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the-voice-of-hell · 3 years

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Rent is Theft, part 16

Read from the beginning here, read the previous chapter here. Note: My MC is a Filipina trans woman and I am not. If you have notes on that or anything else, hit me up.

***

“I dunno… Is it OK if I take a shower?”

“Is it OK if I help out?”

“Um, I just want to get clean.”

I stood up and took her in my arms. “Aw, it’s no big deal. Sex can be kinda messy and embarrassing. You should be proud of yourself. That was awesome.”

“But you didn’t...”

“I’ll get mine, Leimomi. We have all the time we want.” I kissed her cheek. “Go shower up, be quick. I’m gonna straighten myself out too.”

She nodded and went through her bedroom into the bathroom. I washed my face and hands in the sink, then went to figure out what to do with my clothes.

The low lights in the room made a mirror of the big window, but a dim one. I checked myself out in it, hand on a hip, ooh la la. But something about the darkness just made me look old and skeletal. I decided to put on all my clothes.

Momi was taking long enough that I had a bored minute, so I went to intercept. I didn’t want her to shy away after she was done with the shower, figured I wouldn’t let her get the opportunity. I stood outside her bathroom door and waited.

She stepped out and I spread my arms. “I missed you. C’mere.”

“Uh, OK.” She inched closer and I folded myself around her.

“We’re good, right?” I searched her eyes.

“Oh course, Courtney.”

“Good.” I pecked her lips once. “Let’s relax on your bed. Come on.”

She nodded. I got onto the bed quick, resisting the temptation to bounce in like a kid. To my disappointment, she started putting on her pajamas. Oh well. I took the moment to surreptitiously watch her luscious body as it disappeared into cloth. Click went the camera of my memory, then I looked away so she wouldn’t notice.

Momi got into bed beside me and pulled the blanket over us. It was the blanket that came with the unit. Her apartment must have been less ravaged by the allergy episode than mine was. I got close, hugging her with my whole body, then looked her in the eyes.

“Hey, you mind if I feel you up? Just for a minute. I like the way your bod feels through the clothes.”

“Mm, just a minute. I mean, I just took a shower.”

I laughed like a movie villain and rubbed her all over. It was a good time, but I didn’t want to be too self indulgent, so I settled back into laying beside her pretty quickly.

I felt something slipping at my scalp - the scarf came loose, and Reverse Courtney immediately started in on us. “Momi! Momi! We don’t belong here, baby! Get out while the gettin’s good! Don’t trust Courtney! I can’t believe you trusted Courtney! This is your life baby!”

I was mad. “Hey! Hey!” I pawed at the back of my head and she nipped me with painful bites. I checked to make sure they didn’t draw any blood while she rattled on.

Momi looked startled and upset at first, but then realized the culprit - some of her hair had wormed free of the scarves, and pulled mine off. The strand was whipping around her head, trying to pull off the rest of her wrap.

We both fell about the bed, wrestling with ourselves, lending each other hands as needed. I felt like a cowboy at a demented surreal porn rodeo. At last, we had our heads bound again, and fell in beside each other - this time sitting up, uncomfortably sweaty, romance exhausted.

She sobbed once into her hands. “What can we do? What can we do?”

I held her close. “I’ll figure it out. I did last time, I’ll do it again. You’ll see.”

“But how? Allergies is a thing that happens. You can do something to that. Nobody turns into a monster.”

“We’re not monsters honey, but you gave me a good idea. We can look up books about monsters. If the other thing had an answer, I bet this does too. It has to. It does.”

“...I guess.” She let me comfort her with embraces. I loved it.

“Hey. Ever since I messed up before, ever since we had that hard night, I felt sick. I was sure I’d never feel OK again without you, sure I loved you.”

She couldn’t look at me, feeling too intense, face red.

“I love you, Leimomi. I wanna be your girlfriend for life. I never wanna let you go.”

She still couldn’t talk, just pulled me back under the blankets and held me close. I don’t know why we cried. We cried a lot. Life is the worst.

