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

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.

cws continue

[necrolord]

[ It's funny. There's nothing in his face but startled fascination, shading to concern, as Asriel crumbles and reshapes. The wet phalanges of his wings don't earn more than a bewildered furrow of his brow, and John steps forward without fear.

It's the sight of his own eyes that makes him flinch. He falters, frozen for a horrible moment before the glowing coronal rings. Then Asriel begins to crumble again, and it spurs him forward. ]

Corruption. The whole place is red-hot. [ He holds up a hand in explanation, to show the bare off-whites of exposed bone in his palm. All it really does is put on display the baffling gulf between them: John only crumbling at the edges, and Asriel a writhing mass, a crisis of golden dust and meat. It's clear in his face that he has no idea what he's looking at, not really. ] Keep talking. Any obvious trigger?

[anbaric]

[ keep talking might be unhelpful for most people, but it's good for them. it's harder to be afraid when you have to focus and think. ]

No. [ frustration. ] Or, that's true, but it's different. It was bad last month, too, remember?

[ nothing like this, but enough to make the experiences feel very different from her perspective. ]

Of all the stupid— [ it's the clueless look on john's face that finally does it, between that and the way asriel only still feels like asriel in the broadest strokes. if he had listened to the bad feeling she'd had all along, this wouldn't have happened. probably? ] We should never have come here!

It's just catching up to us now. Weren't we only on borrowed time..?

[ whatever is happening to asriel has managed to replicate the disembodied quality of an angelic voice that sounds half in the mind as well as in the ears. the existential misery is entirely his own, however. ]

You'd do better on your own, anyway. Nothing good becomes of anyone who gets close.

[ he confesses this far more easily than any of the other times anything has forced him to get personal, but the curse had had plenty of time to whittle away at all his defences before they even got here. ]