Heather Mason (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
foolishwren) wrote2010-05-24 04:00 am
foolishwren) wrote2010-05-24 04:00 am
Storybits
STORYBITS: THE DRABBLENING
Over time I've accumulated a lot of random Route-verse or generally Heather-based drabbles! Here's a post compiling them all in one place. See comments for the stories!
What's Eating Jerry?
1. What's Eating Jerry?
Context: Anonymous player requested this prompt on an anon fan meme:"Heather runs into Officer Jerry once more. Despite the fact that her warrent's expired, he's still not very happy with her." (EN ROUTE)
The sun was bright, the Pidgeys were chirping, and the gentle rustle of the wind through the pines was music to his ears on this blessedly peaceful morning.
Officer Jerry leaned back against the rough wooden fence lining the side of the country road leading into Goldenrod City, smiling peacefully and letting the styrofoam cup of coffee he was holding warm his fingers and drive away the early chill.
In the wake of that nightmarish fog that had made all those foreigners seemingly lose their friggin' minds, Jerry had weathered ceaseless subtle taunting from his coworkers, not to mention multiple viewings of .... of that video clip in the staffroom. All day long. He had a thick skin-- you had to when you did this kind of work-- but a man could only deal with so much abuse!
So when his superiors had kindly decided to give him a vacation in the guise of a temporary transfer to Goldenrod City, he'd leaped on the chance like a fat kid on cake: hungrily and with a certain sense of shame for not being able to handle all the teasing. But still, now that he was out here patrolling quiet countryside roads on the outskirts of the city instead of dirty alleys back in Violet, he knew he'd made the right choice. This was just what he needed to recuperate from his ordeal.
"Uh-- sir? Hey, SIR?"
Uh oh.
What the hell was that.
That... that voice... sounded familiar.
Horribly familiar.
Feeling a twinge of phantom pain in a region best left unnamed, Jerry turned towards the source of the sound.
..... oh no.
"Oh-- uh, hi! Um, I just wanted to ask if this was the right way to that Daycare place?"
I-IT WAS HER!!
BUT-- HOW DID-- THE WARRANT--?!
HOW COULD SHE BE---
"... AAAAAAAHHHIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHGH!!!"
Safe Up High
2. Safe Up High
Context: Deleted comment, I don't remember what this prompt was. :c (CANON)It wasn't until the soles of her boots were planted securely on the rooftop that she stopped running-- it wasn't even necessarily that she thought there was anybody pursuing her. It was just part of the thrill.
Panting, open-mouthed, she checked over her shoulder just to be sure, but there was nothing below but the stack of crates she'd scaled-- and, beyond that, the road, painted tangerine by the sun's sinking light. No one after her. They probably hadn't even noticed. She was just that good.
The sixteen-year-old stood all the way up with an out-of-breath laugh, uncurling her fingers to take a look at the spoils of her stroll through the jewelry section of Sears. A set of gold earrings, the cardstock paper the were set in already wrinkled and damp from the sweat of the clenched fist it had been clutched in.
She probably could have afforded them, to be honest-- but then, it was less about the genuine want for something and more about the buzz of excitement that came with getting away with the act.
Slipping them into her pocket, cracked her knuckles and strode off across the concrete rooftop, aiming for home.
She didn't need these shiny little pieces of metal, but then-- did anybody?
Heather wasn't stealing anything that anybody couldn't go without, so she didn't feel bad for it.
Berry-Bucking
3. Berry-Bucking
Context:The sky was clear-- a brilliant blue reserved only for those crisp autumn days where the air had a bite to it that made even the most sluggish of people feel like getting out and doing stuff.
Which meant, of course, that it was a perfect day for apple-bucking.
The trouble was, as Applejack discovered when she strolled through the city's outskirts that morning, there didn't seem to be any apple trees in Johto.
Which was what led her to do what she was doing when Heather, on her way to the pond to let a floaty-wearing Godzilla do some paddling around, walked past and just... paused.
"... Uh, hey there, AJ... why're you... um... kicking a tree?"
Pausing with one foot planted against the tree's trunk, the ex-pony turned around and beamed brightly at the other girl.
"Berry-buckin'!" she replied.
At Heather's blank stare and raised brow, she turned back to the tree to give it another kick. "See, back home, my job's to buck all the apples down from th'family orchard! S'how we make a livin'! These human legs sure don't hold a candle compared to what they can normally do, but I figure if I keep at it, why, I'll be the best berry-bucker Johto ever saw! Might make a pretty penny sellin' 'em to folks who don't feel like climbin' up to get 'em themselves, too!"
WHAM! A particularly hard kick made the leaves on the tree rattle.
Beaming at her progress, AJ continued kicking.
"'Sides, I gotta keep in shape just in case I get turned back into a pony again, and-- hey, whatchu gigglin' about back there?"
She paused in her efforts and looked over her shoulder to Heather, who'd covered her mouth with one hand and was making some very distinctive snerking noises.
"I-- pffft, sorry, no offense or anything," she snickered after a moment, raising her other hand to show she wasn't trying to be mean. "But anyone looking out their window right now to see a random girl kicking a tree is probably wondering what's going on pretty hard right now. Since I don't think any of them would've heard of... uh, berry-bucking."
AJ blinked, then drew herself up with a confident smile.
"Well, you humans look pretty silly whether you're kickin' trees or not, so I won't take that personal! 'Sides, if you could see me doin' this in my OWN body, you wouldn't be laughin', I'll tell you tha--"
She cut herself off with a small gasp as-- having been jostled slowly loose by all the kicking, a single berry snapped off of its stem and fell, hitting her right between where her ears would have been if she'd still been a pony. ... Of course, not having anything close to the firm consistency of the apples she was so used to bucking, the berry merely burst into a small pile of blue mush.
