PrP:Emptied Streets - Bug Fight Club
| PrP:Emptied Streets - Bug Fight Club | |
|---|---|
A social event tied to the ongoing murder investigation is visited. Things get out of hand quickly. | |
| Players |
Part of the Emptied Streets PrP |
OOC Information: All information is considered Out-Of-Character until you learn it through In-Character means.
Content Warning: Descriptions of horrific crimes listed below - user discretion advised.
In short, it's a metaphor for Chicago nobody quite understands yet none can deny exists and is demonstrative enough, really. Still, in the shadow of one of those same trees, there's an excellent vantage point down to the parking space of the Sally Port Bar and Grill, home of a bug-themed 'Fight Club' of sorts, and the growing number of recumbent bicycles, trike bikes, an actual Pennyfarthing model and three Teslas, it gives power to the notion that the quirky attendees are, on the surface, not in their element. Until one sees the trappings of the streetwise and the wily - seats left with a broken beer bottle centered on them; car hoods decorated with a hubcap covered in an old ratty t-shirt - warning signs to would-be thieves, a deterrent for people who keep their voice down.. until they're screaming into someone's ears. In short, the second metaphor for Chicago - this one, much more clear and understandable: do not fuck with these people casually. The door to the bar, nominally unsecured, appears to have a thick, heavy-set gentleman work it, his role casual, checking some kind of identification card with a visibly-purple edging to it, and admitting people inside, and those without, they're either being turned away or charged what looks to be forty or so dollars admission fee. Might be a loose metaphor hiding in that, probably not, though.
But he certainly recognizes the need for caution when people are doing illegal things, and so he's at that meeting place across the street, dressed casually in a t-shirt, denim, and a light leather jacket. Does he 'fit in'? No. But he doesn't 'fit in' anywhere, to be honest. So he at least stands out only as much as a weird guy normally would. He's leaned against a wall, loitering, taking quick glances at the bar to check on how it's filling up, and how people seem to be getting in.
He is once again dressed like a grad student; a well-tailored dark grey jacket thrown over a lighter gray shirt and jeans; black belt, polished shoes, watch, all very pulled together. He surveys the eclectic mix of vehicles with a faint frown, taking in the story that they tell. He moves up beside Solomon and murmurs, "More crowded than I expected, from the name."
He's looking about for a likely target. Servers who don't look too grumpy or closed off or suspicious, who don't look so busy that they're going to be irritated by a quick interruption. Once he's found his target, he reaches out to briefly touch the fellow's arm...with a folded $20 bill caught between his fingers, courtesy of the 'bribery fund' Solomon offered him for just this purpose. Warm smile. Warm eyes. Utterly nonthreatening. "Jacob around tonight? Jacob Fields? And if so you know where at?" Just casual as can be.
With a stiff-legged gait, he is gone and one of the other servers, a 4'9" creation of some bio-lab fueled by cocaine and cherry-flavored unicorn sweat, smiles up with ten thousand watts of power at both Solomon and Ethan, hands on her hips. "Gentlemen," she says with a grin that stretches quite a lot for someone of her compact, if curvy, form. "Y'all need to get in line for the basement show. Tsk-tsk, you two." She winks, then waggles a long, curled index finger at them both, turning on her flat heel, gesturing to the front house bar, wherein a line of men and women hold single beers or shots; nobody is drinking. Every single one of them, all they do is vape, glare at each other and idly rub small plastic cards on the bar-top. The bartender, he appears to have been forged with the iron that made the dock's very nails, and would be nowhere out of place selling booze to rum-runners, bikers, draft-dodgers, Bohemians, jazz musicians or maybe even the Grim Reaper himself. He doesn't look old - he looks timeless. Then he looks to Ethan and Solomon, holding up two different bottles: a beer, Budweiser; a bottle of Jack Daniels, an old classic. They're to decide which they want.
He winks at her, a tip of his nonexistent hat meant to cover a multitude of sins, then shrugs at Solo; seeing no reason not to come in like one of the regulars unless he disagrees, settling into the line. He doesn't want to draw *too* much attention, after all. The iron-forged bartender gets a quick smile as he nods to the beer. Why? Why does he nod to the beer? Because he likes beer. Why else would he nod at a drink?
He doesn't object to lining up, falling in easily with Ethan. As they approach the bar, his eyes dart here and there, but before he can say anything, Ethan nods to the beer. He blinks, and then nods to the beer as well. He leans in and murmurs in Ethan's ear, "Beer is for watchers, I think. I believe the whiskey is for those with a...fighter."
