Eye Tests (Lalia)

Sweetness,
Sweetness,
I was only joking
When I said I'd like to
Smash every tooth in your head

"I don't want to hear it from you, Fitz!" Bang Bang howled at the door that had just been abruptly slammed in her face, giving it a petty kick of vengeance before turning away. The thunk of her steel-toed boot connecting with the blunt target sent an echo across the alleyway and a spasm of pain through her foot that only raised her hackles further. "Ya got no right to treat me like this, you drunkitydrunk old lousy excuse of a washout no-go clinker! Don't you come to me for nothin' anymore — a plague upon your electrical wiring!"

Fitz ran the local rathskeller, a grungy basement haunt where District Three's shadier denizens gathered, and had taken offense at the outcome of an arm wrestling wager the blonde rapscallion had been competing in. Bang Bang had taken offense too. Losing didn't sit well with her, so the when the back of her hand smacked onto the table and signaled her defeat, it didn't surprise many of the spectators when her other fist unceremoniously slammed into her opponent's face. Flipping the table over and shrieking DIRTY ROTTEN CHEAT! didn't seem to endear her to either her rival or the proprietor and only succeeded in her being forcibly ousted from the establishment.

Now that she'd been given a quiet moment to mull it over, perhaps getting the bum's rush wasn't a total loss. The loose change in her pocket still jangled softly with each step she took; the only thing she'd given her adversary was a black eye. However, this realization wasn't enough to stop her from taking one last cheap shot for the road and spitting at the door. Fitz had witnessed the whole showdown; he saw the guy twist her wrist before she was pinned. There was no way she was going to let someone claim victory with those kind of hoodwink tactics and Fitz should have had her back on it. It wasn't as if she'd broken his blasted table.

Grumbling to herself as she turned out the backstreet and onto the main avenue, the sudden sight of another blonde decked out in head-to-toe black caught her eye. If not for her light skin or the shock of pale hair jutting out from beneath her cap, she might have blended in well with the darkness and miasma that cloaked the district. Instead, one glance and Bang Bang's inner radar triggered an alarm within her mind — the girl was clearly up to no good. As the resident hellion of the neighborhood, a territorial instinct seized control and demanded that she assert her authority over the unsuspecting teenager. If someone was going to wreak mayhem in this part of town, it was going to be her.

"Little dark for sunglasses, dontcha think, poppit?" Bang Bang heckled as she sauntered up to the girl, still punchdrunk from the skirmish at the rathskeller. Teeth bared in her trademark Cheshire smirk, she grinned smugly to herself as she launched into her newfound mission to razz the girl up. "Must be something tricksy to see where you're headin' with those specs on. Mayhaps I can assist you in gettin' where you're going?"

( B A N G B A N G A S H E H A R L O W )




Sweetness,
Sweetness,
I was only joking
When I said by rights
You should be bludgeoned in your bed

I ain't got no tolerance for lies... 'cept my own. So when this girl tries to sidestep me with a feeble "Uh... I'm blind?" and can't even be bothered to put in the effort to make it sound convincing, it's like she's aiming to grind my gears and rile me up further. I don't take kindly to people tryin' to give me the brush off like this — especially not when I've gone and singled 'em out all special-like. Either she thinks I'm an adversary of no consequence or she's too much of a spineless milksop to realize I'll go easier on her if she doesn't try to duck out of this little game I'm bound and determined to play. Those rotten cheats at the rathskeller already gave me the toss earlier; there's no way anyone else is going to pull that kind of bosh on me again tonight.

"No, I don't think I'll be requiring any assistance. I know where I'm going." This time her taradiddle hogwash has me caught in indecision over whether I ought to be guffawing at her foolishness or her gall. In the end it doesn't matter, because I start sniggering to myself before I can make up my mind and she hasn't even had time enough to finish gettin' the words out of her mouth. She just keeps jawing along all proper and high-strung, while I'm standing there trying to resist the temptation to smack her upside the head and give her a talkin' to about bein' too big for her boots. Nobody jabbers on about requiring assistance on this side of the district — not unless they've gone and wandered here from another part of town. "Thanks though." By now I'm cackling so hard at her twee mention of gratitude that I almost spit her face. How this upper crust darlin' found her way over to my side of the tracks is beyond me, but it's like someone decided to give me an early birthday present. And here I thought I hadn't been a very good girl this year.

"Aw, come now, sweetness. You can't 'spect an upstanding citizen such as myself to ditch a blind girl—" It's about this time when I decide to pull the jerry-built gun I keep holstered at my hip and wave it around a bit, just to see how committed this girl is to stickin' with the tall tale of blindness she's spinning. The firearm in question is roughly half clockwork, with more than a few pieces of nonsensical balderdash thrown in for good aesthetic measure, and even a halfwit could guess it's not particularly dangerous. It couldn't fire a bullet even if I had some to load it with, but it's still liable to make a person real nervous... unless, of course, they can't see it. Then again, anyone who knows me will tell you that just because my guns are harmless, it doesn't mean I am. Never touched somethin' I couldn't find a way to make hazardous. "—all on her lonesome in these nasty backstreets. Never know what kind of dodgy ol' crooks you'll run into 'round these parts; there's all kinds of wicked racket folks'll pull on you iffin you're not careful."

