Intermission Blog

Here, just before crossing the threshold of the 'burbs to the city, stood a great white sign, with black letters outlined in red. Sleuth made note of it and committed it to memory. It was the first sign of life other than those old green interstate signs that told him how close he was to this place, that led him up to those words overhead: Welcome to Midnight City. (requests: open)

[booze-hats]

Cigarette Statement

"In dreams and visions lie the greatest creations of man, for on them rests no yoke of line or hue. Forgotten scenes, and lands more obscure than the golden world of childhood, spring into the sleeping mind to reign until awakening puts them to rout." —H.P. Lovecraft

You really wanna know what I was doin' in there, detective? You sure about that? Y'know, most people know better and stop before they get answers they don't want to questions they shouldn't be asking. Here, hold this for me, yeah? The metal arm's unsteady. Yeah. Just gonna light a cigarette. Where was I? I was telling you what I was doing in there, that's right. You lived here a long time now, you know every good story starts a little bit further back than most folks probably think. No, it's not the beginning of time, stupid fuck. Jokes are supposed to be funny. It's yesterday. We're going back to yesterday. Shut the hell up.

Yesterday at about two o'clock in the afternoon, I woke up. Stop snickering. Not one fuckin' thing I've said this entire time's been funny. What's your problem? You gonna let me tell you this story or not? You're the guy who wanted to know what I'm doin' in your fake window. I already got all my answers 'cause your stupid ass was late for work. You'd know if you opened your office on time. Idiot.

That's what I thought. Yup, that's where we were: yesterday, two o'clock, I woke up. Woke up from a dream like none anybody ever had before then. You keep asking smartass questions, I'm gonna bust your damn lip open. Yes, I know that for a fucking fact. Because I was the one who had it and everybody else has shittier dreams than me. Especially you.

I woke up in the middle of the desert, lookin' back at town. At some point, in my sleep, I got up, got dressed, and I figure I musta caught a cab out to the edge of town 'cause my truck wasn't nowhere to be found, and I walked just like I'd been doing in my dream. I wasn't in the desert in my dream, though, I was awful far away. It was dark and cold and everything a guy could touch was pitch goddamn black and felt like metal. I was walkin' around and I walked into somethin' soft, so I ripped it down, and I saw everything that ever mattered in the universe. Everything. What do you think it looked like? You wanna know, I wanna know what you think. No, it ain't all the money in the world and it ain't a gun, ain't a knife. It ain't women, men, drugs, ain't power. Corpses might be your best answer yet, Sleuth. No. I woke up. I saw this city, with the sun burnin' over the top of it, shinin' off the river. I reckon it must've been two 'cause of the sun, but I stood there a long time before I started walkin' back. Felt like old times, before there was a city at all. I reckon if I was just a few feet further back, all I'd have seen was the sand dune I was standin' on.

Anyways, I stood there for a while and then, I started walkin' back. Or, I thought I was walking back. I started walkin' toward the city, but at the bottom of the dune, there was water. It looked black, like everything in the dream I had. Couldn't see the bottom. I walked on down to it and it took me a second to look at myself and I looked different. I saw myself for real, right there, with everything I ever wanted right in front of me, all my eyes was open. I can't tell you what I mean by that, there ain't words for it, pal. I leaned down real close to the water and I kept lookin' at myself. What I saw wasn't the future, wasn't the past. I saw myself just like I am for the first time in my life. I figured I had to look awfully long to make sure I can remember later 'til I get the chance to see it again. When I looked enough, I took a good deep breath and then, the water didn't move. So I blew on it again and it didn't do nothin'. When I touched it, it was cold, fast, wasn't never still, I reckon it just moved so quick that it looked still. I pulled my hand out and it was pitch black, dripping, and I saw myself in my hand. And something inside me, it said to eat it, so I did. Now you're asking good questions. What did it taste like? Well, I figure it tasted something like human blood.

Huh? Yeah, I'm okay. Feel great, actually. Really. I'm sure. Interrupting me again. Where was I? I put my hand in the water and it felt like ice. It was all covered in that inky stuff and it shone black in the sunlight, like metal. It was beautiful. And it was delicious. By the time it'd all dripped off and the rest of it dissolved into the sand, it was today. The sun was on the edge of coming up again. By the time I got back to town, I heard myself in my ear, talking in a million voices, and I told myself that I needed to be somewhere quiet, and detective, I broke straight into your office and puked that stuff up in that nice new trash can and fell through your open window with my head spinning. Really, I oughta go to the hospital and sue, but I'm still a little bit woozy, so you should light me another one of these, yep, huh? No, it was my flesh hand, that's why I'm not touching the smokes with it. Hurry up. The first thing I did when I got upright was try to light a cigarette and the shit on my hand went up like alcohol, but it didn't burn me none. Didn't hurt. Didn't stop. It just kept burning the prettiest purple you ever saw. And I looked at it for a while, and I felt time like nobody's ever felt it before, I felt a million years in just a minute and then I heard you shuffling around. I stopped focusing on it and it stopped, so I suppose I musta kept it going somehow. I crawled back through the window and managed to take you by surprise by accident.

