abraxaslogs | If I think too hard about what we're doing I'll feel really bad about it (Open/Closed)

The way Dean figures it, he's got a lot of making up to do for the crap he caused as a demon. More than that, the months he spent being an irrepressible dickhead to a fair number of guards and drunk patrons at Mag's establishment. This includes some self-inflicted community service whenever the summoned are called upon for aid. He was really hoping it would have something to do with, you know, killing more monsters or lifting up heavy crap or, like, building something. Instead, he gets under water gardening. Great.

Well, it's not the worst. He's a good swimmer, at least, and a little snorkeling's not the worst way to spend an afternoon. So yeah, he straps up. Grabs his wetsuit. Leaves his swords, knives, and rifles at home for once — save, you know, for one. He's never gonna roll anywhere completely unarmed. Unfortunately under water isn't the best place to take a long sword, so it gets carefully stowed away in the sand with his clothes, towels, flask of booze, and other Emergency Supplies varying degrees of alcoholic in nature.

He's shrugging on the top half of his wetsuit when he turns to meet up with his partner, and then promptly groans when he recognizes who it is.

"Ah, come on, really?"

He will never forgive the bedazzling of his favorite hunting tunic. Never.

Abby turned at the interruption, and smiled. A smile so placid and pleasant it could only be seen as a direct threat. Because she didn't like Meme Guy. He was kind of full of himself and way too 'this is my burden' about shit.

But he was fun to screw with.

"What's the big deal, afraid of a little water? I promise, if there's any sea monster I'll protect you." Abby knows Dean can handle himself, he makes so much of a point that he can. However she managed to kill a bigger monster after Dean made a big fucking deal about benching her.

And as much as she's a little weird about feeling in any way useful, that paled in how much she loved being spiteful to grown ups.

"Rhy certainly has the effect on people! Very handsome, very fun." Hell, Mat had started sleeping with Rhy before he'd even met Jesper. Very worth sporting with, if one got the chance.

"But I'd say it's very likely you like the lasses as much as the lads. You wouldn't be noticing'em otherwise." If there's more than one lady that has caught Bay's eye, there's a reason for it. Mat doesn't think you notice people in that particular fashion unless you're attracted to them. As she said, plenty of folks are pleasant to look at. That doesn't inherently mean attraction.

Bay certainly seems to be describing attraction.

"Do I need a list of who you haven't slept with?" She caught the hint in their, that and they've known each other enough she knows the difference between how she views sex and he does. There's a playfulness to the question that she's trying not to judge too much.

Once the topic is back to her attraction, she frowns. "I don't get what changed, was I always interested and never pursued it? Or is this something that's just- about her?"

Her being the other version, the girl Bay was and wasn't all at once. That's the big change that she's got to face and how it impacts the way her body reacts. The side of he that's just- okay being seen naked. Might just also like women. "And if this is her, what made her okay with this? Or made me not okay with it?"

Worry played all over her face as she tried to work her mind around what was, well, kind of insane and hard to wrap around normally.

The question isn't easy to answer. It forces him to crack open a door he thought he'd finally shut for good. Dig his fingernails into a wound he thought had scabbed over.

"I don't know..." Wilhelm drags his hands down his face with a groan. "I guess I'd want to try to make up with him. If he was willing to give me a chance."

Take all the time you need, Simon had said. But you need to figure it out on your own. Since then, he has figured out a few things about the way he wants to live his life. He's done with pretending to be something he's not.

But getting over Simon was also one of the hardest things he's had to do. For nearly a year, Simon's pet goldfish stuck around in his Horizon, leftovers of Wilhelm's desire for things he should've known he couldn't have. It was only a few months ago that he finally brought himself to let them go. He doesn't want to open himself to that hurt all over again.

Abby will just- move to sit next to Wilhelm, and casually fall over so she's leaning against him. It's a hug-like move, Abby's not the best at showing connection the 'right ways' whatever the fuck that meant. Her move is made complicated by the height difference even sitting down. She picked up that she'd pried open an old wound, but to her, it was the sort of wound that needed examining to really ever close. She's seen what happens if you don't fix something, and let it fester.

Still, last thing she wanted right now was to open old wounds. Other than the ones she already opened at the paty.

"In spite of knowing the guy I was hooking up with at home is a piece of shit, I'd probably give him a chance if he showed up here. Provided Jesper doesn't murder him first." Which was a fun sentence to say out loud. Made more fun by knowing that between Jesper, Inej, Julie, and Nadine that one of them (or using Geralt as their proxy) would absolutely murder Press if he arrived in Abraxas. She'll process how she feels about that later. "Can't imagine it's easier if the guy is worth anything."

"Being fucked up over it just means you're human."

