riverviewlogs | [open] there's a million, billion, trillion stars

Entry tags:

✖ animorphs: marco

[open] there's a million, billion, trillion stars

who: marco & YOU
what: catch-all post; some open starters (Perimeter Guard training ground; dreamshare)
when: late Jan and Feb
where: all around the Quarantine
warnings: gore/violence in threads from the nightmare prompt; possible descriptions of morphing (body horror) in any thread - let me know in a subject line if you don't want me to go into gory detail about the not-so-magical-girl transformation sequence

i. the guard

[Thanks to his two week boot camp experience, which was probably one of the worst things he's ever endured, including some of the more nasty battles during the war, Marco's learned one very important lesson - it's totally worth it to have some hand-to-hand training. Chyler had said it herself, technique is important no matter what shape he's in. Besides, he'd spent most of boot camp getting his butt handed to him by an ever-changing round of cadets because he wasn't allowed to morph in training.

So here he is, at the Perimeter Guard training ground, totally rocking a pair of purple camo BDU pants and a T-shirt, with absolutely zero idea where to start.]

Man, this is way harder than it looks in the martial arts movies.

ii. dream a little dream

[Marco's never been one to say no to a trend, so of course he'd checked out the crystal caves. Once he'd taken a stroll through, he'd been really glad he had, too, because the whole thing had been super cool. That had been a few days ago, and after hanging up a nice little collage of some of the photos he'd taken over the mantle in one of the sitting rooms, he'd pretty much been over it.

And then the dreams begin. There's a lot of them. A lot of them are things he'd experienced as a human at home, pleasant things that twist all together - being on TV in front of all the cameras and a live audience, grinning and feeling like the center of attention; hanging out in his pool drinking a Diet Coke with the sun shining down on his face and body, feeling like he hasn't got a care in the world; the sensation of absolute relief when it had really, really sunk in that the war was over, that he didn't have to fight anymore.

Other ones are less distinctly human in nature - soaring through a blue sky, lifting off on osprey wings in the warm updraft of a good thermal, with vision so good he could see a mouse squeaking through the grass hundreds of feet below; being a dolphin leaping joyfully through the waves, with miles and miles of ocean all around, full of joy and freedom; the strength and confidence that come with being a gorilla, massive and proud and able to bench-press a small bus.

Care to join him?]

iii. the nightmare after war (violence/gore)

[Some of the dreams aren't quite so pleasant. While most of what his mind comes up with, for a blessed few nights, is good, relaxing, even fun, he's not really destined to only have good dreams. In fact, having good dreams is nowhere near as common as the bad ones.

When Marco has bad dreams, they're terrible. All violence and gore and fear and pain, his nightmares are full of the screams of animals in his ears and his friends in his head - teenagers who hadn't deserved being thrown into a war they weren't prepared to fight. The bad ones are like a camera roll of all the worst times he's almost died in morph, the feeling of his own guts in his hands, of having his face torn off, being bitten almost in half by a shark; of watching his friends get hurt, a wolf dragging her hind legs, paralyzed, a bear beating an alien with her own severed arm, a tiger leaving bloody footprints in the snow as its feet freeze to the ground over and over with every step.

The worse dreams are all about the terrible choices he's had to make. The times he'd had to fool the Yeerk controlling his own mother and lead her to what he'd been sure was her death, having to choose to save his father at the expense of his closest friends and allies. Every bad dream leaves him waking up in a panic, gasping and sweating and crying out. Some things...well, he wouldn't choose to share, but he doesn't always have a choice.]

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[Marco nods while she explains, even while she's shuddering a bit at the description. She's a tough girl.]

I figured they were different.

[A little shrug, and he watches, dark eyes on her hands as she gets the cleaner and tosses the towels, because it's easier than looking at her face, and Marco's not above being a bit of a coward sometimes.

When she crouches down beside the last of the mess again, Marco shifts a bit to give her more room to spray, licks his lips and nods, eyes flicking back up to her face again, finally.]

