Text
The Shaper of Minds and its possible consequences for a certain character
I have finally joined the rest of the internet in losing my mind over a D&D Podcast - in my case, the wonderful Dan Jones & Dragons. With Episode 26 due to stream on Dan’s Twitch this week, I really want to talk about some of the stuff that came up across the just-finished Gala sessions because the fallout from that has the potential to be incredibly fraught.
THE SHAPER OF MINDS
The relic the Flower Crowns were going after this mission – The Shaper of Minds – is a potentially fascinating narrative device that might as well have been lab-engineered to be my exact brand of personal nightmare fuel. It’s a small, ornate brass key that can alter any part of the target’s mental faculties/thoughts/memories at will should the wielder touch it to any part of their victim’s skin.
Now, on one hand, there are a heap of interesting (and even benevolent) applications for a tool like that. It could instantly grant access to skills, languages and knowledge that would otherwise take a person years of study to learn. It could be used to sort through and resolve memories that had been faded by time, muddied by trauma or forcibly supressed by magical/medical means. But on the other…
As described and used in campaign so far, the primary function of the Mindshaper is to alter memories (and the attendant personality) with the target having no awareness that their mind has been changed. It’s basically gaslighting on steroids, except that where a gaslighting victim still retains their original recollection – and has to be manipulated by their abuser into doubting their own perceptions and instead accepting the alternate telling of events (a cognitive dissonance that can eventually lead the person to recognise the manipulation) – the Shaper of Minds entirely replaces the original recollection of events with the version the wielder wants their victim to perceive. There is no internal conflict between accounts, no inconsistencies that could alert the victim that someone has broken into their head and rewritten their perceived reality. The person they reshape you to be is the person you believe you always were. And all it takes is a single touch.
That is a brand of existential horror that had me on edge all throughout Session 24 (basically from the moment it was implied the key was in play). Reality may be objective, but each individual person’s internal reality is governed by their perception – their memories – of the events in their life, no matter how incomplete, biased or otherwise skewed that personal perspective may have been. You have value just by being you because you are not replaceable, but the thing that makes you unique is, in large part, the sum total of those inimitably specific personal memories. No-one else will perceive the world in exactly the same way you do, and even a few minor changes to just a few of those perceptions can flow on to massive differences in ideals, values, priorities and future choices. In that regard, the use of the Mindshaper Key isn’t so much an alteration as an obliteration of the victim’s former self and replacement with someone new; even if that new stranger is largely indistinguishable from the original. And, again, all it takes is a single touch.
[Sidenote: This made Mister Wick an especially effective antagonist to wield the key, since his Galas functionally trap even targets who are aware of the threat within the rules of high-society behavioural expectations. Otherwise-innocuous actions like a handshake or private conversation suddenly become incredibly dangerous, while being nigh-impossible for the Flower Crowns to extract themselves from without committing an atrocious faux pas and potentially tipping Wick off. Perfectly designed stage for a psychological horror-thriller encounter.]
Which of course, brings us to a certain character who fell victim to the key in Episode 24… [put under the cut for spoiler reasons]
MORENTHAL
This poor Drow, he can never catch a break…
Morenthal may not have been the most mechanically dangerous party member to fall victim to Mister Wick’s manipulations although, given that the key was revealed to let its wielder read existing memories during the alteration, and that all of the Flower Crowns were fully briefed on the locations and nature of the Eversteel artefacts, him getting a hand on any of them could have been very bad plot-wise but from a character point of view I think he’s the one who the key’s effects had the potential to be most personally devastating for.
The way things ended up playing out across Session 25 was precisely the nightmare scenario Gamb was fretting about out of game: Mister Wick forcibly implanted Morenthal’s mind with false memories of being his lifelong trusted confidant and supporter, then – before the Flower Crowns could reverse the key’s effect – Morenthal discovered that Mister Wick had been killed in combat with Coil and Preston, leading to the Party having to physically restrain him so they could use the key to undo the damage, thus confronting Morenthal with the realisation that not only was everything he thought he knew about Jonathan a lie, but in actuality Jonathan had committed possibly the most invasive violation he’d ever been subjected to in order to forcibly make Morenthal into one of his loyal tools. That level of emotional and mental whiplash would be rough on any character, but for Morenthal it’s particularly brutal because…
Based on what’s been revealed in-game so far, the core of his character is that Morenthal is an abused child. This most-clearly came up in his conversation with Gelnek in Session 14; he was a child who grew up with nothing, raised by the Bloodletter Mercenaries as a tool instead of a person, and taught to see faces only as targets – with him also mentioning to Hobson in that their “combat training” involved being relentlessly beaten down until he learned to fight back. During his Session 21 visit with the Nightmother, he openly admits that “nowhere feels safe”. From that it’s pretty clear to read that Morenthal has never felt unconditionally loved, safe or respected around other mortals.
