gazeatchaos | PSYCHIC READINGS BY RITCHIE SIMPSON

[ It works. Kind of. The elbow lands hard and Daryl rolls to the side with a grunt of pain, but he's too pissed off to stay down. On the other side of the room one of his asshole friends laughs, but they're all too amused to join the fray.

Lucky Ritchie.

The spell, it does what it's supposed to-- but Daryl's strong and spitting mad so he swings again, this time with far more weight behind it, through no fault of his own. ]

[ The blow... hurts a fuckload more. It's a mistake he'll learn from if he manages to escape it. Frankly he hadn't expected Daryl to roll with the punches (ha ha) when a little apparition threw him for such a loop. It seems like the survival instincts in the stranger are stronger than Ritchie gives him credit for. ]

Stop!

[ He's holding both hands up from the fetal position that he's found on the ground. By now blood is running down from his nose and onto his lip in a steady flow. He curls his legs in tighter to protect his abdomen, his hands shaking as he keeps his palms open as his primary defense. ]

Stop. Please, man.

[ What he's not counting on is that Daryl doesn't cope well with vulnerability. He doesn't get what's going on, what happened, how the fuck that happened-- which means all of that gets turned into anger, because he just doesn't do scared, particularly of the unknown. Anger is a hell of a lot easier to get shit done with.

He does, at least, stop. Mostly. His arm's still raised, fist curled and ready, his posture an unmistakable warning. Like an animal with teeth bared over an exposed throat, not touching but not backing down. ]

No more goddamn tricks.

[ His eyes are wide behind the shield of his hands taking in every bit of the threat that Daryl has presented himself as. It's not a sight he'll forget easily, nor a face that will ever be forgotten. ]

You wanted to see magic. It's all tricks.

[ He scoots back a few feet and manages to crawl to a seated position. Drawing his legs in, he seems to retreat into himself like a small crustacean. ]

I'm assuming you don't want to keep your hands like that forever--?

[ Honestly, between the rage and the adrenaline, he's hardly noticed at all. Once prompted he looks at his hand, lets the fist uncurl, stares at it a moment. Maybe later, he can just convince himself he was drunk, open to the power of suggestion. Maybe the guy's a hypnotist.

Maybe once the cigarette burn on his leg fades away. ]

Whatever the fuck you did...

[ warningly, he trails off. His friends now are snickering at the sidelines, but there's an odd air of nerves to it. The thing is Daryl snarls and snaps but it's not all that often he really loses his temper, they're not sure what they missed.

He wants this fixed and he wants to be fucking gone and if he ever sees this guy's face again he might break it. This, he doesn't say, but with any luck it's self-evident, because he's not really the use-your-words type. ]

Removals... aren't really my forte.

[ The smugness and bit of mischievousness are gone from his voice. He's speaking low now, eyes darting with some uncertainty now that the level of his skill is out in the open. Ritchie is half eyeing Daryl's friends as if suspecting a second set of hands or feet to step in all while trying not to meet the face of the reason he's in a good deal of fucking pain right now. ]

I gotta--

[ There's a hiss of uncertainty. This is not going to go over well and he already anticipates it. ]

Probably...hold your hand and work through a few options.

Sonofabitch, [ he hisses, hand curling tight again. Which is pretty wearing, now that he's not running on pure wrath. ]

You gotta be kidding.

[ Everyone else mills about, unsure and still half-distracted but all too aware that some shit is going down. And needless to say, Daryl's not really eager to put handholding on display.

He's not sure how the fuck to get rid of them though. ]

You fucking with me?

Believe me, I'd rather keep my face.

[ He winces as if the sharp pain is escalated by simply mentioning it. His eyes pass over the group once more before he looks back at Daryl. ]

Can't you just tell them to fuck off? Pretend like you're losing interest in being a total fucking asshole to me.

[ Sure, he could get rid of them, but if he sends them off and sticks around it's gonna look weird as fuck. His friends might be kind of shitty friends, but he's not eager to alienate them. He's gotta save face. Ritchie is trying to save face a little more literally. ]

Let's go,

[ he says loud enough, half-standing and looking at one of the others, who obligingly drifts toward the door. He leans in for one final threat, low enough not to be overheard. ]

I'll be back in ten and I swear to God if you try to run...

[ he doesn't really feel like that sentence needs to be finished. ]

[ It doesn't. The lack of implications are enough to keep Ritchie grounded long after Daryl and his friends recede into the horizon. He keeps his gaze locked hoping fear will leave him (or perhaps carry him faster) once they finally disappear. Instead he's filled with the dread of what if they appear?

When he finally moves it's to recover his satchel and pack the remainder of his things. He sits back on the ground with his back clutched close. From it he has produced a notebook (once a nice leather bound book now rotted from...who knows what) full of drawings and scribblings. Somewhere there has to be notes or some kind of spell to quickly rid the abrasive stranger of his affliction.

...Better to find the exact wording before he comes back. ]

[ Fortunately everyone's drunk enough not to pay too much attention. Daryl is, too-- or he was-- adrenaline does a good bit to fix that. He gets them all shuffled out of the shop, down the street, arguing amiably about where to go next, and somewhere along the way he just falls out of the crowd.

Easy enough. No one's gonna remember tomorrow.

By the time he gets back, not more than ten or twelve minutes as promised, the spell's starting to wear on him as the spike of bewilderment and terror fades. He shoulders the door open, glowering. ]

[ By the time Daryl is back, Ritchie has returned to a table and has acquired a can of soda and a small plate of fries. He's relieved to see Daryl only in the sense that he's alone. There's an unmistakably pissed-off look in the eyes of the stranger, but a general sense of fatigue as well.

Maybe he won't be so quick with throwing a punch.

...Better not to count on it.

Ritchie clears his throat and lays the book out in front of him once more. There's a couple of bookmarks and dog-eared pages-- possible solutions to Daryl's problem. Still, he's not overly eager to invite the guy back over. Instead he watches the door from the side of his eyes, continuing to nervously pick at the fries on the plate. ]

[ The bright spot here, for Ritchie, is that admitting he's inexplicably under some kind of fucking magic spell sounds so goddamn stupid that Daryl would probably rather live the rest of his life miserable than tell anyone else. Granted, he'd spend that rest of his life punching the shit out of this guy, as soon as he weight-trained his way into a consistent right hook, so it's not much of an upshot.

He falls heavy into the seat, not breaking the gaze between them. Daryl stares like a cat, unreadable and unwilling to be the one to look away. ]

[ The stare is....unnerving to be certain. Ritcie shifts a little in his seat before clearing his throat. ]

So. Um. There's a couple of options. See-- reversals are a lot trickier than actual casting. Kind of like cleaning up glass after it's dropped-- everything goes a lot of different directions rather than staying put.

[ But it's not all bad news. Ritchie holds his hands up (mostly defensively) to gesture some reassurance and quash any on-set rage. ]

But as you can tell I am very good at what I do. You'll be fine. You just have to trust me.

Edited 2018-08-25 02:42 (UTC)

[ Unnerving is what he's going for, so that's good. ]

You better be good.

[ Trust is not so much his strong point. He's.... okay, no, he's not even really trying, but at least he's holding himself back from throwing anymore punches.

For now. ]

So what do I do?

[ Ritchie's not expecting any compliments or general positivity from this particular company. Once sheer stubbornness bridges the rattle of fear in his brain, he flips to the first dog-eared section of the book before placing his hands flat on the table. ]

I'm good. [ He delivers the self-assessment without hesitation this time. ] What I mean is none of this is going to work if you don't think it will. Aside from the obvious effects to your arms, you're going to have to be receptive to the incantations and ritual.

[ There's no point in wasting everyone's time if Daryl won't play ball. ]

Think you can handle that?

[ Credibility is a funny thing. Generally speaking Daryl doesn't buy into any of this bullshit-- he came in here knowing fortune-telling was just some asshole making shit up, looking for a laugh, and look where it got him.

But in his own weird way Daryl believes in-- something, something more than he can see. Or he'd like to. Easier to get there when he's a little drunk, but then, he's exhausted just from walking back without dragging his fists. Something happened. Something real, even if it's impossible.

He can't exactly doubt that. He takes a deep breath, nods just the slightest bit-- just once-- with a grunt of assent. ]

[ Ritchie releases a sigh of relief. The tension is finally somewhat cut in the room. While he could give a damn what other people think, suppressed anger and aggression have a way of wearing on concentration. The grunt grants him clarity and without any hesitation he grabs Daryl's hands and lifts them onto the table. It's a struggle to lift them, but he refuses to let Daryl be the first to act after all this and end up laid out on the floor. ]

Manus stillabunt pondus--

[ The words are halted and awkward. Incantations take work and practice...magic on the spot takes real talent. ]

Ah-- et palmas...quasi...pennae?

