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 Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 6:30 am
I didn't write the intro, but I did write Ash's profile. This is the description of the RPG that I put Ash in.
The flashing lights neared the building at blinding speed. They had lost so much time in that fog bank that the young Paramedic was beginning to doubt the man's survival. Looking briefly down Brian wished that his first case hadn't been one as nasty as this. Chewing silently on his lip (a nervous habit, he'd developed that very night) Brian looked up at his partner.
An older man in his forties Arnold had seen a lot of very bad wounds. But so far this one took the cake. The man spread between the two Paramedics had his whole face practically skinned off. And at first the older paramedic had been unsure as to how to proceed. The exact reason for the accident had been unclear and the cops had ushered them out of the area as soon as they gathered up the blood body. Brian had still been looking for a face.
"Where are we?" slowly both paramedics looked up at the sound of their driver's voice. Usually it was just the two of them but it had been a slow night and they had heard that this case was going to be brutal. They had decided bringing a driver along would be for the best.
"What is it?" Arnold said, maneuvering his way around the stretcher and looking out at the street before them. It was still faintly foggy and the lights from the van were casting a creepy glow over the area. Just faintly lighting up what appeared to be an abandoned hospital, it's lawn overgrown and it's walls cracked and dirty. "Are you sure were in the right place? Did you take a wrong turn?"
"Yeah I'm su-"
Both men turned as Brian gave a scream from the back. The van's doors having flown open almost by their own. The fog seeping in at a crawl as they could see the forms that stood within it. A group of men and women the lead doctor's hand outstretched his eyes glowing red over the mask he wore. And splotches of dried blood on his scrubs and coat.
"Welcome" he croaked, his voice like nails on a chalkboard. And inside the van all three men screamed.
~*~
Welcome to Hell's Hospital. Of course it's not really called that, but that doesn't change the fact that it is the home of some of the sickest and most vicious doctors and nurses in the world. Now no one really knows where it is, or what it's real name is, but they do know that occasionally an ambulance will 'get lost' and the poor patient is forced to be treated by the demonic men and woman that move through the halls of this particular hospital. So far none of their patient have been heard from or seen again. Why do you ask are you here? Well that depends; have you been injured? Are you looking for a job? And if so how blood thirsty are you...and how far are you willing to 'treat' your patient? Or worse yet, are you one of the lifetime patients, lucky enough to have been forgotten and unlucky enough to be trapped (unaging) for eternity?
Point is this hospital has a whole mess of people running around through it's halls. And although it's exact origins are unclear even to those working there. It seems that this dark dank place is only getting worse. It's feeding on the people that come within it's walls...it's drawing them in like a light draws in flies. Can anyone get out? And will someone be brave enough to destroy the haunted hospital and it's killer staff? Or is it's secret something that no one really wants to know?
Isn't the suspense just killing you?
Come on in and enjoy your stay. I heard they just finished sharpening their scalpels...and it's been a while since they've done a live autopsy....
ASHLEY. I love him. I'm so horrible to him, though.
» Though it may come as a slight surprise to those who believe in stereotypes, Ash is the product of a healthy, nuclear family. His mother works in a hospital, inspiring the healthy to donate blood, his older sister works in the hospitality industry as the front desk manager of a five star hotel, and his father is contractor, who programs computers for natural gas pipelines. He grew up in a three-story Victorian, nestled in the old end of an enormous town, whose borders spread like an ink stain, but still managed to retain it's not-so-charming "small town" atmosphere. He'd always thought of it as more of a conglomerate of several smaller towns that, jostling for space at the foot of one of the most majestic mountain ranges in the United States, had simply grown into each other and decided to share water rights.
He attended a private school for three years before transferring out to a public high school, where he quickly learned to exercise his distaste for authority; he'd always been something of an outcast, and even crammed in with all the rich kids, he'd liked most everything thing they looked down on, even if it was just because they didn't like it. ... and even though most kids out-grow their punk phase, Ash never did. He was getting tattoos and lip rings before it was legal, and there was nothing anybody could do about it.
» Ash is obviously quite the character; he has little if no respect for authority and he generally abhors being politically correct. Even the name pisses him off, as politics, in general, drive him up the wall. His heroes include people like Hunter S. Thompson, the good Dr. Gonzo, whose work Ash respects and adores for it's fearless ferocity and, of course, those infamous opinionated slants that were often very true, but hardly factual. The truth, of course, is that Ash is plagued by a cocktail of mundane psychological conditions, such as the typical ADD, which, unknown to many, actually comes several varieties, of which he might have two or three. He also suffers from chronic depression which he combats with recklessness, self-medication, music, fighting for causes, and just plain fighting. He believes in truth over manners or socially accepted norms, and as such, he's become very blunt, and not at all polite. He dislikes most people he meets, and he's not afraid to let them know.
» Having recently turned 21, Ash now frequents bars instead of house parties, as there he is less likely to encounter high schoolers, who have become the bane of his existence since graduating and moving onto college. Though he still loves venues, he prefers bars now that he's turned 21, as they generally have cheaper beer. However, he's not as acceptable to typical bar patrons as he was to enraged teenagers who beat the hell out of each other in mosh pits, and when Ash drinks a little too much whiskey, it's not unheard of him to start fights with Army boys. The consequence of this kind of behavior, however, are a) he's had to learn how to sew his own stitches as he, of course, has no health insurance and generally refuses to go to his parents for anything anymore and b) he eventually ended up in this hell-hole hospital after winding up unconscious in an alley one night, beaten half to death, but thankfully (this time) without alcohol poisoning.
