gekigengar gargant III!!! (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aestivalis) wrote2018-11-29 09:44 pm
aestivalis) wrote2018-11-29 09:44 pm
Bad Things Happen Bingo;
◘ comment fics, warnings for.... like, everything listed above, and potentially more. just assume the worst at any given time.
◘ 29/11/18: made a lab rat: xillia 2, rideaux focus
◘ 28/01/19: betrayal: original work
◘ 21/04/19: no-holds-barred beatdown: original work
◘ 05/07/20: don't you dare pity me: pokémon, guzma/nanu
◘ 16/04/21: forced to kneel/bow: final fantasy xv, ardyn/noctis
◘ 13/06/21: overdose: original work
Spare Parts [made a lab rat]
His arms and legs are secured with stiff fastenings at wrist and ankle. Medical restraints, built into the design of the table and intended to protect a patient from harming themselves. Rideaux strains against them now, knowing how fruitless it is, and considers how many times he has been the one tightening restraints just like these.
Restraints just like these.
He knows where he is. This is Spirius, off limits to public view. He's been in these rooms before. He's performed procedures here. Life-saving triage for field agents injured on duty. Speculative medical testing on desperate students eager to make a bit of extra money. Surgery, on the only person mad enough to take themselves apart and rebuild themselves better and stronger.
It's cold. That's why his hands are shaking.
There's no way to pass the time.
That's a lie. There are all kinds of things he can do. He can count ceiling tiles, then count the cracks lacing out between them, then multiple the numbers against themselves over and over until the figures grow too vast to handle, and then he can start again. He can scream himself hoarse making threats and demands. He never knew his invectives could grow so imaginative. He can try to imagine what everyone back home might be doing right now; Bakur in his office, ruining lives. Julius brooding somewhere, pathetic and lonely. He can pretend as though they've noticed his absence. That they might be wondering where he is; maybe even missing him.
Hah. Seems like he's even found time to make jokes.
But there's no way to make sense of how long he's been here. The most terrifying thought is that it might have been no time at all. That this tedium might have barely begun, and that already he's finding himself a little bit mad with it.
If someone's going to come and kill him, he hopes they'll do it quickly.
There are no windows down here. The neon lighting never dims. It must have been a day by now. It must have been days. But how can he tell? His stomach isn't growling any more. Instead it just churns itself smaller and smaller, like a stone being rolled by the tide. Eventually it will smooth away to nothing, and perhaps then he'll die. Starved to death on a medical table. What a fucking joke.
He blacks out. Sleep can't be the right word for it, because he never feels rested. His entire back side feels raw—he'll have bedsores if he isn't allowed to move soon. Good thing he'll be dead before they can get too bad.
He wakes up to a cool, sterile room, and a needle being placed into his hand.
Rideaux tenses.
Standing over him, Rideaux finishes fixing the cannula into place and smiles down at him. "We're going to start by getting some fluids in you. Can't have you dying just yet, can we?"
Rideaux stares up at himself. He's looking well, by his standards. Smug, full-cheeked, pressed and fresh. He guesses he would be looking smug too, if he was the one standing up.
"They'll come looking for me," He says, like an idiot. He's not well. He would have thought of a much more clever lie if he hadn't been starving down here in this medical tomb.
Himself sneers at him. "Of course they won't. You don't believe that, and I'm you. If you want to scare me into letting you go you're going to have to do much better."
Rideaux's already decided what he's going to do. He can hear it in himself. Nothing he says is going to change his own mind.
"This isn't going to save you," He hisses, because there's nothing here to reason with. "This dimension is a fake. You'll be gone like all the rest. You're dust." And that's true, and it's funny enough that Rideaux manages to grit out a smile across the grimace of his dry lips. He knows himself. He knows what he would do with a spare. "Are you going to dissect me alive, or kill me first?"
