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reckoner) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
spellbinders2018-01-02 07:11 pm
reckoner) wrote in spellbinders2018-01-02 07:11 pm
[spiders in my head]
Who: Gaelio Bauduin, a very bad time, you...? like. it could be you. i'm sorry if it's you.
Where: Around Shehui (see prompts)
When: Day 187
Open/Closed: Open!
About??: warnings for uh. . . tl;dr and a VERY BAD TIME. Including bloody imagery! McGillis Fareeddropped disappeared. This is a problem for Gaelio Bauduin. AND MAYBE YOU, SUCKER.
[ A - OUT AND ABOUT ]
[ Four days ago, his telepathic nudge rebounded, making certain what he has spent every hour since struggling against: McGillis Fareed had been released. The pain of it a guarantee, but with Qri missing, he had room to suspect Shehui. Julieta had torn her signet from her chest. Having assisted through that, it's unlikely that McGillis would had replicated the experience -- this not the successful experimentation of Ein and his A-V. But, if Shehui had take notice...
But, the monitors were unreceptive and unhelpful. Four days, and he sleeps less and less, three of them in the throes of migraines born of sending nudge after word after demand, each and every firing back. He takes more shifts here and there, the first at the bakery, knowing for which he'd signed up.
So you might have seen him there, a terse employee. You might have seen him storming through the halls, approaching the apartment that once bore that name, along with Yusuke and Carmilla. You might have been in that apartment and questioned. Severe, but restrained, not yet on the brink.
Maybe, instead, having a slight existential crisis in a supermarket, staring at a shelf for fifteen minutes without moving. Or, with twitching jerks of his chin back over his shoulder, convinced of someone in the periphery. Someone who might, indeed, flicker, until he looks.
Still, nothing too alarming. But... ]
[ B - HADAN ]
[ But by the evening of the fourth day, flowers cover more and more of the city. The bakery's closed in mourning. Hadan, explained a citizen. We bid farewell to the lost. Thick, redolent petals. Throbbing skull, straining eyes, conversation cycling through his head, a broken and jarring loop.
Fate had a hand in bringing us here, or we would not be here. That the two of us were chosen for it...
At a corner, he leans a dizzy moment against a post, hand braced in woven stems. ]
The machinations of a parasitic witch, after all.
[ Beneath his breath. His fingers beginning to fist.
You might reassess when and where you want to kill me.
Tighter, white-knuckled. But they had stepped past the constraints of her Fate, seizing their own, or hadn't they? What else if both kept trapped, regardless of the rest, if speech exposed, if he only killed his enemies, but
My enemy, the facts of our births assuring it, but... my only friend. All that I know of friendship.
But he isn't here. Truce dissipated, fleeting steps toward understanding stopped against a precipice, no path forward.
Is it possible we're meant to understand something in this world before we'll be able to return to our own?
What had McGillis understood? Leaving him behind once more, to stew in incomprehension. Perhaps they had gotten it wrong. Perhaps losing his resolution yet again had been a misstep. But whether he was meant to understand him or meant to kill him, one anomaly remains: he can do neither without him. ]
Then why --
[ Gaelio wrenches the flowers from the post, swinging out and back, ]
-- am I still here?!
[ slamming his fist into the side of a building. Pain ricochets up his arm. He looks down, dully, as blood seeps from his knuckles, around the petals clenched.
It's only then he notices he almost hit someone in the process. ]
...Sorry.
[ He doesn't sound it, but in that moment, he doesn't sound much of anything. ]
[ C - GHOSTS ]
[ Close to midnight, less likely any would walk through this park. The night's close to temperate in this regulated climate, the snow gone with the season. Gaelio sits against a tree trunk, directly across from a bench.
The bench is empty, unless you step close enough for the illusion to catch. He does not intend for it to catch, but he's sloppy with the spread in the moment, with control. Evidenced enough by how the two figures that materialize keep shifting.
A serious young man, slight and uniformed. Or, without arms, without legs, protrusions down his spine. Sometimes his eyes glow red. An imperious woman. Or, weeping and bloodied, dying.
Gaelio sits, stares. To his left a piling of flowers, some taken from the buildings in fits and starts, some purchased. To his right, a rather stereotypical bottle, as though a drunken hobo in a park -- but it's wine and it hasn't been uncorked. In his lap, his hand is a pulpy mess, blood still dripping. He might have lashed out against the inanimate a few more times.
The woman speaks: We were both losers, weren't we? If we hadn't been, he wouldn't have...
But her voice fails, gurgling blood. ]
Rest Carta. Please, I --
[ The young man interjects, eyes red, buzzing through his head, around him: If you weren't going to kill him, you should have let me die.
