Chapter Text
The realization comes to Joseph slowly.
First he wakes up and gets dressed like nothing's wrong. Then he goes to the mirror to fix his pristine hair and sees something different.
His eyes.
They’re normal.
He destroys a nearby closet.
A stranger throws the bedroom door open and stares at Joseph crossly. “Mr. Desaulniers, what are you doing?”
Joseph yowls and tries to point his sword at the stranger. He’s horrified to learn he doesn’t have a sword. "Who's there?" Joseph demands.
The stranger frowns at him, unimpressed. “It’s me, H̸͓̪͚̙̬̦̞̩͔̪̘͒̔̅͋̈̒́͐̊̊̊͛ä̴̧̠͙͕̜͕́̌̍̅͌̚ï̴̩̗̠͇̬̍̋̎͊̇̊̍̓̕ͅť̶̫͓͐͐â̶̧̫̟͍͙̝̫̱̖͎̠͔̲̅͌͛̄̾̽̏͘̕̚͠.” The name sounds indecipherable.
“Um, what?”
“I can’t use my old name, since I’m not a deity anymore, so I suppose I’m ‘the Feaster’ to you now,” the stranger says in an unconcerned voice.
Joseph squints. Come to think of it, this stranger is someone he knows. Joseph recognizes the tattered yellow hood, but not the obviously human body and face. He tries to say a particular ‘H’ name but his tongue can’t form it for some reason. What the hell?
“I just said I can’t use my old name, so you can’t either, Mr. Desaulniers,” the Feaster tells him. The Feaster’s eyes are covered in shadow because of the hood. “It’s a name that cannot easily be uttered by the mortal tongue.”
“’Mortal’? You mean like….’human’?”
“Yes. We’re human now. I think ‘Survivors’ might be more accurate of a term.”
Joseph goes pale as he stares down at his hands. His claws are gone, replaced with normal fingernails. “Fils de pute,” he whispers in horror.
“You should go downstairs and have breakfast,” the Feaster tells him mildly. “Our human bodies need sustenance now.”
As he shuts the door, Joseph bats a boot at it.
This cannot be happening.
***
The thing is, it’s not that Joseph liked being a Hunter. It certainly had its perks—the sword, the power, the ability to shrug off mundane human things like food and sleep and lethal gunshots to the face, that sort of stuff. But there was also the whole 'being-undead' thing that was such a hassle to deal with sometimes. Still, Joseph liked that whole ordeal better than being a human. He finds that he never misses the moodiness that comes with his humanity, and the constant way he's bothered by everything.
Now he has to worry about stupid things like food not tasting right or plates not being spotless enough. It’s all so menial yet so troublesome.
In Joseph’s first game as a Survivor, many things immediately become clear. First of all, he sucks at decoding. Burke Lapadura has to banish him from a cipher when he misses a few too many calibrations. Second, he no longer has the Camera World under his control. It’s a Hunter thing, after all, not a Survivor thing. Instead he’s lumped with a smaller camera inside a case that he lugs around the entire time. It’s so unfashionable. He really misses his sword. Instead of the Camera World, he’s got some camera….portal….thing? He can teleport with the photos, basically, which reminds him of the Priestess’s Holy Key ability.
And the Hunter in the game is a morbid version of the Female Dancer, where her legs are replaced by embellished blades that stab the ground with every step. She twirls and pirouettes after the Survivors, every movement swept with grace, except Joseph has no time to appreciate how very Hunter her dance of death is. Especially when he's too busy crawling away after a kick from her metal leg clangs too painfully in his skull.
The Dancer just grins primly at him, her eyes full of rainbows, and Joseph seethes with envy because he really misses being a creepy, ugly, gnarled version of himself.
In the end Joseph gets rocketed back to the manor. He lands in front of Jack, and he doesn’t like this Jack because this one is a tall dark-haired gentleman with no fog blades to make him look cool.
“Putain,” Joseph curses. He has been cursing a lot lately.
“I don’t know what that means but it doesn’t sound good,” Jack mutters before he sets his (haphazardly put-together) med kit on the floor and gets to work on healing Joseph.
At dinner time all the ex-Hunters gather around the table to discuss the games. It feels so strange to see everyone looking so….personable. Devoid of any freaky appendages or ghostly characteristics, that is. Joseph is already used to Hast—the Feaster being just some yellow-hooded dude with religious markings on his face. Not as impressive as his tentacled form, even though Joseph is sure no one's supposed to stand as tall as he does, it's just not allowed. There are other ex-Hunters like Hell Ember who’s been turned into a weary-looking farmer named Leo Beck, and Joker, who (like Leo) has lost his stocky build. He’s just some redhead who favors ugly striped shirts and terrible puns.
How the mighty have fallen, really.
Burke is the best decoder and no one objects to that. The best medic is a more contested issue between Luchino, whose expertise is more on biology than medicine; and Jack, a shady guy who just happens to have detailed surgical knowledge. This is sort of depressing but it showcases how woefully unsuited everyone is to Survivor work. The previous Survivors had a more well-rounded group, with a proper doctor and everything. Joseph’s group has to make do with a serial killer and a guy who likes reptiles a little too much.
