apocalypsehowcomm | - dad to the bone - log

Entry tags:

- dad to the bone - log - OTA -

Who: Gil Arroyo and YOOOOU
When: September catch-all-like-thing
Where: Various
Summary: Various prompts/etc based on the TDM, and some others! (Okay there are only three right now but I will be adding more.)
Warnings: ~~None yet, will edit as necessary.~~ Okay yeah the third prompt got gory, oops. Murdery, bodies-in-a-blender-ish gory???

i. a cracked bathroom mirror is a serious issue. you need to look into it.

He knows for a fact it's not just him, and Gil isn't sure whether or not that's a good thing. It's good in that he's not losing his mind. It's bad in that this has to be leading to something, and it can't lead anywhere good. After the ghostly train crash last month prior to the circus's arrival, he's on high alert for any clue as to what could be going on. Even though he still doesn't know what he doesn't know, so it leaves him floundering a little as to where to start.

He still wishes the bullshit with the mirrors would stop.

At first it's annoying, unsettling, but innocuous. Gil avoids mirrors as best he can and gets on with his day. But then his own reflection changes. Subtly, at first, his face looking not quite right out of the corner of his eye. When he stops to look, though, all is well. Except for those couple of times his movements are out of synch.

But soon the changes get harder to ignore. His hair, a beard, the color of his eyes. When he turns to confront his reflection, it's Martin Whitly, the bastard serial killer who nearly destroyed a family he never deserved. Who's still doing it. Martin's face doesn't match up with his own expressions, instead giving Gil that infuriating little smile of his and a waggle of eyebrows.

On a very public street, without pausing to think about what he's actually seeing, Gil slams his fist into an ancient store window hard enough to crack the glass and bloody his knuckles.

ii. have you heard of Duvet? they're an amazing cover band.

Once again, Gil is dubiously glad it's not him alone hearing the creepy music. It doesn't take him long to put two and two together with the drowsiness and music itself. It also doesn't take too long for him to notice that it gets more intense around the cemeteries. He saves more than one person (maybe your person?) from walking into traffic, and grabs a tray before a half-conscious waiter dumps it on drowsy patrons.

He's not immune himself. At first he fights it with caffeine and other mild stimulants, until he realizes those are keeping him awake at night and making the tiredness worse. At one point, on a street corner, he nearly falls asleep with a cup of coffee in-hand.

He dumps it in the gutter out of spite.

He's not sure when the music starts to meld into a half-forgotten memory. That's when it really starts to get to him. The more he focuses on trying to recall whatever it is, the more he loses track of where he is. What he's doing. What kind of danger he might be walking himself into.

Help???

iii. you shouldn't murder an elevator. it's wrong on so many levels. - cw for Much Blood and Death

He's starting to build connections. Or trying to, in spite of the warnings. He needs information, and he doesn't trust the people at ADI to tell the whole truth. Including about whether or not they should associate with the uninformed. He wants the perspective of people outside of their circle.

Which is unfortunate for the people he befriends.

It starts when he goes to his slowly-becoming-usual diner, with its slowly-becoming-usual spot. The waitress he always sees isn't there. A perky little redheaded kid who isn't out of college yet, taking a semester off to help her parents transition to assisted living. The owner hasn't seen her since two days ago, which isn't like her. The cops haven't found anything, her place is intact. Her parents are desperately concerned.

When he steps outside he feels eyes on him. Or not... eyes. Just a sense of something, lingering in his wake as he walks. When he looks back, there's nothing, but he doesn't tell himself he's being stupid. With this place, who knows.

The next day, a homeless man he made a point of bringing sandwiches and coffee--not for information, just because--makes the papers for being plastered against an alley wall. It's like, the article says, he was unzipped along invisible seams and hung up on the bricks, but no one could determine why the body stayed there when there was nothing to hold it up.

Gil stays around ADI the next few days, wanting more than anything to check on the people he's met in town. Knowing with awful certainty that he's the reason they're at risk. Anyone who's met him can tell something is off.

He breaks eventually, when his phone calls to several people continue to not be answered. Goes out to see if he can find those ones, tell them to be careful, let them know he won't be coming around any more. The whole time, as soon as he steps outside, that watched feeling dogs him.

Another one of his contacts is missing. One gives him a terrified look and bolts as soon as he gets close. The third one, though--the third one. They look wary when he explains that he's not going to be in touch any more, then wide-eyed when he's mid-caution, and then the guy screams. A shadow rushes over Gil's shoulder, wrapping around the unlucky contact, reducing the man into something shapeless before spraying his corpse out against the wall of the house they were talking in front of. It looks just like the paper described it. Unzipped, and hung like a nightmare anatomy display.

Gil staggers back a few steps, gun clearing holster. He brings it to bear on the shadowy mass but doesn't pull the trigger right away. Will it even hurt this thing?

?. it's not wrong to play poker as long as it doesn't get out of hand - wildcard meeee

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Gil’s been acting strange since the house of mirrors. Secretive. Jittery. And he won’t admit that something is wrong.

So, finally, Malcolm follows him.

He’s only a few feet away, quietly leaning on a tree, when the shadow zips past Gil and literally spatters the man he was talking to on the wall. His morbid curiosity takes over and he walks past Gil and his drawn gun to examine the corpse on the wall, tilting his head and leaning in close enough to attempt to determine what’s holding it there… just… the moisture of its own entrails?

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he remarks. He looks at Gil with that particular bright-eyed look that he always gets when a murder is academically interesting. “I wonder how they did it.”

Gil lurches forward, heart in his throat as Malcolm passes the shadow, and no sooner is Malcolm looking back at him than Gil is grabbing his arm by the sleeve and dragging him out of immediate harm's range.

"What the hell, Bright!" The sharpness in it isn't anger, though he is irritated at being followed. And irritated that Malcolm is so good at it.

Gil hangs on to the back of Malcolm's suit at the neck, staring at the blot of darkness where is sinks and rises against the sidewalk. "Did you not see what just happened?"

Edited 2021-09-12 21:39 (UTC)

Malcolm looks at him. “Did you?” he questions. “You were talking to this guy and it came and took him… but it didn’t touch you. I feel like, if it wanted to splatter both of you all over the wall, it wouldn’t have been much of an exertion.”

Guess who else is having mirror problems? This guy!

Because that sure is Sergeant James Barnes who keeps smirking at him every time he runs across a reflective surface, all uniformed up with his hat at a jaunty angle and skin ashen gray like he's frozen or dead or both. Creepy. He might have punched one or two windows, himself, trying to wipe that smug, dead grin off his reflection's face-- then rapidly fled the scene before anyone could pin it on him.

So he resolutely ignores his own reflection when he stalks up to Gil, mask and dark goggles on his own face, to pull him back from the cracked glass. "It doesn't help," he says, voice only a little muffled by the mask. "I have bandages."

He walks right into Kate who is standing at the side of the road, waiting for the signal to change so that she can cross the street safely. She has two cups of coffee in hand from a cute little coffee shop named Any Beans Necessary. It's within walking distance of ADI headquarters and Kate frequents it a lot more than she'd like to admit.

The signal to cross has already changed twice but she's distracted by something else, a melody. It keeps playing inside her head from something long forgotten in her youth, put away when childish things out to be put away.

Gil bumping into her, however, distracts her away from the music. It also causes her to drop one of the cups she's holding. It lands on her foot and all the hot coffee goodness that the cup contains spills over her shoes and the ground.

Kate blinks and then turns around. "Excuse me."

Gil scowls, slowly lowering his gun. He's still not letting go of Malcolm. Or putting his weapon away. The blobby... thing keeps rising and falling against the sidewalk like a demented lava lamp.

For a moment his focus strays to the man spread across the wall of his house, face intact like an insult. Then he drops his focus to the creature again. "I also notice it's not leaving."

“I wonder what it’s made of…” Malcolm muses, and it’s a good thing Gil is still holding on to him because he would probably try to touch it. “It doesn’t even look corporeal…”

Gil gives him an incredulous, aggravated look and makes a noise to match. He tightens his grip on Malcolm.

"You're not touching that damn thing, Bright."

That damn thing shifts, shaping itself into the waitress, colors blossoming on black until it looks just like her.

Gil growls, anger overruling good sense, and lets go of Malcolm to take aim again.

Malcolm watches it with another curious tilt of his head and points towards it, noting the change in Gil's demeanour.

"Who is that?"

"Waitress at a local diner. Went missing." He grits the words out, like he doesn't know her name is Katheryn but her friends drive her crazy calling her Ri-ri, like he doesn't know she's studying marine biology and minoring in environmental science.

The thing quivers, and then Katheryn's shape smiles at him with rows of teeth like a shark's.

It takes him a half-second to register the voice and build, with Winter's face covered as it is. A half-second where his hand drops toward the gun at his waist, but his stops when he's not quite there.

Gil forces himself to reel it in, to regain some kind of composure. He's pretty sure it won't fool this guy, but the last thing he wants is to... what? Be a bad example of humanity?

He takes a deep breath, shooting Winter a half-smile before he looks down at his hand. "Probably a good idea. The bandages."