***

The first date was a kind of test to see if the volatile feelings would break into conflict and push us apart again. We spent that night sleeping together. Well, I slept eventually, but had been awake for more than an hour, just watching her.

After that, I felt great. That turbulent energy was still there the next morning, but everything we did, every moment that passed helped to iron it out. I invited her to my apartment for breakfast, did the housewife thing again. Every time we were close, we touched.

We sat across the kitchenette island from each other as we ate, talked about little things like nail polish and annoying neighbors. She didn’t care for Perry, but the man was intentionally off-putting, so reasonable feelings all around. We laughed nervously at each other’s jokes.

As I went to put our dishes in the sink, I noticed the couch I’d dragged into the bedroom since my bed flew out the window. That’s no place to make love. I needed a real bed. I remembered noticing her bed was the one that came with the unit, and that reminded me there was another unit on the floor - with another bed in it. I could just drag that into my place. Bing bang boom.

I sat across from Momi again and a feeling began to come over me slowly. Time still existed. I still needed to do things within that unfortunate continuum. What would she do with herself? If she was half as jittery as me, having nothing to do would be unbearable.

She noticed my concern. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah,” I put my hand out and we touched. “Just being annoyed that there’s shit to do in the world. I’ve gotta get a job, gotta research werewolves, that kinda thing.”

“Huh. Sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Mm, sometimes maybe? Probably not now. I’ll be too distracted if you’re here.” I smiled big. “You make me crazy, girl.”

“Sure,” she rolled her eyes. “I guess I can go bug Marcie.”

“If he’s around, maybe you could get to know Deandre. He’s young, bet you have a lot in common.”

“Uh huh.” She slipped away from me and stood up to leave.

I scrambled around the counter to meet her with a big hug. “I love you too much, baby. I’ll see you real soon. Kiss me.”

She complied, making me feel weird about it. Why did I make a command of it? Like Dracula or something. I tried to make the most of the kiss and squeezed her tight. I resisted the urge to smack her sexy ass as she left. I’m a bad person.

I got the laptop running, went into my e-mail, checked my notes. I didn’t have enough bites to justify spending a lot of time massaging the leads, had to generate some new ones. It was tedious work, but mostly less nerve-wracking than trying to get an interview.

But as I went about it, my mind rebelled. Fuck this shit. Before I knew what I was doing, I was making a spreadsheet listing out important information about the floor. Column A - names. Column B - blank. Column C - rent. Column D - what to call it? I settled on “curses.”

Courtney - - - $000 - mouth on head tries to defeat me

Leimomi - - - $000 - hair like crazy snakes causing trouble

Graeme - - - $200 - port-wine stain? red hands and arms

Marcie - - - $200 - something on her chest

Richie - - - $000 - hair catches fire

Perry - - - $000 - don’t know

Patrick - - - $200 - don’t know

Methadone Mike - - - $000 - turning green

Deandre - - - $100 - don’t know

Olivia - - - $000 - neck pops up

Knobby - - - $000 - floor shitting werewolf? not exactly bipedal, at minim.

I leaned back and considered the screen. Maybe there’s a werewolf cure that isn’t a bullet, but what about me? Worse, what about Momi? She was so sad and afraid. I hated it.

There’s an obvious enough cure, I thought, with a voice not entirely my own. What’s the one thing happening here that is unusual, that no one ever does? It has to be the cause, right? The building is allergic to you. Leave the fucking building.

Yeah. I know. Just give me a damn minute. Maybe we could cure everybody just by giving up the place and leaving, but we needed more money, income sources, before that would be a safe thing to do. Meanwhile, we needed that werewolf under control.

To that end, I committed to getting a job ASAP and to muzzling the dog. I minimized my spreadsheet and went at the job crap with the energy of anger.

I couldn’t bear a full two hours of it, but didn’t want to seem weird by bugging Momi yet, so I went to get the bed out of 1207. I brought the big key ring, clink clink. The door seemed eager to open, almost flying out of my grip.

I clutched the knob for dear life. The whole apartment was fucked apart, the wall between the bedroom and living room wobbling in the breeze, a vast puckered hole in the windows stretched across both rooms.

