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 Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 10:05 pm
Chris' body was suspended in crystal. It's a vibrant blue, and he's encased in the side of a cave wall, like a fly caught in a spider's web. He wants to pretend.
But it's real.
---
When Jack awakens, it's dark. There is nothing but the dark. He can hear water trickling lightly; there's a sandy substrate beneath his fingers.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 10:17 pm
Seconds after his first gasp of air, he rolls over and fumbles for his pack. Torch. The water probably carried him to the shore Chel had spoken of, which probably meant Chris had turned around to regroup. Or Chris too had been caught in a ********, where's the torch?
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 10:44 pm
Chris was it?
The promise has always been there. She just never expected it at this price. Chris is dying. He's dying and this time there isn't the certainty of cave failure or battle fatality.
No, he's strapped to an infirmary bed, the black color seeping up his arm.
< You did this. >
She's holding his blackened hand, and the crawling speeds up. She can see Chris' eyes widen. His screams are muffled, the gag holds tight. Emotions pass over his face. Anger, despair, desperation. Through all of these, she grips Chris' hand tightly. Her cousin, her dear cousin. The man that, in all honesty, raised her. Made her who she was. The one who believed her when others didn't, the one that stood up to Merlin and threw himself in front of the shard the black queen launched at Chel. The moon to her sun.
Her eyes are pitch black. She can't even give him her eyes to look at for his final moments.
He's been dying for the past couple of days. The seed is planted too deep into his system; there's no way for the lifers to regenerate his cells at a rate that would save him. He's just sickly and pathetic and dying.
< Why not let him say his goodbyes? > Even Tenebrae has begun to worry.
He's easily drowned out by the roar of voices calling for vengeance.
It's her power to wield.
Chris' eyes match hers for a single, solitary moment. They are pitch black and she hopes that the roar can drown out her actions and give him peace. He deserves it. He deserved so much better than being chained to her side his whole life. She can feel herself crying.
His grip finally fades, so too does the color in his skin. The machine drones a single sustained note that invades the entirety of the room. She holds up a hand and blackish crystals encase his body, maliciously spiking outwards from the infirmary cot to create a coffin for her cousin. No one will touch him ever again.
She walks down the hall and crystals cover the walls once more, pulsating as they did in that castle so many years ago. Except this time it is real. She hears Merlin whispering in her mind and at this point they are one. Chel and the crystals are the same being, they are one limb of Merlin's reach.
Jack is waiting at the end of the hall. He has Owain drawn, just like he's supposed to. Always have a plan, that was Jack.
But she doesn't attack. She approaches slowly, and it breaks her face to smile at him. Now she can feel the horrible thing she's just done to Chris, the things she's about to do to the leads. She is more Merlin than Chel, but Chel is fighting.
"Jack," she murmurs, a small vibrating undertone to her voice that stills him for a moment. She only gets close enough to see his face. Just one last time.
He lunges forward, just like he's supposed to. She doesn't move, but the crystals react anyways, creating a barrier between them. Chel puts a hand on the purpleish crystal, looking through the glass at the person trying so hard to save what is already lost. "Jack," it's softer, it's enough to make him stop for the moment. He's breathing hard at this point; the barriers hold.
It seems the perfect revenge for Merlin that she can't even touch him. She tries willing the crystal to bend away, to break the wall. If she could just break through to his side, maybe they could control it. She wants it so badly that it seems willpower alone can break Merlin's grasp of her soul. There's a slight crack, but then her eyes go black. Jack flinches and yells her name, but she is no longer that name. She was always destined for hell.
Her hand raises towards him-
No.
-and crystals jut from the ground to impale her. They smash right through her shield and go straight from the ground through her stomach to the ceiling; she's suspended off the ground in a sickly kind of way, the way bodies were displayed on pikes as a warning. She chokes for a moment, red staining the purple crystals to make a deeper black than before. Her senses fail instantaneously.
Her eyes are still black, but she looks at him with an expression only the hunter can provide. A smile. She saved him. She broke through in time.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 10:48 pm
Jack can hear her now, a few feet away. She coughs up water once, twice, before gasping for air like it's her first time breathing.
He body slumps to the ground, but she's still breathing.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 10:57 pm
It's hard to keep track of time, sometimes.
Its like everything blurs in and out, he only vaguely remembers sensations from some parts of life. He starkly remembers every detail from others. Maybe that's the way it always is - a confusing mess of faded senses of the mundane clashing against the vibrant noise of the truly remarkable - but it seems like it's going at mach speed.
---
Pens scratch against paper. They fill out more wedding invites than their total number of friends combined, He's sure. Chel 'supervises'. Which mostly means she mixes drinks in the background, and laughs as it gets exceedingly harder for them to write out the addresses.
It's nice. Chris's breathes the easiest he has in - he doesn't know how long. He can't remember why he couldn't breathe. But it's nice to be able to.
---
He sits Chel down on their porch swing one night (he and Daws have one of those, apparently. It's sickeningly southern, and Chris kind of loves it.) and he asks her about Abbi. He doesn't know how to ask it at first, because a face is stuck in the back of his mind and it's connected to so much anger and fear that he can't believe Chel doesn't know.
