Subtle. I think that, rather than trade cryptic messages, we should just meet somewhere and have this out already. Whatever 'this' is. There is an unused classroom on the fourth floor--meet me there, and we can end this.
Bearing the poker and stalking much like her grandfather, Susan trod the same path, radiating fury like electric heat. She couldn't remember what exactly she'd done to earn Nny's enmity, beyond her association with Teatime, and that lack of memory, combined with her already confused emotions, had thickened into a stew of sheer, vision-reddening wrath.
"All right, Johnny," she said, the words almost deadly calm, "I know you're in here, and I want to know just what that thing you sent me is supposed to mean." The poker tapped against her boot, almost as though it had a mind of its own.
"What the hell do you think it means, Sto Harlot?" His grin was more a savage grimace, resembing a smile only in that it turned the corners of his mouth up. "It means I know. Know what was going on. And I don't have a reason not to kill you anymore."
"I don't know what it means, dammit," she said, still calm...too calm, really. "You might know 'what was going on', but I don't--not anymore, at least." Her grip on the poker tightened, her teeth grinding audibly. "Enlighten me, Johnny. Enlighten me, before I get fed up with this and aerate your entrails."
"You'd like to, wouldn't you? Because you're only a 'good girl' when people are watching. And when it's me, it doesn't count. Or do you make a habit of screwing other people's boyfriends?"
She groaned. "Oh, for gods' sake, is that what you're on about? Is that it? I don't know if you've noticed, Johnny, but Teatime was just as culpable in that as I was." Her face flushed, partly from embarrassment but mostly from sheer rage, the white birthmark standing out clearly. "As for whatever else you're blathering on about, I don't remember, all right? I. Don't. Remember. So tell me what I did."
She circled, keeping several feet of space between them, using the poker like a cane. It bothered the hell out of her, that she didn't know just what she'd done, to earn such a degree of enmity. Either way, she didn't need to be worrying about being stabbed in the back by more than one person, and the fact that she had to was...displeasing. Excessively.
"Is Teatime going to be your moral compass now? Because I don't know if you've noticed, but he's as fucking crazy as I am, he just pretends he isn't." He paced, becoming increasingly agitated. "Your persona's slipping. You things shouldn't try passing as human. You're not good at it. Both of you. Using me to get at her. Twist her. Make her more like me. Did you think I wouldn't figure it out???"
He still wasn't getting it, was he? For gods' sake, he wasn't stupid, just infuriated beyond all reason.
"All right, Johnny, I don't think this has sunk in yet--I don't know what in hell you're talking about. Who is this 'her', and what am I supposed to have done to her?" Her own temper was rapidly devolving into something beyond control, but unlike Nny, Susan in a rage was quiet and coldly controlled.
Nny glared at her suspiciously, dropping a hand to the knife at his belt. "You're trying again. Trying to do it again. You used me to hurt her. Get her to kill, so you fucking things could get your claws into her." He was all but shouting, and vibrating with anger. "Gone, she was gone and so you were finished and now that she's back you're here again and I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU GET TO HER AGAIN!!!!"
Oops. The Voice had come out on its own--not a good sign. Silently she counted, willing her temper back to a somewhat manageable level.
"Once again, Johnny, I don't know what--or who--you're talking about. I came back from being popcorned minus many of my memories, and I'm trying to figure out just what it was I did to make you like...like this. And I can't do that if you won't just bloody damn tell me!"
The Voice didn't particularly intimidate Nny... as far as he was concerned, it was just more proof that Susan was a sinister and alien creature. "Like... this. You're trying to get it out of me, aren't you? Trying to figure out how much I've figured out about what you're trying to do."
Susan threw up her hands, exasperated beyond words. "You know what? This is pointless. You refuse to tell me anything--how in hell's name am I meant to know what you're talking about?" Gods, he was worse than Gawain and Twyla. "Johnny, the only thing I'm trying to do is find out why you're so hell-bent on killing me--besides the Teatime thing, which is a damn silly reason to want to kill someone. If you won't tell me, I see no point in continuing this discussion." She couldn't remember when she'd last been this angry, and for Susan that was a definite accomplishment.
"...silly? You think it's fucking SILLY to be pissed off that some self-righteous bitch thought she was JUSTIFIED in screwing my boyfriend and taunting me about it? You think it's silly that..." He smirked maliciously, "If I kill you, he'll never be able to?"
Her eyes narrowed. "I don't recall taunting you about it," she said. "See, there's this little thing called selective amnesia--if you hadn't told me that, I wouldn't have known. That's kind of how the whole thing works."
She regarded Nny a moment in silence, considering. He was a smart man, but blinded and twisted by a hate whose origins were lost to her. "You couldn't kill me, Johnny. I won't let you."
