Just Walk Away Who: Phobos/Rylee and Ares/Samuel What: Phobos pays a visit to his daddy’s meat-suit and gun play ensues! Where: Samuel’s apartment When: 12th of October, in the evening Warnings: Language and some Violence
It had been Rylee who had approached the apartment door, but it had been someone else entirely who knocked. The man standing outside of Samuel’s apartment looked like Rylee. He still had the blond hair and blue eyes of the man who had quickly become friends with Samuel himself. But it wasn’t the timid Rylee at all. The creature that inhabited the body was meaner, quicker, and much less caring.
Phobos had finally broken free. It wasn’t just dreams nor a gentle push of his powers. No, he was in complete control of the mortal body now. If only he had enough power to force the mortal’s physical appearance to change and his powers to be all at hand. Still, Phobos would gladly take what he could get, and this was more than he had been able to do for years.
Knocking loudly on Samuel’s door, Phobos rolled his head to the side, looking intently at the door and waiting for it to open as the smallest hint of a smirk appeared on his lips. He was impatient for this meeting, impatient to see his father, but that was all considering if his father could appear.
The apartment’s owner had not been expecting company, and if the creature he hosted had any such plans, he had not shared them. With a curious expression and a half-gone glass of whiskey in his hand Samuel answered the door, starting to let it swing wide upon his first glance at the boy. (Man, he corrected himself, and wondered from whence the thought had come.) But as he took a second look, and then a third, he began to wonder what exactly Rylee had gotten himself into, and his formerly warm welcome came to an abrupt halt. There was a new glint in his eyes, something hungry and sharp Samuel had not seen there before. It felt familiar somehow, right in a way he could not readily explain. All the same, it gave him pause, and for a time Samuel found himself frozen in a rare moment of uncertain inaction.
“Fuck’s wrong with you Eckholm?” he asked, speaking up at last. He gestured toward his friend with the glass still cradled in his callused hand, whiskey sloshing against the tumbler’s wall. “You look like you got into some bad acid.”
Phobos slowly began to smile before lifting his head, nose in the air, and taking a determined step forward. Without being asked, he slipped around Samuel and into his apartment. “Finally I get to come out and you’re here,” Phobos said with a sneer. “I’d rather it was my father.” He paused at the counter of the kitchen, picking at its edge as he rolled his head to the side once more and looked at Samuel.
“This child adores you, you realize. He looks to you for advice and trusts you so very much.” Phobos paused, gently holding his own chin between finger and thumb as he thought. “I suppose it’s a good thing. It allows me to be here in front of you, right now. Maybe it will make things easier.” Slowly, the devilish smile began to appear on what had formerly been Rylee’s face.
The furrow in Samuel’s brow had by this point deepened considerably. What had begun as an amusing intermission in his night - a night quite well spent, up to now, parked in front of a marathon of Clint Eastwood films, the sounds of Pale Rider drifting to them from the living room - was rapidly turning into a real nuisance. With a low growl he shoved the door closed, somewhat satisfied by its loud slam.
“If this is what you’re like when you get laid,” Samuel said, “go back to being celibate.”
He skulked into the kitchen, reaching for his ever-present bottle of whiskey. Brighid’s bottle of high end Jameson, a gift given him nearly a year before, lay well out of arm’s reach, on the topmost of Samuel’s private top shelves: It was not to be served to most guests (at least those whom Samuel had not seen, or did not care to see, naked), least of all those who already appeared to be drunk upon their arrival at his not so humble home. His stash of quite normal and ordinary Jameson would suffice, Samuel thought, at least for the time being; he procured the chilled bottle and an extra tumbler, pouring a glass for his friend.
“So what’s got you talking in riddles, kiddo?” he asked, handing him the glass. “Seriously, are you high?”
