I haven't the time to stay for tea anyway, thank you.
The idea for this little shit pile of crack!ficcy, er, badness has been floating around in the nether regions of my brain for years, but I finally dug it up and finished it, to give pandoras_closet a reason to scour his eyeballs out with a rusty screwdriver, if nothing else. I’d like to say this is the most retarded thing I’ve ever written, but that would be a total lie - which, actually, is probably scarier than the story itself.
Summary: “He’s heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but somehow, a stone painting of his Guardian engaged in what appears to be an explicit homosexual act with none other than Skullmaster seems to leave him at a loss for even one syllable.” Rated PG-13 or a soft R to be on the safe side. Not for delicate, erm, stomachs.
*
Love, Peace & Chicken Grease
*
The Chamber of Destiny startles Max as much as it intrigues him. He’s been the Capbearer for the better part of a year now, long enough to make a kind of uncomfortable peace with the less appealing aspects of his calling; namely, the guarantee that people will be hurt and killed and saved and crushed, and that he will be in the middle of it all with a magically-charged baseball cap on his head and a death wish.
It doesn’t completely surprise Max that there are things he doesn’t know about his destiny; on the contrary, he’s used to Virgil surprising him by the complexity of it all. And so while he wonders initially why he couldn’t have been informed of the development sooner, he chalks it up to Virgil having his reasons, and then concentrates on the multitude of questions that spring to mind.
He holds them at bay for the first few minutes, content simply to drink in the scenes. He remembers them all: their first and second meetings with Dr. Zygote; his trip to Haiti with his mom, where they stumbled upon the Zomboid monster; and numerous, sometimes deadly confrontations with Skullmaster. Dozens of adventures, all recorded in the enchanted stone; Max is in awe.
Curiosity gets the better of him; he wants to know why certain scenes are depicted and not others; why some tablets are blank and others hint at the future. Virgil looks pained when he tugs aside a small curtain, revealing a rather gruesome picture of Norman being eaten by a gigantic spider. The fowl stutters a lot when Max looks quizzically at him for an explanation, and it’s probably more of an answer than Max wants anyways, so he lets it filter into the back of his mind.
“So let me get this straight,” he concludes. “You basically know everywhere I’ve been and anything I’m doing?” A horrific thought crosses his mind. “Even, like, ‘this’?” He makes a tell-tale wanking motion with his hand for clarification.
“Certainly not, Mighty One,” Virgil says, looking scandalized. “The Hand of Fate merely selects what scenes I am privy to. And it generally passes over those moments when you are, erm …”
“Engaged in a private ceremony with my one-eyed trouser snake?” Max finishes, grinning as Virgil gasps; he realizes that he enjoys watching his avian mentor squirm, and also that that’s kind of sadistic of him. “It’s okay, Virg,” he relents. “Even if you have seen it, it’s not like you could have helped the fact.”
“Indeed,” Virgil concludes stiffly.
“Wait, so you HAVE watched?!” Max screeches accusatorily.
Virgil throws up his arms, feathers ruffling about his neck a little. “It is not my optimal choice of entertainment, I assure you, but I can hardly be blamed for unwittingly bearing witness to an activity that you seem content to partake in some ten or twelve approximations per day, Mighty One.”
Max rolls his eyes. “Whatever. It’s like, seven or eight times a day. Tops.” He strolls down towards the other end of the large picture wall, intrigued when he spots another curtain near the bottom. “A-ha, what do we have … here.” He trails off, gaping in abject horror at the scene that unfolds before him.
He’s heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but somehow, a stone painting of his Guardian engaged in what appears to be an explicit homosexual act with none other than Skullmaster seems to leave him at a loss for even one syllable.
“Mighty One …” Virgil’s arms flap about uselessly; the fowl looks flustered, but moreover, he looks guilty. “It - we knew you would have a difficult time understanding-“
“What, that Normy and the guy who’s been trying to kill all of us used to be butt buddies?” Max isn’t sure which is more shocking: that such a thing has happened in the first place, or that Skullmaster is ridiculously flexible for his size.
