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 Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:02 pm
Okay. So Autumn was sort of coming to the realization that she might be an a*****e, some of the time.
...A lot of the time, whatever! But this one was particularly assholish.
It had started normally enough. Autumn had called Chris over to keep her company and work on some potions, maybe test a few out. It was a well-thought-out afternoon. Some trashy TV show was on in the background, and they'd caught up. Shot the s**t while Autumn worked, filing her potions and salves meticulously. It still hurt, but it was getting better, a little bit at a time. Wrapped up in her work, Autumn did not initially notice the working name of Urtica dioica, which this weird recipe from a person's friend's grandmother's sister's neighbor said was absolutely perfect for relaxing the muscles. Only after she had ground up the paste and passed it off to Chris did she get the real name of the plan on google.
Stinging Nettle.
So Autumn waited. And waited. And... nothing. No breakouts, no rash, no itches. Nothing. The internet said he was supposed to be in stupid amounts of discomfort, and yet there he was, ******** crisp and clear.
Weird.
...So she'd added a lot more stinging nettle to the next one, and waited. Still, nothing. Maybe he was just... not allergic to stinging nettle? But no, the internet said, everyone was supposed to have reactions.
Several tries and failures later, Autumn was raising the stakes. Rosalinde had given her an odd look when she asked for Poison Oak and Poison Ivy just out of earshot, collecting them with a towel she needed to throw away anyway. Autumn dropped the scraped-off leaves into a blender with some green tea, matcha, and vanilla ice cream. A quick blend here, maybe a little stevia...
"Here," Autumn said, somehow managing to keep the disbelief out of her voice. "This is a uh. Drink-one. I mixed some ice cream in there so it wouldn't taste like a**. Tell me your reaction."
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:22 pm
Chris had been enjoying his new time with Autumn. It was nice being able to see a friend, even if sometimes he was just grading papers while she was creating the potions and things. But there was trashy TV and talk and he wasn't alone sitting in his apartment wondering why he had let his life get so low that he was grading the english teacher's papers for one of her classes (the answer to that, was that she had gotten him a sweet deal on coffee, but it still didn't make the grading anymore fun) so he was always happy to come by.
She also tested the majority of everything on him, which if it didn't work, was actually kind of nice so Chris didn't mind just sitting around waiting for her to hand him something to slather on or drink.
Today he was going through a lesson plan for the next week, making sure it'd be engaging while also not heavy enough that the kids minds would wander. School would be out soon and he knew that summer was already calling, so he didn't notice much of Autumn working. He barely registered the sound of her coming back, snapping up from his work when she asked him to drink something.
"Hm? Oh, sure." He took the glass, giving it a turnaround and look (green, which wasn't an unusual color when it came to drinking stuff), before chugging it in one swift motion. He licked his lips, considered the taste, and then replied "Tastes pretty okay, green tea in there too? What's it supposed to do? Am I going to glow, or something?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:28 pm
She waited for a bit when he took the initial taste, and blinked. Once. Twice. It tasted... good to him. And so far, he didn't seem to be imitating Violet from Willy Wonka. Which was really ******** surprising, considering the fact she'd put enough poison ivy- and again- POISON. IVY.- to take down a horse. If horses were affected by poison ivy, anyway. That was something she'd have to look up after all this s**t.
"Okay. I'm just gonna be the first to say it," Autumn said, repeatedly looking between the glass and Chris, "you're a ******** freak. That's. It's just plain and simple as that."
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:32 pm
There was a lot of things Chris was expecting Autumn to say. Maybe that it was something to help with protection, or to speed up healing, or to energize. Maybe that it was just a base thing that she was testing on him, to see if it didn't taste bad. Or to ask him how he felt, which had happened on a couple occasions in the past, which he assumed were supposed to be a sign of magic or something. He sure was hell wasn't expecting that though.
"I'm- what the ******** Autumn?!" Chris hissed back, shooting her a nasty glare. "You're the one who can talk to cats and has a cat who grows flowers, yet I'm the freak? All I do is teach!!"
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:37 pm
"All you d- ALL YOU DO IS TEACH!?" She snapped, scowling intensively. "You are not, in fact, ONLY TEACHING. What you are doing is having two weeks of trials of not getting ******** over by any poisonous plant I've thrown at you. What you are doing is drinking POISON ******** IVY and not having a single goddamn reaction."
Autumn sat down, putting her head in her hands. This had to be some kind of Other Ashdown thing, but as of right now, it was feeling like a cosmic joke.
"You just drank Poison Ivy, Chris. You're a ******** freak. We're all freaks."
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:52 pm
Chris, for a second, considering throwing the glass in his hand. Instead he slammed it down on the nearest table, before turning to scowl at Autumn.
"You've been testing POISON on me for two weeks!?!" He yelled back at her. "What the ******** is your issue?! Why the ******** have you been testing poison on me? Why the ******** did you give me POISON IVY TO DRINK?!"
Where the ******** did his life go so wrong that his friend was trying to kill him?
"I'd like a explanation besides just saying that we're freaks Autumn!!"
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:57 pm
"OKAY IN MY DEFENSE," Autumn yelled, looking up again and throwing her hands in the air, "THE FIRST TIME WAS A CRAZY ******** ACCIDENT. I GOT THE WRONG PLANT NAME FOR URTICIA DIOICA, WHICH IS ******** STINGING NEEDLE IT TURNS OUT," she waved her hands dramatically,
"SO I WAS TRYING TO MAKE A MUSCLE RELAXANT A FEW WEEKS BACK, AND THEN IT DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! SO I WAS LIKE WELL ********, MAYBE IT WAS A FLUKE, AND UPPED THE STINGING NEEDLE! AND STILL NOTHING! SO I JUST KEPT ******** UPPING IT UNTIL TODAY," Autumn gestured to the cup he had been drinking out of.
"I FIGURED THIS WAS THE BIGGEST TEST! AND YOU PASSED WITH FLYING, FREAK-a** COLORS! CONGRATULATIONS CHRIS, YOU ARE PLANT RESISTANT."
Autumn forced herself to take a deep breath.
"But seriously. I would've taken full blame if it had gone wrong, and paid for you to go to the hospital. I had nine one one on the dial on my phone all ready to go. I just... had to see. How far this freaky magic s**t go, you know?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 7:14 pm
"I DON'T SHOW A REACTION TO STINGING NETTLE AND YOUR FIRST THOUGHT ISN'T, "Oh it probably was a fluke, let's not do it again", YOU JUST MAKE MORE WITH EVEN MORE NETTLE?!?!?" Chris stood, pushing his hands into his hair and starting to pace. His lesson plan scattered on the floor and he barely glanced at it as he trampled through a few of the papers.
"AND THEN I DON'T SHOW ANYTHING SO YOU JUST, JUST - FULL OUT POISON ME??"
He waved his arms in silent rage and confusion for a minute, trying to find words to explain his feelings further before finally just settling for cussing a very long string in korean. He sat back down roughly on the couch, head in his hands, just trying to think.
"I.. okay. You know, okay sure. I'm not entirely sure I'm ever going to let you hand me something without me watching you put everything in it but... I can understand why. I would've done it."
He didn't want to think about the many ways this could've gone wrong.
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 7:22 pm
"At least you're catching up to me in freskishness," She teased, hoping to lighten the mood. In all seriousness, she was happy to see it hadn't poisoned him. She really was. It meant they were getting stronger. And together, she and Chris were gonna be able to do a LOT. She and Chris were gonna change the face of this war.
Her face fell.
"I was... told. By Pax. This has all happened before. We've done this dance, sung this song. And we lost," She said quietly, not meeting Chris's eye. "We died in the past. Several times. We're going to fail again."
Here, Autumn looked up seriously.
"So I went a little crazy. Hate me for it. But the bigger Factory Reject Dildos we are, the better of a chance we stand against," and oh boy. She knew she wasn't supposed to talk about it, and here she was anyway. Someone had to let him know.
"There's- there's a force. At work. They call it the enemy, but don't refer to it again," She said very serious, eyebrows furrowed, "and it wants us caged. Kept in line. At some point, as far as I get it, Heliodora is gonna die. So are her friends." Autumn squeezed her eyes shut.
"...Pax, too. So. We have to be ready to fight, as best we can. That's why I'm going after the potions, but you- if we can figure out things from the Other Side as helpful or harmful, that might tip the scales in our favor."
So sober. So serious. Autumn found herself dwelling, and before she could, snapped herself upright with a too-forced smile.
"So congratulations! You're getting to be as much of a freak as I am!"
