dead to the power of two | OPEN

[runeing]

Who: celen's boys (aka charles and viktor), you?
Where: viktor's lab, lupin, the farm
What: viktor finally loses the battle against his illness and comes back. meanwhile, charles is learning magic (badly).
Warnings: death and dying, mentions of child abuse



PROMPTS IN COMMENTS.

▷ charles.
▷ viktor.

Comments

[runeing]

"Just" death, [ he repeats, with a tone that's somehow amused and desperate at once. if it could be like that, that'd be easy, wouldn't it? just death. yes, death happens to everyone, and yet it's hardly equal. ]

No, it is not the same, here. And what do you think of that?

[solitarysoul]

No...its, um. I-i dunno. Its weird. It doesn't seem right that people come back.

[He'd lost so many people without that chance so something about it happening here kind of stung in a weird way. He doesn't think anyone he's close to here had died and returned, at least not that he was aware of, so he's not really sure how he'd feel if they did. It was weird enough when it happened to him.]

...I guess its good, though, to get another chance. I-i don't really know how to explain it.

[runeing]

Weird, yes.

[ so they agree on that, at least. whether it was a good thing or not — well. he has complex feelings on that part. on one hand, defeating death, being able to extend your life, to be able to do more good in the world... yes, that holds appeal. and yet, there is something inherently wrong in not being able to even decide that; here, they die, and they come back, all without their own conscious input.

(and the same back home, too, he thinks bitterly.) ]

Is it another chance, or simply more of the same? If you die and come back, are you different or is it like you've taken a slightly longer nap?

[solitarysoul]

Um...I guess it's more of the same here. I don't know what it'd be like back in our worlds...

[He'd expect anyone who died on the battlefield to run from the war, but he knew some people who would have just gone back into it.]

I don't know if anyone I know here has died and come back...but nothing really changed for me. I just needed a few stiff drinks.

[runeing]

So you have died and returned?

[ hm, interesting. perhaps he can... compare notes, as it were, somehow. ]

What happened?

[solitarysoul]

Y-yeah...I, uh, I just woke up I think a week later like nothing happened.

[Let's just leave out how he died for now.]

[runeing]

That sounds familiar.

[ read: this also happened to him — and yet, he makes it sound like it could simply be that he's heard of it from someone else, too.

still, ] Did you have any side-effects?

[solitarysoul]

I...I don't think so? I felt fine afterwards. Normal. A-after I calmed down, at least.

[He needed a few stiff drinks...and some shimmer. But mostly fine.]

[runeing]

... I see.

[ meanwhile, he's felt distinctly wrong at times after his death; the walls closing in, a quiet dread inside his mind he can't shake. sometimes, he looks at the bloodstain he left on the floor of his lab and almost feels it reaching back at him.

how lovely to know that that's just specific to him. ]

That is... fortunate. I am glad you had no lasting adverse effects.

cw: horrible coping mechanisms

[solitarysoul]

[That's what the drinking and drugs were for! Thankfully Levi doesn't know so he can't offer his brilliant advice.]

I don't know if that's normal...I never really asked if anyone else has died or what happened.

oh levi...

[runeing]

Perhaps you should have.

[ like he is doing now, sort of... still. he tilts his head, almost owl-like, amber eyes fixed on levi. ] May I ask... what is it that claimed your life?

[solitarysoul]

I, um, I-I don't know how I'd ask something like that...

[But mostly it would open him up to questions. Like that one.]

A, uh, a-a few months back there was...um...a glitch? or something that turned some people crazy and murderous. I wasn't able to stay safe.