| closed / incomplete |
CHARACTERS: Famine (eatasam) & Troilus (apromisedglory)
DATE/TIME: Mid-evening
LOCATION: Near Troilus' apartment
RATING: tba
WARNINGS: ... Troilus is a warning.
SUMMARY: He needed to burn something. Even if it was himself.
It had started over a week ago.
The obscure nightmares that plagued him every night, never clear or comprehensive. The fever that seared across his skin upon waking, clouding his vision to the point where even the silhouette of his brother next to him was difficult to discern. The whisper of shadows around corners, a footstep where there could be no footsteps. And the pain, which was unbearable at night, peaked every day at the same time.
The time, Famine had assumed, when he'd died.
Even with the help of painkillers, there wasn't much help they could do when he shot up from a nightmare, unsettled and delirious. Swallowing pills had become his full-time job, had become so automatic that the bottle stayed glued on the bedside table. In the presence of crippling, knee-weakening aches, he knew where the fine line between pleasurable pain and the agonizing kind could be drawn.
He'd become jumpy. More quiet, less aware of what was occurring around him. Lost in his thoughts. A part of the horseman had broken with New York weeks ago, but now it had shattered, crushed under some invisible heel. He felt thirteen shades of wrong. As if he was living in an encasing of skin too small for this body. Not himself.
The last week had marked something remarkably like mutism from Famine, who barely spoke a word to Pestilence on a daily basis. Danger, suddenly, appealed to him every angle it came. Every knife, every razor, every blunt object. He had to test his level of existence, had to sneak in a cut just to make sure he'd bleed.
But it wasn't enough.
Friday evening found him sitting on the back of a bench, hood pulled over his head, but not to protect him from the rain. Otherwise, he might not have been perched there in the midst of an approaching thunderstorm. Empty. That was how he felt. Alive, dead? Was it a dream, was it reality? Was he dreaming this right now, in reality back in the excessive warmth of his bed? Only one way to be sure.
His Zippo felt weightless in his hand as he flicked it open, then closed. Open, close. Open, close. The flame seemed brighter than the street lamp above him. Fire, burning, sut and ash. Memories of the weeks before, ingrained in his memory.
He was a Horseman who'd been served his death. It might not have been a problem, as no one could escape it in a mortal shell, but it was the revival that shook him to the core. A taker of life given it in return like the rest of them? They had been right; they weren't special. They were all the same, all of them being jerked around like puppets, kicked across a chess board like the useless front line of pawns.
Yet they'd been kept alive. For what purpose, more games?
Famine was tired of games.
He ignited the lighter and held his palm a couple of inches above the flame, dropping his hand closer and closer until the heat became too much, and the flame went out. Rinse, repeat. Rain was getting in the way of him burning much, but he'd settle for the heat for now, every attempt bringing his palm closer to blistering.
DATE/TIME: Mid-evening
LOCATION: Near Troilus' apartment
RATING: tba
WARNINGS: ... Troilus is a warning.
SUMMARY: He needed to burn something. Even if it was himself.
It had started over a week ago.
The obscure nightmares that plagued him every night, never clear or comprehensive. The fever that seared across his skin upon waking, clouding his vision to the point where even the silhouette of his brother next to him was difficult to discern. The whisper of shadows around corners, a footstep where there could be no footsteps. And the pain, which was unbearable at night, peaked every day at the same time.
The time, Famine had assumed, when he'd died.
Even with the help of painkillers, there wasn't much help they could do when he shot up from a nightmare, unsettled and delirious. Swallowing pills had become his full-time job, had become so automatic that the bottle stayed glued on the bedside table. In the presence of crippling, knee-weakening aches, he knew where the fine line between pleasurable pain and the agonizing kind could be drawn.
He'd become jumpy. More quiet, less aware of what was occurring around him. Lost in his thoughts. A part of the horseman had broken with New York weeks ago, but now it had shattered, crushed under some invisible heel. He felt thirteen shades of wrong. As if he was living in an encasing of skin too small for this body. Not himself.
The last week had marked something remarkably like mutism from Famine, who barely spoke a word to Pestilence on a daily basis. Danger, suddenly, appealed to him every angle it came. Every knife, every razor, every blunt object. He had to test his level of existence, had to sneak in a cut just to make sure he'd bleed.
But it wasn't enough.
Friday evening found him sitting on the back of a bench, hood pulled over his head, but not to protect him from the rain. Otherwise, he might not have been perched there in the midst of an approaching thunderstorm. Empty. That was how he felt. Alive, dead? Was it a dream, was it reality? Was he dreaming this right now, in reality back in the excessive warmth of his bed? Only one way to be sure.
His Zippo felt weightless in his hand as he flicked it open, then closed. Open, close. Open, close. The flame seemed brighter than the street lamp above him. Fire, burning, sut and ash. Memories of the weeks before, ingrained in his memory.
He was a Horseman who'd been served his death. It might not have been a problem, as no one could escape it in a mortal shell, but it was the revival that shook him to the core. A taker of life given it in return like the rest of them? They had been right; they weren't special. They were all the same, all of them being jerked around like puppets, kicked across a chess board like the useless front line of pawns.
Yet they'd been kept alive. For what purpose, more games?
Famine was tired of games.
He ignited the lighter and held his palm a couple of inches above the flame, dropping his hand closer and closer until the heat became too much, and the flame went out. Rinse, repeat. Rain was getting in the way of him burning much, but he'd settle for the heat for now, every attempt bringing his palm closer to blistering.