Inbox for [community profile] ryslig

Dec. 31st, 2022 02:56 pm
polarvoid: (❀ Frangipani)
[personal profile] polarvoid
WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, CHARACTER NAME/ALIAS.

FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 018.07.154.55

*** CHARACTER NAME/ALIAS has joined 018.07.154.55
<Daisy>This is Basil! I'm not around right now, but if you leave a message I'll get back to it as soon as I can.
<BANNED USER> SCREENED MESSAGE. UNSCREEN? Y/N -- sample for when you ban someone
<USERNAME> First sentence of message.
<USERNAME> First sentence of message.
zoomingupthathill: (i'm still afraid to be there)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ It takes Max a day or so to realize what's going on, and she does because of Basil.

Since their heart-to-heart in the woods, when she realizes they share more than a few maladaptive coping mechanisms, she's made an active effort to reach out to him. It's never anything big, just asking if he wants to tag along when she goes into the city, or if he has plans, or how his flying is going. Things like that. What she promised herself was, if she noticed him shutting himself up, she'd stop it. Whatever way she could, she wouldn't let him be alone.

So when he starts not coming out of his room after the strange violin music fills the air, she gets worried. The first day it may not be anything, but the second? She goes to knock on his door and try to get an answer out of him. Calls his name, and opens her mouth to ask if he's okay, and then, apropos of nothing— ]


I used to pray that—

[ Max shoves her hands over her mouth and backs away from the door, eyes wide. It's muffled but she's still talking, oh god, why is she still talking, she practically chokes on her pawpads as they effectively gag her. One, two, three struggling clops of her hooves, before she races down the hall, slams her door, and buries herself under her headphones.

It's just a reactionary response. But it fixes the issue. So, like Basil, that's where she stays. Shut up in her room, isolated from the world, in fear of turning herself inside out against her will. Again.

That's almost how she stays through the week, but of course her plans change.

Of course they don't go well.

Max returns to the Palazzo on the night of the 20th. Her car needs to air out, the interior soaked. Her legs are missing chunks from them, a consequence of the mutant fish getting too close. Her beloved Walkman's a waterlogged lump, and she prays her cassette is salvageable. But, she should be grateful. Eddie and Nanami got her home in one piece, and that's all she can really ask for.

She hasn't fully dried off yet when she drags herself up the stairs, under the pretense of getting some rest for the first time in twenty-four hours. Max wants to be alone, she thinks, wants to lick her wounds in piece. She's somehow paler than before, and her body feels both too warm and too cold, like the fevers she'd get in Hawkins at winter's start. Everything seems to hang loose on her, and her tail drags across the floor. Everything feels heavy. Like her muscles tensing up. Seizing. Max knows in trying so hard to help others, she's doomed someone to be her next meal. She should be on her way to talk to Fugo and arrange something. She should fall into her bed and cry out whatever liquid's seeped into her sodden form. She should at least wrap the bites on her legs, which irregularly ooze purplish-red sludge instead of blood.

But she does none of those things.

Just like at the start, she finds herself at Basil's door.

Max can still hear the music, louder than ever now. It doesn't compel her out the door back to the lake, however. Maybe it compels her here. But, she wants to foolishly believe, at least in some way, that this is in part her choice. ]


Basil?

[ A weak knock at the door. Her voice is scratchy, like she has a cold. She doubts it'll carry. ]

Basil, I—

Please let me in. I- w-want to- [ Something aches in her bones. ] I need to see you.

[ If this damn thing wants her to tell the truth, fine. She'll tell the fucking truth. ]

cw: implied domestic violence/abuse, gore

Date: 2023-04-20 06:41 am (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (oh‚ help me‚ someone)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ Of course Max wouldn't think to check if the door was open.

She's had her room burst into unannounced far too many times to be comfortable doing that to someone else.

But she lays a cold hand on the doorknob and turns, and the sight in the room...

