Logs:Live in Thanksgiving Daily
| Live in Thanksgiving Daily | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-11-28 "Um. Why. Is. The blood doing that." |
| Location
<UT> Allred Residence | |
This is a capacious raised ranch in humble yellow brick, framed by a beautiful garden and several shockingly fruitful chokecherry trees. It has a two-car garage attached and a separate outbuilding in the back yard houses an expansive professional wood shop. The interior is homey and well-kept, almost aggressively generic in an LDS sort of way, anodyne religious artwork interspersed with framed needlepoint and desert landscapes. In addition to plentiful windows letting in natural light, there is huge variety of artificial lighting options from simple soft recessed bulbs to accent lamps in the shapes of graceful angels bearing celestial orbs. Much of the mission style furniture is skillfully handmade, as many of the fixtures ranging from molding to door and window frames. The entryway inside the front entrance has a truly impressive coat closet and is connected to the garage entrance by an also impressive mudroom. There are six bedrooms of varying sizes distributed across the first and second floors, a living room on the first floor that looks barely lived in, a cozy family room taking up half the finished basement, the rest given over to meticulously organized storage, emergency and otherwise. But the heart of the house is the large dining room with its intricately inlaid table and a print of the Family Proclamation prominently displayed in a simple, elegant frame. It had been a generally convivial bustle in here all day long. Mostly organized chaos, an odd clockwork dance streaming in and out of the kitchen, the sturdy tables filling up more and more as more and more family has packed in. As the house gets more crowded, the whispered gossip is getting passed back and forth between the cousins liberally with the side dishes and stacks of napkins and plates and cutlery being laid out for the table -- "-- Oh, Reed's not really sick, he took a second wife and he did not want to hear Mama's shock --" "-- believe Kerry showed up here, I saw that shameless video from her TikTok this summer --" "-- have you seen McKynnLeigh is trying so hard to do the momfluencer thing she has no charisma someone should really tell her poor thing --" "-- separate bedrooms and they say it's because he's been snoring a lot but it's because Ammon cheated on her --" "-- did they really invite Dawson --" "-- I mean, no, that's --" "-- right obviously, yeah -- didn't Bryant go out and join his --" "No Bryant's a creep he joined the suuuper skeevy people in Arizona, Bronson went out to New York he says they're actually --" "-- oh my goodness have you all seen Bryce what are they going to do about that they can't just -- that is not right. Right?" By the time food is nearing to properly ready, though, the bulk of the gossip is converging upon the conclusion that maybe, possibly, K&K's entire arm of the family is Not Right. Perhaps they have gone wrong with Heavenly Father, perhaps they've just gone wrong with their very freakish children, but. "-- Keith," Jared's tone is determinedly gentle over the insistent beeping of the oven timer, although there's a strain to it that very much suggests he's having a Very Hard Time keeping it that way as he faces his younger brother, "I cannot understand how you think any of this is part of Heavenly Father's Plan. Your sons are --" "This is disgusting." Kim's youngest sister Julia cuts in sharper and blunter. "I'm sorry but our kids are here and what -- what are we supposed to tell them. Dallen running around in a dress and I literally don't even know what Bryce is and you all are encouraging this sin --" "We aren't encouraging," Kim replies, stiffly. She goes to shut off the timer, remove her latest pie and stack it beside several others that have already cooled in a neat row on the counter. She's adjusting the pies fussily, as if this will help her ignore the many judgmental eyes or the ripples of background voices adding their own hushed opinions into the periphery of this conversation. "We are supporting our children. That's our job as parents." "Your job --" is this Aaron, now, or Ammon, even as adults Kim's younger twin brothers can be a little hard to distinguish, particularly when they are riled, which they are definitely getting now, "is to teach your sons to choose the right. It's to raise them in righteousness. It's not teaching them they can just go out and decide they know better than God so they're going to be dogs or cockroaches or demons or girls." His arm has flung out in vehement indication