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 Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:02 pm
II» [PRP] But I Can Go Out With A Bang [child]
III» [PRP] Vera Violetta [child]
IV» solo [child]
V» [PRP] Of Knights and Roses [child]
VI» the awakening [child]
VII» the silence [child]
VIII» [PRP] Just to Dance With You [child]
IX» solo [child]
X» [PRP] Morningtime Petals [child]
XI» [PRP] Fresh Leaves [child]
XII» solo [child]
XIII» [PRP] Practical Lessons [child]
XIV» [PRP] Don't Pass Me By [child]
XV»
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Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:04 pm
[PRP] But I Can Go Out With A Bang
With Vox
In Progress
Oh my.
Read it here!
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Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 11:52 pm
[PRP] Vera Violetta
With Casia
Complete
A substitute in gym class never means good things, but when it means waltzing, you know there's going to be trouble. Carlisle gets his first crush.
Read it here!
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 7:56 pm
Carlisle couldn't wrap his head around that comment. Through the rest of the day, he felt distracted- headachy and stupider than usual, her voice and the question chasing each other around his head, through the near-perfect memory. Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl... It got his knuckles rapped more than once in remedial math, and he was outright scolded in History, which had shocked him.
Really, he didn't get why this invitation shocked him so much. It wasn't like people never invited him over. Heck, he had a vague idea that maybe Casca had wanted him to visit over Christmas break but he'd been so busy and he'd not been able to contact the other boy since he'd somehow broken the phone. It'd been working the moment Aunt Bella had handed it over after dialing the number, but... the second he'd touched it, it had sparked and refused to work. It didn't even have a dial tone. It had been fairly confusing, and he had spent an hour just sitting in his room, at his desk, staring at the clockwork timepieces on his desk moodily. He had really hoped that he might get away from one weekend of parties... No such luck.
But now... Look, why don't you meet me after school on Friday?
He rolled a marble around on the table; his homework was done, except for his language arts, which he was waiting on Aunt Bella's help for since he really was just that incompetent with the written word. After school on Friday... he wasn't doing anything, so... What were the Beatles anyway? He'd asked Sugita but she'd begun a lecture on the bug family, which he found really genuinely frightening which was a girly fear, he knew, but he couldn't help it. He hated their shiny shells, and the skittering legs, and the crunch when you stepped on them made his gorge rise and his knees turn to jelly... But he'd learn about beetles if that's what he had to do to hear that voice again.
Look, why don't you meet me after school on Friday?--
"Carlisle, are you listening to me?"
His head jerked up off his arm and he stared at his aunt for a second, sheepish; "Sorry, Aunt," he said, perfectly polite as he could be. She stared at him for a moment.
"I've procured a tutor for you in reading and writing," she said. "You're going to take lessons starting tomorrow, and now we're going to go next door and meet him. His name is Luka, he's a very nice man." Carlisle stared at her for a second, convinced he'd mishead and she was actually telling him to go see if Sugita-san was home yet. She mistook Sugita for a man all the time.
So, with that in mind, he said, "Sugita-san told me she wouldn't be home until this evening, after dinner," like that solved everything. But he was completely blindsided, yet again, when Bella sighed and gripped his wrist to pull him out of the kitchen and out the door. They crossed the lawn to the neighbor's door- not the brownstone where Sugita-san lived, but the one where the reclusive Eight lived with the little angel-girl, Elizabeth or something. Apparently Elizabeth was not home because he didn't feel that telltale disturbance in the air of the house. It was like audible tension, or something. His aunt sighed, smoothed back her blond hair, and stood next to the couch, upon which lounged a man with hair as black as Carlisle's own. In fact, Carlisle was willing to venture a guess that, save the man's molten-gold eyes, he would look exactly the same when he was thirty or so.
The man stared, and Carlisle stared back; they didn't seem to notice Eight entering the room with her strange little sugar-crystal snacks, nor Bella's departure. Nevertheless, Carlisle was the first to look away. There was something weird about this guy. "Sit," said the man, and Carlisle sat with no question. Then the man leaned forward and said, "My name is Fourth Luka Welsey. Call me Luka."
