Alright, rather than perform a 1+ year zombie thread resurrection I figured I'd start a new one.
For those who have forgotten what's going on (it's been a while) the last part is here.
Many thank to Spud for usage of his characters and being a beta.
Tales of the Legendary
[A Hero Sandwich Production]
Smouldering Decay: Staking a Claim (pt 6.5)
It took a little convincing to get Chris into a cold shower to start with, but he 'woke up' once he joined me under the chilly spray. I only got to try out my top three ideas when my stomach grew tired of silently complaining about it's empty state (which I was happily ignoring), and gurgled loud enough for Chris to hear.
The sound was different enough from my normal vocalizations that Chris paused mid-stroke. When I looked over my shoulder at him to see what was wrong, I couldn't help but giggle at his his confused expression. Unfortunately the cold water conspired with strange variety of sounds I was now making and killed the mood.
Chris held me at arms length and looked to make sure I hadn't hurt myself. "Are you… ok?" Chris asked as I got my giggles under control and nodded.
I stepped out of the shower and Chris followed me. The cold water wasn't fun any more without any strenuous physical activity to keep us warm. "Yah, yah, I'm fine." I said, grabbing a towel for myself and passing one to him. "I just need something to eat. You want eggs or cereal for break-"
I stopped mid-sentence as I finally got a good look at myself in the mirror. Or more accurately, what was left of my hair. The left side was about half as long as the right, and the ends were burned.
Chris paused in drying his hair when I stopped speaking and looked at me in the mirror. "Oh, um, yah. I was wondering how you managed to wear your hair as long as you did - do. Sorry?" He said. The final bit sounded like he wasn't quite sure if it was his fault, but he was willing to error on the safe side.
I turned around to look at him directly, instead of in the reflection of a fogged mirror. "No saying sorry. Did I tell you not to handle my hair? No." I said, not waiting for him to come up with an answer. "In fact I seem to remember liking it when you did." I smiled and continued "We'll just have to figure out a way to prevent this in the future."
Chris seemed reassured by the lack of blame being assigned. "Alright, I kinda stopped trying to keep long hair after a while. But your not exactly the crewcut type."
Any further discussion about hair styles was tabled as my stomach complained again about it's empty state. "Right, breakfast." I said "You want cereal, eggs, or ... I might be able to whip something else up."
"Cereal is fine." Chris replied as he followed me into the bedroom. "Just as long as there is some nutritional value to it."
I refused to acknowledge the small eddies of soot that were kicked up in my path from the bathroom door to the dresser. Cleaning, lots of cleaning, would have to take place later. For now I just concentrated on finding a clean shirt and underwear. As I pulled my head through the top of my t-shirt I heard a puzzled 'huh' come from the hallway.
I exited into the hallway to find Chris, now with the towel around his waist, holding up his pants. The cause of his confusion became apparent as I approached, the pants now qualified as 'ass-less'. Two handprints were scorched clean through the seat of his pants. And while they probably could still function well enough to prevent public decency charges, he clearly didn't consider them fit to be worn in public.
"I guess I got a little a little impatient last night… " I started to apologize.
"No saying sorry" Chris echoed back at me with a smirk. Then he looked at the pants again. "These were toast before the fighting was even over. I just normally have another pair."
I took a look at the tag on the pants and said "Well I can take care of that. I know just where to pick up a pair." as I led the way into the kitchen.
Chris abandoned the pants in the hall and followed me, starting to protest "You don't have to buy me clothes -"
"No, but I want to." I interrupted as I acquired various breakfast necessities from around the kitchen. "Besides, it was my fault they got destroyed. And I intend to pick up a pair that can withstand my attention."
"Ok, I'm not arguing with that logic." Chris said as we consumed cereal "Just nothing skintight alright?"
Of course now that he had said that I couldn't keep from thinking of him in nothing but a pair of skintight leather pants. But I settled for assenting a "mm-mm" around my spoon. Conversation tapered off as we concentrated on replacing calories burned last night. As my stomach quieted down in it's protests the idea of Chris in leather pants, and getting him out of those pants, began to tempt me. It wasn't the strong NEED that dominated last night, but proximity and recent memory were doing a good job reminding me just how easy it would be to stay inside and not worry about lack of clothes. At least for a while.
