II. (open) i'm gonna fight with myself til i'm bleeding

[oorah]

featuring: hotdog castle & everyone (open to new arrivals too!!)
what's happening? frank feeding everyone venison dogs; frank fighting everyone; introlog spillover stuff + whatever else you want hmu
day: 11th nighttime (after all new arrivals are out and about/getting settled)
content warnings: ground meat, being a good neighbor, boyfights
notes: hit me up on PM or plurk hotdoge if you want anything else! happy to oblige

A. have you ever had a hot dog cooked by a guy named hotdog? this is going on instastories.

[ the time has come for frank to probably show all you losers what a hot dog is. for posterity or some such. he's been curing deer meat from a recent hunting trip with aloy and after their housemate reigen had soundproofed house six's kitchen, well. it seemed as good a time as any to put his plan in motion. not to mention he's in a good mood for once after encountering his best friend among the new arrivals.

early in the evening, frank will be piping his mixture into homemade casings with the doors to the back deck wide open for anyone to come pester him. and then later on of course he will be cooking them up with mustard he made and onions he found. he will also chop up pickles from the natives for anyone who gets down like that. none of y'all better ever ask him what a hot dog is ever again!!!

if you come in while he's cooking expect to be put to work, and did i mention he'll be downing rosé the whole time? e n j o y.

note: the kitchen is only soundproof when all the doors are closed. he will tell everyone on arrival this, so while he's cooking the doors will be shut but all other times feel free to mingle!! ]

B. the rules of fight club are bring snacks and make sure frank castle stays in bruises. tia for your contribution.

[ after posting up this little gem, frank has been steadily gathering members for his and mike's "club." his garage is a makeshift boxing arena and open for all any time they want to blow off steam or learn some new skills from punching bag himself. or from whoever else is lingering around. feel free to match yourselves and have a fight without him too, he'll ref!

the only rules of fight club are: bring snacks, agree with your partner on tactics: weapons/no weapons, fists only/every man for himself etc etc. AND when one person taps out or doesn't get up the match is over. the garage is approximately 80% soundproof. every fighter must wear wraps on their hands to muffle sound and agree not to shout or make loud noises, even in pain. soft-volume trash talking is allowed and perhaps even encouraged... ]

C. write your own starter or ping me for one!

Comments

[clussy]

(Eddie looks down at himself and then back up at David.)

I'm not even slightly big. I'm like. The smallest of my friends.

But I'm not a little kid either.

(Important to point out. He gives a small nod. This place seemed to function on trading and Eddie could get behind that. That's how it had been at the station too, mostly.

Eddie takes David's hand. His grip is weak, and he gives a small shake before letting go.)

What. Like how he goes by Hot Dog? Are you guys really not heroes or something?

Or are people out to hunt you down? Either way, your secret is safe with me.

[gaits]

Never thought of you as one.

[ which is also important to point out. eddie may be the smallest of his friends but it doesn't make him any less important; david would know.

he does, however, lower himself a little more, partly to be at eye level with eddie and also because leaning over is starting to make his back hurt (he's not as spry as he used to be). he looks left and right, makes a show of checking that there's no one around before carefully typing his next response. ]

We're not heroes but
Him and I we used to go on missions you know
Sneaking into hideouts and taking out bad guys
That was more Hotdog's thing, I was his computer guy
Sidekick I guess
But I had his back and he had mine
And we'll have yours too

[clussy]

Good.

(Eddie does feel a little better about that. He never trusted adults who pegged him or his friends as 'little kids'. Not because it was the pits to be a little kid or anything, but that mentality normally went hand-in-hand with adults feeling like they could boss them around. Or that they couldn't do jack all.

Eddie was never sure which one was worse. Eddie doesn't mind the lowering. Maybe even feels a little better for it. On the matter of age, Eddie grins a little.)

If you don't think I'm a little kid, then I definitely don't think you're an old man.

(Yes. He's making a joke. It's a miracle.)

Oh. Like soldiers? All the soldiers just came back home when I'm from. After WW2. A few of em were in Derry.
You guys totally are heroes then if you were soldiers.
Or thats what everyone says anyway

You're best friends then.

(Partners, maybe, but best friends had each other's backs no matter what and best friends meant a lot more to Eddie than partnership. Though that last bit does make him tip his head, brows tucking together.)

Why?

(Eddie still was not used to complete adult strangers offering him that sort of thing. He might not ever be.)

[gaits]

You know just what to say, don't you?

[ david you're only in your late thirties, calm down. he appreciates the joke though, letting out an amused huff. he's glad he's able to get eddie to loosen up a little, at least.

the next bit doesn't surprise him as much; he'd met majima earlier who's from the 80's apparently. it does explain some things at least, how careful eddie is, how he seems to be taking this in stride as much as he can. david can't imagine how his own kids would be if they were stuck in this place alone. ]

Yeah
He's like a brother to me
He's done a lot for me and my family.
He'd do the same for you too
It's just the kind of guy he is

[ a good guy. a guy who cares a lot despite how he may seem. and he doesn't even know why he's insisting on this but there's something heartbreaking in the way eddie frowns a little, like he doesn't understand why david or frank would protect him with their own lives. like he's been burned before. ]

Even heroes need someone to watch their back
Soldiers and brothers
And big kids too.

[ david doesn't push, never wants to. but he hopes that eddie gets that the offer will always be on the table and their door will always be open. ]

[clussy]

Only sometimes.

(Getting an adult to laugh had always served as some sort of validation for Eddie. He can't quite explain it, only that it made him feel good even if only for just a second. It gets him smiling at least.

Though what makes him really relax is how David talks about Frank. He gets it. Maybe he doesn't have the long life backing it, but the way he felt about Bill was just about identical as the way this guy was describing it.)

We're lucky having brothers like that. Mine is here too. His name is Bill. My other best friend is Richie, but we're not like brothers. That's different.
They both live with me so you'll probably meet them eventually.
Bill's a lot like that too. Selfless and the total leader type.

(What did they do to deserve such good men? It was easy to understand a little better why Frank would be so selfless when putting things into his own perspective.

The answer David gives him is the last thing that he expects, truthfully. Maybe he had figured one of those things where the adult would gently tell him the world was dangerous and that Eddie was at a higher risk cause he was young. Eddie's used to that sort of thing too. Thing is, he's seen evil up close and personal. Nothing in this place scared him so bad as all that. Still, he hesitates a moment before responding at last.)

You'd let me have your back? Even if I'm not a soldier?

[gaits]

Yeah we are.

[ sometimes he feels like he doesn't deserve it. that he doesn't deserve frank's loyalty and care even though he'd throw his life on the line for him at the drop of a hat. and even if eddie is young, it doesn't matter. it doesn't take a lifetime to understand and appreciate the importance of having a someone like a brother around, the all the good it does in a place like this. ]

Bill sounds like a great guy
It's good that he's here with you
You have to stick together, take care of each other.

[ it's easy for david to write eddie off as a too young and too inexperienced, just another kid who doesn't know any better. but david can tell that eddie and a lot of these kids here aren't all they seem, and while david would never think that they deserve it, he also doesn't want to belittle their experiences. they've seen a lot, have likely been through more than any person their age should, and that's important to acknowledge too. ]

Soldier or not
I think you're more than capable of having my back

[clussy]

(God. Eddie understood that feeling intimately. He never thought he deserved his friends. It really didn't take a lifetime at all to understand these simple facts.)

We do. Bill's really good at taking care of all of us. Richie's really good at taking care of me in particular. He's always there when I'm freaked out or being stupid.

(Bill was incredible, and he definitely was like his brother, but Eddie hardly wanted to undersell how important Richie was too. All the Losers were important, but Eddie would be lying if he said he didn't have a particular bias and closeness with Bill and Richie that he didn't have with the others. Either way, he was glad that this man seemed to understand how these things worked.)

I'm glad you and Frank can take care of each other. I think adults forget a lot of the time that they don't need to be alone just cause they're grown up.

(It was nice to know that adults could have friends like that too. Especially after what Eddie and the others had seen of their futures. Being adult had once seemed so hopeless, but looking at David, Eddie wonders if maybe it wasn't so hopeless after all. It makes him feel...light. Good.

This winds up making Eddie smile genuinely.)

I'll do my best then. I promise.

(Eddie puts his device away then and offers both his hands out to David, palms up. On each palm there was a star burst of scarring, three straight lines crossed on each palm, counting to a total of six scars total between his two hands. A visible sign of Eddie's devotion and strange sort of magic that Eddie himself was unaware of. It might seem like a strange gesture, maybe, but Eddie was looking up at David expectantly.)

[gaits]

Yeah
Us adults are stupid too a lot of the time.

[ and he isn't ashamed to admit it. every day, he learns new things from his kids -- they inspire him to do better, to be better; that just because he's an adult doesn't mean he can slack off. and he learns just as much from frank, who had taught him dedication, persistence, of never giving up even when he's knocked down. frank had changed his life since the day david reached out to him, and he continues to do so with every passing day. even in a place like this.

but this isn't really about him and frank. he looks down when eddie holds out his hands, sees the scarring on his palms and his heart breaks a little. he takes them in his own larger grip, calloused at the fingers from days of tinkering with wires and machinery, but they're careful, gentle. he holds them with hands that have held tinier fingers and feet, hands that have changed diapers and rubbed little backs to soothe away nightmares; hands that have hauled his partner, his brother, out of a forest and back home. hands that have always held something precious, like they do now.

david doesn't know what brought eddie to him, maybe the same sort of strange magic or someone's twisted idea of starting this whole thing. but he gives eddie's hands a small squeeze and a softer, kinder smile. ]

[clussy]

(Eddie doesn't mean to laugh. Thankfully, it's a very quiet one, a soft, breathy kind of giggle that he's quick to bite down on. He keeps his teeth in his lip, looking a little goofy as children were wont to do from time to time. Adults who could admit how dumb they were were often his favorite kind of adults.

When David takes his hand, it's Eddie's first time truly seeing a grown man's hands engulf his own. He's lost in it for a second, marveling over how much bigger, how much more worn David's hands both looked and felt. Eddie gets a soft, distant look on his face.

Had his father ever held his hands like this? Maybe when he had first learned to walk and Frank Kaspbrak was helping him ease him across the floor.

Eddie feels an ache he often leaves far at the back of his mind. His father is not something he thinks about too much. The way he had looked as he died, sunken into the hospital bed, the cancer having taken almost all of him away. Eddie doesn't know what he looked like before that. At least not without pictures- but that wasn't the same.

He can feel his eyes burning suddenly, and he feels a warring of shame against desperation. His teeth grind together once, twice, and then he's breaking apart their hands in exchange for a rather abrupt motion. He steps inward and wraps his arms around David's waist, and presses his face into David's chest. He pinches his eyes shut and breathes.

One. Two. Breathe. Then all at once, he's yanking away, the shame winning out, and he scrambles for his device, but can't quite bother with it. So instead, he shoves it away, curls a fist against his chest and rotates it. The sign for sorry. And then Eddie's turning away and running out. Like nothing. Embarrassment was hot on his heels and his head felt a little too heavy and foggy. Like when the doctor gave him too much morphine. Why were adults so...Overwhelming.)