Prometheus (Peregrine x Rocket)

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Peregrine

Waiting for Wit
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
  1. Looking for partners
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per day
  2. Multiple posts per week
  3. One post per week
  4. Slow As Molasses
Online Availability
On fairly regularly, every day. I'll notice a PM almost immediately. Replies come randomly.
Writing Levels
  1. Adept
  2. Advanced
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Primarily Prefer Male
  2. No Preferences
Genres
High fantasy is my personal favorite, followed closely by modern fantasy and post-apocalyptic, but I can happily play in any genre if the plot is good enough.
He should have known better. No, he did know better. How many days had he followed that exact routine, never wavering from it, despite his desire? He had thought it would get easier as the years went on, but every morning he felt his stomach tied in knots, a tight, painful sensation that traveled all the way up to his throat and made him think he was about to puke. He had gotten so tired of cleaning up his own blood, the whole time knowing he would just have to do it again tomorrow.

Kyler could hear his blood flowing out of his body, even if he couldn’t actually see it. He could feel it too. That wasn’t the painful part. The painful part was the breathing. Every breath hurt. He had tried to stop breathing, but within a couple of seconds his body would start ignoring his instructions, and he would take the next, small, shuddering gasp, grating his insides against the piece of #14 rebar that currently had him suspended a foot and a half above the ground.

This had to be the most painful way he had died in years. The rod hadn’t punctured anything important, but he knew the moment some paramedic tried to lift him off the rod something important would tear, and his life would fade away in a heartbeat. But it was what came after that he truly feared. They would take his body somewhere, and it would heal, and he would wake up, because that was the way it always went. But this time he would be waking up in some morgue, rather than the silent privacy of his own blood soaked house. If he could get out, he would have to run. He had seen what happened when people thought dead bodies were getting up and walking around, and, ultimately, the practices couldn’t have changed that much in 60 years.

He had tried to rip himself off the pole, or at least further down. The place was a construction site, temporarily abandoned for the winter months and covered in a tarp to protect the internal works from the snow and rain. He had been most reluctantly dragged here by two muggers, even as he begged them to simply shoot him. But they were not used to their targets begging for death as soon as they pulled a gun, and were convinced it was all some kind of ploy. One misstep on a high floor where they were certain they wouldn’t be interrupted, and one of the muggers had shoved him off by accident in an attempt to save his own balance. They had run as soon as he had landed.

Kyler could see the street, see the people passing by on foot and in cars, even as his vision continued to blur. If he could just get down, lie flat on the ground, he could die quietly, and wait to reawaken in the relative privacy of a half finished room. But his limbs betrayed him, refusing to move even an inch as his mind desperately tried to save him from the fate he knew was coming.

It was the scream that let him know he was too late. The blood loss had created a tunnel in front of his eyes, and he could barely make out the blurry figures on the path, but he could see a shadowed crowd starting to form in front of him. One voice was joined by another and another. Someone cried “call 911” and the traffic on the street was starting to stop.

The firemen were the first to arrive, followed only moments later by the paramedics. They worked their way up to him, only to catch a glimpse of an awed expression as they realized he was still alive.

The voice of the paramedic was a soothing monotone. Kyler was sure that the man was saying something reassuring along the lines of “you are going to be fine”. He almost felt sorry to disappoint the man. He felt even more sorry that the man was undoubtedly going to blame himself when Kyler faded away.

One of the firemen arrived with a hydraulic cutter, and they carefully severed the part of the rebar that was sticking out of his back. He felt something slide, just slightly, as they lifted him over towards a stretcher. There it was, just like he had known it would be. He felt his back getting wet, and knew that the stretcher was getting soaked with blood. The paramedic let out a surprised cry, and moved in closer.

“Pushed,” he whispered with the last dregs of air in his lungs. Might as well see if he could get those two muggers off the street, he thought blurrily even as his vision finally went, mercifully, dark. The last thing he heard was the cries of the paramedics as they watched the life bleed out of him.
 
[spacer]It had happened again: that terrible and violent undoing, a bitter, rivaling sense of injustice that spiraled down at her core, congested the already conglomerated remains of her innocence until shredded and left in the remains of her soul. Like twine around the pale breadth of her throat, she choked on the illustration of death over and over again - never quite grasping the routine of surgical investigation and dismembering the bereaved under the pursuit of knowledge and addled redemption. Her hands of sallow colour shook and the parlour of her usual hue waned into the faintest chartreuse ecru of a truly ill-shaken individual. Her lips gnashed down into a line and she laced her body into a rigid posture as soon as they wheeled him in.

The white sheet, bleached numerous occasions and tumbled to dry, seemed to smother him entirely, lining along his body intimately and hinting to the barest personalities of his figure. She attempted to not commit his facial structure to memory, but the endeavor, as usual, fled from her grasp the second her eyes of steel and blue glimpsed over his profile. It was discouraged to try and reason the dead that came to and fro from their office of silver and glinting metal, her mentor often chastised her on a regular basis to dissociate one’s self from the victims, it was easier that way, he said. However, the assistant couldn’t fortify her resolve of distance, justice was a personal affliction, to see the wrong committed to the right and the deeds of the wicked punished. Her misconducted perception fell on her heavily, wedding her to her weakness and her strength when escorting the bodies on their frigid slabs and sealing them within their black bags. They became numbers, figures, designated to their claustrophobic chambers until dressed and pampered for their wooden beds.

It made her shudder every time, and this circumstance was no less haunting when they fell into their preparations: gloves donned and glasses fixed securely on the thin bridge of her nose before it would descend to the perch on the slight up turn of the tip; shorn hair securely fastened away from her visage despite the deceiving curls that still managed to find appeal around her cheeks and stare; everything was within place and reason - secure as much as it could be when Clarice Trison vaguely listened to her mentor prattle on.

“John Doe... Pushed... Last words... Tore an artery on the bar... Terrible...”

Clarice nodded, assenting, though he did not need her affirmation, more like her silent assessment as well to ensure she too saw what he did and committed his filing to memory. There was no identification, at least none they could find, and the facial registry would take some time to assess through the massive database of latent criminals - just in case. Thus it was Clarice’s and Dr. Jefferson’s responsibility to find out what happened, though Clarice pondered on the why’s for this poor man to be rendered a horrible demise. The details in which they discovered him still burned her lobe and made her wince, just softly enough, when they lifted the sheet farther down to examine the point of impact. The bar had punctured through, with little resistance of cloth and the force of impalement and angle had left this man to die painfully, and slowly.

“I’m sorry,” she uttered to the corpse, preparing to dissociate to herself that this was not a person, Clarice fortified a massive wall around her person, figurative but no less resolute as Dr. Jefferson went through the motions. His process was much more subtle, but no less noticed when he dimmed the lights and switched on the ebonette radio as Chopin began to play to their morbid occupation.

“Wait,” the senior coroner struck out his palm, halting Clarice as the scalpel was poised above the John Doe’s breast, ready to the perform the traditional ‘Y’ incision. Her brow quirked.

“Something wrong?” She inquired, placing the surgical tool back on place upon the wax paper. She stepped around the table, angling herself to peer over his shoulder as he stared at the file, visually impaired as she was with his glasses held just so beyond the Plexiglas shield of their helms.

“No my dear.. Just. Hold off on the incision, I need to confirm something with Remiel.” Dr. Jefferson’s behavior was peculiar, so much that it left Clarice mute in her need to inquire more when the doctor suddenly shuffled from their office. Her lips pursed, just enough to lapse into a petulant pout, whatever he had to confirm with Remiel, he could have done just so with her, even given her junior status, Clarice had been with the district for nearly six years. She had earned her place among them, but Dr. Jefferson favoured the Detective above all else, even if Remiel and Clarice themselves had a festering, deep seeded, friction to one another. With a flourish, she tore the helm from her hair, allowing the volume to resettle around her face and blew a thick curl from between her brows.

