"Trouble", Baccano! NaNoWriMo response
Okay, um, how could I possibly not be completely owned by wesleydodds's request? Brilliant. And black humor? I GET TO BE DISTURBING? THIS IS AWESOME.
Unfortunately, however, I was completely unable to bring it over 2000 words, like I've managed to do so far. OTL I feel really bad, especially since I've also suffered a bad case of writer's block over the last couple days. ;-; At least I'm still about four days ahead of schedule, but I think I can forget about completing NaNoWriMo twice over this year. XD It sounds like I'm going to be celebrating Christmas in November because I can't get enough time off in the holiday season to travel back to my hometown. :( I don't like Christmas, and I start to really hate it when both my family and job pressure me and demand my presence, but I do want to go back and hang out with my siblings. At the same time, though, why can't Christmas be a summer thing? It's going to be 40 below JUST TO SPITE ME. DX
Characters: Ennis and Luck
Genre: black comedy
Prompt: We have to replace Firo's hat before he finds out what we did to it!
Title: Trouble
Characters: Luck, Ennis, Firo
Genre: Black comedy
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence; death; disturbing myself, not to mention everyone else.
Wordcount: 1426
Total Progress: 28026/50000 = 56.05% complete
Once they had secured a brief moment of tranquility, only broken by the loud clattering sounds of a struggle from within the coat closet, Luck and Ennis stood in the hallway and silently stared down at the ruined scrap of cloth, wondering how it had come to this, why they had taken it so far, and what they were planning to do about it now. They were in so much trouble.
"This is all your fault," Ennis accused Luck, determined not to accept any blame for their situation. "None of this would have happened if you hadn't crashed into me!"
"My fault?" Luck shot back, having lost every last fragment of his famous composure throughout the escalating events. "What did you expect, running through the streets like that? Of course there was going to be an accident! You should have been watching out where you were going! What were you even doing with it, anyway?"
"He was in a rush and forgot to take it with him! I knew it was important to him, so I was trying to catch up! Okay, so maybe it was my fault that it was ruined," she said, grudgingly accepting that she hadn't been paying enough attention, "but you were the one responsible for dragging this situation to a whole new level!"
"Yes! Yes, I did!" Luck admitted. "But I didn't see you do anything to stop me--in fact, I seem to remember how you started to lecture me about going about it all wrong, with full demonstrations and everything!"
Their argument was interrupted by the closet door crashing open and the chair toppling out from within falling to pieces when it hit the floor, causing the ropes to fall slack, enabling their captive to remove his blindfold and gag before standing up to look at the two of them in with no small amount of horror.
Under Firo's shocked and betrayed stare, Luck and Ennis did their best to look very, very sorry.
~~~
Only about fifteen minutes ago, Ennis had run out the front door of the residence she shared with Firo Prochainezo, clutching his most treasured item of clothing in her left hand: the hat his good friend, Maiza Avaro, had bought him as part of the ritual to celebrate his promotion within the Camorra. He'd only had it for less than a week, and still managed to forget it on his dresser from time to time, so today, after having realized it had been absent from his head upon leaving that morning, had thought she would save him a bit of trouble and deliver it before he had to come all the way back home once he noticed its absence himself, since she had nothing to do that morning anyway. Less than a block on her way, however, she found herself colliding with Luck Gandor, Firo's closest childhood friend, who happened to live nearby, as he turned the corner. They'd both managed to keep their footing, but the hat had flown out of her hand to land in the street.
Luck recognized the hat just before the first set of wheels crushed it against the pavement, and the two of them watched in perfectly synchronized horror as the second car sent it flying directly into the grill of a nearby hot dog stand, where it quickly burst into flame. The surprised vendor panicked and threw it into a muddy puddle with the pair of tongs he'd been holding, stomping out the sparks that remained with his shoe. If it hadn't been completely flattened already, it surely was now.
Ennis and Luck crossed the street in a detached sort of fascination, and the vendor looked at them apologetically as they approached, slowly removing his shoe from the puddle and carefully picked up the crushed, soaked, stained, and singed scrap of unrecognizable material, wisely choosing to remain silent when it was taken from him by numb fingers as Ennis asked weakly, "This can be fixed, right?" Receiving no answer, she ran half-hazardously back across the street, nearly getting hit by several cars as Luck followed after her with a little more caution. He caught up to her in the kitchen after closing the front door she'd left wide open upon her return, finding her frantically scrubbing away at the fabric in the sink. After a short time, she rinsed it off and held it up, but only a minimal amount of the mud stains were removed and the singed and blackened areas remained unaffected. Even worse, her rough handling had caused additional trauma, and now the rim was torn halfway off. She turned to look at Luck, her face consumed in a panic just moments from taking over the rest of her body.
"It's alright," he said, in an effort to calm her down and get things back under control, starting to feel her hysteria transfer over to him. Firo was really attached to that hat and him finding out what they had let happen to it could hurt relations quite a bit--but he wasn't sure by how much, since nothing like this had ever happened before. "It's alright. I know where he got that hat. If we head over there right away, we might be able to replace it before Firo ever finds out what happened. He doesn't ever have to know about this."
A light of hope began to shine from deep within Ennis' eyes as she began to walk over to him, but, just at that moment, the front door opened again and Firo's voice called out, filling them both with dread, "Hey, Ennis, sorry, but I forgot my hat again. Is it still on my dresser?"
Upon reflection, Luck really had no idea what had brought him to react the way he did. When falling into a great deal of trouble, it was only natural for people to dig themselves even deeper in their attempts to escape it, he supposed, but still couldn't figure out exactly what he was thinking when he drew his gun and shot Firo in the head as he passed by the open doorway.
Firo's lifeless body crumpled to the floor and the two of them stared at the body and the blood splattered across the opposite wall for a long moment before Luck mechanically put his gun away and Ennis dropped the destroyed hat on the floor.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Ennis shouted at him as she rushed over to Firo's corpse, the blood on the wall already beginning to crawl toward the floor by a force other than gravity, but if Luck was expecting to be chewed out on the total lack of sense and morality involved in murdering his best friend instead of just apologizing for his involvement in ruining his cherished hat, she completely surprised him by pushing Firo onto his back and pulling out the knife he kept in his jacket, stabbing him through the heart just as he began to revive. His arms, just starting to rise from the floor, fell slack once more before awareness had fully returned. "He isn't going to stay down from something like that! You have to prevent him from recovering by continuously inhibiting a vital organ!"
Seeing Ennis' hand clench around the handle with increasing power as the mysterious effects of the elixir attempted to push out the blade, Luck pulled one of the kitchen chairs out into the hallway and asked, urgently, "Where do you keep the rope?"
~~~
After a moment, Firo's eyes fell upon the remains of his most treasured possession tightly clutched in Ennis' hand, recalled what he had overheard from within the closet, and suddenly the entire thing made a disturbing amount of sense. "Oh, I see," he managed, unable to erase the horrified expression from his face.
"Firo--" Luck and Ennis said, both at once as they took a step forward to explain themselves, but Firo raised both hands to ward them off as he began to back away.
"Ah, no, that's all right," he told them with a slight edge of fright lifting his voice a bit higher than normal. "I get it. I completely understand. Don't worry about it. I can get that replaced, no problem." His back came into contact with the front door and he grappled with the handle, unable to take his eyes off the two of them, but still managed to open the door somehow. "Just... just don't come near me for a little while, alright?" And, with an awkward attempt at a smile, backed out the doorway and took off at a full run down the street.
"...Your fault," Ennis asserted, reigniting the argument.
Unfortunately, however, I was completely unable to bring it over 2000 words, like I've managed to do so far. OTL I feel really bad, especially since I've also suffered a bad case of writer's block over the last couple days. ;-; At least I'm still about four days ahead of schedule, but I think I can forget about completing NaNoWriMo twice over this year. XD It sounds like I'm going to be celebrating Christmas in November because I can't get enough time off in the holiday season to travel back to my hometown. :( I don't like Christmas, and I start to really hate it when both my family and job pressure me and demand my presence, but I do want to go back and hang out with my siblings. At the same time, though, why can't Christmas be a summer thing? It's going to be 40 below JUST TO SPITE ME. DX
Characters: Ennis and Luck
Genre: black comedy
Prompt: We have to replace Firo's hat before he finds out what we did to it!
Title: Trouble
Characters: Luck, Ennis, Firo
Genre: Black comedy
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence; death; disturbing myself, not to mention everyone else.
Wordcount: 1426
Total Progress: 28026/50000 = 56.05% complete
Once they had secured a brief moment of tranquility, only broken by the loud clattering sounds of a struggle from within the coat closet, Luck and Ennis stood in the hallway and silently stared down at the ruined scrap of cloth, wondering how it had come to this, why they had taken it so far, and what they were planning to do about it now. They were in so much trouble.
"This is all your fault," Ennis accused Luck, determined not to accept any blame for their situation. "None of this would have happened if you hadn't crashed into me!"
"My fault?" Luck shot back, having lost every last fragment of his famous composure throughout the escalating events. "What did you expect, running through the streets like that? Of course there was going to be an accident! You should have been watching out where you were going! What were you even doing with it, anyway?"
"He was in a rush and forgot to take it with him! I knew it was important to him, so I was trying to catch up! Okay, so maybe it was my fault that it was ruined," she said, grudgingly accepting that she hadn't been paying enough attention, "but you were the one responsible for dragging this situation to a whole new level!"
"Yes! Yes, I did!" Luck admitted. "But I didn't see you do anything to stop me--in fact, I seem to remember how you started to lecture me about going about it all wrong, with full demonstrations and everything!"
Their argument was interrupted by the closet door crashing open and the chair toppling out from within falling to pieces when it hit the floor, causing the ropes to fall slack, enabling their captive to remove his blindfold and gag before standing up to look at the two of them in with no small amount of horror.