of the children in question -- it's really hard to tell from his tone if dogs or cockroaches or demons or girls is the worse of the sins, here. Bryce -- not currently at his most freakish but certainly far from comfortable to human aesthetics with his vivid feathers surrounding a soft raccoon-mask of fur, his eyes large and (yes, cockroach-buggy) compound, slender-sharp horns protruding from the top of his head, most of the rest of him otherwise human -- looks up from where he's been doing dishes and winces just a little when Aaron-or-Ammon's arm flings out towards the pies, his gaze instinctively tracking towards them in the crowded kitchen. In his furry inhuman face it's kind of hard to read a lot of facial expression -- is that deliberate, maybe that's deliberate, after all this while, surely he has grown to expect the stares and whispers and pointed mockery he's been getting all this afternoon, and if it has dimmed his Very Earnest politeness and Very Eager willingness to help with the many many chores and prep it's hard to tell... much, though he's been a little more quiet and a little less boisterous-rowdy with his many cousin-brothers than in holidays past. He's speaking up now, though, not loud but firm -- "I'm sorry, Uncle..." He tilts his head, settles on, "A, but how do you know better than God how He made Dallen?" Presented as she is, Dallen would not clock as freakish to the uninitiated. Bedecked in a simple modest dress of sky blue with white lace trim and sporting a feathered pixie cut that actually suits her face, she looks like a fairly normal teenage girl, if a late-blooming one, short and slender and androgynous. She has not seemed excessively upset at their extended family's failure to recognize her gender. They're used to her being a boy, after all. But with each polite reminder she is, to familiar eyes, growing more and more perplexed. At some point she'd been ushered away by a small entourage of sisters and cousins, who returned her shortly with a cute pink headband and a light touch of makeup. It hadn't helped. She's coming up from downstairs now with a stack of fresh dish towels, just in time to catch her uncle's admonition. Her eyes tick over her brother in a quick, matter-of-fact survey of his current features. "Bryce isn't a dog or a cockroach." Despite how self-evident this is, she speaks less in the tones of a correction than of sharing a marvelous little-known fact. "He's a metamorph." She resumes her place at the counter, drying the cleaned dishes that have started to pile up beside the sink. There is really nothing like the coming together of families to bring out the differences between the branches or even the individuals. As one who hails from the 'Mind Your Own Business' Coloradoan Allreds, Abigail is not necessarily content to move through the background of the kitchen prep, but she's definitely comfortably quiet at the kitchen sink where she drains cans of green beans before dumping them into a cassarole dish. She carefully peels the metal lids out of the way and then back into place to ensure there are no stray additions to the dish. No one has let that incident from three years ago die, but there's no way she's going to repeat it. She glances over at Bryce when he speaks, but stays quiet until Dallen has added her piece. "Just so you know," she adds in a conspiratory aside, "girls aren't actually the opposite of demons, despite what is being said. We're actually just another type of people." Abi doesn't try to speak up enough to attract attention, but finds one of those unfortunate lulls that occurs as the adult speakers prepare to rebut or ignore the younger speakers. There is, in the next room, a not-so-small fight that has broken out in not-so-very-hushed voices among that very same small entourage of cousins and sisters and a considerably larger cluster who are admonishing them -- "-- leading him into sin --" "-- what is wrong with you --" "oh my gosh Clara is that my eyeshadow I'm burning it --" "-- he's not a doll he's a pervert --" "-- handbook is very clear, Eden --" "-- hasn't Aunt Kim suffered enough --" This peripheral argument on one side mostly drowning out the snatches, a little more distant in a farther room, from a couple of the boys (the ones not bothering to make a pretense of helping with prep, they've been wandering out to the patio) "... c'mon, we take him out back after dinner we can scare this pansy garbage out of him eas..." Exactly what has stopped this line of thought in its tracks is unclear, but it stops sharp and sudden. It's probably nothing! The argument in the kitchen is only escalating, so this peripheral Cousin Kerfluffle is so much