[PRP] They Scream (Ashton/Lily)

[AMItotic]

Somewhere in the streets of Other Ashdown, a lone fisher plodded along the sidewalk, her fur sparkled by the mist of a warm summer rain. There were many peculiarities of this new world, the one that according to America, they had shaped and made, but the otherworld at first glance seemed the same. It was strange, to think that this weird alternate plane would become the constant in Lily's world, but caught adrift in the changes of their new reality she found herself clinging to whatever she could.

At the end of the sidewalk was a lamp post that appeared to have been overtaken by nature, covered in vines with a bird's nest at the top. Lily raked her horns against the rough texture of the bark and then with a chitter began to climb, finding a perch at around what would be her human eye level with which to stare out upon the world.

She breathed in, and with it came the salt air of June. She could process June.

daekie

 

[Daekie]

There was the sound of clicking claws against the sidewalk, soon after, a lone wolverine with distinctively galaxy-greened eyes coming into view with a slow and careful walk. It was so very hard, really, to keep explaining to people how Ashton Carver had gone home from work and shown up three hours later with a severe concussion, severe disorientation, and clothing about sixty years out of date that would have been perfect costuming if it had been clean and patched -- but when he was a wolverine, when he was an animal, he didn't need to worry about that sort of thing.

Well. Except for running into Lily, of course, because there might have been close to double-digits of wolverines created by Michael's rampage at Blackfriars (or...however they'd all appeared in this universe, with no job fair and no trio of teenagers ever gone missing), but there was very clearly only one fisher in the moonwalker pack of Ashdown. It was just his luck, really, because things were never quite as nice as they should be for someone so magnanimous as him.

He clicked daintily up to the foot of the pole, sat down with a huff not dissimilar to a dog, and let out a quick bark just in case she hadn't noticed.

AMItotic

 

[AMItotic]

If she hadn't earned those little nubby horns at the fae ball, Lily might have been able to play the game of 'oh no, officer, I promise I am but a normal woodland creature, there is nothing to see here', but there was only one jackalope noodle wannabe that she knew of, just like there was only one wolverine that she knew of that had space eyes.

She blinked down at him with dark, glassy eyes, considering her options. She could follow her first instincts and make a run for it, but that would only make the next full moon unnecessarily awkward. Alternatively, she could shift back to her vocal chords and ask him about his journey through the time warp, since she hadn't really talked about it with anyone and it was starting to weigh on her. But then she would have to get off of her perch, and it was comfy.

Instead, she opted to greet him with a friendly fisher scream.

Daekie

 

[Daekie]

In Ashton's defense, animals had always been a particular interest of his, so even regardless of the horns Lily's status as the only damn fisher in urban Ashdown would have been a dead giveaway.

...a live giveaway? It was hardly like fishers were endangered, after all. But it was a silly thought with silly terminology, and he had a faux-conversation to continue, and there was no reason to bother with human concerns when he wasn't one at the moment. If Lily wanted to talk about the warp, about the rift, about the glitch -- fine. But she'd have to prompt it.

Ashton, after taking a few seconds to contemplate, barked right back. It was hardly his fault wolverines were predisposed to sounding intimidating, really.

AMItotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily bristled, flinching as she scrambled up from her perch. Ashton's presence alone was intimidating enough, but he made large noises and the ribcage holding her palpitating heart was, at present, rather small. As she scratched for footing on a higher vine, she let out what might have been a hiss of warning, and then a few moments later she was blinking down again, tilting her head.

In this moment, she considered once again how handy it would be to just speak.

Lily knew a number of basic signs from Eve, but for that she needed her front paws, which currently had the very important job of keeping her from falling to her doom. Slowly, she began a descent from the safety of her perch, intermittently looking up from her footing to yammer down at the wolverine. It was softer than the first screech, marked with a staccato that might have been an attempt at her brain forcing this body to make words.

She made it about halfway down when she stopped, draping over a particularly knotted section of the vines. Shuffling in to a position that felt a bit more secure, the fisher cat wiggled to make sure she was in no danger of falling, then lifted a front paw, making a vague wave with one hand.

There. She was being conciliatory. That was what she was supposed to do for her fellow packmate, right?

daekie

 

[Daekie]

Ashton's ears folded back (not, to be fair, that there was much of them to fold back -- they were rather stubby ears, as a general rule) and he bowed his head, scratching a paw against the ground like a shamed dog. There were no teeth showing. That, in and of itself, was a very human sentiment on a very inhuman body -- and it was uncomfortable, really, so he only held it for a few seconds, and then replaced it with a soft wuff of noise.

He waved back, claws half-retracted as far as they would go, tilting his head in curiosity and sniffing at the telephone pole; apparently failing to gain anything of interest from its' scent. His noises were much quieter, but -- there was only so quiet he could go like this. Wolverines were not, unfortunately, particularly suited for stealth in urban environments.

AMItotic

 

[AMItotic]

Softer noises were better, and Lily responded with a chitter and a flick of her tail, sniffing at the air just above Ashton. She considered for a moment, and then with a decisive sneeze she skittered the rest of the way down to the pavement. She huffed as she rolled onto her back, stretching her stubby limbs while showing the soft tufts of fur at her belly. And then with a wiggle, another sneeze, a twist, her body shifted and melted, giving way to a lanky girl in dark mesh who gazed expectantly at the wolverine from upside down.