At first he thinks he isn't going to answer. But then he places one long finger beneath his chin, tilts his head up and leans so close that he can smell his own breath. Sterile, like everything else. "We'll see," Rideaux says, and bares his teeth.
The Right Thing [betrayal]
You bare your teeth and tell him that you wouldn't let them hurt him, and he pats your head because he believes you. But he says you still have to answer the questions. And if they ask you anything about him, you have to say that everything was a secret and that he didn't know about it. It is the most important thing he has ever asked you to do, he says. So even though it sounds hard, you promise you'll do what he wants.
The soldiers are angry, and they don't like anything you say, and they keep asking the same kind of questions over and over. Did you kill him? Did you kill her? They want to know about so many people. It's boring answering so many times.
You only kill when Lexie says so, but you don't tell them that. Instead you answer with the true things you're supposed to say. Yes, you killed some of them. Some of them were dead when you arrived.
But yes, you ate them.
You can hear what the soldiers are saying about you. That you're a bastard, that you're sick, that you're diseased. It's annoying. You want to hurt them to make them stop, but you can't. Instead you do what Lexie told you to—when they ask what part Alexiel played in your crimes, you say how Lexie is always busy. Lexie writes and when he writes he doesn't listen to anything you say, so you get bored and go to do something else. Like find food.
It's a good lie because it's part true. You're quite proud of that.
When they start to hit you, you can't fight back. Your hands are tied behind you; your feet are bound. They hit you so much that it starts to feel like you're seeing it happen to someone else. Someone who's far away. Then a foot strikes your face and you don't see any more.
You're in a cage, on a cart, and Lexie is outside it. So are the soldiers and their horses. They're getting ready to leave.
Only one of your eyes is working right, and they've put chains on your wrists and ankles that are cutting into you. It's worse than anything, and you try to tell him. You did what he said and they still hurt you like this.
You're not sure you spoke words outside of your head., but Lexie steps closer. He looks sad. Much sadder than usual. He doesn't look like Alexiel at all.
But he tells you you did the right thing when you talked to the soldiers. He says he's sorry this had to happen.
You managed to do the most important thing Lexie ever asked for. Even though you're hurt like this, you didn't do anything wrong. You're so relieved that for a second or two it almost doesn't hurt any more.
A soldier touches Lexie's elbow and tells him he can't blame himself for the things you did, and Lexie nods. You don't understand, but you don't care, because you know you did thing right.
You want to kill the one who touched Lexie's arm, but you can't. When the soldiers mount their horses and you feel the cart lurch beneath you, you can't stop it. No one else is watching now, and you see that Alexiel doesn't look sad any more. But he still thanks you. He says you've been good. And when the cart begins to roll from the place where he stands, he nods one time before turning away.
By the time you start howling his name, straining against your shackles, he can't hear you any more.
Ceasefire [no-holds-barred beatdown]
He is here now as an ambassador, and it's going to be the death of him.
If he'd been more ruthless it might not have come to this. But that would have meant causing more harm; instigating more of the same hurt. He can't end a chain of violence by adding another link. That isn't what led him down this road.
Cathal will understand that. He thinks Talbot would too, were it not Cathal's people seeking to forge the final link.
"How can you show your face here after what you people did?"
The voice comes from his blind side. Kin strains to see who speaks, but it's fruitless—too many bodies are pressed down on him, too many hands with too many sorrows to unburden. A chorus of them rise to join that first voice, recounting the day their city was torn down around them, cursing him in the names of lost loved ones. If blaming him allows them to move forward, Kin will accept their hate.
But he won't accept their justice. As they roll him to his stomach and bury their knees into the curve of his spine he still fights, still struggles to wrench himself free when they seize great handfuls of coarse fur to yank his arm out in front of him.
He knows, even before he sees the axeblade, what it is they mean to do.
The first blow is a thick overhead swing, punching deep into the muscle of his shoulder.
Adrenaline floods him—he bucks wildly, pain roaring hoarse from the very pit of him, and then they're on him again, forcing him back, and the second swing bites down a hand's width from the first.
