exeggutorhead | IC Inbox

[In spite of the tension, he takes the offered hand without hesitation, pulling himself up onto the warmed shingles next to her.]

[It's warm out and they're under no mysterious compulsions to talk. And thank goodness for THAT.]

So...

[Envy's not sure what to say either.]

_{[GOD if they were under that compulsion like last time?? THIS CONVERSATION WOULD PROBABLY REQUIRE AN ACTUAL INTERVENTION because once you get started on The Fucked Up Things From Heather's Past, it turns into a wild ride that you really don't want to stay on any longer than necessary.]

[She's... hoping she can find a good middle ground between not saying anything and... practising restraint.]}

So... I was... I didn't tell the whole truth that time we talked about it.

Not on purpose, I... there were just a lot of things that I didn't think would be as... big a deal as they obviously are.

[It's not a surprise, to hear that.]

I...thought so, after what happened. That there must have been something else.

[He lets out a slow breath.]

It's...easy, to think things don't bother you if you haven't had to deal with them.

[It's not like she PURPOSEFULLY LIED.]

Yeah.

I just... you know, I've gotten over plenty of stuff since coming here, and I guess I just... assumed I'd gotten over all that stuff too.

I didn't even really think of it, back then.

_{[She takes in a deep breath, lifting her hands to drag down her face. God, she really hopes she won't cry before this is over. Or after, for that matter. She wishes she could just be cold and clinical about it. But she's never been good at that, in any situation.]}

Ohhh boy... how do I even start...

You... you know how I was kind of a... a figure for the cult, right?

_{[A god, is how she'd put it to him once. She doesn't really like phrasing it that way, but well... if the boot fits...]}

Yeah. Yeah, you've told me about that part.

[It may have been a while back, but he remembers most of what she'd told him then. Everything important, anyway, if not the exact phrasing.]

[What had they done? He can already feel a seed of anger starting to sprout in his chest. They'd done something, or she wouldn't have brought it up.]

_{[Oh, Envy. They did everything.]}

Well, you know how people... get, about religion. They get... obsessed, and... in the case of the Order, fucking crazy... and sure, it was a... small-town, mostly underground thing, but... that was still a lot of people, all... thinking and praying and begging me for god knows what, and they were all bonkers, so I mean-- it was-- it shouldn'tve even been surprising that at least one would just-- DECIDE he wanted to fuck Jesus, you know?"

_{[She'd been waffling up till now on whether or not she wanted to sit or stay standing... but once the stream of consciousness started, so did the urge to pace, and she really didn't want to walk right off the roof, so she finally sits, about five feet away from him and turned away, just slightly.]

[She doesn't want to watch his face. She'd rather see almost anything but the expressions he may or may not make as this information makes its way to his brain.]}

[If she doesn't want to see him make faces, then it's a good thing she's not looking at him.]

[His eyes had gone wide first, then just as quickly had narrowed as that sprout of fury starts shooting up into a rainforest in the time she talks, with a speed exceeded only by someone bringing up his father.]

I'm listening.

[His voice is tight with several emotions.]

_{[Yeah, she's just... going to keep staring really hard into the treetops. They're still barren... but it's better than having to look Envy in the eye and see what's accompanying that tightness in his words.]}

Stanley.

His name was Stanley.

I don't think I ever knew him back when I was actually in the cult. He would've been... older. Like a teenager. We wouldn'tve interacted, at the time.

But in the years I was gone... I guess he got obsessed enough that even the other cultists wanted him put away... nobody wanted to hear his creepy bullshit.

But... when all the shit went down, and I had to go back... I don't know how he found out about me, about who I'd become... He'd already spent years building up this fucking... fantasy world where we were lovers, and by the time I actually showed up...

The whole TIME, he was following me, leaving notes and little dolls, writing about all the shit he wanted to do. And telling me-- ME-- how much I wanted him to do it! Telling me all this shit about me that he MADE UP, that he was making up for YEARS, the whole time I was growing up.

I couldn't see him, didn't know where he was, but he-- he had to have been close, because his notes got more and more detailed, like we were carrying on a conversation, and they'd reference things I was doing...

It was-- he wrote me a fucking POEM about how he wanted to chew my lips off and gouge out my eyes while I screamed and cried, and the way he described it was like a fucking PORNO! He used the word 'obscenely'!

Oh, my god!

Why the fuck would anyone do that?!

_{[As frequently happened, her voice had unknowingly been rising in volume as she spoke, and that last exclamation actually caused several Pidgeys to go whirring off out of the tree she'd been staring at. She clicks her jaws shut, realizing just how loud she'd gotten.]}

[Envy listens, and feels sick, but mostly he just feels angrier. He wants to kill this Stanley, over and over and violently, wants to gouge out his eyes and tear his lips off for even thinking what he had, much less writing Heather a damn poem about it as he followed her. He clenches his hands, fingernails digging into his palm.]

I don't know. Fuck.

[He doesn't know what else to say. But this...explains a whole lot, about what had happened.]

[The anger is palpable in his voice.]

_{[They can both be angry. The anger she feels is honestly, comforting. Just like when they'd talked about BOB (which, hoo boy, is another little topic that might warrant broaching...), it's a relief to know that anger surges in on top of the fear, crackling like lightning. It's not exactly productive, but it's not weak. And she'd take just about anything over feeling the weakness she knows all this should inspire.]

[She keeps her voice low when she speaks back up.]}

The worst thing is... I died. I died, like... a lot, in there. It was dark, and tight, and there were places where I didn't see monsters until it was already too late, or was just overpowered... whatever, that part, I've gotten over. It sucked and it hurt but I did come back, and I made it out in the end.

But there were still all those times when there was just... my body lying there on the floor all busted to shit and back.

And I know from the way he wrote those letters, that he was watching, every time it happened. That he loved it. That I was fulfilling exactly the kinds of sick fantasies he'd been cooking up in his sick head for probably as long as I'd even been alive.

... And... I don't know... how long I was gone, when I died. How long my corpse was just there, waiting to be brought back.

And I think about... what might've happened.

_{[A low laugh escapes her. It's not that dark, murky one that she lets out sometimes when she's too angry for words-- it's light and incredulous and horrified, almost more of a breath than a laugh.]}

I dream about it, sometimes. That I can hear him coming towards me right as everything's going black. Sometimes I think I can feel his hands and it's the last thing I'm aware of before I'm just... gone.

_{[Then, quite abruptly, she goes very quiet, and very still.]}

... Fuck. Are they dreams...?

Don't do that to yourself.

[The interjection is the quickest thing he's said so far.]

[Whatever happened, however horrifying, it's done and there's no way to prove what might have happened. There's no way to stop wondering. Envy's always been eager to Not Think about things, to keep as little of that sort of endless wondering out of his mind as much as possible--that road led down the one Lust walked, and death. But it's useful sometimes, to not lose your mind.]

You can't, there's nothing...nothing good can happen, wondering about it.

_{[She flinches a little bit, teeth gritted. Even if anger is the primary emotion, there's no stopping her nerves from going on high alert at this subject matter. It's some of the primest, freshest fight-or-flight material the dark corners of her brain has to offer.]}

I can't help it.

The whole reason I almost strangled you two weeks ago is because I just shut it out instead of dealing with it. 'Cause I thought I was fucking over it.

But it's been seven freaking years and I'm clearly not.

[He winces himself seeing her flinch, a jolt of ice going through his stomach.]

Sorry.

I didn't mean don't think about it at all, just...don't torture yourself over things you can't know the answer to.

But...keep going, if there's more.

There's a lot more.

But not much else to Stanley.

He... fortunately bit it before I ever came face to face with him. That I remember, anyway.

_{[Envy's words do make sense. It is pointless to agonize over what might have happened, that she'd never be able to prove one way or another. But it's so hard not to.]

[Still, there's a simmering anger in her voice, and her fists are clenched so tightly it looks painful.]}

I'm just... he made me feel so-- so helpess and disgusting, and then something else killed him before I could.

Maybe if he'd actually tried something, if I fought him, I wouldn't still feel so...

_{[Or maybe not. Maybe it would be the opposite.]

[Maybe it just would have ended up like it did with BOB, which, ho...]}

[Envy's glad in that dark, bitter way that Stanley was at least killed SOMEHOW, even if not by Heather. That he didn't just...get away with what he'd been doing.]

[But the frustration of not being able to kill someone hurting you yourself? That he understands plenty. His fist grinds slowly against the roof as he talks.]

Bastard.

He was a coward, and if he'd shown himself you would have been able to kill him. Easy.

That's probably why he slunk around, he knew if he tried to go near you it'd be over.

I don't know.

The way he talked, he would've gotten off on that, too.

He already left his fucking mark on me-- I think that was what he really wanted to do.

_{[He seeks out her soul of his own black ambition, frightening her out of her wits. Whispering love songs into her ear, what cruel Linnet wants, he gets.]}

I just hate that it worked.

[Envy's jaw tightens. Because yeah...that would make sense too. Terrible, terrible sense.]

I hope he died slowly.

[It comes out through gritted teeth, on impulse, but he doesn't know what else to say. What can he say?]

_{[There's precious little to say at all-- she knows it. It's part of what makes these things so hard to talk about. It's a whole deluge of uncomfortable information to unload on somebody, and there's little anybody can do to respond until it's over.]

[But that was the tale of Stanley Coleman, and thank god there's not really any more to that nasty little chapter of her return to Silent Hill.]

[So she just kind of... nods.]}

I just... wish he never existed. Or at least that I never knew about him.

If he'd just fucking... jerked it to his sick thoughts all by himself, and I never knew a thing, then I guess I wouldn't really give a fuck.

_{[A sigh escapes her, and she lets her face drop into her hand.]}

Anyway, that's... that's the Stanley thing.

[He just nods, quiet for a long moment. It's a lot to think about, and most of his thoughts are still just sick, murderous anger.]

...do you want to tell me the rest? You can.

_{[Another sigh escapes her.]}

Yeah, I...

_{['The rest' is more nebulous.]

[The one nice thing about Stanley (if anything at all about him could be said to be nice) is how horribly straightforward it all was. The notes, the dolls, the stalking, the grotesque prose... there was no need for talk of feelings when the whole situation almost spoke for itself. Anyone would feel terrified, disgusted. And even if she'd been the centerpiece of his filthy fantasies, it had still been something she tripped into unexpectedly. Something that had been growing and festering without her presence or knowledge.]

[The rest... the rest gets murkier. More personal and intimate.]

[And even harder to talk about.]

[She's quiet for a moment, seeing which of her only-semi-prepared subjects is easiest to coax out of the cages in the back of her mind-- cages that have gotten bent and battered over the past couple of weeks, so that they no longer seem to close properly.]

[After a time, she lets out another breathy not-laugh, scraping at the dust between the shingles with one finger.]}

Well... fuck, I guess... I guess there's the BOB thing...

[At that name, Envy snaps to attention so fast that his whole posture jerks upright. Even if Heather doesn't see that, she probably will hear the sharp little intake of breath, even if it's not very loud.]

[He's still angry, but there's a tinge of dread mixed in now as well. He knew that BOB had come after her in physical form and not just mentally as he had Envy, but...]

What did he do.

[It's almost not a question, Envy's voice had gone so flat as it spilled out. After another few seconds to take a breath, to slow down his own heart, he adds more slowly.]

Fuck, I mean...tell me what you want to.

_{[This time she doesn't flinch, at least.]

[It's harder to admit the extent to which her encounters with BOB had worsened over the years than it was to just give him the basic details, back in that field last summer. But there's still some distance. Even if there was no 'closure', like she'd gotten with Stanley. If that even counted as closure.]

[She sighs again and starts to speak, fully intending her tone to be disgusted, exasperated, but a high note in her voice betrays the emotions behind it.]}

Oh, just... fucking... the reason I was so worked up when you said YOU'D seen him too is-- he fuckin' rapes people, it's just what he does. Goes after people, usually young people, usually women but not always-- [Because the way Cooper had said it, talked about it... made it seem like maybe there were exceptions. The more the years pass, the more it makes Heather's skin crawl to think about where her friend's subdued but very real fear may have been coming from.] -- fucks with them, breaks them down-- then... corrupts them somehow, or kills them if he can't.

I don't know how it works.

Like, he's not a person.

But somehow he...

_{[She lets her face drop into her hand.]}

It didn't go that far.

He stopped showing up before it could.

But it still got... bad.

It got real bad.

It wasn't even sexual, but at the same time... like, I can't see how it could... not have been.

_{[She can still feel his fingernails raking against the roof of her mouth hard enough to draw blood, and a visible shudder grips her shoulders for a second...]}

Edited 2017-06-21 07:11 (UTC)

[It's good that she does specify that it didn't go that far, because as soon as she says what BOB does, it's like all his veins turn to ice. It's not a surprising thing to hear, even if his own encounter hadn't really gone in an explicitly sexual direction...but after the gleeful, violent invasion of his mind? No, it's not surprising that that's what he does.]

[Not that there's much room for relief. He saw that shudder, and it's painful to see.]

You don't have to say it. But I...know what you mean, about that.

[Maybe not from BOB, but there had been plenty of other times, over the centuries. Some of the fire had been knocked out of him from BOB being brought in, but the undercurrent of what remains is still there in his voice.]

It doesn't always have to be, it's...it can still be as bad.

Edited 2017-06-21 22:25 (UTC)

It was the fact that it could be. And the fact that we both knew it.

_{[Her voice is a little hollow. She's raked her hair all on end and now she's just sort of staring dully out at the street.]}

And just like Stanley, I have no doubt that if it had continued... it would've happened.

... But unlike with Stanley, I'm not sure I'd have been able to stop him.

[He winces a little himself at those last words, because, well...]

[He can't really argue with her on that. Not about BOB. Even bringing up that if he ever did show up again they might be able to do something about him if they were together seems like it'd ring a little hollow. This is about what had already happened, what couldn't be changed. The marks left.]

I didn't realize he'd...that it'd been like that.

I wouldn't have...

[He trails off. He doesn't know what to say.]

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