humandoodad (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
humandoodad) wrote2008-10-31 04:01 pm
humandoodad) wrote2008-10-31 04:01 pm
Entry tags:
Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween! Today, instead of doing my readings for class or otherwise being productive, I've typed up something festive from my notebook of shame.
When I get blocked on real fic, I work on my entirely self indulgent and ridiculous Bob Is A Werewolf and They Run A Recording Studio!AU. I'm blocked a lot, so I have a lot more of it than actual fic.
2460 words worth of total procrastination and ridiculousness. But 'tis the season and it's at a pretty good stopping point, so I'm going to share with you.
Please keep in mind that it's totally ridiculous and utter badfic.
It started with a coffee run.
The 7-11 was empty except for Bob, Mikey and the bored clerk. Most sane people were in bed at this time on a Wednesday night and Bob wished he were one of them. Instead, he was being lulled into a standing doze by Springsteen on the radio while Mikey stocked up on creamer and sugar packets. Bob always went on coffee runs, insisted on getting access to the caffeine as soon as possible, but the others took turns if they didn't all go. Except Gerard, who was exempt for reasons not particularly understood. He went sometimes, but it was at random and often without checking if anyone else actually wanted coffee (not that they ever turned it down).
At least there was no line, and the clerk turned a blind eye to the fact that they'd probably hoarded away half of his cream and sugar stock. They silently agreed to pause outside the storefront and drink half of their cups before continuing on the walk home. Uneventful, business as usual.
And then, as they walked down the deserted sidewalk, Bob got attacked by a fucking huge wild dog.
The record label wasn't a large enterprise. It was too new, barely a year old. Ray and Gerard had been working at a large advertising firm in the city called [CLEVER NAME] and Frank had been across the street in themail room of Pency , [Name], [Name], and [Name] while playing gigs at night with his band. Frank met Ray when Ray took a shortcut through the alleyway where Frank took smoke breaks. Ray hadn't been able to find the case for his guitar that morning (he was in Jingles), so he was carrying it in hand, which caught Frank's attention. The ensuing conversation led to two things: Ray was extremely late that day and eventually Frank was invited to join he and Gerard for lunch.
It was Gerard's idea for them to quit their jobs, but it was Mikey who inspired the idea.
It happened like this:
"I spent today drawing and redrawing fucking soap bubbles. I wanted to fucking kill myself. They kept telling me they needed to be happier, but not have faces or anything-- just fucking cheerful bubbles." Gerard had started hating his job in logo design about a month into it and a year at it hadn't improved his opinion at all. As far as evening conversationswent , this was pretty typical. Mikey was still back in Jersey, theoretically going to school but no one would call his attendance stellar. Maybe if class involved a stage and cheap beer, he would have been getting As. "Eventually I just got pissed off and drew a bloody bubble massacre, with them having, like, fangs and popping each other and exploding into these great splatters of gore."
"Cool."
"Yeah," Gerard sighed regretfully, "but my boss didn't think so."
"You should quit." Mikey's voice went faint while he took his Sidekick down to check a text and Gerard waited a minute patiently to reply.
"And then what? Work at McDonald's or something? Move back to the basement? The next job would be all the fucking same, only I'd be drawing-- I don't know-- fucking happy vegetables withoutanthropofuckingmorphizing them too much instead of bubbles."
"I don't know," Mikey's shrug was evident in his voice. "I found a Misfits shirt at Goodwill today."
And that was it. But Gerard kept thinking.
As far as the dangers of New Jersey went, wild dogs weren't high on the list. Sure, there were dog fighting rings and junkyard dogs, but it wasn't the sort of thing you kept an eye out for in every day life unless you were a persistent trespasser. Bob had to own up to going scavenging for electronics from time to time, so he had a little experience with junkyard dogs. A couple months earlier, their soundboard had blown and their budget for repairs had been a half roll of electrical tape that Frank had bought to keep the fraying cord for his guitar in commission, Bob's personal tools and the ten dollars Ray had made sitting on the stoop of their run-down building with a guitar.
