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*There's blood on the sheets again and for once it isn't Barty's fault. Sticky browning-red spreading out from one corner, expanding like an early universe across the vast, empty vacuum of the duvet.
It does that.
The Black family summer home has an impressive amount of bad habits and ghostly blood is only one of many. Creaking and expansive, its hallways are always rearranging themselves and the doors never seem to lead anywhere twice. It's a bumbling sort of incompetence, sickly and well-meaning and just a little bit tricky, like some curmudgeonly old man with a heart of gold. It can’t, however, out-craft a Crouch. Barty’s bedroom is in the pantry tonight - he’s found it - and he indulges his victory with a cocoon. He’s determined to stay, even with the shelf of biscuits half-merged in the headboard, two tin curves burrowing into his scalp. Above him, the ceiling sags like the turkey neck of a hag, low and drooping and battered, a candle filled hoop twisting fitfully from frail beams. He watches it turn. Back and forth, back and forth. The little flames on the candle dance to the consistent rhythm. His eyeballs dance to it too, disobeying heavy lids. Back and forth, back and forth, back and - still. The flames stand straight up to attention, the hoop stopping with a subtle violence.
It’s a slow and almost imperceptible sound. The purposeful friction of bone and skin against shingle. He can hear it on top of him, like twelve half-dead reindeer pulling a sleigh of rattlesnakes. And then, before there are even thoughts, there are pipes - something slipping under his pores and pumping sand and heaviness into his muscles. It braces against his ribs too, crushing his lungs into pulp and pressing his heart up into his oesophagus. There's no time for whys, no pause for atmospheric build. Instead, shapes merely lose form and meaning, wavering somewhere between existence and a parallel dimension where everything is a rounded, indescribable mass. Even the air is a rounded mass, something viscous and Too Big to enter his nostrils. And just like that it releases Barty with a shock, a sudden and electric relief as oxygen forces its way back into his mouth, inflating him with a wheezing gasp and a shudder that energizes all his limbs and pushes him up until he's a 90 degree angle. Until his eyes open and he realizes nothing has changed. The walls are straight and the furniture is intact, the air as stale and dust-filled as ever.
A part of him knows before he looks, synapses having fired and calculated and arrived well before his head can turn toward the window and see the fluttering tail-end of whatever just scuttled over the roof.
There's blood on the sheets again and now it really is Barty's fault. Sticky deep-red dripping from his nose. *
It does that.
The Black family summer home has an impressive amount of bad habits and ghostly blood is only one of many. Creaking and expansive, its hallways are always rearranging themselves and the doors never seem to lead anywhere twice. It's a bumbling sort of incompetence, sickly and well-meaning and just a little bit tricky, like some curmudgeonly old man with a heart of gold. It can’t, however, out-craft a Crouch. Barty’s bedroom is in the pantry tonight - he’s found it - and he indulges his victory with a cocoon. He’s determined to stay, even with the shelf of biscuits half-merged in the headboard, two tin curves burrowing into his scalp. Above him, the ceiling sags like the turkey neck of a hag, low and drooping and battered, a candle filled hoop twisting fitfully from frail beams. He watches it turn. Back and forth, back and forth. The little flames on the candle dance to the consistent rhythm. His eyeballs dance to it too, disobeying heavy lids. Back and forth, back and forth, back and - still. The flames stand straight up to attention, the hoop stopping with a subtle violence.
It’s a slow and almost imperceptible sound. The purposeful friction of bone and skin against shingle. He can hear it on top of him, like twelve half-dead reindeer pulling a sleigh of rattlesnakes. And then, before there are even thoughts, there are pipes - something slipping under his pores and pumping sand and heaviness into his muscles. It braces against his ribs too, crushing his lungs into pulp and pressing his heart up into his oesophagus. There's no time for whys, no pause for atmospheric build. Instead, shapes merely lose form and meaning, wavering somewhere between existence and a parallel dimension where everything is a rounded, indescribable mass. Even the air is a rounded mass, something viscous and Too Big to enter his nostrils. And just like that it releases Barty with a shock, a sudden and electric relief as oxygen forces its way back into his mouth, inflating him with a wheezing gasp and a shudder that energizes all his limbs and pushes him up until he's a 90 degree angle. Until his eyes open and he realizes nothing has changed. The walls are straight and the furniture is intact, the air as stale and dust-filled as ever.
A part of him knows before he looks, synapses having fired and calculated and arrived well before his head can turn toward the window and see the fluttering tail-end of whatever just scuttled over the roof.
There's blood on the sheets again and now it really is Barty's fault. Sticky deep-red dripping from his nose. *
no subject
Date: 2011-11-21 01:39 pm (UTC)*It sounds so mild that Regulus' tensed muscles and raised shoulders seem rather contrary and out of place. His scapulae point fearfully out at Barty, even from beneath his cloak, but his gaze remains on the glass.*
no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 08:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 09:36 am (UTC)His bad leg, so often forced to do more than it should, screams at him now and mirrors a horrible feeling in his chest - a sort of tense radiation, filling him from the inside out with a hard bubble of excruciating energy. There is a constant numbed sting he experiences from knee to hip, but being knocked to the ground has flared that pain into something he can only be silent about. Only bite the inside of his cheek and wait for it to recede to manageability again.
That is one moment. In the next his hand is grasping Barty's, and pushing it away with a frantic release, like someone clutching a hot iron.*
no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 10:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 10:15 am (UTC)Tossed like a rag doll away from the counter, he lands ungracefully on his other foot in surprise, and a horrible electric pang of bruised and blackened nerves makes him squeak like a trodden on rat and brings tears to his eyes.
There is a beat. Regulus scrubs his face dry but his mouth remains open in pain and indignation.*
...You pushed me!
no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 11:39 am (UTC)No. Nonono. I rescued you. YOU'RE the real pusher here.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 11:56 am (UTC)*There is no discipline here, no subtlety, and no reservations. Regulus was raised to only have an inside voice, and no others, making his yelling a very odd and strained thing to hear indeed, but there's nothing funny about it.
His face looks hollow and his cheeks pale, and there's something just slightly off about his eyes that has been building in there since before graduation and only just now reached an age mature enough to be really seen.*
no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 12:44 pm (UTC)I warned you. I told you gravity can't be trusted - and now you sound like a squeaky, old ship. I can tell it's a ship because there's little waves in your muscles. You may as well become a sea captain.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-23 03:53 am (UTC)Regulus' glass and all it's poorly poured contents spray in hundreds of pieces between them, and his arm remains incriminatingly raised after swatting it from the counter. The familiar lilt of Barty's voice, the manic cadence of it, is finally overpowered by something, and Regulus feels a panic, not sure if he's ready for Barty to ever be quiet.*
STOP. ...If you say more I know I'll just scream.
You never stop to listen, Barty! I could tell you a dozen times and you think I'm joking but the world can't be laughed at anymore, it just can't! Everywhere's all broken up into pieces and no one does as they should, and not even you will listen to me! Why won't you just stay inside and not go out there anymore and not shove me! That hurt.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-27 09:40 am (UTC)He flinches.*
no subject
Date: 2011-11-27 09:54 am (UTC)SO-
So try harder because - you have to understand! No one thinks to even ask me about anything, but they should! For their sake they should! And you have to be careful, why don't you know that?
no subject
Date: 2011-11-27 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-27 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-01 12:45 pm (UTC)Oooh well that's good for you, isn't it. Any smarter and you'd be a SOULLESS HUSK.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-01 12:55 pm (UTC)Even though he had never been in any more danger than usual with the Dementors, Barty's anger makes his stomach flip as though just realising fear.*
They could have gone after you next! Or those men from your flat could have come here - we're here so that YOU are safe!
no subject
Date: 2011-12-01 01:32 pm (UTC)You make no SENSE.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-15 02:30 pm (UTC)How is that possible? You're doing this right alongside me, you're always right there to see, everything that goes wrong. How do you not understand yet - you're in more danger than we could ever stop!
no subject
Date: 2011-12-16 12:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-17 11:49 am (UTC)If you get caught - anywhere, in any of this, that's not change that's ruining, Barty!
no subject
Date: 2011-12-17 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-17 01:22 pm (UTC)*There is fanaticism leaking from somewhere, fueling Barty as Regulus frantically tries to patch the break. He's spent months protecting, lying, researching, standing guard, and it all boils down now to a screech in his voice. It's all birdlike, the shrill and tired despair of the elderly watching their families fall apart and their possessions stolen, and he could only stop it if he stopped talking entirely.*
This isn't about your plans with Him, Barty, it's not what He's promised you, that's not why we're here. It's about you, you're in danger. We're all - I hate you, I hate your carelessness! You can't be hurt, you just can't, why won't you try?
no subject
Date: 2011-12-17 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 11:27 am (UTC)*Barty's words overpower his own. Where they project to the empty hallways of this house, it seems there is only a certain decimal to which Regulus' voice can strain. Despite this, there is an unearthed sharpness there, a desperation and a will that makes up for his failing vocals. Surrounded by glass, shouting as best he can but with little hope to win, his hands shake with alarming brutality, with fear, nerves, and anger.*