#the same layout that we’ve had for ages is perfectly fine

[spicysucculentz]

petition for staff to stop moving shit around every time we get a new update it’s like someone came into my house while I was sleeping and moved everything 5 inches to the left and now it’s all cattywampus

#spicy speaks #stop moving things around fr #I’m begging #if it ain’t broke don’t fix it #the same layout that we’ve had for ages is perfectly fine #no need to reinvent the wheel over here I’m just getting confused

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Dragon Dancer II: Chapter 1: The Gentleman

The light colored facade and fanciful decor of the hundred-year-old Hotel Le Royal Monceau in Paris was truly fitting for spring. Principal Hilbert Ron Anjou tipped his hat in appreciation of the sight and at the doorman who greeted him with “Welcome back, sir.”

Master list

“It is truly a pleasure to be back!” He gestured behind him. “This is my new special student.”

The doorman, dark-skinned and appearing to be in his thirties, regarded the teenage girl standing behind him. She wore a white jacket, her shapely brown legs curving out from a pleated yellow short skirt that some men might eye, hoping for a glimpse of a little more. She was less than impressed with the gracious amenities, avoiding eye contact and fiddling with the tassels of her hood strings.

The doorman grinned anyway. “Well, a fine student she is.” He earned himself a tip for remaining cheery rather than concerned about her gloomy expression.

Anjou checked in. Though his hair and beard were white, he didn’t move like a man that old. His spine was straight, his limbs strong, his manner energetic and jovial. His eyes were focused and crisp. His voice was strong, despite his happy smoking of a Cuban cigar.

The hotel staff were clearly smitten with him, losing their stiff professional manner and laughing at his jokes, eyes glittering with mirth. Even though he wore a custom tailored suit that cost more than most people made in a year and wore rings of rare crystals -- some of alchemical make, so rare and so precious, they might as well have been alien -- they treated him as a friend. 

That was Anjou’s charisma.

It wasn’t until they stepped into the gold mirrored elevator that that charisma faltered.

His student looked lost, unhappy, vulnerable, and achingly beautiful. Her slight figure added to her fae-like appearance. Anjou watched the elevator operator’s face flicker on her, his natural empathy and need to protect a fellow human welling up in his eyes.

The man surely had worked in this hotel long enough to know he shouldn’t ask questions. Anjou watched in wonder and allowed the man’s feelings to develop, chuckling internally as the sight of her worked its magic -- just as it did on Caesar on the Day of Liberty.

Like Caesar, this bellhop forgot where he was, forgot his duty, and was drawn into a disadvantageous position, risking his precious prize -- in this case, a tip.

“Uh… are you okay?”

She lifted her head, surprised to be addressed. Her wide eyes were like windows to her soul, easily read, hiding nothing.

“Yes… are… you alright?” He asked again, committing to his error.

She smiled at him. “Just a little sick from the flight. That’s all.”

Anjou’s eyes returned to the bellhop as he suddenly realized his blunder. To his credit, he didn’t apologize.

“I hope you understand sir…”

“Oh, I understand perfectly.” Anjou’s voice was so warm and reassuring that he might as well have reached over and patted this fully grown man on the head. “And I commend you on your brave spirit and humanity.”

Anjou took out his wallet and produced a tip of three hundred euros. “Here. Spend it well.”

The man let out a wheeze, eyes wide.”Yes. Thank you sir! Thank you… is there anything more I can…”

“I’ll take it from here.” Anjou interrupted, as the doors opened.

His student blessed the bellhop with one more smile, as she left the elevator. The man only broke her gaze after the doors attempted to close on him.

As soon as she arrived in her room, his student fled to her bedroom and shut the door. This was hard on her.  Normally, high ranking students were eager to get off campus and put their education to good use as well as take advantage of the plush amenities their rank afforded them. But she grew up in modest circumstances and only longed for things money couldn’t buy. 

She’d bewitched the other S-ranked student, Lu Mingfei, into a deep friendship with her. She’d drawn the leader of Lionheart into being her lover and lured Caesar Gattuso into practically handing over Day of Liberty to her. Had he not gotten her off campus, he might have found himself without a school.

Everything she had accomplished didn’t apply here, however. She had no friends, no lover, and no influence. As far as she was concerned, Paris was a desert. 

