IC Elkwood Town

[Reverie]

LUCIO

Lucio liked to tell people he was interested in the gorier aspects of medicine, because he liked to see their reactions. It was a fun little experiment with new people he met, and everyone had a different response. His favourites were always those who were disturbed and perturbed by it. That never failed to delight the Were. Edwin wasn't flustered, unfortunately. He seemed slightly put off with his clumsy laugh and awkward response, but he definitely didn't appear unsettled. At least there was that much of a response, and Edwin's fumble was almost adorable. Lucio definitely needed to harass him more. But that wasn't the end of the shorter man's comment on the topic — he spoke of donating his body to Lucio's medical ambitions. It was a joke, clearly, but it also felt telling. It revealed a disconnect between Edwin and his body — a certain lack of attachment he had for it when he died.

"I'll take good care of it," Lucio said, his words softer than anything else he had said to the other man so far.

"I'm sure he left it around somewhere," the Were commented in reference to Russ' charger as they entered the apartment. "Or you can try mine if not," he added offhandedly. His new companion did not hesitate to make himself comfortable as he settled onto the floor. It had clearly been an unneeded offer. Lucio watched him a moment, observing as he retrieved his biology book from his bag and settled it onto his leg. Edwin didn't seem like the most interesting person, but Lucio had hopes about his study capacities.

Lucio pulled his bag from its brief place on the table, causing it to swing in the air and bounce into his side with a fwoop. And then he dropped to the floor, mirroring Edwin's crossed-leg position. It felt right to join him on the ground. Lucio retrieved his own book from his bag, as well as a pencil and notebook, all of which he threw open on the floor in front of him.

"Alright," was the extent of the Were's response to his future meal. He still didn't feel hungry, but he thought Edwin might've been.

Lucio almost expected Edwin to ignore his question about Halloween, but once he settled, he addressed it. And to Lucio's surprise, it was a thorough answer. The first things he listed were more about fall than Halloween in specific, although the two were undeniably intrinsically linked. And who didn't enjoy a warm drink on a chilly day? The only thing better might've been a cold drink on a hot day. Edwin finished with reasons which were much more honed on Halloween. And Lucio liked his answer. If nothing else, he liked how the man pushed on with it. Whether his dark-haired companion was troubled or not, he shared his view in earnest.

"It's cool that you get that enjoyment out of it," Lucio said a beat after Edwin had finished, attention slipping from the other man as his eyes idly gazed over his textbook. "But instead you're here, studying with me?" Although not phrased like one, it was a question, accompanied by a raised brow. But that wasn't the part which interested the Were the most, no, that was —

"What kind of things frighten you?" He asked, tone genuinely curious and eyes back on the other man. Edwin seemed a reserved sort, and Lucio wanted to see him reacting to something which unsettled him. He followed up with a related statement, which also answered the question Edwin posed.

"Scary movies and mazes don't do it for me, but they can be fun if I'm with someone. Most horror these days is tacky, and nothing ever frightens me." It probably sounded like a boast. And to be fair, it kind of was.

「 @sele 」

Code by wren.

 

[wreninanest]

TIME STAMP: FIVE DAYS LATER

FORECAST​

DATE: November 5th, 2035. Friday.

TIME: Up to the players for their scenes.

WEATHER: 68.2°F (20.1°C). Warm and sunny.

CITY ACTIVITY​

A surprisingly warm and sunny day, many people are going out to enjoy the weather.

 

[sele]

Location: Elkwood University. | Tag: @PavellumPendulum 's Russ.
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Halloween had come and gone. The transition into November put any lingering recollections of summer decidedly into the grave. Good. More, Post-Halloween always felt like the last breath of decayed color before full-on winter turned the world more monotone. Edwin liked the latter, too, but this late phase of autumnal transition was his favorite moment in the year.

Leaves crunched beneath his black and white, scuffed Converse. Did he intentionally angle his foot now and then to catch a wide leaf under heel? Yes. Crunch. It was satisfying.

His lark bunting familiar – all black save for the hints of white against his wing and mottled gray into his conical beak – flicked and fluttered in splashes of widening wings, spiraling dives, and swoops back upward into the cold blue of the morning sky. Sokaris was happy in this atmosphere, too. Edwin presumed his ill wind song trilling about was merely something familiar for the bird to sing while delighted.

The Ventus Magi should have known better.

Sokaris's power was not always easy to discern – and sometimes the 'bad omens' he foretold were as ominous as Edwin soon to step into a puddle (or get hit by a car, but how often does that happen?). Edwin Sterling glanced at his shoelaces, just in case. Nope, they were still tied, so he wasn't imminently about to trip over those.

