The Weakness Of Men

Participants:

s_deckard_icon.gif s_kaylee_icon.gif

Scene Title The Weakness Of Men
Synopsis Deckard and Kaylee come face to face again, but this time in the form of a nightmare. This time Flint has nothing witty to say.
Date December 27, 2009

Dreamscape of Midtown


There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Midtown.

A craterous pit scars the desolated landscape at Manhattan's heart, but further out, portions of some buildings are still standing. They line 9th avenue like broken pieces of shrapnel jutting from the seamed back a frozen corpse, slagged glass the same ashen grey as the snow mixed in murky drifts around the wrenched spokes of buried bicycles and an overturned city bus.

There is radiance but no sun, daylight a uniform, wan spill of white over clagging ash and the flanks of a dark horse plodding slowly north through the muck. The middle-aged man astride it is familiar in the long, stark cut of his face and his pin-striped suit. The one ragdolling lifelessly on the junked sledge bumping and scraping along at the gelding's hocks is harder to make out.

From the soles of his horse's feet Deckard can feel it, a slightly vibration trembling across the ground. Maybe it would be nothing, but slowly the tremors strengthen with a rumbling starting to growl beneath the ground. The ground threatens to finish the job that the Midtown man started, fine concrete dust shifting from the ruined buildings. But then…

CRACK

The ashy snow covered asphalt of the street is torn apart in a violent lurch that sends a near by wall to crumble in on itself, sending out a cloud of fine particles to sting the nose. And abruptly everything stops, leaving the world in a dust filled silence. When the dust starts to settle on the clears some a large gaping crack can be seen in the ground.

There is nothing for a time, but then, watching closely, one might see the small curls leaves of a tree as it start to fold out of the crack. The leaves spread, looking for the light, with a speed one would not see in the real world. Slowly the small plant grows the base thickens, more limbs shoot out from the length of it as it grows, until a young tree stand tall from the crack in the road.

Still it grows, filling out and along it's base, plants start to spill forth from the cracks formed in the earth quake. Wines stretch out, unrolling, grabbing a hold of the ruined landscape. They snake their way up the buildings, spreading like wildfire. And as the plants mature, a variety of flowers erupted from the depths, though they bring with them no real smell.

By time the mighty tree has grown massive with a large canopy of leaves, the city has been partially over run by over growth. The heavy branch of the tree drape low and slowly one by one, white flowers start to blossom across it, filling the air with a sweet and tempting smell, one that draws you in. Even these do not last long, as a rain of petals start to fall and fruit starts to slowly form.

Stepping from behind the tree, is a familiar blonde figure, this time dressed in the light gossamer fabric of a dress. It clings to her form, barely enough to keep her warm in the cold, but at this moment she doesn't seem to feel it. The edges of it move lightly as if it barely has any weight to it. Seeing the figure in the distance as smile spreads on her lips. Bare feet, step silently across the large gnarled roots of the giant fruit tree, as she hurries toward it. But when she gets closer she slows to a stops, a small distance between them.

"What are you doing here?" There is uncertainty and a touch of distrust in her voice, her blue eyes dart around her looking for the familiar figure of the Pastor. "Your not who I normally see here."

The horse balks, crow hops, rears.

Black hooves lash the air, seal brown skimming highlights over muscles of tar and pitch when Flint snares a fist through the reins and jerks the animals open jaw nearly to its chest. For one unsteady instant, it looks like both might go over in a writhing, white-eyed heap, but a stagger step after another snap of the reins keeps them aloft despite the snow and ice.

Back on all fours, ears laid back and eyes wild, Chopazo snorts wearily at the drift of fine blooms and the unfamiliar tree with its unfamiliar woman. Foam tainted with flecks of red dribbles and drizzles from the bit chewed back behind his teeth; bubbles and shivers in dished nostrils, down the chin and across the beast's thick neck. Astride him, Deckard is indifferent. Also, silent.

The frigid, unblinking blue of his eyes glows with supernatural light, irises cut clear through the shadows hazed in stark under the hood of his brow. He frowns with sullen distrust; digs a boot heel into equine ribs to force a sidestep in order to resume their previous heading. The sledge at his back jumps at the end of exhausted slack.

There is no flinching from the woman as the horse rears, confident in the rider's ability. A brow raises as he is silent. "Oh.. for once you have nothing witty to say?" The blonde haired woman asks with a touch of amusement, as she turns to lightly move along the root of the big tree, as it lays along side the silent riders path. "You seem weary. Why not stay awhile… rest your weary head?"

She seems to move ahead with few well placed hops along the gnarled knees of the trees roots. When she stops a red apple forms just above her head pulling her attention for a moment. A hand lifts, and thin figures grip the perfect red fruit. As soon as she touches it, a small black snake lowers near her hand with a soft hiss of scales. Blood red eyes, turn to look at the traveler as if assessing him, before it slithers from the branch to wind around Kaylee's arm.

"You ssshould offffer him a food. It is only proper."

The words, do not come from the telepath, instead the velvety words hiss from the black form that settles comfortably across her shoulder.

"Yes.." Kaylee murmurs, eyes closing for a long moment. When they open they seem less clear… less focused. "Deckard…" She moves to slide off the root, to move closer. "… it would be rude of me not to offer something tempting." The smile on her lips seems to take on a mischievous almost seductive crook, as the apple is held up to him, it's skin darkening to a dark blood red, much like the beady eyes of the snake.

"Jussst a bite." The black viper whispers softly, tongue flicking lightly against Kaylee's cheek.

Nothing witty to say? Apparently not. Deckard eyes her with distant disinterest, reins gathered too short to one side in the process of demanding a halt in the face of a root they cannot cross. The horse turns its heavy head as if taken and twisted by the ear, breath furled thick against the cold. Otherwise they stand and wait and are still. No flies to flick, no noises to crane after save those scuffed into the terrain by Kaylee's approach.

The apple is taken on a delay once it's offered, bare knuckles wrapped pale around brackish red on their way to curling it up into his fist. It's heavy in its sit there, cool and smooth — but he doesn't take a bite just yet. Rather, he nudges his mount around into a gradual turn away, back towards the direction from whence they came. The makeshift sledge grates into a slower turn after them, all rust and junk and chain and a corpse lolling lifelessly with its momentum.

There is a small sense of triumph as the apple is taken by the grim figure, but it quickly wanes as the beast turns away. The blonde telepath is left confused and suddenly uncertain. This was not how it is suppose to work.. is it? Blinking slowly, brows furrow thoughtfully. "Flint?" She calls hurrying after the horse. A hand reaching to try and grip at the man's leg. "Please… don't leave." Her voice pleads softly. "Please…."

A glance would find the black viper gone, from the young woman's shoulders, her eyes alert and birght again. But the weight that winds itself along his arm tightly, tells where he has gone. "Why not ssstop? Resst awhile?" The snakes voice is thick and rich, full of promise and seduction, velvety and warm. It slides slowly along Deckard's arm, belly scales rough, catching along his clothing. "Only a bite…." It's head turns to look side long at the blonde. "… ssshe could be yoursss. To do with as you wisssh."

Please.

Starboard exchanged for port, apple held slack at his side, Deckard and Horse are forced back into a standstill by the hand wound in under his calf and the serpent muscled in dry around his forearm. Scales scrape coarse across his wrist, and expression having changed little, he twists stiffly in his saddle. Not to look at Kaylee, but to squint specutively at the sledge, whose shoddy construction may not take the weight of another. Chopazo remains stolid for all that bloody foam continues to drip from his whiskery muzzle, its source no more evident than the thicker stuff clotted and spined into its coat. It comes away thickly against the brush of Kaylee's arm, cold and sticky and sweet.

Leather creaks in the quiet when Deckard turns still further, and finally back. If he registers the reptile's voice or tangible presence, he gives no outward indication. Rather, his pinned pupils dilate in their chilly touch across Kaylee's face, near imperceptible in the second before he sinks his teeth down into the apple's core, watching her all the while.

As he looks back, Kaylee's head slowly turns away well to look where he is, a blink as if the first time she's seen it. Her mouth opens slightly as a question forms on her lips, but the sound of his teeth sinking into the apple, makes the woman freeze. Her breath catches and fingers tighten on his leg, nails would bite painfully into skin, if there were not cloth there.

Blue eyes lift slowly to the man, her fingers release their grip and slowly it slides up his leg, that seductive smile returns. Leaning close, her body presses against his leg, cheek resting on his knee, looking like the pliant female though there is something in those eyes, a fear maybe. In his ear, the snake gives a rasping chuckle, the cold scales sliding to curl around his neck slowly, he can feel the light flicking kiss of the snakes tongue against the stubble of his jaw.

"Ah…. the weaknesss of men. Temptation… alwaysss your undoing." The coil tightens around his neck. "You will be hersss.. Sssshe will not resissst me with you, not like she does with that Passstor." The title is used like it's a disgusting word.

"I don't want to be alone." Kaylee says softly, cheek rubbing lightly against his leg, as if she doesn't even hear the vipers words, her eyes distant as if lost in something. Her hand finishes traveling up his leg, and slowly the hand turns to hold out for him to take, fingers covered in blood. "Stay with me."

It's a big bite. Of apple. That he took. So, it takes some time and effort to chew, and he fails to do so with grace, rolling the thing over once in his jaw once he's ronched it into more maneuverable proportions.

His teeth flash white after the bob of a thick swallow at his throat, he drops the apple flatly at Kaylee's feet, and then he's swinging his far leg long over and down into a curt dismount. In the same jerky start of movement, he reaches across his shoulder. The viper's wedged head is closed into his fist like a venomous walnut, skull crushed in a bony-knuckled clench that ripples blue-white bone briefly visible through the angle of his forearm, hand and shoulder. From there he slings it down into the slush like a whip and advances on Kaylee, switchblade flicked free of his belt as he goes.

When the vipers skull is crushed with a sickly wet crunch, Kaylee's head whips to the side as if slapped, sending her stumbling and reeling back away from the man. Her gossamer dress is no long soft and flowing, instead it hangs tattered and heavy around her form. As he advances, she stumbles backwards, the tree roots seem to move to hinder Kaylee progress to try and flee her attacker.

With a groaning creak, a rough bark root lifts enough that the back of one heel hits it hard, sending her off balance. Without the grace that she had before, Kaylee falls into the slush with a surprised cry. She lays there on the ground seemingly helpless without the vipers influence. The viper had made a promise after all…. One bite, she was his to do with as he wishes.

The blonde telepath, rolls onto her hands and knees, hair hanging lank around her shoulders hiding her face. "Finish it." She hisses out, not looking at Flint. With a hard shove of her hands, Kaylee pushes to her knees so that she can look up at him. The green around them starts to withers slowly, turning brown. Leaves start to flutter down around them, as if sensing the end, "Finish it! I deserve this." She shouts at him, her voice catching in her throat. Blue eyes watch him tiredly from where she kneels. "I can't fight it anymore.. I can't fight the temptation, Flint." Tears start to gather at the corners of her eyes, her head dropping, a hand falling to the ground, fingers digging into the earth.

"I'm tired of fighting it." Those words are soft as she closes her eyes, tears sliding down her cheeks, and waits.

Deckard isn't interested in having her kneel for him. No more than he was interested in the snake, or the tree, or any part of this interruption in his routine.

Glowing eyes ringed flat as coyote eyeshine into an infared feed take her in without mercy, unwavering in their rake from navel to nose as he advances through the snow. The blade triggers and switches with an audible tick of metal skimming metal.

Then he's on her.

Chopazo stirs disaffected in the background, ears still back, loyalty binding him into place even when Flint's boot heel plants itself in Kaylee's sternum and shoves. Back and down into the cold. He doesn't care. There's light and clarity enough to see for blocks. Maybe even miles. He doesn't care. The knife's flush against her side and his lapels fall open across her middle when he levers himself down against her, one knee to scuff hers roughly apart while the other braces his weight for as long as it takes him to trip down his zipper. Then he's as flush as the knife, free hand wrenching the gossamer dress up hard past her her ribs and stubble coarse at her ch — Chopazo whinnies.

Chopazo whinnies, shrill against the crisp air, and he's gone. The weight of him, the sterile, antiseptic stink of him. The knife.

Only the horse remains, and after about thirty seconds, he's gone too, with only the hoof-churned snow at his aft as evidence of his existence.

There is fear as she's pushed roughly to the ground, instinct forces her to try to scramble away, but then she is set upon by him…. Kaylee could stop it, make him go away…. yet she lets him punish her. She deserves this, her breath catches as she waits for him to do what he wants…

But then he's gone…

"No…" She whispers to the cold air, the world around her dead and lifeless. She rolls into her stomach and slowly climbs to her feet. Clothing tattered and torn "No! You were suppose to help me end this." She cries to the open air, alone again… Tears trail down her cheeks.

Her head turns slowly towards the lifeless body of the snake and the gleaming red of the apple not far, feet slowly move to take her to it. Legs give out as her knees sink into the sludge, relief that the snake… her bane is gone. Fingers reach to pluck the apple from the ground, palming it and feeling the weight and smoothness of the perfect skin. As her fingers touch it and caress it, the apple withers into something rotten, but Kaylee doesn't seem to notice. She moved to sink teeth into the wretched thing, hoping maybe it will take her away as well. Before her teeth can sink in, the velvety voice fills her ears.

"Do you think it ssso eassy to be rid of me?"

The form on the ground writhes and moves, head slowly forming again until blood red eyes peer at her with disdain. It's head lifts higher until it is eye level with her. It moves back and forth slowly, breath slowly hissing out in a form of a chuckle, "You will never be rid of me."

Hundreds of miles to the south in the cold and moonlit blue of desert night, Deckard is too preoccupied with squinting anxiously into the murk of Chopazo's pen to manage the tent he's pitched in his pajama pants. One hand sort've — self-consciously keeps everything in check down there while the other braces against a makeshift mosquite post.

The horse is fine, if likewise anxious. Pacing and cold with sweat. When the wind picks up, stirring sand around his bare feet, Deckard notes that he is too and sidles blankly back inside out've the weather.


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