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byrdtrolls · 3 months

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Three Things Casmie Bishop Doesn't Remember, But Only Because She's Dead

The backroom of the Anglerfish looks like a gym locker room. Cubbies line the wall, holding bags, heels, normal clothes that had been changed out of. Often you would find one of the trolls leaning out the backdoor with a cigarette on their fifteen, or giggling with their friends on one of the long benches. There's a tiny little altar by the window, where a worn print picture of Kokoro Kimura sits. These things are everywhere in most places owned by The Falling Moons, littered with candles and half eaten snacks and coins and cigarette butts and anything else deemed a worthy offering to the 300 sweeps dead Mafia founder. The falling apart photo print watches over the room like a strange little saint of lower caste gang members and whores. There are other photos, ones girls at the club had hung up off their lost family members or messiahs. Casmie has put a photo of her still living cat up there, ironically. Sunset is painstakingly unclipping each clip of a tall pair of platform boots with a sigh worthy of a troll at the end of a long shift. The woman next to him is throwing on a black sweater, already feeling the chill of the outside wind.

“How’d you know I was ex-circus?” He asks her.

“You dance like an acrobat,” Casmie laughs. “All pointy toes. The way you trolls land twists sometimes- you can tell you were trained first for trapeze or something.”

“Huh,” He says. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it.” He ponders. “How many ex-circus trolls work here for you to notice a thing like that.”

“Too damn many,” She sighs, as she pulls up a pair of patterned sweatpants over her legs. She pauses when she sees the look on his face in response.

“Sorry- you guys are lovely- not a dig at you, it just, kind of shows how all these people who have been trafficked don’t really have a lot of options. You know. You escape or the tents cut you loose for whatever reason and then you’re just on the streets without a penny to your name nor any other way to make money.”

“Well congratulations” Sunset replies, peeling four pairs of long opera gloves off his arms. “You have me word for word.”

“I’m not trying to be superior- my grubhood wasn’t much better.” She flutters nearby him.

“It doesn’t take much to be better than cages,” Sunset argues, sticking out his tongue. “What hole did you spring from?”

“An aquarium.” She retorts.

“That sucks.” He says.

Casmie laughs. “It does. You know you’re funny, Sunsie.”

“Sunsie?” He replies. “How am I funny?”

“You have… a kind of funny way of speaking.” she describes. “So earnest. You take everything… so seriously. Even silly things.”

“I take silly things sillilily.”

“Sililily?” She giggles.

“Yes,” He affirms.

“You’re always answering rhetorical questions.” Casmie muses. “You wanna hang out sometime?”

“I’d love to” He replies, trying not to betray his eagerness towards such an offer.

“I live up east- near pier 12. gotta have a lot of roommates but if you come early they’ll both be out for work. Is that too far from where you’re staying?”

“I’ll be honest.” Sunset admits, “I’ve been sleeping in the hotel.”

Casmie drops her bag down, making a noise of upset and exasperation “Girl,” She says.

“You don’t sleep in the brothel, that's like step one to getting murdered.”

He opens his mouth, and then closes it. She takes in the desolation in his expression, pausing. It could not be more evident he has nowhere else to go.

“Hey” She says. “We can figure something out,” She says. “Sorry, I didn’t mean- not your fault, obviously. But I can help you find someplace.”

Sunset pulls a t-shirt over himself.

“You’re too kind” He says carefully, as if not prepared to trust such an offer.

A couple days later, the two trolls enter, giggling, into a laundromat.

“Hey!” Casmie snaps. “You are not putting that pink thing in with my all white lingerie set.” She says, leaning over and trying to separate the clothes in his hands.

“Cas” Sunset says helplessly. “I’ve only got cash for one wash.”

“Go talk up the laundromat guy” she jokes, lifting her brasseir. “Get us some free washes.”

Sunset pauses. “I’m not doing that”

“Too good for the laundromat troll” she teases, opening a machine, sorting the laundry.

“No” he pauses, glancing back towards the counter and back. “I just support small business,” he says, bizarrely.

Casmie stares at him for a second, and laughs. “We're a small business,” she says. “Me n you getting busy in this” she says, holding up another one of the tops she’s washing.

Sunset covers his face with a hand.

“Whatever” Casmie decides. “I’ll pay for mine. Don’t worry about it.” She says, taking out her wallet and counting her change.

“Thanks” the other trolls says gratefully, loading his clothes into the machine with two hands and starting it with his other set. His friend slips coins into the coffee machine. Before hoping up on top of the thing, kicking her feet.

“Isn’t the other laundry place closer to work?” She says.

“I guess” Sunset retorts.

“Like, we coulda saved a couple blocks of walking. Or went to the one by my apartment.” She says.

“I like this one” sunset says. “They have really good machines”

“They what?” She says. “Who gives a shit?”