(This also helps contextualise why he’s so devoted to the Nightmother. From what little we have seen of his visits to her, Iris is a fond “adult” figure, who does not threaten, does not judge, asks nothing of him aside from his company, and cares equally for all the souls that pass through her domain. For a child “growing up with nothing” but violence, that would have been everything.)
But then, enter Jonathan fucking Wick. And now, just for a short while, Morenthal has all these “memories” of Jonathan being there to confide in, encourage him and support his escape from the Bloodletters. Suddenly he believes someone was there for him and, while the memories might be fake, the feelings of unconditional safety they would have brought were very real. Little wonder that he started acting like a Trilby-level naive goober around Mister Wick to the point of accidentally snitching on the rest of the group. Only, then it turns out to be a lie and those memories are gone.
For me, I think one of the worst things Morenthal might end up dealing with in the aftermath of having his memory fixed isn’t the specific feeling of personal betrayal or the potential shame at having been caught: it’s the realisation that he was always alone. That there was no mortal on the outside who cared or came for him when he needed them – just him and the distant fondness of a Divine. That would be awful beyond words, and yet the Flower Crowns were forced to inadvertently inflict it upon him in order to restore his mind. No wonder he wouldn’t look any of them in the eye before the session closed.
Worse still, the nature of the key makes it incredibly hard not only to trust others, but to trust your own mind. The players and audience above-table know that Morenthal is back to experiencing and remembering reality as it happened, but the question could very well linger for him, bringing with it a hefty dose of paranoia. Sure, Morenthal correctly remembers that Coil is a straightforward, loyal person who wouldn’t be tempted to tamper with his mind beyond undoing Jonathan’s manipulations… but he “remembered” that about Mister Wick too, and wouldn’t that be a beneficial thing for the Party to have him think? To Morenthal, people were already Not Safe™, but now the one person he ever believed might be had actually violated him worse than anyone else in order to force and abuse that trust. How is he supposed to trust anyone if he can’t trust the authenticity of his own recollections. (I get the feeling that Morenthal probably isn't going to be capable of relaxing until the Shaper of Minds is confirmed to either be locked back safely in the Vaults of Eversteel or fully removed from the Mortal Plane by Six).
It makes it really tragic that all of this came directly on the back of Episode 23, where Gamb revealed during the above-table break chat that - even if Morenthal didn’t recognise why – he unconsciously trusted Trilby and Gelnek enough to jump off the airship without checking that his rope was secure, because deep-down he knew they would catch him. To go from that high-point to the whiplash of him first thinking the Flower Crowns had killed the only person he was ever “safe” with, then them inadvertently subjecting him to the most painful realisation he could ever experience and potentially leaving him wondering whether he can even trust his feelings about them is absolutely gutting.
I think the thing that scares me most about how the aftermath could potentially play out is another trait that Gamb and Dan have established for Morenthal: he's a flight-risk. He shies away from letting people get close and, if he feels unsafe enough, he runs. It’s already been mentioned/implied that he’s considered fleeing the group at multiple different points across the sessions. And with him likely not feeling safe even in inside his own mind right now, that risk is probably at an all-time high. The poor lad is staring down the barrel of a potentially-impending multi-level emotional crisis, where a lifetime of instincts will probably be urging him to run hard and fast because People Are Not Safe™.
And the thing is, that instinct isn’t a good one for him either. Morenthal might have gotten by on his own “just living to be” up until Filgrove, but that feels a lot more like surviving out of necessity than having an actual life. It’s pretty obvious that he pushes people away as a defence mechanism: if you don’t care about anyone then you can’t be hurt by them or have those people used against you. But if you don’t let yourself care and feel things, you’re not really living. The truly tragic part of his running being a potential foreseeable outcome is that the Flower Crowns are good for Morenthal. (I doubt Morenthal realises it and can’t speak to Gamb’s above-table thought process but it’s interesting that one potential interpretation of Morenthal’s cynical, faux-apathetic, “stinky” behaviour is that of a former abused child quietly testing the boundaries of whether he’s allowed to exist in a way that’s inconvenient for others, to which the answer from the Party has largely been yes provided he isn’t actively encouraging Trilby to get himself killed, or killing people without explaining himself). He survived alone before because that was all he knew, but I get the feeling he wouldn’t do so well if he tried to go it solo again after being with people (he’s already confessed that the idea of Feyli being gone makes him miss her). That’s not a road to walk on his best day, let alone with his current headspace and tendency towards self-destructive choices.
It reminds me a lot of this article:
“Still, it’s easier for us to keep blaming ourselves because it’s preferable to facing the unthinkable: the fact that our parents don’t love us. … Most people would rather do anything than accept this as the truth. Not only is it painful; it’s humiliating.”
So yeah, suffice to say I am incredibly concerned about how Morenthal’s arc is going to play out over the next session(s). Here’s hoping that Gelnek and/or Coil have enough emotional savvy to keep an eye out, and enough patience to stick to him even if he lashes out in attempt to drive them off. Even if it all works out okay, I get the feeling that this one’s going to be ugly.
