On the fourth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me
Four unusual hatchings
[Title] Plans With Claws and Teeth
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG for language and very brief mention of sex
[Word Count] 514
[Notes/Summary] In Los Angeles, Mello considers his next move.
He was going to be ready
[Title] City Born from Paint Fumes
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 371
[Notes/Summary] Combo and Cube ponder the oddness of the place they ended up in.
“So, kid,” Combo says at last, when they’ve been sitting on the garage roof watching the Tokyo-to sunrise for a while. “You grew up here, yeah?”
“Wouldn’t call it growing up,” Cube says. “We moved when I was four or something, just Mom still spoke Japanese to me after we got to Grind City. Mostly to cuss me out, but still.”
“Okay, so, this place does seem weird to you, then?”
“Every place is weird. I reckon rudies always see the weird, always gettin’ into places we’re not meant to be and constantly inhaling paint fumes…”
“I guess.” Combo doesn’t look convinced.
“And Japan’s weird. Like, if you didn’t grow up here. Japan’s famous for being the home of weird. Sushi and anime and tentacles, right?”
“Nah, I ain’t talkin’ about the birdsong on the escalators or the train crew wearin’ white gloves. That’s just culture. And that ain’t our Tokyo-to, anyway. I’m talkin’ about… like, the rival gang who can speak to the crows. And the ones who paint with robotic arms attached to their backs. And the police chief who brings tanks into the pedestrian areas on a regular basis. And the way the weather always looks different dependin’ where you are, even if it’s rainin’ everywhere.”
“Yeah, okay,” Cube said, frowning. “I guess that stuff is a little… out there. I mean… it’s not bad. Except for the tanks part. Just…”
“Just this place got a… got its own style. Its own kinda whacked-out style. Like this kind of stuff just… gets born here.”
“Hey, maybe that’s what that demon-looking rhino was,” Cube says, bringing her knees up to rest her arms on them, staring out at the dark burnt-out shape of the Rokkaku Tower on the horizon. “Prof K talked shit about how the record was a hoax, and there was definitely some weird juju up on the top of that tower, so maybe Goji Rokkaku was tapping into the weird. Maybe the rhino thing was the city hatching some freaky monster, not Goji at all.” She looks round at Combo and smiles. “Or maybe I’ve been reading too much Lovecraft and breathing in too much paint.”
“Nah… off the record, I think you got a point.”
[Title] Becoming Paradise
[Fandom] Battle Royale / His Dark Materials
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 385
[Notes/Summary] Shou was actually a little concerned about what his daemon would fix as.
What you don't want is something drab
[Title] Drawing It Down
[Fandom] Portal 2
[Rating] PG, mentions of death
[Word Count] 510
[Notes/Summary] Rattmann tries to draw what he remembers, or what he knows.
For a long time he can’t draw it. Not that. Many of the things which happened, they happened afterwards, when all you could do was draw out, draw them out, all you could do was put them on the wall because you couldn’t start screaming and you couldn’t ask anyone to help you and you couldn’t even try and think yourself out of them because symptoms are exacerbated by stress which means the voices in the walls and on the intercom, the voices that aren’t Her, they get louder and louder and you can’t listen to anything and so you scrawl and scribble on the walls to stay alive.
The things which happened before. No. The thing which happened before and turned before into after. As time went on it felt further and further away. A tiny telescope-end of people vomiting blood and crying blood and clutching at their throats. He figured he should draw it down. Reality shifts enough in this place and he can’t rely on going back into memories. Perhaps one day he won’t be able to go back. So far, he can face it, and so far, he can work out what’s memory and what’s an aural hallucination trying to give its own version of events. Both of those things are far more tenuous than anything else he ever relied on, and a lot of what he relied on is now gone, or almost gone. Detachment can provide clarity. But detachment implies you’re detached, not embedded. He paints Her, a tangle of wires, and a sunny day, and a collection of neat, well-ordered figures, like he used to be, or like he used to pretend to be (never fully ordered, was he, or he wouldn’t have run, he wouldn’t have been paranoid, he would have stayed, he would have cried blood). (But not disordered enough, otherwise he would have run sooner and further, he would be somewhere else by now.) He paints the figures screaming and dying and he flicks a red paint brush at the wall. He remembers the woman, though he can’t remember her name, the voices are telling him it was Jane or Amy or Lisa but he can’t remember which is correct or whether someone here tells only lies anyway. He remembers her screaming on the other side of the door, he remembers looking into her face and seeing her seeing him and knowing he couldn’t help her. He draws her closest.
After he’s finished the piece and is watching it from the other side of the room something says to him you drew Her, you drew Her waking up and someone else chimes in, Isn’t it interesting, that he did that? and the cube, watching it all from the corner, says, Perhaps She was screaming too. He’s not inclined to waste any sympathy on Her, but the drawing could be read as a group of dying men around a woman screaming, as if her cry has destroyed them. Her name, the cube reminds him, is Caroline. Of course. That was it.
