Lenore's Room | Page 45 | Bedrooms | Guild Forums

Raloi

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Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 6:02 pm

The Visit

It was unsurprising that along with being fed up with a working life, Crow was very lonely. She'd come very close to considering quitting her damned job, now that it ate up almost every bit of her time - she hadn't seen her family or friends in what felt like weeks. She was certain someone could have committed murder in her house and she wouldn't have known about it unless she tripped over the body.

Given her record, that was probably the only way she would find out.

To give herself a break, she'd treated herself to a day off today. And her first stop was, in her opinion, the only thing worth doing anyway.

"Liam? Rabid? Hello?" she called, knocking on the door.

"Rabid, no. Liam, yes," came to singular reply from where else but the couch, "Come on in. It's open. As usual."

He shifted uncomfortably and once again obsessively checked to make sure his legs were still there. He wanted desperately to see Crow, but he wasn't exactly in the physical state of feel comfortable with...ah, screw it. He wanted to see his...

...girlfriend?

Pushing the door open and restraining herself from bouncing inside, Crow made an immediate beeline for Liam. She wanted to touch him, a hug, a kiss, something, but knew in the state he was in a sneak-attack of physical contact might startle the living daylights out of him. She contented herself to perch on the arm of the couch and look at him.

"Hey," she said, half-reaching out for him anyway.

In his odd state of not-quite-seeing, Liam smiled and reached out for Crow, hitting an arm and following it to a hand. He intertwined his fingers in his, and used his free arm to move closer.

"Missed you."

Delighted at the contact, Crow held his hand and slipped off the couch arm, comfortably close to him.

"I missed you too," she said. "So much. I hate not getting to see you..."

Realizing the sugary sap that practically oozed out of her words, Crow grinned and decided she wholeheartedly didn't care. She was happy, goddammit.

Liam maneuvered behind Crow a bit, wrapping his other arm 'round her shoulder and resting his head on her shoulder. He closed his eyes and sighed again.

"This sucks, yanno that? I mean...not this...the whole...big scheme of suckiness." After speaking he leaned up slightly and kissed her on the cheek.

Liam was never one for physical displays of affection. He hadn't the slightest idea as to what was 'wrong' with him.

Smiling at the kiss, Crow rested her head against the couch and looked up at the ceiling.

"I know. Life sucks in general, that's the point I guess," she said. "You're only allowed so much happiness before something either kicks you in the teeth, stabs out an eye or lays a pox upon your household."

She paused for a second, grinning slightly for no reason at all.

"I mean, I guess so. Some people's lives are made of of fluff and sparkles, the bastards."

"Psh. Fluff and sparkles," Liam snorted, "This could totally be considered fluff and sparkles, were I not a crip. I've decided that God or Fate or The Great Eel...whatever. He-slash-she-slash-it hates us. Lots." He removed his arms and reached arond Crow's waist, hands meeting in the front.

God damn it, he must be delirious. Craving physical contact that didn't involve the exchange of bodily fluids? Huh...

"This still qualifies as at least sparkles," Crow said, leaning against Liam and resting her hand on top of his, enjoying the close proximity more than ever. "And..heh. Of course God hates us. I can name three divinities offhand who would like to smite me just for breathing."

"Thass okay," Liam laughed slightly and patted the nearest appendage, which happened to be Crow's stomach, "We're all undead and stuff. We automatically fail at life." He kissed her cheek again and sighed again.

"Wish I could see you."

It wasn't just a cheesy sentiment either. He really did. He couldn't completely remember what she or anyone else, for that matter, looked like.

Crow laughed.

"Twice undead for me," she chirped. "It's like I have a restart button. I fail and win at the same time."

Her smile faded slightly as she looked at Liam's face, at his eyes. For the thousandth time she wished she could do something to help him...

"I wish you could too," she said. She brushed a hand down Liam's cheek, fingers trailing. "But...I mean, you can still...hear me. That's something, right? I guess..."

Liam made a strangled sound and rather quickly raised one of his hand's to catch Crow's, clenching it as gently as possible and pulling it away.

"That's a lot," he nodded, eyes flickering to one side as if he could actually see, and then trailing back, slightly off-centre, "but I don't know how long that'll last either."

Realizing she'd done something she shouldn't have, Crow blushed slightly and withdrew her hand.

"It'll last long enough," she said firmly, distracting herself from dwelling on her mistake, whatever it had been. "By then if anything else starts we'll have some way to help you. I know we will."

Her blind optimism aside, Crow wondered what state Liam would be in by the time they figured anything out. If anything could be figured out.

Liam, realizing that he probably had given teh wrong impression in his hand-removal, tightened his embrace to try and compensate. He had the gnawing urge to be snarky and ramble on about drug dealers and murder in response to the optimistic babblings...but, no. Not with Crow.

"Thanks, love," he said, "I know you will." He knew she wouldn't but, regardless, nuzzled the side of her neck, eyes closing again. If he could just try and picture her...Christ, it was hard...

Blushing hotter at the pet name on principle alone, Crow ignored the fact he was only humoring her optimism. Sometimes denial wasn't such a bad thing...

She smiled as he touched her, trying to push the usual worry out of her mind. It wouldn't do to be anxious right now, she'd have plenty of time for it later.

"Maybe, maybe not," she said, voice slipping in volume. "Who knows."

"What's wrong?" Liam asked, half-grinning. His eyes had gone, but that only made his ears proportionately better.

Or so the books said.

"You okay?"

He pulled away slightly, just in case he'd done something wrong and mentally cursing himself as if he had.

Crow made a small sound that was half a squeak.

"Wrong?" she said quickly, ignoring the crack in her voice. "No, no, nothings...I mean, there's not...no."

Feeling like an idiotic fourteen year old struggling with a schoolyard crush, Crow forced herself to behave normally. It wasn't much of a step up, but it was something.

"Nothings wrong. I just...I don't usually...touching," she said, ending feebly. "You're the only one that's really ever this close with me. That's all."

Oh, smoothly handled, you dip, she said to herself in exasperation. He's gonna think you're a moron or a prude. Yeesh.

"Yeah-huh," Liam nodded and snickered, "Same here." Well, mostly, anyway.

Without having to pin her down and put a gun to her temple.

Deciding that he had to keep up his usual personality, crippled or not, Liam tried to make things worse. He reached up and placed two fingers to the side of Crow's jaw, angling her face properly before going in for a kiss.

...and, glory of all glories, he didn't miss!

Crow froze, feeling her heart rate jump up to an alarming speed. Well, that had been unexpected. She forcibly reminded herself she had instigated their first real kiss, but that had been ages and ages ago....

But if this was what he wanted to play at, she'd go along with it. She had to get over her phobias sooner or later...after all, what if sooner or later he wanted to have...

Oh. Oh dear.

She hadn't thought of that. That level of relationship was, she was certain, completely beyond her ability to handle.

Blushing ferociously, Crow decided to focus on what was at hand. It was only a kiss, after all. She fell into it, one hand gripping his arm but not daring to reach any higher.

Liam had never planned to give such an impression. Alas, though, it was probably very much a part of his character.

Now determined to break Crow's goddamned phobias (for her more than himself, really) Liam reached up to tangle his fingers in her hair, caressing the side of her face with his thumb.

He tried to be loving and not sleazy. He really did. He just hoped he was doing a good enough job.

The niceties were at first lost on Crow, took distracted by her own bewilderment. After a bit, when she realized this is the sort of thing couple, y'know, did, she started calming down and realized she was...kinda enjoying this.

Cautiously, as though afraid she'd scare him off, Crow slung an arm 'round Liam's shoulders. She broke the kiss for a second, unable to look at him directly.

"I do love you, you know that, right?" she said, perfectly aware she was still blushing.

Liam stopped for a moment, completely awestruck. He sighed happily and half-smiled, something generally not seen on him.

"I know. I love you too."

His heart tweaked and he felt heat rise to his face. He bowed his head for a split second before kissing Crow again, briefly.

And then he felt something wet slide down his cheek. Ah, jeez...

Smiling, realizing kissing really didn't embarrass her anymore and feeling like she'd made some good progress, Crow dared a look at Liam's face. Her heart jumped and came to a dead stop for a second, rhythm interrupted.

She'd made him cry. Oh. ********. Hell.

"I'm sorry," she blurted. "I didn't...I didn't mean to."

Huh?

"Oh! Oh, no!" Liam laughed slightly and wiped the tear away, willing the rest, if any, to go the Hell away and never come back, "It's just I've...no...I've never..."

He couldn't say it without sounding like an absolute sap.

"Trust me, you've done nothing wrong."

The last person to tell him they loved him had been his mother, after all...and she was...well...

Regardless, crying made him seem even more effeminate than his face already did, and that was rather unsatisfactory.

"Okay..."

Looking unconvinced, Crow shrugged off the alarm that had risen. Maybe she'd poked him in the eye or something, that's all.

"You don't sound okay," Liam said, smiling, and lifted Crow's chin, "Stoppit. I said you didn't do anything wrong. It's just..."

He paused, gathering some immense amount of courage and dropping all of his remaining dignity.

"I've never been loved before is all.

"I know, I just thought I did something..." Crow trailed off, looking at Liam in astonishment. She had the nagging feeling that had taken some effort on Liam's part to say. In instinctive response she hugged Liam, head resting against his chest and clinging.

"I didn't know. I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not sorry - er, oh, ******** it, I'll just shut up," she said, refusing to let go.

Liam hugged Crow back, so absurdly happy that he was beginning to scare himself. He rested his head on her shoulder and (for the love of God and all that is holy...) started crying once more.

Suddenly, the door creaked open, allowing the hallway's noise to fill the room. Ike peered in and gave Liam a confused look before smiling and waving.

Liam waved back and made a shooing motion with one of his hands.

Ike giggled slightly and slinked out the door.

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:57 pm

The New Kid

"Hey....um, Mum?"

"Yeah, Len?"

"Remember that hat-thing I found outside the door a couple weeks ago?"

"Yeah. You gave it to Cole, didn't you?"

"Um, yeah..."

"What, did he tear it up? Burn it?"

"Not exactly..."

"Can I have fishsticks?"

"...who just said that."

"I did."

"Len..."

"Don't look at me. I gave Cole that hat as a chew toy."

"I see."

"I still want fishsticks."

"He kinda looks like Desiree."

"...damn."

"Fishsticks!"

Raloi

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Raloi

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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:08 pm

A Dream

If Lenore ever had dreams, she never remembered them. She had never held to her imagination being very creative, and didn't expect it to take any pains at becoming interesting when she fell asleep. But this time...this was different.

She dreamed of roots and dark places, and voices in the shadows speaking to her, and she was content. Then there was a whisper that intruded, a human voice, and all of a sudden Lenore was being boiled, drowning in a pot of some agonizingly hot liquid. She screamed, and found that her voice was muffled by boiling hot water, and the screams grew more pronounced even as the hateful stuff poured down her throat, threatening to drown her. And she dreamed she was very small...

She dreamed next of being roughly lifted and roughly thrown, or perhaps carelessly dropped....she'd knocked her head against a table corner, and again she was screaming...

There was someone standing above her, shouting at her and throwing maggoty meat at her and demanding she eat and silence herself. Lenore tried to stop crying, she hated crying, but found she couldn't stifle it. The person shouting at her stepped on her hands as she reached for the food to throw, and Lenore gave a miserable piping squawk.

"Miserable beast! Little runt! Ugly, ugly creature! I should've put you in a bag and thrown you in the river!" the person shouted, and Lenore dimly thought it sounded like a woman.

She threw the greasy strip of meat at the shouting woman and got a restrained kick in response. Lenore gave a screech like a wounded bird. Where was Crow? Why wasn't her family here to help her?

Suddenly she wasn't so little anymore. She was much bigger, trapped in a cage, and Jean Michel leered at her as he dragged his gun back and forth across the bars of her prison.

"Little bird," he jeered. "Little b***h. Little runt. No one's coming for you. Ugly, worthless brat!"

Lenore bared her teeth and swung out at Jean Michel, intent on slicing through the bars of her cage and cutting off his head. But the angry determination turned to terror as she saw she struck out not with an arm but a wing. She was a bird. There was no trace of her humanlike body at all. Jean Michel laughed and laughed, shaking her cage as Lenore-the-bird croaked and tokked, a captive raven.

Mama, she thought desperately. Mama, help me!

Lenore the raven fluttered desperately around in her cage, croaking and calling out for Crow.

And suddenly Crow was there.

"Tok! Tok!" Lenore said, trying to force out real words. Crow looked at the bird in the cage, expression hateful.

"Ugly thing," she said dismissively. She looked then to Jean Michel, who had not stopped shaking the cage. "Why didn't you just chop off her head? No better then a mangy chicken."

Jean Michel leered, and suddenly the person shaking the cage no longer wore the dead man's face. Someone wicked, someone hateful, that evil someone Lenore had first seen, the very first person ever, the woman Lenore knew by some loathsome technicality of fate was her creator, stepped into the gigantic cage with a knife in hand.

