bro this website blows

[fallapartwithme]

haleandhollow​:

The visageless face of Craven stared openly at Asher’s while the serene dance of violins continued in the background. The Idol then slowly, ponderously turned to face a monitor. The gauntleted hand lifted and began to type a series of letters into the computer with one massive finger.

Peck, peck.

There was the distinct feeling that Craven was still looking at him, whatever that meant.

The violins continued.

“Six-nine.”

Asher stared back at Craven. Waiting, with his rancid, shitty little grin in place.

Then the Idol moved, and the slow, calculated movements of their bulk were contrasted by a scrawny ex-demigod wriggling over the counter to see the screen.

Too bulky. Hulky. Hm.

“Nice,” Ash paused to say, automatically, before attempting again. He wiggled. Peered.

“... That days? Seconds? Years? Dollars? Donuts, what?”

(Unsuccessful.)

[fallapartwithme]

haleandhollow​:

Seconds of silence followed. The high-pitched ding ding of the bell filled the otherwise empty pharmacy, though there was little telling how long that would last. A retro-styled radio further down the counter was playing what sounded like soft, classical music that was as inoffensive as it was uninspired.

It was then that the storeroom door opened. A monolithic dark shape ducked through in a storm of bristling armor and frayed, tattered cloth tucked over a sharp hip. The Craven Idol that emerged seemed to shrink and swell to bend through the doorway before filling the surrounding hall in a sight that seemed to distort form and space. He stepped out, oddly delicate, and the door carefully creaked closed behind him.

Craven approached the front of AstroDrugs. The sweep of his massive shoulders always seemed a hair’s breadth from ripping through the siding of the walls, but for all his massive weight his steps made no sound. Nor did he breathe–or make any other indication of life. The faceless helm that tilted down and bored into Asher with a gaze made of empty hollows was equally as devoid of emotion.

A shadow fell over the diminutive alien in front of him when Craven stopped in front of one of the overhead fluorescents. The Idol placed a single massive gauntlet atop the counter with a soundless clink of shifting plates and the tack of a claw.

“Name.”

Ash did his usual annoying seated counter-dance as the Idol appeared. Definitely a weirdo (and definitely not someone who ‘got out’), but Craven was alright in his book.

Even if Ash always got the same one wrong step vibe he did from Jack.

... Earth.

“C’mon, buddy, we gonna do this round the rosie every time?” Asher’s foot bounced where it slung over his knee. Once, twice... and with a third, and a third ding of the bell, he sighed (dramatically, heavily), because this was the same game every time and there were other ways to pick at the itty-bitty cracks in Craven’s (metaphorical) armor. “Asher-basher, six-time slasher.”

For good measure, he snared a finger on the top edge of the mask covering the lower half of his face and released it to his chin with a pop of the elastic loops.

“How long before I get frequent customer status, man?”

(Ding.)

[fallapartwithme]

Maintaining Looks

Jack’s arm was working out great. Like a charm, and that was suspicious, because hell knew Asher hadn’t been treating it any different. But who was he to get critical of the first good luck he’d had since last spring?

And, like then, Ash knew his luck wouldn’t last.

(Case in point: some dickhead denting his car, resulting in a snowy evening with a tight knit vampire family that in no way made him feel anything other than out of place and uncomfortable until he could escape to the community center, trapped with everyone else who should have stayed home.)

But all that was why he was ‘following doctor’s orders’ and picking up his Regulator-recommended supplements, specially ordered for the last Imítheos lingering in Maroa. Ash kicked the car door shut behind him and tilted his shades down to focus in on the retro-themed sign above.

(Could his eyes break. Had that happened to anyone yet? Fuck.)

“Craaaaven!”

Asher, at his worst, did not know how to announce himself quietly. Asher, at his best, did not know how to announce himself politely. And so Asher, currently rapidly mentally pingponging between both states, announced himself by sliding into the pharmacy with an unlit cigarette between his teeth and hopping up onto the counter to unnecessarily ding the stupid, unnecessary bell on it.

“Tell me you got the good stuff today.”

[fallapartwithme]

ratratratratratratratrat​:

It’s a pattern ill prepared for, no matter the time nor age they’re brought it. They thrive in the wild of the trees for quiet, for the birds for the bees for the mountain lions stalking them along the trail at night (welcome company!)– yet the shrill of laughter coalescing with beer clings to the brain and body. They are only glad the creatures hadn’t strayed into their home, preferring campside joy rather the creep of a creaking merry-go-round. An overview, of what has brought the monster from the willow’s shadows to threaten them so violent.

They just want to fucking sleep.

A half-shattered mask wrinkled in despair, golden tears leaking from wide-set eye hollow. Brown eye set in flesh is much the same, blooming in a vile flash of red by fire. Children are loud, children’s conversations carry far into the bowels of their home, and children scream in ways unpleasant to chase. This is weak, unsatisfying prey.

Yet prey they are! So stalk towards the shrieking bodies stumbling to get out of their encroaching vicinity. Raise hatchet with arc of liquid splattering and sizzling across the smoldering flames and hack it into a retreating figures bag, to spill the contents and watch it flail as it scampers away. 

A brave one in a jersey (Go Hawks!) brandishes a tazer, Crackling the air with the sparks of electricity. It catches Ratsauce’s eye, unaware and furious. It’s a clear sight to the ranger watching the scene play out: they palm the sharp metal, surely cutting themselves well enough to welt with the shock coursing through them. The boldness is enough for the soldier of a freshman to drop the weapon and bolt, bellowing profanities. 

They don’t like the feeling of being tazed… maybe?

Fold the tazer into hand to study it, the red light bright to the eye (ignore the sound of engines disgruntled to be disturbed, the frenzied shouts)– and press the metal into wrist. Press the button.

…

   …

      …

Again, for good measure. 

–No, they don’t like that. Not at all. Drop it into the fire, pulling sleeve back down as their eyes wander across the ruined site. It stinks, they know the beer stench cling to their boots even if they left now. A sigh whistles through nose and mouth, the crack-and-snap of back almost like a dry branch as they bend over.

The plastic won’t clean itself up, and they’re too awake to go back to bed.

…At least it’s quiet, now.

Now, Asher’s plan was simple: be a grotesque freak, maybe drop the (fucking necessary right now, unfortunately) glam and wave his greying hand around and give these kids a good fuckin’ scare. Alcohol, he well knew, made you stupid, and see things, and generally blow things way, way out of proportion. Sure, they’d look back later and know they’d been a bunch of drunk fools (probably), but it’d solve tonight’s issue.

(And then, at work, he could bring up returning to nightly patrols and towing unauthorized vehicles more often, yadda yaddda, so on, whatever, responsible.)

He was not drunk. He wished he was, because then it’d be easier to brush off the sight across the fire.

The fire, which was quiet enough in a hot and sexy second. The fire, which also had a piece of goddamn plastic burning in it, and wasn’t that just fucking fabulous. Ash dropped his handaxe back into his belt and shuffled stiff-leggedly towards the fire with a long, thick branch that he then used to fish the tazer out with. That got rolled around in the dirt for long enough for it to cool before he dropped it into his trash bag.

Hm.

... The clown was still here.

[fallapartwithme]

Campsite Clean Up

Warm weather and spring break brought the same shit every year. Teenagers. Droves of ‘em. Running around where they thought no adults paid a lick of attention, where they thought they could have fun and say fuck the consequences. 

The joke was on them, ‘cause they weren’t alone, and they weren’t gonna get away with smoking and drinking and leaving piles of fuckin’ beer cans and cigarette butts and those hateful goddamn eight-pack plastic bits for some poor fuckin’ creature to choke on. Asher was all for consequences—when they didn’t involve him—and far, far too aware of those their irresponsible, trespassing asses would cause.

Everything on this planet was so damn delicate and now all of Ash was, too, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do anything.

(It was his job to do something, technically. Whatever. Not the point.)

(Also? Maybe he wanted to be a shit about it. Off the clock.)

A dozen teens—College-age, maybe? Fuck, he could never tell, they all looked the same.—hovered around a poorly-constructed firepit. (Issue 1.) They must have been at it for a while, maybe been using this exact spot all week, because a pile of containers of various brands and physical states had been going off to a side. (Issue 2.)

And... he was done counting issues. (Boring.)

An ax, worn and covered in dark stains, embedded itself in a fallen tree with a thunk. The teen nearest it startled. Squinted. And slowly, raised their wide-blown eyes to the shining, icy blue staring out from the trees. A gaunt figure stepped forward.

One heavy step.

Two.

They seized the ax. Fluid dripped from the end and onto the grass.

All hell broke loose.

[fallapartwithme]

izolat​:

Jack considered this. He often forgot about the Regulators and their experiments. They sucked the fun out of things, even when they were out of sight.

“Not personally, no. It just seems a waste to throw away an arm. Where are we burning it?”

Ash wrinkled his nose, and the two front legs of the chair that had been inching up hit the hardwood floor.