Joseph admits that being Survivors has been tough on everyone, but it has its interesting aspects. For example, everyone’s acting more sociable now. Back in the Hunters’ wing of the manor, everyone just minded their own business, like a den of predators where less interaction meant less conflict. But here, it’s hard to avoid each other. Meals are spent in one another’s company and people actually bother to converse about lame, unimportant things. Joseph remembers the times when he used to point a sword at anyone who dared go three feet near his room. Now he’s having a scintillating conversation with Jack and Michiko about how ugly Jack’s worn suit looks and how Jack should have it replaced immediately. Jack turns it around into a discussion on how funny it is that Joseph has become shorter than Michiko. Joseph turns it into a proposal that he wring Jack’s scrawny neck in his hands.
After dinner, everyone wanders off to do their own thing. Joseph spots Michiko without makeup, brushing her incredibly long hair in front of a vinyl. In the common room, the Feaster’s got his hood pulled back, revealing eyes that are a shade too red to be normal, and he’s talking to the Dream Witch in some demonic Lovecraftian language that sounds a lot more affable than it probably should be. Wu Chang—now mostly just Xie Bi’an—brews himself some tea which he offers to share with Bane Perez and Leo.
One time, Joseph’s walking down the hallway with his folded coat in his arms (have the previous batch of Survivors been laundering their own clothes this whole time? So tedious) when he swears loudly, stumbling into Violetta. He nearly falls over but she stops his fall with some of her prosthetics. She’s gotten a slenderer build compared to her hulking tarantula look back when she was a Hunter, but her shell is still sturdy enough to carry Robbie. The child perched on her back has a sandbag over his face with eyeholes cut into it.
“Sorry, Mr. Desaulniers,” Robbie says. “What was that you just said? ‘Maird’?”
Joseph rights himself and fixes his shirt. “I said ‘merde,’ Robbie.”
“What does that mean?”
“Of course I’m not going to tell you that,” Joseph says as the tips of his ears go red. “Anyway, what on earth are the two of you up to?”
Violetta speaks up in that airy voice of hers, “I just thought it’d be fun to explore the manor like this, Mr. Desaulniers. Would you like to join us?”
“Dear me, I don’t think there’s even space left. Go on your merry way, you two. Just be more careful.”
“You got it!” Robbie chirps, and soon Violetta’s clambering the rest of the way down the hallway, Robbie’s laughter echoing.
He goes to the manor's laundry room. Jack has stuffed his worn green coats inside a basket, which amuses Joseph. Perhaps the comments about his wardrobe might have gotten under that serial killer's skin after all.
***
Joseph is all too excited to visit the carnival. He wants to meet his dearest person, after all, and see just what has become of him, if the transformation has treated him any better than it has Joseph. At the moment though, it's kind of a bother that no one’s gone to bed at midnight, which will make sneaking out harder. Even Robbie—the child who is legally not allowed to be conscious past eight—is still up, braiding the Dream Witch's hair while Xie Bi'an and Michiko argue about who stole whose hairbrush. Is everyone just used to staying up late?
Joseph tries sneaking out anyway, relieved when no one pays him any mind. Joseph panics a bit upon spotting Bane in the garden. Soon after though, the problem resolves itself when Luchino invites Bane inside for a game of chess. Bane leaves and Joseph slinks into the garden.
It’s cold, but not cold enough for Joseph to regret leaving his coat behind. He sneaks past the belladonnas over to where an ugly scarecrow stands, and behind the scarecrow is the passage that Joseph activates with a press of a hidden button. Joseph ducks in and the passage closes shut behind him.
***
Moonlit River Park shines like a beacon.
Everything is swathed in liveliness and color, like a forgotten memory, and it’s a feat to look this vibrant when the dreary midnight sky, the fog, and the pervading weeds persist. It must be the lights, perhaps, or the music, or the fact that there are actual people having fun here.
Well, ‘people,’ Joseph supposes.
Every night, the Survivors of the manor like to congregate to the park, ever since they discovered that hidden passage Joseph just went through from the garden. Right now, it's like nothing has changed. The ex-Survivors—now Hunters—are here and they’re all just lounging around like they normally do. Joseph recognizes the Female Dancer chatting up a huge Hunter in a war outfit. The Coordinator, probably. There are two Hunters having an exciting ball game at the side. One is the Forward, Joseph guesses, who’s been turned into a mutant juggernaut with a rugby helmet. The other, covered in a torn Gurkha uniform, is a hooded guy whose muscles stretch uncomfortably taut around his bones. That one looks like the Mercenary.
“Is that you, Mr. Desaulniers?” a voice asks. Joseph turns to see who’s talking.
He doesn’t recognize her at first. It’s a smiling, vaguely girl-shaped scarecrow with a straw hat full of flowers. She’s holding a huge pair of gardening shears in her gloved hand.
Then it registers.
“Emma Woods?” Joseph says in shock.
“Is that me?” the Gardener laughs awkwardly. “Sorry, memory’s a bit fuzzy.”
“It’s fuzzy for everyone, I believe,” says someone else in an ethereal voice. It’s the Hunter who’s holding on to the Gardener’s other hand. She drifts across the ground like a ghost and there are bloody wings attached to her back, albeit non-functional ones. It’s hard to recognize her because of the bandages on her face and the pearly white eyes that peek out of them.