Phobos rolled his eyes and snatched the glass from Samuel. Staring at him he gave a shake of his head. “You’ve disappointed me,” he grumbled before tossing back the liquid and tossing the glass over his shoulder; he made no reaction as it broke on the floor. Mouth agape, Samuel let slip an unmistakable sound of disapproval, some mixture of sigh and growl. Phobos slowly leaned forward until he was awkwardly close to Samuel, staring directly into his eyes. “Come now, I know my father is in there. I see him swimming behind your eyes.”
Pushing back he looked Samuel over. “The last body I was in was always high. What is it that you call them? A fucking hippie? Every time I came into power my entire being would be dampened and sluggish.” He frowned, thinking of that horrendous period. What a horrible body to be placed in; however with this body... he grinned. “Your ‘kiddo’s’ body is fit, don’t you think? He’s healthy and strong and probably the closest looking mortal to my original form.” Phobos looked down at himself then back at Samuel again.
“Oh, come on now. Don’t play dumb or look confused, Samuel. You and Rylee have been figuring it out. Actually, you’ve been much further along than he has been. You know exactly what’s going on.”
Samuel’s sneer had long since matched Phobos’ own, but with those words it faded into something else entirely. There was no mistaking the boy’s meaning, and no way to address it without seeming utterly mad. Without a single glance away he set his glass aside, not raising a hand to his friend, though the squaring of his shoulders and the straightening of his spine showed he had little compunction about doing so should the need arise. He started to speak Rylee’s name, but something stirring deep within him told him no help would come from that closed road. And so, true to form, where there was no clear course of action at his disposal Samuel chose bravado. Aggression was good, he thought, drawing it around him like a blanket, close and tight as a second skin. It hid well enough Samuel’s growing certainty that what this thing in Rylee’s skin said was all completely, utterly true.
“Whatever the fuck you’re talking about, kid, you don’t come in any man’s house and disrespect him to his fuckin’ face.” He leaned in, closing what little distance remained between them. “And you damn straight don’t do it to me.” His hand raised between them, one hard finger jabbing into Rylee’s chest. “You break one more fuckin’ thing in this house and you an’ me are gonna have a problem.”
“My, my, so easily you become angry,” Phobos cooed as he leaned forward, allowing Samuel’s finger to continue pressing against Rylee’s firm chest. “Would you really hurt this body? Your friend would be so sad if he woke with a broken nose and discovered you were the one who broke it.”
Slowly, Phobos smiled and looked over Samuel’s expression. “You know, maybe this is what I need to get my father to appear. Maybe...if I keep angering you...Ares will come through. But remember, Samuel, that whatever you may do to this body will affect your friend.” Quirking his head to the side, Phobos reached for the bottle of whiskey that Samuel had been pouring drinks from and quickly threw it across the room. It shattered against a wall, the whiskey splattering and trailing down to the floor. “Come on, Father, come out and play.”
“What the fuck, Ekholm?” Samuel shouted, punctuating the demand - made a question only by the grace of a slight upward lilt in his tone - with a sharp, hard shove. What fleeting thoughts he may have had of Charlie, of Lia, of Rylee himself, did little to stop him. The second shove came harder than the first, pushing Rylee-who-wasn’t back onto broken glass, setting it crunching beneath his heels. It was disconcerting to hear this insanity from an ordinarily quite grounded friend’s lips; it was worse to feel himself agreeing, believing, behaving just as he was bid. But it was too easy a thing to simply react, to feel that old, familiar drive welling up within him, pushing him ever on.
“You want to fucking play, huh?” Yes, he heard, a distant voice echoing through every fibre of his being. His arms shot out again, pushing Rylee farther back onto the shattered glass, sliding their feet through the puddle of liquor. “Snap out of it before you make me do something I regret.”
“I am not, Ekholm,” Phobos snapped in Samuel’s face as he leaned back against the whiskey covered wall. “I am not Rylee! I am not- what is it that the little brunette calls him? Ryry. What a ridiculous name.”
