a gift for @yaboybergara! i thought you and hozier anon might enjoy this c:
EDIT: i just caught up with stuff and uh, since you’re planning to leave nini, hi! i’m actually hozier anon and thought i should play coy. we should stay connected, if you want. otherwise, good luck chief. thanks for all the work you did for us, the grateful and the un.
~oξo~
Glass shines like the billions of stars in the galaxy, twinkling dangerously from the stained carpet. Shane had made the unfortunate decision of trying to pick one up after Ryan, eyes wide, had taken a hammer to Annabelle’s cage. The holy glass burned on his fingertips, leaving blisters and threatening to pucker the rest of his human skin before Shane had tossed it aside, pointedly dodging the rest of the glass on the floor.
“Is there a reason you did that?” Shane had asked, looking to Ryan who looked like he wanted nothing more than to vomit his stomach into the floor. His little believer didn’t have an answer, only furiously shaking his head and tossing the hammer away like it scalded him. There wasn’t much Shane could ask him now, humans could only cope with so much exposure to the other side before they went into shock. A shame, Shane is sure that if Ryan were coherent, he would be absolutely thrilled and horrified to know he’d been possessed for a split second.
“Alright, Annabelle,” Shane says, addressing the doll that has fallen unceremoniously to the floor. Pure evil energy rolls off of it like waves off rocks, enough to make Ryan fall backwards and cut his hands on the glass in a desperate bid to escape. The door to the Warrens’ haunted room slams shut, Ryan ceaselessly pounding on it.
Shane lets him, staring passively before suddenly kicking the doll aside, letting to slam against a wall as an inhuman growl escapes his throat. It’s been centuries since Shane has shed his humanity, has forfeit the many requirements that keep him just nearly human. This body has already been through the cycles, a poor human he’d picked up and is now held together by his black magic alone.
An equally disgusting sound greets Shane, the dark shadows of the room opening two yellow eyes. Shane chuckles, rolling up the sleeves of his flannel. Small burnt black holes appear where he touches it and Shane curses, murmuring something about it being his favorite. A rattle snatches Shane’s attention, one of the knickknacks of the room warbling before falling off of its place on the shelf. Shane sets his jaw and turns his attention back to Annabelle, the demon pooling from the shadows into a corporeal form.
“You know you can’t kill me yourself, so you brought friends!” Shane says, tone far more jovial than he feels. “Lovely! I’ve always wanted to meet a room full of things like me. Monsters that go oogie boogie in the dark.” Shane chuckles humorlessly, calmly reaching out and picking up a little necklace said to make communication with the dead easier. He turns the locket in his hand before tossing it at the yellow eyed demon, watching her fanged maw swallow the thing whole.
“Hungry aren’t ya? Wouldn’t you love a good soul to crunch on,” Shane says and spares Ryan a glance over his shoulder. His human has come to crouching with his back to a corner, eyes darting wildly between artifacts in the room. Still alive then. Good, Shane thinks as he feels portions of human flesh peel back to reveal demonic scales and leathery skin.
“Just gotta keep it that way,” Shane thinks aloud, his voice becoming many. His eyes flicker black as night, a symbol of his status amongst the demon hierarchy. Yellow eyes stare back at him and Shane almost tastes the vitriol Annabelle feels. Even better, he thinks as he draws a long-buried power from within himself. The angry ones fight harder.
~oξo~
Blood. Shane is really getting tired of the goddamn taste of it. Between Ryan shaking behind him and the spirits and demons edging closer to their cornered position, Shane really has to wonder how he came to be here.
With the combined powers of a demon just one rung below him in power and the plethora of cursed objects in the room, the Annabelle demon has enough power to make Shane nervous. There’s a couple of open wounds Shane can feel, not enough magic or strength left in him to patch them up. If he leaves this human body, he’s sure the original man will die the moment his influence disappears. No human walks away from being clawed at by this army.
“Sh-Shane? You okay?” Ryan asks, heavily favoring his right side and blood running down the length of his left arm. If only he hadn’t tried to help, had understood his mortality and stayed out of the goddamn way.
“Yeah, fine,” he hoarsely replies, Ryan flinching at the sound of his voice. If they survive this, there’s going to be a very deep long talk about everything.
Shane gasps as something, some spirit reaches through his human body and squeezes his stomach, winding him as the very real pain runs up and down his spine, forcing him to heave what remains in his stomach. It’s all Annabelle needs as she shoots out for him, arm outstretched and snatching Shane’s mortal throat, digging her nails into his voice box. She lifts him clean off the floor and Shane barely hears Ryan scream. For the first time in his damned life, Shane panics, hand going to her wrist as she squeezes harder and cuts deeper into his source of power. His voice, his everything. The tool he’s used to influence wars and throw entire empires off balance, the one method he’s been able to talk Unsolved into success, how he’s been able to protect Ryan from all the spirits he taunts.
“Fuck,” Shane gurgles, blood starting to pour into his esophagus. The sound of flesh bending and warping, tearing in places it shouldn’t, warns Shane of how little time he has left with his power. His voice will come back but healing, even when encouraged by demonic magic, takes a while to finish. He’ll be next to useless for at least an hour if she tears his voice out and when a minute is too long in this hell hole, Shane can’t even dream of Ryan surviving an hour without his help.
He stares into her eyes, those pus yellow beads that resent him so much. She doesn’t want him, she wants the meat behind him. Wants the soul that came willingly back to the Warrens, the good inside of Ryan is too tempting for them. Ha, if only Ryan knew how he looked to the other side. A great beacon of hope, something that could satisfy them for eons to come.
Without him though, Shane loses everything. Loses the popcorn banter they always have when Ryan invites him over for a movie, loses the way their elbows bump together when they edit videos. He’ll never hear Ryan’s whooping laughter when they answer clever questions for Post Mortem, nor will he get the opportunity to tease him about being scared of every little noise. Fuck, Shane thinks, sure he’d cry if he wasn’t in so much pain. Fuck, fuck! He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to but for Ryan...
Shane sets aside his pride.
With the rest of his power reserve, Shane opens his mouth and out comes a language that’s primal, more clicks of tongue and teeth than coherent syllables.
“Andrew,” he wheezes and like magic, a wave pushes from Shane, shoving all demonic energy away from the pair. Shane collapses to his knees, hand immediately going to his throat to stop the bleeding. He tries to wheeze but blood only rushes down his throat, Shane spitting a mouthful of it out. As the chaos settles and the spirits are turning their attention back to him, a resounding click echoes in the silence. Shane weakly holds up an arm to shield Ryan from the sound, black eyes turned warily at the door. If it worked, if the summoning really worked...
“Little Shaney,” a pleasant voice croons, slowly turning the door open. Somehow the sound makes his spine rattle harder than anything in the room. Andrew appears, one slim hand holding the door’s handle. He looks just as he does in all the concert recordings and press photos Shane sees on his Twitter, a mop of curly brown hair and patchy beard hairs. He must have summoned him from a performance because there’s a thin shine of sweat on his forehead and his eyes are hidden behind trendy sunglasses. Shane hates his goddamn guts.
“Little Shaney, a warning would have been appreciated. It’ll be hard to explain why I just disappeared,” Andrew says, not a tint of worry in his voice. Shane can tell he’s looking at his throat and Andrew hums, crouching down to grab Shane’s jaw and tilt him this way and that. For a demon, Andrew has too motherly instincts, Shane thinks, sure Andrew can hear him. Shane bats his hand away and flicks his head at Annabelle as she slowly picks herself off the floor.
All other artifacts and spirits of the room have gone stock still and Shane can’t help but appreciate how Andrew makes things simply freeze when he arrives. If he were any less fascinated with humans, Shane is sure there would be many more wars and disasters rained upon them.
“Annabelle,” Andrew greets, talking to her like she’s an old friend. He languidly stands, walking towards her as he takes his glasses off. His arms are outstretched, as if he’s going to embrace the demon.
Annabelle immediately crouches defensively, hissing at the approaching man. Andrew chuckles and looks over his shoulder at Shane, red eyes somehow blinking in a friendly way. However, Shane can see right through his façade, eyeing the rigidness in his spine and the way his grin has a hint of a primal energy in the corners. With a very smug feeling blossoming in his throat, Shane can’t help but think about how fucked everything in the room is.
“Holy shit, is that Hozier?!” Ryan hisses, his good hand on Shane’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” Shane resounds, unable to keep the respect from his tone. He really wanted to sound irritated with Andrew but it’s hard when he came to save their lives.
“Hello, Ryan. We should talk after this,” Andrew calls, offering a sweet smile before turning his attention fully to the black Annabelle demon. Shane watches her hiss and try to swat at Andrew, always missing because she pulls back at the last second. She’s afraid of hurting him, Shane realizes. Afraid to hurt a demon so high in the hierarchy but afraid to be smithed by his hands too.
“Annabelle, don’t tell me being in that coffin made you forget!” Andrew calls out, tone still so goddamn friendly. “Don’t you remember? Shane and I, we were born just two days apart. I, from the world’s first love song, and he from the first destructive fire. Course, he’s younger, funny how that worked out...” he calls, looming over her. Shane hears the damnation loud and clear. You bullied my younger brother.
“Annabelle, you haven’t been out for a while so, I’ll just give you a lesson.” Andrew bends over and snatches the demon by her throat, a plea or a hiss silenced by his hand. His red eyes stare deep into her yellow ones, the gap between their powers palatable in the air. “If you are a yellow eyed demon, you are nothing. Not even the gravel under my shoes. Your power scares humans but to me, your powers are party tricks. Black eyed demons outrank you, and I am a red eyed demon. Do you know what that means, Annabelle?”
The demon chokes on something but Hozier pays her no heed, continuing with his lecture.
“It means I am eons stronger than you. It means I can do this,” he purrs and Shane barely has time to shield Ryan’s eyes before the yellow eyed demon simply explodes. Blood splashes across the shelves and walls of the room, chunks falling off and hitting the floor immediately after. Shane almost wants to vomit at the sight of it all and he’s not at all surprised when Ryan does just that, heaving all down the back of Shane’s shirt.
“Sorry,” he murmurs and Shane makes a gesture to say it’s alright since his voice is almost destroyed. They both stand and Ryan looks over to Andrew, who is turning around to meet them. There must be something terrifying because Ryan freezes up and Shane looks over at Andrew, seeing the same friendly smile and the gore running down his face. He takes a step towards him and Ryan, bless him or damn him, immediately moves to stand between them, still clutching his bad arm and shaking to his knees. The gesture warms Shane’s dead heart and it must amuse Andrew since he chuckles and doesn’t immediately squish Ryan’s head like a bad grape.
“Come along, let’s enjoy some sunlight,” Andrew says and breezes past them, out the door from where he came. Shane gently pushes Ryan towards the direction, limping after his “older brother” and hoping Ryan will trail along.
The sun is too bright against Shane’s eyes as his body hurriedly tucks away any demonic parts. His horns retreat back into his skull, his skin does its best to hide his scales and such... He’s still bleeding from his throat.
“Shaney,” Andrew calls and Shane gives him a look before thin fingers run over his throat. All damage there heals up, muscles realigning and skin covering up the patches left from Annabelle’s claws. If he could see down there, Shane is sure he’d see Andrew’s sigil burning before evaporating into nothing.
“Andrew,” Shane addresses, voice back to his normal tone. Hozier laughs and pats Shane’s shoulder, looking over at Ryan behind them. The movement makes Shane’s hackles rise.
“This one, my brother? Are you sure?” Andrew asks and Shane scoffs, not ready to dignify the question with an answer.
“Alright then. Tweet me some time hm? I’ve been told my tweets are rather... meme worthy,” Andrew says and Shane can’t help but laugh at that. Meme sounds funny when Andrew says it, in that sophisticated tone he always uses.
“Ryan,” Andrew calls and the believer in question makes a noise before shuffling over. Andrew greets him with a gentle hand on his head and a soft smile, gazing down at him with such a fondness that it makes Shane’s skin crawl. He looks away quickly, sure the stress can’t be good for his healing body. They must be talking, thought Shane can’t be sure since Andrew is staring so intently at Ryan.
“Well, I should be off. I was in the middle of a concert after all,” Hozier says suddenly and Shane rolls his eyes.
“Don’t forget to clean yourself before you show up in front of people,” he reminds and Andrew’s lips curl into a grin.
“I could say the same to you, Little Shaney,” he says before singing a belting wordless melody, a shimmering veil bending to his voice. Andrew reaches out and throws it open like a curtain, a peek of a stage and rushing applause of an audience bursting through before Andrew disappears through the portal, gone in the blink of an eye.
Shane stares at where his brother was, only broken from his trance when Ryan clears his throat.
“So... demon huh? Black eyed one?” he asks, almost shy about it. Shane can’t help the smile that breaks across his face, sucking in a deep breath and willing all their wounds to heal, a little demonic miracle of his own. Once their skin and blood is back where it should be, Shane hums and clasps his hands behind his back.
