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Melody of GAINAX IS SMOKING UP AGAIN
So out of nowhere I get this Melody of Oblivion plot - THING - that won't die.
AND NOW I TYPE AT YOU ALL! OMG FIC.
I don't even know where the shit to set this. Assume after Toune and Koko show up. Lol lol AU lol. And spoilers. Seriously, spoilers. If you don't know who Hebi-hanabi-chan, The Bowler and Horu really are for god's sake don't proceed because spoilerville hurrr.
Also: because this is a Gainax anime and so damn much of it is fraught with 'if you know what I mean nudge-nudge', there are interpretations of stuff in here that don't mesh entirely with what Bocca's told. But everyone lies to him anyway almost.
Highly highly HIGHLY AU and I'm probably OOCing these two punks right out the yin-yang. Sorry XD;
Also, typos.
Now that that's over and done with on with the lunacy.
***
In retrospect Bocca figured he hadn't recognized the damn thing because it had WHEELS this time and not. You know. Hooves. That, and boondocking was common these days, ore so than anyone wanted to acknowledge. People got sick of the facade and just drove off into the wild blue whatever looking for something better than the endless guilt and faking-it.
The RV was familiar enough that he stopped to take a closer look at it anyhow (he'd been en route to the 7-11 in search of udon, as he and Sayoko had made each other nuts talking about it for a coupe miles before they set up camp), and the door almost opened into his face. Bocca dated back jus in time to spare his nose being smashed. "Hey--"
His first thought upon seeing the tenant was: what the hell?
His second: oh shit.
While he wasn't as immediately recognizable without that damn purple trenchcoat, it was pretty damn difficult to mistake Horu for anyone or anyTHING else.
Why couldn't he wear a shirt like a normal person? Oh right because he WASN'T.
To Bocca's total shock and confusion, nothing happened. Nothing happened for long enough that he said, "...Aren't you supposed to be attacking me?"
"Yeah."
"...Are you going to?"
'Nah." A grin, and - oh for - Horu was ether eating something or chewing on something and Bocca's stomach lurched hard. Everyone knew what Monsters lived on. Kurofnne had flipped his lid at Horu doing this but all Bocca could manage was turning green.
"Well, you look like shit all of a sudden," Horu said. "What'd you do to yourself?"
"Nothing! You - " Bocca could NOT bring himself to give voice to what Horu had probably just done. Like, at all.
"I what? What the hell are you - oh. ...Well, fuck, another one gets the wrong idea because of the honourable Mister Ballade McShithead. If there's a proto-knight he HASN'T fed that line to, I'd be very very shocked."
"Lie - my ass it's a lie!" Nausea gave way to anger.
"You really think that guy's as noble as he looks? You REALLY think his teachers told the truth? This world's full of liars and bastards, kid. Truth be told I was hoping I was NOT going to see you again, but you blew your chance at saying no, so there's nothing I can do about that now - anyhow? I want you to think about something."
"What?" snapped Bocca, who didn't really like being spoken to as if he were a very dense kid.
"Do you know who - or what - I am?"
"Besides a Monster General?"
"I'll take that as a fuck-no. Kurofune does, and if you'd paid attention to his bitchin' you might have some idea."
Bocca tried not to stare. Just. Shirtless (kind of hot yeah fine screw it Bocca would grudgingly admit that but it was all part of how this guy WORKED anyhow) pointy-eared guy lounging against the side of an RV that occasionally had hooves - what. Seriously. What.
Horu made a c'mon-c'mon gesture. "The labyrinth - don't they teach you little punks anything these days?"
It hit Bocca about then. "...You're kidding. Seriously. You're the Minotaur."
"Damn skippy I am - and you got it pretty fast, most people I have to go into the whole song and dance for."
"I thought that was a myth. I - myths should stay myths, damn it, what the hell. How are you even real?"
"How do you shoot shiny sparkly arrows form nowhere?"
Okay, valid point. And Bocca's mouth got ahead of his brain then - before he could stop himself, he said, "And you seriously ate all those people - you've been doing that for this long?"
Horu gave him a withering look. "Are you completely stupid."
Bocca bristled. "I asked you a question!"
