vicious

Head on his shoulder, she shuts her eyes. Happy. What a strange feeling it is. They've been through so much together that it almost becomes impossible to imagine herself in a room with him and a smile on her face at the same time. To be fair, a smile is a rarity in any circumstance -- a genuine smile, at least. She bares her teeth in the shape of one often, just trying to get people to stop looking at her with varying degrees of worry, but it doesn't come with the feeling that this one does.

She doesn't think too hard about what Hawk is feeling. For once, that's his business. What she does know is his arm is warm around her shoulders, and with the request of space facts at the forefront of her mind, she can't really keep a train of thought in any other direction.

"They sent out this space probe in 1977," Willow sighs, "Called Voyager 1, and it's been going out and out and out ever since. It's somewhere outside the solar system now. Pretty soon it's gonna take a whole day for all it's information to get back to us... 'Cause of lightspeed and whatever, and in a couple years... I think like ten years, it's gonna run out of batteries and die."

On a normal day she thinks about the space probe, out there all alone, and wants to cry. Now she doesn't mind it so much.

He shuts his eyes and gets lost in her voice, transported to the icy vastness of space. It’s peaceful out here, away from all the grief of earth—the only place in the material universe, as far as he can tell, where suffering is. He can see the probe in his mind’s eye—a cool retro-futurist device that doesn’t resemble the real thing at all—journeying along.

“Is that the, uhhh… the one with the, uh…” He tries to pull himself back into his body, feel the sun on his face, remember how to construct a sentence, but he’s still out there, following the probe. “Th’ one with the… record… that’s like, gold… with… voices? In case it finds… y’know… aliens?”

Whether it is or not, it’s in the fantasy now: the device has sprouted a record player, greetings projected outward. Distantly he remembers hearing somewhere that there’s no noise in space, something about a vacuum, whatever. He’s imagining it anyway. Hello from the children of planet Earth…

#☣︎ TRAILER TRASH SAINTS.

giftedpursuit

He's not so scary anymore. The brute strength he might have once overpowered her with doesn't work how it used to, and he seems just as afraid of her now, with the way he writhes and thrashes on the floor. She snarls down at him and fails to remember what exactly she's supposed to do next.

In a perfect world she would subdue him enough so that she could escape or break into his mind to stop the spiral he's caught in, but Willow is aware of the thrashing mass beneath her, the smell of blood and the hurt she felt only moments ago. It is not a perfect world. She might even be in Hell.

He's trying to get away from her now. Wailing. She pursues.

"I'm not going back! I'm not going back!"

Willow scratches at his face, punches, and kicks. Hawk is not Hawk, just a threat, a source of blood, and a danger that needs to be neutralised. What she lacks in actual ability, she makes up for with her scrappiness. She punches down and snaps her teeth at him, just narrowly missing his throat when a flailing hand catches the left side of her face hard.

The wet smack of his bloody palm across her cheek sends the sting through her whole body, and worse, some of that concoction he made gets into her eye. Willow shrieks, her hands fly to her face to protect her burning eye.

This is where he should snap out of it. Harm has been done; now is the time for damage control, course-correction. But the illness won’t give him up so easily. He’s still in an old trailer in Chico, getting the shit kicked out of him; he’s still on a divine mission from the gods; he’s still a debased animal, frantic to avoid pain. All of these things implode on themselves, compacted into one confusing mass in his pounding skull.

I’m not going back. Why would Hel avoid home? Somewhere in the ocean the world-snake deepthroats its own tail. Blood on the sink as his head comes down a third time on the porcelain. Screaming for his mother while she’s nodded off on the couch. Óðinn gazes into the deep dark water as he hangs from the tree and sees two monsters shrieking on the kitchen floor.

He’s weakened his opponent somehow. The eye. Óðinn’s eye sinks to the bottom of the well, sacrificed. Hawk launches at her, a rabid creature, lashing out at the hurt he brought on himself. Teeth embedded in her throat. He hasn’t eaten in weeks. He grunts and growls, barely aware of the shattered, poisoned remains of the mug burying themselves in his legs.

jackabbot

HALF MAN • 1.05

#☣︎ SICK(LY) BASTARD.

The potion spills; the immediate danger disappears. She looks down at the mug as it shatters, hissing at the sight of blood and splatter of holy-bleach flying toward her eyes. Barely a drop. It hurts, but she's hurt worse. Willow shoves him with both hands now, taking advantage of this distraction to knock him back to the floor.

She's no healthier than him, living week-to-week hiding in her room and taking whatever drugs she can get delivered to the door - she went from vigilantly monitoring her feeding to forgetting, to forcing herself to ignore the growl of the creature in her gut. Willow's done ignoring it today. Her eyes burn and Hawk is bleeding, weak, and distracted. The survivor in her takes the wheel.

Willow says nothing, not really Willow any more.

All black eyes and fury, she lunges at him this time.