“I am sorry you had to find out this way, Mighty One.” Norman, who has just stepped out of the concave of his and Virgil’s home that served as his bedroom - complete with a stone mattress - places a large, bracing hand on Max’s shoulder. “It is not a part of my past that I’m particularly proud of. That is why I try to cover it up.”
“It’s all right, Big Guy,” Max says shakily. He risks glancing at the painting again, only shuddering minimally this time. “So, uh … how did you two meet?” he asks, trying to sound cordial and most likely failing miserably.
“You see, Mighty One,” Virgil jumps in, resuming the role of storyteller that he’s most comfortable with, “destiny works in odd ways. Though fate would decree that Norman and Skullmaster’s paths would cross due to the Prophecy, it also put forth that they would know each other prior to that.”
“Yeah, they knew each other, all right,” Max snorts. Virgil makes to press on, but Max holds up his hands pleadingly. “No, no more, I can fill in the blanks myself, thanks.” Then, unable to help himself: “but did you guys like, celebrate anniversaries or holidays or anything?” For some reason, the mental image of Skullmaster being romantic, to anyone, is more laughable than the time Felix had dressed up as Hippolyta for their eighth grade production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ - complete with heels, a wig, and one of Bea’s sister’s bras, stuffed with socks. And that had been pretty damned funny.
Norman just shrugs, however. “He wasn’t the mushy type. We mostly just fu- erm, it wasn’t a very emotional relationship,” he concludes quickly as Virgil makes with a sudden coughing fit.
Max shakes his head. He’s pretty sure this is the strangest thing he’s ever heard. “How did it end?” he guffaws, images of Norman storming out on a weeping Skullmaster wearing an apron nearly too much to bear at this point.
“Irreconcilable differences,” Norman intones blandly, as if he’d processed and discussed this thousands of times before. “He was getting more into the ‘destroying the world’ thing and wanted me to be the general in his grand army of minions. I walked out on him the night before an important battle. I heard later that he’d been making it with Warmonger the whole time, anyway.”
“Ah.” Suddenly, there’s just nothing more to say. Virgil slides the curtain back into place, and Max scuffs his toe against the ground. “Well,” he finally manages awkwardly, still torn between wanting to laugh and scream, “at least you got out with your freedom, huh, Normy?”
“Indeed.” Norman smirks, and then points to the holster slung across one shoulder. “And I did keep the sword he had made for me. Someday, you can use it to slice him in half, Mighty One.”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll leave that part to you, Big Guy,” Max hedges. He later searches for confirmation of this, but the Wall of Destiny, he comes to find, is remarkably ambiguous in matters like these. Eventually, he gets it to tell him that he’ll pass his science midterm the following week, and also that Norman and Skullmaster once had an orgy involving raw chicken, chocolate sauce, and seventeen virgins, however, and decides to call it good.
*
I wanted to include a bit in the story about Skullmaster gifting Norman the little skull earring he always wears in the cartoon, but it didn’t end up fitting. So I wrote a small ‘ficlet/drabble-ish thing about it instead.
He locked himself away a lot these days, spending much of his time plotting, Norman knew. He couldn’t broach the subject, of course, however, because it only turned into another argument about their jobs and how Norman didn’t appreciate all that Skullmaster did for him, and yadda yadda.
The small package on the counter was crudely wrapped, and Norman knew it was meant for him. Skullmaster watched with narrowed eyes as he opened it, fingering the skull-shaped earring curiosly. “I made it for you,” he rasped. “From the bone of one of my enemies.”
Norman unclipped the back and fitted it through his ear; it hung heavily from the bottom of the lobe, a reminder of what they were. “I like it,” he offered. “Now, what’s for dinner?”
Partially just to prove how much of a pain in the ass (pun intended!) this short little ‘fic has been, and somewhat because I’m just masochistic, I also present my false start to the story. It started out with good intentions, but ended up feeling a little long in the tooth. I was going for inane, possibly revolting, and generally funny, but this just didn’t go anywhere. Still, I find the difference between this bit and the final product interesting, so here it is.
Norman had never been much of a storyteller. Max had been somewhat surprised to learn that he spoke at all, and enjoyed the rare moments when he would indulge in tales of his life, pre-Guardian. It comforted Max somehow to know that he’d had one.