There'd been a dog at a couple of the places Bob had gone to during that sleepless couple of days, but one was appeased with a burger from White Castle and the other had cornered frank, growled for a few minutes while they panicked, then stuck it's nose into his crotch hard enough to knock his breath out and lift him up onto his toes. So, all in all, Bob had been fucking lucky when it came to dogs. But he'd never though he'd need that luck walking the nine blocks between the 7-11 and the studio.
Bob figured he was a pretty lucky guy in general. It was pretty much chance that he hooked up with the guys. He'd been working a fucking dead end job as a photocopier repairman at a company that also did printer ink refills and shit, Used Ink.Jepha hadn't written down the office number and no one was answering the phone back at the office, so he'd been wandering around this piece of shit, half abandoned office building, looking for an accountant with a toner problem by opening doors, looking in and asking if they needed a repairman.
"Shit, shit, yes we do," Ray had laughed, a little hysterically, from his seat on the floor. He was surrounded by a tangle of wires and parts that had once been, Bob thought, a set of speakers, a really fucking old IBM laptop and a radio. "But, uh," he continued, "who are you?"
"Bob," Bob replied as he surveyed the electronic massacre before him. "Move over, you're going to start a fire or something with all this shit. Tell me what you're trying to do."
The dog was fucking huge. Massive, Great Dane sized, only shaggy with a fuckload of teeth and it was really determined to rip his throat out. It kept lunging and Bob kept blocking with his forearm. His sleeve was already dripping with blood from the bites, but at least his jugular was still intact. So far, a fatalistic part of him thought just before he was drenched in burning liquid.
The dog howled, backing off to shake and paw at it's eyes.
Mikey dropped the empty cuptaker and drug Bob to his feet. "Fucking come on!"
"Shit. SHIT. MikeyWay, you're a fucking genius," Bob gasped out, slumping against their buildings foyer wall. They'd sprinted/limped there and slammed the metal grate outer door behind them. Mikey was peering through it back down the way they'd come. "Fuck." Bob slid down to the floor. "Do you see it?"
Mikey shook his head, closed the inner door and turned back to him. "Fuck," he groaned, patting his pockets. "I lost my Sidekick. Will you-- Stay there." He headed upstairs, taking them two at a time and leaving Bob to thunk his head back against the wall and wait.
He ended up getting a shit ton of stitches, a rabies shot and a bag of blood-- all of which sent Gerard fleeing from the curtained off cubicle in the ER despite his best intentions (in the waiting room though, he drew a picture of what Bob had looked like when they all came barreling down the stairs to find him in the foyer, ripped shirt and dripping blood and the shadow of a monster looming outside the door. It was pretty fucking amazing. Bob was going to get it framed). Then came the police report and talking to Animal Control. And he kept trying to get the guys to go back to the studio, to finish up the mixing on [BAND NAME]'s album, but Ray just shook his head and said it could wait and the band would have theircds or they wouldn't-- it would work out.
There wasn't any reason to hold him and, frankly, Bob couldn't afford the trip to the ER, let alone an overnight stay, so they all went back to the apartment he, Frank and Ray shared with instructions on wound care and what to look out for in case the dog gave him something the rabies shot wouldn't cover.
"Do you want some soup or something?" Ray asked.
"I don't have a cold," Bob grunted. He'd had his fill of being the center of attention hours ago when they'd taken pictures of his wounds ("In case that dog has an owner. Evidence shit," Frank had said. "Or album cover," Gerard added) and now he just wanted to go to bed and said so.
"Shout if you need anything, man," Frank told him. "Someone'll be here."
He dreamed: A blur of flashing teeth and monster dogs howling-- half shadow, half moonlight. Something attacking him again, only it was tearing him up from the inside out, there was no way to fight it and no Mikey to save him.
When he wok up in a cold sweat, he knew two things: if he had PTSD or some shit, he'd be really fucking pissed and he really, really owed Mikey a drink or ten. His arm was throbbing like a motherfucker along with the rapid ratatat tat of his heard, so the drugs they'd given him at the hospital had worn off.
"Shit," he breathed to himself, "this sucks." He knew he wasn't going back to sleep like this, so he got up and shuffled out to the living room.
It was almost noon and Gerard was sacked out on the couch, apparently on Bob Duty while the others were at the studio working. His pill bottle was sitting by a half full pot of coffee with a note propped against it telling him to wake Gerard up if he was asleep. "Nurse" was scrawled in front of Gerard's name in Frank's handwriting, but the note itself was Ray's.
