Lindsey Gair (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blindknight) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tvkworks2012-01-23 12:32 pm
blindknight) wrote in tvkworks2012-01-23 12:32 pm
Entry tags:
♫ you gave me a life I never chose
Title: Send Us A Blade
Fandom: Velvet Key
Character(s): Lindsey Gair
Pairing(s): None
Genre: Action/Drama?
Word Count: 1414
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Warning for language! Lindsey has a dirty mouth and by proxy so does the narrative.
Summary: Mister Cynical gets his first taste of the Dark Hour and awakens to his Persona. Takes place roughly around the 20th.
Notes: This started out as a log, but then it became Something Else Entirely. So here it is.
----
Lindsey would be lying if he said he wasn't still shaken by just suddenly being dumped on some strange island that no one's heard of, with no memory of how or why, like the plot out of some failed prime time TV drama. He would also be lying if he said he wasn't bothered by the fact that he had tried to call his parents, only to get different people entirely when he tried their numbers. Neither of these people had even heard of Dylan and Madeline Gair. It was... creepy, and whether it was legit or not, it certainly proved that he would be stuck here for a while.
So he made an effort, asking for help around town, and then taking a couple of days to get to know it himself. The way the hotel provided gift cards for the local establishments was fucking creepy too, but he wasn't going to turn it down. It seemed, in addition to his parents, he'd been cut off from his bank account too. He would need gift cards, at least until he got a job. (The notion frankly freaked him out- he'd never had a job before.)
All of this sort of aimlessly filtered through his mind as he, just as aimlessly, wandered back to the hotel after a late-night run to a nearby convenience store. What was it everyone had warned him about? Oh yeah, "don't go out alone at midnight". What a bunch of bull. Kidnapping he could buy- that shit happened in real life, and even as elaborate as all this seemed, it was still plausible. Monsters and shadows and trolls and shit? No way. He had his feet firmly planted in reality, and nothing was going to move him. Besides, it had to be getting close to midnight now, and nothing weird had---
The clock struck twelve, and the change was instant.
He couldn't see it, but he could feel it. The already quiet streets became deathly so- nothing moved, nothing breathed. Lindsey had never felt so utterly alone in all of his life. There was being alone, and knowing other people were around, but this? This was solitude. This was the fucking rapture, and being the only one who didn't get the memo. The sudden shift in atmosphere made the hair on the back of his neck prick, and he quickened his pace, feet splashing through puddles that he swore to God had not been there when he'd walked through here before.
It wasn't long before his cane bumped into something solid and unmoving in the middle of the sidewalk. A wooden box by the sound.
"The Dark Hour happens in the middle of the night when people without Personas turn into coffins..."
No way. No fucking way.
With careful, shaky fingers, he explored the contours of the object. As tall as a man, and eerily cold to the touch. It was a coffin- a fucking coffin- standing upright in the middle of the sidewalk. He withdrew his hand as though the coffin had stung him, and there was no denying it now- Lindsey was totally and abjectly terrified.
He gave the thing a wide berth, nearly tripping off the edge of the sidewalk as he did so. Caution be damned, he needed to get back to the hotel, and he needed to do it now. He half-walked, half-jogged down the sidewalk, nearly colliding with an errant coffin more than once. Still, he kept on his course, the pounding of his feet on pavement deafening in the eerie silence.
If this was a prank, it was a fucking good one, but somehow he doubted it. There was something about it that was just too... real for even him to deny.
It was also becoming apparent that he was not alone. Though, instead of the footfalls of another human being, something was... slithering. Crawling. Dragging itself out of alleys, and through whatever-it-was in the puddles on the ground. There were many of them, and they were following him.
Out of stupid instinct that he just couldn't shake, even after all these years, he glanced behind him. He could see... something. Dark, blurry patches of color in the blackness that was his world. It shocked him, right to his very core, and for a moment he forgot to do anything but keep jogging and keep staring. That proved to be unwise, because this time he did run into something. It was one of those newspaper dispensers, just sitting outside of some store, ready to be filled with the latest issue like nothing was wrong and the world wasn't going fucking crazy. It was plastic, thankfully, because a metal one would have fucked him up in a bad way as he and it collided and went crashing to the sidewalk together.
He lost his cane somewhere in the collision, and he heard it skid along the concrete, coming to a halt as it rolled into a coffin with a dull thud.
