lieutenantantichrist | [17] [Text/Action for Mahogany] - "Whenever You Get Involved, Someone Gets Hurt."

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[17] [Text/Action for Mahogany] - "Whenever You Get Involved, Someone Gets Hurt."

[ACTION]

[In a low-rent corner of Mahogany, there's a real gym. No mazes, no boss trying to fight you in exchange for something they call a badge, no lackeys, just weight machines and a floor covered with rubber mats, the way it should be. Open twenty-four hours, and this late there's no human in this room but Blake. He's in a sweatsuit, gray in contrast to the brown of the Hitmonlee holding pads for him in its upraised paws. The only sound is his harsh breaths and the thump of his fists on the canvas. His shoulders are hunched like a boxer's. His eyes look straight ahead. Judging from the sweat darkening the back of his shirt, he's been here a while.

On the other side of the room, a Snubbull is sitting on the floor, looking at a Gear that's resting on the mats. A Musharna floats beside her. Fifteen minutes of frustration proved that claws are no good for texting with, but she wants to talk to someone. She really wants to.

She snubs softly, so as not to make her trainer angry. The Musharna's eyes show no reaction, but the buttons on the Gear depress. The text that Steve watches appear seems to be accurate, more or less. The transcription might come strange through the dreaming creature. It's close enough for what she needs.]

[TEXT]

Hello lo low hello

Please talk to me.
I want to talk.
I will tell you my favorite story.
He told it to me when I couldn't sleep. His eyes were closed for some of it but I shook his knee and got to hear the end. Without the end it isn't a story.

Once
upon a time there was a girl. She was poor and alone because her parents were dead, and child services didn't exist then, so she had to go to live with her wicked stepmother and do work for her. Hard work, the kind that nearly killed her, but in time she got used to it.

Then one day she heard the prince was giving a big ball. She asked to go, but her stepmother wouldn't let her. So she tried to run off and get a ride to the castle from a knight, but her wicked stepmother had tailled her, and she found her and dragged her off the horse. While she was going, the wicked stepmother threw the knight a gold coin. He held onto it, and he kept looking at it all the time. He kept thinking about the girl.
He wanted to help her, but he couldn't.

The knight went to the ball, and he was going to kill the prince, but there were too many guards around watching him, so he ran away.

Then the knight went to find the girl and save her. The wicked stepmother grazed him in the neck with an evil spell, but he killed her and all the other guys too, even though he got hurt bad. At first the girl was scared, but then she was free and she was okay. She got to go back home to her real parents. The knight was a hero. All the papers said so.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

..........
..........
..........

Tell me your favorite story.
Voice or video if you can.
The words alone are lonely.

Tell me please.

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_{[She feels the touch, and shoots Steve a very small but hopefully reassuring smile before looking back to Blake. The conversation seems to be on the up and up, despite the extremely somber topic. Somber is better than cursing and punching, in any case.]}

... Sometimes that's all it boils down to.

Luck and where you happen to be in one particular split second.

Not all the time, but sometimes.

_{[She doesn't question whether or not Blake is capable of committing the act that Shaun accused him of. Because he probably-- no, fairly obviously is. But being capable of it isn't the same thing as actually doing it. That's a big difference and it has to be there. Otherwise almost everybody on the planet would deserve a prison sentence.]}

Even if that makes everything seem like it doesn't matter, we have to make it matter.

'Cause we're human, see?

That's how we work.

_{[The reassuring-- but not naiive-- smile reappears then, this time a little bit bigger.]}

[His expression isn't angry. It's something haunted and distant.]

Let me guess. One about somebody bad who went to Hell.

[Steve listens closely and nods along, calming as Yusuke continues, and beginning to get the picture.] I see. So when humans evolve to Ghost type, they're helped along by another Ghost type and a Scyther. But it was a girl ghost?

[Steve doesn't quite understand what she was carrying a rack of, but she doesn't want to interrupt the flow of the story.

