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duhdumb89 · 9 months

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A Forbidden Happiness | Chapter 13

"His Majesty gave us the honor of caring for Jiang gui ren, and we failed so soon," cried Yao gonggong, "I deserve to die!"

He wailed in misery, and his compatriots followed suit, slapping their faces and pounding their chests. Jiang gui ren's maids congregated at Xiang gui ren's feet, wailing in miserable unison. Partly because of their guilt and partly because of pain in their hands, which were covered in brilliant red rashes.

Their mistress was sequestered in the bedroom, asleep as the doctors from the Imperial Hospital worked on her throughout the night. Hours ago, The Emperor's eunuchs returned Jiang gui ren to her rooms. Xiang gui ren wouldn't have known a thing about it if she hadn't heard the other woman moaning and bellowing in pain. The moment that dawn broke, Xiang gui ren rushed over.

Xiang gui ren clicked her tongue, "Aish. It's not your fault the slaves here are slackers. They should've known better than to use buckets that held poison ivy for the milk in jiejie's bath. Dry your tears, Yao gonggong and get up. Listen to the Imperial doctors and take care of those hands or you'll be of no use to your mistress,"

Old as they were, Jiayi and Molan had to help them to their feet.

"Xiang gui ren is too kind," said a squat woman called Huan momo.

Jiayi watched as the elder servants trickle into Jiang gui ren's bedroom, buzzing with anticipation. Now that other servants were gone, she could tell her mistress about the gift she gave Jiang gui ren.

Yesterday evening, Yao gonggong and Cui momo had asked if Xiang gui ren could spare one or two servants to haul a few buckets of goat milk for Jiang gui ren's bathwater. Jiayi volunteered, a seed of a plan taking root in her brain. The hard labor camp and the barn weren't far apart. On the road between the two were stubborn patches of poison ivy. Digging out the climbing vines with your bare hands was a common punishment in the hard labor camp. The blistering, burning rash would last weeks if you weren't allowed to go to the Imperial Hospital for treatment.

Jiayi ripped bunches of leaves with a cloth-covered hand and tied them into a cheesecloth pouch. When all the buckets had been brought to Jiang gui ren's room, she again volunteered to empty the buckets into the tub while the momos warmed the water for the bath. Jiayi dunked the cheesecloth of poison ivy into each bucket before pouring them out. Afraid it wouldn't do much, she let the pouch soak in the tub until Cui momo returned with the hot water, which again she offered to empty. When all was said and done, Jiayi fished out the floating pouch and brought all the buckets and the evidence back to the farm and disposed of the evidence.

It was a foolish thing to do, but Jaiyi couldn't help herself. His Majesty had obviously learned the truth about Jiang gui ren and what she'd done, and the only thing he did to punish her was take away her maids. Jiayi knew her life was cheap, but what of Xiang gui ren? Of First and Second Princess? Of The Empress? How could he let Jiang gui ren get away with it?

Even if Jiayi risked her life, it was worth it. It was worth it to grasp vengeance–something a maid like her never had the right to touch. The thought of how happy Xiang gui ren would be comforted her rabbiting heart as she did the deed.

Unfortunately, Xiang gui ren looked far from happy. The sight of Jiang gui ren had caused her to almost faint. She staggered into the receiving room, with Jiayi and Molan as the only things keeping her upright. She called out the servants and asked them shakily what had happened to their mistress.

Now, Xiang gui ren was slumped over in a chair; her head cradled in her hand.

"My goodness," she muttered, "My goodness..."

"Mistress, are you alright?" Jiayi asked, her tongue numb and heavy in her mouth.

"How can I be alright?" Xiang gui ren replied, "Didn't you see her?"

"I think her outsides match her insides now. You shouldn't waste your time feeling sorry for her, mistress," said Molan.

Jiayi agreed. A poisonous woman like Jiang gui ren suited a body swollen with sickness and riddled with itching blemishes.

"I'm feeling sorry for myself," snapped Xiang gui ren, "Do you know how this looks?"

Jiayi froze and licked her lips, "How what looks?"

"Jiang gui ren suddenly comes down with this strange affliction after I was framed for such a large crime? Not only does it look like I've taken revenge, but it looks like I've done so in the face of His Majesty! If she becomes dead or worse, it would only take one smart mouth to make me the culprit,"

Molan gasped, "Do you think Jiang gui ren did this to herself?"

Xiang gui ren angrily flapped her fan, "Of course not. She would never let His Majesty see her in such a state even if it meant spiting me. No, this was just bad luck,"

Jiayi's stomach roiled with worry. She hadn't thought about that. All she wanted to was get justice for herself after being wronged. She didn't know it would go so far.

"Don't worry, mistress," said Jiayi, her voice quiet, "It'll be alright,"

"Cui momo," Xiang gui ren called.

The maid presented herself.

"Look after Jiang gui ren well. If there are any changes, inform Her Highness at once,"

Cui momo nodded, "I'll run and fetch His Majesty himself if need be!"

Xiang gui ren gave a strained smile, "Very good,"

The day was bright and sunny. If Jiayi's mood was slightly dampened by Xiang gui ren's worries, then it darkened entirely by the sight of Susu entering the courtyard. The maid's clothes were filthy, while her face was crusted with rust colored splotches of old blood. Her greasy hair was tied in a messy braid and by the way she limped across the courtyard, her time in The Office of Careful Punishment was obviously not easy.

Everyone had heard that all of Jiang gui ren's former servants were granted death, so how could her partner in crime be back already?

Xiang gui ren didn't look happy at the sight of the treacherous maid either.

"Is that Susu?" Asked Molan, "I thought His Majesty burned her coffin already. Should we be calling a shaman?"

"This lowly servant wishes Xiang gui ren peace," said Susu, lowering her battered body to the ground.

"Back already?" Asked Xiang gui ren.

Susu nodded, "His Majesty said that without me Jiang gui ren may not recover from the shock of her sickness so he allowed me to return,"

Xiang gui ren smiled, "Poor thing. You came all the way here for nothing. Cui momo and Huan momo are taking good care of jiejie. There's no need for you. Bolin can take you back to The Office of Careful Punishment,"

Susu gaped up at Xiang gui ren before clinging to the concubine's skirts.

"Xiang gui ren, have mercy on me please!" she said as Bolin tried to tear her hands away, "It was Haoyu and the others who plotted against you! My mistress and I were ignorant of it all!"

"Ping'er," Xiang gui ren said, "What do you think?"

It almost made Jiayi laugh at the way Susu's face fell. Cleary, Susu hadn't forgotten the way she had treated Ping'er many months before.

"Mistress, His Majesty did his very best to rid your palace of this sort of vermin," said Ping'er, "Why invite one back to stay?"

Laughing, Xiang gui ren wrenched her skirts away from Susu, "I didn't know you could be so mean, Little Cutie. No matter. If His Majesty is fond of rats, how could I dare question him?"

----

Jiayi couldn't sleep.

Actually, that wasn't true.

Jiayi wouldn't sleep. When her eyes finally closed, and she began to drift away, there was no blissful silence, no comforting darkness. There were only terrible fantasies of what Su gonggong would do when he got his hands on her for good.

As a maid, sleepless nights were second nature to her but Jiayi hadn't slept soundly for weeks. Pie'er had mentioned that her skin had transformed into a sickly yellowish gray. There was a constant buzzing in the back of Jiayi's head, and her feet and hands tended to go numb. She would doze off if she sat down too long or stood still in one place. Shadows constantly crept at the corners of her eyes. Even the princesses had noticed, claiming she was slow and her lines shaky.

Xiang gui ren became more irritable the longer Jiang gui ren was bed bound. The rash had cleared somewhat, but The Emperor had banned her from serving in bed for three months so she could recover fully. More rumors began to swirl concerning Jiang gui ren's fate and Xiang gui ren's hand in it all. Her mistress had gone to bed miffed that Jiayi misplaced her favorite trinket. If Jiayi ruined her sleep because of her night terrors, Xiang gui ren might punish her for the first time. When Jiayi felt the heavy hand of sleep dragging her down, while she was curled up at the foot of Xiang gui ren's bed, she stumbled to her feet.

