tushanshu_logs | Grave digger, grave digger

Entry tags:

Grave digger, grave digger | October Catchall

Characters: Pepper Potts, Devin Parker, and you!
Date: Throughout October
Location: Around Keeliai
Situation: The spooky happenings has everyone a little on edge, and Devin is having an especially bad month.
Warnings/Rating: Death, possible mentions of violence and abuse. Will specify as needed.

A. [Pepper] KPD | Throughout October | Open

The uptick in crime doesn't leave the KPD extraordinarily busy, but between the rise in illegal activity and the strange, unsettling things resulting from the odd planar activity, things are definitely more tense. Pepper tries to just focus on work, but occasionally she'll do something slightly odd around her desk, such as tossing grains of salt over her shoulder. She does try to keep the superstitions out of the office, for the most part, but the creepy incidents are more distracting than she'd like. Sometimes, she's actually quite cheerful, and begins decorating some areas of the headquarters as though nothing is amiss.

B. [Pepper] Jade Dojo | Mid October | Bakura

Pepper has taken to spending some nights over at Bakura's apartment lately, complete with having claimed one of his drawers for some of her things. The concerns over the planes thinning hang over most of the city, but nothing explosive seemed to be happening, and really she ought to be more accustomed to ghosts and spectres given who she's dating. Lounging around together under the blankets seems like a good option to distract from anything unsettling, especially as the temperature starts to drop since cold weather is not at all Bakura's favorite.

C. [Pepper] Earth Sector | Mid October | Raine

So, ghosts. Yeah. That's-- that's a thing that's happening. That's a thing that's currently happening to her, along with lots of other people in Keeliai, and it's unsettling and scary and also... kind of amazing, in some ways. She hasn't seen her mother since she was six, and a ghost is still better than nothing, and everyone at the house has something going on, so instead of rambling her panic/excitement at Tony and Gene and Bakura all month, she goes to visit Raine. It's been a little while since they've just hung out, and if anyone can help her find some more calm about this situation, it's her friend. She knocks a little hesitatingly on Raine's door, glancing at the redheaded ghost over her shoulder with a nervous smile.

D. [Devin] Sky Sector | Early October | Open

The chill in the air doesn't both Devin at all; England was cold and misty for no small part of the year. The sudden shift is a bit odd, but that was par for the course in this city as far as he could tell. He spends part of his time continuing with his mapping routine, and while he's at it he considers more seriously where he might move to. Devin has very few possessions, so one of the smaller lodgings made available to Foreigners would be ideal. He's more aloof and even irritable, avoiding extended conversations and familiar faces.

E. [Devin] Metal Sector | Mid October | Open

Devin returns to the Metal Sector to test his memory of the streets partway through the month. The tension in the city is evident wherever he goes, and while he's not immune to it, routine has always helped. That is, of course, until he spots two faces he hasn't seen in over a century, and his blood runs cold. He stops abruptly as their attention turns to him, frozen in what can only be described as fear. This is dread he doesn't even know how to hide - so he runs, darting away in a blur and only halting when he's half a sector away and hidden in an alleyway.

F. [Devin] Turtle's Head | Mid-Late October | Open

His family hasn't ceased haunting him no matter where he goes, and now it's all five of his siblings as well as his parents. The sense of calm at the turtle's head helps a little, but Devin keeps away from anyone else who's there, finding as secluded an area as he can. He's shaken in a way he hasn't felt in years and years, and he's giving very serious consideration to leaving the city altogether in an effort to distance himself from it's inhabitants and battle with his panic in peace. If anyone decides to interrupt the spectres currently following Devin with abusive, personal diatribe, they should be prepared to deal with a nasty vampire. See: cornered animal.

(OOC note: Let me know if you want a specific starter, or feel free to write up your own!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Devin gave a single, sharp laugh and turned away, running his hands over his face. He had to calm down and he didn't know how. The world seemed to be spinning away from him, like everything he knew had somehow been proven wrong. It was irrational, a distant part of his mind understood that, but solid ground felt very far away.

"You think your empathy tells you so much, don't you? It gives you an advantage over everyone," he said stiffly. Her knowing exactly what emotions were tearing through him was as much a violation in this moment as anything his family had done, even though it wasn't her fault except for the fact that she stayed. "How long will it be until you decide to use this against me, too, hm? You've never been shy about prodding what hurts."

Her empathy did award certain advantages, but feeling everything so very deeply, especially those emotions that didn't belong to her, had been crippling more than once.

"I poke," she replied, fighting off the dizziness that came with whatever he was feeling, "And I prod, because I need you to think, and unlike you, I don't do it to push people away. I know my limits. I can feel the line and I don't cross it."

