ph_logs | December TL -- A Triptych

December TL -- A Triptych

Who: Pyotr Stamatin and players like you <3
What: Open post for those who would like to meet Artemy and Daniil's castmate!
When: December
Where: See below
Warning(s): Depression, alcoholism, and suicide ideation, including references to a successful attempt pre-game.

Panel One -- The Oak & Iron

A new ghost has come to Pumpkin Hollow.

His heart may beat, his skin feels warm, but he is a ghost all the same, one with clenched jaw and burning, agonized eyes. Coming here was a mistake; he'd opened his veins in anticipation of oblivion. Finding himself in a mundane office instead so bewildered Pyotr that he'd participated in the following conversation by rote, agreeing to everything the strange woman said so he could get away. And now he's stuck here, in a place where he can't die.

Nothing could be worse -- except for the fact that he's also sober. No, even worse than that: he feels healthy, in a way he hasn't since boyhood. Steady hands, clear eyes...if he cut himself open he'd probably find his liver fresh and regular in color, free of the cirrhosis that used to fret Andrey so until he rejoined Pyotr in architecture.

His thoughts follow one after the other in steady procession, without interruption or pause. Agonizing. Intolerable -- and he knew from long experience that wine would not be enough to soothe his soul, but it would make a fair enough anesthetic. If he could just stop thinking...

A ghost in the shape of a man sits down at the bar at the Oak & Iron, looking no higher than the level of the counter as he orders a bottle of wine.

Panel Two -- The edge of the woods

Eventually the noise of the bar gets to be too much for him. All those people coming and going, and even when they do him the courtesy of ignoring him he struggles to do the same. There was a reason he always avoided the Broken Heart...

No surprise, then, that he eventually walks out in search of a little quiet. He winds up on a track leading west out of town, through a thin patch of wood that opens out into farmland. There by a wooden fence, an interesting sight at last: a fallen kite, built in the shape of a bird out of colored paper and sticks. He turns it over gently and finds one of its wings crushed beneath the body, its bones snapped in twos and threes.

"Don't be sad," he tells it softly. "A bird can live quite well without its wings, so long as it takes care to avoid the cats."

Panel Three -- The Temple

The Cathedral was a loathsome sight, a great dead block of stone with neither love nor the will to seek it. He'd never understood Eva's infatuation with the cursed place; he'd boarded up all the windows in his flat that faced that side of town, so he wouldn't see even a speck of it by accident. The Temple...is not like that. Even standing outside, he can tell: this is a building with a soul.

Possibly four of them, if you listened to the locals.

It makes him sick, the way these people talk about their goddesses. Like they're people who can be just walked up to and touched --! It's not the first time Pyotr's wondered how much simpler his life might have been -- if he'd born one of the Kin, for instance -- but now the question burns him like a stomach full of coals. If he'd been born in a world like this...

What is he even doing here? Do these goddesses long for death? They could have satisfied themselves with Burakh in that case; he's the experienced god-killer. Pyotr Stamatin's talents lie more in the area of divine maiming. And besides, his useful days are over for everyone. What did they bring him here for?

Supposedly, he might be able to just walk right in and find out. Supposedly...

Fuck it, he's freezing his balls off out here. Pyotr pushes the heavy door open ahead of himself, passing through -- and immediately loses his nerve, sitting down on one of the nearest pews. This is fine.

The Frame -- Wildcards welcome

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If he can climb up to the bed by himself then he must be healed enough, Erik thinks, callously. His eyes turn into sharp points as Pyotr continues to speak. Why is he here, then, if he is so enamored with death? Did he really agree to come live here just so he could indulge in his death wish over and over? Erik has just nearly resolved not to become the man's new enabler when...

"All of me wished for it!" he explodes, teeth bared, a fire of rage flaring inside him like a match thrown into a chamber filled with gas. "I never forgave her for superseding my wishes. You cannot even begin to imagine the suffering I endured in my immortality. I forged my will to live out of the fires of hell. You have no idea how pathetic you sound to me."

Pyotr flinches, but it is only a reflex. His eyes widen, a hint of color appearing on his pale cheeks. "Exactly," he breathes -- and his hands move, reaching for Erik's narrow waist. "That's exactly the problem. I'm pathetic. Do you really think I don't know it? Every word I say, everything I do -- it's all useless. Not even worthy of pity. As contemptible as I sound, how do you think it feels to live like this? I'm not like my brother -- or you. Whatever fire was in me is burned out -- how can anything new be built from ash? It would be far better if I could simply be washed away..."

He stares up at Erik raptly, pink tongue appearing briefly to wet his own lips.