He took a pill and a cup of coffee back to his room, opening the door just in time to catch his phone buzzing. There were 4 text messages from Mikey:
u ok?
ray wnts 2 no. u ok?
txt me bk w ur up.
comin ovr nw 2 chk.
Bob sighed and texted back awkwardly with his left hand that he was fine and just going to sleep more. He could only imagine what Gerard's inbox looked like.
By the end of the week, he'd stopped taking the painkillers. The pain wasn't as bad as the nightmares that came with all the sleeping. He'd convinced the guys to let him come back to work because he'd been getting stir crazy and snapping at everyone, but his arm was in a sling to keep it immobilized and that really limited his ability to work.
He didn't really pay attention to how fast he was healing. He knew he wasn't in that much pain anymore, but he kept forgetting to change his bandages (despite Frank's mirror long reminder notes in the bathroom), so he didn't really notice. He knew what an infection felt like and it wasn't bothering him. It kind of itched, but healing was like that.
When he did decide to change his shit at the end of the second week, his skin had pushed out all the stitches and staples. They fell out of the bandage like snow in some kind of fucked up horror movie. He stared at his arm in the mirror, unable to even look at it directly until Frank started pounding on the door.
"Bob? Bob! Are you okay? Do you need help wiping your ass or something? Don't be ashamed!"
Bob cleaned up all the stuff and wrapped his arm again while listening to Frank explain the importance of ass cleanliness in between giggles.
When the rest of them found out, it took Gerard very little time to suggest that Bob was a werewolf.
It happened when Bob's already brittle temper snapped three days before the full moon. Ray had been fiddling with the guitar balance for an hour, taking Bob's suggestions with a "Okay, but maybe..."
"Fuck, Ray," he snarled and pushed him out of the way. He shrugged off the stupid sling and adjusted the level to where it belonged with a growl. "There."
Ray gaped at him from the floor. "Dude."
"No. It's fine. That's how it should be. You're not fucking touching it again."
"Dude, your arm..."
"What? It's fine."
"Yeah! What the hell?" The doctors weren't even sure if you'd have full extension when it healed. Did you just rip out stitches?"
Ray wouldn't have let up otherwise, so there was nothing to do but show him his healed arm. It was almost entirely unscarred, save for one fresh, angry bite mark. Ray stared, turning Bob's arm this way and that, repeating "Dude. Dude." over and over until he finally called for the rest of them.
"You're fucking Wolverine, Bob, that is so cool!" Frank exclaimed after the initial shock had worn off.
"Wolverine isn't the only mutant with healing powers," Ray objected. "And Bob's way too tall."
While Frank and Ray argued ("What about non-Adamantium Wolverine-- Hey Bob, do you have bone claws?" "That was such a dumb storyline and Bob is not going to be involved with it."), Mikey and Gerard shared a silent conversation full of eyebrow raises and lip quirks. Gerard finally spoke up and cut through the bickering.
"Guys. Bob's a werewolf," he said, Mikey nodding in solemn agreement beside him.
"Fuck you," Bob replied, speaking up for the first time since they'd all gathered.
"No, think about it. Mikey described that thing to me. It was unnatural and shit and now you've got powers. It all makes sense!" He waved his hands emphatically. "Right? Right?"
"Holy shit," Frank said and Bob knew he was swayed by Gerard's reasoning. He looked to Ray.
Ray was studying him thoughtfully. "What about heightened senses? Werewolves have those. I don't think accelerated healing is enough proof. Has Gerard been smelling worse than usual to you, Bob?"
Gerard flipped him off, but still looked to Bob for a reply.
Bob gritted his teeth.
"I think he looks harrier," Frank announced. "I thought it was because he couldn't shave, but--"
He was cut off by Bob surging to his feet, sending his chair skittering across the floor. "No," he snarled and stormed out of the room.
As he headed out of the office, he could hear Gerard say slowly, "I think his temper has gotten worse, too."
"Definitely another sign," Ray replied, conceding to the theory.
Bob slammed the door hard enough to crack the frame.
