(no subject)
So. The last few months have been an endless tide of blank character sheets, blank word documents, and increasing depression at my inability to fill them up. Largely to prove to myself I still can do anything creatively, I did this reinvention of an old OC from a roleplaying game. I guess I'm posting it because whether it's good or not, it's finished, and at this point that's the closest I've had to a victory in months. So, it was an OC, set in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen universe. The movies, but the reinvention doesn't really require a distinction.
Full disclosure: Mycroft Holmes makes a cameo, but the only Sherlock thing I know is the first RDJ movie. The most I've seen of Mycroft is the little bits he had in the original League comics. I have no idea if any of how I've portrayed him here is accurate and since I don't plan on ever using this for anything I don't really care.
Full disclosure 2: I guess I should probably add that I can't really call what I did in the reinvention an OC, but it's based on etc. etc.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He’d counted over a million drips when he heard the telltale sound of rock sliding against rock that signified an approaching visitor. He smiled from beneath his unruly mane of hair. He knew who the visitor was, knew who it had to be, and in knowing that he knew he’d won.
Slow, measured footsteps. Always slow and measured, this particular visitor. Not like the steady stream of executioners and torturers that had visited him day in and day out for the first five years of his imprisonment. Those footsteps had been different. At first excited, then hesitant, then positively terrified. He could not blame them. When one’s job was to kill, it must have been unsettling to discover something that simply
Would.
Not.
Die.
Not that he would know anything about that. He had yet to make that particular discovery.
He tossed his head to put most of the veil of dirty brown hair behind him. Tidying up wasn’t easy when one was chained naked to the wall. It had been red once, long ago, but he’d learned a few tricks from an ex-lover to change that.
Shame about the boy, though when one was foolish enough to antagonize Norse heroes…
He focused on the outside of his cell as the portly form of Mycroft Holmes came waddling into view. “Mr. Holmes. Fancy meeting you here,” he said, or at least that’s what he wanted to say. It had been five years since the last visitor, so it probably came out as more of a rough croaking. The fat man said nothing, further amusing the man in the cell. “Come to escort in another five years of attempted murder?” The tone of the man’s voice was incongruous from the question itself, as calm as if an answer in the affirmative would be no more troubling than popping over to a neighbor’s for a bag of sugar.
He watched. The muscles around the fat man’s jaw twitched and a vein at his temple pulsed rhythmically. His lips pressed into a hard line. The man in the cell knew what news was coming, and knew it would be a bitter pill indeed. He did not know the individual trees, but he’d seen the forest on the day of his arrest. The only unexpected thing was how soon the news was coming. He’d expected he would not be hearing it in Holmes’ lifetime, and now here it was only a decade on and he was already being freed.
“I. Need. An. Immortal.” Each word sounded like a bullet, swift and hard and cold, and propelled with deadly force. Holmes’ whole face was twisted in a mask of disgust. The man in the cell wasn’t surprised. Holmes knew what he was. Holmes knew who he was, and even the vilest of men would likely not be best pleased to turn him loose. The man in the cell simply smiled and waggled his eyebrows to urge the fat man on. “There was an…incident two months ago. A rogue element put together a team of peculiar individuals under the guise of preventing world war. In reality this was merely to get all of them together so that he could horde the secrets to their peculiarities to himself and weaponize them.”
A team of peculiars. Now that sounded familiar. The man in the cell wondered if Holmes knew this was not the first team of peculiars in the history of the world. He chose not to enlighten him. “Seeing as how you are here, I can only surmise he was unsuccessful.” His voice was returning. This one only sounded like his throat had been put through a meat grinder.
“No.” Holmes watched him for a long moment before continuing. “Dorian Gray is dead-”
“Thank all the spirits holy and unholy,” the man in the cell interrupted. At Holmes’ glare, he quieted. “Apologies. That man was insufferable. Continue.”
Holmes muttered something under his breath before doing as requested. “Though I have my misgivings, my superiors have elected to continue this team for the time being. They would also like to replace Gray with someone of a similar…condition.” The man in the cell snorted derisively. While he and Gray could both be termed “immortals”, Gray was only superficially so. There was still a way to end him. The man in the cell had strong suspicions the same could not be said for him.
Besides, immortality was hardly the prisoner's only marketable skill. There were those stories…
Holmes continued as if he hadn’t heard it. “You are the only other immortal I know of. So this leaves us in a bit of an awkward position.”
“Does it?” One eyebrow went up. “You need an immortal. I would very much like a shower, some clothes, and a proper breakfast. It seems to me that we have all we need to come to some sort of arrangement.”
“I’m not sure if-”
“Mr. Holmes.” This time the man in the cell’s voice came out sharp and deadly as a whip. “I have spent the last five years chained to the wall in a dark, smelly hole in the ground. The five before that, your best killers and torturers tried every which way to take me apart.” He paused just long enough for his words to sink in, and then said, as matter-of-fact as if he were dictating a grocery list, “This arrangement saves me having to kill every last one of your men on my way out.”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Two men staring each other down. One well fed in finery, high up in the intelligence services of a prestigious military organization. The other naked, chained to a wall, with dirty hair and inhumanly old eyes and that strange, unnerving scar on his brow. The former had entire networks of some of the deadliest men and women known to the world, ready to die on his order. The other had ten years’ worth of grime and rock dust in uncomfortable places.
