ArchivedLogs:Real Monsters

Real Monsters
Dramatis Personae Sebastian, Shane, Chelsea
In Absentia	2013-12-06 YUM. (warning: KIND OF GROSS, blood/injury/cannibalism.)
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Rooftop - East Village
It tends to be windy, up here, but the presence of plastic table and folding chairs suggests that nevertheless building residents occasionally make their way out to this rooftop. With a good view of Tompkins Square Park less than a block away it's a good spot for city-watching. There's a railing around the edge, though it might be possible (if /unwise/) to climb over it to the narrow concrete ledges beyond and from there to the fire escape. Centrally, someone has broken down crates and constructed a small raised-bed garden up here, barren in winter but filled in three other seasons with a small assortment of herbs and vegetables. The concrete wall that rings the roof has been decorated, painted in vivid bright shades by some artistic hand to add colourful cheer to the rooftop. The mural shifts in terrain One wall sports a beach, flecked with grass and seashells and driftwood and shore birds. Beach transitions into meadow, colourful with wildflowers and butterflies and dragonflies; meadow shifts into snow-capped mountains, subsides into piedmont and sprouts into a verdant forest on the fourth, alive with animals. It's early evening, and without much specific to do, everyone else is busy in the house, Chelsea has just been napping on couch. It's been a long time since she was in a safe enough place to sleep deeply, so she's been getting caught up off and on. Suddenly Chelsea bolts awake with a slightly noisy gasp, though it wasn't loud enough to called a shout, anyone who heard her might think she sounds distressed. She's huddled in her blankets on the couch, peering around the room, probably trying to remember where she is. She's sweaty, and the over-sized t-shirt she's sleeping in his stuck to her skinny body with sweat. She also has her two right arms /jammed/ through the right sleeve, just so she can wear the shirt as a nightgown. It's early evening, and without much specific to do, Shane has /vanished/ up to the roof with his cellphone and his pack of cigarettes. Indulging in some /vice/. But down here there's still a Sebastian! Or at least there's /about/ to be, he's opening the door to slip inside right now. In a more similar vein to his father than his twin, he's dressed flamboyantly, a black pleated miniskirt over leggings swirled with imagery of space, constellations and galaxies swirling across them. He wears a bright green sweater over a purple turtleneck, and he's shedding a puffy blue jacket and his chunky pink-and-grey sneakers as he comes inside. "Oh -- oh, hi, you must be Chelsea?" He sounds cautious, a little shy. "Um -- are you okay, you look a little. Um, freaked, m'sor -- I apologize if I --" His head shakes. "... have you seen my brother?" Chelsea maintains just another moment of freakout, where it looks like she's trying to get something away from her neck, even though there's obviously nothing there. Sebastian's entrance though seems to snap her out of it, and she brightens immediately when she sees him, speaking quickly in spanish, "{Oh hey Shane, what?}" She didn't hear him exactly, or is confused about why this not-Shane is just now meeting her for the first time. Sebastian blushes when Chelsea brightens. "I just was asking if you're okay," he explains again softly. And then in Spanish: "{Yes, Shane. You see him? Seen. Him.}" His Spanish is halting, quite markedly less fluid than his brother's. Chelsea's brow furrows at this version of Shane, and then things seem to fall into place. His brother. His /twin/ brother. "Oh shit," she says, embarrassed. "{Sorry,} I think he said he was going upstairs? Or outside... actually I'm not sure." She blinks, and then stands, wrapping the blanket around her in a familiar way, wearing it sort of like a toga, so it leaves her double shoulder free. "Hi, yeah, I'm Chelsea. You must be, B?" Sebastian nods quickly, offering Chelsea a small closed-lipped smile, as cautious and shy as his tone is. "Upstairs -- probably the roof, Dusk and Flicker are /here/ and their apartment's the usual upstairs. It's nice up there. Well -- cold today. But nice. Um. Yes, I'm B. Shane told me you were spending the weekend. And maybe school?" His head tips back, black eyes fixing up on the ceiling for a moment. "Have you seen the roof?" "No not yet," Chelsea takes a couple steps toward Bast, maybe eager to leave her bad dreams behind. "Can I go with you please? Are you going up? It's so..." She glances around, not wanting to say how freaked out she was, waking up