More than anything I was tempted to get out in the hall, pull the door closed, and pretend I’d never opened it. But I wasn’t getting sneezed out the window yet, and it was probably a good idea to know more about what the hell was going on. The air pressure began to equalize between the hall and the room, allowing me to let go of the handle and walk inside - with careful, halting steps. Behind me the door flapped irregularly in the wind.

The fourth of the apartment closest to the hall was the least malformed, but it still had a creepy pulse, a softness that allowed it to bow in and out. It was coated in a thin sheen of mucus. As the apartment neared the windows, it got progressively worse. The laminate was warped apart. The underlying plaster and concrete of the building seemed translucent, organic, exuding thicker streams of gelatinous slime in some areas, blistering out into red sores in other areas. It was warped and folded and breathed with more dramatic motion than the area by the door. At the outer edge of the apartment, it barely hewed to the window, and the window itself had bulged into a wheezing rippling orifice big enough to drive a truck through.

The ground beneath me shifted and I stepped quick to renew my footing. The places my feet had been touching the floor were now bleeding sores. So this is what happens without the allergy medicine. Fucking hell. The kitchenette island was a bulwark against the worst of the outer reach of the apartment, something to cling to if the place sneezed, and I hid behind it with hands gripping the top, raising welts.

How about that bed? I glanced to the furniture. Over the countertop I could see the living room furniture had slid around, was half upended, but was intact and not too bizarre. It was hard to see the bed from my angle, but I knew that even if it was in good shape, it was too risky to try to move it out. Probably covered in nasty-ass mucilage anyhow.

“Oh my LORD!” Perry was at the door, hanging from the frame, looking fit to fall and break his hip.

The massive hole in the window breathed in, rippling luridly as if to taunt him - or suck him out on the back draft. I took the risk of startling him by hustling to the door in a hurry, gently shoving him out, holding him up against the wall, closing the door with my foot.

His face looked forlorn, unworldly. Ghost-blanched, eyes searching for Heaven but only finding ceiling. But as the air pressure in the hall returned to normal, those eyes came to rest on me, the expression stern. “Just what in hell are you tryin’ ta do to us?”

“I’m just trying to help, Perry. Really.”

“People tryin’ ta help. All the time,” his voice was so damn loud, “I hate it!”

I eased off of him, trying to make sure as I did that he could stand on his own. “Yeah, that’s fine, but maybe you should go take a nap, man. It’s been a hard morning, right?”

He swatted away my support with his massive but frail old hands. “I hate you all.”

Did he have an extra knuckle on each finger?

***

I had to do that research, but that shouldn’t have been too hard, so I decided to take Momi with me. I found her in her apartment. She looked eager to get out, but had to get dressed first. We looked a little ridiculous with our head wraps. No culture in the world does it as dorky as we were doing. Necessity is the mother of bad fashion innovations.

I might have walked if I was going alone, but I didn’t want to wear anybody else out. We took the bus. I held her arm and leaned my head on her shoulder. I kissed her cheeks and just doted on her as much as she’d allow.

Every moment felt good, but in a strange way, like a balloon about to pop or a dam about to burst. If the explosion happened, what would it mean? I hoped it wasn’t from some inner awareness that it couldn’t last.

We must have given the impression of people in mourning. We were emotionally worn out and physically comforting each other. I didn’t notice any homophobic glares. But then, I wasn’t noticing much besides her. I wished I could see her pretty hair again.

I’d have preferred to buy her something nice to eat, but we got cheap wrapped sandwich halves from a drug store and split a bottled water. After wolfing that down on a cold concrete bench, we hiked six blocks to the library.

Most of the new library was avant garde modernist architecture with cold antihuman materials, angles, proportions. The walls were a lattice of brushed steel beams and bulletproof glass, the floors marble that weirdly ended a foot short of the walls so that if you made the mistake of stepping too close, you’d break your ankle. The irregular plastic drop ceiling and lights alternated between too short and too tall, too bright and too dark. All the furniture was too narrow to sit in comfortably for anyone slightly wider than my skinny ass. The whole effort seemed like it was intended to discourage homeless people from falling asleep, even sitting up.

