thanks to @spoondrifts for the tag <3 the words were sing, thread, metal, and dive.
But it's not long until the Archives give him worse things to be afraid of than getting caught. Worse things to be afraid of than Gertrudeâs stupid bloody filing system. Things like a woman full of worms, Sashaâs mysterious blond nightmare, anonymous delivery men hauling around singing coffins and off-brand lighters and broad tables that make his head spin. All tauntingly, teasingly out of sight. Then there are the statements, the ones he has to engrave on messy webs of shimmering magnetic string because they make all the computers scream. Reading them makes him feel halfway like he's back in theater, the way every one of the Institute's metaphorical eyes seem to swivel his way when he sets the recorder running, suddenly interested in him the moment he stops being himself. He was always a bit of a method actor, always the sort to lose his senses in the pages of a book, but there is no natural trick of psychology that can account for the way he tastes those statements. He finishes each one shaking and faintly surprised to be in his office, whatever experience he didnât just have still clinging to him in overwhelming technicolor, and it's horrible, but strangely okay, because it's not his horror he's suffering through.
â chronicle of terror, the magnus archives
It wasn't an unfair question to ask, and Sharon had to grasp for an answer. She'd never really considered itâit hadn't been necessary, or maybe she had just been avoiding it. She understood well the importance of ordering one's priorities, accounting for all the contingencies and what ifs, lest all your plans unravel at the first pull of the thread. A clear list of loyalties, and for her, it had never been in question which name marked the top. For years before his death, she'd stuck unerringly to Xerxes's side, bound back and blindfolded as he might've kept her; for years after, she'd forced herself forward through the cold futility of honoring a memory. Now, she was able to do something real, something that mattered, and the picture should've been the same. But then she thought of golden-starlit eyes, deceptively broad shoulders, the face of the man who adored her like a force of nature. Who had stayed with her through screaming rages and storms of grief, who had followed her in lockstep over all these shattered years and persisted. She remembered, in a deep bleeding ache, what it was like to love the living.
â sunshine for disease, pandora hearts
âYou heard me.â Vox mightâve been playing it coy, but the twinned lines of red pixels descending from the corner of his mouth told her he knew exactly what she was demanding. âGet yourself off. You promised me a full demonstration, and I'm not gonna do it for you.âÂ
âWell, yeah, but that isn't really what I meant byââ Vox cut off his own protest with a crackling pop! like a set of speakers getting unplugged mid-playback. By now his screen had grown so bright it almost seemed to shimmer in the labâs gloom, though nothing about his body language suggested reluctance to follow the instructions Velvette had laid out. âActually, you know what? Sure. Fantastic idea. Love the way you think, very innovative. Inspired, even! If you could justâI keep devices for sensory calibration in that drawer over there. The big one, to your left.â
His description hardly narrowed things down, given the room they were in, but Velvette was able to follow the direction of his gestures easily enough. âWhat, can't manage on your own?â
âUh, have you seen my hands?â The point was punctuated by the soft clink of metal as Vox tapped his talons together in clear illustration. Velvette snorted. That, she had to concede, was fair.
â inorganic solidarity, hazbin hotel
His memories wereâfragmented. Everything between putting his hands on Charlie and having his systems crashed was a big, emotional blur, comprehensible only as nonstop sensation and snapshots of especially intense feeling. Alastor, laughing, the length of shimmering blue chain between his wrists snapping in a shower of sparks. Winning and losing and winning again, only for reality to crash down right alongside his reputation with all the numb, suffusive horror of a nightmare. Alastor, absurdly struggling, caught in another predatorâs jaws. The burning thrill of angelic power lighting up every vein and wire as he plugged himself directly into divinityâs jugular, no more barriers or go-betweens or stopgaps to slow him down. Alastor, lying prone and mangled and bleeding in the dirt, still fucking smiling with all the stiff rictus sureness of a corpse. The moment he made up his mind and the moment following, when Velvette ruined it all with a stiletto heel slammed right between his ribs. Everything afterwards came filtered through the distracted fuzz of semi-consciousness. The Might of Lilith crossing its event horizon, angels diving down in droves, everyone but him working together and at some point between then and now it all mustâve turned up roses because he sure as fuck didnât feel double-dead. Far too miserable for that.
â padded collar, hazbin hotel
tagging @persephoneme, @chopstickerz, @hypervoxel, @justanotherloserbaby, @justsomewritingcat, and @terragonn with the words skin, light, power, and tear, if you want to.
