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DAY: 011
[ It begins in drum beats, louder and louder over itself, begins like eyes opening out of childhood nightmares, begins like a mother waking to her child's crying in the night, between Sam and Zhukov and something that is the sea - something that is a river in full flood. Out and out to where there is no difference between them. Through the hive and through the void in a space that is not space and like any waters, the void takes the path of least resistance, eager to expand in every direction.
Finds Sam first, of course it does. Wraps about him like a sycophant. It beats itself out against him, demanding, demanding, wanting and pushing and clawing and gnawing at once. Looks for a crack, any crack, just one simple divide, and as Sam splits his mind. It slips in stiletto blade thin between ribs and cracks apart at the edges. To take and take and take, to carve on the edge of a knife a way forward and engulf.
Not in words, but it speaks:
( a city, a city overrun in gnawing creatures, rats, thousands of them, their fur wet and spillery smooth as nails try to pry their teeth out of supple muscles, between fingers as they crawl, of flies, loud and buzzing, sickly honeyed hives that are corpse sweet and they nestle like lovers into flesh. Of something older than modern lights and inventions that sits at the back of the tongue and is suckled out by empires as oils. This is what the flesh of the sea looks like, this is what the water tastes like free of everything and full of nothing. Of cities under the earth, forgotten. Of the rot and the festering and the piling: this is what happens to a body that is on top of another body, this is what happens when the flesh is stripped away in salt and dried to air. Lovers that are in sewers and together, together, together. Looking up is to look down to the depths. There is no left or right, there's only a deep, deep breath and coughing up the taste of blue and violet and dark-light. This is the sun through the ice, reflected over and over again until it sears the skin in its reflection. Objects that float like they never knew the ground, or that they exist and don't exist and forget where to walk, paths that overlay paths that overlay paths,
and black - black eyes. There is nothing, nothing so black as those eyes. Nothing so beautiful as them as when they stare down into these oceans of you. Above and below and no where at all. Crawling in the sewers, through grand mansions, not welcome here but oh, so very, very wanted. Come, come, you are its lover, and it wants to carve purpose in bones. You are so beautiful, it wants to lick the marrow out of your bones, and it will call you pure for the broken parts of you, it wants, just give in, just give it everything.
these waters will never give back what they have taken. )
It takes Sam, where they are a half beat apart, and when he slips, it rushes over the top of him, holding to him tightly and then the everything stops. Expanded as far as it can go. The healing on his body is nothing but tinder, something new to be devoured.
And then, there is nothing but the dark and a naked flame.
Out of mind and body, Zhukov starts screaming as he burns. ]
( ooc: this is the continuation from this thread here, and is open for anyone to feel and react to. I am also happy to have the void reach out to touch whoever wants to from him. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a plurk to @aeneia or send me a message here! )
Finds Sam first, of course it does. Wraps about him like a sycophant. It beats itself out against him, demanding, demanding, wanting and pushing and clawing and gnawing at once. Looks for a crack, any crack, just one simple divide, and as Sam splits his mind. It slips in stiletto blade thin between ribs and cracks apart at the edges. To take and take and take, to carve on the edge of a knife a way forward and engulf.
Not in words, but it speaks:
( a city, a city overrun in gnawing creatures, rats, thousands of them, their fur wet and spillery smooth as nails try to pry their teeth out of supple muscles, between fingers as they crawl, of flies, loud and buzzing, sickly honeyed hives that are corpse sweet and they nestle like lovers into flesh. Of something older than modern lights and inventions that sits at the back of the tongue and is suckled out by empires as oils. This is what the flesh of the sea looks like, this is what the water tastes like free of everything and full of nothing. Of cities under the earth, forgotten. Of the rot and the festering and the piling: this is what happens to a body that is on top of another body, this is what happens when the flesh is stripped away in salt and dried to air. Lovers that are in sewers and together, together, together. Looking up is to look down to the depths. There is no left or right, there's only a deep, deep breath and coughing up the taste of blue and violet and dark-light. This is the sun through the ice, reflected over and over again until it sears the skin in its reflection. Objects that float like they never knew the ground, or that they exist and don't exist and forget where to walk, paths that overlay paths that overlay paths,
and black - black eyes. There is nothing, nothing so black as those eyes. Nothing so beautiful as them as when they stare down into these oceans of you. Above and below and no where at all. Crawling in the sewers, through grand mansions, not welcome here but oh, so very, very wanted. Come, come, you are its lover, and it wants to carve purpose in bones. You are so beautiful, it wants to lick the marrow out of your bones, and it will call you pure for the broken parts of you, it wants, just give in, just give it everything.
these waters will never give back what they have taken. )
It takes Sam, where they are a half beat apart, and when he slips, it rushes over the top of him, holding to him tightly and then the everything stops. Expanded as far as it can go. The healing on his body is nothing but tinder, something new to be devoured.
And then, there is nothing but the dark and a naked flame.
Out of mind and body, Zhukov starts screaming as he burns. ]
( ooc: this is the continuation from this thread here, and is open for anyone to feel and react to. I am also happy to have the void reach out to touch whoever wants to from him. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a plurk to @aeneia or send me a message here! )
no subject
It rights a split second later when he sees that Sam's still breathing.
No moving him like this. He reaches to try to make contact with Sam's skin, burned and cooked at it is Steve tries to find a place that looks less damaged. Would the symbiote work Sam's power in reverse? ]
no subject
[There's not really time to think about it, anyway. While Steve goes to Sam, he's jerking his human hand over his mouth, trying not to think about what's happening. About how hard his heart is racing, or how much the thing in his head wants out to destroy the potential threat.]
[Metal fingers lock around a burned and smoldering (or burning, he's not sure) wrist. If his arm can slam through a spaceship hull, he's almost certain it won't hurt him -- ]
[ I wouldn't be okay without you in my life, Shiro. ]
[ -- even if it does, he's going to get the screaming, burning figure away from their friend. So help him. He grips that wrist in metal fingers, glowing metal fingers, attempting to yank the other form away with everything in that arm.]
no subject
But even so, he recognizes Steve's presence - familiar, trusted, safe. There's a pull at their connection when Steve touches him, and though he doesn't wake, Sam's hand shifts to rest over Steve’s. What he’s healed can't be transferred to someone else, but the faint cuts in his skin made from moving, the bruise to his head from when he'd fallen, those can. If Steve holds on, he might end up with them. ]
no subject
It looks to wash into him too, to drag him down as far as it can, and it's promises is felt words, tasted whisper. That far deep down, there will nothing but lovely and quiet and nothing, nothing, nothing. ]
no subject
Through the web of the Nest he turns from Sam's mind to Shiro's, a steady hand in the storm that is Zhukov. Steve's offering is solid ground to stand on, small but centered. Back up. ]
no subject
[There is a brief, terrifying moment when he feels it start to drag on him, too. Feels part of him pulled in, lured in.]
[Everything reacts. Seizes on the foundation Steve is offering, without realizing it. Taking a stand there, the feel of that anger surging along his senses, that powerful, alien rage in every fiber of his being, shoving back that tide with a roar that thunders in his ears.]
[His fingers release. He hadn't realized he'd still been holding the man's arm.]
no subject
His mental presence reaches across the connection, anchors himself in both of them - it's familiar, it's easy. He's done something like this before with Steve and Bucky, with Shiro alone, but that was when he was awake, not floating in a hazy dormancy. If Sam were more conscious he might realize that through working to strengthen his own mind, he's deepened his connection to the Nest. As it is, all that matters is supporting both of them. ]