inaugural tdm of unspecified duration.

[vestigemods]

VESTIGE TEST DRIVE MEME

WHAT IS THIS?

This is a test drive meme for Vestige is a musebox-game successor to The Box (yeah, the one that died like five years ago). It's invite-only with no activity check and almost no application to speak of.

This is a horror jamjar based on Cabin In The Woods, in which characters are pulled into this containment zone run by the Technicians working from a lab underground with the goal of creating Good Quality Suffering™️ to appease the elder gods who hover on the verge of creating a worldwide apocalypse. But of course, suffering is pointless if everyone is too numb to properly suffer, so there are plenty of morale boosts provided in between bouts of fear and misery.

This TDM is ongoing and will fill the gap between now and when I get around to setting up the comms. There is no official start date and currently literally nothing but this TDM available for perusal, but I'll update this section of the blurb as that changes. Threads in this TDM are welcome to be game canon once this shit opens because fuck it. If you have questions, feel free to ask in the top-level below or just wing it tbh, we'll be doing a lot of winging it up in this shit.

Characters arrive with all powers intact and carrying all items that they had with them on their canonpoint.

Also, feel free to hit up the Intro + Friending meme to network with your future peers in this suffering endeavor. (EDIT 5/20: We also now have a DISCORD SERVER! So hop on into that if you'd like.)

PROMPT 1 ► just your ordinary cabin in the woods

⬛ARRIVAL + GENERAL PROMPT

Whenever you're from or wherever you were, you awaken now with the mildest of headaches in a medium-sized wooden cabin. Maybe you wake in a bed, barely padded and covered in dust (so are you now, congrats!). Maybe you wake on the floor, arguably softer than the bed in spots thanks to some handy dandy water damage. Either way, you certainly aren't where you were before, and you have no recollection whatsoever of arriving.

The cabin is modest but multi-roomed and fully kitted with a kitchen and cozy living room. Nice, dry wood sits stacked by the fireplace, and if you check the various switches, the lights turn on with only the faintest protesting static. The cabinets are surprisingly well-stocked, as is the fridge, with perishables and non-perishables alike. As if someone has been here recently... but how, when everything else seems so thoroughly abandoned?

Should you choose to ignore the cabin's supposed hospitality and try to leave, you'll find that both the front and back doors are securely locked, in a way that no amount of fumbling with the locking mechanism seems to remedy.

That's when a sloooooow creak draws your attention to a door nearby, one you may not have noticed before... but it's open now. Was it before? Better yet, should you check out what lies beyond?

PROMPT 2 ► who's up for some fighty-fight, kids??

⬛MONSTER HORROR.

The basement is musty and dim, though a pull-string at the curve of the creaky stairs seems to turn on a sparse row of lightbulbs dangling precariously from the ceiling along the center of the room. This little bit of light illuminates a room absolutely packed with items, furniture and boxes and various knick-knacks of unknown and questionable origin. Spiderwebs litter nooks and crannies, many with actual spiders still nesting inside, and a layer of dust coats most every surface in sight.

It doesn't seem like there's anyone down here, nor is there any sign of an exit at the basement's far end. There is, however, something that catches your eye. An item, one that your feet seem to carry you toward without your mind quite telling them to do so. Perhaps it's familiar somehow. Perhaps it's so foreign to you that you can't help but get a closer look. One way or another, you somehow end up reaching out to touch it. But what harm can that do, a single touch?

Oh, sweet summer child. Haven't you seen this movie?




---




Whatever else your characters might touch, to activate this prompt they'll also touch one of the following five items:


• A child's drawing, of what appears to be... shit, what even is that? Is it a bat? Is it some kind of... reptile? We just don't know. (result! warnings for gore/violence.)
  
  
• A light-blue paper face mask, the sort used in hospitals for patients who have a cold. Maybe you guys should've brought masks too. It sure would keep all this dust the hell out of your nose... ( result! warning for body horror! )
  
  
• A buzzsaw blade, dusty but intact. ( result! warnings for gore/violence. )
  
  
• A music box, covered in faded yellow flowers. I wonder what music it plays? ( result! warnings for gore/violence and Alarming Children. )
  
  
• A funeral urn. But... It seems that someone glued it shut around the edges? I guess that's one way to make sure nobody spills grandma. ( result! )

These enemies can and will follow characters outside, should they try to flee. It might actually be a good idea to face these foes outdoors where it's less confined, provided they don't stray too far from the cabin (see prompt #4).

The blurbs are just guidelines, feel free to scale up or down how strong/weak the monsters are, how many there are, etc. in order to better fit your characters' level of capability. The Technicians know your characters' strengths and weaknesses, so they'd know how to send enough to make this challenging but not insurmountable.

PROMPT 3 ► congratulations, you fucked up

⬛SURVIVAL HORROR.

Perhaps you didn't touch anything in the basement. Hell, maybe you didn't even set foot through that ominous basement door. But hey, we get it. Not everyone likes to party. You're not getting off easy, but at least you can say that you didn't fall into the trap.

If, by the time an hour has passed since the creaking open of the basement door, no object has been touched and no baddie has been summoned, you'll find your nose assaulted by the prevailing smell of smoke. One glance out any window tells you why: The cabin has been surrounded in it, an oblong ring of fire six feet thick burning tight along the exterior cabin walls. You're safe inside for the moment, but how long will that last?

Now, you have no choice but to try to escape the blaze. It overtakes the cabin quickly, creeping up over the rooftop, shattering windows and burning a path inside. No matter which way you try to run, you're almost certain to get burned... But that's certainly better than burning to death in here.

PROMPT 4 ► "escape"? never heard of her.

⬛PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR.

For some, staying in this creepy cabin with its stupid locked door was never an option. Maybe you break one of the windows and crawl through that, or maybe you're angry and OP and punched a man-sized hole in the wall itself. Hey, we're not judging. You got yourself outside, and that's what counts.

The outside of the cabin is... actually pretty nice. Picturesque woods, birds singing, perhaps a couple of deer bounding through the trees not far off. This place might actually be relaxing, if it weren't so alarming and kidnap-y. But it is, so it's time to get the fuck out of Dodge.

Or to try to, anyway. Just a few short meters into the trees, you find yourself entering a deep and all-encompassing fog. You can barely see your hand out in front of your face, let alone your path through the forest ahead. If you're not alone in this venture, you'd best keep a hand on your companion lest you lose track of them, as well. And is it just you, or is there a slight chemical taste to the fog that you're breathing in?

(Yes. The answer is definitely yes.)

Before long, you find yourself turned around, stepping back out of the fog with the cabin in front of you. Little do you realize that simply turning you around is the most merciful fate that this fog has to offer.

---

This is easier to break down without narrative, so!

• The first time your character ventures into the fog, they're just turned around and sent back to the cabin.
  
  
• The second time, they hallucinate things that they don't want to hear. Something they fear, something that hurts them, something that stresses them the fuck out. Maybe a character's worst fear is wildcats and they hear one growling just out of sight in the mist. Maybe instead they hear a loved one crying for help back in the direction from which they've come, drawing them back to the cabin. Or maybe they hear the voice of someone they admire berating their cowardice or stupidity or something, for running away from the cabin in the first place. The goal is to psych them out and send them running back to the place where the action is happening.
  
  
• The third time, it's the same but full-blown visual or even physical hallucinations. Basically anything that might lure, scare, emotionally wound, etc. them into going back to the vicinity of the cabin.

Characters are welcome to start off venturing into the mist together, or to discover one another while they're already in the mist. If it's the latter, look out - it may be harder to tell friend from foe when you can't quite trust your own mind.

THE LOOP ► a note on replayability

Regardless of which prompt your character faces, they'll be left unbothered after the creature is defeated or the problem is overcome until sunrise the following morning. Though the fog still keeps characters from straying from the area, they're welcome to recover and lick their wounds in the immediate cabin vicinity. An unburnt cabin leaves them food and resting facilities, while a burnt cabin... Well, at least the fire never spread from that self-contained ring, so they have some nice unburnt grass to sleep on.

Come sunrise, all characters still awake will fall unconscious. At this point, many of them will reawaken in a perfectly undamaged cabin back in Prompt #1 to begin the loop anew. They may have the same comrades in this loop, or perhaps they have different ones. Maybe their new companions have done this before as well. Maybe they're brand new and have no idea what they're up against. R.I.P., you poor unsuspecting fucks.

This is, in effect, a series of trial runs by the current batch of Technicians to see if they're able to run this containment zone scenario long-term. When Vestige opens properly, characters will awaken free of the loop and will have quite a bit more continuity and recovery time between horrors. The 'loop' mechanic is specifically in place to give this TDM some shelf life and let y'all entertain yourselves while I work on the actual pages and such, rather than the one-and-done feeling of the usual TDM.

CODE BY TESSISAMESS (patreon)

Comments

[wittingly]

[ To Ian's credit, none of his tantrum winds up directed at Mace. Granted, it means flat out ignoring him for points instead, with not a sound summoned up in response to the reassurances, the commentary, the apologies. Just shut eyes and a clenched jaw. He knows, he knows none of this is Mace's fault. He knows that he's pissed off. He knows that anything that comes out of is mouth right now is going to be venomous as hell, and he's got enough self-awareness to check it instead.

By the time it's done, his muzzled screaming devolves into choked out, dry sobs. Shaky, jerky, chest-heaving things. Something derived from utter futility, giving up and giving into being consumed by a sensation.

And then minutes pass after Mace finishes, long ticking eternity until the pain tapers down from excruciating to just really fucking painful.

He presses one hand into his eyes. Thumb and forefinger in one socket each, massaging back and forth rhythmically. Rubbing out the dryness that comes after shedding too many tears.

He's soaked through with sweat. Sheets, hair, face. His stomach is a long line of pissed off, shiny red. His chest rises and falls in perfect time, exact seconds like he's counting and manually controlling it.

He doesn't say a fucking word yet.

The tequila didn't do a fucking thing.

Eventually, he breathes out exactly one syllable. There's no weight in his voice, no conviction, it almost sounds robotic. ]

Fuck.

[ That's... about all he's got right now. It's like he's in some post-pain stasis, some vegetative state where he's blank and just riding the wave of post-pain post-adrenaline vacancy. ]

[hydraulics]

[ Mace isn't thinking of this as anything even close to a tantrum. Isn't expecting any sort of coherent response from Ian for anything he's saying, either, just means it as that same background noise as he'd meant it to be from the start.

Dry, wracked sobs now fill the air from Ian's body as Mace douses a piece of cotton into cold water from the bathroom and gently wipes the area as clean as he can get it without disturbing that horrible red-black line running down the center. There's sweat all over him, which means he's going to get cold all over again, and fast — but touching the seared wound with a blanket is probably not the best of ideas.

In the end, Mace arranges the blankets around him in a way that covers his arms, the sides of his bared chest and stomach, and leaves the rest of it in open air to heal.

Fuck is about right.

Nothing else to say, but there's still something more to do, and Mace summons up some untapped source of stoicism from deep inside, and gets ready to do it. Compartmentalizes the screaming he'd just heard, the pain he knows he had to inflict, the absolute emptiness in Ian's sweat-soaked face, and puts all into a little box and kicks it to the back of his mind for now.

Then it's off to the kitchen to open the fridge and take out any food that won't go bad in the night, plus all the water he can grab. Other non-perishables from the pantry, bringing the whole schlock in the master bedroom and neatly setting it off to the side. Back again to the rest of the cabin to do one last perimeter check and wedge the second couch against the basement entrance before returning.

Locks the bedroom door and slowly pushes the dresser in front of it for good measure, because he knows the moment it's lights out for him he's going to fall into a slumber so deep, he won't be able to wake in a hurry if things go sour for them again.

The only good thing coming out of this is that, because it's not stitches, Ian won't open up again by accident and bleed out. Mace sets a pillow onto the rug next to the bed and finally lays back with a long, almost silent sigh. The lamp at the bedside is still on, the last light in the room, but it won't be too much trouble to reach up and turn it off. He's leaving it on for now, just in case, planning to turn it off when he thinks he can hear Ian's breathing slow into sleep. ]

[wittingly]

[ For a while, he's burning too bright for sleep to even be a consideration. Flaming heat throughout Mace's scavenger hunt through the cabinets. Through the sound of moving furniture that he listlessly acknowledges he could've been helping with if it weren't for this. Still and smoldering as the dresser slides in front of their door, but at least by then the steady rise and fall of his chest is slower.

More calm.

Pretty confident that if he lays here until he stops hurting he'll nod off at some point.

It's just--

Rusty-voiced and tired: ]

If I let you sleep in the fucking floor tonight on top of everything else you did I deserve to have my asshole cauterized next.

[ Frankly. It's just -- it's not really fathomable that the guy should have to sleep on the fucking rug.