“We making a whole date of this? Damn, alright.” He swung his boots down off the table and shoved to his feet. “I’ve got the firepit out back. I’ll burn it when wind’s low enough no one’ll freak out—” (This was punctuated with spread arms and waved hands.) “—about some burning flesh or whatever.”

[fallapartwithme]

izolat​:

“Hmm. If you insist. Then I suppose I will cut short my plan to bring bigger, stranger arms each time.” Spoken deadpan, and Jack refusing to give Ash the sense of achievement for his pun, it was difficult to tell if he was joking. He turned to face him with the dismembered arm in both hands.

“The ichor from your body,” he said. “Does it have any uses? Poison, maybe?”

It was unclear, but Ash had gotten used enough to this kind of attitude, and his heavy sigh did nothing to convey whether he’d been fooled and was truly disappointed, or was continuing the joke. (Had to keep it light. His arm had just been chopped off. By a very large alien who could crunch him into the size of a pizza if he stepped out of line.)

(That said, it was actually terrifying. The idea of a limb rejecting, and the aftermath, filled Ash with dread.)

“Anything’s poison you eat enough of it, my friend.” Ash stuck a pallid finger in one of the sticky pools on the table. Ichor clung to his fingertips as he pulled away, staining the tips of them. Still had a life of its own, even here on this cold, single-sunned fucking planet covered in rot. “I dunno. Figure the Regs did their lil’ tests. Figure if they found anything they’d tell us, ‘cause they don’t want us bleeding out all over a human hospital and causing an incident.”

A bit of bitterness crept into his tone. Tch. Yeah, they didn’t want another one of those, for sure.

“Figure they lie t’us a bunch, too.” Ash kicked back and tossed his boots up on the table. He folded his hands, new and old, over his stomach and leveled his pale eyes at Jack.

“Wanna find out?”

[fallapartwithme]

izolat​:

He huffed approvingly. “You may want to consider an adjust glamour.” The arm seemed to coagulate and stop dripping. He turned it around to look at the cut end. “…Or, how does that go? I don’t suppose you can let Regulators know where you’re getting arms?”

“I ain’t never fucked around with glamours.” Ash grunted as his shoulder made a cracking sound. Woohoohoo. “Just gotta wear long sleeves til it’s all...” He rolled his new wrist. “... Adjusted, or close enough, whatever. Sucks in the fucking summer.

“And no, I ain’t breathing a goddamn word to them. They find out I’m gettin’ unlicensed or whatever arms and shit, wrecks their fuckin’ experiment on us.” He huffed, hesitated, and bent the new elbow. Ouch. His body tensed with the pain and he rolled his shoulders until they settled back into their usual loosely hung manner. “... Ain’t gonna go getting my arms dealer in trouble, either.”

He shot Jack yet another sideways, shitty grin.

[fallapartwithme]

[izolat]

fallapartwithme​:

(TW: Still jack cutting off ash’s arm! also, a new one gets put on.)

The shitty little smile dropped from Ash’s face the moment a hand seized his bicep and he realized, very quickly, that actually, maybe he needed a second. Like how people needed a second before a shot, get told to inhale and exhale and by the time that was done, they didn’t even realize they’d gotten jabbed.

And there was an inhale, and plenty of heywaitasecondJackonesecmans, but the exhale, unfortunately, came out as a scream.

“Aaaaahhh, fuck, man, fuck!”

Tar oozed from the stump of Ash’s decaying arm, oozing out thick and slow over the stained wooden table. (Which, he had meant it when he said not to worry about it. Shit cleaned easy, much as it didn’t look it, but that didn’t fucking matter right now.)

Yeaaah, never hurt less, when someone else did it. Ash scrambled for the cooler and his new future arm, which he pressed the open end of against his new wound (which admittedly was far fucking cleaner than when he did it and would last twice as long as a result). Tar—ichor, because it had, once upon a time, been that—lifted from the table and drove into and wound itself around the new stump. The skin wasn’t a perfect match, but the ichor would take care of that, soon enough, as it spread through the limb and connected nerves and veins and everything else that mattered to this mortal body of his. It coated the outside, too, spreading down his bicep and seeping into the skin to create a new tattoo that looked like drops of heavy liquid rolling down from the seam.

It wasn’t a fast process, and Ash still stared at the join, as if he expected it to reject.

It never did, but who knew. It might, one of these days, and then he’d end up like so many others of his species that’d come to this shitty little planet.