A walk would help. It usually did. The closer Jiayi was to exhaustion, the quieter her sleep would be. If she took longer than usual, it would be fine. Molan was curled up on the floor next to Xiang gui ren's bed. Jiayi grabbed a lantern and stepped outside.

At this time of night, The Forbidden City was silent. There was no moonlight or wind to rustle the bushes and trees. Only stillness and peace. It made Jiayi jealous. She wanted nothing more than to grab the night and drown it in. She didn't know how much longer she could continue like this.

So when a hand darted out of the shadows and grabbed her, Jiayi blamed the fatigue for how she reacted.

Static crackling in her ears, Jiayi wrenched herself away and sliced her fist through the air, gritting her teeth when the pain of hitting the meat of a human head raced up her arm. A man groaned and stumbled to the ground.

It was Su gonggong, of course it was Su gonggong. It was the first time she had hit him. He wasn't so tough. He was just a man. Hit any man in the right place enough times, and there's no longer a man, just a corpse.

The static in her head grew louder.

Jiayi would just kill him. Nobody would miss him. Nobody would look for him. It wouldn't be hard. Neither of them was where they were supposed to be. She would need to bring her fist down again.

And again.

Things would be okay then.

Everything would be okay.

"Have you lost your mind?"

That.

That wasn't Su gonggong.

Jiayi hurried to pick up the lantern that had fallen to the ground and shone it over the body sprawled before her.

It was Prince Han!

"You–I–um," a million thoughts raced through her head, but the only thing that came out, at last, was, "Where's Sang'er?"

Prince Han stared up at her in disbelief.

"You attack me, and the first thing out of your mouth is about my eunuch? Once again, have you lost your mind?"

"Please forgive me, my lord," Jiayi said, falling to her knees, "I was startled and behaved poorly,"

Prince Han said nothing. He picked up his lantern that fell to the wayside and stood up before spitting a mouthful of blood at his feet.

"It's nearly dawn. What are you doing out here?"

"A walk,"

"A walk? A palace maid came for a walk in the dead of night just a stone's throw away from the military barracks to go on a walk?" Prince Han let out a mean laugh, "Do you take me for a fool?"

It took some time, but Jiayi eventually shook the cobwebs out of her head and realized what Prince Han was accusing her of—an affair.

Her.

An affair?

Sometimes The Emperor sounded grave like this, but Xiang gui ren laughed and laughed. Maybe Prince Han was joking.

"Are you joking?"

When the words slipped out, Jiayi wanted to snatch them back.

"I just...I would never do something like that. I've–I haven't been able to sleep since my arrest, so I sometimes take walks. I'd never been to the barracks, so I didn't know to avoid it. Please forgive me,"

Prince pursed his lips before shaking his head, "Fine. Rise. Go back to Xiang gui ren,"

"Thank you, my lord,"

Jiayi stood and backed around Prince Han, intending to obey his orders. She stopped, a thought popping into her head. Jiayi had thanked De gui fei for coming to her aide during her interrogation; it would only be fair to do the same to Prince Han.

"My lord!"

Prince Han turned to her.

"Thank you for speaking on my behalf in front of Her Highness and His Majesty,"

"I didn't do it for you,"

"Oh," said Jiayi, "Then I thank you on Xiang gui ren's behalf,"

"Her Highness is the example for women around the world," said Prince Han, "How would it look if rumors ran rampant that she couldn't govern His Majesty's concubines and let such lewd conduct run wild? What would it look like if the concubine His Majesty dragged from a brothel caused such a scandal right under his nose? Wei guniang, you can consider this a favor if you'd like. But understand that it is the first and last I will do for you,"

✺

"Your Majesty, you've been working all day; take a break, only for a moment,"

Shen huang gui fei gently pried the calligraphy brush from his hands. The Emperor sat down heavily in his chair, mouth pinched with pain. He rubbed at his temple for a moment. Shen huang gui fei quickly continued the massage with both hands.

The last few weeks for Shen huang gui fei had been ever so peaceful. With Jiang gui ren bed bound and The Empress busy preparing for The Empress Dowager's birthday, barely anyone could rival her for The Emperor's attention. Xiang gui ren was there, of course, but since rumors began to run about her poisoning her housemate, His Majesty flipped her tag less and less. He usually called for her on days like this to hear the soothing sounds of her zither, but today he only asked for Shen huang gui fei.

"Is something troubling you, Your Majesty?"

"Duchess Zian came to greet The Empress today. She told me that Yigue passed away," he said.

So that was the cause of The Emperor's melancholy. The death of his nephew, born to his favorite older brother.

"Wasn't Yigue only 16?" Asked Shen huang gui fei.

The Emperor nodded, "16 and unmarried. Duke Zian is nearly 60 and his only son is gone. I've told him again and again that a man of his status should take more concubines and let his house flourish but he refuses to listen. The Duchess and his concubines are passed middle aged now. There's no chance he'll have another son now,"

"Your Majesty, please calm down. You'll make yourself sick worrying for him,"

"I want to worry for him. Duke Zian's treated is the only one who never treated me like I was an enemy in fight for The Late Emperor's favor. When I became crown prince, he supported me fully. He deserves to have good life and afterlife but that's impossible to do without a son,"

There.

There was Shen huang gui fei's chance. The one thing Shen huang gui fei lacked was backing. Her clan was small and her father a middling court official and none of her many brothers managed to gain any footholds in places that mattered. The only reason her mother managed to become a wet nurse in the palace was through her friendship with The Late Empress' sister.

While her brothers had little talent, Shen huang gui fei did have plenty of unmarried sisters at home. A marriage into Duke Zian's household was a powerful match that could spell a promotion for her father or maybe something more.

"What if you just gift him a few young women?" Asked Shen huang gui fei.

"There's no point," said The Emperor, "He'd just refuse,"

"The Duke may refuse, but would The Duchess? She must know how her household has failed by not being able to nurture more than one son for The Duke. She wouldn't dare refuse the honor of accepting women of Your Majesty's choice for The Duke's sake,"

The Emperor hummed in consideration, "I would need two good girls. There's no point in upending things to wind up with no children. I'll chat with The Empress. She has an eye for these things. She chose a gêgê from the Fuca clan for my 17th brother, and the girl birthed four children for him,"

Shen huang gui fei transitioned to massaging The Emperor's shoulders, "We don't have to trouble Her Highness with something like this right now, Your Majesty. She's so busy caring for the back palace and The Empress Dowager. Let me assist you in her stead,"

The Emperor ran a hand across his mustache, "Will it be your considerations or yours and Royal Mother?"

"Your Majesty is my number one priority," said Shen huang gui fei, "If The Empress Dowager is displeased by my choices, I will gladly take the brunt of her anger as long as your worries are eased,"

It was the truth. Even if The Empress Dowager disagreed, Shen huang gui fei wasn't going to miss this chance. One day The Empress Dowager will be laid to rest beside The Late Emperor and Shen huang gui fei would only have herself to depend on. If she could make her family more valuable to The Emperor and more connected in court, even The Empress would have to kneel to her.

"Fine then," said The Emperor, "Choose wisely,"

"I always do, Your Majesty,"

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entomancy · 4 years

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(Fic) Daywalkin’ in Vegas

...let’s be honest, this ‘short backstory fics’ thing has done what my writing tends to do, and Escalted. So let’s escalate.

Title: Daywalkin’ in Vegas (Wattpad) Setting: Increasingly not even serial-numbers-off-VTM. VTM infact exists in-world as a gaming system, which really annoys Fancy Vampires. Warnings: Gore; depictions of violence/ death against a child. Words: 6537 Summary: A failed siring gets the attention of two very different parts of Vegas Below; and a young blooded nosferatu puts herself in the centre of a dangerous balance.

Beep.

Twenty-eight forty.

Beep.

Thirty-one seventy.

Beep.

Nox watched the till display tick up, comparing the total to her mental tally. She had enough; she knew she did. It might have been in tattered bills, tarnished coin rolls and bits of change so old they were chipped like gears around the edges, but she was always real careful to plan these trips down to the grubby dime. In and out, as unobtrusive as possible.

Beep.

A final bag passed, the green-yellow numbers flickering one final time. The cashier smiled in customer service plastic as she read out the total, then followed it with a look of awkward concern.