The task of detailing was often left to Virgil; the Lemurian was gifted at relating a flurry of interwoven events into an engaging and easy-to-follow tale, and Max always enjoyed it most when his avian mentor would let slip fragments of rather insignificant but wholly entertaining information, like the fact that he didn’t trust Norman to cook, or that he himself was allergic to pomegranate seeds.
And yet, for all of his wisdom, Max could not help but notice the key element often left out of or glossed over in the fowl’s stories. He did not begrudge Virgil for the minor shortcoming, but at eleven, Max was just becoming rather well in-tuned with the facial expressions and body language of attraction. And though Virgil’s accounts were complete in nearly every other way, Max could not help but notice that they lacked emphasis on emotion, on love.
Max knew how crazy things could get when he had those feelings for someone; he knew he couldn’t be the only one.
Opportunity finally arose in the form of Mujaji, Norman’s old flame. Nobody had said as much - likely because the mission had been particularly gruesome, resulting in the deaths of the four heroes Virgil had helped Max to recruit, including Mujaji.
The event had taken its toll on the young Capbearer; he had convinced those people to help him ward off Skullmaster so that he could destroy the Crystal of Souls. If he’d known that they had meant allowing them to die for his cause … he would have still had to go through with it, the call of destiny both a be-all-end-all rationale, and the reason for his discontent surrounding his Chosen One title. He’d lashed out at Virgil about it, had thrown the Cap back at him angrily.
Their subsequent mission had been much more treacherous than anticipated - Virgil had been captured, and Max had been forced to release Skullmaster out into the world to save his mentor’s life. Their interaction thereafter had been awkward, to say the least, the gentle camaraderie that they’d developed hidden beneath layers of hurt and misunderstanding.
It was during a mission in Eastern Europe to stop a crazed garbage man from inflicting himself on the world that the tentative ice they were all skating on seemed to crack. “Sarah sure was nice, don’t you think?” Max asked, referring to the young girl about his age whom they’d met along the way. They had helped to rescue her brother Jacob from the garbage man’s monster, Corpus, and she had been so happy that she’d thrown her arms around Max’s neck and kissed him wetly on the cheek. Max had blushed and noticed Virgil smiling discreetly out of the corner of his eye, and had felt relieved, somehow.
The trip home was lengthy, lending itself well to idle conversation. Max mentioned Srah with well-placed casualness, but he saw the corners of Virgil’s beak turn up anyways. “What are you smiling about?” the boy asked, mock-offended.
The fowl gazed at him through rounded spectacles, his eyes twinkling. “Nothing, Mighty One,” he said innocently. Then, apparently unable to resist: “I do believe you still have a trace of lipstick on your cheek.”
Max blushed and grinned good-naturedly as he wiped it off. “She was just friendly,” he said sheepishly.
“Indeed.” Virgil smirked. They plodded along, shoulder-to-shoulder; up ahead, Norman’s hulking mass provided a nice barrier from the sun. The Guardian had been weirdly quiet during this mission, even moreso than usual, and Max was pretty sure he knew why.
“Yeah, it’s just a perk of being an international hero,” he said with exaggerated machismo. He puffed up his chest; “I think I let her down easy, though.”
“Yes, you certainly did,” Virgil commented smoothly. “Exchanging phone numbers and mailing addresses is certainly the most effective way to deter further communication.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Max grumbled, but was secretly intrigued that Virgil had paid attention to this interaction at all. He noticed Norman turning around waiting for them to catch up. He and Virgil jogged forward to close the small distance, and Max nudged his Guardian’s arm lightly by way of greeting. “How ya’ doing, Big Guy?” he asked brightly.
Norman nodded his assertion gruffly. He had been one of the victims of Corpus, a large, sticky creature that had collected humans to increase in size. In its early stages, the people who had been joined in the monster’s hulking mass had been loners, outsiders, people whom the rest of the town would not immediately notice missing. As it grew, it had become less discerning, of course, but the stigma had persisted; and though Max was pretty sure that Norman had not been affected negatively by this experience, he knew he couldn’t be certain.
