who will wipe this blood away | Glowfic Constellation

under_our_knives

Hak Jauhung doesn't open his eyes at first, because this isn't his first or tenth or thousandth rodeo. He sits with the headache for a minute, lying down on the sofa and listening to the drone of the radio he left on in the background, waiting for his body to be awake enough that he can be pretty confident he is in fact actually awake. Then, without opening his eyes, he feels around for the bottle he knows will be somewhere on the floor near the sofa and—there. Found it. He takes a long swig of the lukewarm liquor and in his empty stomach it doesn't take long for it to start to dull the edges of the pain. Then he opens his eyes.

Not that it makes much of a difference. Other than the slivers of light seeping through the crack under his door and blinds, his room is perfectly dark. But still, hangover headaches take no names and better safe than sorry.

He lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag as he sits up—ow, his lower back hurts, what happened last night?—then blows it out and watches the smoke form patterns in the air as it swirls and catches what scant light is available to see by. Feeling much better after his fix, he enables his image link and the soft blue screen appears in front of him, floating midair and neither emitting nor reflecting any light, visible only to him. The image implant was a gift from Zyu Hoi—Jauhung is pretty sure that's not his actual name, as the hanzi he uses mean "crimson" and "victory", which really is very much—and Jauhung does find it very useful. It means he doesn't have to get off his sofa until he actually feels like it, and he can just check his notifications and the news and whatever else there. Like the little blinking symbol in a corner indicating that he has voicemail from an unknown number.

That's weird. Well, first he'll check memoria's emails to verify that the couple new ones he got since yesterday aren't at all interesting, but then, yes, he'll listen to it.

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with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass

"I dunno, I kind of actually liked her. Very... honest."

under_our_knives

Whyyyyy is this happening.

"Do we have a way to tell whether we're still being hunted? I mean actively, upstairs."

Ehonté

fripouille-ou-andouille

"Yes. We're still being actively hunted, because we aren't dead yet."

under_our_knives

"Okay so we stay holed up here forever, got it."

Ehonté

fripouille-ou-andouille

"It is probably time to get used to a certain background level of being hunted. In the meantime, I have some tricks that should help. Don't jack me out unless I start twitching, please."

With that, he turns back to the jackpoint and once again leaves the waking world.

under_our_knives

Alright, sure, he'll make sure to poke Ehonté if he twitches. In the meantime he'll keep drinking whatever this is that's barely strong enough for him to feel it.

with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass

Ariel transfers herself to the loveseat next to Jauhung's sofa. "That shit looks rank. Share?"

under_our_knives

He offers the bottle wordlessly and leans forward to crush his spent cigarette into a tray, then lights a new one.

with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass

Swig.

She swipes a cigarette, snips the filter off, and tucks it into her hair.

under_our_knives

"So how have you been?"

with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass

"Killing people. Helping spirits. Sometimes helping people or killing spirits, for a change of pace."

She starts fidgeting with a little spark. It's an old tell, for when she has something to say and she isn't saying it.

under_our_knives

Oh is she really going to make him ask.

"Ariel-ze, what is it?"

with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass

"You know at some point you are actually going to have to tell me what happened. Right?"

under_our_knives

"You remember Jake."

with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass

"...the troll or the elf – no, it's gonna be the troll. Yeah, I remember. You'd fuck him, he'd beat the shit out of you, you'd go biking, he'd call you slurs, I'd threaten to break his kneecaps, you'd fuck him some more..."

under_our_knives

"Yeah. Him.

"He shot me."

with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass

"And this was... unusual?"

under_our_knives

In lieu of responding he taps his right eyeball with a finger. It makes a soft clinking noise and a soft glow can be seen from the inside for a second.

with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass

"...oh, shit. Tried to kill you."

under_our_knives

"I don't know. Don't remember. There was something we needed to do, or something, and we needed to come here, and there was a fight—it wasn't just us, but it's... foggy. And he shot me, and someone took pity on me, I guess. I didn't learn who."

He says all of this dispassionately. The only part that elicited any emotion was the memory of Jake shooting him, but everything else is recounted neutrally.

with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass

Well, Ariel's gonna hug him about it.

under_our_knives

...sure, that might as well happen.

"So I roamed around for a bit, and this triad guy saw a mural I painted and wanted to keep me as a pet artist. He's the one who gave me the eye.

"That's all there is to tell."

with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass

"...do you know what happened to the memories? Was it magic, tech..."

under_our_knives

"...I think I was just shot in the head."

with-the-jawbone-of-an-ass