Huh? What do you mean? I told you everything you need to know. Oh. Shit. Yeah. What do I want from you. Good point. Mm. I dunno. I reckon I meant to ask you aout that dream I had but got lost givin' you shit about interrupting me. What do I want from you. I just came here to be somewhere quieter, didn't actually get up to nothing in the window. All I need you for is lighting my cigarettes, it seems. You're real good at it, too. You got any clients today? Really? Shocker. Didn't expect you'd have any all week, much less today. I'll be goddamned. Good case? No? No, I suppose infidelity ain't never fun when you have to investigate it, is it? Are you loyal to your woman, Sleuth? No, no, I believe you, you just paused funny. I ain't got no reason to accuse you of lyin'. I believe you just fine. You're loyal to her. I seen her a few times, out with you, she's blonde like you. Beautiful woman. I see why you picked her, if you did. I couldn't get close enough to see what color her eyes were. What color are they, detective? Blue? I bet they're pretty blue. Yours ain't but you ain't blond naturally, are you? You dye it. Didn't look like she did, did she? Didn't think so. She's pretty like you are. Nobody ever regrets looking at her. But just by the way you answered that question, I don't think she's the only thing you look at, is she? I believe that too. You don't look at nothing else. No pretty photos, no faces passing by, no bodies packed together in crowds hurryin' down the street.

You ever look at men? No? Can I be real candid with you? I don't believe that but I ain't here to question it. No, ain't an insult. I look at men. Like men more than broads, most days. I just clocked you and you don't have to admit it, but you're, what? No. I'm fine. I'm, a little dizzy. Hell no, I didn't come here to call you a homosexual. Oh, god. I reckon I did lose the plot. You figure you can hand me that trash can real quick? I need to puke again.

[booze-hats]

Rapt Attention Paid

Spades Slick ran his hand down the face of the corpse in front of him. The skin was soft, velvety. It almost didn't feel like it ever could've been alive in the first place. The suit was felt, fuzzy, like the rest of it. It was surprisingly cold for a carcass that was still bleeding. It was pretty, as much as one of those green fellas could be. If any of them were easy on the eyes, it was Crowbar, even if that wasn't saying much. He crouched down in front of the body, plucking the crowbar from its hand and staring into its open, empty eyes. He'd never seen life in them before and this close up, they looked just as dull as they did from a distance.

He hooked his finger under the chin, tilting it up to inspect a scrape on the side of its face. It was still oozing red, just like Slick was sure the back of its skull was. The triangle hat fell to the floor. He'd be up eventually, he'd seen Six's stab wounds mending themselves just earlier in the evening and there was no chance that Nine was dumb enough to leave the brains of their operation out of commission for long. He'd clocked Three, Five, Six, and Seven, he'd put Six out of commission and Droog shot Seven, Hearts and Diamonds left to deal with Three and Five. He hadn't seen Clubs, he didn't think Four had been with the others.

Spades sighed and stood up, still wielding the maroon crowbar. Three and Five were as good as handled. Once again, his men proved so efficient that he was left at something of a loss.

His attention was wrenched away from this brief train of thought by twitching in front of him. He couldn't see the gunshot stitching itself closed at this angle, but he did get to watch the scratch across Crowbar's face closed, pieces of skin held together by stitches from an invisible hand. He watched the body writhe as consciousness began to stream back into it. Slick had woken up from death before and he'd seen his guys come back around a handful of times, but he'd never seen a guy wake up without light coming back to his eyes. He recalled the way light streamed into his eyes, always blinding no matter how dull the source might've been. The memory felt distant every time, even the day after it'd happened. If this were him, he'd blink, he'd try to cover his face, and with some complaint, he'd get up. He'd wake up.

This, though. This didn't look like waking up. This looked like something else. The guy twitched for minutes that hung in the air. Those hazy green eyes stared into space while the cadaver jerked about. He couldn't determine if the body resisted the spirit or if it was the other way around, but Spades didn't like it. It didn't look like coming back to life. If the sounds Crowbar made when they started were indicative of anything, an eternity after the convulsions began, he surely did not return with ease. Slick hadn't ever been the most empathetic guy but this? This stirred the closest thing he'd ever felt to sympathy up in the pit of his stomach. It repulsed the most fundamental senses his mind and body were able to experience. Something about it was cruel and unusual and it made him feel uneasy.

Still, he watched, although he did have to take a step back to avoid flailing limbs. None had gotten close to him and he was not intent on giving them the opportunity to be. He would have to deny his morbid fascination with this unorthodox reanimation at all costs, he decided, because he could not resist the urge to indulge. This temptation, he decided, was inherently problematic insofar as it would surely cause him distractions in the future, but this time, he thought, this time, he could afford the risk. Slowly, green fuzz smoothed over the stitches, at least enough to obscure the thread holding the velvety skin together.

He called it when the cadaver began to speak. It didn't sound like Seven. Everything in his body told him to run, based on the sound alone. It didn't speak anything that Slick recognized as words, so Slick assumed it wasn't alive yet. He confronted the response to flee with a fight, he stepped forward and brought the hand tool down on its wretched skull. Nothing happened, other than the appearance of a new split in the skin. It made no sound of pain, it did not grab his ankle despite the mistake of putting it within reach, and so, Slick recoiled in horror.

After a second longer of watching and listening, he yielded to his instinct of self preservation. He scurried out of the warehouse and out into the cold desert wind that whipped down the empty streets with the crowbar in his hand. He couldn't wait to never see that again.

[booze-hats]

Sleepwalking

All at once, it came to his attention that he was dreaming.

