silvergashed

[silvergashed]

poisonmend·:

[...]

“once they’re gone– the front door’s the only way out. we can take a quick moment to rest.” he gulps in air, an inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale again, and opens them to look at them once more just a few seconds later, eyes searching bright and darkness, caught in the middle of two pieces of himself. there’s still a concerned furrow to his brow, however, a determination in his gaze that’s dedicated to his next words. 

“are you hurt anywhere? in any pain?” 

just the suggestion of going to the hospital makes him blanch--too many memories, too many phantom pains, too many things they can find if they go poking around him--but there it is again, that pang of haven’t we been here before. right down to the stubborn goddamn limbs he’s trying to keep back, keep in, right down to the

haven’t they been here before?

“i’m fine.” he grunts when he stumbles into a strewn shopping basket. it skitters across the shiny floors, knocking into a mess of cans and boxes that have fallen off the shelf and almost tripping someone else. the sight of them scrambling madly to filch whatever’s left on the shelves is surreal, especially when he recognizes this store from the pearly-teethed commercials they run late at night. how long’s it going to take for them to make everything look fresh out of a dollhouse set?

he doesn’t get a good look at the other person until they’re finally behind the counter, and he’s not sure if it’s just the shitty, flickering lights overhead, but they look like they’re struggling more than he is. 

“i’m not going to the hospital.” no use and no time to explain that the burning isn’t entirely foreign, but his conscience won’t let him just say good luck with that and climb back over the counter to get back outside either. now he’s seen their face, and he already knows it---he’s going to have nightmares about this. he doesn’t need another ghost at night pleading for his help.

as if just now becoming aware of it, he yanks his hand away, fingers coiling and uncoiling to immediately forget what it had felt like to be physically tethered to someone like that. it’s strange to rub them into his palm and feel the soot from the explosion without really feeling it. he half expects to feel nothing at all, or for them to just be useless chunks of silver, but they move with a surprising, almost disturbing ease, like they’re still made of flesh. 

rieun curls them back into fists. angles himself away. “you look worse than i do,” he mutters, looking around restlessly at the rest of the store. someone’s half-paid groceries are still on the counter, their wallet open and forgotten. there’s a fight breaking out near the entrance, flashes of light and energy suggesting that there are more than a few metahumans in the fray, so "once they’re gone” doesn’t seem like a simple five-minute wait, but he's not just going to sit there and watch someone gradually burn out, no matter how determined they look now.

he spots a thin rack of bottled water on the other side of the counter, reminding him of the borderline painful dryness in his throat. yeah, that might explain why they look ready to pass out. “wait here.” he’s not gone for long at all, just a few seconds to slip out from behind the counters and grab as many of the bottles as he can hold, and yet when he returns there’s someone new standing near the entrance, just a few steps away from the stranger on the floor.

someone with something sharp in their hands.

“don’t touch him,” he snarls, that fire flaring with the threat in his words. for a terrifying second, it feels like the coil behind his back’s going to snap and see what your knife will do against mine---

the woman’s hand darts out for the wallet before she’s fleeing, disappearing into the mob.

skull pounding, rieun kicks the counter gate back shut. focus. when he’s sure he’s not going to fall over as soon as he lifts a foot, he turns and picks his way uncertainly back to his spot. he shakes one of the water bottles insistently in front of their face. “drink.”

[silvergashed]

iinksplit·:

[...]

yuram! stop! but she can’t.

“do you hear that—wha—” her words are cut off in a gurgle, with a sudden mouthful of ink. the metahuman spits it out and the liquid only congeals back into the mass at her feet. “what is—” yuram fights another mouthful of symbiote, and she doesn’t know if it’s the no longer symbiotic ink fighting for her oxygen or the screaming effigy, but she’s starting to get light headed. “we gotta go,” yuram says, grabbing rieun’s shoulder, and it leaves an oil black mark.

it’s hard to describe, being at ground zero.

before his mother stopped flying, she used to bring him with her into the air. she would climb, and climb, and climb, bearing him tightly to her chest, and he would know when they reached the peak because she would slow, her wings flaring to full span to coast for one long, beautiful moment———and then they would furl and she would surge forward, plunging them back down to earth.

