shadows form a grin.

“ The air is silk, SHADOWS form a grin. If I lose control, I feed the BEAST within. ”

[deimosday]

A P O L L O.

The night had bled into dawn as Marco had worked, desperately trying to save those in his care from being another name on a death notice in a mother’s hands. It took it’s toll, seeing so many die under his emerald watch, but he would not let unnecessary numbers add to death’s legions - not while he could help him. Reprieve came only in the short breaks he permitted himself - to eat, to sleep a little, or, when there was no time to find an empty cot or a meal, to pray behind the tent for a moment.

The prayer fell from Marco’s lips in the quiet, familiar words of his mother tongue, barely audible even to his own ears amongst the ever bustling sounds of the base over the smooth clinking of his rosary beads between his blood-stained fingers. He did not need to hear the words for them to lift a weight off his soul, even if just for a moment, they were meant to be heard by a higher power anyone - one who Marco believed could hear him on his knees, above the deafening clamour of war.

❝ Signore, fa di me uno strumento della tua pace: Dove è odio, fa ch'io porti l'amore. Dove è offesa, ch'io porti il perdono. Dove è discordia, ch'io porti l'unione. Dove è dubbio, ch'io porti la fede. Dove è errore, ch'io porti la verità. Dove è disperazione, ch'io porti la speranza. Dove è tristezza, ch'io porti la gioia. Dove sono le tenebre, ch'io porti la lu- ❞

Footsteps fell, halting Marco’s interrupted prayer, rosary slipping back into his pocket as he turned his face towards unexpected, though not unwelcome (never unwelcome) company. “Chi va li? - uh, Who’s there?”  

Flesh had been shorn from dented bone. Veins protruded, taut lifeline tense within exposed muscle. Howls were muffled, their chance to spill villainous treachery smite by a crude, crimson rag. Perhaps next, he’d threaten the removal of his tongue. Scalpel slid from elbow to bicep, the Interrogator meaning to match a masterpiece of carnage among another section of punishable hide.

The flayed sinner atoned as the onslaught pursued, a petrified voice crooning its traitorous chorus. Erroneous promises were designed with an iron bite, a bullet slung from its chamber. The end was the same. Silent figures erased what hellish ordeals unfolded within the tent, and brought forth yet another victim, unprepared for the executioner’s guile. His tools met the palms of a subordinate. “Get them talking,” he directed, “I have something to see to.”

Damp fabric scoured arms of scarlet ink, drenched a once cleansed fabric. Dried specs were scrubbed from intact flesh. If it were another he meant to visit, there’d have been no mistaking his stained position. Sacred utterance greeted his wicked aura-- however hushed the sentiments. He knew-- always knew-- when the weight of war threatened to snare Apollo in a trance. Stepping forward, a hand curled around Marco’s, his spare delving into the medic’s pocket.

A single digit hooked itself around the exposed, intricate article. Withdrawing the armata bianca, Deimos wove its spiritual chain between intertwined hands. He expected the rosary’s fine beading to combust at his contact-- the devil’s prized demon projecting sin upon each holy grail. He held no place for God or his catechized prophecies; each prayer a fallacy against azure eyes. “What would you pray between us?”

[bpdvoid]

a bad person? who, me? that would be correct,

[deadshotvasile]

B O O K M A R K !

[deimosday]

ruinationrp:

FIRST SERGEANT LUCIAN “DEIMOS” DAY · 27 · INTERROGATOR · SHADOWED COMMANDO · TAKEN

“The air is silk, shadows form a grin. If I lose control, I feed the beast within.”

ORIGIN:

Surrey, England

TRAITS:

+ Brilliant, Cunning, Meticulous

-  Sadistic, Unhinged, Volatile

BIOGRAPHY: TW: suicidal thoughts, death, murder

THERE IS A WAR OUTSIDE, COME SEE THE BULLETS FLY.

Lucian Day was an omen from birth, but far from a good one. Born to Daniel and Clarissa Day, Lucian stole his mother’s life upon his birth. Clarissa’s death resulted in a rage-filled Daniel whom despised his son from first breath. Raised by nannies for the majority of his youth and neglected by his father, it was rather easy to form an estranged relation between father and son. Daniel was constantly partaking in business and sending Lucian to their numerous seasonal homes; usually sending him to a different one whenever Daniel wished to stay at the place Lucian was occupying. Alone in these historic mansions, Lucian came to respect his caretakers who happened to be of lower class standard. Rather than growing up spoiled and pompous, he was surrounded by humble people for the most important years of adolescence. His father would send the most appraised scholars to educate his son. Despite the hatred between them Lucian did not take these various lessons for granted.

They cultivated him. In fact, the lessons began the discovery of a cunning brilliance. Daniel’s mistreatment became the downfall of his own doing. As Lucian aged, he began to ease his way into his father’s secrecy. He gained access to funds and uncovered details that proved Daniel Day had committed treason against his country. With the majority of the family fortune being transported to Germany’s front, Lucian had remained in the Day’s shadows for far too long. Only twenty-three, his capabilities took on twisted action. He had poisoned his father for his crimes— also for his own vengeance— and attended the funeral with no remorse. His passing brought Lucian a sense of peace. He did not let his father be buried on Day soil; Daniel was cremated and disposed of indelicately.

His targets transformed into business partners of his father. They squandered their money on needless atrocities, and Lucian defined the plan of his new era. Comprising a fraud, Lucian created a company fund that directed money straight to allied forces. Once he had access to the upperclass kings of Wolverhampton, Lucian Day drained their accounts with no personal gain. Before Lucian abandoned his blue blood, he passed the Day estates to families seeking refuge from the war’s destruction. His land continues to be a safe haven for those affected, and is the only business he now takes part in back home.

DO YOU HEAR THE BATTLE CRY?

When Lucian entered the war, he chose an occupation that sported the highest mortality rate. The career surrounding an EOD was not a particularly popular one, and the war called for bomb disposal. Unconcerned with his life, being a rather depressed individual, he held no qualms when it came to accepting the job. What he did not expect was to unearth a family. His regiment had earned a Commando title themselves, and for two years, Lucian Day was an integral part of their survival. Not having expected to outlast the life within a bomb squad for more than a week at best, he wondered if death truly favored him at all.

Lucian did not consider a place within interrogation despite his taste for it. For a time, he was afraid that being an Interrogator would have him released from the war; as most within the occupation failed their psych evaluations and were removed. An enemy became the defining line of divine intervention. On a scouting mission with his own, they stumbled upon an opposing German force. The end result became the capture of few survivors, and Lucian took it upon himself to remove the needed information from their prisoners. With the Interrogation force elsewhere, Lucian Day spilled more than blood. Espionage, explosive device locations, sabotage, and the uncovering of an ambush on an allied Commando unit. When the Interrogation unit returned, Lucian Day was removed from bomb disposal, and thrust into an insidious line of work.

He, in the darkest sense, flourished. A year into his newfound line of work, and he had learned how to feign psychological competence through manipulating each evaluation. He, and numerous other Interrogators, remained by using these methods. They were the sole purpose their allies survived, but were often loathed by both partied for their razor-like methods. Lucian was unconcerned; his company was comprised of torturous tools and the enemies they fell upon.

It was a grenade that nearly tore it from him. His regiment had been deployed; shoved into the very heart of a war zone. For two days, he and his men rolled between bullet-grazed trenches and returned suppressive fire. He had not forgotten the truth behind joining the war— the task that consisted of his own demise. But even if he had craved life, Lucian Day would still have tossed himself upon a grenade aimed for the incineration of his unit. And he did, nearly. His closest comrade shoved him from its destination, and taking the full brunt of its fatal consequence, Lucian only received half its detonation. A ditch hoarding corpses was what he would have accepted for his grave, but his collapsing lung had become an altered course, unwanted by his awakening. With a medic from the Shadowed Commandos his savior, the Commander harbored his talent, and demanded his allegiance upon his recovery.

FACECLAIM: Dane Dehaan

[deimosday]

apollovalenti:

Marco, despite himself, shivered as Lucian’s voice pierced through the night air. Both because of the knowledge of where the blood splashed carelessly across his clothing, and the memories of their last parting. Lucian Day was a person more suited to the dark of night, or the dimly lit interior of an interrogation tent, than to the sunlight which fell upon him where he stood. To Marco, who had grown sick of staring at a blank page, he seemed the perfect thing to occupy himself with for the time being - Lucian could be incredibly picturesque when he wasn’t trying to be the bane of his existence, after all. 

Idly, his pencil had created the beginnings of a shape that Marco was rather proud of. His drawings always tended to be better when they depicted something Marco was fascinated by, and that certainly applied to Lucian Day. “Chi ha bisogna s’arrenda.” The medic smirked, choosing to ignore the fact that he had been smoking, unwilling to shatter the quiet moment he had found amongst the constant rush of camp, and his mind. “You’re right though, I usually pick muses who don’t pull knives at me and who don’t seem to exist only to make my life hard, but you’re the only one around, so you’re going to have to do.” Marco laughed at his own false disdain, and only smiled across the way at Lucian. “So be quiet and look pretty, maybe less like you’re currently thinking of flaying someone. You owe me, Deimos.” Marco’s smile refused to fade as he teased Lucian even as he turned back to his page, brow creasing in concentration as he did so. 

With his cigarette crushed beneath the sole of his boots, Lucian felt bare. It was unlike him to give into another’s wish. The relinquishment of the stick of nicotine had felt like dynamite’s detonation. He wanted it back, but he failed to light another. Shoving clenched fists into his pockets, Lucian tilted his head back to admire the skyline. “I warned you, Apollo,” his gaze left the sky for a brief moment in time to find the sketching deity, “and I never warn. I act. Consider it a professional courtesy.” Returning to his watch above, he witnessed a bird’s ascent from camp and wished he could follow, Deimos found it difficult to believe he belonged there-- difficult to believe he belonged anywhere but under. “Considering I was just flaying someone, what did you expect? I owe you nothing. Besides, you want a pretty muse. Find anyone else.”

[deimosday]

apollovalenti:

“If you could stay there a moment more, it would be a godsend.” Marco said, brow creased in concentration as he glanced back at his dogeared notebook where a rough sketch of his comrade was coming to fruition. As they began to move off, Marco realised they didn’t realise they had become the subject of his idle drawing, and all before he had finished his rough outline.

When he surfaced, the air was lucid. The draw back of the tent flap had him recoil from the sun’s severity. He had entered at dusk some evenings ago. He had witnessed the twilight from within the interrogation tent’s confines, and had not ventured from its clutches. He had wrung the life from a prelude of information; harvested within a shell that once held an unmarred person. His clothing spoke the tale of a Interrogator’s war-- its color a mismatching set of stale and fresh reds. Once the opulent blue of his eyes adjusted to the light’s berating, Deimos retrieved a cigarette and lit it as he wandered, leaving the nurses to dispose of the mess in his wake.

He wasn’t certain how long he’d been in another atmosphere when the voice broke through. His mind had wandered as his previous steps had taken him, and it was Apollo who awoke him with a gentle order. For the man’s benefit, he released what was left of his lucky strike. He’d raised a knife to retrieve the last one, and now he fell the new without a threat. “I did not think I would be a muse of yours,” Deimos conceded as he turned, “especially covered in what you medics like to bandage.”

[deimosday]

apollovalenti:

“If you want to convince yourself there is no difference between this.” He motioned to the basecamp around them and it’s position amidst a warzone. “and peacetime, that’s fine by me. Just know, tui hai torto. My country has been ravaged, my home flattened, my family put in danger, I have had to do things that make me sick just to think about them - and all since war was declared. Peace will come eventually, you’ll see.” Apollo was the god of truth too, after all. He had known from the moment Deimos opened his eyes and his mouth that he was a pessimist, and though he tolerated it, Marco could not stand to listen to the only source he had for hope - eventual peace - ripped to shreds by Lucian’s expert tongue. “I do not threaten, only warn. I am not a particularly threatening man, if you hadn’t gathered that already.” Marco frowned and watched the process of Lucian lighting his cigarette with the precision of a cat watching each movement of a bird in a tree. Without hesitating, Marco reached out and snagged the cigarette from jaws of the beast, unwilling to watch his tireless work go to waste at the mercy of a Lucky Strike. “Guardami. If you are to die, it will not be by ruining the piece of art that is the job I did on your lung.” The cigarette was exterminated under his boot with a precise twist, and he stepped back with an irritated yet vaguely smug smile. 

Deimos sniggered. The mention of peace would not become their mutual understanding. Then again, the Interrogator had never shared a mutual standing without a knife to convince the third party. And usually, that third party was strapped to a chair, emitting shirlls and screams that obliterated all reason. He would call the medic blind, but even Lucian did not insult a soldier clinging to a notion of peace. At least, not one he liked. “I think you underestimate how threatening you are perceived by some of your medical staff,” he mused, “you hear plenty when under your tent arrest.” The cigarette became a phantom, his hand still poised but without the item needed to carry out its action. He scowled in response to its loss. “Taking my cigarettes, bello, is only going to ruin your so-called artwork.” He watched its embers sizzle out beneath Apollo’s stomp. His smug look wrenched a deeper frown from Lucian. Like clockwork, he retrieved a second cigarette. “Reach for this one, and you will lose that smug smile.”

[christianoita]

Dane Dehaan for British GQ

Photographed by Christian Oita

[deimosday]

agentdurant:

Tristan looked up from his book, the voice to his right grabbing his attention. “They’d probably bleed out.” While not as visibly irked as the other male, the noise was grating; heavily impacting his ability to concentrate (he’d read the same sentence five times). “Hot knife,” he mused, “that’s the trick.”

“Cauterize their wound?” Deimos queried indelicately. He flicked the knife upward, met the stranger with a roll of his eyes. “I tend to not save those who I work on. In my line of work, they can swallow their blood for all I care.” It would not have been the first image he’d been privy too within his sinner’s tent. At least the man was knowledgable. The blade halted its acrobatics. “What book? Mine were lost.” As were the entirety of his belongings when drug to the godforsaken camp.

[deimosday]

apollovalenti:

“We are all puppets until peace is declared, Deimos. That is how war works.” Marco replied, without skipping a beat. He knew first hand the devastation that those trained to interrogate could inflict - both with their knives, and their sharp tongues. Though resentment emanated off Lucian Day in waves, Marco was determined to get past that. If that was even possible. While Marco’s job was to put people together again, Lucian’s was to take people apart, and from what the medic gathered, and felt, he was doing just that to him from the inside out. He had honed in on his most tender weakness, and was going in for the kill. “I much would rather be a suspected traitor than a Nazi.” Marco shifted uncomfortably and what was left of a smile on his face disappeared. “Do not mistake my placidity for resignation. I don’t talk about that for a reason, so I would advise you to not push it.” Marco was the one in charge of most of the facets of Lucian’s life at this current moment, after all. Though his words were more assertive than usual, Marco’s voice was still as soft as ever. He was not a particularly commanding man, in any sense, least of all when he was afraid. And Lucian apparently knowing so much he kept secret most certainly did strike fear in him. “Please.”

“Peace is a fabrication,” Deimos countered, conjuring taut emotion, “peace will not come with the end of war.” Or at any conflict of mass magnitude. Or at any region where rain was red, and bloodshed engulfed terra. Or, as Deimos had come to realize throughout disengaged youth, at any point of his existence-- then, now, to the length of his forever. The murk that displaced his blood wished to press Apollo further; prick and prod and propel him into darkness. “Punctuating a threat with ‘please’ does not meet your favor, mate.” As promised, Lucian plucked a cigarette from the pack stowed away within a worn boot. He set it between his teeth-- surprisingly gleam for a murderous predator-- and reached for his lighter. His thumb flicked back the metal cover, and then rolled its switch. The flame flickered, a much brighter proposition than their current conversation. “Please won’t earn you peace, and it sure as fuck won’t keep the smoke from my lungs. You have been assigned to the deceased, Marco Valenti.”

[deimosday]

pilotpark:

Perhaps cleaning a helmet until she could pretend some part of it was gleaming–if that was a word worthy of their vocabulary given their exact circumstances–was not exactly a productive hobby, but Eva was fresh out of much else to do. The day spanned ahead of her lazily, though for now she would idle before caving and heading down to the motor pool after all. The sharp cut of annoyance caught her attention, gaze lifting as her hands slowed in their steady task. Her brows raised in a mild gesture of amusement, gaze returning to her proclaimed task at hand. “Sounds like a promise you don’t plan on keeping.”

Deimos’ brows knitted together as a foreign voice invaded his airspace. The woman was new to him-- as the majority of the Shadowed Commandos were-- but perhaps still a more recent arrival than himself. From her helm, he knew her a pilot. It took a certain gall to engage with him post his reputation’s earnings. Simply facing him, the Interrogator knew, made Russian roulette seem the purest serenity. “When you find them mute you will have your answer.” He flipped the knife, catching the item by its blade and then its hilt palm-side as the pattern continued.

[deimosday]

apollovalenti:

“You will get better one day. Apparently in a long time though, if you insist on being so difficult.” The way Marco saw it, there was no reason for Lucian to be so stubborn. The less he defied him, the quicker he would recover. “And I did not ask to follow you, but if you’re going to risk all my hard work on defying me, I have no choice but to try and drag you back. Costin needs you in one piece, and I can’t risk all that going to waste.” Marco froze, unable to go forward with his sentence or think about anything other then the echo of Lucian’s words in his ears. Clenching his jaw, Marco’s green eyes filled with the memory of pain, fear and all the things he preferred to keep locked up within himself. The bright, sunny, unfailingly friendly person he usually was had been replaced in no time by a shyer, more closed off version of himself that was usually for his own eyes only. “Non parlo di questo… Come fai a saperlo?” His voice wavered and he knew that his discomfort was coming off him in waves.

If Lucian heard one more thing that their prized Commander needed, he was certain he’d hand himself over to the enemy. “So I am your project,” he proclaimed, twisting words to his own liking, “and a future puppet for your unit’s own gain.” He held a serpent’s tongue; made captive wrongful meanings and conversational directions. All were pieces belonging to an Interrogator’s puzzling career. And he knew that when he dabbled in verbal, dark enchantment, he unleashed the worst of his knowledge. Deimos struck Apollo with an unfair mention; one he had no business in toying with. His voice was warm and inviting, but a liar’s domain. You could not trust the world in which he came. “No, you don’t talk about it, but you don’t have to when everyone else does for you. Very few trust a supposed defector. You’re a puppet of your past. Always will be.”

[zyaxsor]

Visit Original Link

[deimosday]

lunetist-victorios:

“Still is not mattering,” Crina replied, the look on her face one of ‘yeah, you’re still wrong.’ “You did not ask for them, they did not ask for you, and we did not ask for this war. But here we all are.” 

“If this still is not mattering,” Lucian reiterated, “then why continue to speak of it as if it does? I do not have to like them. They do not have to like me. I’m only here to dissect enemies.”

[deimosday]

apollovalenti:

“As I’m sure we will all find out when you are better.” Marco scowled, wishing Lucian could understand that his worry for his health was more than just needing to keep him alive for his skillset and the work that had been put into him - Marco genuinely looked forward to the day when he could free Lucian from the confines of his care so that the life which had been restored to him could be at least worth it. Fighting a shudder that came with the twisted grin that he got in return, Marco’s eyes stayed fixed on the blade as it was manoeuvred with the casualty of a man who knew exactly how to use it for slicing more than the flesh of fruit. Unimpressed, Marco stepped back so the the core fell in front of his feet. “I would rather be bored than chasing you in circles around camp. I have work to do, Lucian - and you have recovering to do. Per favore, faciliti le cose?” His tone bordered on pleading, though with a heart as steel as Deimos’, Marco doubted he’d have much luck regardless.

“--If I am better.” Deimos interjected, harboring no particular wish to take part in the medic’s plans regarding his recovery. His knife had carved more than an apple’s skin, as Marco voiced his awareness of the fact. Lucian lifted the final slice to his mouth and wiped the blade against his pant leg. “And I am not keeping you from your,” his hand gestured flippantly, “work. I did not asked to be hunted by a hawk, Apollo. I will not go with you. Non fare questo duro con te stesso, allora. Leave me, and perhaps you won’t find yourself at the wrong end of my occupation.” Cocking his head, Lucian sheathed the knife at his boot. His intentions were as wicked as himself. “But from what I hear you’ve already been there.”

[deimosday]

lunetist-victorios:

“True that might be being. But you are not supposed to carve up your own comrades.”

“Perfect, then, because I did not ask for them to be my comrades.”

[deimosday]

apollovalenti:

Over the period of Lucian’s recovery, Marco had grown all too familiar with that smirk that told of defiance and disobedience. No matter how hard Marco tried, his patience continued to be tested. “Or I can just make the current ones regret ever handing them to you.” Not likely, since they all seemed entirely smitten by Deimos. “You find Phobos, I find an Artemis - fight fire with fire. You can try all you want, but I doubt very much you could make this any harder.” Marco shrugged, giving him a smirk in return, though his held more kindness perhaps, than Lucian’s. “Perhaps I should have called you Morpheus, or Hypnos - then maybe it would be easier to keep you abed.” 

Lucian did not care what became of the nurses during Marco’s charge. He was unconcerned with their lives, as he was unconcerned with the numbers surrounding what he dubbed prison. “If you find an Artemis, you better hope they’re good at hunting.” He flashed a grin that could send the true Deimos to retirement. “Because hunting is why I am here.” And how he hunt, Marco knew well, for the information’s entirety was pooled within a manilla file. He flashed his knife, tapped its cool steel against his mouth, then pointed it toward Apollo. “Hypnos would have bored you.” he quipped whilst tossing him the apple’s core.