Marvel: Liam Who: Liam Roberts What: Narrative after being dropped off at one of the quarantine centers Where: One of the quarantine centers in the city When: Recently Warnings/Rating: Some dark imagery.
She was sitting there in the room with him, the private room (closet) they had found for him when he had been brought in with flushed cheeks and trembling limbs, a trail of shed feathers in his wake as he was left behind, dropped off, delivered into the hands that promised help but had few means to deliver. His bed was just a couple of blankets on the floor, a flat pillow beneath his head, but it was more than he would have been able to ask for. His skin was hot to the touch, the fever burning through him, sunken cheeks making his eyes larger than they normally were, pale blue ice that stared endlessly at the corner of the room.
She was there and she was smiling, white teeth and thin lips and eyes that followed his every movement. He found himself closing his eyes, hoping she'd be gone by the time that he opened them again, but she was always there, faithful in the way she tormented him without even taking a step towards him. Every so often, the world would black out, fading away without warning (shaking and trembling and kicking, muscles tensing and spasming) and when he came back, everything hurt. Everything was sore. And she was closer.
Sitting on the floor.
Watching him.
She didn't say his name, didn't torment him with words, but he swore he could feel her hands upon him. Fingers would sink right through his skin, bloodless and painless, but that wasn't the part that scared him. No, no, what scared him was when she'd spread his fingers and he could see it from beneath his skin, a hand pressing up out of him, stretching him, pulling him apart from the inside out.
I'm still inside you, Liam. Can you feel me? Can you feel that?
There were missing chunks of time, darkness that grabbed him and pulled him down, but every time he surfaced she was there, smiling, her hands in him, and he couldn't move. Couldn't push her away. Everything ached and his head pounded and his vision went white but she didn't leave, wouldn't leave.
The screaming started when she touched his lungs, his heart, burrowing through and staking her claim, fingers clawing at his chest to dig her out to get her out, and there was blood and skin beneath his fingernails, hands upon his wrists, calming voices and alerted voices and wings beating and flapping because he had to get away. They trapped him there against the floor and nothing they said made sense because they were letting her hurt him. A hand around his throat, sinking in, cutting off his air, and the screams stopped and there was a kiss of a needle, voices murmuring and trying to assure, but it was just her above him, grinning.
Smiling.
Kissing his lips, stealing something precious from him.
Cold washed through him, a shiver and a shudder, wings trembling, fallen feathers littering the ground around him.
He tried to stay afloat, tried to claw his way back to the surface (back to her, waiting for him), out of the darkness that tried to grab him, but it was more than he could fight.
So he sunk.
Down and down.
The fight left him, the wings stilled, and he laid quiet, fever hot and scorching.
But inside, she was still there. Waiting for him. Welcoming him with clawed fingers and dark promises.