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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There's a hand on her back, rubbing. "Shh, shhh, shhhh," Lalo says quietly, pouring water over the blisters on her cheeks, pouring it gently over her eyes. The hand that had been on her back gently guides her head now. "Shhh, shhhh. You're okay. You're safe. I've got you." More water. What had been the last of it.

"Can you see?" Lalo asks, a little more firmly, after giving her a few seconds to process.

Chloe still twists and squirms a little, too panicked to see sense, but the haze of fear dissipates with the pain.

“No, I -” she blinks a couple of times, which doesn't feel great with swollen eyelids. “A bit. Shapes. The light.”

"Hang on. We're gonna walk over to the sink so you can run your eyes under it, okay? Here we go. Baby steps. Good girl," he can't resist growling that last bit into her ear. But he moves slowly, careful to make sure she can keep up if she clings to him. When they get to sink, he gently yanks on the faucet, and prepares to guide her head under, if she'll allow him.

Probably a bad idea to bring up how often she breaks into his house at night right now, so even though she knows her way around, Chloe lets him guide her. At least the initial help he’d given her has pushed the pain back enough that she can think.

She lets him say whatever shit he wants, and guide her face under the cold water. Right now her goal is to keep enough spatial awareness of where his body is that he’ll instantly regret it if he fucks with her.

Lalo gently guides her eyes under the stream of cool water spouting from the faucet. Gently, hopefully reassuringly, he rubs her back, ready to stop if it seems like it's just stressing her out more. He watches, half-concerned and half-curious, waiting to see if the water will flush the area and take the swelling down.

It does feel better, the cold water flushing her skin and eyes, washing away the residue from the open window. Her skin is still red and swollen, and she’ll probably feel like shit for a week or two, but she’ll recover.

After a while, Chloe starts struggling again. “Help me up. You need to block your door.”

The relief Lalo feels when she seems okay surprises him. He didn't realize he'd actually been worried, not just lording over her, until he's relieved when she's finally coherent again. He realizes his heart had been beating quickly when it calms down; he realizes his muscles had been tense when he feels them relax.

Then she's yelling about the door. Already, the faintest hint of green starts to seep under the door. Lalo grabs a hand towel and, coughing loudly, he tries to cover his burning mouth and throat with the crook of his elbow as he kicks and wedges the hand towel under the door.

"Go in the hallway closet," he tells Chloe. It's a blow to his pride, but he's forced to admit to himself that he doesn't think she'll have any trouble finding it even if she can't see very well. "Goddamn it! Bring me a towel--"

Edited 2024-04-10 16:32 (UTC)

“Demanding!” Chloe sing-songs, three crisp, distinct syllables. He's right, though: aside from a bit of a struggle with the handle, even with swollen eyes and water running down her face, she can navigate the cabin space pretty well.

She grabs an armful of what she hopes are towels and hurries toward the door. He can use one to cover his nose and mouth in a pinch.

It's immediately not to funny to Lalo now that he's on the receiving end, and he immediately objects, "Chloe!" in a slightly frantic tone of voice.

He grabs one of the towels to wedge under the door, when she gives them to him, and cups one over his mouth, coughing into it.

She echoes the way he’d stroked her hair for a moment, just to right the power balance a little, then says, “Go wash your face before it burns. Grab tape if you have any.”

For a moment, Lalo seems almost eager to lean into the hair-stroking, like a cat leaning into being petted, only to be abruptly pulled back into reality when she stops. Flustered and bewildered to suddenly find himself so quickly without the upper hand once more, Lalo marches off towards the sink obediently, almost like he's on autopilot. He stumbles a little, his vision slightly obscured, but manages to get to the sink and clumsily yank on the faucets to start splashing water on his face.

Dimly, he can't help but feel a bit indignant, deep inside. He was supposed to be the big man here, wasn't he?

Edited 2024-04-11 02:43 (UTC)

Chloe stuffs towels around the door as best she can, as well as a few other areas that she knows air gets in.

She doesn't really know what to do about the fireplace aside from hope that the rising heat keeps the fog out. Seems like they're in this for the long haul.

"Hey," Lalo says, handing over a silver ream of duct tape when he catches up to her. "This is my house. You know that, right? You can't just tell me what to do in my own house!"

