station72 | [DAY :043]

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[DAY :043]

[Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Late in the evening, the pervasive thrum of Nirad's mental presence returns to Bearings. It winds higher - unwrapping, lengthening, widening: small flashes of silver, memories like the scales of so many fish glimpsed through the lapping water of some distance, unfamiliar water. A wet street reflects the glow of neon signs above it; a doorway, rain drizzling off the landing above it; a stream of traffic glittering through the half light--]

( Hi. We're back from following that Ahtaliah Ven guy. Aoba's head is hurting him so he's going to take a break I think but I guess I can tell you what we saw? )

[He doesn't sound hesitant so much as he does distracted.]

( Honestly I didn't see anything very interesting, but maybe it was a bad day for him? Maybe you can't be a bad guy every day of the week, right? Anyway, he worked pretty late then me and Aoba followed his car to a place where he got dinner. It's a nice car. He met with someone there. A lady. A friend, I think, but I don't really know. Maybe we should have followed her instead though because after they had dinner, Ven went home. So we have his address and how to get access to his building and I know which apartment he lives in and if we wanted to get in it seems like it might be pretty easy because he spends so much time at work, you know? I'm sure he's got some super high tech security at home but it's not like he owns the building so it's probably just inside his penthouse or whatever. Uh. Yeah. )

[BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ.]

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[It feels like he's drowning. In that way dreams feel. He can't be dreaming, though, can he? He wasn't asleep. Those eyes though... things he only ever sees in dreams.]

[In nightmares.]

[In memories of more glowing eyes and dark figures and groping hands, holding tight, keeping him where he is despite his fighting. Just like now.]

(No--)

[It's like being held too tightly to breathe. Even if he strikes out, lashes out, it's in his head just like then and now there's no alien glass keeping him separate from a nightmare snarling at him.]

[Broken and broken and broken and you can't fight this]

(No, you're not!)

[Shielding, why can't he do like Sam showed him why can't he stop this dream.]

[ He was right to hold on, Shiro's fear getting the better of him. Yellow eyes roll in their sockets. So annoying. ]

Tch. Noisy.

[ From across the connection, he sheds a light on the image of his form. Indeed, he has the same shape as Aoba, though his hair is lighter and his expression darker - not the soft, kinder face Shiro knows, though it's physically identical. So troublesome, having to prove himself like this. ]

I am Aoba. Aoba is me. We are separate, but we are also one.

Accept it.

[ His grip tightens, but only by a fraction. He's weak, mind still pounding with migraine, however oddly pleasurable he now finds the pain. ]

[The thought I don't want this is beating around first and foremost in his brain. The immediate present blurred into countless other times he'd fought and been restrained. Countless other times someone had done it to him against his will. Times it happened at the hands of yellow-eyed assailants.]

[Don't put me under--]

(Stop doing this.)

[Suddenly, he doesn't care who this is. He can't believe it's the same person who'd offered his help. The same person who used music and missed a friend.]

[This is alien and cold and Galra and it needs to let go N O W.]

(Don't hold me like this--)

[He's almost surprised to hear the warning in the words. Feel the way his breath is ragged and gasping in his chest. The feeling of sparking heat in one hand. The grip may be weak, but he's had no experience fighting against something like this.]

[The growling sound of his own is new.]

(Let. Go.)

Edited 2016-10-23 04:41 (UTC)

[ When he had dug into Lexa's mind, Nirad told him to stop. He should do the same here, (knows he's not the only mental presence still lurking) but curiosity is tempting. Especially when he feels the shifting of Shiro's fear.

Fear he can't do much with, but anger. That is much more exciting. ]

No.

[ Even if Nirad touches his shoulder again and tells him off, he won't stop pressing down harder, tighter. He's enjoying this reaction as much as the pain in his head. ]

Accept me. Accept us. I could destroy your mind with a word.

[ What's left of it, anyway. ]

[And something breaks. Some last chain of control tightly leashed. Something just snaps. He is so sick and tired of this fear, so tired of being pushed down, held down, tired of being shown you're weak over and over again.]

[Someone else wanted him to accept that, hadn't they. Wanted him to accept he was nothing. Just a monster ... broken and reformed--]

No!

[As much a scream as it is a roar like thunder, like the crackling of a nebula in his own mind. A familiar, welcome roaring sound that was meant to shake walls and rattle the earth.]

[To shatter what holds him.]

[Something he has never done before.]

[He's so tired of things dictating what they can do to him -- have done to him.]

No more!

[So sick of it there's no more room for fear. No more room for the man who tried so hard to keep everything locked away and restrained for other peoples' sake.]

Get away from me!

[Just anger and power like never before.]

[ Rage is like a bomb - when it's set off, it goes off with a bang. Shiro's rage does not disappoint. Deafening, the sudden roar of the lion briefly awakens his own fear of the creatures, primal and deep-rooted.

But the pain that follows draws him back, keeps him focused on Shiro. Aoba's mental grip on him is shattered with the sound and it rains down, a thousand scattered shards of sharp glass. ]

Yes. YES. Destroy. DESTROY.

[ He laughs, the sound of it quieted by the animalistic thundering of Shiro's rage, but he doesn't care. He's tired, he's weak, but getting a rush from this new pain. It's one thing to hurt himself over and over, but when someone else does it to him-

It's a new kind of high. He's not listening to Shiro's words, distracted by the feeling. A fire is lit in him, and he desires more. ]

Accept me. Ruin me.

DESTROY me, Shiro.

[The sound again. That same deafening thunder he'd always associated with a mechanical, maybe magical, source. It worked the first time -- getting this grip, this restraint to leave. Make it back off, make it stay away from him.]

[That's about as far as rational thought goes, at this point. There's only the need to defend. To keep it all from happening again.]

[A sense of prowling motion, bared teeth and black-light glowing weaponry. Not again. He won't let this happen again. And if he has to tear into this threat's mind to do so, he will. Muscle gathering, making for a strike forward, even if he doesn't know how to do it--]

[ I know you'd never hurt anyone! You'd never let that happen!]

[And then everything pauses.]

[ Shiro's distress had rippled through the bond, catching at Bellamy's attention. The brief consideration of whether or not to interfere goes sideways when Bellamy senses the shift from fear to aggression. The bag he'd been unpacking in his room is immediately abandoned as Bellamy tears out his door.

Bellamy's intervention is two-fold. Reaching out with his mind is an afterthought; it comes to him as an unconsidered instinct as he launches himself into Shiro's space. They collide gracelessly, with Bellamy's hand catching at Shiro's arm. It feels urgent. He recognizes the impulse. It's the same surge of emotion that had risen in Bellamy after the attack on Mount Weather, and he remembers the fallout. With the interconnected factions of the brood, the stakes are just as high. ]

( Wait! ) [ echoes between them. ] ( Wait, I've got you. )

[ Not that Bellamy's presence dissolved the threat at hand, but hopefully caused enough of a distraction to keep all that rage he'd felt in Shiro from being unleashed. ]

[Shiro's not home right now.]

[Okay, well, physically he is. He looks like he was in the middle of some workout routine when it triggered. The room is in a disarray -- with him in the process of leaving, going to the hall. Nothing on his face but a teeth-bared snarl. Muscles tense in neck and arms and everywhere left visible.]

[That anger in him whirls as he does. As his arm is caught. Turned on the poor person trying to help. No words, only that same animal growl in his mind, that huge and black presence all but glowing through it. A hazy, watery image imposed behind the mental image of Shiro himself.]

[Why should he wait -- there is threat there is enemy and Galra he needs to end it. Save himself, save them all. And if this rage will do it, so be it.]

[And for a moment, his free hand draws back, looking ready to drive a wild swing at his fellow Broodmate. Don't you dare hold him back, why can't you see he has to put an end to this threat and-]

[- you'd never hurt anyone! -]

[- hesitates.]

[ Another voice pierces through to join Shiro's connection. Unlike his, it is effortless and near to him. A broodmate. The interruption threatens to extinguish his newfound high.

Sly Blue may be weak, but he uses his pain to a clever advantage. He just needs to reach a little further, use Shiro's mental link to connect with Bellamy, and both will share in the awful migrane still coursing through his head. It beats against the insides of his skull with a musical rhythm not unlike the one Aoba used to keep calm before. But where Aoba would shield his fellow hosts from pain, this Aoba spreads it, targeting the worst of it towards Bellamy. ]

No - he's mine.

[ He's tasted Shiro's rage, felt his pain, and he's thirsty for more. His connection is open, the raw wires of his mind exposed, aching and vulnerable. His mind is there for Shiro to ravage - waiting to be ravaged. ]

Destroy.

Destroy.

Destroy.

