[A]

The Diary of the Alternative Wammys House themed diary blog based on A of Death Note Another note Pages tagged M are intended for 18+

[speedwayy]

remember when morrissey implied to a random woman at the airport that he and his boyfriend were incestuous brothers

[speedwayy]

can’t brothers be lovers ☝️ literally what’s a few spermatozoa between brothers

[9710144]

[its-simply-just-krys]

anonymous ; found on pinterest

[clawmarks]

A pair of forest floor scenes - Johann Falch - before 1727 - via Christie's

[thewickedwilds]

~sampughart

[moon-meerkat]

never related to authors being like "childhood is such a blessed innocent time", catch me with that jane eyre shit like "such dread as children only can feel" and "I then sat with my doll on my knee til the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room"

[wedarkacademia]

[wammys-house-a]

I'm here, in the dark.

Waiting to hear your creaking foot steps.

Knocking so softly at your door, you think it might just be your imagination.

But did you really think you'd seen the last of me?

You were wrong 🖤

[wammys-house-a]

The thumb turn lock clicks hard like the hammer of a gun, but you don't fire, you don't open it. You aren't sure you can pull the trigger are you?

Are you afraid of consequences?

It never stopped you from looping your fingers into me before.

I know you're not afraid of death. I'm not here to kill you, am I?

The boards moan under my feet as I lean forward, listening for your breath. Is this the sound the rafters made, bearing my weight?

Do you remember it? Does it crawl under your skin at night?

My fingers curl around the handle, skin sliding against metal- you take a step back, the bare soles of your feet sliding against the floor.

Don't tell me you're getting cold feet now, Lover.

[beyondthebackup]

The sun could no longer bear its own weight and sunk deep beneath the dark horizon.

B is a statue seated on neatly made sheets, he's half a face under the glare of harsh white moonlight. The curtains are gone, he ripped them off ages ago. Frail wind hisses through the cracks in the window. He broke it ages ago.

It is almost-perfectly still and almost-perfectly silent, if only that grating whistle announcing a living world outside of himself and that aching pulse insisting on the living world inside of himself would cease.

A's sheets are neatly made too, he doesn't sleep there anymore.

It's been some hours of B sitting here, staring at the spot where he used to be.

B is held hostage by the night and cannot sleep,

and B is alone.

...

Click-

God breaks the statue's neck and snaps his head in the direction of a portal,

to retribution redemption heaven hell,

their bedroom, skin against skin, the creak of wood,

floorboards,

moaning, like secrets seen through a keyhole.

The statue breaks his own knees to rise and greet-

...

My skin responds this way only to you,

prickling, taking on the texture of excitement or fear.

I become aware of the hair on my arm only when I see it move like static, I'm about to be struck by lightning -

I know I heard something.

I focus on the handle, I don't blink, I know how easy it is to miss something irreplaceable in a second, I am waiting and I am begging for my punishment,

for it to be you.

The wiggle of the handle is gentle and unsure just like you but I know what I saw...

You surprised me, you've been ignoring me, your shoulder is so cold.

I do not understand the unconscious movements of my own body.

How could I retreat, even a step?

Please don't get the wrong impression,

is this what it's like to be nervous?

I have been waiting forever,

I am not crazy,

I am not crazy,

I knew you would come for me,

Lover.

[wammys-house-a]

Can your eyes detect the subtle turning of the handle in the dark?

Imperfections in the false gold catching the light, all there is in the quiet of the room to let you know that I have accepted your invitation.

Do you hold your breath the way I hold the brass in my hand, it stops yielding the bolt drawn all the way inside, your regrets spring-loaded and held back by your tenuous composure.

Would you scream if I threw it open?

Would your thoughts run dry and your mind go blank?

Eeerrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

It's soft as breath, then sharp and creaking, cracking like a tree in the forest.

The gap bleeds so much light into the room...

—Like a muddy chalk line drawn out on black pavement, like the impact-gash drawn through my hair red-on-white-on-copper.

Your fingers combing it through may have been my morphine induced wet dream.

My shadow shifts, flickering through the moon's white line across your floor. I slowly let go, letting the bolt emerge back unlatched, lonely, useless, disarmed.

Is it even mercy to give you a chance to change your mind?

Would I even accept it if you did?

Wouldn't I find some crack in your fortress and slip in anyway?

I've always been like that.

Even when you've told yourself I couldn't understand, that I'm just another transient, an ignorant bystander bound to detonate — my expiration you traced out with your fingers and still you invited me in, invited yourself in and wouldn't leave.

You hid your eyes in my cold shoulder.

Why are haunted houses so seductive?

But now, you hesitate.

You're indecision stings.

It's not like you to strike second, it's not the person I knew.

Have I changed you that much?

—Do you not belong to me anymore?

Do you remember when I would try to lure you out of your room to play? When it was quiet like this, when I couldn't understand your mother tongue and you couldn't understand mine? So much is said that never met ears or lips or paper.

