#heyerald

[flamestoked]

whenever you feel you're about to lose control, just take my hand and give it a little squeeze.

Dᴀʀᴋ ᴇʏᴇs flicker to the other's face, and it's momentarily that something clears up over them. Just a moment. It's not that he's gone, it's just that it's hard to think sometimes through the thick fog of violence, of hunger, of yearning, of blood. He doesn't expect Jon to understand, not to the same degree — this wasteland is a Watcher's paradise for obvious reasons, and while they are both changed, are both monsters, are both so very hungry, seeing and knowing is nothing like the violence, the anger, the need to tear and rip and take a life and stain his hands anew, as if they are ever clean, as if the blood is not constant on them, as if they are not ever not coated in it, wet and glistering.

Hands that he looks down to now, and that are not made to hold anyone else's anymore. They are to grip around the axe. They are to tear through limbs and organs. They are to destroy. They are not to hold. If he were to take Jon's hand and squeeze as he says, he would break it.

There are moments where he's more lucid than others. This is one. None of them are a mercy: he hates what he has become. What he has been made. A part of him is bitter towards Jon for it, but they are both monsters now. They are both something worse than what should walk the earth, apocalyptic hellscape or not. They are both — wrong. He does not deserve comfort. Has not, in a long time.

"What if I don't want it?" His voice is so raw from disuse. But what is worse: control, and being aware of what you have become and what you have done, and have to do to go on? Or a lack of it and doing worse things? What is worse? Being a more awful monster, or being aware of it?

[instituteled]

@heyerald​ inquired:  [ CHALLENGE ]:     in a motion designed to challenge the receiver's authority, sender pins receiver against the wall. (folklore verse)

     Tʜᴇ ᴏᴜᴛʙᴜʀsᴛ is sudden and unexpected. He knows he pushes Jon's buttons — often on purpose, sometimes not, but in general, he has some intent behind it, and if it's only for play, or to make sure the kid would do better against anyone out there, more keen on inflicting harm — but the physical violence is new. If it hadn't been for the surprise, they wouldn't be here: Jon might be taller than him, but there wouldn't be that much of a difference in physical strength if either of them were human, and less so now. If he breathed, the air would have been knocked out of him, but as it was, he blinks a couple times, glasses (more decoration than aid at this point) misaligned and then he grins, all fangs and terror.

     "Ohhh, I'm proud of you!" And he is, the excitement isn't fake. He can break out of this grip any time he likes — shapeshifting is a skill that mostly be myth, but there's enough wiggle room to slip through cracks or out of situations such as these. But the fact that this child of his would finally, finally take to defending himself — beautiful. Now, of course, they would need to work on whether or not it was appropriate here, but —

     "And what, exactly, do you think you're achieving now? I'm genuinely interested to hear. Go on."

[archaeval]

@heyerald

DESPITE HER FONDNESS FOR OLD MAGNUS, Ruby had no qualms about delaying her visitation for a little while to poke and prod at his favorite little worker bee. She entered the archives without announcing herself, stalking silently among the familiar scent of old paper and metal shelving. Surely dear Mister Simms couldn’t deny a tour to the Institute’s sister location, no?

“Ah, there you are!” she crooned, appearing around a corner with that bright, hungry grin. “I’ve been just dying to meet you.”

[hauntshot]

@heyerald | from here.

     "Wᴇʟʟ. Mɪʀʀᴏʀs are kind of a portal, right? To a different world. Probably linked to Helen's corridors, now that I think about it, but it doesn't matter. Either way, there's always something that wants to come over, and more applicable now, something that's watching. So you cover it when you don't want it." She holds up the new tape recorder with two fingers, as if it would start biting her. It might, for all she knows. Or she might start biting. The call is duller now, her blood doesn't boil as hot and she can't feel the violence throbbing under her skin as much, but it's still there. Weaker with every day, but she assumes it might never go away fully. 

      "Covering those won't do anything. And yes, I'm aware that won't save any of us from your creepy eye shit. Don't start with that." She flips it over, picks up the screwdriver she laid out earlier for this purpose, and starts taking the back apart. "Anyway, I thought nothing can listen if there's nothing to listen, right? Wrong. Those are hollow, Jon. Just a bunch of plastic without any electronic in them at all. Look."

[sweaterstained]

@heyerald | cont.

     Mᴀʏʙᴇ ɪᴛ's selfish. To a degree, he's aware it is: that he just wants some peace and quiet, something normal, even though he knows that, despite time not having any real meaning anymore, every hour they spend hiding away here, there are people outside going through torment and torture and who knows what, and if he were to actually look, he could see how Jon looks more miserable with the day, especially compared to how vibrant he had been on their journey so far. In fact, he had never seen Jon look quite as... vivid, and agil, and content as he did while they wandered the hellscapes of this new world, and maybe that scares him. That scares him more than any domain could. It's not that he is scared of Jon: but there's certainly something off about seeing the man you love bloom in between carnage and death and despair.

     (He sees it. On some level. He just doesn't want to admit that he does.)

     So he takes more mundane tasks to heart, like attempting to fix the mess that manifested in the other's by now so long hair. It's not with much success so far, and a part of him doubts it will be, and even if he manages to fix it now, it will look the same in rarely any time at all, much less than something like this would require normally. It's just a part of who Jon is, now.

     "It won't do to hurt you." He says it softly, but there's the hint of a smile in his voice. "I'm trying to relax us both. Pulling on your hair will have the opposite effect, I fear."

[godworn]

@heyerald | cont.

     "Nᴏᴛ ᴡʜᴀᴛ I meant." It's not, but the idea is enticing, isn't it? He considers all the holes inside his mind, the ones he knows he's missing and, worse, the one he doesn't. No, what he was talking about was the buzzing and the pain, was the feeling of duality. Jane had spoken of multitudes and he doesn't feel it like that: the swarm is one entity to him, the parts much more like limbs than individual lives. Maybe because the swarm in itself is a creature of it's own.

     " — not sure." He'd like some of his memories back, of course, most of them even, no matter whether they hurt or not, but... he knows why he's losing them. He knows it's because they eat through his brain and undo the connections made by it, until finally they ate all that make him himself. And with that, he's aware they wouldn't last. He'd lose them again. "Dunno if I'd deal with losin' my memory a second time, if I'm bein' honest with you."

[stokcd-a]

There is absolutely nothing mediocre about you.

the love hypothesis | @heyerald​

     "Iᴛ's ɴᴏᴛ always something bad, actually. Don't always have to be the best at something. Average is fully acceptable. Would like that back. Not that it's an option for any of us now, is it." Well, maybe. It also had sucked being the maybe only one still — not as fucked up by all this eldritch bullshit, of course. He preferred it, of course, but it still made 'mediocre' feel much more like it dimpled back down near the bottom end. And besides, what good did him any of that now? No matter how much he fought against it, he's now just the same. There's blood that never cleans off and never dries, and that insatiable hunger, and funnily, even with those things, he's nothing like those around him. He cannot expose anyone's deepest secrets; cannot smite them on the spot (would he want to? Yes and no, similar to the urge that screams inside, the one that has metal bound to his own body and the scars, badly healed (and they wouldn't be as badly if they came from anything else, he knows as much), from trying to fight against the hunger, until it's all consuming and madness inducing). Cannot whisk someone away into an area of nothingness or solitude, or all the other fun things they do. No, he's just a psychopath with too big a weapon, but otherwise, perfectly normal.

     Perfectly mediocre.

     And what else? His degree wasn't a lot of use in this wasteland, and neither were whatever else might be outstanding. And he's well aware he's never been, not with the shining example always right in front of his eyes.

     "Don't know if that's supposed to help, Jon, but it doesn't. But that's fine."

     (There's still that deep urge to tear into the other. He's still unbelievably angry. And all that's stopping him is — what, really? Not the knowledge that it would likely backfire, an end of this existence isn't... preferable, maybe, but not the worst thing, either. He wishes he could say it'd be better, or that he'd want to, but he doesn't. No. Maybe it's knowing full well nothing at all would come from it. And not wanting to fall to become this feral animal even more.)

