Strings (Mythklok Interstitial)
Oct. 8th, 2011 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: Strings (Mythklok Interstitial)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Charles has to deal when Boon gets into trouble with the local cops.
Warnings: Swearing
Notes: To be clear, this is in the Mythklok AU, but a few years down the road in the continuity.
The next chapter is coming very slowly. Hoping to have it done this weekend (which includes Monday, 'cuz I work for the federal gummint, and it's St. Swithin's Day or something), but meanwhile, here's a weird bitlet with lots of OCs that's probably of interest to absolutely no one.
Charles kicked at a chair to bring it under his leg, and then held the guitar up to rest on one knee, squinting over his glasses as he tightened the peg, smiling slightly, as his finger held the string, at the very nice sustain.
He looked over at Elias, and, the smile brightening just a fraction, played a riff.
Elias hopped up to sit on the workbench and excitedly held out his hands, fingers wiggling. Charles handed over the newly made guitar to his son, and the boy, hunching over, tangled hair drooping everywhere, plucked out a run that, while it could not compete with the work or Skwisgaar Skwigelf (for no one, human or immortal, would ever match that one) might have made Toki Wartooth quite smug for a day or so.
A grin – his father, Ganesh's, broad grin – erupted on his face.
Charles had to grin back. His son's smile was practically irresistible. “Gimme that,” he said, grabbing at the guitar. “I know you're better than me, but how the hell are you better than your cousin?”
“Liam's a lazy butt,” grinned Elias, hopping back down off the bench. “Besides I like the drums better.”
“Because they're more annoying?” asked Charles, reaching a finger into Elias' hair, hoping to find a face somewhere underneath.
“You can make use of all your arms!” Elias said, holding out his extras. “Uncle Pickles says I might be really good some day if I keep at it.”
Charles cocked an eyebrow. Elias was already really good. Probably better than any human could hope to be anyway. “You ever tried with those fancy double neck guitars?” Charles asked, eyeing his son.
Elias' adolescent face went from smugness to awe. Two sets of arms now experimentally mimed playing the guitar. “Whoa I never thought of that!”
“Your Uncle Skwisgaar has a couple of those – but DON'T go near them!”
Elias was still gawping at his father. “You're SO SMART Dad!” said the teen in wonder.
“I have my moments,” allowed Charles.
Elias' phone rang. “JYOTI!” he shouted into it.
“I believe those things have amplifiers,” noted Charles, placing the guitar back on the workbench and carefully wiping it down with a soft cloth. Jyoti was the nickname of a small boy who, a little over a decade ago, had been abandoned in an orphanage in India. Through a series of coincidences, he had come under the care of Elias' long time tutor, the Cherub, Kamuel. Although Jyoti had experienced some health problems, he had grown into a rather sweet, if bookish boy, who had somehow been adopted as a sort of little brother by Elias and his cousins.
“I'll be right there dude!” Elias told the phone. “We're hitting it!” he informed his father.
“Yeah, I gathered that,” Charles told him. “Ulp!” he gasped as he found himself glomped into tight four-armed hug.
“See you later, Daddy!”
“Uh-huh.”
Elias bolted for the door, but skidded to a halt just before he made his escape.
“And,” said Ganesh, who had suddenly appeared in the doorway, his own double set of arms now wagging, “where do we think we are going?”
“I was just gonna go down to the surface for a few hours and ride bikes with Jyoti and we'll be home before curfew and I have my homework done except for maybe one little thing.” Two pairs of arms, palms up.
“One LITTLE thing?” smiled Ganesh.
“It's gotta be little,” supplied Charles, “because you would never exaggerate to your Dad, right?”
Elias' eyes grew very large. “Merker-bani seh, Baap?” he pleaded.
“Mmmmm,” said Ganesh, jerking a few thumbs in the direction of the door. “OK, haan.” But Elias was already out and off.
“You think I'm too lenient?” Charles asked Ganesh as the tall god pecked him on the cheek.
