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MW - Death's Children

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Tis a drabble, and that title is far too intense for its quality, but it seemed marginally better than calling it "Michael's Babies" … that was pretty tempting, though xD

Indent, please, for the love of your eyes!







The Seasons

Hong Kong, 1962


He rose up from the warm, wet concrete. At his feet squealed a young dog, pallid in colour save for her swollen, blackened teats. He wondered how many pups were curled dying within her as she breathed her last. The cab driver who had hit her stopped briefly enough to acknowledge her, then drove on. There were more than enough mongrel dogs on the streets to replace both her and her unborn litter.
He waited patiently for the dog's yelps to subside to whimpers, and then, mercifully, her breath gave out. He stepped around her, crossing the street, fascinated by the way the muggy air carried the luminous orange of the streetlights. The glow appeared to be captured and diffused by the moisture, in much the same way the coloured lights of the boats were reflected in the black ocean beside him. A tentative breeze picked up, ferrying the faint scent of incense from a small, decrepit temple nestled between two brand new buildings of metal and glass. The wind brought a soft sound, too, drifting from the closer of the two buildings.
Singing. His ears pricked, and he stood completely still, hands in his coat pockets and his head slightly tilted as he listened. It only took a minute or two before he was walking with firm purpose through the heavy glass doors of the building. He crossed a large foyer, past businessmen and plastic orchids. He climbed green carpet stairs with rubber edges, glanced around at the signs and posters neat and clean on the watery-coloured walls, adorned in foreign script. The song he heard, however, was not foreign. The voice that sang it bore no heed to the lilt of her Chinese accent, nor to the mournful tune weeping from the violin accompanying her. Her voice was void of anything save its purity. He could imagine her face already as he neared the open doors her singing slid from, her expression as impassive as her tone, warding away any interest her audience might have.
Her audience was large, businessmen and women, some gathered by a bar, others huddled around tables, the remaining few standing, nursing drinks and conversation thick with obligatory deceit. He didn't need to understand their language to know they were speaking of money and politics, their opinions as curbed as the seams of their tailored suits and dresses.
The singer, whom none of them watched, beckoned to them with tiny gestures, swaying and wilting in time to the song. She was painfully thin, her lime and violet dress clung to her, creased against her brittle frame like the twisted paper wrappers of the sweets he'd eaten as a boy. He drew nearer, his gaze on her white wrists, something about the sheer control of their swaying movements nigh demonic. He could feel her tendons screaming as she filled them with every ounce of her waning strength, only to unfurl them inch by aching inch. Her body longed to thrash and buck, but she would only let it drift. He would know her age soon, but for now he couldn't guess. He was only sure she was too young for the death that leered before her.
Rarely did he feel like that about people. Perhaps it was the beautiful way her dark eyes were already dead. To anyone else, she was as pitiful as the bloodied carcass of the dog in the street, but to him she was as precious as his memories of fresh blackberries and turned earth. He was not going to wait for her to come to him. He would not even wait for the end of her song.
He stepped onto her platform, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, shielding her from the disinterested violinist and smiling when she appeared only vaguely surprised.
'I could listen to you all year round,' he murmured to her, stifling the urge to chuckle at his private jest. She shook her head slowly, not understanding.

Dotingly, he tucked her limply curled hair from her face behind her ear and led her from the room.