He's huddled up here in the dark, and it just about breaks her heart to see. The glow catches on his scales, and it almost makes him look like something from a movie, a puppet all backlit for a close-up to scare the piss out of a bunch of thirteen-year-olds.

But Max has seen things far scarier than tricks of the light, experienced horrors that put it all to shame. So she trudges into his room one slow, wobbly step at a time. She doesn't know how good gargoyles can see in the dark, but she hopes he can't tell just how completely awful she must look. Stale blood dribbles down her leg through holes in her jeans, and— Well. She knows better than to hope he can't smell that, at least. ]


I... I don't...

[ Now that she's here... She doesn't know what to say. Her hooves just carried her to his door, part out of a strong desire not to be alone and part...

She doesn't know. At least, she doesn't know where to start. How to start. If it's even fair to do this.

In the end she settles for a weak wave and an even weaker, ]
Hi. I- C-can I come in?

[ The compulsion doesn't make her say please but it's there in her voice all the same. ]

Date: 2023-04-21 03:25 am (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (👟 go to the white rose)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ The moment Basil addresses it, she winces, coming to an immediate halt just through the door. ]

It's fine. [ A grimace. Ow. Oww, she holds tight to her arm and rephrases, ] It doesn't hurt much, anymore. I just haven't healed yet.

[ The song doesn't think that's enough, so she keeps talking, a little frantically— ]

I w-was gonna go wrap it, but I wasn't thinking and just really- had to...see you.

[ She thinks if she had something other than still, stale blood, she'd be blushing right now, mortified from the very frank vulnerability. ]

I- didn't want to be alone.

[ Incredibly mortified. ]

Date: 2023-04-21 06:13 am (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (🛹 i'd make a deal with god)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ The door slowly closes behind her, making the only light Basil's flowers, and Max lets it guide her. She's sure she's dripping water, sure old blood slops over the floor. But it's hard for her to hear it over the violin. One of those too-cold chills runs through her, and she— ]

It's not just you. I can barely hear anything else.

[ A confession in return. ]

Date: 2023-04-21 06:59 am (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (👟 oh‚ here i go)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ It's yet another moment where her life's become a horror movie. All of a sudden, in the face of the unknown— in the presence of it, lingering behind her, Max feels like she's thirteen again, standing in a rundown bus in the junkyard. Staring up at the monster opening its face like flower petals, snarling down at her and ready to pounce. Watching in real time her perceptions of how the world works crack and shatter around her.

It's the most comparable experience. But this time, Steve's not going to leap out of nowhere to protect her, he's asleep. Lucas isn't going to hold her hand to comfort her, he's not here.

Max tenses up, but to her credit she only hesitates for a good three seconds or so before she turns her head in the direction Basil's looking in, eyes wide, to see—

An empty corner. ]


...N-no. No, that one, I... I don't see anything.

cw: suicidal ideation

Date: 2023-04-22 04:21 am (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (👟 i'd make a deal with god)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ All at once, Max's mind goes somewhere so far off-base as she determines: Someone must be doing this to him, hurting him—like Vecna.

But as she tries so hard to study him, focusing as he breaks off and takes an action much like her own, physically gagging himself to keep from talking, she can see, he isn't in a trance. He's talking to her, alert, but she doesn't know what kind of magic monsters have here that could do this. Why didn't she read more of the stupid guide? Why only stop at waldgeist? Someone is hurting her friend, and she doesn't know- she can't figure out what to do.

She doesn't even have her Walkman to fall back on.

Overcome with frustration, Max has only one thought. It wasn't the violin that compelled her here, it was her own hooves, so she makes the choice for herself to keep using them, stumbling across the floor to closes the distance between them—quite literally, stumbling. Her legs seem ready to give out, and she bites her lower lip to keep focused on just walking, something that used to be so, so simple. ]


Basil— [ Through gritted teeth. ] You- c-can talk to me. You can- tell me. I'm not—

[ There's the literal stumble, as her left leg suddenly folds like an accordion, depositing her in a heap on the floor in front of him. Max winces and hisses, as more sludgy blood pours from her wounds—but it's not just blood. No, it seems actually blood is the minority of what's coming out of her. It's moss, brilliantly red in ways moss shouldn't be, spilling out of her in its place.

