𝙸𝙽𝙵𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙴𝙳.

          he has the posture of a feral cat.

even if his virus ridden mind had forgotten every contour of her face, her scent would never fail to make his mouth water. before she had even crossed the threshold of the apartment lobby, the hunter had already pictured her throat between his greedy maw -- and it paints itself all across his face. she can see it plain as day, yet as each footstep carries her closer, the virus beckons with malicious intent.

by nature he was designed to create a false sense of security, lead humans to believe the threat was outside the doors rather than inside. it was almost like a game between humanity and raw instinct. no matter how easy it would be to let go, the people from his past would never let him become a complete monster.

as her footsteps turn into a run towards his rigid form, his expression becomes disheartened as it dawn on him how long it's truly been. his saving grace, still alive and kicking ass just like in the french quarter. so many memories she carries, a piece of his home and a reminder that not everything is lost. when she pauses in front of him out of breath and uncertain, his head tilts to the side gently.

he'd been traveling with another group at the time, their voices way too loud for the end of the world as they prowled the streets. they weren't unaware of the danger and that an undead horde could spring upon them at any moment -- it was their misplaced trust in the blonde mercenary. he may not have spoke much, but they knew he was extremely talented at keeping them alive and that alone was enough for them to find joy during the end of the world. upon reaching the safe house, they notice the mercenary has paused on stepping inside, hand seemingly frozen on the door handle. their voices sound like background noise to him as the familiar perfume gut-punches him immediately.

( you're coming with me, right? ) it's a voice that haunts him even when he's awake, a constant reminder of two years prior. ( yeah, of course i am. ) even now he can hear the bombs in the distance and feel the ground trembling. it was the last chance of getting out of nola alive -- and he made sure she took it even if he didn't. he can still see her face the moment he pushed her across the bridge and didn't follow. there wasn't even enough time to call him out for his lying or a proper goodbye. everything that ended was suddenly rushing back to him like a floodgate, wave after wave of emotion forcing his head back under before he can take a breath.

from the moment he awoke, it had been his main mission to find her in a stable world without infection. but when every city so far had been the opposite, his hope turned into a grim acceptance. she was gone like all the others, his effort to save her life in vain and it added to the rest of the guilt that kept him awake at night. however, part of him still hoped ... the viral mimicking a man inhales sharply, muscles visibly tense as he slowly turns around. silver-blues lock with her own, a computer virus made flesh. instead of his mind focusing entirely on the fact she's alive, it chooses to latch onto her finding him after two years of being supposedly dead. his feet move towards her, face a myriad of emotions as he tries to process it all. this whole time he's been thinking she was dead, fate delivers her to him without warning. she doesn't speak even once he's a few feet from her, his breathing almost erratic as he looks her over from head to toe.

" 'heri.." he says breathlessly, a frown on his rugged features before the gap is closed abruptly as he pulls her into a tight hug, squeezing as if she'd vanish right in his arms. the familiar hunger and pain doesn't triumph over to sheer amount of relief and ... happiness? that he feels in this moment. and then it fades into sadness the moment he pulls back some to stare at her, a tear falling from his eye that he doesn't even seem to notice as he brings a half-gloved hand hesitantly up to hover above her cheek, as if some invisible force held him back from fully committing. "you're ... really here."

unbeknownst to everyone else, CEDA would return within weeks to collect viral samples that were left in the debris. each sample contained continued to rapidly mutate faster than they could study, but it didn't stop them from returning to scour every inch. within the first month, they had come across an odd corpse beneath the rubble of a restaurant. the man's body was almost gray, yet he didn't show signs of decay. upon further inspection and dragging his mangled body from the collapsed concrete, the recovery team noticed that his skin had the faintest bit of warmth. confusion overtook them immediately as they began to check his body and found that bones were broken in nearly every spot they felt, whatever nerves and uneasiness went out the window. that is, until the cracking began.

@shctsfired said: " jesus christ! that lightning shook the whole house."

