Xerxes Break (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
payingfordeliverance) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deercountry2022-02-12 11:03 am
payingfordeliverance) wrote in deercountry2022-02-12 11:03 am
Entry tags:
003: Seems to me quite clear, now — now that you are here — how easily I could begin again
Who: Break + various
What: Catchall log; closed starters, event overflows, etc. No open prompts.
When: January through February, perhaps into March
Where: Various
Content Warnings: Use of the heartstrings prompt from the January TDM (injury, body horror, burning, melting), and one bond pact (blood ceremony, bodily ceremony, telepathic/empathetic connections). One Mother's Mercy thread (intense guilt and shame, talk of grieving your own death, forced confession), and one using the really evil magic chocolate where you cough up an organ. Threads will be marked accordingly and further warnings added here as they come up.
What: Catchall log; closed starters, event overflows, etc. No open prompts.
When: January through February, perhaps into March
Where: Various
Content Warnings: Use of the heartstrings prompt from the January TDM (injury, body horror, burning, melting), and one bond pact (blood ceremony, bodily ceremony, telepathic/empathetic connections). One Mother's Mercy thread (intense guilt and shame, talk of grieving your own death, forced confession), and one using the really evil magic chocolate where you cough up an organ. Threads will be marked accordingly and further warnings added here as they come up.
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This is a terribly admirable display of making stuff up on the fly. Break is impressed, honestly. If he were not, himself, a dubious son of a bitch who gets up to many dubious things, he'd likely even buy it. After all, it's not Shannon's fault that Break also comes to this area of the beach explicitly because there's very rarely anyone in it, or knows a fighting stance when he sees one even if he doesn't know the style and catches it for only a few seconds, or has the context to know that this girl has some sort of mask that slips.
...alright, the last one is arguably her fault. Regardless, Break's expression grows inordinately pleased as she yammers, like a cat whose attention has been caught by an amusing new toy and it isn't sure whether it wants to chase or swat or just observe. This is not as great as picking fights with jerks, but for the moment it will do.
"Oh dear, that must have been terribly startling for you," he observes in the very specific cheerful clown voice that automatically made everyone at his old workplace at home want to punch him in the face. "How fortunate that someone so helpful came along! At this time of year and with the wind so nasty, why, you could have frozen into a hypothermic lump right on the sand, and no one would have been the wiser."
Baltus punctuates all this by getting distracted by a weird-looking lump of seaweed a ways over and trotting over to stick his nose into it and maybe chew on it a little, a magnificent manifestation of Break's inner everything as usual.
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While the Lawrence-sensei on her shoulder is urging her to punch Break in the smug mouth for his ridiculous clown face and ridiculous clown voice—thankfully, she's learned when to heed his advice and when to ignore it and tell him to go home, sensei, you're drunk—Sayo giggles and scratches her cheek, evidently embarrassed.
"I know, it was really silly of me to come all the way out here without anyone with me... I just didn't want to bother anyone in Clockhouse for such a small errand, hehe." Pants on fire, etc. "Come to think of it, Break-san, do you think you could help me here? I'm afraid I'm quite clumsy, and I don't want to rely on the kindness of a stranger again if I have another accident..."
Your move, Break.
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Break is an elegant twig man with a waistline made of little more than dreams, and he is aware of this. It doesn't stop him from murdering people twice his size from time to time.
"Anyway, what sort of gentleman would I be, if I left a young lady all alone in such a rude world? You never know! A few months ago a bunch of awful parasites got into the local fish and they all came scuttling up out of the water to bite people."
There are reasons other than sneaky roving swordsman to be wary of where you set yourself up all alone, is what he's getting at. Regardless of what this girl may or may not be up to at any given time, Break has no great desire to hear through the grapevine later that she was devoured by something gross.
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(She knows she's being overly spiteful, but between Break catching her in a moment of vulnerability at the Snake Den and him finding her practicing "American karate," Sayo is feeling rather sour about his propensity for stumbling his way close to the truth while he's so close to the rest of Clockhouse.)
"That's... disconcerting..." Look at what a proper young lady Shannon is! Raising her hand to her mouth and everything. "I'll make sure not to linger next time I'm here." Her cargo pants may be of a temperature significantly higher than average. "Well, then. Shall we get moving? I don't want to stay here too long if such frightful things are hiding beneath the waves..."
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And he hasn't poisoned anyone yet, save for that one time Oz learned the hard way that vilebloods couldn't digest real food that month, which doesn't count because Trench is extremely stupid.
"It's not terribly far to the Boardwalk lantern," he adds as he reaches out for her bag, though he'll politely wait for her to give it over rather than grabbing it outright. Break has been skittish enough of hands snatching things away from his person without warning, due to missing eyeball reasons, that when he's on his guard with someone he grants them that respect subconsciously. "We use it all the time. Baltus favors the beaches for running."
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As much as she hated that guy, Sayo had to admit, man could cook.
"Shall we mosey along then, Break-san?" Sayo smiles at him, then theatrically gasps. "Oh my! I forgot, I needed to pick up some more potato compost for Oscar-san in Willful Machine too! Could we go there first before you drop me off in Gaze?" Mostly so she could find somewhere to discreetly change and no longer look like a psuedo-hooligan.
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Aw yiss. Ear scritches for Baltus. Once again, despite not being a dog at all but a spectral graveyard guardian masquerading as such because it makes it easier to do his important omen jobs, Baltus wins in his petty competition with his own person for affections. Probably nothing will ever top the time the darker of the two Alices declared that Baltus would be her uncle rather than Break, but his tail swishes smugly all the same.
"Potato compost," Break is muttering in the meantime. Hefting Sayo's bag up, he places it on his head for a moment, testing whether this will be a convenient way to carry something so large. He can carry stacks of things that are quite tall indeed but the bag may be too wide. "I've no idea what that is but heaven forbid young Oscar make sad faces. I'm not in a rush."
There is sand in his hair now.
no subject
She can't help but snicker (with a decidedly lower tone than Shannon's usual airy giggles) at how Break is carrying her bag. He looks absolutely ridiculous... and in somehow in an even better position to fall victim to her rapidly tossed-together prank than before.
"It's compost for potatoes, Break-san," she says as she walks toward him. "Really, it's- kyaaaaa~"
Trip. Fall. Brush past Break. Unbalance the bag. Let a load of sand loose onto his head. Land clumsily.
"Mmmmmmf."
Her face hurts, but it's worth it.
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Much, much later into their acquaintance, Sayo might look back on this moment and notice a very important tell that Break is well aware that he is also being messed with here -- he spots Sayo falling and makes zero move whatsoever to catch her. Break is chivalrous as all get out but he is also a petty little shit, so here we are.
Baltus bothers to stick his entire snoot helpfully into her face when it emerges from the sand, at least.
"Do you suppose sand is as bad as glitter about turning up in strange places weeks on?" he asks, mild and philosophical, as he leans over to fluff his hair out. At this point, Sayo may notice something else interesting: As Break's bangs are mussed up, his whole face is revealed, and he is keeping his left eye closed completely. This isn't a crisis situation for him -- he most always has that eye closed, on account of he hasn't got one, so he's no more likely to get sand in it now than he's likely to get anything else in it any other time -- but it seems his silly emo fringe is not actually a fashion statement. He pays particular attention to clearing the front bits out as he gets all the sand he can out of his hair.
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No matter when the term was coined, Sayo was and always will be a huge chuunibyou.
"Ah, um, I can see if I can clean your clothes if you'd like..." Even once she's on her feet, Shannon keeps fretting, halfway between reaching for the bag to keep Break from bearing it on his own and thinking that'd be even more impolite and withdrawing, looking patently ridiculous as she does so while still walking with him toward the lantern.
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"Aren't you overdoing it a little?" he asks placidly, for the moment. "Not that I mind playing along with you, but 'good manners' at this intensity is just exhausting for the both of us if no one else is here to enjoy it, right?"
He is not going to comment outright on the sorts of things this girl accidentally let slip back in the Snake Den. Those things are exactly the kind of information he holds close to his chest until he has a damn good reason to use it, and while he does need to check in with Ange still, he otherwise isn't feeling a need to move quickly to get to the bottom of whatever "Shannon's" deal is. Even so, the contrast between the sincerity she showed back then and all this stuttering now is just too great.
Break of course has no idea of the full extent to which she puts on personalities, and it won't shock him even a little bit if she decides to play dumb about his comment now. Still. It's early enough in whatever their relationship is going to be that even a slight attempt to call her out is bound to give him interesting results.
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Shannon actually puts her hands behind her back and kicks her feet like a nervous schoolgirl. In the back of her mind, Sayo is watching all this and cackling her ass off. Even though Break obviously knows this is a facade, there's no way in hell she's going to crack first, especially with how entertaining this game is.
(There is a twinge of anxiety when Sayo recalls what Break knows, how much he could jeopardize her already precarious position. But he doesn't seem like the type to let slip secrets until he knows the best way to use them.)
no subject
Right? Right.
"Mmhmm. Then, shall the polite young miss and I continue on our way? I should hate to keep Young Master Oscar waiting for his potato bits."
Break is not supposed to call him that but Oscar is not here to make flustered disappointed noises at him about it.
wrap here?
"I'd appreciate the company." She bows politely, and while her head is turned down her face twitches into an amused smirk for a split second before returning to Shannon's usual placidity. Of course, that slip was absolutely intentional with the full intent of infuriating Break even further.
done and done
She'll see the barest beginnings of the fury Break is capable of later, after the pieces fall. Even then, it will only be a scratch on the surface.