[ closed ]

[earthshine]

Who: shiro + keith
When: perm log for these idiots
Where: all over
Summary: say, say o playmate from the august tdm. the butcher's camp from the september tdm. quarter pounder from the september event. keith's birthday. hermy the wormy from the december tdm. in the hive from the december event.new year, new you from the january tdm. end of january, references january event.
Warnings:
say, o say o playmate: hallucination, blood, ritualistic sacrifice, claustrophobia.
the butcher's camp: animal death, animal mutilation, both human and animal butchery, implied cannibalism, stripping ( nsfw ).
quarter pounder: blood, animal attack, consumption of human flesh, violence, gore, body horror, potential for severe injury, including puncture wounds and broken bones, potential for choking, potential for animal death.
keith's birthday: boys being stupid.
hermy the wormy: worms, decay, altered mental states/compulsion, emotional corruption, potential for violence, body mutilation, attempted murder.
in the hive: insects/swarms, bites, vomiting, body horror, death ( npcs ), mental and physical trauma
new year, new you: self-doubt, body dysmorphia trauma, cringe talk about sex safety, hook-up culture, body modification ( steroid and synthol oil use ), mention of drug use
end of january: implied animal death, self-doubt, body image issues, body dysmorphia, self-harm, body mutilation, skin burning, drug use mention ( tren steroid ), implied extreme dieting ( starvation & dehydration ), nsfw ( heavy petting and nudity ). reference to shiro's scars.

Comments

[marmoron]

[ the reprieve keith gets doesn't last nearly as long as he needs. with that grip on his collar loose, he bounces on the couch and frantically swipes up at the screen to get hermy moving. that's the last thing he remembers before something barrels right into him and flattens his back into the couch. winded, but still clutching onto the phone, the last three seconds of the bonus theme music play out without the burping sound effect to indicate hermy's completed his bonus meal. that in itself warrants a sharp: ]

No! [ as keith thrashes under shiro's weight. over an hour of non-stop consecutive play now completely wasted? a line has been crossed here and shiro's clearly gone far too fucking far. they may have a friendly rivalry going on, but this kind of active sabotage is beyond reproach. incensed, keith struggles to bring his phone hand up to smack shiro upside the head with.

it could still almost fall into a nebulous category of roughhousing rather than being an outright fight.keith genuinely deludes himself into thinking that ..... that is ... right up until the moment shiro gets his hands around keith's throat and starts to squeeze. keith is no stranger to being combative, both physically and mentally, but the chokehold pressure on his throat still makes him freeze.

grip going slack on the phone, he drops the device into a crevice of the couch where the music merrily plays on. ]

Shiro -- [ the name is forcibly gasped as keith tries to prise one of shiro's hands off his neck. ] Shiro, this isn't funny!

[earthshine]

[ it’s not a fair fight. it’s an ambush and a knock-down, one with a singular purpose of winning. sparring is different, so is their playful wrestling; both start on mutual respect and end on feeling of gratefulness. shiro’s never wanted to hurt keith in any instance. in fact, he’s never allowed himself to meet keith headon; he’s always pulled his punches, always been careful not to tap into the strength or brutality he’s become capable of. perhaps he should have though. in some controlled sense on the training deck, he could have better prepared keith, all the paladins really, for the kind of savagery their enemies are known for. perhaps if he had, keith would be more apt to break out of the chokehold shiro’s got on his neck.

has keith ever given serious thought to how shiro spent that year as a prisoner? it was a little like this. he’s missing the weapons, the impossible odds, and the crowd, but the music has a rhythm to it that works as a substitute to the jeers accumulating into one, steady hum throughout the arena. here, he utilizes his body as a weapon from the lead anchoring of his mass and limbs, strategically placed to bare down on keith and immobilize him to his hands clutching tighter at his neck. flesh and prothesis thumbs alike dig into his throat and he wonders, briefly, if he could actually snap keith’s neck with a little more force.

does he need to do that? it would secure his rightful place at the top of the leaderboard. keith is his main competition; with him out of the way, shiro can be the best again, just as he had been at galaxy garrison, back when life was good and normal. before he became some broken, monstrous thing.

fuck, he wants so badly to have a taste of normalcy again, even some lowly crumbs from some fucking worm game. so he keeps squeezing, gaze barely blinking and steadily set on keith’s face, voice overrunning with accusation. ]

I warned you. [ and he practically growls through his frustration as keith pries at his hands. abruptly, he lets go with his left and with a strange sense of ease, adjusts his grip to engulf the front half of keith’s neck with his galra hand, flexing to cut off his windpipe. as for that left hand? he snatches at keith’s and holds it down to the cushion. ]

I told you to stop. But you wouldn’t listen. [ this is keith’s fault. it’s keith fault that shiro has to do this to him. so don’t be mad at him. shiro is only doing what he has to. ]

You’ve left me no choice.

[marmoron]

[ keith doesn't understand. the situation doesn't demand that he has to understand, but because it's shiro doing this to him, shiro crushing his throat with brute force, keith is paralyzed on inaction. ]

Wh...why?

[ it's all keith manages to rasp out as he heaves and strains for another breath that isn't coming. it's not even a full question. obviously shiro's doing this over the fucking game, but why? why is he so pissed about the scores? why is he going this far? doesn't he know this hurts? eyes widen, irrationally terrified as shiro leers down from above all but frothing with intractable rage. keith struggles for another breath, rasping and croaking as he tries yet again to pull shiro's hand away.

briefly, he thinks it's worked. in the split second after shiro's left hand comes off to pin down his right, keith takes a torturous gasp, coughing down the oxygen through a bruised airway. once again though, the reprieve is short lived as metal fingers dig into soft flesh and the air abruptly stops. keith tugs desperately at prosthetic digits, fingernails ripping as they catch and scratch at the joints. it's useless. that grip is vice-tight, and for the first time keith is properly terrified of that galra arm and what it's capable of.

all along, he's known it can be activated and turned into some kind of energy blade. if shiro were to use it on him now, his head would be rolling on the floor. lungs burning as he tries for another breath, keith only manages a terrible squeaked gurgle as a panicked fog blankets everything but him and shiro. even the music seems more muted and distant now, as keith forces himself to stop trying to pull shiro's weapon hand to reach out and cup shiro's jaw. it's a desperate kind of touch, the look in keith's eyes pleading as he heaves for another breath.

one wrong move. one fucking wrong move and the hand at his neck could slice clean through his head. what's left here except to believe that the same shiro who loves him and calls him family is still there? ]

Shi- Shiro - please! Don'do this. I..I-lov'you

[ fuck. his vision swims with lightheadedness, as he jerks this way and that to try and get another breath in. teeth grit, keith gives shiro's face a pleading squeeze. this is what he gets for having sat for over a month on that i love you that shiro had freely offered up to him in dogtown, huh? i love you. just why had it been so hard to say i love you when it's been true for so long? why had he always pushed it off with some excuse like it wasn't the right moment or that he wanted to say it when it wasn't so tainted by circumstance. why hadn't he just said it when he kissed shiro on the lips that night they were both drunk? it's not like shiro would have remembered anyway, right?

well now he finally gets to say it back to a shiro who may not even care at all. pathetic. ]

[earthshine]

[ why? good question, not that shiro will cooperate with any sort of answer. it’s an echo of his same thought, fainter and lost amongst the far louder rage commanding him to take out this threat. so his arm stays rail straight, body pitched to lean into that hold and suffocate keith into the cushion, both from the weight bearing down from above and the unyielding pressure of his galra hand. why? the question expands and grows louder in an instant: why waste his time? he has the means to choose keith’s last breath, either by crushing his throat, snapping his neck or slicing through with a flash of purple. for how twisted he’s become, he’s rarely ever enjoyed watching the life blink out of his opponents. even in the pit, with a roaring crowd validating ever kill he’s made, he didn’t draw out a kill blow longer than necessary. shouldn’t he put keith out of his misery?

no. he can’t quite get around that innate part of himself keeping him from snuffing keith out of existence, at least not to the point of irreversible damage. his squeezing isn’t letting up though, so perhaps they’ll get to the point of no return anyway. he’s stuck and he’s stubborn, so blind on his need to win that he barely even sees keith struggling to breathe as he gurgles and fails to fill his lungs, even though shiro is staring right at him. a hand touches his jaw and immediately, shiro thinks it’s a threat. is keith trying to grab at him? maybe claw at his face? he needs another hand. or better yet, he needs to neutralize keith’s other hand better than a pin against the couch.

but keith’s touch is little more than a desperate cupping, the weakness in him suddenly so apparent. almost done. and then a more suspicious, what’s he doing? what’ the point of this? shiro doesn’t follow and doesn’t budge, merely flattening his lips together as he maintains that hard furrow all across his face, everything about him ugly and unreachable in that moment.

almost unreachable.

it isn’t instantaneous. keith doesn’t mumble through the i love you shiro’s been low-key waiting on for weeks now to have shiro’s expression clear and the warmness of his gaze return. no. keith manages the words and shiro gives a hard blink, the harshness of his expression easing the tiniest of bit. one, two, and it eases a hint more. that’s right – this is his best friend. he’s a threat and his greatest advisory in this game and shiro doesn’t want to compete with him anymore, all true, but… he loves him too…? yes.

there are other ways of ensuring keith can’t play against him anymore.

it’s to this reassuring thought that he suddenly relaxes his galra fingers, hand still laid across his neck. he looks then to where he has keith’s hand pinned. there’s no lead up or hesitation. there’s no explicable reason how he even knows how to do it or that he even can do it: he simply feels capable of doing it. it being a dip of his fingers inside keith’s palm. phased fingers nudge through tendon and bone, strumming across collagen tissue until he finds a few at the back of keith’s hand that he likes: three extensor tendons, two connecting to his thumb and one connecting to his index finger. all it takes is a few, hard pulls and he rips the tendon off the connecting bone. ]

There.

[ there what? he doesn’t elaborate. to him, the meaning is clear: shiro’s dealt with the problem and now they’re done here. in fact, shiro will remove his galra hand and begin climbing off of keith too, a strange sense of calmness returning to his demeanor. ]

1/2

[marmoron]

[ hope is a dangerous thing to have in a situation like this. keith should be doing nothing but preparing for the worst, conserving all of his stregnth to try and jam his knee up high between shiro's legs, but shiro falters and therefore keith does as well. foggy and heavy limbed, he opens his mouth to try and say something else encouraging, but his voice is nothing but a strained raspy whisper easily lost to the music blaring from his phone's speakers from a crevice somewhere on the couch.

suddenly the pressure lifts from his throat and the breath of air keith sucks in burns aall the way down his bruised trachea. something wet stings at the corners of his eyes as his chest heaves for a second breath and a third, head and heart pounding from a flood of adrenaline. it gets easier to focus a beat later, but it's just as quickly lost again when the pressure on his right hannd suddenly turns inwards. keith screams on instinct -- a broken, raw noise that cracks before keith draws his next breath. he twists his head to look, but he doesn't understand what he's seeing.

hallucination? oxygen deprived insanity? whatever the fuck it is, shiro's fingers probe deeper into his hand and with three sharp tugs, keith lets out another hollowed out scream that sets every nerve in his own head jangling in a horrible cacophony of confusion, pain and terror. the screaming doesn't stop, even after shiro's extricated his fingers and he's gotten off the couch. pulling his mangled hand tight against his chest, keith stays lying on the couch hyperventilating and dizzy.

what the fuck. what the absolute fuck is happening and is it completely over?

the thought that it might not be leaves him wanting to scream all over again, but the thought of setting shiro off somehow scares him even more. on some level, maybe that's selfish. something's obviously happening with shiro and his best friend clearly needs help if he's willing to kill over a fucking video game.

but he's scared and can't fucking handle the thought of getting choked out by his best friend. grabbing his phone with his left hand, keith hurriedly gets to his feet and runs for his bedroom. it isn't safe in the apartment -- not if shiro's serious about coming after him again, but it's the first place his addled head can think of to go.

he needs -- fuck, he doesn't know what he needs right now. except something inside him makes keith stop to pause and look at his best friend over his shoulder. one last look to make sure he's not following or at risk of being a danger to himself or someone else. one look. ]

done

[marmoron]

....oh.

[ it's a quiet, barely audible sound. as shiro settles himself down on the adjacent cough and pulls out of his phone, keith doesn't know how to describe what he's feeling. it should be relief right? that shiro's settled down and completely lost all interest in pursuing and hurting?

it should be. but as keith lingers and the music from shiro's phone plays out of sync with the tune coming from his, keith waits. wait and waits and waits for his best friend to look up for a second. he never does. between the throbbing in his right hand and his neck, keith didn't think shirocould still do more damage -- especially when they're not even in physical proximity anymore.

he bites his lip, shoulders hunching as he turns around and shuffles back to his room and locks the door. ]