A server passing by Solomon and Ethan delivers a pair of red-framed cards, placing them face down on the bar before she smiles blankly, abandoning them. The cards seem to indicate a first-time visitor, a fact discerned by the nominal means at the disposal of the average customer-facing careerist, and have no markings, save for a magnetic strip and a number on their back - 37 and 38, respectively, for Ethan and Solomon. One of the other patrons, a woman in her sixties, regards both of them with an appraising eye, raising her shot glass to them both. "First time is always the best," she says with an icy Bostonian accent. "Are you friends or just acquaintances?" That expertly painted-on eyebrow of hers arches sharply, her gaze.. a little unnerving. No other patrons seem to have taken notice of them - the camouflage effect seems to have worked its magic.
He takes his little red card and examines it, then slips it into the pocket of his jacket. "Acquaintances, ma'am, if a bit of a friend-of-a-friend referral counts." Another warm smile. "We do like friendships though. How bout you?" Not at all bothered by having anyone at all take notice of them, and if he's studying her as intently as she's studying them, he's at least doing it with a smile.
"You two, ignore Lady Killbox," he says, a Chicago accent radiating with middle-to-lower class sentiment evident. "She's an elitist of the first stripe and eager to make converts to her little witch club, out of Boston." He rolls his eyes, watching as Lady Killbox, apparently, dismounts her seat and clutches her purse and metaphorical pearls, heading for the ladies room in high dudgeon. "I'm Saint Ambush, helped to get the Second Tier League started." He then extends both of his hands to Solomon and Ethan - as if he wanted to shake them both at the same time. If Lady Killbox had an antithesis, it'd be him.
The presence of aliases in here, obvious aliases that would not be at all out of place among the colorfully costumed wrestlers of the 1980s is of interest; it also suggests that Jacob himself might not be the *only* person who has their info. It might even suggest Jacob isn't a person at all, but the thing you say when you wanna come watch the fights. Which means Saint Ambush might be the one to start pumping for information. There's a gleam in his bright blue eyes; it's interest, but now he really *is* studying the fellow, in a way he decided not to study Lady Killbox for a variety of reasons. As for Solomon; well, he trusts Solomon to handle himself in his way and isn't too worried about it save this...he knows Sol is pretty pissed about the bug fighters. So there's a quick glance in the Lost's direction with another warm smile whose meaning he hopes will translate.
Taking the seat abandoned by Lady Killbox, he regards Solomon closely for a moment. "On the outside, this place sounds like a butcher's shop for our friends, the insects." He shakes his head. "Far from it. Yes, some die - and violently. The lives of their worlds, that's the promise that they get. Except here, we produce lineages unseen in the natural world, giving them longevity, dietary freedoms and a liberation from the shackles of their former species - by making them new, and perfect, and much adored." He smiles warmly, again proud of himself. "That's what second tier leagues are for, really. To showcase breeding capabilities.. and, yes, we do wager on the outcomes of the.. undesirables' demises." Then he raps his knuckles on the bar, not even looking to Carnahan before addressing him. "Carnahan, please give my friends their choice of non-alcoholic beverages.. and an escort to the windows, once they're opened." He then nods courteously. "Gentlemen, I'm due at the table soon. Anything that I can help with?" As he speaks, Carnahan presents a pair of thick menus to both Solomon and Ethan, fanning them with a single hand; those fingers of his look gnarled, acid-etched and incredibly strong. Like he strangles ponies in his off-hours.
He plucks up a menu. "Thank you, Carnahan," he says. "And maybe if you can stop by when you're no longer needed? You've gone and piqued all sorts of curiosity now, and I think we'd love to hear more." An indirect route to what they need, maybe, but Ethan's playing it pretty cautiously. He selects a mocktail of some variety without even really paying a great deal of attention. "And thank you for the beverages, even if you can't." If Ambush won't talk maybe Killbox will...but they're probably going to have to go to the 'windows' to see what's going on either way, in his estimation, and get a sense for how this place *runs*, before they can just get right to it...even once he starts cheating.
The menu is glanced at, although in the end, Solomon just orders another beer, and some pretzels with beer cheese dip. "And yes, please do come back when you can." After a moment, he adds, "Do you know that, despite my interest in invertebrates, I just have never been able to do scorpions? Something about them just gives me the creeps." It's a bit random, but perhaps offered to the man as a non-verbal apology for his lack of enthusiasm.