it was exhilarating. freeing. he felt weightless, like the heaviest parts of him were burning away in their comet’s tail and he was nothing except the truest parts of himself anymore.

none of the overhead, none of the excess. absolution. as close to it as he could get.

what happens here first is the voice.

then it’s the vertigo. it’s been so long since his mother had the strength to carry him and he was something light enough to hold that his body balks at it: this shouldn’t be happening. his feet are firmly on the ground, his hand is on yuram, and she’s— she’s—

as panic starts erupting around them, rieun watches the black void pooling at the ground, dumbstruck, barely feeling the wetness on his shoulder from yuram’s hand. the contact cuts him out of the daze, and he looks up to find her teeming with ink. “yuram, you’re—” we gotta go. yeah. yeah, they need to—

someone cries out, and there’s a fucking panther leaping onto the float, ripping that screaming thing to shreds. the recording stops, but the voice doesn’t. he grabs the hand on his shoulder and tugs yuram out of the way as someone rippling with scales collapses on the ground where she used to be standing. rieun watches, numb, as they twist and morph into something else.

“we need to find—” an aeternal, he means to say, except as he turns and starts frantically searching for a way out of the crowd starting to flee, he realizes that the worst ones are the ones wearing ivory. cursing, he starts down the clearest path he can see, towards anywhere that isn’t in the middle of the parade.

he feels— he feels funny. the part of him that thinks he’s flying keeps waiting for the drop, but he’s starting to feel heavier instead, like he’s dripping wax that keeps congealing into weights around his ankles. his head feels frighteningly light and his back is fucking burning. he shoves someone out of the way, knuckles white around yuram’s hand in fear that she’s going to liquefy entirely if he doesn’t hold on tightly enough.

there’s one of the medical tents up ahead. do you even know what’s wrong? says a hysteric voice in the back of his mind, but he ignores it, throwing his weight against the crowd of other terrified people struggling to get out.

he doesn’t know when he loses yuram’s hand. someone’s weight lands on the wrong side of his outstretched arm and he hisses, hand instinctively tightening into a fist, and he realizes that it’s empty.

shit.

he struggles to turn in the undulating crowd, almost losing his balance as he searches for some sign of her amidst the terror-stricken faces. “yuram!”

[silvergashed]

poisonmend​:

[...] 

he tugs on the hand gripped in his own, the half black, half blonde disarray of his hair fallen and in strands half obscuring his eyes that mirror the split, one glowing golden white light, the other completely consumed in darkness, and he tilts his head towards the path when he recognizes it among the carnage, a torn poster still marking the entrance with its brilliant red ink. there’s still crowds of people and destroyed festival booths and siwoo is glowing, even with all of that darkness the crawls up one of his arms to almost his shoulder, now, and he hopes that this will work. a rescue for an escape– this is what he can provide.

and so he guides them forward, flowers at his heels, heart threatening to leap out of his throat. he cannot heal, he cannot decay, but he can lead, a lighthouse in the fog, a rekindling of a flame long lost to the dark. 

one foot in front of the other.

focus. walk. don’t think about the fire. don’t think about what’s burning. 

it’s a familiar mantra. never mind that it usually comes in the ring, when there’s copper in his mouth and a bell pounding in his skull. there’s something just as acerbic on his tongue now, and doesn’t he know best that sometimes the world’s just as shitty out here as it is in there---step. step. 

don’t think about the darkening sky. don’t think about the aeternal’s face contorted in righteous fury and something like pain, she looked like she’d been in pain, she didn’t mean that, and you just left her?

focus on the half-specter in front of him. half saint, half blight. when he looks down, it strikes him fitting that the one brimming in darkness is the one that’s taken his hand, but the flowers still preening in his memory tell him that he’ll be safe if he follows.

they seem to know where they’re going, he reasons. never mind the pangs of deja vu. never mind how the kaleidoscope colors of tattered streamers and festival booths blur away once he realizes that the stranger’s form -- not just the half of them, but even their darkest parts -- is pulsing gently with light. they look like a mirage in twilight, caught somewhere between halves.