“That’s all for you? We - er – we have some good specials,” she said hesitantly, nodding towards the little stack of brightly-labelled packages beside the register. It was mostly sweets and tampons, and Nox bit back on a grin at the sight. Nice thought, but that hadn’t been her ‘bloody’ problem for a while now.

“That’s it,” she replied, adding: “Thanks, though.” Sure, it was an upsell, but a kind one. The girl even managed to keep back any disgust at the state of some of the cash; it had been cleaned up, but people didn’t tend to drop crisp ones into a cup on the sidewalk.

Nox carried everything out to the repurposed shopping cart that she’d left just inside the little bodega’s doors. The thing was unbalanced and took corners like a drunk, but it was better than playing pack mule herself. The new bags settled down on top of the day’s earlier buys: bulk discount batches of toilet roll, bleach and superglue, along with cheap fabric for bandages. Plus, now, thirty-eight dollars and eighty-six cents’ worth of the cheapest mince and frozen shrimp available within a four-mile radius.

There had been a time when she’d had to worry about dietary fibre. Or vitamins.

The cart’s wheels creaked and rasped on sidewalk dirt as she headed it away, hunching down over the handle as she pushed; partly for more control, mostly to keep her face in shade. Her battered baseball cap and hoodie did a pretty good job – accompanied by garish plastic sunglasses and a stained bike mask – but every little helped. It also added to the overall ‘bag lady out on an afternoon shuffle’ aesthetic she was going for. The trick was to inspire just enough awkward pity to be invisible, but not enough to be a target.

Apparently, her act was off today. She’d just turned a laborious corner, distracted by trying to keep the bags all stacked, when she felt a hand clamp down onto the top of her head and yank hard. She didn’t move, but the hood pulled away and she heard a yelp of disgust even before she swivelled around. Two young men stood behind her, gawking in revulsion at the revealed state of Nox’s scalp, in all its piebald, peeling, erratically-thickened glory. A thin braid slithered down her face, torn too-easily free along with the hood.

She gave the scene one more heartbeat to really settle in, before grinning widely. Faced with a mouthful of teeth like broken ivory, the youths managed to look even more horrified.

“Aye, that’s how I caught it too!” Nox cackled theatrically, before snatching the hat back from now-unresisting fingers and jamming it back into place. “Don’t go scratching yerself anywhere pretty fer a bit, eh?”

The lad – and his already-retreating backup – hesitated, then let out a string of bravado-born obscenities. Freak – gross – blah blah blah I-have-a-tiny-dick blah. He kicked at the cart as he started follow his friend, and Nox let just enough spill out to sate the petty spite.

Once they had gone, she picked up the packets again and began to fix her hood. The exposed skin was stinging and smarting already, a poison-ivy prickle that calamine wouldn’t touch. At least it was late enough in the afternoon that she probably wouldn’t blister from the exposure. More annoying was the missing chunk of hair, and she probed at it gingerly. No deep wound, thankfully; which probably meant that the straggly braid had been almost ready to fall out anyway. She tended to keep about half a head of hair going, on average; so it’d grow back.

The lads were long gone by the time she was ready to set off again. With any luck she’d be nothing more than an awkward moment in a day of shoving their weight around; quickly forgotten. Being gross in the eyes of idiots wasn’t a Breech, after all.

The rest of the trip back was uneventful. Streets gave way to alleys, sidewalks to cracked paving, to rotting asphalt, and even the graffiti began to wane as she got closer to home. The main occupants of this ass-end of nowhere – a ghetto’s dumpster of a place – didn’t exactly make it their business to advertise where they were. Those that needed to know; knew. Those that knew, generally didn’t care – which was honestly a hell of a lot better than the alternative. Nox had heard the stories of what it had been like only twenty years ago. It was strange to feel that there was any sort of luck to her history, but six years wasn’t twenty.

Reaching a gap in an otherwise unremarkable wall, she glanced around quickly, making sure that no one was watching. Then she straightened up, gripped either side of the overloaded cart, and hefted it up through the broken brickwork in one smooth movement. She vaulted in after it, dropping down into cool shade, and let out a sigh of relief as the accepting touch of Karloff’s Invitation washed across her. The sense was like a door opening in welcome; like taking the first familiar turn towards home after a long day’s drive. It also meant no more unwanted attention – without that explicit permission, you’d never be able to recognise the entrance, or even keep your attention on what you were looking for. She was as invisible now to all other turned-aside eyes as everything else within the Invitation’s borders.

A few more rattling corners later, Nox finally turned into the Homestead grounds. The whole area had once been a crammed-in mess of squat apartment blocks, copy-paste civic solutions built without charm to fill the need for cheap rooms. The Homestead was the only one of its kin still standing, now surrounded by an opened-out area of recent amateur demolition and scrap-built fencing. Bright splashes of street art cut across sagging concrete and the blacked-out eyes of the windows, although the tags and themes chosen indicated the difference between these creators and the more standard ones of the world outside. Most of this had been painted at night, for example, with rather more variety on the theme of ‘hands’ grasping the tins.

There was a lot more inside, and below, but she felt a particular warmth at these murals. Out here, on the surface. Bright in sunshine that most of them could never see. The Nosferatu might be Vegas Below’s crusty little secret, but they were damn well there.

Bits of cracked paving clicked and skittered beneath the cart’s wheels as Nox made her way through the fences and to the big, bolted main doors. There was a rough porch built around the frame, mostly to give extra shadows, and she looked up at the tiny glints of watchful glass sunk into the surrounding wall. She waved.

“Dimestore-Blade’s grocery delivery,” she announced, and listened to the familiar rattle of bolts start on the other side of the door. A few moments later it swung open and a hunched figure peered out, wincing back from even the thick porch shade. This was Max; an older woman than Nox in both kinds of age, who managed her marks via a combination of extensive bandaging and even more extensive needlepoint. Watery black eyes looked past her, squinting through a gap in the heavily-embroidered scarf wrapped around her head.

“All okay?”

Nox nodded and lifted the trolley over the threshold.

“Fine.” She didn’t mention the youths. Didn’t seem a lot of point. “Let’s get this lot into the freezer before it can walk on its own, yeah?”

Safely inside the slightly-fetid gloom of the entrance, Nox took the opportunity shed her bag-lady layers. True, she couldn’t actually overheat, even on a Nevada afternoon, but being swathed in that many layers was still claustrophobic. Beneath the mismatched fabric strata was an increasingly-threadbare pair of yoga pants and a dark vest, and Nox gave a small sigh of relief as she folded up the rest of her daylight-drag, shoving it onto a shelf nearby.

“Right,” she muttered, as much to fill the air as anything else, and turned back to the trolley. Max had already transferred much of it into precarious piles in her own arms. Her scarf had slipped down, revealing a hairless head webbed with splitting skin; much of it made whole again with patterned patches of colourful thread. The fabric discoloured over time, of course, but it reduced the leaking.

Balancing their burdens, the pair made their way further into the Homestead. Closest to the entrance was the most decrepit part, occupied mostly by shelves and old furniture crammed full of clothes and patched umbrellas for venturing out, and with years of dumped debris building up in corners. Rooms with windows – even those as thoroughly blacked out or bricked up as these were – mostly housed the rat runs or storage, because no one wanted to spend a lot of time somewhere where crap mortar could result in dayburns. Similarly, the roof and most of the top floor was given over to pigeon roosts and No avoided them whenever possible. She’d never much liked pigeons before this, and she still held that even their vitae tasted of garbage, somehow. Still, they were much dumber than rats, and they did lay eggs, so that helped.

The really lived-in part of the Homestead was underground. Everybody knew Nosferatu lived in the sewers, right? Okay, so Nox would admit she hadn’t much understood the difference between ‘sewer’ and ‘storm drain’ before her life had taken its scabby turn, but she sure did now. Vegas had extensive storm drains – large concrete tunnels that lay under much of the city, designed to quickly shift heavy rain away from the tarmacked surface above – and they were ideal: underground, dark, not monitored.

And not actually full of shit.

The arrangement used to be… messier, Karloff had told her. When they hadn’t been so organised; when they’d lived closer together with others who had slipped through the cracks Above. Some of the Family had started off as those same ‘unfortunates’ after all; those who were aftermath-sired in a broken frenzy, or from the bloody jaunt of some fuckfang cutting through the ranks of those who wouldn’t be missed. Splitting their claimed tunnels off from the main circuit and establishing the Homestead proper had happened later, after the Vegas Accord had given the Nosferatu a Clan-status, and hunting them for sport stopped being an acceptable weekend activity.

Six years sure ain’t twenty.

Max chatted away as they walked; an idle litany of gossip, social media tidbits and reports from watchers all over the city, woven together into what Nox tended to think of as ‘Radio Max’. Spying on people was apparently another nos stereotype; but honestly when you didn’t really sleep, were functionally invisible to large portions of society, and had worked out how to divert half-decent broadband from badly-secured leisure networks overhead, it wasn’t difficult to get ahead on current events.

Plus the rats, of course.

Information was power, and they had precious little of any other. Although Nox sometimes wondered how much of those scant threads of power that Karloff put such value on would diminish if Clanpires in general figured out how to just Google things.

They had reached what she thought of as ‘mainstreet’ of the Homestead tunnels – a long space with concrete pillars linking floor to ceiling every thirty feet or so, quite cheerfully lit by a mishmash web of light fittings rigged up overhead – when yelling broke out further down. Nox and Max shared a look of alarm at the commotion, but it was when her name became suddenly clear in the shouts that Nox’s stomach dropped.

“Get this stuff away, will you?” she muttered, carefully setting her packages down beside Max, and turned to meet the oncoming figures. Even wrapped in a heavy coat and thick gloves, she knew the loping form of Skaad instantly.

With features which sagged so violently that his bruise-yellow skin frequently tore at the edges, and a mouth like a lipless sharps bucket, Skaad was nonetheless gifted with some of the keenest senses in the clan, plus a damn-near eidetic memory. Which meant he spent most of his time skulking in hidden places, listening to things he shouldn’t, and following people who thought they were alone in their secret business. Having him sprinting towards you, so fast his eyelids were visibly flapping, wasn’t a great sign.

Back in the world Above – before her life had gone to hell in a weirdly specific way – Nox had been a paramedic. It was useful in the day-to-day, being the closest thing this bunch of ragged immortals had to a resident doctor, but there was only really one sort of actual emergency left down here.

Skaad skidded to a halt, and grabbed her arm with a worrying urgency.

“Got a phresh one. Get yer kit!”

Fuck. A fresh one meant one thing: someone had found a dumped fledgeling, one who’d been showing signs of the Change going wrong and been tossed aside by their disgusted sire. Intervening quickly could help, particularly getting a pigeon smoothie down them fast, but the panic on Skaad’s drooping face didn’t line up with -

“What’s so – ?” she started, but he shook his head, steering her towards the plastic-covered tunnel they used as a makeshift clinic. He leaned in to shove her again, but lowered his voice and muttered just before he did – and the words sent ice down her spine.

“It’sh a kid.”

Oh no.

Oh fuck.

You didn’t turn kids.

When your working knowledge of vampires had been a general pop-culture miasma and some blurry memories of teenage Buffy marathons, finding yourself on the other side of the supernatural coin came as a shock in various ways. One of which was the weird sensation that you should have studied it all harder, somehow. Nox had certainly felt stupid, in her early days, as a man with a face like a charred wasps’ nest listened to her stutter her way through half-remembered fiction and worse-remembered reality. But she’d apparently got a few things right, and somewhere in that muddle had been the idea that you shouldn’t turn kids.

There were all kinds of theories as to why – from the debauched to the practical – but she found that in many ways it didn’t matter. Whatever fucked-up intention you had, it wouldn’t work. Too young just… didn’t take. And when a siring didn’t work, there was every chance the result would end up on her table.

She scrabbled through the assortment of old drawers and boxes that stored her gear, pulling out anything she thought might work. Bandages, thread, craft superglue, repurposed bottles of hard spirits that would do in a pinch for sterilising. The best-case scenario things. And the rest. Old herb pots of fine powders; thrift-store silver cutlery hammered and polished and changed into a very different set of tools. Sharpie-labelled bottles of liquids that moved weirdly in the light, and a range of refillable lighters that definitely didn’t contain hydrocarbons anymore. All the things she’d picked up in the last six years that fitted in with other sort of medicine.

The plastic curtain behind her was yanked back and a sound she had been trying not to hear finally demanded her attention. It wasn’t even a scream, and Nox hated, hated hated hated that she recognised the cadence there perfectly: raw, animal agony of sound torn from a throat that was violently reforming around it. She turned to see Skaad forcing flailing limbs down, looping thick restraints around rippling flesh, and finally allowed her full attention to turn down to the spasming form.

Gore looked different through vampire eyes. It was hard to describe exactly how – partly because wordsmithery had never been one of her strong points, but more because trying to compare feelings from now and then was always going to have a huge fucking hurdle of shifted species in the way. She’d still probably seen more human blood in nine years on the ambulances than during the half-dozen in and out of Vegas’ shadows, and but everything afterwards had been… different. Displaced. Detached. Just didn’t seem as visceral as it used to do.

But this did.

Acid tightened in Nox’s throat as she stared down at the shuddering mess in front of her. Blanched skin bubbled and writhed, tearing as it pulled away from the muscles beneath; themselves little more than contorting ropes of livid tissue that pulsed under dying heartbeats and spilled black fluid from ever-widening rents. The throat was gone, now a bubbling pit of desperate breaths, sucked past exposed tendons that wriggled like furious worms. Half-clotted ichor was pooling from gashes along the arms, down the stomach and further: the marks of peri-sire wounds, those that had been still fresh as the invading blood forced itself into collapsing veins. The eyes were side-to-side a sickly crimson-yellow, bloating out from a face that was collapsing in on itself, and throughout it all, the kid screamed.

It was revolting. Nox had to bite down on the vicious spikes of fight-flight that were going off in her mind, so violently she could feel her hands trembling from the horror and her disgust at her own reaction. It was an instinct, an unbidden response to a failing siring – she knew that – but understanding it didn’t make it easier. Everyone down here had ‘gone nozz’ during their own Turn. Hell, a few of those brought to her were walking around now, not seeming any weirder than any of them, but she’d still felt that awful surge of fundamental wrongness about them before they stabilised.

Nox gritted – all of – her teeth, and slammed her kit down on the table.

Instincts can fucking blow me.

“Let’s see what we can do.”

It turned out what they could do, wasn’t much. Cleaning, sewing, cutting, sealing – nothing held. Stitches fell from uncertain skin, or tore great new holes as fresh spasms pulled at the edges. Wet rags soon littered the floor, sodden with black and yellow fluids that turned the rough concrete into a slippery, stinking mess. The bleeding wasn’t slowing, even as the body seemed to be crumpling in on itself, gradually liquefying around the bones.

The sound had gone quieter, if not softer, and Nox didn’t have much hope it would stop soon. It might be days yet, before the final sparks of vitae or life or cruel continuation finally went out.

Too young. The kid – the girl, most likely, going by anatomy – had been just… too young.

They had to have known that.

“I’m outa tricks,” she said, although the words felt thick and sharp in her mouth. She wanted to keep going. She wanted to, so fucking much. But somebody had done this. Somebody who knew this would happen.

“I’m gonna make her comfy,” she continued, then hesitated even as she pulled out the frankly-horrific cocktail of morphine and street drugs that might make a dent in a system caught somewhere between undead and alive. Skaad looked at her, and held out a clawed hand.

“Want me…?”

“Nah.” Nox shook her head, and swallowed. “You can get the others outta upstairs, though. I need to – to make a call.”

Skaad stiffened, his jaundiced eyes flicking between her and the table for a moment, before he let out a low hiss and ducked away through the curtain. Nox administered the mix and tried to convince herself it would have any sort of palliative effect. Then she went back to the drawers and rummaged again, right at the back, until her fingers closed on the ridged plastic of an old nokia.

There weren’t many numbers in the phone, but it was the first one she selected, under B.

- SUMFCK SIRED KID. ITS BAD -

She threw the phone back into the drawer and hurried out, past the plastic sheet and into the tunnels, leaving sticky footprints in her wake. Not a great look, but everyone would already know what was happening. Nosferatu gossiped like – well, like a society of insomniac, semi-immortal shut-ins.

Overhead, an erratic cluster of repurposed pipes trailed down through the domed roof, emanating from the rat runs above. Drainpipes, corrugated plastic, bits of plumbing, and all of them shaking slightly with the constant pass of tiny feet within. They opened out onto tiny highways of shelving that lined the walls, all heading in the same direction as she was. Pairs of black-beady eyes glanced at her as they passed, and with so many concentrated here, she could feel the faintest flick of Attention in each one. They were all headed to a squat metal door at the end of an offshoot passageway. The rats passed freely back and forth narrow holes punched in either side of the door; but Nox knocked. She knew she was already expected and entered after a respectful moment.

Karloff’s chamber was bigger than it looked like it would be from the doorway. Nox wasn’t sure what the space had originally been – some kind of maintenance room? – but it was now dark, and warm, and smelled less of rats than might be expected given the constant rodent tide. Shelves lined the walls, full of books and occasional pieces of recycled pet furniture. One floor-ceiling tower was filled entirely with old radios, police scanners, walkie talkies and the like.

The old man himself lay where he usually did, propped up in a nest of pillows and blankets in a box-like bed in the centre of the room. He presented an impossibly gaunt figure: papery-brown skin layered like peeling paint across sharp bones, with eyes so thickly clouded they sat like grey-milk marbles in unclosing sockets. His face looked scorched, blackened at the edges of the old dry wounds that had taken his nose, torn away most of his lips, and presumably shattered the broken fangs that jutted from his mouth. There was – as usual – a huge white rat lazing across his chest, nearly the size of a terrier and wearing a dark silken ribbon, and its sharp crimson eyes fixed on Nox as she entered.

She bowed her head, and tried not to leave bloody footprints on the rug.

“I need a temporary Invitation,” she said. It was blunt, but there was no point in dancing around it. He’d already know anyway. As she spoke, the huge rat sat up. It’s pale paws were clasped in front of it, folded in a strangely human-like gesture, but Karloff himself turned his head only slightly.

“’Belton,” he said softly, in the throat-based hush of his voice, and Nox nodded. Her fingers twitched into fists, and she felt the sticky remnants of gore slide between them.

“I… I’m running out of options, and she – ” the words were sticker than her fingers, getting caught on her lips “ – she’s real bad.”

The rat cocked its head and Karloff drew a slow breath.

“You will not do it?” he asked. Nox’ throat tightened.

“If I gotta. But I want him to see her, cos I – I could do this, but I ain’t got a snowball’s chance of doing anything about it.”

Karloff’s head turned further, and the clouded eyes passed over her with an intensity that Nox could feel, as if they skipped sight entirely and went right into her heart instead. There was another stretched moment of silence, then the pressure dropped and the rat turned away, curling itself neatly under its master’s chin.

“It is done,” Karloff said. The long fingers on one hand twitched slightly, and the faintest hint of a frown dug into his face. “...take care with the old death. You have seen little of him.”

“Yeah, I know. Thank you,” Nox added before she headed out again; first to check that the cocktail of drugs had at least calmed the kid’s screams, then back into the upper house. A few rats followed her as she slid into the squeaking, busy dimness of the runs to use the sink that still stood in one corner, using brownish water to at least scrub some of the stains from her hands. Then she set to wait, pacing with nervous energy.

No one joined her. By now, everybody would know what was happening, and no one wanted to be around when he came calling.

The problem – okay, so one of the problems, in a dreadful, tangled ball of ever-more layered problems – was that it was very, very difficult to kill a fledgeling in any way that could be considered humane. A body already in the process of tearing itself apart was resistant to most damage for the same reasons that you couldn’t punch a fog. Getting any kind of drug to land in an even-partly vampiric system was difficult enough at the best of times, and this…

Well, there was sunlight, but everything about Nox’s very being baulked at the idea of using that method. She knew with personal, hellish intimacy that the agony from that would get through even a Change. Torturing someone to death with one of the few things worse than what they were going through was really not the point.

Plus, there was a tiny, tiny part of her mind that hoped she was wrong. She’d only been dealing with this stuff for a handful of years, and while rumours varied widely about how old Belton actually was, he’d seen a lot of shit. Maybe she’d missed something. Just maybe…

It seemed to take an eternity before the roar of an engine outside broke through Nox’ whirling thoughts. She hurried to the door, took a careful breath, and peered out through the little viewing slot. Not that anyone else would have been able to ride a motorcycle up to the Homestead without the permission of Karloff’s Invitation, but it never hurt to keep caution.

A huge bike was settled just beside the front steps. It was black, but in the way a magpie’s wings were black, with oil-slick iridescence hinting around the edges. The rider – dressed to match, in that seamless continuity of clothing that Nox had started to think of as ‘vampire sunscreen’ – had already dismounted and was stood beside his bike, the raven-sheen of his helmet turned towards the door. There was no visible gaze to meet, but the weight of his attention was like ice down her spine, and she opened the door as deliberately as she could.

“She’s downstairs,” she said, as the figure came up the steps. The sun was already going down, barely spilling dying light over the surrounding wall of buildings, and the porch shadow was very deep there. It only got deeper as the big man stepped into it – and then paused, right on the edge of the frame.

“May I enter?” His voice was never as heavy as she expected, with a melodic edge that absolutely did not match what she knew lay under that helmet. Nox rolled her eyes.

“I texted you, and you’re here, right?”

He was always so… old fashioned about this. It wasn’t like it was a general requirement. Nox stepped back, gesturing inwards.

“Come in already,” she added. The man might have been big – although ‘fucking enormous’ would be a better description, needing to visibly turn and duck to get through the doorframe – but he moved deceptively fast, and was well inside the hallway, starting to remove his helmet before she had had time to shut the door. She turned to look, not even pretending not to stare as he unclipped all the security bits and lifted it smoothly free. The dramatic effect was only slightly spoiled by the oddly-bulging balaclava he had on underneath – but Nox supposed that if her ears could meet at the back, she’d want to keep them restrained inside a helmet too.

Belton looked… well, he looked like Belton. There just plain wasn’t anyone else like that. The best description she had ever been able to come up with was that he looked like someone had tried very hard to make a bat in the character creation screen of a pro-wrestling computer game. It was as if the underlying architecture that should have made a human skull had been stretched and tweaked and twisted into something approaching Chiroptera from the other side.

It probably said something worrying about her own psyche that – somewhere in the mess of emotions that Belton inspired – a part of her really, really wanted to see an xray of his head.

No time for this.

“C’mon,” she nodded him to follow her back down the Homestead’s passageways. The rats watched them from every surface; their skittering highways unusually still as the majority of glinting little eyes were fixed on the visitor. They were the only visible watchers, and Nox tried not to notice how empty every space they passed through was. It added another level of eeriness, with the just-abandoned debris of life seeming like some extremely localised Rapture. Even Nox’ rapid explanation of the situation fell muted around them; for his part, Belton just listened and nodded every now and then. He didn’t look around.

How familiar was he, with this place? He’d come a few times since she’d been here – and of course, that first time meant he’d sure known where it was. Nox’ gaze slid sideways. Belton had removed his gloves by now, and the hands revealed couldn’t even remotely be thought of as human; the fingers were too long, bone and tendons standing stark beneath mottled grey skin; capped by black claws that curled from the nailbeds, polished to an obsidian gleam.

How many times had those hands run across the outer walls of the Homestead; at Karloff’s limits; searching for a way in? How many times had those claws torn into sagging flesh, or crushed furry watchers into broken blindness?

How many times had he come before he had brought her here; a crispy mess of fledgeling coated in sand and gravel and gore, spat out by the desert and into hands that immortals feared…?

The plastic curtain seemed to rise up like an exclamation, a cold shot of right now breaking her thoughts, and Nox came to a sharp halt. There was still sound from inside: a bubbling, slurred collage of moans that had made it past the drugs, and her hand froze halfway to the curtain. The swell of renewed, visceral revulsion felt like she’d choke on her own fucking hypocrisy, and she couldn’t suppress a slight hiss.

