Otherwordly meme

[kingfabulous]

 Otherwordly Meme

Sometimes all you need is a word to spark off an idea.

1. Post a comment with your character's name, canon, and any preferences you may have (no shipping, no smut, etc.)

2. Leave the comment blank or post a word or two in the body.

It may also help if you list scenarios you would like to play.

3. Reply to other people, either with words you picked out, or words they posted as prompts for a thread.

( A cleanup of the previous Otherwordly Meme. )

 

Comments

[cadeuces]

[ Angela knows. Ahab is a solid presence and could often be taken for a rock to shelter through a storm beneath, but Angela knows that every now and then, he's sand held to shape beneath a fiberglass mesh. The slightest wind could sneak beneath the base and expose him for what he is, so many granules of sand pouring into the water or scattered on the wind. Fissures run through him more numerous than his scars and he's shown them to her one by one, allowed her the chance to run gentle fingertips along jagged edges and do her best to secure them lest they widen. He'd never hurt her, those edges wouldn't cut her, and she doesn't fear him in the least.

So of course she's gentle. It's to be expected from those who love you, isn't it? It's the very resin she pours into those fissures, attempting to solidify him, pull him together.

His hold on her may loosen but her own does not, keeping him just as close as his nose nuzzles at her pulse point and his breath is still harsh at her neck, damp, but he's steadying. Torrential downpour ceasing, his surface smoothing back out even if the seabed's churned within him. It too will settle, she's sure. Her eyes close with the admission and his legs draw up to draw her ever closer, feeling his lips move at her collar as she hugs him a little tighter, pressing another kiss in his hair where her lips linger, heels of her hands gentle at his temples.

He's never come apart so badly and Angela realizes with a drop in her abdomen that she doesn't know what she could possibly do beyond this, should it not be enough. I'm not a miracle worker came cheekily enough when she could nearly prop herself up to such accolades, but the reality of it settled in and wasn't easy to shake. A heavy shroud at her shoulders clinging tight, and she gathers him up all the tighter as if they could get any closer without digging into one another's flesh.

No matter how she may tease or all her little jokes, the ferocity she squeezes him with conveys her uncertainty; she can only hope she won't let him down. Fail him when he's relying on her the most, when he believes in her so sincerely.

Slowly, the twitch of metal fingers at her opposite waist eases to a stop, and she hadn't realized how loud it'd been until the silence yawns wide where it'd been. Distant thrums enough to draw one to sleep with their monotony, and it's the feel of his hair at her lips that keeps her from drifting. She can't get the leverage to settle into a rocking motion and the only song that comes to mind is the one she'd come to know as something Paz had sung, the one he'd allowed her to listen to back on the Midway Hub as she sewed up the gash in his back.

Not the best choice, when he's struggling to hold himself in one place. So she remains quiet save the steady, quiet sound of her kisses dotting him every few seconds. An easy and new little staccato between them to keep from droning on.

The next one careens along his cheekbone with the curl of a smile, her touch smoothing back over his hair to lace her fingers over the nape of his neck, ponytail brushing her knuckles. ]

Hopefully the only one you've held in your lap; I don't want to scrounge around for some long-lost store of jealousy, after all.

[ Nothing has changed. The easy rapport, the ease with which her lips find his skin, the way her touch fits to his body with just the right amount of pressure, flattening to knead his shoulders. Whatever had happened, whatever this was, it hadn't changed that between them. She won't be the one to ask, but he should know the question at the tip of her mind. What happened? ]

[alterplex]

[ He doesn't expect Angela to fix him: it just can't be done. Science can't reinstate something that no longer exists, and the power of will alone can't bring back a face or a name that Venom can't even recall. So he has to live with it, and hope that his resignations are enough to keep his fragments together.

His resignations, and the steady presence digging grooves between his already-scarred skin. He welcomes her grip on him, tight and searching. Her cold hands warm him— he takes one and presses it to his mouth, kissing at the fingertips before blowing a hot breath over the heel of her palm. Something given in return for her persistent flutter of lips over his cheek. ]

...Wouldn't be able to tell you if I did. But the answer is probably 'yes'.

[ As in, yes, she's the only one that's been tucked into him like this. The only one who cared enough to speak to him, look at him, and in turn, the only one that Venom cares to do the same to in kind.

The unanswered question sits in the air, and Venom mulls over it with gentle nips along the side of Angela's hand, tracing up to a pinky that he takes between his lips for just a second. With that done, he finally gathers enough of his words to string into a sentence. ]

What you saw— part of it. [ He owes her at least some explanation, as much as it digs at him to articulate the subject of his past. His chest stutters with an uneven breath, but it smooths over once he finds his center, once Angela brushes his hair with her fingers again. ] That was something that happened in the past. When I woke up from a 9 year coma.

[cadeuces]

[ The expectation may not be there but it won't stop her from trying regardless, in all the gentlest little ways. For his own peace of mind if nothing else. What would she do if they uncovered a drastically different man? What if the man he'd once been isn't anything like Ahab, didn't have his careful touch or the calm presence that could wait out any storm. The man she'd only known as Medic had been kind and smiled easily, held a gentle presence with a loyal ferocity to keep his spine straight, but he hadn't been Ahab either. Where Medic had been amiable, Ahab is stolid. Subdued where the younger had put his energy into moving forward and accomplishing tasks, a bounce in his step that said "I'm doing honest work and saving lives, this is what I was made for" with pride.

When he reaches for her hand laid on his shoulder, she'll let him take it without fuss and stroke down his back with the other, smiling with the feel of scarred lips and whiskers against her fingertips before he breathes warmth against her hand, slender fingers curling as if she could catch and insulate it. Her legs curl beneath his as her grip eases up on him as well, still held close in the curl of his body and encased in his body heat, idly nuzzling at his cheek as he dotes. ]

I'm glad I remain exclusive, then. Your very own doctor to hold.

[ Another little kiss, softer and lingering near the corner of his mouth, all too fond to be considered "doctorly" by this point. There is nothing medically sound about this particular approach, nothing to say the way he nips along her hand and draws forth breathy giggles with the tickle of his whiskers would cure his dissociative episode, yet the contact and her steady affections had grounded him all the same, her patience and tactility offered up for his well-being. His affections returned only leave her fonder as his mouth works up to her pinky, fingers curling once more to scritch his jawline with the proximity, turning her touch to cradle his jaw once he's "freed" her. The lion letting the shepherd pull the thorn from his paw, as it were.

He begins his explanation and she listens, feeling the stutter of his chest against her own, beneath the hand working along his spine in time to his breathing, pushing back from his jaw to curve up behind his ear and thumb along the shrapnel buried in his brow, smoothing over his hair. She plies him with her touch and eventually he starts up again, clarifying— the hospital, at least. The details finally sink in as she thinks back on it, no longer caught in the rush between scenes, the flurry of swapping props and costume changes and hastily-done makeup before the curtain draws up once more.

The empty flower vase was a sore thumb, the dispassionate and almost mocking tone of the doctor on hand. "Be calm," he'd said. How long had Ahab even been awake, by that point? Even swept up in the maelstrom of visions, Angela had immediately seen how disoriented he was. She'd heard the race of his heart on the monitor, his eye desperate to focus. Immediately dumped with images of his missing arm before he'd even been able to move his neck and see for himself, muscles atrophied due to neglect. ]

Even for a vision, I'd wanted to drop that doctor. [ You know, to the floor. Murdered. There's heat to her tone even as she speaks calmly, the faintest hint of hackles raising. Defensive, protective— dispassionate physicians that didn't care about their patients were lower than dirt to her. ] Had it been so bad the entire time? It was a military post, wasn't it?

[ They should've taken care of you. What a silly and impotent thought, when she realizes she should've been there. Would that she could have. Perhaps he would be better off now, not so heavily scarred to match his soul, where memories of his time in the hospital wouldn't leave him on the verge of vomiting, sheeting a cold sweat. ]