VALENTINE'S DAY CATCH ALL 12th-17th

[tom_hanniger]

Who: Anyone and everyone who wants to participate
Where: Literally every corner of the known universe
When: Again with the questions...
Rating: BIG BIG HORRIBLE WARNING LOTS OF DEATH AND FIGHTING AND GRAPHIC EVERYTHING I think you might need an adult...
Summary:

THIS IS A CATCH ALL LOG FOR THE DURATION OF THIS SITUATION

Here's what happens. If you want interaction with HARRY OR TOM, if you want to have a short thread with someone discovering a BODY or someone who is WOUNDED or generally just want some blood and guts it happens in here.

THAT BEING SAID if you want to write a log? Do it. I'm just trying to control the madness in one place...as if that might be easier to manage. It also means the community isn't TOO flooded with bodies and boxes of chocolate so those wanting to bypass this event will have less to look at.

IF YOU ARE A VICTIM, YOU MAY POST YOUR DEATH POST IN HERE
I mean, you can if you want but also feel free to make an independent post. Up to you.

Comment in with a header including date and place for whatever situation you're doing so we can just keep track. I'll do the same.

Questions, comments, plurk or aim or pm me. x

Comments

[tom_hanniger]

[Harry lands a solid blow or two before Jo can retaliate, kicking back against his stomach and forcing him back before grabbing her flask and dousing his face with water.

Water that does nothing but clean some of the blood away. He blinks against it and spits out the droplets that had gotten into his mouth, wiping some of the diluted blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

No. This isn't Tom. Tommy isn't home right now. He hasn't been for a long time. And he's about to say that when she calls his name.

His name.

He feels secure in this situation, too. No one knows they're out there. They're hidden, and he has business with Jo. He feel secure in his strength over her, in his ability to put her down, but not before he makes her suffer. Something slow. A lesson.

It's not really his style, but who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

His grimace twists back into a closed sneer. That's right. Harry. He's Harry.]

Yes, dear?

[lightgunhustler]

[She recoils when he answers to that name, eyes darting left and right as she tries to figure out a way past him, a way to get back to the meeting table and grab her shotgun and--

And what? Shoot him? Shoot Tom?

After everything that's happened, everything he's done, it's probably just desserts, but everything is happening too fast to process, and the last five minutes don't wipe away the last six months. Maybe they will, given the time to sink in, but at the moment it doesn't quite register-- her brain can't make sense of the fact that her Tom and this beast in front of her are the same.

That he's a liar and a monster and dangerous and not the mild-mannered man she thought he was at all. He's malicious and bloodthirsty and bearing down on her like any other monster, like something she would hunt, except he's human, and that still makes a difference.

She exhales, steadying herself as he advances on her, steeling herself to retaliate, throw him off-kilter if she can.]

How long have you been living in there, huh?

[Was Harry ever a real person? Had Tom been the one to murder all those people in that mine, too? Was Harry just an excuse, some fucked-up imaginary friend so he could deflect blame for the shit he'd done?

Tom's future self had known about all of this. He had come back and lied to her. Told her to stay out of it so that-- what? So he could get away with it? Did he really not think that she would try to stop him as soon as she realized what was going on?]

Have you just been waiting for this? Since day one, since the tunnels?

[Since she'd found him and helped him? God. Was anything that had ever taken place between her and Tom real at all?]

[tom_hanniger]

Oh.. [He grunts] Longer than that.

[Living in there... How long had he been?

Huh.

That's a good question.

Since the day he died. Since that night in the mine, since the moment his blood touched Tom's scared, weak lips. Sprayed into his face by a gunshot sending millions of micro-particles into his very being?

Since the moment Tom was too weak to stand up to his own demons. To move on, to be an adult and face his fears and ran away like a sick child? Got himself corralled up in a mental ward somewhere where Harry could grow and fester away before finally spreading his legs.

It's funny, it's the same body and yet the amount of space they fill is completely different. Harry feels ten feet tall and just as wide, mean and relentless and powerful. Tom's future self carried a streak of this, but he was still himself...more of less. And Tom...as he is now...is small. He's quiet and unassuming, and nervous. He'd rather hide away and play with his cat than talk to anyone. Rather play guitar and build things out of lego and read about cowboys.

These three men, one body three-

Two, Tom and Harry. First Tom by himself and then- It's always been them. Long enough now.

long enough
ɥƃnouǝ ƃuol ]

[lightgunhustler]

[Longer than that.

Too long. Even a matter of mere minutes would have been too long.

She doesn't wait for him to strike, but instead launches herself forward, logic and planning forgotten as she rails against him and beats against his chest with both fists, furious, tears coming freely now and cutting pale tracks through the blood on her face as she hits him, over and over, as long as he'll let her.

It's dangerous, but she doesn't care. All she cares about is hurting him, getting 'Harry' to somehow disappear, undoing all of this and getting Tom back, going back to the way things were or at least pretending that things had been normal all that time, that they had been good.]

Then get out of him! Get out! You don't fucking belong there! You're not him, you'll never be him. Get out!

[She strikes him again, choking back a sob that dares to try and force itself out. She won't let herself break or fall apart in front of him, not completely. The minute she does, it's over. He'll win and he'll overtake her, and that is not how this is going to end.]

