sunday_reveries: Another clever word sets off an unsuspecting herd...
OOC: Takes place after this thread. Weirdly stream of conscious-y. Quoth the magi, "Reading fic does not enable you to fly."
sunday_reveries : "Pain is savage. It grabs us and throws us against the wall. We have to lay where it throws us down. It declares itself supreme autocrat. It is ruthless. It holds us so that we may not look away, and it does not respond to pleas that it subside. If it subsides, that is its prerogative. When it insists, it is without mercy.
It is the most undeniable form of god."
-- Marilyn Krysl
Whatever governing body dictated proper form in apartment complexes usually forbade cat doors, but those people clearly never ran an apartment that could very easily be populated by shapeshifters and their sentient cats. As such, Sark had one installed at the earliest convenience for just such occasions as this. Never before was he as grateful for it as he was now.
It was a miracle he managed the shift at all in his state- all told, it could have been worse, however- and he was very concerned about making the shift back. All the way back to the flat, he was weighing the merits of just remaining a ferret forever, but the thought had scared the hell out of him enough to banish it quickly. He has enough problems with maintaining his identity without adding cognitive suicide to the mix. He didn't want to be stuck like this, even if sometimes it struck him as easier.
If he were all that concerned with what's easier, he wouldn't do half the things he does.
He spent longer than necessary trying to wriggle in through the cat door and wound up in a pained ball on the floor in front of the door before he managed to regain his composure and started wobbling towards the bathroom in dizzy, disoriented movements- apparently, mild head and throat injuries are a lot more annoying in a ferret. The bathroom door, thankfully, was open a crack and he wriggled into the tiny space, the door opening slightly more at the attempt and allowing him entrance. From there, he collapsed into a tired, uncomfortable heap and focused on shifting back.
It hurt- more than it usually did, but not as bad as the forced shift he'd had to endure thanks to the taser. By the time he was back in human shape, he was shaking and panting on the floor again from the strain put on already bruising muscles. Five seconds later, he was clambering to his feet with a growl. He certainly got beaten enough to be accustomed to pain by now.
"Gods, was everyone who put their hands on you so obsessed with the endgame?"
Poor word choice. Sark would have preferred anything but that- everyone who tortured him, everyone who broke him. When put like that, it just sounds like every act of physical contact he's ever had has been in pursuit of some endgame, twisted into something perverse that makes him shudder. He leaned heavily on the sink, staring at his own reflection with the same look of cold murder that he showed Clark, taking note of the rapidly spreading bruises on his neck and chest, the dirt caking his shoulders and settling in his hair. He lifted a hand to try to rub the grit out of his blonde curls and was promptly stopped by the memory of Clark's fingers in his hair.
He heaved and dropped back down to the floor, the fingers of one hand still gripping the edge of the sink like a lifeline. He cursed himself before he ever cursed Clark, because he was behaving like a child. Nothing happened that should rattle him this much, except the mere act of that much intimate physical contact from another man (a man with the proper physicality to completely dominate him if he so wished) made his chest constrict and makes him think of things best left not thought about. And Clark could have done something, even if he didn't. Defiance is all well and good, but he was the one naked and injured, the one being thrown down on the ground, the one with Clark practically on top of him...
"Now sit, and be good, before I kiss you."
He sucked in another sharp breath, fingers slipping off the sink. He was going to kill that bastard if he ever saw him again- that much was certain. The last thing he needed was one more person trying to break him, one more person who could terrify him....
Or was that precisely what he wanted?
"You don't want to die. You want to stop trying, maybe, but more than that you want to stop losing. Losing one final, terminal time is just a nice way to go down in flames."
It would make so much sense if he'd bother to consider it. His inconsistent, confusing, utterly erratic behavior is just some sign of a slow descent into madness and rather than try to pull himself out of it, he's throwing himself at curiosities with the intention of either winning or losing. Either option would do, really. Winning proves that he's not some worthless wretch doomed to a life of constant failure, because this world isn't precisely generous to his kind. Losing lets him end it all and he's scared enough of dying that no one could ever call it suicide, even if that's precisely what it is. It's suicide for someone who can't bear the thought of dying- maybe he'll die or maybe he'll shatter so hard, it won't even matter. Either way, he'd go down in flames and that would be the story of him.
Was he ever playing to win? Or was he just playing to lose and startling himself when he got exactly what he wanted. Consistent feelings on the subject would be nice. Not feeling like this at all would be better.
This never happened when April was alive.
It wasn't as if he was lacking in camaraderie, but it seemed to be getting harder to be around the people he actually bothered to care about, like it would become painfully obvious that he was losing his grip on sanity- April would have just known and understood. He already lost it in front of Harkness in a sad attempt to get him to finish a job he never should have started to begin with. He was teetering on the edge of an utter breaking point and once that happened, he wasn't sure where he was going to be standing anymore. People either keep trying to break him or refusing to and he's in the middle of it all, wanting to tear his hair out.
Pain was becoming his new master and he was always such a dutiful little servant. It left him shaking and reeling in the aftermath and scared the hell out of him when it was happening, but when everything fell back into place, he actually felt alive. Alive, but weak and incompetent, and the trade-off wasn't much better than the misery. He love to be back on top of his game, proving to people that he wasn't just this universe's punching bag, but that would actually involve finding someone he can beat and, thus far, that tactic hadn't really done much more than get a sociopath interested in tormenting him and for what? Probably no reason in particular. That would certainly mesh well with every other bit of madness in this universe, now wouldn't it?
He gritted his teeth and drew his knees to his chest, tapping the back of his head against the sink, lightly enough to not exacerbate his aching head. If his world was going to get anymore fucked up anytime soon, he would like to be made aware of it preemptively. He could handle the utter lack of mercy, fight tooth and nail through all the pain, and try to cling to his sanity through everything, but he was growing really, really tired of the surprises.
Muse: Julian Sark
Word Count: 1542
sunday_reveries : "Pain is savage. It grabs us and throws us against the wall. We have to lay where it throws us down. It declares itself supreme autocrat. It is ruthless. It holds us so that we may not look away, and it does not respond to pleas that it subside. If it subsides, that is its prerogative. When it insists, it is without mercy.
It is the most undeniable form of god."
-- Marilyn Krysl
Whatever governing body dictated proper form in apartment complexes usually forbade cat doors, but those people clearly never ran an apartment that could very easily be populated by shapeshifters and their sentient cats. As such, Sark had one installed at the earliest convenience for just such occasions as this. Never before was he as grateful for it as he was now.
It was a miracle he managed the shift at all in his state- all told, it could have been worse, however- and he was very concerned about making the shift back. All the way back to the flat, he was weighing the merits of just remaining a ferret forever, but the thought had scared the hell out of him enough to banish it quickly. He has enough problems with maintaining his identity without adding cognitive suicide to the mix. He didn't want to be stuck like this, even if sometimes it struck him as easier.
If he were all that concerned with what's easier, he wouldn't do half the things he does.
He spent longer than necessary trying to wriggle in through the cat door and wound up in a pained ball on the floor in front of the door before he managed to regain his composure and started wobbling towards the bathroom in dizzy, disoriented movements- apparently, mild head and throat injuries are a lot more annoying in a ferret. The bathroom door, thankfully, was open a crack and he wriggled into the tiny space, the door opening slightly more at the attempt and allowing him entrance. From there, he collapsed into a tired, uncomfortable heap and focused on shifting back.
It hurt- more than it usually did, but not as bad as the forced shift he'd had to endure thanks to the taser. By the time he was back in human shape, he was shaking and panting on the floor again from the strain put on already bruising muscles. Five seconds later, he was clambering to his feet with a growl. He certainly got beaten enough to be accustomed to pain by now.