She shakes her head, “I don’t know it. But I know three languages, which I’ve come to understand no one from other worlds recognizes. Suli is my native tongue, but I also know Ravkan and Kerch.” Not that it will help, probably, but it’s all she’s got in her pocket with regards to language. “But I’m willing to try anyway.”

“That would be nice,” she agrees with a nod. She would love to see more of this world and everything it has to offer, but things are so tense with the factions, it’s near impossible to manage.

She smiles a little at the idea. “If an opportunity for it ever arises, I will.” Because if she’s learned much of anything in her time here? It’s to never say never in Abraxas.

Bay smiles, it's a little tight. She appreciates the attempt to share. However words she doesn't innately know are more like a very clever guess. She knows how many syllables they are, some of the vowel sounds, and she can narrow down the consonants.

Can you try that again like this? I'm not good with foreign words.

"I'll try to think of something. It won't be perfect but I will take anything." It really was going to be a challenge to teach American Sign Language without the American part of it. So much of Earth revolved around at least expecting the European characterset of letters.

"You can't show me Cadens, maybe you can show me your world?" It wasn't like they could meet up outside of Nocwich and the Horizon, and the Horizon was able to do a lot of unreasonable things, why not use it to share things that feel worth sharing. "If you'd like, I mean. No pressure if you don't want to."

Bay is so bad at this.

Oh, he sees the tone behind that smile. That's a threatening smile. That's the smile of a teenager that would absolutely delight in making his life a living hell. He's seen that same exact smile on Claire, thank you very much, and she was the most exhausting not-daughter he's ever had. Krissy's a close second, but he won't spend near as much time with her as he ultimately does Claire.

"Somehow, I doubt that," is all he grumbles — perhaps a little more darkly than she might expect, but the comment rolls away and he doesn't seem intent to elaborate on it. It's just, you see, he was speared through the chest by a sea leviathan not all that long ago, spent several weeks drowning on repeat, and crawled back out of the ocean a god damn demon.

So yeah, you could say he has a little bit of a history with the ocean and sea monsters. But then again, he's got a little bit of a history with a lot of things, and that doesn't generally stop him.

"Alright, come on, let's get this over with. What the hell are we even doing with these?"

He's not a garden guy. He doesn't generally plant things. He mows lawns, that's as close as he gets.

She wants to argue the point, but something stays her tongue. Maybe it's noticing he's not being as much of a jackass with that one. Or at least the words don't seem directed at her. Maybe it's character growth.

Maybe she still feels like shit the water is like this because Geralt and Julie were too busy trying to get her out of here to just kill Viney McStinkbomb.

"We clear trash and toxic slime off of any flat stones, and place new Coral growths on them." Abby wasn't really big on school, but she did pay attention to a very Stoned Ginny lament the damages to Coral Reefs once. "If we stay near the waterline it doesn't matter where, but when we get further out it has to be shallow enough they get good light."

Abby took a small bag off of her belt and started loading it with small smooth stones off the beach. She won't be able to throw them like normal, physics being a fucking rude thing about that, but having something other than her diving knife to cast with feels safer than not doing this.

"I don't really know how to manipulate Earth, otherwise we could try making new planting space? Shape up some stones to be the right depth for new reefs?"

"Oh- sorry," she doesn't make much habit of using the mental notes if she's actually in someone's presence, but it's almost second nature to use it otherwise at this point.

People don't seem to be familiar with the three languages I know from home- Suli, Ravkan, and Kerch. But even if that doesn't help, we can still figure something out.

She smiles at the thought, one that hadn't actually occurred to her in all this time. Even though she knows how easy it is to shape and mold to their wills and wishes, she never has actually changed any of the aspects of her domain since she'd first chosen it. "Yeah, I guess I could, couldn't I?"

"Suli. Ravkan. Kerch." Bay repeats, using the written version and the movements of Inej's lips to try and estimate the pronunciation. Bay doesn't rely on the network if she can avoid it, but it is a useful tool when she lacks a notebook to write in. Like- say, when she's naked in a hotspring.

With a pretty girl. Which is definitely causing her more issues than she thought it should. "But only if you want to."

His lips turn down visibly at trash and toxic slime, a vaguely grossed-out expression he doesn't even realize he's making. It's automatic, instinct, because somehow despite being a hunter that gets routinely covered in blood and viscera, he's still kind of a little bit of a germophobe. The word slime makes his fingers twitch subconsciously, and he absently wipes them on the fabric of his swimsuit like he's wiping away the imaginary sensation of touching it.

Gross. Why did he agree to do this again?

Oh yeah, because he ran around like a jackass for several months, and he's trying to make up for it. Ugh. Stupid community service.

"Unfortunately, I left my aquatic backhoe in my other onesie pockets back home, so let's maybe just stick to doing this the old-fashioned way." Some things can just be tools and hands. "I'll clear off the rocks, you plant the thing, we pack it in with sediment?"

