InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Tweak, smiling politely."

Spike Spiegel (lunkhead) wrote in indarkness_logs,
@ 2010-10-20 14:00:00

Entry tags:

2032 10, river tam, spike spiegel, ~mandy, ~sorcha

RP: Too Much to Take In
Characters: Spike and River
Time/Date: Noon-ish, October 20^th
Location: Algul Siento, Spike's room
Warnings/Rating: Language. Violent thoughts. Angst.
Summary: Dora's alleged death has Spike on the brink of mass homicide. Mutual angst happens. And... not so much with the homicide?
Status: Private, ongoing
[ Yes. There is a lyric theme for the title and cut text. Shh. ]

Spike sat in the chair, fist pressed tightly against his mouth as he leaned forward and stared at the door to... her room.

He couldn't even say her name within his mind without feeling the overwhelming urge to destroy everyone and everything in existence. Friend or foe, it didn't really matter. They were all going to die, anyway. Why prolong the suffering of allies? Why give a damn about those he didn't personally know? Why not go ahead and slaughter Chase?

Maybe that was even the point of this. Survival of the fittest. Captives pushed together when their only hope was to remain solitary creatures. And in the end the survivor got to face off with the twisted fuckers behind their torment. It would be worth the blood spilt, wouldn't it? Even if he only died trying...

His muscles rippled with an angry shudder at the thought, but Spike knew better. Or at least he retained a vague hold on the inner beast's leash. With every passing second, however, the threads of the leash frayed.

What little soul he claimed to have left twisted into knots, screamed at him to remember that it could be faked - that there was no proof of Dora's death, either way. But something stronger, darker growled at the mere thought of her. It clawed closer to the surface, reminding him now as it had once before that he could only lose those he cared about so many times before it became permanent. Real.

If River had been returned, why would they return... the other woman? It would seem too kind for their sadistic nature. Too ignorant, even.

His jaw clenched with the realization of just how perfect the set-up was, down to placing him in a suite with... What? Her fucking corpse?! He could feel the pressure baring down on his teeth, trying the strength of bones and tendons alike. The sensation was painfully familiar in ways he all but begged himself not to acknowledge. Haunting... Not unlike the video.

She was dead. Gone. His co-conspirator... no, friend. She was his friend; there was no sense in denying it anymore. And she was gone, now. They'd killed her. They'd left her there with the others to be wiped away by god-damned earthquakes.

Dora was dead. And Dug... that poor, naive creature. He actually kind of liked that mutt, too. And Jayne, someone who wasn't quite a friend but... someone he trusted with his life. They'd fought Reavers together, for fuck's sakes!

Tightness crept into his throat and his wrists trembled slightly. His jaw was nearly numb from the excessive pressure, but he barely registered the feeling. His mind was too consumed in the grim task of taking human inventory.

Simon was over there, too. Brother by proxy, sibling to the girl he considered as good as his own sister... Co-saviour of his life. Best damn doctor he'd ever met. River would be shattered. Would there be any pieces left to reassemble? He'd promised he'd keep her pieces in place, help her stay as whole as possible. But this... Was it too much for either of them?

Spike's jaw joined with the tremors, creating an ironic parallel which he tried to ignore. He leaned further forward as vague blurriness seeped into the human half of his vision. His knuckles curled further into fists; it felt as if they would splinter if so much as an extra air molecule touched them.

Part of him wished they would. He wanted the pain to ground him to reality. He wanted some sort of reminder that he was still alive. If he couldn't kill everyone else just to watch the life leave their eyes, then... something. He had to do something.

It wasn't right. None of this was right. Jaime had survived a suicide attempt, had vaguely managed to pull through when her lover was taken. And for what? They couldn't fully break the unshakable, so they crushed and drowned her? Why her?! She was just a young woman. Just a girl who wanted to feel like she belonged somewhere. What the hell kind of crime was that?! Why had she been left behind when someone like him - or worse, someone like that Chase kid - was given sanctuary on the new island?

