( The Witchwood is a dark and dangerous place normally. It's an anomaly, a quirk, that Jack and Sabine — and Jerry, much of the time — are able to live here without attracting attention or aggression from the demigods. It's that same odd energy, that same void, that same inexplicable immunity to the impossible, that keeps their residence there safe and peaceful enough for company in that few-miles radius they inhabit.
It is not peaceful tonight.
Tonight, things without name howl. Tonight, the few natives and innocents that live within proximity to this safezone scream, and claw at their faces until they bleed. Humans and gods alike suffer. Lucifer is not immune.
It's hard to tell what plane they exist on — if they're sharing a collective dream, or if the dream is bleeding into reality. Things come into and out of existence too rapidly, people flicker in and out of their own minds with every door they walk through. One minute someone is in the Witchwood, the next they're walking endless corridors stained yellow, hunted, but their bodies are unmoving in the fog until they burst through a doorway, and then they're back in the forest and the monster that was chasing them is clawing at them from behind a nearby tree.
It's mental chaos. It's reality bleed. It's liminal spaces and blood and internalized trauma escaping from the subconscious domain.
And at the center of it all is Jack — or, rather, the vessel that houses him. It's ten thousand moths in the shape of a man, or clouding the man within them. There are human features, somewhere, floating in the flapping of wings. Eyes gone white, or perhaps rolled to the back of his head so only the whites show. Arms outstretched, like a man crucified. He is standing, or he is slumped, or he is suspended by the fluttering insects, or they are his cocoon. It's hard to tell, it's surreal, the image is dreamlike and difficult to focus on — like trying to read a book in a nightmare.
This is justice. This is righteous. This is protecting him from hurt.
...isn't it?
Distantly, dimly, his sleeping mind becomes aware of something. Of arms wrapped around his chest, and of gripping doubt peeling back the disassociated layers of his mind.
The moths begin to swarm Kyle, batting against his face, his ears, landing on his shoulders, on his arms, swallowing him into the chaos. Trying to swallow him into the dream — the dream of dead gods, the dream of cages, of being chased or being trapped or both.
Suddenly, Jack's less certain of the narrative at play here — or the reality of it. )
[ A sheen of gold flickers across Kyle's body each time the moths touch him, setting the moths alight as he tries to hold onto the thing that is Jack. He's immediately blinded by the flashes of light as his personal ward flares against the endless assault, and for a moment he loses his senses and thinks he's somehow been plunged into the White Space, bracing for the white hot flame of the path between space and time.
He thinks he can hear himself screaming somewhere.
isn't it?
The doubt burrows its way in, and begins gouging like thousands of knives, out of Kahlil's conscious control.
Justice? To who? Who are you attacking? Are you sure? Are you certain? You can't trust yourself, Jack. You lash out in your sleep. You're no better than a wild animal. You'll kill everyone you ever loved and live on and on and on and on ]
JACK!
[ He feels the name tear out of his throat as fluttering creatures begin piercing his ward, use the opening to enter his mouth and crawl down his throat. ]
( Wings beat frantically at Kyle's face. Soft, fuzzy legs pry at his lips as they crawl down his throat, as they fill him, tangible to intangible, communion wafers that dissolve on his tongue and in his throat and in his belly, luring him into the spell of it all. Into the nightmare. To share the pain.
You'll kill everyone you ever loved and live on and on and on-
He will be alone. He will wake up alone, again — except that Sabine isn't all he has anymore, is it? It's not like last time, with his empty house and his no friends and his only person being gone from this world. He has Jerry now, but he will ruin Jerry like this. He has Kyle now, and Kyle-
Kyle is suffocating on moths. Kyle will die. But he can't, he can't-
It's Jack's job to protect the people he cares about. How could he do this to them? How could he do this? How could he-
Awareness filters into green eyes, fleeting and confused and foggy. The moths begin to land, to coalesce, to solidify. The storm around them lessens. The pounding in his ears slows, and diminishes, and in the place of a placid lake of emptiness and disassociated nothing, Jack feels--
Pain. Hurt. A deep, resonating ache. A sadness and a regret deeper than deep. Deeper than his heart. All-consuming.