The regular world of dream was a highly irregular place, made even more complicated when you sold your soul. His friends from the outer realms, as strange as they were, lived in a place that he wouldn't quite call comfortable. He was sure that no wholesome being had ever been there, none who hadn't sold their aforementioned soul anyway. But here he was, trying desperately to find his bearings. He only knew he was in the world of dream because of that unusual emptiness, the feeling that there was no floor underneath and no sky above. There were no walls. There was only pitch blackness. It was terrifying.

Diamonds walked forward, across the nothing, into the Nothing. He was looking for something, anything. perhaps he would encounter one of the horrific denizens of the realm, of this big empty space. He doubted it. His patron was the only thing likely to take interest in conversing with him and he didn't know if the creature socialized at all. He was sure some of them had to, some of them screamed at least. Some of them whispered. They called them to this void of space frequently now, for reasons he never seemed to be able to discern. Sometimes, he sat down to wait. Sometimes, he walked in circles. Sometimes, he called out despite knowing that nothing conscious or good could probably answer his call. This time, he walked forward for an indeterminate amount of time, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing. He thought surely he would have encountered at least some sinister screaming, but he found nothing. No imitations of his friends, no inspirations of terror. No eyes, no mouths, no hungry throats. It was empty.

He wondered for a second when he fell asleep, finding that he could not quite recall. He didn't think he'd laid down to go to bed, and he didn't think he'd fallen asleep anywhere intentionally, he didn't even remember sitting down. It was normal to have difficulty recalling such things during dreams, he reminded himself, but he was no less disturbed by the realization.

Much to his surprise, his foot stubbed something. He felt around with his shoe, finding it something like a stair. He stepped up onto it and several more after it. He followed this non-existent staircase up, as much as there is up in a place with no direction, and looked down only to find nothing below. It didn't look like his elevation had changed at all. At some point, the ground leveled out again and he continued forward into the nothing. Forward enough and he encountered something, or so he thought. He walked into it, something about waist high. It jolted, invisible as it was, and off of it fell a little silver box. Diamonds leaned down and picked it up, inspecting the object thoroughly, and felt for that thing he'd walked into. He found nothing. He felt nothing. The object, cloaked in darkness as it had been, had vanished.

He looked back at the little box in his hands and after focusing for a second, he realized that he saw something underneath it. He was standing on something. His gaze focused and it grew brighter and clearer, and he realized that he was looking down at the desert sand. In his hand he held a little silver box.

Diamonds Droog looked at the desert wasteland surrounding Midnight City. He had no idea how he got here, he remembered. Last he could recall, he had just gotten home and taken a shower. He got in redressed to go work an evening at the bar and he expected light traffic. He stood in his kitchen checked the forbidden timepiece which he carried with him to and from the bar on these working nights. It was nearly time to leave then. An examination of it now revealed that he was supposed to be in the middle of his shift, a shift he clearly had not started. With the box in hand, he started back toward his waiting car, half afraid to open the damnable thing. He picked up his phone. He'd miss several calls, had several text messages, voicemails. It didn't really matter to him in this moment.

With the car started an air conditioner running, he locked the doors. He seemed to have everything he was meant to, with keys in the ignition, his wallet in the passenger seat and his phone which had been in his pocket. He even had his revolver, settled into the cavity in the driver's door. He seemed very put together for having no recollection of how he'd gotten here. It last, he opened the little silver box. While he half expected some eldritch monstrosity to free itself of its eternal earthly confinement when he did, no such thing happened. Opening it revealed only a white ball. A cue ball, scaled down.

He picked up his phone to call Spades Slick. Slick was undoubtedly angered by his absence at the bar, certainly at least a little flustered by it. His boss didn't like to bartend. Upon answering the phone, Slick begin shouting, but not quite what he expected. He said nothing about the shift, nothing about the closed bar, nothing of the like. He didn't even mention the sudden absence. Somehow, what he said was even more on settling, and all Diamonds could do was fear what that little black omen in his hands meant.

"Wake up, you fucking idiot. You need to come get me. They fucking— left me here. Help."

2. Good Fortune

Going to sleep that night was nearly impossible.

Slick hadn't been to banged up, mostly scrapes and bruises and little lacerations that he had to very carefully clean all the sand out of before he could bandage them up, but not terribly damaged. He'd been handcuffed to a light post and left out in the desert, assumingly with some intent for him to die. With two hands behind the post, Droog wasn't sure how he got his hands on his cell phone to make that call. All he knew is that he did, and as such, Droog, ever the good friend, made an appearance to save him.

Laying there in bed, he reflected on the drive. It didn't quiet, strangely quiet. Spades Slick lived his life by the philosophy of stab first and ask later, so Droog found it incredibly perplexing when Spades Slick picked up the little white orb in his cup holder, examined it, and put it back down quietly. He didn't say anything. Instead, he rolled it around in his head like some cursed marble of thought, staring silently out the window until they had arrived back at the bar. There, Slick sprung the question. Not the question he'd expected, but a question nonetheless. "How the hell did you get out there so fast?"

"I drove."

"You were already out there," was his first accusation.

"I was."

"Why?"

Diamonds paused. Not for long, but for too long nonetheless, and Spades caught the lie before it was even able to leave his mouth. He only knew this because Slick all but shouted it with the way he raised his eyebrows. "I was meditating."

"About weird ass little white things?" was his second accusation.

"About dreams I've been having," was the veiled admission. It hung in the air for a few breaths before Diamonds asked, "what happened to you?"

