Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends.

[goldeneyeball]

Characters: JW and Sasuke
Open? No
Where: The Woods
When: Afternoon of 15RD
What: JW and Sasuke get baked...well Sasuke gets baked. JW just kind of watches and laughs.



Some days, shit just gets annoying, you know? Stupid fairy tales. Stupid magic peddler. Stupid everything. James had done a little experimenting during his time in the land of Schwanheim and had learned what plants made you sick, what plants made you better, and what plants made you stop giving a fuck.

The sun was drifting on past lunch time as JW settled down under a broad-leafed tree in the Two Faced Forest. He knew better than to mess around in the woods at night but so long as he could see the golden light through the branches, he knew he was safe. He had all he needed. Half a sandwich from home, a few carefully rolled joints, and a sharp stick just in case anybody decided to bother him.

He was going to relax damn it.

Or so he thought...

Comments

[goldeneyeball]

JW's mouth hung open as the kid just...took his fucking smoke! He blinked at his empty hand, then at Sasuke. He had to remind himself that the stuff didn't exactly cost money. It grew wild and free in the fairytale wood.

"Fine, you can have the rest of that one, but you aint gettin' anymore." DAMN KIDS. He selected another joint from his little pile and fumbled a match out of his sleeves.

However, when Sasuke started hacking and gagging, he couldn't help but laugh. He remembered doing that years and years ago. "Aw, poor boo, was that your first one?"

[bondsoflove]

"Don't call me--" Sasuke coughed twice more, and managed a solid breath--"'boo'. You sound like a freak."

It was his first time, but he didn't really feel like saying. Watching JW fumble with the match, it came to him how he could restore a little of his pride, at least in this moment--he worked through the seals, his hands moving faster than his mind, and inhaled deeply on clean air.

He pointed at the match, indicating that JW should lift it up to Sasuke's mouth.

His vision was--swimming, strangely, in and out in diamond-shaped patterns. His nerves were picking up more than usual; it almost felt like he could detect individual blades of grass against his legs.

[goldeneyeball]

"That was the point." James snorted and looked around for the stone he'd struck his first match against. When he noticed Sasuke doing his weird gesturing, he held it out for him. He caught on. Fire knight and all that.

"Be useful."

[bondsoflove]

Gentle and quick, he aimed the plume just above the match, and the bottom of the fireball grazed the tip and caught. Perfect. Sasuke smiled.

It had been a long time since he'd done that in genuine pleasure, and it felt alien. He reached up and touched his cheek, fingertips exploring the dip of it. And glanced at JW, and paused, mesmerized by the reflection of the golden eye.

He blinked, and remembered what he was going to say, putting his hand in his lap and stroking idly against the fabric of his shirt. Soft. Pleasant. "I think I'm fucked up. Do I look fucked up to you? High, I mean, not just..." he waved his hand. "I already know I'm that kind of fucked up."

[goldeneyeball]

JW let himself be impressed. That was useful! He huffed a laugh and lit his smoke before shaking the match out.

He then just...watched Sasuke. Man. It HAD to be his first time smoking anything remotely like the grasses JW had found. A part of JW felt like he needed to be a responsible adult and make sure the kid didn't hurt himself.

A much bigger part wanted to laugh at him. So he did.

"Maybe a little fucked up!"

[bondsoflove]

"Shut up," Sasuke said petulantly, feeling his bottom lip push out into the plush pout he'd perfected as a child. He hadn't done it in years--people didn't take a pouting seventeen year old seriously, in general. But he wanted to now, so he did. "This is my first time and I'm a lot smaller than you."

He remembered he hadn't wanted to let on that he hadn't done it before, and frowned at himself. "Shit." He glanced in JW's direction again, looking over the long limbs, long torso, long face....everything about him was so long. "Why the hell are you so tall?"

[goldeneyeball]

JW just kept snickering.

"I don't know, why are you so short?" He grinned, showing off one of his missing teeth. Then he got a wonderful, horrible idea. "Somebody steal your knees?"

[bondsoflove]

In a moment of horror, Sasuke looked down at his legs. His knees appeared to still be there, but he supposed they could be an illusion...he bent one, experimentally, and tapped it to make sure it was solid. When that proved successful, he hugged them to his chest and shot a glare in JW's direction.

"That wasn't funny." The missing tooth, on the other hand...Sasuke ran his tongue over his molars, wondering what it would be like to have a space there. Did he have trouble chewing? Could he whistle through it?

His eyes went down over JW's legs, stretched out and bony. "Who's to say you don't have an extra pair, anyway? I'm in proportion with myself. You look like you went through a mochi grinder."

[goldeneyeball]

JW didn't know what a mochi was, but that didn't stop him from fully accepting the remark. He just kept grinning that awful grin of his.

"Maybe I do. Maybe I take the knees of people who don't mind their own damn business when it comes to how tall I am."

[bondsoflove]

"Where would you keep them?" Sasuke asked, dryly--both literally and figuratively. His tongue was starting to stick to the roof of his mouth. He swallowed, once. "I'm not that small where I come from. I've never met anyone as big as you. You're even taller than Juugo, and Juugo's got some kind of monster blood."

He looked up at the canopy of leaves above them, the spindly branches. "Are you part tree?"

[goldeneyeball]

"I keep 'em in my legs. I used to be even shorter than you."

Part of that was true. A younger, friendlier James had been pretty darn short. He ignored Sasuke's second question and instead, plucked a blade of grass from the spot where they sat and held it up to his lips to make a long, sharp whistle.

CAN YOU HANDLE THIS AMOUNT OF WITCHCRAFT, SASUKE?

[bondsoflove]

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. JW's legs didn't look that much more flexible than usual...

"I won't believe you unless you show me."

The whistle startled him, but rather than jump, he just sat with widened eyes and stared at JW's hands, mouth slightly open.

His ears rang.

"That was loud," he said, and reached for the stub of the joint he'd dropped. It was still smoking, so he put it to his mouth and took another drag. This time, he didn't cough, and he found that the taste was...pleasant. Earthy and floral. He breathed it out through his nose, and decided he liked the smell, too.

[goldeneyeball]

James laughed at the face Sasuke made. He wondered if Horas had found him this entertaining back when he'd started him on the stuff. He stuck the blade of grass into his mouth because why the hell not.

"I know, right? You should try listening to music--real music, I mean."

[bondsoflove]

It occurred to him that it probably wasn't sanitary to stick a blade of grass in his mouth, but he was too busy being distracted by the implication that his mother's lullabyes hadn't been "real" music, regardless of the fact that there was no way JW had heard any of them and thus couldn't judge, to comment. Sasuke scowled, squeezed his knees protectively to his chest and opened his mouth.

The song was soft and mild, rising and ebbing with swells of volume and tone. It sounded like a victory song, if you didn't know the words. Which JW wouldn't, unless he spoke Japanese and hadn't told Sasuke yet.

When he was done, he rested his cheek on his kneecap and just looked at JW's craggy face. "It's about a woman who turns into a crane and rips out her feathers and makes blankets with them and her blood so that she and her husband--who took her prisoner after finding her shot down as a bird--won't go destitute. The Crane Wife, it's called."

[goldeneyeball]

James didn't know a lick of Japanese. He knew enough Spanish to get by and exactly enough English to make a pest of himself. He listened to the boy's song and did think it was more of an up-beat, triumphant tune.

That was, until it was explained to him. JW made a face.

"That's kinda fucked up." was his well-thought out analysis.

[bondsoflove]

"I'm a ninja. Of course it's fucked up," Sasuke scoffed. "Our babies are nursed on blood and tacks. Rrrr." He hooked his fingers into claws, then replaced his hands around his legs and slowly began to rock back and forth. The feeling was soothing--like being on a boat, or in his mother's arms.

Somewhere in the distance, a butterfly took wing, and Sasuke's attention was wholly and enthusiastically grabbed. The patterns on its wings were mesmerizing--his mouth fell open just a little as he moved his head to follow its flight.

[goldeneyeball]

The wizard lifted a brow. "Huh, so that's where ninjas come from." Good enough for him! He didn't exactly care. He did notice when Sasuke spotted the butterfly and couldn't help but burst out laughing at the way he followed its path.

He thought it was a damn shame they had no oreos.

"I'd sing you a song of my people, but as a wizard, I'm afraid it'd put you under a terrible spell from which you just might not recover."

[bondsoflove]

Sasuke shook his head in total seriousness. "No, we came from gods. One god, to be specific, the sage of the six paths. He had two sons and one of them fathered my line and the other fathered my--"

A pause, and he bit his knuckle. "My person. He's blond and I hate him but he loves me. He's not my brother because Itachi's my brother but he says he is because he grew up alone and doesn't know what it's like to have a brother because his parents died when he was a baby, when the nine-tailed fox destroyed most of our village. I was a baby too. Itachi says I was premature and fussy."

He thought on that for a moment, the soft teasing affection in Itachi's voice when he related stories about Sasuke's infancy.

That made his chest hurt, so he put a hand over it, rubbing. "Anyway. The Sage fathered my person's line and the Senjuu and Uchiha have been clashing ever since."

He looked over when JW spoke, eyes narrowing critically. He knew ninja who could use music to cast genjutsu--was that what he was referring to? "There's no spell you can put on me that will make my life suck any more than it already does."