here alone. "Uh, I'm just bored here. Wouldn... mind some air?" "Sure. It's pretty I'll show you. Have you seen Tag around? He lives up there," Bastian points a finger up at the small curtained lofted area, "he's like. This. Tiny really brightly colored Asian man. Changes colors nonstop. Anyway he painted up there and it's pretty. You might want to steal a pair of shoes and maybe a jacket, though, it's cold out." He heads for the door to slip his own shoes back on. Chelsea nods and says, "I don't have any shoes yet, but Jax loaned me these really nice socks." She wiggles her toes out from under the blankets. Then she peers into the coat closet and finds someone's random winter jacket, and she smiles at B. "I'll put it back, I promise." And then she's following Sebastian wherever he might take them. Sebastian tugs his own jacket back on, opening the front door and leading the way. He's kind of /bouncy/ about it in contrast to his previous diffidence, energy growing as he climbs the stairs -- by the time he's at the top floor he's taking the stairs two at a time. He holds the roof door open for Chelsea but after this he is /bursting/ through it. "Wo-o-oah." Shane has his cigarette, as promised. It's chilly up here, a little damp; it's been drizzling off and on though at the moment that's 'off'. Shane's perched on one of the roof walls, cigarette held between thumb and forefinger and his cellphone in the other hand. He opens the cellphone-arm up wide to invite a hug. One that Sebastian hurtles into; with Shane perched on the /wall/ his tacklehug might well have put the other boy in danger of falling /off/ but Sebastian's fierce squeeze holds him tightly in place. "I finished work are we fighting today?" "Hell fucking yeah. Sup, Chelsea?" Shane's chin jerks upward. "Welcome to our roof. It's kind of. Uh. Tall? Roofy. Not like roofie-roofy though." Chelsea's eyes go wide when the boys are hugging so close to the edge, but she tries to contain her reaction to the best of her ability. She also looks like she has no interest in going to the edge. "Uh yeah, it's cool..." she looks around, and then notices the paintings. "Oh, pretty! Is that what you meant, B? What Tag painted? He's really good." Then Chelsea blinks as more things process. "Wait, what are you fighting about? You don't seem mad..." "Oh yeah Tag painted that. He does that. Just. Whoosh. Colour fucking /everywhere/." Shane makes a little finger-flicked flourish with this statement, like he is /throwing/ magic at the wall. He sucks in a long drag of cigarette, turning his head over the edge of the roof to blow it out. "Oh, shit, no, /we're/ not fighting." "Well not each /other/," Sebastian corrects awkwardly. "Maybe each other," Shane re-corrects cheerfully. "Maybe each other," Bastian allows, "but not --" "-- in the shitty way. We just run a --" Shane waves his hand vaguely in the air. "Club," Sebastian finishes. "For fighting. So we can practice for --" "-- You know, pretty much the enormous fucking /hordes/ of assholes who want to kill us." Shane's teeth bare; he has to relax before taking his next puff of smoke for fear of biting the end straight off. Chelsea's head bobbles back and forth as the boys starting finishing each others' sentences, like she's watching a tennis match. But as understanding dawns, she walks closer to them, still keeping a healthy distance from the edge of the roof. "Wait, you /train/? Like in /how/ to fight? Can you teach /me/? I really need to know how to defend myself..." "Yeah sure of course have you taken a fucking /look/ --" Shane waves his hand out towards the city. "... around lately, things can get pretty bad." Sebastian turns to lean his elbows against the wall, fingers clasping together. "So -- practice. Work on people, learn to kick some goddamn ass. Punch some goddamn --" For a moment Shane hesitates, glancing towards Chelsea's third arm. "I guess you can't really punch with that arm, though." Sebastian blushes deeply as he indicates it. "What's it do?" Chelsea's growing excitement squelches when Sebastian points out her dud of an extra arm. She nods at Shane, by process of elimination. "He heard all about it last night. It does fuck all." She reaches over to hike the crammed sleeve up over her skinny shoulder, and the dud immediately lolls like a dead girl's arm, to the side and a bit behind her. Suddenly, the full impact of where they are and the lack of supervision seems to occur to her. "Actually... I'd do... pretty much anything to get rid of it." Shane looks around, too. He glances towards Chelsea, then towards the roof doors. His mouth curls up in a fierce bright grin, and he slips down off the wall. "Are you really going to regen -- I mean, maybe not the arm but like. Heal?" Sebastian leans in to peer at her limbs expectantly. "No infection, no -- anything." "Except your body just --" Shane grins, looking over the dud arm curiously. "Yeah, I think I could manage this." "Manage -- wait are you /serious/?" Sebastian looks a little incredulous. "What. She doesn't want it. And she says it won't hurt." Shane shrugs a shoulder casually. "Shouldn't we like. Experiment with a finger or something first?" Sebastian chews at his lip a little worriedly. "Pfft," Shane dismisses this, "she's done it before it's been fine. Zombies took her extra legs see no big deal." Chelsea nods, swallowing hard. "Yeah, it should be fine. I'd do it myself, but I can't really reach, you know?" She looks between the boys, and finally says, "All the original parts grow back. I was telling Shane, when the zombies got my extra legs, they got my real foot too, and it grew right back. It hurts a /little/ but... I don't think it's like... how it would feel to someone else, you know?" "Alright. Squeeze B's hand. We're kind of made out of rubber," Shane informs Chelsea cheerfully, "so you can squeeze as hard as you want if it's hurting and it won't bother him at all. B --" Shane moves to Chelsea, pushing up her sleeve as much as it can go to examine the double set of arms. "Just hold her still. And pull this shirt up I can't even see the joint with both these through one sleeve." Bastian dips his head with a small wrinkle of nose, skirting around to Chelsea's left side to slip his cool hand into hers. Small squeeze. Chelsea sucks air in through her teeth, thinking about last chances to back out, and finally nods. She takes B's hand in hers, and squeezes tight. She's not particularly strong, but fear and adrenalin can do wonders. "Hey, this is already less scary than the dream I was just having downstairs..." She manages a weak smile, and then nods Shane. "If you cut it, and twist, it should pop right out." Bastian scrunches an eye shut, but squeezes back. Gently, perhaps well used to moderating his /own/ strength around other people. Shane tugs the t-shirt up somewhat, tugging the dud arm back out through the sleeve though he leaves her good arm still through it, shirt pushed up at an odd angle now. "That's funny," he says with a crooked grin, "We often /are/ people's nightmares." This comment makes Sebastian flush darker, cheeks tinting kind of purple. His lips press firmly closed together over his sharp teeth. Shane, on the other hand, bares his wider, not so much grin anymore as jus determined. His claws grow out longer, black and sharp. "Okay. Deep breaths." He presses his claws in at her second shoulder joint, sinking into flesh and then slowly tearing downwards to start severing a line down where the joint connects to her body. Sebastian's gills quiver when the tearing starts. His breath quickens. He curls his other arm around Chelsea, kind of like a hug but kind of a loose steadying restraint. Chelsea nods as if she knows exactly what Shane means by being the nightmare, and then she's turning away and burying her face in Sebastian's shoulder. She stiffens when Shane starts to cut, but she grunts, sort of clearing her throat, and says through clenched teeth, "It's ok, I'm fine." When Shane is nearly all the way done, she twists away and into Sebastian, tearing herself free from the offending limb. She gasps, but doesn't collapse. Clear to both boys in the light on the roof, the torn skin around wound writhes like a living thing in it's own right, muscle and tendon sliding together as they watch, tendrils of skin already reaching across to start closing the wound. Chelsea rests her head on Sebastian's shoulder, panting slightly, but relatively under control, all things considered. When Chelsea starts to twist, Shane starts to pull, aiding the process to rip the arm free. "Holy fucking /shit/." He sounds awed as he watches the skin start to knit itself back together. "{Holy fucking shit.}" Sebastian's echo is in Vietnamese, wide-eyed. "That," Shane is now /waggling/ the disembodied arm towards the healing flesh, dead hand bobbing as fingers flap towards it, "is fucking /incredible/." "Yeah." Sebastian's arm tightens slightly around Chelsea, hand rubbing lightly at her back as she pants. "You good?" "Good, she's /amazi -- oh you mean like pain." Shane is still watching, also wide-eyed. Sebastian looks towards the dead limb in Shane's hands. His gills flutter again. "What, you want it?" Shane's brows raise. Without even really thinking about it he licks blood off the torn end of stump. "You weren't planning on doing anything with this, were you?" Chelsea is quickly catching her breath, but leans happily into Sebastian's hug. She's probably been without much human contact for a while too. Thinking perhaps Shane is asking /her/ if she wants the arm, she just scrunches up her nose and and shakes her head, finally releasing Sebastian. "Yuck, no, glad it's /off/ me..." She doesn't even want to look at it, but with Shane /licking/ it, one particularly detail is immediately clear - the ragged, torn ends of flesh on the severed arm are still writhing, and the arm doesn't seem cooled off much. The ribbons of flesh are wiggling, almost /seeking/ for something to attach to, and the pseudopods of muscle and skin even try to grab at Shane's tongue. His ingestion of her blood doesn't have any immediate fact, but maybe we'll hear more about that later. Sebastian tugs Chelsea's shirt back down into place when the skin has healed itself, and curls his other arm around Chelsea. His fingers pet absently at her curly hair, his hug tight until she lets go. "That was cool." Shane makes chomping teeth motions towards the writhing end of the arm. "Talk about fresh meat, dude, I think this is still alive." Sebastian makes a soft whining growl, drawing in a breath and then looking away. "What? Have it, /she/ doesn't want it. -- You don't care if /we/ keep this, then?" Shane's grin is still sharp. "Though I don't know it's trying to grow maybe if you eat it you'll grow another Chelsea inside you. Have it chest-burst out like aliens." "Oh gosh you're /sick/." Which doesn't stop Sebastian from looking back at the arm. HUNGRILY. Chelsea actually looks a little closer at it when Shane holds it out. "Holy shit that's so gross," she says, not at the boys wanting to eat it, but just the limb itself. Also, her words say that, but her expression is actually pretty fascinated. Like, she knows she's /supposed/ to think it's gross, so she says that, but it's pretty clear she's more curious that grossed out. "I never saw one after... before. Not up close." Then she blinks and looks at Shane and B again. "Oh uh, I don't really care if you guys... do you eat human? I mean, whatever," she tries to play it off. She's not all the way there, but it's been a weird fucking week and her mind is pretty flexible right now. "But, I dunno if it's a good idea. My body is fucking weird, you know?" "We eat any fucking meat," Shane explains cheerfully, though his eyes flick to Bastian through this with a touch of concern. "It's just --" "-- humans don't usually /donate/ limbs to us." Sebastian's flush has deepened. His gills flutter faster, words broken up with odd stutter-pauses of breath. "So we don't -- don't usually --" "We hunt. Not people, like. Deer. Rabbits. Squirrels. And fish. Don't worry, only going to eat meat you lost /voluntarily." Shane is back to examining the end of the limb. "It /is/ gross," though he still sounds cheerful about this, "and mutant bodies are weird as hell. Anyway only one way to find out if I'm going to grow a new Chelsea." He bites down at the torn end of arm, tearing off a mouthful and then /tossing/ the arm to Bastian. Bastian reacts before he even thinks, hand snapping out with alarmingly quick reflexes to snatch it out of the air. "S -- {Sorry}," he says in Spanish, and then English again, "We're -- kind of. Terrible. Maybe are monsters." Chelsea flinches, because come on, that was her /arm/. But to her credit, she seems to be adapting quickly. She squinches up her face when Shane takes a bite, but then is visibly trying to parse the situation, coming to a conclusion. "Well yeah, I mean, I guess if I don't need it... and plus, I /totally/ owe you guys. Oh my god! I'm free of that fucking thing!" Suddenly Chelsea whoops, and spins and dances just a few feet away from where the boys are eating. "I dunno about monsters. I think you're my heroes. My dream downstairs... was that I grew another head, and it took control of the duds, and tried to strangle me with them..." Her expression goes dark again. "/That's/ a fucking monster." Chelsea's dancing puts a quick smile on Bastian's face, small and closed-lipped but warm. "Any time." He glances down at the arm in his hand, gills fluttering again. "Hey, we're gonna be fighting soon you need the food." Shane's smile is briiiight and toothsome in contrast. "Heroes. Huh. That's a new one. But you sure as hell don't look like a monster to me. Tell you what," he says brightly, "if you grow an /evil twin/ head I'll tear that off too." Sebastian wrinkles his nose. But he takes a bite of arm, first tentative but then sets into eating it hungrily. Shane slings his arm around Chelsea's shoulders. "C'mon. You can borrow some fighty clothes, you're not much bigger than us. And then. We will teach you how to throw the hell /down/."