one day, henrik thinks, anti will tire of making them bleed. one day, he will be satisfied with their scars, and their strings, and his fury will be sated.
agony sears white and red between his shoulder blades, and henrik does not think at all. he doesn’t resurface until glass pricks and slices at him. prying salt-crusted eyes open, henrik watches as anti drags him up by the back of his neck, heedless of the way that the mirrored shards dig in.
warmth pools on the back of his neck, his shoulders, and trickles down in sluggish streams. one drop, then another hits the floor.
anti does not say a word. which is fine; henrik prefers the dazed quiet to the days where anti, fuelled by his rage, spits poison and rages against their brothers, their creator, their audience- anybody, and everybody who’s ever had a hand in their current state.
anti silently drags henrik down a darkened hallway that twists into itself. brick melting into concrete into peeling drywall. a dizzyingly familiar pattern that never repeats itself. he shuts his eyes tight, and does not open them, tired already of this new torment.
he has been tired for a while. twenty three days, anti likes to remind him, since he’s last spit blood in anti’s face and denounced him. then twenty four, each reminder accentuated with a laugh that is more of a scream.
he is so, so tired.
metal screeches against metal, and henrik debates on whether he should bother to look. he’ll find out, one way or another, he reasons.
glass digs into the back of his arms, and henrik looks.
a small wire cage sits in front of him, scuffed and scratched by its previous inhabitants. rust- or something more- coats the hinges, and the edges of the bars.
he remembers the last time that anti had shown him this cage; fury had swelled, hot and thick in his gut. it had been the first time that he had fought, and drawn blood, jamming the metal jutting from under his palm into where anti’s chest should have been.
it had worked, for a time. something had shattered, something had bled, and the rotten core that should’ve been anti’s heart oozed.
he’d bled for that, though. bled, and burned. he still remembers the shape of the pleas that anti had dragged out of him with hooks, and knives.
he doesn’t feel like bleeding, or burning, much anymore.
glass chips and shatters as his edges catch and break against the bars. anti drops him, and closes the door on him.
there is no satisfaction in his expression. only a cold void where his smirk should have been.
henrik rests his head against the icy bars, shuts his eyes, and doesn’t think about the end that he can feel coming.
faintly, ever so faintly, the buzz of a phone cuts through his thoughts. idly, jackie glances down, and freezes.
ice trickles through his veins as he unlocks his messages.
??͜?́: It’s been a while since we’ve played our games, hero.
??͜?́: Nearly a month, to be exact.
??͜?́: Why don’t we play one now?
??͜?́: Your precious doctor has escaped the cage. Find him first- without any help- and you can have him back.
??͜?́: If I get to him first, though…
??͜?́: You’re familiar with the Red Room, aren’t you?
jackie is leaping off of the roof, hitting the ground with a roll before he even finishes reading the last message, heart pounding.
henrik. henrik was out, henrik was somewhere on the streets, but henrik was out. he just had to find him-
glass grinds against glass. something is trying to stifle a whimper, and he runs into the wall trying to turn back around, wincing as a prong snaps off of his antler.
he almost doesn’t recognize what he’s looking at at first. a bloodied labcoat, torn to shreds, the broken remains of a caduceus buried deep, deep into a living, shifting network of- he determinedly avoids where the eyes of those expressions should be, and steps closer.
“henrik?”
he stutters over his own hope, his own rage, and his flinch echoes henrik’s flinch as henrik scrambles to face him.
his heart sinks as he searches henrik’s face for recognition and only finds fear and fury. that awful, awful grinding noise echoes around them again, and jackie watches with horror as the shattered caduceus shifts with henrik, resettling itself.
he can’t even be scared as henrik holds up one such edge, embedded into his hand, as a makeshift weapon.
he was, however, not expecting henrik’s first words to him to be “how dare you.”
henrik, agonizingly, gets to his feet, and jabs the sharpened edge forward. jackie stands stock still, hands up.
“hen, what- what? it’s me, we’ve- fuck, we’ve been looking so long for you, and we found you-”
henrik takes another step forward. the edge is at his throat, now.
“if you’re going to lie to me, drag me back, have the honor not to do it with his face.”
oh.
oh.