He pressed a key on his phone. The voice on the other end had a slight French accent over the otherwise impeccable English.

“Anjou, a day is too long to go without hearing your voice.”

“And it has been far too long, Capetian. The student and I have just arrived.”

“Excellent! Were there any problems?”

“None! The passport was flawless.”

“And the flight?”

“The weather could have not been better. Let’s hope it remains that way. Paris is making me fall in love all over again!” He chuckled. “Of course, every season is a good season in Paris. Have you located the others?”

“Yes, sir… they…”

Anjou stopped him. “Now, now… brief me tonight at dinner. I would like you to meet our young genius.” 

After a few more loving goodbyes and reminders not to be late, Anjou hung up the phone and went to the bedroom.

She was Charlotte to strangers, Carli to friends, Meixiu to her lover. She was a young woman of many names. He referred to her most often however, as “my dear”. She was dear to him, having come out from the jaws of death and through sands of time to return to his school like a little turtle dove.

Her scowl reminded him, however, that she was actually a hybrid. First Generation, S-ranked, and just as much dragon as she was human. She was not pleased with him. He’d disrupted her plans to spend time in Chizuru with Chu Zihang and made no mystery of her love-sickness. He weathered her glare. “You’re free to stay here and rest while I make arrangements and prepare for the briefing meeting tonight. The mission itself won’t start for a few weeks while we prepare. Try to have a good time.”

She’d taken these arrangements personally and turned back to the window without speaking to him.

After the Day of Liberty, Caesar said that once he’d gotten close enough, she’d drawn him into darkness so forbidding that he thought he had truly died. When he returned to the land of the living, he was breathless, disoriented. She fought him like a wildcat, and then shot him like a dog.

He would savor these moments when she was still under his wing. He got the feeling they would be a memory all too soon.

Anjou adjusted his tie, donned his light trench coat and went out, leaving the “Do not Disturb” sign on the door.

He enjoyed his walk around the city, admiring the art and architecture, the comings and goings of tourists and natives. Women pushed strollers dressed in tracksuits, older men sat in the square and played chess. It was this idyll that was threatened. He needed her here, but was determined to make her first mission as pleasant as possible before the coming storm.

Just as he predicted, the rain started as the sun began to fall. He only went to the bar on a rainy night.

His student dressed up for the evening, in a modest designer black gown and a string of pearls. The afternoon nap seemed to have done wonders. She was smiling again. Her eyes were brighter. They made their way to the bar on the hotel roof. 

The city’s sea of glittering lights and those of the Eiffel Tower drew a gasp from her.  He put his umbrella to the side and sat near the window. He smiled at the bartender. “How are you doing this year, my old friend?”

Capetian emerged from behind the bar, a glass on his platter. Thin and aged, his dark eyes weary under folds of skin, he smiled. “I’m well, old friend.”

The booths were lit by low hanging directional lamps between pools of shadow that provided privacy despite the open layout. It was next to impossible to hear what was going on at any other table. Something about the design of the place kept the noise down while at the same time, keeping close conversation clear.

The smell of the mint liquor wafted from the cocktail glass. Anjou raised his to his lips and sighed with nostalgia. His student eyed him, content to sit and watch him be happy. A menu was set before her and she looked it over.

The waiter, also older, and so pale he looked like a ghost in the lamplight, softly spoke. “I will be pleased to see to your needs this evening.”

She once again seemed shocked to be talked to. “Um… I need a little more time. Thanks.”

“I’ll take this year's caviar plate for a starter.” Anjou nodded.

The waiter bowed and faded back into the shadow.

Capetian took his seat next to Anjou, who produced a Havana cigar from his jacket pocket and snipped off the tip with a pocket knife. “The Bombay expedition was successful. We’ve found a dragon palace remarkably preserved under the slums. We are currently making our way through the catacombs. However, the dragon is not making it easy to find its chambers.”

He flicked his lighter against the cigar until the tip glowed. “We’ve never seen such a repository of draconic script. And the entry to the complex is predicated on our understanding of it. EVA has done her best with cataloging the known ciphers and arranging and organizing the unknown ciphers along with their context. But this requires a … human touch.” He let out a puff of blue-tinged smoke. “Have you arranged the safe house?”

