fifty ➢ video ( cw bodyhorror )

[patheticvillain]

video

This is bullshit.

["This" being the black, silky ears he's sprouted in the wake of the flood. His long tail, equally black and twitching with irritation, pokes out from under his blanket, where he's curled up and sulking. The camera's at a skewed angle, balanced on the edge of his pillow.]

I just woke up like this. I didn't even do it. If it's gonna happen, I want to at least be the one to do it. I want . . .

[He trails off, his eyes distant and dull. When they snap back into focus, he sits up slowly, blankets falling around him, and narrows his eyes.]

It's supposed to hurt.

[And then he begins to change: skin rippling, body changing, limbs twisting. He grows a third arm, and then a fourth, the new ones vestigial, skinless, ugly. Growths emerge across his face, limning his high cheekbones. He curls up in the fetal position; you can hear bones crack, shift, curl, and break. All the while he's crying out in a dog's whine, an ugly helpless yet somehow angry noise. The blankets tangle around his shifting feet as they grow bark and tentacles and recede into stubs.]

[Eventually, endlessly, he is still. The ears and tail have gone completely.]

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[patheticvillain]

[Instinctively, he leans into the touch, reveling in it. It feels like it's been years since someone touched him for comfort, and he misses it, needs it in a way that he couldn't even begin to describe. When Jimmy pulls away, he follows after for an inch or so, then retreats, curling back in on himself.]

I guess. Yeah. I'll be fine.

[thelastbullet]

[He notices, but he doesn't quite know what to do with it. Cassel isn't his son, even if sometimes he thinks of Tommy when he sees him (or maybe he thinks of himself, younger, in a way that he hopes Tommy will never be, despite his fondness of the younger man) and he doesn't know how to comfort further than this.

Work. That's what he did for Richard. But there's no work here, and so he's left looking at Cassel for a second, feeling like he's coming up short.]

I have plenty of liquor in my cabin, if you don't want to go to the bar.

[patheticvillain]

[He smiles crookedly. That's about as good as they can do, the two of them, these fuck-ups, them and their neuroses and their personality deficiencies and not knowing how to love. This is about as good as they can do, and he can be okay with it, he thinks, for a little while.]

I'll hit you up.

[thelastbullet]

[He nods, satisfied that they've at least understood each other. He claps a hand to Cassel's shoulder, but makes sure it doesn't linger this time- and then he's out the door.]