Edwin let the warbling warning from the blackbird become a familiar comfort to himself then, too. They could both be happy, steadily meandering the edge of some ambiguous doom Sokaris sang about.

With Ventus as his specialty, Edwin glanced up between the framework of a few messy tendrils of dark hair toward his bird; he murmured the shortcut he'd designed to a cold wind gust that reminded him of home back in the mountains – but that he'd also framed in a morbid way – echoing of katabatic, 'fell winds.'

"Bora. Athos."

His enunciation was more clear and confident when he spoke his own magical shortcuts to spells – they were his programming, and he'd keep them, even if a professor once haughtily told him that it'd make him lazy.

A cold gust swept low, weighed by the relatively warmer atmosphere for November. It bore down over Sokaris, forcing him to sweep toward the sidewalk. Edwin didn't pour so much of a cold draft at his familiar as to actually make him crash, though – it just gave the bird something to play with and fight through. Up swooped the little dark silhouette, whose doom-singing became more prominent.

Edwin's mouth cast the faint shadow of a grin while his brown glance chased the bird upward again.

The world suddenly spun in red and black, with sparks of white stars. Edwin had been hit by something thrown at him? The fuck? A big something. While he staggered to his left in his bewilderment, snickering laughs swelled up from his right. Black-painted fingertips fumbled against the inflaming side of his face while one foot shuffled over the other until he was steady again. Well, his feet were at least. The world still slightly slanted this way and that.

"The hell." He murmured, less empowered than when he'd spoken his incantation.

He was aware of a group of much bigger guys in school-colored jackets approaching. Where there was two, suddenly five. He was either dazed or they were really multiplying. And by their ugly laughs and congratulatory barking to each other, Edwin was well aware that the blow had been intentional. A brief glance down found the ...pirate looking boot?.

"Austin sent all of us to get him? My grandma could roll this G.D.I. with her wheelchair!"

More snickers mingled with coyote-like yips. Edwin could hear some hands slap. Right. Well, it wasn't hard to calculate that some assholes were here to jump him for some reason. Some 'Austin' had sent a group of what seemed like the dumbfuck dregs who played up a frat boy air.

Wouldn't be the first time Edwin got in a fight. Nor the first that it was somehow connected to Hunter – and he presumed it was connected to Hunter. His brother was already in the local jail, arrested for... assault. Alright. Pieces came together. Some asshole who'd pressed his brother got clocked, pressed charges, and decided for some kinda revenge.

Edwin was the revenge plot. Fine.

Although somewhat tall, Edwin was wiry – lanky, really. He'd tried to bulk up periodically but his metabolism and boy type – he guessed? – just said nah. While hulking thugs enjoyed a smug march closer, Edwin's adrenaline didn't send him to running. It helped numb him down while he slid a mocking side glance toward the athletes. A mocking snarl made the line of his mouth slant crooked.

"Of all the psychos that coulda brightened my day, it had to be the dumbshit boring ones that showed up, huh?"

Edwin's voice was still a bit quiet, but it was enough for the half-circle closing in on him to hear it.

"The hell you say?"

Edwin sighed, rolling his eyes, showing impatience with how dumb and dull they were, to make his point. If he was about to get the shit kicked out of him, he at least was gonna leave a little mark on their psyches. It wasn't just acting put off by how dull they were – it was the show of no intimidation that was really his intention.

A shadow loomed halfway across Edwin's face, just before a fist followed, knocking him entirely out of the sunlight. There was enough force to it that what mass he had sailed backward. Dazed and fighting against the spinning black that almost closed in around his vision, Edwin knew they were watching. He wouldn't cower for fucking cowards.

"What the fuck does he have eyeliner on??? LAH-MAO! The nails, too, check it, the nails, we got some kinda emo princess here, boys!"

Edwin was sprawling on his elbows and back in the grass, crunching over a few leaves. He tasted coppery iron now. He willed for his familiar to leave. He didn't want to risk Sokaris getting hurt, and he didn't put it past these thugs either.

He swallowed, closing his eyes briefly against the swelling in his face that throbbed red across his awareness. Adrenaline numbed the headache that he knew was there, bursting at his temples and down his neck.

Another thud into his body lifted Edwin briefly from the ground again – someone else stepped up to kick his ribs. And again. Edwin coughed out some of the air that the blows forced out of his body and winced his eyes shut.

"Y..-you don't....like it....? Your...." He breathed in gasps when the guys paused to see if they'd broken their target yet. He sucked in a breath. He shouldn't go on, but he did, murmuring in his usual, quieter way, though fragmented by pain and breathlessness. "....your...girlfriends loved it."

