Post by TheFrumiousJafe on Aug 28, 2007 20:15:06 GMT -5
Sooooooooooooo anywho, my revision for Broca's Area. I especially like the part about the bedsheet burrito. YES, SO SINCE THIS IS JUST A REVISION, I GIVE YOU UPCOMING SCENE AT THE END AS A TREAT FOR GOING THROUGH THE BORING.
Part I
Foggily, he glanced out the cloudy window of the phone booth then fumbled in his pocket for some change. He slipped a quarter into the coin slot then dialed the number scrawled on his hand in what looked like permanent ink. Or possibly tattooed, but he was hoping to GOD it was just really thin permanent marker. Dial tone, dial tone, creepy girl that just picked up.
“Speak, if you can: what are you?”
“Um, ‘All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, thain of Glamis. All hail Macbeth, hail to thee thane of Caudor. All hail Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter.’ Er, who is this?” he worried his thumbnail in consternation, glancing furtively around him.
“What, you call a number and don't know who you're calling? What kind of freak are you!?” He held his cell away from his ear.
“Ah, yeah. About that. Was kind of hoping you could tell me? Look, I have no idea who I am, and there was this number-”
“OOH! Lemme guess, on your hand. IN BLACK INK. WITH HEARTS FOR THE ZEROS. Come on, aren't you gonna guess how I know? GUESS.”
“CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU KNOW WHO I AM. Please,” his eye twitched as he furtively glanced out the clear glass of the phone booth. Yep. The charming little stonework bridge was still clear. Vines and all. Creepy, creepy, small, quaint little town. City. Whatever.
“Oh bollocks, fine, Wernicke. Wernicke Douglas. I am your “crazy neighbor” from downstairs. You are Wernicke Douglas, on a break from reporterly duties (you work for the paper). You suffer from psychogenic fugue, cus you a CRAZY person. (Meaning you forget everything you know, mostly personal, not so much the abstract encyclopedic blah blah information like how to walk, talk, those interesting little lines to that Scottish play, etc. You retain that nerd crap.) Dear heart, these things happen. It's cool. Just tell me where you are, and I'll alert the proper authorities to the whereabouts of one crazy.” Umm... “HA! Just thingying with you. Do you know where you are, I'll come pick you up, Babe.”
“I, um, don't know your name...”
“OH nuts! d**n, I keep forgetting! You have no idea who I am as well as yourself. So tragic, Chiquito. Yeah. So awkward. As you can probably deduce I get all wiggy with introducing myself, I have no idea why we're still friends, I'm always having to re-introduce myself to you. Oh God, you're tapping your teeth, sorry! I'll quit stalling.
“Hi! I'm Jeremey Wainright! I'm your neighbor from downstairs, we live in the same apartment building, and we are the BEST of friends. Real BFF's. Well, that is until you forget again. Sad face. Oh! And I'm not telling you any personal information til we're face to face, on your orders SAH. You can't see, but imagine a waifish and devilishly handsome chinky girl saluting you. With pink and platinum blonde hair. Also can't tell you what state-slash-city-slash-burg-slash-town-slash-villa you live in. You always get wigged out by how far you end up from home in your fugue states. SO. Where are you, of best friend of mine? And YES, you can trust me, why do you think you've got that number tattooed on your d**n hand, eh? Eh?” He imagined Jeremy waggling her eyebrows at him. It was quite frightening, actually.
“Tattoo? d**n. Um, well. Jeremy.”
“JER-RA-MAY, Wernicke, JER-RA-MAY. I don't butcher your name, kindly don't butcher mine.”
“Jer-ra-MAY,” he glanced around, “I'm, somewhere...called Broca.”
“Broca? What the fu...Dude, you seriously end up at the weirdest places. Hang on, lemme mapquest it. Hopefully it's not that far, Mr. Oh Noes, My Life is Craptastically Stressful Now, I Think I'll Go For A Walk and Conveniently Forget Who I Am Causing All My Friends To Piss Themselves With Worry. Bastard.” He felt...Guilty. It twinged in his belly, and he wasn't entirely sure why. He heard clacking keys then,
“HOLY CRAP, that's faI mean I'll be around in a couple hours. Plus 4. And 12. Give or take a night. Keep your cell on, chiquito, I might need to call you repeatedly throughout the night. And the next. Probably the day after that too. Anyway, getting my keys, locking the door, and I'll see you in a tick, Babe. A very looooooooooooooong tick.” The phone clicked off.
