walking_napalm | (no subject)

(no subject)

It's dark, and the fog is so thick that it goes well beyond atmospheric and into the kind of density that Liz has only ever seen in enormous banks on a fishing boat off the coast of New England.

She stands at the edge of the tree line, wrapped up in layers (pants, boots, leather jacket, scarf, hat, fingerless gloves -- still cold; always cold), her arms crossed.

Out back, Hellboy had said. He'd seen something in the trees; something that had unsettled him.

The fog twists trees and bushes into looming sinister shapes, slow and sinuous in the faint breeze. Liz's heart is thudding in her ears.

She has checked the bar, over and over again; she's checked the library, the garage, the security cells, the halls upstairs, the Caribbean inlet, the lakeshore, constantly feeling like someone or something is watching but unable to see anyone. She left notes with Bar and all over room 4204. She stuck her head in the door at the Bureau and then returned to Milliways with no better idea of where the hell Red is, and with her gun.

The woods are the last place she can think of that she hasn't searched.

Every time she woke from dozing half-forgotten dreams (dreams of fire; dreams of a darkness so cold and absolute that she can't remember what it feels like to exist) over the last few nights, sometimes to find the pillow smoldering under her head, she was alone.

She turns her face into her shoulder to muffle a cough, then crosses her arms again. Fire is guttering just beneath her skin, the leather of her gloves sizzling faintly. She can feel the fire, see it turning her exposed fingers translucent whenever she glances down, but her hands feel ice-cold. She watches the grasping tree branches, fog drifting, and she doesn't step into them.

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He's lost.

It's dark, and it's cold. But he's not afraid of the dark, he doesn't get cold, or sick.

He isn't helpless.

Right now, he is.

Something moves in the shadows and fog. A twig snaps, and leaf litter rustles somewhere beyond the trees.

The formerly steady thud, thud, thud of her heart goes thudthudthudthud--!

Both hands ignite with Liz's jolt, flickers of blue under the red-gold-orange corona of flames.

She wills the fire back down into her right hand and lets that hand hover over the holster at her hip. Her gloves and the rubber bands around her wrists flake away into ash as she moves. She leaves her left hand burning, raised in front of her, flames flickering with the faint shaking of her arm. She squints into the trees.

Whatever is out there, it must already know she's here -- fire isn't subtle -- and she has to know whether it's a Milliways patron. She takes a deep breath in and out, swallowing a cough. In and out. "Is anyone there?" she calls.

Edited 2012-10-24 02:12 (UTC)

A voice. Her voice comes from somewhere out in the black.

A distant echo, familiar and then strange and fading.

A branch cracks, and a snatch of firelight flickers in the trees. Too far back to be a reflection of hers, and not enough to illuminate the shadows.

There is no quantifying the amount to which Liz does not want to step into those trees. She has seen what happens when agents pull lone wolf moves, and with one notable (big, red) exception, it tends to end in screaming. It's not smart. It's not safe.

She doesn't want to go in there.

Her hand comes to rest on the familiar weight of the butt of her gun. She doesn't draw it. She takes a half a step forward. More forceful this time: "Hello?"

He hears her again, and he wants to go to her, but he can't remember who she is. Doesn't know why it's so important to answer her, to find her somewhere past all this darkness.

For a moment he lifts his head, opens his mouth to say her name, but it doesn't come to him, and neither does his voice. The cold wraps tighter around him, and he curls in on himself once more. A small creature, huddled in the dark.

The light moves amongst the branches, and a figure shuffles closer to the edge of the wood.

It steps out into a clearing between trees, an outline in the fog; the glint of red shining dimly now in her firelight.

She sees the shadow of broad shoulders first, their shape familiar enough, even through the fog and the darkness and the trees, that she asks an uncertain, startled, "Red?" before she has time to think about it.

Is it -- ? If it is, why isn't he saying anything; he's all right; if it was him, he'd say something; where the righteous hell has he been --

A split second after saying the name, Liz, beginning to frown, lets fire coil up around her forearm, flames rising higher above her fingertips.

Edited 2012-10-24 03:17 (UTC)

Red?

He pauses in the shadows until the flare of her fire casts them back, and finally he steps forward.

Horns rise and curl back from his forehead, holding a lick of flame between them that casts light and shadows across his craggy features.

At his side his stone right fist glows from within, the scrawling patterns etched in the stone blazing with an unholy fire.

Breath coming out in chilled wisps, he glowers down at her; eyes dark, dead, with no recognition in them.

She starts, the air punching out of her lungs.

She drops her hand off her gun.

She thinks distinctly, somewhere distant and nauseous: No.

"Jesus-- Red," she says, sharp.

She wasn't aware (alive) for this in Russia, but she's heard enough -- she knows enough about Red's dread of a return engagement -- to recognize Anung un Rama.

Maybe it's a dream; maybe she's gone long enough without real sleep now that she's starting to imagine terrible things--

It isn't a hallucination standing 20 feet from her.

Edited 2012-10-24 05:15 (UTC)

Jesus.
No God.
Red.
Anung Un Rama
The voice. He knows the voice. Her.
She is no one.
She is mine.

Bring her to Me!

Eyes narrowing, he starts forward towards her.

She swallows around her dry mouth. "Hey," she says, ruthlessly measured, her eyes on him. "HB."

His hands twitch, and with stilted movements he closes the distance between them.

Take her. Bring her. Make her FEAR.

He doesn't balk at the flames, instead he reaches out for her.

She's looking at his face, and she can tell: that's not a friendly reach. There's no recognition in his eyes or in that horribly flat expression.

She ducks away, backpedaling and putting another 10 or 15 feet between them. "Come on, Red, this isn't you!" she says through her teeth, borderline frantic. Fire rises, a bright corona all around her. God, what did Myers say he said in the mausoleum-- "Remember who you are!"

His hands close on air, and he turns his head almost mechanically to follow her as she moves away.

Behind him his tail snaps and he advances on her.

Who am I?

Sneering in response, he grabs for her again.

Adrenaline spikes and she darts back again, unable to shake the sick feeling that Anung un Rama is toying with her. She knows how fast Red can be, and it's not this.

If she could get in close enough to touch him, maybe -- no, shit, it's a wild half-formed thought, one she can't risk.

"Your father raised you to be a good man; the best man I know," she says, muscles so taut that her shoulders are beginning to ache as she watches him through flickering flames. "You don't want this. You've got to fight it." The fire licks higher, taller, starting to spiral around her. The charred remnants of her hat and scarf fall away.

Her voice echoes from within the column: "This isn't you."

He hears only snatches of what she's saying, though he's striving to listen.

Father?
No father.
The cold and the darkness close in tighter, and he's sure they're going to squish him. Splat, like a tiny bug.
Insignificant speck.
He curls in on himself tighter, shrinking back further in fear.

He hesitates, only for a heartbeat, and then the demon presses forward, anger darkening his features.

His grasping hand closes into a fist, and with a beast's bellow he charges her, swinging.

An invisible tether, already stretched to its breaking point, snaps.

The explosion is immediate, a crash of concussive force and blooming angry flame that shakes the ground with a tremendous boom.

The blast knocks him off his feet and back into the trees.

Branches splinter, and bows shake as the forest rocks under his weight and her power.

And then, the woods fall silent, and the fog closes in on them once more.

When the smoke clears, it's just Liz standing in a patch of now-scorched earth at the edge of the woods, wreathed in wildly undulating flames. There's a trail of snapped branches and broken trees leading into the forest as far as the eye can see -- which isn't very far.

It's dark, and quiet. The only sounds are the fire in her ears and the wind rattling through leaves and branches.

Liz waits, but nothing comes out of the trees.

Edited 2012-10-24 21:51 (UTC)

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