|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2025 10:39 pm
Headache felt no particular way about seeing the senshi's blood. No part of what came from his mouth said anything about Faustite's location, so he may as well have known nothing at all. A perfectly acceptable starseed wrapped in defenseless gossamer — and so brazen as to have clung to that inciting question while in Albite's grip.
It would have patience for just a moment longer, but it would soon request that Albite stop toying with its food under its dim strobe.
____________________________
Eles hadn't recognized one of the voices — a woman's? — and he'd been too far away at the time to discern what she was saying. Too far away to pick up on more than the fact that she was saying anything at all.
But as he drew closer, having found the right floor, having crept down a hallway with enough errant debris to try to sabotage him, Eles felt rather proud of himself. He didn't need the power of teleportation or walking through mirrors to get where he needed to go; his body could accomplish it well enough unaided. And, he thought, the look on Hybris's face after Albite left and Eles appeared would be quite something! In such a dark, abandoned place as this, no one would come to chase them out for marking it up a little more. Eles smiled for this burgeoning collection of nefarious good intentions.
He jumped involuntarily when a popping sound erupted in the next room, so loud it was compared to the uninterrupted silence of the rest of the building, and Eles wondered if one of them set off some ******** firecrackers. But there weren't any flashes lighting up the dim hallway but for a faint, and fairly consistent, orange light. So that meant…
Hybris was the one taking home the interesting story this time. Oh, and that delicate little ask that he heard come from his boy afterward — it reminded him so well of the theatre. Turning off his cell phone light, Eles crept the remainder of distance to just before the doorway, steady against the wall, listening with great interest to his boy's latest conquest.
Albite was so big, that lucky boy. Eles felt a fluttery pang of jealousy that he wasn't invited too.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2025 11:12 pm
<******** you -- and Headache -- and all those pretty little horses.'
"No---" He answered honestly as he could, with the same lips that would just as honestly promise her demise if it turned out he was -- in fact -- a liar. A syrup sweet whisper, the tone nearly intimate, if only the circumstances had been anything other. His eyes blown for the rush of adrenaline galloping along behind them. He thought Hybris looked much better than any doll ever had exactly like *this*; with lips painted a brighter shade, eyes glassy with the prickle of tears, copper spittle spreading to stain the space between them.
Vicious little Mirror Senshi---
Reduced to gasping like a woman trying to wring every last dollar out of her top-tier sub at the end of a long night. Tired enough that maybe it was *real* for once, certainly more true than faking it around plastic gripped in too steady hands. The way he swore he could feel Hybris shake, the flutter of lungs working desperately while he slid his hand across the man's chest -- dipping his fingers in -- palm -- wrist -- reaching for a the star that he was oh so sure took the place of the black haired boys heart.
"Not that it matters for you. Whether or not *We* can keep him safe. Whether or not we have---" Royal, singular, himself, his team. He spoke on the behalf of many, spoke for himself alone. He was so sure he'd told Hybris (Mark) that he was Faustites husband? Had Hybris not believed him then? Was he trying to be *nice* ---
Maybe, maybe, maybe---
But it was too late for it, in Albites mind.
He was already busy wondering what Remarque (The real Remarque) would trade him for one of his owns starseeds? If within the wastes of some mirror was where his boy was actually being kept -- it would've been truly ironic -- it would've made all the senses in the world! At least? To Albite it would've.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2025 1:58 am
The answer let Hybris relax into the pain. It was so much less sweet when it wasn't his choice, his well earned penance to his boy, something cherished. But maybe he didn't hate it, maybe he could find a space to not hate it. Or maybe it could change, and he could once again feel the brush of that great taboo. The one he'd barely gotten to experience at Ilmari's gentle hand. The sense of wrongness and violation with that hand in his chest had his eyes shutting close, body trying very hard not to stiffen or jerk away, breath still shaking out of him, one lungful at a time. Hybris summoned the cracked crystal into his palm. If he could just, split reality between them, even a little might be enough, and then he could... Opening his eyes again, Hybris looked up into the face of his captor, of Albite, and began with a cracked, "Please." Then trailed off into a smaller, but more emphatic, "Please."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2025 5:19 am
Albite's response was something unexpected — something spoken with enough vitriol to light a man on fire, and Eles watched that dim orange glow flickering past the doorway with a sinking panic. What the ******** kind of nerve had Hybris touched that earned such a venomous excoriation? While fascinating, it harrowed him for what might happen to his boy at the hands of a man so swamp-like in his unpredictability. Malory warned him that those of the Negaverse could teleport, so what if Hybris couldn't escape?