background static compared to Ammon-or-Aaron's: "The Church's doctrine is very clear on this, Bryce, just like it is on respecting your elders -- Keith, when did your children get so disrespectful. In my house --" "In our house," his lanky teenage son is saying as he wanders in, "this wouldn't come up because we actually have morals." "When did your kids get so disrespectful," Kim is saying, arch. "At least my kids aren't monsters --" Aaron-or-Aamon is whirling, hard and fast and this time, it knocks two of the pie plates from their neat order on the counter. Kim is quailing, though the pie plates do not actually hit her. DJ hasn't actually blinked into the room, just slipped in off the patio -- surely he's quick enough anyway to actually save the pies themselves, but he hasn't. Just moved Kim slightly back away from their arcing path -- sorry, other-Aaron-or-Aamon, he's on his own as the plated whump, fall, leave splattered pumpkin and cracked glass on the clean floor. "I really think we should reconsider who we're calling monsters in here." Bryce is largely entirely ignoring Dallen's correction, just like he's largely entirely been ignoring whatever else people have been saying about his mutation. But he does look up at Abigail, brows furrow in confusion. "... opposite? I don't really think that's, um..." He doesn't pursue this line of thought further, peeking out warily over at the adults and their continued hostilities. "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be disrespectful, I just think that there's a lot of different ways that --" CRASH. He startles, dropping the large pot he's been scrubbing back into the sink with a thankfully very non-breakable clatter. Hie exhales a relieved sigh when DJ shows up, though this immediately turns to a far less relieved tension in his shoulders, a small twitch-twitch of his nose. There's an "-- oh, crud," sharp and pained, and somewhere where one of the A's is now trying to clean up the mess on the floor there is blood mingling with the pumpkin goop. "Oh, I don't think any of us are demons, either," Dallen tells Abigail seriously. "Probably." She flushes at "disrespectful", and though she ducks her head she is frowning the way she does when piecing together a particularly difficult sentence from scratch. She relaxes a little when Bryce addresses their alleged insubordination, and more still when DJ appears. It's sheer luck that she's just set a glass casserole dish down when the pies go flying. She jumps at the doubled crash, and the shadows she'd kept in their proper places all day come to life, sprouting claws and maws and tentacles. This dramatic startle reflex is probably more distressing to most present than the actual spill or even the resultant injury, but Dallen seems unfazed and is already smoothing it back down as she darts over to grab the first aid kit. By the time she's brought the kit over to her uncle, only her own shadow is roiling in subtle yet disconcerting fashion underfoot. She unzips the bleeding control section for -- well, the room is full of people vastly better qualified and more experienced in first aid than she is herself, but it's DJ she looks to. It's more than a little bit terrifying when the shadows in the room begin acting independent of their casting sources. Knowing ones cousin can control shadows is one thing, but the growth of threatening shapes puts Abigail right out of her already shattered comfort zone. She pins herself against a cabinet and stiffens away from the pie mess and scary bits of darkness. It eases as Dallen excuses hi-erself, but the girl keeps herself back as best as possible, shifting her attention to dear ol' Uncle A's clean up attempts. Her eyes dance between the drops of blood that have already fallen and the pooling on his skin, concern etching itself deeply on her pale brow. A clammy hand reaches out for Bryce, seeking someone solid, as her features screw up with further distress. "Uncle..." she isn't bothering to look at his face as her attention is glued elsewhere. "What is wrong with your blood?" And there is something wrong! Instead of continuing to well up and slowly drip out of the shallow wound -- or stop completely, it appears more viscous, strings of red rolling off his palm and looping around his wrist instead of obeying gravity and falling away. Gauze pressed to it doesnt absorb any of the mess and it doesn't dilute the way it normally would. In fact, it starts to lift off the skin entirely, floating by itself! There's a panic in the room at the eruption of shadows -- Uncle Jared has squared off with one of the tentacles like he's in a martial arts movie, karate-chopping at -- well, it's