I needed to distract myself from the temptation that was clad solely in a towel and sitting across the table from me. Getting Chris into something more than just a towel should help, I hoped.
Chris had a second bowl, while I deposited mine in the sink. "Need anything besides pants, underwear, and a shirt?" I asked.
Chris looked thoughtful for a minute then shook his head. I skipped back to the bedroom to acquire shorts, shoes, and hat. Phone and wallet were retrieved from the clothing strewn in the hallway. On my way out I stuck my head in the kitchen "Make yourself at home, anything in the fridge is fair game. I should be back in about an hour."
Chris swallowed and said "Sure, but I make no promises to wear any surprises you bring back."
I gave him a playful pout and said "Fine. Call me if something comes up."
Chris waved goodbye with one hand and continued to shovel cereal in with other.
I knew where to pick up clothes for Chris. Rough Enough was the same place I got my tough skirt and top. They professed to make the strongest mass produced clothing available, and I certainly believed them. Their store was positioned on the north end of Brickstown, and matched the rest of the neighborhood. Brick, metal, and rivets dominated the outside, as well as the inside decor. I'm not sure if it was a conscious design decision, or just lazy interior decorating. But the minimalist approach certainly captured the general attitude of their clothing: no frills, no comfort-fit, just clothing that could take a beating and look better than you did afterwards. I started browsing in their underwear department, looking for items with a little flame icon on the tag. The icon/tag system seemed a little convoluted at times, but it worked well enough. Cost was exponentially related to how many tags were attached to a piece of clothing. I was tempted to browse through the section that had impervium weave, but my libido's protective impulses lost to fiscal responsibility.
Boxer-briefs were quickly joined by a few t-shirts and a pair of jeans, all guaranteed to withstand repeated exposure to 700 ºC. I made a quick pass through the bedroom section, but ended up wincing at the prices for sheets. I couldn't afford anything in synthetic, let alone cotton. Looks like it was back to experimentation in the bedroom, and not the fun kind. Deciding to spare my bank account any further trauma, I took what I had to the checkout. The casher gave me a strange look. I'm not sure if it was over the gender of the clothes, or my lopsided hair that was sticking out underneath the ballcap. Nonverbal social commentary aside, the obviously bored casher rang me up and I was on my way with minimal fuss.
I walked back to the apartment instead of launching myself on a ballistic trajectory. It gave me time to think about what things I might need to do.
First on the list was cleanup; the carbon scorching was worst in the bedroom, but we had left a trail of soot and ash all the way from the front door. I didn't think anything important had been damaged, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Mental Note: pick up some heat tolerant prophylactics. We hadn't used any last night. And while I was confident that my cycle combined with my powers had kept my womb on a strict scorched earth policy, I wasn't ready to risk anything in roughly a week when my fertility started to peak. After all, I still ovulated, and there was at least one other fire-centric witch in the local magic users group that got a surprise when she assumed her oven was too hot to bake bread. The next generation of superheroes had to come from somewhere, and I had no clue how heat tolerant Chris's little swimmers were.
Next on the list was better fireproofing; while I had zero regrets about what had happened last night, doing it again without recreating the mess that waited for me at the apartment would be preferable. My vacuum cleaner had started to make unhappy noises last time I had to clean up after my failed warding experiments, I don't think it could deal with much more abuse.
Any further musing was put on hold as I arrived home. Chris's voice drifted towards me as I shut the front door. He was facing away from the door, crouched in the hallway picking through the detritus we has left in our wake last night. I leaned against a clean patch of wall to watch him for a moment as he talked on his cell that was wedged between cheek and shoulder. Chris had found the broom and dustpan and was doing his best to simultaneously clean the soot and ash off the floor, pick out the salvageable clothing, and carry on a phone conversation.
