hadriel_logs | Event Log: Dead Ringers

Entry tags:

Event Log: Dead Ringers

Who: Everyone participating in the event!
What: The event log for the Dead Ringers event!
Where: All around the city
When: January 16th-January 25th
Warnings: Evil doubles, so we can assume manipulation, violence, murder, and maybe some nasty words

Everything seems normal on the morning of the 16th - actually, everything seems normal about the city for the entirety of this event. Nothing is strange, nothing is obviously wrong. Well, except that the population has mysteriously doubled, and the new residents each look exactly like one of the old residents. So weird! Definitely not ominous at all.

At least until your new double gets down to business. After all, their only goal is to ruin your life, and that can take any form. Smashing your favorite coffee cup? Telling your worst enemy they're right? Kissing someone else in front of your girlfriend? Brutally murdering you and then hiding your body in a closet so they can more effectively destroy your life? The possibilities are truly endless, and the only way to protect yourself is to kill your double first. They're not really open to negotiation, after all - but they sure might pretend to be in order to trick you.

So watch your back, and try to make sure that really is your best friend and not an evil clone masquerading as them. Boy, that would be awkward. If you can stick it out until January 25th, good for you! But if you didn't manage to and your double survives until the end - well, just as a final 'fuck you', there's a chance you'll come back to life and remember every awful thing your double did. Hey, at least that'll make it easier to fix, right?

► This log covers January 16th-January 25th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If your evil clone happens to take you out, please let us know here, and remember that you will not revive until the event is over.

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There's another strangled noise, something between a sob and a cough; it's wet, painful, and leaves him even quieter than before.

"My- my garden," he finally answers, his voice shaking from both the agony and a sudden cold that washes over him. "Please be- be c- careful, my f- friend."

The garden--of course. Glacius doesn't respond, still feeling too torn up and conflicted to know what to say--he wants to offer reassurances but no longer knows how the clergyman will take those--but instead rises to his feet and goes to snag up the double's prone form in one big white hand. There's no way the alien is leaving him in the apartment to continue wreaking havoc, and he certainly doesn't want him lurking about when he comes back. He takes the keys, locks the door to ensure that the double will stay out, then drags him unceremoniously down the stairs by the long collar of his undershirt--not particularly caring that the troublemaker will be feeling each and every bump when he wakes up--and leaves him outside the spire as he heads on his way to the garden. He doesn't have the time to deal with him any more thoroughly than that, given how precarious the real Carlisle's state had sounded... hopefully the beating he took will be enough to discourage him from coming after either of them again.

From there he picks up the pace. Always a slow and steady creature, Glacius only tends to run when things really feel like they're going to hell--and the absolute agony and fright in Carlisle's voice qualified. His feet pound against the beaten street as he dashes for the clergyman's storetop garden, terrified of what he might come across... and as he spots the human's listless body and the considerable trails of blood he's left everywhere, he realizes his worry was completely founded. The sight stops him up short, steals his breath and clutches tightly at his chest... and then concern thunders through him, powerful enough to beat out whatever conflicting emotions he may be feeling and push him towards the fallen human.

"Carlisle!" Glacius calls out, praying he's still conscious as he collapses to his knees by his friend. His mind is racing, trying to figure out what can be done. Despite everything that he's just endured, and no matter what Carlisle may or may no longer feel for him, the fact of the matter is that Glacius still cares deeply for the clergyman and isn't about to leave him to suffer. If he gets spurned for the open concern he's displaying or his efforts to remain by the human's side, then so be it. They can go their separate ways later when he's not bleeding out slowly and painfully.

The double may have taken a far more brutal beating, but it's the real Carlisle who looks like death warmed over by the time Glacius reaches him. He's lying in a crumpled heap around one corner of the building, a trail of blood leading all the way from the door to where he collapsed; his phone is nearby, the screen cracked from the impact when it hit the ground, red and black fingerprints all over it from his outstretched hand. As for Carlisle himself, his skin is even more colorless than usual, save for what's covered in his own blood and ink, both of which have obviously been pouring from his mouth and pooling beneath him. Protruding from his back are the handles to the shears, the point of the long blades pushing against the skin of his chest from the inside out.

