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There was no real way to explain what was happening right now.
Or more accurately there was, but when the world you once knew melts into another born of visceral magic and is now ruled by the Devil himself things start to get muddled.
Time loses all meaning, along with people, and what you once held dear runs red with a mix of blood and distorted magic. Until even the facsimile of your former life is gone in a flash.
Such was the seeming fate that had befallen Julian Devorak as he tried time and time again to stand against the ever changing tide that crashed down onto him, only to be tortured in turn for it.
The Devil had made his position clear long ago, and no one else was going to stand against him. So Julian felt responsible in some sick way to try and fix this all.
By himself, of course, since there was no one left but him. Asra, Nadia, Muriel, and even Portia now all distant splotches in his memory as he’d try to claw his way through the walls of this world to return it to what once was.
And for his courage all he ever received was bloodied cracking bones mixed with agonized screams. Such a delightful experience all around, so much so that he kept going back for more. Losing himself with every attempt until he suddenly ended up here.
Twisted and morphed beyond recognition, a mirror of what had become of the once healing Vesuvia. Both suffering at the hands of the cruelty of one deity, though one was far more personal than the other.
At least, suffer was what he thought he was supposed to receive. Not– comfort.
Yet that was what he seemed to be experiencing as slick golden claws run their way down his jagged face, brushing over each and every feather rather carefully, ending at his chin. Tilting it up so that his pained eyes have to look up at the titular owner of this gauntlet.
The former Count grinning down at the, currently, on his knees Julian. Attempting to retrieve something he’d knocked over while heeding to the other man’s call, he now found himself in a position he kept struggling with the emotions it elicited out of him.
Lucio and he already had a startlingly strained relationship due to their time on the battlefield together. The boisterous young man Julian had once patched up had easily endeared himself to him with time. Rushing in after every great battle to tell the tales of the blood he had spilt on the ground. Allowing Julian to do his work while tearing open every stitch he’d put in the week before at once as he’d jump up a the climax of his grand tale. Leaving his doctor both frustrated, but also smitten with the fool before him.
So with enough time hands intertwined one night while flesh met flesh on a chilly summer night, and the rest of a sort of sick history. A relic eft behind in the wake of something more promising. A title, a palace, and permanent power was all up for the taking. No one was going to get in the way of that.
Friends returned to friends as such, at least until the plague.
That– was a disaster.
Maybe at one point there was something returning to where they once had been. The Countess’s relationship with her husband, after all, was notoriously strained. Partners came in and out of those halls for either noble so much so that there was a betting game amongst the staff which was for which when a new elegant female or glistening male turned up on the front steps. At least that was what Julian had caught when he’d first come to greet a new friend.
A friend who would still gladly bitch and moan to him about the supposed troubles of his life, but his eyes were lingering more and more. And just as things were getting back to the way they were, the beetles made themselves known.
There had been rumbles about them for years, but then the flood gates opened and hell was living and breathing in Vesuvia.
And in turn, that friendship became nothing. Disillusioned instantly in reaction to Lucio’s stance of inaction against the fester disease sweeping the streets.
Then, of course, the Count contracted the disease himself.
Demands were made and forced upon every doctor he could get his hands, but Julian was special. He became his friends personal physician, and for that everything was laid into only him. The others were there, and his demands were made clear, but Julian was the most important of them all. His personal connection could be exploited, guilt being and extra motivator for him to work and find the precious cure.
And when guilt wasn’t enough? Then death would have to do.
He still hadn’t forgiven Lucio for that night. How in his feeble state he’d somehow gained enough energy to burst into his room in a fury. Screaming at Julian for failing his friend. How he had damned him to suffer for months on end without ever really trying to fix it, so new methods would be needed.
Sometimes he could still feel it crawl down his throat.
How he gagged and gagged on it in a desperate bid to escape the horrors that were to come, but it wasn’t mean to be.
With all this in mind though, why was it that his body was earning to be held by this awful man?
After everything he’d done to not only him, but the people of Vesuvia he should despise him. But that just wasn’t reality.
Maybe that was really why the Devil let him get spit out here after a particularly harrowing transformation session. Bones brittle yet spongey from the molding they’d gone through he heard them snap more than usual when they made contact with the ground. Looking up to find that instead of finding himself face first in the hard wood of his usual alcoholic abode he had been left at the bottom of the grand stair case in the palace.
Stuck in a perpetual state of celebration for a split second he half expected a party to erupt around him just by the setting being disturbed. Though to his surprise, and shock, instead the Count came down those grand steps. Slamming his heavy boots down upon the great granite steps, smiling his usual big cocky smile as he looked down upon the only person left in the world to lay eyes on him.
When time had no meaning was it not easy to lose one self in the continuation of insanity? Of spiraling and swirling magic, but nothing to be gleaned from it?
That certainly seemed to be the case when Lucio came to him. Human in all his glory he hadn’t aged a day since the festivities, but there was a hollowness to his eyes. A quiet pleading to have some company for once in eons, and the joy that came with a pray being answered. Even if it was by the creature that caused his torment in the first place.