Carlisle smiled, nervous; "Okay. My name's Carlisle Mephisto." The guy was weird, wearing a really strange shirt that only buttoned halfway up and his hair was mussed and Carlisle looked at Eight and stared for a second.
"I'm your English tutor," said the black-clad man, "and I warn you now, I don't take any crap about not being able to do. I have taught people like you for years. You'll do fine, because I understand how to teach you." And he smirked, the expression dark yet lighting up his face like neon on a billboard, and then for the first time Carlisle noticed the halo behind Luka's head. It cast blue shadows on the man's feminine face, and then it was gone.
Quietly, fearfully, Carlisle whispered, "You're like me."
Luka smiled, lazy and indulgent; he crossed one leg over the other and leaned away, back into the couch cushions as Eight settled herself next to him. "Yes, I am. And so is Ms. de Cartier." A scorching look from the redheaded woman. "We'll talk about that later. Now," said he, and the smile turned somewhat predatory; "Let's begin with the language lesson."
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 9:39 pm
[PRP] Of Knights and Roses
With Edwin
In Progress
Edwin gets lost in a mall. Carlisle is determined to help.
Read it here!
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 11:52 pm
Carlisle felt like it had been ages since he'd sat down for his third lesson in language arts. And his head hurt; he'd been up for ages last night, devouring a book so basic children half his physical age could read it with ease. Then, when he'd read through that one cover to cover, he picked up another one. It was amazing- even the teacher seemed impressed with the speed with which he picked up the letter combinations now. At the same time, he felt like someone was shoving too much stuff into his head at once, because that was the only way he could possibly describe these lessons. Miracles- knowledge just poured into his head. It was amazing, but it robbed him of the sense of accomplishment he'd been expecting when he finally made it through simple things like Green Eggs and Ham. He bet Merroth had never even had to read such simple books. He bet Merroth hadn't even wanted to.
It was like there was a voice inside his head, and when Luka spelled out words slowly, with the sort of painstaking care that had once been used to pick out individual words so short everyone else never questioned them, the voice pushed the word into whatever part of the brain was responsible for languages and... "No, sir," said Carlisle, curled up on a couch with an inoffensive sage green pillow tucked up under his chin. He was wearing blue jeans, washed several times to make triply sure they wouldn't turn his legs green-blue, and a loose-knit V-neck sweater of the kind that hung over your hands and showed the shade of your skin. The teacher, of course, wore a button-down t-shirt with half the buttons undone and his jeans were probably too tight. Carlisle wondered if that was why Luka was a tutor and not a real teacher.
Well, now Luka smiled. "Perhaps you've never thought of it that way. But is there a place where you couldn't go? You just felt an aversion to it, like you couldn't pass through?"
Carlisle wanted to shake his head no, because he felt like... if he agreed, if he admitted it, Luka would win and he'd one day end up just like him. He didn't want to do that, it seemed like the very worst fate in the world at that moment. Even worse than being just like Merroth. It was quite possible that Luka was worse than the other boy; he didn't have nightmares about Merroth. He was a terror when Carlisle was awake, the sort of bogeyman whom could be faced if you would just sit and weather the storm. Luka... well, he just turned everything into a challenge. There wasn't a break; it wasn't like he could run off to the remedial maths room and be just about safe from Fourth Luka Wesley. He couldn't disappear into his room and forget him, like he could with Tenebras Merroth Clark.
"Yes," he said, softly, it was so soft it was barely more than a whisper, hardly audible at all with the sounds of Elizabeth's argument with Eight that was going on in the kitchen. "Yes, it's true."
The teacher stood up, smiled and then his halo flared into being, blue around the center, gradating out to red; in his fingers he held a stone, gorgeous blue lapis lazuli that, when dropped into the hand that Carlisle extended tentatively, filled up his entire palm. When he closed his fist around it, his fingertips just barely touched his palm. "What is it," he asked, opening up his fingers again so he could peer at the sheen of the stone. He could see veins of green inside the stone. It shimmered with an inner radiance that was transfixing. At the edge of his hearing, there was a soft muttering; he strained for clarity. Nothing happened, and yet he felt like something should have.