I just can't keep the grin off my face as I swing an arm around her shoulders as if we're old pals out for an evening stroll, getting ourselves a fresh breath of pollution as we reminisce. My other hand is still wrapped around my imitation pistol, brandishing it with a theatrical flourish to accentuate each tripe talk line of malarkey that comes outta my mouth. "So now that we got that settled," my tone clearly implies that I just done went and made her my new buddy for the night — aw, gee whiz willikers golly gosh darn, we just get on so swell, afteralls — and that wherever she goes, I intend to follow, "you oughtta tell me where where we're hotfootin' it to, kittencheeks. Although if you're just traipsin' the promenade—" where I pulled those fancy words from, I can't say I rightly know, and I'm too busy reveling in how much fun it is to needle at this well-heeled girl to care, "—then I suppose that's all well and good too. Hells bells! We can just paint this town whichever shade of red you please. Although, I suppose I'll still have to pick that for you, seein' as how you can't be seein' it for yourself." At this last jab, I just can't help myself and tap the tip of my gun against the lens of her sunglasses to play up the joke I'm trying to make. I find it all downright hysterical, but I got an itch in my gut that tells me my company might not share the same sense of humor.

---

(OOC — Sorry for switching to first person on you! I always try to post in whatever the person I'm rping with is writing in, but Bang Bang is demanding that I write in first (and she's kind of more fun that way anyhow). If it bothers you, I can switch back to third person, just let me know!)

( B A N G B A N G A S H E H A R L O W )




Bigmouth, bigmouth
Bigmouth strikes again
And I've got no right
To take my place
With the human race

It's 'bout time this girl came around and started seein' things my way, so when she finally packs in her bootless bid to cut and run with a — "Oh thank you ever so kindly. I was rather lost; I must admit your assistance would be most appreciated." — I'm feelin' downright chummy. In fact, I trust her enough not to skedaddle that I don't even thwart her venture to duck out from under the arm I'd slung across her shoulders.

Instead of railing to maintain my grip on her, I clap my hands together like a giddy ankle-bitin' guttersnipe about to lay their greedy hands on a fancy new plaything. "Oh, that's a real fine choice, sugardimples. You might be lost, but you're no lost cause." Bent on keepin' up appearances for our little charade, she starts scufflin' her feet and flailin' her arms around like she's tryin' to wave down God to ask for directions. For all that, the only man-in-the-sky I believe in is my old man Igby and I reckon there ain't no way for him to tell her how to get herself outta this mess I'm makin'. Dead men tell no tales. 'Sides, ain't no one ever figured out how to put the brakes on me, not even him. So her show goes on — the kid even licks her finger, holdin' it out to test the wind, and what that aims to accomplish, I can't say I rightly know, but I sure get a kick out of it.

After gesturing in a direction that leads to an even sketchier area of town, the part I like to call home, and grinin' like a fool who's too soft in the head to know better, she decides it's show-and-tell time and, yippee-ki-yay, if that ain't jake by me. "I suppose introductions should be made before proceeding, Circuit Cann," she says as she extends her hand in entirely the wrong direction, "and you are?" I never took much of a liking to circuitry, despite bein' brought up in District Three — it's too frangible for me, like they're workin' backwards, makin' metal into egg shells — so her name rubs me the wrong way and punches a hole or two into my off-color friendliness. It's enough to wind my cantankerousness into a bunch and just set me off in general.

So it's lickety-split and my hands are off like greased lightning, taking the lazy drawl of my previous movements and turnin' them right on their head. One hand locks with an iron grip onto her outstretched palm and the other swings my clockwork pistol upward until the barrel is squared up with the space between her eyes. There's a crass twist in the corner of my lips as they curl savagely, rabid with anticipation, before breakin' into an all-teeth-bared grin, just as I pull the trigger and give myself an introduction that's every bit as proper as her well-to-do words. A sharp CRACK echoes between us, heralding a dense puff of smoke as the gun spits out a garish victory flag, BANG! BANG! awkwardly scrawled across its surface.

I'm sniggerin' like a young 'un who's still wet behind the ears as the tattered scrap of sooty white fabric wags mockingly across the bridge of her nose. Careful not to yank my chain, sweetcheeks. Fingers tightening their grip on our handshake, I give it a good winch before letting go. Retracting the firearm back, I press the barrel to my lips before blowing a brazen puff of air across the muzzel, the junkyard Jolly Roger fluttering in a final taunt as the tag end of smoke scatters. "The name's Bang Bang Harlow."