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+---- Thread: GONNA MAKE IT / OPEN (/showthread.php?tid=3948)
GONNA MAKE IT / OPEN - LAZARUS - 07-26-2018
[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1.4;"]/ UH i don’t currently have wifi so this is written on mobile lmfao sorry for any mistakes or awkwardness, i just needed a more solid reason for him to not be around for a few more days
+ please wait for alloy to post with gabriel!
The first day Lazarus had really spent with Gabriel ended when everyone the Cane Corso had ever bowed his head to started decomposing. From the older street kid he’d ended up cornering him with (looking back, it wasn’t really cornering, was it?) to the one that kept it all running, not many people survived that day. It had taught him a strange lesson in all of that chaos: know when you’ve lost; know who to how your head to. He thought it’d have been the last he’d learn, but as he sat there watching blood dry, he’d learned another. Quieter, deeper. For the first time in a lifetime, he was allowed to put down roots. Not too deep, sorta vulnerable — one of those saplings that needed something sturdy to make sure they grew up right. Or at all. Kinda figures that it’d all come back to burn down what little progresss he’d made. He’s never fit in here, but it can’t be that awful for him to try, right?
Maybe it’s a little dumb for someone who fought for food and life and a place to sleep, who’d earned everything he’d ever gotten, but Laz felt shy for lack of a better word. Where Lazarus grew up with chaos, they put themselves into neat little blocks, earned their livelihoods through calm, organied patience. He wonders if anyone here had ever felt the aggressive ambition that still beats in his chest some days. Life here must’ve gotten to him despite all the differences, though. He doesn’t see any of it coming like he should have.
Mealtime is usually when he’s most alert, but teeth sinking into his scruff is a surprise. His head jerks back painfully to lessen the pull on his throat. Something smelling disgustingly of spoiled meat and rot drags him to his feet and then farther, pressure and weight. His lifecpressed between someone else’s teeth. The dog snarls, the noise scraping like sandpaper up his throat as he twists out of it and back to the ground (through might be a better way to word that, with the harsh red lines it leaves on his neck), only to find a ready weight rushing in and knocking him back to the ground. Like they were waiting for him to turn and fight. Like they knew he would. ”Diablo,” the voice laughs, sounds friendly even when he’s seeing white.
The boy staggers to his feet and spins, skin prickling from the nickname. He draws himself in, readying for another spring, and he looks every bit like he’d earned the name then, bristling and almost foaming at the mouth, white teeth against stark black. He hesitates before he can move, just for a second. Staring back at him is a scarred mass of memories, jagged, yellow grin and coat flecked with layers of all things disgusting. Instead of heeding the ancient lesson of knowing when to back down, he rushes again. In an instant, just when his mouth watered at the idea of sinking in (of winning) his jaws clip shut on nothing, and his back hits the ground with a yelp that nears a scream. The pain doesn’t register as impact, but also not as the sharp pressure of teeth or claws. As he rolls to his stomach, tries to breathe, he sees it coming this time. The blow, careless yet methodical, lands across his face. He hisses with the sting but can’t even find his feet in time. The beating continues for a while, to the point that Laz loses count of the bruises he’ll have if he makes it to tomorrow.
”How lucky must I be, eh? Pensamos que estabas muerto, chico. With everyone else who died, you shoulda been.” He’s right, he bought it was his turn after he’d seen blood from everyone who’d fed him, thumped his back, beat him down. Instead, Gabe had just — helped. Nobody looked st the kids on the street corners, nobody gave a shit if they lived. Everyone thought they deserved it, or that’s what it felt like. What had started as fear for what the hybrid could do grew into some kinda hope, a timid flame no bigger than a candle’s, one that wavers but still burns all these months later. ”Since you’re not, it’s got me thinking. You sell us out, Laz?” A paw stays heavy between his antlers, keeping his mouth in the dirt and the short grass against his nose, but the dog struggles up just enough.
”Wish I would’ve,” he pants out, muffled but loud. Defiant.
The teeth that sink into his left antler feel more like God’s retributation than anything a mortal could ever do. It wasn’t quite fall yet and it was still soft, still bled. There was a sickening crack, and the pain — that’s always the hardest part to describe. It shoots from his head straight to his chest; if there was any air left there, he might’ve screamed. When the teeth release their hold on him, his head drops back to the dust and stays there.
”I’ll have to go find your friend once I’m done with you.”
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Re: GONNA MAKE IT / OPEN - GABRIEL - 07-26-2018
[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-size: 9.4pt; line-height: 1.4;"]The first time Gabriel saw Laz was, coincidentally, the last day of life as Gabe had known it. He'd taken a walk of freedom, one last taste of it before he handed himself over, and he'd seen him: a child, probably no older than three months, biting into another kid as he fought for a bone. He hadn't looked away, and he'd offered him the best advice he could give, a memory he clung to in the months following, until he was back on his own again in a strange body so unlike the one he'd been born in. He returned to the place he saw Laz, and while he'd hoped the kid could've found a way out, it didn't surprise Gabriel to learn he'd only gone deeper into the filth, running with a gang of various ages; most of the kids were down on the bottom of the rung, whereas the ones who'd been out there the longest sat at the top. Gabriel worked his way through them all, at every level.
It was a bit of an exercise in his new body, testing out the damage he could deal, but he was also doing a bit of cleaning. Get the older fucks out of the way, the ones encouraging abominable behavior in the children, and sift through the people remaining. Most of them he spared. His interest had rested with the ones complicit, those who would throw a bone to malnourished children and laugh as they spilled each other's blood over it. Those bastards Gabriel was more than happy to set his talons on, and he did. Including the one at the very tippy top, who'd thought he was hot shit because he'd learned how to manipulate the desperate.
He taught him just how wrong he was with each eyeball.
A few of the others he'd spared, ones who hadn't been in the game as long and still had a chance. There was the possibility that they would change. They wouldn't, but they could, which was why he'd given them respite. Laz, however, he took with him. One of the youngest members there, who they'd started calling Diablo merely for how fucking fierce he was, losing or winning, and it would kill Gabe to find him at the top the way the other guy was. His future wasn't Gabe's to decide, but- sometimes life took things out of their hands, so he decided to say to hell with watching another kid walk down the path to his own certain death.
Unfortunately, it seemed some of those he left alive didn't appreciate the mercy, and just as he knew, they didn't change.
"Oh, this was dumb, even for you." The hybrid's expression remained neutral, dark eyes even, though internally, he was sorting through the ways he could make the bastard regret touching Lazarus. There were so many. "If you'd just come asking for me, I might've been nicer."
"What do you think I've been doing, viejo?"
"Making a mistake." The dog sneered in response, stepping away from Lazarus. He was a bit larger than the kid in terms of height, but he was bony, and size wasn't much of an issue, not for Gabe; it usually just meant there was more for his talons to tear into. "I'd tell you to leave, but- I don't want you to."
"So eager to die?"
Gabriel shrugged, the motion slow and casual. "Nah. Just bored." The canine snarled and swept in for a bite, but the height difference was against him here, and Gabe struck out with his talons as he twisted away, not even glancing toward his opponent as he headed straight for Laz. Behind him, he heard a thump, because Gabe never missed unless he wanted to, and there were no third chances. Not for this. "Mijo, ¿estás bien?" The antler was the most pressing injury, and the hybrid's eyes frowned, bloodied talons resting gently around the Cane Corso's face. "Mataría todos ellos para ti."
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