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lakshmi· ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴀʟ ᴅɪsᴀsᴛᴇʀ · bai ([personal profile] shri) wrote in [community profile] station722017-11-05 11:18 am

[ OPEN ] Hot Springs Episode!

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
WHERE: The Second Flight
WHEN: DAY :022
SUMMARY: The Sauna!
WARNINGS: Nekkid times.

[ A few hours after the murder, she hasn't blown the ship up, and here they are. Another knock knock on everyone's brain: ]

( For those of you that are interested - I have secured us a place at the Sauna. Free for us to be use without interruption from outsiders.

You are to be clean before you come in.
)

[ Maybe you're here because she bullied you, maybe you want to soak - maybe you're the poor bastard that is standing guard at the door. Either way, welcome to the Suana, have fun. Or don't. ]

stilettoes: ➝ sᴛɪʟᴇᴛᴛᴏᴇs (xxiv.)

[personal profile] stilettoes 2017-11-29 12:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[ he'd like to know who he's talking to, that'd certainly be a start, and seeing him has peter steeling himself for half a moment, tilting his head lazily, as if to take in all angles of the stranger sitting at the edge of the pool behind his broodmate. ]

( Well, then by all means, it'd be my pleasure. )

[ he lifts a hand to rest to his chin against his knuckles, in repose and watchful all at once. there is no panic here, only a sensation of prowling slowly, around himself, around the other, watchful. ]

( And no better time than now. ) [ there are a million times better than nearly naked in a sauna, but really. ] ( What shall I call you? )
Edited 2017-11-29 12:59 (UTC)
raw: (• ONE)

[personal profile] raw 2017-11-29 01:25 pm (UTC)(link)
( He calls me Mr Robot. )

[ The name is accompanied by a grim little smile of amusement that doesn't at all meet the eyes. It's a stupid name. But he doesn't offer an alternate one.

Hadrian is taking this surprisingly well: bristling, sure, since despite the morphine high and the symbiote feelings of belonging and love, this guy is a prickly presence to have in your head. He has better boundaries than Elliot, which leaves him somewhat inscrutable, but he also has absolutely no tactful allowance of privacy. Even the slightest ripples of emotion, stray thoughts, get pounced upon and dissected.
]

( So let's start with this: the fact that we're having this conversation is bad fucking news, beautiful. You need to stop letting the alien in your brain run the show, or you're not going to have anything left that's your own. )
Edited (wasn't demeaning enough needed more creep) 2017-11-29 13:25 (UTC)
stilettoes: ➝ sᴛɪʟᴇᴛᴛᴏᴇs (viii.)

[personal profile] stilettoes 2017-11-29 02:03 pm (UTC)(link)
[ it'll do.

peter hums and it's nonchalant in tone, but the undercurrent of his emotion is there, they way something slips through a seam beneath the door. something pulling tighter, sinking in deeper. this plays differently than back home, there's upkeep on two fronts, and while peter is great at dividing attentions, the mind is a sprawling monster and the two-way pleasure street starts to feel a little sickening.

perhaps he's been wounded a little just prior to arriving, but he's sure that it's fine. he can just tuck it away - ]


( I assure you that I've no intentions of letting it run anything. )

[ - it's fine. (and as if it knows, symbiote warm and creeping, trying to slink into a hole shaped like a man, but it's empty and hungry won't stop eating whatever comes to fill it - a comfort and an absolute disaster.)

stop. ]


( I've more than enough of me to keep it from having what it wants. While it's rather nice to touch and I will admit to it, amalgamation isn't where I want or intend to go. )
raw: (• TWO)

[personal profile] raw 2017-11-29 04:29 pm (UTC)(link)
( Is that so? Because it's what Elliot wants. )

[ It's probably cruel, to reveal that truth without Elliot's consent. Probably it should have been obvious, though: the Nest is sweeter than morphine and easier than trying to be normal. Elliot reaches for what's between them and clings. ]

( Early days yet, but it's what this is all about, too. You really think we all need to be here? You really think a truckful of new guys helps the mission any? They want us in situations where we have to use the symbiote. )

[ This is the kind of thing he's been ranting at Elliot for the last couple of days, but it's nice to have a real audience for it. ]
stilettoes: ➝ sᴛɪʟᴇᴛᴛᴏᴇs (Default)

[personal profile] stilettoes 2017-11-30 06:37 am (UTC)(link)
[ peter can't blame him for it, couldn't to begin with because holding onto it feels good, like it was carved for your palm to fit into perfectly. sinking straight down would be easy, but twenty years doing the opposite of that has taught him that to overthrow, you bide your time. you don't give in, you wait and you are patient.

his mouth twitches a bit. ]


