Take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time (Closed)

[summertimeblues]

Who: Richie Tozier (summertimeblues) & assorted sweet beans
What: April Catch-All + memshare nonsense that doesn't need to be clogging up the intro log, WELCOME TO THE GAME NEWBIES!!
When: Ap..ril....
Where: Southern Outpost/Olympia/Wherever else we wind up going
Warning(s): Persona 5 and Wonder Woman spoilers, mentions of sexual assault, suicide, some murder clown...

Comments

[vorrutyer]

[ And By pulls a face, very slight, at that relaxation. A wordless, implicit apology for even raising the prospect. Stupid and soft. Even with them on friendlier terms, that's not their dynamic. ]

Just the promise given to me upon waking. Lick boots, and we'll keep them safe.

[summertimeblues]

[He notes it. Takes no further action. They're an odd couple, ain't they? Too much alike and too big of instigators to keep off one another's toes. He'd said as much to Prior to ward off an invite to the party, but hell, he's starting to believe it.]

That's about the same line they fed me. With an addendum, of course. Oh, we couldn't possibly interfere. If It wakes up, it's your mess to clean up! Cheerio! Pip pip! Be a good sport and try not to fret, luv, you'll have your fun until the circus comes to town.

[vorrutyer]

[ A short bark of laughter. ]

Good heavens. Really? Never mind that they could probably dissolve the beast where it lies. Never mind that the universe would be a damn sight better for it. It doesn't help their little war, so why bother?

[summertimeblues]

Exactly! [Richie's shout is one born of months of pent up frustration, an absolute lack of outlet for his outrage.] And Christ, sure there's a whole bushel of people here fit for fairy tales, each one capable of something stranger than the next — does that mean that they'd be able to anything about it? Does that mean they'd be able to see? I can't — there's no way to tell, and I'm sure as fuck not sending anyone to go test it out in my place. I'd be as good as fluffing pillows for their coffin, now wouldn't I?

[vorrutyer]

Such a noble heart you have.

[ Said like a joke, meant in sincerity. ]

[summertimeblues]

[He peels out of the rant, hands on his hips.]

What? Are you gonna knight me for it?

[vorrutyer]

Well, Barrayarans don't have knights. We have Vor. But, alas, you've come too late to be made Vortozier - I'm not the Emperor any longer. You're stuck as a prole.

[ Then - ]

I can see it, it seems. So that's something.

[summertimeblues]

All right then. I'm going to take my application straight to your cousin. [He licks an invisible pen and scrawls over an equally absent scroll. The mime is a dedicated affair.] "Dear Your Resplendent Worshipness, Miles Vorkoko: I, Richard Tozier, do submit myself as chief clown-slayer of the Barrayaran armed forced. References available upon request, or whenever the hell they plan on waking the old gang up."

[Anyway.]

You saw what I remembered. If it was in front of you, it'd be pulling new shapes out of your head.

[vorrutyer]

Not a bad campaign. And Barrayarans have a long history of murdering people with painted faces - you'd fit right in.

[ With a shrug - ]

And yes, it'd be pulling horrific things out of my memories, but your morning breath didn't actually kill me. So the creature would end up harmless.

[summertimeblues]

[There's another meaning behind that, isn't there?

But the remark is there and gone in a flash, and his honor is at stake. (Painted faces, though...considering how he'd painted the rest of his history, would that mean...)]

That's because I hadn't had my nightly bowl of pan fried jalapenos. I'll be the death of you yet. [He takes a moment to think, hand to chin.] Perhaps now I'd just see your dick. Ten feet tall with the balls stomping around like elephant feet.

[vorrutyer]

[ A mock-innocent blink - ]

What - you really think the monster would shrink down from the original? That wouldn't be good for scaring you.

[summertimeblues]

Byerly, my sweet By-baloo— [He plants a hand on each of the man's shoulders.] —mutant space dick is spooky no matter how big or how small.

[vorrutyer]

Really?

[ He pours down at his crotch. ]

But I spent so much to get those special features installed.

[summertimeblues]

[Richie clucks his tongue and shakes his head.]

You've been had, my friend. They took you for a sucker.

[vorrutyer]

It has suckers, incidentally.

[summertimeblues]

[Lessons Richie Tozier has yet to learn: Don't play gay chicken with a bisexual.]

Ah— [He breaks, bursting into laughter, but lord all mighty those ears burn brighter than Rudolph's nose on Christmas. Richie pulls back, clapping him on the shoulder one last time as the redness annexs his cheeks.] All right, all right. Enough of that.

[vorrutyer]

[ By touches a finger to his temple, then flips it upwards in a lazy parody of a victorious salute. He'll take his victory gracefully. ]

Why does it try to frighten you, anyway?

[summertimeblues]

It's...hummm. [He pulls his lips in.] It does eat. There are bites out of the bodies, but it doesn't finish them off in a way that...it's more like the death itself. Or the condition of it, the amp up before the final blow. It takes a lot of sweet time building up to the kill.

And at the beginning and end of every year it feeds, there's some big blowout. Almost like a sacrifice. There was an explosion at the Kitchener Ironworks years and years ago, something like eighty-eight dead. That was at the end of a cycle. There was a shoot out that the whole town got in on in the thirties, I think? Some bank robbing gang came into town for a breather and they all lay in wait for them the next day. Peppered 'em right up with all the farming shotguns and nightstand pistols they had. The fire at the Black Spot — don't know if it's still a thing in your time, but there were a fair share of white supremacists in Derry back in the day. Didn't take kindly to the black folks having fun so they barbecued them in their own bar.

[He gives him an apologetic look. Sobering stuff, nothing pretty. Good ol' Derry.]

It seems to take the worst parts of people and crank them up to eleven. The moment it wakes up, things start going south all over. Then it naps for about a quarter century and starts the whole deal all over.

