Repose

Who: Oliver & Gwen
What: Train track balancing olympics.
Where: The abandoned train station.
When: An ambiguous afternoon.
Warnings: Unlikely, but will update as needed.

The African violet and carnation pink dust on his clothes, it was from chalk. The kind of chubby sticks better gripped with a preschool fist, this wasn't the kind of chalk that unimaginative and overly adult people used. Oliver wasn't even sure if people used chalk anymore, everything was dry erase or powerpoint. Chalk felt like a lost medium. Chalk felt like all of those Sesame Street episodes that he never could relate to, scrutinized through the lens of a airlocked, secret weapon child who got so little of the outdoors that he thought giant, talking birds really were walking around out there, teaching other children how to draw the perfect hopscotch totem.

Now he knew better, but he still liked chalk. Chalk was temporary. Chalk was the oneiric dust of fleeting imagery, washed away something as mild as light rain. Oliver didn't expect the chalk to last very long, that isn't why he bothered. He bothered because there were days when he liked gray and days when he hated gray. Today was a hate gray kind of day, and to Oliver, on this particular day, Repose was feeling a little more gray than usual.

So, mawkishly, he made the long walk carrying the sandwich baggie collection of broken chalk pieces not yet lost to the bottoms of shoes or the bottoms of closets. He set up shop on the railroad tracks where nothing seemed to come through anymore. The metal and wood of the tracks was overgrown with tall, browning grass that Oliver trampled down with the soles of Oxford shoes, Prussian blue. And then? He sat, and he dumped the chalk out like an itty bitty graveyard of canary yellow and peach puff splinters.

It took him hours, but he determinedly decorated a five yard stretch of the tracks, from wooden planks to iron bolts, with a blooming garden of ice cream colored flowers. Candy pink irises, mossy green roses, creamsicle camellias. Until, at last, the chalk was worn down to dust.

Who: Rory & Matt
What: One of those not-your-everyday vet visits where the patient resets to their human form.
Where: Matt's woodland home.
When: Current, I think.
Warnings: Doggy injuries, language.


The night had started out innocently enough. Rory'd decided to forgo the devil dog duties in favor of getting a drink at the local strip club. Iit just seemed like the most logical place to get a drink in this town. It was the kind of place where nobody tried to strike up conversation with him, as there were always going to be more attractive people than Rory in those kinds of clubs. It was his experience that attractiveness counted a whole hell of a lot more than any shade of mystique when it came to people wanting to strike up a conversation, particularly in strip clubs. Besides, it just so happened that he had a pocket full of singles and twenties, and he couldn't think of any other way to spend it. Strippers loved him - he was a very good tipper.

It was late when he left, more pensive than drunk. He'd had a week to feel just a little heartbroken about his beloved, and now he was whipping himself back into focus. But before he went to work digging out the diseased, rotting ones from their herds, to tag and follow into Armageddon, there was the matter of turning into a dog. It wasn't a long process, but it was private, and just a bit painful. Rory preferred to wander deep into the woods for this particular trick, and ten minutes later, he'd emerged roadside, shaking bits of blood and humanity off of his fur like fresh, red rain. The rest of the night? That's where it gets fuzzy for Rory.

The next thing he knew? He was waking up on some kitchen floor, feeling rough as a bear's ass. There was a blanket bunched up all beneath him, smelling like antiseptic and dog. He had a pounding headache, it was belting him really, and when he closed his eyes to try and kill it, he could remember bits and pieces. There'd been a car, headlights and pain. He couldn't remember having ever gotten hit by a car before, but it felt miraculously uneventful, really. Definitely wasn't on the bucket list.

Rory couldn't remember having gotten to this house, or whose house it was. Everything was kind of a blur, although he was collecting bits and pieces as consciousness swarmed thickly upon him, now awaken. Injured, and the dog had dragged himself into the woods. He remembered that. Rory cautiously wrapped the blanket around his waist because he was very without trousers, and he barreled around the kitchen for a moment as he got his bearings, trying to figure out if anything was banjanxed or still broken. It didn't seem to be, although he could feel a deep set bruise all across his back, purple accented by those tattoos.

[Public]

I kind of stumbled on a super important scientific discovery, which I feel is only right to share with the world at large. My discovery is as follows: I have determined that A Christmas Story kind of sucks if it's watched before Christmas. I suspect it might actually degrade in enjoyment factor with additional time increments between holiday and viewing, and that Christmas Day proximity is the key ingredient for not-suck. But I can't actually test my proximity suspicion until next year, so it'll just be an untested theory until further notice.