[oom] Flesh and blood

[hell_in_highheels]

She stayed up too late, staring at the autopsy photos, trying to correlate the forensics with the reports that kept trickling in. She's trying to imagine just what purpose someone had for treating the corpse with such careless disregard.

What did it taste like, I wonder? What did it smell like, the broken bones seeping their marrow on the carpet of leaves, the trickles of blood mixing with the dark loam of the forest floor.  Heart and lungs, liver and kidneys. What would it feel like to tear  flesh from such a small body? 

She shakes her head, trying to clear the morbid thought from her mind.  It's nonsense.  It's rubbish, is what it is.  She can't think rationally when she gets this way.  This is what she  gets for going to bed hungry, she thinks.  Ryan has already gone to bed, and doesn't even awake when she joins him, simply slips an arm around her and pulls her close. 

~~~

The scene before her eyes is black and white.  Even with her enhanced night vision, the old growth forest is darkest here.  It's beautiful and serene, and she can smell the blood on the wind.  Something is wounded, something is running from her, and she's chasing it, chasing the intense wash of fear and pain. 

Run, little one.  Run and let me hear the pounding of your heart.  Let me feel the heat of your exertion.  I'm coming for you and there's nothing you can do to stop me.  Run.  Run like the devil is on your heels, because I am.  I'm coming for you.

The figure of a man hurls himself through the undergrowth, and she bats at him with one clawed hand, revelling in the sound that's torn from his throat.  Bone crunches beneath her hand and she's crashing into the back of him, her muzzle clamping down and giving one good hard shake to snap the neck.  Blood washes her mouth and she knows the taste.  She knows what horrific thing she has done before she even rolls the body over to look down into his face.

A heart-rending human scream, rage and sorrow and grief, boils up from within her.  His eyes look up at her from her fresh killed prey.  Richard's green eyes, now gone glassy and cold, stare up at her from his lifeless face. 

She screams again. 

And again. 

And again.

Comments

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"Jesus Christ!" The Irish-lilted words slip from his mouth before his eyes even open but then he's sitting up and reaching for the gun on the night stand, teeth bared.

Except there's nothing to attack. The room is empty, even of Damocles who's still in the woods.

He keeps the gun in his hand as he shakes his mate, trying to wake her. "River!"

[hell_in_highheels]

The dream has its teeth in her, her voice twisting up out of her chest, raw and breathless. The keening cry twists from human to wolf to human again, every muscle in her body gone rigid as she fights to push away whatever vision she's seeing.

Her hands grip the sheets, and she answers his call with her own, like she could call him back from the dead by sheer force of will alone.

"Richard!"

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"I'm here," he snaps, sharp with concern. The gun is put down before he pulls her to him, hands firm on her shoulders, then around her midsection.

"I'm here, River," he says again, softer this time due to the growl that's fighting to come out. He's caught in the adrenalin rush, wanting to snarl at imaginary foes and knowing that it's not needed.

[hell_in_highheels]

It takes the rough strength of his embrace to shake her out of the nightmare. Her breath comes in ragged gasps and he feels the tension drain from her frame, little by little, as she fights her way out of that other world.

Her hands cling to his arms and she turns in his embrace, hands finding his face. Her eyes are wet, as are her cheeks, and relief and sorrow battle for dominance in her scent.

There is an awed reverence in her touch as she marks the planes and curves of his face. "You're alive..."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

He pulls her to him, holding her close.

"Yes," he answers firmly, trying not to focus on her remark so the word will scent true.

"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." That, at least, is true.

[hell_in_highheels]

Her arms wind around his head and she presses her face into the side of his neck, sucking in the warm scent of his body. "I saw you -- I hunted you. I smelled blood and fear on the wind and I chased it. It smelled good and the forest was so dark. It was just so -- easy to reach out and hit from behind and I..." Her grip on him tightens, as if she's afraid he'll turn to mist if she lets go for a single moment.

"Gods, Richard it was you. Snapped your neck with -- jaws -- your spine -- it felt good until I -- I -- I realised what I'd -- done." The last few sentences are barely comprehensible as she starts sobbing again.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

He holds her, pets her, silent and strong.

numb

He's had this nightmare.

horror

He tried to warn her. (He should have known this was coming.)

fear

God dammit.

despair

He holds her.

[hell_in_highheels]

Nothing in the universe has ever felt as good and right and necessary as the feel of his arms around her in this moment. She holds tight to him, breathing him in, trying to find her way back to sane and rational and together. Does he think she's weak or stupid for not seeing this coming? Does he think she's a fool for taking this form now? Oh gods, what must he think of her? Stupid little girl, wanted to play dress up with the big bad wolf, now look what she's gone and done.

Love, worry, concern, despair, fear, longing, all riding over that dark bottom note of grief and loss. "Tell me I'm not crazy, please. Tell me it was just a dream."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"It was only a dream," Richard says firmly, pushing his own feelings down to deal with later or not at all.

"I'm here. You haven't hurt me. I'm not dead." 'By your hand,' is what he adds silently to make that scent true.

"It's all right." What 'it' is is anyone's guess.

[hell_in_highheels]

Sometimes the words simply need to be said. The deep rumble of his voice soothes her, draws her back from the edge, stitches her to this moment. Slowly, she draws in a snuffly breath and tries to read his scent. She presses her cheek to his for a moment before pulling back to scrub the tears from her face. She doesn't want to look weak to him, ever.

Looking up, she meets his eyes and the worry on his features makes something in her chest clench. She wonders if he can even begin to know how much he means to her. She wants to apologise (for what?), wants to tell him she's okay (she's not), wishes she could laugh it off (nothing funny about it). In the end, language fails her.

She rests her forehead against his, breathing his breath, finding her centre again.

You are my center.

I love you.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

I love you.

It was just a dream. A nightmare in the dark easily banished once it's seen for what it is.

(He still can't quite shake his apprehension.)

Just a dream.

He runs his hand over her head repeatedly, soothing them both.

[hell_in_highheels]

She leans into his touch, needing this, needing him. Instinct sings like an electrical storm in her blood stream.

Slowly she sits up, drawing him along with her, staring around the room even as she holds tight to him. Damocles? He's still out there, isn't he?

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Richard nods silently. He's made trips out there bringing things to make the dog more comfortable, but he's still alone even with daily visits.

'Just a dog' doesn't really apply to him any more, much to Ryan's mild chagrin.

[hell_in_highheels]

The dark, the woods, the den. These are all part of her now, and she doesn't want to be afraid of them. That's no way to live. River gives him a look, longing in her scent. She needs her pack.

Is it safe? Can we go?

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

He gives her a chaste kiss.

Yes. Get your boots. It's with some reluctance he disentangles himself, but he's getting dressed in a moment himself.

[hell_in_highheels]

Her eyes close briefly as she returns the kiss, but then she's moving. She slips her tags around her neck and sweeps her hair up to tie it into a knot. Jeans, sweater, boots. You'd think he'd drilled her on this too, she's so quick.

She's ready just a few moments after he is, her eyes on his face, searching.

Thank you.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

I don't mind.

He doesn't. She doesn't need an escort for protection, their training's seen to that. This is...more. She needs him.

How could he ever say no?

He takes her arm in his as they head out, stopping only in the quiet bar to pick up a breakfast take away.

[hell_in_highheels]

They've been together long enough that she knows which side to take (opposite his holster) and she knows his stride like she knows her own. She leans her cheek against his arm without hindering him.

She wants to ask him about his nightmares, but it's a difficult conversation to start. She knows what he's seen, what he's been through. She knows he relives that night, heaven knows she's had to wake him up from those dreams before. He never talks about it, though. She can't really blame him. The images of her own dream is still very vivid in her mind.

