Closed RP Let it Lie

[Katpride]

Spork swipes a thumb across their lip, smearing blood and someone else’s lipstick, and smiles brighter than they have all day. It truly was a turn of good luck, having this jerk follow them out of the bar when they left. Contracts are all well and good, but there’s just something so satisfying about beating unsuspecting creeps half to death.

Maybe even all the way to death! It would definitely make them feel better, and they could use the pick-me-up. They laugh, low and considering, prompting the downed man to make a garbled noise of distress. Aw, it’s almost like he thinks there’s someone out there who will help him! They take a quick step and drive their foot hard into the man’s side as a gentle reminder of the reality of his situation. Something gives a sharp snap, and it’s music to their ears.

Then a cheery jingle cuts through the air, and they groan, good mood ruined again. They rest their shoe on the guy’s chest, ignoring his efforts to scrabble at them, and dig an ancient flip phone out of their pocket. Like, seriously, it has those dumb buttons that you have to press a gazillion times to type anything, and a hinge that they’ve seriously considered snapping way too many times.

They don’t need the caller ID to tell them who’s calling. Hell, they don’t even have it set up; there’s no point. They don’t have contacts in this thing. They don’t need them; there’s only two people who use this line, aside from the occasional spam caller.

“Say a single word, and I’ll kill you,” they tell the guy, moving their foot to rest none too lightly on his throat. Then they flip the phone open, pressing it to their ear.

“Hello?” Ugh. They gave themself whiplash with that voice 180, but ‘high and confused’ is what their parents expect to hear when they call. As though Spork hasn’t figured out how phones work, after all these years. They can already feel their headache returning. “Oh, it’s you! Sorry, I was busy…”

They shift, and the guy gives a little choking sound that’s too faint for the receiver to pick up on. “... finger painting.”

Their mother takes the lie way too easily, of course, and immediately starts prattling on about something that Spork couldn’t give a single shit about. Birthday party planning. Ughhh. Why, why, why do they have to do this every year? Just one year where they don’t have to suffer through hours of ‘planning’ for a party they didn’t even ask for, that’s all they want. But noo, their parents insist on making a big pageant of it every year. Weeks in advance, they get calls that they can’t dodge without getting a call that’s twice as long the next time. It’s like a hydra, they swear.

They are so pawning this off on Mari next year. There is not enough booze nor blood in the world to drown their sorrows.

 

[Fang]

Rooftops were great, and not just because they provided the perfect setting for a teenage vigilante to feel like he was torn directly from the pages of a comic book. From so high up it was as though every secret Pittsburgh tried to hide was laid bare to Nat. He could see what people did not expect to see, could hear the streets like one could never experience while in the thick of it. It was a place he could experience a detached sort of calm that blanketed the entire city from above.



It hadn’t been easy to get any information on his own attempted assassination. He had spent an embarrassing amount of time as the Wolf investigating the sniper and any affiliations from the gutters, leaving broken bones and unhappy new inmates in his wake as he interrogated every hired thug he could find.



In the end he could find nothing as the Wolf, but Nat’s means didn’t end there. The sniper had denied his offer for employment, but a professional had to be obtainable through some means or another. Money, it just so happened, opened doors that the Wolf simply could not kick down, and with some well lubricated palms in some grimy places Nat had finally found a vital piece of information.



The sniper didn’t work alone.



The phone conversation was far below, but Nat could swear he caught snippets of the one end of conversation as he looked down at the sniper’s supposed partner. Despite the tone that filtered through the alley they had their heel on some helpless man’s throat, a juxtaposition of violence and something placating and soft.



Quite possibly psychotic.



It left little doubt as to whether Nat had found the right person, and left him with two options. The most obvious was a full out assault. Incapacitate them, interrogate them, and with any luck ensure any remaining and future contracts involving the Wolf were put to rest indefinitely. That route, however, hinged upon Nat being able to end any form of conflict quickly and easily. Too tall of a request for the fates that had thus far controlled the Wolf’s career.



The steel that stretched to the other end of the alley and lowered Nat to his feet made hardly a sound as it coiled from cable to plate in his hand. He lowered himself just outside of view, armor and mask hidden away in a backpack that saw the return of the plate that brought him back to ground level. The plan was simple, and not much of a plan if he were being honest. And it didn’t require the Wolf unless things went incredibly wrong.



