( This is how it was supposed to be (he has been told, anyway). If there is any of "Peter" left now, it's only a body. Only walls made of flesh and bone and blood, a structure, a place to keep the brightness of something Else contained. Maybe it's Wrong, what the People did and how and why, but it worked. The rules were followed (even if they were skewed), the ritual was made complete (even if it came at the cost of too much sacrifice, and too much blood).
The spellwork is binding the way it has to be, and nothing can unlock him from this host body now, except for another rigorous spell cast by those same hands that cast this one, and the death of it β the death of this body. Paimon understands that now, the way he understands things he wasn't able to before. He understands that there was a host before this one, and he understands that it (she) was killed so that he could be freed from it. He remembers what it was to be torn from that gasping body, so much smaller than Peter's. He remembers the unbearable ache of his own existence, how he was forced to exist on the wrong plane.
But it's all so much to process, and understanding comes strangely. He's just as strange, freshly lost and restless and frightened. Too many voices echo within him, and sometimes he tries to claw them out. Other times he tries to claw himself out instead, aware of his own trapped existence within this body (its ribs that feel like a cage) and wanting to be freed of it. It belongs to him now, the way they said it was always supposed to.
But it haunts him, this body. It's a haunted house, filled up with ghosts that whisper sometimes and wail others. He has nightmares now the way he never did, nightmares like Peter so often had, and Paimon just as often rode them through with the boy, felt him whimper and cry and ache, but now he experiences it himself. Torn from sleep like a human, fingers ensnared in sheets, body leaking cold sweat, wet seeping from the corners of his eyes. He doesn't know who he is; he cries out for his mother, father, grandmother. Sometimes his powers spark out of his control, living out what he sees in his dreams β catches things on fire, makes things around him float or crash. Sometimes he crumples inwards too much, limbs and spine bending, twisting, bones threatening to snap. Luna's been able to stop much incident, however it comes, and whenever he gets too bad, his mind begins to scream, and she can hear it β she can come to him, calm him before he destroys things or destroys what's left of "Peter".
But sometimes the nightmares are quiet. So quiet that his mind doesn't scream or cry out, doesn't fizzle with some static that burns too bright and loud. Sometimes, on a night like this, his spirit whimpers very softly and his wet eyes open into the darkness. And sometimes he stays alone, finding smaller places to curl up on his own β under Peter's bed or tucked deeply in his closet, or up in the attic room.
But tonight he is afraid and too small and too alone and he needs to be somewhere safer. There's some part of him still that resists it β entering Luna's room without being invited (and what he'd done once, how he'd frightened her so, a creeping crawling thing so strange). He agonises over it briefly, hands fitful against themselves, sweeping down the hall back and forth. But then he catches his own shadow down the hall and it frightens him all over again, and he wants her to hold Peter again the way she used to β in her bed, tight and warm and safe, and Paimon would be held, too.
But he can't be held that way, because Peter is gone now. The demon's tight throat flutters with soft movement, and he's slipping into Luna room in a way that isn't very human, and he won't touch her but he just needs to be close. To the foot of the bed, he starts to slowly crawl up and into the bottom of warm covers, shuddering softly, wide-eyed. Thenβ he freezes. The covers are moving, she's pulling them back with the soft glow that pulses up under her skin, and he stares, body tensed up, nostrils flaring.
Paimon, she says his name, catches hold of him that way, and he gives a soft wet sound, but it isn't human. For a while he can't speak, not verbally. But things flash through, wild, the shapes of words more than things intentionally uttered. )
Β« scary dark frighten noise eyes sharp hands pull Β»
( A whine breaks through in him, and his fingers dig into the sheets below. Despite having helped Luna through her own over time, he doesn't know how to convey "nightmare", what it is, what it really means, at least not when it's in himself. )
no subject
The spellwork is binding the way it has to be, and nothing can unlock him from this host body now, except for another rigorous spell cast by those same hands that cast this one, and the death of it β the death of this body. Paimon understands that now, the way he understands things he wasn't able to before. He understands that there was a host before this one, and he understands that it (she) was killed so that he could be freed from it. He remembers what it was to be torn from that gasping body, so much smaller than Peter's. He remembers the unbearable ache of his own existence, how he was forced to exist on the wrong plane.
But it's all so much to process, and understanding comes strangely. He's just as strange, freshly lost and restless and frightened. Too many voices echo within him, and sometimes he tries to claw them out. Other times he tries to claw himself out instead, aware of his own trapped existence within this body (its ribs that feel like a cage) and wanting to be freed of it. It belongs to him now, the way they said it was always supposed to.
But it haunts him, this body. It's a haunted house, filled up with ghosts that whisper sometimes and wail others. He has nightmares now the way he never did, nightmares like Peter so often had, and Paimon just as often rode them through with the boy, felt him whimper and cry and ache, but now he experiences it himself. Torn from sleep like a human, fingers ensnared in sheets, body leaking cold sweat, wet seeping from the corners of his eyes. He doesn't know who he is; he cries out for his mother, father, grandmother. Sometimes his powers spark out of his control, living out what he sees in his dreams β catches things on fire, makes things around him float or crash. Sometimes he crumples inwards too much, limbs and spine bending, twisting, bones threatening to snap. Luna's been able to stop much incident, however it comes, and whenever he gets too bad, his mind begins to scream, and she can hear it β she can come to him, calm him before he destroys things or destroys what's left of "Peter".
But sometimes the nightmares are quiet. So quiet that his mind doesn't scream or cry out, doesn't fizzle with some static that burns too bright and loud. Sometimes, on a night like this, his spirit whimpers very softly and his wet eyes open into the darkness. And sometimes he stays alone, finding smaller places to curl up on his own β under Peter's bed or tucked deeply in his closet, or up in the attic room.
But tonight he is afraid and too small and too alone and he needs to be somewhere safer. There's some part of him still that resists it β entering Luna's room without being invited (and what he'd done once, how he'd frightened her so, a creeping crawling thing so strange). He agonises over it briefly, hands fitful against themselves, sweeping down the hall back and forth. But then he catches his own shadow down the hall and it frightens him all over again, and he wants her to hold Peter again the way she used to β in her bed, tight and warm and safe, and Paimon would be held, too.
But he can't be held that way, because Peter is gone now. The demon's tight throat flutters with soft movement, and he's slipping into Luna room in a way that isn't very human, and he won't touch her but he just needs to be close. To the foot of the bed, he starts to slowly crawl up and into the bottom of warm covers, shuddering softly, wide-eyed. Thenβ he freezes. The covers are moving, she's pulling them back with the soft glow that pulses up under her skin, and he stares, body tensed up, nostrils flaring.
Paimon, she says his name, catches hold of him that way, and he gives a soft wet sound, but it isn't human. For a while he can't speak, not verbally. But things flash through, wild, the shapes of words more than things intentionally uttered. )
Β« scary dark frighten noise eyes sharp hands pull Β»
( A whine breaks through in him, and his fingers dig into the sheets below. Despite having helped Luna through her own over time, he doesn't know how to convey "nightmare", what it is, what it really means, at least not when it's in himself. )
Β« afraid Β»