Your feet are moving, the translation between your heels and the hardwood floor reads, "I don't know what you want me to do- "

—My fingers come slowly curling around the door-

—you watched for a few seconds,

—a swift motion from the otherside causes me to draw back, unsure if you were about to flee towards or away from me— It's not personal it's instinct, you're only half as human as you usually are, more animal than you're used to being, at least I still bring the best in you~

[beyondthebackup]

I am in tune with all of my senses.

I am present in my body.

I am not crazy.

My feet are my crumbling base. They stand on wood so old it complains when you step on it. It splits open in its thirst for rot, to return to the Earth pressed flush against the foundations of this place. This is my fortress where I hide my

False gold. We practiced alchemy in that bathroom. I made faces in the mirror, you straightened your tie. In the spring of youth they told us we were golden.

I pretended because you pretended because I pretended

I couldn't stop pretending if I tried, don't you understand that?

What did you see in me, anyway?

Even now I am pretending that my head isn't spinning, that my knees aren't threatening to fail me, that I am sure that I can trust my vision and my mind

as I watch the maw of this house part to swallow me.

I am breathless,

the weight of my sins suppresses a scream I've been holding in since the day you died,

that battered old door that witnessed them all sighs.

Your light

blinds me. 🖤

The shape of you takes my heart in its grip, you could burst it in your fist, how does it feel to be the one in control?

I memorized your silhouette, love, I memorized everything.

The moon is a voyeur, and it watched us that night, We were doing L's dirty work, you and me. It was our destiny. I picked a fight, argued and poked at you until you stormed out in a huff, on a quiet night just like this. Mask, rope, all black clothes, gloves, I won't give you an inch of skin more than you need. I stalked you, it was thrilling How could you be so careless? Don't you know there are people like me in this world? I grabbed you, I dragged you to a place nowhere could hear you, I took what was mine. What you'd never admit is that once you realized it was me, you gave it freely.

Is it my turn?

Are you here to kill me?

Not much use in killing a zombie, falling apart as I drag splinters across my feet...

I plead with you.

"I don't know what you want me to do- "

But I'd let you do it anyway.

Your fingers curl around the door,

your fingers,

you...

the levy bursts, and I take in a desperate, ragged breath,

I reach for you,

reckless and greedy,

don't leave me

I would never run away from you.

[wammys-house-a]

My fingers rest limbly on the edge of the door.

I can feel your eyes tracing them, hear the rattle of your breath...

I remember your sighs, the gaps in your restraint, in dark closets and loneliest classrooms.



I could never accept what it meant to know you.

From the moment we met, I recognized the finality that you represented for me. Something within who I was saw you were the beginning of another end.

After so much loss, there was nothing left in me but resentment, the resistance to being stripped any further. By the time we met, I didn't even know who I was anymore. How could there be anything left to take from me when I didn't even have myself left to be robbed of?

I wasn't wrong. I just wasn't right.



You were always a deadend,

—I just misunderstood that because I didn't want to know.



Maybe it was sincere, that I believed you were there to steal my redemption from me and leave my future hanging in the balance. But at some point, I knew it wasn't true.

I knew it.

I knew that you were something far worse than I had ever anticipated...



You became a promise that I would one day lose something so vital to who I was, that I couldn't replace it with another pursuit or persona.

Losing my history and my name had felt like death — and a renewal, there was something liberating about building myself out of the ashes without a prescribed foundation, it freed me from so much responsibility to who I had been that I could recklessly experiment with my identity until I wasn't sure if I was a person or a concept or merely a consciousness bent on a singular objective.

But, you were a part of me that would inevitably be lost.



You meant there would come a day where I would never see you again or I would leave you behind not of my own volition, that our paths would no longer converge the way they had for more than a decade —this time we would be separate again, forever.

Eventually, life would take you from me or I from you and I suddenly understood why it is common for some to say ya'aburnee rather than I love you.

You bury me



There would be a last time we spoke, the last time we fought, the last time I caught a glimpse of your mind, when you would rest your head in my lap and I would think how impossible it felt that this weight held everything you were...

every thought you'd ever had,

every memory you ever made of me

—none of it was untouchable, just a few millimeters of bone and a few cellular tangles but yet I would lose you to the darkness of eternity, taking you so far away from me that I could never find you again.



It all weighed so little in my hands but felt so enormous.

I can still feel the weight of it.

It lives within me, all the things that will never be, the lives we won't live, the end is heavy in my chest and could pull me to my knees if I let it.

I rest my forehead against the door as my mind swims with thoughts of strangling you and pinning you to the ground where you can't get away, take out my frustration with you on your body, exercise my grief at the powerless you've made me feel...

I've lost everything and you're here ruining what's left.

I want to bridle you and contain you, and hurt you and free you and preserve you — and you've gone and destroyed yourself like this.

You aren't your own to destroy, how dare you do that.



