#sorry these are so long sometimes i'm a dingus who is enamored with the sound of their own words

[merge-conflict]

wip wednesday

been picking at a post-game ending piece, where v is dealing with *gestures widely*. probably going to be rewritten eventually but I enjoyed playing around with a different style.

content warning: soul horror? existential grief?

“Valentina?”

it was a calm voice, a strong voice, wielded in the kind of tone reserved for something feral and dangerous and pathetic. she could not be valentina, and she could not be johnny, could not even be human, but the awful cacophony in her head would not allow her to be nothing.

they had other words for her as they hovered over her, around her, attending like flies to a corpse. there was something wrong inside her which they could not cut out. she was host to some tenacious parasite, and even when they could not find it it was all they saw.

“I’m going to come in now, alright?”

she did not lift her head. best not to see what was seen. the doctor approached cautiously, quietly, shoes squeaking on tile.

“My name is Dr. ____. Would you be angry if I sat here next to you? I’d like to talk with you a little while.”

an impossible question to answer. she was always angry, and there were always so many reasons why. (what else was left?) it was all cut down to bone, everything good stripped as excess. if they did not want her angry they should have let her sleep her bloody dreams and He should have let her die.

“I need an answer, Valentina. Yes or no. You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to, but I still need your answer.”

“No.”

her voice weak. her voice soft like rust. an impression where once something used to be.

“Thank you. Now, how are you feeling?”

her lungs wheezed, a madman’s laughter, but that was hers that was her right and she was weak and tired but her laugh was sharp like a blade and so long as she could hide her face from light it was enough to keep the ground underneath her feet.

“Valentina–“

“No.” Wrong.

this doctor was not stupid. “V?”

agreement could be a sort of silence– if you were petty about it, if you were cornered and angry and helpless like a cat in alley. a fox in a trap. (no. no more. no more–) if you were coiled in and around yourself, where you could not be, but could not afford not to be, that could be yes.

if you were truly an animal you would chew off your limbs, but if you were human there were better options for mortification. she had already been pried from the grip of a monster. no more fingers to hold down the strings. if you were human you could become unhuman, something else something wrong–

“Yes or no.”

“Fuck you.” tired already. where had all the fight gone? out with the blood, always out with the blood. at least now her nerves were no longer screaming. now there was just the hurt, immediate and localized and bleeding into white. (thick and heavy in the fabric. jackie? he was just here. he was always here. where has he gone? out with the blood. out with the blood. out with–)