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 Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 5:25 am
"Sure!" said Fish, running towards the tree. Even if he knew he was basically guaranteed to lose (Crowley got more practice), it was the competition that excited him. He grabbed hold of a low branch and began to pull himself up. It was a bit easier than he remembered it being.
"Doesn't hurt?" asked Fish, looking hesitantly down at Crowley. He wasn't sure if he knew how to fall right.
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:07 am
"Yeah," said Crowley, deciding it would be fair to at least give a demo (and a head start). He stood on the branch and jumped down, landing on the balls of his feet and bending his legs to absorb the impace. "Or you can just roll," he added, holding up one hand to cover his eyes from the sun. "I dunno, never tried that."
He started back up the tree, but this time he didn't stop until he was on the last decently sized branch before the top. Watching Crowley climb a tree was like watching a monkey, or a snake which was able to jump. Fish wasn't as far behind him as he'd expected, though; shortly enough they were both at the top. "So... What do we do now?" Lunch would be soon, but not that soon, and getting down a tree didn't take nearly so long as getting up.
Idly, he pulled out a pocket knife and started carving his initials into the bark of the tree.
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:12 am
"Dunno," said Fish, perching on a limb. He watched Crowley carve for a bit, then took the knife from him and made like he was going to carve his own initials into the trunk.
"Are my initials FP or PP?" he asked, and settled for just writing 'FISH'. He sat back and looked at the knife.
"Hey, have you ever seen one of those movies where they do the blood brothers thing? It's awesome."
He gave Crowley a look that said 'are you thinking what I'm thinking'.
"We should do that."
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:18 am
He sighed and kicked his feet, stirring up some leaves and brushing a spider off his shoulder while he thought. "FP," he opined with a snicker, but 'Fish' was good too, and he nodded with approval when he leaned around the trunk to look at it. That worked for him, but he didn't really have a nickname so he was stuck with 'CEH'. He was just 'Crowley', after all. Or "error" but who wanted to carve that into a tree?
"No," he said to the original question. "Don't watch many movies." He caught the look Fish sent him and lifted his eyebrows in return, signalling I think I'm thinking what you're thinking.
After a moment of thought, he grinned and nodded. That seemed like an awesome idea. "Cool! What do we do?"
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:40 pm
Fish leaned in conspiratorially. The branch and the crook of the tree were both fairly large and he was feeling pretty well balanced. He held up the knife and gestured to it with his other hand.
"We cut our palms," he explained patiently, like it was some sort of sacred ritual. "And we press them together so the blood mixes," he continued. "To make us like brothers."
He held the knife out to Crowley.
"Sometimes in movies they've got them cutting each other's hands," he added. "Maybe we should do that. Maybe that makes it even more important."
This had to be one of the better ideas they had ever had, thought Fish confidently.
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:48 pm
Well, he wasn't a girl about blood. It made him feel weird so he wasn't sure he liked it. The smell was... pungent. But he trusted Fish, and this sounded cool, so he'd do it. Whatever! Crowley was a man! Men didn't wimp out.
Right?
He took the knife gingerly. Never had he even thought about cutting another person. "Gotcha. Let's do this, then."
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:52 pm
"Okay," agreed Fish, speaking quietly. He looked down at his hands for a moment, flexed the right, and then stuck out the left.
"I'm a righty," he explained, "So."
He splayed his fingers and held his palm up for Crowley.
"Just cut it. Like, along the life line or something. I dunno. Not too deep," he said. "And then gimme the knife and I'll do yours. And then we put 'em together."
He was eager, and he was scared. But mostly he was just excited that he'd had such a good idea.
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:59 pm
Crowley nodded and hoped he wasn't going to turn green. That made sense - he'd ask Fish to do his left hand, too. That way it would be on the same hand. With a deep breath, he pressed the edge of the pocket knife against the base of Fish's thumb and drew it across to the base of the pinky. It wasn't deep, but blood welled where the blade cut anyway, and he winced in sympathetic pain.
With another deep breath - god the air smelled like iron and salt - he held out the knife, handle first, to Fish and offered up his left palm.
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:05 pm
Fish bit his lip to keep from crying out when the blade pierced his skin. God, it wasn't like breaking a bone at all. It was sharper. Searing.
He blinked several times to keep tears from welling in his eyes, and then took the knife from Crowley. Carefully, trying to concentrate on the blade rather than his aching hand, he drew it across his friend's palm from thumb to pinky. Deep enough but not too deep, he hoped. A line of blood appeared, dark against the pale flesh. (The difference in color between Crowley's palms and the rest of his skin had always amazed Fish.)
He put the knife aside and clasped Crowley's cut hand in his.
"s**t," he said, his first real curse word. "It hurts more than I thought it would."
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:19 pm
He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. That hurt! If he'd known to expect this, he would have-- still agreed to it, okay, it was the kind of badass thing an older guy would do, so he would've done it. Crowley knew he had probably turned a greenish color but he didn't feel too faint. It wasn't as bad when his own blood was added into the mix, though, and he was able to clasp Fish's hand and not wince (too noticably) at the pressure.
"Damn, me too," said Crowley, who had said a few curse words in private but never with anyone else around and didn't want to be left out of the profanity. "Climbing down's gonna suck."
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:24 pm
Fish looked around and realized the ground was awfully far away. "You're right," he said. "I didn't think of that."
"It's got to stop bleeding eventually, though," he said, looking at their clasped hands. Yeah, it hurt, but it was so cool! "The movies never say how long you're supposed to keep the cuts touching like this," he added, frowning. He tried to reason that this was not holding hands, because holding hands was for sissies. This was far more manly than holding hands.
"Think we'll get in trouble?" he asked.
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:40 pm
"Could rip up my shirt," said Crowley, whose shirt was already a bit ripped from getting up the tree. He had already brushed aside concerns of sissiness because he was not a sissy. He could backflip off walls. There were just no words for his awesome. Or something like that. "I come in all injured lots, too. So we can go down all normal and just, I dunno, put our hands in our pockets... or something... Mom would never know."
He paused at the question of trouble. "Maybe. A little bit."
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:45 pm
"I could take off my socks," said Fish, also thinking. "We could tie 'em around our hands. Bandages."
He nudged at the heel of his shoe with the toe of his other foot.
"We should probably keep it a secret," he nodded. "It's cooler that way. Like, even if people ask, we should be all mysterious about it."
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:55 pm
"We got the scars from a knife fight with sharks." He paused to think about that. "They were holding the knives in their teeth," he added, and he kicked off his shoes to get off his socks as he let go of Fish's hand. His palm was all bloody and he did his best not to look at it. The black sneakers bounced when they hit the ground, rolled a bit apart, and he grabbed one sock and knotted it around his hand. It would do until he got inside, he knew where the first aid kit was (in the top drawer of his dresser).
He started to swing down, sans his shoes and one sock, grunting with pain when he had to use his left hand. "It's good," Crowley yelled upwards, "Just hold on real tight with your other hand!"
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 9:03 pm
Fish kicked his shoes off as well, and his blue sneakers bounced to the ground beside Crowley's black ones. He looked at his hand - a bloody mess, and still bleeding, by the looks of it, and then pulled his sock off his right foot and tied it around his hand. He followed Crowley down the tree. Using his cut hand was definitely painful - he tried to compensate with the other, and made a clumsy go of it.
"Now we're really like brothers," he said with a smile once they were back on the ground.
His stomach rumbled. He craned his head towards the house.
"D'you think it's lunch yet?"
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