So he says "How are you and Abs?" and it's casual. It's simple.
Chel doesn't get it, because of course she doesn't. She shrugs and talks about their little apartment. Talks about sex and dinners and money and ******** taxes. But she never once gives him the answer he really wants to hear. So he waits for a lull in her words.
Swallows nervously.
"Does she make you happy?"
Chel's quiet for a second, but her face is calm. Her eyes are bright and she bites her lip as she nods. "Yeah. She makes me really happy.
Something blooms in his heart. It feels like hope.
---
Fingers trail down his sides. He arches into them. Pants senseless pleas. Wants to cry because hes so keyed up, but he's so happy. Every heavy breath on his neck is a reminder, a promise he'd never let himself imagine. Every clumsy, over-enthusiastic brush of lips is like a searing declaration that he'd never had the guts to make. He stores them all in a mental box, one he won't ever let go for fear of losing a part of himself.
The physical blends with the emotional, and he's overwhelmed with it all.
---
Some nights, it's not so overwhelming. It's calming waves of /this is good/ crashing over him while he folds laundry (a thousand flannels), or as they watch football, legs tangled on the couch.
It's ringing reassurance as Dawson's hand gently curls in Chris's hair as they fall asleep, or his fingers drag across Chris's back when he walks by.
It's simple and digestible. Easy to take in and accept.
---
The most vibrant is the night Chris actually cries.
It's after dark, and a warm breeze across the beach, bringing with it a sense of ethereal calmness. Chris is anything but calm. Fairy lights cast a cheery glow on a couple dozen bright faces. They're all looking at him. They're all happy for him. He feels light-headed.
Chel's hand reaches out to steady him at his elbow. Her grip is grounding, reassuring. This is real. He's actually doing this. He actually gets to have this. He glances at her from the corner of his eye, and she offers a knowing smirk.
Her dress does match Abbi's. They're unbelievably beautiful, standing across from each other. He catches their glances, and he's glad he bought them a really nice room for the night.
The music changes and he stops breathing.
He suddenly understands why grooms always cry.
Its not because Dawson is exceptionally handsome in his suit as he walks down the aisle. He is handsome, to be sure, but he's handsome every day. It's because he's overwhelmed with the sheer happiness that he feels in the moment, watching his present and future walk towards him. It's because he sees the happiness reflected back at him, and this is a step they're taking together.
It's because Chris gets to just have this. No questions, no stipulations. He gets his own happily ever after, and he never could have wished for it.
So he cries. Because he's a ******** groom.
"You ******** baby," Chel whispers, grinning from ear to ear.
"Shut up."
---
The cold metal of his new ring sliding down his finger is almost more private than anything else he's felt. It's the crisp feeling of stability sliding into place.
His hands tremble as he slides the larger ring onto Dawson's finger, and when it's in place Dawson grabs his hands and squeezes gently. Grounding. Real.
---
The officiate doesn't finish saying you may now kiss the groom. Chris pulls Daws forward and kisses him with everything he is. He forgets there's an audience. That they're the night's entertainment. He forgets anything but the little bubble that is Chris and Daws, together.
He forgets that he was ever unhappy or afraid of this.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 11:00 pm
The torch flickers on at last between several watery coughs. He turns away from the initial burst of light and squints through adjusting, then follows the sounds to her position. Just her. s**t.
Jack gets to his knees and sets the torch down. "Told you about those ******** crystals," he mutters under his breath as he turns Chel on her side to help her breathe and cough out any remaining water still in her lungs. "Easy now."
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 11:05 pm
She flinched under his touch; she didnt quite register that it was the real world yet, not with the ringing in her ears and the pulsing roar still in her bones.
But then it becomes Jack and the cave and she grips him more fiercely that before.
It took her a little bit until her breathing slowed enough to say, "Yer always right." She pushed herself up only to stumble into his arms. It wasn't the time or the place, but she needed to know it wasn't the dream and it becomes a sloppy, wet hug. "You okay?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 8:32 am
He breathes out a, "Yeah," and curls an arm tightly around her in support; the other, in an almost intimate fashion, checks for anything larger than a cut. Chel's vision must have been as bad to shake her up this much. He has to blink it back like a stubborn nightmare himself and remember: alive, alive, alive.
"Chris?" Even though he already knows the answer.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:10 am
Jack would find a few scraps here and there from where she'd bumped into the cave wall, but nothing requiring medical attention as Tenebrae was already healing them over. He'd seen the vision too, and the way she'd ignored him unsettled the weapon.
She kept her nose in his neck as though if she couldn't see or hear anything but him, the whole thing might go away faster. Yet his question requires investigation. "What about him?" She took a deep breath in and looked around; as suspected he wasn't there.
"s**t," she muttered, wiping her face. Her body was still shaking from a combination of air deprivation, the vision and now this newfound problem, but she pushed herself off of him and attempted to stand up. Chris wasn't the kind of person she could just keep waiting. "D'you think he's still in the water? ********>."
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:36 am
He kept his arms on her shoulders anyway to steady her as they both got up. The light from the torch cast their faces into sharp relief--Chel's into seemingly worse panic.
"Probably. Breathe deeply and slowly," Jack told her. "You need to be refocused before we go back in." The last thing either of them needed was to get dizzy underwater, or exhaust their air supply before they reached him.
Once he was certain Chel wouldn't topple over, he picked the torch back up. "We cut down any crystals in the way," he suggested. "Does your bow work underwater? Owain has a long reach if nothing else."
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:58 am
If Jack was telling her to keep calm she knew she must have looked like a wreck. She nodded and took deeper breaths, putting her forehead on him to focus on a non-moving object. "Tensy can be a pair of blades too," she reminded him.
The water began to bubble, and suddenly there was another long, bellowing roar. This time louder, they were closer to the source.
The roar shook the water and the underwater tunnel poured out rocks, shadows and a swell that indicated something large was coming. There was no question about whether they should stand their ground; with the tunnel caved in they would have to go around.
"Run!"
Chel took his wrist and pulled in a random direction, pushing towards whatever wasn't a cave wall. They ran in the dark for a while until the cave opened up to another miniature forest; this one was much, much bigger; one couldn't see the other end of it. The other large difference was, you know, the giant basilisk about a football field away from them.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 11:30 am
"We have more reach," he insisted. Chel's visions had to be infinitely worse due to Merlin; and he was, slowly and sadly, growing used to watching her die and be taken from him, and worse things besides. He had had to keep a calm head about these distressing alternate universes for a while now.
But it didn't matter now. A roar interrupted their preparations, and he hissed a curse as rocks began to fall. Though Chel tugged him along, his long legs quickly let him keep pace as they fled the scene, the torchlight in his other hand dancing madly. Somewhere in their escape he remembered to turn it off to conserve its power, and it became a mad scramble in the dark not to trip or slam into something. Jack nearly summoned just for the additional glow to help them.
He nearly did again when they spotted the basilisk. It was hard to slow down after that hustle, and he jerked them to the side of where they came out from and into the ********," he muttered, pressing his free arm against his mouth in an attempt to muffle his panting. Caught between a rock and a hard place? Already his mind was scrambling to determine cryptozoological entities that lived in caves. He glanced at Chel. "You all here?" Mentally, emotionally, physically.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 11:53 am
They could talk their visions out later. Right now they had to sink into a mindset so familiar for Deus: survival.
She yelped at the sudden jerk to the side, but the basilisk was too far away and too poor of hearing to notice. She followed his suit and pulled up her scarf to muffle her breathing. It was too fast, too much at once for her to develop a plan. All she could do was nod; she was here, but here was moving- and quickly.
They stayed hidden like that for a while, Chel and Jack both pressed into the walls as though they could somehow become part of the rock if they tried hard enough. Eventually the basilisk moved on, not sensing anything. Still, it had done all it needed to do; scare the crap out of them by merely appearing.
"That thing was huge," Chel whispered when she deemed it safe, hand tugging on the cloth of his jacket. Less for his attention and more for her own sanity.
Chris was obviously the first thing on her mind after the flight or fight had worn off. She pursed her lips and made a decision. "We're going to find him," she said quietly, "And then we pendant out. It's not worth it." She looked at Jack, nearly pleading for him to agree with her so she could convince herself of it.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:03 pm
"******** sake..." He touched her hand and held his breath. Once the basilisk had moved on, Jack allowed himself to puff out a sigh and suck in breath. He turned to Chel, and his eyes seemed to flicker as if he was trying to physically read her lines written upon her.
"We assess his condition and make a decision then," he countered as he pushed a few stray bangs out of his eyes; his ponytail was coming loose, and he started to fix it up. While it was obvious how dangerous these caves were now, he knew Chel had sunk a lot of time and effort into the artifact. It would be a waste to leave unless they truly had no other option. And it was her first mission: he wanted this to be a success, not a conga line of failure and panic.
Jack glanced around and rubbed his back where the rocks had pressed deeply. "Want me to take point?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:16 pm
Her eyes flickered with something angry for a moment and she opened her mouth to argue, but she shut it quickly after. He was right- she was letting fear get the better of her.
She pushed her goggles to the top her head and readjusted her pony tail out of habit from watching him fix his. "Yeah. Sorry."
In front of them, now the the basilisk was gone, was a clearer picture of the forest. It wasn't very dense, but only two edges of the cave wall could be seen from where they were standing. Either side had tunnels that went in either direction. From the tunnel on the left there was a soft white glow. The tunnel on the right glowed blue, but had stranger markings on it.
Of course, there was no way to tell where the basilisk had gone.
That is, if it was gone.
---
The crystals entrenched themselves further around Chris. They squeezed his body now, almost up to his chin. They grew over his skin and colored his veins with a whiteish color.darkheartedsorrow Chris can now hear Ava- the real Ava- in his dream.
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