His student turned to the waiter, ordering a mushroom risotto with a salad. But she was listening. He could tell.

Capetian described a spacious townhouse on the forested outskirts of Paris. At great expense, he’d purchased it, as well as leased the adjacent properties to provide maximum privacy and security for what was bound to be a long term project. He’d stocked the kitchen, installed a private network with direct access to EVA, and a complete off the grid power, water, and sewer system.

The waiter returned with the caviar platter. Anjou offered it to the student who cringed at the sight of the raw fish eggs. “Come now… you’re here to experience new things!” 

While she hesitantly spooned a bit of the roe onto a cracker, Anjou settled on the Kobe beef tartare for his order.

“Have you contacted any of our agents yet?”

“Not yet, I wanted to make sure that nothing came up at the last minute. We’re spread thin here, almost all the agents are occupied with their own projects, but they understand that none are more urgent and pressing than this one. They are willing and available.”

He smiled and nodded. “Your cooperation is deeply appreciated.”

Capetian turned to the girl, watching her clumsily taste caviar for the first time. “And the girl… is she ready?”

“Charlotte?” This time Anjou couldn’t help but laugh, earning him a surprised look from Capetian. Everywhere she went, this uncertainty about her talents followed. He was shaking with laughter, wiping away tears. “Charlotte is the least of my concerns. My biggest concern is your agents’ capability of handling her.”

Capetian’s jaw dropped, “Pardon…?”

Anjou leaned on one elbow, tilting the ash into a silver tray. “She is the winner of the Day of Liberty, S-ranked, and is an essential asset to this mission. I’ll be assigning Agent Robertson to her care and safety. I’ll expect your agents to guard her with their lives and cater to her every request while she works.”

He drew a long puff from his cigar, relaxing to the flavor, the smoke pooling a moment in his mouth. “She has already killed. She can do so again. If they don’t believe me, then they may see for themselves if they try anything improper.”

Charlotte’s gaze lowered and she lost all interest in the caviar.

Capetian swallowed. “Understood, sir.”

#Anjou #Dragon Raja #Fanfiction #Caesar #Johann Chu #Chu Zihang #lu mingfei

[chasseurdeloup-retired]

Ten CCs of Sass || Ricky and Kaden

TIMING: A few days after Ricky took on an asanbosam and after Kaden’s mime stabbing PARTIES: @ricky-corderbro and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY:  Best roommates ever.

Kaden was starting to lose track of time in this stupid place. It was hard to know when was what when there were no windows in the room and time seemed to move at a snail’s pace. But he was pretty sure he remembered the layout of the room. And this was not it. Everything was similar but slightly off somehow. “Regan?” he asked, knowing full well he didn’t see her or Blanche or anyone else babysitting him at the moment. Maybe he hoped they would pop up around a corner or something. Still, no answer. But there was a fucking curtain halfway open and another patient on the other side. Putain de merde, just when he thought this fucking hell pit couldn’t get any worse. They must have moved his fucking bed in the night and now he had a goddamn roommate. And better yet, his IVs were taped down so thoroughly to his arm, he was pretty sure getting them off was going to take a solid ten minutes and take off hair and maybe even a little skin. He was thoroughly stuck. Fuck.

All in all it had not been Ricky’s favorite week. While thankfully they’d put him under for the harrowing process of putting his ribs back together and removing a portion of one of them from his lung, the pain afterwards had been almost enough to make him wish the asanbosam had finished him off. Sleep had been an elusive target, and it was only after a nurse had come in and given him something to knock him out that he’d managed a couple of hours. Waking up though, had brought a resurgence of pain everytime his heart beat and he took a breath, and it wasn’t until he heard a voice asking for someone named Regan that he realized how fucked his day was truly about to get. He recognized that voice, even if the last time he’d heard it they’d been on a rickety boat arguing about saving lives. He also knew that that voice was attached to someone he’d promised to try to kill, even if he was in no position to actually take action on the threat, “Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.” he rasped out, voice still not up to par, “Did I actually die? I must have. This has to be fucking hell if I’m stuck here with you”

Kaden’s brows knit together. Something about that voice sounded vaguely familiar. He turned to get a better look at his new roommate. “Putain.” He groaned. It was the fucking do gooder lifegarud boy who was probably some kind of monster. Or knew a few. Of fucking course they ended up in the same room at the same time. What a cherry on top of being stabbed by a mime a few times the other day. “You’re right about one thing, this is fucking hell.” Kaden wanted to throw something but there was nothing but the pillow in reach to toss and, uh, he didn’t want to have to call a nurse to come pick it up off the floor. “The hell happened to you, anyway? Have a run in with a perfectly innocent supernatural monster? Or did your dudley do-right routine finally screw you over?”

