well, you tell him all these things. he agrees to help, looking worried, and agrees to find other people, too. he says he'll need to go find them, but - you should go back to the borisin, right? so they're not suspecting anything? don't get caught, okay? he'll ring the alarm, it's alright. just be careful.
he tells richie that he'll meet with him the second he can get some guards to listen to him. just wait it out. ]
[Richie thanks him but also, gives him such a hug. His head is fucked and he's not sure what's what anymore, but out of all the madness and all the mayhem, Eddie feels solid. Eddie feels tethered to him, in a way nothing else in this town is.
So he'll leave him to it. Send up a silent prayer to whoever may be listening to get that boy home safe.
In the meantime, he's going to cover their asses and skip on back to lord fuckso. Where is this son of a bitch? Running back to his starting point, and he will be such a good little peon and tell him that oh no, the gates are open, boss! It's just like you said boss!
when he gets back, he reports exactly that to the borisin general, who watches him with a passive look. ]
They don't want to publicize my escape. It's no surprise, for fear is more deadly than claws and fangs... especially during the Wardance.
[ a pause, and he smiles, full of sharp teeth. very, very sharp teeth, and - it's strange, his face flickers in and out. his form flickers. for a second there's just - well, it's just weird because for a second, a clown flickers in and out. those aren't common on the xianzhou, but for some reason, you know this clown. it grins widely at him, and speaks. ]
I didn't give you permission to publicize it either, did I?
[Richie goes very stiff. Still. His heart cracks against his ribs, fighting the freeze, and his lips start to curl back in a most curious smile. Irrationally, he begins to laugh. Low, breathless, with no real humour. You always laugh when you're dead in the shit, Trashmouth.
Even worse, his mouth always runs before his brain can get a word in. The voice of Mr. Nell comes out of his throat, the old Irish beat cop from the good old Derry days.
( Derry? )]
Jaysus, me foine boyo, I jus' can't keep a good word to meself, kin I? Ye know how it is when the chins get a waggin' and there's shinin' sun above our old heads, the old laddies get to talkin' worse than their women, sure if it ain't the way of it?
[ it leans in. it leans so close in, it's right up against his face, the smile too big, too warped. it very, very carefully, delicately, puts a hand on the side of richie's face. and then grabs it, grabs him by the chin, and yanks his head to the side so he can watch another nameless foxian drag eddie in by the hair. ]
Hey, hey, don't - I didn't do anything, stop! Leave me alone! I - shit --
[ a gasp. the kind that you make when you can't take in any air. like a kid with poor lungs. eddie stares at the clown and richie, eyes wide, terrified.
and the clown runs its tongue up richie's cheek. ]
You made a naughty decision. I didn't tell you that you could tell anybody about me, and now... now you'll know that this death was because of you.
[ and the other foxian man yanks eddie's head back, and slits his throat. ]
[He wants to scream. He wants to, oh you bet your fur he does, because when it gets this close to you you're done for dinner baby. You're as good as dead.
( It. )
His pulse is wailing and there's a hand on his face, and then there's Eddie. Eddie, wheezing like he always has, like his lungs weren't made right and he's fit to faint at the sight of this greasepaint devil.
And he'd be right to.
He almost does.
Richie's body seizes when that tongue slips over his cheek, unseating his glasses. Just not enough to blur the sight of Eddie's neck splitting open like a pez dispenser. Not enough to stop the sight from searing into the back of his head for good.
There's a second where his world has whited out. He's dead. He hopes he's dead.
And when he comes to, it's with a snarl on his lip and a fist cracking into that sadistic jaw, body twisting, fire and brimstone swelling him up like a mad dog. He attacks him like an animal and snaps like one too.]
[ he attacks like an animal, and that's fine. what he's fighting isn't human either.
this thing's limbs don't work like a normal creature's limbs should work. it cracks itself in two and crumples like a puppet with no strings, all joints and uneven edges. spindly fingers crawl up richie's spine and his torso and his legs and everywhere, in places two hands shouldn't be able to reach all at once. but the punch connects. it crashes right into that jaw and sends the thing's neck off center, broken.
that does not stop It.
the creature giggles maniacally, and pulls at richie's strings. grabs one arm, and pulls too hard. grabs the other, and pulls too gentle. plays with him, even as he's beating the shit out of it. and when it gets bored of listening to richie shriek, to eddie gurgle to death on his own blood, it starts again.
[In this crazed, fucked up Cronenberg moment that stretches out for goddamn years, the thing that comes back to him clearest is Patrick Hockstetter.
Patrick was a weird kid. Patrick was a dangerous kid. You never caught him doing something crazy, and he never took initiative to take credit for himself, but he was wrong somehow. Wrong in the head and behind the eyes, behind that full lipped smile that smacked over his teeth as he opened his pencil case and showed off all the dead flies he'd precision-flicked with his ruler. He would never say anything as he did it though. He was just happy to watch you look.