Granted, he did sweat into the sheets, but that's entirely on one side of the bed. There's a whole dry, clean expanse on the other, and something tells Ian he won't be fucking tossing and turning much tonight to wind up hogging it. ]

I'm not gonna get fresh with you. I'm like a third date minimum guy.

[ Which really isn't true, he doesn't have a set of rules like that, but. You know.

While the words are joking, his tone can't carry the lightness it would've earlier. Just... fatigue. ]

[hydraulics]

[ As with every other decision, Mace picking the floor to sleep is an ultimately strategic move; it'll mean he can get up faster and not sleep for as long, won't fall into the coma-like slumber that a comfortable mattress would have him enter.

He's about to summarize this best as he can when Ian speaks up, explain that it's not on him to worry about this. But then he continues in that utterly exhausted voice, summoning a joke out of god knows where through all the residual pain he must be feeling, and ...

Third date. ]

Think we qualify for a common-law partnership after all this.

[ Faintly, only a little wry as he gets back on his feet, turning off the lamp and heading to the other side of the bed next to Ian. He takes off the shoes he'd been intending to sleep in and then crawls into bed, the tactician in him protesting at the softness underneath him, the rest of him welcoming it as he stretches out, supine and with his arms and legs close to him.

He'd intended to stay conscious at least until he could know for sure that Ian was asleep, but he's got no chance of that now. Well, at least he's used to sleeping in a small enclosure without much movement, so there won't be any chance of him accidentally knocking into him into the night.

Right before exhaustion finally drags him into his usual dreamless sleep, he murmurs his answer to the question Ian had asked. ]

Her name was Cassie.

[wittingly]

[ Cassie. It's a pretty name.

Mace settles into the bed, and Ian would be lying if he said the gentle dip and radiating heat of another person didn't set him a little at ease. Might be true that he could lean over and look down onto the floor, but having it right there without the need for any real thought is just...

It's better. It feels better.

Eventually his torso settles enough to become static. Background noise. Everything fades to something softer. Absolute exhaustion settles in heavy, and he falls asleep not long after Mace.

He dreams of fire.

When he wakes up, it's alone. The food has all disappeared, the knife and all the other supplies are gone. The dresser is back where it began. All of the extra blankets are missing from his person, and he's laying shirtless atop a neatly made bed.

It scares him more deeply than he can put into words for reasons he can't articulate, and it's that fear that sends him stumbling hazardously through the door so hard it bangs against the wall. Following it, the unsteady wall-supported fumbling rush toward the other bedroom in the cabin, that he prays to God isn't empty, stomach screaming in protest all the while. ]

[hydraulics]

[ He doesn't know what it is that wakes him up. It's not his body, which seems perfectly content to remain sunken into bed underneath him, despite the sudden lack of warmth it can sense; it's not some loud noise, persistently knocking him into consciousness. But a relentless unease pervades his slumbering mind, his senses picking up on an anomaly and urging him to wake up.

Mace opens his eyes and stares with bleary incomprehension at a completely different ceiling than the one he'd seen yesterday, unable to put together for a long moment what the hell's happened.

And then with a horrible rush, everything comes flooding back. He hears the distant sound of something going bang, and his hand shoots out to his side, but the mattress next to him is empty — empty and dusty and smaller, because this isn't the goddamn master bedroom, he's in the second room and he's alone. ]

No.

[ The denial is out of him before his feet even hit the floor, a strange, alien fear running an icy finger down his spine. It's washed out by the sudden anger that fills him, though, seeing the bare room around him — the door that he hadn't had the chance to fucking reinstall the day before, closed in his face like somebody's mocking him.

He slams into it shoulder-first, but it doesn't even budge, the knob rattles loud and useless in his palm, and the next sound out of him is Ian's name, as loud as he can make it, his fist pounding into the wood. ]

Can you hear me? Ian!

[wittingly]

[ Jesus Christ it's a fucking relief to hear the voice, even if he can't see the face. Maybe it's selfish, maybe silence would've meant Mace made it out somehow, but his gut instinct says that's not what he'd believe. Silence would have filled him with a keen, unshakable dread. The overwhelming suspicion that they'd taken him, and if he wasn't dead he'd be wishing he was. ]

Yeah-

[ Called back, raspy and relieved, very noticeably in close proximity to the door. A second later there's a soft thump as the side of his fists hits it, a support he uses to bear most of his weight and lean upon it. ]

I'm here. Are you alright?

[ His voice is raised up loud enough to make it through wood, he thinks, and while there's a soft tremor of leftover shakiness, he's mostly back to steady again.

Just a door.

Just a door.

(And then the constantly working lower echelons of his mind murmur that the door is locked, that they've been separated like test subjects forced apart, that there's likely to be a follow-up experiment because why else bother with that specific piece?)

And then the following realization that Mace is barred in, but Ian's out in the hall, in the open floor plan of the cabin.

Alone. Wide open, it feels like. Fuck. Jesus, fuck. ]

[hydraulics]

[ The relief that sweeps over him to hear Ian’s voice — slightly unsteady and hoarse, but still normal, unharmed — is as alien as the rest of this situation, a balm to an injury he didn’t remember sustaining. Because for a moment, all Mace could think was that this was it, they’d somehow separated the two of them and taken Ian for good. Locked him in here as a reminder that it didn’t matter what lengths the two of them had gone to the day before, didn’t matter how hard he’d fought. ]

Thank fuck, I thought —

[ Almost angrily, stopping before he finishes that sentence and taking a slow, deep breath. Then he turns around, taking stock of the rest of the room. Something, anything, to help him open this fucking door, break it down if he has to.

There’s nothing. A bed. The sheets, the pillow, a nightstand, a lamp. The curtains with their stupid, kitschy floral pattern.

And then, out of the window, hanging from the nearest tree, he spots something that makes every muscle in his body tense up, his voice going oddly toneless as he says, ]

I’m fine, buddy.

[ A flash of pale blue, waving gently in the fog.

He's beginning to understand what this is. To use his previous mice analogy, this is the set-up for the second experiment, and he’s starting to think, bizarrely, that it’s not some living creature behind any of this at all. That it’s this fucking cabin itself, toying with them like some sort of monstrous cat before it — what, devours them? Drives them nuts before picking them off one by one?

What the hell is the point? ]

Ian, listen to me. [ His voice drops in pitch but keeps its volume, the words quick and urgent. If he's stuck in here, that means Ian's injured and vulnerable in the emptiness of the rest of this cabin. ]

Get back to the master bedroom, lock that door, and wait for me. All right? Don’t open that door no matter what you fuckin’ hear. I’m gonna — I’ll find a way to you.

