lieutenantantichrist: (you're the perfect bait)
Lt. Carter Blake ([personal profile] lieutenantantichrist) wrote2013-12-07 11:06 pm

[11] Video/Action for Route 39 - "4 THE MARE"



[Carter doesn't know he's gotten used to it until he wakes up alone.]

[What's supposed to happen is they get up, bitch about the cold, make some coffee and breakfast, bitch about the cold some more, pack up, and hit the road.]

[Today there's just the sound of birds.]

[When Carter sits up, the other sleeping bag is flat. There's a fat, fuzzy teddy bear thing sitting on top of it, and a crab perched on the pillow, where a head full of messy blond hair should be.]

[Both of the animals look at Blake expectantly.]

[He fumbles for his phone and hits the key that dials Dirk. He sits very, very still while it connects.]

[The prerecorded voice tells him what he already knows.]

[He drops the phone and leaves it to chirp out its message to nobody. He pulls on the nearest clothes to hand and crawls out of the tent. The bright light makes him squint. He walks toward the edge of the clearing. They'd found a good place this time. Level ground, no tall grass, surrounded by pine trees. You couldn't even see it from the road. Honestly, Carter doesn't know how Dirk knew it was there.]

[Blake rests his head against a tree and breathes in deep. The bark is cool and rough on his forehead. The air smells like pine needles.]

[Dirk had a good eye for these things.]

[He slams his fist into the trunk as hard as he can.]


Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

[Over and over, and when he finally stops his knuckles are stinging and it's all silence except for his panting.]

[He turns and goes back to the tent.]

[Inside, the fuzzy thing is trying to open up his backpack. Its claws are giving it much luck with the ties. Blake unties it and dumps everything out on the floor. Soap, pokeballs, clothespins, socks. Some oranges roll away, and the thing goes right after them and starts gnawing. Doesn't even take the peel off.]

[There's something thin and white in the pile. A piece of paper. Blake picks it up and reads it.]

[He reads it again.]

[He sits there for a while as the teddy bear thing munches, and there's a low thrum and a shadow through the tent's wall as one of those ladybugs passes by.]

[He digs the little sewing kit out of the pile. He turns his backpack inside-out and opens up the seam at the bottom. He tucks the note in and sews it closed again.]

[By the time he's done, it occurs to him he's pretty hungry. Usually they'd be having breakfast by now. The fuzzy thing's gone through a lot of what he has already. Carter doesn't really feel like fighting it. For the crab's part, it's just watching with wide, unblinking eyes. It has a pair of mushrooms stuck to its back.]

[Carter remembers hearing those are edible.]


[VIDEO]

[Blake is sitting on a stump. He looks contemplative, and somewhat withdrawn. His beard hasn't been trimmed yet this morning. His pupils are a little too wide.]

Hey. You out there.

After a while here you figure things come and go. There's no point in bitching. You just gotta keep moving forward and keep your hooves on the ground.

I figure I might as well ask. I kept putting it off, thinking maybe I'd get home. But that's not happening anytime soon, and it has to be past by now. So if anybody here is from 2013 or so, maybe a little later, I got a question for you.

And all of you. Talk to me. [He thinks, then nods, and taps on the phone's screen.] Tell me something you'd want to know about what's going on at home. Wherever you're from. If you could find out one thing that's happened while you've been gone, what'd you ask?

[He looks out at the trees, his eyes a little glassy. He seems to forget the Gear is on. A moment later, he abruptly cuts the feed.]

[ACTION]

[If you venture down Route 39 today, you might come upon Blake staring out at the horizon, contemplatively chewing on some hay.]

((ooc: Blake's in a bit of an odd place right now...He'll be mostly coherent, but anyone who talks to him may get hallucinated into something unique. The Paras has one mushroom left, so you could also come join him on a spirit journey.))

