Cardi 🐀

@red-bird-c

I know a lot. Possibly too much.

193 posts

ℌ𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢!

It is nice to meet you! My name is Copia. I go by he/they, I am panromantic and on the asexual spectrum.

I am a Cardinal in the Ministry where I work. Trust me, I work. Lots.

I made this to talk with the outside world a little more. I have my brothers to speak with, but like a carousel, even with a rotation of faces, it can get boring.

About me, yes! I am older than I would care to admit, I am single (not like I have time for that kind of stuff), and I am a hard worker! I also have to traverse the Ministry building a LOT every day, so I hear and see a lot of things. I am all eyes and ears, I suppose. I am also a gossip. It cannot be helped.

I also have pet rats! A lot of them. They're very nice.

Hope to hear from you soon!

[OOC: this blog contains lots of mature stuff, like mentions of ab*se, dr*g use, and various horror elements. Other topics you should know about include body horror, and emetophobia. Please view at your own risk!!!]

[OOC: CURRENTLY IN A LARGE SCALE HORROR AU RP!!! THIS IS NOT A GOOD EXAMPLE OF IN CHARACTER BEHAVIOR! I PROMISE WE'RE MORE NORMAL THAN THAT!!!]

☆MOD INFO AND RULES!!! ☆

Mod is a minor. Act accordingly!! (Mod is @wayward-victorian-man )

Mod has a life outside of the site, so please be patient!

No discrimination of any kind. Just don't. I don't care who's here as long as you aren't making me uncomfortable.

☆☆☆This takes place before Primo, Secondo, and Terzo were uh... taken care of. Cardi does not know who his parents are or who Perpetua is!!!☆☆☆

🌹, 🦇, 🐇 emojis taken!!!! Do not use unless you are those respective people!!!

Copia your rats are bathing in the satan damn kitchen sink again

— purple ass anon

Oh! Yeah they do that. Sister lets them.

At least they're clean animals. 🤷

I doubt you'd know anything about that.

Psssst- Hey Cardi- I have a gift for ya…

•

•

•

RAT PLUSH

He takes it carefully.

"Thank you so much! I promise I will take good care of it!"

He places it on his desk, next to where he does his paperwork. He smiles. The office looks a little brighter now.

[Chapter 3]

(Copia walked into his room one evening, looking exhausted, and flopped on his bed face first. He turned his head to the side so his voice was clear.)

"V, I know you're in here. I'm back."

(He pauses, before asking)

"Have the Siblings of Sin been acting... weird to you recently?"

[ @red-bird-c ]

[ V was on the ceiling, yawning as Copia walked in and stretching his wings out. ]

"Uhuh..."

[ he mumbled, dropping down and picking his mask up off the floor, lying down in a nearby sunny spot. ]

"I just thought it was because of heat season..."

(Copia shuddered.)

"Heat season... yuck. No, that's next month. They've just been giving me weird looks, and my paperwork has never gotten back to me slower. I was so bored in my office earlier, I cried."

(He rolls over onto his back and sighs.)

"Do you think I said something during last Black Mass that they didn't like? I'm thinking my extended rat analogy didn't touch as many hearts as I'd hoped it would."

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

"Either... I feel like they'd be easier to get into rolled up..."

[ he stared out into the garden... just look at all of it... ]

"Or we can smoke it all, point blank."

(Copia stared at him.)

"The hell is wrong with you? I bet you've never smoked too much in your life. Too much and you'll be heaving your guts in a bathtub while crying and singing something by the Beatles. At least, that's how it was for me and Primo."

(He grabbed Perpetua by the arm.)

"Let's go get the stuff from his room. One of the earth ghouls comes by every once in a while to put new ones in his room, so it's not like they'll be bad."

(He dragged Perpetua up to Primo's room. Most of the decor was red or gold, and quite fancy. The air was thick with the smell of multiple heavily fragranced candles, which had very obviously only been lit to cover up other smells.)

"Root through his bedside drawers. If you find anything related to certain.... activities, please don't tell me. I have heard all the rumors and I really don't want to know what the old bastard was doing. I'm going into his bathroom, because he smoked a lot of everything in there. Tell me if you find what we need, and take anything shiny if you want it. It's his ghost that will haunt you, not mine."

[ Perpetua stared at Copia in return, biting back a smile. He had never thrown up in his life, that he remembers anyway.* ]

"Pussy."

[ V frowned the whole time, following nonetheless. ]

...

[ he stared around the room in awe, his eyes widening at the sight of all the glitter. He knew better than to take from a memorial. ]

"Maybe if you talk louder, he won't hear you..."

[ Perpetua mumbled to himself, going through drawers. ]

"Primo hears everything. That's one thing he never lost with age. He had multiple bad falls and a heart attack, but he never had hearing loss. I bet he can hear your annoying ass insect voice right now."

(A small glass object hurtles off the bedside table across the room and shatters against the wall. It had not been touched.)

(Copia grabbed the bag that he was looking for, and walked back out of the bathroom.)

"See. Told you he hears everything. He doesn't like you as a musician, by the way. He thinks you're ruining the message of the band. But he also told me I was turning the band into a 'twinkle toe tipsy twink show', so, you know. He doesn't have his medicine in the afterlife and he's bitter about it."

(Another small glass bottle flies across the room and shatters.)

"We should leave now."

[ Perpetua had hid himself in the corner in terror, not wanting to be hit with glass and shrieking everytime it broke. ]

"Yes! Please!"

[ he enjoyed the idea of leaving, running out at the cue and grabbing onto Copia as a shield and hiding behind him, shaking. ]

"Weird around here..."

"Weird? He's your brother, dipshit."

(Once they get back to Copia's room, he flops on the bed to get his lighter.)

"Now. We're sharing one. I'm always having just a bit too much by myself. If I remember correctly, you're supposed to just inhale this shit. It's been a while."

(He takes a joint out of the bag and stares at it, uncomfortable. He begins breathing heavily, remembering the aftermath of past adventures. He doesn't light it, just stares.)

"Uhh... here goes nothing."

(He doesn't move. At all.)

[ Perpetua snatches it out of Copias hand, using the lighter he gave him and taking a hit. ]

"Brother or not... the ministry is weird..."

[ he goes ahead and takes another before passing it to Copia. ]

"Go on."

(Copia swallowed comically loud before taking it from Perpetua. He closed his eyes, took a puff, and quickly passed it back.)

"I am warning you, I do not have a good track record with this stuff. That time I ended up in my dad's living room, dancing with one of his throw pillows at 3 a.m. because I was convinced it was alive and he woke up and stared at me for a solid 10 minutes... absolutely humiliating."

"I guess starting off scared isn't a good idea..."

[ he pushed Copia away, taking it again. ]

"Last time I was high I killed God."

[ V took three more hits before handing it back to Copia, lying down. ]

"And also lit four churches on fire because our father told me to."

(Copia took it and stood up, pacing back and forth, essentially smoking it like a regular cigarette.)

"Well the lord below never talked to me. All I had was the selfish bitch salt shaker looking motherfucker that my mom married. He was the meanest piece of shit ever. Treated us all like crap. That dipshit... he......"