" You look like I need a drink. "
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Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 6:33 am
I cannot, for the freaking LIFE of me, find the first part of this game. It moved threads in the middle of Ash's story, so his arrival at the hospital and them cutting him open is, perhaps, lost forever. All I could find where out of character comments where we laughed about it while it was happening. After that, they just sort of shoved him in a broom closet, forgot about him, and he was established there.
This is his first post in the new thread; though there are maybe ten other characters running around, most of them are uninteresting and can't spell, so I'll only post Ash and Alex's stuff. (I'm not going to correct her spelling or grammer, because I just don't care enough.) Maybe I'll add Beamsley later, but probably in another note.
Oh, and because Ash's post is on the 3rd page, the other characters are already in mid-action. Sorry for any confusion.
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It was funny, Ash thought, how becoming a part of some kind of phenomenon that you'd only read about before, that you never thought would happen to you, it made you feel fictional. Torture, claustrophobia, insanity... These were things you talked about, things you tried to think about but never really could. However, now here he was, all three crushing in on him at once and he wasn't sure how much longer he could take it before he completely lost himself. His sense of reality was oozing out of him with every moment he spent there, and Ash was certain that before long, he wouldn't have a sense of anything anymore.
They'd locked him in a supply closet. He'd been there for days now, he was certain, but because there were no windows he really hadn't the slightest clue as to how long he'd actually been there. The nurses had come in to feed him a few times, not nearly enough-- but starving to death was the least of Ash's concerns at the moment. Ever since he'd met Dru after his surgery, what she'd said to him had been sort of eating away at his consciousness. Trapped. Forever. She'd seemed insane then, but after only a few days in this stupid closet, Ash was pretty close to crazy himself, and what he'd taken for ramblings were starting to seem like pearls of wisdom. Although it was true that he'd never had more than a tenuous grasp on sanity back in the rush of society, it was different here, with nothing to look at but the dirty, yellow bulb in the ceiling and the nauseating, yellowish plaster that coated the walls. He could feel himself pushing against the brink of insanity as he laid there, mapping out the bumps and patterns in the walls like constellations.
Ash was starting to forget things too. Not that anything here was worth remembering, but he was starting to forget other things, memories, little gaps of time that he used to be able recall with ease, but just the good things. He could still remember the bad things that had happened to him, the things he couldn't help but prod at, the way he ground his sore teeth together just to feel the pain. Or sometimes, when he was feeling really brave, he would reach up and slide his fingers over the metal plate they'd installed just under the skin of his cheeks. He could feel it there if he pressed down on the puffy, inflamed skin, just over the fracture in his lower jaw.
There were so many things wrong, and everything felt like it was getting infected. Especially his finger, which even in the span of three days had become a horror story prop-- if anything was infected, it was the finger that these incompetent, jerkoffs had sewn back on (crooked, even). It was turning green. They hadn't even bothered to bandage it, and now, out of the seems in the messy stitches, there was a constant stream of thin, yellow puss. Infected for sure.
I'm going to die of gangrene, Ash thought miserably. I'm going to die of bedsores like that a--hole Christopher Reeves, if my god damned face doesn't fall off first. Frankly, he'd much rather starve to death than wait for his body to decay around him. Maybe his lungs would just collapse. Maybe his fractured ribs would just snap and puncture his vital organs, and that'd be that. Anything but another day in this f---ing closet.
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With a ping the elevator opened on their floor and Joe stepped back to allow Lucy and Alexandra to go ahead of him. He may have been a crazed killer but he still had the southern upbringing that had been drilled into him by his mother. "After you ladies" he said smiling as they walked out of the elevator and he followed. "See ya later Doctor Joe, Lucy" Alexandra said waving as she slipped down the hall to somewhere where she could find some affection. She might have wanted to go with Lucy and Joe, since her health depended on them stoping Dru from messing up any of the new patients. She couldn't risk having people hate her. Not even the older people, and a lot of them realized that she had no choice but to be nice to them. Which is why Joe didn't usually leave her to wander among the halls of the older patients. There was no telling what she would do if they bribed her with affection.
Slipping down the hall Alex checked each room and flashed a smile at the people inside. Feeling her own energy rising as the people inside couldn't help but smile back. Of course she might of been forced to be nice to these people but that didn't mean she didn't torture them. Usually after the good feelings of her visits faded, the person would be in terrible pain. Giving a contented sigh she brushed her hair from her face and clutched the small clipboard closer to her chest as she put on her most 'innocent-little-nurse' expression and sauntered into the next room. "Hello Ash" she said walking up beside his bed. "Miss me?" she said looking down at him and smiling. "Does your jaw still hurt?" she said with a little pout, as she turned up her charms. Which wasn't to hard for her to do.
