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bait_backup*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. *
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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.*