Hila shoved her head under Valdis' hand, offering physical support to offset the dizziness.

"Oh, yes, because clearly I've never thought of anything you've thrown at me before," he shot back. "The arrogance of that is astounding."

Devin squared his shoulders, hands on his hips, but he wouldn't look back at her. "You did cross the line. Just because you drew a different one does not mean you haven't tread where you are not welcome. No one--"

No one had ever seen him quite like this since he killed his parents. No one living, at least, there might have been a few in those early days, but it made no difference. This was as personal as it got for him, and she had not been invited, she had not given him the choice to share or not share. She'd simply barged in, and even if she was trying to help him, it meant the secret was lost to him now. He couldn't hide it away until he was ready.

"You are such a hypocrite. How is what I do any different from your poking and prodding?" She asked, "How is it different from the time you goaded me into fighting you? Or the time you thought I was letting personal bias get in the way of my work?"

Hypocrite. Traitor. Murderer.

Valdis ignored the whispers, "We all have secret nightmares, and this place has an unfortunate tendency to force them into the open."

Secret nightmares? We are more than a nightmare. Do you want them gone? We are eager to help.

Valdis tipped her head, that wasn't the ghosts.

"Because I am trying to protect people from me," Devin bellowed before he could stop himself, pivoting on his heel. "Because I am trying to keep everyone else safe from the hell I bring with me! This isn't a nightmare, Valdis, this is my life. I was six the first time my father beat me within an inch of death, and that is the kind of horror and brutality my kind perpetrate on anyone they don't like. Everyone near me is a target for it simply because I exist, and I will not suffer one single person to go through what I did if I can do anything about it."

He exhaled in a huff, fingers clenching and unclenching. "And don't tell me that it's different here, that I can somehow let go of an entire lifetime of war overnight when I know what I'm going back to. Don't even start."

"That's the problem, Devin," Valdis replied, chillingly calm in the face of his anger as she started to cut herself off from all emotion. "We don't need your protection. We all had lives before Keeliai, Devin, we know how to care for ourselves."

In fact, she was slightly offended by the fact that he thought otherwise.

"I'm not asking you to let go of your war. Some scars run far too deep for that." She should know, her soul was covered in them, "I understand that your life was, and is, painful, but you don't have to face your monsters alone."

Always alone. The serpent hissed.

The two ghost hounds had started circling again, expanding to include Devin in the pattern, though they kept their distance.

The ghostly Hounds got only a cursory glance. They couldn't actually attack, so there wasn't much point in worrying about them, even if their presence was irritating. Valdis wasn't wrong; the evil he fought was absent here, but there were deeper problems.

"I don't know any other way; I can't spend an eternity losing people," he managed, his voice breaking. "And I can't spend an eternity trying to find people who can just disregard that I am the monster. I have had enough with being abandoned and hated for what I am, and I don't have room for hope."

Valdis sighed, "I'm not sure you understand the definition of hope. But Devin, you can't protect yourself from loss. I'm immortal and I still hurt when I lose people I care about. But caring about them made me better."

Not that their lives could relate in that. He had always cared, whereas she spent two thousand years not giving a damn.

"Have you ever considered that by accepting that others might care, you would be defying everything your family says?"

Devin could sure as hell try to escape an infinity of grief. It had worked out alright thus far, although losing those few friends he has made was extremely difficult. Valdis might be right, but what this incident has proven was that the abuse had wired him for sound - he was reacting in ways that he could barely control, and that couldn't be undone easily. They had had this argument before, about choosing to push people away.

Perhaps he cared too much already, and the idea of caring more scared him witless.

"Have you considered that I've tried? I let someone in, I let myself believe I could be something else, that I could somehow be better, and it nearly destroyed me," he countered hoarsely. "She gave me the god damned world and then she shattered everything good I thought I had, and I can't go through that again."

Valdis looked down, her hand tightening on Hila's fur. She didn't remember love before Dante. She still missed him, and she probably always would.

"You're still here, aren't you?" She asked, "Your heart might not beat, but you are still alive. That says something."

More than it said about her. She lived only because she couldn't die.

"Not for lack of trying on her part," he returned darkly.

Devin ran a hand through his hair, grasping for some sense of calm. Being this unbalanced was extremely uncomfortable, and he had the feeling it wouldn't stop any time soon now that Valdis had seen him exposed. He paced away and leaned against the rocks, attempting to slow his breathing.

"Why couldn't you have just left like I told you to?" he asked more quietly.

Valdis resisted the urge to ask for the story behind that comment. He seemed to be calming, so she lowered her guard, letting her empathetic senses calm as well.

