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  1. - Top - End - #121
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Kaelaroth's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Kneenibble, I highly suggest the wonderfully talented Aziraphale.
    Words, my weapons...
    Je veux aller sous votre peau.
    Spoiler
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    Dihan-atar

    Spoiler
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    You rascally psychopath, you.
    Quote Originally Posted by Quincunx View Post
    On the phone, people talk back. And over. And aren't obliged to listen.
    Quote Originally Posted by Felixaar View Post
    Kael, awesome.
    Quote Originally Posted by CurlyKitGirl View Post
    I has been owned.
    Yup, Kael beat the Book Geek at her own game.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    Don't tick off Kaelawrath. The dear fellow is above reproach.

  2. - Top - End - #122
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
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    Canada
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    It shall be done.

    Actually I was considering you for that part already, Azzy-o, and now it is sealed.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Maltese Falcon
    Cairo, speaking with difficulty because of the fingers on his throat, said: "This is the second time you've put your hands on me." His eyes, though the throttling pressure on his throat made them bulge, were cold and menacing.

    "Yes," Spade growled. "And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it." He released Cairo's wrist and with a thick open hand struck the side of his face three times, savagely.

    Cairo tried to spit in Spade's face, but the dryness of the Levantine's mouth made it only an angry gesture. Spade slapped the mouth, cutting the lower lip.
    It was just that I had trouble picturing you as that hateful, and hated, but I suppose your quirky cheer will add an interesting dimension to the character.

    *the clackity clack clack of keys resumes*

    Meanwhile, Kaelaroth, your role in this project was an immediate no-brainer. *wicked grin*
    (It's not Spade.)
    Last edited by Kneenibble; 2008-08-31 at 12:46 PM.

  3. - Top - End - #123
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    CurlyKitGirl's Avatar

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    The Black Desert
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    . . .
    Kneen; I nominate you for Vice High Generallissimo of Book Based Fics.
    I want more of this fic already. And when I read the description for the guy you were looking for 'zira popped into my head as well. Funny how certain people fit certain roles.

    Speaking of you 'zira; how's Shipadder going?

    Spoiler
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    Quote Originally Posted by V'icternus View Post
    Why is it that you now scare me more than the possibility of nuclear war?
    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Bath View Post
    To compare [Curly] to the beauty of the changing seasons or timeless stars would be an understatement.
    Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor View Post
    But Koorly is the sweetest crime.

    Squid bones are lies.
    Bathatar!

  4. - Top - End - #124
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Lyinginbedmon's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Quote Originally Posted by Aziraphale View Post
    ...and as for the greedy, evil crook - I'm English!


    If you'd said Lawyer, that would have made more sense.

  5. - Top - End - #125
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Lyesmith's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    But everyone from england is evil!

    And, yes. Shipadder! Back to typing.
    *clackaclackaclack*
    Everything I say is 100% TRUTH*
    *may contain traces of lie

    Loki avatar by Dr.Bath.
    (I totally ship him and Curly. But shhh, it's a secret.)
    Formerly known as Aziraphale.

  6. - Top - End - #126
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Kaelaroth's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Schoolyard Song: A Playground Spanning Opera
    Part Three: The Cadets

    Starring Dr. Bath, and Freshmeat
    See Earlier Part's here
    Spoiler
    Show
    The coach, smelly, boyish, a haven of ancient relics (year-old chewing gum, stuck to seats, and the like), pulled up into the clearing, surrounded by trees, big, impersonal. One by one, the men (on the young side), marched out, in camouflage, their eyes bright, some with anticipation, some excitement, some mischief, few menace. Before them strolled the officer, inspecting, the crate of live rounds behind them, tantalising. Two boys, one older, more weary, weathered, said to the pretty lad beside him Are you new? The other lad nodded, his curls bouncing in the sweet woodland breeze. I moved, he whispers, from the Navy training group. I got sick of watching Zira make out whoever was on his boat. The other boy looks disgusted There's nothing wrong with that! And the younger one shook his head, worried, not wanting to offend on his first day (he's heard the tales, see. Bullets go astray on these trips. It wouldn't be the first time) No! No! His outburst earns him an aggrieved look from the sergeant (he's new to this job, normally he just teaches Maths, with some tea, and a nice biscuit), but he carries on. It's just... He never made out with me. There was silence, as the teacher, who missed his pi and treacle sorely, walked past, checking boots, and, the games began.

    Bath ducked, as a paint grenade went off a few feet behind him, tinting everything red, turning the world upside down. Three boys, moaning in pain, fled the arena, the CCF leaders giggling in adult mirth, but Bath knew he wouldn't be laughed at. He'd learnt some tricks on the water, and dropped - and rolled as a smoke bomb smashed down next to him, releasing noxious fumes into the air, followed by a swift round of vicious bullets. Swearing, the ex-Navy lad (only in training, admittedly), thrust himself into a trench. To be greeted by a round of white bullets, which, slammed, painfully, onto his helmetted foreheard, and his wiry chest. Before him, the boy from earlier stood, slightly bloody, his meat fresh in the raw air. I win. Now. No-one'll be here for a while. Shall we take that helmet off..? And, as the two paints mixed, and the older teen walked nearer, Bath's vision was tinted pink.
    Words, my weapons...
    Je veux aller sous votre peau.
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    Dihan-atar

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    You rascally psychopath, you.
    Quote Originally Posted by Quincunx View Post
    On the phone, people talk back. And over. And aren't obliged to listen.
    Quote Originally Posted by Felixaar View Post
    Kael, awesome.
    Quote Originally Posted by CurlyKitGirl View Post
    I has been owned.
    Yup, Kael beat the Book Geek at her own game.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    Don't tick off Kaelawrath. The dear fellow is above reproach.

  7. - Top - End - #127
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    Ethrael's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    @^ Awesomely nice. Makes you want to read it again and again. It's got a sort of sweetness to it. Almost like a charm...

    @V Be happy your were put in something.
    Last edited by Ethrael; 2008-09-01 at 03:35 AM.
    Also known as Eđræl

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    PM me for Uncrushed Banners


    I'm taking a few avatar requests

    Come one, show your appreciation with me for The_Chili_God

    Sorry about the slow posting, peeps! Exams are starting to hit me...

  8. - Top - End - #128
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Moff Chumley's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    I'm still waiting for my part... (I'm actually IN high school, you'd think it wouldn't be that hard!)

    That was pretty great, though. Keep up the good work!
    Avatar by Kris on a Stick

  9. - Top - End - #129
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    EvilElitest's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Quote Originally Posted by Aziraphale View Post
    Kneen, I might be able to pull that off. I think i fit the first part, and as for the greedy, evil crook - I'm English!
    down with your merchant Island


    Oh me? I'm a french hobbit
    from
    EE

  10. - Top - End - #130
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Moff Chumley's Avatar

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    mother of all saints

    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    So, I still don't know if I get to be Baldrick or not...
    Avatar by Kris on a Stick

  11. - Top - End - #131
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    The title is bound to change, but here's Chapter 1.

    China Gold
    By Kneenibble

    Chapter 1: The Sky is Falling
    Including so far, in order of mention:
    randman22222
    Kneenibble
    happyturtle
    Kaelaroth
    FF fanboy

    Spoiler
    Show


    Randman Deuce lets a little Canadian Club splash into the juice glass on his desk from a mickey. He leans back in his ergonomic office chair and observes it against the late morning sun. The little glass is fashioned to mimic cut crystal but a hundred tiny scratches and nicks make it dull and dusty-looking. A few storeys down outside on the street there is a honk and a screech. Randman lifts his head, poised, waiting for a crunch. Nothing. The rye goes down in a gulp and a breath, sweetly awful.

    He’s a tall, well-made man: some would call a pretty man: golden hair and blue eyes and the pink lips of an aesthete, features at odd with the ascetic pinched eyebrows and the lean figure. His suit is a little too large and a little too brown and makes his body look shapeless except at the shoulders, which are handsome, if unassumingly rounded forwards.

    The oak floorboards creak all the way to the window. They were nice, once. Randman twists the string to flip open the venetians. The convex side of the slats is grimy gray with dust. Between them through old warped glass, the sunlight comes uncomfortably hot. Randman puts the end of his finger on one and draws it down to peer outside. He sees nothing worth seeing. He lets the slat go with a snap and returns to his desk, rubbing the grime from his finger onto his shirt. His head swims a little: his stomach is empty and that was not the morning’s first slug.

    His partner, slouching in a chair at a desk across the room, looks up at him blankly. There is a dirty magazine resting on his crossed legs and a cup of bad coffee nearby. Nibs has a tired, boyish face with a ruffled mop of unremarkably coloured hair. His suit is blue and wrinkled and his coat is in a ball beside his coffee on the desk. They exchange a wordless glance, and look away: Nibs back to his magazine, digging in his ear with a pinky, Randman to his meditative scrutiny of the emptied juice glass. The air is close and thick.

    A knock at the door raises both men’s eyes. Their secretary leans in without letting go of the knob, her perfume effusing the stale room at once. The thick implacable scent does not cut the dusty air so much as coat it and flatter it. She has a natural buoyancy that floats even in the tired office.

    “There’s a case here for you,” she says. “Careful with this one.” Her smile is a taunt.

    “Sure, Turtle,” says Randman. He throws the mickey of rye in a drawer and slams it shut. Nibs doesn’t look up from his magazine, and puts his feet up on his desk crossed at the ankles.

    “You got it. Come on in, miss.” Turtle holds the door open for the case, all five feet of it plus heels, and closes it behind, returning to her desk outside.

    The case stands with his hands on his purse, looking lost. The sunlight, even filtered through bubbly glass and cut into strips by dirty blinds, is enough to make his liquor-brown eyes look wet. Nibs’ eyes lift first, then open a little wider; and then his feet hit the ground and he sits up straight, sneaking his magazine out of sight.

    Randman watches him levelly.

    “Well?” the case asks finally, in a quiet, pleading voice. “Are you Randman the private investigator or aren’t you?” He steps forwards, once, his soles angled obtusely to the floor in steep shoes. His gown is silk brocade, an oriental style.

    “Yes, miss, that’s me.” He gets to his feet with a sigh and motions to a plain chair beside his desk. “Have a seat. I’m Randman Deuce, this is my partner Nibs.”

