ʙᴇᴇᴘ ʙᴇᴇᴘ, ʀɪᴄʜɪᴇ (trashing) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-02-19 12:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, she-ra: catra, ₴ inactive: richie tozier (2) |
WHO: Richie & Catra
WHAT: Drinking about it (flaming drinks, some out of a pineapple)
WHERE: A fun tiki bar
WHEN: After discovering IT is not squirreled away under Neibolt, and then destroying the house
WARNINGS: Angst? Idk
STATUS: Complete
The sky was an inky canvas and the fireworks were rainbow lights, a blaze lighting up the night - the chaos of those explosives (thanks, Calamity) were what Richie appreciated, and he could practically feel stray sparks being absorbed into his own bloodstream as Neibolt crumpled to the ground like some goddamn wet kleenex. It wasn’t just the explosives from Ashe, but a few different combinations and controlled fire - Richie had no shortage of volunteers and that was something he was thankful for too. Apparently people came together to destroy a building when it was necessary. Neibolt was rickety and abandoned, the former site of ITs crash landing in Derry many moons ago - but IT was no more, a shell of his home appearing in Vallo and, yeah, it actually was kind of cathartic helping in its destruction. He wasn’t being dragged out of it, knowing they had to leave Eddie behind - instead he just got to yell all the profanities he could come up with, releasing a lot of anger and sadness. What to do after that? Drink, clearly. Maybe puppy snuggles next, and mage snuggles when he went and found Max - but first, booze. Served out of a giant ornate ceramic bowl, a bunch of cognac and wine and bitters, with fruit and flower garnishes - plus a shot of flaming liquor, which Richie thought was super appropriate (whoa, watch the eyebrows). Cheesy-ass tiki bars were some of his favorite places and luckily there were one or two around in the city. The drink he’d ordered was called the Scorpion, named for the sting that came with the next morning’s hangover. Sounded perfect to him. The place was made out of bamboo sticks (or it looked like it was, anyway), multi-colored, and decorated with illuminated pufferfish and starfish that looked straight out of a trippy drug-induced hallucination. He couldn’t wait to get shit-hammered. “Thanks again for coming,” he told Catra during this celebratory getaway. “To do an explosion, I mean. I’m just glad we didn’t set the forest on fire.” That was a relief. Today’s turn of events hadn’t been anything Catra expected, but she was adaptable - she was always up for a nice show of explosives tearing up a structure that was all rot and poison. Lit the sky up real pretty, and while she had no literal firepower to contribute (no magic, no mass weapon of destruction to call her own), she could provide some kind of, uh. Support. Yeah. Friends did that, and god knows Richie’s been around to provide them some company anyway. Everyone and their mother was offering their skillset or whatever to assist which was great to see, so the best she could offer was company during the impressive show of arson and some friendly aftercare in the form of alcohol. This destination was an experience, too. Like, her drink was being served out of a carved out pineapple and she was for it. “Out of the dozens of people volunteering to help you out I’m sure someone would have been able to put out any potential fire,” Catra quipped, grinning around the bright purple straw of her beverage. “Slightly disappointed that there was no alien terror to bully to death but that’s probably a good thing for your emotional well-being, huh?” It was true. Everyone was super into the idea of blowing up Neibolt, and especially so soon after murder turkeys? Richie really was hashtag, blessed. Vallo tended to come together during times of crisis and ‘reminders of childhood trauma’ so he guessed that part was pretty impressive too. And of course he was going to blow shit up with Catra - he’d been there for her since the very beginning, when she stalked into Galahd wearing an oversized hoodie, tail twitching and a scowl on her face, demanding that free drink. Now she was at a tiki bar with him, they played video games together, and he was the best uncle to her and Adora’s puppy. Sunrise, sunset - look how far they’d come. “Yeah, I don’t think I could have handled another go at the clown - not without the rest of the Losers here,” he mused thoughtfully - by now the alcohol in his drink, that fiery inferno, had literally been burned off so he was able to pick up the huge bowl and sip gratefully at the beverage that was going to bring him to Hangover City. “Plus, it was like - it felt good to knock the place down. I’ve been doing okay in therapy, you know? This wasn’t gonna ruin it for me.” Jokes and the hilarious method of killing an alien aside, It sounded like a terrifying force to be reckoned with so its lack of presence was definitely best in the long run for Vallo as a whole anyway. No entity that ate children allowed in this world, please and thank you. “There is something nice about seeing something that’s caused you so much grief get obliterated and reduced to ash,” Catra concurred, stirring her cocktail up to keep the juices and booze evenly mixed. She could get behind therapeutic destruction - though, really, not like it gave her any long-term satisfaction but their needs for therapy were vastly different. “Maybe Vallo’s intention was more of ‘here, have this and break it, you’re welcome’ instead of ‘here, fuck you Richie.’” Or maybe there was no intention at all, chaotic fuckery only - she would bet money on that too. “I hope so. I mean, I think it’s happened before - shit shows up and people have fun knocking it down, whatever,” Richie shrugged. He honestly didn’t know or understand how the mechanics of Vallo operated or what the lessons were supposed to be. If there were any at all - jury was still out on that. Maybe shit was what it was, and only that. He plucked out one of the flower garnishes on his gigantic fucking drink, twirling the stem and petals in long fingers - the heat from the flames had made it feel like butter was melting on his face, and it was oddly comforting. Especially after watching the Neibolt house get absolutely pummeled in a fiery inferno. Maybe he just had enough explosions for the time being. Not a conclusion he ever expected to come to, but there was that whole ‘too much of a good thing’ concept. Not to mention, deep down, he really wasn’t the destructive type - he was the sensitive type, the type who hung a lot of his self-worth on whether or not he could make people laugh. Kind of a sap too, beneath the your mom quips and dick jokes and loud overshirts, which were something of an armor unto their own. “You got anything that might show up here for you?” he asked. Oh no. Not the right question to ask when she was slurping up a biiiig gulp of her drink, practically polishing off the rest of it (with the intention to definitely order another). Catra swallowed with a cough and a sputter, enough to require a dab of a napkin over her mouth. “No, screw that,” was her vehement answer but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. And really, when she thought about it - what would pop up? There was an actual list of things that haunted her on days that ended in Y, she didn’t need them to materialize here and get it thrown in her face. “More worried about all the people I’ve fucked over showing up here than anything.” Her tail gave an expressive lash. “That’s probably worse than some thing for me. I’m far from popular back home and with good reason.” Catra didn’t look like much. She was on the smaller, wiry spectrum when it came to physique - not to mention the soft ears, cute stripes, smatter of freckles on her face. What she lacked in brute strength she made up for in brute spite, speed and cunning calculations. She proved that even if the other side had stupid magic powers and magic weapons, she could still bring them to their knees and push them towards desperation with cleverness. In doing that she had driven literally everyone away, and had been alone - so, no. Personally speaking, things had not ended well for her. Therefore if anything did show up because of her it wouldn’t be pretty and she probably deserved it. Divine, cosmic punishment. Another drink order was placed. Same delicious pineapple vessel, extra shot of rum. “Don’t jinx me, Richie.” Drinking out of a pineapple was like, the best thing ever. That, or a fish bowl - he served drinks out of those at Galahd sometimes. Richie probably would have gone that route if he didn’t need to get obliterated in short order and this Scorpion was definitely doing it for him. “Well, you’re trying to make a new go of it here,” he pointed out, and a lot of people were in that boat - whether they died back home and then ended up here or were assholes back home and decided to turn over a new leaf, Vallo was ultimately a land of Second Chances. “If anyone comes at you, I’ve got your back.” He wasn’t gonna let anyone pick a fight with cat sis. Even if she did have a thousand enemies on her home planet or whatever. “Did I ever actually tell the whole story of how I ax murdered someone?” he asked, with a bit of a giggle-snort because it was hilarious when he was cruising toward Drunkville. Besides, going into detail about Bowers and how he’d ruined the arcade for Richie with traumatizing homophobic slurs sort of required him to be imbibing alcohol anyway. “Yeah, I’m -” Sigh.. Catra pushed back some of that crazy hair, missing the way her old mask used to keep it from crowding her face. “I’m trying.” Trying for herself, most importantly. There was a lot she wouldn’t be able to amend worlds away from Etheria but she could start by not actively plotting against the population and working things through with Adora - arguably the person she’s hurt the most throughout it all. “But thanks, for...saying that.” Richie probably had no idea how much it meant. She had done such an incredible job sabotaging friendships before, always assuming that everyone would leave her anyway so why bother putting in effort? This time she was putting trust in people and seeing how it went and look at that - it was working. Catra was happier than she’d been in a long time. Her second round was delivered promptly and she cradled it in her hands as if it was the most precious thing in existence. “And no, you didn’t - just that you did? I think I was more amazed over the fact that you can swing an axe to question the context,” she