Disorder Ch. 09

A loaded question at best but Charles reeled back as if he had been struck, sucking in a sharp breath that he did not release again, nostrils flared and stiff without any sense of movement there. His chest pulled taut, rigid, and Donnie held his ground, the space between them put there by his brother. And it would have been easy enough for Charles to fight back, to stand his ground and snarl like the wildcat he really was, but he did not. Maybe he was as far gone as Donnie was or maybe he knew that Donnie was right -- it was not as if he’d been forced into anything. Coming there in a bad mood had been the worst of it and he scowled, rubbing his jaw as if he’d been struck, the sharp snap of his head turning to the side causing his hair to flip out to the side: ostentatious at best.

“Whatever. Thought you wanted the company.”

So clipped. Donnie would have rolled his eyes and made a comment if the circumstances had been at all different and yet he could not, merely watching as another brother left him, if not in the same way. A temporary leaving could feel the same as a permanent one, even though he had not actually watched John leave that time. He had, however, watched it back on the cameras installed throughout his home, always watching and keeping track of things he might need to know in the future. They didn’t always work but they’d worked well enough to track John looking back at the hidden one in the living room for the last time before shrugging on Donnie’s jacket and leaving forever.

Charles strode out with a snappy, shunned stride, long legs covering more ground than they strictly seemed to have any right to. He did not speak, only spat as he left through the front door, although Donnie didn’t see that. He was still standing before his sofa with his fists clenched for a fight that, technically, he’d won and yet still felt that he’d lost.

Slumping down again, the hollow emptiness of his home closed in around him and he, once again, considered moving, even though the logistics of that would be a nightmare to play out. Fine if it was necessary but just doing it for himself seemed like a luxury that one man didn’t have the time or the strength to actually take on. There were ghosts in that house and the demons of the past were still all too keen to rear their ugly heads, horns shimmering in an unearthly light and crimson eyes glistening with the tears of so many lost souls. Yet it had just been an apparition and a drug-induced apparition at that.

That didn’t mean that reaching for a bottle of vodka with the damned Ouija board staring at him wasn’t a good idea though. In fact, it was a very fucking good idea.

Time to drink the pain away.

Again.

*

Stupid... Fucking stupid...

Several hours later (he’d rather lost track of time) Donnie slugged back vodka straight from the cool neck of the bottle, chest rising and falling in rapid breath. The doors were locked, the security system on and, really, there was not a chance in hell that anyone was going to bear witness to him in such a state. Charles had swung by again at some point but he hadn’t allowed him in, having changed the passcode that he had only given him for use in an emergency. Maybe Charles had considered it an emergency when his only surviving brother was not communicative but it was not so bad to be alone. It was comforting to, in a way, to have only his own thoughts circling his head, those scavenging vultures that knew flapping around noisily. They weren’t strangers anymore and had not been for a long time indeed.

The board was still there and he could not have honestly have said just why he did not move it. It would have been easy enough to find it another home even if that home was the bin. Who cared, really? Charles could come back again another day or not or he could seek him out himself. It was by the by as he slipped and laughed and shook his head, the TV screen on the opposite wall flickering and dancing with a show that he had not watched in years.

One from way back... One that he’d watched with John when they’d just started getting high, experimenting with things that kids really shouldn’t have been experimenting with. But there was that sense of illicit escapism in it too and times really had changed, the world moving into an era of technology that he had revelled in, rejoicing for a space that he could call his own. And the show had been all about that, that changing influence as the young surpassed the old and the old hands struggled to stay in positions of power in tech culture, their ideas slipping into monotony as the flood of a younger generation forced them back and back.

Maybe that was the way of it. He leaned over the ottoman for the crudest of the crude: a line of coke. It was not his usual way of doing things but it was one of the few things that he had left around to get his hands on quickly without going to one of their many, many warehouses and distribution points and he tried to take a back seat to the day to day. Charles was right about him in that matter but he would have still, shrewdly, thought it was all for the best when it came to an operation of that scale. Let the cops go after the ones on the front lines and false positions of authority while he stayed safe at HQ, out of sight and out of mind. He’d be the one reaping the benefits and the spoils and, if terrible things came to pass, he had the tech at his disposal to quickly and quietly disappear from prying eyes.