    “Pleased to meet you,” says Nibs across the office, eyes glued on the case, smiling somewhat too politely. He folds his hands on the back of his head and watches like a man at a movie.

    “Yes, pleased to meet you,” says the young case graciously, and flings himself forward to the chair beside Randman’s desk. He sits on its edge, his hands gripping each other on the desk like a petitioner. His eyes are large and pathetic, and the beginning of a hysteria is working his ribs. “Oh, can’t you please help me? I think I might be in a lot of trouble.” His nostrils flare, and he shoots a plaintive silent glance at the empty juice glass.

    Randman blinks and hesitates. “Oh, of course, miss, yes,” he says, turning to fish the mickey and a second glass out of the drawer, and candidly testing his breath under his hand as he does so. “And what’s bothering you, miss – ah –“ he splashes the gold-coloured poison into each glass, and offers the fresh one over – “actually, miss, I didn’t catch your name.”

    “My name is Caelo Ruto. It’s... Italian.” Unconsciously, he runs a hand through his black curls, and then takes the rye, draining it with one cough. He puts his hands in his lap and looks at them, taking several long breaths as the drink does its work. A car honks outside, and angry voices exchange invectives, but still no crunch. Nibs stands, crosses the creaky floorboards, and leans backwards against Randman’s desk, folding his arms and looking down at Caelo with a raven-like sympathy.

    “Go on then, Miss Ruto,” Nibs says softly.

    Caelo swallows, dabs the corner of his mouth with a fingertip, draws a final fortifying lungful, and looks up at Randman. “There’s a man following me,” he says in a near-whisper. “A dangerous man. I don’t know what he wants anymore, but I met him in Beijing. I’ve been there for some time, but with the Olympics it all got to be too much, especially after...” He stops, and leans back all the way into the chair, seeming more at ease with every word. “We met in a café last year. He called himself a fanboy of some kind and I had assumed he was a tourist for the games. At first he was very sweet and charming and mysterious. And vigorous.” Wrestling with a smile, Caelo puts a dainty manicured hand over the top of his ribcage as if to push down a strong feeling. “But as you well know, Mr. Deuce, men are rarely what they seem at first.”

    “Some of us are okay,” Nibs says again, as softly, fishing a bent cigarette from his shirt pocket and putting it between his lips without lighting it. “Some of us.”

    Randman shoots a look at his partner, and then takes his drink in two mouthfuls. “What about the fanboy, Miss Ruto? You’re having a problem with him?”

    “Oh, yes,” Caelo says emphatically, looking up with eyes wide and wet again. “Yes, when I tried to break things off he started to follow me and leave flowers and poetry for me at the hotel. I’m terribly sorry to say I can have that effect on men, Mr. Deuce...” He presses his lips together and looks at his knees. “I thought I’d lost him for good, finally, but I’ve seen him watching me in the hotel lobby and in the street at night, too. I don’t know what he’s capable of and I don’t know what he wants, but I’m not afraid to say that he has most certainly killed before and could again.” His eyes spill over without a sob, and he leans forwards over the desk with hands outstretched. “Can you – can you, Mr. Deuce...”

    Randman, again, shoots a look at his partner, steepling his fingers and giving a single, ambiguous move of his head. The silence lays heavy as Caelo looks across at him with dribbling eyes. Smirking, Nibs puts fire to his cigarette, starts to smoke, and looks away from Caelo towards the dusty, bubbled window.

    At last some message gets conveyed and Caelo reaches into his butter-soft leather handbag with a slightly embarrassed “Oh!” He hands over two colourful bills with a couple of zeroes on each. Randman takes the money with a smile and makes it disappear very quickly, and Nibs watches the gesture over his shoulder. The sweetish smell of his cigarette is actually something of an improvement over old dust and Canadian Club.

    “That’s a start,” Randman says.

    Nibs gives his cigarette a flick and lets the ash drift to the floor. “What hotel are you staying at, Miss Ruto?”

    “The Fort Garry, downtown,” he says, dabbing his eyes with the exquisitely embroidered sleeve of his gown. His body moves as if a painful knot had just been undone, looser and freer. He puts the strap of his handbag over his shoulder, and lifts the emptied glass to his tastefully painted mouth, tilting out the last few drops from the bottom.

    “Classy place – good taste, miss. I’ll be in the lobby this evening after sundown. Don’t pay me any notice except if you see the fanboy around, then you catch my eye and nod him out for me. Then head into the bar – stay around people or head up to your room. We’ll take it from there, not to worry.” Nibs draws from his cigarette, and blows smoke from a slightly predatory grin.

    “Oh, please be careful,” Caelo says, and meets Nibs eyes for the first time. “He could be capable of anything. You’ll know him at once, he wears only black and he is quite pale. I’m sure he’ll be there tonight, I’m sure.” The glance becomes a look, which hangs on a silence, until Randman breaks it.

    “What’s the fanboy’s name, Miss Ruto?”

    “Oh... well, as for that, he went by a handle in Beijing.” He looks away from Nibs to the empty glass in his hands, turning it over in his fingers, speaking shyly. “His initials are F.F. That’s all I know.”

    “You spent the whole year with him without knowing his real name?” Randman asks – straight-up, without judgement. Caelo’s eyes lift from under his eyelashes, and fall again.

    “As I said, he was quite mysterious.”

    “Well, never mind that,” says Nibs, dropping his cigarette straight on the floor and stepping on it. He walks across the room and puts his hand on the dulled brass doorknob. “You go back to the Fort Garry and wait for us. Helluva high tea in the dining room there, I hear.” He turns the knob and holds opens the door. Turtle’s keyboard clacks in the empty waiting room outside.

    Caelo stands, looking dry-eyed and pacified, and says a genuine, “thank you both very much.” He sweeps with stiletto-heeled grace and without another word first out the office, and then out the waiting room, leaving the faintest whiff of jasmine on his way.

    Turtle leans her head to look into the office from her desk, waggling her eyebrows teasingly, just before Nibs shuts the door and straightens his necktie.

    “Jesus, what a knockout,” he says, a tastelessly boyish grin breaking out on his tired face, going back to his desk to sip the crappy tepid coffee beside his balled-up coat. “No work for weeks, and then this! And six hundred for a down payment?” He whistles, and drinks more coffee.

    “Just keep your gun in your holster, buddy,” Randman says, wagging a finger and moving the two glasses to the corner of his desk. “This is business.” He finds a cigarette for himself and starts to smoke with a couple of itchy coughs.

    Nibs, standing beside his desk with the coffee cup, indicates himself innocently. “Me? I never let pleasure get in the way of business. Or vice versa. Hey, careful you don’t set your breath on fire there, pal.”

    Randman sniffs a laugh out his nose and stands, taking his hat and coat off the coat tree and donning them on his way towards the door. He tosses one of the bills on Nibs’ desk in the same gesture as he grabs the brass doorknob. “I’m going to get some lunch. See you back here later, Nibs.” Nibs nods his acknowledgement with a friendly “heh” and returns to his dirty magazine.

    “Figure you’ll be able to pay me this week now, Mr. Deuce?” Turtle says, looking up from the message boards on her laptop screen with a smile. The two exchange a knowing and playful look.

    “Sure, if it means you’ll start doing some work, Turtle. I’m off for lunch, leave my messages on my desk.” He gives his hat a courteous tilt and opens the door to the hall.

    “What a looker, huh?” Turtle calls.

    “Tell me about it,” Randman says over his shoulder, and closes the door behind him.



    Feedback, complimentary or critical, is always welcome.
    Last edited by Kneenibble; 2008-09-02 at 05:14 PM. Reason: Some minor textual edits

  12. - Top - End - #132
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
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    Male

    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    The title is bound to change, but here's Chapter 1.

    China Gold
    By Kneenibble

    Chapter 1: The Sky is Falling
    Including so far, in order of mention:
    randman22222
    Kneenibble
    happyturtle
    Kaelaroth
    FF fanboy

    Spoiler
    Show


    Randman Deuce lets a little Canadian Club splash into the juice glass on his desk from a mickey. He leans back in his ergonomic office chair and observes it against the late morning sun. The little glass is fashioned to mimic cut crystal but a hundred tiny scratches and nicks make it dull and dusty-looking. A few storeys down outside on the street there is a honk and a screech. Randman lifts his head, poised, waiting for a crunch. Nothing. The rye goes down in a gulp and a breath, sweetly awful.

    He’s a tall, well-made man: some would call a pretty man: golden hair and blue eyes and the pink lips of an aesthete, features at odd with the ascetic pinched eyebrows and the lean figure. His suit is a little too large and a little too brown and makes his body look shapeless except at the shoulders, which are handsome, if unassumingly rounded forwards.

    The oak floorboards creak all the way to the window. They were nice, once. Randman twists the string to flip open the venetians. The convex side of the slats is grimy gray with dust. Between them through old warped glass, the sunlight comes uncomfortably hot. Randman puts the end of his finger on one and draws it down to peer outside. He sees nothing worth seeing. He lets the slat go with a snap and returns to his desk, rubbing the grime from his finger onto his shirt. His head swims a little: his stomach is empty and that was not the morning’s first slug.

    His partner, slouching in a chair at a desk across the room, looks up at him blankly. There is a dirty magazine resting on his crossed legs and a cup of bad coffee nearby. Nibs has a tired, boyish face with a ruffled mop of unremarkably coloured hair. His suit is blue and wrinkled and his coat is in a ball beside his coffee on the desk. They exchange a wordless glance, and look away: Nibs back to his magazine, digging in his ear with a pinky, Randman to his meditative scrutiny of the emptied juice glass. The air is close and thick.

    A knock at the door raises both men’s eyes. Their secretary leans in without letting go of the knob, her perfume effusing the stale room at once. The thick implacable scent does not cut the dusty air so much as coat it and flatter it. She has a natural buoyancy that floats even in the tired office.

    “There’s a case here for you,” she says. “Careful with this one.” Her smile is a taunt.

    “Sure, Turtle,” says Randman. He throws the mickey of rye in a drawer and slams it shut. Nibs doesn’t look up from his magazine, and puts his feet up on his desk crossed at the ankles.

    “You got it. Come on in, miss.” Turtle holds the door open for the case, all five feet of it plus heels, and closes it behind, returning to her desk outside.

    The case stands with his hands on his purse, looking lost. The sunlight, even filtered through bubbly glass and cut into strips by dirty blinds, is enough to make his liquor-brown eyes look wet. Nibs’ eyes lift first, then open a little wider; and then his feet hit the ground and he sits up straight, sneaking his magazine out of sight.

    Randman watches him levelly.

    “Well?” the case asks finally, in a quiet, pleading voice. “Are you Randman the private investigator or aren’t you?” He steps forwards, once, his soles angled obtusely to the floor in steep shoes. His gown is silk brocade, an oriental style.

    “Yes, miss, that’s me.” He gets to his feet with a sigh and motions to a plain chair beside his desk. “Have a seat. I’m Randman Deuce, this is my partner Nibs.”

    “Pleased to meet you,” says Nibs across the office, eyes glued on the case, smiling somewhat too politely. He folds his hands on the back of his head and watches like a man at a movie.

    “Yes, pleased to meet you,” says the young case graciously, and flings himself forward to the chair beside Randman’s desk. He sits on its edge, his hands gripping each other on the desk like a petitioner. His eyes are large and pathetic, and the beginning of a hysteria is working his ribs. “Oh, can’t you please help me? I think I might be in a lot of trouble.” His nostrils flare, and he shoots a plaintive silent glance at the empty juice glass.

    Randman blinks and hesitates. “Oh, of course, miss, yes,” he says, turning to fish the mickey and a second glass out of the drawer, and candidly testing his breath under his hand as he does so. “And what’s bothering you, miss – ah –“ he splashes the gold-coloured poison into each glass, and offers the fresh one over – “actually, miss, I didn’t catch your name.”

    “My name is Caelo Ruto. It’s... Italian.” Unconsciously, he runs a hand through his black curls, and then takes the rye, draining it with one cough. He puts his hands in his lap and looks at them, taking several long breaths as the drink does its work. A car honks outside, and angry voices exchange invectives, but still no crunch. Nibs stands, crosses the creaky floorboards, and leans backwards against Randman’s desk, folding his arms and looking down at Caelo with a raven-like sympathy.

    “Go on then, Miss Ruto,” Nibs says softly.

    Caelo swallows, dabs the corner of his mouth with a fingertip, draws a final fortifying lungful, and looks up at Randman. “There’s a man following me,” he says in a near-whisper. “A dangerous man. I don’t know what he wants anymore, but I met him in Beijing. I’ve been there for some time, but with the Olympics it all got to be too much, especially after...” He stops, and leans back all the way into the chair, seeming more at ease with every word. “We met in a café last year. He called himself a fanboy of some kind and I had assumed he was a tourist for the games. At first he was very sweet and charming and mysterious. And vigorous.” Wrestling with a smile, Caelo puts a dainty manicured hand over the top of his ribcage as if to push down a strong feeling. “But as you well know, Mr. Deuce, men are rarely what they seem at first.”

    “Some of us are okay,” Nibs says again, as softly, fishing a bent cigarette from his shirt pocket and putting it between his lips without lighting it. “Some of us.”

    Randman shoots a look at his partner, and then takes his drink in two mouthfuls. “What about the fanboy, Miss Ruto? You’re having a problem with him?”

    “Oh, yes,” Caelo says emphatically, looking up with eyes wide and wet again. “Yes, when I tried to break things off he started to follow me and leave flowers and poetry for me at the hotel. I’m terribly sorry to say I can have that effect on men, Mr. Deuce...” He presses his lips together and looks at his knees. “I thought I’d lost him for good, finally, but I’ve seen him watching me in the hotel lobby and in the street at night, too. I don’t know what he’s capable of and I don’t know what he wants, but I’m not afraid to say that he has most certainly killed before and could again.” His eyes spill over without a sob, and he leans forwards over the desk with hands outstretched. “Can you – can you, Mr. Deuce...”

    Randman, again, shoots a look at his partner, steepling his fingers and giving a single, ambiguous move of his head. The silence lays heavy as Caelo looks across at him with dribbling eyes. Smirking, Nibs puts fire to his cigarette, starts to smoke, and looks away from Caelo towards the dusty, bubbled window.

    At last some message gets conveyed and Caelo reaches into his butter-soft leather handbag with a slightly embarrassed “Oh!” He hands over two colourful bills with a couple of zeroes on each. Randman takes the money with a smile and makes it disappear very quickly, and Nibs watches the gesture over his shoulder. The sweetish smell of his cigarette is actually something of an improvement over old dust and Canadian Club.

    “That’s a start,” Randman says.

    Nibs gives his cigarette a flick and lets the ash drift to the floor. “What hotel are you staying at, Miss Ruto?”

    “The Fort Garry, downtown,” she says, dabbing his eyes with the exquisitely embroidered sleeve of his gown. His body moves as if a painful knot had just been undone, looser and freer. He puts the strap of his handbag over his shoulder, and lifts the emptied glass to his tastefully painted mouth, tilting out the last few drops from the bottom.

    “Classy place – good taste, miss. I’ll be in the lobby this evening after sundown. Don’t pay me any notice except if you see the fanboy around, then you catch my eye and nod him out for me. Then head into the bar – stay around people or head up to your room. We’ll take it from there, not to worry.” Nibs draws from his cigarette, and blows smoke from a slightly predatory grin.

    “Oh, please be careful,” Caelo says, and meets Nibs eyes for the first time. “He could be capable of anything. You’ll know him at once, he wears only black and he is quite pale. I’m sure he’ll be there tonight, I’m sure.” The glance becomes a look, which hangs on a silence, until Randman breaks it.

    “What’s the fanboy’s name, Miss Ruto?”

    “Oh... well, as for that, he went by a handle in Beijing.” He looks away from Nibs to the empty glass in his hands, turning it over in his fingers, speaking shyly. “His initials are F.F. That’s all I know.”

    “You spent the whole year with him without knowing his real name?” Randman asks – straight-up, without judgement. Caelo’s eyes lift from under his eyelashes, and fall again.

    “As I said, he was quite mysterious.”

    “Well, never mind that,” says Nibs, dropping his cigarette straight on the floor and stepping on it. He walks across the room and puts his hand on the dulled brass doorknob. “You go back to the Fort Garry and wait for us. Helluva high tea in the dining room there, I hear.” He turns the knob and holds opens the door. Turtle’s keyboard clacks in the empty waiting room outside.

    Caelo stands, looking dry-eyed and pacified, and says a genuine, “thank you both very much.” He sweeps with stiletto-heeled grace and without another word first out the office, and then out the waiting room, leaving the faintest whiff of jasmine on his way.

    Turtle leans her head to look into the office from her desk, waggling her eyebrows teasingly, just before Nibs shuts the door and straightens his necktie.

    “Jesus, what a knockout,” he says, a tastelessly boyish grin breaking out on his tired face, going back to his desk to sip the crappy tepid coffee beside his balled-up coat. “No work for weeks, and then this! And six hundred for a down payment?” He whistles, and drinks more coffee.

    “Just keep your gun in your holster, buddy,” Randman says, wagging a finger and moving the two glasses to the corner of his desk. “This is business.” He finds a cigarette for himself and starts to smoke with a couple of itchy coughs.

    Nibs, standing beside his desk with the coffee cup, indicates himself innocently. “Me? I never let pleasure get in the way of business. Or vice versa. Hey, careful you don’t set your breath on fire there, Deuce.”

    Randman sniffs a laugh out his nose and stands, taking his hat and coat off the coat tree and donning them on his way towards the door. He tosses one of the bills on Nibs’ desk in the same gesture as he grabs the brass doorknob. “I’m going to get some lunch. See you back here later, Nibs.” Nibs nods his acknowledgement with a friendly “heh” and returns to his dirty magazine.

    “Figure you’ll be able to pay me this week now, Mr. Deuce?” Turtle says, looking up from the message boards on her laptop screen with a smile. The two exchange a knowing and playful look.

    “Sure, if it means you’ll start doing some work, Turtle. I’m off for lunch, leave my messages on my desk.” He gives his hat a courteous tilt and opens the door to the hall.

    “What a looker, huh?” Turtle calls.

    “Tell me about it,” Randman says over his shoulder, and closes the door behind him.



    Feedback, complimentary or critical, is always welcome.
    FTW Kneenibble, an excellent fic as usual. Although you always refered to the client as both male, adn female simulatinously.
    Last edited by Fan; 2008-09-01 at 08:55 PM.

  13. - Top - End - #133
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Dec 2007
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    Canada
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Thanks, Mr. FFF, I think you'll be pleased with your role as the story goes on.

    But as for what you mention, let me know if it's confusing - do notice, though, that in spite of what other characters call him, the narrative only uses masculine pronouns. My madness yet has method in't.

  14. - Top - End - #134
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    Thanks, Mr. FFF, I think you'll be pleased with your role as the story goes on.

    But as for what you mention, let me know if it's confusing - do notice, though, that in spite of what other characters call him, the narrative only uses masculine pronouns. My madness yet has method in't.
    That combines wiht your new avvy both scares me, and excites me at the smae time.

  15. - Top - End - #135
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Kaelaroth's Avatar

    Join Date
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    The title is bound to change, but here's Chapter 1.

    China Gold
    By Kneenibble

    Chapter 1: The Sky is Falling
    Including so far, in order of mention:
    randman22222
    Kneenibble
    happyturtle
    Kaelaroth
    FF fanboy

    Spoiler
    Show


    Randman Deuce lets a little Canadian Club splash into the juice glass on his desk from a mickey. He leans back in his ergonomic office chair and observes it against the late morning sun. The little glass is fashioned to mimic cut crystal but a hundred tiny scratches and nicks make it dull and dusty-looking. A few storeys down outside on the street there is a honk and a screech. Randman lifts his head, poised, waiting for a crunch. Nothing. The rye goes down in a gulp and a breath, sweetly awful.

    He’s a tall, well-made man: some would call a pretty man: golden hair and blue eyes and the pink lips of an aesthete, features at odd with the ascetic pinched eyebrows and the lean figure. His suit is a little too large and a little too brown and makes his body look shapeless except at the shoulders, which are handsome, if unassumingly rounded forwards.