"-told ya' I can't leave right now. I'm kinda stuck here… No, I'm not cuffed to the bed!" I had to repress a laugh at that, but Chris didn't seem to hear me as he held up a pair of boxers. I could see handprints too small to be his scorched in strategic areas. He continued in a mildly amused tone of voice "I'm just short on clothing at the moment. Lisa was a little… impatient last night." He tossed the boxers into a pile to his right, where they added to the growing mound of scorched cloth. "No… I dunno… I'm not telling ya' that Kentucky." A sock was inspected and tossed into a significantly smaller pile on his left. "Fine, fine. Worlds were rocked, beds were broken, and the neighbors told us to quiet down. Happy now?"
I couldn't keep from laughing at the sarcastic way he delivered that last line. The sight of Chris spinning around and facepalming as he realized he had more than one listener only increased my mirth. I heard a semi-muffled "Gotta go, talk to ya later." before Chris made is way over to me. He watched me laugh quietly for a few seconds before saying "Well I guess that means your not mad at me."
I got my laughter under control and passed him the bag with his clothing. "Mad at you? For bragging a bit about how good last night was? Not in the least. I'd be offended if you thought it was only ok." I said with a smirk. Then I nodded at his phone and asked "That was Kentucky? Anything come up?"
Chris looked up from his quick perusal of the clothing in the bag. "Nothing major, just checking in to make sure I wasn't dehydrated and suffering from a crushed pelvis." His smirk turned into a slight frown "But there are a few things I should take care of." His expression and the way he glanced at the floor let me guess he didn't want to leave the leave all of the cleanup to me when he felt partially responsible for the destruction.
"No problem." I said "I'll help you finish sorting though the clothing here, and then you can go take care of whatever those things are. Deal?"
He gave me a grateful smile and peck on the lips "Thanks."
I paused in my scavenging of the items on the floor to run a finger over one of the wards set in the wall. A scorched handprint overlaid part of it, and while the brass of the glyph was never in any danger, the plaster it was set it had flaked a bit around the edges. "Maybe I should paint these over." I wondered out loud.
Chris set one of my shoulderpads with it's pair by the bedroom door and joined my in my inspection of the wall. "Why would you want to do that?" he asked. "They look nice. And wouldn't it make maintenance harder?"
"Thanks, but some people do not share our taste in wall decorations." I said. "The maintenance on these isn't all that hard anyways. I know where all of them are, and a coat of paint isn't going to stop them from working."
"Are these 'some people' anyone in particular? Cause I didn't think you cared what Joe Smith thought of your hallway decorations."
I picked at the charred plaster for a few seconds before answering. "Gamma… the, uh… local me. She had… issues with the wards, and I don't want to burn any more bridges before I get the chance to build some."
"Oh." He said, and then was quiet for a few moments. I thought that was all he was going to say before he continued "I don't know what happened between you and her. I can say this much though: she'll make you regret pissing her off, but what you do now matters more that what you did."
I wondered how much more I would regret before this was all over while we finished sorting through the salvageable clothing. It was quick work, if only because there was so little of it. Everything of Chris's besides the shoes and socks was toast. My clothing faired a bit better. The boots, socks, and shoulderpads were fine. My vest and skirt seemed have acquired another layer of soot. But my body stocking was a different story. It lay on the floor of my bedroom, one leg trailing into the hallway, like a shed snakeskin. I had apparently thought it too much work last night to get out of it normally, and had instead melted a path from neck to navel through the strings the held it together. One or two broken connections I could repair, but the thirty or so I had burnt through last night? I might as well scrap it and start over.
"Something wrong?" Chris asked me as I toed the remains of my costume.
Chris had changed into his new clothes while I was lost in thought, they looked good on him. "Nothing that can't be fixed."
"I hate to bail when there's still stuff to clean…" He started to say.
"But you have things to do besides me." I finished with a bit of a smirk.
Chris nodded as he transferred his wallet and keys from the ruined pair of pants to his current ones. I walked him to the front door and said "I expect a call before next friday." as I opened it for him.
He gave me a hug, a kiss, and a "Yes'm" before making his way up to the street. I closed the door and leaned against it, surveying the damage we had done to the hallway. This was going to take a while.
