( mixed. ) pasa mi corazón del frío al fuego

[ashaya]

Who: Spock, Jim, Gwen, Peter, and various.
Where: Various locations (see prompts for details).
What: Gnosia-related shenanigans.
Warnings: Uh. Probably more than a few? Most likely: references to genocide, references to starvation/famine, references/overt descriptions of being targeted by racially motivated crimes, general violence, and gore. Maybe some vaguely racy commentary here and there (linked).

Comments

[feintofhart]

[ It's funny, isn't it? He's been here for over a year, more than enough time to become complacent underneath Aldrip's comparatively peaceful lifestyle, used to a life in which he doesn't have to get up and make decisions that could mean life or death for himself and his people, doesn't have to grimly consider a war that kills those he once called friends, doesn't have to bear the burden of planning the deaths of people he would rather break bread with.

And then overnight, he fell right back into it as though he'd never stopped -- never mind the faintly horrified looks his friends and comrades gave him when he'd floated the very real possibility that they had to kill their family and friends, when he'd gotten straight to planning his own offense, when he'd voiced his willingness to get his hands dirty. Forever the pragmatist, Claude has made the effort to secure the safety of those he knows are still in possession of their right minds.

He's had a few run-ins by the time he's caught, an injury here and an injury there, exhaustion already dogging his heels, a sense of impending doom seizing upon his heart. He knows that he must have a reputation among the Gnosia by now, more proactive than his fellows in attempting to neutralize them, but he hadn't expected to be caught now. Stupid, he tells himself. Go out in pairs, not alone. That's what he'd told the others, but he'd wanted to get some supplies, and -- well, no point in regretting it now. It is what it is.

Once he realizes he's been bracketed in, his eyes widen with recognition. ] Not you two too, [ he breathes, sounding genuinely dismayed. He hasn't known the two of them for very long. But he likes them. He likes them a lot. They're quick and principled, determined and intelligent, proactive in a way that belies what he considers to be the kind heart underneath it all.

Unfortunately, that makes them very dangerous enemies indeed. He plasters a smile on his face, looking for the world as cheerful and friendly as ever as his hand moves to his side, reaching for a dagger concealed there. ]

I don't suppose I can convince you fellows to just let a guy go? [ The hilt of his dagger finds its way into his palm, twisted towards his body to conceal it amidst the swaths of fabric of his clothes. ] I'm sure we can make some sort of deal. You know I have all sorts of things that could help benefit your cause.

[ It's not going to work. But he'll always try. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ The bloodlust comes in waves, Jim's found. At times it's a violent impulse, ripping through his psyche like wildfire that only Spock is able to cool into something less intense. The bond between them stretches, twists, but never breaks, lashing them together on this demented Gnosia ride. It also makes them a menacing pair - able to coordinate their attack like two tandem limbs, instinctively knowing where the next move the other is going to make will take them - it's proven effective, with all the people they currently have trapped in the warehouse.

It shouldn't be so surprising that Jim is ever the talkative one, even embroiled in the Gnosia infection as he is. He slinks forward, head tilted to the side as he considers Claude; the air of predator is surely present, though perhaps it's more intimidating coming from Spock. Jim, for his part, has dark circles under his eyes, and a coldness held within them that's atypical for the man Claude's come to know. ]

You know we hate to disappoint, Claude, but these streets simply aren't safe at night. Certainly not for a strapping young man such as yourself. [ Jim's smile is creepy, all teeth, one hand coming up to wave as if to say, hi, yes us. The faux-sigh that follows, however, is so unbothered it could almost be construed as insulting. He tuts quietly, a warning click of the tongue, one eyebrow rising. He can't see what Claude's doing, but slapping a smile on his face and shifting his weight was probably a sign of imminent attack. ] Going to kill me, Mr. von Riegan? And here I thought we were friends.

So what's the plan? You can only strike one of us, and I think we all know how that ends. [ Jim takes another menacing step closer, a sharp kind of glee lighting up his expression - perhaps this kind of pain and chaos was exactly what the Gnosia fed on. Jim did love a challenge, but this is - twisted, bent into the wrong shape. ] How about this? I've got a deal for you: you come with us, and I'll convince Spock not to turn your mind into mush. Not going to get a better offer than that, I'm afraid. Unless you'd like to try your luck with my esteemed colleague...?

[ Jim's smile almost turns into something fond, thoroughly entertained, as he passes the buck to Spock - though there's a mockery to it, as if the idea that Spock would be anything less than totally merciless was hilarious to Jim's Gnosia-addled mind. ]

[ashaya]

A fair offer, [ Spock says, something his in his dark eyes shifting. He tilts his head, no more or less inscrutable than before or since. However, he knows too that change of stance. Weight moving, hands moving — an inhalation and the drag of fabric. He might take a guess, but he knows not the shape of what it is they must contend. What he does know?

Vulcans were once as hungry as their kin. They once fought and died and bled. Though they preferred range in their combat, it did nothing to quell its impact. It did nothing to prevent those deaths that were close.

