|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:04 pm
follows help me out of the shape i'm inAfter the “good†“doctor†had finally left, cash in hand, Malory huffed and sprawled next to the pale boy in his bed. He hadn’t bothered to change Eles’s clothes yet, so it was a bit like the murder scene had been transferred from Eles’s bathroom to Malory’s bedroom. Which actually matched the aesthetic much more nicely. If it had been him cutting into himself, he'd have at least lit a few candles to set a mood. Leaning in close to the other’s face to peer down at him judgementally, he couldn’t help but reach over and touch Eles’s face with his index finger. From a distance, the gesture looked tender, the gentle caress of a lover. As the recipient, Eles would feel someone prodding at the stitched up seam along his chin. “You’re so amazingly lucky that I love a good mess.†A small, considering pause. “Bad ones too, really.â€
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:19 pm
Eles groaned for the sharp pangs that needled their way up through his jaw. He squeezed his eyes shut. Furrowed his brow. His features drew taut under the burden of pain. My ******** head, he mouthed.
It pounded like someone had it in a press, always testing how much weight it could tolerate before bursting like a popcorn kernel. As he moved his hands to clutch at this throbbing pain, he felt another pull and sharp reminder on his left wrist. Hell, he almost murmured. What the ******** he'd adjusted enough to the hammer of his own heart in his head, Eles chanced squinting at the outside world. In the blur of colors, he could tell already that he wasn't in his own room. He wasn't alone, either; Malory's voice carried well enough in the still air.
Vaguely he swatted at the hand that teased an aborted incision. I'm so ******** hung over, he signed, halfhearted.
And ******** you. It's not what it looks like.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:24 pm
"It looks like you started to remove the skin of your hand. Did remove your fingernail. Started on your face, and then thoughtfully crawled into the bathtub to bleed out a bit more." The other really looked like s**t, but maybe a bit more live-in for it. "The doctor said it shouldn't scar, but I told him to be a bit rougher to make sure it does." He moved back in to get a closer look, "He never listens to me, though. He called you the waste of impossibly good health to my waste of impossibly good fortune." Malory gave Eles an bright smile, not bothering to deny either. "Is it your own, now?" Batted away, he tried prodding at the bandaged up hand.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:28 pm
What? Make sense, will you? Eles squinted up at him, retracting his injured hand and curling it toward his chest. Is what my own?
He heaved a dejected groan. Much as he wanted to lay on the bed, unbothered, Malory had no intention of letting that happen. And it seemed he was going to poke and poke until Eles bit him for it, so he was better off moving on his own. Fine. Surely he could ignore the headache long enough to shuffle his aching a** back down the stairs and into his own bed for the rest of the day.
So Eles clutched the edge of the bed with his uninjured hand and dragged himself closer. Threw a leaden leg over the side. Made to turn and shift himself upright, but body collapsed in a heap of numb jello. He groaned again for how much sharper his hangover beat against his skull, and he wondered, briefly, if he was going to pass out again.
After a breath, two, three, the explosion of stars across his vision receded and he didn't sound like he was mouthbreathing into a conch. <******** me, he mouthed, lips half-pressed to the floor.
Slower this time, then. Eles tried propping himself up on his elbows, then leveraging his weight against the side of the bed. Legs were still a bent mess, but he couldn't feel them anyway.
You really asked for my stupidity to scar me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:43 pm
If Eles wanted an answer, then he shouldn't put on such a fantastic show of trying, and failing, to move about as if nothing had happened. Did he really think this was the result of the hangover? It was horribly cute and Malory couldn't help but smile fondly as he made no move to assist the other boy. 'Well, I thought that maybe it would help you feel a little more at home in your skin. Like redecorating a new room." It was at least some of the truth, and delivered with an encouraging tone, like they'd all just learned an important life lesson. " So..." Malory flopped over until he was nearly hanging off the edge of the bed himself, chin in hands, "...does it feel more like your own body now?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:47 pm
Eles blinked up at Malory's utter self-satisfaction with a slight gape. No, he signed, though doing that much left his arm feeling exhausted and heavy.
So he tried to speak instead, but the words were poorly enunciated as if rendered in a Captcha and pushed through an algorithm. An almost mechanical failure of the brain's memory of how the word felt in the mouth. "Hard to explain," he tried. That, too, was tiring.
Eles looked down at his hands. Spread his fingertips, though one was a nest of cotton and tape where he vaguely remembered doing away with the nail. I can't shake the feeling that I should be seeing something else. But I still don't know what that 'something else' is.
After a few labored breaths, he realized he needed to lie back down again, unless he wanted his vision clogged up with all those unnecessary stars. So he shifted onto his side and inchwormed just enough to rest his head upon a section of sable fur. It wasn't one of the dogs, sadly; it was far too room temperature for that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:51 pm
"Well...you might just have some sort of psychosis, you know?" Malory offered reasonably, scooting even further off the bed to watch the other's expression. "But...there's also a factor. One you don't know and it won't..." he raised his eyebrows, "...be found under your skin. At least not directly." Behind him, Malory's feet idly swayed in the air, as if they were talking about the latest gossip, an upcoming party, the way their calc homework was ridiculous. "But it's a secret. A really, fantastically big one." So should he tell you, Eles? How badly do you want to know?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 8:52 pm
Eles deflated at the word 'psychosis'. An incurable, indelible mark on his condition that guaranteed nothing would ever be remedied. Grounds to put him in some infirmary. Which, unnervingly enough, Malory was in a perfect position to do.
He could almost hear that calm, even-tempered voice as he spoke over the phone to an operator. Explaining, over a glass of juice, that some prospective new employee just had a psychotic break. Very traumatizing, so sad, and could you please commit them to the nearest asylum? Thank you, officer.
That would be that. No more poking around Destiny City, looking for answers to questions that he hadn't finished asking yet.
Eles rolled a bleary eye down to where he caught sight of Malory. He raised a middle finger in an exhausted, if petulant, rebuttal.
But when the boy moved on, started baiting his fishing hook and casting it into the water, Eles perked up a little. Still woozy, head still trying its level best to split in half and admit the contents of his vacant brain to the furs beneath him, he shifted his pinned shoulder enough that he could more readily look at the boy. Read those raised eyebrows on that perfect face with its even more perfect blemish around his orbital socket.
What ******** secret is that? He mouthed. Then, he signed, tell me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 9:35 pm
For a moment, Malory considered toying with Eles further, of eking out any number of little promises. But...the attempt at leaving the room earlier had left his pettiness pretty smugly satisfied. And Malory had already been a little mean about things, hadn't he? Besides, some things didn't need a dramatic reveal. Some things were all the more amazing for existing casually and in broad daylight. "If you want to know, if you really want to know, you need to close your eyes. Don't open them until you're told, okay?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 10:52 pm
What was this, make-believe? In a sigh that said you're such a pain in my a**, Eles reluctantly shut his eyes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2025 7:47 am
Squinting at Eles's face for a moment, making sure he wasn't cheating, malory finally stood up from the bed, spun his henshin pen in an idle arc, and moved toward the boy on the floor. Carefully stepping over the sprawl of limbs, Hybris knelt beside Eles and said in a voice that would sound both strange and frustratingly familiar, "Hello, Eles. You can open your eyes now." There was a strange boy in the room, in strange clothes. For all the strangeness, though, there was a vague familiarity too. But somehow the dots just couldn't connect. Malory was nowhere to be seen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2025 8:02 am
A brief shunt of voice as Eles startled bodily, spasmed in a jerk of starved limbs in an abortive attempt to escape that closeness. Lids opened, orange eyes settled squarely on the fantastical person cloaked in an otherworldly, unnerving beauty. A few heaved breaths hardly brought strength back to his bones.
But that didn't matter. He tried to rise, then crumpled, fully passing out for a second, two at most. Then he was awake again, half-drowned in his own cold sweat.
Blindly, his attention still on the uninvited figure, he reached up and felt about for Malory's arm, or his hand, or — hell, even his face. But there was nothing. No one.
Malory abandoned him to the beautiful thing in the room. ******** traitor.
Maybe this was psychosis. Maybe he left to call the men in white with their spotless gurneys. Maybe this one was just a figment, sent by his own ******** brain to keep him occupied before he went on a long journey of psychoactive drugs and padded rooms.
He tried to peel his skin off, after all. Malory had to be right.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2025 8:10 am
Even as he watched Eles struggle with a smile, Hybris couldn't help but feel a little touched as the boy reached out for where he thought Malory would be. Both for the action and the implication that Malory wouldn't be entirely useless in this situation. Was that panic rising in those flamelit eyes? "Eles. Eles," he repeated, more firmly. "Look at me, watch my face without looking away." Gazing at the other, he solemnly stated, "I'm Malory Medraut." And the dots began to smoothly connect, the unfamiliar turned unmistakable. Hybris's face didn't shift or change, but Eles's ability to truly see it had shifted and now stayed firmly in place. "And magic is real."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2025 8:11 am
His breathing had grown more rapid beneath his notice. His attention never left the stranger in the room, especially when he kept talking.
Then he waited —
And there it was. A lie become truth. A right un-righted. A maddening lurch in his head like he'd looked at the image on the screen wrong all this time, read the negative space as positive which rewrote the meaning of the picture.
So this was Malory. And he found a way to be even more breathtakingly gorgeous. If Eles could stand, he'd slap the s**t out of that boy.
All he could do, though, was sigh his relief at the realization that he was either not crazy or completely, irreconcilably off the deep end.
"I hate you," he breathed, letting his legs go slack.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2025 8:28 am
"But I love you," Hybris sulked, taking a seat on the floor as Eles stopped freaking out enough to both relax and be a little mean about it. "Enough to show you one of my biggest secrets, even!" And then he let the magic go, turning back into Malory, still himself if slightly less so. "I'm not really supposed to do that at home, you know? The wrong people could find me. You telling the wrong people about it could outright." he gave a careless flip of the hand despite the weight of the subject, "...erase me. I'd have to become someone else." He paused and let the implications sink into the space between them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
