#cyberpunk!verse

[ronmanmob]

[ronmanmob]

(tell me about meme)...a time I made you laugh

The husk of a woman sits curled in on herself at a window while in back of her, lights out, night time, other eyes watch and other ears listen as a vid plays on repeat. Fingers move slowly over the interface of the pad it runs on - turning time back, letting it play; turning time back, letting it play. On screen is the husk in the window, but different. She's holding an old fashion snapper - a camera but handheld; dedicated for one task, not split 'tween millions like most tech these days. Those things cost kidneys money to buy-

[50,000 eurodollars, closest estimate at present exchange rates]

-Yes. Kidneys money.

She must've stole it. Her or the other one. The one she was smiling at as he - he for certain because his voice was gruff and rumbled like gravel in rain - filmed her. As she raised the snapper to her eye and took his picture only to burst out laughing a moment later. It was a head back, full chested sound; the kind of joy that would make knees weak, if the sonnets and stories on the surfaceNet were honest. She was close to doubled over when the view shifted-

"C'mere Bastian!"

Laughing voiced, she pulled her companion close into her side. He was still recording, looking at her, then the snapper she held out in front of them, turned in to freeze them both in time; all smiles and tongue-lolling pulled faces and black eyes that glittered with something rare and precious when they looked up into his and-

The dull thud of head meeting window snapped focus up from the screen, drew it towards where the husk was, where it-- paused. Shoulders moved under thin vest fabric; back flexed with tight breaths; body slumped forward, alive, vital, but shaped like someone newly shot would be.

Limp.

Gone.

A scan revealed no clinical reason for concern, no medical cause or physiological distress and so...understanding failed. And eyes drifted back to the screen. Eyes that absently noticed the vid's audio output was room-wide, not intra-audial. This was changed with the touch of a fingertip, the vid soon broadcast into waiting ears, not the room's whole, quiet din.

Perception again filled with laughter. With loving eyes.

And the choked sob forced out the husk by the window...went missed.

[ronmanmob]

𝐧𝐨𝐧-𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: [Pat] touches the others arm but pulls back out of guilt. [Sasha which ever verse u would like honestly. ]

Non-verbal Actions Meme

The little hand on his bicep roused Pat from what'd been an hour-long bout of navel-based brooding over a glass of something so strong it'd peel paint if given half the chance. Dark eyes refocussed as he turned his head to her, his attention returning to the outside world from where it'd dwelled in the elsewhere times of the past. Like he often did when a contemplative turn came on he'd been lingering on times-gone when she wasn't like she was now. When he wasn't like he was now. When there'd been no war to part 'em, no loss, no torment, no augmented assassin and no girl in the box who, unboxed now, wasn't at all the woman she'd been.

Pat didn't blame her for that.

He'd be monstrous if he did and though he was many things, he wasn't that. But he wasn't unmoved by the change either. Day-on-day he fought to keep professional, to keep to the mission, step-by-step; step-by-step. Step-by-step 'til she was herself again. Or close to. He'd be happy with close to. Fuck he was happy now if you de-glossed it all. She was alive, his Sasha was. In body at least, if not in mind. He had her back with him.

She was safe.

She was here.

But she'd also been behind his eyes for a second there, hadn't she. Like she had been when they were dumb kids in love, dumb teens in love, dumb adults in military fatigues on the eve of annihilation and still, and still, and still so in love. She'd laughed at his jokes then, at their jokes - all personal and made together based on memories they shared. She knew how he liked his morning cuppa. He knew how she liked her clothes pressed. The scent of her hair and her skin was on their bedsheets. They were going to escape, to run away and-

"Мне жаль, Лев."

I'm sorry, Lion

And everything-

Everything in Pat stalled, hard-stop when those three muzzy words escaped into the air between them. They came up almost like the echo old messages could sometimes carry; reverb copy-copied across channels and frequencies; almost like...Almost like they, the words, had been hard for her to say.

And Pat's heart--

"--Sash-?"

His face slack with shock, tears' sheen in his eyes, lips parted but silent, Pat's heart stopped and clenched and pounded all at once as he stared at the ghost of the woman who he'd have called his wife once and before he could reach out and touch her, she read the stunned grief and love and hope and anguish in his face and flat fucking bolted.

And Pat...

Pat watched again the love of his life wisp away-

"Sash?!"

-his voice, haggard, wrecked as he called after her.

[ronmanmob]

𝐧𝐨𝐧-𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: throws an object across the room. [A001 - Unit named Lorcan]

Non-verbal Actions Meme

"BOSS!"