The teachers had to seat him strategically, because if you put him behind a girl he'd reach around and feel her up. He flunked his grades and put weird answers for his homework, and he had a glassy stare that promised utter vacuity. But he watched things. Watched people closely. His infant baby brother had died in his crib one evening after school. Nobody ever figured out why.
Patrick had been visiting the dump when he went missing. Beverly (Bevvie, Bevvie, oh Miss Marsh where are you when I need your surefire aim) said he'd been approaching an old refrigerator when it happened, when she saw from a hidden distance. You don't mess with those old Amano fridges. They shut tight from the inside. Kids playing hide and seek have died in them. Patrick was going for the fridge when he went missing, and regular kids didn't fuck around with death traps in the dump.
As Richie wrestles this impossible thing, a creature no borisin should possibly become and had no place on heaven or earth, he feels like he's looking up and out of the pencil case. Surrounded by dead flies. Another prize catch, thwap. He feels like he's as useless as a babe in a crib, no matter how hard he hits or hollers, no match for big brother's hands coming down on high. He feels like what had been waiting in the fridge. Whatever Patrick had expected to find. He feels like a thing, a toy, a little yippy animal that can bark and bite all it wants, but at the end of the day it's a game of size. Of power.
His arm comes off like the wing of a fly. Did Creepy Pat ever do that? Richie never hung around him to find out.
It's only a miracle that keeps him alive. He's a fucking healer, isn't he? His mad fervor has been cleaved in two by the pain and he only just remembers how to treat it, with an instinctive spark of magic. Nothing finessed, applied in pure panic. Yae Miko would kick his ass if he did a botch job like that under her watch. But she isn't here and he just needs enough to split. If the thing wants to keep his arm, then Richie's taking the rest of himself for a run.
He scrambles.
Sprints.
His vision is in a tizzy and his glasses almost fly off, his ears are pounding with the force of his heartbeat. His arm drools, the blood not fully staved, painting a sloppy trail to the backs of his heels. I'm over here! Come find me! Catch me if you can!
It can. It can, and It will. It's picking up a pursuit started twenty-seven years ago, and Richie's running too ragged to squeak out this time.
Flies in a case, babies in a crib.
There's no weighted door to slam shut on him, but there may as well be.]
[ he can probably see It chewing on his arm like a turkey leg as he runs.
what a fucking ridiculous image, right? it's almost hysterical, in the way things get when you're running out of time. it's such a terrible image to have burned into your mind - dinnertime for a clown, the click and gag of blood shooting from an open throat wound. a pez dispenser. an out of place cosplayer at a renaissance fair, just - stupid. the little things a brain finds funny before it loses power and shuts down entirely.
the clown just walks after him. nothing can stop it. richie runs out of the pavilion, bleeding heavily across the ground. he slips on a bit of the blood, and distantly, he might hear guards shouting, people panicking at an armless man running through their peaceful city. there are children crying. he does make it decently far before the clown catches up to him, but there's no running forever. this thing knows how to wait. and now, it doesn't even really care all that much about the luofu, because the bloodlust, the moon rage - it's overwhelming. it wants to eat the rest of richie, crunch right down on all that juicy marrow, drink bloodwine and be covered in it - that is was strength is, tearing a lesser species to pieces.
hoolay slams into richie's back. knocks him to the ground, and settles there to feast. he rips skin from bone, crunches into joints and savors each drop of blood.
but here's the thing - the guards know, now. the cloud knights are aware that this creature is among them, and they do not hesitate. even as hoolay is enjoying his meal, they come together, and richie - the last thing you see before your vision is gone entirely is a man with white hair pulled into a ponytail, with a red ribbon, lifting a glaive to destroy the creature digging into your guts. you won, really. right? the ship is saved. you just had to sacrifice two white men to do it.
richie, do you have any last thoughts before you die? ]
[Well chief among them is one thing: looking at this interloper with his fast fading eyes, Richie has the temerity to squint in disbelief. Didn't I watch you die?
Pretty chuckalicious when you think about it. My god. He should have blown Hoolay a raspberry and ran shrieking out the door from the get go, if help was just around the corner the whole time. Then he wouldn't have had to putz around like a moron and drag Eddie into this.
That's what really hurts. The meat rips from his bones and he sees his own viscera spill out, sees the threads of his muscle and tendon catch in the clown-cum-wolf's teeth, and not one bit of it hurts more than the way Eddie looked as the knife underlined his Adam's apple.
I'm sorry Eds.
The glaive is coming down and the lights are going out, and thank god the sunovabitch is going down with him. But victory tastes like so much ash in his mouth. He wants to sob, and he no longer has the grip on his body to do it.
I didn't think it through Eds. I didn't think at all. I'm so fucking sorry.
And that's all for our show tonight folks! This is Rich Tozier signing off for KLAD 93.5, your number one station for all that rocks and rolls! We play aaaaaall the hits!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
holyspirits) wrote2025-02-16 05:05 pm
no subject
[ he's so confused, but. he believes him. richie wouldn't lie. ]
I - okay. Wait, slow down, tell me what's going on. You said borisin? They're coming?
no subject
[okay fills him in on the details you know what they are. Also tells him to round up anyone he can trust to help with the job]
no subject
well, you tell him all these things. he agrees to help, looking worried, and agrees to find other people, too. he says he'll need to go find them, but - you should go back to the borisin, right? so they're not suspecting anything? don't get caught, okay? he'll ring the alarm, it's alright. just be careful.
he tells richie that he'll meet with him the second he can get some guards to listen to him. just wait it out. ]
no subject
So he'll leave him to it. Send up a silent prayer to whoever may be listening to get that boy home safe.
In the meantime, he's going to cover their asses and skip on back to lord fuckso. Where is this son of a bitch? Running back to his starting point, and he will be such a good little peon and tell him that oh no, the gates are open, boss! It's just like you said boss!
Cripes.]
no subject
when he gets back, he reports exactly that to the borisin general, who watches him with a passive look. ]
They don't want to publicize my escape. It's no surprise, for fear is more deadly than claws and fangs... especially during the Wardance.
[ a pause, and he smiles, full of sharp teeth. very, very sharp teeth, and - it's strange, his face flickers in and out. his form flickers. for a second there's just - well, it's just weird because for a second, a clown flickers in and out. those aren't common on the xianzhou, but for some reason, you know this clown. it grins widely at him, and speaks. ]
I didn't give you permission to publicize it either, did I?
no subject
Even worse, his mouth always runs before his brain can get a word in. The voice of Mr. Nell comes out of his throat, the old Irish beat cop from the good old Derry days.
( Derry? )]
Jaysus, me foine boyo, I jus' can't keep a good word to meself, kin I? Ye know how it is when the chins get a waggin' and there's shinin' sun above our old heads, the old laddies get to talkin' worse than their women, sure if it ain't the way of it?
no subject
Hey, hey, don't - I didn't do anything, stop! Leave me alone! I - shit --
[ a gasp. the kind that you make when you can't take in any air. like a kid with poor lungs. eddie stares at the clown and richie, eyes wide, terrified.
and the clown runs its tongue up richie's cheek. ]
You made a naughty decision. I didn't tell you that you could tell anybody about me, and now... now you'll know that this death was because of you.
[ and the other foxian man yanks eddie's head back, and slits his throat. ]
no subject
( It. )
His pulse is wailing and there's a hand on his face, and then there's Eddie. Eddie, wheezing like he always has, like his lungs weren't made right and he's fit to faint at the sight of this greasepaint devil.
And he'd be right to.
He almost does.
Richie's body seizes when that tongue slips over his cheek, unseating his glasses. Just not enough to blur the sight of Eddie's neck splitting open like a pez dispenser. Not enough to stop the sight from searing into the back of his head for good.
There's a second where his world has whited out. He's dead. He hopes he's dead.
And when he comes to, it's with a snarl on his lip and a fist cracking into that sadistic jaw, body twisting, fire and brimstone swelling him up like a mad dog. He attacks him like an animal and snaps like one too.]
FUCK YOU, BITCH!
no subject
this thing's limbs don't work like a normal creature's limbs should work. it cracks itself in two and crumples like a puppet with no strings, all joints and uneven edges. spindly fingers crawl up richie's spine and his torso and his legs and everywhere, in places two hands shouldn't be able to reach all at once. but the punch connects. it crashes right into that jaw and sends the thing's neck off center, broken.
that does not stop It.
the creature giggles maniacally, and pulls at richie's strings. grabs one arm, and pulls too hard. grabs the other, and pulls too gentle. plays with him, even as he's beating the shit out of it. and when it gets bored of listening to richie shriek, to eddie gurgle to death on his own blood, it starts again.
it rips richie's left arm clean off. ]
cw: a fucked up child doing fucked up things?
Patrick was a weird kid. Patrick was a dangerous kid. You never caught him doing something crazy, and he never took initiative to take credit for himself, but he was wrong somehow. Wrong in the head and behind the eyes, behind that full lipped smile that smacked over his teeth as he opened his pencil case and showed off all the dead flies he'd precision-flicked with his ruler. He would never say anything as he did it though. He was just happy to watch you look.
