Day 6: Morning

Morning: 6:00am - 12:00noon

[ IRL Timeframe: October 31st - November ~~7th~~ 13th, 2019 ]

In the typically quiet town of Craydon, most residents know that the beach is only a short walk away from the train station at the base of the mountainous region they live in. They've constructed a long wooden path out to the edge of the sandy area, with a number of benches available for any residents. Typically there are a handful of locals either walking, relaxing, fishing, or ocean watching on this normally quiet and uneventful beach. But today, at sunrise, the Wizard and the Protector are on the beach. The Wizard has made short work of sending everyone away but a few have remained to post it to social media.

It's a stalemate, for the most part. For every blow one flings, the other parries it. For every shout, there's one in return. Most unsettling, however, is that they're arguing in a language that isn't native to this world.

Far Haven isn't having an uneventful morning but it is having a quiet morning. The Hospital is looking better after the events of Day 5, the front doors are now available for use and a construction team is hard at work undoing the damage that had been done the previous day. It's definitely not fixed yet, but it's clearly on the way.

That isn't the big event that's drawing people's attention, though. Six, today's monster, has borrowed a chair from inside the hospital's lobby and placed it in the courtyard right outside the front doors. He can be found sitting, one leg propped up over the other and showing off one of the cowboy boots he's wearing, with a clipboard leaned up on his leg. Two of his arms are sitting on the armrests, casually drumming like he's impatient. Two more arms are folded across his front, and the last two arms are holding and writing on the clipboard. His yellow skin is bright as the sunlight hits him, but he's clearly ready for the sun with a pair of aviator sunglasses covering his eyes. Are there multiple eyes under there? He's wearing a cowboy hat with a white bandana around his neck and thick hair(?) bound up in a ponytail dangling off the back of the chair. This monster's a cowboy!

Oh, and there's a huge double-headed axe propped up against his chair. Can't forget that, that's scary.

Bamborough is a strange blend of eventful and not. The Child's boat is back and social media has made no secret of where they headed: Breakfast. The Bamborough Diner, a staple location in the tourist town, has been serving them meal after meal all morning. They're on their sixth meal, stuffing pancake after pancake into their mouth. They've been using the diner's picture-filled menu to order item after item and they haven't repeated one yet. It's time to EAT!

But with all this happening, surely the heroes won't be up to anything else? There's definitely no reason why the Wizard has suddenly chose to go toe-to-toe with the Protector this morning, right? No way, no how.

There's definitely a reason.

Sixth Morning Event:: The Fight.

The Weather
A little foggy.
55°F / 13°C
Uh, grab a jacket, it's actually chilly.

Prompts:

06:00am The Beach, Craydon: Today, at sunrise, the Wizard and the Protector are on the beach. The Wizard has made short work of sending everyone away but a few have remained to post it to social media.

It's a stalemate, for the most part. For every blow one flings, the other parries it. For every shout, there's one in return. Most unsettling, however, is that they're arguing in a language that isn't native to this world.

The heroes can try to get close, but they'll eventually find a barrier in their way. Is your hero here? Are they talking to others? Is there anything they can do? Or do they know more about what's happening than they've told others?

07:00am Harsen Island Regional Hospital, Far Haven: Far Haven isn't having an uneventful morning but it is having a quiet morning. The Hospital is looking better after the events of Day 5, the front doors are now available for use and a construction team is hard at work undoing the damage that had been done the previous day. It's definitely not fixed yet, but it's clearly on the way.

That isn't the big event that's drawing people's attention, though. Six, today's monster, has borrowed a chair from inside the hospital's lobby and placed it in the courtyard right outside the front doors. He can be found sitting, one leg propped up over the other and showing off one of the cowboy boots he's wearing, with a clipboard leaned up on his leg. Two of his arms are sitting on the armrests, casually drumming like he's impatient. Two more arms are folded across his front, and the last two arms are holding and writing on the clipboard. His yellow skin is bright as the sunlight hits him, but he's clearly ready for the sun with a pair of aviator sunglasses covering his eyes. Are there multiple eyes under there? He's wearing a cowboy hat with a white bandana around his neck and thick hair(?) bound up in a ponytail dangling off the back of the chair. This monster's a cowboy!

Oh, and there's a huge double-headed axe propped up against his chair. Can't forget that, that's scary.

08:00am Bamborough Diner, Bamborough: Bamborough is a strange blend of eventful and not. The Child's boat is back and social media has made no secret of where they headed: Breakfast. The Bamborough Diner, a staple location in the tourist town, has been serving them meal after meal all morning. They're on their sixth meal, stuffing pancake after pancake into their mouth. They've been using the diner's picture-filled menu to order item after item and they haven't repeated one yet. It's time to EAT!

