feral kou AUs for shutsdown

[miraculess]

AND AGAIN :')

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[shutsdown]

[It isn't exactly thought out. Kou flees without consideration, driven by panic and lack of understanding and other feelings he can't quite place, but which needle him all the same. He doesn't have an idea of where to go. He only knows where he can't be, so in a moment he feels particularly cornered he just gives up on trying to use logic, and slams himself through the barrier between worlds with as much raw power as possible.

He shows up a hundred feet above the ground, and is simply too discombobulated to even try and break his fall with wind. The closest thing is the roof of an abandoned building, softened by decay enough to give under his weight and momentum, rather than flatten him like a fly on a windshield. Luckily he's built tough, so the fall doesn't kill him, but it does knock him out pretty solidly, and he's far from uninjured.]

[miraculess]

[ the noise of the roof giving way startles her awake enough to flatter herself against the corner she'd tucked herself into, already gearing up for a fight even before she's registered having woken or why. so when the body hits the ground it's a good minute or so of adrenaline-laced, incoherent confusion before it sinks in that a fight is not forthcoming, and that the person currently lying on her floor is both alive and injured— probably from the fall through the roof.

even in his current state, it's difficult to make herself approach; fight-or-flight means she can't quite shake the though that he'll wake up at the worst moment. and it's close enough to day that all he has to do is yell loudly enough to bring others in... but for the same, she can't leave. and even with her previous track record for handling humans with injuries, the thought of just dumping him outside somewhere... it's uncomfortable.

so. so, so, so. it's a terrible idea, but... if she's to let him stay, then what should she do...?

...when he wakes up, it's to bandages wrapped around the worst of his injuries, something reasonably soft under his head, and the most obvious of any weapons he has taken. there's cloth over his eyes. ]

[shutsdown]

[His first thought when he wakes up is that everything hurts. His second thought is that he's been caught, and those were the only two reasonable thoughts he gets to have, because he sits bolt upright the second he realizes that, as if to test bonds that haven't been placed on him. He's... genuinely surprised he hasn't been tied up, for the few seconds before his wounds complain about the sudden movement, and he doubles over with a gasp.]

[miraculess]

[ —hisses, startled ]

You—

[ falling silent, suddenly terrified of speaking. when was the last time she'd talked to someone for purposes other than trying to intimidate them? ]

...Don't do that, you just fell through the roof.

[shutsdown]

[her voice gives him pause. he doesn't know her. he knows pretty much everyone in his and yuki's families, so who could possibly...? ...no harm in asking. though it's snapped sharply, matching his pain and fear.] Who are you?

[miraculess]

[ ...bares her teeth, though he can't see it, and snaps right back ]

The one whose roof you just fell through. Do you want your ribs to heal badly?

[shutsdown]

[he pauses, takes in that information and... she wants him to heal. she lives here? he hasn't been found yet. t-takes a few moments to breathe, and then reaches for the blindfold.]

[miraculess]

[ as rattled as that whole experience left her, she can't hide forever. even if she had enough food for that, restlessness still sinks in fast enough: the familiar urge of frustration making her hands itch with the urge to take something apart.

which is how a few days later finds her doing just that, outnumbered 4-to-1 by a bunch of men with actual weaponry. even so, the snarls that rip out of her throat as she rips into them are angry rather than fearful, despite the hot sting across her face where one got her with a knife and the way they're jeering. all in all, it isn't a quiet affair. ]

[shutsdown]

[The wise thing to do here would be to stay away from the terrible shrieking and jeering and fight noises. But for all he wanted to live enough to run, the more the numbness fades the more it hurts enough for him to wonder why he bothered. He isn't actively seeking oblivion. He's passively preventing it. He's eating and sleeping and staying away from skeevier places. He cut his hair and changed his clothes, worked up a glamour to hide his ears and the nature of his eyes, hasn't once used his powers for anything else. But he was sleeping in an abandoned apartment just above them, and with the vicious nature of this fight, it would be so easy to just, involve himself, let those broken ribs do their part in destroying him for what he's done. And a four-to-one fight? Surely they can do with an evening of the odds. So yeah, the boy with broken ribs jumps out a goddamned window and lands on one of her assailants.]

[miraculess]

[ said assailant goes down hard, what with the fact that even injured Kou is still a very large man dropping directly and unexpectedly onto him. that provides enough of a distraction that she can grab one of the others and simply throw him into the wall with enough force he doesn't get back up after.

with their lone advantage gone, the jeering abruptly becomes cursing as the two remaining men try to regroup, backing up in preparation to bolt as the girl growls, glancing back and forth between them and the newcomer ]

[shutsdown]

[Kou moves fast, even injured as he is. The pain makes his movements a little ungainly, but he still manages to firmly place himself between her assailants and the alley exit, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, shoulders squared, just daring them to try and pass.]

[miraculess]

"What the fuck, man, don't trap us with that thing—"

[ one of them manages to blurt before the other hisses at him to shut up; she laughs soft and vicious as she shifts into a predatory almost-crouch with a familiar mechanical sound. the movement is violently wrong, not movements human joints should make ]

Well, then. If you prefer to take your chances with me, I'm more than happy to oblige—

[ which is apparently enough to make them take him up on that dare, darting at him as she hisses in frustration and follows ]

[shutsdown]

Bad idea. [he says it calm and quiet, pulling a knife from each pocket, readying himself to intercept them with the blades, not aiming for vitals but definitely aiming to injure seriously.]

[shutsdown]

[For all his paranoia and care, Kou does actually have to leave his little apartment sometimes. And for all his efforts to blend in, he's honestly just too pretty to do so well, even as a teenager. Graceful enough to put people off, enough to be noticeable as alien in this setting. The men that had been attacking her took some time to recover, but once they do, one of them is lucky enough to spot him. Kou is aware of that, of course, leads him on a merry chase anywhere but home, but eventually the man wises up and recruits some friends, stops trying to be subtle and just corners him. A downside of Kou coming from another world, however close and parallel to this one? He doesn't know about guns, and doesn't treat the first one he sees with the proper respect. When the shot rings out, he dodges enough to only take the bullet to his shoulder, but he would have dodged it completely if it weren't so fast and easy to operate, what the hell?]

[miraculess]

[ humans are unfortunately good at making things to murder with.

the noise gets her attention immediately; gunshots in her experience always involve someone who deserves being hurt, which is why she lopes toward the sound instead of heading the other direction, like a someone sensible. and when she sees who's involved...

really, throwing herself at the man holding the gun before he can fire again isn't even a conscious decision. at the very least, she'll make a good distraction. ]

[shutsdown]

[He really wants to just. crumple. slide down the wall. it hurts, it hurts, everything hurts inside and out so why is he still bothering? but then she's here, and he can't let himself do that. instead he's springing into action too, lunging for one of the other men, taking advantage of the distraction she provides to slam him into the alley wall with a well-placed kick... that knocks kou off balance and sends him crashing to the ground with a strangled noise. he's so wrecked. the man with the gun panics, tries to shoot her, but ultimately goes down quite easily.]

[miraculess]

[ the sound of the gun going off again in such close quarters is still almost enough to set her off— she's furious to begin with and operating on instinct, and her thoughts (what there are of them) slide easily from the automatic surge of fear at the gunshot to how dare he scare her how dare he she should make him pay without any force behind it but habit.

it's the choked sound of pain the nameless man makes that snaps her out of it... or rather, her own immediate reaction of twisted satisfaction at the sound of someone that isn't her hurting that makes her realize she's slipping. she clamps down on her anger at the same time she knocks the gun out of the other man's hand, and when she knocks him out it's clean. threatening the other men off with the stolen gun after that is easy.

she drops it after that, not actually trusting herself with it, and approaches Kou carefully ]

...I know it hurts, but we can't stay here. Someone will probably come soon.

[shutsdown]

[hhhhhaah... right. he starts to mechanically pick himself up, wincing visibly more than a few times, pale with bloodloss and pain, but not letting those make him falter much at all.] Where to?

[miraculess]

[ shifts as though she wants to at least attempt to help, but refrains ]

Does anybody else know where you live?

I'm just going to reuse this post TAKE THREE

[miraculess]

[ she is a wreck.

yet another attempt to end her suffering had not only failed but backfired spectacularly, leaving her exhausted and ill, barely able to think straight. it's a terrible combination; she can't escape herself at all, can only sit and stew in half-delirious misery and self-loathing with no way of distracting herself and not enough resources to put toward healing.

it's also the combination that leads to her breaking into a bookstore in a part of town she would normally avoid, the area too prosperous for her to easily pass as someone merely fallen on very bad times without drawing desperately unwanted attention. but needs must, and right now her needs are something she can lose herself in, and... maybe, if she gets lucky, something to eat. it doesn't look like the store owner has much in the way of security, after all... ]

[shutsdown]

[so about that security...

no alarms sound, no lights flash. when she steps into one of his traps, delicate chains of silver form around her, thin enough to be of the sort used for jewelry. however, the more force she uses in trying to pull away from them or break them, the greater the force inexorably dragging her to the ground is. there aren't many of them, only a few crisscrossing her body once their work is done, but they're quite effective. she can neither move nor speak, chains around her head keeping her from opening her mouth.

she's left to stew like that for a few hours, though it's still the dead of the night when the light creaking of someone going down the stairs behind the counter can be heard, a totally sedate pace.]

[miraculess]

[ hours later, and she's still trying to struggle— not with anywhere near the little energy and focus she'd had at the beginning, but still aimlessly trying to writhe her way out of those chains.

that wearing struggle exhausted her enough that it takes a few moments before she registers the sound of his approach... but when she does, she panics, throwing herself against the binds heedless of the fact that they've squashed her almost violently to the ground already. ]

[shutsdown]

[he has a glamour up and seems fully human for now.

Kou approaches her fearlessly, still at that sedate pace, kneeling beside her and letting the chains holding her mouth shut slither away.]

And who are you?

[miraculess]

[ ...

hisses, raw and thick in the back of her throat, and spits at him. it's bloody. ]

[shutsdown]

[neatly dodging her spit, sorry.]

That's some attitude from a trespasser.