air now, with a startled and not at all menacing "aaaah!" as he overbalances and stumbles into -- -- Keith, who was attempting to hold up a placating hand (at the shadows themselves) and looking kind of pleased with himself as if this is what calmed them away, only to find himself with an awkward armful of brother. Pat, pat, he's sort of uncomfortably half-patting half-pushing Jared away, clearly not really sure what to do with this, though he's looking to -- -- Kim, who is casting a chiding look, probably this was aimed, not actually at Dallen, actually, but Bryce, like he should be getting his -- Julia, who has been flailing at the no-longer-there shadows pretty uselessly with a skimmer. Does this help? "... the Lord God worketh not in darkness," she's muttering, under her breath, and in her haste to back up as Dallen comes over she's slipping on the spilled pumpkin, tripping into -- -- Aaron-or-Ammon's teenage son, who was content to watch the adults Totally Freak out while he pretended to play it Totally Cool, sure, exploding shadows everywhere, not scary at all, he was just gonna back away slowly like the chill guy he is but now instead he is whispering to his aunt uncertainly, "-- is she a demon," to which -- -- his father nearby is snapping, irritably, "yes -- no -- probably -- we can ask the Bishop later your uncle is -- why are you bleeding so much!" He has maybe just noticed, with a startled growing horror -- -- the baffling reaction of Ammon-or-Aaron's injury. The other A is also snapping, startled and increasingly stressed -- at Dallen, who he is jerking away from, tearing the cut just a little bigger against a cracked edge of glass and leaving a smeary-longer trail of pumpkin and blood on the floor. "-- What are you doing, get away from me, freak." He's staring at his cut hand in starker horror as the blood lifts off of it. He's paled several shades further than can be accounted for by the amount of blood he's lost yet, hand starting to shake as he watches the blood winding around it. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you," he is saying, quiet." DJ has neatly avoided any of these collisions, and dips his head in acknowledgment to Dallen. "-- thank you," he says quietly to her, as he takes the first aid kit, and then to the others, after a moment of consideration: "... mmm. Dallen isn't doing that. Probably not the devil, either." His eyes have flicked first to Uncle A's son and then to Abigail, thoughtful. "How you all feeling?" he's asking the kids, to which the boy just shrugs warily and heads out. DJ is watching the blood, still, its bizarre twisty floating. "C'mon, Uncle, let's wash this, okay? It looks worse than it is." Probably because blood shouldn't be dancing like that. Uncle A looks like he is considering hyperventilating. DJ is sounding doggedly calm about the blood pirouetting out of the vein. Bryce's expression continues to be -- difficult to read. Buggy eyes that don't show very much, furry face hiding most of the usual signs of ruffling. He doesn't startle at the shadows, though he does glance to Dallen as if he's going to head to her, checking this instinct when Abigail pins herself to the cabinet. "It's okay," he says quietly, "they aren't going to hurt you, that just happens sometimes when she's startled -- see, it's gone." He glances down when she takes his hand, head tilting. Squeezes back, a little tentatively. "Daw... DJ's a really good doctor," he says reassuringly, "he works in a whole special clinic where they're used to so much weird things. I bet he's had to deal with much scarier blood, um, crazy -- wrong-way... spinny dancing before --" the longer he says this the less confident he sounds but he's plowing ahead anyway, "-- and is totally an expert at fixing this kind of thing, right?" He glances over to his brother hopefully, but then is looking at the blood again. "Um. Why. Is. The blood doing that." "I'm... I'm..." Abigail doesn't sound scared at least. Instead, she stammers inattentively at the questions and continues to blink at the strangely lively bodily fluid. She jerks back when the bleeding uncle starts shaking his hand. "Is there weirder blood? I mean, I guess it's a nice... normal color and not stabby or slashing at anyone or ... getting in the food." She releases Bryce's hand so she can start skirting out of the kitchen and away from the epicenter of weird. The blood sloughs off A's hand and gathers on itself, forming a net or veiny tree-thing. It moves through the air smoothly for a while, initially going to the sink as if it knew where it should go, but reacts to Abigail as she tries to get away, jerking toward her with every shaky step