0?:00am General Post, Anywhere: Are your characters interacting elsewhere? Are they texting everyone? Put any threads here that don't fit elsewhere with the time and location in the subject.

Procedure:

Reply to the appropriate toplevel comments for events below. Indicate if a post is a private conversation with "Private" in the subject otherwise all threads should be open to interaction with others. Plan OOCly how you'd like to toss everyone around.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gyre doesn't protest actually! He was pretty sure this was coming and he's actually pretty impressed with how patient Garrot was in waiting for it. He glances off to the side at the first question, shoring up his mental resources to have this conversation. Being prepared for it helps, but it's still a big, messy conversation.

It... helps when he looks up again and sees how distressed Garrot looks in all this. He finds himself relaxing, offering him this fond smirk. This dude really does actually care about him. Wild.

"Not for... most? Things? I don't bleed anymore. I have healed from most cuts I've gotten in a day or two," he says thoughtfully, pausing a moment to consider what else he could say to help a medic. He ends up making a slightly amused little hum and shrugging, "It's not as if I've gone looking for trouble to see when I might need help. It would take, uh, devastating damage to kill me again, I believe."

And he laughs suddenly, adding, "Maybe if you sewed my limbs back on, I'd survive even that." Gyre is not a person who laughs, but talking about his body being so thoroughly destroyed is apparently funny for him! He has had his head removed already, so maybe amputation doesn't scare him in quite the same way it might someone else.

Gyre's smirk, the hum, the shrug... it's all a lot less guarded than Garrot expected. Of course, he expected snarling and bared teeth and angry rejection, so... the bar's low. But the Monkey Knight finds himself nodding along, as automatically as if a colleague had explained a case looking for advice. It's nothing he can't handle, but-

Laughter.

Gyre laughed! Frankly, even before he knew about the decapitation, Garrot figured that Gyre just didn't laugh to save his easily irritated throat... and also because he's kind of grumpy sometimes. So to see his friend actually laugh and make a joke causes the last of his anxiety to utterly evaporate. And Garrot starts to laugh too, admittedly a bit longer and louder than Gyre's just because of who the bugbear is as a person. But he catches himself, containing his mirth so he doesn't attract attention.

"I mean, we can try it out once we save the world, if you want." Garrot, as a trauma surgeon, is mostly unfazed. In fact, he even seems serious about the suggestion, laughter notwithstanding. "You know I'll take real good care of you." So of course, he pivots right from serious offers of dismemberment to flirting. Because of who he is as a person.

He......... did not expect Garrot to laugh with him. Not at all, honestly. He's a little surprised by it, smiling curiously up at him as he gets it out of his system. His joke must have landed better then he really meant it to, he supposes, shaking his head a little at that uh offer?

Garrot always takes things a little too far, and while he's still smiling, there's definitely a firm rejection in his voice, "I'll let you take care of me in different ways. It'd still hurt, even if I don't die."

"If it'd hurt then it's off the table." Garrot's words are sharp and curt, an utter departure from the vague flirting of a moment ago. A little pain in the insinuated "bedroom" is one thing, but doing actual harm and causing actual pain? Fuck no. But in an effort to steer the admittedly-not-horrible conversation to a different topic that's a bit less dicey, Garrot puts his hands on his hips to broadcast his confidence.

"I do have something else I want to ask you about, though." It's not like he can't bring up Gyre's undead-ness later, once the awkwardness of arm-chopping fades. Seriously, he might even see if he can get Sly taking notes over the phone if he can get the details of life after death. But again, that's for later. Garrot's emboldened by the jokes and camaraderie that he doesn't even stop for more than a moment before bulldozing things, as is his norm.

"You'll punch the Princess, and not me? Seriously, what gives?" He's using humor again, and this time his tone of voice is still just as jovial and cheeky. But he knows that if he's as loud about his feelings with this like he usually is, he'll get angry, and that won't help anything.

Gyre quirks an eyebrow to that first bit, but doesn't say anything. Of course it's off the table, Garrot, he just said he didn't want to. The way this dude talks to him and about him is so weird, honestly, but he'll listen anyway. When the other shows off that confident posture, he tilts his head up slightly, standing a little straighter as he watches this dude just piledrive his way through things.

The question that finally comes out baffles him though. He was already making guesses about what else Garrot would want to be nosy about. Talking about the Princess was third or fourth on his list of potential topics, but this is not the thing he expected Garrot to ask.

"Uh... did you want me to punch you? I've certainly thought about it," he says dryly, crossing his arms. Is this really what this dude wants to know? How weird.