Can’t wait to see how everyone chooses to play it ❤️🩹
#The Shaper of Minds#An artefact that is absolutely fascinating and whose implications make me PHYSICALLY NAUSEOUS if I contemplate them too much#(So now I must share that nausea with you all)#Session 26 is going to be so rough for the poor guy I feel anxious just thinking about it#I am CONCERNED FOR THE LAD#there is a nonzero chance that he could walk away from the best thing that's ever happened to him and that terrifies me#Also just to say: this is NOT me trying to enforce a certain reading of events or backseat game how Gamb and the cast should play things#I'm just indulgently speculating because I have a personal interest in trauma recovery and character analysis is my great love#child abuse discussed cw#gaslighting discussed cw#existential horror#Dan Jones and Dragons#DJ&D#The Flower Crowns of E'lythia#A Party to Forget#DJ&D Meta#DJ&D Spoilers#Morenthal#Morenthal (Wolfsbane)#Character analysis#(Also for anyone unfamiliar with this campaign: Yes. The villain of this arc WAS named Jon Wick. DJ&D is great)#3WD
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Anatomy of Melancholy, 66: Baggage
Table of Contents. Second Instar, Chapter 33. Go to previous. Go to next. TWs: Body horror, joint trauma, nudity, disability-related deprecation/catastrophization. How we carry ourselves.
________________
The last of the suds fizzled, leaving ‘Choly submerged in cold opalescent bathwater. A similar surfactant quality popped his daze, and he shifted in an attempt to sit up in the tub. The fluid’s inertia instead sloshed him further back against the enameled iron. He grunted with a squint as some water got up his nose. When he opened his eyes again, he saw the real trouble hindering his exit. His joints had fallen as slack as his lucidity. He felt like a marionette without a yoke. His stomach shuddered for him, as the slow continued sway of the water, once more settling, tugged at his arms half afloat.
So it was possible, after all, to relax too much.
He lay there for some time longer, barely able to string together the thought to devise some plan. His state left him reeling beyond the rationality that he might call out for help. Angel would worry itself apart to see him like this, and Sticks might very well toss him out in the Merrimack, beyond salvage. Besides, they hadn’t come to his rescue when he fell hours earlier, and he managed to get himself to the dinner table and back up here with nearly a nonzero amount of assistance. He could do this himself. He needed to learn how to do it himself--for his own safety, in the event something estranged others from coming to his aid.
He prayed this whatever-was-happening wouldn’t endure. But at least, he could in the moment assess his limitations.
His musculature and tendons remained connected and functioning, but necessitated an entirely other manner of physiological prescience: to not simply manage his own proprioception, but to apply it forward like some telekinetic mess of connective tissue cat’s cradle. It took every scrape of mental faculty to process and focus to where he could grasp himself by the wrists, by the elbows, by the shoulders, and so on, to grip each errant joint in turn, and to administer the force and torsion necessary to right the dysfunction. The bangs and bruises from the citywide chaos of the day before only served to compound how his throbbing body resisted total exhaustion.
He pushed himself up by both hands off the side of the tub, to stand. Instead, he spilled over the side and across the concrete flooring of the balcony. Flat on his back and defeated, he flopped back with a wheeze and stared up into the joints of the patio cover. The string lights burned a reverse image in his eyelids when he shut them.
He could hear rummaging inside through the open door yards away. His Stygian eyes fluttered open. The sight of twin mounted radstag heads hanging over the balcony door choked him.
“--Angel?”
The appellation came out far weaker and more broken than he expected.
When Angel didn’t respond, he bristled, and once more underwent the slow, quiet, deliberate process of summoning himself together. He found the Mister Handy had set out on the workhorse nearest to the tub for him a towel, his robe, and his glasses. He managed the loosest sense of drying off, and draped the towel around his neck and shoulders; then, he put on his glasses, and tied off the robe. Unsure exactly whom had come upstairs, let alone what--or whom--they sought, he grabbed an awl from the workbench and edged nearer the door frame on bated breath.
In the dark of the upstairs room, he could only make out the edges of lime split lighting in contrast to the figure’s lit Pip-Boy screen. He shivered at a prickle of draft. The white uniform with black apron. Symmetrical, if not keloid-riddled, features. Sticks rifled through the secretary as though it didn’t belong to him. Unsure how to even begin to ask what the ghoul could’ve needed, 'Choly meekly closed the door behind himself.
“Need more light?”
Sticks jerked up to look at him.
“...Of course, of course.” He loosed a rumbling, agitated chuckle. “It’s all right, pal, that you, ah. Sealed that negotiation for me like that. It’s all right, because... because we’re partners. Isn’t that right? Partners.”
