#STARTER CALL. ( miriam bancroft. )

[alteredegos]

           Like for a short starter from Methuselah Miriam Bancroft.  If you want something pre-established for non-canon connections let me know and I’ll be happy to oblige.  Multis please specify which character(s) you’d like a starter for. For this character, please specify time frame such as, pre or during season one events.

[mysticandskepticmuses]

altered carbon au; a confrontation between june moone and her methuselah parents, daniel and maria moone, who are drawing the line in the sand when confronted with proof of her relationship with takeshi kovacs.  written for my au w/ @magicandsciencemuses.  it doesn’t really have a beginning or an end, sorry ? not sorry i guess, i needed to jump straight into the action and it didn’t feel right to try and build up to it after i was already there and it’s intentionally left ‘hanging’ at the end because it will be followed by another drabble and/or starter for the scene w/ june & takeshi afterwards.  there is a LOT of potentially triggering content.  emotional trauma, emotional manipulation / abuse, implied allusions to domestic abuse, name-calling, general angst so please do not read  if these things are triggers to you!

“Perhaps if you were thinking clearly instead of giving way to your baser instincts – if you were thinking at all instead of indulging in mindless rutting like some bitch in heat you would have even the smallest concept of the kind of man you have brought into your life – our lives!”  The words were practically spat at her, her father’s features red and angry; nostrils flared, lips pressed tight enough they seemed nonexistent, his large frame clenched and taut, his last words accentuated by a furious thud of balled fists slammed against the desk he now towered over with enough force to send scattered objects flying, a faint and slightly sickening crack of – the wood beneath his fists, his fists themselves – she didn’t know for sure which, and for perhaps the first time in her life, she found she didn’t have the wherewithal to wonder, to care.   She had never – never seen him like this, seen him so near to erupting with anger and violence –  she had never … ever imagined that he would say …  

Was this what it felt like, to be sucker punched?  To be gutted, to be – eviscerated?   She couldn’t breathe.   It felt like there was … a weight, a ton of weight that had slammed into her chest and stomach, that had flattened her, stolen breath and thought and words and any residual sense of composure or hope that she had, the world, snatched out from underneath her feet and she was left hanging, scrabbling in the vacuum of space, her voice, her breath ripped out of her lungs.  She could feel her body, shaking, her lashes spinning, jerking rapidly as she fought against the violent surge of tears that spilled, soundlessly for a long moment, over her lashes, scalding and stinging her cheeks as she tried to –  to breathe, to think, to feel anything other than the wrenching, twisting feeling in her gut.  Never.   Never in her life had he truly raised his voice to her, never, ever had he thought to say something so –  heartless.  Her jaw quivered, her lips pressing tight, swallowing down the choking sound that clenched, tight and agonizing in her chest.  “You –   “  Her voice was shaking, weak.   “You –   don’t –  know –  anything about the kind of man he is,” she raged, in stuttered gasps, fingers digging trenches through her palms, knotting against her stomach as she tried to find the breath necessary to keep from dissolving into the multi-colored dissolving dots that spun at the edges of her blurred, streaked vision.  “You know –”

“I know ENOUGH,” Daniel’s voice roared, white knuckled fists still digging into the faint hollows of the desk beneath him where they had impacted moments before.  “I know all I need to know.”  His voice was white-hot, wounded pride and centuries-old-ego crashing together into a dangerous compound that had needed only a spark to ignite.   One hand raised, a harsh gesture through the air that made her flinch, an array of images spinning to life in the air around them.   Images, snapshots, of marred flesh, of her bruised throat and wrists, the pages of the medical reports from her sleeve repair spinning by one after the other; moving images, flickers of tangled limbs, of gasped and throaty sounds, a dozen intimacies caught in ten- fifteen- second loops – the night of the Bancroft ball, snippets from the beach-house security cameras, and others, a shaky, hand-held or perhaps aerial remote camera that honed in on the slightly grainy, but still clearly discernible features of June and Takeshi entangled against an alley wall, and another of similar quality that showed skin, bared, coarse sounds of their rough coupling tinny from the distance of the camera outside of his hotel room but – clear enough.  