The sight made Heather first gape in surprise at the sheer timing of it all, and then double over, hands on her knees and shoulders shaking with unrestrained (but good-natured) laughter.
Mildly surprised, AJ blinked once or twice... before breaking into a grin, both at the situation and the sight of her buddy laughing so hard.
"... Well, I'll give ya this one. This'd be a pretty silly sight on anypony."
There'll be a Bump and There'll be a Bruise
4. There'll Be a Bump and There'll Be a Bruise
Context:"Boy, they really did a doozy on ya, huh? Guess little shits like that exist in every world..."
Heather dropped the rolled-up, very-much-reddened paper towel in the garbage bin and wiped her hands off on her jeans as she straightened up in front of the very sorry-looking Miles Edgeworth on the bench in front of her. His head was down and his palms were squared flat on the hard wooden seat, and even though he was so very obviously trying to suppress it, his shoulders were hitching every so often. His normally impeccably-neat clothes were rumpled and filthy-- even torn in some places. And although his chin was firmly planted against his chest to hide it, the soiled tissue Heather had just thrown away was evidence of his bloodied nose.
Turning her head to face the other (thankfully mostly-unscathed) little boy standing in this cramped little public restroom (it was a men's room, but Heather apparently didn't give a crap) she had hastily ducked them into, she spoke with an encouraging tone.
"So... what exactly happened, Ken?"
"... Bigger kids, they... beat us in a Pokemon match," he said distractedly, watching his friend with deeply-furrowed brows and a concerned frown. "But instead of taking half our money, they wanted all of it. ... So Miles tried to tell them that wasn't fair and--"
"Yeah, I think I can piece the rest of it together myself," Heather sighed, shaking her head and turning her attention back to the silver-haired boy she'd just spent a good ten minutes mopping up. "You guys did the right thing. S'not your fault some creeps get their kicks by beating up on little kids..." She paused there, looking around the dingy bathroom. "... Not much more I can do in here, to be honest. C'mon, let's get you guys to the Center..."
The up-till-now silent Miles shook his head.
"They're outside, I saw them," he mumbled thickly, lifting one hand to discretely swipe at a smudge of dirt on his cheek. "They were pointing and laughing when they saw you bring us in here..."
"... They were, huh." Straightening up once more, Heather turned and headed over to the open doorway to take a look, kicking some stray toilet paper out of the way as she went. Ken edged over to his friend as she did so.
"... Are you going to be all right?" he mumbled quietly, hands in his pockets.
"... Y-yes. I'll be fine," Miles replied, sniffing deeply before sitting up at last. His eyes were red and puffy, but he watched Heather solemnly as she headed back over to them to deliver the news.
"Yeah, I see 'em out there," the teen said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "But they're not gonna try anything as long as I'm with you guys, so... c'mon."
Miles frowned, eying Heather's proffered hand unsurely. He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. As was increasingly common, Ken was on the same mental wavelength as his best friend, and he piped up instead.
"But they're still out there. Can't we... wait a little while? Just until they go? So they won't see..."
Heather arched a brow and looked at them both, hand still raised. When both just stared up at her pleadingly, she let it fall, sighing.
"I'm not gonna stay in this nasty old bathroom forever, and I'm not gonna let you guys, either. You won't get anywhere by hiding from a bunch of stupid bullies. Letting 'em waste your time like that."
The boys shifted uncomfortably, averting their gazes.
Heather let the awkward silence extend for a little while before folding her arms.
"I know it's embarrassing. But you can feel embarrassed for five seconds while we walk past them, or you can let them totally control your whole afternoon by sitting in here for three hours until they get bored and wander off."
They glanced at each other.
Then, slowly and a little sheepishly, Miles hopped off the bench, rubbing his sore nose. "All right... let's go..."
"Ah, ah, ah--" Heather threw out a hand before he could walk too far towards the door. "Hang on. One thing you're missing that you gotta have before you walk outta here."
When she was met by two very confused stares, she pointed to the corners of her mouth and, very conspicuously, poked them upwards. The stares got even more confused, and Ken was the first one to voice the question they both shared.
"... Why?"
Miles couldn't help but agree. They had just been hit and thrown in the dirt by a gang of kids twice as big as them. What reason could there possibly be to smile?
"Because if you go out there still lookin' scared, that's letting 'em know they've won. .... But come out of here looking like you're ready to run off without a care and walk around on some old peoples' lawns or something, man, and that just tells 'em that they're not even worth your time of day. You're so over them. They like, don't even matter. Now c'mon. Let's see those pearly whites."
"... But that's dishonest," Miles pointed out.
"It's called bluffing and it might save your butt one day. C'mon, both of you."
The boys looked at each other again, a little unsurely-- before turning back to Heather and giving it their best shot.
"... Nnno, that's just baring your teeth. Which is also good to do sometimes, but it's not what we're goin' for now. Make it crinkle up your eyes, that way it looks rea-- theeeeeere ya go!"
Clapping them both on the shoulder with a broad grin of her own, Heather turned to the door.
"All right, let's get outta here. When we go through the door, don't even look at 'em. Juuust keep smiling. All right?"
When she got two affirmative nods in reply, she smiled back and shouldered the door open to let them through, making a mental note to come back here once she'd dropped them off at the Center. She'd gotten a gooood look at those guys' faces, and it had been awhile since she'd last busted her knuckles on anything worth the swelling.
A Game of Turning White to Black
1. A Game of Turning White to Black
Prompt: "5 times Heather found something weird in Silent Hill and 1 time Heather actually finds something that makes sense." (CANON)1. The walnut's shell cracked and splintered into little pieces that pattered down onto the floor as she scraped the remaining fragments of it away with her fingernails.
It was safe to say that she was already expecting something out of the ordinary to be inside-- considering where she'd found it, and the fact that nothing here seemed to ever friggin' be normal-- but she hadn't really expected to see whatever was inside sparkle.