The ghoul rose to flip the switch for the three overhead lamps strung across the roof beams. Right off, ‘Choly noticed the ghoul’s black eye, and a ripped dishevelment marred with bits of fresh blood. ‘Choly chewed at his lower lip.
“Partners... Yeah.” He swallowed, and rubbed at his forearm with his free hand. He’d only been trying to help. “Are you okay? Could we-- talk? We need to talk. If-- if that’s all right.”
The juxtaposition of the encounter startled Sticks to a cautious desperation.
“Everything’s all right between us, right?”
“Of course. It’s not that. ...I need to sit.” He walked over to the secretary and took the desk chair for himself. Sticks sat on the corner of the bed. “I know I fucked up a lot yesterday, but I think I may have fucked up something else.”
He set the awl down on the desk, and swiveled to face Sticks. Picking what he felt he could afford to potentially damage further, he took hold of his left calf and knee, and purposefully loosed it again with a hollow chain of cartilaginous pops. His breath stuttered as he dangled his leg by the foot, but he kept his cool as he gave the ghoul a sardonic glance.
Sticks looked to him agape, with unfiltered, nauseated fascination.
“The cryogenic chemicals damaged my joints and skin, but I’ve managed for months until today. This is... something completely else.” He worked at resetting his knee as he continued, stifling jolts of revulsion. “I mean, even if it is the condition progressing, why all at once? And why-- this? It would be too much of a coincidence if the X-Cell Squared weren’t related... or the inhaler. That fucking inhaler.” He seethed, cupping his face in hand. “I was so tired when she handed me that stuff last night and told me it was Addictol. Fuck me, I’m stupid--”
“--You’re not stupid. She just knows how to trick people. ...Do you really suppose she gave you something that wasn’t Addictol?”
“I checked my Pip-Boy’s health diagnostics earlier. I’m still in withdrawals from chems I took prior to her giving me the inhaler. I could show you, if I-- if I knew where it was.”
“Hey now. I’m sure it’s safe. It’s just you, me, and the robot now.”
‘Choly toweled at his hair again, only to swivel around and look in the secretary for himself. He produced the Walden Drugs catalogue from one slot, and thumbed through it in search of specific pages.
“My current set of orthotics aren’t doing it. The officer’s gloves help, but that’s just my hands. The ankle and wrist braces, the postural corset--they’re just for sprains and such, not full dislocations. Neither you nor Angel seemed to notice earlier, but I fell down the stairs. I’m struggling to put one foot in front of the other. I’m a liability as I am. You called me wet cardboard the other day, and it just keeps feeling more true.“ He slapped the catalogue down in his lap, and shut his eyes to rub at them under his glasses with thumb and forefinger. “Look, I’m bad at asking for help. So: This is me asking for help. I know you don’t have to help me and that it’s probably prudent to ditch me... but I hope having me in your life means more to you than that.”
He held out the booklet turned to the relevant page. Sticks leaned to take it, and looked it over, uncurling the front half to inspect the cover, then back to the items. He face slacked in earnest as he flipped over to a locations listing.
“The closest one was Nashua, you said? Lexington didn’t have them?”
“I lived in the Lexington Walden’s stock room for months before it went up in flames. What I’ve got is the best I could find. Only the warehouses that stocked hospitals would have what’s on that page. They’re surgical grade. ...The Merrimack swallowed up the Lowell General Hospital, didn’t it?“ He slumped, unable to recall the building in the skyline as they’d passed through Downtown Historic. “You have no idea how badly I want to stay put. I love it here, with the bathtub, with the bed, with the you... But...” The idea of it eroded him to trembling. “I know it’s a long way. Especially on foot. But I can’t do it with just Angel. Especially since it’s out of ammo.”
“No, no. If you need this, then we need this. We needed a good reason to blow this place for a while. The Unfolded may seem to want to continue respecting the history this place has, Glenn Johnny’s included... But Lowell as a whole? They weren’t out here on exterminator duty, Mindy. They were doing recon on the locks and channels equipment. For the General.”
That nearly knocked ‘Choly out of the chair. When it clicked, he paled numb.
“The fuck do they want to-- Oh. Oh no.”
“Yeah. I’m not happy about it, either. Bare minimum, it’s gonna be like when a company puts a new building in. Except you and I both know that wont just be, what was it? Skunks? But worst case scenario? I don’t even want to begin to speculate what they plan to do with the river.” Weary, Sticks circled back to the catalogue. “Have you got a time estimate for this little recon? How long you think it’ll take to get there, and how long you intend to stick around?”
“I’m not sure. Does it matter much? We’re in agreement that a change of scenery’s desirable.”
Sticks traced at the details on the page, distant and in deep thought.
“It’s not just a change of scenery, is the thing. It’s a change of climate. I don’t know if you realize this, but Lowell’s on the southern threshold of the Hinter... and we’re coming up on Nor’easter season. Sure, the wildlife has got all big and wild, but so’s the weather. I’ll be mostly all right up there, being a ghoul, provided our shelter’s sound. But you? And the Handy?” The ghoul waved off his own train of thought. “You know what. Don’t sweat it. We’ll manage this. My experience, your grey matter.”
