I Don't Know If I Can Call This Home [Open]

[nunpunching]

WHO| Punchy and open
WHAT| Punchy gets his tongue back.
WHEN| Week Six
WHERE| District 6 Suites
WARNINGS| None yet.

He messes up his room first. Not out of spite, but because the bare walls, the laundered sheets, the rearranged furniture all feels like a reminder of having spent the last few months tongueless and too identity-less to have a space to call his own. He has to mark it, for lack of a better word, and that means upturning the desk into some sort of fortress against the closet, it means dragging the mattress off the bed frame onto the floor and turning the bed so that he can sleep while watching the door.

It wasn't something he ever worried about before.

He's not supposed to talk about it. He's under strict orders not to talk about the details. He knows he's been given a second chance, one that no other Avox has yet received, but he also knows that blessing don't always come in warm packages that are easy to accept. When an Avox opens his door to deliver some laundry, he can't bring himself to look at her, and he stares out the window at the skyline for an hour after she leaves.

He grabs a stereo out of the lounge and squirrels it back into his room. Giving exactly zero shits that it's a little past three in the morning, Punchy covers the sound of his sobbing with floor-rattling, wall-shaking bass from a Dr. Dre record.

Comments

[alldeduction]

He didn't go right away. Even as he brimmed with energy - the first energy, in a while, that made him feel good instead of dragging him into black pits of misery - he forced himself to wait. If he took off to see punchy immediately after the messages on the board it would be too obvious, and he couldn't draw attention to the fact that he'd worked out exactly what had happened to him.

So he waited.

Eventually, though, he managed to make it look like he simply couldn't sleep, and did a rather overt search through the system on his communicator for any of his remaining friends. He'd never had many, but...

John, in the arena. Joan, in the arena. Danny, gone. Punchy--

Punchy alive, and in District 6. He'd already known but he faked a deep breath of relief, pulled himself together, and struck out for Punchy's rooms. The trip up the escalator was quick, and the suite was quiet when he entered. He directed an avox to take him to the room, and was about to knock sharply when he heard sobbing from inside. He frowned immediately, hesitated, and then knocked a little less sharply than he would have otherwise.

"Punchy?"

[nunpunching]

By now the record's over, and Punchy's staring at the ceiling and crying on himself as he contemplates whether to put on Biggie or Rakim. He's not expecting a knock on the door, at least, not now that the music's died.

He sits up so fast it makes his head spin, and quickly smothers mucus and tears in the sheets of his bed before standing up. He checks the mirror, runs a hand through his hair to make it stand up a little, hopes that whoever is out there doesn't notice the red nose and eyes all that much.

And he checks the peephole.

"Hang tight." His voice sounds small, and he realizes these are some of the first words he's said in a while. Anyway, it's Sherlock. So much for going unnoticed. He blows his nose again on his sheets and throws on a blingy jacket before opening the door with a wide grin.

"'Sup, Holmesboy?"

[alldeduction]

Sherlock offers a smile he doesn't quite feel, but he is relieved. Punchy, tongue and all.

He wonders how much he remembers, but there is time for that later. It's more than apparent that the boy has been crying, but Sherlock never was good with feelings on any sort of level, let alone the ones that others exhibited that made him want to punch holes through walls with his fist.

One day, he would see the capitol burn for what they had done to his friends.

"Been dank since you bounced, Kemo," He says, completely straight faced. "Let's ride shoeleather."

[nunpunching]

"Aw, base-man, you missed me." Punchy reaches over and gives Sherlock an affectionate punch in the upper arm. It's too friendly, even for Punchy. He's trying too hard.

"Gotta get me some new spinners and digital, if you don't me dropping some cheddar in the geek zone." They took his computer. No matter how stupid it is, he's getting another. "You with?"

[alldeduction]

It was always interesting to him, speaking in Punchy's dialect, but the freedom he had once felt it had afforded him was gone now. He knew all too well that they would be watching the boy intensely.

Getting a computer was likely an incredibly, incredibly stupid idea. But he couldn't let on that he knew what had happened - couldn't reveal that he knew Punchy was the hacker without endangering them both - so he smiled, matching the slightly too friendly vibe from Punchy.

"Always," He said simply, sweeping an arm towards the door.

[nunpunching]

Punchy beatboxes to himself a little bit as they head towards the elevator. It still weirds him out, feeling his tongue again. Everything about it magnifies how wrong it was to lose it.

"See, I got it on the 411 that they's mad-dogging me with intent to ice if I step and front," he explains. "So I ain't dipping for the foreseeable. But shit, dawg, you seen what they did to my pad? Looks like a fucking hostel. I got to at least up the tech game so it feels like my own crib again."

[alldeduction]

"Straight up, you's bosser when you can kick to face," Sherlock replied. He preferred a Punchy with a tongue infinitely to one without one. Or dead.

"Gotta be some swag in the dump." Ultimately he didn't really care for shopping and he certainly didn't care for interior decorating - but he did care about appearances and he did care about making sure that Punchy had some sort of intellectual outlet. (Knew, himself, that he would be driven mad without one.) So this particular shopping trip he was willing to go on.

He hit the elevator button and a few seconds later the doors slid open.

"We got any jacked-up highrollers making stacks off the tech?" He asked as he stepped inside. He usually confined his need for sponsors to himself, John and Joan - but it seemed Punchy would need them more than he did, in the upcoming months.

[nunpunching]

"Even if it's some jank tossed-up shovelware shizz, I can wrench some pennies out of it."

At the mention of Sponsors, Punchy stiffens suddenly, one hand on the elevator button. "No. We ain't wiping our lips for some booshi jigger. I ain't stepping on their turf."

He says that as if it's final, and to him it is.

[alldeduction]

Sherlock paused, watching Punchy's finger as if he expected it to move any second, and he did - he still hadn't pressed the button, after all, and it would be a bit strange for Sherlock to press it for him, at this point.

"A'ight, no dipping the honey," He said, his tone careful and crisp despite the words. He'd got the dialect down but he would never have the accent. "You got a trap?"

It was hard to say how much connection Punchy had to the rebellion, and if he did, where his contacts would lie. After all, they had known it wasn't the teenagers that had hacked the system.

The question was whether they knew it was Punchy.

[nunpunching]

Punchy goes ahead and presses the button, though he looks a little nervous as the door closes, suddenly claustrophobic. He tugs at his hood and pops the collar underneath it and paces around the box until they get down to the first floor.

"Nah, planning on flossing up the streets 'til something jumps me. So, how you been hanging since I adopted the tree? I ain't skimmed the tube yet to see who's breaking out."

[alldeduction]

"Legit," Sherlock agreed in a murmur, watching Punchy carefully as they step out into the lobby. "Maybe I should drop benjamins on some snap too, now that I got blood dues," He adds, slightly sardonically.

He shrugs to the question. The real answer would be 'not well', but in this place, not well was the modus operandi. "The usual verticals," He replied instead. "Peeps getting iced, hoods getting iced, bitches icing themselves. You know."

The doors opened for them as they stepped out into the street, and he glanced over to see if Punchy fared any better now that they were out in the open, and walking away from the training center.

[nunpunching]

"Shit, you laid someone out?" Punchy stops once they're outside the elevator and puts a hand to each of Sherlock's shoulders, looking him in the eye (his lips are chapped from having licked them every few minutes when he was alone, but it blends in nicely with the small rash on his upper lip from wiping away snot). "Homie..."

He doesn't know what specific moral abhorrence Sherlock's held to killing, but he knows about going into the Arena intending not to murder. He's done it himself. He still does it.

"They rig shit so you gots to put a fool six feet down in that ring. Ain't your bad. Tell me you ain't sinking and mucking over it, a'ight?"

[alldeduction]

"I'm fine," Sherlock said, a little too quickly and slipping out of the dialect in a way that was probably telling. He doesn't quite meet Punchy's eye though he didn't pull himself out of the boy's grasp.

"I'm breezy," He repeated, back in dialect, but still looking away. "Way you put it, the game's busted on one side. Let's not get stitches, a'ight?"

[acroodawakening]

It in the middle of the night. No, scratch that, it seemed like it might be closer to morning. Guy appreciated music as much as the next person, really - especially with Grug having invented rock music. But that fondness only went so far and he generally wasn't fond of anything that woke him out of a dead sleep, especially since it'd done it so loudly he'd had a bit of a freakout, and especially when he'd done his fair share of crying when he'd cried himself to sleep tonight.

That was why Guy found the room that was the source of the noise and pounded furiously on his suite-mate's door with his palm.

"Hey! I don't know how it works in your world, but some of it use the middle of the night for this little thing we call 'sleeping'!" he shouted through the door. "I don't know if you've heard of it but you maybe might want to try it sometime."

[nunpunching]

Punchy hears the knocking at his door and immediately smears both tears and snot all over his pillow to clean his face. Because he's classy like that. So classy.

And, because he's the most courteous roommate in addition to being the most dapper of young men, he stifles another sob and goes over to the computer he's hooked a subwoofer to and shares the music more. He moves the volume from 68 to 82.

Then he lies back down on his bed.

[acroodawakening]

As Guy heard the music volume rise, he realized that this was going to be the start of a beautiful friendship. Really.

"HEY!" Guy yelled as loud as he could, still pounding on the door. "HEY! Could you just make your music a little more quietly?!"

Then he kicked it and stubbed his toe, and let out a little yelp over that, clenching and unclenching his hands into fists. After that came the roar of frustration.

"Some of us need to sleep!"

He pounded on the door once or twice more and when Punchy didn't answer, he knocked his head against it, just leaning there for a moment.