Frowning thoughtfully, Heather held the smooth, cool object aloft to get a better look at it.
Pale, translucent, and strikingly beautiful and lustrous against the rot and rust that covered everything else, the moonstone glittered faintly in the beam of Heather's flashlight, specks of the nut's shell from which it had just been pried still littering its surface.
".... Huh."
2. Heather's flesh crawled.
Everything about this was disgusting.
Everything.
The reek of decomposing food and flesh was so intense that it was almost a taste rather than a smell, coating her throat and making her skin prickle like a gulp of sour milk. It washed over her in waves like nausea and she held her breath desperately, even though it was so powerful it almost seemed to seep into her skin.
That was how bad it was from all the way across the room.
And now that she was standing next to it?
It was a thousand times worse.
Fighting back a hardcore case of the dry heaves, Heather shut her eyes as shudders of revulsion ran up and down her entire body.
"Oh, god..."
On the table in front of her, the dog's corpse lay on a bed of withered lettuce and rotting fruits and vegetables, happily unaware in its thorough deadness that it was being given an impromptu autopsy by a gloveless, cringing high-school girl with no medical training to her name.
Somehow the fact that it was not some fresh body that had simply been laid there and left to decay, but a cooked one that had been left to spoil-- made everything all the worse. Gagging, Heather tried not to think about which baked organs her fingers were touching, tried not to think about how the decaying, hairless skin crumbled and parted as easily as wet tissue paper, as she plunged her hands wrist-deep into the sickeningly-moist, ripe corpse.
Something burst gently as her hand encountered it and a small flood of something white that Heather thought might be pus came gushing out of an open sore in the reeking meat-- it wasn't until it pooled on the table and then separated into dozens of tiny squiggling parts that she realized what it really was.
"Oh my god oh my god ohmygodohmygodohmygod...!!
Voice trailing off into a high-pitched, near-tears squeak, Heather did a little dance on the spot reminiscent of the universal 'gotta pee' dance, only in this case, it was 'gotta get my hands out of this DEAD DOG before I friggin' HURL' dance and tried to ignore the gentle squelches that were accompanying her deep-cavity exploration of Cooked Fido here.
There are maggots that I am probably touching right now I can't even DO this--
Finally, her fingertips encountered something hard and ornate and she yanked her dripping hands from the oozing corpse so fast that the flesh sucked against them in protest as she did so. Holding the gore-covered key in her equally gore-covered fingers, Heather let out a horrified whine and scrambled away from the decay-teeming table to find a working faucet.
She didn't even want to think about who could be sick enough to think of hiding a key by making a dog swallow it and then cooking it whole.
3. Heather was, quite understandably, not too crazy about the idea of eating and drinking stuff from some freaky alternate reality.
But everything she'd been through... Climbing, fighting, digging through rubble, running for her frigging life...
It was thirsty work, to say the least.
And the further she got into this strange and smoky underworld, the more the thirst started to get to her. She wasn't in danger of dying or anything, but she could feel the fuzzy edges of dehydration, like the static of the radio she had tucked into her breast-pocket, beginning to creep into the gaps in her thoughts. It was harder to stay focused when all she could seem to think about was how much she wanted to wash that horrible, sour dryness out of her mouth...
Eventually, desperation got the better of her. She started trying faucets where she could find them. Most didn't give a drop, or were rusted tight. One gushed forth with a promising gurgle, but the water was dark, smelled coppery, and held a sinister red glint under the beam of her flashlight, so she had wisely decided to refrain from trying any.
But finally, when she stumbled across what appeared to be (or have once been...) some kind of staff lounge area in the Hilltop Center, it seemed like she'd found what she was looking for at last. Lo and fucking behold, a vending machine.
After looking around thoroughly to make sure there was nothing unpleasant lurking in the corners, Heather shoved her gun back into her pocket and approached the machine. The glass was speckled with god-knows-what, but there was still a light on inside, so it had to still be working. Heather still didn't trust anything in this place as far as she could throw it, but if she didn't have something to drink soon...
If the soda tasted nasty, she could always just spit it out, right?
Planting a hand against the glass, Heather fished one of the silver coins she'd picked up earlier out of her pocket and slipped it into the slot. She was reaching for the number pad when the machine whirred to life and sent a most-definitely-unchosen soda can tumbling into the dip at the bottom.
"What the-- ..."
When she bent to pick it up, two things occurred to her.
One? It was incredibly light. Whatever was in there, it sure wasn't soda, and that sure pissed her off.
Two? She was pretty sure soda cans weren't supposed to... er... jangle.
With a bewildered frown, she popped the tab off and shook the can's contents out into her waiting palm--
.... A key.
"... Fan-fuckin'-tastic."
4. Heather could be called many things, some of them not so respectable.
And all things considered, she was relatively okay with that.
She'd done plenty of things she wasn't proud of, after all, and she didn't lie about them.
But one thing she had never quite foreseen herself doing was looting corpses. Possibly because before tonight, she'd never thought she'd be running INTO any corpses.
Especially not ones hidden behind a thick crust of wall-plaster.
A shiver wormed its way up and down Heather's back as she made herself step closer to see better to see those grisly hanging legs better in the gloom, letting the steel pipe she'd used to bash that section of the wall open drop to the floor. Whoever it was, they'd been dead for a good long while... practically mummified, all enclosed up in there...
She shuddered again, thinking back to the time they'd covered Poe in English class.
'I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious....'
"Poor ol' sucker..."
Out of morbid fascination, she crept a bit closer, and then spotted something that caught her eye. Something clutched in the dangling hand of whoever the unfortunate body had once belonged to. With some trepidation, and half-expecting it to suddenly lash out and grab at her, Heather inched forward and plucked the object from its owner's dead fingers.