Under Firo's shocked and betrayed stare, Luck and Ennis did their best to look very, very sorry.
~~~
Only about fifteen minutes ago, Ennis had run out the front door of the residence she shared with Firo Prochainezo, clutching his most treasured item of clothing in her left hand: the hat his good friend, Maiza Avaro, had bought him as part of the ritual to celebrate his promotion within the Camorra. He'd only had it for less than a week, and still managed to forget it on his dresser from time to time, so today, after having realized it had been absent from his head upon leaving that morning, had thought she would save him a bit of trouble and deliver it before he had to come all the way back home once he noticed its absence himself, since she had nothing to do that morning anyway. Less than a block on her way, however, she found herself colliding with Luck Gandor, Firo's closest childhood friend, who happened to live nearby, as he turned the corner. They'd both managed to keep their footing, but the hat had flown out of her hand to land in the street.
Luck recognized the hat just before the first set of wheels crushed it against the pavement, and the two of them watched in perfectly synchronized horror as the second car sent it flying directly into the grill of a nearby hot dog stand, where it quickly burst into flame. The surprised vendor panicked and threw it into a muddy puddle with the pair of tongs he'd been holding, stomping out the sparks that remained with his shoe. If it hadn't been completely flattened already, it surely was now.
Ennis and Luck crossed the street in a detached sort of fascination, and the vendor looked at them apologetically as they approached, slowly removing his shoe from the puddle and carefully picked up the crushed, soaked, stained, and singed scrap of unrecognizable material, wisely choosing to remain silent when it was taken from him by numb fingers as Ennis asked weakly, "This can be fixed, right?" Receiving no answer, she ran half-hazardously back across the street, nearly getting hit by several cars as Luck followed after her with a little more caution. He caught up to her in the kitchen after closing the front door she'd left wide open upon her return, finding her frantically scrubbing away at the fabric in the sink. After a short time, she rinsed it off and held it up, but only a minimal amount of the mud stains were removed and the singed and blackened areas remained unaffected. Even worse, her rough handling had caused additional trauma, and now the rim was torn halfway off. She turned to look at Luck, her face consumed in a panic just moments from taking over the rest of her body.
"It's alright," he said, in an effort to calm her down and get things back under control, starting to feel her hysteria transfer over to him. Firo was really attached to that hat and him finding out what they had let happen to it could hurt relations quite a bit--but he wasn't sure by how much, since nothing like this had ever happened before. "It's alright. I know where he got that hat. If we head over there right away, we might be able to replace it before Firo ever finds out what happened. He doesn't ever have to know about this."
A light of hope began to shine from deep within Ennis' eyes as she began to walk over to him, but, just at that moment, the front door opened again and Firo's voice called out, filling them both with dread, "Hey, Ennis, sorry, but I forgot my hat again. Is it still on my dresser?"
Upon reflection, Luck really had no idea what had brought him to react the way he did. When falling into a great deal of trouble, it was only natural for people to dig themselves even deeper in their attempts to escape it, he supposed, but still couldn't figure out exactly what he was thinking when he drew his gun and shot Firo in the head as he passed by the open doorway.
Firo's lifeless body crumpled to the floor and the two of them stared at the body and the blood splattered across the opposite wall for a long moment before Luck mechanically put his gun away and Ennis dropped the destroyed hat on the floor.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Ennis shouted at him as she rushed over to Firo's corpse, the blood on the wall already beginning to crawl toward the floor by a force other than gravity, but if Luck was expecting to be chewed out on the total lack of sense and morality involved in murdering his best friend instead of just apologizing for his involvement in ruining his cherished hat, she completely surprised him by pushing Firo onto his back and pulling out the knife he kept in his jacket, stabbing him through the heart just as he began to revive. His arms, just starting to rise from the floor, fell slack once more before awareness had fully returned. "He isn't going to stay down from something like that! You have to prevent him from recovering by continuously inhibiting a vital organ!"
Seeing Ennis' hand clench around the handle with increasing power as the mysterious effects of the elixir attempted to push out the blade, Luck pulled one of the kitchen chairs out into the hallway and asked, urgently, "Where do you keep the rope?"
~~~
After a moment, Firo's eyes fell upon the remains of his most treasured possession tightly clutched in Ennis' hand, recalled what he had overheard from within the closet, and suddenly the entire thing made a disturbing amount of sense. "Oh, I see," he managed, unable to erase the horrified expression from his face.
"Firo--" Luck and Ennis said, both at once as they took a step forward to explain themselves, but Firo raised both hands to ward them off as he began to back away.
"Ah, no, that's all right," he told them with a slight edge of fright lifting his voice a bit higher than normal. "I get it. I completely understand. Don't worry about it. I can get that replaced, no problem." His back came into contact with the front door and he grappled with the handle, unable to take his eyes off the two of them, but still managed to open the door somehow. "Just... just don't come near me for a little while, alright?" And, with an awkward attempt at a smile, backed out the doorway and took off at a full run down the street.
"...Your fault," Ennis asserted, reigniting the argument.