ask-zacharie-the-merchant

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

The Batter Sydnova Photo shoot.

Cosplayer - Kato

Photographer - James Niland

Another photoshoot with the most fantastic photographer!  Fun Fact: This shoot was on Friday the 13th and there was a full moon over our heads and our location was supposed to be a cemetery! We had to make do with our hotel’s parking lot instead.

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

SOME ENOCHS FOR ALL YOUR LARGE GUARDIAN NEEDS!!!

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

Submitted By: Anon

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

There was a brief moment in time during which Zacharie found himself transfixed by the small, seemingly insignificant actions in front of him, his brows raising just the slightest bit. Every little twitch and action was analyzed and observed by the elder, and he would have continued so if he hadn't noticed himself staring at Ben's lips for much longer than he should have been. Or, rather, longer than any neighbor should be looking. 

After Ben made a comment directed to him, Zacharie let out a small cough under his breath, clearing his throat while trying to seem nonchalant. "Well, why not? You make good company, and I've been told that I can be rather charming on occasion." He offered a small smile, which slowly spread into a grin as a low chuckle escaped him. "Unless you don't like my presence, which I hope not. Your opinions are valued highly to me."

"Eh," Ben paused, the bottle was being pressed against his lips ever so gently, just enough that the tips of his teeth could clink against the dark green glass with an adamant notion. "Not really. My boss is ready to fire me, but that’s the same song and dance every other week with him." Ben shrugs his narrow shoulders, head tipped in thought. Pale eyes scan over the older man with a questioning motion, but Ben wasn’t ready to just start bugging the other with close questions.

"I’m.. I’m honestly surprised you even wanted to come over-- let alone talk.”  Obviously, Ben was more of a shut in than Zacharie originally thought, but it was painfully evident that Ben was also sickly. The dark circles that rang his eyes were a reminder of nights were the walls would melt like wax, and the sinks would ooze a depressing red, and as quickly as it would start, it would stop.

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

He was in a momentary trance, stuck in the contents of his own mind before he finally returned back into reality, his pale eyes shifting over to Ben. Just one glance at the bottles in his hand allowed Zacharie to figure out what Ben was asking, so with a quick smile he turned his body in order to walk closer to the younger man. "I'll take the Stella Artois." He said calmly, choosing to lean against the counter near Ben as he waited for the drink. Truthfully, Stella Artois was not his cup of tea; it was very mild, not nearly as strong as some of the hard alcohol he could drink in seconds. Still, the notion was kind, and he appreciated the fact that Ben would actually be comfortable enough to drink with him. It was like a real friendship.

Eventually Ben handed a bottle over to him, in which he popped open the top. As he did so, he lifted his head and asked, "So, what've you been up to? Anything interesting happen lately?" 

Ben left a fluttering smile that filled his lips for just a moment, before taking the boxes, and setting them down onto the blackened coffee table. “Just here’s fine.” He purred ever so slightly. Something was rising in his stomach, slowly, slowly. He was almost.. Elated to have someone in his home, let alone a mutual friend. Not just some stranger here for the ceiling fan. 

Ben, who now was trailing off into the kitchen, and is rummaging through the fridge for a moment. “Do you drink? Ya know. Like. Drink- drink? I have beer, but not much on the non-alcoholic side..” He pauses, peering around the door to the refrigerator, his head cocking over to one side as he looks the other over; Zacharie was just standing there. Looking rather dazed, confused. Ben blinked, and slowly turned to face him with a green bottle in his hand, waving it slowly. “Stella Artois is good. If you’re.. Uh.. Interested.” Shrugging slightly, he looks down at the bottles, studying the green glass and the amber liquid within it. Maybe Zacharie didn’t drink? Maybe Ben shouldn’t drink, seeing it almost gives complications with that medication routine. Then again, he really didn’t care.  

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

So I recently got a donut-making machine and

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

My my, it's oddly silent around here...I wonder where everyone has gone off too. I hope they're not too busy for social interaction.

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

"Hello Ben." The darker haired man offered a small grin as he lifted the food up, his way of motioning towards it without completly resting everything on one hand. "I brought some food. I wasn't sure if you ate dinner yet, but if you haven't, you can go ahead and help yourself." When Zacharie was allowed inside, he had tried to keep his ever-nonchalant expression on his face, simply keeping up with that cool facade. But nearly as soon as he stepped him he found himself widening his eyes, his fingers unconsciously clenching tighter around the boxes of pies. 

It was...incredibly nice. More than nice, in fact. Spectacular, nearly perfection at its finest. It was jaw-dropping and for a brief second Zacharie forgot that he was in somebody's apartment and not some model home created for a God. He stood there for a moment or so, simply admiring the beauty before him before he quickly cleared his throat. "You, ah. You have a very nice home." The frenchman spoke a bit faster in order to compensate for the fact that he was awkwardly standing there. Turning his head to look at Ben, he asked, "Where should I put this?..." 

In most situations, Zacharie would have just quite simply walked over to the living room couch and set the pizzas onto the coffee table. But, for some reason, he felt rather nervous around Ben. He couldn't place the exact cause of this anxiety, but there was this automatic need to impress the young man, even though he didn't have to. Needless to say, he will be thinking about this later on for the rest of the night, if he wasn't exhausted. 

 Hours of cleaning and extensively rearranging furniture, making sure that absolutely everything was resplendent.    The apartment wasn’t even dirty to begin with, but having company was a rare event, and Ben wasn’t exactly the best at entertaining. How would this even play out? Videogames over beer and trash-talk to eachother? But what about that stirring.. No. No, not that. Ben wouldn’t allow it. Shaking his hands over the sink, he stared down into the white abyss below- that nervous feeling was sinking into his gut again, and all he could do was just try and allow himself the pleasure of calming down- as if it were a luxury to have a calm moment. 

He had gutted the apartment- cleaned from top to bottom (not saying that he didn’t do it over and over and over.)  Allowing himself to clean was a good thing, he thought. His therapist always suggested compulsive cleaning to treat minor episodes, but for the most part, it did nothing but cause him more anxiety over the way it looked. It wasn’t his favourite thing, but it was something, When the knock at the door resonated into his apartment, all of the hair on the back of his neck , and sent his heart into fast paced fear. No. No. It’s okay. It’s just Zacharie.  Going to the door, he slowly unlocks, and opens the metal beast, and offers a grin to the man standing there.    "Hey."  What else could he say? That was the right thing to say, right? Just a simple Hey? Hello? How are you? How was your day- no..  Dear Lord, that sounded as if he was greeting his lover. Mentally slapping himself, he opens the door more, and allows the other to come in.  The interior of the apartment was just as if it had walked out of an Ikea magazine- however with a slight bohemian touch to it. Everything being resplendent wasn’t a bad sight- Ben was always good at making places look like someone is living there, not as if it were on a showroom floor. 

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

Zacharie's widened his eyes in sudden alarm, his chest clenching when he heard her scream in frustration. It didn't make any sense to him-- he had purposely hid the gun underneath the furs to avoid anybody robbing him, but he didn't think that it would be hidden��that well...

--unless, somebody had taken it from him unbeknownst to him, in which they were both royally fucked. 

Tightening his jaw, he dug his gloved fingers onto his stomach, mentally preparing himself for the terrible pain which was going to rocket through him once he started standing up. As expected, once he forced his body to move, waves of shock and utter anguish ran in his very being, enough to make tears well in his eyes. He had grown used to the numbness that the winter weather could only bring, and thus this foreign feeling of pain was impacting him harder than it should be. 

Miserable and shaking like a building about to collapse, he ventured further onward to the cart as fast as he could muster. His rendition of a sprint was a pathetic limp, almost a skip, trying to reach the cart before the stranger could get hurt even further. Once he reached the cart Zacharie pulled his hand away from his body so he could frantically search the cart, eyes darting in nearly every direction just so he could check every inch. Finally he brushed his hand against something firm, and after yanking his rolled-up tent away, he was able to find the damn pistol, bleak in color but now glorious in Zacharie's eyes, as if God Himself blessed them. His shivering hands reached down and lifted the gun, and with a few swift movements, he had the barrel loaded and ready for shooting. It didn't take much time for him to raise it higher and aim, but he couldn't shoot, not yet. The stranger was still scuffling with the cannibal, and they were moving around too much for him to get a proper shot. Unless, of course, he was desperate enough to waste all four bullets, which he may need to if the crisis grew worst.  

Swallowing thickly, he sharply spoke against the howl of the wind. "Move to your right!"

Barren

A pistol huh?  That might do the trick.  Kit wasn’t one to waste precious bullets, with how hard  they were to come by.  This was one of the times where there really was no other choice.

She shuffled back slowly to keep the alpha from charging at the two of them.  Her heel hit the wheel of his cart eventually.  Now all she had to do was dig through the piles of fur rugs.  And sure enough, it really was buried under all of these goddamn rugs.

The Alpha Feral snarled and barreled towards the woman frantically tossing fur into the snow.

"Shit shit shit shit!!  Where is it!!"

Kit snapped up her spear to fend off the feral when it tried to jump and bite at her.

"Where’s the goddamn gun?!!"

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

when my love is leaving

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

Arrives 2 years late with a stupid Les Mis joke

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

Wiggle like you’re try’na make your hat fall off

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

so i pitched down the announcer from TF2’s voice and

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

I Was Trying To Be Funny But It Came Out as Really Mean: A 5-part documentary starring me.

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

Although he always tried to keep that facade of (what he liked to call) calm indifference on his features, in the split second that the elevator doors closed the space between him and Ben, Zacharie sharply inhaled as if he were drowning, the tension in his ribcage making it rather difficult for him to breathe. Slinking to the back of the elevator, he rested his head against the ugly wall with a harsh thud, eyes casting up to the ceiling as if to ask the Almighty Lord why must you make me suffer in this way? Woe betide the unnerved neighbor who couldn't seem to bring up the courage for human interaction other than what was needed during work. 

Eventually, by the time he managed to reach the first floor of the apartment complex and then walk to his car, he managed to relax himself enough so he could stop sweating, finally having a moment of clarity. He shouldn't be so nervous. After all, Ben was just a young guy, probably fresh out of college. He shouldn't be so self conscious about what a twenty-something year old thought about him...confidence, Zacharie, that was the key to success. It got you this far in life. Might as well use what you've got and run with it, even if you were bullshitting the entire time.

The day went on like it normally did. There was a recently married couple that was interested in buying a family vehicle, and with that ever plastic smile Zacharie showed them about, patient even as they spent an hour trying to decide what color to pick. He ate lunch, quickly and by himself, which was per tradition. He liked orderly things, schedules and the like, so he never ventured off from what he considered the norm. After lunch he managed to have two more clients, both who (thankfully) were able to make a fast decision about the car they wanted to buy. As soon as it hit five in the afternoon, Zacharie was off the clock and back on the highway back home, the radio silent in order to allow himself some time to think. 

He would have typically went straight down the route if a sudden thought hadn't struck him. Although it was rather early for dinner, by the time he would reach the apartment complex, they would need to eat, and he didn't want to make Ben cook him something, God forbid. As he continued to ponder this, he unconsciously gripped tighter onto the steering wheel. He could always bring food...but he had no clue what Ben would like, or if he had allergies. He would've called Ben, but he didn't have his phone number. What a terrible situation he was in. 

After forty minutes of thinking, self hatred and staring at a menu, he managed to buy two pizzas, one plain and one pepperoni, as well as a bottle of soda. Everybody likes pizza. Unless, Ben was allergic to cheese, in which Zacharie would have to eat the entire pies in utter humiliation. 

It was a little after six when he returned home to the shitty excuse of an apartment building, spending a few extra minutes to gingerly carry the food into the complex and up the elevator, all the while trying to soothe his nervously pounding heart. No need to worry. Everybody likes pizza. Ben will like pizza. He will not be allergic. Calm down. 

Once Zacharie reached the appropriate floor, he shifted all of his objects onto one arm so he could briefly knock on Ben's door, stepping back like earlier to allow the other man room. He forced his attention forward, waiting again in complete patience for an answer. 

Ben’s brow slowly crept together- listening to what the man had to say with a quipped lip; He simply just nodded and chortled. “..Sure Zach. Why not? Just.. Drop by whenever you want.” He called, and beamed and nodded. He simply watches the other go towards the elevator with a smile, and soon he returns back into the apartment, and closes the door. 

But then he was hit with the wave. Anxiety soon crashed down onto him like a ton of bricks, and Ben soon fell crippled against the door, his head down between his knees, and clawed at his head. He didn’t know what to do. Fuck Fuck Fuck, what could he fucking do now? His first real friend that he could name by heart, and he was coming over to this shitty apartment.  He was quick to come back to his senses, and soon stand, staring down at his messy abode. This had to be taken care of. Quickly. 

[ask-zacharie-the-merchant]

[ But what if it was a Night Vale AU. imagine the possibilities ]

(( OFF AU where Zacharie’s a radio talk show host

"Ah ah ah~ Welcome…to the Zones." ))