... A silencer.
A silencer, for a gun.
... She could think of no logical reason for it to be there, but you know what?
She didn't even care anymore.
She sure as heck didn't know WHY a piece of treasure like this would be found plastered up inside a half-constructed wall, but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Sorry, buddy," she told the body as she fit the silencer to her handgun with a click. "Finders keepers."
5. Of all the skin-crawling, unsettling things she had encountered in this hell-town, the one that filled her with the most revulsion was the dollmaker.
Not because she could actually see his pale face peeking out at her from behind the dark corners and curtains...
Not because she could actually smell the rank body-odor of someone who allowed sweat and crumbs and body lint to accumulate stickily in every flabby fold of flesh without bothering to wash away the filth, terrified that doing so would somehow be letting the higher-ups take away his freedom...
Not because she could actually feel his hot breath on the back of her neck or his clammy hands reverently but still hungrily caressing her skin and creeping places where they shouldn't ...
Not because she could actually hear him moaning her name from the darkness in a soft, fluttering gasp ...
... But because he told her all those things in his letters, each one lovingly left for her to find, and her imagination was more than willing to fill in the blanks where he did not stand. ... Or maybe he did.
She would never know for sure, and that was the most disturbing part.
+1. She had found two cards in her trip through Nowhere.
One, the High Priestess, had been in the bedroom of Claudia-- the little girl who she'd once considered a younger sister, now both taller and older than she was. The reason she had come back here at all. Her father's murderer.
The other, she'd found in her own room-- the old one that had belonged to her back before she was Heather-- before her second go-around.
The Fool.
She rested for a moment, leaning back against the rusty grating that walled this pitch-black pocket of the Otherworld and let her tired muscles relax as she looked down at the two cards.
She couldn't remember the meanings of either of them, but somehow she knew they fit perfectly. ... Made perfect sense.
But .... why did they both have to have turned out this way...?
And Then Eventually They Were Banned From Pokemon Centers Forever
3. And Then Eventually They Were Banned from Pokemon Centers Forever
Prompt: "Five times Heather and Rise caused chaos in a Pokémon Center. And one time they saved the day in a Center." (EN ROUTE)1. "No."
"But-- we were just--"
"No. He might have evolved, but that is the same Pokemon. If you must bathe him, use the hose and do it outside."
Heather and Rise looked at each other, then at the Nurse Joy they were being chided by, and then looked at the minivan-sized Arcanine who was currently rolling in the dusty summer dirt in front of the Pokemon Center with his legs in the air, making snorfling noises.
"... I guess we'll get the hose..."
2. The crowd in the lobby was forced to shrink away to the edges of the room as a seemingly-endless torrent of Pokeballs came pouring out of the machine hooked up to the PC in the corner, rolling across the smooth lobby floor in a veritable sea of red and white. Soon, it would look like one of those kiddie ball pits at McDonald's.
As soon as Nurse Joy was able to get over her shock and horror, she whipped around to face the two shell-shocked girls huddled in the corner by the PC behind the stream of Pokeballs, the only two people in the room who could possibly be responsible for breaking the PC system.
3. If either of their Pokemon were going to be causing an explosion of OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK in the Center, let's be honest. It was usually Heather's.
But on this occasion, Rise was the one left stammering for words to explain how her seven-foot Dratini somehow managed to get tangled simultaneously in the hair of three Nurse Joys.
Heather just... stood behind her and patted her shoulder sympathetically.
4. Five months after the Bath Incident, someone's unsupervised Snubbull licked the walls, because sometimes animals are dumb and do stuff like that for no real reason.
The resulting (harmless) numbness of its face and uncontrollable drooling was most likely due to the fact that, no matter how much scrubbing or vacuuming they did, they would never be able to get all the Stun Spore out of the cracks between the tiles.
5. When they had put as much distance between themselves and the Center as possible, they stopped, wheezing with hands on knees, and looked at each other in pure, adrenaline-soaked horror.
"Oh my god."
"Oh my god."
"Did she see that?"
"I hope not."
"Me too." Straightening up, Heather flopped backwards to lean against a tree trunk, swiping a hand across her brow. "Because if I have to get arrested again, I'd rather 'Being the trainer of the Totodile who literally ate the entire bin of complimentary packets of Kleenex and also licked five of the lollipops before putting them all BACK' not be the reason listed on my record."
+1. It turns out that when Rockets are trying to bull their way into a building in hopes of easy pickings (who's easier to steal from than a bunch of grandmas bringing their perfectly-healthy Pokemon in because they were convinced that every sneeze meant the pet was DYING?) just... don't really know what to do when the only entrance is blocked by a deliberately-placed giant Arcanine butt.
It was Rise's idea.
These Inconvenient Fireworks
4. These Inconvenient Fireworks
Prompt: "Five times Kaito teased Heather by calling her cute and one time he was totally serious." (EN ROUTE)1. "Oh my GOD, Kaito, get out."
"But they're so cute."
Heather hunched her blanket-clad shoulders in a distinctly vulture-like fashion and glared daggers at her friend, who was kneeling next to her on the corner couch of a Center lobby and grinning a great big Cheshire grin.
The only thing sparing him from a fist to the face was the fact that Heather had a strict moral code that forbade her from punching frie-- ... no, wait a second, that was a lie. She punched her friends all the time. So WHAT exactly was keeping him from not having an imploded face right now? ... Oh yeah. Probably the fact that she was a little feverish and swinging fists around right now made her dizzy.
Which was, of course, part of the reason this stupid discussion had begun in the first place.
"No. No, they're not, and I'M not, now go away," she growled, clapping her hands over the flushed cheeks he was currently teasing her about.
"But they bring out your freckles, Awesome-san~"
"Don't you dare tilde at me."
"Move your hands, I want to count them."
