#sticks needle into brain 'ah refreshing'

[righteousruin]

I think I decided that my Bane's post!Six mainverse uses venom like this one moment from Conquest

No tubes or big canisters, he doesn't use it for combat often, just pops his handy little ampoules directly into the implants every so many hours as a means of upkeep, like he did for most of Knightfall, because he doesn't want to deal with the withdrawls.

[twst-drabbles]

Vio 1

Summary: Vio’s unable to sleep. Nightmares have been plaguing his head for far too long, ruining his focus, ruining his hard earned looks. He goes to soak a hot towel on his head to hopefully alleviate a headache, but instead found you with his roommate.

(Eldritch AU time! It’s been a bit and I was in a horror mood. Vio’s not an important OC honestly, not even that well developed. He’s just someone I made to be scared of the Prefect cause he saw something he probably shouldn’t have. But, since no official characters show up, I had to make the title of drabble about him. Oh well, enjoy the horror experience!)

The sleeping pills that Vio has been using since the start of his headaches no longer work. There was a temptation to take more than what’s safe just to get his full beauty sleep, to keep the nightmares away, but he knows it’ll kill him.

And so he walked down the hall, guiding himself along the wall so he doesn’t fall, making his way to the bathroom just to put a hot towel on his head, when he saw you, the guest, in the lounge. With his roommate laying face first on the sofa.

Like an egg cracked in the middle. Something poured his roommate’s head, seeping out with the weight of black smoke, but fluid as the ocean. It collected in your hands, never straying too far from your fingers, as though you were holding a precious treasure.

As though a monster holding a most delicate dinner.

Vio violently recoiled away, slamming his hand over his mouth to keep quiet, the skin of head tightening up, his brain refusing to stop its painful throbbing. As though the pain itself yearned to be closer to you. Even as his eyes blurred with the near migraine, Vio couldn’t deny the call of his curiosity.

He peeked over just as you sank your fingers into the writhing mass, a plastic smile on your face as you gentle pulled that, mass of black matter apart. It flowed over your fingers, never listening to the pull of gravity, only obeying your laws, as the black matter seemed to follow whatever rhythm you were conducting.

At the center of it all, was a soft silver string. Delicate, beckoning to whoever lay eyes on it to pick it up, admire it, and spin it into a pattern you’d love. Only then did your smile become real.

You reach it, the string retreating just a bit, but you managed to pinch it. You pulled, harshly, so far above your body that it snapped. Like beautiful piano wire. The snap made a noise, a music note, high, thin, reedy. Like a scream. And Vio’s roommate’s body gave a hard flinch, but he still stayed lax, his hand fell to the floor, fingers skimming the tile.

Vio needed to get help. He had to get up and inform Housewarden Vil, Rook, somebody to get this monster out of this place but…his head…it refused to even complete those thoughts. Sharp needle-like pain laced through every cell in his brain. He can’t keep the tears at bay, the pain was too much, but he had to get up. He can’t just, sit there and let that monster crack his head open and snap whatever is in it.

But the monster found him. You found him there, sitting against the wall, almost writhing in pain. All his lungs could give was a garbled whimper of fear.

You haven’t stopped smiling.

Vio tried to push himself away, but all he could do was pathetically crumple to the ground, violet curls sticking to his sweat-filled forehead.

“Ah, you as well?” The beat to your steps, the impeccable balance and lightness to you cannot possibly be produced by any force of gravity. You stood before Vio, but you were nothing more than a smear in his blurry vision. Even so, the moonlight doesn’t reflect off your skin the way it should on human skin, “Hold still a moment. All will be well soon. You’ll get nice dreams soon enough.”

You reached out, then sank your fingers into his head.

Vio woke up in his bed, sweat gone, headache gone, feeling completely refreshed. There was no weight to his skull, no tiredness inside his bones, and the nightmares that have been plaguing him for months are gone as well.

He shot up from bed, frantically looking room to room until he saw his roommate in his bed, snoring the morning away. Breathing, fingers twitching in deep sleep, no smoke or silver string to be found. He’s alive. And Vio’s alive as well.

A nightmare. He thought. Yes, yes, another nightmare.

He knows that’s not true but…it was better to believe this, no matter how fake. He has to pretend. Vio doesn’t know the reason why you decided to spare him and his roommate, or what you were even doing, but he knows well enough he can’t anger you. If he pretends, then maybe you’ll pretend as well?

And maybe give pity and give an answer one day? No, likely not.

Let’s just, start the day. If, if that Prefect approaches…No, stop that. Get dressed, put on your makeup and get through the day!

But still, Vio found it strange that his head didn’t hurt in the least. It’s normal now, lighter than it has in years. He hopes this continues.

[whishthound]

The Malice of Inanimate Objects

The Malice of Inanimate Objects is a subject upon which an old friend of mine was fond of dilating, and not without justification. In the lives of all of us, short or long, there have been days, dreadful days, on which we have had to acknowledge with gloomy resignation that our world has turned against us. I do not mean the human world of our relations and friends: to enlarge on that is the province of nearly every modern novelist. In their books it is called ‘Life’ and an odd enough hash it is as they portray it. No, it is the world of things that do not speak or work or hold congresses and conferences. It includes such beings as the collar stud, the inkstand, the fire, the razor, and, as age increases, the extra step on the staircase which leads you either to expect or not to expect it. By these and such as these (for I have named but the merest fraction of them) the word is passed round, and the day of misery arranged. Is the tale still remembered of how the Cock and Hen went to pay a visit to Squire Korbes? How on the journey they met with and picked up a number of associates, encouraging each with the announcement:

To Squire Korbes we are going For a visit is owing.

Thus they secured the company of the Needle, the Egg, the Duck, the Cat, possibly — for memory is a little treacherous here — and finally the Millstone: and when it was discovered that Squire Korbes was for the moment out, they took up positions in his mansion and awaited his return. He did return, wearied no doubt by a day’s work among his extensive properties. His nerves were first jarred by the raucous cry of the Cock. He threw himself into his armchair and was lacerated by the Needle. He went to the sink for a refreshing wash and was splashed all over by the Duck. Attempting to dry himself with the towel he broke the Egg upon his face.

He suffered other indignities from the Hen and her accomplices, which I cannot now recollect, and finally, maddened with pain and fear, rushed out by the back door and had his brains dashed out by the Millstone that had perched itself in the appropriate place. ‘Truly,’ in the concluding words of the story, ‘this Squire Korbes must have been either a very wicked or a very unfortunate man.’ It is the latter alternative which I incline to accept. There is nothing in the preliminaries to show that any slur rested on his name, or that his visitors had any injury to avenge. And will not this narrative serve as a striking example of that Malice of which I have taken upon me to treat? It is, I know, the fact that Squire Korbes’s visitors were not all of them, strictly speaking, inanimate. But are we sure that the perpetrators of this Malice are really inanimate either? There are tales which seem to justify a doubt.

Two men of mature years were seated in a pleasant garden after breakfast. One was reading the day’s paper, the other sat with folded arms, plunged in thought, and on his face were a piece of sticking plaster and lines of care. His companion lowered his paper. ‘What,’ said he, ‘is the matter with you? The morning is bright, the birds are singing, I can hear no aeroplanes or motor bikes.’

‘No,’ replied Mr Burton, ‘it is nice enough, I agree, but I have a bad day before me. I cut myself shaving and spilt my tooth powder.’

‘Ah,’ said Mr Manners, ‘some people have all the luck,’ and with this expression of sympathy he reverted to his paper. ‘Hullo,’ he exclaimed, after a moment, ‘here’s George Wilkins dead! You won’t have any more bother with him, anyhow.’

‘George Wilkins?’ said Mr Burton, more than a little excitedly, ‘Why, I didn’t even know he was ill.’

‘No more he was, poor chap. Seems to have thrown up the sponge and put an end to himself. Yes,’ he went on, ‘it’s some days back: this is the inquest. Seemed very much worried and depressed, they say. What about, I wonder?

Could it have been that will you and he were having a row about?’

