"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
01-02-2021, 08:02 PM (This post was last modified: 01-02-2021, 08:03 PM by Bad.)
BAD
He comes of age in darkness. Not that it had been a sudden thing – he was not a child for one moment and the next, a man – but when the eclipse settles over the world, when the air is filled with strange, unearthly cries, something of Bad seems to snap into place. He feels ready, although he does not know what for. He shifts into his hellhound form. It is more suited for moving in such darkness, his senses enhanced in this form, guiding him easily through the forest. He pauses once or twice to some of the horses move, their cautious steps. He does not know what happened, what triggered this event, nor does he care. It is not until he has traveled some distance that it occurs to him he should have checked on his father, who has no such protections as Bad does. But the thought of turning back now is tiresome, and besides, Garbage should be able to fend for himself – he’ll have to do so soon enough, and besides, their relationship is increasingly strained. Bad stops in the thick of the woods, shifts back begrudgingly to his equine form. Even the galaxy colors on his legs and belly are barely discernable here, he is mostly a mess of darkness save for the orange eyes peering out. But he smiles still, lips curved in the darkness, because things are happening and Bad thinks they might be things he will enjoy very indeed.
Maybe it’s the sense of knowing something you don’t fully understand.
Maybe it’s something else entirely.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. In the end, Abandon finds himself drawn forward through the darkness like a moth to light, ill-fated and unable to stop it. He sees the barest hint of cosmos beneath the thick blanket of dark and feels something hum in his bones like a lilting lullaby. Something that whispers to him.
Something that crooks a finger and he is helpless to stop.
He feels on edge—vulnerable and hungry in the same breath, sharp-toothed as a predator and as flighty as prey. Abandon comes to a stop just a few feet away from his brother and feels his weight rock, as though he is just a moment from taking off, muscles bunching to push him forward into the endless shadow.
There is silence, that yawning moment of nothing, as he studies Bad’s eyes, as if trying to figure out some puzzle. Finally, he tilts the edge of his mouth into an unseen smile, stretched a little too thin to be entirely genuine and yet entirely his own. “So many seem afraid of this darkness,” he muses, not one for poetic wanderings but not afraid to share this piece of his mind, “and yet you seem to be made of it.”
Perhaps they are made of the same thing, he thinks, once again finding the other’s eyes.
He shivers, just a little.
Perhaps they are.
I want to see your sadness. I want to share your sin. I want to bleed your blood. I want to be let in.
01-30-2021, 07:49 PM (This post was last modified: 01-30-2021, 07:49 PM by Bad.)
BAD
His father was kind to Bad in a way he never was to himself, and did not tell him of the significance of the orange eyes. Bad doesn’t know the stories, doesn’t know that the orange eyes he and his father shared were once so despised that his father tore his own out, left them rolling on the sands of a long-gone kingdom.
Bad was spared this. He know so little of his father’s history. He does not care to know. Someday, he may come to wonder, or may hear tale, but for now his father is rather unremarkable. Well, one of them is. He doesn’t know the other one, not even his name, for Garbage always refused to answer those questions, always said when you’re older.
Bad is older, now, but he is also away, moving through the forest and drinking in the darkness.
And then there is a boy, young, like him. Bad meets his gaze, orange eyes to red ones, and he feels something, an emotion he can’t quite name. The boy speaks and Bad searches for familiarity in the voice and it’s there but not, like an image viewed through a distorted lens. Right and not-right.
“I like it,” he says, “I find it…comfortable.”
Hellhounds are meant to run amongst darkness and hellfire, are they not? Sure, he’s missing the hellfire, but the darkness will do, for now. He is tempted to shift then, to show this stranger (this not-stranger) the extent of his comfort, but he refrains for now. I think he would like it, though, he thinks, but he has no basis for this thought.
He thinks he’s right, though.
“What do you think about it?” he says, then adds, “my name’s Bad.”
There’s a familiarity in the darkness that neither seems able to give a name to. It instead something unspoken, something not quite understood but yet completely natural. It settles into his bones until he feels that he can taste it on the edge of his tongue—a sweetness that tempts him to learn more. His nose twitches slightly as he continues to study the other in the darkness, the shadows a comfort more than anything the longer that he stands in them, the longer that he lets them creep up his back.
“I know what you mean,” he admits, always hesitant to say the truth to others but not finding it impossible with this other boy. “It’s,” he pauses, trying to find the exact wording, “right, in a way.”
The only true rightness that he has ever known in this world.
At the other’s name, he cannot stop the laugh that explodes from him—as dark as the world around them. He doesn’t bother to hide it, his red eyes sharpening with pleasure and more understanding.
“A fine name,” he says, but there is no sarcasm to it, nothing but even more familiarity.
He rolls a shoulder, before he offers his own in return.
“Abandon,” he says with a quick flick of his lip into a crooked smile. “My name is Abandon.”
I want to see your sadness. I want to share your sin. I want to bleed your blood. I want to be let in.
03-01-2021, 05:03 PM (This post was last modified: 03-01-2021, 05:03 PM by Bad.)
BAD
He doesn’t mind that the boy laughs. He knows the absurdity of his name, saw the twitches that passed the other’s faces as his father introduced him. He had asked, once, why he had been named so, but his father had only shrugged, said it was the first thing I thought and then struggled, added not that I didn’t want you, not that you’re bad, it just made sense and of course it didn’t make sense, but what could he expect, when his own father was named Garbage?
(He didn’t learn the origin of his father’s name, that it was a word spat from the golden queen’s mouth, a word that sank into him like a blade and has lived there evermore.)
He shifts. He can feel the hound beneath his skin, itching to shift. It’s like that, sometimes, when he feels restless, when the dark is thick enough to taste. He doesn’t succumb to the urge, not fully, but he lets it flick across his skin – a shimmer of canine features, a glint of teeth – and then he is merely a horse again, standing in the dark with this stranger and his own strange name - Abandon.
“Two fine names,” he says, and his own voice is light, teasing, “but then, my main dad’s name is Garbage, so it’s a family tradition for me, I guess.”
does the dark feel warmer than the light, now?
@[abandon] sorry to go a month and then post this garbage!!
