ataraxionlogs | PLAYER PLOT: fear is the mind-killer

Entry tags:

PLAYER PLOT: fear is the mind-killer

CHARACTERS: You and all your least favorite things.
LOCATION: Shipwide.
WARNINGS: Violence, gore, monsters, psych trauma. (Please warn for any potential triggers—e.g. medical horror, eye stuff, recollection of past sexual trauma—in your subject lines.)
SUMMARY: Boggarts. See the plot post for a full timeline if you want to forward-date; otherwise, watch this space for updates.
NOTES: Whatever happens, however this ends, remember that it's Draco Malfoy's fault.

JAN 22

If you've been paying attention, you should already be on edge. Ward and Resnik have returned without many answers. There's the dead pirate again. The Tranquility is being pursued. People are talking about violent confrontation like it's inevitable, any cycle now. Any day. And now Morgoth is back, somewhere in the corridors.

If you keep an eye out, you won't find him. But you might find something else.

JAN 23

Never mind about Morgoth.

JAN 24

Despite very well-intended claims to the contrary (see above), the mounting evidence suggests that boggarts can be killed. Also, there's probably more than one. Sorry about that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Odessa's hand is limp in John's, but she doesn't try to shake him off or pull away. He can feel the tremor that rattles her frame as physically as she is emotionally so. ]

You were so careful, weren't you? Don't say that, make sure you don't show too much interest. But then you went and flew your true colors high, didn't you? You want to do better. You want to be better, but you just can't help yourself, can you? Pathological.

[ A little sob breaks the stony silence Odessa had been adopting. ] Bella, stop.

And why should I? [ The woman with red hair and pale green eyes turns her attention to John then. ] You've seen what she is, haven't you? You know that's why she keeps you around. Why she likes having you wrapped around her little finger. Did you tell her she was a monster, and did she fuck you right after?

[ That's when Odessa finally moves to pull away from the grasp John has on her hand, taking a step toward Bella, pleading. ] Stop!

Edited (I can close my HTML tags.) 2015-01-29 03:45 (UTC)

[He listens, but he doesn't quite understand. She turns her attention on John, and he hesitates at her words. Is that what happened? It puts a little hesitation back in his mind regarding Odessa, but he's not going to let her terrorize Odessa.

When Odessa pulls away, he grabs at her hand tighter, moving to pull her behind him.] Whoever you are, Bella, you're going to leave. Now.

[ Bella's whole face lights up when she laughs. She's beautiful and even though she's clearly cutting Odessa to the bone, she still seems somehow sweet. It's different than how Odessa is. Bella can seem imperious, but there isn't anything overtly sinister about her. She doesn't tend to make a person's skin crawl, or kick in the fight-or-flight responses. ] Who am I? You mean she hasn't told you about me? Oh, 'Dessy, darling.

[ From behind him, Odessa seems to wilt, clutching lightly at his arm. ] It's okay, John... Bella is my wife.

Edited (omg html) 2015-01-29 04:05 (UTC)

[He freezes at her words. His stomach feels like he swallowed lead. He swallows, trying not to get angry. The woman doesn't seem like a threat, despite the way Odessa's reacting, so he turns his back to her. He wants to touch her, figure out who she really is, finally understand the woman, but all he can manage to choke out is] Why didn't you tell me?

[It sounds far more betrayed than he has any right to be.]

[ And it's that betrayal that sticks the knife of fear further into her gut. ] I don't know. Because we're on a ship in space a billion miles from any place any of us recognizes as home? It didn't seem relevant.

And you're so interested in what's relevant, aren't you? [ She arches a brow, casual as you please. ] Honesty rarely gets you laid, does it?

[ Odessa's cheeks burn hot with shame, and she looks sick. ]

Tell me, dear, are you still keen on astronomy now that you're among those stars you coveted so fiercely just ten years ago? You thought it would feel like freedom then, didn't you? [ Bella begins to move, one foot in front of the other as though her course is carefully plotted. If Odessa is chaos, then Bella is order. ] How lonely do you feel now? It's everything you ever feared, isn't it? All of this... Your precious sky, your escape, your fresh start, and you're more alone now than you ever were. And what's more than that, you're powerless.

[ Bella stops just within arm's reach and stares at John with unveiled curiosity. ] Tell me something, John. Tell me how this makes you feel. The monster is without her teeth, as you can see. [ Indeed, Odessa seems smaller now, more fragile than he might ever have been able to imagine her, knowing what he knows. ] Does she deserve your pity? Her second chance?