A part of me aches from a decade ago, when failing this became failing myself, failing to make a future that included you possible, letting the opportunity die, failing to be someone that could make a future for us that was safe and humane and hopeful. I had stopped living for myself and I couldn't take back what I had let myself believe was possible to have — and bear the future loss of.



I refused to let myself know you were temporary, that it all was all fleeting.





I inhale—and feel the warmth of your fingers connect with mine.





Why can't you just let me fucking hate you.



—my hand reaches out with a rescuer's urgency and seizes you by the throat.

[contac]

[geryone]

Headless John The Baptist Hitchhiking, C.T. Salazar

[wammys-house-a]

I'm here, in the dark.

Waiting to hear your creaking foot steps.

Knocking so softly at your door, you think it might just be your imagination.

But did you really think you'd seen the last of me?

You were wrong 🖤

[wammys-house-a]

The thumb turn lock clicks hard like the hammer of a gun, but you don't fire, you don't open it. You aren't sure you can pull the trigger are you?

Are you afraid of consequences?

It never stopped you from looping your fingers into me before.

I know you're not afraid of death. I'm not here to kill you, am I?

The boards moan under my feet as I lean forward, listening for your breath. Is this the sound the rafters made, bearing my weight?

Do you remember it? Does it crawl under your skin at night?

My fingers curl around the handle, skin sliding against metal- you take a step back, the bare soles of your feet sliding against the floor.

Don't tell me you're getting cold feet now, Lover.

[beyondthebackup]

The sun could no longer bear its own weight and sunk deep beneath the dark horizon.

B is a statue seated on neatly made sheets, he's half a face under the glare of harsh white moonlight. The curtains are gone, he ripped them off ages ago. Frail wind hisses through the cracks in the window. He broke it ages ago.

It is almost-perfectly still and almost-perfectly silent, if only that grating whistle announcing a living world outside of himself and that aching pulse insisting on the living world inside of himself would cease.

A's sheets are neatly made too, he doesn't sleep there anymore.

It's been some hours of B sitting here, staring at the spot where he used to be.

B is held hostage by the night and cannot sleep,

and B is alone.

...

Click-

God breaks the statue's neck and snaps his head in the direction of a portal,

to retribution redemption heaven hell,

their bedroom, skin against skin, the creak of wood,

floorboards,

moaning, like secrets seen through a keyhole.

The statue breaks his own knees to rise and greet-

...

My skin responds this way only to you,

prickling, taking on the texture of excitement or fear.

I become aware of the hair on my arm only when I see it move like static, I'm about to be struck by lightning -

I know I heard something.

I focus on the handle, I don't blink, I know how easy it is to miss something irreplaceable in a second, I am waiting and I am begging for my punishment,

for it to be you.

The wiggle of the handle is gentle and unsure just like you but I know what I saw...

You surprised me, you've been ignoring me, your shoulder is so cold.

I do not understand the unconscious movements of my own body.

How could I retreat, even a step?

Please don't get the wrong impression,

is this what it's like to be nervous?

I have been waiting forever,

I am not crazy,

I am not crazy,

I knew you would come for me,

Lover.

[wammys-house-a]

Can your eyes detect the subtle turning of the handle in the dark?

Imperfections in the false gold catching the light, all there is in the quiet of the room to let you know that I have accepted your invitation.

Do you hold your breath the way I hold the brass in my hand, it stops yielding the bolt drawn all the way inside, your regrets spring-loaded and held back by your tenuous composure.

Would you scream if I threw it open?

Would your thoughts run dry and your mind go blank?

Eeerrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

It's soft as breath, then sharp and creaking, cracking like a tree in the forest.

The gap bleeds so much light into the room...

—Like a muddy chalk line drawn out on black pavement, like the impact-gash drawn through my hair red-on-white-on-copper.

Your fingers combing it through may have been my morphine induced wet dream.

My shadow shifts, flickering through the moon's white line across your floor. I slowly let go, letting the bolt emerge back unlatched, lonely, useless, disarmed.

Is it even mercy to give you a chance to change your mind?

Would I even accept it if you did?

Wouldn't I find some crack in your fortress and slip in anyway?

I've always been like that.

Even when you've told yourself I couldn't understand, that I'm just another transient, an ignorant bystander bound to detonate — my expiration you traced out with your fingers and still you invited me in, invited yourself in and wouldn't leave.

You hid your eyes in my cold shoulder.

Why are haunted houses so seductive?

But now, you hesitate.

You're indecision stings.

It's not like you to strike second, it's not the person I knew.

Have I changed you that much?

—Do you not belong to me anymore?

Do you remember when I would try to lure you out of your room to play? When it was quiet like this, when I couldn't understand your mother tongue and you couldn't understand mine? So much is said that never met ears or lips or paper.

Your feet are moving, the translation between your heels and the hardwood floor reads, "I don't know what you want me to do- "

—My fingers come slowly curling around the door-

—you watched for a few seconds,

—a swift motion from the otherside causes me to draw back, unsure if you were about to flee towards or away from me— It's not personal it's instinct, you're only half as human as you usually are, more animal than you're used to being, at least I still bring the best in you~

[kiarakirara-deactivated20210908]

[beyondthebackup]

I wanted to run away.

While we still had time.

Just before sunset, the yellow-orange-purple crown in your hair,

the sun.

I wanted to follow you somewhere, the direction was meaningless.

I thought back then,

That's plenty of time.

We can have a lot of fun,

then I can say goodbye.

How naive I was.

It was never enough.

They caught us, and they dragged us back kicking and screaming,

And now, we can't run.

I act according to a grand design.

I follow my path as faithfully as you do.

Still, I think only of you.

I am helpless.

I am not better.

I flounder, helplessly, just like the rest of you.

The trouble is I know I am floundering, and like an addict, like an asylum patient I can't help but do it anyway.

Time is like a runaway train,

Your body grew, and you started to brush your hair, and your blue eyes, they turned upon me with scorn like an endless blizzard.

I bled all over the ice. I split it open and drowned in the water underneath.

Your blue eyes, your endless pools.

I drowned.

Like a runaway train.

Time was never enough to pick you apart and arrange you in neat labeled compartments that I could memorize and keep in my mind, forever

I wanted to watch you through a viewfinder

I wanted a lifetime of you in less than two decades

I was willing to hurt you

Isolate you

Break you

There's nothing I wouldn't have done, there's hardly anything I didn't do

I did it, because I knew it was Fate,

I knew it would be my fault anyway.

You never had a chance.

Why can't we have children?

Why can't I cut a baby out of you before you leave me and raise it to be just like you?

Why can't I lose myself in a delusion and repeat the cycle of destroying a child for my own gratification?

They did it to us and they'll never pay for it.

I covered our walls in newspaper. You would've hated it. Thought it ugly, told on me, and Roger would've ripped them off our walls and scolded me because he always liked you better even if he hated us both, and then I would punish you and you would punish me in perpetuity and it was fun

I liked you, and I hated you, from the very start

Everything I did was to try and force those feelings down your throat

I don't know what to do now.

The newspapers are about L. How does that make you feel?

Do you hate me or understand me? Both?

All of his cases. I know he made a mistake. He's human and fragile,

just like you were.

I'm thinking about him as much as I can bear it even though I hate him and the thought of him makes me want to vomit and rot this place down to the floorboards because

I can feel myself missing you, I do not understand this void, this is not an emptiness I understand, oh god it's hell

Your bed is empty and it's hell

It's quiet, it's so quiet, and I am alone, I've won and you are erased, I have defeated you, your head is on the mantle and I'm losing my goddamn mind

I hear you in my sleep, I see you in my dreams, you stare back at me in the mirror, I taste your blood in my mouth, I feel your fingers stroking me in the night

I hid away your shirts, whatever I could find.

They won't take you away from me.

Your scent is enough now.

Your mouth

Your warmth

I

Have a shovel in the corner, and I haven't eaten, and I haven't slept and I

I was wrong

I was wrong

What if I could've changed it? What if I was wrong?

When I pushed you off that roof I wanted to end you before you could end me

Why

Why

Did everything click into place that day when I saw your eyes

Why

I was never meant to desire anything or be anyone

You keep looking at me with those eyes and I

I'm nothing

I can't think

I can't stand the sight of my own face and I scratch at my eyes in my sleep

I'm not leaving my room, I don't have the energy to put on the mask,

they can see the contempt clear on my face.

I'm losing all this weight, I'm hunched over like an ogre

I keep thinking I see the numbers change

I can do my makeup to look exactly like

I know he made a mistake

I hate them all

You don't think he made a mistake?

All I ever wanted was you and you are gone

You think he's some kind of God?

You are gone

You think someone like him can't be destroyed?

For him?

I'll fuck him like I fucked you on the altar in his church.

I'll fuck him and then I'll kill him like I killed you.

I'll get inside of him and I'll devour him and I'll replace him and we will simply cease to exist.

I'll burn this place. I'll fuck them all.

I'll burn. I'll burn. I'll burn.

I'll burn so hot you'll have to come watch

You'll have to come back and watch me burn

I'll follow you this time,

Abel,

I'll follow you

We'll get everything we ever wanted when I bury him in the weakness of his own humanity

Our cage will come apart at the hinges

I'll humiliate him and I'll own him and I'll dominate him and I'll make him grovel just like I did you

And we'll get everything we ever wanted when I show them all that L is nothing but a letter

They'll pay in blood and I won't be happy until he's buried and his ghost is writhing in agony for eternity

I won't be happy until the three of us are in hell

That's all I want

This is hell

You're all I ever wanted

Oh god

[wammys-house-a]

I am on the brink of a most dreadful epiphany, Ali'~ and, you are a ready distraction from self-actualization that could cripple my image. So, how about we take a bath together and I'll dye your hair something obnoxious and offensive~?

"I cannot imagine how one sullies the image of a man that just broke into my bathroom but I'm feeling as though a nice shade of teal would suit me just fine."

