Work Text:
Lucanis is bleeding.
He registers it as a distant fact, the trickle of blood that works his way down his face, the bitter irony tang of it on his lips.
The demon is screaming again.
OUT. LET ME OUT.
Lucanis tilts his head back, feeling the smooth surface of conjured ice along the back of his skull. They’ve learned to keep him contained. At first, they assumed chains would be enough to stop him from reaching between bars and snapping necks of any Venatori that got close enough. Then they moved him to an isolated cell, the glass dome and the bottomless pit surrounding it. Now they incase him in ice, as soon as they open the door.
It hasn’t always been enough. Sometimes he’s made it through the door.
He’s made it farther, never quiet far enough before they bring him to his knees with the blood vial though.
LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT
The Venatori mostly keep him confined on his own now, their curiosity apparently sated on the other test subjects.
Lucanis can hear them sometimes. When his own demon shuts up.
He knows the sound of someone dying in agony, knows what it sounds like when your vocal chords can’t convoy the pain and cut off at their limit. It’s a constant refrain in this place.
The Venatori have been trying to break him, but he’s not going to die in this place, not like that. They cannot do anything to him now that he hasn’t experienced before. And if he’s to die, he’ll do it slicing as many necks as he can on the way down.
I WANT TO GO. LET ME OUT.
He may go mad before that, however.
“Do you ever shut up?” He asks aloud, the annoyance finally boiling over.
The pain in his head redoubles as the voice of the demon in him turns to him instead.
MAKE YOU LEAVE I WANT OUT
Lucanis hisses through the pain and snarls at the voice. “This isn’t the fade, you idiot. It’s the real world, you can’t just rearrange it to suit you through words.”
His demon snarls back, and Lucanis can’t remember what it was, when they first were forced together, can’t remember anything past the burning pain and how it made the world hazy, he remembers thinking he could hear weeping. Now in control of his senses again he knows nothing but this screaming creature sharing his mind and body with him, all thoughts of weeping have long since left.
GIVE ME YOUR BODY AND I WILL MAKE THEM LEAVE
“Fuck you.” Lucanis enunciate coldly. “You think I’ve survived all this time here just to let them win? That I’d give them the fucking satisfaction of turning into a demon now? You’re not getting my body.”
The demon goes silent.
He should know by now that it’s never that simple.
“Is that what we are?”
Lucanis’ eyes open, and he pulls away from what he sees in front of him.
His reflection sits across from him, head tilted and eyebrows furrowed. Dressed in his kit from the last job he took.
“What the fuck.”
The reflection only continues to regard him slowly, and Lucanis is comforted by the fact that whatever monster this demon is, he does not speak in Lucanis’ own voice. “I know what we are. We’re Spite.”
“We are not anything.” Lucanis bites back, trying to contain the growing panic. He has so far just had to deal with the disembodied voice of his demon, seeing it take the form of his own body is another thing entirely.
And the reflection grins, out of place on his own features. “You are. And I am.”
Lucanis knows nothing about mages, besides how to kill them. Knows even less about demons and the magic they have. He can assume though that this is not a step in the right direction.
“Let me reiterate it in case it wasn’t clear, demon. You are not getting my body.”
The reflection’s grin drops, and the snarl is back. “They trapped us.”
“Mierda. Yes, it seems like you finally understand the word.” Lucanis rolls his eyes, “But turning into a demon will not release you. It’ll just give them what they want.”
And that catches the demon’s attention, quells some of the rage on his face. “They do not get what they want. They trapped us, they should suffer instead.”
And Lucanis… Lucanis can work with that. “So we agree, we’re not going to give these Venatori fucks what they want.”
NO, MAKE THEM SUFFER.
And the demon is back being a voice in his head instead of a visual. Lucanis finds he prefers that.
“To do that, we need to survive. Because at some point, they will slip.” Lucanis continues, and the pain in his head recedes slightly, like the tide. “And when that happens, we figure out a way to escape, kill those who are responsible for this and live. Deal?”
YOU WANT TO BARGAIN?
“Yes. You don’t take over my body and help me, and I make sure we live afterwards. But you need to listen to me if we’re going to get out of here, and it may take time.” He hopes the demon has the sense to at least think over the offer.
DEAL. WE GET OUT WE MAKE THEM SUFFER.
Lucanis allows himself a moment to picture it. “I intend to.”