Muffled snarls and mixed profanity heralded a new barrage of abuse. Fists and feet throttled his body left and right and at awkward angles. Everyone joined in now. Laughs, profanity, hate, and 'manly' justifications tangled in Edwin's ears while he took the abuse there on the ground. One thing came through clear, though.

"Austin says this is from Hunter. Your dipshit brother did this to you. How's he doin' in jail, by the way? Worthless loser belongs there."

There really wasn't anything Edwin could do. He sure as fuck wasn't going to cry against the bruising, inflaming, possibly breaking reverberating through his goddamned useless body. What's a person to do when they can't cry?

Edwin coughed a laugh. He sputtered blood upward through his teeth, staining his slightly crazed grin up through the ring of much larger men pulverizing him. Bloodshot eyes opened, spiraling in between bracing winces to examine who braved beating up the lanky Ventus Magi on his own. He'd remember them, for his own sake. For Hunter's.

Apparently, his look was off-putting to one of them when their gazes met – brown, maniacal & painted in blood, to clean blues. That guy backed off a few steps. Edwin coughed on a laugh at him for as long as the guy braved keeping eye contact. And until he felt his face forcefully slammed in the other direction.

Reason didn't work with these types, and not when they were all worked up. Edwin wasn't fully himself either, pushed by physical pain and loathing.

"When....wh.....- you're in a ce—ahhghgh—cell with.. him. Hunter.-" Edwin started, but had too much air knocked out of him. He flailed a hand to point. "Camera, bitches." There wasn't one, but all the guys stiffened and looked, trying to find the security that might fuck them over.

"...and.... I'd … I.....ah... I'd call you 'cunts.'" He referenced back to calling them all bitches. "...but...." Edwin gargled on his own blood and against his damaged ribs. Holy shit talking was agony. He grit his teeth and forced himself to snarl through a blood-shot, blood-everything glare at the guy who'd led the start of all this.

"...you lack the warmth or the depth." As if he'd been laid enough to really have the insight, but he spoke feral to ferals.

He knew he put fear into them about the camera, whether they'd realize one was there or not. They weren't leaving with any real sense of triumph. They weren't going to see an outnumbered man cry. No begging for mercy either. They'd see a scrawny guy laugh at them, coughing on blood and insults.

"He's cooked, man. He got what he deserved. C'mon."

There was a sudden chilliness in the quiet that settled around Edwin. Like a downward, cold gust. A fell wind. Bora. Athos.

Edwin was alone, strewn motionless across a lawn in the morning light.

credits

 

[PavellumPendulum]

RUSS

The early morning was Russ' favourite time of the day.

Before the Elkwood University campus woke up, bleary eyed and full of caffeinated students, there was always a sweet, temperate calm that filled the very air, one that Russ drank in daily with deep appreciation. Though parties, crowds and loud noises did not always cause them distress, they still most certainly preferred these moments of peace. In those mornings, after he'd hydrated himself with a quick shot of vodka (it was just a routine at this point) and a full glass of water, he was off to get his first workout of the day done: his 1 hour morning jog.

Russ kept to a particularly stringent workout routine, disliking any days in which they could not follow it perfectly. The familiarity of it kept them grounded, kept them present. It was akin to meditation at that point, lacing up their runners and hitting the pavement to follow the exact same route that they'd decided on for themselves when they'd first started their degree 2 years ago.

Morning dew shimmered along the various lawns of the university as Russ passed them by. He kept an easy pace, with no earphones in, preferring to focus on his breathing, zoning out as his muscles propelled him forwards. The dawn was climbing up through the sky, painting him in warm light. It felt nice. Normally, he wouldn't have stopped for anything, since his morning jog was sacred and he was unwilling to part with it for anything less than an emergency, but...

Well, there was certainly an emergency in the ditch they nearly passed by.

Slowing his pace and jogging in place briefly, Russ stared at the heap of a body in the shallow ditch, where a small forest bordered the campus grounds, maintained for aesthetic purposes. It felt strange, to see a body like this, with their entire body still working through the beginnings of a workout, but all that blood... Their were senses honed in on the scent, a sudden twitch overtaking their body when they actually recognized it. "... Edwin." He murmured, blinking repeatedly, his expression blank. He did not know what was happening. The vodka shot he'd taken was souring in his gut.

With his oversized Hello Kitty shirt and basketball shorts on, it only took a few strides for him to make it to Edwin's unmoving form. Russ crouched by him, a hand gently landing atop Edwin's head, thumb awkwardly brushing against his forehead and fingers carding through his hair. He still felt somewhat warm.