Spock does not budge. He stands as though rooted, but there is liquid in the way of his limbs. Anticipatory, he calculates. Assesses. The infection has tossed about their inclinations, pulled to the fore the characteristics that the other lacks. Where Jim is tactile and physical, Spock is most typically its opposite. Here?

The infection covers the vulnerabilities. It makes use of what it has.

And Spock knows what a trapped animal chooses. He has seen it, done it. He has been the one who called it.

He will choose you. Shove over the gate.

His focus needn't shift to Jim. It carries all the same. He winds about the words, syllables like notation. A flex of fingers over strings.

Take cover.

Through the narrowed mouth of the alley, the sea winds start to whip. There is a limited window here, before the sun dips. He is not starved in the way that most Gnosia are, almost as if — ]

What is your decision?

[ — he has been tethered, sated in a way that is unnamable and faceless. Curious, in the way of all things. ]

[feintofhart]

Now now, gentlemen. You can hardly blame me for ensuring that I'm at least somewhat armed, considering the circumstances. You outnumber me, after all. It's hardly a fair fight. [ His voice remains pleasant, even-toned, his expression loose and easy, his limbs casual and limber as though they're truly having a sensible conversation and he's not just desperately searching for a way out. Ethlyn said that she has a way to cure people. He knows that. The problem is getting them into a position to be cured.

So trying to kill them is --

No. No, Claude's smarter than that. Trying to kill them is absolutely still on the table. At the end of the day, he treasures his own life over acts of dignity and selflessness, and cornered the way he is, he doesn't see an easy way out. Especially with threats of not just death, but of some tampering of his greatest asset: his mind. Some sort of alien ability to hurt him, perhaps, or a creative application of drugs, or just the ability to dash his head into the rocks below and to see where that gets him. ]

Let's say I come with you. Where will you be taking me? I deserve an informed decision, at the end of the day. It was my understanding that you lot were going around hunting poor innocent deer such as myself.

[ Imperceptibly, not even a rustle of clothing betraying his move, his thumb works at a hidden vial in one of his voluminous pockets: a poison, easily applied orally or through one's bloodstream, enough to fell a man, but not enough to kill one. If he could just take one of them out... ]

[finalfrontiersman]

You poor creature, suffering from delusion. [ Jim's laugh is manic, a harsh sound that's nothing like the bright, earnest laugh he usually employs. Claude is doing his best to appear unflappable, but the itch under Jim's skin demands a hunt. There's no way Claude will go down without a fight, from everything Jim knows of the man - which is exactly what they're counting on. ] There's no fair fight here.

That's where all the fun is, Claude. The hunt! [ The glee is catching, Jim revving up - twitchy and raving in comparison to Spock on the opposite end of the spectrum, lethal and stalwart. ] Killing you is no fun at all. Too easy, pff. Boring.

[ Certain death, to leave his back unprotected to you. You think he'll be so foolish?

Jim taps his chin in mock thought, icy gaze fixed on Claude. ] We've got a place for you, where all the others go. It's not much now, but don't worry; we've got enrichment planned.

[ AKA, they're building a house of horrors and populating it with those they capture. What plans lie beyond that - well, what little of them remained was holding onto the idea of trying to divert the urges into not killing anyone, so that meant they...got creative. ]

[ashaya]

I believe you will find it more comfortable than the alternative, [ Spock appends, voice smooth and unmodulated. His dark eyes flit briefly to Jim, return to Claude without much hesitation. For all that his stance still suggests he is at the ready, he looks quite... Relaxed. Almost as though a le-matya surveying a stray sehlat cub, but not particularly compelled to sup, it is a sort of lack of immediate bloodthirst that differentiates the pair of them.

A possibility, Captain. His knowledge is limited.

That much is true. He knows that Claude knows some part of Vulcan heritage, but has not yet been made privy to the full extent of it. To others, it may appear a bluff. He does not know how much others may have turned over to him, what he may be now working with. Either way, he will follow along. He will work with his Captain. The bond between thrums, carries with it the same assurance.

Where Jim goes, Spock goes. ]

[feintofhart]

[ Claude would have been willing to broker a deal, is the thing. He would have done it to his own advantage, of course, and would have compromised less than what he was letting on, but he would have done it. That's what he's good at -- words, twisting them to his favour, making the best of a bad situation. But the more Jim talks, the more it becomes clear that whatever the Gnosia has twisted them into has overcome their greater sensibilities and that not only would they not be agreeable to negotiation, but that they took their greater glee in seeing him squirm, like one of those dreadful butterfly displays some lords take to displaying in their office, pins neatly skewering them through the middle.

He runs his tongue over his front teeth, sucking in a breath. If he were back home, fighting in some battle, taking down two combatants, even ones that were professionally trained, wouldn't be a problem. But he's already worn down, injured from previous skirmishes, rusty in true battle, and fighting against friends -- friends that are trained not only better than some of his old combatants, but in ways that he knows nothing about. He can't predict them.