"Disgusting little thing," the witch called Aubrey said, catching Len by the throat and pinning her down. "Should've just tossed you down the hillock in that blasted pot."

And without another word she brought the knife down, and cut off Lenore's head.

---

"MOMMA! MUM! MAMA, MAAAAAAAA!"

Crow's eyes shot open and she rolled out of bed in a panic, instantly fully awake.

"Len! Lenore, shhh, shhh, it's alright!"

Lenore was in hysterics, screaming and crying and clutching her neck with one hand as though trying to reassure herself her head was still attached, hugging the startled Sadako hard to her chest with the other.

"Make her go away! I didn't do nothing! Keep her away!"

Julian, Ethan and Lincoln were roused by now and watched on in utter bewilderment. Doll, sound asleep in the closet, made a soft snoring and was no help at all.

"Crow, can I-" Julian started, but Crow shook her head urgently and waved him away. Ethan and Lincoln exchanged weary, worried looks, then glanced to Julian who gave a helpless shrug. Crow hugged the sobbing girl, uncaring if she got cut, shushed the girl and made cajoling, comforting sounds.

"It's alright Len, she's gone," Crow said, without even the faintest idea of who 'she' could possibly be. "It was just a dream."

Shivering violently and crying still, Lenore buried her face in Crow's shoulder and said nothing. It had been a nightmare, she told herself desperately. Nothing more. But something told her that that wasn't wholly true. In the beginning...

...Lenore had the sinking, revolting feeling she'd been remembering something awful...

Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 2:01 pm

Dinner

"I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry. You're like Ethan."

"Hey."

"Oh, it's true. You know it."

"...you argue with skill, young grasshopper."

It was a quiet night on the Adyamaur household front. Crow was away on a business trip - a trip she'd complained and cursed quite eloquently - and Julian, as always, was working late, leaving two teenagers, two dolls, myriad animals and a kid to fend for themselves.

"Lets eat Doll."

"I do not want to be eaten! I would not taste good, I would taste like blood and yuck!"

Lounging in the living room that doubled as the mass bedroom, Ethan gave a snort and stifled it with his hands. Lincoln beside him on the couch rolled his eyes, doubling over and ears drooping.

"What about Cole? I bet he'd taste okay."

Cole took serious offense to this suggestion and nipped at Lincoln's tail sharply. Lenore, sitting on the zombie-dragon's back, sighed plaintively.

"Well."

"Hnnf..."

"Umm..."

"Sadako hungry too."

"But you're a doll."

"Ethan should stop making stupid obvious observations. People will think he is much more stupid than he really is."

Ethan muttered something sounding distinctly like "I'll show you stupid, you creepy piece of džunka."

Lincoln, by now distinctly fed up with being hungry and the unpleasant moods all around, slid off the couch and marched into the kitchen like a soldier on a mission. He looked around, ears flicking back and forth and face set.

"Hmm..."

Ethan watched Lincoln through the little window that allowed one to peek into the kitchen from the dining room (which was just a table shoved against the wall), curious.

"What's he doing?" he asked Lenore.

"With the kind of horrible things that happen in that kitchen every time someone tries to cook? Probably finding a way to kill us all."

Lincoln gave a sniff of displeasure at Len's comment, and began digging out pots and pans that had never before seen the light of day. He set water to boiling and the oven to preheating, and dug through cabinets and the fridge for a myriad of ingredients.

"You'll be begging for seconds of my Arsenic Surprise, philistine," he said to Lenore in a determined voice, dragging on an apron Crow surely had never before realized she'd owned.

Slowly, bit by cautious bit, the apartment's other inhabitants trickled towards the kitchen to watch Lincoln work in a state of skeptical awe. There was no billowing smoke, no horrid odors, and a lack of frantic cursing that seemed to make this not cooking at all, but a kind of floor show.

....a floor show that was starting to show increasingly delicious-looking results.

---

By the time Julian got home, he was exhausted to the point of seeing double.

"I am never doing a goddamn emergency coronary bypass as long as I live," he muttered to nothing in particular, attempting to walk through the door and succeeding twice walking straight into it before remembering perhaps, just perhaps, you were supposed to turn the knob first. When he finally emerged victorious in his battle with the door, he nearly fell into the room.

"Hey, sorry I'm late, you guys must be starving. I'll order a....um..."

Julian had walked into what he was sure could be classified as a Thanks-for-Giving dinner. If that's what that holiday was called, anyway. He tended to forget.

"Hey Julian," Len said, mouth stuffed. "Link made dinner."

"And he did not make it out of me. This makes it very good."

"Where. How. Why is there no stench of burned flesh and tormented vegetables."

Lincoln preened.

"Well," he said. "You can't expect us to just sit around and wait and starve. So I took initiative. Sit down'n eat."

Julian sat down tentatively, looking as though expecting something to crawl off a plate and attempt to bite him.

"...is that pheasant?"

"With truffles."

"Where the hell did you get pheasant and truffles."

"I improvised. Now shut up and eat."

"....okay."

And without another word, not daring to question it, Julian shut up and ate dinner.

Raloi

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Raloi

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Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 2:39 pm

Feeding the Birds

Clematis, walked slowly out behind the HQ, a scarf wrapped around her neck more for decoration than warmth. She had a paper shopping bag in one hand and Dezzy's tiny palm in her other.

"Kemmie?"

"Hm?"

"I haffa go potty."

"Oh, Dezzy..." Clematis sighed and took Skelly from her, leading her over to a little patch of bushes.

Skelly clapped his hands over his eyes.

"Cole. Drop. The. Rabbit."

Cole, mouth full of struggling, kicking bunny - his idea of a light lunch - snorted and trotted away from an increasingly irate Lenore teasingly.

"Hff!"

Len stalked after, holding onto her hat as a gust of wind threatened to blow it off. Sadako clung to her shoulder, silken doll-hair whipping Len in the face more than once.

"Cole! I am SO not kidding! Drop the bunny!"

In rebellion, Cole gave a growling sort of happy snort and broke out into a run, heading for the cover of convenient bushes with the rabbit squealing in his jaws.

Dezzy shrieked in terror.

Calm as day, Clemmie lifted both of her hands palm-up into the air, bringing Cole up above the ground. With her thumbs and pointer fingers, she attempted to open his mouth.

Blue streams of electricity crackled between her fingers.

Dezzy continued shrieking, now sobbing with her overalls down around her ankles.

"Shhhh! Shhhh, little one! SHHHHHH!"

"Graazzagh!"

Cole spat out the rabbit and shrieked, wings beating furiously. How dare Tall Electric Thing interfere! The dragon snarled and writhed, snapping his teeth at Clemmie.

Lenore gave a sigh. Screaming. In a bush.

Fabulous.

"Cole, whatever you're doing you BETTER NOT BE DOING IT MUCH LONGER."

Lenore pushed through the bushes, spotted Clemmie, and gave a yelp as she clapped her hands over her eyes.

"Gratuitous child nudity! My eyes!"

With a curious high pitched whine, Cole slumped over and stopped at once. Lenore wouldn't be pleased is he bit off someone's hand when she was looking...

Clemmie dropped the unfortunate zombie-thing and heaved a sigh, bending to help a now-sniffling Dezzy to dress herself.

"Kemmie?"

"Yes?"

"Wong."

The Drow looked down to her little sister's buckles and noted that she'd crossed them the wrong way.

Sorry, honey," she nodded, and then added as an afterthought, "Sorry, Len."

Skelly walked carefully over to Lenore, staring up at her. The point of view was awkward, and he couldn't tell if she had Dako with her or not.

"Well?"

Daring to peek out from behind her hand, Len waved at Clemmie weakly.

" S'alright. Didn't mean to walk in on...um...whatever y'all were doing back here."

Turning to glare at Cole, who was balefully sniffing for his rabbit, she cleared her throat.

"Heel."

Rotten tail tucked firmly between his legs, Cole slunk over to Lenore and crouched in her shadow, glowering at Clemmie.

"Hnff...."

Len glanced down.

"Oh, hey, Skelly...'Dako, your buddy's here."

Sadako peeked out from the hood of Len's jacket and gave a shriek, jumping out and aiming for Skelly but landing face-down in the snow.

Clemmie stood straight and wiped her hands on her skirt, trying to maintain her dignity.

"No problem. We were j--"

"Biwdees!"

"Hold on a second. I'm talking to--"

"BIWDEES!"

Clemmie sighed.

"We were going to feed the birds. Want to come?"

"Yah, pointy ladee! Come fee' biwdees!"

Skelly laughed and laced his arms around Sadako, lifting her to her feet.

"Hello."

Lenore blinked, and stared at Clemmie somewhat suspiciously. She was being invited to do something, with someone her own age, who wasn't a Mishap.

She smelled a trap.

"Really?" she ventured, smiling quite cautiously. "I'm invited?"

Dignity smashed to bits, Sadako brushed snow out of her hair and waved to Skelly modestly.

"Lolo," she said. After a beat, injury to dignity forgotten, Sadako gave a hoarse squeal and flung herself into Skelly, hugging him 'round the middle. "Dako missed Skelly!"

Clemmie blinked and nodded.

"Yes," she replied, "but you don't have to if you don't want to." She hefted Dezzy up on her hip.

Desiree happily played with the bird seed and bits of bread in the shopping bag.

Skelly laughed and patted Dako's head.

"Skelly missed Dako," he nodded, "Dako okay? Soggy?" He gave her a little poke.

"Sure!" Len said, louder and much more energetically than she had intended. "Um. I mean. Yeah, I'd like to..."

Cole growled slightly at the mention of birds. Birds meant flying bits of meat, and dammit he was still hungry. He looked up at Len and quailed at the glare she gave him. Alright....maybe birds were off the menu.

Sadako threw her hair back, adjusting the jacket, hat and scarf she'd stolen from another doll - one that didn't talk, so it certainly didn't deserve such nice things - preening at the attention.

"Sadako is fine. Sadako like snow. She throws it in peoples eyes or down their shirts and they make funny noises," she said importantly.

Clemmie smiled shyly and moved to a stump far enough away from the woods to feel safe. She placed Dezzy down on it and handed her the bag.

"Shhhhh."

Dezzy nodded, removed a handful of seeds, and threw them to the snow.

"Kemmie?"

"Yeah?"

"Hand," the little Zoombini said as she held out her seed-covered hand.

Clemmie brushed it off and reached into the bag, removing some seed-covered frenchfries, and offered the bag to Len.

"Your dragon looks hungry."

Skelly was wearing his usual suit, nothing new, although it had gained a big black patch on one thigh.

"They feel cold," Skelly nodded and then started after the group of girls. Feeling oddly surrounded by estrogen, he plopped down at the foot of the stump.

Taking the bag and fishing out a handful of seeds, Len sampled one herself before scattering the rest into the snow.

"He's always hungry," she said. "He's like Ethan."

Cole, deeply resenting this comparison, flapped his wings in annoyance and blew up a sparkling shower of snow before trudging off, wandering in loose circles and digging for chipmunks.

Sadako gave a derisive grunt.

"They stupid, then," she said dismissively. "Sadako never cold. Sadako better than stupid flesh-people."

"I forget what being hungry's like," Clemmie shrugged and tossed some more bread, "Nobody really ever feels hunry in our family...'cept for Ike."

"Hand."

Clemmie once more brushed her baby sister's hand off.

"Dako has no nerves," Skelly laughed again, "Skelly sometimes wish he has nerves."

"Oh yeah... I forgot you don't eat. That's pretty cool, actually."

Len threw more seeds and watching in delight as birds slowly began showing up one by one to peck at the food, slowly lowering herself down to sit in the snow.

"I miss Ike," she said at random. "Our families should just like...live together. Doll sleeps in the closet anyway, and I could share. We could be a closet-family."

"No-body better," Sadako said insistently. "Can make trouble, can kill, and no one suspects dollies. Skelly is cute. No one expects cute things to be bad."

"It's not that we don't," Clemmie said, smiling slightly, "It's that we don't have to. All except Mum and Ike." She tossed some more seeds out, accidentally hitting a bird or two on the head.

"Hand."

Brushbrush.

"I don't think we'd fit," she responded to the offer, "we don't fit in our own room. That's what Mum says anyway. I think it's fine."

Skelly was confused.

"...what?"

"Oh, well. Still, pretty cool," Len said, concentrating on luring a chickadee to eat out of her hand. She shrugged slightly then, still staring down the tiny bird.

"Well, our closet is always open, iffen you wanna come over sometime."

Sadako blinked. Hadn't she been clear enough?

"What what?"

"I don't think Björn would fit," Clemmie giggled slightly and bent down slowly to get a closer look at a bird.

"HAND!"

The bird flew away. Clemmie sighed. Brushbrush.

"But thanks for the offer?"

"...nevermind," Skelly shook his plush head to try and clear it.

Laughing aloud at the thought of Björn sharing closet-space with Doll, Lenore watched the startled chickadee stumble in the snow and hop away.

