singillatim | A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

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A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

Who: Chloe Frazer & others
What: Catch-all; open prompts
When: March and April
Where: Around Milton

Content Warnings: Self-injury content related to the echo effects. Descriptions of canon typical violence and murder. Talk about hunting/eating animals.

Chloe doesn't trust Methuselah as far as she could throw him, and a trip through a mine where she's forced to rely on the goodwill of a bunch of cop types does not sound like her idea of a good time. Also, sticking around Milton when most of the people who 'patrol' (imagine her air quotes) are away is a great opportunity to snoop in people’s houses.

Anyone who remains in or returns to Milton may find her either doing her usual wild running in the woods, checking her snares for snacks, or sneaking around newly empty locations to see what's been left behind.

Aurora nights are a different thing, however. Chloe likes to think that she's done her best to do right by the people that she cares about, but the truth is she's cut a few throats in her day, stepped over others to make sure that she would wind up on top. Something about the aurora this month brings every one of those memories roaring back. It has her running faster, drinking until she can't see, and doing risky climbs onto (and jumps between) rooftops, trying to escape the feeling.

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It's like with Louis, back in the mines, Lalo thinks. He's about to explain it, but she speaks before he gets the chance.

He stares at her. "What?" he asks, sounding like he's trying to make sure he heard right. He cocks his head slightly. His brow furrows.

Chloe gives him a withering look. “How are we supposed to know how it works if we don't test it?”

It makes sense to do it now, right? They don't care whether they hurt each other.

Lalo rolls his eyes. "Who says I don't know how it works?" he says. "Besides, no offense intended" - full offense intended - "but you don't seem like the type who likes carefully conducted experiments. This shit happened in the mines, too. For the record."

But what the hell. Maybe she has a point. Seeing his uncle's face looking up at him from down in that chair, over and over again, is getting to be too much; it's a special kind of hell, to see a loved one like that. Hurting himself might be a way to focus on something else, anything else.

And hurting her might teach her a lesson about messing with him. One she won't forget. After all, she asked for this, didn't she?

"What the hell." Lalo snorts and shrugs.

With that, she's being grabbed by the arm and pulled in close. "Just remember," Lalo says in a strained whisper, leaning in so that he can let his breath kiss the shell of her ear and forcing himself not to grunt from the pain, "you asked for this." It feels like the nerve endings of his fingers and hand are on fire everywhere they make contact with her skin.

But he doesn't let go.

Edited 2024-03-21 03:28 (UTC)

The yelp that Chloe gives at being grabbed before she's ready - she was still processing the mines thing - would be embarrassing if she had room in her awareness right now to think about it. The pain narrows her focus to the hand on her arm, burning like a heated shackle.

She's close enough to vaguely feel the heat of his body - like a threat, like a promise - and makes a split-second decision. If touching without hands hurts too, she's not going to let him be the one to show her that. She twists in his grip, pressing the full length of her body against him.

Lalo sucks in air like a deep hiss when she presses herself against him. His face is contorted from pain. He can feel her. Her twisting makes his hand hurt like a rope burn, but more than that, feeling her body pressed against his aches everywhere they push against each other.

But he doesn't let go. She was right about one thing. He's not thinking about Hector or Tuco right now.

He's just thinking about the feeling of her against him. The pain. The intense, blinding pain. But he can take it.

He stumbles back until he's against the wall, but he doesn't let go. He refuses to be the one to break contact first. Let her do that, if somebody has to. His pride won't let him.

"I'm going to switch our places." At least he has the decency to warn her this time. "Okay? So you're the one up against the wall. Do you understand?"

He swallows. A bead of sweat trickles down his forehead.

She’d thought that by this point she’d be beyond being surprised by the pain, but the full body ache where they're pressed together feels like every explosion she's ever survived, all at once.

Chloe can hear her own harsh breathing, has the fleeting thought that if she was outside right now she’d think they were doing something way more fun in here. It takes her a second to understand him when he tells her he wants to swap.

“Why?” If she's pinned in addition to still experiencing this much pain, she's not sure she can control her natural fight response. “I don't - I don't know.”

It feels like an explosion to Lalo, too. Or the aftermath of one, except he doesn't get to fully heal from it because it keeps happening.

He's sweating and breathing hard. His voice is strained.

"Because, chica - that way it'll be easier for me to hold you up." He lets that statement just hang in the air for a second or two. But he doesn't move to switch them. Not yet. Not until she says it's okay.

"Unless you'd rather do this on the floor. Or the table? Ladies' choice."

Chloe leans closer, nose to nose. It makes her face hurt brilliantly.

“I can handle more than you think,” she says, between gritted teeth. “I'm not letting you pin me.”

Lalo lets out a small grunt of pain when their noses touch. "Okay," he agrees. He releases his grip on her arm. "You can pin me!"

He sounds very enthusiastic about that.

Chloe grunts too, shifting position slightly. This really does hurt a lot.

“Yeah, okay. Fine. This happened… in the mines?”

Whew! You're telling him! Lalo, pinned between Chloe and the wall, is really feeling it now.

"Si," he admits, practically panting from the sheer, blinding pain. His chest heaves against hers with each shallow breath. He winces every time. "Last time there was an aurora, while we were traveling."

