[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.]
[Oh, he doesn't need further encouraging. In fact, Henry remembers quite clearly how the Lovers card had worked post-elevator game. Sprezzatura had simply willed to use hers, and it had dispersed in a simmer of flame.
Well, he tries the same, his look fixed on the intricate illustration of the Tower with its crumbling stone freshly struck by lightning.
[Awkward is right. What’s he supposed to say? Henry slips the tarot card into his back pocket as though buying time with the few moments of silence to decide. Falling back into amicable politeness is the habit, but Henry can only manage maybe ten percent of the usual, just enough to smooth away the crease at his brow.
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striketwice) wrote2022-10-02 07:47 pm
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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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[ Rhetorical question. Henry has more than explained it. ]
That's good, right? Might as well use it.
1/2
Well, he tries the same, his look fixed on the intricate illustration of the Tower with its crumbling stone freshly struck by lightning.
Nothing: happens.]
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I know they're in here.
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And nothing happens. ]
Maybe it's defective.
[ NOT HELPING. ]
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SHAKES-]
You had better hope not. This is a chance to return home -- or at least leave this place.
[-THE CARD!!!]
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Either way, I'll be keeping this close for when it does have use.
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Seems wise. So... [ AWKWARD ] You okay?
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Barely.]
It’s not how I expected the night to turn out.
[Understatement.]
Don’t tell anyone else… about all of this.
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Who the hell would I even tell? It's fine. Your secret's safe with me.
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