closed | may/june catch-all

[faithfall]

Who: adrian & ??
Where: various
When: may/june
What: catch-all for june & migrated TDM threads

Warnings: N/A for now?

Comments

[faithfall]

[ Oh, Raphael, could you have sent anyone but him? Adrian would almost prefer if he had been 'scrapped for parts.'

Cabbage man is surprisingly fast, agile and precise in a way that Adrian has only ever seen in Fern.

The arm canon thing (not nearly as interesting as Samus') fires into the ceiling, and wood dust rains down on them, as if it was filled with old shrapnel. Non-lethal, then, but it hardly fills Adrian with any comfort while he's being dangled like a stray cat.

Hey! Fuck off buddy, this ain't any of your business.

Of course cabbage man is only fussed about his conversation being interrupted, with no produce here for him to molest. Still, the distraction has loosened that grip just enough for Adrian to suck air into his lungs.

His halo appears at once, like an eye opening behind his head, and Adrian moves fast too. He makes a gesture with one hand, three fingers, a sharp flick of his wrist. The halo inverts to black, casting a greenish light at his attacker. ] Plague.

[ Wha—

There's no visible indicator of what happens, except that the man drops Adrian to clutch at his stomach with both hands and groan. Adrian manages to land on his feet and stagger back out of reach just as his attacker's eyes bulge and his cheeks fill with what must be vomit. The spell isn't strong enough to kill, but it will certainly put the man at a disadvantage for a moment.

Adrian reaches behind his head, hand poised near one of the radial spikes of his halo, as if he's planning to draw it like a weapon despite the fact that his chest is heaving as he tries to catch his breath again. He's resolutely not looking at cabbage man. ]

I apologize... for my rudeness. Perhaps we can all return to our business now.

[retrievalist]

[ It all happens at once. Eliot's about to make it his business when—

—cabbage boy beside him seems to light up like he has his own personal sun following him and—

—the big guy's friends move to surround Eliot, bristling with weapons but completely untrained and—

—the light suddenly goes dark but Eliot is already taking two steps back, away from cabbage boy and whatever the hell he means by plague and towards friend number one with the machete but—

—by the time Eliot has dropped him there is a distressing gurgling sound coming from the big guy on the ground and—

—Eliot feels a torrent of something break against his boots. ]

Oh, come on.

[ He snaps his fist into friend number two's face unnecessarily hard, flips him onto the big guy on the ground, and then makes sure to trip friend number three and slam him face first into the goddamn ocean of vomit he is somehow standing in. Three seconds. The big guy hasn't even stopped hurling yet.

Eliot turns on Adrian. ]

What the hell is your problem, kid?

[faithfall]

[ It's over practically before it begins. Adrian watches the men fall, too quickly even for him to react. He lowers his hand slowly, his halo disappearing in the same instant, as if it was never there. ]

My problem—? [ The man on the floor starts to haul himself up, and Adrian yanks his glove off, irritated, without taking his eyes off Cabbage Man. ] I've got it.

[ He bends to touch the back of the man's head with his blackened finger tips. More vomit joins the first puddle, and Adrian steps back to avoid it. Maybe after a week of illness, he'll think twice about starting fights over nothing at all. Maybe a week of illness would do certain other people some good as well, but he tugs the glove back on as he speaks. ]

For your information, I was trying to investigate a murder before these ruffians decided to take offense at nothing at all. Thank you for your assistance. You may return to whatever vegetable you were harassing before I so rudely interrupted you.

[retrievalist]

[ This time he's fast enough to get out of the splash zone, for all the good it does him. At least he knows what Adrian meant when he said not to touch him. Eliot backs up a couple more steps just in case; he's resistant to a lot of things but something tells him it would be a little different from being dosed with some psychotropic drug in a concrete holding cell somewhere. ]

Stop with the— [ here he wiggles his fingers ] —already, Carla's gonna have to be the one to clean up your shit, asshole.

[ He ignores the vegetable comment, because he is a mature grown adult man, in favour of focusing on what's important, which is: ] And yeah, great job, everyone from here to the damn fringes now knows you're investigating a murder. I'm so glad I have you around to make my life more difficult.

[faithfall]

[ Now Adrian looks offended. ] I would do no such thing to Miss Carla.

[ He crouches beside the river of bile and holds a hand above it, fingers twisting in a manner that looks slightly disconnected from the reality of how bone and tendon ought to be able to work. ] I pray for your cleansing grace. [ A sweeping gesture with the side of his hand, and a section of the bile simply vanishes. He has to repeat the gesture a few more times, but the result is the same. Bit by bit, the floor is cleaned.

Even a month prior, he wouldn't have bothered, but he thinks of Danika and Urwin at the Blue Water Inn. It is, as much as he's loathe to admit it, a credit to this irritating man that he seems to care. About this, and about the murder, apparently. Adrian grimaces. ]

Well, perhaps that will mean that someone who cares about a man's brutal death will seek me out, and if I'm lucky it will get me somewhere, and if I'm not, well — you should be quite pleased to have me out of your luxurious hair. [ He stands, brushing the dirt from his knees, and meets the man's gaze with a glare of his own. He can feel the heat in his face, the glow it causes in the low light. ] So I don't see what you're complaining about, Mr... whatever your name is.

[retrievalist]

[ Eliot looks pointedly down at his boots. ] I think you missed a spot there. [ But he is reluctantly impressed.

Okay, that's a lie. What he is is doing his level best not to freak out over the— the— what? What the hell is he even supposed to call that? Magic? Magic? He's seen Hardison do some crazy things with technology but this is insane.

But it's fine. He's adaptable. He's adapting.

He's also a little impressed because he didn't really think the kid would give enough of a shit to do something about it, what with the whole rich and spoilt vibe he gives off. Wasn't expecting him to care all that much about some dead guy either, figured he was a little too self-centred for it.

However, his stupidly naive expectations? Eliot saw that coming a mile off. ]

Yeah. Or maybe whoever did the murder, who has a vested interest in it remaining unsolved, skips town and does this somewhere else. Maybe they don't and instead decide to put a bullet through that empty head of yours. I might think about strangling you until you finally stop talking but I don't want you dead.

[ mostly ]

[faithfall]

[ Adrian rolls his eyes. ] You'll live. [ In truth, he wouldn't have minded cleaning up the boots if the man wasn't so irritating about it, but using so much magic over a short period of time is still... unpleasant. Pain prickles at his back, and that only irritates him more. It's worse than the bruises that have begun to darken around his neck.

He rubs at the back of his neck with a grimace that he's not bothered to hide. That's the nice thing about whatever it is they have here — the man won't care, and Adrian doesn't want him to. ] You don't..? No, I suppose you would have done it already if you did want me dead. [ He glances at the people on the floor, all of them in pain but all of them still breathing. ] I would recommend against strangling, however, as you seem so concerned for the state of your boots.

[ The dry tone is mostly joking, in a morbid sort of way, to cover the discomfort over the fact that the man is probably right. While he doesn't think this murderer is particularly worried about being brought to justice, he doesn't like the idea that the killing will continue elsewhere.

The man seems to know what he's talking about, all told, and Adrian isn't so stubborn that he can't admit that he doesn't. At the end of the day, what matters is that the murder gets solved. He nods toward the door. ] Let's go somewhere quiet, then. I'll tell you what I know, in case there's anything of use, and at the end of it you can have your wish of finally shutting me up.

[retrievalist]

[ Eliot's eyebrows wing upwards. You can have your wish of finally shutting me up sounds really— and then the luxurious hair and the blushing and—

He honestly kind of figured as much, back at the grocery store when Adrian was talking about Eliot touching him. Don't get him wrong, he's not so conceited that he assumes that everyone is into him. But he can't really help it if everyone is into him. Explains a lot though.

He settles on a non-committal: ] Right. [ He wipes his boots off on one of the guys on the ground as best he can. ] Give me a sec.

[ He jogs over to Carla to check if she'll be okay with Larry, Curly, and Moe if they leave, gets her number for his efforts (see?) and then jogs back to Adrian. ]

Alright let's go. And my name's Eliot.