she takes away. When the girl mutters a quiet, "no no no," and commits to really vacating the area, the blood follows after her with more purpose, curling in on itself and forming a ribbon that seeks her out. "Why is it... No no... no. I don't want it. It's like it's going to crawl inside me and I don't want to eat it! Noooo." Abigail bumps into a different wall and drops into a crouch and hides behind her legs and hands from the encroaching monster blood. Dallen opens her mouth, then closes it, reluctant to interrupt her uncle's prayer and more reluctant to try approaching him again. She hovers helplessly for a moment, entranced by the gravity-defying bleed. DJ's words snap her out of it and she gives a quick nod as she passes the kit over, then retreats back to the sink. "Sorry." It's hard to tell whether her hushed apology is to Abigail for the fright or to Bryce for getting him in trouble. She scurries out of the way when first aid moves toward the sink, but sticks close to Bryce, arms crossed in prayer or Quiet Hands or both. "Have you seen blood do those things?" she asks in a stage whisper, her eyes wide when they track aside to Abigail and even wider when the blood starts following her cousin. Abigail's shadow tries to pull itself off the floor as it could shield her, and Dallen makes a small frustrated noise as she is and pushes it back down and pivots to the sink. "Bryce!" She snatches up the lid of the big pot her brother had been washing, her gaze flicking from the pot itself to Bryce. It's all the explanation she gives before throwing herself between Abigail and the unruly blood, raising the pot lid to block it like a tiny pastel Captain America. "What wickedness have you invited into your house, Keith." Jared is paling, watching the blood with fear now too -- he's started, instinctively, to cross towards the children, but doesn't seem entirely sure this is the right move when the blood does as well. "I --" Keith is looking warily at the kids, then even more warily at DJ. "This isn't -- is this --" He swallows. "We'll. Figure this --" It's interrupted by a shriek from the doorway -- there are several new faces there come to investigate what the commotion now is -- "oh my goodness --" "-- are they killing Uncle --" "-- is there a monster --" "-- is there a new monster --" no they're killing Abigail --" "-- Abigail's dead nonono MOM DAD --" One of the many cousins, newly-minted in his priesthood, is breaking through the pack, a tiny vial of consecrating oil clutched in his hand like its a sword. "This might help --" he's declaring, before his brother yanks him back. "Nobody's sick, dummy --" "-- you can't say dummy that's mean," says a much younger, much more scandalized voice from somewhere behind. "-- that's a lot of blood someone's sick!" "-- I'm going to be sick," someone else is declaring, very woozily. "-- Woah, Abi, are you doing that, that's sick, make a blood tornado!" Somewhere in this, quiet, DJ is whisking the actually injured Uncle A away together with his brother. There are other sinks in the house, probably currently much better suited to first aid for the cut, which really does not need an entire doctor when its blood is not being proactively leeched out of his body. When the uncles disappear, Abigail is confused and perturbed to find the blood coils just kind of hanging there still. She peeks over Dallen's shoulder at the suspended mess and starts taking in the rest of the room's reactions. "Wait. I'm doing this?" As if in response, the threads of liquid helpfully spin into what looks like a slow moving tornado at the slightest suggestion. "Ooops." DJ has returned in short order, minus both uncles and the first aid kit, to flutter himself down near the children. "Can I get you --" he's starting to ask, right around the same time that there's a pair of very frantic looking adults -- the woman has a toddler in tow and a wild look in her eyes that is only slightly appeased by the fact her daughter is not dead -- the whirling blood maaaybe attacking Abigail does not really reassure her, though. "... Abi?" her dad is saying, while her mom faints dead away. Around the children the world is blurring, resolving -- in a little bit of a delay, Abigail first and then Bryce and then Dallen, though the delay between each is a matter of moments -- into the abruptly quieter sawdust-smelling peace of the woodshop. "-- out of here," DJ finishes, unnecessarily. "Sorry. It felt like that was getting a little overwhelming. I'm going to get you all some cocoa and let your parents know you haven't been banished into Outer Darkness, and maybe once we've all had a moment to breathe, we can -- talk." | |