Flora

North Carolina, 1965


He was puzzled by the sight before him. Garish sunlight poured through grubby windows and onto an algae-lined glass tank housing a small tortoise. No doubt the classroom pet, or ex-classroom-pet, more precisely. It had gotten too hot in the sun.
What puzzled him was that it hadn't been the tortoise that had brought him here, rather a row of likewise mortally heat-affected plants in makeshift pots on the windowsill. He had no recollection of plants ever summoning him before, but he pondered this only for a moment, realising upon closer inspection that he was far more interested in the pots.
They were made from the newly commercialised plastic milk containers, cut in half and then filled with soil. He touched them gently, feeling the strange, terrible texture of the plastic. It was like stripped cartilage, pale and smooth. Even this slight contact sent waves of rapturous knowing through him, anticipation of the future and the countless carcasses that would line endless shores with this very compound binding their throats.  
And here the children were growing things out of it. He decided he'd never encountered a more perfect irony.
The plants, as far as he could tell from their wasted forms, had been beans. Their tender, hesitant tendrils now draped sadly over the edges of the pots like felled soldiers on the cusp of a trench. Where could everyone be? The tortoise had obviously been no stranger to neglect, but the beans and their pots were pristine, the children had been taking great care of them.
He listened for the distant sounds of feet and voices but heard nothing, so he shut his eyes and felt them out instead. Everyone was in an old tin warehouse across an oval, perhaps for assembly, and they had been there all day. He was curious enough to know what they were doing to allow himself to move to them. He had no clue what the souls of plants felt like, anyway, so there was little point remaining in the classroom to look for them.
As it turned out, the children and the teachers of the small school were rehearsing some kind of concert, so he settled against the far wall to watch. After a few harsh words from a teacher about their behavior, all the girls were called to the front while the boys remained cross-legged and bored on the scrubbed stone floor. The girls whined and dragged their feet, coming together in a lopsided group.
'Josephine,' the teacher said.
The girls at the front of the group parted and turned to a much smaller girl who was whispering excitedly to her friend.
'Josephine,' the teacher said again, her patience fraying.
'Jo,' one of the girls at the front hissed, elbowing her. Jo started, looking around guiltily.
'This would be your number, wouldn't it, Miss Bean?'
Bean? He couldn't help his chortling.
'Sorry, Miss Cooper,' Jo said, stepping forwards. Judging by the slight muffling of her words, her pursed lips were very deliberately hiding a set of braces. This was affirmed when her friend behind her murmured something and she and the rest of the girls broke out into giggles. Jo was the last to stop laughing as the teacher set about scolding them again. She had thin, strawberry-blonde hair and olive-hazel eyes, and a look about her that hinted she might well become very pretty in the years to come. For now she was undersized, mousy and tomboyish, and far from in control of the determined fire he sensed within her.
Ten minutes or so of reprimanding later, Jo was thin-lipped and standing straight, waiting for another teacher to finish mapping chords out on a tinny piano.
'Remember, girls, on "come home" the rest of you come in. Mr Collins will give your notes,' the teacher said, and Mr Collins at the piano obliged.
'And here's your note, Jo,' he said.
'Yep,' she nodded resolutely.
'Alright, then.' Mr Collins set his fingers to the keys in earnest, coaxing forth the simple hymn.
In a clear, youthful soprano, Jo began to sing.
At first, he thought nothing of it. Her voice was lovely, but not unlike anything he'd heard before. When the other girls came in, however, his breath grew still. They were off-key, and Jo half-turned to them, smiling, her voice strengthening to guide theirs. Some of them forwent their notes all together and joined hers or chose their own, making a harmony so rich not even the acoustics of the deadening stone floor or pealing tin roof could stifle them.
And no matter how loud the girls became with their growing confidence, Jo's voice glided above, serene and firm, encouraging them to pull back their volume, concentrate on their diction, or hold a certain note.
She sang of Jesus, an entity he had never felt anything for, but in those moments Jesus became a man, someone tangible with whom he could speak; someone to learn from. She sang of sinners, and he knew his lessened mortality would never exempt him from their kind. It was a stinging and fresh relief to know these things, and then incarnate clarity when she sang of love and promise, mercy and pardon, life and himself.
He walked forwards as she called the weary home, entranced and humble. The boys on the floor felt pain as he passed them, and the teacher, having long forgotten herself in the beauty of the song, placed a surprised hand to her chest when her old heart squeezed at his nearness.
He was careful to make sure Jo could not feel him, nor the girls behind her lest their voices waver. He touched a careful, hopeful finger to her cheek.
Her song with all its grace and splendor became nothing in comparison to what he felt now with his skin on hers. He saw her years stretching before her, and he saw them end. The sickness was growing in her already, her blood ferried it through her tiny form, and it was darkening the soft tissue inside her. It would consume her entirely, the powerful soul that shone within her would break, and he would have her. He drew his hand away.
He wanted to make himself known to her, to lean down and tell her to remember him when he came for her, but he resisted. He committed her name to his memory, and was reminded of the wasted beans in the classroom.
He no longer heard the song, nor felt anything of what it preached. Wickedness eclipsed the wholesome decency that had flickered so briefly in his mind, for he had just thought of a better fate for her than death.
With a name like hers, how could he have ever thought otherwise?
He laughed aloud as Jo finished her song, and the smile faded from her face. She stared through him, frightened, feeling his cold.