teased, grinning wickedly with a fang sticking out. “But go on, tell me the story. Love a good re-telling of axe murdering.” Ah, a good old-fashioned story about an ax murder. Richie took a breath, letting it out in a whoosh, before slurping on the drink some more - he was making good progress at getting through it, beginning to feel all cozy and fuzzy. Like this beverage was a nice warm hug. “Well, I guess it started when we were kids,” he said thoughtfully. “I spent a lot of time at our shitty town’s video game arcade. There was this other kid in there, Henry Bowers’ cousin - I guess he was visiting one summer or whatever. I didn’t really understand much of what I was feeling just that - like, he was cute and good at gaming and he seemed to be into me too, until Bowers came in.” Connor (that was his name, Richie didn’t even know how he remembered that when so many other memories were riddled with figurative bullet holes) was being open with a stranger, having fun - then the look of fear in his eyes that flashed there when Bowers was around was telltale; if he didn’t go along with Asshole O’Clock he’d get the shit beaten out of him, so Richie guessed he couldn’t blame the kid too much. “Called me a fairy and...other choice f-words,” he mumbled. “Ran me out of the arcade.” Where he went to go cry on a bench and then get picked on by Pennywise, his Dark Secret a sore point - every Loser had one, and Richie’s happened to be his internalized shame and fear about being gay, a board hung around his neck that read HI, THIS IS MY TRAUMA. “Anyway, that summer he was also goaded into killing his dad by the clown and ended up in a mental institution - but he broke out when we all returned to Derry as adults and tried to kill my friend Mike,” Richie continued. “Mike lived in the clock tower of the town library. He had all these...indigenous people artifacts, because he spent that time researching how to kill IT and there was a tribe that he thought accomplished the goal. One of the artifacts was a hatchet and I just - ripped it off the wall and threw it at the back of Bowers’ head.” Kind of gross, really. He deserved it, sure, but that didn’t make Richie feel great about it. Catra had no idea why she thought this story would be a good time. Alcohol, probably - but also the idea of Richie wielding some form of weapon painted a more comical image in her brain. Like, there’d be jokes and screeching and flailing limbs. The actuality of that story didn’t live up to that at all. Life usually wasn’t that funny anyway and if it was, well - the humor tended to be all irony, brutal, and mirthless. But she listened, ears twitching as the words spilled out of his mouth. “You made the best decision you could have made under the circumstances,” she said after a moment of silence - RIP, Bowers (except not really). Catra wasn’t a stranger to death or, uh, attempted murdering. But war was war and she was trained and (mostly) mentally prepared for that. Richie was just trying to live his best gay life. “And Mike’s one of the ones that survived that whole ordeal with you, right? Hell, that’s thanks to you. But I also get that sometimes even right decisions aren’t the easiest to live with.” She didn’t understand that before but now, with Adora around - she was beginning to get it. “Yeah, Mike was one of the Losers - still is,” Richie amended, because he was currently alive. Unlike Stan or Eddie, and the fact that he’d never see them again stung a lot (even more so now that Eddie had ended up here then disappeared after a whole lot of weirdness). “He never even did anything to Bowers, it was just that Bowers was a racist dickwad.” None of the Losers did anything to deserve being bullied but that was just how bullies operated - they didn’t care, they only needed to find a dumb reason to torment someone and stick to it. Usually it was something they couldn’t change - like the color of Mike’s skin, or Richie’s sexuality. Destroying Neibolt today had also been a reminder that he missed the others a ton and wished there was a way to see if they were okay. But he guessed there wasn’t, not unless they got poofed onto the island. Damn. “He’s in Florida now - it was a place he always wanted to visit but never could because he stayed behind in Derry. Someone had to be there, for whenever IT returned.” Could be argued that the isolation and the obsession with ending IT really got to him - however that was just Mike’s own fear and sore spot. Something to dig into for an entity who ‘salted the meat’ by scaring its food first, and fucking around. “I’m glad he’s okay. Sometimes it’s rough being the only one from home,” he shrugged. “You and Adora still cool? You got a place together and a furbaby and you’re kinda trucking along, huh?” Catra had no idea where Florida was but it sounded sunny, for whatever reason - good for him. She could tell Richie was having feelings about all this, booze probably amplifying that. Poor guy. Her tail swished, giving him an affectionate tap to the arm. “Oh - yeah,” she blinked, slurping up another gulp of citrus and rum through the ridiculous fucking swirly straw the drink came with. “Yeah, we’re good. Working through things still because that’s a whole process, but it’s - we’re girlfriends?” Richie