[It didn't seem relevant. Not even before they kissed? Before... His own cheeks are red with embarrassment. He listens to Bella, insanely interested but affronted about the whole situation.

Alone? Powerless? Odessa? He can't imagine it. He looks to Bella when she speaks to him. He's angry and upset and confused.] I don't know.

[He walks a few steps away from them, rubbing a hand across his face. He really doesn't know what to think or how to feel. He doesn't even deserve to feel this confused about their relationship, but he is, he's confused as hell. He turns back to Odessa.] Why are you so afraid of her?

[ She tries to hold him fast, but Odessa just can't find the conviction to grasp his arm tightly enough to keep him from pulling away, and moving along. When he asks his question, she looks helpless and confused. ]

You know why.

[ Odessa turns to look at her wife then. She can't be real, can she? Of course she can't. But she's... helping her. Even now, Bella is helping Odessa understand what she's thinking and feeling. Even when she's hitting every exposed nerve along the way. That is so like her. ] Because she knows me. [ Her heels sound on the ground as she draws up that last bit of distance between them and cups the other woman's face in her hands carefully. ] You know me better than anybody. You know my every little secret, and still you stay. And still you love me.

And still you betray me. [ Those words sting as much as the shallow wound across Odessa's abdomen. ]

I'm sorry, Bella. [ Something passes between them in that moment, something tangible but indescribable, and Odessa's arms fall to her sides again, looking somewhere between defeated, but prepared for something. She isn't left waiting long.

The blow Bella strikes with the back of her hand across Odessa's face is hard, a horrible sound of skin against skin, and Odessa drops to the ground like a sack of bricks, but she doesn't cry out or whimper, but simply presses the heel of her hand to her mouth, and comes away with blood. She doesn't look up when she speaks: ] Thank you.

[He watches them until she cups her wife's face. He turns his face away, ashamed at that flare of jealousy that flashes through him.

He doesn't know what to do. This isn't for him to see. This isn't for him to know. But neither was Anna for Odessa. Neither were his flashbacks. It's like they've exposed themselves to each other. Totally and completely. And still, John doesn't understand.

And then he hears the blow, and he looks up, his face contorting with rage. And she thanks her. That's what leaves him amazed. What the fuck. He dashes to her side, kneeling beside her and touching her shoulder with one hand, her chin with the other. His head snaps toward Bella, snarling] Get the fuck out of here!

[ Odessa's lower lip is split open at one side where she caught it against her teeth. Blood trails slowly toward her chin, and his fingers there. She can feel her blood pulsing in the tips of her ears, a heated swirling low in her belly. ] If she leaves me again, I'll be alone forever.

She'll be alone forever.

[ The last four words are spoken in unison between the two women and it's in that moment that Odessa understands. ] It's okay, John. I have to handle this myself. [ And if he's not too busy being cross on her behalf, he might notice the way her hand slowly makes for the top edge of her boot. ]

[He looks back to Odessa, his chest heaving from the dash here.] You won't, [he whispers. But his eyes follow her hand. He looks back up at her, his fingers leaving a trail of blood up to her cheek.] You don't have to.

[But he's tensed, ready to jump out of the way at any moment.]

[ Had she not just spared him having to make this choice himself? It had been so easy for her to take it out of his hands and free him of the guilt. ] Tell me it isn't her. [ Her voice is small, barely above a whisper, begging. And she's coiling like a steel trap, waiting for the moment to spring. ]

'Dessa... What are you doing?

[He looks into her eyes and... he can't let her do this. She may be used to killing, she may even like it, he doesn't know, but this is her wife.

He knows they've only got one shot to get her without a fight.] It's okay. It's not her.

[he says, and his hand snatches his switchblade out of his jacket pocket, forgotten during Anna's fight, but completely there. He swings around in the same motion with practiced ease, slashing Bella's throat open. The blood spatters on his face and he makes an alarmed sound, his hands shaking violently as he reaches up to touch the blood. He's taken a life, but it's been bullets, long distance. Never like this. Bella staggers, and falls, the blood leaking out of her fast.]

[ Odessa screams. She screams, and she scrambles across the floor to where Bella has fallen, sobbing and undone in an instant. Is this what it feels like? ]

Bella! Bella, no! Bella! Stay with me. Please, please, please. Please don't leave me.