(He went quiet for a while, then mumbled)

"...what was I talking about? I think it's your turn again."

[ as soon as Copia stood up Perpetua began chewing apart a pillow, mumbling about how his teeth are itchy. ]

"I'm the favourite."

[ he sang, spitting out the stuffing and immediately reaching for the blunt again. ]

(Copia hands it to him, tears in his eyes.)

"You ever just... we're so small... meaningless specks. But we're both meaningless specks, so we have to be together to be meaningful... I need to write a song..."

(He dug around through his dresser drawers, instead of his desk.)

"I don't have any damn paper.... Who's room is this? Theres no paper!"

(He started crying.)

"It's bright in here... where is the paper?!"

[ Perpetua just sticks it in his mouth, holding it there for a good minute while Copia walked around. ]

"We should kill everyone ever..."

[ he stood, falling straight onto the floor, chewing at the side of his cabinet. ]

"I wrote a song once..."

(Copia cried harder, sitting on his bed.)

"Noooo... too messy. I got high and kissed a man once... that was messy too..."

(He takes another blunt out of the bag and lights it, taking a massive puff in. Already forgetting that perpetua had one.)

"I can't be doing this shit... I look like Jello... I hate Jello...."

(He grabs one of his pillows and cries into it.)

"Perpy, you there? Holy shit... you're a pillow. Holy shit... I don't want to be a pillow!!!

(He is now sobbing uncontrollably.)

"This is terrible.... You're a pillow...... What a fiasco..."

[ Perpetua just stared, looking around, confused. ]

"Have you ever counted the stars... there's... there's like six...."

[ he lied flat on his back against the floor, staring at the ceiling and pointing at it. ]

"That's Ursa.... minorr..."

[ he started laughing, manically. ]

"I should throw you into the sun!"

(Copia looked over the side of the bed and saw him. He tried to get off the bed, and fell onto him, lit blunt in his hand.)

"You're not a pillow anymore... that's... that's fucking crazy..."

(He gasped at Perpetua's comment.)

"Don't throw me into the sun, you fucking bitch! I'll melt!"

(He took another puff and cried)

"I want my mom...."

"Oh shut up..."

[ he mumbled, grabbing Copias blunt too, using both at the same time. ]

"Being too... noisy.... crybabyish...."

[ Perpetua started chewing on Copias arm, shaking it in his mouth and growling. ]

"Crybabyish? Me?"

(He gently slaps Perpetua across the face.)

"I'm sorry... you're ugly... but you didn't deserve that."

"Quit fucking eating me!! You fffucking... wench!"

(He took both the blunts from Perpetua and used them at the same time, before trying to put them back in Perpetua's mouth, struggling.)

"Your face is... massive.... why are we on the floor?"

[ he slit his eyes at Copia when he was slapped, shoving his brother away. But gratefully taking the blunts. ]

"I am normal..."

[ V paused, glaring at him. ]

"I am not a wrench... fucking tools...."

(Copia hugged him tightly.)

"I'm sorry...."

(He laid there for a minute, still laying like a weighted blanket on top of his brother.)

"My head hurts...."

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

"Either... I feel like they'd be easier to get into rolled up..."

[ he stared out into the garden... just look at all of it... ]

"Or we can smoke it all, point blank."

(Copia stared at him.)

"The hell is wrong with you? I bet you've never smoked too much in your life. Too much and you'll be heaving your guts in a bathtub while crying and singing something by the Beatles. At least, that's how it was for me and Primo."

(He grabbed Perpetua by the arm.)

"Let's go get the stuff from his room. One of the earth ghouls comes by every once in a while to put new ones in his room, so it's not like they'll be bad."

(He dragged Perpetua up to Primo's room. Most of the decor was red or gold, and quite fancy. The air was thick with the smell of multiple heavily fragranced candles, which had very obviously only been lit to cover up other smells.)

"Root through his bedside drawers. If you find anything related to certain.... activities, please don't tell me. I have heard all the rumors and I really don't want to know what the old bastard was doing. I'm going into his bathroom, because he smoked a lot of everything in there. Tell me if you find what we need, and take anything shiny if you want it. It's his ghost that will haunt you, not mine."

[ Perpetua stared at Copia in return, biting back a smile. He had never thrown up in his life, that he remembers anyway.* ]

"Pussy."

[ V frowned the whole time, following nonetheless. ]

...

[ he stared around the room in awe, his eyes widening at the sight of all the glitter. He knew better than to take from a memorial. ]

"Maybe if you talk louder, he won't hear you..."

[ Perpetua mumbled to himself, going through drawers. ]

"Primo hears everything. That's one thing he never lost with age. He had multiple bad falls and a heart attack, but he never had hearing loss. I bet he can hear your annoying ass insect voice right now."

(A small glass object hurtles off the bedside table across the room and shatters against the wall. It had not been touched.)

(Copia grabbed the bag that he was looking for, and walked back out of the bathroom.)

"See. Told you he hears everything. He doesn't like you as a musician, by the way. He thinks you're ruining the message of the band. But he also told me I was turning the band into a 'twinkle toe tipsy twink show', so, you know. He doesn't have his medicine in the afterlife and he's bitter about it."

(Another small glass bottle flies across the room and shatters.)

"We should leave now."

[ Perpetua had hid himself in the corner in terror, not wanting to be hit with glass and shrieking everytime it broke. ]

"Yes! Please!"

[ he enjoyed the idea of leaving, running out at the cue and grabbing onto Copia as a shield and hiding behind him, shaking. ]

"Weird around here..."

"Weird? He's your brother, dipshit."

(Once they get back to Copia's room, he flops on the bed to get his lighter.)

"Now. We're sharing one. I'm always having just a bit too much by myself. If I remember correctly, you're supposed to just inhale this shit. It's been a while."

(He takes a joint out of the bag and stares at it, uncomfortable. He begins breathing heavily, remembering the aftermath of past adventures. He doesn't light it, just stares.)

"Uhh... here goes nothing."

(He doesn't move. At all.)

[ Perpetua snatches it out of Copias hand, using the lighter he gave him and taking a hit. ]

"Brother or not... the ministry is weird..."

[ he goes ahead and takes another before passing it to Copia. ]

"Go on."

(Copia swallowed comically loud before taking it from Perpetua. He closed his eyes, took a puff, and quickly passed it back.)

"I am warning you, I do not have a good track record with this stuff. That time I ended up in my dad's living room, dancing with one of his throw pillows at 3 a.m. because I was convinced it was alive and he woke up and stared at me for a solid 10 minutes... absolutely humiliating."

"I guess starting off scared isn't a good idea..."

[ he pushed Copia away, taking it again. ]

"Last time I was high I killed God."

[ V took three more hits before handing it back to Copia, lying down. ]

"And also lit four churches on fire because our father told me to."

(Copia took it and stood up, pacing back and forth, essentially smoking it like a regular cigarette.)

"Well the lord below never talked to me. All I had was the selfish bitch salt shaker looking motherfucker that my mom married. He was the meanest piece of shit ever. Treated us all like crap. That dipshit... he......"

(He went quiet for a while, then mumbled)

"...what was I talking about? I think it's your turn again."

[ as soon as Copia stood up Perpetua began chewing apart a pillow, mumbling about how his teeth are itchy. ]

"I'm the favourite."

[ he sang, spitting out the stuffing and immediately reaching for the blunt again. ]

(Copia hands it to him, tears in his eyes.)

"You ever just... we're so small... meaningless specks. But we're both meaningless specks, so we have to be together to be meaningful... I need to write a song..."

(He dug around through his dresser drawers, instead of his desk.)

"I don't have any damn paper.... Who's room is this? Theres no paper!"

(He started crying.)

"It's bright in here... where is the paper?!"

[ Perpetua just sticks it in his mouth, holding it there for a good minute while Copia walked around. ]

"We should kill everyone ever..."

[ he stood, falling straight onto the floor, chewing at the side of his cabinet. ]

"I wrote a song once..."

(Copia cried harder, sitting on his bed.)

"Noooo... too messy. I got high and kissed a man once... that was messy too..."

(He takes another blunt out of the bag and lights it, taking a massive puff in. Already forgetting that perpetua had one.)

"I can't be doing this shit... I look like Jello... I hate Jello...."

(He grabs one of his pillows and cries into it.)

"Perpy, you there? Holy shit... you're a pillow. Holy shit... I don't want to be a pillow!!!

(He is now sobbing uncontrollably.)

"This is terrible.... You're a pillow...... What a fiasco..."

[ Perpetua just stared, looking around, confused. ]

"Have you ever counted the stars... there's... there's like six...."

[ he lied flat on his back against the floor, staring at the ceiling and pointing at it. ]

"That's Ursa.... minorr..."

[ he started laughing, manically. ]

"I should throw you into the sun!"

(Copia looked over the side of the bed and saw him. He tried to get off the bed, and fell onto him, lit blunt in his hand.)

"You're not a pillow anymore... that's... that's fucking crazy..."

(He gasped at Perpetua's comment.)

"Don't throw me into the sun, you fucking bitch! I'll melt!"

(He took another puff and cried)

"I want my mom...."

"Oh shut up..."

[ he mumbled, grabbing Copias blunt too, using both at the same time. ]

"Being too... noisy.... crybabyish...."

[ Perpetua started chewing on Copias arm, shaking it in his mouth and growling. ]

"Crybabyish? Me?"

(He gently slaps Perpetua across the face.)

"I'm sorry... you're ugly... but you didn't deserve that."

"Quit fucking eating me!! You fffucking... wench!"

(He took both the blunts from Perpetua and used them at the same time, before trying to put them back in Perpetua's mouth, struggling.)

"Your face is... massive.... why are we on the floor?"

#not a copy #dude they're terrible

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

"Either... I feel like they'd be easier to get into rolled up..."

[ he stared out into the garden... just look at all of it... ]

"Or we can smoke it all, point blank."

(Copia stared at him.)

"The hell is wrong with you? I bet you've never smoked too much in your life. Too much and you'll be heaving your guts in a bathtub while crying and singing something by the Beatles. At least, that's how it was for me and Primo."

(He grabbed Perpetua by the arm.)

"Let's go get the stuff from his room. One of the earth ghouls comes by every once in a while to put new ones in his room, so it's not like they'll be bad."

(He dragged Perpetua up to Primo's room. Most of the decor was red or gold, and quite fancy. The air was thick with the smell of multiple heavily fragranced candles, which had very obviously only been lit to cover up other smells.)

"Root through his bedside drawers. If you find anything related to certain.... activities, please don't tell me. I have heard all the rumors and I really don't want to know what the old bastard was doing. I'm going into his bathroom, because he smoked a lot of everything in there. Tell me if you find what we need, and take anything shiny if you want it. It's his ghost that will haunt you, not mine."

[ Perpetua stared at Copia in return, biting back a smile. He had never thrown up in his life, that he remembers anyway.* ]

"Pussy."

[ V frowned the whole time, following nonetheless. ]

...

[ he stared around the room in awe, his eyes widening at the sight of all the glitter. He knew better than to take from a memorial. ]

"Maybe if you talk louder, he won't hear you..."

[ Perpetua mumbled to himself, going through drawers. ]

"Primo hears everything. That's one thing he never lost with age. He had multiple bad falls and a heart attack, but he never had hearing loss. I bet he can hear your annoying ass insect voice right now."

(A small glass object hurtles off the bedside table across the room and shatters against the wall. It had not been touched.)

(Copia grabbed the bag that he was looking for, and walked back out of the bathroom.)

"See. Told you he hears everything. He doesn't like you as a musician, by the way. He thinks you're ruining the message of the band. But he also told me I was turning the band into a 'twinkle toe tipsy twink show', so, you know. He doesn't have his medicine in the afterlife and he's bitter about it."

(Another small glass bottle flies across the room and shatters.)

"We should leave now."

[ Perpetua had hid himself in the corner in terror, not wanting to be hit with glass and shrieking everytime it broke. ]

"Yes! Please!"

[ he enjoyed the idea of leaving, running out at the cue and grabbing onto Copia as a shield and hiding behind him, shaking. ]

"Weird around here..."

"Weird? He's your brother, dipshit."

(Once they get back to Copia's room, he flops on the bed to get his lighter.)

"Now. We're sharing one. I'm always having just a bit too much by myself. If I remember correctly, you're supposed to just inhale this shit. It's been a while."

(He takes a joint out of the bag and stares at it, uncomfortable. He begins breathing heavily, remembering the aftermath of past adventures. He doesn't light it, just stares.)

"Uhh... here goes nothing."

(He doesn't move. At all.)

[ Perpetua snatches it out of Copias hand, using the lighter he gave him and taking a hit. ]

"Brother or not... the ministry is weird..."

[ he goes ahead and takes another before passing it to Copia. ]

"Go on."

(Copia swallowed comically loud before taking it from Perpetua. He closed his eyes, took a puff, and quickly passed it back.)

"I am warning you, I do not have a good track record with this stuff. That time I ended up in my dad's living room, dancing with one of his throw pillows at 3 a.m. because I was convinced it was alive and he woke up and stared at me for a solid 10 minutes... absolutely humiliating."

"I guess starting off scared isn't a good idea..."

[ he pushed Copia away, taking it again. ]

"Last time I was high I killed God."

[ V took three more hits before handing it back to Copia, lying down. ]

"And also lit four churches on fire because our father told me to."

(Copia took it and stood up, pacing back and forth, essentially smoking it like a regular cigarette.)

"Well the lord below never talked to me. All I had was the selfish bitch salt shaker looking motherfucker that my mom married. He was the meanest piece of shit ever. Treated us all like crap. That dipshit... he......"

(He went quiet for a while, then mumbled)

"...what was I talking about? I think it's your turn again."

[ as soon as Copia stood up Perpetua began chewing apart a pillow, mumbling about how his teeth are itchy. ]

"I'm the favourite."