Part II
A week later Wernicke greeted a pick-up truck that gasped its way up the street, starkly conspicuous in the parking lot of the rather swanky hotel he'd been staying in. Apparently, he'd had contingencies planning around his fugue states; Jeremey had directed him to the $1000 in cash he'd had hidden in various parts upon his person and he’d been able to sleep in a building for the first time in a…a long while. As long as he could remember anyhow. The rusty, red, mudsplattered pick-up truck screeched around the corner and actually wheelied. He had no idea you could do that with a pick up, let alone one in such a decrepit state. The door blasted open and a tiny Chinese woman with platinum/pink monroe coiffure slid out of the truck, swiftly cracked her back, elbows and hands, then smartly saluted.
“Wernicke! You look...Clean! That's always good. And encouraged even! Can. Um, can I hug you? Since to you. We. Urm, we, are, uhm…essentially meeting each other. For the first time and all that jazz. Overly friendly? Too forward? Wouldn't want to wig you out or anything. Ah, handshake. Sounds like a plan.” She shook his hand firmly, lopsided grin plastered all over her face. “Oh, Ernie. You have no idea how screwed you are. But here’s a hint. It’s pretty d**n screwed.” Oh, how wonderful. She held out her arm, and made him escort her into his rented living quarters.
“So. Wernie,” she flopped onto the bed testing the firmness of the mattress then rolled and unrolled herself into a bedsheet burrito before settling on burrito, “Yes. You work for a major newspaper. But that, my friend is entirely unimportant because the year is 1984. And Big Brother is oh so disappointed with you.”
He raised an eyebrow at the mess of blankets. And he’d taken the time to make the bed and everything. “The date on this paper clearly states otherwise.”
“BUT NEWSPAPERS LIE! (Chock full of Sozi swine propoganda! THE NERVE.)”
“And you just said I worked for one.”
“And in all honesty, I don't know why I still trust you. It completely eludes me as to why I'm even still your friend, what with the accusations of untruthiness, the surly ungrateful attitude, and on top of working for a filthy RAG with possible SOZI CONNECTIONS.” She emerged from her coccoon, dangled gangly legs over the edge of the bed, and coolly proceeded to ignore him as she primly gnawing her thumbnail. Wernicke coughed and sent malevolent thoughts her way until she sighed and continued.
“You, work for a major newspaper that will remain unnamed, because you spoke very crossly with me, and I didn't appreciate that. (Just kidding, I lied. It doesn't help at all to force your memories when in a fugue state, I'm helping you by keeping hush Chiquito.) You deal mostly with politics, a smattering of medical, actually more than a smattering, about 50-50, really liked the one about aphasia, totally boss.” She winked at him.
“But that is entirely unimportant in light of your questionable disappearances and suspicious “brain upgrade” thingie-things. Because you see my friend, you loathe The Bard. Went out of your way to avoid him, thus how could you know the opening lines to that Scottish play, Hrmm? WONDERING MINDS WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO KNOW. Ah, ah, see I was testing you when you called Moy.” Wernicke glared at her, stoicly resisting tapping his teeth with his fingers. He twitched with the effort especially since she’d circled around behind him. Just…hovering.
“You. Are. An escaped lobotomy experiment. Or ex-chronocop, can’t decide which one’s me fav.” He snorted.
“Yeah, definitely leaning towards the ex-chronocop. You just got this…chronocoppy flavor ‘bout you.” She tapped her teeth, then impulsively drapping her arms on his shoulders from behind. Wernicke tried very hard not to shudder. Jeremey’s purring did not help the matter at all.
