ellectrical | (no subject)

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The room doesn't scare her. The words on the walls are incomprehensible, the stains and bedframes unrecognizable. After all, the wards Elle was kept in were immaculately clean.

Yet this time, when her skin starts sparking, she keeps her eyes closed.

Maybe there is something she's scared of. Or she just needs to think without distraction.

But if she's trying to feign unconsciousness, the sparks are enough to betray her.

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An arc flares from Elle's shoulder up to the ceiling.

She doesn't say anything, but also (maybe deliberately) doesn't look at the demon.

Ava's watching both carefully.

Just the arms.

Her control is pretty nuanced, but demons are not naturally gentle by any stretch of the imagination. The twists of metal binding Elle's wrists are untwisted, then wrenched aside.

The moment her wrists are free, Elle aim and fires bright white arcs across the room toward Ava.

At the same time, the sparks along Elle surge, forcing her to squint against the light and causing her to tremble slightly as she moves.

Well she kinda saw that comi--

"Nngh!"

Ava moves but not fast enough, and startlingly bad pain lances up her arm. The paper bag falls to the floor.

The demon flickers, but stabilizes quickly; in the same instant, its claws slash out at Elle's arm.

Elle cries out, but still raises her free arm to try to fire another arc toward Ava, this one bright blue.

Ava hits the floor hard, her wounded arm screaming with another sharp echo of hurt.

"Sparky--"

She flings out her own free arm.

The demon that is staticking in and out of view coils its smoky arms around Elle, as if it were giving her a very unfriendly and sulfurous hug.

The sparks don't dissipate, but Elle only struggles against the smoke for a minute before she slumps again.

Her adrenaline draining, the pain in her slashed arm because much more acute, but she can't reach for it, and can't stop the sparks along her skin from snapping over it.

So hr eyes fall to the floor, and the new bloodstain she's going to leave on it.

She may be slumping, but Ava's not about to let her go.

That's exactly what she'd do in Elle's place, if she was gonna stage another attack.

Ava staggers up, clutching her own wounded arm.

She bites her lip to keep in the noises-- they'd be whimpers and swearing, but she manages to tamp them down to a series of pained, unsteady breaths.

The demon stays in place.

Edited 2012-10-29 03:38 (UTC)

Elle keeps her eyes down.

Eventually, she pulls her legs up, but it's all she can do to curl around her wound.

It's a long while before Ava can focus on anything but how much her arm fucking hurts.

But then her eyes narrow at the demon.

Slowly, slower than the first few times, another trickle of smoke materializes into a second little girl: tangled hair, dusty dress. Very sharp claws.

This one sweeps through the room, snatching up discarded twists of metal.

Elle glances up at the noise.

But her eyes don't stay on the demon. Instead, she looks back to Ava.

Weakly, "Is he gonna like this?"

"I'll tell him I tried."

Ava looks a little pale-- understandable, perhaps, given the recent injury. But she also looks apprehensive, even scared.

"Just go."

But it's not angry. Her voice is quiet again, and as she speaks, she glances around the room, as if to try to see if anyone else is there.

It's conspiratorial.

"Just get out now."

Ava cracks a faint, unconvincing smile.

"I'll end up back here anyway."

"No."

And for the first time, her eyes are wet.

"Someone'll help you. But you have to leave."

She pauses.

"I tried before."

Walking through the woods, coming around and around like a merry-go-round to that motherfucking bell--

"I tried to leave. And this place ate me right up."

The second demon appears by Elle's side, reaching out to unbend the first of the metal instruments-- the others clatter to the floor-- and twist it back around her wrist.

"This isn't like before," she answers, her voice rising, more out of pain at being moved than anything else.

"It's right outside. I came here - this place, it's next to the lake. And I came here before with X. And we went back to the Bar. You're not -"

- trapped in here -

"You can go back, too."

This is the part that Ava doesn't remember so well.

She watches Elle cautiously as the demon binds her other wrist, and the first one slips off her.

It takes a moment's calibration, once the specific tasks are done, to keep them here. But she thinks she manages it nicely.

She gasps when the demon moves her injured arm, but still doesn't look away from Ava.

Quiet, again, "You can go."

"No," Ava says simply.

"I can't."

She takes a slow, steady breath, inhaling the stale hospital air.

"He wants us here." A one-shouldered shrug-- her good shoulder. "You can try, but it always ends the same way."

"No, it's not."

Maybe accepting defeat, her full voice returns.

"You're not going to die this time."

Edited 2012-10-29 17:24 (UTC)

"That's true," she agrees.

"You are."

"He's going to leave," she answers.

"He'll - stop doing this to you. And maybe you'll remember."

Or maybe she won't. Elle's not sure which is worse.

Ava blinks at her.

After a moment, she shakes her head.

"Whatever you say, Sparky."

"If you remember this," she presses on -

"I really -"

She rests her head back against the bedframe, looking away again.

"I knew. It wasn't you."

(Eventually, anyway.)