#unpossession #it hurt itself in its confusion

He doesn’t get a chance to recover from the initial recoil before Willow’s on him. The sudden force sends him crashing to the ground; he pulls her with him, thrashing and biting the air, clawing at her, howling like the beast he is. Coherent thought leaves him entirely—now he doesn’t even have delusion to cling onto, only instinct, pain and rage.

In the chaos, the back of his head cracks against the floor. His vision goes dark and he sees sparks, like the wiring in his head is failing. Then he’s somewhere else. Coughing on the floor of the bathroom, holding up his arms to defend his head as fists and boots come at him. Hand in his hair, knocking his skull against the sink. Listen here you little shit, you fucking worthless pig—keep squealin’, keep fuckin’ squealin’ and see what happens—

An animal wail escapes him. He hurls himself backward, trying to get away from Willow, and only knocks his head again, this time on the low kitchen cabinets.

bludrite

"no, you don't seem crazy." it isn't surprised that hawk thinks that what's happening here is wrong. it is natural to be unhappy with these conditions -- but uncomfortable conditions are necessary for breakthroughs. you are isolating a subject, opening them up for study - it is not meant to be a nice process.

626 is an outlier - it is comforted by the progress reported in hyuntae's studies, happy here. the aches and pains of the experiments are worth it for learning more about itself and others. too see how much it is growing.

it smiles at him through the bars. then squints.

"how come you have a scar on your eyebrow? i don't have scars. am i special?"

“Oh, uh…” He reaches up, touching the scar. Originally it was a gift from one of his mom’s boyfriends. When he was turned, it was a cosmetic sacrifice Valentina wasn’t willing to make—she sliced him with a silver blade, returning the natural order to his face. “Silver can leave permanent scars. It’s good that you don’t have any. People like us only really get them if somebody really, really wants to hurt us. I can’t imagine why anybody would wanna hurt you.”

He can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt her even in an impermanent way. In fact the lack of evidence on her is insidious in its own way—Namkung can open and close her up at will, over and over again, doing god-fucking-knows-what, and nobody would be the wiser. How the fuck does that freak sleep at night? Picking through a little girl’s insides like some sort of vulture. The least he could do is save it for the adults.

#bludrite

“Mm, scree.” Willow nods as though she’d known all along. Very agreeable when the drugs make her so happy to be here. Everything makes sense; there is nothing to fight against, no reason to appear smart, or contrary.

She dozes off again, chewing her sleeve and drooling out onto her wrist. It’s calm in this car and nothing is going to break through and ruin it. This isn’t Hell, despite what she’s been thinking every second since she got back - this might even be heaven.

Hours later, she finally finishes processing that thought. The sun has disappeared behind the surrounding trees.

“‘M cold.” She whispers. “Can we cuddle?”

This is the part where, if he weren’t high, he’d get tense. He’d start overthinking, analyzing where the boundaries should be, wondering if he should draw the line; his body would feel itchy and restrictive and not his own. The burden of responsibility would overwhelm before he even had the chance to consciously grapple with it. But, thankfully, he is high, and he can barely feel his body at all, and all his hangups have melted into the dirt. Right now, a cuddle would be nice. They can float away and fall asleep, unburdened, together.

He doesn’t answer; instead he slowly, laboriously shifts closer, throwing an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against him. The movement, slight as it is, makes the world spin. He laughs, feeling like a little kid who has just stumbled off the roundabout at the playground. Shit, he used to love going on the roundabout. He and his friends called it ‘the widowmaker’ on account of all the broken arms it bred.

A heavy breath, a yawn. “Tell me some shit ‘bout space.”

#☣︎ LET ME LOVE YOU TO DEATH.

fungusamongusblog2

whatevergreen

'Heroin User' 1972 - Edward Melcarth (1914–1972)

Apparently his unfinished last painting in Venice.

#☣︎ SICK(LY) BASTARD.

jackabbot

Go to school. What? Go to school. You're not a witness if you don't see what happens.

#☣︎ SAFEWORDS & SKETCHES.

billiehargrove

Dacre Montgomery as BILLY HARGROVE STRANGER THINGS 2 2x06 “Chapter Six: The Spy”

#☣︎ DIRTY MIRROR.

wickdcreatures

it’s all so messy — minsu is being much, much more messy than he normally would be. something has him hanging on by a thread, dangling over a precipice. why he thinks hawk is a safe place to land is anyone’s guess, but here he is, drunkenly hanging on his every word, eyes uncharacteristically soft and submissive.

he would have been getting something good out of this regardless. the recorder in his pocket has been running for a while, picking up conversations, names, dirt — things that he can use in his favor later. when the hangover inevitably comes and goes.

“ so what if i was? ” minsu is nursing on the beer he had ordered specifically for hawk and then promptly forgot to give him. his head feels heavy and light at the same time. his skin prickles at the very idea of hawk’s calloused fingers grazing his own soft skin. minsu shifts in his chair to bring his knees together. “ so what if i wanted to see you? besides, we have some business to discuss. ”

which is true. but how much of that is an excuse to get hawk alone?

“Yeah, man? You wanna talk business?” He laughs, thanking the bartender as his drink is delivered. “Can you even walk in a straight line?”

Maybe that’s the best time to talk business. For the best possible results in his favor, he can exploit both Minsu’s impaired decision making and the blatant crush he has on him. He can’t help but feel a little guilty about potentially doing that, though—the guy is just so fucking earnest. Weirdly so, given his rank in criminality. He seems in over his head all the time, and despite all logic it doesn’t read as an act. Clearly he isn’t acting right now; the scent of liquor and naïveté radiates off him like oversprayed cologne.

“Never mind—whatever, man. You wanna talk, let’s talk. But let’s do it in the back, right? Privacy.” Hawk heaves himself off the bar stool and snatches up his drink. Throwing an arm around Minsu’s shoulder, he steers him toward a desolate corner booth.

The pair passes a balding redneck leaning against a pool table. Fags, he mumble-sneers into his beer bottle. Hawk stops in his tracks.

“The fuck you say?”

#wickdcreatures

Willow remembers Hawk differently each time they see each other. From the bewildered boy with a gun to her head to her most fierce protector -- he's hard to pin down. She never really knows which version of him she's going to get until he's in front of her, but one thing she's always truly always believed (since knowing him -- her time in the blue room didn't count) was that he wouldn't want to hurt her, even if he did.

She flinches when he reaches for her, not fast enough to quite evade him. Cool ceramic against her palm, fingers pinched between him and the mug. The smell of the concoction makes her want to gag, all chemical and thick.

The mug clunks against her cheekbone as Willow turns her face away, its contents sloshes from one side of the rim to the other and threatens to spill over.

"Stop it---" Willow shoves him with her free hand, backing up into the wall.

Simmering rage behind his eyes. She keeps writhing, whining, fighting him like it fucking matters. If she isn’t of the draugr, then there’s nothing to fear. She will be going home. Death is her domain; she is its keeper, its face, or half of it anyway. Her resistance, then, is further proof: imposter, interloper. Trickster revenant. He won’t be fooled by this thing. Its faux-helplessness disgusts him.

“Go back where you fucking belong,” he hisses, vicious, frustrated, struggling to wrangle her. She won’t open her mouth, she won’t stay still. His eyes lose their blue, their whites, as the monster shows its face. Lips part to reveal his canines, a wolf baring its teeth.

His strength fails him in the end. He’s too lost in his hate to be mindful of his grip on the mug. One irritable flex of his fingers and the cup shatters to pieces, the shards falling to the floor, a chemical spill down his arm. With an inhuman bark, he lurches backward. Unhealthy and unfed, the bloody cuts left behind on his hands don’t heal; drips of the poison cocktail sizzle in the wounds.

"Oh my God, liiiiike. Iffff'you're a bird I'm a bird, or whatever." Willow slurs, smiling. She's pretty sure the context is all wrong for this quote, but she's thinking of him spreading some wings and flying off into something painless - Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling smiling into each other's mouths, making stupid promises and being in love. Nothing is connected, but everything is and so are they, and isn't that beautiful?

God, she's fucked up.

She giggles, leans over and kisses him on the inside of the wrist.

"What noise do hawks make?" Because this is easier to think about than soulmates, a next life or whether or not she's going to be this happy in a few hours. "Is it like a caw-caw! or... a scree! sorta noise?"

Somehow, her head ends up sideways. Leaning over this far, she must have gotten stuck in her daydream. She's chewing on her sleeve, grinding it between her molars.

"Bird with your voice." She pitches loooowwwwww. "'Hey babygirl' instead of skwawking......."

“Jee-zus Christ.”

Like he’s never heard that one before. Jenny’s prayer from Forrest Gump is another oft-quoted joke at his expense: Dear God, make me a bird, so I can fly far-far-far away from here… Or, during games with friends, the gargoyles from Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame might be invoked: I’m losing to a bird! The list goes on and on.

He’s laughing, though—because she’s laughing, and because her impression of him is on par with Tallah’s for the goofiest shit he’s ever heard. And because he’s high, of course. Mostly because he’s high.

“Hawks do the ‘scree,’” he says, brain catching up just enough to inform him that there was a question in there somewhere. This results in more laughter, even though it isn’t all that funny at all.

bludrite

it likes reports! it finds these studies fascinating, inspiring and awesome in the most literal sense. the human brain reacts to challenges in such interesting ways -- the human brain invents these challenges, which 626 finds even more interesting. they even sometimes torture each other for knowledge.

and of course, the ethics are always a footnote in these reports to 626. the ends justify the means, and in the end, if everybody is so concerned with being good and humane and kind, they wouldn't be anywhere near where they are now with their understanding of the world.

hawk tells it doctor namkung is a bad man. it is too concentrated on its handwriting to reply, but the thought does cross its mind: are you not also a very bad man? it glances up from its little book after punctuating.

"...just my notes. i said that i feel bad for you because you're not very comfortable in there." it probably shouldn't know that 626 is able to help it leave. it wont do it, and the begging would just be sad.