video--->voice: un: tenskulls

[stayscared]

i: VIDEO PRIVATE to eden

[There's a saga before this that isn't broadcasted to the network at large, but only to Eden via drone: Mike's abduction on the way into Crenshaw, his bout of unconsciousness - the horror of waking, mouth stitched shut, in not quite unfamliar, bloody, hostile territory, clad only in a dull, red jumpsuit - the further horror of realizing he's chained to what amounts to nothing more than the headless upper half of what had once been a Sleeper. It's possible she's seen who and what their fate was. It's also possible she hasn't.

It's the standoff in the Sleeper Farm - floor after floor of dragging the remains of another Sleeper with him, up and up - even when his blood is functional enough he could be rid of the gory baggage he doesn't shed it - that would, in effect, be leaving a man behind, and what kind of thing is that to do? By the end of it, it's become a grudge. And by the time he's in front of that statue, all manner of organs in its hands, he gently unshackles his companion, and then himself, before stomping on the chains until they're no longer chains, but a mess of old wires that disintegrate into nothing but stains on the floor.

His endless rageful shouting - the stitches are long gone, left an aftertaste of ash that's as unwelcome as the rest of this, maybe even moreso.]

Del, to everyone!

ii: VIDEO PUBLIC: omen: username: TENSKULLS/MIKE ENSLIN

[His Omen is not instructed to contain the broadcast to the small circle Mike intends to ask, so she opens the line of communication to all of Trench instead. Mike may have meant "everyone" in the "Sword Wizards and Mike" way, but Delmira obeys in the literal sense.

Mike's blood and its monthly bonus of excitability is doing the Zealots no favors once he's up here. They're glitching as fast as they're moving, somehow they're not close enough to attack, they're never accurate enough, and then they're behind a bubble that's rendered them a slow motion haze, confused and barely audible through it, while he sits on a summoned chair, a growing pile of shirts at his feet that shows no signs of slowing. Every shirt is wrong. Wrong pattern, wrong color, wrong cut. That's a fucking video tape and:]

That is the wrong fucking thread count!! GOD DAMNIT!!!

[He is now screaming (nearly unintelligibly) I want!! MY SHIRT!! with the exact same vibe he'd once screamed as he attacked a mini fridge. If counted, it takes four hundred and ninety nine shirts to get the correct shirt back. And not that he's paying any mind at all to the Zealots besides hurling words:]

You circus freaks are either going to help me find it or you can fuck right off!!! I'm DONE!

[Wrong shirt.]

Why don't you close your eyes, imagine yourself being actually fucking scary, and then open them and weep, you ASSCLOWN!!!

[Two wrong shirts, but closer to anyone who knows the shirt.]

That was my lucky shirt! I was on my way to WORK, you fermented ball sack! My friends gave me that!! Like you know what friends are with that face! Clive Barker called, he wants his whole thing back!

I'm gonna kick you in the dick so hard your vertebrae pop out like a goddamn Pez Dispenser!!

[Not a shirt, but that's a rain of vertebrae shooting across the backdrop if one chooses to look. Mike doesn't - he's too busy yelling.

Shirts flicker out of existence as new ones appear in his hands, and when that last one comes, he goes quiet as he examines it, the flurry and whirl of bloodmad monstrosities outside his shield growing hazier still. He looks up at the statue with a cold calm, his hands clenching and then releasing the fabric, somehow angrier now that he's bunched it up. So he holds it gently now as the wall he'd conjured flickers, fades, and reveals a floor emptied of Zealots - just that statue and its organ offerings. Its blood.

Before he's able to make any further move, there's a pale, pulsing glow that replaces the fading bubble, a pearlescent shimmer as Moon Presence ends this scene just shy of sacrifice, and he's suddenly in his small, messy room at the Sanguine Station, (standing in front of a whole wall of photographs - daughter, wife, brother, various combinations - in most of which his own face is blurry) - holding a bloodied hawaiian shirt - the very same he'd donned for his first day at his new job - which he has now missed.

He looks down at his omen, the screen, blinking. Delmira blinks back, and shuts her eyes, so it's only Mike's voice that asks, after a pause:]

iii: VOICE PUBLIC: omen: username: TENSKULLS/MIKE ENSLIN

How the fuck do I get blood out of a good shirt?

Comments

un: eudaimonikos | text

[eudaimonikos]

Is it fresh? Run some cold water on that first thing, get as much of it out as you can now.

Also, you know you just broadcast some kind of long, insane video of you raving about shirts and blowing people up to everyone?

voice: un: tenskulls

[stayscared]

[that's not ...any of the usernames he's looking for. deep breath. deep breath. no, now he's hyperventilating. fuck it, he can still talk.]