Chloe shrugs, taking the tape to hold towels along the door’s hinges. “If you want to match my pretty face, be my guest.”

An appeal to his vanity is certainly enough to spook Lalo into reasonableness. "...okay, okay. No, no, I'll do what you say." He cannot help feeling that they've turned yet another corner here and he's not sure that's a good thing.

He's almost certainly sure it's not, in fact.

But he starts ripping off pieces of tape too, taping down towels to keep the air out.

“You're lucky I was here, you know.” Questionable, but Chloe believes it. “If you’d been sleeping you wouldn't have noticed this shit getting in.”

The familiar discombobulated feeling starts to come back. It's disorienting, but not all together unpleasant. There's something nice about it. However, it fills him with a sense of indignation and irritation, too. He'd been gloating to himself about the power he now held over her; how she was going to think twice about messing with him after this; how she owed him...

Now he's thinking about how what she's saying is true. Her being here did save him, in a sense.

There's a not-totally-unpleasant little twist in his chest that Lalo can't place or name.

He does start to re-find his footing after a few seconds, though. Like hell he's just going to make this easy for her. Lalo grins. "Me? Ayyyy, I don't think so! You're the lucky one. What if I'd just kicked you out into the green shit? Then what would have happened to you?"

Chloe can't deny that when he’d first put his arm around her, what little part of her could think had expected that to happen. Throwing her into the fog, or forcing her to do things she wouldn't like much in exchange for treatment. She can't exactly thank him, but she is lucky.

“I wouldn't have let go. You'd have to go out in it too if you wanted to kick me out.”

It's like she’d said before, she bites back.

Lalo is now, of course, wondering why he didn't just throw her out into the fog. If she thinks the blisters on her face look bad now, just imagine what they would have looked like if he'd thrown her out! It would have served her right!

How many times has she made him look like a fool now? It's infuriating! And embarrassing, too. Worse than that, it reminds him he's vulnerable here, in a way he's never had to worry about before. If she can get in, who else can? Nobody, Lalo tries to reassure himself, but deep down he's not sure if nobody else has gotten in simply because nobody else has tried.

And he's still thinking about what she said earlier. What would have happened if she hadn't broken in? He probably would've woken up on his own, anyway, unable to sleep through his own coughing. But what if he hadn't?

Anyway, she's here now and they're stuck with each other. Something about her had coaxed out something more nurturing out of him, something gentler. Something that remembers she'd taken care of him, or maybe just something that doesn't want the game to end.

Her smart remark draws an irritated huff from Lalo, who fights not to allow a smirk onto his features. "Bullshit!" he says, shaking a finger admonishingly at her. "You think those weak little girl arms could hang onto me if I wanted to shake you off? I doubt it." He offers her own an arm, like he wants to test it. His eyes glitter mockingly.

Kind of unbelievable that he’d challenge her on this after she’d held him against the wall during the bad aurora, but men do have their pride.

“These weak little girl arms could break your neck if I wanted them to.”

Lalo's eyes glint. He does remember the bad aura. How could he forget? It left an impression. But his pride won't let him back down.

"Bullshit," he says, laughing. Teasing her.

Chloe rolls her eyes. “Do you really want to fight now? Seems like a waste so soon after I saved your sorry ass, but I will.”

"You saved my ass?" Lalo shoots back incredulously. "I don't think so. I saved you." He stumbles backwards dramatically, deliberately and loudly coughing. In a high-pitched falsetto, he imitates her with deliberately inaccurate hysteria: "'Water, water, oh help me, Lalo, pleeeeease, I need water!'" He catches himself against the wall and leans against it, on arm propped up.

He stops long enough to grin at her. "And hey, tell me what you think we should do to pass the time! We'll be stuck in here for a while, from the looks of it."

Chloe scoffs, offended. “I did not say please. Should have left you to melt in your bed.”

Lalo, delighted by her ire, dissolves into further laughter. Any notion of fighting her physically is completely forgotten.

"Yes, you did!" She didn't, but accuracy is less important than annoying her. "You were begging," he says. "'Please, please, help me! Save meeeee, Lalo! I'll do aaaanything!'" He mimes batting his eyelashes before dissolving into a second round of chuckles, folding an arm lightly around his waist when he finally stops before looking at her, eyes shining with amusement.

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