[vorrutyer]

Oh, we have other systems of casual hatred where I'm from.

[ Cheerily said. He continues: ]

So is it a sort of - heavens, one feels foolish asking questions like this. Does it feed psychically?

[summertimeblues]

You feel foolish asking? [Said with the same cheer he'd just been given. Try living it buddy.] I can't say. Nobody's written up a thesis on it, all we've got is our guesses and our history. I'd say it's about fifty-fifty. It needs the misery for certain, but it takes a good couple chomps out of everything. Drags the bodies down with it when it feels like, even if it doesn't finish them.

[vorrutyer]

I don't know. Perhaps you grunting barbarians still believe in magic and psychic abilities and tea-reading and the like.

[ Coming from a man standing just a few meters from his family's collection of swords, cavalry-lances, and flayed human skins, that's, uh, rich. ]

One wonders, though, if it's perhaps linked to the Storm.

[summertimeblues]

Please. The only altar left to be worshipped in my neck of the woods was the altar of entertainment.

[Not that you couldn't still get your palms read for a few bucks.

Byerly's theory isn't as outlandish as one might think. He'd seen it come to Earth in a smoke lodge vision. Him and Mikey wandering among Jurassic leaves and screaming at the sight of the plummeting mass from the sky. Where it came from is a mystery. Perhaps it was dodging the ravages of the Storm itself.

Perhaps it was part of it. An offshoot. An anomaly, a living and immortal plague.]

I suppose we ought to try finding out. It's trading off, so it should be something out of my head this time. [He pauses.] Apologies in advance.

[vorrutyer]

[ By responds to that apology with a mocking kiss blown in Richie's direction, a little devil-may-care wave. Smiling and confident as ever. As if he hadn't just spent the past stretch of minutes stalling, trying to delay the next horror and to draw strength and courage from Nadine's smiling presence. ]

It's all tres cinematic. Like watching a holo-drama. Though mutie features never really were my cup of tea.

[ He goes over and lifts the trap-door, climbing through it first. ]

[summertimeblues]

[Why is he like this. Richie mimes flicking the kiss away.]

Mutie. Sounds like you've got it out for the X-Men.

[Richie's own stomach turns somersaults. He'd like to stay himself. The attic had a homey charm to it, even if the clutter and thick dust would tell you otherwise. It looked like the kind of place where you'd curl up with a book and a mug of tea, ready for transportation to Wonderland.

But they can't linger forever. Richie wants the punishing marathon to be over.

When they go through the door, they are drenched in shadow. Wetness soaks halfway up their calves, and a putrid stink claws into their nostrils like a borrowing beetle. Above them, light streams in from a stormy sky through a broad cement hole, and behind them is an inflow pipe about five feet in diameter, just wide enough to crawl through. Big enough for a kid to stoop in.

Before them are the seven children. Eddie Kaspbrak's joined the crew at last, frail little thing in a crew cut and a thick cast over one arm, aspirator in hand and a fretting knot between his brows. Beverly is scraped kneed and filthy, like she's already crawled a lap through the pipes solo. In truth all she'd done is run like hell from her daddy not even an hour ago, gone loco and determined to wring the life out of her little neck. Mike was bleeding out of the side of his head, Bill from a cut on the purpling lump of his cheek. Richie is shaking in his fright but his eyes are wide and alive behind those hefty specs, mouth pulled back into a madcap grin.

They are pulling back into the shelter of the inflow pipe to dodge massive rocks hurled in from above, like missiles seeking soldiers in the trenches. One by one they go, as hastily as can be managed.

Richie grips Byerly's shirt sleeve.]

This is it. This is the last thing I remember. And — oh.

[The rock barrage stops. Another figure clambers onto the iron rungs. A bigger kid than any of the seven before them. His jeans are scuffed and old, his shirt stained and his hair uncombed and tangled. There's a long lump in his pocket. The knife. He's going fast, eagerly. When he looks down to check his progress he shows the mean cut of his features, but there's something eerily adult and feral about the expression there. This isn't the rage of a child, not even the menace of a bully. It's the look of a hunter, sniffing blood on the air.

Two of his buddies watch from above, slack in the face even if their stare is intent. From the distance of the future and an adult vantage, free of the grip of terror, Richie can see it plain: they weren't themselves. Not one bit. Belch Huggins and Victor Criss were being kept in line by something bigger than the head bully's bluster.]

I guess this is a shit time for formal introductions. Byerly, meet Henry Bowers.

[Bill shouts out as the boy makes too much progress in too short a time. He'll be on them at any moment. "G-G-Get h-h-him!"

Richie, Ben, and Mike are the ones that answer the call. They spill out of the pipe in a jumble.

Richie makes for the ladder and takes a jump. He grabs Henry by the ankle, earning a murderous holler and a mighty shake. He steadies himself by grabbing a rung, climbing higher. Then in a fit of insanity, he sinks those buck teeth into the meat of Henry's ankle.

Henry screams. He pulls himself up and out as a loafer peels off his foot and is lost to the water. "Bit me! Bit me! Cocksucker bit me!"

Richie cries back, elated. "Yeah, good thing I had a tetanus shot this spring!"

"Bash them! Bash them, bomb them back to the stone age, bash their brains in!"

The boys above obey. The rocks rain down again and the seven below are forced to retreat.]

[vorrutyer]

For fuck's sake, Tozier.

[ By was tensed for that to go very badly, but instead - In the wake of that insane berserker attack, he turns a look on Richie that's one-eighth horror and one-eighth delight and three-quarters sheer admiration. That level of madness...Why, the boy could be Barrayaran, with that bravura of his. ]

You could have had your teeth kicked in.

[ But that's said with more warmth than disapproval. And, with a bit of a grin: ]

What did he taste like?