"Gentlemen, if you'll excuse me," he says, then departs, lead away from the duet by the short woman, who seems quite pleased to have his focus on her; she sounds like she exhales helium and he looks happily addicted to it. Regardless, Carnahan is there to present a non-alcoholic beer and a narrow dish of pretzels to them both, then retreats as escorting parties arrive - they look like servers, save they have a task done first - escorting out roughly thirty people through the front and side doors, whereupon everyone on the bar dismounts from their chairs, standing tall and ready. One of the escorting party leaders, he stands by the end of the bar and addresses them. "Red cards, one to fifty, and all second-tier titleholders, please follow me." Then he turns sharply, and begins to lead the procession down, down, down into the kitchen - first, it's a single step, then into a walk-in freezer, and through a hidden doorway, into the basement concealed within it. Nineteen steps later, the area is much larger than it should be: a pair of wire-mesh cages containing a trio of tables each, all of them operated by a single judge in a striped shirt and bearing a lanyard whistle, while a row of tables and chairs defended by Plexiglas windows seems to take up the upper tier of the seating - and there's room for about fifty or so people to take seats. People begin doing so, conversation raising the temperature quickly - and it's quite humid in the dark, flag-filled basement as it is. Steam pipes glisten and drizzle overhead, the floor feels spongy and is covered in rubbery tiles, and there's a faint hint of nature's finest musks hanging in the air, unavoidable at any capability. The basement of Chicago, and it is filled with bugs.
Which is why he pulls out money and starts filling out a betting slip. Nothing to see here, folks! Sotto voice, to Solomon: "Did you expect it to be like this?" He has no idea what to bet on, but that's really not a problem in any sense of the word. Losing a little money here will probably make Ambush like them better; winning might mean impressing Killbox, either way they might get a conversation with someone who can lead them to the information they're really after. Then again, given he knows damn well Solomon will want to see this whole thing shut right down, maybe *all* of this is information they're really after.
He glances at the menu when it's given and he - at least - understands enough of the capability of most of the insects, at least in standard variations, to be able to place several bets that he feels confident have a good chance of succeeding. He leans over to murmur again to Ethan, "This may be a distraction from our actual goal, but I'm invested, now."
Someone in the audience, seated three seats to Solomon's left, shouts out at the emcee, his tone jovial. "Bring out the Dreadnoughts!" To this, Saint Ambush applies a wry smirk and his tone conveys it well. "You wait your turn, Elliott, they'll be out here soon enough." Another round of laughter ensues, requiring him to quiet them anew. Still, he rallies hard and speaks again. "We would like to thank our financiers at the Salthouse, Gorgon Nest and, yes, love it or not, the Crucible of Boston, for their support, and wish them the best of luck in today's matches. Although I am entirely biased in seeing our beloved Doctor Green's finest survive and thrive into the third round of our semifinals." And at this, he motions to someone seated six seats to Ethan's right - someone dressed in a lab coat and simple jeans, his coif of charcoal grey distinctive and proud, raising his chin at being recognized. He then waves to Saint Ambush, who then motions to the two tables in his cell as they fill up with men and women bearing boxes of clear acrylic. Overhead monitors display the table's content: large, angry-looking beetles, each one with a sharp, pointed horn. "Our first match, it's a local squabble - the cooks of Genocide Ranch versus the chefs of Murder Village, and they've brought tonight's first second tier league offerings - the one, the only, Allomyrina dichotoma Chicagae!" And that is when the crowd rises to its collective feet, stomping them in sequence to the music which begins to play through hidden speakers: Queen's 'We Will Rock You'.
He makes mental note of all these organizations of course...and then his eyes widen slightly as Carster makes his own appearance. "Well well well," he murmurs, and if that isn't a predator's light in his eye, it's hard to say what would be. Because *here* he can't be hung up on. He makes himself turn that hard grin on the bugs so as not to draw attention, but out of the corner of his eye he is marking the prey, intent on making sure that they don't lose him at any point.
They engineered them to not simply fight, it seems, it is to also scream as they perish. The victors of the initial onslaught chatter among themselves, sliding sideways, back and forth, as if in victorious dances. A ghoulish affair. Throughout the bout, Dr. Green looks to the monitors in exultation, his smile affixed almost surgically. With a mindlessness akin to idleness, he rubs his left wrist, where a bandage lay wrapped around it, his jacket sleeve peaked slightly. A wound, perhaps, on the mend.