"They picked me up, kicked me around, locked me up, and said they'd come back soon. Called you and now we're here."

"How did you call me?"

"Siri."

"Oh, you figured that out?"

"Mhm. Reckon it might've just saved my life." Slick let this sit a second before picking back up. There was a heavy dread in the atmosphere. Droog hated to find out that this was the beginning of something. "What're you dreaming about?"

So, he told him. He neglected the sleepwalking detail, mentioning only that he'd dreamed of finding cursed artifacts, but never what they were. And Slick, for his part, told Droog what happened without mentioning the motive, which Droog was sure the guy had to know. Things weren't honest, he reflected, but they were even. He rolled onto his back, eyes closed. He couldn't help but feel like he was staring at the ceiling through his eyelids. Or maybe the ceiling was staring at him. Maybe, the distant feeling of reality eroding away was not immaterial after all.

He opened his eyes again. The ceiling was dark. The walls, dark. His sheets, which in the waking world were a deep red, were pitch black too. The realm of dream opened up before him, speaking all around him in Slick's voice. "What're you dreaming about?"

3. Open Eyes

Waking up in the world of dream was a largely unpleasant experience. It immediately reminded one that they would not be feeling rested when they will, it was only an extension of waking life in your sleep. At least, that's how Diamonds saw it. It was, at kindest, a huge inconvenience. He processed it as such, acknowledging that he would be exhausted when he woke up tomorrow. It would be a long, long shift of babysitting Spades Slick with his obnoxious intuition about Diamonds's honesty.

Now awake and seemingly lying on some surface, Diamonds selected to stand up. He stood up, threw off the covers, and started walking. He followed his feet, as he did occasionally in these dreams, and then, when he felt the time was right, he stopped. He looked around and all he saw was blackness. Endless uninterrupted darkness.

Something about this inky blackness was different than the inky blackness every single time before. He spent years observing that odd quiet. This, this was not quiet. This was loud. There was a rushing that ebbed and flowed underneath the silence, both in terms of sound and appearance. Despite seeing nothing at all the surrounding space seem to pulse with life. endless black noxious life that pressed in on him from every angle. This was different than the usual nightmares about nothing, about the abyss. Here he was, watched, seen, known. He knew not what saw him and he knew not why it saw him and he knew not were from, but he knew that something certainly must have seen him.

The thronging blackness produced nothing of interest ahead and after a while he stopped walking to examine it again. He wasn't sure about the physics of this place, but he was sure there was an educator out there who would do unimaginable things even for glimpse of a world outside of the waking dimension. He reached out to touch nothing and then put his hands in his pockets. In the leftmost pocket of his coat, he found something interesting, he found a little white marble which he stared at in something like disbelief. Then, it did something even more unbelievable than simply appear in his dreams again. It blinked. Porcelain white spread wide open briefly and closed quickly to reveal what looked like an eye. It startled Diamonds enough to make him drop a little artifact and look around him, and suddenly, he saw many more of them beginning to open out of the blackness. Many eyes opened and gazed upon him, seeing him, exactly as before.

Somewhere ahead of him, a great big smile full of sharp teeth cut the air open. It became to hiss out words in a way that was most detestable as it should have been to any sane or normal person. It was nightmare incarnate. He would never forget the sounds that he heard and the sounds that it made when it spoke, it sounded far off, distant, despite clearly being right in front of him. He wondered if perhaps that didn't mean the beast's voice didn't project from somewhere else all together, perhaps what he saw was an illusion of something even worse that he could not see. It called him his name first and waited for him to nod, to tell it yes, to let it know that it was correct about who and what he was. It smiled impossibly wide and every time he thought it must have surely met its limit, it smiled even more widely than before. Surely, this would keep him up for many nights in the future. l

The thing did not care, it paid his fear no mind. Heeding the fear of mortals, he assumed, was not in the wheelhouse of such a thing, whatever this nightmare thing was. Part of him wished to call it a deity, but it was no such thing at all. To call it a deity would be offensive to the mild and wholesome deities of the earth on which we all reside. This thing, it was a monster.

Diamonds lean down to pick up the little marble that he found in his sleep and the looked up at the beast, it, with all those eyes, looked back at him, waiting. Then, it asked him to return its eyeball, which he did without any hesitation. He didn't really care to keep any part of any such cursed thing is this one ever again. After fastening the marble into the empty space in front of him, he stepped back, and the thing blinked what was almost a thanks. He looked at the ground, half hoping to see the desert sand opening up beneath him again, with no such luck. Instead, he was obliged to look up at the thing when it began to speak one last time, and to listen when it said, "Ask me before you remove it next time. I was watching for you."

[whimsifae]

the five homoerotic love languages:

- intimate stabbing

- outright obsession

- confused pining

- "no one knows me like you do"

- lifelong promises that always sound suspiciously like wedding vows

[booze-hats]

Good Morning / Good Night

Waking up alone was a usual occurrence for Pickle Inspector. His mornings were actually normally held to a very strict routine. He woke up, he drank water, he took his medication, took a shower, and got dressed. It was easy to establish a habit like that, he thought most people had to have some kind of waking ritual that they underwent when they got up on their best days. At least for him, breaking it was something negative, an early sign he often failed to perceive. Today, though, on this morning, that was not the case.