I stopped for lunch when I finished cleaning up the hallway, or at least the parts of it that wouldn't require a new coat of paint. There was less broken than I expected. Part of me noticed that I really didn't own all that much, at least not that was put on display like normal people. I'd been living in this dimension for how many months? I wasn't sure I wanted the answer to that question. And I still kept all my valued possessions in a duffel bag in the closet, ready to be grabbed if the bombing got bad enough to bring the building down. Two candles and a change bowl that fell off the hallway table could be easily replaced. Almost everything else, excluding the clothing, just needed a good scrubbing to clean off the light coating of carbon it had acquired.
The 'almost' part came into play with the scorched hand, hip, and other body part, prints that now decorated the walls. Closer to the front door things had been relatively cool enough that a sponge and elbow grease proved sufficient to remove them. But as clothing came off, and the temperature went up, the impressions we left behind got harder to remove. The worst of the bunch was next to the bedroom door. My entire back, from shoulders to ass, was imprinted on the wall. Of course the voids left behind by my bodysuit made it look like an abstract painting without a frame, but anyone who knew what my suit looked like would be able to put it together.
Lunch consisted of Up-N-Away burgers consumed on the roof of the building. I was too dirty to feel like eating in public (or relatively populated public), and I had stirred up enough soot into the air of my apartment to ruin the taste of any food eaten there. It was tempting to just sit in the sun and relax the day away. I was full of good food, my libido had finally shut up (for a few hours at least), and I didn't have any trolls or clockwork battling it out on my doorstep. Reluctantly I dragged myself back into my apartment, if I expected to get any sort of good sleep tonight the bedroom would have to be cleaned.
The vacuum lasted long enough to clean the ceiling, the bed, and most of the floor. Well not exactly 'clean', but sufficient soot was removed that it no longer snowed down from above and swirled around my feet. The last few wheezy coughs the vacuum made before seizing up entirely made me doubt it's ability to be repaired. I added 'acquire new vacuum' to the list of things I needed to get done tomorrow. Leaving the vacuum carcass in the corner I made my way into the bathroom. I stripped and stood underneath the spray, letting the warm water pound some of the weariness out of my body. I stayed that way until the water going down the drain was no longer a murky gray. Stepping out of the stall and toweling myself off I took a serious look at the mess that my hair was in.
It wasn't anywhere close to good. I had lost up to six inches in clumps and patches, mostly on my left side, but neither side of my head was unscathed. Resigning myself to the inevitable I started to try and salvage what I could. It was slow and somewhat awkward work with only one mirror,. But I managed to avoid further hair catastrophe by holding sections of hair away from head in one hand, and burning down the tips with the other. The end result was still something I wanted to hide behind a hat, but now at least the bits that would stick out would be the same length.
I hid my hair beneath a bandana and got dressed in some of my more civilian clothes while looking over the bed again. The sheets looked like they had been set upon by flaming moths, char-edged holes of various shapes and sizes perforated everything. They were certainly capable of performing their primary function, mainly keeping me warm at night. How many more nights of abuse they could withstand was the question. At least I wouldn't be lacking in cloth I could experiment on for quite some time.
I was mulling over possible spell modifications as I took out the trash. As I stared at the sad pile of ash and clothing too far gone to bother salvaging, it hit me. I knew exactly what get Gamma as a peace offering. Clothes, well not the mass-magic stuff I could pick up at Rough Enough. But clothes that were a real crafting. Something that wouldn't glow in the dark, block her powers, or fall apart in a week. My own clothing problems combined with what she had told me in my hallway gave me a firm handle on her own fabric related woes.
I was still in the dark about a lot of what made Gamma and me different, but I knew enough to make this work. The hard part would be making it work without the runes, or at least hiding them sufficiently. It would be challenge, a Crafting with a capital-c. But that made sense, building bridges is harder to do than burning them down.
Of course this isn't the end. Hopefully the next bit will be out on a slightly faster pace >.<
And oh, I'm planning on dragging Onyx into this mess, cause the dimensional displacies play so nicely together
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
For those who have forgotten what's going on (it's been a while) the last part is here.
