16 . spring catch-all

[necrolord]

Who: John Gaius and company.
What: Important conversations, old ghosts, bodyswaps.
When: March into April
Where: Trench

Content Warnings: Tagged in headers as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.

Comments

bodyswaps!

[necrolord]

[ Maybe you're on the street, unlucky enough to catch a familiar pair of oil-black eyes. Maybe you're in the Archives, telling John Gaius about blood magic; he's still itching with Darkblood paranoia, gone wired and intent with it. He has the hard-edged energy that means he's one rabbit hole away from doing something reckless, something that might trigger a cascade from mild Corruption to a full-blown case.

Argonaut seems to think a dose of fresh perspective could help him. As it happens, all it might do is put that simmering Corruption on your shoulders, or tip you into a conversation you didn't plan to have. Because suddenly, Sleeper, you're still looking into those inhuman eyes— but they're in your face. ]

[slightlytaller]

....You.

[It was utterly disorienting and foreign to witness his own face from the outside, with those oil-slick bright eyes that gleamed like the nebula of a far off galaxy staring down at him. It was like bearing witness once more to a Grail ritual-- and immediately Waver felt the adrenaline of sheer panic surge through his (John's?) veins.

At this point in his existence in Trench, Waver was both a Vileblood and nearly always at least a little corrupted. It was impossible to be otherwise with the work that he did, but he keenly felt the differences between their blood types almost immediately. The Vileblood had started to mess with his tactile senses to a degree, and the aches and pains that were his baggage after a lifetime of existing on coffee and spite alone had started to not bother him nearly as much. With the Darkblood, however, he did feel it-- the lingering unease that he had heard about over the last month, and a certain... detachment that felt akin to what a conductor leading an orchestra must feel.

Or an ancient tactician guiding an army.

Waver heaved a dramatic sigh-- and, without further warning, grabbed John by the wrist and started dragging him off towards a dark corner.]

Don't bother trying to fight me. I got a hit on Woe twice. I know you don't know magic the way I do.

[necrolord]

[ So: this is new. For a moment John is openly astonished, almost wondering, as he looks at the whites of his own eyes— and then Waver has closed a hand on his wrist, and he goes stumbling along behind, clumsy with his new height. It's refreshing as hell but also terribly inconvenient, being taller. Being different.

He can still feel the life and death of the city around them, so he can settle into this body like an appendage he'd been paying no attention to, adjusting to Waver's legs and arms as though he's shaking off pins and needles. ]

Twice? [ He's focusing on the important bit here. ] Seriously?

[slightlytaller]

What, she didn't tell you about her Waker?

[He asked, dryly. It was good that John didn't fight him as he found an empty quiet room in the far corner of the archive. The difference in their eyes suggested that he couldn't access the powers of the Necrolord Prime.

That was fine. All he needed was a body with better Magic Circuits to defend himself. ]

About how she assaulted the skinny Brit for merely offering her a warm cup of tea and a scone while she dried herself off with his cloak? About how he clocked her blood magic and made a Counter on the fly?

[He grinned-- not a kind expression-- and closed the door behind them. ]

I dropped her for a good half a minute. Enough time to leave.

... The only reason we'll have trouble today is if you try something. In the meantime, I'm not letting you run off with my body until we sort this.

[necrolord]

[ Sure, it stings that someone else got to scoop her out of the water. There would've been a nice symmetry to it, if it'd been John. The beaches here might not be scenic, but they're a fair sight better than the other one. And then maybe they could've hashed things out there on the sand— maybe she would've let him gather her up. Maybe she would've given in easy.

It doesn't matter. It would've stewed; the blowup would've come. He doesn't want to think about this right now. ]

I wasn't planning on a joyride. I mean, no offense. I'm sure there's plenty to enjoy. [ He's just digging this hole deeper. ] I'm listening.

[anbaric]

[ asriel is not surprised to see john in this state because he's likely contributed to it directly any time they've worked together this past month. the Darkblood paranoia spun asriel's already furious pace into an obsession; he doesn't do fear, and so that nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong just made him angry. he's been at it ever since, trying to find the solution to a problem that he feels offended that he even has to consider. probably because it doesn't exist.

when it happens, he's more distracted by stelmaria than he is about the change itself at first. they are bound at the level of the soul, but blood magic gives her physical form in this world, and it's like someone's switched it off for now. it's jarring.

awareness trickles in after that, as all of his (john's?) senses finally switch on again. very strange to see those black-on-black eyes in his own face, but after a moment or two of waiting for the other shoe to drop, asriel realises that the change itself is likely the worst of it. his sense of self seems not to suffer as his mannerisms and how he carries himself remain intact despite them playing out through john's body. ]

Well. This answers a few questions and raises several others, doesn't it?

[ he would be far more upset if he couldn't potentially learn more about Sleeper souls this way. ]

cw: lil bit of casual body horror

[necrolord]

[ Weird as hell to hear his own voice speak to him, and to watch Asriel draw himself out of John's easy slouch. But it's the eyes that he's caught on: blue eyes in his own face, plain and mortal. It's only as an afterthought that he registers the absence of Stelmaria, that extension of soul drawn back in to center. ]

Seems to.

[ John holds up a pale hand to examine, worries his lip with the edge of his teeth, and pushes a spur of bone through his borrowed palm. It emerges sharp and white and clean as anything, glittering with Darkblood that isn't quite his. Probably should've asked first, whoops, but it's good data. ]

Huh.

[anbaric]

[ this might be more concerning if he were still human (and not so interesting to watch), but asriel can only be amused as he recognises that he would've done the same. john is the one with the obvious powers, it makes sense to test them. it's not like he hasn't walked off worse anyway. ]

And what's that told you?

[ he imagines summoning stelmaria back is the least invasive thing possible by comparison. manipulating Darkblood that isn't his is like driving an unfamiliar car, but it doesn't need to be exact — he really just "makes room" for her and they find their natural state.

they've always known the taboo to be largely psychological, but asriel is still unprepared for the confused discomfort at feeling caught between the familiar and the unfamiliar. no one ever expects to be confronted with the concept of their other half technically being in two places at once. asriel finds things easier to accept just as long as they're still together, but for a daemon who has always known everything about him for all of their lives, it's too strange. worse because it's natural to seek comfort in closeness, which also feels repellent. ]

This will take somewhat more getting used to, I think.

[ she settles somewhere between them, tense and observant, as is her way when asriel is busy with something that unsettles her. ]

[bolstafir]

[Everything always happens so much. You'd think one of these months, they'd get a break from the bullshit. In Deerington, they would at least get a breather, once in a while, or the trouble would just be normal monsters instead of some new magical bonding exercise.

Seeing those oil black eyes in his own face is so unsettling Qrow-in-John's-body can't help a cringe; he can too-easily picture the familiar Grimm veins to go with them. Even so, he finds that he doesn't really ... feel all that different. That's weird in its own right, too.]

Gotta say. Weirdly underwhelming for trading places with a god.

[necrolord]

[ Well, this one isn't the worst: he can handle the swap from "adult man" to "taller adult man." John splays his borrowed hands in front of him, Qrow's eyebrows quirked in gentle puzzlement above his all-black eyes. When he looks up to meet Qrow's gaze, it's with tired amusement. ]

I get 'weirdly underwhelming' a lot... or, I would, if people were a little less polite. [ Polite is not exactly the word for faithful eager to die at his feet, but it's close enough by John's count. ] The body's just a body, for the moment, so don't get ambitious about throwing it around.

[bolstafir]

Not exactly about to go get in my own fistfight with the Pthumerians, over here.

[Though if he could punch just one of them, the Moss King would be a particularly tempting choice.

"Just a body", though, what a concept. It strikes him that he's not really sure what he expected, actually. All he knows of the Brothers is their legend and what Jinn showed them, ultimately. He can't imagine them yelping inelegantly in pain over a book landing on their head or puking in bushes or wearing bunny slippers.

(A memory strikes him, from way back on the network, before they'd ever really had a conversation: Don't get me wrong. My heart beats. My lungs breathe. But that's mostly habit, at this point.)

He squints at his own face with borrowed eyes.]

Begs the question, doesn't it? What's a god without his powers?

[Just a man, maybe. Not even a very good one, supplies the back of his mind, unhelpfully.]

mha spoilers ongoing

[wannasmash]

Unfortunately for them both, Midoriya is also struggling with a moderate level of Corruption. Eating and sleeping are more guidelines than necessities as he single-mindedly pursues his duties with little thought toward self-preservation. John Gaius, The Emperor Undying, etc., finds himself trapped in 5' 5" of fatigue, jitters, and fever chills. He wears a black hoodie with a broccoli on it, scars all over, arm ligaments worn from past injuries, and an odd swirl of several distinct vestigial energies.

...He's taller--at a height he associates with Paul's eye level--and his body feels wrong. The street looks oddly small, the viewing angle off, and he's facing the wrong way. His eyes stare into large ones in his own freckled face, but those are black with a ring of light.

Midoriya could be afraid of his secret getting out, but there is something that always supersedes everything else, driving all other thoughts from his head: the need to save others. The varying possibilities of Quirks have prepared Midoriya to comprehend the improbable, and he reacts quickly.

"No--don't come out--don't use it--it's dangerous!" he blurts out a strange jumble of words as he extends long brown palms forward and out in a placating gesture. It must be strange to see a usually impassive ageless face suddenly mobile with the unconcealed emotion of an expressive teenager.

Almost at the same time, several voices shout exclamations of surprise in John's head. ("How?!" "Be ready--" "Hey! Put the kid back if you know what's good for you!!")

[necrolord]

John, by this point, has been through a few swaps; he knows what's happening, and knows what to expect. Body for body, nothing of particular interest attached. Everything really useful seems to follow the soul. He could write papers about it, if he had any particular regard for the School of Mutter, or them for him.

So he's completely blindsided by this one.

His own body jolts forward in open horror, and John himself leans back, hands coming up so he can look at his borrowed palms. The ache and shudder of Midoriya's Corruption is new and dizzying, but it can only keep his attention for a moment. His gaze has already gone faraway, brow furrowed in fascination, as he takes stock of the jumbled not-quite-souls crowding in against his own.

"Alright," he says, slowly. "This one's a little new and different." And then, as if to himself: "Not my call, really."

[wannasmash]

Midoriya's palms are scarred, especially the right one, and squarish in proportion to his body. His body moves well despite the aches from not taking care of himself and promises the bounce-back of youth if only he'd take the time to stop.

("Yeah sure pal, you better--" "Wait just a minute!") Midoriya is unaware of the shouting voices (male-sounding except for one woman) and responds to John only.

"Listen, I don't know what's going on here if it's not your call, and I know it's really tempting to try out stuff, but please don't try to use my power. Your limbs would explode... that is, my limbs..."

Alarmed, Midoriya tries to turn on Danger Sense, but he's as Quirkless as the day he was born. Oh boy. If a supervillain ever wanted to permanently defeat him, all they'd have to do is mess up his body beyond repair. But the beef between Midoriya and John isn't kill-on-sight.

[crossreversed]

[Chrollo is familiar with John Gaius only by reputation and months-old network content. He stares at his own body with those eyes, and thinks that honestly they go with his coat and general aesthetic very nicely.

But seeing himself without the thin layer of protective aura is unnerving when he's not using zetsu to suppress it.]

I have partial solution to this, if I can have my coat and bag.

[Chrollo is ready to swap at least some layers of clothes, testing what the body he finds himself in is wearing without being to obtrusive. When this body takes the shape of his own, well, he's perhaps an inch shorter but has considerably more muscle. He'll be extra annoyed if he doesn't get the notes he came to the archive to take, and he has to tell himself that this wasn't set up specifically for him.]

[necrolord]

[ John has been through this song and dance a few times, by this point, and it's kind of refreshing to find a guy who rolls with the punches. He examines his borrowed hands with weary interest, then shrugs off the bag and offers it out as he starts on the coat. ]

Go for it. I'm short on ideas.

[crossreversed]

[Chrollo sheds the outermost layer John's body is wearing and folds it over his arm as he accepts the bag. He reaches in and pulls out a book. It's a bit of sleight of hand, the book only came into existence once he conjured it. He flips it open to the page he wants and places the bookmark there, the only real change is the arrows on each palm as he puts the book away.]

I need to touch you with both hands.

[Chrollo is going to wait for approval because even among nen users this could go badly.]

for asriel. thread cws: mild body horror, themes of dubcon intimacy

[necrolord]

[ Things go south quickly once they reach the city. John stops on the threshold, frowning, trying to articulate the difference: he can't parse Blood Pollution in the ever-present way he knows thanergy, but he can feel its impact on everything else, the cascade ripple of mutation. It's like standing on a flipped planet, the corpse of a place.

They carry on from there. John traces his fingers along the veinline vines, chewing his lip and making increasingly opaque comments as though he has a necromancer at his side— it feels like the old days, the first flips on exoplanets, trying to muddle through what they'd done to a half-terraformed jungle and getting hung up in the nitty-gritty. He gets into his head about it. He goes quiet, remote, until he isn't making comments aloud at all.

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize something's wrong. Asriel is off somewhere, and he's here alone, clicking his fingers together absently and realizing they do click: bone on bone, the skin crumbled away like glittering ash. He holds up a skeletonizing hand and regards it with vague impatience, as though this is more inconvenience than horror.

Muttered: ] Well, fuck.

cw: potentially less mild body horror depending on how dissolving hits lmao

[anbaric]

[ asriel doesn't know when they wander apart exactly. the time since he'd encountered the strange stuffed animal has been marked more by the time he's lost than the time he remembers. the problem with stubbornly insisting on being a closed book to everyone is that no one can tell when something isn't right.

at some point, it had felt repellent to be too close, and he'd just let john go on ahead. this felt inevitable somehow. with the Corruption setting in, he lacks the capacity to unpack it even if he wanted to.

even his bond with his own daemon feels tenuous, and it's the moment that realisation comes into focus that things start truly getting serious.

as if to mock him for all his boasting about the superiority of mortal flesh, asriel's body begins dissolving away into so much Dust before his eyes, shimmering into gilded non-existence. his belongings seem unaffected — and they prove how real this is when his pack just hits the ground because it no longer has a solid body carrying it — but his clothing all goes with him. there is a terrible moment where he experiences genuine fear that something as trivial as a gust of wind might end it all; everything he is scattered on the breeze and forgotten forever. he's seen it before and was always glad it could never happen to him.

the curse has already eaten away at many layers of his self, but what's left keeps fighting because it's what he knows best. asriel pulls himself together, bit by bit until he can feel the ground under him again and stelmaria's presence beside him. whole again, but wrong. the rough sketch of the man he was is there, but the rest isn't sure what to be. in one moment, there are too many wings and too many eyes, and then suddenly he'll seem almost normal again before the process repeats, but never in precisely the same way.

fortunately(???), they haven't gone far with all of this, but stelmaria is reluctant to leave and even more reluctant to ask for help. thankfully, she has more sense between them and enough self-preservation to deal with it. what john gets from her probably doesn't correctly make sense in words because she's never done it before. they've never even seen john's Omen. how does she even know it'll work? but the alternative is... dying here? turning into a Beast?

whatever it is, john can probably guess that the unsolicited telepathic contact probably isn't a good thing. ]

[necrolord]

[ Usually, when Lenore stirs in his chest, it's because he's done something to rouse her: he's spilled too much blood, he's caused a thanergy bloom bright enough to make every part of him sit up in sharp attention. She is a revenant's revenant, a game of telephone to translate the most ruined corners of his soul. She doesn't rise from nowhere, and she never speaks.

So when she presses against his mind to pass a message, a wordless call of alarm, he stops in his tracks. He goes very still. He touches bare-bone fingertips to his chest, as though she's literally anchored in his heart, and then he turns on his heel and hurries. ]

Tell her I'm coming. [ He always talks to her aloud, thoughtless and easy. He doesn't truly think this through until it's done: Stelmaria gets wordless acknowledgment as a great metallic blare, too loud and too big, the drone of a whole hive's intent. It is probably not comforting.

But she's left with that for only a moment, because John moves through the overgrown ruins without hesitation, drawn as though to a beacon. He draws up short upon seeing the glittering golden wreck of Asriel. ]

Okay! New look. Biblically accurate.

cw: the body horror got meatier

[anbaric]

[ it is comforting only in the sense that she's been heard, but it would be a lie to say there was any to be found in the rest. even that much is short-lived, replaced by the horrible dread that whatever it was that responded was now on its way.

not for the first time, stelmaria considers john and isn't sure what to make of him, although this time, it isn't because he's in the wrong body.

there is shame in this, in being seen this way, and for a moment or two after he arrives, asriel pulls it together again. he has a hand on stelmaria's back, his fingers gripping her fur tightly in a way that hurts them both. it does not grant him the sort of clarity that they might've hoped it would.

marisa accused him of becoming the very thing he hated most and biblically accurate rankles similarly. some attempt at proving john wrong goes awry, twisting an already twisted form into something worse.

john's eyes are an obvious thing to steal, especially when asriel lacks the context to know what they mean. he has coveted that incredible power and wished he could have it for himself, so it's easy to borrow from what he's already imagined, although it was never meant to be this way.

the next time his body reshapes itself, some of the wings emerge as naked bone wreathed in gold and Darkblood and then the meat and flesh grow over them, constantly in a state of flux as it finds new and different ways to interpret the idea of necromancy as a concept. that's the worst part too — he can't control any of it. what's the point if he doesn't have control? he's nothing without that. ]

I—... we don't know what this is.

for nara'a.

[necrolord]

[ It's been a long trip. John has parted ways with Asriel to lick their respective wounds, and that leaves him here: joined up with another band of survivors trying to straggle back towards Trench, or at least get some distance from the corrupted ground long enough to recover.

John's had worse. But not since July— not since everything was really and properly going to hell, nearly a year ago now. He stands in the shadow of a dark grove, examining the bared lines of bone in his hand, the flesh crumbled away from his fingertips like glittering ash. He still looks human at a glance, at least. He's holding it together.

He's so tired of holding it together. ]

Shadowbringers spoilers

[aetherweaver]

[He's taken too long. He promised he'd watch his corruption levels, he promised - but now he's puffing white fur out from his clothing and his eyes are gold with only speckles of its previous red still in there. He hates this.]

[He hates what he becomes when he doesn't take care of himself, but he'd rather die than let someone else get hurt if they didn't need to. He hates everything about how he looks, what it reminds him of. His breathing is hard and he stumbles near John, catching himself before he can totally fall to the ground and coughing up something white and glowing. It spatters like blood but sticks like paint, and he stares at it a while.]

[No. No, not here. He can't transform into a Lightwarden here, he was guarding against it with Ardbert's soul and his own combined. The Light is too strong - he'll cause a Flood -]

[He's not moving. All he can do is stare. It's not... he's not really turning into one, right? It's just corruption... isn't it? How could anyone care for a monster like him, if he does start to turn?]

[He wants to move. He can't move. Everything feels like it's too dark, his vision narrowing just to see the glow on the ground. He needs to move, if only to get away - but he's afraid and he's frozen and he doesn't know what the right thing to do is.]

[necrolord]

[ In some ways it's a relief, to have a new crisis stumble into his lap. To have something breaking down, loudly and hideously, that he didn't personally break. Easier to think about; easier to deal with.

John rouses, watching the tremble and stagger of Nara'a through the trees, and catches on the unearthly spatter of glow. His brow furrows in fascination, incomprehension, and he starts forward. As Nara'a goes eerily still, John steps out of shadow and into his field of view. ]

Well, that's new.

[aetherweaver]

John?

[He recognizes the voice, the scent. Someone else is here. The pain is fading but the panic is still rising, and he looks up. He's crouched in fear and he doesn't want to hurt the other man, even if his body is ready to fight.]

Don't - don't... I don't have any anti-corruption mushrooms on me, I can't... I can't... I don't want to hurt you. I... I'm sorry, I'm...

[He falls to all fours. This is... this is something else. He can feel the raised corruption, yes, but he can also feel something else. He's changing too quickly. He doesn't want to be a Lightwarden, one of the most monstrous things he can think of -]

[His aether isn't turning towards Light, so he knows it's not really a Lightwarden transformation... but it sure feels and looks like it.]