Tommy (fastmouth) wrote in somerealityrpg, @ 2020-03-31 23:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | inactive: francis barton, inactive: tommy shepherd |
WHO: Tommy & Francis
WHERE: Random location
WHEN: 28th March
RATINGS/WARNINGS:Low | None
SPOILERS? None
STATUS: Log | Complete
Keeping busy was by far the best thing to do when you were a) Tommy Shepherd b) thrown into some weird ass place called Goodland by some unknown Entity and c) a speedster. Honestly he hadn’t been doing a super great job of that which might explain why he’d taken to trawling the network and trolling when it felt appropriate though thankfully Francis had gotten in touch and suggested they do something stupid and reckless.
So of course Tommy was in.
All the way in.
Speeding across town came as naturally to Tommy as breathing did to others which meant he rocked up beside Francis with a distinct and ever present whoosh and a grin which rivalled the Cheshire Cat.
“Yo.”
Francis rocked up onto his toes and tipped his head at the speedster. He’d heard about mutants, of course he had, but he hadn’t met many. Ultron had gone on a spree of wiping them out as quickly as he wiped out the Avengers to make sure no one could stand up to him. He adjusted his quiver and flexed his fingers around the bow in his other hand. It was his, he’d made it himself and he took great pride in it. He wasn’t, however, planning on using trick arrows with Tommy - not yet anyway.
“You sure you’re fast enough?” he asked with an upward curl of his lips. “I mean, to catch these before they hit the target?”
Francis never had been one to beat around the bush. His eyebrow twitched upwards, the only outward indicator he was even remotely ruffled by how quickly Tommy had appeared.
“Puhlease,” Tommy drawled followed by a roll of his eyes. “I’m definitely fast enough to catch those arrows before they hit the target.” He offered Francis a smirk sharp enough to cut glass and he rolled his neck and stretched his arms above his head, all dramatic like.
A bounce on his toes was what happened next and Tommy winked.
“Let’s do this.”
Francis snorted. “Alright, who’s gonna kick my ass if you get shot in the arm?” He asked, wanting to at least check that someone had the guy covered under medical insurance if he wasn’t quick enough or got stabbed or something. Francis wasn’t usually one to just shoot and expect people to catch it, but he supposed arrows were better than bullets.
Bows were better than guns any day.
He flexed the bow again and drew an arrow out of his quiver, carefully notching it and feeling the compound bow stretch and flex into action, powerful and sleek. It had enough power behind it to take down robots, so his arrows went fast.
“Ready?”
“Nobody ‘cause I’m totally a willing participant in this,” Tommy pointed out. He’d yell at anyone who tried to pull that because he was a big boy which meant he was more than capable of making his own dumbass decisions.
Tommy slipped a piece of gum into his mouth and idly chewed on it as he waited for Francis to get ready and admittedly he stole a look at the archer including but not limited to how his fingers wrapped the synthetic bowstring and what ripple effect that had on posture and muscle definition.
“Yep,” he answered with a discernible pop of a bubble.
Francis shot Tommy a grin and then took a breath, expression settling in something more focused, sharp gaze focused on the target opposite him. He could shoot at 300FPS with this bow, he knew that, and the targets were a fair distance away. If they wanted to make it harder on Tommy, the targets could come closer, but it was better to work out how fast the guy could run first.
He’d never met a speedster before. It was exciting.
He lifted the bow and breathed out, having relaxed the string he drew it back again and aimed at the target. His fingertips brushed his face, the corner of his mouth and with a final look at Tommy and a quirk of his eyebrow, he let the arrow fly.
Tommy lingered beside Francis even after the arrow had been released albeit restlessly if the rocking on his heels were any indication. He met that lifted eyebrow of Francis with a smirk before he all but vanished from the archer’s side leaving nothing but dust in his wake and the force of which he moved was more than powerful enough to leave Francis staggered.
He lifted his gaze and tracked the moving arrow through the air and smiled to himself as he got ahead of it which meant he had time to work out how he could get a hold of it. The nearby tree served as a good launch pad and moments later he’d caught the arrow and landed smoothly on both feet.
And sure he could have stayed right there but what fun would that be?
Tommy sped back to Francis and stopped abruptly in front of him, the arrow being wiggled in his direction.
He hadn’t been ready for Tommy to launch away and stumbled a little with the rush of air, so he adjusted and planted his feet, meaning he didn’t move when Tommy reappeared. He took the arrow with a snort. “Show off.”
Right.
He notched the returned arrow and then another two, tilting his bow to the side and pulling the string back again. He wet his lower lip, tipped his head slightly and breathed out again, letting the three he had fly, and then very quickly notching another one and shooting it in a completely opposite direction.