Most of the library was like that, but if one felt bold enough and clever enough to navigate the maze of narrow escalators, they could reach a dark wood lounge at the top level - with comfortable leather furniture and well placed, warm reading lights. The place had a classist air that acted like an invisible doorman and despite the lack of an actual security presence, only a very few hobos lounged up there amid tense college kids and old people that quietly radiated old economy money.

I knew about that lounge, despite the rest of the building’s efforts to repel me, and I dragged Leimomi up there by the hand. We came out of a narrow royal orange plastic corridor into the warm dark space and she visibly relaxed. There was some cool daylight up there as well, filtered through the distant steel and glass cage. The floor here ended twenty feet shy of the wall, one short bannister all that separated people from a mortal plunge to some random lower floor. But the isolated platform layout just made the lounge even more cozy, like a carefully crafted bird’s nest in a crook of a high building ledge. We found a love seat and sank into it.

Momi didn’t know if she was allowed to talk until she overheard someone else chatting in low tones. She spoke very quietly. “How did you know this nice place is up here?”

“A guy took me here on a date when the place first opened. Anyway, I remembered the rare book collection is up here, and thought to myself, old books about monsters. That’s the place to look.”

“What do you even think you can find out? I never heard of nothin’ like this.”

I rubbed my head fingers bumping into the head wraps uncomfortably. “Well, I am confident one thing will cure all of us, and that’s leaving the building. But it’ll take time to scrounge up the income to get out, have somewhere to go. So until then, I just want to focus on one of us - the werewolf.”

“The werewolf. Who is a werewolf?”

“I think it’s Knobby, the way he’s stooped over? And some other things... Anyway, some other tenants in the building have been talking about some kind of big dog or hairy man out in the halls, making a mess and causing trouble. That puts us all at risk. If I get any more mouths I can wrap myself like a mummy. But the werewolf is out of control.”

“I guess that’s why you’re gonna try to fix him instead of us.”

I rubbed her shoulder. “I have a plan to fix us already. I’m gonna get a job so I can afford for us to move. This stuff should clear right up, I bet.”

She nodded and looked at her lap.

“Well, I don’t think you’ll get in trouble for slouching and catching a few winks, because I’ll be next to you. Just don’t snore too loud, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“Yeah.”

I felt bad for bringing her, but a change of scenery was still probably good for her, even if it was boring. I left her to find some old werewolf nonsense, see if there was such a thing as an exorcism for it. Fortunately the digital catalog turned up one promising result right away - a book from 1912 titled “Werwolves.” I brought the beat-up old book back to the loveseat quickly for perusal.

The subject of exorcism came up quickly in the book. “Is it possible to exorcize the evil power of metamorphosis possessed by the werwolf, or, as those would say who see in the werwolf, not the possession of a property, but a spirit, ‘to exorcize the evil spirit’? For my own part, and basing my opinion on my own experiences with other forms of the superphysical, with regard to the success of exorcism I am sceptical.” Fuck. I kept reading.

“I am not only dubious as to the powers of exorcism generally, I am also dubious as to its effect on werwolves. I have come across a good many alleged cases of its having been successfully practised on werwolves, but in regard to these cases, the authority is not very reliable, nor the corroborative evidence strong.” Well tell me about the cases, genius.

The book was written in a conversational style - not much sense to the order of it. But it was easier to skim than you’d expect with the pretentious style, and eventually I found some examples - and some actual rituals. I copied them by taking pictures with my phone, using a book as an improvised monopod. But since it would be easier to peruse the relevant sections from the book itself - and it wasn’t available for checkout - I took advantage of our time at the library to do it.

“Nearly all the methods prescribed embrace the use of some potion; such, for example, as sulphur, asafoetida, and castoreum, mixed with clear spring water; or hypericum, compounded with vinegar--which two potions seem to have been (and to be still) the most favoured recipes for removing the devilish power...