The cobbles beneath him are running red by the end. Sound has died in his throat; even after they scatter it's all he can do to stare through the tinged haze of his one good eye. His arm remains attached not by meat or bone, but only by blood-matted clumps of thick pelt. It lies before him, too far from his body. Too far from his core.
They've made a trophy of his flesh and have not even claimed the prize. That right has never belonged to any human. Only Talbot is supposed to take from him.
Only Talbot will decide where this ends.
Nihilist Ego [don't you dare pity me]
Fine, he has fucking nightmares. That shit that happened in the Ultra Space, its left something behind in his head. Made him crazy. Made a pussy out of him. He has nightmares more often than he doesn't these days. Big Bad Guzma getting scared in the dark like a widdle fucking baby. Fine. What-fucking-ever.
But it's meant to be better when someone's sleeping beside him, and Nanu doesn't usually ask questions. They've never asked shit of each other, right, except a place to crash and the kinda company you usually have to pay for. Nanu's a fucking cop and he's always got that look like he's on the wrong side of a hangover, but he bends right over when Guzma needs somewhere to shove it and that's always suited 'em both just fine.
Only not this time. Because Guzma's had another one of those damn dreams, the ones where he's not in control of himself, where those tendrils are slipping in all around him and he feels like he's watching his body from outside himself and he swears he's choking on something, he's had one of those fucking shitshow nightmares with Nanu half-naked beside him, and he's woken up screaming like a fucking bitch.
His knees hit the floor hard as he scrabbles free from the sheets; somewhere in the dark he can hear one of Nanu's Meowth hiss as it darts away from him. That noise helps orientate him to where the fuck he is at least, but it doesn't stop the acrid bile that surges up his throat.
He doesn't eat before bed any more. Doesn't eat any time close to sundown. He's puked his guts out too many times to make that mistake again. This time his throat works hard to swallow, swallow, swallow that shit that tries to heave out of him, and somehow he keeps it down. Saliva still tries to stream past his lips; he spits, really hawks it up, doesn't give a fuck what kind of mess he's leaving on Nanu's floor. His eyes are streaming too. Even his fucking nose.
"Oi," He hears Nanu mutter behind him, and Guzma wants to spit again. Wants to smash Nanu's fucking face in before he has to hear anything else. Instead he struggles back up from his hands and knees, manages to settle on his haunches and grit his teeth hard against the shivering nausea that crashes back over him.
The hand that pats between his shoulders isn't gentle and doesn't linger. Fucking Nanu all over. "Get you a drink," Nanu says, and creaks to his feet with all the usual groans and grumbles.
"Fuck off," Guzma snipes after him anyway, as bold and bad as everyone expects him to be. It comes out weedy and thin. Some fucking pussy-ass bitch wearing his skin.
Strangers in his skin. Fuck. By the time Nanu's back, Guzma's spilled his damn guts after all—and the next time that hand settles on his shoulder, he's almost burnt up enough to take the damn comfort.
Strength of Kings and Mortals [forced to kneel/bow]
Ardyn tuts, and smiles, and spreads his hands open and wide as though he has nothing to hide. "Oh, Noct. This whole production of yours is becoming a bit stale, don't you think? I'm sure neither of us wants that. Would you like me to make things more fun?"
Noctis doesn't want anything Ardyn's offering. The insinuations—like they're friends, like there's something other than blood between them—burn under his skin. A voice in the back of his mind cautions him the same way Ignis would, warns him not to be reckless, but Noctis throws himself forward anyway. And there's a moment where his fists actually connect with something solid, where he's actually able to seize thick handfuls of clothing and yank Ardyn's face inches closer to his own—and then the air is empty between his fingers, and Ardyn's smooth laughter hits him a second before he's actually struck.
