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

[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?"

[nunpunching]

Punchy lets his hands drop, but slowly. If homeboy doesn't want to talk, Punchy won't press him.

"You can beep me, you know," he says. And they set off. "You seen my chip and shit?"

He couldn't find the USB when he'd searched the room they gave him back earlier.

[alldeduction]

He lets out a low noise of confirmation but in truth he doesn't want to speak about it to anyone. Why talk when instead you could pretend you were a robot and do irreparable emotional damage to yourself?

"Word, I got heavy pockets," Sherlock replied though he kept his voice low. In fact, the USB was hidden carefully in his room. He would keep it on him if he could be sure that the stylists wouldn't suddenly rip off all his clothes. (He had no interest in keeping anything in his anal cavity unless absolutely necessary.

"Keep it peeled and mad dog."

[nunpunching]

"Knew you were solid and iron, dawg." Punchy gives him an appreciative slap on the back. He taps his temple. "I'm waring it up here, don't need scratch."

Better that it not die with him, if it comes to that.

"Didn't manage to fish out any brothers with my pony show, though."

[alldeduction]

Sherlock takes the slap with only a slight grimace.

"Don't front money," He murmurs. He wasn't so sure that Punchy's call out on the Network hadn't stirred up support. He could hardly blame people for keeping quiet. "There's some static shit on the wire. Brace for truth."

The city was buzzing with people, as it always was, but Sherlock had nearly memorized it now (at least within a few kilometers radius of the tribute tower) and so had a fairly good idea of where they needed to go. It wasn't long before they were strolling past shops that might suit.

[nunpunching]

The cashiers in the shop they enter treat them no differently than they would any other cuffed Tribute buying computer parts; if they're aware of Punchy's involvement in anything, they're good at hiding it. Punchy looks for almost conspicuously low-grade pieces.

"Yo, homes, you need any product from this hole to patch the chip?"

[alldeduction]

"I'm putting it on me," Sherlock admits. It may well be a hole but he has a few ideas of his own. "You bumped my game, yo."

He doesn't need anything incredibly advanced, for what he needs it for. Something that he can hack into and manipulate to his will. Something where he could take Punchy's work and continue it - or just replicate it. (Preserve it.)

He needs something to outlast them both, in case.

The fact that he still has his cuff is both a point of annoyance and a source of pride. Let them think he's dangerous, he thinks. If they had anything firm he'd already be dead.

He switches out of Punchy-speak to place his order - his words fast, clipped and precise. Brooking no argument. One of the shopkeepers looks at him sullenly but disappears to fetch him what he's asked for. Parts to build his own computer, and one almost hilariously underpowered, in this place. Nothing like that could be any harm to anyone. Could it.

[nunpunching]

Punchy browses through all the pieces, not out of curiosity so much as some way to keep his mind occupied. Avox indoctrination involved so much forgetting who he was that the part of his head that tells him what all the machinery is, all the electronics, almost feels like it's a voice speaking from afar.

"How's your ride or dies hanging, Holmes?"

[alldeduction]

If he notices the sense of detachment, Sherlock doesn't mention it, instead watching the door into which the shopkeeper slipped. He pushes his hands down into his pocket - as firmly as he can, and his expression darkens.

"Got my curb and shit else." Sherlock said dully.

He turned his gaze to look over at Punchy.

"Shit's heavy for my homies and I ain't peaced on it." To put it mildly.

[nunpunching]

"You got a strat?" If Sherlock's trying to get his friends out, Punchy wants to be aware. If he isn't...well, Punchy will be disappointed. "That last bounce was off-turf. We got peeps bustin' up sideways, gotta be running a train down low."

[alldeduction]

"It's got bones," Sherlock admitted, thankful not for the first time for Punchy's bizarre dialect. "Gotta gun for the boulevard to hustle the fat skrill, fool. " He glanced over at the boy.

"We crew?"

He needed Punchy's trust. No matter what happened.

[nunpunching]

"Church," Punchy says, and he holds a fist out to bropound. "I'm all about playing high stakes. Got the rap to prove it."

And indeed he does. At least now no one can say he hasn't suffered for his beliefs.

that's a wrap!

[alldeduction]

Sherlock sees the fist, and, perhaps for the first time in his life, raises his own to tap his knuckles to Punchy's.

"Ain't no one gonna step you on that," Sherlock says, offering him a smirk.

"Let's hustle this bitch."