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froodleThey ride through City Hall on the back of a dinosaur. It's hastily drawn, a little vague around the edges, and Harley is fairly sure that real dinosaurs didn't carry nunchucks, or at least if they did, they certainly didn't use them so well.
Still, as garbage men go flying in all directions, and the massive reptile sings a song to itself about how much it likes to stomp and roar, because it is, after all, just a dinosaur, Harley can't deny that it's very, very effective.
"His name is Scribbles," says Sara Sue, laying one hand tenderly on the massive lead-grey neck and beaming with pride. At her touch, or the sound of his name, Scribbles roars in delight and does a little capering dance, trampling garbage men into paste beneath his massive, semi-translucent feet.
The entrance to the underground levels of City Hall is a gullet, ringed with rows and rows of lamprey-like teeth, and bone stairs slicked with blood leading away into the darkness. On the way down, Scribbles loses his footing and in order to regain his balance, he drops his nunchucks and claws at the walls for support. The entire tunnel shudders and quakes and the screams, which had faded to an irritating background noise, return full-force.
The bars of Dash's cell are made of blood and bone and wire, and Scribbles shoves his huge blunt nose between them, wriggles, and pulls away wearing the entire front wall as a necklace. He shakes his head to free himself and Harley and Sara Sue slip off his back before he accidently dislodges them.
On the ground, Harley sees, and feels his gorge rise. Beside him, Sara Sue hisses in sympathy, and her hand tightens on his own.
There are cables grafted to the back of his hands. The skin around them is torn and bruised, and they have been in place so long that his flesh has tried to heal around and over them. Sparking wires hiss and fizz in the slow ooze of blood that seeps around the junction between boy and machine, and the air smells of cooking meat.
Harley never met Dash X before his big brother walked out of the story they shared and into a new one that Harley has never read, and may never learn the ending to. But he knows that beneath the obscene mix of copper wiring and coppery blood, there is a plus symbol and a minus symbol, and he has a sudden, sick realisation as to how exactly the enormous crouching monster that is City Hall has been given life.
Simon had always been vehemently anti-gun, but he also became decidedly pro-scissors after his earliest adventures with Marshall Teller. When Harley uses a pair of gardening sheers to sever the cables between the boy they take life from and the building they channel it into, Dash screams so long and loud that Harley thinks for a moment that he has killed him, and all the answers he wanted along with him.
Then Dash gets to his feet, shakey and pale, picks up a three foot bone shard from the debris underfoot, and slams it viciously against the nearest wall of living tissue until the bone shatters in his bleeding hands. When he's done, he turns and looks at them, and they stare back, unsure of what to say.
"We should get out of here," he croaks. Scribbles leans forward and licks his face with a tongue as soft as crumpled tissues, and Dash stumbles backwards and looks, for a moment, like he might cry. Instead, he scrubs angrily at his face with the torn and dirty sleeve of his trenchcoat, and lets them help him onto the dinosaur's back.
Outside, he blinks in the neon glare of the streetlights, and stares open-mouthed at the carnage in front of him. Scribbles picks up a garbage man's severed leg and chews it thoughtfully, while Sara Sue rubs the sensitive place behind his left ear and whispers about what a good boy he is.
Dash looks at Harley, eyes narrowing as he tries to place him. Eventually, he shakes his head in disgust and simply asks what his deal is.
Harley knows this part of his story by heart, has gone over it a thousand times, could recite it right here, ankle-deep in blood and bone. Instead, he pulls out a cheap black and white composition book, a decade old and fragile with constant re-readings, and passes it to the kid with the grey hair.
He'd found it when he was nine, huddled under Simon's old bed, hiding from one of his father's drunken rages. It was tucked between the mattress and the bedframe, and it had been waiting for him all that time.
Marshall's record of events had been addressed to "whom it may concern." Simon's version simply said, "Harley."
Still, as garbage men go flying in all directions, and the massive reptile sings a song to itself about how much it likes to stomp and roar, because it is, after all, just a dinosaur, Harley can't deny that it's very, very effective.
"His name is Scribbles," says Sara Sue, laying one hand tenderly on the massive lead-grey neck and beaming with pride. At her touch, or the sound of his name, Scribbles roars in delight and does a little capering dance, trampling garbage men into paste beneath his massive, semi-translucent feet.
The entrance to the underground levels of City Hall is a gullet, ringed with rows and rows of lamprey-like teeth, and bone stairs slicked with blood leading away into the darkness. On the way down, Scribbles loses his footing and in order to regain his balance, he drops his nunchucks and claws at the walls for support. The entire tunnel shudders and quakes and the screams, which had faded to an irritating background noise, return full-force.
The bars of Dash's cell are made of blood and bone and wire, and Scribbles shoves his huge blunt nose between them, wriggles, and pulls away wearing the entire front wall as a necklace. He shakes his head to free himself and Harley and Sara Sue slip off his back before he accidently dislodges them.
On the ground, Harley sees, and feels his gorge rise. Beside him, Sara Sue hisses in sympathy, and her hand tightens on his own.
There are cables grafted to the back of his hands. The skin around them is torn and bruised, and they have been in place so long that his flesh has tried to heal around and over them. Sparking wires hiss and fizz in the slow ooze of blood that seeps around the junction between boy and machine, and the air smells of cooking meat.
Harley never met Dash X before his big brother walked out of the story they shared and into a new one that Harley has never read, and may never learn the ending to. But he knows that beneath the obscene mix of copper wiring and coppery blood, there is a plus symbol and a minus symbol, and he has a sudden, sick realisation as to how exactly the enormous crouching monster that is City Hall has been given life.
Simon had always been vehemently anti-gun, but he also became decidedly pro-scissors after his earliest adventures with Marshall Teller. When Harley uses a pair of gardening sheers to sever the cables between the boy they take life from and the building they channel it into, Dash screams so long and loud that Harley thinks for a moment that he has killed him, and all the answers he wanted along with him.
Then Dash gets to his feet, shakey and pale, picks up a three foot bone shard from the debris underfoot, and slams it viciously against the nearest wall of living tissue until the bone shatters in his bleeding hands. When he's done, he turns and looks at them, and they stare back, unsure of what to say.
"We should get out of here," he croaks. Scribbles leans forward and licks his face with a tongue as soft as crumpled tissues, and Dash stumbles backwards and looks, for a moment, like he might cry. Instead, he scrubs angrily at his face with the torn and dirty sleeve of his trenchcoat, and lets them help him onto the dinosaur's back.
Outside, he blinks in the neon glare of the streetlights, and stares open-mouthed at the carnage in front of him. Scribbles picks up a garbage man's severed leg and chews it thoughtfully, while Sara Sue rubs the sensitive place behind his left ear and whispers about what a good boy he is.
Dash looks at Harley, eyes narrowing as he tries to place him. Eventually, he shakes his head in disgust and simply asks what his deal is.
Harley knows this part of his story by heart, has gone over it a thousand times, could recite it right here, ankle-deep in blood and bone. Instead, he pulls out a cheap black and white composition book, a decade old and fragile with constant re-readings, and passes it to the kid with the grey hair.
He'd found it when he was nine, huddled under Simon's old bed, hiding from one of his father's drunken rages. It was tucked between the mattress and the bedframe, and it had been waiting for him all that time.
Marshall's record of events had been addressed to "whom it may concern." Simon's version simply said, "Harley."
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no subject
Date: 2015-08-31 01:27 pm (UTC)oh oh oh wow.
that last paragraph. my heart.
the whole thing.
brilliance
no subject
Date: 2015-08-31 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-01 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-01 07:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-01 11:43 am (UTC)that along with Marsicorn we must have the Dashisaurus
no subject
Date: 2015-09-01 05:25 pm (UTC)what is simon tho??
no subject
Date: 2015-09-01 07:02 pm (UTC)the zoo keeper of course
no subject
Date: 2015-09-01 08:48 pm (UTC)poor simon. thats pretty much his role in canon anyway...
no subject
Date: 2015-09-01 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-01 09:12 pm (UTC)