The drug flooded his system and he exhaled softly, rubbing the back of his hand across his face, ignoring just how it trembled. No... No, he would not think, only dream, allowing himself to just be there as the slow creep of euphoria tugged insistently at his mind, wanting more -- wanting him. Drugs were strange like that in that they didn’t only settle for what a human mind and body could be intoxicated with but demanded they sacrifice their very soul too.

But it was good to slip away and laugh and find the energy to leap up and pace and do things that he could not after such an experience, a downward turn that threatened to suck him under. It was not good to go under -- at least not that far -- and he used what he did to find release, escape from tension, the lust for life returning to his limbs and a flush of lucid colour in his cheeks. He’d rarely seen much of the sunshine before anyways but it was better to look like he wasn’t a corpse sometimes, if only to meet the eyes of the reflection in the mirror.

As he spun with the bottle of good liquor in his hand, sloshing it everywhere, he laughed and jostled the ottoman, the board skidding lightly as if it was going to fly off altogether. And it was only then that it regained his attention even after so many hours of sitting in its presence, although maybe it had been there watching him the whole time, calling him in as he picked it up and turned it over just the once, scoffing and dropping it back again instantly as if disgusted that he had even taken the time to touch it.

“Seriously...”

He pushed at the board with his foot, awkwardly balancing as his lips stretched into idiotic joy. Why was it so bad to get high, anyway? People didn’t see the good sides sometimes, the sides that made a man so much more than he was in himself, something far, far more than anyone could ever be without something more than the shadowy, cryptic intervention of humanity. The board was just a tool, a stupid tool, and he laughed, shoving it again until it fell to the floor and the planchette skittered off and away, its leather coat picking up dust.

“It’s all a fucking joke, isn’t it?”

He directed the question at the board, shaking his head, not all that annoyed at it. It was kind of hard to feel put off by an object when desire coursed through him, passionate joy curling up through his veins as if he had injected himself with a new strain, something that could warm him from the inside out like the lust of raw orgasm itself. And wouldn’t that sell well on the streets? Injectable sex!

“Oh, spirits,” he said, raising his tone mockingly even as he swept down into a low, embarrassing bow. “Will you not grace us with your presence? Have you not spent enough time looking down from on high, John, while I wait? Haven’t we seen your reflection in the smoke and mirrors of existence before?”

Eloquent for one who could barely stay standing, staggering and bellowing out a raw, hearty laugh that should have come from a much larger man. The drugs made him bold and he swung a kick at the board, sending it into the opposite wall even as he turned away, his attention drawn by something else entirely. Just where was his drink? The bottle had become misplaced in his pacing and he fumbled to get a glass out of the cabinet, the coldness of it thick and heavy in his fingers, which no longer seemed to possess the delicate dexterity of glass.

It shattered on the floor at the same moment that the letters only on the Ouija board began to glow, the order moving too swiftly for the bare human eye to catch -- if anyone had even been looking at them, that was. Something hissed, a seething, roiling sound like a trapped wild animal that knew it was near the end of its days, and Donnie blindly swung his head to the side, searching for the sound that senses both dulled and sharpened by intoxication and rancid influence could not quite determine.

But there was something more than the need for liquor thrumming through his veins and he groaned as he forgot all about getting a drink and sank back onto the sofa, the tightness in his trousers impossible to ignore. Were the cameras off? He didn’t really want to record that, not again. It had been done more than enough times and that was never a pretty sight, no, definitely no. And yet he could not resist the call of manhood, need rising up with a tingle of excitement that, if only for a time, could make him feel alive again, vibrant and pulsing and ringing through with passion.

It had been a long time since he’d felt like that. So, why not indulge?

He grunted in the back of his throat, cock out and in his hand before he realised what was happening, although he didn’t see the true terror in the room. Smoke seeped out of the Ouija board from four letters alone, beginning with the ‘J’ and ending with the ‘N’. It should have been shockingly, horrifically obvious to anyone watching just what was happening even if they could not uncover all of the details of it in the very moments of all occurring, unfolding in a swift and decisive series of events that could not be stopped. Hissing through his teeth, Donnie spat a curse and rocked his hips up from the bed, moaning out the name of the one he missed the most, pre-cum bubbling lightly from the tip of his cock in a glistening round.

“Fuck... Fuck, yes!”

He pumped the length of his cock with a feral gleam in his eye, lips parted and a spot of saliva marking the corner of his lips. Donnie rocked and ground up as if he was engaged in the raw act of sex itself and not mere self-pleasure but even his abruptly rapid orgasm was destined to be cut short as he reached greedily for it with both hands.

Electricity shot through the air, snapping through with a crack that sent him reeling back, curses flooding his mind. But it was not his security system or anything else of the tech infused into the very fabric of his home but something all the more deliriously sordid, the smoke from the Ouija board finally swirling like roiling, writhing thunder clouds made up of dark matter itself, for there was simply no other way to describe it. Drug-fuelled reality curdled into the unknown as he quailed back into the sofa and the figure rising from the smoke came right along with a groan that did not, in fact, come from the lips of any human.

No... That soul would never again be anything at all close to human.

Straightening, the figure tugged at the golden-yellow cuffs of his dark, pure black suit, fitting him perfectly, shoulders that seemed a little broader than they had been in life. The lapels matched the golden hue along with the tie, but it would not have been fitting to linger on the clothing choices without Donnie’s eyes sweeping up to his head.

Dark hair. Eyes that were familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The very same eyes, in fact, that he had seen staring at him over the Ouija board that time before, the time that Charles had not believed him when all had actually gone down and didn’t even remember after the fact. A smirk on unholy lips and a pair of horns snaking sensually back out of his hair, the man spinning a sceptre topped with a golden hook from one hand to the other as if he was putting on a show, although if it was any kind of show it was only going to be one that he understood in the crux of the moment.

Laughing, the man that was his brother and not his brother at the same time bowed in turn to Donnie, mimicking the action that he had only performed to the Ouija board itself so mockingly only short minutes ago, horns pointing towards the ceiling with the angle of his head.

“Well, well, well, brother, I thought it was high time I paid you a visit. Are you not glad to see me, dear?”

Dead.

That was the only word that crossed Donnie’s mind as he worked his jaw, eyes wide and hands clutching where they had fallen -- rather unfortunately so, in the case of his bare, exposed cock. He did not soften in the slightest (most likely due to the drugs in his system, odd effects there interfering with the nervous system and all that) but tried to speak, throat locked up and nose itching as if to sneeze as the overly dramatic, crackling and sparking smoke cleared, moment by moment.

Scoffing, John fussed with the lapels of his suit, posing with one hand on the sceptre as if he was staring off into the distance.

“Well, not so much of a visit on my terms, that is, I had to wait while I worked out just how to channel things but, really, is this not a fine entrance? I’m so very sure that my absence has been greatly felt.”

And yet Donnie could not talk still, blood roaring and pounding to the beat of an endless drum against the inside of his skull, chest tight but as if it was inflating, swelling out and out and out. While part of him rejoiced, heart fluttering and pulsing, the rest of him told him, slyly, that it was all just a hallucination, something that he should have expected, considering what he’d taken, the cocktail of abuse ringing through him, taking over his mind as he sacrificed his body for the daily art of survival. Like everyone else, he did it exceptionally well.

John laughed and proffered the sceptre before him like an offering but, frozen in place, Donnie had not the sense of mind or the capabilities in his body to think to take it or even complete the action.

Dead.

Gone.

Dead, dead, dead.

“Seriously? My dear, Small Donnie... Couldn’t you think of a better incantation if you wanted to bring me back? And the Ouija board? Well, well, well, didn’t that have Charles written all over it... He wouldn’t have remembered the first time but he does follow all the same patterns that he used to, doesn’t he? I’m shocked to see him still around with Soren, although, given the circumstances, perhaps it is understandable...”

