CALL ME OUT 2020 EDITION

[blitzbrained]

ACTUALLY MADE AT THE START OF THE YEAR THIS TIME

1. check out my muselist (or dont)
2. pop a character on here u want me to tag
3. optional: pick someone you want tagging with
4. PROFIT

Comments

hi ekkehardt

[accidentallich]

do you remember when i told you about my ex-lover

the one who turned me into a lich

this is somewhat time-critical

[spelleton]

lock yourself in your room until i get there

[ CONCERN. ]

[accidentallich]

i didnt even tell you he was outside?

but okay

[Added about a minute later:]

hes not trying to break in, he just keeps trying to convince me to let him in

[spelleton]

you wouldn't be texting me if he wasn't outside and you didn't want him to be

i felt it was a good guess

[ It's too bad his powers as a lich don't cover teleportation. Just healing. He's fine with healing, but rapid transport would be nice right now. ]

[accidentallich]

you're right

it's too bad there's no way he'll believe that i'm not home right now

i don't think he's going away

[spelleton]

I can probably get him to leave.

[ By diplomacy or by force. He's capable of both.

Where is this guy anyway, he's where Gershom lives now. ]

[accidentallich]

[Asshole ex is not hard to locate: he's the guy outside Gershom's apartment door who radiates Big Douchebag Energy. He's not paying attention to Ekkehardt or anyone else in that apartment block.]

Kuni, my Kuni, won't you please open up? It's very frustrating, talking to a door. And I haven't seen your beautiful face in so long...

[spelleton]

Nobody by that name lives here. [ Which is technically true; he assumes the name this person is crooning through the door is an identity Gershom has long since shed, and thus, not relevant to who he is now. ]

Are you sure you have the right address?

[accidentallich]

[That does get Salvador's attention. He gives Ekkehardt a once-over, but doesn't recognize Ekkehardt - so obviously Ekkehardt's no one worth knowing.]

Positive. [He paid good money to track him down.] Are you friendly with the man living here?

[spelleton]

I know of him. [ Better to be closemouthed and evasive. At the very least, it'll get his attention off creepily hanging around Gershom's door. ] But I don't see how that's relevant to the conversation.

confessions!

[accidentallich]

[It's always good to have Ekkehardt in his apartment. Gershom feels so much more at peace with him around.

Today he doesn't feel at peace, though. He's all nerves, butterflies in the nonexistent stomach. Today he promised himself he would confess, like Jail's been telling him to do for Literal Months.]

Um, Ekkehardt? I, um, well... erm...

[If he could blush, he would be bright red right about now.]

[spelleton]

Hm?

[ Ekkehardt is unruffled, as usual. Nothing ever seems to bother him very much, another thing that might make it hard to say things of this particular nature.

He does look faintly concerned. As much as a skull can look concerned. ]

Is something wrong..?

[accidentallich]

[Ekkehardt is good at looking faintly concerned. It's one of his many talents.]

No, no! It's not like that. It's not a wrong sort of thing.

[spelleton]

I see. [ He's not completely reassured, given that Gershom has a tendency to hide things that are pressing because he doesn't want to bother anyone, but...still. ]

What is it, then? If I might ask. [ He leans forward a little, peering at him. ]

[accidentallich]

I... that is, I...

[Shoulder Jail is telling him to just say it already.]

I like you. R-romantically.

[He can't say love, not again, but he doesn't want to be misunderstood. Even less than he wants to be a bother.]

[spelleton]

[ Ah. His expression is surprised, though it's half confusion (he's never thought of himself as particularly desirable) and half surprise that Gershom would say it at all, that he would want to.

To be honest, he doesn't know how he feels about Gershom. Well, no. He knows how he feels. But given that Gershom lives in an apartment all day and is a recluse who only sees the outside world rarely and other people even less, it feels like taking advantage of him to express it.

(He remembers what little Gershom has told him about the life he had before he became a lich; a young man enamored and isolated by someone who seemed to love him and showered him with compliments and gifts.

He remembers Salvador, crooning his old name through the door, and Gershom's fear.) ]

I...I see. [ It's more of an attempt to fill the silence than anything else. 'I like you too' in return feels terribly awkward, though it's true. 'Are you certain' seems like a rejection, but it's still a question he wants to ask.