    The oak floorboards creak all the way to the window. They were nice, once. Randman twists the string to flip open the venetians. The convex side of the slats is grimy gray with dust. Between them through old warped glass, the sunlight comes uncomfortably hot. Randman puts the end of his finger on one and draws it down to peer outside. He sees nothing worth seeing. He lets the slat go with a snap and returns to his desk, rubbing the grime from his finger onto his shirt. His head swims a little: his stomach is empty and that was not the morning’s first slug.

    His partner, slouching in a chair at a desk across the room, looks up at him blankly. There is a dirty magazine resting on his crossed legs and a cup of bad coffee nearby. Nibs has a tired, boyish face with a ruffled mop of unremarkably coloured hair. His suit is blue and wrinkled and his coat is in a ball beside his coffee on the desk. They exchange a wordless glance, and look away: Nibs back to his magazine, digging in his ear with a pinky, Randman to his meditative scrutiny of the emptied juice glass. The air is close and thick.

    A knock at the door raises both men’s eyes. Their secretary leans in without letting go of the knob, her perfume effusing the stale room at once. The thick implacable scent does not cut the dusty air so much as coat it and flatter it. She has a natural buoyancy that floats even in the tired office.

    “There’s a case here for you,” she says. “Careful with this one.” Her smile is a taunt.

    “Sure, Turtle,” says Randman. He throws the mickey of rye in a drawer and slams it shut. Nibs doesn’t look up from his magazine, and puts his feet up on his desk crossed at the ankles.

    “You got it. Come on in, miss.” Turtle holds the door open for the case, all five feet of it plus heels, and closes it behind, returning to her desk outside.

    The case stands with his hands on his purse, looking lost. The sunlight, even filtered through bubbly glass and cut into strips by dirty blinds, is enough to make his liquor-brown eyes look wet. Nibs’ eyes lift first, then open a little wider; and then his feet hit the ground and he sits up straight, sneaking his magazine out of sight.

    Randman watches him levelly.

    “Well?” the case asks finally, in a quiet, pleading voice. “Are you Randman the private investigator or aren’t you?” He steps forwards, once, his soles angled obtusely to the floor in steep shoes. His gown is silk brocade, an oriental style.

    “Yes, miss, that’s me.” He gets to his feet with a sigh and motions to a plain chair beside his desk. “Have a seat. I’m Randman Deuce, this is my partner Nibs.”

    “Pleased to meet you,” says Nibs across the office, eyes glued on the case, smiling somewhat too politely. He folds his hands on the back of his head and watches like a man at a movie.

    “Yes, pleased to meet you,” says the young case graciously, and flings himself forward to the chair beside Randman’s desk. He sits on its edge, his hands gripping each other on the desk like a petitioner. His eyes are large and pathetic, and the beginning of a hysteria is working his ribs. “Oh, can’t you please help me? I think I might be in a lot of trouble.” His nostrils flare, and he shoots a plaintive silent glance at the empty juice glass.

    Randman blinks and hesitates. “Oh, of course, miss, yes,” he says, turning to fish the mickey and a second glass out of the drawer, and candidly testing his breath under his hand as he does so. “And what’s bothering you, miss – ah –“ he splashes the gold-coloured poison into each glass, and offers the fresh one over – “actually, miss, I didn’t catch your name.”

    “My name is Caelo Ruto. It’s... Italian.” Unconsciously, he runs a hand through his black curls, and then takes the rye, draining it with one cough. He puts his hands in his lap and looks at them, taking several long breaths as the drink does its work. A car honks outside, and angry voices exchange invectives, but still no crunch. Nibs stands, crosses the creaky floorboards, and leans backwards against Randman’s desk, folding his arms and looking down at Caelo with a raven-like sympathy.

    “Go on then, Miss Ruto,” Nibs says softly.

    Caelo swallows, dabs the corner of his mouth with a fingertip, draws a final fortifying lungful, and looks up at Randman. “There’s a man following me,” he says in a near-whisper. “A dangerous man. I don’t know what he wants anymore, but I met him in Beijing. I’ve been there for some time, but with the Olympics it all got to be too much, especially after...” He stops, and leans back all the way into the chair, seeming more at ease with every word. “We met in a café last year. He called himself a fanboy of some kind and I had assumed he was a tourist for the games. At first he was very sweet and charming and mysterious. And vigorous.” Wrestling with a smile, Caelo puts a dainty manicured hand over the top of his ribcage as if to push down a strong feeling. “But as you well know, Mr. Deuce, men are rarely what they seem at first.”

    “Some of us are okay,” Nibs says again, as softly, fishing a bent cigarette from his shirt pocket and putting it between his lips without lighting it. “Some of us.”

    Randman shoots a look at his partner, and then takes his drink in two mouthfuls. “What about the fanboy, Miss Ruto? You’re having a problem with him?”

    “Oh, yes,” Caelo says emphatically, looking up with eyes wide and wet again. “Yes, when I tried to break things off he started to follow me and leave flowers and poetry for me at the hotel. I’m terribly sorry to say I can have that effect on men, Mr. Deuce...” He presses his lips together and looks at his knees. “I thought I’d lost him for good, finally, but I’ve seen him watching me in the hotel lobby and in the street at night, too. I don’t know what he’s capable of and I don’t know what he wants, but I’m not afraid to say that he has most certainly killed before and could again.” His eyes spill over without a sob, and he leans forwards over the desk with hands outstretched. “Can you – can you, Mr. Deuce...”

    Randman, again, shoots a look at his partner, steepling his fingers and giving a single, ambiguous move of his head. The silence lays heavy as Caelo looks across at him with dribbling eyes. Smirking, Nibs puts fire to his cigarette, starts to smoke, and looks away from Caelo towards the dusty, bubbled window.

    At last some message gets conveyed and Caelo reaches into his butter-soft leather handbag with a slightly embarrassed “Oh!” He hands over two colourful bills with a couple of zeroes on each. Randman takes the money with a smile and makes it disappear very quickly, and Nibs watches the gesture over his shoulder. The sweetish smell of his cigarette is actually something of an improvement over old dust and Canadian Club.

    “That’s a start,” Randman says.

    Nibs gives his cigarette a flick and lets the ash drift to the floor. “What hotel are you staying at, Miss Ruto?”

    “The Fort Garry, downtown,” she says, dabbing his eyes with the exquisitely embroidered sleeve of his gown. His body moves as if a painful knot had just been undone, looser and freer. He puts the strap of his handbag over his shoulder, and lifts the emptied glass to his tastefully painted mouth, tilting out the last few drops from the bottom.

    “Classy place – good taste, miss. I’ll be in the lobby this evening after sundown. Don’t pay me any notice except if you see the fanboy around, then you catch my eye and nod him out for me. Then head into the bar – stay around people or head up to your room. We’ll take it from there, not to worry.” Nibs draws from his cigarette, and blows smoke from a slightly predatory grin.

    “Oh, please be careful,” Caelo says, and meets Nibs eyes for the first time. “He could be capable of anything. You’ll know him at once, he wears only black and he is quite pale. I’m sure he’ll be there tonight, I’m sure.” The glance becomes a look, which hangs on a silence, until Randman breaks it.

    “What’s the fanboy’s name, Miss Ruto?”

    “Oh... well, as for that, he went by a handle in Beijing.” He looks away from Nibs to the empty glass in his hands, turning it over in his fingers, speaking shyly. “His initials are F.F. That’s all I know.”

    “You spent the whole year with him without knowing his real name?” Randman asks – straight-up, without judgement. Caelo’s eyes lift from under his eyelashes, and fall again.

    “As I said, he was quite mysterious.”

    “Well, never mind that,” says Nibs, dropping his cigarette straight on the floor and stepping on it. He walks across the room and puts his hand on the dulled brass doorknob. “You go back to the Fort Garry and wait for us. Helluva high tea in the dining room there, I hear.” He turns the knob and holds opens the door. Turtle’s keyboard clacks in the empty waiting room outside.

    Caelo stands, looking dry-eyed and pacified, and says a genuine, “thank you both very much.” He sweeps with stiletto-heeled grace and without another word first out the office, and then out the waiting room, leaving the faintest whiff of jasmine on his way.

    Turtle leans her head to look into the office from her desk, waggling her eyebrows teasingly, just before Nibs shuts the door and straightens his necktie.

    “Jesus, what a knockout,” he says, a tastelessly boyish grin breaking out on his tired face, going back to his desk to sip the crappy tepid coffee beside his balled-up coat. “No work for weeks, and then this! And six hundred for a down payment?” He whistles, and drinks more coffee.

    “Just keep your gun in your holster, buddy,” Randman says, wagging a finger and moving the two glasses to the corner of his desk. “This is business.” He finds a cigarette for himself and starts to smoke with a couple of itchy coughs.

    Nibs, standing beside his desk with the coffee cup, indicates himself innocently. “Me? I never let pleasure get in the way of business. Or vice versa. Hey, careful you don’t set your breath on fire there, Deuce.”

    Randman sniffs a laugh out his nose and stands, taking his hat and coat off the coat tree and donning them on his way towards the door. He tosses one of the bills on Nibs’ desk in the same gesture as he grabs the brass doorknob. “I’m going to get some lunch. See you back here later, Nibs.” Nibs nods his acknowledgement with a friendly “heh” and returns to his dirty magazine.

    “Figure you’ll be able to pay me this week now, Mr. Deuce?” Turtle says, looking up from the message boards on her laptop screen with a smile. The two exchange a knowing and playful look.

    “Sure, if it means you’ll start doing some work, Turtle. I’m off for lunch, leave my messages on my desk.” He gives his hat a courteous tilt and opens the door to the hall.

    “What a looker, huh?” Turtle calls.

    “Tell me about it,” Randman says over his shoulder, and closes the door behind him.



    Feedback, complimentary or critical, is always welcome.
    Love it.
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    Je veux aller sous votre peau.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    You rascally psychopath, you.
    Quote Originally Posted by Quincunx View Post
    On the phone, people talk back. And over. And aren't obliged to listen.
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    Kael, awesome.
    Quote Originally Posted by CurlyKitGirl View Post
    I has been owned.
    Yup, Kael beat the Book Geek at her own game.
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    Don't tick off Kaelawrath. The dear fellow is above reproach.

  16. - Top - End - #136
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    randman22222's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    The title is bound to change, but here's Chapter 1.

