gammeme | Test Drive Meme #1

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Test Drive Meme #1

The sun is shining and the weather is nice and toasty. Overly toasty one might argue, even. It's a great day to be laying around at the beach, so it's a good thing that that's where you've found yourself today, whether you'd made plans to be there or not. Bathing suit and sunscreen ready, you're going to get your tanning time on.

But with heat comes the expected side effects for a place like Proxima Gamma. While the cool water can sometimes slow the effects, the heated beaches and freshly popped flowers seem to have made getting close to someone else just seem like a really great idea. You can try to fight off the side effects much as you want, but the scientists like to believe everyone has a breaking point.

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Hermione had locked herself up in her room for several days, not really entirely sure of how to face this new island. If it had just been Atia that plagued her, she could have pushed through it. The memories were rough, but they had been manageable. Curses had become rather par for the course. Even the war, while it had left her scarred, had been something she could eventually try to move passed.

It was what came after it, when she'd been dragged beneath the water, that had left her so broken. The years she'd spent with Poseidon, the torture beyond any imagination. It had left her more hollow inside than ever before. She was only just starting to adjust to the idea of being around people again, of being able to handle face to face conversations, and being thrust onto the beach with everyone was hardly good for her mental state.

Left in a bikini, of course, exposed to the world, she didn't feel safe. The familiar, the comfortable, that was what she needed. And it was because of that that she naturally drifted to Chloe, trying to not be awkward as she went to sit down next to her, pulling her knees to her chest, not saying a word.

Chloe opened one eye when she heard someone come close. She had 'escaped' the horror of those years, but she'd never stopped worrying about how things had ended, how Hermione had just disappeared beneath the waves and her communicator had gone silent. She'd always feared and suspected that Poseidon had taken her friend. Looking at her, she couldn't help wondering, worrying.

But she couldn't say it.

Starting to get up and scoot in close, she rested a hand up very close to where Hermione sat, looking at her with concern. "Do you want to get out of here?" she said, ignoring some of the urge to wrap her arms around her friend.

At the very least, she didn't tense when Chloe came closer, though her eyes flickered to her hand as though to try and scan whether it was too close for comfort. She didn't move away, simply staring at her hand, remembering the touches. The way that they had brought her comfort once. She tried to focus on that, trying to focus on the good instead of the horrid memories.

"Yeah," she muttered, barely audible. "That'd be nice." She went to stand up, brushing the sand off her legs as she did so.

As she started to stand, Chloe rose with her. For once, she wasn't admiring Hermione's body. She wasn't making snide little comments. She didn't need to. They both knew that she would curl her up and do so many things to her. But, not now. Right now, she wanted to see the light back in the witch's eyes, to take her away from the ocean and the waves.

"Let's... let's go somewhere away from here," she whispered, leaning in with a towel draped over her shoulder. "Maybe we could disappear into a hotel somewhere, drink ourselves senseless."

There was the softest of smiles, one that didn't quite reach her eyes, but it was better than nothing. Her hands went to grip the edges of the towel, pulling it tightly around herself, using it as an almost comfort blanket to try and ease the anxiety she knew was coursing through her. Maybe it was the sound of the waves or the smell of the sea salt, but something was making her stomach churn in unpleasant knots.

"You think they'll let us?" She finally glanced over to her, eyebrows raised slightly. "I mean, if they want us on the beach, it's possible that they won't let us leave it."

Her hand almost instinctively went back to the place where she felt the little bump in her neck while her gaze went to the same point on Hermione. She fidgeted and then turned along the coastline, breathing in carefully. "You're right. They're probably as horrible as she was. We can't just get away. Maybe... maybe we could get to a spot further from the water."

She wanted to be out of sight of the water suddenly. Maybe there was a little cover just out of sight. It wouldn't take the sounds away, but it would take the sight. "Wish I brought a hip flask with me."

She nodded in agreement, going to start to head up and in on the coast, looking for some kind of cover that would at least shelter them from the ocean. Out of sight, out of mind, maybe. Swallowing roughly, she felt her fingers flex a few times, trying to decide what it was she wanted. Some part of her wanted some sort of physical contact, but a larger part of her wasn't sure she could handle it right then. She fought back and forth with herself, before a shaking hand went to loop her pinky with one of Chloe's.

It was a start.

"We can drink later. When this is all over. I'm sure I'll still be up for it."

The walk wasn't going to be that long. Chloe was dead sure that she'd seen a place that would be at least tolerable, set behind tufts of ugly grass on rougher sand with just enough height to obscure the sight of that damned ocean. Soon enough, they'd be free of that insuferable thing. When she felt the shaky hand reach for hers, her pinky locked and gripped tightly.

She walked, keeping herself between the ocean and her friend, laughing hollowly. "I think we both will, for the rest of our lives. I'm surprised I haven't become a lush at times," she managed. "Do you ... do you have a place to stay yet?"

Hermione kept her eyes on the sand as they continued, sometimes almost seeming like she was gazing off into space rather than fully paying attention to her surroundings. Chloe's words were what kept her in the moment and she shook her head gently at the question.

"I'm looking into their free housing, but it doesn't seem like the kind of neighborhoods you want to live alone in."

"Yes, well you aren't alone." She said it firmly, the implied offer very clear in her tone. Even if someone inconvenient to this arrived, she could still see to it that Hermione had safe housing. It was important to her to see her friend cared for. Once they were out of sight of the ocean, she started to set a blanket down, looking up at Hermione.

"But I agree. Those are my sorts of neighborhoods, not yours. We could get you a job at the library maybe and disappear into some little place nobody would care about. Or if you want free... I could join you. Make sure there's no trouble."

The relief on her face was clear when they managed to find a place, going to help with the blanket before sitting herself down on it. She kept herself close to Chloe, even if not quite touching anymore, and took a deep breath.

"You've always been the one to make me feel safe, haven't you, Chloe?" An ironic statement, really, considering all the things that they'd been through and the sort of person that Chloe was known for being. But it was a true one. There had never been many people who went out of their way to protect her, but she always had.

"I do whatever I can for the people I love," Chloe said, settling herself beside Hermione. Her hand strayed near, but not quite touching the witch just yet. She wanted to be close, where she could do whatever it was that Hermione might have requested, regardless of what that might have been. She tried to offer her a reassuring smile.

"In a place like this, we have to take the small comforts that we can, whatever they might be. I'm... I'm glad to have you here." Because, looking at her friend, no matter how terrible this place became, it couldn't compare to what she'd escaped.

Small comforts. Hermione could certainly find enough of them. When she'd first woken up with the chip in her neck, she'd nearly started sobbing in gratitude at the sight of the video feed, the feeling of the tablet. It didn't matter what they wanted from her, what they wanted to do with her. She had escaped a literal hell and nothing could make her more relieved.

"I feel so stupid for being so happy to be in another prison," she said with a small, empty laugh. Her hands went to her stomach, almost as though she could still feel those creatures inside of her, and she tried to pull her mind back to the present. Quickly fanning herself, she gave a clearing of her throat. "Though it'd be easier if it wasn't so hot."

Chloe very gently reached up to brush her fingers along the edges of Hermione's chin when she heard her say that, leaning in closer. "You don't have to be. Heaven became a hell for me, and it was already a hell for you," she whispered, her fingers starting to lace with a chill that flowed into the air around them. "They could tell me to stand on the corner, and I'd do it to keep you here. Safe, where nobody else could touch you without your permission."

Of course, it wasn't that simple. She'd seen the south city. But, the way that Hermione's fingers touched her stomach, it made her throat clench. It made similar, shared memories, come to her. Had he taken her? What had he done to her, for how long? Did he make her actually sire something?

"I can try to make it cold for you... or I think we both know what might help." However counter-intuitive it was.

(OOC: I'm assuming her powers from Amat are good here, but I'll think on that more seriously when I app.)

The touch alone managed to send a shiver through her, followed by a sense of temporary reprieve from the heat. It was only a brief second, but enough to know full well what it was the scientists would want from them. It wasn't really any different, was it? No choking, but it was still the same story, the same expectations.

Her eyes closed for a moment, taking in the idea, trying to not let the tainted memories make her shy away from it. She needed to get used to this again, and there was no one who understood what she'd been through like Chloe did. If there was anyone to help her through these hiccups in readjusting, it would be her.

She nodded finally, looking up at her. "We can - we can ease into it, at least, right?"

[ ooc: Yeah they'd be cool. ]

"We can," she said very carefully, keeping the air around them artificially just a little cooler than it should have been naturally. She didn't shy away, nor did she press forward. Her eyes closed and she swallowed. "It might be easier for you if you start by doing things to me. We wouldn't need to worry. You know that I'm pretty durable after all."

Offering her a reassuring smile, she settled up a few inches closer. "As fast as you want to go, and as much as you want to do. Say the word, and we'll take a break." She tried to laugh, but it all came out hollow. There was a sad, sick truth to them being in this place together. Always the same, always more of that sort of terrible thing, but at least here it felt... different.

A little.

Control was a hard word for her to wrap her mind around. Being deprived of it for so long - could she even really count the years anymore? Time had all blurred together, it could have been decades for all she knew anymore. Being used as some plaything made it hard to imagine that she'd even have the strength to take it back. Chloe was right, though. It would probably be easiest. Or at the very least, less likely to cause her to panic immediately.

Hermione finally reached a hand, albeit shakily, upward and extended her fingers toward Chloe's cheek. Her fingers flexed and pulled back a few times, almost like she wasn't sure if she could handle the intimacy of it, before finally they went to settle and brush against the skin, moving slowly enough to cup her face in her hand.

This was familiar. This was safe. She kept trying to repeat the words in her head.

"I missed you," she barely managed to whisper. "I missed you so much, Chloe. I was so worried." Even in all that time, through all the torture, the thought that Poseidon could have grabbed someone so close to her just to add to the torture, as the Charybdis had done, had always stayed in the back of her mind. Maybe it was why she stopped fighting, why she let herself break. She could hardly remember now, but it seemed plausible.

The feel of shaking fingers against her cheek made her lean in a fraction, her eyes half-lidded and closed. "I missed you too. I ... I thought," she started, before she swallowed and cut the sentence off. "I've worried about you for a while, Hermione. I'm glad to see you here in front of me, where I can protect you."

She closed her eyes, her cheek resting into the touch while one hand pressed to the ground on the other side of the witch, She wasn't pushing forward just yet, letting the other woman set the pace of intimacy here. It was better this way, she could tell. She was imagining so many terrible things, hoping none of them were true and suspecting that she wasn't imagining the half of it.

The familiarity of the touch, though, was cheering. Charybdis wasn't here, after all. They were safe from it, its children, Poseidon and the rest.

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Test Drive Meme #1

you son of a bitch

I apologize for nothing!

YOU WOULDN'T

I'm such an awful person.

you are, but i still love you.

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