supaslim:

I just really love the idea of the symbiote infecting Rorschach

and instead of turning into a giant hulking spider goo monstrosity with serious rage problems, he is more insidious, lanky and stealthy and stalks his prey rather than charging it, and can maybe camouflage with the environment or mezmerize people with his shifting ink blot patterns or something, but is still really intense and hungry

#wasn’t this a fic on the kinkmeme? #he turns into some kind of insect creature with camouflage powers? #only he eats sugar instead of hunting #I think #it’s been a while

http://khilari.livejournal.com/tag/impverse

3 weeks ago  /  10 notes  /  reblog  /  like  /  edit

Minutemen zombies part 5

etherati:

Sorry for the wait, had  big exam this morning that I had to spend yesterday prepping for. :)

*

They got themselves a proper headquarters a year or two back—Hollis has always had a setup at home, but it’s not big enough for all of them, and neutral territory really is best given how explosive the combination of all of their personalities can be—and it’s a high-security paradise. They have all the food and supplies they’ll ever want, but what they really need right now is a radio room, because the communal kitchen cannot hold the number of people currently crowded into it, perched in chairs or leaning on counters, looming. There are three units in here: the shortwave, the local AM receiver like everyone has, and the police frequency scanner Hollis donated to the cause two years ago, hardwired to the local stations. It’s the AM they’re all listening to, though he can see that the scanner’s on too, turned very low.

“…secuted at the time as it’s discovered they have committed such crimes. Call your local municipality if you have reason to suspect anyone in your neighborhood of criminal activity.”

Sally steers Bill to a chair by the table; his strength isn’t going to hold for much longer. She keeps one hand on his shoulder, reaches across the counter to dial the volume up.

“How many goddamned times,” Eddie drawls from the far side of the room. He’s all false ease, slouching against a cabinet like a kid against a fence, shirking his work. “…do we have to listen to this?”

“You’re free to leave whenever you like,” Sally says, chilly. Something’s gone south between the two of them, and Hollis hasn’t worked out what yet but he’s never been a fan of the kid nor had a reason to doubt Sal’s judgment. The radio hisses silence and static, and then there’s a hitch in the white noise of a tape splice, a message spooling up to repeat.

“This message is being broadcast by WMCA on the behalf of the New York Police Department,” it starts, and it’s the usual groomed radio voice, but there’s a sobriety to it.

Nelson is in the other chair, leaning forward across the table to listen more closely. He’s at attention, rapt, just a little glazed. Byron might be their only known casualty, but he wasn’t the only one who went disappearing into to a cacophony of violence two days ago.

“The police department would like to advise the following precautions to all citizens. The phenomenon of disease and sudden insanity being observed in the city has been reported across the country and, possibly, the world. Do not attempt to evacuate to another location. Do not attempt to reach loved ones. Do not leave your homes to intercede on others’ behalfs.”

Bill snorts, a low noise of frazzled nerves entirely unlike laughter.

“If you have a safe location, stay there and do not attempt to engage with the activity outside. Relief efforts to provide supplies safely are being coordinated. If you must defend your location against violent and insane individuals, the use of lethal force is authorized. Do not, under any circumstances, allow a compromised individual into your home.”

“…why are you having me listen to this?” Bill asks, and Hollis is wondering that too. It isn’t encouraging information.

“Shh,” Sally says, “Listen.”

“We should get Ursula in here,” Nelson says; his voice is flat, a wrung-out monotone.

There’s a crackle and a hiss from the radio, and then it smoothes out again. “However,” it continues in a different voice, oddly conversational, like an afterthought or an add-on, an edit: “the police department would also like to remind its citizens that violence against someone not presenting an actual threat is, as always, against the law. A compromised individual that is no longer showing madness is not a threat, and lethal force used against any nonthreatening citizen of this city will be considered murder. Violators will be arrested and prosecuted at the time as it’s discovered they have committed such crimes. Call your local municipality if you have reason to suspect anyone in your neighborhood of criminal activity.”

Static. The white noise fades out as Sally turns the knob again, silencing it.

Hollis leans against the kitchen door, considering. “So, they’re saying…”

“That people are getting better,” Bill says, shocky. “Or else they wouldn’t be worried about that? Why would they care if…”

“Kill ‘em all anyway,” Eddie says, smirking around his cigar, and good god but Hollis wants to throw him out into the street himself. See how long his attitude keeps him afloat out there. “Set ‘em on fire, I say, and—”

“Edward,” Nelson says, not moving from where he’s still sitting attentively, not even moving his eyes. “If you don’t stop talking, I am going to set you on fire.”

“Whatever, man. I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking.”

Nelson leans forward a little bit, licks his lips between teeth that want to clench. Sally looks like she wants a piece of this action too.

“No,” Hollis says, quiet and even. “You’re actually the only one thinking it. As usual.”

A stretch of silence so profound that the the voices on the turned-down scanner start to become intelligible, and then Eddie shrugs, slumps away from the counter.

“Do what you want,” he says, “But you heard what they said. Who knows when I might start feeling threatened by your fucking mess of a boyfriend in there?”

Bill looks up, genuinely caught off guard, and Eddie just smirks and tips an imaginary hat, and then he’s out the door and back off down the hall.

“He’s not…” Bill says, looking between Hollis and Sally. “We’re not—”

“Ignore him,” Hollis says, and he feels a little sick for having brought it up earlier. Feels sick if it’s true, feels sick if it isn’t. “He’s all talk. We’ll keep him away.”

Bill shakes his head, and it’s like he’s shaking something off—like all of his size and strength come back at once. “No, I can keep him away,” he says, taking a breath. “I’m not afraid of him.”

“Good,” Sally says, and picks up the shotgun propped against the counter; shoulders it on her way out the door.

*

1 month ago  /  4 notes  /  reblog  /  like  /  edit

Untitled Minutemen Zombie fic part 3

etherati:

Its status has been updated to a fic now! But it still needs a name.

*

Hollis can hear the voice on the edge of his consciousness long before he surfaces enough to make out what it’s saying. It’s just encouraging noise, praise and reassurance like he might lavish on Phantom, fully aware the old girl doesn’t understand a word he’s saying.

She’s around here, somewhere. Basement maybe; the loud noises of other, aggressive animals have always driven her to ground.  

“…okay. It’ll be okay. Just have to hang on for us… just a little longer… oh god, By.”

His eyes slit open carefully. He’d fallen asleep on the job, obviously, but there hasn’t been much that’s needed doing. They’re out of penicillin and the morphine shouldn’t wear off for another few hours, and the armchair he’d dragged over alongside the makeshift operating table had been awfully comfortable. He is, despite common opinion, only human.

“This isn’t fair, is it?” the voice continues on, wobbling and listing left and right. “This isn’t what was supposed to…”

“Bill,” Hollis says, because that’s who it is, braced over the table on one hand, the other combing back through Byron’s sweat-and-blood-soaked hair. The body on the table is unresponsive, passed out. Bill’s out of costume—they all are, obviously—but there’s something of the innocent all-American golden boy still about him in the terribly visible way his heart is breaking.

“How is he?” Bill forces out, a breathy wheeze.

Hollis pushes himself more upright in the armchair. The chair opposite the table is empty; Ursula must have gone off to get some actual sleep. Smart lady. “Mostly the same. Out cold now, but that comes and goes. Not getting worse, anyway.”

“That’s… is that good? I guess that’s good.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

A slow blink, and Hollis has never seen anyone looking so lost. “Should I be?”

“I’d question your sanity if you were.”

A sharp bark of laughter, and nothing is funny.

Hollis watches him for a moment, propped there unsteadily, then gets up from the chair—goes to where the other one is and drags it around to the same side as his own. “Sit down with me here, for a minute?” he says, and then: “Before you fall over?”

He does, after however long it takes him to process the request. They sit in silence for a long moment, watching their teammate not breathe; watching him lie there in state, and only the heat pouring off of him tells them that he’s not gone.

“Bill,” Hollis says, because it’s a syllable he can put between himself and what he has to say next.

“Mm?”

“…we should have a talk.”

*

1 month ago  /  5 notes  /  reblog  /  like  /  edit

More Minutemen zombies i guess?

etherati:

*

It takes a lot of rope.

At first, they’re worried about his injuries, the amount of blood he’s lost. Most of them can’t even be sutured—just broad swaths of exposed muscle where the skin’s been ripped away, across one cheekbone, down one side of his neck, on the back of one hand and forearm. Defensive wounds. They put a few stitches into the gash running down through his right eye, but the eye itself seems ruined, and it’s really the cavernous wound in his gut that they fear will be the death of him.

Once they have him restrained well enough to check his vitals without losing fingers, it’s pretty obvious that, well, that’s already happened. The bleeding has stopped; the blood gels on his skin, taut over the wound like drumskin. It’s not something they can call healing, really. Bereft of pulse or breath, he still fights like his heart’s in it, still howls and screams.

The fever is eating him up.

They take his care in shifts, but some of them are more <i>present</i> than others. Eddie loiters around the edges uselessly, a steady stream of vitriolic commentary, refusing to come anywhere near any of them; they’re all compromised, contaminated, and he’s been chain-smoking cigars like the blue-grey cloud is a ward against them. Nelly’s too eaten up with fear over Justice’s continued absence to be much help, and Bill’s catatonic with sorrow, utterly convinced that everything they’re doing is in vain.

Hollis isn’t so sure he disagrees.

Sal has been an angel about the whole thing, keeping her head like a pro while the rest of them fell apart and doing her best to help, but she’s not hands-on and the bulk of the actual brow-mopping and painkillers and antibiotic administration—maybe pointless, maybe not—has fallen on Hollis and Ursula.

Hollis wrings out a wet rag, lays it across Byron’s forehead. He’s quiet, now; he’s worn himself out again, and these respites in his struggling are the only time they can really try to help him.

Outside the reinforced windows, a jungle-wild howl of rage and misery. Byron whines in response, all of his strength sapped.

“This isn’t going to end well,” Ursula says, across the table, rolling a bottle of morphine between her fingers. She sounds just as drained. “Is it?”

Hollis takes a long breath, lets it out. Under the rag in his hand, Byron’s head lolls woodenly from side to side, single milky eye searching. “Probably not, no. But stranger things have happened.”

“So we try. And keep trying.”

“For Bill’s sake if no-one else’s, yeah.”

“I’m not sure that false hope has ever helped anyone,” she says, quiet, and she’s probably right.

*

1 month ago  /  5 notes  /  reblog  /  like  /  edit