"Well, no, I-" Clearly, Garrot's caught himself in a trap he didn't know he devised. He lets out a snorting little laugh though, not letting it stop him for more than a moment.

"You've thought about punching me, and we've shouted at each other." Garrot nods sagely, aware of how starkly the statement and gesture clash. "So, I mean..." He looks away, down to the ground, then back to Gyre. "What the hell happened between you and the Princess, Gyre?"

Now that he's asked the question as directly as possible, Garrot shrinks in on himself, back to looking meek with wide, worried eyes as his hands clasp together and wait at his waist. Out of everyone for Gyre to cross, Luka Eutychia is the worst choice shy of the Protector, and they're pretty much synonymous. And the Monkey Knight didn't learn about this disaster firsthand, he learned it from the internet. But he can't figure out how to handle things until he gets the truth, and Gyre's the best one to ask.

"Oh, uh..." he begins, retreating back a step as he sees that expression on Garrot's face. Why in the world does he look like that? He can't help scanning over him, taking in the strange, meek posture, the hands clasped in front of him. It feels like when his kids did something wrong and didn't want him to know about it, and it's throwing him off completely.

"He was trying to murder someone. I stopped him. We talked about it last night, and we're on the same page now," he says, trying to be as clear as possible that nothing bad actually happened. Sure, people taped it, and Luka warned him his fans might be after him, but as far as he's concerned, it's entirely in the past by now.

The word murder takes a wrecking ball to Garrot's hesitance and his meekness. See, he was concerned that the altercation between Gyre and Luka was problematic, indicative of schisms in the group or team morale or whatever else. Things that needed to be fixed if they were going to keep fighting monsters without casualties. But...

"Murder?!" The word is a forceful whisper, because even as his posture grows back into the towering, commanding brute he so often embodies and as his hands ball into fists and as a scowl creeps across his jaw, he is still very well aware that this conversation is supposed to be private. But he's pissed, this is not what he needs people to be doing!

"Who, exactly did the Princess try to murder?!" The anger is undeniably there, but there's an aggressive, smothering concern overpowering his wide eyes and the muscles trying to turn that scowl into a frown. Please don't say he was trying to kill you, Gyre, because that's what he expected this all to be.

For just a second, Gyre thinks Garrot is mad at him, and he bristles slightly. But then there's that concern and it's oppressive at this distance. He's never had basically a stranger care about him this much, and it's throwing his whole shit off. Would Garrot fight the Princess for him?? The idea seems absurd!

"It's okay," he says quickly, trying to remove Luka out from under Garrot's anger. He reaches up almost thoughtlessly and sets a hand flat in the middle of Garrot's chest, trying to calm him.

"It was Five. Have you met her yet? She's okay. She was able to get away, and Luka seems to understand better now," he says, his voice beginning to trail off as he adds, "That they're not just fodder for him."

That hand, so casual and gentle, soothes the savage beast that Garrot was on the verge of becoming. If Gyre says it's okay, if he's not flinching or having any kind of big reaction, then he's going to trust him. At least until that bombshell drops.

"Met her?!" Garrot's eyes go wide and his jaw hangs open just enough to betray how utterly unprepared he is. "You're telling me Four, Five, and Six can fucking talk?!" He takes a deep breath, trying to control his volume so he's not shouting worldview-reorganizing revelations into the general public.

"They- they weren't like this in the other years, I-" He brutally, viscerally murdered Three, albeit in self-defense, and it was just half a figure, but... "Wha- what do we do? Aren't we supposed to kill them? I-" Garrot stares blankly ahead for a moment, the grim reality of monster-killing clashing with Ten's comment that the monsters don't have to die, but... He slides right back into that fierce, suffocating concern.

"Luka saw them as fodder and they can talk?" Garrot is not a fan of this ethical quagmire of murder and magic. Why'd this have to be his year?!

"No, no," Gyre tries to interrupt him when he asks about killing the monsters, his voice harder and sharper then it has been in awhile. This is something he's clearly passionate about, his entire body straightening as if he'll fuckin fight Garrot right now to keep him from hurting another one of them.

"They can talk. They're people. Luka just believed what the Protector told him, but I told him what I know," he says quickly, trying to get back to his original point. "It's all a ritual. The monsters have to be defeated, but they don't have to die for it to work."

