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[dullahaunt]

@dullahaunt asked: ∅ for the ol’ kronut | Send ∅ for my muse’s opinion about yours. (accepting)

“kronut” = Day old and stale. Lost its chew. Hollow in the center….jk ;)

2077 Bri to an acquaintance asking about his services: “You won’t find a better man in the business. Yes, he’s a bit prickly. No time for chit chat, but considering his trade, you want someone professional. And he doesn’t care about your background, only your eddies, so he’s quite a good find for corpos. I quite fancy him actually. An interesting fellow.”

2080 Bri’s -very personal and spoken to no one- opinion: “His work and success I feel defines how everyone else sees him. That’s Christian Holst, the ECC’s top memory and documents forger. I knew Mister Holst too. A man with an intimidating stare that might suggest you are seconds away from wasting his time. So staunch a businessman, he cares for nothing more than making a profit and proving he’s the best in his trade. And he is. No discounts. No niceties. Christian Holst doesn’t let people in. No one would even know that he rebuilt himself from nothing. A hollow shell of man.

Somewhere along the way, he let me see him as Emil Kron. Sure, Emil Kron and Christian Holst are the same man. The former nearly all but lost to memory brokers. The latter the self-made success who pretends to be untouchable. Each are men of few words and the words they say are rather pointed. But I don’t think either mean any harm unless someone is asking for it. But I wouldn’t call him benign. I know what Christian Holst is equipped for.

But Christian Holst doesn’t laugh or smile really. Every night he returns home to an empty penthouse suite or a five-star hotel room to watch classic films he’s seen a hundred times over until he falls asleep, medicine taken, only to wake up and put his fine tailored suit back on to do it all again. He says he’s fine as such. Has all he wants. Not a deeper care in the world.

But Emil, he smiles and laughs in his own near imperceptible way. He likes to tease me, making me pout or confounded with another blunt question. Every now and then he’ll completely catch me off-guard and say or do something incredibly and unknowingly romantic and wonder why I am left spinning. He’s so ridiculously genuine that I never question his motives, unless we’re playing a game. Competitive enough to cheat, it seems. I know him as a most patient man. Attentive. Giving. Gentle. He’s my silly little everything and I’m so terribly fond of him my head hurts just thinking about it.

He may be content as Christian Host, but I think he’s happier as Emil Kron.”

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prvtocol​:

“You weren’t the dangerous or regrettable part though.” Voice is stretched, forlorn from the pause preceding. Eyes do not lift from where they fell on her white wine, blinking away the irritation from the smoke. Emil Kron offered her Mildred Pierce, told her to run, and so she did. Emil Kron is important to her and she is saying it though perhaps he is not sure how to hear it. 

Characteristic drink review keeps her lips stretched. Chin finds the palm of her hand, an elbow propped on the bar below. The lights darken, shadows dance on his cheekbones and she unfolds, indulging glimpses of herself he perhaps doesn’t know. No one really does.

“Little things. Not altogether different than before. A good book. A cup of tea. Cooking.” Brows lift emphasizing the last on her list. “I should cook for you, if you would let me.” His face an observation deck, her boldly surveying his reaction only to pull back, uncertain.

“But I believe you on the cocktail.” Briskly she interrupts herself, not wanting him to feel uncomfortable, to also not feel as such. “My mother ordered it here once and I took a small sip.” A mix of fruit and licorice, a lingering bitterness like the memories of what she lost. It also made her nose scrunch. “You have a much better poker face than I.” Emil’s face seeps little but for changes in the lines around his eyes; they soften, letting light catch and change the one’s shade of brown. 

“So. You don’t drink,” so drawls an observation cycling back. “Out of curiosity, what foods do you like or dislike, perhaps?”

Smoke drifts, the lights lazy and dripping and amber. He hears someone stirring their glass, a spoon clamoring inside, and a man lights up from inside a dusty, little booth, his face orange. Black. 

She smiles. Brianne doesn’t know he’d recorded her. Brianne with her forced, wet smile; she tried not to cry that night, lonely and afraid that she meant nothing, and if Emil locked her confession within a drawer or had it wiped a day or a month later, nobody knows. For now, there is just the low hum of a song. Her smile. The uncertainty in her stare. 