         𝐕 cinches rusted metal bar of handrail under her fingers & watches the backdrop. the distant carrier container zipping expertly between the distant skyscrapers that reflect the evening skies like hundreds of mirrors, past moving advertisements honeycombing the city center & the smell of smoggy, metropolitan air & set her jaw. (she sees LED’s in the dark, streets busy with citygoers, & it feels like a world of dull paper settings. they were beautiful, but they didn’t matter. as the headaches & terminal symptoms become more frequent, the world didn’t much matter as did the monsters in it.)

a taut silence. so much so, she’s able to pick up on even the softest sounds of a hushed exhale of fabric shifting. & dimitri, the constant complication that falls in & out of her orbit without reprieve. something about the tone he takes this time makes the palm of her organic hand itch. dead. dying. she’s schrödinger’s cat whose lid hasn’t quite been flipped. dead woman walking with a nasty assimilation protocol wreaking havoc in her neurocytes. (the old machine’s method can easily annihilate the engram but the host——of flesh & bone——is not equipped to survive such thing & she would very much so like to keep it in tact!) she shifts weight to one leg, then to the other. a twinge of alarm in it all. shoots him a look, this time devoid of all derision or feigned contempt. momentarily flushed with preoccupation on a deeply humanizing level.

& with a finality, she pushes off of the railing completely & grasps herself, folding arms beneath chest. (an effective self-soothing tactic she picked up over the years from studying various specimen!) then, shakes her head with muttered ’uh-uh’.

❛ not yet, ❜ comes her voice, reinforcing herself once more. takes a step forward, then two more & does an about-face to take two more back, from one side to the other in his line of sight like a pendulum, ❛ who told you that? ❜

in the briefest moments of their eyes connecting, he catches sight of her own expression and immediately he winces as if someone shoved a tanto into his chest. oh, don’t look at me like that. a thought that sift through his mind even if his gaze fall downwards. there should be more relief that combs through the dreaded knots he’s had for MONTHS -- a sigh, a breath, dimitri should be able to react with his casual display. he need to, or so he’s programmed himself to behave. whenever conversations and situations took a plummet into vulnerability, he’s always been able to DEFLECT by pretending none of it mattered.

that SHE didn’t fucking matter. she’ll be dead sooner or later, so why give two shits ? distance was a blessing they both cherished, never being in each other’s presence for TOO DAMN LONG because they were not friends. they were mere enemies by the laws of night city, both dodging death and demise each ticking second. that bitch is dead ! another thought that drags a shaky exhale pass his lips, a voice this time not his own ringing in his head. rumors never had any leverage over him until now. a militech mongrel BULLSHITTING an arasaka panther long enough to make him falter. it was also enough for him to damn near lose himself.

she moves, he does not. listens to the sound of her voice resonate with clarity before she begins to swing in time with an old grandfather clock. tick, tock -- he knows she’s curious and want the deets. “i took care of it.” another soft-spoken reply, exhaustion and caution blending into one. trigger finger twitches subconsciously and he stiffens, goes RIGID in a matter of seconds.

please save the iguanas ! an explosion of applause finally cuts through the brief moments of silence whenever the presenter pauses to take a breath. it was an interesting speech, one that the agent hadn't expected about nearly extinct lizards and the combination of all the eddies poured into their cause. "are you sure every 'ennie goes towards actually helping these poor animals ? it feels like we attend these same events EVERY YEAR and they say the same thing," he drawls out, arms now folding tightly across his chest. "...at least SHOW the people progress." will he ever admit he's a huge animal lover ? not aloud, but each event has one grumpy moreau displeased in the lack of proof. "i-- we still don't know if narnar ever found a good home from that nations narwhal charity. and WE donated a lot."

no matter how long he may be gone, it is an unspoken rule that moreau must seek out his PINK CATASTROPHE of night city before doing anything else. there's plenty of other tasks he should be handling upon returning such as paperwork and meetings to attend at arasaka tower, but detours are made because this time is different. new rumors has sent the man into a quiet panic, tensions rising more when it takes several days to track her down. even so, a secluded balcony eventually awaits REUNION and dimitri find himself standing beside her familiar form in silence, words failing him in the moment. "i thought you were dead." a whispered murmur, barely rising over cars honking down on the streets below.