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deercountry2022-09-18 01:29 pm
likethelight) wrote in deercountry2022-09-18 01:29 pm
Entry tags:
All that I am
Who: Allen Walker and Shouto Todoroki with guest appearances by The Fourteenth...
What: September Paleblood effects, and getting trapped in a version of Allen's horrific world and life for a time courtesy of a cursed book/the Absolute Immersion prompt 🙂 Many CW for mentions and flashbacks of Allen's very abusive childhood. also red light districts. (to date: pet death/abuse, child abuse, suicidal impulses of a child)
When: Later September
Where: Their house, and then Victorian England sorta
[ When Shouto had become blind, it had been Allen who fret and fussed more than he needed to. Hovering by his side and always ready to take his arm and steer him gently this way or that, explaining whatever the goings-on were with an animated chatter born first from concern and then increasingly just out of enjoying conversing so later on. Describing the world and especially the people around them like someone reading a particularly good story aloud might and getting caught up in it with an actual delight.
It wasn't so bad for him after all, he'd say, since he lost first his sense of taste (that was insulting but something he dealt with just by pouting at dinnertime) and then touch. Annoyances more than anything, nothing that bad. Touch bothered him more than he thought it would, leaving him staring down at his hands with an unsettled expression from time to time when he thought no one was looking, but he tried to avoid letting that on.
When Allen lost his sense of sight, he became almost unsettlingly... quiet, actually. Not complaining even a little. But off, perpetually distracted and a little jumpy at the slightest noise or sense of movement. With it ironically around the same time Shouto finally regained his own vision. Something he expressed relief for -- it'd be rather silly and unfortunate for them to both lose their sense of sight at the same time, wouldn't it? -- but that was a little hollow too.
Whether Shouto thought to read to him or it happened by accident when Allen was half-dozing near him one day when he asked him out of bored senseless curiosity what he was reading, it was one of the few things that made him perk up. Even if he usually dozed off on him, it was comfortably and amicably so and eased a lot of his restlessness. Something he started to look forward to and ask him a little more eagerly each time what he was reading that day.
Today, he wrinkled his nose at the smell of this new book when he came back with it. Musty and old, and something that just... unsettled him on some very deep, instinctive level. Like if black magic had a smell. Easy enough to pass off at the explanation it was handed to him from someone in Gaze offering free books to passerby, everything there was a little weird and derelict, and the explanation it was a story (apparently) about an exorcist who saved souls was enough to both baffle and intrigue him. Weirdly... spot on, wasn't that? But curiosity alone was a good enough reason for him to shelve any misgivings and settle in, leaning his chin on his shoulder and peering over like he was actually trying to peek at the pages he couldn't see. Also, Shouto's monotone could put anyone at ease (and to sleep). Allen's disarmed and lulled off pretty quickly, relaxing as the tale begins and meanders vaguely around a nameless boy who loved too much. Who was thrown at odds against the home he had always known first for wanting to save those they wanted him to destroy, and then for finding out he was fated to become their enemy and the very thing that would destroy them and the world.
Allen stops dozing off and becomes very awake. Very quiet, and very still.
Shouto can get to the part where the boy says goodbye and leaves in order to keep his home safe, and that's when Allen will fumble for his hand. Grasping his wrist tightly with alarmed urgency. ]
Shouto. [ It's laced with a strange sort of fear, a rising panic. Stop reading.
It's also too late.
Reality... warps. Uncomfortably so, like vertigo but pulling your soul inside-out instead of your stomach. It feels like falling. Falling forward into freefall, which... is accurate. At first it feels like falling into a vacuum, and then the wind is quickly rushing past their ears. They burst through what feels like a thin glass pane of light that shatters harmlessly around them and melt away, geometric patterns in the sky, and the air is crisp and cold; the first kiss of winter, and for the first time smelling clean and entirely without the odor of blood, decay, and industry that clings to Trench. Into the middle of a city park, rows of brick Victorian buildings lining the sides of it with a clocktower and castle in the distance.
They're also about fifty feet up in the air, upside-down and in rapid freefall. ]
What: September Paleblood effects, and getting trapped in a version of Allen's horrific world and life for a time courtesy of a cursed book/the Absolute Immersion prompt 🙂 Many CW for mentions and flashbacks of Allen's very abusive childhood. also red light districts. (to date: pet death/abuse, child abuse, suicidal impulses of a child)
When: Later September
Where: Their house, and then Victorian England sorta
[ When Shouto had become blind, it had been Allen who fret and fussed more than he needed to. Hovering by his side and always ready to take his arm and steer him gently this way or that, explaining whatever the goings-on were with an animated chatter born first from concern and then increasingly just out of enjoying conversing so later on. Describing the world and especially the people around them like someone reading a particularly good story aloud might and getting caught up in it with an actual delight.
It wasn't so bad for him after all, he'd say, since he lost first his sense of taste (that was insulting but something he dealt with just by pouting at dinnertime) and then touch. Annoyances more than anything, nothing that bad. Touch bothered him more than he thought it would, leaving him staring down at his hands with an unsettled expression from time to time when he thought no one was looking, but he tried to avoid letting that on.
When Allen lost his sense of sight, he became almost unsettlingly... quiet, actually. Not complaining even a little. But off, perpetually distracted and a little jumpy at the slightest noise or sense of movement. With it ironically around the same time Shouto finally regained his own vision. Something he expressed relief for -- it'd be rather silly and unfortunate for them to both lose their sense of sight at the same time, wouldn't it? -- but that was a little hollow too.
Whether Shouto thought to read to him or it happened by accident when Allen was half-dozing near him one day when he asked him out of bored senseless curiosity what he was reading, it was one of the few things that made him perk up. Even if he usually dozed off on him, it was comfortably and amicably so and eased a lot of his restlessness. Something he started to look forward to and ask him a little more eagerly each time what he was reading that day.
Today, he wrinkled his nose at the smell of this new book when he came back with it. Musty and old, and something that just... unsettled him on some very deep, instinctive level. Like if black magic had a smell. Easy enough to pass off at the explanation it was handed to him from someone in Gaze offering free books to passerby, everything there was a little weird and derelict, and the explanation it was a story (apparently) about an exorcist who saved souls was enough to both baffle and intrigue him. Weirdly... spot on, wasn't that? But curiosity alone was a good enough reason for him to shelve any misgivings and settle in, leaning his chin on his shoulder and peering over like he was actually trying to peek at the pages he couldn't see. Also, Shouto's monotone could put anyone at ease (and to sleep). Allen's disarmed and lulled off pretty quickly, relaxing as the tale begins and meanders vaguely around a nameless boy who loved too much. Who was thrown at odds against the home he had always known first for wanting to save those they wanted him to destroy, and then for finding out he was fated to become their enemy and the very thing that would destroy them and the world.
Allen stops dozing off and becomes very awake. Very quiet, and very still.
Shouto can get to the part where the boy says goodbye and leaves in order to keep his home safe, and that's when Allen will fumble for his hand. Grasping his wrist tightly with alarmed urgency. ]
Shouto. [ It's laced with a strange sort of fear, a rising panic. Stop reading.
It's also too late.
Reality... warps. Uncomfortably so, like vertigo but pulling your soul inside-out instead of your stomach. It feels like falling. Falling forward into freefall, which... is accurate. At first it feels like falling into a vacuum, and then the wind is quickly rushing past their ears. They burst through what feels like a thin glass pane of light that shatters harmlessly around them and melt away, geometric patterns in the sky, and the air is crisp and cold; the first kiss of winter, and for the first time smelling clean and entirely without the odor of blood, decay, and industry that clings to Trench. Into the middle of a city park, rows of brick Victorian buildings lining the sides of it with a clocktower and castle in the distance.
They're also about fifty feet up in the air, upside-down and in rapid freefall. ]
1/2
The muffled little sound that escapes him at being pulled close isn't quite a squeak; it isn't that surprised because honestly he shouldn't be surprised. But he'll always be—always be startled and amazed at things like that—because that's how he is, and he sweeps an arm up around Shouto in response, gripping onto him at first in surprise, but... easing then. Jittery and uncertain one moment, slowly unwinding and relaxing against him the next. Is this... what's normal now? He's quiet, letting his hand run hesitantly up Shouto's back like that's a very new sort of thing to him, mapping out the line of his shoulder blade with lightly fanned fingers and just feeling warm skin. Doesn't realize he's been holding his breath as he blinks for a moment, staring at the light mark he'd left on his throat. His other hand curls and he digs his fingers in self-warning into his palm. Because if it is—
If it is, I...
He shakes his head lightly, almost like chiding himself, and bites the inside of his lip when Shouto kisses the top of his scar so he doesn't cry. He leans up into it instead, like being baptized in a bittersweet joy so overwhelming his heart might burst from it. ] Mm.
Goodnight... [ A light brush of fingertips along his jaw encourages him to lean down so Allen can kiss him too, catching his mouth intimately with his own in something warm and sweet. Something that starts to linger a bit too long, before he reluctantly pulls back before it becomes anything heated. He presses a chaste kiss his cheek immediately after, as if in apology... and he snags the corner of the blankets he had fought with earlier and pulls them up around them both. ] ...Shouto.
[ Said so very softly, like he's saying something else instead of what he does, before he tucks back into place. Hooking an ankle lightly around one of Shouto's, he turns his face in to the crook of his neck and just breathes in the faint scent of snowflakes and cinders. Feels his breathing and heart rate slow as his thoughts begin to drift.
It's funny, he wouldn't have thought about it until Shouto asked, but... being asked to show him his past life, this world-- it's nothing Allen is ashamed of, and it's so very dear to him, defined him so thoroughly and utterly when this had still been his world, yet... Being asked to see it, his "world"-- it makes him hesitate. Makes him realize this isn't something most people would want to know, is it? Especially the ugly truths of it he had been grappling with and trying to understand. You want to know the good and the bad, but the bleakness he's come to recognize is so very bleak the moment he had something different to compare that to, even realizing with Viktor that the Order he loved he maybe only loved because he'd known so little that was good...
...so little he actually belonged to anything in this world he had desperately wanted to exist in...
...is that something he should show someone? Truly? Was there really so little in this life he had had that he would ever want to show to someone else? If I could have shown you the Order and everyone there back before that all came crashing down it would be so different, but... He just hugs him a little tighter at that point, something easy to pass off as a subconscious twitch as one falls to sleep, and leaves it for tomorrow.
There's a twinge in his gut, but he's tired and shrugs it off as nothing. ]