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HOME IS WHERE THE HOSPICE IS.

ANTIELEVATOR ► An independent, non-selective, canon-compliant RP blog for Sebastian Castellanos of Tango Gameworks’ The Evil Within. Cross-canon and original characters highly encouraged, open to AUs with prior discussion! Do note that sensitive content may be present.

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Charles has to respect Ethan's dedication.

It doesn't matter that all this talk about the benefits of smartphones is so esoteric to him. Ethan seems to light up as he talks about it-- different too, Charles notes, from the way he speaks about the company's network infrastructure. Talking about work had come with all the sense of being an experienced professional. Talking about how nice his camera works (and continuing to speak even as Charles scowls at the image of himself on the screen with that front camera demonstration) comes with a sort of genuine affection Charles half-envies.

"I think we use phones for completely different reasons, Ethan."

He's not sure what possesses him to pull up a chair to sit at the other man's side. He's not sure why he pulls his phone out, flips it open, and then unlocks it in front of him. But as he shows Ethan his Inbox (empty), his phone logs (empty, save for the call he gave Ethan this morning to remind him about their meeting), his gallery (empty), and even his dated browser (opening to the default website Google-dot-com), there really isn't anything.

"...to be honest, I only really use it for Sudoku."

briefly, he's tempted to respond to the sarcasm with a quick quip about how he'd be more than glad to tell charles all about his hobbies, but fortunately, ethan refrains. instead, he merely hums, “ no, not really. ” it's true, technically. most of ethan's life does consist of work — he's very devoted to the job, which is why he's the one here right now, working on this instead of one of the others.

only the best will do for clients as important as these, after all.

still, when charles refuses, ethan shrugs. his loss, ethan thinks, but then the other man leans down and gives that order, and it takes everything in ethan's power not to start grinning like an idiot again. somehow, he manages to shift his expression into something closer to neutral. somehow.

he nods, glancing down at the phone to unlock it with the facial recognition ability. already, this is far more interesting than a flip phone. he is tempted to say it too, but he refrains.

instead, ethan navigates to the browser, making a show of advertising just how “ great of a processor it has ”, considering how many tabs he's left open and the lack of lag ; then, he shows off the camera and its clarity, and goes on a whole rant about how important that is when picking out a new device.

it's only once he's finished his little spill and he looks over at charles' face that he realizes he hasn't exactly done anything that will particularly sell charles over to the idea of switching. not really.

ethan frowns softly to himself. the thing is, all of his redeeming qualities for the device comes from his own 'tech nerd' standpoint. he's quiet for a moment, then adds, “ texting is easier, too. no need to press buttons multiple times to get a letter, if a keyboard just ... shows up on screen. faster, in the case of needing to send a message in an emergency. ” a pause. “ and this one is safer, too — someone like you needs top security on your phone. basically anyone can get into that thing you've got there. on these, no one but you can get into it. see? ”

to prove his point, he locks the device again and turns the screen towards charles ; of course, the phone doesn't recognize his face, instead only unlocking once ethan turns it back towards himself.

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The guy wasn't supposed to be awake.

Charles' breath halts, however momentarily, in the raised state of his chest.

It's not the first time he's had to look a person in the eyes and kill them. It wouldn't even be the last. But in that moment's pause, he ends up being spoken to, and...

"What?"

The disbelief in his tone is clear. Here he is, stood in front of someone's bed with a gun pointed at them, and they're calling him miserable. He's not sure if it's a lack of self-preservation instinct, a terrible ability to evaluate a situation, or a shitty attention span. Hell, it might be all three.

Charles walks around the bed, keeps the gun pointed, and asks once more: "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Or, perhaps more accurately, what kind of idiot asks about his murderer's well-being? It's such a laughably stupid concept he's almost stunned by it.

Almost, except his gun clicks as he takes the safety off, like a reminder. If you say anything wrong, that's going to be the end of it.

Leo's first thought when he hears gunshots from the bathroom of his Favorite Diner isn't so much a thought as an explosion of color and panic. His knees collapse under him and he covers his ears, pressing his back against the wall across from the sinks, as ripples of mustard yellow and splatters of rust red swim across his vision, even with his eyes closed.

Too bright, too bright, too bright. It's the same mantra that has repeated in his head for as long as he has memories, even though he knows now that what he needs to say to have any chance of getting it to stop is actually "too loud," and it loops in his head while the sounds slow and he remembers how to breathe. Synesthesia always has and always will be a complete bitch, no matter how "cool" his classmates think it is.

His next thought is to be pissed off that his Favorite Diner is ruined, and he's not going to be able to study there ever again, which means he needs to find a new place to study, which sucks.

Hearing sirens in the far distance and a complete absence of screaming and gunshots outside the door, he decides he wants to know what the fuck happened outside the bathroom, knowing full well he's going to be hit with a miasma of emotions as he does so. (He likes this restaurant specifically because of its thick walls, and the way they keep frustrated sighs and anxious footsteps from assaulting his ears as thoroughly as they do in, for example, his apartment, or even worse, the echo chamber they call the university library).

He takes a deep breath and cracks the door, only to be paralyzed when there is only one source of any breathing at all. Miserable. Aching.

The sirens get louder.

The man's face finally clears in Leo's vision... the set of his shoulders. The rise and fall of his ribcage. It's all heartbreaking. And then it's gone. And Leo is alone, hitting his right radius against his left ulna until the police start trying to take questions. And more questions. For hours. He'll scream if he has to explain one more time that he's autistic, he knows what he knows and nothing else, and he wouldn't hide anything from them or lie in the first place, that's counterproductive to leaving and getting back to his life. And furthermore wrong, which is reason enough in itself.

The bruises bloom on the skin under his sleeves as he walks back to his apartment. He doesn't know why everyone was so insistent on figuring out why he survived. It bothers him.

It doesn't bother him as much as the killer himself. Why? Why put himself through so much agony when there are a cornucopia of other vocations he could pick from, all with 100% less murder? It can't be money, or else he could have just held the cashier at gunpoint and demanded the contents of the register. Which would be a middling amount for so much effort.

Leo watches YouTube clips of handguns being fired until he finds one that creates a similar mustard yellow hue in his vision, but even that is distorted. Moreso than audio recording aberrations can account for.

His eyes ache, and he hasn't finished studying, but it's gotten late, so he flips the lights off (reducing the intensity of the sounds of electricity running through the light-bulbs and in the walls) and starts getting ready for bed. Is it a stretch to his budget to have his own apartment? Yes. Is it worth it to always find things exactly where he left them? Definitely yes. He can go through his routine with his eyes closed, and does so, pulling an extra weighted blanket on top of himself as he presses his back against the headboard.

The sounds that annoy him so much when he tries to study are comforting when there's nothing left to do but process the day and let his mind wander until he feels tired enough to sleep. His neighbor's TV. His other neighbor's parakeet. The eclectic music playing constantly from the apartment above his. The cars and the way the air conditioning cycles through the vents. He's almost resigned himself to leaving the murderer's intentions in the "Confusing Social Behavior" box in his mind when he hears footsteps in his apartment. Outside his door.

His eyes meet the same pained eyes he'd seen hours ago. He's going to die. Which was inevitable, but this was sooner than he'd planned on. He has to know though. "If you can spare a minute... Could you tell me why? I won't fight back or try to run, I promise, but I've spent all day trying to figure out why you would kill all those people when it made you so miserable. I mean, especially when your xiphoid process and left 7th and 8th ribs are injured? What's so important that it couldn't wait for you to heal up?" Shit. He's rambling. He's definitely going to get shot before he gets an answer now, if he ever was going to get one in the first place.

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Do me a favor? Don't tell Mom.

Justin Chien as Charles Sun in episode 1 of The Brothers Sun

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@roleplay-ruminate-reblog // for leo!

Finally, the lights in the windows have died.

Charles has waited for over two hours now, sat in his car in the dark cover of night. It hadn't taken very long to track the witness down-- Charles has a good memory for faces, after all-- but knowing where they lived was only half the battle. Assassination, he's found, takes time; as frustrated as he is that the damn idiot had seen him through a crack in the door in that nothing little restaurant, rushing any hit would only lead to sloppiness.

He's better than that. (The kid couldn't have been more than ten, Charles realised hours earlier, having returned to the clean-up scene after he'd tracked his sole witness down.)

He's been taught better than that. (She really thought she'd hidden herself well, curled up in a little cardboard box, but her idiot father had to reach towards her.)

And so he's planned accordingly.

Tonight, Charles has back-up waiting for his signal to come in for cleaning and disposal. Tonight, he has a gun and a silencer, because if things get difficult he's leaving no room for failure.

(Tonight, he's going to get this shit over and done with, and then he's going to drink until he forgets the face of the little girl he killed at two in the afternoon.)

Half an hour since the lights have gone out, Charles takes one final drag of his cigarette before putting it out. Then he leaves his car in silence, keeping to the shadows even as he crosses the street.

Entering his target's home is easy. Keeping quiet as he explores it-- that's easy, too. Nobody else seems to live with them, which makes things simple, and once Charles reaches what he presumes is a bedroom, he turns the knob with a gentle hand and pushes it open just as carefully.

If he's lucky, they won't be awake. But when opening the door has his eyes meeting another's in the darkness, Charles can't even say he's surprised-- luck's never really been on his side.

His hand goes to his gun. He points it without delay, two hands keeping a steady grip as he shuts off everything in his mind that isn't about killing.

There's a moment-- however minuscule, however brief-- where his target might be able to speak to him. (There's a moment where he sees that little girl again, blue dress stained with red, and he almost feels sick with it.) But nobody ever really talks to their killer except to beg for their life, do they?

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“You never need to doubt it

I’ll make you so sure about it.”

-1966

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The offer has Charles' expression going flat. "What."

But a glance at Ethan's screen shows miles upon miles of incomprehensible text going as the program works its magic. It looks about as boring as Ethan's outfit is, and Charles idly wonders if his mother hadn't overestimated the threat of an IT nerd when she asked him to accompany the man today (logically, he knows trusting a single dork with the keys to their digital infrastructure is a big step, but unfortunately his father wasn't particular about his Jade Dragons having college educations).

"...you don't have anything else going on in life, do you?"

He shakes his head. "I'm not gonna touch your phone, Ethan." It might record his fingerprints or something. Christ.

"But... fine." His hand lands on the back of Ethan's chair as he leans down a measure. Charles cocks his head in the direction of the man's device. "Do something interesting with it." Unspoken is the implied impress me, then.

charles is right — the phone does work for calling purposes. ethan can’t argue with that. still, it doesn’t mean that he’s content with it, and if he has his way, he’ll have charles switching to a smartphone before his time here is done.

“ mhm, ” he hums in agreement, briefly glancing down at his own computer screen to make sure the troubleshooting program he’s got going is still working as intended. “ guys like me take it seriously, so that guys like you don’t have to worry about it. you can thank me later. ”

a slight pause, followed by ethan adding, “ though, if you want, i can teach you. ” the offer is spoken jokingly, but there is genuineness behind it. “ who knows? it might come in handy one day. ” cue him reaching in his shirt pocket and pulling out his own phone, waving it around slightly. “ come on — you know you wanna try it out. ”

maybe he’s being a little too forward with his joking around, considering he works for this guy now, but …

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@general-kalani sent: you again? i've seen enough of you already. { Philip needs to stop being an ass for FIVE SECONDS LMFAO- Def takes place some time after our last thread >:3 } → from here.

So have I, Charles thinks, but all he does is lean against the frame of the door with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I told you before," he says, "I'm the only one you'll get if you set meetings. Don't tell me you forgot.

"We got your cigarettes and your alcohol."

The boxes carried by the men that had come to greet Charles at the entrance of Woodbury are set down one by one: two of the former, eight of the latter (most of it's beer, but there's a box of gin and whiskey respectively).

"The dexamethasone is here." He holds another backpack up-- professional as always. "But I want confirmation from one of your doctors that this is what you need."

Medication is in short supply, after all, and trust is even more so.

