#riphalos

night looks the same, no matter where he sits, out from under the earth and a darkness that serves more than the fickleness of blinking starlight. it's a feeble argument to move indoors, met by little resistance from weary faces his stomach can't decide the merit of. whether fondness has its limits. whether the weight of a stare, laid astride his shoulders, should provoke the prickle it does. turn the inky blackness of a hidden gaze towards its owner and hold their bloody counterparts in and unblinking challenge. " rather sleep in the dirt ? " no, astarian was a pampered thing, suited for the luxury of more than this hovel can offer. " ...what is it ? peckish ? " want of a nibble he's in no hurry to offer, damaen nods in the direction of their.. companions. a whole buffet if he's feeling bold. or desperate.

doctor vani doesn't move though. perched atop a stool, the wheels squeak when she scoots closer. stares down into a microscope that exposes inadequate findings. regression. it's a knot in her stomach that works its way higher. climbs into her throat and leaves blame placed on the dead. the cadaver wasn't spectacular, only the variable. with breath cast down her neck, the next would end up the same.. the one after that, likewise. but that didn't matter to him. it never did.

zeno needs no introduction, the stink of smog filtering into the lab precedes him.. someone else may have made a show out of it, swung their arms wide in welcome. she hasn't moved. fingers adjust the scope, " this is a no smoking area. "

combustible elements, it's fitting. he wants what she doesn't give. asks for a perfection they both are ever aware drifts further and further the longer victor plays with his food. some nights, when the numbers aren't adding up, she can't help the wonder. how much of his needling is for her. and how much of it is runoff from someone else.

" i sent you an email regarding the samples, " comes quieter, edged around a breath that isn't held, but shuddering. old fear. the same teeth as the ones that'd gone for her neck that first day. his bite is always different, aimed elsewhere, but the results, " you didn't respond. " and she'd been warned.

some days, she'd prefer the hungry mouths over the smug ones.

he's one drop in the river. one pulse beat in the artery. quick, painful, but unyielding. until he isn't. until falling cracks the ice and what surges up from the rupture is shockingly hot. an inferno he may afford a grand berth, but doesn't avoid entirely. can't. it rings in his ears and deafens the world. jumbles a frequency of objectives into a rash decision what's landed him here. sharp eyes through crooked slats in a safehouse's upper floor window. a survey of the road beneath, devoid of activity, though the city beyond its wire-strung skyline is a'buzz with sirens and an armada's influx. racket enough to dull the air with it's ring, maybe, but miles away. searching the water for a body. or two.

they wouldn't find any.

hydraulics hum when the blinds are abandoned, and there, across the toppled insides of a decade's untouched room, still laying in the puddle that'd leaked from his body, is a failed mission. a relic he's slowly realizing the worth of, perhaps, but not one he's quick to broach that subject for. not when his weary body moves a sluggish line, back behind a half-crumpled kitchen countertop. somewhere for his boots to shuffle. an about-face and he's peering, again, into a setting sunlight that reminds him he's been in the field, now, long enough to've seen that twice. long enough to feel the pit in his stomach shrinking in around itself.

pacing might've had longer life were he not tuned in on the quiet creak of soggy floorboards and how they whined beneath the waking shift of unknowing weight. where the pungent stink of blood permeates outside of his own, still rust-crusted, in the plates of his fingers. in the length of his hair, bobbed into his vision. what half-obscures a body more red than white or blue. blond hair stained.

blond hair, a wide smile around the lip of a glass that smells sweet of strawberries and whipped cream. music in the background, he doesn't recognize the tune. at peripherals he knows people are moving, but his attention is on blue eyes. blond hair, a wide smile..

hot breath on his neck, he doesn't have to look to see who it belongs to. there's a nose nudged up behind his ear.. a strong arm insistent where it sinches his waist. steve's always slept like this. size hadn't mattered, spindly muscles or what presses hard and firm against his back, he functioned like a furnace. warmth that doesn't burn out. if anything, it flared with new life, sun peeked through the curtains.