“You’ve been “retired” as they call it in the chronocop community; the missing time, totally because of one of those time-burp-quantum-physics thingies that chronocops use to traverse and police the time space continuum. Brain upgradey things? Resurfacing future knowledge that’d been repressed so as not to create all sorts of crazy paradoxings. Have you got super nifty time powers? Bet you’ve got super nifty time powers.” He narrowed his gaze, turning on Deadly Glare #4 as Jeremey put it, but her cheshire grin remained. “OH HO! But why the secrecy you ask? Why the brainwashy tabula rasa act?! Because you see, the reason you’d been “retired”, as They refer to it in polite society, is due to a clerical error. Far too embarrassed to admit their error, They then tried to quietly murder you with an axe, but you escaped before the process was complete and now they're hunting you down across the cosmos so as to completely bury the scandal!” She slapped his arm with a hearty guffaw.
“Jeremey. I think there is a very good chance that I hate you (This may or may not be a lie as you seem to be growing on me too.). Do we even know each other?”
“What, you think I'd lie? That I'd just tattoo my number on an area of the skin too sensitive to laser off so I can mess with you when you forget all that you are?! I wouldn’t, I swear.” She petted his hair still purring.
“Hmm, yes,” Wernicke reclined slightly in the armchair, slowly relaxing as Jeremey worked her fingers into his scalp, “You seem like just the sort of horrid person to do that.”
“...That hurts my friend. That HURTS here, in my bosom,” Jeremey flounced away as if physically struck, staggering against the edge of the bed and wailed at the injustice of his accusations.
“You don't have a bosom,” Wernicke twitched, rubbing his temples in frustration. Jeremey suddenly straightened from where she perched on the bed and grinned at him almost proudly. It was rather disconcerting.
“I love you. I love, love, love that you still retain your snarktastic personality with all your pretty memories locked in an unbreakable box. If you weren't totally my surrogate brother, I would bear your children. Nothing funny, I just like snarky.” The ensuing silence was pregnant with awkwardness, an awkwardness worsened by her wry toothy grin.
“...So. You're Chinese?”
“Yep.”
“And your surname is Wainright.”
“Yep,” bored, she picked dirt from underneath her fingernails.
“How does...?”
“8th generation, dude. The venerable ancestors immigrated in 1847. San Franciscan goldminers, Babe! They assimilated, honestly, not that hard to figure out.”
“How old are you? You look barely sixteen. And you’re tiny, like a twelve year old.”
“OI! I am legal to drive, to sex, and to drink in a week, Chiquito. If you say I don't look it, I will bludgeon you over the head with this here lamp. I'LL DO IT, I NEVER LIE. WITHHOLD SOME KEY INFORMATION YEAH, BUT NEVER LIE.” Liar? Signs point to yes. Very much yes. He shook his head,
“Soooooooooo, about that Daily Planet gig,” Good God, he was picking up her speech patterns, “Elaborate?”
“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiine. You're deeply troubled with the Syndicate (That'd be the paper I'm not allowed to mention, Babe). The Conglomeration ,thought that you were faking when you told 'em you couldn't remeber anything. Kept missing deadlines, would disappear for hours, days, etc etc. They thought you were going through a midlife crisis, and you know how much they hate that. Well, you will, I mean you did. Will. Dwill. Woo, tangent. Anyway, you usually wouldn't disappear for too long, just long enough that it'd seriously screw with your professional life, but if they axe you, no worries! You can just bet on races with Yours Truly. Oh, you're tapping your teeth again, sorry.
“Yeah, Nickie, um, you've been gone for a month. I got your shrink to explain things to The Organization, your fellow reporterly dudes still think you're faking, but the higher ups OKay'd your “break”. So, since it's professionally sanctioned and all, let's avoid home like the proverbial plague and TRAVEL. You know you want to.” Sharks didn't have as scary a grin.
Part III
“Jeremey, what the hell are these metal buttons on my right clavicle?” Wernicke frowned as he examined said clavicle in the passenger mirror.
“Don’t touch those lovie, it’ll twinge.” She glared at the obsenely long traffic as she hunched over the steering wheel, her irritation evident through her bright white knuckles.
“Are they…is it…? Oh lovely. It’s a piercing isn’t it?”
“GRAH, DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF, DID SOMEONE DIE ON THE ROAD?” frustrated she punched the horn repeatedly, then slumped over the steering wheel, head pressed firmly against the horn. It wailed in the most earsplitting way possible.
“And yeah. It is.” She banged her head against the steering wheel. Wernicke winced at her utter disregard of common curtesy, then sighed.
“Let me guess. You got me drunk and had me not only branded with your number, but pierced as well.” He directed his sternest glance at her which she met with a level gaze of her own. Rolling her eyes, she removed her head from where it firmly pressed down on the horn. Incidentally, this did not actually do anything to lessen the noise pollution as a good number of irate and immobile drivers had also felt the need to express their displeasure with their own horns.
“Oh. My. God, you tattoo a dude ONE TIME and he holds it over your head for life. NO. Actually. I bet you wouldn’t get a clavicle piercing and you got it to prove me wrong. Then you cried the next two years cus it wouldn’t heal. Then you made me get one as well so we’d “match”, you magnificent bastard.”
“…I’m sorry.” He folded his hands on his lap, genuinely contrite. She glanced at him, the obsenely immobile line of cars, then back at him, worrying her lip. He quietly stared at the exhaust ahead of them. Jeremey sighed, licked her bloody lip then rubbed her temples.
“Don’t be. I’m an evil, manipulitive wench of Machiavelian proportions. I’m such an evil cad, I make Matai Shang look like an cupcake princess. Case in point? I do things like this.” She punched the horn again. Wernicke snorted.
“Ha, Matai Shang.” He bit his lip trying not to laugh.
“Huh, I wasn’t entirely sure you’d get that reference. Not because you, um, can’t. But, uh, because. Well, it’s kinda obscure. And, uhm, yeah.” She awkwardly patted his arm.
“It’ll come back. It always does. No worries.”
AND THAT PREVIEW OF THINGS TO COME
“Oh. Hello. Mrrow. You don’t look like the type of girl to read comics.” The idiot boy leeringly appraised Jeremey, utterly convinced in his suaveness.
“That’s cus I’m really a man, Babay!” She shot him with finger ZING. Without missing a beat, he said,
“Sweet. I’m really a woman.”
“I’m also gay.”
“What a coincidence, me too! Let's make some sexy tranny babies, Rraow~!”
“…Sir, you seem confused. You seem to be under the mistaken impression you possess both wit and charm, but I assure you, you do not. Perhaps you would have better luck convincing a woman to sleep with you if she were either inebriated, stupid, and or both. Women of such traits can usually be found in the local dance clubs.”
“Oh, but Ma’am, I’ve already been banned from all the dance clubs within a ten mile radius for despoiling all the women.”
“Really? As have I, but that’s only because I also killed a man with this man while doing said despoiling. Every hour. In every club. Simaltaneously.” She yanked Wernicke over by the lapels, but she was grinning.
“And I once killed a woman with this SEXAY,” he gyrated his hips. Jeremey stared at him her expression unreadable, then said,
“Sir, you’ve impressed me with your rapier wit. I admit I may have been overly quick to judge you for you lack of intelligence whatsoever. Though you be a twit still, here is my number, I will deign to allow you to pick a restaurant, make reservations for tonight at 6, and we shall see if this wit of yours is enough to get you laid.” Wernicke interjected,
“But I should warn you, she won’t put out till the honeymoon. Religious.” She flashed a toothy grin.
“S'true.”
AND OH YEAH, PRONUNCIATIONS.
Jeremey. JER-RA-MAY Her name is not spelled Jeremy but JEREMEY. Since people kept mispelling it and she get's tetchy about it, thought I might as well rectify this.
Wernicke. WERE-NICK. Pretty straight forward.
Broca. Broke-Uh.
Some random info.
Jeremey has a bridge piercing for her glasses. She is also heir to the Healthful Foods company "Healthful foods, both grammatically correct and organically* fresh!" Their healthful food empire started out as a little ranch in probably montana or something.
*Disclaimer: As Healthful Foods defines Organic by the scientific definition, that all foods is organic seeing how food is not entirely composed of minerals, Healthful Foods reserves the right to use Organic to describe gengineered produce. (SOYLENT GREEN!)
Wernicke, as stated before, is a reporter. He occasionally goes colorblind, and they (Wernie and Jereh) are not entirely sure why because he get's achromotopsia which is A COMPLETE lack of color and is strictly genetic. Sure blunt trauma to the head, chemicals, possibly a disease, maybe even the extreme stress that causes his psychogenic fuges could cause his color blindness but not to the extent of a complete and total lack of color. It's a bit of a mystery.
Part I
Foggily, he glanced out the cloudy window of the phone booth then fumbled in his pocket for some change. He slipped a quarter into the coin slot then dialed the number scrawled on his hand in what looked like permanent ink. Or possibly tattooed, but he was hoping to GOD it was just really thin permanent marker. Dial tone, dial tone, creepy girl that just picked up.
“Speak, if you can: what are you?”
“Um, ‘All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, thain of Glamis. All hail Macbeth, hail to thee thane of Caudor. All hail Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter.’ Er, who is this?” he worried his thumbnail in consternation, glancing furtively around him.
“What, you call a number and don't know who you're calling? What kind of freak are you!?” He held his cell away from his ear.
“Ah, yeah. About that. Was kind of hoping you could tell me? Look, I have no idea who I am, and there was this number-”
“OOH! Lemme guess, on your hand. IN BLACK INK. WITH HEARTS FOR THE ZEROS. Come on, aren't you gonna guess how I know? GUESS.”
“CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU KNOW WHO I AM. Please,” his eye twitched as he furtively glanced out the clear glass of the phone booth. Yep. The charming little stonework bridge was still clear. Vines and all. Creepy, creepy, small, quaint little town. City. Whatever.
“Oh bollocks, fine, Wernicke. Wernicke Douglas. I am your “crazy neighbor” from downstairs. You are Wernicke Douglas, on a break from reporterly duties (you work for the paper). You suffer from psychogenic fugue, cus you a CRAZY person. (Meaning you forget everything you know, mostly personal, not so much the abstract encyclopedic blah blah information like how to walk, talk, those interesting little lines to that Scottish play, etc. You retain that nerd crap.) Dear heart, these things happen. It's cool. Just tell me where you are, and I'll alert the proper authorities to the whereabouts of one crazy.” Umm... “HA! Just thingying with you. Do you know where you are, I'll come pick you up, Babe.”
“I, um, don't know your name...”
“OH nuts! d**n, I keep forgetting! You have no idea who I am as well as yourself. So tragic, Chiquito. Yeah. So awkward. As you can probably deduce I get all wiggy with introducing myself, I have no idea why we're still friends, I'm always having to re-introduce myself to you. Oh God, you're tapping your teeth, sorry! I'll quit stalling.
“Hi! I'm Jeremey Wainright! I'm your neighbor from downstairs, we live in the same apartment building, and we are the BEST of friends. Real BFF's. Well, that is until you forget again. Sad face. Oh! And I'm not telling you any personal information til we're face to face, on your orders SAH. You can't see, but imagine a waifish and devilishly handsome chinky girl saluting you. With pink and platinum blonde hair. Also can't tell you what state-slash-city-slash-burg-slash-town-slash-villa you live in. You always get wigged out by how far you end up from home in your fugue states. SO. Where are you, of best friend of mine? And YES, you can trust me, why do you think you've got that number tattooed on your d**n hand, eh? Eh?” He imagined Jeremy waggling her eyebrows at him. It was quite frightening, actually.
“Tattoo? d**n. Um, well. Jeremy.”
“JER-RA-MAY, Wernicke, JER-RA-MAY. I don't butcher your name, kindly don't butcher mine.”
“Jer-ra-MAY,” he glanced around, “I'm, somewhere...called Broca.”
“Broca? What the fu...Dude, you seriously end up at the weirdest places. Hang on, lemme mapquest it. Hopefully it's not that far, Mr. Oh Noes, My Life is Craptastically Stressful Now, I Think I'll Go For A Walk and Conveniently Forget Who I Am Causing All My Friends To Piss Themselves With Worry. Bastard.” He felt...Guilty. It twinged in his belly, and he wasn't entirely sure why. He heard clacking keys then,
“HOLY CRAP, that's faI mean I'll be around in a couple hours. Plus 4. And 12. Give or take a night. Keep your cell on, chiquito, I might need to call you repeatedly throughout the night. And the next. Probably the day after that too. Anyway, getting my keys, locking the door, and I'll see you in a tick, Babe. A very looooooooooooooong tick.” The phone clicked off.
Part II
A week later Wernicke greeted a pick-up truck that gasped its way up the street, starkly conspicuous in the parking lot of the rather swanky hotel he'd been staying in. Apparently, he'd had contingencies planning around his fugue states; Jeremey had directed him to the $1000 in cash he'd had hidden in various parts upon his person and he’d been able to sleep in a building for the first time in a…a long while. As long as he could remember anyhow. The rusty, red, mudsplattered pick-up truck screeched around the corner and actually wheelied. He had no idea you could do that with a pick up, let alone one in such a decrepit state. The door blasted open and a tiny Chinese woman with platinum/pink monroe coiffure slid out of the truck, swiftly cracked her back, elbows and hands, then smartly saluted.
“Wernicke! You look...Clean! That's always good. And encouraged even! Can. Um, can I hug you? Since to you. We. Urm, we, are, uhm…essentially meeting each other. For the first time and all that jazz. Overly friendly? Too forward? Wouldn't want to wig you out or anything. Ah, handshake. Sounds like a plan.” She shook his hand firmly, lopsided grin plastered all over her face. “Oh, Ernie. You have no idea how screwed you are. But here’s a hint. It’s pretty d**n screwed.” Oh, how wonderful. She held out her arm, and made him escort her into his rented living quarters.
“So. Wernie,” she flopped onto the bed testing the firmness of the mattress then rolled and unrolled herself into a bedsheet burrito before settling on burrito, “Yes. You work for a major newspaper. But that, my friend is entirely unimportant because the year is 1984. And Big Brother is oh so disappointed with you.”
He raised an eyebrow at the mess of blankets. And he’d taken the time to make the bed and everything. “The date on this paper clearly states otherwise.”
“BUT NEWSPAPERS LIE! (Chock full of Sozi swine propoganda! THE NERVE.)”
“And you just said I worked for one.”
“And in all honesty, I don't know why I still trust you. It completely eludes me as to why I'm even still your friend, what with the accusations of untruthiness, the surly ungrateful attitude, and on top of working for a filthy RAG with possible SOZI CONNECTIONS.” She emerged from her coccoon, dangled gangly legs over the edge of the bed, and coolly proceeded to ignore him as she primly gnawing her thumbnail. Wernicke coughed and sent malevolent thoughts her way until she sighed and continued.
“You, work for a major newspaper that will remain unnamed, because you spoke very crossly with me, and I didn't appreciate that. (Just kidding, I lied. It doesn't help at all to force your memories when in a fugue state, I'm helping you by keeping hush Chiquito.) You deal mostly with politics, a smattering of medical, actually more than a smattering, about 50-50, really liked the one about aphasia, totally boss.” She winked at him.
“But that is entirely unimportant in light of your questionable disappearances and suspicious “brain upgrade” thingie-things. Because you see my friend, you loathe The Bard. Went out of your way to avoid him, thus how could you know the opening lines to that Scottish play, Hrmm? WONDERING MINDS WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO KNOW. Ah, ah, see I was testing you when you called Moy.” Wernicke glared at her, stoicly resisting tapping his teeth with his fingers. He twitched with the effort especially since she’d circled around behind him. Just…hovering.
“You. Are. An escaped lobotomy experiment. Or ex-chronocop, can’t decide which one’s me fav.” He snorted.
“Yeah, definitely leaning towards the ex-chronocop. You just got this…chronocoppy flavor ‘bout you.” She tapped her teeth, then impulsively drapping her arms on his shoulders from behind. Wernicke tried very hard not to shudder. Jeremey’s purring did not help the matter at all.
“You’ve been “retired” as they call it in the chronocop community; the missing time, totally because of one of those time-burp-quantum-physics thingies that chronocops use to traverse and police the time space continuum. Brain upgradey things? Resurfacing future knowledge that’d been repressed so as not to create all sorts of crazy paradoxings. Have you got super nifty time powers? Bet you’ve got super nifty time powers.” He narrowed his gaze, turning on Deadly Glare #4 as Jeremey put it, but her cheshire grin remained. “OH HO! But why the secrecy you ask? Why the brainwashy tabula rasa act?! Because you see, the reason you’d been “retired”, as They refer to it in polite society, is due to a clerical error. Far too embarrassed to admit their error, They then tried to quietly murder you with an axe, but you escaped before the process was complete and now they're hunting you down across the cosmos so as to completely bury the scandal!” She slapped his arm with a hearty guffaw.
“Jeremey. I think there is a very good chance that I hate you (This may or may not be a lie as you seem to be growing on me too.). Do we even know each other?”
“What, you think I'd lie? That I'd just tattoo my number on an area of the skin too sensitive to laser off so I can mess with you when you forget all that you are?! I wouldn’t, I swear.” She petted his hair still purring.
“Hmm, yes,” Wernicke reclined slightly in the armchair, slowly relaxing as Jeremey worked her fingers into his scalp, “You seem like just the sort of horrid person to do that.”
“...That hurts my friend. That HURTS here, in my bosom,” Jeremey flounced away as if physically struck, staggering against the edge of the bed and wailed at the injustice of his accusations.
“You don't have a bosom,” Wernicke twitched, rubbing his temples in frustration. Jeremey suddenly straightened from where she perched on the bed and grinned at him almost proudly. It was rather disconcerting.
“I love you. I love, love, love that you still retain your snarktastic personality with all your pretty memories locked in an unbreakable box. If you weren't totally my surrogate brother, I would bear your children. Nothing funny, I just like snarky.” The ensuing silence was pregnant with awkwardness, an awkwardness worsened by her wry toothy grin.
“...So. You're Chinese?”
“Yep.”
“And your surname is Wainright.”
“Yep,” bored, she picked dirt from underneath her fingernails.
“How does...?”
“8th generation, dude. The venerable ancestors immigrated in 1847. San Franciscan goldminers, Babe! They assimilated, honestly, not that hard to figure out.”
“How old are you? You look barely sixteen. And you’re tiny, like a twelve year old.”
“OI! I am legal to drive, to sex, and to drink in a week, Chiquito. If you say I don't look it, I will bludgeon you over the head with this here lamp. I'LL DO IT, I NEVER LIE. WITHHOLD SOME KEY INFORMATION YEAH, BUT NEVER LIE.” Liar? Signs point to yes. Very much yes. He shook his head,
“Soooooooooo, about that Daily Planet gig,” Good God, he was picking up her speech patterns, “Elaborate?”
“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiine. You're deeply troubled with the Syndicate (That'd be the paper I'm not allowed to mention, Babe). The Conglomeration ,thought that you were faking when you told 'em you couldn't remeber anything. Kept missing deadlines, would disappear for hours, days, etc etc. They thought you were going through a midlife crisis, and you know how much they hate that. Well, you will, I mean you did. Will. Dwill. Woo, tangent. Anyway, you usually wouldn't disappear for too long, just long enough that it'd seriously screw with your professional life, but if they axe you, no worries! You can just bet on races with Yours Truly. Oh, you're tapping your teeth again, sorry.
“Yeah, Nickie, um, you've been gone for a month. I got your shrink to explain things to The Organization, your fellow reporterly dudes still think you're faking, but the higher ups OKay'd your “break”. So, since it's professionally sanctioned and all, let's avoid home like the proverbial plague and TRAVEL. You know you want to.” Sharks didn't have as scary a grin.
Part III
“Jeremey, what the hell are these metal buttons on my right clavicle?” Wernicke frowned as he examined said clavicle in the passenger mirror.
“Don’t touch those lovie, it’ll twinge.” She glared at the obsenely long traffic as she hunched over the steering wheel, her irritation evident through her bright white knuckles.
“Are they…is it…? Oh lovely. It’s a piercing isn’t it?”
“GRAH, DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF, DID SOMEONE DIE ON THE ROAD?” frustrated she punched the horn repeatedly, then slumped over the steering wheel, head pressed firmly against the horn. It wailed in the most earsplitting way possible.
“And yeah. It is.” She banged her head against the steering wheel. Wernicke winced at her utter disregard of common curtesy, then sighed.
“Let me guess. You got me drunk and had me not only branded with your number, but pierced as well.” He directed his sternest glance at her which she met with a level gaze of her own. Rolling her eyes, she removed her head from where it firmly pressed down on the horn. Incidentally, this did not actually do anything to lessen the noise pollution as a good number of irate and immobile drivers had also felt the need to express their displeasure with their own horns.
“Oh. My. God, you tattoo a dude ONE TIME and he holds it over your head for life. NO. Actually. I bet you wouldn’t get a clavicle piercing and you got it to prove me wrong. Then you cried the next two years cus it wouldn’t heal. Then you made me get one as well so we’d “match”, you magnificent bastard.”
“…I’m sorry.” He folded his hands on his lap, genuinely contrite. She glanced at him, the obsenely immobile line of cars, then back at him, worrying her lip. He quietly stared at the exhaust ahead of them. Jeremey sighed, licked her bloody lip then rubbed her temples.
“Don’t be. I’m an evil, manipulitive wench of Machiavelian proportions. I’m such an evil cad, I make Matai Shang look like an cupcake princess. Case in point? I do things like this.” She punched the horn again. Wernicke snorted.
“Ha, Matai Shang.” He bit his lip trying not to laugh.
“Huh, I wasn’t entirely sure you’d get that reference. Not because you, um, can’t. But, uh, because. Well, it’s kinda obscure. And, uhm, yeah.” She awkwardly patted his arm.
“It’ll come back. It always does. No worries.”
AND THAT PREVIEW OF THINGS TO COME
“Oh. Hello. Mrrow. You don’t look like the type of girl to read comics.” The idiot boy leeringly appraised Jeremey, utterly convinced in his suaveness.
“That’s cus I’m really a man, Babay!” She shot him with finger ZING. Without missing a beat, he said,
“Sweet. I’m really a woman.”
“I’m also gay.”
“What a coincidence, me too! Let's make some sexy tranny babies, Rraow~!”
“…Sir, you seem confused. You seem to be under the mistaken impression you possess both wit and charm, but I assure you, you do not. Perhaps you would have better luck convincing a woman to sleep with you if she were either inebriated, stupid, and or both. Women of such traits can usually be found in the local dance clubs.”
“Oh, but Ma’am, I’ve already been banned from all the dance clubs within a ten mile radius for despoiling all the women.”
“Really? As have I, but that’s only because I also killed a man with this man while doing said despoiling. Every hour. In every club. Simaltaneously.” She yanked Wernicke over by the lapels, but she was grinning.
“And I once killed a woman with this SEXAY,” he gyrated his hips. Jeremey stared at him her expression unreadable, then said,
“Sir, you’ve impressed me with your rapier wit. I admit I may have been overly quick to judge you for you lack of intelligence whatsoever. Though you be a twit still, here is my number, I will deign to allow you to pick a restaurant, make reservations for tonight at 6, and we shall see if this wit of yours is enough to get you laid.” Wernicke interjected,
“But I should warn you, she won’t put out till the honeymoon. Religious.” She flashed a toothy grin.
“S'true.”
AND OH YEAH, PRONUNCIATIONS.
Jeremey. JER-RA-MAY Her name is not spelled Jeremy but JEREMEY. Since people kept mispelling it and she get's tetchy about it, thought I might as well rectify this.
Wernicke. WERE-NICK. Pretty straight forward.
Broca. Broke-Uh.
Some random info.
Jeremey has a bridge piercing for her glasses. She is also heir to the Healthful Foods company "Healthful foods, both grammatically correct and organically* fresh!" Their healthful food empire started out as a little ranch in probably montana or something.
*Disclaimer: As Healthful Foods defines Organic by the scientific definition, that all foods is organic seeing how food is not entirely composed of minerals, Healthful Foods reserves the right to use Organic to describe gengineered produce. (SOYLENT GREEN!)
Wernicke, as stated before, is a reporter. He occasionally goes colorblind, and they (Wernie and Jereh) are not entirely sure why because he get's achromotopsia which is A COMPLETE lack of color and is strictly genetic. Sure blunt trauma to the head, chemicals, possibly a disease, maybe even the extreme stress that causes his psychogenic fuges could cause his color blindness but not to the extent of a complete and total lack of color. It's a bit of a mystery.