“No,” Sunset says. “They will really launder your clothes”

Casmie stares at him, him for a second, keen enough to pick up this is bullshit somehow but unable to determine exactly why.

“Hey you!” She calls to the laundromat guy. “What do y’all put in these machines that makes them so good at laundering!” She says.

Rasley stares at her for a long moment. “Deter…gent?” He says, slowly. “M’am?” He squeaks, staring at the floor, seeming flustered by the litter troll's revealing outfit.

Casmie laughs again, and Sunset finds himself lost in the melody of the sound. He glances from Rasley back to her, as if caught on a pulled string between two worlds, the past and future. The orange off-caste looks back to him.

“You are a weirdo, you know,” She says, reaching over and cupping his cheeks. “You are a freak. I love you.”

A half sweep later, Sunset wakes up on the bathroom floor of Casmie’s apartment. It’s clearly been attempted to make the spot comfortable. There is a sleeping bag laid out upon it, a quilted blanket. A phone charger. The space would be tight even for a normal troll, but the man has several extra arms. He wakes, stretching, cracking a sore back and wincing at the pain that follows, Sunset starts to roll up the sleeping bag, as someone will surely be in to use the bathroom soon.

Casmie has seven roommates. They had tried their damn hardest but couldn't find someplace else where he would sleep, so every day, he made and unmade his own little bedroom. The troll splashes some water on his face, before picking up the rolled up bag and exiting the room. He ducks into the hallway, stashing the thing in the closest that was it’s home before entering the kitchen.

“Hey! Sunsie, you wanna go thrifting?” She says, kicking her feet off the counter, an action way too cute for the alternative outfit she’s wearing, as was typical of the woman.

“Can’t” He says, arms slinking around her to start microwaving an instant coffee. “I picked up another shift”

“Oh come on,” She says. “Sunday is our off day! We need one day for moirail shit.”

“That guy offered me a job” Sunset grins. “And you know how he spoils me. Can’t sit on that money.” He defends his choice.

“G-d. That same purple from friday?” She says. “He’s sooo corny I don’t know how you stand him.”

The other troll shrugs, pulling his coffee from the microwave. “I dunno, it’s kind of cute, in an annoying sort of way. He keeps telling me he’s gonna pay off my debt to the club and get me out of the business.”

“Oh wonderful,” She says, crossing her arms. “Your knight in shining armor”

“He’s earnest,” Sunset says. “And he pays really well”

“That’s- kind of what puts me off” His moirail rambles, watching Sunset pack up for work. “Where’s he getting like, all that money to drop on you, for real? I mean how many nights has he been coming into the Anglerfish in a row- he’s like obsessed, it's some serial killer shit.”

“I guess I cannot help but be that irresistible” The taller troll laughs. “You just can’t stand to see me winning. You like having me here on your bathroom floor.”

“I love having you here on my bathroom floor,” She says. “But I don’t know if you’re ‘winning’ with that guy.”

“He cares about me, he wants to pay all my bills and send me to college like a good little girl~” Sunset jokes.

“He does not” Casmie insists. “Like, that is the same wishy-washy bullshit every single john pulls when you nut in him”

Again, her friend laughs.

“I’m serious!” She retorts. “Stay safe. Guys who wanna ‘save you’ never make good on it. I’m talking to you as a veteran, okay.”

“I’ll be fine,” Sunset says, sipping his coffee. He lifts Casmie’s hand, and kisses it. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

“You owe me a day off.” She complains. “Tell that to your sugar daddy.”

“I’ll let him know,” Sunset says, rolling his eyes, heading out of the kitchen.

Casmie rolls her eyes, watching him go. Eventually, as his footsteps pitter patter out into the distance as he heads down the stairs, she turns over to the fridge, only for her head to snap up to attention when there is a sudden, loud thud and clunking noise.

“Sunset!” She calls, forgoing the nickname in a moment of panic as she rushes out towards the hall.

She finds him sitting at the very end of the stairway, hand held tight to his chest.

“Motherfucker” The man wheezes, face contorted, in a voice so quiet she can barely hear it. Casmie rushes down the stairs.

“What happened!” She says, rushing down.

“I just-” He wheezes, and then pauses, breathing in, and out, as slowly as he can, as if that will lessen the pain raging through him as his chest rises and falls.

“Fuck” She says, “are you okay?” She says, but does not wait for an answer. The off-caste seadweller glances up the stairs. “Fuck” She mutters, well familiar with the lung complications that plagued her moirail. Being born with an extra set of arms, there wasn’t really, well, a whole lot of space for Sunset’s lungs in his chest. He had been born with them chronically small, an issue that left him very vulnerable to any kind of respiratory infection. He would get very, very sick at times and lead to many a stressful night in many of the dark, shady hospitals that would take mutants. She is well familiar with it, having taken care of Sunset for a harrowing few months when he had caught pneumonia last winter, and almost died. She debates if it would be worth it to leave him for a second to rush back upstairs and grab the last his anti-inflammatory meds. The tiny woman watches Sunset struggle to breathe for only a moment, before sprinting up the stairs, and coming rushing back down with a pill bottle in hand.

“I’m good” He wheezes, waving an arm. “I’m- I’ll be fineeee” He manages. “Just- a second” he says, accidentally swallowing the end of the sentence.

She, panicked, and confused, holds up the pill bottles.

“I don’t have pneumonia” He wheezes. “Those won’t do shit”

“Well what else am I supposed to do! What do you have?” She snaps.

“I don't- know” The purpleblood says again, in between breaths, “overdid stairs” He wheezes.

“This is clearly more than overdoing the stairs. I’ve seen you overdo stairs! This is something. We should go back to that doctor”

“I have workkkkk” He complains. “I just need a second”

“Okay.” She says. “We can take a second, just, breathe, okay. We’ll figure it out. We’ve got to call off your shift.”

“No” He insists, trying to pull himself up, failing, and curling up into a little ball again.

“If you kill yourself trying to please that milktoast purple while you can’t fucking breathe, Sunsie I will never forgive you” She says. “You cannot dance right now!”

She is right, of course, but he doesn’t want to hear it. The man stares up at the ceiling, trying to focus on his laborious breathing. Not today, not today, g-dammnit. Of all the days, why now. But illness can never be convenient.

“There will be other shifts” Casmie says, running a hand through his hair.

He leans slightly into her touch as the smaller woman cups his cheek.

“He- invited me too-” He wheezes. “Whole fancy party- At casino- I have to go- I won’t dance- I’ll just sit with him.”

“Girl! You should not be having sex either if you can’t handle the stairs!” She snaps.

“He said he’d give me 20,000$ caegars!” Sunset snaps, the longest sentence he’s managed since he collapsed.

“Sunsie, where would he even get that money to spend on a stripper.” Casmie says, her brows furrowing.

Sunset gives a long, shaky sigh. “I’m saving up-” He says. “I need to get an appointment with that- surgeon” He pleads. “I need- to get my arms- removed.”

“Well no shit” She says.

“I can’t not go” He wheezes.

Casmie stares at him for a long, long, moment, holding her moirails head in her hands. “Okay” She says. “Here’s what we’ll do,” She says, ever practical. “You’re gonna take these- Just in case it’s pneumonia” She insists, not being a doctor but desperate to help. “I’m gonna wake up Roonst-” She says, naming another of their roommates. “And they’re gonna drive you to that hospital that sees people out the back on the downlow and they’ll sort whatever this is out” She says.

“And I’ll cover for you, okay?” She promises. “I’ll go to whats-his-face’s casino party and wring the 20,000$ out of his ass, I promise”

“He said was- special- he’ll want me” Sunset argues. But a part of him relaxes as the plan is laid out, he begrudgingly takes the pills he’s been handed.

“Think I’m not pretty enough to replace you?” She jokes. “I’ll have him eating out of my hand like a dog, I promise. We’ll get you your surgery.” She says, kissing his forehead, and then run away to wake their friend. He watches her go, mesmerized momentarily by the casual and fragile beauty of his savior rushing up the stairs, the sunset lighting up the orange of her fins, as he holds his hand to his chest and thinks only of his breath, going in, and out, and in, and out. Maybe, somehow, his body knew what was coming.

Maybe his tiny little lungs folded this specific day on purpose, to save him, to warn him. To shield him. He will never stop hating them for it. She never should have had to take his place.

I could keep going, but you already know how this story ends, don’t you?

This was the last time he saw Casmie alive.

The next week passed as if in a dream, because, well, he was barely conscious for it. He remembers fragments- a hospital, that roomate at his bedside, tossing and turning as he was constantly awoken by an inability to get enough air, back alleys and doctors and plastic respirators and pain and sorrow. Daymares- the kind that find you only on long nights in uncomfortable hospital beds. When is Casmie gonna come back for me, he finds himself thinking, in the moments where one has nothing to do but lay and think. Surely it has been a day- it has been a night, her shift is over. Eventually, he recovers. Eventually, they toss him back out onto the street with another bill longer than he tall.

His debts to the Anglerfish, his debts to doctors, his debts to casinos. He will add it to the pile. He finds his way back to pier 12, climbing the long winding stairs to their little three room apartment that houses seven and finds her not there. He goes back to the Anglerfish, and finds her work bag still in it’s locker, still full of casual clothes, keychains hooked up to the side, covered in a week's worth of dust. He is left to pick up the pieces, to try and put it all together, just what exactly happened while he was sick.

He was always good at playing detective.

It is surprisingly hard to track down an invitation as vague as a ‘casino party’ in this town, there are many casino’s. He looks through the usual suspects, the ones closest to their pier, talking to staff, asking his coworkers. The trial leads him further uptown, to the bigger piers, the richer accolades, he lingers in corridors, asking questions to staff.

He makes his way to the top of the hill, and finds a place more palace than casino. And finds it marked with a familiar symbol. You ever see something so many times, you stop thinking about it? Does it ever blend into the background, seamlessly and easily, a tiny little imprint on every chapter of your life. A golden insignia of a falling moon. Of course you have heard of that gang. Everyone has. The Falling Moon’s literally built this city.

A week into your spiraling, obsessive search for her, you wring the truth out of a simple bartender. He had been there, he tells you. At the party.

“Sometimes,” he says, “the big guys in the gang will go down to one of the smaller piers, pick up some mutants from one of those seedy clubs, and lure them uphill with promises of cash and comfort and affection and then just jump them and sell them off to traffickers and circuses. You said your friend was an off-caste? That tiny little orangeblood seadweller with the demonias? I remember her all right. Anytroll who was there would. Too smart for her own good. She wised up before all the rest of them. Pulls out a shiv. Just starts putting holes in clowns like it’s nobodies business. She must have killed five of them before she went. By the third, they probably figured out she’d be too much of a hassle to sell. One of them got her right in the head and that was it. Dunno what they did with the body. Probably sold it. They were pissed she killed so many higher ups, they musta lost a lot of money on the whole thing” He says, casually wiping a mug as if he is not ripping apart Sunsets world, piece by piece.

“Who was in charge of it?” The several armed men says slowly, carefully, “The whole thing?”

“I told you” The man retorts. “She already killed most of them.”

“The dead clowns” He insists. “Who did they work for?”

“Midas” the cerulean bartender replies. “I already told you, they were falling moons.” He quirks an eyebrow at the man in front of him, tracing the look of confusion on his face.

“Ain’t no way you live in Tes Roven and never heard of Midas.”

“I know the gang. Humor me” Sunset retorts. “What does he own?”

“A lot of shit. We’d be here all night” The man dismisses.

“I want a list.” Sunset insists.

“Ha ha. What am I, your secretary? You want me to call my coworkers over and tell em you’re buddy buddy with the woman that killed five of their top clowns?” He threatens.

“You wanna feel what it's like to get stabbed four times at once?” he retorts. “Humor me.”

The bartender stares at him for a good while, and then pulls out a napkin, scribbling on it. He does this for a good few minutes, pausing every moment or so in contemplation. And then he hands it to him, a comprehensive list as he can sprout off from memory of Midas’s properties. Struggling to keep his hands steady, the purpleblood straightens out the napkin. And then immediately wipes the bartenders mind of the encounter. He walks off, his eyes trailing down the impartial and indifferent list of properties, every so often finding a name on it that slips like a spear into his bent ribcage.

You ever feel like you’ve spent all your life, in this crushing, giant, oppressive machine, that swallows anyone who touches it?

You spend so long, trying to keep your head above water. You try to make friends. You try to survive- to carve out a little piece of survival for yourself, for other people. You try to make the world the kind of place you want to live in. And the worst part of it is knowing everyone else wants that better world too. But they don’t have any more time to build it than you do. Everyone else is also too busy being crushed in the machine.

Too busy trying to outsmart the machine. This machine too big for you to ever fully even comprehend dismantling.

No one mentions it. But no one can imagine a life where they’re not being held with a boot to their neck.

It has consumed anyone you have ever loved.

It is well on its way to consuming you. It was machine, it was machine all the way down. From the pits of the childhoods to the streets of your adolescence to the seedy pole ridden bars of your fragile adulthood.

It is so ever present you almost forgot it was there at all, just a part of the universe, true to its logo, as large and all destroying as a falling celestial body. Built to do nothing but hurt you and people like you. Imagine living so long in the shadow of that hurt.

And then finding out it has a name.

And then finding out it’s a person.

A troll, a name, a thing of flesh blood, just vulnerable enough, that suddenly, you can wrap your mind around dismantling it. Around taking it apart, piece by piece. So slowly and so carefully that it could never hurt another person the way it hurt you. The way it hurt her.

This man is the connecting thread of hurt that weaves your entire life together, and he doesn’t even know you exist.

But that won’t be true for long.

You are certain, in the months that followed this, planning, spiraling, obsessing- You are certain that Casmie started a fight so you could finish it.

#tw sex work #tw trafficking #tw character death #no one you know really #its in the title #sunset writing #my writing #fantroll #fantroll rp #homestuck #homestuck oc #homestuck rp #hiveswap #friendsim #pesterquest

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