Lt. Carter Blake (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lieutenantantichrist) wrote2013-12-07 11:06 pm
lieutenantantichrist) wrote2013-12-07 11:06 pm
Entry tags:
[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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[He casts his memory back to the distance of half and hour ago.]
Kinda gritty.
[He tilts his hoof in the air.] Nah, nah. Something said the crab ones were fine. I read that somewhere. There was a whole thing about them. I forget what else.
Even the stuff that makes you shit yourself doesn't kill you here. Guy wrote a guide all about it. Well, it was about other stuff too. But a lot about that. I gave him a lot of crap for it. He's gone too, now.
[Blake's gaze turns inward, melancholy.]
Asshole.
video; ugh sorry for all the edits
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.]
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I already miss him.
[The look of incomprehension on the kid's face is bothering him.] You never heard it?
[He puts his hooves together and leans forward earnestly.]
Okay. So.
See, there's this clown. The greatest clown there ever was. As soon as they smacked his ass they put a red nose on his face, and he's the kind of talent you don't see in a hundred years under a tent. By the time he's ten he can bullseye people with seltzer from a hundred yards, he can pie people in the face with his back turned, he can do things with balloon animals you wouldn't believe. He is fuckin' Mozart in rainbow suspenders. He goes to clown college on the Bozo Scholarship and graduates summa cum laude, nothing in the future but clear skies and party hats. And it's great, he's getting booked left and right. Birthdays, bar mitzvahs, that one circus place in Las Vegas that freaked the hell out of Hunter S. Thompson, he's everywhere his big floppy shoes can take him. But the years go by, and that's all there is. How far up is there to go? You can be the greatest clown in history and you're pulling the same county fairs as the twerp who can barely spin a bow tie. Clowns are a joke now, in not in the right way. People call him creepy. He sprays kids with his flower thing and they pitch a fit at him for getting their cell phone wet. One day he's in the middle of a kid's seventh birthday, he's just pulled off a thing with a unicycle that only three men on the face of the earth have ever done and a dozen've died trying, and he's catching his breath and smiling with that big red painted smile, and the kid just gives him this empty look and asks his mom if they can have cake now. And he says, I can't do this anymore. He walks out, packs up all his face paints and polka dot pants, he cashes in his 401k, and he goes out into the world to find what's missing inside him. Then at the same time, deep down in this jungle a thousand miles away, there's this tribe of cannibals. They're run by a chief who used to be wise and smart and fair, but one day his wife ran off with a National Geographic photographer and he's never been the same. Everything good in him turned withered up and ugly overnight. And the two sons, all they know is only one can be the boss once he's gone. Time goes by and the nastiest thing is these kids, they can remember, they know there was once a time when this bitter old bastard cared about them, especially the older one can remember and he fights so damn hard to make a scrap of that come back that he starts to hate his little brother, the one who everything comes easier to, the little clever one everybody likes. And eventually by the time they're grown up it's a cold war between them, and the whole clan's taking sides, and the old man, hell, he's just egging them on. Everything's a competition. One day they go out for a hunt to decide it once and for all, and the older one's been tracking this tiger for days, and when he finally catches up to it the second he's about to jump down from the tree and spear it an arrow goes right through it's head and it's his brother, the goddamn perfect little bastard, and he goes and does what he's been wanting to for years now and tries to spear him instead. And they fight and fight, there's broken ribs, there's broken noses, there's blood everywhere, until the older one drives the younger one off and he takes the dead tiger and hauls its skin back to town to show his father so he can finally be proud, but it turns out that while they were out hunting the old man's had a stroke, his rotted-out old heart is on its last legs, and when the son comes to show him he says for god's sake it doesn't matter, it never mattered. Everything they ever knew, it's going away. It's only a matter of time. There's phone lines tangled up in the vines now. The jungle's getting cleared for a highway two miles over that way and there's only so many surveyors you can have for supper before somebody takes notice. They're fighting tooth and claw to inherit something that won't last out the decade. So the older son, he drops the tiger skin on the floor of the hut and he walks away. He goes back out into the jungle that's been his home as long as he's been alive. And then he sees this clown. Who gives him a kind of tired, apologetic look, and asks for directions to a hotel. This guy who doesn't belong here, in his red nose and poofy wig, who just walks right in like he has a right, and suddenly the guy's full of this insane rage at luck and his village and the world that's moving on without him and it takes him over, all he can see is red, until he standing over a dead body. And he does what they're supposed to, what cannibals do, because that's tradition, and he'll stick by it to the end. And then as he's sitting there over the cookfire, he hears a rustling in the underbrush, and who comes out but his little brother. And it's over. All the hate never meant anything. He gestures to his side and that's all it takes to ask him to join him. And he sits by him, and as they share this together he looks at him, and for the first time in years instead of a rival for the tiny dead scraps of their father's love he sees the brother who taught him how to whistle through his fingers and how to climb trees, and he looks at him, and he says does this taste funny to you?
video; 1/5
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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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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[His eyes rove around to follow the drifting sparkles in the air. He doesn't notice the look on the kid's face.]
I'm on...[he counts on his hooves. It takes a while, since there's just the two.] ...thirty-nine. It's real empty. Kinda peaceful. Kinda lonely, too. C'mon over, we can talk about the good old days.
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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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[He gives the kid's face a considering look. It's hard to tell with the lights going on and off.]
I dunno, seventeen? But seventeen from like fifty years ago. I don't know if that counts.
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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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[His eyes have drifted off to the middle distance. The clouds are real close. One drags down slowly toward his hand.] And there's somebody better than you coming up.
1992, huh. I remember then. You must be one of those throwbacks.
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[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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Course you're real. So am I, so's that chicken. Did I ever tell you about that time Norman got a face full of chickens? That was great.
[Blake looks at him for a long, long time. He contrasts the picture in front of him now match with the wavy memory.]
Yooskay. I know a kid named that. Mouthy little bastard, but he's got guts, you gotta give him that.
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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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[Blake runs his hoof over his mane.]
[He knows he's seen the greaser before somewhere. There's something familiar about the idea of him leaning against a wall in a parking lot and blowing cigarette smoke in his face.]
Gotten in some brawls with the Sharks and Jets, huh.
These lil' guys aren't scary. [He tapped the crab's shell fondly.] Except maybe the balloon ones that look in your brain. And rhyme about rain.
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Nice. So did you and Norman catch the guy in the end?
[Yusuke doesn't know who "the Sharks" or "the Jets" are, but fortunately, he's smart enough to figure out that Blake's probably talking about gangs of some sort. It's either that, or he's talking about actual sharks and jets, which... well, if it turns out that Blake's that fucking high, Yusuke'll just go ahead and stop the conversation so he can look up the closest Pokemon Center and have 'em run out and collect the old man before he hurts himself. 'til then, he's just gonna operate on the assumption that Blake isn't asking if his fighting career included punching a shark. Y'know. Not that he couldn't, of course. B)]
Sort of... I guess. Lots of gangsters. And demons, like I said.
[That last part gets a puzzled expression out of him. He can get behind the idea of something that reads your mind being freaky, but he doesn't quite understand how "rhymes about rain" could be frightening. Hell, if anything, it just sounds annoying.]
What's so scary about rain?
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Yeah. Then after all that shit, you know what it turned out to be? The wrong guy. Fuckin' idiot. What kinda moron runs if he's innocent?
[A grasshopper in a top hat pauses in nibbling on a blade of grass long enough to tip its monocle and remark, It was Agent Jayden who caught him. Blake growls and flicks his tail at him.] You think I don't know that?!
[He looks back at the greaser.] Don't listen to him. The point is the idiot got caught, not who did it.
Demons, that's gotta be the oldest gang name in the book. Have some goddamn creativity at least.
[Blake leans back and feels the grass on his hooves. The grasshopper bounces away. He talks, but doesn't seem to hear himself.]
