Saturday, September 21, 2013

Never A Dull Moment.

So, as I'm certain most of you are well aware by now, David and I had a little bit of a playdate last evening. The effort truly is flattering, if nothing else... even if it was a touch painful. Honestly, I've never been able to fully appreciate tasers as a tool... in fact, I find them bloody irritating. Especially when used on ME. But I suppose it is still preferable compared to a blow to the skull. Less chance of brain damage (as I think I've suffered enough in that particular category), even if the odds of a heart attack do rise. Would be almost FUNNY to die that way after going through all the effort of coming BACK.

I must admit... it was good to see him again.

Even after waking into the ache that had settled into my muscles from the effects of the taser.

Even tied to a bloody uncomfortable wooden chair.

Even under that cutting stare.


It was good.


Good to know that he'd go so far to protect my name.

Good to know my death hadn't corrupted the changes HE had been making... as it wasn't that long ago that I would have woken tied onto a bed, not in a chair.

Good to know he was still the same bull-headed asshole he always was. A constant, if nothing else.


I suppose you could say that he took advantage of a chance situation. It was my own fault, really. I'd already been restless in mind, but when David made such a racket online... well, I decided I needed to clear my head a touch. To go for a little walk. Stupid, honestly. Considering how David had threatened to pop in. But I'd thought he'd approach me. I'd thought he would give me the benefit of the doubt. I'd thought we'd rebuilt enough bridges between us to warrant at least that...


I underestimated how little I sound like myself, these days.


Tiger accompanied me, as per Star's request/order. I teased my Dearest Shooter about being too paranoid and lightly threatened to fly the coop if he caged me in too tightly, good condition or no... but he was right in being cautious. Perhaps if I had taken the situation more seriously, then I wouldn't have wasted so much of everyone's time. I still have the burn mark on my back from where the taser hit. David having taken advantage of a brief second in which my protective company had been distracted... and I felt the current hit me. Pulse THROUGH me. Ripping across and over. I felt the ground hit my knees... and after that its only blurred movements in the black. Shadows of sounds. Echoes of textures and temperatures...

When I finally dragged my mind into counsciousness again... it was cold. And dark. And dank. The black surrounding me like a breathless void... while ropes cut into my wrists. Twisting in them only bringing warm drops down to rest in my palm.

In that dark, a shadow shifted.

I told him that, even if he WAS jealous that I was moving along with Shooter these days, kidnapping me was far from the answer.


That didn't necessarily go over that well. I got a cold sneer... and then a rant.


A rant about liars.

A rant about imposters.

A rant about stupidity and attention whores.

A rant about how grateful I should be that he's giving me the CHANCE to make things right.

To tell the truth.

To stop this little... game of mine...

Before he stopped it for me. Permanently.


I wish I could say that it didn't hurt to hear such an edge directed my way. I wish I could say that I let it roll right off my shoulders, that it didn't even faze me that he didn't recognize me still, even when I was sitting right in front of him. Attire and mask or no, I would have thought he should have been able to RECOGNIZE me. We'd been close before my death. Quite close. I thought if anyone could see through all my fumblings and ramblings... it would have been David. After all, he'd seen me shattered before... surely 'scattered' had to look similiar?


"...Have I truly changed that much, David?"


He didn't respond, though his shadow drew closer. Standing directly in front of me even as I worked at the ropes behind me. Attempting to be as subtle in my movements as possible as that blade - David's switchblade - came to press on the very edge of my jaw. Pressing up. Cutting in. Drawing blood.  Breathing only two words into the air between us: 


"Last Chance."


David was always... partial towards the Art of Flaying.

I've seen him at work.

Impressive.


Never thought I'd be on the receiving end, quite honestly.


It was in that moment that the ropes on my wrists finally gave. I rushed him. Snatching the wrist with the blade as I shot up. Pushing. Twisting... only to be pinned back down. Gripping my neck in one hand, snapping it back, as his other grabbed my hood and ripped it off...

In that instant... he shot backwards.

Eyes wide.

Jaw slack.


"...Hi, David."


The clang of David's knife hitting the floor seemed to echo for minutes on end as he stared at me. Frozen in place as reality as he knew it shifted right before his eyes. Slowly shaking his head from side to side. Not blinking. Seeming to have forgotten how to even breathe as ghosts of words formed on his lips. Barely loud enough to hear. Telling me... that it couldn't be. That /I/ couldn't be. That it was impossible. That I was dead. That he'd seen my body. That he'd BURNT my body. That I was DEAD...



"...You've gotten thinner, Sweetheart. I thought I told you to look after yourself?"


There was a moment of further silence.

Then... he rushed me.

And hugged me.

For what felt like minutes on end.

More than a little awkward. But in a good way, I suppose.


Least he'd stopped trying to cut my face off.


We spoke for a long while before we even left the cellar. Eventually moving upstairs into the rest of the house. The very house that David had "grown up" in. The house that had changed him in so many ways. Ways he was now fighting to change, in one form or another...

