axeattitude

[axeattitude]

INBOX CALL. like if you’d like to be sent some memes, i’ll send a few.

[axeattitude]

DISCOVERIES!

reverse it, switch it up a bit, do whatever you want!

[ 01 ] sender discovers receiver trying to take care of their own wound very badly.

[ 02 ] sender discovers receiver trying to see something on their body with the aid of a hand mirror.

[ 03 ] sender discovers receiver attempting an ineffective 'home cure' for their illness.

[ 04 ] sender discovers receiver trying to style their hair but failing.

[ 05 ] sender discovers receiver precariously carrying way too much.

[ 06 ] sender discovers receiver doing home improvement incorrectly / dangerously.

[ 07 ] sender discovers receiver sitting outside after getting locked out.

[ 08 ] sender discovers receiver sitting on the ground trying to attract a street cat.

[ 09 ] sender discovers receiver looking at rings in a jewelry store.

[ 10 ] sender discovers receiver crying alone.

[ 11 ] sender discovers receiver dancing in their underwear.

[ 12 ] sender discovers receiver throwing something across the room.

[ 13 ] sender discovers receiver eating the sender's leftovers.

[ 14 ] sender discovers receiver writing / drawing in their journal.

[ 15 ] sender discovers receiver building a pillow fort.

[ 16 ] sender discovers receiver fast asleep in a weird spot.

[ 17 ] sender discovers receiver yelling at the television / a video game.

[ 18 ] sender discovers receiver terrified of a small bug.

[ 19 ] sender discovers receiver baking / cooking in a messy kitchen.

[ 20 ] sender discovers receiver trying to move something way too heavy.

[ 21 ] sender discovers receiver on the floor after they fell.

[ 22 ] sender discovers receiver drinking their fifth cup of coffee of the day.

[ 23 ] sender discovers receiver curled up on the bathroom floor after being sick.

[ 24 ] sender discovers receiver playing with fire, literally.

[ 25 ] sender discovers receiver snooping around where they shouldn't be.

[ 26 ] sender discovers receiver wrapping a present for sender.

[ 27 ] sender discovers receiver rearranging the room yet again.

[ 28 ] sender discovers receiver watching the latest episode without sender.

[ 29 ] sender discovers receiver with their head in the freezer trying to cool off.

[ 30 ] sender discovers receiver soaking wet with no obvious explanation.

[axeattitude]

kerry has little to no filter most times and i love that for him because it means he can say the most out of pocket shit with full confidence and near zero hesitation and be mostly unbothered by any sort of reaction it gets. he’s going to say something and other people are just going to have to deal with it <3 like throwing out tiny little verbal hand grenades

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kerry would have one of those little mini treadmills in his closet to walk on to model shit for himself and see how it looks like together. btw.

[axeattitude]

a few long beats drag on. the bot is free. when it comes to corpos, so little is - there's always a cost or a catch. free isn't always to be trusted, or isn't always what it seems.

kerry starts to respond, then catches himself. he's wary. he doesn't know bryce beyond what he is and who he works for. for what little he does know though, bryce may deserve the benefit of the doubt. he seemed honest before, and he cut him slack when he didn't have to, which is as generous as many corpo types can manage to be. he went easy.

bryce could be honest now. if there is an angle here, kerry isn't sure what bryce could stand to gain.

"mm, clashes with your decor, huh? wouldn't make a good coat rack?" the sarcasm is on level with bryce's own. "i'm kinda surprised i'm the first person you thought of. there any catch about it i ought to know?"

"Don't doubt it." Bryce says gentle and huskily enough that it might not have been received if telephones still existed. He was a little distracted by the bot, still making small adjustments to it to notice any chunk of minutes going by.

"NetWatch, naturally. An old sentry bot." The agent could have droned on about how these were in office when he first started out, acting as service bots. "Had a complete sweep of it's soft of course, so it shouldnt go after the Eurodyne special bots." A comment laced in sarcasm. Or maybe it was just his attitude.

"I don't want to sell it, i just want to get rid of it. It's quite the eyesore in my pad you understand."

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"i do deserve one. i can be a good boy when i wanna." he says. good boy and kerry eurodyne so rarely go hand-in-hand—bryce wouldn't know but kerry does, and it's amusing enough he rewards himself with a laugh before he takes a swig from a nearby water bottle and leans back against the treadmill as a support prop.

but after, for a moment, he lets bryce's dangled overture hang. it's a contemplative quiet and his expression reflects it. a netwatch agent offering a bot—sure for a price, but that's a given—to the very person his corporation had set him loose upon, however tame and relatively painless the interaction had gone.

