#indeath

     they could see themselves growing old in the woods. for centuries, that was all they knew: how the pines reached straight and jagged towards gray skies, how the streams would froth louder when the ice began to melt, where rabbits would dart quick and light to avoid their keen eye. adjusting back to civilization had been vastly more laborious than embracing the craggy mountains and weeping ferns of the wilderness around them.

     “ it's not as cruel as you make it sound. the forest can be unkind, of course - most places are. ” they feel nour's stare on them across the clearing, glittering gold and thoughtful in the air purpled by the promise of the sun rising. theo drags their fingertips down dew-dappled leaves, listens to where the birds have begun to whistle above. “ but they're not survivors here. they're inhabitants. it's their home, right? ” theo muses, mostly to themselves. “ i'm more a survivor of the wood than they are. i came and somehow made it back out. they have no desire to leave. that's not survival. ”

     they glance sidelong at nour, watching where he trails curious fingers over lichen bursting over a whittled trunk. though he no longer holds theo in the breadth of his vision, they know his attention is still on them. they speak a little quieter, cicadas beginning to croon in the spaces between branches.

     “ to me, that's living - not surviving. they flourish here. there's a difference. ”

On the late nights, when there’s no friends or other company to fall back on, she comes here. She’s welcome, safe, and at home amongst the crowd, comfortable within the sea of warm bodies, all there to let loose. Buzzed, drunk, or high, it’s still a safe place. Ebony is only buzzed, coherent enough to ensure her meticulously put together outfit and makeup will not go to waste.

There’s a lull in the music and, briefly, the crows calms down. Some move away to the bar for a drink, catch their breath, or finally get a word in with the lovely stranger they’ve been dancing with. Ebony just breathes, happy to wait for the music to pick back up, until she feels a hand on her arm. Already near the edge of the dance floor, she’s pulled away from the masses and closer to the bar. Once stopped, she catches gold eyes and smiles, confused.

Machines hum. Lights ooze into the room, a nauseating fluorescent green. Something sits on the workbench behind him, a contraption of a million and one wires attached to a timer that isn't yet working. A bomb, maybe. Most likely.

"Awake, are we?" he asks. Edward leans in. "Cognitively— aware? Good. How fortunate you must be to bear witness to something other than the intellectual equivalent of… microwavable dinner." His voice tapers. He unpresses his palms apart then grins, like he's inexplicably pleased. "Are you wondering why you're here? Oh, I'm certain you are. Wondering," he says, amused, "and never knowing!"

His computer hums. A feminine voice breaks the silence. "7:00 PM. Initiating scheduled reminder. Have you eaten dinner, the Riddler?"

     it is still an odd relationship for him, being paired with nour - they are meant to be partners, but he knows that nour is as much a babysitter as he is a comrade. he thinks nour was supposed to leash him both with words and with his supernatural appeal, as one would with someone who would be swayed by vampiric allure. but as an individual who did not respond to nour’s charms and did not feel any sort of pull to his physical attributes, the assignment seemed mostly pointless. or - it had seemed mostly pointless. with time, his desire to know had grown, as his thirst for knowledge always did. he wondered, now: what would it be like to have his heart race with a half-lidded look resting on him? for his fingertips to tingle when nour's hand brushed the sensors lining his?

     he’s careful not to entertain it too much. it would serve only as a disadvantage if he began to be affected by such unnecessary biological responses.

There was a cigarette in his mouth, pinched by an incisor as Corpser came up to the roof of the funeral home. Shacking the pack of cigarettes off to the side of Nour’s head, Corpser took the long way around before dropping down into his folding chair, carton tossed onto the cheap wooden table. 

“Ah! There you are." 

A voice peeps up from not very far at all, and there he is: bold, assuming, and much more leg than any man should know what to do with. Sugarplum tugs fiercely at his shirtsleeve, loses her grip, and backflips midair. There’s a pamphlet in Aster’s hand. He smacks it, proud.

"’Nour Iskander, the wondrous, thund’rous, most stupen'drous of all: London’s moon-haired maestro. Pretty-poppy-hoppy.’ Steady on! I haven’t finished. In fine print, I quote, ‘Not responsible for very-well-raised expectations and never-verily-again enjoying a tune.’” He quirks a brow, inexplicably amused, and perches his elbow on an unused piano. “My dear chum, they are positively smitten by you.”

sentence starters: the invisible life of addie larue by v.e. schwab (accepting)

Neon lights buzz. Viktor raises his hand. "C'mere," he says at last.

He pulls out a neural plug, quick and easy.

It's quiet from there. Nour's vision may have swayed a little. A flash of static, there then gone. You can hear the sound of Vik's boots pushing him over the floor, the wheels of his chair squealing. Something hisses: the incandescent light bulbs, desperate to be replaced.

"Ah… Wrong doctor," it finally comes, and off, as though he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't. Viktor hits a button and the monitors slide back up. He can't ignore the fact that Nour is still here. He tries again. "You --- get used to it," he says, heavy with a nod. "More every year."

Like Jackie, gone just two weeks ago. V, going. Viktor catches a glimpse of Nour --- so pale. Almost a ghost on the operating chair --- and knows he could ask why, only there's a conversation to be had with that; one he could never look in the eye for long. So he won't.