The clergyman barely stirs as Glacius calls out to him, his chest rattling with every breath, what strength he had having been sapped away from the journey to the street and the wait for his savior to arrive. He's muttering something, but Glacius might not be able to discern what it is he's saying until he leans closer: "Pull it out."

"If I do--" Glacius begins, finding his words catching in his throat again as he takes in all the grisly details around him. Up close, Carlisle looks even worse, his body beginning to curl up defeatedly, his skin drained of its already slight color. His gills flutter and he forces himself to continue on. "--Can you heal the wound? Otherwise I must leave them in until I can take you somewhere to be stabilized, so as not to cause any greater blood loss." He's already clearly had more than enough of that as is.

He repeats himself, his hand curling on the pavement, his fingers stained from the ink seeping beneath his nails. His entire body trembles as he struggles to put emphasis on his decision. "Pull. It. Out."

Carlisle isn't worried about the blood loss so much as the energy he's expending, which is getting worse the more his body tries to give up on him. The shears in his back prevent him from fully healing himself -- his energy hits the foreign object and balks back the way it does against a construct or a golem limb. He can't keep himself alive forever; his double knew that well, even if he did misjudge his counterpart's tenacity. Desperation can push a man to his limits, and when it came to keeping Glacius safe from someone who looked like him, and presumably compel people in the same way, Carlisle was definitely desperate.

Glacius growls with indecision--this would be much easier if he actually understood what was happening to Carlisle right now. He doesn't realize that the man's energy is constantly cycling, he just assumes that it can't properly flow until the foreign object has been removed... but if it can't flow to begin with thanks to his waning strength, then he'll have created an open wound in the man's back for nothing. He has to trust the clergyman on this one... but trust is not exactly something he's feeling for the human as freely as he used to. Instead, the sharp tone reminds him too much of the one his double had taken, and the alien's face tightens unhappily.

"I hope you know what you are doing," the ice alien rumbles... and with that his hand grasps the shears and effortlessly yanks them clean from Carlisle's flesh.

The blades come out easily with Glacius' strength pulling against them. Carlisle cries out in anguish, his face contorting from the pain that rips through him as the shears are removed, but surely enough, he did know what he was doing: after a few seconds, the wound in his back mends itself, flesh coming together like fibers knitted into a piece of cloth. Despite the fact that he is healed, he continues to writhe on the ground, his chest heaving as he takes in a few labored breaths.

"Thank- thank you," he manages finally, trying to push himself off the ground as more ink trails from the corners of his mouth. It coats the side of his face and glasses from where he was lying in the puddle, trails down onto his bloodied tabard -- he wipes at it with his hand, his entire body trembling, eyes struggling to focus on the face of his friend.

Edited 2017-01-18 02:05 (UTC)

Glacius flinches as Carlisle cries out, unable to keep the sympathy from welling up in his hearts... and though relief courses through him as he watches the wound mend, the concern and pity doesn't leave him as the clergyman writhes and pants, still clearly suffering from the whole ordeal.

Normally, this would be the point where the ice alien would hunker down low to the ground and offer his body as literal support for Carlisle to prop himself up against. He'd be trying to do whatever he could to comfort the clergyman, who has just come out the other side of an extremely harrowing ordeal... but he's just been mocked and scorned for all of these behaviors, so instead he stays put, noticeable space between them. He doesn't return the human's gaze when he searches for his face, nor does he even respond to his thanks. He doesn't know what to do, or what to feel any more.

"Will you go to the clinic now to recuperate?"

Carlisle notices the distance Glacius puts between them, figuratively and literally, but he can't parse it out at the moment -- he's too exhausted from his ordeal, too relieved Glacius hadn't met a terrible fate, too paranoid with what happened to his twin. For all he knows, the other Carlisle could be lurking around any corner, just waiting for them to let their guard down.

So he lets Glacius do the guarding -- offering Carlisle a sense of safety is one of his true talents, after all. "I- I want to go home," he says tiredly after a moment, wiping his face again, feeling ink and blood in his hair. He makes no attempt to get up; he knows he hasn't the strength to do so on his own, and is sure Glacius can see it as well, so he instead reaches for the alien's arm, so certain his friend will help him to his feet.

