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!