[ Her hands tremble and she tries to apply pressure to the wound, but it's too deep, too wide, too final. Saturated with that bright red vital fluid, Odessa crumples against her wife's chest, and wails. In the time it would have taken for a mortal woman to bleed out, Bella disappears without a trace, just as Anna had done, leaving Odessa to weep brokenly on the floor, each heaving breath a mournful, pitiful sound. ]

[John drops his knife, staggering back. He... he did that. He listens to Odessa's mournful wails, his eyes welling up, his body trembling.

He walks over to Odessa, dropping to the floor beside her.] That wasn't her! It wasn't her. Please, Odessa, I'm sorry.

[He moves to touch her, to wrap his arms around her.]

[ She's seen her future with Bella. This was never supposed to happen this way. Odessa was supposed to be the cruel one. The one who took the coward's way out for a contrived sense of nobility. But seeing her - or some creature that looked like her, spoke like her - die so violently sends horrifying shocks to her system that she could never have anticipated. Is this how she had made Bella feel? Would make her feel? Even in this act of defiance, Odessa is overcome with an overwhelming sense of despair. She leans heavily against John's chest, clutching the front of his shirt in her balled fists.

Now she truly understands the desperate gnawing loneliness inside of her that's been insidiously infecting her like a cancer. Now she understands that a part of her heart has been missing since she arrived here. ]

[He holds onto her tightly.] I'm so sorry. Please. Please don't cry. It wasn't her.

[He pulls them closer together, trying to speak without getting emotional.] I... know you. I know parts of you, at least. And I don't care what either of you say, I'm here. I'm not quite a friend or a lover or an enemy, but I'm here. You're not going to be alone. Okay? I'm not going to let you.

[After all the bullshit and manipulation and tragedy they've been through, he cares for her. Maybe as a friend, maybe more, maybe he's still confused and frustrated and wary of her, but he cares for her.]

[ At any other moment, there would be a smirk of triumph from Odessa. This would signify a victory somehow. She would have had him under her spell. But this is completely different. In this moment, Odessa is so vulnerable, laid so bare that his words sting on her raw nerves. ]

But why? Don't I deserve to be alone?

No, [he says immediately.] No, you don't. Not from what I've seen. You're-...

[He stops. What is she? A good guy? A bad guy?]

You're not black and white. You're gray.

[Such a lovely color comparison.] I mean-... you've got moments that make me want to punch you and moments where I want to... I don't know, hug you. But you deserve not to be lonely, Odessa. I'm sure.

[ Confusion floods her overwhelmingly, but at least it causes her to switch gears and jolt her brain out of dwelling on this loss that wasn't real in the first place. It's calming, but infuriating all at once. ]

And I don't know sometimes whether I want to kiss you or kill you, [ she's probably not wholly serious ] so I guess that makes us even, huh?

[He pulls away, his cheeks getting warm. He knows she's not serious, at least about the killing, but the kissing... He wants to, her face is so close, but it's not fair, not fair to Odessa or Sally. He looks at the floor.] I guess it does.

[He glances back up at her.] Will you let me take care of that wound now?

[ She laughs then, a breathy sound and the breath she inhales through her nose is wetter. She's a mess and it's a fucking embarrassment. ]

Sure. Why not? It's not like you can make it worse.

[He stands up and offers a hand to help her up. He looks down as they walk, silent. He opens his door and lets her in.] Make yourself comfortable.

[She's seen his room before, and it's much the same. There's a robotic leg in one corner, odds and ends, scraps of paper, and little origami figures spread out on the table. Otherwise, it's unusually clean and neat for a bachelor. He goes to a bowl of water and dips a towel in it. First, he starts with her face. He rubs gently at the blood on her chin before moving to her cheek, the trail his fingers made.

He hesitates at her lip. His eyes glance up at hers. It seems so intimate, what he's doing now, that it bothers him. He clears his throat and hesitates with his fingers ready to lift her shirt to see her wound.] May I?

[ She looks smaller and more fragile than he's ever seen her before as she sits there obediently and allows him to wash the blood from her face, eyes half lidded to stare into some middle distance past the length of her nose, rather than at him. He might get the impression that she's been through this before more than once.

When he hesitates, that's when she tips her chin up and her head back to give him a better angle in the room's lighting. ] Go ahead. [ She parts her lips slightly. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

PLAYER PLOT: fear is the mind-killer

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I don't have an upset enough icon

I'M SORRY!!!! a little.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject