'Emotions are like a deadman's switch. They react to motionlessness and sleep, sounding an alarm and an explosion.'
The plan is very easy and simple. It's designed to swap one useless life in a rush of a last attempt of fighting and finding that golden shot. A distraction. A catering moment of ruination and destruction. Too close to Maven's doorstep to not hopefully goad him out and draw him in. It is a personal thing, that much at least everyone can agree on. A personal thing enveloped in more provocations and more prodding, hateful words left over papers delivered right to his doorstep.
Not quite a trap. Almost.
Not important enough for an army, or at least I hope so - this is amazingly stupid - Thomas you can't fight an army.
It is more of a final torch in the blackness of a dark water, a suicidal act.
What is better than the fact that he doesn't have anything to lose, really.
A crumb of trails leads here, right in this space, the abandoned moment of someones former life, some rotten shed of a roof and house lowering itself closer at the edges of Archeon. Second time entering was easier and harder. Easier for the part where he just had to show his face and everyone could see the flame molten mask moving in a hazy rain covered day, cold freezing the edges of the sky and the water from above. Harder for the sweeping secretive part.
He pulls the red scarf that Gisa gave him around his throat, tugging his chin into it, just for a moment, pretending the cold bothers him. The scarf is the only spot of color on him. The rest of the clothes are dark, the raincoat only muddy and brown. His skin is so broken beneath the hollow paleness it may just never have seen sun at all, just some illusion.
One hand clasps a gun, and another something else, small, metallic.
Then he waits. For an ambush, for anything.
He can feel the aching and creaking around the room when the house gets surrounded.
His hand left in scars holds on to the switch. It presses down, thumb first like it wishes to push in someone's eyeball.
He takes a deep, deep breath. Something points at him through a window, and with a quick glance, he feels the way that he is watched trickle down his back.
"A deadman's switch," a voice unrelated to anything says, the mumbling outside a wall. He can hear them, as if his senses get better and better with every passing day that his head is almost clear in this strange new formation. "If he let's go, something will blow up."
"-no negotiation with terrorists-"
"-wait- the order is clear-"
He half waits for some metal bender to try and snatch the sensory piece out of his hand and smiles a little at the suprise they would find as they try.
No one attempts. He just stays where they are, and they still have the house surrounded.
He uses the moment to relax, continuing to press down the button harshly. His eyes close, and for a second he can almost remember the longing second of fortious drowning. He remembers the flooding images of childhood days and the less fortunate ways of death, and just for a moment, a blink, a sliver, he can bring himself to peace.
His body flexes and coils, and everything about it is as taut as the trigger on his gun is ready.
When he opens his eyes, something around the half open door moves and dust rains down the ceiling, just as a cobweb dances above the trail of wind and it sways.
He stands very, very still, and everything inside his ribcage pulls together as he stares at Maven. It tugs at him with the immediate force of a nightmare and the Pulls in the wake. It is one thing seeing a certain face on a screen or a picture, even seeing it through the vision of a scope but it is a whole other liberty of seeing it exhale air and change color so close.
Maven is ashen pale in blank and red, coal and ashes and flames, and for a second, when he speaks, some trace of a much younger version of him breaks the surface of the image.
"Hello, Tommy. You won't run away again, will you?"
"One more step and you will find out." The voice of the Ghost warns. Or maybe it begs. It is hoarse and whispering, like some breathing going sour and losing meaning. It still means anything good and bad that he can keep holding up. He holds up the switch, and he is sure there are more eyes watching. "I wasn't sure you would show up."
Even more color gets sucked out of Maven's face staring at the switch, then at the scarred hand holding it. "That's a lie."
"No. You have what you want. I am just a nuisance."
The flicker of whatever was before is gone by now- at least to a recognizable degree, everything about the slender figure is upright and almost desperately poised. "You are far more than that."
He takes a step forward. Thomas wavers one back.
"One more step, I said-"
Just as he is about to remove himself in a second one, leg strained, muscles ready to jump or run, just for a short, short second, heat explodes behind him, with the flicker of a wrist.
"You aren't giving any orders here, Thomas. Or what did they call you after you started your killing spree?"
Many unwelcome sensations come with being face to face, breathing the same air, in the same space. It is a faltering, painful activity to breathe at all in the smoke, it stings, sears, rips through his lungs. As the plummages of smoke and the force that has incinerated the ground continue to shine, the warmth tickles his skin. A mocking moment the flames lick on his sleeve before they retreat. A pale memory of death resurfaces, the same numbness that holds the rest of the strips of self clustered in his chest, the long claws that bend his own being into a form. It smells the same as always, burning embers and soft brimming edge of something deadly, and over that the world reeks.
The fire is dead again just like a part of himself incinerated.
"I was a ghost, because you killed me, Mave. So thank yourself for creating me."
The blue eyes don't let go of him. They are locked onto him with cautiosness. Almost fear. "And now you're here to kill me."
"I am going to kill you. I will let go and kill both of us."
"The explosions aren't set up in this house, Tommy, don't take me for a fool. I checked that. The longer we talk. The sooner they are disabled."
"Do you want to take the risk? Do you? Do you want me to blow us to tiny pieces? No one can save you from that. And who knows..."Thomas pulls one corner of his burned mouth into a smile. "I may survive. I suvived jumps from bridges, being shot, being stabbed, I survived a fall from a plane crashed by magnetrons. New blood, it comes in handy."
The smile irritates something in Maven, he can see it stir up his chest in a clattering twitch and something in the Ghost is very satisfied.
"We don't need to do it like this," Maven offers. "I don't want you to get hurt anymore. You can just cooperate with me. Whatever did they give you that would make you loyal?"
"They didn't leave me to die, for once." The words cut deep. "They didn't send their regards in trying to silence me. They didn't burn me. And I never loved them, so no lies on that front."
"I never lied about anything. I was just a boy." There is the memory of two creatures that resembled life once. Now, not so much.
"Are you still just a boy? Are you still just a boy or are you a king, commanding the forces of a country?"
For a long drawn moment only the sounds of the city surround them, the clattering, the moving, the screeching and the sound of a faint clash of water. Thomas stares at his hands.
"No answer to that is an answer itself."
Whatever inner form of conflict has kept Thomas alive surrounded and not yet confronted in the inevitable end takes hold now in the way of a realisation. Something around Maven's eyeborws knits, and his long fingers curl together.
"You waste my time. This wasn't-"
Thomas laughs dry. "That's right. I waste your time. I sure hope I have wasted enough of it."
Three steps, and Maven's body flies through the room.
His fingers grip the calloused and burned hand, nails almost digging into it when they fight for the switch a moment. They breathe, two chests heaving, one slow with a heart pounding inside, one fast and frantic under the touch.
Thomas body buckles up in revulsion under the touch.
Before he can do anything else, his thumb moves away from pushing the button.
The air around still faintly smells of fire and then, when they tumble over and the gun pushes against a dark strand of hair and a temple below, the room bursts into more life with bodies streaming in and the gun sways back under another force. Thomas makes a low sound as it disapears right behind him.
You're not getting me alive.
With one fast push, his scarred shaking hand pushes into a pocket, a cool, small round feeling tablet crumbling in his tremors. With a push, it disappears in his mouth and slowly fizzles to a strangely bitter taste.
Cheers to hoping that this time he will just stay dead without his body revolting.
The last thing he sees is a set of blue eyes, and he isn't sure he doesn't just drown again in them now.