"I'm not other people, I'm me," she said. "You hate me--fine. Go ahead and hate me; I hardly have the time nor energy to care. But if you try to do anything more--if you insist on coming after me--then...well, then I'll have to do something about it."
Something stirred at that, some ephemeral memory that dissolved before it could coalesce into anything solid. She almost twitched--whatever it was, she knew instinctively it was best left buried.
"Not caring. Well, that's the same as before, isn't it? You never did think I had any right to be treating with any sort of respect or consideration. But I only had one reason not to kill you, and you made sure to turn that around. So don't fucking forget that you brought it on yourself, you goddamned tramp."
"What did I do to you, Johnny?" she asked. "I wish you'd just tell me plainly, rather than dancing this little minuet of prevaricating bullshit." Okay, so maybe profanity had its place. "Tell me. Until you've done that, until I know what it is I'm meant to have done, we can proceed no further."
He really was hanging onto that, wasn't he? The question she had was, how much of his anger was his own flawed percetion, and how much truly her fault? She paused, relenting her furious intensity a bit.
"Johnny, look," she said, lowering the poker into a less threatening hold. "I don't remember what I did, or how I was then--whatever exactly I did that made you so determined to kill me, I don't know. I highly doubt you'd accept an apology, but either way you need to stop. Harrass me all you want, but if you keep on with this assassination...mess, I'll have to do something I really don't want to." She found to her surpise that, angry as she was, there was something in Johnny's twitchy fury she couldn't hold against him--the poor bastard clearly had a few screws loose. Still, if he was determined to be a threat to her life, she couldn't allow it. Not with everything else.
"Arrogant bitch." Nny laughs again, a breathy cackle. "Both of you, so fucking arrogant. So sure you're better than me. Assassination. So fucking pretentious. Both of you need to feel so goddamned IMPORTANT."
Once again her eyes narrowed. "It's not arrogance, Johnny, it's a healthy interest in maintaining my own life." Gods, the man really was insane...not in the same way as Teatime, but just as severely. "You'll believe what you want to believe, regardless of what I say. So far as this goes--" she shook the poker, and nodded at his knives "--I'm not better, I just have more resources. Please don't make me have to elaborate."
"Resources," he spat. "I told you I'd figured it out. What sort of thing you are. But you're dividing your attention. I don't think you're made for that."
She sighed--good grief. "I'm not a 'thing', Johnny," she said, and decided she didn't want to waste breath on that one. "As for dividing my attention...no, I'm not. Which is why, if you persist in this, I will have to do something about it, whether I want to or not."
“Easy? No. Necessary? Maybe. Teatime isn’t the only one who can get his hands on Death’s sword,” Susan said quietly, hating to pull out that card but having little choice. “I don’t want to do that, Johnny--I don’t want to kill you.” She was almost surprised to find that was the truth; her selective amnesia meant that whatever grudge, whatever problem she’d had with him, didn’t factor any more. Besides, he was nuttier than a fruitcake--something in her rebelled at the idea of harming someone like that, however violent they might be. “Don’t make me have to."
Stealing Death’s sword to use it on someone before their time was against so many rules it wasn’t even funny, and would likely get her in more trouble than Johnny could ever dream of. But he didn’t need to know that. Besides, if it was him or her, she knew what she would choose.
"Arrogant stiil." Nny laughed in her face. "What makes you so sure I even can be killed? It didn't work before. And that was before I came here. Your little threats really don't impress me."
She didn't know if he was being deliberately dense, or what. "It kills anything," she said. "Anything--you know, hence the problem of Teatime having one on school grounds? Obviating the no-kill rule? You sit and toss out cryptic words and veild threads, and you dare talk to me of arrogance?"
"Me, pompous? Listen to yourself! If you're so damn creative, why haven't you killed him yet?"
Susan pinched the bridge of her nose. Was she really doing this? Was she really sitting here, arguing with the only man in Hogwarts who could match Teatime in the Homicidal Looney competition? "Stay away from me, Johnny," she said. "Send your little notes if you must, but stay away from me. I don't care how 'creative' you are, if you come anywhere near me so help me gods I'll do to you what I did to Teatime. Who, I might add, hasn't been around in a while, and thus is not available to 'divide my attention'."
"...Did he never tell you how he died?" she asked, eying him. "I ran him through with one of these, when he tried to kill my grandfather." She brandished the poker, turning over that odd bit of information in her mind. "And who's Devi?"
"Oh, he told me. That'd make you kind of a necrophiliac, wouldn't it? Or a rather specialized sadist. But it doesn't matter. Do you know what a gun is? Ever seen what it does to a person's face? Well, the only lasting consequences it left me with was a new set of bloodstains on my kitchen floor." He scowled, gripping his knife-hilt. "And you're not getting near Devi."