The ceremony of exorcism proceeded as follows: The werwolf was sprinkled three times with one of the above solutions, and saluted with the sign of the cross, or addressed thrice by his baptismal name, each address being accompanied by a blow on the forehead with a knife; or he was sprinkled, whilst at the same time his girdle was removed; or in lieu of being sprinkled, he had three drops of blood drawn from his chest, or was compelled to kneel in one spot for a great number of years.”

Fuck. We didn’t have that kind of time, and the less we had to mutilate a boy, the better.

“The rites that were performed in connexion with this ceremony (and which I understand are those most commonly observed in exorcizing all manner of evil spirits) were as follows...” The routine was elaborate, and there was a version that only involved shin kicks, so less knifey. That was nice. I closed up the book when I was satisfied and wound an arm around Leimomi, careful not to loosen her head wrap.

“Hey kiddo. You wanna chill for a little longer, or get going? We don’t have to go back home right now. Maybe we can take a bus to Mars and chill.”

“Mm, Mars is good.”

***

Read next chapter here.

#Rent is Theft #part 16 #honestly not sure when i wrote this #but i finished the first draft #nanowrimo july 2021

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cloudshika · 7 years

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For the OC question thing: 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 18, 27, 32, D, E, H, and I

Yessssss questions about my ocs!! I’m going with the Percy Jackson fanfic ocs because you mentioned them and you know those guys. So I’ll pick from that lot. We’ll do Ivan, Drew, Marcy, Jamie, Todd, and then the Lake twins. Just a random five with Ari and Kit at your request. (listen I’m taking advantage of this situation and doing multiple characters)

1. What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

They’re all a bit fidgety, but I’d say that Ivan and Drew could probably last about ten-fifteen minutes, Todd might last ten minutes. Jamie would get bored after five, and Marcy wouldn’t last two minutes. Ari and Kit are probably never able to sit still without starting to scheme something.

3. How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)

All of them think too much for their own good. Ivan would probably enjoy reading more once he finds books he can read easier. Drew would be the type to wear earbuds to bed and fall asleep to his music, though more often than not he’s thinking way too much and just not sleeping. Todd is probably reading or thinking about a project in his head, while Marcy probably falls asleep building things. Jamie thinks too much and probably falls asleep doing that. Ari and Kit I figure would fall asleep either talking to one another or Ari would be scheming while Kit would fall asleep drawing.

6. Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

Ivan considers laws immovable and will feel horrible breaking any law. Todd and Drew sort of lie in between the two they don’t always break rules, but they will if it’s needed. Jamie considers things pretty flexible, and Marcy will happily break into locks if it means showing off her skills to break into places. She at least has a reason. Normally. Ari and Kit have little to no morals and therefore laws do not exist in their mind. They can’t break any rules if they didn’t exist in the first place. Or in their case they rewrite the rules to suit their needs.

8. What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child

Ivan was told to stop “playing in the dirt” and to “be more normal” as a child. Drew was told to “start shaping up” by his Grandfather a lot since his Grandfather thought he was a delinquent. Jamie was told to stop doing a lot of things, but mostly it boils down to his parents asking him to “stop dressing like a boy and listen to your parents because they know best”. Todd was told to “start being a real man”. Those four don’t have the greatest guardians. Then Marcy was told to “hurry up” a lot when she was talking since she has a very bad stutter. Ari and Kit were almost always in trouble. So they were usually told to stop doing numerous pranks on their classmates. This is only by their teachers though, their Mom thought them perfect children (most the time).

9. Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?

Most of these characters are pretty young sooo…Ivan doesn’t swear much, if he does it’s usually if he’s scared he’ll say shit or something. Drew will say hell and shit, and his first swear was probably hell. Todd doesn’t swear. He’d have to be very upset to swear and even then it’d only be hell or shit out of his mouth. Jamie only swears when talking about his parents. His first swear was shit because he said his parents had “shit for brains”. Marcy doesn’t swear. Maybe when she’s a little older, but if she’s angry she’ll usually be too angry to get out any words. Ari and Kit don’t swear too much. However, when they get to be older teenagers I have no doubt that they will cuss a lot. I believe the first swear word they probably say though is fuck. Just because if they were going to do anything it’s go big or go home.