The latter won.
“…What name should I use when I introduce you to the team? Not your true name, I’d guess.”
The man in the cell smiled. It was not an altogether comforting gesture. “Call me Gabriel.”
Full disclosure: Mycroft Holmes makes a cameo, but the only Sherlock thing I know is the first RDJ movie. The most I've seen of Mycroft is the little bits he had in the original League comics. I have no idea if any of how I've portrayed him here is accurate and since I don't plan on ever using this for anything I don't really care.
Full disclosure 2: I guess I should probably add that I can't really call what I did in the reinvention an OC, but it's based on etc. etc.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He’d counted over a million drips when he heard the telltale sound of rock sliding against rock that signified an approaching visitor. He smiled from beneath his unruly mane of hair. He knew who the visitor was, knew who it had to be, and in knowing that he knew he’d won.
Slow, measured footsteps. Always slow and measured, this particular visitor. Not like the steady stream of executioners and torturers that had visited him day in and day out for the first five years of his imprisonment. Those footsteps had been different. At first excited, then hesitant, then positively terrified. He could not blame them. When one’s job was to kill, it must have been unsettling to discover something that simply
Would.
Not.
Die.
Not that he would know anything about that. He had yet to make that particular discovery.
He tossed his head to put most of the veil of dirty brown hair behind him. Tidying up wasn’t easy when one was chained naked to the wall. It had been red once, long ago, but he’d learned a few tricks from an ex-lover to change that.
Shame about the boy, though when one was foolish enough to antagonize Norse heroes…
He focused on the outside of his cell as the portly form of Mycroft Holmes came waddling into view. “Mr. Holmes. Fancy meeting you here,” he said, or at least that’s what he wanted to say. It had been five years since the last visitor, so it probably came out as more of a rough croaking. The fat man said nothing, further amusing the man in the cell. “Come to escort in another five years of attempted murder?” The tone of the man’s voice was incongruous from the question itself, as calm as if an answer in the affirmative would be no more troubling than popping over to a neighbor’s for a bag of sugar.
He watched. The muscles around the fat man’s jaw twitched and a vein at his temple pulsed rhythmically. His lips pressed into a hard line. The man in the cell knew what news was coming, and knew it would be a bitter pill indeed. He did not know the individual trees, but he’d seen the forest on the day of his arrest. The only unexpected thing was how soon the news was coming. He’d expected he would not be hearing it in Holmes’ lifetime, and now here it was only a decade on and he was already being freed.
“I. Need. An. Immortal.” Each word sounded like a bullet, swift and hard and cold, and propelled with deadly force. Holmes’ whole face was twisted in a mask of disgust. The man in the cell wasn’t surprised. Holmes knew what he was. Holmes knew who he was, and even the vilest of men would likely not be best pleased to turn him loose. The man in the cell simply smiled and waggled his eyebrows to urge the fat man on. “There was an…incident two months ago. A rogue element put together a team of peculiar individuals under the guise of preventing world war. In reality this was merely to get all of them together so that he could horde the secrets to their peculiarities to himself and weaponize them.”
A team of peculiars. Now that sounded familiar. The man in the cell wondered if Holmes knew this was not the first team of peculiars in the history of the world. He chose not to enlighten him. “Seeing as how you are here, I can only surmise he was unsuccessful.” His voice was returning. This one only sounded like his throat had been put through a meat grinder.
“No.” Holmes watched him for a long moment before continuing. “Dorian Gray is dead-”
“Thank all the spirits holy and unholy,” the man in the cell interrupted. At Holmes’ glare, he quieted. “Apologies. That man was insufferable. Continue.”
Holmes muttered something under his breath before doing as requested. “Though I have my misgivings, my superiors have elected to continue this team for the time being. They would also like to replace Gray with someone of a similar…condition.” The man in the cell snorted derisively. While he and Gray could both be termed “immortals”, Gray was only superficially so. There was still a way to end him. The man in the cell had strong suspicions the same could not be said for him.
Besides, immortality was hardly the prisoner's only marketable skill. There were those stories…
Holmes continued as if he hadn’t heard it. “You are the only other immortal I know of. So this leaves us in a bit of an awkward position.”
“Does it?” One eyebrow went up. “You need an immortal. I would very much like a shower, some clothes, and a proper breakfast. It seems to me that we have all we need to come to some sort of arrangement.”
“I’m not sure if-”
“Mr. Holmes.” This time the man in the cell’s voice came out sharp and deadly as a whip. “I have spent the last five years chained to the wall in a dark, smelly hole in the ground. The five before that, your best killers and torturers tried every which way to take me apart.” He paused just long enough for his words to sink in, and then said, as matter-of-fact as if he were dictating a grocery list, “This arrangement saves me having to kill every last one of your men on my way out.”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Two men staring each other down. One well fed in finery, high up in the intelligence services of a prestigious military organization. The other naked, chained to a wall, with dirty hair and inhumanly old eyes and that strange, unnerving scar on his brow. The former had entire networks of some of the deadliest men and women known to the world, ready to die on his order. The other had ten years’ worth of grime and rock dust in uncomfortable places.
The latter won.
“…What name should I use when I introduce you to the team? Not your true name, I’d guess.”
The man in the cell smiled. It was not an altogether comforting gesture. “Call me Gabriel.”