Reaching up, he gripped Samuel’s shoulders and pushed him away before swinging him around, twisting their position so that Samuel was now pinned to the wall. With a repetitive shove, harsh and strong, Phobos leaned closer to Samuel’s face and breathed heavily for a moment before another smirk appeared. Samuel drew a deep breath a hair’s breadth away, exhaling on a ragged sigh, forcing out the muted pain radiating through his back. “Come now, Enyalios. Stop being stubborn and let yourself slip away.”
Grabbing Samuel’s chin he forced Rylee’s friend to look at him as he whispered lowly, “You know exactly who is inhabiting this body. You know this isn’t your friend. Let my father come out to play... just this once. You’d love it. The wars, the fighting, the blood and tears. Come on now, mortal, let yourself be taken over. I demand it!”
“Get your fuckin’ hands off me,” he growled, rough fingers curling white-knuckle tight around Rylee’s arms. He managed to pull the boy’s hand from his chin, thankfully removing at least that chiding, humiliating gesture. But the body before him was stronger than it had been, and a great deal more determined than its true owner would have been in the same circumstances.
Anger was an unsuitable word for what coursed through Samuel’s body. Rage seemed closer, but still did not cut to the heart of the matter. It was bad enough that his friend would barge into his space and provoke him so deliberately, but it was far, far worse that Samuel knew this was truly not his friend. He did not want to say the word, that name he knew well from his own dreams, from the books he and Rylee had frequently referenced. And yet it came to his lips all the same, in a voice not entirely his own.
“Phobos,” Ares said, and grinned.
Samuel felt himself subsumed, pushed down, drowning in his own skin. Strange, then, to observe oneself as if from a great distance, fully aware of what was happening, unable to stop it. It seemed almost as if this creature within him wanted him to see, to know, to admit for the first time the truth after long years of willful denial. He watched as his body stepped closer to the boy’s, whatever anger remained in his posture now turned to something else as well; something almost proud, as if all this had gone precisely according to plan. My fuckin’ whiskey, Samuel lamented, somewhere deep within.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Ares asked, though to which of them he spoke, Samuel could not be sure.
“If your vessel had continued being stubborn I think we would have ended up in quite the fight,” Phobos replied with a grin, lessening his grip on what had been Samuel’s shoulder, he gave it a pat. “Father, I would have rather seen you in your true form but this will surely do. I know I miss my own form. These teeth are so... small.”
He pushed away from Samuel, kicking at the broken glass on the floor and spinning slightly as he looked at the apartment. “That Samuel is incredibly stubborn. He just won’t let go, will he? He refuses to let you have the reins.” Kicking at a chair, Phobos grinned as it went clattering to the floor, Ares’ laughter echoing in his wake. “Father, may we have some fun? We haven’t been together in so long...we should celebrate.”
Lifting his hands, he turned on his heels again, smiling as he went and still managing a near devilish glare despite the lack of his natural fangs and fire filled eyes. He reached for the glass Samuel had been drinking from and threw it at another wall, laughing as it broke and the remnants of Samuel’s whiskey spattered.
Again Ares laughed aloud, the sound booming through the apartment, carrying to every room and the hallway beyond. His human facade may have remained intact, but in every facet of his demeanor the true self shone brightly through; Phobos saw it, timeless recognition written on his handsome face. Ares wondered if his Aphrodite, his Areia, could feel it as well, in spite of the unknown distance between them. His borrowed heart beat faster at the thought, racing unrestrained as he reached for the nearest object at hand. He found a plate, bare and unwashed remnant of a single man’s solitary dinner, and threw it violently into the other room. It shattered against the far wall, broken shards rolling, skipping merrily into the living room.
“His guns,” Ares said, already distracted, already on to the next, more interesting thing. “Find his guns. Artemis and I had a shootout on the roof. January... the full moon.” Grinning, he slipped past his son, their broad shoulders brushing as they passed. “You’d be amazed how much wild game this cramped city still has.”