He doesn't bother to speak. Instead, he twists, hand flicking out from underneath his jacket quick as can be, a sharp dagger sailing towards Spock with deadly precision -- deadly precision that he doesn't expect to necessarily land, depending on the other man's reflexes. If it does, it's a bonus. But if it doesn't, he's counting on it giving him enough time to get a head start as he bolts with deceptive speed for a man they have only ever seen amble leisurely along the paths like any other spoiled noble brat, every inch his house's namesake: a deer, darting through the dark woods, its predators in hot pursuit. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ Where Jim is animated, barely-leashed energy buzzing under his skin, a giddy lunatic waving the metaphorical knife - Spock is silent, deadly; serrated and sharp, sure to cut anything that crosses his path. The Gnosia hums, a shark in the water sensing blood - and maybe that's something of an advantage, for Claude, how the cacophony can distract them, even if it does ultimately make them more dogged in their pursuit.

Claude takes less time with his decision than Jim might have anticipated, striking out with no sign of hesitation, turning on his heel to take his chance in the narrow opening between the buildings. Jim whoops in delight, following him just a beat out of step - he charges after Claude, boots stomping an even rhythm as they run.

The problem with fighting the pair of them, however, is not the physical altercation. Jim's no slouch, but Claude has enough of his own skills to at least evenly match, if not outright best Jim's combat training - Spock, it's less certain, especially with how gravity affects Spock's physiology, enhancing his already-formidable strength. No, the problem with fighting them - especially here, on the turf they've claimed as their own - is that they're smart.

The dead end they'd boxed Claude into had one way out by design, through the narrow crevice between the buildings. What lies at the end of it? Another alleyway, doused in water; if Claude's quick enough to catch the exposed wiring on the ground, hopefully he'll pivot to avoid getting electrocuted.

Lightly electrocuted - they're playing with their food, not barbecuing it. ]

[ashaya]

[ It is a fair bit closer than he would have liked it to be.

That is to say, the quick snap of Claude's wrist from beneath the lapels of his coat are not necessarily a surprise, but the speed with which he strikes is far more impressive than he might have originally credited him. He'd wonder over the approximate velocity and angle in other circumstances, but the dagger is for him. It is for him, and he might the scent the intent in the shift of his weight toward the back of his heel to run.

He's able to catch the offending projectile, twist it about in the ample sleeve of his robe - the blade catching at the fabric and tearing where it is first strikes. He looses it in the next moment with a resounding clatter, a shake of the arm and the instinctive tailing of the joyous whoop thrumming through him. It appears that Jim had gambled it right after all and it is the glimmer of some concession to the fact - it was hardly the first time he'd underestimated the focus of others upon him.

If it is Jim that follows in the even step, it is Spock that follows in the odd. It'll take him some time even with his physiological advantages to catch them now, but the traps are still Claude's to dodge.

And he ought to dodge quick, because Spock's already up by Jim's elbow by the time they might reach the potential point of egress. ]

[feintofhart]

[ Claude almost doesn't spot it. He's unused to the technology of Aldrip, even after a few months of living here, hasn't grown up around the same safety measures about wires and electricity as everyone else. But just a spark catches his attention before it's too late, and it's not familiarity with modernity that seizes him; it's the memory of magic on the battlefield, sloshing ankle-deep through the muck and watching in horror as an ill-placed thunder spell rippled through the water, electrocuting friend and foe alike and leaving bodies crumpled on the ground.

He holds his breath as he leaps over it, just missing freedom by a hair, heel thumping down into the water below. His thick soled shoes saves him from the worst of it, but he feels some of it, a zap frissoning up his leg and up his spine, as unpleasant as any zap on the battlefield.

A thought occurs to him and he whirls around, muttering an incantation under his breath and pushing forward, palm-out. His magical abilities are next to useless next to seasoned fighters. He knows that. But he can use his wind in different ways -- which is how he summons a mighty gust of wind to send the water flying at his aggressors, praying that it will at least stop them in their tracks.

(He's not sure if it will work with the electricity. At worst, it might make them soggy. But it is, he thinks, worth a shot.) ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ The thrill of the hunt thrums through the bond, the two of them shifting to move as one organism, one heartbeat a steady thrum, the other a fluttering race - but in time, together, steady and sure. Whatever the Gnosia had done to them, drawing the predator instinct to the forefront - the harmony and synchronicity was purely them. Stronger together, always, than apart.

Claude manages a wheeling leap and Jim grins, pleased. It wouldn't be any fun if they had felled him so quickly! He's already adjusting his path, moving with practiced ease to jump up on the convenient, if not immediately obvious, alternate path - balanced debris, making for stepping stones across the trap. They're more for Jim than Spock, whose gait is more likely able to handle the wide gulf. Claude's gust of wind and water manages to splash him, slightly, but without contact with the frayed wires, it doesn't do much to slow him. ]

Come on, Claude, you don't like our company? [ Jim takes a one-two jump from a wooden crate, landing on Claude's side of the cleared area. Two more alleys lie - one to the left, one to the right - though what lays beyond is anyone's guess. Continue running, potentially into another trap - or turn and fight? ] And here I was, pleased to see you.