These guys...they were the Yeerk shock troops. Back on their own planet they were peaceful herbivores who ate tree bark, kinda dumb and sweet. But you get a slug in their brains bent on world domination and...

[He shakes his head a bit, his expression distant, mouth set in a straight line. Sometimes he can't help but feel guilty for all the Hork-Bajir he'd killed, even if he doesn't regret it.]

Where were you? Before you came here?

Edited 2018-02-28 07:20 (UTC)

[ She sees the set, faraway look on Marco's face. She's seen it in the mirror, the times she catches herself staring into somewhere and some time that feels years ago and like yesterday at once.

She finishes cleaning up the mess and strips the gloves off, dropping them into the sink to be cleaned themselves. ]

Circinius IV. Corbulo Academy of Military Science. We were training to fight Insurrectionists, not... Whatever the things that attacked us were.

[While Chyler finishes cleaning up, Marco picks up his discarded jeans and sweatshirt and slides them back on over his spandex superhero knockoff outfit. Licking his lips, he glances over at her again as she explains where she was, then exhales a little huff.]

I'm really not surprised you were at a military academy. Explains why you're so tough.

[Once he's dressed, he flops back against the wall, arms crossed, eyes following her movements.]

I get that. I mean...obviously not the military thing, I didn't have any training, but all of a sudden fighting something you were not prepared for that's way bigger and stronger than you, with more resources? Totally pants-wetting terrifying.

[ She almost flinches, because she has wet herself, more than once since coming to Riverview. During nightmares, mercifully in the privacy of her own room where she can tend to it without anyone asking questions she doesn't want to answer.

It's a shame she never plans on sharing with anyone, anyone, ever.

Chyler sits down against the wall as well, sitting in the corner so she can face him instead of sitting next to him. ]

It happened to you?

[That's something Marco's been doing since he was 13. It happens, it's a human thing that people do when they're scared and dealing with more than they should be, especially when they're just kids.

Not that he would ever share that with anyone, ever, either.

Sliding down the wall, he settles in beside her, not close enough to touch, but close enough to provide a little non-verbal support. Looking straight ahead, he nods, mouth pursed.]

Yeah. [A pause, and then-] When I was 13, I was walking through an abandoned construction site with my best friend and his cousin and a couple of their friends. Then an alien spaceship landed, and we found out that Earth was being invaded by parasitic slugs that climb into people's ears and control them. So he gave us the morphing ability and then promptly got eaten by the enemy. Literally eaten.

[He's still avoiding eye contact.]

Five 13-year-old kids with the ability to turn into wild animals versus an intergalactic army that infiltrated all levels of human society.

[ Chyler shivers. Literally eaten, he says, and all she can think of is JunJie skewered on a glowing blade.

She reaches out, tentatively, then lets her hand drop. ]

There wasn't war on your planet before then? Around you, at least?

[ Chyler doesn't believe there's a world anywhere that exists entirely without war. ]

[Marco sees it, when she reaches out toward him, but he's not really sure where she's going with it, and this is different than the usual kind of casual touch he might do when he's flirting with a girl or hanging out with a friend. It's not the comfortable kind of touching, so he instinctively ignores it.]

I mean, yeah, there was war. There's always war. Humans fight each other a lot. But yeah, it wasn't around me. Not in my country, you know? We had wars but they were on the other side of the planet.

[He shrugs his narrow shoulders, eyes down.]

I wasn't prepared. So I know how crappy that is.

I thought I was prepared.

[ She leans forward to rest her chin on her knees. ] I told you I grew up in a war zone. Mamore. My brother and my parents died there. I saw bodies, I saw explosions, people in pieces, I thought--

[ She swallows, shaking her head. ] Those things hunted us like animals. One of them killed one of my squadmates and laughed. Our shock troops, the ODSTs, our elite forces did nothing. I thought I was prepared, but I wasn't at all.

[It's not often that Marco is quiet, really quiet. Especially since the war ended, he's been doing a lot of talking, cracking jokes, spinning stories, taking over the limelight so the others can sink safely into obscurity. Usually, when he's quiet, it's because he's trying to read someone, trying to figure them out and predict what they're going to do.