Phobos immediately was at attention and with a quick nod he turned towards Samuel’s apartment. His mortal self had never adventured much further than the living room but he recalled Rylee’s memories and that Samuel did have guns. It was just a matter of where. “Do you know where he keeps them, Father?” Phobos asked as he walked away, already searching impatiently for the firearms. As he went, his arms moved about him in a swinging fashion and whatever his fists happened to come close to fell to the floor in a loud racket and sometimes a shatter. He wandered into what would be Samuel’s bedroom and paused in the doorway, wondering where the firearms were hidden, it was one of the places his Rylee kept his own guns.
“I must say, it’s taken me so very long to emerge into this world, but at least I have been able to see what this body has experienced. I know how to move in this age,” Phobos yelled to his father as he looked around the room and spotted what he assumed to be a gun safe.
“It pays to be observant,” Ares said, striding into the bedroom close behind. His hand slipped into Samuel’s pocket, fingers curling around the keyring he knew to be there. His vessel was either paranoid, eternally prepared, or some mixture of both; keys of any degree of importance were always close at his hand, if not upon his person, as he clearly did not trust them even left in the safety of his own flat. Ares found this a pleasing turn of events, not just because it meant entry to the safe would be shortly arranged. It was, after all, a comfort to know one’s host did not take foolish risks, or place his safety in the hands of others. Without further ado Ares sidled up to the safe, flipping the keys in his hand.
Inside they found no shortage of options. A number of handguns, service issue and otherwise, lay neatly on the shelves. Ammunition of nearly every calibre was found in a second safe, nestled halfway down the back wall of Samuel’s closet. Beneath the bed, in a second, flat safe, lay a twelve-gauge, prison guard-issue shotgun and two rifles. The Glock 17 they left in the bedside table’s drawer.
“What’s that they say,” Ares mused, grinning down at their find. “Pick your poison.”
Phobos made a grin with lacking fangs and stepped forward to inspect the selection before taking a rifle. He gripped it in both hands and grinned to his father before accepting an assortment of ammunition. Ares followed in short order, procuring a workhorse of a Smith & Wesson Compact .40. It was hardly showy, but he felt in its brushed steel the lives it had taken, the damage it had done. It was perfect. He knew well enough where Samuel kept his go bag; soon it was emptied, its practical and largely boring contents dumped upon the bed. After filling it with nearly every box of .40 rounds in Samuel’s possession, Ares looked up to his son, clearly ready to go.
With a spin on his heel, Phobos went back into the living area of the apartment, his eyes looking for any potential targets that would be great fun. Plates, pictures, glasses, bottles, or contraptions - anything would do.
Without a moment to waste, they quickly got to work.
***
Rylee was completely oblivious to what had transpired; straight up to his loss of control and Phobos using his body at will. Waking on the floor of Samuel’s apartment, not even being aware that his body had collapsed when Phobos had lost control and Rylee had returned, he blinked with confusion at the rifle in his grip and the broken pieces of Samuel’s possessions scattered around him.
With a gasp, Rylee dropped the rifle on the floor beside him and rubbed at his face while he still sat on the floor beside Samuel’s couch. “Samuel?” he called out with clear fright in his voice. He wasn’t sure what had happened but the obvious bullet holes in the wall and the fact that he was holding a rifle did not look very good.
“No.”
The sound of the pistol’s slide snapping into place was unmistakable. Just behind and beside Rylee’s recently risen form, a black boot shifted, signaling some movement on the couch. A battered silver picture frame breezed past the boy’s head; glass shattered, raining down upon them as a bullet passed cleanly through the little square, the once happy couple who had filled that pane now ripped in two. A second bullet sliced through the remains of picture and frame, shredding it before it hit the ground.
“He’s here somewhere,” Ares said, laughing. “I suppose I misplaced him. You don’t think he’ll mind our... redecoration. Do you?”
