bakerstreet | GO TELL AUNT RHODY THAT EVERYBODY'S DEAD

GO TELL AUNT RHODY THAT EVERYBODY'S DEAD

COVERED IN BLOOD MEME

So you're a bit of a mess. Or you're stumbling upon a mess. What happened? There's blood everywhere, what the hell? Is it your blood, animal blood, the blood of someone you murdered? Hell, maybe you ran out of tampons. Anyway, no matter how it got there, you're (or someone you know is) covered in blood. Can it be explained away? If not, is someone going to prison? The hospital? Going to die of blood loss? Get in trouble for playing catch with the blood bags? Man, we don't know. The point is you have a mess to clean up. Or roll around in gleefully, you nasty fucks.

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• While this meme is bound to have a lot of potentially triggering content, content warnings for anything ott or very extreme are probably a good idea!
• Have fun!

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[ call him a dry-cleaner, he damn well deserves it ]

[ So, like. Arterial bleeds. Noct knows them on a theoretical, I read about it once in my life, and even then I wasn't actually paying attention sort of way, knows it like how might a teenager may know the intricacies of surgery. He knows that they're an efficient way to kill something, that they can be a show that is more disturbing than entertaining, that they're messy. By the Six, they're messy.

He'd gone in for the final strike without a thought beyond the need to end this, slipping out from underneath the cover of Ignis and his fancier, more refined display of strength as a bolt of blue and magic. The pole arm in his hands had switched itself out for a dagger, sharper and more efficient in slicing into and past the resistance of the monster's neck. Noct had warped out of the way as soon as it'd gurgled, by instinct and hard-earned reflexes, trained into him by Gladio, but it's not until he turns that he sees the damage that he'd left behind.

Or, well. The mess. The shower and spray of monster blood and goop, the downpour of which is finally starting to settle down into a dribble. Which had apparently, mostly, fallen on a figure that was-- vaguely Ignis-shaped. Maybe? Better make sure. ]

... Is that you, Specs?

[ Please, please, please let it be Ignis, please let it be not. It was a toss-up in trying to decide if this was funny enough to be worth the minutes of laughter or terrible of an accident enough to merit Ignis' irritation. And the toast-for-dinner event that he may or may not have just triggered.

Noct fights the twitch of his lips anyway, the laughter lines that shakes at the corners of his expression. Oops? ]

[ ignis can admit it, if to no one but himself, that he'd been distracted at the tail-end there. when all three of his allies were strewn about the battlefield like toys knocked askew, shouting in varying degrees of triumph and/or pain, yes, even his meticulous brand of attention could get stretched thin. a little too thin, in this case. a particularly sharp yelp from prompto's corner of the skirmish had caught his ear, and in the process of darting a glance over to make sure all of their gunner's limbs were accounted for, he'd missed noctis' switch from pole arm to dagger.

by the time he realized the blood spatter was less a spatter and more like a torrent, well. it was a little too late to do much about it. ]

Regrettably so.

[ ignis says, terse and taut, the words coming out unpleasantly and horrendously thick. he tastes copper. he tastes a lot of things that he'd rather not right now, each note of flavour doing wonders in turning his gut into a churning pit of hell while simultaneously grating his nerves down to raw, frayed wires.

he lifts a hand to pull his glasses from his face. a gob of still-warm ichor oozes down his cheek in a back-straightening line. he doesn't shudder, but it's a very, very near thing.

the look he turns on noctis in that singular moment should, by all rights, fry the young king where he stands. ]

[ It's a difficult feat, trying not to follow the line of movement of that ooze, the way that it seems to trace the curve of Ignis' face in a way that might (will) come back to bite Noct in the behind later on. Almost as difficult is it to try and shrug off the pang of sympathy for Ignis' situation; this isn't their first brush with the grime that came with hunting, but this was one experience that did little to make the subsequent ones feel better.

Still, it's usually Noctis or Prompto (or even Gladio, on an off day) that's on the receiving end of such messes, natural victims of their own impatience, from tempting fate. It's so very rarely Ignis, and something about the way that his chamberlain is holding himself, utmost still and so visibly offended, it's. Just.

Noct doesn't spontaneously combust, but he does manage to temper his laughter into a cough at the look. At The Look, excuse. ]

Uh. Incoming? [ Oh man. Noct takes a moment. Just one moment to bite into the inside of his cheek. To breathe out, nice and slow. ] So. Guess we're staying at a motel tonight after all.

[ You know, a place with a bath? And beds? Something that Noct had been whining for, for at least a day and a half? ]

[ for all of 0.532 seconds, ignis allows himself to entertain treasonous, detailed, wonderful thoughts of regicide. they do nothing for his blood pressure (which is nearing a crisis point on its own) or his temper (also nearing a critical state), but they do soothe at least a couple of the many frayed edges of his composure. his death stare is appropriately cranked back from Obliterate to Mildly Lambaste. ]

It would seem so. Might I trust in you to get us there in one piece?

[ the thought of touching the regalia in this state causes ignis no end of personal anguish. driving her is out of the question. going anywhere near the driver's seat as he is now is the closest thing to blasphemy he could think of. what would they have to do otherwise? lay out a tarp?

sweet six, he will never live this down. the sticky mask of blood across his face doesn't quite mask the dawning look of dismay marching on in. ]

An earlier word of warning would be appreciated, next time.

Edited 2017-02-04 19:51 (UTC)

Right, yep. Earlier. [ Haha, uh.

In the place of actual, damning laughter is another twitch of the face and a deliberate turn of the head, away from where Ignis looks about the same as a guy that had just taken a pie to the face. He looks away to the safer picture of where Prompto and Gladio are starting to cut down the rest of the monster's herd, now with the languid movements of an assured victory. Two, three, Noct counts; only a few straggers left. Nothing pressing. Nothing that would absolutely require Noct to warp to their aid.