Edited 2017-01-18 02:44 (UTC)

Thankfully for Carlisle, Glacius has never been the sort to let anyone suffer, especially not someone who he has feelings for that he or any malicious doubles can't seem to trample out no matter what they do. Though the alien's hesitation--which is now uncharacteristic of him in their interactions-- is clear as day, he does eventually lean towards the clergyman, finally offering himself as physical support at least. It seems like he's been bunted back a few stages, though--he watches the human as if he's unsure what to do with the contact, like he's expecting to be bitten for it somehow.

"H-home..? You... still want to live there?" the ice alien asks quietly, feeling the tiniest bit of hope spark up in his wasted hearts. Even the word choice seems significant to him--he knows that both he and Carlisle have had their doubts over whether or not that shared dwelling could truly feel like a home, but that he's saying it now... well. It's the first step in helping Glacius figures out where the double's lies begin and end, which is something the otherworldly being desperately needs right now.

Even through his fatigue, Carlisle picks up on Glacius' hesitation; he turns his tired eyes to the alien once more, the bags under them more prominent than they've ever been as he blinks a time or two, trying to clear his vision.

"W- why wouldn't I?" he asks in reply. His mind puts it together half a second later, and even through his exhaustion, his ire is evident. "What- what did he do?"

He tears his gaze from Glacius' face and surveys the alien himself, looking for any wounds, any signs, anything that would give him an answer.

That ire surprises Glacius... not that he's surprised that Carlisle harbors ill will for the man that just ran him through with his own garden sheers, but that it seems to be so fervently on his side after his double had just dragged him thoroughly through the dirt. The alien tucks his head back, unable to respond to the clergyman, afraid to call back on those memories and risk worsening wounds that are already gaping and raw.

"We should go back," the otherworldly being murmurs--attempting to avoid the question, which is a tactic Carlisle should be all too familiar with.

Glacius may be quiet and dodging the topic, but Carlisle is more furious than he can ever recall being -- and Glacius' avoidance only fuels the fire. His tired mind can't put it together, but he knows something must have happened, something terrible for the alien to question whether or not he'd want to go home. What had his double said? What had he done?

"I'll wring his neck myself when I find him," Carlisle seethes, his teeth bared, ink still dripping from him, his hand on his abdomen rather than his latest injury as he forces himself to his feet, using Glacius as a support. His eyes sharpen, creases carved heavily into his face from fury. "How dare he use my appearance against you! That the gods do this to us! Did he hurt you? Did he—"

Unfortunately, Carlisle's health can't keep up with the raging broil in his chest. Back to hacking he goes, his legs threatening to collapse beneath him as he wheezes for air.

Edited 2017-01-18 03:46 (UTC)

NNnnope, all that moving is not okay. Glacius gives out a stunted chirp as Carlisle forces himself to his feet, then warbles in distress as the man starts coughing up a storm. He already looks like he has a foot in death's doorstep, what with the blood and ink smeared down one side of his face and body, and more of the dark fluid dripping from his mouth and fingernails like his body is on the verge of falling apart...

Former or not, his friend needs his help, and the ice alien finally reaches a breaking point: despite the way that the uncertainty and self-doubt he's been dealt by the double clash against his concern and desire to protect his friend, he can no longer stand by. So far, the clergyman has seemed to not only tolerate his touch, but still desire it... he can only hope that trend will continue as he rises as well, hooking his arms around the human's back and legs as he hoists him up, cradling him securely.

"Breathe, Carlisle," he instructs gently. "I am here, and my body is unharmed." It's the nicest way he can think to put it, but given that he's not one to lie, the distinction is there. "We cannot say the same for you... so please... let us focus on your recovery."

As Glacius hoists Carlisle into his arms, the clergyman doesn't fight, doesn't argue, doesn't push him away as the alien might have expected. In truth, as much as he wants to find his double and see him rightfully punished for whatever he may have done to Glacius -- and to him, can't forget the shears that spent so long in his back that he nearly died -- he's too weary to actually do just that. Glacius is right: he needs to recover.