Ganesh grinned his own version of the large grin. “It is as usual: I administer discipline where needed, and you spoil the child absolutely rotten.”
“I thought I was the disciplinarian!” protested Charles.
“No,” said Ganesh. “At any rate, It is easier coming from me, as I am taller, and thus a more fitting authority figure.”
Charles mock glowered in mock fury. “You- I'll show you!”
“Will you?” smiled Ganesh. “We are, after all, now alone tonight.”
“What's the big deal!” thundered Nathan Explosion, who had burst into the workshop.
“Well, we were alone,” said Charles.
“What is the matter, Nathan?” asked Ganesh.
“Your kid was running down the hall like the devil is behind him! Which would be sort of cool. Is the devil around?”
“Not tonight, I am afraid,” said Ganesh.
“Boon wants to escape from the boring people,” laughed Charles.
“WHAT! I'M NOT A BORING PERSON!”
“I'm afraid every being over the age of eighteen probably qualifies, Nathan,” commiserated Ganesh.
“What was that?” asked Ganesh, leaning over to light a joint.
Charles lifted his head off of Ganesh's chest and propped himself on his forearms and repeated himself. “I feel like I intimidate him sometimes.”
“Not Boon?” asked Ganesh, exhaling.
“Yeah, Boon,” said Charles, sliding up on Ganesh's body a small measure to grab the joint from him. “He seems – I dunno – a little afraid of me sometimes.”
“He is intimidated because you are intimidating,” said Ganesh, putting a hand behind his head on the pillow.
“But, you got that destruction lord deal! Why isn't he scared of you?”
Ganesh looked down at Charles, the angel's weak eyes blinking without his glasses. Sex had added a slight flush to his pale angel skin, making him look quite unnervingly human. Ganesh longed to put several arms around him, but knew from years of experience this would not be the thing to do. “I possess destructive powers,” Ganesh said. “You, dear, are a former angel of vengeance. You were made to be intimidating.”
“I wasn't … made.”
“The apple did not fall far from the tree.” Ganesh put an affectionate hand through Charles' hair.
“But Raziel's kids don't seem intimidated by her!”
“She is their mother. It is a different relationship. Believe me, I had a father who was impossible to please. It can be...” He held his breath a beat, and then exhaled. “...A vexation.”
“I'm not impossible to please.”
“No, merely quite difficult. And you must admit, you display affection much in the manner of a prickly pear.”
Charles glowered in what must be admitted was a rather prickly manner.
“He will come in time to know,” said Ganesh, “it is fortunate to have such a power on ones side.” A practiced hand found the correct spot on Charles' back, the invisible seam running down where wings, in his True Form, would have attached. A thumb running down – not too much pressure, but not to little – and Ganesh felt tensed muscles relax as, somewhere deep inside the brain and spinal chord, nerves released soothing opoids.
There was a pounding on the suite door. “What could that be?” asked Ganesh, but Charles was already up, pulling on a pair of pajama pants and moving.
“Nathan,” came Charles' voice from the doorway. Ganesh slid into a robe and went out as well.
“It's the cops, dude,” said Nathan.
“Oh, shit, not Toki again...?”
“Dude. It's Boon.”
Charles entered the police station. A small, dark-haired boy wearing very thick glasses sat on a bench.
“Honored Sariel!” said the boy, jumping to his feet.
“Jyoti,” he said. “Kam is on his way to pick you up.”
“It wasn't his fault! It's all my fault!”
“We'll straighten this out. Don't worry.”
“I'm sorry!”
“It will be fine. You stay here and wait for your dad. I'll go talk to Boon. We'll straighten this out. OK?”
Jyoti didn't say anything, but nodded and nervously sat down again.
Charles didn't let the boy see his frown. He had only heard a garbled secondhand version that Nathan had gotten from whomever usually tipped off Nathan about these things.
He was directed into the back. Elias looked so very small sitting alone in the room. Charles imagined they used it for interrogations. It seemed a little darker where the boy was sitting, as if the light could not quite penetrate. His son was clearly very, very angry.
