singillatim | boogie wonderland; ota

Entry tags:

boogie wonderland; ota

Who: Holland March + open, Holland + Huaisang
What: March spends some time contemplating, talks distilling with Huaisang
When: Nov 2nd
Where: Community hall

Content Warnings: usual cw for alcoholism

i. Weapons cleaning + contemplation;

His supplies are running low. There's only so much you can scavenge in a place like this, but when you chain smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish eventually what you can scrounge up is going to disappear. He's got a little left, sure, courtesy of a gas station raid and the basement Huaisang's got, but supplies aren't infinite.

It gets him thinking. Makes him antsy. March enters the community hall like he usually does, a frequent visitor like most of the small little community they've all managed to put together, but he's never really done much. Drank some coffee, chatted. It's hard to tell if he even realizes he's the village idiot.

Today, though, he's set up in a little corner and is making sure his gun is cleaned along with sipping his morning caffeinated sludge. He's less animated than usual, less talkative, simply staring into space as his hands go through the motions. If not interrupted, he'll eventually speak.

"We're really fucked here, huh? Completely." Holland knows he should curve the negativity, but it's starting to get to him more than he'd like admit. He's been adamant they're all probably going to die within the month since day one but there's less of a joking tone towards it this time.

He wants to help sure. Pitch in, even. Mostly he's just worried about how tiny his booze stash is getting.

After coffee there's a far less depressing revelation, said just as solemnly.

"...Should I hunt?"

ii. Huaisang;

"We gotta do something."

March doesn't bother to announce himself when he opens the door to Huaisang's place, spending far more time there than he probably should. His scarf is taken off, the hat is dumped unceremoniously onto the floor.

"Hey. Huaisang? Huaisang, we gotta do something. You know what I did today? Math. You know what that math was for?"

He's already flopping onto the nearest available surface, aviators still on.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

".. I don't think you should be the one hunting."

Sorry, Holland. It's not even like Bigby means it in any actual bad sort of way, though it may be hard to believe with the tone he's using or the face he's making as he glances in Holland's direction while uttering those words - but the resting grump face and the gruff quality of his tone just do that, making everything sound harder than it's necessary mean to be.

If anything, Bigby is saying it out of concern for Holland. He kind of feels like the guy would just get himself killed if he'd go out there alone.

It's not a warning out of kindness though, he assures himself. It's just repaying the cigarette from a while ago. Clearly. Totally.

"You sure you won't just get yourself killed?" Okay, Bigby, maybe you don't mean it badly, but also don't rub it in, my guy.

March also doesn't think he should be the one hunting, so he's not going to take Bigby's initial words too personally, though there's a mutter of an affronted 'oh thank you very much' that he can't resist.

He brings a hand up to run down his face, smudging his cheek in the process, and then he swings around so he's fully facing Bigby from his spot. He likes Bigby. Cool guy. Reasonable guy. He wants a cigarette just by looking at the other but he's made a point of trying to slow down on what (very little) he has left and to not smoke in the community areas, so he's going to just have to quietly suffer instead.

"What else should I be doing?" He's genuinely asking, if how his eyes are desperately trying to search Bigby's face is any indicator. "I got a gun, I know how to use it."

That's it. That's his skills. March's upper lip curls as he realizes just how sad that probably sounds.

There is something a little sad about the other, really. Maybe about March's posture, or his tone, or the things he's saying here. It feels a little like finding a wet cat out on the streets, especially when he voices that last part.

"Yeah? You ever used it before to hunt?" There's something a touch sceptical in Bigby's tone, mostly fed by the way his tone naturally sounds.

He's not sure March ever has. He thinks about the way the other talked to him last time around. It didn't exactly make him seem like some hardened hunter.

There's palpable relief for March the moment Bigby decides to take a bit of pity on him in the form of a sigh. He'll take pity. He's actually kind of used to it--its where he sits with most women, so. He's not exactly above playing that card.

March isn't above much in general.

"I live in LA. Closest to hunting I ever get is chasing foxes at the Kitty Cat Lounge," he confesses. A hand raises to motion around the room.

"Unless there's a need for a PI, I'm out."

".. yeah, you're definitely going to die."

Sorry, March. But Bigby has been dealing with wildlife enough to know how these sorts of things go - even if he usually isn't really hunting with a gun himself. His experience still means though that he can imagine at least ten different ways things could end up really bad for March out there if he'd try to hunt with his gun without any experience.

Hence, you know. This clearly very subtle warning. Bigby truly knows how to bring good news across to people, huh.

At least he gets there's a little bit more going on here with the way March is looking kind of pathetic.

So even though he knows that he definitely isn't the best person to be having this talk right now, he is the one talking to March right now and no one else, so..

Guess it is up to him anyway, huh.

"Why are you suddenly so worried about doing something, anyway?"

He's definitely going to die. March doesn't take that personally, not from Bigby. March is a bit of an idiot, incredibly pathetic, and more than a little out of his depth, sure, but he's not stupid to the point where he can't tell that Bigby at least attempting to navigate whatever this is. This is probably weird for both of them.

They're forged in fire, though. Or forged in a borrowed cigarettes. Same thing. March wonders offhand if Jackson Healy had the same type of physique as Bigby when he was younger, mostly to distract himself from answering a brief moment.

"'Cause it's been two months and we're not magically back to our homes, I guess." There's more to it: the framed picture of his daughter the place decided to give him, the fact that his cigarettes are running low, the looming thought of no more alcohol to numb himself with. He leans forward, jerking a thumb in the direction he'd seen Tim Wayne last.

"The teenagers are doing a better job at this shit than I am, are you kidding? I'm getting showed up by a 12 year old."

Oh god, is this is a midlife crisis? Or the locked-in-a-snowy-town equivalent of it, anyway.

Bigby lets out a huff that honestly more sounds like a sigh, shaking his head in apparent disapproval, especially when the other guy starts comparing himself to a kid. At least Bigby will spare March the remark that sitting here and whining really doesn't make him much better than a kid.. Look how kind he's being to you, pal, keeping a sarcastic quip to himself for once in his life.

"That doesn't mean you have to go out and do stuff you don't know shit about," Bigby points out. Bluntly, but also just honestly. It's the objective reality in his eyes. "Isn't that the whole point of all of us being stuck here as a group? Everyone has shit they can do well, and as long as all stick to whatever we do best, we can make it through together."

He can't believe you made him give you the we're-all-in-this-together speech, March.

Bigby hates that speech.

It might be why he reaches up with one hand to briefly pinch the bridge of his nose before he continues.

"If you're a PI, then investigate. Shooting wildlife isn't gonna bring us back home. Finding out what brought us here and how to revert it will do that."

"Hmmmm."

Plenty of people dislike him in this little village--Rorscach definitely springs to mind--and it genuinely doesn't really bother March. He does, however, find himself actually listening when it comes to Bigby. Maybe because he doesn't sugar coat it. Sure, Bigby's an asshole, but so's March. Asshole on Asshole communication.

March blinks and leans back, pressing his lips into a thin line for a fraction of a second before his fingers move up to brush along his chin, scratching it thoughtfully like he's just come up with a great idea.

"I could start going through files," he reasons. "There's gotta be a mention of the weird Northern Lights somewhere, right? See what all the others might have missed. Put a name to some of the corpses at the very least, go from there." A sideways glance at Bigby, and that thin-lipped, thoughtful look morphs into a bit of a grin.

"You know how to use a computer?"

Don't tell anyone, but there is a part of Bigby that's actually a little relieved to see March like this. If you'd ask him out loud, he'd just say that March is more useful this way than just lounging around like the world's saddest sack of potatoes, though.

"Me?"

Wait, why is he suddenly part of this, though? That's the part that seems to catch the man more off guard than anything else about this, giving the other guy a confused stare.

"Don't you know?"

This might end up being a game of computer knowledge chicken.

There's two branches this conversation could take. March could take the higher ground, admit that he doesn't know anything beyond what Kieren's taught him in the 15 or so minutes they poked around together, or March could be just a little bit arrogant and a lot shitty.

Unfortunately for Bigby, March is a bit of an asshole.

"Oh, yeah I know. All of the computers. Fax." What had Kieren said? "The intra-nets."

...

"I'm pretty sure it's called the internet."

Bigby may not really know all that much more about computers than March, but he's at least had to learn about some things, especially since if anyone at all tended to have to deal with mundies poking their heads into their business, it was Bigby.. And that whole internet business seems pretty important to them.

Not to March though, apparently. Maybe they don't have it where he comes from? Either way-- sorry, March, the bluff didn't work.

"Also pretty sure it doesn't work out here though." Not even when electronics tend to go on the fritz thanks to the strange Northern Lights.. "I mean, if it did, at least one of us would've gotten in touch with anyone else at all already."

"That's what I can't figure out." March is sincere as he speaks. Bigby's just flipped some sort of switch in him, apparently. Weird. He's sort of getting excited. This almost never happens.

"It's like maybe whatever's been--" he taps his forehead "--telling us we don't belong here did this before is making sure we're isolated." Is it a leap? Is it not? March has no idea. He's been wrong plenty of times before.

But then who brought them? Why?

"You talk to the old Meth man? He tell you anything?"

Bigby opens his mouth, probably about to comment on March calling that guy the old Meth man, especially given what that particular choice of words sounds like, but.. then he closes it again, seeming to think better of it.

Even if he's the biggest grump across many different worlds at this point, even Bigby isn't going to stomp someone's enthusiasm into the ground. Especially when March seemed much more hopeless only mere moments ago.

"Nothing he didn't tell everyone, I think." Especially since Bigby didn't go out of his way to have a long talk with him or anything. He's not exactly the social type. "But if you were to isolate people anywhere, you'd do it either on an island or up where it's cold as hell. Usually there's no people living for days around here in any given direction."

Bigby could know, considering how much wandering he's done in cold places at this point in his life. Kind of hard to try the same thing out here though when it's so much easier to get around as a wolf than it is as a human.

March's lower lip curls into an unpleasant sneer, not out of anything Bigby is doing but more out of the situation. Plus he's actually trying to think, which is rare despite his vocation.

"Huh," he says, as if the other's facts have stumped him completely. The wheels have to turn a bit is all. He makes a mental note to talk to said Old Man Meth himself, though he doubts he'll get a different answer. Speaking of answers, he's going to ask one of the most 70s questions in the universe:

"You think this is the Russians?"

"The Ru--"

Hold on. Apparently the question March just asked is wild enough to Bigby that he has to cut himself off midway through the sentence, shaking his head as if he has to shake himself out of overthinking that one a little too hard.

Mundies truly say the darnest things sometimes, don't they.

"You think people did this? Just.. people without any kind of magical powers? Just ordinary people?"

Answer him that one first, March. Because Bigby sounds a little baffled at the idea that anyone could think that. Even a mundy who might not be used to supernatural happenings as much as Bigby is.

March's response is a very long, slow, purposeful bunching of his shoulders in a shrug, staring Bigby dead in the eyes. Once his shoulders reach the tops of his ears, he curls his arms to gesture around the place.

He has literally no other explanation.

"It's not like magic is real."

A silence comes over them for a moment as Bigby stares at the other guy. Just.. stares. Bigby, Actual Magical Wolf Person, just stares at March.

It's not even that he's shocked March hasn't figured him out. Bigby had been keeping his deal under wraps at first, after all, though he's slowly grown a little more open about it now he's figured out more details about their situation, figuring it doesn't matter as much to keep it secret anymore.. But it's not like Bigby is the only vaguely magical thing here. Hell, they saw ghosts back in the Northern Lights. Now he's left wondering if March is just living in a state of denial or something.

.. only one way to find out, right?

In his most serious, yet flattest possible tone, Bigby just replies:

"I'm a werewolf, you know."

Well, technically not a werewolf, but it gets the closest to what Bigby actually is if he'd have to put it in terms that most mundies would easily understand.

"Yeah, you're a werewolf. I'm President Nixon," March says smoothly, without missing a beat.

"I'm just saying, this whole--I don't know what this is, but I can't think of anything else. Maybe they're using drugs like they did a decade ago, I don't know." It's flimsy.

It's also very much denial.

...

God. Yeah. Right. Mundies are this way, aren't they. Maybe Bigby shouldn't bother to try and hide their secret back home as much as he does, clearly they don't believe the truth even when it's right in front of the face.

It makes the man let out a sigh, right as March is still in the middle of his talk about drugs, and then Bigby steps closer to the other guy. Closer. Until the two of them are practically face to face.

"No, you don't get it. I'm a werewolf."

After accidentally triggering his partial transformation now, Bigby has figured out a little better how to do it on purpose at this point. Which means March will get a real good close up of Bigby's face seeming to shift in structure with an odd, odd cracking sound, looking a little more animalistic, even if it's mostly still human. Still, the bushier eyebrows, the different nose, the pointy ears - it's all different.

It's even harder to miss the eyes. They're glowing. Golden glowing irises, with pupils like tiny pinpricks.

"Get it now, president Nixon?"

He's not meaning to come across as threatening, but.. you know, the combination of his voice having a bit more of a natural growl in it along with the partial transformation might come across like that by nature, just a little bit..

In general, March is a very lanky, deadpan looking individual despite how tightly wound he is internally. It's the jaded cynicism, it's the lack of follow through, it's the fact that he spends most of his time scamming old ladies and ignoring problems he can fix if he just examined himself a little more. It's the drink. It's the reason why his daughter is practically raising herself: nothing phases you if you simply don't give a shit.

Some things, however, are very hard to ignore even you're very good at doing so. Some things, like Bigby's pointed ears and those animalistic and feral looking yellow eyes, are especially so.

Specifically when said eyes are inches away from his face. March swallows the lump in his throat. Tries to open his mouth for some sort of response. His lips barely part and he may or may not be shaking.

Eventually, he manages to find his voice. It's high and cracks a little, but he finds it.

"I think maybe I understand a little better."

When March says he understands, Bigby moves away a little. He doesn't immediately change back to his own look - even if he's figured out a little bit more how to do this on purpose in this place at this point, it still feels so much more foreign to him than it ever did back home to be able to shift back so easily.

It means he's awkwardly stuck in the look for a few moments, even after pulling away. Even while staring at March, and only now fully noticing the other is shaking.

Bigby's features - yes, his current features, the emotion completely unfitting for how they look - change into something a little more awkward, like an oversized guilty dog.

".. Sorry, I think I got a little carried away there." Bigby, you think...

Please don't realise the power that your scared eyes have over him, March. Bigby would never live it down.

"It's just-- people tend to not believe it here until I show them this."

Edited 2023-12-23 20:01 (UTC)

March sure as fuck didn't believe him. He's not stupid enough to say that though, not right now--he's also not sure he can, the sheer what the fuck of it all still washing over him, goosebumps all over. The one guy in town that March respects is big wolf on campus. Literally.

March's thinned lips even out, hand moving over to dry rub at his face for a lack of anything else to do. There's no polite protocol for 'man just did something to prove he's some sort of monster' that he can remember, and he's positive it's not just because his brain is all but soaked in booze. He's quiet for a very, very long time before he finally speaks, looking Bigby dead in the eye.

"What happens if you shave while you're like that?"

If this were anyone else, Bigby would be baffled that they'd go for that question after this reveal, especially with how shaken up March had seemed over it only a moment ago.

.. but it is March. This is exactly the sort of crap he seems to ask in any situation. Apparently even the ones where an acquaintance reveals himself to actually be a literal wolf. So Bigby doesn't look surprised to hear the question. Maybe a little exasperated, though - by Bigby standards - it's a truly mild exasperation.

"Why, do you want me to keep just a mustache like you?"

Said dryly.. of course.. March, do you think he's going to dignify that sort of question with a proper answer that isn't just deadpan, my dude?

Thank God Bigby answers like that. March can't handle much of anything of Milton. The snow, the cold, the inherent strangeness of it all, like it's an acid trip some street punk is having on curb on Hollywood Boulevard. Bigby's deal is the same.

Denial can only get you so far--and this appears to be the stopping point, the big red light that says 'you're going to have to deal with this eventually and that eventually has turned into now.' So March cracks a low-stake joke, because that's what he does instead of having to face shit he can't drink away.

It's easier than eyeing Bigby wondering if he'll fucking kill him or some shit. Even if he is kind of sort of thinking that.

"You'd look good," he reasons. "You'd look great."

But he has to ask. "Does it.. How does that... work? Your whole... grrrrr."

...

There's just a true exasperated beat on Bigby's end.

"My.. 'grrr'?"

Sure, he gets what March is going for. Or rather, Bigby thinks that he knows what March is going for. But he's got to at least be allowed to make fun of the other guy's wording in return, right. Isn't that what he deserves for being treated this way?

"Well, if you want to know, I kind of simplified it when I said werewolf." He just knows the concept is easier for most mundies to handle. So many movies about that crap. "I'm actually the Big Bad Wolf. You know, from the stories."

There's a slight pause, and then he adds, like his last statement was so normal that it clearly naturally flows into this: "Do you have any smokes left?"

boogie wonderland; ota

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