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 8:02 pm
Chris looked up at her confession, watching Autumn with concern. "We've done this all before? Me, you, everyone?" He questioned, neatly skipping over the part about death. He'd think about that later, unpack it and analyze that terrifying thought when he wasn't sitting in a room where he had just drank poison ivy and said it had tasted good.
"I don't.. I don't think I can hate you for it. Not if you're trying to prevent something bad happening," He managed, hands twisting quietly as he thought about it. She was just trying to see, really, even if it was a ******** up way. "I mean, you could've asked but, alright. I'm still mad, probably going to be mad for awhile, but it wasn't like you were intentionally trying to kill me."
Chris caught Autumn's eye, squaring his shoulders. "I'll help with the other side stuff, but can you also teach me potions? I have an herb garden too and well, plants can't kill me. So maybe I can help this way.Or something, just."
He unwound his hands and fussed with his sleeve, glancing down before glancing back up. "I don't want you to have to take the brunt of it alone. I want to help you, for you to be able to rely on me too."
His mouth quirked upwards in half of a smile, "I am, like you said, getting to be as much of a freak as you are."
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 8:15 pm
"Good. Be mad at me. Let that piss anger of me drive you to beat all of this," Autumn grinned, a little manic in her delivery. Still, she was grinning. It was mad. Insane. But she had an ally in all of this. It was... relieving, in a way.
"I'm happy to teach you potions, but it's more like you're gonna learn alongside me. I'm not an expert, not yet. I'm just kind of learning. But I have to warn you," She was more serious here, still smiling nonetheless.
"It hurts. You're going to feel like your arms are melting off of your body. And not just the first time. Time and time after. It's... it still hasn't gotten any easier," Autumn admitted, looking at her own hands. She could feel the fire still in her mind, crawling up her arms. Always the fire, it seemed.
"But yeah. Jeremiah, you, me, Zac... we've done it and tried it and failed. So you and me, we're not gonna let that happen this time. Even if it means trying to poison you ten times over, and singing to every ******** bird I see."
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Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 8:51 pm
"Is this a competition? Who can be the freakiest of all?" Chris joked, feeling a little freaked out and yet amused all at the same time. "How do you even measure it? By how fast one develops freaky powers?"
He grinned at that, although it was more of a grimace than a true grin. "That's fine, both the learning and the pain. I just want to help in more than just.. floundering in other Ashdown. There's always a tradeoff somewhere, anyways, might as well have one that's direct and you know what it is immediately."
He mulled over the names, only really recognizing one. "I've met Jeremiah, that's Detective Mercer, right? Haven't really seen Zac though," He replied, "But no, we'll get it right this time. We have to. Although I could do without the poisoning."
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Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 3:18 pm
"It is. Whichever one of us gets physical changes first wins. None of this like, have-to-activate it s**t. I want to see elf ears, or animals tails. Really weird s**t." She teased back, finding herself relaxing. As long as she didn't think about The Gardener, she wouldn't flip s**t. ...Too many shits, anyway.
"I'm serious though. I wanted to make sure you and I could do something together. And I think we make a great time," she stared Chris down, lips in a tight-pressed line. "I can make plant-potions, you can test them. I mean, we won't know if it'll poison other people, but we'll at least be able to see between the two of us if the pros outweigh the cons." She wasn't gonna slap herself with poison oak or anything, but if some plant broke her out and didn't with Chris... well. They'd be able to assess it, going forward.
"Yeah. I call him the Chief, he's a great guy. Zac is his adopted son, real sweetheart. He was there with me when the burning man attacked. I might set you two up, he's a good contact."
Autumn grinned.
"I promise, hereon out. No more intentional poisoning."
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Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 8:26 pm
"Elf ears or animal tails. That's the weirdest you can come up with? What about wings, or an extra eye?" Chris joked, glad they were getting back to a more relaxed mood. It felt good just being able to joke, even if the joke was strange as hell.
"I.. Yeah. That sounds good, we can do this. We'll make the best team, even if it probably includes me drinking weird stuff again. Which, I mean, isn't much of a change from now," He smiled, already his mind racing with ideas. The plants from the other ashdown garden, they could use those and he could see what could happen. So many possibilities, this power wasn't so bad after all.
"That'd be helpful, yeah. I'd like to meet everyone in this crazy mess, just to cover all my bases."
"Ah well, if it's unintentional that's totally different," He drawled, but then laughed. "No, that's good and fine. I'll probably poison myself on accident someway anyways."
moonstone dazzle caaan probably wrap it up here if you want!!
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