Vatsy and Bruno: First Ink

[Rutskarn]

EDIT: Alright, it's finished, so I'm just going to link to that page.

http://www.chocolatehammer.org/?page_id=551

[The Neoclassic]

Whee, feedback!




this submission is unusable, unintelligent and frequently illegible

While apparently the Oxford comma is optional, I strongly advocate its use, as it can only add clarity to a work. In other words, put a comma after "unintelligent." Same goes for all other instances of three or more words where there are commas and an "and" (like "penniless, unloved [Add comma here] and...") involved in a sensible fashion.

The Writers' Guild letter was amusingly powerful in its language, and the juxtaposition of "Wishing you well" fits nicely at its end.


even slipped an almost perfectly fresh slice of ham into the envelope to seal the deal!

Nice. I'm guessing it didn't occur to him that the ham would be getting pretty gross by the time it arrived. :smalltongue:

So... reached the end (with not too many comments, I know). Intriguing. Good. I will be checking back to see more. I'm not entirely sure as to Vatsy's nature, though that may have something to do with my impatient reading skills. I look forward to updates on this!

[Phase]

Cross-Post:

This is above awesome. The writing is structured in a manner that leaves any and all jokes and absurdities in their rightful place, and said jokes are singularly hilarious. I have but one problem with it, and that’s the suddeness with which you inroduce the fact that Vatsy is a cat and that Bruno is a Chimpanzee, let alone that there is a Bruno at all. If there was a smoother segue to Vatsy & Bruno;s introductions, it would be flawless, IMHO.

Bravo.

[Rutskarn]

Bruno wasn’t an easily-surprised person. Long ago, he’d adopted the perspective that people and their actions were essentially random, and that trying to interpret them or change them was a fool’s errand. He let others take the lead, simply reacting to situations as they arose. A problem appeared, such as overdue rent, and he’d calmly seek a solution. He’d found that a level tone, an open stance, a patient mind and a large-bore double-barreled shotgun solved most problems almost effortlessly. His philosophy could be almost described as Taoism, if Taoism had a little-known subclause about the prudent use of firearms and arson.

Even so…Bruno had come to think of Vatsy as a constant. After all, Vatsy only had one setting: extreme. He was extremely chipper, or extremely aggravated, or extremely distraught, and the shift between these points of extremity was seamless and instantaneous. He was Bruno’s opposite, always racing, always thinking, having a vaguely-defined goal that he bounded after. He was like…well, like a housecat pursuing a string. He was caught in the moment of the chase, not caring what was before or what would come after. And suddenly, Vatsy had found a new extremity: extremely still.

Bruno paced around Vatsy, cautiously coming to face him. Vatsy was still staring straight ahead, yellowed eyes motionless, jaw slack. It was singularly unnerving.

“Boss?” he repeated, quietly. Vatsy didn’t respond.

A thought struck Bruno, which he instantly discarded.

Shaking his head, Bruno paced out the door, his typically calm composure troubled. The thought returned. Mentally, Bruno nearly swept it aside again—but paused, forcing himself to face it, hideous and disturbing as it was.

Was Vatsy actually…reflecting?

When Bruno returned to the apartment, dusk was falling over the city, cloudy sky making the scarce light seem somehow unclean. A breeze blew through the gaping hole in the wall, ruffling and scattering the many papers.

Vatsy hadn’t budged.

Bruno crept over to him, carefully setting down one of the hot, greasy meat sandwiches in front of Vatsy. Backing away, Bruno sat down in the green armchair to eat the other one, watching Vatsy with concern as his powerful jaws worked through the gristle and fat.

Vatsy slowly scooped up the sandwich. He took a small bite out of it, chewing slowly and thoughtfully.
There was an awkward silence. Bruno was not used to silence from Vatsy. It was like a sailor waking up and finding himself floating on an ocean as smooth and still as glass.

After what seemed like hours, Vatsy spoke, quietly, hoarsely.

“I’ve got to get back at it, Bruno.”

Bruno sprang up from the chair, startled by the noise. Eagerly, he walked over to Vatsy nodding his head.

“Of course, boss. Get back on the hoss, and all that. I’ll go nip out and fetch you some more typewriter ribbons, and then we’ll...”

Vatsy shook his head instantly, top hat swaying. “No, no, not…not like…” For the first time since Bruno had met him, Vatsy seemed genuinely at a loss for words.

Abruptly, Vatsy swept upwards, tone strained. “Something’s wrong. I’m missing some element, something…powerful, something elusive. I’m lacking…something.”

Bruno remained silent, backing away from Vatsy. There was a time to encourage, and there was a time to listen.

Vatsy began to pace, but slowly, deliberately, as if his motor functions were simply killing time as his brain operated alone.

“Yes. What does a news item need? Excitement…I have that. The firefight in the pastry kitchen, the necromancer who trained zombies to act as stage magicians by day, assassins by night. The turnip who ran an elder cult.”

Vatsy’s pacing grew slightly more furious.

“Human and/or Humanoid interest? I had that, I had that in spades. I defy you to find a single person who wasn’t touched by the star-crossed romance of the teen-aged block of marzipan and the empty paper bag, or the dog and his boy...yes, yes, I’ve got that already…”

Abruptly, Vatsy rounded on Bruno, striding towards him.

Voice tense, Vatsy continued: “Everything I’ve ever written has had my full effort behind it. I know that I’m trying, Bruno—I’m trying so very hard, every page, every sentence, every word…and not a thing has been accepted.” Vatsy seized Bruno by the shoulders, shaking him, volume increasing with his frustration. “What is it, Bruno? What am I lacking?”

Bruno racked his brain furiously. “Uh…”

Vatsy shook him wildly, hysterical. “Damn it, Bruno, what, as a journalist, am I lacking?”

“…have you tried using real stories?”

Vatsy stared at him for a beat, expression unchanged. “What?”

Bruno took a half step back, voice level. “I just…well, it was just a thought, I guess. Have you tried writing about real things?”

Vatsy stared at Bruno a few more seconds. The tension in his features faded, replaced by a sort of contemplative bafflement. He stared off into space for a moment. He turned to Bruno, started to speak, then shifted his gaze away once more. After a few seconds, he slowly turned back to Bruno.

“…you can do that?”

Bruno remained silent, completely unsure of what to say.

Vatsy shook his head slowly, his feature registering disbelief. “Use…real things… in my stories. That’s…that…”

Vatsy turned his intense gaze downwards, seeming to mutter to himself. His eyes widened even further. He slowly lifted his head.

“…that’s just ludicrous enough to work!”

Vatsy once again began pacing, but the energy pulsating from his steps was no longer of frustration, but of his familiar, radiant excitement.

“Report on…real stories. Oh. Oh ho, Bruno, I like the way you think. That, my friend, is devious. I can waltz out there, find out what’s happening, investigate it, take notes, bang the whole thing up into a report…and nobody will be the wiser. I can just…it’s like an inexhaustible source of inspiration! By the fetid waters of the Well of Knowledge, Bruno, that’s absolutely diabolical.”

Bruno shrugged. “Just an idea, boss,” he said carefully.

Vatsy stopped in midpace, pausing apprehensively. “You...don’t suppose they’ll catch on, do you?”

Bruno shook his head, waving a hand reassuringly. “Don’t reckon as much, boss. Matter of fact, I’d suppose the other journalists probably do it themselves from time to time.”

Vatsy snorted. “Yes, I suppose so. That’d be just like them, the sneaky bastards.”

He swept up into the red chair, one claw snatching up a battered pen and the other snagging a random scrap of paper. The greasy sheet already had a soup stain, a list of synonyms for the word “inferno” and small drawing of a large man with a big hat that had been labeled, “Mister Fraesinburg”. It was, however, the freshest sheet on the desk, and he began writing in a clean space.