"...I'm a BULL, you dumbass, what the hell do you think cows eat?"
"Wait- what?"
"Oh damn it Bocca you are just stupid as hell - " And Horu stuck out his tongue. Uh, ew.
Sure it was some kind of green vegetable or other he was eating but - yeah, Bocca'd had enough of see-food in first grade. "Okay okay, just - knock it off - "
"I'm vegan. I always have been. If I tried to be anything else I'd probably vomit and choke and die or something. If I could die."
"Then - what happened to everyone they sacrificed to you?" What'd happened to Kei? If Horu hadn't just outright eaten him, where was he and were was everyone else who'd ever gone to the Labyrinth?
"They got et."
"But you just said--"
Horu grinned broadly at him. "Different kind of eating entirely."
What the hell. "I don't follow."
Horu STARED. "You're how old and you don't know what that means. At all."
"What other kind of eating is there? Seriously, I do not know what you - "
"Fellatio!" Horu said cheerfully. "Or the equivalent with chicks."
Bocca almost fell over. "What - you - what? What does that have to do with anything!? How does that feed you? You're just making crap up to freak me out or mess with me or something - "
"I am," said Horu, "actually one of the few people who will not fuck with you. At all. I don't have any reason to. You're a Melos, I'm a Monster. We beat the shit out of each other. Witty repartee's for chumps."
Bocca snorked softly. Stop being funny, you jackwax. "Okay--"
"Holy shit, you're red, you know that?"
"Hey, shut up!" Bocca spluttered a bit, then said, "...You were talking about chances and not wanting to see me again before. What was that supposed to mean?"
"You're gonna call bullshit - hur hurr ba dump ching, I didn't even MEAN to do that, how sad is that."
"I might not," Bocca pointed out. "You don't know."
Horu regarded him for a long, long moment. Then he spoke. "Everyone the Melody calls can turn her down. It's not the end of the world if they do - she's got a big, big talent pool to work with. You could have said no, and spared yourself a lot of misery and frustration and injury, but you didn't. You cold have told that grand destiny to go fuck itself because there's nothing GRAND about it. Maybe you heard a lot of bad-ass stories about the heroic Knights of Melos - well, let me tell you something. Their fans are a tiny minority."
"...I'd kind of noticed that."
"Melos are outcasts. Vagrants. Shit, some of them even get left behind in the flow of TIME somehow. No one hails them as heroes, and no one's gonna do that for you either. Matter of fact, people are largely going to fucking hate your guts. They'll LOATHE you with all the strength of their tiny minds because you being what you are upsets their nice little white-picket-fence-and-a-thing-that-goes-doink delusions about how the world is. They don't want to think abut the war and they don't want to think about how bad they're screwing you kids over."
He flung up his arms.
'Congratulations, Bocca!" he exclaimed sarcastically. "You've been hosed by some grown up who thinks they know best, again! That dickface Ballade probably sent you inbecause he wants out."
"...Kurofune wouldn't do that," Bocca said quietly, very annoyed.
"Yeah, maybe, I guess not. I don't know what the fuck his motivations are, and I don't care. But seriously, that' how it goes - the Melos and their home skillets tell you kids great stories so you run headfirst into all kinds of shit and don't realize that the people you're defending are the ones who want you dead for no reason. There is abso-fuckin'-lutely no difference between 'your side' and our bitches - the Union, I mean. Everyone gets by stepping on the necks of kids like you."
Annoying as he was, he had a point. Bocca did NOT believe for a second that Kurofune would sell him out, but the rest? The rest was true. "If I don't fight nothing's going to change."
"Ho do you know it will change if you fight - Bocca, fuck's sakes. You cannnot seriously be THAT idealistic at your age. How long you been hanging around Tsukinomori and you've not only managed to pick up NO innuendo-fu, but - damn. I bet you never asked what that manacle is either..."
"No, because it's her business."
'Her parents tossed her at me to build up her brother's useless whiny ass. He's a Union member now, jsut another schmuck on the roster in spite of his lofty, lofty rank. D'you know why they did that, Bocca?" Horu leaned closer, and Bocca stepped back and to the side. (The guy had grass breath.)
"I didn't ask."