Many thank to Spud for usage of his characters and being a beta.
Tales of the Legendary
[A Hero Sandwich Production]
Smouldering Decay: Staking a Claim (pt 6.5)
It took a little convincing to get Chris into a cold shower to start with, but he 'woke up' once he joined me under the chilly spray. I only got to try out my top three ideas when my stomach grew tired of silently complaining about it's empty state (which I was happily ignoring), and gurgled loud enough for Chris to hear.
The sound was different enough from my normal vocalizations that Chris paused mid-stroke. When I looked over my shoulder at him to see what was wrong, I couldn't help but giggle at his his confused expression. Unfortunately the cold water conspired with strange variety of sounds I was now making and killed the mood.
Chris held me at arms length and looked to make sure I hadn't hurt myself. "Are you… ok?" Chris asked as I got my giggles under control and nodded.
I stepped out of the shower and Chris followed me. The cold water wasn't fun any more without any strenuous physical activity to keep us warm. "Yah, yah, I'm fine." I said, grabbing a towel for myself and passing one to him. "I just need something to eat. You want eggs or cereal for break-"
I stopped mid-sentence as I finally got a good look at myself in the mirror. Or more accurately, what was left of my hair. The left side was about half as long as the right, and the ends were burned.
Chris paused in drying his hair when I stopped speaking and looked at me in the mirror. "Oh, um, yah. I was wondering how you managed to wear your hair as long as you did - do. Sorry?" He said. The final bit sounded like he wasn't quite sure if it was his fault, but he was willing to error on the safe side.
I turned around to look at him directly, instead of in the reflection of a fogged mirror. "No saying sorry. Did I tell you not to handle my hair? No." I said, not waiting for him to come up with an answer. "In fact I seem to remember liking it when you did." I smiled and continued "We'll just have to figure out a way to prevent this in the future."
Chris seemed reassured by the lack of blame being assigned. "Alright, I kinda stopped trying to keep long hair after a while. But your not exactly the crewcut type."
Any further discussion about hair styles was tabled as my stomach complained again about it's empty state. "Right, breakfast." I said "You want cereal, eggs, or ... I might be able to whip something else up."
"Cereal is fine." Chris replied as he followed me into the bedroom. "Just as long as there is some nutritional value to it."
I refused to acknowledge the small eddies of soot that were kicked up in my path from the bathroom door to the dresser. Cleaning, lots of cleaning, would have to take place later. For now I just concentrated on finding a clean shirt and underwear. As I pulled my head through the top of my t-shirt I heard a puzzled 'huh' come from the hallway.
I exited into the hallway to find Chris, now with the towel around his waist, holding up his pants. The cause of his confusion became apparent as I approached, the pants now qualified as 'ass-less'. Two handprints were scorched clean through the seat of his pants. And while they probably could still function well enough to prevent public decency charges, he clearly didn't consider them fit to be worn in public.
"I guess I got a little a little impatient last night… " I started to apologize.
"No saying sorry" Chris echoed back at me with a smirk. Then he looked at the pants again. "These were toast before the fighting was even over. I just normally have another pair."
I took a look at the tag on the pants and said "Well I can take care of that. I know just where to pick up a pair." as I led the way into the kitchen.
Chris abandoned the pants in the hall and followed me, starting to protest "You don't have to buy me clothes -"
"No, but I want to." I interrupted as I acquired various breakfast necessities from around the kitchen. "Besides, it was my fault they got destroyed. And I intend to pick up a pair that can withstand my attention."
"Ok, I'm not arguing with that logic." Chris said as we consumed cereal "Just nothing skintight alright?"
Of course now that he had said that I couldn't keep from thinking of him in nothing but a pair of skintight leather pants. But I settled for assenting a "mm-mm" around my spoon. Conversation tapered off as we concentrated on replacing calories burned last night. As my stomach quieted down in it's protests the idea of Chris in leather pants, and getting him out of those pants, began to tempt me. It wasn't the strong NEED that dominated last night, but proximity and recent memory were doing a good job reminding me just how easy it would be to stay inside and not worry about lack of clothes. At least for a while.
