[He pulls him close. Close enough to reach out… and grip at his chin, hard, with his more human-like hand. Oh, yes, this is definitely Henry’s Shadow — not that there was ever any doubt.
Vecna tilts his head, considering Alec with glowing eyes.]
Still as weak as the rest of them. To think that something like you might be one reason for Henry’s shaken resolve.
[But Henry’s not just going to stand by and let this happen, having gotten to his feet, cutting in with a forward step and an extended arm.]
I said shut up. What do you know?
[Not to treat Alec like a rag doll, but Henry’s powers wrench him away from Vecna’s, freeing him — though it does mean that he might suffer a less-than-graceful landing.]
[ Why do all aspects of Henry like to manhandle him so much!!
His gaze is wrenched up, and through the stormy light in his eyes, Alec glares. Only the slightest shift in his expression betrays his surprise when he's called a reason.
("I don't think you're wrong. But I don't think you're right, either.")
And before that can well and truly land, Alec is yanked away again. Thanks guys. He crashes to the ground, though like in Henry's dream, his barrier bears the brunt of the blow, and Alec pushes himself up to one knee. ]
What for, so you can make ineffectual gestures at Swamp Thing, here?
[-he snaps, eyes still fixed on the visage of himself. Alec is right, though; his powers seem so useless against him. Harried violence appears to get him nowhere, but this disadvantage is hardly one-sided.
Vecna steps forward to close the space between them. Long, terrible strides.]
No. He doesn't want you to see this. To know that his resolve begins to falter, letting in a terrible truth. Do you know what that truth is, Alec?
[Monologuing is a natural part of any aspect of Henry. Alec has only been privy to it in snippets, and none with the utterly cruel gravitas that Vecna seems to wield.]
That there is something wrong with him. They all said so. Not only his parents. His teachers. His doctors. Even Papa would render him useless in the laboratory after a few years' time. Prized number One, not so prized anymore.
[Henry's teeth grit until his jaw hurts. Another attempt at lashing out with his powers nets him the opposite: caught in Vecna's return effort, limbs gone taut, and thrown straight towards Alec like little more than refuse.]
Alec half-catches, half-lets Henry collide with him, but with his Enhancement tattoos flaring to life, the two of them just sort of end up tumbling back a short distance, coming to a stop when Alec's back bumps against a headstone. You're welcome for the cushy landing.
He has his feet under him surprisingly quickly, coming up to a crouch, one arm looping under Henry's own to help him upright. ]
Hah. Shit. You really like the sound of your own voice, huh?
[His back collides into Alec, though it’s not as terrible as a tumble as it could have been thanks to the man’s magic. The force of being initially thrown, however, still hurts like hell, lacking having the wind knocked out of him and then some.
Henry’s feet try to find purchase on the ground. He barely registers Alec’s arm looped around him, holding him up, until he tries to straighten.
He should pry him away. But there’s something utterly… hollowing about being face-to-face with one’s Shadow, being so unable to fight back, hearing all of those things (broken), that his effort is half-hearted at best. A hand pressing fingertips into his forearm, trying to push weakly.]
Why are you here— This doesn’t have anything to do with you, just go.
[Don’t look at this, don’t hear this. Don’t view him in that light, don’t.
[ At least Alec has the good grace to let go of Henry once they're both upright, though it doesn't escape his notice just how quickly the fight has gone out of him. He understands the feeling, the emptiness and hurt that comes with having yourself pried open and your ugliness out there for everyone to see.
But then, this is nothing new for them after the last few days. Truth for truth. Vulnerability for vulnerability. ]
You heard big ugly. I'm part of the problem, apparently.
[ He keeps one eye on the looming figure of Vecna, the way he laughs setting Alec's teeth on edge. ]
[So fucking what? His mind churns desperately, trying to understand, trying to pull out sense with his Shadow there, bearing down upon them both with his presence alone.]
I told you. I can’t have wasted—
[Vecna speaks, sometimes, the same words as Henry, overlapping.]
—all that time—
—for nothing. I can’t stay in that place—
—by myself—
—and live out the rest of my days just fading away.
[Oh, he feels the anger again. It’s ugly and it's a wound on the inside. At least that will never fail him; at least he can always lean upon the resentment. A hand comes up to grasp at his head, fingers pressing in.]