Luka held something up between his fingers- black obsidian, all sharp angles and planes, shone brilliantly like a star in his hand. The light burned much brighter than the one in the lapis lazuli Carlisle held. "It's a focus crystal. Do you hear anything?"
Again- that urge to defy. No no no, if Luka heard something, then- "Yes," he said, much too loud in a sudden silence. The word echoed through his room. What were those voices he could hear at the edge of his consciousness?
"Good," said Eight from the doorway. Tiny Elizabeth stood a safe distance behind her guardian but didn't seem at all ready to leave; in her green eyes Carlisle saw curiosity, keen and far too adult for the face in which they were set. She stared back for a moment and dared a smile. His stomach dropped; it was the look he imagined the girl would give someone who was shortly to die. He opened his mouth to ask what was going on. Eight, her expression an uncharacteristic, eager look- she looked sadistic, and Carlisle thought he might understand why Elizabeth professed not to love her guardian- pushed herself two steps into the room, and said softly, "Do it, Educator Wesley."
"Is that an order," said Luka, his tone languorous. Carlisle thought immediately of a jungle cat.
"Yes! Do it!"
Whatever it was, Luka did it.
There was a flash of light, crimson-red light with edges of bronze, the color he'd always thought of when he imagined blood, and he looked towards it to see the lapis lazuli in his hand emitting the brilliant light with a core of white. Like a wave crashing onto the shore, he could hear the voices so much louder- painfully loud. He felt as if his mind were encased in a crowd of screaming, shouting people, all in some language he knew he didn't know but strangely, just like Luka's words filtered into his head and he could understand them just as soon as he heard the word, so the language was being filed away.
The meaningless noise mounted, mounted, mounted- until Carlisle couldn't bear it anymore. His posture didn't change; he simply went limp, one hand falling to his side. His head lolled forward gently, stopped against the pillow.
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 11:53 pm
His mother said, "Carlisle, please look at me," and he responded, the image of the Grand Palais fading and leaving him instead with his mother's beautiful face, her gray eyes just like his and the odd blue hair. That's a kind face, someone else said inside his head. He didn't realize he had repeated the statement until Lixxie turned away, saying, "Bella, he's awake." And there was an odd shriek, a sound of rustling skirts that he didn't even hear, and then his aunt burst into the room, her blond hair flying madly everywhere, her black skirts lifted enough that he could see her house slippers.
"Oh Carlisle," his mother murmured, leaning over to press her lips to his cheek. "I'm so sorry, I should have seen this coming but it was so sudden and Bella and I were out to lunch and Astaroshe was off visiting his parents with Sara and no one saw and my God we should have never left you with that man, I should have asked Father to vet him, I should never have trusted in the innate goodness of all bei--"
Bella had pulled his desk chair to the side of his bed- abruptly he recognized the springtime quilt, mulberry-colored and soft as he thought an angel's feathers would be, and the white sheets- wrinkled now. It had been Tuesday, the afternoon lesson... he remembered the light, the searing pain of the words crashing down, that language that seemed beautifully vicious even now. "oh," he heard his mother whisper, "I thought you were dead, I thought he'd killed you, my baby, my baby-" but it barely registered. He could hear them all and he became acutely aware of a headache.
"Lixxie, we have to let Luka see him at least once. Look at his eyes, he's not really here right now. And he needs to sleep more, maybe another day or something, he looks so tired." Was that really Aunt Bella? Wait. He punched out of the morass of strangers' voices (there was no other word as fitting for the violence with which he removed himself from the morass of familiar and frightening words) to pick up on those last words... needs to sleep more, maybe another day. Maybe another day?
Look, why don't you meet me after school on Friday? Waltzing; suspicious brown eyes; that grating feeling. Help, he had to help, but who needed it more than he?; beetles. He gagged at the thought of that disgusting crunch, of the segmented legs, the shining carapace, rolling automatically to his side.
"Date," he said, when he had himself under control again, when he could stop retching though it brought nothing up and offered no comfort - his voice, the single word, was more of a croak, but from the confused look on his mother's face and the worried look on the aunt's, he knew the hoarse sound was not the only wrong thing. Perhaps... That new language? The word made sense to him but he could... Carlisle couldn't hold on to a line of thought long enough to finish it, except for this important thing: "What's today?" And the look on Lixxie's face cleared, leaving the aunt's strange look in place.
"It's Wednesday morning, sweetheart. You got home from school early yesterday, so it's been almost a full day that you've been sleeping," said Aunt Bella. He sat up and regretted it. His head ached, it felt like he'd been hit with a hammer or something. No, it was definitely worse. He pulled his knees to his chest and rested the side of his head on his knees. "You're not going to go to school for a few days, I think," she continued as his mother rested the back of one warm hand on his forehead.
Carlisle didn't want to shake his head so he just said, "Mama, no, tell her no. No, I have to, I have to go on Friday, even just for after school. I have to meet someone--" and, feeling humiliated (and, worse) pathetic, he started to cry. Odd, though, that he could distance himself enough now from the other voices to think one comprehensive, nonsensical thought: I bet Merroth doesn't cry.
Then he must have dozed off. The next thing he knew, a warm dusky voice was singing in that language. It sounded dark and beautiful, like going to sleep after a long day; it was comfort in lyrical, soft syllables; it was everything the deluge of voices in his head wasn't. He opened his eyes to darkness, sought out something to give him a clue who was the singer, but he saw nothing. Just the song, and the pale, flickering light of a candle; soft fingertips brushed along the side of his face, and slowly, he fell back into sleep.
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Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 8:56 pm
[PRP] Just To Dance With You
With Casia
Complete
Carlisle is still cracked out on voices and Casia is attempting to teach about the Beatles when the CD player blows up. Oh, goody.
Read it here!
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Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 9:28 pm
It was like he was listening to something deep inside his head, where she couldn't go or even try to hear. It made her a little curious, but she didn't bother to pry; since that day, he hadn't often strung together a coherent sentence. She was astonished when he wanted to go to school Friday, even more so when he actually did it and didn't get sent home. (He had never told her that he spent the entire day in the nurse's office with a migraine headache.)
She jolted back into awareness to find him staring at her, one hand up as if to silence someone else in the room when no one else was there and a look of intense concentration on his face. "Aunt Bella, how long are you gonna stand there?"
Shaking her head - the detached tone in his voice! - she went to sit next to him on the couch. "Are you all right, Carlisle," she asked, taking from him the heavy dictionary and closing it. "You've seemed very out of it, the past few days. We're so worried about you." While she waited for an answer, she noticed the odd way his shoulder jerked at the question; he dropped his uplifted hand and his chin for a moment, then just as quickly was staring her in the face again.
"There are people in my head," he said after a moment, shame in the admission and the way he threw it out there, muttering like it was something too humiliating to be borne. "They're too loud, so I can't figure out what thoughts are me and which are them."
The thought that that b*****d Luka had put other voices into her nephew's head pissed Bella off. She did her best not to show it, but knew Carlisle would be aware of it: it was sort of his gift around grown women, not quite empathy but almost primal, like a reaction he had been taught to squash. Remembering how every time he'd come down to ask her how she was, she also recalled her reaction - she would get angry that he thought that he, a child, could understand what made her emotional. Eventually, he had stopped coming to check on her; perhaps that was the gift losing some of its potency, not him ceasing to care. "What's wrong," he asked; he had leaned back in the chair a little, twisting his body further away from Bella.
"We'll get that b*****d in here," she said, pulling him into a hug. "And he'll fix it, and if he can't, I'll kill him. How does that sound for a plan?"
There was a muffled giggle, and then Carlisle said in a small voice, "I can't breathe." Reluctantly, she let him go, and they sat there for a minute. "Would you really kill him," he asked, sounding distant.
"No," said Aunt Bella. "But I would castrate him."
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Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 10:28 pm
[PRP] Morningtime Petals
With Casia
Complete
Carlisle tries to return her jacket and stumbles onto a rather unhappy birthday party. He decides this cannot stand and invites Casia to go maying with him. Something ensues.
Read it here!
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Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 8:01 pm
[PRP] Fresh Leaves
With Casia
Complete
They go maying. There are flowers and coffee.
Read it here!
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 3:52 am
Carlisle sat in his chair with a book resting on his knees. For the first time since he'd started to hear the strange voices, he could concentrate well enough to read. Now he was picking through a book that had long frustrated him with a smile on his face despite the headache. Then a hand with black fingernails intruded and lifted the book out of his grip. "Hey," he started, all childish indignation.
He looked up into Luka's amber eyes. Despite his aunt's protective words, he still did not want to see this man; it was because of him that Carlisle's head felt all backwards. He scrunched himself backwards into the chair. Luka was standing uncomfortably close, expression rather implacable. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was folded over one of his arms. "Carlisle," he said, "You've really got to realize that you're not Gaian."
That was not what he had expected to hear. He had to admit that he had expected at least an apology before Luka descended into blaming him for all his, Carlisle's, problems. After all, he never would have had to deal with the stupid voices and the pounding headaches and the weird urge to help every single girl he saw with something if he'd never met Luka. He wouldn't have had to probably freak out Casia and make her think that he was a retard if Luka had never done that weird thing with the blue rock. And yes, it was good enough now that he didn't have to always be distracted but he could remember having his own head-space free and clear and he wanted it back.
Luka sat down in one of the armchairs and rested his elbows on his knees. "You're not human," he said, the tone of his voice more gentle than before. "You're not even properly Melizse, you're something else."
This did not sound good. "So you're saying I'm a freak and I'm stuck like this," said Carlisle in a voice that was heavy with resentment.
"No," said Luka. "Look, I'm not explaining this right." He paused, and took a deep breath like he was about to jump into something he had no desire to address. "You should really talk to Eight about this, but. Carlisle, we thought that you were a Melizse, plain and simple. Now it's clear you're not. If you were you would have used the time while you didn't have access to the Myriad to build a strong enough sense of self that you would be able to use the Myriad without losing yourself in it. Frankly I'm surprised that you're not still comatose like you were at the beginning."
Carlisle felt like every single muscle in his body had locked tight. He didn't want to hear this; he wasn't weak like a little kid, he knew who he was even with all these voices. It was just hard to tell which voice was his sometimes. Sure, it was crazy, but what was he supposed to do?
"I wouldn't have ever taken down the barrier, but Eight is an Enabler and honestly, she's right. Once we found you, we had to follow the Lady Rebecca's orders and bring you into the Myriad-"
"Wait," Carlisle interjected, "Who's the Lady Rebecca?"
Luka shook his head. "Let me talk. The Lady Rebecca made it clear that you weren't all us, but you're necessary, Carlisle. That halo - the numbers. It's the Time order of powers, and the Lady Rebecca is the last one besides you. She's getting old, and without her..." His voice drifted off, amber eyes looking at something Carlisle couldn't see.
Then the man shook his head, dark hair flying about like a cloud of black dust. "I can fix this, give you breathing room so you can figure out what's up with you, whether you'll ever be able to take down the barrier. Will you let me?"
"I haven't got a choice, do I," said Carlisle, and it wasn't a question because he needed that space. It was torture to always wonder if he would someday wake up as just a vessel for the voices in his head.
Luka looked ashamed as he said, "No. You really don't." He pulled himself out of the chair and crossed the room again, set the book down on the arm of Carlisle's chair. "Don't move," he ordered, and he set both of his hands to Carlisle's head; the world faded to gray.
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Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 11:52 pm
[PRP] Practical Lessons
With Delilah
In Progress
Carlisle meets up with Delilah for reading lessons on his birthday, but isn't really feeling it.
Read it here!
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Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:13 am
[PRP] Don't Pass Me By
With Casia
In Progress
Carlisle is innocently studying and suddenly, Casia!-- he is rather surprised and embarrassed.
Read it here!
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