"I'm not surprised the afterlife spat you out," Susan said, knowing she was being childish and not caring in the slightest. "I would. As to Devi, I'm not sure who she is, but I've got no intention of going near her--not if she knows you." Her own grip tightened on the poker, her blood pressure rising.
Susan dodged, but just a fraction of a second too slow--it didn't impale itself (fortunately), but it dug deep enough in passing to rip her shirt and open a healthy gash in her bicep.
She glanced at her arm--the knife was so sharp that the pain hadn't fully registered yet, but the fact that she was bleeding all over her shirt had. She looked up, shooting him a glare that would have made anyone else widdle.
"Oh, that's it," she snarled, and ignoring the pain in her arm she raised the poker and took a flying swing at his head.
Nny ducked, of course, but the poker still bounced off his head hard enough to make his ears ring and his vision waver. Still, he didn't retreat, he charged. One hand grabbing for the knife tucked into his waistband at the small of his back, he barrelled into her full-tilt.
That one did hit home, jamming up to the hilt in her ribs. Fortunately, that whole no-kill rule meant that it just hurt like a raging bastard. She glanced down, then back up at him as they both staggered backward.
"OW, dammit!" He was too close for the poker to do much good, so she settled for punching him as hard as she could. She'd never really fought in school, but considering how small she was, she had a nasty right hook.
He grunted as the blow struck him in the jaw, and he twisted the knife-handle. "Can't... can't kill you here. But I bet it hurts. I wonder if it'd scar if I sliced up that haughty fucking face of yours. I could peel the damn thing off like a banana skin. Give you a proper family resemblance." He giggled dementedly.
Ohyeah. Pain. The worst of it was overridden by sheer fury, though--she hadn't felt this angry since, well, since she slugged it out with Teatime in the Tooth Fairy's castle. Something about homicidal men made her want to pummel them senseless, apparently.
"Oh, don't you wish," she grunted, bringing the poker around in a swirling arch and cracking it across the back of his head. "There's--OW--nothing to you--I bet I could...could pin you to the bloody wall."
He hissed in pain at the second blow, but used the momentum to push forward, knocking her down. He pulled the knife up with another twist, and held it up, letting her own blood drip onto her face. "I know you think I'm nothing. A lot of people have thought that. It's not as satisfying as it should be, proving them wrong like this." He snarled again. "But it'll do."
"I don't...know what I used to think of you," she grunted, grinding her teeth against the pain of the knife's passage, "but I'm not exactly dazzled by your personality now."
The knife was out--thanks gods for small favors. Catching one boot around his ankle she flipped them both, rising to her knees and raising the poker over her head, the blood on her face hot and sticky and smelling like electrified pennies. Baring her teeth in an expression that was more grimace than grin, she brought the poker straight down into his chest, twisting as she went. "Turn about's fair play, isn't it?"
Susan winced, drawing a pained, hissing breath--bloody hell, those things were sharp.
"Don't bugger with a classic," she grunted, yanking the poker back out with a sickening, squishy splort and rolling away from him, fighting a losing battle to get to her feet.
"You don't know shit about classic." Pulling himself painfully to his knees, he raised the knife again and grabbed her hair. He might not be able to kill her here, but he could scalp her...
Okay, that was a bad idea. Susan's hair had, quite literally, a mind of its own--it had attacked the last hairdresser who had attempted to cut it, and he hadn't been trying to hack it off with a razor-sharp knife. Coils and tendrils wound around his arms before she could even think of some other retaliation, creeping up and wrapping around his neck like a snake.
The phrase well, DUH wasn't in Susan's vocabulary, but if it had been she would have used it. There were very few times her hair's sentience had come in handy, but she was damn glad she had it now.
"I don't think it likes you," she said, drawing back and punching him yet again. She didn't linger to see how effective it was--bugger this. The man was nuts, and worse, the hair was really the only advantage she had over him. A few staggering steps and she was out and away, fading inconspicuously so nobody would question the sundry bruises, cuts, and bloodstains, or the gory poker.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-12-02 07:40 am (UTC)Subtle. I think that, rather than trade cryptic messages, we should just meet somewhere and have this out already.
Whatever 'this' is. There is an unused classroom on the fourth floor--meet me there, and we can end this.-Susan
no subject
Date: 2006-12-02 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-02 07:58 am (UTC)"All right, Johnny," she said, the words almost deadly calm, "I know you're in here, and I want to know just what that thing you sent me is supposed to mean." The poker tapped against her boot, almost as though it had a mind of its own.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-02 08:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-02 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-02 08:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-02 08:32 am (UTC)She circled, keeping several feet of space between them, using the poker like a cane. It bothered the hell out of her, that she didn't know just what she'd done, to earn such a degree of enmity. Either way, she didn't need to be worrying about being stabbed in the back by more than one person, and the fact that she had to was...displeasing. Excessively.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-02 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 02:32 am (UTC)"All right, Johnny, I don't think this has sunk in yet--I don't know what in hell you're talking about. Who is this 'her', and what am I supposed to have done to her?" Her own temper was rapidly devolving into something beyond control, but unlike Nny, Susan in a rage was quiet and coldly controlled.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 02:51 am (UTC)Oops. The Voice had come out on its own--not a good sign. Silently she counted, willing her temper back to a somewhat manageable level.
