The Me Of The Past Hates You Of The Present

After watching TV, Yaksha and Rudi crawled into the waterbed. The two had watched the television for no more than a half-hour before the child felt too sickly to continue, the parasite and the response of his blood causing him to feel sick fairly early. The parasite needed to get acclimated- Rudi's blood was particularly volatile and difficult to adapt to.

The two moved eventually from the television to the bed. Regardless of the time of day, the parasite linking the two together beckoned the two to sleep, allowing Yaksha to observe all of Rudi's gentle calm and trusting positions as he slept. The boy fully believed that his friend, and also his leader, would guide him towards a mutually beneficial path.

In their sleep, Rudi and Rodolfo talked over a fire, surrounded by a dark and endless forest, under a starless, moonless sky. Rudi had been here every night since he awoke, and Rodolfo was there every time to meet him. Rodolfo had brought fresh trout from a river, in the slim and sleek form of his vasto lorde form. In this place, Rodolfo looked like a man coated in a monster's skin, all fur and a crown of antlers over an exposed skull like a thorned halo.

And Rudi held no fear as he munched on the trout. In the shifting dream, their exchanged ideas didn't need any words to talk. Rodolfo was a slick, crimson honey into their mutual skull, and Rudi was an arc of blue lightning in response. Memories were shared, observations made. And Rodolfo knew then that something was wrong, and that Yaksha had done something, though he knew not what.

Rodolfo could not be angry at the child, any more than he could rage at the sky. It would do nothing to change the situation. Rudi watched the man shift, like the night on two legs, half-shadow as Rodolfo paced around the edges of where the flickering light reached. Hints of Rodolfo sometimes touched the light. A paw there. A claw here. Black fur. The reflection of the fire against that crown of thorns.

The older vasto lorde touched his claws against Rudi's forehead, gentle, and the child closed his pink-red eyes and went limp, and dissipated into the air like the puppeted creation he was. He collapsed into a sand of memories into the earth, and clouds began to form in the night sky. The clouds began to rain. The fire sputtered, smoked, and then, too, extinguished.

Rodolfo opened his eyes from the dream, and found himself curled against Yaksha's form. Their limbs entwined like the morning after a lovemaking session. He could feel the parasite throbbing in his veins, and yet he ignored it for now. Instead, his right hand, enclapsed in a white, silken glove, balled into a fist.

And Rodolfo socked Yaksha right in his face, hooking upwards from his chin, hopefully with enough force to shatter some teeth, if not bruise the bones of the jaw as the teeth clacked into one another. He sat up, feeling feverish and disoriented as his body risked septic shock with its effort to eliminate the parasite from his body. Perhaps if he was given a day or two, he would be able to fully expel the creature from his body.

But for now, he had a hollow to destroy, like a dog unwanted.

"What the hell is this, Yaksha?" Rodolfo's voice, normally soothing and kind, had escalated into a dangerous growl. "Give me one reason not to slaughter you like the monster you are."

Coding By: [THEFROST]