015 - Banana Creme

[deadly_ned]

Alpha, Digby and I are on walkabout. If you need to reach us, please leave a message at the tone.


[Private to Alpha

I have to get off this ship.

We. We have to get off this ship. Pick whoever you want to be, I'll dress to match, and we're going to...go into this port and have a good time and I don't..know what else. Whatever you want to do.

[Private to Dean]

Um. Problem.

[Private to Arthas]

Hi.

Uh.

I know we don't...talk much.

I just.

Wanted to see how things were going.

How are things...going?


[Spam]

[The Piemaker has never been to L.A., never stepped foot in California before. But while the discomfort of another yet-unfamiliar place was, as usual, all-encompassing, at least this unfamiliar place was stationed on Earth. The Piemaker could pretend for a little while to be normal.

He's taking that opportunity now, dressing up in the manner of a Hollywood B-Lister with shades and expensive clothes to match. Now fully in his role, he steps off the Barge to begin his new, pretend life for four days]

Comments

Private

[deadly_ned]

...Fine.

Fine.


I'm. In the kitchens.


Just. Can it have fur, please? I get..creeped out when it's just bare meat.

Private -> spam?/log?

[darknessb4me]

Fine.

Spam away!

[deadly_ned]

[It's not that the Piemaker particularly wanted to tell Arthas about this. He'd rather have kept it a secret for years, as he had been doing.

But Arthas deserves to know the truth about what happened to him more than Ned deserves his privacy, especially with the additional risks involved. So it's with a heavy heart he's opened the door to his secret life wide enough for one more person to slip through.

It's upsetting. Especially when he doesn't know exactly how Arthas is taking this news. But at least he can understand the sort of sacrifice Riddick made for him.

So he sits in the kitchens, sadly nursing a cup of hot chocolate and staring down into it. There's a second cup, presumably for Arthas, across the table. His dog Digby sits near him under the table, head on his paws]

Spammm

[darknessb4me]

[Arthas takes about 20 minutes to arrive, and he's carrying a sad little unmoving lump of fur. He eyes Digby warily - animals sometimes react badly to the undead - but drops the rabbit onto the table.]

Broken neck.

[It's already showing signs of rot. It's a recent kill, but that's what happens when Arthas touches things sometimes.]

Spammm

[deadly_ned]

[Digby is a regular among the undead - after all, he too died and came back to life. He perks his ears up briefly at Arthas' arrival, but otherwise doesn't move. He's an old soul - literally, he's 22 years old.

The Piemaker does his best not to flinch as the rabbit is dumped in front of him, eying it with a hollow tiredness.]

At least you didn't skin it. That would have been disturbing.

[He rolls up his sleeve, careful to stay out of arm's reach of Arthas, and checks his watch. Pressing down on the timer, he stretches out his hand and gently prods the dead rabbit with his fingertip.

There's a brief, tiny flash of yellow-white light between his touch and the rabbit's fur. All of a sudden the bunny sits up, alert and alarmed and likely terrified. From the way its head wobbles the neck still seems to be broken, but this doesn't seem to be causing it any pain or distress; now it can turn its head around a little further than before.]

Spammm

[darknessb4me]

[Just like that, no incantation and barely a spark. It had taken Kel'thuzad three years to so much as raise a rat.]

Damn.

Are you controlling it?

Spammm

[deadly_ned]

No. Yes. I mean.


...I can control me. But any..skin to skin contact will set it off. I can't shut it off.

[The Piemaker watches the rabbit hop from the table and start to scamper around the kitchen, but he keeps an extra eye on his watch]

There are rules. Like I. Like I said.

I touch it again, it goes back to being dead forever. I can't wake it up again. So don't...touch me, please. Unless you want to death toll.

And whatever I keep alive longer than a minute, something else has to die. I don't have control over who or where or why, but it's a random...proximity thing.

Riddick exchanged himself for you. I didn't want him to. I didn't...want any of this.

Spammm

[darknessb4me]

[Arthas looks stricken.]

But he's alive now. Riddick.

[He glances at the rabbit.]

How long?

Spammm

[deadly_ned]

He is. That's not my doing. That's the Barge. If we were in my universe, he'd still be dead.


[He too looks down at the rabbit and bites at his lip]

Sixty seconds.

Well, thirty-seven now.

Spammm

[darknessb4me]

I know how long a minute is!

[He has no idea how to feel about Riddick dying for him and it comes out in his voice as something like anger. He didn't ask for that. Too many people are dead because of Arthas already. Maybe he'll cut his heart out again out of spite.]

Can you summon it back to you, or do I need to catch it again?

Spammm

[deadly_ned]

[The Piemaker flinches in his seat, hunching his shoulders. He's feeling betrayed and furious over Riddick in his own quiet, solemn way, and is even sort of jealous that Riddick's love for the man in front of him is worth more than Ned's entire existence]

I can't. But the kitchen door's shut, I've had to catch rabbits before. Let me.

Spammm

[darknessb4me]

I- alright.

[Bereft of an immediate problem to be solved, Arthas pulls back and sits down, puts his head in his hands. Damn it. Damn it damn it.]

I didn't mean to snap at you. You were used, I know what that's like.

[That was out loud? Oh well.]

Spammm

[deadly_ned]

[The Piemaker's eyes are locked on the rabbit. When the little creature gets close, he reaches down and picks it up in both hands. Just like that, it's dead again.

He places it on the table and tries not to look at it, folding his arms over the table and hunching down]

It's a terrible feeling. I didn't. Tell anyone for twenty years because I didn't...want to be used.

He did it because he loves you. People do...stupid, terrible things in the name of love. I know what that's like.

Spammm

[darknessb4me]

[Well, he has no idea what to do with this information either. Love, like what kind of love?]

I didn't give him permission to do that.

Spammm

[deadly_ned]

I know. I didn't give him permission to tell my secret to Tirion Fordring, or use my gift, or make me accidentally kill him.

It was fairly traumatic. He's a...jerk, like that. A big, huge...jerk.

Spammm

[darknessb4me]

Fordring won't tell anyone.

[He sounds dismissive of the very idea.]

What happens if you touch me again?

Spammm

[deadly_ned]

Too many people know already.


...You die. And presumably, you'll death toll and be up again in a week, thanks to the Barge.

Spammm

[darknessb4me]

And the heart is lost.

Spammm

[deadly_ned]

And the heart is lost.


....Well, actually, I don't know if the Barge resets my powers or not, but it's best not to test it, eh? I don't...think it would.

Spam

[darknessb4me]

No.

[No one's testing it. Another reason to wear gloves all the time, besides Barron.]

Why didn't he tell me?

Spam

[deadly_ned]

I won't touch you. I'm...very good at not touching people.

My, um. My girlfriend, she. Died.



...


Maybe because it was my secret to tell. Maybe because he thought you'd be angry. I don't know.

Spam

[darknessb4me]

If you don't want word to get out about this, I won't be the one that tells people.

Spam

[deadly_ned]

[The Piemaker visibly sags in relief; even Digby under the table gives a friendly tail wag]

Thank you.


No, thank you. I, um. I know you didn't...ask to be dragged into this either. You have...no idea how much that means to me.

Spam

[darknessb4me]

It's something you can be hanged for, on my world.

Are there others like you?

Spam

[deadly_ned]

Hanged would be the best-case scenario in my world.

No. It's just me.

As. As far as I know. But I...looked, for a long time, for patterns like mine.

But it's just me. I didn't ever want this.