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In the dim confusion of that afternoon, a couple things happened. He was dreaming, sort of an odd mixture of a daydream and a real dream as he dozed in the ugly yellow light of his stuffy closet, feeling imprisoned enough to think about feeling trapped without realizing it. There were worse places to be, after all; he could be in a coffin, buried alive with only the hope of imminent suffocation to save him from his plight. Voices outside his grave startled him conscious again and suddenly, there was Dru-- but before he could even say anything, she had turned, addressing a voice that Ash did not know or care about. He was too sleepy to call after her, but as his mind cleared, all he could think was, Don't leave--
But she had, she was already gone, swept up in something else that didn't involve him or his closet. I'll be better soon, Ash promised himself, rallying what little sanity he had left in order to motivate himself up, off that horrible bed. God, he was so hungry... If he could just get some water, he'd be right as rain. He wished Dru would come back. He wished he wasn't so hungry. He'd already spent hours, days, wishing he wasn't there at all to no avail, but there he remained, and he'd eventually turned his mind toward more immediate goals. Water. Dru. Come back, Dru... As though he could summon her with the power of telepathy. Who knows, she was weird enough that it might work. Everything was strange enough now that Ash was starting to believe in stupid things; hell, there wasn't anything else to do, after all.
His hunger and thirst made it hard to concentrate on anything, but as he lay there, his eyes lazy and hooded, he began to wonder, not for the first time, about meditation. Like maybe, if he got lost in a word, in a rhythm, in a thought, he wouldn't feel so nauseous, so dizzy, so weak, so empty. He could overcome the physical. Mind over matter. Water, he thought, and closed his eyes to imagine it. Be somewhere else, he urged himself fervently, only to discover that the light behind his eyelids was too immediate, and the sore spots on his back were too distracting. God, his head hurt.
Moments or hours later, he heard the muffled click of heels against the hospital tile, and he thought about trying to call out, but realized that he just didn't have the energy. He really was going to die there, in that stupid closet. Too absorbed in his own misery, Ash didn't even notice the footsteps stopped, and the door handle clicked open. Her voice made him suddenly alert, aware of everything, of the pain he'd forgotten, and the cramps in his legs... but looking at her made him forget again. For a moment he lay there, a puddle of blissful thoughtlessness, until she asked about his jaw.
Ash nodded, looking absurdly melancholy all of the sudden. There was something about Alexandra, some indefinable quality that made Ash feel young, and small, that made him want to be touched, to be taken care of. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like that-- probably in high school, when he'd been too stupid to know about unrequited love... But that had been seven years ago, and he knew better now. Didn't he?
"I didn't think you'd come back," he said through his wired teeth and dry, tired throat, surprising himself by just how weak and little he sounded, but he was too tired, too sick to be ashamed. Blinking lazily, he raised his wounded, slightly infected fingers for her to inspect. "They're going bad."
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Alex could practically feel her energy level rising around her almost the instant she entered the room. Her appearance seemed to intensify, her black hair seemed fuller and shimmered even in the dim light of the dingy little closet. And her white skin was practically glowing as she practically bathed in the attention. Putting on a smile that didn't look like she could eat him alive she stepped up beside the bed and looked down at him. He looked horrible, most of the patients did after a few days. And if she had a heart she probably would of been saddened by how they were treating him. Lucky for her, part of being a succubus was that your heart (which had been broken at some point) was like ice. Hard and unfeeling to some extent. "Of course I would come back, I'm your nurse" she said smiling as she hung her clipboard beside his bed. Looking at his fingers she had to hide the look of disgust that flashed over her face. Boy did they look horrible. Sighing she figured this would be a wonderful time to up the trust level even further. She was pretty much the one the patients considered a walking morphine bottle. Making the pain leave instantly and bringing some semblance of a normal hospital. "I'll be right back" she said flashing another smile, feigning concern and kindness as was her usual. After all if she didn't fake her expressions she would be grinning like a wild cat who had just sunk her claws into a nice plump rabbit.
With a click of her heals she dissapeared out of the room only to return moments later carrying all sorts of odd things in her small arms. She really hated being so petite in stature..even though it added to her appeal. Finding a table she set the things down and you could feintly hear the sloshing of liquid as she moved the things around. "Alright, first things first" she lifted up a small bottle "Open your mouth," she said "You'll speak better once you've had some water in there" She was patient as she slowly poured the water into his mouth, making sure not to drown him. That would not be good, Joe would get angry at her if she killed a patient. Plus it was against her nature...well at least to kill them in a way that wasn't...well very intamate. And drowning someone was so..siren. Disgusiting. When he finished she drew the bottle back and closed the cap as she set it back onto the table. "Is that better?" she asked tilting her head to the side as she looked down at him and smiled. Hoping that it was, and anticipating some more admiration to flow through her.
As she waited for an answer she grabbed a towel and dipping it into a small bowl she began to dab it over his hands, cleaning them. The finger's looked disgusting and she wondered if she could fix that with what she had. She was no surgeon but she was old...at least considering she was a demon. And in her time it had been essential to learn how to sew. How else were you going to put clothes on your back in a cold Russian winter?
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When she left him, Ash couldn't stop himself from tensing as he held his breath, ignoring his protesting ribs as he pushed all the air out of his body, and waited for her to come back. She's coming back, Ashley, he thought, trying to kick start his lungs by giving himself a pep talk. She said she'd come back. You're fine. Another minute in this stupid room won't kill you. He could still hear her voice in his head, soft and reassuring: "Of course I'd come back," she'd said. Ash closed his eyes, her perfect face imprinted just behind his eyelids. "I'm your nurse."
She's my nurse, he thought, settling back into the bed, feeling a little calmer. Just thinking about her, the way she looked at him from those dark, penetrating eyes... Ash couldn't remember the last time he'd met somebody so beautiful, so flawless. And she was his. She'd said so herself. Hadn't she? Still, he was surprised to discover how relieved he felt when she returned, and though it hurt, he broke into an affectionate little smile.
