quietplacelogs | V. (CLOSED) forget regret, or life is yours to miss

V. (CLOSED) forget regret, or life is yours to miss

featuring: hotdog & will & leo
what's happening? will wants to get his soul read by a demon and frank is his horror dad so he has to back him up i g
day: no day but today
content warnings: general creepiness, endangerment of a child.
notes: frank promises will a favor before he knows what it is, like the genius he's known to be.

[ at the boy's behest, despite every better judgment he has screaming against it, he's currently leading will to house six where he used to reside. a lot has changed since he moved out, and it would seem his own meticulous soundproofing of the place had attracted a demon who needed a song to snatch souls for consumption and to survive. after his conversation with kamala about leo, he isn't so much afraid of him as he is wary. he promises he won't hurt those of a pure soul, that he only kills the worst criminals. it isn't so different from what he's done in the end, is it? but he's just here to back will up. to make sure he's safe no matter what.

and he has a preloaded message ready to go to elektra should anything go south. there's no one he trusts more to take this seriously and fly in guns blazing (in figurative, she's a ninja SHE DOESN'T NEED GUNS) should they need her. but frank is banking on not needing her, and he's hoping that kamala won't see them either. a bonus if she's not home. rather than go in the front and get spotted by bethany too (he knows too many people in this house!!!!) he takes will up through the deck, carefully stepping over the soundly slumbering man sprawled on the wood and up through the kitchen. they make a silent beeline for the second bedroom, miraculously evading any of the other occupants. throwing a glance to will in solidarity, frank raps his knuckles against the doorjamb in morse code O-P-E-N-U-P. even if leo doesn't know the language, he'll recognize that it isn't a uniform knock. ]

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[This is 100% not a smart idea. It's a stupid idea, and it's stupid and selfish of Will to have asked Frank to come along, and it's stupid that Will is even now wishing he hadn't told anyone and had just shown up alone.

But he has to know. He has to be sure. If there's any chance there's so much as a fragment of the Shadow Monster still inside him, he needs to know right now, so they can lock him up or something. Nobody else is going to die because of him.

The look Frank tosses him goes unnoticed, as Will is deeply lost in his own thoughts, but the knocking makes him startle a little, crossing both arms tightly over his chest.]

[Leo's finding the people here curiouser and curiouser. Things were simple back home. People were innocent or sinners. There was no in-between, no shades of grey. It was one of the things that had given him such a strong conviction that what he was doing was the right thing. Here, things were much more complicated: souls that read as both innocent and sinful, someone with two souls within them, things that he'd never encountered before. He didn't like it.

One of the reasons he agreed to do this was to satisfy his own curiosity. He wondered what a kid could have done that was so bad he wanted the state of his soul assessed. Such a thing always disturbed Leo. He'd burnt out a great majority of what connected him to humanity, but he wasn't so far gone as to condone that. He heard the Morse code knock at the door and smiles to himself. He'd grown up in a military operation and it was familiar.

Leo gets up and goes to the door, flute held in one hand. He certainly doesn't look like a soul-eating monster when he answers, more like he should be modeling on the cover of GQ with his fair hair and chiseled features, the only mar to his face a small scar that runs through his left eyebrow. The only hint he's not human is the color of his eyes, the blue hue so dark it's almost black.

He gives Frank a hard stare like he disapproves of the man. Sorry, Mayor Hotdog, your soul reeks of sin, and he can smell the blood on your hands while your shadow moves of its own accord. He looks more warmly at Will. From what he can already see, the kid has a clean shadow.]

Well, shall we get started?

[ he puts his hand on will's shoulder and makes a point of meeting his eyes before they go in. they can still turn back. as for leo, he gets a cursory glance-over. his face is set in hard lines, but his eyes are soft. there's nothing about him, especially with a child at his side, that speaks to the sin the demon finds within him. ] It's up to Will.

[Will twitches at the touch, looking up at Frank with wide, anxious eyes. Part of him wants to turn and bolt right now, and pretend none of this never happened. It almost doesn't help that Leo looks totally human.

But finally he nods, wordlessly. He wants to get it over with. Also don't think he doesn't see those suspicious looks, you two.]

C'mon in then. If I play out here, the whole house will hear.

[He'd prefer not to attract half the population of House Six. There's way too many temptations in the form of sinners, and while he might not feel bad about chowing down on someone like Spike, he would about some of the others.

His room is pretty spartan at the moment. He still hasn't gone for any sort of personal touches aside from the harmonica sitting on the nightstand.]

[ he keeps his hand on will's arm as he gently nudges him forward. the last thing he wants is to get everyone else's attention either. once the door shuts behind them, he reluctantly lets go of will and addresses leo properly. ]

So, that's it? You play us a song and it tells you about his soul? [ a beat as he lifts his eyebrows. ] No funny business?

It's magic. [Will says it softly, but matter-of-factly, still not meeting anyone's eyes. It makes perfect sense to him.]

[Leo gives Frank an appraising look, kind of like the way someone looks at chocolate cake when they see it in a store window. It's not the most comforting expression.]

Calm down. I already promised a very nice lady here that I wouldn't go after kids to eat and I haven't gotten into the habit yet of taking unwilling victims.

