"We may be able to come to an arrangement. Your beauty and your strength are… inviting."
His breath wafts honeyed and fruity, with an undercurrent tang that burns Kon's nostrils and makes his eyes water.
He can't get enough of it.
"Oh, I see," Bernard breathes, with a cruel smile that doesn't fit on his mouth. "Poor timing of the Fates, then. Although it must be said… this one is significantly more worthy of our attentions than the bird boy. Well chosen, beloved."
The endearment manages to be both sincere and sarcastic in a way that brings Robin levels of snark to mind. Kon very carefully ignores whatever his heart does, hearing this voice speak those words.
Again, it doesn't really feel like it's directed at him.
His face is flushed, his mind is dizzy and hazy, and the fingers tucked under his jaw feel so, so good, like nothing in his body hurts or could ever hurt again. Whatever he was worrying about just a few seconds ago is worlds away.
What is— Is he drunk?
The piqued thought is carried away by the champagne bubbles in his skin where Bernard's hand trails up his stomach and over his pec.
Why is he wearing so much fabric? His skin is lit up electric and aching to be kissed and caressed or cut and scarred, but his suit and belts and boots and jacket are all creating so much barrier between himself and Bernard.
He'd give Bernard anything he asked for, if it means that he'll help them – save Rob, save Cass and Bart, save the world – if only so they can have a world to go on living in together.
But this isn't Bernard, he remembers suddenly, pushing through the hazy feeling.
He's— Bernard is— He killed—
With a start, Kon snaps back to the present.
He's on his knees in a bunker, staring into the wrong, wrong, wrong eyes of whatever it is that he helped to take over Bernard's body, and he needs their help to save Robin.
"Strong in so many ways," Bernard's voice tells him approvingly. "Very few mortals would be able to resist me. Tell me, do you find my vessel repulsive?"
"No." He realizes a moment too late that the truth might be leveraged against him.
"I can taste you on my lips. What is my vessel to you?"
"He's—" Kon isn't sure how to answer that. A friend? A charge? Something more, if they have the chance? He settles on, "He's… important to me."
"Then he is not yours?"
"No, but… I hope he will be, someday soon. I-if he wants."
"Oh, he wants," the visitor purrs. "The way he wants you is… extraordinary, at least by mortal standards. Would you like to know what he's thinking, seeing you there on your knees?"
It isn't even anything explicit, but Kon's mind is never all that far from the gutter to begin with, and even closer around Bernard, and around the visitor…
Well, his mind isn't closer to the gutter, so much as the gutter is way bigger. The gutter has taken over the sidewalk, it pretty much feels like, under the visitor's influence.
So yeah. When he hears Bernard likes the way he looks on his knees, Kon maybe has some gutter-adjacent thoughts of his own…
Yeah, it's easy for him to jump on that train of thought, too.
The visitor chuckles, and it unfurls low and dark across Kon's skin. He wants to roll around in that laugh until it sticks to him everywhere.
Assassinated family secretary is sent back in time, possesses the body of the family head's youngest grandchild, and uses her knowledge to avoid her impending doom.
You know that part that you're super excited to share with readers and you have to keep writing all the goddamn middle parts first? This is that part for me. I know I wrote it, but I'm still giggling and kicking my lil feetsies over this one 🫠 and wtf do you mean this is part thirty of my quirky little ficlet fml
WIP: Vessel!Bernard part 30
Link to all parts | chrono link
"He was never meant to walk this path alone."
"Then why did you leave him?"
Without warning, his limbs are suddenly his own again. He reacts fast enough not to fall to the floor, but he's still collecting himself when Dionysus answers the question.
"Because it is the nature of my being that I must. Even if I stayed, how could I walk beside him, when I walk within him?"
"Then who—"
Kon stops himself before he even gets the entire question out, the answer so obvious already. It comes back around to the same thing it has from the start, from the very first thing he told the god: Bernard said you would be able to help us.
"Your champion," he guesses, although it isn't really a guess anymore.
"A champion is sworn to their god in every form, both immortal and mortal."
For a moment, it feels good that Dionysus looks so unlike the man he's wearing, because Kon really, really wants to hit him now, and he'd much prefer not to have memories of doing that to Bernard's face.
A younger Kon would have done it, damn the consequences, for that moment of feeling in control of the situation. If he hadn't just seen how little concern the god has for his strength, he might still do it now.
Kon turns his back on the god, needing just a moment of peace in his own head, and walks right into the single leaf still trapped in its excruciatingly slow fall to the ground.
