Log: Complete

[revelations9x6.livejournal.com]

When; Oct. 30th ( Night )

Rating; R for sexual situations, and disturbing plot?

Characters; revelations9x6 Xulchibara, wisdom_rcvr Henry Townshend

Summary; The Red God teaches Henry about the birds and the bees how to use his new powers, and what his new role is.

Log;


...
Henry had been spending a lot of time in his room lately. This wasn't exactly surprising- he frequently tended to hole up somewhere and let the rest of the world pass him by. But this time it was because he was trying to find some measure of quiet.

He kept hearing...things. Sobs, annoyed defensive remarks, statements of self-hatred. A few of them sounded familiar, like the misty remains of his memories. He didn't feel that way now, and so what he heard is merely more annoying to him. All these voices wanted him to do SOMETHING for them. They wanted to be released.

The red god told him He would come see him. Henry was happy to hear this- as much as he appreciated talking to Him, he also needed the help. If he didn't learn to control this soon, he'd be off trying to silence all these voices; Henry knew he wouldn't be able to get them all, not even if he was smart about it.

He sat and waited quietly, content to stare at the computer until Xulchibara arrived.

-
As with the first conversation with The Red God, shadows moved along the walls of Henry's rooms.

A simple trick of the light?...Perhaps...

But when they stilled once again, a lean, youngish man with hair the color of a raven's wing, and eyes that should not have been human....(could not belong to a human) reclined, propped on one elbow on the bed; his long legs stretched at length to end in bare feet.
He was dressed simply. A simple t-shirt of indeterminate color ( a red so dark it appeared black? Or an absence of color that leached the light from around it?) and leather textured pants...though what the leather was made from, animal skin or ..otherwise, was up for debate.
A near-doting expression, that was at such odds with the discordant feeling the dark man exuded, graced angelic features...

"Hello again, Henry." he said softly, his voice stirring to life the mark Henry now carried.
Now awakened, it responded with a dull throb...perhaps a pleasing sensation, perhaps not..as with all things related to the dark man, the line between pleasure and pain was often indeterminate.
-
He allowed himself a sharp intake of air as the sensation moved through his shoulder. Otherwise, he didn't make a sound. He closed his eyes for a few moments, focusing on it, then opened them again. "Hello, Lord. Thank you for...coming here."

He closed the laptop and turned to look up at the god. Henry's smile was one of adoration, but it wasn't blank or blind. There was a sharpness to his eyes now, one that had been missing entirely until just recently. For a man who spent his life being sluggish both in body and mind, he seemed both tremendously settled and alert- like piano wire ready to snap. He was just waiting to eat up anything this god had to offer him.

He wasn't the same man as he used to be, not anywhere near. He thanked his old self for offering himself up to be sacrificed. This was so much greater, so much more important than anything he could have been before.
-
The dark man's sharp smile widened.
Each of the marked had chosen thier own paths...The prophet was a creature of vice; greed, ambition, and lust, and thus his change had manifested as an addiction to the fullfillment of those wants.

The serpent, on the other hand, was much the opposite; a creature of a more giving nature, one that was prepared to risk all in order to ensure those he cared for remained safe.
His change had manifested itself as a desire, nay a drive, to better himself. Become stronger, and a more capable protector.
...And the Red God found him beautiful in his metamorphosis.

"Think nothing of it, Henry." he purred, then made a light gesture indicating Henry come sit closer.
" Come here. Let me have a better look at you, şarpe"
-
"Uh...okay." He smiled nervously and walked towards the god. He gulped before sitting down on the bed. He was unsure just exactly what the red god wanted to 'see', but he had a feeling that he was being called there for his own benefit. He blinked slowly, then looked over into those maddening eyes. He didn't know he was doing it, but he sighed rather happily. For so long he'd wanted to belong someplace, with somebody...finally, that was true. He had a purpose now, he could tell.

-

Once seated, the dark man held Henry's gaze, then sat up.
Moving slowly, like a hunting cat being careful not to spook it's prey into flight.
Chaotic fires moved in the shifting colored eyes as they bored into Henry's. Searching the human man's own deep brown ones. Searching for what, he did not say, but instead leaned closer...closer.

To an outside observer, the two men may have appeared to be lovers, staring enraptured into the other's eyes, but the dark man was not intent on such trivial matters at present.
Suddenly, he smiled again, seemingly having found whatever he searched for in Henry.

