Murderers Quarterly

Participants:

brian_icon.gif (sort of) and deckard_icon.gif

Scene Title Murderers Quarterly
Synopsis After three days without a drink, Deckard gets a visit from the self-loathing fairy.
Date January 26, 2008

The Invierno


It's Monday. Or Tuesday. Somewhere in between. Deckard's watch is a Rolex, and he sure as fuck didn't wear it on his way to get intentionally kidnapped. It's impossible then to tell how much time has passed deep in the Invierno's rotten guts, and sleep's persistent evasion isn't aiding in his perception.

Huddled in a rear corner of his cage within the wrap of an increasingly sodden leather jacket that provides little in the way of actual warmth, Deckard is shaking hard enough that there's an audible rattle at the contact point between back and bars. A few words occasionally skip through the static of the radio nearby — just enough to stir his attention away from the sinking promise of a few seconds sleep. The floor is wet, the walls are wet, Deckard is wet. Everything smells like salt and decay.

Occasionally he draws in a steep enough breath that he's able to quash the rattle of bone to bar for a minute or two at a time, but the shaking resumes with an inevitability that he's increasingly disinclined to fight off. He feels like shit and even the lingering scent of the last joint he was allowed to smoke has begun to seep out of his sleeves. He's had better days.

"Edward man. He really shafted you,huh?"

The question is not asked by one of the crewman of the Invierno. It is asked by the young man sitting on top of Deckard's cage, his legs swinging back and forth. Brian is dressed cozily in a green coat and black cap, as he taps away an imaginary text message on his phone that doesn't really exist. But he's here, and while hallucinating vivid dreams could be kinder in what personage they deliver to said hallucinator, Brian is what Deckard has got.

"What an asshole, right?"

Deckard's eyes flare wide under the yellow beat of the light bulb responsible for making the cramped quarters he's been forced into navigable for those less genetically gifted. Brian's voice. It's hard to mistake. He's not standing at the door, though, and he's not coming down the stairs. Slowly, the line of his gaze rolls upward.

There's a Brian there. Paranoia scrambles through the lines of his face, and he's up on his feet too quickly for his addled brain to keep up. Balance lost somewhere in the process of the stand, he tips into the bars at his back, barely managing to get enough of a hold on one at his side to keep himself from tipping over entirely. In his current state, it's enough to have his heart pounding heavy around his ear drums. Static blazes white across his field of vision. He nearly passes out. Or he does pass out.

Either way, Brian is still here, and so is he.

"This is a joke," determined in a voice that makes it sound like they fed him a spoon full of gravel for breakfast, he just stands there with his eyes squeezed shut, trying to equalize.

"No, you're a joke." The voice quips back, though it is very suddenly not on top of the cage. Brian is standing behind Deckard now in the cage. Leaning against the bars easily, he is suddenly dressed in a suit, a red tie adorning it. He brings one hand up to lick his thumb, and turn the page of the magazine that is held up in his other hand. The magazine is entitled Murderers Quarterly. "You gonna kill Edward for being an asshole? Just like you killed James Stutzman?" Bringing an elbow back he shoves off of his perch and lopes over to Deckard. "Look."

Holding out the magazine for Deckard to see, the main story seems to be a man who very much looks like Flint Deckard, holding a smoking revolver over a very familiar dead looking body.

Brian takes a step back, throwing his hands up in a 'what you gonna do' fashion. "No big deal, man. I'm sure no one cared about him too much. I mean how many people in the world actually have working relationships with others, anyways? Am I right?" Brian asks smugly, going to take a seat against the bars.

"Fuck you." Now Fulk's in the cage, wearing a suit. Reading a magazine. Murderers Quarterly. Still using the bars for support, Deckard forces himself to look — first at Brian, whose snazzy suit clashes awkwardly with the damp, pale, and ragged-edged state of his temporary cell mate — then at the magazine.

He doesn't look for very long.

Head turned away sharply enough that something in the base of his neck pops in protest, he claws his free hand down over the magazine's spread, intent on shoving it away. But Brian is aleady stepping back, maybe sparing himself the long breath that's forced out between the chatter of Flint's teeth. "You're not really here." Even as he says it, he looks back oer at the younger man where he's taken up a seat, cold eyes uncertain. He looks like he's here. "The fuck do you care. Y-y-you're probably going to be dead in a few days anyway."

A little high pitched 'oo' is given at Deckard's angry reaction to the magazine. Though the young man gets a look as if he's been caught in the act when Flint says he's not really there. "Yeaaahh.." He slowly concedes, giving a little shrug. "But I look like I'm here, don't I?" Brian asks as if echoing the older man's thoughts.

"I guess it doesn't matter Flinters." Brian says, and suddenly he's on his feet again, leaning up against the bars at Deckard's side as if he too has been imprisoned for a long while. "Don't slouch." He reminds, casting the other man a stern look. "And don't stutter, what do you think you're doing?" Finally, Brian waves a dismissive hand.