( Then why not use it? Sure, that's what they want, but learn to control it so that it can't overwhelm the mind enough to catch it unawares and pull it all the way under. )

[ to let the symbiote rot seems like the perfect option, but there's disease that comes with rot, and peter isn't sure how it might apply to it, but he'd rather not find out. ]
raw: (00111001)

[personal profile] raw 2017-12-07 04:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Mr Robot's sharp Ha of a laugh is like a bark. ]

( This guy. This guy. You think he can control himself enough to manage that? Look at him. )

[ He turns, gives a dismissive gesture in the direction of Elliot, who in turn, tips his head and looks back at Mr Robot, glazed expression fracturing a little. Mr Robot seems startled to get a reaction: ]

( Oh, shit, )

[ As Elliot says: ]

Oh, shit.

[ And both of them sort of stare at each other for a moment, as Elliot tries to shake off the morphine fog in a panic and Mr Robot wills him not to, to slip back into the current of sweet euphoria and stop paying attention. ]
stilettoes: ➝ sᴛɪʟᴇᴛᴛᴏᴇs (xiii.)

[personal profile] stilettoes 2017-12-08 04:26 am (UTC)(link)
[ seeing the both of them interact against one another is strange, the words chiming together - one cutting and full of that hungry fury that peter's only know an old, revolution-hungry man to have, while the other is softer, free-floating at the sides of his mind, lapping at him placidly and far more familiar.

so his eyes focus on elliot, the way he seems to fuss a little to slough off the sensation of the pill, the one that sends a pleasant tingle down the corridors of peter's nerves. he wants to say something to him, anything, but he'll leave it for later, turning his attention to mr robot, eyes neutral, a smile there just barely on the edges of his mouth now. almost bored-sounding now: ]


( I do, actually, )

[ their situation is anything but ideal, trapped with some kind of symbiote each and elliot with... whatever this mr robot happens to be. a presence that feels wholly unlike him but unequivocally apart of him. he's different and he makes peter's skin crawl just a bit from the nape of his neck to the backs of his shoulders like a creeping chill.

his fingers curl tightly into his palm, nails biting into skin as his smile turns into something saccharine despite the ever present feel of being nettled, almost protective.

where it comes from, peter doesn't care. it's preservation of the self and of his broodmate. ]


( Because who says he'll have to do it on his own? )
raw: (00010010)

[personal profile] raw 2017-12-10 09:36 am (UTC)(link)
[ Mr. Robot rolls his eyes, but they're narrowed — he lacks Elliot's capacity for self-doubt, so he's not rattled, and he also knows that he isn't going anywhere, that he's a part of Elliot the way this upstart intruder could never be. But Hadrian's smile is giving off a level of threat that is... unexpected. ]

( Okay, beautiful. )

[ He shakes a cigarette out of a crumpled and endless lucky strikes packet and, with the hiss and flare of a match, lights up. The smoke scent is illusory, but Peter will be able to smell it. ]

( Here's how it's gonna be. I only, I promise you, have this self-sabotaging jackass's very best interests at heart. If I for one second think our goals aren't in alignment? I will be done with you. And trust me, you won't enjoy it. )

[ Elliot, wide-eyed and mute, is looking back and forth between Mr Robot and Hadrian like he's not sure how to process that this interaction is happening at all. ]
stilettoes: ➝ sᴛɪʟᴇᴛᴛᴏᴇs (xv.)

[personal profile] stilettoes 2017-12-13 04:55 am (UTC)(link)
[ none of this, peter is almost certain, should feel as real as it does, which is the trouble with this thing knuckling its way between the folds of his brain, bridging a gap that shouldn't exist as plainly as it does between himself and elliot and... and this third player that's stretched himself out so comfortably between the two of them. he watches the way the flame lights itself up, the smell of cigarette smoke faint like a memory, but there. ]

( "Done with you" as though I can simply be discarded! ) [ a beat as he pulls his glasses off of his head and onto his nose, hair pressed back with his fingers now. ] ( At least you're a gentleman about it. I love a good warning. )

[ he leans on one hand, turning openly to him while the other drapes over his thigh. his posture is curved, just like the smile still on his face that slowly begins to spread as if amicable, but really just feels more like a knife dragged slowly over a whetstone. ]

( In any case, I accept those terms. Simple enough. )
raw: (Default)

[personal profile] raw 2017-12-16 05:20 am (UTC)(link)
( Good to know we're on the same page, then. )

[ And apparently that's all he has to say for now, walking away into the steam, disappearing like a spirit dispelled, though the scent of cigarette smoke still lingers.

-- Always leave them wanting more, right kiddo?

But probably only Elliot hears that.