     "You never could make it better."

[twistingdeception]

@heyerald |  sc.

     Sʜᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡs she is about as welcome here as, say, mh, a worm infestation might be, but that doesn't keep her away. The Archivist holds as little power over her as anything else does, and nothing keeps her out if she sets her own mind to it (the shambled remains of it, at the very least), and fingers like knives easily slice through the statement she's been picking up in curiosity. Whoops.

     "I wonder sometimes." No greetings, no pleasantries. "Was Michael right? Looking at you know, it almost seems like it would have been a mercy to let him kill you."

[instituteled-a]

@heyerald | cont.

      "Iᴛ ᴡɪʟʟ be, eventually." Not quite dismissive; while he still very much stands with the position that Jon needs to make most experiences for himself, grow into the role carved out for him and doing quite well so far, almost better than expected in some ways (even if, naturally, it might not look that way for the Archivist himself, but that's because the grand picture is still closed to him. Not for that much longer and he'll come to understand, come to know why this all was necessary, come to see), there lays the conclusion that maybe some things need to be explained. Some smaller things to help set everything else into place. Not too much as to not misdirect where things are going, of course; there are some things that one can only prepare towards in a wrong way, actually diminishing any chances of success.

      Of course, that concept had not taken well with Jon, so, a compromise then.

      "You've still got a lot ahead, of course. Still have to grow into your own power. But you already know more than you should, you admitted as much. You, too, are tethered to the Eye and feed as it gets fed; and it doesn't just take away from you." A pause then. Careful words, just enough. "A thousand eyes, and all of them connected. Eventually you won't need just your own to see anymore."

[campnursing]

To tell the truth, I am perplexed.

OFF | @heyerald​

     "Yᴏᴜ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ saying things like that. What I don't get is what it is that sets you off. You never specify, just keep saying that 'everything' is odd to you, but it can't potentially be. If it were, then we wouldn't even be able to communicate to start with. We wouldn't speak even remotely a similar language, but it's weird to you that the birds do as well. I simply don't understand what of it strikes you as weird and what not and how." He's trying to be open about this. They have people from all types of backwater places, after all, the small town Juniper came from was several hundred years behind everyone else. There's logic to that, so they simply have to explain every new technology to him and that's that. But whatever's up with this fella, well, it's just entirely random. Right now, the thing that seemed to strike him as odd was the current deep red shade of the sky, as if that wasn't just the weather. Can't help if he doesn't understand the pattern.

     "I really don't know what things are and aren't issues to you."

[ofkirkwall]

“I’ll be alright once I dry out.”

twilight zone | @heyerald​

     "Tʜᴀᴛ's ɴᴏᴛ how this works. Get the fuck up."

     His wounds look bad, she's not going to lie, and moving him might actually be worse. It will certainly make the blood flow faster, and it's not near a place where she can simply apply some pressure bandage and hope for the best. There's an option, of course, but she doesn't much like it and she suspects he will even less. But it's better than bleeding out in the tunnels while there's things stalking the hallways.

     " — do you trust me? Doesn't really matter if you do or not, it's going to hurt like a bitch, but it's better than the alternative." She's already pulling out her knife to set a non-deep, non-dangerous cut down her good wrist, holding it in a shaking hand before making a quick swipe, and pressing the burnt hand into the quelling blood, just a bit, not too much — and then against his gashing wound to cauterize it with the reawoken heat.

[flamestoked]

i know i'll do something crazy and just ruin the whole thing.

"Mʜᴍ. Yᴇᴀʜ. That does sound like you."

He could be supportive. He could say that no, this won't happen. He could say he has Jon's back (which he has, even if sometimes more begrudgingly than other times). He could be nice about it. Or simply sound less cheerful than he does right now. But in his experience, trying to talk Jon out of that mood by actively listening and being supportive doesn't help much. It's not that he won't do that, later, when he's a bit more calmer, but first it's more important to get him out of his head before he gets in too deep and sulks.

"Remember the time we had to pick up crickets for the lizard Artifacts kept around, and it was fucking hot, and you didn't want to smash them in your bag so you put them on the cash table where we also got some books and told the horrified cashier it's lunch without specifying it was for, you know, a lizard? Sure sounds like you."

[instituteled]

@heyerald​ inquired:  ‘it’s a personal journal, and therefore it’s private.’ (folkLORE AU)

     "A��ᴅ ᴡʜᴀᴛ secrets could you possibly keep? You hardly ever leave here." There's a considerable amount less of that childish aura here, in the walls of their own home. Well, of course: technically his, and albeit the younger spends more time inside the walls than he does by now, it doesn't seem to stick at all to Jon. But there's less need to pretend here, even if it's only partly a game. Fingers still on the spine of the little book that Jon seems so insistent to get back, and ah. He thought he raised him better than to keep secrets, for what need is there for them in between a family? Disappointing, and the initial flare up is anger, is to make sure the other one will not come up with such silly ideas again, but it shows only in the quivering of a smile and fangs bared for a second too long.

     Maybe he's too harsh on the kid. Maybe that's why they don't get along. He's trying, but —

     "Fine then. I'd prefer you wouldn't attempt to keep such things, but at the very least take better care of them." Another moment of hesitation (not a heartbeat, there is no such thing between the two of them) before he holds it out, then. "I trust you, but it goes both ways. How long I will be able to do so when you don't extend the same to me I don't know. I'm trying, Jon."

     Ungrateful little brat.

[archaeval]

@heyerald liked x ;

THE SMILE RUBY WORE HAD BEEN CRAFTED specifically to get under his skin. It was almost overly friendly, with a wicked hunger brewing underneath. “Good Msr. Bouchard has insisted you take the day off,” Ruby said. He hadn’t, of course, but if Magnus had an issue with it, he could come down here himself. “You’ve been working too hard, Dear Mister Simms, and I’ve been informed that the only time you relax is when forced.”

She placed an elegant hand down on the tape recorder, pushing it off to the side, almost catlike. “And, well. I am here already visiting friends. I may as well show you my secret hideaway, no?”

[hauntshot]

“Our choices always matter to someone, somewhere.”

@heyerald

     "I'ᴅ sᴀʏ that's an understatement in your case."

     Honestly, what does he expect of her now? To tell him, aw, it's not that bad? That they all made shit choices? No. That's his responsibility, and she's not the person for his little sob show. He can be glad enough she's worked on herself enough to not be downright hostile during their conversations, but that only means so much when he tries to start some kind of "we are all the same" talk.

     "You made your bed, Jon. We all suffer from your choices. You want sympathy, ask your boyfriend." She doesn't mean to sound so bitter, but it's hard not to. It's really fucking hard. "Otherwise, fixing this mess is all I care about."

[sweaterstained]

a half-laughed apology. "sorry, it's, ah - it's getting too long." an understatement, really. Jon has had long hair for years now and all his attempts at keeping it under control have succeeded only partly, but the new state of the world seems to have changed this too. when Martin holds him or is just any closer to him, Jon feels it getting in the way, impossibly long, too long to be normal or... or human anymore. (it's not any surprising, is it. he greets that realization with little to no shock on his part.) he pulls a lock behind his ear, as if that were enough. "i can try to pull it up, but i doubt it'd be any useful."

@heyerald

     Hᴇ sʜᴀᴋᴇs his head before Jon is even halfway done with his sentence, that apology for something not needing an apology, and reaches up to bury both his hands in the mess of hair. It sure could use some love — at this length it probably gets all tangled up from even just looking at it, and if nothing else, so at least it does get all over, well, everything when they are doing something akin to laying down. (Not sleeping. It's never sleeping. More some rest for the brain than the body, really, and best not to think too much about that.) Of course, he assumes it's a lot more bothersome to Jon, having to deal with that himself, but personally, he doesn't mind much. Likes it, even.

     "It suits you." And he gets to run his hands all through it, so it's not at all anything he'd complain about.