WHO: Jacob Frye, Evie Frye, and Serefin Meleski (with an appearance by Wei Wuixan) WHAT: A plan was made to take care of this god business once and for all (and it works, but lbr, everyone is gonna be a little traumatized after.) WHEN: Tuesday evening, inside the Frye Vault WARNINGS: Blood, violence, PG-13ish STATUS: Complete!
Jacob hated this plan. He hated everything about it.
He knew it was all they had. And that something had to be done. Now. Not tomorrow, not a week from now. Tonight. Serefin's life depended on it. And as far as Jacob Frye was concerned, there was little that mattered more to him than Serefin's life. Well, Serefin's life and sound mind. God, he bloody hated that Velyos had ahold of Serefin's mind and body.
How long had it been going on? Before the fire and fight club. Before Ostyia, Thurvishar, and Sara and Evie. Evie, for fuck's sake. If Velyos had managed to hurt Evie wearing Serefin's face…
Jacob couldn't think about it. Diego was bad enough. He had to focus on the rubbish plan that was the best plan they had. He needed to stab the man he loved. What a load of bollocks that was. He still wasn't entirely sure he could do it, even now, as he lured Serefin into the vault with Evie in hiding close by. Wei Wuxian wasn't far and it wasn't the worst plan, but it relied on a lot more faith than Jacob Frye had ever attributed to himself.
"Hello, handsome," he drawled, as casually as he could manage. "Looking for anything in particular down here?"
Serefin should have known better. He did actually, but it was the allure that Velyos couldn't ignore. The vault held a certain appeal and after nearly a day of waiting it out, he decided that impatience and impracticality could win. Even if he was walking into a trap, it wasn't in him to be concerned. What were mortals to a god? Velyos may have been trapped in a body that eventually would be his, but for now, he'd play along.
And so here he was stepping under the Underground, past the cellar and into the vault, allowing himself to be lured. He had imagined that whatever was waiting for him wouldn't involve Jacob, but he smiled, sinister and wicked, at seeing him there. This was a better surprise.
His hand rested on the hilt of the blade at his hip, with some of Diego's dried blood clinging to it, as he stepped further toward the center, toward Jacob. It wasn't his only weapon—magic still coursed through his fingertips—but this one felt more alarming to wave around, like a warning of what was to come. What a fool Jacob was to think he could take him alone.
"Hello, towy nóżczko," Serefin said, equally casual, but it sounded cruel coming out of his mouth. He knew exactly what it would do. "Is it just you and me? Perhaps we could open a bottle of wine, unless you've decided to swear it off after the other evening."
While he wasn't the stealthiest assassin, or even the one most capable of infiltrating an enemy location with ease, Jacob was no slouch at misdirection either. He did have to resist wincing at the use of Serefin's pet name for him, in that wretched tone, but the sting only flickered through his eyes as he turned towards the armor case in the center of the room and swaggered towards it.
"Oh, it takes more than an upset stomach to make me swear off of anything for good, love. You must know that by now." He didn't answer the question about if it was just them because the first thing his father had taught him about lying was don't, whenever you can avoid it. The tricky part not letting thoughts of poisoned wine and injured friends from reflecting in his words and body language.
"Anyway, there's no wine down here. Just--" Jacob knocked against the armor case that stood tall there in the center of the vault and gave Serefin a sly glance.. "--A few old relics and whatnot."
"Speaking of old relics," Serefin said, following Jacob's pathway across the room. He assumed something was in that armor case, easily distracted by misdirection and so he approached without hesitation. Might as well get this ambush over with, at least he assumed that was what this was. Velyos may have understood that Jacob and his sister were assassins, but the regard he held for them was low. He took a gleeful pride at figuring them out
"How is Diego? Have you heard if he is going to pull through? I thought perhaps there might be something down here that could assist in his recovery." Serefin, clearly, had no problems lying. There was a terrible thrill at trying to find all the parts that might break Jacob, and running his mouth until he found the exact spot was currently on his agenda.
"Although, I'm certain you already thought of that." He attempted to look regretful, as if this mess with Diego, with Ostyia, with Jacob, with all of them wasn't blatantly his fault. He was confident that the subterfuge wasn't necessary anymore. He was nearly upon Jacob now, separated by a scant distance. Enough to throw a dagger or a spell with precision and do damage.
Curiously, Serefin canted his head to the side. "What are you doing down here?"
Jacob’s jawline tensed at the mention of Diego. It had been the last straw of his denial, but even that hadn’t made him eager for this part of the plan. “Diego’s strong,” he gritted out. There wasn’t much of a reason to pretend anymore but he couldn’t bloody well drop all pretense or he’d break in front of this creature wearing his lover’s face. “He’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine, really. It must be very disappointing for the hand behind all this, being such a failure,” he sighed.
The saint bone Serefin said was supposed to be able to kill a god was under his sleeve, set up to spring forth like his assassin blade with a deft flick of his wrist. The real Serefin had said it could kill a god anyway, before all this nonsense. He’d also used a ridiculously long name that Jacob couldn’t be arsed to remember, but if it worked, well. Maybe he’d learn it. If they saved Serefin anyway. If they didn’t, he wouldn’t want to remember any of this. He’d be too busy hating everything, including himself.
“Anyway,” he sighed dramatically, using his eagle vision to confirm Evie was just outside the secret entrance to the vault, “I thought I’d make sure nothing important was disturbed down here.” He turned his back to Serefin. It was a strategic risk he hoped would bring the god over the mark on the floor beside him. “Wouldn’t want our enemy getting any ideas, even if they can’t seem to finish a task properly…”
Serefin exhaled sharply, obviously annoyed by the mention of failure. He was not in the business of everything going so poorly. All of it was falling apart now, and perhaps pretending had been the wrong plan. Taking them out first, without any pretense, should have been the solution. Alone, in this chamber with Jacob, would be his first act of rectifying his failures.
"I thought you were an assassin," Serefin said, picking up his pace to descend upon Jacob with his back turned. It was almost too easy, and that might have been exactly why he didn't see the trap for what it was. "Are you always this conversational right before—"
His foot slid on the floor. It was the first and only time he took his eye off Jacob, and saw a discreet mark etched onto the ground of the vault. Serefin had been inside the vault only a handful of times, but he could have sworn there was nothing like this there before.
Palpable anger rippled through him; Velyos did not like to have the disadvantage. The deception was gone now, and he attempted to throw Jacob down to keep him from escaping whatever this was. Serefin could feel the magic that was set for him grow in strength. There was a tingling sensation of something pulling away, unfurling, deep within his core. He felt shaky, weak, and violently furious, with all of it directed at Jacob.
Serefin, more Velyos now than himself, hissed venomously, "What is this?"
Jacob spun into the rush but still stumbled backward under the intensity and alienness in Serefin's eyes. He didn't realize how much he'd come to love the guarded softness in his boyfriend's gaze. The way he looked at Jacob like he trusted him implicitly and it still surprised him in the best way. The eyes looking at Jacob now were cold and cruel. But it was still Serefin's face and Jacob's resolve wavered uncomfortably. He felt his back hit the armor case and he shoved at Serefin, grabbing until he had enough room to brace a hand against his chest and fist the other hand in the collar of Serefin's shirt.
That hand had only to twist just right to release the shin bone. But the ritual wasn't complete.
"Aren't gods supposed to know everything? Be all-powerful and infallible?" Jacob tilted his head to the side, waiting for his moment. Dreading it. Fuck, could he really do this? His voice shook. "You made the mistake of thinking he didn't have people who love him. People who will fight for him. If you hadn't, you'd have tried a lot harder to kill us."
The pull was nearly enough to bring him to his knees, but with Jacob pinned against the armor case, he forced himself to press in harder, using his leverage to keep Jacob down despite how tangled together they were now. But there was a flashbang behind his eyes, and something whole and ethereal slipped from inside of him.
His whole demeanor changed, as if someone had given him the winning combination and Jacob wasn't aware that he was about to lose, fatally. "You played with the wrong magic, assassin. Maybe it is you who didn't try hard enough to kill me," Velyos said. There was no fight for control anymore, no frantic clawing for mental purchase. Serefin no longer existed inside of this body, just Velyos, only Velyos.
"I am only limited by the defectiveness of the vessel I consume. But you—your weakness is attaching yourself to something so disposable. Something meant for more and wasted on fragile mortals like you." His fury at the slight turned ruthless, his smile wicked and absolutely diabolic. Velyos did not need to know everything to understand the turmoil it would cause for the people that loved him to be wearing the face of Serefin Meleski. It had been a disguise but now it was an offensive tactic.
"Will you enjoy it? Attempting to kill me? What if I pleaded, begged you not to, said Jacob, no please, don't—" Velyos said, in Serefin's voice. All the horror and the viciousness was stripped from his tongue and it was nearly impossible to tell the difference, enough to cause doubt, as Velyos's hand came around to grip Jacob's throat. A flick of his fingers and stars would burn through it like a firestore.