"No."
"ONNNNE.... TWOOO-- geez, Heather, this would be easier if you stopped sissy-slapping me--"
"I WILL END YOU."
"Keep shouting, it makes them stand out even mo--"
And then Heather planted a foot in the middle of his chest and shoved him unceremoniously off of the couch before tugging a blanket over her head and turning her back sulkily.
2. Kaito was quickly discovering that, despite her quick temper, Heather's thresholds for annoyance (so long as she could reciprocate) were incredibly high.
He got the chance to test this extensively one day when they stumbled across a traveling circus of Mankey trainers somewhere along Route 34 and spent the afternoon cruising through the tents to see what they could find.
It turned out Heather would politely tolerate getting a balloon rubbed on her head for ten consecutive minutes, but the moment he teasingly suggested that the way the static made her hair all fluffy was cute, that was apparently her cue to start pelting him with popcorn.
3. "Heatherrrrr."
"What."
"Heatherrrrrrr."
"WHAT."
"HEATHERRRRRRRRRRRR."
"WHAT?!"
She turned her attention away from her PokeGear with a huff, looking over her shoulder only to find that Kaito was already leaning in to whisper in her ear, his suave tone slightly broken-up by a barely-concealed snicker.
"That skirt looks cute on you~"
"... FFFFFFFFFFFFFF--!!!"
4. Although it was not the first time Heather had wound up in the presence of Kaitou Kid, it probably was the first time it had been unintentional on both their parts. Nonetheless, when the monocled thief spotted his friend's distinctive mop of hair in the gathered crowd, he couldn't resist the opportunity.
Dropping down in front of her with in a flutter of white silk, he smiled at her shell-shocked expression and leaned in to take her hand.
"Pardon me, Miss-- but I just couldn't miss the opportunity to extend my compliments to such a cute lady before I went on my way."
Pulling a dozen yellow roses from no-one-knows-where, he placed them in her hands with a flourish before dashing off once again, with the Jennies hot on his tail.
He'd get walloped for it later, he knew, but the look on her face was so worth it.
5. "Everyone's staring at me," Heather mumbled under her breath as Kaito led her by the hand through the expectant crowd and back onto the brightly-decorated stage. "I don't know how I let you talk me into this..."
"It's just one little trick, I promise," Kaito murmured back, although the mischievous grin on his face suggested otherwise.
"You'd better not be planning to cut me in half."
"What? And ruin your good looks? I think we can both agree that half a person wouldn't be very cute, Awesome-san."
She flicked the back of his hat to tip it over his eyes as he helped her onto the stage, scoffing-- "S'not like the whole me is any better in that regard!"
Never one to falter, Kaito righted his hat and flashed a winning smile to the crowd, holding Heather's arm aloft to show off the 'volunteer' as the spotlights swiveled onto them from across the stage.
"Don't be silly-- everyone knows cute girl volunteers are a staple of any magic show. Why ELSE do you think everyone would be staring?"
"Oh, please," Heather snorted, trying to flick his hat back down again, but secretly she was glad that the stage-lights made everyone look washed-out, because if he saw how red she was, he'd never let her hear the end of it.
+1. It was a fun game. Him trying his best to be charming with his flowers and his teasing, and her countering with snark and occasionally ferocious hair-ruffling. It worked because they were friends, because banter came second-nature to them, and, most importantly, because Heather was basically one of the guys.
She was that scruffy tomboy who could be wrestled and rough-housed with without it being awkward or automatically loaded with implications, who hit harder than most of the boys, whose idea of getting ready for a night out was 'Step 1: Find clothes that aren't totally nasty. Step 2: Attack hair with towel and let air dry the rest. Step 3: There aren't any more steps, that's it.' as opposed to needing three hours to do whatever the hell it was MOST girls did that made them late all the time.
Honestly? Sometimes Kaito even forgot she was a girl.
Which was why, when he popped up next to her that night, as had become customary whenever he spotted her tiredly slogging her way back to wherever she was staying after a long day of work or training, to offer a yellow flower that he had pulled out of thin air, he did it with his usual teasing but not-really-serious air, head held high and confident smile firmly in place.
Slightly startled, as usual, by his uncanny ability to pop up next to her outta freakin' nowhere, she recoiled at first, before relaxing and rolling her eyes with a smirk.
"You keep that up, eventually I'm gonna punch you in the mouth out of reflex and then I'll have to call you Gummy instead of Smiley," she informed him, plucking the offered flower from his hand while she rubbed some of the grunge of the day off of her brow with the back of her own.
"You wouldn't do that, you like me too much. Who else gives you flowers?"
Heather heaved a mock sigh, twirling the flower. "I dunno, Smiley, it's a pretty thin line you're walkin'."
"What can I say, I live on the edge," he started to boast, but his bragging fell short as he watched her tuck the flower into her hair, behind one ear.
It was something she did every time he gave her one, and it was a goofy, self-mocking gesture on her part. Something that was funny in the same way it was funny to see a serious business man suddenly putting on a clown nose, or a dog walking on two legs. It was supposed to say 'Heh heh, HEY LOOK GUYS, I've got a flower in my hair, isn't that just SO wacky and out-of-character?! TEE HEE LIKE TOTALLY and all that.'
But maybe it was a trick of the light, or maybe he was just looking from an angle he hadn't looked at before, but it occurred to Kaito that the flower didn't make Heather look nearly as funny as she obviously thought it did.
She arched a brow, noticing his stare. "What're you looking at?"
"Nothing," Kaito said hastily-- but then, lowering his voice a little bit, he reached over to brush a few strands of the hair that always hung in her eyes behind her ear to join the flower. "I was just thinking about how cute that makes you look."
"Psh." Batting his hand away playfully, Heather grinned her signature crooked grin and brushed past him, deliberately giving him a shove in the process. "Yeah, right. C'mon, I saw a cool new battle arcade open up in town. Lemme drop my stuff off and then I'll show you where it is."
"Sounds good!" Kaito replied, feeling half-relieved and half-disappointed that she'd probably never realize that for once, he hadn't been kidding.
Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better
5. Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better
Prompt: "Five times Heather bro-fought with Liquid and lost horribly. One time she won." (EN ROUTE, unfinished)1. Goldenrod City was a loud place to begin with. Add the big festival currently going on to that everyday city bustle and you had a very noisy place. So it was really saying something that people were actually turning away from the various foodstands and games in order to look at them as they approached.
"LIQUID! Put me DOWN, you big ASSHOLE!"
Beating her fists on the man's broad, muscular back, Heather squirmed in his grip, trying to writhe over his shoulder to freedom. But to no avail. Her voice was high with indignation, much to his amusement.
"Why? You'd just start throwing yourself at me like a juvenile chimpanzee and that's annoying."
"That's because we were SPARRING and we weren't DONE yet, you pansy!"
The smirk on Liquid's face could be rivaled by none. "Well, I felt like a break. Besides, I'm hungry."
"Then put me down and I'll give you a knuckle sandwich right he--EERR!"
Liquid had given his shoulders a huge shrug, purposefully cutting her off in a squeak as she was jostled. "No, I think I shall pass."
"I'm gonna kick your ass so hard you'll smell boot polish for a month!"
"Right, well, call me when you're big enough to do that. Want me to win you a stuffed animal?"
"SCREW YOU."
This is What Happens When You're a Walking 'Kick Me' Sign
6. This is What Happens When You're a Walking 'Kick Me' Sign
Prompt: "Five times in which Heather successfully duped Phoenix, after which he angrily replies that dammit, he'll get her next time!! And one time, he finally does." (EN ROUTE, unfinished)1. There were a few reasons that falling asleep around Heather wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
For one, he could always be sure that nothing of his would be stolen while she was around, because only the incredibly stupid or clinically insane would try to sneak off with supplies that weren't theirs with that intense, freckly, and murderous-looking stare directed right at them.
For another, he'd never sleep too long and miss anything important, because when Heather wanted him to wake up, she was impossible to ignore, and even if he pulled a blanket over his head and pretended not to hear her, Cujo had now successfully learned the command 'GO GET PHOENIX' and possessed the uncanny ability to locate and nose every ticklish spot in existence no matter how hidden they were by blankets or pillows alike.
She even (unless it made for a hilarious photo opportunity in which case she would merely watch and document-- aka snap photos and post them to the network with a caption of 'LOL') had the decency to take pity on him and occupy his Pokemon while he slept so that they wouldn't use his poor, tired body as a trampoline.
Yes, all in all, Heather was quite handy to have around, even if she could be a pain.
But despite all these upsides, when Phoenix dragged himself into the Pokemon Center's bathroom to shave after a particularly dead-to-the-world night and was confronted with himself in the mirror, all he could do was stare.
And then sigh and rewrite the mental note to himself that if he wanted to stop waking up in the morning with all his hair slicked into the shape of a perfect cone on top of his head, he'd need to find a better hiding place for his hair-gel.
Or possibly start going to sleep while wearing a helmet.
The Prince and the Presumptuous
7. The Prince and the Presumptuous
Prompt: "5 times Heather mocked Arty for his eccentric brother and rich upbringing. 1 time she was jealous." (EN ROUTE, unfinished)1. "... Why are you walking around like that?"
Artemis's voice was slightly concerned, but mostly just disgusted, as he shut his book and stared downwards at the approaching girl's knees.
Heather stopped, throwing her coat over one shoulder and looking at the seated boy with raised, questioning brows. When all he did was continue to stare, she looked downwards as well.
"... Oh."
The knees of her jeans, sprouting tangles of white thread, were hanging open, exposing a mess of blood and dirt. She didn't look too concerned about them-- in fact, almost seemed to have forgotten they were there until Artemis so helpfully pointed them out.
With a brow arched and mouth-corners turned down ever so slightly in repulsion.
"... What. Happened."
"Uh-- I dunno," Heather said, nonplussed. "I was trying to keep up with Cooj and I tripped and busted 'em up on the sidewalk maybe half an hour ago. Why?"
"... Half an hour."
She raised a brow, starting to cotton onto the boy's disgust. She frowned.
"Yeah. Half an hour."
"You've been walking around with your legs in that filthy condition for half an hour."
"YEAH. I had to walk all the way back, didn't I? What the hell's your problem? Never jack-knifed off a bike before as a kid, have you?"
... At Artemis's silence and raised brow, Heather snorted and threw up her hands, walking straight past him on the way to the hotel once more.
"Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot. You probably had guys hired to dive in and shove a pillow under your precious ass every time it happened. And that's assuming they weren't also hired to run along with you and stop the bike from wobbling in the first place."
2. It had been a relief to find Beckett in one piece upon arrival. Given Heather's temper, Artemis would honestly not have been surprised if she handed his younger brother over to him in a crate like some kind of out-of-control ape.
But the child was fit as a fiddle and happy as ever. Even Heather, although she had hissed to him through gritted teeth that if he ever dumped Beckett on her without warning again she would sell him to a zoo, seemed more or less composed and sane. She even waved goodbye to the tyke and let him pet her ever-patient Ponyta one last time.
No... it was not until days after that Artemis learned of the true damage she had inflicted upon his impressionable younger sibling.
A cool disdain was about as close to furious as Artemis ever got, but when he dialed up Heather's number after making this unfortunate discovery, he was so disdainful it was almost palpable.
"Yeah, what?" Her usual insultingly-casual greeting crackled through the speakers and Artemis closed his eyes, inhaling deeply.
"Miss Mason. I demand an explanation."