“hen, please.” he carefully, carefully pulls his arms back to his side, but doesn’t move otherwise.
the edge is against his throat. it feels like glass, but it’s too warm, and there’s a faint, faint rhythm pulsing under its surface. he doesn’t want to think about what that means if it breaks.
“it’s me, i promise. horns, bad- bad jokes, and all.”
now he brings up a gentle hand to rest on henrik’s hand. “you’re safe now, hen.”
hen is wavering. and then hen is withdrawing, eyes wide, and- fuck, henrik is collapsing.
without thinking, he darts forward, hauling henrik back to his feet. he’s a little rougher than he’d like to be, and henrik stifles another gasp as glass grinds on bone and the expressions on his skin silently wail, but all jackie can focus on is keeping henrik up and getting out.
it takes another moment to register that there are a hundred different shards digging into where he supports henrik, and gold runs down his arms, dripping onto the pavement.
how alike his tormentor henrik had become.
the antlers above them creak, as the weight of another branch of bone rests on jackie’s shoulders.
jackie grits his teeth, and hefts more of henrik’s weight onto himself. jackie takes them home.
and gold running down his arms, and bone towering above them, jackie swears to protect them.
exactly a day after the three of them gather to watch their youngest brother choke on the strings of their oldest, marvin sweeps into jackie’s room, a storm on his heels. he tells jackie of a sweeping wave of magical fury. he tells jackie of magic that tastes of desperation, and fury, and fear.
henrik doesn’t know magic, they both know. he might fear, rage strong enough to choke them, but magic does not pulse through him the same.
anti does not fear. anti rages. anti screams. anti does not, never has, and never will fear.
jackie’s hands are closing around his swords before marvin can finish his sentence. chase stands behind marvin, dripping with rage that hisses against the carpeted floor.
marvin leads them to their youngest.
they find henrik. they find their oldest.
if you ask jackie, later, he will not be able to tell you what happened. he will only be able to tell you of the single minded focus pumping through his head, of his fear that they would turn up just a minute too late to two dead brothers.
he would also be able to tell you of the two by his side. of how chase had shed every ounce of rage the minute he’d seen henrik, quiet and small and huddled into himself and broken into so many more pieces, and had pulled him close and held him there even as henrik roused for a fight with the glass in his hands and bones.
of marvin, the fury of a storm and a phoenix on his tongue, fire melting off of his hands and sparks flying from his teeth as he’d burned to the rotten, broken core of the demon that had risen to meet them.
most of all, though, he would’ve told you of jameson, of blue lightning wrapping around charred strings, of how he’d risen, porcelain grinding against porcelain, for a fight.
he pulls jameson close, the brother that he’d never gotten to say hello and happy birthday and welcome you will be so, so loved to, and holds him as marvin burns, and burns anti to the ground with him, flames leaping across the walls and ceilings and reaching for more.
by the time the ashes cool, they are sitting, outside on the cold pavement. chase refuses to let henrik go even as he tilts his head into fresh, cool air for the first time, and counts the stars with chase, oilslick tears shining on the glassy edges around his face.
jameson’s eyes do not leave them. there are many things he could ask, that he probably should be asking. jackie keeps a careful eye on him and a pen and paper nearby. (they had always kept it with them, waiting for the day that they could meet, and love, and cherish him. they had been waiting for the day that anti’s cruelty would slip and cut his own strings.)
jameson does not say a word. he curls close to jackie, porcelain resting against ivory, and watches them.
that’s alright, too.
they can wait for as long as they need to, to show him that it’s going to be okay.
for now, the night hangs heavy around all of them. for now, they wait for their magician to pull himself together from the ashes in a new form, with more eyes and less teeth and more arms to hold them close.
first off: i see y’all in my notes and @ one very specific bean: i have No Clue where you’re pulling all my old work from but i See You and i Appreciate You Sm
secondly: where are y’all finding the odd!egos from lmao that’s,,,such an old concept i was lowkey expecting to remain buried
Marvin’s dry voice behind him brings him to a halt where he’s bandaging up a particularly nasty cut across his side. Tugging his hoodie down to hopefully hide it, he turns to Marvin.
“No? Everything’s fine.”
He wordlessly crosses over to Jackie. It takes a moment for Jackie to follow his gaze, but then his heart sinks when he sees the gleaming liquid that’s seeped through his hoodie.
“So you’re conveniently carrying a packet of glitter paint on you, then?”
Swallowing hard at the edge under Marvin’s voice, Jackie replies “I’ve taken care of worse on my own.”
A hard roll of the eyes is all Jackie gets before the magician takes a seat by him, viridescent magic glittering around his fingers.
“And? If Henrik said after a 12 hour shift that he’s taken worse, you’d get on his ass too. It doesn’t make it alright.” Carefully, he weaves the threads of light through the wound, and the flow of golden blood dies down to a trickle. “Just because you’re not going to bleed to death on me right now doesn’t excuse you. We’re going to find Henrik now.”
Jackie looks away and says nothing. Every argument he’s used before, he’s used a thousand times, and now he’s simply giving up on trying to convince them to not worry about him. He still feels awful about it, though.
Marvin, seeming to read this, stands again with a sigh; Jackie feels an invisible force behind him push him up as well. “Look. We’re not gonna stop caring for you no matter what. We may as well be brothers at this point. Just… trust us when we say that we care for you, and that reaching out doesn’t make you a burden. Practice what you preach to us.”
With no mask to conceal his face, Marvin’s expression seems gentler, but uncomfortable; heartfelt discussions are usually led by Chase, after all, not the man who hid himself with a cape and a sharp tongue. It’s this that propels Jackie to nod, finally, as he appreciates the magnitude of this gesture; he finds Marvin’s shoulder and squeezes it gently.
“...I can’t make any promises, except the promise that I can try and be better about it.” Marvin’s posture loosens a bit, and he gives a crooked smile, mismatched eyes winking at Jackie as he leads them into the makeshift clinic.
“That’s all we can do sometimes, huh?”
“Yeah.”
catching up on the odd!ego prompt backlog! i have the prompts saved but tumblr’s glitching out the asks themselves like a Grade A Fool, so they’ll be posted like such. this was requested by @whoop-de-fuking-do!
other tags: @egopocalypse @starlightxnightmare @mijako98 @iris-the-asparagus @lunatrixyl@jackandmarksavedme88 @silverghosting @epicfangirl01 @beck-pma (If you want to be added/removed, message me! <3)
The ͠h́igh͘e҉r their pedestal, ͝harder they f͜a̶ll̶
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound of liquid hitting the floor echoes in the hero’s ears, from where he’s curled up next to what used to be his brother. Ink and tears mix amongst the porcelain shards, as he rocks frantically, whimpering ‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’
His head is bowed under the weight of his sins, which is so great that he fears it’ll snap his neck any second.
If that happens, though, he will have deserved it.
He did fail his little brother, after all. This was all his fault.
Another tear cuts a track through his ink stained cheek. He’d broken Jamie, and now there was no more fixing him. What had he done? Why?
Distantly, he remembers a voice crooning in his ear, egging him on as it masked Jameson as a villain, an intruder. Someone come to take him away from his master, before the mask was ripped way as Jamie was destroyed by his eldest brother, his hero.
The sound of a thousand mirrors grating upon one another shatters the silence, and he looks up fearfully, the tears momentarily blurring the figure before him.
Before him stands his broken god, once the tears clear away; he opens his mouth to say something, greet him joyfully as he should, but nothing comes out. He lowers his head again.
Will He be mad? He wonders dully. It doesn’t matter anyways. He’d deserve His wrath.
Instead, a gentle touch surprises him. He gently runs his hands through his hair spotted with ink (it’s everywhere, it’s never going to wash off, what did he do-
Softly, He croons ‘Yo̸u҉ seem pr̸eo̵c̴c̢u͏p͜ied, pe̵t͢. ͢Are ̀t͟hęse ̸we̷i̧ghing̡ y̸o̡u҉ ̷down͠?’ Shuddering, Jackie finds himself relaxing as he feels His cold hands scraping along the stained antlers, coming to a rest near the base as he whispers ‘Yes, master.’
He dimly recognizes what’s about to happen, but it doesn’t stop him from screaming as white-hot pain sears through his head. Maybe He’s laughing as
He casts the antlers aside, a reminder of how far the hero’s fallen, but when He speaks, it’s all sickly sweet reassurances.
‘Is̷n͜’t th́at so m̶u͘ch̨ b̷ett͟e̷r?̴ ̡L҉i̢ft͞ y͡our heaḑ,͝ ҉p̵ęt. ҉Lo̵ok̢ at͘ m̨e͘.’ He obeys, slowly, and meets His eyes. ‘Isn͘’̢t th͜at ͞b͏e҉t̨ter͘?̢’
‘Yes, master,’ he manages through the throbbing reminder that He and only He had the ability to take him apart as easily as he could put him back together, and he is rewarded with another smile of satisfaction. The smile fades as He studies what used to Jameson, though, and fear creeps into Jackie’s hollow gut.
‘T̵hąt̴ ͠is͟ ͢ra͢th̀e̷r u͝n̷f̵o̸r̛t̕u̷n̕ątè,̸ ͟i̧sn’̛t͠ it,͘ ͝peţ? I̢s̡ thi̡s wha̴t͠ ̵else ͟h͘as͠ ҉yo̡u ͏ùpse̢t̸?̕’ Anti crouches, sweeping the shards together. Jackie nods once before he bows his head again, tears threatening to spill out again.
‘I ͏d̡idn’t̛ s̀ay̷ yǫu ͜c̵ou̢l̀d͞ s͜t̀op͢ ̴looki̕ng̴ ͟at̴ m͘e, ͜p̷et.’ Jackie’s head snaps back up fearfully, and Anti smiles at him. ‘T͠hèr͞e we̵ ̶g̛o.͢ ̴Dry ̀y͢ou͞r̵ tear̨s, ͏w̨e͢’l͝l͜ ͢fi҉x̵ ̶y̕ǫur͠ brot́he͝r.̧ ̡H̵é w̶a̕s brok̢en ͟befor͠e̕ ͞a̕n̡y̢ẃa̛ys̀.͢ ̴W҉hen ̧w͝e p͟ưt h҉im ̵báćk t̵o̸ge̕t҉he̕r͟,̢ ̨he̡’̷ll ̴be̷ ҉às͝ h̢e͘ sho̵u͠l̛d.’ Something else rears it’s ugly head in Jackie’s gut. Fear. Something was wrong. This wasn’t righ̨t̢.
Static buzzes around them, muffles Jackie’s thoughts, as reality glitches around the three of them.
Taglist: @egopocalypse @starlightxnightmare @mijako98 @whoop-de-fuking-do @lunatrixyl @iris-the-asparagus @silverghosting , inspired by @randomartdudette and their lovely odd!jackie piece! (If you’d like to be added to the taglist, feel free to let me know <3)
Chase doesn’t remember what the nightmare is about. He only knows that he wakes up with his throat raw from the memory of screaming in an endless cycle of terror and oily tears slipping down his cheeks while he mourns for the memories of his family.
He had one, right? Before they were warped into beasts that rivalled Anti, before Jack was put into a coma, before, before, before.
They were real, right? Not the fabricated memories that Anti loved to conjure around his prey as he toyed with them? Wasn’t this all real? He swallows hard as he slowly gets out of bed, eyeing the shadows fearfully while he exits his room. He just needs a little reassurance, some guarantee that Anti won’t rip this away from him any moment.
The former vlogger doesn’t stop in front of Jameson’s door, and he slips past Jackie’s door after a moment of hesitation. Eventually, he stops in front of the lab door, and pushes it open gently. Past the cold steel, he can see the hunched form of the doctor, asleep at his desk.
They all escaped their demons separately, he supposed.
At the sound of the heavy door swinging open, though, Schneep starts and sits upright. It takes him only a moment to recognize that it’s Chase standing just inside the doorway, and something in the doctor’s expression softens as he pushes away from his desk.
‘Are you having trouble sleeping?’
Chase shakes his head as he awkwardly shuffles further into the room, whispering hoarsely ‘N-No. II’m sleepiing fiine. Falliing asleep, at least. I just- just let me look at you for a moment.’
Schneep gets it, then, and he stands, pulling a blanket out from by his desk as he moves over to sit on the bed instead.
‘Come here. Do you need some tea?’ Chase shakes his head again, and sits down by Schneep, who wraps the blanket around both of them. They sit in silence like that, until Chase whispers ‘Do you stiill- stiill have niightmares about hiim?’
Besides him, Schneep stiffens minutely, but then nods reluctantly; they both wince at the ill-timed grinding of the caudecus pieces against each other.
‘Not all the time. But he is very good at leaving the mark.’
Chase nods, and looks down, his next question stuck in his throat.
Schneep glances over after a moment, waiting patiently, as Chase adds quietly ‘Are you ever afraiid that thiis iisn’t real?’ Silence meets his question, and Chase feels his throat tighten at the far-away look in Schneep’s eyes.
‘Yes.’ A beat passes, then Schneep continues ‘It was favorite of his. He liked replaying old memories, thousand ways that situation could’ve been better resolved. He broke his own reality, so he wanted to break others’ realities too.’ Chase swallows hard. He knows exactly what Schneep is talking about, and something tells him Schneep knows he knows.
Schneep carefully wraps an arm around Chase, who sags into Schneep, muttering ‘It’s horrible. Absolutely horrible. I just want him and his fucking whispers out of my head. I want things back to normal-’ he can’t keep talking, and Schneep adjusts the blanket to be more snug around Chase, who realizes he’s shaking now too.
‘Take the breath, Chase. I know what you mean. It is unpleasant, but one day his tricks will run out. You are strong; you’ll make it there.’ Chase shakes his head but Schneep continues, perhaps a touch more aggressively ‘You made it past his games. You are strong, Brody. You survived your own struggles. It will be okay. We’re all here together, should you slip, and it will be okay.’
Schneep watches the former vlogger for a moment and his heart sinks at the unreadable, drawn expression. Chase gives a tiny nod, though, and Schneep relaxes a tad. Chase finally says quietly ‘Thanks, Schneep.’ He hesitates, before muttering ‘Do youu miind iif II stay for a biit?’ Schneep shakes his head, drawing another blanket around the two of them.
‘Of course not. Rest.’
Despite the fact they only have a few hours left, Chase does rest; and so does Schneep, thankfully enough. Jackie finds them in the morning, curled up together, and something softens in his expression before he closes the door, fending off a curious Marvin with a cryptic They’re resting.
‘Daddy?’ Chase stops by the doorway, looking into the shadowy room with a furrowed brow. ‘Yeah, kiddo?’
‘The creature is staring at me again.’ Chase swallows against the sudden dryness in his throat.
‘Just- just ignore it, sweetie. It’ll get bored and leave, remember?’
They’d combed her room so many times; him, Jackie, even Marvin. Anti was never there, but she insisted that the thing that wasn’t Daddy was watching her from the dark corners of the room.
The uneasy silence from her finally convinced Chase to step into the room with a sigh, walking to the corner where she always saw him.
‘See? Nothing there.’ He turns around, and his next words shrivel and die as he stares at his doppleganger leering at him from besides the empty bed.
Chase is frozen, like so many times before, before he rushes at Anti with a strangled cry.
Like so many times before, he never makes it, instead slamming into the blank wall of the prison where he stays now. Distantly, he can hear the shattered glitch cackling from behind him, as he sinks to the floor with an anguished cry.
The glitch steps around Chase as he wraps his arms around himself, sobbing quietly, and he crouches down, running a bony hand through the vlogger’s hair, gleefully watching him ripple as he struggled to keep himself together. ‘H͞u̴sḩ ҉n̡ow͜,̢ ̷d͟o̶n̸’t ͠c̕r͠y̕.҉ ͝No҉t ̨n҉oẁ,͘ a̛t͝ ̵l̶e̷a͏st̷;̸ ͜I’ve ̶got ̕so͟m̕e̷t̕hi͏n͞ǵ ͢tha͡t’͜l҉l̸ ͡r̴e͜a̸ll̨y ma͢ke ̸y̢ou̷ ͘wańt́ to͏ ̧cr̢y ͘in a̶ ̷m͜o͜me̸n̢t͟.̴’