It had been a long day. It had been a very long, very horrible day, and at least in the arena, even though it'd been scary, it had also been familiar. Sleeping under the sky, up in the trees, traveling through a nice, warm, humid jungle...

Now he had to sleep in a place that was nothing like home, a place that was frighteningly alien, still without his family, and this jerk wasn't even letting him sleep because he felt like making rock music in the wee hours of the morning.

Wonderful.

He'd cried himself to sleep tonight so all of that sorrow and misery was still brimming up right under the surface; the first tears started to roll down Guy's face before he even realized he was crying. It was a mix of a few things - frustration, being overstimulated by the sights and sounds of this place, homesickness, fear...

He pounded on Punchy's door one last time and then slid down it, slowly, until he was sitting on the floor with his back to it. Then he drew up his knees, put his head in his hands, and a torrential downpour to rival the likes of the ones in the last arena started. On his face.

It was loud enough that even despite the volume of Punchy's music he'd hear it, filtering quietly through his door.

He just wanted to sleep. Was that really too much to ask?

[nunpunching]

Apparently, it is. It doesn't occur to Punchy to turn down the music.

It does, however, occur to him to go investigate the source of the sobbing.

After the Dead Kid Fred incident, Punchy's come to accept that being a hero doesn't always mean beating up the bad guys and leaving them like lumpy Christmas presents outside the police station (even if that's still his favorite part). Punchy hears the crying and every superhero nerve in his body goes into overload. It's like a red alarm system flashing inside his brain: HEROICS HEROICS HEROICS.

He cracks open the door and looks down at the weird little guy huddled on the ground.

"Yo, homie, I got some twinkies and shit if you wanna share. You can bounce on in. You a'ight?"

[acroodawakening]

Guy looked up, tears still dripping down his face. His breath was hitched and he was completely unable to get a full sentence out without a little sob or hiccup in the middle.

"I haven't slept in - I haven't - I just want - to sleep. Please. After - everything. Please. There's too much - noise. Everywhere - here. Too much - to see. Everything's too much - I can't - I can't -"

Guy's clothing wouldn't give Punchy a clue as to why he was so upset since he was wearing a normal pair of pajama bottoms, but his unkempt hair and the designs stained on his body might give him the idea he was from a time and place where he wasn't used to any of this.

[nunpunching]

Punchy's seen that face way too often in the mirror lately. He disappears back into his room for a moment and turns the volume down slightly (from bone-crunchingly loud to just normal) before appearing again.

"Dawg, this shit ain't noise, it's church." He holds a hand out and places it on Guy's shoulder. "Come on in, I'll spruce you a little, a'ight? You look hella jank."

[acroodawakening]

Guy wasn't the resentful type and clearly this guy was just... making music without actually making the music. Okay. That warranted checking out.

It didn't seem malicious, so Guy stood up, wiping at his face.

"I'm not sure the thing - the whatever it is that makes what you say sound like my language - I'm not sure it's working right..."

Because his words sounded like nonsense.

[nunpunching]

"What you getting at, dawg? Way I spit's breezy." Punchy wrinkles his nose a little bit, like he's daring Guy to question that. That's definitely his sore spot.

He leads Guy in and finally turns the music off for now. Punchy's room has a mattress on the floor instead of on a bedframe, but otherwise is relatively neat except for all the junk food and wrappers everywhere. Punchy pats the bed and flops down.

"Chill your kicks, homie. No need to be melting down here."

[acroodawakening]

The mattress thing wasn't that strange to Guy. He'd foregone the bed altogether and just made a nest of blankets and pillows on the floor.

Guy game in and sat down.

"Sorry I was yelling. And that I'm a mess. I just - it's been a long day," he said shakily, pushing a hand through his hair. He added, "I liked your music. I don't know how you were able to make that all by yourself but I liked it. Just not this late at night."

[nunpunching]

If Punchy held any ill will, it's largely dissipated by Guy's compliment to the music. "Homie, pumping phat jams is what night's for. But I hear ya. Just been using the beats to get me out of my skull a bit."

He breathes deep and stares up at the ceiling. There's a gummi worm stuck up there. He has no idea how it wound up there.

"What's your handle, homes?"

[acroodawakening]

"I'm going to assume you're asking for my name," Guy said slowly, hoping he was deciphering his strange language correctly. "My name's Guy. Guy Crood. What's your handle, homes?"

Might as well start trying to use it so he could pick it up. He was good at picking new dialects and languages.

"And where did you learn to, ah, to pump such phat jams like that? I don't even see anything in your...melt-down place that you could've used to make your...church. In here."

[nunpunching]

The grin on Punchy's face is almost enough to cover for the fact that he's been crying earlier. The redness behind his freckles recedes a little.

"Shit, son, you ain't made aquaint with my subwoofers?" He beams positivity now. "Name's Punchy."