Thinking about Imperium. About after getting free from the basement, Lovely goes back for Vincent's skull and carries it around.
Lovely talking to it as if he's still alive. They'd been trapped for a year being constantly fed on, and I think implied Stockholm Syndrome? From what I can recall. Seemingly no other company but him (I think he kept them away from his other captives?) There's no way it didn't fuck with their head.
Just carrying around his skull, talking to it, hearing him speak back in their mind.
...please let the fixation keep going long enough for me to finish this fic, because I'm cooking with Imp!Lovely.
Trigger warning for self harm below
Lovely occasionally sink the fangs of the skull somewhere they remember him biting. Whether out of processing the whiplash of suddenly being out, or trying to process stuff, or like a dangerous fidget that their body and mind has gotten so use to that it feels wrong to go without it now.
Okay so, Imperium!Vincent has had me in a chokehold since the very first audio this month. That man’s living rent free in my head like a damn parasite. Idk if I’ll ever expand on it but I had to get my thoughts on the page. It’s very stream of consciousness, character study-ish. Under the cut is a (spoiler free) snippet of what I imagine Lovely’s time might have looked like w Imp!Vincent.
(This is rather dark - Mentions of blood loss, non-consensual feeding)
“It’s all about intension.” They’d felt him drawl against their throat once,”I can make you feel so good. And you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Isn’t it better to be a thrall, thoughtless and stupid with pleasure, than a suffering whelp?” They remember the way their breath hitched at the beginning, cheeks constantly damp with tears that seemed to be in endless supply. The way they shook in his arms. He insisted on holding them close, crushing them to himself in a cruel mockery of intimacy. It seemed so long ago. The memory hazy around the edges, how they experienced most things now. The constant anemia stealing away their clarity.Â
“But I could make it hurt, too, if I wanted.” They felt Vincent’s voice drop low, full of malice and gravel. They felt his needle sharp fangs catch at their tender skin as he smirked, running his tongue over one of the many raised scars he’d left behind, “So I suggest you be good for me, blood bag. Don’t give me a reason to make it hurt, hm?”Â
His hand was cold as it gripped their chin tight, fingers digging harshly into their cheeks. He forced them to meet his gaze with a jerk of his wrist. Pain shot down their neck as glassy eyes met sharp, frigid silver. Vincent rarely tranced them but they truly never knew what to expect.  He liked to say he had other ways to control them, make them do what he wanted without wasting magic. He liked to say a lot of things. The only sound Vincent seemed to like more than the broken whimpers that fell from Lovely’s mouth was the sound of his own voice. He was constantly cooing, degrading, soothing, threatening. His voice penetrated their thoughts as if through deep, deep water. Swimming and echoing in their subconscious more than their own.Â
Lovely couldn’t quite place when they stopped fighting back, when they finally gave into that voice in their head that told them it was easier to be pliant and docile and just let it all happen. When his voice in their head overtook their own.Â
I got a million ideas on my mind, and one is this art idea of two realms, separated by a mirror in the middle. And it has song lyrics.
In the center, along the mirror frame, it says "Call an optimist, they're turning blue."
One half is Imp!Vincent, cruelty behind his eyes as he stares down at Imp!Lovely, who is laying covered in fresh bite marks, looking filthy and half dead. And with this side is the line "Such a lovely color for you..."
On the other half is Vincent, terrified with tears streaming down his face as Lovely lays dying in his arms after a shade drained their life force, before they both make the decision for them to turn. And with this is the lyrics "While I just sit and stare at you..."
The song is Blue by A Perfect Circle, btw. Just replacing She with They