There was never going to be a way for him to fight his way out of this.
"What does it mean to be your champion?" Kon asks, feeling altogther too tired of these games of verbal evasion. "Really, what would it mean? What does it have to do with Bernard?"
He isn't giving in– he isn't.
But Bernard gave so much, gave too much, gave… everything, maybe. He wouldn't be Superboy if he didn't at least find out what it would take to save the world and one human. It wouldn't be right to turn his back on that possibility without at least knowing what it entailed.
The god sees it as winning though, and doesn't even try to hide it. The red-wrong eyes pulse brighter, and he answers, "When a champion is named, I place an ember of my own power within them."
He taps two fingers lightly against Kon's sternum, like he's dropping a coin into a slot. The fingertips that touch him burn coal-hot, but there's no instinct in Kon to pull away. When he looks down, expecting to see a hole burning through his suit, there's just a forefinger and thumb, and the two perfect freckles caught in the webbing between.
"Like any ember," the god continues, "it fades unless tended to. When mortals create a vessel, they are less precise in tapping the endless well that is my power. With time, they are destroyed by a steady trickle of divine might."
The cult, of course, Kon thinks bitterly. It would be a bunch of power-hungry humans, playing with forces they don't understand. Who else would create something as crude as a vessel that can't withstand the power within it?
One long finger taps his face twice.
"Do not spend your ire on it," the god says with a wicked, self-satisfied smile. "Those who broke him for their own ends paid dearly. I saw to that myself."
Which, even if it doesn't quite cool Kon's rage, at least definitely answers the question of how Robin and one untrained human civilian tore through two dozen magically-enhanced cultists.
"But," Dionysus says pointedly, staring at Kon as though making sure he understands, "when the vessel uses their power to feed the champion's embers, it siphons off that which would otherwise destroy."
"You're saying they– they protect each other?"
"More than that," Dionysus says gravely. "They are the two halves seeking balance. Without a vessel, the champion's embers snuff out; without a champion, the vessel burns."
"So, if you don't find a champion, he dies."
"The finding is not in question." The god says it like an inside joke, but Kon can't help feeling it as an accusation.
The god shrugs, and Bernard's features quirk up into a cute little what can you do? expression.
It can't be a coincidence, how much he looks like the real Bernard right now. The one person Kon wants to see and talk to and ask for advice more than anyone else in this moment, so close and so far from him all at once.
"Do you see the Moirae's path laid before you, little spark?" Dionysus asks, tilting his head at Kon with a curious half-smile. "Or will you continue to tell yourself it is merely cosmic accident, that the one you chose to love is my vessel?"
I'm just gonna say it: the sequence from parts 20-22 is one of my favorite things I've ever written. The kiss, the visions, the identity reveal in this section... I had so much fucking fun playing with my dolls.
WIP: Vessel!Bernard part 22
Link to all parts | chrono link
"You're not Bernard."
As the words come out of his mouth, he's struck with the truth of them like a shock of cold water.
His TTK recoils so suddenly that he manages to draw himself out from under the stolen body and quickly rise to his feet, desperate for even a shred of a defensive position. The fading adrenaline of victory and desire leaves him shaking and nauseated.
In a pointless act of rebellion, he roughly shoves the back of one hand across his mouth, as though it might erase the feelings the kiss brought to the surface.
It hurts to pull back from the dreamscape worlds in his mind, the place where he hides from his deepest insecurities with wishing. It lands like a slap for the visitor to dredge those up, just to flip through his longing in front of him, and he feels the sting of it in his heart.
"More to you than meets the eye," the visitor muses, rising as well.
He curls his fists and faces Bernard's stolen body, doing his best to ignore the scented oil still clinging to his skin and his suit.
"What are you?" he demands through grinding teeth.
"An interesting question. Across eons, most mortals know me as the joyous rapture of drunken revelry, that gluttonous urge for one more sip, one more bite, one more kiss."
He shrugs, and Kon hates how much it looks like Bernard.
"But I am many things, to many people, as are you. As is anyone."
The visitor begins walking the room, pausing as he speaks to peer at control panels, or run his hands sensously over the furniture. He isn't in a rush, clearly more than happy to hold court for an audience of one. Kon is beginning to suspect that he just likes to hear himself talk.
"So perhaps, I am the stranger who becomes a brother over a banquet table. Or I may be the storm in a warrior's heart when the exhileration of the battlefield eclipses his fear of death. Some lost souls see in me a longing they won't allow to take shape, for fear it will be the wrong shape. Or I may be—"
"We don't have time for whatever games you're playing!" Kon shouts angrily.
Utterly unfazed by his outburst, the visitor counters, "We have as much time as I desire that we have."
"What the fuck does that mean?"
"For you…" The visitor pauses, watching Kon with a strangely sincere expression. "For you, little spark, I suspect I am to be the darkness that reveals how brightly you shine. The hands that unfold you from the smallness the world imposes. The unmaking that will give you back to yourself."
"We need to get moving. People are going to die." There isn't really any reason to think that this arrogant, ostentatious entity cares about anyone outside, but if Kon can just get him back on the topic of how he might help, maybe they still have time to do something about it.
And if Kon can get him to shut the fuck up about his pathetic hopes for the future, he might even make it through the day without knowing what it feels like for his fist to connect with Bernard's face.
"I told you, we do not lack time." The visitor brings Bernard's body a few steps closer, but pauses when Kon immediately retreats to maintain the distance between them. But when he speaks again, the voice whispers into Kon's ear anyway, as closely as if they were embracing. "Ask me your question again."
"What are you?"
As he asks it, fear goes skipping up Kon's spine, something deep inside him saying that the knowing is far more dangerous than the asking.
"You already know what I am," he replies, still speaking directly into his ear, even with the feet between them. "The real question is who. Look inside yourself, little spark, and see that you've always known me."
"You are…"
Kon swallows down the words trying to climb up his throat.
"Stop manipulating me," he growls, taking a posture that shows he's ready to attack.
"I swear on my crown, this is no manipulation. This is the key to you and your friends' salvation," the visitor tells him. "Who am I?"
This time, Kon allows the truth inside to come bubbling out. It doesn't feel like he's being controlled – not that being mind-controlled ever feels like you're being mind-controlled while you're being mind-controlled – so much as it feels like remembering something he hasn't thought about in a long time.
"You are the Ivy-Bearer and the First Vintage," he recites. "You are the Twice-Born, the Unshorn and Unbound, Overseer of the Divine Feast."
Kon feels his voice start to shake. Overwhelming recognition and security floods his eyes with tears. The visitor smiles kindly, and Kon realizes the pulsing glow in his eyes matches Kon's own heart beat.
"You are the Seed and the Sower. The Heart Laid Bare and the Bleeding Embrace. The Deliverer of the Lost and the Breaker of Binds."
Bernard's face smiles at him through those wrong-colored eyes, warm approval written in every line.
For the first time, Kon knows exactly who he's talking to.
Merry crisis to all who celebrate. Please enjoy this big drop which is definitely not me hiding from my family to decompress via writing fanfic that's exactly what it is don't judge me
WIP: Vessel!Bernard part 26
Link to all parts | chrono link
Then he realizes the obvious person he's been missing.
Impulse.
No one does chaos like Imp, and he's got liminal out the ass. Both from the future and the present, raised in a VR world and living in the real one, and even his experience of time is removed from everyone else's.
And that hand earlier… it had looked so much like Bart's. Maybe it really was his, maybe those hands were all his champions' hands, reaching across time, and this is a sign that Bart is the champion Dionysus needs now.
Kon opens his mouth to say that he knows the answer, but—
"There is one more thing," Dionysus purrs, and Kon gets the distinct impression that he's about to move the goalposts. "Above all, my champion must have a hunger for life that is never quelled, no matter how well or often it is satisfied. A drive to exercise free will with such gravity that their every step leaves a bruise on history."
Kon's confidence stutters. Bart is incredible, but his brand of chaos and hunger isn't something he would describe as driven so much as distractable.
His faltering confidence liquifies into irritation. At himself, for thinking he could solve this. At the god, for playing these games with him, for not giving a straight goddamn answer about who he's looking for.
"You know who I need."
It isn't a question.
"I thought I did," Kon admits. "But maybe not."
"Kon." The god says his name softly, but with a weight of millennia behind it.
Without him noticing, Dionysus has come much closer to Kon as he's been eliminating possible champions.
"Tell me, who liberates those in captivity, while wearing shackles of purpose? Who feels and gives sensation like no one else can?"
"Stop it," Kon says, but… too quietly, not as forcefully as he means to.
"Who is of the earth and sky, both human and not, known and unknown? Who has been made and unmade and remade — who has been twice-born, as I was?"
"Don't," Kon says, and it sounds more like a plea than a demand.
Bernard's face wraps sympathy around the too-wrong eyes that glint with hard determination. He raises a hand to cup the space around Kon's cheek, not quite making contact.
"I watch you seek the truth, only to turn away when you do not like the answer."
Kon wishes he could lean into the comfort, the soft hand with two perfect freckles in the webbing of the thumb. He wants to duck his head into Bernard's shoulder to be held everywhere and kept safe in the embrace. The comfort and safety would be a lie, he's sure, but the two perfect freckles would be real, so he wants the lies, anyway.
“Leaving bruises on history? That’s not—” He cuts himself off and turns away before he can do or say something too vulerable. "Whatever you think I am, I'm not what you're talking about. I'm not— I don't want what you're talking about."
"And now, we reach the heart of the matter."
Kon looks back to him sharply. "What?"
“You know who I need,” the god repeats, and this time there is only a quiet certainty in his voice. “And you know why.”
Kon looks away, jaw clenched so hard it aches.
"You are one of mine, Kon. Some part of you already knows that."
"I'm not—" Kon rasps, but immediately runs out of words.
I'm not yours, he wants to say, because too many people have laid claim to him, and none of them for good reason.
I'm not yours, he wants to say, but can't, because it doesn't quite… doesn't feel like…
This doesn't feel like a claiming, is the thing. There are no grasping hands behind Dionysus' words, eager to tear off a piece of Superboy for himself. It feels more like open arms, a gesture of welcome and invitation to… to belong.
Not to belong to Dionysus, but with him.
But that's just another manipulation, surely. This god keeps dangling hopeless dreams in front of him, hoping he'll tie himself up in them like a good little puppet.
Hopes and dreams are for other people. For real people.
"I'm not yours," he finally says, because he isn't someone who gets to belong.
"I would never claim to own you," Dionysus agrees. "But I do see you, little spark, perhaps more clearly than you see yourself. Part of me already resides in you."
He doesn't say it like a double entendre, and that somehow makes it feel more obscene.
"I am nothing like you," Kon protests.
"Then how did you come to possess the second touch?"
"The… what?"
"Your touch-without-touch." As he speaks, Kon feels it running from jaw to chin, a phantom caress from a hand that isn't there. "Even among the old gods, few possess this ability. So where did you acquire it?"
And Kon understands – the vines, the ghostly sensations, the leaves turning to gold, the way his body weighed Kon down without weight, the intensity of the god's touch…
It's all TTK.
Way, way more advanced skills, way stronger TTK than Kon has, maybe. But still just telekinetic manipulation.
"I was born with it."
The god seems to like that, smiling smugly. "And how is it that you stand still in time with me?"
"I don't know what you mean."
By way of explanation, Dionysus daintily plucks one leaf from his laurel, and drops it in the air between them.
It doesn't move.
Wait, no. It is moving, just very slowly, Kon realizes a moment later, as though everything besides the two of them is…
Kon looks around the room, feeling suddenly, ironically, a bit slow on the uptake.
The lights overhead, the ones he'd assumed had blown out, are not, in fact, blown out. They're caught mid-flicker. The control panels Dionysus has been inspecting aren't static because they're broken, they're just trapped in the process of blinking.
Even the silence, the oppressive feel of the air. Now that he knows it, it's familiar.
"We're moving at superspeed."
Dionysus smiles again, radiating vindication. "A suitable word for it, from a mortal perspective. When I stand still in time, I can choose to bring others with me. But you followed along without my aid. From the moment my foot touched the ground, you should have been frozen where you knelt." He gestures to the edge of the summoning circle, then back to Kon. "And yet, here you stand."
"I can move at superspeed on my own," Kon explains. "But I didn't realize it was happening, I just… I just kept up."
"Because part of you already knew me."
"Fine, even if I did," he snaps, "that doesn't mean I'll choose you. What kind of person ever would?"
For several moments, Dionysus stares at him without speaking. The sweet flush of blossoming life dims, revealing creamy freckle-dusted cheeks. His lips soften from kiss-bitten red back to inviting deep pink. The shiny curls in his hair loosen into a familiar soft, shaggy mess that asks for fingers combing through it.
Taken all together, Kon is suddenly left staring at—
At Bernard.
Beautiful, tragic, lovely, human Bernard, who is exactly the kind of person who would ever choose Dionysus.
And if he can maybe present himself as being, not necessarily champion material, but just maybe someone who is semi-aligned with Dionysus' interests, that'll probably make him more likely to help out the team.
…right?
"It is not a matter choosing," Dionysus muses. "That is too finite a word. I do not choose a champion, only… recognize them when they arrive."
"Then what things do you recognize?"