“Right. I’m going to need…a notepad, a new set of pens, and a map of the city. Bruno, what will you be needing?”

Bruno shrugged. “I’m a pers’n of simple needs, boss.”

Vatsy handed Bruno the list, which Bruno patiently folded up to throw away as soon as he left the room. Vatsy, not being much for remembering anything past his last meal (at least, not before today), had difficulty understanding that Bruno had a photographic memory. Come to that, he seemed to have difficulty understanding that most people couldn’t read his writing, and that Bruno couldn’t read period. Frankly, Vatsy had difficulty understanding anyone besides himself.

Bruno headed towards the door, tipping his hat. “Very well, boss, I’ll run out and get those for you. We can start tomorrow.”

Vatsy started to nod, then paused, quizzical. “What shops are open this late?”

Bruno shrugged. “Hopefully, not many, boss.”

Whistling contentedly, he pulled his crowbar out of the umbrella stand and departed.

[Rutskarn]

The outdoor food stand was always very sparsely patronized. This was partially because the grubby planks, scrawled menu and general haze of filth outside the establishment deterred any customers that preferred their food to have, at some point, encountered heat or water. At the moment, Vatsy and Bruno had it all to themselves—Bruno’s shotgun and Vatsy’s personal hygiene had worked wonders in that department.

Vatsy finished eating his very meager order of Meat, Bird or Bird-Like while Bruno slurped his order of Bowl, Food or Food-Like. Vatsy consulted his notebook, letters scrawled across its entirety in a way that did not so much form as suggest a language to the casual observer.

For the next few minutes, he stared at his notes, occasionally frowning or muttering. Finally, he slammed down the notebook dramatically.

“Well, that’s a bust. Not a single one of Old Man Fergus’s leads are usable.”

Bruno gestured at the list with his spoon. “You sure, boss? Some of them sounded fine to me.”

Vatsy shook his head, exasperated. “No, see, that is why I am a journalist and you are a…sort of bodyguard-lackey person. I have the ability to detect story material, and none of this is story material.”

Bruno’s brow furrowed. “What about the one with the black-robed guy, the vampire and the half-demon?”
Vatsy shook his head. “Fergus said the robed guy would probably be interview-adverse. No go.”

“The machinist girl with the cat?”

“Interesting, but far too long.”

“The surgeon ninja?”

“Bruno, there’s fantastic, and then there’s implausible.”

Bruno shrugged, licking up the last ounce of his gruel. “So what you’re saying is, we’re back at square one.”
Vatsy nodded, sweeping off the chair. “M’fraid so, old friend, m’fraid so. Still, no point lazing about, eh? Might as well hit the streets, see if we can find something.”

Bruno got up as well. “Coming, boss.”

They started to walk down the littered street, the crowds on the sidewalk parting uneasily away from the duo. Vatsy was slightly in the lead, while Bruno followed just behind, suspicious eyes darting about constantly and staring down anyone who gawked too long at the pair. Vatsy, on the other hand, looked completely oblivious to everything around him.

After a moment, Vatsy spoke up, head inclining back towards his companion. “You know, Bruno, I’m rather glad we’re out here. All the time spent locked up in that office was making me more restless than I knew.”
Bruno nodded sagely. “It’s always good to get some fresh air, boss.”

“That it is, that it is. More than we already get through the gaping hole in our wall, anyway. Say, didn’t the landlord say he was going to fix that?”

“Believe his exact words were, ‘Sure, I’ll fix the damn wall. When you pay your damn rent, the hoodlums outside stop vandalizing my damn building, the blind get their damn vision back and I grow a pair of damn fairy wings.’”

“Ah, yes. The vandals did stop, though.”

“Well, if you don’t mind me sayin’, that caused as many problems as it solved.”

“I really don’t know what the parents were so mad about. You only grazed them.”

“Some people, boss.”

Vatsy suddenly paused, pointing towards a nearby alley.

