Nightshift 43: Kitchen

Sep 03, 2009 12:47

[From here.]With both his hands full Sync had been expecting Anise to light their way, keeping his steps slow and cautious as he walked ( Read more... )

jun, albedo, venom, anise, nigredo, edward cullen, dahlia, rubedo, sync

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poolcuemurder September 17 2009, 02:53:55 UTC
[From here]

It was empty in here. Good. That meant he wasn't going to have to expend his rapidly decreasing energy for anything else this night. Still, he kept an eye on the doors to the cafeteria in the off-chance they were being followed. Call it healthy paranoia (though any of his paranoia at this time was likely less healthy and more in the steadily 'trying not to lose his mind' department).

"If the water doesn't run," he started, moving to the shelves to drop his bat and look for anything sharp enough to cut through cloth, "there has to be ice in the freezer. If the electricity is off and the ice has melted, at least there's water." It came out surprisingly weak, but, for some reason, every movement of his body felt more and more forced and it was obviously taking a toll on his usual commanding presence. He kept moving though, determined to make up for his failures with the other group.

It normally wasn't his place to help those who needed it (he was an assassin. He killed people for a living. Why was he helping them?), but ( ... )

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sanguinario September 17 2009, 21:52:18 UTC
It seemed impossible to concentrate on the task at hand, his mind offering pain in sacrifice for the ability he thought he had lost only a short time ago. The images were disjointed, the edges burned black like a old, unpreserved film reel - Mother; a blond woman, hair coiled around her like serpents; a blind man, his unnatural voice still chanting, screaming, screaming - and now the quick, shuffling images from his Jun, a bold statement contradicting his roommate's seemingly quiet demeanor. Unlike the other man, Jun was not handling them well, either.

Shield, shield. Imagining a brick wall, a steel door - any metaphorical wall to keep the onslaught of memories and pained thoughts from flooding his already fatigued mind. The pressure only seemed to grow... it had never been so bad. The thoughts he heard were always unwelcome, invading and violating his own perception, but always manageable. Always... subject to filter.

Not now. It was either hear everything or hear nothing at all.

What is this place?With the shorter man's words ( ... )

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poolcuemurder September 18 2009, 03:37:12 UTC
Venom took the shirt away, but the man began moving about the room immediately after, effectively giving him no time to examine the extent of the wounds. He wasn't a doctor, no, but he knew injuries and basic first aid well enough and had been perfectly willing to be of assistance despite his better judgment. With a small sigh, he went to follow behind him, placing the burned cloth on the counter for now--

"Venom." Her voice cut through the air again, exasperated and condescending just from having seen him. "Finally decided to show yourself?"

It was disconcerting to hear himself answer back, especially in a slightly younger and still emotive voice. There was no mistaking the hate in his words. "Why did you betray him?"

"Betray him?" She scoffed, unfazed. "Are you joking? He was only using me as a convenient chess piece. A woman has a right to do the same to him, you know."No. He wasn't listening to this. His hand tightened around the knife in his hand as he followed in the taller man's footsteps and began to search for a first aid ( ... )

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sanguinario September 18 2009, 04:46:37 UTC
He should have moved away from the sink. He was no Alice, but he should have known -

The spontaneous burst of blood from Jun's chest was overpowering; a heavy weight bearing on his head in combination with two sets of memories - the wound it was her's, it was Maya's - "Betray him? Are you joking?" - and his instinct chanted finishitfinishitfinishit as his throat burst into an inferno, a terrible, longing burning that demanded liquid to slate the flames. The blood, so much blood and so fresh and warm and god the smell -

Edward's retreat was immediate and violent; he shrank away against the counter to the other end of the room, his hands scrambling over utensils and pots that clanged against each other and on to the floor. There was blood staining his nose, staining his mind, the memory of the girl that Jun thought of and her mortal wounds -

"It will be over soon, honey," his mother taunted him, her voice echoing louder than every thought scrambling his own memory. Her hand extended over the ravine between their beds; her fingers ( ... )