The Enma concept is new to her. She's heard of "rat bastards," though. Ugly, beady eyes, corrupt, screws people over in trials-] Oh, I've heard of those! You mean a lawyer!

I didn't think they could be children, though...

[And he is doing more voices. Yusuke you have this little dog charmed to, well, hell and back.

Then her ears twitch right up.] An egg? That doesn't sound like a trial. Those are big formal things where you have to go give testimony sometimes and it's a pain in the ass.

[Her trainer talks about those sometimes. He says a lot tends to be bullshit and there's things called juries that are idiots or who assholes are always trying to intimidate.

She tilts her head, and nods to herself.] Hatching an egg sounds simpler.

But...one whose kind is chosen by how the trainer acts, not what its parents are? I've never heard of anything like that. Though, this guy already saved a little kid, so it's going to be a good beast. That's obvious.

Do you think there are eggs like that around here?

[Whatever the Grim Reaper's laugh may really sound like, Yusuke's impression wins another muffled snorting giggle. She's so involved that she's forgotten all about why she asked for a story in the first place, and all about the man behind her, who has let his fists fall and been listening for a while now. Who is now taking quiet steps closer.]

Then what happened?

[Ash laughs. It is not a happy laugh.]

I've seen the monsters attacking my hometown worrying for the orphans in their own neighborhoods. I've seen the heroes protecting my hometown claim they'd destroy enemy civilians if they could. Believe me, the ones calling themselves monsters or heroes are the greyest of all.

[A... Scyther? What...

... oh, right. They don't have weapons here, either. Man, this place is weird. At any rate, Yusuke figures "a ghost with a Scyther" is as close to understanding the concept of the Grim Reaper as Steve's gonna get, all things considered, so rather than correct her, he just nods and tells her:]

Yeah, you got it. Sorta...

[Despite himself, Yusuke can't help but snort when she draws a comparison between Enma and a lawyer. He doesn't correct her there, either. Technically, Enma was supposed to be the judge of the dead, even though he relegated that particular duty to his son (because obviously being corrupt's not enough, he's gotta be corrupt and lazy), so that kind of did make him like a lawyer, right? Close enough to one, anyway.

The more she talks, the more Yusuke suspects she's just parroting Blake. Some of that stuff does, after all, sound like things Blake would say. Why the hell has Blake been telling his dog about juries and shit, though? The only thing Yusuke tells his Pokemon is to stop sleeping in his damn laundry.

As for her question about whether this world has anything like Spirit Beast eggs...]

Tch, there better not be. Those things are a pain in the ass. [There's a pause. Then Yusuke's eyes widen a little, and he quickly adds:] Or, uh, I'm guessin' they would be, anyway. Not that I'd know, of course, I mean-- pshhht, why would I? Heh heh...

[SMOOTH.]

[Yusuke doesn't miss the movement of Blake's feet in the background there. He's a little taken aback by it, too, considering he hadn't even noticed that Blake had stopped punching whatever it was he'd been punching in the first place. For Steve's sake, though, he doesn't comment on it. Instead, he continues on with the story like nothing's amiss, saying, as casually as ever:]

Well, obviously, the guy was like, "Dumbass, why the hell didn't you say anything sooner? My mom coulda already had me roasted and stuffed into an empty wine bottle by now! C'mon, let's go!" Then he realized that he didn't know how they were supposed to keep his body from being cremated. I mean, the living can't even see ghosts, so how were they gonna hear him when he told 'em not to stick his ass near any open flames?

The Reaper said, "Oh, living people are more sensitive to the supernatural when they're asleep, so if you want to communicate with them, all you've gotta do is stand at their bedsides and visit them in their dreams!" Because that's not creepy at all.

[Spirit World, man. Spirit World. What even.]

But anyway, after that, the guy and the Reaper left to find someone he could talk to. It was pretty late at night by then, but his mom was still up, drinking and yelling at his coffin.

[There's a strong note of chagrin in Yusuke's voice.]