This morning, he woke under a heavy arm, he woke up warm underneath blankets he didn't recognize the texture of. The room was dark, the curtains were thick, dark red rectangles illuminated by some mystery source behind them. The person behind him breathed steadily, easily. Of course, he knew who it was. He didn't need to look at the partially-concealed diamond tattoo to figure it out. He didn't usually wake up with anyone else in bed, much less in anyone else's bed, but when he did, it was always the same man.

Pickle Inspector writhed underneath the weight of Diamonds Droog's arm, strong and heavy as it was. For his part, Droog didn't even stir. Inspector took the sign, they'd both been heavily intoxicated when they'd fallen asleep. They'd fallen asleep in their suits this time, but it seemed they'd taken the time to shirk ties and coats and perhaps even empty pockets. Attention cast to the tangle of legs between the two of them revealed no shoes, Droog had taken his socks off and the good Inspector had not.

He stopped struggling to try to free his legs and simply settled into the warmth. He was incredibly unnerved by knowing where none of his belongings were. He trusted Diamonds not to steal from him, of course, the man had no reason to, but he did worry about having dropped his keys or wallet on his way here. He remembered when Droog walked into the bar he'd been at, already fairly inebriated. The man walked over and sat down, he'd smiled at Inspector and told the bartender to bring them both two more doubles of whatever he'd been drinking. He'd been grateful for every single shot.

His body began to feel heavy again, tired. He decided to rest his eyes and try to piece together more of the evening. More shots and lots of quiet conversations about passing jobs, whispered gossip. It was fun. He did remember wandering to the bathroom, but the rest of the night was fuzzy. And to some degree, that was okay. Just like this little break from his routine.

Diamonds Droog shifted and pulled him closer, holding him even more securely against his body than before. He let out a breath and his muscles relaxed again relatively quickly, but Pickle Inspector knew it'd be a few minutes before his host drifted back into a restful slumber. It was in his best interest simply get comfortable and close his eyes again, too. He was sure that he could stand to sleep for a few hours longer. And if he couldn't, that was a problem for his future self, who would have to be thankful for the extra rest in such an unusually safe place.

He let out a sigh. He was sure he'd sleep well.

[booze-hats]

Square One (Finally) (2/2)

One would expect that when Problem Sleuth wanted to talk business, he'd want to talk about what happened. Who those kids were. Why someone would steal from Spades fucking Slick like it wasn't a death sentence. Maybe he'd take out a little notebook like they do in detective cartoons, take a magnifying glass down to the warehouse, fingerprints, something, but no. No, the first words out of Sleuth's mouth were, "do you want a drink before we talk about payment?"

==> <== FIRST

"Payment?" was what he could get back at Sleuth. There's too many moving parts right now. He needed fucking nicotine before he could parse it all. He shook his head. "Can I smoke?"

Sleuth gestured at him kind of vaguely and Slick squinted at him. There was a long moment of silence where he stared at Sleuth, waiting for clarification, and Sleuth stared back, undoubtedly trying to figure out what in the hell he wanted. Then, when it finally clicked (about the same time Slick determined what he smelled must be a tiny electrical fire in Sleuth's head became detectable by the human nose), he nodded and started sifting through his desk. He picked up a notebook. 

Slick paused, but extended a cigarette in the detective's direction. He took pause, hesitating like Slick was going to trick him in some way, but he did end up taking the smoke with a thanks. Instead of accepting Slick's lighter, he produced his own, and very quickly, they were sharing cigarettes in the office. It's not what he was expecting to do with his night. In fact, it's not really something Slick expected to do, ever. As always, his city was filled with surprises, and if they weren't inconveniencing him so terribly at the moment, he might glow with pride.

"Whatcha chargin'?"

"Got a contract."

"Don't want it."

"What?"

"Don't want a paper trail.  Is it hourly, daily, flat, what the fuck do you charge?"

Sleuth just stared at him for a second, seemingly thrown by the assertion. He took a thoughtful drag of his cigarette, eyeing Slick. He seemed to want to debate it, as if for his own protection, but seemed to decide against it. He nodded. "I'll do it flat. Work it out after the fact."

"Good. Now you're makin' sense. You got questions?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, then let's chat."

[booze-hats]

Walk Through (4/4)

"So, what do you figure he's even got in his head?"

"I 'unno. Finny gets real odd when he'd mad. Does funny stuff."

==> <== FIRST

"He always does funny stuff! He's a funny guy!" Clover snickered. "I didn't even know Fin could drive!"

Trace sighed and looked up at him. Trace looked tired. Fin being angry always made Trace tired, though. Those two had something real special, something nobody else in the entire world could see for what it was. It made him feel lucky to get this little bit of insight. He's the luckiest man in the manor though, so really, it was kind of his to see no matter how you spun it. "Yeah. Used ta be good at it. Then his eyes kept gettin' worse."

"What's wrong with 'em?"

"Somethin' like glaucoma. I 'on remember. I just remember him talkin' about brand new blind spots every day."

"Then, the roads better be empty, huh?"

"I'm tryin' to read over here, y'know."

"I know!" 

"Y'care?"

"Nope! Whatcha readin'?"

"Nothin' interestin'. It's yesterday's newspaper."

[booze-hats]

Walk Through (3/4)

Pickle Inspector looked at his cell phone somewhere around twenty minutes into their meeting and when he looked up, his face had changed, and Diamonds Droog was very keenly aware of it. Pickle Inspector knew that Diamonds Droog was aware of it. They'd sang this song and danced this dance for years, Droog's eyebrows said every word and Inspector sighed, then turned his eyes to his tea in hopes of avoiding the inevitable. It was so familiar. 