[tom_hanniger]

[Harry snorts and takes the beating, the flurry of fists, the angry cries, because it's exactly what he wants.

More specifically, Jo that close to him is exactly what he wants, and look. It's paid off.]

You stupid bitch, [He snarls and grabs her, one hand winding into her long hair, the other going for her throat.

He pushes them back until he can press her up against something solid and leans right in, expression hard but his eyes are glassy and dark - a handful of hazel tones shining brightly as though he were in a fever.]

You don't get to tell me anything.

[They're so close he could kiss her if he wanted.]

But let me tell you something..hm? This whole thing? You two? It ain't gonna happen, sister, and here's why. You will never be good enough.

You will never be what he needs.

And Tommy here? You will never save him.

[lightgunhustler]

[She bites back the urge to cry out as he grabs her by her hair, stifling it and swallowing it down as he shoves her against the wall and she feels his hand close around her throat. It's not enough to cut off her ability to breath, but close. Close enough.

She stares back at him defiantly, those eyes full of malice and nothing even vaguely reminiscent of Tom. There's nothing of him in there now, just Harry -- not a demon, not something she can exorcise out of him, just -- part of him in a way she can't fathom.

No matter how many times she tells herself it can't be real, it is.]

Maybe I won't be what he needs.

[She almost spits the words themselves, venomous.]

But I can still save him. That's what I do.

[And just for emphasis, she sharply brings her knee up to bury it in his groin as she tries to pull herself free, teeth grit.]

[tom_hanniger]

[Harry snorts a sharp laugh, fingers closing with a brutal strength to crush the words from his throat, but she speaks, forcing it out.

Maybe he should be impressed.

Her movements catch him off guard, however, a blinding pain ripping through his body how dare you, you little slut--

--but it's enough to get him to let go. Even for a second to shuffle back and will his body to breathe. Pathetic as it is, he's still human and jesus that hurt.

[lightgunhustler]

[She gasps for breath the moment he releases her, wasting no time in finding her feet and pushing past him, darting to her right to get out of arm's length in case he tried to grab her again. All she had to do was get to the table. Get her gun. Her chest feels impossibly tight as she moved, heart in her throat as she closes her fingers around the cold steel of the barrel, but she hefts that shotgun and turned it towards him, taking several steps back in order to gain distance, her hands shaking.

A part of her knows she'll have to have to pull the trigger. There's no other way out of this.]

Tom, if you're still in there at all, I'm sorry--

[She swallows something down and it sticks at the back of her throat, suddenly painfully aware of her own pulse as she feels her blood thundering past her ears and through her head, adrenaline doing its job to keep her together.

Fuck, she shouldn't have to be apologizing to anyone, but this--

He's not the Tom she knows. Maybe he never was, but that Tom was real enough to her, and he's the one she's apologizing to.]

But I can't-- I can't let him kill me or anyone else.

[tom_hanniger]

[It's funny what power a single word can have.

A name. An assigned identifier given to you by your parents at birth. It shapes you, defines you, you grow to suit it and it's meaning.

Thomas, for example, is Irish. It means twin.

Jo rushes away and grabs her gun, turning with the tight panic afforded to her by terror but the easy way in which she grips it speaks of years of hunting.

She shouldn't speak, she shouldn't pause, and yet she does.

She does and she calls him name.

And he hears it.

There is a brief moment where the body of the man she loves does nothing. It lurches half an inch forward before the tension in his shoulders melts along with the snarl at his lips.

It's a tremble that then presents itself. A fracture in his composure allowing Tom to scratch and scream and claw his way back. If only for a moment. But a moment is all he needs.]

Jo-

[Small. He feels so small. He sees Harry all around him, closing in from all directions, his breathing a cacophony of terror ripping down his spine with the unrelenting truth. This is you, Tommy. You.]

I'm so sorry..

[A whine. It feels like slow motion, every particulate illuminated by some stream of indistinguishable light source. His breaths feel long and careful when they are quick heaves jerking from his lungs.]

You've gotta shoot me, shoot now.

[lightgunhustler]

[She has to fight to swallow down the sob that threatens to escape her when he speaks. His voice is his own again, if only for a moment -- she knows it won't last. A brief moment of lucidity isn't enough for her to be able to change her course, but her breaths come sharp and ragged, anxious, tense as her finger trembles against the trigger, squeezing down without going the full mile.]

I don't want to.

[But that doesn't mean she won't. She doesn't want to, but she knows that she has to -- and what she has to do takes priority, however else she might feel. She has to get out of this alive, and she owes it to everyone else he's hurt or killed to stop him, even if it is too late to do them any good.

He can't be allowed to hurt anyone else.]

I'll make it quick.

[And as it happens, she feels like she's an onlooker instead of the one pulling the trigger -- it squeezes back and the shot fires, followed by a second and a third, the kickback sending her back just half a step as she holds her ground, but it doesn't feel real. Not until the blood begins to blossom from the holes in his chest.

She waits until his knees buckle and he begins to fall before dropping her gun and falling to her own knees. Swallowing the tears back isn't an option anymore. They come freely, with no sign of an end.]