Caught by the word with his tumbler of whiskey raised to his lips, Ron glared daggers at the haggard looking lad who'd just careened into the private workspace he kept for capital letters Business above his bustling, Low Town drinkery. He recognised his face, this employee of his. He was one'a the straight arrows who staffed the bar, not a member of the Made set. Up here weren't his place and he'd have learned as much with iron and teeth if he didn't look like he'd shat the soul of him right out on his way up the stairs and, same vein, if the fact he'd made it up 'em at all weren't so fuckin' buck-wild to Ron as a concept. He had Security for that kinda thing; security that didn't leave his post unless--

An almighty crash cut Ron's attention clean off the interloping lad at stairs'-top; sent him sprinting to the shatterproof floor to ceiling glass panes that surrounded his lair and let in, from below, a scene that would've crackled with danger's tension if it'd involved anyone other than who it did. An easy ten foot from the invisible boundary line between the public downstairs and the private upstairs portions of his pied-à-terre laid in a heap the crumpled leftovers of what must've been a ruffian; must've been past tense because it definitely weren't one no more. And by it--

By it crouched Security.

Like some predatory beast off the wastes he observed the mess, head tilting in sharp degrees left and right; eyes fixed but functioning only as a third-line input. Unknowable to the gangster watching, the absence of the electrical pulses that work a living heart and new death's scent were the first and second senses this particular being encountered this part of his world with. There were others, but this blink in time weren't worth them. This weren't no hunt. This, brief as it'd been, was sport--

"OI! Proper'y Damage!"

Ron's voice, clear now thanks to a quick position shift to the top of the stairs, turned Lorcan's head enough that he could see him over his shoulder. It weren't enough of a turn for a man who didn't have the peripheral vision he did, but it was more than Lorcan needed to bring his boss up in sharp relief and to let the man see his eye while he did it. The toothy ruin of a grin on the gangster's face was mimicked, and when the man spoke again-

"You let my staff clean tha' up, please"

-a sound half resembling a chuckle click-rumbled through the Hunter-Killer. Part of him wanted to say no, to challenge, push the issue, but public respect of Ron's place in the hierarchy he'd built was a bylaw here. He'd nip at him later, someplace private where D'Bahs could nip him back.

[ronmanmob]

𝐧𝐨𝐧-𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: [Roni] looking at receiver in long silence before looking away. [A001 Unit named Luka]

Non-verbal Actions Meme

Their eyes felt different on her.

They were identical bar that, from the lay of the hair on their heads to the faint creases that eased up round their eyes and lips when they spoke or blinked or made plays at copying her expressions in that unpracticed way they had. But those eyes...They landed different.

In one face they could be almost frenetic, like a live wire sparking; teeth gnashing bloody and sharp; bug-dogs at your heels kinda intense and fuck-all heavy. Almost wild. They settled like their owner'd pinned their target to the air with a look and the intention to flay 'em and yet Roni...Roni he'd yet to flay. Roni he didn't seem inclined to.

And in the other face...No.

In the other face they were...different. Where the frenetic one was all reaction, these eyes in this other face read and watched and calculated, but not in the way Roni knew eyes to calculate usually. These weren't the peering obsidians her brother had, cut sharp when they glanced her way before he could hide it. These were...cateloguing almost. Searching. Learning. Seeking.

They fascinated her.

And she wondered, as she sat in her dwelling's gentle amber light and poked at a piece of old tech Pat had left her, if she fascinated them, fascinated him, too.

Curious herself, Roni inclined her head slowly right as she observed her silent sentinel of an observer. To anyone outside the moment it would've looked odd, but doing it let her clock another flicker's-worth of difference between the lofty pair. The frenetic one, he sometimes copied her when she moved or shifted; mimicking her movements like he was learning them but also parroting them back in not-quite mockery, but not-quite-not mockery either. Like he thought she was silly but wanted to humour her, wanted to interact somehow anyway.

This one though? The other one? He didn't move to copy-copy. Fuck, he was barely moving to breathe. Man just watched Roni as she watched him; as she straightened her head back up, set the little probe she'd been poking her new piece of old tech with down and took a breath to ask-

"Wha'-?"

Before she could finish the half-formed thought she'd started to put voice to, her sentinel's gaze shifted, tracking left and left until he was looking out the viewport that let Polis's neons intrude on Roni's soft-lit sanctuary. Something the vague shape of paranoia niggled at her; wondered what he'd been looking at, what he'd perceived or thought or seen. On a less settled day it may've made her prickle, made her go answer hunting, but today was not an unsettled day. Today she had her sentinels, the frenetic and the calm; one silhouetted by the viewport and the other-

Dark eyes rolled up to look above. The ceiling wasn't so high here, for Roni didn't live in luxury. But it was high enough that her dwelling didnt feel like a prison. High enough that she could see the red pinpricks of light that burned hot in the shadowed cleft the other one liked to perch in while he guarded their space.

[oldharu]

Kibaru Prompt Challenge: 10 (Drunk)

He couldn’t tell if it was the way she looked at him teasingly when they were in the weaponry together, her eyes promising more intimate moments later that evening.  He couldn’t tell if it was the way that she took control of a situation without being prompted to.  He couldn’t tell if it was the way that she could get so incredibly emotional and lose control of herself, things flying off of shelves and tables.  He couldn’t tell if it was the way she moved gracefully through rooms and crowds as if she were floating on air.

She was one big mystery to him, an enigma that teased and tempted him, prompting such strong responses in him that he wondered if she had the power over people’s emotions as well as gravity.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t put his finger on it.  Was it the way she defied Central in the little ways she could?  Or the way she carelessly flitted around in her room in naught but her underwear after she got out of the shower?  Was it the way that she sighed his name when they were in bed together?  Or the way she pulled at his hair when he fucked her against the wall?

Kiba thought it was a mixture of all of these things and more.  Everything about her consumed him when they were together.  She flooded his senses and invaded his mind and he would become so drunk off of her that he couldn’t see straight until he couldn’t tell if it was the scotch or Haru that made him feel this way.

She was dangerous.

And he loved that.

He loved that when they were together and he was nearly cross-eyed from pleasure, he was completely at her mercy.  He loved that she enjoyed what he gave her and that he enjoyed what she gave him.  He loved that he didn’t have to persuade her in any special way; he only need show up at her door with a grin on his face and he’d be tugged inside of her apartment and tossed on her bed for the evening.

He loved that they were so perfectly evenly matched in bed.

He loved that he could just talk to her over dinner.

He loved it all.  He lived for the moments he spent with her—in training, in the stables, on the bikes, in their quarters.  He wasn’t fully awake until these moments, when he was alive with electric energy, her fire fueling his.

He has to tell her the effect she has on him before he implodes, overcome with his feelings for her.

He tells her one night when they’re laying in bed, half-nude, halfway under his comforter, watching a film on one of the feeds.  She has her head on his chest and his arm is around her, tracing patterns on her back between her bra and the band of her lounge pants.  He breathes in particularly deep once and smells how her coconut shampoo mixes with the smell of his cologne and he just can’t help how the words tumble out of his mouth.

She removes his inhibitions, loosening him up so much that he’s delirious from her.

He tells her how wonderful she is and how great she is and how drunk she makes him feel even when they aren’t drinking and she moves, sitting up and hovering over him, a peculiar look on her face.  But he doesn’t stop talking.  He tells her she’s like a drug to him, but a good drug, and that he wants to keep drinking her in for as long as he can.

He runs out of things to say and out of ways to say them and he ends his tirade with a disclaimer, telling her that he doesn’t want her to feel pressured or weirded out and then he apologizes for being such a girl about the entire situation.

He feels embarrassed, but he couldn’t stop himself.

She stares down at him looking completely, genuinely mystified and he wonders if she was even able to understand the sheer emotion he just poured out for her.  He wonders if she’s always too busy making other people feel so much that she doesn’t feel at all.  He wonders if she’s going to leave him.

She doesn’t have words for him.  She only smiles at him, her strange lavender eyes shining as she leans down to press her lips to his, her hair hanging down and tickling his cheek.  And even though she doesn’t say anything, she puts it all into that one kiss and before he knows it, he’s rolling over so she’s pinned under him and he’s ridding them of their clothes as he kisses her again and again, drowning once more.

She still doesn’t say anything, even when he murmurs that she’s perfect against her skin and tells her how badly he wants her.  He worships her, kissing every inch of flesh, caressing her and teasing her, priming her for him.  She moans and sighs and finally, when she’s had enough of his teasing, she groans.

“Fuck, Kiba,” she growls, bucking her hips to get him to move along.  He slides up her body, resting himself between her legs and kissing and biting at her neck as he thrusts forward, sheathing himself inside her in one smooth stroke.

The sounds she makes drive him insane.

She’s so responsive to every little movement he takes and he’s so enthralled by her that every little sound she makes illicits a similar one from him.  Her hands are all over him, clawing at his back, threading through his hair, cupping his face.

He removes himself from her neck and looks down at her, expecting to see her eyes shut, as they usually are.

But they’re open.  Tawny yellow meets the palest of lavenders and he thrusts particularly hard, trying to get one of those delicious moans out of her.  He’s rewarded with what he wants and he keeps moving his hips just right and she keeps moaning until her back arches and she groans as if she’s just bitten into something delicious.

She keeps eye contact as she comes, her eyes lidded, and it’s the single sexiest thing Kiba’s ever witnessed.  He topples over the edge after her, doing his best to keep the eye-contact as long as he can before the sensations become too much and he buries his face in her neck, biting down at the skin until he tastes blood.

He pulls out and rests on top of her, his forehead on her shoulder.

“That… was…” he begins, but he can’t think of the words for it.  He notices the blood pooling where he bit her and licks at the mark.

“Amazing,” she sighs, her hands running through his hair as he licks at her neck.  His heart swells and he feels light-headed and just a bit dizzy, as drunk off of her as he always is.

He imagines she must feel the same way.