Through the haze of pain and pain meds Ricky could feel Kaden’s voice grating on his every nerve, “Jesus fucking christ. Of course it’s fucking you” He attempted to push himself slightly more upright and was rewarding with a white hot pain shooting through his chest, “God. Do you ever tire of the sound of your own fucking voice? I will reach into my chest, pull out one of the many fragments of ribs floating around in there, and stab you in the fucking eye with it if it’s going to net me a reprieve from your sanctimonious bullshit.” He resigned himself to staying laying down and sighed, “You know, fuckhead mcfuckstick, there are those of us capable of distinguishing between an animalistic monster that lacks sentience, and a perfectly harmless member of the supernatural community. I’m sorry you somehow failed Humanity 101”

This little shit really thought he talked too much? Kaden scoffed. “You should ask yourself that. I’m not the one ranting over there.” He started picking at the tape on his arm as the kid ranted the same bullshit grumbling he’d heard a million times before. More colorful than most, he’d give him that, but more of the same. “Fuckhead mcfuckstick, that’s a new one.” He shrugged and continued to try and peel the tape away so he could try and leave before things got any worse. “So how’d that distinguishing go for you? Broken ribs, you said? Sounds like you had a really wonderful encounter.”

“It seemed fitting, given that you are both a fuckhead, and a fuckstick, and I’m Irish so we add Mc to everything.” Ricky rolled his eyes and managed to find the controller for his bed, raising himself so he was sitting upright, “Well it went great. Since I very clearly distinguished that an asanbosam is not a contributing member of society and is instead an animalistic hunter. But these were things I knew before. But you know something about being an animalistic hunter don’t you?” His breath came short for a few moments and he stopped talking, breathing as deeply as he could and balling his fists to try to work through the pain, “We were ambushed. Broken ribs, punctured lung. But I lived so, that’s something. They’re not great ones to run into.”

Irish. Noted. Kaden was sure he’d have plenty of time to figure out what kind of monster he was sharing a room with. Unfortunately. “Asanbosam? Too bad no one was around to stake it. If only there had been an animalistic hunter nearby. Guess they were all at home.” Or stuck in a fucking hospital. “That or no one thought you were particularly worth saving. Shame, you clearly handled it so well on your own.” Still, sounded like the kid had it worse over there than he did. “You got lucky. Even with all that.” Not that he was glad he was okay. That wasn’t his concern at all. “Ran into one of those the other week, seem to be out in force with all the eternal darkness shit going on. Almost stole someone up into the trees.”

“I managed just fine. No deaths, so, that’s a win. It’s currently somewhere in the forest trying desperately to get the rosary I knotted around it’s ankle free. They’re particularly averse to religious iconography.” While most children had a childhood full of nursery rhymes, a solid portion of Ricky’s home education had been the various varieties of vampire that would inevitably try to attack him; he knew a fair few of them by heart. “Ah yes, there’s that good old Hunter “judge, jury, and executioner” mentality that we all know and love so much. Good to know whatever didn’t do a good enough job of killing you left you up on your high horse.” Ricky reached for his phone on the bedside table, scrolling through several texts in all capital letters before deciding that was a problem for later in the afternoon, “I always hated the idea of those fuckers.” He muttered, trying to find a more comfortable position that didn’t put pressure on, well, anything. “Iron teeth. Prehensile tail. They’re straight out of some dnd dungeon master’s nightmare. What the hell is a west African vampire doing in Maine, though?”