"So," Lily drawled, lifting a hand to protect her eyeliner from the rain. "You come here often?" It was a common enough phrase, a one-liner, something to break the ice, but there was a little extra weight to the words, like something that might have been a joke between friends in another universe. Getting a closer look at his eyes had been enough to (mostly) confirm that she had actually been screeching at Ashton--how embarrassed she might have been, to find out that she'd been audibly assaulting one of the other wolverines that made up the pack.

Daekie

 

[Daekie]

Softer noises were better, yes, and as Lily skittered her way down to the pavement Ashton flopped onto his side, tail flicking, tongue peeking out only the slightest bit; he nosed at Lily when she shifted back with a grumf of discordant sound, one paw against the ground, claws half-retracted and unthreatening if you ignored the teeth.

And the muscle hidden under the fur. And the everything, really. Maybe wolverines just weren't meant to look soft.

His ears flicked at the question and there was what might have been a nod, his head shifting against the sidewalk, raindrops sliding off of his dark fur.

AMItotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily wasn't sure how to respond to the nod, and so she didn't at first, glancing away with a smile that turned flat the further her stare went. Eventually, she looked up towards the sky, and then with a sigh she heaved over onto her stomach, so that she could look the wolverine face-to-face.

Well. Face-to-teeth, really. For all that magic was bizarre, she had to appreciate how stunningly terrifying and surreal it was to be chatting next to a real, living death machine, who was also her ex and could shed that skin as easily as if it were a jacket in summer. Life was weird that way.

Lily rested her chin in one palm, glancing up at Ashton with raised eyebrows. "I bet you're soft," she sighed, and lifted her free hand to test her theory. However, she stopped just short of actual contact, biting a lip before drawing away. "I'm sorry. That was weird. Sorry. Super weird." Pointedly, Lily stared downwards, rubbing at her cheekbones with an exasperated huff.

daekie

 

[Daekie]

Ashton shifted forward, ears flicking forward, giving what might have been a much more pointed look of 'pet me, you fool' on any domestic animal as opposed to the face of one Death Machine McFluff. When that didn't seem to get the point across, he rolled further onto his side, stomach essentially exposed.

It wasn't weird to want some pets, right? It wasn't weird. Especially if it was your ex half-offering to give them. Absolutely nothing weird about that. (The more he repeated it like a mental mantra, Ashton figured, the more he'd probably believe it. It was a relaxation thing! And he was very soft. The softest. And also the best.)

AMItotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily's eyes followed the roll of fur, and she looked up just in time to see a prone wolverine, staring at her with the universe in his eyes. "Um." She glanced from him to her still outstretched hand, and back to him. "So is this like, a form of consent, or...?"

All of this was weird, but interacting with her ex was considerably less weird when he was a fluffy death machine and not wearing his smug Dreamworks face. Did it make her weird to admit that? Probably. Either way, it was easier to have plausible deniability about touching the stomach of a fluffy animal, who looked considerably cuter while on his back.

"Because I don't wanna make it weird, if it's, you know, weird to you..."

daekie

 

[Daekie]

Ashton huffed once, twice, and slapped his tail against the ground as he rolled further onto his back. He didn't feel like shifting back, and until someone felt fit to teach him sign language that was usable with very stubby legs, nonthreatening grumbling was about the extent of his capacity for verbal linguistics.

It's not weird unless you make it weird, his eyes seemed to say, with that ever-familiar look of mild exasperation Ashton seemed to wear semi-constantly. It's not weird. (It was kind of weird, actually, but that was not the point.)

AMItotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily wavered as she waited for any kind of sign of a no, and then slowly, tentatively reached forward. "Okay, dude, I'm taking this as a sign that you're okay with this." And with one hand she settled her fingers down over the wolverine's chest, fluffing lightly at the tufts of fur. For how coarse it looked, his fur was soft, and with it brought notes of solidarity and family threaded between her fingers. It reminded her of home, of stealing kisses over anatomy textbooks after midnight. Her memories caught her like they were antifreeze, a sweet veneer that left her choking, struggling for air.

All at once Lily's expression turned blank and she retreated away from the touch, curling up to a seated ball on the lip of the sidewalk. "Nope, nope, I made it weird," she droned, wiping at her eyeliner as she stared off into the foggy distance. "I'm sorry, dude, I can't, I just--I can't, this is too weird."

To give her mind something to do, she picked at her hands, staring intently at her chipped nail polish.

daekie

 

[Daekie]

When Lily pulled away, Ashton huffed again, rolling over to sit up on his haunches and letting his form shift and warp until it was just regular, human, Ashton (alright, so maybe he was still sporting the ears and tail, but it was comfortable and didn't need further thought) sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, slowly stretching his legs out, one ankle crossed over the other. "It was," he admitted, "kind of weird, you're right. But I'm very soft." His eyebrows were perfectly pencilled, nails matte green to match his eyes, but his face was otherwise free of any excessive makeup - Ashton, like some people, had been blessed with the genetics of clear skin.

"But besides that, though, how've you been since -" he waved his hand in an all-encompassing gesture - "all of that went down? I was a little blurry at the end, honestly, so I think I might have lost a little time...we did more than we intended to, I think."

AMItotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily didn't move when she first heard his voice, but her eyes flickered his way before sinking further into her ball of sulk.

"It's all ********," she shrugged, her voice muffled by how she buried her face into her arms. "And, like, most of it is good ********, but it's different, and it feels like cheating."

"I still don't even know what it was that we did," she admitted, unfurling just enough to let one of her hands fall to the ground. "America says we remade the world or something? But all we did was bleed on a drawing and argue about it a lot. It doesn't make sense."

daekie