"Edwin." he said his name again, hopefully loud enough for him to hear. He did not like the deep heaviness that was settling at the base of his throat, dripping into his stomach, burning his organs along the way. Was it fear or was it sadness? Sometimes, he could not tell. He was not even sure what to say. Even speaking, his flat tone of voice betrayed how he felt. "... Edwin, do you want vodka? I have some at home. I can bring you there."

Maybe that would make him happy. He wondered why he was bleeding.

「 @sele 」

code by wren.

 

[sele]

Location: Elkwood University. | Tag: @PavellumPendulum 's Russ.
──────────────────────────── ˖ ────────────────────────────​

Time moved in the slow float of sparse clouds overhead. It ticked by to the tune of throbs welling in inflamed injuries. It crept by with each ragged breath. There was an odd peace in the quiet that had settled over Edwin in the aftermath of active agony.

Adrenaline cooled and he might have been able to slip away into a dreamless sleep. His mouth felt dry behind a busted lip and that prominent copper taste of his own blood. At least he was aware enough that this wasn't the sort of time to let go to unconsciousness, it could be dangerous in the wake of physical trauma. And, who would just sleep in a ditch on the side of a school path?

He'd worn a white ringer tee with a purple collar, though the purple was darkened by blotched blood, which brightened to red where the fabric transitioned to white. The material was stretched in the echo of a hand that'd jerked at him at some point, and grass stains and dirt had scuffed all along his back – hell, even into his hair, though he wasn't aware whatsoever of these elements.

Edwin lay there, not feeling the strength to get up just yet. Could he, even if he'd wanted to?

...he probably needed to seek medical attention.

But when he tried to functionally think about pushing himself up to even a sit, his body seemed to weigh suddenly impossibly heavy.

So he lay beneath the serene sky; hurting, but also holding to a tiny shred of victory. A mad sense of victory, but it was what it was. He hadn't cowered to those assholes. And he'd probably have ended up in just as much of a dire predicament either way.

He hadn't cowered.

But he did cough, choking on blood and saliva that'd thickened toward the back of his throat. Shit, that hurt.

A shadow angled across Edwin's torso, and a silhouette blocked a portion of blue sky above. Great, had they come back? Edwin grit his blood-coated teeth in a snarl to brace for whatever might come. His vision had been bleary, so he'd winced his eyes shut to try to squeeze some sight back into them, too.

A broad hand inquired atop Edwin's head, and a thumb slid across his brow. It wasn't a punch.

'Edwin'. It was Russ's voice. Jesus Christ, had Edwin actually gone unconscious? died? Because just about nothing else could have made the Ventus Magi feel safer than realizing it'd been Russ beside him then.

As someone Edwin admired so... almost uncomfortably... well, Russ's subtle tone shift to what was usually familiar told Edwin his friend was worried. It really was Russ.

"Pl...huh-"

He'd attempted to say please, but his dry, swollen mouth needed a little more from him to fully speak. He swallowed and forced his head to unsteadily roll toward Russ – he forced his eyes back open, too. They really were here for him. Steady, even, consistent Russ.

"...please. Take me there, yes." He'd mustered enough force up to give Russ a clear enough reply. "I don't think I can... uh..."

He paused to breathe, rolling his eyes closed briefly. Edwin tested his body, trying to shift upward; he didn't want to give Russ more to worry about than he had to. He forced his eyes open again and made the best eye contact that he could – still a bit bloodshot. His arms trembled with the effort, but he propped himself up to lean against an elbow so he slanted toward Russ. Going farther felt pretty sketchy.

"I don't know if I can uh... get up, Russ. … help me?"

If he hadn't been so jarred, he might have tried explaining the situation – because who just found people beat up in ditches? But he wasn't stabilized enough yet to think that well. He'd have also apologized for throwing off Russ's routine if his thoughts weren't so immediate and fragmented. He might have chuckled and pretended to be alright if he could have. He wasn't.

"Russ." Edwin whimpered his friend's name, then swallowed to clear a little more of that thick copper. "You're my hero."

It was true, and more for just being found in the ditch by them.

Telling Russ that let some of his pent up emotion get the better of him – pent up against showing anything cowering to the thugs; pent up for awkward, unspoken things toward Russ prior. Edwin closed his eyes to try to hold it back, but warm damp still wet just beneath his lower lids.

He coughed, played it off the most pathetic chuckle, then tried to offer his free arm toward his friend if that might somehow help Russ get Edwin hauled up from the ground.

"Vodka sounds great, Russ." He murmured in tender quiet. 'Vodka' was anything Russ felt he should offer Edwin. If it gave Russ some peace, too, Edwin would have vodka. And then maybe call for medical help from a more stable, safe place than a ditch.

credits