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yanderesmythos · 4 years

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🎼Yandere! Apollo(General) Headcanon⚕:

Tw: Violence, implied dub-con, delusions, mention of flaying, slight nsfw, toxic relationship, curses.

Ah, Apollo is known to be attracted to those that represent beauty. So when he got the gist of rumor spreading through the island of Kythira, that a young maiden has a mellifluous voice and an equally divine figure. He declared that he had to investigate, to make sure the rumours are true.

Thus, the blond god decided to pay a visit to meet the cryptic maiden; that had lit the flames of his curiosity as if it was the flames of Olympus* itself!

Before he descends to the village, Apollo disguised himself as man in his mid-thirties that have a flowing chocolate locks for tresses and stubbles beneath his chin. ' Now, to find the μούσα* of this village.'

The first thing that came to his mind, is that to search for her in the fields of flowers. Alas, he didn't find her which made him the more so frustrated. Were those rumours a mockery, just to taunt him for every lover he had met a tragic end?* If so, how dare they!

Yet, a kind gentlemen has came his way and saw the impatient expression painting Apollo's face. 'χαῖρε*, friend! I saw you were troubled, that's why I am here to help. As far as I am concerned, you're here to meet the allegedly fair maiden of our village. If you want to her, then head to the south east of chora. You'll find her humming a hymn and playing with animals, and Ὑγιαίνε!*'.

Before, he could give his blessing and gratitude to the man. The individual vanished into thin air as if he never existed. Nonetheless a smile tore Apollo's face, as he began heading to the place that stranger told him to go.

When he arrived to the location, his breath was hitched by not the beauty of place. But, with the woman in a flowy white dress who was singing her heart out. His heart was thumping so hard, that he feared that it may stop thanks to the woman in a simple village dress. It seems that the rumours were not an empty gossip, after all. Oh, did he finally 'meet' his muse and he won't let what occured to his past lovers happen to you!

Apollo is obsessive, clingy, delusional, and overwhelming-ly overprotective to the point of being overbearing. But, that's understandable when most of your lovers either wind up dead or turned into some kind of plant!

Apollo adores you immensely, so much that he will go as far as to defying you to his worshippers. Any mockery of you is akin of insulting him, which will steer his wrath. And his wrath isn't something to be taken so lightly, especially if his darling is involved.

It's a guarantee that Apollo will write poems, hymns*, and songs of praise for you. As well as, ensuring one of his devoted servants to sculpt you in the most pristine form and to be spread all through Greece. Then, he'll get rid of them* because he is the only one who has the right to appreciate s/o naked figure. 'What a fair woman you are, my μούσα. How fortunate, for the sisters of fate had decided to bind us together. So, let's take advantage of it and create the masterpiece of our deathless love.'

In fear of your death, the first thing Apollo will do is to force the ambrosia* upon you. Whether be it you're willing, or kicking and screaming to be let go. He simply will ignore it, as he believes those are 'signals' indicating that you desire him as much as he desires you. 'Shhh, μούσα. No need to be afraid, after all we will be together forever. Aww, those tears of happiness has blessed my day. Now, let me return the favour in our private chamber.'

If you're were to be taken away from Apollo, or worse injured significantly. Then, those imbeciles must be prepared to accept their fates. Oh dear, it has been itching him for a while to use his bow and arrow! Or, maybe flay them for their discretion of his sacred beloved.

Plus, he may or may not consider cursing their homeland with a terminal illness to make an example out of any mortal who has any ill intention toward s/o.

On another notice, rejecting or escaping him won't effect the outcome. As he'll accumulate you one way or another, in addition you'll be punished severely for 'breaking' his fragile heart. But don't worry, he won't hurt you....that much.

If you happened to escape on your own accord, not only will you make Apollo upset but also Artemis for upsetting her twin brother. (In which case, I believe from this scenario Artemis would've developed platonic obsession. Mainly, that you make her brother happy and that you haven't been dead yet. And, for that she promised to protect you until her last breath. Not only for her brother, but for herself as it has been a while since she met a kind mortal.)

Then, you'll become the prey of both Apollo and Artemis hunting game. If Artemis was the one to catch you, then you'll be handed to the lovesick god as he begin to drown you in his hold. However, if Apollo was the one to catch her then the s/o must be in for an intense 'love' session. In both scenarios, you'll be handed to him. It's just his reaction, that will differ.

Oh, also don't even attempt to break Apollo's delusions of you. As he will become a horrendous individual to meddle with, if he ever become lucid. And, the punishments will be amped to mind-shattering level. So try not to tread on his delusions, and you'll be safe for the most part. The more you escape, the more he'll be aware. Thus, he'll slowly become lucid. Oh, and just because he's lucid doesn't mean that he'll give up his beloved. NO! he'll be more persistent and bitter in his approach than his deluded state which is more softer and sweeter than any honey.

Anyways, one of his favored hobbies is to enact your and his fantasies with you. He can't help, but gushes at your flushed and drooling visage as he overstimulates your genital. 'Ahh, you're so.... dazzling especially with that flustered expression upon your face. Oh? You want more? Ask and you shall receive. No need to be shy with me, my βασίλισσα*.'

Anyways, as long as you play your cards right you might escape with your wits and sanity intact. But.....at the cost of either becoming the most dreaded immortal or cursed so no one can love you, but Apollo himself.

In which case, the isolation and ostracizion from the mortals will most likely drive you to return to him. 'Ah looks like you've learnt your lesson, κακῶς κόρην*. I forgive you now, so come into my warm embrace.'

Notes:

* Flame of Olympus: Here, I was referencing the myth of the first flame that Prometheus gave to humanity. Leading him, to be punished by Zeus.

* μούσα: Muse in greek.

* Tragic end: Poor Apollo. Each time he loves someone, they die or turn to plants. First, Daphne(turned into a Laurel tree) then Hyacinth(turned into Larkspur flower) then Cassandra(cursed for the rest of her life with the misfortune of no one believing her oracles). The last one, was a prickly act from Apollo ngl. But, then again there is no one right in the mythos. Everyone must've done something shitty for petty reasons with few exclusions (hestia/hades).

*χαῖρε: Hello in ancient greek.

*Ὑγιαίνε: Good luck in ancient greek.

*Hymns: are songs of praises towards a deity.

*then he'll get rid of them: you'll ask why would he spread sculptures of you around Greece, yet will punish anyone who worships it. Simply, because that's called hypocrisy and boy there is alot of it in the mythology. *Cough* Zeus *Cough*

*Ambrosia: Called 'the food of the gods', it is guaranteed to make any mortal into immortal.

* βασίλισσα: Queen in ancient greek.

*The first one to answer this will get a cookie from me: Who was the mysterious man that spoke with Apollo?

A/n: I apologize for uploading late, as I am busy with studying for my finals. Lastly, I hope you enjoyed this and thanks for requesting! Take care!

#yandere #yandere greek goddesses #yandere greek gods #yandere greek mythology #yandere x reader #yancore #Yandere Apollo x reader #Yandere Apollo

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heyitsjay03 · 3 years

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Aeipathy: Chapter Two

Disclaimer: i don’t (unfortunately) own Marvel or any of their characters, plot points, etc. so all right are to them and their our overlord Disney

AN: yeahhhh this one’s a shorty but i promise the next one will be longer and filled with plot and angst and shit so prepare yourselves <3

Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 3.1k

TW: angst, mentions of torture, mentions of murder/arson, HYDRA collectively is a prick

Chapter One is available here!

Gnawing.

It claws through my body on all fours. Tearing, ripping, hacking, burning.

Monstrous fangs that sink into the deepest parts of muscle- I can feel it in my bones, the burning.

There is no noise, just the sound of whirring and the unholy screeching of demons in my ears. Faceless demons, demons whose faces have too much detail, demons that stare, demons that scream. Demons, demons, demons.

I have fallen. Fallen from grace. Fallen from…

No, no.

I am falling.

Something catches me. A savior in blue. Scarlet red smeared across their chest. Blood. My blood- the blood of sinners and saints and bystanders. Of children and ancients and of rich and poor.

There’s white streaked between the red. Piety. Purity. Righteousness. Desperately, I cling to the stark white stripes. Indecipherable mumbles pass my lips as I stare at the white. I beg for purity, to be clean again.

Every time I wake up, it’s always the same.

The immovable weight in my body. The unceasing shivering. The bite of frost. The writhing of filth in my veins. In my nerves. In every fiber of my being. Festering. Growing. Rotting. Corrupting. Remembering.

But why can’t I remember?

All I can remember are the demons. Faceless, nameless but never silent. Always screaming.

Screaming, screaming, screaming.

I cling to the white. The righteousness of my savior. Solidity in turbulence. Silence in cacophony. Purity. Cleanliness. Life.

I cling to life.

But life burns under my fingertips. It shrieks and squirms under my touch- tries to escape. Repelled by my presence, it retracts away from my grasp.

Color retracts into shapes as I take in my surroundings. An almost completely empty room completely made of concrete. A single contraption behind me made of metal. Icy fog slithers out of the open door, hissing and flicking at my ankles.

Words, however, remain blurred. The savior holds me upright- pulls me to my feet. Everything burns and aches. I’m so incredibly cold. Frosted water paints my skin, coats my clothes to my body. A puddle gathers beneath the writhing fog.

This seems familiar.

My eyes turn up towards my savior. The blood-stained guardian. Words fall from their lips, landing on deaf ears.

My body trembles as the cold becomes more vicious with its fangs. The savior turns away and says something. Everything is muffled- faraway and distant and like someone has their hands clamped down over my ears.

“Why am I awake?” I ask, straightening up. Every inch of me quivers while every part of me wishes to stop.

But I was awoken for a purpose. My mission.

And I’ll complete it.

Hail HYDRA.

Location: S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters

Date: 2012

“Woah, easy, ________,” I mutter, holding her upright. Her eyes wide, they flick around the room. Her hands grip my chest as she shakes violently.

She’s here. She’s alive.

She… she died. Died on that table- how is this…

“Steve,” Tony mutters, holding out a blanket. I take it and start to wrap it around her shoulders.

As her glazed eyes lock with mine, I look over her face. She’s drained of color- blue and white. Her chapped blue lips open and close violently.

Hoarsely, she starts to speak.

But not anything I can understand.

Over and over, she repeats questions with her eyes wide and wary of every moment and movement. My eyes dart over to Tony- who watches ________, his eyebrows furrowed.

Russian.

That’s what she’s speaking. Russian. And fluently. Extremely well. Why… Why is she…?

“She didn’t… usually speak like this, did she?” Tony asks, gesturing vaguely to her as she continues to shake in my arms. Broken words off a stolen tongue hiss past her lips. She furrows her eyebrows as she looks between the two of us.

“Her files told me she was-” Tony continues.

“She’s… she’s never spoken this before,” I mutter, adjusting my grip under her arms. “Raised in Brooklyn for most’a her life- I dunno why-”

“V chem... moya missiya?” ________ hisses, her voice shaking. I look down and watch her straighten up on unsteady legs. “V chem moya missiya?”

“...why is she…?” Tony mutters, stepping in front of her. He lets his head fall back with a sigh as he taps his leg with his finger. “It’s been a long time, let’s see if I can do this.” Rolling his shoulders back and snapping his neck, he focuses back on ________. “Kto ty?”

________’s head tilts to the side slightly. Her eyebrows furrow further as she glares at him through them. “...Hetaerae. V chem moya missiya?”

Tony sighs and closes his eyes as he speaks. “Ch… chto… ty. Chto ty?”

Her eyes glaze over as she stops shaking, standing upright. “Ya HYDRA.”

“...she’s… She died, Tony. I don’t… I don’t know what else to tell you,” I mutter, looking up from the desk. “She… she died before I even got the serum. I hadn’t even seen Doctor Erskine- Bucky… he hadn’t been shipped off to Europe yet.”

“I may be able to help explain that,” Tony says as he gets to his feet. In his hand is a thick folder filled with papers and photos and notes and scraps of paper. He places it in front of me with a thud. “Apologies- I would opt for the digital version but, uh… you… don’t even know what... that… is.”

“Tony,” I say sharply as I open the folder. He just shrugs and sits down across the table again. The top paper is mostly blacked-out with a few words left untouched. ________’s name. Her age. Her parents and their causes and dates of death. And other words that… don’t make sense. ‘Mistress’. ‘Replication’. ‘Improvement’. ‘Rejected’. ‘Baroness’. ‘Salbei’.

‘Hetaerae’.

Repeated over and over throughout the sea of black streaks is that word. ‘Hetaerae’. At the very bottom of the page in tiny letters are the words ‘Project Samsara- Hetaerae’. In the corner is a skull with tentacles writhing beneath it. ‘HYDRA’ is written along the curve of the skull.

My stomach churns. If HYDRA really is behind this then...

I start tearing into the folder. Photos of the various angles of the steel container from when I woke up. Under it is a handwritten note. ‘Cryo-container; Vrsn: Hetaerae’.

Another photo- this one of a chair. On the armrests and legs are cuffs, along with another one on the back of the chair. Something metal comes around the chair. It juts off the side of a machine and looms over it like an archway. A note is written over the photo. ‘Neck brace may prematurely terminate subject. Issue logged during first programming session’.

Another blacked-out stack of papers. The same words are repeated over and over again. ‘Hetaerae’, ‘Baroness’, ‘Samsara’, ‘Salbei’, ‘HYDRA’. My fists clench the papers before tossing them to the side. Tony watches in silence.

What the Hell is this? What were they doing- what did ________ have to do with it?

My eyebrows furrow as I manically flip through the papers. Papers fly to the side as I tear through the folder. I can feel myself getting rigid as I near the end.

Nothing. I’ve learned nothing. Not a single goddamn thing. There’s nothing here-

My hands stop as my eyes rest on the last few items. A file not blacked out. It’s completely intact. Nothing scratched, no scribbles, no hasty lines cutting through words. I snatch it and start reading.

Project Samsara; Hetaerae

Subject Name: ________ Bishop

Subject Age: 26

Subject Info:

Daughter of Leon Bishop (deceased) and Catherine Chambers (deceased)

Resident of Brooklyn, NY

Military background

Non-combatant medic

Attempted pilot training

Worked under Doctor Akin Nachtnebel- HYDRA researcher

Personal friend of Captain Steven G. Rogers, Sergeant James B. Barnes, political activist Odessa Lily Mae Ababio

Official status: Deceased

Simplified Process Log (see file 178953 for detailed logs):

Day 1:

Body retrieved by HYDRA.

Blood and tissue samples taken.

Heart/respiration rates taken.

Note: Hetaerae seems to be semi-lucid. May require sedation.

Day 13:

Serum incubation complete.

Visible changes in body structure internal and external.

Bone density increased slightly, muscle mass increased, other changes to be tested.

Day 23:

Regen. abilities test positive

Enhanced reflexes test positive

Body modifications test optimal

Note: Hetaerae seemed to negatively respond to pain. Possible weakness. Must train to not respond.

Day 68:

First programming session prematurely terminated. Hetaerae reacted negatively to programming.

Admitted to medical wing.

Near strangulation and bruised trachea.