She walks with him in companionable silence until they're well passed the lake and headed into the woods. Her new eyes can see everything and the moon is a little more than a week from full.

I've never had a dream so -- intense. Is that part of being a 'wolf too? More senses, so more synapses to fire, perhaps?

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Dreams. Dreams of eating, of being eaten, of killing, slaughtering, dying. The forest goes unseen around them.

Phantoms. Ghosts of the mind and nothing more. He can't allow them to be anything more.

I don't know.

He hopes she doesn't let them be more.

[hell_in_highheels]

Late night pillow talk probably has shown him that reality is a very -- liquid place for her. For all that she's flesh and blood in this place, just as he is dead, she is a ghost. How can you discount a dream when you half-believe you might be one?

It was that very notion that brought her out here the first time on a full moon, risking her life just to lay eyes on him.

It's partly why she clings to him more than she would like to admit. What if she wakes up to discover, the last six months of her life have been another anomaly in the data core? What if all of it is a dream? She can't live that way either.

When they get to the edge of the meadow, she pauses, listening intently, scanning heaven and earth. Eventually her gaze comes back to him, a soft smile on her lips.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Dream or not, what's reality to them remains. There's no way to prove it one way or the other and no way to snap it and find out.

The best they can do is live their lives according to the rules of the reality they've found. Live and learn, and if it ends some day, it ends.

It's not much of a meadow, but that's all right. It means Damocles doesn't have to run as far to greet them.

Hihihihihihihi!

[hell_in_highheels]

Always questioning, not always expecting answers, our girl.

River sinks down to meet Damocles at his level, opening her arms to catch him.

Hey you.

She keeps one hand on Richard at all times, her scent threaded through with relief, and joy, and love. In a span of heartbeats, her eyes are wet again.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Richard stays close, crouching as well. It's half to greet Dam, half to keep her close. He doesn't believe this is over. Things are never that simple.

Sir! River! You're here! He's jubilant to see them, but he quickly turns all that passion over to ask, What's wrong?

[hell_in_highheels]

Nothing. No, she can smell the lie of that. She tries again. Bad dreams.

He's spent enough nights watching her pace, waiting for Ryan to return, he probably knows better than Ryan the things she puts herself through.

She bumps against him, and then Richard, a sense of solidity returning to this world.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

I hate bad dreams, Dam sighs grumpily. Between her and Captain and his own nightmares (gah, zombies) it's amazing they ever sleep through a night.

Richard tousles the dog's ears, pointing out, I don't think anyone likes them.

[hell_in_highheels]

River smiles, her scent agreeing wholeheartedly with that sentiment.

This was worse than T-Rex, she admits to both of them. For some reason, she can handle the memory of her own death, even as painful and terrifying as it was.

One hand moves over Dam's back, petting his smooth black fur. The other rests on Richard's thigh.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

T-Rex?

A predator the size of the forge.

Ohhh. And the dream was worse? Dam shoves between them, pushing his head under River's arm. That musta been really scary.

Richard doesn't say anything.

[hell_in_highheels]

River holds the dog close, looking at her mate, searching his face.

It was pretty bad yeah. But you're here now, she answers.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

I've been here a while, Dam reminds them with a whine. When you guys go back, can I come?

X has said they don't need to come out here any more, so yes, Dam.

Yay! Ahh, doggy mood swings. Richard is glad he trained jumping out of him.

[hell_in_highheels]

His joy is infectious, and River grins as he wags with his whole body.

Come on then.

She stands and holds her hand out to Richard.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Could carry you again, he offers, taking her hand.

Me?

No.

Why not?

You have four legs. River only has two.

[hell_in_highheels]

I'm okay, she answers, looking at him with all the love in her heart.

And she is. She has her pack. She has her mate.

It was only a dream.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Richard bumps her. Only a dream.

Only a dream, agrees Dam, pushing against her.