"What?"

"N-nothing."

"Inspector, please."

==> <== FIRST

"Sleuth's out."

"Out doing?"

"I'm not sure. He's... Going to the casino."

Droog did not look as tolerant as usual. Inspector was incredibly aware of this fact. He straightened his back and took a breath. These quieter moments of professionalism really felt like a game of chess every so often, and Diamonds played excellently. "What does that mean?" was delivered coolly, with no accusation in his voice. He was hard to read, but the bounce in his leg and the little tilt of his head spoke volumes. Or, maybe he was overthinking the whole thing. Even overthinking the micro expressions was familiar, the routine was beginning to feel unnerving.

"Um, well — well, it could mean any number of things, but I'm thinking, I'm thinking, it's probably something to do with Slick. He called him a source."

The leg bouncing stopped and Droog leaned forward. His eyes shifted down to his coffee (or an invisible chessboard underneath?) and then moved back to Pickle Inspector. His brows had moved inwards, his lips pulled down. He was displeased. Expectedly so, those two were nothing but trouble, especially together. They may not get themselves hurt, but somebody else almost definitely would be by the end of whatever shitfest they brewed up together. Droog looked down again, this time at his cell phone on the table, and turned on the screen. "Have you got anywhere to be after this?"

"No."

His next move was anticipated. "Would you like to pay them a visit?" didn't come as a surprise at all. Of course, Inspector's somber nod couldn't have surprised Droog, either. A sip of coffee that was longer than it needed to be preceded Droog's next question. "Do you think they're going to move quickly?"

"No. Not unless Sleuth's got some, uhm... New idea. He didn't understand it."

Droog nodded. "Wonderful. Then, after you finish your coffee, we'll go."

[booze-hats]

Walk Through (2/4)

There was a lot to process in the hideout right now. The place had been violated. His door was open. Problem Sleuth was standing in it, brandishing one of his knives. Spades Slick stared at him kind of dumbly. He didn't know what to make of it. It's a good knife too. The silence was thick though that had Sleuth swung that knife, he might've been able to cut it. Instead, Sleuth started laughing.

"Spades Slick! I thought you were a fucking robber."

==> <== FIRST

Slick let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding when Sleuth dropped the knife. He put it back down on the desk and shook his head. "Good to see you."

"Yeah." That was uncomfortable. Slick waved Sleuth out and the guy complied. A step into the room revealed... Nothing. It didn't look like Sleuth had even touched anything. What a relief. There was a lot to find and none of it needed to be in the hands of his resident law-aligned Problem. At least, said Problem seemed to understand his preference for privacy. There on the desk laid a little black notebook, not quite identical to the one Slick took his own notes in, but to the unsuspecting eye, the mistake was easy to make.

Slick's eye was not unsuspecting. He would graciously accept free information where it came his way, even under extenuating circumstances.

Sleuth sat down at the table, in Boxcars's seat, and Slick took his own, staring at the detective uneasily. "How'd you find this place?"

"Pardon?"

"Did I stutter?"

"No, I just didn't expect you to ask me that. Did you think I didn't know?"

"I mean, kind of! Seems like the kinda shit you make people aware that you're aware of!"

"Oh yeah, Spades Slick, I've found the notorious Midnight Crew's shitty little underground hideout. Pray the single lightbulb don't go out or I might never be seen again. How the hell do you expect me to tell you that without you cutting me for it?"

"I dunno!" Slick huffed. "Same way I told you!"

"You broke into my office and then into my apartment. This is kind of telling you the same way. We have more important things to discuss here."

[booze-hats]

Walk Through (1/4)

Fin closed the door behind him. He'd committed to it at first and hesitated at the door, but the tangerine trail called him forward and forward he went. He'd never tried to stray from that clearly defined path and he never intended to. The future was his to see, but not to change, and it seemed like this future was the one he was meant to follow. 

==> <== FIRST

He followed it into the car and started it with several long, deep breaths that whistled between his teeth. 

He didn't want to do this. He had a bad feeling about it. Especially going at it alone. You see, Fin did not fancy himself a bright guy. On that account, he didn't like to make plans by himself. At the very least, having Three to look over his plans and to drive the car was extremely comforting. His eyesight wasn't good enough for driving these days, but be damned if he didn't intend to try. The car door felt louder than it was, surely, and the colors ahead of him felt less clear than before he'd been focusing on it. 

Oh god. He thought real hard about it. It'd been a minute since he'd been behind the wheel. Trace did it every time, and if Tracey didn't go, someone else did. Fin didn't like to drive at all. But drive he would. The car roared to life and he started backing it up, praying that fate didn't treat him with cruelty this time. It did every other time, but he could use a break this go around, he prayed, just this time. Let this one go well. The last time didn't, no attempt at anything before ever had. The only thing time had given him was Trace, and it threatened to take him away at every other turn.

He needed to accomplish... Something. He didn't know what. The call was calling, the call of duty, but he didn't have a plan for this job. He didn't know what he was looking for or why, only that he needed to go. He needed to prove to Crowbar that he wasn't stupid, maybe. Did it matter what he was proving?