"They caught her with a guy she liked. Decided she was a dirty little tramp and better off gone. ...You know, I hear a lotta teenage boys bitch and moan about what a raw deal they've got but theirs is NOT the rawest deal by far. Sayoko-chan there, the world comes after her ass because she's a girl who - ohshit the scandal! - admits she would like to do it with a guy she is very very fond of. And Toune-chan? Other side of the coin, she's the holy virgin queen and everyone comes after HER ass because she don't put out."
He made an annoyed sound.
"Damned if you do it, damned if you don't. The people on top stay there by shoving the less fortunate down. Girls get stomped to hell because your society's got fucky ideas about what they should and shouldn't do, and all those ideas contradict, so there's always going to be some excuse for those assholes to do up some poor kid like Andromeda and leave her to me."
"...You don't have to - do what you do to them."
Horu snorted. Okay, yeah, THAT sounded like a freaking cow. "Uh, no, actually, I do. We all do. It ain't pretty, but there you go." Was that remorse Bocca was seeing on his face? it wasn't pride, that was for sure. Weird. "All I can do is turn on the charm so they jump on my ass first. Most of 'em go out happy. But I won't pretend I'm anything but some freak relic of a long-dead society who has to get by eating people's lives by doing them. Non of us are going to. ...Well, Medusa might, but she's kind of batshit insane, she thinks that she's saving you kids from cruelty by turning you into rocks. Which - not so much, honey, but she doesn't listen if you tell her otherwise."
"...All this," Bocca finally said, "is a lot more..jacked up than I thought it was."
"Nothing in this world's clear-cut, Serenade." Horu gave him a lopsided grin. "I may be a huge dick, a killer, a freak, a monster - but I don't pretend I'm not. I wasn't kidding when I said everywhere is the labyrinth. Everywhere there's some kid being beaten down for no reason and tossed to one of us on a whim. Everywhere, there's that sacrifice. And people will fight to keep that way of life. They will hate you, Bocca. They will try to kill you, or worse."
"I know.
"So why don't you tell the spooky bimbo 'no'?" Horu jerked his head to one side - and there was the Meloy, looking a bit resigned.
"You can see her?"
"She exists the same way we do - namely, via 'what the fuck?' So - yeah."
Bocca looked at her.
He looked at Horu.
"I don't know that it'll change even if I do fight, but it sure as hell won't if I don't fight."
Horu snickered. "...You're a dumbass, idealistic, flaky kid. But you're an honest one. And you actually listened to me, which, colour my ass surprised. I kida feel bad that I'll have to kick your ass later."
'Who says you'll be kicking my ass? It might go the other way."
"...You are a fucking little wiseacre and now I feel really shitty that we have to beat each other down like dubasses." For a moment Horu looked like he was going to ruffle Bocca's hair which WHAT, but he didn't. "Get lost, kid. Go get your noodles before Sayoko passes out or eats all your granola bars."
Bocca did as suggested - because Sayoko WOULD. He had the weirdest feeling that if he looked back over his shoulder now, Horu and his RV would be gone without a trace except for maybe some tire tracks or too-big hoof prints on the gravel shoulder.
He - wasn't going to tell her or Kurofune about this. Who'd believe him, anyhow?
And, you know, who cared. Sayoko was allowed to have her secrets. She'd let Bocca keep his. That was just the kind of person she was.
...She'd been going on about puddings, too.
Damn it now he wanted some. Oh, well, it wouldn't kill their budget to get a couple and when Toune and Koko got back from stomping whoever they were going to be starved too.
He could spurge a little. (And sure enough, when he exited the store with a bag of junk food, there was no sign of either minotaur or RV.)
***
DUR DUR DE HURR NURRR god I don't know. Horu got loud on me. I plead the sudden brain minotaur.
God, so much of that show is about sex and sexuality and the taboos and weird shit surrounding it. I wanted to write an essay at some point but ended up with this instead. I still plan to essay my little gourd off someday, and explain my rationale behind deciding the Monsters feed off kundalini/vital energy via bump/squeak, and bring up alllllll the classical HEY LOOK SECKS symbolism that flies around. Hell, a majority of the Monster generals have heavy HEAVY sexual/taboo imagery surrounding them.