And that's all I had before I realized that I was boring myself silly and also that I was nearly 900 words in and there wasn't even a trace of Norman and Skullmaster doing the hokey-pokey. Or you know, whatever else could be meant by "explicit homosexual acts". Whichever.
* Cross-posted to mightymax, for which they may never forgive me.
Summary: “He’s heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but somehow, a stone painting of his Guardian engaged in what appears to be an explicit homosexual act with none other than Skullmaster seems to leave him at a loss for even one syllable.” Rated PG-13 or a soft R to be on the safe side. Not for delicate, erm, stomachs.
*
Love, Peace & Chicken Grease
*
The Chamber of Destiny startles Max as much as it intrigues him. He’s been the Capbearer for the better part of a year now, long enough to make a kind of uncomfortable peace with the less appealing aspects of his calling; namely, the guarantee that people will be hurt and killed and saved and crushed, and that he will be in the middle of it all with a magically-charged baseball cap on his head and a death wish.
It doesn’t completely surprise Max that there are things he doesn’t know about his destiny; on the contrary, he’s used to Virgil surprising him by the complexity of it all. And so while he wonders initially why he couldn’t have been informed of the development sooner, he chalks it up to Virgil having his reasons, and then concentrates on the multitude of questions that spring to mind.
He holds them at bay for the first few minutes, content simply to drink in the scenes. He remembers them all: their first and second meetings with Dr. Zygote; his trip to Haiti with his mom, where they stumbled upon the Zomboid monster; and numerous, sometimes deadly confrontations with Skullmaster. Dozens of adventures, all recorded in the enchanted stone; Max is in awe.
Curiosity gets the better of him; he wants to know why certain scenes are depicted and not others; why some tablets are blank and others hint at the future. Virgil looks pained when he tugs aside a small curtain, revealing a rather gruesome picture of Norman being eaten by a gigantic spider. The fowl stutters a lot when Max looks quizzically at him for an explanation, and it’s probably more of an answer than Max wants anyways, so he lets it filter into the back of his mind.
“So let me get this straight,” he concludes. “You basically know everywhere I’ve been and anything I’m doing?” A horrific thought crosses his mind. “Even, like, ‘this’?” He makes a tell-tale wanking motion with his hand for clarification.
“Certainly not, Mighty One,” Virgil says, looking scandalized. “The Hand of Fate merely selects what scenes I am privy to. And it generally passes over those moments when you are, erm …”
“Engaged in a private ceremony with my one-eyed trouser snake?” Max finishes, grinning as Virgil gasps; he realizes that he enjoys watching his avian mentor squirm, and also that that’s kind of sadistic of him. “It’s okay, Virg,” he relents. “Even if you have seen it, it’s not like you could have helped the fact.”
“Indeed,” Virgil concludes stiffly.
“Wait, so you HAVE watched?!” Max screeches accusatorily.
Virgil throws up his arms, feathers ruffling about his neck a little. “It is not my optimal choice of entertainment, I assure you, but I can hardly be blamed for unwittingly bearing witness to an activity that you seem content to partake in some ten or twelve approximations per day, Mighty One.”
Max rolls his eyes. “Whatever. It’s like, seven or eight times a day. Tops.” He strolls down towards the other end of the large picture wall, intrigued when he spots another curtain near the bottom. “A-ha, what do we have … here.” He trails off, gaping in abject horror at the scene that unfolds before him.
He’s heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but somehow, a stone painting of his Guardian engaged in what appears to be an explicit homosexual act with none other than Skullmaster seems to leave him at a loss for even one syllable.
“Mighty One …” Virgil’s arms flap about uselessly; the fowl looks flustered, but moreover, he looks guilty. “It - we knew you would have a difficult time understanding-“
“What, that Normy and the guy who’s been trying to kill all of us used to be butt buddies?” Max isn’t sure which is more shocking: that such a thing has happened in the first place, or that Skullmaster is ridiculously flexible for his size.
“I am sorry you had to find out this way, Mighty One.” Norman, who has just stepped out of the concave of his and Virgil’s home that served as his bedroom - complete with a stone mattress - places a large, bracing hand on Max’s shoulder. “It is not a part of my past that I’m particularly proud of. That is why I try to cover it up.”
“It’s all right, Big Guy,” Max says shakily. He risks glancing at the painting again, only shuddering minimally this time. “So, uh … how did you two meet?” he asks, trying to sound cordial and most likely failing miserably.
“You see, Mighty One,” Virgil jumps in, resuming the role of storyteller that he’s most comfortable with, “destiny works in odd ways. Though fate would decree that Norman and Skullmaster’s paths would cross due to the Prophecy, it also put forth that they would know each other prior to that.”
“Yeah, they knew each other, all right,” Max snorts. Virgil makes to press on, but Max holds up his hands pleadingly. “No, no more, I can fill in the blanks myself, thanks.” Then, unable to help himself: “but did you guys like, celebrate anniversaries or holidays or anything?” For some reason, the mental image of Skullmaster being romantic, to anyone, is more laughable than the time Felix had dressed up as Hippolyta for their eighth grade production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ - complete with heels, a wig, and one of Bea’s sister’s bras, stuffed with socks. And that had been pretty damned funny.
Norman just shrugs, however. “He wasn’t the mushy type. We mostly just fu- erm, it wasn’t a very emotional relationship,” he concludes quickly as Virgil makes with a sudden coughing fit.
Max shakes his head. He’s pretty sure this is the strangest thing he’s ever heard. “How did it end?” he guffaws, images of Norman storming out on a weeping Skullmaster wearing an apron nearly too much to bear at this point.
“Irreconcilable differences,” Norman intones blandly, as if he’d processed and discussed this thousands of times before. “He was getting more into the ‘destroying the world’ thing and wanted me to be the general in his grand army of minions. I walked out on him the night before an important battle. I heard later that he’d been making it with Warmonger the whole time, anyway.”
“Ah.” Suddenly, there’s just nothing more to say. Virgil slides the curtain back into place, and Max scuffs his toe against the ground. “Well,” he finally manages awkwardly, still torn between wanting to laugh and scream, “at least you got out with your freedom, huh, Normy?”
“Indeed.” Norman smirks, and then points to the holster slung across one shoulder. “And I did keep the sword he had made for me. Someday, you can use it to slice him in half, Mighty One.”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll leave that part to you, Big Guy,” Max hedges. He later searches for confirmation of this, but the Wall of Destiny, he comes to find, is remarkably ambiguous in matters like these. Eventually, he gets it to tell him that he’ll pass his science midterm the following week, and also that Norman and Skullmaster once had an orgy involving raw chicken, chocolate sauce, and seventeen virgins, however, and decides to call it good.
*
I wanted to include a bit in the story about Skullmaster gifting Norman the little skull earring he always wears in the cartoon, but it didn’t end up fitting. So I wrote a small ‘ficlet/drabble-ish thing about it instead.
He locked himself away a lot these days, spending much of his time plotting, Norman knew. He couldn’t broach the subject, of course, however, because it only turned into another argument about their jobs and how Norman didn’t appreciate all that Skullmaster did for him, and yadda yadda.
The small package on the counter was crudely wrapped, and Norman knew it was meant for him. Skullmaster watched with narrowed eyes as he opened it, fingering the skull-shaped earring curiosly. “I made it for you,” he rasped. “From the bone of one of my enemies.”
Norman unclipped the back and fitted it through his ear; it hung heavily from the bottom of the lobe, a reminder of what they were. “I like it,” he offered. “Now, what’s for dinner?”
Partially just to prove how much of a pain in the ass (pun intended!) this short little ‘fic has been, and somewhat because I’m just masochistic, I also present my false start to the story. It started out with good intentions, but ended up feeling a little long in the tooth. I was going for inane, possibly revolting, and generally funny, but this just didn’t go anywhere. Still, I find the difference between this bit and the final product interesting, so here it is.
Norman had never been much of a storyteller. Max had been somewhat surprised to learn that he spoke at all, and enjoyed the rare moments when he would indulge in tales of his life, pre-Guardian. It comforted Max somehow to know that he’d had one.
The task of detailing was often left to Virgil; the Lemurian was gifted at relating a flurry of interwoven events into an engaging and easy-to-follow tale, and Max always enjoyed it most when his avian mentor would let slip fragments of rather insignificant but wholly entertaining information, like the fact that he didn’t trust Norman to cook, or that he himself was allergic to pomegranate seeds.