Removing neck cuff on programming station and attempting again tomorrow.

Day 100:

Programming temporarily successful.

Hetaerae could not recall set of numbers given pre-programming for forty minutes.

Memory wipe testing will continue.

Day 173:

Hetaerae admitted to medical wing for treatment.

Major vocal cord damage.

Damage not irreversible.

Memory wipe testing will continue.

Note: Hetaerae begged for ‘Steve’ and ‘Bucky’ repeatedly during memory wipe. More research needed.

Day 234:

Three guards admitted to medical wing.

Hetaerae had clawed at their eyes, noses, ears, and mouths

Broken nails were taken from guards’ faces.

Admitted samples for research.

Extra-long memory wipe testing done.

Hetaerae will be allowed a day to rest after strenuous session. Cannot allow for subject’s termination.

Day 250:

Near disaster.

Hetaerae attempted escape.

Four guards killed. Two more seriously injured.

Must increase security.

Note: Hetaerae lethal before combat training. A promising candidate. Akin, in his paranoia, chose well.

Day 276:

Hetaerae broke free of restraints during memory wipe.

Too exhausted to attempt escape.

Memory wipe has prevented Hetaerae from remembering subject name.

Will begin codeword implantation process tomorrow.

Day 342:

Hetaerae begins Samsara training tomorrow.

Complete memory wipe achieved.

Hetaerae is the only thing within subject.

Day 3658:

Samsara training complete.

Winter Soldier co-training complete.

Complete memory wipe complete.

Codeword implantation complete.

Hetaerae to be placed in cryo to await orders.

Hail HYDRA.

HYDRA status: Active. Ready for use.

“Look at her track record,” Tony mutters, sliding a thick wad of papers over to me. Turning away, I shake my head. “...fine. I’ll read it for you.” He huffs, flipping through the various pages. “Uh… her first mission was to…” he scoffs, “To take out a mid-level politician that had apparently laid his eyes on something he shouldn’t have. ‘Mission: success, target: terminated’.”

“Tony…” I warn quietly, my shoulders getting tenser with each word.

“A few missions later, she’s retrieving lab samples and… and destroying the lab... Fourteen people killed. ‘Mission: success, targets: terminated’.”

“Tony.”

“I’m skimmin’ here, Cap, but listen- an orphanage in Saint Petersburg, a… a couple in Prague, a woman in Athens, a man in Cairo...” Tony continues skimming through the pages. “‘Mission: success, target: terminated’, ‘Mission: success, target: terminated’, ‘Mission: success, target: terminated’-”

“Enough!” I snap, turning to look at him.

Tony sighs and puts the papers down. Running a hand down his face, he purses his lips. “Dunno how else t’tell ya this, Cap- she’s dangerous. She has killed hundreds of people. She can speak seven languages, she can infiltrate a political atmosphere and topple it, she can... camouflage in any… social situation, she has a perfect kill record... Whoever she was before-”

“She’s still in there,” I cut in. “She’s still in there.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Are… are you not... hearing what I’m telling you?” He gestures to the original folder. “They laid into her for… ten years. Subjected her to torture. Wiped her slate clean. Whatever was in there, pal, it’s long gone.”

A huff leaves my lips. “...you don’t know what she was like,” I mumble coldly, reminiscing over what it was like to live with her, to live with her at my side like I was at hers. “She was… the most... hard-headed… stubborn dame I’d ever met. And strong, too.”

“Rogers-”

“She’s still in there, Tony,” I snap, my eyes flicking up to him. “She’s strong.”

“Good morning.” I say, waving at ________ as she sits on the chair. Her breathing is steady, eyes trained on the opposite side of the room. Her wrists are handcuffed to the armests- the same with her ankles. They clink slightly as she breathes.

The room is completely empty except for another chair across from hers. My shield lays against the chair- ‘a precaution’ Fury called it.

‘A threat’ is what I would call it.

I step further into the room and sit down on the chair. With glazed eyes, she watches me. “Are… those too tight?” I ask, gesturing to the cuffs.

She says nothing. Only blinks in response.

She… she looks so empty.

Her face was always glowing, her smile illuminating the clinic when Buck and I would walk in to bring her lunch or just to bug her. Letters would flood in every now and then from past patients or their families, thanking her for her patience and kindness. She would keep them all in a shoebox under her bed.

And her hands. She would wrap bandages around my wounds with care. She’d always tell me to not get it in my head to fight again… and then ask where the punks lived so she could ‘pay them a visit’. Her hands were always feather-soft when checking every injury’s progress.

Now they look… darker. Not in color but just… darker.

Stained.

Did she know what she was doing when she killed those people?

________ shifts slightly, the sound of the handcuffs pulling me out of my head. I clear my throat and straighten up. “...do you know who I am?” I ask quietly.

No response.

“Do you know who you are?”

“Haetarae.” She answers, eyes still glazed.

“Do you… do you know who you actually are?”

________’s eyes narrow for just a moment. “...HYDRA.”

“No. No,” I mutter, pointing to my chest. “...do you know who I am?”

...nothing.

“Steve. I’m Stevie. We… we grew up in Brooklyn together. With Bucky. We, um… Buck ‘nd I, we helped you out of a fight when you were thirteen. That’s how we met… you… remember that…?”

She blinks, eyes scanning over me.

Getting up from my seat, I reach into my pocket and tug a photo of the three of us out of my pocket. It was taken after she had gotten her nursing credentials. We had gone out dancing, just the three of us. We found someone willing to take our photo. A smile crosses my lips as I look down at it.

Colors start to fade into the black and white photo. Every detail is so crisp. ________’s chin is resting on my head as she stands behind me- a bright, red-lipped smile on her face. Her arms are wrapped around my chest as she leans over. Her hair is done perfectly- up with roses in her hair. Neat and tidy like she practiced. The skirt of her dress is the same shade of red as her lips. Black dots pattern the fabric of the skirt. The bodice was black- matching her heels. Hooked through her elbows was a creme-colored fur boa.

Bucky’s got his arm around her waist and he ducks down to my level. He holds a pressed black suit, wearing a red undershirt. His suit jacket is hung over his shoulder with his undershirt’s sleeves rolled up. I remember him shining his shoes that day while ________ meticulously placed roses in her hair. Bucky had sewn and hemmed my pants with pride. ‘It’s a special day, punk’, he mumbled with the needle between his lips, ‘can’t have ya trippin’ on your pant legs.’

She shifts again and I’m pulled right back into now. ________ sits in front of me. No smile, no roses, no brightness. And Bucky… Bucky’s dead and gone. Lost a long, long time ago. Slowly, I hold out the photo. “...see?” I mumble, “That’s me… before I… had a growth spurt. And that’s Buck.”

I look up to her. She’s focused on the photo, eyes slightly squinted and head tilted to the side just barely. “...Buck ‘nd you,” I laugh quietly. “He… he was… so crazy about you. He just… never realised it.”

The door behind us cracks open. Her body snaps tightly, eyes back to glazed. Tony peeks his head into the room and tilts it back. “Eyepatch wants you.”

I sigh. Looking back at ________, I tuck the photo into her hand. Slowly, her fingers wrap around it delicately. I nod once and start out of the room. As the door swings shut, I spare one last look. ________ looks down at the photo, her head slightly tilting once more.

“It may be our only option,” Fury sighs. “She’s unpredictable at best.”

“She’s still in there- if I can just… keep talking with her-”

“That is out of the question,” he says firmly, eye flicking up to me. “...you’re too close on this one, Rogers. I’m making the executive decision to-”

Lights start to flash overhead- red and screaming. A wailing buzz rips out of the hallway as the red light bathes us in scarlet. The door slams open, Tony standing in the doorway, panting. Fury slowly gets out of his seat, eye wide.

“She… She got out,” Tony mutters, gesturing outside.

My body launches forward as I run into the hallway. People are running, an anxious chatter swarming around them as they pass just in front of me. As I push into the main hallway, elbows and chests are thrown into me. Flicking to each person, my eyes catch the room where ________ was held. The door is almost completely torn off the hinges- the wood cracked at the handle.

I start to push through the sea of people. Like water, they throw themselves against me- eager to leave the building and get the hell out of harm’s way. But as I make my way to the door and push out the other side of the tempest, I can see the dangling cuffs still hanging around the armrests.

My fingers graze the splintering wood door, tracing the ridges of where her fingers had dug into the wood- leaving grooves in the shape of her hand. The hinges look relatively new as they hang lifelessly off the wall. The debris littering the floor is kicked around, leaving a partial trail down the hallway. I follow with a solid grip on my shield.

“________?” I hiss, looking around the empty hallway. Everything is dimmed by the red lights and the screaming of the alarms haven’t stopped. “________!”

I round a corner and every adrenaline-fueled tension melts away. At the very end of the hallway is a floor-to-ceiling window. Broken glass lays at the base of a gaping hole.

She’s gone.

#captain america #bucky barnes #bucky fanfic #bucky x female reader #captain america x platonic!reader #eventual relationship #slow burn #angst #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x reader #series #nick fury #tony stark

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madmaxxing · 3 years

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Fear and Loathing in Gotham

tw: Mentions of throwing up, heavy drug use

There's a point in life where one has to stop and realize that you must have done something horribly, fantastically wrong to get to the point you are at right now.

It's a fleeting though in the Scarecrow's mind- he's hit an all time low, and to compensate for it, he and Joker are on a weekend where all bets are off. The clown told him to pack whatever he needed to have fun, and didn't question it when Jon turned up with a suitcase so full of drugs it'd be enough to kill a grown elephant.

A lucid braincell in his mind bitterly reminds him that it doesn't really matter how bad he gets. The Penguin's had his fun turning him into a freak, and if the dormant chemical powerhouse can't take the amount of drugs he's putting in his body once he goes into a drug induced aneurysm, maybe it is for the best.

Jon has.... A vague recollection of what's happened in the last hours. He remembers getting into Joker's hideout, an amusement park he's repurposed. He remembers telling Lindsay something about it. What, he isn't sure, for he could've told her his plans or just been raving about the carpet pattern trying to eat him alive. So there's a fair chance she's trying to find him all over the city.

The next thing he knows is that he's in a room with Joker. The clown's given him a strip of LSD with a kiss that he gladly takes in his mouth, his pupils already blown from the acid he's done on the way there. He hums with the spidery exoskeletons of fingers that run along his short hair, and he swears he can feel every hair move as the fingers dig into his skull as they rummage around in the folds of his brain- there's something terrifying about it, but after years and a relapse in falling into a heavy drug use, a part of him knows that Joker isn't really stirring his brain. It just feels like it.

Next there's music and he's been moaning about when the LSD is going to hit that the world explodes into colors, making him shut the right up, eyes wide staring at the ceiling with a mix of fascination and horror.

The gaudy decoration of the room, filled with circus themes and sharp color contrasts that blend in angles that shouldn't be allowed by anyone with an inch of taste make his fear ridden mind conjure all sorts of monsters, the spiraling pattern on the carpet making him recoil into the couch as he finds himself in a fragile spire.

He doesn't know when Joker left the room, nor when he found himself in the bathroom with some stranger stroking his bare, scarred back as he purges into the toilet. The smell of bile is strong enough to make him come to, and he remembers telling the stranger to bring him a glass of water and the brown bottle in the suitcase.

When was that? The memories blend together, a party full of booming, pulsating music as the bodies of massive insects undulate along with the music, more time in the room, him grabbing every knife in it and sticking them to the wall; some with enough force that they're embedded halfway into it, a wild car ride through the outskirts of Gotham in which more than once Joker had to grab the wheel; setting it straight as Jon tried to bits his neck in a half hearted attempt to get him going, hoping for some fun in the back of the car. His mind is coming and going, lost in a thick haze of chemicals as he brings a soaked rag to his nose and barely seconds later, he has to crawl on all fours to be able to get anywhere.

Someone brings food at some point, in the bar in the room as they are smoking a blunt, leaning against each other and when he looks at his companion all he can tell is a cubist deconstruction of face pieces, all scrambled like some toddler having poorly made a puzzle. He remembers falling off the stool the bed the pole he clings to maintain balance the table the couch and it feels like a 700ft drop of sheer terror as the few feet stretch infinitely into a terminal speed drop that ends with a soft thud and a sore ass and him screaming sobbing curled up on the floor.

He remembers what is in the brown bottle.

Some poor idiot that died of fright, an early experiment gone wrong that he wanted to salvage so he harvested the pineal gland for all the sweet sweet mana from the gods of fear that he could muster. A drop is enough to have you tripping for hours, and when he checks the bottle that was definitely full on the way here, he sees that it's a quarter full. The realization hits him before the terror wraps its mangy claws around his ankles and pulls him under the bed for making out and a session of rough treatment that he's come to crave so.

He remembers being told this was a weekend thing. Two days, forty eight hours that Lindsay swears Joker stretched into a full week as she gently strips Jon's shaking form. He hardly registers any of it as he sits down in the tub full of warm water and she ever so patiently washes him. Jon flinches when a bowl of warm water washes over his head, trashing as he's back in the room with Joker, half submerged in a tub of ice cold water that reeks of filth and cheap beer and he's trying to reach Nirvana as Joker blasts a strident, tacky 180 of music that makes Jon call out a list of insults in languages he doesn't really know but sound just right with the roll of his tongue.

And Lindsay shushes him quietly, reassuring that everything is alright and he stops trashing in a frenzy. She untangles some candy off his hair and strokes his cheek, the fuzz of an attempt at growing a beard beginning to show. Jon closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, he's a little more lucid.

He's in a familiar couch, one he's crashed in a few times before already. It's morning, a quiet morning. The light filters through the windows and he's half tempted to throw a blanket that he believes has been there his entire trip over his head and go back to dreamless sleep. The faint smell of coffee makes him act otherwise, the blanket wrapped over his head like a wannabe nun as he trudges through a water mud blood flooded mind and room and no- it's alright.

This room looks okay. No signs of a psychotic breakdown, no manic writing with ketchup and blood on the walls, no knives to them or broken mirrors or burnt spiraling carpets or a blow up doll lodged tightly into the kitchen sink by the leg. He sits down on the stool, holding tightly to the edge of the counter as his hand shakily grabs the mug of coffee.

For an hour, he just smells it, and when it goes cold, he drinks it

#writing #my art #Scarecrow #Joker #Lindsay #Jonathan Crane

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theoscout · 4 years

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This is a continuation to a story that @bornoffireandwisdom wrote several months ago, and something I continually insisted I would try to finish, because I’m a “good” friend who is “responsible” and “mature” :,)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it when you find it. EXTREME tw for gore by the way.

It would be difficult to judge the safety of any open area through merely a glance. The sense of paranoia upheld by any hardboiled survivor typically choked them of any sense of true relaxation, even as it provided a vital alarm against the starving, bloodthirsty which by now far outnumbered them all. The infected did not seek new refuges away from the crumbling buildings, they had little to fear aside from their ever increasing hunger, or the terminating blow of a quarry too lucid to outwit. They typically continued their miserable existances in the clothing they died in, and it was a general rule of thumb among survivors to determine how long ago a zombie died through the condition of their clothing, as the dark force coursing through their contaminated veins always imprisoned them in a state which could only be described as a macarbe mockery of their former selves. Though this did not appear to be a component of common knowledge among survivors, the undead did not decay. The stench which revealed their prescence would waft off the layers of filth accumulating on their skin and clothing through the gory trails they left in their insatiable bloodthirst- . Too many times had this unassuming appearence claimed a life of an unassuming survivor short of realising the danger in a failure to check someone before a greeting.

