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

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?"

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.

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.

I don't intend to launch myself into orbit, though — there's a bubble of air that erupts from around his snorkeling gear as he scoffs, and a nearly-inaudible waterlogged wahwah sound from his mouth. It could be loosely translated into coward, if she were close enough to hear and spoke fish.

Although, okay, admittedly... that whole display of magic was pretty friggin' cool. Smart use of the ice pyramid situation. Cool water cyclone.

There is one pitfall, which he's sure they both see as the cyclone keeps on cycloning, and he sighs. Pretty obvious what he has to do here, and he's got no more means of tethering himself now than he did two minutes ago, so.

He braces himself. Like, mentally, because physically isn't an option.

Then fires off another sign to counter her cyclone's force, and thrusting him a couple dozen yards backward in the process. Then comes the long, annoying swim back to see if it actually worked.

Hey, you know what? Ain't half bad.

Look freezable to you?

Fortunately while the cyclone didn't really control, it wasn't self-sustaining, once the spell ran out the currents slowed and returned to normal. The ice pyramid wasn't conjured, just cold water in the sea. It'd melt eventually. But that would take a lot longer to vanish. At least until it came dislodged and floated to the surface.

Abby didn't wait for Dean to make his way back, she just got her knife working, tapping the tip of the blade to blobs of slime, freezing them, and sending them towards the surface. She'll take a little while to get most of this slime off the seabed.

It's not all of it. But it'll make this whole thing a lot less slimy. I'll need to go up for air soon. See if you can find a way to dispose of this gunk?

Her focus was pretty solid while she was working on a limited timeframe. So she'll just ride that out. She does spare a glance for Dean before adding another thought.

You're absolutely coming back and doing that for fun later aren't you?

You bet your ass.

He doesn't clarify whether that response is meant about him finding a way to dispose of the gunk, or if it's about whether or not he's coming back to Aard around the ocean again — but it's not a hard guess. He does not sound the slightest bit ashamed of it. Don't judge him for enjoying fun, okay.

He breaks the surface and heaves himself from the water onto the beach, limbs heavy from the sudden reintroduction of gravity, until he finds his footing properly upon the sand. There, he thoughtfully surveys the little chunks of ice that begin to bob atop the waves.

Are we supposed to be hauling this crap completely out of the water, or just getting it away from the coral shelves?

Boys have weird ideas of fun, she doesn't get it but she can't say she's surprised by it. She spares a moment to roll her eyes over it. Then back to work, sending another three ice balls up before she starts kicking up to the surface.

"I know we need to get it off the shelf, but since we can get it out of the water we probably should." Of course, it was easy for her to say, she was about to sink back to the gathered slime and freeze some more to send up here where she's not the one moving them. She doesn't have much problem at the surface swimming idly. "Alright, more coming."

She dives her way back to the bottom, knife back out as she works more ice magic. Sending more balls of ice, generally in the baseball to basketball size on up to the surface.

He nods once, briskly. Alright, that settles that — and now that he knows the goal, he's actually got a half-decent plan. The Free Cities have set up a few supply drops for them; along with the snorkels and goggles, there's also a small pile of nets. He scoops one up, yoinks off his headgear, and treads back across the sand.

After a good dozen or so chunks of ice have gathered on the surface, he kicks into gear. Bamfs out those wings from their pocket dimension behind his shoulder blades, spreading them out white and wide and blessedly healthy after that whole demon molting thing a few months back.

The plan's a simple one — fly over the water, drop the net, skim the surface like a pool skimmer, and then haul the lot of it up out of the water and back over to the shore.

From the water Abby can't really see what's going on above, the water is clear enough save the icy chunks of gunk she's sent to the surface.

She can see a a shadow skate over the water, and the net drop. She paddles her way out from under the net and surfaces. And stares.

What the absolute fuck.

How off the fucking rails did your show get?

Believe it or not, that question actually earns a bark of unexpected laughter from him, head thrown back to the sky even as he heaves his net of ice slime heavily from the water. It's too heavy for him to answer back properly until he lands, panting, hoisting his burden onto the sand.

"Believe it or not," he grunts, dusting his hands off on his thighs, "These are a here thing. Gift from the big fuck-off rock everybody needs to leave the hell alone."

Thank you, singularity.

He eyes her with good humor, and says in a conspiratorial tone, "Between you and me? Terrified of flying. Hate heights. Worst Christmas present ever."

Edited 2023-10-12 23:11 (UTC)

Abby follows him from the water at a decent clip, swimming isn't her favorite thing but she can do it, and she doesn't lack for energy.

She seems a little relieved, to learn that no the CW never found a budget. That this is just stuff he gets to have here, thanks to a meddling God Rock Thing.

"So like my incognito mode." Which is another cute name for becoming so inconsequential anyone (without heightened senses) can ignore her. She's gathering up the coral plantings for taking back to the water, "But you sure it's ominous rock and not some sort of angel STI?"

She's decided, in this moment, for violence. She doesn't know if they're a couple but she knows both are here, and she has that one meme in her mind. So it felt like the right tease to just- leave in the air.

"Your-" he starts, initially confused — but quickly enough, realization sets in and he looks at her with a dawning understanding blooming across his expression. "That's what that was. Back at the barracks."

A beat, and then what she calls it hits him again. He can't help but mildly judge her, "Incognito Mode? Really?"

As though he has a single leg to stand on when it comes to naming things. He's the worst.

Whatever. Not gonna dwell. Instead, we're gonna focus on the other half of this conversation. This is a prime example of a teenager being a little shit. Brace for a counter-attack of Dean going full embarrassing Dad mode and leaning way too hard into a topic he knows most teenagers will be immediately repulsed and cringed out by.

Time to call her bluff.

"But for your information, no. Angels don't carry diseases. But you know who does? Teenage boys. Or girls. Whatever floats your boat. The point is, always use protection. Also, get tested. Have your partners tested. Have you seen Nadine? I bet she could run a diagnostic for free..."

He is fully prepared to go on and on if she doesn't stop him.

Edited 2023-10-13 23:08 (UTC)

"I don't have like- one name for it, but it's hard to call it anything when I don't turn fucking invisible." It's a complication with describing it, she isn't ever truly invisible. Her presence just stops being worth noticing. Unless you're a freaky Witcher, which is a fine print clause she really wanted beforehand.

Honestly if he didn't react, it wouldn't be any fun. Not the reaction she was expecting. But it's sweet in how... Boring, it was. Not like her dad ever gave her that talk. She rolled her eyes and let him go until he said Nadine. Which may as well have just been slapping her.

"I do a lot of stupid shit, but right now the one guy I'm fucking isn't anywhere near that list." Whatever 'fun' they were having a few moments ago was gone, "I'm using protection and I'm fine."

Said like someone who is definitely not fine.

Well. Okay, then. Operation: Embarrass the Teenager did not actually pan out the way he intended, and his eyebrows creep up in faint surprise at the strong reaction she has to it. Never mind that it's extremely gross to hear the one guy I'm fucking from a girl her age, which he admittedly brought on himself, but the sharpness over her tone that follows it is noteworthy.

He's met her twice.

Maybe if he knew her better, he'd push. But they don't have that relationship, they don't have that dynamic. They're strangers, and it's none of his damn business.

So, after a visibly reluctant beat, he decides the best course of action is to back off.

He nods his chin toward the coral samples they're meant to replant. Errs for gentle and diplomatic when he pitches,"How about we put our eyes back on the prize and get this thing done, huh? Easy part's up. Sooner we finish this, the sooner we can steal whatever Sam's cooking tonight." Sam Wilson, he means.

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

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ftb montage

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