When his attention swings back, it's with a smile that he doesn't bother to hide, a little crooked, absolutely delighted. And to an experienced eye, a flash of future-bound apprehension. (Not about the driving, he can handle the driving, thank you very much, but it wasn't as though he could leave Ignis to his fate. Not when he'd never, ever allow anyone to sit in the Regalia looking, smelling, dripping like that.

Noct doesn't have a great record, s'all, with clean-up duty. That'd always been--)

But for now, he smiles. Feels brighter, lighter than he's felt in a long slew of days. ]

Anyway, don't worry 'bout the driving. I got you covered. [ ba dum tsh. ]

[ 0.532 seconds of self-indulgent regicide daydreaming makes a record leap to 1.5, a personal best in ignis' book and just past that threshold that he can allow himself to feel ashamed about it. just a little. perhaps a smidgen. the shame is only really, actually present because when noct has the audacity to turn that awful lopsided smile around, it does him the favour of melting a little of ignis' arctic chill.

he's always been horrendously weak to it. a major flaw that, to this date, he hasn't found a fix for.

better luck next time, scientia. ]

I'm positively sanguine about the prospect.

[ it's a little hard maintaining perfect composure here. there's a chink in the armour, a tiny little crack. his mouth does this thing where it kinda twitches upward, like he's doing his best not to even think about a smile but it's still elbowing in on the conversation anyway. ]

Yeah? Should let me take the wheel more often, then. [ Not that Noct particularly wants the driver's seat (a nap, after all, is a faraway prospect if one was also expected to drive), but Ignis' buttons, the harmless ones, could be so few and far in-between that it'd be a shame to waste any opportunity to push them.

But here, also, persists the (dis)advantage of a long acquaintance, of living for and being lived for-- Noct needs little other than a gut feeling to know that forgiveness is chugging along. That, even as his skin still itches with the prickling sensation of being flayed alive by a stare alone, he's, maybe, doing something right that he needn't worry for retribution. (Er, too much retribution.) He cants his head in consideration, a quirk that belies a quick computation of ideas that has about a 50% record of being well-advised. The other 50%, well.

Yet another cursory look to the rest of their party later-- ]

You know, I bet we can make it outta here and to the river if we book it. [ Before they're seen, he means. ] Might even be able to grab your spare specs on the way too, if I warped.

[ The true purpose of the great and wondrous magic of the Lucii: fetch quests, apparently. ]

[ every turn has a 50/50 chance of ending in complete disaster when they're out and about in the great breathless wilds. the degree of said disasters is the variable point here, ranging anywhere from forgotten lunches to ruined outfits. this one seems rooted firmly in the latter half. noctis' suggestion is slowly pushing that disaster meter up from its tenuous resting point at 'manageable' to 'this might be a poor idea'.

but. ]

We could if we started off now.

[ but water. a glimmering hope of, if not cleanliness, then at least the chance to free himself from the worst of this situation. good gods, the chance to wash his face is like a dream arisen from the depths. ]

You know where I keep my spare?

[ A wave of the hand, dismissive and worrying-- ] Nah, but I'll figure it out.

[ He rolls his shoulders back as his choice in weapon -- the dagger that had (sort of) started it all -- materializes in his hand, at the ready. It's like reflex now, thoughtless, to pull matter out of empty air. No different than cracking his knuckles, he thinks, so easy when it'd used to be so difficult, impossible. (Best not to think about that.)

The blade goes from one hand to the other, precariously balanced. Ready, set. ]

Hey. [ Barely a warning, barely even a note of sound. ] Race you there.

[ --And he's gone. Because even if it ends up being one-sided? He's still winning this thing. ]

Noct, wait--

[ worrying doesn't hold up to the situation as much as outright alarming does, it falls short like a deflated basketball would, too soft, too uneven to fly proper, splatting disappointingly on the court below to the tune of ignis' pulse kicking into high gear.

he starts running before he's even done fully processing what just happened, the last three seconds compressing into a dizzying blur of potentially poor ideas and noctis' smile. (minute and sharp and usually the last thing he sees before a wide-area spell goes off over all their heads.) he sprints, he books it from the field despite the awful, gut-churning and mostly silent squelch of his shirt against his skin and and the largely audible squish of his socks in his shoes.

ignis has never felt more undignified since the incident with the painting, all those years ago.

he doesn't get paid nearly enough for this job. ]

[ It's too early to consider asking for a raise. Just wait until they get to the end of the story, which might go like this:

Several point-warps and a few minutes of a sprint. That's how much it takes to bring Noct from the epicenter of battle to where the Regalia sits, beautifully untouched, innocent of the chaos that his small slip of the blade had caused. Just as easy is the act of throwing himself above the door of the driver's seat, landing in-- some interesting contortions that gets him stretching for the glove compartment. There's enough rummaging around that Noct isn't quite sure where (and how) he finds Ignis' spare glasses, still safely locked away in its case, just that he does. Somehow.

Then he's upright and on his feet again, zipping off into the direction of the river, his mind going blissfully blank with the adrenaline of phasing through the very matter of air. Of the feeling of flying, high on the way that the landscape is a movie reel on fastforward as he-- ]

Whoa-- incoming!

[ Deja vu and a touchdown. At a distance that brings him into shoulder-crashing distance of Ignis, the momentum and ensuing crash of which, well.

Into the river they both go. ]

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GO TELL AUNT RHODY THAT EVERYBODY'S DEAD

ignis scientia | final fantasy xv | ota

please lmk if you want me to change anything!

omg no its perfect

i'm so sorry, ignis

bl e s s

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