The water she gave him stung his chapped lips, and the places inside his mouth where the wires had rubbed him raw, but god, it felt so good just to taste something other than blood and metal. He choked a little at first, like he'd forgotten how to swallow; at first, the water made his throat sticky, and for a brief, terrifying moment, Ash couldn't breathe. But Alexandra was patient with him, and before long, despite the wires that prevented his teeth from unclenching, she'd taken the edge off his thirst. He could feel the results almost immediately as his body clamored for the fluid, pumping into his veins, taking the edge off his headache. Every thing was so good when she was around. And her smile... Ash nodded lazily in response to her question. Yes, everything was better.
He felt his heart falter slightly as she reached for his hand, and the feel of her perfect fingertips against his calloused palms was heaven. It didn't even hurt when she started cleaning his stitches; all he could feel was her skin against his, the slight pressure of her nails as she inspected the infection. She was intoxicating, and as she fussed over him, Ash found it was harder and harder to lie still. If hadn't been for his broken arm, he wasn't sure that he'd be able to stop himself from reaching up to touch the ends of her hair as it dangled alluringly over her shoulders.
"Why'd you leave?" he found himself asking her, without the permission of his brain. He'd startled himself a little with the question-- it wasn't his style at all to be so needy, but suddenly he realized he really wanted to know. Why had she left him alone for so long? Didn't she understand how much he needed her around? Didn't she know what this place was doing to him? Then again, he had no idea how long it had been since he'd last seen her, and with the way his mind kept playing tricks on him, she could have been in and out a dozen times. Maybe he'd just forgotten. Was he really that crazy? He couldn't believe that she would leave him though, she wouldn't do something like that to him. She cared about him. He knew she did, she had to.
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It was a delicious sensation really, the admiration that flood her veins and made he cheeks flush. How she enjoyed that feeling, the surge of energy as her aura seemed to strengthen. It was pretty much assured that few creatures, even full demons, couldn't hold their own against the seductive ability of a fully energized succubus especially one as old as Alexandra. Gently she rinsed out the towel as she washed the dirt and blood that had been on his hands since he'd come in. They didn't really wash their patients, it was something that normal doctors did. And it wasted the limited supply of water they had. This hospital was not known for it's H2O tolerant staff...mostly everyone liked something a little thicker. Even she was finding his blood enticing and she rarely ever fed or drank anything that wasn't energy. Brushing her hair back over her shoulder with the back of her hand she glanced up as she heard him speak. The question seemed to catch even her off guard for a moment.
But she regained her composure quickly and flashed one of her beautiful smiles. "I would of come back earlier." she lied, considering she had been sitting on a bench upstairs doing nothing, her sweet voice like sugar, a slight Russian accent slipping out purposely. "But I had to do some things for the doctors" she said as she set the towel down in the small bowl of now dirty water. "I'm back now so don't worry" she said reaching out and letting her fingers brush against his cheek. Drawing her hand back she reached onto the table and grabbed a small silver scalpel. "I'm going to have to drain the puss from your fingers" she said looking up at him and running her hand over his, before taking the sharp point and sinking it into the puffy skin of his finger. Slowly working at cleaning them out. She wasn't about to let a perfectly good source of energy die of an infection. And as one of her hands flicked over his skin squeezing the bad fluid out, she let out a spark of pleasure. Making sure that any pain she might cause him felt good, she wanted to feel more blind love flow through her body. She wanted to walk out of this room, glowing in her raddiance and power. Able to even charm the pants off of Joe, who enjoyed fighting her almost as much as he loved to tease the nurses.
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Alexandra's voice was like heaven to hear. After being alone for so long, making noise just to make sure he hadn't gone deaf, her voice was like that of an angel. Ash hadn't even believed in them until now. Maybe it was her accent, or the way she looked at him as she spoke... Russian always had been one of his favorite languages to listen to, and though she was speaking English, her occasional accent delighted him more than he could justify. And of course she would never leave him if she had the choice. It wasn't her fault.
Really, it was just such a lame excuse, being too preoccupied, for days on end, to come back and find him... but he didn't doubt her for a second. He didn't think he could-- He'd never trusted anybody this much in his entire life. His ingrained tendency to rationalize things made his mind wander as she told him not to worry. He wouldn't worry, not for himself anyway; he had her to watch out for him. But what if...? Ash lifted his eyes lazily up to hers, relaxing against the cot, which now seemed to be one of the most comfortable places he'd ever slept; he couldn't even feel the sores that had begun to form along his shoulder blades and spine. This really was a terrible place. What was somebody so good, so perfect, so pure doing here? Was Alexa a prisoner too, maybe?
It was funny what a couple days in a supply closet with several broken bones and an infection could do to modify your thinking. When Dru had first contacted him, days ago, months ago... how long had it been? Hours? He couldn't remember. But she'd seemed so crazy, so foolish, so... caught up in something that couldn't be real. He'd quickly changed his thinking, though he warned himself against it... Ash couldn't really help it, though. He had a natural tendency to panic, to assume the worst, and though years of living with anxiety disorder had taught him ways to keep calm, it was still hard not to go in that direction. His saving grace was probably that he was just too exhausted-- He hadn't eaten in days, and his body was desperately trying to fight infections and sores and to knit broken bones without any help from casts or antibiotics. This was how people died in the middle ages. Strangely enough, it gave him a small comfort to think of it this way-- Though people had become unaccustomed to hardship and grueling, painful deaths, people had gone through this for centuries upon centuries. It was just the way things go, he thought.
Though in general Ash had no survival instinct, just a sort of raw strength that kept him going, being with Alexandra, feeling her skin against his, just knowing that she was there to take care of him, to be with him, gave him a kind of hope that he'd never felt before. He couldn't even feel it as she lanced his fingers and squeezed them clean, something he was sure, if he'd been in his right mind, was supposed to hurt. A lot. When he was little, he'd heard his mother talk about things like this. In the medical profession, skill often prevented pain. If you knew how to do something right, it wouldn't hurt as much.
Though the need to drink was no longer pressing, his throat still felt dry and tight as he watched her face while she concentrated on his fingers. He liked looking at her when she wasn't paying attention, liked studying the various angles of her face, the way she lowered her lengthy eye lashes, the way her hair fell over her shoulders. It was all so natural, so perfect, and Ash was mesmerized by her. He felt weightless, and lazy, but not suffocatingly tired anymore. He would be alright. Really.
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That's as far as we got. The game stopped shortly after this.
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Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 6:34 am
Inis was exhausted, though he could hardly imagine how Ashley must be feeling; he'd had it so much worse. He must be so deeply beyond tired after their long flight from captivity, and now he was prepping himself to be on the receiving end of a fairly painful procedure that, had the person doing it been a highly skilled orthodontist instead of an awkward mechanic, would still require more than just whiskey to dull the pain. But whiskey was all they had, and Ashley kept insisting they share.
“Nothing you could ever do could hurt me more than they already have,” Ashley kept reminding Inis through his clenched teeth. “They cu' open my ********' face an' drilled a plate inta my jaw. While I was awake.” He paused to take a wrathful swig from the Jack Daniel's bottle and then said, “Jus' get these ********' wires off.”
After Ash had broken his jaw, they'd cut him open and screwed a plate into his bones. Then they'd wired the arch bars to his teeth and tied them together. It hadn't taken long for Ash's gums to grow down around the wires; it wasn't like they had let him floss. In fact, from the look of his mouth, it seemed as though they'd gone out of their way to leave the wires sharp and uncomfortable; Ash's gums and the insides of his lips were covered in not quite infected little sores. The funny thing, Innis thought, was that everything they'd done was standard mandibular fracture and facial reconstruction procedure. That was they way they did things, though. They manipulated things, turned the procedures that were, in theory, supposed to be helpful into torture.
When they'd escaped, Ash made it clear that the first thing they had to do was get those damn wires off his teeth before his jaw calcified shut. Neither of them were doctors, not even close, but Ash had brought up the example of a group of people in Asia, he thought, who walked around with their hands in the air until their shoulders froze that way. He didn't think he could cope with living the rest of his life not being able to open his mouth.
Innis didn't blame him. Ash was half starved as it was, and in the past few days since they'd been on their own, one of the hardest things to find on the fly was anything that Ash could not only consume, but sustain himself on as they fled. Innis had no idea how Ash had managed to keep going. Inis was having enough trouble finding the energy to continue himself, and he could eat anything he wanted.
Tonight they were in a cheap motel bathroom, each of them perched on the cracked, plastic tub, passing the bottle of whiskey back and forth while Inis tried not to stare at Ashley's scars. Though the T-shaped scar on his face was perhaps the most easily identifiable and wretched to think on, it wasn't the only thing that had happened to him in the Hell's Hospital, as Inis liked to call the place. He'd come in with a broken jaw, broken ribs, a broken arm and several superficial cuts and wounds-- not to mention a partially severed finger that they hadn't actually bothered to sew back on straight. He told Inis that his facial piercings hadn't actually been ripped out until after he got to the hospital. It made Inis feel sick.
Still, most of his wounds were on the way to healing, and they'd actually kept his finger from becoming gangrenous, presumably because they liked having their toys in good shape before they broke them again, and the only really raw wounds Ash still had were in his mouth. Inis didn't know how much longer he could watch Ashley hiss and wince as the whiskey burned at all the raw little corkscrew cuts and nicks inside the boy's mouth. His teeth were in bad shape. His whole mouth was, really. Inis couldn't say he was particularly looking forward to the task at hand, either.
The pair of needle nose pliers they'd borrowed from the front desk were resting on the dirty sink, waiting for Ash to give the green light. They really should have gone to a hospital, but in light of the circumstances, they'd had to make do with the pliers. Not exactly dental equipment, but it was all they had. Ash took his last swig of whiskey, as Inis turned the pliers over in his fingers, draining the rest of the bottle in several gulps before shaking his head violently and slapping his palms down on his thighs. “Holy ********, I can' feel my ********' legs,” he growled, wiping some spit off his chin with the back of his forearm. “Le's do this.”
Without the benefit of an anesthetic, borderline alcohol poising would have to be sufficient. Inis just hoped it would make it easier on him as well- Ash might be the on in pain, but Inis didn't like the idea of actually being the one causing it... Even though he knew he was helping, in the long run.
Mumbling something agreeable, Inis swayed a little on the lip of the tub as he leaned over to grab the pliers. 'Now or never,' he thought, feeling the heat of the whiskey settling in over his nose and lips like a mask. ******** it.
“Open up,” he commanded with a degree of authority that startled him.
Ashley did as he was told, however, grinning eerily as he leaned forward and presented his ruined teeth to Inis, who, despite the alcohol, was fighting the urge to recoil. “Come on, man,” Ash said after an uncomfortable moment of silence. “Do I gotta do this shi' myself? This drunk? I'll cut my face off, man.”
“No, no,” Inis said quickly, shaking his head and then wishing he hadn't. “I'm okay. Sorry.”
“That bad, huh?” Ash said, looking up at the ceiling as Inis steeled himself and leaned in towards Ashley's scarred and twisted grin with the pliers, looking for the most appropriate wire to start untangling. He wished they could have gotten their hands on a pair of damn wire cutters. Before he could decide, however, Ash popped his finger into his mouth and pulled back his left cheek, trying to voice some unintelligible instructions. Though Inis didn't have a clue what Ashley was trying to say, it became pretty clear where Ash wanted him to start working.
Inis almost gagged, actually, as he tried to inspect a deep, probably infected wound on the inside of Ash's cheek. It was clearly caused by one of many improperly cut wires that Inis couldn't help but feel like they'd left that way on purpose. Either way, it was obvious why Ash wanted him to start there.
Until Ash grinned lopsidedly and nodded, Inis hadn't even realized he was wincing.
“Okay,” he breathed, moving in with the little pliers again, navigating around Ashley's dirty finger and filthy, white wounds to clamp onto the thin, sharp edge of wire. Ash started making little noises of discomfort as Inis fiddled patiently with the wires. Later, when Ash had started bleeding, Inis had made him lean forward to keep him from choking. It kept Ash from guzzling down blood on top of an empty stomach full of whiskey, but there was no way to keep it from dripping down Inis's arms in sticky rivers as he tried to twist the wires free from Ashley's teeth.
It was lucky blood didn't bother Inis; Ash, on the other hand, was on the verge of fainting by the time Inis had gotten both of the bars free, but Inis didn't blame him. It had taken almost an hour, and Ash was weak enough as it was. The smell of blood and spit and alcohol was thick in the air, heavy and metallic, and slightly sour in a way that Ash couldn't stand even at his best. The thing that really shook Inis up, however, was when Ash, reasonably overeager after months of not being able to open his mouth, had immediately wrenched his teeth apart before Inis, the wires still clenched in his pliers, had even gotten the bars an inch away from Ashley's bloody lips.
He didn't think Ash had even meant to do it, that he'd gotten so used to trying to stretch his jaws without success that what he'd done had been more of a sort of thoughtless spasm. Until then, Ash had taken everything in a reasonable sort of silence, even making pathetic, uncomfortable, stifled attempts at laughter while he drooled blood all over Inis and the floor. The noise he'd made when he'd wrenched his jaw had been shocking in its severity and intimidating enough to make Inis gasp in surprise and almost drop the pliers on the sticky bathroom floor.
It had started as a slow growl that crescendoed into a deep, furious scream of aggressive frustration and pain. Ashley immediately doubled over and cupped his chin in the soft flesh of his palms while Inis looked on, shaken, frozen and not quite sure how to respond.
After that, Ash had cursed once, quietly, and dropped his head level with his knees while he tried to catch his breath. It took Inis a moment to recover as well-- his initial feeling had been an unnerving, instinctual fear that sucked his breath right out of his chest. His heart was still jarring his ribs as he reached up and dropped the arch bars into the sink a minute later.
"This is so ******** up," Ash murmured without really opening his mouth. Inis couldn't argue.
“We've got another bottle,” was all he said, looking down at the blood on his hands and wishing he wasn't so drunk. He needed to find some soap in a bad way. “Vodka.”
“I'm about to throw up already,” Ash managed to say without really moving his jaw. “I hate blood.”
Inis pushed himself up and around until he could reach the faucet in the tub, which was easier than standing up to reach the sink. The metal stuck to the pads of his fingers briefly as he twisted the water on. “You sure bled a lot,” he said conversationally.
Ash shrugged and pushed himself off the edge of the tub so he could slump against it. “Alcohol is an anti-coagulant,” he said, his words trembling with exhaustion. “Most of it is probably drool anyway.”
“Yeah,” was all Inis could think to say. He wanted a ******** cigarette.
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Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 6:35 am
Short. Didn't really read over it. I really, really need to be sleeping. Companion to "Teamwork". I swear to God this hotel exists somewhere in Desolation or Gray Canyon... But I can't find it anymore...
When Ash wakes up in the morning, he spends about a half an hour throwing up nothing just outside his hotel door. His finger tips are bleeding and one of his nails, he discovers, is cracked down into the quick, but he's too dehydrated to care. It's not really morning, he decides, or it was and then it wasn't anymore, he doesn't know which or why it matters, but he realizes, as he crawls into the shade of the motel's porch, that he is very much alone.
Inis is gone, or he never really was there at all, and Ash, for the ******** life of him, doesn't know which. The wires on his teeth are gone too, all except his arch bars, which, he feels stupid for not realizing before, are actually sort of glued onto his teeth. He needs water.
Looking out into the sun, he can see a dirty iron pump hidden away in the midst of acres of desert scrub brush. Yards... Miles. But somewhere in the distance, maybe close, maybe just unfathomably huge and far away, everything ends in a sheer, muted red cliff face. Mostly gray, really, Ash thinks as spots begin to swim inside his eyes, and he starts to wonder if he's really dying this time. Or already dead.
