WHO: Landon Kirby and Kenny McCormick WHAT: Practicing Dying WHERE: By the river WHEN: Today WARNINGS: ...practicing dying? STATUS: Closed/Completed Gdoc
Hope’s arrival had Landon all messed up. On the one hand, he was super happy to see her. On the other hand, he was going to have to tell her everything that happened, including him dating Josie and...well...all of the other wierd stuff. He didn’t know how she’d take it and he sort of, well, definitely, didn’t want to be the one to tell her some of it. So, in normal Landon form, he was ignoring it. Instead of staying around his own place, he made his way over to Kenny’s, thinking that practicing dying might be easier than dealing with the girl who had been his girlfriend and was possibly the love of his whole freaking life.
Reaching his door, he knocked, then rocked back on his heels, putting his hands in his pockets and waiting for Kenny to answer.
*** Since a couple of his employees had left, Kenny had taken on doing some of their duties until he found someone to replace them. At least, he did the bookkeeping that Sue used to do. No way in hell he was going to make costumes like Evie had. But it definitely meant he was busy and staying up until the wee hours of the morning. He didn't mind too much, though. It kept him occupied and he didn't have to think about shit.
He'd gotten home from work at around 3 AM and didn't make it upstairs to his room, falling asleep on the couch. The next thing he knew, he heard a knocking on the door which woke him up. He sat up and walked over to answer it. "Oh, hey dude," he greeted Landon, still half sleep. "What's up?"
***
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “I mean, nothing important.” He looked at Kenny and narrowed his eyes. “Were you still asleep? Man, I’m sorry, I figured you’d be awake.” It was afternoon, after all. But he’d been asleep in the afternoon before. Of course he had. “I was just wondering if you wanted to go...you know, practice and stuff.”
Practice dying. It was a weird thing to do, but more than practicing dying, it was practicing fighting and trying not to die, although if he did, it wasn’t the end of the world. It was just something to take his mind off of things for a little while.
***
Kenny just gave him a bit of a skeptical look, not quite believing it was just nothing. But then he shrugged, figuring if Landon didn't want to talk about it, then whatever. "Okay," he shrugged. "And I always sleep in." He worked at the strip club after all and it usually was still open late at night. He didn't get home until then, so it meant he slept in a lot.
He already knew what practice meant. What else would it mean for them? "Yeah, sure. Just let me go get ready and we can go to the woods." It was where they usually practice dying. Hey, it got pretty messy with the blood and ashes and everything else. There was no way he was going to let that happen in his house.
It didn't take him too long to get ready. "Okay, let's go," he said once he got his boots and jacket on. He also had a duffel bag that was full of weapons and other things to kill themselves with. He lead the way out the door, locking it behind them. "I'm gonna stop by Hinkles and grab some food first." He just woke up, so he was pretty hungry. He went to the diner first, getting his order to go, then headed to the woods.
***
Landon grabbed some food too when they stopped by Hinkles, and when they got to the woods, the first thing he did was sit down and dig in. It was pretty delicious, he had to admit, and he’d need the energy for their practice.
Once he was done, he put the trash in the bag so he could carry it out with him when they left, then stood and went to look at Kenny’s bag of weapons.
“Have you used all of these?” He picked up a sword and looked at it. “I mean, is there any way that you can’t die? Or that you come back faster? Or anything like that?”
He knew so little about how his ability worked that he often peppered Kenny with questions. Kenny wasn’t a phoenix, sure, but he was the closest that Landon knew.
***
Stopping by Hinkles had definitely been a good choice. Kenny felt a little more awake now that he had something to eat. Not that it really mattered to him if he was going to die on an empty stomach or not, but at least he was fed.
"Yep," he replied, still working on his burger while Landon looked through his bag. Aside from the sword, there was also throwing knives, a couple guns, a baseball bat, some explosives, poison, and other things he forgot were in there.
"If there is, I haven't found it yet." He felt like he came back quick enough, so he never bothered to wonder about that. And he always figured he was going to die no matter what he did, so he never questioned that either.
"Some deaths are rare, though. Like diseases." He finished his burger, tossing his garbage in the bag as well. "So how do you want to die today? Besides by a gun since we already did that." As quick and easy as dying by a gunshot was, it was also a bit boring. And if Landon wanted to get used to dying like Kenny was, he should get used to other ways. Even if some of them would be painful.
***
“Well, back home I was killed by a vampire, had my neck broken, and drowned….so we can scratch those off the list too. What about poison? I’ve never done that before.”
Landon really didn’t have a death wish. If he didn’t think it was certain he was going to come back, he wouldn’t be doing any of this at all. But he knew he would, and he wanted to get used to it so it wasn’t scary if he needed to sacrifice himself to save someone, or something like that.
After all, it was what he could do.
***
"Getting killed by a vampire? Pretty embarrassing, dude." He didn't care what anyone said, vampires were lame as fuck and he didn't get why they were considered cool or scary.
"Yeah, alright." He bent down and grabbed a vial with some sort of chemical liquid in it, handing it to Landon. "Drink this. Pretty sure it's the one that just makes you feel sleepy." Actually, that was a lie. It was a poison that was painful and burned your insides. But Kenny decided not to say that because, well, death was unpredictable and painful. He figured he was helping Landon out by giving him something that will make dying hurt a lot.
***
“Yeah, well, I’m not really all that much of a fighter. I’m more the guy who makes the big sacrifice in the end. And vampires are stronger and faster than me. I mean, other than the dying thing, I’m just a normal dude.”
He took the vial and looked at it curiously. “Just makes me feel sleepy? Okay.” Landon didn’t really like pain, even though a lot of pain was involved in dying a lot of times. But he had some weird feeling that he needed to get used to pain. Oh well. If this one didn’t hurt, that was fine with him.
He emptied the vial, and as soon as he did, he grabbed his throat and fell to his knees. He felt like he was on fire inside - he wasn’t sure he’d ever had anything hurt this bad before. “Arghhhhh” was the only sound he could make as blood bubbled on his lips. Finally, he just fell over, dead.
***
"I was the same. Guess I got sick of it and decided to learn to fight back." He had quite a bit of sword training from Reyna and Eretria awhile back. Hell, the sword and throwing knives were a gift from Ere. Unfortunately, he hadn't really done much practice since she left so he was probably a bit rusty now.
He nodded, still not saying what the contents of the vial would actually do. He figured it was better if he didn't so that Landon could get used to something unexpected. Because death could be really unexpected. It wasn't until Landon fell to his knees that Kenny said, "oops, I think I gave you the wrong one," though he didn't. He knew very well which one he was giving him.
He just watched as Landon died painfully, barely blinking an eye at the other guy's pain. Once he was dead, Kenny just pulled out his phone and checked the network real quick while he waited for him to come back.
***
It took a while for Landon to come back - it wasn’t an instantaneous thing. But there was a bright flare of fire, then coughing as he pushed himself out of the ashes and got to his feet, trying to brush off all the ash that was still sticking to him.
Once he was relatively clean, he glared over at Kenny.
“Just so you know? That one hurt. What was it?”
***
Kenny had seen Landon's resurrections a few times before, he barely looked as he had burst into flames and arose from the ashes. Which was quite messy, by the way, and the main reason why he preferred they practice dying out in the woods. Otherwise, his house would be full of ashes and blood and guts and all kinds of nasty shit.
"I know," he shrugged, ignoring the glare he was receiving. "Pretty sure it was arsenic with a few extra ingredients thrown in." It was so death was instantaneous rather than taking a couple hours. "I don't know, I probably should've labelled them." But he still wasn't going to. It made it more interesting, not knowing what was in the vials.
***
“Ugh,” said Landon, again for emphasis, although he couldn’t actually taste the poison anymore. “It was like I was on fire from the inside. Definitely prefer death by vampire, or death by drowning. Although that one kind of sucked a lot too, to be honest.”
He ran a hand through his curls, making them go everywhere.
“Okay. Your turn.”
***
"Yeah, drowning is pretty bad. Or burning to death." Though he wondered if Landon would even be bothered by that. Didn't he mention being able to produce fire with his hands? Would he be immune to it, if so?
Eh, whatever. Maybe he'd find out another time. "Pick something I can kill myself with then." He'd gone through pretty much all the items in the bag, so he didn't really care what Landon picked out.
***
Landon looked through the bag for a while, trying to come up with something unique. He was pretty sure that he’d used most of it, and he himself knew what most of it did. So he randomly grabbed a vial of something and threw it to him.
“Try this. I have no idea what it is.”
He didn’t want to cause Kenny pain, of course not. Well. Maybe a little.
***
Kenny caught the vial and just shrugged. "Alright," he opened and drank the contents, not even bothering to look at it. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Again, he didn't put any labels on the vials, so he had no idea what kind of poison it was.
But whatever it was, it tasted pretty bitter, and he just waited for the effects to take place. A few moments later, his vision went funny. It made him dizzy and very nauseaus, so he sat down a little. When he vomited, it was all blood. He was definitely bleeding way more than Landon had, blood pouring from his nose and eyes and ears as well. Worse was the pain. He felt like every single nerve was on fire and it was then he remembered which poison it was.
"This might take awhile," he managed to mutter through it all. He still sounded pretty casual about it, like it was a minor nuisance to have to wait. And after more than ten minutes of being in terrible pain, he finally expired.
