantly. "More tits in the mud pit next time, though," he added.
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