"but, uh, as for the bot... you just lookin' to get some easy eds, or do you think i might actually want it? what's special about it? where'd you get it?"

Clever. Kinda. It made Bryce almost chuckle nonetheless, which was actually difficult to do sometimes. So few things made the agent laugh genuinely. Something about how he got on this mans nerves in specific seemed amusing. But, Bryce wasn't here for a bout of laughs.

"No. Green in fact all across the board for you. You deserve a gold star sticker, congratulations." Bryce let that hang for a moment, taking the time to take a small, and relatively silent draw of his cigarette before putting it out.

"Far simpler, really. I aquired a bot of my own. A few generations old and I really have no use for it. You are the first person that came to mind of who I could pass it off to."

[axeattitude]

@nettwatchedd: " Good to see you, Kerry. It's... oh, how did you put it last? ' Agent whoever the fuck ' Hope you, and your bots have been well. "

for a few beats, the only response bryce receives is the measured inhale-exhale pattern of a moderate jogging pace. it takes kerry a couple seconds to look down at the controls of his treadmill and decrease the speed down to zero, then step onto the sides of the equipment and grab a small towel draped over a handrail to dab at his face and neck.

he makes bryce wait through it all.

he doesn't seem too surprised by the unexpected call, either.

"hey, agent whoever the fuck," kerry drawls. it takes willpower to maintain an even keel level of annoyance - bit fucking aggravating having to stop his run for this, only halfway through his distance goal. "we were doin' just fine til you called. what do you want this time? more eurodyne's bein' naughty even though i actually don't know what i could'a done this time biz?"

[axeattitude]

[axeattitude]

@singerblade: i’d like you to trust me someday.

"uh..." he isn't sure how to respond to that. kerry does trust azriel. he's as sure of that as he is of anything. azriel's earned it, and he's told them as much in his own way. mostly indirect, though in a way that would have left very little question about it.

but azriel doesn't seem to know that when kerry thought they did. it's troubling. kerry isn't sure if it's more his fault that azriel doesn't or if it's azriel's. either option isn't good, and he doesn't know how to feel about one or the other.

"the fuck, az? i do." he says before he frowns and crosses his arms low and loose over his chest. "where are you coming from with this? i thought you knew where we stood."

[axeattitude]

if there is one thing abundantly clear about manuel, it’s that it’s hard to ever really stay annoyed with him. even now, in the flitting path of his thoughts, when questions can go ignored. or, more accurately, unnoticed, despite whatever his intentions might be.

kerry huffs a quiet chuckle to himself and shakes his head. manuel is at least consistent in that. he’d long ago learned how to navigate around it with affection, and chalked it up to manuel’s puzzling charm.

"mhm, they are. i’m sure they wouldn’t mind bein’ chooms, they’re pretty good about going with the flow. just gotta say something to them." he reminds himself to mention the interest to paz. send a text as a heads up. while paz doesn’t need a nudge to move anything along, manuel may. kerry doesn’t mind facilitating.

kerry sweeps the lounge as he follows behind manuel, takes stock of the vending machines, the couches, the entertainment center. a handful of employees dot the space. only one or two pay them any mind. "but to answer your question, nah, never been here. figured there had to be an employee lounge somewhere though."

after a couple of last drags manuel deftly pockets his vape, metallic green and wonderfully unobtrusive.  he is trying to quit, or at least he tells himself that he is — in any case, manuel is trying. always. he is trying to pick better habits, he is trying to stand a little taller. he isn't very good at finishing what he has started, never has been, but one thing about him is, surely, that he tries. mixed results notwithstanding. they could put it on his tombstone, he guesses.

'' they're pretty cool, right? saved my sorry ass a few times too. ''   the admiration is clear in his voice.  it's impossible, he thinks, to feel any kind of animosity towards paz. they bring so much light into an otherwise murky world.

he leads the way, coming into a lounge area near the kitchen:  a vendor machine with snacks and drinks, extremely comfortable couches and a tv center.  it's employees only, technically, but kerry's with him so it shouldn't matter.   '' hey, did you ever come down here? ''

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[axeattitude]

thinking about posting a loose/informal list of hc about young kerry later, like some of the things he used to do (to get by, to save some money, to further his goals, etc). not sure though.

[axeattitude]

kerry shrugs as he turns his head to inventory the bottles on the wall and the small knickknacks and space fillers on the shelves in between. he doesn't know how much charon would be comfortable with him sharing. it might not matter. he might not care one way or the other at all. they had never discussed it other than a blanket refusal to share any details with the media, but they are no secret, either.

paz is different. kerry trusts, cares about, and loves them, and has never felt a need to keep much close to the chest with them.

he likes to think his regard for them might extend from charon to some extent on principal, too.

"er, okay, yeah. so- i started goin' to the hotel whenever i was in new york and i guess we became friends at some point. he kinda caught my eye real early on, not gonna lie. we started goin' to restaurants together, cafes, coffee houses, social stuff, whatever. just, around. would go to his place, too, and we both came out to see each other a couple times. we'd send each other stuff occasionally, too."

he looks back paz, expression just as tender as it is thoughtful. he's parsing out what to share here. "and, uh, well, one of those times he invited me to dinner, home cooked. i had some easy biz in the city to take care of, so i finished that up asap to have more time for him. then- well, i'm gonna spare some details, but how we felt about each other kinda came out durin' the night, which i didn't expect when i first got there. i mean, maybe i should've, because the vibe felt... shit, i don't know, different? who would'a fuckin' thought, right? man like him likin' someone like me. anyway, it just evolved from there after we sat down and had a talk about it the next day, and... here we are now. we kept it real quiet at first, so the timeline’s longer than you probably think, but..."

unconsciously, kerry shifts a hand to one of his bracelets and twists it on his wrist. it was a gift from charon. "i have a good feelin' about this, i really do. have from the start, and we've been goin' strong for a while now. i just, uh, i don’t wanna lose him."

only half of paz's brain is focused on the crate, maybe less.  kerry will forgive them, but their conversation is a lot more interesting right now. it feels good, also, to talk like normal human beings. paz thinks it should be mandatory, at least once a week so they don't forget that living can be beautiful too, that there is more to life than just surviving and killing.

there is something to be said for the way kerry simply accepts them in his space, too.  it feels natural, like it's always been this way, no questions asked. they wonder if kerry remembers that day, years ago, when he met a very different version of themselves:  haunted, skittish, running aimlessly away from their past. he is part of the reason they made it here today, whole and thriving under the east coast sun.

'' thought so. ''   they slip their sunglasses off their head, leaving them on the counter, thinking carefully about what they want to ask.  for all their playfulness, this is not something they tend to make fun of. not love, of all things.   '' how did it even happen? i am glad it did, hand on my heart, but... why don't you start from the beginning? lay it out for me. ''

[axeattitude]

send me a line of dialogue your muse would say to mine

as long or short as you want! create an original sentence prompt specifically for our muses’ dynamic

[axeattitude]

kerry is someone who went from the bottom and clawed his way to the very top through sheer will, dedication and determination, hunger, ambition, steel nerves and a metal soul and monstrous talent (and so much more) and i love that for him. proud of that guy!!!!

[axeattitude]

charon hadn't spoken after that. he hadn't as he had moved kerry away from the wall and placed a firm hand at the small of his back to guide him out of the bar. he hadn't as kerry had stopped to pay his tab. he hadn't as he'd opened and closed the car door for him, or during the entire ride home.

kerry hadn't tried to either. he had only rested his head against the soothing, cool passenger window and watched as the city had passed them by, arms crossed tight over his chest in his tension.

he had stared at charon's back as he had followed him into the house, and had briefly wondered if it might not just be better to quietly part ways, go to bed, and face whatever conversation there is to be had tomorrow when he isn't half drunk. he chose not to. instead, he had followed him into the kitchen.

"i didn't think about it." under the dim glow of the soft blue accent lighting, it seems more forgiving to look at the water glasses instead of charon.

he doesn't understand it at first, the reason behind kerry's retreat deeper into the dubious bar he has found him in.  it is only when he takes a deep breath that he is made aware of the awful tension in his muscles, the stiffness in his spine. he is not angry. not even after hours spent securing a close enough estimation of kerry's whereabouts:  it took him longer than he would have liked, night city still a little foreign to him, but a surveillance camera in heywood found a match an hour ago.

it's 3 am and in the wrong light worry can look deceiving, too cold and stern for comfort.  before he can school himself back into his usual self it slips into his voice as well, nestles there until it clips his vowels and robs them of warmth.

he doesn't talk during the car ride home, but by the time he pulls into the driveway the set of his shoulders has relaxed under the white of his shirt.  and inside, under the soft blue lights of the kitchen, charon doesn't have the heart to stay silent any more than he already has, to let kerry believe he needs to brace for something.   '' next time, would you keep your phone on? i would certainly worry less. ''   he pours two glasses of water out of habit, the motion precise and steady, surgical. not a drop goes to waste.