open | so make mine a pain in the neck

[burying]

Who: Kieren Walker + You!
What: Kieren returns to Milton after his self-exile. Catch-all for August.
When: Mid-August, onwards.
Where: Various.

Content Warnings: Will be added to specific prompts!



wildcards fine with plotting, hmu! | permissions are here | contact: heolstor / _heolstor for questions/plotting

Comments

cw: slight suicide ideation

[burying]

Yeah, well— I'm still unsure on it all. [ Coming back, he means. He's still not sure if it's been the right decision. And maybe it's selfish of him to come back, choosing to be here again and putting them all in danger again. ] But... there's people I care about here.

[ He can't afford himself a smile, but there's something slight at the corners of his mouth. It's tainted with the knowledge he's hurt so many of them. People who've known all along, and it doesn't matter to them. Even if he's a zombie, even if he hates what he is — he's Kieren. They care about Kieren.

There's a long pause at the question, any hint of a smile soon gone. His lips form a thin line and he doesn't move from his slouched position — his gaze lifting to look at the ceiling. His eyes are wet. ]

Kind of. [ That's the truth of it. In some ways, he doesn't remember. In other ways he does. ] There's— flashes. I don't remember how I got to that moment, just— being there. And I was just— I felt hungry, and so angry.

And I remember hoping that... if I died. If someone— [ If someone had seen him, tried to stop him. He wished someone had stopped him, someone had put a bullet or blade in him — maybe Simone might have lived. ] maybe this time they cremate me, so I can't come back.

And just— blood. There's so much blood.

[ His father had said that: You're covered in blood. There's so much blood. Kieren's throat feels tight, and he nods. ]

[sputnik]

[ There's a tightening in his eyes at that, and a quiet nod. He can certainly imagine — has spent weeks, even months, imagining much of this very thing. Torn between a need to distance himself out of necessity, and... staying with the people he cares about. Not wanting to abandon them, and if he were to leave the way Kieren did for a time, he can well-imagine feeling the pull to return, to look after those who care about him in return.

It's... a horrible situation, there is no easy answer, maybe even no "right" one. And he knows the poor kid must be agonised over it, being back, facing... what happened. Seeing the way people might look at him. Konstantin fears being looked at like that, constantly, and he's a man nearly in his forties. Kieren's so young, it— ....it's horrible.

He watches him think, watches him want to resist answering the question from the inside out, body language too telling. Eyes wet and fixed upwards. It's such a... strange situation that this young man has going on — Konstantin's seen him bleed an inhuman black, and yet he blinks against very human tears; he's like something trapped inbetween two places. And the words that come... hurt to hear. Konstantin's staring mutely at him as he listens, eyes a little wide, his own composure knocked a little askew. It all hurts very much.

'If someone— maybe this time they cremate me, so I can't come back.'

Konstantin sits with that for a few long moments, his own eyes slowly lowering to the tabletop. There's... a particular horror associated with the concept of... being trapped alive. One he only now knows the shape of. His whole life he's always wanted to live, to thrive, and yet waking up in this place and realising that the bullet wound in his abdomen had healed over, and he isn't sure whether he can even die anymore, is a source of deep terror.

He doesn't want to be trapped like this. Living, like this, with this awful deadly thing curled inside of him. The thought that he might truly never be able to escape that is... unbearable; he hasn't been able to nurture such a thought, has flinched sharply away from it for nearly half a year. But here and now, listening to Kieren... He sighs, heavy and aching, and looks back up to him. There is no.. light at the end of this tunnel. There aren't any words that can make such a situation better, no silver lining; it's awful. It's devastating. What he can offer is... some kind of understanding. More understanding than he's let anyone else know about, so far. ]

My... condition. It's not always something that I can... control. In fact, most of the time, it isn't.

[ He tries to make it seem like it is — even to the people he's opened up about requiring a... peculiar diet, Konstantin smiles through it, drinks pulpy blood from thermoses and cups as though it's something easily managed, when the truth is... ]

Before this place keeping things... tempered down, I couldn't actually control it at all. Whenever I needed to eat that hormone that I told you about, I would actually black out. And when I'd wake up again, it was with the taste of blood in my throat.

...But I'd remember. Even though I was unconscious during it, when I'd wake back up again... I'd eventually remember what happened. Like watching someone else's dream, but the sensations belonged to me. The way everything... smelled, and felt, and tasted. Blood everywhere.

