[Log] Definitions of Fear
Henry had never been terribly fond of his room in the castle. It wasn’t that it was defective in some way-in fact, the castle had quite graciously given him a room done up to look like his old dorm room in college, rather than his apartment in Ashfield. For that he had to be thankful. It was more a problem with him, really. Ever since…the incident, those long days chained inside his apartment with no way of contacting the outside world and no way to escape, except to go further into the hellish Other World….
It wasn’t claustrophobia, exactly, or at least he didn’t think it was. It was much too specific. Only in his room, mostly when he was alone. The outcome was much the same as claustrophobia, however. The feeling of being shut up in the room weighed on him, made him feeling like the walls were pressing in on him. After too long alone he had to leave or risk having a panic attack.
Luckily he’d found ways around this. The Library was his favorite so far-curling up with a good book and his journal in his corner armchair, he’d passed many an hour quite happily. When he finally began to doze in the chair he would drag himself back up the fourteen flights of stairs to his room, and by the time he reached his room he would be so exhausted that sleep was no problem whatsoever.
The past week he’d taken to sleeping on the floor in Kaylee’s room, due to the invasion, and then on the last couple of nights in another room on 20. He hadn’t even minded the floor so much; the fact that he was in close proximity to another person and was in a different environment did wonders for his state of mind. Henry had actually found himself wishing idly that he didn’t have to go back-but that was silly. He was a grown man, dammit, he needed to start acting it. And so he’d trudged the stairways back down to his own place, cringing slightly at the sight of his name printed neatly on the plate across the door.
A trip down to the Library only served to aggravate him even more. Crowley was acting…oddly, and Kaylee was upset. Fantastic. Just when the world looked like it was finally getting back to normal everything exploded all over again. Eventually he simply packed his journal up and headed back upstairs. Once in his room he changed into a pair of pajama bottoms and prepared himself for the possibility of staring at the ceiling for the next few hours.
Before he slid into bed, though, he double-checked the window to make sure it was open and tucked a boot into the doorway, propping his door open about a hand's width. Keeping his escape routes open always let him sleep easier. A little, anyway.
Neuro had found that amusing himself during this time of invasion was actually quite hard. Most of the ones he spoke with had disappeared or were to busy with themselves to be bothered. The creatures outside were interesting, but he wasn't exactly sure how the castle denizens would react to him bringing one of them up to examine. Perhaps he'd ask...
But right now, he was simply wandering the castle. Wandering was a good thing to do when you didn't know what else to do. Sometimes you found something to do. Like finding a door curiously propped open. Well. That was odd. Most people had their doors shut and locked. The demon crouched low, slinking into the room. Hm. Nothing so different then the other rooms…
He kept low and when he came to the wall, still not finding anything odd, he climbed up it in a way that wasn't exactly humanly possible. Once he got to the ceiling, he stood upside down. There really wasn't anything odd here.
How boring
Despite his earlier misgivings Henry had fallen asleep rather. It was light, restless sleep, filled with tossing and turning and the occasional mutter, but it was sleep nonetheless.
As he moved around in bed the covers fell away, exposing his bare torso to the moonlight. Scars and welts of various shapes and sizes covered his upper half. Some of them could be the result of gunshot wounds, while others were long, jagged lacerations. Some were much harder to identify, coming from creatures not found in many worlds. All put together, it looked a little like the man in the bed had been through a war. A rather nasty one at that.
Henry tossed and turned a little longer while the intruder crawled up his wall and onto the ceiling, just asleep enough to not notice the presence of someone else in his room. For the moment, anyway.
Neuro finally took notice of the man in the bed as he turned over. Oh! Now he was interesting! All those scars... What had he fought against? How did he survive? Perhaps he should conduct an examination...
He moved to stand over the bed, reaching down to run his finger over one of the more unidentifiable scars. Now how did he get that one?
Henry couldn't be sure, afterward, whether it was an actual physical sensation that woke him or simply the intuitive knowledge that someone was very close to him. Either way, tossing and turning gave way to slowly blinking green eyes, trying blearily to make out a dark shape in the dark room.
A shape. An indistinct one, to his sleepy, unadjusted eyes, but still a shape. A shape that wasn't supposed to be there. A thing...or a person.
Visions flashed in Henry's mind in rapid succession, visions of the Other World and some very unpleasant things in it, almost drowning out the very real threat of the shape in the dark.
The quiet, even sound of the man's breathing stopped suddenly as the breath caught in his throat. His eyes widened and all traces of movement from the once-sleeping form ceased.
His hand jerked back from the now awake man. Oops. Seems he wasn't a heavy sleeper. Neuro smiled in the dark of the room, his arms stretching out in apology.
"Oh...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you. I was simply curious." His hand went back to the scar. "What sort of powers one must have to be attacked by one that does this and survive... Don't mind me. Feel free to go back to sleep."
Yeah. Right.
Henry's eyes moved from the shape above him down to the limb extending to touch him again. His skin crawled.
Who...what...what the hell?!
His breathing returned, only because he couldn't avoid it forever, but now it was shallow and forced. Even in the dark it would be fairly easy to see the rising panic on the man's face, in his eyes. He couldn't force out so much as a syllable, even if he'd known what to say.
Welcome to my room, I didn't catch your name?