[wittingly]

[ They've only known each other a day. Ian finds he has to remind himself of that to regain some perspective, and it's completely out of the norm for him to have to do that. It takes him so, so much to get to the point where he feels really reliant on another person - not just in the moment, not just can you help me with this wound, but reliant in a general sense. Reliant as in how do I navigate this without you? He's not comfortable being there as a general rule ever, he hasn't been there since his mother passed away (she was his only constant, his rock, his entire life).

A situation like this breeds rapid bonding out of necessity. It's innate in humans, it's pure survival instinct. Humans are social creatures, their odds go up exponentially in pairs, it's part of the whole reason partnerships developed over the course of human history and became the standard. What's extremely unsettling and extremely ironic about it happening now is the fact that out of anyone he's ever begun to feel it for (romantically, platonically, doesn't matter) Mace is the most likely person to immediately leave him - possibly by flat out fucking dying.

Unlike back home, unlike in real life, he doesn't have the option of cutting it out. It's just not on the table, there's no scenario he can envision where they survive separately like this, where they don't have to come together outside of just in the moment. Even if he wanted to, even if he wanted to make this a we interact for survival only situation, frankly the nature of their rapport and the ease with which it's unfolding makes that practically impossible too.

So here he is on the other side of a fucking door, freaking out because his tether is behind a lock more than the fact that he himself is exposed. Maybe he cares a lot, or maybe subconsciously it's because he's starting to associate Mace with defense. Safety. ]

I can get the knob off.

[ He calls back instead, frustrated and determined, already lowering himself to his knees in that slow, painful way he has to do by necessity because of the fucking searing burns up the strip of his stomach. Beneath the slit of the door, Mace may see a familiar blue.

They can take the fucking tool all they want, the dumb fuckers, he'll make more.

Maybe a fucking ten pound hammer, which might've been a good idea if he had the guaranteed ability to use one right now. ]

[hydraulics]

[ Absurdly, it occurs to Mace that all of this would be easier if Ian were different. If he were selfish, maybe, and afraid — someone like Harvey, who’d put his own safety above others, who’d take the quick way out every single time, while his teammates worked and died around him. Somebody like that would listen to Mace’s directions without question, without worrying over what happens to him.

Moreover, if that were the case, they wouldn’t have this connection between them either. Mace knows the science of it, that the trauma they’re undergoing together is forming an attachment that would normally take exponentially longer to foster, and that might’ve held true even if Ian were just a civilian focused on his own survival.

But situational bonding aside, Ian’s not Harvey. Ian is deadpan humour and easy-going flirting over cheap tequila, an engineering teacher who chooses cauterization over stitches, who decides to fight zombie doctors head-on instead of letting Mace face them alone. Batman jokes after being cut open, old movie references in a dark basement.

And that’s the biggest reason all of this is so, so hard, because Mace just flat-out likes the guy, and his attachment now is not just circumstantial, or on an intellectual scale, but on a sheer emotional level that means he’s fucking compromised. Ian’s wellbeing is suddenly important to him in a way that has Mace unwilling to risk having him hurt, trying to get this damn knob off.

Or staying out in that hallway alone, open to any threat in this murder cabin — and uncharacteristic frustration bleeds into Mace's voice as he says: ]

Not in your condition. You just went through a goddamn surgery, put down whatever the hell it is you’re making and get somewhere safe.

[ Yeah, he sees that blue, and instead of the usual intrigue, all Mace feels now is indignant concern. He doesn’t know how Ian’s magic works, if what he’s doing is gonna drain him in a way he can’t afford right now, leave him more defenseless by dulling his agility or strength.

Whatever decision they make right now has to be predicated on the assumption that the rest of the cabin is no longer safe, that there’s an invisible countdown before the rug gets pulled out from under them all over again. ]

If you get hurt doing this, or one of those fuckers gets the drop on — look. I’m gonna break my way out through the window, and break my way back in from the living room, okay? I can handle that. [ A pause, and then: ] I can’t handle the other shit.

[wittingly]

[ Dimly, distantly, somewhere from a source he can't pinpoint comes a sudden, loud cracking sound. It's like limbs from dead trees compromised during a storm, thick heavy things giving in and snapping, groaning, falling. His breath stutters, head shoots up, wide-eyed. The front door is still closed.

It could've come from outside.

It could've come from the basement.

The fact that he has no way of knowing is shaking his courage. If it's the basement, he won't have enough time to get the knob off. Fuck, if it's from outside and they bust the door down he's just as fucked. Shit, shit. ]

Okay, okay- Watch your feet-

[ Urgently, another blue glow that feels like it takes too many precious seconds. There's a 1/4th inch gap under the door, just high enough that he can push through one long razor blade like the kind you'd slip into a retractable box cutter.

It's all he can thing to do right now, all that will fit. ]

Don't come in the front- come around, come around to the master bedroom, I can break that window-

[ Quickly, around heaving breaths as he hauls himself to his feet. Hand pressing against stomach, forearm bracing against wall to push himself off. ]

Don't fucking die!

[ Snapped out, snarled really, an unchallengable order.

He's a coward. He knows it. He knows the right thing to do would be to stay, to get the knob or the hinges off. To summon up a hammer and start bashing the doorknob until they could snap it completely off and pull out the thick medal column that embeds itself into the door frame.

But god, fucking, god almighty, he remembers getting picked up and held down and cut into, and he just can't.

He staggers gracelessly down the hall. ]

[hydraulics]

[ A noise like a gunshot goes off and Mace’s attention is momentarily diverted by it — his upper half whips around, staring out the window again, thinking maybe it’s one of the tree branches in the distance.

The mask is gone.

In the few frantic seconds it takes for him to make sure his eyes aren’t tricking him, Ian’s slipping a long, thin blade under the slight crack beneath the door and Mace quickly leans down to pick it up, nodding with a new sense of urgency and fucking relief that Ian’s listening to good sense, glad to have a weapon on him again.

And then last part of that sentence hits him properly, and Mace’s head is snapping back up. No, he can’t come in through the master bedroom because — ]

Ian, I —

[ Don’t fucking die comes the order, barked out like things are the other way around and Ian's the soldier here, and he can hear the sliding thump-stop-thump of Ian rising to his feet again before moving down the hall. ]

Shit.

[ Hissed out from between his teeth as he strips the sheet off the bed and begins to wrap it around one fist. The reason he’d said he’d break back in through the front was the security of the master bedroom — they can’t have that window broken, because if Mace could use that as an entrance point, so could anyone else.