It doesn't really seem like anything has any color here.
He wants to cry, he realizes; he's so ******** alone that it doesn't matter anymore, but he's too thirsty, and just too goddamn tired. He stares at the pump again, wonders if its real, wonders if its just some stupid pipe sticking out of the ground. It occurs to him that last night, or, whenever it had been—when had it been? there had been running water inside. He picks himself up and stumbles through the door, only to realize that this is isn't the same place he went to sleep in.
No, it is. It has to be.
Ash realizes he recognizes the layout, but it smells different, and he's sure, he's so sure that he didn't go to sleep this alone. There was somebody there with him, somebody just in the room, or in the other room, the bathroom, somebody who cared enough to just wallow in Ashley's blood.
He needs water. He needs water now. There are leaves in the sink and a dead rodent in the bathtub and Ash decides to just give up. He remembers the hospital, but he doesn't remember getting here and he doesn't remember not being here either, and he knows that he was alone for so long that he shouldn't care about being alone anymore.
But someone was here, he wasn't alone, and he was getting better, feeling better, anyway, and... Stepping outside again makes him blind. The sun is so ******** bright and he feels like he hasn't seen it in years. Entirely possible. He has no sense of time anymore, hasn't in days. Years. Months. Minutes.
He stumbles out to the pipe in the ground and finds a no trespassing sign on the red, gritty dirt. The cliff face is feet away from him-- is it? but it takes him hours to walk to the river. He can smell it. Smell the water. Smell the mud and the plants, and he just wants to drink it all and then ******** sob until the salt burns out his eyes.
The water is so cold, and the sand is so hot. Ash hates them both.
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Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 6:37 am
Just some Ash 'n' Inis. Nothing special, just writing for the sake of writing. Not edited. Whatevs.
“When I was 14,” Ashley began hesitantly, his voice echoing ever so slightly from the filthy bathroom tile, “I stole a bottle of gin out of my parent's cupboard.”
Inis didn't say anything.
Ash glanced up from inspecting his scars and crooked fingers to find Inis still sitting against the wall, his arms draped over his knees, his eyes unfocused. He watched for just a second, wondering what Inis was thinking about or if he was even listening, and then pulled his eyes away and let them rest on the rusted faucet.
Nothing to do but keep talking. “I knew that... well, in movies, people always fell asleep when they were drunk, so I took it into the bathtub and I tried to drink it." He laughed, mostly because he felt obligated to. "I'd probably be dead if it hadn't tasted so ********. ******** gin.”
When Inis didn't respond, Ash wondered how old the motel was. Wondered, mainly, if there was a lot of asbestos in the walls.
“You tried to kill yourself when you were 14?” Inis asked after a moment, and Ash looked over the rim of the tub to find his companion giving him an odd look.
Ash felt stupid for telling. “No, not really,” he lied, trying not to remember locking himself in the closet for hours when he was still in elementary school, writing so many goddamn letters about how worthless he felt, how misplaced and wrong he really was. He'd never told anybody before. “Just had a bad day or something. I think the girl I had a thing for at the time started dating another one of my best friends. Can't have been serious about it or I'd have drank that s**t anyway, right?” It seemed reasonable.
Inis looked tired. “I'm sorry, I don't really...” he shook his head, his close-cropped blond curls catching what little light there was left in the room. “I don't feel right.”
Ash looked down at his knees.
“I feel... sick,” Inis clarified.
“Me too,” Ash said, staring at his hand, still not quite able to believe that those ******** had sewed his finger on so goddamn crooked. It didn't look real. “Haven't eaten all day, I guess. I'm more used to that than you,” he added, then looked up shyly again. Talking about the hospital, about what they'd done to him there... it felt wrong. Maybe even worse than talking about the suicide notes he used to write, about the reason he'd had to stop shaving or carrying a knife. He'd always felt safer just keeping s**t like that to himself-- like if nobody else knew, then it would just be easier to erase when he got better. Like it never happened.
Honestly, Ash was pretty sure he'd never get better.
Inis took a deep breath and pushed himself up from the floor. “I need to...” he began saying as he stood, then stopped and shook his head again, swaying a little. He didn't look well at all. “I'm going to get some water.”
Outside, hours had past. Ash wasn't sure how long he'd been in the tub, or why, really, but it was dark now, and he was thirsty again. In the black, finding his way back to that decrepit little water pump was out of the question, so he trotted down to the river bank again and made himself at home. The cliff face was gone, replaced simply with an empty, starless expanse that both loomed and was absent.
That night, Ash slept in the sand and woke up feeling chafed, bitten and ******** cold, but not all together bad. Considering the alternative, he was actually rather enjoying himself.
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Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 6:38 am
Some of you were wondering about Ash's life in the hospital... Weelllll I got this idea the other day and it just sort of got stuck in my brain. Lucy, Joe and Alexia aren't originally my characters, but I'm stealing them from the girls that wrote them because I like them a lot and they're part of Ash's story. Maybe the next clip I write will be the one where Inis meets Ash for the first time! Who knows. I'm jumping around a lot.
When Lucy entered Ashley's closet, he was sleeping on his stomach, his broken arm carefully tucked against his body, wrapped up in his torn and bloodied shirt. He really was pitiful, she thought, examining his nearly naked body, and marveling that the boy would rather sleep on fractured ribs than on his developing bed sores any longer. Frankly, she found him disgusting and miserable-- a ghost of the young man that had checked in not much more than a month ago.