In the alleyway in question, three men were fistfighting. The first two were sturdy, bald men dressed in excessively shabby clothes. The combined weight of their rings and tattoo ink was probably close to that of a small child, but they made up for the surplus pounds with a deficit of teeth, hair, and soap. It is usually unwise to judge based on appearances, but the pair may as well have written “unruly thug” on their foreheads.

They were, however, getting the machismo beaten out of them by the third man. He was tall and sturdy, with a square jaw and beard stubble you could sand a floor with. He wore a black leather jacket that was probably uncomfortably warm in this weather, and had a noxious cigar clenched between his teeth. He was probably not as strong as the other two fighters, but he was far quicker, and seemed to have more fighting experience.

He was also, Vatsy and Bruno noticed as they drew closer, talking nonstop.

He didn’t seem to be talking to anyone in particular, and his words were level and monotone, almost as if he were orally reciting a grocery list. His words were difficult to hear over the sounds of the violence and through the cigar, but Vatsy concentrated and was able to make them out.

“…pair ohf shtreet vehrmin, muhder in their eyes. Eht wash two to one. Tat ahmost made it a fair fight. The shcum were fasht, and shtrong, but they were…” He paused for an instant to deliver a haymaker that laid one flat. “…no match fer a proffeshional…and then, there wash one…” He ducked under the fist of the other, swinging his arm up beneath the second man’s jaw. “Adrenaline rushin’ frough me, I fin’shed the fight.”
The man paused over the unconscious bodies, removing his cigar and taking a breath. His voice came out a little clearer now.

“These rats were barely worth the time it took to put them down. Interrogation would’ve been a waste of time. I knew they wouldn’t know anything I didn’t already—they were clearly just there to slow me down.” The man replaced the cigar, turning and heading down the alleyway. “I promished myshelf I wouldn’ giff him the shatishfaction. It would on’ly be a’ matter of time.”

As he vanished down a side alley, Vatsy turned to Bruno, excitement beginning to crackle in the air around him. “Bruno…I do believe we’ve found Inspiration.”

The two of them jogged the remaining distance to the alleyway, just as one of the thugs was beginning to pull himself up. The other continued lying facedown, groaning softly and incoherently.
“Pardon me, good sirs!” Vatsy began excitedly, a manic smile on his face.

The thug getting up stabilized himself against the alley wall, squinting at the pair. His angry, bruised expression indicated that he wasn’t terribly impressed.

“Shove off.”

Vatsy continued grinning madly, seeming to ignore this command.

“Point of fact, I’m looking for volunteers to participate in a noble journalistic venture of mine, and you fellows seem like exactly what I need. Would you consent?”

The thug paused, mouth open for a moment. One could almost see his thought processes lurching down the rails of Comprehension, hitting the penny of Ignorance, being thrown free into the mercifully soft lake of Not Caring and returning bemusedly back to the station of origin.

“Shove off,” he repeated, a little more slowly and deliberately this time.

Vatsy clapped his front claws together eagerly.

“Right! Glad you’re cooperating,” he declared, as Bruno began to fidget with his satchel. “So, would you care to comment on the beating you just received?”

The thug decided a new tack had to be taken.

“Shove off, or I break you?” he tried.

Bruno saw where this conversation was going, and pulled out his diplomatic aide.

Vatsy continued.

“Would you care to comment on the beating you just received if you were going to be shot otherwise?”

The thug’s attitude changed instantly. He eyed the massive double-barreled shotgun in Bruno’s hands, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.

“Uh. Is that…a hypothetical question?” he asked after a moment, tone cautious.

Vatsy beamed even wider.

“I don’t know. Is it?”

The thug swallowed.

“So. Uh. About that beating…”

[billtodamax]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, great humour.

[Rutskarn]

Billtodamax--have you read the full version? It's all up there on my site, I just stopped editing this thread when I saw nobody wanted to comment in it.

Actually, the final, polished edit goes up tonight.