His only hope is that Ian waits for him to get there first before trying to break that window on his own, and it’s with that thought in mind that Mace revs up and throws a punch right at the top corner of the window, where the glass is weakest. It shatters apart on the second hit, and Mace keeps smashing into it until there’s a large enough breakage for him to clamber through.

The hem of his shirt snags on a jagged edge and the fabric tears on his way out, sending him to the grass face-first. When he gets to his feet, it’s in time to see that the mask isn't the only thing that's pulled a disappearing act. The headless corpses of the doctors that he'd dragged out into the woods yesterday had left a trail of blood and indent in the soil.

Neither of which is visible any more. Aw, fuck. ]

[wittingly]

[ He's thinking immediacy. He's thinking of how fucking hard it'll be to break down a thick wooden cabin door. He's thinking about the sound of Mace trying to kick it in over and over and over again, but Ian not knowing whether it's him or it's a fucking killer.

He's thinking if he shoves the dresser in front of the door he won't be able to move it again fast enough if something happens.

They can nail shit up over the window. Fuck the window.

Mace's glass breaks before he even makes it to his door. He uses his hand around the raised trim to swing himself in, shoes squeaking on hardwood. Slams it shut behind him loud enough to probably alert anything in the building where he is, but fuck it. They're gonna know anyway, aren't they? At least if they're heading in toward him they're probably not heading out toward Mace.

Push the dresser in front of the door.

What if, what if, what if. Fuck it, compromise. He presses his back against it, grits his teeth, grounds his heels and scoots until it overlaps only six inches. Enough to deter more than just the lock, not so much that he'll hate himself for it.

Blue glow.

Glass cutter. Simple, easy, and if he takes the window out in one piece they can put it back and seal it. He can do basic sealants. Glued his fucking fingers together too many fucking times to get that one down, but it paid off in the end. Never bothered to learn how to make the solvent to remove it, but nobody's perfect.

Something drifts through the house, new sounds. Something that makes him freeze midway through dragging the glass cutter down the side of the pane.

It's a steady, rhythmic beeping. A single tone, a polite mbeep that's universally recognized as a heart rate monitor.

A second later, the horrifying thought: they beep in time with heart rhythm. What- who the fuck do they have it connected to?

The thought no sooner crosses his mind before he hears it - a groggy, slurred, clearly drugged out raw tone. Desperate but sedated.

Ian... Ian, fuck- Ian-

There's no fucking way. There's no fucking way they got him so fast. Fuck. Fuck. He's split in two. Split clean down the middle. Half of him logical - how, how could they have, unless they stuck him the second he fell out the window and dragged him around directly to the fucking table.

The other half's calling that half a fucking coward. Spineless. He'd go get you and you fucking know it.

Snarled out into absolutely nothing: ]

FUCK!

[ Fine, fine, fuck, fine, he has to-

Back to the dresser, grunting through a push. ]

[hydraulics]

[ There’s no two ways about it. If the tracks are gone, if he and Ian have been moved around and pulled apart, if something grabbed that goddamn mask off the tree after leaving it to taunt Mace through the window —

Whoever the fuck it is, they’re out here right now, and the right thing to do would be to hunt them down while Ian’s still inside the relative safety of his room. He’s got the cutter as a weapon, he’s got time on his side with how quick he’d been able to smash that window —

Ian’s voice, angry and desperate, telling him not to die. Ian, waiting for him to come to the master bedroom, ready to break open the damn window and probably would do it if Mace took too long to get there. ]

Fuck.

[ No, his priority is to do what he’d said he would. Screw the logistics, the tactical advantage of it, because he’d said I’ll find my way to you, and he’d meant it. Which means no detour to the living room window to bust through, just a straight line to where he surmises the master bedroom is.

The fog presses in on him as he moves along the perimeter of the cabin, billowing up softly and menacingly through the woods. It’s thickening somehow, and a new foreboding starts to trickle into his thoughts: what if he can’t find his way? If he doesn’t get back — if this goes tits up on him, that would leave Ian permanently alone and injured, a sitting duck for whatever the hell was after them.

Just as he thinks his visibility’s about to be fucked for good, his hand lands on what is unmistakably a window sill, and Mace can’t help the relieved oath that comes out of him. ]

Jesus Chr—No!

[ It morphs into a hoarse yell, his blood running cold. Through the misted glass in front of him, he can see Ian, being held down by all four of those sons of bitches, spread eagle on the bed, and they have that fucking hospital mask on his face—

No. He doesn’t bother wrapping anything around his hand this time, feeling absolutely nothing but black terror and fury as the glass gives way under his fist. Pulls himself through the moment he can get his head in, looking up with frantic eyes to see —

Nothing. The bed’s empty, there's no doctors, where did — ]

Ian?

[wittingly]

[ He pushes despite the way his stomach is burning, but it's getting the fucking lock open that takes longer because his hand won't stop shaking. Because he's scared, because he doesn't want to, because what the fuck is he even going to do when he goes out there and sees them holding Mace down and cutting into him and he's got no fucking weapon and he can barely fucking move and there's gonna be more than one of them and no backup, no protector this time, just him and he can't not because FUCK, because he fucking let himself give a shit again--

He yanks the door open, fingers gripped tight around the screwdriver he made earlier. It's long, longer than the knife long enough to go through eye socket and into the meat of a brain and maybe that'll be enough.

He stumbles down the hallway like it's twisting, like gravity's propelling everything left, with a hand flat and one knee dipping down - not from injury, but from nerves.

To the living room.

To an gourney that's empty except for one thing, one moving thing, one thing he thinks must be a small animal attached with electrodes to the beeping monitor.

Everything... slows... down.

There are no surgeons. There is an entire hellish Georges Mathieu painting of blood on and around the gourney, splattering up the walls. No Mace.

Just a single still-beating human heart that his feet propel him toward of their own accord. As if in a daze. As if entranced by this disbelief, a need to see it up close with his own two eyes to know if it's--

Like he might know if it's...

He stands at the edge of it where the surgeon probably stood, holding a screw driver instead of a scalpel, watching it beat.

Shocked to a blank mind. Dead unaware of his surroundings.

Healthy, strong. Alive.

Dumbly, something in him thinks, does that mean he's still alive, wherever they took the rest of him?

Suffering and carved out?

Should he- should he- put it out- ]

[hydraulics]

[ Ian's not there. Just the empty bedroom in front of him, peaceful and bloodless — hell, even half of the bed is covered in dust, undisturbed as though he'd never lain down next to Ian the night before which makes no fucking sense.

None of this does.

His heartbeat slowing down from where it had ratcheted up to a racehorse's pace, Mace pulls his head back and then breaks the rest of the window with the heel of his shoe this time, crawling through one-handed because the other's cut and bleeding.

Off to the side, the bedroom door is wide open, and the dresser — ]

God, no.

[ Not terrified this time, not a shout so much as it is a growl, but still laced with dread, because this meant Ian had fucking gotten in to safety, going so far as to block the entrance ... and then had promptly thrown himself right back out.

Out of the frying pan, onto the counter top, and then into the fire? What the hell?

... Unless. He hadn't gone willingly, he'd been taken, but there's no signs of a struggle even all the way out into the empty hallway that Mace can see now. He shifts the cutter to his free, uninjured hand and resists the urge to call out into the hallway, keeping his footfalls light, his back to the wall.

Nothing stirs. Mace makes it all the way down the hall, past the second bedroom, through the kitchen, and when he rounds that last corner into the living room it's like he's in a different fucking house altogether.

There's blood everywhere. The sofas are fucking gone, and in the center of the room is — ]

Ian.

[ A faint, disbelieving murmur. It's the scene from the bedroom all over again except this time, there's no bed. Only a gurney, splattered with blood, and Ian isn't held down by anything except straps at his sternum and at his hips. His arms are cut up and so are his legs, and his is middle open and exposed and laid vulnerable to the

motherfucking

white-coat

raising a scalpel right above it. Right above the seared wound going down his chest, clearly intending to slice it right back open. ]

Son of a bitch.

[ The snarl is out before Mace can think twice, his body flooding with rage and adrenaline; he drops the fucking cutter and just lunges bodily at the doctor, twisting on the way down so that they hit the ground instead of the gurney, his hands going for a raw-skinned throat. ]

[wittingly]

[ This place is a roller coaster. The emotional whiplash happens so fast, so frequently, so intensely that he doesn't know for sure that his fucking brain chemistry can even keep up with it. From fear to shock to relief in the span of a second, shoulders dropping, posture crumpling into something that's almost devastated with how goddamn glad he is to see Mace.

Running.

At him.

Oh, fuck. ]

Hey, heyheyhey--

[ He doesn't even have time to hold the screwdriver up like he's at gunpoint. He's just there one second and slamming into the floor the next with a bitten off grunt, Mace's weight on top of him thrusting down onto his lungs to cut off what would have been a long, low groan of pain. His fucking stomach.

This.

This is why he fucking cauterized. Good fucking call, Fowler. Paid off, didn't it? Otherwise he'd be eviscerated on the floor right now, or under the threat of it.

They go rolling. Mace lands on top of him, and right away there's a crushing at his windpipe. A sudden pressure, and the extremely precarious fact that landing knocked all the wind out of him. No oxygen in his lungs to tide him over. His eyes go wide, bugged out, searching Mace's face.

His mind works quickly. It always has. He knows a few things within a split second:
There is no recognition here.
Ian is not Ian to him right now.
He can't speak so there's no use trying to gasp out a thing, no wasting precious seconds on it.
He isn't strong enough to pry Mace's hands off of his throat, despite the fact that his left hand does curl around one taut wrist on instinct.
Based on his heart rate, he's going to burn through his 02 in twenty seconds optimistically, his vision will go black, and he will pass out. At the one minute mark brain cells will become damaged, but survival is still likely. At three minutes he will have brain damage. After that, close enough to dead that the semantics don't matter.

His options:
Hands up overhead; looks like corpse pose, fainting doctor going limp, hands may not release, choke until certain.
Frantic tapping - universal tap out move. Why in the everloving fuck would he respond to it? Ian wouldn't.
Morse code - requires a kind of congnition that isn't surface level, may require multiple rounds for pattern recognition.
Significant gesture, he may have one.
Soft, confusing contradictory touch.

Fuck it, when in doubt compromise.

His hands peel away from Mace's wrists. His right one yanks his shirt up as high as it will go, wounds on display - or maybe not if he can't see them, but maybe he can see the display. The significance of it. Pat pat, man, come on, you're the one who cauterized this, you got up close and personal--

And then the only fucking thing he can think to do, so stupid but it's all he's got- deliberate, slow passage of fingers up and down Mace's forearm. Soothing, nonthreatening, gentle. Feather-light, save on the upstroke when he drags the pad of thumb up with it so it isn't just fucking creepy.

It is so, so goddamn difficult to focus on it and keep steady, especially when eight-bit clouds start to creep into his peripheral vision. The precursor to blacking out, an ominous warning that he's running out. ]

[hydraulics]

[ His fingers close around the throat beneath them, and Mace knows objectively that he’s got seconds to get this shit done. Strangulation alone didn’t kill these fuckers, so it was going to take a lot more than a blood-choke to render this threat obsolete. Any moment now, he could expect a scalpel or a syringe to stab him in his now-bared stomach, the tatters of his shirt barely hanging off him.

But subjectively, the only thing registering in his head right now is an unadulterated anger that’s overriding his usual pragmatism. It’s not red-hot. It’s not panicked, rushed, distorted. It’s the sort of concentrated, cold fury he’s felt only a handful of times in his life, preceded by drawn weapons, ending with blood on his hands and a clear conscience.

Where did James Mace learn to knife-fight? They don’t teach that at ROTC.

Probably helps that his hands are already bloody right now, or at least one of them is — rivulets running down his busted knuckles, sliding over the wrist that the doctor is gripping, for once showing something other than that fucked up tranquility that was their trademark.

Good. It’s scared. It’s struggling. It’s —

… raising its coat up and patting the skinned flesh of its — ]

The fuck are you doing.

[ A vicious hiss, his eyes narrowing in furious confusion, still locked on its stitched sockets. Thinks at first that it’s some mocking attempt at distraction, because even though he can’t see precisely where it’s patting itself, it’s obvious that it's the same spot they’d cut Ian open.

But the confusion only grows, steep and fast, when the thing’s other hand comes up

and

strokes along the skin of his inner forearm, soft and slow and so utterly strange that even through the rage, it gives Mace pause. It's not the touch of a monster. There's nothing about it that adds up in any way, not even mockery. Too light to be a distraction. Too deliberate to be an accident. He blinks hard, his vision swimming for a brief second before clearing.

The stitches disappear. Melt into long lashes, dipping lower and lower as the eyes of the man underneath him go out-of-focus. And realization is a slow, heavy wash of acid as Mace sees exactly who it is that he’s been attacking, who he's been trying to kill.

Ian.

He’s fucking hurting—

A horrible sound rips out of Mace and he wrenches his hands back like they’ve just been scalded with liquid nitrogen. They might as well have been for all the use he gets out of them in the next few seconds, his gaze widening and aghast as he stares at the long-limbed, prone body of the person he's been trying to protect this whole time. The person he did this to instead. And then he's scrambling forward, uncoordinated and urgent. ]

Ian — no, no, no, Jesus fucking —

[ One hand cups the side of his face, the other raising his hitched shirt higher as Mace, agitated, tries to see what further damaged he's caused. ]

[wittingly]

[ Light disappears down to only a narrow pinprick, blurry sensory input from pupils but without the brain computing power required to translate images from what they take in. He can feel his pulse in his neck, in his head, in his chest - too hard, thumping pressure, uncomfortable. He's floating somewhere, though, in a way. Sort of just floating above it, and in a kind, whimsical way he thinks: this is better than getting slit open. Apparently that's where he is in terms of reality now, weighing and assessing potential deaths and being a little appreciative that this one may be painless. Also, selfishly, a little glad that it's by Mace's hand rather than those bastards.

And then the pressure's off and his body sucks down air on instinct, overfilling his lungs, head tipping back, chest rising off the ground an inch or so in his fervor to make even more room for it. From the pressure, from the swelling, from the dryness, that sharp inhale scrapes through his throat. Sends him into a coughing fit, which grapples for dominance with his lungs demanding priority.

Thank fucking god.

The world floods back into his vision, and while he catches a glimpse of Mace's face the coughing has him sort of peeling off to the side, eyes forced closed in the peak of a cough and fluttering back open right after. ]

Not--

[ A sucking, straining sound. ]

How I like to be--

[ Throat closes up because he's trying to stop the coughing. Thickly: ]

Choked.

[ The coughing dies off, he slumps to the flat of his back again to pant out: ]

Safe word.

[ Slowly, slowly, his chest steadies out. Calms down. There's no blood spatter on the ceiling anymore, he notices. Fuck. ]

[hydraulics]

[ Performing the cauterization had been one thing. Nerve-wracking, yes, and the sight and smell and experience of it had left its mark somewhere in Mace, despite the steadiness of his hands and the relative calm of his demeanour throughout.

But it had been a necessary evil — a pain he’d had to inflict, moreover something which Ian had chosen for himself. A choice that he might have felt regret about (because who the fuck wouldn’t regret taking a burning knife-tip to their fresh wound), but a choice all the same. And a smart one, given current events, because there was no way dental-floss stitches would have held properly with the thrusting force of Mace’s full weight on them.

This, though.

This wasn’t a necessity. This wasn’t a choice. This was Mace almost murdering the guy he’d been reassuring and doing his god-damnedest to keep safe this entire time, and the realization of that rankles hard and bitter in his chest. And fuck, but he knows the rationality of it, knows it hadn’t really been Ian his mind had seen there. But that didn’t change the fact that it’d been Mace’s hands around his throat, and the strength in Mace’s hands trying to pull the life out of him.

A lot harder to compartmentalize this.

Feels like a horrible forever before Ian takes his first sputtering gasp of air and in that time he’s able to ascertain that the wound hadn’t sustained any further damage, thank god. That same sense of bleak but powerful gratitude hits him to see Ian's breathing go from a wracking cough to actual breathing, Mace’s eyes dark and anxious as he watches Ian come back to consciousness.

Safe word. ]

Shut up.

[ Hoarse, quiet. There’s no weight behind it, quite literally none. In fact, it sounds a lot more like I’m sorry, guilt twisting both it and Mace’s gut as he slides a hand under Ian’s upper back and gently steers him until his head is positioned in Mace's lap, trying to elevate it. Better than a seated position, which would put more undue pressure on Ian’s chest, his lungs. ]

Christ, I’m so fucking —

[ This isn’t like the cauterization, because an apology here can only mean so much — and in Mace’s head, it doesn’t amount to anything. I’m sorry I tried to kill you, yeah okay. He pinches the bridge of his nose hard, his eyes squeezing shut, before saying in an uncharacteristically empty tone: ]

I swear to God, I thought you were one of those doctors. I thought you were on that — it isn’t here anymore, it's the damn coffee table again, but he had you on this gurney. You were unconscious, and I saw him about to fuckin’ cut into you again, and I lost it.

[ His eyes open again and he looks into Ian’s, honest and intense. ] It wasn't you.

[wittingly]

[ Now that he's not actively dying, his body's quite happy to remind him of just how fucked up he is, really and properly. His stomach's not a precarious ziplock baggie without the zipper thing so you have to trust that you pinched it closed right, this much is true. It is, however, a navel to chest burn wound. It's scabbing in places, flaming bright red in others, gnarly and tender. That doesn't really speak of the bruising blossoming out from around it, the aches in torn muscle. All of that freshly tackled into the goddamn ground and then weight pressed upon it.

And then there's his throat, so thick it sort of still feels like there's something wrapped around it.

He'd protest about the gentle lap treatment, except the second his head's up a few inches fresh air flows in from a relieved, slightly more open pathway.

Okay. Yeah. Maybe he'll just hang out for a minute until his body stops hating him.

For a few seconds there he lays boneless, arms tentatively folding over his chest - hovering, really, almost. Barely any pressure. Eyes closed. Breathing.

When the apologies start his eyes crack open again. One burst blood vessel in the far corner of one, only noticeable if he looks too far to the left. ]

It's not-

[ Hoarsely, and he has to stop to swallow. To gently clear his throat. ]

It's not your fault. I fhh-

[ A little squeaky in the windpipe there, sorry. ]

Fuckin' came out 'cause they 're playing your voice. Somehow. Sounded like you.

[ Which is to say, yeah, he's having the hallucinations, too. He gets it. ]

Thought I saw-- your heart on the-

[ Fuckin. Table. You get it. But the fucked up thing is... ]

Was still beating. This is gonna be-- a problem.

[ The last part with resignation, and his eyes closing again for a minute. Throat feels too fucked up to keep on at it for a minute, he's gonna need some water or something to start working this off. Maybe some heat/ice alternating combo on his throat. Or just fucking deal with it sounding like that squeaky penguin from the Toy Story movies.

In any case, it's going to be a problem and he's trusting Mace to unpack that statement, because he always picks up what Ian's putting down without needing any steering. ]

[hydraulics]

[ God, the reassurances somehow only make it all worse. He can see the burst capillaries in the far corner of Ian’s eye, visible proof of the damage Mace had done, and when he closes them again Mace does the same, swallowing soundlessly. Tilts his head back until it hits the leg of the coffee table behind them, just breathing as he listens.

So Ian had left safety after all — and done it because they’d, of fucking course, found some way to exploit the sapling of a connection they’d somehow managed to forge. Lured Ian out, and Mace can imagine what that must’ve been like, the choice he must’ve had in front of him. It causes a strange pang in his chest, removed from all the other negative emotions swirling there — to know that Ian would do that because of him. For him.

Sparks a hatred in Mace, too, cutting through the fog of guilt and worry. For Chrissakes they’ve only known each other for a day, and yet this place had already figured out how to use that against them. Fed them some kind of hallucinogen — figuratively, in the very air they were breathing, or literally in the food that they had no choice but to rely on to consume.

(There's a third option, too, but. He’s not going to consider that until it’s been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s possible, because that would mean this goddamn cabin was able to influence the very reality around them.) ]

Don’t talk. You sound like a chew toy.

[ A murmured order, a bit redundant maybe because it seems as though Ian’s fallen silent on his own. He's right; this is gonna be a problem, it’s already become one, and they’ll need a way to render this weakness unsusceptible before it’s too late. First things first, though, Ian’ll need some water and some goddamn food. Even if he doesn’t want it, he's gonna have to at least try to eat because otherwise how in the hell’s he supposed to heal? The wound running down his chest, the mass of bruising around it, and now the injury to his throat — ]

We’ll have to figure out a way to stymie any lure like that in future. But first let me get you some ice.

[ Slowly, as he pulls off the tatters of his torn shirt over his head, wrapping it around the hand that’s bleeding. Then it’s a matter of maneuvering Ian up and onto the couch that’s somehow right back where it had been all along, a cushion underneath his head. Once Ian’s as comfortable as he can get, Mace heads to the kitchen.

Turns the sink on full-blast, and by now the stinging of soap and water to his hands is just a matter of course, on his palms from the lacerations from the day before and his knuckles where he’d punched the bedroom window like an idiot. Great, they’ll have to block that somehow too.

He comes back a minute later with a glass of water and a pack of frozen peas from the freezer for Ian’s throat, setting them on the coffee table and sitting down next to them. It’s partially just in case Ian needs help sitting up to drink, and also because Mace had been mulling over what he’d said earlier, and. ]

So … safe words. You might’ve been onto something with that.

[wittingly]

[ There may be an irony between his words and the sound of them when he wheezes out: ]

I'm not an invalid.

[ While being maneuvered to the couch. He does, in fact, sit up on his own - curl halfheartedly really - to take the glass and ease some water down. Small, experimental sips at first. Testing how much his throat can handle.

It's not that bad. It'll ease off in a day or two, he thinks - though there'll be a hand spread of bruising around his neck. He doesn't hate that so much, frankly.

The glass goes down, the peas come up, and he props his back against the arm of the couch so he's reclining rather than laying. Gently drapes the peas across his neck. ]

Not out loud.

[ They're obviously recording, or listening, or... something. ]

We can write it. Come up with a hand sign for it too, because I don't think you- heard me.

[ The smallest little hitch at the end, but the water's helped. His voice sounds an octave deeper, and he's always had a subtle rasp when he spoke. It's just more pronounced now. Sounds like he just got throat-fucked. ]

Something we can-- feel.

[ When pressed against skin, because just flashing it doesn't help if you aren't seeing hands at the time. ]

[hydraulics]

[ Every word out of Ian’s mouth is a reminder of what had just gone down, and Mace finds that it’s harder to put something like this out of his mind. And if it’s a problem right now, it’s only gonna get worse tomorrow when the reddened imprints of his fingers start to smudge into something blue-black and unmistakeable. It’ll be days before they fade, and even longer before Mace’ll be able to stop thinking about it.

Not how I like to be choked.

But Ian’s saying something else right now, and Mace tears his thoughts away from the way his voice is hitching, the throaty rasp of it, rubbing his knuckles into the palm of his other hand to distract himself. Something they can feel. Right. ]

Make a knife, and if I so much as look at you funny ...

[ Self-deprecating humour isn’t one of his strengths, better suited as he is for irreverence and the odd, terrible pun; it comes out choppy and far too serious, trails off into nothing before he changes gears. ]

Anyway, we can have something like a s—

[ Secret handshake is what he’d been about to say, but if they’re being listened in on, which is pretty much a certainty at this point …

Mace's eyes, which had hitherto been mostly fixed on a nebulous point around Ian’s shoulders as he’d maneuvered himself from a supine position to a reclining one, finally meet his. Only a trace of darkness there now, because nothing helps him focus like a plan being drafted into action.

He mouths the words slowly, and then follows it up with a meaningful nod, as if to ask: get it? And immediately after: ]

Could be a reference to something only you or I would know about.

[ With a vague gesture of one of his hands scrawling something into the palm of the other, a silent request for Ian to make them some writing tools. ]

[wittingly]

[ It's clear from the absolute flatness of Ian's stare he won't be making any goddamn knives no matter how funny Mace looks at him. Not for him. Doesn't matter if he's getting choked in an unsexy fashion or not.

He sits up properly. It sucks, it still very much sucks, but it's more his stomach than his windpipe. There's a soft exhale through his nose, lets stretching out long to the right and his body tilting a little to the left so he's not curling up his abs.

It's good enough. One elbow settles on the arm of the couch to help prop. Drops the peas off to the side, because you can only do so much at one time.

Right hand out, palm down over the table. Snaking blue glow back-lights it. When he moves his hand out of the way, there's a standard Bic pen, black. He rolls his fingers, flexes the ligaments, then goes again - blue, slower than it would've taken him yesterday. White knitting together, weaving, filling.

Paper. ]

So we can burn it after.

[ He rasps by way of explanation. No sharpie on surfaces, no chalk on the table because it's not small enough to curl over and hide from cameras with their bodies, with tiny letters, with hands. They can pass it back and forth.

Picks up the pen. Writes in almost perfectly evenly sized letters. Academia habit. ]

ᴀ ʜᴀɴᴅsʜᴀᴋᴇ ᴡᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ɪғ ᴏɴᴇ ᴏғ ᴜs ʜᴀs ʙᴏᴛʜ ʜᴀɴᴅs ᴏᴄᴄᴜᴘɪᴇᴅ
ɪᴛ ʜᴀs ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ sᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ sɪɢɴ ᴀɢᴀɪɴsᴛ sᴋɪɴ

[ Case and point, both hands wrapped around his throat, stroking a forearm for dear life. ]