The teachers had to seat him strategically, because if you put him behind a girl he'd reach around and feel her up. He flunked his grades and put weird answers for his homework, and he had a glassy stare that promised utter vacuity. But he watched things. Watched people closely. His infant baby brother had died in his crib one evening after school. Nobody ever figured out why.
Patrick had been visiting the dump when he went missing. Beverly (Bevvie, Bevvie, oh Miss Marsh where are you when I need your surefire aim) said he'd been approaching an old refrigerator when it happened, when she saw from a hidden distance. You don't mess with those old Amano fridges. They shut tight from the inside. Kids playing hide and seek have died in them. Patrick was going for the fridge when he went missing, and regular kids didn't fuck around with death traps in the dump.
As Richie wrestles this impossible thing, a creature no borisin should possibly become and had no place on heaven or earth, he feels like he's looking up and out of the pencil case. Surrounded by dead flies. Another prize catch, thwap. He feels like he's as useless as a babe in a crib, no matter how hard he hits or hollers, no match for big brother's hands coming down on high. He feels like what had been waiting in the fridge. Whatever Patrick had expected to find. He feels like a thing, a toy, a little yippy animal that can bark and bite all it wants, but at the end of the day it's a game of size. Of power.
His arm comes off like the wing of a fly. Did Creepy Pat ever do that? Richie never hung around him to find out.
It's only a miracle that keeps him alive. He's a fucking healer, isn't he? His mad fervor has been cleaved in two by the pain and he only just remembers how to treat it, with an instinctive spark of magic. Nothing finessed, applied in pure panic. Yae Miko would kick his ass if he did a botch job like that under her watch. But she isn't here and he just needs enough to split. If the thing wants to keep his arm, then Richie's taking the rest of himself for a run.
He scrambles.
Sprints.
His vision is in a tizzy and his glasses almost fly off, his ears are pounding with the force of his heartbeat. His arm drools, the blood not fully staved, painting a sloppy trail to the backs of his heels. I'm over here! Come find me! Catch me if you can!
It can. It can, and It will. It's picking up a pursuit started twenty-seven years ago, and Richie's running too ragged to squeak out this time.
Flies in a case, babies in a crib.
There's no weighted door to slam shut on him, but there may as well be.]
no subject
what a fucking ridiculous image, right? it's almost hysterical, in the way things get when you're running out of time. it's such a terrible image to have burned into your mind - dinnertime for a clown, the click and gag of blood shooting from an open throat wound. a pez dispenser. an out of place cosplayer at a renaissance fair, just - stupid. the little things a brain finds funny before it loses power and shuts down entirely.
the clown just walks after him. nothing can stop it. richie runs out of the pavilion, bleeding heavily across the ground. he slips on a bit of the blood, and distantly, he might hear guards shouting, people panicking at an armless man running through their peaceful city. there are children crying. he does make it decently far before the clown catches up to him, but there's no running forever. this thing knows how to wait. and now, it doesn't even really care all that much about the luofu, because the bloodlust, the moon rage - it's overwhelming. it wants to eat the rest of richie, crunch right down on all that juicy marrow, drink bloodwine and be covered in it - that is was strength is, tearing a lesser species to pieces.
hoolay slams into richie's back. knocks him to the ground, and settles there to feast. he rips skin from bone, crunches into joints and savors each drop of blood.
but here's the thing - the guards know, now. the cloud knights are aware that this creature is among them, and they do not hesitate. even as hoolay is enjoying his meal, they come together, and richie - the last thing you see before your vision is gone entirely is a man with white hair pulled into a ponytail, with a red ribbon, lifting a glaive to destroy the creature digging into your guts. you won, really. right? the ship is saved. you just had to sacrifice two white men to do it.
richie, do you have any last thoughts before you die? ]
no subject
Pretty chuckalicious when you think about it. My god. He should have blown Hoolay a raspberry and ran shrieking out the door from the get go, if help was just around the corner the whole time. Then he wouldn't have had to putz around like a moron and drag Eddie into this.
That's what really hurts. The meat rips from his bones and he sees his own viscera spill out, sees the threads of his muscle and tendon catch in the clown-cum-wolf's teeth, and not one bit of it hurts more than the way Eddie looked as the knife underlined his Adam's apple.
I'm sorry Eds.
The glaive is coming down and the lights are going out, and thank god the sunovabitch is going down with him. But victory tastes like so much ash in his mouth. He wants to sob, and he no longer has the grip on his body to do it.
I didn't think it through Eds. I didn't think at all. I'm so fucking sorry.
And that's all for our show tonight folks! This is Rich Tozier signing off for KLAD 93.5, your number one station for all that rocks and rolls! We play aaaaaall the hits!
Richie laughs. One last time.]