One hand leisurely rose, again ever so slowly as though to allow Henry to become aware of his intent.
The hand paused before coming to rest over the first button on Henry's shirt.

" May I see?" he asked with a mock-innocent expression that for all it's startling relation to the actual emotion, it was betrayed by those diabolic eyes.
Another amused quirk of the cupid's bow mouth at Henry's expression, and the dark man continued.
" Your shoulder, şarpe".

-

Henry's mouth had been hanging open for quite some time when the god made His request. The man finally blinked, then gulped, biting his lip as a way to stall for time until his brain finally started working again.

And once the meaning finally got through, he chuckled at himself. "Uh...yeah, sure. Sorry. I'm slow sometimes..." That was something he'd be working on, that's for sure.

Henry's hands moved up to the buttons, ready to help undo them. His heart skipped as he did so, although he tried his best not to let that distract him. The closeness of the red god to him was merely impossible not to notice. His body, mind, and soul were drawn towards Him, like a magnet- and the closer he got, the more pull there was.

"I...uh....what are you calling me?" He had an idea, but he didn't know for sure.

-

" 'Serpent', Henry." the dark man replied in a sibilant tone; a caress of sound that one could wrap themselves in.
" You most certainly are not 'slow', dear heart" he continued....and that tone further worked it's way beneath the skin.
" You give yourself far too little credit..."

Once Henry had started undoing the first few buttons, the dark man placed two fingers beneath the fabric of Henry's collar and gently drew it down, the very tips of index and middle fingers barely touching the collar bone, then sliding slowly to finally break thier searing contact with skin once the desired shoulder was exposed.

Moving with a grace some dancers would envy, the dark man's eyes flicked from the serpent's own, then left trails of heat in thier wake as they moved down, and across to take in the sigil there.

Burning with a shadowed light just beneath the skin, the Halo Of The Sun flared under the dark man's inspection.
A return calling to that which it originated from; like to like.
Perhaps the perceptible warmth emenating from it would register after the mild shock of ecstatic pain the dark man's touch had left would make itself more insistent, and therefore recognized?

-

"I- I...." Henry couldn't help it- he whimpered at the touch. It was too much to keep in. It hurt so wonderfully- he wanted more of that pain. He needed more, but....he had to focus. As the searing pain ran through his right shoulder, Henry's eyes suddenly widened. He knew what that felt like-

A twist of his head (and another whimper) later, and he could see enough of it to know he was right. It was the Halo, that symbol he'd seen scrawled everywhere in Walter's world. The symbol of Rebirth. He sighed with relief, let his head loll to the left, and let his eyes close halfway. He could let himself enjoy that awful feeling now. "That's right...that's what it should be. This is what I should be. Thank- ...thank you."

Without knowing what he was doing, Henry leaned into the god's body. He wanted to be closer. The reason the red god had come was momentarily forgotten. For now, the voices seemed like such a small and tedious problem. They were still there and still loud, but with the chaos next to him, Henry was not bothered. Besides, he just found out who he was now. So of course it slipped his mind.

-

The dark man allowed the serpent to rest against him, letting his free hand rise to cup Henry's cheek and gently coax the delerious human's attention back to the dark man's eyes....
" Dear one?..." The only response was a flickering of those lashes, a panted breath.

The dark man narrowed his eyes, and a crawling change started to warp his face, as the veins below his skin shown a with a dark light, his eyes flaring like two shining pieces of the abyss; an abyss which most certainly looked back.

HeNrY. Came a shifted approximation of The Red God's true voice, and like the cracking of a whip, it cut through the haze of want.
Henry's eyes widened near-instantaneously.
Once noting the contraction of the irises in the serpents eyes, the dark man smiled, and his features seemed as they had always been; beatific in thier tender care, all save the eyes...those chaotic, burning, eyes.
After all, there was a lesson to be learned here, and it would not do to have the other man pass out just yet.

" Focus, my şarpe, the dark man purred ( quite literally for a vibration of sound emitted to punctuate the words from deep in the dark man's chest.)
" I need you to envision those chattering voices, Henry" he said, feathering the thumb of his right hand across Henry's cheek.
" See them, my dear, as a great many strips of cloth all around you....", his dark brows rose, waiting for some sign Henry had done as the dark man asked.