But Velyos wanted to see Jacob squirm, he wanted there to be emotional pain before the physical kind.
He would see something, of course - but it was a flash of steel and the woosh of air that accompanied it as Evie’s knife went straight through the middle of them, between the mere inches of space separating their faces, grazing closely to Serefin’s face before lodging in the wall on the opposite side.
Evie was the backup plan. The just in case. She had only planned on interfering if it was completely necessary, but had insisted on being here, hidden in one of the walls of the Vault. She knew the plan, and knew that Jacob had the ace up his sleeve and could end it, but Velyos putting a hand on her brother made her see red.
“Then you should know he’s not alone.” She was there, now, mere feet away, another knife palmed easily in her hand. “I think one of your first mistakes is thinking of us as mere mortals, Velyos. Take your hand off of him.”
Jacob wasn't hardly surprised by the hand on his throat, though he was a little worried Velyos would vaporize his head before he could even do what he needed to do anyway. He struggled at least, so it wasn't easy, but neither was watching the last bit of Serefin leave those too-familiar eyes. It should've been a relief, and it was, but it relied too much on being sure someone else's skills were good enough to protect something that Jacob held dear.
It didn't fill him with the confidence he needed to finish it. Serefin's pleading voice certainly didn't help either. Or seeing the flash of blood as Evie grazed Serefin's face with her thrown blade. Jacob felt the hand tighten reflexively around his throat and it got uncomfortably hot in an instant. Still, it was Serefin's hand. It was Serefin's face staring at him.
What if they were wrong? What if all this did was end the one good thing he hadn't manage to bugger up?
"Fuck," Jacob ground out between his teeth. "I can't--" His wide, desperate eyes found his twin. "Evie, I need your help!"
The sting of the flying dagger against his cheek was negligible. He could feel the blood trickle down his face, but his grip on Jacob's throat never lessened, only tightened in anticipation. Prolonging his death was just as exciting as actually doing it. And now he had an audience.
"Evie, I need your help," Velyos repeated, exaggerating Jacob's plea, callously mocking. This was a joke, Velyos was playing a game. He had been locked away for months and banished for millenia, he was allowed to have some fun now.
Velyos did not fear the twin assassins.
He sucked at his teeth, and made no intention of taking his eye off Jacob. The small psychological breaks were more enticing than the threat of another person thinking she was any match for him. He'd take out her brother, then her in the vault, and then proceed as he had intended. Uninterrupted, unhurried, unmatched.
"How fast is your second blade, Dame Frye? Will it be enough to stop me? Your brother might be dead before then but you're welcome to try." And with that, the starlight intensified, blinding, searing. If the last thing she heard before she died were her brother's screams as he did, Velyos would consider this whole unfortunate mistake a win.
Evie took full advantage of his eyes never leaving Jacob, she knew she had a limited amount of time to move and to do as Jacob asked. There was no hesitation for her, this had always been a possibility - she’d offered to do it herself, but hadn’t argued when Jacob said he would - and she’d promised Serefin a long while back that she’d do what needed to be done.
It was even more important with Jacob’s life on the line.
Like a moving shadow, Evie was next to them in no time flat, before the words had even fully emerged from Velyos’ mouth, but the knife didn’t go towards the villain wearing Serefin’s face. Instead, the butt of her blade jammed against Jacob’s arm, right where she knew the hair trigger was on his gauntlet. When she heard the telltale hiss, Evie’s cane came down onto the back of Serefin’s knee and she shoved his body into the bone that Jacob wielded.
“It isn’t mine you should’ve been worried for, you prick.” Now she had to pray to some other god she didn’t believe in that the talisman trap worked.
The downfall of a god was always pride. Too good to pay attention, too smart to believe themselves to be stupid. He expected another knife, another weapon to slice fruitlessly into his chest. He was immortal, more or less, and though Velyos bled, death was impossible. The body simply held the parts he needed to move around, but Serefin was a means to an end. It was his very existence that still would linger.
Except when blessed saints spliced up their bones to the zealous acolytes to use in a time of need. Velyos should have scoured the vault first; he did not think anyone possessed Kalyazi relics. Of course, the Frye twins did. The sharp splintered shin bone of Svoyatova Mozhayeva was currently protruding out of his chest, attached to the gauntlet at Jacob's wrist, triggered by Evie in a stunning display of skill. He might have been impressed if it hadn't been lethal.
An amalgamation of emotion washed over his face: confusion, anger, pain—that was the most absolute, the most conceptualized. Was this what death felt like? Being banished had been centuries of darkness. But there was no awareness here, no darkness to sleep in, just an end.
Velyos let go of Jacob, all his limbs becoming strangely heavy. A sour, coppery taste filled his mouth and he coughed, then swore in Old Tranavian. His last shallow breath was taken with fury in his eyes at Evie, and then to Jacob, before Serefin's empty, no-longer-possessed body dropped.
Between the burn on his neck ripping a pained cry out of him and feeling the bone punch into Serefin's body, Jacob very nearly closed his eyes. He wasn't entirely sure why he made himself keep them open. This was a special kind of hell, watching the light leave Serefin's eyes. Watching him fall like a puppet without any strings. But instinct made Jacob step into his space to brace his fall. Deadweight was never an easy thing to handle, let alone when it was someone loved.
Jacob dropped to his knees, one arm around Serefin and the other still fisted into his shirt. Serefin's chin rested over his shoulder. He was scared to withdraw the blade. He was having a hard time remembering how to even breathe.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he gasped, neck still burning and fear in his veins. "I love you, I'm so sorry." He pressed his face to the side of Serefin's for a moment and then shouted hoarsely. "Wei Wuxian!"
Evie backed up slightly, averting her gaze for just a moment as if to give Jacob some privacy, but still not completely trusting of this. That Velyos was truly gone. That would take far more time, and probably someone far less paranoid to boot. “I’ll get him.”
She didn’t have to go far, barely even reached the doorway to the vault before there was a flurry of black robes rushing into the room. Wei Wuxian’s disheveled appearance stopped mid-way and he looked wide-eyed at the trap they’d set. “Did it work?” After a barely-there pause, he nodded firmly. “It worked.” With a flick of his wrist, the talismans that had been strategically placed around the room flew directly to him, power flickering in each and every one. It was similar magic to his Paper Man, and he could feel the soul resting inside.
Wei Wuxian knelt down next to them both, and held up the talismans. One went to the open wound, as a temporary measure of healing to prevent any mortal wounds from carrying over. Another to Serefin’s heart. Another to his head.
Now he just had to hope that Serefin’s spirit was strong enough. That he was fighting on the inside. Even as Wei Wuxian used a red tendril of transfer, from paper to person.
Serefin didn't remember much, only being awake and then being asleep—was it even sleep? He felt exhausted, down to his core, his soul. It was a strange feeling being disconnected from his body, but there was no way faster to make a person appreciate corporeality than being removed from something physical.
But that was all inconsequential; Velyos had his body for weeks and Serefin hadn't been strong enough to fight the god off again. Being forcibly removed through Wei Wuxian's magic had been a small solace. Serefin had never been more eager to get away from the horror that was Velyos. Even if he wasn't fully or consciously aware that he was that person too, corrupted and used.
Surging back into his body through the talismans was abrupt. He gasped, coming up from drowning, sucking in air like he had been suffocated for weeks. There was no sign of crowded company in his mind though, no gods or voices or phantoms, only him. His good eye focused on the people around him and above him in his limited vision. Relief, pain, worry, insurmountable hurt.
Serefin winced. His voice was small and raspy, as he asked, "What did I do?"
Jacob tensed at the question did it work but thankfully Wei Wuxian confirmed it had before panic could drive a furious response out of him. He felt drained and on edge all at once, so he watched everything happen with wide, hopeful eyes. He needed this to work. It had to work.
Tension pulled his spine straight as Serefin surged back to life. Please be yourself. Please. He had no way to confirm - Velyos had already proven he could hide his presence in Serefin's aura when he was in full control. But he'd be damned if he was going to assume the worst after all that. He squeezed Serefin tightly and lurched them both to their feet.
"That is a long story, love. It wasn't you anyway." He looked to Wei Wuxian. "Are you sure it's all right now? We should get a healer out to the train, yeah?" He thought that might've been the plan but it was hard to remember all the moving pieces when he was still shaking.
Wei Wuxian was more serious than normal when he nodded to Jacob. He pat Serefin lightly on the shoulder before backing off to gather his talismans. “We can have Lan Zhan or Lan Xichen check him over if you would like, but yes. I don’t sense the same evil spiritual energy as before. But he’s going to need rest for a few days.” At minimum, if Wei Wuxian knew well enough.
He edged past Evie, talismans in hand, turning back only to give them a messy bow before he disappeared out of the vault.
She watched quietly from the doorway, and offered just a quiet smile in Serefin’s direction. “Good to have you back.” To Jacob, she nodded. “I’ll make sure someone’s at the train.”