The City Below

Have the beginning of a thing. And yes, I love torturing Marc. XD

1. Liz eyed the overcast as she trotted up the L steps, fingers tapping out an absent pattern as she went. At the station, she pulled her book from her bag with a small sniff, nose already dripping from the cold. Humming under her breath she searched for her place, an eye still on the sky and watching for rain. ‘Sail your sea,’ she sang silently, lips tracing the words spilling from her earphones. ‘Meet your storm. All I want, is to be your harbour…’ Sniffing again, she faltered, lips and fingers stilling; under the city stench, the reek of exhaust and sewer rot, she could almost swear she could smell the ocean…

2. Marc was drunk. Or at least, he had been drunk—falling down drunk, in fact; hence the ‘falling off a six-story building’. Or maybe he’d been pushed. Had he been pushed?

Regardless. He had been drunk, but as he woke up with a choked gasp that lead to a fucking painful ass coughing fit, he’d moved past ‘drunk’ into ‘hungover, with a massive death headache’.

“Fuck.” His voice was barely a whisper of gravel, but it was far too loud. He vowed to never speak again.

“Oi! What have we here!”

Booming. Right next to his head. Oh christ. With a snarled whimper, he tried to cover his ears—and screamed instead when his not-quite-healed bones pulled back apart. Unexpected. Shouldn’t’ve been—six story death fall—but oh, god, unexpected and stupid.

Something skittered closer. “Another stowaway, my Kings and Queen, and not as harmless as the last one. Get to your feet, brigand, or I shall slay you where you lay.”

Cracking a fairly-working eye, Marc bleared about the best he could while trying his best to not fucking move, jesus. ‘I’m still drunk,’ he decided, staring down the foot-tall rat pointing a rat-sword at his open eye, ‘because that is a—’

“Talking. Rat,” he slurred out, jaw still fractured and bleeding.

The rat looked annoyed. “Really?” he asked. “Couldn’t be a bit more original? And I’m a mouse,” he emphasised, right before skewering Marc in the eye.

He sighed, closing his eye against the madness (and more importantly, the light). This was going to be a shittastic day.