“Oh are they? Wow, gee, I never fucking knew that. Slayed my first vampire at age ten but wow, thanks for that riveting new information. Where would I be without you?” Kaden rolled his eyes. He just told the guy he’d encountered an asanbosam the other week, so he would’ve thought he wouldn’t go and explain the obvious to him but guess he was wrong. “Yeah well, sorry to disappoint you by my survival. But if you tell me where that fucking thing was I can probalby deal with once I’m out of here. Or get someone else to. You know, if you can lower yourself off that pedastool to cooperate with an animalistic hunter for two fucking minutes.” This was going to be a long goddamn day. God help him if was two. He wasn’t sure he could survive that. The tape on his arm must have been something akin to duct tape because it wasn’t budging. At this point he wasn’t sure he cared if Regan insisted he stayed the full two plus days. No way would he last that long. “They’re a pain in the ass. Species origin doesn’t really seem to be a barrier to entry in White Crest. I mean, for fuck sakes, the sky’s been dark for a few solid weeks now and you’re questioning how an African vampire got here? This place is fucking weird.”

Kaden’s abrasive voice was honestly on par with the subtle grinding and shifting of his ribs that he could still feel every time he breathed, “God. It just so fucking shocking to me that you’re top of seemingly everybody’s ‘kill him becore he kills us’ list. People skills like yours you should be in public relations. As to the where would you be? Fish food. We’ve gone over this. You’d be fish food.” Ricky let talk of killing a roommate fall silent as a nurse came in to administer meds and bring up his breakfast tray… which was seemingly full of things he didn’t want or couldn’t really eat. One insipid slice of ham seemed to be about the only thing he trusted, and he quickly ate it, keeping his face turned away from Kaden so there were no erstwhile glimpses of fangs, before pushing the tray and the rolling table away, “I don’t want the rest of that, if you’re feeling extra peckish.” He could feel the gentle wave of pain meds crashing on the beach of his mind and pulled his phone towards him, tapping out replies to texts as he listened to Kaden prattle on in the singularly sanctimonious way that he seemed to have cornered the fucking market on, “Yeah as long as there’s a fucking tree vamp wandering the forests near my home attacking members of my community I’m going to fucking question it. But in answer to the question that was sandwiched between the insults… it was the forests to the north of the Docks, bout half a mile before the bridge to Harris Island. It felled a tree right in front of my truck, blocked the road.”

“Yeah, yeah. And I thanked you already, alright.” Kaden bristled at the reminder that he was somewhat in debt to the other man for saving his life. Fucking hated that. Normally he made it easy enough for him to push that aside but then it would rear its ugly head. Still, he noted where that vampire was last seen; he’d be sure to kill it once he was out of there. Not long after, a second nurse came in to give Kaden his tray full of what he assumed was awful lumps of sadness pretending to be food. He wasn’t wrong. The food looked awful, alright, but that wasn’t what his eyes were focused on. No, his eyes went straight to the black and white striped shirt folded neatly with a beret on top and the red blood stains seeped into it. His eyes grew wide with confusion and his pulse picked up as he looked at the nurse. She gave absolutely no indication that anything was out of the ordinary and simply smiled and asked if there was anything else he needed. Kaden was stunned for a moment but it didn’t take long for him to flip the try, tossing it away from him the way someone might flick away a bug that had crawled onto them. He tried to quell the panic that was rising up in him. The nurse just looked confused, not like she was going to kill him on the spot. Which was good, but honestly he still wished he had a weapon in hand. Then she shook her head and looked around like she was unsure of what room she was in or what hat just happened. “Did I do that?” she asked, looking at the try and bending down to pick it up. “I’m sorry, I’ll bring you another tray. Is that your shirt?” Kaden shook his head. “Uh, no. Not-- No, that’s not my shirt. And you didn’t-- Sorry, I lost control of the…” He wanted to run more than ever, his hand reaching for the metal stand where the bags of fluids were hanging. It’d be a decent blunt weapon in a pinch. “Oh, that’s alright. I’ll be right back,” the nurse said, all the fallen food and tray in hand and left with a smile, like nothing ever happened. “Putain de merde, what the actual fuck?”