Blue eyes wide, Rylee jumped at the crack of the pistol as it fired. His hands were already over his head, a near fetal position with degrees of military training dripping from his movements. Despite being in the Marines and receiving continuous top of the line training through the Officer program; Rylee was absolutely terrified of actual levels of fighting. Part of the reason was because, well, he enjoyed it. There was a small part of him deeply buried beneath his initial panic that thrived off it all.
“Our redecoration?” Rylee squeaked as he flicked off the broken picture frame off his clothes and casually regained his grip on the dropped rifle. He wasn’t sure what was going on but a consideration of whether or not Samuel was suffering from some hidden bout of PTSD came to mind. “Samuel... Samuel maybe you should put the pistol down...”
“Stop calling him,” Ares snarled. He rose from the couch, closing what little distance remained between him and this shell of his son. His boot struck out, catching Rylee high along his thigh. “Don’t tell me you’d prefer his company, Phobos. You worked so hard to bring me out, and now you’ve changed your mind?” He reached out his human hand, leaning down to the couch to pluck another picture from the pile. This one showed a bride, her smile sharp but happy, her eyes hiding something whose like Ares had seen so many times before. She was not his Areia, but she knew more than a few of her tricks. Ares sneered; he could never abide an unsuccessful mimic. He threw this picture, too, its downward trajectory describing a markedly lessened arc. As before, the bullet passed through it, burying itself – and a number of glimmering shards of glass – in the floor a pace away from Rylee’s foot.
“It isn’t so easy as that.”
“I’m... I’m not Phobos,” Rylee stuttered as the tremor in his voice grew. Rylee knew he wasn’t Phobos. It wasn’t like the night before where his face had changed. He could feel it already, the small teeth that were his, his eyes not feeling hot. He was Rylee, normal blue eyed, blond haired, regular Rylee. “Sam- uh... I’m... I’m Rylee. You know that....” his voice faded off and he kicked away the glass bits by his feet. He desperately tried to retrace his steps for the evening but to his dismay he couldn’t recall anything other than thinking of visiting Samuel to tell him what had happened the night before. Now, he was sitting on Samuel’s floor with shards of Samuel’s belongings around him and it was obvious time had passed.
With a shiver in his gut, Rylee began to wonder if all of this had to do with exactly what Samuel was saying- Phobos. If Samuel was assuming he was Phobos then wouldn’t Samuel be Ares? That had been what they discussed of course but Samuel looked like Samuel. He didn’t have the appearance of a god. He didn’t look any different. Gathering what little courage Rylee had he spoke out to Samuel, or whoever sat before him, although his voice came out weak and frightened, “I... I didn’t... I didn’t try to call you out and I would prefer Samuel’s company.”
“Oh, you would prefer it,” Ares sneered. “And who are you, Rylee, to think I care what you prefer?”
Even as he spoke the words, Ares felt something roused within him, that consciousness fighting to resurface once more. It was at once infuriating and reassuring; by and large Ares appreciated his strong-willed host, but it was another matter entirely when that willfulness was turned upon him. He circled the boy, staring unblinking down at him, searching his face for any semblance of his child. He dimly recognized the mortal before him, but it was missing something; the light in his eyes was not what he looked for; the carriage and bearing were all wrong. His vessel’s green eyes narrowed, the barrel of the gun lowering to align with Rylee’s knee. If fear was his son’s purview, perhaps fear would bring him out.
“What did you do with him?” he asked. He felt his mortal’s spirit buck against him, like an animal intent upon unseating its rider. He pushed on all the same. “Where is my son?”
Rylee wanted to reason with himself and Samuel that this was not happening. And yet, he had the gun pointed at his knee, not Samuel, so Rylee was willing to pretend to believe anything that was going on right now. That Samuel wasn’t Samuel and the war god Ares had stepped in? Sure, why not, if it would keep him from getting his kneecap blown off.
It still made Rylee terrified though. Pushing back on the floor with his hands he caught little bits of glass from the picture frames, feeling it cut into his skin, but he didn’t pause to whimper about that. He was too busy feeling his heart rate jump up and the rush of tears in his eyes that he forced from falling. “I didn’t do anything with him,” Rylee quivered as he looked up at Samuel. Even the stance, the facial expression, it was all different from the Samuel he knew but his body was still the same. He didn’t look any different. “I just woke up on the floor. I don’t know what happened! Maybe... maybe Samuel will know? He’s the one who says he’s experienced this stuff before.”
With a final push that brought him a few feet away from Ares he scrambled for the shotgun and put it into position, pointing it at Samuel’s own knee. “I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I am a good shot. Even when I’m scared. But I’m not going to let you hurt me, Sam-... Ares... whether or not Samuel is my friend. I won’t let you hurt me.”
Ares’ eyes narrowed, assessing the danger before him. He wanted to believe there was no danger, that this mortal threatening him with tangible harm was nothing to give a second thought. Ares was war, courage, bravery: beautiful, intangible things, concepts that could never die. But the blow this Rylee was prepared to give him was not a dire wound. It would not free him, setting him loose to seek a new vessel for his use. It would merely trap him in a body he could no longer use to its full effect; worse, it would render his vessel incapable of performing even the most basic of his daily tasks, the bulk of which were either directly or indirectly tied to the very service of modern warfare. It was, to say the least, an unpleasant prospect.
With a growl on his lips he lowered the gun, feeling the spirit whose body he had stolen at once expressing relief and redoubling its attempts to regain control. Perhaps a strategic retreat was necessary, Ares thought; better to quit the field now than to have one mere human see him forced aside by another. “It seems he wants to talk to you,” he said, his lip twisting in an animal’s sneer. “Fine. I’ve had my fun for now. But when I come back, Rylee, I want to see my son.” His finger toyed with the trigger, squeezing it a fraction shy of the necessary pull to fire. “And then, if you don’t give him to me, even threatening Samuel won’t save you.”
Rylee’s jaw grew lax as he stared up at the man. He didn’t know what the hell had happened or how to do it. Whatever happened that night, what had happened the night before... he hadn’t control over either moments. There was no way for him to just let this other ‘being’, or whatever it was, out to play.
The gun dropped, Samuel’s right arm going lax as quickly as if the muscles themselves had been cut. Samuel blinked, clearing his vision, his shoulders slumping as his apartment came quickly and violently into view. He knew too much of what had happened; far, far too much to be comfortable or anything like happy now.
“Fuck,” he mumbled. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He leaned down, flicking the safety on the .40 as he set it carefully aside. He reached out an arm to Rylee, his freshly bright eyes meeting the other man’s as he did. “Fuck, man. Are you okay?”
Rylee didn’t move for Samuel’s offered hand. He stared at it for a moment then snapped his eyes back at Samuel. He didn’t place the gun down either as he sat there, frozen on the floor. “Samuel?” Rylee whispered with a voice heightened by fear. “What... what the fuck happened? What... why did you...” His breathing began to come out quickly, his brain snapping into play again and the start of a panic attack quickly building up. Rylee dropped the gun, not even noticing that he put on the safety before it dropped to the floor, but still he sat as his breathing began to pick up. “What the fuck was that?”
Samuel straightened up, brow furrowed, open concern casting a dark shadow over his face. His hand fell lax at his side, untaken; he felt the sting he knew was his due. Gritting his teeth, he thought hard on what had transpired; he had seen things more clearly than he had in his last possession. It was hard to call it such, but there it was: the truth, and no more. It was hardly comforting, having been awake through it all, but he hoped perhaps he could shed some light on their unique situation.
“It wasn’t me, Eckholm,” he said, giving a vigorous shake of his head. “Swear to God. I don’t know what the fuck that was-” Yes, you do, a voice insisted, the voice that had so recently issued forth from his own throat, “-but I would never...”
Rylee blinked his eyes in succession, possibly to force back tears that might have formed, but Rylee certainly wouldn’t admit to that. He gave a shake of his head, realizing what had happened but desperately trying to convince himself that it wasn’t true. “Ares,” Rylee whispered. “You weren’t you, you were Ares. But... but you didn’t change! You were you! You looked just like yourself. You were supposed to change...”