".... For?"
"This morning. I asked Beckett what he would like for breakfast and do you know what he asked for?"
"Cake?"
"... Well, yes, but after that." Artemis would not allow his point to be derailed. "He asked." A brief pause for effect. ".... For hot dogs."
Heather's reply was infuriatingly apathetic. "Yeah? So?"
"So," Artemis intoned, letting all that icy disdain drip into his voice liberally. "He wouldn't eat a thing I offered him unless it was hot dogs. When I refused, do you know what he said?"
"'Your mom'?"
Beckett had not said 'Your mom', but Artemis made a quick mental note to blame those several days his brother had spent with her in Violet if that particular worldly Heather phrase ever showed up in the boy's vocabulary.
"No. He said, and I quote: 'Heather said hot dogs for breakfast GOOD!'"
"Sounds about right."
"Frankly, I am appalled you would feed a child that... garbage."
"WHAT, so I gave the kid some real food for a change. It's not gonna kill him. I figured after four years eating caviar and snails or whatever it is you rich British people eat, he could stand to snack on something that didn't come out of a shell."
Artemis's reply came through gritted teeth.
"We are Irish and furthermore, escargot is French, not British."
"It's still snails. Being spelled differently doesn't magically change it into something other than snails! You eat snails."
"It happens to be a delicacy."
"Whatever. You can pretty much give any explanation you want, but all I have to do is reiterate 'You eat snails' and I pretty much win the argument."
Simmering, Artemis took a moment to collect himself before taking a deep breath and opening his mouth again. "To return from that ridiculous derailment to the original point of the conversation, I would appreciate it if in the future you did not get my brother addicted to cheap, preservative-filled swill--"
"You eat snails."
In the outraged silence on Artemis's part that followed, Heather spoke up blandly from the other end of the line.
"We cool? Okay, I got stuff to do. Later."
The conversation ended with a click and Artemis rubbed his temples, vowing never to leave Heather alone for too long with Beckett again.
One-Sentence fics from 12/04/10
1.(12/04/10)
1) Hezzah + MGS Family-- board games for the bored
2) Hezzah + Rise-- sleepoveeeer
3) Hezzah + Cujo-- fluffy blanket
4) Hezzah + Kaito-- SO NOT CHARMING
5) Hezzah + Kaitou Kid-- meeting the thief in white during a heist
6) Hezzah + Rise-- Pokemon Coordinator show, get!
7) Hezzah + Liquid-- Liquid's long hair
1) "Well, I don't know what you're talking about," said Heather, perched out of Liquid's angrily-grasping reach with her hands full of fat stacks of paper money that she liberated from the box lid and her gaze firmly diverted from the disapproving stare that Otacon was giving her, "This is how I play Monopoly."
2) Heather placed a pillow firmly over her own face and sat completely motionless, reasoning that maybe if she stayed still, Rise, like a T-Rex, would not be able to see her and therefore refrain from putting cucumber slices on her eyes.
3) "Cujo, you're a fatass," mumbled Heather from somewhere underneath the pile of orange fur that had decided she needed his company urgently at three in the morning, "Move."
4) Kaito's relatively quiet morning was suddenly interrupted by Heather sitting down opposite him and demanding, "YOU, I need some flowers for a craft project-- quick, be charming!"
5) "Dude, so like.... can I wear your monocl--"
"No."
(It counts because one sentence wasn't finished! HONEST.)
6) "... Heather..." Rise sighed as she watched Cujo execute the much-anticipated "Breakdance" command that Heather had spent all night teaching him, "... I really don't think that counts as a Beauty skill."
7) "OOOOH, LOOK AT ME, OI'M LIQUID SNAKE, OI'M SOOOOOO FUCKING AWESOME, DO YOU LOIK MY HAIR, IT IS PRETTY LIKE A GIRL--" was all Heather had a chance to say before she was picked up and thrown bodily in a random direction.
1) Heather and Rise; big sister instincts ACTIVATE
2) Heather and Kay; facing floods ROUND TWO
3) Heather and Cujo; the day he finally evolves
4) Heather and MGS crew + Rise; Liquid proposes to Otacon. Is he drunk or is that Disney music in the background--
1. The guy in a backwards baseball cap and a 'No fat chicks' shirt really thought he was getting somewhere with the cute little pigtailed girl in the skirt (and hey, wasn't she that otherworlder girl who did that concert awhile back, HAWTTT), what with his practiced brow-waggles and super-witty suggestions that they go have 'fun' ... until he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard a bright, chipper voice with an edge on it like a knife announce: "HEY, I know a fun game we can play... 'Let's Hide the Body'!"
2. "Don't worry," Kay assured the frightened civilian as she and Heather stood facing the oncoming floodwaters, goggles in place and flippers firmly attached, "We got this."
3. "S-SUH-STTAHAHAHP, COOJ-- STOHP, t-thahat's GROSS and YOUR DROOHOOL P-PROBABLY HAS DISEHEHEAASES IN IT, STOHOP," came Heather's desperate pleas from somewhere behind the sled-sized tongue that was currently showing just how much its owner loved her by making sure she was squeaky-clean, no matter how much she flailed.
4. Liquid stared directly into Otacon's eyes and waited for an answer, his mouth a tight, grim line as he tried to ignore the obnoxious humming of The Little Mermaid's 'Kiss the Girl' and the coinciding tiny squeal of "eeeeeeeeee" coming from Heather and her equally-annoying friend, respectively.
Heather and Otacon. Bros forever.
"Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself," beamed Heather as she repeatedly bumped the tired, unresisting nerd's fist into his own face.
Heather + MGS family. Drunk.
Snake slowly shook his head under the safe cover of his box as he watched Heather get knocked clean off of Liquid's shoulders as the blond, a bootleg bottle in hand and Otacon staggering concernedly after them, went charging a little too close to a low-hanging branch.