" you gonna stop me if i try an' move ? " yes. it was always yes. an unspoken promise when he squeezes tighter. puffs a huff against the fine hairs of bucky's nape. he's the one with a schedule. places to be, people to impress. if steve's day was cleared for this, who was he to argue ?

the smell is foul and typically one he wouldn't mind, grown used to it over the years, but the scene.. barely from their coma and already wasted. a shame. he'll make note of it in their file, alongside one for that expectant smirk that'd greeted him. where zeno looks ever like his predecessor. or.. almost like him. lacking the primordial edge. that charm that once made him suck his teeth in wonder ; what all was hiding behind the curtain ?

a crude demonstration from a crude imitation. breaking things that don't belong to him is an anticipated disappointment, the doctor kneeling beside his late charge with a readied hand, searching for a pulse he doesn't expect to find. " i do wish you were more in tune with restraint. " more dead than before that bullet carved a pretty tunnel between their eyes. blood leaking, black and thick, into what was bloodshot, once. a newborn, stared up at their father. " snuffing out such potential. " and in his office, no less. the mess, he knows that was intentional.

narrow jaw is dwarfed beneath a wide palm, ashen skin matched with his own as their head is turned from right, to left, and back again. no marks but the one he'd left meant they hadn't been here. not yet. not likely.. but never impossible.

" if you're here for the girl, i'm still busy with her. " keeping watch from the shadows. making little discoveries about grace ashcroft every time her itty bitty body shivers in the dark. an impressive display means he'd been correct. exquisite and ready to blossom if only someone showed her how. the delicate touch he knows and @riphalos has proven he doesn't. another lacking trait. it plays a part in why he elects not to look at him. stay crouched, stroking shaggy bits of auburn hair back towards the patchy scalp it sprouted from, " my patients are all fragile.. they need time to understand their purpose. "

" been trying to for a while now, " if he's panting, leon doesn't acknowledge it. would rather focus on staying upright, his hatchet at the ready and pulse slowing to a learned calm. necessary for a fight and.. and if he's honest with himself, he knows this isn't one. this is him biding time and digging for information. knelt at the feet of a blowhard's hubris isn't new. it's just the first time he's had to do it with that pop in his knee and a back that's made it harder and harder to sleep through the years. " i'm starting to think you don't actually mean it. "

convicts do this in the yard. they circle each other. pretend there's a multitude of outcomes and both stand a chance. he might not be a prisoner in the typical sense, but pinned under eyes he can feel but can't see ? isn't it close enough ?

a gun would serve him better and aid in false security, but his had been lost to the far side of the platform three minutes ago and leon hadn't found the opportunity to circle 'round and retrieve it just yet. further evidence that he's being toyed with. the mouse bat between the cat's paws.

main course for the dead for decades, he shouldn't have been so irritated by the thought of himself being the food that's played with.

it's ironic, sort of, hearing that from someone else for a change. that his weren't the only mistakes keeping them company. whatever it was, though.. couldn't have been bad enough for her to make that face. like the air'd gone acrid on them. " you're doing fine. " would've sounded more reassuring from someone else, he knows. anyone with more to offer besides a passing glance and lackluster enthusiasm. less the hollow, bottomless tone he'd long adopted, failing to be coated with a much needed optimism. combat that look in eyes so unsteady.

but he doesn't find those words for her. leon sits in the shadow of their meaning, hands busied with a whetstone while the room around them is surveyed. again. never could be too sure it was empty. eyes had their way of popping up when least wanted. prying. appraising. always with wants and ugly motivation.

" hey, " the slide of stone on steel is louder then his voice, prompt and punctual, " don't do that. " @riphalos has earned his attention, her survival enough of a testament to her untapped grit to be sure of that. " don't start blaming yourself. "

fingers curl their grip around a handle that fits snug despite his tingling palm and a numbness that's been spreading by the day. up into his elbow, now.. it'll reach his shoulder by tomorrow, he figures, but opts to focus, rather, on the curve of grace's frown. so deep, it tries but fails to age her.

some commodities, in the shuffle of the end times, are hard to come by. clean medical supplies. an unspent clip. survivors with good intentions and a clear conscience. he'd tried to make a mental list the last time the quiet pressed in too firm, but he runs out of steam quick and carlos ends on the same thing he does every other ; levity.

jill's eyes are rolling but the grin underneath is all he needs to know the punchline landed. a dig at their first date not being his usual pace. less gunfire and blood, more salsa dancing and spicy food. the only thing he's been tasting for a while now is copper.. copper and grit he isn't unconvinced he shouldn't be worried about it. the same soot that sticks to sweaty skin. causes hair to sag heavy, down into a gaze that prowls the hall ahead and finds it quiet enough that his rifle can finally lower.

" maybe we can see a movie next time, " planning a future he wholly believes they'll have. stubborn optimism, it's saved him before. in the thickets of a muggy junglescape, it'd helped forget how his body ached from bullet wounds and sore muscles didn't recall a time when they weren't tense. pushing your will into existence — he knew a couple grunts who'd have scoffed at that.

boots are careful where they step, around a can he doesn't want to rattle. through the damp pile of newspaper soaked through with red. carlos has led himself between jill and the course ahead, part on instinct and partly because.. she's not looking too good.