“I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name, mademoiselle?” Joseph asks the Hunter. “Or perhaps you’ve just.…’changed’ too much, if you’ll let me phrase it that way.”
“I understand,” the Hunter says. There’s something in her hand, which Joseph realizes to be a rusty hacksaw, one that’s carried as casually as one would a purse. He forces himself to avert his gaze as the Hunter continues, “But I’m a doctor, if that helps.”
“Ah! Emily Dyer, then,” Joseph says.
The Doctor bobs her head in a nod. “That sounds about right.”
“What were you two saying about fuzzy memories?” Joseph asks. “You’re forgetting your names?” Joseph certainly didn’t forget his name when he became a Hunter.
“It’s not that,” the Gardener says. “It’s more like….names are getting less useful for us, I think. Like we’re shedding a part of ourselves.”
“Do you suppose it’s just part of being a Hunter, Mr. Desaulniers?” the Doctor asks.
Joseph frowns. “Maybe…?”
“That’s okay,” the Gardener tells the Doctor with an unnerving smile. “As long as we’re still together, right?”
The Doctor smiles back. “Right.”
“We’re going to the Ferris Wheel,” the Gardener says to Joseph. “He’s waiting for you by the bridge.”
“Oh….alright,” Joseph says.
They wave each other goodbye, then Joseph walks off in the direction off the bridge. No one’s there. Confused, he continues walking along the length of the bridge until he trips and then falls on top of someone.
He catches himself with his hands and knees on the ground, and then that’s when he sees the person underneath him. Someone who’s staring up at him with sunken eyes, all oily black sclera and silver irises.
Joseph gasps happily. “Aesop!”
Aesop Carl blinks. “Joseph.”
“Can’t believe I didn’t see you. Did you just get here?”
“I’ve actually been here the whole time.”
“Really?”
Aesop coughs. His cheeks bloom purplish-grey, like a blush. “Can you get off.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Joseph moves back so that Aesop can sit up. He’s much more recognizable than the Gardener or the Doctor, Joseph notices, but he’s still distorted—his skin is so pale that it’s almost a corpse-like blue, and his eyes drip viscous black tears over his mask. There’s a human-sized coffin strapped to his back, the heaviness of which doesn’t seem to bother him.
“Goodness, you’ve changed a lot,” Joseph says as he helps Aesop to stand. “Enjoying the scary outfit?”
“You think it’s scary?” Aesop asks. He almost sounds nervous. The outfit Joseph’s talking about is Aesop’s new flaring coat, which takes to the night sky's dark color so oppressively that it swallows the light around it. The tails look like bleeding teeth that drag across the ground.
“Aesop, I’ve lived with Monsieur Feaster for months. It takes a lot to scare me.” Joseph steps up close to him and adjusts Aesop’s coat collar, patting it out so it snarls around his black mask. “I think the coat makes you look handsome.”
“Ah. Th-thank you.”
“You’re welcome, my dear. Now, shall we take a walk?”
Joseph holds out his hand. Aesop rests upon it his own hand, with its abnormally long fingers, sharp claws, and tar-stained skin. Joseph and Aesop walk down the bridge together.
***
Two months ago, Aesop Carl’s Diary:
“Everyone was having fun in Moonlit River Park. Even I was enjoying it; it felt good to let loose after a long day of stressful games. I was riding the Ferris Wheel a lot. I didn't even realize there was a part of the carnival that had the Wheel in it. Perhaps it gets omitted from matches?
“Tonight, a man in a familiar blue coat showed up. I was frightened at first, but he gave me a yellow rose and promised he wouldn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t believe him, but in the end, nothing happened at all and he kept to his word. The two of us, we just talked the whole night. He’s good company.
“I was too shy to ask him to come back tomorrow. I still hope to see him.
“I’ll keep the rose here.”
***
Joseph likes to think that being a Hunter comes to someone naturally. You get plopped into the game and you immediately feel the bloodlust, the power, the readiness to hunt. Joseph personally knows how easily it came to the Female Dancer just earlier that day, and he bets the Forward had no problem with it too.
Yet Aesop’s still insecure about it, nervous the way a student is before starting a new day at school.
They’ve got to work on it.
“Now, Aesop, you’ve certainly got the Hunter look down, but we need to talk about….er, everything else.”
“’Everything else’?”
“You remember when I was a Hunter, right?” Joseph tried to mimic his glorious Hunter form, with the sword and the flapping coat. “It’s how a Hunter might carry themself. It’s in their talk, their laugh, their posture. For instance, you remember how I walked around as a Hunter, right?”
“You mean your strut?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t strut. Or rather I don't want to.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to try? A villainous strut is good for intimidation.”
“N-not all Hunters do that, so I don’t think I need to...”
Joseph sighs. “Well, if you don’t want to strut, then you can at least stop walking around like you’re trying to shrink in on yourself. That’s such a ‘Survivor’ thing to do.”
“It’s not bad being a Survivor.”
“But you’re not a Survivor anymore, you’re a Hunter. Now come on, fix your posture.”
Aesop sloughs through Expert Joseph’s Tutorial on How to Become a Perfect Hunter Overnight. Aesop keeps pointing out how most of this stuff doesn’t matter because he can turn invisible anyway, which is an excuse that Joseph doesn’t want to hear. Dream Witch hasn’t been seen by a single Survivor and yet she’s got the Hunter Strut down perfectly. Or Hunter Slither, rather.