Not exactly applicable when the one you were addressing had snuck into your room in the middle of the night and was now hanging above you from the ceiling. Henry simply stared and tried to fight down the urge to bolt...though how long he would be able to fight that particular urge was up in the air.
Neuro grabbed onto Henry's shoulders, pulling him into a sitting position "Calm down now... I was only thinking of cutting you up. I don't think I'll actually do it." That was probably bad to say to someone who was about to have a panic attack. But perhaps he would calm down if he knew Neuro meant no harm.
At the moment, of course.
"Now breathe before you hyperventilate."
Henry did as he was told, exhaling loudly and gulping in a mouthful of fresh air. His body had gone rigid after feeling the person yank him upward and now he sat with his shoulders tucked inward as far as they could go, trying desperately to make himself disappear into thin air. It wasn't working.
The voice sounded rational. Not particularly reassuring, what with the whole "cutting you up" bit, but at least halfway rational. The knowledge that this was probably merely an intruder then, and not some manifestation of evil spirits or the Other World come back to haunt him, really wasn't much of a comfort though. Either way he was still in bed with a person he didn't know hovering right above him, who may or may not at one point have been seriously considering hurting him in some fashion.
Peachy.
"There. That's better, isn't it?" With a wide smile, Neuro let go of the man's shoulders. This man was hilarious. Getting so upset over someone in his room... "You need to relax. If you don't, you could very well give yourself a heart attack." Shaking his head, the demon glanced around the room, his head tilting.
"And I suppose that while you have nothing worth noting in this room aside from yourself, why would you keep the door open? People could just barge right in..." His smiled turned a bit more sinister. "And they might not be a nice as I am."
As soon as the person released his shoulders Henry scooted back on the bed as far as he could, his back bumping up against the headboard before he finally stopped moving. Perhaps it was a little irrational to get so worked up over something he'd brought upon himself...but what was he supposed to do? Sleep in the hallway?
Rationality is an illusion...
...remember, even Walter seemed rational the first time you met him.
"C-Claustrophobia," he explained eventually, stammering in a soft tenor. So maybe it wasn't exactly a perfect explanation for what was wrong with him...it was damn close enough.
"Claustrophobia?" He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "What use it there to be afraid of enclosed spaces? There are such worse things to be afraid of..." To prove the point, Neuro pulled a cobra from his pocket, letting the animal coil around his fingers.
Normally, he would just have a conversation with out scaring who ever he was speaking with, but this guy was priceless and after being human for so long, he was feeling mean.
"Now this... This is something that would be rational to fear."
Hadn't he just gotten finished telling Crowley that he wasn't afraid of snakes, not that long ago…?
The cobra in the stranger's hands, though, was apparently another matter altogether. Not only did he know for a fact that cobras were some of the deadliest snakes in existence (he'd watched that damn TV show last year on the nature channel), but to see one suddenly appear in his room, wielded by the intruder in the dark.... Henry suddenly became very still, eyes wide, wanting to bolt but now unable to for fear of suddenly coming face to face with the snake. Didn't snakes track movement?
He didn't know. He didn't really want to find out, either. A slight sound, what could be called a squeak, escaped the man as he pressed back against the headboard of the bed.
Neuro chuckled as he watched Henry's reaction. Easy. He was just... Too easy. He grabbed the snake and put it back into his pocket, ignore the fact that it bit him twice in the process. A small part of his brain sent up an alarm before he remembered he was a demon again.
Smiling wide enough so that the points of his teeth were showing, Neuro dropped down from the celing to land next to the bed. "Now now... What did I say? You need to breathe before you make yourself pass out."
Finally the correct series of synapses triggered in Henry's brain and he found that his body was working again. As the man (man? creature?) dropped down next to the bed Henry bolted the other way, bare feet falling to the floor on the other side of the bed so that he was directly across from the person. His breath came heavily now that he was on his feet, almost as if he were unconsciously obeying the stranger's orders....
"W-Who are you?" Henry gasped through the dark. He took a single step backward, bracing his foot in case he had to make a run for it. He would have to run left, though--directly behind him were his desk and his wardrobe, and to the right the wall. "W-What are you doing in h-here?" he stammered.
Neuro clicked his tongue "You're far too stressed, calm down. You'll get wrinkles." He glanced around the room with a frown. It really was plain. That wasn't fun.
"Oh yes. You asked who I was." He smiled and bowed "I'm Neuro. Nougami Neuro.Detective and demon, at your service." He straightened and smiled "As for what I am doing... Your door was open. I was curious."
Confusion registered on Henry's scruffy face. His eyebrows knit together under the mess of shaggy hair that fell down nearly to his eyes, and he simply stared at the demon across from him for a moment. His left hand clenched into a fist and unclenched again, more of a nervous tick or a sign that he was getting ready to run than a desire for violence, however.
"Curious?" he echoed softly, glancing quickly toward the door and back to the demon again. "Y-You...you c-couldn't have...asked?"
"What fun is there is asking? If I can investigate something, why should I ask?" He spread out his arms with a smiled "Besides. You were sleeping. It would have been rude to wake you up and ask."