The figure in the vast, swirling white void strained her eyes against the myriad of specs which clouded her vision and reduced her surroundings to vague silhouettes. If her gloved hands weren't preoccupied with training the battered rifle into the blustery, consuming darkness, she would have been gripping her scraped cloak to her seal the openings to which the piercing gales would stab at her skin. As the abandoned farmhouse began to loom through the icy debris, she quickened her pace.

Grant lay curled and shivering on the threadbare carpet, the remaining rooms had been stripped of furniture but this worn sheet was now all that was guarding his frail form against the cruel chill of the wooden floorboards. He convulsed, the necrotic hunger gnawing at him like termites at woods, twisting like a sapient blade into his intestines. Stifling a whimper, he covered his head with his trembling hands and gnashed his teeth. Everything hurt. The bruises he had sustained when falling from the staircase, how the pair he had hunted earlier had bashed his head to rob him of consciousness, the way the rope had cut into his wrists when he had lunged from them as he struggled against their snare, and of course, his final desperate attempt at chewing himself free upon realizing they were long gone. Zombies could not work knots any more than a cat or a dog could, so the complications Lacie and Bertrum had gone to in binding him were few, but they had taken the liberties of making the rope so complex it was nearly impossibly to break from it through pure strength. Still, the violent memory of his prior struggle hung in his thoughts like the festering bloodstains on his clothes.

Quivering from another hunger induced convulsion, the undulating Blurrier than the fish underneath the rippling surface of a pond, he remembered things that no undead should have ever known. Events that the creator and mastermind would have forcefully wrenched from his mind if he knew of, events which would have prevented him from killing another. While others were little more than meat to Grant now, there was something about this particular face that filled him not with hunger and rage, but pain and longing. His trembling fingers numb from the icy dryness and the lack of circulation which comes with laying on one's limbs, he unsteadily reached into the pocket in his jumper which had somehow been deeper and more secure than others. He didn't need to think about the action, it was a move rehearsed a myriad of times prior, in any emotionally distressing moment. He could find his wallet just as he had done so those times before, despite how he could no longer recall the vast majority of times he had consciously done so.

Months worth of bloody fingerprints were beginning to wear down on the photo's visibility, but a near subliminal calling had prevented him from licking off the residue as he had done with his clothes. He didn't want to risk ruining the only contact to the life he barely recalled, even as the reason behind why licking something could potentially deface it had long left his memory. The cameo had one of the faces scratched out, from how he had gripped the slip of paper, in times of grief or desperation. It didn't matter that one of the faces was slowly being rubbed away into the formless pale grey of the backing paper, although in a more lucid moment he may have noted similarities between the clothing and body proportions shared with the figure and himself. No, the one face he cared about the one that stood proudly and protectively to the left of the figure. Like a supporting pillar to his emotions. In the same way the exhileration had coursed through him while hunting in a pack... except less restrictive? No... this face had never harmed anyone. Never asked any violence either. And though it resembled the strange, fast creatures who's veins and flesh were bliss to rend and wolf, this face was not one of them. The thought confused him as much as it comforted him. He needed comfort, in a time when anything unexpected could spell disaster. When it could bring him ruin. The face. The creature it belonged to. He needed to find him.

And then, from an unseen corner of the crumbling hideaway, he heard something pointed and metal slam into something structural and made of wood.

The intruder did not pay special heed to delicacy or discretion. The next thud shook the building, a splintering of wood following closely behind. The wrenching of frozen fibres split and severed, the resounding crash and clatter of a door thrown to the house’s floor which rattled the windows of the room far above. With some difficulty, Grant struggled through his trembling to a crouched position. His knees bent to spring, his nails digging into the decaying mattress. The zombie tilted his head as a trickle of necrotic energy pulsated through his veins, listening intently. The prospect of quenching his hunger filled his mouth full of froth like a rabid dog.

The survivor tossed her bag to the floor and regarded the door with distain. “Piece of junk,” she spat and gave it another kick, slinging the ice pick over her shoulder. What, were ALL the houses going to have security as shit as this? At least the owners could have attempted some form of barricade, but the possibility that they were merely the early deaths in the apocalypse wasn’t something to be dismissed. Nothing was more effective at dowsing the excitement of a new hideout than the sight of a couple or more corpses bundled up in a bed somewhere, as had been in the previous abode.

The survivor unslung the snow encased bag and kicked it to the side of the doorway, when independent of her cumbersome entry there rose a scuffling from upstairs. She froze, and the ice pick slung over her shoulder found itself poised in her hands. Around the corner the noises ebbed and faded, then heavy footfall on a hollow staircase echoed in the hall. No longer muffled by walls or distance, the footsteps sounded clear and sharp on the verge of the doorway.

Counting since the thing was heard approaching, the survivor landed a devastating, calculated strike on the figure with the blunt of her ice pick before her eyes even had time to discern what it was. The blow landed Grant across his face, splitting the stillness with the shatter of bones. He barely had time to stagger back before the survivor twisted the weapon's momentum and struck again at his torso. The impact sunk the butt into his ribcage and killed his screams, she raised the weapon once more as he toppled over. His side and face in splinters, Grant's struggles to stand were cut out with a kick, the assailant swinging and embedding the pick into his chest like a fang. She pinned him with a stomp and extracted the pick in a spray of blood, swinging again. Swinging repeatedly. Not bothering to see where it landed. It took an instant to wrench it out and repeat the attack, the metal no longer grey but dripping crimson like a viper's fang. Grant's screams and struggles cut short with every blow.

Eventually, she stepped back and slung the ice pick over her shoulder to analyse her results. The feeble movements remaining in its limbs could have indicated it was attempting to move, which was strange. She deduced that zombies could not feel much pain, and besides, what threat could a hole riddled corpse with a heavily fractured skeleton pose to her? Blood gurgled in the mess which had once been it's mouth. She suspected it was trying to cry, but even if enough of its vocal chords remained to form any distinctive noise, the collapsed trachea

Retrieving her bag, she made her way past the dribbling lake of red and began to go upstairs, to a room which preferably was far away from the rest of the snowstorm. It seemed to have subsided somewhat in the time she had been dispatching her quarry, but the breeze was still intense enough for her to shiver. Cleaning the blood off her hands with a handkerchief, she made her way into the recesses of the house. There wasn't any fireplace, much to her irritation, but the upstairs bathroom had a window functional enough to open and a shuttered door in a convenient position to block away smoke but not all the heat, so it would have to do for now. Despite the general emptiness of the area, there were surprising signs that someone had lived here, if only permanently. Where the carpet had been peeling off the floor, an unknown had torn up a large slice and laid it on top of the others. A smaller chunk lay at one end, possibly reminiscent of a pillow of sorts. The edges of the makeshift 'bed' were crusted with blood. She stared at it distastefully before kicking it aside and dumping the contents of her bag on the ground. There were tissues and matches and her meagre supplies... There wasn't much furniture to break, but apparently there was a chair that the owners of the house apparently didn't believe was worth packing up. "Rightio, here's the fire then." It was so rickety that it only took a couple of swings against the tiles to break, although forming it into a suitable fireplace was proving difficult. No way she would waste the precious sharpness of her knife on shredding the waxed wood. After several attempts she cursed and threw the wood to the ground again in disgust, then began to reach for her tissues.

She paused between pinching the match to the matchbox, and cursed, getting up and retrieving her ice pick she began to make her way downstairs. No, actually, it would be a shame if these tissues were to be used on the fire. How was she to know that the wind wouldn't blow them out? Besides, they were something she might need later. She didn't know exactly what at the moment, but it struck her as important. There was time before nightfall, and she certainly had enough time to kill at the moment. The survivor headed back downstairs, ice pick slung over her shoulder. "No..." The protest was faint on the wind, but she caught it this time. It was more of an agonized gurgle than a word, she was surprised the zombie could speak at all. This was one of the more lucid ones that she had encountered. She wondered if that meant it could feel pain more than the others, or remember things.

The zombie was still on the ground. And against all odds, was still moving. It had attempted to roll over onto its stomach and was now in the process of feebly attempting to crawl away. At her approach, the zombie's movements began to quicken with a panicked frenzy, smudging the already ensanguined tiles with more clots of crimson. "No..." Fine, she was right. The thing was lucid enough to talk. And possibly have some degree of self preservation, unlike the others who were too far gone to know that attacking without any regard to their own injuries. Still, she couldn't bear to have the dumb boy making pain noises all night. It might disturb her sleep. The zombie didn't pose enough of a threat to use her pickaxe anymore, instead she reached for the serrated knife typically reserved for wood. It wasn't exactly sharp... but it was enough for her to execute what she wanted. "No-" the dead boy whimpered a split second before her boot crashed into the side of his head. He didn't cry out from the impact, but he curled on the ground like a dying animal and made a noise which sounded like crying. She kicked him again, directly in the neck. She felt and heard something snap. "Quit rolling around and hold still you son of a bitch!" ignoring the corpses protests, she yanked it upright by the hair and began to hack at its neck. The fact that the zombie could still move to push her arms away amazed her. Self regeneration? Possibly. Having the appropriate angle was difficult in the air, so kicking him back against the wooden floorboards, she forced his chest down with her heel and sawed as hard as she could. It's no easy feat to cut through material as sinewy as human flesh, especially as the ruptured veins make the blade slippery and lacerate the area rather than cut or saw. More blood. Great. Its struggled and movement of its mouth were possibly a hint that it was trying to scream, but who cared? She paused to fish out tiny specks of flesh and skin caught between the teeth of her knife, then continued. How far down were the vocal chords and how fast did they take to regenerate? Was making the incision deep enough to hit bone enough to not regenerate? Maybe it would be enough once she heard enough steel grinding on bone.

Once more, the corpse lay motionless in front of her. Satisfied with her handiwork, she wiped off her knife and hands with a handkerchief and removed her rubber gloves. There was something in its hand that it appeared to have dropped upon realizing she had entered the room. She bent to retrieve it. A wallet, its brown cover crusted with blood and filth and age. How odd. She pulled out the ID card. Grant Cohen. The kid was 17. No wonder it was so easy to kill, the young ones weren't always made of tough stuff. He was pretty skinny too. Another slip caught her attention as she was busy stuffing remaining slips of cash into her pocket. A photo, printed on cheap paper. It was a well thumbed photo.. of someone who looked like Grant standing next to a stranger. She regarded the bloodstains on the thing with disgust, holding it with the tips of her fingers to avoid contact with the rest. How old and disgusting. But it was a lucky find, this paper would burn very slowly and nicely. So back upstairs went the thief with her pillage, the last reminder of Grant's humanity turned to fire kindling.. and then smoke and ashes.

___

Grant didn't know how long he lay there. He didn't know how long he had been wishing for the pain to end, or why exactly his attempts to scream only ended in unimaginable agony. But in the frosty darkness, he could finally move his arms along the floor. Sliding it against the tiles, his fingers brushed the tattered, moist remains of his throat. The feeling sent a jab of lancing pain through him. He didn't swallow. It had taken a while to put away this learned reflex. But the urge to clear his throat of the liquid was great. Grant did not see the folds of flesh slowly creeping across the tiles and slotting themselves back into his limbs and torso. He didn't see the pools of blood falling towards him, growing smaller and smaller. But he could feel the change. So instead... he waited. Slowly repositioning himself. Arms folded across his chest. Legs together, body straight. It wasn't because of the cold, somewhere in the forgotten recesses of his memory there was still something which called to him. Told him that this was the appropriate position. The final resting position of those who would have fallen before the outbreak... the position they would forever lie in their slumber in dark beds six feet below. And here he lay in the coffin of darkness, his flesh slowly reforming. It felt strangely appropriate. A subliminal part of him felt like doing it forever.

With the return of his health, came the return of his hunger. And with it... revenge. He attempted to stand, but so much as rolling over or propping onto his elbows filled him with lancing agony. With a gasp, he fell back down. Climbing to his feet was no longer an option, instead he focused what remained of his energy into the opening of his swollen eyelids. His disorientation didn't prevent him from realizing the great white stretch of plaster 10ft away from him was a ceiling and not a wall, or that by some mystical force he was somehow pinned upright to the opposite wall. He wouldn't have come to the conclusion naturally, it had somehow been ingrained in him through some hitherto unknown mechanism. His eyes half open, Grant was surprised but oddly calm in accepting that he could now see in total darkness. There was no need to regain his coordination, unlike on numerous other occasions. Turning his head to his right... he located the wallet. No amount of pain could prevent him reaching the felt folder of comfort, and his muscle memory had been attuned to it so long that not even a 90 degree change in gravitational pull could have made him fumble. The blood filtered from the tips of his fingers unconsciously, and so did what sensation remained in flesh numb with necromancy and cold. He set the wallet down and waited in anticipation... now staring at his hands. Every vessel and artery was now exposed clear as day to him, he examined them with a morbid fascination yet without the surprise or wonder typical of such discoveries. seemingly, if he focused hard... yes, that's it. His flesh rolled back from his finger like the bread of a sausage roll, the white tip of his finger bone visible. Grant felt no pain as the tips of his other fingers did the same, only smirked in the darkness as he picked up the wallet. Now he would never need to worry about getting blood on his beloved photo again. He needed that photo.

But with the contents examined and emptied, his satisfactions drained faster than the blood could flow back into his veins. It was gone. Filled with fear, Grant started to his feet. Blood splattered around him as it was displaced mid flow, permeated by the silt and snow remaining on the floor beforehand. It was gone. He needed it. He frantically turned to search the floor. It was gone. He needed it. He struggled against an onslaught of emotions and confusion. It was gone. He needed it.

He rushed upstairs, in his mind a single goal. It was gone. He needed it. He rounded the corner and followed the scent of warm blood. It was gone. He needed it. He bolted into the room, his vengeful gaze falling upon the sleeping figure. It was gone. He needed it. His heavy footfall unsettling her slumber as the blood on the ice pick began to drip and slide off towards him. It was gone. He needed it. He rushed to grab it, the half healed gaps in his legs stabbing him with knifelike pain. His fingers curling around the handle as he recalled how it had once been used against him. It was gone. He needed it. Bolting over, bringing the pointed part down against her skull with a bone cracking smack, cutting off her scream of realization.

Grant stared at the lifeless body in front of him, then immediately dropped to his knees and began rummaging through the bag beside it. His endless drive for fresh corpses forgotten, the only void he felt any compulsion to fill or fix was the empty slot in something he would have once called his wallet. Slips of soft paper were in a packet... all white and blank. Tools which were familiar to him in some way, Holding back a sob, he pulled the great thick sheet covering his fallen enemy and shoved his hands into the smaller holes which were similar to the ones in the cloth surrounding him, the ones conveniently placed closest to his hands. His fingers itched for the thin, crispy material which had comforted him so many times before. Tears, suffused with blood, were beginning to dribble down his cheeks. They hurt his half healed flesh. He let out a cry and covered his face, hastily attempting to clean away the salt from his wounds. It hurt. Everything hurt. It hurt before. Now there was a phantom pain somewhere in him that no amount of rubbing or reaching could alleviate.

Still determined to find his photo, he ran from the room to where the terrible intruder had destroyed his makeshift bed. Possibly hidden beneath the covers? No, it remained out of sight even after they were thrown against the wall. Grant wailed and wailed, running through the rooms and frisking them bottom to top.

The undead had a very poor perception of time, so it must have been ages before he eventually gave in and retreated to his hideout to curl away. His face in his hands, weeping quietly and wishing he had given her the most painful death imaginable. By the time he recalled his agony of almost starving to death at all, the intruder's body had about frozen solid.

It was gone. He needed it.

#my writing #bornoffireandwisdom #my posts #zombies #tw: gore #tw: violence #tw: blood #tw: sociopathy

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halfgclden · 3 years

Text

REMISSION | ABEL

Date: January 12th, 2021

tw: blood, splinters, wound imagery, death mention

Glass tinkling and slow breathing soundtracked Abel’s morning; the third in a row they’d woken up with a bloody hand they had to tweeze glass out of. Their gaze did a good job of catching most of the slivers this time. Day one had been a nightmare, but now it was a matter of making sure that no glass remained in their fingers before dousing it with alcohol and plunging it into shadow to heal. The process was a good way to measure their lucidity in the morning, and they were at least thankful that they’d been messing up their right hand than possibly doing permanent damage to their dominant side.

Pain was a great way to keep lucid, but not always the best to keep focused.

“So you lost him?”

Their father’s disappointment ran through them like a cold chill.

“Well, I wasn’t the one in charge of watching-“

“Don’t be smart.”

If Abel could follow any instruction, it was that one. It felt as though every action they had taken recently had been an unwise one. They didn’t have to look at Hades’s face to feel his eyes searing through them.

“You called me to report this?”

“To ask for help.” Abel did look up this time, then immediately back down.

“I’ve already given you my answer last time. I told you to handle it. And you lost him.”

They swallowed back the reiteration of the fact that they were not technically the one in charge of watching Major.

“I tell you to handle it, and you lose him, and then you pester me, asking me the same question but expecting a different result.”

“Certain madness,” Abel mumbled, unable to help themself.

“Is this a joke to you? Do you find this funny?”

Quite the opposite, really. Abel had only contacted their father because they understood the gravity of the situation. But now, with Hades’s eyes made of plumes of Greek fire, they regretted the decision.

“I’ve never had this problem with a reaper before. With anyone under my employment.”

The conversation played on repeat in Abel’s mind. They had not asked if that meant the termination of their employment, because their job came with an asterisk attached. If they were brought back to life and made a reaper, what did it mean if they were fired?

Abel realized there was no glass left in their hand, and they set their tweezers down so they could bandage themself up.

The most recent bought of their episodes began after that. They were due for something big, since they’d been doing so well, but they found it hard to believe that the two were isolated events. They’d wake up bloody and angry and confused, and they wondered how long it was until they died again. With the proverbial hourglass counting down, they realized that waiting was the hardest part.

#c: abel #remission #para

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orianess · 5 years

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Final one I swear (unless you want more I suppose), but macdalton + 73?

Okay so my hand slipped and I made a really really REALLY sad one. But I swear the next ones are all gonna be happy or at are minimum light angst. (Tw for death, cancer, grief!) I’m so sorry

————

This is not how this is supposed to go.

Jack is the older one. He’s supposed to die first. He’s always been ready to go first. The older person isn’t supposed to watch the younger one die. It’s not fair.

But that’s what happens the year Mac turns fifty three, instead of a birthday cake he gets a cancer diagnosis and orders to start chemotherapy.

They cry about their frustrations and the injustice of it all but resolve themselves to fight the good fight.

It becomes apparent early on its a losing battle.

Mac gets sicker from the chemo. Really sick. He drops weight so quick he looks like the wind could blow him away with one hard gust. Jack is with him through it all, never stops talking Mac up, promises he’ll never leave him.

He couldn’t leave him if he tried.

About seven months into the chemotherapy, the doctors give him a terminal prognosis. The cancer is spreading too fast. He has six months at most. They give them options and Mac decides he doesn’t want any of them, he just wants to go home.

They have a terrible fight about it but Jack eventually sees reason, even if he hates it, when Mac lays it out to him plainly.

“Jack, none of its working. You saw the results. Don’t make me spend my last few months with you in more misery than I need to be. Please?”

Jack could never deny him anything, not when Mac asked him so simply.

They make arrangements as need be. They tell everyone eventually. No one takes it well but Bozer takes it harder than anyone.

Their little family ends up setting up a make shift base camp in their living room, taking turns spending as much time as possible with Mac while they can. Mac is too weak to do much moving around so they end up watching movies in the living room from a hospital provided bed.

Mac stays pretty heavily doped out on morphine to ease his discomfort, sleeps more than anything. Jack stays with him and counts every waking hour like a piece of precious gold because it is.

At four months, when it hurts too much to eat, and Mac refuses to bother with it, hospice services are brought in.

Mac is nearly skeletal at the end, the cancer devouring him from the inside. They turn the morphine up as high as possible to keep him comfortable and he slips in and out of consciousness.

One night, Mac wakes and he’s the most lucid he’s been in a week. His perfect blue eyes are glazed in pain but they’re clear and determined, a look Jack remembers from their service days. It’s almost time.

“Jack... love you.” Mac rasps dryly. Jack nods, feels himself almost losing control, but he holds on to his calm, for Mac.

“Love you too, Mac. Rest sweetheart, I’m here.”

“...y’always are...” Mac whispers, a tiny curve to his lips. “ ...ll’miss you...”

Jack’s control falters and the tears burn hotter than anything he can remember in his whole life. “I’ll miss you too darlin’. Won’t be a day I won’t. I don’t want you to go, man. Please, Mac, don’t say goodbye. I want more time.”

“Glad you’re w’me...” Mac says as he blinks at him with a fond tired grin and Jack wipes at his eyes, nodding.

“Wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

Mac’s breathing slows down and stops a few hours into the morning. When the nurse checks on them, Jack is laying beside him, quietly crying into his still chest, just a broken man grieving his other half.

Three months after that, Riley plans to take Jack out to lunch and when she arrives at the house to pick him up, she finds Jack on the couch, face peaceful with sleep and missing a heartbeat. In his hand is a picture of Mac sitting on the hood of the GTO, a halo made of sunrise behind him, face gentle with laughter.

Riley’s only surprise on the matter is that Jack had held on so long without Mac

#macdalton #prompts #TW grief #tw cancer #tw death

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the-uptake · 5 years

Text

Only the Vital Ones

The Uptake, With Symbiotic Self-Indulgence. Book III, Chapter 3. Second chapter currently MIA: Go to first. Go to next. (Heavily revised 2019.10.28: Decided the arts and crafts time belonged in Ch3 instead of Ch10, and also consolidated all the chapter parts into one post rather than two.) TW: Body horror, substance use, alcohol, dysphoria, gore, societal cruelty mention. While ‘Choly tries to make peace with everything he’s done, Augen tries to make peace with his humanity.

____________________________________

“In those days, desires weren’t allowed to become reality. So, fantasy was substituted for them–films, books, pictures. They called it ‘art.’ But, when your desires become reality, you don’t need fantasy any longer, or art.”

–Amyl Nitrate, “Jubilee”

____________________________________

Well, shit. There it went again. Or, didn't.

Wearing jaded fatigue, a dark tank, and orange leggings, 'Choly inspected his physiognomy in the bathroom mirror, and determined nothing freshly indicative of his character. He tugged a bit at the fold of cheek skin sagging loose from his chin by several inches, drew it this way and that, and resigned to the recourse of excision. Two years ago, the spirit of verbot chasing would have precipitated this metric of flesh, distortions of anatomy from disguises tacked in place with piercing and stitches, and contortions to slip undetected where he did not belong. His distracted fingertips tracted the series of scars in turn as though lines on a written page. He knew their stories, and compared to them, these recent additions felt more like phrases and incomplete thoughts at best.

He sniveled at the impotence of having had to make such a superficial adjustment for sake of his own clumsiness, rather than in the aftermath of risky enterprises. He'd tried several times to contact the Tellurides after the riots and subsequent quarantine, and he knew in his gut that all three of them had gotten walled up with the rest of the Quarter. And the Geek, and Chalcedony, too, for all he knew. His only solace came in knowing that at least his parents had moved back in together downstate before things had gotten especially hairy.

The dialogue of his connective tissues wove a potent metaphor of collapse. The ragged scoring along his right temporal line. The suture at his right jawline. The bright constellation of pockmarks starboard of his face. The long crease along the left cheek from the lacrimal fossa terminating vaguely somewhere along his trachea. And these comprised just the current superficial evidence of his series of necessary facial abjurations, a road map of scansion and diagrammed sentences etching every inch of him. Though his face served as the cover to his metahuman narrative, in this sense his armpits, sides, and thighs had the most to tell of any part of him. His skin functioned more as a roll than as sheets. Though within limitation, he would simply continue pulling to produce more once time obsoleted the current space. But, therein lay the problem: There was just... so much of it... Still, graceless and imprecise, he managed by hand with the most rudimentary of tools and technique. Nearly apologetic of its entropy, apologetic tissue permitted the adjustments of his detached whimsy. For as much as he could fault himself, he just as much blamed the state of his skin. He was little more than the decrepit auteur of a decrepit opus. He'd lost the sense of his audience, but still he persisted.

So, he pulled the craft knife and needle and thread from the medicine cabinet, and his reflection smiled in intent apathy. Isopropyl alcohol sterilized the lingering must of dust and waxed mint. He pinched the sagging tissues taut with index and middle fingers, and steadied his grip with his thumb against his jaw. Then with a single stuttered breath he drew the blade over each side of the fold of skin, several times, with the finesse of a butcher. Experience had trained his heavy-handedness not to dip deeper than subcutaneous layers: a deeply scarred platysma still skewed his expression of melancholy. Only occasionally bothering to blot away excess blood with a black hand towel, he worked boredly at the newly forming ligature becoming adjunct to the much deeper scar, drawing the cheap cotton thread through the pinched raw edges of tissue with not so much as a wince. Once finished, he nipped the thread with the craft knife. Inspecting his craftsmanship, he drew a lone fingertip along the puckering edges now drawn taut, and licked the blood off in satisfaction. A short ache-twinge tugged his lip into a sneer as he rinsed the towel and implements. With an unceremonious wipe, he cleaned the blood off the counter where the fold of skin had patiently lain.

The ex-stalker Wolframite took the piece with him out of the bathroom on a fresh towel. He fished out the aluminum box from the very back of one of his nightstand drawers, and with it and the flesh he rounded the full-height open-frame modular shelving unit that divided the hall track from the kitchen to sit at the brushed steel table. Beside the box lay his coffee mug, a quaint butcher paper and twine parcel, a paring knife, and his reader on a kickstand. With the apartment to himself for the day, he'd been surveying some of the writing pieces in his drafts, only to absently tug at his face yet lacking the lucidity imparted by caffeine. He rubbed again at his marred face in a dull restlessness, his hands dipping beneath his horn-rimmed glasses. He flinched when he grazed his cheek suture and stood, to pace an uneven gait in the narrow track the length of the apartment which functioned not unlike a hallway.

He appreciated that Cecil remained oblivious to a majority of his habituations. Or at least, he appreciated the impression of Cecil's obliviousness to them.

He returned to the kitchen and pour himself a fresh cup of black coffee from the carafe Cecil had brewed before leaving for work, and he sat again. Then, he snipped the string on the box and unfurled its wrappings. His glasses came off and lay across the table from him as he continued massaging at his cheeks and chin and neck marbled with errant scars and bad grammar. He flicked up the messaging app frame and tapped Augen's active username with a sigh.

Rather than initiate conversation, he took a sip from his mug, then produced from the small wax-coated cardstock box a decently-sized chalky pastel ball. He then smoothed out the parchment with a detached free hand, swallowed the mouthful of coffee, and set down the Confec bonbon atop it with the other. The ball bore a mealy consistency somewhere between soap and fudge. A quarter-inch butt fell to the paper, and he stuck it in his mouth to let the hyssop-like bouquet melt on his tongue while he sank into his chair and hesitated on the various sampling of tasks on the table before him.

He only ever noticed the smell upon first opening the metal box, somewhere between wet and musty, but not quite rotten. He took out the jar. Several pale, murky, greyish things floated near the bottom in the turbid liquid. With a long breath through his nostrils, he took it to the sink to drain, collecting the material in his fingers and rinsing them under running water. Tossing pieces that met his satisfaction onto a fresh black towel on the table, he returned the other pieces to the bottom of the jar, adding the newest piece of flesh. The box fashioned a kit of sorts, and from it he used a set of measuring spoons to add two different white powders to the jar. After filling it up with fresh water and tightening the lid, he shook it vigorously, then set it in front of him on the table to sit and dully watch the alum and ammonia salts dissolve around the hunks like a revolting snowglobe.

As the gloss washed over him, the Wolframite pulled the folded up towel from the top of the stack in the box and set it beside the still wet pieces he'd separated from the jar. He unfolded the older towel and detachedly patted at the material that it had contained. The scrap of fresh leather, roughly now a four inch square, was sufficiently dry, so he produced the patchwork from the very bottom of the box, and unfolded three and a half years' work in his lap. Saliva stuck in his throat as his hands ran over it. Each patch bore its own unique scars from all previous excisions, a continuum of every time before it since October 2052. There were enough pieces sewn together that he couldn't recall everything they had to say anymore. He used the thin cord and upholstery needle from the box to tie the patch onto the edge he thought its shape fit best against.

Why do I do this with the pieces? After a pause trying to form an answer, 'Choly's shoulders rolled in a noncommittal shrug. "Well what else am I supposed to do with them?"

It had always felt so uniquely deranged and grotesque to simply throw human flesh in the trash.

He stood and laid the full thing out in the floor in front of the daybed. He hadn't unfurled it in entirety in months, and the visual of the sheer amount of skin which comprised it overwhelmed him. He estimated nearly two square meters lay before him where he knelt, though his estimations were exactly just that, never having worked in any deliberate proportion, just adding on wherever he grabbed the stuff each time. The tapestry was so disfigured, so monstrous, so revolting. Throttled in the dialectic of Caliban, he recoiled at his inability to do anything but approximate himself to this thing he'd fabricated. And just as abruptly, his only recourse was to get rid of it.

A cold chill cut through the veneer of his slice of Confec. He couldn't bring himself to dismantle the thing. Instead, he quickly folded it back up and returned it to the box beside the haphazard tanning kit, then returned the box to its hiding place in his nightstand.

He'd figure out what to do with it later.