one step into the alley, and the world narrows down to a single, straightforward column of sights, smells, and sounds. there’s nothing spectral about the grip around his hand, tight and shaken as his own, and he'd be on his knees in gratitude for how firmly it keeps him grounded in reality when that voice is still rattling around his head, working at the fucking hinges of his sanity. but if it isn’t enough, he can hear the life teeming in the buildings on either side of them too, muted sounds of panic battering against the windows and granting a sense of foreboding. 

what the hell happened? how far did it spread? he doesn’t want to think about it happening in the facility. he thinks of the lightning, he thinks of the tree crumbling, he thinks of earthquakes and what worse things the people in there could be capable of while his parents--- 

"where’re you headed?” it’s a good time to realize that he hasn’t heard a word from the stranger yet, and that a scenario where he’s been hit in the head and he’s really hallucinating on the ground hasn’t been entirely ruled out yet. one thing at a time, he tells the erratic thing pounding behind his ribs. hopefully they’re on their way out of here, though he’d never admit he doesn’t know where they are at all. he hasn’t spent a lot of time in this part of the city before, and there are usually too many fleeting faces for him to keep track of. studying the back of the stranger’s head, he can only hope that he hasn’t consigned himself to some kind of---

one thing at a time, for god’s sake.

he stumbles over an uneven slab of concrete, and less than another step later, there’s a splintering CRASH behind them. “fuck,” rieun bites out, almost falling right into the stranger’s back from the sudden pop of sound, immediately filling the narrow alley. gold flares up the bricks surrounding them, and when rieun looks back, there’s a broken window and a heap of flames on the ground, rapidly catching onto the fliers and streamers strewn on the ground. one gust of wind, and a few burning papers are sent fluttering in their direction.

shit, shit, shit. “how long does this go for?” he’s already searching ahead, looking for leverage, a fire escape, anything that’s going to bail them out of hellfire rapidly growing behind them. “cover your mouth--” right on cue, rieun breaks out into harsh coughs, his eyes tearing from the plumes of smoke wafting close. he squeezes the stranger’s hand urgently, squaring his other hand over their back to keep them moving forward, moving faster.

[silvergashed]

poisonmend​:

[...]

he’ll be good, yes, siwoo will be good, he will use his abilities for good, he will help people and ease their pain, he will make them better– but there is quiet in the back of his mind, there is– haven’t i always been good, eomma? why can’t i already be good?

there is– have i ever been any good? will i ever be?

he wishes for it all to have been a dream. then, maybe then, it can turn into a good one.

once upon a time there was a hero who wasn’t born a hero. they named them kerosene for the damage they dealt, but a name was just a name, and one day kerosene eventually reformed and reemerged somebody better——not somebody else, but the somebody that they always were, sprouted from that seed of goodness he knew was buried in everyone, no matter how deep. cut away the rot, water the soil, and give it light, and it could flower from anywhere, no matter how long it had spent neglected before.

choi rieun isn’t a hero. sometimes choi rieun isn’t anyone at all, and it’s best that way because he can’t miss a bar so low it’s underground, but somehow there are still times when he wavers. wonders.

he could be—

(he’s a bundle of nerves, a book once told him. he’s a network of signals and receptors firing one after the other, an always-going litany of sensations that his brain mistakes for existence. a misfortune, said a doctor, but we can fix this, and so rieun had buried his face into his mother’s shoulder and let them do what they needed to fix him. to change him, this said, to transfigure him into something greater than corrosion, and once upon a time he was young and waiting for his miracle under sterile lights and watching a flower bloom out of a god’s palm. it was pretty, like the vibrant shrubs that grew beneath the spotless windows of those aeternity homes, and he imagined how it would happen for him one day: like kerosene, he’d become something more than the poison that ran rampant in him. he would wear his silver with the aeternals’ ivory, and he would be—)

—silver. he stares at his hands. it’s coated his fingertips, his knuckles, streaks up his forearms and claws higher. he moves his fingers, watching as they gleam, grotesque. how? he’s never been– his wings aren’t even out.

the world doubles. his insides twist strangely, and he has half the mind to wonder if the silver’s seeping in there too, but it strikes him when he tries to take a step that it’s just nausea—just nausea. he wants to giggle. no, he wants to throw up.

then he looks down again, and there are flowers growing at his feet.

rieun thinks he must have finally lost his mind. there are flowers growing. they unfurl gently, petals swaying in the breeze, and for a moment, the chaos around him is faraway. how did he get here? he watches the flowers desiccate, each one crumpling like a fountain spout cut down before another takes its place.

then another. another, another. like little mirrors of that memory he holds close on nights he loses track of what good there’s left in the world.

the aeternal’s shout cuts through the haze, forcing the rest of the world back into his attention with it. past the flowers, there’s someone with lightning around their hands, advancing on a tree that looks ready to collapse. then rieun looks closer, and that ivory suit completely slips his notice once he realizes that there’s someone else under the tree, as if they’d been cornered there.

rieun begins to pivot, because he doesn’t know what the hell is going on but his first and only concern is currently a district away from here, but the aeternal isn’t stopping. why isn’t she stopping? why isn’t she putting the fucking lightning away? the civilian looks terrified, what does she mean that they’re harming the area when it’s her lightning that keep catching the grass and leaving thin trails of smoke.

“hey,” rieun shouts, fighting the second wave of nausea that comes with hearing his own too-loud voice ringing in his ears. “they’re not doing anything, leave them alone!”

the aeternal whirls around with a flash. that’s when rieun really notices the ivory uniform and the firmness of their stance. a split second later, his vision fills with blinding light.

twin jaws of pain clamp around his forearms, and he cries out, almost falling back. when he opens his eyes, the world has sharpened to his own arms reeking of singed skin and metal, to the aeternal now advancing on him, to the person still beneath the tree.

“stand down.” the aeternal’s voice rings out like a matching clap of thunder. something about her is unnatural, wrong, her face pinched in a grimace and her voice too tight for the openness she’s wielding her powers with this. “you are posing a- an obstruction to—justice.” she unfolds her arms before her, the air turning arid as her coils of lightning grow even brighter, and she’s an aeternal, says a voice in the back of rieun’s mind, she wouldn’t hurt anyone.

but his voice of self preservation is louder for once, spurring him into motion just in time as a bolt of lightning lashes the ground where he used to be. “what the fuck is wrong with you?” he shrieks, shoes kicking up grass as he lurches forward again before another lightning strike hits the last spot.

instinct kicks in. he’s no coward, but he’s no idiot either, and the pain still ringing in the un-turned parts of his forearms tells him that this isn’t one of those fights he can win.

so he runs. ducks and stumbles when he hears another spit-and-crackle again, the smell of burnt earth now filling the air. he follows the flowers, makes it to that tree and hauls the stranger off of it just before lightning slices the bark. “run,” rieun hisses, grip almost bruisingly tight as he yanks them along with him, away from whatever she is——that wasn’t an aeternal, that was some kind of monster in a hero’s mask.

too busy leading them through a path of least carnage, he doesn’t realize that he can’t feel a thing in his hands.

[silvergashed]

renegaed·:

[...]

they’re nose to nose, and jaehyun’s breathing down his neck. “it was all a fucking lie, wasn’t it?” he shoves rieun’s shoulder with his fingers and takes a step forward. “you fucking punk.” shove, step forward. “i should’ve let your parents rot.”

blood sport  /  @silvergashed

three things:

1) these days, by the time he folds and chooses mercy, the fire's bad enough that it drowns out the pinch when he jabs the needle into his thigh, and his hands won't shake if he doesn't look at it. if he holds his breath and looks away as he does it, it's like it doesn't happen at all. 2) if he stretches out his wings and lays as still as a dead log, the magic medicine works faster, has fewer avenues of fire to put out before his insides are iced over and his body feels like something he can stand again. 3) if he stays still long enough, sometimes he'll fall asleep, and that's a few precious minutes he can spare himself of lying there and just waiting, waiting, remembering how to do something as simple as breathing in--out--in--

bang, bang, bang.

