Pilgrim

disclaimer

there is no one piece of media for this au (fic, comic, etc), it's a collaborative au proposed by me based on a comment from @jackdaw-sprite then spun into a whole thing through the effort of the people. thank you to everyone who's chimed in to make this the worst possible experience for the characters <3

premise

louis, a ghost, possesses legundo's body. whuh oh! whump ensues!

now this au, by virtue of being a collaborative effort, is very malleable. but here are some common ideas

main important idea is the conflict between doc being trapped inside of his own body unable to help and losing himself vs his belief that he's more useful when he lets louis take his life. he's watching himself carry out actions on autopilot yet again (name of tha au comes from a line like that from doc in the finale), but it's fine, right? because louis is a good man. this au started because I wanted to force doc to consider his life's value, especially helped by...

team power of friendship: apo and cleo are BIG not okay with this, for a variety of reasons. they team up and rope a reluctant abolish into helping get doc his body back

there's no set timeline ofc but generally it takes place around session 5

louis is Literally Nice. he Means Well. I wanted to play with the horror of a louis that is a nice man, completely sincere, a caring person that fits onto owen's pedestal but is still. you know. stealing a guy's life and fine with that. he says all the right things, maybe he even helps make peace in oakhurst! but he's been dead for so long, and with the doctor's generous sacrifice, he finally has a chance to live again. he will not deny his owen the chance to spend eternity with him.

owen turns legs's body and louis and owen move into the castle

legs and louis cannot communicate internally. legs has moments of control over himself that wane over time, and it happens involuntarily a lot with legs just breaking out into uncontrollable sobs

owen is getting a gold medal in mental gymnastics. so is shelby, actually

there's really no set ending! maybe legs gets his body back and has many consequences with that, maybe owen and louis lalala into the sunset, who knows!

important info

THE GENESIS (jackdaw's original comment)

THE OG POST (there are a TON of good tags and additions on this post. I'll be putting full writing things separately but there were a lot of tangents so I'm not linking every divergent point, sorry)

jackdaw's tumblr ficlet (legs being changed by louis's presence)

@mytoomanybookstoread's tumblr ficlet (louis's effects on doc)

this ask that I got about cleo and apo in this au which spawned some great additions

my fic, "create in me a clean heart" ^^ (drift sitting with legs while he's back in control)

@venusplantt's tumblr ficlet (louis being literally nice about possession ^^)

jackdaw's post about legs already being a freak about owen prior to possession

@clovarts's tumblr ficlet (louis gaining control slowly)

@rainydaydecaf's fic, "compromised" (following the premise and running with it)

@blockcat-safari's tumblr ficlet (cleo getting a well deserved yelling session)

cat's post about this version of louis (and the many additions on it)

@qwerty-queer's fanart (of pre full possession louis & legs)

@badalloc's post about how owen's perception of louis could shift (and the many additions on it)

+ the peanut gallery (other characters' general opinions on this situation. check the additions on the original post of the tier list for some cool insight into some characters!!)

(columbo voice) just one more thing

if you make anything for the autopilot au and/or stuff inspired by it then feel free to tag me I would love to see it :D oh also if I missed any additions on my link list then I am sorry :( I am not infallible

We already know he doesnt like to kill, obviously. He doesn't want to be used, he doesn't want to be a weapon, that's not what he wants.

And yet we see him slowly meld into the role.

It starts with the rebels, which makes sense. They poisoned people he cared about, almost killed them. Looking even further back, they bombed his home with his own creation. It makes sense. And even with that, he's talked about how much he hates that the act itself was so easy. He's talked to Sausage, and he's talked to Pyro, and both have given answers that amount to the same: The first time is never easy, but it does get easier.

Legs doesn't want it to get easier.

But we can see how it does.

We can see how easy it was for him to challenge AJ, to take her outside and fight her.

We can see how easily he was able to cut down the rebels when rescuing Pyro and Maddy, without having access to his magic and only using his knife.

How easy it was to shove one of the rebels into the Iron Wheel and watch them dissolve.

And today, we could see from someone else's perspective, how easy it was for him to contain Oli, how easy it was for him to back him back into the lab and question him until he got the answers he needed.

Because he saw Oli as a threat. He never told Oli were the lab was, he shouldn't know.

Legs doesn't want killing to get easier, but it already is easier. It's easier when he can tell himself there's a good reason to do it.

The man sat watching a place in the open air in front of him. His eyes never wavered from that spot. He wasn't even breathing, but after Oakhurst and death itself that didn't bother Legs. He was barely breathing himself. Each inhale and exhale was merely out of habit. The man glanced over and Legs shuddered with an awful sense of déjà-vu. The man had long white hair, soft face, and too familair clothing.