“Nor’easters? You’re worried over a chance there’s one this year? I’ve weathered dozens of ice storms in my life. Even a few hurricanes. And you’re a native Yankee, so you’ve got to have, too. We’ll be fine.” Denial wheezed from his nostrils, his lips pressed together tight. “I know it will put us even further from New Hampshire, but I do have one obligation first. I have to go to Billerica, to escort someone to the Concord suburbs. I should’ve taken them to safety before getting here, but I also didn’t know what I was getting myself into. They’ve been waiting for the Lowell conflict to blow over, and like me, they’re the last survivor of their location. I would have had to go check on them soon even if we stayed here.”
The ghoul squinted at him.
“Hazarding you’re confident they couldn’t just travel there themselves.”
“It shouldn’t take long at all!” ‘Choly threw his hands up. “One day, tops. We just need to get from here to there to Sanctuary Hills. It’s a Mister Handy. I couldn’t have brought it to Lowell and just left it. And it just feels too many kinds of wrong to just leave it all alone there, when it could be among some normal people again for once.”
Sticks weighed the various aspects about the proposition that didn’t sit well.
“If you’re having trouble just walking, do you suppose you’ll be in any condition to ride Angel down?”
“I, I don’t know.” 'Choly wilted into begging that left his companion too tongue-tied to object all the while. “We’ll figure that out, too! And you know what? This trip to Nashua isn’t just for me. Partners. I meant it, that we’re in this together. The long haul. The Lexington Walden was a smaller location, and even it had a sizable chem lab arrangement, with a large cache of stock. The Nashua Walden was classified as a full regional warehouse: it shipped to a dozen locations in the New England Commonwealth. Olivia gave me all those military chem formulas. That is what you were looking for just now, weren’t you? I’m as interested as you, to see what all I can make from a chem cookbook culminated from two hundred years of research.”
Sticks sat up at once and looked to him knowingly. He swatted his knee with the catalogue.
“Now that, I like to hear! What initiative! We’ll start out for all this tomorrow. You hear me? Let’s get to gathering things up tonight. We can do a once-over in the morning to make sure we’re not leaving anything important behind.”
“You’re not exhausted after all that stuff downstairs? After cooking for thirty?”
‘Choly felt even more pathetic than he sounded. He hadn’t even lifted a finger with a thing, yet was this worn out.
“We’ll go until we pass out, at least. We’ll sleep better that way. Hey Angel!” Sticks called out for the robot. “Set down that broom and dustpan for a bit and help us out up here!” He chortled excitedly. “Ohh, bless it all. You want to cook chems for me. And you want to wear this for me. I could kiss you.”
Something between a grimace and a grin tore ‘Choly’s face.
“You... you could kiss me, you know.”
“You’re not wrong.” Sticks swept him up in both arms and plopped him back on the freshly made bed, only narrowly taking the care to be delicate with him. He leaned down over the top of him, a hand to each side of ‘Choly’s shoulders, to smooch him. “We’re great together. You know that, right?”
‘Choly squinted awkwardly, and reached to turn off the screen light on Sticks’s Pip-Boy. He pulled him into another kiss, and looked him in the eye with adoration.
“Always have been.”
“I’ll have you know I’ve no intention of leaving this place without first cleaning up after such horrid house guests.” Angel scoffed in frustration as it appeared upstairs, oblivious to the pair making out on the bed. “And I hate to be the bearer of such information, but if I’m to carry Mister Carey, we must pack as light as possible. It’s not to guilt you, Sir, but even with the refinements you’ve made to my hydraulics, the added weight does result in a higher fuel expenditure. My ammunition isn’t the only thing running low after this week.”
“So we’ll make more frequent refueling pit stops for you, buddy,” Sticks mumbled over his shoulder, still pecking all over ‘Choly’s face and neck and shoulders where he could get at it. The little creep soaked it all up, squirming like it tickled. “You just worry about carrying Carey here. Anything heavy I need to bring, I’ll carry myself.”
‘Choly grabbed his face to get his attention.
“Hey. Maybe Angel could carry all the supplies, and you carry me? I’ve got to weigh less than that Flamer did, and you hefted that thing all over town without hardly ever setting it down.”
The ghoul melted into dopey chuff.
“Mindy. Babe. You do not weigh less than a Flamer.” He smiled, heavy lidded. “You’re on something, though. Sounds like it might work. I can guarantee you, that everything I’m bringing totally weighs less than you. So if I carry you, and Angel carries everything I’m bringing, that’s less strain on its flame.”
“Can I entrust you with my most precious cargo, Mister Hawthorne?”
He planted one more forceful smooch on ‘Choly before meeting gazes in a dreamy determination.