[ he sang, spitting out the stuffing and immediately reaching for the blunt again. ]

(Copia hands it to him, tears in his eyes.)

"You ever just... we're so small... meaningless specks. But we're both meaningless specks, so we have to be together to be meaningful... I need to write a song..."

(He dug around through his dresser drawers, instead of his desk.)

"I don't have any damn paper.... Who's room is this? Theres no paper!"

(He started crying.)

"It's bright in here... where is the paper?!"

[ Perpetua just sticks it in his mouth, holding it there for a good minute while Copia walked around. ]

"We should kill everyone ever..."

[ he stood, falling straight onto the floor, chewing at the side of his cabinet. ]

"I wrote a song once..."

(Copia cried harder, sitting on his bed.)

"Noooo... too messy. I got high and kissed a man once... that was messy too..."

(He takes another blunt out of the bag and lights it, taking a massive puff in. Already forgetting that perpetua had one.)

"I can't be doing this shit... I look like Jello... I hate Jello...."

(He grabs one of his pillows and cries into it.)

"Perpy, you there? Holy shit... you're a pillow. Holy shit... I don't want to be a pillow!!!

(He is now sobbing uncontrollably.)

"This is terrible.... You're a pillow...... What a fiasco..."

[ Perpetua just stared, looking around, confused. ]

"Have you ever counted the stars... there's... there's like six...."

[ he lied flat on his back against the floor, staring at the ceiling and pointing at it. ]

"That's Ursa.... minorr..."

[ he started laughing, manically. ]

"I should throw you into the sun!"

(Copia looked over the side of the bed and saw him. He tried to get off the bed, and fell onto him, lit blunt in his hand.)

"You're not a pillow anymore... that's... that's fucking crazy..."

(He gasped at Perpetua's comment.)

"Don't throw me into the sun, you fucking bitch! I'll melt!"

(He took another puff and cried)

"I want my mom...."

#not a copy #I'm laughing so hard my organs are filing a noise complaint

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

"Either... I feel like they'd be easier to get into rolled up..."

[ he stared out into the garden... just look at all of it... ]

"Or we can smoke it all, point blank."

(Copia stared at him.)

"The hell is wrong with you? I bet you've never smoked too much in your life. Too much and you'll be heaving your guts in a bathtub while crying and singing something by the Beatles. At least, that's how it was for me and Primo."

(He grabbed Perpetua by the arm.)

"Let's go get the stuff from his room. One of the earth ghouls comes by every once in a while to put new ones in his room, so it's not like they'll be bad."

(He dragged Perpetua up to Primo's room. Most of the decor was red or gold, and quite fancy. The air was thick with the smell of multiple heavily fragranced candles, which had very obviously only been lit to cover up other smells.)

"Root through his bedside drawers. If you find anything related to certain.... activities, please don't tell me. I have heard all the rumors and I really don't want to know what the old bastard was doing. I'm going into his bathroom, because he smoked a lot of everything in there. Tell me if you find what we need, and take anything shiny if you want it. It's his ghost that will haunt you, not mine."

[ Perpetua stared at Copia in return, biting back a smile. He had never thrown up in his life, that he remembers anyway.* ]

"Pussy."

[ V frowned the whole time, following nonetheless. ]

...

[ he stared around the room in awe, his eyes widening at the sight of all the glitter. He knew better than to take from a memorial. ]

"Maybe if you talk louder, he won't hear you..."

[ Perpetua mumbled to himself, going through drawers. ]

"Primo hears everything. That's one thing he never lost with age. He had multiple bad falls and a heart attack, but he never had hearing loss. I bet he can hear your annoying ass insect voice right now."

(A small glass object hurtles off the bedside table across the room and shatters against the wall. It had not been touched.)

(Copia grabbed the bag that he was looking for, and walked back out of the bathroom.)

"See. Told you he hears everything. He doesn't like you as a musician, by the way. He thinks you're ruining the message of the band. But he also told me I was turning the band into a 'twinkle toe tipsy twink show', so, you know. He doesn't have his medicine in the afterlife and he's bitter about it."

(Another small glass bottle flies across the room and shatters.)

"We should leave now."

[ Perpetua had hid himself in the corner in terror, not wanting to be hit with glass and shrieking everytime it broke. ]

"Yes! Please!"

[ he enjoyed the idea of leaving, running out at the cue and grabbing onto Copia as a shield and hiding behind him, shaking. ]

"Weird around here..."

"Weird? He's your brother, dipshit."

(Once they get back to Copia's room, he flops on the bed to get his lighter.)

"Now. We're sharing one. I'm always having just a bit too much by myself. If I remember correctly, you're supposed to just inhale this shit. It's been a while."

(He takes a joint out of the bag and stares at it, uncomfortable. He begins breathing heavily, remembering the aftermath of past adventures. He doesn't light it, just stares.)

"Uhh... here goes nothing."

(He doesn't move. At all.)

[ Perpetua snatches it out of Copias hand, using the lighter he gave him and taking a hit. ]

"Brother or not... the ministry is weird..."

[ he goes ahead and takes another before passing it to Copia. ]

"Go on."

(Copia swallowed comically loud before taking it from Perpetua. He closed his eyes, took a puff, and quickly passed it back.)

"I am warning you, I do not have a good track record with this stuff. That time I ended up in my dad's living room, dancing with one of his throw pillows at 3 a.m. because I was convinced it was alive and he woke up and stared at me for a solid 10 minutes... absolutely humiliating."

"I guess starting off scared isn't a good idea..."

[ he pushed Copia away, taking it again. ]

"Last time I was high I killed God."

[ V took three more hits before handing it back to Copia, lying down. ]

"And also lit four churches on fire because our father told me to."

(Copia took it and stood up, pacing back and forth, essentially smoking it like a regular cigarette.)

"Well the lord below never talked to me. All I had was the selfish bitch salt shaker looking motherfucker that my mom married. He was the meanest piece of shit ever. Treated us all like crap. That dipshit... he......"

(He went quiet for a while, then mumbled)

"...what was I talking about? I think it's your turn again."

[ as soon as Copia stood up Perpetua began chewing apart a pillow, mumbling about how his teeth are itchy. ]

"I'm the favourite."

[ he sang, spitting out the stuffing and immediately reaching for the blunt again. ]

(Copia hands it to him, tears in his eyes.)

"You ever just... we're so small... meaningless specks. But we're both meaningless specks, so we have to be together to be meaningful... I need to write a song..."

(He dug around through his dresser drawers, instead of his desk.)

"I don't have any damn paper.... Who's room is this? Theres no paper!"

(He started crying.)

"It's bright in here... where is the paper?!"

[ Perpetua just sticks it in his mouth, holding it there for a good minute while Copia walked around. ]

"We should kill everyone ever..."

[ he stood, falling straight onto the floor, chewing at the side of his cabinet. ]

"I wrote a song once..."

(Copia cried harder, sitting on his bed.)

"Noooo... too messy. I got high and kissed a man once... that was messy too..."

(He takes another blunt out of the bag and lights it, taking a massive puff in. Already forgetting that perpetua had one.)

"I can't be doing this shit... I look like Jello... I hate Jello...."

(He grabs one of his pillows and cries into it.)

"Perpy, you there? Holy shit... you're a pillow. Holy shit... I don't want to be a pillow!!!

(He is now sobbing uncontrollably.)

"This is terrible.... You're a pillow...... What a fiasco..."

#not a copy #I want to convince them I have magical powers

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

"Either... I feel like they'd be easier to get into rolled up..."

[ he stared out into the garden... just look at all of it... ]

"Or we can smoke it all, point blank."

(Copia stared at him.)

"The hell is wrong with you? I bet you've never smoked too much in your life. Too much and you'll be heaving your guts in a bathtub while crying and singing something by the Beatles. At least, that's how it was for me and Primo."

(He grabbed Perpetua by the arm.)

"Let's go get the stuff from his room. One of the earth ghouls comes by every once in a while to put new ones in his room, so it's not like they'll be bad."

(He dragged Perpetua up to Primo's room. Most of the decor was red or gold, and quite fancy. The air was thick with the smell of multiple heavily fragranced candles, which had very obviously only been lit to cover up other smells.)

"Root through his bedside drawers. If you find anything related to certain.... activities, please don't tell me. I have heard all the rumors and I really don't want to know what the old bastard was doing. I'm going into his bathroom, because he smoked a lot of everything in there. Tell me if you find what we need, and take anything shiny if you want it. It's his ghost that will haunt you, not mine."

[ Perpetua stared at Copia in return, biting back a smile. He had never thrown up in his life, that he remembers anyway.* ]

"Pussy."

[ V frowned the whole time, following nonetheless. ]

...

[ he stared around the room in awe, his eyes widening at the sight of all the glitter. He knew better than to take from a memorial. ]

"Maybe if you talk louder, he won't hear you..."

[ Perpetua mumbled to himself, going through drawers. ]

"Primo hears everything. That's one thing he never lost with age. He had multiple bad falls and a heart attack, but he never had hearing loss. I bet he can hear your annoying ass insect voice right now."

(A small glass object hurtles off the bedside table across the room and shatters against the wall. It had not been touched.)

(Copia grabbed the bag that he was looking for, and walked back out of the bathroom.)

"See. Told you he hears everything. He doesn't like you as a musician, by the way. He thinks you're ruining the message of the band. But he also told me I was turning the band into a 'twinkle toe tipsy twink show', so, you know. He doesn't have his medicine in the afterlife and he's bitter about it."

(Another small glass bottle flies across the room and shatters.)

"We should leave now."

[ Perpetua had hid himself in the corner in terror, not wanting to be hit with glass and shrieking everytime it broke. ]

"Yes! Please!"

[ he enjoyed the idea of leaving, running out at the cue and grabbing onto Copia as a shield and hiding behind him, shaking. ]

"Weird around here..."

"Weird? He's your brother, dipshit."

(Once they get back to Copia's room, he flops on the bed to get his lighter.)

"Now. We're sharing one. I'm always having just a bit too much by myself. If I remember correctly, you're supposed to just inhale this shit. It's been a while."

(He takes a joint out of the bag and stares at it, uncomfortable. He begins breathing heavily, remembering the aftermath of past adventures. He doesn't light it, just stares.)

"Uhh... here goes nothing."

(He doesn't move. At all.)

[ Perpetua snatches it out of Copias hand, using the lighter he gave him and taking a hit. ]

"Brother or not... the ministry is weird..."

[ he goes ahead and takes another before passing it to Copia. ]

"Go on."

(Copia swallowed comically loud before taking it from Perpetua. He closed his eyes, took a puff, and quickly passed it back.)

"I am warning you, I do not have a good track record with this stuff. That time I ended up in my dad's living room, dancing with one of his throw pillows at 3 a.m. because I was convinced it was alive and he woke up and stared at me for a solid 10 minutes... absolutely humiliating."

"I guess starting off scared isn't a good idea..."

[ he pushed Copia away, taking it again. ]

"Last time I was high I killed God."

[ V took three more hits before handing it back to Copia, lying down. ]

"And also lit four churches on fire because our father told me to."

(Copia took it and stood up, pacing back and forth, essentially smoking it like a regular cigarette.)

"Well the lord below never talked to me. All I had was the selfish bitch salt shaker looking motherfucker that my mom married. He was the meanest piece of shit ever. Treated us all like crap. That dipshit... he......"

(He went quiet for a while, then mumbled)

"...what was I talking about? I think it's your turn again."

[ as soon as Copia stood up Perpetua began chewing apart a pillow, mumbling about how his teeth are itchy. ]

"I'm the favourite."

[ he sang, spitting out the stuffing and immediately reaching for the blunt again. ]

(Copia hands it to him, tears in his eyes.)

"You ever just... we're so small... meaningless specks. But we're both meaningless specks, so we have to be together to be meaningful... I need to write a song..."

(He dug around through his dresser drawers, instead of his desk.)

"I don't have any damn paper.... Who's room is this? Theres no paper!"

(He started crying.)

"It's bright in here... where is the paper?!"

#not a copy #btw he absolutely would not be able to write a sentence rn he'd get distracted

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

"Either... I feel like they'd be easier to get into rolled up..."

[ he stared out into the garden... just look at all of it... ]

"Or we can smoke it all, point blank."

(Copia stared at him.)

"The hell is wrong with you? I bet you've never smoked too much in your life. Too much and you'll be heaving your guts in a bathtub while crying and singing something by the Beatles. At least, that's how it was for me and Primo."

(He grabbed Perpetua by the arm.)

"Let's go get the stuff from his room. One of the earth ghouls comes by every once in a while to put new ones in his room, so it's not like they'll be bad."

(He dragged Perpetua up to Primo's room. Most of the decor was red or gold, and quite fancy. The air was thick with the smell of multiple heavily fragranced candles, which had very obviously only been lit to cover up other smells.)

"Root through his bedside drawers. If you find anything related to certain.... activities, please don't tell me. I have heard all the rumors and I really don't want to know what the old bastard was doing. I'm going into his bathroom, because he smoked a lot of everything in there. Tell me if you find what we need, and take anything shiny if you want it. It's his ghost that will haunt you, not mine."

[ Perpetua stared at Copia in return, biting back a smile. He had never thrown up in his life, that he remembers anyway.* ]

"Pussy."

[ V frowned the whole time, following nonetheless. ]

...

[ he stared around the room in awe, his eyes widening at the sight of all the glitter. He knew better than to take from a memorial. ]

"Maybe if you talk louder, he won't hear you..."

[ Perpetua mumbled to himself, going through drawers. ]

"Primo hears everything. That's one thing he never lost with age. He had multiple bad falls and a heart attack, but he never had hearing loss. I bet he can hear your annoying ass insect voice right now."

(A small glass object hurtles off the bedside table across the room and shatters against the wall. It had not been touched.)

(Copia grabbed the bag that he was looking for, and walked back out of the bathroom.)

"See. Told you he hears everything. He doesn't like you as a musician, by the way. He thinks you're ruining the message of the band. But he also told me I was turning the band into a 'twinkle toe tipsy twink show', so, you know. He doesn't have his medicine in the afterlife and he's bitter about it."

(Another small glass bottle flies across the room and shatters.)

"We should leave now."

[ Perpetua had hid himself in the corner in terror, not wanting to be hit with glass and shrieking everytime it broke. ]

"Yes! Please!"

[ he enjoyed the idea of leaving, running out at the cue and grabbing onto Copia as a shield and hiding behind him, shaking. ]

"Weird around here..."

"Weird? He's your brother, dipshit."

(Once they get back to Copia's room, he flops on the bed to get his lighter.)

"Now. We're sharing one. I'm always having just a bit too much by myself. If I remember correctly, you're supposed to just inhale this shit. It's been a while."

(He takes a joint out of the bag and stares at it, uncomfortable. He begins breathing heavily, remembering the aftermath of past adventures. He doesn't light it, just stares.)

"Uhh... here goes nothing."

(He doesn't move. At all.)

[ Perpetua snatches it out of Copias hand, using the lighter he gave him and taking a hit. ]

"Brother or not... the ministry is weird..."

[ he goes ahead and takes another before passing it to Copia. ]

"Go on."

(Copia swallowed comically loud before taking it from Perpetua. He closed his eyes, took a puff, and quickly passed it back.)

"I am warning you, I do not have a good track record with this stuff. That time I ended up in my dad's living room, dancing with one of his throw pillows at 3 a.m. because I was convinced it was alive and he woke up and stared at me for a solid 10 minutes... absolutely humiliating."

"I guess starting off scared isn't a good idea..."

[ he pushed Copia away, taking it again. ]

"Last time I was high I killed God."

[ V took three more hits before handing it back to Copia, lying down. ]

"And also lit four churches on fire because our father told me to."

(Copia took it and stood up, pacing back and forth, essentially smoking it like a regular cigarette.)

"Well the lord below never talked to me. All I had was the selfish bitch salt shaker looking motherfucker that my mom married. He was the meanest piece of shit ever. Treated us all like crap. That dipshit... he......"

(He went quiet for a while, then mumbled)

"...what was I talking about? I think it's your turn again."

#not a copy #please he's going to be so out of it later

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

"Either... I feel like they'd be easier to get into rolled up..."

[ he stared out into the garden... just look at all of it... ]

"Or we can smoke it all, point blank."

(Copia stared at him.)

"The hell is wrong with you? I bet you've never smoked too much in your life. Too much and you'll be heaving your guts in a bathtub while crying and singing something by the Beatles. At least, that's how it was for me and Primo."

(He grabbed Perpetua by the arm.)

"Let's go get the stuff from his room. One of the earth ghouls comes by every once in a while to put new ones in his room, so it's not like they'll be bad."

(He dragged Perpetua up to Primo's room. Most of the decor was red or gold, and quite fancy. The air was thick with the smell of multiple heavily fragranced candles, which had very obviously only been lit to cover up other smells.)

"Root through his bedside drawers. If you find anything related to certain.... activities, please don't tell me. I have heard all the rumors and I really don't want to know what the old bastard was doing. I'm going into his bathroom, because he smoked a lot of everything in there. Tell me if you find what we need, and take anything shiny if you want it. It's his ghost that will haunt you, not mine."

[ Perpetua stared at Copia in return, biting back a smile. He had never thrown up in his life, that he remembers anyway.* ]

"Pussy."

[ V frowned the whole time, following nonetheless. ]

...

[ he stared around the room in awe, his eyes widening at the sight of all the glitter. He knew better than to take from a memorial. ]

"Maybe if you talk louder, he won't hear you..."

[ Perpetua mumbled to himself, going through drawers. ]

"Primo hears everything. That's one thing he never lost with age. He had multiple bad falls and a heart attack, but he never had hearing loss. I bet he can hear your annoying ass insect voice right now."

(A small glass object hurtles off the bedside table across the room and shatters against the wall. It had not been touched.)

(Copia grabbed the bag that he was looking for, and walked back out of the bathroom.)

"See. Told you he hears everything. He doesn't like you as a musician, by the way. He thinks you're ruining the message of the band. But he also told me I was turning the band into a 'twinkle toe tipsy twink show', so, you know. He doesn't have his medicine in the afterlife and he's bitter about it."

(Another small glass bottle flies across the room and shatters.)

"We should leave now."

[ Perpetua had hid himself in the corner in terror, not wanting to be hit with glass and shrieking everytime it broke. ]

"Yes! Please!"

[ he enjoyed the idea of leaving, running out at the cue and grabbing onto Copia as a shield and hiding behind him, shaking. ]

"Weird around here..."

"Weird? He's your brother, dipshit."

(Once they get back to Copia's room, he flops on the bed to get his lighter.)

"Now. We're sharing one. I'm always having just a bit too much by myself. If I remember correctly, you're supposed to just inhale this shit. It's been a while."

(He takes a joint out of the bag and stares at it, uncomfortable. He begins breathing heavily, remembering the aftermath of past adventures. He doesn't light it, just stares.)

"Uhh... here goes nothing."

(He doesn't move. At all.)

[ Perpetua snatches it out of Copias hand, using the lighter he gave him and taking a hit. ]

"Brother or not... the ministry is weird..."

[ he goes ahead and takes another before passing it to Copia. ]

"Go on."

(Copia swallowed comically loud before taking it from Perpetua. He closed his eyes, took a puff, and quickly passed it back.)

"I am warning you, I do not have a good track record with this stuff. That time I ended up in my dad's living room, dancing with one of his throw pillows at 3 a.m. because I was convinced it was alive and he woke up and stared at me for a solid 10 minutes... absolutely humiliating."

"I guess starting off scared isn't a good idea..."

#not a copy #he needs to be put down I swear #Please imagine the pillow situation.

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

"Either... I feel like they'd be easier to get into rolled up..."

[ he stared out into the garden... just look at all of it... ]

"Or we can smoke it all, point blank."

(Copia stared at him.)

"The hell is wrong with you? I bet you've never smoked too much in your life. Too much and you'll be heaving your guts in a bathtub while crying and singing something by the Beatles. At least, that's how it was for me and Primo."

(He grabbed Perpetua by the arm.)

"Let's go get the stuff from his room. One of the earth ghouls comes by every once in a while to put new ones in his room, so it's not like they'll be bad."

(He dragged Perpetua up to Primo's room. Most of the decor was red or gold, and quite fancy. The air was thick with the smell of multiple heavily fragranced candles, which had very obviously only been lit to cover up other smells.)

"Root through his bedside drawers. If you find anything related to certain.... activities, please don't tell me. I have heard all the rumors and I really don't want to know what the old bastard was doing. I'm going into his bathroom, because he smoked a lot of everything in there. Tell me if you find what we need, and take anything shiny if you want it. It's his ghost that will haunt you, not mine."

[ Perpetua stared at Copia in return, biting back a smile. He had never thrown up in his life, that he remembers anyway.* ]

"Pussy."

[ V frowned the whole time, following nonetheless. ]

...

[ he stared around the room in awe, his eyes widening at the sight of all the glitter. He knew better than to take from a memorial. ]

"Maybe if you talk louder, he won't hear you..."

[ Perpetua mumbled to himself, going through drawers. ]

"Primo hears everything. That's one thing he never lost with age. He had multiple bad falls and a heart attack, but he never had hearing loss. I bet he can hear your annoying ass insect voice right now."

(A small glass object hurtles off the bedside table across the room and shatters against the wall. It had not been touched.)

(Copia grabbed the bag that he was looking for, and walked back out of the bathroom.)

"See. Told you he hears everything. He doesn't like you as a musician, by the way. He thinks you're ruining the message of the band. But he also told me I was turning the band into a 'twinkle toe tipsy twink show', so, you know. He doesn't have his medicine in the afterlife and he's bitter about it."

(Another small glass bottle flies across the room and shatters.)

"We should leave now."

[ Perpetua had hid himself in the corner in terror, not wanting to be hit with glass and shrieking everytime it broke. ]

"Yes! Please!"

[ he enjoyed the idea of leaving, running out at the cue and grabbing onto Copia as a shield and hiding behind him, shaking. ]

"Weird around here..."

"Weird? He's your brother, dipshit."

(Once they get back to Copia's room, he flops on the bed to get his lighter.)

"Now. We're sharing one. I'm always having just a bit too much by myself. If I remember correctly, you're supposed to just inhale this shit. It's been a while."

(He takes a joint out of the bag and stares at it, uncomfortable. He begins breathing heavily, remembering the aftermath of past adventures. He doesn't light it, just stares.)

"Uhh... here goes nothing."

(He doesn't move. At all.)

#not a copy #I love him but he's so damn stupid

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

"Either... I feel like they'd be easier to get into rolled up..."

[ he stared out into the garden... just look at all of it... ]

"Or we can smoke it all, point blank."

(Copia stared at him.)

"The hell is wrong with you? I bet you've never smoked too much in your life. Too much and you'll be heaving your guts in a bathtub while crying and singing something by the Beatles. At least, that's how it was for me and Primo."

(He grabbed Perpetua by the arm.)

"Let's go get the stuff from his room. One of the earth ghouls comes by every once in a while to put new ones in his room, so it's not like they'll be bad."

(He dragged Perpetua up to Primo's room. Most of the decor was red or gold, and quite fancy. The air was thick with the smell of multiple heavily fragranced candles, which had very obviously only been lit to cover up other smells.)

"Root through his bedside drawers. If you find anything related to certain.... activities, please don't tell me. I have heard all the rumors and I really don't want to know what the old bastard was doing. I'm going into his bathroom, because he smoked a lot of everything in there. Tell me if you find what we need, and take anything shiny if you want it. It's his ghost that will haunt you, not mine."

[ Perpetua stared at Copia in return, biting back a smile. He had never thrown up in his life, that he remembers anyway.* ]

"Pussy."

[ V frowned the whole time, following nonetheless. ]

...

[ he stared around the room in awe, his eyes widening at the sight of all the glitter. He knew better than to take from a memorial. ]

"Maybe if you talk louder, he won't hear you..."

[ Perpetua mumbled to himself, going through drawers. ]

"Primo hears everything. That's one thing he never lost with age. He had multiple bad falls and a heart attack, but he never had hearing loss. I bet he can hear your annoying ass insect voice right now."

(A small glass object hurtles off the bedside table across the room and shatters against the wall. It had not been touched.)

(Copia grabbed the bag that he was looking for, and walked back out of the bathroom.)

"See. Told you he hears everything. He doesn't like you as a musician, by the way. He thinks you're ruining the message of the band. But he also told me I was turning the band into a 'twinkle toe tipsy twink show', so, you know. He doesn't have his medicine in the afterlife and he's bitter about it."

(Another small glass bottle flies across the room and shatters.)

"We should leave now."

#not a copy #primo is sick of them fr

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

"Either... I feel like they'd be easier to get into rolled up..."

[ he stared out into the garden... just look at all of it... ]

"Or we can smoke it all, point blank."

(Copia stared at him.)

"The hell is wrong with you? I bet you've never smoked too much in your life. Too much and you'll be heaving your guts in a bathtub while crying and singing something by the Beatles. At least, that's how it was for me and Primo."

(He grabbed Perpetua by the arm.)

"Let's go get the stuff from his room. One of the earth ghouls comes by every once in a while to put new ones in his room, so it's not like they'll be bad."

(He dragged Perpetua up to Primo's room. Most of the decor was red or gold, and quite fancy. The air was thick with the smell of multiple heavily fragranced candles, which had very obviously only been lit to cover up other smells.)

"Root through his bedside drawers. If you find anything related to certain.... activities, please don't tell me. I have heard all the rumors and I really don't want to know what the old bastard was doing. I'm going into his bathroom, because he smoked a lot of everything in there. Tell me if you find what we need, and take anything shiny if you want it. It's his ghost that will haunt you, not mine."

#not a copy #I can't even begin to describe how this scene makes me feel lol #Like a lot of everything

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

[ he looked over at Copia, the shirt hitting him in the face. V took it away and looked at it in awe. ]

"..thank you!"

[ Perpy smiled at him, following C to the garden. ]

"I really like it."

"We'll match. I have a white version of that shirt, slightly bigger."

(He opened the door to the main garden, but stopped.)

"I don't know how to pick this shit, actually. Do you think Primo might have the already rolled stuff in his room? Wait, you wouldn't know. Maybe we should just go check... he's dead, no one will catch us in there."

#not a copy #New room unlocked yayyy

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

[ Perpetua had put on his cassock earlier, putting out his cigarette the same way Copia did. ]

"You could say that... and I'm doing okay..."

[ he walked over to his dresser, fishing through it curiously. V had a habit of stealing things from other ministry workers, Copias clothes were probably going to be next. ]

"I don't, thank you."

[ Perpy took out one of his brothers shirts, staring at it and wondering if it would fit him. ]

"That will probably be a little bit big on you. Want one that will actually fit?"

(He reached past Perpetua and tossed him a shirt. It was black, and it said 'You've ratted your last tatouille' and featured a rat holding a small gun.)

"I've got two different versions of that shirt. The one you've got is too tight for me. It's yours."

(He began walking out of the room, starting to go to the garden.)

#not a copy #This is not going to go well is it

[ chapter 2. ]

[ Perpetua sat there nervously before getting up and walking into the clergy, looking around for Copia. ]

"Fratello?"

[ he called out. The church was uncomfortably empty, even for this time of night. He made it to Copias room, looking around. ]

"Brother?"

[ @marks-of-the-evil-1 ]

(There was a groan from the floor.)

(Copia was curled up in a corner, his eyes were leaking black blood. His wings were outstretched, one flapping helplessly while the other didn't move. He turned to face the wall, and revealed that a blade had been stuck through his wing into his back. The skin around the wound looked burned, like silver would do.)

(He didn't seem to have recognized Perpetua, the creature instincts had taken over, trying to protect him. His sounds were more animalistic, he almost sounded like a ghoul.)

(He flopped flat on the floor, one wing still moving, the other stuck tight. He growled at Perpetua when he saw him, more out of pain and fear than anger.)

[ Perpetua looked horrified, shutting and locking the door behind himself as he slowly approached, glaring at the bathroom. ]

"Oh, fucking hell..."

[ he mumbled, going in to collect supplies for Copia, looking over at him every once in a while. ]

(Copia crawled towards him, crying out, and pointing to the kitchen part of his room.)

(The Brother of Sin whose husband had been eaten stood there, holding another silver blade. He rushed at Perpetua, cutting a long, deep slice into his arm. He attempted to tackle him to the floor.)

(Copia tried to move, but his body had gone weak, so he just laid there.)

[ Perpetua cried, punching the sibling in the face and holding his arm, screaming. ]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear!"

[ he paused before slipping his mask off, bludgeoning the brothers face. ]

"Look what you did! What you did to him!"

[ his movements turned more raggedy, stiff. He was so pissed he could barely work through it. He threw his mask off to the side, driving his teeth into the brothers neck, getting real food. ]

...

[ after he finished he drug the body to Copia, offering him leftovers as he tended to his wing. His mask stayed off, which was odd for him. ]

"Stay still..."

(Copia didn't touch the body, but leaned into Perpetua's touch. His body trembled, the silver was hurting him immensely.)

(When the knife was pulled out, blood weakly trickled out, dark from contamination. The knife had not reached any of his organs, but it had broken a rib, and worrying enough, part of a vertebrae.)

(Copia sniffed at the body that had been offered, and flinched back, curling up against his brother. He looked exhausted and pale, his face was almost grey.)

[ Perpetua hummed as he cleaned the wound, one of Nihils songs, he wondered what his father was like. ]

"That should heal, slowly, but you have to eat something."

[ he sighed, smiling at Copia when he curled against him. ]

"Okay..., okay we can eat later...."

(Copia tried to move his hurt wing, and screeched from the pain. He scooted onto Perpetua, laying on top of him. He began gently kneading his chest, the way a cat would a blanket. He laid there for a minute, purring.)

(He eventually got up and crawled cautiously over to the body. He picked a different part of the neck to bite into, drinking for a bit. When he pulled back, he sat and wrapped his wings around himself.)

"I'm sorry."

[ Perpetua lied there, sighing as he stretched his arms out. His back cracked at least six times, nobody knows how long it's been since he stretched. ]

[ he kept lying there, watching Copia eat before staring at the ceiling. ]

"Don't apologize."

"I should have been able to protect myself. I should have been looking out for myself. I tried to warn you, but the words..."

(He sighed.)

"He wanted to stab you so you were immobile, and so he could finish me off with you watching."

(He shook his head sadly.)

"I can't have shit in this place. Every time I feel like I'm going to get a good start to something, boom! Someone has to take it away. It's losing them all over again. It's like losing you, when we were little."

"Can't i just have one good thing that isn't ruined? That doesn't get taken away because of some Ministry law, or some Ministry fuckhead?!"

(He wanted to cry, but the anger overwhelmed him more than the sadness.)

"Must've been nice to live in the woods..."

[ Perpetua moved away to grab his mask again, slipping it on. He knew the sun would be up soon, and without his mask he felt vulnerable. ]

"I won't let anything happen to you, ever again."

[ his own wound seemed to be healing, not as quick as usual, but enough. ]

"You've been harmed enough..."

[ V didn't say anything about the woods. ]

(Copia's wound didn't seem to be healing at all, even with the blood he'd consumed.)

(He moved to his window to watch the sun rise, and when it did, he turned around to face Perpetua, letting the sun warm his back.)

"What should we do with the body? I don't want it in my room, and throwing it out the window might make more people upset with me."

[ Perpetua stayed in his shadow, curling up at his feet. ]

"I can worry about that... I'll cook the meat and chew on the bones..."

[ he sighed, staring behind Copia at the rising sun. ]

"Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of things."

(He turned back around. His wing had burned slightly from the silver, and was turning black from around the stab wound.)

(He walked to his bedside table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He flopped on his bed and lit one, before putting it in his mouth. This was probably not helping his healing process...)

"Make that bastard into a nice soup, would you?"

[ V stood up, watching him closely, he lifted a hand as though about to say something about his smoking before deciding not to. ]

"...eh... if that is what you want...."

[ he sighed. Sitting over on the bed next to him. ]

"What i really want is to not have to worry about being shanked by my coworkers, but a soup is good too."

(He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.)

"And I want you to stay here with me. If not in my room, the one next door. No brother of mine is staying anywhere else. We'll find some things and get you properly moved in."

[ he watched the smoke float away, his eyes dilating before clawing at it. ]

"...okay..."

[ V wasnt paying attention to a word Copia was saying, still playing with the smoke. ]

"Sounds good."

(Copia looked over at him, smiling before blowing another few rings.)

"Do you want me to get you your own? I have 5 packs in my bedside table, I won't miss one."

"...sure!"

[ Perpetua was curious about it, the only experience he had with smoking was the one time a sibling gave him weed. That never happened twice. ]

"Do you know how to smoke? If you inhale wrong you'll be coughing a lot."

(He grabbed one of the packs and a lighter out of the bedside drawer.)

"Secondo taught me how to do it a while ago, the ring thing. He used to blow them in my face, or he'd blow smoke into my hair, so it looked like there was a cloud on my head. It was fun."

[ he took the lighter and the pack, opening the top with his claw and pulling one out, staring at Copia as though he expected praise. ]

"You should teach me..."

[ V lit one, letting it rest in his mouth for a moment. He wasn't really sure what to do. ]

(Copia sighed.)

"Alright, it's been in your mouth for a second, so take it out and fully inhale the smoke you pulled in. Then, you breathe out. I'll save tricks for when I can trust you not to make yourself sick with these."

(He smiles at Perpetua.)

"You know, Primo grew weed in his main garden. Want me to bring in some of that? I tend to get paranoid with that stuff, but having another person around would help."

[ he takes out out, doing as he's told. V wasn't sure if he was a fan or not. His eyes widened at the mention of weed. ]

"Really? Of course! Yes, yes, I'll help!"

[ Perpetua smiles, full teeth showing. He's a little too excited. ]

"I'm assuming you just get stupid on it then... we can go get some, but the earth ghouls are definitely going to talk about it. They gossip a whole lot."

(He sat up to put his cigarette out on the ashtray next to his bed.)

"So, how is it going for you over there? Breathing okay? I haven't heard coughing or gagging, so I assume you've got it."

(He stands up to go change his shirt.)

"Do you want another smoke for when we go to the garden? As long as you're not tapping the ashes onto the plants, the earth ghouls don't care."

(He pulls himself into a red t shirt that does nothing to hide his wings, and if lifts slightly in the back, fully showing off his tail, which has been growing well despite the injuries.)

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