She looks away.

"That’s good." His face doesn't change. “Because I see you better. Like you smile -- when you’re shy... Or you look away," he says, finding her. “Like that.” 

Like now. Like when she asked if he would let her then cut herself off. As if she hoped he didn't hear, reeled back, then grasped at anything else to say. But he heard. And Emil's throat goes dry, the shape of his mouth changing, freezing. It changes again.

“You want me over," he says, finally and at last. It's a question all its own.

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@valheri asked: ‘ what’s a bit more blood ? ’ [ whoever u feel fits best!!!!!! <3 ] the language of thorns sentence starters (accepting)

Heart in his throat, chest rattling. The colors in his vision bleed yellow, purple, pink --- hazy and blotchy in the corners, a tell-tale sign of what’s to come. They’re dead. All of them. Men lie sprawled on the ground, red dribbling out from their eyes, noses, and mouths and ears, their heads fried with the smell of burning skin. Blood’s dried over his lip. Kron touches it and grimaces. 

Valheri blinds his vision, the white like high beams, her pink, burning bright. He rubs his fingers together, gooey damp. And it doesn’t clean off the blood. 

“Maybe you like it. Okay? But I don’t think so. I don’t agree.” The words come cotton-y and short. He swallows, his face still, and paces away. “They are gone, so that gives us one day --- if he doesn’t know already,” he says, then. His head sways. “We have to go.”

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prvtocol​:

The bank note finds her small hands. Its numbers perused before folding it perfectly in half to tuck away in the small unassuming reticule yet seated on her lap. The clock on the side wall, white faced and shiny gold hands, softly ticks to half past. Attention there grabbed at mention of it’s late. With daylight hours shortened, she shall return home by street lamp. Not a worry on her.

“Oh dear. It is closing hours already.” Mr. Holst is not one for idle chit chat and his eyes tend to watch too closely, but his presence is oddly calming. A smile chases a brief nod and her rising from the chair. “And I should release you.” A little tease perhaps, though bankers’ hours are already long and clients need not overstay their welcome. “As always, Mister Holst, you hold my gratitude for your fine assistance with my accounts.”

Kron is not a man of you're welcomes. No kind platitudes, no soft smiles. He looks as though not a single expression or feeling has once broken the stillness of his face, and the smell of ink and melting wax lingers about, cold in the air. 

A clock ticks, the building settling with a creaky groan. He closes his drawer without a sound. "I suppose you are here alone.”

The hour is too late. She doesn't have a ring. Kron's finger stays atop the handle, tracing at the sloping curves and shallow crevices. He traces back and forth. "Was it really so important," he says, then, looking at her papers. "You should have waited for tomorrow."

Tomorrow. For the day. 

His pocket watch ticks, and he doesn't need to open it to know the time. The lights dim over him, and he never blinks.

[dullahaunt]

prvtocol​:

His coffee radiates heat. Her wine cools. She leans a bit more on her elbow. Gaze flits left believing she saw a patron staring only to be mistaken. A fret of being in the public eye for too long.

A question directed. A simple answer she wants to hear, but until it exits his thin lips, she doesn’t expect it. Mutual yearning, mutual regret, or simply misunderstanding. To forget, he says, chasing observation to what he sees. Only he can see. Under those perceptive eyes, her own falls. A hint, perhaps.

“Life has become quiet, so I’m quieter.” His blocky hand the object of downcast gaze. Near hers it remains, his fingertips curled. Hers are extended, the pads running back and forth along the groves of the worn wood. His touch recalled. “And sometimes. It’s been…difficult.” Candidness feels strange but comforting.

“But wanting to forget.” Head shakes, a smile fights against her frown. Eyes peek back up at him. “Why would I want to forget you?”

“— But let’s not talk about sadness. I’m happy right now.” As being in a dream. Forgotten wine glass finds her stilted hand. The “cheers” is compulsory while its taste beckons a memory that amuses her. Chuckle is barely stymied. “I just remembered you ordering that dreadful purple cocktail.”

She glances to the left, then back down. Maybe she sees a scratch atop the counter. Improbably, most likely, it is something else.