It’s painful when Joseph has to accept that Aesop doesn’t want to practice an evil laugh, or even try some breathing techniques to help with the ‘ominous feel.’ Joseph suggests high heels to make Aesop taller. The look in Aesop’s eyes suggest murder.
“Now, you have to practice carrying Survivors.”
Aesop tilts his head questioningly. “But I don’t need to. The balloons do the work.”
Joseph huffs. “Every Hunter has to learn how to carry Survivors.”
“No they don’t.”
“Yes they do! Remember when I learned to carry you around?”
Aesop looks embarrassed. “You only did that when you started becoming friendly with Survivors.”
“It’s useful whether you’re a friendly Hunter or not. Let’s try it, Aesop!” Joseph suggests eagerly.
“…You just want to be carried, don’t you.”
“My intentions are strictly to help you, my dear.”
Aesop sighs. “I’m not carrying you.”
“I swear I’m not heavy.”
Aesop rolls his eyes and starts walking off. Joseph slumps, defeated, before recollecting himself enough to catch up to Aesop.
“So, you don’t even want to learn how to carry a Survivor. Are you certain that you wanted tips from me in the first place?”
“I said I wanted ‘useful advice,’” Aesop snips.
“Fine. Real advice? Don’t be nervous!” Joseph says.
Aesop isn’t enthralled. “That’s bland.”
“Really, Aesop.” Joseph stops and grabs his hand. When Aesop whirls around, he’s got an annoyed look on his face that immediately melts off the moment Joseph, very tenderly, places his hands on Aesop’s cheeks. All Joseph feels in his palms is the rough texture of Aesop’s mask.
(He’s already been told that Aesop’s mask is melded to his face, acting as another layer of skin. Joseph sees netted veins connecting the mask to Aesop’s cheeks. It’s halfway disturbing and halfway nifty, but Joseph keeps remembering Aesop’s wonderful little smiles and the fun times they spent eating the occasional snacks together. Joseph won’t get to see those anymore. At the very least, Aesop’s eyes can be expressive, like how they stare at Joseph in a vulnerable surprise….)
Joseph gives him a sincere grin. His thumb caresses the mask, brushing across some inky tears. “You’ll be a wonderful Hunter,” Joseph tells him fondly.
Aesop’s eyelids fall half-shut. Then he leans into Joseph’s touch, turning his head so he presses his masked mouth against Joseph’s palm. A low, affectionate hum reverberates from his throat.
Joseph’s heart skips a beat.
However sweet the moment is, it’s short. Aesop gently moves Joseph’s hands away from his face and clasps them, lacing his deformed claws through Joseph’s fingers, and this time when he looks at Joseph, his eyes are smiling. “Let’s go to the Ferris Wheel,” Aesop says.
Joseph remembers that he can speak. “Oh! Oh. Sure, of course,” he stammers.
Their hands are joined once more as they walk. Joseph’s trying to stop his face from feeling like it’s burning, but nothing works. He just has to deal with it.
***
One month and a little over three weeks ago, Aesop Carl’s Diary:
“The Photographer wasn’t a very good Hunter today.
“No one was hit or thrown into the chair. Instead the Photographer seemed content with following me around and engaging in idle conversation. It was very confusing for a while. I couldn’t even decode because I didn’t like it when he watched me work on a cipher. Eventually we just stayed somewhere and talked a bit.
“Once the gates opened, he walked me to the exit.
“He showed up at Moonlit River Park at midnight and we sat in the Ferris Wheel for a while. He said he found it more fun to be friendly with the Survivors instead of hunting them down. I’m not sure if I believe him, but I just like staying with him a lot, so it doesn’t really matter.
“He told me lots of interesting things, like how the Feaster’s Autumnal Dinner was coming up. Apparently that’s something only Hunters know about (more specifically, Hunters who are close to the Feaster) so I don’t know why the Photographer wanted to share it with me.
“He said that it was going to be a special day because the Feaster was going to tear an exit through the manor so he could return to his realm. That meant Survivors could escape through that hole and return home.
“But he warned me that it would be dangerous. While some Hunters would become ‘mellower’ during the days approaching the Autumnal Dinner, other Hunters would become incredibly aggressive and might prevent the Survivors from escaping.
“I’m not sure if I should believe that whole thing either, but it doesn’t sound like a lie.
“After my match with the Photographer was Mr. Clark’s match with the Ripper. Everyone came back with heavy injuries, Mr. Subedar especially. No one won that game. The Ripper wouldn’t let them.
“’Aggressive’ indeed.
“The third match had Ms. Woods with the Geisha. That Hunter, like the Photographer, didn’t want to injure anyone. Ms. Zelle talked about enjoying a dancing session with her. It sounded surreal so not everyone believed them.
“Since I kept worrying about the Autumnal Dinner, I told Mr. Clark about it, and he told everyone else. They’re all excited to escape.
“I, too, look forward to a chance of going home.”
***
Joseph has no idea who the Hunter today is, which makes him antsy.
He’s decoding alone, which would have been enough to give his fellow Survivors a heart attack (‘Joseph? At the cipher? No!), but what choice does he have when he doesn’t know where any of his teammates are yet?