four? god, can i ever get a fucking break--

4) there's someone trying to bash his door down. rieun barely gets the door open, recognizes the face, and gets to start asking, "how are you already--" before he's being shoved backwards, wings flaring for balance.

park jaehyun is the omen he's been dreading to face. but if he thinks he can come in here, kick up dust and stamp his feet to get his way in rieun's house--

"keep your fucking voice down. are you trying to get arrested again already?" he squares his stance when jaehyun comes too close for comfort, makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and lets him that the serum's kicked in, all right, because he's too aware of jaehyun gnashing his teeth in his face and the alarms blaring in the back of his skull.

this is something he knew was coming. he even remembers the exact moment he thought of it while he was sitting under the pale, sterile lights of that godawful hospital, waiting to help jaehyun's grandmother home, a guilty murmur that went, you made a promise, and but how am i supposed to do this now?, and you promised. it's the same voice that insists now: you said you'd look after her.

he did. he shoves the conviction into jaehyun's shoulder and forces him back, sending something clattering to the ground as his wings drag along with the motion. he did, he'd done what he could, but he'd had about as much say in someone's body failing them as he had over his own, and, "what did you want me to do? show up there and tell you, no, she's not fine and the doctors can't do shit but maybe you can while you're in there?” for all he wants to tell jaehyun to calm the fuck down, his voice has risen too, his pulse pounding in his ears. “wanted to have this conversation there so you could level another building and earn three more years in prison?"

[silvergashed]

iinksplit​:

[...]

the girl hops off the bench she was perched on, throwing an arm around him. “i’m officially covering the, uh,” she frowns at the latest doohickey she’d swiped that looks like it’s just a black box. the symbiote gives her a metaphysical shrug. “whatever this is. unofficially, though…” yuram tosses it over her shoulder and throws an arm around the other, a weight around his neck, dragging him in the wrong ( right? ) direction from her journalism duties. “evil floats sound like a way better story.”

with an eyeroll, rieun leans down so that he is walking with a friend who has her arm around him, not being dragged along in a headlock. “i said you could be the reason they’ll need to be investigated,” he slants a pointed look at the newly-makeovered animatronic, with its cotton candy stick unibrow, “not that you’d be the reason they could be evil. but interesting that that’s just where you went to. you got something to hide, yuram-ssi?”

she’s right, though. he’s one of the ones who were drawn here thinking something would happen, isn’t he? “so i’m guessing that means you haven’t found anything interesting.” a little disappointing, but not that surprising. he glances at the object she’d thrown. had she swiped that from somewhere? rieun decides not to ask, because saying i didn’t know will be easier than explaining if she’s caught and he’s dragged into it. again.

somewhere up ahead, the line of floats has started to move. rieun decides to put his foot down somewhere near the crowd of people that have built up along the sides of the path. “i guess if there’s any evil around here, we’ll find out soon,” he says dryly, watching as the floats bob along. there goes the one with the new moustache -- he hears someone behind them go, my float! -- and the rest of the-- well, rieun doesn’t want to sound like a street corner cynic, but it’s hard not to look at a chain of floats detailing the aeternals’ glory days and think of a word that isn’t propaganda.

one of them catches his eye in particular, though.

it’s passing them. it’s a plain one, sandwiched between two colorful atrocities. it doesn’t look like it’s been decorated much either, with only a mic stand and some kind of mannequin wobbling in the middle as it floats along with the rest. weird, a little unsettling. rieun can’t describe how he feels, looking at it. he thinks there’s something wrong with its face, but then it gets too far ahead and he can’t see it anymore.

“some of these are just creepy,” he mutters to yuram, shifting uncomfortably.

this is something he’s felt before -- one night, half past two in the morning, walking down the maw and feeling something waiting for him. not a monster in the dark---but something worse waiting in the light of his house’s porch, its front door cracked open.

“i,” he begins, only to be cut off by a hysteric voice somewhere to the right.

“someone needs to stop them!” a person blurs past them, knocking into yuram and consequently rieun. “stop! stop the floats!”