“And there he goes! Off to seek the wise and knowing Remi, for all his worth and wisdom!” She cried, palming the table and leaning in close to the John Doe, trying to imagine what he would have been like alive and very much.. Not dead. Clarice shuddered, steeled her resolve, and threw her arms aside, allowing Chopin’s music to wash through her as she slid into a tirade.

“Six years of my life working under him, one of the best in the district they say, but why haven’t I moved on? I have the credentials to be my own boss you know,” she pointed her gloved finger at the corpse, as if speaking to him like he was breathing, living, and listening to her very words.

“But I like it here, we help people too. We give the families a reason to grieve, a sense of closure.” Clarice once again loomed over the man, discarding her former dissociation and discomfort.

“Do you have a family, a life, a home? A wife wondering where her husband left to. I hope you’re not like Mr. Clarel, he was a cheater you know and got caught. His lover wasn't faithful either, she had a husband too. And children. Can you imagine?” Clarice lowered her voice to a whisper, allowing her tangent to wane off into a sigh as her gossiping only echoed back to her. The dead don’t talk, they certainly don’t care for their bereaved predecessors either, she thought swiftly, her palm idly sweeping across tools before she leaned back against the table parallel to the John Doe. She tore her gloves from her fingers, the snapping material sounding with Chopin as he played and pinged the proper keys to calm her nerves, much to Clarice’s irritation as she crossed her arms and waited patiently for Dr. Jefferson to return.[/spacer]
 
The first thing Kyler felt was cold metal pressing against his back. Once, a long time ago, as the life rushed back into his body he would have moved by instinct, sitting up suddenly and taking a deep, gasping breath as the last dregs of the panic that always came just before death forced his body to act. But Kyler had lived his life in fear, and he had slowly but surely trained himself out of the instinct as he died day after day, every day. Now he held himself perfectly still on the metal, barely breathing and straining his ears to pick up the faintest trace of noise around him.

It didn't take him very long to discern the voice of a woman. Even though he had consciously known this was going to happen he still felt his heart tense in fear. He knew, since he was awake, that the wound in his chest where he rebar had punched through would be healed by this point. If she looked too close she would see that the wound was gone. He had to find a way out of here before that happened. For a moment he thought she was talking to another person in the room, but as he continued to listen, trying to gather as much information as he could about the people standing between him and freedom, he was forced to the conclusion that there was no one else in the room but him and her. What was going on? Did she know he was awake? No, that was not possible. She wasn't talking to him, not really. He was a source for her words, a mirror so that she could hear herself speak more clearly.

How long was she going to stay there, talking to someone who was dead? She had to leave eventually, right? As soon as she left he would be able to get up, find a set of clothes, and sneak away. As he lay there, wondering exactly how long he would be able to maintain his carefully regulated breathing and what exactly he would do if they decided to try and seal him away in one of those small metal coffins with all the other dead bodies, his mind spiraled off into a wide range of possible outcomes. His biggest fear was that he had woken up before the police had managed to complete his autopsy. He would have healed from any damage they had done opening his body, so there was no way for him to know, but if they hadn't completed it yet then he was not going to be left alone long enough to be able to get away. And if they tried to open him up now... He didn't want to think about it.

There was nothing else he could do. He was going to have to risk a glimpse. Slowly, very slowly, one of his eyes slid open just a crack, only to see he shadowed figure of the woman, standing right next to him on the table. Only his years of daily practice kept him still. She was going to notice that something was amiss soon. Not only would his wound have vanished, but his skin would have returned to a more healthy pallor, and no matter how carefully he breathed he could not keep his chest from moving. Slowly his eye slid open again. She was still near him, but it seemed that her back was to him. Maybe he could use this.

His eyes slowly opened further, until he was certain she wasn't able to see him. Then, in one quick motion, he was moving, wrapping his legs around her waist to keep her from fleeing, and catching her neck in a lock, his large bicep pressed against her windpipe. If she tried to do anything he would cut off her air, and choke her until she was unconscious. His lips drew close to her ear, and quietly he whispered "Tell me how to get out of here."
 
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