(He can't help but wonder if he's someone Gershom should fall in love with, given the depth of everything Gershom doesn't know about him.) ]

[accidentallich]

[That's a response. It's not a negative response, but neither is it a positive one. Instead of getting a weight off Gershom's chest, it just makes him more anxious.]

Yes. So. Um.

[What does he do now? He had more prepared, he's pretty sure, but all his words have fled his mouth. He shrinks into himself, wrapping an arm around his torso.]

...I-I hope that doesn't bother you?

[spelleton]

It doesn't, no. I would be so bold as to suggest that it being bothersome is the last thing on my mind.

[ He reaches out, leans forward a little, hand just stopping short of Gershom's cheek. ]

May I?

[accidentallich]

Really?

[If Gershom could blush, he would be bright red right now. He nods, and leans his cheek into Ekkehardt's hand.

Ekkehardt's hands are warm. They suit him, really.]

calling out an elderly werewolf butler (CW: Body horror, violence, gore, injury, suicide ideation)

[wanderingdoctorfaust]

He's falling.

Drifting between the novel sensation of deathly unconsciousness and highly unwelcome wakefulness, he feels every inch of his body, mind, and soul tumbling into the depths below. He's known for a long time that death was never the end, that the ridiculous notion of the yawning abyss eventually having a bottom was a fiction created of naïveté. But this is not that abyss, and he is not nearly as dead as he's pretty sure he's supposed to be.

He hits the ground with a pitiful cacophony of decomposed organs rupturing and withered bones snapping, a puppet with no strings discarded like trash. For a moment, he dares to hope that the impact will shatter his skull and allow him to return to his rest. He isn't supposed to be awake, why is he awake, why can't he feel his body and yet feel everything else...?!

An eternity passes, it feels like, and there is no gentle embrace returning him to his slumber. His mind is already unconsciously trying to estimate how far he fell and what position he fell in, calculating how many shards of shattered bone he'll need to somehow replace before firmly reprimanding himself - corpses have no use for a functioning body, something of which he is almost completely certain he is now lacking.
He's not dead. He's not alive, but he's somehow conscious despite almost certainly lacking an un-decomposed brain and functioning nervous system. Something is very, very wrong, and he can only resist the morbid allure of an unsolved medical mystery for so long.

It feels like his entire body has the worst possible case of pins-and-needles when he finally caves in and tries to move, broken joints and torn sinew pulling his limbs apart despite lacking any of the necessary strength to do so. He finds his neck lifting upwards, his broken windpipe creaking against the forced friction with his crumbled spine, and the rest of his demented form gradually follows suit.

Spindly fingers, erratically twitching as if possessed with a mind of their own, claw and caress at the dirt below him, and for a moment he dares to think that they're trying to dig him a new grave to rest in. It takes the most effort out of anything he's done so far just to raise them up and into the air, weakly fumbling against the thin layer of paper protecting his identity - even in death, he is still only Doctor Faust, miracle worker and legendary preserver of life.

The irony hurts a thousand times more than the noose did.

[valkenhound]

Rachel always tells him to go out, to stop fussing, that she'll be fine without him for a little while. She wants to be alone with her thoughts, she says, or she needs something that he should fetch as soon as possible.

He obliges, of course, but he can't help but feel that she's planning something reckless again. Something that will, yet again, shorten her time. She is her father's daughter, after all, and her father could never stay away from things they were supposed to dispassionately observe.

So he goes for a walk in the fields beyond the mansion, if fields they are. Possibly they are there because someone feels they should be; they are dark, strange things, not rooted in the normal laws of the universe. But Valkenhayn, even in his old age, moves easily among them; it's simply within his nature to thrive even in places that defy human understanding.

But these places get no visitors, unless someone comes with purpose. So the fact he's found someone twitching on the ground is unusual.

They seem wounded, however. And not someone he recognises at all, though he supposes that there are many people he doesn't recognise nowadays. He errs on the side of caution, however.

"You, there. What is your business here?"

Saying 'are you well' or any sort of greeting to that effect seems futile when this person is clearly the furthest thing from well. But if this person is a threat, he'll have to deal with them quickly, wellness aside, and so he's all business.

[wanderingdoctorfaust]

The strange disruptions in the air rip the former good doctor out of his thoughts, and it takes him several seconds to place the pang of familiarity they create - they sound alien at first, but he starts to recognise the patterns, rippling rhythms passing around him like...

He remembers. The surgery table. The tiniest snippets of consciousness between bouts of death-sleep. The strange machinery prying his remnants apart like a child dissecting a frog, the backyard's influence thick in the air...and the voices dancing around him. It's like a tidal wave crashing down upon his brain, whispers of forbidden rituals and immoral practices, echoing inside of his skull and drowning whatever is left of him entirely.

He's standing, now, all nine-and-a-bit feet of wiry corpse staggering around with his hands desperately trying to clutch his head through the bag. He's screaming, maybe - what comes out from his mouth is garbled and broken, wholly monstrous in nature. It's all he can do to violently shake his head back and forth as if to rip it off entirely, everything drowned out by the screams only he can hear - the patients he butchered, the pleas of the innocents he swore to protect, and he's falling again, falling into the pits of his decrepit mind and he's scrambling to stay afloat but he can't and if he could just silence those damned voices-!

The creature before Valkenhayn lets out a gargled roar, voice choked on splintered bone and rotting blood as the entire thing's body seems to twitch and crack under its own weight. Two pairs of gangly limbs claw at the dirt, casting the earth aside as the monster rapidly closes the distance between itself and the old butler on all fours, the singular eyehole in the beast's paper-bound head glowing a bright scarlet as it lunges for him...!

[valkenhound]

If it's a fight this being wants, it's a fight they'll get, then. Valkenhayn doesn't bother with further pleasantries or to attempt reason; this creature has made intent incredibly clear.

The butler moves far quicker than his visible age would suggest, snapping his leg out into a kick that's aimed directly at Faust's ribs to knock him backwards and following up his first attack with a sharp-edged uppercut, fingers lengthening into claws as he does so.

Whether the attacks connect or not, he ruthlessly closes the distance between him and his much taller opponent, gambling on the fact that his height will mean his ability to respond at close range is far weaker than normal.

[wanderingdoctorfaust]

Two firm strikes are rewarded with two clean hits - the sickening crunch of the creature's ribs splintering and its jaw dislocating reverberate throughout the thing's entire body, sending it staggering back on its twiggy limbs and desperately flailing about in an attempt to regain some semblance of footing. It's completely vulnerable to a continued assault, and yet...

(The voices stop for too fleeting a moment. He remembers how frail he is, that its almost unsurprising to him that his bones would give way that fast. So why doesn't he feel any different? The dull, icy thrum of discomfort throughout his form remains the same as it has since he woke back up, and he's beginning to realise that his entire ribcage could be flung outside of his body right now and he wouldn't take any notice. He'd ponder on this further, if not for the fact that whoever is so intent on destroying what little intact bones he has left is already on him - he has to defend himself, has to use his new discovery to his advantage...!)

It won't take many more attacks for Valkenhayn to share in Fauzt's alarming revelation - that whatever this bizarre entity is, it's only recoiling from the raw force of the old butler's blows alone. If the creature can feel pain, it's doing an extraordinary job of not being slowed by it - enough so that its eventual response to the onslaught is to rear up like an enraged bear in spite of any further strikes, shriek like a banshee, and then proceed to wildly swing its hands in clawing motions, spidery fingers alight with...mystical energy...?!

[valkenhound]

It doesn't take long for him to pick up on the discrepancy. If this creature can't be stopped with pain, then brute force will have to do; he'd be a poor fighter if he couldn't pin or subdue something (someone) who doesn't feel conventional injury.

At the scent and sight of magic, he nimbly backsteps, keeping just out of range (though the first few swipes tear at him with a pain he can't quite shrug off, in his old age). He keeps an eye on his surroundings; he wants to keep his opponent at a range that means they'll be focused on him, and nobody else.

Once Faust stops his onslaught, Valkenhayn drops to deliver a swift leg sweep, aiming to knock him over. Despite his age and new injuries, he's no slouch in speed or power.