[ ganymede has been skittish, trying to avoid these ever since they first found out they were happening and io reported it to the crew at large. because he knows what it's like, to have your mind invaded - and he doesn't want to do that to someone else. (doesn't want to subject anyone to his own memories.)
but when he runs into keith, he almost doesn't think about it until it's too late. and he can't - he can't look away. because he'd known about a decent amount of this, in an intangible, distant way, but nothing so crystal clear as seeing this. here, now. seeing his own face turn to try and tear keith apart, verbally, mentally, physically - it's a lot.
it's a lot, to know how deep this went.
the other clones of himself... is he even him? is he even the original version? or is he one of these hundreds of clones? is he the one that keith remembers, towards the end, before black shows up as piloted by his very essence?
why him.
the look on his face is crushed, pained - he sucks in a rough breath, watching as the plasma blade produced by his galra arm radiates so much heat that it instantly scars keith's face. why. why why why why - ]
[ of all the things that could have played out, why this one. why couldn't it have been a memory from better days, from before shiro was lost... something happy and fun to look back on. but then again, why would anything in this place be kind to them.
keith watches, wincing at how he's pushed to his limits. he can still feel the heat of the plasma blade against his face. and the look on ganymede's face just makes the heat worse, a phantom pain coming with it.
his galra traits kicking in, manifesting his bayard and using that to sever the mechanical arm. his will to live saving him from dying at the hands of someone he truly and deeply loves.
then they're falling. down... down... down....
it could have been the end. keith could have given up and just accepted that they would die there. his life flashing before his eyes, how shiro had been the first to take a chance on him.
as the memory comes to a close, the void fading to black and being replaced with an all too familiar purple sky... he turns to ganymede, to...]
Shiro...
[ he reaches out, but stops himself short of the man's shoulder. he doesn't know if any kind of comfort would be effective in this moment. ]
[ the familiar purple sky, the space he'd spent so much time in - the effect that manifested, last week, when the CEM waves hit the ship this time. at least that's a strange comfort, the emptiness that black cradled him in once zarkon was no longer able to reach him or her there.
it's just them. keith is safe, at least from - from the monster that wore his loved one's face. but keith looks to him,
and ganymede
flinches, hearing that name, as if he's been shocked by something tangible.
his hand shoots up to his head, holding it. his eyes squeeze tightly shut, and there's a faint grinding noise, metal on metal, bone on bone, as his jaw tenses for a beat, two. but he's immediate in reaching out to hold onto keith's arm, keeping him there, squeezing tightly with the same hand that had hurt him. (the same but different?) (clone angst.) ]
I'm fine. It's fine. [ he squeezes, trying to be reassuring before keith even has a chance to try and react to it. ] We're fine. I -
[ the name slips out, keith not even thinking about it at first, until ganymede is flinching in pain and that grinding noise...
he holds tight, bringing his other arm out to help steady him. his face crinkled as he frowns, hating that there's nothing he can do to help the pain that gan is in. if he had just not called out his name...
keith shakes his head, concern on his face and in his voice. ]
You don't have to apologize. It wasn't you that did this... [ it's something he's already gotten passed and forgave him for, even if it was never truly him that did it in the first place.
seeing the memory again stings...he won't lie about that. but he has to reassure the shiro that's right here. right now. that it's alright. ]
Someone owes you an apology. [ someone owes both of them an apology, frankly, and ganymede knows that no one will ever give it to them. there'll never be a day that haggar gives him an apology for what she put him through - and he doesn't even know about the self sacrifice ending, that their both being here likely skews and erases in at least one universe. ]
And you still... you went through that. [ ganymede's posture shifts a little, leaning into keith's support. always. the number of times they've saved each other has always been stark, but he marvels at the fact that he forgot for even a short time that this person in front of him has saved him so many times, over and over and over. that he risked it all to stop, to save, this version of him that had gone out of control.
keith brought him home, despite the risks. despite the odds.
he deserves a response, gratitude, everything that he's able to give him like this. ] Thank you.
[ as great as an apology would be, he doesn’t need it to keep going, there’s too much to do. too much to worry about. time never stops…
except here it feels like it almost has. or rather it feels like its gone backwards. for them, to find each other here, both coming from different points in their lives. how this will affect things for the both of them, he doesn’t know, but thats a discussion for another time.]
I— [ his face softens, hold on ganymede sturdy, reassuring. ] Anytime. No matter what time or in what universe.
[ you saved me… we saved each other.
words that replay in his head, words from ganymede’s not so distant future, had he not ended up here. ]
[ it makes ganymede smile, to hear him say that. to know the history there - to remember it again. even if this keith has been through things that he's not gotten to know, yet, even if he comes from a future that he's not sure he'll be able to go to...
he knows keith. he knows him, and the person that he is. he hates that he's here, but, god, he's grateful at the same time. there's no one he trusts like keith.
unfortunately, it's memshare week still in this thread. and the void isn't done with them yet - ]
You're getting tired of running, but it's all that you can do at this point. The colony ship Nostos is dead in the water, the gravitational pull of the spatial storm dragging it deeper and deeper into the eye of the storm itself - and the turbulence shakes everything, making you unsteady on your feet as you tear through the dimly lit halls. Every time you move past a dark stain, you have to wonder.
Is it blood? Is it rust? Is it stains oil scorches burns acid eating away at the metal remnants of flesh of a person of the monsters of you is it you is it really you running down this skeleton ship
The paranoia, at least, is familiar. Strange how it's so damned grounding, how you think of the druids and of the terrible illusion of yourself again and again and again, and you go huh, nothing new there.
You take a turn so fast that you have to scrabble on all fours, breath coming hard and stinging as your broken ribs remind you that they're very real, metal hand sending up sparks in the process, but the sound of it doesn't drown out the horrifying scream behind you. It's like metal dragging across metal, sharp and shrieking, and echoes down the hall that you leave behind.
"-ymede!" a voice yells on your earpiece, high, reedy. "Ganymede, come in! We're starting takeoff procedures and undocking, haul your ass!"
Once you're able to run on, steadier now, you reach up to press down on the earpiece. "Inbound! Hostiles on tail, so if you need to leave, leave, ████!"
"We can't leave without you, you dumbass!" the voice responds, crackling even in the memory, fragmenting along with their name. "All or nothing!"
The screaming gets closer, and you chance a look back. A writhing mass coalesces down the hall, many limbs hands legs gaping maws there with too many teeth as the monsters merge together in their attempt to catch up to you. You guess that setting their nest on fire as a distraction didn't go over very well with them.
"These things can't get off the ship, damnit, you know that! Just get ready to take off!"
It's getting closer. The smell of rot and decay smacks you full in the face, but you don't look back again.
Maybe you should have.
Something snares your ankle, and it's all you can do to twist your body, land the brunt of your weight into the Galra arm so that you don't break anything else. Your lungs, your ribs, your back all scream as you yell, trying to scramble and kick away. But the monsters bear down on you, the floor around you sizzling with the acid in their dripping saliva.
The Galra hand comes up again, fast, grabbing hold of a gaping maw that tries to bite your face off. You swear, hating that the damn thing won't activate like you're used to - reduced to a fucking flashlight - as your other hand searches for the plasmagun that the Chief passed to you. 'Just in case,' he'd said.
Yeah, well. Turned out he probably should've given you more than just a plasmagun.
"████, prepare takeoff! Prepare takeoff now!" you yell - the voice glitching in your mouth, in your ears, in the present - and you fire off as many shots as you can, kicking, pushing off the mass of convulsing bodies as they all scream in a cacophonic chorus.
And then they vomit their blood and bile down on you, clawing at you, trying to make you part of the mound. Part of them. They want to replace you. They want to take your place. They're hungry, and they want more.
You scream, too, as the acid in their bodily fluids starts to eat away at your flesh. But you try to clamp your mouth shut as you taste the bile, feel the burn of it, and you fire off another shot. This one hits on the limb holding you in place, and you jerk yourself away with a dizzying pain that you just have to push through as you hear yelling in your earpiece again.
But with the pain. With the searing, unending pain, you can't make anything out. You just run.
[ all smiles and then... darkness. black void, that's immediately filled with a memory so intense. so core shaking. keith tightens his hold on ganymede. holds on like his life depends on it.
again.
as the acid hits, his eyes shut, hissing in the pain he does not actually feel. yet there is an almost phantom pain that lingers, even after the memory ends and fades away.
when his eyes open again, he's staring right at ganymede, with one hand lifted up and touching at the wetware. shaking, slightly, the adrenaline from the memory still lingering. he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. his eyes are just wide. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hate
but when he runs into keith, he almost doesn't think about it until it's too late. and he can't - he can't look away. because he'd known about a decent amount of this, in an intangible, distant way, but nothing so crystal clear as seeing this. here, now. seeing his own face turn to try and tear keith apart, verbally, mentally, physically - it's a lot.
it's a lot, to know how deep this went.
the other clones of himself... is he even him? is he even the original version? or is he one of these hundreds of clones? is he the one that keith remembers, towards the end, before black shows up as piloted by his very essence?
why him.
the look on his face is crushed, pained - he sucks in a rough breath, watching as the plasma blade produced by his galra arm radiates so much heat that it instantly scars keith's face. why. why why why why - ]
love you too
keith watches, wincing at how he's pushed to his limits. he can still feel the heat of the plasma blade against his face. and the look on ganymede's face just makes the heat worse, a phantom pain coming with it.
his galra traits kicking in, manifesting his bayard and using that to sever the mechanical arm. his will to live saving him from dying at the hands of someone he truly and deeply loves.
then they're falling. down... down... down....
it could have been the end. keith could have given up and just accepted that they would die there. his life flashing before his eyes, how shiro had been the first to take a chance on him.
as the memory comes to a close, the void fading to black and being replaced with an all too familiar purple sky... he turns to ganymede, to...]
Shiro...
[ he reaches out, but stops himself short of the man's shoulder. he doesn't know if any kind of comfort would be effective in this moment. ]
do you still love me for this
it's just them. keith is safe, at least from - from the monster that wore his loved one's face. but keith looks to him,
and ganymede
flinches, hearing that name, as if he's been shocked by something tangible.
his hand shoots up to his head, holding it. his eyes squeeze tightly shut, and there's a faint grinding noise, metal on metal, bone on bone, as his jaw tenses for a beat, two. but he's immediate in reaching out to hold onto keith's arm, keeping him there, squeezing tightly with the same hand that had hurt him. (the same but different?) (clone angst.) ]
I'm fine. It's fine. [ he squeezes, trying to be reassuring before keith even has a chance to try and react to it. ] We're fine. I -
God, I'm sorry, Keith -
i guess... tch
he holds tight, bringing his other arm out to help steady him. his face crinkled as he frowns, hating that there's nothing he can do to help the pain that gan is in. if he had just not called out his name...
keith shakes his head, concern on his face and in his voice. ]
You don't have to apologize. It wasn't you that did this... [ it's something he's already gotten passed and forgave him for, even if it was never truly him that did it in the first place.
seeing the memory again stings...he won't lie about that. but he has to reassure the shiro that's right here. right now. that it's alright. ]
no subject
And you still... you went through that. [ ganymede's posture shifts a little, leaning into keith's support. always. the number of times they've saved each other has always been stark, but he marvels at the fact that he forgot for even a short time that this person in front of him has saved him so many times, over and over and over. that he risked it all to stop, to save, this version of him that had gone out of control.
keith brought him home, despite the risks. despite the odds.
he deserves a response, gratitude, everything that he's able to give him like this. ] Thank you.
no subject
except here it feels like it almost has. or rather it feels like its gone backwards. for them, to find each other here, both coming from different points in their lives. how this will affect things for the both of them, he doesn’t know, but thats a discussion for another time.]
I— [ his face softens, hold on ganymede sturdy, reassuring. ] Anytime. No matter what time or in what universe.
[ you saved me…
we saved each other.
words that replay in his head, words from ganymede’s not so distant future, had he not ended up here. ]
no subject
he knows keith. he knows him, and the person that he is. he hates that he's here, but, god, he's grateful at the same time. there's no one he trusts like keith.
unfortunately, it's memshare week still in this thread. and the void isn't done with them yet - ]
Is it blood? Is it rust? Is it stains oil scorches burns acid eating away at the metal remnants of flesh of a person of the monsters of you is it you is it really you running down this skeleton ship
The paranoia, at least, is familiar. Strange how it's so damned grounding, how you think of the druids and of the terrible illusion of yourself again and again and again, and you go huh, nothing new there.
You take a turn so fast that you have to scrabble on all fours, breath coming hard and stinging as your broken ribs remind you that they're very real, metal hand sending up sparks in the process, but the sound of it doesn't drown out the horrifying scream behind you. It's like metal dragging across metal, sharp and shrieking, and echoes down the hall that you leave behind.
"-ymede!" a voice yells on your earpiece, high, reedy. "Ganymede, come in! We're starting takeoff procedures and undocking, haul your ass!"
Once you're able to run on, steadier now, you reach up to press down on the earpiece. "Inbound! Hostiles on tail, so if you need to leave, leave, ████!"
"We can't leave without you, you dumbass!" the voice responds, crackling even in the memory, fragmenting along with their name. "All or nothing!"
The screaming gets closer, and you chance a look back. A writhing mass coalesces down the hall, many limbs hands legs gaping maws there with too many teeth as the monsters merge together in their attempt to catch up to you. You guess that setting their nest on fire as a distraction didn't go over very well with them.
"These things can't get off the ship, damnit, you know that! Just get ready to take off!"
It's getting closer. The smell of rot and decay smacks you full in the face, but you don't look back again.
Maybe you should have.
Something snares your ankle, and it's all you can do to twist your body, land the brunt of your weight into the Galra arm so that you don't break anything else. Your lungs, your ribs, your back all scream as you yell, trying to scramble and kick away. But the monsters bear down on you, the floor around you sizzling with the acid in their dripping saliva.
The Galra hand comes up again, fast, grabbing hold of a gaping maw that tries to bite your face off. You swear, hating that the damn thing won't activate like you're used to - reduced to a fucking flashlight - as your other hand searches for the plasmagun that the Chief passed to you. 'Just in case,' he'd said.
Yeah, well. Turned out he probably should've given you more than just a plasmagun.
"████, prepare takeoff! Prepare takeoff now!" you yell - the voice glitching in your mouth, in your ears, in the present - and you fire off as many shots as you can, kicking, pushing off the mass of convulsing bodies as they all scream in a cacophonic chorus.
And then they vomit their blood and bile down on you, clawing at you, trying to make you part of the mound. Part of them. They want to replace you. They want to take your place. They're hungry, and they want more.
You scream, too, as the acid in their bodily fluids starts to eat away at your flesh. But you try to clamp your mouth shut as you taste the bile, feel the burn of it, and you fire off another shot. This one hits on the limb holding you in place, and you jerk yourself away with a dizzying pain that you just have to push through as you hear yelling in your earpiece again.
But with the pain. With the searing, unending pain, you can't make anything out. You just run.
If you're going through hell, keep going.
no subject
again.
as the acid hits, his eyes shut, hissing in the pain he does not actually feel. yet there is an almost phantom pain that lingers, even after the memory ends and fades away.
when his eyes open again, he's staring right at ganymede, with one hand lifted up and touching at the wetware. shaking, slightly, the adrenaline from the memory still lingering. he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. his eyes are just wide. ]