“He’s my prize, too, ya know.”
Go to Next »»»
#fallout fanfic#fallout 4 fanfic#fallout 4#fallout#fo4#sole survivor#mister handy#ghoul oc#melancholy#angel#sticks#the anatomy of melancholy#mm designer bags under my everything and everywhere#disobedient daily dress intensifies
1 note
·
View note
Text
I’m Not Like You II
Directly follows Part 1. The gang waits out a storm by going to a bar.
Content warning for guns and minor death
"Here...I'll get us some grub." Wendy suggested, pushing Philly's coin filled hand away from Casey. "On me." She grinned, nodding.
"Really? Are you sure?" Philly asked, looking genuinely surprised.
"Yeah, I am. I'll scout out and see if there are any good bars too. If we have to wait for the storm to pass we might as well have fun." She replied.
"Oh! Uh. Sure thing. Thanks." Philly responded, rubbing the back of his head, still looking puzzled. Wendy smiled and turned to walk off. Philly watched her go, eyeing certain parts of her anatomy before she disappeared from sight.
"Hm." He was puzzled. It had only been a few days since their argument. But in that time, Wendy had done almost a 180. Sure they still bickered over small things, but nothing quite so big as...that time. She hadn't been violent or threatening at all. It was...odd.
He stuck his hands in his back pockets, still thinking. In his defense, he had been nicer too, he thought. Touching less on touchy subjects. Even if she didn't wanna sleep with him...she was still nice to have around. He appreciated that she had stuck around and even started being nicer. And she was reliable, unlike the useless, irritating bots-
"Philly!" Speak of the devil. Sam and Casey clambered out of Bessie, walking over to him. "What are we doing now?" Sam asked.
"Ah?" Philly blinked, thinking it over. "Well, all we really needed was the food, and Wendy's handling it..." Thunder rumbled overhead. "You can wait inside until Wendy gets back. Then we'll go to a bar and hang out while we wait."
"Shouldn't you come inside too? You don't wanna get wet, do you?" Casey asked, tilting her head.
"I'll take a smoke break first. Then we'll see." Philly replied, shrugging.
"Suit yourself." Casey said.
"Let us know when Wendy comes back!" Sam added, before the two headed back to the car.
Philly popped a cigarette in his mouth, lighting it and leaning back against the side of the pink car.
Maybe he did like having her around, after all.
---------------------------
It was good to be in the warm bar now that it had started pouring outside. The storm was quite bad. Philly was glad they'd put the hood up on Bessie and stopped. The rain was sheets outside the window. No good for driving, no good for existing.
And besides, Wendy had bought him his first drink. So he'd bought her a second one. She didn't seem to hold her liquor very well and Philly found this interesting - she was already drunk, a giggly mess as she talked to other bar patrons. He watched, not really feeling the two drinks at all. He didn't think he should drink too much anyway. There was a nonzero chance he'd get recognized, and attacked, and he didn't feel like dying again. He sipped a third beer regardless.
Sam was happily eating potato chips, while Casey seemed to be making friends with another small robot. His eyes settled on Wendy. She seemed to be having fun enough. He sighed. She looked so...animated, and excited. Her cheeks were pink. Hm. All those men ogling her...it bugged him a little, but he shook it off.
"Hey there, sweetie." A lady approached him, swaying her hips flirtatiously before sitting next to him.
He threw on his best grin. "Hey."
"What's a man like you doing in a place like this?" She asked, putting her hand on his leg. Philly reciprocated the flirting.
Philly had mistakenly believed that Wendy was all but ignoring him. In reality, she was keeping a close eye on him despite her drunken state. As the woman put her hands on Philly, Wendy felt herself growing hot and angry. She didn't like the feeling. She was too drunk to give it much thought. Fine. Two can play at that game.
She grabbed one of the men near her at random, wrapping an arm around his waist. "Well aren't you a mighty fine gent." She said loudly, batting her baby blues at him. Just like you said, Philly. The man was quite taken immediately, wrapping his arms around her and leering lewdly at her.
Philly looked up from what he was doing, scowling. What the...? She hadn't seemed the type. And that guy looked like a fucking moron. He felt jealousy rising in his chest. No. Fine. Whatever. She wanted to fuck with a moron, not his problem. Whatever. Fine.
"Something distracting you?" The woman placed a hand on his cheek, turning his attention back to her.
"...yeah, just a friend of mine being dumb." Philly replied, no longer feeling particularly interested in trying to hook up with anyone. "I mean, look at that guy, what could she possibly want with him?"
Wendy, of course, saw the woman's hand go to Philly's cheek, his expression hidden from her, and grew further irritated. She fawned over the man in front of her, being perhaps touchier than she should have. The man was content with it, but she was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the way his hands had settled on her hips, and the smell of the alcohol on his breath so close to her, and his gaze never endingly searching her body...
He leaned in to kiss her, and she put her hand over his lips.