Slowly, as Neuro spoke, Henry began to edge for the door. He hadn't exactly decided at this point whether he was really going for the door or simply the light switch next to it, but he figured that one of the two alternatives would probably emerge as the clear winner by the time he made it all the way there. He walked sideways, passing one leg behind the other as he moved...slowly...
one...step....
His head tilted, following Henry's slow walk to the door. "You know... I introduced myself, but you never told me who you are. I thought that it was customary when one states their name, that the other does the same... "
He laced his fingers together with a smile "So who are you?"
Henry's jaw tightened. Now, of all things, he was being asked to introduce himself? To the person (demon!) that had just waltzed right on into his room in the middle of the night? Uh uh, no way.
The slow sneaking turned into walking. He'd had enough of this. Time to turn the lights on and get this creep out of his room. He was tired, and scared, and just wanted this to be over.
Henry turned and headed for the door, unfortunately having to turn his back to Neuro to do so. As he neared the door he reached a hand out to flick on the lights. "I think I'd prefer it if you would just leave, actually," he stated, his voice still quiet but this time more firm than it had been previously.
He raised an eyebrow with a snort "Leave? Why should I? You haven't told me who you are." Neuro leaned back against the wall, his arms crossing. "And perhaps I like it here."
He didn't. He just wanted another reason besides 'You haven't introduced yourself'. 'I don't want to' was a nice excuse though.
"Maybe I don't like you here," Henry shot back, unable to bite his tongue before the remark could slip out. He was normally a very polite person, but he supposed he could forgive himself this one transgression. The circumstances certainly warranted it. The overhead lights flickered on, causing Henry to blink rapidly as his eyes adjusted.
"And before you ask again--"
Henry grabbed the door and pulled it open, brightening the room even more as the pale light from the hallway flooded in. "My name's on the goddamn door." He pointed up to the plate across the front of the door, where Henry Townshend was spelled out in neat block lettering.
Looking at the door, he blinked a bit at the sudden light. Once his eyes adjusted he moved to the door, hand running over the letters.
"Henry Townshend... That's American, isn't it?" Why yes he was going to ignore his request that he leave. He wanted to stay, so he would.
Henry held the doorknob in one hand and used the other to massage his temples. What had started out as something truly frightening and potentially worse had turned into...an annoyance.
Maybe all demons were annoying. Some kind of racial trait? The couple he'd met so far now would seem to support that theory. Although Crowley's annoyances he could handle (most of the time). This one--
"Yes, it's American. I'm American. My name is Henry Townshend. I'm from Pennsylvania, if you're really curious," he stated in a monotone. "Now can I please get back to bed? I promise to lock the door like a good boy from now on."
"Pennsylvania..." He tapped his chin thoughtfully "I'm not very familiar with America. I need to read more about it..." Again with the ignoring. Oh my how he loved bothering the humans.
"I think I was in Japan before I came here, but I can't be sure since I believe the castle took those memories." Rambling was always good.
Yeah, this guy was starting to sound and act way too much like the other demon Henry knew.
Only without the cute.
"Look, I'm going to shut the door now, and you're going to be on that side of it--" he pointed out into the hallway, "--and I'm going to stay in here. Then I'm going to lock the door, and I'm going to get some sleep. Okay?"
And now Neuro finally turned his attention to Henry. "Oh? And how are you going to make me leave? Force me out?" He laughed "You really don't seem the type to do anything to anyone."
Henry sighed. Goddammit...it was too late for this kind of shit. He'd actually been sleeping earlier too. This could have been such a great night.
"Look, I don't want any trouble or anything, but I would really appreciate it if you would just leave now," he replied slowly. "If you want we can even have lunch together sometime or something, and I can explain why I left my door open."
Henry laid a hand on Neuro's sleeve, in an attempt to guide the demon out the door. "It's not a very fascinating story but if you'd like to hear it, then fine. Whatever. Now please--"
"Why not just tell me now why we're both here." He moved back from the door to nose around a bit in the room. Nothing out of the ordinary was in view, but maybe he could find something if he looked hard enough.
"Because I want to go to bed," Henry said through gritted teeth. He watched helplessly, frustration growing, as the demon slid his arm from his grip and started wandering around the room. "Look, did someone put you up to this or something? Cause you can go back and tell them to have their laugh. They won. Whatever."
"Now can fuck-around-with-Henry time be over?"
"No one put me up to this. I all ready told you that I came in because your door was open." Neuro made it to the desk, his eyes locking the folder there. Oh! Interesting things were kept in folders~
Picking it up, he flipped through it, he face twisting with a frown the more papers he saw. Just sketches? Boring. Dreadfully so. With a sigh, he closed the folder and tossed it behind him. Useless and boring. Was there anything interesting about this man?
Something inside Henry snapped. It was one thing to have some random person wandering around in his room and annoying him with silly questions...
..and quite another for said random stranger to pick up his personal possessions--work that he'd spent hours upon hours on, no less--and just toss them aside like so many useless scraps of paper.
He was going to get this jerk out of his room even if he had to beat him into unconsciousness and drag him out into the hallway.
Henry strode over to Neuro, crossing the distance between them quickly, and without thinking launched a right hook at the demon.
Neuro didn't move when Henry came and hit him. And after, all he did was smirk and rub his jaw. "My my. Looks as though the little mouse has a bite. Now, if you wanted to play that way, you should have just said so."
