singillatim | A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

Entry tags:

A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

Who: Chloe Frazer & others
What: Catch-all; open prompts
When: March and April
Where: Around Milton

Content Warnings: Self-injury content related to the echo effects. Descriptions of canon typical violence and murder. Talk about hunting/eating animals.

Chloe doesn't trust Methuselah as far as she could throw him, and a trip through a mine where she's forced to rely on the goodwill of a bunch of cop types does not sound like her idea of a good time. Also, sticking around Milton when most of the people who 'patrol' (imagine her air quotes) are away is a great opportunity to snoop in people’s houses.

Anyone who remains in or returns to Milton may find her either doing her usual wild running in the woods, checking her snares for snacks, or sneaking around newly empty locations to see what's been left behind.

Aurora nights are a different thing, however. Chloe likes to think that she's done her best to do right by the people that she cares about, but the truth is she's cut a few throats in her day, stepped over others to make sure that she would wind up on top. Something about the aurora this month brings every one of those memories roaring back. It has her running faster, drinking until she can't see, and doing risky climbs onto (and jumps between) rooftops, trying to escape the feeling.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Chloe yelps when he touches her, but answers with a smirk. “Watch out. Right now I bite back.”

He can mess with her if he wants but it'll mess with him too.

“I guess it's not too unusual for this place to do that. Like with the house fire, or that cave system. Give people a scare, hurt ‘em a little, and it'll drive them together.”

"Yeah. I know."

He's still wringing his hand a little, even though the pain is gone.

"Go on! Sit down." In front of his hearth, there's a sofa. "Take a rest. I'll get a fire going."

Something occurs to him. "House... fire...?" he asks. Lalo had been traveling with Methuselah during that entire thing, but color him intrigued.

“Yeah.” Chloe sits with only a small amount of trepidation. “Methuselah put us on to that old ruin at the edge of town. The burned-out house? Turns out it's haunted or something.”

Lalo can feel even the small amount of trepidation she's experiencing, and he allows himself a small amount of self-satisfaction in response. Yeah, that's right, girl. You should be nervous!

But only because anyone smart would be in this situation. Fortunately, Lalo bears her no ill will. Quite the contrary! He seems delighted. He turns on the lights, looking pleased when they flicked on.

"You're in for a treat," Lalo tells her happily. "Have you ever had pheasant, Miss Chloe?" But he's listening to what she says, too, about the house.

"Haunted?" Lalo's brow furrows as he bangs out around, swinging open cupboards, getting out pots and pans. "That's around the time he took me with him. Traveling." Lalo wonders what the significance of the timing is, there. If any. Maybe there's nothing to it at all.

“I did use to live in England,” Chloe points out. “But I'm interested. You caught some around here?” She's pretty good at hunting and trapping by now, but shooting birds is different.

She leans back in her seat, crossing her legs with a foot on her knee. “Yeah. I went to check it out with Billy Gibson, one of the sailors? We were looking around on the main floor and suddenly, out of nowhere, the whole place was on fire! We barely made it out a window, then when I turned around the house wasn't burning anymore. It was fucked up.”

"Hell yeah I caught on here! I'm a good shot. You should see me in action sometime." Lalo is an impressively accurate shot, even for a movie target, and he's been practicing. Especially because he knows how to butcher a bird.

He watches her lean back on his couch with interesting. Making herself at home. Almost like she owns the place. But he sensed her trepidation earlier, and she doesn't seem stupid enough to just let her guard down like this, with all of their history and the way she keeps breaking in. She has to know what he can do. So that means...

Lalo leans back against the sink, casually. Loose, elbows jutting out backwards while he practically lounges. Not in a hurry to get the pheasant, apparently. He smiles with his eyes and just the smallest corners of his mouth.

"Don't be nervous," he says. "I'm not going to poison you." A wink. She spreads out when she's scared, he notes. Almost like a cat trying to make itself look bigger.

Ugh. Chloe had known when she’d had to tap out that this guy was going to be insufferable about it.

“If I were worried about that, I'd just leave.” Another lie. She's way too curious about what they'd found on the other end of the mines.

And Lalo is too happy at the prospect of cooking for someone to push it and risk chasing her off. Besides, with Hector's sad face looming in the back of his mind, and the crying as a backdrop, Lalo really doesn't want to be alone right now.

So he lets it go when she says she'd just leave. "Yeah, okay," he says, pushing himself up. "Let me get the pheasant."

“Hey,” Chloe says. She knows the answer to this but she wants to bug him a little. “Do you know whether we can even eat meat right now? Touching flesh and all that.”

