[PRP] Death Hotel (Preacher & Chester)

[Smerdle]

Chester was trying not to hover, but since he was already accompanying her back to their designated rooms to make sure she didn't fall over along the way, he probably should have stopped kidding himself. Preacher had been healed, far more thoroughly than a mundane hospital would have managed, but still he lingered. The blisters that had spread across his right side from shoulder to knee had taken a fraction of the work, and though they didn't hurt anymore, his skin still felt hot and everything smelled of fire.

He hadn't the faintest idea what to talk about. He eventually managed,

"You punched the Burning Man."

And then the chuckling began.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She been mostly healed, but damn her side still ached. Something something about a partial being safer. What the ******** ever, at least Preacher wasn't actually going to scar from it, because she certainly didn't need more of that. She grimaced.

When Chester began to laugh, she glanced up at him, startled. Then a slow smile spread across her face and morphed into a grin.

"I punched tha ********' Burning Man. Twice. N' you knifed him." She snorted, her nose wrinkling. Then she kneed open the door to the room, jerking her head for Chester to come in."This time went maybe a bit better, though I wonder what woulda happened if no one had punched 'im, ya know?" Her shirt was in burned shred and she needed a new one.

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"I did, I guess," he replied, grinning a bit. "I wish I could have actually done some real damage, but I guess we all lived, so..." He paused at the door, then in a burst of decisive motion, followed Preacher inside.

"I'm not sure what would have happened. I can see a world where whatever he was planning goes off and we all die. I can see one where we fought him where we found him, behind that door. But I can't imagine one where we didn't fight at all. If you hadn't punched him, Detective Kuroda probably would have." Chester looked around the room, feeling off at the prospect of spending the night on this side. "I'm just glad we were in a place where they could make sure no one died."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Nah, Kuroda woulda knifed him or shot him. He's not a punchin' type, even if he's got some 'splainin' to do about tha whole alleyway thing." Preacher stripped off the remains of her shirt, stuffing it into a bin near the bed. Goodbye shirt - it wasn't salvageable anyway. She stood there for a moment, poking through clothes.

"Ya smell like smoke, should prolly change, too, o' conjurer of knives." She pulled up on her sports bra, sniffing it. "Can't tell if I'm super smokey, though. N' I feel like if we ain't have fought him, maybe he wouldna got split all in two. And that woulda counted as a loss... Maybe? I dunno; I don't really give a s**t about there bein' multiple Ezras. Or about those chicks tha Burning Man is into." She shrugged and crossed her arms.

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"Hm." He could see that. Knifing before punching. And she would know, working with the man. All in all, Ashdown had one of the weirdest police forces he'd ever heard of, not that he'd heard much about many others.

His jacket had been discarded early in the scuffle, and even though the fetches had promised to clean it, Chester wasn't counting on getting it back in one piece. His shirt and pants were missing large patches of fabric, though he was in no danger of surprise nudity like some of the others he'd seen. He poked through the clothing very deliberately, considering Preacher's words as he did. Finally, he settled on, "Yes. A loss. For the human Ezra. I don't care about the noble or his mysterious daughters either, but the man from this universe didn't ask to be possessed by a hypocritical lunatic." All he really knew was that he wouldn't have liked it very much had he been the one burning from the inside out.

Chester chose a logoless t-shirt that looked like it would fit, then proceeded to just stand there, holding it awkwardly. "I guess I'm... changing then." He faced the door, fidgeting with the soft, blue fabric. Then, as quickly as possible, he swapped his ruined shirt for the new one and turned to her again.

The Semblance of Un!ty

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"True, true. Guess tha noble musta, though. Wonder what tha origin o' tha burning man is, aside from like bein' the aftermath of drunk night at Taco Bell." She did not turn around as Chester changed, instead taking the opportunity to strip off quickly, herself. Preacher had snatched up a lilac-colored tank top, the armholes low and huge (her favorite). When he turned around, she was in the midst of pulling on a pair of pajama shorts. Her pants and underthings were in an untidy pile on the floor.

She made a face at him, yanking the short up the rest of the way under the long tank top. Then Preacher stepped forward and jerked his shirt up to expose his midsection. Dropping it, she patted his abdomen. "You're fitter than I thought, Abster." Preacher grinned at him cheekily, colors swirling at the edges of her eyes: yellow and pink. "Do you still have my cheetos, or did they get immolated?" The fetches had said dinner was gonna happen, so there was that. Stretching her arms up, she began to work on undoing her hair.

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

Chester was okay with people touching him, as long as he could see them coming or had some other way of knowing they were likely to. He definitely saw Preacher's approach, but it didn't stop him from positively giggling when she patted at him, quickly covering his mirth by clearing his throat.

"I... um... repetitive motion. It's good to think through. So, abs, I guess." Regular exercise had been something his parents had insisted on in junior year, and excessive exercise had followed as a practice he had taken up in order to get his mind off of his own failings. It had never felt like a thing to be proud of, and it only really embarrassed him to acknowledge.

He didn't feel that way for long this time, not when he noticed her eyes. "The cheetos were in my jacket and the fetches have that. Sorry." Chester leaned a bit closer, his hand absently finding the spot on his stomach she had touched as he squinted down at her. "Your eyes..." He straightened again. "They have... colors in them."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

That was definitely a ********' giggle, she thought, and the corners of her mouth twitched. "I never think durin' exercise, jus' like movin'." She opened her mouth to comment further, but his question stopped her. The pink and yellow swirled brighter in her eyes and she snorted.

"Ya know, most people got colors in their eyes." She leaned up on tip-toe as he pulled away, staring into his eyes. "You do, too. I can see 'em. Want me ta write a poem, somethin' somethin' stars, orbs, blah." Preacher made a silly face.

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"No, not like... I know your eyes are a color. I see them all the time. This is... not normal." He squinted again, curious and amused.

"Preacher Maria
The fighting mink.
Preacher Maria
Your orbs are pink.

Preacher Maria
They're yellow too.
Preacher Maria
...Woo woo woo woo woo."

"Look." He pointed at the mirror. "Do they feel any different?" Normally he would have given something this innocuous a couple of days to settle in, but they were in a weird place and she had just been healed by some fairly weird people. It was worth it to ask.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She resisted the urge to tilt her head in confusion. Then he begin reciting his poem and a fat laugh bubbled out of her. "Oh ********, don' quit ya day job. I'm dyin'." One hand rose up to cover her mouth. s**t. "Woo, woo, woo, woo-" she repeated, the words dissolving into giggles.

Preacher laughed so hard she coughed. Then she turned and wandered over to the mirror, peering at her own face. Her laughter faded. "What tha s**t." Chester was right. As she watched, the colors in her eyes shifted, a bit of orange seeping into them. "They don' feel different. ********, what if it's like... burnin' shithead puttin' magic in m'eyes?" She glanced back at him. "It doesn't feel fiery or s**t."

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

Chester grinned at her response, following her the short distance to the mirror as he forced most of his silliness to the backburner for a moment.

"I think they would have noticed if he'd done something like that. The fetches, I mean. While they were healing you." He couldn't see the orange, not being close enough to examine her eyes in quite the same way as he had before, but he'd seen enough to know it wasn't normal. "If you feel all right then I want to say there's nothing wrong." He also didn't want to have to go traipsing through the halls looking for a fetch who was only going to give them bad news. If she wasn't actively dying or feeling possessed, he was tempted to leave it until morning.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Whirling suddenly, she grabbed the back of his neck and yanked him down. "Dude, look. The ******** they orange, now? N' you're still too tall." She let him go and ducked her head, chewing her lip.

"I mean, I feel normal, except slightly crispy. What if I've got the bullshit magic plague or something." Magic plague. It was what Preacher defaulted to when magical things happened suddenly - like becoming a mink.

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

The noise he made as she dragged him to her eye level sounded a little like huunnnrt, but he didn't stumble thanks to some creative arm flailing. Chester looked closely at her now orangish eyes, rising back to his usual height once he was done.

"We could see a different fetch? I don't know how to check for plagues." Perhaps the most alarming part of all of this was Preacher's slightly clearer speech.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She sighed. "Nah, I'll jus' die." Preacher then fell backwards dramatically onto the bed. The blankets were so fluffy they almost swallowed her up.

"Are ya stayin'?"

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

And like that, things were normal again. Kind of. Chester peered at her, trying to determine if something about her eyes might indicate she had gone completely down to crazy town, but there was no sign.

"Am I?" he asked, more intrigued than embarrassed. "I mean, the bed is huge, but there is only one of them." He was apprehensive about this place, weirded out at the thought of being in some cold, silent space all by himself even if it was right next door, but that didn't mean it was time to revert to sleepovers. Surely there was a room somewhere else with two whole beds.

"Only if you don't mind." Saying as much was kind of a waste of breath. He doubted she would have asked if she wasn't okay with it.

The Semblance of Unity