Ethan notes the wound at one of his sidelong glances. He looks...a little startled at all the screaming. But doesn't even know enough about bugs to know whether or not screaming bugs is *normal.* Sure, maybe bugs scream, how would he know? The roaches from his recent adventure didn't but...they aren't Allomyrina Dichotoma.
"Oh," she says, seeing their red cards on display. "You're new." She sounds sublimely supportive, curious, even. "Six months ago, Ambush banned them, despite Dr. Green's protests." She shrugs, looking adorable and out of place; to her left, a thick-necked man with a bushy beard and beer gut, he glances back to Ethan and Solomon, a pair of bees tattooed on the corners of his lips. "Sup. This is Cornershot, I'm Assassin. We're, uh, checking the competition early." He grins wolfishly. "What's your deal?" He sounds.. less friendly. Still smiling, though. Behind and above him on the monitors, one team is destroyed, their final contestant dramatically hurled off of the table, landing on the floor with a 'bzzt' sound, a flickering of the lights and a realization: the competition floor is electrified. The next bout is prepared as the first round contestants are awarded with applause, scattered booing, and a hearty round of boot stomps on the floor. The two speakers in front of Solomon and Ethan do not engage in those behaviors, still looking at them intently.
He might have said something more, but suddenly a Strangulation Ridge Chef is talking to him and he feels a brief spark of paranoia that she even caught the words. One wouldn't know it by his smile. "That's very interesting," he says. Looking completely clueless and happily pleased to be spoken to by a veteran, he asks the wholly innocent question: "Why'd he do that? Nice to meet you Cornershot, Assassin." Asked what his deal is, he grins. "Are you kidding? This is the coolest thing ever, man!" As if that is his *whole deal.* The only deal that matters. The fact that he *is* usually really kind of the dumbest guy in the room makes it at least a little easier to sell 'stupid but fun'. He lets all that sparkle and shine of excitement beam out of his eyes. They don't have to know that the reason *why* it is there is different from what they think.
He wrenches his eyes away to look at Cornershot and Assassin, his expression flat and his eyes still blown wide. "Yes. Tell us why." It's less a request than a demand, his voice clipped and with the kind of tight control you only get when hiding some deep emotion.
Then there's a pause as Solomon asks, and Assassin shrugs before replying. "We had some issues about a local breeder, real asshole, kept talkin' shit 'bout Dreadnoughts, which is.. well, it's like shitting on the Bulls during the playoffs, y'know?" He shakes his head mournfully. "Got his ass ejected, with cause, and banned from the leagues. As far as I know, not even Boston will take his ass in, no matter how much he screams." That's when Cornershot nudges him. "Okay, he didn't scream, he .. stared. Like.. dead-eyed, all.. creepy." And the large man shudders hard as if remembering some foulness from early development.
As it is..."Yeah? Dude sounds like a real douchebag. What's the name of Banned Guy in case we run into him somewhere? I don't wanna like. Get in with the wrong crowd, you know?" This could be the guy, dead-eyed-stare, the killer who ran the now-banned bugs found at the crime scene. Someone will be able to link the bug-fight name to the real name, and that's a road to the information Solomon and Nadia needs, too.
"He.. well, y'know, I didn't catch his name, not 'zactly. He used to pal around with some real scumbags." She rolls her eyes, then idly massages her neck, to which Assassin replies by placing his meat mitt on her throat from behind, massaging it, her expression one of sublime release. "Oh, fuck, Assassin, I'mma give you such a fuckin' molting when we're gome..." He grins, then looks to Ethan. "The asshole in question, you'd wanna touch base with either Ambush, if he wins.. or Dr. Green, if he doesn't. Ambush tends to be Mister Unavailable on a victory lap, while Dr. Green.." And to this, Cornershot looks sublimely embarrassed. "Well, if it weren't for him being the lead chef for the Farmhouse, he'd have gone face-first into a binful of Dermestes maculatus chicagoae." Both of them look queasy at this thought, with him squeezing her closer to his broad chest. Of all of the things he doesn't seem to be, brilliant tops the list.
(Which would have been: holy shit, you Jurassic Parked that shit!) Nope. He keeps it in the back of his throat. His smile for the flirting between the two is rather tolerant; he's heard worse than what Cornershot is oversharing and has seen more blatant than a neck massage. He nods in gratitude for the clear direction, adding only an approving-sounding: "Y'all are some badass motherfuckers, that's impressive as hell," which, no matter what he thinks of their ethics... They totally Jurassic Park'd that shit.
As the final bout begins, both Cornershot and Assassin politely, and firmly, disengage from dialogue and turn to watch it as it unfolds. There on the dais, Saint Ambush, looking proud and sweaty, raises his hands for silence again, his voice booming in the dim basement space. "Folks, I have to say, it's looking close in our final round for the tier two operators," he begins, and there's some scattered booing, and he waves it off with a slightly irritated expression and a flap of his hand. "This last bout, it has our local favorite, you know 'em, you love 'em: Dorylus gribodoi chicagoae!" The crowd jumps to their feet as one, stomping them in sequence to the new song boosted through the speakers, filling the air with joyous noise as the onscreen reveal is made: foot-long ants, a trio for each team, their bodies striped in red and green for the home team, blue and white for the visitors. Those colors look to be built-in, as well; mutations seem the norm, after all, in the Farmhouse's fight club. "Dreadnoughts! Dreadnoughts! Dreadnoughts!" The chant is as deep as it is ominous, and the fight begins immediately. Even without the microphone assistance, their hisses are audible forty feet away and in a packed, noisy environment. Each of their heads is the size of a tennis ball, their bladed mandibles all sharp, hooked edges, determined to rip their opponents limb from limb.
The next death is of the blue-and-white team, one of their members missing three limbs in two easily-delivered strikes by the red-and-green team's offensive push, leaving it spiraling in place, its mewling-like utterances almost lost in the din of exhulting audience members. In front of Solomon and Ethan, Cornershot is grinning madly, Assassin's hand wedged into the front of her jeans, her hand placed in his, both of them overtly pleasuring each other to the dulcet vistas and sounds of insects engineered against nature's whims and wishes being brutally murdered by each other. At the climax of the battle, it is the red-and-green team ascendant, and they can see the joy on the faces of almost every spectator, and both Cornershot and Assassin grin wickedly before turning back to Ethan and Solomon, waving as they depart with the out-of-towner crowd; local seem willing and happy to stick around, mostly to approach and address the chefs responsible for the victory. Saint Ambush is being escorted from group to group by the 4'9" heroine herself, all smiles and courtesies, and Dr. Green sits alone, staring at the monitors, a blue-and-white striped victim filling the screens, dead and cruelly-so.
His head tilts to one side, then the other. They're going to need some sort of plan for the rest, to really think this one through, seems to be his opinion. Either way, he's rising, heading for where Green sits alone and staring, trying not to draw his attention until the very moment he slides into a seat next to him.
Nodding his head, he motions for Solomon and Ethan to join him at his niche-set table, then gestures for them to draw the curtains across the doorway; in lieu of a secure space, it is at least private. "I'm guessing that Saint Ambush sent you here to humiliate me." He hangs his head low, again, sobbing softly - he's in a bad place and it shows.
"Not at all, Doc, not at all," Ethan murmurs. "Your guy put up a good fight. Naw, we just wanted to have a conversation." He looks at Solomon and nods slightly. He'll be able to do his thing in juuuust a second.
His voice has taken on this smooth-as-silk quality, low and alluring and magnetic. He leans forward, everything about him radiating that he's utterly trustworthy and that there's no reason at all not to do exactly as he asks. Cheating, as he calls it, but a fast way to cut to the chase.
"On Sundays, we bring the lab out, bit by bit, and ... I cook. Making new things for people who pay. Saint Ambush, he pays the best and the most often, so.. I.. make things. Things I should be proud of .. and.. things I shouldn't have ever tried." Then he looks plaintively at Solomon, clutching his hands together in a fervent prayer, eyes streaked in running makeup and tears, snot dribbling from his nostrils. "I'll do anything, please, just don't call her! Anything you want! I beg of you, don't.. don't call her!" He collapses to the floor, a wracking series of sobs rattling through his form, making him simultaneously look young and vulnerable.. and old and abused, and all he can he do is kick feebly, his legs twitching, chest rattling with ancient horrors now revealed to him anew. "He made me design the wire box." The 'he' in that sentence does not sound like a reference to Saint Ambush.
He frowns suddenly as something occurs to him. An avenue of inquiry worth exploring. He looks at Solomon, then he looks over at Green. "Cooking. Human subjects? People nobody would miss? That ever get mixed in with your bug DNA man? Cause some of those are awfully big." It might explain years of disappearances...and then bodies turning up elsewhere later, with a bunch of brutal murdering that might sort of...obscure. What was happening to them.
