[Noah St Cloud]

(CW: this thread will contain references to blood, corpse disposal, and other potentially disturbing stuff throughout.)


Scoping out recruits was nothing new. It was pretty much all Noah did now; his inheritance meant he didn’t really need a job and, honestly, why would he want to have a human-oriented nine to five?

Anyway, scoping out recruits was nothing new, but killing them hadn’t quite reached ‘common’ territory yet.

The target, Joel, was staying at a derelict motel just outside of Los Eurosia – the type of motel where all the rooms consisted of one double bed, a nightstand and lamp, a couple of ratty armchairs, and an attached bathroom with a crummy shower. The meeting had gotten off to a good start, they’d sat together and were having a nice chat until Noah started getting into the good news about Blackstorm.

Long story short: Joel had gotten up and used a form of telepathy to apply some pressure to Noah’s head. It was a warning, he’d said, and the audacity of it all made Noah want to give him a ‘warning’ back. The problem was, Noah hadn’t known quite how strong Joel’s power was, so when he’d tried to return the favour of a mild headache –

Joel’s head exploded.

Noah felt warm spray on his face and the sharp yank of the telepath’s power getting pulled out of him. Then, headless, Joel’s body collapsed and folded on itself like a ragdoll while Noah sat still for a moment, blinking in surprise.

“Damn.”

Luckily the curtains framing the only window in the room were closed, and it was almost the evening so hopefully if (by some miracle) the motel had any other guests, they'd be out getting dinner. He got up and crossed over to the bathroom, feeling the need to wash his face and remove any obvious chunks from his hair. He'd probably be a bit more cautious if this had happened a year or so earlier, but recently Blackstorm had become a lot more adept at cleaning up messes such as this - or rather, one Blackstorm member had made it easier. When he finished he pulled out his phone, asked Siri to call Rotty, and waited until the ringing stopped. Maybe Rotty had picked up, maybe it was his voicemail – Noah wasn’t sure, he just immediately started talking.

“Hey, Rotty, you around?” he greeted cheerfully. “I know it's been a while but I’ve spilled some chilli sauce. Lots of chilli sauce, y’know. Some assistance would be nice, please – and there’s a spare key on top of the doorframe so you can let yourself in.” He gave the address and hung up.

Moving back into the main room, he put his hands on his hips and sighed, staring down at the gore like a stressed single mom looking at her kid’s scattered crayons.



((@everett I’m assuming Noah would have Rotty’s number (either his personal one or a burner phone one) but let me know if you want me to change that or anything else ^^))

[Deleted]

One of the downsides of giving up his old life was that he often found himself bored on any given night in the middle of the week. Back in Melbourne, there was always something to clean up—a crime scene, drugs, murders, all of it—and the excitement was what kept Rotty in the business most of the time. He hadn't completely abandoned his old habits—there just wasn't as much of a need in Los Eurosia. At least not yet. Plus, he was pretty sure that Blackstorm didn't want him making too much noise at the present time, and the entire city knowing about a guy who could eat anything and circumvent evidence discovery probably wouldn't be the best look for the group should it get out that he was connected to them.

Thankfully, the bored silence of his apartment was pierced by the vibrating of his cell, and he answered it a little too eagerly. Before he could even say hello, he heard the familiar voice on the other line, and he couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. Finally, Blackstorm needed him. It would be his first major cleanup for the group, and the fact he would get to do it with the very guy he'd originally found made it even more exciting. It felt like things were happening. Like he was actually part of this movement.

"Oh, I love chili. Be there in a bit, mate."

----------

Most of Rotty's needs in the city were fairly close to his apartment, so it wasn't often he found himself on his motorcycle. It felt nice to have the wind blowing through his curls as he drove his old Harley-Davidson towards the edge of the city, enjoying the views and the feeling of freedom before sputtering into the old motel's dusty parking lot. As dirty and rundown as it looked, Rotty couldn't help but feel at home in places like this—it reminded him of his childhood and adolescence more than any real home ever would, and there was a nostalgia that made him feel fuzzy inside. Or maybe he was just excited. He positioned the kickstand with his boot and dismounted the bike, taking his sunglasses off and putting them in the small storage area under the seat before shuffling to the door and keying into it using Noah's instructions.

"That's… a lot of fuckin' chilli, mate." Rotty stood in the doorway for a moment just surveying the room, his green eyes scanning from the floors to the ceiling before landing on Noah, a wide grin on his face. "Was this a 'Whoops, I spilled the chili' moment, or did he knock it out your hands?" He wasn't trying to find fault or blame, he just wanted to hear the story of why there was a fully decapitated man lying on the floor of this random motel room.

