#anyway yeah kidneys = in pain but we r ignoring that

[kirishwima]

you ever have a shift so bad u dont have time to pee for like 10 hours and then ur kidneys hurt

[cdelphiki]

“This is slander,” Damian shouted, right in the middle of the checkout line.  Making even Dick cringe just a little from the shrillness of his voice.  

It was past midnight, and despite the darkness of night, the stillness of the late hour pressing a hushed atmosphere in the Walmart they’d wandered into, Damian continued to be as loud as humanly possible. 

Perhaps that’s what happens when nocturnal children are forced to take a night off.  They don’t get how to actually act in public at night.

“Inside voice, kiddo,” Dick hummed, not looking up from the word puzzle he was doing on his phone.  Anything to keep himself entertained.  “Hey, what’s an eight letter word for thief?  Third letter is an ‘R’” 

“What?” Damian said, then scowled, demanding, “Why are you not outraged by this?  They are soiling your good name and spreading false rumors.”

“Mmm, no.  That’s too many letters,” Dick said, smirking at how Damian’s scowl turned into a glower at the comment.  “What is slander?”

Dick didn’t have the chance to glance at the celebrity gossip rags sitting on the shelf next to him before one was shoved right in his face, much too close for him to read.  

All he could see was an image of himself walking, one arm around Damian as the kid was mid-sentence, clearly passionate about whatever he was saying.  Dick knew Damian had been talking about the movie they’d just watched.  A war dramatization.  Damian had been explaining every single detail that was wrong.  Right down to the buttons on the coats, which ‘would have been copper, not plastic, Grayson.  It’s basic knowledge.’

Without context, though, and without knowing Damian, the picture just made it seem like he was looking up at Dick in admiration.  Actually, it was an awesome picture and Dick wondered how difficult it would be to get his hands on a clean copy.  

Surely he’d be able to buy the picture off the Inquisitor, right?  Or hack into their servers and just take a copy?  How illegal was that, anyway?  It’s not like he would sell it.  Just frame it and put it in his living room.

“Grayson,” Damian snarled, snapping Dick back to reality.  That was when Dick finally read the headline.  ‘Is Damian really Bruce’s grandson?  Insider spills on Grayson’s secret teenage scandal.’

“Oh my God,” Dick said, grinning wide as he started laughing, loud and hard.  “I was 13,” he eventually said, wiping the tears fro his eyes.  His outburst drew more attention to them than Damian’s, and Dick wasn’t even sorry.

“This is not funny.”

“It’s kind of funny,” Dick said, tossing the magazine on the belt with the various art supplies and junk food they’d come to get in the first place.   Damian just had to have some titanium white paint for the portrait he was working on, and with it being nearly 1, only Walmart was open.  

Which was cool with Dick.  Walmart had Cheetos.  The Manor did not.

“Don’t support them,” Damian exclaimed, snatching the magazine up to put back.  

Dick just smiled and said, “excuse me,” to the woman behind them in line so he could grab the rest of the magazines from the rack.  

Letting out a horrified sound, Damian shouted, “Grayson!”

“Damian, kiddo, no one believes these rags.  Don’t worry.”

“But they’re suggesting-”

“And no one will believe it,” he said, setting a hand on Damian’s head and turning him forward, pushing him in that direction, so the person behind them could start loading her groceries onto the belt, “I mean, come on, kid, you’re the spitting image of your dad and since I’m quite famously adopted, it makes no sense that you could be mine instead of Bruce’s, okay?  You just gotta learn to ignore these things.”

“Then why are you purchasing six copies?”

“Want to show everyone,” he said absently, putting the divider down behind his giant bag of Cheetos and four bags of gummy worms.  Alfred was going to kill him if he found out. “And it’s a good photo.  You look happy.”

“I was happy,” Damian said petulantly, crossing his arms.  Acting as if this were somehow a point for him and not Dick.  

Dick just grinned and pulled Damian in, planting a quick kiss in his hair before he was forced to let go, due to Damian’s two finger jab straight into his kidney.  

“Hi,” Dick said to the cashier when she greeted them, trying his best to stand up straight and not whine at the pain Damian had just inflicted, but also not keep laughing at how hilarious it all was.  Because Damian was standing by the bags, arms crossed, an adorable little pout on his face.

“Find everything you need,” the girl asked, smiling at their antics, Dick assumed.

“Sure did!”

“Tt.” 

“Let’s go, kiddo,” he said, after he paid.  Dick took the bags and tried to hand Damian his, the one with the random paint brushes and tubes of paint they didn’t need, but the little punk spun on his heels and stalked off, toward the store exit.  “Let’s go get some milkshakes.”

Damian ignored him, of course, but did eventually ask, “Where would we get milkshakes at this hour?” just as they reached the car and Dick was tossing their bags into the back seat.

“Drive thru, duh.  Sonic is still open, pretty sure.”

“Tt.” Damian slipped into the passenger seat and waited for Dick to get in, then said, “I want a McFlurry.  Reece’s cup.  We have to go to the McDonald’s on Montgomery for that.”

Dick smiled to himself, letting the car fall into silence, all the way to McDonald’s.  He ordered two Reece’s McFlurries at the drive thru and parked so he could eat his without being pulled over for ‘distracted driving.’  Because apparently the police considered using both hands to eat ice cream dangerous and stupid.  That had not been a fun ticket to explain to Bruce when he was 16.  

He had hoped the ice cream would cheer Damian up, but no matter how much of it they ate, Damian just seemed to get more and more agitated as he clearly stewed in his anger about the gossip magazine.

“You’ve got to just laugh at this kind of stuff, D,” Dick eventually said, once they were about half way through their ice cream, “It comes with the territory.”

Damian frowned, staring down at the cup in his hands.  “It does not bother you at all?”

“This one?  Nah.  They’ve been calling me… promiscuous since I was 15.  Just the result of being good looking and Bruce’s kid.  I’m over it.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Damian pouted, setting his ice cream down in the cup holder between them so he could cross his arms. 

“No, it doesn’t,” Dick said softly, turning to face Damian, “but this time they’re accusing me of being the dad of a wonderful kid.  I can’t find it in me to be insulted.”

And that made Damian’s lip twitch as he looked away.  “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

Dick finished off the last of his ice cream and tossed the empty cup into his trash bag on the backseat, then dug out a pack of his gummy words to eat.  “Besides, I looked pretty hot in that picture, don’t you think?”

“Shut up, Grayson.”

“Yeah, the lighting was great.  And my hair was that perfect level of messy, where it looks like I tried to make it look that good without being-”

“Imbecile.  You look like a zombie that hadn��t slept in four days or showered in ten.”

“You sure you aren’t thinking about how you looked?”

“Tt.”  Damian picked his ice cream back up and took another bite, then abruptly said, “Arrogate.”

“What?”

“Eight letter word for thief.  Arrogate.”

“Oh,” Dick exclaimed, fishing his phone out of his back pocket to check.  When the word was accepted, he reached over and ruffled Damian’s hair.  “You’re the best.”

“I know.  You’d be lucky to have a son like me.”  

Grinning, Dick dragged Damian over for a quick hug, trying his best to avoid injury doing so.  “Son or not, I am pretty lucky to have you, aren’t I?”

All Damian did was smile.  The entire way back to the manor.

[thatweirdmod]

Windowless Moviemaker Chapter 6: Race

Windowless Moviemaker

Chapter 6: Race

Kidney turns and leaves me sitting against the wall-- speechless.

My eyes slowly move over to Mitchol, whose slouching form is now cast in darkness by Kidney's shadow. I think, hollowly, that the blood drying on his face probably itches a little. Mitchol manages a small squirm in his ropes.

"Well?" Kidney demands irritably.

Mitchol's swelling, battered face jerks up to attention at Kidney. "W-what?" He dares to ask.

"You're up. Give me a plan."

"Oh," Mitchol says. "Er, I just expected-"

"Is there something you don't understand about your situation?" Kidney interrupts. "You don't get to expect anything. Now, the plan."

"Uh, well, I guess we need to get to their computers somehow. They probably ripped DVDs too. Redhand's a little old fashioned. We might also have to look out for tapes..."

Kidney crosses his arms, scowling. "If I kill these guys, then wipe their houses, am I gonna have to worry that I missed a spot because you couldn't point me in the right direction?"

Mitchol attempts to splay his hands. "Look, I know where my stuff is, but how am I supposed to know exactly where their stuff is?"

Kidney chews at the inside of his cheek angrily and walks over to the table to grab a notebook and pen. "Let's just start with addresses," he says, poising to write. "Redhand."

"He lives up in Tindle in those stained up white apartments. Er, I think the number's 46."

"Costriel." Kidney demands, looking up from his scribbling.

"He lives in an apartment too, and he's actually rooming with Nethandre." Mitchol says. "316, in the Fortitude Apartments."

Kidney nods his head.

"So, er," Mitchol begins. "What are you planning to do now that you know where these guys are?"

"You remember how I said you don't get to expect anything?" Kidney says patronizingly. "The same applies to asking. I, the one who is allowed to expect and ask, do not expect you to open your mouth unless I ask you something."

Mitchol swallows and shifts in his blood-stained bindings.

Then Kidney turns to one of the concrete walls, as if it called his name. He stands, staring at it silently, before asking another question.

"Did you... Did you give those videos to my uncle too?"

Mitchol's mouth quivers. "H-he, uh... he was the one who suggested that, you know, we needed some extra insurance on you in the first place. So yeah."

Kidney stands still, unanswering and unmoving, but I can see his jaw working slightly.

"But please!" Mitchol sputters. "Dude, I-I.. I totally forgot about that earlier-- when you asked who had the videos." His arms press up against the ropes, trying to shield his body. Kidney walks in front of him. "I wasn't holdin' out on purpose or anyth-" Mitchol is cut off by Kidney smacking him over the head with a closed palm.

"Just out of curiosity, Mitchol," Kidney says. "If I hadn't asked about Uncle Stoulfer just now, would you ever have "remembered" to tell me?"

"We-w-w-well I don't know." Mitchol trembles with his hands splayed open and his eyes wide. "Guess it's a good thing you jogged my memory man, ha..."

Kidney turns and paces slowly, shaking his head. "I never liked the way that old, crusty loaf looked at Krin, even at me. But for my own selfish reasons, I ignored it all this time." He scoffs lightly. "Just one more reason to be glad I'm out." He turns back and looks Mitchol dead in the face. "The blinders are off."

"So you're aaalll alone," I say from the corner.

Kidney's eyes shoot to me, surprised.

"What? You thought I'd be totally traumatized just from that?"

His gaze narrows hatefully.

"So some weird shit happened and you saw my dream. It prompted you to get the jump on us, but that was mostly luck. And that's probably as far as your luck will go in regards to picking useful kernels of information outta piles of brain vomit." I snort. "Even my thing was more useful, because I saw you in real time."

Kidney smiles. "Where did I see your dream?"

"Huh?"

"It was inside your mind. It had to have been, 'cause that's where they're all cooked up." Kidney says, tapping the side of his head. "The moon is almost full again. That has to count for something." He breathes in. "I can go further with this. But I'll make sure you stay at your current level. You'll be underground here where you can't touch the moonlight."

"You don't even know what the hell 'this' is." I say.

"Pretty smug talk for a guy who's about to lose everything," Kidney says, with his mouth turned upwards in a smirk that doesn't reach his stony eyes.

"What better time to be smug than when you're about to lose everything?"

His face contorts with all the nasty feelings that must be roiling around inside of him. "I told you I'd take everything from you, and this bullshit positive nihilism of yours will be one of the things. I'll make you understand how bad playing as the loser really is, even if the game has the same black ending for everyone."

He takes Mitchol's phone out of his pocket, then says, "Mitchol, you told me you could set Redhand up."

Mitchol breathes in. "Redhand's looking for a new place to do his snuff movies, so I'm thinking maybe I can tell him I found a good place, and you can catch him there?"

"Hmm," Kidney says, folding his arms. "Why does he happen to need a new location now?"

Mitchol explains, "He's been under some suspicion lately. His neighbors've been complaining about a smell, like rotten something, coming from his apartment."

I don't need to wonder what that smell could be. I watched a video where Redhand Heriolt cut a girl open with a sharpened can top. It'd probably taken a fair amount of practice to learn how to do, but he'd managed to keep his subject awake and alive while he pulled out part of her intestines, smeared the pungent brown contents over both of them, and pleasured himself.

I had thought, while clicking through Redhand's contributions, that cleaning up set after filming that kinda stuff would be way too much of a pain. Looks like Redhand thought so too. That filth and gore in the background really had been as caked-on as it looked.

Mitchol continues, "He even got, you know, reported to the cops 'cause someone heard screams. Redhand laughed it off, sayin' it was slasher flicks playing on the TV. They left after he promised to turn the volume down, and they never got a search warrant or nothin'. Still, better not push it, right?"

I nearly snort. Well no shit someone heard screams if he was doing that stuff in an apartment.

Kidney asks, "Where do you plan on telling him to go?"

Mitchol swallows weirdly, with something about him quivering. "That ghost town 40 minutes southeast of Grishee, the neighborhood has a bunch of abandoned old houses. I know a little white one has a basement too. I think I could convince him it's ideal."

A frown of skepticism sends Kidney's lips pointing downwards, but then he walks closer to Mitchol and loosens some of the bindings so he can move one of his hands. Just as soon, however, Kidney slips a pocket knife out of his back pocket and pops the blade out against Mitchol's neck.

Mitchol gasps sharply, but Kidney just places the previously confiscated cell phone into his newly freed hand. "Text him," Kidney says into Mitchol's ear, adjusting the angle of the knife. "Make it sound natural, and make sure he goes to that little white one."

Mitchol's throat bobs, as much of a nod as there was going to be. He goes to work on the keys:

"sup dood. te ghosted out hood in Caplum has som gud spots. white house wit te green dor has a cool basement."

And "SEND".

Kidney's mouth quirks to the side. "I know I said to make it natural, but are you sure he'll get that?"

Mitchol chokes, "Yeah, I mean, I text him like that often enough."

"I see," Kidney says. Then, the phone buzzes.

"R U THERE NOW?"

"Eh, what should I say?" Mitchol asks.

"If this is a test, you might not be able to answer follow-up questions confirming that you're there. You're at home, got it?"

"nah im chillin in my plce. u out?"

"NO. HOME RUBING1 IN BEEFSLAB+blood I BAWT.CANT HUNT BUT NEed it bad."

"lol. tis Caplum spot wil fix u up. no 1 evr gos der. wnna chekit out togetrr?? jst gimme a time bro."

"nightS YUNG.TERES TIME TO CATCHA WOMAN I LEAVE RN. BETHERE 1HR???"

"frige lvl cool dood XD"

"I didn't say you were supposed to go too," Kidney purrs lowly over Mitchols shoulder. "But, I suppose you can just be 'late.'"

He takes the phone out of Mitchol's hand and re-tightens the ropes. "I can handle Redhand Heriolt from here."

With that, he turns on his heels, clops up the concrete stairs, and leaves me and Mitchol to rot in the bunker.

I look at Mitchol. "Please tell me you just tricked him somehow," I say.

"Shh," Mitchol replies quietly.

A couple of little sparks flare up in my chest and head. If I had the energy, I'd click my tongue. Don't you shush me, bitch. I whispered anyway.

Black silence begins settling down between us, and I close my eyes. The concrete is hard against my body, and I can feel us becoming one via temperature as my warmth seeps away into its cold. I move my lips, and a barely audible, hoarse series of whispers spills from them.

"Mother Earth, Mother Earth, once again to us give birth."

Suddenly, a violent roiling upheaves my stomach, like Poseidon's stormy fist punching the sea in wrath and sending the waters booming and swashing. I projectile vomit all over myself and the floor. The deja vu from my dream hits me first, and then the disgust and embarrassment of real life.

Mitchol jumps, as much as he can tied up anyway. His face is tense with that look of distubia, shock, fear, and concern that I hate directed

at me. "Wha.. are you okay man?"

A suck in a stinging, bile stained breath and respond to him in stench coated words. "No. Fuck... we just... we need to get the fuck out of here."

I lick my lips, and regret pools inside my mouth as my tongue pulls foul bits and cooling, sour fluid back into it.

There's a book of religion that says god will not be mocked and is not to be tested. I suppose I couldn't rightly be of the wombs and births of two different mothers at my own convenience. I never considered myself a man of faith, but this stuff I've been touching-- it seems to be some part of a sprawling realm beyond scientific knowledge.

I look down at myself. The sight of me must be making Mitchol sick, but since I'm already like this... I allow the muscles in my bowels to unfurl like a relaxing kitty, and warm liquid soon soaks my jeans and forms a pool around me.

Yep, this is one thing they don't tell you, at least not often, about being kidnapped. I was living freely up until however many hours ago I was taken, and that meant that I drank coffee and expected to be able to reach a toilet when it made its way through me.

I sigh, and lean over to inhale the merging smells that had all been inside my body. Amazing, how humans are all so disgusting inside, but we act as if we're clean until it comes out. I don't bother to look up at my roommate as I contemplate going number two.

But then I catch my reflection in the puddle of urine, and decide that I have to cancel my reservations with Mr. Brown, because the Train of Thought just arrived, and it only stops at the station for 3 seconds.

The first thing I thought, or perhaps, was told, about Mother Moon was that she was a relayer of the sun's message. And gods... gods... I was just thinking about them. But what do I do about them-- what do humans do about gods? They... sacrifice and serve. Blood, lives... offerings.

"Angel of The Great Star, to you, I unbar. Birth me into the spacial assemblage. Through me, relay the message," I say.

Mitchol again looks at me like I'm insane. Indeed, I've done it incorrectly. If her light cannot touch me, it is pointless. I take in a deep breath, and begin fighting against the ropes around my body harder than I ever fought before. Just a bit, perhaps they're loosening.

If I can just get out of these, I might be able to find a way to force the bunker door open and get outside. And if Mother Moon accepts me, I will be raised above Earth and the Earthlings. I will be 3rd, and they will all be 4th.

In the clearing outside the bunker, Kidney faces the moon and spreads out his arms, letting the glow bathe his body. This pale light can be so many things: ethereal, comforting, serene, eerie... He'd never questioned whose mood it really depended on until recently.

"Mother Moon, Mother Moon..." Kidney trails off, his eyes closed in concentration. But concentration isn't quite right. The chant... the feeling isn't coming over him.

"Mother Moon." He says, more of a plain address than a mystical prayer. "I can see you here tonight, as always. Does it not please you to commune with me right now?"

Gazing up at the white ball suspended in the infinite black cosmos, he ever so slightly feels her grow closer for a moment. However, she remains silent and far.

"On your own terms, Mother Moon." Kidney submits, inclining his head in reverence. Despite everything that has happened, he still feels a little crazy as he walks back to his rental car. He might fit the definition of "lunatic" now.

Kidney drives down the rural road to Caplum. Thousands of spindly, bent trees slash endless shadows through the yellow glow from his headlights. If he were taking the Passage to Hell of the South and met Satan at the end, it might not surprise him. Fitting though, that such a road would be irritatingly monotonous. Bored despite his mission, he flips the radio on.

Unintelligible words and tunes grate through static on most of the channels. Then there's the twang of guitar and a longing voice that reminds Kidney of grass fields swaying under a golden sunset in the middle of a heaven set in nowhere. He never did like country music, so he twists the knob one more click.

A bold, smooth, male voice butters the speakers. "The quiet neighborhood of Green Shade has been shaken by the story of a local housewife. According to her, she was drugged and kidnapped from her home by two masked men, who broke in late at night."

Kidney's heart lurches inside of his torso, along with the food in his stomach. He gags, swerving into the wrong lane for a second. After everything they-- Jeeto-- had told her, Mrs. Horatay was still talking?

The deep voice coming through the speakers crinkles with static. "...underground bunker. They then proceeded to film themselves sexually and physically assaulting her. The woman reports that at various points during the hours-long ordeal, both of her assailants lifted the masks away from their mouths and exposed the bottom portions of their faces."

Kidney's head swims with nausea. He never saw so much as a coin for getting that damnable spasm closeup. The footage of the actual stimulation was cut, he was sure. He'd been the one to edit Mrs. Horatay's movie. But somehow it had escaped his mind that Mrs. Horatay could be looking down, drawing a sketch in her mind for the cops.

"Both attackers appeared to be young males, in their late teens or early twenties. She describes them to be of average height, the shorter of the two having a round face and lightly tanned complexion, while the taller male's face was square shaped. She noted no hair or distinguishing blemishes on either of their faces, however..."

Kidney's hands tremble on the steering wheel, but he forces himself to focus on driving. "Relax. There's gotta be a hundred guys that fit those descriptions around here," he mutters to himself.

After a small eternity, Kidney spots a sign that humanity had come here ahead of him. "SPEED LIMIT 45" in faded black over rusted white. He slows down, guides his rental car into the overgrown brush on the side of the road, then takes the key out of the ignition.

With the engine dead, it's so quiet out here. Kidney pulls on his new black burglar's mask before getting out, just in case. He gently pushes the door closed behind himself, then goes around to the trunk.

A bag of supplies he packed from Jeeto's house is inside, and he unzips it and pockets from it a syringe of animal tranquilizer and a switchblade. The weapon he chooses to keep equipped in hand, however, is the 16-inch machete he brought himself.

Kidney begins his stalk up the road. Even in this dark place with the shadows of the bushes staring at his exposed back, he can feel Mother Moon's light clothing him and guiding his footsteps. Krin's innocently smiling face in the sunset of his room... such a distant memory kept so close to his heart. He clenches the hilt of his machete. He will not be afraid.

Mother Moon's warmth and comfort begins to seep all through him, and he senses her closer than before. The neighborhood comes into view. So he stays low and hidden as he makes his way to the west-most side where that white house is supposed to be. He sees the car before the house. It's a van that only breaks creep convention for its having a green paintjob instead of a white one.

Suddenly, a something like a living memory possesses his mind, only, something is not right. He finds himself looking at himself from behind, his black, hooded form crouching down behind bushes. One of his meaty arms is outstretched, and the hand is holding something, shiny, cold, and heavy. It's a gun-- pointing.

The head that he has an intimate awareness of, but not a oneness with, turns furthur downward without command. He sees white hairs in the bottom of his vision, and the stomach below protrudes too far forward. It is covered with a green Hawaiian shirt.

Kidney gasps, and seems to be sucked back into his own mind again. "Stoulfer," he breathes. Instinctively, Kidney whirls around on his ankles and spins up from the ground. The blast of the bullet rings the air, and Kidney feels it whip past his head and break through the dry shubbery behind him.

The moonlight makes depthless pits of the bags under Uncle Stoulfer's eyes, and carves darkness into every wrinkle and pockmark on his skin. The hairs of his white mustache and goatee twitch.

The old man's deep, raspy laugh mocks him. "I always knew you'd end up givin' me trouble."

Kidney runs for one of the houses. He can hear the many voices of his uncle's mind echoing. The thoughts are so muddled, though, and examined all at once, they're like a wild drove. Irritation. Lust. Smugness.

But the foremost thoughts-- those are the thoughts of action. That is where Kidney puts his focus. The gun fires again, but Kidney knows where it has made its path, and dashes out of its aim just as the trigger is being pulled.

"Shit! Pretty quick on his toes," Kidney hears.

"Got lucky there," Uncle Stoulfer hollers.

Kidney crashes through the rotting, wooden front door of a house, and runs into a bedroom in the back. He stands to the side of the doorway and listens to the floorboards at the entrance creak. Inside, Stoulfer's thoughts sound like mumbling, for only weak, pale streaks of moonlight penetrate the dark building through broken windows and cracked roofing.

Kidney can sense with the stronger rays of light touch the old man's balding head, because those are the moments he can hear more clearly.

Uncle Stoulfer plans to check behind the kitchen counters first, then... Kidney clenches the machete handle and raises the weapon. When Stoulfer comes here, he will strike.