fridgetothefire | 053 ☣ never meant to lie

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053 ☣ never meant to lie

[Spam for Ben]

[They were together in the arena, and they end up together on the barge too, in between their cabins, sprawled a few steps apart on staircase by the fourth floor. As the depthless darkness recedes from her vision and her counterpart's sharp, bright, selfish mind gingerly extracts itself from her own, she glimpses him, and thinks for a dazed moment, with relief and quiet love, and when you wake up, I will still be here. Except - except - he is looking at her, and his expression is all wrong.]

[Public Video (actual immediate response reserved for Peter)]

[She switches to video, with an awkward view of her chin and collarbone as she holds it close to her mouth and speaks as clearly as she can, teeth gritted.]

Help. Stairs, fourth deck, high powered. Fast, please. Ben's mirrored.

[Then she just holds it, turns the view to face Ben and Riddick's fight.]

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[Ben is uncertain when the world begins to fall apart around him - again - but he doesn't panic, because he is exactly where he is supposed to be. He has enough time to fall back closer to Anya, to know where she is, to know that if there is something he can do he is right here to do it, and if not he is where she can find him, and she will.

He almost recognizes where they are when next he opens his eyes, but the actual physical location is less important to him than evaluating it as safe or dangerous, which takes precedence for a moment. In the next moment he's aware of an instinctive, familiar, inherent wrongness, something he can't quantify and couldn't explain, isn't even fully cognizant of. It isn't that this place is completely unfamiliar.

It's that it's not, but it's also not right. And then when he finds himself on his feet, when his gaze falls on the person just outside of his range beside him, he simultaneously thinks Anya and wrong.

She's Anya. But she's not. The smile vanishes from his face and his eyes narrow sharply, dangerously, his teeth flashing in an animalistic expression of just as animalistic, instinctive anger.]

Not you!

Ben. She's changed in floods, hasn't she? Sometimes? This is stranger and more but it's not different, you'll get her back.

[The promise she always makes, the promise every her makes. Delayed, not broken, and if there's a little fearful, a little unstady desperation in her voice, it's because she doesn't know what this is or why it's happening and she's trying to think fast before she's even on her feet, but she would fight to keep that promise, for both of them, because she cares for her counterpart even though the other girl loathes her, because she isn't healing Ben but she makes him happy in a world where the opportunities her Ben has had don't exist.]

[There is always the possibility of unpredictable moments, with Ben; within these, the possibility of violence is almost a given. He is at his least predictable when his perceived responsibilities to the very, very few that hold his unwavering loyalty are at odds.

His last solid memory was of being on the hunt for people that look like people he knows but are not, that are nomlies, that are infiltrators, that must be hunted down and brought to those he has sworn himself to; now, Anya is one of them. Now, Anya is a Nomlie.

He short circuits into anger because it is near to hand, because he will kill her because he must, it will be quick because he will be merciful, but it offends everything he has built his happiness on: she has changed before, in floods. Sometimes. But this has never been a flood, and now?

Now he sees someone stammering a promise that he'll get her back, echoing the implied outcome of his previous hunt, and he makes a small, hurt sound in his throat even as he lunges to his feet. The Admiral asks much of him, to allow Anya to be switched, to be changed.

But he will get her back. The promise isn't this stranger's to make, but he leaps on the truth of it anyway, tattooed as soundly into his heart as the barcode on his neck.]

Stop talking! [His order is petulant, a child's, but a strong child, a fast child, a child that was never a child but instead a soldier. His hand flashes out for her wrist.] You're not the Lady, you can never be the Lady, but I will get her back...!

[For a moment, she does stop talking. He catches her, and her wrist is relaxed in his hand. It's not trusting, precisely - she knows he is neither stable nor hers, knows she is in danger. But she knows fighting him would be useless, and like counterproductive. If she gets hurt, then she does, and she is only getting calmer. This is wrong. But what he insists, in desperation, she believes down to her bones. She will fix this. She will make sure.]

I remember being her. I'm not her, but I remember.

She loves you more than anyone in any world.

[Anya knows how this goes, how he moves too quickly to be stopped, without hesitation or remorse: snap the arm, stop the threat long enough to snap the neck, it's all over in less than three seconds when he blurs, only marginally longer when he doesn't. The fact of the matter is that he is predictable in his approach but it doesn't matter even when his opponent sees it coming: he's too fast, too strong to counter even with warning.

Now he hesitates, because she sounds like her and his reaction to even the sound of her voice is deeply ingrained in him, driven in under Manticore's conditioning, uprooting it and overwriting it until he would obey her over them without flinching; and he knows that. He knows that she loves him, and it gives him life and strength beyond what he'd ever known was even possible.

His teeth flash, obscuring the fact that tears are already welling up, frustration and helplessness and real sorrow because he would never willingly hurt her. But this isn't her.]

I will have her back. [He doesn't blur, but even with warning he's hard to stop when he twists smoothly, steps slightly to one side for better leverage, and yanks abruptly back against the line of her forearm.]

[She cries out, stark and raw and involuntary, lets the pain wash through her. For a moment, in the white searing moment of it, she's almost floating, and the part of her that that is a coiled, reptilian, defensive thing, the part that sees the cracks in people and knows how to nudge or hammer them open, that part thinks, hisses, this is our realm, you are the anomaly - he might kill her but he might kill her anyway, and she could deliver it right, she imagines, not accounting for her helplessness, for the human-animal noise still in her throat. He told her once there was a time when it hardly mattered whether the Lady saved him or destroyed him, as long as the world was made right.

She could tell him he deserves that death, to stand down and offer his neck, that it is why She has left him to Anya. Every angel is terrifying. Every goddess carries death, on her neck, in her hand, behind her smile.

But Anya is not the Lady, and she can't do it. Not to him, not even this him, So she screams for the space of half a breath, shudders and fights not to jerk away, because if he doesn't release his hold, it will only hurt worse.]

Edited 2014-10-04 16:50 (UTC)

[Riddick has always responded to Anya's pain, verbal or otherwise. It's kind of the way their relationship started. He comes into the stairwell and bolts down, knife already out.

He halts, brain flicking to the assumption that something's wrong with Ben's tryptophan again.]

Ben. Easy. Let her go.

[Ben doesn't take any pleasure in her pain, not even just because it's her. He has never exactly been cruel, though he is capable of it. Here, now, she screams and he is immediately sorry, immediately damned, but he doesn't stop, he can't, not now.

If it had been almost anyone but Riddick, his interruption wouldn't have mattered; Ben's other hand is already around the back of Anya's neck, fingertips positionedat the edges of the vertebrae, but he looks up and stops.

Riddick is not who he should be either. Riddick has a knife. Ben hesitates, a strangled sound in his throat, something desperate in his eyes, and the first tear spills over even as his teeth flash in an animal snarl.]

This isn't right! I was good! I was good! [His fingers tighten but he doesn't twist, not yet.] Wasn't I? Wasn't I good?

[She's crying too now, enough to blur his face, and she isn't even sure if it's the pain or the sound of his voice, the raw wild pleading. You were perfect, she thinks, and the memory of the other Anya's vicious adoration is sharp and shining in her chest. You're always perfect, and she doesn't know whose thought it is. She gasps, tries to speak through the sobs in her throat. His hand is warmer-than-human and impossibly strong as ever on her neck, and the worst part is that she wants to sag against it, that the touch feels comforting against the blaring pain from from her arm in spite of everything.]

You were good, you were, this isn't punishment, she loves you, you know that -

[She shouldn't, maybe, shouldn't reinforce it, but she knows damn well she can't break it, but can't quite bring herself to say have faith, can't stomach that either.]

Ben, she wouldn't ask you to do this.

[He's clued in now, jarring, furious with this new situation but unruffled calm on the outside. He keeps the knife in his hand, casual, no attention one way or another.]

There's no purpose to it. The contest is over and there's no point. The Admiral doesn't want you to do this. She wouldn't.

[He'll go there if Anya won't. Treading carefully but he'll strike deeper and crueller to protect her.]

[The unruffled calm is jarring to Ben, too, not because his Riddick is excitable but because he wouldn't push back, he wouldn't counter, he wouldn't be a threat. Would he? Would he?

Wouldn't she? Didn't she?

Anya is crying, and he knows the Lady loves him, he knows that, which is why he would do this at all, why he would keep her from being turned, keep her from being a nomlie, but she couldn't, could she, she's stronger than that, she's so strong and she loves him so much...

He doesn't reply, not with words; there is a sound ripped from his throat, fractured between frustration, denial, and despair, but he lets go. He lets go of Anya completely and turns on Riddick instead, on the doubt his words wedge into Ben's already unsteady thoughts.

As always - always - he reaches for his opponent's wrist first, blurring to him but wild, out of control, barely held within the constraint of his training.]

[She bites her lip bloody as her arm falls, fumbles with her other hand for her comm, switches to video, with an awkward view of her chin and collarbone as she holds it close to her mouth and speaks as clearly as she can, teeth gritted.]

Help. Stairs, fourth deck, high powered. Fast, please. Ben's mirrored.

[Then she just holds it, turns the view to face Ben and Riddick's fight.]

[Riddick's wrist is right there to grab, convenient and level. And then as soon as his hands close on it that wrist is jerked towards Riddick's body, dragging Ben with all his speed and momentum into Riddick's own turning inertia as he spins in to slam his other elbow into Ben's chin. Ben's got his empty hand, but he doesn't turn the knife down yet. Not yet.]

Stop this.

[Peter's reeling, and badly from what he was in port. He's not even sure what that was, but he remembers pain and violence and a horrible sense of freedom that has left him feeling kind of shaky and ill.

And then he sees the message, and he knows it could be for anyone, that there are a dozen people who could say okay, I'm coming, I'll help, that he doesn't have to do this, he doesn't have to be a hero, there are other people who can handle it even if there aren't many who could take Ben in a fight like he can, but-]

I'm coming.

[Ben isn't armed. He isn't ever armed. He doesn't have to be.

Riddick pulls him off balance, orders him to stop, but the X5 is past the point of reason if ever he was capable of it: a hurt sound is punched out of him at the point of impact but he doesn't even stop, doesn't hesitate, but scrambles to get his feet under him to reverse his momentum and lash out with his hand not holding onto Riddick's wrist still, steadying to get centered enough to kick, too, though he's not there yet.

He twists with his grip, and the punch is a simple, straightforward one for Riddick's ribs, which he has come to rely on being strong enough to crack outright with most opponents.]

[It's only after the dust has cleared and she's had time to patch herself up that Cassel makes his way to her room - checking the infirmary first, of course, but without any real hope that she'll be in there. Too many people, not enough resources, and anyway it hurts more than just on the outside. He'd want to be alone if he was her.]

[He knocks - shave and a haircut - and leans heavily on the door.]

Anya?

[She doesn't say thanks or be careful or come fast, just makes a soft hurt noise in her throat, raw acknowledgement.]

Come in.

[She's on her bed, rather than in the window seat, hunched and wedged in the corner, like she needs to hide, like she needs something solid at her back, eyes a little red but dry now, red cape swaddled around her shoulders, leaving the alcove of the bed itself exposed and her body - her cast - hidden. She stares at him, a little in shock, or something like it, unwilling or unable or simply not cogent enough to answer with the right pattern of knocks.]

Edited 2014-10-06 03:48 (UTC)

[Ribs crunch, bruised but (mostly) not broken. Riddick grunts, pained but not stopping. He never stops. It's not a particularly bright move, yanking Ben to the side so that he can get a shot at his back, but it's the fastest guaranteed way to put him down-- but fuck, what that motion does to his ribs isn't good. He falters, just for a second.]

[It's just a second, but when an opponent can move as fast as Ben can move, it can be fatal. Would be fatal, if he were remotely calm, if he were obeying his training. But he's a shrieking mess, too angry and too desperate to think straight, and when he's swung around out of reach he responds by doubling back, twisting in Riddick's grip.

They're too close for a full range kick so Ben brings his knee up, his grip shifted up to Riddick's shoulder to steady them both for it, fingers closing vice tight.]

[He pushes the door open, slides inside, biting the inside of his cheek to make a helpless sort of pain. She looks so small like this.]

[He comes and sits just next to her on the bed, not touching, but a solid force at one side in case some cruel manifestation decides to attack. Again.]

Anya.

Hey!

[He's out of practice. This doesn't feel like it comes as naturally to him anymore, and for a horrible second, he's not sure what to do. There's no witticism on his tongue, no instant reflexes telling him to make what move-

Until he sees that knee come up, and then he just... acts. Like it's simple. Because he's not letting this messed up version of Ben hurt anyone if he has anything to say about it.

So it's childish and stupid, and probably not necessarily going to get the reaction he wants (hopes for?), but once it seems like he's got his attention, Ben's got a bunch of web headed straight for his face, either to blind or distract him for long enough for Riddick to break free, or get Ben's attention on Peter and off everyone else.

Enjoy...?]

Hey.

[She doesn't know where to start or what to say. He was going to kill her, and she couldn't stop him and she doesn't know how much she even wanted to try. She wishes she could go to zero right now and make him stop hurting, but she can't. She wishes Cassel would come closer, but she doesn't want to move from her cocoon, either.]

[He doesn't come closer. He reaches out his hand to her instead, slow and tentative as though approaching a wild animal, his eyes on her face the whole time.]

I hate it because I want to say you're safe now but you're not and neither is he.

So I'm sorry, I guess. That's all.

[It's like Tosh, again. Her home is falling apart. Her home is literally -]

This isn't how it's supposed to happen.

[Her voice is very small. She snakes one arm out from under the cape, the unbroken one, although a glimpse of the cast shows, squeezes his hand tight.]

[He squeezes her hand back; lets her squeeze his until it seems like his fingers might break. It's okay.]

I know. It isn't. It's all wrong.

[He scoots closer, leans his head on her shoulder.]

[And her head tilted back onto his head, almost reflexive, relief, release. Like cogs clicking into place, like joints into their sockets. Not healing, but satisfying, right. Comforting to the mind which wishes for pieces to fit.]

Not all.

[There's him, and her. And probably other things. But right now this is who she has, what she needs.]

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053 ☣ never meant to lie

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