Carlisle can focus on how his double may have ruined everything he holds dear later. For the moment, Glacius is helping him, providing him with that sense of security he so desperately needs when his paranoia is rising, threatening to swallow him as quickly as his ire had. He rests his head against his alien friend, letting the coolness of his icy shell help soothe his head.

"Right," he utters, his voice graveled from all the coughing he's been doing. There's still ink running down it, mingling with trace of blood that linger there. "Right. You're right. Let's" —he takes in an unsteady breath— "let's go home, and he can be dealt with later. Should be dealt with. Just as long as- as you are all right."

Edited 2017-01-18 04:09 (UTC)

Glacius can't respond to that. He is very much not alright, but his wounds, emotional in nature, will have to go unaddressed for the time being. At least they're not being completely untreated... the fact that Carlisle is still as accepting, grateful, and concerned for him as ever is comfortingly familiar, a soothing salve in light of how wrong interactions with his double had been. His own agonies haven't vanished, but they're a little more dulled now. He can push on in spite of them for the time being.

He starts walking them back to the Spire, his head up and trained towards the distance... but occasionally his glowing green eyes flick down to look upon the human resting in his arms, watching his breathing, making sure his condition doesn't start to spiral downwards again.

Though he's quiet as they make their way back to their shared home, that look of frustration remains, dulled only by the exhaustion so evident in his frame. He can't possibly know what his double had in store for Glacius, can't even guess the twin would try to cripple the connection the two of them share. He'd been so worried that the alien would be compelled to do something horrible that he doesn't even consider the other ways wounds can be inflicted.

"I was so afraid, Glacius," he admits, finally finding his voice. It's softer now. "I'm... used to that for me, but..."

He swallows. He'd felt a rarity in that moment when he'd pushed himself to his feet, forcing himself to walk to the stairs despite the pain flooding through him: he was more afraid for someone else than himself.

Glacius stops mid-stride as Carlisle speaks up again, his boyd flinching and his features tightening up. Of course the clergyman had expression concern for him through pained, choked gasps over the network... but after everything his double had said, the ice alien wasn't sure if that was only due to the fact that if he was dead, he wouldn't be able to come to the human's aid.

"You were... that worried about me?" Glacius asks tentatively, remembering to move his feet again. He wasn't sure if the sentiment was genuine, but he wants it to be... he wants so badly to be able to believe in what they had again, but it's hard.

"I thought—" Carlisle's own body twitches as he tries to bite back the emotions he'd felt in that moment, fails to keep them from coming back to the front of his mind. He's giving Fear and Sorrow a feast, he's sure. "He- he said he'd force you to take your life, and- and in that moment, I couldn't think of what I'd do if that happened."

His hand shakes as he paws at his chest, at where his holy symbol rests beneath his ruined tabard. He'd been afraid for himself, but more afraid for Glacius, his stalwart protector, his friend.

Glacius blinks down at Carlisle as he digests that knowledge. If that was his double's plan, then what made him decide to go off of it? Why had he favored the emotional torment over the physical? Perhaps he was simply attempting to grind down the ice alien's will before he attempted the compulsion--it would have been extremely difficult otherwise...

"Well... he didn't," the ice alien murmurs, glad to see the Spire looming large in the distance. All that twitching and shaking the clergyman is doing is making him nervous... he needs to tend to him. "Either he simply didn't get the chance, or he decided other tactics would be more destructive in the long run."

And given how it's a true challenge for the alien to not reveal how utterly eviscerated he's been feeling over everything, it seems like that was a safe assumption.

More destructive tactics, Carlisle turns in his head. It had to be something that would convince Glacius he didn't want to live there anymore -- the icy giant, usually so strong and determined, had been absolutely uncertain of whether or not Carlisle wanted to remain at the apartment, to return to the space they'd been sharing for well over a month now. But what had his double done? Had the twin truly changed his mind in the walk from the garden to their home?

Carlisle rubs at his eyes -- he can feel his limbs growing cold, losing sensation as they tend to when he's expelled far more energy than he should. It's the expected result from an unexpected occurrence.