He gives her a blank look for a moment, clearly disconnected, but after a moment he comes back to himself. It's clear he's tuning in from somewhere else.

"Sorry, did I--" He glances down, sees the cup and her shoes, and winces. "I did. Need to watch where I'm going a little better. Can I pay you for it? Get you a new one?"

He's going to try and play it off. He's not sure what else to do. That's about when he looks up again and recognizes her, blinking again. "Kate. I didn't... see you there, somehow."

Edited (i'm gonna assume they exchanged names already...) 2021-09-20 01:24 (UTC)

When Malcolm looks from the image to Gil this time, it's obvious on his face that he's seeing something new. Maybe something he's never seen before.

"How do you know that?" he asks carefully.

Gil doesn't answer right away, still trying to decide if he wants to shoot this thing.

"Because I knew her. Peripherally. Went to her place a lot."

The words uncoil like barbed wire.

As far as he's concerned, Gil had every right to retaliate for the interruption. At the very least, he doesn't appear to react in any way to the brief, squashed moment of threat. "There's a drinking fountain there." He steps back, in the direction of said fountain. "For washing it off first."

His own reflection, the stupid dead James Buchanan Barnes, holds up his fists and makes playful jabs in their direction. He ignores him.

Malcolm knows Gil's face well. The things it does. He knows Gil well. His eyes narrow slightly and then widen.

"You think that's why she was killed."

He nods, a signal of both agreement and approval, before he goes to the fountain in question and rinses off his knuckles. It stings--of course it does--and makes him feel like an idiot, but he'll grant himself the concession that he's been on edge for weeks now.

Gil turns back toward the other man, shaking water off his hand without wiping it dry on his coat. Kind of pointless to rinse off the blood only to get random detritus in the cuts. "Lead the way."

Winter is already at a nearby park bench, waiting patiently, gauze and an ace bandage in either hand. The goggles are in a pocket now, so it's only the lower half of his mask.

"Sit," he says. It... looks like he's planning on wrapping that hand up, himself. You gonna let him, Gil?

Whose fault is it? Kate blinks again because she isn't sure. Kate is under the impression that it is hers. She had been standing there, lost in thought and clearly ignoring the traffic signal that it is safe to cross.

For the first two seconds, she is unaware that she's dropped her cup of coffee or even that it's Gil. The music had been entrancing. Kate blinks for the third time and seemingly comes out of her daydream. "Gil?" She looks down at her foot. "Oh!" There is no danger of her being burned, however.

She has a delayed reaction, "I'm so sorry. I didn't see you there... either." An embarrassed expression crosses her face. How had this happened? "This is going to sound very strange but did you hear music too?"

"The ADI did say interacting with the locals would put them at risk." Gil's voice is a self-recriminating growl. "I didn't realize how little interaction was required."

Gil sits, offering his hand knuckles-up. Yeah, the guy intimidates him. He's awkward as hell and looks like he's lost most of who he is to whatever he's been made to do. But the first step in bringing someone back from a place like that is connection, and the first part of connection is some kind of trust.

"You came prepared."

“Ordering coffee from them? …That’s the only way to get coffee,” Malcolm notes.

Gil's skin crawls a little when she says it. "Yeah. Or it felt like I did. Couldn't tell what it was, though. What it really sounded like."

He looks at the crossing light, which has changed in their favor again. Gil gestures toward it. "If you were headed this way, I could join you, at least until I remember what I was out here for in the first place."

He makes it sound like a joke, but it's an unsettling reality.

Edited 2021-10-03 02:16 (UTC)

"We talked," he says stiffly. He can't bring himself to say more than that. "She's not the only one. This guy-- doesn't matter. She went missing along with another contact, another person got killed this way."

His jaw clenches around the words. "The only thing they have in common as far as I know is me."

“How much do you actually know about any of them?” Malcolm asks.

"It is better to be prepared," Winter agrees blandly, and dabs at the cuts gently before pressing the gauze hard against them to staunch the fresh blood. With his other hand, he starts wrapping the ace bandage around both.

Then, quiet but with a little more tone to the words, he adds, "The m. Medical supplies are mostly for me. I do not heal as well here." And he won't let anyone else come near him with the intent to doctor. He can't. "But I have more at the apartment. So helping you is fine."

Gil inspects him curiously. "As well? Is it a magic thing?

He has no idea what's magic and what's not, around here.

He flicks an annoyed look Malcolm's way, though it's not without its constant fondness. It's also pained this time.

"I didn't do full surveillance or background checks."

“They could have had something else in common,” he points out reasonably. “We can’t assume it’s all about you.”

"Hell of a coincidence," Gil growls under his breath.

He shakes his head a little, still wrapping. "There is no magic in my world." If there was, HYDRA would have taught him how to fight it, dammit. They were thorough enough about everything else. "But I am different from a person. Made for killing."

It's like a dream. She thinks that she can remember it but as soon as she tries, it fades away again. It lingers like water rushing through her hands. She can hear it but she can't keep it.

Kate smiles at Gil. "Company would be nice, we can keep each other from walking into traffic." Now that the light has changed, Kate starts to walk. It's the Manhattan in her, she doesn't look both ways. She just goes. "I'm sure you'll remember once we're about halfway back to ADI or once we arrive there."

"It's not that big of a town, Gil," Malcolm says. "Did any of them ever tell you anything about ADI or... the town?"

"Homeless guy had conspiracy theories, but." He jerks his head in a tiny headshake.

He clamps down on the instinctive response that no one is made for killing. Kid gloves. This guy is feral in a very different way than Malcolm was as a kid, but the feralness is still there.

"Who decided that?"

“You didn’t kill these people, Gil. Even if the killer is targeting you for some reason,” Malcolm allows.

"The ones who made me." Seems pretty obvious, there, champ. Then, so it's not a completely circular conversation, he adds, "A group called HYDRA. Wanted to give the world the freedom it deserves. Which is probably not freedom at all. Actually."

He might not have killed them with his own hands. But he's responsible for it, all the same. He doesn't bother arguing that point with Malcolm--the kid never sees the irony in it, when he tells other people that the actions of third parties aren't their fault.

Gil knows, on a practical level, that he didn't do this. He'll even get there on an emotional level with some time. He knows that, too.

Right now, he just wants to put a bullet in that thing's head and can't do it because it looks like that teenage girl.

Instead of answering Malcolm, he half-lowers his weapon again, snarling at the apparition. "What do you want?"

Well, well. There's an independent thought at the end of that statement. Gil studies the bandage on his hand as Winter finishes tying it off, impressed with how tidy it is without being surprised.

"Freedom usually isn't freedom with people who talk like that." He flexes his fingers. "If they're wrong about that, they can be wrong about other things, too."

Gil nods to Winter, knuckles still stinging but at least covered up. Malcolm is going to ask him about this later, which is unfortunate, but there they are. "When you say they made you... what do you mean? How did they make you?"

And the only reason he feels remotely safe saying it out loud is he hasn't found any hint that HYDRA exists in this world. So. Nobody can possibly punish him for speaking the truth all of them probably knew all along.

He ties off the bandage, mouth a thin line, before saying shortly, "There was a Chair. Maintenance. Reset. Order only comes through pain."

The voice that comes from the thing barely sounds human.

"We want ADI to understand they're not in control here. We exist. We will continue to exist and they can't stop it."

Malcolm frowns faintly.

Gil's expression twists into rage before he can get himself schooled, but it only lasts for a few seconds. He manages to get his expression under control. He's had practice. Too many long-ass years of practice.

"They tortured you," Gil says, his voice flatly calm.

"Maintenance," Winter restates, eyes carefully on Gil's hand and even more carefully removing is own from it now that the gauze is in place. It's not torture if you're not a person. It's just maintenance that happens to hurt a lot. It doesn't matter. "Reset. I have twenty hours of memories prior to my arrival here."

Twenty hours. Only twenty hours. The stubborn logic that Gil has always applied to the world around him bucks a little at the possibility, but slowly--very slowly--he's getting dragged back into a more youthful position of open-mindedness.

He hates it, thanks.

"So you were..." He has to gather himself a moment to keep the revulsion out of his tone. "In-between maintenance when you got snagged."

Gil tenses even more, which somehow he didn't think possible. It's that voice. It makes his skin crawl. "Maybe not today. But they will. We will."

“You don’t even know what the game is,” it tells them. “You’re puppets. You’re being used. You don’t which side you’re on; you just go where they send you.”

"I was on a mission," Winter explains. Then he frowns, because he wasn't on a mission at that point, exactly, was he. "I failed to complete the objective. I. Did not return to the handlers."

The handlers would have made him try to complete the objective and he didn't-- want-- that.

He takes a sharp half-step forward. "Our whole job is untangling crap like this, you sick bastard. We're going to help this place, with the ADI or without it."

“With the ADI, of course,” it answers. “Your boy can’t live without them.”

Malcolm’s eye narrow faintly. “How do you know anything about us?”

It laughs. “There are many ways to know things.”

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- dad to the bone - log - OTA -

iii

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I.

II - I Heard Their Lead Singer Was A TREBLED Man.

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WELL.... PLAYED

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Thanks. It's treble when music puns fall flat.

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