"Those whose vines accept pruning to grow the heaviest fruits," he replies in a thoughtful tone. "Those who seek joys capable of drawing blood, without recoiling from the blade. Passages written in many stories, yet their own story never—"
"Yeah, I was hoping for less poetry and more useful criteria," Kon interrupts. "If you can just tell me what you're looking for, I can narrow down who fits. Unless you want to just parade everyone down here one at a time for a sit-down interview?"
Dionysus smiles indulgently, as though interrupting a literal god is just adorable, and not recklessly stupid. "One who thrives on control, who pulls others' strings for their own means would be ill-suited."
Surprisingly, that's helpful, at least insofar as it eliminates all the Bats — well, maybe not Nightwing.
Kon nods in understanding. "What else?"
"I have little use for those who flounder in duality. Those who require coherence in their identity, or who see adherence to ideals as an ideal in itself."
Nevermind, he thinks, there goes Nightwing. And the rest of the Supers. Probably all the Wonders, too.
"And of course, those who are already sworn to a higher power, be it god or king, cannot be twice-sworn to me."
Kon's guessing that counts out the entire Lantern Corps, probably all of the Olympians, and definitely all the Atlanteans. Which is…
Shit, that's pretty much the entire Justice League and the Titans out of the running. All of the strongest players they have, and not one is good enough for Dionysus.
That does ease some of his embarrassment over assuming Dionysus would want him, but if not even the League players meet the standard, he's genuinely not sure who can.
Kon consciously doesn't lick his lips nervously, and tries to project confidence when he asks, "Okay, that definitely helps narrow it down. Is there anything you do want them to be?"
Dionysus pauses, looking like he's trying to find words. "It is not enough to merely embrace chaos. They must wield it as a tool, trust it as a brother."
That sounds to Kon like a very fancy way of saying fuck around and find out, which actually does describe some of the younger heroes. Starfire, Zatanna, and Raven all have powersets that could be accurately described as weaponized chaos—
"My champions often have a healthy liminality of the self, an awareness that who they are is in constant flux. They are not one thing or the other, but exist in a space between."
—but all three seem pretty sure of who they are, so maybe not.
Constant flux definitely brings Plastic Man and Beast Boy to mind, though. He's not sure how chaos-coded Plastic Man is, but he's heard that the Teen Titans got up to some wild shenanigans back in the day, so maybe Garfield would be up to it?
Then he realizes the obvious person he's been missing, and feels like a moron for not thinking of it sooner.
As he watches those wine-dark eyes pulse in time with his own heartbeat, Kon realizes exactly what kind of person Bernard Dowd is—
A hero.
Some kind of realization must show on his face, because the god's face softens into an expression that isn't quite a smile, but still seems to say, there you are.
"You stand before a door," Dionysus finally says. "Whether you step through it could only ever be your choice."
"And if I don't choose you?" Kon asks, and it's hard not to sound like he's evaluating his next action. "What happens then?"
"The battle above will be fought and will end without the influence of my power. You and your friends, even my beloved, will be in no more or less danger than you were when I arrived."
"But without your help, we're going to lose," Kon argues. "You'll lose your vessel."
"Divination is not within my power," the god replies blithely. "I cannot tell you who will win, who will survive. I can only tell you that it will occur as fated without my influence."
"So that's your trap?" he finally asks. "I say yes to being your champion, or you leave us all here to die?"
"You are so eager to find a trap beyond this threshold, that you haven't stopped to ask why the door already stands open before you."
"Because you opened it."
"Did I?"
"Obviously," he says, rolling his eyes impatiently. "It's your champion. You're the one who wants me to choose this."
"I want nothing," the god corrects. "I will witness and enact your choice, nothing more. The threads of fate are beyond even the gods."
"What does fate have to do with anything?"
"Fate has everything to do with everything," Dionysus chuckles. "Before you were born, the Moirae spun your thread of life and laid your path."
"I don't believe in destiny or any of that bullsh—"
"Believe in it or don't," he scoffs. "It does not change that you have followed the path they laid."
He gestures to the circle on the floor. It's inert now, just scorch and dry rot in the wood.
"I have never known my beloved to be as dark as I find him now," the god continues, his voice heavy with something that could almost be sadness. "Yet you saw him as he was – forged into a tool, his freedom stripped away, his hunger for life waning – and you did not look away."
"Leave him out of this," he snaps. "Bernard has nothing to do with this, except that you're going to bring him back."
"You know he has a role to play in this."
"Then give me that," Kon insists. "Whatever the price is to keep him safe, I'll pay it."
Being the vessel of a god would be objectively insane of him to offer in any other context. But unlike Bernard, Kon is extremely difficult to kill, so he could keep Dionysus away from Bernard for decades. Maybe for the entire rest of his life.
Dionysus' eyes narrow in dark delight, as though Kon has just handed him exactly what he wanted.
*game show announcer voice* Who wants to meet a goooood?? Kon doesn't he'd actually really like to go home now thanks
WIP: Vessel!Bernard part 18
Link to all parts | chrono link
"Be not afraid."
The very worst part might be that it speaks with Bernard's voice.
It drops gracefully to the ground, alighting on one delicately curving foot as the impossible hands pull back to wherever they came from. The figure that isn't quite Bernard is left standing alone in the center of the darkened ritual circle.
"Only kidding," it – they? he? – adds lightly, shrugging casually, just like Bernard does. "You should be very afraid."
Kon stays on his knees in an instinct-deep drive to reverence of either the body and its owner or the being within it – he isn't quite sure which.
As if to prove how unafraid he is, the one piloting Bernard's body turns away to stand before the large gilded mirror on the wall.
Bernard's hands run consideringly across his thighs and stomach, clearly admiring the form in the mirror, and Kon hates how eagerly his TTK traces the motions as though it was really Bernard showing off for him like this.
Turning and moving to appreciate the dangling chains, Bernard's mouth comments, "You've maintained my vessel well. The gold is a nice touch, and I assume this is for me, as well."
Bernard's hand tugs on a deep red cloth hung artfully along one edge of the mirror. Kon had assumed it was a decorative drape or something, but when it pulls free, he realizes that it's a half-circle of fine, flowy fabric. The fabric is draped and tucked and rolled to form a sort of half-toga thing.
Kon isn't sure what to call it, but even if he did, he might not be able to think of the words right now on account of how the half-toga thing fits Bernard's body.
Although technically covering the essential areas, the garment leaves vast expanses of thigh – like Kansas wheat field tracts of thigh, Arctic skyline sweeping lines of thigh, fucking galactic territories of thigh – readily exposed and glimpsed between folds of fabric.
An ivy leaf is plucked from the laurel crown, then a golden leaf is inserted into the waistline of the cloth as a fastener, leaving Kon blinking at what he just saw.
It happens twice more, and as much as he tries to watch the transformation occur, he can't catch the exact moment when leaf becomes fine gildwork, though he is certain that that's what is happening.
The golden leaf pins are inserted just below the navel, cinching the garment to accentuate a slight bit of pudge, and Kon has never in his life wanted to lick a stomach so badly.
"So." Bernard's voice comes so stern and sudden that Kon startles to attention to see him tidying his eyeliner in the mirror. "You meant for me to come this time. What need is so great that you would risk summoning me?"
It… It doesn't feel like he's talking to Kon, but there's no one else here, so Kon replies.
"Bernard said you could– that you would be able to help us."
Not-Bernard's not-green eyes land on Kon as though surprised he's still there.
"Did he, now?" he asks with a cruel smile. "And why would I do that? What reason have I to insert myself in your… mortal affairs?"
Kon isn't stupid enough to miss the innuendo or the blatant assessing look. Even if he was, experience alone would be all he needed to understand that, whatever it is inside Bernard's body, Kon does in fact appear to be 'his type'.
He isn't sure what to say, how to convince this unknown being to help — why had he wasted time being so selfish with Bernard when he could have been asking better questions? He doesn't even know who or what this is, much less what he could offer it.
Bernard had seemed so certain that once he was gone, whatever appeared in his place would help, would fight. But this… this visitor doesn't appear overly eager to do anything but look at Kon like a piece of meat and toss out thinly-veiled flirtations.
"You could save this world," he says, carefully looking at the floor yet tracking every motion the visitor makes in his TTK field. "And probably others. And if you don't…"
"If I don't?" He moves like a predator toward Kon, each step made of feline grace and feral power. Bare feet walk a slow circle around where Kon remains kneeling on the floor.
"If you don't, Bernard will—" He swallows, not wanting to think it, much less say it. "He'll die, and you won't be able to come here anymore."
The visitor hums, considering.
He stops in front of Kon and uses two fingers to lift his chin. There isn't much force, and Kon doesn't try to resist the request to meet the not-right eyes, but he doesn't feel like he could resist, even if he wanted to, or maybe… it doesn't feel like he would want to resist, even if he could.
"We may be able to come to an arrangement. Your beauty and your strength are… inviting."