Still... his body was strong, and despite everything they'd denied him, he was mending. His bruises, cuts and stitches, with the exception of his entertainingly crooked index finger, had all faded and sealed themselves together. Meanwhile, he'd become breakably thin and had lost what little color he'd had in the first place. His tattoos looked like they'd been inked on rice paper. Lucy had to pause and marvel at Alexia's skill as a care taker; she'd not only kept Ash alive on next to nothing, she'd kept him from succumbing to infection, while ensuring that his finger did not heal entirely. Alexia was a lovely little creature to have at her disposal, though as Lucy stepped further into the tiny little room and ran her fingers over the pressure sore on Ash's tail bone, she wondered why Alexia hadn't let the sore mature into at least a blister before she'd turned the boy over to heal.
Or maybe he'd done it himself, she mused, her eyes drifting up to the barely detectable sores, somewhat hidden by his tattoos, along his shoulder blades and upper spine. Maybe it was time for some new injuries.
Lucy let her hand drift down along his body, running her slender fingers along the curve of his back, until she reached the sore at the base of his spine. Applying a gentle pressure to the affected area, she noted the slight give in the tissue, like bruised fruit. She smiled to herself as she dug her fingers into the lesion, and felt him begin to writhe against her touch. Damn, she loved this.
Ashley woke with a start, already emitting a hoarse noise akin to a growl but more like a whimper, and Lucy remembered, suddenly and with a degree of delight, that they'd wired the poor b*****d's teeth together when they'd cut open his face. He'd been such a perfect specimen, arriving so cracked and ready to shatter. Everything had just sort of fallen into place with Ash-- but she'd had to hand over the responsibility of keeping him alive to Alexia in the end. Being head nurse just kept Lucy so damn busy these days.
By the time he'd managed to focus his tired eyes on her, Lucy was standing a respectful distance away, giving Ash the smile that she usually saved for new patients. After all, they hadn't really been introduced yet, and considering what she was planning on doing to him in the next hour or so, she thought it best that they start out on a good foot. “Hey, sweety,” she said, her eyes gentle and round, her blond hair slipping over her shoulder as she leaned down and gave him a tender little smile.
Ash was still blinking tears and sleep out of his eyes, trying to catch his breath and understand his pain.
“Alexia?” he rasped through clenched, filthy teeth.
Lucy smiled a little sweeter and shook her head. “My name is Lucy,” she said.
Ash just stared at her, his eyes dull and confused, as her gaze wondered over to the scar they'd left on his cheek. It was still pink and shiny, and though it had healed, the haphazard stitching remained.
“Are you real?” she heard him ask, and she snapped her eyes back to his.
What a stupid question, she thought, but continued smiling all the same. “Of course.”
He blinked again, his breathing at last slowing and settling, and he began to stretch his toes and fingers while his eyelids relaxed, hooding his eyes. “Where's Alexia?” he moaned softly through his wires, and Lucy had to fight to hide her irritation. Another one, wrapped around that little Russian tramp's finger. Alexia might be an asset, but ******** if Lucy didn't hate fighting for attention. If it had been up to her, which of course it wasn't, she'd have fed the b***h to a meat grinder a long time ago and stirred her blood into a ******** cocktail.
She decided not to answer the stupid boy's question.
“Would you like to get out of this little closet, Ash?” she asked instead, and tried not to run him through and smother him with his own organs while she waited for him to answer.
Lucy could understand that after a month, or however long it had been, that he might be confused by this sudden offer of 'freedom' from his tiny little room, but when he just continued to stare at her with the same stupefied expression, she began to struggle with her temper. After what seemed like an eternity, Ash coughed a bit and said, “... Yes?”
At last, she felt her rage begin to drain as her body filled with anticipation. Really, it wasn't necessary to go though the whole bit like this, pretending to be nice, asking him if he'd like to leave, filling him full to the brim with false hope, but she found it produced far better results. She could see cogs beginning to click back into place inside his head as the boy tried to pull himself back into the present. Just where she wanted him.
“I knew you would,” she said merrily, pulling a little tube of ointment out from her dress pocket and squirting some onto her fingers. “Let me just take care of these little spots for you, Mister VanBuren,” she said, gently rubbing the oily substance on her fingers over his back, smiling as he hissed through his teeth.
“Cold, isn't it?” she said, wiping her hand off on the hem of her apron. Gently, she took his hand in hers, as if to comfort him, but used the moment to quickly attach restraints to his wrist. He looked puzzled again, but too exhausted to protest as she circled around the bed, locking him down, one leather strap at a time.
“Be careful with my arm,” he muttered as she made her way, at last, to his broken bone and finished strapping him in.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked, reaching into her dress pocket.
Ash closed his eyes and nodded, probably figuring that nothing could be worse than where he'd already been. Of course, he was wrong. “Good,” she said, pulling out a little book of matches from her dress pocket and quickly striking one. Grinning demonically as the flame hissed and grew, she added, “because I'm taking you to the burn ward.”
Before he could say anything, hell, before he could think anything, she dropped the match squarely between his shoulders and then stepped back to watch.
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Vengeful Elegance Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:46 am
mrgreen I wish I could write a bio like that. I always feel the need to say "but not boring and lame like I just made it sound."
I always assumed Ash was an orphan who raised himself on the streets. xd
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Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 12:06 pm
LOL No, he had a normal childhood... a good one, even.
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