Alternative reaches into the foaming water and tosses out a large kitchen knife onto the tiled floor.

"Get in, Loser. "

[caustic-c]

Chase watched the metal hit the ground and shot Alternative an approving look before approaching the bath, his body inclined to a leering lean.

"Wouldn't happen to have any more of those in there, would ya?"

Chase slide his hand over the edge of the bath before letting his fingers dip beneath the water.

"Were you expecting someone~? I wouldnt want to interfere with your plans~"

[wammys-house-a]

Alternative raised a brow with a come-hither glance, folding an arm over the porcelain ledge.

“Only one way to find out...~”

His gaze drifted with a sweep of his lashes to the fingers brushing the water’s surface.

   A mischievous impulse spurred him to slide coarse bristles of something unseen across C’s fingertips, causing him to retract his hand.

“No risk, no reward, Cause’. I said   get   in, not dip your toes like pushing your head under the water wouldn’t be part of the fun.”

He drummed his fingers on the cooling veneer until C stepped over into the bath, causing Alternative to balk then-- regard him with some approval.

“That’s more like it, if you’re going to take your life in your own hands, you should go all the way and forsake all decorum.”

Alternative leaned into Caustic’s leer.

“Live like you know you’re dying.”

[caustic-c]

Caustic slid his tongue over his teeth in a manner that suppressed the emerging smile enough that he wouldn't give everything away.

"If I wanted to live dangerously, you wouldn't be the first example I would follow~" He countered, looking at the scars on A's arms, most likely from the infamous collision with the ground.

"No offense intended, I just have one eye left to spend on thrill seeking~"

C makes no attempt to conceal the slide of his eyes up the red haired boy's throat.

Soft.

Someone ought to ring his neck, he wonders if he could get his hands wrapped around it before his former friend would start screaming and black out.

He could probably land a good kick or smash his forehead into C's nose, but it might be worth it anyway.

That might make it especially worth it.

"SOooo, I heard you got banned from self defense class, what'd you do~?""

His eyes and smile lit up like a snake's leer.

[wammys-house-a]

Alternative’s eyes narrowed into a chilly glower on the one across the water, he tries to form a sentence that sums up a conclusion.

“Who   told   you...?” He seethed, suddenly all levity leaving him. 

C doesn’t greet it with any seriousness, instead taking his phone out of his left breast pocket and beginning to scroll through it leisurely as though Alternative were not staring daggers at him.

Their bodies grow still. A can see a subtle ripple coming out from C’s body, the reverberation of his heart through the soaked dress shirt.

“I wouldn’t tell.” Comes the response, a body length away as the phone begins playing an obnoxious whining rythm that trills into a oddly mellow thump like the music that lulls in the background of westerns. 

C raises his feet to rest on either side of A’s shoulders. A wonders if he should feel something akin to disgust.

He doesn’t.... quite. 

It’s hard to ignore the sound of the other’s breathing as the song tappers to an end. The water is running, the porcelain is silent, A says nothing. C’s breathing, this is the same sound he hears in the night if he lets himself listen closely enough, it lets him know where B is.. that he isn’t that close. He’s found himself seeking it out for no reason at all. He wishes he would stop trying to find if it is there, so the room feels less empty.

Ripples from A’s end are meeting those at a near-halfway point, coming from the other side. If he stares at it too long, he will know the rhythm of his pernicious little bastard’s heart  beneath his clothes, clinging wetly to his chest.    

   Thump.   Thump.    Thump.

                                       Thump.

“… I think you already know, so why do you care?” The whisper is laced with apprehension, there is something here that Alternative is not seeing. But, it feels as though, saying it could make it real. It feels as though he’s validated the threat that hasn’t even come into being by recognizing it. He inhales over the sound of the other’s steady breathing, even if just to block it out.

C is flipping through his phone again, this time a jaunty pop song, what’s next?

He watches as his uninvited guest reaches into the other pocket, still unperturbed by Alternative’s simmering ire. A draws back but only an inch, it’s hard to imagine anything big enough to fit in there that would have evaded his notice.

“... They banned me over a joke, can you believe it..?” Alternative shifts with some growing unease as the other prodigy draws out something sealed in small plastic bag and places it over the phone’s glowing screen. 

Caustic looks down into it and grins to himself... His heels are grinding into the tile at the sides of his head, there’s something written on the side that he can’t make out.

“I told him the only thing that would cure me is a lead pill taken orally, he just doesn’t appreciate my humor. I thought it was a good joke… I’ll have to tell B that my dreams of him shooting me on accident, like were two buzzed up republican hunting buddies, and getting to keep the bullet on a chain commemorating our friendship and his folly, all down the drain~” Alternative made another attempt at levity when he saw in the reflection of the bath’s smooth porcelain surface a shadow moving soundlessly behind him.

Before he can turn his head, C’s leg slides into his lines of vision and he is leaning forward abruptly. A doesn’t have the opportunity to retreat before C's fingers are there with a very deep green capsule between their faces.

“... what is that...?”

 It hangs in the air like fruit just out of reach.

[caustic-c]

" Supremacy ." He purred just above a whisper.

Caustic seized the opening he saw in Alternative's attention faltering and shot a hand out, sliding his fingers around the back of his neck.

Abrupt but excruciatingly gentle, he did not want to spook Alternative but if this went sideways, he wanted to be positioned to strike.

The shadow passed and faded before it could be heard.

"They'll never give it to you," C said shaking his head and staring intently into A's eyes like they were having a heart to heart, "-they're too bound up in their internal bureaucracy, too beholden to the dogma of this project to see you anymore."

Perhaps, he should have chosen a tune that would set a more somber tone but something about the swift thump twined in yearning lyrics made it feel like they were about to share a youth driven escapade, if only Alternative would acquiesce to the moment.

"Do you feel it? They've been preparing for this since they brought Backup in. Losing you, they're ready for it... You're just one of the hundred now and if they've burnt out what's left of your drive, they'll be looking for one with more inherent fortitude, not to retread a successor that's obviously spent.

They'll revoke their loyalty because they have to.

That's the tragedy of being imperfect, the world is so unforgiving of flaws. Some of us battle with anxiety, the wounds of a past life, defects of focus or memory, and they aren't interested in attenuating those deficiencies, they don't want a bunch of three legged hounds, relying on supplementary aid to keep them adequate..."

Caustic turns the pill between his fingers, looking into its quiet promise as he stroked the dips of the beginnings of A's spine - it's impossible that Alternative isn't trying to piece this ploy together, he just needs him to see it in the right frame.

"There is no justice in this world except that which we force into it."

Eyes wild with an electric ambition met the first ranker's with a question before it was asked.

"... In just a few short years you're going to blossom into poisonous maturity, you know that A? You're going to be an adult and you'll still be here, ripened but unplucked. You'll be a kept man, no prospects of any kind beyond this game you've spent most of your life playing and your turn will be up-"

"What if L isn't dead?"

"Will you try to take him on?"

Caustic is grinning viciously as he charges towards the precipice of the point he is trying to reach.

"That might lead to a resurgence of the detective wars and, well, we both know how that turned out- L sends us out to the front lines and they wash their hands of the blood paid to bring home the win... I'm not sure if you'll ever stumble so badly that you'll become fodder but, surely... you're not so self-sacrificing that there's nothing in this world you want so desperately to hold onto than you would never letting it be martyred for them."

C could see the uncertainty welling up in his target, there was no way Alternative was going to bite unless he gave him a reason to trust the premise. With his own unease just beneath his smile, he slid the pill between his teeth and it disappeared into his mouth.

"This is your ticket to immunity."

His voice dropped to a soft hiss as the music stopped playing, leaving nothing but their voices and the trickle of the water to fill the void.

"All those pesky misgivings, your conscience punishing you for the missteps you've made, the anxiety of recognizing your attrition, sleepless nights kept awake by things you can't change... This will get all that out of the way, you'll be an unstoppable force not held back by his fears."

"Even Backup's torment will roll right off your back."

Once more, his fingers fished into his shirt, saturated with sweet smelling bath water, and retrieved another tender green pill.

"You'll be free and I... will make an alliance with the new L.

... see how that works?

All you need to do is find the balls to try it, just this once. See if it gives you the edge that the head-doctors won't let you have.

I promise... I'm not here risking being in Backup's line of fire because I have a deathwish. I really want us to be friends."

[wammys-house-a]

 Alternative steadied his gaze, pushing the intrusive touch from his mind impassively as cautionary fingers crawled over his skin like propofol through a vein. He drew in a breath to slow the pace of his heart. His eyes swept unobtrusively down, leaving Caustic’s face to trace the ripples of the water that radiated out from his body in translucent ringlets, tremoring with the pulse sealed in his chest.

ThumpThumpThumpThump-

                                       Thump-

    —  Beneath the cold-blooded provocation, C's heart was racing... 

Alternative’s tepid blue eyes flickered back to meet his predatory leer and took in the measure of Caustic’s presented rationale. If that pill had any sedative affects, then he should begin to see a deceleration within minutes. 

 —   Silence settled between them as they looked into each other, waiting for the first to flinch.

  Part of the assertion was disconcertingly accurate... Backup's resolute escalation in their increasingly adversarial relationship had been the impetus for A’s visit to the counselor’s office. However, knowing someone as unscrupulous as C could come to that knowledge only served to confirm that deficiencies in their safeguards existed and were going intentionally unaddressed.

Perhaps, exposure of those records should have been his primary concern, but the treacherous horticulturist had both heels planted at his shoulders and Alternative wasn't so confident in his fortitude that he thought he could weather a kick to throat...

But what kept him still on the cusp of making a play for the knife in his periphery was the bitterness of the insult that C could believe Alternative was as careless as the rest, that this was the result of a slip of the tongue.

If he thought he left that office without exactly what he came for, he had severely underestimated Alternative. — he sought to escape from Backup's ambition to one up him in front of everyone, and he got it.

The thinly veiled threat of harming himself was neither miscalculated nor insincere, he would have done whatever it took to achieve this end, but A now found himself in one of those situations in which your opponent is not playing fair and doesn't care how obvious it is.

'Perhaps what goes around really does come around.' He mulled as his gaze wavered, giving Caustic the satisfaction of believing he might be conceding to the idea. He glanced down to the murky surface of the cooling bathwater and saw the undulating ripple had not slowed to anything near imperceptibility.

— Whatever C had taken hadn't reduced his pulse...

That unsettling note was only surpassed by the totality of his position, he set a stony glare on C; Alternative was out maneuvered and out manned, Caustic brought backup that had not escaped his perception even if it was in his best interest to pretend their entrance was sub rosa at the moment.

He could try to wait him out, ... delay until Backup returned, bringing them both into jeopardy or Caustic got the good sense to abscond and avert disaster. But that ran the risk of exacerbating the desperate tension he could feel rolling off C. A knew he wouldn't have invited reinforcement if he didn't anticipate this leading to a struggle and if Alternative let him initiate it, he would be put at the disadvantage of defending rather than having made a decisive strike...

None of really mattered when he could more easily bear a direct confrontation with this nefarious snake than he could waiting for Backup to come to his 'rescue' — all his strategizing and subterfuge... just to end up letting B fight his battles like some obstinate damsel trying to fend off an arrogant knight, only to summon him when things got a bit too perilous...

—A would much sooner let this come to bloody blows.

“... Going to bed next to you must be like sleeping with a starving lamprey." He groused, reaching out resolutely and taking the offered pill.

There was little pause as he bought it to his lips and gave C exactly what he wanted— Alternative swallowed it dry but denied him the pleasure of seeing him so much as grimace, holding onto his composure tightly as it went down his throat.

He settled back, waiting for Caustic to withdraw, there would be no great, sloshing battle, if A could help it.

"I'm sure you've got some diatribe ready to inflict on me now."

"Are you going to tell me you have the honorless instincts of an assassin to have fed me rohypnol or rat poison...? I just want you to know that whatever the case may be, I'm not so stupid as to actually believe any of what you just said."

"However, I'm willing to bet you're not so stupid as to think we'll be alone much longer, that killing or sedating me is going to serve you very well, if you even succeed."

"That's why I'm going to play along. I don't think you would do it this way, Caustic. I think too highly of you to believe you would be this atrociously negligent- Isn't that touching?"

"Why don't you tell me what you just gave me and we can both have a tender tête-à-tête before it takes affect?

It baffles me, what your intentions could possibility be here when you're even willing to bring a conspirator to ensure it's success..."

[wammys-house-a]

I am on the brink of a most dreadful epiphany, Ali'~ and, you are a ready distraction from self-actualization that could cripple my image. So, how about we take a bath together and I'll dye your hair something obnoxious and offensive~?

"I cannot imagine how one sullies the image of a man that just broke into my bathroom but I'm feeling as though a nice shade of teal would suit me just fine."

Alternative reaches into the foaming water and tosses out a large kitchen knife onto the tiled floor.

"Get in, Loser. "

[caustic-c]

Chase watched the metal hit the ground and shot Alternative an approving look before approaching the bath, his body inclined to a leering lean.

"Wouldn't happen to have any more of those in there, would ya?"

Chase slide his hand over the edge of the bath before letting his fingers dip beneath the water.

"Were you expecting someone~? I wouldnt want to interfere with your plans~"

[wammys-house-a]

Alternative raised a brow with a come-hither glance, folding an arm over the porcelain ledge.

“Only one way to find out...~”

His gaze drifted with a sweep of his lashes to the fingers brushing the water’s surface.

   A mischievous impulse spurred him to slide coarse bristles of something unseen across C’s fingertips, causing him to retract his hand.

“No risk, no reward, Cause’. I said   get   in, not dip your toes like pushing your head under the water wouldn’t be part of the fun.”

He drummed his fingers on the cooling veneer until C stepped over into the bath, causing Alternative to balk then-- regard him with some approval.

“That’s more like it, if you’re going to take your life in your own hands, you should go all the way and forsake all decorum.”

Alternative leaned into Caustic’s leer.

“Live like you know you’re dying.”

[caustic-c]

Caustic slid his tongue over his teeth in a manner that suppressed the emerging smile enough that he wouldn't give everything away.

"If I wanted to live dangerously, you wouldn't be the first example I would follow~" He countered, looking at the scars on A's arms, most likely from the infamous collision with the ground.

"No offense intended, I just have one eye left to spend on thrill seeking~"

C makes no attempt to conceal the slide of his eyes up the red haired boy's throat.

Soft.

Someone ought to ring his neck, he wonders if he could get his hands wrapped around it before his former friend would start screaming and black out.

He could probably land a good kick or smash his forehead into C's nose, but it might be worth it anyway.

That might make it especially worth it.

"SOooo, I heard you got banned from self defense class, what'd you do~?""

His eyes and smile lit up like a snake's leer.

[wammys-house-a]

Alternative’s eyes narrowed into a chilly glower on the one across the water, he tries to form a sentence that sums up a conclusion.

“Who   told   you...?” He seethed, suddenly all levity leaving him. 

C doesn’t greet it with any seriousness, instead taking his phone out of his left breast pocket and beginning to scroll through it leisurely as though Alternative were not staring daggers at him.

Their bodies grow still. A can see a subtle ripple coming out from C’s body, the reverberation of his heart through the soaked dress shirt.

“I wouldn’t tell.” Comes the response, a body length away as the phone begins playing an obnoxious whining rythm that trills into a oddly mellow thump like the music that lulls in the background of westerns. 

C raises his feet to rest on either side of A’s shoulders. A wonders if he should feel something akin to disgust.

He doesn’t.... quite. 

It’s hard to ignore the sound of the other’s breathing as the song tappers to an end. The water is running, the porcelain is silent, A says nothing. C’s breathing, this is the same sound he hears in the night if he lets himself listen closely enough, it lets him know where B is.. that he isn’t that close. He’s found himself seeking it out for no reason at all. He wishes he would stop trying to find if it is there, so the room feels less empty.

Ripples from A’s end are meeting those at a near-halfway point, coming from the other side. If he stares at it too long, he will know the rhythm of his pernicious little bastard’s heart  beneath his clothes, clinging wetly to his chest.    

   Thump.   Thump.    Thump.

                                       Thump.

“… I think you already know, so why do you care?” The whisper is laced with apprehension, there is something here that Alternative is not seeing. But, it feels as though, saying it could make it real. It feels as though he’s validated the threat that hasn’t even come into being by recognizing it. He inhales over the sound of the other’s steady breathing, even if just to block it out.

C is flipping through his phone again, this time a jaunty pop song, what’s next?

He watches as his uninvited guest reaches into the other pocket, still unperturbed by Alternative’s simmering ire. A draws back but only an inch, it’s hard to imagine anything big enough to fit in there that would have evaded his notice.

“... They banned me over a joke, can you believe it..?” Alternative shifts with some growing unease as the other prodigy draws out something sealed in small plastic bag and places it over the phone’s glowing screen. 

Caustic looks down into it and grins to himself... His heels are grinding into the tile at the sides of his head, there’s something written on the side that he can’t make out.

“I told him the only thing that would cure me is a lead pill taken orally, he just doesn’t appreciate my humor. I thought it was a good joke… I’ll have to tell B that my dreams of him shooting me on accident, like were two buzzed up republican hunting buddies, and getting to keep the bullet on a chain commemorating our friendship and his folly, all down the drain~” Alternative made another attempt at levity when he saw in the reflection of the bath’s smooth porcelain surface a shadow moving soundlessly behind him.

Before he can turn his head, C’s leg slides into his lines of vision and he is leaning forward abruptly. A doesn’t have the opportunity to retreat before C's fingers are there with a very deep green capsule between their faces.

“... what is that...?”

 It hangs in the air like fruit just out of reach.

[wammys-house-a]

I am on the brink of a most dreadful epiphany, Ali'~ and, you are a ready distraction from self-actualization that could cripple my image. So, how about we take a bath together and I'll dye your hair something obnoxious and offensive~?

"I cannot imagine how one sullies the image of a man that just broke into my bathroom but I'm feeling as though a nice shade of teal would suit me just fine."

Alternative reaches into the foaming water and tosses out a large kitchen knife onto the tiled floor.

"Get in, Loser. "

[caustic-c]

Chase watched the metal hit the ground and shot Alternative an approving look before approaching the bath, his body inclined to a leering lean.

"Wouldn't happen to have any more of those in there, would ya?"

Chase slide his hand over the edge of the bath before letting his fingers dip beneath the water.

"Were you expecting someone~? I wouldnt want to interfere with your plans~"

[wammys-house-a]

Alternative raised a brow with a come-hither glance, folding an arm over the porcelain ledge.

“Only one way to find out...~”

His gaze drifted with a sweep of his lashes to the fingers brushing the water’s surface.

   A mischievous impulse spurred him to slide coarse bristles of something unseen across C’s fingertips, causing him to retract his hand.

“No risk, no reward, Cause’. I said   get   in, not dip your toes like pushing your head under the water wouldn’t be part of the fun.”

He drummed his fingers on the cooling veneer until C stepped over into the bath, causing Alternative to balk then-- regard him with some approval.

“That’s more like it, if you’re going to take your life in your own hands, you should go all the way and forsake all decorum.”

Alternative leaned into Caustic’s leer.

“Live like you know you’re dying.”

[junglejim4322]

When bucks fight over a deer and their antlers get tied together and they die together over it that’s. The level of morbid homoeroticism I’m trying to experience