She is quieter. It has been hard. In the silent years stretched between them, maybe afraid of the dark, she tucked herself in the corner of her room, rehearsing the name Mildred, Mildred, Mildred until, at last and finally, she was. Perhaps the hallways of her house were unfamiliar; Brianne jumping at every shadow. Perhaps at six am, brain foggy and hazy, she wheeled backwards, mid-scream, before she knew the woman in the mirror was herself.

Emil watches her — wordless and ever-present, like headlights waiting in the dark. He makes a sound low in his throat like he’s thinking. "You know me — from before. And your life was regrettably dangerous.” Her hand runs lines over the table. His mouth parts and flattens. It parts again. “It’s better you run away."

She should because it’s smart. Because Brianne Landry is dead, everything from that life gone. Her job, her home, the man with the clouded, white eye.

Brianne Landry is here, and she peeks at him through the darkness, laughing.

Maybe, and disputably, the look about him has changed.

"It was bad," he agrees at last, almost nodding. "Seriously bad." Emil never laughs, but it's there again --- that one-huff sound hidden by the song, the clattering plates, the echoes of muffled conversations. People dance slowly in the shadows, melting into each other's arms... Emil peers at her through the black. “You're happy," he repeats, then, suddenly. His hand has stilled on the counter. "What makes you happy."

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sevient​:

     “ you see the dead. ” what a burden to carry for someone unable to separate reality from the nightmares his mind conjures. “ do you see them when you are awake? do they haunt you from the corners of the room, rotting in the dark? ” his voice bends through the night’s shade, measured, steady as the wax that dribbles down the flickering candles.

     he is not well, hazy, the gaunt face of a phantom reflected in the bottle gripped loose in his hands.. OR-10N does not approach, does not slink from the darkness where he studies, and where he waits.

     “ do you see your neck broken alongside theirs, mr. montjoy? bones picked clean by the gulls? ” he queries, the easy thrum of a warm furnace. shadows sweep OR-10N’s shoulders, cast a cloak of shadowy, seeking fingers down his spine. his face plate gleams, thrown in sharp relief when the inferno kicks up sparks. he listens to it hiss, tracks flames licking over bright embers. “ do you scream with them? ”

“No. No ghosts... No ghosts." The words roll steadily. He breathes. “No phantoms.” Charlie's hand moves. The alcohol, half-empty, sloshes inside. “What I see… is them going into that good night.”

Not the dead. People dying.

They’re still there, the shadows dancing on that ceiling. He watches them twist and flutter, flashing orange one second then gray. Orange, gray. He thinks of a thing with shining, sharp teeth howling, a fire licking up its face, then of blood, pomegranate red, capped in a little vial, filling his mouth. Charlie isn’t drunk. He has a record spinning in the corner of the room, playing and playing. “And I don’t scream," he whispers to no one. "I never fucking scream.”

The curtains are drawn. Prince Montjoy can see Orion’s reflection shine off a mirror above the mantle, its voice still lingering, wheedling, insects on the brain. He thinks of pointy teeth. Two holes in the neck. He sets the bottle down. “They want me,” he says, hushed. ”They can't have me.” Its reflection watches him in the mirror. And Charlie watches it. "Would you let them have me."

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@prvtocol asked: ‘ are you my darling ? are you mine ? ’ (cheeky bri @ kron, main) the language of thorns sentence starters (accepting)

The day has gone away. The rain draws lines down the windows. There is the soft pitter-pattering, slow, gentle drips. A candle lingering about, remnants, vanilla warm. And on her nightstand, well-loved and slightly tatty, a novel sits recently touched, its story and chapters saved for another fading night. 

The air unit stirs, beginning to whisper. Brianne's eyes are a sleepy blue, and she smiles. "Are you my darling?" she asks, a croaky bedside whisper. "Are you mine?"  

There are things without answers. Like why he must be on the left side, and her, the right. Why she must pour a lifetime and a half into Wuthering Heights. Why she asks things she doesn't need to ask. 

"You know," he starts, then, "already." Emil doesn't flinch. His finger curls beneath his pillow. "...You just like to hear."

She's in danger of an imminent pout. He sees the start of a crinkling nose, her mouth curling, and–

"I am." 

And she laughs softly, partly amused at his audacity. Most likely, perhaps, unsatisfied. She settles back to pout, anyway. Hardly severe. 

"...I'm yours."

Rain pattering against the window. The blanket rustling. Brianne shimmies over, the sheets wrinkling, and kisses him, at last and sufficiently pleased. "That's better," she whispers.

The lamp on her nightstand glows a drowsy orange. She curls up against him, the rain falling, and he watches her sleep. 

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sevient​:

     crimson cuts over the man, shines dull and dark in his glass, gleams cruelly in the sharp angles of his face. the candlelight flickers unevenly in his own lenses, clouded and dim, but he can see the symbol with crystal clarity, traces its neat whorls instead of staring directly at his present company. he barely exists in the room they find themselves in, miles away and further still from where the android stands. there is no recognition in his eyes, nothing of the spark that burns in the living.

     “ what does charlie montjoy see? ” he questions, low and crooning, placating a skittish animal. knowledge grips him firm, unyielding, presses at the base of his throat, but he treads careful, ever aware of his own threats. “ what horrors has he witnessed? ”

The bottle hangs from his hand. Light bends over it, warping and orange, his reflection bending over it, too, warping and unfamiliar. Charles glows in the light of the fireplace, the flames shivering. He's deep in his chair. His arms lie spread on the backrest. 

"I sleep. And I… dream. And... I see them.” His voice creeps slowly over the floorboards. Shadows dance on the ceiling. “I see their faces. Like the melting midnight wax. And they’ve cracked their necks. And they’re eaten by the gulls. And I hear them scream— They scream, and I’ve woken up,” he says, faintly. “But it isn’t waking. Because they've cracked their necks... And they’re eaten by the gulls... And they scream.” 

The fire snaps. The candles sway, the circle untouched, and Orion has bled into the shadows of the room like night without a star. The chair is old, and it whines under Charlie. "And I see me.”

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fatewoven​:

"And desperation is for those who are too afraid to hope.”  It’s inevitable to feel the way how swiftly,  how voracious the shadow of the night arrives and fills the room the longer she lingers,  enclosed in this space.  A dream rises on the horizon,  the promise of another day becoming more uncertain as she glances over — momentarily transfixed by his undefinable expression.  Charlie Montjoy is a painting in progress.  The artist,  whether it be the God or something else,  has yet to decide on the emotion he should wear,  but all she sees is something parallel to sorrow,  a despondent air that chokes any who views it for too long.

She rises.  Walks to the basin to wring a fresh cloth in the cold water.  The music persists as a haunting backdrop,  loud enough to lose oneself.  Maybe it’s the whole purpose — she doesn’t want to be alone in his head either.

“What would you do if I said they were,  my lord?”  Iara stands by his bedside and wipes the sweat off his brows,  gentle.  He is a tyrant in the making bent on bleeding the world dry,  and yet all she can do is soothe the pain and tuck away his words somewhere private,  maintaining this fragile trust between them.  One could argue it’s in her nature;  wolves are social creatures the same way humans are,  prone to weakness when isolated.  “It would be hard to grow a garden… Would you plant lilies to keep me company as well?”

Palm sweaty, wiped against his blanket. "Is there a desperate man!" he demands, hollow and dangerous. The echo rolls to a stir, and it dies away. "Am I a desperate man." 

He blinks once, and in the cold, black stillness, Charlie can hear the sticky click of his lashes past the pianos, his body an unmoving, vague shadow, something watching you at the foot of your bed. His hair has disarrayed, splayed against the headboard. Blood sits in his throat. "Hope is... why you’re desperate. And hope is... when you’re afraid," he says, then, blank-eyed. The ceiling stares back at him, and he murmurs. "No one hopes when he’s happy."

The clock ticks, the pendulum swaying. Something moves, and he hears.

Iara’s bangles chime. Her robes brush over the floor. Coming a little closer. Now, at the space beside his bed. Charlie hurts, his body a wreckage, brain in turmoil. Hurt, hurt, hurt. Miserable. Miserable. Angry. No more powder euphoria. He can’t make happiness. Montjoy sweats a sheet, but his breathing has started to ease, and by his side, Iara lingers, wiping his brow with a tenderness he will take. 