I needed to distract myself from the temptation that was clad solely in a towel and sitting across the table from me. Getting Chris into something more than just a towel should help, I hoped.
Chris had a second bowl, while I deposited mine in the sink. "Need anything besides pants, underwear, and a shirt?" I asked.
Chris looked thoughtful for a minute then shook his head. I skipped back to the bedroom to acquire shorts, shoes, and hat. Phone and wallet were retrieved from the clothing strewn in the hallway. On my way out I stuck my head in the kitchen "Make yourself at home, anything in the fridge is fair game. I should be back in about an hour."
Chris swallowed and said "Sure, but I make no promises to wear any surprises you bring back."
I gave him a playful pout and said "Fine. Call me if something comes up."
Chris waved goodbye with one hand and continued to shovel cereal in with other.
I knew where to pick up clothes for Chris. Rough Enough was the same place I got my tough skirt and top. They professed to make the strongest mass produced clothing available, and I certainly believed them. Their store was positioned on the north end of Brickstown, and matched the rest of the neighborhood. Brick, metal, and rivets dominated the outside, as well as the inside decor. I'm not sure if it was a conscious design decision, or just lazy interior decorating. But the minimalist approach certainly captured the general attitude of their clothing: no frills, no comfort-fit, just clothing that could take a beating and look better than you did afterwards. I started browsing in their underwear department, looking for items with a little flame icon on the tag. The icon/tag system seemed a little convoluted at times, but it worked well enough. Cost was exponentially related to how many tags were attached to a piece of clothing. I was tempted to browse through the section that had impervium weave, but my libido's protective impulses lost to fiscal responsibility.
Boxer-briefs were quickly joined by a few t-shirts and a pair of jeans, all guaranteed to withstand repeated exposure to 700 ºC. I made a quick pass through the bedroom section, but ended up wincing at the prices for sheets. I couldn't afford anything in synthetic, let alone cotton. Looks like it was back to experimentation in the bedroom, and not the fun kind. Deciding to spare my bank account any further trauma, I took what I had to the checkout. The casher gave me a strange look. I'm not sure if it was over the gender of the clothes, or my lopsided hair that was sticking out underneath the ballcap. Nonverbal social commentary aside, the obviously bored casher rang me up and I was on my way with minimal fuss.
I walked back to the apartment instead of launching myself on a ballistic trajectory. It gave me time to think about what things I might need to do.
First on the list was cleanup; the carbon scorching was worst in the bedroom, but we had left a trail of soot and ash all the way from the front door. I didn't think anything important had been damaged, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Mental Note: pick up some heat tolerant prophylactics. We hadn't used any last night. And while I was confident that my cycle combined with my powers had kept my womb on a strict scorched earth policy, I wasn't ready to risk anything in roughly a week when my fertility started to peak. After all, I still ovulated, and there was at least one other fire-centric witch in the local magic users group that got a surprise when she assumed her oven was too hot to bake bread. The next generation of superheroes had to come from somewhere, and I had no clue how heat tolerant Chris's little swimmers were.
Next on the list was better fireproofing; while I had zero regrets about what had happened last night, doing it again without recreating the mess that waited for me at the apartment would be preferable. My vacuum cleaner had started to make unhappy noises last time I had to clean up after my failed warding experiments, I don't think it could deal with much more abuse.
Any further musing was put on hold as I arrived home. Chris's voice drifted towards me as I shut the front door. He was facing away from the door, crouched in the hallway picking through the detritus we has left in our wake last night. I leaned against a clean patch of wall to watch him for a moment as he talked on his cell that was wedged between cheek and shoulder. Chris had found the broom and dustpan and was doing his best to simultaneously clean the soot and ash off the floor, pick out the salvageable clothing, and carry on a phone conversation.