Working out the kinks from his neck and shoulders, stretching and straining, he smirked, although the corners of his lips twitched just a little, belaying just what lay behind. Donnie froze against the back of the sofa, slack-jawed with his eyes wide and the bottle of vodka very slowly slipping from his hand. It fell to the floor with a bang and a light clatter, rolling away even over the thin carpet, so chosen for its slick appeal in a simply stylish room that he didn’t spend all that much time in anymore. He’d be disappointed to see it wasted once he came around and back to himself again: it was good stuff.

And yet John was still going, coughing lightly into a clenched fist, red eyes dancing with the mischief of the other side. There were words, after all, to come but just because another kind of life, even if it was not truly living, had clasped him and dragged him away from the bounds of mere mortals he was not, suddenly, flawless in every way. And that was, maybe, just maybe, to become his saving grace in the strangest of ways.

“That one is rather cliché... Yes... That old time... Not fitting at all.”

Donnie’s jaw worked and he leaned back, a strand of hair clinging to his forehead that could not be brushed aside, fingers curled as if he was about to clutch something but ending up frozen in the moment. What the hell was Charles going to say? Had that time really been...real? Had he seen back then? The image of the Ouija board, the staring, demonic eyes ripping into his soul, crossed his vision like a flashback of the beyond, something that had been and yet still was to come, both sides existing at the same time.

What had he done? He hadn’t... No... No! It could not... Well, no one would have expected the damn thing to actually fucking work!

Smirking, John sat back in the chair that he’d, long ago, claimed for his own, legs apart and his hand hanging between them casually as if he was really there, the very picture of relaxation. He’d put that chair there just as Charles had claimed his own little space with the ottoman, just to have it there when he wanted it. It was not as if Donnie objected all that much to either of them, except when it crossed a line. And, as was in the world of cyberspace and mental slipping, that line was always changing, shifting, wavering, the bond of a security system that one could not help but want to break down, just for fun.

As if from a distance, blood roaring dully in his ears, Donnie watched the shade of his brother’s eyes darken from their natural shade of grey, just oh so very lightly tinted with that eerie red, to a nuance of crimson that didn’t seem to be of any earthly matter. Not blood and not something else that he dared not mention either, throat closing up, blood roaring in his ears. And that was just because it simply wasn’t earthly; he couldn’t have put a name on it if he tried. Nothing of John was flesh and blood and merely human anymore.

No... He was far more than that. And that was just what sent his stomach churning into knots and twists the most.

“Did you really dredge me back up just to get your rocks off? Or is your jaw dangling for some other reason, hm, darling?”

“I...”

Sitting up slowly, heat crept down Donnie’s neck, guts lurching and twisting as if he was going to lose his stomach, although it would have taken a stronger man than he to not lean into the euphoria of the drug. Hell, if it was some fucking kind of weird hallucination, why shouldn’t he just go along with it? He fumbled with his belt, pushing his shaft back into his trousers, orgasm still fighting for dominance in his mind, coughing and stumbling over words that did not quite make it to his lips while John clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in mock disapproval, head slowly, so very slowly, swinging from one side to the other in a hypnotic, cajoling motion.

“Come now, Donnie... You can say it. Go on now.”

“You...” Maybe that was easier. “You’re... You’re meant to be dead.”

“Well, only in a sense, my dear, but it will all come to light and life in due time. No, not that kind of life,” he added on quickly, chuckling throatily as if at his own joke. “I am dead and something else now. But I was that something before too, as I’m sure you know.”

Donnie’s eyes burned and he cursed under his breath but it was not for that something that he may have known and may not have known before, doubting himself even in his moment. Even as his stomach turned over sickeningly, nausea rising up in the back of his throat, threatening to overwhelm him, he forced away the ludicrous elation at seeing him there before him -- John! John, flesh and blood! Maybe not blood and maybe not even flesh either but something and something was better than nothing, very, very much so.