“Maybe a lily.” Charlie looks, and the night has spilled in from the window, drowned her in it. He closes his eyes, and his hand has stilled. “Maybe two.” 

[dullahaunt]

hc: vampire weaknesses - roses. Vampires are not without their weaknesses. Roses have been discovered as a kryptonite of theirs, and because the sun is dying, its light weak and the world cold, they have become an all-increasing scarcity. Renland’s head chemist and botanist, Henry Ainsworth (faceclaim: Rufus Sewell as Lord Melbourne), however, is responsible for finding ways of growing flowers despite these shortcomings, and has been successful in doing so. 

Thanks to his efforts, rosepowder was created, and it is an effective substance in subduing vampires by blinding them, burning them and, if inhaled, attacking respiratory organs. In large enough quantities, it can even prevent them from transforming to their “true” form. Ainsworth has also grown enough roses to craft rosewater and was the man who pitched the idea of having reservoirs of the liquid filled within bullets. Upon impact, these reservoirs are smashed open and the rosewater forced through the body, searing and agonizing a vampire from within, slowing regeneration. The roses needed to create the powder and water are housed within Ainsworth’s haven: the Stanton Conservatory of Natural Sciences, or simply the Conservatory. 

Despite his miracles, roses and flowers are altogether still a rarity and are not available by any other source. The limited powder and water supply are most often made specifically for vampire hunters. The prince also has his own personal store and is in possession of rosewater bullets.

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@bellecosebabe asked:  " if your heart stopped, you would die. " words were spoken into a soft smile as she crossed the room and helped herself to putting on Charlie's tie.

The ball has started. Fireworks glitter in the sky, oozing red into his room. It drips over her, and Charlie beholds.

Verin Cacia, all black and draped in night. She drifts toward him, her heels clicking the floor, and smiles that smile of hers, one that promises to coax him into her oblivion, dark and black and tender. His lover smells of honey. Has cognac for eyes. She reaches out, a whisper beyond the grave, and settles her hands over his tie.

Verin Cacia, lovely in her perfection. In imperfection.

She has stars on her face, and he should like to kiss the sky.

“Not when you've given yours," his voice crawls to her, soft. He brushes her cheek. "Not when it's mine to have."

Charlie turns thirty-seven today. The fireworks glimmer, and he kisses stars.

[dullahaunt]

𝕴'𝖒 𝖑𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖔𝖋 𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖉𝖆𝖗𝖐𝖓𝖊𝖘𝖘, 𝖐𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖆𝖒𝖓𝖊𝖉

vampire tommy for @retromafia’s supernatural 4k follower celebration

[dullahaunt]

charlie practices occultism and draws goetic symbols and circles over his floor. in his desperate bid to gain immortality, he not only bathes in and drinks vampire blood, but uses captured and subdued ones in his rituals. in his head, this makes sense; vampires are immortal. he wants what they have, so he attempts to take what they have in his practices. but taking from them means he needs to lose, too. it’s a trade-off. the good: it grants him a higher imperviousness and he heals quicker, making him much more difficult to kill. the downside: it isn’t immortality, and with each attempt, it’s leeching his ability to experience happiness, joy ---- leaving him with nothing but mounting desperation, frustration, and the misery that comes with his failures and the awareness of everything he’s done. 

[dullahaunt]

@sevient asked: ‘  you  have  never  been  like  the  others,  and  you  never  will  be.  ’ from orion  the language of thorns sentence starters (accepting)

The thing speaks. Machinery whirs. Orion, built from metal and wires, hums quietly, and outside, through the pitch black sky, bleeding and glowing, the moon oozes violent red, spilling out into the streets, the alleyways, his windows. A bellow echoes through the night. Something burns alive.

Orion is here. So is a circle, goetic and surrounded inch by inch in waving candles. Montjoy sits in a chair, his head pressed to the back, and drinks a glass.

"They wouldn't want to be Charlie Montjoy." The words creep onto the floor, low and plodding. His eyes are cloudy. "They wouldn't like what Charlie Montjoy sees."