Outside of the cage another Brian is approaching, dressed similarly, though a mug in his hands, steam rising out of it. "You know, all this really isn't your fault, Flintikins." The newly arrived one murmurs. "You've just been forced to do a lot of things, right? Your hand has been forced, at least that's my opinion."

"I'm not stuttering I'm sh-shivering." Which is a lie, anyway. He's shaking. Not that it isn't cold. It's fucking freezing — whatever feeling he'd managed to regain in his fingertips over the last couple of hours spent huddled in the corner already ebbing away against cold steel. The accusation is enough to provoke genuine indignation and irritation, enough to have him closing his eyes hard against the invasion of this random Brian into his personal space. Slash zoo cage.

"Shut up." It's more of a plead than an order, and accompanied by a slump against the bars when his spine decides it doesn't have the patience to keep holding him upright for this ordeal. He doesn't need to look to know that there's another one out there now, scruffy head dipped until his face and voice are muffled into the wiry brace of his shoulder. "I didn't know he was going to be there."

"Oh that's a great excuse." Brian inside the zoo cage retorts, backing away from the man. "What, you think Roosevelt said, he didn't know the Japanese were going to be there? When he nuked them?" The young man asks, incredulous. You killed him. Right or wrong. You did it. Say you did it, Flint. Say it." The Brian in the cage practically demands, pacing back and forth behind the older man inside the cage.

Outside the cage, the Brian gives a little frown. Bringing up his mug he takes another little sip of whatever is in that mug. "He didn't want to…" he says a bit quietly in Deckard's defense.

"He was just some random guy. The Cuban said he would have killed me. Him. If I hadn't been me." Deckard's speech continues to jostle around the tremors that rack from shoulders to tailbone and concentrate in the tension in his knuckles. More excuses. Not even ones that make that much sense anymore. He keeps his head down, miserably hangdog under the initial Brian's persistence and not comforted by the second's attempts at a defense.

He can see him drowning — see where he's missed his mark, trading quick and easy for drawn out and painful. The rake of memory makes him wince, and there's a sound in the base of his throat like he might retch. Fortunately, he doesn't. He coughs instead, smoke-abused lungs wheezing harsh against the cold.

"This is fff-fucking ridiculous. Brian would never dress like that." Pleading again.

The Brian inside the cage looks rather miffed, pausing in his pacing back and forth his hands suddenly shoot out at Deckard's chest. Grabbing him by the fabric of his shirt, the young man is suddenly and violently yanking the man up to his feet, then pressing him against the bars at his back. "You killed him damnit! Now you say what you did! Say what you did, Flint Deckard!" Brian yells loudly. The guards would likely hear him if he was real. But he's not.

"Say what you did." His voice levels out now, very stern but with less volume. Slowly releasing the older man, Brian takes a step back, staring at him.

The Brian outside the cage watches rather nervously, taking another long sip from the mug of neverending liquid. He doesn't offer Deckard any support right now. That other manifestation of Brian is scary.

Deckard offers no resistance, strained back muscles slamming against the bars without going any stiffer than they already are. His head lolls with the movement, first forward, then back against metal to bare the sweat-slick bristle of stubble around the base of his jaw and neck.

It starts with the ghost of a smile. Everything that isn't funny about this builds from there, his teeth bared around a sick-sounding chuckle grated up at the barred ceiling of his cage. Where Brian started. "I killed James Stutzman."

"Yeah, you did." Brian says with a little grin of his own forming as he backs up away from Deckard and leans against 'his' side of the cage now.

"But.." Comes the voice from outside the cage. "You can save a lot more, Flinters. You want to do the right thing. So figure something out, Flint. Help those kids stop these bad guys. Protect Brian, and Teo, and Abby." His voice sounds a bit more pleading. "You've got to do it, Flint. To set things right."

"I'm in a metal box. In the event you hadn't noticed on account of being incorporeal." Standing up under his own power now, Deckard presses the trembling splay of his right hand up over his face. "I didn't think it was going to be like this when I signed up to help save the world."

It's not a whine. Not really. Just vacant statement of fact while he pushes the damp, dirty curl of his hair back off his brow. "I need a bunch of fucking kids to come help me.

"Again."

"Put your fucking mind to it." Brian retorts, giving the other man an incorporeal little pat slash slap with one hand. Taking a step away he gives a little shrug. "Well, I have a parent teacher conference with Flava Flav then I have to turn into Tom Cruise and make out with your mothaaa." Brian says, tilting his head to the side a little bit. "Peace out, boyeeeee." A peace sign coming up to his chest.

Deckard blinks.

And the pair of Brians are gone, magazines, suits, mugs and all. And the cage is left in silence once again.


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January 26th: Craquelure
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January 26th: You Show Me Yours...
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