was literally the only person she’s ever given details to about that entire situation. It felt weirdly nice to get it off her chest to someone else. “We’re girlfriends. I woke her up at like three in the morning one day so we could put a label on it.” So that was a step forward. They continued to suck out the venom that poisoned their relationship over the past few years, bit by bit - and it was working. It wasn’t perfect, and that was fine. Progress was what mattered. Catra struggled with her abandonment issues and Adora still had a tendency to kind of steam roll and work herself to the bone, but that had been addressed recently with arguments and the eventual civil conversation. “Strangely, Vallo’s the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time - and I fucking hope I’m not jinxing myself as I speak that into the unverse.” Girlfriends. That was so cute - Richie had a proud look in those blue eyes, slightly sloshy because of the booze - but proud all the same. “Yeah, I get that - Vallo’s one of the best things that happened to me too,” he said. It was true. Sure, it still had its crappy points - like the fact that people could arrive and disappear so quickly, and that sometimes weird dangerous shit liked to crawl out of the woodwork to try to kill them. But he actually got to be out here - it was an accepting kind of place, which he’d been wary of at first. Then he sort of eased into it. It was the first time in his life that he was comfortable with who he was and felt like he could talk about it too - he didn’t have to hide and he had Max. Which was one of the best parts that was a balm to a lot of the not-so-nice stuff. “I mean here, I’m like - I’ve never really had a long-term boyfriend before. Never adopted a kid before either,” he snorted. But Enola was a permanent fixture in his life now - as in, he wouldn’t make important decisions without her and he celebrated all the holidays with her. Supported her in her scholarly and mad science pursuits. She wasn’t really dating though he didn’t know what he’d do if that happened. Probably wouldn’t make a huge deal about it. Unless someone was a jerk to her, then he’d have to throw down. “Relationships are like, hard sometimes - but you two got this,” he slurped from the dregs of his boozy murder bowl. “You literally have a whole family here,” Catra pointed out, though she was sure that Richie was aware of that - maybe? Maybe it wasn’t the most traditional (what the fuck did she know about tradition, let’s be frank) but he had a partner, the teenage ward. That was like, the definition of a nuclear family. Basically. It all felt so permanent, which was something she battled with constantly but like Dan had said - take what you can get, right? Not that she and Adora had the luxury to settle down with a puppy back in their world right now, or possibly ever if shit went down hill. “Annnnd since you brought up Adora and the puppy…” The second drink that finally finished going down the hatch had her relaxed enough to willingly reach an arm around Richie’s shoulder - she had a serious thing with touch, okay, this was kind of a big deal - and waggle her brows at him. “Wanna come over and cuddle Spirit? He still has that weirdly amazing puppy scent to him. C’moooon, you know you wanna.” Aw. Catra’s tail brushes were always reassuring, somehow, Richie had sort of become accustomed to those - but a near hug at a bar was just the icing on the cake. She was like any cat though, usually gave affection on her terms which he respected - he was pretty touchy-feely on his end, however, so the gesture was appreciated. “Do I wanna come over and cuddle your dog? Fuck yeah I do,” he decided, decision made in a split second. His ceramic Bowl of Doom was empty so he slid off the stool - granted, he was a little wobbly but he’d find his footing. Jesus, that flaming beverage had packed a wallop and he was going to give this place ten out of ten stars on Yelp. “You may have to help lead me to the waypoint or - you know what, let’s just walk it off.” Yeah, that sounded like a better plan. It wasn’t too far to Morningside and then he could get his face licked by an overexcited ball of spaz. Really, not a bad way to spend the rest of the day at all. A smallest, tiniest of purrs began rumbling from her chest, her tail picking up a languid rhythm of sways. “Waypoints make me nauseous anyway, I’m good with walking - lemme pay,” Catra insisted and fished out some money from the pocket of her leather jacket. It was still chilly outside and she was a fragile thing when cold air blew, fuck off. “My treat.” Richie had treated her before with that glorious night in with games and delectable pizza rolls. Could she ever rise to that standard? No, but she could take him out and get him comfortably sloshed. Noticing the unsteady footing, she went to link their arms and offer some stability to lean against. Catra had him. She was tipsy but overall good to go - plus, she had feline genes. Her balance was legendary. “That puppy is going to cuddle you so fucking hard, it’s going to be great. And if you wanna take a nap with him that’s cool too, our couch is your couch.” Spirit’s love was unconditional. That bundle of slobber could snuggle the angst out of anyone, no problem. |