“It’s – ” she started, through gritted teeth, but cut out as Belton gently touched her shoulder.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Nox’ fingers twitched, then she turned away, moving until she could lean heavily against the nearest concrete pillar and rested her forehead against the pitted surface. The groan might as well have been coming out of the air. It pressed down around her and her skin crawled.

She hated this, and she hated that she hated it like this. Some depraved motherfucker had dragged a fucking child into very literal hell and she’d tried, she’d tried with every stupid, macguivered bullshit tool she’d put together out of garbage; she’d tried everything and it was never going to have meant a damn thing and all she could focus on, really really focus on right now was how fundamentally disgusting that fucking sound was –

And then it stopped.

Nox physically sagged against the pillar, relief and nausea chasing each other through a stomach that was dropping into her boots. There was only one reason for the sudden silence, and she let her eyes slide closed, muttering the same half-wordless prayer she’d always used when a case went bad, or a patient flatlined in the ambulance. Whatever that meant now, she’d never been sure, but it still sort of fit.

She’d known. She’d known when she picked up that damn phone.

But fuck me if hope isn’t a bitch.

It wasn’t long before there was the faint brush of plastic again and Nox opened her eyes to see Belton smoothing the curtain back behind him, covering the sudden stillness. There was a long moment of silence before he turned to her. His eyes were the most human-looking part of his face, and the grey gaze sought hers.

“I’ll be on my way, then.”

Nox nodded numbly. They went out the way they came; still alone, still watched at every step by a hundred rodent stares. Back up, back to the door and out into the thickening dusk of the evening – and it wasn’t until the porch steps were creaking under his boots that Nox’s nerve rose again.

“Hey – Belton?” she managed, and the big figure paused. He looked back at her and one curled brow raised, moving an ear with it. Nox pulled the Homestead door shut behind her as she sought the right words. “This… ain’t your job, right?”

“I don’t have a real tight specification,” he replied, then shrugged. “But broadly? No. To be honest with you, my boss couldn’t give a rat’s twat what happens with the Nosferatu.”

“So why’d you come?” Those words came fast, but Nox didn’t try to stop them. Belton paused again, then hung his helmet and balaclava over the big bike’s handlebars. He sat down on the steps, hunching a little in that strange shape his back took when he wasn’t standing, and Nox slid down beside him at the unspoken invitation.

Belton shook his head, what might have been a wry smile tugging at the edges of his too-wide lips. Glints of needle teeth flashed in the dusk.

“It’s a question of perspective, see,” he said quietly. “For someone like you? This’ll ruin your whole year. Getting all Lady Macbeth with the inevitable. But for me?” He held up a hand and slowly flexed the clawed fingers. Once; twice; and Nox couldn’t draw her gaze away from the mottled skin as it shifted over his bones. Belton sighed. It was an old sound, so old that any hint of what it might contain had worn away like stone under rain.

“What’s one drop in an ocean? Don’t get me wrong – ” he added, with the edge of smile falling away again “ – I’ll feel bad about it; but I’m not losing myself any sleep.”

She should have been angry. She wanted to be angry, at the casual way this bat-faced bastard just said it; as the so-recent feel of the kid’s crumbling flesh slammed against her thoughts and ghosted under her fingers, and bile she wasn’t even sure she had anymore swirled at the back of her throat. She should be angry.

“...thank you.”

“No need for that,” he replied – but Nox shook her head.

“Nah; there is. Things need saying.” She fidgeted with the hem of her pants for a silent moment, before continuing. “Don’t believe you actually sleep, though.”

This time there was no mistaking that Belton grinned; and the resulting expression was exactly as unpleasant as it sounded.

“No? Not even if I say I’ve got little bats on my pyjamas?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Now that there’s uncalled for.”

Nox grinned, and even as she did she could almost hear Karloff’s voice in her head. Be wary of the old death.

And yet…

There was another long silence, although this one felt less tense.

…fuck it. When am I gonna get this chance again?

“They found her in the desert,” she said carefully, scuffing dust across the steps with one toe as she spoke; an idle motion to distract herself from the nerves inside. Belton nodded.

“Aye. Letting lady sun do the dirty work. It’s an almost foolproof method, really.”

Nox looked down at her own hands; where the patchwork of thickened tissue traced patterns like dry riverbeds over her pallid brown skin. The sun burned bits went blistered red, then dark and crackly, then sickly pale when that peeled; slowly edging back to her default. It sure as hell wasn’t pleasant; but it wasn’t the chemical-melting collapse of flesh that she’d seen on others.

“So, that make me a fool or an outlier?”

“I said almost.” Belton leaned back a little, looking up into the dark expanse of sky. “Always going to take a risk when you don’t stay to watch. Although I’ll admit it takes some big balls to stick around for that sort of disposal. What with the deeply ingrained phytophobia of your classic vampire, and everything.”

Nox raised her most intact eyebrow.

“This is more about your junk than I want to know.”

Belton laughed. Really laughed; the kind of melodic tone that bordered on a snatch of song and that was so very out of place coming from within that face.

“Oh, I’m not claiming that kind of testicular fortitude. Sunlight scares the piss out of me as much as it ever did. Don’t think it’s the kind of thing you can get over. Built-in, you know?”

“You ride about in the day,” Nox pointed out, and Belton waved a hand back towards his helmet.

“I’ve got some really bespoke protective gear, see. Amazing what’s been done with polymers in the last thirty years.”

Nox blinked.

“…you’ve got bike pleathers?”

“Technically I’ve got an integrated neo-polymer baselayer,” Belton stopped and his nose crinkled – which was quite an extensive expression. “…ah fuck, that sounds like I’ve got plastic pants, doesn’t it? Keep that one to yourself, will you?”

“Sure.” Nox’s shoulders sagged again as reality dropped back suddenly. She decided to just go for blunt. “With… the kid. Someone did that, and before that they – ” her words choked again, at the thought of where some of those peri-sire wounds had been.

“I know.” The amusement had gone from Belton’s voice as he stood up, heading back to his bike rather abruptly. The engine roared into life as he swung himself astride it, folding his ears into their cover, and Nox had to shout to be heard above the rumble.

“Do they… just get away with this?”

“There’s plenty that think they should,” he replied calmly; oddly easy to hear over the din, as he slid the helmet into place. “It was like that for a long time.”

Nox’s lips drew back, almost of their own accord, working to some defiant instinct she only had partial control over.

“And you?”

“Me? I’m a monster on a chain that I put there.” Belton looked up, and just before the visor snapped closed, there was a flicker of crimson in his eyes.

“But I’ll see what I can do.”

#Entofic #Vampire Nonsense #urban fantasy #The Vegas Masqerade #Nosferatu grocery shopping #terrible daywalkers #this WWE-manbat-looking mofo #I'm not warning for 'blood' on a vampire setting #help the plot keeps happening

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d0gdaze · 5 years

Text

read on ao3

wc: 2120 warnings: mild crude language

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Richie listens to Eddie ramble on about personal protective equipment, stringing his words together with such urgency that they're constantly clashing and stammering to the point of it being nearly nonsensical, and wonders boldly if he's ever going to get tired of hearing it.

It's mid afternoon and they're all down in the barrens, having escaped the worst of the day's heat by taking refuge playing board games at Richie's house, air-con blasting, – Maggie had made up frozen watermelon slices for them and they'd gorged themselves. Now, still all sticky from where the juice ran down their chins and their hands, they're making up for the lost hours by attentively scouring the thick brush near where the barrens border the city landfill, looking for anything remotely interesting. Most of it's just random junk, but occasionally they'll find new furniture for the clubhouse, or dead electronics that they can take apart, or broken televisions with intact fibreglass screens they can sling rocks at and shatter. Sometimes they'll hit a goldmine and find a tangled but otherwise functional yo-yo or cassette tapes that still work when they run back home to try them out. It's not really about the finds, though. It's just, plainly put, something to do.