But he's quiet now, just sitting beside her and listening to her while she explains. Pulling up his knees, he rests his cheek on them, dark eyes locked on her, and the only sounds he makes are soft noises of acknowledgement.

After she finishes, he's still quiet for a bit, mulling things over in his head.]

You think that made it harder, when things went sideways? Thinking you were prepared?

[Thoughtfully, he scrapes blunt fingernails over the texture of his jeans, thoughtful.]

I've seen that too, bodies, people in pieces. I've killed a lot of people too, or gotten them killed. I don't think there's anything that can prepare you for seeing a person you know and care about get killed, and the murderer laughing about it.

I don't know. Maybe. In the moment at least I could... think, I could function.

[ After that one brief breakdown in the hallway. That one brief moment after she had a chance to stop and think and take Vickers' dog tags when she hadn't been able to think about taking the others. ]

Here I'm just waiting for the worst to happen. Jumping at shadows. Dreaming. [ She stops herself. Watches Marco in turn without speaking. ] It feels impossible to talk about it here. Everyone is so....

[ She can't figure out how to put it. She felt it at Corbulo sometimes, too. As though half her fellow students walked through their lives blind to reality. Her upper lip twitches like she's caught the smell of something foul. ] They're too interested in festivals and parties and keeping things nice.

[ She can't help thinking of the fireworks and the first time she met John. Chyler straightens enough to rest her back against the wall again. ]

How long have you been fighting?

Man, that's something at least. I sure know I couldn't function a few times during the war.

[Marco shrugs, but he falls quiet again as she starts talking again, as she explains how things were there and how things are here. How she's lingering on the outside waiting for the other shoe to drop while everyone parties and works together. And maybe Marco participates in most of the parties, but he gets it, still, because all of his flippant energy is a front and he knows it.]

I get that. It's like you're sitting at a fancy banquet wearing pretty clothes while everyone dances, but all you can think about is where the exits are, and where you could hole up for cover, where you could hide, which people around you are more likely to make it or not.

[He's not looking at her again, because this is...surprisingly real, for him. It's not often he opens up and talks about that kind of thing. Honestly, he'd rather everyone bought into the show.

Chyler, though...well, she never really has.]

Tough one. Technically we won the war when I was sixteen, so three years. But it never really stopped, you know? It's always there, they were making movies about us and we were on the news and talk shows, and I took most of that on because, like, let's be honest, I've got the gift of the gab. The others, none of them had that in them, they got a lot more broken than me, I guess.

[For a moment, he's quiet, thinking about Jake, his best friend who he never really talks to anymore and who he mostly sees as he's doing fly-bys in osprey form making sure he's still breathing.]

I just turned 20. I don't feel 20. I feel thirteen and fifty all at once.

[He scrapes his nails over the pattern of his jeans again, staring straight ahead.]

Me too. [ Maybe that's how it goes. Maybe a part of your life stops when you go to war, you lose bits along the way until there's only something old and tired left and a trail of bloody crumbs leading you along the path to where it started.

She'll have to ask John.

Her age. He was her age when that started. Chyler can't imagine anyone making a movie about Corbulo or Circinius IV. News, talk shows. It's revolting, really. She has a hard enough time with all the gaudiness and flaunted peace of Riverview. She can't even imagine what it was like to be a celebrity because of war. She would hate it. She would hate everyone who encouraged it.

There's only one thing she can think of to say. ]

You're a good friend.

[ She doesn't just mean to his people back home. ]

[Marco's not sure how much of his life was intact and moving forward when the war started. Almost as long as he can remember, his life has been a big mess of loss and inconsistency and pain and struggling to survive in a world that's a lot bigger than he is.

Nothing's changed, it's just that the nightmares got worse. They got worse and less people understood them. He'd always been alone, since he was 11 years old, taking care of himself and laughing away the pain, and when she says he's a good friend, he laughs, bright and abrupt.]

I guess so. I mean, those guys were my family, back then.

[A pause, and then, more quietly.]

We barely talk anymore, even my best friend and I. War really changes things...between people, you know?

[A pause, and he glances over at her, dark eyes warm.]

Sort of nice to know someone who gets that.

My squad was my family.

[ She stretches her legs out in front of her, staring at past her toes. ] We didn't all get along, we didn't all even like each other, but we were family.

[ She smiles at him, small, brief. ]

War changes everything. War changes... just everything.

[ And it is nice, knowing someone who understands that. Knowing someone who understands that and isn't more than twice her age. She's barely been able to stand the company of other teenagers in this place. They're frivolous, unfocused, dull. They don't know guns or understand when and how to use them. They don't know the smell of death. ]

Most of my squad died during the invasion. I don't know if the survivors made it to our extraction point. I got--I was injured, then I was here. There were only three others left.

[ She rubs her arms lightly. ] I can't say that to people here without hearing condolences, and I don't want them. You know?

[When Chyler says that, that her squad was family and they didn't always get along or like each other, but they were family, the corners of Marco's mouth quirk up a little bit, and he exhales a soft breath that's not quite a laugh.]

Sounds like mine. Rachel was a total psycho, she'd fight her own shadow and she used to call me terrible names all the time. Ax was so uptight and kind of an idiot at the same time, how does that even happen? Tobias...I just never understood him. Cassie and I never saw eye to eye, she was a complete tree hugger pacifist. The only thing we ever agreed on was making sure Jake was okay.

[A long pause, and he looks straight ahead, shakes his head.]

I'd have died for any of them.

[He takes a deep breath, not looking at her just yet.]

We lost two of the six of us. Two and a half, maybe, if you count Tobias disappearing basically off the face of the Earth. I guess we did better than you.

[When she says that last part, he glances up at her, studying her face.]

It sucks, losing people. [A pause, and then.] Injured, huh?

[ She smiles slowly as he talks, tells her about his own family.

She's not ready yet to talk about hers in more than a general way. She's not ready to say how Vickers was hotheaded, mulish, as willing to pick a fight as talk to someone. Junjie's shyness and nerves. Sully's stupid jokes and constant troublemaking. Dima, the youngest of them, privileged and lonely and more than willing to rub one of those things in the faces of anyone who crossed her. April, the Robot, who drilled them until they could survive what happened. Shere and Kaye, never apart, probably more to each other than either one would admit.

Tom.

She bites her lip, half-lost in her own thoughts.

Injured, huh?

Chyler blinks, tension clamping down around her. ]

Yes. [ It comes out like a challenge. She glances away, then focuses back on Marco's face. She's not afraid to look him in the eye. She isn't. ] I took a shot to the gut. They cleaned me up when I got here.

[For Marco, most of his losses are at least a few years old, except for Ax - that one is one he'd been expecting for months before it was confirmed. They're all things he's been resigned to for a long time, they're easier to talk about, it's easier to speak about his adopted family with nostalgia instead of grief. It makes sense that it might be harder for her, less far removed from the loss.

So once she's done, he's quiet, just lets her mull things over, figure out what she wants to say or if she's going to say anything at all. Sitting still, he keeps dragging his fingernails over the texture of his jeans.

It's when she goes tense that he realizes he's struck a nerve. Marco is instantly aware of the way her body fills with nervous energy, the way she holds herself tight, the way she responds with her voice challenging and cagey like that. When she looks back at him, he keeps his expression carefully neutral, but his eyes are sharp as he watches, trying to see if she gives anything away.

A shot to the gut.

Marco actually winces at that.]

Gut wounds are awful. I remember one time I got disemboweled, in gorilla form. I'm pretty sure it killed me, but my friend managed to revive me in time to morph back. Was it really bad?

[The words are carefully chosen, as neutral as he can be but with enough leading, suggestive words that might trigger something deeper, if she wants it.]

[ Chyler grimaces. Disemboweled. ]

How did you survive?

[ She touches her abdomen, just above the scar that Riverview's doctors left her with. A reminder every time she changes clothes, every time she bumps toughened skin. ]

It was bad.

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[open] there's a million, billion, trillion stars

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