He glanced upward, and something snapped. Not bone or tendon, but something much worse: the final thread of resolve slipped from his grasp.

The blood felt as if it were boiling in his veins. His chest heaved with seething breaths. He saw the door again, thought of Dora and Iridia, thought of that panther - Dora's soul - taking Dug's place in the video, and lost the internal war between man and beast.

With a deep growl, he stood and whipped around, kicking the chair aside. The loud thud it made when hitting the door brought a twisted sort of smirk to his lips, but he didn't bother to see if anything had been damaged. It didn't matter. Instead, he headed for the main door, seemingly stalking it.

Maybe he didn't have any ammunition. Maybe he'd been too foolish to think of checking for ammo on the new island. Maybe he'd even get himself killed in the process of trying to unleash his anger through physical confrontation. He accepted these possibilities. Or, at the very least, he didn't deem them worthy of his attention.

So what if he died in the process? If he died one step closer to the Heads than he was now, that was a small victory. And so what if he claimed innocent lives? If he didn't, then someone else would. Not that he'd start with the innocents. No, there was one person - one worthless specimen - who had shown no respect for his fallen allies.

Chase would die. It was set in stone, as far as Spike was concerned.

His hand closed around the doorknob, still trembling from a mixture of abused nerves and being out of cigarettes in a highly stressful situation. He didn't expect to find anyone or anything when the door opened, but sometimes...

Sometimes, expectations were challenged by reality.

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lilalbatross
2010-10-21 01:47 am UTC (link)

She'd known what was on the video before she saw it, and still hadn't watched it all the way through. She couldn't. Not now, not ever.

There was a voice, that screamed out in the back of her mind to focus on the details. The subtle shading in the walls, the small cracks that a construction team wouldn't have noticed, the shape and make of Dug's form and the colour of his fur. They could be off, by the tiniest of degree, given that interns who didn't care as much about their subjects would not have cared if the slightest strand of fur was out of place, even if those in charge would have if they noticed. The voice screamed at her that they hadn't. Screamed at her to find the differences.

But she couldn't. Because Spike was right. They were capable of this, and they did this and this was not beyond them. It was a warning, or a message, or... or something, she wasn't sure.

All she wanted to do right now was curl up on her bed and never leave it, cry until she fell back asleep or woke up from this dream, cry until they took her away or killed her or both. She didn't want to move, didn't want to think, didn't want to breathe anymore because it wasn't fair and it wasn't right that she should get to when the others... the others were not given the choice.

But there was something... pressing at the back of her mind that pulled her from the bed, and moved her through the hall, placing her across the hall from his room with her legs curled under her and her blackberry in her lap. She knew the communications had been cut earlier that morning, before the videos had aired, but that wasn't stopping her from making every adjustment she could, from altering every bit of message in the hope that something would get through and Simon's voice or Simon's words would come through in a bewildered confusion wondering what she was talking about, drowning? He was fine was she okay. Something. Anything.

They couldn't be dead. They couldn't be.

She glanced up only briefly when she heard the door to make sure it wasn't flying open and something she needed to jump to her feet to stop, her eyes returning to her phone as soon as she was able. "You can't kill Chase," she murmured, her voice sounding empty and hollow, even to her own ears. "We will need him when the bears attack the island."

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lunkhead
2010-10-21 06:39 am UTC (link)

Spike almost mistook her voice for that of a stranger. It was so hollow, so empty and unlike anything he'd heard from her before. There was an eerie, haunting quality to the sound - something which made the breath catch in his throat for a brief moment.

She was broken; he realized this the moment his eyes trailed to the familiar form of his would-be sister. Broken... And he couldn't begin to imagine where the pieces had fallen. He wished he could fix her, help her, tell her that Simon was sure to have survived; but he couldn't lie to her. He couldn't - wouldn't - bother trying, even if she wasn't capable of sensing the deception. Instead, he turned a gaze toward her that was as sympathetic as possible amidst the chaos of homicidal rage.

That she knew what he planned wasn't a surprise. Something in the back of his mind pointed out that the network interaction was public, but he was becoming familiar with her innate knowledge of things she shouldn't - couldn't - know. They shared the same soul, or one similar enough to count. He'd be worried if she didn't understand his motives and reactions well enough to read him. Or he would at any other time. Now, he took the statement at face value, accepting her peculiarity with no more than a passing thought.

"You can't stop me," he growled. His hand remained on the doorknob as his gaze narrowed on River; his grip remained somewhat shaky, though he attempted to steady himself.

She couldn't stop him. Not now, not ever. There were things which had to be done, and he wouldn't allow anyone to interfere. He'd told her as much before, and would stop her if she tried to complicate the plan... But part of him didn't want to have to hurt her. Refused to, even. This was his 'sister' - the one who'd just lost her biological brother.

"Chase is insignificant." He slipped his hands into his pockets, watching her reactions carefully as he stepped into the corridor. "He's dead already." There was a faint hint of a smirk as he tilted his head slightly toward the general direction of an elevator. "Just waiting for the Reaper to collect his winnings."

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lilalbatross
2010-10-21 08:02 am UTC (link)

"Can," she said, without looking up from her blackberry. As soon as the communications were established, Simon would be flooded with hundreds upon thousands of messages of alarm from River, some guilty for flooding him, some so panicked that they were sure to send him into a panic too. Or communications would never be reestablished because... but she wouldn't think that. Setting her phone to automatically resend a message every 20 seconds for a moment, she glanced up at Spike. "Can and will. For selfish reasons, wherein I have no wish to be caught in the explosion." She frowned suddenly. "Implosion?" she tried before she shook her head and turned her attention back to her blackberry, typing a different message and sequence. "Thoughts everywhere, broke their cages and flew away and cling to my like I am rubber and not the glue that is wished," she frowned at the phone. "8 342 messages and the best response was an auto."

She looked up again. "Can't..." she closed her eyes, trying and failing to swallow back the pain. "Don't kill Chase," she amended. "Need him alive more than dead."

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lunkhead
2010-10-22 08:47 am UTC (link)

Spike chuckled - humorlessly as it may have been - when she insisted that she could stop him. He knew that she was a formidable opponent, had witnessed a small taste of her power and suspected she was stronger than what he'd seen, but also knew his own strengths. It was his general assumption that he could equal or overpower her fairly easily in a fight, and he really didn't want to have to test the theory. Who would want to destroy their own (claimed) sister?

"You won't be," he said, his eye twitching briefly with the thought that he might lose control enough to hurt her. Or make her get caught in the chaos that he planned to cause. He glanced down the corridor again, feeling the urge to get the killing over with and hopefully release some of the anger (and other, unspoken emotions), but refused to walk away when she was speaking. If it could, somehow, be the last time they spoke...

His eyebrows furrowed in response to the number of messages sent. He didn't know much about the network's nuances, but if she felt that many messages were necessary... Could she possibly be attempting to contact anyone other than someone who couldn't reply? Simon, then. Her brother seemed the most likely of those who'd died on the island. That she hadn't received an answer was disturbing. It seemed to point toward the 'they're all dead now' theory.

"River..." He paused, taking a deep breath to calm the anger evident in his tone. He normally didn't care if he lost control, but he'd promised to keep her whole. Even if that was no longer possible, the least he could do was avoid further breaking the poor girl. "...It's not a question."

He finally closed the door and glanced at her, hoping to convey through his expression (and, after what she said of thoughts, suspecting she would understand perfectly) that he didn't want to have to hurt her. This was something he had to do, for himself and for the honor of those stolen by the old island. In his current state of mind, it was something he had to do; and he fully intended to act upon the plans.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he stepped away from the door, pausing only to gauge River's reaction. He fully expected her to back down. Or maybe he just hoped she would. When he thought about it, he doubted she was any less stubborn than him.

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lilalbatross
2010-10-24 03:32 am UTC (link)

Her eyes slipped up from her blackberry very briefly to focus on him, and the edges of her lips curled upwards in a small, dark smirk as she regarded him for a moment. "Clear difference between needing confirmation and having it. Cannot even begin to formulate a hypothesis when all the facts have not been gathered. How can you know so easily that the battle would end with my head on a stake when the true extent of my skill has never been tested?"

She suspected he would throw the reverse at her, and brushed it off before he could even say it. She knew. She couldn't say how she knew, but she did. "Besides," she added. "Is not always the strongman who takes home the trophy."

She rolled her eyes, looking at him pointedly for a moment when he told her she wouldn't be caught in the explosion. Implosion. Whichever, it didn't matter. "Already am!" she pointed out in frustration, throwing her arms above her head in a violent gesture to point out her current surroundings. "Ticking time bomb and only one to diffuse it. Will stay until the last seconds tick unless he does." Oh certainly, she was under no delusions that she was the one who could diffuse this bomb.

"The communications are down," she told him when he started to be more aware of her texting, an increased tension building as she started to text more rapidly. "A heavy wall blocking them, but cracks must exists. Cracks always exist. Full disconnect would be impossible given the logistics of the set up of the network. Just need to find... just need to find the cracks that exist in the wall and send one through. Only one needs to make it. Only one. He can utilize the pathway established to reply. Only one needs to get back. If it takes hundreds of thousands, I will do it." Her eyes shot up to regard Spike sharply. "They are not dead, do not even speak the words to me, or we will be forced to put off the remainder of the conversation until you regain consciousness."

She glanced up again when she heard the door snap shut and rolled her eyes slightly before returning to her phone. "Will not be that easy without decent justification, of which you have none," she informed him.

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lunkhead
2010-10-25 08:32 am UTC (link)

There was something about her smirk which made Spike think of himself - something beyond any spiritual or circumstantial similarities they had. It felt more like a mirror of his own feelings and mannerisms. But... that would be ridiculous. Right? He'd heard that one conversation leaked onto the network, but that was too long ago to come to his mind when he was so stressed. Thus, he took it as just one more thing they had in common. Nothing more, nothing less.

He started to correct her, to point out that he could say the same to her, but she caught him before the words reached his voice. His eyebrows furrowed, though he was really coming to expect such inexplicable insight from the girl. And, though he was in a contrary mood, he had to admit she had a point. Maybe not a point he felt like agreeing with, but a point. It was entirely possible that they were evenly matched. (He certainly didn't believe she could surpass him in skill, mistaken as such an assumption truly was.)

Then she had to point out that she was already caught in the explosion. Or implosion. Spike doubted it mattered which. It just bothered him that she believed herself to already be caught in the disaster. "It will go away," he muttered. And, as far as he believed, it would. He would kill Chase, the frustration would become more manageable, then she would have less chaos surrounding her. Maybe not enough less, but less.

Her words, however, suggested otherwise. Spike wasn't sure whether she meant that she was imploding and only Simon's reply could diffuse her, or whether he, himself, was the one who could diffuse the metaphorical bomb. He supposed it would apply, either way. For the sake of his resolve - and perhaps even his sanity - he automatically assumed that she meant Simon, regardless of the nagging doubt in the back of his mind.

Another display of how dull and bent he could be? Perhaps. But perhaps not. He didn't want to ask for clarification, and she had already moved to explaining why she was so obsessed with the phone. Her desperation tugged at something within him - something that wanted to protect her - but he couldn't bring himself to lie. They'd witnessed the island's destruction. The communications were down. How could she possibly get through? It was more likely that the system had been destroyed along with the island. And even if it wasn't... What did she hope to do? Contact a ghost?

Once again, he came close to saying something, only to be cut off when she knew what to expect. He would have attempted not to be callous when pointing out that everyone on the other side was dead, but maybe it wouldn't have come out so well given his state of mind. Either way, he glanced at her suspiciously. She still preferred denial. She was setting herself up for heartbreak, unless their captors truly were so repetitive as to fake deaths again. He didn't fear the threat, perhaps foolishly, but he didn't want to steal what she used to hold onto the last few pieces of herself, either.

So it came down to his attempt to get the job done, to venture off and take care of his frustrations through slaughter. How that could be accomplished without the obvious weaponry was... just a technicality.

"Justification doesn't matter," he protested lowly, almost growling the words. "I have to do this." The beast wanted out again, but he didn't feel comfortable saying as much in person. It was easier to mention it in passing when only a phone was in front of him. Instead, he settled for, "Don't try to stop me."

Offering one more glance toward River, he started to walk down the hallway. Somehow, he doubted he would get away without some form of interference. He hoped she would remain in tact for as long as he was gone. Maybe a part of him even felt guilty walking away on the girl he considered a sister. Either way, he moved slowly, as he often did when not yet in the line of fire - metaphorically or literally.

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lilalbatross
2010-10-28 07:24 am UTC (link)

She rolled her eyes, muttering slightly unintelligibly in broken sentences. "The volume. Voices, screaming so loud, shouting for attention, try to turn it off but even without power they scream as though running on batteries but the batteries are nonexistent. Try to turn it down but the dial is broken, set to 11, and there is no stopping it. A physical impossibility to be sure, the dial reaches only 10, a lack of understanding put into the building of these speakers, or perhaps they broke them long ago since they had no comprehension of the way things are supposed to be."

Her breathing was heavy and awkward for a few moments, and then she pushed up to her feet in a graceful movement and stood no further than a step away from the wall, but she could more easily move to block his path now if she wished to. She didn't yet. She didn't want to.

"If someone has to die," she called out. "If this is something that has to be done," she spoke mockingly, as though that would make a difference here, "then kill me." She was trying to prove a point. What point, exactly, she was trying to prove, she wasn't certain, but she was going to go with it for now. "Would at least be more honest that way," she added. "Would not protest. Will be the sacrifice needed." Her lips curled upwards in an ironic smirk. "Am dead either way," she pointed out.

She blinked once, as though that thought was just occurring to her. Her face started to fall as she repeated it. "Am... dead either way."

The simple acknowledgement of that, of the helplessness she felt in her situation, was like flipping a switch. All of a sudden, the pressing desire to keep texting was abating. She stared at her phone as though seeing it for the first time, then looked up at Spike as though trying to figure out what had just happened. Her grip on the phone slipped and it fell from her fingers, crashing to the floor.

"Not coming back," she murmured softly. "None of us. In due course, bears will be released for maximum research value. Only in their defeat will things progress. Will we live on. Game over, and I forgot to save when it was important, have now lost crucial party members that cannot be recovered." She licked her lips, her eyes wet with unshed tears. "Were there a save block, I would use it now, but one does not exist. Maybe it never did," the tears started to roll down her cheeks now. "The question becomes how the fight is expected to continue when the characters have no key to open the door to the final boss because they are too busy fighting amongst themselves?"

She shook her head, wondering if he was even listing to her anymore. She couldn't possibly be making any sense through her grief.

"Fight on the server where no blood is spilled," she murmured finally. "Regardless of current resolution, should you oppose me, you will fail. The only casualty today, or any day, will be myself, and only after the breath leaves my lungs will further death's reach extend."

Having said her piece, she leaned her head back against the wall, and closed her eyes, letting the tears fall freely down her cheeks. She pounded her head against the wall twice before she managed a small, bitter half chuckle. "It is not enough I have lost one of you already?" she asked. She didn't expect an answer.

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lunkhead
2010-10-31 07:05 pm UTC (link)

The funny part - though only in a strangely ironic sense - was that Spike understood what she meant. She spoke of voices and batteries and speakers as if the nuances were a mutual topic of interest, yet he was capable of keeping up with the meaning behind it. The voices were screaming at her, too loud to be sorted and too strong to be ignored. Maybe he couldn't be certain whether she spoke on a literal or metaphorical level... or even a strange mixture thereof. Maybe he didn't know whether she was some form of psychic or simply a highly skilled people-reader. But it didn't really matter - not then.

She would get over it. Or she would sit there, failing in her attempts to silence the screaming, until he returned. He could fix her, then. If there was anything left to fix...

His jaw clenched when she said to kill her instead. Something about the willingness to be a sacrifice stalled him in spite of the decision to pursue a quest for blood. He didn't move to look at her, but he didn't have to. He could hear the grief and irony in her voice, could almost imagine that there was a smirk involved - especially if they had as much in common as he believed.

"I won't kill you," he scoffed, turning to face her when he heard the phone hit the floor. If not for being uncertain on the topic in general, Spike may have pointed out that she wasn't dead - that neither of them were dead yet. But she had a point, and he had his uncertainty.

Either way, the chances that anyone would live to see the other side of this hell were slim. The odds were stacked against the captives. And what, realistic hope was there of breaking free? Even if he did get through their defenses, he'd likely end up just as dead as he planned to make the captors. That was reality, plain and simple. Especially when he didn't have a truly-useful weapon and they likely had access to whatever they wanted. It was a reality he was planned to accept, a vague plan which contained few concrete details aside from the distinct lack of River's death.

He growled lowly, a prominent twitch forming in his left eye as he regarded the girl. Frazzled as he was, he considered yelling at her, but the words wouldn't come. What was there to say? That she would have to fight him because he didn't plan to stop? That he wouldn't kill her, but would hurt her if she forced him to?

None of the options felt right, especially after she spoke again. He just stared, at a complete loss. She'd already lost one of them. One of... who? Her brothers, according to a small part of his mind. Or, perhaps more logically, one of the people she cared about. One of her friends?

There was nothing to say. Nothing... that felt right. What was the proper response to something like that? Spike wanted to just leave it there, because he certainly didn't plan to die by Chase's hands. He didn't know whether the younger man had any special powers or weapons, but he figured Chase was nothing better than an even match (and doubted that much, as well). He wasn't going to die. River wouldn't lose him.

So he was free to just walk off, and come back when the deed was done. Wasn't he?

Spike hated uncertainty just as much as he hated thinking. He hated 'knowing' that he was free to go, but feeling tethered to the spot nonetheless. There was something about seeing her cry that bothered him, tore at him mercilessly. He'd never before claimed a sister; and though he once had a brother of equally lacking blood relation, Vicious didn't do the whole 'crying' thing. At least not as far as he knew. This feeling was... not necessarily new, but still foreign.

He felt the urge - the need - to protect her. Maybe from their captors, maybe from herself, maybe from... He didn't even know. But knowing that it would be hard to be there for her when he was destroying that worthless wretch made it difficult just to walk away. Or at least to walk away without first making sure she would survive.

"River," he said, nearly muttering, "you're not gonna lose me." Pausing, he chuckled - albeit in a forced, humorless manner. "Not this time."

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lilalbatross
2010-11-04 03:06 am UTC (link)

He may have been dull and bent, but he was sharp for some things. He understood the basics, the core of issues that she shouted at him, and she almost smiled through the tears. That was her point, wasn't it? She wasn't even sure anymore. She had lost track of what she was trying to say through her grief.

"Will have to," she murmured when said he wouldn't kill her. "Self-destruction only achievable if barriers are destroyed first. Will stand strong against it since you remain unable to." Her head half rolled so that she could look at him more squarely, but her expression was somewhat dulled from sadness and exhaustion.

"No," she agreed when he told her that she wasn't going to lose him. "Not to him. Possible that the outcome could move in your favour, particularly with assistance. Not giving him enough credit," she shot her gaze up to look at him sharply, with a warning, "but perhaps. Though the lifespan of the rebellious rat is consistently shorter than that of the sneaky one. The rat who leaps the walls to find the cheese will be removed from the experiment, placed into another one. Be the rat that follows the maze, or will have no say over whether or not you are lost."

She turned away then, resting her head against the wall. She still couldn't really handle the situation, but it had dulled a bit in the last few seconds. "Double standards," she muttered absently, though she wasn't entirely sure why.

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