Not Just Snow Falls; self-para
"That's str-strange. The thermostat says it's 70 degrees, but it might as well be cold enough to start sn-snowing in here," Isaiah could not stop shivering enough to get the words out without stuttering as he hit the small, electronic box on the wall in hopes that brute force would somehow get the heat to turn on.
"It's not that bad in here. You're so sensitive to the cold. Come here, I'll keep you warm," Ira replied easily and happily as he came up behind him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders with a warm blanket. He held onto him, hanging off of him in a way that allowed him to turn his head to stare up at his face with a playful look on his face. A smile lifted on his lips as he tugged him towards the living room. "Let's make some hot chocolate and curl up on the couch with every blanket that you have, then. I don't have anywhere else to be except here with you."
A guttural scream broke him from the pleasantness of his memories.
"괴물!" A korean woman wailed over a corpse she struggled to gather it with freezing hands stained with red. Sharp spikes of ice protruded from the chest of the dead body, but, blackened fingers and blue lips indicated was more likely that he had died from frostbite before he'd even taken the injury. The icicles had been insurance to make sure that there were no survivors this time. There could be no loose ends.
Back turned to her, Genesis turned his head and narrowed his shining eyes as he focused on the screaming woman. He did not flinch at the korean word for 'monster' anymore than he did when it was screamed in english at him. He'd heard it in so many languages now that it'd become nothing more than a whispering of white noise in the background of his deadly playtime. He turned to face her, a flicker of sorry in his thoughts. This would be her last moment in this world. He could not fathom what it must be like to hold your dead son in your arms and stare at the very monster that had taken his life and so many others before him. He never would be able to understand it. It was a concept that chilled him to the bone once upon a time, but steady, repetitious violence had made it easier to be the Arctic creature lurking in his own deadly blizzard than to worry over such frivolous things when she would be dead soon enough and forgotten in a day. The armored half mask wrapped tightly around his jaw not only served to hide an identity that was already lost and forgotten to the world, but also kept words of genuine apology and despair for his actions from leaving the lips of the heartless ice metahuman that the world had come to fear.
Thin tubes of blue that ran through his suit like veins glimmered as they churned an unknown coolant-like fluid throughout his body. He let the moment linger, as he did with a few of his last victims, and watched her quietly. They both knew that this was her death. There was no reason to rush things.
Tears froze against her skin as soon as they trickled from her eyes. Trembling, slow fingers brushed away the hair from her lifeless son's face as she lowered her head to leave a soft kiss on his forehead. She sobbed once before looking up at her death again. A fire had been lit in her as she starred at the ice demon that had come to ruin her home and her life. "You li-live terrible life," she shook over her broken english, but a passion in her words kept her speaking. "So much anger. So much violence. Blood. Why? Why do this? Why take my son? This world is no good without my son and your anger in it. Please, kill me now so I can be done with the cold you've brought to this land and be with him again."
His eyes glowed at her words, and a trickle of frost crept up the side of his head as he drew closer to her slowly like a predator preparing to attack its wounded prey. His footprints left in the snow quickly filled behind him until he came to a stop and crouched down in front of her. He starred at her, silent, and looked down at her son.
Behind his mask, he mouthed the words _'I'm so sorry'_ as a spike of ice skewered her through an already broken heart.
"You look so pale today. Paler than usual. Are you sick?"
Slender fingers brushed across the stubble of Ira's jaw line, warming the natural cold his skin had acclimated to being regularly. "I might be," Ira replied, a smile tugging at his lips as he moved closer to the man sitting beside him and gently rested a hand on his thigh, "Does lovesick count?" He laughed, trying to pay mind to the default cold that his powers tried to implement instinctively. Bouts of isolation in the past had tricked his body into thinking that it wasn't necessary to keep itself warm anymore. Now, it took a degree of mental effort for the frozen meta to keep his frost at bay to let the handsome, tattooed man close. After a few seconds, it became easier, and he let his cheek sink easily into the palm of his warm hand. Eyes closed, a soft sigh of relief escaped his pale lips. Ira never spoke of how _important_ he was to him, but he never needed to. His body language was more vocal than his muted, shy words could ever be.
"Were there any survivors?"
The question did not register with him at first. There was something absnet in the soft glow of his eyes, lost in the safety of his memories.
"I asked you a question. Answer me."
Ira blinked rapidly, looking up and around as if he'd forgotten where he was.The loud roar of jet engines firing up alerted him to his location. A slow, steady and constant beep from his suit's monitoring equipment quietly chirped in the background. He focused finally on the suited man seated in front of him with a laptop open on the table beside him. His arms were crossed, and an air of irritation radiated from his sharp facial features. Alexander was not pleased.
Taking in a deep breath, Ira reached up behind his head and unclasped the locks that sealed his face within his mask. When they released, wisps of cold air visibly escaped as he pulled away the mask and breathed freely without the restraint. He did not answer right away, trying to give himself a moment to adjust to the release.
The delay caused Alexander to react impatiently. He flung a gloved hand forward, aggressively snatching his jaw within his tightening fingers to make him look him in the eyes. "You know how I feel about having to repeat myself. Answer me. Did you let anyone live? I need every person in that compound dead to prove a point." Another vendetta settled by his obedient soldier.
Ira's eyes winced and he opened his mouth to take another breath to answer. "No. No one lived," Ira answered, his voice raspy and underused as the air coming up from his lungs thawed the cold that had sucked all of the moisture from his mouth and throat during his prolonged silence. The jet cabin became noticeably colder the longer Alexander tightened his fingers around his face. Only once had Ira burned him from his cold for grabbing him so, but the occasional bruises that appeared on his jawline made it perfectly clear who had won. "The woman you wanted killed is dead. No one escaped."
"Good," Alexander released him, and sat back down in his seat across from him with a pleased smirk. He reached up above him and pressed a speaker button that lead to the pilot. "Let's take off. Our business is done here."
Ira's sullen gaze had fallen to the ground until he heard Alexander's words. He looked up immediately. Too fast, actually. He took notice.
"We're going home," Alexander nodded, acknowledging the question that was burning in his pet's eyes. His lips tightened, annoyed at the urgency that still remained in Ira's heart about his brother. It had become a chore to keep them separated from each other. Isaiah had kept something alive in him that left his ultimate weapon with a weakness he could not mend or remove. The only solution he'd been able to come up with was to speed up his plans to create an urgency for his products and weapons in other countries with Ira's plague of frost. Far away from alluring pull of Isaiah that his monster could not help but gravitate towards.
"I have news for you," Alexander started, reaching into the warmth of his coat jacket to pull his phone out of an inner pocket. His long fingers danced across the screen for a moment as Ira looked inquisitively at him with an attentive stare. He held his breath; news for him was rare.
Sitting forward, Alexander extended his phone out to show Ira a picture.
"Isaiah's moved on from you."
Ira's warm breath slowed, catching in his throat, and the curious light in his eyes vanished. His dark pupils went dull. In the picture, Isaiah had taken a shameless selfie with another man pressed up close to him for the picture. A new tattoo that he hadn’t seen before was visible on his arm indicating the picture’s newness.
Clearing his throat in the silence, a satisfied smirk tugged mercilessly at the corners of Alexander's lips as he continued, "He found someone that was right for him once you stopped being a distraction. He has no memory of you anymore to keep him sad. He can start the family he's always wanted now."
Ira didn't say anything. The only thing that could be heard that indicated a reaction from him was the increasingly fast beeping from the heart rate monitor connected to his suit trilling in the background.
"I told you this would happen. Years ago. Didn't I? You were the one who made this harder for yourself by trying to take something that wasn't even yours to have," Alexander rolled his eyes as he pressed a button and turned off the phone screen to stop Ira from starring at it any longer. "Don't you understand, yet? The monster in the story doesn't get a happy ending unless that happy ending is slaughtering my enemies. It's all about perspective, you see."
"You serve me. I protect you from the world damning you for what you've grown to enjoy. All I've ever wanted from you is to accept that you are something far from human - in return for my protection. Release your anger and punish the world for not accepting you for what you are," Alexander stated, turning his attention now to the laptop where his soldier's vital signs flashed on the screen as a hurricane grew behind his face and above his neck.
"You can't lie to me - or yourself - anymore. Isaiah is no longer an option for your pathetic admirations. I am all that's left for you and I am all you'll need. Accept it."
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