‘Row?’ said Mr Burton angrily, ‘there was no row: he hadn’t a leg to stand on: he couldn’t bring a scrap of evidence. No, it may have been half-a-dozen things: but Lord! I never imagined he’d take anything so hard as that.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Manners, ‘he was a man, I thought, who did take things hard: they rankled. Well, I’m sorry, though I never saw much of him. He must have gone through a lot to make him cut his throat. Not the way I should choose, by a long sight. Ugh! Lucky he hadn’t a family, anyhow. Look here, what about a walk round before lunch? I’ve an errand in the village.’

Mr Burton assented rather heavily. He was perhaps reluctant to give the inanimate objects of the district a chance of getting at him. If so, he was right. He just escaped a nasty purl over the scraper at the top of the steps: a thorny branch swept off his hat and scratched his fingers, and as they climbed a grassy slope he fairly leapt into the air with a cry and came down flat on his face. ‘What in the world?’ said his friend coming up. ‘A great string, of all things! What business — Oh, I see — belongs to that kite’ (which lay on the grass a little farther up). ‘Now if I can find out what little beast has left that kicking about, I’ll let him have it — or rather I won’t, for he shan’t see his kite again. It’s rather a good one, too.’ As they approached, a puff of wind raised the kite and it seemed to sit up on its end and look at them with two large round eyes painted red, and, below them, three large printed red letters, I.C.U. Mr Manners was amused and scanned the device with care. ‘Ingenious,’ he said, ‘it’s a bit off a poster, of course: I see! Full Particulars, the word was.’ Mr Burton on the other hand was not amused, but thrust his stick through the kite. Mr Manners was inclined to regret this. ‘I dare say it serves him right,’ he said, ‘but he’d taken a lot of trouble to make it.’

‘Who had?’ said Mr Burton sharply. ‘Oh, I see, you mean the boy.’

‘Yes, to be sure, who else? But come on down now: I want to leave a message before lunch. As they turned a corner into the main street, a rather muffled and choky voice was heard to say ‘Look out! I’m coming.’ They both stopped as if they had been shot.

‘Who was that?’ said Manners. ‘Blest if I didn’t think I knew’— then, with almost a yell of laughter he pointed with his stick. A cage with a grey parrot in it was hanging in an open window across the way. ‘I was startled, by George: it gave you a bit of a turn, too, didn’t it?’ Burton was inaudible. ‘Well, I shan’t be a minute: you can go and make friends with the bird.’ But when he rejoined Burton, that unfortunate was not, it seemed, in trim for talking with either birds or men; he was some way ahead and going rather quickly. Manners paused for an instant at the parrot window and then hurried on laughing more than ever. ‘Have a good talk with Polly?’ said he, as he came up.

‘No, of course not,’ said Burton, testily. ‘I didn’t bother about the beastly thing.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t have got much out of her if you’d tried,’ said Manners. ‘I remembered after a bit; they’ve had her in the window for years: she’s stuffed.’ Burton seemed about to make a remark, but suppressed it.

Decidedly this was not Burton’s day out. He choked at lunch, he broke a pipe, he tripped in the carpet, he dropped his book in the pond in the garden. Later on he had or professed to have a telephone call summoning him back to town next day and cutting short what should have been a week’s visit. And so glum was he all the evening that Manners’ disappointment in losing an ordinarily cheerful companion was not very sharp.

At breakfast Mr Burton said little about his night: but he did intimate that he thought of looking in on his doctor. ‘My hand’s so shaky,’ he said, ‘I really daren’t shave this morning.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Mr Manners, ‘my man could have managed that for you: but they’ll put you right in no time.’

Farewells were said. By some means and for some reason Mr Burton contrived to reserve a compartment to himself. (The train was not of the corridor type.) But these precautions avail little against the angry dead.

I will not put dots or stars, for I dislike them, but I will say that apparently someone tried to shave Mr Burton in the train, and did not succeed overly well. He was however satisfied with what he had done, if we may judge from the fact that on a once white napkin spread on Mr Burton’s chest was an inscription in red letters: GEO. W. FECI.

Do not these facts — if facts they are — bear out my suggestion that there is something not inanimate behind the Malice of Inanimate Objects? Do they not further suggest that when this malice begins to show itself we should be very particular to examine and if possible rectify any obliquities in our recent conduct? And do they not, finally, almost force upon us the conclusion that, like Squire Korbes, Mr Burton must have been either a very wicked or a singularly unfortunate man?

-- M. R. James