"Gods, was everyone who put their hands on you so obsessed with the endgame?"
Poor word choice. Sark would have preferred anything but that- everyone who tortured him, everyone who broke him. When put like that, it just sounds like every act of physical contact he's ever had has been in pursuit of some endgame, twisted into something perverse that makes him shudder. He leaned heavily on the sink, staring at his own reflection with the same look of cold murder that he showed Clark, taking note of the rapidly spreading bruises on his neck and chest, the dirt caking his shoulders and settling in his hair. He lifted a hand to try to rub the grit out of his blonde curls and was promptly stopped by the memory of Clark's fingers in his hair.
He heaved and dropped back down to the floor, the fingers of one hand still gripping the edge of the sink like a lifeline. He cursed himself before he ever cursed Clark, because he was behaving like a child. Nothing happened that should rattle him this much, except the mere act of that much intimate physical contact from another man (a man with the proper physicality to completely dominate him if he so wished) made his chest constrict and makes him think of things best left not thought about. And Clark could have done something, even if he didn't. Defiance is all well and good, but he was the one naked and injured, the one being thrown down on the ground, the one with Clark practically on top of him...
"Now sit, and be good, before I kiss you."
He sucked in another sharp breath, fingers slipping off the sink. He was going to kill that bastard if he ever saw him again- that much was certain. The last thing he needed was one more person trying to break him, one more person who could terrify him....
Or was that precisely what he wanted?
"You don't want to die. You want to stop trying, maybe, but more than that you want to stop losing. Losing one final, terminal time is just a nice way to go down in flames."
It would make so much sense if he'd bother to consider it. His inconsistent, confusing, utterly erratic behavior is just some sign of a slow descent into madness and rather than try to pull himself out of it, he's throwing himself at curiosities with the intention of either winning or losing. Either option would do, really. Winning proves that he's not some worthless wretch doomed to a life of constant failure, because this world isn't precisely generous to his kind. Losing lets him end it all and he's scared enough of dying that no one could ever call it suicide, even if that's precisely what it is. It's suicide for someone who can't bear the thought of dying- maybe he'll die or maybe he'll shatter so hard, it won't even matter. Either way, he'd go down in flames and that would be the story of him.
Was he ever playing to win? Or was he just playing to lose and startling himself when he got exactly what he wanted. Consistent feelings on the subject would be nice. Not feeling like this at all would be better.
This never happened when April was alive.
It wasn't as if he was lacking in camaraderie, but it seemed to be getting harder to be around the people he actually bothered to care about, like it would become painfully obvious that he was losing his grip on sanity- April would have just known and understood. He already lost it in front of Harkness in a sad attempt to get him to finish a job he never should have started to begin with. He was teetering on the edge of an utter breaking point and once that happened, he wasn't sure where he was going to be standing anymore. People either keep trying to break him or refusing to and he's in the middle of it all, wanting to tear his hair out.
Pain was becoming his new master and he was always such a dutiful little servant. It left him shaking and reeling in the aftermath and scared the hell out of him when it was happening, but when everything fell back into place, he actually felt alive. Alive, but weak and incompetent, and the trade-off wasn't much better than the misery. He love to be back on top of his game, proving to people that he wasn't just this universe's punching bag, but that would actually involve finding someone he can beat and, thus far, that tactic hadn't really done much more than get a sociopath interested in tormenting him and for what? Probably no reason in particular. That would certainly mesh well with every other bit of madness in this universe, now wouldn't it?
He gritted his teeth and drew his knees to his chest, tapping the back of his head against the sink, lightly enough to not exacerbate his aching head. If his world was going to get anymore fucked up anytime soon, he would like to be made aware of it preemptively. He could handle the utter lack of mercy, fight tooth and nail through all the pain, and try to cling to his sanity through everything, but he was growing really, really tired of the surprises.
Muse: Julian Sark
Word Count: 1542