Max feels like she's going to cry. All she's doing is stressing him out more. Her body won't listen to her. She can't help anyone like this. Something dark and heavy in her sys she should just give up. Lay here and do nothing, until her dead body gets with the program and decays.

The rest of her screams so loud it drowns that out. Pushes onto stiff yet trembling elbows. ]


...nn-not...leaving you...alone.

cw: drowning mentions, internalized ableism

Date: 2023-04-22 08:19 pm (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (help me‚ please)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ It's embarrassing. Shameful. Max feels like she's drowning again, or— what was almost drowning, leaving her disoriented and sick, like it's her first winter in Hawkins again and she's stuck in bed with a fever.

(Lucas had wanted to come over, hadn't he, when she didn't come to school, thankfully he'd used her window, and it was how she got a walkie-talkie so they could keep in touch, her real induction into the Party—)

Max blinks away the memory swimming behind her eyes as Basil's little paws pull her up. Her shoulders shake with heavy breathing, autopilot from memories of being sick in bed and not something she actually needs. Leftover water in her lungs has it sound like wheezing. Like there's a little babbling brook inside her. Basil's assumption is very correct, as Max's attempts to push onto her knees only draw out more disgusting sloppy moss and an involuntary little whine. What this means is she's practically leaning on Basil. It's hard to look at him, and when he sits up she slumps against his side. ]


What? [ It's not what she's expecting. But she nods, antler brushing against Basil's arm. ] Y-yeah. I do.

Date: 2023-04-22 09:00 pm (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (🛹 i'd make a deal with god)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ The water's in her ears. That must be it. That must be why she heard... ]

What?

[ Again. She asks again. Because this has to be— ]

You mean- y-you're... You died?

[ She's shivering. She can't stop herself from shivering, even though the cold's a concern of the past. ]

Date: 2023-04-22 09:30 pm (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (let's exchange the experience)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ The barrage of names is very familiar. He'd mentioned them before, in this very room. His friends. The one who introduced him to them, the rest of them, the one whose name he screamed, the one who...

Her head feels like it's spinning. ]


She pushed you?! [ Something angry boils inside her. Angry and also- ] —Did y-you- think I was g-gonna... hurt you?

[ Too tired to cover her mouth, the question rushes out. A trembling hand reaches up, too late. ]

Fuck. Sh-shit, I'm sorry. I'm s- sorry, I knnn- I know...

[ No, everything's hurting. A dull pain, like feedback slowly screaming inside her. Because she doesn't know. She's still worried. She's always worried. ]

cw: cannibalism

Date: 2023-04-22 10:04 pm (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (👟 i've always been a coward)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ Ah.

No, that...

She's still shivering, but a tension present in Max fades away. She can't run from this. Can't do anything but sit here with everything she's been trying to keep inside. ]


I knew. I knew y-you were scared. You l-looked- so t-terrified, and it made me...so angry. [ She squeezes her eyes shut but her damn mouth keeps moving. ] 'Cause I couldn't- I couldn't blame you, 'cause I was- s-so hungry. I wanted to- I kept thinking- it would've been so- easy, I was- so scared I was gonna hurt you.

[ The wheezing's died down. There's still water in her lungs, leftover from the lake, and it makes itself known with just little gasps, born more of the tears running down her face than any futile attempts at breathing.

Her eyes look especially dull when they flick upwards. When she tries to see what sort of face he's making. The light around his horns blurs his expression, especially with her vision hazy as it is right now. ]

cw: self deprecation/abuse logic/victim blaming

Date: 2023-04-22 10:55 pm (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (and i'd get him to swap our places)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
You shouldn't.

[ How she looks... She looks feverish, honestly. She says this, a shaky whisper, but she makes no attempts to pull away. Can't even be strong enough to stand on her own anymore. ]

I'll- I'm gonna hurt you. I m-may not- I won't mean to. But I'm- I'm not a good person, Basil, I'm- angry, and mean, and- n-nothing made me that way.

[ Something aches behind her eyes. It's not exactly true. But a part of her wholeheartedly believes it. ]

I'm sick. [ What Lucas- Vecna said, parroted, eyes drifting down, away from the blurs she can see into the darkness. ] And- this place is only, it's only gonna m-make me worse, 'til I'm- just as bad as- Billy, or Neil, I'm not- good enough, fo- for any of you.

[ Fervent almost whispers. A limp hand grasps for Basil's tail, nevertheless. She's saying what she believes, but at the same time—don't leave me please don't leave me i can't be alone again

It all makes her sick. She makes herself sick. ]
Edited (no enter key let me finish entering my content warnings) Date: 2023-04-22 10:55 pm (UTC)

Date: 2023-04-22 11:38 pm (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (i feel it all around me)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ It shakes her to her core, because she knows for certain that he's not lying to her.

He doesn't care, everything he's seen so far... It outweighs the rest of it.

And though it feels good—the assurance, the reciprocation to her request for physical comfort—

(she hadn't thought it would feel like this. so soft.)

She has to set him straight. If he knew, he wouldn't say that. She just has to explain.

Except she still feels dizzy. Maybe it's worse with her eyes closed, so she blinks them open, even though her head feels too weak to raise. She thinks the non-broken antler's digging into his shoulder. ]


Nn- no, you...

[ Much like Basil, she can't let that stand. ]

Basil... You're not... You're- so nice. And sweet. You...don't even get mad when I- say you're a nerd or, when I'm being just a- total bitch. You aren't- broken.

[ Right? ]

Date: 2023-04-23 12:56 am (UTC)
zoomingupthathill: (🕹️ it's you and me)
From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill
[ Basil moves, and Max wobbles. For a moment she thinks he's trying to get away from her—but no, he's burrowing into her, more like.

And it reminds her. The question he'd first asked, do you see it, too?

He's hiding. He's hiding from something, and she'd forgotten.

Max finally summons the strength to lift her head. The flowers on Basil's horns finally aren't blinding her, probably because of the angle. Still, as she tries to see what he cowers from, there's nothing there. ]


Basil...? What...are you hiding from...?

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-23 01:21 am (UTC) - Expand

cw: suicidal ideation

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-23 02:13 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-23 02:44 am (UTC) - Expand

cw: suicidal ideation

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-23 04:23 am (UTC) - Expand

cw: mild emeto

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-23 06:45 am (UTC) - Expand

cw: hypnosis, drowning

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-23 09:55 pm (UTC) - Expand

cw: cannibalism

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-24 06:55 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-25 05:19 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-28 12:06 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-28 07:34 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-04-30 08:07 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-03 07:24 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-04 07:21 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-06 12:00 am (UTC) - Expand

cw: gore, corpse desecration????

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-06 08:58 pm (UTC) - Expand

cw: cannibalism, corpse decay mentions

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-07 03:52 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-07 08:30 am (UTC) - Expand

cw: drowning adjacent descriptions

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-09 01:36 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-09 07:53 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-10 08:34 am (UTC) - Expand

cw: drowning, suicide mentions

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-11 02:29 am (UTC) - Expand

cw: postmortem decay

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-11 11:08 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-12 02:13 am (UTC) - Expand

cw: cannibalism cont, suicidal imagery

From: [personal profile] zoomingupthathill - Date: 2023-05-12 08:20 pm (UTC) - Expand

Profile

polarvoid: (Default)
Basil [Omori]

December 2022

S M T W T F S
    12 3
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930 31

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 12th, 2025 12:06 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios