Scorpion's Seance
It's been a whopping four days since Scar had gone out with Grian for coffee -- The former wasn't sure what to think of the situation. Did Grian think he was a creep, or maybe the flirty jokey remark Scar had made was overly weird? If Grian thought of any of these things, he clearly didn't show it. Grian had happily gone about the next few days with Scar, chatting for long hours and watching bits of a new season from a TV series that had been released.
The show itself wasn't great in Scar's opinion, too many guns and plot twists. Plus, Scar had to turn subtitles on due to the show being in some different language; he and Grian agreed that the English voiceover was a bit goofy.
The pair had gone to sleep at one in the morning, not before Grian complaining about being overly uncomfortable on the couch so Scar had lent him one of his softer pillows. After all, he only really needed one to sleep himself anyway.
The sun eventually filters through the window curtains, blinding Scar when he groggily stands up and flings them open. He's greeted with empty streets, cleaner than Gem's stash of knives, once again reminding him of the annoyingly tight restrictions citizens of this place had to live by. Even with subtle reminders about the shithole he has to call home, the thought of sweet coffee still penetrates through his head, leading Scar to drag himself out of is room and into the living room.
Grian's still peacefully sleeping on the couch, the strange obsidian pendant the shorter had worn the other day resting on the coffee table. Scar realizes that if he accidentally wakes the former up, he'll probably be in for one hell of a ride, and it was certainly too early to get berated by the Wasp so Scar tip-toes to the old coffee maker lying around on the countertop and grabs a mug, placing it onto the drip tray under the spout and choosing his selection of coffee, not as good as the one Skizz and Etho serve, but it'll have to do.
Scar absent-mindedly pours a packet of sugar into tan-colored coffee, almost dropping the mug when Grian makes a cute little noise, waking up and checking the time. The latter softly hums to himself before shrieking and turning around to face Scar, seeming almost panicked. Grian runs a hand through his hair, looking relieved when his hand slips through silky blonde strands, almost like he was expecting something to be there...
Whatever, he's probably being over-paranoid. Grian all-of-a-sudden jumps back into his normal personality and smiles at Scar. "Wow! You finally woke up earlier than me. Good job waking up three hours earlier than usual!" he applauds, jumping over the back of the couch and leaning on it.
"Yep! I magically woke up super early this morning! It's pretty surprising because I usually have to set an alarm for these kinds of things, y'know?"
"Mhm... About the show we were watching the other day, we should finish it, like right now." Grian suggested, wiggling his eyebrows to add to the persuasion effect.
"Uhm, fine! But, you have to promise you'll watch some part of Star Wars with me after!" Scar replied, wings fluffing slightly as he props his hands onto his hips. "After all, we've got a whole day to blow, a few extra hours of TV isn't gonna rot our brains too bad."
Grian's nose wrinkled. "Blow..? Er, never mind. Sure, I'll watch Star Wars after finishing this." He sighs before walking over to Scar, tugging on the sleeve of his t-shirt. "Stop drinking coffee already...! The cliffhanger was so good, I can't forget it just yet!"
"Geez, alright, alright!" Scar swats at the shorter, laughing playfully before placing the mug onto the counter and reaching over to the TV remote. Maybe he should get a laptop, then he could watch a whole lot more movies with Grian more comfortably, like on a bed! He was kind of strapped for cash though, so he'll have to hold that thought.
Despite everything, Gem still manages to earn enough to have her and Scar a Netflix account. She doesn't watch too many shows but keeps the membership up because she noticed that he still uses the program a lot. Gem does often threaten Scar with canceling it if he doesn't use it, which is perfectly reasonable, but still! In the end, Scar knew that it was technically Gem's money and if she doesn't have the money for it, then she can do what she wants. Heck, she could sell the whole TV if she needed.
Scar walks over to the couch, sitting on the cushions and leaning back. He waves to Grian, prompting him to sit next to Scar. "Y'know, it's actually been a bit since I had a movie night with someone, so this should be fun!" Scar chirped, pressing the 'Netflix' button on the remote. The screen flutters to life, a bright red logo flashing on a black screen.
Grian grins before facing the small TV in front of him. "We'll see."
˚⊹ ‧✩⋆⁺₊𓆩✦𓆪⋆⁺₊✩‧ ⊹˚
Scar was staring at the TV, The Phantom Menace playing out in front of him. He was humming softly as Grian preened his wings. Scar had only briefly mentioned about having to preen sooner or later today but apparently, Grian knew how to and asked the former if he could do it for him. Scar of course took up on this offer but did find it a bit strange an insect Reborn even knew how to do such a thing. When asked, Grian simply mumbled something about having a sibling with wings. Reasonable enough.
Mid-way through realigning a feather, Scar's phone starts vibrating, a sharp and loud noise piercing through the air. Another Corrupted warning. Grian slightly flinches, yanking out the feather he was straightening and eyeing the phone. "Again, seriously?" He proceeds to squint at Scar, who had paused the TV and was starting to stand up. "No. You're not going, I don't care. It's already getting dark outside anyway.”
"Come on! It's been like... Six days since being stabbed and I'm pretty sure I'm fine. If it's too early, then just bandage it up later. I've been through waaaay worse! I swear I'll be fine."
"No."
"Please?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Pleaase?"
"N-... Argh! Whatever, fine. Do you have any bandages? Because I guarantee you'll need them."
Scar hands Grian the medkit. The shorter mumbles something about needing at least 'two weeks until taking out sutures is a remotely good idea.' but still orders Scar to take his shirt off so he can take out the string weaved into his skin. Not before washing his hands and donning gloves, of course.
Scar does so, flinging his shirt off like a dramatic cologne ad. Grian rolls his eyes playfully and leans close to his shoulder, practically a few inches apart from warm skin before taking a little cotton swab and cleaning the area. "Have you ever considered that you're a little too careful removing stitches?"
"Nope... Well, maybe a little bit. I don't want you to get hurt or anything." Grian mutters, leaning back and waiting for the wound to dry.
Eventually, Grian goes back in, specifically removing the second suture first removing the others. He winces at the scab left over from the wound and all Scar can do is pray to whatever gods are watching him that it wouldn't get infected.
"Huh, I honestly thought that the thing would start bleeding everywhere but it didn't… somehow. Lucky you. Now all you need to do is pray you don't get an infection."
"Already did." Scar laughs before standing up and stretching lightly, noting the slight pain in his shoulder when doing so. "Gonna go change now. You should too if you wanna come along."
"Yeah, I will."
˚⊹ ‧✩⋆⁺₊𓆩✦𓆪⋆⁺₊✩‧ ⊹˚
Joel rolled his eyes, scoffing as people ran and recorded him on their phones. He hadn't even done anything yet and people were already running for their bloomin' lives! He had simply come out to kidnap a person or two for Scott because he was a blood-thirsty bastard. Joel truly couldn't understand what was so bad about doing that. It's not like the Heroes care about what he does either, last time he checked, it wasn't in their job description.
He strolls through the streets before seeing a woman; just about 19 years old. Perfect. Joel sneaks up behind the trembling figure as she runs into an alleyway. When the girl lets down her guard, he strikes, literally! Joel's uncomfortably long-ass tail whips around, jabbing the woman in the neck. He makes sure to only inject enough venom to make the woman incapable of movement before getting ready to drag the bitch back to the Border.
When he looks up, instead of a setting sun he's greeted with two figures, flying in the air. The shorter blondie was holding a gun and aiming it at his chest while the other reached behind him, grabbing a fancy-looking arrow. "Drop her, Scorpion!"
"Ew, why is everyone calling me that? Also, no! I'm not letting you have her, I've got an agenda, y'know?" Joel hisses, he grits his teeth slightly and leans his weight onto his left leg. Ouch, bandaging his right leg back together certainly didn't help. How did Pearl walk around missing half her flesh?
A bullet flies next to his arm, a warning shot. "If you do not comply, we will be forced to use violence." the brown-haired one vowed, large black wings sending a bit of wind his way. Joel wants to use his axe and slam it into the bridge of those shiny glasses, lets see how much violence the birdy can use then.
"Fuck off, let me mind my own bloomin' business." Joel snarks, dropping the woman to shoot the presumed wasp and crow-raven thing a middle finger. People these days.
Another bullet whizzes through the air, this time firing directly into the exposed bone of his hand, shattering it. He steps backwards, grunting. "Didn't need to mangle my arm more, thanks."
Joel would glare at the two if one of his eyes actually fucking worked. His left eye had fallen out of its socket when he'd repeatedly slammed into the ground using a shiny ender pearl all those months ago. Unfortunately, it rendered that eye useless, the nerve endings still technically hanging on, but still fucking up his sight anyways. A one-eyed glare wouldn't be very intimidating in his opinion.
"Mhm.. Now leave that girl alone and go back to your dumb border." Wow, he couldn't believe that another Brit had the audacity to practically tell him to fuck off. Rude, wasn't it?
"Nah. I'm good." He reaches back with his still-intact arm and grabs his netherite axe, spinning it around and pointing it at the wasp. "Listen, leave me and this random whore alone and you may or may not leave with your blooming head."
The wasp flies towards him, summoning a sword from practically nowhere and swings up at his jaw. Joel dashes to the side and barely dodges a flaming arrow that could've blown his arm off entirely. An array of bullets and arrows follow him as he weaves around the narrow halls of the dirty alley, a few of them nicking Joel and burning like hell. That didn't matter though, what mattered was that one of them was eventually going to run out of ammunition or arrows. He just needed to run until one of them showed a sign of weakness.
After being hit in the upper arm with a bullet, he finally heard the noise he was looking for. A soft Click! noise. The gun was out of ammo. Joel flies into action, climbing the brick walls and almost falling off when an arrow finds it's way into a tiny nook in the wall, exploding upon impact.
The blondie reaches for a magazine, a little too slow to process a certain spitting scorpion launching towards him. The holographic-glasses man screams, "CuteGuy?!" as he flies towards Joel. He uses his whip-like tail to smack the bird in the face and veers around in the air, slamming his tail down on the wasp's head, a loud Crack! ringing into the night, which could be his tail breaking, but who knows at this point.
The wasp, apparently dubbed 'CuteGuy' (shit name, by the way) falls out of the sky, sword clattering out of his grasp as he violently crashes onto the ground. Joel uses the handle of his axe and forces it down over the man's neck. CuteGuy gasps and wriggles under him as Joel strangles the shorter man with his axe.
"Not so fucking cocky now, are you?" Joel sneers as the wasp coughs and sputters, unable to produce a reply.
He only needed to knock the wasp unconscious, as the woman he'd nabbed earlier would be a better test subject than a Reborn anyway.
CuteGuy was just starting to fall unconscious when it happened; an arrow flew straight at the bandage wound tightly below his knee. The wrapping burns as the arrow whizzes through the knot, hitting the floor behind him and exploding.
Joel collapses over the wasp, stumbling up and back as he looks down. Once again, his leg was hanging by a little strip of flesh on the back of his calf, bone poking through flesh and overlapping the sector of his joint where the bone had broken off. A black tar-like substance leaked from his leg, making him grimace at his own technically self-inflicted wound. He hops on one leg and looks at the bird, wide-eyed and looking like he was about to vomit as a fancy bow splayed from his hand.
"Ow! Dude, what is your problem?!" Joel yells, his tail instinctively arching over his head, poised and ready to strike.
Instead of responding, the man flies down to CuteGuy, getting down on his knees and checking if he was okay. Ew, he's going to complain to the government to make PDA illegal... But that meant he'd have to make it out alive.
"Okay, okay. I give up. Have the girl." Joel spits, falling back to lean on a wall. The bird strides over to the woman on the ground and picks her up.
"Hold on, HotGuy, I wanna have a word with The Scorpion real quick. Go around the corner, would you?" CuteGuy says, waving the taller man off. Wow, they had matching names too, how 'cute.'
Joel blows a raspberry in CuteGuy's face as he walks towards him. The wasp, as a wasp does, stings him on the neck. "Alright, why the hell did you try to kidnap a woman off the streets?"
Was he.. interrogating Joel? What was the sting for? Luckily for him, he was exposed to his venom quite enough, rendering him immune to any other kinds. Maybe CuteGuy's stinger was secretly a truth serum...?
Whatever it was, he definitely wasn't answering shit to the little helper of a man who practically blew his leg off. He answers a few questions falsely before the shorter leans closer to Joel, a glowing, glimmering smile stretching a little too wide across his face. "Now, in your words, fuck off and stick to your own business, would ya?"
As much as Joel would like to push CuteGuy back and tell him that he wants his personal space, the way his eyes and smile were genuinely glowing was kind of freaky, and he kind of felt compelled to leave and complain to Scott and Martyn. So, he nods and slowly limps his way out of the trashy alley.