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-12 04:53 am (UTC)(link)
[... oh, so it was just another American thing. Great. Seriously though, exactly how many times does he have to have this conversation with Blake before the old bastard finally gets it through his thick skull that he isn't gonna understand his stupid pop culture references? Scowling, Yusuke opens his mouth to suggest that Blake get himself tested for Alzheimer's, but before he can even get the first word out, Blake shoots upright and begins talking again. The movement is so sudden that Yusuke actually flinches away from his camera, and as his brain scrambles to catch up, he spends a couple seconds just sort of... staring at Blake, the irritation in his expression now replaced by complete and utter bewilderment.]

Uh...

[Okay then. Yusuke furrows his brow and reaches up with his free hand to rub the side of his head.]

I dunno. Get a dictionary. What, do I look like a guy with a great vocabulary to you?

[JUST WHAT KIND OF A NERD DO YOU TAKE HIM FOR, BLAKE?]

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-13 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
[Under ordinary circumstances, "up your nose with a rubber hose, old man" probably would've gotten a snicker out of him, even though he (once again) doesn't understand the reference. Hell, were he not so caught off-guard by how weird this conversation is getting, that "hey, I'm old" comment would've no doubt prompted Yusuke to immediately fire back with a friendly reminder of where bears go to take a number two, because hello, it's not like it'd take a freakin' microscope to see all those wrinkles on Blake's face. As it is, though, Yusuke's so genuinely taken aback by all of this that he's not able to manage either of the two. It's at this point that he finally begins to catch on to the fact that Blake's scraggly appearance and his, uh, erratic behavior might not actually be caused by extreme sleep deprivation like he'd originally suspected, but before he says so aloud, there's just one thing he needs Blake to confirm for him:]

"Out to pasture", like... a horse?

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-13 02:01 pm (UTC)(link)
[Pull a... plow.

...]

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-13 02:03 pm (UTC)(link)
[.................]

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-13 02:25 pm (UTC)(link)
[WELP. That clinches it. And here Yusuke had figured that the whole "hooves" thing from Blake's original broadcast had just been a figure of speech. Just goes to show that ignorance is... ... well, maybe not bliss, but it's something, all right.

At any rate, there's a long pause, during which Yusuke looks at Blake like he's grown two heads. Then, finally, he breaks the silence with a chuckle and gives Blake a bit of a grin. He's still pretty weirded out by this situation, there's no doubt about that, but it's hard for him not to be just a little amused as well. After all, it's not everyday that you catch a guy like Blake tripping balls.]


Damn, five-O. What the hell kinda drugs're you on right now?

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-16 01:15 pm (UTC)(link)
A mushroom, huh.

[Wow, all right. That'd been way easier to suss out than he thought it would be. Now that he knows what Blake is on, Yusuke's strongly tempted to start dicking around with his head... but then, despite himself, he suddenly becomes a little worried about the old man, and the urge to mess with him abates. After all, it's not like mushrooms are always safe to ingest...]

You do know that some of those're poisonous, right? Like, if you're shittin' your pants within a couple hours of eating one, you're probably gonna die?

[... geez, Yusuke, that's a real gentle way of putting it.]

video; ugh sorry for all the edits

[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-16 02:03 pm (UTC)(link)
[Cannibals? Clown? What? Yusuke shoots Blake a look of implicit "what the fuck", not for the first time since they'd started this conversation. His expression quickly turns a little awkward, though, when Blake gets this look on his face like he's sad about something. Aw, hell. He barely knows what to do about it when his friends look like that. Despite what his usual attitude might lead people to think, however, Yusuke's not so mean-spirited that he'll kick a guy when he's down, even if it's a guy whom he doesn't necessarily get along with 100% of the time, so rather than respond with something smarmy like he would if he and Blake were just engaging in their usual pissing contest, he instead pauses, coughs, and then asks him, in the most casual tone he can manage:]

So uh... who was he, then? A friend of yours?

[Trust Yusuke to know that calling somebody an asshole doesn't always mean you dislike them.]
Edited 2013-12-16 23:14 (UTC)

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-18 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
[... oooh.

OOOOOOH.