[ 'There's so much blood.' ]

It's a mercy that I don't remember here, like that. Whenever I black out now, I don't know what's happened. Someone else has to tell me. But I know what it's like, and I—.... I'm sorry. It's like being a prisoner in a monster's body. You want the monster to stop, but it can't— it won't.

[ Quietly, repeating what Kieren more or less just said— ]

....And you hope that if someone does manage to stop it, this time, it'll stay dead.

[burying]

[ He remembers asking his dad why they didn't cremate him. He'd said he'd wanted to be cremated, one of those passing remarks about what you'd want to happen when you died. He'd said he wanted to be cremated. His parents didn't do that. They buried him, and when he came back he asked why. His dad couldn't answer him, saved by the bell of the phone ringing in that long pause as they stared at one another.

Things would have different, if they'd cremated him. He doesn't resent his family, he couldn't. But sometimes he wishes they'd gone with his wishes. It would have been a whole lot easier, and perhaps that's about as selfish as Kieren can be about any of this.

They didn't, and now he's here. Staring at the ceiling, explaining how he'd felt hunger and anger and all he can remember is blood to a man in a frozen apocalypse and he's sure he can still feel the blood on his hands now, even if he doesn't feel anything at all, anymore. Life's funny like that. Or unlife. Or whatever this is that he's doing.

He's not worried about how anyone looks at him. Kieren has spent his entire life not caring what anyone thought about him, or how they looked at him. He's not going to start now.

And Konstantin starts talking, and Kieren's head rolls to the side and he sits and listens, his expression sombre. His brow furrows slightly, thoughtful. It... it's horrifying to listen to, achingly familiar in places. He is still haunted by the people he killed when he was rabid, and now Simone's added to that list. Nightmares so vivid it's like he's experiencing it all over again, and it's not him but it is him. ]

I'm sorry, too.

[ He utters it softly, let's it hang in the air for a while. Kieren's eyes close for a long moment. He feels... heavy. Too heavy. He considers everything he's said, eyes opening again. ]

What, it's— so when you black out, it's... something else taking over? The infection? [ He's trying to get his head around it, piecing things together from what little information he already has. ] Like, I dunno. There's like, mental disorders, or something. When more than one person exist in a body. Like that?

[ He didn't think being mentally ill would come from an infection. But like, what does he know? Infections are in the blood, after all. They'll hit the brain. Maybe that's what happened. ]

[sputnik]

[ It's a strange silence that falls on them for awhile — heavy and strange, but not unwelcomed. Even if all that can truly be shared is an empathy, that's.... something. Konstantin's not used to this at all, to opening up about any of it, but this isn't just about him, and if he can help someone like this young man not feel completely alone, even just for the amount of time he sits with him at this little table in this cold, dark house...

It's something. Something he won't run away from — because that's what he does, he leaves, he runs, but not now. He just sits there, letting the weight of silence fall, accepting it, until Kieren speaks again, and the cosmonaut looks back up at him.

He's careful what he shares about his own situation, keeps so much of it close to his chest, and he could claim that it's necessary to do that — it is — but there's another part of it, too. More of a selfish one, because Konstantin does care how people see him, and there's a moment where he hesitates to keep opening that door up wider, because there's a risk that Kieren might look at him like he's— disgusting, frightening, and he knows it would hurt in a way he can't quite deal with.

But there are risks that must be taken, sometimes, and he'd wondered for a long time now, guilt curled tight in his gut, if maybe he'd opened up to the boy... months ago, extended more of a hand to him, something not edged in a cautious distance, could he have helped him more? His situation certainly isn't the same as Kieren's, but it's— there are things that are close, and maybe... he could have done more. Konstantin draws in a slow, even breath, fingers curling against the wood of the table for a moment, before he lets it release. ]

It... is something else inside of my body. But not my mind — my physical body. The infection is a sort of parasite.

[ He lets that linger for just a moment, knowing it sounds strange, but— well, he supposes he's in good company for strange things. ]

It's something not of Earth. On my last mission to space, just before here, I encountered it. An alien life form that invaded my body and.. bonded with me. I don't understand everything about it, but when it needs to feed... it sends me into a seizure and knocks me out. Then it emerges.

