#body and blood universe | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

brighteyedbushybrowed · 2 years ago

Text

𝐁𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝

𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 - 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐲

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 Mary makes themselves known. Orion becomes a reluctant host. A discovery and an argument make it apparent that something sinister is at play.

𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐩(𝐬) Eventual Mary Goore x OC.

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 TW for nausea and throwing up. Also TW for Mary yelling and arguing between Mary and Copia. Implications of past trauma for Mary and Copia, but not explicitly stated or described.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 2816 words.

𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 Happy New Year, hens!! Guess this is gonna be the first piece of writing I post this year which I'm actually pretty happy about. Bringing in the new year with a bang teehee. Also, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has followed me and supported and enjoyed my writing this year. I know this fic isn't really everyone's sort of thing, but I'm having so much fun writing it and sharing it with you all which I think is the most important part. Here's to a great 2023 (although 2022 has really set the bar so low that it's on the floor).

𝐌𝐲 𝐊𝐨-𝐟𝐢

“If you move too quick, they’ll spot us. Need to stay still, okay?”

Orion nodded his head ever so slightly, enough for whoever was behind him to notice but not so much that the ghouls would notice. The fact that they weren’t turning around and somehow hadn’t heard or sensed something going on behind them was unsettling in and of itself. However, if his hunch was right, Orion didn’t need to worry too much about who Copia’s mismatched eyes were fixated on.

“Okay. Cool.” The hand squeezed Orion’s threat again, nails digging into their flesh. “I’m sorry for this, but I’m going to need your body for a moment. Just until we pass the ghouls.”

A flash of panic twisted in the detective’s gut. “Absolutely not. Are you insane?”

“Hey, I don’t want to do that shit either. Sadly, I don’t have much choice in the matter if I want to survive. It took all my energy trying to get your attention earlier, but I couldn’t risk being here physically and getting killed by the ghouls,” the person hissed, impatient. Exhaustion, discomfort, and desperation laced their voice, pulling at Orion’s emotions as he swallowed past the fingers firmly gripping him.

“You’re Mary? Copia’s friend?”

A hum. “That’s me. We can do proper introductions once I’m back in my body. We have approximately five and a half minutes before someone finds it and kills me.”

“Where is it? I’m assuming it’s close if you’re corporeal enough for me to be able to feel you.”

“Cope can take you there. He knows where I operate from. Once I’m back in my own body you can ask me whatever you want, I promise, but right now I need you to let me in or we’re going to struggle getting past Ifrit and Alpha.”

Orion closed their eyes and gave a single nod, holding their breath as their muscles tensed. The hands disappeared just as a wave of cold rippled through their body, starting at the top of their head and streaming down to the tips of their toes and fingers. Senses dulled slightly as the detective’s eyes fluttered open. The corridor was a little darker, sounds were softer, smells dampened. It was like their body was unsure how to cope with more than one soul occupying it, desperately attempting to split their senses equally, before everything snapped into focus and sharpened without warning. They stumbled slightly as they took a step forward, but quickly recovered and smiled weakly at Copia as they rubbed at their temple.

“Perhaps we could return to your office, Copia,” he suggested, his voice much too loud in his head. Everything, in fact, was louder now. He could hear breathing, heartbeats, gentle breezes whistling through the corridors, blood pulsing through veins, the swallowing of saliva. “I seem to be feeling rather unwell. I don’t think looking at all those bodies on a full stomach was my best idea.”

Copia rushed over immediately, wrapping an arm around their waist while to keep them steady. Orion gently rested a hand on top of the elder man’s and inhaled, regretting it immediately. The intoxicating aroma of ghoul and human blood infiltrated their mind and created a sharp stabbing sensation in their throat and abdomen. The Papa’s scent of incense, aftershave, and strawberry shampoo invaded their nose and made their mouth water.

“Come, topolino,” the man murmured as he began to lead the detective away. “I shall have one of my ghouls bring you some ginger tea and plain crackers once we get there. If you are still unwell I’ll have one of the siblings from the infirmary check you over, okie dokie?”

Orion merely nodded, already feeling drained from carrying the soul of a vampire around.

Not to be a dickhead, but we need to hurry it up. The sooner we find my body, the sooner you can be rid of me.

He didn’t give any response but did think about kicking Mary’s ass as he and Copia hobbled past the ghouls. Orion felt the fire ghouls’ focus homing in on him, Ifrit’s gaze seemingly more sympathetic than Alpha’s. The latter narrowed his eyes suspiciously but if he had any suspicions, he didn’t voice them aloud. The scents that the ghouls gave off made him want to throw up, the stench of smoke and sulphur so strong that he had to force himself not to gag.

The detective’s eyes slammed shut the moment they walked around the corner and ambled up the stone stairs to the ground floor of the abbey. It was far too bright, the light still somewhat visible even through Orion’s eyelids. New smells reached them too, the siblings of sin smelling so overwhelmingly, agonisingly delicious that their knees almost buckled. Copia cussed under his breath and tightened his grip before quickening their pace.

“My apologies, but we need to pick up speed if you don’t want to start throwing up all over the place,” he said, practically dragging the detective along with him.

Orion grunted, unable to give a more coherent response as he allowed himself to be pulled through the corridors. The sound of shoes slapping against stone ricocheted through his head, the pain in his stomach increasing as they practically ran through the corridors. He almost cried in relief once he was shoved into a room that immediately numbed his senses, dropping to his knees and gulping down flavourless air. The volume of the world around him had thankfully returned to a normal, quieter volume and all he could smell now was his own sweat. He hadn’t even realised that he’d been sweating, only now registering the clamminess of his skin and the way his clothes stuck to him.

Once they got their bearings, they opened their eyes and hummed contently at how dimly lit the room was. No sound from outside could be heard, just his own laboured breaths as he greedily inhaled the clean air.

Collapsed on the floor in front of them was a body, presumably Mary’s. He looked to be a similar height to Copia, give or take an inch, with raven-coloured hair cut short at the back and sides but left to grow longer on top to cover his tinted face. His clothes, a faded and torn t-shirt with ripped skinny jeans and multiple studded belts, clung to his body and revealed expanses of pale, blue tinted skin.

Orion, exhausted but determined, crawled closer to the body, and pressed one of his palms against Mary’s. A flood of white-hot heat flooded through his body all at once and the insatiable hunger finally vanished. However, the sensation was so sudden and unexpected that the detective began to heave up the contents of his stomach right next to the vampire. Copia’s soothing hand rubbed his lower back as he continued to wretch, acrid bile clinging to the back of his throat and tongue. Black started to creep at the edges of his vision before he lost consciousness, body unable to keep him awake any longer.

When the detective regained consciousness, it was to the sound of hushed arguing. They were tempted to pretend they were still asleep and eavesdrop, but the memory of who was in the room with them convinced them to just open their eyes and slowly sit up. Their head span and they groaned as they clasped a hand to their forehead, blinking a couple of times as they looked around. At first, they thought it was perhaps Copia’s office, but upon further inspection they realised it must have been the guest suite they’d been assigned for the length of their stay at the abbey. The walls were plain – impersonal – as was the furniture. No patterns or posters in sight.

“Ah, you scared me!” Copia exclaimed, immediately taking a seat on the edge of the mattress, and gently slapping away Orion’s hand to lay his own on his forehead. “Ah, good, your fever has gone down. I was worried for a moment that my magic didn’t work. You can never tell what will happen with possession.”

“Oi, it’s not possession if the host is willing, asshat. It’s called joint occupancy.”

Orion’s eyes flitted to where Mary was standing, leaning up against the wall near the door. They pressed their ear to the wood for a moment before moving to stand a little closer to the bed.

“I’m really sorry about that, by the way,” they said, throwing the detective a sheepish smile. “Normally the host prepares for about an hour beforehand, so the body has the chance to make accommodations for the other soul entering it. Vampire souls tend to take more of a toll on an unprepared body than human souls do, especially if it’s their first time.”

Orion waved his hand dismissively and shifted his body so that he was resting against the headboard and pillows. “It’s fine. Water under the bridge and all that. Right now, my main concern is what happened after I passed out and how you got me here without anyone noticing or asking questions. The last thing I need is people running up to me asking if I’m okay and getting in the way of the investigation because they saw me being carried through the corridors looking half-dead.”

Copia gestured over to the plain, Victorian style wardrobe opposite the bed. “Before ghouls were allowed to roam the abbey with the siblings of sin and other residents here, they had to travel using old passageways that were built into the walls. Now, they are scarcely used and most of the entrances are blocked off. I had this one reopened in case of emergencies.”

“Good thing you did,” Mary grunted. “Otherwise, I don’t think we’d have managed to bring your friend back here without the clergy getting suspicious.”

The vampire’s skin, notably, no longer looked lifeless. The colour had returned to his face, cheeks tinged pale pink instead of deathly blue, and crimson stained his lips and teeth, plush lips revealing blunt fangs as he spoke.

Blunt?

The detective forced themselves to their feet, wobbling for a moment and gently pushing Copia away when he tried to push them back down onto the mattress. They approached the raven-haired person before them and pointed at Mary’s mouth.

“When did you get your teeth filed down?”

Mary raised a brow at them. “Excuse me?”

“Your fangs. They’re blunt. Not even vampire younglings have fangs that blunt naturally. Did you file them down yourself, or was that somebody else’s doing?”

“Orion, I don’t think you need to know–” Copia started but was interrupted by the humourless laugh that left the vampire’s lips.

“Are you for real?” they asked, arms spread wide before they flopped back down to their sides and slapped against their jeans. “You still want to hide it? Even after everything I’ve done for you? What those bastards did to you? What they did to me in your name?”

The elder man shook his head and took a step towards Mary, who stepped back at the same time. “You know it is not that simple. I–”

“Bull fucking shit!”

Orion jolted, unprepared for Mary’s outburst.

“That’s bullshit and you know it. When are you going to stop kissing the clergy’s assess and stand up for me for once, huh?”

The elder man ran a hand through his greying hair. “You know what they would do to me if I openly went against them like that. We can’t risk it, not right now.”

Angry tears pricked the vampire’s eyes as he pointed an accusatory finger at Copia. “You mean that you won’t risk it. I always have your back, Copia. Always. I’ve never broken any of the promises I made you. Even when you became Papa, I did what you asked me to because I trust you to do what I need you to in return, but you won’t. You’ve made that perfectly clear.”

“Mare, that’s not fair.”

“No. What’s not fair is you stringing me along and making me think that I’m your friend when I’m just a steppingstone for you to get where you wanted to be in this stupid church. Even now you’re happy to cover up what they did, despite the fact that it could help prove my innocence. Do you really hate me that much that you’d lie about it in front of me without hesitating?”

The silence that met Mary’s words had Orion’s stomach twisting with nausea. Copia averted his gaze to the floor as the vampire let out another bitter chuckle and stomped over to the wardrobe. They swung open the doors and began to climb in, casting a glance over their shoulder at the detective.

“I’ll come and find you tomorrow, answer any questions you have, but I’m not staying here. Not with him.”

With that, Mary fully submerged themselves in the wardrobe and shut the doors behind them. There was a muffled scraping sound and then a thud before silence settled in the room once more and the vampire was gone. Orion released the breath he’d been holding and turned to face Copia, who had dropped back down onto the bed with his head in his gloved hands. As much as it pained him, the detective needed to carry on with the investigation and ignore what had just happened for a moment.

They reached into their satchel and pulled out the notepad, flicking through the pages until they got to the notes on each corpse’s injuries. Giving it a scan, they swiftly found what they were looking for and hummed. Feeling that they were being watched, they sat down beside Copia and handed him the pad.

“Tell me what you see,” Orion instructed, gesturing to one paragraph in particular.

The man frowned. “Writing?”

“More than that. What does it say? Read it back to me.”

Copia sighed but gave in and read aloud. “‘Puncture wounds to the neck. Little to no resistance. Clean bites, intentionally made.’ I’m sorry, topolino, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing here.”

The detective grabbed their pencil and underlined the second sentence. There was a moment of thought before the Papa’s head shot up and he looked at Orion.

“That would mean–”

“Yes.” Orion closed the notepad and put it back in their satchel with the pencil.

“Mary couldn’t have killed them! The bites are too clean, too neat. His fangs are too blunt to have been able to bite through with so little effort.” Copia was beginning to get excited, jumping up from the bed before he made his way over to the wardrobe. “We must tell him! Let him know!”

“No.”

The man furrowed his brows, hands hovering above the doorknobs. “No?”

“No.” The detective gestured for Copia to sit back down on the bed. “Not yet.”

“But he needs to know. We have to tell him!”

“Copia.” Orion exhaled. “Mary is hurting right now. He feels like you’ve betrayed him and can’t trust you. I don’t know what’s happened between you both, but we can’t let that get in the way of the investigation. If you saunter off after him now, he’ll just get even more upset and that could affect the likelihood of him co-operating with you. Let me tell him tomorrow after he’s calmed down a little. I need you to focus on the investigation for now, okay?”

“But–”

The detective glared. “No buts. If we drop the ball and get distracted, we run the risk of running out of time and Mary getting executed. Is that what you want? Didn’t think so.”

Reluctantly, Copia sat back down on the bed. “What do you need me to do?”

Orion checked the time on his phone. 12.08am. Shit. He didn’t realise how long he’d been unconscious for. “There’s not much we can do at this very moment, but tomorrow I need you to give me the rota of who’s guarding the underground levels of the abbey as well as a list of people you wanted me to interview. Then, while I’m interviewing everyone, I want you to find Mary’s residency records.”

“Eh? The residency records? Why?”

The detective looked him dead in the eyes, brown meeting green and white.

“Because, Copia, the murderer is going to strike again, and I need to find the pattern and motive before your fellow clergymen decide to bring Mary’s execution forward and kill him before I can find the truth.”

Six days until Mary’s execution.

Profile

Name Mary Goore.

Age Unknown.

Birthday March 3rd.

Pronouns He/Him, They/Them.

Gender Nonbinary.

Sexuality Unlabelled.

Height 5’8.

Eyes Green. Black when they need to feed.

Hair Black, short on the back and sides and longer on top to create a devil’s lock.

Body Thin, lanky, long limbs, skin starts to look blue and dead if he goes too long without feeding, black nails.