The vaguely colored shapes were creeping closer. They were flanking him, he was certain, as more of that horrible slithering noise came from somewhere behind him. Were they going to kill him? Was this how he was going to die? Something, some small voice in the back of his mind, told him to move. He did, rolling out of the way as the clawed hand of a Shadow punctured a hole in the newspaper dispenser, where Lindsey had been a scant second earlier. He doubted he would be so lucky next time.
But that voice persisted, and he could feel... a presence of sorts, stirring in the back of his mind. He could hear a word, a word he had heard when he first arrived and had quickly dismissed as craziness. Persona.
Something clawed at his jacket, and he scrambled backwards, practically crab-walking until his back bumped into the coffin he'd gathered was there earlier. His fanatically searching fingers found his cane, and curled around it in a white-knuckled grip. Claws dug into his pantleg, his jacket. They were pulling at him from all sides.
This couldn't be it. This couldn't be the end. He did not survive that fucking accident, he did not fight and claw his way back to some kind of semblance of normalcy, just to die like this. Terrified and alone in the dark. He would not. Be. Useless.
The presence in the back of his mind grew, like a crouched person, rising to their full, daunting height. Call me.
The word escaped his mouth in an angry, defiant snarl. A challenge to the world and to the things that were trying to take him now. "Persona!"
Something snapped, and Lindsey saw stars for a moment. Then he saw it. A knight, in gleaming armor, as clear as day in his mind's eye. It bore in its hands a sword, almost as long as it was tall. Lindsey felt the breeze as the blade flashed around him, relieving the things of their groping limbs. He realized, a little belatedly, that he could see them too. Not as clearly, but what once had been dim patches of color were now bright, albeit still largely featureless, shapes that tried to move away from the onslaught of his Persona.
Lancelot. That was its name, though he wasn't sure how or why he knew that. All the knew was that he was grateful for it, and that he was going to owe a lot of people apologies when he got back to the hotel.
One by one, the colored marks that once were Shadows either fled or fell under Lancelot's blade, leaving the boy and the shining knight to regard each other quietly for a moment. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the Persona was gone, and the brightness faded from Lindsey's world. He was alone again, though not completely. Lancelot was still there. A reassuring warmth somewhere in his consciousness.
Only then did Lindsey realize how utterly exhausted he was. The danger had passed for the moment, but he still needed to get back to the hotel. He doubted neither he nor Lancelot could go another round with those things. His limbs felt heavy, and, much to his distaste, he hand to use the coffin for support as he rose to his feet. Still, he willed himself into motion, and with his newfound companion, made his way to what was likely to be home for a very long time.
Fandom: Velvet Key
Character(s): Lindsey Gair
Pairing(s): None
Genre: Action/Drama?
Word Count: 1414
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Warning for language! Lindsey has a dirty mouth and by proxy so does the narrative.
Summary: Mister Cynical gets his first taste of the Dark Hour and awakens to his Persona. Takes place roughly around the 20th.
Notes: This started out as a log, but then it became Something Else Entirely. So here it is.
----
Lindsey would be lying if he said he wasn't still shaken by just suddenly being dumped on some strange island that no one's heard of, with no memory of how or why, like the plot out of some failed prime time TV drama. He would also be lying if he said he wasn't bothered by the fact that he had tried to call his parents, only to get different people entirely when he tried their numbers. Neither of these people had even heard of Dylan and Madeline Gair. It was... creepy, and whether it was legit or not, it certainly proved that he would be stuck here for a while.
So he made an effort, asking for help around town, and then taking a couple of days to get to know it himself. The way the hotel provided gift cards for the local establishments was fucking creepy too, but he wasn't going to turn it down. It seemed, in addition to his parents, he'd been cut off from his bank account too. He would need gift cards, at least until he got a job. (The notion frankly freaked him out- he'd never had a job before.)
All of this sort of aimlessly filtered through his mind as he, just as aimlessly, wandered back to the hotel after a late-night run to a nearby convenience store. What was it everyone had warned him about? Oh yeah, "don't go out alone at midnight". What a bunch of bull. Kidnapping he could buy- that shit happened in real life, and even as elaborate as all this seemed, it was still plausible. Monsters and shadows and trolls and shit? No way. He had his feet firmly planted in reality, and nothing was going to move him. Besides, it had to be getting close to midnight now, and nothing weird had---
The clock struck twelve, and the change was instant.
He couldn't see it, but he could feel it. The already quiet streets became deathly so- nothing moved, nothing breathed. Lindsey had never felt so utterly alone in all of his life. There was being alone, and knowing other people were around, but this? This was solitude. This was the fucking rapture, and being the only one who didn't get the memo. The sudden shift in atmosphere made the hair on the back of his neck prick, and he quickened his pace, feet splashing through puddles that he swore to God had not been there when he'd walked through here before.
