The End of the Line Meme (TW)

[yohko]

The End of the Line Meme

Humanity spends way more time than is strictly healthy contemplating death. But right now, for our characters, it's really the most pertinent topic on hand. For one reason or another, your character is going to die relatively soon, and they know it. Face to face with their own mortality, characters are liable to do any number of things. So have at it!



How this works:
→ Leave a comment with the usual information in the subject line: character name, fandom. Any preferences, including what you don't want, should be included as well.
→ Tag around.
→ Feel free to roll RNG (1-7) if you cannot come up with scenarios of your own.
→ Have fun, and be excellent to each other!


1: ☠Terminal Illness☠ Cancer, smallpox, TB, plague, cholera, pick your favorite life threatening disease, and lose against it. You character has been wasting away, they're past the point of being helped, and soon they will no longer be with us. Perhaps the other players is a loved one, a friend, a doctor, or maybe a fellow patient, (terminal or not), who's there to see the doomed party to their end.

2: ☠Elaborate Plot☠ The spike walls are slowly closing in, or the pit is filling with water, the air is running out in your sealed box, the counter on that bomb is ticking away, the poison has hit your bloodstream, the sharks are closing in, etc. Somehow you've found yourself trapped or cornered, most likely at the hands of some nefarious foe, but not necessarily. Either way, try as hard as you can to escape, you can't. When do you give up, or do you fight until the end? For this one the characters can either be trapped together, or one could be out of harm's way trying to save the other, or gloating and savoring their imminent demise.

3: ☠So Much Bleeding☠ Wow that hurts. Like, a lot. Or...or maybe not? Y'know it's starting to feel kind of light and floaty, and it'd sure be nice to just close your eyes and drift off... For some reason your character suffered a grievous injury. Maybe it was in an epic battle with their nemesis, maybe they sacrificed themselves for player two, or maybe they're just really really klutzy and were running with a pair of scissors. No matter how it went, the point is that now they're bleeding out and have not long left in this mortal coil.

4: ☠Old as Balls☠ Even your wrinkles have wrinkles. You've been alive for like...ever. But hey, all good things must end, and now you feel that you're reaching the end of your rope. Are you a bitter, angry old geezer, or are you content with your life? Heavy with regret, or proud of your accomplishments? Are you saying a tearful goodbye to your friends and family, or maybe flipping the bird to an old enemy one last time? Maybe you're even reconciling with that enemy. Go nuts.

5: ☠To the Gallows at Dawn☠ Innocent or guilty, you are scheduled to hang/firing squad/lethal injection/be drawn and quartered/be decapitated. It is your last night. Chat with your cell mate? Try to escape? Bribe/seduce the guard? Tell your life story to anyone who passes you in the stocks? This one needs a bit more tweaking to properly be an engaging two person thread, but I have faith in your creativity.

6: ☠Final Curtain Call☠ This time, it's not just about you. The entire effing country/planet/universe/dimension is about to go up in smoke and everyone knows it. Break out the condoms and fried cheese, because this is gonna be one wild night.

7: ☠Overdue☠ Waaaait a second, you're already dead! Who would've guessed that? Well anyway, welcome to the afterlife. Maybe you're in some kind of celestial paradise, a torture dimension, or perhaps you're being a clingy fart and hanging around on your previous plane of residence. Finish up your business, or chill out and creep the bejeezus out of people. Your choice.

 

Original meme posted here, on memebells.

Comments

[havesomemanners]

She watched him fearlessly as he rose to his full height, knowing that he'd never dream of attacking her. She watched her Count emerge from the cloak of shadows, and her mind flashed back. As he stood before her in his armor, the armor of a King, she remembered the last time he stood before her this way. She remembered the blood with which he glutted himself, remembered his joy at the orders she gave.

Now she lifted her other hand, the one where so many machines connected to her body, and combed stick-like fingers through his hair, only to grip the strands more tightly than she realized she still could at his refusal.

"Who do you think you are that you dare to deny my command?" she growled. His duty to her and her bloodline was to abide and obey. True, they had come so much further than she had ever anticipated, and true, she knew that he stood as her equal, submitting because he desired the security that her steadfast command gave him, but he was still hers. She still held his leash as tightly as she ever had, and he refused to bow to her will.

She didn't even have the strength to make him regret that decision.

So instead, she released his hair, pulled away the hand that he was holding, and slowly trailed her fingertips down his cheek from his hair to lift his chin. "Why do you refuse to give my son the instruction that he'll need just as much as I did so many years ago?"

Walter would be gone soon. The boy would be left to Sir Irons, Sir Penwood, and Seras. She had faith in them, of course, but it wouldn't be the security and training to handle stressful situations that came with Alucard.

She could only hope that his reason was good enough to justify depriving the next in the Hellsing line of his lessons.

[houndings]

Her hand in his hair scarcely hurt, so frail was her grip. And that very nuance was infuriating. If she was to truly control him, then tighter reins were needed. A choking leash was required.

And alas, but her son he feared would never have his matron's cold, iron-hard grip.

"Your son," he finally said, never moving from beneath her touch, "holds no shadow." No darkness within, no taint upon innocent purity. The boy wasn't a child of violence; he held none of the fascination for the old monster as did his beautiful mother. "He is the beginning of the new era, my Countess, when men will rise to destroy that which they fear."

And there was yet another reason for his refusal--one far more profound than just her child.

Alucard lifted his head then, sanguine staring at her from beneath its disheveled curtain of black. "More importantly, my Master...I would not have you travel that final road alone..."

[havesomemanners]

There would always be a need for those who could act as shields, as buffers between men and their enemies. There would always be a need for those with steel in their hearts and voices and strength in their backbones to command the armies with which each war would be fought.

Hellsing Organization would be given to the round table, led by the men she trusted because they'd earned her trust. The boy would be raised by those men and shown how to be the strong, dignified force that all would have to reckon with, and he would be respected if he followed his elders' instruction. Alucard was forcing her to acknowledge it, and she didn't have the energy to resist. So she nodded, just once, while her hand curved around his cheek. "He won't be like me or those who came before." He'd be his own man, and she'd never see him become who he was meant to be.

His next words, though, caused her heart to miss a beat, for her fingernails to bite into his skin for a moment. He'd surprised her. "My monster, my pet, I can't release you, not yet." Not with her body so weak, and fear lingering in the back of her mind. He was so certain of what awaited her, while she stood in doubt. He was so sure she'd be fine, but she wasn't ready to face eternity without him by her side. After a deep breath, she met his crimson eyes with her own pale blue ones, and she sat back against her pillows.

"How long have you waited to be freed from this world, and to wander no longer?" She could give him this. Truly, she could, but she was afraid. Could he wait for her to join him? Was he even capable?

[houndings]

"...an eternity," was breathed across her hand, cold breath whispering from his lips. "And more." He was so very tired, longed so deeply for release, for an end to this never-ending cycle. Van Helsing had done his work well, but surely even God could forgive a monster after all this time.

Alucard had no illusions about Heaven or Hell--he'd witnessed both in his long existence. And cared not for the destination at the end of his bloody journey--he simply wanted to stop. And without his Master, his beautiful Countess, to drive him on, he honestly didn't believe he could muster the madness to continue on without her.

Besides, he couldn't let her go on alone. He was her rakish gentleman, after all.

The vampire felt the sickness within her, could almost taste its damning poison. The human doctors were optimistic, he knew, but he knew the truth. It wouldn't be long now. Alucard lowered his head to her hand once more, surrendering for what might be the last time.

"...when you are ready, Countess," he murmured.

[havesomemanners]

There was nothing more intimate than taking a life, and even Integra knew that. It was that, and not weakness, that had her wasting energy to make room on her small bed for him, to bring him still closer and look into the eyes of madness a final time. One last time before they met their end together.

No more would she take warm comfort in a cold embrace, nor would she gauge her own wakefulness against the hot insanity of the monster of her own making. No more would she feel her temper burn because of his taunting.

"Join me, Alucard." Her words began to flow, as smooth and as natural as if they'd waited years to fall from her lips, regardless of how far from typical for her they were. "Take me in your arms, Count, and let me have my final moments with you. Hold my life in your hands, and crush it out, and when I no longer remain among the living, join me in death. For good, this time."

It hurt to say, it scared her to think it, but this was necessary. This was what their lives were meant to culminate in, what they had been bound toward for her entire life.

It was time.

[houndings]

Fading into mist, the vampire swirled up beside her per her request, reemerging into form close to her side. Obeying, Alucard pulled her into his arms, nesting his dark head beneath her chin, breath cool against fevered flesh.

Even here at the end, he still had trepidation about what she'd asked him to do. Van Helsing's conditioning had been learned so well. Thus it was he bared his teeth slowly, just teasing her weak pulse with the tip of his fangs.

When no pain flared along the Seals, Alucard hesitated no longer; he struck, swift and true. The shocking gush of her blood spilled over his tongue and he swooned, a low, primal growl echoing deep in his chest, predator personified. Scarlet eyes slammed closed and he pulled her tighter, drinking deep, tasting her heart in his mouth.

[havesomemanners]

The way her arm curved around his shoulders was so natural that, again, she wondered why she'd denied herself this comfort. It steadied her enough that, when she lifted her chin for him, there was no fear. Enough that she was able to send a flicker of comfort and warmth down the Seals which bound him to her when razor-sharp teeth touched to her throat.

When he struck, when his teeth sank into her flesh and opened her vein, her fingers once more buried themselves in his hair. Her body found the strength to bow against him, and a quiet, throaty noise broke free of her lips. For a moment that seemed to last forever, Integra was suspended in the grips of ecstasy that walked the delicate line that
separated pleasure from pain.

But her body was already so very weak, and the moment faded quickly. Her final conscious thought was directed toward him: Just as you've always been mine, Alucard, I have always been yours. I will be waiting for you, my beautiful Count.

And with that, she let go.

[houndings]

Her pulse in his mouth, her blood on his tongue; Alucard had never felt more at peace. He felt her heart fading, heard its erratic beat as it began to falter, but still he kept his teeth anchored in her flesh, glorying in this final service and wish fulfilled.

He heard her final message, delivered with her body's last fading breath--then all was still. It stopped. Her heart ceased to beat, her breath ceased to flow.

All was still.

Blood still staining his mouth, Alucard licked clean his lips, tenderly holding the body of his deceased Master close. With what might have been a final prayer to a God in whom he'd so long disbelieved, the No Life King delved deep within his damned soul and brought to the fore the last remnant of Nazi science gone so horribly wrong.

His corporeal body began to fade, dissipating into nothing more than mist as it swirled about the bed, eventually vanishing altogether, leaving nothing more than a murmur of a familiar baritone, thrumming now only in memory:

"Integra Hellsing...my Countess..."

When it faded, then all was silent.