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razzle-zazzle · 1 month ago

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Whumptober Day 21: Body Horror

Spirit Possession

2432 Words; Coleverlord, pre-canon

TW for injury, emotional abuse

AO3 ver

Cole drifted.

Dance school had been… Cole still enjoyed dancing, despite the growing distance between him and his father. He did enjoy dancing, he really did—

(“Didn’t you see the way he was staring? He’s totally a creep.” Whispers from other students, having to find his own table at lunch;

“Young man, you need to work harder if you want to keep your scholarship.” The only class he had anything less than an A in was his B in history; the scholarship wasn’t that strict.

“You’re dragging our quartet down.”

“Ugh, why does he have to be here?”

“Professor, I can’t work with my partner. Can I switch?”

“Sorry, all the roles have been filled. Now run along, you’re interrupting rehearsal.”

“Freak.”

“Creep.”

“There’s something wrong with him.”)

It was everything else about school that Cole couldn’t stand. Not that it was anything new; he knew the effect he had on other people, but—

Go west, Vessel.

Yeah. That. So Cole left Marty Oppenheimer’s, threw away the scholarship and left. Nobody had stopped him, either. He considered going home, to the garden he couldn’t stand and the bedroom where the shadows shushed all his worries and the studio he could dance in as much as he wanted when his father wasn’t home—

But the way his father had shipped him out to Marty Oppenheimer’s was clue enough. Cole wasn’t stupid, he knew that the spiders crawling under his skull made other people uneasy. He knew he and his father had grown distant because of that—and because of his mother’s death, which had only upset his father further. Cole hadn’t been stupid enough to believe people would treat him like anything other than a monster since he was nine and sitting in his bedroom, hair still damp from the pond—

So Cole drifted. It said to go west, and Cole was vaguely meandering in that direction, which It hadn’t complained about so the slow pace was probably fine. He passed through some towns on the way, met a few people—

(Always leave by the next sunrise, that was the rule. Linger any longer, and the ants marching under his skin would start to give people fits. Best to keep moving.)

—but he didn’t really settle. Not that he could; It would yell at him to get moving again. So Cole kept moving, kept going even when it got hard—he’d been doing that since he was little, he supposed. He kept going when his mother stopped seeing him as her son, kept going when his friends all drifted away, when his father drifted away. Left Marty Oppenheimer’s at Its urging, and just kept going

and going

and going.

Can’t be a good son, can’t be a dancer. Is there anything I can be?

You are my Vessel, and that is all you will need to be.

Cole snorted, bringing the hammer down to strike the nail. The sun was high in the sky, and the fence before him needed to be fixed. He liked working with his hands; there was something so satisfying about the physical labor. It helped that he was often rewarded with food. So Cole worked, taking off the old pickets and hammering in the new.

The hours passed, and before long Cole was being called away from the completed fence for dinner. He took his meal out to the front step, away from awkward table conversations and away from people he had yet to unnerve. He ate in silence, termites crawling along under his skin and shadows dancing at his feet.

“You can come eat with the rest of us, you know.” Cole turned back to look at the girl at the door—her name was Rose, he was pretty sure, and she was the daughter of the couple that lived here. “My folks don’t bite.” There was hospitality in her voice, invitation in the way she looked at him.

“I’m fine. Sunset’s nice.” Cole deflected. “Thank you for the meal.” He added.

Rose stared at him. The termites under his skin started biting at his bones, shadows creeping towards the door. Rose frowned, grip on the doorframe tightening before she retreated back into the house without a word.

Cole turned back to his meal. All the isopods in his brain all curled up, and his shoulders hunched slightly. He set his plate down where they could find it.

He was gone by the time it was dark.

+=+=+=+=+

Cole drifted.

Mountain towns were interesting. His hometown wasn’t really near any big mountains, though he’d seen them on the occasional school field trip or family outing. His mother had loved the mountains; she and his father used to jokingly argue about moving to her hometown out in the mountains. They couldn’t have those arguments anymore, though, and Cole was no longer around to hear them anyway.

Cole was staring up at a particularly large mountain, now, the peak so high it touched the clouds. His mother used to tell him so many stories about mountains…

“I bet I could climb that.” Cole commented. His mother used to go rock climbing all the time before he was born, and after—though she had never been able to take him with her. The wasps under his skin agreed—and hadn’t It said something about “power over the earth” or something like that, once? It wasn’t like Cole would die if he fucked up and fell—

Vessel.

Cole had learned a lot about living off the land since leaving Marty Oppenheimer’s. So he’d probably be fine.

Vessel, do not climb that mountain.

“Why not?” Cole was already starting up the foothills, jogging along the incline towards a rock face that looked a little more climbable than the others.

There is something among those mountains.

Cole paused. He’d… never felt the spiders pulling back, before. “Are you… scared?” The thought was almost laughable; the shadow in his brain never got scared. The shadow in his brain did the scaring, not the other way around. “I thought you were the Great Calamity that Stalks the Night and Turns All Hearts to Rot.” He added, pulling up one of the more pretentious names It liked to use.

It is not… that.

Somehow, the shadow sounded shifty. Usually it was more direct with Cole.

It is simply something powerful. I fear for your safety, Vessel.

Cole’s eyes narrowed as he grabbed the first handhold he saw. “I thought you said I had nothing to fear.” but you. He hauled himself up onto a small cliff, where there was an incline he could climb more easily. The wasps in his chest buzzed angrily, but Cole pushed past it and kept going. After a moment, the shadows at the corners of his vision thinned, the spider settling back into Its corner. Cole kept climbing, half-forgotten memories of his mother’s stories filtering through his head.

When he was six, she’d taken him to a place full of special rock climbing walls with those colored handholds. He could hardly remember it, now, the memory lost to a haze of cobwebs, like every other memory of the time his mother still loved him. He didn’t try to chase the memory—he wouldn’t put it past the shadow to try and bury it harder. It had never liked Cole’s mother—and she hadn’t liked It, either. Cole had been a casualty of the crossfire.

Cole was pretty high up, now, having scrambled up a more sheer rock face with surprising speed. He actually wasn’t sure how he’d gotten so far without falling—though he could certainly feel the burn in his muscles as he pushed himself higher, higher, higher—

Vessel.

“Oh, what now?” Cole groaned. He got that he was beholden to the shadow, he understood that—but what was so wrong with climbing a mountain? It wasn’t like a dragon was just going to show up out of nowhere—It would have said something if that was the case.

House centipede legs scrabbled against his spine.

If you won’t listen to my words, then—

A spider crawling on his brain, tugging at threads—

Cole’s hand opened of its own accord, palm pushing against the stone to

throw

his body back

away

from the

rock

so that he was free falling, limbs locked up by so many coiling worms. The world spun slowly around him, the mountain rising up at incredible speed as Cole went down, down, down—

The impact knocked the air from his lungs with a sickening crunch. Pain slammed him like a wall of tiny needles, crackling his spine and snapping bones. Cole wheezed, feeling so much like a smear of human paste upon the ground. The world was spinning—was he getting dizzy? It was hard to breathe.

Get up.

Cole whined, as much as his aching chest would allow. He sounded—and felt—like a popped balloon slowly deflating. Not that the shadow cared how Cole felt.

Get up.

“Cuh.” Ohhhhh, Cole’s head hurt. His everything hurt. “Can’t.” How was he supposed to move? He’d just fallen several stories off a mountain!

Get up.

Cole couldn’t move his legs, his shoulders were agony—he couldn’t do it! He knew It knew that, so why—

Get. Up.

I can’t! What was Cole supposed to do? It had thrown him off a mountain! His vision blurred, and didn’t unblur—was he dying? The world was still spinning. His head hurt.

Get up!

Shadows crowded Cole’s vision. Violet light erupted from somewhere in his chest, so many ants marching around under his skin and laying down new threads—

A scream ripped from Cole’s throat as his broken bones started to knit themselves back together, legs and arms realigning in seconds. His chest heaved, seeming to split open for a moment before he could suddenly breathe again. Violet threads raced through his flesh hot enough to burn, knitting it all back together and forcing Cole up until he was standing on knees that threatened to buckle at any second.

Cole felt like he should probably be mad. But he mostly felt shaky and uncertain. Worms dug into his stomach, squirming up his chest at the spider’s direction.

You couldn’t get up on your own.

“Yeah.” Cole grit out. “I noticed.” He stumbled forwards, hands shaking. His bag swung at his side—his bag. Cole nearly tore it open, checking—okay, yeah, he’d need to replace more than half of this. That was what he got for landing on it, he supposed.

I can and will put you back together, Vessel. No matter how broken you get.

“Then why are you scared?” Why would the shadow be so bothered by something in the mountains if it could just put Cole back together?

It is not easy.

That… might have been the first weakness It had ever admitted to.

But the lesson was not so you could act recklessly, Vessel.

Well, then it wasn’t exactly a good lesson, because that the first thing he got from it. The spider in his brain bit down, tiny fangs digging in under his skull.

It was a demonstration. You could not get up on your own.

A frame is nothing without the picture behind it.

You are nothing without me, Vessel.

You would do well to remember that.

+=+=+=+=+

Cole drifted.

He drifted mostly westward, but he was still in the mountains, so he couldn’t go straight west. The shadow had been… not exactly quiet, since throwing him off the mountain, but It hadn’t bothered him as much. It had even brought back that old lullaby It used to comfort Cole when he was little. It wasn’t really an apology, but—

Well, it wasn’t like Cole could be mad at It, anyway. He was getting better at this rock climbing thing—it was honestly pretty fun! It was like a dance, him and the mountain moving in tandem to lift him higher and higher.

…he missed dancing. He missed watching his parents dance late at night.

Cole missed a lot of things he could never have again, really.

Cole was really high up, today—he’d gone straight for the peak of this mountain, and had just breached the clouds. The shadow had grumbled, but otherwise let him go, probably sensing the same weird pull that Cole felt.

With a grunt, Cole pulled himself up and over the edge to rest on the very summit—

There was an old man at the top of the mountain.

And old man… drinking tea. “Hello there.”

The spider skittered as far back as it could go, the shadows disappearing entirely. No ants squirmed under Cole’s skin, no worms in his stomach or wasps in his chest, no isopods crawling along his bones. It was all still there, but—It was clearly trying to hide. Which…

This is what It had been afraid of? This old man?

“Um.” Cole greeted, not entirely sure what to say. “How did you—”

That is a dragon, Vessel. Tread carefully.

The old man—dragon—hummed. “Maybe that is a question for me to ask.” He said. “But first: why do you climb the mountain?”

“Because I wanted to.” Because I’ll come out okay even if I fall. “It’s like a dance,” The words were spilling from Cole’s lips, “Me and the mountain, working together. And I like dancing, but I couldn’t stay at that school and continue to learn when everybody hated me—” He swallowed. “I guess I just wanted an escape. From everyone.” He couldn’t say that he wanted to be alone, because he was never truly alone. But he wasn’t lying about wanting space from other people—what was the point in hanging around them anyway, if the shadow was just going to freak them out?

The dragon-who-looked-like-an-old-man nodded. “It is easy to feel discouraged when we are alienated by our peers.” He agreed. “If you knew that they would like you, would you go back?”

“They wouldn’t.” Cole grumbled. “And I can’t go back.”

“I see.” The old-man-maybe-dragon nodded. “You are someone who keeps moving forwards, then.”

Cole felt just a little bit too seen. “Is that good or bad?” He asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Shadows crept around his feet.

“Yes… and no.” The old dragon answered, which wasn’t an answer at all. “Being able to move forwards is an admirable thing,” he explained, “but sometimes one must look back at where they’ve come from. You cannot appreciate the mountain’s height without looking to the valleys below.”

“O…kay?” Ugh, this wasn’t making any sense, and the spiders under his skull were getting agitated. “Why did you climb the mountain, then?”

The old-man-who-didn’t-look-like-a-dragon smiled into his teacup. “Why, to meet you, Cole.”