Call me animal.

[phantastus]

WHO: Heather Mason and Maurice Hutch (OC)
WHERE: Dogtrot, Texas
WHEN: Just easing into spring.
WHAT: What probably would have been a night spent loitering around the drug store and breaking bottles in the alley like generic malcontent youths takes several unexpected turns when a vampire hunter interrupts Maurice while waiting for his friend from up north.
RATING: Probably PG. CW for violence, mild body horror and transformation.




awsum
ill be outside where the rentareel used to be

Maurice had put out the call and now he was in his place, hands in his coat pockets. He hadn't seen his friend for a while now. One thing or another would come up (said things including worrying mothers, various injuries, and plain bad weather) and now that at least the weather had calmed its bad self down, the world was ready to be trampled again.

And what a night for it! It was clear with chilly breezes sneaking around buildings and down alleyways. An orange moon hung low on the horizon and kept the clouds far on the edges of the horizon. It wouldn't rain for two more days. Spring was coming. The tiny green shoots had just barely started poking out of the ground where there was enough actual soil instead of the red clay of Dogtrot. Crispy dead leaves still hung in the corners where the buildings met the sidewalk. Easter candy all but overflowed on super market shelves.

The vampire thought of all the things they would do once Heather got there. They could graffiti the old building marked to be torn down the following week since it was technically not illegal anymore. They could eat pizza at Tod's until they were sick. And DRANKS. And Sega. If Meranda hadn't taken over the sofa for the night. An outlet in her room had blown (or so she said) so she spent a lot of time on the sofa during her WoW raids.

Something interrupted his thoughts. He had lived in Dogtrot for years now and not a lot surprised him. He knew the local vampires, he even knew a local spook or two. He knew the drug addicts and the few homeless and what they sounded like. What he heard on that empty chilly street was none of those things.

"Quack quack!" It was mechanical. Grainy.

Maurice lifted a brow and tugged his phone out wondering if Meranda had passive-aggressively changed the ring on it again.

"Quack quack!"

"The hell...?" It wasn't his phone. Maurice pocketed it and looked all around. The quack came from an alley across the street between a now defunct QUICK CASH and what was going to be a shiny new laundromat. Maurice looked both ways and ventured forward into the gloom.

The garbage can at the end of the alley quacked. Maurice screwed up his face in thought. Broken toy that suddenly came back to life? Stranded cyborge duck?

Up above on the rooftop, a long and lean and very crafty hunter was watching his prey fall for his trap hook, line, and sinker. His father had been a hunter--a normal hunter. Deer, ducks, rams. He had watched him make odd noises to get the attention of the deer. A whistle or a click to make them stop in just the right place. Sometimes to even lure them in.

Humans were the most curious animals that he knew of and though the thing in the alleyway wasn't human (not in the slightest) he had to watch it in fascination and amusement before he made his move.

Maurice peered into the trash. There was an old Talkboy straight from the eighties in the trash quacking away.

"Oh, man, sweet!" It was all his! He reached for it. Something dressed in full army camo descended upon him and drove a thin knife into his shoulder. Maurice screamed like a wildcat and the fight began.

Comments

[foolishwren]

"Didn't anyone ever tell you about the whole concept of baby steps?" she asked, rolling her eyes but still wearing a grin. She'd flapped the wings... but that was a far cry from jumping off of something and hoping you didn't die. Extra limbs were hard.

In any case, she was content to wait while Maurice went to retrieve their dinner, but when the telltale smells started to waft into the house, her mouth started to water.

That was one thing she'd found out about turning into a giant creature.

Apparently it took a hell of a lot of energy, because she was always ravenous afterwards.

She got up from the table, scraping the chair's legs on the floor.

"Shit, that smells amazing."

[toothaches]

"It is amazing! It's from Tod's!" Maurice held his head up in pride. Their town had the one and only Tod's because there was only one Tod. Well. There was only one Tod like their Tod.

Beers in hand, he sank back down in his seat and instantly shotgunned one of them because holy shit what a night he'd had and it wasn't even midnight yet.

Once he was finished, he sucked in a deep breath and lowered the can to the table. "Whooohh...okay. Okay, I'm...better now." He coughed--some of the beer had gone down the wrong tube. Maurice thought about their situation again. Nothing had changed. But everything had changed. Heather would never stop being Heather but now that she had this gift, he worried about setting it off by accident. She was new at the whole birdbeast thing and he remembered all too well how hard it was dealing with the vampire thing.

"What d'we do now?"