"It's not in my nature."

It could have meant many things. Hila's ears perked up, and the ka looked at Devin as if she knew something that no one else did. Valdis didn't move, the Hounds circling closer, though still including Devin in their pattern.

Devin's eyes were on the ground, so he didn't notice the subtle shift around him. Melting into the ground and disappearing seemed like a good idea right about now.

"You had no right to see that," he told her, exhaustion in his tone overpowering how angry he was with her. He wasn't prepared for anyone to know what had happened to him, not like that. It was one thing to talk about it, and another to be undone by his past in front of someone he didn't willingly entrust that to. That old grief and guilt he couldn't identify the source of welled up and made his chest feel tight. "And you cannot possibly understand all of what it means. If there is ever a reason to bring them up, that is my choice. You don't get to decide that for me."

"Don't act as if you know me," she spat, irritation beginning to show in her eyes, "I know enough of pain to not ask and I didn't plan on pressing you on it. As I said, I know the boundaries and I would never push into something that so obviously causes someone the amount of pain this is causing you."

The green was fading from her eyes, slowly being replaced by a muddy red.

"You are the one who came here, to a public place, so don't blame me for seeing them and attempting to act in your defense."

The flinch in response to Valdis' words was entirely instinctive; he was still on a hair trigger. Devin ground the heel of his palms against his eyes. It was going to take every shred of will he had left to drag back some semblance of control and rationality when all he wanted to do was scream at her.

Not just her. He wanted to scream at everyone, everything. The only option that was less public than here was to pick a direction away from the city and start walking, if he could keep from running. At least then he'd actually be alone, if without the benefit of the peace this place offered.

Perhaps that would be better. If he just kept going, he'd get far enough away that when he starved, no one would get hurt. The city would be safe from him, and he might find a temporary respite until the magic brought him back.

"Fine," he muttered.

Valdis sighed, closing her eyes and shaking her head, taking the moment to breathe and release her own tension. Her eyes had returned to their normal green when she opened them again.

"There's a shrine in the mountains," she said, "few know about it, but if you need peace and secrecy, that's where to go. Just ignore the..." bloodstains, but they were old and she had cleaned up afterward. "Never mind. Go there, I'll see that someone brings you food so you don't go crazy."

Why she even cared enough to tell him of the place when he so clearly wanted to be angry and self destructive, she didn't know.

Devin let the rock take more of his weight, not relaxing so much as sagging, and he bit back a retort about sparing him her pity. Some old shrine was objectively better than starving to death, even if finding it might take a little doing.

Anger was easier than letting everything in. It was a shield, even he knew that, but on some days it was all he had to keep him sane.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm not already there," he said, barely audible.

His words still reached her ears, causing a brow to lift. "Well, you haven't tried to kill anyone yet, so I doubt it."

Emotions didn't make someone crazy.

"There are different kinds of insanity," he grumbled back at her. Feral rage was only one of them. Feeling adrift like this didn't seem so far off from being crazed. Reality was largely what one made of it, and Devin's didn't feel stable any longer. Maybe he would get lucky and the shades of his family wouldn't come back.

He couldn't count on it. Of all the vampires he killed, it had to be them who appeared.

"True," she inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement. "But at least you aren't host to a monster who whispers to you in the night and tries to take your soul upon occasion."

She glanced at the ghost hounds, who paused in their circling to growl at her.

"Because I'm pretty sure being possessed by such a creature makes me a bit more susceptible to insanity."

By now, Devin had returned to a sitting position, arms folded across his knees. He snorted quietly and rested his head against the rock.

"I am fairly certain this isn't a contest," he told her wearily. The thing he was host to didn't whisper to him, thankfully, but it was often on his mind and had more of an impact on his behavior than Devin consciously realized.

"Of course not," Valdis replied, looking down at him as he slid into a sitting position. "My point is that you aren't insane. And you alone are in control of your life here. No one else."

Besides, if it were a contest, she'd probably win based on her somewhat tumultuous history.

"You'd think I would find that refreshing," Devin sighed.

There had to be irony in that, although it didn't feel like he had control in this moment. His family were from a time in his life that was well before control had any place in it. The six or seven years after their deaths had been marked by a wake of undiscriminating violence.

"Would you prefer the alternative?" Valdis asked, not bothering to hide her surprise. Control over her own life was something she treasured about being in Keeliai, it seemed odd that others might not feel the same.

"In the grand scheme of the universe, I've never actually had the alternative," he clarified bitterly.

That wasn't entirely true, but Devin wasn't aware of the choice he had made to reach this state of being.

"There are some things you can never escape," he added more quietly. "Much as I have tried."

;_______;

/sobs

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