lieutenantantichrist | [30] [Video] "I Don't Know How Many Years I Got Left. I'm Going to Get Real Weird With It."

[Blake comes up on screen looking contemplative. It's an unusual look on him.]

Fifty. Five-oh. That's when you get the senior discount at Ben and Jerry's. That's when the numbers come out and say, "Hey, you. You are officially counted as old."

You know what the funny thing is? I never thought I'd get there. I would've bet you the farm that somebody with a name like Crowbar or Joey Butterfly would've gotten me first.

Butterfly like the kind of knife. Not the bug. Or maybe butterfly bandages. I don't know, I never asked the guy. Wonder if if somebody capped him yet.

It's been a while now since I've been back. Years. Lots of things can change. I might not recognize the place. Hell, plenty of people wouldn't recognize me.

[He won't let his face get too maudlin. It gives you wrinkles.]

I'd be bringing plenty back. Same as the rest of you, must be. The people you meet, the things you do... You don't spend a couple years bashing trees with faces out of the road without changing some.

Anyway.

Point is, I'm an old man now, and that means I'm wise. I've been through just about every variety of shit you can imagine, and I'm one of the handful of people around here who's ever jumped a car, fixed a leaky faucet, or cleaned out a rain gutter.

[He spreads his hands.]

So any kind of advice you need - all the shit you ever wanted to know about life but were afraid to ask - now's the time. Shoot.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

_{[Someday, possibly someday soon, Blake is going to meet the Wrath that could shred a man to pieces using his bare hands and literally leap buildings.]

[But today is not that day.]}

No, I'm not good at remembering numbers.

But Lust says they're both gone and I haven't seen them since before she got back.

She's very sad so I want to find them as soon as possible.

[If he ever meets that Wrath, he will be terrified. And still tell him to get out of the damn garbage.]

I can give it a try for you, but I wouldn't hold out hope, kid. Odds are they went home.

Wait, you know Lust? The lady with the great--

[talking to a child here, Blake]

--hair?

Edited 2016-05-10 09:19 (UTC)

_{[As he should, really.]

[Wrath tilts his head, blinking. Blake's near-slipup fortunately soars straight over Wrath's head. He's never had any reason to think too hard about Lust's AMPLE BOSOM.]}

Yes.

She is a Homunculus, like me.

[He had just barely managed to keep himself from gesturing accordingly.

He frowns at the word. He feels like he might've heard it before, but he's not sure.]

A Hummin-what?

A Homunculus.

The damned result of a person committing the ultimate sin of human transmutation.

Lust killed me once but I forgave her and we're friends now. She does have very nice hair.

[Okay most of those words are going to go right over Blake's head. He tries to disentangle the jargon into something he can understand.]

Human mutation? They did some kind of science experiment on you?

[That would...Jesus. Blake's face pales. Who would do that to a woman and a child?]

She can't have killed you, kid. She wouldn't do that.

[There's a plaintive note in his voice.]

Transmutation.

_{[He corrects Blake more as though the ex-policeman had just made a slip of the tongue rather than not having any idea what he was talking about.]}

And-- well, no, when I was created, it was just from someone trying to bring me back. She knew what she was doing, so it wasn't an experiment.

But the soldiers did experiments, later on.

I hate soldiers.

_{[He reaches up to idly scratch behind one ear like a monkey, and goes on as he does so.]}

Lust definitely killed me. She's killed lots of people. So have I, but she was faster that time.

We don't do it anymore, though.

She says that's because this is a "new beginning", where we can "be whatever we want to be".

I want to be a thing that has friends, but I can't do that if I don't know where my friends are. That's why I asked if you knew.

[There's a wide, dark gap of silence as Blake tries to absorb all that.

What he gets: the military experimented on Wrath. Or on both of them.]

You've killed people. Both of you.

[It's hard to imagine, harder to make himself think about. But Blake's learning more and more that there's a lot of things that don't fit into the way he thinks the world works.]

They made you.

Christ. Another child soldier.

_{[He nods. Because yes, they had. Of course they had. In the end it was pretty much all they were good for. Even the information-gathering part of their duty still led to dead humans in the end.]}

They weren't the ones who made me.

I think they wanted to know how I worked.

I don't know why else they would have done those things.

_{[Blake may not always put the puzzle pieces together quite the way they should be, but he's a cop for a reason. He's on the right track.]}