He turned the corner with a mask of oblivious distraction as his expression, taking several steps toward his target and their prey before feigning a look of surprise and shock. Nat felt like he was getting pretty good at the whole “acting” part of his pastime.



”Oh goodness! Are you okay?” Despite expectation Nat’s question was directed toward the person who stood on the other’s neck. ”Should I call the cops?” Any normal person would believe this scene was the purview of the police, right?

 

[Katpride]

They can’t do it. Spork hits the mute button after only a few seconds of their mother’s chattering - she isn’t really listening, anyways, they’ll just have to pop in occasionally to make affirmative noises - and lets the phone drop from their ear, heaving the world’s biggest sigh. God they hate this month. Not even Mari’s birthday is this bad, at least she can just open a shitty card and an even shittier present and move on.

The man under their heel gives an agreeable kind of gurgle, and Spork rolls their eyes, removing their foot from his person. A reward for good behavior.

It’s a good thing that they do, because it’s only moments later that they hear footsteps approaching their cozy little alleyway. They have about half a second to snap the phone shut and swap their expression from vaguely disgruntled to drunk and distressed, but they do it with the grace of an actor pulling a quick-change. They sink against the alley wall, sliding the flip phone back into their pocket on the sly, and they are a poor blind woman who has just had to fend off a terrible, awful, predatory man. They’ve got this in the bag.

God, but the interloper sounds young. They don’t let the genuine surprise they feel at that revelation touch their face, instead letting a vague kind of surprised relief bloom after a second’s delay as they stumble away from the man, one hand on the alley wall for support - and guidance oh they’re so blind and so lost, aren’t they? - and the other casting out in front of them like a dowsing rod.

“Oh thank goodness,” they warble, their platform shoes clomping an unsteady rhythm as they wind closer to the kid. “Yes, yes, you should call the police. Oh my god.”

They put a hand over their mouth, and tears well up in their eyes. Ah, crocodile tears. They perfected that skill at age five. It’s just so handy in a pinch. They sniff, loudly, and let feigned distress mangle their voice even further. “He took my phone. I’m so sorry. Do you have one? Oh god.”

 

[Fang]

It took a deep breath of self control to keep an eyebrow from raising immediately at the performance. Nat slid his hands into his pockets, glancing down at the bruised man with a contemplative expression. It would have been a hard story to buy even had he not observed part of the altercation from above. The blind victim was bruised but left standing, and the supposed assailant was whimpering on the ground, too stunned by whatever he had suffered to attempt to explain his side of things.



”I actually don’t own a cell phone.” Nat gave an awkward laugh to cover the half step he took away from the woman’s approach. ”But I would be happy to escort you to the police station. I don’t think he will be going anywhere, and you will be safe there if he gets the idea to try again.” Nat could send the man medical help once they were away, though he doubted either of their farces would hold up too much longer with their sloppy deliveries.



“Can you walk? Should we go to the hospital first?” A redirection as he recovered his half step and more, passing the injured man to close the distance and offer a his arm to the woman for support.

 

[Katpride]

Was that a lie? It had to be. What kind of kid would be running around the nightclub district without a phone? Where were his parents? Why was he lying? Spork forced their expression into building distress rather than suspicion, stumbling to a stop with their hand still on the alley wall. Ugh. They just had to get caught by a good samaritan, didn’t they?

Well, lucky them, they had plenty of experience shaking off good samaritans. Came with the territory.

“Oh, noooo…” They shook their head as though in a daze, leaning more of their weight on their arm until their elbow buckled and they were forced to catch themself, sinking against the wall. They let themself fall into a slow, dragging drop, then sat on the floor and buried their face in their hands, pressing their sunglasses into the bridge of their nose as they became ‘overwhelmed with emotion’. Classic.

“I can’t!” Their voice was muffled, but clearly pitchy, and they shook their head, blonde hair shifting against the painted brick. The alleyway wasn’t the cleanest, but it also wasn’t the filthiest one they’d been in. They weren’t too bothered by the grime; it’d help sell their story. “I don’t know the way! And I promised… I promised I’d get home.”

“I just want to go ho-ome,” they cried. It was the first genuine statement they’d said tonight, ironically. Not that the waterworks were genuine, but win some, lose some. They were going to have to drink a lot of water when they got back, they realized dimly, or Mari was going to yell at them again. Blah blah dehydration, taking care of yourself, etc. As if she wasn’t just as bad, sometimes.