#dirk and hal trying to puppet each other but its all for nothing

[alfiely-art]

Something something puppetisms

[corvid-knight]

Demon Eyes - chapter 24

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13740258/chapters/33307809

The Speaker's hand clamps down on yours and pulls you into the circle with one hard yank, and you know that you've fucked up. Karkat yowls in alarm behind you, but he can't cross the circle to drag you back—it's made to block demons from passing, and it'll keep him out just as effectively as it keeps Kurloz in.

D or any of the other humans could pass, theoretically. Right now, though, Kurloz is...doing something. Controlling them, maybe—even though the protection runes they wear should block at least some of that shit, and he's in a circle which should definitely prevent him from extending his influence outside of it, you can feelsomething go out and twine itself around your family even as his eyes lock with yours.

Calm the fuck down, Second. Take what I'm giving you.

Which is what you want. You want the knowledge, this is what you asked for—except even his calm delivery of that thought brings a memory to mind, a growled take it, brat! that expected as little resistance as this demon does.

It's that memory that makes you struggle against the iron grip on your wrists, makes you choke out, "No fuckin' way—"

Too late for that.

Kurloz dives into your mind, slipping into the cracks you didn't know your defenses had and filling everything with his cool purple radiance. After only a second you can't even think of resisting—he's so fucking strong, how can any one being hold this much power?

There's nothing but his eyes. Nothing in the world but purple light. There's nothing in your mind but the Speaker for the Dead, coiling and settling and crushing your will down until you're barely even there.

He's going to kill me, you think, and it's not even a surprising thought. Bro won't even get a chance to have me, because even if my body's still breathing after this, I'm going to be gone.

That would be a motherfucking waste. The twin messiahs become nothing if such a simple servant as I were the one to waste one of them.Kurloz's amusement is just as crushing as his presence, but as he sends you those thoughts he withdraws a little. There's still nothing in your world but him, but now his presence isn't so painful. One of you will have to die, yes, but not by my hands.

Karkat's gonna break the circle and tear your heart out in another minute, you warn him. Talk fast.

Talk isn't what I'm here for. I'm a motherfucking prophet sent to give you the knowledge meant only for the Two Messiahs. More amusement, a weight that's almost painful. Maybe it is painful, but he doesn't let you feel the pain. We've got all the time in the world, Second. I could speak to you for a lifetime like this, and release you before Vantas finished drawing a single breath.

Shit. Shit. The thought of having Kurloz wound around your mind, inside your mind, for any longer than he has to be? That drives spikes of cold panic down into your gut.

And of course, he smooths the panic away. You're his puppet now; there's no need for you to be alarmed.

Stop it!

Hey, there's no way you can get this knowledge if your mind isn't calm. Stop the motherfucking fighting, Second—

(stop fuckin' fighting, Davey, Bro drawls in your memories)

Enough of that shit.

Annoyance hurts more than amusement. If you had control of any part of your body you'd sob, but Kurloz owns you completely. All you can do is stand still as he darts through your mind, striking down anything that isn't what he wants to see until all that's left of you is a tight knot of consciousness at the core of your soul.

The Speaker could destroy that, too. You know he could. If he does, you hope D has the mercy to put a sword through your heart.

You're not mine to kill. The moment your self perishes, you cease to be the Second of Two, and that is motherfucking unacceptable.

And he doesn't touch your core.

Instead, he starts pouring that damned purple light into you. Everything that he's cleared out, made blank and empty, he fills with knowledge, planning and images and shit that you absolutely cannot even try to sort out right now. Kurloz fills you, and it hurts like nothing else.

Through this process, you don't move. He holds you steady with an ease that horrifies you.

He's so fucking strong, you think. How the fuck did Karkat catch him, how did he being him here?

Simple.

I let him.

As you process that simple statement, Kurloz pulls out of your mind. The loss of him hurts almost as badly as his presence did, but he holds control of you, keeping you from showing any pain. Without your volition your mouth shapes syllables, the spell for either banishing or releasing.

Then you're the only one in the circle, and the Speaker's puppet-strings that have been holding you snap. Suddenly, you can't hold yourself upright.

Because Karkat is shouting both out loud and in your mind, you make the effort to roll to one side, break the circle with your body again. That's rewarded with the feeling of his hands on you, gentle and roughly urgent at the same time.

You're okay with that.

Your mind goes away for a while. You can't say that things go dark, though.

If anything, they go purple.

"Dave."

Dave.

"Dave."

There's maybe half a minute between each repetition of your name, and it alternates between aural and mental. The former's quiet, rough around the edges like he's fighting tears. The latter's filled with too much emotion for you to process.

From the fear and concern that you're getting from him, Karkat's been trying to call you back for a while.

Dave.

"Dave."

"Karkat," you try to say back to him, and get out what feels like an unintelligible mumble.

He must get the meaning of it, though, because he gasps, jerking you up from however you were lying (partially on his lap, you think, but your perception of your own body is fucked up right now so you can't be sure) and hugs you to his chest, one arm holding you close while his free hand comes up to cradle the back of your head.

Fuck. Karkat's shaking.

How the fuck do arms work.

That puzzle takes you a minute to work out. Then you get your arms up around the demon, leaning into him and closing your eyes to try and work out what the hell the Speaker left in your head.

A lot. He left a lot.

Okay, leave that for now. " 'kat."

"I thought he fucking broke you, Dave." Karkat's got his forehead pressed against yours, and the hand on the back of your head is shifting uneasily between having claws and not.

"Naah. Where's the others?"

"Jake has John, Hal has Dirk, Roxy has Rose. D's probably throwing up again."

"He fucked with them. Kurloz."

"I should've hurt him." Karkat tenses up as he says that, only relaxing when you give him a careful mental push. "You were a fucking idiot for letting him get in your head, Dave—"

"Had to get the info, man."

"We don't know what else he put in there..." He hesitates, then cautiously tries to dip into your mind—and recoils as you gently push him out again. Dave?

's okay, babe, just... "He did plant shit, but its...not gonna hurt me. You, maybe, if you try and go through it—he said it was 'meant only for the Two Messiahs—'"

Karkat goes completely still, pulling back to stare at you in what seems to be fucking horror. "He didn't say that."

"I mean, technically he didn't say anything."

"This isn't something you can fucking joke about, Dave—"

"Do you think I don't know that?" You shift to free up one hand so you can rub at your eyes, leaning against the demon. Apparently if you just try to ignore the tangle of knowledge he left you, you're going to have to try and handle the headache while the info seeps into your consciousness anyway. "I don't get why Kurloz picked me and Bro, how he even fucking knew about us—and you know it had to be him, as far as he knows he's the last member of that goddamn cult... what does he do, fucking constantly scry for some poor asshole who fits his damn prophecy?"

Instead of answering, Karkat growls softly, looking into your eyes before pulling you up closed again. "You don't believe in this shit, do you."

"No."

"That's a mistake, Dave. Kurloz does believe, because he's lived through three cycles of the Two Messiahs."

"He's got a pretty good track record, if they all ended up being the ones who ruled the world 'stead of the ones that ended it."

"The end of the world is a relative term." Karkat huffs and shakes his head. "According to everything I know about his cult, it's evenly split. The first time around, the one who survived ruled. The third, she destroyed."

"The second?" You know the answer. Kurloz left it in your head. You ask Karkat anyway, because he needs to not know just how much you know.

"Twins." He shifts, and you can feel his worry. "One killed the other, yeah, but then he killed himself."

"Yeah." The purple-tinged knowledge in your mind says that that was the most successful cycle, because it simply let the status quo continue.

Kurloz doesn't want change, you realize, because with every new messiah to rise, there's the chance he'll be replaced with a new prophet. Maybe he has little power now, as the leader of a cult of one, but as long as he's the Speaker to the Dead, as long as he's needed to call the First Messiah back to the living, he's more-or-less immortal.

"I can't tell what you're thinking, Dave," Karkat murmurs against your neck.

"Sorry...'m trying to sort the shit he gave me out." That's true, or true enough that he won't be able to sense a lie. "I know where Bro's gonna be."

"Good. I'm going to fucking tear him apart."

"I know you are, babe," you tell him, even though what you actually know is that he won't. Can't. "Once D gets over the mind-control aftereffects, I gotta go see if he can arrange us a fuckin' plane ride. I wanna sleep on the way there; can't do that in the truck."

Karkat nods, the red-on-red patterns in his eyes finally shifting away from the darker tones that've been dominating them. "Where to?"

The answer is fucking ironic. Enough so that instead of answering out loud, you just laugh and shake your head and push the image of the building you met him in at him.

Right back to the fucking start.