...cold water. Cold water.

Right.

[is there any water to be found in his room? not a drop, but that's okay, he can try and ...nope, that's a fucking bowl of soup. he's going to launch it in 3..2..]

Fuck!!

[he has now kicked soup onto the floor. good job. maybe he should ask how to get soup out of the floor next. there is water. in the bathroom. first the water, then the---]

What?

voice | un: sds

[fogsong]

[ holy fucking shit. ]

Lemon juice. [ that's all she can manage out, slightly dumbfounded, because what the fuck do you even say about such chaos ]

voice

[stayscared]

[he has no idea, sharon. sorry. well, not really but kind of. but he doesn't know this voice either. shit. shit.]

Lemon. Uh. With the cold water or just the juice?

[he now has a lemon in his hands. it's better than another bowl of soup.]

voice | un: cleansingsong

[baiyueguang]

Mike-xiansheng? Are you alright? Did those things capture you?

voice

[stayscared]

[god. finally. what the hell did he---

---were more people invited to the circle??]

Yes! Yes!! But they took my shirt! They ruined my goddamn shirt!

[he is freaking out about the wrong thing just now. maybe. maybe it's not entirely the wrong thing. but also? they ruined a sleeper. he didn't see anyone in any condition to free. just death, and more death.]

voice; un: lady

[dohaeris]

[deep down sansa can be very petty, and honestly she finds it deeply satisfying and very funny to see the zealots, who have frustrated her at every turn and badly hurt some of her closest friends, get dunked on spectacularly. she manages to keep the laughter out of her voice, though.]

I've heard clear spirits like vodka are very good for lifting stains.

[a careful pause.]

I have found dark bloodstone to be very useful in cleaning spills of all kinds, though. It lets me use Darkblood magic to move whatever has spilled away from whatever it is that it spilled on. I have heard Darkbloods use similar magic to gather their blood into liquid form.

voice;

[stayscared]

[lady. that's the kid that told him about the wellness center. the one with the (involuntary shudder) wolf. yes. this is definitely shaping up to be public. great.]

That, I have.

[to be fair, he wears these prints out of fondness but also out of ease of camouflaging stains. and if lily didn't take care of the real laundry? the clothes that ...mattered, the dry cleaner did.]

It's news to me, but it does get shit out of the way. [a bitter, nervous laugh, because he's talking about the zealots] I don't think I trust my blood to distinguish shirt from blood, though, and then I've got a bloody shirt with a hole in it.

Where do you get the bloodstone?

[that's really useful information, though? how does this girl know everything?? he's trying to type this into his omni but his hands are shaking. now the anxiety sets in. he'll have to try to use that to move his blood around. but later.]

voice | un: thief

[burnyoudown]

[Kavinsky was not polite enough to hide his laughter, but it was more shocked laughter than anything.]

Holy fucking shit dude, take a breath before you pop a blood vessel or something.

[He took a breath, himself, but it was a thoughtful one.]

Also, cold water, then soap. Peroxide, but it's not a white shirt so that might bleach more than the blood out.

If that doesn't work, lemme see it for a few minutes and I can probably get you an identical shirt.

voice

[stayscared]

[cool, cool. now some kid's laughing. is it objectively funny? probably? would mike laugh over this later? absolutely. but he's just a bit over the edge just now.]

Yeah, yeah, fucking hilarious, everyone's a jokester.

[i mean. you were dunking on zealots. you constantly make your own trauma into jokes and hide behind those. so. come on, mike.]

But soap? Okay. [there's soap in the bathroom, along with the water.] What if it's already got lemon juice and vodka on it? No peroxide or...

No offense, but I need this shirt. I just need it to be...

...I need it to be this shirt. Those fucking inbred sphincter experiments!

[yeah, about that blood vessel. wait. can this guy do what he can only more ...focused? or? he reads the username.]

I don't want anyone to steal me another shirt, it's not the same.

[Voice] un: 008

[hachitaro]

Sponge the stain with hydrogen peroxide or rub bar soap into the stain and scrub by hand in cold water.

voice

[stayscared]

[this is the sound of absolute overwhelm in his voice.]

What about baking soda? [he's panicking now. did he think he could summon a bottle of peroxide? maybe he could but what he got was baking soda, and another shirt for his troubles. it doesn't even look like a shirt he'd wear.] Cold water, soap---

---no, cold water, peroxide, then soap and what, a prayer?

[because this poor shirt is covered in things now.]

text | un: rin

[offinventory]

You are so not okay. I can't believe I did work to see that.

voice

[stayscared]

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

[he does not sound smug, though. does he know she saw all of that? at the moment: no. doesn't even register.]