"-told ya' I can't leave right now. I'm kinda stuck here… No, I'm not cuffed to the bed!" I had to repress a laugh at that, but Chris didn't seem to hear me as he held up a pair of boxers. I could see handprints too small to be his scorched in strategic areas. He continued in a mildly amused tone of voice "I'm just short on clothing at the moment. Lisa was a little… impatient last night." He tossed the boxers into a pile to his right, where they added to the growing mound of scorched cloth. "No… I dunno… I'm not telling ya' that Kentucky." A sock was inspected and tossed into a significantly smaller pile on his left. "Fine, fine. Worlds were rocked, beds were broken, and the neighbors told us to quiet down. Happy now?"
I couldn't keep from laughing at the sarcastic way he delivered that last line. The sight of Chris spinning around and facepalming as he realized he had more than one listener only increased my mirth. I heard a semi-muffled "Gotta go, talk to ya later." before Chris made is way over to me. He watched me laugh quietly for a few seconds before saying "Well I guess that means your not mad at me."
I got my laughter under control and passed him the bag with his clothing. "Mad at you? For bragging a bit about how good last night was? Not in the least. I'd be offended if you thought it was only ok." I said with a smirk. Then I nodded at his phone and asked "That was Kentucky? Anything come up?"
Chris looked up from his quick perusal of the clothing in the bag. "Nothing major, just checking in to make sure I wasn't dehydrated and suffering from a crushed pelvis." His smirk turned into a slight frown "But there are a few things I should take care of." His expression and the way he glanced at the floor let me guess he didn't want to leave the leave all of the cleanup to me when he felt partially responsible for the destruction.
"No problem." I said "I'll help you finish sorting though the clothing here, and then you can go take care of whatever those things are. Deal?"
He gave me a grateful smile and peck on the lips "Thanks."
I paused in my scavenging of the items on the floor to run a finger over one of the wards set in the wall. A scorched handprint overlaid part of it, and while the brass of the glyph was never in any danger, the plaster it was set it had flaked a bit around the edges. "Maybe I should paint these over." I wondered out loud.
Chris set one of my shoulderpads with it's pair by the bedroom door and joined my in my inspection of the wall. "Why would you want to do that?" he asked. "They look nice. And wouldn't it make maintenance harder?"
"Thanks, but some people do not share our taste in wall decorations." I said. "The maintenance on these isn't all that hard anyways. I know where all of them are, and a coat of paint isn't going to stop them from working."
"Are these 'some people' anyone in particular? Cause I didn't think you cared what Joe Smith thought of your hallway decorations."
I picked at the charred plaster for a few seconds before answering. "Gamma… the, uh… local me. She had… issues with the wards, and I don't want to burn any more bridges before I get the chance to build some."
"Oh." He said, and then was quiet for a few moments. I thought that was all he was going to say before he continued "I don't know what happened between you and her. I can say this much though: she'll make you regret pissing her off, but what you do now matters more that what you did."
I wondered how much more I would regret before this was all over while we finished sorting through the salvageable clothing. It was quick work, if only because there was so little of it. Everything of Chris's besides the shoes and socks was toast. My clothing faired a bit better. The boots, socks, and shoulderpads were fine. My vest and skirt seemed have acquired another layer of soot. But my body stocking was a different story. It lay on the floor of my bedroom, one leg trailing into the hallway, like a shed snakeskin. I had apparently thought it too much work last night to get out of it normally, and had instead melted a path from neck to navel through the strings the held it together. One or two broken connections I could repair, but the thirty or so I had burnt through last night? I might as well scrap it and start over.
"Something wrong?" Chris asked me as I toed the remains of my costume.
Chris had changed into his new clothes while I was lost in thought, they looked good on him. "Nothing that can't be fixed."
"I hate to bail when there's still stuff to clean…" He started to say.
"But you have things to do besides me." I finished with a bit of a smirk.
Chris nodded as he transferred his wallet and keys from the ruined pair of pants to his current ones. I walked him to the front door and said "I expect a call before next friday." as I opened it for him.
He gave me a hug, a kiss, and a "Yes'm" before making his way up to the street. I closed the door and leaned against it, surveying the damage we had done to the hallway. This was going to take a while.