"Any time."

Somewhere off in the background, Cole gave a throaty growl of satisfaction as something squeaking was suddenly silenced.

Lenore winced, and shook her head despairingly. Gross.

Ruffled, Sadako tugged at Skelly's arm.

"Did Sadako say something stupid?"

Clemmie gave a startled squeak. She didn't like living things eating other living things, whether it was 'the circle of life' or not. She clapped her hands over her mouth, glared in the general direction of the noise, and then sighed.

"Liam says he's tired of getting animal minions. I guess it's a good thing."

"HAAAAND...oh...nebuhmind..."

Skelly shook his head again.

"No. Skelly just...doesn't understand."

Cringing slightly at the sound of crunching but otherwise unaffected, Lenore stretched out and lay in the snow, looking skyward.

"I wish I could have undead minions," she said in an undertone. Aloud she said, "Well, Cole takes care of it good enough. I hate it when he eats rabbits, though, he always pukes the fur back up. You'd think it'd be great, I could throw it at someone, but no. Too loose'n not slimy enough."

"Oh."

Huh. She thought she'd been clear enough. Cute, itty-bitty little dolls could get away with anything. Sadako had reasoned Skelly already knew this.

Clematis nodded.

"Being a minion isn't all that cool, though. They like to make you go eat stuff you don't wanna eat," she said reasonably, "Liam's a good Master, I think. When he can see."

It had nothing to do with cute little dolls in Skelly's mind. He was still wondering what cute little dolls had to do with having nerve endings.

He patted Sadako's head.

"Dako clearly hasn't seen Chucky."

"Yeah, like carrion and stuff," Len said, warming to the topic. "I bet it'd taste horrible, just like blood'n rot'n stuff!" She hesitated, clearing her throat and collecting herself. "But anyway...um. When are is eyes gonna work again, anyway? Mum dunno why he went blind're else she ain't tellin' me."

Crow hadn't bothered to fill her in with the specifics of Liam's "illness" anyway, though Lenore hadn't broached the subject too often. She didn't like to make her mother cry, after all.

"Sadako seen it," the doll said bitingly, though she snuggled up beside Skelly. "Sadako seen ever'thing. Even stupid dumb unscary movies like the Shining and...and Ju-On. Ju-On really stupid," she added with emphasis. Stupid croaking jerky-moving ripoffs. She was much scarier than Stupid Croaky Woman.

"Not if you're a zombie," Clemmie shrugged, but sobered slightly at the second question.

"Nobody knows. I think Björn knows, 'cos he had this guy over one day, and they were yelling and stuff, but he won't tell anyone. And Liam won't either. He says it's something bad he did."

"Ah dawn..." Dezzy sniffled.

Skelly put an arm around Sadako.

"If it happened to Dako, Dako would be scared."

Briefly wondering if a zombie could be picky with its dining - one might get tired of the flesh of the living or roadkill, after all - Len sighed slightly at Clemmie's answer.

"Oh...well. That sucks. Wish I could help," she said, rolling over onto her side in the snow. Looks like Mum was going to keep on flinching and tearing up whenever Len brought it up, then.

Sadako snuffled slightly.

"Sadako not scared of nothin'," she said, puffing up like a peacock.

Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:12 pm

Reserved for Len/Sabriel RP

Raloi

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Raloi

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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:11 pm

A Pleasant Encounter

It was a day with nothing to do, and Crow was perfectly depressed by it. Any other time she would have adored to sleep through the day until nightfall, or go do some casual shoplifting, or a hundred other time-wasting things. But her heart wasn't in it today. She'd been combating a depression of sorts for quite some time now, though she'd kept it to herself.

Wandering the halls of HQ aimlessly, she sighed and walked on with her eyes on the ground.

Liam had been boredly practicing navigating the halls of the HQ. He had no idea how long he'd be blind, or if it'd be permanent, and s he figured he should learn to avoid the roadblocks known as people.

He had run across none.

Preparing for an over-dramatic sigh, he inhaled deeply...and smelled something comfortingly familiar on the air.

"...Crow?"

Finding it hard to summon the energy to lift her eyes from the ground, Crow half-turned without looking up.

"Yeah?" she said, inattentive and rather pathetically unaware to who it was.

Liam's brow furrowed.

"I'm sorry. If this isn't the right time to--" he spun around, an old habit from when he could see...and had been utterly lost, "s**t."

Crow felt a cold knot form in her gut and her head snapped up. Crap. Crap crap crap. Yeah, now she recognized the voice!

"Oh shiiiiit, Liam, I didn't - I'm such a ********, I didn't mean to- wait, wait!"

Crow did a full 360 and stumbled, landing hard on one knee and biting back a whimper as the bone cracked against the floor.

"Stupid, so stupid," she chided herself, jumping up and limping after Liam, catching his arm. "I wasn't paying attention, I didn't realize it was you, I'm sorreeee!"

She was so bewildered by this point, one would think Crow had accidentally chopped off one of Liam's limbs rather than accidentally dismissing him.

Liam's eyes widened and he grabbed Crow's arm.

"Err..."

What was one to say in an event such as this? Frantic girlfriend, no sense of sight, completely lost...

"You're not a ********, I know you didn't mean to, and I know you weren't...didn't. Whatever. You okay?" He'd heard something fleshy hit the floor. He assumed it had been Crow.

Feeling monumentally stupid and eyes tearing from the pain in her knee, Crow managed a nod that she abruptly turned into an assenting noise.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just meeting the daily quota," she said, balancing her injured leg precariously on the heel of her boot. "I didn't mean to blow you off, I was thinkin' and s**t."

Releasing her death grip on his arm and grabbing loosely onto his hand, Crow indulged a moment to look Liam full in the face, feeling herself respond with the usual blush and looking away quickly.

Liam wanted to ask. He needed to ask. After all, what good was a girlfriend if she didn't indulge your mindless curiosities?

"If you're sure," he nodded after a while, deciding that she'd tell him what she wanted to. He desperately wanted to touch her, but feared he'd miss and make a fool of himself.

He squeezed her hand.

"I know you didn't," he parroted, "I've missed you."

...and I'll be damned if I can remember what you look like...Christ...

Wincing at the pain and wondering why it was taking so damned long to heal - for god's sake, she'd nearly chopped off a finger once, that had healed in no time - Crow took advantage of the occasion and leaned against Liam, reasoning it was simply helping to keep her balance and not an invasion of space.

"Doesn't mean I get to be rude," she said sensibly. She smiled then, resting her head against Liam's shoulder. "Missed you too. I always miss you."

After a moment's hesitance, hoping she wouldn't startle him, Crow kissed Liam tentatively.

Liam's eyes widened once more, but that was all the reaction the gesture recieved. He soon returned to his usual state and returned the kiss briefly, lightly.

"Then visit more," he said simply, laughing slightly, "It gets lonely all...alone." He took his hand from hers and snaked his arm around her waist.

Feeling herself blush again (dammit! When on earth was the going to stop?), Crow clung to Liam, still favoring her injured leg.

"I want to," she said, a tinge of stressed bitterness in her voice. "If I could just quit, and stay home and be with everyone again, I'd love to so much. I hate...I hate being alone like this."

She clung tighter to Liam, resting her head against his shoulder again. The stress of life was getting to her. Between the work she didn't want, the isolation, and worst of all Julian not speaking to her...

...it was getting unbearable.

"We need to just. I dunno. Find a desert island and stay there," she said.

"Then quit," Liam nodded, "I mean...how many of you are there...five now? We've got you beat by one, and we live off of one salary."

He caressed one side of her face lightly, simply because he had the urge.

"But I guess that's not realistic. Just know that when thing suck, I'm here." He gave a short laugh.

"I'm always here, babe."

Crow shook her head slowly.

"I can't," she said, voice turning rather high pitched. "I can skip out as much as I want, but I just...I just can't."

She hugged Liam tightly, leaning into his touch. Every angry, miserable, brooding feeling she'd dealt with over the past few months was shifting under the surface and she ignored it, just wanting to enjoy the quiet with Liam for a moment. She smiled imperceptibly at the pet name, finding it funny.

"I know," she said, gratefully. "Thank you, love."

A hot tear trickled down Crow's face and she flicked it away, trying to collect herself. Depression time later. Liam time now, she said to herself.

The funny thing about tears is that they're wet. When someone's hand is on your face, they tend to feel the wet and...

"You're crying," Liam said, face immediately taking on a horribly concerned expression, "Oh, come on. Now you have to spill. What's wrong?" He pulled her closer, resting his head on hers.

Crow wiped the rest of the tears off her face harshly, nicking herself in the process with a claw. The cut stayed open. She growled in irritation, disgusted.

"I'm burnt out with everything," she said reluctantly. "My stupid healing factor won't work when I'm too stressed out, and that with Julian bein' weird with me and being alone and feeling guilty about you - oh, damn."

Her words had tumbled out in a rush, and now she'd really gone and done it. She clapped a hand to her mouth too late, feeling even more stupid.

Liam mouth moved to one side, but he made no other gestures that said he'd understood her. Of course he had. That was beside the point. Instead, he brought a hand up to his neck, blindly undid the laces holding his uniform together, slid it further, unbuttoned it...

The entire process would have looked odd to anyone not knowing his currect circumstances.

Moving on sensation alone, he pulled a phial from a small pocket on the lining of his uniform. He brought it to his nose, smelled it, and then held it out to Crow.

"Drink it. Stop bleeding. Then we talk."

Crow took the phial obediently and knocked back its contents, sucking in a breath as something in her knee crunched back into place and the cut on her face closed. A hundred other little hurts healed over, leaving Crow wondering briefly how she could have survived as long as she had already without the factor, dysfunctional though it was.

"Thanks," she said, pocketing the empty phial and looking down at the floor, certain she was going to be chastised.

Liam, not really knowing what was going on, took the jerk of Crow's arm as something having to do with the phial.

"Would you mind bringing me outside?" he asked, "I haven't see--been anywhere but the room for...for I don't know how long. Months? I don't want to talk in here." He was uncharacteristically calm, feeling the brunt of the humility brought on by his disability.

"Sure...brace yourself, kinda cold out there..."

Crow walked side-by-side with Liam, leading him into the foyer and out the door. The walkway had been freshly shoveled, but Crow kept her eyes down to the ground anyway to look out for slicks of ice, or basically anything that would normally trip her up. Crow took a breath and exhaled it slowly, watching it rise in a pearly cloud and dissipating.

No matter how old she got, that would never cease to entertain her.

Liam's body gave a spontaneous tremor, not so much from the cold as from the abrupt change in atmosphere. Regardless of the absurd grip his boots gave him, he was terrified that Crow would indirectly bring them both down in a patch of ice.

Crow's amusement at her breathing gave Liam a distinct sting of nostalgia. He had never found so much entertainment in droplets of moisture from his own lungs, not since he was 4 or so, but he wished he could see it, at least.

"Somewhere flat," he said suddenly, head bowed as he gave up trying to give the illusion of some sort of sight, "I can't walk much. And don't think you're getting out of talking to me."

"Right," Crow said, scouting out a decent scrap of space to sit on. Hmm.... The conveniently placed park bench under the oak would do nicely, she thought reasonably.

"Bench," she said, guiding Liam down to sit beside her. She picked off an icicle growing on the metal arm rest, biting into it before rejecting it and throwing the remains over her shoulder. It crashed against the tree with a tinkling like glass breaking.

Hands folded to keep her from fidgeting with her hands, Crow glanced over at Liam warily. Why she was nervous she couldn't say, but it seemed right to feel it anyway.

Liam's ears actually twitched back slightly at the sound of the ice shattering, amplified tenfold by his lack of sight. Only then did he sit, arms folded in his lap, fingers intertwined. He kept his head facing the ground. There was no need to look at someone when you couldn't see them, he thought. It was a courtest the blind were generally allowed to ignore.

"Alright," he said, face moving slightly in Crow's direction, but eyes unmoving from the ground, "Commence the gut-spilling."

Crow took a deep breath. Here goes...

"I. Um."

Okay. Full sentences. Sen-ten-ces.

Crow leaned back against the bench, looking upward into the dead-looking branches of the tree. Stringing together words into conversation shouldn't be this hard.

"I never really stopped feeling guilty," she said finally. Keep going. Good start. Needs to go somewhere. "I know we already talked about this, but yeah. I'm never going to stop thinking this is my fault, since actually it pretty much is."

She leaned back further, resting her head against the back of the bench. She abruptly sat up as a splatter of melting snow caught her in the eye, and she continued as she rubbed the water out.

"I've felt like s**t for months anyway. Julian just....stopped talking to me. Since October."

That was the fresher of the two emotional wounds, and saying it aloud hurt even worse.

"I mean, we talk, kinda. But it isn't like what we used to. Like how I am with you," she said, feeling pressure building up behind her eyes and rubbing them again hurriedly.

Liam's expression deepened. What he was hearing had deformed him from a reasonably attractice young man to...well, whatever he really was. He have an angry huff of breath.

He'd never been all that fond of Julian, and he was pretty sure most people knew it.

Don't be an a**. Say something comforting. Think.

"October...?" he asked without wanting or expecting an answer. What was it now? February? Clearly there was something wrong. Liam tensed for a moment, but then slowly relaxed.

"That's a long time," he said suddenly, shifting uncomfortably, "but it's only temporary. I promise you, it's temporary. You and I both know it will be. It always is." It was only half-comforting statement, but almost true.

"I can't know why he's doing that...used to...no more." He rubbed a temple, as if attempting to excite his brain into working again.

"Something will happen, and it'll go away."

He refused to talk about her guilt. If she felt it bad enough to keep talking about, fine, but he doubted his own plight evenly matched let alone beat out her brother's odd verbal abandonment.

"I guess," Crow said. "Could always be worse."

She couldn't currently think of what was worse than what was already going on, but she was certain there had to be something. She leaned against Liam, throwing an arm around him for comfort and resting her head against his chest. Gods, but she was tired.

"Maybe I'll beat 'im up," she said, half-joking and cheering herself up a bit. "That'd get the answer right quick."

Liam half-smiled and wrapped an arm around Crow as he sat, pulling her closed. Once more, his muscles spasmed.

"Nonono," he shook his head, "You are to Julian as I am to Björn. Thusly, we set Björn on him. Scare it outta him or sum'm."

Crow laughed at the thought, to the point where she had to bit a knuckle to quiet herself.

"Holy Christ. We have to do it," she said, giggling a bit. "I'll videotape it."

A second splatter of melting snow landed on her, this time sending chilly water down the back of her shirt, but Crow ignored it. She was feeling...better?....for the first time in ages. A little ice-cold water never hurt anyone.

Liam laughed slightly, unable to help himself. The mental image was rather amusing. His fingers twitched at the vague sensation of the water on Crow's back. He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly.

"Do you have to be anywhere today?"

"Nope," Crow said pleasantly. "And if I did, I ain't going. You're stuck with me, so ha."

And gaging by how she'd made herself comfortable, the girl had no intention of moving any time soon. Not unless Liam stood and caused her to topple off the bench, anyway.

"Then let's do something," Liam said, leaning his head once mroe against Crow's. Every other day he'd been terrified to leave the room. Now he couldn't imagine anything more he wanted then to get as far away from it as possible.

"Okay!" Crow said, sitting up with a start and jumping off the bench. She then abruptly sat down again. "Hmm. But what."

She bit at her lip, in consideration, noticing neither the cuts her teeth inflicted nor the slowly quickening pace with which they healed.

"Definitely nothing at home, that's dull as hell...could go hunt down rogue squirrels and throw them at bystanders...nah, too messy...hmm."

It could be said that Crow was joking for the sake of sounding silly. And anyone that didn't know that was how her mind really worked wouldn't have been terribly impressed...though those that did might begin to question her sanity.

Liam gave a short bark of laughter and shook his head.

"Nothing violent," he begged, "anyway, my aim's off." He pondered this all for a moment. Hell, what was there to do? He wasn't used to planning, only to following and making sure no children were killed in the process.

"I dunno...what have you always wanted to do?"

A few things came to mind instantly, the foremost being of course jumping from the roof with an umbrella-parachute to see if it actually worked, or shoving someone down an escalator to see if they would fall forever. After a moment's consideration Crow put these thoughts out of her head.

"Well," she said, considering. "Freeing zoo animals was always big on the list. That and pulling fire alarms in crowded movie theaters."

She giggled at that, still considering.

"Or we could just stick around the homestead and make out," she added lightly, distracted by the mental image of fleeing movie patrons so she didn't notice the blush creeping over her face.

"I'm not entirely certain you realize what you just said," Liam shook his head, "but I'd gladly attempt to break the law with you. Or do the latter. Up to you, dearheart."

The thought of pulling an alarm was more than amusing, but would it really hold the same kick if he couldn't see the frenzy?

"Neither am I, but that's just how it's been working out lately," Crow replied, grinning slightly. She fell into deep consideration - pulling alarm ran the risk of being arrested, but even that could have its fun...

"...I think maybe the latter," she said finally, the instinctive blush (how, her body seemed to say, could she dare have the gall to say such things! How!) fully forgotten as she made herself comfortable against Liam again.

Liam's eyes widened again.

"I..." he trailed off, thinking of nothing intelligent there was possibly left to say. Even his wit had failed him, not that he'd had much to begin with. He simply pulled Crow close, sighed, and wondered what the hell the poor girl had just gotten herself into.

He leaned down and kissed her cheek, testing her resilience if noting else. He felt the excess heat and couldn't help but smile.

Don't panic, Crow thought. Couples do this, and anyway you brought it up.

Nevertheless, she'd never felt more shy in her life. Fighting off hesitation and covering it with casual bravado - she was awfully good at that - Crow smiled at the peck on her cheek and moved in closer, kissing Liam's lips.

Liam was surprised, needless to say. Poor Crow and her virginal phobias...

...but, hey. If she felt like using him as a tool to overcome said phobias, he damn well wasn't going to stop her. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't.

He eventually decided to kiss her back, arms 'round her shoulders.

Taking comfort in being so close to Liam, Crow kissed him again and slid an arm around his shoulders. The shyness was slowly withering away, but it still kept her relatively meek. She wondered briefly if Liam would ever tire of waiting for her to get over herself, and spurred by this thought she kissed him again with much less inhibition.

Liam may have gotten around, but if there's one thing he never was, that'd be a Ladies' Man. He'd never been kissed without alterior motives, and so this was new to even him.

Not that he was going to let Crow know this.

He pulled an exaggerated breath in through his gills, and then pulled away.

"We probably shouldn't be doing this."

s**t on a hot grill, I must be terrible at this, Crow thought, pulling away instantly. Maybe he thought she had cooties. Hell, she thought she had cooties.

"Okay," she said, vaguely embarrassed with her behavior.

It was clearly not her actions that Liam responded to. It was the tone of her voice.

"Nooo..." he trailed off, laughing beside himself, "Don't you dare think what I know you're thinking. It's just...public. Kids...people."

...and I don't want to hurt you.

But he left it as is.

Oh. Well then.

"Oh yeah. Children. Heh," she said, calming down enough to manage a wry grin. "Don't want to make any of 'em cry with horror, huh?"

Crow shifted on the bench 'til she was sitting normally again, brushing her hair back and recollecting herself.

"That's not exactly what I'm afraid of," Liam laughed and then lunged to the side slightly, effectively and proudly clinging to Crow. He kissed her neck briefly, not trying to incite anything.

"Love you."

Crow glowed. He said he loved her. She'd never tire of hearing it.

"Love you too," she said.

Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:43 pm

Breakdown

Though her healing factor had recently been on its way to working normally again, it was still too weak to prevent Crow from becoming ill. So now, trapped on her couch and sneezing, coughing and sniffling enough to drive herself mad, Crow was confined. It was morning, but the other occupants of the apartment save Julian had long since made themselves scarce. To pass the time and distract herself from her distant brother, she watched TV with Coatl, shushing the skull every time he felt he had to dictate his opinions of the local news in raspy Nahuatl.

"Xolopitli cíhuatl! Yehua amo cualli co-"

"Coatl. Shush."

"Amo!"

"I will ******** use you as a bowling ball if you don't shut your trap, Bony. Yeccaqui?"

"...quema."

"I thought so."

Triumphant, Crow returned to her program. Julian, getting dressed in the bathroom and emerging with his toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, took no notice of either. Crow felt the by-now familiar twinge in her chest, but in a fit of last-second denial dismissed it as a forming cough. Julian drifted from one end of the apartment to the other like a shadow, about as talkative as a brick wall. Crow thought on what Liam had said the other day, in those few sweet hours before she'd been forcibly drawn back into what her reality now was.

"It's temporary."

Was it? Was it really? How could Liam possibly even know? Crow coughed, a harsh burning that stuck in her throat, and she sniffed. Had she done something to drive her brother away, the first family she'd ever known, who'd risked life, limb, and...gods, so much more...to see that she was safe?

What had Crow done, to turn him away?

"See you tonight."

Crow looked up, startled into a cough.

"What?"

Julian looked over his shoulder, fully dressed and hand on the knob.

"I'm gonna get going," he said. "I'll see you tonight, maybe."

Crow nodded, eyes falling down to rest on her hands.

"...okay," she said finally. Julian waved and left, leaving Crow alone with the television and chuckling skull.

"It's not temporary."

Crow felt the familiar hot burn leaching into her eyes, painful, dreadful. Her heart felt like it was breaking.

He hates me, she thought. He's finally acknowledging it's my fault what happened to him, and now he can't even stand to look at me.

The thought made her stomach turn. He hated her. Loathed her. He had stopped reaching out, stopped being her brother like the one she had loved so well for so long, because he utterly despised her.

Tears ran hot and thick down Crow's face.

"He hates me. He hates me," she said, coming to grips with the horrible realization. She felt sick to her stomach, and wept, burying her face in her hands. Coatl watched, mad roving ivory eyes riveted on the girl in wild confusion and concern.

"Tlen amo cualli, conetl?"

Crow shook her head.

"Nothing. Nothing at ******** all."

The pain of in her heart spurred Crow out of bed, and she shambled around getting dressed. She coughed wetly - the new stress had rolled back all the progress her healing factor had made returning to full function. Pulling on boots, jeans, a t-shirt that had certainly needed washing a good four months ago, any bit of clothing that would keep her warm, Crow roughly wiped the tears from her face and took a breath.

She needed to talk to him, even if she'd have to beat the answers she wanted out of him. Crow stormed from the apartment, sickly and dizzy, with a skull on a bookshelf screaming in hoarse protest demanding to know what was wrong.

---

By the time Crow caught up to Julian, it was inside the hospital in a place where she had no right to be. It was Jacob who noticed her first, and nudged Julian as he changed into his scrubs.

"Check out the freaky Goth chick," he said, eyebrows raised. "Looks like she caught the wrong end of a crossbreedin' between a cat and a vampire."

Julian gave an uninterested half glance over his shoulder, through the window that gave a half obscured view of the ER, then returned to changing. After a beat he paused, head jerking up.

"Crow?"

Jacob looked around.

"I don't see a crow," he said, rather dumbly. Julian shoved him impatiently in the shoulder.

"Not a crow, dumbass. That's my sister," he said, pushing through the tight space of the locker room and venturing out into the ER. He didn't look pleased to see his sister, and his rough grip on her arm as he jerked out of the way of an gurney and the crowd of doctors accompanying it said as much.

"What are you doing here?" he said, glaring. "You're sick, it's freezing out, where's your damn coat? Just. Ugh. Crow, what are you doing here?"

Crow wrenched her arm out of Julian's grasp, face still slick with tears. It was as if he hadn't even noticed them.

"We need to talk," she said. Julian gave a withering sigh, looking around. The women at the nurse's counter were all looking at him, and Jacob's head was peeping out from the locker room.

"This absolutely is not the time or the place," he said tightly, grabbing her by the arm again and leading her out towards the triage area. "We can talk when I get home, and we-"

"Nahalthes, stop it!"

Crow ripped her arm away again, tears starting fresh as she pushed her brother hard in the chest. He fell back a step, looking surprised.

"You're making a scene!"

"You're acting like your ******** father!"

Julian's face turned gray.

"How dare you," he said, expression twitching. "Nahalethe, you're acting like a child, and that was so completely uncalled for, I can't even. I don't. Gods, I can't even handle this right now. Go home."

Crow winced as though she'd been struck. She clung to Julian's arm, looking desperate.

"No! We have to talk, and we gotta do it now!"

It was Julian's turn to wrench away. He glared at his sister coldly, still stung from her insult and growing angrier by the minute. Crow couldn't see one trace of her brother, her Julian, in his face.

"Go. Home."

Crow's tears began in earnest and she watched Julian turn away, leaving her alone by the bay doors.

"Nahalthes, why do you hate me?" she said, voice choked to the point where she knew he couldn't hear it. She followed after, feeling like a rejected dog. "Yulleh, please, please, you're killing me. Why won't you talk to me?"

Julian turned on his heel, face dark. The expression slid off his face after a beat, and he reached out to touch Crow's face. His fingertips withdrew stained red.

"You're bleeding," he said.

---

"Hold still."

"I'm trying. It's creepy as hell. I've never had stitches before."

"Whose fault is that."

To say it was awkward and deeply uncomfortable to be sitting in the isolated little side room, getting the side of her head stitched up where Crow had slashed it open with a claw by her brooding sibling was to not say enough. Crow sat as still as possible, trying to ignore the dreadful feeling of flesh being artificially put back together. She wondered if Julian felt like she had, when she'd first sewn Doll together...

"Why did you come here. You made a gigantic scene, acted like a child, and gashed your skull open. For attention? What? Why, Crow?"

Crow turned her head to glare at Julian, who immediately grabbed her head and directed it straight again before continuing the stitches.