Lalo pauses. He doesn't know that she knows the real answer, of course, and he thinks she's raising a real concern. "Ah, I'm sure it's fine! It's dead, right? Besides, it's an animal. So it'll be fine!"

He doesn't sound 100% sure, though, and he even asks, "...Right?" in an uncertain tone.

Absolutely hating it, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of having him look to her for guidance but unable to stop himself, Lalo reluctantly looks to Chloe, wanting to know what she thinks. As far as he's aware, they're just spitballing ideas together and she doesn't know any more than he dies. His eyes slide from the cellar door to her face. He seems calm enough, but his expressive brown eyes are slightly bigger than usual, and his brow is furrowed in thought or confusion.

"On second thought, maybe we should have salad tonight! You'll like that, too, I promise."

He tries to infuse that sentence all of his usual bravado, and almost manages to, but doesn't quite succeed. His pride hates the idea of giving in and making her a salad, and he doesn't realize he's being messed with yet. He wonders if enduring the pain to cook something for her would seem impressive or just stupid.

And just like that, Chloe’s back on top where she belongs. She pulls her knees to her chest in satisfaction and sighs.

“If you don't want to risk touching it, it's fine.”

Lalo's pride immediately refuses to let him back down now. As far as he's concerned, this is a challenge.

"Risk! What risk? Nah, nah! You saw me before. I can handle it!" He waves his hand in the air and grins. But on the inside, he feels his stomach drop, and there's obvious hesitation as he turns to the door. He grabs for an oven mitt. Who knows? Maybe if there's a barrier between his hand and the pheasant, it might help somehow.

Lalo sucks in a deep breath, puts his hand on the doorknob, and twists.

Edited 2024-04-13 20:59 (UTC)

Chloe, who was eating raw meat in the forest just earlier tonight, smirks to herself. These guys must have been pretty hungry on the mine trip.

“Yeah, okay. Good luck.”

"Thanks! But I don't need it. I can handle it. You'll see."

Lalo sucks in a breath, bracing himself as he goes downstairs. There's a fridge in the cellar, which he doesn't use, and an icebox, which he does; the pheasant, cleaned and butchered, is there.

When Lalo re-emerges from the cellar, he's carrying the pheasant... looking pleased and triumphant about his solution of carrying it with an oven mitt, and... a stick.

He beams at Chloe, clearly proud of his solution. "See? What'd I tell you!"

Of course, he can't butcher it like that. Eventually, he'll have to take the risk, but for right now, he wants to show her his cleverness.

Chloe laughs, delighted. “Oh wow. How clever.”

Lalo is pleased by her reaction. It was exactly what he'd wanted, after all!

But even Lalo struggles to keep hold of the bird, fumbling a little, and with the stick, only to drop it on the floor. He stares at it for a second, horrified, thinking about the cleanup... but then he remembers he's got an audience. He heaves a breath, and nods at her.

"Not to worry," he tells her, sighing internally. "I'll wash it." He's going to have to pick it up. He reaches for it, bracing himself to grab the bird with his hand. Expecting it to hurt. And...

Nothing.

It doesn't.

He doesn't feel anything. There's a mixture of confusion and relief and slowly dawning horror on his face as he stands up, grabbing it.

Chloe applauds a little from her seat. Somehow the way she's curled up now looks smug.

“Beautiful! That took way less time than I thought.”

"Wha...? Less time? I don't..."

Lalo looks like the realization is still slowly hitting him, and the applause only seems to confirm it, although he's still slowly piecing it together. He stares at her for a few seconds with a raw bird in his hand, probably getting salmonella, feeling like a goddamn idiot.

And then Lalo turns away and heads to the kitchen, huffily, without another word.

Edited 2024-04-16 09:14 (UTC)

Chloe stays in her spot on the sofa, but her cackling laugh follows Lalo into the next room.

From the kitchen, the sound of running water and a fuming:

"Yeah, yeah! YOU'RE REAL FUNNY!"

“No harm done, except to the poor pheasant!”

The mortified, sulky silence practically wafts from the kitchen, amidst the loud banging and clanging of pots and pans. Even if she can't see him, Chloe can probably sense Lalo's huffiness.

She can, and it's great. Yes, this guy is dangerous and the games she plays with him are walking a knife’s edge, but his reactions when she wins are so fun.

The water creeks on, then off. Lalo, drying his hands, look at the silver chrome sink and gets an idea. He grins to himself.

"Hey, get in here," he calls. "I wanna show you something! Come look."

Chloe snorts. “I thought you wanted me to sit.”

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject