#this one doesn't have the same pizazz as last year's undead acrobat piece

[razzle-zazzle]

Whumptober Day 27: you drew stars around my scars, but now i'm bleeding

Scars + "Let me see."

2512 Words; Undead Acrobat

TW for discussion of death, blood, brief panic attack

AO3 ver

Being dead was weird.

Well, maybe not dead dead, not anymore, but having been dead was weird. Dying itself wasn’t weird, just painful. Really painful. And Dion could scarcely remember what came between his death and his… was rearising the right word? Undying? Waking up?

It was after waking up in that abandoned hospital that things became weird.

Exhaustion was to be expected, Dion supposed. It was like he slept in too late too long, his body heavy with the desire to lie back down and sleep. Everything had been exhausting those first few days after waking up, to the point where he could barely talk for most of it. He had had to lean on Gisu when the Pelican first arrived, still unsteady on his own two feet—which sucked, and Dion hated that his balance was so screwed up. Or, well, he would have at the time, if he’d had the energy.

But even when he was able to walk on his own two feet without wanting to collapse, exhaustion still lingered. It’d leave him alone, most days, but not every day—

Case in point: today.

Dion groaned, his whole body as heavy as lead. He stared at the ceiling of his tent. His head felt like it was full of cotton. He didn’t want to move at all.

But it was like he was too tired to sleep, too—all he could do was lay there and wait. Wait for his body to stop feeling like one giant hole, wait for his parents to come to his tent entrance all concerned, wait for his body to remember that he wasn’t not a corpse anymore, and hadn’t been for a while.

Being not-quite-dead was weird. And annoying.

Footsteps came to a stop outside his tent. “Bambino?” His mother’s worry floated in through the closed flap. It was like acid down Dion’s throat.

(Her hand cupping his face when he first walked back into camp with Raz, disbelief in her eyes.

She had thought he was dead. And she wasn’t even wrong.)

Dion moved his arm for better leverage. A monumental effort. But it was better than letting his mother worry—

“‘M fine,” Dion mumbled, “Jus’ tired.” Really tired. Could-barely-sit-up tired. Absolutely exhausted. He pushed, trying to lift himself into something resembling sitting—he made it about halfway up before he fell back down onto his cot.

“If you’re sure…” God, Dion hated this. He wasn’t dead anymore! Everything should be fine! His mother continued talking. “Just try not to spend all day in there, okay?”

“Okay.” Dion managed. He’d… probably be able to get back up by dinner. Probably.

Or he might be dropping dead again, that was also a possibility. Just not one Dion wanted to consider.

His mother’s footsteps left, leaving Dion alone with his exhaustion. He stared at the ceiling of his tent, at the fabric separating him from the rest of the world.

He wanted to get up. He should get up.

But he couldn’t. Exhaustion pinned him down like so many hands holding onto him, dragging him down down down until he felt like one giant hole, like a void of nothingness that existed only to lay still and silent—

Dion huffed. Being undead was weird. And awful. It was better than being dead dead, sure, but—

He was almost too exhausted to be upset.

+=+=+=+=+

“Dion!” His father greeted, when Dion finally found the energy to drag himself out of his tent that evening. “Can you help me with the lights? One of the bulbs must have blown.” He gestured to the fairy lights, only a third of which were working.

“Okay.” Dion joined his dad in pulling out the dark bulbs and replacing them, one by one, trying to find the bad bulb. They sat there in silence for a little bit, just testing bulbs, putting the unblown ones back on the wire—

Dion unscrewed one of the unlit bulbs, and put in the replacement bulb. The whole string lit up—

Dion jolted, withdrawing his hand as though he’d burned it. His fingers pricked with the tiny shock he’d gotten, and Dion flinched back.

Electricity coursing up and down his veins, bright and hot, spasming through his muscles until he could barely even twitch—

The whole world threatened to press in and crush him. Dion couldn’t breathe.

His father’s hands were heavy on his shoulders, a grounding presence. “Breathe, son.” He urged.

Dion inhaled, and choked on it. He tried again, and managed to get as far as the exhale. He shuddered, his next breath coming out shakily, and kept trying.

Slowly, the panic ebbed away, until Dion was all that remained.

His father’s eyes traced the curve of the lichtenberg figure creeping up Dion’s neck, onto his jaw. “I’m sorry.” He murmured. “I didn’t mean to upset you like that.”

Dion shook his head. “It wasn’t you.” He said. “I just…” He huffed. “I don’t think I can help you with any electronics. Not anytime soon.”