“jesus, are you okay?” he steadies yuram by the elbow, shooting a nasty look down the direction the person had disappeared in, but for some reason the floats are slowing down. around them, people are starting to murmur in annoyance and mild confusion. rieun nudges them a step away from the crowd warily. “the floats are... yuram, did you actually do something?”

[silvergashed]

spdersnse:

[...]

“no, no, i live up in the—” awareness crashes in, and he swallows back the word before he accidentally tells a potential murderer his location of residence. “um, i know the way, though. ‘round here. are you— are you, like, okay?”

ben feels like a compression spring about to pop, gravel crunching underfoot much too loudly when he shuffles backwards a centimeter.

“should i call the hospital?”

rieun’s no stranger to scrutiny, but usually it’s while he’s out in daylight, dragging his ass to work and pretending not to notice the wide berth that people walk around him or sitting in the suntrain across some wide-eyed onlooker wringing their hands and praying for his salvation. in the dark, he’s used to being the lesser devil: his hands aren’t clean, but they sure as hell aren’t the dirtiest. 

maybe that’s why this—kid, rieun thinks, even though he doesn’t look that much younger, and the way he’s looking at rieun like he’ll need to run from him any second— it throws him. no matter how many fights he’s tipped in his favor, he’s usually the one ready to turn heel and get away from anyone he meets past sundown around here.

two things, then: he doesn’t feel immediately endangered by this person, but it’s not a perfect mirror of the kinds of people he runs into past midnight either, because they haven’t already started moving in the opposite direction like he knows he would. they do look ready to run, to their credit, but they don’t.

they’re asking if...he’s okay?

rieun blinks. then he frowns. “no hospital,” he replies curtly, warningly. his wings ruffle, coiling in a little tighter. “i'm fine, i’m just trying to get back to the maw.” but not if he’s going to be followed by some snitch. his eyes dart down to the stranger’s feet, then up again to that extra bit of tension in their hands gripping that bag. jesus, are they a student?

“if you know the way around here, then you know there’re worse people than me walking around this late, don't you,” he says evenly, squaring his feet to either follow or brace himself for whatever they decide to pull. “you sure you’re not just lost?”

[silvergashed]

@iinksplit,

two chicken skewers in, and rieun decides that the day can still be salvaged. his body had vehemently protested getting dragged out of bed that morning, but it was going to be worse if he just let it sit and simmer all day.

outside, then. somehow, all the noise about the centennial managed to reach all the way here, but he did remember something about free food. it only took a second to consider, and then he’d taken a few painkillers and left for downtown. anything to be spared from doing dishes.

the sun’s less offensively bright now than it was that morning, filtered down to something more bearable by a patch of thicker clouds rolling in. to his surprise — of course it’s surprising when you’re always doomsaying, he thinks idly — he’s barely felt the last hour or so slip by. it doesn’t feel like the kind of day something inordinately bad would happen, doesn’t even feel ominous despite the things he’s seen with that comic. it’s still there of course, lodged in the back of his mind like a stone in his shoe, but that edge he’s been feeling since he first saw that headline break actually dulls for once as he makes his way around.

mostly.

when he sees the journalists scattered about, he tells himself, of course they’re covering it. it’s a big event, but something about it all makes him feel like they’re holding their breaths for something. for what? it’s the infuriating kind of anticipation. he wants to be open-eyed and very, very aware of when the metaphorical punch is coming. he doesn’t want to be some sucker closing his eyes and waiting for impact.

among the reporters, there’s a familiar face: lee yuram is like the edge of a table that once accidentally snagged the edge of his sleeve, only for him to glance back much later and realize that a thread still hung between them. sure, it hadn’t really been accidental, that night that something possessed him to cover for her and her friends when they were vandalizing some billboard that had already fallen prey to other spray cans, but he’d never expected to come away with a...friend. or so yuram said.

here he is anyway. here he is, approaching her. he’s even throwing away the stick of his skewer, because he’s been around her long enough to suspect that would become ten times a safety hazard near her. maybe she’ll know something. don’t journalists always know something? “so are you here to cover the free food or investigate the evil floats?” he asks by way of announcing himself, coming to a stop next to her. he pauses. squints. “or to be the reason they'll need to be investigated?”

[silvergashed]

@spdersnse,

it’s dark. the moment after he makes this observation, his voice of reason says, what’d you expect, dipshit? the jeong district’s already always got some sort of shroud over it, like everything everyone says somehow collects in the clouds like leaves blocking up a rain gutter, but it’s especially bad after—

hm. he’s not sure what time it is. he didn’t make it past the first round of matches this time, knocked out by some fucker whose punches arced wider than he could dodge, so that must mean it’s at least sometime past one in the morning. he has a route home, but the usual street he turned into had been blocked off by some godawful floats — right, the centennial  — and forced him down a different direction.

he’s done this enough times that he still should’ve been able to find the river and make his way from there, but it’s been minutes of walking and he swears there are only more buildings and shoddy streetlamps. where is he? he might’ve taken a few hits too many this time — his head’s a little cottony. he hasn’t even tried to pull his wings back yet, not with his left one still smarting in a soft spot that asshole kept aiming for, and the weight of them dragging behind him isn’t exactly helping him focus on navigating. god, he just wants to lie down and sleep for a day. two days, maybe.

it’s then that he sees them: a figure by the dimly-lit road like some mirage in the desert, or maybe a very real person waiting for stragglers like him from the club. but it’s dark, and it’s late, and he’s already fought once tonight, so what’s one more? not like he’s carrying any cash for them to take.

“hey.” his mouth’s starting to dry out too. rieun purses his lips, grimaces when he feels a sharp sting there and tastes copper. “do you live around here?”

[silvergashed]

⥼ BACKGROUND / PROFILE / PLOTS

hi everyone!! im lia (21+, they/them but any pronouns are ok!) and i couldnt prepare a pretty graphic weeps, but pls take choi rieun! i haven’t had the chance to write up a traditional biography yet, so you can find an informal rundown of his background under the cut! im happy to plot through here, but i also have d!scrd if anyone prefers that. his plots somehow? are done on time? so they’re there for inspo but i’ll also be snooping through everyone’s plots for material to craft some evil and possibly painful nice possible connections for us to write up : ]

currently works at the jeong district’s f-mart, come bother him <3 and if you’re in the right place at the right time, you might see him fighting in the ring at daemon. despite his....uh, general demeanor, some part of him still actually believes in the aeternals, so . kicks rock

born may 2, 1998 to two very loving parents, two metahumans living in “the maw” in the jeong district. although now he’s pretty caustic, dry humored, and easily irritated, he used to be a quiet, placid child.

his mother had avian physiology and could manifest wings, while his father was able to harden his skin into silver. rieun was born with the ability to manifest wings, but thanks to his father, he also inherited traces of silver in his blood that’s been slowly, quietly building up and toxifying his bloodstream since birth. fun!

at first, it’s bearable. then he’s six, and his wings manifest for the first time, and they’re downy and soft just like his mother’s, except he’s absolutely wailing in pain and scratching at shoulders like he’s trying to claw out of himself.

it turns out that the silver doesn’t actually let him transform like his father’s ability, but something reacts when he protracts and retracts his wings -- it triggers a burning sensation “under his skin” from all of that silver coursing in his veins.

his parents, horrified by something they blamed themselves for, start looking for options. maybe the aeternals forget about people like them, but that only lets them stay better under the radar. they hear word of clinical trials for some kind of serum, something that’s supposed to enhance someone’s regeneration. all they want in return is data. that’s doable, surely. it’s more affordable than a hospital visit or physical therapy. they’ll save up for that eventually; this is just a temporary solution.

and so for his seventh birthday, rieun gets his first dose of something he’ll come to call his medicine -- the magic dose that puts out the fire in his veins and lets him uncurl his wings without them feeling like a punishment.