[He's hungry, but not that hungry yet. Making enemies is not high on his list of priorities.]

Kid's got it right. It's a supernatural thing. Just be prepared to confess.

[He doesn't elaborate as to what that means before he begins since that might cause the pair of them to rethink this whole thing. He brings the flute up and begins to play. From the first note, it sounds like the most beautiful song ever heard, enchanting to the two pairs of ears listening. It won't be long before the color of their souls rises to the surface of their skin, red for Frank, and twin glows of both white and red coming from Will's skin. Leo ignores the hunger within urging him to take their souls, instead waiting patiently for the confession of their sins to fall from their lips.]

Magic, right. [ before he can protest and tell him this is only for will, frank realizes he's in trouble. he never should have come here. he closes his eyes as the song washes over him, trying to fight it, but he already knows he'll tell leo what he wants to know. just like kilgrave. it makes his stomach turn. ]

I ended the people who took my family from me. Every last stinking one. [ and they stank. just like his city. he misses it in a perverse way. ] You want to see a real dark soul, try the Kitchen Irish. Mexican Cartel? I followed it all the way to the top, to the man in charge. The goddamn Director of Covert Ops. How's that for a conspiracy?

[ he'd all but forgotten will was there the second his eyes came open. it's obvious that even now he wouldn't change what he had done. he'd do it all again, and again. it wouldn't bring his family back, but those men didn't deserve to live after what they'd done. after what rawlins made him do. ]

[Will is definitely going to turn all that over in his head later -- Frank's family, a cartel, someone from a Kitchen? A Director? It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make sense, Frank killing people. Killing people. If it weren't for the flute music he'd be --

-- scared. He'd be scared.

But there is the music, and it's beautiful and it's soothing and he's talking without thinking, voice varying between soft and sharp, teeth gritting during the latter.] I didn't want to hurt anyone, I didn't want anyone to die, I didn't want to let Him trick them but He did, it was their own fault, it was their fault, I warned them, I tried to warn them not to make Him angry but they did and they paid for it I told everyone at the Lab that it would help, that if they went there they would be able to kill Him, all the scientists, all the soldiers, all of them and I lied, I lied and they never knew until it was too late, I felt them all die, I heard them scream and watched them run and it was too late.

[He has to stop, out of breath, eyes bright, chest heaving, hands in fists, caught between the two voices, his own and the memory of His in his head. When he speaks again, it's in a tone halfway between each.]

There were twenty-three of them in the Lab. The doctor lived. The man lived. The mother lived. The other boy lived. The other man died. Everyone else died.

[Leo's heard a lot of confessions over the past twelve years. There's very little in the way of human wickedness that he hasn't heard, the very worse of humanit's base selfishness and anger in what they did to one another. It never makes it any easier to know what's the worst thing a person's done. Frank's is a tale he's heard before. Revenge is a common motivation for people to sin. Leo still doesn't condone it. Eye for an eye is all good up until everyone ends up blind.

Will's is a bit more murky, something he doesn't quite understand. The boy had, or at least thought, that he'd caused the deaths of many people. If his soul had been pure red, it would say that was justified thinking, but the muddled state of it left Leo wondering what it meant. Could someone commit a sin without fully doing so? He stops playing, though the last few notes hang in the air, producing a shimmery rainbow sort of glow like the shine on soap bubbles.]

Interesting. It happened again.

[By which he means this is the second time he's seen someone's soul split cleanly down the middle. Kara had been the first, her sins that included being controlled by another man to commit murder.]

One sinful side. One innocent. That never usually happens.

[The song should be making its way out of their systems right now.]

[ he glances over to will once the spell is broken, his face creasing deeply. that will thinks this is his fault disturbs him beyond what he can fully grasp right now. to say nothing of the boy overhearing his own horrors. frank forces himself to turn his attention back on leo, though under normal circumstances he would be grabbing will and booking it out of here. ]

But that doesn't mean... the monster's gone, right? It just -- left an imprint, or. [ frank swallows, thinking of all the things he'd been prepared to do for killgrave. he can see how that would alter someone's "soul" even after the effects had worn off. ]

[Will's head is pounding now, and he's not sure if it's an aftereffect of the song, or just from the stress of remembering...everything. The lab, the soldiers, the doctors, Bob. Everything. He can't make eye contact with either of them, swaying a little where he stands.

But he has to know the answer to Frank's question, swallowing tightly, managing in a faint voice:] An echo. Just. It's gone, it's...not there anymore. Right?

I see nothing when I look at your shadow and I smell no blood on your hands.

[Oh yes, that's something else he can do, smell the scent of sin-staining blood on people's hands. At least he can provide an honest answer to the big question the two of them seem to have.]

It might have left a stain, but it's not there now.

[ frank processes that as quickly as he can and nods, grabbing will's arm again. gently but in a way that brooks no arguments -- their time here is done. he shoots leo a hard look in farewell before starting to herd the boy towards the exit. ]

Come on, Will. Time for us to go.

[Will shudders between two reactions -- curling away from the touch, still raw and vulnerable from his abrupt honesty, and clinging to it. Clinging wins, and he wiggles his arm free so he can grab onto Frank's hand instead.]

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V. (CLOSED) forget regret, or life is yours to miss

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