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fatewoven​:

It drowns out all else,  this drum stroke of his heart that gallops in time to the clock’s pendulum,  emotions a cavalcade running wild,  palpable to the senses.  She stays as a statue through it and bites on her tongue,  choking back the overwhelming urge to shed tears.  And over what?  To mourn a lost child?  There is no purpose in it aside from soothing her emotions,  and thus Iara sits there,  breathing in the scent of smoke and cranberries;  the echo of evergreen forests.

“Then may your name be remembered until the mountains erode.”  She makes a low noise in her throat and turns to the window to catch the hints of starlight past the smog of industry.  “What I want matters little.  Life always has different plans.  In the eyes of God,  we all have a pattern to weave.  A role to play.” 

When the words stall in the larynx,  stubborn,  she closes her eyes and sighs.  In a moment of reverie,  seeking comfort,  Iara thinks of the stories ( lessons ) from the holy book her father always read,  its silken-embroidered pages glistening gold and sacred by the candlelight.  “No God is benevolent,  but I’ve found none of them are cruel either.  Perhaps you think of me foolish to carry my faith close to heart,  but I have room for many beliefs.  Yours has a place,  as does mine…  You may kill it,  but a dead god still dreams.”

She pulls at a frayed string on her sleeve — and wonders whether it will unravel everything.  “Who do you thank when you consume those tinctures?  Yourself for creating them,  or does the inspiration come from another source?”

Beside him, she sits. Charlie finishes tea and the ceiling starts to melt. He’s hallucinating. 

"Religion, Iara, is for grief,” he says, slowly drifting, “and the man with no answers." 

The pendulum clicks. He hears her sigh, or perhaps it’s him, his labored, shaking breaths and the whistle-wheezing in his throat. His muscles are whining. She talks about gods. He grips at his blanket and his palm sweats until something wells in his chest and begs him to sleep, sleep, he needs to sleep, but he hates sleeping and dreams and thinking of pointed, pearly teeth. She talks about faith and his hand unfurls. A dead god still dreams. 

“If they’re gods... they wouldn’t stay dreams.”

Charlie Montjoy, a man of no more faith. Iara Rafiq, brimming with it. She’s silent by the window, and if there is any turmoil swirling inside her, memories of snow and a yapping, four-legged thing spilling red, no one knows. There is only this: the pain. The fires. His eyes look at nothing, and the ceiling’s melted over his bed. "They drink us,” he answers her, “and I drink them.” Charlie is vague, and he closes his eyes. “They’ll forgive me—if I prefer living.”

A star twinkles behind the smog.

The loudspeakers warble.

“You smell of flowers.” Charlie’s chest sinks, and his mouth cracks open. “Are they lonely. Iara.”

[dullahaunt]

indeath​:

he hums, pleased, and starts another stanza, ‘ thine eyes glowed in the glare of the moon’s dying light. ’ nour leans back. ‘ are you flattering me ? ’ he teases, laughs, light like bells. it would be too bold to admit he entertains gossip and rumour and wants to entertain prince himself. bolder, still, to admit he doesn’t fear because he has sharpened teeth and a penchant for raising the dead. 

‘ all art is at once surface and symbol, ’ and maybe montjoy should intimidate him, with status and power and a near-dead stare. he reminds nour of bodies that turn up in the waters, staring at nothing and going nowhere. gone cold and pale and of a poisonous blood. ‘ those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. should i be afraid ? what will you show me ? ’

Smoke drifts and curtains his face. Charlie's eyes are hazy. Like bathwater. "It concerns a man," he starts. His arm lays across the back of his seat, and he sighs into the words. "A man who loves a woman."

The stranger's laugh lingers in the room, chiming in the shadows of the corners. Charlie inhales smoke, ashy warm. "He finds her beneath the moon. A body in the black winter."

There are stars in this man's eyes. Snow in his hair. Charlie thinks of the moon’s dying light and the winter. The cold and that dead lover.

Rain drips from his hair. He looks out the window.

"I've shown them everything... And I've given every part of me," he says, tapping his hand once against the seat. Ash crumbles down. "I think --- if you would have a heart --- I would like to take."