Then he was back again, blinking and sitting up like nothing happened. "Okay, done. You wanna try a few more things?" he asked, wiping as much blood from his eyes as he could.
***
Honestly, Landon felt a bit bad. He hadn’t hurt that much with the potion Kenny had given him, and at least it had been quick. This wasn’t quick. It was long and drawn out and horrible and Landon felt a bit like a dick for choosing that one.
“Um…” he was a little queasy after that. “How about we just talk. What was the most painful way you died?”
***
"Yeah, sure," Kenny shrugged, grabbing a water bottle so he could rinse out some of the blood from his mouth.
While he did that, he went through some of the more memorable deaths he'd gone through, spitting out the water and blood after a few moments. "I think it was when I died from this disease. I don't remember what it was, but I remember it hurt just to breathe and I was stuck in the hospital. And since I didn't die right away, it was just constant pain. It also took me a year to come back too, so I was dead for that long."
***
“Wow,” Landon said, his eyes widening a bit in the horror of that. How terrible that must have been. “At least all the times I’ve died, it’s been super quick. I mean...I can’t imagine it being so long and horrible like that. Of course...I’m new at this coming back from the dead stuff. Maybe in a hundred years or so…” he just shrugged. Was he immortal in that way? He supposed he’d almost have to be, but it was also a terrifying thought that made him shudder.
“Okay,” he said, pulling his mind away from those dark and forbidding thoughts. “What next?”
***
"Yeah. Thought I was finally going to die for good at the time." Obviously, he hadn't. But since he usually came back right away, of course he thought it was for good when he didn't. And he wasn't sure how he felt if it had been for good. He was used to dying and pain, but sometimes he wondered what it would be like to be at peace for once with no death and definitely no pain.
Whatever. As long as he knew he was going to die for good some day, he was good. "Maybe more slow, painful deaths. Honestly, I'm kinda wondering if you could die by fire or because you're a phoenix, you'd be immune to it or something." Guess there was only one way to find out and Kenny did have a lighter and lighter fluid.
"Or we can try that Death by a Thousand Cuts thing."
***
“Um, let’s do the fire,” he said. The Death by a Thousand Cut last thing sounded ridiculously painful and he was curious about the fire thing himself. He’d almost died by fire before, when the dragon had come after the knife, but he’d somehow managed to avoid getting toasted so he didn’t know for sure.
“And then maybe we can get some lore food?” Sure, he’d eaten not long ago, but dying was serious work.
***
"Alright. Actually, I'm getting kind of hungry too and I bet the Thousand Cuts thing would take awhile to do." Kenny was definitely more concerned about how long it would take rather than how painful it would be. Which he imagined was really painful. From what he heard, it was used as an execution method a long time ago.
He grabbed the lighter fluid and doused Landon in it, then quickly lit Landon on fire with his lighter without so much as a warning. One of the things he never did was wait for him to be ready because death was always unexpected. Maybe it'll help Landon prepare for when it happen other times. Or something.
***
Landon screamed. There was fire all around him, and he could smell the smoke and feel the heat...but he wasn’t burning. Huh? He stopped screaming, and stood up straight, grinning a little as he realized that he was completely surrounded by fire without burning at all.
“Hey,” he grinned. “Look at that.”
***
Really, did he have to scream so loud? Well, actually, maybe. The guy was on fire after all and Kenny knew how much it hurt. Though he was used to it, he kind of forgot that Landon probably wasn't.
Then the screaming stopped and Landon just stood there. And it looked like he was completely fine. Yes, he was on fire but it didn't seem to hurt him at all. "Huh, cool. Guess that answers that question." Landon couldn't be harmed by fire, let alone be killed by it. Guess it was gonna be crossed off the list of deaths they could do.
"I think there's a river nearby if you wanna put yourself out. Then we can head back and grab something to eat." Or maybe he could put himself out? Could he manipulate fire like that? Kenny did remember him mentioning he could make fireballs or some shit like that, so maybe. He really had no idea how the fire aspect of the whole phoenix thing worked, just the dying and resurrecting part.
***
Landon had never tried to put out fire before, but since he wasn’t hurting and wasn’t in a huge hurry, he thought he could at least give it a shot. He closed his eyes and concentrated hard, and slowly the fire faded then stopped completely. He reached up and wiped a bit of blood from his nose - guess he needed to practice more - and nodded at Kenny, rather proud of himself.
“Yeah, let’s go get some food.” And he started off in front of Kenny, absolutely starving now.
***
When he didn't go to the river right away, Kenny wondered if he was going to attempt to put himself out. And surprisingly, he was able to. So guess that was another question he had answered.
"Alright, cool," Kenny said. He quickly put everything back in his duffel bag and caught up to Landon as they headed back to town.