“It’s really hard to take the thanks seriously when it’s always tied to some sort of insane purge-and-purify human-centric rhetoric. Really sort of dulls the shine on that particular compliment.” He’d been focused on his phone and not on the speciesist fuck in the bed next to him when there was suddenly a ruckus that made him snap his head over to look at that side of the room. “What the absolute fuck you lunatic?” Ricky was so taken aback by the scene that he attempted to push himself out of bed to help clean it up, before bolts of white hot pain reminded him why he didn’t do that, “oh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck oh fuck.” The nurse’s response to the whole ordeal was what really made him narrow his eyes, “What…. What the fuck is happening over there.” A tiny spot of red appeared on the bandage around his chest and started to grow fractionally, “Well that’s not good. But… that wasn’t normal. What the fuck landed you in here? I mean I had just assumed it was something along the lines of “finally got what was coming to him” but that was fucking weird.”

“Nothing, nothing, it’s--” he started. Kaden’s eyes darted back and forth between where the tray had just fallen and the door. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to slow his breath, bring his pulse back to normal. He let out a deep sigh, trying to rationalize that nothing else was coming in, no one else was there, it was probably safe. But Regan wasn’t back yet. What if something happened to her? Fuck. “Uh, shit. Don’t fucking laugh,” he told his current rommate as he rubbed his palms against the sheets, trying to dry the sweat off them. “I’m here cause I got stabbed by a fucking mime.” He thought about hitting the call button, get another nurse in here. But what if that didn’t help? What if that’s what brought another possessed person to send him more warnings and threats? Shit. He was more or less defenseless if someone came back for him. This is why he fucking hated hosptials (among all the other reasons). “So yeah, that striped shirt, it, uh-- Fuck.” He felt like such a paranoid idiot.

Ricky didn’t really think of himself as a cruel man. He tried to do right by his friends and his neighbors, be a good upstanding member of the community, and generally behave in a way that would make his mother proud of him; since she was his metric for what a good person should be. But the minute Kaden a) told him not to laugh and b) mentioned he’d gotten stabbed by a fucking mime, Ricky knew he was in a losing battle where all of his attempts to be good were going to falter in the face of a chance to ridicule his enemy. The laugh bubbled up inside of him and the piercing pain in his chest battled for dominance but he couldn’t help but throw his head back in laughter, shaking slightly in his bed, “Oh god…. Oh my fucking god…. I”m sorry I’m sorry… did you… did you… the great fucking hunter… bane of the supernatural… did you fucking get put in the hospital by a goddamn mime?!” His laugh turned into a painful cough and he bit down abruptly, a fang piercing his lip “ow fuck.” The laughter died down and he shook his head, “Ahh it feels good and at the same time fucking terrible to laugh. How… how did you manage to get stabbed by a fucking mime?! Was it even a real knife or was this just some A+ really top of the line pantomime that this fucker did?”

Well that was one way to quell the panic. Kaden could feel the anger rising up as the other man laughed. No, fucking cackled. “Shut it!” He looked down at the edge of the bed where his tray fell. Maybe there was still a shitty clementine or something he could chuck at Ricky’s fucking head. No luck. There was still a beret, though. It’d have to do. He scooped it up, scrunched it into a ball, and threw it across the room. He practically huffed as he stewed over on his bed, but a quick glance over to his roommate practically splitting his stitches and he saw it. It was subtle enough, but there was no denying those were fucking big ass fangs sticking out while he cackled. Well that answered that question he was pretty sure he already had the answer to: Monster. What kind, he’d figure out later. Couldn’t be undead if he had a heartbeat to monitor, he knew that much. And couldn’t be a wolf since he didn’t send all of Kaden’s hairs on edge. “Putain, yes it was a real fucking knife, connard! He was fucking possessed or cursed or some shit! Broke into the restaurant and just b-lined to stab me and wouldn’t fucking stop until he died.” It was goddamn karmic watching Ricky in pain over his laughter. Deserved at least that much.

