Like a hole in the head

[myironeyes]

[Private to Riddick]

I want to try something.

[He sounds a bit - strained.]


[Public, video]

[It's never comfortable, being stuck full of spikes. But it is even more uncomfortable to be full of spikes and simultaneous feel full of holes. He plucks one of his own eye spikes out just to ease the discrepancy, his hands clenching around the heavy length of steel.

Marsh can't see anything on the screens, but he turns it to video anyway, dark red blood trickling down his cheek from the dark black hole of his empty socket. Whatever keeps the wounds neat and bloodless in the normal course of events is void with the spike removed. He gestures toward the camera with the sharp tapered end of it. Despite the grotesquerie, his posture isn't threatening - it's a little bit schoolmarm-ish, a fussy librarian with a razor pointer. His jaw is clenched taut.]

Whoever is pulling pins out of their doll. Should stop.

It is disconcerting.

Comments

[with_my_teacup]

I'm listening.

[Riddick is glaring at his own doll, a likeness of Scott McCall.]

I'm not sure I'm going to like what I hear.

[myironeyes]

You have a doll too.

[It doesn't sound like a question, but it is, since he can't see it. Marsh isn't holding the Riddick doll, isn't touching it. He's weak, always, to psychic influcence, and it is so difficult, right now, not to get out his stitching awl.]

[with_my_teacup]

...that's wonderful.

What're they for?

[myironeyes]

That's what I'd like to know.

Do you want to hurt yours?

[It feels - not entirely unlike Ruin's pressure in his mind. Maybe that [art is just him, primed for it.]

[with_my_teacup]

Yes. The dog hates it.

[myironeyes]

It seems best not to - assume, regarding consequences.

May I test it? Carefully.

[with_my_teacup]

Not sure what you're testing, but I'm game.

[myironeyes]

[He reaches over to the doll, wants so powerfully to snap the thing's little leg, remembers the sound Vin's femur made so vividly he can taste ash. He pinches it instead, pulls his hand back as if burned.]

Did that -

[with_my_teacup]

[It's like being bitten by blunt steel teeth. Riddick snarls, sudden and almost involuntary.]

Don't do that again.

[myironeyes]

[Crush it crush it crush it - he can hear the timbr of Ruin's voice, crystal clear, as if it never left him. His hands twitch, and he almost drops it. He doesn't. He doesn't. This is not a god; he is stronger than this. He sets it gently on the table.]

That's confirmed, then.

[He should ask more questions, details, but he's too busy clutching his hands together.]

Maybe you should come get it.

[with_my_teacup]

Yeah, I think I should. Let me put this one up where the dog can't get it.

[And then he's there as fast as he can be.]

[myironeyes]

[Marsh lets him in, gestures jerkily to the table. He's been pacing, hands clenched behind his back, teeth gritted against the high whining tug to shred the thing.]

It's there.

[with_my_teacup]

Thanks. [Riddick sounds grim, clipped-- he crosses the room in long strides, and grabs-

-nothing. It winks out under his fingers, winks away.]

The fuck!

[myironeyes]

[He whirls around, stares, flares tin, feels every stictch of his cloak where it hangs on him and hears Riddick's heartbeat. But he can't see anything that explains what just happened -]

Hell.