He placed his hands on Henry's shoulders in what would have been a friendly manner if his fingers hadn't grown longer and had developed points. His face morphed, changing into somthing that some what resembled a bird's beak with pointy teeth and eyes.
"I would be more then happy to indulge you, of course, if you wanted to fight."
Henry's resolve faltered for a split-second and the breath caught in his throat. It wasn't as though he'd never seen anything strange or grotesque before...but the guy was changing right in front of him. If nothing else it was enough to give him pause.
After that initial bit of shock, however, the determination returned to his face and he threw himself backward against Neuro's grip. His hands remained balled into fists--should he not be able to break free of the demon's grasp he might need them.
He let the other man go with a laugh, spreading his arms "Oh you're just too fun Mouse..." Neuro's gloved fingers changed further, now more resembling blades then the apendages they originally were.
As he stood with his arms out, smoke started to come out from the sleeves of his jacket, coiling up to the celing. After a few seconds, arms formed in the smoke. The limbs pushed against the smoke, as though trying to eascape.
"Well Mouse... You don't mind if some others come to play, do you?" In actuality, the smoke and hands were just an illusion. Though he could summon other creatures from Hell, the way this man acted caused Neuro to feel that he didn't need to.
Henry staggered back, staring in growing horror as the talons extending from Neuro's hands began to appear even larger and more blade-like. He might not even have paid any attention to the smoke cloud had it not come between the light fixture on the ceiling and the rest of the room, effectively blotting out the major light source in the room and plunging the both of them into shadows. Henry's gaze turned upward in time to see the hands emerge from the cloud, stretching as if trying to break free.
The wall men--
reaching--
coming through the walls--
He glanced back down at Neuro, panic now evident on his face once again. The light (or lack thereof) played tricks on his eyes, creating grotesque shadows across the demon's distorted features and distended hands.
Thoroughly lost now to a terror born both from the present situation and a collection of rather traumatic memories, Henry took another step back--or tried to, anyway. Instead he fell backward, catching himself in a sort of sitting position.
Neuro was able to keep his composure for a good thirty seconds before his hands folded over his stomach as he doubled over laughing. The smoke twisted back inside his jacket, as though being sucked up with a vacuum. His fingers returned to their normal shape, because he'd rather not cut himself with his own fingers laughing.
His face morphed back as well, returning Neuro completly to his more human self. A more human self that had to clutch on to the desk to stop himself from falling over laughing, his other hand still holding his side.
It took...far too long for Henry to snap out of it.
Even after the smoke cloud disappeared and the light in the room returned to its normal level, even after the blade-like talons retracted, even after Neuro was pretty much a normal looking guy again...Henry simply sat there, on the floor, looking shocked. Dazed. Numb.
With a final little snicker, Neuro was able to gain control of himself. Untill he looked at Henry and had to turn away just to stop himself from laughing again.
"Oh... Mouse, you're just far too amusing. Something as simple as that..." He laughed again then picked Henry off the floor "Now now! The you have better things to sit on than the floor if you really want to sit." He brushed the other man's clothes off like an annoying mother. Yes he had just scared the other man, but that was no reason for him to be on the floor
Henry still couldn't respond. The room and the man before him had returned to their normal states, but in his mind things were entirely different. He couldn't blink without seeing something from the Other World...the images were so vivid that for a time they seemed to superimpose themselves upon what his eyes were actually seeing, even when open. He could still see the wall men, emerging from the shadows, reaching for him--
--so when Neuro grabbed him and hauled him to his feet it jolted Henry, hard. The man gasped, just a little, his bruised psyche still trying to separate memory from reality. He stood still, too dazed to do anything else at the moment, while Neuro brushed him off.
After brushing him off, it was then that Neuro notice the lack of response from the man. He frowned, bringing his face close to Henry's.
"Mouse. Did I cause you to have a mental breakdown? Because if I did, I'll have to pat myself on the back. That would be the quickest I've broken someone."
His eyes remained unfocused, his gaze far off, but Henry was still aware of his surroundings to a certain extent. When Neuro's face neared his own the man flinched, drawing his shoulders inward and leaning back an almost imperceptible amount.
He blinked a couple of times, shaking his head, though if he was actually starting to snap out of it...it was going to be a long, slow process.
Neuro huffed then led Henry to his bed "All right then Mouse. I suppose you need to back to sleep and recover. My, that really didn't take long though. One illusion..." With a small giggle, Neuro pushed the man on to his bed then crossed his arms over his chest
"Would you like me to tuck you in? Read you a story? Perhaps, get you something to drink?"
Almost instinctively Henry slid from the bed, dropping down into the corner of the room between the bed and the wardrobe, and huddled into a ball. He drew his knees up to his bare chest and hugged them with both arms, dropping his chin down to his knees. At this angle, the numbers "21121" could be seen very visibly on the back of his neck...it looked as though they'd been carved into his flesh with a knife or some other sharp implement.
Neuro blinked, looming over the man. "Oh? What's this there Mouse?" He ran his finger the third one.
"Well. Little Mouse has a secret. Doesn't look like you'd be telling me about it any time soon though." He laughed, patting Henry on the head "Don't worry. I'll save the questions for when you're actually able to answer them." He looked to the door "I'll just have to remember your room number so I can come talk to you again..."
((ooc: apologies that I didn't get this up earlier like I said I would...my morning didn't really go how I planned it--to put things lightly ^^;;; ))
It wasn’t claustrophobia, exactly, or at least he didn’t think it was. It was much too specific. Only in his room, mostly when he was alone. The outcome was much the same as claustrophobia, however. The feeling of being shut up in the room weighed on him, made him feeling like the walls were pressing in on him. After too long alone he had to leave or risk having a panic attack.
Luckily he’d found ways around this. The Library was his favorite so far-curling up with a good book and his journal in his corner armchair, he’d passed many an hour quite happily. When he finally began to doze in the chair he would drag himself back up the fourteen flights of stairs to his room, and by the time he reached his room he would be so exhausted that sleep was no problem whatsoever.
The past week he’d taken to sleeping on the floor in Kaylee’s room, due to the invasion, and then on the last couple of nights in another room on 20. He hadn’t even minded the floor so much; the fact that he was in close proximity to another person and was in a different environment did wonders for his state of mind. Henry had actually found himself wishing idly that he didn’t have to go back-but that was silly. He was a grown man, dammit, he needed to start acting it. And so he’d trudged the stairways back down to his own place, cringing slightly at the sight of his name printed neatly on the plate across the door.
A trip down to the Library only served to aggravate him even more. Crowley was acting…oddly, and Kaylee was upset. Fantastic. Just when the world looked like it was finally getting back to normal everything exploded all over again. Eventually he simply packed his journal up and headed back upstairs. Once in his room he changed into a pair of pajama bottoms and prepared himself for the possibility of staring at the ceiling for the next few hours.
Before he slid into bed, though, he double-checked the window to make sure it was open and tucked a boot into the doorway, propping his door open about a hand's width. Keeping his escape routes open always let him sleep easier. A little, anyway.
Neuro had found that amusing himself during this time of invasion was actually quite hard. Most of the ones he spoke with had disappeared or were to busy with themselves to be bothered. The creatures outside were interesting, but he wasn't exactly sure how the castle denizens would react to him bringing one of them up to examine. Perhaps he'd ask...
But right now, he was simply wandering the castle. Wandering was a good thing to do when you didn't know what else to do. Sometimes you found something to do. Like finding a door curiously propped open. Well. That was odd. Most people had their doors shut and locked. The demon crouched low, slinking into the room. Hm. Nothing so different then the other rooms…
He kept low and when he came to the wall, still not finding anything odd, he climbed up it in a way that wasn't exactly humanly possible. Once he got to the ceiling, he stood upside down. There really wasn't anything odd here.
How boring
Despite his earlier misgivings Henry had fallen asleep rather. It was light, restless sleep, filled with tossing and turning and the occasional mutter, but it was sleep nonetheless.
As he moved around in bed the covers fell away, exposing his bare torso to the moonlight. Scars and welts of various shapes and sizes covered his upper half. Some of them could be the result of gunshot wounds, while others were long, jagged lacerations. Some were much harder to identify, coming from creatures not found in many worlds. All put together, it looked a little like the man in the bed had been through a war. A rather nasty one at that.
Henry tossed and turned a little longer while the intruder crawled up his wall and onto the ceiling, just asleep enough to not notice the presence of someone else in his room. For the moment, anyway.
Neuro finally took notice of the man in the bed as he turned over. Oh! Now he was interesting! All those scars... What had he fought against? How did he survive? Perhaps he should conduct an examination...
He moved to stand over the bed, reaching down to run his finger over one of the more unidentifiable scars. Now how did he get that one?
Henry couldn't be sure, afterward, whether it was an actual physical sensation that woke him or simply the intuitive knowledge that someone was very close to him. Either way, tossing and turning gave way to slowly blinking green eyes, trying blearily to make out a dark shape in the dark room.
A shape. An indistinct one, to his sleepy, unadjusted eyes, but still a shape. A shape that wasn't supposed to be there. A thing...or a person.
Visions flashed in Henry's mind in rapid succession, visions of the Other World and some very unpleasant things in it, almost drowning out the very real threat of the shape in the dark.
The quiet, even sound of the man's breathing stopped suddenly as the breath caught in his throat. His eyes widened and all traces of movement from the once-sleeping form ceased.
His hand jerked back from the now awake man. Oops. Seems he wasn't a heavy sleeper. Neuro smiled in the dark of the room, his arms stretching out in apology.
"Oh...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you. I was simply curious." His hand went back to the scar. "What sort of powers one must have to be attacked by one that does this and survive... Don't mind me. Feel free to go back to sleep."
Yeah. Right.
Henry's eyes moved from the shape above him down to the limb extending to touch him again. His skin crawled.
Who...what...what the hell?!
His breathing returned, only because he couldn't avoid it forever, but now it was shallow and forced. Even in the dark it would be fairly easy to see the rising panic on the man's face, in his eyes. He couldn't force out so much as a syllable, even if he'd known what to say.
Welcome to my room, I didn't catch your name?
Not exactly applicable when the one you were addressing had snuck into your room in the middle of the night and was now hanging above you from the ceiling. Henry simply stared and tried to fight down the urge to bolt...though how long he would be able to fight that particular urge was up in the air.
Neuro grabbed onto Henry's shoulders, pulling him into a sitting position "Calm down now... I was only thinking of cutting you up. I don't think I'll actually do it." That was probably bad to say to someone who was about to have a panic attack. But perhaps he would calm down if he knew Neuro meant no harm.
At the moment, of course.
"Now breathe before you hyperventilate."
Henry did as he was told, exhaling loudly and gulping in a mouthful of fresh air. His body had gone rigid after feeling the person yank him upward and now he sat with his shoulders tucked inward as far as they could go, trying desperately to make himself disappear into thin air. It wasn't working.
The voice sounded rational. Not particularly reassuring, what with the whole "cutting you up" bit, but at least halfway rational. The knowledge that this was probably merely an intruder then, and not some manifestation of evil spirits or the Other World come back to haunt him, really wasn't much of a comfort though. Either way he was still in bed with a person he didn't know hovering right above him, who may or may not at one point have been seriously considering hurting him in some fashion.
Peachy.
"There. That's better, isn't it?" With a wide smile, Neuro let go of the man's shoulders. This man was hilarious. Getting so upset over someone in his room... "You need to relax. If you don't, you could very well give yourself a heart attack." Shaking his head, the demon glanced around the room, his head tilting.
"And I suppose that while you have nothing worth noting in this room aside from yourself, why would you keep the door open? People could just barge right in..." His smiled turned a bit more sinister. "And they might not be a nice as I am."
As soon as the person released his shoulders Henry scooted back on the bed as far as he could, his back bumping up against the headboard before he finally stopped moving. Perhaps it was a little irrational to get so worked up over something he'd brought upon himself...but what was he supposed to do? Sleep in the hallway?
Rationality is an illusion...
...remember, even Walter seemed rational the first time you met him.
"C-Claustrophobia," he explained eventually, stammering in a soft tenor. So maybe it wasn't exactly a perfect explanation for what was wrong with him...it was damn close enough.
"Claustrophobia?" He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "What use it there to be afraid of enclosed spaces? There are such worse things to be afraid of..." To prove the point, Neuro pulled a cobra from his pocket, letting the animal coil around his fingers.
Normally, he would just have a conversation with out scaring who ever he was speaking with, but this guy was priceless and after being human for so long, he was feeling mean.
"Now this... This is something that would be rational to fear."
Hadn't he just gotten finished telling Crowley that he wasn't afraid of snakes, not that long ago…?
The cobra in the stranger's hands, though, was apparently another matter altogether. Not only did he know for a fact that cobras were some of the deadliest snakes in existence (he'd watched that damn TV show last year on the nature channel), but to see one suddenly appear in his room, wielded by the intruder in the dark.... Henry suddenly became very still, eyes wide, wanting to bolt but now unable to for fear of suddenly coming face to face with the snake. Didn't snakes track movement?
He didn't know. He didn't really want to find out, either. A slight sound, what could be called a squeak, escaped the man as he pressed back against the headboard of the bed.
Neuro chuckled as he watched Henry's reaction. Easy. He was just... Too easy. He grabbed the snake and put it back into his pocket, ignore the fact that it bit him twice in the process. A small part of his brain sent up an alarm before he remembered he was a demon again.
Smiling wide enough so that the points of his teeth were showing, Neuro dropped down from the celing to land next to the bed. "Now now... What did I say? You need to breathe before you make yourself pass out."
Finally the correct series of synapses triggered in Henry's brain and he found that his body was working again. As the man (man? creature?) dropped down next to the bed Henry bolted the other way, bare feet falling to the floor on the other side of the bed so that he was directly across from the person. His breath came heavily now that he was on his feet, almost as if he were unconsciously obeying the stranger's orders....
"W-Who are you?" Henry gasped through the dark. He took a single step backward, bracing his foot in case he had to make a run for it. He would have to run left, though--directly behind him were his desk and his wardrobe, and to the right the wall. "W-What are you doing in h-here?" he stammered.
Neuro clicked his tongue "You're far too stressed, calm down. You'll get wrinkles." He glanced around the room with a frown. It really was plain. That wasn't fun.
"Oh yes. You asked who I was." He smiled and bowed "I'm Neuro. Nougami Neuro.Detective and demon, at your service." He straightened and smiled "As for what I am doing... Your door was open. I was curious."
Confusion registered on Henry's scruffy face. His eyebrows knit together under the mess of shaggy hair that fell down nearly to his eyes, and he simply stared at the demon across from him for a moment. His left hand clenched into a fist and unclenched again, more of a nervous tick or a sign that he was getting ready to run than a desire for violence, however.
"Curious?" he echoed softly, glancing quickly toward the door and back to the demon again. "Y-You...you c-couldn't have...asked?"
"What fun is there is asking? If I can investigate something, why should I ask?" He spread out his arms with a smiled "Besides. You were sleeping. It would have been rude to wake you up and ask."
Slowly, as Neuro spoke, Henry began to edge for the door. He hadn't exactly decided at this point whether he was really going for the door or simply the light switch next to it, but he figured that one of the two alternatives would probably emerge as the clear winner by the time he made it all the way there. He walked sideways, passing one leg behind the other as he moved...slowly...
one...step....
His head tilted, following Henry's slow walk to the door. "You know... I introduced myself, but you never told me who you are. I thought that it was customary when one states their name, that the other does the same... "
He laced his fingers together with a smile "So who are you?"
Henry's jaw tightened. Now, of all things, he was being asked to introduce himself? To the person (demon!) that had just waltzed right on into his room in the middle of the night? Uh uh, no way.
The slow sneaking turned into walking. He'd had enough of this. Time to turn the lights on and get this creep out of his room. He was tired, and scared, and just wanted this to be over.
Henry turned and headed for the door, unfortunately having to turn his back to Neuro to do so. As he neared the door he reached a hand out to flick on the lights. "I think I'd prefer it if you would just leave, actually," he stated, his voice still quiet but this time more firm than it had been previously.
He raised an eyebrow with a snort "Leave? Why should I? You haven't told me who you are." Neuro leaned back against the wall, his arms crossing. "And perhaps I like it here."
He didn't. He just wanted another reason besides 'You haven't introduced yourself'. 'I don't want to' was a nice excuse though.
"Maybe I don't like you here," Henry shot back, unable to bite his tongue before the remark could slip out. He was normally a very polite person, but he supposed he could forgive himself this one transgression. The circumstances certainly warranted it. The overhead lights flickered on, causing Henry to blink rapidly as his eyes adjusted.
"And before you ask again--"
Henry grabbed the door and pulled it open, brightening the room even more as the pale light from the hallway flooded in. "My name's on the goddamn door." He pointed up to the plate across the front of the door, where Henry Townshend was spelled out in neat block lettering.
Looking at the door, he blinked a bit at the sudden light. Once his eyes adjusted he moved to the door, hand running over the letters.
"Henry Townshend... That's American, isn't it?" Why yes he was going to ignore his request that he leave. He wanted to stay, so he would.
Henry held the doorknob in one hand and used the other to massage his temples. What had started out as something truly frightening and potentially worse had turned into...an annoyance.
Maybe all demons were annoying. Some kind of racial trait? The couple he'd met so far now would seem to support that theory. Although Crowley's annoyances he could handle (most of the time). This one--
"Yes, it's American. I'm American. My name is Henry Townshend. I'm from Pennsylvania, if you're really curious," he stated in a monotone. "Now can I please get back to bed? I promise to lock the door like a good boy from now on."
"Pennsylvania..." He tapped his chin thoughtfully "I'm not very familiar with America. I need to read more about it..." Again with the ignoring. Oh my how he loved bothering the humans.
"I think I was in Japan before I came here, but I can't be sure since I believe the castle took those memories." Rambling was always good.
Yeah, this guy was starting to sound and act way too much like the other demon Henry knew.
Only without the cute.
"Look, I'm going to shut the door now, and you're going to be on that side of it--" he pointed out into the hallway, "--and I'm going to stay in here. Then I'm going to lock the door, and I'm going to get some sleep. Okay?"
And now Neuro finally turned his attention to Henry. "Oh? And how are you going to make me leave? Force me out?" He laughed "You really don't seem the type to do anything to anyone."
Henry sighed. Goddammit...it was too late for this kind of shit. He'd actually been sleeping earlier too. This could have been such a great night.
"Look, I don't want any trouble or anything, but I would really appreciate it if you would just leave now," he replied slowly. "If you want we can even have lunch together sometime or something, and I can explain why I left my door open."
Henry laid a hand on Neuro's sleeve, in an attempt to guide the demon out the door. "It's not a very fascinating story but if you'd like to hear it, then fine. Whatever. Now please--"
"Why not just tell me now why we're both here." He moved back from the door to nose around a bit in the room. Nothing out of the ordinary was in view, but maybe he could find something if he looked hard enough.
"Because I want to go to bed," Henry said through gritted teeth. He watched helplessly, frustration growing, as the demon slid his arm from his grip and started wandering around the room. "Look, did someone put you up to this or something? Cause you can go back and tell them to have their laugh. They won. Whatever."
"Now can fuck-around-with-Henry time be over?"
"No one put me up to this. I all ready told you that I came in because your door was open." Neuro made it to the desk, his eyes locking the folder there. Oh! Interesting things were kept in folders~
Picking it up, he flipped through it, he face twisting with a frown the more papers he saw. Just sketches? Boring. Dreadfully so. With a sigh, he closed the folder and tossed it behind him. Useless and boring. Was there anything interesting about this man?
Something inside Henry snapped. It was one thing to have some random person wandering around in his room and annoying him with silly questions...
..and quite another for said random stranger to pick up his personal possessions--work that he'd spent hours upon hours on, no less--and just toss them aside like so many useless scraps of paper.
He was going to get this jerk out of his room even if he had to beat him into unconsciousness and drag him out into the hallway.
Henry strode over to Neuro, crossing the distance between them quickly, and without thinking launched a right hook at the demon.
Neuro didn't move when Henry came and hit him. And after, all he did was smirk and rub his jaw. "My my. Looks as though the little mouse has a bite. Now, if you wanted to play that way, you should have just said so."
He placed his hands on Henry's shoulders in what would have been a friendly manner if his fingers hadn't grown longer and had developed points. His face morphed, changing into somthing that some what resembled a bird's beak with pointy teeth and eyes.
"I would be more then happy to indulge you, of course, if you wanted to fight."
Henry's resolve faltered for a split-second and the breath caught in his throat. It wasn't as though he'd never seen anything strange or grotesque before...but the guy was changing right in front of him. If nothing else it was enough to give him pause.
After that initial bit of shock, however, the determination returned to his face and he threw himself backward against Neuro's grip. His hands remained balled into fists--should he not be able to break free of the demon's grasp he might need them.
He let the other man go with a laugh, spreading his arms "Oh you're just too fun Mouse..." Neuro's gloved fingers changed further, now more resembling blades then the apendages they originally were.
As he stood with his arms out, smoke started to come out from the sleeves of his jacket, coiling up to the celing. After a few seconds, arms formed in the smoke. The limbs pushed against the smoke, as though trying to eascape.
"Well Mouse... You don't mind if some others come to play, do you?" In actuality, the smoke and hands were just an illusion. Though he could summon other creatures from Hell, the way this man acted caused Neuro to feel that he didn't need to.
Henry staggered back, staring in growing horror as the talons extending from Neuro's hands began to appear even larger and more blade-like. He might not even have paid any attention to the smoke cloud had it not come between the light fixture on the ceiling and the rest of the room, effectively blotting out the major light source in the room and plunging the both of them into shadows. Henry's gaze turned upward in time to see the hands emerge from the cloud, stretching as if trying to break free.
The wall men--
reaching--
coming through the walls--
He glanced back down at Neuro, panic now evident on his face once again. The light (or lack thereof) played tricks on his eyes, creating grotesque shadows across the demon's distorted features and distended hands.
Thoroughly lost now to a terror born both from the present situation and a collection of rather traumatic memories, Henry took another step back--or tried to, anyway. Instead he fell backward, catching himself in a sort of sitting position.
Neuro was able to keep his composure for a good thirty seconds before his hands folded over his stomach as he doubled over laughing. The smoke twisted back inside his jacket, as though being sucked up with a vacuum. His fingers returned to their normal shape, because he'd rather not cut himself with his own fingers laughing.
His face morphed back as well, returning Neuro completly to his more human self. A more human self that had to clutch on to the desk to stop himself from falling over laughing, his other hand still holding his side.
It took...far too long for Henry to snap out of it.
Even after the smoke cloud disappeared and the light in the room returned to its normal level, even after the blade-like talons retracted, even after Neuro was pretty much a normal looking guy again...Henry simply sat there, on the floor, looking shocked. Dazed. Numb.
With a final little snicker, Neuro was able to gain control of himself. Untill he looked at Henry and had to turn away just to stop himself from laughing again.
"Oh... Mouse, you're just far too amusing. Something as simple as that..." He laughed again then picked Henry off the floor "Now now! The you have better things to sit on than the floor if you really want to sit." He brushed the other man's clothes off like an annoying mother. Yes he had just scared the other man, but that was no reason for him to be on the floor
Henry still couldn't respond. The room and the man before him had returned to their normal states, but in his mind things were entirely different. He couldn't blink without seeing something from the Other World...the images were so vivid that for a time they seemed to superimpose themselves upon what his eyes were actually seeing, even when open. He could still see the wall men, emerging from the shadows, reaching for him--
--so when Neuro grabbed him and hauled him to his feet it jolted Henry, hard. The man gasped, just a little, his bruised psyche still trying to separate memory from reality. He stood still, too dazed to do anything else at the moment, while Neuro brushed him off.
After brushing him off, it was then that Neuro notice the lack of response from the man. He frowned, bringing his face close to Henry's.
"Mouse. Did I cause you to have a mental breakdown? Because if I did, I'll have to pat myself on the back. That would be the quickest I've broken someone."
His eyes remained unfocused, his gaze far off, but Henry was still aware of his surroundings to a certain extent. When Neuro's face neared his own the man flinched, drawing his shoulders inward and leaning back an almost imperceptible amount.
He blinked a couple of times, shaking his head, though if he was actually starting to snap out of it...it was going to be a long, slow process.
Neuro huffed then led Henry to his bed "All right then Mouse. I suppose you need to back to sleep and recover. My, that really didn't take long though. One illusion..." With a small giggle, Neuro pushed the man on to his bed then crossed his arms over his chest
"Would you like me to tuck you in? Read you a story? Perhaps, get you something to drink?"
Almost instinctively Henry slid from the bed, dropping down into the corner of the room between the bed and the wardrobe, and huddled into a ball. He drew his knees up to his bare chest and hugged them with both arms, dropping his chin down to his knees. At this angle, the numbers "21121" could be seen very visibly on the back of his neck...it looked as though they'd been carved into his flesh with a knife or some other sharp implement.
Neuro blinked, looming over the man. "Oh? What's this there Mouse?" He ran his finger the third one.
"Well. Little Mouse has a secret. Doesn't look like you'd be telling me about it any time soon though." He laughed, patting Henry on the head "Don't worry. I'll save the questions for when you're actually able to answer them." He looked to the door "I'll just have to remember your room number so I can come talk to you again..."
((ooc: apologies that I didn't get this up earlier like I said I would...my morning didn't really go how I planned it--to put things lightly ^^;;; ))