    China Gold
    By Kneenibble

    Chapter 1: The Sky is Falling
    Including so far, in order of mention:
    randman22222
    Kneenibble
    happyturtle
    Kaelaroth
    FF fanboy

    Spoiler
    Show


    Randman Deuce lets a little Canadian Club splash into the juice glass on his desk from a mickey. He leans back in his ergonomic office chair and observes it against the late morning sun. The little glass is fashioned to mimic cut crystal but a hundred tiny scratches and nicks make it dull and dusty-looking. A few storeys down outside on the street there is a honk and a screech. Randman lifts his head, poised, waiting for a crunch. Nothing. The rye goes down in a gulp and a breath, sweetly awful.

    He’s a tall, well-made man: some would call a pretty man: golden hair and blue eyes and the pink lips of an aesthete, features at odd with the ascetic pinched eyebrows and the lean figure. His suit is a little too large and a little too brown and makes his body look shapeless except at the shoulders, which are handsome, if unassumingly rounded forwards.

    The oak floorboards creak all the way to the window. They were nice, once. Randman twists the string to flip open the venetians. The convex side of the slats is grimy gray with dust. Between them through old warped glass, the sunlight comes uncomfortably hot. Randman puts the end of his finger on one and draws it down to peer outside. He sees nothing worth seeing. He lets the slat go with a snap and returns to his desk, rubbing the grime from his finger onto his shirt. His head swims a little: his stomach is empty and that was not the morning’s first slug.

    His partner, slouching in a chair at a desk across the room, looks up at him blankly. There is a dirty magazine resting on his crossed legs and a cup of bad coffee nearby. Nibs has a tired, boyish face with a ruffled mop of unremarkably coloured hair. His suit is blue and wrinkled and his coat is in a ball beside his coffee on the desk. They exchange a wordless glance, and look away: Nibs back to his magazine, digging in his ear with a pinky, Randman to his meditative scrutiny of the emptied juice glass. The air is close and thick.

    A knock at the door raises both men’s eyes. Their secretary leans in without letting go of the knob, her perfume effusing the stale room at once. The thick implacable scent does not cut the dusty air so much as coat it and flatter it. She has a natural buoyancy that floats even in the tired office.

    “There’s a case here for you,” she says. “Careful with this one.” Her smile is a taunt.

    “Sure, Turtle,” says Randman. He throws the mickey of rye in a drawer and slams it shut. Nibs doesn’t look up from his magazine, and puts his feet up on his desk crossed at the ankles.

    “You got it. Come on in, miss.” Turtle holds the door open for the case, all five feet of it plus heels, and closes it behind, returning to her desk outside.

    The case stands with his hands on his purse, looking lost. The sunlight, even filtered through bubbly glass and cut into strips by dirty blinds, is enough to make his liquor-brown eyes look wet. Nibs’ eyes lift first, then open a little wider; and then his feet hit the ground and he sits up straight, sneaking his magazine out of sight.

    Randman watches him levelly.

    “Well?” the case asks finally, in a quiet, pleading voice. “Are you Randman the private investigator or aren’t you?” He steps forwards, once, his soles angled obtusely to the floor in steep shoes. His gown is silk brocade, an oriental style.

    “Yes, miss, that’s me.” He gets to his feet with a sigh and motions to a plain chair beside his desk. “Have a seat. I’m Randman Deuce, this is my partner Nibs.”

    “Pleased to meet you,” says Nibs across the office, eyes glued on the case, smiling somewhat too politely. He folds his hands on the back of his head and watches like a man at a movie.

    “Yes, pleased to meet you,” says the young case graciously, and flings himself forward to the chair beside Randman’s desk. He sits on its edge, his hands gripping each other on the desk like a petitioner. His eyes are large and pathetic, and the beginning of a hysteria is working his ribs. “Oh, can’t you please help me? I think I might be in a lot of trouble.” His nostrils flare, and he shoots a plaintive silent glance at the empty juice glass.

    Randman blinks and hesitates. “Oh, of course, miss, yes,” he says, turning to fish the mickey and a second glass out of the drawer, and candidly testing his breath under his hand as he does so. “And what’s bothering you, miss – ah –“ he splashes the gold-coloured poison into each glass, and offers the fresh one over – “actually, miss, I didn’t catch your name.”

    “My name is Caelo Ruto. It’s... Italian.” Unconsciously, he runs a hand through his black curls, and then takes the rye, draining it with one cough. He puts his hands in his lap and looks at them, taking several long breaths as the drink does its work. A car honks outside, and angry voices exchange invectives, but still no crunch. Nibs stands, crosses the creaky floorboards, and leans backwards against Randman’s desk, folding his arms and looking down at Caelo with a raven-like sympathy.

    “Go on then, Miss Ruto,” Nibs says softly.

    Caelo swallows, dabs the corner of his mouth with a fingertip, draws a final fortifying lungful, and looks up at Randman. “There’s a man following me,” he says in a near-whisper. “A dangerous man. I don’t know what he wants anymore, but I met him in Beijing. I’ve been there for some time, but with the Olympics it all got to be too much, especially after...” He stops, and leans back all the way into the chair, seeming more at ease with every word. “We met in a café last year. He called himself a fanboy of some kind and I had assumed he was a tourist for the games. At first he was very sweet and charming and mysterious. And vigorous.” Wrestling with a smile, Caelo puts a dainty manicured hand over the top of his ribcage as if to push down a strong feeling. “But as you well know, Mr. Deuce, men are rarely what they seem at first.”

    “Some of us are okay,” Nibs says again, as softly, fishing a bent cigarette from his shirt pocket and putting it between his lips without lighting it. “Some of us.”

    Randman shoots a look at his partner, and then takes his drink in two mouthfuls. “What about the fanboy, Miss Ruto? You’re having a problem with him?”

    “Oh, yes,” Caelo says emphatically, looking up with eyes wide and wet again. “Yes, when I tried to break things off he started to follow me and leave flowers and poetry for me at the hotel. I’m terribly sorry to say I can have that effect on men, Mr. Deuce...” He presses his lips together and looks at his knees. “I thought I’d lost him for good, finally, but I’ve seen him watching me in the hotel lobby and in the street at night, too. I don’t know what he’s capable of and I don’t know what he wants, but I’m not afraid to say that he has most certainly killed before and could again.” His eyes spill over without a sob, and he leans forwards over the desk with hands outstretched. “Can you – can you, Mr. Deuce...”

    Randman, again, shoots a look at his partner, steepling his fingers and giving a single, ambiguous move of his head. The silence lays heavy as Caelo looks across at him with dribbling eyes. Smirking, Nibs puts fire to his cigarette, starts to smoke, and looks away from Caelo towards the dusty, bubbled window.

    At last some message gets conveyed and Caelo reaches into his butter-soft leather handbag with a slightly embarrassed “Oh!” He hands over two colourful bills with a couple of zeroes on each. Randman takes the money with a smile and makes it disappear very quickly, and Nibs watches the gesture over his shoulder. The sweetish smell of his cigarette is actually something of an improvement over old dust and Canadian Club.

    “That’s a start,” Randman says.

    Nibs gives his cigarette a flick and lets the ash drift to the floor. “What hotel are you staying at, Miss Ruto?”

    “The Fort Garry, downtown,” she says, dabbing his eyes with the exquisitely embroidered sleeve of his gown. His body moves as if a painful knot had just been undone, looser and freer. He puts the strap of his handbag over his shoulder, and lifts the emptied glass to his tastefully painted mouth, tilting out the last few drops from the bottom.

    “Classy place – good taste, miss. I’ll be in the lobby this evening after sundown. Don’t pay me any notice except if you see the fanboy around, then you catch my eye and nod him out for me. Then head into the bar – stay around people or head up to your room. We’ll take it from there, not to worry.” Nibs draws from his cigarette, and blows smoke from a slightly predatory grin.

    “Oh, please be careful,” Caelo says, and meets Nibs eyes for the first time. “He could be capable of anything. You’ll know him at once, he wears only black and he is quite pale. I’m sure he’ll be there tonight, I’m sure.” The glance becomes a look, which hangs on a silence, until Randman breaks it.

    “What’s the fanboy’s name, Miss Ruto?”

    “Oh... well, as for that, he went by a handle in Beijing.” He looks away from Nibs to the empty glass in his hands, turning it over in his fingers, speaking shyly. “His initials are F.F. That’s all I know.”

    “You spent the whole year with him without knowing his real name?” Randman asks – straight-up, without judgement. Caelo’s eyes lift from under his eyelashes, and fall again.

    “As I said, he was quite mysterious.”

    “Well, never mind that,” says Nibs, dropping his cigarette straight on the floor and stepping on it. He walks across the room and puts his hand on the dulled brass doorknob. “You go back to the Fort Garry and wait for us. Helluva high tea in the dining room there, I hear.” He turns the knob and holds opens the door. Turtle’s keyboard clacks in the empty waiting room outside.

    Caelo stands, looking dry-eyed and pacified, and says a genuine, “thank you both very much.” He sweeps with stiletto-heeled grace and without another word first out the office, and then out the waiting room, leaving the faintest whiff of jasmine on his way.

    Turtle leans her head to look into the office from her desk, waggling her eyebrows teasingly, just before Nibs shuts the door and straightens his necktie.

    “Jesus, what a knockout,” he says, a tastelessly boyish grin breaking out on his tired face, going back to his desk to sip the crappy tepid coffee beside his balled-up coat. “No work for weeks, and then this! And six hundred for a down payment?” He whistles, and drinks more coffee.

    “Just keep your gun in your holster, buddy,” Randman says, wagging a finger and moving the two glasses to the corner of his desk. “This is business.” He finds a cigarette for himself and starts to smoke with a couple of itchy coughs.

    Nibs, standing beside his desk with the coffee cup, indicates himself innocently. “Me? I never let pleasure get in the way of business. Or vice versa. Hey, careful you don’t set your breath on fire there, Deuce.”

    Randman sniffs a laugh out his nose and stands, taking his hat and coat off the coat tree and donning them on his way towards the door. He tosses one of the bills on Nibs’ desk in the same gesture as he grabs the brass doorknob. “I’m going to get some lunch. See you back here later, Nibs.” Nibs nods his acknowledgement with a friendly “heh” and returns to his dirty magazine.

    “Figure you’ll be able to pay me this week now, Mr. Deuce?” Turtle says, looking up from the message boards on her laptop screen with a smile. The two exchange a knowing and playful look.

    “Sure, if it means you’ll start doing some work, Turtle. I’m off for lunch, leave my messages on my desk.” He gives his hat a courteous tilt and opens the door to the hall.

    “What a looker, huh?” Turtle calls.

    “Tell me about it,” Randman says over his shoulder, and closes the door behind him.



    Feedback, complimentary or critical, is always welcome.
    Epic.
    I much approve of it, but why do I get the feeling Randman is gonna die first? (And wouldn't it flow better to call him Randy?)
    Last edited by randman22222; 2008-09-02 at 08:13 AM.
    This avatar by Phase.

  17. - Top - End - #137
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    Ethrael's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Wow, it's one of the best ships I've read. You're very talented Knee. And about the gender issue, I got the message that she was a transvestite. I need to pay way more attention next time...

    Oh and Turtle was on GITP!!!
    Also known as Eđræl

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    Sorry about the slow posting, peeps! Exams are starting to hit me...

  18. - Top - End - #138
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    Moff Chumley's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Wow, that was pretty amazing.
    CHUMLEY SEAL OF APPROVAL.

    It's not as cool as Tengu's, I know, but it's all I have.
    Avatar by Kris on a Stick

  19. - Top - End - #139
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    *rips off the chumley seal* I* think it needs this *puts a newberry award on it in its place*

  20. - Top - End - #140
    Banned
     
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Quote Originally Posted by Moff Chumley View Post
    So, I still don't know if I get to be Baldrick or not...
    Shod off Baldrick
    from
    EE

  21. - Top - End - #141
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Moff Chumley's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Is ^ good or bad, though?
    Avatar by Kris on a Stick

  22. - Top - End - #142
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Thanks for reading and giving feedback! I appreciate it.
    randman22222 - no, Randy is no good. Your character is Randman. That's important.

    China Gold
    By Kneenibble

    Chapter 2: Death Underground
    Including so far, in order of mention:
    randman22222
    Kneenibble
    happyturtle
    Kaelaroth
    FF fanboy

    and now, dallas-dakota

    Spoiler
    Show


    Randman is sitting in the small kitchen of his bachelor apartment. There is a mickey of rye and a tumbler of ice beside his hand on the laminate kitchen table. He is undressed to his boxer shorts and undershirt.

    It’s late. The window is open but the draft is not fresh.

    Nibs will be tailing the fanboy now, he thinks numbly. His cellphone is across the table at the opposite setting. Nibs had agreed to call him if anything went fishy, which they had both concluded, back at the office after lunch, was a serious possibility. The fridge motor starts up noisily and Randman thinks, for a moment, it is the phone vibrating. No dice. He fumbles for it and lets it fall onto the linoleum patterned like a 5-pin bowling ball. The ice jingles as a fresh splash of Canadian Club buoys it up, and jingles again as the drink slides awfully down Randman’s throat. He sucks a morsel of ice into his mouth and crunches it up. The cold hurts his teeth. It’s enough drink. He screws the lid back on the mickey and stands up, the narrow kitchen with its white plaster walls starting to whirl. He takes the cigarette stuck behind his ear and lights it on the stove element, and goes to the other room to smoke it.

    He sits on his bed, which dominates the small studio apartment, hunched forwards, ashing into a dirty mug on the nightstand. He had a decent dinner for the first time in a while and going to bed without an empty stomach feels unusual. He sticks the cigarette into the mug and lays on his back on top of the covers, staring at the stippled ceiling. The smoke works with the drink to set the room spinning wildly and he lets it happen, plummeting into a dreamless anesthesia.

    Somewhere in that cottony darkness, there is a sound that seems like it should be important.

    Randman wakes up before his eyes open. He feels a bad case of the spins, a clenched pain in the middle of his brain, and a rising sour wetness from somewhere in his innards. The apartment is still dark, although the dreamlike orange of streetlights shines through the flimsy drapes. Somewhere outside the packing fluff in his skull, there is a sense of something happening.

    He jerks upright in a spasm and thrashes to his feet. It’s not the fridge motor this time, his cellphone is really ringing across the apartment in the kitchen. The digital clock on the nightstand reads “3:14,” stabbingly bright.

    As he steps into the kitchen he kicks the cellphone under the table with his toe. It continues to ring. He gets to his knees and fumbles for it, working hard not to vomit; with his eyelids tightly squished together, and after several deep breaths, he flips it open and holds it against his face.

    “Nibs?” he says hoarsely.

    “Uh, Randman Deuce?” says an unfamiliar voice.

    “Uh, yeah, -- yeah that’s me.”

    “Randman Deuce the private investigator?” says the voice.

    “The one and only, buddy, who is this?” He puts his free hand on the edge of the table and, taking care not to bonk his skull, drags himself up into the chair, nearly sweeping off the finger-stained tumbler with the dregs of molten ice.

    “This is Officer Dallas Dakota? With the police? I’m sorry to get you out of bed this late, sir, but, well...”

    “Oh. Yeah, wassit?” Randman puts his elbow on the table, and holds his forehead, trying to rub the mess out from behind it.

    “Mister Deuce – your business partner, Kenny Nibbles? Well... he’s dead.”

    Randman sniffs in a sharp breath, and mashes his eyeballs against his palm. “What?”

    “Your – sir? There’s been a murder, and the fellow had a business card with your and his name on it, and his ID matched. Kenny Nibbles?”

    “Nibs? Jesus.” There is a long pause. Randman sits with his hand across his eyes, trying hard to think. “How?”

    “Do you want to come down and see this, Mr. Deuce?”

    Randman jots down the address: a parking garage two or three blocks from the Fort Garry. Then he snaps the phone shut, stands, walks to the sink, and dry-heaves for seven minutes. At last, sweating coldly, he brings up a puddle of bitter green foam, rinses it away, and sets about refreshing his person.

    A young cop meets him as he steps out of the cab downtown in a spotless, crisp blue uniform that looks newly stitched: a young cop with a bright, scrubbed face, yellow hair under his cap, and shiny blue eyes. The orange street light washes out his colour with a sickly pall. He is smiling and munching a large oatmeal cookie studded with chocolate chips, and he sticks out a stiff hand for shaking as the cab drives away.

    “Hi there, good morning, Mr. Deuce, I’m officer Dallas Dakota,” he says chipperly. “We spoke on the phone? Sorry to get you up out of bed at this hour. Why don’t you come on inside with me? The photographers are just finishing up now and the coroner will be a little while yet.” Still smiling, hand still extended, he bites off another mouthful of the great cookie and chews it. A car roars past behind them on the empty street, subwoofers thumping a violent beat.

    Randman looks at the hand, up at the scrubbed smiling face, and rubs a bloodshot eye with his fist. “Time of death?”

    The young officer’s smile shines on, although he lowers his hand, and he turns to lead Randman around the lowered yellow toll gate and into the underground garage. “About midnight, we figure, or shortly after, Mr. Deuce, although a lot attendant only gave us the call about an hour ago. We’ll know more exactly once the coroner takes a look. Ah, around here, please.” They navigate the low concrete labyrinth and approach a group of uniformed officers in a dark corner, one working with a fancy digital camera. They surround a body in a blue suit lying belly-up in a slick of blood with something metal sticking up out of the chest.

    “This Deuce, Dakota?” one of the other officers grunts.

    “Yeah, I’m Deuce,” Randman answers before officer Dakota swallows his latest mouthful of cookie, and walks past him towards the body, nostrils flaring with the sharp smell of the blood.

    “Let’s see your PI’s license, Mr. Deuce,” the gruff officer says, stepping in front of him. Randman flips open a leather wallet from inside his coat and waves the officer out of his way with the license. Hands in his pockets, he stands over Nibs’ bloody corpse, the tired boyish face looking unusually rested, eyes half-shut, mouth slack. His shirt is wet and red and a razor sharp shuriken is buried deeply in his heart. Randman takes a long, deep breath.

    “Is that a positive I.D. then, Mr. Deuce?” officer Dakota pipes up behind him finally, followed by a quiet crunching sound.

    Randman lifts his hat up, runs his hand over his hair, and pushes it back on. “Yeah, that’s Nibs alright. Looks like he’s finally getting some sleep.” He looks over his shoulder with the corner of his eye. The gruff officer is busy with the photographer and Dakota is directly behind him munching. He squats down, and reaches inside Nib’s coat, careful to avoid the bloodstains, and discretely fishes out the bill from Caelo. He slips it secretly into his shirt sleeve while tapping one of the shuriken’s edges with his fingernail. The throwing-star is deeply imbedded and does not wobble. Both moves go unnoticed. He stands and turns and tugs his lapels straight.

    “Any suspects? The lot attendant?”

    “No, no, Mr. Deuce,” officer Dakota replies, gesturing with the last corner of his cookie and shaking crumbs around. “No, her alibi is tight. We’re hoping the weapon will give us something to go on. Good shot, huh? Jeepers! What an arm the guy must have! It saves us some work, though, in narrowing down the search. What is that thing, Japanese? ”

    “Yeah,” Randman says under his breath, taking a cigarette from his pocket and letting the bill fall in from his sleeve as he does. “Or Chinese, maybe.” He lights the cigarette and starts to smoke.

    Officer Dakota hesitates as he chews down the end of his cookie, his smooth pink forehead all crinkled up under the brim of his blue officer’s cap. Swallowing, he says, “Say, Mr. Deuce, was your partner working on a case tonight?”

    “Yes,” Randman shoots back noncommittally, narrowing his eyes as he smokes and fighting back another ugly sourness creeping up the back of his throat. Officer Dakota looks at him, seeming to expect more.

    When more does not come, he puts in gingerly, his smile wilting away: “Anything you can tell us would be a big he – “

    “My client has rights to privacy,” Randman cuts in. “Thanks for the call, pal. Let me know if the coroner turns up anything interesting.”

    Officer Dakota’s smile pops back on like a light bulb. “Yeah, sure thing, Mr. Deuce. I’ll let you know right away!”

    Randman smirks in spite of himself, and as he throws his cigarette away, gives officer Dakota a clap on the shoulder. “Thanks, guy. Good work.” He throws a stiff nod at the gruff officer and photographer and, fussing with his hat, heads back up to the world.

    “Jeepers,” says officer Dakota, blushing. He takes another cookie out of his pocket and bites off a mouthful.

    Last edited by Kneenibble; 2008-09-06 at 05:16 PM.

  23. - Top - End - #143
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Helgraf's Avatar

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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Quote Originally Posted by RabbitHoleLost View Post
    Ah, well. Two and a half more ideas underway for Helgraf, one not-so-happy Mordy/RHL coming up, and then I'll maybe finally finish the Randy/RHL sequel...
    More Mad Season (err, my take on it) soon.

    Also, two and a half more ideas? :curious:

    And a free ship. Oh ... hmmm ...

    HappyTurtle / Helgraf.

    What can I say? I like to see people's interpretations of me - and how they might relate that to others.
    Last edited by Helgraf; 2008-09-03 at 01:25 AM.
    Catatar made for me many years ago ... pretty sure by banjo1985
    Werewolf Awards: 'Best Narration: Helgraf'
    Rabbit says stuff that makes me blush.

  24. - Top - End - #144
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    Thanks for reading and giving feedback! I appreciate it.
    randman22222 - no, Randy is no good. Your character is Randman. That's important.

    China Gold
    By Kneenibble

    Chapter 2: Death Underground
    Including so far, in order of mention:
    randman22222
    Kneenibble
    happyturtle
    Kaelaroth
    FF fanboy

    and now, dallas-dakota

    Spoiler
    Show


    It’s late. Randman is sitting in the small kitchen of his bachelor apartment. There is a mickey of rye and a tumbler of ice beside his hand on the laminate kitchen table. He is undressed to his boxer shorts and undershirt, sticky and sluggish with the damp summer heat. The window is open but the draft is not fresh.

    Nibs will be tailing the fanboy now, he thinks numbly. His cellphone is across the table at the opposite setting. Nibs had agreed to call him if anything went fishy, which they had both concluded, back at the office after lunch, was a serious possibility. The fridge motor starts up noisily and Randman thinks, for a moment, it is the phone vibrating. No dice. He fumbles for it and lets it fall onto the linoleum patterned like a 5-pin bowling ball. The ice jingles as a fresh splash of Canadian Club buoys it up, and jingles again as the drink slides awfully down Randman’s throat. He sucks a morsel of ice into his mouth and crunches it up. The cold hurts his teeth. It’s enough drink. He screws the lid back on the mickey and stands up, the narrow kitchen with its white plaster walls starting to whirl. He takes the cigarette stuck behind his ear and lights it on the stove element, and goes to the other room to smoke it.

    He sits on his bed, which dominates the small studio apartment, hunched forwards, ashing into a dirty mug on the nightstand. He had a decent dinner for the first time in a while and going to bed without an empty stomach feels unusual. He sticks the cigarette into the mug and lays on his back on top of the covers, staring at the stippled ceiling. The smoke works with the drink to set the room spinning wildly and he lets it happen, plummeting into a dreamless anesthesia.

    Somewhere in that cottony darkness, there is a sound that seems like it should be important.

    Randman wakes up before his eyes open. He feels a bad case of the spins, a clenched pain in the middle of his brain, and a rising sour wetness from somewhere in his innards. The apartment is still dark, although the dreamlike orange of streetlights shines through the flimsy drapes. Somewhere outside the packing fluff in his skull, there is a sense of something happening.

    He jerks upright in a spasm and thrashes to his feet. It’s not the fridge motor this time, his cellphone is really ringing across the apartment in the kitchen. The digital clock on the nightstand reads “3:14,” stabbingly bright.

    As he steps into the kitchen he kicks the cellphone under the table with his toe. It continues to ring. He gets to his knees and fumbles for it, working hard not to vomit; with his eyelids tightly squished together, and after several deep breaths, he flips it open and holds it against his face.

    “Nibs?” he says hoarsely.

    “Uh, Randman Deuce?” says an unfamiliar voice.

    “Uh, yeah, -- yeah that’s me.”

    “Randman Deuce the private investigator?” says the voice.

    “The one and only, buddy, who is this?” He puts his free hand on the edge of the table and, taking care not to bonk his skull, drags himself up into the chair, nearly sweeping off the finger-stained tumbler with the dregs of molten ice.

    “This is Officer Dallas Dakota? With the police? I’m sorry to get you out of bed this late, sir, but, well...”

    “Oh. Yeah, wassit?” Randman puts his elbow on the table, and holds his forehead, trying to rub the mess out from behind it.

    “Mister Deuce – your business partner, Kenny Nibbles? Well... he’s dead.”

    Randman sniffs in a sharp breath, and mashes his eyeballs against his palm. “What?”

    “Your – sir? There’s been a murder, and the fellow had a business card with your and his name on it, and his ID matched. Kenny Nibbles?”

    “Nibs? Jesus.” There is a long pause. Randman sits with his hand across his eyes, trying hard to think. “How?”

    “Do you want to come down and see this, Mr. Deuce?”

    Randman jots down the address: a parking garage two or three blocks from the Fort Garry. Then he snaps the phone shut, stands, walks to the sink, and dry-heaves for seven minutes. At last, sweating coldly, he brings up a puddle of bitter green foam, rinses it away, and sets about refreshing his person.

    A young cop meets him as he steps out of the cab downtown in a spotless, crisp blue uniform that looks newly stitched: a young cop with a bright, scrubbed face, yellow hair under his cap, and shiny blue eyes. The orange street light washes out his colour with a sickly pall. He is smiling and munching a large oatmeal cookie studded with chocolate chips, and he sticks out a stiff hand for shaking as the cab drives away.

    “Hi there, good morning, Mr. Deuce, I’m officer Dallas Dakota,” he says chipperly. “We spoke on the phone? Sorry to get you up out of bed at this hour. Why don’t you come on inside with me? The photographers are just finishing up now and the coroner will be a little while yet.” Still smiling, hand still extended, he bites off another mouthful of the great cookie and chews it. A car roars past behind them on the empty street, subwoofers thumping a violent beat.

    Randman looks at the hand, up at the scrubbed smiling face, and rubs a bloodshot eye with his fist. “Time of death?”

    The young officer’s smile shines on, although he lowers his hand, and he turns to lead Randman around the lowered yellow toll gate and into the underground garage. “About midnight, we figure, or shortly after, Mr. Deuce, although a lot attendant only gave us the call about an hour ago. We’ll know more exactly once the coroner takes a look. Ah, around here, please.” They navigate the low concrete labyrinth and approach a group of uniformed officers in a dark corner, one working with a fancy digital camera. They surround a body in a blue suit lying belly-up in a slick of blood with something metal sticking up out of the chest.

    “This Deuce, Dakota?” one of the other officers grunts.

    “Yeah, I’m Deuce,” Randman answers before officer Dakota swallows his latest mouthful of cookie, and walks past him towards the body, nostrils flaring with the sharp smell of the blood.

    “Let’s see your PI’s license, Mr. Deuce,” the gruff officer says, stepping in front of him. Randman flips open a leather wallet from inside his coat and waves the officer out of his way with the license. Hands in his pockets, he stands over Nibs’ bloody corpse, the tired boyish face looking unusually rested, eyes half-shut, mouth slack. His shirt is wet and red and a razor sharp shuriken is buried deeply in his heart. Randman takes a long, deep breath.

    “Is that a positive I.D. then, Mr. Deuce?” officer Dakota pipes up behind him finally, followed by a quiet crunching sound.

    Randman lifts his hat up, runs his hand over his hair, and pushes it back on. “Yeah, that’s Nibs alright. Looks like he’s finally getting some sleep.” He looks over his shoulder with the corner of his eye. The gruff officer is busy with the photographer and Dakota is directly behind him munching. He squats down, and reaches inside Nib’s coat, careful to avoid the bloodstains, and discretely fishes out the bill from Caelo. He slips it secretly into his shirt sleeve while tapping one of the shuriken’s edges with his fingernail. The throwing-star is deeply imbedded and does not wobble. Both moves go unnoticed. He stands and turns and tugs his lapels straight.

    “Any suspects? The lot attendant?”

    “No, no, Mr. Deuce,” officer Dakota replies, gesturing with the last corner of his cookie and shaking crumbs around. “No, her alibi is tight. We’re hoping the weapon will give us something to go on. Good shot, huh? Jeepers! What an arm the guy must have! It saves us some work, though, in narrowing down the search. What is that thing, Japanese? ”

    “Yeah,” Randman says under his breath, taking a cigarette from his pocket and letting the bill fall in from his sleeve as he does. “Or Chinese, maybe.” He lights the cigarette and starts to smoke.

    Officer Dakota hesitates as he chews down the end of his cookie, his smooth pink forehead all crinkled up under the brim of his blue officer’s cap. Swallowing, he says, “Say, Mr. Deuce, was your partner working on a case tonight?”

    “Yes,” Randman shoots back noncommittally, narrowing his eyes as he smokes and fighting back another ugly sourness creeping up the back of his throat. Officer Dakota looks at him, seeming to expect more.

    When more does not come, he puts in gingerly, his smile wilting away: “Anything you can tell us would be a big he – “

    “My client has rights to privacy,” Randman cuts in. “Thanks for the call, pal. Let me know if the coroner turns up anything interesting.”

    Officer Dakota’s smile pops back on like a light bulb. “Yeah, sure thing, Mr. Deuce. I’ll let you know right away!”

    Randman smirks in spite of himself, and as he throws his cigarette away, gives officer Dakota a clap on the shoulder. “Thanks, guy. Good work.” He throws a stiff nod at the gruff officer and photographer and, fussing with his hat, heads back up to the world.

    “Jeepers,” says officer Dakota, blushing. He takes another cookie out of his pocket and bites off a mouthful.

    Wow, this is the ONLY ship EVER that has made me go through most of the emoticons in one read. GREAT work Knee GREAT work man.

  25. - Top - End - #145
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    randman22222's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jul 2007
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Quote Originally Posted by Kneenibble View Post
    Thanks for reading and giving feedback! I appreciate it.
    randman22222 - no, Randy is no good. Your character is Randman. That's important.

    China Gold
    By Kneenibble

    Chapter 2: Death Underground
    Including so far, in order of mention:
    randman22222
    Kneenibble
    happyturtle
    Kaelaroth
    FF fanboy

    and now, dallas-dakota

    Spoiler
    Show


    It’s late. Randman is sitting in the small kitchen of his bachelor apartment. There is a mickey of rye and a tumbler of ice beside his hand on the laminate kitchen table. He is undressed to his boxer shorts and undershirt, sticky and sluggish with the damp summer heat. The window is open but the draft is not fresh.

    Nibs will be tailing the fanboy now, he thinks numbly. His cellphone is across the table at the opposite setting. Nibs had agreed to call him if anything went fishy, which they had both concluded, back at the office after lunch, was a serious possibility. The fridge motor starts up noisily and Randman thinks, for a moment, it is the phone vibrating. No dice. He fumbles for it and lets it fall onto the linoleum patterned like a 5-pin bowling ball. The ice jingles as a fresh splash of Canadian Club buoys it up, and jingles again as the drink slides awfully down Randman’s throat. He sucks a morsel of ice into his mouth and crunches it up. The cold hurts his teeth. It’s enough drink. He screws the lid back on the mickey and stands up, the narrow kitchen with its white plaster walls starting to whirl. He takes the cigarette stuck behind his ear and lights it on the stove element, and goes to the other room to smoke it.

    He sits on his bed, which dominates the small studio apartment, hunched forwards, ashing into a dirty mug on the nightstand. He had a decent dinner for the first time in a while and going to bed without an empty stomach feels unusual. He sticks the cigarette into the mug and lays on his back on top of the covers, staring at the stippled ceiling. The smoke works with the drink to set the room spinning wildly and he lets it happen, plummeting into a dreamless anesthesia.

    Somewhere in that cottony darkness, there is a sound that seems like it should be important.

    Randman wakes up before his eyes open. He feels a bad case of the spins, a clenched pain in the middle of his brain, and a rising sour wetness from somewhere in his innards. The apartment is still dark, although the dreamlike orange of streetlights shines through the flimsy drapes. Somewhere outside the packing fluff in his skull, there is a sense of something happening.

    He jerks upright in a spasm and thrashes to his feet. It’s not the fridge motor this time, his cellphone is really ringing across the apartment in the kitchen. The digital clock on the nightstand reads “3:14,” stabbingly bright.

    As he steps into the kitchen he kicks the cellphone under the table with his toe. It continues to ring. He gets to his knees and fumbles for it, working hard not to vomit; with his eyelids tightly squished together, and after several deep breaths, he flips it open and holds it against his face.

    “Nibs?” he says hoarsely.

    “Uh, Randman Deuce?” says an unfamiliar voice.

    “Uh, yeah, -- yeah that’s me.”

    “Randman Deuce the private investigator?” says the voice.

    “The one and only, buddy, who is this?” He puts his free hand on the edge of the table and, taking care not to bonk his skull, drags himself up into the chair, nearly sweeping off the finger-stained tumbler with the dregs of molten ice.

    “This is Officer Dallas Dakota? With the police? I’m sorry to get you out of bed this late, sir, but, well...”

    “Oh. Yeah, wassit?” Randman puts his elbow on the table, and holds his forehead, trying to rub the mess out from behind it.

    “Mister Deuce – your business partner, Kenny Nibbles? Well... he’s dead.”

    Randman sniffs in a sharp breath, and mashes his eyeballs against his palm. “What?”

    “Your – sir? There’s been a murder, and the fellow had a business card with your and his name on it, and his ID matched. Kenny Nibbles?”

    “Nibs? Jesus.” There is a long pause. Randman sits with his hand across his eyes, trying hard to think. “How?”

    “Do you want to come down and see this, Mr. Deuce?”

    Randman jots down the address: a parking garage two or three blocks from the Fort Garry. Then he snaps the phone shut, stands, walks to the sink, and dry-heaves for seven minutes. At last, sweating coldly, he brings up a puddle of bitter green foam, rinses it away, and sets about refreshing his person.

    A young cop meets him as he steps out of the cab downtown in a spotless, crisp blue uniform that looks newly stitched: a young cop with a bright, scrubbed face, yellow hair under his cap, and shiny blue eyes. The orange street light washes out his colour with a sickly pall. He is smiling and munching a large oatmeal cookie studded with chocolate chips, and he sticks out a stiff hand for shaking as the cab drives away.

    “Hi there, good morning, Mr. Deuce, I’m officer Dallas Dakota,” he says chipperly. “We spoke on the phone? Sorry to get you up out of bed at this hour. Why don’t you come on inside with me? The photographers are just finishing up now and the coroner will be a little while yet.” Still smiling, hand still extended, he bites off another mouthful of the great cookie and chews it. A car roars past behind them on the empty street, subwoofers thumping a violent beat.

    Randman looks at the hand, up at the scrubbed smiling face, and rubs a bloodshot eye with his fist. “Time of death?”

    The young officer’s smile shines on, although he lowers his hand, and he turns to lead Randman around the lowered yellow toll gate and into the underground garage. “About midnight, we figure, or shortly after, Mr. Deuce, although a lot attendant only gave us the call about an hour ago. We’ll know more exactly once the coroner takes a look. Ah, around here, please.” They navigate the low concrete labyrinth and approach a group of uniformed officers in a dark corner, one working with a fancy digital camera. They surround a body in a blue suit lying belly-up in a slick of blood with something metal sticking up out of the chest.

    “This Deuce, Dakota?” one of the other officers grunts.

    “Yeah, I’m Deuce,” Randman answers before officer Dakota swallows his latest mouthful of cookie, and walks past him towards the body, nostrils flaring with the sharp smell of the blood.

    “Let’s see your PI’s license, Mr. Deuce,” the gruff officer says, stepping in front of him. Randman flips open a leather wallet from inside his coat and waves the officer out of his way with the license. Hands in his pockets, he stands over Nibs’ bloody corpse, the tired boyish face looking unusually rested, eyes half-shut, mouth slack. His shirt is wet and red and a razor sharp shuriken is buried deeply in his heart. Randman takes a long, deep breath.

    “Is that a positive I.D. then, Mr. Deuce?” officer Dakota pipes up behind him finally, followed by a quiet crunching sound.

    Randman lifts his hat up, runs his hand over his hair, and pushes it back on. “Yeah, that’s Nibs alright. Looks like he’s finally getting some sleep.” He looks over his shoulder with the corner of his eye. The gruff officer is busy with the photographer and Dakota is directly behind him munching. He squats down, and reaches inside Nib’s coat, careful to avoid the bloodstains, and discretely fishes out the bill from Caelo. He slips it secretly into his shirt sleeve while tapping one of the shuriken’s edges with his fingernail. The throwing-star is deeply imbedded and does not wobble. Both moves go unnoticed. He stands and turns and tugs his lapels straight.

    “Any suspects? The lot attendant?”

    “No, no, Mr. Deuce,” officer Dakota replies, gesturing with the last corner of his cookie and shaking crumbs around. “No, her alibi is tight. We’re hoping the weapon will give us something to go on. Good shot, huh? Jeepers! What an arm the guy must have! It saves us some work, though, in narrowing down the search. What is that thing, Japanese? ”

    “Yeah,” Randman says under his breath, taking a cigarette from his pocket and letting the bill fall in from his sleeve as he does. “Or Chinese, maybe.” He lights the cigarette and starts to smoke.

    Officer Dakota hesitates as he chews down the end of his cookie, his smooth pink forehead all crinkled up under the brim of his blue officer’s cap. Swallowing, he says, “Say, Mr. Deuce, was your partner working on a case tonight?”

    “Yes,” Randman shoots back noncommittally, narrowing his eyes as he smokes and fighting back another ugly sourness creeping up the back of his throat. Officer Dakota looks at him, seeming to expect more.

    When more does not come, he puts in gingerly, his smile wilting away: “Anything you can tell us would be a big he – “

    “My client has rights to privacy,” Randman cuts in. “Thanks for the call, pal. Let me know if the coroner turns up anything interesting.”

    Officer Dakota’s smile pops back on like a light bulb. “Yeah, sure thing, Mr. Deuce. I’ll let you know right away!”

    Randman smirks in spite of himself, and as he throws his cigarette away, gives officer Dakota a clap on the shoulder. “Thanks, guy. Good work.” He throws a stiff nod at the gruff officer and photographer and, fussing with his hat, heads back up to the world.

    “Jeepers,” says officer Dakota, blushing. He takes another cookie out of his pocket and bites off a mouthful.

    More approvability.
    Now I'm gonna go into a slight critique mode...

    The first paragraph? Should stick with three sentences detailing the setting. More than that, and the amount of detail overwhelms the clarity of the said detail.
    Just one thing I noticed.

    Also, err... The coroner has to pronounce death and time of death before the investigators begin snapping away and such. No one would be allowed in the scene between the time the first officer on the scene proclaimed the scene safe, and the time when the coroner pronounced the body was dead.

    Sorry about the nitpicking...

    EDIT: Heyyyy... I didn't die first.
    But now I think Fanboy is non-existent, or is another personality of Caelo's. Like in Psycho.
    Last edited by randman22222; 2008-09-03 at 10:53 AM.
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  26. - Top - End - #146
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    I loved this one two. Building up the tension really steadily and I'm loving the atmosphere you're making, I've got a lovelyly vivid picture in my mind of the world. Oh and Fanboy, I'm scared of you now.

    *dons shuriken-proof vest*
    *hides in corner*

    I'm remaking the request people, could I be in the next one by any chance..? Pwetty pwease? I was going to ship myself with someone out of the Playground but I thought that desperate, vain, boring and pointless. I couldn't even think of what to write for it...
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  27. - Top - End - #147
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    If this thread died while I am sans a computer, I will be a sad rabbit ::pouts::

    "This is why it hurts the way it hurts.
    You have too many words in your head.
    There are too many ways to describe the way you feel.
    You will never have the luxury of a dull ache.
    You must suffer through the intricacy of feeling too much"

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  28. - Top - End - #148
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Probability highly unlikely.
    Catatar made for me many years ago ... pretty sure by banjo1985
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  29. - Top - End - #149
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    Default Re: Shipping itP II: Scourge of the Seven Seas

    Very nice fic.

    Even though I don't blush. I just don't.


    And I have never seen myself in the police....Just...Not me.

    But very nice fic.

    Looking forward to more.
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  30. - Top - End - #150
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    Stop whinning, DD.

    Yet again, Kneen, amazing.
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