snowblindrpg | [log] The Iceman Cometh [closed]

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[log] The Iceman Cometh [closed]

Characters: Flynn Carsen, Mycroft Holmes (Anomaly)
Location: Res 1
Date: Day 425
Summary: Cabin fever comes knocking at the door and Flynn tries to switch houses on his own. It's a bad idea.
Warnings: broken bones, illness, death, hallucinations, body horror, frostbite, freezing to death, hypothermia, mood manipulation, potential cannibalism

He knows he should wait for Bucky or Peter or literally anyone willing to help him out. People are on their way, he knows, but he lost so many days already and it's hard to tell what today even is anymore. He sleeps most of the time, tired from the pain, he's so tired. How much longer? Did he just talk to John about his strange plant anomaly self? Was that yesterday?

It's all a blur which is strange, he should know this. He probably has a fever, he realizes. Sometimes it's really warm, then he's shivering. It's annoying.

And one day it's just one too many and the cabin fever hits him, meshing with the ache in his bones and the throbbing in his leg and the sadness in his heart. There are voices whispering in the air, Jerry, laughing at him, there's Nicole's face before it is lost in the explosion, there's Wilde and he stakes him with the Spear and that's probably where the pain is coming from and Flynn can't handle this, can't deal with this. He knows this will only get worse and if he doesn't move now he might run outside (or crawl, rather) without a plan eventually.

No, if he wants to do this he has to do it now. Today. It's his best shot, maybe his only shot. The next house is so close, he can see it from the window. It shouldn't even take him an hour, if he could just bring himself to move.

He can leave most of his stuff, too, just make it over there and wait again until someone gets to him, then they can come back and pick it up later.

It still takes him forever to bundle up and he can feel a deep reluctance, an unwillingness to move, it's so exhausting to move. He's muttering quietly under his breath, talking to himself, a babbly litany of all the things in this town that he hates. It's a long list.

He grunts in pain, using his crowbar as a crutch and hobbles forward, over to the door and pulls it open.

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Somehow, it gets colder.

Somehow, the wind picks up.

There's a crunch in the snow, as if someone's walking. One can even see the footprints, but it's almost like there's no one there making them.

Frost seems to grow on top of the snow itself, and there's almost a...shimmer there, as if there's someone, but it's...difficult to tell, difficult to comprehend.

There's something in between the snow.

And a sense of bitterness that seeps deep into the bones.

At first he thinks it's part of the cabin fever. A mirage of some sorts, only with snow, his own delirious senses messing with him. He's really tired of that.

In fact, he is so tired of so many things? This town, his destiny, losing people, really, what is the point? The bitterness suddenly washes over him like poison and he pauses to lean against the door frame, pinching his nose.

But then he starts getting dizzy, even dizzier than before and his nose starts bleeding. Flynn isn't that far gone to not immediately understand what it means and his eyes widen before he quickly withdraws back into the house, slamming the door shut.

Or... trying to. Some ice has crept over the locking mechanism already, stopping the door from shutting entirely.

"Oh, come on!"

He's been here for days. Days! Now when he finally decides to make a move one of those things shows up?

"That is so not fair?!"

"Fair. You think anything about this place is fair?"

It's Mycroft's voice, coming from...nowhere in particular, from the shimmer in the snow.

Even though it's difficult to tell exactly where he starts and begins, he somehow can tell what he's touching, and he's trailing his hand against the door. Tendrils of ice start to form over it, and he pushes it open, entering the house with a blast of cold air.

"Hello, Mr. Carsen."

The door blasts open forcefully and Flynn cries out when he hits the ground, the pain in his leg exploding and shooting straight into his skull. He grabs his crowbar and crawls backwards, away from the cold that starts coming in, staring at the strange nothingness that still is something.

When the voice speaks up he freezes, his eyes widening.

Oh no.

Oh come on, he thinks of himself as a fairly decent person, he does not deserve this? Of all the people, of all the anomaly versions this town could throw at him it had to be him?

"Mr. Holmes? I-is that you?"

In a way it reminds him of the anomaly version of Royce with its lack of a real body. Royce. He did manage to reason with that anomaly, it hadn't hurt him. Maybe it would work again?

"What, what happened to you?"

"It is."

He's...fairly sure that he's inside by now but it really is so difficult to tell. He brushes a hand (is it really a hand, or so much as a thought?) against the door, sending tendrils of frost spider-webbing across the opening, forming a cage of sorts.

"Isn't it obvious? Surely you're smarter than that, Mr. Carsen."

He walks closer, icy footsteps appearing, showing at least where he is.

Yeaaaah, that... doesn't look like a friendly chat.

Flynn's head starts pounding, more blood coming out of his nose and it's so cold. He shivers, backing off on all fours, trying to get back to his feet but falling back down again with a pained cry.

"What do you want from me!?"

"I would like you to make some deductions about that."

He steps forward, frost starting to coat the insides of the house, spreading out from his footsteps. There's almost a wind around him, a few snowflakes falling carelessly around, tossed by an unseen force. If you really concentrate, you might even be able to see that there's something...there, between them.

"What's so bad about a chat, anyway?"

He is so not in the mood. God, is he not in the mood.

"Uh, for one, you're making my nose bleed like crazy, two, you're causing my body temperature to drop at an alarming rate if the increasing chattering of my teeth is any... any indication and it will undoubtedly make me become hypothermic in t-the next... next...."

It's hard to think.

"Well, pretty soon!? If you wanna chat, how about a nice invitation for tea instead? Like, d-do you have to b-be so life-threatening about it!?"

He keeps crawling until he reaches a wall and, pressing his back into it, finally manages to get up, trying to circle the unseen entity swirling in the middle of the room.

"Well, this is sort of all the point, isn't it?"

There's something utterly smug about his tone.

Mycroft's been this...this thing long enough that his humanity has been whittled away, even more than it already had been by this place itself. There's no remorse, nothing even remotely resembling empathy.

"It's funny you mention tea, because I am rather hungry. I'm not sure if I can eat in this form but...why don't we find out?"

He comes closer, reaching out to try and 'touch' Flynn's arm.

"Why don't we not?!"

Mycroft's voice seems to come closer and the cold suddenly becomes unbearable. Flynn cries out, stumbling to the side. Something brushes his arm, and it's a searing icy hot pain, then a terrible numbness that almost makes him drop the crowbar, and something tells him he doesn't want to look.

And then the first burst of panic sets in and Flynn scrambles over towards the door, swinging the crowbar against the frozen tendrils and trying to break the icy bars barring the exit.

There's something quite satisfying at freezing another being, and he really is quite hungry, indeed.

"Leaving so soon?"

This time, Mycroft tries something else. He concentrates, a wind picking up, and the air around them suddenly going dreadfully, breath-stealing cold. Maybe that will slow Mr. Carsen down a little?

"Yeah, I forgot I have this meeting scheduled, s-super important Librarian stuff..."

The sudden drop in temperature is like a shock to his system. Flynn keeps hitting the ice with desperate swings but soon he's trembling violently before his movements slow, become sluggish, it's like his entire body is shutting down. His hands cramp up and the metal of the crowbar suddenly becomes painful to hold. He tries to hit the ice one more time but it's weak, uncoordinated, and the tool slides off ineffectively.

His leg gives away, too, even though he can't feel the pain anymore, can't feel much of anything except the cold, and he sinks down, fingers hooking into the icy prison bars.

He can see the other house in the distance and suddenly it blurs, tears clouding his vision. He's going to die, isn't he.

"W-w-why are you d-doing this? I m-met Royce! He was changed, too! He... he d-didn't attack me! If you're a-all anomalies, why don't you follow the same logic?"

Mycroft bends down (well, figuratively, he's not exactly sure he has anything even remotely related to a body right now, but he can sort of assume where his consciousness is) and reaches out to pat Flynn on the leg.

"Because we're simply...who we are. We have changed, yes, but we are still ourselves."

If that makes sense.

"Some assume you are the copies, some assume that we are. It doesn't matter in the end, I suppose, we could both be copies from an original out there, elsewhere in the ether of the multiverse. But there are no consequences for my actions, and I really am hungry. I'd say it's not personal, but you did take all the hot water that one time..."

Flynn cries out in dismay when the same icy hot sensation engulfs his leg. His hands slip off the bars and he falls back into a sitting position, staring up at Mycroft.

"No! No, t-they said my copy killed, I-I'd never hurt my f-friends! T-t-that's not who I am!"

The... what? He knows that? How can he know that?

"S-seriously? Still with the w-water?! I am lit-- literally freezing to d-death, y-you have to be a jerk about that even now?"

"Is it?"

He tilts his non-existent head. If he even has a head. The air gets a little colder, that deep bitterness sinking into it, poisoning it, making the cold just that much more unbearable.

"Because we all have been changed by this place, but I think that it's a little more than that. I think it's revealed who we all truly are underneath."

He touches the floor, sending tendrils of icy frost towards Flynn, as they creep closer, forming fractals along the ground. They reach towards his feet.

"You took the hot water. I am simply...paying you back for what you've done. I was very cold that day."

"N-no, I--"

But the words fail him, the air leaves him and then it's even more than that, then it's like his heart itself is freezing over, every feeling of warmth, of goodness, of love crystallizing and shattering.

"I don't--"

Nicole, dead, because of him. Simone, dead, Jerry, dead. His anomaly, killing people. Himself, stealing souls, tearing memories out of people he calls his friends, talking them into hurting themselves.

I think it's revealed who we all truly are underneath.

Maybe that is him. He's so cold. Everything is so cold.

He tries to pull his feet in, away from the encroaching frost but he can't feel the leg Mycroft touched, he can't move.

"I didn't... mean to. It was an accident."

The chattering of his teeth slows as does the shivering. A bad sign, that's a very bad sign. He has to fight, has to do something, even though a part of him knows it's already too late. His body is already shutting down, too damaged from the unearthly cold, but there's a stubborn part of him that holds on, that desperately clings to life still.

He can't stop the anomaly, but maybe he can stop Mycroft?

"That's... that's actually faulty reasoning, you're acting... highly illogical and emotional here. Is that who you truly are underneath? M-maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you're not... not that smart after all."

The bitterness increases as the temperature drops, the air becoming as cuttingly cold as a knife.

"You were thoughtless and didn't think of others."

Is that who you truly are, Mr. Carsen?

The frost creeps further, growing thicker, ice crystals forming in surprisingly beautiful patterns.

Except the air shifts, and there's a burst of snowflakes that come out of nowhere.

Yes, he's annoyed.

"Emotional? There's nothing emotional about any of this! And I'm smarter than you, smarter than anyone here!"

The ice approaching Flynn looks...somehow, angrier, spiky and aggressive.

Probably.

It cuts into him and yeah. That's him. Egotistical, self-centered, hubristic.

Still doesn't mean he wants to die.

Even though he's really tired. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe he should just let go. Maybe he deserves it.

The frost reaches his feet and he watches with abject but numb fascination how it spreads over his feet, slowly creeping up his legs.

He raises his hand. It seems to weigh a ton.

"I-if you do this you just prove me right. It's petty reasoning. You're mad at me. That's as emotional as it gets."

"Hardly. It's simply cause and effect."

There's the icy, invisible equivalent of a shrug.

"You prevented me from obtaining a hot shower. I will now draw that retained heat away from you."

He steps closer, his footprints showing up in the frost. More frost tendrils reach Flynn's body, the entire floor looking like the start of a small glacier.

"I'm only taking back what's mine."

Edited 2018-12-03 21:53 (UTC)

"But it's not."

There's ice, he can see the ice. It's everywhere, it wanders, up his legs, it's coming closer but there's no pain. Flynn can barely feel it. He can barely feel anything at this point.

He's very tired.

Does it matter? Why does it matter? It seems so pointless. He deserves this, all of this, the cold, the loneliness, dying alone. It's not at all what he expects it to be and somehow... it is.

He just wishes it had more meaning. Some meaning. For anyone.

"It's a false... false equivalent." His speech is slurred. "You won't even see me suffer for it like you did."

"I'm seeing you suffer now, aren't I?"

He reaches out to pat his arm again, but this time, he keeps his own hand (?) on top of it for a little while longer.

"Hopefully you'll return so that we can do this again."

A swirl of snowflakes, he sounds almost amused.

"And again, and again."

Well. It was worth a try.

"That..."

What else is he suposed to say to that?

Flynn's head lolls to the side. It's almost interesting, watching his arm turn blue and numb, watching the ice crawl over the skin, watching it turn dead and cold.

"That's actually really childish."

"...what? It's not."

How dare you accuse him of being childish? He ought to take your soon-to-be-frozen corpse outside and set you up as the world's most unwilling ice sculpture.

"I told you, I'm only paying you back for what's you've done."

"That's like... the definition... of childish."

His arm looks so strange. Like a giant popsicle. Flynn wonders if it would break off if he touched it.

It's so weird not to care.

He can't feel the cold anymore and that's nice. It makes him happy, somehow, it feels like getting away from Mycroft, from all of this. Can he just go to sleep? He just wants to sleep.

"Could have been... bigger than this. Guess you're just... human after all."

"So you call justice being childish?"

Well, you are currently freezing to death, so he might let your clearly faulty arguments and reasoning slide, for once.

"Bigger? Please. Now who's being childish? Advantages are meant to be taken and used." He touches the ground, sending more frost and ice Flynn's way.

"I think right now, I am very much more than human."

He wants to argue the point, he really does, but he's just so tired. His vision blurs, like the flurry of snow before him. His breathing slows, turning shallow, the small puffs of air getting smaller.

"Actually, you're just... a jerk. As... usual."

There's a long pause.

Are you really doing this with what little strength you so obviously had left?

"And you're an idiot."

The footsteps in the frost shift, faint sounds crunching in the thick ice.

"As usual."

There's a low, quiet sound, a laugh, or maybe a sob, maybe something in between.

"It's just really not... how I pictured it."

And he had pictured it so often. Thought about it so many times, fretted about it before every single mission, that possibility of not coming back, of being another name in the Library's ledger, another portrait and memory in the gallery.

And now here he was.

"It's a little... disappointing."

A pause, a burst of snow swirls for a moment in midair.

"Pictured...what? What's disappointing?"

Was he talking about death?

"Would you have liked it to be more dramatic? I could stab you if you wish."

"That it's you. Fought so many... real villains."

There's darkness closing in at the edge of his vision.

He wants to think of good things, of his friends, of Nicole, of his mom, Judson and Charlene, of the Library... but they just won't come. All that's left is the cold, that bottomless bitterness suffocating him, pressing down on his mind in his last moments. He's so lonely. He's so sad. He's terrified of Mycroft's promise of doing it again should he return. Maybe he won't return. Maybe he shouldn't return.

"Don't think I'd feel it."

...he's not entirely sure if he should be offended. Real villains? Yes, he realizes that obviously Flynn would see him as a villain in this situation, but somehow he's still mildly insulted by it.

"And you're still clinging to the notion that you're in any way important?" There's a scoff, the footsteps crunching in the frost.

"Death does not care whether you've fought real villains. Death comes when it wants. Often when you'd least expect it."

He reaches out to pat Flynn on the shoulder.

"So good. I hope you are truly disappointed by this."

He is. Disappointed. Bitter. Alone.

Flynn doesn't want to die, not like this, so alone, and he tries to say something but when Mycroft touches his shoulder even that last ounce of defiance rushes out of him. A weak, strangled sound escapes him, the ice freezing his upper body, crawling up his neck and over his face. The desolate feeling burrows into his head, filling it out entirely.

And you're still clinging to the notion that you're in any way important?

No. He's not. Maybe he used to be, once, but it's all gone now. And he knows the rules.

There's only ever one Librarian in the world. When he dies the next one takes over.

"I don't..." His voice is faint, barely a whisper, almost inaudible in the whirling snow and cracking of the ice.

He tries to look up but his eyes are unfocused, the light in them dimming, slowly going out.

"I'm..."

It's as all things should be.

Frozen, just like this world.

"You aren't important, Mr. Carsen. I'm afraid that's a rather painful lesson to learn, and seemingly, the last one you may ever learn."

He admires the way the ice freezes over him. It's too bad he probably can't eat him, even if he is hungry. Some sort of after-effect, a remnant echo of his old human body. If they really even were human to begin with at all.

"If you return, I'll be waiting for you."

Flynn's lips move slightly but there's no more sound coming out. The cruel words sink deep into his heart and follow him into the darkness.

There's a final exhale, a sort of mute sigh. His chin sinks down on his chest, his eyes breaking, before the ice covers him entirely, engulfing his body.

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[log] The Iceman Cometh [closed]

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