UUUUUUUUGH. That was terrible. Yusuke doesn't quite pick up on the punchline at first, though - probably because he was actually pretty absorbed in the story up until then. He wouldn't have expected Blake of all people to be a compelling storyteller, especially not while under the influence of magical crab shrooms, but sure enough, by the time Blake's harrowing tale had reached its end, he was so into it that his face was practically touching the screen of his 'Gear. It doesn't take too terribly long after Blake delivers the final line for it to fully sink in, however, and when it does...]

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-18 04:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[GOD]

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-18 04:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[FUCKING]

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-18 04:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[DAMMIT]

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-18 04:40 pm (UTC)(link)
["Disgust" and "fury" do not come anywhere close to describing the look on Yusuke's face right now. Have you ever been told a joke that was so painfully bad that its badness just pissed you off? Because that's what happened to Yusuke just now. Seriously, Blake, what the fuck. He cannot believe he was feeling sorry for you a few minutes ago. NEVER. AGAIN.]

Which route're you on, old man?

[Yusuke grinds his words out through visibly gritted teeth. He's glaring at Blake so hard his eyes are nearly bulging out of his skull. He might even be turning a little red in the face.]

I need to figure out which glue factory is closest so I can give 'em a call and tell 'em to pick your ass off.

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-20 04:25 am (UTC)(link)
[... well, that sure took forever for Blake to figure out. But hey, at least it gave Yusuke some time to decompress a little; his face no longer looks like a weird pompadour'd subspecies of tomato.]

What, when dinosaurs roamed the planet? How old d'you think I am right now?

[Yusuke's voice is still snappish, but there's a bit of underlying exasperation in there, too. You know what's way worse than knowing deep, deep down in your tiny black punk-ass heart that you're probably overreacting to something? Knowing that you're overreacting, but then not even getting the satisfaction of receiving a proper reaction from the person you're overreacting at. Ugh. Yusuke's tempted to suggest that instead of talking about the "good old days", they should try discussing how, if Blake's gonna spend five years setting up a joke, he should at least make sure it doesn't suck, but decides against it when he realizes that it probably won't get him anywhere. Magical crab shrooms sure do seem like they're one hell of a drug.]

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-24 12:22 am (UTC)(link)
[Yusuke gives Blake a rather withering look.]

Nah, really? Y'don't say.

[DRY. SO DRY. Drier than the sandiest of sandpaper. Fortunately, the fact that Blake apparently thinks Yusuke's a little older than he actually is right now seems to relieve him of some of his lingering irrational anger over being told a crappy joke. Hell, he even grins a little at him as he tells him:]

Heh. Close, old man. Try fifteen from like twenty-one years ago. It's 1992 back where I come from.

[The "fifty years ago" thing doesn't weird him out as much as one might expect, especially not when he takes into consideration Blake's current, uh... state of mind. Hey, he's not unaware of what image this hairstyle of his probably elicits for foreigners. Elvis made a splash in Japan, too.]

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-24 08:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Uh-huh. And how does that make you feel?

[Yusuke's not even gonna touch the "ladies in meat dresses" or the, uh, "she-male" thing. He's just gonna sit here and humor Blake while he waxes philosophical. Isn't he such a nice guy?]

A throwback. Riiight. Sure I am. [There's a pause, and then Yusuke gives Blake an uncertain look and asks him:] You, uh, do know that I'm real, right, old man? That I'm Yusuke, the little shit who blew smoke in your face when you got on his ass about cutting the cigarette habit?

[Good times, man. Good times.]

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[personal profile] angerpoints 2013-12-27 07:45 am (UTC)(link)
[... okay, Yusuke's not sure if he knows who this "Norman" guy is, but he's gotta ask:]

How the hell'd he manage that?

[Seriously, of all the things to get to the face...

As for that last part, well, Yusuke guesses he got his answer to the question of whether or not Blake realizes who he's talking to. The compliment of sorts that comes along with it catches him a bit off-guard, though, and there's a brief pause before he finally responds. When he does, there's a wry sort of smile on his face.]


Psh. Yeah, well, when you've fought some of the guys that I... or, uh, that he, I guess, has fought, a cop isn't really all that scary. Neither are a bunch of stupid magical animals.

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