[ A red light washes down Daryl's arms with the appearance of light at sunset. He'll feel the weight evaporate from his hands quite quickly...then they become excessively light. His fingers continue to grow until they resemble the flight feathers of a bird maintaining the softness of such.

Well fuck. ]

...Okay. Let's calm down a minute.

Edited 2018-11-15 02:41 (UTC)

[ If anything can make you want to believe in magic, it's being on the wrong end of a shitty spell. He holds a breath without meaning to, when the other man lifts his hands-- it's maybe for the best, with his arms like lead weights he can't instinctively flinch and pull them away-- and... Shit.

He's hoping he's just the right kind of drunk to believe this long enough for it to work, and then wake up tomorrow and laugh at how stupid he was while he was wasted, able to put it all behind him. His arms get lighter, and he lets loose a slow sigh. It feels kind of like a good stretch, that cracking roll of your joints when you're just getting up after doing too much the night before, shaking out the stiffness.

And then it keeps going.

He's got just enough sense to recognize that it goes past right and starts feeling wrong, and then he sees it, and-- there's no chance he's going to be able to brush any of this off. It scares him into something close enough to sobriety that he's hyper-aware of everything. He shouts, reflexively stretching, a motion that looks grotesquely like the mantling of a hawk from about the elbows down.

Calm is not in the forecast. He tries to stand and pull away but half-stumbles, and it's not like he can get away from this. ]

Whoa, boss! Whoa, whoa!

[ Small as he might be and touched with perpetual laziness, Ritchie is quick. He leaps up from his seat and throws a long arm around Daryl's shoulder before he can make any more of a show of himself and pushes him back down into his seat. ]

Look, it's fixable. I promise. Don't... yeah, it's asking a lot, but don't freak out. Latin's a dead language so needless to say I'm a little rusty.

[ Rolling his shoulders, he walks back to his side of the table, muttering to himself in thought. ]

Uh. Oh! Oh! This one will probably go a lot smoother. You need to tell me about a memory you have of your hands.

[ His expression hardens immediately, eyes shooting Daryl an accusing look before he can even speak. ]

...Not anything gross.

[ He's freaking out, though. He yells again, wordless and cracking hoarse, his fingers-- somewhere horrid between skeletal and pennaceous-- curling in, though he can't make a fist, can't find his knuckles to touch them together.

As Ritchie shoves him down into the seat he shudders. He's not gonna puke but he feels sick-- disoriented and dysphoric, lifting his eyes to the ceiling not because he's looking for guidance from above but because he just can't stand to look at his hands.

But that comment-- ]

Fuck you, [ he growls. He can-- he can try this. What the shit else is he gonna do? He shuts his eyes, tries to take a steadying breath, think of something. Fixing cars. Setting traps. He works with his hands all the time. ]

Got a tattoo. First one. Base of my right thumb.

[ Whatever Daryl's reasons for looking up, Ritchie feels more comfortable knowing he's not about to get decked, slapped or otherwise struck with those monster fingers. He's more at ease now and can finally draw in a calm breath. ]

Were you scared? Excited? What kind of things were going through your mind? Did it mean anything to you?

[ He hesitates to grab Daryl's hand at first. Admittedly it is pretty grotesque looking and there's little point in hunting for the tattoo in question if he can avoid it. Summoning his courage, he grabs Daryl's right hand in both of his hoping the hand isn't as fragile as it looks. ]

[ It feels weird. Distinctly wrong, to have that monstrous excuse for a hand touched. There's sensation where there should be dead air. He keeps his eyes closed, takes a long, shuddering breath, ]

Friend of mine was gettin' a piece done... [ Was it on his leg? No, an arm band, he thinks. It feels like a hundred years ago. ] I got... Guy wanted to do somethin' small, before I went for a big one. Make sure I wouldn't freak I guess. Dunno.

[ Sounds stupid. Or maybe the artist knew Daryl didn't have any goddamn money to pay for the piece he really wanted, so he made excuses. ]

PSYCHIC READINGS BY RITCHIE SIMPSON

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amps up the awkward. daryl...yer gonna have a rough day

fun for every1

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