"That's what Ten said, too, just..." He sighs, his eyes going right to the ground as that smothering concern continues to fill his body. "...They've been dying for forty years, and they're intelligent, and..." Garrot's quite happy that Gyre got Luka on the same page, but the realization that the monsters have been dying for years when they didn't have to, that they may have said something but they didn't, or couldn't have, it hits him like a truck. They're like storybook caged fighters in a colosseum, and that, it-

"If they don't need to die, then we keep them alive." His voice has that same sharpness that Gyre's had moments ago- they're on the same page for once. But Garrot chuckles, a smirk growing at the edge of his lips despite the topic. "Do no harm applies to monsters now." Garrot never thought he'd say that, obviously.

"Thanks for... for doing all that. Talking to Luka." He was of the same murderous mind before, but all it took was one conversation with Ten to plant the seeds of doubt. Most people wouldn't die if given the option, so now that there is an option... Well, except in Twelve's case. Twelve is an exception to the rule. Garrot will gladly kill, or at least mortally maim, Twelve as soon as the chance presents itself. But Gyre doesn't need to know about that.

He silently watches as Garrot has the same realization he's been having in pieces for the past week. It feels awful, he knows, and he opens his mouth to add on to the horrific news of it all. When the monsters die, they wake up the next year to do it all over again. When they live, they're able to grow into more complete people. There is no difference between One and Five, except that One dies so early every year.

He thinks better of it after a moment though, shutting his mouth when Garrot sounds so sharp all of a sudden. It's nice to be on the same page. He still wonders about Luka, but Garrot seems completely ready to help the monsters as much as possible. He smiles weakly at him, taking a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"Mmhm. We need to tell everyone else. That's why I'm trying to gather everyone," he says, sighing roughly. It has been an awful, stressful morning. "Will you help?"

"Of course." There's no hesitation in his voice, and he even brings a hand to squeeze at Gyre's shoulder. He's got your back, buddy. "I can be pretty convincing." And now Garrot's smiling... for all of a moment before it's overridden by that smothering worry. "But you can't keep running off and doing things on your own anymore."

"If you need help from now on," suddenly Garrot's other hand is squeezing at Gyre's other shoulder, "then tell me, okay? I'm not going anywhere." The Monkey Knight is notably not giving Gyre crap for any of his actions, which... shocking, really.

He is completely shocked, yeah, and it puts him into a good enough mood that he arches an eyebrow at him, teasing gently, "Until recently, I was the only one who believed the monsters."

He glances to either side of himself in that moment, taking note of Garrot's arms just surrounding him basically. It's pretty intense, honestly, especially now that they've come to the first real understanding it feels like they've had. A real, true understanding. He reaches up and lays his forearms over Garrot's, running his claw thoughtfully across his skin.

"Now that I have help, I'm going to use it."

Garrot tries really hard to get these emotionally meaningful moments with the people around him. Normally, he fucks it up and pisses people off or steps on their toes or just tries too hard. If he could get this kind of moment with everyone on the team, they'd have nothing to worry about. They'd trust each other, they'd all survive.

"Sounds like you got something in mind already." But their little games, their back-and-forth? That's icing on the cake. A happy little... fully intentional accident. One of Garrot's hands starts to relax a bit, gently pushing his own clawed fingertips into Gyre's back. The other gently slides a couple inches down that shoulder. "Do you wanna... talk about it?"

It sounds like the Monkey Knight has his own assumptions...

He tilts his head very slightly, taking pointed notice of Garrot's hand as it slides down his shoulder. His eyelids drift halfway closed, a few uhhh particular thoughts drifting through his mind here. He has a lot to do this morning, but he certainly doesn't mind the way the other is touching him right now. He shifts very, very slightly, settling his weight inwards, towards him, but he doesn't change his posture otherwise. His claw continues to wind against his arm.

"I'm taking it a day at a time," he says, smirking up at him. "It's easier to adapt if we keep it, ah, flexible."

"Uh-huh." Garrot nods slightly, taking in the movement of Gyre's eyelids, that tiny little lean in, and the feeling of someone else's claws on his arm. It's a nice change of pace. Though he doesn't act as much in response, the doctor's eyes do drift lazily across their surroundings, towards those trucks, before focusing back on Gyre's.

"So..." He's smirking too. It's easier for him when Gyre's on the same page. "Do you think you and your morning have any stretch left in you?" The question may as well be rhetorical, but he'd hate to impose.

Gyre snorts, his smirk growing into a broad grin. This is a lot. He can't believe this man is like this. He can't believe he's going to reward him for being like this, but he reaches up suddenly, moving almost automatically to trail his hands up Garrot's arms. He reaches up, grabbing a fistful of his shirt at his shoulder, and up and--

Good gods, he's tall. He pauses there, free hand settled against the side of Garrot's neck, and refuses to go up on the tips of his toes to keep reaching.

"Would you bend down please?" he says, his voice amused but dry as hell.

Garrot's body relaxes a bit as Gyre starts to reach up, and he can't help but loose a bass-laden chuckle at that simple request. Isn't the first time he's heard that.

"Only because you asked so nicely." Now Garrot's got a big, toothy grin of his own as he bends over an inch, maybe two. Definitely not enough to give Gyre a good grip on him. "But are you sure I shouldn't just..." The Monkey Knight's hand that rested at Gyre's back starts to glide down, closer to the elf's tailbone. "...sweep you off your feet?"

But then he does bend down more, as if his coy remark didn't really matter. Because it doesn't.

Gyre's skin prickles as he feels Garrot's hand slide down his back. It's so slow, so deliberate, it actually throws him off a little. A wild elf would have just gone for it by now if they wanted to grab his ass, but here's this man promising to sweep him off his feet instead? Like he's a damsel?

He wrinkles his nose teasingly, shaking his head. "And what would I do all the way up there?" he asks, just a moment before closing the distance between them and pressing their mouths together. Sure, he has to go up on his toes to do it, but he needed to finally do this. Gyre is not a person who can deal with this particular kind of tension for very long at all, and he bites lightly at Garrot's bottom lip as he pulls away from him again.

"Was that enough of a stretch for you?"

Garrot wanted to say something, to keep the cheeky little dance going, but suddenly Gyre and his mouth were right there, and he wasn't going to clone himself just to deliver a sexually-charged one-liner. Maybe next time. Instead, as Gyre pulls away, he'll feel Garrot's once slow hand move with ferocity as his clawed fingers dig into the underside of the elf's ass.

"Such a hard worker... Relax." The doctor's still looking down on him, but he's filled the void left by Gyre's teeth by biting down on his own lip. "Unless that's all you want from me?" Garrot's got no qualms with sharing a single, intimate moment, but he's not interested in misreading his friend's intent. Gently and slowly, giving ample time to object and resist, the low-reaching hand begins to lift the elf's body up from the hips. No more stretching. But if there's even a hint of unease or resistance, that lift will stop.

Most people have to stand on their toes around Garrot, so this is a motion, a power move, he's very intimately and obviously accustomed to.

"Mmf," he grunts in surprise as that big hand closes around his ass, and his eyes flutter. He definitely wants more then this, and for a moment he nearly closes the distance between them again to reclaim is lip like a bit of territory. Only he gets to bite him there right now.

Before he can make good on this though, Garrot starts lifting him, and unfortunately he knows a power play when it starts and he's not interested in power expressed in this way, especially not for a first time encounter. It took him months to let his husband lift him up, and he's the one that asked for it then. Instead of kissing him again, his hand snaps to Garrot's wrist and pushes him very slightly down and away. He doesn't put any more distance between them, and he doesn't seem nervous, but he is absolutely making his opinion known.

"For now," he says, his eyes flicking from Garrot's eyes to his mouth, lower for just a moment. "Today is busy. Tonight too," he admits, his thoughts drifting to promises he made to Luka. "You know where I am. You're welcome to find me when you want me."

Garrot expected some twitching or writhing or hissing, not a single, deliberate hand motion. But as his advance is rebuked, the doctor loosens his grip, and delicately returns Gyre's feet to the ground. If the rejection didn't sting enough, the curt, almost evasive nature of the response sure did. Gyre's got plans for the rest of the day, but they both knew damn well something like an earthquake or time travel could happen again.

"R-right." He can feel Gyre's gaze as it tracks down his body for a moment, but he can't help but wonder: is this because he overstepped? Will Gyre ever take things further, or will they just flirt and tease forever? So a blush comes almost reflexively, and in fact his hands both remove themselves from the elf's body. His eyes awkwardly follow suit, bounding from the man's face to his chest, then off to the side.

"Sorry." The apology tumbles from his mouth quickly and powerfully and earnestly, and it's clear that Garrot has lost his ability to steer this conversation for a moment. Whoops.

"Oh--" Gyre makes a short, startled little noise when Garrot retreats so suddenly from him, removing his hands as well. He's suddenly wondering if he's the one that overstepped here? What just happened? He definitely looks a little distressed, a crease in his brow that hopefully makes it clear he wasn't rejecting Garrot, even if he was rejecting being lifted up.

"You... I... wait, why?" he asks in absolute confusion. He doesn't know why Garrot retreated and he doesn't know why he apologized! What a baffling man he still is, god dang it.

"Did you forget where my camp is?" he asks almost too quickly for Garrot to answer the first question, "It's fine if you did. I can take you there myself the next we get another moment," a wave between the two of them, "like this, when we don't have things to do."

The Weather

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