[ Oh, he’s really cracked something wide open here, hasn’t he? Henry has tried so hard to avoid being called lonely, but now with his Shadow out in the open, so too is that very human weakness.
I wish I had never met any of you!
People are traps.
Something sparks in Alec, too, a low flame that quickly rises into an angry roar. How fucked are they both that anger is always there for them, like an old friend?
His hands fly up to curl into the front of Henry’s shirt, to back him into the grave marker they’d collided with a moment prior. ]
Will you listen to yourself? You think I’m telling you to roll over and die just because mommy was right about you? Fuck off.
So what if you’re broken or defective or whatever? That’s not your fault. You were a kid, and each and every one of those people failed you at every turn. If there’s no place for you in your own world, find a different one, because guess what? There’s always going to be kids like you and me. And they’re always going to end up just like us unless someone does something about it.
[He jostles backwards, pushed until his back is against cold stone. It whips Henry straight out of the jaws of his own anger, freeing him just enough so he can look at Alec, nigh wide-eyed, meeting him with shock and uncertainty — a rare, rare expression from him.
Like this, every word is like a nail that Alec hammers into his mind. His neurons fire furiously, trying to make sense of it. Vecna speaks again, to fill in the spaces between with more cold diffidence, looking to shake them free.]
Where will he go?
[There’s something ticking, ticking, so loud in Henry’s ears. Maybe Alec’s, too.]
No matter the world, he is still just a shattered piece that does not fit with anyone, or anything.
[Among the trunks of every nearby tree, gnarled in the graveyard, grandfather clocks appear. They sound out, twanging loudly as they all strike the hour at once. It’s so, so oppressive. It is not very pleasant being on the other side of this, even if Henry knows the trick. They are not real. Just an illusion. They can't be real. He slams his eyes shut against the sound.]
Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. You would be marching to death, and still alone, Henry.
[ Alec practically roars it, hands falling away from Henry's shirt to round on Vecna. The clocks are so loud, so unbearably loud that Alec's very bones feel like they vibrate with the sound. Runes fly from the tips of his fingers in brusque movements - Henry should know that Alec has absolutely had to use magic under more durss than this, as much as it sucks, as much as it feels like his brain wants to liquefy inside his skull. A ball of fire erupts from the marks, headed right for Henry's Shadow. ]
[The fire casts them, Vecna, and even the clocks living in the trees in bright light, shadows twisting behind them like snakes. Alec’s spell hits its mark. Flames engulf the Shadow, burning, and the creature steps backwards, crying out.
But it sounds more like anger than pain. His Shadow’s just a manifestation, not so easily grievously injured. But it’s still effective enough to halt the clocks, their loud chiming and ticking halting altogether. It’s shut him up, if that was his aim.
It gives Henry time to finally speak, mismatched eyes prying open. The sight of himself burning just beyond Alec is so, so surreal.]
[ It really bothers him how he can hurt this guy yet he doesn't get hurt, but he will certainly take that sudden, resounding silence after the senses-grinding chime of the clocks. ]
[Eyes flick away from the fire, finding Alec’s face. His back’s still against the gravestone.]
Yes.
[It’s like pulling a stone out of his throat, or shattered glass. Overwrought by his Shadow, maybe truth needles out, unconsciously unnetted — maybe he’ll regret it later.]
Why do you think I’m so angry? All of the time.
[Something that makes him sad, but also angry. To bolster power and motivation. It’s what he told Eleven, that day in the lab.]
Yeah. I know. It's the same reason I'm so angry, all of the time.
[ An oddly subdued little admission, but then Alec's still raw from Henry's trip into his memories. Old ghosts dug up to walk freely around in his head when he would rather see them buried.
He looks at Henry, then at Vecna, still wreathed in flame. Two sides of the same sad, angry coin. A man who feels so abandoned by the world that he thinks his only recourse is to remake the whole thing, and with it, make a place for himself. It might be pitiable, if Alec were one for pity.
And, if that sort of gnawing loneliness didn't have its teeth so deep in his own heart. ]
Maybe that's the thing about being a broken piece, huh? You find another broken piece, and you stick together.
[ The answer is right there on the tip of his tongue, and he he still stalls a second, looking Henry over. It's so weird to see him like this, bereft of both his sharp barbs and polite distance. He considers, prods at his lower lip with his tongue, then: ]
Why not? We're already neck-deep in each other's bullshit, and yet here we still are.
[Even that small pause slotted between them makes regret start to claw up his stomach, his throat. Makes him want to shore himself up and tell anger, his old friend, that it can burrow through him again — all this, and Alec is still going to tell him no, not him. Find someone else.
But instead, he says, Why not?, and the world shifts a little. Priorities realign, root themselves directly into the man in front of him. Alec is no longer someone whose connecting string would be colored yellow. Not even someone who is just the same, made up of similarly jagged edges.
He’s an anchor point now. And everything else is just a satellite.]
I—
[Vecna is quiet and unmoving behind them, flames still eating at his malformed skin.]
Fine. Neck-deep. Just promise to stay as angry as I am, Alec.
[ Even Alec can feel something shift in that moment, more than their deal of alliship, more than their strangely intense conversations over dinner, more even than Alec willfully letting Henry pass through the doors of his mind. This is a connection. One of those traps that Alec likes to talk so very much about has been sprung around them both, and yet... yet, he can't quite regret it.
A smirk. ]
I've got a couple of decades and some change on you in that department, remember?
[Henry can’t quite bring himself to fully smile, despite his years of practice, but his lips do quirk at the corners just enough to quality as positive. In the wake of everything shifting to make room for this new connection, this unspoken promise, his mind is still in the process of cementing it as reality.]
...I guess you do have the advantage there.
[Behind them, the flames ravaging Vecna’s skin devour him completely. The grandfather clocks seated in the trees are gone, like they never existed. (They didn’t.)
But with a roar, those same flames vanish, guttering out completely — left in Vecna’s place is a young boy, a twelve year-old Henry. Bright eyes, all awkward, lanky limbs. He looks at them both, strangely content, and says:]
Good. You finally get something you want, Henry.
[And he, too, soon disappears in a burst of bright, golden sparkles, sparkling upwards through the night sky.]
[ Alec breathes out a sound that might almost be considered a laugh, though the roar of flames soon catches his attention. He turns to watch the fire crawl over Vecna's form, immolating him, changing him. The boy that looks at them both is unmistakably Henry, Alec can see it in his eyes. That contentment is like a physical force that reaches out and grabs him, constricting tight around his ribs.
Since when has anyone ever looked at him like that? Like they have something to be grateful for?
Good thing he's not the one who has to do anything with this scene, because he wouldn't even know where to start. ]
[Henry wouldn’t know what to do, either, were it not for a single, floating tarot card left in the wake of those dissipating motes of light. It spins gently, pulling at something at the back of his mind, beckoning.
There’s almost too much to process right now, but it’s easy to follow instinct. Henry steps forward, and then again, and when he reaches the card he plucks it out of the air with forefinger and thumb.
Turning it over in his hand, its illustration reveals the Tower arcana.]
Alec, look at this.
[It feels… strange. Like something too, too familiar. Something lost. The realization will crash into him soon.]
[The strange sensation and its striking familiarity comes upon him in a wave. It would be utterly shocking if not for all that had happened to him just moments ago — as it stands, this revelation is a dull throb of recognition through his bones.]
This is the rest of my… power.
[
Never mind, it is shocking. He cuts a sharp gaze straight at Alec, holding the tarot card tightly between his fingers.]
My abilities. What’s gone missing, or the rest of what’s been stolen away. [The parts of him that are dampened and require so much more effort than before.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
striketwice) wrote2022-10-02 07:47 pm
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Vecna tilts his head, considering Alec with glowing eyes.]
Still as weak as the rest of them. To think that something like you might be one reason for Henry’s shaken resolve.
[But Henry’s not just going to stand by and let this happen, having gotten to his feet, cutting in with a forward step and an extended arm.]
I said shut up. What do you know?
[Not to treat Alec like a rag doll, but Henry’s powers wrench him away from Vecna’s, freeing him — though it does mean that he might suffer a less-than-graceful landing.]
Alec, just leave.
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His gaze is wrenched up, and through the stormy light in his eyes, Alec glares. Only the slightest shift in his expression betrays his surprise when he's called a reason.
("I don't think you're wrong. But I don't think you're right, either.")
And before that can well and truly land, Alec is yanked away again. Thanks guys. He crashes to the ground, though like in Henry's dream, his barrier bears the brunt of the blow, and Alec pushes himself up to one knee. ]
What for, so you can make ineffectual gestures at Swamp Thing, here?
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[-he snaps, eyes still fixed on the visage of himself. Alec is right, though; his powers seem so useless against him. Harried violence appears to get him nowhere, but this disadvantage is hardly one-sided.
Vecna steps forward to close the space between them. Long, terrible strides.]
No. He doesn't want you to see this. To know that his resolve begins to falter, letting in a terrible truth. Do you know what that truth is, Alec?
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He gets to his feet, posture and expression wary. ]
Even if I said yes, you'd tell me anyway. Monologue, much?
[ but of course some part of him still wants to know ]
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That there is something wrong with him. They all said so. Not only his parents. His teachers. His doctors. Even Papa would render him useless in the laboratory after a few years' time. Prized number One, not so prized anymore.
[Henry's teeth grit until his jaw hurts. Another attempt at lashing out with his powers nets him the opposite: caught in Vecna's return effort, limbs gone taut, and thrown straight towards Alec like little more than refuse.]
"Broken."
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Alec half-catches, half-lets Henry collide with him, but with his Enhancement tattoos flaring to life, the two of them just sort of end up tumbling back a short distance, coming to a stop when Alec's back bumps against a headstone. You're welcome for the cushy landing.
He has his feet under him surprisingly quickly, coming up to a crouch, one arm looping under Henry's own to help him upright. ]
Hah. Shit. You really like the sound of your own voice, huh?
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Henry’s feet try to find purchase on the ground. He barely registers Alec’s arm looped around him, holding him up, until he tries to straighten.
He should pry him away. But there’s something utterly… hollowing about being face-to-face with one’s Shadow, being so unable to fight back, hearing all of those things (broken), that his effort is half-hearted at best. A hand pressing fingertips into his forearm, trying to push weakly.]
Why are you here— This doesn’t have anything to do with you, just go.
[Don’t look at this, don’t hear this. Don’t view him in that light, don’t.
Vecna rumbles a low laugh.]
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But then, this is nothing new for them after the last few days. Truth for truth. Vulnerability for vulnerability. ]
You heard big ugly. I'm part of the problem, apparently.
[ He keeps one eye on the looming figure of Vecna, the way he laughs setting Alec's teeth on edge. ]
I've got to ask you, Henry. So fucking what?
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[So fucking what? His mind churns desperately, trying to understand, trying to pull out sense with his Shadow there, bearing down upon them both with his presence alone.]
I told you. I can’t have wasted—
[Vecna speaks, sometimes, the same words as Henry, overlapping.]
—all that time—
—for nothing. I can’t stay in that place—
—by myself—
—and live out the rest of my days just fading away.
[Oh, he feels the anger again. It’s ugly and it's a wound on the inside. At least that will never fail him; at least he can always lean upon the resentment. A hand comes up to grasp at his head, fingers pressing in.]
I wish I had never met any of you!
It would have been so much easier.
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I wish I had never met any of you!
People are traps.
Something sparks in Alec, too, a low flame that quickly rises into an angry roar. How fucked are they both that anger is always there for them, like an old friend?
His hands fly up to curl into the front of Henry’s shirt, to back him into the grave marker they’d collided with a moment prior. ]
Will you listen to yourself? You think I’m telling you to roll over and die just because mommy was right about you? Fuck off.
So what if you’re broken or defective or whatever? That’s not your fault. You were a kid, and each and every one of those people failed you at every turn. If there’s no place for you in your own world, find a different one, because guess what? There’s always going to be kids like you and me. And they’re always going to end up just like us unless someone does something about it.
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Like this, every word is like a nail that Alec hammers into his mind. His neurons fire furiously, trying to make sense of it. Vecna speaks again, to fill in the spaces between with more cold diffidence, looking to shake them free.]
Where will he go?
[There’s something ticking, ticking, so loud in Henry’s ears. Maybe Alec’s, too.]
No matter the world, he is still just a shattered piece that does not fit with anyone, or anything.
[Among the trunks of every nearby tree, gnarled in the graveyard, grandfather clocks appear. They sound out, twanging loudly as they all strike the hour at once. It’s so, so oppressive. It is not very pleasant being on the other side of this, even if Henry knows the trick. They are not real. Just an illusion. They can't be real. He slams his eyes shut against the sound.]
Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. You would be marching to death, and still alone, Henry.
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[ Alec practically roars it, hands falling away from Henry's shirt to round on Vecna. The clocks are so loud, so unbearably loud that Alec's very bones feel like they vibrate with the sound. Runes fly from the tips of his fingers in brusque movements - Henry should know that Alec has absolutely had to use magic under more durss than this, as much as it sucks, as much as it feels like his brain wants to liquefy inside his skull. A ball of fire erupts from the marks, headed right for Henry's Shadow. ]
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But it sounds more like anger than pain. His Shadow’s just a manifestation, not so easily grievously injured. But it’s still effective enough to halt the clocks, their loud chiming and ticking halting altogether. It’s shut him up, if that was his aim.
It gives Henry time to finally speak, mismatched eyes prying open. The sight of himself burning just beyond Alec is so, so surreal.]
He’s not wrong.
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Is that really what you think?
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Yes.
[It’s like pulling a stone out of his throat, or shattered glass. Overwrought by his Shadow, maybe truth needles out, unconsciously unnetted — maybe he’ll regret it later.]
Why do you think I’m so angry? All of the time.
[Something that makes him sad, but also angry. To bolster power and motivation. It’s what he told Eleven, that day in the lab.]
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[ An oddly subdued little admission, but then Alec's still raw from Henry's trip into his memories. Old ghosts dug up to walk freely around in his head when he would rather see them buried.
He looks at Henry, then at Vecna, still wreathed in flame. Two sides of the same sad, angry coin. A man who feels so abandoned by the world that he thinks his only recourse is to remake the whole thing, and with it, make a place for himself. It might be pitiable, if Alec were one for pity.
And, if that sort of gnawing loneliness didn't have its teeth so deep in his own heart. ]
Maybe that's the thing about being a broken piece, huh? You find another broken piece, and you stick together.
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[Henry can twist up that question with such ease. Lilt it just right to sting and cut. (Who? Someone like you? Don't be ridiculous.)
But there’s no sign of that.
It’s an actual question, waiting for an actual answer. Almost childlike in its simplicity.]
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Why not? We're already neck-deep in each other's bullshit, and yet here we still are.
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But instead, he says, Why not?, and the world shifts a little. Priorities realign, root themselves directly into the man in front of him. Alec is no longer someone whose connecting string would be colored yellow. Not even someone who is just the same, made up of similarly jagged edges.
He’s an anchor point now. And everything else is just a satellite.]
I—
[Vecna is quiet and unmoving behind them, flames still eating at his malformed skin.]
Fine. Neck-deep. Just promise to stay as angry as I am, Alec.
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A smirk. ]
I've got a couple of decades and some change on you in that department, remember?
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...I guess you do have the advantage there.
[Behind them, the flames ravaging Vecna’s skin devour him completely. The grandfather clocks seated in the trees are gone, like they never existed. (They didn’t.)
But with a roar, those same flames vanish, guttering out completely — left in Vecna’s place is a young boy, a twelve year-old Henry. Bright eyes, all awkward, lanky limbs. He looks at them both, strangely content, and says:]
Good. You finally get something you want, Henry.
[And he, too, soon disappears in a burst of bright, golden sparkles, sparkling upwards through the night sky.]
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Since when has anyone ever looked at him like that? Like they have something to be grateful for?
Good thing he's not the one who has to do anything with this scene, because he wouldn't even know where to start. ]
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There’s almost too much to process right now, but it’s easy to follow instinct. Henry steps forward, and then again, and when he reaches the card he plucks it out of the air with forefinger and thumb.
Turning it over in his hand, its illustration reveals the Tower arcana.]
Alec, look at this.
[It feels… strange. Like something too, too familiar. Something lost. The realization will crash into him soon.]
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I am looking at it. What is it?
[ Apart from a tarot card. Tarot cards are kind of a theme in this place, huh? ]
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This is the rest of my… power.
[
Never mind, it is shocking. He cuts a sharp gaze straight at Alec, holding the tarot card tightly between his fingers.]
My abilities. What’s gone missing, or the rest of what’s been stolen away. [The parts of him that are dampened and require so much more effort than before.]
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