Characters: Silvain, Darcy, Or, Reuben, several Tartarus family members (Soren, Musetta, Moore, and Nyx)
Content warnings: Mindfuckery/gaslighting courtesy of Reuben and Or, child endangerment/injury, mentions of self-harm, mentions of eye horror/injury, mentions of human experimentation, a small domestic violence mention if you squint
Summary: Darcy and Silvain attend a fundraiser at the Tartarus mob family’s mansion, undercover as two (engaged) friends of the mayor who are new to El Asilo. They meet Soren, a Tartarus kid with the power of deductive reasoning who sees through their cover stories immediately, but offers to show them around regardless. Soren, Darcy, and Silvain wander through the hedge maze on the mansion grounds, eventually coming across Or and Musetta (and an invisible Reuben) in the center of the maze and getting obnoxiously toyed with for a while. Musetta reveals that they remember Silvain from the Vantage Christmas party, and Darcy high-tails it out of the pool area, Silvain and Soren in tow.
Back in the maze, Silvain and Darcy question Soren about various aspects of the Tartarus family’s dealings with Vantage, and find out that one of the Tartarus kids (and Nyx’s biological daughter) has lived in a Vantage lab for most of her life due to uncontrollable powers that send anyone near her into a bloodthirsty rage. After a chance run-in with Nyx, who also sees straight through Silvain and Darcy’s covers, Soren takes off and leaves Silvain and Darcy to their own devices for the rest of the event.
Quitting cold turkey really was harder than Milo had expected. It was for the best though, wasn’t it?
It was the desire to be liked that had put the idea in his head. Sure, plenty of people had told him he was evil and needed to stop hurting others anyway but those weren’t the ones who mattered. Instead it was the idea he could have more friends if he wasn’t, for lack of a better term, a monster.
And so he had gone weeks and then months without hurting a soul. He wouldn’t crush a fly. He wouldn’t say a negative thing to anyone. He wouldn’t so much as allow himself to think of hurting people who wronged him. And somehow, life felt so much worse.
It was still hard to make friends and he felt so stressed and compressed and twisted up inside. He had lost his spark and gone numb and quiet. As it turned out, when he denied every part of him that was considered bad, there wasn’t a whole lot of ‘him’ left. And what was there was so tightly squeezed into a ball, he might as well have been physically restrained. He was sure that one day he would explode and it turned out he was right.
The idea came to him one day while he was in the kitchen, chopping up ingredients for a salad for dinner. He was lost in thought, missing the sensations he used to get when carving into meat and getting rewarded with the rush of energy, and chopped a bit too far.
He took in a sharp gasp then looked down, slowly pulling the knife up from where it had embedded in the backs of three of his fingers. It was a deep cut that left his hand trembling and in pain, blood pooling around the cuts and on his cutting board. A little thought arose at the sight, accompanied by a smile. Do it again. The idea frightened and excited him in the same breath. Was this what he was missing?
He held the knife shakily, mulling this over while the impulse grew. It was this, or hurt someone else. Simple enough. He had already put in so much work, he didn’t want it to go to waste. And so, the knife found itself in the back of his forearm next, a shout of pain following. Even though it was his own voice he heard, his excitement grew. More, he thought.
Minutes passed and the soon Milo struggled to hold the knife steady, cuts carved all around his forearms and dangerously close to his wrists. They weren’t passing glances from the blade. They ran deep. But he only wanted more and he only suffered more pain. There was still some final satisfaction missing. He looked at his trembling hands in frustration and nervousness before it came to him. How obvious, how simple. There was no point to all of this without an end of some kind.
He wanted to be somewhere pleasant for this. A murder he could commit that no one would hold against him. But if it was to be his final one, he wanted to have somewhere nice to savor it. A beautiful garden belonging to an old woman down the way came to mind. He had wanted for quite some time to climb in and explore it after all.
He hardly noticed the frightened looks of neighbors who backed away or went inside when he came down the street, quite a sight with a kitchen knife in hand, gashes all over his arms, and blood trailing all along behind him. They didn’t even cross his thoughts, even the one or two who tried to get his attention to ask what had happened or if he was okay.
Without a word to them, he climbed over the white painted fence, a glassy eyed smile on his face as he saw all the flowers. So many colors. But all those he passed by turned red. It reminded him of a story but he was having trouble remembering, finding it harder to keep his train of thought as he went. He felt sluggish and dazed, like he was losing his energy.
But he still remembered why he had come there. Someone had to die for him to feel alive again, so why not him? No one could fault him for it this way.
He stood in the center of the garden and put the knife to his throat, savoring the moment before he sliced. And the cut ran deep.
He saw red. He heard a scream. Moments passed. He felt pain.
He saw black. He heard nothing. An eternity passed. He felt nothing.
He saw white. He heard footsteps. Beeps. Drips. He felt the cool sheets of the hospital bed.
💝 To the Bravest Ascended with the cutest nose I know! - Orianthe
Send 💝to give my muse a Valentine’s Day card!
He... didn’t know this person too well. But, they had taken time out of their day to give him a card, and comment on his nose. Part of him was expecting a comment on the ears, but he supposed both were in the same realm of possibility.