Edited 2023-10-03 00:56 (UTC)

Abby caught that, it's a very weird juxtaposition to the guy who was okay with the dog gore on his tunic but mad at the glitter. Is she going to actively mock him and make working together harder. No that's counter to her goal of fixing this fucking mess.

Is she going to just just make a face meant only to express 'are you fucking serious right now' and only that, as loudly as possible without saying anything? I mean- wouldn't you?

"I don't know what other weird bullshit powers you have that you shouldn't." Abby sticks to the topic at hand, and what they're going to be working on. Maybe he had access to an aquatic backhoe. As far as weird shit it wasn't objectively the weirdest. "If that's how you want to play it, but I can probably use my magic to clear gross smelling slime without touching it. Or I can at least try."

She wasn't entirely sure how wind magic worked underwater, but it should just change currents. Right? And she definitely can localize her ice magic the way she's done before, that at least would be easy enough to control.

Look, he's gonna do it, and he's not gonna be a little bitch about it or anything. That doesn't mean he has to like it, or look forward to the gross goopy texture he's going to be knuckles-deep in for the next few hours.

Much like her and her wind wonderings, he does, admittedly, spend a couple seconds considering what some of those Witcher signs would be like when used under water — would aard blast through some of the landscaping, would it just make a huge air bubble, or would it blast him backwards through the water like a jet ski?

...okay, that would be awesome, and he will absolutely test it out at a later time when teenagers aren't present to mock him for it.

Anyway.

He arches an eyebrow at her, half skeptical, half jealous.

"What magic? Aloha-landscaping? Abraca-agriculture? What're we talking?"

Enjoy more teenager not super amused being doubted, given he knows she can do magic in general.

"Julie's been teaching me how wild magic works. Claude how wind magic works." Abby scoops a pebble off the ground. Eyes closed as she tries to sculpt a path in her mind she wants the wind to take, "I did some of it here, when the viney polluty thing was fucking up the beach."

She drops the pebble to the beach, the spell created a small current of air racing over the sand, creating a path with three large loops before the air just stopped leaving a pattern on the beach that would be cursive but they don't teach that shit in school anymore. So it's just lines.

There's a little smug satisfied look on her face as it finishes. "I don't know how it'll work in the water, but if I can get all the slime and gunk together I can freeze it in a sphere of ice. Like what I did to that old movie monster with the stupidly long arms at the barracks."

Yes, that's her description of the Rancor.

It's not that he's doubting she can do magic, so much as its application method in this particular scenario. Freezing the slime does sound like a useful call, though, and it could make moving it a hell of a lot easier than scooping and praying. He opens his mouth to say as much, except a spark of inspirational dumbassitude strikes him instead.

He snaps his fingers and proudly declares, "Bippity boppity bush."

Eh? Ehh??

Because that's a way better pun than abraca-agriculture, and he... needed to let that out into the universe. It is in no way helpful to this situation, or their strategizing, but he experienced a full lapse of filter because of who he is as a person.

He gives it, like, a solid two seconds for her to either approve or disapprove, and then moves on with a shrug either way.

"I might actually have something that can help. If you take one side with your... wind situation, and I take the other, I think we can both blast a good chunk of it into a slime pile for you to freeze. Should be easy enough to haul out after that, and we can start planting."

"It's very fucking hard to not make fun of you." Listen she has been doing her absolute best to behave because she feels bad about what happened here. And she wants to help clear the beach up, fix things, make it better. But she does not have endless willpower and someone is very trying.

Still, not the worst idea. Consolidating as much muck together will make it easier, and ice floats right, it'll get it nice and out of the way.

"Alright, we have a plan." She slipped the goggles off her hip. She isn't sure it's a good plan because she's not entirely sure what Dean's half of this is, but it still technically qualifies as enough of a plan for government work. "Provided you're out of terrible fucking alliteration."

It's very fucking hard not to make fun of you; he shrugs, waves a hand away absently like don't bother, go nuts. It's not like most of the people he knows hold back anyway, it rolls off of him. He's almost immune at this point. Far be it from him to try and teach her social restraint, considering how he lacks it himself.

"No promises," he says of his terrible fucking alliteration, but it's an absent, off-hand comment as he strides purposefully toward the lapping water, pulling his snorkeling gear on.

He takes a moment to survey it distastefully, an unhappy little frown on his lips as memories flash by quickly.

