Chloe Frazer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
desperate_times_right) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
singillatim2024-03-14 07:11 pm
desperate_times_right) wrote in singillatim2024-03-14 07:11 pm
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.
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.
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“Not enough to let you do that to me again! I’d freeze out there like this!”
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That's not what comes out, though. Between ragged breaths. Through laughter, he looks up at her -- indignant, straddling him. Feeling the burn of her body on his. It's like something takes him over.
But he can't bring himself to give in just yet. He's gotta hold his ground show her whose boss. "I'm not promising you shit," he says. But he's still grinning. "Now let me up."
Please let him up. He doesn't know how long he can hold out. Not because of the pain, he can handle that, but because of something else, something he can't place and doesn't understand that makes him want to obey.
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“Ugh, fine, but if you do that again I'm going to make it hurt so much worse.”
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"Okay, okay," he says. "I won't do it again, Your Highness." There's a sarcastic note to his voice, but he's being serious. "I promise." It's strange. Lalo hates to lose, and he hates to feel like he's at anyone's mercy. But this is different. The stakes are low. He's safe. It's... fun?
For a second, he just grins stupidly up at her, and then Tio Hector's mute, saddened face flashes briefly in front of his mind's eye, as he sits hunched over and stunted in his pathetic little wheelchair. Startled by the image but not by the pang of deep grief and guilt it induces, he sits up abruptly, hoping to jostle her off, needing more distraction.
"Alright! Now go sit. So I can cook for you! It's so good, you're gonna faint. Believe it!"
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“All right, I'm moving! Jesus.” No need to get pushy about it!
She's still hungry though, so she does sit. “I don't think I'll faint, but let's see it.”
Sorr for the wait!
He jumps up. Vibrating in the back of his mind is still Hector, Tuco, and a million strangers he sees no reason he should be forced to give this much of a shit about. Briefly, a memory of flames dances through his mind. He forces it down.
"That's what they'll all say! Trust me, it'll knock your socks off." He stands up, getting a few pans out -- cast iron and a skillet. "We don't have a lot of options here for flavor, so! You gotta make it taste good with technique." He looks over to where Chloe is sitting, and for a moment he just glows. He's so happy to finally be cooking for somebody besides himself!
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She might be surprised to see him go to the fridge, since it doesn't work, but just because there's no electricity doesn't mean it doesn't make great storage. "Here!" Lalo says cheerily, grabbing two limes from the fridge. There's shriveled and old, not in the best condition, but they'll work for his purposes. One for her, one to cook with.
"Here. Peel it. Suck on it," he tells her, almost instructs her, unaware she's been fending off scruvy by eating raw meat in the woods like a freakazoid. He tosses a lime to her. "It'll keep you from getting sick."
Then he returns to his work, humming. You'd never know his beloved uncle's face hasn't once left his mind's eyes from his outward demeanor.
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“I can't believe you've still got fruit,” she says. “I should have been looking in the fridge before.”
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He'd been rationing his limes carefully. She's gonna owe him big for giving her his last one. One of his last ones.
He butchers the pheasant quickly, showing off a little as he cuts with theatrical motions. "You ever see anybody do this?" he tells her. "Now watch!" He mixes the now-butchered pheasant in a large bowl - with avocado oil, and scavenged taco seasoning packets. He uses several packets at once; they don't have a lot ot flavor, and he's determined to make this taste like something for her. He tosses the pleasant in the bowl theatrically, too, making it jump a little more so she can see it before he sets it aside.
After washing his hands and grabbing a towel to throw over his shouder, he lets the cast iron skillet heat up. "They key is to add a little oil after it gets hot!" he tells her proudly. He seems so happy to be showing her what he can do.
He continues: "This is where the lime comes in!" as he goes back to the fridge and pulls out a squeeze bottle of honey. He's been scavenging for food, and it shows. Even on aurora nights, he keeps the fridge unplugged.
After all, he figured out it seemed to be the only place Chloe didn't seem to get into.
Soon, he's chopping up the other shriveled lime, squeezing what juice he can from it into the bowl, and whisking it with honey. When they're well-combined, he offers it to her.
"Taste!" he says cheerily, smiling; it's not even a command so much as a hopeful plea. "Tell me if you think it needs anything! I'm making you a sauce for the pheasant."
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She watches the showmanship with no small amount of amusement anyway, and by the time he proffers the spoon for her to taste her mouth is watering at the smell.
“Hey, as long as I'm getting food I don't care.” She leans in to taste it anyway. “Seems good to me. I'm no good at this stuff.”
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The pheasant, he cooks in the cast iron; it's a smallish bird, so it cooks fast. He sets it aside to rest. Then, in the same skillet right after: rice, sauteed with some more oil and the pheasant juices and garlic and onion powder. Add water, and it bubbles up. He adds jarred tomato sauce and a packet of Knorr chicken broth powder. Then, stir in canned tomato sauce, any spices he's managed to find that Lalo thinks would be appropriate. Once everything's dissolved, he puts a tight lid on the rice to let it simmer. Chloe might have to wait a little bit for the pheasant, but that's okay. She can wait.
But eventually it's done. Lalo fluffs it with a fork before portion it onto plates with half the pheasant pieces each, one for him and one for her. He pours the honey-lime sauce over the pheasant, pleased with himself as he does so, before whipping the towel off his shoulder as he goes to sit down at the table. He sets Chloe's plate in front of her, with already in the rice, grinning, and drops down into the chair across from her.
"Well? Tell me what you think!"
But sitting down is strangely painful. When he was working, he wasn't thinking. When he wasn't thinking, he wasn't feeling guilty. Now, no longer absorbed in a task, the guilt creeps back up into Lalo's consciousness. He tries to bat it away without letting her see it; he hopes she can't tell. So he keeps smiling.
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She eats in silence for a while before replying, “I think it's a good thing you could touch the pheasant without hurting yourself.”
Yeah, the bad feeling’s still there but she's not thinking about it. It's fine.
cw: drug overdose mention
Lalo grins at her and reaches over to gentle give her shoulder a playful shove before he's reminded, too late, of how much that hurts. He grins, sitting back in his seat, rubbing himself.
It's such a nice scene, he thinks. Almost crazy to think less than an hour ago they were hurting each other on purpose.
Crazier to think he deserves it. Lalo has never thought about the consequences of his drug-dealing before, not even a little bit. But he wonders suddenly now, a thought not wholly his own but prompted by feelings of guilt he's been forced to experience against his will: How many people every year die from drug overdoses?
How many of them are kids?
He decides he doesn't want to know the answer and keeps grinning at Chloe like everything is fine.
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He winks. "Come back next time. We'll do this again. If you can get past he traps."
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