[ He gives a soft, humourless chuckle. ]

I know it sounds insane. I've spent a lot of time thinking it's some bad dream that surely I'll wake up from any day.

[burying]

[ Kieren's quiet and still as he listens, his brow furrowed deeply but then shifting ever so slightly as the man continues. It's.. horrifying, actually. Kieren knows what it's like to look at your own body and to hate what you see, to not recognise what he's looking at. To know it's you but feel so much disgust towards it. To feel alien in one's own body. He can't even look at his own bare face in the mirror. It's why they're all covered with blankets and towels around the cabin, just in case.

But... something inside of you. A parasite. To be trapped with something alien inside of you? It's— it unsettles him in a very particular way he can't quite describe. His throat feels tight, and for a long time he's not really sure what to say. ]

... I mean, it's not— well, totally insane. [ He says finally with a wry smile. ] If zombies exist, actual aliens aren't that much of a stretch.

[ So yeah. Someone going into space and encountering an alien and having it come back to Earth with you isn't that entirely out there. Like, who even know what's out there? Space is massive. It's not possible that out the whole universe, the only living lifeforms are stuck on one tiny rock in the middle of it. ]

There's just as many movies about aliens than there are zombies. Horror movies, I mean but— [ Speaking of which. Kieren cringes, he doesn't want to ask but: ] When you say 'emerges', I'm... assuming it's not... bursting out your chest all—

[ He raises his hands, curls his fingers into claws and makes them tremble a little. His voice raises into a high-pitch, cracking slightly as he makes a sound of: ]

Reeeeee—

[ Yes, he's seen Alien. He does not mean to take the piss out of your situation. He's a teen and sometimes he can only crack some kind of dark joke about how fucking awful shit is. He is so sorry, Konstantin.

His mouth twists, the tiniest smile. That sounds so ridiculous now he's said it out loud. ]

... Yeah, sorry.

cw: discussion of alien parasite horror

[sputnik]

[ It's a lot, and no matter how calm the cosmonaut tries to keep himself — he has years of training and conditioning meant for that very purpose — an anxiety prickles uncomfortably through him, something that makes his throat feel slick and his palms feel strange.

There's more to it, so much more (isn't there always?) but for now he lets the basic information sit. There's something alive and alien living inside of him. Something he can't... control. Something dangerous.

It's not relief, exactly, when Kieren finally breaks that silence, but Konstantin's exhaling a pent-up breath. Zombies. It's the first time he's heard the younger man use that specific term about his own "condition", but it's telling. He truly is something... undead, or reanimated. Zombies and aliens; they're quite a pair, sitting here at this table right now. The older man has to smile a little in return, dipping his head for a moment as he listens to Kieren speak and picks through his own thoughts.

Horror movies. He's no stranger to the idea, but the types of movies prevalent in Soviet culture are predominately educational. They boast some of the sci-fi greats, of course — Solaris, Road to the Stars, Aelita — he's seen them all many times, and many do feature themes of extraterrestrial life, but not so much in a horror direction. (He'd be discouraged from seeing anything that might create stress that could affect his career; in others words, Konstantin has not witnessed Alien for himself.)

Which is why he doesn't quite grasp the reference to Kieren's words and the very colourful demonstration — brows quickly lifting in confusion, and then unable to suppress a wince as the thought courses through him. The idea of something bursting through the chest is technically new, though he has probably gained a few new grey patches thinking about how the thing could easily rip through the walls of his stomach — ...it's certainly close enough that the concept makes him shudder almost immediately, visibly unsettled. It's maybe not as ridiculous as one might think! He has no idea what might happen with his own situation; it's feasible that the creature might evolve to no longer need him, and then....

'Reeeeee—' ]

It— it's a little lower than my chest. It lives in my stomach, [ he explains, shifting uneasily in his seat. This is quite the bomb to drop on someone, but there's also the fact that Konstantin hasn't spent much time allowing himself to dwell on the true horrors of his own situation. If he falls down that hole.... He just can't. ] When it's inside of me, it's very much like a sort of... worm.

[ Very... unpleasant... ]

But no. No... bursting. At least not yet. [ He tries to laugh a little, but it sounds weak. Oh god. ] It... comes up. From my mouth. It can only stay outside of my body for about an hour, but... the entire time it's out, I stay unconscious.