Snippet Sunday

look. i tried to make this snip shorter. i really did. but we kind of need all the context for this to make sense. so have all the context! here's Vy and Jules(?) having a super fun conversation in Spark Signature:

cw: possession, self-harm, blood

There was a time when Jules’s apartment felt more like a home than Vy’s own. When they’d make the drive from the Othello Academy down to Rainier Beach, it was never with the looming dread of having to face people who only cared for them out of obligation—out of love for somebody else. When they went home with Jules, they weren’t going home to Erik and Minh; they were going home to no one.

At that time, more than anything else, that was what Vy had needed.

Jules’s apartment now is nothing like home and everything like a cage. And, in spite of Vy’s wishes, it’s anything but empty.

Jules paces the kitchen, running his hands along the countertops, over his arms, through his hair. His voice—a low, constant murmur—fills the air like haze, clinging to every surface and making Vy’s hair stand on end. He doesn’t even seem to hear the door open, doesn’t see Vy at all. Not until they’re standing across the bar from him, a world and an island and a foot-and-a-half away. He blinks—slow, catlike. “…Vy?”

The surreality, the incongruence, the wrongness of it all dries Vy’s mouth, coats their tongue in sand. But they have to say something, do something. “You, uh… you okay?”

“Fine.” He crosses his arms; his hand wraps around the flexed muscle of his biceps and he flinches. A moment of hesitation; he props his hip against the bar instead, tail lashing. “You’ve been out for a long time.”

“Just. You know. Working.” What is wrong with him? Does he know where Vy’s been, that Vy knows? Sure, Vy came back to tell him, to ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing, but that’d been when Vy thought they’d have the upper hand, the first shot, not that Jules would be lurking around the apartment, all—

“You smell… strange.”

Okay, what the actual fuck? “I… took the maglev?”

“No. Strange like blood, strange like…” His nostrils flare. His wings twitch. Not that nervous twitch, that Jules twitch. This feels… preparatory. Predatory. “What did you see?”

The answer comes out like thinking, like breathing. They couldn’t hold it in if they tried. “You.” It hangs in the air between them, a ghost of what Vy’d witnessed, what Jules had done. When he says nothing, they continue: “That person—Dr. Poole—what happened? What’d you do?”

“Nothing.” It’s not a word; it’s a hiss. A baring of teeth. “Nothing they didn’t deserve.”

It’s not him. It’s not him, but it’s fierce and feral and familiar. It’s bloodstained lips on a holoscreen, eyes like frozen blood glaring across a pub table.

Vy’s never believed in possession; people, once dead, were content to stay that way. But, before Jules, they’d never heard of Sparks lingering after separating from their bodies, either.

Jules found the Ether by accident; who’s to say nobody in the Ether noticed? What would stop someone from using him to hitch a ride back to the material plane?

“Jules, if you can hear me?” Vy edges away from the counter, back towards the door. “I need you to come back, now.”

“What did you see, exactly?” Not-Jules slinks around the kitchen counter, into striking range. “It’s easy to… misinterpret a situation, isn’t it?”

“Totally. So easy.” Their combats scuff over the entryway’s mat. “You know, that’s… probably it. I just misunderstood. Silly me! I’ll just…” their fingers search for the button, the door’s interior release, “head back out. See what else I can find today—”

“No. This is more important.” Claws click across the vinyl stone floor. “We need to clear this up. We wouldn’t want the wrong information getting—”

Vy’s hand finds the button. The door hisses open behind them.

Not-Jules stops. “Vy.” They tilt their head, a razorblade smile splitting their lips. “Don’t run from me.”

Vy stumbles back, through the door into the hallway. The stairwell’s enclosed; if they go that way, they’ll have nowhere to run. The elevator can be stopped remotely; it’s even worse. They turn and sprint towards the end of the hall—the fire escape.

“Vy!” They glance over their shoulder; Not-Jules stands in the hallway, claws digging into their own forearms. Blood wells in their wake, flowing and glowing and crackling.

Hemomancer. Not-Jules is a hemomancer.

“Don’t fucking run from me.”

Spark Signature taglist (ask to be added or removed): @leah-yasmin-writes, @unrepentantcheeseaddict, @ceph-the-ghost-writer, @mundanemoongirl

Snippet Sunday

More Posts from Mundanemoongirl