He’s just finished a calibration—God, this thing runs like a snail—when he spots someone approaching him from afar. It’s Violetta. He brightens up because thank goodness he’s not alone, but he’s bewildered as well.
“Bonjour, Violetta!” Joseph waves a hand. “Aren’t you supposed to be back at the manor?”
Suddenly, his heartbeat starts to pound in his ears.
Then someone in a flash of red swoops in and yanks him aside, just as Violetta hurls web at Joseph’s feet. Michiko tugs Joseph into a sprint away from the cipher.
“Violetta is not a friend here. That is an impostor,” Michiko tells him. Behind them, Violetta’s tailing in a chase. “This must be the Hunter’s trick.”
They force distance in between themselves and Fake Violetta with some pallets and vaulting, the usual. Soon enough, they lose the impostor, and find themselves at another cipher. It’s already halfway decoded—Burke or Wu Chang must’ve been here. Michiko gets to finishing the cipher while Joseph sets up a camera.
“A Hunter who can use other Survivors’ faces sounds like a game breaker, don’t you think?” Joseph mutters. He takes a picture with his camera, pockets the photo, then disassembles the set swiftly. “Let’s hope this one knows how to play a fair game.”
“When your talent is deceit, then ‘playing fair’ is always out of the question,” Michiko says.
The cipher’s done so Michiko and Joseph run off in the snow. They encounter Fake Violetta again so they’re forced to split up. Michiko, the faster runner, leads the Hunter on a chase while Joseph runs elsewhere.
He finds Burke at another cipher. He offers to help, but of course Burke would rather give his kidney than let Joseph impede his decoding.
“Wu Chang has been chaired,” he says. “Go and rescue him instead!”
The chair that Burke’s talking about is near the cipher that Michiko had just finished, so Joseph sets up a camera in a nearby building. He inserts the photo he’d taken earlier, then the portal shines blue in front of the camera lens.
On the other side of the portal is Michiko’s decoded cipher. Joseph rushes to the chair nearby and finds an empty spot on the ground where the chair used to be. Next to the spot stands Wu Chang.
“Xie Bi’an, what a surprise! You’ve escaped the chair on your own?” Joseph asks.
No reply. Joseph notices for the first time that he’s not holding an umbrella. Instead, there’s a bonesaw in his hand.
Wu Chang’s arm moves fast and Joseph falls back into the snow, arms raised and eyes squeezed shut. He waits for the impact..
Except nothing happens. Joseph dares to peek through one squinted eye.
The weapon is an inch away from his scalp.
Then Joseph sees someone emerge from the darkness—literally materializing from the shadow of a tree—and the person’s hurrying towards him with worry gleaming in his eyes. Joseph feels relief surge up his spine.
“Joseph! Are you alright?” Aesop calls out. He goes from worried to furious very quickly when he sees Wu Chang. “Put that away,” he snarls (Joseph’s never heard Aesop snarl).
Wu Chang obediently retracts the bonesaw. Joseph lets out a breath.
Aesop collapses to his knees in front of Joseph, fretting hands hovering. “Thank God I stopped him in time,” Aesop says with a sigh. “Y-you’re not hurt, right?”
“What? No,” Joseph replies. As happy he is to see Aesop, he’s still perplexed. “What do you mean ‘stop him in time’?”
Aesop gestures towards Wu Chang, who’s staring into space blankly. “That’s a fake. After I sent Wu Chang back to the manor, I embalmed his likeness into the puppet I carry around in my coffin. It hunts for me while I go invisible and tread ahead of it, searching for Survivors.”
Like the Dream Witch used to, Joseph thought. “So what was the use of us practicing your Hunter posture if you were just going to be invisible all the time? At least be visible for a portion of the game,” he complained. “But anyway, is that what you do, Aesop? Use embalmed Survivors to hunt?”
“I suppose so.”
“That’s….oh, that’s pretty amazing. No wonder you’ve chaired Wu Chang so quickly! But my dear, why’d you stop your puppet from hitting me?”
“Because I didn’t want to hurt you, of course,” Aesop says in a puzzled tone, like it’s obvious.
Joseph laughs briefly because Aesop’s just so precious. “Mon chéri, I wouldn’t hold it against you if you do!” Joseph tells him. “It’s a game. You’re supposed to hit Survivors to win.”
Aesop stares at him kind of miserably. Then he breathes out from within his mask, reaches out, and takes Joseph’s hand in both of his. Joseph can’t figure out what he’s doing until Aesop presses the hand against his own cheek, Joseph’s warmth against Aesop’s cold. Joseph’s mind goes blank.
“I mean it.” Aesop says it like a confession.
One by one, the signs start to register to Joseph: Aesop’s half-lidded gaze, the upward crease in his brow, the faint bruise-like blush blossoming in his cheeks. The sight makes Joseph shiver because suddenly there are flashes of memories playing out behind his eyes—Aesop with his ash grey jacket and human eyes glinting silver, staring at him the same way, Joseph’s malformed hand on his face. Aesop was missing his mask in those memories, which let Joseph see and feel the dragging breath coming from Aesop’s parted lips.
What comes after that memory….strange, Joseph can’t remember it clearly.
He really does like Aesop, so much that it makes something flutter in his gut. Joseph feels a hearty smile on his face again. He pushes himself forward so that he’s up on his knees, then winds his other arm around Aesop’s shoulders, hugging his head to his chest. Joseph makes a pleasant humming sound as he buries his nose in Aesop’s moonlight-colored hair. The scent of funerals clings to his dear Hunter.
“Oh mon dieu, Aesop. No one’s supposed to escape a Hunter’s wrath. How can you be a good Hunter like this?”
“I don’t care about being a good Hunter.” Aesop’s voice is muffled by Joseph’s coat.
“Well….I still think you’re going to be wonderful in matches,” Joseph croons. “And I’ll always be here to help you if you need me, alright?”
Aesop, still trapped in Joseph’s embrace, cranes his neck up to look at him with those big, needy eyes. All alienlike and dripping tar all over Joseph’s scarf and kind of watery but also really really good at hypnotizing Joseph.
Honestly, he should not be entranced by a Hunter of all things, because it’s so easy to forget that this young man making semi-maybe-puppy-eyes at him is the same deadly force that, just a while ago, nearly caused Joseph to get whacked over the head by a bonesaw. But Joseph is already messed up in his own way so all of his bizarre likes and dislikes get some slack.
“Please.” Aesop’s grasp on Joseph’s hand tightens. “Let me protect you.”
“If you insist,” Joseph says. “I’ll take care of you too, Aesop. I promise you that.”
***
Some midnights later, Joseph notices how there are less and less Hunters hanging out in the carnival. Joseph thinks that perhaps they’re just not feeling the park during those moments, but he knows that those who go missing never come back. Aesop, who unfailingly shows up every time he meets Joseph at the bridge, says that nothing’s particularly wrong with the Hunters who don’t show up. They’ve just elected to stay at the manor instead of spending time at Moonlit.
Which really is strange, because Joseph (even as a Hunter) has been going to Moonlit River Park for two consecutive months, and every night it’s always been packed with Aesop’s colleagues. They all love the park. Even the less sociable ones like the Lawyer or Aesop himself feel invigorated during the midnight carnival visits.
There are other things that Joseph notices, too, like how Aesop now refers to everyone by their titles, which is a bit surprising. Aesop, even when he was at his most withdrawn, had at least tried to use the polite ‘Mister’ and ‘Miss’ when addressing his colleagues. First names are reserved for his closer friends. Now ‘Ms. Gilman’ has become ‘the Priestess,’ ‘Mr. Frank’ is just ‘the Explorer,’ ‘Emma’ is ‘the Gardener,’ and ‘Eli’ is ‘the Seer.’
None of the ex-Survivors actually call each other by their names anymore, so what the Gardener was saying some nights ago—about names not being important anymore—must be true. It’s a bit disheartening because the names go with the liveliness of the carnival, and both are fading.
One night, Joseph enters Moonlit River Park and the Gardener’s the first to see him. It’s normal because she’s been the first one to greet him nearly every night for the past two months. The thing is, she’s usually with the Doctor whenever this happens. Right now she’s alone and the Doctor is nowhere to be found.
“Good evening, Mr. Photographer,” the Gardener greets.
“Good evening, Emma Woods.”
The Gardener laughs a bit. “I don’t know who that is, but alright. Are you looking for anyone?”
“I’m here to see Aesop, as usual,” Joseph replies with a smile and a clasp of his hands.
“Aesop?”
“Ah, the Embalmer.”
“Right! I saw him at the bridge.”
“Of course.” Joseph already knows where Aesop waits for him. He just…likes it a bit, getting to talk to the ex-Survivors a little. “I’ll be on my way.”
“Alright, take care!”
Joseph walks to the bridge. It’s not a short walk but he sees some stuff. The Mercenary’s still playing a ball game with the Forward, but instead of the game being so wild and fun that it destroys concrete, it’s just a simple kick-and-I’ll-kick-it-back motion that gets boring to watch in half a second flat. The two Hunters don’t even laugh about it anymore, they just mutter out some flaccid conversation. The Female Dancer’s sitting at the spot where she and the Coordinator normally chat. The Coordinator’s nowhere but the Female Dancer spends her time gazing into space and plucking grass.
Like he thought: not as lively.
He reaches the bridge and calls out, “I’m here, Aesop!” because he doesn’t want to trip on an invisible Hunter again.
No one replies. Is he not here yet?
Then Joseph turns and nearly has a heart attack when he sees Aesop perched on the bridge ledge.
Aesop’s just….watching him, like a cat. A cat with eyes that are wide, never blink, and cry black tears all the time. His body’s folded so he’s sitting on his haunches, somehow balanced perfectly on the ledge.
“Aesop. Goodness, I thought you hadn’t made it here yet.” Joseph chuckles awkwardly.
“I’m never late to our meetings, Joseph,” Aesop says as he jumps off the ledge. “I look forward to seeing you every night.”
“I do too, my dear. I suppose I’ll just have to get better at finding you when you’re invisible.” Joseph walks over to the spot next to Aesop and rests crossed arms upon the ledge.
He sighs heavily, watching the river below, then slumps his head against Aesop’s shoulder.