"Mm, no, sorry, I'm just using you to make a friend jealous." She said perhaps too honestly, pushing him away. "Don't get so excited."
The man furrowed his brow, frowning at her. "Excuse me?"
"Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. But um. I'm done now." Wendy replied, hopping off the bar stool. She tried to walk away, but the man grabbed her by the wrist, keeping her there.
"I was promised something, and I expect you to fulfill that promise." The man slurred at her, anger clear in his tone.
Philly was watching carefully now, despite the protests of his lady friend. With an irritated sigh she got up and walked away.
"I didn't promise you shit, bitch!!!" Wendy yelled, trying to shake her hand loose. She was unsuccessful. His grip tightened. She winced. "I didn't wanna have to do this but-" She reached for the knife in her pocket. The man was faster, and grabbed her other arm. He stood up as well, beginning to drag her towards the door.
"That's too bad. You'll be coming with me anyway."
"Let her go." Philly pointed his guns at the man, scowling.
"Philly?!?! I don't need your fucking help, bITCH." Wendy replied, looking angry. "I don't need-"
"Shut up, you clearly do. And don't call me a bitch!!!" Philly yelled back, bristling.
"If you two idiots are done arguing, we'll be going now-"
"HIIIYAAAAH!" Wendy kicked the man in the stomach without warning. Startled and in pain, he released his grip. Drunk and unsteady after her kick, Wendy toppled to the ground, head swimming. "Aaah, fuck."
"God you're a fucking idiot." Philly grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet with one hand, the other keeping a gun firmly fixed on the man.
"YoU'RE a fucking idiot, idiot." She grumbled back, pouting as she leaned on him. She'd had a few more drinks while flirting and she was completely unsteady on her feet now. "Philly the KiDIOT."
He opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again with a sigh.
"Casey! Sam! We're leaving!" Philly yelled.
"No, you ain't-" Philly shot the man square in the forehead before he could finish, tired of the entire situation.
"Anyone ELSE wanna fuck with me?!" Philly asked, looking around the room furiously. Everyone returned to what they were doing before, unbothered by the death. That's just how it was out here in these little towns. He gave a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness."
"I coulda taked him." Wendy interrupted, nearly hitting Philly in the face as she pointed with her index finger. "I fucking had him-"
"Motherfucker, will you shut up already? How many drinks did you have, for fuck's sake?!" Philly asked, while Sam and Casey watched with interest.
"Sssix." Wendy replied, holding up two fingers. "Six."
"...didn't you tell me earlier you almost never drink?" Philly asked.
"Yep." Wendy replied, smiling stupidly. "But this was important."
With Casey and Sam following and babbling about their various exploits, Philly led Wendy out of the bar and into the rain.
"We're going back to Bessie and then you can tell me EXACTLY why you thought this was a good fucking idea." Philly growled.
"I ain't telling you shit." She replied proudly. Philly groaned.
10 notes
·
View notes
Text
Shell Game (8/?)
Kei tries her hand at being nice, with mixed results.
There was, thankfully, no school the next day.
Obito went back to Konoha for a bit, both to restock his eyedrops and probably take a break. Kei sat in the apartment for an annoying amount of time, staring blankly into her closet while she tried to decide if it was worth going out or not. Schools in Japan also ran a half-day of classes on Saturdays, so this was still squarely in the middle of the week.
It was a nice day out.
Fuck it.
Kei changed into street clothes and decided that today, like many of the days before term, was a day to wander town like a stray cat. She did have a list of things to buy (such as a hairbrush), but those were afterthoughts compared to the raw need to just not be in the dinky apartment anymore. To this end, she hopped on a train to some other town, to see if the stores were any different.
Two incidents in two days involving villains, Isobu commented as Kei waited for a crosswalk to change indicators. The word “villain” sat strangely on his tongue. And four incidents in four days in which you have been pulled from class to speak with administration, teachers, and the school’s healer.
Sounds right. Kei crossed the street with the crowd, headed for a shopping district.
I do not think I have ever heard of another human, even across every one of your memories, who has managed to attract so much extracurricular interference in their first week of school. Congratulations.
It’d be fucking amazing if anybody ever had. Kei checked her phone as she waited for the next crosswalk. No messages, other than the news update talking about the attack on the USJ. Nobody was dead, but Facepalm-kun and Kurogiri had gotten away. Kei couldn’t help but think that if she’d been allowed to use lethal force, she’d probably have killed Nōmu. She’d never seen anybody parade around with a weak point in full view like that.
You are assuming that Nōmu needed his brain. With that kind of regeneration speed, I do not know if he was even kept down by the injuries you dealt him.
Kei shrugged. Maybe. Maybe not. But it was a tried and true zombie disposal method, if nothing else.
Kei eventually found her way to a combini, glancing through the shelves for anything she needed back at the apartment. A cell phone card would be nice, just in case she needed to pester Obito sometime this month without invoking every emergency service known to humanity. Thus far, she only had his number and the school’s, but there was a nonzero chance that could change later.