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PROMPTS FOR THE FORCED PROXIMITY TROPE *  assorted dialogue for the moments and circumstances that force two characters to spend time together, adjust as necessary

who said i agreed to any of this?

i said i would help you. i didn't say i would be nice to you while i'm helping you.

you scratch my back and i'll scratch yours.

oh no. don't tell me it's locked.

i was hired to protect you. that's my job.

i'm actually starting to tolerate you, believe it or not.

i don't want to be stuck here with you.

i'll work with anyone but you.

i'm not letting you sleep on the floor.

they're forcing me to work with you and i don't like it.

how long do you think we'll be stuck here?

is that the only tent we have?

i think we're snowed in here. we'd better find a way to stay warm.

it's going to take a few days for them to reach us.

you sleep in that room, and i'll take this one.

you can't get rid of me that easily.

i'm just going to come right out and say it - i hate being here just as much as you do, but we have to make this work.

don't get any ideas.

i'm going to see if they'll switch my room.

until you came along, i had this under control.

if we're going to survive this, we'd better work together.

why did they sit me next to you?

i'd like to be as far away from you as possible.

out of all the people in the world, i had to get stuck with you.

guess you're just gonna have to get over it.

i thought you were worse than this.

i'm not going anywhere, and neither are you.

you're not exactly my favorite person to be around.

well, get used to it. i'm not leaving.

i told them i don't need a bodyguard.

i never wanted to spend this much time with you.

all this time spent together has really opened my eyes.

you're not as bad as i thought you were.

we might as well try to get along.

i guess i should learn a little bit about you.

i think that means we're the only ones left.

there's no way i'm sharing a room with you.

you again? i've seen enough of you already.

i thought [name] was coming. why are you here?

they're counting on us to save them.

since we'll be here for a while... might as well make the best out of it.

i think we can set aside our differences for two minutes and work this out.

honestly, i think i was wrong about you at first.

there's absolutely no way i'm working with you.

fine, but you're sleeping on the floor. i'll take the bed.

as your bodyguard, i'm supposed to stay with you at all times.

i think we're snowed in for a while.

you could always sleep on this side of the bed.

we have to at least pretend we like each other.

the whole point in having a bodyguard is for me to keep you safe.

i don't like asking for your help, but here i am, asking.

you and i are the only ones who can deal with this.

you don't have a say in the matter.

looks like we're stuck here.

just sleep in the bed with me. i'll even make a pillow wall between us.

i'm not sharing a tent with you.

i need you to stay out of my way.

could you at least "guard" me from over there? why do you have to stand so close?

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There isn't any choice, then, is the real insight that Charles gets from all this. As much as he's tried to keep this operation secret-- not that his mother would ever believe him, anyway, if he told her that he was looking into things beyond the norm-- that artificial separation of his work and his family would have to blur once more.

Audrey is the only magical person he knows. His brother may have been cursed, or changed, or worse.

So, though he swallows around a dry lump in his throat, Charles finally admits: "...it's my brother.

"I think something touched him. He's been sick and seeing things and writing these little messages" -- Charles reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out delicately folded papers all marked with seemingly random symbols charged with something electric, something alive -- "and when I ask what's wrong all he does is look at me, and... there's nowhere else I can go but you."

'Sometimes.' Hell, her own magic could have "bad symptoms" it was a matter of keeping herself in check with it that determined if she's helpful or harmful.

'Depends on the symptoms. Depends on the source. There is no simple answer I can give you here. Not without risking making things worse.' Audrey may be a bit more optimistic about magic, but personally aware of it's dangers should someone use it haphazardly.

She is starting to become more concerned as Charles appears reluctant to explain what this problem is surrounding.

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Regina Spektor- Hero

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright…

No ones got it all.

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A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails, Halyna Kruk

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i'm starvin', darlin'

a fun thing to do with a couple days of your life: make a vid about eileen and big sun devouring their kids in their games of power

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@threadsandwings

Audrey opens to door and stares for a few second, slams it shut. Returns a few minutes later and throws a blanket over him. Slams the door shut again.

Charles curls into himself a little more-- the blanket isn't big enough to cover all of him, but it helps somehow. Something is better than nothing, and all that.

Thanks for taking care of your dumb stray dog, Audrey.