One-Sentence fics from 02/05/11
2. (02/05/11)
HEATHER TEACHING (attempting, anyway? haha) COOP HOW TO BANTER
Shutting her eyes, Heather pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head, sighing "No... Dale, no... the whole point of a 'Your Mom' joke is to insult people, so 'Your mom was probably a perfectly respectable woman and you shouldn't talk about her like that' is frankly a comeback so terrible that you should be punched in the face."
Heather and Sora; sisterly advice
With a sigh, Heather watched the crowd of girls huddling on the other side of the road and making unsettled noises in their general direction, and laid a comforting hand on Sora's shoulder, trying to sound reassuring, "There's some battles you just can't win, kiddo... But for the record, I think that hideous bug Pokemon you just caught is cool."
One-Sentence fics from 05/18/11
3. (05/18/11)
1. Heather and Harry; Father's Day, Johto-style
2. Heather/Kaito; winning an argument in the best way possible
1. Though most families would approach Father's Day with picnics or football or maybe just a good meal at the father in question's favorite restaurant, Heather knew from years' experience what would make a perfect day in Harry Mason's mind: a quiet place to sit, a large mug of tea, a stack of notebooks, an old inkpen, and a scruffy young Murkrow who Heather had painstakingly taught to perch on the 'chamber door' and croak "NEVERMORE" incessantly (... okay, even if that last one had made him roll his eyes and mumble "Tacky..." under his breath.)
2. "And I don't even care if-- MPH!!" Heather's passionate speech on the subject of whether or not she could catch up with the Kid if she happened to be on the side of the police was cut off abruptly as Kaito produced a handful of yellow tulips out of seemingly nowhere and shoved them into Heather's face before taking off running at a dead sprint, shouting "COULD NOT!"
if you like writing fight scenes, van and heather's ass kickings of each other aw yeah
As Vanitas discovered, it was hard to throw even a slightly-smaller person to the ground when they not only grabbed onto both your arms as hard as they could, but also sunk their teeth into into your arm-- needless to say, by the time the two of them had reached the bottom of the hill Heather had dragged him down (with the help of gravity), snarling like wild animals the whole way, the rocks and roots had done more damage to both than either had done to each other... yet.
1. Hezzah + Kaito; disguise shenanigans
2. Hezzah + Rise; ribbons
1. Neither of them were able to look at each other directly as they shuffled into the Radio Tower with a group of other tourists (including a gang of bouncing, Igglybuff-toting preschoolers being desperately herded by a few teacher's aides) for fear that they would burst out laughing if they laid eyes on the enormous, face-obscuring fake beards that were sticking out of their hoods.
2. "... Rise..." Heather groaned slowly as her pig-tailed friend spun the mirror around, revealing a grimacing reflection of the blonde in question, hair sticking out in ridiculous little clumps all over her head, "I'm just gonna keep saying this until you believe it: I don't have enough hair to pull off ribbons."
Heather and Cooper: ICE CREAM PARTY!!!
Since arriving in Johto, Heather'd had more than a couple late-night dessert-eating sessions with friends like Rise-- but she had to admit, she had never seen (or been more SURPRISED to see, for that matter) anybody enjoy ice cream straight out of the carton as much as the pajama-clad, spoon-wielding, bleary-eyed Dale Cooper sitting across from her with a pint of cherry garcia in his lap and a blissful smile on his face.
... Heather and Ironhide, "Oh god it's chewing my foot".
Ironhide wasn't entirely unappreciative of the help that blond teen provided in removing the angriest bearcub in the entire world from his ankle, what with still getting used to the squishiness of flesh as opposed to metal armor, but the part where she looked down at his leg and said "Yep. That red stuff is blood" was pretty unnecessary and earned a dull glare.
1. Heather+Rise;
RedGINGER Hair Dye2. Cujo+Harry; Home Alone
3. Heather+Artemis; Freckles
4. Heather+Beckett; Added Sugar
1. "... Rise..." Heather said slowly, observing her new, painstakingly-implemented 'strawberry-tipped' hair, "You said that this would not make me look like a No. 2 Ticonderoga pencil... and you lied."
2. There wasn't very much space in the hotel room to be shared between an individual that wanted very much to make friends and another individual who very much was resisting the urge to beat the first individual's head in with the bedside lamp before it went all feral on him-- but Harry Mason was a resourceful man and by the time his daughter got home, he had devised a clever contraption out of one of the spare curtain-poles and a large cushion from the bed with which to continually keep Cujo at bay.
3. When, during one of their usual insult-laden discussions resulted in a quip from Artemis comparing her to Pippi Longstocking, Heather's deductive reasoning led her to a couple of conclusions: 1) On account of her not having red hair, pigtails, or comically whimsical clothing, the most likely reason for the comparison was her much-loathed freckles, and 2) Artemis would be very lucky to escape without suffering the most hideous wedgie in the history of underwear-related mishaps.
4. At first, Heather was startled when she saw the ring of green powder around Beckett's mouth, thinking that he'd been ... like, sucking on an Oddish or something-- but then she realized that it was probably just from Johto's equivalent of pixistix candy... and got even more startled.
1. Heather and the Professor - eating fast food
2. Heather and Harry - Mother's Day 8'(
1. "Well, I must admit," huffed the Professor quietly as he poked the slippery contents of the burger he'd just attempted to bite into back between the buns and ignoring the fit of snickers his fast-food-savvy companion was muffling behind her hands, "I never expected future food to be this puzzling!"
2. When Harry paused in front of a store window to gaze at a set of hand-made hanging lamps of colored blown glass, decorated with shimmery shapes of leaves and stars and murmured "Your mother would have loved these...", Heather knew that it was not Dahlia Gillespie who he was referring to.