Which led them here.
With Julian on his knees and Lucio smiling down at him in that way that always seemed to come off as above all those around.
The positions would change depending on the mood it seemed, and both of them enjoyed this agreement well enough. There was still much to be desired however.
“If you have an issue Jules, I recommend you speak now.” Lucio sneers out, his claws stopping at the edge of his flesh. Drawing blood ever so slightly, but only sending a chill through out Julian’s body.
“There are many issues I can speak to then.”
He’s met with an immediate frown and the running of the tips of claws once more, but far deeper than before. More blood is draw this time, but with a more notable animosity than before. “Don’t be like that now, Jules. Can’t we have fun without dwelling on the past.”
“The past is all we have left now, Lucio.” Glancing over his shoulder and out into the world the sprawling glistening world. Throbbing and pulsing in this horrible way as sense continued to bounce off of it. “The world we knew is gone, so memories are what remains.”
Rolling his eyes Lucio scoffs at the sickening sentimentality his companion was displaying, “Please stop ruining the mood, Jules! For gods sake I just want to have a good time!”
“Time,” Julian begins, rising up to his full height, grabbing ahold of Lucio’s feet while he does, he forces the Count to fall backwards. As he digs his talons through his partners boots he feels his feathers puff out. Appearing even larger now he’s surprised to see Lucio’s eyes practically light up at the scene. “Has no meaning anymore.”
“Anything works for me at this point, Jules.” Gingerly reaching out he brushes his fingers against the hard curved flesh of Julian’s fingers he coyly asks, “Though if I may ask, let me take off the boots first.”
Balking for a moment Julian tosses him aside before turning his back to him. “Why do you look at me like that?” He breathes out, barely loud enough for any of the world to hear, but Lucio knows it quite well already.
“Like what Julian?” He decides to play, yanking off his boots eagerly. Still hoping for a piece of the mountain in front of him.
“Like you’ve just seen one of the Arcana for the first time.”
“Aren’t I in a way? I mean you are meant to appear like ‘the Hanged Man’ aren’t you?”
“In sick way, I suppose.” He mutters, running his talons through the feather like cage that surrounds the form he once knew. An engorged mass of extra flesh that only added to the pain of ti all. Plucking a few feathers as he does, while the magic does it’s work and doubles them near instantly. Feeling them burst from his bone and bloom outward he can only groan softly now after all that he’d gone through.
Pain brought little pleasure like this.
It was meant to make him suffer, so he grew used to it in a way he never thought possible before.
“Don’t do that!” Lucio whines out, hiding his genuine feelings behind his usual veneer of pride and ownership.
Actually getting him to stop he looks at the Count in a continued confused wonder. “Why not?”
“Because there’s no point?” Phrasing it as a question felt daft on his own part.
“There’s a point to it.”
“And that would be?”
“To see–”
The awkward silence that settles between them says all that he needs to know.
“Well– Julian.” rising from the bed he carefully approaches the now malformed man. Eagerly he runs his remaining hand through the surprisingly soft feathers. A strange shimmer in them as well makes him smile a little. Such bloody things in reality. The magic that made them being obvious to his eye as the one bound to the entity that caused their creation, but he can’t help but be smitten with them. They had their own beauty to him. Maybe because they brought his old companion back to him, or they meant that he no longer had to suffer in this never ending grandeur. But they meant something more, at least to him.
“I see nothing wrong in them.”
“Then you’re more of a fool than I though, my Count.”
“Don’t Count me now Jules! I’m serious.” Pausing for a moment he unevenly adds, “Mistakes have been made by both of us. Deals that bound us to things that now we can start to regret. So maybe we should just– move on.”
Julian straightens up at that, eyes wide with the shock only a man who had heard something smart from a creature that was usually so so dense. “That was almost good advice, Lucio.”
“Well, maybe it’s time that I get used to this no time thing.”
“And accept some responsibility?” Julian makes sure to question, placing his hand on Lucio’s and squeezing a little.
“Step by step, Jules. Nothing all at once please. I know I’ve made a lot of– oopsies.”
“You mean fuck ups, my Count. I think you mean that you’ve fucked up.” Talon breaks flesh once more as Lucio winces in surprise.
The two make eye contact as Julian lets himself rise up once more.
"A kiss before we begin?" The Count meekly requests, eyes wide with wonder once more a the beast in front of him.
"Fine." Julian agrees, leaning down until the smaller man is able to reach him. Letting the soft lips run along his rough ones he feels now yearning to pull away, only relief in that there is in fact still company in hell it seems.
Though as they part way their eyes meet, and they both know what will come next now.
Lucio will take his responsibility, and Julian will be the one to give it to him.
In blood, moans, and ecstasy there is a new found purpose to this partnership.
For responsibility is traded for lust, and lust is traded for love.
A perfect fit for the now twisted and strange pair that have come together once more.