I'd be fine if I could just get this shirt back to the way it was.

[untrue! but he would be slightly calmer. the shirt's become larger than life, so to speak. yeah, it's important, but this is ...he's projecting.]

text | un: duty | private

[martyrofduty]

I know someone (for the shirt).

voice

[stayscared]

Will it be the same? They're not going to switcheroo the shirts are they?

[panicking a little here.]

private, text, un: kickflips

[strongroots]

[ Well. Huh. This is a whole thing.

A whole thing that Robby waits until much, much later to come back to, and to leave a message set to private. ]

hey. how are you doing after
well. everything

private

[stayscared]

Would you believe me if I said I didn't know?

[he has since re watched the whole thing - or at least the part that the network could see.]

audio | un: dito

[syncopathic]

Are you seriously spraining your snatch right now over a couple of fucking bloodstains?

For fuck's sake, man. Get a grip on yourself.

[Dito is, as always, a master at comforting people.]

audio

[stayscared]

[yes. truly, this is a masterclass in comfort.]

My snatch is not sprained! [lies. partially because it is and also he isn't helping his case by yelling.] Would you want their shitty blood all over something you care about?

III with a little II [Audio][un: A_Wesker013]

[subject_013]

[A wheezy laugh giving way to a throaty chuckle through someone's teeth.]

I doubt I'll view a Pez dispenser the same way, should I see one again.

All right, since you've given me a nervous chuckle... Soak the garment in cold water for about an hour, rinse out the garment till the water runs less cloudy, change the water, soak the garment again for five minutes, then gently scrub the spots with bar soap.

[A beat.] I've been in more than a few situations after which I've had to get blood out of my clothes.

[stayscared]

Well, at least there's that. They didn't look like they knew what a Pez dispenser was, but I think they got the message.

[this isn't the first time someone's laughed - and though he bristles at first, it's kind of what he'd wanted in the moment - even if he'd only had an audience of one. well, two that he knew of, but delmira doesn't yet know what a pez dispenser is either.]

I'm sensing a theme, here. [in the advice and the unsurprising parts about blood. except blood here is weird.] Soap wasn't my first thought for this. I thought it would be more ...esoteric, you know?

Glad for the chuckle, sorry for the nerves. If you think your nerves are shot...

[there's his own nervous laugh, and he didn't even mean to cue it up like that.]

voice; un: d.larusso

[miyagimagic]

[ There's so much Daniel could say here.

.. scratch that. There's so much anyone could say here. Which is a theme with Mike, isn't it. It's like every single thing the other broadcasts across these things is more wild than the last.

But this time Daniel doesn't even have the luxury of being able to find words. His blood certainly isn't doing him any favours this month, after all, leaving him being able to force out nothing more than: ]

Mike, what the hell?!

[ Very eloquent.

Poetic, almost. ]

[stayscared]

[that gets a laugh. it's a ...rough approximation of a laugh, a desolate husk of a thing, but the concern - more like the way it's expressed - it reminds him so much of lily, it's tone as much as the words delivered: yeah, if lily were here this would be a real what the hell? moment.]

It was an accident. You weren't supposed to see that.

[the insults, injury and obliteration? not so much. the fact that he broadcast it to all of trench? completely.]

You saw all of it?

[is he looking for vague approval? maybe.]

video | un: sharpshooter

[azurestar]

[Well, that was… a whole thing. He's not judging, in fact he's kind of impressed and also kind of gets it. And man does he hate that he gets it. After a moment of just staring, he's gonna heave a breath and nod in sage understanding.]

People really don't appreciate the value of a good quality shirt around here, my man. [He highly suspects it's not all about the shirt, it wouldn't be for him.] To answer your question: hydrogen peroxide will suck it right out. Cold water and soap for anything left over.

[stayscared]

Maybe those asshats needed something to cover their faces after they looked in a mirror. Sorry sons of---

[the last time he tried for peroxide he got baking soda, but it's worth a shot. and it doesn't 100% miss the mark, it's just ...arm and hammer toothpaste. which now that he sees the problem he tries to visualize a brown bottle of peroxide, not just the 'idea' of it and what do you know? it's value sized. he hopes that part is an accident and not a prediction.]

---I've got that. Thanks, man.

It was a gift. Fucking dicks.

Voice; un: darkness

[survivalthroughhate]

Is it fresh or dried blood? That makes a difference.

[stayscared]

It was wet when it hit, dried when I got it back, and now it's wet again.

[because everything suggested is on this goddamn shirt now.]