[Noah St Cloud]

He turned towards the door as it opened and greeted Rotty with a casual “Oh hey,” and a little wave. He knew what Rotty could do (he recruited him, after all) but he had yet to see his matter ingestion in action. It was sort of exciting – so much so that the chance to see it was currently outweighing the potential consequences from Blackstorm. They were sure to be displeased when they found out about the loss of Joel, especially because he would have been good for PR when gifted made themselves known to humans. He'd looked nonthreatening and his power had seemed harmless before Noah got his hands on it, more like a magician's party trick than a complete mind-blower.

He nodded along with Rotty’s initial assessment. Yep, definitely a mess, but Rotty’s grin and follow-up question told him there wasn’t going to be a crisis of conscience.

Noah gave a contemplative hum and stepped around the corpse, moving to stand by Rotty so he could view the room from his perspective. “Bit of both. It was more like he was poking at my chili y’know and I was all ‘Hey now, that’s a bit annoying, bud. How would you like it if I dipped into yours?’ Then I completely kicked his bowl over.” He shook his head and sighed. “Should’ve just taken his spoon away.”

If telepathy was the only power Joel had, it probably wouldn’t have been hard for Noah to get the upper hand. Joel was shorter and sort of scrawny (Noah guessed telepathy meant there was no real need to physically pick things up and build some muscle). He could’ve pinned him down and told him to chill out, or he could’ve left and come back when Joel was more agreeable – but no, Noah just had to use gifts whenever they fell into his hands.

He clapped Rotty on the shoulder and shot him a grin. “But this is good news for you, right? You hungry? Dinner is on me.” After a beat he glanced down at his sweater, realising how true that statement was. That sucked. He liked his sweaters. Maybe he could get away with washing it at home with some tough stain remover – no need for it to get eaten.

He clasped his hands, looking back up at Rotty. “What can you eat and what do I need to clean up?” He always had a few rags and spray bottles of hydrogen peroxide in the trunk of his car, and he’d spied half a bottle of bleach in the bathroom. He was sure it would be unwise to ask Rotty to take bites out of the wall and the floor; it would be pretty obvious to the staff that something had happened if the whole carpet went missing.


@everett

[Deleted]

(CW: cannibalism kind of?)

All this talk of chili was starting to make Rotty's stomach growl in true hunger, and the fact that all he had on hand was whatever needed to be cleaned up didn't sit well with his appetite. He'd be able to do it, but he would absolutely be getting chili for dinner tonight hands down.

"So you asked for sugar, he threw the sugar in your face, you stabbed him with the teaspoon, on track, mate," Rotty said fairly nonchalantly for someone summarizing and glazing over a clear murder. Regardless of the reason, he told himself that Noah had a good one, and that's all Rotty needed to know.

"Dinner's on you? Does that make this a date?" he asked with a cheeky grin and a wink before walking over to squat down by the corpse, grabbing its wrist with his hand and letting it thud back to the floor. "Welp, he's dead, alright. I guess that shoulda been a indicator," he mumbled, gesturing vaguely towards the clear lack of an entire head attached to the body. He sighed and stood up, brushing his hands off a little before folding his arms across his broad chest.

"I could eat anything, but I reckon if the goal's to act like nothing happened in here, I should probably just take care of the body. And that sweater if you don't wanna leave with it," he added, pointing at Noah's top before grunting and squatting back down by the corpse's shoulders, hooking his hands under the armpits and lifting it fairly easily thanks to the body's smaller frame. Making sure to hold it up so the blood wouldn't drain from the neck onto the floor even more, he dragged it towards the bathroom before throwing it unceremoniously into the bathtub, a loud, almost comical *clunk* filling the small room.

"And no, it ain't cannibalism if I don't like it. Besides, I'm barely human as it is." He recited these words as if he'd said them before—which indeed he had. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub and started ripping the body's clothes away from his skin, tearing the fabric into ingestible shreds for now and shoving them in his mouth, chewing only for a moment before swallowing easily. "I could really use a beer right now," he called out with a mouthful of denim, his hard teeth crunching through a small metal button with ease.

[Noah St Cloud]

(CW: more cannibalism talk~)

Noah was having fun – certainly more fun than the average person covering up a murder.

It was mainly because he had an accomplice for once and, even better, it was an unfazed accomplice. Seeing Rotty easily hoist up the body (usually the most tedious part of a clean-up) and take it to the other room for consumption, Noah was struck again by how simple this whole affair was going to be. He figured he probably shouldn’t ruin it by wearing blood-stained clothes outside, even if he was still on the fence about whether he should let it be eaten or not.

He pulled the sweater over his head in time to hear Rotty declare that he technically wasn’t committing cannibalism.

“Aw c’mon, cannibalism’s not a bad word – don’t shy away from it. My mom always said ‘Be open to human experiences’ and yeah, you picked a niche one, but I’m sure cannibalism counts. She’d be proud of you.” He folded his sweater as he spoke, placing it neatly on floor beside the room’s main puddle. Noah’s stuffy, power-hiding, God-fearing mother would absolutely not be proud of Rotty, and Noah sort of hoped that somewhere, somehow, she was seeing all this. It was funny to imagine the distress he could cause her ghost. “Be right back!”

Once outside, he tracked down a vending machine. Luckily it contained some drinks as well as snacks, though the only alcoholic beverage was a ginger beer by a brand he didn’t recognise. Low alcohol percentage too. That was a shame, though he supposed getting Rotty drunk while he was working wouldn’t be wise. He bought two cans of the beer and a bottle of water, then retrieved his cleaning supplies from the trunk of his car and went back into the motel room.

“It’s just me.” He closed the door with his hip and dumped the cleaning supplies on the bed. After a moment of consideration, he snatched up his sweater from the floor and made his way to the bathroom.

He poked his head around the doorway, his eyes alighting on Rotty who was eating strips of Joel’s clothes like it was liquorice. “Oh damn, you’re really just tearing into that huh?” Noah mused, clearly impressed. He flung his sweater in the bathtub and put the cans and the water down on the floor beside Rotty. “They only had the ginger stuff, but I got you some water as well; those jeans gotta be pretty dry and I bet the beer’s not much better.”

Giving his accomplice a quick thumbs up, Noah made to leave, but he hesitated and turned back at the last moment. He leant on the doorframe and folded his arms, eyes fixed on the scene before him. He knew he should go and clean the other room but he was so curious. The blood could wait.

[Deleted]

"Damn, a mom proud of me? And just when I'd gotten over my mommy issues," he said around a mouthful of fabric still, already getting a little tired of eating the same thing, but he only had a few more scraps to go before he could move on to the main course, as it were. He swallowed his mouthful of cotton, and just before he was about to get up to run his mouth under the sink tap, he heard the door open, and his head jerked in that direction, eyes slightly wide. His expression softened, though, when he realized it was Noah, and he greedily eyed the drinks in his hand before moving back to sit on the edge of the tub. He shrugged his broad shoulders at Noah's exclamation, chuckling a little as he grabbed the last piece of fabric and shoved it to the back of his throat, swallowing it hard.

"Is there a better way to do this?" he asked a little sarcastically, his eyes following the sweater as it flew into the tub before turning his attention back to Noah. "Coulda just handed it to me," he said under his breath with a little smirk—at the very least, he appreciated the dramatics of throwing the sweater in with the corpse. "Thanks," he uttered simply as he leaned down to grab one of the beer cans, bringing the side up to his mouth and popping a hole into the aluminum easily with his pronounced canine, popping the lid almost at the same time and shotgunning it lazily. He smacked his lips and let out a content "Ahhhh" before setting the empty can on the back of the nearby toilet and reaching down into the tub to grab the corpse's arm, deciding to leave the sweater for mid-meal. He pulled it up into his lap, using one hand to squeeze around the elbow just in case there was already built up pressure in his vasculature before leaning down with his mouth open, ready to bite in when—

"What?" he asked almost innocently, looking up to see Noah leaning there and just staring at him. He didn't necessarily mind if people watched what he was doing, but he'd certainly never seen someone seem so… interested. "Was I supposed to let you take the first bite, or…?"

[Noah St Cloud]

(CW: grossness)

Noah was a captive audience even while Rotty took a break to drink a beer, though he was still ruminating on the speed and ease of the consumption of clothes. What did they taste like? He supposed he could bite some fabric and figure that out by himself but, how did it feel going down? And how about the body? How many times did Rotty have to do that for him to look so casual when pulling it up into his lap?

“What?” Rotty had finally noticed Noah’s stare. His innocent expression almost made Noah want to laugh. “Was I supposed to let you take the first bite, or…?”

His eyes widened. “You think I could?” he asked perhaps a tad too eagerly. Despite what it might look like, it wasn’t the idea of cannibalism that excited him; it was the concept of being able to use Rotty’s gift. Noah’s experience with copying gifts was pretty limited to powers that were used directly on him, so aside from Rotty’s enhanced senses (which Noah was not eager to use anyway and was always quick to return whenever he accidentally picked them up) he hadn’t considered the possibilities the other man presented. He cleared his throat and forced himself to speak more slowly. “I mean, do you think that’s actually possible? I assumed I wouldn’t be able to. I borrow what’s thrown at me, y’know?”

He slunk over to the bathtub, taking a seat beside Rotty on the edge. “How could we trigger it? Hair? Saliva?” he murmured, as if to himself. He wasn’t about to lose a limb for the sake of some experimentation, though he had a theory his body had to feel threatened in some way for it to 'counterattack'. 

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “And if I can borrow your gift, would the clothes still be in you? Couldn’t that damage you if you can’t digest them like usual?” He didn’t expect Rotty to know the answer to any of these questions, but they were important factors to consider and they would determine whether he’d actually use the gift when it was in his possession. He didn’t want to use it if it meant he would have a terrible stomach-ache (and possibly the need for a hospital appointment) when he had to give it back.