Chloe sets a forearm across his chest at shoulder level, trying to hold him in place, and it's like touching a hot stove. She has to take three tries at it before her arm stays where she wants it to go.

“Shit. You think the aurora’s doing something?”

She’d heard that woman crying but hadn't really made the connection.

It almost reminds him of what it feels like to be interrogated. Lalo gasps, but takes his time responding. He even smirks at her disdainfully each time her forearm doesn't find purchase against his chest, non-verbally taunting her as if to say, You can do better than that.

"Has to be."

It's the only thing that makes sense. Lalo himself hadn't made the connection until right now, but this is just like what happened with Louis in the mines. Touching each other and causing pain. The aurora. The crying woman.

"In the mines, it was like this." He wheezes, slowly gasps out of the words. Trying to focus through the pain. "I touched somebody and we both felt pain. Just like now." His voice is raspy.

Chloe is used to acting in self-destructive ways, but generally that involves putting herself in harm’s way. The actual harm is an impact, or a shot, or a fall, not something she has to do herself. Pushing into the pain is more work than she’d expected. A bead of sweat rolls down her nose.

“Old man, too?” He’d been with them, she's pretty sure. “Or just us.”

There's a soft hiss. Lalo rolls a little bit under her arm, but he can't really escape. It feels good and bad at the same time. The way his rolling makes the pain worse as he makes contact with different parts of her.

"How the hell should I know?" he asks. Lalo closes his eyes. His forehead glistens in the greenish aurora glow. "He wouldn't let any of us get near him."

Suspicious, if you ask Lalo, although Methuselah still gets some goodwill points for rescuing him from the wolf.

“Huh.” That's something she’ll have to think about later.

The roll of his body against hers is what finally defeats her - he makes contact with the bruise over her still-healing ribs and she jerks away, gasping.

Lalo is already thinking about it. Methuselah definitely gets some good will points for rescuing him from that wolf, but it's still in his nature to wonder. To look for angles.

When he jerks away, Lalo smirks, but on the inside, he's secretly relieved. He lets his body sag against the wall. "That all? I knew you couldn't handle it."

Edited 2024-04-03 00:57 (UTC)

“Shut up,” Chloe snarls, hand still pressed to her ribs even though the pain has let up. She hates that her legs are shaking. “It's - why would the aurora do that?”

Lalo stays leaning against the wall, but his eyes are still glinting. He watches her legs shake and feels some satisfaction. Slightly mean. But he's breathing hard. He wraps an arm around his own waist. He's tempted to grab her again, to try to make her scream -- only the memory that she'd taken care of him when he was hallucinating stops him.

"You want my guess? Probably to teach us a lesson or something." Lalo rolls his eyes dramatically, to show exactly what he thinks of that idea.

Chloe runs a hand over her face, trying to wipe away any evidence of her exertion.

“What, too much hand-holding in the hallways?” Time to reinstate the old six-inch rule from high school.

Lalo watches her, intent like a predator. He's a cat, or a snake, in human form. Curiosity gets the better of him. He pushes himself off of the wall. He forces him to ignore the urge to push away a strand of hair. To brush a hand against her cheek. The urge is almost overpowering.

Almost.

He does laugh a little at her joke. "Nah, nah. Or, well, maybe! I'd guess it's supposed to teach us 'compassion'." He rolls his eyes, to show her what he thinks of that. "But who knows! I could be wrong. Nobody's right all the time."

He's panting too. He rolls his shoulders, rubbing them. "Go sit down. By the hearth. I'm gonna make us some food. You're gonna love it!" He sounds like he's already decided to do this.

He seems like the type of guy who can see it, how badly she wants to flinch away when he approaches her again, the way she forces herself to stay rooted in place.

“Compassion? By keeping you from helping each other out there?” Chloe’s explored enough ruins with other people to know that you touch one another on those operations a lot more often than you'd think.

“Food, huh? So long as there aren't any mushrooms I'm game.”

His urge to attack subsides as she stands her ground, and Lalo feels a hint of approval. He can tell she's still nervous, but he respects people who stand their ground even when they're scared.

"Yeah! You know, to teach us what it's like to not be able to rely on each other. You know, make us appreciate what we have. All that. It's dumb." He adds that last sentence matter-of-factly. "I think the idea is that a few people get hurt." He shrugs.

The quip about the mushrooms gets a genuine laugh, but then he really can't help himself. Lalo reaches out to pinch her on the ass, even though he immediately winches and flinches away as soon as he does, wringing his hand out again. "Hey now! Watch it."

Chloe yelps when he touches her, but answers with a smirk. “Watch out. Right now I bite back.”

He can mess with her if he wants but it'll mess with him too.

“I guess it's not too unusual for this place to do that. Like with the house fire, or that cave system. Give people a scare, hurt ‘em a little, and it'll drive them together.”

"Yeah. I know."

He's still wringing his hand a little, even though the pain is gone.

"Go on! Sit down." In front of his hearth, there's a sofa. "Take a rest. I'll get a fire going."

Something occurs to him. "House... fire...?" he asks. Lalo had been traveling with Methuselah during that entire thing, but color him intrigued.

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I don't even know what to put: cw self harm I guess

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