So yeah. Essay will happen.
Just - later.
(Shut up in there, Horu.)
AND NOW I TYPE AT YOU ALL! OMG FIC.
I don't even know where the shit to set this. Assume after Toune and Koko show up. Lol lol AU lol. And spoilers. Seriously, spoilers. If you don't know who Hebi-hanabi-chan, The Bowler and Horu really are for god's sake don't proceed because spoilerville hurrr.
Also: because this is a Gainax anime and so damn much of it is fraught with 'if you know what I mean nudge-nudge', there are interpretations of stuff in here that don't mesh entirely with what Bocca's told. But everyone lies to him anyway almost.
Highly highly HIGHLY AU and I'm probably OOCing these two punks right out the yin-yang. Sorry XD;
Also, typos.
Now that that's over and done with on with the lunacy.
***
In retrospect Bocca figured he hadn't recognized the damn thing because it had WHEELS this time and not. You know. Hooves. That, and boondocking was common these days, ore so than anyone wanted to acknowledge. People got sick of the facade and just drove off into the wild blue whatever looking for something better than the endless guilt and faking-it.
The RV was familiar enough that he stopped to take a closer look at it anyhow (he'd been en route to the 7-11 in search of udon, as he and Sayoko had made each other nuts talking about it for a coupe miles before they set up camp), and the door almost opened into his face. Bocca dated back jus in time to spare his nose being smashed. "Hey--"
His first thought upon seeing the tenant was: what the hell?
His second: oh shit.
While he wasn't as immediately recognizable without that damn purple trenchcoat, it was pretty damn difficult to mistake Horu for anyone or anyTHING else.
Why couldn't he wear a shirt like a normal person? Oh right because he WASN'T.
To Bocca's total shock and confusion, nothing happened. Nothing happened for long enough that he said, "...Aren't you supposed to be attacking me?"
"Yeah."
"...Are you going to?"
'Nah." A grin, and - oh for - Horu was ether eating something or chewing on something and Bocca's stomach lurched hard. Everyone knew what Monsters lived on. Kurofnne had flipped his lid at Horu doing this but all Bocca could manage was turning green.
"Well, you look like shit all of a sudden," Horu said. "What'd you do to yourself?"
"Nothing! You - " Bocca could NOT bring himself to give voice to what Horu had probably just done. Like, at all.
"I what? What the hell are you - oh. ...Well, fuck, another one gets the wrong idea because of the honourable Mister Ballade McShithead. If there's a proto-knight he HASN'T fed that line to, I'd be very very shocked."
"Lie - my ass it's a lie!" Nausea gave way to anger.
"You really think that guy's as noble as he looks? You REALLY think his teachers told the truth? This world's full of liars and bastards, kid. Truth be told I was hoping I was NOT going to see you again, but you blew your chance at saying no, so there's nothing I can do about that now - anyhow? I want you to think about something."
"What?" snapped Bocca, who didn't really like being spoken to as if he were a very dense kid.
"Do you know who - or what - I am?"
"Besides a Monster General?"
"I'll take that as a fuck-no. Kurofune does, and if you'd paid attention to his bitchin' you might have some idea."
Bocca tried not to stare. Just. Shirtless (kind of hot yeah fine screw it Bocca would grudgingly admit that but it was all part of how this guy WORKED anyhow) pointy-eared guy lounging against the side of an RV that occasionally had hooves - what. Seriously. What.
Horu made a c'mon-c'mon gesture. "The labyrinth - don't they teach you little punks anything these days?"
It hit Bocca about then. "...You're kidding. Seriously. You're the Minotaur."
"Damn skippy I am - and you got it pretty fast, most people I have to go into the whole song and dance for."
"I thought that was a myth. I - myths should stay myths, damn it, what the hell. How are you even real?"
"How do you shoot shiny sparkly arrows form nowhere?"
Okay, valid point. And Bocca's mouth got ahead of his brain then - before he could stop himself, he said, "And you seriously ate all those people - you've been doing that for this long?"
Horu gave him a withering look. "Are you completely stupid."
Bocca bristled. "I asked you a question!"
"...I'm a BULL, you dumbass, what the hell do you think cows eat?"
"Wait- what?"