He figured it was the one place he could bring "an imposter" that would take a while for Morningstar to find.


There was only a scarce few seconds of warning before the door was kicked in. A shower of splintering wood as the door was nearly dislodged from its very hinges. Tiger rushing in as the lead of the group, the others quickly following suit. What had been a quiet, abandoned house out in the middle of nowhere spinning into a hive of yelling and threatening and waving guns and blades. The only real reason that David didn't earn himself a spray of bullets from the crew (or get broken in half by Tiger for dishonoring him) was by me using myself as a shield between the two sides. Giving my own orders to stand down. To lower their weapons...

Even as I was gripping hold of David's arm to keep his own firearm down.

Luckily, the whole thing ended with no one getting shot.


Though, if looks could kill, David would have been dead a thousands times over when Star walked in.

Then again, David was giving the exactly same look in return.

Could practically FEEL the air crackle.

I must admit, it was amusing watching their cat and dog antics again.

Who is which, I'll leave for you to decide.


And that's all there is, for now.


Remember, my Friends:

Keep Smiling!

19 comments:

  1. Only you would be looking forward to having Morningstar and I in the same room.

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    Replies
    1. Please. It's like watching The Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote go at it. How could anyone ever possibly get tired of that~?

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    2. Huh, color me surprised. I didn't think it was actually you.

      Even shattered, dying, hunted, and warped beyond all belief by an endless stream of your darkest nightmares... you usually had such a way with words.

      Guess that's finally starting to come back too.

      That'll teach me to be impatient, eh?

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    3. It is slowly coming back, isn't it?

      I apologize if I've been disappointing you, Fracture, but I am as I always was: merely human. I did notice that you never responded to my last question, however. Am I back on your list?

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    4. Afraid not dear. You're a plague doctor plaything now and the Oathbreakers were the ones who originally put up the bounty. I think its safe to say they got what they wanted.

      As soon as I get the money to David, the bounty will go down.

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    5. Ah, one less thing to worry about then.

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  2. Whatever David would have done, I would have forgiven him for it. That's not very healthy of me, is it? Oh well. I'm glad you sorted things out with minimal damage.

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    1. Never underestimate what those around you are capable of.

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    2. Huh. I like you; you are wise. Actually, more common sensed, but wisdom is basically breathing life and meaning into common sense.

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    3. Not as much so as I used to be, I'm afraid. But, as I'm sure you're well aware, no one can escape change. Especially within one's self.

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    4. No shit.

      Is David OK? I mean, is he in good health?

      Swear to god, if Morningstar so much as touches David, I'll pull out his azoth intestines and use them to tie him to the back of a fucking rally car with them. One that is driving on a road of broken glass.

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    5. David is fine, I assure you. Little worse for the wear that time brings, but fine.

      Heh. Oh, sweetheart, that's quite the spark you're nurturing inside. Tell me something... if you had Morningstar... if you HAD him in front of you. At your mercy, let us say. If you had someone so... incapable of dying, of escaping the pain... what would you do to him?

      Close your eyes, dear.

      Picture it.

      What would you do?

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    6. ...A spark, sir? What do you mean?

      Oh, geez, where do I start? See I made spidergrams of what to do when I couldn't sleep, but I don't have a very good order for them.

      Rip off his bottom jaw with a grapnel. The rally car thing. Feed him sand and glass in heaped spoonfuls. Put a clamp on his nose so he has to breath through his mouth. Get a tyre iron and bash him in the knees with it among other torture until he recalls every one of his victim's names and apologises from beyond. I acknowledge that this could take a while, and that's the beauty of it. Anyway. Would plant bamboo under his ass so it grows painfully upwards and is fertilised by his own shit. Peel the skin off his face and paint it back on with lead based paint. Use a vice to twist his feet the other way and make him do a marathon. Pin him to a windmill by his eyelids. Dangle him over a ledge by his hair. The expected stabbing, waterboarding and so on. A blowtorch to the balls. Would probably take notes from all your blogs and use those ideas. And much more, a few pages worth actually.

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    7. Interesting. Sweetheart, did you ever read my other blog? Whispers in the Dark?

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    8. You may remember something from it.

      Myself and Dimme...

      David and Dubois...

      and now... You and Morningstar.

      All shuffling rocks. All links in the chain. For do not for a second think that Star himself was the FIRST link. No, he was molded. Like all of us are. What lines you cross from here on out will define you for the rest of your life, but, in the end... you are still Human. No matter the Nightmare... whether you choose to Live It or Be It... you are still Human. Do not make the mistake of forfeiting that.

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  3. Something just seems...off about you.
    Sorry, but I still have my doubts that you're the real Nightscream

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    Replies
    1. The balls on your calling David a liar. I'm gonna miss you Rag Doll.

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    2. You know, it's frustrating. I'm working with Morningstar, I've been WITH David, and yet you still doubt? Honestly, I'd love to put you though a version of what Slender Man, The Plague Doctor, and Redlight did to me, collectively. See if you come out Smiling after.

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