Four unusual hatchings
[Title] Plans With Claws and Teeth
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG for language and very brief mention of sex
[Word Count] 514
[Notes/Summary] In Los Angeles, Mello considers his next move.
He was going to be ready
[Title] City Born from Paint Fumes
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 371
[Notes/Summary] Combo and Cube ponder the oddness of the place they ended up in.
“So, kid,” Combo says at last, when they’ve been sitting on the garage roof watching the Tokyo-to sunrise for a while. “You grew up here, yeah?”
“Wouldn’t call it growing up,” Cube says. “We moved when I was four or something, just Mom still spoke Japanese to me after we got to Grind City. Mostly to cuss me out, but still.”
“Okay, so, this place does seem weird to you, then?”
“Every place is weird. I reckon rudies always see the weird, always gettin’ into places we’re not meant to be and constantly inhaling paint fumes…”
“I guess.” Combo doesn’t look convinced.
“And Japan’s weird. Like, if you didn’t grow up here. Japan’s famous for being the home of weird. Sushi and anime and tentacles, right?”
“Nah, I ain’t talkin’ about the birdsong on the escalators or the train crew wearin’ white gloves. That’s just culture. And that ain’t our Tokyo-to, anyway. I’m talkin’ about… like, the rival gang who can speak to the crows. And the ones who paint with robotic arms attached to their backs. And the police chief who brings tanks into the pedestrian areas on a regular basis. And the way the weather always looks different dependin’ where you are, even if it’s rainin’ everywhere.”
“Yeah, okay,” Cube said, frowning. “I guess that stuff is a little… out there. I mean… it’s not bad. Except for the tanks part. Just…”
“Just this place got a… got its own style. Its own kinda whacked-out style. Like this kind of stuff just… gets born here.”
“Hey, maybe that’s what that demon-looking rhino was,” Cube says, bringing her knees up to rest her arms on them, staring out at the dark burnt-out shape of the Rokkaku Tower on the horizon. “Prof K talked shit about how the record was a hoax, and there was definitely some weird juju up on the top of that tower, so maybe Goji Rokkaku was tapping into the weird. Maybe the rhino thing was the city hatching some freaky monster, not Goji at all.” She looks round at Combo and smiles. “Or maybe I’ve been reading too much Lovecraft and breathing in too much paint.”
“Nah… off the record, I think you got a point.”
[Title] Becoming Paradise
[Fandom] Battle Royale / His Dark Materials
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 385
[Notes/Summary] Shou was actually a little concerned about what his daemon would fix as.
What you don't want is something drab
[Title] Drawing It Down
[Fandom] Portal 2
[Rating] PG, mentions of death
[Word Count] 510
[Notes/Summary] Rattmann tries to draw what he remembers, or what he knows.
For a long time he can’t draw it. Not that. Many of the things which happened, they happened afterwards, when all you could do was draw out, draw them out, all you could do was put them on the wall because you couldn’t start screaming and you couldn’t ask anyone to help you and you couldn’t even try and think yourself out of them because symptoms are exacerbated by stress which means the voices in the walls and on the intercom, the voices that aren’t Her, they get louder and louder and you can’t listen to anything and so you scrawl and scribble on the walls to stay alive.
The things which happened before. No. The thing which happened before and turned before into after. As time went on it felt further and further away. A tiny telescope-end of people vomiting blood and crying blood and clutching at their throats. He figured he should draw it down. Reality shifts enough in this place and he can’t rely on going back into memories. Perhaps one day he won’t be able to go back. So far, he can face it, and so far, he can work out what’s memory and what’s an aural hallucination trying to give its own version of events. Both of those things are far more tenuous than anything else he ever relied on, and a lot of what he relied on is now gone, or almost gone. Detachment can provide clarity. But detachment implies you’re detached, not embedded. He paints Her, a tangle of wires, and a sunny day, and a collection of neat, well-ordered figures, like he used to be, or like he used to pretend to be (never fully ordered, was he, or he wouldn’t have run, he wouldn’t have been paranoid, he would have stayed, he would have cried blood). (But not disordered enough, otherwise he would have run sooner and further, he would be somewhere else by now.) He paints the figures screaming and dying and he flicks a red paint brush at the wall. He remembers the woman, though he can’t remember her name, the voices are telling him it was Jane or Amy or Lisa but he can’t remember which is correct or whether someone here tells only lies anyway. He remembers her screaming on the other side of the door, he remembers looking into her face and seeing her seeing him and knowing he couldn’t help her. He draws her closest.
After he’s finished the piece and is watching it from the other side of the room something says to him you drew Her, you drew Her waking up and someone else chimes in, Isn’t it interesting, that he did that? and the cube, watching it all from the corner, says, Perhaps She was screaming too. He’s not inclined to waste any sympathy on Her, but the drawing could be read as a group of dying men around a woman screaming, as if her cry has destroyed them. Her name, the cube reminds him, is Caroline. Of course. That was it.