"Because I need to know what's happening to us," she said. "It's been months, Nahal. Months. The gigantic scene I made was the first time you've strung more than five words together to talk to me in ages. I need to know why."

The thread tugged another ragged corner of skin together, and Crow suppressed a shudder.

"You're being overdramatic."

Crow caught Julian's hand, tears welling in her eyes again.

"Nahalthes," she said, voice cracking. "Why do you hate me?"

This time, Julian heard the question. His expression turned so shocked any other time Crow would have found it funny.

"How could you think such a thing?" he said finally, the expression of shock never waiving. A small sound that was very much a sob slipped out of Crow.

"You won't talk to me. You won't touch me. Half the time you won't even look at me straight," she said with difficulty. "You hate me. You started...you started acting like this in October."

Julian, remembering he needed to finish the stitches, tied off the thread and snipped it with hands he desperately tried not to let shake.

October.

There was a sick, cold dawning of realization.

"Ah, Nahalethe..."

"It's true. You hate me for what happened to you. All I do is cause you trouble, and you can't stand the sight of me now."

Julian sat back in his chair, shaking his head urgently. What had he done? What had he inflicted? All this time, he'd been in his own world, his own thoughts, grasping at half-memories and the cold depression that had torn at him, and he never realized he had been slowly killing his sister.

"Crow," he said. She looked at him as she tentatively touched the row of stitches.

"Do you?"

Julian couldn't help but keep staring, his face a study in quiet horror.

"I didn't...."

"Didn't what?"

"I didn't...I didn't know..."

Crow's face turned livid.

"Didn't know. Didn't KNOW! YOU DIDN'T KNOW!"

She flew out of the chair, and without hesitation slapped Julian hard across the face.

"You've been putting me through HELL!" she shrieked. "You selfish, awful, miserable man! I could just....oh, you thoughtless fool! Idiot!"

Julian sat shivering in his chair, head cricked to one side and eyes wide and staring. She'd hit him.

Yeah, well. One time I clawed her throat open.

There were long slashes on the side of his face, from cheek to lips, and the itched abominably as they healed over. Julian looked up at Crow, expression not changing a bit.

"You..." Crow said, radiating anger. "You miserable fool. You didn't know. I've been so ripped up over this my own ******** healing factor doesn't even work right anymore. I'm sick. I'm actually sick. And you're gonna have the stones to say you didn't know you were doing this to me?"

Julian kept staring, mouth slightly open and the taste of his own blood on his lips.

"Yes," he said finally, voice a thread. Crow's face spasmed in rage and she drew back as though to strike him again. Julian didn't flinch, didn't back away. He deserved it, and he knew it fully.

"How could you do that to me," Crow said.

"I was...I can't explain it to you, Nahalethe."

"Try me."

Julian swallowed hard.

"I've been trying to...to..."

Crow waited patiently as he trailed off, her expression reading plainly he wasn't weaseling out of telling her anything. She wanted to know, and damn it all she was going to know.

"To remember," he said finally. Crow looked uncertain for the first time, head tilting slightly to one side.

"What do you mean?"

Julian swallowed again, painfully.

"Crow. You don't understand. Something happened to me," he began. Crow growled viciously.

"You son of a-" she began, but Julian cut her off sharply.

"Crow! Please! I just...there's something wrong with me. Very wrong," Julian said. "I'm not trying to get out of trouble by telling you a sob story, I swear, it's the truth! There's something wrong, and I've been trying to fix it!"

"What the hell IS it, then? What the ******** is wrong with you?"

Julian was standing now, tears forming in his eyes.

"I don't know," he said finally, tearing at his hair and pushing it back violently. "I don't know. At all. It feels....I can't explain it. Like there's...hnn. Crow, if I could tell you, make you understand, I would. But I can't. I don't know how."

Crow sat down slowly, running her fingers over the row of stitches.

"Because of me," she said. "Because you had to take my place. It should be me, that's....that's damaged, like you are. It's supposed to be me. Ah, Nahal..."

Julian knelt in front of his sister, grabbing onto her arms and looking up at her bowed-down face.

"You listen here," he said urgently. "I don't regret taking your place. I never will. I am happy I saved you from this. You're my sister. You're my blood. And I will never let anything hurt you like this. I'll protect you until the day I die. Nahalethe," he said, shaking her once and drawing her attention to his frantic face. "Nahalethe, Crow, Sarah, Namaa. You're my sister. I love you. And I'd make the same choice a thousand times over. I will never let anyone hurt you like this."

Crow had stayed deathly silent and still as a statue, eyes wide and burning into Julian's. Her lips moved but no sound came out, and Julian for a moment was terrified of how she would respond.

"Oh, yulleh..."

Crow dissolved into tears, slipping off the seat and falling into Julian. She sobbed, hugging him excessively tight and burying her face against his shoulder, shaking and mumbling nonsensical things. Julian held her tight, rocking gently and making comforting hushing sounds, eyes closed.

"You don't hate me," Crow said, voice disbelieving.

"Not for a second," Julian replied.

Raloi

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Raloi

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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:43 pm

Education

Day 1

Ethan stared at his homework as though it had personally offended him, pencil clutched in one hand and an overly-complicated calculator in the other.

"I hate this," he said plainly.

"Then why did you take Radio and Broadcasting? That's got tons of math crap in it," Len said accusingly.

"Because I happen to like Radio and Broadcasting."

"Quite the conundrum."

"Mm."

Crow, busily working on a crossword puzzle beside Ethan, peered over at his work.

"Huh, you're really stuck, aren'tcha?" she said sympathetically.

"Yes. I just....who the hell cares if I can or can't find the slope of an object! I don't even see how this can be used in normal life! I swear, they make this stuff up just to be mean!"

Crow laughed and pulled the notebook over, chewing on the end of her pen. The graph was a simple one, really...

"Alright, see? Look here. Negative four, postive eight."

She mapped the slope easily, writing down a little group of calculations in the margin of her puzzle. She returned the notebook and laughed again at Ethan's expression.

"What?"

"I've been trying to figure that out for fifteen minutes. You did it in less than sixty seconds. How did you do that."

Crow just smiled, and returned to her puzzle.

---

Day 2

"AUGH!"

"What? What is it? Zombies? Ninjas?"

"Chemistry!"

"For Gods sake, Ethan! I thought you were a radio major!"

"I am. But I still have to take academics...."

"Ooh, chemistry? Lemme see..."

Crow took the book from Ethan and flipped through it eagerly. Ethan slumped down in his chair and banged his head against the breakfast table, hoping the repetitive injury would either kill him or make him develop mutant brain powers. Neither happened.

"Oh, sweetie, this is fun stuff!"

"Says you."

Crow tutted.

"Now what kind of attitude is that....see? Sodium hydrochloride, potassium hydroxide, carbon dioxide...."

Crow wrote out a formula on Ethan's homework, looking pleased. Ethan stared at it.

"What's that?"

"Formulaic equation for the beginnings of rudimentary nerve gas."

Ethan blanched, but Crow still looked infinitely pleased with herself.

"But...I need to...find out the chemical components in...artificial sugar..."

Crow tittered.

"Huh! Kid stuff."

---

Day 3

Crow was not home, but Julian was, and he was currently sitting at the table with Ethan as the boy struggled over a make-up chemistry report. His professor had not found Crow's formula for nerve gas as much of a warrant for an A+ as she had been so confident about.

"Julian," he said eventually, looking up from the report. "May I as you something?"

Julian, poring over a well-aged copy of Hominid and Hybrid Anatomy - Advanced Multiverse Edition (Unabridged), looked up.

"Hmm? Yeah, sure. Shoot."

Sitting back in his chair, Ethan bit at the eraser on his pencil.

"Crow is...very good with science," he said eventually. "Incredibly...impossibly good. And with math. But as far as I know, she's never been to school. She knows things that are not even taught at grad-school university level."

Julian nodded, flipping a page of his book and glancing over the illustration - the inner workings of a centaur heart - before answering.

"Yeah, well, she didn't. She didn't go to school."

Ethan blinked.

"So then how does she know..."

Julian grinned slightly.

"She uploaded the information into her brain."

Ethan blinked again, slower this time.

"Pardon?"

Julian laughed.

"There are no schools in Rijan," he said patiently. "There are public library kind of things, were you go in and the information you want is uploaded directly into you. She was interested in science, but she couldn't leave the house, so she used my father's private kaasik - um, that's kind of...like a computer terminal, y'see - hooked herself up, and that was it. Boom. Right there."

Licking his finger and turning the page again, Julian read for a moment before realizing Ethan was still staring at him.

"It's not that weird," he said. "They did it in that Matrix movie."

"Yes. But. That...that was a movie! It's impossible!"

Julian laughed again, longer this time.

"Ethan. You're living in a world that is based on paradoxes and contradictions of reality. Nothing at all is even vaguely impossible."

Ethan had no argument for this.

"Did you do it too?"

"Hm?"

"The kaasik. You're very young, Julian. Only, what, twenty one?"

"Twenty two. Seventeen, if you want to get technical with the chronological stuff."

"Oh. Wait. What?"

"I'm a Construct. Pre-designed human. My genetics were mapped out beforehand and I was gestated in a biomechanical womb."

"Thats..."

"Weird? Yes. Very."

"And you were designed..."

"To age at a higher rate so I'd reach young adulthood faster. My body's only seventeen, even if it looks older. Mentally, I'm an adult. Neat, huh?"

"Yes. But the kaasik..."

"Yeah, did that too. When I was eight."

"What did you learn?"

This was incredible. Ethan was sitting next to a miracle of science that was only a dream on Earth, and Julian seemed completely ignorant to it.

"Everything, really...everything I know 'bout medicine, at least."

"But Crow said you went to school."

"I did. It's one thing to know something, but it's really quite another to know how to use what you know."

Ethan nodded at this startlingly sagely remark.

"So...does that mean you can help me with my chemistry report?" he asked hopefully. Julian snorted and shook his head.

"Hell no. Can't make heads or tails of that stuff. Ask Crow."

Ethan sighed.

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 11:38 pm

An Interlude, In Which Certain People Wonder If Someone Is Dead

Jozef took a drag on his cigarette before discarding it, grinding it under his heel. It hissed in the snow, embers still glowing faintly.

"Ma's going to kill you for doing that, Jozef."

Jozef turned.

"You gonna tattle?" he asked his sister snidely. Lenka shrugged.

"I could," she said.

"You won't."

"Will too."

"You won't. You're too much of a shrimp."

Lenka made a face.

"What's that got to do with anything?" she asked.

Jozef grinned, showing too many teeth and looking mean.

"Everything. I can just sit on you and crush you," he said. Lenka's face crumpled up and she stamped her foot angrily.

"Kristof will beat you up for teasing," she said, turning and storming back inside. Jozef bristled.

"Kristof's dead, idiot!" he called. "Let's see him help you!"

Lenka stood stock-still in the doorway, and in a flash bolted outside and hit Jozef in the jaw. His head cricked back and he winced.

"I'm going to tell him what you said, and he'll be mad and he'll hate you!" she shrieked. Jozef pushed her off.

"You do that, you big brat," he spat. "Go ahead. See if I care."

Lenka hit him again, and Jozef pushed her harder. She slipped and fell, landing hard in the snow. She gave a cry of pain as her arm skidded over a hidde patch of ice and scraped open, sniffling loudly. Jozef hesitated, then walked away.

---

"Jozef."

Smoking another cigarette out on the sidewalk near the house, Jozef didn't bother to look up.

"Leave me alone, Kon," he said. "Go bother someone else."

There was a moment of silence, and then Jozef gave a shout as someone hit him hard upside the head.

"You made Lenka cry."

"She wouldn't leave me alone, what the ******** is the big deal! Get lost, Konstantin!"

Kon sat down beside Jozef on the curb, taking the teen's cigarette and throwing it out onto the street.

"You shouldn't tell her he's dead," Kon said. Jozef spat.

"He is," he muttered. "It's stupid to tell her he's coming home."

"We don't know what happened to him. He might be alright."

"Bullshit."

"Watch your ******** you, Konstantin. Everyone knows Kristof was your favorite. Don't bother me, I'm glad he's gone. I don't care. He was the weakling. The baby. Lenka's the youngest and she never got half as much attention as he did."

"You're being cruel."

Jozef spat again.

"I'm telling the truth," he said in sullen defiance. "Go ******** yourself, Kon. Leave me alone."

Konstantin stood, hands in his pockets.

"You say awful things," he said finally. "What would Kristof say, if he realized how much you hated him?"

Jozef said nothing, though he watched Kon walk away towards home. He stood after a moment, retrieving his smoldering cigarette.

"I don't care," he said to himself. He stuck the muddy cigarette into his mouth, unthinking. "I don't care at all. I don't miss him. I hate him. I'm glad he's dead."

It was an old lie. And it still left him unconvinced.