It was pretty embarrassing. So since she wasn't gonna be useful anytime soon, the guy decided to visit his friend instead - the girl he'd known since they were kids. And when he got there, she was, uh...

... she was crying. In her sleep, I mean. I guess she was havin' a bad dream about the guy leaving her or something, which was kinda...

... I dunno. It was weird. Not, like, bad weird, just --

[Yusuke falters a little, looking awkward. Then, almost impatiently, he shakes his head, grimaces, and says:]

Look, the point is, she was upset, so when he visited her in her dream, he told her to wipe her face and listen up 'cause he had something important to tell her. He said, "It's hard to explain, but I'm coming back, so I need you to tell my mom not to have me cremated, okay? So pull yourself together and stop crying. I don't wanna see you cry anymore."

The girl said she understood. That she'd do it. The guy figured that'd be the end of it, but the next morning, when the girl visited the guy's mom, she found out that his mom had some stupid dream of her own, and since the dream had apparently brought his mom some comfort or whatever, she didn't wanna wreck it by telling her about her dream.

... The girl was that sort of person, y'see. Cared a lot about other people, even people who were a mess. Hell, for the longest time, she'd been the only person who bothered givin' the guy the time of day, even when everybody told her he wasn't worth it. I mean, yeah, she was a friggin' nag who was always gettin' on him about goin' to school, but at least she didn't just give up on him like everybody else did. She stuck by him, even when he was a jerk to her, and why she never told him to get lost or something...

... I dunno. I guess that just proves she's a way better person than most. [Yusuke huffs out a chuckle.] Too bad the guy was so stupid it took ending up on the wrong end of somebody's bumper for him to see it.

[Yusuke pauses, once again seeming... weirdly subdued for a moment.]

... aaanyway. Obviously, it was great that she was so nice and all, but the fact that she couldn't bring herself to tell the guy's mom what was up kinda meant the guy was screwed, especially 'cause now she was doubting whether or not the dream she'd had was real. So the guy said to the Reaper, "Hey, Reaper, is there any other way for me to talk to her? 'Cause this dream thing ain't cuttin' it." And the Reaper thought about it and said, "Well, you can try taking control of someone else's body! But on two conditions: they have to be someone you know, and they have to have a strong sixth-sense."

The guy was pissed off. He was like, "Great, in that case, I'm boned. Guess I've gotta get used to being a ghost."

But get this.

[Yusuke leans in closer to the screen, almost conspiratorially.]

It turns out that that ugly guy he was always gettin' into fights with - his rival, I guess you could call him, though you and I both know that they were nowhere close to bein' on the same level - could sense spirits. Called it "the tickle feeling", the stupid idiot.

[Yusuke leans away again.]

Crazy, right? When the guy found out, he was like, "Damn, and here I've just been callin' him a freak 'cause he looks like a rotten potato with eyes." Then he was like, "Forget it, I am not possessing that knucklehead's body! With my luck, I'll end up lookin' at my reflection in a window and dying again, or something."

Then the Reaper was like -- [AND HE QUOTES] -- "Here's my impression of you. 'Look at me, I'm burning!'"

[Yusuke gives the camera a withering look. One would be hard-pressed to find a lineface more intense than the one he's wearing right now.]

What a bitch, right? But she'd made her point, so the guy sucked it up and agreed to go ahead and possess his rival's body. The Reaper told him, "I'll give you one hour to find The Girl and tell her to take care of your body. Anything longer than that'll be too much for your rival's body to handle!"

"Yeah, okay," the guy said. And just like that, he possessed his rival's body, and began running all over the city looking for the girl.

Have you... talked to him about it? The kid.

[Well, obviously it's come up somehow, otherwise Blake wouldn't have learned in the first place, but what about after the fact?

Then again, what kind of kid wants to dwell on something so deeply tragic, not to mention personal? Especially at such a young age.]

...I mean, I guess that's a risk no matter what you say or do, but it could at least get you guys some closure.

[It won't change what happened, but sometimes it's good to tie up loose ends. To reach some semblance of understanding.]

[Catching that smile straightens Steve's spine.]

Split-seconds, huh.

[Blake's eyes fall down to his hands. He rubs his thumb on a sore knuckle.]

I've done some bad shit, kid. Sometimes in a split second. Sometimes...real planned out.

It was always what somebody had to do. You can't look back and second-guess, or you'll never get anything done.

That's one thing about this place. It has a weird way of giving you time to think.

[There's a steady rhythm of quiet wooshes as his Hitmonlee shadowboxes.

Blake makes a tired, almost amused huff of breath.] Human? Hell, that's one of the nicest things anybody's ever called me.

"Pig," I got that one a lot. But there was this one guy who, honest to fuckin' god, he thought I was the devil. Kept sticking crosses in my face and telling me to [he waves his hand] "return to the abyss" or "reveal my true form," no matter how many times I told him, buddy, this is all I got.

Then one day, instead of a cross, it was a gun.

[He snorts to himself.] Crazy idiot. He was goddamn lucky Jayden didn't shoot him.

[Remembering that day troubles him now, more than he's quite let it before.]

[Blake gets a sober look on his face as he's pulled a little out of himself, remembering previous conversations with Ash.] Yeah, you're from the middle of a fuckin' war, aren't you.

If you can't trust being on the right side, how do you know what the hell you are?

[Something desperate comes into his eyes.]

I was a good cop. Everybody said so.

[Except Jayden, but he was just an asshole who couldn't stomach doing what needed to be done, now wasn't he?]

I tried. [His shoulders rise and fall.] He even listened. Didn't kick me in the shins or nothing.

[Just looked up at him with those big hazel eyes. Looking at him like he was the monster in the closet that turning the light on didn't scare away anymore, and, in a weird, worse way, like he'd stopped bothering to try.]

When it came down to it...I knew what I had to say, and I couldn't do it.

[A sneer of derision twists his face.] Fuckin' coward.

I'm not saying you shouldn't make reparations for the bad stuff, I mean, you should. But you're right about dwelling on it not being helpful. ... Hell, especially if it's something you didn't actually do.

_{[Not that it isn't normal to be torn up about it. Finding out you murdered some kid's dad in an alternate reality is rough.]

[She does, however, break out into a small laugh at his description of the zealot.]}

God, I hate those guys. Total nutjobs.

_{[She says it both because, well, THAT IS MORE OR LESS HOW SHE FEELS ABOUT BIBLE-THUMPERS, but also to show that she doesn't agree with what was said to Blake. He might be a crooked cop, and he might have done bad shit. But he's not the devil.]

[Heather's met the devil.]

[actually she may sort of BE the devil, but she'd rather not think about that]}

[Sometimes, especially when they're holed up on the side of the road during bad weather, the rain or snow will drum on the tent and her trainer will talk. "Talking to yourself is for crazies, but nobody ever said anything about talking to any pink dogs." Sometimes he'll tell her all about fights he had, or bastards he caught, or about the ones who weaseled away. She doesn't always understand, but she likes listening.

The trainer who spread his hands and said And he didn't even have a fuckin' parakeet! before he burst out laughing is a different person from the stone-faced man who has not spoken in hours.

Yusuke is much better to listen to than his silence.

Steve cocks her head.] Do people get burned up and put in wine bottles a lot?

Oh, talking in people's dreams! I've heard psychic types can do that![She gestures toward the Musharna.] But mostly Mark just eats them.

[Her ears drop down as he continues.] His mom and his friend must have been very sad. Didn't they know he'd be a ghost and he'd be watching? It's not as though he was gone.

[She thinks for a while, looking down at her paws.] The girl sounds nice.

[She's actually not that surprised to hear that his rival has a hidden spiritual talent.] Did he ever even really talk to his rival before? Sometimes people are a lot more sensitive than you think. Even the loud ones.

Wow! He could just hop right in and run around? It would be so strange to be in someone else's body. It would all be shaped wrong.

[She pays no attention at all to the form that looms above her, breathing quietly, listening.]

[By now, Yusuke would've expected Blake to say something. "What the hell is this", "since when do you tell stories", some bitchy comment about how everything he's saying sounds like horseshit... you know. Something.

Instead, when he finally slows to a stop behind Steve, he just... stands there. Doesn't speak. Doesn't even stoop down to grab the camera or anything, which is what Yusuke was half-expecting him to do when he came close.

Yusuke's a little surprised by how much that unsettles him.

He's half-tempted to pretend like Blake isn't there. Let Steve go on thinking it's still just them and the weird floating thing (the same kind of weird floating thing that both Botan and Shaun have, he realizes belatedly - what's it called, a Musharna? Something like that). He almost goes ahead and does that, too. But there's something off about the old man, he can tell, and Steve looks so small compared to him, and dammit, maybe he's just being paranoid, but he really, really doesn't like how Blake's standing over her right now.

It takes a moment for him to respond to that last bit of pink text that flashes across his screen. When he does, he seems... a little distracted.]

Yeah, it was pretty weird... hey, Steve, can you give me a second?

[Yusuke gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. Then he addresses the legs behind her, his expression sobering.]

Hey, Blake.

You wanna sit down or something? You're kinda throwin' me off here.

[His choice of words is as blunt as ever, but for once, there's nothing incendiary about his tone of voice. In fact, he's actually making a concentrated effort not to sound too aggressive here - not for his own sake, because he can handle whatever Blake throws at him, but for Steve's, because as strange as Blake's acting right now...

... well. As much as Yusuke doesn't want to think Blake would take anything out on her, he's not gonna take any chances. If he was physically there with them and therefore in a better position to protect her if something happened, he probably wouldn't be so cautious, but as it is... yeah. He's not taking any risks. Not while Steve's part of the equation.]

If you can't trust being on the right side, you carve out your own and make that what you are. It's not easy and it upsets people, but that's worth it if you can sleep peacefully at night.

[Ash can't, not always, but that's something else entirely.]

...I'm sure you were. Otherwise, you wouldn't have had the opportunity to decide if a man was to live or die.

No, actually. I told her a story about a man who forgave his father.

[Which... might be a bit more personal than he really wants to let on.]

I don't know how you make up for this kind of thing. I've never had much use for apologies.

[From the second he first heard about it, he's been doing nothing but denying it. Just kept saying it wasn't him, but how much evidence can you ignore?

Despite himself, the corner of his mouth twitches.] You've run into a couple too, huh. This one had a weird kind of thing about me.

[He's feeling honest enough to add] Probably didn't help that he was the first one I blamed for a lot of shit. Brought the heat down on him a few times.

[Steve lets go of Heather and takes a hesitant step toward her trainer. He nods without quite looking up.]

S'all right, girl.

[The sound Blake makes is nowhere in the same nation as a laugh.]

Tell me this. Have you ever once in your fuckin' life met anybody who really forgave anything?

They'll say it. Might even think they mean it. But if a chance for payback came down, they'd take it.

The reason is, you both know the truth: being sorry doesn't change a damn thing.

A couple is putting it lightly, but yeah.

_{[She's not here to talk about HER dirty laundry, so she doesn't elaborate. Maybe someday, though. If only to return the courtesy. Blake's spilled some heavy shit here tonight.]

[Offering Steve an encouraging smile, she nods and sits back.]}

So... I doubt it feels much better after getting that off your chest, but d'you at least not feel like beating the shit out of things?

Revenge has never solved anything.

[But if Blake wants to play this game, he can play it. Ocelot has no reason for revenge. He's been all about business his entire life.

Certainly there are those who would probably want vengeance for something he's done, but he'd be lying if he said he gave a damn about that.]

It's true. Saying you're sorry is a hell of a lot easier than actually being sorry, isn't it? That's the way the world works.

People lie to each other all the time to save face.

Edited 2014-08-02 03:43 (UTC)

[Steve's head whips around, and she yelps, caught redhanded. She scrambles away from her trainer's tread. The Musharna floats mutely, wide eyes unblinking.

Blake's face is far above the Gear screen. Sweat mats his hair to his brow, and his chest and shoulders move visibly with his breath.

The last line typed remains on the screen: It would all be shaped wrong.

His voice is heavy and cold.]

Finish the story.

[Shit. Yusuke's jaw tightens as he watches Steve scramble off-screen. The sound she makes is loud and sudden, and it startles him a little, but more than that, it ignites a spark of protective anger in his chest, which ultimately is what keeps him from flinching reflexively when she yelps. It's difficult for him to swallow down the sharp words that begin gathering at the tip of his tongue the second he sees how frightened Steve is, but he manages, somehow. He told himself he wouldn't start anything with Blake if it meant keeping Steve safe, and by God, he's sticking to his guns, no matter how pissed off he is that Blake is giving her reason to feel scared.

His expression is steady as he waits for Blake's response. He doesn't even blink. Again, he's prepared to be on the receiving end of some choice words, but when all Blake has to say is "finish the story"...

Well, it probably goes without saying that Yusuke is caught a little off-guard.

And you can see it on his face, too, just for a second. Then his expression closes up again, and after a moment, he tells Blake:]

I will.

But first, I need you to sit down, 'cause you look weird as hell from this angle. And call Steve back over here. I'm not finishing the story without her.

[Yusuke's voice is casual, but firm. It's clear he isn't going to budge on this. Once a stubborn asshole, always a stubborn asshole.]

[Sounds like there's a story there. But, seeing as how his jaw is aching from getting punched into spilling his past, he doesn't much feel like harassing Heather about hers.

For now.]

You know what? Yeah. I wouldn't call it feeling a whole lot better, but...

['Less alone'?]

Less of a liar, maybe.

[The look from Heather reassures the little snubbull, and she gets up the bravery to flop down by her trainer and lean her head against his leg. Carter's hand lowers down until it rests between her ears, and gives a light scratch.

He says quietly] You're a good dog, Steve.

Okay. [He isn't going to fight her on that, but that got his curiosity's attention.] Do other people think that? Maybe people who don't know him as well?

I...wouldn't say I'm brave, dragon trainer or not. [Not compared to others he knew, anyway.] I don't have to be afraid of them because they're my friends.

[Usually, indeed. Not that he's going into that.]

[He snorts to himself.] Haven't slept right in a while now. Too quiet.

Too much damn time to think.

[He shakes his head.] It happens all the time, whether or not you're goddamn qualified to go making that decision. Sometimes it happens with dumb kids who don't even have a uniform that fits right yet.

[Her trainer wouldn't hurt her. She knows that. She just knows deep down, on a level as intrinsic to pokemon as to any other animal, that she doesn't want to be in his way right now.

Something about Blake doesn't look like himself. Doesn't sound like himself, either. Usually he keeps all the ugly right on the surface, but right now, the surface is glassy and calm.

The mats thud as he sits gracelessly. His muscles aren't so good at anything but the repeated motion of strike, strike, strike anymore.

He doesn't miss the second of a strange look on the kid's face. Deliberately, he ignores it.

He grates out] Steve. Come here.

[With small, cautious movements, Steve comes closer, to just within range of the screen.

Blake fixes his eyes on Yusuke.]

Finish. The story.

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Page 11 of 16

[17] [Text/Action for Mahogany] - "Whenever You Get Involved, Someone Gets Hurt."

[action] DID THE UNICORN SHOOT SOMEONE'S DAD

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[action] IT IS A KEY SUSPECT

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[action] PROSECUTE THAT MOTHERFUCKER TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW

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[action] DAMN RIGHT

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