-

Henry came back to himself with the sound near the god's real voice. He'd only heard it once, but it was utterly unmistakable. As he fought the draw of the burn, he looks more closely at the face and the changes in it. It was difficult, but he had to do it. At the same time, he didn't know how he let himself get so distracted. He needed to learn- that was what He was here for. Henry's new and had a lot to take in. He needed to focus.

He gulped again, then tried to work around that wonderful pain in order to do what's being asked of him. He focused on the voices, the cries and the pleading, and they suddenly become much louder. It was like they were amplified by the sheer power of the changing chaos next to him. But that only made it easier to think of them as strips of cloth, covering him from every angle. "Hnnn...okay...." he replied.

-

The burning light that was no light at all flared once more...but did not recede this time.
Instead they took on a heated glow, like two gemstones shining from within an inferno.
" See them clearly....now, you must envision yourself gathering them from around you..."

The dark man paused, his fingers tightening under Henry's jaw, a physical point of mild discomfort to offset the freezing burn his touch elicited.
" Now, my beautiful şarpe, you will gather them, and braid them into one strand." The nail of the dark man's right index finger pressed, needle-like, into the soft flesh where jaw meets skull.
A look of deep concentration crossed Henry's face, but the dark man used the pressure of his finger to hold Henry's attention momentarily.
" Before you finish the braid...prepare yourself. Without the chattering voices, you will no longer be...ah...'distracted'." That nearly sub-audibal purr rose briefly. " There will be nothing between your mind, and my presense.."
Once denied the voices of the guilty, Henry would feel The Red God that much more...as static may partially drown out a roar, so too would the lack of it make that roar increase.

Unbeknownst to Henry, The Red God was simultaneously teaching him how to control his fledgling abilities, and bit, by bit, undampening the chaotic madness that was Xulchibara's formless presense. For in a corporeal form, The Red God was able to 'cloak' the rampant discord that was a part of his very nature...and it had driven men insane, caused them to waste away and die as shadows of thier former selves for want of the God's briefest touch.
The dark man did not want this for The Serpent. Henry must be able to bear the God's presense as The Reed could, and the best way to go about this was simple desensitization; one either drowned, or learned to tread the depths enough to breath.

The dark man shifted once again to sit upright fully, and as Henry waited, the look of concentration hardening, the dark man brought his other hand up to hover above the sigil that flared brighter with the increase in proximity of the dark man's flesh.

-

"Nnngh," was Henry's eloquent response to this, a near-growl at the flare of sensation. He had to be prepared for more, so he does his best to ready himself.

Henry took a deep breath, then did his best to gather all the strands. He never was any good at braiding, but he found he could do this. It was slow going, and sometimes he got distracted by something or slipped, but he kept up with it. And eventually, he got them all to behave. The bleating of their pain quieted down considerably, eventually vanishing to nothing but a whisper.

He didn't realize that, in his concentration, he'd been biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. He tasted it now, and it was sweeter than he remembered. Everything was sweeter, even the air. It was all too much. Henry looked up towards the red god, and braced himself.

-

A stygian wave of thought-made-sensation broke over The Serpent as The Red God took hold of the mark on his shoulder.
Connected as a lodestone to true north, the mark sang with a nerve splicing exstacy.
The line of pain and pleasure was blurred until there was nothing but sensation; fire, ice, fluid, solid, excruciating pain, blissful rapture.

A connection from the God's hand on the Halo Of The Sun, to the God's mouth pressed against the Serpent's own, to the God's opposing hand clasped beneath the serpent's jaw, holding him in place.

The thread of Henry's life had been reborn in blood and darkness, and here it's mettle was tested against a blaze that could consume all in it's path.
Destruction at it's most raw; Chaos unleashed.

A deep, resonating growl replaced the gentle purr in a sound that was only vibration, and only added to the sensory overload.
This was not a kiss; nor a devouring of soul as the damned prophet's had been: this was a claiming.
An etching of The Red God's name on Henry Townsend's soul, until each heartbeat, each breath, repeated that name over and over.

But lest Henry be lost in the storm, the memory of The Reed, of Alessa, was left untouched and beautifully whole; a shining light for Henry to cling to. A single tether of sanity in a defining of the words, the sensation; ecstatic pain.

-

And Henry did cling to it, as he lost all else. He used her memory to keep himself steady. He didn't want to completely break apart, no matter how tempting it may seem right now. He did this for her, after all. It'd be a terrible waste just to lose what he cared about because of this incredible feeling. If he could hold onto it, he would come away from this whole thing stronger. He knew that.