Raloi

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Raloi

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Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:21 am

Twisted Fairy Tale

Click! Pages 1-14

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:27 am

Quality Time

Ethan figured that if he was careful and sneaky enough, no one would even notice he was gone. It wasn't going to be a very long practice anyway. Maybe an hour or so, then back home again before anyone even noticed he was missing. He didn't really even want to practice, but hindsight on past events and foresight for paranoia's sake gave him initiative.

So, off he went towards the out-of-bounds forest, knowing he'd been in deep s**t if he got caught, but knowing it was the best place he could be alone. His school bag was in hand, heavy with its contents that he wholeheartedly wished were only books.

Björn's curiosity was, unfortunately for Ethan, one of his strongest mental aspects. It was because of this that he now watched the young man enter the woods from behind a rather large boulder.

He crushed out the cigarette he'd been smoking between his thumb and forefinger and stood, using the rock as a brace. He started into the forest himself then, taking a peculiarly circuitous route.

Winding his way through the thick undergrowth, moldering leaves untouched by snow, and the occasional low-hanging tree branch, Ethan finally came upon a decent clearing and threw his bag idly to the ground. The catch sprung open and a sizable knife slid out, painstakingly wrapped in a bandanna. Ethan glanced down at it, lip curling in distaste, and shed his jacket. The air was still and cold, but at least not the bone-freezing chill that had been gracing the grounds lately. Casting the jacket aside, he dug into the bag, wincing and withdrawing his hand as it made contact with the wrong end of a serrated edge, and simply turned the bag upside down. Five knives fell out.

Ethan looked at them with loathing, and picked up two. The bandannas were removed and he held them, testing weight and balance for a few minutes before he seemed satisfied.

"Hnf," he said dully to himself, looking down at his weapons. Assuming a firmer grip, he slid into a fighting stance and began practicing, weaving a deadly pattern as he moved across the clearing.

One corner of Björn's mouth quirked up at the sight of Ethan's practice. He was currently hiding out a good distance away, leaning against a tree that had initially groaned under his weight and then resigned to bending slightly. The kid was good, sure. Great, even.

This clearly warranted a surprise test.

Counting his steps, feinting from invisible enemies and striking forward, knives flashing in cold glints of reflected sunlight, Ethan caught his foot on a tree root and slipped.

"Anhf!"

Landing hard on his knees, Ethan gritted his teeth and turned the vulnerable position into a crouch, an arm snapping out straight and the knife twisting viciously in the air. He forced himself up again, pausing to catch his breath and wipe detritus off his jeans before continuing. He swung his arms in arcs, slicing and jabbing in almost unnecessarily vicious ways. He knew the force was excessive, but it was the only way he knew how to do it.

He turned his attention to a tree on a whim, slashing at what would to Ethan most likely be level with someone's throat. The knife went cleanly across, leaving an ugly gash.

Björn moved surprisingly stealthily for a man of his size, weaving carefully through only the largest gaps in foliage and using mostly tree roots to navigate, avoiding the dried leaved. It was only by some sort of miracle that he was able to make it into the clearing without breaking a tree.

Or his back.

Then, in one swift and relatively gentle movement (for the likes of him, anyway), he snuck up behind Ethan, pinned his arms behind his back, and shoved him up against the mutilated tree.

"Congrats. You're dead."

"AH!"

Taken fully by surprise, Ethan struggled against his captor, one knife slipping out of his grip but the other revolving out, trying worthlessly to at least scrape at his opponent. He looked over his shoulder, froze, and sagged against the tree in relief.

"You scared me," he said reproachfully, letting the other knife slip out of his hand.

"Well, isn't that the point?" Björn asked, releasing his victim and perching atop a nearby rock, "I highly doubt that any opponent you'll come across is going to warn you beforehand." He pulled out another cigarette and lit it up, taking a drag before speaking.

"Try again. Always watch your back."

Blushing slightly, Ethan picked the knives back up and looked at them as though all he wanted to do was throw them away. The moment passed and he retook his defensive stance, took a deep breath, and began the steps again. He knew every move by heart, but being watched made him nervous and he stumbled, his grip shifting uncertainly. The old, unbidden fear at the punishment for mistakes came rushing back, and he tried to ignore it.

It's only Björn, he told himself. He just wants to see.

Forcing himself into calm, he restarted, the practiced savagery leaching back into his movements.

Björn laughed slightly at the blush, but made absolutely no sound while Ethan practiced. Having an audience was never easy, he knew. He shuddered to think of that one time with the random poison and him and Joe and...

His eyes darted around the clearing, following Ethan curiously. Kid was a ******** ninja. A Slovak ninja, but a ninja nonetheless.

As always, Ethan forgot the rest of the world as he practiced, running through steps and movements, repeating this names to himself as he slashed and cut and jabbed. His breath rose in clouds but he was soaked with sweat by now, smooth transitions between attack and defense never letting him stay still more than a moment. He nearly tripped over the root again but leaped up to avoid it, managing a vicious-looking spin that would have slashed cleanly across someone's face from forehead to chin. He struck out again and again, each move clearly tailored not just for simple offense, but for causing terrible pain.

After awhile, he rested, bracing his hands on his knees and sucking in deep breaths.

Björn stamped the cigarette out beneath his boot before clapping. It was a slow, steady, and almost sarcastic-sounding gesture, however anyone who knew the man would take that as a grain of salt.

"Bravo."

Ethan looked up, a rueful half-smile on his face.

"Thanks," he said, busying himself wrapping the knives up again and tossing them on top of his bag. He looked at them silently for a moment, then turned away. He felt suddenly cold and pulled his jacket back on, zippering it up halfway.

"Don't tell them," he said presently.

Björn nodded, understanding his need and the sudden gesture.

"I won't," he assured Ethan, "Knowing them as I do, they wouldn't care. They might like it." He held his hands up.

"Regardless, I won't tell."

He let his hands drop back to his knees and peered up at the Slovak Ninja, not knowing what else to say.

"Thank you," Ethan said, quieter this time. He looked at the ground, torn up and trampled, and then at his clothes. "Acch. Muddy again..."

Scrubbing ineffectually at a spot on his shirt, he glanced up at Björn.

"Did you learn stuff like this? In the...the Rebellion, I mean. I've heard Liam speak of it before," he said, trying to think of something that would kill the spiraling silence between them.

Björn swallowed hard.

"Nah, wasn't my expertise," he replied carefully, "We had Callers, that's me, Snipers, that's Liam, Footmen, and...ah...Runners. Runners are kind of close." He paused a moment, trying to remember the question.

"Yeah. I know...knew someone who did." He swallowed hard again and inhaled deeply.

Busy putting his weaponry away, Ethan didn't notice Björn's discomfort.

"Oh," he said. He remembered that long-ago conversation with Liam, about people who'd died in this...what was it, really, a war?...and staying dead. "I'm sorry," he said, after a beat. "Was he a friend?"

Björn choked on nothing whatsoever, and the choke almost immediately turned to a gag and a swallow. Well, that had certainly taken him by surprise.

He stood, turned to the side, and clapped a hand to his mouth, gritting his teeth. His eyes fixed to the ground and something in his ears tightened, causing an odd kind of rumbling deep within his head.

Ethan glanced over at Björn, curious.

"What is it?" he asked. Had he asked something he shouldn't have?

"Nothing," Björn said simply, his back still turned. He swallowed and gave a cynical half-grin as he spoke next.

"Yes, he was a friend."

Well, there it went. Björn had never allowed himself to think the poor kid's name, and now he was being asked to vocalize it? Fat chance.

...but he was thinking it.

The man gagged again and slumped backward into a brutalized tree, maintaining stability for only a moment before sinking to the ground. His hands pressed over his face, he could feel that his cheeks were wet. Always the reasonable one, he took off his glasses and buried his face in the crook of his arm, chest heaving.

Ethan went cold. Oh. Oh no. What had he done. He clapped a hand to his mouth, horrified. He backed away a step or two, head shaking slowly. He tried to stammer an apology, but the English came out wavering and jumbled. It took effort to stop stammering.

"Forgive me," he managed finally. "I did not...I didn't mean to..."

"No," Björn said finally, lifting his face to the sky and trying to blink the tears away. There was an eerie, half-insane grin on his face, "It's alright." He closed his eyes a moment longer and the grin fell. Years of emotional repression had taught him well. In a moment, he was standing.

He wiped his face with his arm and put his glasses back on, pushing them up the bridge of his nose to hide his now-bloodshot eyes. He did not, however, move from the tree.

Ethan turned, venturing forward with a look of shame frozen on his face.

"Alright," he said, uncertainly.

Björn knew quite well he had to explain himself, but he was not (and never had been) a man of many words. Well, a picture was worth a thousand or something, wasn't it? He reached into intangibility and brought forth a rubber-banded stack of photographs. He pulled a single picture from beneath the band.

It was of two young men very clearly posing for the photographer, flexing muscles that didn't exist. The very short one on the left as clearly a younger, happier version of Liam. The one on the right, however, was taller, freckled, and significantly younger-looking. His hair was a brown mop, bangs tipped with blue, and his eyes huge and quite the same. His Vavvian heritage would be quite questionable, were it not for the gills.

Björn smiled fondly and held the picture out to Ethan.

"That's him."

Ethan took the photo very carefully, looking at it with a vague smile spreading over his face. He'd never seen Liam look so happy, in the short time he'd known him. Wherever....whenever...this had been taken, they must've been happy. At least for a little while. He wondered briefly what the other man's name was, but did not dare ask again.

"Yeah, you think that's funny," Björn remarked lightly, noting Ethan's facial expression. He flipped through the stack a little and pulled one out.

It was black-and-white, cracked, and bent...but still fairly clear. There was a little girl, chubby, with wild hair and freckles and a thin little boy with what looked to be terminal bedhead. Both were grinning and hugging the other. Ah, Liam and Rabid...they could have been no older than five.

"Guess who."

"Sure," Björn shrugged and smiled, "but I can do yah one better." He searched the stack again and pulled out a newer-looking picture containing a child that looked very much like a younger, water-dwelling Ethan (save the streak of yellow in his hair). He was only physically eleven or so, when he was, in fact, not even two and attempting to read a book upside-down. Björn laughed slightly and shook his head.

Murmuring in surprise at the resemblance, Ethan looked at the picture and smiled wider. He had a feeling he was getting to see something very private and personal, and felt rather privileged for it.

"These are wonderful," he said, holding the photo as though afraid he'd drop it and lose it.

Björn laughed. Special? They were just pictures of moment passed, regardless of how precious those moment were. Ink on paper, that's all.

"That's my son. Damon," he said simply, "He's gotta be gettin' on in his years now. Haven't seen him in a while."

Ethan nodded, still looking at the picture. After a beat the word 'son' clicked in his head and he looked up, looking very surprised.

"I didn't know you had a son," he said, before he could stop himself. A surge of new questions were hastily swallowed and repressed, and he looked down at the photo again, blushing slightly at his own daring.

"Nobody does," Björn shrugged, "but I did. Had a wife too." He paused and then laughed.

"I know what you're thinking. I'd locked myself in the closet at that point, if it makes any sense. They left me when Damon was...ah...six or so." He sat down on a rock, still smiling. It was a real, full-blown smile...a rare occurrence. Perhaps it was because he was finally getting all of this off of his chest. Perhaps it was simply insanity. Who knew, but he liked it.

Ethan sat next to Björn on a ledge on the rock, feeling utterly astonished Björn was sharing such intimate details of his life. No one ever spoke to him about such things. Not even Crow or Julian....he smiled slightly, looking at the photos again.

"When was the last time you spoke to them? When they left?" he asked.

Björn nodded.

"I can't remember the last thing I said to them. It might have not been anything at all. I joined the Rebellion, though. Died a couple times. Enslaved. Never saw them again. I'm not even entirely sure they're still alive. Either of them."

He'd died a couple times? No matter how much he tried to reason it out, some things would just never, ever make sense to Ethan. He still wasn't sure what the hell a necromancer was and how Liam was involved in it, but he let it lie.

"Ah...I'm sorry," he said, expression shadowing. He looked up, looking disturbed. "You were...enslaved?"

"Oh, right! You weren't here for that," Björn nodded as he gently took the photograph from Ethan and stuck it back in the stack, "Well, there's this guy...from your home planet. England or somethin'. Anyway, he kinda...controlled zombies and mass-murdered and...eh. Long story short, his spirit ended up in Liam's body, escaped, and enslaved me to do his bidding. I was not so very pretty." He shuddered.

"Try to not think about it. It'll hurt your head."

Ethan felt his jaw drop, and gently nudged it closed again.

"Oh," he managed, blinking. Well then. He was right on that count - Ethan was certain the sudden onset of disbelieving confusion would trigger a headache. He decided to let it go.

"I've been wondering for a while," he said, changing the subject. "The Rebellion...who were you fighting against? I didn't want to bother you with it before..."

Björn laughed slightly and shook his head.

"I dunno...revenge?" he shrugged, "We like to say it was against society, but I guess it never really was. We all had something happen, and wanted to get back at people for it. We all did things we regret...things soldiers shouldn't do. We all died for it, too."

"Oh..."

Fidgeting, overcome with curiosity but almost afraid to keep asking, Ethan looked at the ground and scuffed at it with a shoe.

"What did you do?" he asked, finally. His gaze was still set firmly on the ground.

Björn thought hard. He'd never intentionally killed innocent people or stolen unnecessary goods, and he hadn't even blown up things what didn't need exploding. He did, however, break a rather important rule...

"Eh. Got a little too attached to one of my comrades. Let emotions take over. Not a good idea. 'S what got me hung eventually."

"That's horrible. And unfair," Ethan said, glaring at the ground and his mouth twisting in distaste. Any details Björn had deigned to leave out of the explanation were lost on him. "What, because you were friends? Hnnf. That's just...ergh! How can they find reason to in that!"

Fuming in outrage as though he was the one that had been threatened with hanging, Ethan muttered darkly to himself, kicking at the ground again.

"Nonononono," Björn laughed and shook his head at Ethan, "I let them catch me. I wanted them to catch me. Yenno, wanting to die to be with whomever died." He shrugged.

"Calm down. My society may permanently scar you for being of a slightly differing lifestyle, but I'll be damned if they kill you for making friends."

Ethan blinked.

"Oh," he said, sheepishly. "I see..."

Leaning back against the rock and looking skyward, wrinkling his nose at the phalanx of gray clouds coating the sky as the sun dipped towards the horizon, he blew out his breath in a small sigh. He'd forgotten about the scar Björn had shown him....reflexively, he crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

"What is it like, in that place? Is it horrible, all the time?" he asked. "Mei...Mei...something. I'm sorry, I forgot the name..."

"Mei-Vaar," Björn finished for Ethan, half-rolling the 'r' instinctively, "For people like me it is. Not if you're normal, though. Or female. I have a friend there now. Joe. He was a medic back in the Rebellion. He's living there fine." He snerked. If only the poor sods knew.

"It's not a great place, but it was home. Was." He started to shove the stack of picture back into his pocket, and then stopped. Hmm...

Björn sighed. Why not, right? He removed the picture from the very bottom and unfolded it. It displayed a very serious-looking young man, physically somewhere around twenty, attractive but lanky...scrawny, leaning up against a wall. He had an eyebrow arched above wire-framed glasses and his hair was rather long, hanging down past his shoulder blades.

"Three guesses."

Ethan's eyes widened painfully. No. No way.

"Wow."

It was nearly impossible to grasp that the man in the photo and the man sitting beside him were the same person. He looked so....so...

"You look a bit different," Ethan said finally, marveling.

"That's a nice way to put it," Björn laughed, "That's before the smoking and the drugs and the bulk. Before the branding, too. That's why I got huge, yanno. Looking back, I wish I hadn't. I could live with losing a few pounds." He stared down at a bulging bicep and grimaced at it. He then threw the stack of photos back into intangibility and shoved a hand in his pocket.

Ethan offered no comment other than a grin and a hastily suppressed laugh. A few pounds was a bit of an understatement - if you could crush someone's head with your bare hands, after all, maybe there was a bit of excess involved.

"Feel free to give me some pointers," he said, poking ruefully at his own arm. "I could stand to not look like a sickly emo-kid anymore."

"I think you look fine," Björn offered, "but you could come to the gym with me any time. I mean, I doubt you'll be able to press five-hundred, but hey." Excess was right.

Privately, Ethan questioned his ability to press more than fifty.

"Alright," he said, picking at the lint on his jacket sleeves absently. "But don't laugh at me if I tip over trying to lift the dumbbells. Or anything else, for that matter."

"You know I won't," Björn snickered, "The other guys might, though, but they're easily shut up." He vaguely remembered the second tallest man being something like 6' 1" and 250. It all worked out.

Ethan laughed.

"Then you've got a deal," he said, pulling at stray threads on his cuff and successfully undoing an entire row of stitches. "Those're the kinds of guys that used to beat me up at home."

He grinned slightly then.

"Though one did manage to break his fingers when I ducked and he punched the wall instead."

"Niiiice," Björn grinned, "Oh, speaking of breaking things. Crow alright?" He knew quite well she had some kind of deranged healing factor, but the thought of him accidentally breaking her nose still didn't sit so well.

Preening with pride a little, Ethan blinked in confusion at the question. It clicked after a second.

"Oh, yeah! Her nose? It's fine. She said she didn't mind, she walks into glass doors often enough that something cracking's daily routine."

He'd known better than to ask if the girl had been joking. The enmity between her and glass doors bordered on the sinister.

Björn nodded slightly, an odd half-smile creeping up onto his face.

"I guess that's alright, then. I still feel bad." He stood then and stretched, his back popping in several places.

"We should probably be heading inside."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Ethan said reassuringly. "Yesterday she got into a fight with a pair of scissors that left both worse for wear. Getting hurt's part of everyday life for her."

He glanced skyward again, expressing his distaste at the roiling gray clouds and the specks of snow daring to fall. He picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder, ignoring the rattling of metal within it.

"I suppose."

Björn started walking slowly across the ground, breathing in visible white streams...through his gills, of course. Humanoid throats burned in too-cold weather, he was beginning to learn.

"You people need to visit Liam more often. He gets more and more emo by the day."

Kicking a dead branch out of the way, Ethan kept up his stride to match Björn's.

"I will," he said seriously. "I didn't mean to neglect him. We all miss him...and everyone else..."

He glanced up at Björn, smiling vaguely.

"I've missed you a lot. You're one of my only friends. Liam too...I'll try to come more often, I promise."

Björn's lips quirked up into another honest-to-goodness smile.

"Nice to know, kid...even if it is a little creepy," he snickered, "Even though I'm technically only a couple'a years older than you." When they reached the door he held it open for Ethan.

"Oh. And don't you tell anyone about today, hm?"

"I don't think it's creepy," Ethan said instantly. He gave Björn a surprised look. "Really? Huh. Neat."

A few weeks before, he was sure this would have astounded him. But after finding out Julian was only seventeen, the age things at least no longer surprised Ethan. He was rather glad about it. At the question, he nodded.

"I won't," he said faithfully.

"Good kid."

Björn patted Ethan's back in what was probably one of his most affectionate gestures ever (...well...) and heaved a sigh.

"Life's kinda ******** up, innit?"

Pitching forward a bit, Ethan nodded and grinned slightly, hefting the bag of weaponry back over his shoulder.

"A little bit, yes," he said.

Raloi

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Raloi

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Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 10:31 am

The WFP

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Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 10:48 am

The Mall

Having reread every book in her rather impressive collection, Crow found she was bored. Horribly, miserably bored.

"Crap."

Throwing a beaten copy of The Call of Cthulhu onto her bed, she flounced her hair dramatically and yanked the door open.

"I'm leaving," she called. There was no one in the room to respond besides the Tezcatlipoca skull, which gurgled in disinterest as she slammed the door.

"Hmmhmm...oh!"

Wandering around the halls, she stopped in front of Rabid's room and knocked, then opened the door a crack.

"Hellooooo..."

Well, nobody could hear her. After all, the door led to a porch which led to another door. And behind that door there was someone playing electric fiddle. Gee, who in the world could that be?

"Crap, I keep forgetting about the house-in-a-room thing," Crow said, pushing the door open and stepping inside. "So. Strange."

Leaping up onto the porch and landing heavily, she knocked again.

"Guys, lemme iiiin, Jehovah's Witnesses are chasing me!" she called.

There was a heavy crash, the sound of a dog barking, and then Hellis appeared behind the door, Desiree in his arms and the doorknob in his...foot? He smiled to Crow.

Dezzy waved.

"Haiiii, Lay-dee."

"Hey!" Crow squeaked in delight. "You're a life-saver. Them Jehovah's Witnesses are frickin' scary...heya, Dezzy-sweet. Have a dollar, I like your face."

She twirled inside, pressing the crumpled bill into Dezzy's hand and giving Hellis a quick peck on the cheek in greeting.

"Everyone ditched me today, damn them...I have to force my presence on you guys to soothe my wounded ego."

Dezzy immediately began to try and tear the bill apart.

Hellis took it from her and tapped her hand with a finger, recieving a glare from the girl. He stepped back then and made a sweeping gesture with his one free arm, inviting Crow in with a silly grin plastered on his face.

Somehow he managed to keep his one-legged balance.

Crow curtsied, grinning.

"So! You wouldn't happen to know where Liam's lurkin', would you?" she asked. "I'm planning on kidnapping him to sell on the internet."

"Aw, c'mon. There's more profit to be made with his kidneys alone," Björn spoke up from a chair against the wall directly beside the doorway.

Hellis ignored the remark and made a kind of bizarre clicking sound with his teeth and tongue while easily kicking the door shut. Liam's head appeared from what one could assume was the kitchen.

"Hey, Crow!"

"Heeey, love," he smiled and approached Crow quickly, giving her a quick peck on the cheek, "What's up?"

"She wants to sell your body on eBay."

"Oh no. E-prostitution."

"Whazzat?"

Hellis patted poor Desiree on the head and moved to sit in Björn's lap.

"Heya, guys...well, that's a given about the kidneys! Alas, I lack the finesse in removing organs," Crow said, kissing Liam cheerfully. "It's just easier to pack the whole thing up an' ship it out."

Slinging an arm around Liam's shoulder, she collapsed against him and sighed.

"Please save me from the bottomless abyss of boredom I've been sucked into," she said mournfully.

Liam bit his lower lip.

"I was just gonna go an'...hnn..." he trailed off. Shopping was no fun when you had the chance to go somewhere with your girlfr--

Hey, girls liked shopping!

"Wanna come to the mall with me?"

"Oooh, yeah, sure! I have money for once, whee," Crow said, brightening. "And we can push people down the escalators. I heard that they can fall forever if you leave 'em be, isn't that cool?"

True, she'd only ever experimented with the theory using a soccer ball, but it was certainly time to move onto human testing.

"Depends on their terminal vel--eh, okay. Off we go. Hel?"

Hellis looked up questioningly, and then nodded, producing a large sheathed knife from intangibility and handing it over to Liam.

"Thanks."

Hellis smiled and nodded before snuggling into Björn.

"C'mon. Lessgo."

Bouncing, planning on all the new books she'd either buy or kindly liberate from the store if they were overstocked - really, she was doing them a favor, snatching a few things that just weren't selling -Crow hooked her arm through Liam's and gave the knife a curious look.

"Goin' hunting, too?" she asked.

Liam looked down at the knife as they started out the door.

"Naaah. Kid asked me to get it sharpened. People aren't used to him, they can't understand what he's asking," Liam nodded, "He covets this thing."

"Aw, that's sweet," Crow said, waving goodbye to everyone and flouncing out the door. "C'mon, let's go, let's go!"

It took longer than usual to get to the mall, and that was only because Liam didn't want to be arrested for speeding.

Again.

When they arrived, however, he screeched into a parking space, pushed down the kickstand, set the internal lock, and leaped off of his motorcycle. Removing his helmet, he held a gloved hand out to Crow.

"After you, my dear."

Looking windswept, Crow took Liam's hand and jumped off the bike almost gracefully.

"Thank you, dahling," she drawled, grinning. She looked at the mall and felt a devious little smile replace the grin as she thought of all the things she could liberate, especially now that she'd found she had gained the ability to stow things in intangibility. She had to bite back a cackle.

"Mmyep," Liam grinned, stowed his helmet away, and hooked an arm at his hip for Crow to link, "Shall we?"

Crow laughed slightly, looping her arm through Liam's again.

"Yes, lets," she said airily, making for the entrance. The mall was a climate-controlled, enormous, mostly modern structure of steel and glass panels. Crow tutted at the excess, and shied against Liam as a group of identically dressed middle school girls trooped by snapping gum in what she took as a deeply threatening manner.

"Yeesh! I forgot how creepy malls are sometimes," she said.

"I know," Liam nodded and shuddered, starting up a nearby flight of stairs, "and definitely not made for people like us."

Disappointed by the lack of escalators, Crow followed close after Liam and pondered pushing someone down the stairs to see if they would bounce. Unfortunately, everyone seemed to be giving them a wide berth.

"Hmmph," she said, clicking her teeth at a bronzed and bleached teenager who gave her a horrified look. The girl stumbled away, shuddering. "Ah well. So! Which store we goin' to anyway? I can buy a new knife for Ethan, I think his birthday's comin' up soon."

"The first one we come to that does polishing adn sh--right here," Liam nodded and went into the store, dismayed the see that the counter was nearly as tall as he was.

"Uh...how can I...help you?"

"Do you have a stool? I can feel a condescending conversation coming on."

" 'Fraid not."

"Ooooh, so much shiny..."

Crow was momentarily distracted, though she glanced over and bit her tongue very hard as she noticed Liam's dilemma. She sneaked over next to him and leaned on the counter, propping one boot on her heel and waving it around idly.