That shuts him up, as if struck. When he puts his head in his hand, he leaves red streaks on his cheek, in his hair. ]
I know. I know. I know. Ein... What should I do?
[ A haggard question, meant for the dead, but on hearing someone (y..ou?) approach, chin snapping up and eyes fixing, it's as though he asks you. ]
Where: Around Shehui (see prompts)
When: Day 187
Open/Closed: Open!
About??: warnings for uh. . . tl;dr and a VERY BAD TIME. Including bloody imagery! McGillis Fareed
[ A - OUT AND ABOUT ]
[ Four days ago, his telepathic nudge rebounded, making certain what he has spent every hour since struggling against: McGillis Fareed had been released. The pain of it a guarantee, but with Qri missing, he had room to suspect Shehui. Julieta had torn her signet from her chest. Having assisted through that, it's unlikely that McGillis would had replicated the experience -- this not the successful experimentation of Ein and his A-V. But, if Shehui had take notice...
But, the monitors were unreceptive and unhelpful. Four days, and he sleeps less and less, three of them in the throes of migraines born of sending nudge after word after demand, each and every firing back. He takes more shifts here and there, the first at the bakery, knowing for which he'd signed up.
So you might have seen him there, a terse employee. You might have seen him storming through the halls, approaching the apartment that once bore that name, along with Yusuke and Carmilla. You might have been in that apartment and questioned. Severe, but restrained, not yet on the brink.
Maybe, instead, having a slight existential crisis in a supermarket, staring at a shelf for fifteen minutes without moving. Or, with twitching jerks of his chin back over his shoulder, convinced of someone in the periphery. Someone who might, indeed, flicker, until he looks.
Still, nothing too alarming. But... ]
[ B - HADAN ]
[ But by the evening of the fourth day, flowers cover more and more of the city. The bakery's closed in mourning. Hadan, explained a citizen. We bid farewell to the lost. Thick, redolent petals. Throbbing skull, straining eyes, conversation cycling through his head, a broken and jarring loop.
Fate had a hand in bringing us here, or we would not be here. That the two of us were chosen for it...
At a corner, he leans a dizzy moment against a post, hand braced in woven stems. ]
The machinations of a parasitic witch, after all.
[ Beneath his breath. His fingers beginning to fist.
You might reassess when and where you want to kill me.
Tighter, white-knuckled. But they had stepped past the constraints of her Fate, seizing their own, or hadn't they? What else if both kept trapped, regardless of the rest, if speech exposed, if he only killed his enemies, but
My enemy, the facts of our births assuring it, but... my only friend. All that I know of friendship.
But he isn't here. Truce dissipated, fleeting steps toward understanding stopped against a precipice, no path forward.
Is it possible we're meant to understand something in this world before we'll be able to return to our own?
What had McGillis understood? Leaving him behind once more, to stew in incomprehension. Perhaps they had gotten it wrong. Perhaps losing his resolution yet again had been a misstep. But whether he was meant to understand him or meant to kill him, one anomaly remains: he can do neither without him. ]
Then why --
[ Gaelio wrenches the flowers from the post, swinging out and back, ]
-- am I still here?!
[ slamming his fist into the side of a building. Pain ricochets up his arm. He looks down, dully, as blood seeps from his knuckles, around the petals clenched.
It's only then he notices he almost hit someone in the process. ]
...Sorry.
[ He doesn't sound it, but in that moment, he doesn't sound much of anything. ]
[ C - GHOSTS ]
[ Close to midnight, less likely any would walk through this park. The night's close to temperate in this regulated climate, the snow gone with the season. Gaelio sits against a tree trunk, directly across from a bench.
The bench is empty, unless you step close enough for the illusion to catch. He does not intend for it to catch, but he's sloppy with the spread in the moment, with control. Evidenced enough by how the two figures that materialize keep shifting.
A serious young man, slight and uniformed. Or, without arms, without legs, protrusions down his spine. Sometimes his eyes glow red. An imperious woman. Or, weeping and bloodied, dying.
Gaelio sits, stares. To his left a piling of flowers, some taken from the buildings in fits and starts, some purchased. To his right, a rather stereotypical bottle, as though a drunken hobo in a park -- but it's wine and it hasn't been uncorked. In his lap, his hand is a pulpy mess, blood still dripping. He might have lashed out against the inanimate a few more times.
The woman speaks: We were both losers, weren't we? If we hadn't been, he wouldn't have...
But her voice fails, gurgling blood. ]
Rest Carta. Please, I --
[ The young man interjects, eyes red, buzzing through his head, around him: If you weren't going to kill him, you should have let me die.
That shuts him up, as if struck. When he puts his head in his hand, he leaves red streaks on his cheek, in his hair. ]
I know. I know. I know. Ein... What should I do?
[ A haggard question, meant for the dead, but on hearing someone (y..ou?) approach, chin snapping up and eyes fixing, it's as though he asks you. ]
no subject
[Someone is gone. Who? He reaches for the hand and carefully Inspects the damage. It’s going to be tricky. He’ll have to convince him to let a real medic see to his wounds. His eyes still on the injured hand, he reaches for the cloth.]
People leave here. But sometimes they come back. I don’t know how it works exactly. If we find the Qri, you can ask her.
no subject
As Shiro takes his hand, it hangs limp, Gaelio's eyes fixed past him. Forgotten, because for them he had to strike that man down. Beyond the truce born of the inappropriateness of the island as stage to that task, came the rain. Came the understanding that he could not land that blow, once that man had spoken friend. Must he have erred in that, and in what followed, given what such understanding makes true? That -- ]
They are forgotten.
[ Hushed, watching as a tear trickles down Carta's cheek, her eyes darkening. ]
Hadn't that been on the list? Qri didn't answer it.
[ An attempt he should make, to focus on the closer man, the one he needn't use power to give form and touch. A grounding tether through their hands. Though loath to permit them beyond to blur, he looks for his face, sharper detail first in the scar across the bridge of his nose. ]
What if I told you to go?
no subject
The Qri didn’t answer a lot of things. She promised us an audience in the future.
[Mindful of the swelling he cleans up the blood and carefully applies pressure to the area still bleeding. If Gaelio told him to go he wouldn’t. The question still hangs in the air until he decides to say something. He has dealt with his own slips privately and without any fanfare. How can he help him? He pauses, thinking it over.]
I can’t leave you like this. If the monitors come for you I’ll lead them away. But don’t ask me to abandon you here. I’ve lost a team to hostile forces before. I won’t do it again.
Not even at a request.
no subject
[ Far in the future, if she's missing. Not until they get off this planet, having found and fed her. Or, found that which would feed. Missing, yet capable still of removing him, signet and whole. Gaelio's fingers begin to curl -- both hands, toward fists, but his battered right cannot comply, stiff and protesting, pained. His thumb retains a touch more mobility, brushing either cleaning cloth or the finger moving, pressing; insensible to which. Pain a sharp constant from the pressure. ]
Lost a team.
[ Echoed faintly, Shiro wavering in and out of focus. Where he is clear, they distort. But they wait, they wait. They've no other choice.
He keeps them, without the right to keep them, because he'd lost them. ]
Someone like you, I admire.
[ Dark-haired, serious. Unshakable focus and loyalty. Part of him given to machine. Utterly different, and yet, how definition bleeds tonight. ]
But... I'm not your responsibility, Shiro.
no subject
Shiro sets the cleaning cloth aside to get a better look at the damage to Gaelio's hand. He frowns and reaches for the salve.]
You...know your hand is probably broken, right?
[Field dressing it could give him more time to get it attention.]
This really needs to be seen to or you could get an infection.
no subject
If Gaelio is foolish, deteriorated enough to sit here and invite discovery and consequence, then he alone must take the blow. Shiro might not be his subordinate, neither responsible for the other, but what responsibility and support both reduce to in this is a identical core: assistance.
Gaelio looks from Shiro's face, to his ghosts on the bench, to his hand. He blinks, and his hand smooths over. Spreading the illusion to show unmarred skin, no oozing blood, no swelling, no uncomfortable angles.
The illusion flexes fingers. Gaelio shrugs. ]
I don't know.
[ Reaching back then, with that hand. It looks as though he uses it, palm and fingers to bark, to brace himself as he struggles to his feet. The illusion misleads, of course: in actuality, the back of his wrist's bent against it. His hand shakes, and the quiver travels down his arm, disguised.
But, really. To maintain all this through the pain, though he's known far worse, he must have improved.
And once standing, he looks down. ]
I'm on my feet. Thanks.
[ Voice empty, the curve on his lips ghastly. His eyes unfocused, flicking between Shiro and the young man on the bench.
But Ein had rasped, his last in human tongue, that Gaelio had given him the legs to stand again. So Ein had given Gaelio, after the devastation of that man. Together, they'll stand -- but to what end? ]
I can't let you do more, Shiro.
no subject
'I can't let you do more.'
It sounds a bit too much like 'I'll take it all on myself' he's heard before. From too many people usually right before they died or nearly died. This isn't a war. Not yet, anyway. That level of sacrifice doesn't have to happen. He takes two steps closer and pitches his voice low.]
I didn't mean it literally. What are you going to do when you run out of energy to keep this up? What the hell happened to cause you to slip like this? You don't have to tell me, but I won't leave you.
[He carefully glances around. No monitors in this area. If he has to change shape and take up a watch post on a roof, he can do it.]
no subject
No, his fragmented capacity for thought had not anticipated it. Already strung along fumes, given how little he's slept these last days, given the ongoing aching of his skull. The asinine practice of projecting Dirk's films inadvertently good preparation for this, but he must be wearing thin.
The fact of that presents itself now, stark, emphasized by how still Ein and Carta have been on the bench. He stares at them, expression bleak, then dulling. ]
Take a nap.
[ The immediate, faint answer, but it's half-hearted and sinking. Gaelio lifts his left hand to Shiro's shoulder, meaning to push past him as he stands too close, too incisive, but that gesture, also -- half-hearted, sinking.
What then? Wake up here or there, his hand certainly broken, having already spoken strange to two monitors. McGillis gone and so nothing resolved. Qri missing, able to take and release, but no closer to satisfying so to guarantee his departure, to return and -- what? There, in the thick of the conflict. Would they remember, had they understood enough here?
The illusion over his hand flickers. Gaelio glances down, half-remembering the pain, takes a weaving, wobbling step. But it's toward Shiro, in his unsteadiness, and his hand keeps on his shoulder, leaning.
but I won't leave you. ]
Seriously... it's too late. Sorry.
[ What happened? ]
He left, they came. So you will, you can. I'm not someone to say with.
no subject
The words had remained burning away in the back of his mind. He leaves them there to focus on Gaelio. He can see it in his eyes if he left him here, he'd collapse or fall prey to monitors. He still might. A butterfly could probably score a knock out blow by landing on his shoulder.]
It's never too late. There's always a chance no matter how bleak it looks. No matter what you have to do...it never goes away.
[There is always a spark of possibility. He'd have never made it in the arena if he hadn't believed that. Under the hot glare of the lights, while aliens he'd never known existed tried to slaughter him, he'd kept that belief.
Even at his lowest, he'll fight, clutching that belief like a talisman to drive him forward. He'll just keep pushing himself back up from the brink. As many times as it takes. He reaches out with one hand to steady Gaelio.
He raises his other hand up, letting it hover but not touch him. Not yet.]
Yes, I might leave. But that's in the future and right now I have a say where I'll be. Let me help you.
no subject
I'm not someone to stay with.]Never? What chance in death?
[ Rather than pulling away, his hand more than keeps. Fingers begin to dig where he holds, the bracing support of Shiro's shoulder. Not with the intent to hurt, but with the effort of staying upright. While seated, his mind adrift in his own haunting, he'd less realized how near he'd tottered to his limit. ]
She's dead.
[ More of the ghost now, as though by saying it, he makes it so, because he does. Gazing past Shiro, Carta becomes transparent, the slated wood backing the bench visible through her chest. Blood drying down her chin as her head lolls, lifeless, to the side. ]
Ein is...
[ Red-eyed, but disappearing. Less than transparent, less than oscillating image, only red, glowing. Eerie lights that seem to fill the air, the illusion settling around them like thickening mist. ]
With me? Ein?
[ Without Kimaris Vidar, without Alaya-Vijnana Type E, can he be certain? The implants in his neck, connection, cool or thrumming? He hadn't wanted to leave him in the dark, alone and dishonored. As though it had been Ein who was lonesome, disembodied and dismantled, remnants coded and gutted. No, with him, together, because he wasn't alone -- given legs, swinging blade, to fell.
But. ]
I let him go.
[ Cracked out, beginning to sag. These last days and before it. He'd kept and dragged Ein with him, no, yes, that, to take hold of McGillis, for them. But stayed his hand. But he's gone. Gaelio's right hand reaches, reflexive, for the back of his neck. The metal beneath his collar. As soon as shredded skin brushes, his hand spasms back.
He's gone, and Gaelio can't even keep the light on. Can't even keep on his feet without Shiro's hand. Can't even keep his own hand grasping -- or shouldn't. Shouldn't.
I won't leave you. Yes, I might leave. Let me help you.
Shouldn't. ]
Everyone leaves. [ Simply, his knees beginning to give. If Shiro doesn't make use of his other hand, he might just crash. ] I couldn't keep hold. I can't.
no subject
What the hell does he say here? For once he has no damn clue. His own horrific nightmares and trauma he shuts the door on the moment their rear their ugly heads. If his mind were a place it would be a long hallway lit by purple lights with rows of doors on each side. He can't afford to allow those doors to slide open.
Shiro sighs, looking around as subtly as he dares.]
I told you. Right now, I'm staying. You don't have to keep holding on...Lean on me. Let me handle things for a while. Until you can get back on your feet I'll do the heavy lifting.