Rylee frowned, thinking of his experience the night before. “At least that’s what I thought happened. That our bodies changed. But you were... you were Ares and you were demanding to know where I put your son. You were calling me Phobos and...” Rylee cut himself off, shaking his head and wrapping an arm around a bent knee. “Your body didn’t change though, you didn’t look any different...”
“I know, I know.”
Samuel pulled a hand through his short hair, feeling the faint sheen of sweat beading there. “I didn’t...” He shook his head, squinting down at the floor as he tried to remember. “I don’t think I changed that much before, either. My eyes, my skin...” He waved: a vague, frustrated gesture. “Nothing too noticeable.” He swallowed hard around the rising lump in his throat. What he felt was some odd amalgamation of shame and residual fear; he hated the thought that he might have hurt Rylee, might have killed him, might have ended them both in some bloodbath beneath their very own roof.
“But you.” The moment Samuel hit upon it he felt remarkably, considerably more at ease. It was Rylee, after all, who had first shown up here, prattling on about his ‘father’, and Ares, the long-dead god. “You were different, in some ways. It was you showed up pushin’ me around and shit to begin with. So c’mon. What the fuck’s going on?”
Rylee shook his head, looking up at Samuel with honest confusion. “I... I don’t remember. I was in my apartment and I wanted to come over and tell you what happened to me yesterday and then I woke up on your floor.” He knit his brow for a moment, absorbing all information that Samuel had given him, and slowly his heart rate began to slow down and his breathing wasn’t quite as desperate.
“Samuel,” Rylee muttered, still with the fright easily leaking out of his voice. “Yesterday Charlie came over with costumes for Halloween. I had been feeling weird all afternoon but I went and tried on the costume she brought. Then... then everything changed. I could feel myself change.”
Rylee looked back up at Samuel and slowly got to his feet, standing in front of his friend but still keeping a cautious distance from him. “I thought that I had an infection from getting my wisdom teeth out but it wasn’t that at all. I looked into the mirror and my fucking face... every one of my teeth ended in a point. They were all fucking fangs and my eyes weren’t even eyes. They were just holes that were filled with fire. I could still see out of my eyes but they didn’t look like my eyes. My tongue was different. It was rough and long like a cat’s and... and Charlie saw it. She saw everything. I know it’s not a hallucination because she was there too and she saw it. And I could fucking growl, Samuel.
“And you know what’s really fucked up? This morning it was all gone. And you know what else? You called me Phobos. You know who he is? He’s fucking Ares’ son. He was always depicted on fucking shields with a lion’s mane, fangs and glowing eyes.” Rylee’s eyes, which were blue and not the fire filled orbs he had mentioned, were wide with fright as he looked at his friend.
Samuel, on the other hand, was looking increasingly put out. A deep furrow currently creased his brow, growing more pronounced with each passing second. And even distracted, his peripheral vision showed him too much of his nearly destroyed apartment to allow him any kind of comfort in this revelation. Too many pieces of the puzzle pointed to the same thing, indicating another event at least in part like the one the Halloween before. Only this time, instead of getting epically laid, Samuel had threatened to kneecap one of his closest friends. It was infuriating, not just to be controlled, but to be puppeted for such intensely unnecessary evils. Though it likely did no good, he focused again on that part of him that had so recently come to the fore, pushing down that being, that aspect, with brutal force. I’ll be damned if I let you do that again, he thought, quite clearly addressing someone else, someone he knew would be listening.
“All right,” Samuel said, green eyes turning heavenward. He breathed a tired, deep sigh, wishing he could ignore the destruction all around him. “This fuckin’ place. You know we didn’t do this, Eckholm. I know it sounds fuckin’ crazy. And God knows what I’m gonna tell my renter’s insurance about this. Or my Lieutenant.” He looked back down to Rylee, shaking his head. “But Lia’s the only other one’s seen me like this. Even if she was a little, uh, indisposed, herself, at the time. We can tell her, if nobody else. Just run it by her and see if she thinks we’re Section Eight.”