Beverly's knee deep in shrubbery, kicking at a doorless microwave to see if she can dislodge something, and Mike and Bill are flipping through an old playboy magazine thats pages have gone wavy from water damage, and the cover is so sun-bleached that it's nearly completely white. Stan stayed back at the edge of the clearing when the rest of them moved further into the brush, concerned about bugs and poison ivy and blackberry bushes and content to do his searching in the shallow parts. Ben's the furthest in, and as far as Richie can tell he's not doing much other than looking out over the dump and probably dozing off on the fallen log he's sat upon. Richie himself is squatting down, using a long stick to poke through the contents of a garbage bag he's ripped open. It's just household trash, and it smells rather bad, but it's a way to keep his hands moving while he zones out. And Eddie's managed to get himself up onto a low fork in a tree, sitting with his back up against the trunk and legs hanging on either side of the thick branch, idly kicking at the air as he rants about why what they're doing is dangerous and the precautionary measures they should be taking, but without actually suggesting they stop doing it, or making any attempts to leave.

The air is filled with that kind of quiet, static warmth that leaves you pleasantly tired all the way through your body, – the kind that makes your shoulders slump and your gate slow, and the minutes seem to stretch on for hours for the seven of them. It's one of those days where nothing much happens, one that won't ever be memorable or out of the ordinary in any way, where they'll go home sleepy and satisfied, and when their parents ask what they did all day – those of them whose parents care enough to ask – they can say 'nothing' and mean it. And that's just fine by them. They'd all take an uneventful, boring day like this over some of the days they'd faced before – the ones that left scars and gaps and nightmares, the memories of which seem to fade with each passing week and it's all fuzzy and disjointed and – no, today is good. That's all that matters.

Richie feels something small bounce off the space between his shoulder blades and looks up, only for something else to hit him right in the middle of the forehead as Eddie looks down at him, very obviously trying not to grin so the corners of his mouth twitch, and when they lock eyes he bites his lip and throws another piece of tree bark. This one taps Richie's cheek and falls to the ground in front of him, and Eddie snickers like it's the funniest thing he's seen all day.

“You're gonna get splinters if you keep that up, dipshit,” he says, smirking as panic flashes across Eddie's face, though it quickly dissipates into a scowl, and he continues flicking pieces at him, more rapidly now.

“Asshole. Why the fuck would you say that?” he spits, and Richie has to hold his arms up to shield himself from the onslaught. “You're the one who's gonna get fucking splinters.”

Richie stands, picking up his stick and turning his back to the tree. He manages to hook the end of it on a particularly gross looking wad of paper towel from the pile of trash, and when he turns back around and makes a jabbing motion towards Eddie, the other boy screeches indignantly and falls off the branch. He lands with a thud on the ground and immediately scrambles to his feet. Richie lunges at him again, cackling, as Eddie starts spewing insults and hollering disgust. He picks up an empty tin can and throws it, landing somewhere a couple feet to Richie's left.

Something about it leaves Richie with a vague feeling of deja vu, but that happens so often these days that he doesn't think much of it.

Eddie backs his way out to the clearing, creating whatever distance he can by throwing whatever his hands come across, though he hardly lands any hits, and Richie taunts him the whole way up, never intending to do more than tease, never planning on causing actual harm.

(Eddie knows this, of course.)

Stan starts to lecture him too, though far more calmly, more comprehensible. Tells him not to be disgusting, tells them both to shut up and knock it off. He's smiling though, Richie can tell, even when he tries to hide it.

Here's to nothing ever changing, he thinks.

Later, when the sun isn't bearing down as heavily and a relieving breeze starts to flow in from the east, they find themselves traversing away from the shady greenery of the barrens towards the open bank along the Kenduskeag, where the water is fast-moving but shallow enough that Bill doesn't roll his jean shorts up even though they fall down a little past his knees. He's right out in the middle of the stream, eyes trained steadily downwards as he takes slow, calculated steps, looking out for crawfish tails peeking out from under the rocks. Eddie's next to him, mirroring his actions though seemingly less focused, as he keeps letting his gaze drift over to the others. Stan's about fifty feet upstream, talking to Mike and occasionally gesturing animatedly at the tree line. Mike laughs heartedly at something he says, and the sound floats drifts all the way across to where Richie is busy pulling out clumps of grass and flinging them into the water, and Ben is sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, his attention fixed on Beverly, whose found a flat-topped rock that's big enough for her to lay down on, albeit with her legs hanging off the edge. She's on her back, her hair splayed out over the stone, which fully exposes the fading bruise that starts in the outer corner of her eye and curves in patches down the side of her face.

He lets out a deep sigh and buries his face in his arms.

“Careful Benjamin,” Richie says, reaching over and sprinkling blades of grass onto his hair, “you're being obvious again.”

Ben blushes, slaps his hand away and tries to shake the grass off. The action gets rid of some of it, falling back onto the ground or his shoulders, but there's still bits of green sticking out here and there. Richie grins, and shuffles closer so his knee knocks against Ben's shin.

“I keep tellin' you to just go talk to her,” he continues, “save us all from this will-they-won't-they crap.”

“I talk to her all the time,” Ben replies in a way that fails to acknowledge the point, and Richie repays it with another fistful of freshly pulled grass. He shakes it off again, sputtering as some of the pieces fall into his face.

“Ah, you know what I mean,” Richie wipes his hands off on his pants and leans back on his elbows, looks back across to where Bill and Eddie seem to have recruited Stan and Mike, and Mike's got a stick that he's using to pry the rocks up so that Bill can look underneath. Stan and Eddie are talking over each other, and a little too far away that he can't quite make out what they're saying. Eddie starts laughing at something Stan says, and Richie laughs too, though under his breath and without really meaning to. Ben looks at Richie, then over to the others, and back again.

“I just think, Haystack,” Richie continues, hesitantly tearing his gaze away to meet his, “that if you really like someone, you should sack up and tell 'em. No point brooding over it forever.”

“I think you shouldn't say things like brooding and sack up in the same breath.”

“What can I say, I'm an intellectual.”

“You're a hypocrite is what you are,” Ben says, and Richie scoffs, “what, you're saying you ain't ever liked someone and just kept it to yourself?”

“I never liked anyone, period,” Richie says defensively, sitting up again and resting his chin in his hands, “'cept maybe Eddie's mom.”

Ben sighs softly. Richie instinctively looks towards Eddie again, but his attention is all Bill's at the moment, who's actually managed to find one of the mudbugs and is holding it tentatively just above the water as the other three crowd around him. Stan's talking in that quick, steady way that Richie knows to mean what he's saying is somewhat informational, and Mike appears to be petting the damn thing as it sits in Bill's hands.

“Bull,” Ben laughs, just a beat too late for it to flow properly with the rest of the conversation. Richie frowns at him.

“Whaddaya mean, bull? It's the truth,” Richie insists, but Ben just looks at him, exasperated. “Or, fine. Whatever. Maybe I like one person but,” he starts picking at the grass with one hand, continuing to hold up his head with the other, his elbow digging into his knee, “it's different.”

“How's it different?”

“I don't know,” he groans, “it just is.”

“Who-,” Ben starts, but is cut off by Eddie as he calls out to them from across the way.

“Richie!” he yells excitedly, “Ben, guys, come get a load o' this thing Bill found!”

Richie can hear Bill telling him to turn down the volume, sees Eddie poke his tongue out at him then continue waving over to them with a sense of urgency, as if anything could be so urgent these days.

Richie sticks his hand up in acknowledgement, flings one last bunch of grass into Ben's lap and heaves himself up onto his feet in one clumsy movement. He starts to jog over to the group, until they're all flinging their arms at him and telling him to slow down, to stop kicking up so much water, until Eddie's voice has gone up an octave as he begins another tangent and Richie brings his leg back as if he's going to send a tidal wave flying at the lot of them, but doesn't follow through with movement.

Ben watches, for a moment, the way Eddie gravitates to Richie even while scolding him, sees how Richie almost subconsciously reaches out to touch him, pulls him closer like he's practiced it a million times before.

(He has, of course.)

If Ben realises something, he won't say it. He's hit with the feeling that maybe Richie hasn't yet, not fully at least.

Beverly, roused by the calamity, leaves her perch and joins them, not before pulling Ben to his feet with a smile playing at her lips. Her hair, though slightly dishevelled, has fallen back to it's natural frame around her face, obscuring the bruise once again. There's a slight pink tinge left over from last week's sunburn, overshadowed by the freckles that are more vibrant than ever now. Even from the small, modest contact of her hands on his, he can feel the sun radiating off her skin, and already knows he would bask in it forever if she'd let him.

By the time they reach the rest of them, Bill's already let the crawfish back into the water. It scurries back under the rock where they found it.

It's doesn't matter too much, though. It's summer, and they're kids, and days like this are countless.

tag list:

@reddie-to-go @reddietofall @thecastlebyers

#writing #reddie #reddie fic #benverly #it 2017 #you CAN go back to childhood folks

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stainyourhands · 5 years

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I love them all so I tried to narrow it down to top 5: Jonjon #10 oh... Or #36 Vietreau #14 (cause that's them in a sentence) or #25 Danlo #40 Ot4 #41 I failed :( Have fun?! And, hope the writers block breaks soon!

Ahhhhh I had such a hard time choosing, anon, but I went with Vietreau #14. I hope you like it :D

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Jon sighs, his hands on his hips as he stares up at the fence towering over them. It’s bent in places, rust peeking out of twisted ends and spiraled knots. “It’s, like, three stories.”

Tommy snorts, “it’s maybe ten feet,” and continues to walk along the edge of the fence, pressing against the fence every few feet. His brow is furrowed in concentration, his forehead wrinkling like he’s deep into a briefing memo or two minutes from the perfect press rejoinder, not like he’s stalking a damn fence to uncover its lost treasures or whatever the fuck he thinks they’re going to find at the other end of the rusted rainbow.

“Fuck,” Jon swears, looking down. His foot - his best oxford, the ones his mom bought last time she was in town and clucked at the sorry state of his footwear - is sunk into a spot of mud. Jon sighs, pulling it out and taking a more careful step into a patch of ivy. At least, he thinks it’s ivy. “How many leaves does poison ivy have?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know?” Tommy asks, his voice drifting back to Jon from a good distance.

Jon sighs, picking up his pace. The fence is overgrown with vines and brush and god only knows what else sinks into the parts of DC’s underbelly that Jon has made it a principle not to visit. “Tommy?”

“Polo,” Tommy calls, unhelpfully. “Get over here, I think I found it.”

Jon sighs, stumbling across the distance between them. Tommy’s bent over, his jeans - unlike Jon, Tommy had run home to change before this crazy adventure. Jon’s sending him his dry cleaning bill - pulling tight over his ass. Jon can almost forget the terrifying piece of wire fence Tommy’s holding back like it’s the door to fucking Oz in the face of that image.

Jon adjusts himself in his suit pants and steps up next to him. “You want me to go through that?”

Tommy nods, pulling it back a little more. The metal creaks and groans. “It’s a door.”

“Not all doors are meant to be walked through.”

Tommy snorts and squats down so he can get through the low hijacked door. “This one is.”

Jon sighs, “you’re lucky I’d follow you to the ends of the fucking Earth,” as he squats and follows Tommy through the brush, turning his shoulders so he doesn’t snag on one of the many, many spikes of metal. Sometimes, Jon wonders what his life would be like if he didn’t ask ‘how high’ every time Tommy asked him to jump. Safe and predictable and boring. Sometimes, Jon wouldn’t mind boring.

Tommy laughs, letting the hole in the fence clank shut behind them. “You’re lucky I add some excitement to your life. What were you going to do on a Friday night, anyway?”

“Draft POTUS’ remarks for the commodities exchange next week,” Jon says, easily. “Maybe play a little one on one beer pong with myself and I if I finished early enough. Maybe start that show Alyssa’s always going on about? The one about the hospital?”

“I can’t keep track,” Tommy admits, pulling his Blackberry out of his pocket and turning on the flashlight. “I didn’t expect it to be this dark back here.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “It’s a deserted warehouse. Did you expect it to be lit by spotlights?”

“It’s a deserted warehouse housing the most exclusive speakeasy in the city,” Tommy corrects. “So, spotlights, no, a couple strings of Christmas lights or a lamppost or two, yes.”

Jon sighs, looking around. “Are you sure Mary from Treasury wasn’t pulling your leg?”

“Yes,” Tommy glares at him, then flashes his light onto the path leading to the very dark building. “No? Come on, we’ve already gone this far, might as well see it through.”

Jon sighs, falling into step behind him. “Sometimes, cutting your losses and running is the heroic option.”

“At a casino, maybe,” Tommy laughs, stepping over a large, prickly bush and keeping the flashlight on it so Jon can get around it, too. “But I don’t know who the hero is in a story that ends with some slightly better IPAs than we normally drink.”

Jon frowns at his back as he mutters, “‘where’s your sense of adventure, Jon?’ ‘It’s the journey not the destination, Jon.’”

“Oh, that’s right.” Tommy grins. “I’m the hero of this story.”

Jon rolls his eyes.

Tommy stops as he reaches the wall of the building, flashing his light over the very large and very rusty grey metal door. “This matches Mary’s description.” Tommy tries the doorknob and frowns.

“What?”

“It’s locked.” Tommy tries the knob again. The door shakes on its hinges that doesn’t budge.

“Hey.” A flashlight - an actual, handheld light that illuminates everything in its cone - flashes next to them. “You’re trespassing on private property.”

“Shit.” Tommy reaches for Jon’s hand, shoving his blackberry into his pocket as he starts to run. The ground is soft under their feet and Jon can feel the mud squish and the bushes crackle and break as they barrel through. Forget his dry-cleaning bill, Jon thinks bitterly, he’s sending Tommy the bill for a new pair of shoes and a whole damn suit.

Tommy keeps running until they hit the fence, then swears as he feels along it for the broken part. It takes two seconds or two hours, Jon really doesn’t know, but it takes at least two weeks off his life. Jon wonders if he can find a way to bill that to Tommy, too, as he ducks forward, feeling the fence snag on his belt loop.

“Come on,” Tommy hisses, looking both ways as he holds the fence up.

Jon sighs as he pushes, hearing the fabric tug and rip through the loop.

“Stop dallying,” Tommy hisses, again, reaching out to take Jon’s hand the moment he straightens. “I know someplace-”

Jon jogs next to him, down the block and around the next one, before Tommy pulls him into a well-lit alley, stopping next to a rusting blue dumpster. Tommy falls to Jon’s side, their shoulders pressing together as they catch their breath.

Jon looks around him, at the dumpster and the flickering streetlight and the leaves and plastic bags littering the ground. Laughter bubbles up in his chest. “You know a place?”

Tommy shrugs, pushing away from the wall to step between Jon’s legs. “Last time I was running through the streets to escape the cops.”

“Oh yeah?” Jon rests his hand on Tommy’s side, pulling him closer. Laughter’s still rumbling through his chest, desperation and nerves and adrenaline sliding together and coalescing in the flush of Tommy’s cheeks and the thickness of his erection pressing against Jon’s upper thigh. “Who were you with?”

“Does it matter?” Tommy asks, his breath catching warm and rhythmic against Jon’s neck.

Jon shakes his head. “No,” he whispers, dropping his mouth to meet Tommy’s, “not at all.”

Tommy presses forward, boxing Jon in. Jon’s heart pounds up his arms and tingling through his fingers and lodging in his throat as he opens his mouth for Tommy’s. Tommy tastes sour, like adrenaline and saliva and the french fries he’d eaten for lunch almost twelve hours ago, but Jon presses forward, sliding his tongue in, taking everything he can get.

Tommy groans, his knee pressing against Jon’s and his hips thrusting up and forward. A noise rumbles through his chest, ringing through Jon’s ears, and Jon wants to hear it again and again and again-

Except footsteps are running across the gape of the alleyway. Jon pulls away, resting his cheek against Tommy’s as he tries to catch his breath. The officer’s shoes are caked in mud, the bottoms of his pants scratched and tangled. He’s still holding the flashlight in his hand, the light useless on the busy DC streets.

Tommy snorts, turning back to kiss Jon again. “That was fucking close.”

“Way too close.” Jon reaches down to take Tommy’s hand. “How’s a night in with beer pong and that stupid TV show sound now?”

Tommy laughs, squeezing Jon’s hand and pulling him off the wall, around the dumpster, and back the way the officer had come. “Like the best offer I’ve had all night.”

#they're such idiots and this was so much fun to write #i'm still working through my prompts i promise!#vietreau #my first writing meme #podsa

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