[ The barrage begins to stop, and everything moves backwards in time - the moths, suddenly gentle, fly from his flesh, others crawl up and out his throat to join the coalescing body he's been trying so hard to hold onto, despite barely being a body. Kahlil remains half blind from his ward's final death throes of sharp, bright light, and he's vaguely aware of his own injuries - some of them internal. The moths have left burns wherever his flesh was already exposed, his thick cloak in tatters from their acidic dust trails.
He hears an apology in Jack's voice, because it is Jack now, and Kahlil himself is no longer screaming, though he has the sudden urge to retch. He holds that in, somehow. Manages to get actual words out instead: ]
You're okay - it's okay...
[ His voice is hoarse and raspy, his arms still encircling Jack. He's putting more weight than he means to against Jack for support as his body sends too many pain signals for him to properly register at once. Everything hurts, and he's exhausted - in a good way, almost.
Or maybe that's just the relief that the nightmare is over. ]
( Kyle's consoling him, but it- that doesn't feel right. In the sudden frantic, frenetic reality that presses into his mind too sharply and too abruptly, he's blisteringly aware that he is not the one that needs to be supported right now. Everything feels vibrant to an extent that makes him nauseous — it's like being woken from a deep slumber by a bucket of ice water, it's like waking to a gunshot and a house fire.
To go from a dreamy, distant nothing to an adrenaline-fueled hyper-awareness is jarring and disorienting, and suddenly he's sweating, and his heart is pounding, and Kyle doesn't seem to weigh very much at all in his arms. As the other man sags, his grip tightens around Kyle's middle, holding like he's convinced his friend is about to fully collapse.
It's not an unfair guess, now that he can see it — the blisters shaped like moths, burn marks on his flesh where they've touched down, and Jack knows with sudden clarity they were inside him. )
Oh fuck, fuck- Kyle.
( It becomes a guided, gentle descent to the ground, with Jack carefully navigating himself down to his knees, hands still clinging, eyes still wide and rapidly searching over the body before him to try and understand just how badly he fucked up. How badly he hurt one of the people that matters most to him in the world.
He did this. He did this.
If his hands weren't occupied, they would be shaking. )
[ Kahlil winces and bites back a small cry as they lower to the ground on the red forest, still unable to untangle where each individual hurt is coming from, while at the same time he can feel his body trying to mitigate the damage, to begin an automatic healing process beyond what any mortal body should be capable of. The pain starts to dull to a dull buzz, and he can hear Jack continue to apologize even if all he can see right now is shifting reddish shadows and the outline of his features. If not for the color it might remind him of the Gray Space. It's too warm for that, though, too humid here. His clothes feel stuck to his skin, what remains of the tattered cloth and leather at least. His shoulders are mostly bare, the shadows that sometimes replace the physical material have all but vanished in his damaged state. ]
It's okay - [ he repeats this softly, as softly as he can manage with his damaged throat, leaning into him, foreheads touching. ] - you're back.
[ For a brief moment, he is somewhere and someone else. Someone with his face, staring up at a god who had just torn asunder a battlefield with such terrifying force - only, that's not what scared him most.
I thought I lost you, thinks someone else in his own voice. ]
( In this moment, Jack doesn't feel like a god. Maybe he never really does on a normal day, but he especially doesn't now. He feels all of twenty-something years old again, with a missing finger and a missing leg, lost and terrified and absolutely overflowing with a constant stream of guilt that threatens to drown him. And Kyle doesn't feel like a god to him either; he feels breakable, he feels entirely too easily to hurt, to bruise, to burn. It feels like a box cutter in a bedroom several lifetimes ago.
There is blood on his hands, he's not sure if it's Kyle's or his own or someone else's, and it causes his palms to slide when they shift to Kyle's face, to his jaw, framing ears with his thumbs. Their foreheads touch, but it doesn't feel like enough. )
I-
( He wants to say something, but the combination of words it would take to express the guilt and shame he feels, the relief that Kyle's okay, the desperation that's starting to churn in him; please don't leave me for this, please don't leave me because I did this — it's all too much to fit into his mouth. He chokes on it.
He can't say it all, he wants to say it all, and the signals all fire in his brain at once, and he can't, so instead he presses his mouth to Kyle's mouth in a way that is less a kiss and more a telegraphed declaration lacking finesse, lacking anything but an onslaught of feeling. )
[ The crush of his lips overwhelms him, his hands reflexively gripping tight around Jack's thin arms, fingers digging in. In in his delirium it's deeper hurts suddenly dredged up faster than he can bury them again, the sudden remembrance of the last man he'd kissed and that life together, the way it had fallen apart in the end.
It's too much to hurt like this, in both body and spirit. But this isn't Viktor (isn't John).
It's Jack's lips pressed against his own. Jack who he loves as a friend, and once long ago more than that, a desperate plea behind his kiss that Kyle can only answer by feverishly returning it with a mouth that still tastes of blood from the cursed things that had torn their way out of him. His fingertips and palms leave dark red streaks across Jack's shirt as he pulls him closer, starving for every point of physical contact, even when it hurts. ]
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no subject
It is not peaceful tonight.
Tonight, things without name howl. Tonight, the few natives and innocents that live within proximity to this safezone scream, and claw at their faces until they bleed. Humans and gods alike suffer. Lucifer is not immune.
It's hard to tell what plane they exist on — if they're sharing a collective dream, or if the dream is bleeding into reality. Things come into and out of existence too rapidly, people flicker in and out of their own minds with every door they walk through. One minute someone is in the Witchwood, the next they're walking endless corridors stained yellow, hunted, but their bodies are unmoving in the fog until they burst through a doorway, and then they're back in the forest and the monster that was chasing them is clawing at them from behind a nearby tree.
It's mental chaos. It's reality bleed. It's liminal spaces and blood and internalized trauma escaping from the subconscious domain.
And at the center of it all is Jack — or, rather, the vessel that houses him. It's ten thousand moths in the shape of a man, or clouding the man within them. There are human features, somewhere, floating in the flapping of wings. Eyes gone white, or perhaps rolled to the back of his head so only the whites show. Arms outstretched, like a man crucified. He is standing, or he is slumped, or he is suspended by the fluttering insects, or they are his cocoon. It's hard to tell, it's surreal, the image is dreamlike and difficult to focus on — like trying to read a book in a nightmare.
This is justice. This is righteous. This is protecting him from hurt.
...isn't it?
Distantly, dimly, his sleeping mind becomes aware of something. Of arms wrapped around his chest, and of gripping doubt peeling back the disassociated layers of his mind.
The moths begin to swarm Kyle, batting against his face, his ears, landing on his shoulders, on his arms, swallowing him into the chaos. Trying to swallow him into the dream — the dream of dead gods, the dream of cages, of being chased or being trapped or both.
Suddenly, Jack's less certain of the narrative at play here — or the reality of it. )
no subject
He thinks he can hear himself screaming somewhere.
isn't it?
The doubt burrows its way in, and begins gouging like thousands of knives, out of Kahlil's conscious control.
Justice?
To who?
Who are you attacking?
Are you sure?
Are you certain?
You can't trust yourself, Jack.
You lash out in your sleep.
You're no better than a wild animal.
You'll kill everyone you ever loved and live on and on and on and on ]
JACK!
[ He feels the name tear out of his throat as fluttering creatures begin piercing his ward, use the opening to enter his mouth and crawl down his throat. ]
no subject
You'll kill everyone you ever loved and live on and on and on-
He will be alone. He will wake up alone, again — except that Sabine isn't all he has anymore, is it? It's not like last time, with his empty house and his no friends and his only person being gone from this world. He has Jerry now, but he will ruin Jerry like this. He has Kyle now, and Kyle-
Kyle is suffocating on moths. Kyle will die.
But he can't, he can't-
It's Jack's job to protect the people he cares about. How could he do this to them? How could he do this? How could he-
Awareness filters into green eyes, fleeting and confused and foggy. The moths begin to land, to coalesce, to solidify. The storm around them lessens. The pounding in his ears slows, and diminishes, and in the place of a placid lake of emptiness and disassociated nothing, Jack feels--
Pain. Hurt. A deep, resonating ache. A sadness and a regret deeper than deep. Deeper than his heart. All-consuming.
His voice cracks when he speaks. )
I didn't mean to. I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-
cw: bugs...
He hears an apology in Jack's voice, because it is Jack now, and Kahlil himself is no longer screaming, though he has the sudden urge to retch. He holds that in, somehow. Manages to get actual words out instead: ]
You're okay - it's okay...
[ His voice is hoarse and raspy, his arms still encircling Jack. He's putting more weight than he means to against Jack for support as his body sends too many pain signals for him to properly register at once. Everything hurts, and he's exhausted - in a good way, almost.
Or maybe that's just the relief that the nightmare is over. ]
no subject
To go from a dreamy, distant nothing to an adrenaline-fueled hyper-awareness is jarring and disorienting, and suddenly he's sweating, and his heart is pounding, and Kyle doesn't seem to weigh very much at all in his arms. As the other man sags, his grip tightens around Kyle's middle, holding like he's convinced his friend is about to fully collapse.
It's not an unfair guess, now that he can see it — the blisters shaped like moths, burn marks on his flesh where they've touched down, and Jack knows with sudden clarity they were inside him. )
Oh fuck, fuck- Kyle.
( It becomes a guided, gentle descent to the ground, with Jack carefully navigating himself down to his knees, hands still clinging, eyes still wide and rapidly searching over the body before him to try and understand just how badly he fucked up. How badly he hurt one of the people that matters most to him in the world.
He did this.
He did this.
If his hands weren't occupied, they would be shaking. )
Please be okay, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry.
no subject
It's okay - [ he repeats this softly, as softly as he can manage with his damaged throat, leaning into him, foreheads touching. ] - you're back.
[ For a brief moment, he is somewhere and someone else. Someone with his face, staring up at a god who had just torn asunder a battlefield with such terrifying force - only, that's not what scared him most.
I thought I lost you, thinks someone else in his own voice. ]
no subject
There is blood on his hands, he's not sure if it's Kyle's or his own or someone else's, and it causes his palms to slide when they shift to Kyle's face, to his jaw, framing ears with his thumbs. Their foreheads touch, but it doesn't feel like enough. )
I-
( He wants to say something, but the combination of words it would take to express the guilt and shame he feels, the relief that Kyle's okay, the desperation that's starting to churn in him; please don't leave me for this, please don't leave me because I did this — it's all too much to fit into his mouth. He chokes on it.
He can't say it all, he wants to say it all, and the signals all fire in his brain at once, and he can't, so instead he presses his mouth to Kyle's mouth in a way that is less a kiss and more a telegraphed declaration lacking finesse, lacking anything but an onslaught of feeling. )
no subject
It's too much to hurt like this, in both body and spirit. But this isn't Viktor (isn't John).
It's Jack's lips pressed against his own. Jack who he loves as a friend, and once long ago more than that, a desperate plea behind his kiss that Kyle can only answer by feverishly returning it with a mouth that still tastes of blood from the cursed things that had torn their way out of him. His fingertips and palms leave dark red streaks across Jack's shirt as he pulls him closer, starving for every point of physical contact, even when it hurts. ]