albinomilksnake | OPEN RP PART II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

[His stare is level when he turns to face her as she snarls, as unfazed as he is capable of tipping the scale without words if he wanted to. All those pretty little powers of hers. Of his. He doesn't so much as blink, doesn't rise to her fury.

It's a good act — but he knows a lie when he sees it.]

No matter how many times you say that, it doesn't change the situation we're working with here, okay. [This time, at least, Felix skips calling her out on her hypocritical bullshit; five minutes from now if they're still standing here deliberating, he might not be so nice.]

Besides, you know him: he'd want this. Going out like a hero instead of a nobody.

[ Oh how she loathes him, sometimes, in a way that she seldom does anyone. Because what are most people to her? Nothing, flickers on data connections, there is nothing they can do to her that has not already been done a thousand times worse. Because they would do it out of cruelty, which is nothing to the horrors done out of love.

But him -? Oh, oh he was something else. Something too close to home, something slippery and cold and smooth edges to hide just how sharp he could be.

Because she's being - selfish. She knows she is. No one is dearer to her than Steve, there are others. So many others. He kisses her like she's water, she holds him like he's sunshine. She's being selfish, and -

- not him, not him, not him. ] He's worth twenty of you. We need him.

[Felix's lip curls where her comment ends, kicked up like a welling bruise across struck skin: he's a good guy. A real good guy. He did his time for the sake of humanity, clocked in, clocked out and took all the bullshit that came with it. Walked away from war thirsty and brittle and there was a kind of coldness to open spaces that stuck to his shadow like blood— the kind of humanity you give up without ever getting back. Put an edge to his teeth he doesn't remember being there before.

Rogers is a fucking showpony by comparison. A poster boy.]

You need him.

[And for that Felix leans in, a couple inches between them, daring her to even bother trying to correct him without the symbiote ringing a silent alarm in her hard-wired skull. Screaming selfish motivation.]

[ Her breath comes quick when he leans in - it's been years, and she's tried to get better at it. At handling the suddenness of others. Being connected to them... she still can't work out if that's better or worse. Because it makes it raw, like the crackle of electricity in her fingers. There's no denying it in front of her, she's not in control of him like she is so many other ( people ) things.

She shudders for it, wanting to crawl away out from under his scrutiny. But - no, no, she won't, she's done feeling her back bend for other people anymore. Her hands grip behind her into the edge of the desk, curling in white knuckled and holding. ]

We need him. The hive needs him. We've got plenty enough people like us - [ selfish, she means, cruel, she means, willing to kill and not even blink. Empty people with empty purposes that filled it up with blood and she stings it sharp mentally back. ] - what are we even doing any of this for, if not for him? For people like him? How good are we then?

Like us? [Oh no. Oh no no no, you don't get to dictate where he sits on the scale of morality here, Angel.] News flash, sweetheart: I'm not like you.

[And neither is Rogers, but she knew that already, didn't she? So desperate to get her hands on something better, like it'll somehow pick her up out of the dirt where she belongs.

He's seen her nightmares. Her dreams. The thin, thin line that runs between the two.] I make choices that save lives.

[When he reaches out, it's not to take hold of her, but the console behind her instead: pinning her back with the span of his body to keep her from turning and stopping his outstretched hand as it closes around the command switch, all cold determination.]

Like this one.

[ She hates him, she hates him, she hates him, he's warm and saying awful things and she hates him. Pressed in close and reaching around - it's the quickest way to get her off balance and she's never hated the symbiote, not like some. Parker, either of them, Steve's sometimes worry about what they were becoming. No, she embraced it, let it in, let so many of them into her mind. Because that was always easier. Once, unknowingly, let him in.

Hates that connection now that he can move so unerringly.

Breathing, breathing, breathing, overrun - no, no she's not - not going to let him. Her shoulders curling in and her back curving away from him. In, in, in, out - out - out, she'll touch him and she'll burn him and that'll be - so much worse.

People are scared of sirens, like its a different kind of death. Like it might be better to die ripped apart, than to so much let them kiss you. ] You're right, I don't save lives.

[ It's soft. The barest threat. In - can't breathe, Jack, she can't breathe, it's choking, it's choking -

Her hand darts up and it's so, so unsure, as it takes its grip in payment for pressing into her. His legs to hers, where she can feel them cut into the desk edge, the other hand bracing as she tries to get some leverage where she is far too small and trapped under him. Be Maya, be Steele, be Lilith. They never cared what they took down, how big it was, it all turned to ash under them and their fires. Their destruction.