"Aaaalright," Liam huffed and exploded into a mass of shadow, hovering a few extra feet off the ground. The sheathed knife floated with him, and his voice emanated from the swirling vortex of smoke.

The shop owner didn't seen all that phased, 'though his eyes had grown six times their normal size.

"I need this sharpened. And polished. And if you so much as scratch it, I will set my horde of minions after you."

The shop owner swallowed loudly and nodded, imagining himself being eaten alive by his own shadow.

"Have a nice day." And he was humanoid again, turning to Crow, "See anything for Ethan?"

"Mm...nooo, not really. He tries so hard to hide the ones he has, I dunno what kind he likes," Crow said in disappointment. "Eh, I'll buy him a guinea pig. Or a book. Oh! A book about guinea pigs!"

Looking pleased with herself, she gave the store one last cursory glance before tugging Liam to the entrance.

"C'mon, let's go scare small children."

"Oh, jeez," Liam murmured and allowed himself to be tugged, "Mind you, I only look like a fanged psychopath. You? You have no scleras."

"I can pass them off as fancy contacts. My pupils never dilate, only constrict, it's weird...you'd think I would have awesome night vision, but NO. All my stupid eyes can do is look like a cat's and make me unable to see the panes in glass doors," Crow said, pushing a bit of hair back from her face. "And I think you look cute with fangs, now that I'm past the horrible guilt of mutating your soul."

An older man beside them gawked, and Crow tittered.

"You heard me," she said airily, walking past him with her head thrown back in mock-pride.

Liam laughed.

"He probably thought that was some kind of horrible sexual metaphor," he said quietly, and then wrapped an arm 'round Crow's shoulders.

"But I love you anyway."

Crow laughed despite the sudden blush the word 'sexual' had triggered so easily.

"One can only hope," she said wryly, tilting her head to one side and kissing Liam on the cheek. "Love you too."

"Are you blushing?" Liam asked innocent enough, tilting Crow's head with two fingers. He shrugged it off and spun around, heading in the opposite direction.

"Let's go exploring."

"What? Psht, no, why would I be blushing," Crow said, trying to will the blush off her face. It didn't work, but it was worth a shot. She followed beside him, eyes drifting from one store to the next trying to spot things that were worth the risk of lifting.

Liam continued on in disinterest...until he saw it. The obligatory lingerie store shoved between things so innocuous as TJMax and Hot Topic. It was strategic planning...or something. He suddenly hugged Crow from behind, grinning wolfishly, and spun her to face it. He said nothing for a moment.

Taken briefly off-guard by the sudden close contact, Crow blinked in confusion as she focused on the new store. She swallowed a squeak.

"Oh," she said, looking down at herself. She'd gradually gotten away from her previous need to cover up every inch of skin possible without donning a full suit of armor, but still. "Well...we c-could..."

She paused to clear her throat.

"We could go in. Just to see what they have," she said, sounding braver than she felt.

Liam laughed.

"Don't be nervous. Consider it a first step in getting you to...step out." He'd been ready to say 'put out', and decided Crow may run screaming and never look back, and so had opted for innuendo instead.

"I'll hold your hand, I promise."

"Who's nervous?" Crow said with effort, sidling into the store and a blinding sea of pink carpeting, wallpaper and gauzy wall hangings. She did in fact cling to Liam's hand, rifling through a rack of see-through teddies. "What the hell is this supposed to cover?"

Well, she reasoned a beat later, the point was to not cover anything at all. She tugged at a silky ribbon that laced through the thing and gave a yelp as it came out and the whole thing seemed to fall apart and slither to the floor.

"Crap! Um. Okay. Hey, frilly things all the way over there, let's go look," she said quickly, deserting the scene of the crime.

"...but...but..." Liam whined, as if he'd just had his dummy taken away from him for the first time. He wasn't a frills man, really.

"Hokay. Whatever you say."

Upon further inspection of the frillies and realizing there seemed to be no physical way she'd be able to do more in them then stand, glower and try not to trip over the excessive ribbons, Crow moved over to a rack stocked with soft gauzy things that claimed to be nightgowns.

"Oooh..." she murmured, examining a silvery-colored thing. She touched the satiny ribbons and took it from the rack, wondering how it would look on her. Sure, it was completely see-through, but hell it was pretty.

She also had no idea how she'd put it on, but she supposed she could figure it out.

Liam watched with interest, hand sliding down around Crow's waist.

"Well?"

Crow fidgeted, leaning against Liam, plucking at the fake pearl beads that decorated the plush hanger.

"Well...yeah. Yeah, I like this," she said, nodding and ignoring the way her mouth had gone dry at the thought of actually wearing it. "I think I'll get it."

Though she made no move to go over to the counter, where a disapproving woman unsettlingly reminiscent of a nun was glaring at them.

Liam made a face at said woman, baring a fang, and started leading Crow toward the counter.

"See? That wasn't so bad."

Crow mumbled something about it being a piece of cake, not daring to meet the nun-woman's look as she paid for her...gauzy-what-ever-it-was. Seizing the bag and Liam's hand, she evacuated the store quickly and took a breath, eyes dazzled by the metallic colors of the rest of the mall after all that godforsaken pink.

"Only for you," she said, shaking her head slightly and pushing the bag into intangibility just for the hell of it.

"Well, yeah," Liam nodded, "I think you see yourself naked enough. It's my t--oopsie!"

You could almost see the enormous anime sweatdrop sliding down his forehead and stopping abruptly mid-nose.

"HNNNNNGH."

Crow felt so much blood rushing to her head it left her dizzy.

"Ohmygawwwwd, Liam, not in public," she said, voice a thread as she covered her face and bent over as though she'd been struck in the stomach.

"Gawd, I'm sorry," Liam laughed slightly and pulled Crow to him, "It's not like people don't know it happens." Oh, God.

"Not that it's going to! Not that it's going to."

Damnit.

"Any time soon."

AGH.

"AT ALL."

NNGH.

"NNGH."

Through the deadly embarrassment, Crow managed to laugh at Liam.

"One of us is gonna die of an aneurysm right now," she said, standing straighter and lean against Liam. Her face was still a very vivid shade of red. "Gods, this must drive you crazy, every time I react like that."

Glad her nose hadn't decided to spout out a good deal of the blood that had traveled up so quickly, she laughed again slightly.

Liam sighed heavily.

"Yeah. Yes, it does," he nodded and pet Crow's hair lightly, "but whatever. I can wait." That's what his brain told him to say, anyway.

Knuckling her eyes and willing the red haze that clogged them to go away, Crow managed what she liked to think was a wolfish grin.

"I'll try harder," she said. "I got the...whatever it is. That's a good start. Just...don't sneak up on me like that with the. Y'know, that."

She was an adult, after all. Figuratively. She'd gotten kissing down pretty well, she could handle anything else.

Figuratively.

Actually...no. No he didn't.

"I'll never bring it up again," Liam promised and kissed Crow briefly on the temple.

Ignoring the swoop of relief, Crow thought hard on a few things for a moment. Obviously, Liam was in need of things. Things that she had a stupid phobia of, predictably. So. Things needed to change, before she irritated both herself and him to the edge of drastic measures.

"You don't have to. Um, I mean, not bring it up," she said, looking down at the floor at first and then directing her gaze firmly upward. "We could. I could. I mean, I'm twenty! That's more'n enough time to....hnnf. What I'm trying to say is..."

She sighed, pushing her head against Liam's shoulder. Damn her and her inability to enunciate! Thinking fast, she whispered the idea into Liam's ear, feeling foolish that that's what she had to resort to but glad she got the words out all the same.

Liam pulled away suddenly, as if he'd been slapped. His brow furrowed deep.

"Don't say that," he said sternly, "Don't you dare do s**t like that for me."

Again ignoring another damned swoop of relief, Crow still sighed, one hand sliding up her arm to cover the lines of her marque. She had never held the opinion that she was pretty, so maybe that was half the problem.

"Just offerin'," she said, shrugging slightly, thinking about the nightgown and wondering now why she'd even bought it. It wasn't going to be seeing the light of day any time soon.

"Nnhn...nonono," Liam said, trailing off and feeling guilty. He brushed her hand away from her arm and huffed, "It's not that. It's...not you. You're sweet for offering, but...eh." He paused, trying to think of a relatively un-embarrassing way to go about this.

"I've done some...bad things. Emotionally..." he trailed off. God, he couldn't believe he was saying this.

"Emotionally, I ain't ready either."

And all of his chances of getting laid within this millenium suddenly flew out the large plexiglass windows.

Crow looked up in surprise. Well then.

"Alright," she said, voice soft. "We can both stand to wait, then."

Liam laughed, and spoke his next few words breathily.

"Easy for you to say." He wrapped an arm around her waist again and started walking around again.

"So. Why is your immediate reaction to cover the Marque, hm?"

Crow grinned, stifling a laugh and leaning against him as they walked. At the question she sighed and wrinkled her nose, tongue sticking out.

"I hate the damn thing," she said. "It's ugly as hell besides the little eye-spiral thing and everyone stares at it. I mean, not that the alternative's that great...but still. I gotta live with it, stupid thing won't break again unless Julian's breaks too. I figure you think it's just as grody as I do."

"I like it," Liam nodded, shrugging lightly, "I think it's really pretty. I mean, I haven't seen all of it...but what I have...yeah. I love it. It's spiffy." He couldn't find the words he really wanted to use, and so just threw a bunch out there.

"Yeah?" Crow said, smiling wryly. "You're not missin' much... big spiky thing on my back that leads on to my stomach, bigger versions of the crap on my arms going down my legs...it's just too big. If I ever get free of it, my first real tattoo is gonna be pretty. And girly, and colorful. Just to spite it."

She brushed her hair out of her face again, looking Liam over.

"You should get one," she said. "A tattoo, I mean. You'd look awesome with one."

"Uh. Thanks," Liam said awkwardly, "but...Vavvian flesh...no likey foreign substances. It wouldn't stick." And then he stopped.

"Lemmee see."

"Tch. Too bad," Crow said regretfully. A beat later her eyebrows shot up. "What, here?"

The potential embarrassed reaction was already seething under the surface, but she forced it away. Yes. Here.

"Okay," she said, turning so her back faced him and hitching her shirt up, ignoring the trio of gangster-wannabe boys who stopped suddenly and collided into one another as they stopped to look. A winding, symmetrical embellishment of thorny vines traced the length of her spine, ending in jagged spirals. An oval in the center made of alien-looking letters formed a tight spiral in the very middle of her back.

"Grotty, ain't it?" she said wryly, looking over her shoulder.

Liam didn't catch the look. He was entirely silent, tracing the design with his fingertips. After a moment or two he pulled away, as if electrically shocked, and turned to Crow.

"Dude. No way. It's amazing."

Looking surprised and pleased at the compliment, Crow smoothed her shirt down again and snapped her teeth at the gawking boys. They jolted and fled, giving her wide-eyed looks that made her snort. Turning back to Liam, her expression softened again and she looked shy.

"Thanks," she said, boot scuffing at the floor as she leaned against him again.

Liam lifted Crow's chin and kissed her briefly.

"I speak only the truth," he nodded and smiled, hugging the poor girl suddenly.

"I luff you."

"Luff you too," Crow said, laughing at the obscene amount of adorable that always managed to rear it's head when they were together. Feeling if anything more cheerful now then when she'd first stopped by the house to visit, she leaned into the hug and held on tightly. There were people milling around them giving them looks and whispering comments, and she found she didn't care at all.

Liam laughed slightly. Jesus, the cute. The cute was rotting away at his pancreas.

And then someone prodded Crow's behind.

Crow's smile slid off her face instantly and she turned around, teeth bared.

"What the ********," she said, bristling.

Hellis waved down at her. He knew she wasn't the type tor eact well to random touching.

That's why he'd done it.

"This is mine. Not yours."

Hellis stuck his tongue out at Liam.

Realizing too late what she'd just said and to who, Crow made a tiny 'aiee!' sound and blushed violently.

"Oh my god, Hellis, I didn't know it was you I wouldn't have said that if I'd known oh my gawwwd I'm sorry!" she sputtered, ignorant to the fact he'd done it on purpose.

Björn waved slightly back, and laughed as a woman ducked, thinking she was going to be hit.

Hellis grinned and plucked Crow from the ground, spinning her in a wide circle and placing her down. And then he looked to Liam.

"Yeah, I know. I left it with the--don't LOOK at me that way! You never said I had to...FINE."

Hellis had not said a word, and his expression had not changed.

"Fine. I'll bring you to it. C'mon." Liam motioned for Hellis to follow him back up the stairs from before.

"Yeep!"

Unable to stifle the squeak from the unexpected spin, Crow stumbled back into Liam and laughed. After the silent exchange she snorted, watching them go off and making as though to follow. She hesitated, pulling her bag from intangibility and looking at it, silently deliberating the use of keeping it, then shoving it away again. Worst case scenario, she'd just give it to Ethan and take a photo of his face when he saw it.

Raloi

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Raloi

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Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 9:57 pm

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