He'd just proven to himself that he could still get the car out of the garage by his lonesome. Good, strong start. All he needed to do now was get it down the driveway, because town was a straight shot ahead and he was pretty decent at navigating by landmark. He couldn't read the street signs, but he knew where most things were. All he needed was some sort of valuable intel to bring back and he had a few options for finding it. They'd already hit the hideout, so there was no way that that was going to fly.

It seemed like he'd be going to the casino tonight.

[booze-hats]

Doors Left Open (4/4)

The street was unusually empty. Sleuth was used to something else. This part of town was usually bustling and he was usually in bed before it stopped, but not tonight. No, tonight he was standing in front of an alleyway he wasn't too familiar with, staring at a wall. He wasn't sure that Slick wasn't here, but he wasn't sure that his expected robbers weren't inside either.

==> <== FIRST

Every step down that sidewalk felt... Exceptionally loud. It was a clean alleyway, and the manhole at the end didn't have any identifying markers from the city. He didn't know what they meant, but most of them had something on them. This one was just... Metal. And it was closed. He was in the right place, all he had to do was start investigating a crime... Before it could occur. It seemed counterintuitive to just kick the thing off.

Sleuth pulled out his phone to send a message. It's fast, it's to Inspector and Ace. He didn't want to alarm them, but he'd care for them to know where to look if he didn't make it back out. If this was some kind of trap and not a crime to be. "Going to the casino, check in w/ me tomorrow," read the message. He read over it once, twice, a third time. They'd get it. There's no context that made him think that they'd get it somehow. All he had was confidence in their ability to speak his language. They'd get it. Send.

Sleuth leaned down and picked up the manhole cover, peering down below. He couldn't see much. He'd never been inside the Midnight Crew's hideout before, but he supposed this was a great time for a first. He started his descent, pulling the manhole cover over his head. The crescent of the outside world he let above him came as a great comfort while he climbed, and even more so when he reached the dingy cement room at the bottom. The flickering lightbulb made him miss the street lights.

Hesitant, he moved to look over the table, and then at the four chairs. He wasn't sure where to go from here, except into the room with the spade, where something had been stolen from. Sleuth grabbed a conveniently located knife and pushed open the door to see... A disaster.

Slick was not a clean man.

But, he had a desk.

Sleuth pulled out his notebook and had a gander at the desk, scribbling down some notes about what he was seeing on the desk. He'd have kept going, he'd never even usually set his notebook down on a job, except he needed those hands for his gun. That scraping noise behind him was very concerning.

[booze-hats]

hey, i need to hear ur opinion on the sapphic transfem ssps

exactly the same as my opinion on ssps

[booze-hats]

Square One (Finally) (1/2)

The drive back was fascinating and quiet. Problem Sleuth turned on the CD he'd had in his car for forever and Spades Slick resisted surprisingly little. In fact, he'd swear Slick may have even liked it until the car wasn't moving anymore. It wasn't in park yet, but the second the motion stopped, Slick's entire demeanor changed. He was clawing at the door and scrambling out like a trapped animal, as if he wasn't falling out into the parking lot in front of the office building in the middle of the night. Sleuth exited the car with his keys in a much more reasonable manner, locking it behind him and looking up for Slick, who was gone.

He found him in the building, haunting the hallway, looking around like he had no idea where the office was. Sleuth slipped by him to lead the way, pocketing his gun. 

"When'd you get that?"

"What?"

"The pistol?"

"What pistol?"

Slick reached up and grabbed him by the arm, dipping a hand into his pocket. Sleuth didn't resist, if only for the sheer comedy that was Slick's face when his keys came out and there was nothing left inside. He plucked the keys from Slick's surprised hands with relative ease and stepped up to unlock his office. "I'm not carrying a pistol. You want your revolver back though?"

The silence was heavy and the pause was long. The "no" was quiet. It's unusual behavior from Slick. Sleuth glanced back over his shoulder at the uncharacteristically quiet criminal and raised his eyebrows. Slick's face shifted quickly. He wasn't sure what he'd seen before, but he scowled when Sleuth smiled and scowled harder when he stepped out of the way to invite Slick into his office. "C'mon and have a seat, then. Let's talk business."

"Only one chair, dipshit."

"Get in the fuckin' office."

==> <== FIRST

[booze-hats]

Doors Left Open (3/4)

Problem Sleuth said a lot very quickly and Spades Slick didn't care to hear whatever else he'd been trying to get across. Sleuth was on his way to the hideout. 

This opened up several new pieces of information to Spades Slick. One, Sleuth had a hunch about the break-in, which was surprising. Two, Sleuth knew where his hideout was. That was also new information. That's not to mention, he was en route to said hideout and Slick had no idea how far away he was, or exactly what that idiot had planned. It changed Slick's plans, at least.

==> <== FIRST

Drinking until he couldn't anymore was no longer an option. He needed to turn around and go find Sleuth.

So, he did. He knocked back the rest of his drink and stood up to get walking. Back to the hideout he needed to go. 

Somewhere around that convenience store he sometimes got cigarettes at, he realized that no matter what was about to happen, he was going to need to get in touch with... Someone. He needed backup. Droog was mad, so he'd let Droog be mad. He'd call Diamonds Droog last, because this was his operation (sorta) and he was calling the phones around here. He'd call... Somebody. Boxcars was old as dirt so he was probably already in bed. Deuce couldn't drive. Rats.

He dialed up Clubs Deuce anyway. Conscript him to call Droog, get Droog to play taxi, get both men at once and maybe Boxcars in the crosshairs. Sounded like a plan to him. He had to turn around and go back a street after missing a turn, but he was getting this whole debacle under control one step at a damn time. 

Deuce did not pick up the phone. Fuck. It was just him then. Him and Problem Sleuth and whatever pansies he'd brought along for backup. Hopefully he'd brought along the Ace fella. They might be in a tough spot if the two of them tried to go it alone.

Slick walked down the empty alleyway and glanced down at the manhole, slightly ajar. With a breath, he kicked it open

[booze-hats]

Doors Left Open (2/4)

Pickle Inspector sat down at a table outside of the diner. Droog's presence was welcome and almost comforting to a degree, it made him feel secure to have someone he trusted looking over his shoulder. Sort of trusted. He sort of trusted Diamonds Droog, as much as you can trust a criminal. That is to say, this place was safer with him in it. No amount of weapons would make the place feel safer than Droog's presence. The city belonged to the Midnight Crew. It had nothing to do with either of their personal lives.

==> <== FIRST

Inspector smiled and Droog turned his gaze down to the menu in front of him. Usual. Comfortingly usual. He hummed. "Are you having a drink?"

"I'm having coffee," Droog murmured, followed up by a thoughtful hum. His face was almost impossible to read, his eyes shifted back and forth quickly enough that Inspector would wager that he was skimming and not reading. "And you? It's on me."

It took Inspector by surprise every time Droog offered to pay. It was also very usual. Diamonds Droog was an incredibly polite man. Outings like these, perhaps he felt it polite to pay for them for one reason or another. Maybe that was something to do with their personal lives. They'd been doing this periodically for years now, meeting up at one place or another once every season at least, just to catch up. 

This wasn't to catch up, though, this was a business meeting. This time, Droog is a regular old informant. Or, maybe he was an informant to the mob? The semantics didn't matter, as interesting as they were. He turned his eyes away from Droog and to the menu. "Tea, I think. I'm going to have tea."

"You always have tea. This will be routine, then?"

"No, I don't think so. Um, what do you mean?"

"You get coffee when we talk business. You sounded like you wanted to talk business."

It took Inspector aback, but he nodded, glancing from Droog to his menu and back. He didn't really know what to make of the... Accusation? Assertation? It felt accusatory, but he wasn't entirely sure why. "I want to talk business," was all that came out of his mouth. Then, the words started falling out. "I don't understand. The robbery, the robbery didn't happen yet? We're supposed to solve a crime before it happens?"

Droog took a breath and looked around. Then, he made eye contact. It made Pickle Inspector straighten up just a little bit. It felt like he was finally ready to talk business. "Actually, I'm asking you to predict the crime for us to prevent it."

[booze-hats]

Doors Left Open (1/4)

You can tell him that I said it's not his job and if he wants to get his panties in a twist about somethin' Five is daydreaming about, he's more than welcome to babysit 'im. He can't drive by himself, he can't walk to the city, there's nothin' to expect. He's gonna go get drunk with Three and nothin' else, you hear? He don't need to send nobody cryin' to me. He ain't gonna go back and if he gets his stupid self killed by tryin', we'll fish him back out and I'll personally beat his ass for it.

==> <== FIRST

Eleven did not look amused when Die repeated the message. He raised his eyebrows higher than Die guesstimated he was going to be able to. It was impressive, in a way. He fidgeted with the doll in his hands while he waited for Matchsticks to say... Anything. 

And boy, did he. 

"My panties ain't none of his goddamn business and if helpin' his sorry ass is twistin' somethin', I'll mind my fuckin' self." When he stood up, a heavy hand thunk'ed against the table in front of him. Metal rings clicked together, much too loud for the room. It made Die wince. 

"Ouch," said a corner of the room. The voice, he registered, as belonging to Stitch. It didn't scare him any less. The familiarity made it worse, if anything. It made his face run hot and his hands tighten.  

"Y-yeah," he answered, turning to look at the tailor. 

"Why'd he say that?"

"Drunk."

"Drunk? This early?"

"I'm afraid so. And, and, and I am afraid of it."

"You're 'fraida every other thing."

"Yes. Y-yes, but this is something important."

[booze-hats]

Doors Elsewhere (4/4)

The hallways in the manor stretched endlessly it seemed like. He's not sure if it was just a feeling or if the halls really did get longer sometimes. It's just like a door somewhere other than where he remembered it being. Like some great being willed his castle to shift and move and morph and she found no complaint in bending to his will. 

==> <== FIRST

It really gave Die the heebie-jeebies sometimes. 

Not that he's really the guy to be talking about heebie-jeebies. If his recollection served him well, he'd heard that heebie-jeebies were something of his specialty. He had a penchant for the peculiar, an obsession with the unusual. A therapist years ago suggested it was a coping mechanism that got out of hand years ago. He'd disagree. He thought everything seemed to be panning out just fine. If it was out of hand, it was fine, mostly. 

A clock chiming nearly bringing him out of his skin was a little less fine. He found it made the walk even more uneasy. He didn't think it could be done. If he had any idea which clock it might've been, if he weren't so tied up with delivering an important message about the venture that Three and Five had been on. Matchsticks had approached him to deliver the message and Six had been more than willing to help up until about this point. 

At this point, he was standing in front of a door, looking at Crowbar. He was reconsidering this whole ordeal. He thought not to tell him. 

This conversation was inevitable, though. He still didn't care to have it.