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poolcuemurder September 19 2009, 01:47:27 UTC
Seeing someone die wasn't anything new to him, but that didn't mean he liked it. He hated seeing a person bleed out and avoided it if he could, but the other man's plain insistence to almost throw himself across the room and away from the sight was incredibly pitiful. He would have chastised him if the situation didn't call for all of his attention to be on the now-more injured one, even if everyone already seemed to know his fate. From the way the man removed himself from the counter and left the room, even he knew he didn't have time left ( ... )

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sanguinario September 19 2009, 04:16:35 UTC
This is why I'll never be Carlisle. Edward could only nod dumbly at his roommate, watching with blackened eyes as the blood followed him out, a ragged trail of blood that stained the tiles of the kitchen. What good was his trove of medical knowledge if he couldn't even put it to use? He had seen the wound - smelled the blood pumping out frantically - and had known it was fatal. That was the smile of a boy on death row.

It had been a long, long time since he had seen a human die in front of him; at least where he wasn't the cause of the death. And if he tried to help... well, there wouldn't be any helping. It would end in him slaving back to his thirst like he had seventy years ago.

But what could have caused such a wound? - No, he knew what could have. He had seen it in Jun's memory. But that didn't explain how the wound had spontaneously appearing in his roommate's chest, when moments ago he had simply been burned.

He couldn't - he couldn't think; the headache from the surrounding memories had moved on from its vicious assault, ( ... )

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poolcuemurder September 19 2009, 04:45:44 UTC
"What are you laughing at?"

His vision started to fade again, leaving inky nothingness behind before flashing back to normal, then dimming once more. Where his movements may have gotten stiff and forced over the night, they were fluid now that each step was completely out of his control, replaying each and every minuscule gesture the thing had forced upon Master Zato when speaking with her. "You're the same as me," he answered over the incredibly sickly coughing in the room, the words slipping out of his throat without his consent.

Millia hadn't said anything to that, only letting out an exhale of breath as she prepared herself for the oncoming battle. Venom, on the other hand, could only scream inside of himself as he tried to regain control of his body, try to stop the steps toward the sick man in the room and keep himself from reenacting this horrible story any more.

He couldn't let this happen. This wasn't going to happen to him and he wouldn't let anyone come to harm because of this parasite. It needed him to survive. It ( ... )

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sanguinario September 19 2009, 05:10:19 UTC
If all of the man's thoughts - all of his memories and his screams and the second, separate voice in his head - weren't pouring into his own, he wouldn't have seen the knife in his hand, nor the intentional arc of its movement straight for his body. The coughing fit was quickly sucking all of the energy reserves of his body dry -

Dry, dry, just like the thirst, the monster chanted -

- but it was desperate, just as he was, to survive. Though his movements seemed sluggish to himself, it was with a quick movement that Edward pushed against the counter, his body sliding along the tile floor and away from the knife.

A knife. A kitchen knife. Something he had never feared before.

If he hadn't thought it himself, the vampire wouldn't have had a name for what had overtaken the shorter man. A parasite. And like its own presence, it had nestled neatly into the man's mind, creating a dark space to call its own. On and on its memories played while a scream repeated in the background ( ... )

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poolcuemurder September 19 2009, 06:10:20 UTC
It was a small victory the stranger moved out of the way. Very, very small. His body kept moving without him, but there was a different pain now, different from the burning of his muscles. It was a sharp, unfathomable pain in his chest as Millia's memory retaliated, tore into his already weakened flesh with those sharpened strands of hair as she dodged away from that first attack. His vision returned to him as the feel of blood accumulating in his lungs numbed out how tired he was. His control, however, refused to come back. It had to come back...

The hand not gripping the knife reached for Millia's- no, it wasn't Millia, it was the stranger, an innocent person who was mostly likely already suffering their own demise, why couldn't he stop this?! - throat, pulling her closer. Darkness surrounded around them like a bubble and he rose the blade in his hand, howling with insane laughter as he plunged it toward the woman's heart ( ... )

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sanguinario September 19 2009, 20:56:17 UTC
Her face didn't last. As solidly as he had created it, though he had poured his strength into dying with it, it wavered and faded as his companion lost himself. Body lax, completely drained, he simply awaited the fate - maybe the knife would be smoother, finally deadly to him. That would be acceptable, quicker than the disease rotting away his organs at an increased rate. He always wondered how a human death would feel. Edward had felt its beginnings, but not its ends ( ... )

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