[foolishwren]

Heather was too distracted by the maddening smells coming from the pizza boxes to give Maurice her customary 'don't overdo it' glance when he tipped back the alcohol-- but then again, after what happened tonight, he probably needed it. She didn't know a lot about how vampires healed, only that it apparently happened somehow and that he might as well try to deaden the pain while it did.

Once the boxes were set down, she was already tugging one open, tugging out a big gooey slice.

It was already in her mouth when she replied: "We eaff 't."

So good.

[toothaches]

Eaff't sounded good to him. He took a slice himself and winced as he chewed. He'd really hit the pavement hard. Little lightning bolts of pain slithered through his jaw. Man, fuck that camo guy.

The big guy lapsed into silence again as he contemplated where to go from here. He had a lot of questions but he wasn't sure if it was his place to ask them. He also wanted to give Heather the opportunity to take what she wanted because she'd saved his ass. And also RIBS. That bothered him. It bothered him it bothered him it bothered him. He was his mother's son.

Maybe he'd take a third beer. Three was supposed to be a lucky number, wasn't it? Or was it four? It was probably four. He want to the fridge again.

A thought struck him. "Halloween is going to be awesome."

[foolishwren]

A part of her in the back of her head was already remembering Maurice's hysterical concerns and hoping that he didn't take her enthusiasm for the pizza for confirmation that his fears were founded. But for real, she was so hungry.

Previously, staying a monster for any extended period of time more or less made for a mild case of the munchies, but not much more. But she hadn't done much more than laze around the apartment.

This was by far the most physical she'd gotten with it, and accordingly, the appetite had increased tenfold.

She swallowed what was in her mouth. It took a couple of tries to get down-- she'd bitten big and hadn't taken much time to chew.

"You... seem to be taking this pretty well, all things considered..."

[toothaches]

HEATHER YOU AREN'T A BIRD RIGHT NOW. GOD.

Maurice rummaged around in the fridge. "Well...I mean. I'm dead. And..." He had quite a few adventures under his belt. Tangling with shadow people, evil doctors, being taken captive by dustbunnies, being stuck in a submarine with a skeleton and a...leprechaun or whatever the fuck his buddy Fenix was. "Well, you aren't hurt or under some curse from someone or..."

He backed out with the beers in hand. "And you're cool with it, right?"

[foolishwren]

"Well... yeah."

As cool as could be considered, she supposed...

Of course, she'd be lying if she tried to claim that her immediate reaction upon lifting the covers and looking down to the foot of the bed to see her ankles erupting into scaly, tar-black skin and feathers hadn't been abject panic. And even now there was still a certain amount of wary worry.

After fighting so hard for her humanity and turning her back on everything having to do with Silent Hill, for it to resurface so abruptly like this...

But still, she shrugged.

"I mean, I'm not feeling any sudden lustful urges for the blood of virgins or anything. I'm still... me. Y'know?"

[toothaches]

Maurice tilted his head and thought about that.

He couldn't tell the difference between virgin blood and otherwise. He shrugged and returned to the table.

"If you're not freaked out, I'm not freaked out." He gave her a tired but genuine grin, teeth and all. "It's kinda weird and out of the blue but...yeah. You have no idea where it came from?"

[foolishwren]

.... EEEEEEHHHHHHHHH. :I

She took a moment or two to mull that one over in her head, using the enormous chomp of pizza she'd just taken as cover.

Because while it had of course been a surprise... she couldn't honestly say 'no' to that question, could she?

Given who she was... what she was...

At long last, she swallowed and spoke up.

"Well, it surprised the hell out of me. Wasn't expecting it at all."

There. That wasn't really lying.

[toothaches]

Maurice had no real reason to suspect otherwise. Weird things just...happened to him. To them both. Plus he was finally starting to feel a buzz and that might have softened any suspicious edges to Heather's answer.

He was, however, sober enough not to loudly declare them monster friends yet. A lot of people he knew weren't as comfortable with the word 'monster' as he was.

"You could totally be a crime fighter."

Okay, maybe he was more than a little buzzed.

[foolishwren]

Heather quirked a brow.

Yep, gettin' buzzed. Well, she hoped it helped with the injuries, at least.

"Heh, sure. I'll be the next Spider-Man. Except it'll be Satanic Bird Girl. Would you read comics about Satanic Bird Girl? Be honest."

She reached out for another slice of pizza.

[toothaches]

Maurice just looked at her.

"Uh, YEAH I would? Have you seen Spawn? Satanic Bird Girl would be the coolest comic ever! You could even have your own really badly adapted movie!"

He had half a mind to draw the comic himself.

[foolishwren]

A long ooze of cheese stretched from the box to Heather's plate and she she reached out to pluck it and bundle it into her mouth. GOD SHE WAS HUNGRY. Even if all she'd done was pick a guy up and chuck him (and, well, then walk all the way from town to the trailer), she felt like she'd done an all-day workout.

"I'll pass on the badly-adapted movie. You know they'd give me giant silicone boobs and impractical high-heeled boots or something."

[toothaches]

He thought about that, slowly, and eventually made a face. His braincogs were sufficiently gunked and he was glad.

"How would a giant bird wear high heels?" Or any form of shoe whatsoever. A cape like Spawn's probably wouldn't make sense, would it? She breathed fire and it would go up in flames.

Unless.

The cape was also made out of fire!

[foolishwren]

"They'd find a way. Bird feet aren't sexy enough for American audiences."

She took a bite of the crust-- all that was left of the slice, which had disappeared in a record amount of time.

"... You got anything to drink? Like soda or something."

She'd ask for a beer, but she didn't want to get inebriated tonight. Not right after she spilled the beans about this. There were still several other jars of beans she DIDN'T want spilled.

[toothaches]

Why couldn't 'Murica just let giant bird demons be cool?

The vampire nodded and pointed an elbow at the fridge. "Yeah, top shelf. We got Dew and Dr. Thunder because our grocery store failed us."

If he'd been sober he would have warned his friend away from the green cans because those belonged to the warrior down the hall and she didn't like her stores tampered with.

OH WELL!

[foolishwren]

"Cool. Thanks."

She got to her feet and headed over to the fridge.

Wrinkled her nose at the Dr. Thunder-- call her a snob, but she didn't trust off-brands-- and reached for the Mountain Dew instead.

She didn't know.

[toothaches]

Somewhere in the midst of battle, the Pandaren felt a disturbance in the force. But it would have to wait.

Maurice wasn't sober enough to judge Heather. He was actually...sort of oozing off of his chair at this point with one arm still hooked over the back. He found himself wondering just how that guy in the camo was doing now. He probably had some broken bones. His legs probably fell off. Yeah. He was crawling home with just his arms. Or just one arm.

He'd been kicked around all his life but he wasn't sure he'd taken a tumble like that in recent memory. And that, somehow, brought him back to a year when he'd been alive and his weird ass cousin bit a fucking chunk out of his arm.

The vampire moved to rub that part of his arm as if he still felt it.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I rode on a giant My Little Pony?"

[foolishwren]

Heather flopped back down into the chair, popping the tab off the can.

"Nope. But you'd better, because that sounds like a story I need to hear."

[toothaches]

"Well...it was back when I was alive. Me and my dragon friend and a dead wolf and my cousin and my other cousin that I like a lot more were in an attic. Only it wasn't a normal attic. It was like...every attic ever all smashed together."

That felt like a pretty good description.

"And this monster found us...so we were all...oh shit. We gon' die. But then this big orange horse with colored hair showed up and saved us. She was really nice, but I forgot what she said her name was...or if she even did."

[foolishwren]

In the time it took Maurice to relate his tale of bygone adventures, Heather had polished off another two slices of pizza.

She was licking tomato sauce and garlic salt off of her fingers when he got to the part with the horse.

"Wow. That sounds intense."

[toothaches]

"It was pretty scary..." Maurice scrambled to sit upright again in his chair. "But not scary as the thing with the rabbits. That also happened in that house...that house was weird."

He was quiet for a long moment before finally reaching out for his own slice of pizza.

"I'm kinda impressed I survived all that long enough to become a vampire."

[foolishwren]

She paused, watching him as she took a long drink of the soda.

"... How old were you when you started getting into... you know?"

All that business with other worlds, outside of this one. And inside this one.

[toothaches]

How old had he been? Being alive felt like some fuzzy dream. Or maybe a life that had belonged to somebody else. He had tried to stay the same old Maurice after becoming an undead abomination but it hadn't really gone that way, had it?

He knew too much about breaking backbones.

"Gosh, uh..." Maurice sluggishly counted on his clawed fingers. "Twh, trhh,...twenty four. That's right, that's that year I had my driver's licence revoked twice in one year. And I remember that was when Lucy ran away--a dog I had."

[foolishwren]

"... Twenty-four. Wow."

All things considered, she shouldn't be too surprised. It was older than her, and after all, hadn't she been acquainted with the otherworldly her entire life? Beyond her life?

But it still sounded painfully young.

"... Seems like it worked out okay for you, though. I mean... overall. You're still around."

Or maybe you just have REALLY LOW STANDARDS, Heather. Did you think of that?