Also, snacks. So many snacks.
Sure, most of the snacks wouldn’t survive Hayate’s next visit, but few ever did.
She was still pondering onigiri vs. dorayaki when a somewhat familiar voice said, “You again?”
Kei looked up from her vital decision and spotted a classmate looking a little surprised to see her. It was Purple Kid, but not the one from the USJ. The tall one from her class, who always looked a little less sleep-deprived than Aizawa-sensei. He was carrying a multipack of pencils and pens, along with two notebooks and a box of bandages.
“Yo,” Kei said, though he didn’t exactly look happy to see her. “I, uh, forgot your name. Sorry.”
“Shinsō,” was his dry reply. “Gekkō-san, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Kei paused. “Nice to see you outside of school, I guess? I didn’t realize we lived anywhere near each other.”
“We probably don’t,” Shinsō said, already turning away to go and search the rest of the store for whatever.
What a riveting conversationalist, Kei thought, and promptly went back to her snack debate. She ended up not deciding and bought one of everything, so she could see her brother’s face when he tried some of the really weird ones. Ramune bottles would give him a hilarious headache. Obito too, since he couldn’t just teleport the marble out.
“You’re going to eat all of those yourself?” Shinsō again, of course. Right as she was walking out of the store with heavy “grocery” bags slung over her arm.
Kei considered being sarcastic, then decided she did enough of that in her head. “Nope. My brother and my best friend visit a lot, so I’m gonna stay up late and watch weird American movies with them.”
If she had a TV, anyway. That was another thing she probably ought to look into.
“…I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”
“Sometimes I can’t either.” Kei glanced at her phone, noting two messages about more USJ articles. Obito still wasn’t back yet, or else he would have already texted her about being bored. “Did you have something to ask me?”
Shinsō took a few seconds to put his thoughts in order. “A couple of things.”
“I’m listening,” Kei said, as the two of them fell into step.
“What’s your Quirk again?” he asked, rather than just getting right to the point.
“Tsunami,” Kei said, because it was easier to remember than the other names she’d tried out. “Why?”
Shinsō didn’t answer immediately. Then, “That’s…a really powerful Quirk for General Studies. Almost enough for the Hero department.”
“I guess. I killed a bunch of the villain ‘bots in the test.” Kei shrugged.
“Then why aren’t you with 1-A or 1-B?” Shinsō pressed, which made Kei think they were starting to get to the root of the problem.
“My test scores sucked.” Kei readjusted her grip on her store bags. “I know it’s really early in the year and things could change later, but I think I failed every topic besides science, math, and English.” Actually, she’d probably failed math, too.
“So you basically got in on the strength of your Quirk alone.” Shinsō’s expression was a little pinched.
“I guess. What about your entrance exam thing?”
Shinsō scowled. “You can’t brainwash robots. They don’t have organic brains and they don’t exactly talk back.”
Kei stared at him. “Your Quirk is brainwashing? Or mind control, maybe?”
“Yeah, it… Wait, you didn’t know?” Shinsō’s normally half-lidded eyes were wide.
“I got back to class at the end of introductions,” Kei reminded him. “And basically nobody in that class talks to me because they’re afraid of me. Or maybe they’re afraid whatever keeps getting me in trouble will rub off on them.”
“They think you’re dangerous,” Shinsō told her bluntly. At Kei’s blank look, he added, “Like me.”
“Okay, I can understand me, since I’m the ‘Gen Studies trouble child’ and everyone knows it,” Kei said, air-quoting Aizawa-sensei’s blunt assessment. She lowered her arms. “But I don’t remember you ever using your Quirk on anyone.”
“The part they care about is that I could. I just need someone to respond to me,” Shinsō told her. “Most people just stop talking to me once they realize that’s how it works.”
“So, basically, you could’ve done it fifteen times since the start of this conversation.” When Shinsō nodded, Kei shrugged again. “Okay. You clearly haven’t. Case closed.”
Shinsō stared at her. “…That’s it? No big deal?”
“I have weirder friends.” Kei smiled a little crookedly.
The list starts with me and goes around the planet, twice.
Thanks, Isobu.
It also starts with you.
…Thanks, buddy.
Shinsō didn’t appear to know what to say to this. He looked away, and then his phone buzzed. After checking the messages, he said, “I… I’ll see you tomorrow, Gekkō-san. I’ve got to go home.”
“Bye, Shinsō-san,” Kei said amiably, and waved as he left. Then she checked her own phone.
Cyclops: im back
Cyclops: and bored
Cyclops: also
Cyclops: how do u change names on this
Kei smiled and set out for the apartment again, the day’s good deed completed.
That meant the day’s somewhat less-good deed (laughing at Obito’s attempt to get the marble-blocked soda open) was neatly balanced out.
75 notes
·
View notes