“Is something wrong?” Aesop asks, immediately shifting so he’s holding Joseph. “If you’re sleepy, you don’t have to come here, you need rest—”
“I’m not sleepy, Aesop,” Joseph murmurs. He should be hugging Aesop back, wrapping his arms around his thin waist, but Joseph’s just there in Aesop’s arms, droopy. The scent of funerals and embalming chemicals and everything Aesop invades his thoughts, which were already one hell of a jumbled mess to begin with.
“….Was it a match today? Are you still recovering?” Aesop’s tone takes an abruptly dark shift. “Did a Hunter hurt you? Tell me their name.”
“No need for that, Aesop.”
“Then….what is it?”
The match that day was with the Perfumer. She’d been transformed into a creature that wore a gas mask and a ballooning, cage-like skirt that held nothing but butterflies inside it. No one needed a thumping heartbeat to know if she was nearby because she reeked, dear Lord, and the strong perfume she emanated was enough to make anyone’s eyes water.
‘Don’t get blasted by her perfume,’ the Feaster told Joseph while they were hiding together. ‘It’ll trigger lost memories. Your mind will be invaded by them for too long.’
They saw Leo Beck get stunned, and it left the poor farmer blind, sobbing loudly and calling out names like ‘Martha’ and ‘Lisa’ repeatedly. He was delirious. It was a pain too because the Dream Witch was the only one who can remove the ailment, but she wasn’t there, so dragging Leo around always alerted the Hunter to their location with his miserable yelling. The Feaster eventually ordered Bane to drop him, and Bane did it reluctantly, leaving Leo for the Perfumer to take.
Joseph absolutely did not need his past crawling on his mind like worms, especially when he wanted to focus on the match. But the Perfumer didn’t care about his feelings, which was undeniably rude of her, so Joseph got a face full of perfume for his efforts.
The perfume was an unimaginable stink at first. The vilest of a noblewoman’s colognes magnified to a hundred thousand, sucked into Joseph’s nostrils, his throat, his ears, his eyes, his every pore. His eyeballs throbbed and his lungs were clogged and his tongue felt too big for his mouth and it became hard to breathe.
Then the stink regressed from an overpowering stench to something else, something that….wafted. Serene, clear, settling Joseph into a calmer state of mind. It was a difficult thing to describe because it was no longer just a smell. It was something that all of Joseph’s senses could experience. It was….a feeling. Cordial and dreamy, like the clouds’ floating pace, or the lapping waves on a calm sea. It washed over Joseph in its entirety.
His memory plunged him into the snow-covered Arms Factory. He can’t remember what was happening, exactly, but he was still a Hunter that time, hiding behind some building. He was covered in blood. Black blood, which meant it was his. His claws were covered in the stuff, his sword was nowhere to be found, and he was in great pain for some reason. It felt like his heart was bursting into nothing. He didn’t wince about it though, because he was a Hunter and Hunters didn’t wince or cry or grimace from pain.
Aesop—soft, human, grey instead of pitch black—was holding on to him. He was stained in Joseph’s blood too.
“Aesop, I think you should, ah, return to the manor?” Joseph tried suggesting. His tone wanted to be steady, though his voice was hoarse. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“No, I need to repay my debt to you. Y-you saved me, after all.”
In the distance, they heard the sounds of Yidhra screaming demonically while Hell Ember roared. There were yells from the Mercenary and the Forward, squawking from an owl, and gunshots from the Coordinator.
Joseph frowned in concern towards Aesop. “Would your friends agree with that?”
“I-I’m sure some of them will. Probably. I’ll bring you back to the manor, alright? Before we meet the others again for the escape.”
“How will you do that?”
“I’ll embalm you,” Aesop said, “so you’ll need to die first, Joseph.”
“Me? Die?” Joseph sputtered out a laugh. Blood came out of his mouth instead. “That’s absurd. I’m a Hunter, I can’t—”
Vicious coughs wracked his body. Aesop’s hold on him remained steadfast as Joseph suffered through a painful coughing fit, which made him feel like he was trying to vomit his entire respiratory system out. The snow splattered pools of black around him.
Then everything faded.
Joseph was trapped in the Perfumer’s unpleasant cloud of haze again. In the match, he mildly recognized getting thrown into the chair, and the Feaster running up to him to release him, but that’s it before his vision swam and he sank into another memory.
This one was a lot more fragmented than the last one, more like short clips sown into a film rather than a full scene.
Joseph woke up in a coffin within a room that smelled like bromide and roses. Then he was in front of a dusty mirror, noticing that his body was free of wounds and so were his clothes. Then he realized he was in the Survivors’ wing of Oletus Manor, which prompted him to freak out and try escaping. Aesop returned to the room—it was his bedroom that Joseph was in the whole time—and calmed him down.
Joseph did manage to calm down and it must’ve taken a lot of effort and explaining from Aesop, but Joseph’s memories were blurry on the exact details as to why he was in Aesop’s bedroom.
And the two of them have been talking, apparently, once Joseph stopped trying to climb out of his window. A whole lot of talking—some ‘how are you’s and ‘are you okay’ and ‘why does your room look so plain Aesop.’ So much talking, in fact, that they became comfortable with each other easily enough that it reminds Joseph of his current dynamic with Hunter Aesop. Especially when Aesop learned to feel comfortable with Joseph sitting close to him, and Joseph began to forget about wanting to escape the Survivors’ wing in the first place.
They were discussing something on Aesop’s bed when Joseph’s hand rested on Aesop’s cheek in a sort of caress, the kind you’d use to appreciate a pretty lady. Aesop was not a lady, but he liked the touch anyway, because when Joseph was about to pull back he found two gloved hands on his wrist, guiding his hand back in place so that Aesop could press his lips against Joseph’s palm. ‘The half-lidded gaze, the upward crease in his brow, the faint blush blossoming in his cheeks.’ It was so fascinatingly intimate that it left Current Events’ Survivor Joseph dizzy from the déjà vu.
Past Events’ Hunter Joseph was not as appalled, as it turns out. He was intrigued. That scene cut to one where Aesop was pushed to the bed. He looked decidedly lovely with his hair splayed out and his skin flushed like that. The Hunter above him swept towards him—
The scene cut again.
Dear lord was all Joseph thought as he watched the entire memory.
And now he’s right here in this bridge in Moonlit River Park, locked in Aesop’s embrace. He and Aesop are close friends in general, but there was always this wire-thin distance between being very affectionate friends and being something else. Now he has to deal with the images he’s seen, of Aesop with heated glares and bitten lips. And teeth-shaped marks all over his slender throat…oh dear. It doesn’t even stop with just images because the whole thing is a sensory overload. Joseph knows that Aesop makes sweet noises when his skin’s nicked by fangs, and that Aesop likes it when he’s manhandled, slammed against the headboard to contrast a long, gentle kiss. That headboard, if Joseph’s memories were right, should have been tarnished by claw marks by now. Claw marks that Joseph made.
If Joseph were wearing his coat right now then he’d be sweating like crazy because all of this is too much.
“Aesop.”
“Yes?”
“Why are there things that I....can’t remember?” Joseph asks.
Aesop releases him from the embrace, stepping back to examine him. “What do you mean?”
“Is there something I forgot about?” Joseph tilts his head. “About us?”
Realization dawns on Aesop’s face. He says nothing.
Joseph takes a step closer. This is too close of a distance, he’s aware, but Aesop would’ve found it too easy to avert his gaze otherwise. “Aesop, what are we?” Joseph prods.
Aesop stares at him through eyes drowning in emotion. “….W-what I’m certain of,” he says, “is that you were—and still are—immensely important to me, Joseph, and I…I wished that you felt the same way.”
Joseph feels something blooming within his heart, so full of joy and love. “I do!” he says passionately. “I care about you greatly, Aesop. You could perhaps—” Blushing to the tips of his ears, Joseph reaches out to grasp Aesop’s hands. “You could say I’ve even fallen in lo—”
“But I don’t deserve it.”
The hands recoil from Joseph’s and Aesop takes a few steps back from him, head bowed.
The bloom in Joseph’s heart withers pathetically. “What?”
“I’ve been selfish this whole time. I’m sorry, Joseph,” Aesop says, “but I don’t think I can accept this.”
“My dear, what’s wrong?” Joseph tries to approach him but Aesop shies away.
“It’s…the whole reason why we’re all here, in this situation. It’s all my fault, so I can’t, I—I’m sorry.” The tears flow down Aesop’s face more steadily until there are tiny puddles forming at his feet. “I truly don’t think I deserve…..”
Aesop covers his face and disappears into the shadows.
Joseph’s left there, wallowing in his disbelief and heartbreak.
***
One month and one week ago, Aesop Carl’s diary:
“Once the Autumnal Dinner arrives, I wonder if a Hunter can escape as well.
“I used to think that it was fine for me to be alone. My mentor is already dead and I’m more than capable of taking up his mantle without any help. But spending time here with everyone has been fun. People are not as annoying as they seem to be.
“I wish Mr. Desaulniers can escape with us.
“He’s a good friend. I think he wants to escape too, but he’s more resigned about staying in the manor than we Survivors are. He’s already promised me that he’ll help us escape if we need him, even if it means going against his fellow Hunters.
“I don’t feel good about leaving him here. I want him to come with us.”
***
One month ago, Aesop Carl’s diary:
“Whenever I’m around Joseph, something in my stomach makes me feel nauseous and nervous, but not in a bad way? I’m worried that I might be sick.
“I asked Emily for advice. She looked awkward about it, but she assured me that I wasn’t sick and so she didn’t need to suggest any medicine.
“I asked Eli. He told me it was probably because I was in love?
“I’ve read before that this is what people feel when they’re in love, so that probably makes sense. I wonder if falling in love is actually an illness that makes you queasy and want to throw up. I asked Eli about what I could do about it and he told me that I can tell Joseph how I feel and resolve my feelings.
“I think Eli is not a medical professional so the remedy of ‘telling Joseph my feelings’ sounds like a bad plan. It is surely not because I’m too nervous to actually go through with it. Surely.
“And even though Eli is not a professional, he still has lots of good advice for love. He suggested different things, like holding hands with Joseph a bit more. I took his advice on that. I held Joseph's hand today and Joseph looked happy about it, so it made the queasy feeling go away.
“I’m going to hold his hand a lot more from now on.
“His happiness….it makes me happy as well.”
***
Three weeks ago, Aesop Carl’s diary:
“I want to be with him.
“I just can’t imagine leaving the manor without him.
“He told me that he can’t come with us when we leave, but I have to prove him wrong.
“I have to.
“I have to.”