EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

[inthenightmods]

EVENT LOG:
BURY A FRIEND

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: october 9-17.
content: the hallucinations begin...
warnings: psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

it's probably something that shouldn't be said out loud

October 9 feels like a normal day at first, save for the red lighthouse beam cutting through the darkness overhead. You know by now—or you've heard—that the lighthouse is only active during ferry arrivals and events... And there's definitely no ferry docked at the, er. Beach. The town is quiet, the forest spirits behave business-as-usual, Rastus doesn't know what's up. Whatever's going on, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

And you will, though the hallucinations are subtle at first: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. Is it just your mind playing tricks in the darkness? Might be! Will did warn you all about the effects of living without a sun and a proper day/night cycle.

As the days go on, the hallucinations are harder to ignore, no matter how much you may wish to wave them off as flukes. What's wrong with everyone's faces? When did all the howling start? Who do you hold onto when the world drops out from under you? And those hands...

While you might know it can't be real, it certainly feels real. But at least it can't last forever!

...Right?

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Comments

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas can feel a heat curling in his belly, one he's unfamiliar with. Like in swallowing the liquid in that little glass, it struck a flint against a rock and set off sparks. Like someone has cast Fira straight into the inside of his belly. The sensation is strange, but it fills him up— distracts him from the other things that take up his attention. The yawning void in his chest where a piece of his heart has been yanked out. The creeping, humid cold that's slowly been reaching it's icy fingers across Beacon as the weather turns. The hollow apathy that's kept him in bed for days on end.

The other shot glass stays on the counter for a beat longer. Bruce speaks instead of reaching for it— so Vanitas makes the decision for him and picks it up, tips that one back, too. That chocolate flavor spreads out all over him, burns his mouth and reaches up into his face, pinching his cheeks pink. When he puts the glass down, it's just a little too hard, a little clumsy.

Vanitas turns, then, and reaches for the first bottle Bruce had been using to pour. ]

What do you care?

[ It's not that Vanitas is less aggressive now, but the viciousness with which he'd come at Bruce with when they first met has been successfully diverted. Instead of putting his energy into making Bruce feel as bad as possible, Vanitas redirects that focus into trying to recreate the layered effect Bruce had made in the tiny glass.

He messes up the first one, the colors pool together into something muddy. Vanitas picks that one up and tosses it back, throat working around the burn, and tries again— this time with a little more success. ]

You got what you came here for.

[pearlstrings]

[That isn't a question that's easy to answer. Bruce does care- he cares not simply on principle, but almost as a reflex. How many times has Alfred told him?

It's appropriate that he hears him again now
He is not your responsibility.

But what's the point then, in any of it? Why have the money and the power? Why have the privileged and the ability, the will and the discipline? He has to use it or it'll mean nothing at all, and Bruce is tired of accepting helplessness. Jim Gordon had been there- Alfred and Selina had been there, to make him feel held not only when the world came down around him, but when he couldn't see a way through the darkness.

He could leave. Vanitas is unlikely to stop him and Bruce suspects that if left to his own devices he might give himself alcohol poisoning within the hour. If nothing else stopped him, if the soft parts of his heart didn't give him pause, it would be the sight. That Vanitas tries to layer the shot, fails. Then tries again, tries a little better. He isn't just a quick learner. He's eager to learn. To master.]

Come with me.

[His gaze flicks back up, to his face.]

I'll make something to eat. And we'll try a few more drinks.

[evulsed]

[ The truth of it is, left unchecked, there is noting to stop Vanitas from drinkng himself stupid and ending up under the bar before he even realizes what happened. It's not as though he's ever the opportunity to drink alcohol before. When would have ever had the time, between all the training, and all the war? Vanitas might have had the ability to leave the Keyblade Graveyard as his whim, but he'd been well and truly under the thumb of the old man standing in the corner of the bar with his hands behind his back.

Vanitas narrow his eyes at the shot. It's not as clean as the one Bruce had made. The side of it melts into itself, and as gravity takes it, it starts to sink into that muddy colour again. Warmth is collecting under his skin, the burn of the alcohol. Vanitas can feel it simmering, making the high collar of his armor itch against his adam's apple. He raises one hand to pull at the neck of the material.

When he raises his eyes, they're a little bit darker than they had been before. His pupils a little wider, his cheeks pinking up under the effects of liquor. He doesn't yet understand how quickly this is going to affect him: he's never had a real drink in his life. ]

Why would I do that when everyone is so upset?

[ He swallows the shot and puts it on the counter, and shakes his head— a little a dog with a fly in it's ear— when a full body shiver goes through him. This feeling, it's different from the way he fills up on the despair and fear of Beacon's citizens. He's finding it harder to focus, but it creeps up on him in such a way that instead of feeling unnerved, Vanitas' cockiness only seems to intensify. He tips his head back and looks at Bruce from underneath his eyelashes with his chin jut out. ]

I could just make everyone more upset. Feed on their Darkness.

[pearlstrings]

[He'd known before the very first shot had been poured of course, that Vanitas had never had alcohol before. But as always there is a world of difference between knowing and seeing. The blood has rushed to the other's face, tinting him pink and darkening his eyes- his movements are looser and less tightly controlled. He looks, for the first time that Bruce has seen, like a real, ordinary, boy.

Bruce does not need to invite him. It's likely to complicate his plans because not only does he need to account for a witness and maintain stricter control of himself, but he also needs to account for his particular brand of chaotic instigation. Instigation for the sake of instigation.

But the boy shakes his head and his hair falls into his eyes and Bruce remembers what it was like to try and down himself in club after club- surrounded by strangers he didn't care about. Trying to destroy the soft, horrible thing inside him- trying again, night after night.]

You could. [Bruce admits, as if they're talking about restaurants to go to, discussing their options.] But you liked the oven, and the pancakes, and the drink, haven't you? Maybe there'll be more things you'll like.

[One shoulder rises and falls, a barely-there shrug.]

Besides. If you change you mind, you could always go back to darkness.

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas wants to be irritated that Bruce is right. He has been on the nose with everything else— and as reluctant as Vanitas has been to engage in a way that isn't entirely antagonistic, he knows it's wrong to say he hasn't got something out of it. He knows how to use the stove, he knows how to make pancakes and that they're good to eat. Being frustrated, though, is hard to reach for when he's feeling full on all the darkness and loose from the liquor.

It's hard to imagine whatever else Bruce might have hidden up his sleeve that Vanitas will like. But he's right about that, too. He did like the drink, and he was sure he wouldn't— not after what Riku did to him, and M.K. tried to do. Vanitas turns the shot glass between his fingers, swaying dramatically when a hand takes him by the arm and starts to push him back and forth, like it's testing his resistance. He gives it none, and it makes his head bobble on his neck as he weighs his options.

The darkness isn't going anywhere. All this anxiety won't just disappear overnight, even if the hands disappear as abruptly as they appeared. And anyway— he kind of likes the way this drink is making him feel. Fuzzy around the edges.

The hands stop shoving him and he reaches over, picking up both bottles, signalling his intent to take them along. ]

Fine. Let's go.