I stopped for lunch when I finished cleaning up the hallway, or at least the parts of it that wouldn't require a new coat of paint. There was less broken than I expected. Part of me noticed that I really didn't own all that much, at least not that was put on display like normal people. I'd been living in this dimension for how many months? I wasn't sure I wanted the answer to that question. And I still kept all my valued possessions in a duffel bag in the closet, ready to be grabbed if the bombing got bad enough to bring the building down. Two candles and a change bowl that fell off the hallway table could be easily replaced. Almost everything else, excluding the clothing, just needed a good scrubbing to clean off the light coating of carbon it had acquired.
The 'almost' part came into play with the scorched hand, hip, and other body part, prints that now decorated the walls. Closer to the front door things had been relatively cool enough that a sponge and elbow grease proved sufficient to remove them. But as clothing came off, and the temperature went up, the impressions we left behind got harder to remove. The worst of the bunch was next to the bedroom door. My entire back, from shoulders to ass, was imprinted on the wall. Of course the voids left behind by my bodysuit made it look like an abstract painting without a frame, but anyone who knew what my suit looked like would be able to put it together.
Lunch consisted of Up-N-Away burgers consumed on the roof of the building. I was too dirty to feel like eating in public (or relatively populated public), and I had stirred up enough soot into the air of my apartment to ruin the taste of any food eaten there. It was tempting to just sit in the sun and relax the day away. I was full of good food, my libido had finally shut up (for a few hours at least), and I didn't have any trolls or clockwork battling it out on my doorstep. Reluctantly I dragged myself back into my apartment, if I expected to get any sort of good sleep tonight the bedroom would have to be cleaned.
The vacuum lasted long enough to clean the ceiling, the bed, and most of the floor. Well not exactly 'clean', but sufficient soot was removed that it no longer snowed down from above and swirled around my feet. The last few wheezy coughs the vacuum made before seizing up entirely made me doubt it's ability to be repaired. I added 'acquire new vacuum' to the list of things I needed to get done tomorrow. Leaving the vacuum carcass in the corner I made my way into the bathroom. I stripped and stood underneath the spray, letting the warm water pound some of the weariness out of my body. I stayed that way until the water going down the drain was no longer a murky gray. Stepping out of the stall and toweling myself off I took a serious look at the mess that my hair was in.
It wasn't anywhere close to good. I had lost up to six inches in clumps and patches, mostly on my left side, but neither side of my head was unscathed. Resigning myself to the inevitable I started to try and salvage what I could. It was slow and somewhat awkward work with only one mirror,. But I managed to avoid further hair catastrophe by holding sections of hair away from head in one hand, and burning down the tips with the other. The end result was still something I wanted to hide behind a hat, but now at least the bits that would stick out would be the same length.
I hid my hair beneath a bandana and got dressed in some of my more civilian clothes while looking over the bed again. The sheets looked like they had been set upon by flaming moths, char-edged holes of various shapes and sizes perforated everything. They were certainly capable of performing their primary function, mainly keeping me warm at night. How many more nights of abuse they could withstand was the question. At least I wouldn't be lacking in cloth I could experiment on for quite some time.
I was mulling over possible spell modifications as I took out the trash. As I stared at the sad pile of ash and clothing too far gone to bother salvaging, it hit me. I knew exactly what get Gamma as a peace offering. Clothes, well not the mass-magic stuff I could pick up at Rough Enough. But clothes that were a real crafting. Something that wouldn't glow in the dark, block her powers, or fall apart in a week. My own clothing problems combined with what she had told me in my hallway gave me a firm handle on her own fabric related woes.
I was still in the dark about a lot of what made Gamma and me different, but I knew enough to make this work. The hard part would be making it work without the runes, or at least hiding them sufficiently. It would be challenge, a Crafting with a capital-c. But that made sense, building bridges is harder to do than burning them down.
Of course this isn't the end. Hopefully the next bit will be out on a slightly faster pace >.<
And oh, I'm planning on dragging Onyx into this mess, cause the dimensional displacies play so nicely together
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy