Once even I was a little child. and I was afraid.

[wishgrant]

Who: Luca Macken ( wishgrant ) and Alois Trancy ( masterbaiting ).
When: Tuesday evening, round 4-ish?
Where: Shota Phancyhive Manor!
Summary: Following this thread, this quick log and this late night call, Luca makes the choice to avoid his big brother. Big brother notices. It's time for them to talk.
Warnings: Possible foul language courtesy of Alois? Epic amounts of

Comments

[masterbaiting]

"No no no no no-" It's immediate, and it doesn't convey the self-loathing he feels. "Say. Oi, Luca, you see anyone mad around here? I sure don't see a mad guy, and if there was one I'd kick his ass and drown him anyhow. No one's mad, you don't need to be fussing." For all that he says, his tone is probably the least admonishing thing ever. He holds his shaky baby brother and tries to wipe his face; his fingers mingle with Luca's tiny ones.

And he softens further, and he melts because Luca has always been warm enough to melt him; he cradles and he tries very, very hard not to break glasses and mirrors and bones.

"You don't have to be sorry to me. You don't. You don't have to be sorry to anyone." (It's the world who should be apologizing. It should get down on its knees and beg for Luca to bless it.)

He doesn't want to ask, he doesn't want to ask, he doesn't want to ask, but he kind of does want to ask, and since self control is hard to come by, it tumbles out.

"Tell me about the- it. Tell me about the demon." He doesn't want to know. He really has to know.

[wishgrant]

Luca grasps at his brother's hands, giving a watery laugh. "You can't drown people for being mad, Brother."

The questions surpises him, and for a moment his face goes blank. Because Luca may have been young, but he certainly wasn't stupid. He'd suspected Alois was trying to avoid that detail, avoid talking of the lady no matter how much Luca mentioned her.

And then, he smiles, even with his eyes still teary, and his breath still coming out in little hiccups. "She was pretty. An' her hair was really long, and it moved a lot when she walked. I thought only old people had white hair, but hers was white too and it was really pretty. An' her eyes were red like everyone say demons have. B-but she didn't have horns or anything. Everyone says demons are supposed to be scary, but she wasn't." He keeps Alois's hands in his own as he speaks, tiny fingers holding on like he might up and leave at any moment.

( --Aren't you afirad of demons? No, of death?-- )

And he had been, at first, but it was only momentary because....because.

Because even if Luca died, his brother would be happy. He would have the ultimate happiness. ( And Luca had been far too young, too naive, to look past the happiness his brother would have at first. Couldn't foresee the grief he would feel to be without his brother, the lonliness, or the suffering after. And he sees that now, sees that even if his wish was called "selfless" by others, it was selfish too.-- )

"An' she said that what everyone said was true. That if I gave her my soul, she could grant a wish for me, no matter what it was. An' I asked if she could grant Brother's for me, to make everyone completely gone. An' she could." And he smiles, looking just as bright-eyed and excited as he had that day. "An' sometimes when we were at home and in the village, she watched us, so nothin' would happen." He's not sure exactly what Alois wants to know, so he babbles on, clearly fond of the demon. "An' she was really serious at first, but nice. An' sometimes when we were talkin', she'd look at me kind of funny and give me a hug. I liked her. I asked her name once, 'cause it was weird calling her Demon all the time. You remember that girl in the village? The one with yellow hair like yours, an' she wore a red bow in it?"
He sits up straighter. "She had the same name as the girl, Hannah. It's a pretty name, isn't it? She said her name was Hannah, an' I didn't have to call her Miss at all." It's the first time he's actually said the name to anyone else. Even after Hannah had told him her name, he'd kept calling her "Demon" out of habit, like he couldn't believe she really was one. ( And it's one thing to question: How did Luca Macken call a demon down that night? )

"And then I asked her. What would happen after she took my soul? What would happen to you? An' she told me, you'd be happy, just like I wanted. An’ ‘cause she was going to eat my soul, I’d be with her always, and we’d go to you, so we’d all be together. She’d stay by your side so we could both be with you after, an’ no one would make us sad or angry anymore.”

[masterbaiting]

Hannah.
Fucking.
Annafellows.

...Alois had not always hated Hannah. There had been a wariness at all times - she was a demon and she... stared at him - but he had not always hated her. Sometimes he liked to watch her mop. But she watched him, too, and it was unsettling, and he could not bear her eyes which held something so unfamiliar.

Looking back on it, it wasn't unfamiliar at all. He just hadn't seen it since Luca's time.

One of Alois' greatest wants right now is for Hannah to be here. He can imagine it, he can picture himself atop her, he can feel the cracking press of throat against his angry palms and he can feel the fury he'd know upon once again realizing that she is not a thing that needs to breathe. He could strangle her all day and nothing would happen.

He really likes the 'strangling all day' part of that, though.

"She was really good to you, huh?" And Alois is horrified by everything. "She was- did you- yeah-"

He wants to tear her other eye out. He wants to drive his foot into her stomach, he wants to beat her vertebrae with the heel of his boot. He wants to pull all of her hair out, smack her mouth until her lips don't work, he wants-

Where exactly does a soul go, once it's inside of a demon?

"She came," he says, and he's disgusted by it. -Not it, actually; 'himself.' Could Luca feel things? Would Luca have known? Was Hannah-? "She didn't lie." Demons lie. "I just-" Bile. "Didn't know, and-" Swallow. "'Cos I had one too-"

One of his hands is grabbing his own wrist as though it really is Hannah's neck.

"So we were together," he says, voice shaking only marginally, and he wants to press his face against his little brother's chest and weep and weep and weep because none of this makes any sense and he hates demons and he hates everything about them and he doesn't understand why Claude would never look at him the way Hannah did and he doesn't understand why he could never get Hannah to stop looking at him the way Claude wouldn't. He thinks, This is Luca and I have to keep taking it. He thinks, I can't lose my shit in front of him. He thinks, I can't keep fucking this up.

But you know what? He does. With his hands at Luca's back and his face against a tiny ribcage, he cries his eyes out, and he tries to explain with, "I didn't know. You are so good."

[wishgrant]

The crying surprises him, and his hands instinctively go to his Brother's head, cradling the blond against his smaller chest. He doesn't tell him to stop crying this time, just holding onto his brother, curling a little so he can hug him properly as he cries.

They were together. Hannah had gone to Brother just like she had promised him she would. It's relieves the knot that had formed in his stomach over night, and pulls some of the tension from his shoulders. He'd granted Brother's wish and been with him forever after that.

But it bothered him. 'Cos I had one too--. Brother had one. Had a--

"You had a demon?" And now his brow furrows, mouth turning down in a worried frown and voice dropping to a whisper. "Why? Brother? ..No. You can't. You're not allowed. You...don't give away your soul. Revoke the contract! Make them take it back! You can't!"