Elias jerked up at the sound of the door, and then visibly gulped when his father entered.
Charles seated himself opposite his son. A funny adolescent mixture of fear and defiance.
“I don't care! I would do it again!” Elias said.
“Elias,” said Charles. The boy quieted. The boy knew from long experience that when he was not addressed by his nickname, he needed to listen. “Here is what I want you to do. This is very important. I want you to start from the beginning and tell me everything. Don't lie. And don't skip over anything. I promise I won't get angry. But I really need to hear the full story. From you. All right?”
Elias gulped again and wiped away a tear. “So they dropped us off – the Klokateers – and we were riding bikes for a while, and then there were these guys....”
“OK. Stop. How many guys?”
“Four guys. We've seen 'em before. I think one of them, his dad is a cop here?”
Charles nodded, filing that away.
“They make fun of Jyoti. They call him four eyes and gay and stuff. And he always says ignore them, so we ignored them, but they followed us, so I got fed up this time and told them to fuck off.” Elias, who had been staring at the tabletop, glanced up at his father.
“And what did they do?” asked Charles softly.
“They.... They left us alone for a while.”
Charles smiled very slightly. Elias was a sweet-tempered boy, but, like his father, Ganesh, when angered, could take on a quite unsettling, dark appearance, especially to humans. Well, humans with any sense. But, these were human boys. “Elias. I need you to tell me the truth here. At any time tonight did you use magic?”
Elias shook his head, his eyes wide. “Oh no! I would never!”
“All right. Go on.”
“So, then they show up. AGAIN. But, there's only three? And, one of 'em, the big one, pushes over Jyoti, so I go and I punch him in his fat face! And, and, he falls over into the ditch. Because he's a big baby! And the others ride off. But then, there's cops, already there. I don't understand. And they tell me I'm fighting and they're gonna call my dad.” Elias, his story done, exhaled with the effort.
Charles grew very still. “Stay here,” he said. And he was out of the room.
There was now a big cop standing by the desk. “Are you the father?” he demanded of Charles. “They surrounded my boy! They lay in wait! They attacked him!”
But the cop took a half step backwards as Charles marched towards him. To the end of his days, he wasn't sure why – the guy was half a head shorter than him. There was something wierd glinting in the dude's eyes.
Charles leaned forward, too far forward. Another half step back. “Who's in charge? I'm gonna see him. Now. I want his fucking head. On my fucking dinner plate.”
Later, some I the room would swear up and down they saw wings. Two glowing wings.
Charles sat in the limo, brandy clutched in one furious hand.
“Uh. I'm sorry.”
He blinked over at Elias, sitting across from him. The boy looked miserable.
“Why?” snapped Charles.
“Because.... You had to come down here. In the night?”
“You punched a fucking bully! Never be sorry. Fucking cops. I'll fucking sue their fucking asses all the way to fucking hell.”
Elias blinked. He got up and went to sit next to his father. He tucked his legs up underneath him. “Really?'
“Fucking assholes fucking hassling my son,” grumbled Charles, knocking back the brandy. “I'll get your Uncle Phanuel to come rain damnation on their asses. But!” he held up a finger at Elias. “Don't you do that! It's a Daddy thing.”
Elias nodded.
Charles studied his son his expression softening somewhat. “Look, when we get back, I think I'm too wired to get back to sleep right away....”
“We have a new guitar!”
“You wanna jam for a bit?
“Yeah!”
The car stopped, and a Klokateer chauffeur opened the door.
“OK. But you can't make fun of me for being lame,” Charles said as they walked towards the waiting Dethcopter. He felt two sets of arms slipping into his elbow.
“I wouldn't do that!” Elias protested. “You're not lame.”
“OK then.” Charles traced out a finger into his son's tangled hair, hoping for a glance of face somewhere underneath.
“You know what I was thinking?” said Elias eagerly.
“What?”
“You know what you could make next? A double guitar. That's got both guitar and bass!”
“They make those.”
“They do?”
“Yeah. Sometimes adults aren't completely stupid.”
And they disappeared into the Dethcopter.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Charles has to deal when Boon gets into trouble with the local cops.
Warnings: Swearing
Notes: To be clear, this is in the Mythklok AU, but a few years down the road in the continuity.
The next chapter is coming very slowly. Hoping to have it done this weekend (which includes Monday, 'cuz I work for the federal gummint, and it's St. Swithin's Day or something), but meanwhile, here's a weird bitlet with lots of OCs that's probably of interest to absolutely no one.
Charles kicked at a chair to bring it under his leg, and then held the guitar up to rest on one knee, squinting over his glasses as he tightened the peg, smiling slightly, as his finger held the string, at the very nice sustain.
He looked over at Elias, and, the smile brightening just a fraction, played a riff.
Elias hopped up to sit on the workbench and excitedly held out his hands, fingers wiggling. Charles handed over the newly made guitar to his son, and the boy, hunching over, tangled hair drooping everywhere, plucked out a run that, while it could not compete with the work or Skwisgaar Skwigelf (for no one, human or immortal, would ever match that one) might have made Toki Wartooth quite smug for a day or so.
A grin – his father, Ganesh's, broad grin – erupted on his face.
Charles had to grin back. His son's smile was practically irresistible. “Gimme that,” he said, grabbing at the guitar. “I know you're better than me, but how the hell are you better than your cousin?”
“Liam's a lazy butt,” grinned Elias, hopping back down off the bench. “Besides I like the drums better.”
“Because they're more annoying?” asked Charles, reaching a finger into Elias' hair, hoping to find a face somewhere underneath.
“You can make use of all your arms!” Elias said, holding out his extras. “Uncle Pickles says I might be really good some day if I keep at it.”
Charles cocked an eyebrow. Elias was already really good. Probably better than any human could hope to be anyway. “You ever tried with those fancy double neck guitars?” Charles asked, eyeing his son.
Elias' adolescent face went from smugness to awe. Two sets of arms now experimentally mimed playing the guitar. “Whoa I never thought of that!”
“Your Uncle Skwisgaar has a couple of those – but DON'T go near them!”
Elias was still gawping at his father. “You're SO SMART Dad!” said the teen in wonder.
“I have my moments,” allowed Charles.
Elias' phone rang. “JYOTI!” he shouted into it.
“I believe those things have amplifiers,” noted Charles, placing the guitar back on the workbench and carefully wiping it down with a soft cloth. Jyoti was the nickname of a small boy who, a little over a decade ago, had been abandoned in an orphanage in India. Through a series of coincidences, he had come under the care of Elias' long time tutor, the Cherub, Kamuel. Although Jyoti had experienced some health problems, he had grown into a rather sweet, if bookish boy, who had somehow been adopted as a sort of little brother by Elias and his cousins.
“I'll be right there dude!” Elias told the phone. “We're hitting it!” he informed his father.
“Yeah, I gathered that,” Charles told him. “Ulp!” he gasped as he found himself glomped into tight four-armed hug.
“See you later, Daddy!”
“Uh-huh.”
Elias bolted for the door, but skidded to a halt just before he made his escape.
“And,” said Ganesh, who had suddenly appeared in the doorway, his own double set of arms now wagging, “where do we think we are going?”
“I was just gonna go down to the surface for a few hours and ride bikes with Jyoti and we'll be home before curfew and I have my homework done except for maybe one little thing.” Two pairs of arms, palms up.
“One LITTLE thing?” smiled Ganesh.
“It's gotta be little,” supplied Charles, “because you would never exaggerate to your Dad, right?”
Elias' eyes grew very large. “Merker-bani seh, Baap?” he pleaded.
“Mmmmm,” said Ganesh, jerking a few thumbs in the direction of the door. “OK, haan.” But Elias was already out and off.
“You think I'm too lenient?” Charles asked Ganesh as the tall god pecked him on the cheek.
Ganesh grinned his own version of the large grin. “It is as usual: I administer discipline where needed, and you spoil the child absolutely rotten.”