His knees strike the ground hard, his palms skid raw against the concrete as he catches himself. Ardyn's still laughing, still keeps on laughing as he plants one heavy heel into the small of Noctis's back and shoves, applying just enough unyielding pressure to force Noctis down against the cold grimy floor. "Oh dear," Ardyn murmurs, his voice silky with concern. "Are you alright?"
He's a prince. Damn it, he's a king. He's spent his whole life learning when to show his strength and when to show humility. This is a time for strength. But when he tries to rise, Ardyn's heel digs, and Noctis gasps and goes prone despite ever livid nerve in his body screaming for violence and retribution and escape, escape, escape.
"You know," Ardyn continues, so damn conversational, "You've never tried asking me nicely. Have you ever considered that? Perhaps you and I might be able to come to some sort of arrangement, hm?"
"Like hell," Noctis seethes, and means to say more. There's so much that needs to be said. But Ardyn bends, crouching down to centre his knee into the hollowed space between Noctis's shoulder blades. Ardyn's lower leg is braced along the length of Noctis's spine, and Noct is frigid with discomfort even before he feels the tangle of over-familiar fingers slipping through his hair.
He doesn't want to hear this. He doesn't want to feel this.
"I do know where he is, of course. Your dear Prompto, I mean. And he would so love to see you again." Ardyn's fingers coil in lazy circular motions against his scalp, the intimacy of it so incidental that Noctis knows it's an attack. Knows that it's meant to be freaking him out. And it's working. Noctis hates himself for knowing better and still shuddering and squeezing his eyes shut.
And Ardyn just keeps on talking, like nothing's happening. "It's sweet, really. He wants to apologise to you. Can you even imagine? After what you did to him?"
"Shut up!" He didn't mean to, damn it, damn it, Ardyn made him do it, Ardyn—fucking Ardyn— "Where is he?!"
"Still not asking nicely. Should I give you one more chance?" Ardyn doesn't let him go, but he does release some of that pressure. Noctis stays still, teeth ground tight, and tries to convince himself that he's about to get his moment. To convince himself that he's frozen in place because he's waiting for his chance, not because Ardyn's gotten to him. "I've heard that you negotiated admirably with First Secretary Claustra. Although I don't suppose it did you much good in the end, did it."
It rushes back like salt water filling his throat—Ignis, Luna...!—and Noctis thinks he might choke on his rage. Or is that grief? It's always one and the other, lately. It feels like that's all his life has become. Anger and loss, and always Ardyn at the centre of it. And now Ardyn stands, relinquishes his grip to come and stand before him, and Noctis is ready to surge to his feet and tear that bastard limb from limb except he just keeps hearing that one same thing. He wants to apologise to you.
Prompto.
Ardyn knows where Prompto is. Ardyn might be the only person who knows where Prompto is.
When Ardyn lays the sole of his boot lightly against the back of Noctis's head, Noctis doesn't try to resist. Face pressed almost flush to the ground, Noctis closes his eyes and steadies himself. This is a time for strength; but Prompto deserves his humility. "Fine," He manages, and he doesn't need to look up to know the expression on Ardyn's face. "Let's negotiate."
Re: Strength of Kings and Mortals [forced to kneel/bow]
To convince himself that he's frozen in place because he's waiting for his chance, not because Ardyn's gotten to him.
I adore this.
This entire piece is perfect, and you've absolutely captured Ardyn. I'm so pleased.
no subject
And I'm so glad you liked my Ardyn voice! He's definitely the character I would want to write more of, but also feel like he's difficult to match against his canon presentation—he's just such a magnificent piece of work! But god bless that awful man for just making every possible awful concept viable. "This conceit is utter nonsense? It's fine! Just say Ardyn did it!"
uses icon of an entirely different magnificent final fantasy bastard.
Closed Circle (the pretty thing in the walls) [overdose]
Malik, and Daimd. If the circle of his trust has broadened only as far as two, then that's still further than he's ever gone before. It's a choice, and maybe even a triumph. It's not something he wants to come back from.