[ Don't make him beg for it. ]

[ Not just one, but two. As Bellamy has reached out to him as quickly as he had reached out to Shiro. ]

( It's you, ) [ the comment, beatific and curious, as he takes stock of the full situation. He can feel Shiro, thrumming like a furious hive. Bellamy, a book opened to the best part, guileless and inviting. Aoba-who-is-not -- a web of entropy and chaos. Where Bellamy moved for their broodmate, he moves for the one who teases at their connection with barbs and claws, throat parched for something more. Violence, he assumes. ] ( I remember you, little ghost. )

[ Distantly, he presses upon Bellamy, feeds into Shiro - he cannot pull himself from them, not as close as they stand right now. Yet his focus drifts to an aside, strongly fixated upon the yellow eyed agent of this blaze that aches and hungers to be devastated. He is a flood, dark waters, cold waters, rising rapidly within this mental mindscape that plays out between them all. The sense of a hand - reaching with false promise, slipping around the column of Aoba's throat. ]

Edited (eDITS THIS BECAUSE YOU DAMN NAKED YAOIS) 2016-10-24 03:20 (UTC)

[ Shiro hesitates, and Bellamy plows into him without waiting. He falters with a shout as pain lances through his mind, but he pushes forward anyway. It's not the first time in his life he's forced himself to keep moving through pain. He has the impression that Shiro's stronger than he is, even when he's not whipped into a frenzy and when Bellamy's nearly blinded by the pain throbbing in his head, but he locks his arms around Shiro in an attempt to try to pin his arms in place.

He can feel the prickle of the Darkling's mind against his own. It's only Angel's instruction that keeps Bellamy from grabbing at it like a safety line. He keeps his focus on Shiro, shoving until they both slam back against the wall. ]

( Stop it! Shiro! ) [ Bellamy can't tell if he's speaking aloud or projecting directly into Shiro's mind. ] ( You're safe here. I promise, there's no threat. )

[ The insidious, barely-familiar echo of Sky Blue slips in with the crippling rise of pain inside his skull. Bellamy's walls are unwieldy and weak, but he tries to drag them up anyway, as best he can while he struggles to keep his hold on Shiro. ]

[Pain. His whole body tenses up, the urge to fight and end this stronger than ever. Despite the people -- the familiar senses of other minds -- trying to calm and reassure him. How can they be so sure? How can they be so calm and how dare they tell him not to fight.]

[The pain though... That feeling of a familiar mind, that's caught up in it too, isn't it?]

[And suddenly that rage, that primal, animal fury is turned away from Bellamy. Turned around him. He's still fighting the hold, physically. Still determined to get away and attack, but the otherworldly sense of something bigger, stronger, ancient, has shifted. As if to stand between his broodmate and the pain.]

(NO.)

[Taking it on himself, instead. It registers, barely, the feeling of pounding in his skull, but it's a footnote. A twinge. Instead of an assault. He can handle this.]

[The Black Lion can handle this.]

[And while his body still tries to fight, to shove the other man away, and down to the floor, his mind has claimed Brood as Team and Team is--]

(M I N E.)

[-- voiced in another roar, another wall of mental sound and anger.]

Dark One.

[ From where he lies in the calm dark of Nirad's bed, he whispers the thought aloud as well as mentally, yellow eyes staring blankly. He remembers this one, this Darkling, and how much petty frustration they had caused his counterpart. It had been amusing, even if he could only watch.

Where Bellamy couldn't distract him away from Shiro's delightful rage, The Darkling does. It's minor though, an annoyance. He doesn't want this dark water and cold phantom grip on his neck, even if it makes him shiver. Not when he can still have Shiro ruin him, cause him the most violent, pleasurable pain. If only he's unleashed...

He could beg for Shiro's release, but he says nothing else. The the focus of his mental gaze moves slowly, shifts away from Shiro to The Darkling and narrows in on him, threatening. There isn't much left he can actually do but continue to expose them to his own suffering and exhaustion by keeping his connection open, but even that's becoming difficult. He's tired. It would be so easy for any of them to shut him out.

To close fingers tight on his proverbial throat and send him under. ]

[Things happen quickly between minds and there's a piece of him, a broad stretch of him, that finds this attention-- pleasant. This is the loudest it's been in his head and the cacophony of it is exhilarating. He doesn't like parties, not the kind that Concordians like the throw, but he imagines for a moment that if those things meant anything to him then maybe this is what it'd feel like: every mind open in his general direction, just waiting for him to widen the channels between them.

For a second or two he's staggered by it. Nirad can taste his pulse thumping, rattling in time to the rise and fall of Aoba's mental activity beside him, to the trashing sensation of Shiro, to Bellamy slicing between two points like a blunt knife, to the Darkling who reaches somewhere deep and low like a hand sinking down through black water. Fingers pressing down to some muddy sea bed--]

[ Controlling Shiro's rage is a Herculean task. Bellamy's head feels like it's in a vice, pain stabbing at his temples while he attempts to keep his arms locked around Shiro's chest. It's not going to hold out forever. A desperate, wordless plea flickers to the Darkling just before he and Shiro bounce off the wall together.