He could not help another mournful glance around his apartment, shoulders slumping as the worst of the damage came into view. It was some small comfort to see the PS3 had only a small trench shaved into it by a passing bullet; at least Ares had that decency, Samuel thought.
Rylee cautiously looked around him and frowned. “I’m sorry for what happened in here, Samuel. I’ll help pay for the damages.” Samuel made a clear sound of negation, shaking his head. Rylee bent down, picking up the pieces of some photos that had been scattered around where he had sat previously and stood up again, frowning at the destroyed photos before placing them on Samuel’s couch.
He raised weary eyes to Samuel. “So not only do we have dreams, but our bodies change or get possessed?” As Samuel nodded, Rylee’s frown grew greater and he hugged himself, running a hand up and down his right arm as he looked over the destroyed apartment. “You- Ares- demanded that I let Phobos come out the next time he’s around or else. I don’t really like the sound of that, Samuel.”
He fell silent until the humor of the situation sprung upon Rylee, that or he was having the start of a nervous break down. “Phobos. That explains the dreams and the feeling of familiarity with you and Lia. He’s one of the twin sons. Ares and Aphrodite are his parents.” Rylee’s eyes went back to Samuel and he made a small, shy smile. “So you’re my father. Well, that thing inside you is my, Phobos’, father.” It was amusing to think; Rylee had long since labeled Samuel to be like an older brother figure, or at least what Rylee assumed such a figure would be since he had no siblings of his own. But to think of him as a father figure was amusing and yet... somehow comforting and natural.
Samuel laughed. For a moment it was almost enough to take his mind off his destroyed possessions, to stop his rapidly increasing mental tally of the damages.
“Well, shit,” he mused, his hand lifting to the nape of his neck, working out a bone-deep knot there. Much like his supposed spiritual son, Samuel clung to the humor of the moment, letting it pull him away from the roiling mix of anger and frustration building within. Foxhole humor, they called it; Samuel found it remarkably fitting. “Death threats aside, that’s pretty cool, right? Skip straight to the interesting parts and never deal with diapers or PTO meetings or travel ball.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Wait’ll you tell Lia she gets a kid without the stretch marks and weight gain.”
Rylee’s smile brightened slightly and color rose on his cheeks. “I don’t know if Lia would exactly like me talking to her about stretch marks and weight gain...” He looked at the floor and let out a small laugh. “We’re just a big gun slinging family with anger issues.” He looked around the apartment again. “Should we try and clean this up a little? Or maybe we should talk to Lia? I promise I’ll help but if you start acting like Ares I am getting the hell out of here.” His eyes raised and he looked at Samuel with complete seriousness. He would protect himself and if this Ares was threatening bodily harm, well then, Rylee would return the blow and he didn’t want to do that to Samuel.
Samuel laughed, though it was a rough and unconvincing sound: The memory of the threat was still far too vivid and far too close to pretend it had been less than what it was. His jaw tightened as he sought within himself whatever remnants of Ares remained too near the surface, and willed himself to force it all the farther down. “Let’s pick a few things up, just to keep from anybody bleeding out if she wants to come down and look at the damage.” Sighing deeply, he bent down to the tattered pictures and broken glass. “Leave enough that I can get pictures for insurance,” he said. “I’ll come up with some fuckin’ story. Who knows. Enough weird shit happens around here, surely this won’t raise any eyebrows once USAA sees my fuckin’ address, right?” He glanced down but briefly at one of the torn pictures, recognizing at once what it was. His eyes widened for an instant, but even that was soon under control. “Just toss this shit,” he muttered, crumpling the picture in his hand.
And with that missive they set to work, giving the flat a hasty once-over before heading upstairs and to the elevator.