"Once again, Johnny, I don't know what--or who--you're talking about. I came back from being popcorned minus many of my memories, and I'm trying to figure out just what it was I did to make you like...like this. And I can't do that if you won't just bloody damn tell me!"
no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 03:31 am (UTC)She regarded Nny a moment in silence, considering. He was a smart man, but blinded and twisted by a hate whose origins were lost to her. "You couldn't kill me, Johnny. I won't let you."
no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 03:41 am (UTC)Something stirred at that, some ephemeral memory that dissolved before it could coalesce into anything solid. She almost twitched--whatever it was, she knew instinctively it was best left buried.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 04:29 am (UTC)"What did I do to you, Johnny?" she asked. "I wish you'd just tell me plainly, rather than dancing this little minuet of prevaricating bullshit." Okay, so maybe profanity had its place. "Tell me. Until you've done that, until I know what it is I'm meant to have done, we can proceed no further."
no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 06:23 pm (UTC)"Johnny, look," she said, lowering the poker into a less threatening hold. "I don't remember what I did, or how I was then--whatever exactly I did that made you so determined to kill me, I don't know. I highly doubt you'd accept an apology, but either way you need to stop. Harrass me all you want, but if you keep on with this assassination...mess, I'll have to do something I really don't want to." She found to her surpise that, angry as she was, there was something in Johnny's twitchy fury she couldn't hold against him--the poor bastard clearly had a few screws loose. Still, if he was determined to be a threat to her life, she couldn't allow it. Not with everything else.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 09:07 pm (UTC)Stealing Death’s sword to use it on someone before their time was against so many rules it wasn’t even funny, and would likely get her in more trouble than Johnny could ever dream of. But he didn’t need to know that. Besides, if it was him or her, she knew what she would choose.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-05 12:07 am (UTC)Susan pinched the bridge of her nose. Was she really doing this? Was she really sitting here, arguing with the only man in Hogwarts who could match Teatime in the Homicidal Looney competition? "Stay away from me, Johnny," she said. "Send your little notes if you must, but stay away from me. I don't care how 'creative' you are, if you come anywhere near me so help me gods I'll do to you what I did to Teatime. Who, I might add, hasn't been around in a while, and thus is not available to 'divide my attention'."
no subject
Date: 2006-12-05 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-05 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-05 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 01:44 am (UTC)That was way too much.
Snarling, Nny pulled the knife from his belt and threw it in one swift motion, aiming for Susan's shoulder.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 01:52 am (UTC)Susan dodged, but just a fraction of a second too slow--it didn't impale itself (fortunately), but it dug deep enough in passing to rip her shirt and open a healthy gash in her bicep.
She glanced at her arm--the knife was so sharp that the pain hadn't fully registered yet, but the fact that she was bleeding all over her shirt had. She looked up, shooting him a glare that would have made anyone else widdle.
"Oh, that's it," she snarled, and ignoring the pain in her arm she raised the poker and took a flying swing at his head.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 02:03 am (UTC)"OW, dammit!" He was too close for the poker to do much good, so she settled for punching him as hard as she could. She'd never really fought in school, but considering how small she was, she had a nasty right hook.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 02:26 am (UTC)"Oh, don't you wish," she grunted, bringing the poker around in a swirling arch and cracking it across the back of his head. "There's--OW--nothing to you--I bet I could...could pin you to the bloody wall."
no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 02:51 am (UTC)The knife was out--thanks gods for small favors. Catching one boot around his ankle she flipped them both, rising to her knees and raising the poker over her head, the blood on her face hot and sticky and smelling like electrified pennies. Baring her teeth in an expression that was more grimace than grin, she brought the poker straight down into his chest, twisting as she went. "Turn about's fair play, isn't it?"
no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 03:18 am (UTC)"Don't bugger with a classic," she grunted, yanking the poker back out with a sickening, squishy splort and rolling away from him, fighting a losing battle to get to her feet.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 03:53 am (UTC)"I don't think it likes you," she said, drawing back and punching him yet again. She didn't linger to see how effective it was--bugger this. The man was nuts, and worse, the hair was really the only advantage she had over him. A few staggering steps and she was out and away, fading inconspicuously so nobody would question the sundry bruises, cuts, and bloodstains, or the gory poker.