Eles listened, ears straining to hear beyond his own quickening heartbeat. Eles didn't know much about Albite. Didn't know if Hybris did any reconnaissance or research (incredibly unlikely). The setup didn't promise a path of escape for his boy. And what if Albite did his homework? What if he knew about Hybris's little getaways? He knew that boy wouldn't put up a fight —
Risking himself, Eles peered just beyond the doorframe. Glimpsed that terrible smattering of bugs on the walls and ceiling like mocking stars, all shining down on the two figures on the ground. A snaking spill of dreads piled to the side of them. Eles followed their shape to the top of Albite's head, then followed his presumed line of sight and — there — his attention caught on that simple impossibility. That sign of magic to even the most mundane. Albite's hand stopped just past the wrist, below the silks and velvets of Hybris's opulent outfit. Access to another space, just as Borax had said. Access to a soul that didn't belong to him.
Eles braced against that doorframe, every muscle in his body pulled to their breaking point with tension. He searched himself, knowing he lacked a knife or pepper spray or anything worth fearing. Then that presence, which lurked and swam just beyond his comprehension of reality, breached the surface like a desperate last thought.
____________________________
Finally, they would be rid of this one and all the nothing it provided. The fireflies encroached, and a dark space opened up in their growing absence on the ceiling, and that dark climbed down the wall behind their hundreds of bodies, and their orange glows drifted down like snowfall in observance of this one's imminent passing. It had never tasted a Dark Mirror starseed before, and inherent in that was a tantalizing excitement. A promise that Albite would yield to him with certainty.
For that hopeless headcase needed it more than it needed him. But if he ever wanted his husband found, then he needed the one thing bonded to him satisfied and compliant. That useless thing's starseed was all but guaranteed.
____________________________
That 'please' was all the invitation he needed.
From beyond the doorframe sprinted a boy with no weapon. He gave no introduction. He spoke only in action.
He needed hardly a second to close the distance. His hand arced out away from his body, empty, empty, empty as could be, until it wasn't, and for the barest blink of time, something wretchedly jagged formed in that fineboned grip. That snarling thing only knew the taste of blood, flesh, and bone.
It was aimed to burrow its way through Albite's temple.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2025 8:10 am
“Ah…” Staring down into those too full eyes, feeling nothing. The plea should’ve been enough! If it were anyone else? But he had plans now, and they’d already gotten this far! He could get it back to Hybris later, and surely? He’d be forgiven for it! (Hybris had been nothing but oh so very forgiving so far!!) So long as what he returned was only gently nibbled upon, (Headache having earned its taste — how many licks did it take to get to the center of a—) on the other side of a war he no longer cared if he re-started— “...if only you’d started with that? Instead’ah all your questions…”
He squeezed gently, the precious thing in Hybris chest; with its smooth surfaces and imagined warmth. Pulsing, Albite thought, in time with the other Senshis' breaths. Like a fragile little hamster in the palm of his hand.
“We could’ve been friends—“ He wondered if he would’ve liked that? Hybris, but as a friend. Would Hybris have liked that? A buddy to ride around the shoulders on — an alligator to taunt in a pit — “but that’s alright, yeh? You didn’t know any better…and I forgive you…“
He pulled—
It was yet more of that inborn, animal instinct that drove him, the last seconds before the impact in an accident when all went slow, as movement disrupted the descent of shadows cast by Headache's last call of a light show. There was something in the orange, a cruel glint skirting his periphery as an aura bloomed up out of nowhere, and a body coalesced within its center. Impossible. Every fever dreamed: ‘but this can’t be’!
But it was—
And there was no time to do anything more in seconds already split microscopically small, save to release his prey all at once— or die like every baboon that’d ever reached for salt and refused to let go.
And so Albite flinched as he pulled away entierly—
He saw—
*Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.*
He screamed—
For the red, hot, agony that took that nothing's place; spilling over his cheek, dripping down to mix with what mess Hybris had already dribbled all over him. The two become one amidst the most terrible of miracles!
*Faustite, Faustite, Faustite-—*
Of the million observations he could’ve made as his back hit the nearest wall of the stalled Farnsworth project, while the vision in his remaining eye blurred. The only one that seemed to stick?
‘Faustite’ (*it can’t be!!*) ‘is trying to ******** kill me…’
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2025 11:27 am
Hybris opened his eyes to see a boy like a breaking world, holding his starseed like maybe it could pull it all back together again, framed in falling stars. It was, admittedly, a beautiful way to die if he had to. The only thing lacking was... ah. Yes, there he was, standing at the doorway, curious and fearless as always. That should make things perfect. It was a good way to end an exciting story, wasn't? The stage set for a lost boy, the husband searching and burning every night to find him, and the boy's new love found along the way. Any way this ended would be a classic tragedy, timeless in it's grief, rage, and tragedy. But, in this moment, he found that he really didn't want Eles's story to be a tragedy. Had found out not too long ago that he'd stopped seeing the boy as a story at all, simply because Hybris never wanted it to see an end to him, of any kind. If only... There was no time, for hopes or regrets, for a last thought to frame in a last moment. Because then there was Faustite. With a knife.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2025 12:12 pm
The way the blade caught and flesh gave in his strike felt foreign to him. The blade, its weight, felt foreign to him. But the act of banishing it as soon as it grazed Albite and the man backed away? It felt so natural that he hadn't thought about it until he realized that knife was gone.
And at his feet lay a bloodstained boy whose starseed Albite tried to rob. His attention largely on the bleeding man who backed away a few paces, Eles spared a few glances down to understand what happened to Hybris. All that blood around his mouth — had Albite roughed him up enough that one of his broken ribs pierced through a lung? How much of that blood was Albite's and how much was Hybris's?
Better to withdraw first and find out later, he decided, and he knelt down to collect the boy. Reaching for a hand, he found that shattered shard trapped within and guided that arm to cut a hole in the world. Somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Anywhere but here, he hoped. Anywhere but —
Still clutched to his very special boy, Eles lifted Hybris as he stood up into that shadowed realm and vanished from the Farnsworth.
____________________________
The gather of fireflies let out a disappointed sigh for Albite's protracted — and ultimately fruitless — performance. The Mirror Senshi was gone, Faustite was there and gone, and Albite had no starseed for him. Faustite gave no explanation for his actions. And, perplexingly, he was a Captain. A complete wash of an incident, to be certain. And galling to have to return with more questions than answers.
But this farcical affair could yet be salvaged.
The group had clustered upon his shoulder once again as an unwelcome mantle, its voice always buzzing too close to the senshi's ears.
"Get that fixed, then prepare to hunt Hybris. It's likely he's manipulating Faustite and you won't see your husband until you have that Mirror Senshi's starseed in your palm."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2025 1:32 pm
He’d watched them go, watched, and watched, and —
“He’s manipulating him…huh…” His mouth felt dry, his face wet. Albite scoffed, grunting as he let the wall hold the weight his trembling legs failed to. Fingers tacky as he dragged them, nervously, just below the wound. Peeking blearily at the stringy red mess that came away.
Lucky me—
He was quick to listen, for some things, to take one from his many sashes, tighten it around the blank space that lived on his left. He didn’t think too much about whether he was simply keeping that eye closed on instinct, like an unending blink, or—
No. He had better things to think about. And pain, the ice-pick sort that sharpened and shone under pressure, was sometimes delightful for how clarifying it was! Gods, and they’d talked about it, hadn’t they? What his boy’s first weapon would’ve been if ever he’d gotten to experience it. He’d always wanted to ask Eion more about that, gotten lost in the spar, dirt in his eyes, the grin on his lover's face for playing with dirty tactics…
I’d always imagined you with a knife, Ei. Always. I knew that you’d look deadly with one. Beautiful.
“So—what’s that make you, exactly? A kindly conscience on my shoulder — should I call you ‘Jiminy’ from now on?” He dared to laugh, a rough, wounded thing. Unwilling to waste what energy he had left on swatting the smattering of bugs off his body. Instead he pet at the cape reformed with the hand that bore the most mess, dragged his fingers through the careless creature he'd grown ever more loathful of.
Shifty little freeloaders—
“No–” Phone out in one hand, friends on speed-dial and it took a second as the world swayed, leaving him trying to re-focus in ways that felt nauseating, all for the sake of putting out a short little s.o.s with the hospital as a pin. Because he wasn’t doing this alone. Couldn’t, not this! It was shitty of him, definitely, to only call on his worst day at his lowest hour, but? Maybe he wouldn’t feel like he was using them if they got some words in? An equal exchange of ‘i told you so’s’ that he firmly deserved at this point. “Monkeys Paw—not The Blue Fairy—hungry? Cause hunger is what you’re made of…” Borax – with the bed-warmer (who Waru thought was more!) of a Tincan who supposedly spent his waking hours ‘saving people’ for real, and if neither of them were awake? They would be soon. “Smarter than me..for ******** sure…but so’s everybody else…so that doesn’t make you special.”
“The way him being Faustite doesn’t make him Faustite…” uttering nonsense that sounded more pained than sound by the breath, as the world tilted and he left the Farnsworth entirely.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