And yet, for all of his wisdom, Max could not help but notice the key element often left out of or glossed over in the fowl’s stories. He did not begrudge Virgil for the minor shortcoming, but at eleven, Max was just becoming rather well in-tuned with the facial expressions and body language of attraction. And though Virgil’s accounts were complete in nearly every other way, Max could not help but notice that they lacked emphasis on emotion, on love.
Max knew how crazy things could get when he had those feelings for someone; he knew he couldn’t be the only one.
Opportunity finally arose in the form of Mujaji, Norman’s old flame. Nobody had said as much - likely because the mission had been particularly gruesome, resulting in the deaths of the four heroes Virgil had helped Max to recruit, including Mujaji.
The event had taken its toll on the young Capbearer; he had convinced those people to help him ward off Skullmaster so that he could destroy the Crystal of Souls. If he’d known that they had meant allowing them to die for his cause … he would have still had to go through with it, the call of destiny both a be-all-end-all rationale, and the reason for his discontent surrounding his Chosen One title. He’d lashed out at Virgil about it, had thrown the Cap back at him angrily.
Their subsequent mission had been much more treacherous than anticipated - Virgil had been captured, and Max had been forced to release Skullmaster out into the world to save his mentor’s life. Their interaction thereafter had been awkward, to say the least, the gentle camaraderie that they’d developed hidden beneath layers of hurt and misunderstanding.
It was during a mission in Eastern Europe to stop a crazed garbage man from inflicting himself on the world that the tentative ice they were all skating on seemed to crack. “Sarah sure was nice, don’t you think?” Max asked, referring to the young girl about his age whom they’d met along the way. They had helped to rescue her brother Jacob from the garbage man’s monster, Corpus, and she had been so happy that she’d thrown her arms around Max’s neck and kissed him wetly on the cheek. Max had blushed and noticed Virgil smiling discreetly out of the corner of his eye, and had felt relieved, somehow.
The trip home was lengthy, lending itself well to idle conversation. Max mentioned Srah with well-placed casualness, but he saw the corners of Virgil’s beak turn up anyways. “What are you smiling about?” the boy asked, mock-offended.
The fowl gazed at him through rounded spectacles, his eyes twinkling. “Nothing, Mighty One,” he said innocently. Then, apparently unable to resist: “I do believe you still have a trace of lipstick on your cheek.”
Max blushed and grinned good-naturedly as he wiped it off. “She was just friendly,” he said sheepishly.
“Indeed.” Virgil smirked. They plodded along, shoulder-to-shoulder; up ahead, Norman’s hulking mass provided a nice barrier from the sun. The Guardian had been weirdly quiet during this mission, even moreso than usual, and Max was pretty sure he knew why.
“Yeah, it’s just a perk of being an international hero,” he said with exaggerated machismo. He puffed up his chest; “I think I let her down easy, though.”
“Yes, you certainly did,” Virgil commented smoothly. “Exchanging phone numbers and mailing addresses is certainly the most effective way to deter further communication.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Max grumbled, but was secretly intrigued that Virgil had paid attention to this interaction at all. He noticed Norman turning around waiting for them to catch up. He and Virgil jogged forward to close the small distance, and Max nudged his Guardian’s arm lightly by way of greeting. “How ya’ doing, Big Guy?” he asked brightly.
Norman nodded his assertion gruffly. He had been one of the victims of Corpus, a large, sticky creature that had collected humans to increase in size. In its early stages, the people who had been joined in the monster’s hulking mass had been loners, outsiders, people whom the rest of the town would not immediately notice missing. As it grew, it had become less discerning, of course, but the stigma had persisted; and though Max was pretty sure that Norman had not been affected negatively by this experience, he knew he couldn’t be certain.
And that's all I had before I realized that I was boring myself silly and also that I was nearly 900 words in and there wasn't even a trace of Norman and Skullmaster doing the hokey-pokey. Or you know, whatever else could be meant by "explicit homosexual acts". Whichever.
* Cross-posted to mightymax, for which they may never forgive me.