They're just grappling. Bellamy's hands come apart as they stagger, and he latches onto Shiro's shirt as they collide with the edge of the bed frame. Pain bursts in counterpoint to the phantom migraine. Bellamy catalogs the pain and dismisses it as his fingers twist hard in the fabric of Shiro's shirt as he tries to get leverage. There's no finesse involved in this. Bellamy's just trying to cling to Shiro any way he can, red-faced and panting and incredulous at both Shiro's physical strength and the force of his rage. ]

( Stop! Stop it and listen to me! ) [ The pitch of Bellamy's thoughts is escalating; if he were speaking aloud he'd be bellowing, raw-throated. ] ( You're going to hurt yourself! )

[ Or someone else. Some part of the Nest. The flash of yellow eyes catches in Bellamy's mind, and he doesn't know what it is, but he's afraid of what happens if Shiro manages to claw his way out the door. All the rug burn and bruises are worth keeping this from turning into an out and out brawl. ]

[ i was almost surprised that missy had strangulation icons but reminded myself what aoba's canon is all abt so.

bellamy - grappling with an enraged member of their brood, pleading. he concedes to it, like a cat that's been arching its back away from stray hands. his own hands, dark and menacing, wind around aoba's throat. the bright blue of his mind, the needle-sharp stabbing of his desires. were aoba in any better shape, this fight might go south, and fast. nirad buzzes along (shut up nirad). aoba hums pleasure and pain. bellamy pleads. shiro snarls. so much noise, none of it organized.

he attempts to smother aoba into submission. clinical and remote - and back to bellamy, he reassures. more hands, everything is hands (hands that strangle, hands that console) - his physical body caught in the mental struggle going on, he's still in the hallway. feet unable to move in one direction or the other, unless he can knock aoba out (nirad SHUT UP, and attend to your yaois). eventually, he can move. slipping through the hall until he crashes into the midst of the struggle between shiro and bellamy, filling the doorway with

a mind

full of ice and knives ] Stand down, [ he adds his real voice, a whip, to the soundless struggle. a military voice, versed in command and used to being obeyed.

if it doesn't work, he's fully prepared to lunge at shiro too (and in the distance, his mind is still wrapped tight around aoba's throat - how u like that breathplay kink boyo) ]

[He just wants to fight. That yellow-eyed face is still out there. He hasn't taken it out yet. It could still threaten them all. He has to do something about it, doesn't he? It came for him, he has to deal with it, he has to fight it. In his mind, there's just fight.]

[Outwardly, he's breathing like he's been running a marathon. No recognition in his face, or anything even remotely rational. Arms and legs shaking while he grapples with Bellamy -- can't Bellamy see he's doing what he has to? Why is he being restrained? Rolling into furniture and walls. Uncaring of any sort of minor injury. Uncaring of the lingering feeling of pain in his head.]

[No, he needs to get free.]

[And he will do whatever he has to. Including trying to headbutt his broodmate.]

[You're going to hurt yourself! - no that doesn't matter. Why would that matter? His well-being hasn't ever mattered since ... since a long time. That's all he knows, all he cares about right now. Getting free and ending this is infinitely more important.]

[He honestly looks prepared to bite the restraining hands before cold and sharp and another mind appears, and his head whips around, face already twisted in a defiant sneer that isn't anything like himself.]

[But this animal in his brain is, if nothing else, operating on instinct. And his instincts scream to listen to that tone. If only for a moment. In that moment he goes still, suddenly, abruptly -- still tense and angry and raging and... and so tired.]

[Maybe it was the combination of time and distraction, or of energy expended against the man holding him. Who knows? The wall of anger and defiance and noise suddenly goes quiet at the same time Shiro's face abruptly goes slack. Along with the rest of him.]

[... sorry about the sudden dead weight there, Bellamy bro.]

[ The coil around his throat isn't real, but if he allows himself to go along with it, he can practically feel it. Cold and tight, and it makes him cough and exhale with a shudder. Though where more minds open to him, one closes. He can feel Bellamy struggling, but he stops to glance in the direction of his bright gaze. The Darkling is preoccupying himself with brood, gripping him still but growing distracted, and Nirad, whom he always welcomes inside, lazes beside him. But the one he was primarily interested in, he feels fade to an unwilling sleep. Shiro's rage is snuffed out as quickly as it was ignited.

How disappointing. He was hoping to feel Bellamy ripped to shreds, and looking forward to the same for himself. So anticlimactic - Shiro would need to develop better stamina. ]

Tch.

[ He hisses quietly where he lies, exhales again, and rolls over to press himself against Nirad. The grip the Darkling has over him is sharply severed as he shuts his mind down similarly, pulling away as he gives himself up to sleep. The yellow eyes close, and only then does the pain and the nightmare

cease. ]

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[DAY :043]

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i got out of bed for this

smothers you with a pillow

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backflips in

SUP BRUH

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LMFAO JESUS

WELLP

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hi nirad

throws this tag into the garbage

wooooooooowwww

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