"Oh damn it Bocca you are just stupid as hell - " And Horu stuck out his tongue. Uh, ew.
Sure it was some kind of green vegetable or other he was eating but - yeah, Bocca'd had enough of see-food in first grade. "Okay okay, just - knock it off - "
"I'm vegan. I always have been. If I tried to be anything else I'd probably vomit and choke and die or something. If I could die."
"Then - what happened to everyone they sacrificed to you?" What'd happened to Kei? If Horu hadn't just outright eaten him, where was he and were was everyone else who'd ever gone to the Labyrinth?
"They got et."
"But you just said--"
Horu grinned broadly at him. "Different kind of eating entirely."
What the hell. "I don't follow."
Horu STARED. "You're how old and you don't know what that means. At all."
"What other kind of eating is there? Seriously, I do not know what you - "
"Fellatio!" Horu said cheerfully. "Or the equivalent with chicks."
Bocca almost fell over. "What - you - what? What does that have to do with anything!? How does that feed you? You're just making crap up to freak me out or mess with me or something - "
"I am," said Horu, "actually one of the few people who will not fuck with you. At all. I don't have any reason to. You're a Melos, I'm a Monster. We beat the shit out of each other. Witty repartee's for chumps."
Bocca snorked softly. Stop being funny, you jackwax. "Okay--"
"Holy shit, you're red, you know that?"
"Hey, shut up!" Bocca spluttered a bit, then said, "...You were talking about chances and not wanting to see me again before. What was that supposed to mean?"
"You're gonna call bullshit - hur hurr ba dump ching, I didn't even MEAN to do that, how sad is that."
"I might not," Bocca pointed out. "You don't know."
Horu regarded him for a long, long moment. Then he spoke. "Everyone the Melody calls can turn her down. It's not the end of the world if they do - she's got a big, big talent pool to work with. You could have said no, and spared yourself a lot of misery and frustration and injury, but you didn't. You cold have told that grand destiny to go fuck itself because there's nothing GRAND about it. Maybe you heard a lot of bad-ass stories about the heroic Knights of Melos - well, let me tell you something. Their fans are a tiny minority."
"...I'd kind of noticed that."
"Melos are outcasts. Vagrants. Shit, some of them even get left behind in the flow of TIME somehow. No one hails them as heroes, and no one's gonna do that for you either. Matter of fact, people are largely going to fucking hate your guts. They'll LOATHE you with all the strength of their tiny minds because you being what you are upsets their nice little white-picket-fence-and-a-thing-that-goes-doink delusions about how the world is. They don't want to think abut the war and they don't want to think about how bad they're screwing you kids over."
He flung up his arms.
'Congratulations, Bocca!" he exclaimed sarcastically. "You've been hosed by some grown up who thinks they know best, again! That dickface Ballade probably sent you inbecause he wants out."
"...Kurofune wouldn't do that," Bocca said quietly, very annoyed.
"Yeah, maybe, I guess not. I don't know what the fuck his motivations are, and I don't care. But seriously, that' how it goes - the Melos and their home skillets tell you kids great stories so you run headfirst into all kinds of shit and don't realize that the people you're defending are the ones who want you dead for no reason. There is abso-fuckin'-lutely no difference between 'your side' and our bitches - the Union, I mean. Everyone gets by stepping on the necks of kids like you."
Annoying as he was, he had a point. Bocca did NOT believe for a second that Kurofune would sell him out, but the rest? The rest was true. "If I don't fight nothing's going to change."
"Ho do you know it will change if you fight - Bocca, fuck's sakes. You cannnot seriously be THAT idealistic at your age. How long you been hanging around Tsukinomori and you've not only managed to pick up NO innuendo-fu, but - damn. I bet you never asked what that manacle is either..."
"No, because it's her business."
'Her parents tossed her at me to build up her brother's useless whiny ass. He's a Union member now, jsut another schmuck on the roster in spite of his lofty, lofty rank. D'you know why they did that, Bocca?" Horu leaned closer, and Bocca stepped back and to the side. (The guy had grass breath.)
"I didn't ask."
"They caught her with a guy she liked. Decided she was a dirty little tramp and better off gone. ...You know, I hear a lotta teenage boys bitch and moan about what a raw deal they've got but theirs is NOT the rawest deal by far. Sayoko-chan there, the world comes after her ass because she's a girl who - ohshit the scandal! - admits she would like to do it with a guy she is very very fond of. And Toune-chan? Other side of the coin, she's the holy virgin queen and everyone comes after HER ass because she don't put out."
He made an annoyed sound.
"Damned if you do it, damned if you don't. The people on top stay there by shoving the less fortunate down. Girls get stomped to hell because your society's got fucky ideas about what they should and shouldn't do, and all those ideas contradict, so there's always going to be some excuse for those assholes to do up some poor kid like Andromeda and leave her to me."
"...You don't have to - do what you do to them."
Horu snorted. Okay, yeah, THAT sounded like a freaking cow. "Uh, no, actually, I do. We all do. It ain't pretty, but there you go." Was that remorse Bocca was seeing on his face? it wasn't pride, that was for sure. Weird. "All I can do is turn on the charm so they jump on my ass first. Most of 'em go out happy. But I won't pretend I'm anything but some freak relic of a long-dead society who has to get by eating people's lives by doing them. Non of us are going to. ...Well, Medusa might, but she's kind of batshit insane, she thinks that she's saving you kids from cruelty by turning you into rocks. Which - not so much, honey, but she doesn't listen if you tell her otherwise."
"...All this," Bocca finally said, "is a lot more..jacked up than I thought it was."
"Nothing in this world's clear-cut, Serenade." Horu gave him a lopsided grin. "I may be a huge dick, a killer, a freak, a monster - but I don't pretend I'm not. I wasn't kidding when I said everywhere is the labyrinth. Everywhere there's some kid being beaten down for no reason and tossed to one of us on a whim. Everywhere, there's that sacrifice. And people will fight to keep that way of life. They will hate you, Bocca. They will try to kill you, or worse."
"I know.
"So why don't you tell the spooky bimbo 'no'?" Horu jerked his head to one side - and there was the Meloy, looking a bit resigned.
"You can see her?"
"She exists the same way we do - namely, via 'what the fuck?' So - yeah."
Bocca looked at her.
He looked at Horu.
"I don't know that it'll change even if I do fight, but it sure as hell won't if I don't fight."
Horu snickered. "...You're a dumbass, idealistic, flaky kid. But you're an honest one. And you actually listened to me, which, colour my ass surprised. I kida feel bad that I'll have to kick your ass later."
'Who says you'll be kicking my ass? It might go the other way."
"...You are a fucking little wiseacre and now I feel really shitty that we have to beat each other down like dubasses." For a moment Horu looked like he was going to ruffle Bocca's hair which WHAT, but he didn't. "Get lost, kid. Go get your noodles before Sayoko passes out or eats all your granola bars."
Bocca did as suggested - because Sayoko WOULD. He had the weirdest feeling that if he looked back over his shoulder now, Horu and his RV would be gone without a trace except for maybe some tire tracks or too-big hoof prints on the gravel shoulder.
He - wasn't going to tell her or Kurofune about this. Who'd believe him, anyhow?
And, you know, who cared. Sayoko was allowed to have her secrets. She'd let Bocca keep his. That was just the kind of person she was.
...She'd been going on about puddings, too.
Damn it now he wanted some. Oh, well, it wouldn't kill their budget to get a couple and when Toune and Koko got back from stomping whoever they were going to be starved too.
He could spurge a little. (And sure enough, when he exited the store with a bag of junk food, there was no sign of either minotaur or RV.)
***
DUR DUR DE HURR NURRR god I don't know. Horu got loud on me. I plead the sudden brain minotaur.
God, so much of that show is about sex and sexuality and the taboos and weird shit surrounding it. I wanted to write an essay at some point but ended up with this instead. I still plan to essay my little gourd off someday, and explain my rationale behind deciding the Monsters feed off kundalini/vital energy via bump/squeak, and bring up alllllll the classical HEY LOOK SECKS symbolism that flies around. Hell, a majority of the Monster generals have heavy HEAVY sexual/taboo imagery surrounding them.
So yeah. Essay will happen.
Just - later.
(Shut up in there, Horu.)