"Don't call me that," he growls, but that's all. He doesn't demand to know how Malik first heard the name, doesn't pick at the suspicion that Daimd and the Captain have been exchanging stories behind his back, all the kinds of things Quinn would never share on his own. He doesn't even ask what Malik is doing out here, greeting Quinn in the hallway instead of waiting inside his office the way he usually would. Irritation blooms out like nettles between them, but Quinn holds that anger against himself and doesn't let it take root.
This is what it means to trust, then. This is how he keeps his circle intact.
"Sorry," Malik smiles, all charm and ease and himself, and then he steps right through the nettled space between them and slaps his palm against the bare curve of Quinn's neck. And it's so strange and sudden and so fucking bizarre that Quinn very almost doesn't feel the prick of sharpness that punctures his skin.
Don't touch me, he thinks, almost at the same moment that his knees buckle beneath him.
It's not paralysis, but it's not not paralysis. Malik catches him before he hits the ground, cradles him down gently until Quinn's settled back against the wall, and he tries to shove Malik the fuck away from him, acid in his veins and acid on his tongue, but his arms barely even shift against the drag of his own deadened weight and when he tries to curl his fingers into fists all he manages to do is cling against Malik's forearm. What are you doing?, he wants, and Get off of me, and I'll fucking kill you; "Don't—" is all he manages, and Malik's smile doesn't so much as flicker as he murmurs for Quinn to hush.
"I think we should take the day off," Malik tells him as though Quinn has won a prize, and he keeps on talking away even as he begins rolling Quinn's sleeve up past his wrist, his forearm, higher. "Don't you deserve a little slip? You've been so good for so long, haven't you. Don't struggle now. I'd hate to miss."
Is he struggling? He is, Quinn realises, he's struggling through the wild panicked surge rising up his throat. It's emotion thick and heavy enough to overthrow him, except it isn't enough, not enough to get through whatever the fuck Malik's done to him. A few pathetic motions, spasmodic little jerks of helpless resistance, and then Malik slides the needle in above the crook of his elbow and Quinn swears he's back in that room. Back in that fucking chair with his wrists and ankles bound and locked. That place where every escape was only meant to hurt him.
"There's a good boy," Malik coos, and pats his cheek with wetted fingertips. The needle slipped after all. A bright blood trickle snakes down his forearm, wells from the single flesh-torn speck where he's been filled. Quinn watches, watches it roll over him, and feels his mind beginning to unhook from itself. Feels, right after, deciding that he doesn't care. His blood is redder than desert dust and almost as inviting.
Oh, but that's where they should be. That was where he belonged. A circle almost of one.
Malik hardly seems Malik at all any more. The lines of his face have deepened, the red has gotten all in his hair. In his hair, in his smile, in the way his hand reaches inside Quinn's pockets to find the tablet he carries there. And then Malik settles back on his heels and looks down at him, one hand moving almost idly across the screen. "Now then, Daliquinn. Let's get the lover over here, shall we? It wouldn't do to leave you out here all alone, would it."
Malik's calling Daimd...? Must be. And Quinn thinks Daimd must answer, too, but he isn't sure how to be sure any more. Malik lets the tablet drop limply through his fingers, lets it rest in Quinn's own lap. Reaches over and touches again and his fingers are still wet, still red—don't, don't—and then he climbs to his feet and goes. Red and black and scarves. Barely Malik at all. Maybe it isn't Malik any more. Maybe it's himself who's walking away from him.
Betraying himself? Of course. Of course. Not the first time, is it. Not even the thousandth. The thought shudders over him like aftershock, and then it all shudders away, and there's nothing at all until he feels hands closing around his shoulders. Hello, love, he says, or tries to say, but he doesn't do it, doesn't think he manages it, can't tell any more and can't bring himself to care. How must he look. How must he feel. How much longer until that hot red dust might finally choke them both.