-
And now I'm going to go buy things that I need to throw a costume together. I am such a procrastinator.
When I get blocked on real fic, I work on my entirely self indulgent and ridiculous Bob Is A Werewolf and They Run A Recording Studio!AU. I'm blocked a lot, so I have a lot more of it than actual fic.
2460 words worth of total procrastination and ridiculousness. But 'tis the season and it's at a pretty good stopping point, so I'm going to share with you.
Please keep in mind that it's totally ridiculous and utter badfic.
It started with a coffee run.
The 7-11 was empty except for Bob, Mikey and the bored clerk. Most sane people were in bed at this time on a Wednesday night and Bob wished he were one of them. Instead, he was being lulled into a standing doze by Springsteen on the radio while Mikey stocked up on creamer and sugar packets. Bob always went on coffee runs, insisted on getting access to the caffeine as soon as possible, but the others took turns if they didn't all go. Except Gerard, who was exempt for reasons not particularly understood. He went sometimes, but it was at random and often without checking if anyone else actually wanted coffee (not that they ever turned it down).
At least there was no line, and the clerk turned a blind eye to the fact that they'd probably hoarded away half of his cream and sugar stock. They silently agreed to pause outside the storefront and drink half of their cups before continuing on the walk home. Uneventful, business as usual.
And then, as they walked down the deserted sidewalk, Bob got attacked by a fucking huge wild dog.
The record label wasn't a large enterprise. It was too new, barely a year old. Ray and Gerard had been working at a large advertising firm in the city called [CLEVER NAME] and Frank had been across the street in themail room of Pency , [Name], [Name], and [Name] while playing gigs at night with his band. Frank met Ray when Ray took a shortcut through the alleyway where Frank took smoke breaks. Ray hadn't been able to find the case for his guitar that morning (he was in Jingles), so he was carrying it in hand, which caught Frank's attention. The ensuing conversation led to two things: Ray was extremely late that day and eventually Frank was invited to join he and Gerard for lunch.
It was Gerard's idea for them to quit their jobs, but it was Mikey who inspired the idea.
It happened like this:
"I spent today drawing and redrawing fucking soap bubbles. I wanted to fucking kill myself. They kept telling me they needed to be happier, but not have faces or anything-- just fucking cheerful bubbles." Gerard had started hating his job in logo design about a month into it and a year at it hadn't improved his opinion at all. As far as evening conversationswent , this was pretty typical. Mikey was still back in Jersey, theoretically going to school but no one would call his attendance stellar. Maybe if class involved a stage and cheap beer, he would have been getting As. "Eventually I just got pissed off and drew a bloody bubble massacre, with them having, like, fangs and popping each other and exploding into these great splatters of gore."
"Cool."
"Yeah," Gerard sighed regretfully, "but my boss didn't think so."
"You should quit." Mikey's voice went faint while he took his Sidekick down to check a text and Gerard waited a minute patiently to reply.
"And then what? Work at McDonald's or something? Move back to the basement? The next job would be all the fucking same, only I'd be drawing-- I don't know-- fucking happy vegetables withoutanthropofuckingmorphizing them too much instead of bubbles."
"I don't know," Mikey's shrug was evident in his voice. "I found a Misfits shirt at Goodwill today."
And that was it. But Gerard kept thinking.
As far as the dangers of New Jersey went, wild dogs weren't high on the list. Sure, there were dog fighting rings and junkyard dogs, but it wasn't the sort of thing you kept an eye out for in every day life unless you were a persistent trespasser. Bob had to own up to going scavenging for electronics from time to time, so he had a little experience with junkyard dogs. A couple months earlier, their soundboard had blown and their budget for repairs had been a half roll of electrical tape that Frank had bought to keep the fraying cord for his guitar in commission, Bob's personal tools and the ten dollars Ray had made sitting on the stoop of their run-down building with a guitar.
There'd been a dog at a couple of the places Bob had gone to during that sleepless couple of days, but one was appeased with a burger from White Castle and the other had cornered frank, growled for a few minutes while they panicked, then stuck it's nose into his crotch hard enough to knock his breath out and lift him up onto his toes. So, all in all, Bob had been fucking lucky when it came to dogs. But he'd never though he'd need that luck walking the nine blocks between the 7-11 and the studio.
Bob figured he was a pretty lucky guy in general. It was pretty much chance that he hooked up with the guys. He'd been working a fucking dead end job as a photocopier repairman at a company that also did printer ink refills and shit, Used Ink.Jepha hadn't written down the office number and no one was answering the phone back at the office, so he'd been wandering around this piece of shit, half abandoned office building, looking for an accountant with a toner problem by opening doors, looking in and asking if they needed a repairman.
"Shit, shit, yes we do," Ray had laughed, a little hysterically, from his seat on the floor. He was surrounded by a tangle of wires and parts that had once been, Bob thought, a set of speakers, a really fucking old IBM laptop and a radio. "But, uh," he continued, "who are you?"
"Bob," Bob replied as he surveyed the electronic massacre before him. "Move over, you're going to start a fire or something with all this shit. Tell me what you're trying to do."
The dog was fucking huge. Massive, Great Dane sized, only shaggy with a fuckload of teeth and it was really determined to rip his throat out. It kept lunging and Bob kept blocking with his forearm. His sleeve was already dripping with blood from the bites, but at least his jugular was still intact. So far, a fatalistic part of him thought just before he was drenched in burning liquid.
The dog howled, backing off to shake and paw at it's eyes.
Mikey dropped the empty cuptaker and drug Bob to his feet. "Fucking come on!"
"Shit. SHIT. MikeyWay, you're a fucking genius," Bob gasped out, slumping against their buildings foyer wall. They'd sprinted/limped there and slammed the metal grate outer door behind them. Mikey was peering through it back down the way they'd come. "Fuck." Bob slid down to the floor. "Do you see it?"
Mikey shook his head, closed the inner door and turned back to him. "Fuck," he groaned, patting his pockets. "I lost my Sidekick. Will you-- Stay there." He headed upstairs, taking them two at a time and leaving Bob to thunk his head back against the wall and wait.
He ended up getting a shit ton of stitches, a rabies shot and a bag of blood-- all of which sent Gerard fleeing from the curtained off cubicle in the ER despite his best intentions (in the waiting room though, he drew a picture of what Bob had looked like when they all came barreling down the stairs to find him in the foyer, ripped shirt and dripping blood and the shadow of a monster looming outside the door. It was pretty fucking amazing. Bob was going to get it framed). Then came the police report and talking to Animal Control. And he kept trying to get the guys to go back to the studio, to finish up the mixing on [BAND NAME]'s album, but Ray just shook his head and said it could wait and the band would have theircds or they wouldn't-- it would work out.
There wasn't any reason to hold him and, frankly, Bob couldn't afford the trip to the ER, let alone an overnight stay, so they all went back to the apartment he, Frank and Ray shared with instructions on wound care and what to look out for in case the dog gave him something the rabies shot wouldn't cover.
"Do you want some soup or something?" Ray asked.
"I don't have a cold," Bob grunted. He'd had his fill of being the center of attention hours ago when they'd taken pictures of his wounds ("In case that dog has an owner. Evidence shit," Frank had said. "Or album cover," Gerard added) and now he just wanted to go to bed and said so.
"Shout if you need anything, man," Frank told him. "Someone'll be here."
He dreamed: A blur of flashing teeth and monster dogs howling-- half shadow, half moonlight. Something attacking him again, only it was tearing him up from the inside out, there was no way to fight it and no Mikey to save him.
When he wok up in a cold sweat, he knew two things: if he had PTSD or some shit, he'd be really fucking pissed and he really, really owed Mikey a drink or ten. His arm was throbbing like a motherfucker along with the rapid ratatat tat of his heard, so the drugs they'd given him at the hospital had worn off.
"Shit," he breathed to himself, "this sucks." He knew he wasn't going back to sleep like this, so he got up and shuffled out to the living room.
It was almost noon and Gerard was sacked out on the couch, apparently on Bob Duty while the others were at the studio working. His pill bottle was sitting by a half full pot of coffee with a note propped against it telling him to wake Gerard up if he was asleep. "Nurse" was scrawled in front of Gerard's name in Frank's handwriting, but the note itself was Ray's.
He took a pill and a cup of coffee back to his room, opening the door just in time to catch his phone buzzing. There were 4 text messages from Mikey:
u ok?
ray wnts 2 no. u ok?
txt me bk w ur up.
comin ovr nw 2 chk.
Bob sighed and texted back awkwardly with his left hand that he was fine and just going to sleep more. He could only imagine what Gerard's inbox looked like.
By the end of the week, he'd stopped taking the painkillers. The pain wasn't as bad as the nightmares that came with all the sleeping. He'd convinced the guys to let him come back to work because he'd been getting stir crazy and snapping at everyone, but his arm was in a sling to keep it immobilized and that really limited his ability to work.
He didn't really pay attention to how fast he was healing. He knew he wasn't in that much pain anymore, but he kept forgetting to change his bandages (despite Frank's mirror long reminder notes in the bathroom), so he didn't really notice. He knew what an infection felt like and it wasn't bothering him. It kind of itched, but healing was like that.
When he did decide to change his shit at the end of the second week, his skin had pushed out all the stitches and staples. They fell out of the bandage like snow in some kind of fucked up horror movie. He stared at his arm in the mirror, unable to even look at it directly until Frank started pounding on the door.
"Bob? Bob! Are you okay? Do you need help wiping your ass or something? Don't be ashamed!"
Bob cleaned up all the stuff and wrapped his arm again while listening to Frank explain the importance of ass cleanliness in between giggles.
When the rest of them found out, it took Gerard very little time to suggest that Bob was a werewolf.
It happened when Bob's already brittle temper snapped three days before the full moon. Ray had been fiddling with the guitar balance for an hour, taking Bob's suggestions with a "Okay, but maybe..."
"Fuck, Ray," he snarled and pushed him out of the way. He shrugged off the stupid sling and adjusted the level to where it belonged with a growl. "There."
Ray gaped at him from the floor. "Dude."
"No. It's fine. That's how it should be. You're not fucking touching it again."
"Dude, your arm..."
"What? It's fine."
"Yeah! What the hell?" The doctors weren't even sure if you'd have full extension when it healed. Did you just rip out stitches?"
Ray wouldn't have let up otherwise, so there was nothing to do but show him his healed arm. It was almost entirely unscarred, save for one fresh, angry bite mark. Ray stared, turning Bob's arm this way and that, repeating "Dude. Dude." over and over until he finally called for the rest of them.
"You're fucking Wolverine, Bob, that is so cool!" Frank exclaimed after the initial shock had worn off.
"Wolverine isn't the only mutant with healing powers," Ray objected. "And Bob's way too tall."
While Frank and Ray argued ("What about non-Adamantium Wolverine-- Hey Bob, do you have bone claws?" "That was such a dumb storyline and Bob is not going to be involved with it."), Mikey and Gerard shared a silent conversation full of eyebrow raises and lip quirks. Gerard finally spoke up and cut through the bickering.
"Guys. Bob's a werewolf," he said, Mikey nodding in solemn agreement beside him.
"Fuck you," Bob replied, speaking up for the first time since they'd all gathered.
"No, think about it. Mikey described that thing to me. It was unnatural and shit and now you've got powers. It all makes sense!" He waved his hands emphatically. "Right? Right?"
"Holy shit," Frank said and Bob knew he was swayed by Gerard's reasoning. He looked to Ray.
Ray was studying him thoughtfully. "What about heightened senses? Werewolves have those. I don't think accelerated healing is enough proof. Has Gerard been smelling worse than usual to you, Bob?"
Gerard flipped him off, but still looked to Bob for a reply.
Bob gritted his teeth.
"I think he looks harrier," Frank announced. "I thought it was because he couldn't shave, but--"
He was cut off by Bob surging to his feet, sending his chair skittering across the floor. "No," he snarled and stormed out of the room.
As he headed out of the office, he could hear Gerard say slowly, "I think his temper has gotten worse, too."
"Definitely another sign," Ray replied, conceding to the theory.
Bob slammed the door hard enough to crack the frame.
-
And now I'm going to go buy things that I need to throw a costume together. I am such a procrastinator.
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no subject
It has absolutely no plot beyond BOB IS A WEREWOLF AND STUFF, and yet I have filled so many notebook pages with it. I don't even know.