The current, dragging him in seasick unhappy lurches... salt water in his eyes, stinging. Salt in his mouth. Salt in his throat. Salt in his lungs, gasping for air that isn't there. A mile below the surface, too dark to see anything but deep blue, the abyss below him, above him, around him. Black eyes. A pearly, spear-sharp jutting tooth protruding through his chest, the gaping wound. Drowning, and waking up, and clutching at his throat, his chest, drowning, waking up, drowning, waking up, drowning, waking up, drowning, waking up-

"Screw it," he says, bites the snorkel mouthpiece, and dives in.

See inviting her to make fun of you sucks all the fucking fun out of it. She'll do it if it comes up but she can hardly say she's excited to. Still, he listened to her ideas and didn't just casually try to bench her from helping so still a step up over all of this.

Abby strides on past him into the water, when she's about halfway in and looks back at him blue screening at the edge for a little bit it's- okay, it's weird. But not weird enough to really concern herself with. He didn't sprout fins or anything so she'll just head on in and hope it's fine.

She slipped the diving knife from her belt as she got into the water, as well as being a fun accessory because it's violent, it's a very practical one for how she casts magic. The flat of the blade is a good surface to let her magic flow from as she gets into position for whatever half-baked scheme the two have.

She does open up her connection to the network, she hates it but it's kind of painfully useful here.

Whenever you're ready, before the Sonic Drowning music kicks in.

There's no recognition, same as she ever sees from anyone from other homes here, but it's no surprise at this point.

"It would be fun, I could show you all the best parts of my motherland." A use of the Horizon she, somehow, has never considered until this very moment.

He swims down, and after a few seconds of squeezing his eyes shut waiting for the nerve to pa, he finally gently open them. It's... it would be beautiful, if the sludge hadn't done a total number on the coral around here.

It should be beautiful, it should be reassuring and peaceful, and seeing it like this gives him a newfound conviction. Where previously he'd only signed up to do this out of penance, he now actually understands why they're doing this. Why it needs to be done. Why everyone should be helping.

Alright, full disclosure, I'm not sure how this is gonna work under water. Could be totally fine, but... maybe stay back for a minute.

He positions himself around the opposite side of their sludge pile. Braces himself. Exhales to gear himself up, and then fires off an Aard.

So.

The thing is.

Technically it works. A ripple of force energy explodes through the water, blasting sludge from his side into a big heaping pile near the middle.

But it also sends him shooting backwards — clean up out of the water, several feet over the waves. Distantly, some might hear what sounds like Goofy falling off a cliff, until he drops like a stone, bouncing off the surface tension once or twice, then plunking back under the water.

A moment later:

That

Was

AWESOME

Abby had to, briefly, surface because she did forget to keep her breath watching someone Team Rocket themselves into the ocean. Glad she didn't go first, laws of physics just do not give a fuck about their plans. This was a lot more 'scalpel' than 'woodchipper' work. So while she waited for Dean to get back she created a small air current from her knife and used it to try and push slime together into controllable sizes.

Glad you're not dead. That'd be awkward to explain.

Can you try doing that and not being Wile E. Coyote?

She used her knife, and the air currents she was making, to start gathering a ball of sludge, then touched it with the tip of her knife to freeze it. It expanded, more physics shit, ice ball to the surface.

He swims over with a quick, fairly decent breast stroke — although, admittedly, now that he knows what it does he's tempted to aard himself there. He affixes the mouthpiece back in properly, and then dunks himself under to look at her.

Don't worry, I'm hard to kill and even harder to keep dead.

And no, I'm pretty sure it's Wile E. from here on out, unless I tether myself to a friggin rock or something somehow.

Your turn. Let's see what you've got.

She figured after that show just a full wind tunnel of current would do the same to her. She doesn't know how air and 'raw force' compare but she's not risking that sort of casting herself. Also, fun discovery, 'gravity' doesn't work in water. So she looked around, seeing what there was she could conduct.

The smaller currents are good for after, but either we catapult a Hunter ever few minutes (tempting) or... oh!

Okay, my turn for a stupid fucking plan.

I don't intend to launch myself into orbit though.

She takes on of the stones out of her bag and focuses a spell into it, a few moments of her eyes closed concentrating power, and lets it drop to the seabed.

It becomes an ice pyramid, a bit larger than a doghouse. It's not fully anchored, but it is frozen to the ground enough for maybe one shot. This time her fingers rest on the flat of her knife as she focuses a new spell braces her in front of the ice- fuck that's cold -and aims the flat of her blade towards the area they're working on. And-

A cyclone of currents barrel out of it, about as wide as a beach ball just churning the water ahead of her dragging silt and slime off the surfaces and towards center point. The force of the moving water from her spell is pushing her back into her ice block, but it does seem to be working well enough.

...Minus the fact that without an equal-opposite force it'll all just keep pushing past the edge of her cyclone. Which had a limited length, but the water and slime aren't too concerned with Abby's plan.

If I think too hard about what we're doing I'll feel really bad about it (Open/Closed)

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