The nearest thing to divine that Pandora ever knew, but Pandora never had a need for a merciful Goddess. ]

I take them, Felix, I've killed people worse than you. I've killed people better than him.

[ Her fingers are shaking as her left-hand grips, all lit up like the ancient things she dreams of ( sometimes, she thinks, is made of ). This is dangerous, this is stupid, and reckless and - it's all for something. Something better. The most important things were never smart. ] I'll do worse to you, if you touch that button, Felix.

[When he blinks (stuck with his fingers hovering tentatively in midair, her own raised against him in a blatant threat) it's not from the shock of seeing her teeth— oh no, he knew that monster was in there all along just waiting to get out. Still, disbelief dulls his voice, has him low and quiet when he drops his stare.] You're gonna get us all killed for a guy that barely knows you exist.

[And that's factoring in the symbiote.] Is that what the Nest really needs, huh? You getting off on the idea that this'll somehow make you a good person? That maybe he'll remember you when this is all over?

[What a fucking joke.]

[ Her fingers flex shakily against his throat - why was he so tall? Why was she so short? Well, it didn't matter. She didn't have to be stronger or bigger, she just had to be worse than him. ]

You're the one that puts so much emphasis on making the awful choices, don't play that game with me.

[ She takes that hold and she wriggles with it, forcing him a step back. It's his own fault for thinking her spine would just curve under him. ] We do the same thing, but at least I don't lie to myself about what I am. I know what I am.

[ Big words, little girl. She swallows. She won't let him, she won't. ] Steve knows I exist, that's what you can't understand. Steve knows I'm not a good person.

[ Her own dig, then, hovering, pressing on the mental link with her mind, heavy and full and running too fast. ] You probably can't stand that, huh?

What I can't stand... [Felix starts, digging in his heels as she presses him back. Stubborn against those slender little fingers and the obvious, terrifying threat she poses. Most of the other Hosts know better by now. Like to pretend she's as sweet as she looks and for how cruelly her mind cuts into his skull, it's all bullshit. All the lie she maintains the only way she knows how.

His free hand closes over the hand at his throat, lip curling into a livid sneer.] ...is a little girl thinking she's not in over her head when she's trying to screw me over.

That's not how this works.

[The hero doesn't go down. Not like this.

It doesn't take anything more than that contact between them— held and locked down by her fury and his will— the soft glow of her tattoos dimming, dimming, dimming down. Running dry. If she's aware of her own strength (considering how long she's had it, she must be) she should notice it as it fades, nullifying her threat with an increasing amount of certainty as the seconds tick on.]

You're such a prick, Felix.

[ It's going to get ugly as soon as it happens, it's a clear thought - this won't be clean. Why would it be, between them?

Rather, he drains her and she can't stop that, he won't let her go until he's gloating in his victory. Nor will she ever be that kind of strong. Always a sickly thing even if she hasn't been a girl for years. She can't fight him off like that. He'd win.

No, what she has is - herself, and everything she's ever seen, and ever done, and the symbiote. Only thing that she has, the one that she doesn't need her powers for because it's what she has already done a hundred times, that the symbiote works towards naturally. The connection is a raw thing when they are this close. She knows that, in good ways, when she had pressed in close to Ilde, all soft gasping wet breaths taken as one into each other's skin. From Parker, knuckles in her jaw and blood in her mouth feeling a rage that has no walls in the second of the strike.

The connection is never so strong as when they're touching.

Viper quick when she's the ugly thing in the proverbial garden of eden. She winds herself around him, presses herself where she's so much smaller it's easier to slip under his guard to press her chest to his, slip a leg around his and push her fingers up of her free hand, into his hair. Always soft, always easy. Her fingers are still that as they hold to drag him down to her height and take a deep breath in close proximity.

Deep, as it always should be before the plunge, and she's going dim, and she only knows how to do that when she's immortal in the half second before death. Binds them, yanks at his mind and no, no, it's not enough of her own power, she can't fight him. But she can drown him for long enough to give Steve a chance. Her fingers gripping tightly to him where soon she won't be able to hold herself up of herself for much longer. ] Go to hell.

[ It's said with a big, cheerful smile as she goes to topple them both over the edge of her mind and down into that unhappy awful purple mess that she keeps under lock and key. Not forcing into him, but dragging him into her. ]

[It doesn't bother Felix when she coils herself around him, takes the time to fist her fingers in his hair— she's a little scrawny, a little fragile for his taste— but she's visibly, tangibly losing her advantage: if she feels like leaning into his victory, who is he to stop her?

Hell, maybe she's coming to her senses—

And then it hits him. Harder than a running car and heavier than a shot to the chest, that raw, unfiltered power he's pulled out from under her skin. His free hand rushes to grip the paneling behind her, fumbling for half a beat of his racing heart, trajectory only made worse by the pain behind her thoughts. That sickening violet and the agony it manages to lodge inside his skull alongside the rest of it.

His veins are burning— this time it's his hand that tears itself free of her own to grab at the underside of her jaw, shoving with a cruel force to get her off, shaking—] Fuck, fuck—

[ In it's way - it too, is bliss, it is emptiness, it's not burning, it's not this fire and these dreams and these beings that live in her skin, it's just her - half way grown up woman finally, years later than she should be, and twice as awful as the worst of them. He takes it all away.

But he wanted this, he wanted it all, someone always wants it, and now it was all his, where he pushes her jaw up, trying to pry her off and -- too late she hums -- and worse than that, she's laughing, arching up, pushing with her spine the way someone taught her to do on the training room floor or she saw Lilith do once, and snaps her legs up to his hips - oh no, oh no he will reap what he sows.

She will reap him. ]

Come on, this is what you want, isn't it?

[ It's singing sweet, dripping honey, dawn on a clear morning after the bullets have stopped firing and the bodies have stopped falling and she's a cavern, an empty space filled with light. So much light. Light that comes up from under the skin and there's nothing so unforgiving as it is. It fills up everything, it bounces into every crevice, burning, burning, burning, because nothing, nothing will ever feel this good again and there will never be a sensation to match it because it's agony so pure, oh it feels like half a breadth of heaven as everything, every bit of electronics around them screams to life, blares loudly.

Her back hits into the control panel, and her legs drag him forward into her. Pressing up and up, sliding her fingers to frame his face as he gasps so sweetly. ] Come on, Felix, you wanted it.

[ Laughs and laughs as she rolls into him. holding him a half breadth above her, to share air as he looks like he's going to shatter apart in the trapped space of her and her mind. ]

[He tries. Really, he does. Maybe he's screwed up under all those scars, but when it comes down to it, he's minimizing their losses— making the smarter call even if it is heartless— Cathaway, Prince, they'd agree with him. They'd do the same thing if they were in his shoes.

You don't save one guy if it costs you more. You don't save Steve Rogers, boy wonder, when you've got a siren and a sole survivor on the other end of the line.]

Oh you bitch. [The hand at her throat, edged between her own where she's curled her hands around his face to watch him choke on a stolen rush (and oh, he is, sweat running down his brow, shaking through his shoulders and his fingers are hot enough that they feel like they could scorch) bears down hard enough to bruise. He doesn't imagine she's ever been called out for what she is like this, but right now, all bets are off.

He isn't dying here.

...not even if she's curled around him like that, all vicious want and a hunger so tangible he—]

Don't act like you know what I want.

[ His fingers choke her, and it's not a thread, it's a comfort. One she shudders with, lets her feel barely kept in the hurricane of skin and thought. He can hold her, he likes to pretend he has to control, least of all of her. It lets her ebb and flow, her eyes closing, her hands slipping to settle on his chest, palms flat and her legs coming up either side of his hips.

She doesn't need to look at him after all, she can feel him. Shaking - what did Moxxi call it? Like a sinner in church. First taste is the worst, is the best. Is the most unforgiving on the body because it's power without control. ]

I thought you wanted me over my head.

[ She never got to enjoy eridium, not like Lilith did, that raw surge of power, what it's like to hold something in her fingers and know it's just flesh and water and so many pieces ready to blow apart if she just looked at him too hard, and he calls her bitch and she open mouth sighed on the word. ]

( I'm waiting. )

[ and her laughter is rich and full of light as her body presses into him where she can feel his hunger. something she feeds because here is the - centre of the centre, middle of the middle, where she's split right down the core of a devouring planet: it's been years in the nest, but it has never stopped. hunger and hunger and hunger. takes and takes and takes. Junkie scratching at her skin on something that would never feel this good. ]

OPEN RP PART II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

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