Knowing he was too far gone to write, he woke up his reader screen hoping Augen was still around to distract him from himself.

ketherphorbia: you’re up early 9augen: funny, i was just about to message you. not at the library today? ketherphorbia: no, and i’m not getting anywhere with what i was trying to do so you have my full attention 9augen: how does meeting up for lunch sound? ketherphorbia: i ketherphorbia: i just started in on a fresh confec bonbon, but yeah 9augen: the finnegans across the street from your old place? its on me ketherphorbia: something tells me you’re just looking for an excuse to milk their one-cred goldfinch lunch special 9augen: if you want a few, just say so. can you be there in... what. an hour? ketherphorbia: it honestly sounds fantastic. we can both talk. if you want

Still rattled from the abrupt invitation, ‘Choly put the knife in the sink and rounded the modular divider to rummage in the other nightstand drawers for something to throw on. First came his back brace, splints, and wrist braces, and he yanked together his salmon button-up, black sweater with the elbows cut out, and slashed jeans over the orange leggings. Taking his jewelry box into the bathroom, he then brushed his bangtails and tucked the right side back with his ABC-gum barrette. He hooked his new black acrylic skull-cutout gauge hangers into his ears, and plucked his balloon animal and saturn-symbol pendants to string around his neck. The spoon pin went in his left collar-point, and he sat on the daybed for his socks. On the way out the door, he tucked the wax paper wrapped Confec into his diamond-shaped cross-body bag and nabbed his cane, retrieved his glasses, and slipped into his mint creepers.

Along the short trip down to Level 5, he shot Cecil a short message:

|| Might not be home when you get off work. Augen invited me to lunch. He hasn’t said hardly a word since it happened, and I get the feeling he needs a friend right now. ||

Cecil replied to him as ‘Choly waved his pass and boarded the toll lift:

|| I can only imagine how hard it’s been for him. Hope he’s doing ok. You two have a good time. Expect me late. Love you. Give him a kiss for me ||

With a chuckle and a fish emoticon, ‘Choly exited the lift and hobbled down the street. He texted Augen that he'd arrived, asking where to meet him, because at first he didn't see him outside. Leaning on the front façade of the Finnegan’s, a tall gothic figure smoked religiously. The younger man with dark hair pulled into a low messy bun wore a black button-down and drop-crotch pants, a dark grey knee-length gauzy vest, a large black shawl-scarf wrapped around his shoulders and neck, and mesh boots. Upon closer inspection, the combination of facial body mods--spider bites, gauged one-inch ears and 2ga medusa each with glass plugs, symmetrical double brow piercings, and batwing clicker--confirmed for ‘Choly that this was his friend. Somehow, even with his suspicion as to why Augen had initiated the meeting, he’d still expected to find him his old self, and not this anxious chain-smoking human mess. It stuck in his throat, to know his friend had silently suffered in his humanity for the past six weeks. Augen rolled his eyes at him, having just checked his messages.

“Word of warning, I’m a bit thrushed right now,” 'Choly blurted out. Rather than respond, Augen leaned down and steadied ‘Choly’s chin to give him a kiss. ‘Choly smiled strangely and reciprocated with a second peck, then navigated the awkward posture into a hug as he tucked his head against Augen’s chest. It unnerved 'Choly that his friend was no longer cold-blooded, no longer clammy and tepid, but he kept it to himself. “...Hello to you, too.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” Augen rubbed at ‘Choly’s scruff and held the door for him. He eyed ‘Choly’s sweater dully in passing. “Don’t Quit Your Daydream, huh?”

‘Choly looked down at the saying printed on his front once they’d cleared the atrium, and his brows upturned.

“Hah, maladaptive daydreaming. Had it for years. I just kinda threw something on so I wouldn’t run late.”

“Daydream... into a living nightmare...”

With the detached comment, Augen picked a seat for them right in the middle of the bustling lunchtime venue. Marinating in his dissociative veneer, ‘Choly swallowed hard at the prospect of purposefully navigating his mental filter. With a series of finger gestures along the tabletop which doubled as a touchscreen menu, both ordered pinzones dorados and got to glancing over their options in silence. The server, a young brunet named Bert, promptly came and left with their drinks, as well as a basket of multicolored meal-rinds and two dishes of salsa. 'Choly sipped at his golden glowing pinzón, a smooth over-ice mix of tonic, hydroponic mezcal, triple sec, and lime liqueur, and mentally praised the facility with which one could get drunk at any hour in this city.

“So... this is a thing now.” ‘Choly got a rind real heavy with salsa and shoved it in his mouth.

Augen knocked back half his liquor in one motion, and slouched over it.

“I’d lived myself so fully, that I’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be human. I’ve missed smoking, if we’re looking for an upside to all this.”

“There’s gotta be a way t’get back what you had. At least some of it?”

“That’s... just about the last thing I want to talk about right now. Past tense doesn’t feel so great.”

They used their mouths to crunch rinds and nothing else. Augen took a hit off the cig around his neck, and with a deep exhale he shut his sunken eyes, the vapors entangling with the odd abstract light fixture over the table. Once they'd placed their orders, 'Choly did his best to people watch behind a zoned out Augen, mostly observing the rotation of three servers popping in and out of the kitchen door with dishes. When a couple that sat on the same side of their far-corner booth thought 'Choly gawked at their unapologetic PDAs and gave him a stink-eye, he coughed, and started trying to read the pattern of scrapbooked web articles which plastered every wall and the ceiling of the restaurant. The theme of all the articles painted up Tri-City's sheer melting pot culture as a fusion city, boasting a collage of articles about people from just about every level in the hyper-metroplex.

Bert interrupted their silence with their meals, and 'Choly squirmed back to give the server the space to lay it out on the table. The teen couldn't hide a sigh of relief as he picked up one plate, and glanced between the both of them.

"Who ordered the wraps?"

Augen gave him a lazy hand gesture, and the plate slid over to him. On Augen’s plate of spring wraps lay six large seared shrimp. Sliced in half both for presentation and facility, the three girthy wraps were stuffed with a combination of mushroom slices, seaweed, and fried mealworms.

"And then, the benedict's yours. Extra sauce?"

"Yes, thank you," 'Choly lauded with a heavily modulated affect, as the other mess of a plate came his way. A viscous pale yellow-green mess blanketed two nondescript mounds of protein and bread, and along its side the cook had scattered soft, colorful citrus gummies. "So glad I can still get breakfast here this late."

"Is there anyth--" Bert broke off, unable not to stare at Augen, as he fished out a pair of napkin-rolled utensils to give them. Augen returned the stare, deadpan. "...Spring wraps, and a side order of shrimp. It is you."

‘Choly gave the poor boy a glossy smile, about to praise how good it all looked, but he quickly drooped in recognition of the tension.

“So I took a bath today,” Augen dismissed, total fatigue in his voice. “Big deal.”

‘Choly coughed, cataract-bloom eyes wide as he took a stiff sip. Setting the pinzón back down, he tried to smile up at the waiter again, his voice cracking. "Could we get more rinds?"

The waiter shook his head and shut his eyes, then nodded.

“--Sure thing.”

“And we already need another round of birds.” Augen traced the edge of the faded glass with one black-polished finger and a heavy-lidded, eyelined smirk.

The server flashed him a fake grin, poorly hiding his revelry that the city had defanged the loathsome goth.

“I’ll be right back.”

‘Choly fought with the self-conscious selfishness of directing the conversation to himself, but still he persisted, hoping to distract his friend from getting recognized by his typical order. ‘Choly unrolled his flatware to tuck the napkin beside his plate, and took up the table knife and fork with zeal. He didn’t want to admit it, but as had become typical in the past few weeks, the only thing he’d put in his stomach so far by that time of day was a slice of wax and a cup of coffee. Augen took precise bites, holding his food gingerly with thoroughly ring-encrusted hands. His face stitched with a faint sweat which could have been from stress, the heat of the food, or even mounting enebriation. 'Choly observed in distant and fascinated contemplation, unsure whether his friend derived his mannerisms from humanity or the vestiges of having so recently once been a hybrid. Augen shot him a vague glance, and he cringed from getting caught watching. ‘Choly pushed the sauce-drenched larva-hash back up on the one round bready thing he’d been cutting bites from, sheepish.

“If you don’t wanna talk about it, there’s gotta be something you can do to take your mind off it instead? Have you tried... writing, since...?”

Augen finished off the first drink right when Bert swung by two replacements and more rinds and salsa. ‘Choly hadn’t even drunk half of his first pinzón yet, and he nudged his new one his friend’s way, knowing the rate this meal was going.

“Most of the time,” the goth mumbled, welcoming the offer, “my writing takes a particular head space. And I sure as fuck haven’t been in it.”

“I mean, like. Not in a carnal sense. Sort of in a carnal sense. An emotional sense? A purgative sense?”

Augen kept his eyes on his food, but his ears patently on his friend. ‘Choly’s hallmark withdrawn posture and tone signaled vague, incumbent rambling. With welcome resignation the goth listened, as he’d aspired from the start. After all, ‘Choly always had been the long-winded one of them.

“You... You remember how I was writing stories about me gettin’ with the Geek, but then I stopped abruptly? The last wip I posted before I stopped was right after I found out that the Geek and the Larva were the same person. Early on, the reasons I couldn’t reconcile with finishing the piece were ‘cause of how badly my first encounter with him went, but then fantasy turned into reality and he... caught me stalkin’ him and. You remember that right?” ‘Choly fished his reader from his bag, and tried to locate a picture in his camera roll. “I know I sent you a selfie of the black eye he gave me...”

“...You couldn’t shut up about it for a month. Heh.”

‘Choly looked up from his reader with a dull gloss to his features, and sniffed.

“He even tracked me down, what, five weeks later? An’ things got super weird--" He chewed at his labret. "...I’m still trying to process everything that happened two years ago.”

“This is about the walls, isn’t it.”

“Not quite. And yet. Exactly. I just. I owe it to him to get the details right, don’t I? It feels real lousy to even consider writing a nonfictional account of him, and yet.” He popped an orange gummy in his mouth, and licked the thick, tangy sauce off his swan-splinted fingertip. “I feel like I need to get the very concept of him in print, to get it out from inside of me. I know it’s already been two years since the walls went up, but I don’t think it’s possible for me to forget all that... death, even for a day.” A grapefruit one, this time. “How do you stay motivated to write something that hurts and arouses you, both in ways nothing else has ever really managed to?”

Augen dipped a spring roll in his salsa, and started working on the third drink. Not glancing up from his food, his brows piqued with heavy lids.

“A difficult question. Perhaps a better reply would be another question: Who’re you writing this for?”

‘Choly set down his utensils and stared down his food.

“I’d say it was for me, but I feel like I need to put his ghost to rest. I’d say it was for him, but it’s also in hopes of jamming my brain because something more accurate could exist of him than anything I’ve written of him prior. And I’d... say it was for you, or any of my followers, but I... don’t even know if I can bring myself to post the results.” The dreg sneaked the Confec from his bag and set it beside his plate. “I... I gotta have another slice.”

That got Augen’s attention.

“Mmh. Mind sharing?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

‘Choly sliced through the partial ball a few times with his thumbs against the spine of the knife, and Augen reached over to help himself to one. Wincing at the bitterness, he chewed it up and washed it down with more liquor. 'Choly simply slouched back and let the stringent melt go for a few minutes, thinking it nearly paired with the citrus cubes.

“Cecil knows about us,” Augen began, eyes stitched shut, “but you never did tell Cecil about the Geek, did you? Have you ever wanted to?”

“I told him about Chalcedony. And he may not have said anything, but I know he knows about me an’ the Geek. Can’t not. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how open he is to it all. It’s like he believes leaving me untethered keeps me more faithful. He’s... not wrong, I guess.” ‘Choly looked up when he heard Augen stifle a choke, and suddenly he regretted sharing. His friend’s face was glistening, grey eyes wide. “Are you-- all right?”

Bert paused in passing, noticing Augen's demeanor.

“How’s everything tasting so far?” the waiter interjected.

“Don't mind him." 'Choly quickly stashed the Confec back in his bag, unsure whether having it would cause them trouble. "--I think something just went down the wrong way.”

The boy frowned at the Augen, who blanched and rubbed at his Adam’s apple a bit. On cue, Augen forced a cough.

“I... It's nothing," the goth uttered.

Augen tapped a finger on his glass, not looking to Bert, and the waiter plucked up their empty glasses with a nod and excused himself, shaking his head in delirious incredulity at what had become of their once most troublesome patron.

“Seriously... Are you okay? You know you’re supposed to let that stuff dissolve in your mouth.”

Rather than reply, the goth snatched one of ‘Choly’s wristbraced hands in both of his own, and guided it to hold his strained throat. He sustained breathless, tormented eye contact.

“It's wearing off faster than I was planning. Thought, for sure I'd at least get to slagging finish eating. I'll... I'll take it.”

“Wh--” ‘Choly tried to pull his hand back when Augen tipped his head back and lolled his eyes ever so slightly, but Augen held fast. The musculature writhed. “The f--”

“Here you go,” Bert tried, nudging the fresh drinks onto the table to interrupt purposefully. Augen glanced up at him in a pained sweat, and the boy squirmed. “I--”

“Thank... you,” the goth rasped. He finally let go of ‘Choly and inhaled the fresh drink in a single motion, and when he slammed down the glass a little too hard, Bert jumped and left. ‘Choly rubbed his hand at his pants to dry the clamminess, and fretted.

“Did you... Are you...” ‘Choly glared at his friend who increasingly failed at holding it together. “The fuck is in your cig cartridge?”

At a whisper, Augen leaned in close with a shrimp in hand, still struggling to eat despite everything.

“Gather your things where you can just... grab them easy... and play along.”

“Fuck, Augen. Did you really have to get this high while we were eating?” While he complied, ‘Choly’s face slacked loose about his face. “You’re tryin’ to pile it on with somethin’ to take the place of the vampire grafting. That’s what this is. What did you--”

Augen put a trembling finger to his own mouth and hushed him in exasperation, then slyly removed most of his rings to pocket them in the sash of his drop-crotch pants.

“Tch, wait for it...”

Hands clenching his temples, the goth stared a hole in the food between them. With an abrupt stifled seizing up, his head jerked back, and his neck musculature split at the seams to burst with intricate, familiar structures. He groan-choked as his ears pointed and flared out. He hunched over to clutch his stomach, and with a clatter of dishes, he spilled forward like a canned worm as his spine cracked and doubled in length. Despite that increasingly recognizable, panting face now inches from ‘Choly’s, the dreg could only stare in a dull slack gloss, transfixed on every high-definition hyper-detail of the rapid mutations which transpired before him.

The rest of Augen’s grafted features caught up rapidly. His webbed, clawed fingers wrapped around the far edges of the table as he craned across it, and he raked off half the dishes which shattered in the floor as he continued to writhe in asphyxiating agony. He gnashed his jaw as the bone wasted into cartilage, and his lips pursed tight before snapping wide into a prominence of concentric thorns. His disgustingly vascular skin exuded a gelatinous mucus and fell semi-translucent as it shifted to bear respiratory function. His throat punctured in two rows to either side of his trachea, aligning the second set of gills. He flared his flourished nostrils and panted and heaved, clouding scleric eyes escaping into his lids in tortured bliss.

As if the clatter hadn’t gotten all the patrons’ and staff’s attention, Augen let out a gurgled shriek. ‘Choly finally remembered to flinch and tried to shove him away, but Augen grabbed him by the wrist with a glare and demonstrated his now exaggerated neck by cracking it. The fish jerked and he looked behind him to see a patron still aimed their pneumatic gun at him. He brushed a tranq dart from his lower back and slowly closed his mouth into a broad, dopey smile. Before ‘Choly knew it, the vampire had snatched him up and rushed for the front door. On the way out, he flung ‘Choly, belongings and all, into the lender’s wheelchair, and scrambled away as fast as he could.

"APRIL FOOL'S, BUGDICK!" Augen cackled hoarsely.

A coiled wobbly noodle speeding heartily down the street, he jerked left and right as he wound his way down ramps, a calculated and familiar escape route. The speed they’d achieved rattled the chair’s caster wheels, and ‘Choly clenched his teeth, the Confec robbing him of rightful sobbing when the fish tilted the chair back to compensate.

“We’re coming up on wheelchair-inaccessible territory soon. I'll admit I didn't think things through this far. I’m gonna need you to... do the skin thing. Totally slack. And... hold onto me for dear life.”

They rounded to the dismount, and ‘Choly’s head pounded as Augen plucked him up and the chair went flying off the edge of the street to eventually land in the bay. Reminiscent of a dance-dip, he flung ‘Choly around him like a sloppy backpack and kept running, ‘Choly’s cane in one hand and both ‘Choly’s forearms in the other. With a sharp duck into a side alley, they lost the three treadless-motorbike police who’d trailed them. Catching his breath slowly, Augen hugged the wall and walked backwards for a ways before he turned forward and descended a series of poorly neon-lit stairs. ‘Choly groaned. His head swam like he'd gone over with the wheelchair.

“Was that... entirely... necessary...”

After passing through a pair of wired-windowed doors, Augen set ‘Choly down against the wall of the alley-hall, and gave him back his cane once he’d reset his joints. Then, the vampire produced a canteen and drenched his face, neck, and shoulders.

“Explicitly.” Augen let out a slow, hearty chuckle. "Slag it all, that was fantastic."

“Where are we even going...? Level Four starts soon. We go deep enough into this alley, we’re gonna hit the quarantine.” No response followed. “I’m not getting an explanation until we get there, am I.”

Augen put up the portable water he’d had ready from the start, and tucked his gills into the now damp scarf-shawl. He held out his webbed hand in offer to piggyback ‘Choly again.

"Mmh, it's a few flights until there's an access elevator that still runs lower than Level 5. I'll continue carrying you, if it's too much for you. And you want me to."

"I feel like I'm going to regret turning down an offer like that."

Augen hoisted him back up across his shoulders. Nothing but fluorescent red lighting illuminated the next access tunnel, the hollow echo of the abandoned mid-level alleyway deeply claustrophobic. 'Choly sank his face into the vampire’s shoulder, and over time the biodrug harmonized with the rhythmic descent down next case of stairs, and soothed him into a total detachment from reality.

"Look to your right."

Augen tapped at the forearms he held around his neck. 'Choly picked his head up and did as directed, finding he'd passed out long enough that they now traversed a different corridor entirely. Bright yellow graffiti dripped along the long corridor.

WE'RE STILL DOWN HERE AND THE AIR'S JUST FINE

The more 'Choly took in of the wall, the more he realized similar graffiti had accumulated all throughout this passage, a technicolor synecdoche of the ghosts which resided a hundred yards beneath their feet.

"It wasn't my primary intention to show you this, by bringing you down here, but on the way down the stairs, after all you said at lunch, I figured bringing your attention to it might do your sensibilities some good. The access doors up at Level 5? I didn't unbolt them. They did."

"But how--"

"They're finding all the cracks the city didn't seal. They've been trickling out to the city limits' commercial district for some time now, but they only just recently got this far. The city pretty literally burned all the bridges they knew of between Levels 3 and 5. ...I've seen them in passing a few times. It's a shame we just missed them, going by the fresh paint. Nothing keeps 'em down. It's beautiful, really."

'Choly sank back into Augen's shoulder, staring at the defaced wall as Augen walked.

"They've been able to escape..."

"Long enough to grab food and water, and get back inside." The vampire opened the next access door and finally exited the alley. "It's just a short way to my place now. You should get some rest."

'Choly yawned and nodded, in shock and awe as he looked around the once familiar neighborhood, now a crumbling urban ghost town. Before he really noticed, they had already entered a building.

"You... this is that place you mentioned before, isn't it. We're on Level 4, aren't we."

"Home sweet home," Augen soothed, laying him back on a palette of bedding. He removed 'Choly's glasses and bag, and petted his forehead before leaving him to pass out.

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#biopunk #cyberpunk #dystopia #entomophagy #april fools #body horror #the uptake #with symbiotic self indulgence #wssi #melanochro kara #august ritter #only the vital ones #central day

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purkinje-effect · 5 years

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The Anatomy of Melancholy, 19

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Drugs, decomp, insects/parasitism, myiaisis, emeto, myso, copro TW’s. I’m pretty sure this is the grossest thing I’ve ever written. Enjoy

Skin tight hypoxia gripped Melancholy’s scalp. He wheezed for breath, jerking upright in a coughing fit of salt and rancor. Face still coated in a thick grime, his eyes and nose burned almost as bad as his lungs, and he pulled off his glasses to claw the muck off his face. A rasping coughing fit seized him, only for his stomach to lay out its objections to his activities right into his lap. Everything crawled inside-out with haptic echoes of a phantom myiasis. His diaphragm continued to spasm, adding hiccups to the mix of torture.

The second time he vomited, blood spotted the rejection.

“Fuck, it took you long enough.” Jared snatched him up by the back of his collar and threw him into an office chair. He jammed a shop rag into his hand with bitter, mocking pity. “Does the chemist need some water?”

“--’Zhemoy,” ‘Choly choked out, breathing still unsteady. “I could have-- I could have died.”

“But you didn’t.”

A jar of water found the chemist’s hands, and he immediately without hesitation squinted his eyes and mouth taut and poured some of it down his face. He then poured out a bit into the other side of the rag and did his best to work the ordure loose. Unable to smell anything but the penetrating musk of brahmin dung, he distrusted his ability to gauge the safeness of the water he’d been handed, and did not use it to try to drown the hiccups. Once he got his eyes rid of enough rheum-muck, he opened them, and used the remaining water to wash off his glasses. He dared not look to Jared, to confirm his appearance.

“Look, chemist. You’re going to retain your value to me. I’ve invested too much in you. What’s a more potent dose than the raw source itself? I watched you just now, writhing like the insect you are. That had to be the most intense flight I’ve seen in my life. --Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

‘Choly trembled and shook his head, wringing his hands in his lap and feeling very small. Attentive flies crawled all over him, and diligent maggots did their best to rid his clothing of grime. He squinted his eyes shut and tried his best not to fall into hyperventilating.

“Please, no. No--”

“Do you at least know where you are, you little fuck? You’re sitting in my office. At my terminal. And you’re not going anywhere until you write down everything that you just experienced.”

He slowly picked up his head in the direction of the desk, and stared hollowly at the computer screen. Loathing overwhelmed him in the moment and he shrank from the terminal with a low whine, only to force himself to square up to it, and shrink away, several times. At last he put his glasses back on his face, and recognized at least his hiccups had resolved.

Jared glared at the back of his head until he was goodly confident ‘Choly was committed to the journal entry.

Flies. Flies on everything. Cleaning everything. Righting it all. Devoted. Diligent. I don’t know where they’re coming from. Are they coming from Jared? Jared’s face... He became the largest bloatfly I’ve ever seen. Drooling, adamant mouthparts. Piercing compound eyes. His bloated body teemed with lichinka. Ready for my supplication. Everything was so tight. Flesh sluicing from my belly as they wriggled out to crown my pudenda like a coronation of sex. Appetent. Purifying. Perpetual. Purulent. I was so purulent. But I wouldn’t be for long.

They took me with them when they transfigured into mature bloatflies. A piece of my consciousness arose in each of them, a cloud of rapture. I was present in everything, humble to debride the world of its entropy. Multiplying in a golden mean forever. Everything could be clean.

Sweat drenched him in hard loathing, and he heaved as he saved his draft. He couldn’t get more explicit than that. It hurt his head too much to try to put to words what he had seen. Every time he took Jet, it seemed the conjugating theme was maggot therapy. This was the first time it had brought him a genuine state of entheogeny, and he rubbed at his upper arms in displeasure of coming down from it. Everything felt so... lifeless as the halo of activity faded away. His head hurt. His everything hurt.

In the time it had taken for him to compose the journal requested of him, he found that Jared had excused himself. The wheelchair was still out on the assembly line floor, and divorced of it ‘Choly couldn’t muster the faculty or energy to get himself to it. And he was a combination of too tired and too filthy to simply doze off. So, to keep himself entertained, he turned again to the terminal, only to realize that Jared had left it logged on as the administrator.

He’d never read Jared’s journals before, and he wondered if anyone in the outfit had. Absently biting his lip refreshed the rancid tang that stained his face, and he flinched. He looked over his shoulder to make sure Jared wasn’t even out on the foreman’s mezzanine that overlooked the assembly floor, then went into his journals. He jumped around basing his choices on the titles of each file, and began with one called ‘Setting Up Shop.’

Gunfire’s finally quieted down. Suppose that means either Lonnie or Gristle wiped up the last of the feral ghouls or they’re currently serving as someone’s meal.

But Lexington is secure, I can finally get to work.

Well, ‘Choly thought, somebody sure became the ferals’ meal in the Super Duper Mart. They didn’t look at all the part to belong to Jared’s outfit, though. He opened ‘Subjects.’

It’s not the chems.

They’re just a trigger for the sight. It’s me. I’m the problem. Wish I’d realized before my arms looked like pin-cushions, but at least it’s a new lead.

I need subjects.

The chemist squinted. Jared really did believe that psychedelic drugs could make people legitimately psychic. But injections? 'Choly thought all this nonsense revolved around Jet, an inhalant. ‘Walden’ came next.

The pharmacy across the way lit up like Christmas last week. No clue how that fucker got in my town without anybody noticing, but color me impressed that he managed to restore electricity to that place. I had Jerry case the building, top to bottom, and every way in requires either a key or a password. We’ll have to arrange a little rooftop meeting next time our little showman comes up on the roof to dole out chems with his--rifle? That still slays me.

The part that really gets me is, my outfit tells me he’s in a wheelchair. I’ve only ever seen one other person in the Commonwealth use one. It can’t be a coincidence. I have to talk to him.

Skimming a few more entries, he got a few laughs out of confirmation that Jared didn’t genuinely hate him. At least, not before today. Most mentions of him in Jared’s journals involved wanting desperately to flip ‘Choly’s ‘vision’ the ‘right direction.’ Then there was ‘Experiments Continue,’ and his face slacked.

Still no successes but the rumor of free chems has brought plenty of new recruits. Ranks are nearly back up to where they were before we cleaned out Lexington. Lonnie thinks entertaining the chemist is a waste of time, says we need to spend our time building up our defenses.

But Lonnie doesn’t make the decisions. I do.

She does seem to be enjoying her new position, though. Maybe another dose of Psycho will get her visions firing.

‘Choly’s hand went to his mouth at the mention of cyclomorphine, and he sank back in his seat. Jared had access to Psycho, and was trying to jog hallucinations with it as he’d done of the Jet. The raider leader had told the chemist he’d had no interest in branching out into other drugs until they’d done comprehensive work with Jet first. Knowing what Jared had told him before this most recent trip, had the raider simply gotten impatient without any results yet, or was something more sinister taking place here? Holy God how did he get his hands on that stuff... He hadn’t wanted to find anything compelling, incriminating or otherwise, and he pressed on, haunted, with the most recent entry: ‘Stumped.’

Nothing is working. The old woman, she used to just huff some Jet, pop some pills, then she’d start babbling, spouting vision after vision. And they all turned out true. The Raiders burning the town, killing the parents, stealing the kids. Stealing me. I remember the look in her eyes when she saw my fate. “Kid, you’re gonna be a monster.” All true.

If I could get that sort of power, that sight, the Commonwealth, the other gangs. No one would have a prayer.

But nothing’s working. Maybe I need to try upping the dosages. I’ll have to talk with the chemist and see how potent we can get.

“You’re gonna be a monster,” he mouthed, his soul flying from his body.

There was no other explanation in ‘Choly’s haunted grey matter, than that this soothsaying junkie had seen ‘Choly’s hallucinations of Jared becoming a bloatfly. Of course Jared’s interested in developing psychic abilities for power alone. Of course he is.

'Choly backed out to the main screen, and returned to the ‘Melancholy 8′ entry from the holotape in the disc deck, so the terminal would be open to it. The more rational explanation was that this woman had indicated a monstrosity of character, but ‘Choly just couldn’t quit the thought as he reread what he’d written. Context meant everything. Over... and over... and...

“Hey, chemist, you’re still at it? Fuck, you’re taking forever.”

‘Choly jerked in his seat, snapped out of his lucid horror by Jared’s return.

“I, yeah. Yeah, I’m done.” He looked to Jared, to find him still entirely human, and he sighed out his relief a little too readily. The raider had brought the wheelchair, folded up. Pushing away from the desk in the rolling chair, ‘Choly began, “I very much hope this stuff doesn’t come true, and very much hope it’s ridiculous that it ever could.”

Jared leaned down to skim what ‘Choly had written, and his features alternated from hardened to ridiculous. He barked a laugh and slapped ‘Choly in the head, only to continue laughing, almost in tears.

“You are a horny little fuck...”

“I haven’t gotten any in over two centuries.” He let out a small laugh, realizing he’d inadvertently referenced facts which had precipitated Jared’s prior behavior. “I suppose that has a lot to do with it.”

With a delirious sigh, Jared smiled at him and gesticulated emphatically as he spoke next.

“I’ve been thinking, and I have to ask. In some of your other journals, you’ve talked about using some pistol in the same way you use your rifle. A... Nagant? I know it’s total bollocks that you’d have these... bloatfly maggots or whatever you hallucinate every time. Those things are like a dick joke. Having ‘em in the gun’s like, a metaphor for fucking everything under the sun or something. And you getting intimate, up close and personal, with that thing. Real raunchy. ...Is that a real gun you’re talking about? Or is it a vapor just like everything else in that fucked up little head of yours?”

The chemist straightened, and thought how to reply as he slowly wrung his hands in his lap.

“I... yes, and no. The gun is real, but the ammunition and its ability to fire them aren’t.” He stopped making eye contact. “It’s a Russian revolver I found, some vet’s war prize I guess. Takes 7.62′s, but fuck if you’ll ever likely put your hands on any. I can’t think of any regular issue American guns that use it, and the military only let vets have the weapon itself as a trophy--the ammo itself was considered contraband. I only really know the basics when it comes to actually breaking down and futzing with the mechanics of a firearm, but I suppose it’s... entirely plausible to make it work like my syringer rifle.”

Jared squinted at him, unsure whether ‘Choly was being an idiot.

“You can’t put darts in a pistol, revolver or not. Just the combustion in the chamber will destroy it.”

“The Nagant... is different. It’s a gas-seal revolver. It fires the ammo through air pressure, and relies only partly on combustion. I would imagine there’s a way to rig it to rely completely on a pneumatic mechanism. 7.62mm isn’t too far off from the ammo a syringer rifle uses, either.”

“Where is this... Nagant.”

‘Choly made a funny face and shook his head in a vague confusion. Suddenly, it didn’t feel like Jared was trying to confirm facts about a Jet journal.

“I have it stored someplace safe. What, why?”

“I’m very good with metalworking equipment, and very good with firearms. Been playing around with the assembly plant amenities for close to a year, and I grew up in Quincy. You’ve seen how good I am, from how we cooperated putting together the Jet rig. I could take a look at it. And I could probably make it happen. Give it ammo it can use. Make it proud again.”

‘Choly stiffened, recalling that Jared’s journals indicated he had access to Psycho--at least at one point--and he couldn’t imagine a worse outcome. But gradually, his judgment got the better of him and he nodded, then nodded eagerly.

“I’ll bring it tomorrow. So you can look at it.”

The moment the words came from him, he regretted it. And yet, Jared seemed more pleased with him than he’d ever been. With his help ‘Choly transferred over to the now unfolded wheelchair, and Jared escorted him down the mezzanine ramp to meet Angel.

“My stars you’ve gotten most filthy, Mister Carey!” Its tendrils flailed about in utmost concern before taking up the handles and motoring him along. “Shall I help you bathe upon arriving home? I scarce would think you could scrub all that away on your own.”

As they exited, Jared called out after him, “Melancholy! Don’t you forget your promise.”

He shot Jared an o-kay with one tired hand, not looking back.

“Angel, I... I think this warrants a dip in the river. We’ll stop at the pharmacy for the toiletries, I guess.”

“But Sir, you’ll be soaking wet all the way home. You haven’t come across a change of clothes. I should know. You deserve a freshening up.”

“I... have a change of clothes,” he began, almost reluctantly. “Don’t worry about that much. It’s in your storage compartment, actually.”

They fell silent the rest of the way back to the Lexington Walden, to limit any likelihood of stirring unwanted ghoul attention. On the way to their pit stop, all ‘Choly could wonder was whether Jared were more pleased with the journal entry, or with the promise of a new toy for his inhumane scheming... and he couldn’t help but wonder why he was so attentive to gain the favor of this abomination.

He’d given Melancholy everything he could have wanted. But at what price?

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#fallout 4 #fallout 4 fanfic #fallout fanfic #fo4 fanfic #the anatomy of melancholy #the purkinje effect #melancholy

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the-uptake · 5 years

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Faith in Higher Things

The Uptake, With Symbiotic Self-Indulgence. Book III, Chapter 8. Go to previous. Go to next. TWs: Stitches, metropolitan crisis onset. Count the questions on one hand...

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Augen nudged ‘Choly awake in the pitch dark.

“We should get going,” the vampire whispered.

The Lazarus Hall. Right. ‘Choly’s chest tightened, that the overly sweet aroma wasn’t an air freshener, and he struggled upright. ‘Choly had slept atop Augen’s clothes, and Augen retrieved them, but prioritized helping his friend dress first. The vampire turned on his reader flashlight, and handed ‘Choly’s orthotics to him one at a time. 'Choly permitted him to help only with the corset.

“Are you okay?” ‘Choly started. “Your ribs. You’re okay now?”

Met with a hush, his not-quite-lucid mind gurgled with the memory of the textures and structures that had filled his lap, though in the dark, he could not process how long ago. Augen’s reader light grazed insinuations of thick, clear slime in places, rucked up on the concrete floor like well-traversed urban snow. The vampire seemed himself again. ‘Choly pursed his lips tight as he got his muck-stiff shirt and sweater back on over his head. Winning an argument with his leg brace, he sat at last in his wheelchair, and Augen finally got dressed, and they took stock of their effects one last time. Then, the two slipped out of the once-parlor the same way they’d entered.

Barring the discomfort of the dried weighted crunch of their clothing, to onlookers stepping into the fluorescent lighting of the broad hallways only punctuated their disarray. Augen took ‘Choly to the public restrooms on that floor to freshen up, and also to refill his canteen. Augen fished a new hair tie from his apron, and re-added any jewelry he’d removed prior to his healing process. ‘Choly pinched at bit at his itching chin suture, then took his next dose of both medication with a few palmfuls of sink water. He grunted with a squint at still not having eyeglasses. By the time he sank back in his chair to recollect himself, someone was inching him aside to get at the sink for themselves, unable to wait his turn any longer. Augen stepped up to cart him onward before ‘Choly could knock out any of the stiffness in his shirt.

“Guess it’s a good thing I bought instead of rented,” ‘Choly commented of his wheelchair with a huff, on their way to the elevator. He checked the time on his reader, as well as the battery--10:02, 46%--and sneered as he spoke next. “You sure made a mess of, well, us. Not sure we can get whatever that was out of the upholstery.”

“You mean I can’t just take you through a car wash?” the vampire jeered, doing his very best to ignore the crustiness of his hair. He leaned near to his ear. “Nothing a few bottles of dish detergent won’t fix.”

“...Take it you’ve got experience with this...”

He almost asked Augen what the chemical at the parlor had been, but Augen propelled them both into the then-ready elevator car, placing themselves amid a group of office-dwelling folk. In an undesirable silence, they aimed for the top floor as they had before. He thought to text Cecil, but recalled that if April Fool’s had damaged his reader, it surely must have destroyed Cecil’s. On the way to ground level, no fewer than two people shied from the rank, chalky musk the two exuded.

They made their way back HP way. ‘Choly removed his sweater, Augen tucking it into the back pouch of the chair, and wore his dark tank with the salmon dress shirt unbuttoned over it. The orthotic corset crested over the neckline, but although partly his binding garment, he didn’t wholly consider it unmentionable.

The line for the optician’s department took no time. The optician examined ‘Choly, and when she annotated both his updated prescription and his metahuman cataracts as addenda to his serial file, he requested the prescription for personal reference as well. The eyewear specialist offered him two catalogues to pick from, but he immediately declined the ShipShop options in favor of restoring his vision promptly by picking options available in-house. He still knew very little of Leveler culture, especially the nuances of navigating medical provisions, but mostly anyone no matter their upbringing knew how to select their earpiece and frame combination from the catalogues. Billable or not, Though he had a pair from ShipShop, if a body had eyewear these days, they more than likely came from the optician’s edition of a BF Meehl catalogue. It had been since the last time he’d broken his glasses that he’d even bothered to update his prescription, let alone his frames, and he enjoyed the aesthetic refresh.

Within fifteen minutes of the exam, a pair of thick flat round black acetate frames sat on his face. Separate but built-in sunglasses lenses hinged independently at an upward diagonal. Everything had features again. Distinct, clear, and tangible. They made him feel a bit like a spider. Though he wished there were something more of substance to the impression, he didn’t mind feeling at all like a spider.

Augen’s only reaction to the acquisition was to casually flip down the sunglasses to their useful position. ‘Choly didn’t object until they started moving again.

“H-- hey, what now? We’re getting coffee and breakfast now, right? Wasn’t that the turn to go to the cafeteria? Isn’t this the way out of the hos--”

“--To the nearest Overflow.” Augen snipped out a halted breath, and kept pushing when ‘Choly gave no reply which would suggest diminished confusion. “Just how long ago was it, that you said you leveled up?”

“My serial’s just shy of three years old now.” His shoulders shrank as he gripped the armrests.

“And still don’t know how all this stuff works? How any of billing works? Tch! I don’t mind helping, but a little communication wouldn’t hurt. So glad I nicked the room slip from you. Knowing you, you’d have tossed it by now. I know you don’t carry a wallet, either, and--”

“--Just how do you know that?” He couldn’t understand how a slip of paper could carry any sense of irreplaceability, and his ears burned.

“I pay attention. Which you really should. It’s like you don’t even know what’s going on and you could hardly be more dead center of it without being in Cecil’s shoes.”

‘Choly frowned meaningfully.

“He says to the injured man full of opiates... and completely empty of caffeine.”

“Coffee. Right. Overflow first. One thing at a time.”

He supposed he could forgive that Augen wasn’t a morning person either.

They crossed the street to The Granfalloon Overflow, and entered the busy glass-front lobby with pewter carpeting, to find easily two hundred patrons stood in the check-in line. ‘Choly held their place while Augen stepped out to grab them both coffee. By the time the vampire returned, the dirt-black dark roast had dipped to a quaffable temperature, and only twenty almost-customers remained in front of the pair.

“Let me do the talking when we get up to the desk window. I got you a filled croissant. You like berry, right?”

“Anything but grape,” he appreciated. He shrugged at the instructions. “You’ve got the... room slip, or whatever it is. Y’need my serial, too?”

“The slip has everything we need on it.”

Rather than ask what Cecil’s room had to do with anything, ‘Choly alternated between his caffeine and his fruit jelly and nearly gelatinous cheese pastry. He said nothing of the texture it had gained from growing cold, grateful simply to have something in his stomach.

When they got up to the window, ‘Choly watched as Augen spoke quietly to the clerk through the slotted glass, and scanned the carbon-paper slip the vampire produced. The clerk looked up to ‘Choly, then back to the computer terminal. Augen objected at one point, but resigned to whatever the clerk had either asked or insinuated, and scanned a second item Augen produced before pocketing again. A pair of cardkeys ejected under the counter, and Augen retrieved them with a mention of gratitude before they sped off to one end of the large, open lobby to let the next patron check in.

“I thought you said the slip was all--”

“--They think I’m going to be present enough to count as an occupant to your room, since I’m pushing your wheelchair. I had to give them a serial.”

“But you’re not...” The word ‘documented’ stayed in his lungs.

“You collect a great many useful things riverbed scavenging the Hudson.”

‘Choly’s mouth tightened and his eyes widened behind his myopic, dark glasses.

“The more important question is, I never stayed in a hotel in my whole life, but I know how slagging expensive it is to. Who’s paying for this!”

“How do I put this? Overflows are hotels sponsored by the hospital they’re affiliated with. Usually they’re either part of the same building, or are right next door attached by skybridges. We needed the slip because staying at an Overflow sponsored location can be tacked onto the billing package for most inpatient hospital stays. I didn’t want you to have to cash in on it, because you responded so poorly to the billing process at the start, but in your current state, and knowing how long Cecil will be here, you really don’t have much choice. Especially since Tri-City bound transportation is still down. Every other lodging option is going to cost you, out of pocket, up front, and I can guarantee that, in the current state of things, anywhere else would charge you ten to fifteen times more for sake of emergency-stimulated opportunism.”

“You mean... If Cecil has visitors, they can stay at specific hotels and the tab goes on his billing?” When Augen didn’t correct him, he let out a low whistle. “I don’t think we should order room service...”

Pale gold halls radiated off the lobby to both sides at several angles. Following the digital wall-projected signage Augen took ‘Choly down one crowded frontmost hall in pursuit of the cluster of indoor stores and eateries. They popped into the convenience store. Augen tucked a shopping basked in ‘Choly’s lap and tossed a few things in it as they navigated around other shoppers in the small tiled space. As an ice-breaker, the vampire picked out a few beverages including a travel size assortment of liquors, then made ‘Choly pick out some shelf-stable sandwiches and some toiletries. ‘Choly also nudged him to get some isopropyl alcohol, and a bleach kit bottle, the latter of which elicited a wry smirk. Just as he’d said nothing of Augen’s very obviously faked identification, Augen said nothing of the bleach. The two paid separately, and for each purchase, the clerk required they swipe their cardkey. As they left the store with their plastic bags of items, Augen mumbled with a smile.

“You’re not allowed to ruin my rum with that.”

“The vodk--” ‘Choly sputtered. “The rubbing alcohol’s not for drinking--”

“You don’t add either to good rum.”

“Says who!”

They returned to the lobby and took a different hall in search of an elevator, a sleek mirror-wainscoted thing which they then rode to the ninth floor. The halls snaked such that Augen jerked about ‘Choly’s chair on their way to the room which would be loaned out to those who had visited the patient in HP’s room ICB-3406 the day before. Augen slid one cardkey and held the door open so ‘Choly could wheel himself inside. Accessing just about any facet of the hotel required a swipe of a cardkey to prove tenancy, down to making a purchase at any of the establishments on the ground floor, ‘Choly supposed.

“You know I appreciate you going down there with me,” Augen said as they sized up the place. He stepped into the bathroom with the bags, but did not shut the door.

The walls were cream, the carpet deep blue. A single queen-size bed, dark red. Wall-mount television. Small fridge. Two nightstands, one with a lamp and the other a tabletop-surface kiosk. Inset lighting around the whole perimeter of the ceiling. The vague floral residue of recent cleaning. The far wall, with a pair of full-length windows to either side of the small table with two upholstered chairs. The windows, with light-blocking treatments the same blue as the carpeting.

“And you know I appreciate you taking me with you. What even was that stuff? You never told me if your rib healed.”

“To be entirely fair, I haven’t a clue. What’s important is, it did the trick.” The vampire returned empty-handed to ‘Choly, and handed him a cardkey to put in his bag. “We can talk later. Now that you’re situated, I really must go check on some things. You are situated, yet? You’ll be all right a few hours?”

“But--” Augen pecked him on the cheek and patted him on the head. The parting gesture boxed his rationality, and he nodded. “Yeah, I’ll text you if I hear anything new from Cecil.”

“I’m not going far. We can go visit him when I get back.” The door shut behind Augen.

‘Choly stared off into the room in ever-mounting exhaustion. He tried to stand, only to have to shoulder the wall to continue succeeding. He seethed, and groaned.

“I should have gotten him to help me into the bath.”

He made it into the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat. The leg brace came off, then so did everything else. He almost searched for the bags of things from the convenience store, only to see the vampire had gone in the bathroom before to set them out for him on the dark marbled counter. Toiletries to one side of the sink, food and drink at the other. A jar of instant coffee stood among the bottles, and he couldn’t help but laugh at Augen thinking it something of a priority for ‘Choly. He pulled a towel and washcloth off the acrylic bath shelving, set his glasses on the counter, and resigned to drawing a bath to keep his leg elevated.

While the water filled the tub, he retrieved the sewing kit from his diamond bag and hobbled back to set it at the sink. He ripped open the carton of bathtub cherry bombs and flicked one of the small spheres into the water. He hadn’t gotten a good look at his face stitches earlier, and took the time to scrutinize its integrity uninterrupted. He turned the water off. He punctured the safety film over the mouth of the rubbing alcohol and doused some toilet paper with it to dab at his chin. A hard pinch produced a drizzle of thin pus, and he winced as he sopped at it. He removed the dressing from his leg, and palpated it finding similar heat and tightness. With some nervousness as to the soundness of his unsupported leg bones, the brace went back on without replacing the gauze. Of what he’d read of the instructions e-mail he’d received from Dr. Thornton’s care, the brace was waterproof, but submerging it was not recommended. He slipped into the effervescent tub with his leg elevated, and let the aromatics permeate his aching body.

He sat on the toilet lid and towel dried his hair a bit, and used the clippers from the sewing kit to open the brush and comb pack. It had been five years since he last changed the color of his hair, but he’d maintained coloration of all kinds throughout his twenties, and he didn’t deem it necessary to re-read the instructions label on the bleach. So he took off the cap to remove the rigid safety stick that ran down the full depth of the bottle right down the center, and closed it up again. Through the soft squeezable plastic of the outer bottle, he felt around for the long brittle tube now floating loose, and he cracked it and shook the contents to incorporate them. Once the bottle felt warm, he parted his dark, damp bangtails down the middle, and flipped the squeeze-top, to bleach the right half only. A few bobby pins held the hair in place while the chemicals worked. He set an alarm on his reader for thirty minutes.

A seam ripper popped the stitches on his face, and tweezers picked out the fibers. He leaned over the sink and let the basin catch the alcohol he poured over his chin. Alcohol-sterilized needle and thread reaffixed the seven stitches, and he snipped the thread off close to the knot. Sitting on the toilet lid again, he inspected his leg injury as best he could for the angles he could twist himself. A lot of the swelling around the wound site had gone down, and he imagined the warmth of the bath had helped both its drainage and circulation. Drainage. Despite the wound depth, Thornton had not implemented any kind of tubing to permit the free expression of fluids. He grimaced at the oversight. His portable sewing kit only included what he needed to do touch-up maintenance, not full repairs. Until he got home and had access to his own scissors and surgical knives, he’d have to keep a closer eye on the healing progress than he did of most of his skin repairs in past years. He patted it with rubbing alcohol, and replaced the dressing. The alarm vibrated his reader. He rinsed his hair.

He gazed at his naked reflection for some time before he at least put his tank top back on. Were it not for the marbling of railroad scars all over his body, and the absence of the forearm tattoo he’d gotten when he’d started dating Cecil, he nearly would have thought it were ten years earlier. At a point where everything felt like it was falling apart, at least he could do this. Stalkers might not have placed a wholesome value in superficial alterations such as these, but Levelers embraced it with enthusiasm. He sniffed in detachment. For once, the split dye job made him feel more like he fit in, rather than stuck out.

Uncertain as to the next time he’d get a change of clothes, he rinsed out his socks and underwear with soap and water, and laid them on the edge of the tub.

‘Choly carried his then-cold coffee to the nightstand and sat back in the plush down comfort of the hotel room’s queen size bed. He turned on the television. He crinkled his nose to push up his new glasses, then crinkled his nose again. The extra weight would take some getting used to, but he’d wanted prescription sunglasses for years. Augen had made good on his promise, not to leave ‘Choly unattended until they could replace his eyeglasses, but he couldn’t tell how long he’d be alone in the hotel room. Or if Augen would return anytime soon. How hard would it be for him to get himself back over to the HP to see Cecil?

He scratched at his fresh leg dressing with an absent sneer, and sank into the most comfortable bedding he’d ever put his ass on. He felt like he hadn’t been able to just sit down and rest for entire days, and a long soak followed by an unfathomably soft bed had him drifting off already. For the time being, it was just him and the endless procession of webcasts covering and discussing the aftermath of the Central bombing. He slipped under the thick, lightweight down comforter and cream colored sheets. And he kept scratching.

Channel flipping felt like a game of roulette where every pocket was a black number. Speculation as to how the stalkers had managed such a feat. Avowal that the quarantine’s integrity would be both investigated and reinforced. Discussion as to how FEMA would reinstate structured emergency power, and the potential duration of the power and server outage. Insistence that the displacement of nearly twelve million people would not be permanent. Assuagement of the mounting hysteria in other fusion cities, that similar could happen to them. The disaster had laid bare a glaring vulnerability of the grid, and it was all the federal agencies could do to swear something like this could never happen again. A fluke. No one could come up with an answer as to how it could have possibly happened.

But no one seemed to want answers. They just wanted it fixed, and they wanted someone to blame. And yet, no one seemed to pinpoint that the hybrids had anything to gain in the aftermath. All ‘Choly could think of, staring down the collateral, was how the geek bar the day before had erupted with good will over what the bombing did to the servers, and the absolute rapture of the tiger host. Augen had been so distressed over the other hybrids’ elation. Augen was right, that ‘Choly had been out of it even before agreeing to an April Fool’s Day lunch. But how out of it had ‘Choly been? Had he missed something important in the chaos, that could explain it all? What other harmful data stored at Central had been negated in the act?

His head hurt. He pulled out his reader to look at the pictures he’d taken the day before. Pallet after pallet of eight drums each. Bright orange, with no designating marker besides the semicircle insignia of BF Meehl. Thinking on it more, was Meehl the owner, or just the manufacturer of the drum itself? Regardless of origin, the drums very clearly had been left there within the last year. He’d have to take it up with Augen later. Maybe Augen would be able to tell him all about what had happened at The Lazarus Hall yesterday. Lacking anything of substance to distract himself with researching the Meehl drums, he resumed paying attention to the television.

It had taken two days, but the media coverage had shifted away from visuals of the explosion itself and moved onto the current state of Tri-City. Automobiles no longer stippled the treadless avenues, instead replaced by the congestion of emergency vehicles. Projected advertisements no longer flooded every neobrutalist surface with light, the Wolfram concrete taking on a lifelessness it had never known for even a moment. Everything had come to a standstill, threatening societal necrosis. People couldn’t transit.

Supermarkets had been upturned by Levelers attempting to hoard all shelf-stable food supplies they could locate, but after a single day no one could even get to them, not even to clock in for work. One channel’s webcast had postulated that FEMA had paired up with ShipShop, and together in the coming week they would set up emergency relief kiosks at every major housing block. If people hadn’t made it out of their apartment buildings by day one, the government had issued a warning to shelter in place.

None of it had felt real until he came across a segment regarding ShipShop’s FEMA-issue thetic delivery drone fleet. He lost the remote in the sheets at this point and leaned forward, staring in dread at these nonliving agency employees. Most thetic personalities he’d experienced firsthand had been only waist-up, a humanoid shape installed on whatever vehicle or robotic vending to stand in where a clerk might have functioned in prior decades. These androids made no exception, and would engage the ShipShop kiosks in order to dispense the variety of goods available through the company that had been ordered by those inhabiting the block where the kiosk had been placed. Either ShipShop or FEMA knew in advance that this would be a long-term arrangement, for how much effort they were putting forth to erect these kiosks... and for how the kiosks themselves would be run by full-body thetics.

The chaos of it all, it hadn’t just been Cecil getting critically injured and losing his hearing, hadn’t just been ‘Choly getting his leg broken by gunshot wound, hadn’t just been ‘Choly and Augen tumbling headlong into a completely unprotected vehicle crash. The known casualties had since tallied in the thousands, and the longer Tri-City went without power, those numbers would only continue growing, ShipShop or no.

He stuttered, patting frantically in the sheets to relocate the remote. He couldn’t remember if he’d been sure to stay on non-decimal stations. Once he’d relocated it and double-checked it was on Channel 43, he pulled up the hotel’s terms of service on his reader to check what was complimentary versus what cost extra. Provided he only pulled up non-decimal channels on a television, and only pulled up decimal channels on any non-television, there’d be no charge. The thought of having to keep them straight worsened his headache, and he curled up in the bed as best he could with the leg brace still on.

His reader chirped and buzzed for an incoming phone call, and he wouldn’t have picked up, but his services identified the caller as Hillock Plaza.

“I, hello?”

“Good morning,” Cecil greeted in a playful, low affect. “I got word you settled into a room at the Granfalloon. Glad I didn’t have to ring through to your room, though. Means your reader survived.”

“Good morning? It’s almost one o’clock. Yeah, I’ve told you f’years, they don’t make ‘em like they used to.” He grinned tiredly, relieved just to hear his boyfriend’s voice. “I miss you.”

“Miss you, too. I didn’t dream you visited me, if you’ve checked into Overflow. I was starting to worry if you were all right.”

“I’ll have some of whatever you’re having, if you can’t remember the conversations that have been happening in that hospital room. Wait, shit.” He shot up in the bed. “They haven’t had you sign anything without me there, right? Right!?”

“Not that I know of. Why? What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? Abandon help me, do you even know what day of the week it is?” He calmed himself a tic, and his face screwed up in a complicated grief. “What billing option did you take?”

“Alternative. What’s wrong?”

"...Are you worried that the HP will come find you down the line and do other truck to you?”

“What? No! That’s bogeyman talk. ‘Choly everything is all right. I’m just recovering from a bad injury. And can’t hear on my own anymore. It’s fine.”

“On what planet is what you described ‘fine’! ...Ben said he could have kept you from billing.” A long silence held. “Cecil?”

“I wouldn’t have wanted him to. I don’t want to talk about that.”

“So you’re happy with the thetic halo? With having that stuff installed in your head?”

“Completely. It’ll take getting used to. But it works. And I can sync with data protocols to make phone calls with it. It’s how I’m calling you right now.”

“...I took alternative for my broken leg, too. You don’t think...”

“I don’t know anyone who’s taken alternative, and a hospital made good on the thread. It’s literally just a legal loophole where people aren’t allowed to sue the hospital. What has Augen been telling you? Damn.”

A notification from Augen butted in, and ‘Choly flopped over in the bed after reading it. ||Shoe size?|| He sent along all his size information with an eye-roll, poorly containing his glee at the likelihood that such a question could mean fresh clothing would come along sooner than anticipated.

“Sorry about that. I think his ears were burning... Nothing’s gonna be the same after the other day. I’m just... worried about tomorrow. And the next day. And... and...”

“Focus on today, babe. It’s all we can do right now. I need to sleep more. I was just calling to check on you. I’ll see about texting you from the hospital room. Love you.”

“Talking later sounds very good. Love you.”

‘Choly shoved his reader under the pillow with a strange, empty frown and got more comfortable. He nearly thought he was hearing sirens going off outside, but chalked it up to feeling like he’d drifted off. He glanced up at the television in detachment, only halfway processing the ‘breaking news’ streamer that at some point had begun chasing the bottom of the screen. He didn’t recognize the plume of smoke as belonging to any of the footage he’d seen before. The bombing had occurred after nightfall, and this footage took place in broad daylight. He stifled a yelp when he bent his leg a way the brace wouldn’t let him, and scrambled through the sheets to find the remote again and turn up the sound.

“...Second series of explosions at Tri-City’s Central building just twenty minutes ago. Despite Tesla’s best efforts, damage to the nuclear generators still resulted in their overheating, and it began the process of meltdown just hours after the detonations which rocked much of Tri-City on April First. Radiation has been confirmed far in excess of safe levels. Emergency devices are on-site now both containing the heat and radiation, as well as assessing the best course for containment. This is not a test: If you are still stationed withing any five-kilometer radius of Central and can receive this broadcast, evacuate immediately to a nuclear shelter and await further instruction. Available buses from all adjacent sectors will be running nonstop for Tri-City for the next twelve hours to facilitate evacuation. Everyone else within a thirty-kilometer radius of Central is to shelter in place. I repeat--”

Was... the true goal of the bombing to perpetrate another maximum scale nuclear disaster? Had the terrorist only made it look like they’d gone after the servers, so no one would think of potential reactor damage until it was too late? Immediately, his mind drifted in a soup through other urban nuclear explosions. Middletown, Palo Verde, Okuma... Pripyat... At this very moment, Central’s fuel was melting through its containment and slipping nearer and nearer the Newark Bay. Imagery haunted him of the different shapes various known corium flows had adopted in their pursuit of final rest. Slag swaths pouring ironically from water coolant release valves... Stalactites from falling through floodwater... The largest diamond in the world, formed through the sheer heat and density of a completely dry meltdown... He no longer dreaded the proximity to the disaster, instead transfixed.

“Hey, now, sleeping is just about the last thing I’d expect you to be doing right now.” Augen threw down two very large shopping bags on the end of the bed and rooted through one. He went into the bathroom with an armful. “Sorry I took so long. The line at the ShipShop kiosk was godawful.”

“Good morning to you, too.” ‘Choly grunted upright and finished off his cold coffee. “I was wondering where the hell you went. I didn’t mean to drift off, for what it’s worth.”

“I see the TV’s on. You saw the news, right?”

“I, yeah.” He glanced up at the screen to see emergency alerts still flooded the broadcasts. “Yeah, I didn’t think I dreamed that.”

“Slept well, then, I’m guessing?”

“As well as to be expected. Why were you asking about my sizing?” he started, looking slyly to the bags.

“You can root around and see for yourself. I’m going to help myself to your shampoo and stuff. As unnatural as it feels, I’m going to bathe twice in one week. Last night justifies it.”

One of the bags contained several boxes including a pair of shoes, while the other was a bunch of garments. He pulled out a few, and took off his tank to try on a few. A black tee stated a simple but gaudy ‘Sorry I’m late, I was masturbating.’ He scoffed, but, drawn to it, put it on immediately. He’d have said something, but the shower was already going, so he kept fishing in the clothes. Augen had brought him lacy black underwear, in both thong and bikini cut, and flustering he favored the latter for lack of another option. With the shirt he paired vein-print leggings. The shoes were low-heeled black boots, with pointed toes accented with a metallic tip. He returned them to the shoe box to pull out the other boxes in the bag. Several of them were carefully wrapped but otherwise unlabeled. Of those he could discern, he couldn’t really identify what they were.

“Figured you’d like that one the best.”

Augen came out in a white button-down and a pair of straight-leg black jeans, drying his hair.

“What, the shirt? You sure you didn’t get that for you?”

“A mirror, darkly. In these trying times, I took it upon myself to devise a new fashion capsule for you.” Augen flopped onto the bed to recline beside ‘Choly. “Zahnsammlung. You tend to emulate metahumans you fancy. I figure you could emulate me for a change.”

“Awfully presumptuous of you, to think I would,” ‘Choly feigned, laying back beside him eye to eye. “It’s been years since I emulated anyone besides myself... Tell me, what qualifications can you cite? To justify that degree of fixation?”

“Just how many demonstrations must I provide you, before you understand I’m the real deal?” Heavy-lidded, Augen played with ‘Choly’s bleached hair. “I’ve always thought this was a good look for you.”

“Have you ever...?”

“Bleached? Once. I thought it was too much trouble to do upkeep. How do you think Cecil will react to seeing you did your hair again?”

“He’ll think, that I think I’m guilty of everything that’s going on. And to some extent, he’s right. My brain tends to cope, badly, by accepting some or all of the blame for things I can’t have possibly done. But no, I guess I did it because even little expressions of self-control can anchor the chaos around a person.”

“Speaking of the chaos...” At Augen’s prompting ‘Choly flipped to be spooned, the vampire cuddled up to him and petted his hair. “Tell me, how you think it’s all going down, down there...”

‘Choly’s eyes rolled back, knowing exactly what buttons Augen set out to push.

“...Well, Central’s energy series is a ring of nine reactors...”

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#biopunk #cyberpunk #dystopian #the uptake #with symbiotic self indulgence #melanochro kara #august ritter #george cecil

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