His father nodded. “Of course. Take all the time you need, Dion.”

Dion grimaced. His scar was just one big reminder of the fact that he had died, had been fried like a piece of chicken—

Breathe. Right. Right. It was okay. Dion was fine. He wasn’t going to be electrocuted again.

(If only he could make his body believe that.)

+=+=+=+=+

If there was one thing Dion would take to his grave (...his second grave?), it’d be the fact that he had died at all.

Gisu and Morris had agreed, for differing reasons. Gisu didn’t want necromancy to become known by the wider world. Morris didn’t want to talk about Dion dying at all. They were both good reasons to lie and say that Dion was just in a coma, sure—

But Dion’s reason was the most important, he felt. He didn’t want his family to ever know that he had died. Didn’t want them to worry, didn’t want them to stress. There were more important things to worry about, especially since Dion wasn’t dead anymore.

But wanting something did not make it come easy. Forget the bouts of lethargy leaving him barely able to move—Dion’s body kept finding new ways to make everyone around him worry. And to make his life harder. Unlife? Undeath. Ways to make his undeath harder.

Dion grimaced as he bent forwards, touching his toes with ease—and pain. His joints were killing him today—and his mother was making worried mutters over how he’d barely touched his breakfast. And he had tried—really!—to eat as much as possible, but the thought of more than a few bites made him want to lie down. Hopefully he’d be hungrier when dinner came. Maybe.

But he wasn’t dropping dead, so maybe everything was fine? Ugh, he couldn’t wait to see Gisu today. She’d probably have some kind of solution for all of this—she was smart like that. And even Morris would be nice to see, awful as he was—only because he knew about Dion’s undeath, of course. There was no other reason for Dion to want to go into that treehouse if Queepie wasn’t there.

Still, Dion did his stretches, ignoring his aching joints. Not like I can die twice. He didn’t know where that joke had come from, but it kept popping up in the back of his mind.

It probably didn’t mean anything, though.

+=+=+=+=+

The movie was going well.

It wasn’t one that Dion had seen before, some old film about a house and a haunted hill, or something—Dion had been paying more attention to the curl of Gisu’s hair and how pretty she was, wow, smart and pretty and somehow interested in him, how lucky was he?

But the movie was going well, and Gisu was sitting next to him, and in the low light of the TV screen—Lizzie had insisted on viewing the movie in the dark, even going so far as to put blackout curtains on the windows of the common room—she looked almost ethereal, like some gorgeous goddess who could do anything she wanted.

Dion supposed that maybe she kind of was—she had brought him back from the dead, afterall. He could sit by her side forever, really. Even if he hadn’t died and she hadn’t brought him back, he’d still want to be by her side, he was sure. It was a strange certainty, but one that Dion didn’t have it in him to doubt.

“So when does the movie get good?” Morris asked, his voice cutting through the gloom. Ugh, right. As much as Dion would have loved to be watching a movie alone with Gisu, Morris was there too. And Lizzie, who wasn’t half as annoying.

Dion stretched his hands out in front of him, cracking his knuckles. “Do you ever shut up?” He asked, leaning forwards to look past Lizzie to Morris.

“Do you?” Morris riposted.

Lizzie groaned. “If you two don’t stop—”

“Wait.” Gisu grabbed Dion’s hand. “Lizzie, turn the TV off.”

“I’m not pausing the movie just so you can make out in the dark.” Lizzie responded. Gisu snorted, flicking her free hand at the TV. A spark glowed on her fingers, then the screen went dark.

“Wh—hey!” Lizzie reached for the remote—

“Look!” Gisu yanked Dion’s hand, shoving it into Lizzie’s face. Dion yelped, but didn’t move to pull his hand from her grip. Her hand was rough, calloused thumb against his wrist—oh, Dion wanted to hold these hands forever, actually.

Lizzie stared for a few moments. “...huh.” She said.

Dion looked at his own hand. What was so “huh” about it—oh. Yeah, that was pretty huh.

Gisu let go of Dion’s hand. “Babe, crack your knuckles again.”

Wordlessly, Dion complied.

The glow grew a little bit brighter, outlining his knuckles in the dark.

“Huh.” Dion said. Wait, could he—he cracked his elbow, which started to glow, too. Okay, this was weird.

Morris laughed, shattering the silence. “Holy—oh my—you’re a glowstick!” He cackled. “Gisu, your boyfriend is a glowstick!” He continued to cackle, his breath coming out in drawn-out squeaks like a deflating balloon.

“Okay, why are Dion’s bones glowing?” Lizzie rounded on Gisu, ignoring Morris’ hysterics. “What did you do?”

Dion froze. He looked at Gisu, who was equally as caught.

“Experiments?” Gisu tried. Which wasn’t far from the truth—though Gisu was adamant that what she had been doing was merely “data collection” and not an actual experiment.

Lizzie started. “On the guy who was just in a coma?”

“Hey, I’m right here!” Dion interjected. He was ignored, Gisu frantically trying to explain the glowing joints without explaining the truth and Lizzie sounding more and more disappointed by the second.

And Morris was still laughing!

Dion leaned back on the couch with a sigh. Being undead was exhausting.

+=+=+=+=+

Slice.

Dion flinched, pulling the knife back to examine the cut he’d just made. Like an idiot. Great. Now he had to bandage his hand, clean the knife and cutting board, and delay lunch. Dion grumbled, muttering under his breath as he left to go grab a bandage. He stopped, his eyes catching on the blood welling up around the cut.

Dion squinted, moving his hand closer to the light. Okay, weird. Maybe it was just his eyes playing tricks on him.

Dion shrugged, and went back to grabbing a bandage. He’d go bug Morris about it later, probably—Gisu told him she’d be busy today, with her mentor (Otto something?), so that left Morris as the person Dion could go to.

Yeah. Dion found the bandages. Yeah, that’s what he’d do.

Just… not until after lunch.

+=+=+=+=+

Dion poked his head in through the open trapdoor. “Hey, asshole.”

Morris didn’t turn around to face him, focused on going through the new records he’d gotten his hands on, humming a tune that Dion didn’t know.

Dion groaned. “I know you can hear me!” Morris’ headphones were nowhere to be found, probably back in his dorm. “Morris!” He started to haul himself up into the treehouse proper.

“There’s no need to yell.” Morris chided. Dion could feel the smug grin on his face.

“Whatever.” Dion hauled himself all the way up. “You’re not busy, right?”

“Super busy.” Morris said dryly. “You’ll have to bother Gisu.” He looked at Dion long enough for Dion to see his stupid smirk, then went back to his records. “So what’d you break this time?”

Dion exhaled slowly. Right. It was just a question. And he knew Morris would listen, for all that he put on a facade saying otherwise.

Dion flicked his eyes up towards the ceiling, following the grain of the wood. “Blood’s not supposed to sparkle, right?” Dion was pretty sure of that. He’d seen blood before. It had never sparkled. Right?

Dion glanced over at Morris, who was staring at him like he’d grown a second head.

Dion looked back at the ceiling, his face heating up. Yeah, it was a stupid question, anyway—

“What.” It wasn’t quite a question and wasn’t quite a statement—more just a noise, really, one that perfectly matched the dumbfounded look on Morris’ face.

Dion’s face flushed. He started to bounce back and forth on the balls of his feet, nervous energy jittering in all of his limbs. “Well, I was helping chop celery for lunch today, right? And I accidentally cut myself,” He held out his bandaged hand, unable to look Morris in the eyes, “And—maybe I was just seeing things, or it was a trick of the light, but—” He stopped, finally looking Morris in the eyes. “My blood. It was glittery.” Like the glitter glue markers Mirtala had gotten as a gift last year, and then proceeded to glitter-fy her favorite stuffed animals with.

Morris stared at Dion for a long moment. Then—

“You’re going to take off that bandage and it’s going to already be healed, isn’t it?” Morris sounded more exasperated than anything else.

Oh, yeah. “Probably.” Dion realized. He was wondering why he’d been hungrier than normal at lunch today. Not quite enough for seconds, but he still ended up eating more than he usually did.

Morris brought his hand to his temple, pinching the bridge of his nose. “First the glowstick joints, now this.” He mumbled. “And why’d you come to me?”

Dion shrugged. “Gisu said she’d be busy, today.” He explained. He didn't exactly mean to make it sound like Morris was second-best, but then again, he was being compared to Gisu. It was kind of impossible not to imply preference.

“Right.” Morris turned back to his records. “Why are we friends, again?”

“Because you just can’t get rid of me.” Dion responded automatically, all of his earlier embarrassment draining away in favor of a cocky grin. “And because I’m just that great to be around.”

“Great?” Morris snorted. “You’re awful.” he complained. But he was smiling.

“You’re worse.” Dion shot back, grinning anyway.

Yeah, being undead was weird. It was exhausting, and sometimes his joints ached in ways Dion didn’t know were possible—

But he wasn’t completely alone, at least. And that was good enough for him.