It's not the rain. It's the dead kids.
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... right. Sure thing, old man.
[Whatever you say, old man.
As for the "demons" thing... maybe it's because he's already expended all of his energy getting pissy with him over that terrible joke earlier, but Yusuke isn't actually that surprised or annoyed when Blake thinks he's still talking about gang members - a little exasperated that he has to repeat what he said earlier about the apocalypse, maybe, but annoyed? Nah. And it's a good thing he isn't, too: had he been winding up for another zinger, that one would've been lost too, because as soon as Yusuke hears the words "dead kids" leave Blake's mouth, bam. Everything around him seems to come to a screeching halt, and whatever he'd been about to say - about demons, about his fights, whatever - vanishes from the tip of his tongue in an instant, leaving him speechless and... quite honestly a bit stunned for at least a solid minute or two.
Whoa.
Whoa.
That... was unexpected.]
What?
[The question tumbles out of Yusuke's mouth without him really noticing it. He hadn't exactly been taking their conversation very seriously up until now, for obvious reasons, but there's something intensely sobering about the mention of dead children, even when coming from a guy messed up on crab shrooms. Hell, especially when coming from a guy messed up on crab shrooms.]
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[He closes his eyes and tips his head up. A patter of rain falls down on his face from the clear sky.]
You must've seen it on TV, like everybody. Can't turn on the news without seeing it, even after it's all over. Goddamn vultures. They give the sick son of a bitch all the attention he wants, just because of all that flashy bullshit a serial killer does. Flowers and little paper animals. Mud on the kid's face... you know what Jayden said that was supposed to mean? That it wasn't personal. "No hard feelings."
[Maybe he shouldn't be telling him this, but everybody already knew. People followed it like a goddamn circus act, and everybody thought they could do it better. A butterfly landed on his shoulder, rubbed its little butterfly legs together, and murmured, Like Jayden, who was right.]
Funny thing is how quick you get used to it.
[Cold mud seeps up around him.]
All part of the job.
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So when Blake finishes talking, Yusuke doesn't press him on anything. He doesn't even do anything cheap like tell him that he understands how he feels, though to a certain extent, he kind of does. Instead, he gives Blake - and himself - a minute, and then he finally looks at him again and says, in an even, but somewhat subdued voice:]
Listen, uh... Lieutenant.
[It feels weird as hell to call Blake that, but somehow, it feels like the right thing to do, at least for right now. Yusuke shifts a little in his seat and continues.]
How about we change the subject, yeah? Uh...
[Crap. Yusuke quickly tries to think of something else they could talk about. He latches on to the first halfway decent idea that pops into his head and goes with it.]
Tell me about the person who left. Your friend. Were they cool?
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At the word Lieutenant, his eyes focus.]
My friend?
[For an instant he thinks the kid means the exact wrong thing, before the rest of the sentence comes together and the rage on his face dies before it's fully formed.
Turning away from the old hurt and anger is a good thing. You can never really forget it, but you can push it into another room for a while.
He snorts.] "Cool." Yeah, that's the word he'd say, and it'd be total bullshit. Always acting like some idiot teenager, posing with those fuckin' stupid-looking glasses like he was some kinda hot shit. But then, once he dropped the act, it turned out he wasn't so bad to be around. A lot more decent than he looked. Actually somebody you could trust.
He's the one who first pointed out I was a horse. Don't know why I never noticed it before.
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Right. Well, friends're good for that, I guess. Making you notice stuff about yourself that you didn't notice before.
... I'm kinda surprised you didn't notice the tail 'til now, though. I mean, c'mon, it's a tail.
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Yeah. The kinda stuff that you figure - well, you don't think about it too much, but you figure it'd get a real ugly reaction.
[He kinda laughs. The rain is there, in the back of his head, but it can't soak him again as long as he keeps his eyes away.]
You can ignore a lot of things. And you go to all the trouble of swatting flies by hand, just so you can keep pretending it's not there.