Jack stepped away, raising the old arm into the air and trailing sludgy droplets of tar over the ground. The first time he’d done it for Ash, he was surprised by how easy the cut was. Bone was always a hassle, even with his superhuman strength. Incredible that Ash walked around at all.

He watched the arm drip for a few moments before seeking out the cheap plastic wastebasket by the counter and dragging it over with his foot. He let it collect the tar.

Then he finally looked at Asher again. The arm was funnier on him than Jack even imagined. “Well? Does it suit?”

[fallapartwithme]

Man, okay, alright, just ‘cause he’d said don’t worry about the mess, Jack! didn’t mean the guy should go and make more of it. He dragged his hand (the one that hadn’t just been reattached, because the other was still twitching on the table as nerves and muscle joined) down his face and stared at Jack through slitted fingers as he did this.

A trash can. Nice. Fine, man, coulda just... Auughh.

“Suits just fine, Jackie.” To prove it, he peeled his new arm off the table with an unfortunate sticky sound. The skin had already begun to adjust. Hair thickness, that might take longer, as it grew and cycled. But. Suited. “Better’n what I had.”

He rolled his shoulder and eyed Jack.

“Your bedside manner? Sucks.”

[fallapartwithme]

lambonthealtar​:

Emm wasn’t going to fight him on the ‘mental’ note, because they agreed–saying 'just’ had been to reassure him they weren’t contagious for other reasons and forgot to mention. They didn’t want to dredge up his fear of illness for a second time that night.

"God, shrinky-dink my me time. What does that even mean, Asher.” Emm patted his fingertips. “I missed you and your pulling sayings out your ass.”

"Means you cut it up and heat it up, Emm," he said, with a wink and a tone that said there was absolutely no explaining that, either, the metaphor he'd just absolutely butchered. He spread his fingers enough that she could see his lazy grin between them. "Missed you and that big old heart of yours, hun."

He tapped the menu again. "C'mon, let instinct win. We gotta lotta toasts to catch up on."

[fallapartwithme]

imperatoria-aquilae​:

Aquila managed to calm himself down into the sudden touch, just as his mentors had warned him. The 21st century- it was very full of touch, be it erotic, friendly, casual, manipulative, condescending… etcetera, etcetera.

This one in particular, he read as being friendly, of the non-erotic variety. And oh how he leaned into that much-needed touch. How foolish it would be though, to reveal himself as the lonesome beast he was… And yet…

“Greetings, amicus novus, you would be right in your assumptions, in fact, for I am in search of the most legendary, most fabled of, loaded kielbasa dog.”

Aquila, with only the most minimal semblance of trouble, held out a digital photo he had acquired, out to his new friend to behold the glory of. His voice went silence, holding the tensions of the mystical fairfood.

“Wouldst thou be so bold… so knowing… as to the ways one might acquire such a treat?”

Not only did this guy stink of newbie alien, he stunk of newbie alone. (Alonien? Ugh.)

“They ain’t all legendary,” he said as he considered the photo. (Which, yeah, was fucking decadent, maybe on the bougie, or made-at-home, side.) He shook his head and nudged the phone back with a single finger and when he smiled at the stranger, it was with nothing short of utter deviousness and roguery. “You eat anything like one of these bad boys yet? Oh, fuck, name’s Asher, by the way.”

He gave the guy a lazy salute.

[fallapartwithme]

lambonthealtar​:

“I have me time. I have too much of it right now.” Emmett huffed, resisting the urge to steal his bottle. With his thing about germs and the earlier scare, he might not be into that kind of teasing for the moment. “I’m on leave at work for the moment and it’s–don’t worry, it’s just mental. Allegedly.”

How much to tell Asher was up in the air, but just because he was an alien didn’t mean he fell on the proper side of everything. He didn’t strike them as someone to buddy up to the Regs, not with his attitude, but it didn’t mean he should know everything.

“You got any tips on hand?” She asked, finally taking another look at the menu. Seasonal beers, nice.

"Mental, huh..." Ash grimaced. Big yikes. "Ain't nothing 'just' about mental shit. All shit stink the same, or whatever it is they say."

He sighed heavily and started twirling his bottle loosely along the bottom, leaving a wet spiral of condensation on the table.

"If it's that bad, guess I shouldn'a said tips. Cause the more you think about it, the less it becomes you-time and more it becomes... you know. Work." Double yikes. "Sooo. My tip, if I gotta give one?" He waved a hand around the bar. The gesture was finished with a twirl of his hand in a tight circle. "More of this. Shrinky-dink that me time til you can feel how you wanna spend it.

"And until then—" Ash held up his hand, just enough that only the menu was obscured to Emmett, then wiggled it around under their fingertips. "Follow your gut."

[fallapartwithme]

izolat​:

(TW: jack cuts off ash’s arm)

A low rumble came from Jack’s chest. His attention went from the knife to Ash, observing the crawling signs of rot and the tent of bone underneath his skin. He wrapped a burly hand around Ash’s bicep and pulled him forward over the table, so his arm was completely straight and flat across the surface.

“I will do my best.” With the same interest as a butcher performing his duties, Jack practiced his aim once, and then sent down the blade in a mighty swing.

(TW: Still jack cutting off ash’s arm! also, a new one gets put on.)

The shitty little smile dropped from Ash’s face the moment a hand seized his bicep and he realized, very quickly, that actually, maybe he needed a second. Like how people needed a second before a shot, get told to inhale and exhale and by the time that was done, they didn’t even realize they’d gotten jabbed.

And there was an inhale, and plenty of heywaitasecondJackonesecmans, but the exhale, unfortunately, came out as a scream.

“Aaaaahhh, fuck, man, fuck!”

Tar oozed from the stump of Ash’s decaying arm, oozing out thick and slow over the stained wooden table. (Which, he had meant it when he said not to worry about it. Shit cleaned easy, much as it didn’t look it, but that didn’t fucking matter right now.)

Yeaaah, never hurt less, when someone else did it. Ash scrambled for the cooler and his new future arm, which he pressed the open end of against his new wound (which admittedly was far fucking cleaner than when he did it and would last twice as long as a result). Tar—ichor, because it had, once upon a time, been that—lifted from the table and drove into and wound itself around the new stump. The skin wasn’t a perfect match, but the ichor would take care of that, soon enough, as it spread through the limb and connected nerves and veins and everything else that mattered to this mortal body of his. It coated the outside, too, spreading down his bicep and seeping into the skin to create a new tattoo that looked like drops of heavy liquid rolling down from the seam.

It wasn’t a fast process, and Ash still stared at the join, as if he expected it to reject.

It never did, but who knew. It might, one of these days, and then he’d end up like so many others of his species that’d come to this shitty little planet.

[fallapartwithme]

izolat​:

Jack plucked the knife from Ash’s flying hand and inspected the edge. “If you insist. But I’ll advise you to be more careful with this one, as I’m not keen on earning a reputation for taking arms.”

His white pinpoint eyes flashed at Ash with some added pressure to that statement. He also wasn’t his personal errand boy.

“Well then. Where do you want me to do this?”

“I dunno, Jack, every cool masked man’s got a calling card, right?” He continued waving, with an added gesture that served as an acknowledgement of the glare. “... Or, wait, is that just the villains?”

He huffed.

“Whatever. Get the uhh.” Oh, now he hated it. Now that the knife was in Jack’s hand and there wasn’t really any going back, he decided he hated it. Cool! Ash sank back into the chair and laid out his arm on the table. Again, thinking of the steak metaphor (and this time, trying not to). “Right under the shoulder joint, close as you can or it’ll go bad quicker. Don’t worry about the, uh. The mess.”

Fuuuuck hiiiiim, this was gonna suck.

[fallapartwithme]

izolat​:

Jack set the beer can down with a clack as he strode over. “Standards? It was a fine arm. Obviously, you went ahead and did something ridiculous to get it to rot so quickly.”

He held out his hand for the knife.

“Uh, no, this guy—” Ash waved his hand, which still held the knife. “—came from a corpse, and not one wrapped up in an icebox like a nice steak. Decayin’ shit’s not very sturdy, my friend, not very sturdy.”

[fallapartwithme]

izolat​:

The crack of a beer can opening was Jack’s immediate response. “I did not kill this one. There was a fight and I decided to take the opportunity.”

He drank, tugged his mask back into place and turned around. “Show a little more gratitude, it was not my fault that you needed a new arm on such short notice. This was a lucky find. Ha!”

Pffff. Ash let out an annoyed puff of air, rolled his eyes, and leaned back with a hip jutted out. Damnit. Almost defeated the whole purpose of even bothering to replace it, if it took that much outta him to get it to stick.

Whatever. Beggers can’t be choosers, right? 

“Yeah, yeah. Last one wasn’t ‘zactly up to the usual standards, all my fault, I guess.”

Ash sighed again like an moody teenager and picked up the sheathed hunting knife he’d left out. He waggled his brows—and the knife—at the other man.

“Wanna... give me a hand?”