10. What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?

Ivan I don’t think has any lie that haunts him. He’s a pretty honest and straight-forward person. Though his truths are sometimes taken as lies. Drew doesn’t lie, but he usually omits the truth, and that can haunt him. The lie he gives his friends about him not being sure what killed his dog or his Mom usually haunts him. He does come clean about that eventually. Later on there’s a couple bigger lies he tells and those haunt him too. Jamie lies about information regarding a dead camper and it weighs pretty heavy on him until he’s forced to tell the truth. I can’t think of lies that would haunt Marcy or Todd. They’re in a situation similar to Ivan, but they’re not at all as honest as him. Ari and Kit basically exist through lies. Their most frequent lie is probably that Chiron approved their book of “rules” that they made up. No lie will ever haunt them. They have no conscious when it comes to those things.

18. What embarrasses them?

Ivan is embarrassed by a lot. He was put down a lot as a kid so he feels bad about most of his hobbies including gardening and gets pretty embarrassed about how desperate he is for friends at times. Drew is embarrassed by his powers, his bad social skills, and his bad mental health. He get down on himself a lot. Todd is embarrassed by any sort of admissions of what he’s actually feeling since he tends to put forth a very confident persona. Marcy is embarrassed by her stutter at first. Later on she’s more embarrassed for things such as setting people on fire on accident or the incredible amount of felonies that her and Glen seem to wrack up on their adventures. Jamie doesn’t get embarrassed easily. Only if he messes up and upsets a friend with something that he has done. Ari and Kit don’t get embarrassed. That requires them to actually feel bad about something. Though they do have a softer side that if people mention it they’ll probably respond in embarrassed anger. Also they’re embarrassed by their full names and will get very angry at anyone who mentions those.

27. What causes them to feel dread?

All of them are scared to lose their friends and lose the people that like and understand them for who they are. Though Drew, Jamie, and Todd also dread ever facing family members since they didn’t live in the safest environment when they were with their families.Ari and Kit also dread ever having to tell people their actual full names, like middle names included. This is both a fearful and very embarrassing experience for them, to the point where both of them would rather face a life and death situation than deal with people knowing this information.

32. Do they have a go-to story in conversation? Or a joke?

Ivan likes to tell stories that involve friendly teasing of his friends in some manner. Especially Drew. The same goes for Todd, but he usually teases Marcy or Glen. Todd will also go into elaborate stories about whatever his latest design is when given the chance. Drew usually doesn’t talk a lot in group conversations, but when he’s in a good mood, he’ll tell stories about how Ivan sucks at video games. Jamie likes to tell stories about the things he and Finn used to do when they were younger. Marcy likes to talk about working with her Mom at her Mom’s workshop when she was younger. Ari and Kit will probably share their “triumphs” which would involve pranks they played on other campers or old schoolmates. Either that or they’ll talk about the trouble they got into with their younger sister while they weren’t in camp. All of them are usually around one another so they’ve heard one anothers stories over and over and over again.

D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?

No, I’ve been adding more to their appearance for a while. Ari and Kit haven’t changed obviously since I didn’t create them, but the others have changed quite a bit since I pulled them over from a very old PJ fanfic and switched their names and appearances. I mostly mess with their hair and clothing styles. Todd is constantly changing because I have no clue about anything with fashion so as I learn things I usually add to him. Jamie also used to be cis, but that changed rather early on.

E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?

I’m not sure. I mean I feel like I would probably get along with most of them, but Ari and Kit as fun as they would be to hang around I feel like I would feel too guilty hanging around them and their antics. I feel like I’d get along with Ivan pretty well. He would probably be fine hanging around me too since he’s overall just a nice guy who sees the best in everybody.

H) What trait do you admire most?

I would say for Ivan, Drew, Todd, Marcy, and Jamie I admire that they’re just very resilient. They can have some awful shit thrown their way and even if they’re terrified they will force themselves to keep getting back up. For Ari and Kit, I admire all the boundaries they lack and their incredible ability to not give a fuck.

I) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?

Yeah, I usually don’t move these guys around since their canon universe is an important part of who they are. Wow this was long, but thanks!!

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