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 Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:23 am
Bloodstone was furious.
His attempt at helping Faustite had gone exactly as he’d expected -- up in ******** flames. He’d wasted time on researching the volatile half-youma’s symptoms, gave him the results, and Faustite was still an ungrateful piece of burning s**t.
In his frustration, Bloodstone threw a scorched book against the wall, letting the ash from the pages burst into dust.
He could have ordered in youma to clean up the disaster of the office that Faustite had ******** set on fire, but he hated youma almost as much as he hated that beady eyed little b*****d of fire and piss poor attitude.
“Don’t just ******** stand there and sweep all this up,” Bloodstone barked at his subordinates. He’d called in all three to help. Carnallite and Jasper he expected to be useless, but Roselite was always helpful.
And Bloodstone hated that, especially when Roselite was recruited to help trash like Faustite. The b*****d was going to die soon, anyway so why bother?
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:30 am
Roselite stood in the doorway, staring around with wide, horrified eyes — one of his more frequently worn expressions, sure, but he thought it was definitely warranted this time. The office was a disaster. Bloodstone threw a ruined book at the wall, and Roselite winced.
What else had been ruined? He hoped nothing important.
“Um… what happened?” Roselite asked.
There was a small supply closet adjoined to the office from which Roselite retrieved a broom. He dutifully began sweeping, not so much because he’d been ordered to, but because… well… the office really did need cleaning.“No way in hell am I cleaning up your mess,” Carnallite said.
She’d come in with a single take out cup of coffee. Bloodstone never deserved any — he had Roselite to make a cup for him anyway — and Roselite and Jasper weren’t her responsibility.
None of this was her responsibility. She had more important things to do. Hunting Senshi, rooting out traitors, that sort of thing.
“Get a maid,” Carnallite argued. “Or better yet, do it yourself. You’re a big boy. Didn’t Mommy Dearest teach you how to clean up after yourself?”Jasper made no move to assist. As a Lieutenant, he was the only one unable to teleport, so he’d been summoned, which meant he’d been whisked away in the middle of something very important.
Napping. He’d been napping.
He found a spot against the wall and leaned back, arms crossed over his chest, watching Bloodstone go on a tear. Jasper cared about as much as Carnallite did, which was not at all. He hadn’t joined the Negaverse to be Bloodstone’s servant.
That’s what Bloodstone had Roselite for, apparently. Being Roselite’s subordinate didn’t mean Jasper had to follow suit.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:30 am
Bloodstone turned a loathing glare on Carnallite. He didn’t care if he’d known her since college -- same with Jasper. How could they just stand there when their superior officer was giving them a direct order?
And Carnallite wondered why Bloodstone had Roselite prompted before her. Because she was an arrogant b***h.
“Faustite is what happened,” Bloodstone seethed in Roselite’s direction. At least he was helping, instead of the miserable pieces of s**t that were just standing around and talking down to him.
“If you’re not going to help, then get the ******** out,” he barked at the two. He wasn’t about to treat them with gossip or whatever they wanted to call it if they were just going to be insubordinate.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:34 am
Roselite opened his mouth to speak, then closed it immediately.
He tried not to take Bloodstone’s seething personally, but Roselite knew his General was still furious about his decision to help with Faustite’s last mission. (Not that Roselite had been much help in the end, but he tried to be proud of himself for it anyway. It was his first mission without Bloodstone, and he’d come back from it relatively unscathed.)
Instead of speaking, Roselite stared around sadly, taking in the state of things. He knew what Faustite was capable of, but a trashed office was a mild inconvenience at best. Roselite was far more concerned about what had caused Faustite to burn anything. Surely this level of damage hadn’t been an accident.Carnallite snorted, then loudly sipped her coffee.
“You called us here. Now you want us to leave?”
She smirked, amused by Bloodstone’s anger. Carnallite didn’t shy away or wince in the face of it. She wasn’t Roselite. Bloodstone didn’t scare her. She wasn’t in awe of him. He might be her superior officer, but he was her friend first and foremost. She liked to think that gave her some leeway with him, whether Bloodstone would admit it or not.
“What did you do?” she asked.
Carnallite didn’t know much of Faustite, had been on a couple of missions with him before, but hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know him in any meaningful way. She did know Bloodstone, however, and he could be a pretentious pain in the a**.Jasper sighed, but didn’t move from his spot against the wall.
He had no idea who Faustite was. Thought he might have heard the name before. Maybe read it. Could’ve been around when Roselite mentioned something about a mission with him. Jasper didn’t trust Roselite’s judgment; he was too soft, too friendly, too willing to do anything for anyone who showed him an inkling of kindness. He didn’t trust Bloodstone either. Bloodstone had a habit of rubbing people the wrong way.
Case in point, the b*****d blackmailed Jasper into joining the Negaverse. Apparently Bloodstone saw no reason to recruit beyond his circle of friends.
Which was likely why none of his subordinates bothered to follow his orders — other than Roselite, but, again, Roselite’s judgment was questionable.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:35 am
“I called you here to help me clean up this mess,” Bloodstone snapped at Carnallite. “Why should I tell you what happened if you’re just going to stand around?”
Nope. He wasn’t going to do it. He would tell Roselite later if he wanted to know, but with Carnallite and Jasper being absolutely ******** useless, he wasn’t going to give them any more reason for them to still not do anything.
“Pick up a damn broom or start cleaning up the debris and maybe I’ll tell you! But I didn’t do anything except offer assistance that was clearly not needed. And I get this in return.”
He picked up another book and tossed it onto a pile. He didn’t exactly care about the books. It was the principle of the matter.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:37 am
“You should take our insubordination as a sign to stop recruiting your friends,” Carnallite said. “If you think I care about whatever little tantrum caused this mess enough to clean up after you, think again.”
She sipped more of her coffee and dropped herself into Bloodstone’s chair, propping her feet up on his desk with all the disrespect he deserved from her.
“You’ll tell Roselite and Roselite will tell us with enough prodding.”“I won’t,” Roselite said, but his voice was too quiet to sound truly confident.“You will,” Carnallite challenged him. He flinched, which she motioned to with a wave of her hand as if it proved her point.
“So you may as well get it off your chest,” she told Bloodstone. “Rumors’ll be flying any second now. You’ll want to get ahead of them if you don’t want to look bad.”“What were you assisting him with?” Jasper asked. Office destruction clearly wasn’t intended to be part of the equation, yet it happened anyway. “Not paperwork, obviously. You never do your paperwork. Everyone knows that’s what you have Roselite for.”Roselite’s sad frown took on an edge of defeat and misery, but he kept sweeping. They were right anyway, weren’t they? He did Bloodstone’s paperwork. He made Bloodstone’s coffee and kept the office in order. His job as “personal assistant” was more for Bloodstone’s benefit as a General than for anything he might need in his civilian life.
It didn’t always bother Roselite, but the longer he spent trying to find his feet as a Captain, the more he wondered why he’d been promoted at all.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:37 am
Bloodstone snarled at Carnallite in response. They were useless. Some friends. They didn’t care about anyone but themselves. He should have just had Roselite help him and not bother with Carnallite or Jasper.
“Get your feet off my desk,” he snapped, moving over to the desk so he could physically shove her feet off. He was clearly not in the mood to play these games.
And at this point, he didn’t care if they all transferred out of his command.
Bloodstone shot a glare at Jasper as well.
“Why would I look bad, and why would I care if I did? Faustite is the one who exploded into a fiery rage when I told him the research I did suggested he wasn’t going to survive much longer.”
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:41 am
Carnallite let out a “tsk” at Bloodstone’s shove, but put her feet right back on his desk as soon as he’d turned his ire on Jasper.Roselite stopped sweeping. He turned to look at Bloodstone, brow furrowed in distress, sad frown still firmly in place.
He’d known Bloodstone had been helping Faustite with something, had glanced over a bit of the research when he happened to stumble upon it, but he hadn’t known what to make of it. He was no doctor, nor was he a youma expert, whereas Bloodstone was the former and probably could be the latter if he chose to follow that path. Roselite inevitably left it alone, trusting Bloodstone to put his best effort into it.
Maybe that trust had been misplaced.
“H-How did you share the news with him?” Roselite asked.
He had so many more questions. Was Bloodstone certain? How long did Faustite have? Why wouldn’t he survive? What was wrong? Did Kamacite know? Yuuri was going to be so upset.
Roselite kept those questions to himself for the time being. One thing at a time, he told himself.
His hands tightened around the broom. He swallowed heavily, dispirited.Jasper lifted a brow but didn’t otherwise comment. He was fairly certain he knew exactly how Bloodstone had shared the news. His bedside manner was atrocious.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:43 am
This was stupid. Why were these freeloaders just standing around doing nothing and he was the one still sharing what happened?
But Roselite asked a question, and the only reason Bloodstone tried helping Faustite in the first place was for Roselite’s sake.
He gritted his teeth, but couldn’t turn his glare on Roselite. Instead, he focused it on another burned book.
“Told him he was going to burn out and he’d want to consider writing his will,” he shrugged, clearly not thinking there was anything wrong with that. He wasn’t sugarcoating anything or giving Faustite false hope. None of those wishy-washy maybes.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:45 am
Carnallite snorted and waved her hand around, motioning to the state of his office as if to say, Then this is what you get.
“Do they not teach manners in med school?” she asked.Roselite didn’t drop his broom, but it was a near thing. He kept a firm grip on it. If he didn’t, his hands might shake. Roselite swallowed again, attempting to clear a lump from his throat, but it stayed stubbornly in place.
He knew Bloodstone could be cruel. He had no delusions about that. Bloodstone was cold and ruthless. It was what made him a good agent, suited to his job in Special Operations. He was spiteful and uncaring. Roselite had no idea how he’d even earned any sort of care or affection from Bloodstone. There didn’t seem to be much of that to go around.
He knew these things, yet he still found himself disappointed. He still experienced a flare of anger, because he also knew that Bloodstone could express something like kindness if he wanted to.
“You told him to—... Why would you—... Is that how you—...”
In his distress, Roselite stumbled over his words worse than usual.Jasper sighed. Bloodstone was an a*****e and Roselite was upset about it. What else was new? Jasper shouldn’t care, none of it had anything to do with why he’d allowed them to lure him into the Negaverse, but Roselite had been kind and helpful to him as a superior officer. He deserved some support against Bloodstone.
“You couldn’t’ve thought of a better way to share the news?” Jasper asked. “Did it not occur to you that this—” He waved around the office, as Carnallite had. “—might be the end result?”Carnallite twisted Bloodstone’s cushy office chair from side to side. “You think he’ll burn out faster after this little explosion?”Roselite gripped his broom so hard his knuckles turned white.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:47 am
“It’s not my fault he can’t control himself,” Bloodstone shrugged, just as cruel and uncaring as everyone assumed he was. Faustite meant nothing to him. He was just another stepping stone, for all he cared. Once Faustite was gone, they would have less to pick from to promote.
However, Bloodstone realized that calling all three of them there to gang up on him was a poor choice. He thought they would have a sliver of loyalty to him, but even now Roselite looked like he was having second thoughts.
He would probably rather have Faustite as a commanding officer.
Might as well take advantage of it, since it wouldn’t last for long.
“I was asked to share my research, not to hold hands,” he scoffed, no guilt in his voice.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:51 am
“You ever heard the phrase fake it until you make it?” Carnallite said. “You don’t have to care. You don’t have to hold hands, but I don’t know, telling someone seems like you’re gonna burn out, might want to write your will probably wasn’t the best way to break the news. Especially when that someone has been a General longer than you and can still burn all your s**t.”In the face of so much disregard, something in Roselite snapped.
“Shut up!”
Roselite threw his broom to the floor.
He hadn’t meant to shout. He hadn’t meant to say anything at all. But he could imagine what the conversation between Bloodstone and Faustite might have been like. He could imagine what Bloodstone might have thought. Bloodstone’s concerns were not for people, not even for the forces of the Negaverse. He cared about himself, and his goals, and what was necessary to accomplish them. Bloodstone probably looked at Faustite and saw an obstacle, whose removal might even prove beneficial.
But Faustite was a person. Just because he was on fire and part youma didn’t mean he didn’t have fears and emotions and trauma.
“You’re both heartless!” Roselite said.
If he were younger, he might have stomped his foot.Carnallite snorted and rolled her eyes. “I don’t see what reason any of us have to care.”
She wasn’t going to clean Bloodstone’s office. She wasn’t going to fuel Bloodstone’s already inflated ego by commiserating with him, either, but that didn’t mean she cared all that much about what happened to Faustite. They’d be losing one of their more active Generals, sure, but agents got replaced all the time.“I don’t want to talk to you!” Roselite countered. Even with his temper flaring, he couldn’t look at Carnallite, didn’t want to see the smug expression on her face. She was careless and insensitive and sometimes Roselite just didn’t like her. He kept his eyes averted, fighting against the tears that built in them. “Get out if you’re just going to sit there!”Jasper still hadn’t moved. His brow lifted higher, but he gave no further sign that he was surprised. In his six months as an officer, Jasper had never heard Roselite raise his voice, had never even seen him get angry. (Granted, Jasper didn’t spend a lot of time in the Dark Kingdom.) Roselite was usually quiet and eager to please. He shied away from Carnallite, who picked on him for no other reason than that she could.
In Jasper’s opinion, Carnallite deserved a bit of push back. She was as bad as Bloodstone.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:52 am
Dark eyes narrowed as he turned to look at Roselite. He was already tired of Carnallite and Jasper doing nothing, but for Roselite to snap like that…
He was clearly upset, and while Bloodstone’s only reason for helping Faustite in the first place was because Rose would have wanted him to, he was clearly earning no favors from the time he spent doing so.
“At least you finally see us for what we are,” he said lowly. He didn’t care if Roselite thought he was heartless. Maybe he was. Who really cared? Roselite had been tricked into thinking… what? That Bloodstone cared about him? Was that why he stuck around?
“Get out, both of you,” Bloodstone said again to Carnallite and Jasper. He didn’t care where they went. He would think twice next time he thought he needed them for anything.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 11:02 am
Roselite liked to think he’d always seen Bloodstone for what he was. Cold, distant, prone to violence. Bloodstone was capable of terrible things. He had no sympathy for their enemies, didn’t even have much sympathy for their allies. He followed orders, but in whichever way he chose to interpret them. Bloodstone didn’t care much for protecting the Earth, aside from what doing so could offer him in terms of success and power.
But he was kind to Roselite, in his own way. He helped Roselite through a panic attack. He gave Roselite a bracelet for his protection. He brought Roselite into his home, saw in him something no one else had, enough that Bloodstone recruited him personally. He gave Roselite a purpose.
Maybe all of that had been for his own benefit, too.
“No!” Roselite said. He couldn’t stop the tears from building in his eyes when Bloodstone narrowed his like that. “You leave! You and Carnallite! Get out of my office!”“Your office?”
Carnallite smirked. Roselite’s tantrum amused her. He was like a little mouse squeaking furiously at a pair of lions.“That’s enough,” Jasper said, before Carnallite could take it any further. Maybe it was loyalty to his direct superior. Maybe he was just that annoyed with his friends. “Don’t you have work to do?”“Isn’t that what we keep you around for?” Carnallite shot back.Jasper leveled her with a stare, unmoved.Carnallite rolled her eyes again. She turned to Bloodstone and said, “Your houseboy’s gotten too feisty for a pet project.”
Bloodstone could deal with him. Bloodstone was the one who brought Roselite in against her advice. Roselite wasn’t cut out for this. He was too soft.
Carnallite teleported away before anyone could answer.Jasper finally pushed himself away from the wall. He retrieved the broom Roselite had thrown, but did nothing with it, merely kept it in hand while he waited to see how the rest of this encounter would play out. He couldn’t leave without assistance. With Carnallite gone, that left Bloodstone or Roselite.
He wasn’t all that interested in accepting charity from Bloodstone at the moment.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 11:03 am
.Bloodstone continued to look at Roselite with narrowed eyes, his jaw set tight as he watched him.
There were a lot of things he could have done. Could have punished all three of them for insubordination. Maybe it would have been better that way. Maybe they would show him an ounce of respect at that point.
Why were they friends with him in the first place? Carnallite mocked him, Jasper only cared about the information Bloodstone had about Aquamarine. Roselite clearly had more loyalty for Faustite.
He let go of the burnt book in his hand, letting it fall to the floor by his feet.
“Enjoy it,” he growled as he turned to stalk towards the door. He could have teleported, but he apparently needed to find a new office.
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