Elliot, who is still under the influence of those sweet, numbing chemicals, leaving him sluggish and euphoric in the warm water. His adrenaline spike at realizing he was somehow projecting Mr. Robot hasn't really dissipated so much as been smothered, a sensation he's kind of struggling against — this is definitely a higher dose than he'd usually take.

Still, it seems important to convey at least one thing to Hadrian, emphatic:
]

You can't trust him.
stilettoes: ➝ sᴛɪʟᴇᴛᴛᴏᴇs (viii.)

boop

[personal profile] stilettoes 2017-12-29 05:48 pm (UTC)(link)
[ peter wants to know, one day, where this page goes. it's never been in any book he's written for himself. thousands of first rules in grifting and talking to men who disappear like smoke right before your very eyes, disappear into steam, wasn't really one of the lessons.

He watches the flicker of elliot's eyes, feels the sweet curl curdle alongside the fact that he is most definitely disturbed by elliot's strange hitchhiker? what's the word for this? for now, only mr. robot. he files the name away carefully, fingertips along the edges of something you don't want to get prints on.

peter dips his ankles into the water, towel wrapped loosely around himself as elliot parts a thick and velvety panel along their connection, rich to touch, soft to the palm. he grabs fistfuls of it because he can and it's there. he reaches out with a finger and taps him softly on the tip of his nose, leaning in. ]


Don't worry yourself, darling. [ the touch leaves, but he remains close, drawing an invisible line with his finger in the air between them. ] Though I didn't realize it wasn't just the two of us.
raw: (00001110)

clutches my face

[personal profile] raw 2018-01-02 07:31 am (UTC)(link)
[ The little nose tap is so sweet that Elliot doesn't flinch away, not even subconsciously. It's nice, having someone who can touch him without the nausea-residue or ingrained paranoid discomfort that a lot of other people evoke. He leans, drops thoughtlessly sideways to rest against Hadrian, letting that and the morphine and the warm embrace of the water combine to soothe him.

(Probably putting your head in another person's lap has some pretty intimate connotations but there's not even a flicker of that, just trust, trust like Elliot didn't know he was capable of.
]

I didn't think you'd be able to see him.

[ Like that's any sort of excuse. Mr. Robot is a consistent presence in Elliot's life: even without the mind link, everyone meets him eventually. The drugs just exacerbate, as they always have. He should have thought of that — but can't quite summon self-recrimination right now. ]
stilettoes: ➝ sᴛɪʟᴇᴛᴛᴏᴇs (Default)

[personal profile] stilettoes 2018-01-02 10:39 am (UTC)(link)
[ elliot’s head in his lap isn’t something he anticipated whatsoever, full of a dozy warmth and trust that makes peter give a visible pause between the two of them—one that tastes like blood in the air, like electricity, like somewhere dark meant to be a place to rest, but in reality is just a place to wait and fester. the last time he had someone’s head in his lap, there was a sense of exhaustion about it. this is far less dire (in one way). he swallows and lets a hand rest on his hair softly, thumbing the base of where his hair fades to a cut that looks as thought it will need some maintaining at some point. it’s another idle thought that’s runs as though the first hadn’t tainted it with its taste.

his fingers curl through dark, thick hair absent-mindedly. ]


He said he had only your best interests in mind.

[ which makes the animal thing in peter curl it’s lips back just a bit. there’s something in the symbiote that doesn’t like the claims fed to it. it wraps around the connection with a soft heartbeat of a touch, squeezes a little the way you might grip a hand gently in the dark. ]

Is that true? Does he keep you safe at least? Whoever he is?

[ a thought betrays a fraction of gentle hadrian, a brief cut of steel, something in him tightening: i could keep you safe.

he pushes away the loaded spring trap, voice tender, but edging on clipped at the end. a declaration. ]


I don’t like him.
raw: (Default)

[personal profile] raw 2018-01-08 08:16 am (UTC)(link)
Elliot gives a soft little rasp of a laugh, his eyes closing against the affectionate and soothing scritch of fingers across his scalp. Despite Mr Robot, this suddenly feels like it was a good idea, the kind of sweet contentment he has so rarely experienced in his life.

"You don't like him." The irony there is obvious. Elliot doesn't really like him either, but what does Elliot like about himself. But he does have to concede that Mr Robot can be particularly unlikeable. Mostly because he doesn't seem to give a shit about anything.

Krista had postulated that a split personality originated from some kind of self-defense mechanism, though Elliot straight up never told her enough about himself for her to postulate what he might need protection from, beyond his own anxiety. But Mr Robot doesn't keep him safe. Mr Robot drags them both into trouble, time and time again.

"Listen," he manages. "Don't worry about it, okay? He's basically powerless, except for talking shit." Slightly less powerless if other people can see him, but maybe it's just Hadrian.