#run with whatever

[brittlefcrged]

@benignhomecoming​ liked for a starter.

           She hadn’t intended to fall asleep -- she’d been rather unable to, in fact, curled up on the cot in the sleeper car, earbuds in as she’d tried to drown out the sounds of the train’s movements under her, of the voices and movements of the other occupants of the train, of the words, and shouts, and sharp retorts of weapons that crowded her thoughts.   Images had bled from pencil to paper.   A train, in the snow, speeding around the curve of a mountain, not so dissimilar from the one she was on, but --  not.  Heavier, boxier.  The mountains, sharper and steeper.   

          A star.  Over, and over, the star.    

                       The figure of a man, that same star emblazoned on his shoulder.  A chair, and a lab, and eyes that haunted her.   Fragmented images.  Half blurred in fog, seen through a sheen of frost, or the haze of smoke.  Sprawled across pages, in the sketch book that now lay splayed open on the floor beside her where it had fallen from her fingers.  Those images had lingered, flickering through her dreams, her sleep fitful at best --

    She awoke with a gasp, startling herself upright, a hand thrown out in front of her as if to ward herself from a fall --   Confusion, fear, drowsiness, dancing across her features as she blinked, disconcerted, trying to remember where she was, who she was --  Her eyes found him, found his, hauntingly familiar, and she felt the sudden heat in her cheeks as realization caught up to her, a guilty flush as her gaze darted down to the pages littered across her cot, the book on the floor.   “I -- “  Fingers darted out, gathering up, half crumpling pages as she leaned to reach for the book.   “Did I -- was I talking in my sleep?  Did I wake you?”  The words were in half bleary Russian.  “I .. I’m sorry, I ... “  

[tuppencetrinkets-a]

       “I don’t know what you want me to say -- I can’t help you.”  Can’t.  Won’t.  Maybe he thought the words were interchangeable, not that she would blame him if he did.  Inked and studded street rat bartenders, especially ones with a record like hers, in a neighborhood like this, weren’t exactly known for being vocal when it came to talking to the cops.  “That sleeve is one of a dozen just like it that anybody can pick up for by the hour, day, week, pretty much straight off the rack from one of the less than renowned vendors in Bay City.  Not the type that anyone with real creds to spend would have used unless they were looking to stay anonymous.  Places like that, you pay enough cash up front, they’ll doxy the download data to keep you off radar, so, if the stack’s too far damaged to pull up recall, you’re probably screwed.”  

    She was talking too much.  What she wanted to be doing was downing another half bottle of vodka.  Or hurling her guts out.  It was pretty much guaranteed the stack was beyond recovery, with the gorge of blood and bone fragments from what was barely recognizable as a spinal column.  No burned skin, no sickening smell of seared muscle or bone, just.  A gaping wound and a splintered stack.  She didn’t know what kind of brute force that would take -- she’d seen a few specialized instruments made for fast and rough stack recovery, but nothing that left the kinda wound, or the spray of blood that coated walls and ceiling of the bar bathroom.    “Don’t take this the wrong way, but -- since when does a doll getting her stack screwed warrant someone like you sniffing around some place like this, anyways?”

        @magicandsciencemuses -- rori dearing, altered carbon verse for will graham.

[fletcherfcrged]

@wanderingguest​​ muse of choice verse of choice etc

           “That was -- that was a terrible shot, what were you aiming at, directly at the barn? -- Cause if so, you missed that too.”