Wait. What? He didn't expect this man to actually agree with him. This is... unforeseen. And, also, terribly pitiful. His anger fizzles out. He tries to hold onto it, but pity wells up almost contemptuously against his attempts. And something else, too. It's the way this man turns flush in the face, the way his pink tongue pokes out between his lips like a little mouse's nose begging to be pinched and dragged out from its hole.

"Nature always runs her course. You would be surprised what can grow from fallow soil."

Erik sighs and tries not to let himself feel those hands at his waist too intimately. This half-deranged fool doesn't know what he's asking for. Would he know if he didn't get it? Perhaps in the morning he'd be more willing to see reason. One can hope.

"Fine. If it means this much to you, I will drink you dry and give you your peaceful rest," he lies.

"You mean it?" Pyotr's eyes acquire a bright, feverish intensity. His hands tighten around Erik's waist, as if in preparation to pull him closer. "Oh, thank you. Thank you! Words alone aren't sufficient to express my gratitude...but as I said before, if I come back tomorrow I'll give you anything you desire. You have my word as a Stamatin."

Dear lord, he really does mean this. That kind of look around the eyes is hard to fake. If Erik doesn't do it this way, the man is likely to do something far worse on his own.

"You will come back tomorrow. And you will keep your word," he answers sternly, gripping one of Pyotr's wrists and dragging it up away from his waist, closer to his lips. "And when you wake, we will discuss what happens next. Agreed?"

"Yes," he agrees, his arm limp and willing in Erik's grip. He licks his lips a second time, staring -- every fiber of his attention focused on Erik's face, his eyes, his teeth. "Yes, agreed. We'll talk when I wake. And I'll do whatever you want."

His other hand, still around Erik's waist, changes its grip. Clinging now, fingers sinking down to the level of his belt and changing to a desperate, needy grip.

"Please," he whispers hoarsely, his mouth gone dry.

Erik wills himself not to lean into that grip at his belt, not to let himself get sucked into the needy look on this man's face. The word 'anything' echoes inside his mind, sprouting possibilities almost too fast for him to prune them.

"Good. Then lie back and try to relax."

He'll wait until Pyotr seems situated, and then he finally opens his mouth to the fullest, to give the man a detailed look at how long his canines really are (roughly a centimeter longer than the rest of his teeth, both on top and bottom.)

Usually, he would take great care to make this as painless as possible. In this instance, he decides such effort is not necessary. The wretch already slit his own wrists once. Perhaps he'd even relish the pain. If not? Well, this can be a little slice of revenge for what the man said to Artemy. Erik's teeth crunch into Pyotr's wrist, puncturing from both sides to hide the fact that these are much shallower wounds than they would need to be to cause death.

The sickly copper tang of blood that washes over his tongue never fails to get a rise in the back of his throat now (thanks to Aster's boon), but he works through it, swallowing down the acrid trickle and feeling his body go instantly flush with the heat of it. His head is almost instantly fuzzy, too. Fuck, that would be the wine.

No matter. A deal is a deal. Erik has already resolved to spend the night here at the man's side. As soon as he passes out, Erik will heal that head wound the rest of the way, and any other wounds he finds too. That will only help the illusion of death and rebirth. But first, he needs to keep his attention trained to Pyotr's breathing, to his heartbeat as it begins to flutter; the body is almost never as willing as the soul to let go. Just a little longer, he thinks, he'll take the man right up to that edge, just shy of spilling over.

It hurts a great deal more than opening his veins in a hot bath, but Pyotr remains still, his eyes open. His hands flex, shoulders flexing, a reedy groan slipping past his lips...but he remains still, his eyes open. His gaze is fixed on Erik's face, the motions of his jaw, the flush that covers his face...a trickle of blood escapes the suction of his lips, and Pyotr watches it trickle down Erik's chin before looking back up at his intent eyes.

A predator after all,, he thinks, and moans out loud. "You're beautiful," he gasps, his chest heaving. "You're so beautiful..." He remains still, but for the first time in days his fingers itch for a pencil, for the thick teeth of drawing paper. The things he could do, with a soul with this...

His eyes remain open, but it's getting harder now. His chest heaves, he can hear his heart pound. It won't be long now, before everything goes dark... He'd thank Erik for this kindness, but the thought arrives a moment too late. He can only let an incoherent, piteous noise...his eyes flutter closed.

Erik keeps his gaze lowered, focusing on his task and trying very hard not to let the way he's being looked at cause anything to stir inside him. Beautiful? His eyes flicker to Pyotr's face on impulse, before he can stop himself. What he finds there twists his stomach in two directions.

Is this how his sister's lovers used to praise her with their dying breaths? Did they call her beautiful, too, as she drank them down. Did they think they were special? Or did they not care, because they thought they would be once they turned into a vampire. So few of them ever survived the process. Was it because she picked men like this? Men who had nothing to strive at in life, and no reason to fight the beast off to return to it.

He could keep drinking. Even now that Pyotr has uttered his last whimper, and his eyes have blessedly fluttered shut. He could give the man what he wants so easily. But he won't be like her. He pulls back, wiping at his lip and chin. The man's heart still beats. It's slow, fragile, but still pulsing. Good. To work, then.

He stands up--and his head spins so abruptly that he sits right back down. Guess he... will stay right here for a while. But he still manages, despite his tipsy eyesight, to cut open his own palm and use his blood to seal the wound he's made on the man's wrist, and then slaps some more on his head and face for good measure.

It'll be hours before the human wakes, time enough to sober up. Erik decides it couldn't hurt to crawl into the bed beside him, for now, and savor some of his warm body heat while he waits. That was the plan, anyway. But Erik let himself drift for just a bit too long, and now birds are singing in the first morning light and he is still cuddled up right next to Pyotr on the bed.

And that's how Pyotr wakes, squinting his eyes against the weight of sunlight sneaking in past the curtains. His chest rises and falls under the far more welcome weight of Erik's head -- at least until he recalls the substance of his own anticipations. He was promised peace and time as a formless ghost; he recalls nothing of the sort. But the bloodloss, his body's current weakness...

It couldn't be that Erik cheated him, could it?

"Hey," he says hoarsely, putting a hand on Erik's shoulder to jostle him awake. "Hey. Erik. Wake up."

Erik's body goes from the rigidity of a corpse to sudden wakefulness in the space of a breath. His eyes snap open and almost instantly he's sitting up. Fuck. He fell asleep?? What was he thinking? What is he doing?

"My apologies," he says stiffly, rising from the bed and straightening his rumpled clothes. "Your blood intoxicated me more than I anticipated. How are you feeling this morning?"

Okay, it's a little hard to stay suspicious when Erik looks that guileless in the morning sunlight. Like a mastiff tripping over its own feet.

"I feel fine," he says slowly, feeling out the spot on his forehead where his skin no longer splits. "Better than fine, honestly." It's a little disappointing. He narrows his eyes.

"What happened after I passed out?"

"That's to be expected. What good would dying do if you didn't come back healed?" Now that his wits are back about him, the lie flows from his tongue as smooth as silk.

"After? I hardly remember much myself. I thought I would just rest on the bed for a moment and then take my leave, but as you can see that plan did not quite pan out." And that part is the truth.

"I thought I was supposed to become a ghost, though?" Instead everything went black, like the deepest sleep imaginable...honestly, he thinks he might actually prefer it this way. And then there were the things that happened just before...

"I apologize if I sound ungrateful," he says, staring directly in Erik's eyes. "I promise I'm not. After all, you gave me everything I asked for." And then he raises a hand to Erik's cheek, carefully tucking a few strands of his sleep-mussed hair behind his ear. "I wonder if there's anything I could do to make it happen again..."

Ah, yes. He regrets letting that part slip now. "Perhaps your own mind rejected the notion of becoming a ghost. Most people who die here aren't quite so desperate for it as you were."

Erik's thin brows knit together in concern as he meets Pyotr's gaze. He barely knows what he should feel from this and startles into dead stillness as the man tucks a lock behind his ear so tenderly. The suggestion hanging between them feels like a forbidden fruit. Dare he reach up to pluck it?

He plucks at Pyotr's wrist, instead, stroking his thumbnail suggestively over that spot he'd bitten just last night. "The first thing you'll have to do is drink more water and less wine."

"So you don't pass out again?" Pyotr smirks slightly. "I suppose I can't blame you for that, although I wouldn't have expected a member of the undead to be such a lightweight."

His first overtures accepted, he begins to grow bolder, his free hand rising to stroke Erik's face and gently feel out the contours of his teeth through the layers of muscle and skin. "What other limitations do you have? In the film, the vampire faded away in the morning sunlight -- clearly that stricture doesn't apply to you. If I throw a handful of rice or beans over my shoulder, will you be compelled to stop and count them?"

"Yes," Erik answers flatly, in contrast to that smirk. "I was also still recovering from a stab wound, if you recall."

He does nothing to stop Pyotr's touches, but he doesn't respond to them much, either--that is...until the man starts feeling for his teeth through his lips. Erik catches that other wrist now, too, and holds both out on either side, as if he's threatening to pin Pyotr down on the bed.

"Most human superstitions are woefully inaccurate. A stake through the heart won't kill me and neither will cutting off my head. The sun doesn't scorch me, religious iconography does not bother me, I can enter any place I please uninvited, garlic tastes delicious, rice nor beans stop me, and for the love of all things holy, I do. not. Sparkle. Does that answer most of them?"

His heartbeat quickens in his chest, suddenly enough that Pyotr feels a bit lightheaded. The bloodloss, perhaps? So not all his injuries could be healed by death.

He grins and asks, "So what about your strengths? You can clearly overpower me, but that means nothing. Could you have overpowered Burakh, if you'd needed to? Can you heal yourself, as you offered to heal me? What else can you do?"

His eyes are wide and blown out, like starving mouths. His own brother might not recognize this hunger in him, but then...Pyotr rarely meets someone so interesting.

What on earth is he hearing? The man's pulse has shot up and his eyes look like he's been drugged. Just what the hell kind of person is he dealing with? Why all these questions?

"I could lift the roof off of this house, and I could do it quicker than your eyes can see. I heal most wounds in a matter of minutes, as I did with that stab, but I require blood to replenish what I lose. My senses are vastly improved compared to yours. That includes my sense of smell. If you touch alcohol, I will smell it." So he better keep his bargain.

"Why are you so interested?"

"Is it not obvious?" He isn't as skilled in the language of flirtation as Andrey, but he'll do his best to make his wishes clear. Pyotr leans closer, straining against the grip on his wrists. They don't move at all, despite the awkwardness of the angle, and his face warms with autonomous arousal.

"I'm fascinated by you," he says bluntly. "How you conceal so many miracles, so much strength, while seeming so human. How you are filled with so many contradictions. You took a knife for me, and then drained me dry. I want to see more of that juxtaposition, the conflict between your kindness and your cruelty. I want to see how much of a monster you can be. I want you to hurt me -- and I want to take you apart and study your inner workings. I want to make art out of you, both from paper and your flesh. I want to see what you can make of me."

It was obvious. Or, it should have been. Some part of him held out hope that this wasn't going exactly where he feared it might be. Damn his ego. Even now, the praise and interest draws him as a moth to flame. To be adored in such a way is enticing, he cannot deny it. Even the way Pyotr tests the strength of his grip causes a new kind of hunger to rise.

One thing bothers him, however. "Understand this," he says coldly, "I have spent one thousand years resisting my inner monster, I will not have you steal my control. I can be cruel upon request," indeed, his grip tightens as he says it, until the sharp points of his nails prick at Pyotr's skin, "I can be your muse if you wish it, my body is eager to be your canvas, but you may not touch my soul. Is that clear?"

It's only a trifle, but even trifling things can count for a great deal in the right moment. For whatever it might be worth, Pyotr stops pulling on Erik's grip to consider his words, head tilted slightly to one side in a careful study of his face.

"May not be allowed, or may not be capable?" he asks quietly, and then shrugs in dismissal of his own musing. "Either way, I can accept that. It would be no great hardship to study your soul at a remove; I used to be an architect, you see. I don't need to touch something to appreciate it's structure." His mouth runs away from him; before he can stop himself, he blurts out, "And it will be safer for you too, if you keep me at arm's length."

Erik's expression is a cool mask but not completely. Anxiety rims his eyes in small wrinkles that pinch the seams where his lashes meet.

"I've had my soul touched once before and I did not enjoy the experience." It's true. Valdis pulled him to his knees by the soul the first time they met. This doubles as a warning against trying.

An architect? That might be useful in town, especially for those seeking greenhouses. This could be a boon, so long as he can get the man to cooperate...

"Safer? Why is that, Pyotr? What do you worry you could do to me?"

"I already got you stabbed, before we'd even been properly introduced," Pyotr points out, trying to evade the question. His gaze skitters away from Erik's, and this time when he tugs on Erik's grip it's a feeble, half-hearted attempt to get away.

"I don't know what might happen," he finally admits. "It's not like I want anything to -- to happen, I have no interest in hurting you in any way that would actually matter. It's just, with my history..."

A history Erik doesn't know about, one Pyotr is loathe to discuss in any detail. It was one thing with Daniil, who he thought knew about it all already, he'd just forgotten...but telling someone the entire story from scratch...It makes him feel a little lightheaded.

No wait, that's because he's starting hyperventilate. "Hey, can you let me go for a minute?" he asks urgently. "Just -- I'm sorry, I just -- I need some space to breathe --"

There's something more to this. He knows that now, from the look of panic in the man's eyes as they dart away. One can only imagine what dark things lay in his past. Alas...the man is about to hyperventilate himself unconscious again. That never bodes well. Just what is Erik getting himself into? It's too late for doubt. He sees too much of himself in this pitiful man.

"Shhh," Erik soothes quietly as he finally releases his grip. "There. You're free. Breathe deep for me, Pyotr. And, please, don't worry over me like this. It was for Artemy's sake that I let myself be stabbed. Believe me, I could very easily have avoided that blade. All the same, you have died and been reborn now. History does not have to repeat itself."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: suicide ideation/blood drinking/death

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject