(ficlet) - Molt - PG-13
Yay, Baccano!comm! ^_^ I'll try not to be too annoying as I post some of my stuff here.
I have no idea where this came from. My guess is that this is the fault of the Cat and Kiwi Collective. And evidently Claire doesn't like communicating with me in entire fics. He just likes the snapshots. This feels very spare, but he evidently likes it this way. So I put it up not as, y'know, the perfect example of ficness, but more just cuz I'm done with it and think that some folkses might enjoy it.
Warning for blood and craziness. Spoilers for...pretty much the whole series. Also probably won't make much sense unless you've seen the anime the whole way through. Claire's not much for explanation.
-------------- Molt
One spring, when they were children, they found a snake by the edge of the lake. It was a little ribbon snake, barely a foot long, with a deep black body and bright yellow stripes. Long after Luck lost interest, Claire watched the snake's winding path over the marshy ground. Finally, it disappeared into a hole in the packed sand. Claire went back several times over the course of the spring but never saw the snake again. The last time, though, he found a long swath of molted snakeskin. The colors were muted, the skin fragile and flaking.
Claire crouched by it for an hour, fascinated at this evidence that you could, as he had always suspected, slough off your skin and become something else.
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He can feel his skin becoming tight as he listens to the man raving. It's as if the gun pointed at him spews heat, drying him out, making him want to shed himself. He explodes into movement instead, his foot sweeping up almost without thought. After that, everything becomes easier. Shooting the fanatic is easy. Confronting the fake conductor, even easier. Hearing about Tony is...hard, but dealing with Dune, holding him down until the laughter is replaced by the quiet splatter of blood, is easiest of all.
Claire walks back into the cab. The very tenor of the Pussyfoot's progress over the rails has changed. There are entirely too many killers on board, and the Pussyfoot seems to know it. Claire can feel her displeasure rumbling up through the soles of his shoes.
His conductor's suit is spattered with blood, bits of bone and gore stuck here and there. The smell is visceral: copper and meat.
Claire sheds his skin and paints the newly-revealed flesh blood-red. He finds it appropriate.
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Claire pauses on her doorstep. He takes a deep breath, not to gather courage, but to savor the moment.
He thinks of her, beautiful like the white-hot heart of a star clothed in flesh and night.
He smiles, feeling his skin grow tight, and knocks.