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ficbit ][ note for events on may twelfth
There was a nightmare curse on May 12th, which I meant to post for but didn't in the end due to time constraints. I did tag around under the assumption that Kazu was guarding his own nightmare to prevent it from spilling all over the place, but didn't really get into details. So this is before I forget! Why not?
*
Here and now, Kazu's kind of glad that he quit smoking.
It's a thought, and the sensation of his shoulders scrunching sharp against brick through the thin cloth of his shirt, that's another thought, and if he keeps counting the seconds at the back of his mind, if he tucks the minutes in finger by finger, if he thinks of it like a clock, maybe that'll be a third-fourth-fifth thought and he can carry himself all the way into the dark on their movement until he doesn't have to flinch against the thought of looking anymore. It's been four hours, maybe more—he's sure and then he's not, counting's a theory slipping between his fingers and he keeps losing track of the numbers. Every time, say, the wind curves in his direction, dragging with it the stench of iron and ash.
It isn't even the hoarse shouts that jolt him back. It's the reek: human flesh crackling, rich as meat, black and choking.
The mouth of the alley used to open to a few trashcans, a dead end walled off by brick, the side doors into little shops. He's pretty sure he's used it for a shortcut once—and that's real, he knows-thinks-knows, and maybe if he goes running into it, maybe if he jumps, his wheels will catch on wall and he can scrape his way over it and into something closer to actual reality.
Maybe if he keeps telling himself that, he'll only be a coward and not something like goddamn furniture, a pebble or a stray window shard. A fucking grain of sand.
He doesn't close his eyes, and so he registers flickering thrown in light and gold, a higher and brighter scorch than anything he's ever struck up. Shadows racing. Flares, and a waft of spark-smoke stinging as he swallows its breath. The scrape of A-Ts across gravel and glass. Mockery. The voices shift but the sounds never do, which is better and worse, because it means he doesn't have to flinch and grit against the lines he'd remember and because it means he almost strains to listen for the new words. Like there's some secret in them, maybe, that only he could piece together if he listened to it right. Just like that, somehow.
Every time.
He doesn't mean to think of the first few hours—and he knows it because he's telling himself that, is telling himself that he's telling himself too, but even the craziest feedback loop doesn't drive back the first hard flare of it: that moment when he'd caught fire flashing from the alleyway, memory unfurling into reality. That first racing forward, catching at sleeves and shirts and collars, yelling nonsense and warnings: get out of here, there's no fucking way we can win this, they're goddamn monsters, they can't catch up if we take a headstart right now, you should've gone first, you bastard you idiot please please please—
An hour begging flesh-and-bone shadows.
Here's a thought too, the only one he can't drown out: long fingers sinking against his shoulder, pushing him stumbling into the background. Sacrifice of the clearest kind in touch and warmth and force. No matter the words, no matter anything he throws between them, no matter the place and clocking of each fall or what's left to char, there's always this touch—which never even happened, not once, was never real in the least. He wasn't even there, he thinks with dry hands and empty eyes—and that thought clings, too.
Now and again he checks the net, listens to the rest of the curse spiral through the city. Talks to a couple of them, sometimes, when he can't stand the helicopter's sputter anymore, the creak of steel bending. Keeps talking like there isn't six hours left to relief in the final clock strike. Thinks of how much worse it could be—and it could be, right? This insane loop rolling after him, laughter lashing around corners, ashes falling with his step. He can't crawl out but he doesn't belong to it either; it closes around him without holding him, and even when the remembered hand shoves him back into the rubble, he half-expects it to slide through his skin and between his ribs, static in his thundering pulse.
Even here he can't reach far enough. There's nothing real to speak to.
But—
Salt and iron and sand in his teeth, he thinks. The murmur of thinned crowds hurrying by, he thinks. Even the t-shirt's starting to stick unpleasantly, he thinks, sweat sheer through collar and armpit and hip. The sky a sliver curving overhead—but no, that's not a real thing to count, that's not a thought for here and now, and his heel wheels to snap against the wall, his fist's slamming into flat silent brick, knuckles grinding against mortar, and he swallows down breath after breath until the impulse ebbs dry.
Useless, he thinks instead, and that thought'll last him two hours and none.
But he'll leave when it's over. Swallowing, bitter. He will. Midnight, and that's it. Time to be measured to the end in sinking nail crescents and tooth-grit and sweat. Light at the corner of his eye. He'll go home then. Lie down. Be okay.
Here, now, he crouches, kneels. Listens to the stutter and rewind of cremation on loop, awake and breathing smoke.
*
Here and now, Kazu's kind of glad that he quit smoking.
It's a thought, and the sensation of his shoulders scrunching sharp against brick through the thin cloth of his shirt, that's another thought, and if he keeps counting the seconds at the back of his mind, if he tucks the minutes in finger by finger, if he thinks of it like a clock, maybe that'll be a third-fourth-fifth thought and he can carry himself all the way into the dark on their movement until he doesn't have to flinch against the thought of looking anymore. It's been four hours, maybe more—he's sure and then he's not, counting's a theory slipping between his fingers and he keeps losing track of the numbers. Every time, say, the wind curves in his direction, dragging with it the stench of iron and ash.
It isn't even the hoarse shouts that jolt him back. It's the reek: human flesh crackling, rich as meat, black and choking.
The mouth of the alley used to open to a few trashcans, a dead end walled off by brick, the side doors into little shops. He's pretty sure he's used it for a shortcut once—and that's real, he knows-thinks-knows, and maybe if he goes running into it, maybe if he jumps, his wheels will catch on wall and he can scrape his way over it and into something closer to actual reality.
Maybe if he keeps telling himself that, he'll only be a coward and not something like goddamn furniture, a pebble or a stray window shard. A fucking grain of sand.
He doesn't close his eyes, and so he registers flickering thrown in light and gold, a higher and brighter scorch than anything he's ever struck up. Shadows racing. Flares, and a waft of spark-smoke stinging as he swallows its breath. The scrape of A-Ts across gravel and glass. Mockery. The voices shift but the sounds never do, which is better and worse, because it means he doesn't have to flinch and grit against the lines he'd remember and because it means he almost strains to listen for the new words. Like there's some secret in them, maybe, that only he could piece together if he listened to it right. Just like that, somehow.
Every time.
He doesn't mean to think of the first few hours—and he knows it because he's telling himself that, is telling himself that he's telling himself too, but even the craziest feedback loop doesn't drive back the first hard flare of it: that moment when he'd caught fire flashing from the alleyway, memory unfurling into reality. That first racing forward, catching at sleeves and shirts and collars, yelling nonsense and warnings: get out of here, there's no fucking way we can win this, they're goddamn monsters, they can't catch up if we take a headstart right now, you should've gone first, you bastard you idiot please please please—
An hour begging flesh-and-bone shadows.
Here's a thought too, the only one he can't drown out: long fingers sinking against his shoulder, pushing him stumbling into the background. Sacrifice of the clearest kind in touch and warmth and force. No matter the words, no matter anything he throws between them, no matter the place and clocking of each fall or what's left to char, there's always this touch—which never even happened, not once, was never real in the least. He wasn't even there, he thinks with dry hands and empty eyes—and that thought clings, too.
Now and again he checks the net, listens to the rest of the curse spiral through the city. Talks to a couple of them, sometimes, when he can't stand the helicopter's sputter anymore, the creak of steel bending. Keeps talking like there isn't six hours left to relief in the final clock strike. Thinks of how much worse it could be—and it could be, right? This insane loop rolling after him, laughter lashing around corners, ashes falling with his step. He can't crawl out but he doesn't belong to it either; it closes around him without holding him, and even when the remembered hand shoves him back into the rubble, he half-expects it to slide through his skin and between his ribs, static in his thundering pulse.
Even here he can't reach far enough. There's nothing real to speak to.
But—
Salt and iron and sand in his teeth, he thinks. The murmur of thinned crowds hurrying by, he thinks. Even the t-shirt's starting to stick unpleasantly, he thinks, sweat sheer through collar and armpit and hip. The sky a sliver curving overhead—but no, that's not a real thing to count, that's not a thought for here and now, and his heel wheels to snap against the wall, his fist's slamming into flat silent brick, knuckles grinding against mortar, and he swallows down breath after breath until the impulse ebbs dry.
Useless, he thinks instead, and that thought'll last him two hours and none.
But he'll leave when it's over. Swallowing, bitter. He will. Midnight, and that's it. Time to be measured to the end in sinking nail crescents and tooth-grit and sweat. Light at the corner of his eye. He'll go home then. Lie down. Be okay.
Here, now, he crouches, kneels. Listens to the stutter and rewind of cremation on loop, awake and breathing smoke.