Lt. Carter Blake (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lieutenantantichrist) wrote2014-06-23 05:22 am
lieutenantantichrist) wrote2014-06-23 05:22 am
[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.
[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.
no subject
Y'know, the whole reason I brought all this up in the first place was because I've seen people who've done some pretty horrible things in their lives turn things around. The two guys I was talking about, my teammates? I don't exactly have a list of all the stuff they did wrong, and I don't want one 'cause I don't think it matters, but I can tell you that they've lied and stolen and probably killed a bunch of people for their own gains. As for me? Skipping school and smashing peoples' faces into the concrete might not be that bad, but I can tell you straight up that if I hadn't gotten hit by that car and experienced all the weird crap that happened after that, I woulda gone on to do much worse. I mean, c'mon, d'you seriously think there isn't a reason why not even the guys upstairs expected me to do anything good? I didn't think anybody gave a shit about me, so I didn't give a shit about anybody else. Didn't care what I did or who I hurt. The only thing that mattered to me was that at the end of the day, I felt better about myself, even if it meant stepping all over everybody else.
Basically, I was a selfish piece of shit. Tch, hell, I probably still am, in a lot of ways. In fact, I think the only real decent one out of the four of us on my team is my rival, and he's kind of a screw-up too. Leader of a gang, gets into fights all the time, pisses off our teachers about as much as I do. But he does his best to do the right thing, and so do the rest of us. I mean, Hiei's a little... eh, but uh...
[Yusuke stalls for a second, then shakes his head. He's just not even going to try to explain Hiei right now. After all, just because he understands that Hiei's a good guy despite being angry and misanthropic doesn't mean Blake will.]
Look. The point is, if a couple thugs and criminals can help people and redeem themselves and all that junk, I don't see why anyone else can't. I don't know what you did, old man, but whatever it is, you don't have to go to Hell to make up for it. That doesn't have to be the solution.
no subject
Funny to hear the kid lay his life out like that, looking down the barrel of his own future. A life he could have had, if things had been different.
Weird to hear him talk so frankly, too. He suddenly seems a lot older than he looks. From the right angle, he has the face of a veteran.
He kind of has a point, in a way...but it's a point for younger people, not for somebody who's only getting a real good look at his life as it's in the rearview mirror.
Blake gives Yusuke a sudden, stark look, faced lined deeply and stripped of all the comfortable lies that usually protect him.]
Then why am I here?
no subject
Shit, I dunno, old man. Why're any of us here? If I had any clue who or what was responsible for us bein' in this place, I'd probably sleep easier at night. That, or I'd be trying to figure out whose ass I had to kick in order to send us all back home.
[... he says, ever-so-casually. He is an excellent problem solver. His expression sobers.]
I can tell you what I do know, though.
This place isn't Hell.
For one thing, I know too many people here who've never done anything bad enough to get 'em sent to Hell over...
[Like the twelve-year-old boy sleeping in the room next to his, for example. He doesn't know Shaun's entire life story or anything, but he doesn't have to in order to know that he's a good kid. He'd knock out anyone who tried to say otherwise.]
For another thing? You kinda have to die to get sent to Hell in the first place. I dunno about you, old man, but last I checked, I wasn't dead.
no subject
But you've been dead once before. Me, well, you never know where the bullet's gonna come from.
[This has been preying on the back of his mind for a long time, and now that it's allowed to come out, the idea is firm and dogged]
It's all too damn familiar, isn't it? Like a LSD version of John fuckin' Milton. Trapped someplace where nothing makes sense, physics doesn't work right, it's full of monsters- ow!
[That comes when Steve jabs him in the thigh with her claw. He rubs it and glares at her. She glares right back.]
The hell was that for?
no subject
Nice.
[... he tells Steve, with a shit-eating grin on his face. Heh heh. With that out of the way, he addresses Blake again, saying:]
Anyway, I dunno who the hell John Milton is, but just because this place is weird doesn't mean it's the afterlife. You don't believe me, ask the Grim Reaper. She's here, too.
no subject
You said the monsters are supposed to torment you.
[Poke. Poke poke poke.]
Ow! Quit that! I get it, all right?
[Steve folds her arms, point made. Blake turns to glare at the screen, looking more like himself.]
The Grim Reaper isn't a lady. And if I saw anybody wandering around in a cloak with a scythe, I'd notice.
Point is, kid...whatever this is, it's a long, long way from the real world. And maybe I shouldn't be there right now, anyway. Maybe it's right that I'm gone.
[He's quiet for a while, feeling the soreness in his muscles. Finally, he says softly,]
Sorry, Steve. You're a good dog.
no subject
... ouch. That sure hit a little close to home. Close enough that when Yusuke opens his mouth to respond to his comment regarding the Grim Reaper ("dumbass, she doesn't even have a scythe"), he shuts it again and drops his gaze, focusing instead on a loose thread in his sleeve that he's been fiddling with for the past several minutes. He's pretty familiar with the sentiment behind that statement, but it's still hard to know what to say to it. After all, this situation and the situation he'd been in when he'd thought that way are completely different.
That said, after spending some time mulling it over, he does eventually figure out what to say. And when he does, he sits up in his seat and regards Blake with steely eyes.]
So what's the plan then, old man?
You gonna set things right, or are you just gonna keep sitting around feeling sorry for yourself?
no subject
He's feeling so damn weird he even answers him honestly.] I don't know, all right? This isn't the kind of thing you can just say you're sorry for.
[It has truth to it. Like all the best excuses.
Blake sighs.
His hand falls to Steve's head, where he scratches in the short, soft fur. She allows him. Damn right she's a good dog.]
...I could try. Probably just end up terrifying the kid and making him cry again, but I could try.
no subject
[Yusuke looks troubled. He'd been pleasantly surprised by how honestly Blake answered him (he'd expected the old man to at least get mad at being told that he's feeling sorry for himself, because honestly, that's the sort of thing that would piss Yusuke off), but now that he knows there's a kid involved...
... yeah. It would be an understatement to say that it isn't settling well with him.
That said, he told Blake he wouldn't ask. And whatever it was that happened, the important thing to him right now is that Blake's owning up to it and he's planning on doing something about it. That doesn't make this any less of a hard pill to swallow, but it's at least enough to keep him from feeling angry with him.]
... And y'know, hey. If it doesn't work out, at least you can say you gave enough of a shit to try. Doesn't mean you can't still do better in the future, either. The thing that you did -
[He spreads his hands.]
- whatever it is -
[He doesn't want to know.]
- might not be somethin' you can make right, but at least you can make sure it doesn't happen again. Or try to, anyway.
no subject
[His eyes fall. His fingers tap slowly on the padded floor.]
Wouldn't want to, either.
[Funny how the kid's not chewing him out, or trying to make him spill the details. Saying you have a dark secret you don't wanna talk about is the best way in the damn world to make somebody curious, and you'd figure this would be the last guy in the world to leave well enough alone.]
Hey. Yusuke.
[He makes a decent attempt at getting the name right.]
You're not as much of a pain in the ass as you look.
no subject
Well, damn. Blake's been acting weird all night, but still, that doesn't mean Yusuke had expected to hear that from him anytime soon. He doesn't know what he's more taken aback by, honestly: the fact that the old man actually bothered trying to pronounce his name properly, or the fact that he actually sort of complimented him. Either way, the surprise on Yusuke's face doesn't stay there for long; eventually, he ducks his head and chuckles a little, a crooked smile tugging at the corner of his lips.]
Pffff. Thanks, old man.
[He lifts his gaze again. His expression is cheeky.]
I'll remember you said that the next time you give me crap about something.
[And then rub it in your face, is what he doesn't say. He probably doesn't have to, either.]