"Hello?" Legs called, voice rough. The man startled. He hesitated to speak the name he wanted to call out, like it would break what semblance of peace was left in him.

"Hello," the man's voice was quiet and full of grief. "Apologies. I'm usually much better company."

"So I've heard," Legs had to admit he was curious about the man he had heard so little about.

"I didn't realize rumors had spread to the land of the living," the man finally looked away from the spot on the ground.

"I got used to the impossible about two months ago," he joked.

"Well. I might not be waiting here much longer anyway, so let the rumors spread."

"Oh?" A chill ran down his back at the thought that Owen might show up in this place, for this man's vigil to be over.

"I won't bore you with my life story" the man's voice cracked. "It looks like you had an eventful crossing."

"It was peaceful, in the end," Legs admitted. He had allowed himself that one selfish luxary.

"Good. That's good. But the rest wasn't?"

"I have enough blood on my hands. I'll leave it at that."

"And yet you're still here," the man commented. Legs stilled. He had hoped the gates were different from the stories of his youth. "Don't be so surprised. In life we rarely see the whole view."

"If this is what I think it is, I have a feeling I won't be here much longer."

The man smiled and stared at that spot on the floor again. "No. I don't think you will."

Legs almost sighed in relief.

"If you were going down with him you would have already."

"Louis," Legs greeted the man.

"There is someone kind in charge. You only stay here if you ask. They understand that we are not creatures that like waiting in uncertainty."

"And you waited. For him," he added needlessly.

"Am I wrong to love him still?" Louis whispered. Legs shifted uncomfortably.

"I don't think I'm the one you should ask."

"He used to be able to tell the birds apart from their songs along. There was one robin that would only ever eat if Owen was there, watching for foxes."

Owen slammed an axe into his skull. Blood ran down his neck as Owen pinned him to the ground and the stars went dim.

Legundo always did have a temper.

"He killed my town," Louis said, staring at that spot in the distance. "Not a single one was spared from his wrath."

Legs stayed quiet.

"There were children that had never met him, or me, in the town hall as he burned it. Children he would have seen grow up and raise children of their own."

Owen trapping him on the top of the watchtower. The pain of flesh tearing as he ripped his arm from Owen's teeth.

"And he did it for me." Louis's voice was flat, dead. "Try as might I can't hate him for it. I don't love him for it, but I can't bring myself to hate him."

"He talked about you," Legs fought to keep his voice civil.

"And I can't bring myself to hate him for what he did to you."

Trust. It was everything Legs could have asked for, an opportunity to help and bond. All it took was some blood and some pain, small things to offer. In the end it cost him everything.

"He could have been so much more," Louis mourned. "He was so much more than what he was to you. He- he buried himself, his true self when I fell."

"He could have been," Legs reluctantly agreed.

"But he wasn't," Louis finished. "And yet I love him."

Legs' hands began to shake and he closed his eyes. At one point he could have loved Owen. His wit, his strong convictions, his grounded nature. Owen's teeth dug into his neck and tore out the ligaments and muscles so that even that first scar would be gone forever. Suddenly Legundo couldn't take this any longer. His curiousity of who this story of a man was, was overtaken by disgust and horror and grief. It wasn't directed towards the man beside him. These were familiar feelings, how he felt about himself.

"He wasn't always like that."

"But he chose to be, in the end," Legs stood, he felt shaky. Unbalanced.

"And that matters just as much as who we choose to be in the middle," Louis said. Legs blinked, and Louis offered through tears: "He was dragged down in fire and brimstone."

Legundo couldn't tell if it was relief, grief, or grim acceptance that washed over him. He didn't deserve to feel relief when he deserved to be down there with him. Owen did not deserve his grief. Grim acceptance felt too small of an emotion to circle the rage and pain and betrayal that refused to leave his chest.

However, Legundo could leave. Perhaps the wrongness of him walking through those gates would be better than this company.

"I'm sorry," Louis offered.

"It was never your fault," Legs offered. Even the rage in his heart wasn't Louis's fault. Legundo was aware enough to know that.

"Neither was it yours," Louis said.

Legs nodded and turned away, letting Louis believe that for his own sake. The gates didn't swing open magesticly for him. There were no trumpets sounding his entry. There was a simple latch that he lifted as he pushed the gates open himself, like walking out into a fenced garden. The field across from him was wider than he could possibly imagine. Perhaps it was big enough for him to find a piece of lesser paradise, far from anyone it would bother.

Maybe one day Legs would be fine with Owen having his own patch of paradise here, far from him and together with the kind man who would wait for eternity. For now, Legs took a step forward and hoped he never had to relive fangs in his neck ever again.

Despite his best intentions, his words have his fledgling at his side in an instant. A hand is pressed to his forehead, so blessedly cool that, even if it weren't Owen, Louis would still lean into the contact.

"This is why we should have already turned you," Owen mutters furiously. "Human bodies are so weak, they fail so easily–"

Louis laughs. "My heart, I said unwell, not dying."

"At least let someone look at you–"

"Like a doctor?" Louis asks with a smile.

Owen falters as he realises the irony. The moment passes, and he mutters aside, "Quacks, the lot of them. What do you mean you're unwell?"

"It's nothing."

"Clearly it's not just nothing–"

"It's merely my wrists are clammy," Louis says, before his fledgling can fret further. He brushes a thumb over his own – well, the doctor's, if he's being specific – wrist, and clears away the gathering moisture. "And my throat, and my back..."

Louis trails off, because Owen is staring at him, but no longer as if he's afraid his love is about to drop dead. He sniffs. A twitch flickers at the corner of his mouth. "Don't you know what sweating is?"

"I know what sweating is," Louis replies, a touch sharper than he means to be. Academically, he acknowledges that mortals perspire – a truth universally unavoidable to those with preternatural senses – but he had never considered it beyond the basics. He'd always taken it for granted (in a "not really dwelling on it" sort of way) that the effect was localised to a few specific points.

Spirits, he didn't realise how leaky humans were.

"It's been a long time since I experienced it from the inside," he says instead. Then, for emphasis, because he can still see Owen battering down the hatches of a smile, "My elbows are sweating."

It's a distinctly unpleasant feeling. Elbows shouldn't be allowed to sweat. Armpits: fine. That's half their job. But elbows? Elbows are jumped-up hinges; they have no business sweating.

"I see."

"Love of my life, sun of my day, moon of my night," Louis croons, although the effect is somewhat diminished on human vocal chords, "I do not feel like you are giving this its due gravitas."

"I think I am giving this exactly its due gravitas."

"The only way eyeballs should leak is through tears." Louis can feel the sweat when he blinks, pooling in the dimples around his eyes and along his crow's feet. Spirits, even the wrinkes of his brow are moist.

Owen presses a kiss to his forehead, in an echo of the way Louis once did to a reclusive lumberjack. The fact that he does not linger, however, is proof enough to Louis that he is discernably suffering from the heat.

"The weather is unseasonably warm, and you are only mortal. I fear there's not much you can do about it."

"Complain?"

"Besides that." Owen sits back and assesses Louis. Or, rather, the body he inhabits. Louis can tell by the faint tilt of the head, he's listening. "Your heart is fast, though. You probably should move to somewhere cooler."

Louis grimaces. Elder vampires don't grimace but, then again, he's not an elder. Not anymore. And grimacing came with the body – there's something about the tunnel-like design of the castle's crypt that unsettles his host. He's not sure if it's a human thing or just a Legundo thing, but it's damn inconvenient.

Maybe it'll pass when he's turned.

Owen's hands are at his elbow, ushering him to his feet as if he's an old man – and the doctor isn't, not really; he's simply surrounded by youths and immortals – and Louis realises his love is talking.

"...sometimes think you forget you're only human – when did you last drink anything?"

"Recently," Louis hedges. In his defence, he knows the doctor was precious better about looking after himself. And he had a lifetime of being human.

As Louis stands, the world flickers. He feels himself stagger, nearly fall, but Owen's grip keeps him upright. He laughs, abashed at his own mortifying fragility. He leans into Owen's support.

"Perhaps not that recently," he concedes.

Owen doesn't reply immediately. His grip is... tight, tighter than it was a moment ago. There's more to the hold than simply saving his love from an embarrassing trip.

"Beloved?" Louis prompts.

"Louis?"

Owen's voice is strained, fraught. Afraid, Louis realises, and there's only one thing that can truly frighten his fledgling. He'll have to be more careful in future, and try to avoid any sudden reminders of the mortality of his vessel.

Owen had responded so badly to Louis' first death, after all.

"Apologies, it appears I may have misjudged how frequently these human bodies need sustenance," Louis says. "Did I black out?"

The fear abates in Owen. It doesn't leave. He looks away, and begins to lead them towards the castle. "It was only for a moment. Come on. We should head back before you do yourself an injury."