"The.. the wire box, I didn't *make* it," he clarifies, his voice strained and whisper-filled. "I designed it. My second doctorate, it had a brief rider with endocrinology, and.. and he knew it." He shakes his head, looking to the floor, hands dangling from his knees, arms crossed, head resting on them. "I designed it .. with a dialysis machine integrated into it. It .. extracts a slew of biochemical precursors to adrenaline, then it.. cycles it past the kidneys automatically. Someone has to endure.." He sniffles. "..pretty much every drop of their own adrenaline, minus any filtering. The.. the.. wires.. they go through.." He then taps himself on the elbows, then knees, then the base of the neck. "They.. can't move. I.. hired a kinaesthetics analysis team for .. y'know.. optimum restraint methodology." He weeps, once more looking to the floor. As he languishes, he sobs aloud, then adds, "He.. he.. he knows my ex-wife. Told her about me. She.. she makes me.. do.. do things." He sobs harder. "To myself."
He hasn't got a question he can ask from all of that, he needs a few dots connected, but he reaches out to put a hand on Green's shoulder, comforting. Not because he thinks Green deserves it, given a look in his eyes, but because he figures it will keep him talking, keep him answering Sol's questions. They're deep in Science-land now; Ethan *just* doesn't have the background.
His disgust and anger are clear to see. But then, as Carsters' sobs and reveals his own abuse, he looks away. His hands flex into fists, then relax. "Hey. Help us make this right, and you'll never have to see her again. Ever."
"If he's using it, I'm fucked!" he almost shouts, looking somehow even more damaged than before, and he clutches at Solomon's bicep, squeezing it with both of his gnarled hands. "Oh, fuck, oh fuck, man, no! Say you were lying! Please, please! Say he isn't using it!" He has gone to a place beyond where help .. helps.
"Hey," he says, low, quiet, in control, but still with a kindly edge, as if he's well aware that little bit of rapport is an edge they really *need* right now. "You gotta calm down, Doc. You don't calm down, you're going to draw the attention of everyone in here." He's using that low, lulling voice again, but he's intense, and he's doing his best to speak into the fellow's ear alone. "A whole bunch of criminals, all real nervous. Sam and me, we're real badass, but we can't protect you if you pull everyone else down on our heads. Take a breath. Nice and slow. We don't want attention right here, right now. Right? We just want to have our conversation very quietly and very calmly."
"He.. EC, he.. paid six hundred for each .. each of the males. For his .. his little.. his.." Wiping his eyes, he continues. "His.. collection. He wanted the Lord Howe able to.. to breed in captivity." He rallies, looking up at the both with pride. "They.. they can do that now. They.. share a gene with the.. botfly. Well, they.. do now." And he lowers his head, exhaling slowly. "I'll.. I. Don't tell him I told you about him." He wipes his nose, once more with his left wrist, and gives off a short, strangled grunting-scream, muffling it by biting his own hand. Clearly, that left wrist - whatever it is, it's a sore spot.
"Where is EC now? Got addresses for him? Contact numbers? We won't tell him shit, but my dude, you gotta know that you won't be safe till we ensure he's out of business. Our interests, yours and ours, they're aligned now. So anything you can tell us, anything you can give us...that's all in your best interests now, man."
Once it is revealed, all he says is, "Salty.. salty.. her.. her name is Sabine. My.. grandpa's dog had a big litter, so my dad got one.. and his dog had a big litter.. so I got mine.." He then folds into a ball, wrapping his body in arms, rocking back and forth, and the worst of it is, it's not that he's a victim of the killer rampaging through the streets - it's to someone who once loved him and he loved in reply.
Sometimes Colt says he's far too human, and right now he's feeling it. He sucks in more nicotine as if it could help, and then stares at Solomon. "We have what we need now, right? We have enough?" As if suddenly he just can't stand to be in this place or with this man another second, as if all he wants to do is be out of here and out into air that doesn't reek of horror. Though he makes himself take a big long whiff of the Doctor's scent; to ensure that he can track him again. If he must.
"He's a spook, a ghost-man, bereft of soul, he.. he's a spy of spies." He grins and there's nothing behind it. "I.. will not.. I will see tomorrow, because it's always the same day. Both of you, I give you all of the tomorrows I was supposed to have, until.. until. Until she." Then he turns, his voice hollow and empty and devoid of life entirely. "She can't chase me into Hell," he says flatly, "Because I have never left it." Then he is silent and looks more likely to break into a song-and-dance routine than to even speak again without medical intervention involved. | |