“I thought I was the disciplinarian!” protested Charles.
“No,” said Ganesh. “At any rate, It is easier coming from me, as I am taller, and thus a more fitting authority figure.”
Charles mock glowered in mock fury. “You- I'll show you!”
“Will you?” smiled Ganesh. “We are, after all, now alone tonight.”
“What's the big deal!” thundered Nathan Explosion, who had burst into the workshop.
“Well, we were alone,” said Charles.
“What is the matter, Nathan?” asked Ganesh.
“Your kid was running down the hall like the devil is behind him! Which would be sort of cool. Is the devil around?”
“Not tonight, I am afraid,” said Ganesh.
“Boon wants to escape from the boring people,” laughed Charles.
“WHAT! I'M NOT A BORING PERSON!”
“I'm afraid every being over the age of eighteen probably qualifies, Nathan,” commiserated Ganesh.
“What was that?” asked Ganesh, leaning over to light a joint.
Charles lifted his head off of Ganesh's chest and propped himself on his forearms and repeated himself. “I feel like I intimidate him sometimes.”
“Not Boon?” asked Ganesh, exhaling.
“Yeah, Boon,” said Charles, sliding up on Ganesh's body a small measure to grab the joint from him. “He seems – I dunno – a little afraid of me sometimes.”
“He is intimidated because you are intimidating,” said Ganesh, putting a hand behind his head on the pillow.
“But, you got that destruction lord deal! Why isn't he scared of you?”
Ganesh looked down at Charles, the angel's weak eyes blinking without his glasses. Sex had added a slight flush to his pale angel skin, making him look quite unnervingly human. Ganesh longed to put several arms around him, but knew from years of experience this would not be the thing to do. “I possess destructive powers,” Ganesh said. “You, dear, are a former angel of vengeance. You were made to be intimidating.”
“I wasn't … made.”
“The apple did not fall far from the tree.” Ganesh put an affectionate hand through Charles' hair.
“But Raziel's kids don't seem intimidated by her!”
“She is their mother. It is a different relationship. Believe me, I had a father who was impossible to please. It can be...” He held his breath a beat, and then exhaled. “...A vexation.”
“I'm not impossible to please.”
“No, merely quite difficult. And you must admit, you display affection much in the manner of a prickly pear.”
Charles glowered in what must be admitted was a rather prickly manner.
“He will come in time to know,” said Ganesh, “it is fortunate to have such a power on ones side.” A practiced hand found the correct spot on Charles' back, the invisible seam running down where wings, in his True Form, would have attached. A thumb running down – not too much pressure, but not to little – and Ganesh felt tensed muscles relax as, somewhere deep inside the brain and spinal chord, nerves released soothing opoids.
There was a pounding on the suite door. “What could that be?” asked Ganesh, but Charles was already up, pulling on a pair of pajama pants and moving.
“Nathan,” came Charles' voice from the doorway. Ganesh slid into a robe and went out as well.
“It's the cops, dude,” said Nathan.
“Oh, shit, not Toki again...?”
“Dude. It's Boon.”
Charles entered the police station. A small, dark-haired boy wearing very thick glasses sat on a bench.
“Honored Sariel!” said the boy, jumping to his feet.
“Jyoti,” he said. “Kam is on his way to pick you up.”
“It wasn't his fault! It's all my fault!”
“We'll straighten this out. Don't worry.”
“I'm sorry!”
“It will be fine. You stay here and wait for your dad. I'll go talk to Boon. We'll straighten this out. OK?”
Jyoti didn't say anything, but nodded and nervously sat down again.
Charles didn't let the boy see his frown. He had only heard a garbled secondhand version that Nathan had gotten from whomever usually tipped off Nathan about these things.
He was directed into the back. Elias looked so very small sitting alone in the room. Charles imagined they used it for interrogations. It seemed a little darker where the boy was sitting, as if the light could not quite penetrate. His son was clearly very, very angry.
Elias jerked up at the sound of the door, and then visibly gulped when his father entered.
Charles seated himself opposite his son. A funny adolescent mixture of fear and defiance.
“I don't care! I would do it again!” Elias said.
“Elias,” said Charles. The boy quieted. The boy knew from long experience that when he was not addressed by his nickname, he needed to listen. “Here is what I want you to do. This is very important. I want you to start from the beginning and tell me everything. Don't lie. And don't skip over anything. I promise I won't get angry. But I really need to hear the full story. From you. All right?”
Elias gulped again and wiped away a tear. “So they dropped us off – the Klokateers – and we were riding bikes for a while, and then there were these guys....”
“OK. Stop. How many guys?”
“Four guys. We've seen 'em before. I think one of them, his dad is a cop here?”
Charles nodded, filing that away.
“They make fun of Jyoti. They call him four eyes and gay and stuff. And he always says ignore them, so we ignored them, but they followed us, so I got fed up this time and told them to fuck off.” Elias, who had been staring at the tabletop, glanced up at his father.
“And what did they do?” asked Charles softly.
“They.... They left us alone for a while.”
Charles smiled very slightly. Elias was a sweet-tempered boy, but, like his father, Ganesh, when angered, could take on a quite unsettling, dark appearance, especially to humans. Well, humans with any sense. But, these were human boys. “Elias. I need you to tell me the truth here. At any time tonight did you use magic?”
Elias shook his head, his eyes wide. “Oh no! I would never!”
“All right. Go on.”
“So, then they show up. AGAIN. But, there's only three? And, one of 'em, the big one, pushes over Jyoti, so I go and I punch him in his fat face! And, and, he falls over into the ditch. Because he's a big baby! And the others ride off. But then, there's cops, already there. I don't understand. And they tell me I'm fighting and they're gonna call my dad.” Elias, his story done, exhaled with the effort.
Charles grew very still. “Stay here,” he said. And he was out of the room.
There was now a big cop standing by the desk. “Are you the father?” he demanded of Charles. “They surrounded my boy! They lay in wait! They attacked him!”
But the cop took a half step backwards as Charles marched towards him. To the end of his days, he wasn't sure why – the guy was half a head shorter than him. There was something wierd glinting in the dude's eyes.
Charles leaned forward, too far forward. Another half step back. “Who's in charge? I'm gonna see him. Now. I want his fucking head. On my fucking dinner plate.”
Later, some I the room would swear up and down they saw wings. Two glowing wings.
Charles sat in the limo, brandy clutched in one furious hand.
“Uh. I'm sorry.”
He blinked over at Elias, sitting across from him. The boy looked miserable.
“Why?” snapped Charles.
“Because.... You had to come down here. In the night?”
“You punched a fucking bully! Never be sorry. Fucking cops. I'll fucking sue their fucking asses all the way to fucking hell.”
Elias blinked. He got up and went to sit next to his father. He tucked his legs up underneath him. “Really?'
“Fucking assholes fucking hassling my son,” grumbled Charles, knocking back the brandy. “I'll get your Uncle Phanuel to come rain damnation on their asses. But!” he held up a finger at Elias. “Don't you do that! It's a Daddy thing.”
Elias nodded.
Charles studied his son his expression softening somewhat. “Look, when we get back, I think I'm too wired to get back to sleep right away....”
“We have a new guitar!”
“You wanna jam for a bit?
“Yeah!”
The car stopped, and a Klokateer chauffeur opened the door.
“OK. But you can't make fun of me for being lame,” Charles said as they walked towards the waiting Dethcopter. He felt two sets of arms slipping into his elbow.
“I wouldn't do that!” Elias protested. “You're not lame.”
“OK then.” Charles traced out a finger into his son's tangled hair, hoping for a glance of face somewhere underneath.
“You know what I was thinking?” said Elias eagerly.
“What?”
“You know what you could make next? A double guitar. That's got both guitar and bass!”
“They make those.”
“They do?”
“Yeah. Sometimes adults aren't completely stupid.”
And they disappeared into the Dethcopter.