Humiliation flooded her, acidic as it cascaded over nerves so recently left raw and open; anger and resentment, indignation burning hot in his gaze as he shoved the images away, the sounds seeming to linger for a few seconds more.   “You – had me – followed?”  Takeshi’s words from the ruins echoed in her thoughts – she’d been so quick to dismiss the possibility –  “Oh, no,” Daniel scoffed, cutting off that line of questioning in an instant. “That is not up for discussion, and as luck would have it, those lovely snippets of your behaviour were brought to your mother and I by two separate individuals who – fortunately for you – had the decency to ‘offer’ to sell the footage to me, rather than to the spin rags,” he seethed, and it seemed something in those words registered, a creeping, gnawing understanding worming its way through her chest.   “Do you have any idea the potential scandal that this could have dragged you – this family through?  My only daughter, fucking the last Envoy, a known murderer – an assassin, a mercenary, a terrorist in the streets like a common whore –”  

It didn’t seem to wound, quite so deeply as his first insults – she’d stopped feeling anything other than shock minutes before.    “Do you care, even a little, about all that we have done for you, all that this family stands for –?”  A harsh sound, a brittle, contorted scoff rushed from her at his words, silvery-limned jade eyes gleaming brightly, almost inhumanly in her nearly ghost-pale features as her gaze cut up sharply to him, to her, the nearly silent, immobile form of the draconian woman who stood behind Daniel, one elbow resting lightly, casually on the back of his chair, watching the events unfold with an impassable mask of calm.  “Oh, you can’t actually –”  June began, disbelief and a bitter edge of disdain sharpening her words before another gesture, another thud of Daniel’s hand, palm flat this time, slammed down onto the desk.   To her credit, June didn’t flinch that time.   “You leave your mother out of this,” he spoke, his words frigid, the warning clear in his posture and expression.   “You have done this, you have endangered everything, with your reckless, sycophantic, childish behaviour and it ends now.   Laurens Bancroft did not summon this creature from the depths of cold storage to be your plaything, and I will not have you sullying our name, gallivanting around town with this monster who has – do you know how many organic deaths, how many real deaths this Kovacs has left callously in his wake?”  

“Perhaps you’d care to see that footage as well,” the offer came, silky smooth, a soft and deadly offer made from the viper behind the desk, a tilt of her head as she mimicked concern, sympathy.  “I don’t think you realize just how lucky you are to have limped away with as little harm as you’ve endured –”  Maria began, before June’s taut, short words cut her off.  

“You. Know.  Nothing about him.  He would never hurt me,” June spoke, outrage and utter faith echoing simply in her words, mirrored in the edges of disgust that twisted her mockingly youthful features at even the thought.  

Maria’s expression showed a flicker of intrigue before her brows tucked together, concern seeming to warm her gaze and soften her features, a small step taken forward as she placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulders, exchanging a glance with him before she turned her focus back to June to speak again.   “Oh, darling,” she spoke softly, regret tinting her words.  “Oh - you think … you thought he cared for you,” she empathized, a frown tugging gently at the edges of her lips as she watched June’s reactions, watched the edges of indignation crumble just so.  “I’m sorry, darling,” Maria continued.  “It’s – truly a tale as old as time, I’m – sorry if … you thought you were the only one.”  Another half exchange of glances, before she leaned in over Daniel’s stance slightly to pull open one of the folders that had half scattered at his attacks on the desk, opening the file and with a simple gesture, fanned out a series of still photos, all featuring various quality images that showed the Envoy’s current sleeve in various stages of coitus in his hotel room with at least two different women, one June didn’t recognize – young, delicate looking, pretty in a … haunting way – the other easily recognizable to her – Miriam – with date and time stamps that marked the interactions scattered throughout the last few weeks.  

That, June felt.  The twist of the dagger in her chest, snaking deeper, bleeding freely.  “And?”  She tried to believe she didn’t care, that it didn’t matter – they had never set boundaries, rules, had never spoken of –   She could feel him, the way his rough fingertips swept over her cheek, the way his fingers eased through her hair, his thumb brushing over her ear, scarred knuckles teasing along her throat –  the warmth of his breath flickering, teasing over her skin in the warmth of the sun, the sinking sensation of bare toes into wet, squelching sand as his lips brushed over hers, soft and filled with –  longing.   She hated them – hated the tears that welled over lashes and streaked over her cheeks, brushed away angrily with the palms and back of her hands as she forced her gaze back to them, white lipped and white knuckled.   “I have –  done – everything you ever asked of me,” June spoke, her words thin, her voice tight, warbling with the overload of emotions.   “Everything.   I have been – Never, in all my life, have I done anything that might cast a modicum of scandal or negativity on this family–”

“Until now,” Daniel cut in, shortly, crisply, his voice pitched lower but no less seething, the vein in his forehead still pulsing rapidly though – he seemed to have expended the worst of his outrage.   “It will not happen again.  There are no ifs, ands, or buts - this is not up for debate, you will do as you are told or you will face the consequences.  You think you know what this world is, child, but believe you me, it is a far different beast without the protection and comforts that you have been afforded.   Tell him, in person, if you must – but this ends.  Now.  If – if – you think you can defy me, consider carefully what you think you have.  What you think you own, because – I promise you, it is far less than you believe.”