So he gave himself over to the god, in totality, save that one point. He let the sensations tear and pull at him as they willed. He couldn't really have controlled the screaming if he wanted to- noises he thought he'd never be able to make emitted from him, and he could care less. The room could have fallen away ages ago, as far as he was concerned. He was only anchored by her. He had to stay together for her sake.

Even if his mouth was free, he couldn't have formed words. It was all too much.

-

YeSSssSSsssSs, My BeAtIfUl şArPe", the TRUE voice of the Red God; Xulchilbara, echoed across Henry's mind, FiGhT It. FiGht ME.

Without asking for permission of any sort, The Red God released his hold on the other man's shoulder, and jaw, giving him the oppurtunity to pull away, to end the glorius torment.

The God released Henry's mouth, and moved instead to his neck, taking up the searing kiss there again, while his hands tore at Henry's shirt front, heedless of the first tiny cuts that trickled lines of blood after the brief contact with the God's blade-like nails.

Once the offending cloth was hanging by a few tattered remains from The Serpent's shoulders, the Red God's hands pressed against abdominals that contracted at the firey touch; those burning hands skimming upward to wrap Henry in an embrace that brought him into the circle of the God's arms; pressed chest to chest together.

-

Henry remembered trying to push away from the god. He remembered it, but he didn't think he did. He couldn't tell anymore, there was too much going on, too much everything. He also remembered responding to the god's touch by clawing his back, and that he did think he did. The cuts into his flesh were exquisite- even if he knew he couldn't repay the favor, his body still tried.

Henry's neck had always been sensitive. Maybe that was the reason why things became so blurry here. He tried his best to stay focused on the strand he'd been working on, but it was completely lost. Alessa's memory was there, but it was never in direct conflict with Xulchibara. They worshipped Him together, and always would now. They both knew He came before anything else.

His arms flailed wildly, sometimes moving to embrace, sometimes moving to push away, sometimes moving to dig nails into flesh that probably wasn't really flesh. But in the end, Henry stayed where he was- pushing against Him with his arms wrapped around Him.

-

Here, where sensation tore away the outer world, where madness, and horror rendered reason and sanity void; Yes, only here may one harden thier will. Be it the will to survive, or the will to die...

Henry was trying so desperately to cling to that will, that strand of himself in a storm of chaos, born of a consciousness that had watched entire nations rise and fall, had indeed been the architect of a few of these turning points in human history
A creation of the darker aspects of the human psyche, and thus it was two sides of the same coin; the unspoken desires one keeps hidden away, be those desires of the flesh, of the ruin of the flesh or the fullfillment of want without adherence to morals, or temperance. By the same token, it was also the guilt one feels once the moment of fullfillment has passed, and the similar desire, no, the need to be punished.
Shriven of these percieved wrongs, and made to pay reperation.

The Red God was an aspect always of Vengeance, of Guilt, and Vice. He was one of the oldest Judges, and now he showed Henry that it was in fact Henry himself who decided whether or not to respond to those cries, to end the self-imposed sufferring he heard, not Xulchibara's will that forced him to it.

Similarly it was The Red God's function to act as Judge to those crying, screaming voices that had filled Henry's mind. Why? Because on a deep, rather subconscious level, they asked for it. They wanted the pain, the torment.
They chose to become the atrocities that populated the rift in reality that Henry called Silent Hill, then chose to remain there.

.SeE YoUrSeLf FoR WhAt YoU ArE, roared the voice in Henry's mind.
YoU ArE ALpHa To HER OmEga, A PaRt Of ThE eNdleSs CyCle: DeAth, LiFe, aNd ReBiRth.
ThE ThIrD Of THrEe.
ThRiCe BoRn
ThRiCe DiEd.

The third of three, the male aspect of the trinity, with Alessa the female, and The Red God both genders, yet niether.
Amidst the whirlwind of sensation, thought and memory there came a glimpse, the meerest flash of a webworked series of events...each connected by the over arching lines of decision, of choice.
Henry had already made the choice to become The Serpent, but there would be things to come; more choices, and a changing of Henry's perceptions, his mind, his body, and very sense of self before that encompassing role could be approached.


YoU ArE MINE, My BeAuTiFuL OnE. YoU ArE REBIRTH...... YoU ArE EtErNaLllllllllLLl


Inwardly these thoughts-made-real raged between the man and the monster, but outwardly the question was repeated in the same language of touch, taste and sound that the two had been speaking in up to this point.
The Red God's burning hands splayed fingers across The Serpents' sides as he released Henry from the strength of his embrace, and allowed this newly born creature to choose to continue this glorius torment, or end it now. The God's mouth similarly moved down to lick a path of frozen flame from the man's neck to collarbone, to chest, until it settled over his nipple. It bit sharply, only to release just a fast, and lick indolently at the blood that followed.

-

Is this really what he is now? Somewhere among the chaos, that question drilled at him. Like a mosquito in the ear, it wouldn't allow itself to be ignored. He had to step back and allow himself to think. It was so difficult to tear any small part of his attention away from the great destruction he was feeling. Once he had done it, he was amazed.

When he was able to think of the question, he realized that he had no idea what he was anymore. He wasn't alive, he wasn't dead. He wasn't a monster, but he doubted he could be called human, either. His head didn't work the way it had before; even if it did, he didn't know who he was before. Now he's been remade- now he was the Serpent. The third of three. He completed them.

And that was why he had to end this, for now. They were missing one. His thoughts of Alessa were in what passed for the calm center in his head, and he needed her just as much as he needed the rest of this. He wondered for a split second if he could do this- after all, how does one fight a god? But then he turned his focus to the fact that he had to.

Henry's yell, when bitten, was vastly unhuman. It more resembled a growl, somehow made with old machine parts. He had expected the bite, but not how much more it felt. It was the most searing pain imaginable. He almost asked for it again, almost begged, but he managed to stop himself. And he pushed away with everything he had. "Not...no." Arms and legs kicked and flailed, detaching him from the god. He continued trying to form words. "Good- so good, but- not...not yet. Alessa..."

-

Like the tide at the demand of the moon's pull, the chaotic madness of The Red God's presence receeded slowly until it was no more than the insistent humming warmth it had been before.

The reformed dark man's fingers still elicited points of fire where they kept contact with Henry's skin, but an outright grin of mad pleasure at Henry's strength and ability to understand the need for the triumverate graced the dark man's features as he looked up from the vicinity of Henry's chest.

The grin became a laugh of malicious joy when Henry started to fall backwards.
Moving viper-quick, the dark man caught the human before he could fall away completly.
With a strength that made the inhuman ability to lift a full grown man seem quite easy, the dark man brought The Serpent to rest against him once more; Henry's head he tucked protectively beneath his chin, then gently fell back himself, bringing Henry with him.
The Human's head pillowed on the dark man's shoulder, a terrible, ecstatic look danced in those infernal eyes as they gazed near-lovingly down at Henry.

Once more Henry was wrapped in the God's arms, leather-clad legs rising similarly to wrap Henry's waist and hold him in a manic, yet almost ...joyful embrace; the chaos was quieted, however, the beast tamed.

" Oh, my beautiful, beautiful, şarpe...You have done so very well." the dark man purred contentedly.

-

Henry curled into the dark man's chest, almost like a child would. "I...I did?" He sighed contentedly. "Oh...good..." He almost asked what it was he did that pleased the god so. But he expects that he'll know, once he's had a chance to think about it. For now, though, he was just happy to have done well. He had made Xulchibara happy, and that was all he'd wanted.

He was somewhat surprised he'd stayed conscious through all of that- he was surprised he was alive, honestly. It was more of an accomplishment than he'd had all of his life...lives. He had to remember he had more than one now.

"'m tired..." he mumbled into the god's shoulder.

-

Almost as a doting parent would do to a frightened child, the dark man turned slightly and kissed Henry's forehead, his touch now registering as little more than a pleasingly dull ache.

" Of course you are..." The soft purring, like a well-fed panther was emenating from the dark man's chest as one hand rose to brush a few sweat-dampened strands from Henry's brow.

" Sleep, dear Henry....Rest now..." he may have whispered aloud, or only in Henry's mind.
The presense retreated further until the pleasure-pain of such prolonged contact with the dark man's skin became nothing more than a pleasant aching warmth; similar to the fatigue felt post-coitous.

-

He mumbled an incoherent thanks to his Lord. Within a few seconds, all his muscles relaxed and he went limp. He drifted off into sleep, secure in his new purpose.
He finally belonged somewhere.....