then puberty hits, and the pain becomes near unbearable. streaks of silver start appearing over his arms, down his back -- over time, he realizes that they’re imprints of his wings when they’re folded within him, like a sprawling silver tattoo, and they ripple every time he unfurls his wings like they’re shifting under his skin. even his feathers have started to stain silver, a side effect of the overexposure. it’s beautiful. it’s fucking agony. one attempt at physical therapy proves to be not enough -- only the medicine makes it better.

he starts getting into fights. it’s just stupid, pointless street ones at first. at times, he thinks he’s playing hero -- other times, he thinks it’s just to distract him from that heat always simmering under his skin.

then someone introduces him to daemon, tells him he could actually maybe do something with that itch for a distraction. he tries a few fights, gets the shit beaten out of him every time. his parents are terrified of how he comes home. he keeps going back anyway.

may, 2017. his eighteenth birthday. he comes home, and the front door’s ajar. a second later, his parents are being led out by two aeternals. arrested on multiple counts of theft and possession of illegal substances, they say, and nothing more. suddenly he’s left to fend for himself, and it isn’t long before he runs out of that medicine his parents left him with.

he does some digging, but his parents, aside from whatever slip that landed them behind bars, have been meticulous; there’s no trace of where or who they were getting his medicine from. 

then someone comes banging on the door one night, demanding for his parents and demanding payment -- and then it’s four am, two steps away from his own house, rieun is hauling his sprained ribs and bloody mouth from the ground to bandage his wounds and come to terms with the fact that his parents had been involved in the fucking black market.

so they’ve been racking up debts to support the family this whole time. all right, fantastic. he gets a job. two jobs. then one again, when he can’t handle it. his body burns all of the time, he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to do this on his own.

gets licensed bc keeping his wings in for extended periods of time actually worsens the pain, thanks to all that silver that’s imbued in them now. leaving them out is massively inconvenient and is another kind of pain -- shit’s heavy!! -- so really he’s in a catch-22 of constant physical discomfort lol.

he keeps searching. there’s more of this...medicine. this serum, though different people call it different things. has different effects. some of them ease the pain, some of them make him stronger. none of them last long enough. his job isn’t enough; he starts dropping by daemon again---out of necessity, he tells himself, so he can keep himself well, so he can get his parents out someday.

he loses. he loses a lot. then, one night, he doesn’t rein back his wings, and it turns out that he can concentrate so much better when half of him isn’t busy holding them in, and-- some feathers have hardened now, sharp enough to slice. he finds this out the hard way.

his wings start to look less beautiful. feathers start to loosen easily -- the rest of his wingspan is a strange amalgamation of downy white and stiff silver. many of the ones that have turned completely silver are chipped, scuffed from fights.

he has to be smart about his fights -- outlast than overpower, react rather than attack. an inconsistent method that heavily depends on him lucking out with the right opponent, but he starts winning a little more often. they call him silver sparrow, but most of his opponents have worse names like filthy fucking cheat, but his wings are a part of him. they’re not separate weapons, see?

he fights for the money, not the title. he just needs enough to afford the next dose so the pain of his wings doesn’t drive him insane, and to save up gradually to afford his parents a new, clean chance at life.

may, 2022. his parents are due for another hearing soon; they might be released earlier than their sentence. rieun, older now and both weaker and stronger, promises them he’s going to get them out, and he’s going to make sure they won’t have to worry about a thing for the rest of their lives.

then the scandal hits, and his parents’ trials are cancelled for some reason. this serum---it’s meant to enhance an aeternal’s strength, their abilities, their regeneration. they’ve been testing on people, they say. it’s inhumane, they say. they’re going to find out who’s involved, they say. he suddenly remembers being seven and afraid, his mother stroking his hair, telling him he’s braver than any of those heroes.

he's afraid to find out what kind of legacy he’s been left with, but it’s starting to look like he won’t have a choice.

[silvergashed]

the feminine urge to rip everything to fucking pieces

[silvergashed]

Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

[silvergashed]

i am looking disrespectfully

[silvergashed]

I WILL BE THE KNIFE THIS TIME.

prayer for the newly damned, ocean vuong / unknown / mercy, yves olade / cut, caitlyn siehl

[silvergashed]

Alfredo Aguilar, from "Mount Erie"