“Oh no, Fuckstick McMimeChow, you have to deal with this fucking laughter because it is infinitely hilarious that a hunter got hospitalized by a motherfucking mime.” Ricky allowed the beret to hit him in the face if only because Kaden deserved at least that tiny victory, and as he held hit in his hands he took as subtle a smell of it as he could, but picked up nothing more than dollar store shampoo and dried blood, “Well… while you can make the argument that choosing ‘mime’ as your profession is in and of itself a curse… he was definitely human.” He threw the beret to the foot of Kaden’s bed, “but I’d wash your hands. There’s blood on that.” Pressing a slightly trembling hand to his chest; the pain was now greater than the mirth he’d received at Kaden’s attack, “That’s gotta be like… top three for shitty dinners. I mean I’ve had some bad fucking meals in my day and while I’ve had both a beer and a dinner roll thrown at me on separate occasions nobody’s actually stabbed me before. Did you kill this maniacal mime or did he just… I don’t know… suddenly expire after coming into contact with undiluted Blood of Douchebag.”

If Kaden had something else to throw, he would have. Instead all he could do was glower at the laughter. “Congrats, Detective pain in the ass, I figured that much out. Of course he was human. Problem was you didn’t see him. The look in his eye. It was like the lights were out but he was going through the motions anway. Really fucking determinedly, too.” At Ricky's evaluation of the beret, he looked down at his hands and decided to just wipe them off on the side of the bed again, in case there was any blood. “We barely got to wine let alone dinner. So yeah, I’d say so.” He sighed, thinking about the poor chardonnay that was the only thing that was murdered that night. What a waste. His head snapped to face his current roommate at his last comment. “Hey, I did not kill him! I mean I didn’t take it lying down, but I’m not a murderer, alright!”

“I’m really feeling like you’re not putting the same energy into this rivalry I am, Kaden. I come up with Fuckstick McMimeChow and you counter with Detective Pain in the ass? I’m a little hurt.” Ricky shot as withering a look as he could manage across the room, “Are you sure that was a curse/possession and not just… you know… people’s kneejerk reaction to being in your presence? I know I always get the urge to stab you repeatedly.” Watching Kaden wipe his hands on the bed he listened before chuffing a sigh of a laugh, “Wait wait wait… did you get stabbed by a mime on a fucking date? Jesus fucking Christ talk about just compounded shit luck. That’s just… woof. I don’t even have anything cutting or scathing for that… that’s just… that’s just rough.” Any pity he might have felt for the other man quickly evaporated however, “Oh yes. This old chestnut. I spend my life hunting things down but am somehow not a murderer. What is this… verse 78 now?”

“Sorry, what can I say. I don’t spend as much time thinking about you as you think about me.” Kaden rolled his eyes at the remark. “He came into the restaurant seemingly just to stab me. I know I’ve pisseed people off but that just doesn’t track, alright. I never saw the guy before. And yeah I was on a fucking date, alright. Shocking as it may be. Still not sure if it’s one of the worst dates I’ve been on.” He sighed at the remark. Of course, couldn’t get through one conversation without the bleeding heart bullshit. “Look you don’t have to fucking agree with me but don’t act like you don’t know where I stand. Murder is when you kill people and monsters aren’t people. Been over this.” There was a long stretch of silence and it seemed like they might be done snipping for the moment. Fine by him, but the whole place was too quiet. And he couldn’t bear to sit and watch this shitty infomercial. He waited a moment, maybe he could just sleep or something. But he wasn’t tired. “Hey, uh, I think you have the remote. Can you change the thing. The Price is Right is about to come on.”

“Jesus. And I thought my fucking love life was grim. You make me look like a fucking Casanova if that wasn’t one of your worst dates. Am I surprised? No. But still… blech. Poor woman. I’m just assuming you’re straight because I’m fervently praying you’re not gay. We don’t want you on our team. Please stay far the fuck away.” It was still a little surprising how robotic and immediate the return to the hunter party line was. There was almost a moment, for just the briefest of seconds, where Ricky had thought that they were actually on the road to… well whatever was one step above immediately homicidal. But all of that was swept away in an instant as they returned to ground zero. A zone which did not net Kaden any tv privileges. “Sorry.” He picked up the remote and plucked its batteries out, tossing the powerless shell to the other man, “Sharing is what people do.” He smiled a wide bright smile, every perfectly maintained fang shining in the horrible hospital lighting, “and I guess I just don’t qualify. Besides…. Price is Right with no Bob Barker? One of us is the monster here and it isn’t me.” This was going to be the longest hospital stay ever.

#chatzy #writing #wickedswriting #ten ccs of sass #ricky #rickycorderbro