“Well, duh,” Tommy answered with a roll of his eyes before he lifted his gaze and followed the movement of the arrows as they were launched into the air. “Now who’s showing off?” He asked, lips curled and eyes glittering.
Of course he didn’t stick around for long as in an instant he was gone, racing across the distance to snatch not one but four arrows out of the air, it was almost a shame nobody could keep up with him at this speed because damn he made this look good.
He finally came to a stop, three arrows in one hand while another was being twirled between the long fingers of his other.
“You’d be great to train with,” Francis said, impressed by the speed but not really letting it show. Stoicism was the name of the game: he was smiling though, lips curled up slightly as he took back his arrows. “So, you can run faster than, what, three-hundred feet per second?” That was fast. “Never have any issues with chafing? Or your shoes just...melting?”
“Anytime, any place.” Because anything beat sitting around being bored. Boredom was one of Tommy’s worst enemies and bad things happened when he got bored. “Chafing, no. Shoes melting, yup.”
He had special ones made for him and he wore them every day so they happened to come through with him or yeah he would have issues.
“Don’t let my ordinary looking pair of converse fool you these babies are something else.”
“Oh?” Francis asked, eyes dropping to look at the mentioned shoes, re-notching an arrow, having stopped Tommy from twirling one as dexterity was his thing, damnit. “That must have been a relief.”
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
All fired in rapid succession, less than two seconds to notch, draw and fire, Francis shot arrows in multiple directions across the entire field. It was fun, just shooting randomly and knowing his arrows would come back undamaged.
“Huge,” Tommy assured Francis with a grin.
And just as quickly as the arrows were fired they were caught by Tommy and gathered up to be returned once he had collected all five. It was literally a zip here, a zip there, a blur over there and a blink and you’d miss it moment as he raced around effectively playing fetch but with arrows instead of you know balls.
He skidded to a halt beside Francis and offered up a handful of arrows.
“With me around you’d never need to worry about your arrow supply.”
Francis laughed. “I mean, I can make my own but there’s-” he cut himself off, not wanting to get into the family-that-wasn’t-his-family situation, “-haven’t really found somewhere to do that yet though. So gotta make these ones last.”
He took the arrows back, slotting four of them into the quiver and twirling the final one around his fingers. “If you don’t mind training with me I’d appreciate it.” His shoulder lifted, trying to give the ‘but if you don’t want to I don’t give a fuck’ across and not quite succeeding.
Notching the arrow again, Francis tipped his head, “You wanna carefully stick them back in my quiver when you catch them and we’ll just go round until-” my fingers bleed “-we gotta stop? Like, a stamina test for my arms? Since I’m pretty sure you won’t even break a sweat.”
Tommy rapidly cracked his knuckles and grinned. “Let’s go until your arms can’t any longer.”
And with that they fell into a pretty comfortable pace of Francis firing and Tommy retrieving and placing arrows back into the quiver so the archer never ran out of amo until his arms gave out.
Tommy as expected barely broke a sweat when eventually Francis had to call time and the speedster returned to his side with fingers in his white and bordering on silver hair and bright grin in place.
“I dunno about you but I am hungry.”
Francis broke out into a grin, slipping the arrows back into his quiver and feeling the muscles in his arms burning like he’d just taken on a hundred of Ultron’s robot-army. His fingers ached and his skin was sore, fingertips torn from the string.
“Yeah,” he said, “me too. Wanna grab some food?”
“Always,” Tommy replied with a slow grin which bared teeth and definitely a cute set of dimples. “I mean, I can literally eat out an entire diner without even stopping to take a breath.”
He did however tip his head and arched an eyebrow.
“Your fingers okay?”
“Speedsters,” Francis retorted with a roll of his eyes that bordered on affectionate. He liked spending time with Tommy, it was fun and the guy didn’t seem to take himself too seriously. Plus there was no additional expectations on him to do or be anything. “Good thing the supply-chain of this place is some kind of omnipotent entity, huh.”
He frowned, glancing at Tommy, then at his hand and he nodded, fingertips slipping into the pocket of his hoodie as he slung his bow over his head so it was sitting across his chest.
“Yeah, fine. C’mon. Food.”
“Gonna take that as a compliment,” Tommy replied with a slow grin because honestly speedsters were the best or so he thought but then he was super duper biased. Pfft, whatever.
He smiled as he gave Francis’ shoulder a friendly nudge before he just fell into step beside the other.
This was nice, having somebody to hang out, especially somebody he actually liked being around.