It wasn't long before his cane bumped into something solid and unmoving in the middle of the sidewalk. A wooden box by the sound.
"The Dark Hour happens in the middle of the night when people without Personas turn into coffins..."
No way. No fucking way.
With careful, shaky fingers, he explored the contours of the object. As tall as a man, and eerily cold to the touch. It was a coffin- a fucking coffin- standing upright in the middle of the sidewalk. He withdrew his hand as though the coffin had stung him, and there was no denying it now- Lindsey was totally and abjectly terrified.
He gave the thing a wide berth, nearly tripping off the edge of the sidewalk as he did so. Caution be damned, he needed to get back to the hotel, and he needed to do it now. He half-walked, half-jogged down the sidewalk, nearly colliding with an errant coffin more than once. Still, he kept on his course, the pounding of his feet on pavement deafening in the eerie silence.
If this was a prank, it was a fucking good one, but somehow he doubted it. There was something about it that was just too... real for even him to deny.
It was also becoming apparent that he was not alone. Though, instead of the footfalls of another human being, something was... slithering. Crawling. Dragging itself out of alleys, and through whatever-it-was in the puddles on the ground. There were many of them, and they were following him.
Out of stupid instinct that he just couldn't shake, even after all these years, he glanced behind him. He could see... something. Dark, blurry patches of color in the blackness that was his world. It shocked him, right to his very core, and for a moment he forgot to do anything but keep jogging and keep staring. That proved to be unwise, because this time he did run into something. It was one of those newspaper dispensers, just sitting outside of some store, ready to be filled with the latest issue like nothing was wrong and the world wasn't going fucking crazy. It was plastic, thankfully, because a metal one would have fucked him up in a bad way as he and it collided and went crashing to the sidewalk together.
He lost his cane somewhere in the collision, and he heard it skid along the concrete, coming to a halt as it rolled into a coffin with a dull thud.
The vaguely colored shapes were creeping closer. They were flanking him, he was certain, as more of that horrible slithering noise came from somewhere behind him. Were they going to kill him? Was this how he was going to die? Something, some small voice in the back of his mind, told him to move. He did, rolling out of the way as the clawed hand of a Shadow punctured a hole in the newspaper dispenser, where Lindsey had been a scant second earlier. He doubted he would be so lucky next time.
But that voice persisted, and he could feel... a presence of sorts, stirring in the back of his mind. He could hear a word, a word he had heard when he first arrived and had quickly dismissed as craziness. Persona.
Something clawed at his jacket, and he scrambled backwards, practically crab-walking until his back bumped into the coffin he'd gathered was there earlier. His fanatically searching fingers found his cane, and curled around it in a white-knuckled grip. Claws dug into his pantleg, his jacket. They were pulling at him from all sides.
This couldn't be it. This couldn't be the end. He did not survive that fucking accident, he did not fight and claw his way back to some kind of semblance of normalcy, just to die like this. Terrified and alone in the dark. He would not. Be. Useless.
The presence in the back of his mind grew, like a crouched person, rising to their full, daunting height. Call me.
The word escaped his mouth in an angry, defiant snarl. A challenge to the world and to the things that were trying to take him now. "Persona!"
Something snapped, and Lindsey saw stars for a moment. Then he saw it. A knight, in gleaming armor, as clear as day in his mind's eye. It bore in its hands a sword, almost as long as it was tall. Lindsey felt the breeze as the blade flashed around him, relieving the things of their groping limbs. He realized, a little belatedly, that he could see them too. Not as clearly, but what once had been dim patches of color were now bright, albeit still largely featureless, shapes that tried to move away from the onslaught of his Persona.
Lancelot. That was its name, though he wasn't sure how or why he knew that. All the knew was that he was grateful for it, and that he was going to owe a lot of people apologies when he got back to the hotel.
One by one, the colored marks that once were Shadows either fled or fell under Lancelot's blade, leaving the boy and the shining knight to regard each other quietly for a moment. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the Persona was gone, and the brightness faded from Lindsey's world. He was alone again, though not completely. Lancelot was still there. A reassuring warmth somewhere in his consciousness.
Only then did Lindsey realize how utterly exhausted he was. The danger had passed for the moment, but he still needed to get back to the hotel. He doubted neither he nor Lancelot could go another round with those things. His limbs felt heavy, and, much to his distaste, he hand to use the coffin for support as he rose to his feet. Still, he willed himself into motion, and with his newfound companion, made his way to what was likely to be home for a very long time.