He patted her shoulder, smirking at her shiver, and blew her a kiss as he left.




The Weather

London, 1971


He nursed his beer at the end of the bar, breathing in deep the heady scent of tobacco and sweat.
A woman lay dead from overdose in the alley adjacent to the pub, and he hadn't enjoyed seeing to her. It seemed to him he'd spent more time on overdoses than any other form of death in the last year, and there was nothing to show for it. He'd come to expect a pattern to emerge from the places and people he was summoned to, but of late he'd had no such luck.
He felt angry and on edge, so much so that people were aware of him. The bartender had asked him what he was drinking before he'd offered the information himself, leaving him distinctly rattled. Since then a man and a woman had attempted to strike up a conversation with him, only serving to worsen his mood.
His increased sense of presence suited the atmosphere, no matter how much it annoyed him. This was not a quiet pub, and to his mild dismay he'd realised too late the trend amongst its brash clientele to favour the garb of the opposite gender. The fact the women were in jeans and the men in dresses made no difference to the beer being as dreadful as it was in any pub in London, so he stayed put, whinging internally and avoiding curious eyes.
Some time later he'd worried away most of the watery beverage and descended into a state of thorough boredom. He half-turned in his seat to watch the band in the corner abuse their instruments. A bejeweled queen crooned into the microphone, but he heard nothing of her voice, all he knew was how repulsive he found her. The whole crowd was several garments away from being engaged in some kind of fetid orgy, and even though their debauch lifestyle was ushering them into the vicinity of a gruesome demise, he couldn't help but see their souls as a chore. He longed for people of caliber, whose deaths meant something to someone, not these worthless, pleasure-seeking children dancing before him with both feet already in the grave.
His focus swam, drifting within him when the sight of what lay ahead became too much. He was distantly aware of how little time was beginning to mean to him; he sat there for hours with ease.
Somewhere after midnight, the mood changed. There was a flicker of anticipation circling the room, rousing the men more than it did the women. Obligingly, he gave his attention to locating its source.
The queen at the microphone was no longer singing; she was wearing a lopsided, lipsticked grin and talking instead.
'A little birdy tells me Biscuit is sufficiently inebriated enough to sing for us. What say you?' She held the microphone in her clawed hand towards the crowd, who gave a scattered, weak cheer; but inside their blood began to thrum, he could feel it.
'I don't know about that!' A middle-aged, dark-haired man called from the back of the room, his arm around a younger man. 'He promised me a shag first.'
People laughed hoarsely. The younger man pushed himself away in a flourish, 'I did no such thing, Henry, you're drunk.'
'No, love, you are. Go on and sing.' Henry brought the young man forwards and into plainer sight. He seemed just like everyone else: graying skin, wasting limbs, decomposing well beyond his tender years – but unless it was a trick of the dismal lighting, his eyes held a prophetic spark. They were very blue and very familiar.
Everyone's energy seemed to gravitate around him.
The young man kicked off his shoes, and hopped nimbly onto the flimsy, black stage. He gave the queen a long kiss on the cheek, accepting the microphone from her.
'You know I won't sing unless I can be completely sure I'm not going to remember it tomorrow,' he addressed the crowd solemnly, his accent leaving London and settling somewhere slurred near Manchester. 'And I'm just not there, sorry,' the crowd murmured disappointment, but he held up his hand. 'Thus, there can only be one solution: I get blind afterwards.'
Their laughter was peaking, grating into a sound that was unnatural, discordant.
'Teddy, Charlie, darlings,' the young man turned to pianist and guitarist behind him, lowering the microphone and conversing with them conspiratorially. They nodded, chuckling.
'This is indeed a song for the times,' the young man announced, taking a step forward. 'In honour of the band's reformation, despite its dishonorable circumstances, and in greater honour of Cass Elliot–' he was cut off by a low shriek from a small woman near the back. 'Oh, Mim, you do like them large, don't you? Yes, Mama Cass, indeed. Some of us are porkers and some of us are ginger, as a natural victim of the latter whyever she would choose to be both is well beyond me.'
His idiom rose the more they clapped, his ego feeding and swelling. His posture became primal. His bare toes fidgeted against the stage, and his knuckles strained white as his fingers wrapped and unwrapped themselves around the microphone, like a snake negotiating its prey. The crowd leaned towards him, longing for him in a confusion of lust and loathing.
'Teddy and Charlie will provide esteemed harmonies, and so we begin. Words of Love.'
At the bar, his beer long forgotten, he looked on in quiet wonder. The young man was very good, he never missed a note, and even the fact he changed the lyrics, substituting "boy's" for "girl's" and "him" for "her", didn't bother him. As a matter of fact, there was precious little that would bother him now. He'd found what he'd been looking for.
The young man's fingers were hypnotic, rigid then slack, cocked then curled. His whole body searched the lyrics out, his face most of all as his mask slipped away and his rage surfaced. His voice soared close to breaking, blood lighting up his skin, but he remained in perfect control. Come the end he gave triumphant kick, scattering the glitter and sequins littering the stage, sending them over the crowd. They hung in the air before him like some kind of kitsch aura; he followed them, leaping down and becoming lost amidst the throng.  
Returning to his beer, he resolved to finish it. He would seek out the young man in an hour or so, let him enjoy the remainder of his evening first.
And enjoy it he clearly did; he watched him accompany no less than five men into the bathroom or out the back before he stepped down from the bar and headed over to him himself. He side-stepped once he reached him, clipping the young man's shoulder and throwing him off balance. The young man grabbed at the wall, righting himself and cursing.
'Christ,' he mumbled, looking up. His pupils were wildly dilated and deeply empty. 'If I wasn't completely fucking sideways I'd swear you did that on purpose.' His numbed lips fumbled for the words, finding them with great ease considering his state. He narrowed his eyes in woozy mock-suspicion, his smudged eyeliner, sickly pallor and wretched grin making him seem like some tragic clown. His forearms were peppered green and purple with little bruises, complemented by the bite marks and hickeys lining his neck. 'Glorious, aren't they?' the young man noted the attention, tipping his head so the angry colours of the lovebites glistened with his feverish sweat. 'One for each blowjob.' He gave a desperate laugh, pushing his quaking fingers through his hair and then sniffling, his disapproval suddenly genuine. 'You're not queer, are you? Go on, fuck off, then. I won't have your repression permeate the one place I can be free of your miserable lot. Fuck off.'
'There's nothing saying I can't be here. Sorry for bumping you, but I ain't shifting no further.'
Through the haggard cacophony came tentative stillness. Unaware, the young man's smile returned, stretching to a width that seemed to defy the capacity of his face.
'Off with you, Mick,' he said lowly, 'go lose your prospects elsewhere.'
'If by "Mick" you mean "Michael", I'm your man, but otherwise I'd be a tad more careful. I've known men your humble size to still pack a fair punch, but judging by the fact there's currently more narcotics in you than blood, I don't favour your odds.'
While Michael spoke, the young man's expression never shifted, only when Michael finished did his smile shrink. He was full to the brim with agony and bitterness, and it had begun to seethe and writhe in his eyes. Half-buried violence teemed in his soul like a frenzy of maggots on meat. Michael knew how much the young man wanted to fight him, and that he had no desire to win. He wanted to be ground into the floor and washed from the Earth in a hail of his own entrails. He wanted it so thoroughly he asked for it explicitly:
'Fiddle dee dee, potato,' he leant and whispered, pushing the Birmingham drawl from his accent and replacing it with his very worst Irish.
'Jesus, Angus.' The dark-haired man from earlier, Henry, appeared and closed his hand firmly around the young man's wrist, pulling him away and looking to Michael. 'He is utterly gone, mate, sorry.'
'Stuff and nonsense,' Angus grumbled, his intensity completely dissolved. He leaned against Henry, the focus of his eyes drifting from Michael's face before he shut them and moaned gently. 'Mick bastard,' he breathed.
'Hush up, Biscuit, I'm taking you home.' Henry shrugged off his coat and placed it around Angus' thin shoulders, pushing against him to make him move. Angus stumbled, and would have taken both himself and Henry to the floor had Michael not stooped to them. He sent an arm around Angus' back, shrugging when Henry gaped at him.
'I don't come by the name Michael for no reason,' he said, smiling. 'My ma raised me right, let me lend you a hand.'
'Thanks, love,' Henry sighed. 'There's no Englishman that's got that kind of benevolence in him, let me tell you.' Michael chuckled, and together he and Henry carted Angus from the pub to the nighttime streets outside.
While Henry chatted, Michael moved his hand from Angus' back to his hip, surreptitiously slipping a finger beneath his shirt, tucking it against his warm, damp skin. One brief touch was all it took for Angus' spine to lock, his nerves shot thick with pain; a strangled yelp escaped him as he forced himself away and buckled, gasping and retching into the gutter.
'Lord,' Henry said tiredly as he watched him. 'You can let me take it from here.'
Michael didn't reply, he was far too elated. Angus only had three years left, which would feel like minutes to him if was careful to be patient; but that wasn't the greatest contributing factor to his glee. Angus was going to do it himself.
Michael had seen it nestled in his future, cowering like a boy beneath his father's belt. Angus would come home to his empty apartment, place a record in the player, and with steady hands he would plug the sink and slit his wrists. He would let the blood pool, smooth some of into his hair, laugh at his reflection in the dirty mirror, and climb into his bed. He would close his eyes, so calm that sleep would claim him before he bled out.
He would be so at peace with his decision that, come the end, his death would be the greatest achievement of his life.
Had Henry turned while he helped Angus to his feet, he would have seen Michael for what he really was, a grinning specter, his mouth crooked and his eyes wide and cruel, but Angus was talking, demanding his attention.
'I do wish it would rain, Henry,' he said softly, candidly. 'The weather is supposed to remind me that there will always be something a little more dismal than my existence.' He tittered weakly.
Michael's grin vanished, awe wiping his smugness clean away.

Sometimes, in spite of everything, he had to stop and wonder about fate.
lololol—I love thinking about Michael’s face at the end there.. as the epiphany hits him that if he makes Waffen into the Weather he’s essentially forcing him to become that which Waffen apparently considers the most depressing thing ever. D’aw Mike, you’re such an asshole <3



Uh. Right. I guess I’ll work backwards, seeing as you know Waffen well, you’ve met Jo a couple of times, but you’ve never met Wei.

Waffen in the 70s = a very unattractive time for him, as you know :) The only things you wouldn’t have known about this section is that Michael had, in fact, met Waffen prior to turning up and making him a Member of Fabric. True to his word, Waffen remembers next to nothing from that evening, so he as good as met Michael for the first time on that fateful night in 74.

Ah, and they call him “Biscuit” after “ginger biscuits” (a nickname that Fletcher becomes quite partial to when Waffen tells him about it three decades later xD).

Waffen’s song: [link]

Jo Bean you met for the first time here: [link]

She’s also attests to the fact Michael has a sense of humour, albeit a sick one, because he made her Flora due to her surname. She’s a little darling, though it’s a long process of slightly nicer Members other than Michael nursing back her confidence after her illness, as it does indeed sap her of all her zeal.

Jo’s song: [link]

Aaand poor Wei Li. I’ve drawn her a couple of times for myself, but never posted anything about her on here. She is the Seasons. She’s a lot better off now, but she’s very, very quiet, and remains a mystery to all the other Members.

She didn’t have a song exactly, but this beautiful piece of music inspired her section: [link] (that movie is one of the most powerful love stories ever told, IMO, and the couple never even share a kiss. It is heartbreakingly beautiful and so well shot. Definitely see it if you have the patience for slower films)

Ugh, there’s all this political stuff about the preceding Members before Waffen, Jo and Wei that I want to tell you about but that would probably be too many spoilers… and WAY too much information.

The Members are quickly becoming so confusing even I can’t follow them -___-




Some Other Repetitive Facts:

Plastic milk containers were commercialised in 1965.
The Mamas and the Papas reformed in 1971.
“Mick” is a racist term for an Irishman.
Yes, Michael likes singers :D







... I know this is Midas Weave and all, but I should really be working on the Midas Weave project AT HAND. Fail. Wooh.





edit: I just realised... Michael drank the same beer for, like, five hours. Worst Irishman ever.
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muffinpoodle's avatar
Man, this rocks. I love me some Michael. He reallly does like singers doesn't he :D The descriptions of the way everyone sang was fantastic.

One of my favourite bits is the bit where Mike laughs and Jo can sort of hear it but not quite (I assume) and she stares right at/through him trying to see.
Also, this: "Their tender, hesitant tendrils now draped sadly over the edges of the pots like felled soldiers on the cusp of a trench." FUCING AWESOME

fucking, even

So did you decide that Michael smells of nothing, or is it just that he can control when people smell him just as he can control when they see, hear or feel him?