Though his head is starting to ache, he can't let that thought go for even a moment, can't cast it aside for when he's not struggling to stay awake. He takes in another breath, the air dragged into him roughly as he asks for clarification. Perhaps it'd help. "Other tactics?"

"I, ah." Glacius begins but cuts himself off quickly... he really doesn't want to talk about this, but he knows that he must. He doesn't want to let anything undermine the friendship that he and Carlisle have, and he knows that if there's anyone he should listen to on the matter it should probably be the real Carlisle. But that's also part of the problem. The double was based on him, after all, shared his thoughts and every memory... so Glacius knows that he must have had some real insight into the clergyman's mind.

And that's the crux of it, really: regardless of what the clergyman says, Glacius is afraid that there will still be that niggling fear that the human might change his mind about him, or that he might be hiding the way he really feels under a veil of kindness just to procure the sense of security the alien provides. After all, the double had said it himself: there's no way something like him could ever have that much meaning to a human like himself.

The otherworldly being hangs his head, his body shuddering as the words play back in his mind in a perfect echo of his friend's voice. His gills work a few times like he's trying to get some words out, but nothing comes, and instead he simply ends up shaking his head. The walls he'd tried to start rebuilding are beginning to come down again, the devastation that the alien had suffered beginning to rear its ugly head above the rubble.

And with Glacius' expression falls Carlisle's, as well: his friend's turmoil is so strong that he cannot ignore it, no matter how worn he is. Whatever it was his double had done, it poisoned the bond between the two of them, so tortured Glacius that he struggles to talk about it, even with someone who has already seen him at his lowest, who has always been on his side. The two of them have staved off loneliness by finding comfort in each other. If Glacius thought Carlisle had turned against him, and that he was to suffer that intolerable alienation once more...

The clergyman's face twists, his vision blurring not from his health, but from some private heartache, his eyes bleary as a grim realization overwhelms him. The double had meant what he said when he'd threatened to push Glacius to take his own life; however, he'd never intended to do it through compulsion at all. He hadn't needed to, not when the pits of despair that Carlisle himself had helped pull the alien from were so much more effective.

It's a terrible thought, and one far too close to Carlisle's heart. The false him must have known that, and sought to destroy them both in one go. Worst of all, he may have succeeded.

From his spot in the alien's arms, Carlisle tries to reassure his dearest friend through action rather than words: he reaches for Glacius' jaw to put a hand to his scar, the physical remains of an event that, as horrible as it had been, ultimately drew them together. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, his voice strained. "Whatever it was this apparition did on my behalf... I am sorry, my friend."

Edited 2017-01-18 17:11 (UTC)

The contact, at least, is something that Carlisle's double hadn't had the chance to sully. Glacius' breath hitches in his chest when he feels the clergyman's hand rest gently on that scar, the gesture just as full of care and consideration as it has always been. When he touches him like that, things feel a little more okay again... he fights the urge to stop in the street and seek further familiar reassurances.

"Not here," the ice alien rumbles out, though he tilts his head against Carlise's palm to show that the gesture is accepted and appreciate. "You are hurt. I cannot waver yet." But soon... the Spire is close, and once they make it inside he can get the human situated again... and then maybe they can talk about all of this.

Feeling Glacius' head press against his hand, Carlisle nods and draws it back, rubbing at his eyes as he falls silent, his heart heavy. Just what had the creature posing as him done? And more importantly, could it be fixed?

It's in that moment that he thinks of Algidus, of the injury in the green alien's voice when he believed Carlisle had turned against him, of the outright agony that overtook him, crippling even the strongest of warriors. To imagine Glacius being put through that wounds him even now, even worse than the shears in his back.

And so Carlisle is quiet the rest of the way to the Spire, resting once more against his alien friend as he tries to focus on something else -- anything else. What finally holds his attention is the sharp pounding behind his eyes and the roughness of his throat as he breathes; both are preferable to where his mind would go if given the chance.

Edited 2017-01-18 18:52 (UTC)

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[cw: suicidal ideation]

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