Work Text:
You know, Lohen, that the aliens here—Segyein, what a funny name—in this world are nothing but a selfish and egotistic perpetrator. You’ve listened to some people saying things about Dottore, the prime example of a selfish Segyein, having his human pets all undergo severe experimentation. There’s also Pantalone who treats his human pet as a mere commodity. Rare would you see someone genuinely kind to their pets here in this world, the closest would the Archons, whose pets are the most prized and treated as untouchable treasures.
Fortunately for you, Ursa—your adoptive guardian—reacts harshly to you only if you don’t want to listen to her orders and rules. Other than that, she can be manipulated and used, for she has a rather weird leniency when it comes to you, should you word your intentions correctly.
She is an easy thing, a fallen angel that craves her past glories—her begging for Dottore to give you to her, as a reward for helping his experimentation, as opposed being loaned is one act of her desperation. Thus, it is easy to convince her to allow you to do whatever you pleased. The fact that she listened to you when you said you want to participate in the upcoming season of Alien Stage again for the second time, just by mentioning that her guidance will be enough for you to win it all, is one of those example.
“You can show the rest of your kin that you’re one of a kind, Ursa.” Velvety goes your tone, using her manipulation tactic against her—years of being subjected to it, years of dissection and committing it to memory, all coming together. “Guide me to victory once more, I know you can.”
In truth, it was so that you can continue to feel alive. Living with Ursa is boring, repetitive, mundane, and nothing feels right after the loss of the person you love, so everything is even worse when you think that person isn’t around anymore to accompany you. Carnage suits you more, for you are the person who revelled the moment your enemies die, executed by the bullets. You, the person who had exhilaration in your eyes twinkling as bright as the spotlight as you narrowly avoided death, the person everyone watched performing perfectly to entertain—
—are only looking to see if he will ever appear again in front of you, should you throw yourself into the hell.
“So, let me, Ursa.” You smile, beckoning sweetly. “Let me fight for you, my angel,” so I can see him again.
Looking at the next line up of match makes you feel a bit excited. The winner of the previous match was someone pitted up by the cruel organiser to fight against his own guardian, a never-seen-before spectacle here in the stage.
You think Illuga is a fool for thinking they can run away together, even more foolish of the Segyein guardian who was in charge of him—it’s all written over their faces, their scores, how the Segyein—Flins, the human name it took upon, the name written on the scoreboard—manipulates the score by intentionally stop singing a line; an act that makes you feel like laughing on how endearing and selfless it is supposed to be.
Even the Segyeins are ruthless to traitor which is quite unexpected, you think—throwing your own kin to a death game, knowing the human attached to it will react beautifully as an entertainment. The word sick is an understatement.
But you could only smile, in twisted glee, on how a humanoid alien dies a humiliating death on screen and how love—that Illuga thinks is enough to make them escape the punishment of being together, evident in the way you see his eyes looking at it throughout the performance—seems to never be the solution that magically solves everything.
If he—Illuga—were smarter, he would’ve used his brain more to escape. If it—Flins—was more desperate to save its loved one, it could. A Segyein of its class would be able to avoid this sort of thing, but why didn’t it?
You think about it showing that, maybe, love can prevail. In this world? Showing love, affection, devotion is the same as giving out a weakness, a death sentence. The Segyeins will do anything—by anything, you mean it—to entertain themselves and lovestruck fools? Those are their favourites play with, and so are yours. Just to show how superior your love that remains hidden is to those who wear them like a sleeve.
The song you have to memorise and perform is actually hilarious. Hilarious as in ironic. This was a recycled song from a few seasons back and you remembered exactly who sung this song the first time. You still have the recording too, from start to finish, edited to only contain his voice. You’ve listened to it a hundred of times—ah, maybe close to a thousand, given the amount of time where you are free in a day can amount to 15 hours and more.
To sing the same song that plunges you to know his existence is an honour you don’t intend to waste. He might be listening to your performance, somewhere out there—you know he will, for you know how much he cares for you, even when he said he doesn’t.
This is a song that requires strong vocal and less movement, with the stage set—chosen by you, a privilege you get from winning a previous season—is inspired by prehistoric site. Huge whale spines weaved into one that overarches the whole stage, a set of floating platforms with stairs that connect to each other, and a fake moon hanging high in the stadium’s artificial night sky. The stars glimmer, the same frequency with the floating spotlights. The whole concept is visually perfect, a feast for the eyes of the amused and hungry—disgusting—Segyeins.
The hairstylist Segyein decorates and weaves a light blue ribbon—his colour, not Ursa’s, not yours, his—and white baby roses—your request, down to the colour too—into the strands of your hair, the end part long and trailing as you walk, cascading onto your upper back. The make-up artist only gives you a small touch up, a peach lip gloss and a faint translucent shimmer on your eyelids. Your stylist gives you a full-white suit like those you see in the recordings of people’s wedding, with the outer part has frills on the lower part, like a conjoint outfit of a groom and a bride.
The theme of this stage, despite how amazing the main stage, is the least you like; a marriage, an unhappy one, where the groom and the bride are pitted each other, throwing each others’ throat out of hatred. It is evident that the Segyeins are trying to push an agenda onto you—by extension, Illuga too. You wouldn’t be surprised if it’s to push sales too, throw a bone in the form of fetishistic boys’ love trope and everyone will slurp it up, no matter how it is a slop.
Besides, it kind of works in your favour—you want to make someone jealous, after all. And that you’re used to it, being treated like an object.
Illuga enters first and you follow his steps. In the last round, he wears white and so does this one, an almost similar suit to you—instead of his coattails being frilly, it’s his sleeves that flares, decorated with ribbons in the colour gold and dark purple, a representation of his deceased guardian. The reddish earring on his left ear glints and reflects the fake moonlight, a contrast to your teal-blue one. You know the representative colours are unnecessary,
Oh, you think, his stylist is particularly mean, to rub the loss in his face and yet—
His expression is blank, as if he doesn’t care about all of these, but there is a faint touch of anxiety in his eyes. You see a trail of cold sweat going down from his temple and deduce that he is nervous. You thought this will be an easy win to bag, but staring at Illuga who refuses to look back at you gives you a feeling in which he might be someone that is more than meets the eye.
The music starts as the two of you walk to the centre of the main stage, a slow piano intro with a hum of a human accompaniment. The vibe changes and you hear the crowd cheers for you, as the piano intro continues. A few seconds before the part you start singing, you sneak around Illuga, standing in front of him with a bright sneer which elicits a reaction of aversion, of him moving his face away from you and then, you whistle playfully.
You can hide from the light, turn your back on the sky—
You start to sing, keeping your view fixed of Illuga’s figure, who still can’t see you straightforwardly. You surge forward, lightly, in your measured steps, entering his private space. You extend your hand, wrapping it around his neck, so you can drag him to the back, your lips hovering over the shell of his ear, whispering—there’s no sun like my star.
“—!”
He retaliates almost immediately, as if being burnt by your touch. Illuga uses his elbow to dismiss you, to which you respond with a simple side step away.
You watch the white microphone manifest and gracefully, you take it, doing a little fanservice for the Segyein too at that, sensually kissing the side of the microphone as you continue.
See the world shining bright, through the tears in your eyes—
After snatching the microphone, you bring yourself to where Illuga stands. He is clutching the microphone for dear life, staring at the audience with fear and grief in his eyes. You encircle him, your coattail trailing elegantly over your motion, until you stop in front of him.
—such a fine work of art.
The bright crimson at the centre of Illuga’s eyes affixed themselves to you, befuddled, and you stare back, slyly smirking. Your hands lift his microphone steady near his mouth as you sing again—my saviour, oh, what a beautiful soul—beckoning him to continue with you, your lips almost touching his pale one.
I don’t believe you—
The silver-haired nightingale sings, staring at you who pull away, cold sweat dripping once more from the side of his face. His voice wavers, unsteady, but a beautiful melody. You know this well, have listened to the round where he won before, but still, even though Flins was the one manipulating the result, Illuga has the voice of a siren.
—you’re a liar.
It’ll be boring to have an one-sided fight like this, so you have a wicked idea, one that can drive him into madness and fury.
It is evil and malicious, the thing you do to taunt your enemy—by taking form of their most recent trauma—but Ursa taught you to use everything in your arsenal to overpower your rival and you cannot deny that you enjoy the drastic change in your opponent’s reaction, the despair and fear. You reach your hand to the sky, the other down. Your smirk dissipates into a soft smile, an imitation of an alien trying to live off as a human. The stare you give is of affection but false—this is a fake, a thing to use to toy the loss Illuga had.
Your darkness and mine—
You watch Illuga’s face blanch and, with widened eyes, he stares intently at your face whom he mistakes as his dead guardian, Flins. He moves forward, refusing to sing, his microphone falling to the ground. He tries to reach the deceased, and you reach back to Illuga, lovingly cupping his cheeks, smiling gently in hopes that it is believable—
“Sir Flins—” Illuga gets closer to your face, tears brimming over on his eyes. “Sir Flins, it's me!”
—only for you to smirk in the last minute in the façade, the imagination shattering at once into broken pieces as Illuga realises and stares into your sharp magenta eyes—not the golden irises it wears as a human—the expression he exhibits similar to being stunned.
A storm I can’t disobey—you laugh in the middle of you singing, taunting him with your eyes, your cold hands caressing the skin of his cheeks, like a lover would—come to take me away!
Instinctively, Illuga shoves you, his expression confused and disturbed, trying to distance himself but you make do of the momentum, dodging it while hooking your arm around his waist. You manoeuvre him into a dance, dragging him into a spin where you let him fall backward a bit, only for you to pull him up again.
Ruler of my heart—the crowd chants once, enthusiastically.
“What are you doing—” You catch Illuga saying that, unheard by the rest of the crowd, “You’re despicable, to imitate him like that. Why?”
“Guess for yourself, you have a brain, or it dying made it all obsolete?” You taunt, your hand steadying him. “You think I’m here to let you be defeated that easily, my dear Nightingale?”
Ruler of my heart—twice now, the voice of human pets resounding in the stage.
“How do you know … ” His sentence trails away and you gloat your small win with a smirk.
Bewildered at that nickname and the tone you adopt, he tries to punch you away. It’s easy to avoid and in response, you grab his arm and wrestle it behind his back.
“How I know is a secret, I have my ways. As to why—” You affirm, tone a toxic saccharine, “—I’m here to prove your love for it is silly and not worth dying for.”
You flick your eyes to him, leering, as the crowd—the human pets, the Segyein cannot sing in ways that matter—chants the lyric of the song aloud for the third time.
Ruler of my heart—you hum along with the crowd, as he goes rigid with the continuous surprise coming from you.
“—you are eternally beautiful, Illuga.” Your voice resounds, half-singing and half-complimenting the mesmerising fear seemingly embedded permanently in his expression. “Your despair is very delightful to see.”
“You’re sick in the head.” Illuga spits out with enough vehemence. You see ire now burning in his previously-blank stare. Good. “You’re just the same as the rest of the aliens.”
And you laugh, oh, you did, Lohen, as the crowd chants away with the rest of the refrain. He takes it as a chance to break free, struggling in your hold, so you let him go, smiling sweetly in return.
“And so what if I am?” You retort back, walking over and watching Illuga who crouches to pick up his fallen microphone. “Isn’t it all the better you try to kill me? Or maybe, you’re too scared to do it?”
You stand in front of him, kneeling down and reaching out. Your pale hand takes a grip on his chin, forcing him to look at your spinel-like eyes, a pair of gemstones seemingly glinting in the surrounding dark.
”The endless walls you’re building,” You sing but the lyric is perfect as a saying to him, a reaffirmation to what he had been through, “they fall to the ground—”
Illuga swats away your hand, the microphone he picked up grazing his lips as he stands up and sings back.
—in a single moment, crashing down.
Then, the silver-haired nightingale goes forward, to the front of the centre stage, his voice shaking as he tries, but you notice the disturbance in his odd-coloured eyes and the way it keeps going back and forth between you and the crowd as if he’s searching for someone there.
I could go blind and deaf—
Your eyes meet Illuga’s again, as if he’s confirming that he’s still here, standing with a person—you—with more traits of a serpent than a human. You scoff, rolling your eyes at that treatment, continuing to sing, him harmoniously complementing your voice.
—till I have nothing left, collapsing my world.
Another wicked idea enters your mind—as a privilege of being the winner of the last season of Alien Stage, there is certain aspect of the performance that you can tweak. The stadium has lots of light works and stage effect machines that are beyond human comprehension. You make use of that, to dim the rest of the stage, letting them bathe in the deep purplish hue, the same colour as Illuga’s guardian colour motive. You’re forever grateful for its death, because here is where peak entertainment can be found; his suffering, his guilt, and his foolish love are utmost beautiful that it makes you giddy.
My saviour, there is no beauty like yours—
You strut to where he stands, a hand over his chin again as you tip his head back to gaze upon his agitated expression.
”—make me your God,” You sing but it is as if you’re beckoning him to listen to your gospel, “I can give you everything.”
For a moment, he is entranced by you, but a shadow—a light play you orchestrated—passing by on Illuga’s left side, a figure whose stature is taller than the both of you walking unbothered. You watch Illuga’s eyes widened and immediately look back to focus on the figure.
Your darkness and mine, a storm I can’t disobey—
The shadow of Flins smiles at Illuga, the very same one it wears before it dies, before it turns its back on Illuga. Illuga's attention follows the figure as it is now stepping into a part of the stage bathed in spotlight. The next illusion shows the moment you’ve been waiting for—Flins being killed in cold blood by the executioners, by Illuga’s own stupid conviction that love can solve everything.
You sneak behind him, whispering behind the shell of his ear, “Let me take you away.”
The crowd cheers, singing in unison for the chorus. You don’t have to sing anymore, you’ve won fair and square, by a landslide, you think.
You gleefully sneer when you observe him staying still instead of responding to you, his eyes rooted to the empty ground where the illusion slowly dissipates. You see a twitch over his fingers, a small movement that denotes him wanting to reach, to touch, to confirm that it is gone for good or not—the blood in the illusion where Flins died spreads, touching the shoes Illuga wear, but the blood doesn’t stick, as if saying that everything he sees is not real. Of course it isn’t, you scoff, observing the way Illuga falls to his knees, hands desperately trying to touch the pool of blood.
He must’ve grown sick with the view, because you watch him growing pallid, hands digging the stage until you hear nails scratching against its surface, his own blood congealing underneath his fingertips. You hear Illuga, with a voice that grows distress by the minute, like a mantra, a prayer to every gods there is to save them from this hell.
“No one is there to save you, not even the gods.”
Your word is laced with mockery, whispering like an angel giving guidance, just like how Ursa taught you. Give them the most painful of truth, she said, remember that what you say will not be a lie, never a lie, Lohen, because what you speak will be the only version of reality there is.
“Your God—the one you cherish, the one you worship. It’s dead.”
You kneel right behind him, giving him a hug, his cries getting louder as his breathing does, but only for you to hear. The crowd still chants, the screen counting the audience’s votes, but you care not, simply because you know you’re in the lead, you know you’re winning this round, that Illuga will go and perish along with his fool of a guardian.
“What a waste,” you whisper, chuckling devilishly, “spending your love for a creature incapable of returning the same feeling—it leaving you behind is the proof of everything. It doesn’t love you, Illuga. It’s fake, the same as your devotion for it.”
“You wouldn’t be here,” you add, “if you’re that desperate for it.”
You find his sob grows in crescendo, but his action does not mirror his tears. Everything that happens goes in a blur, with you finding your sight spins and your back hitting the ground hard. There is a weight holding you down, making you unable to escape, and the first thing you register is the sharp pain around your neck, constricting enough for you to choke. It registers to you a little bit too late that Illuga is trying to murder you.
“I hate you, so, so much. Gods, I want you dead, Lohen.” His voice is hoarse, since he’s been screaming and crying—doesn’t pay a heed to your skin growing blue, your eyes rolling back, and your breath going fainter, “If it was me that you mock, if it was me that you degrade—it’s fine, I’ll take all the brunt and all the fault, because it’s my fault that he died, it’s all my fault—”
The tears keep falling down, even as his hands leave your neck. Illuga doesn’t give you any reprieve, landing his fists on your face, repeatedly all over.
“But don’t you dare refer to him like a thing! You insulting him as if he is the same as all you scum—what difference does it make between you and a slave for those trashes?!”
You faintly hear gasp in the crowd, a shout that resembles Ursa’s voice, and the continuance of the music, but eventually, all of those are drowned by Illuga’s hysterical yelling, his guardian’s name repeatedly spoken above your ears.
“Sir Flins is the only one who cares for me. Sir Flins, the only one who treats me right! Like what a human should feel, safe and sound.” A hand over your windpipe again, deepening the already imprinted bruise on your skin. “And you’re just one envious, lonely man whose sole existence is to be pitiful!”
In one way or another, Illuga is right. That you are just a pitiful, lonely man making fun of someone with fresh wound of loss.
“Is that—” You spit out blood to the side, answering him despite the taste of iron and sandpaper in your mouth. “—the stupid conclusion you end up with? Jealousy, pitiful? Pfft—”
You want Illuga dead because he reminds you of yourself, your mind supplies as you conveniently take all the blow he bestows onto you, that you aren’t desperate enough, like him, to find out the fact if he’s alive out there or not—if Varka is still outside, waiting for you to escape with him.
He doesn’t reply to you, too angry to retort anything. Your cheeks sting, one of your eye sealed shut from the start of a swelling, but the pain gives birth to another sensation of exhilaration. The little nightingale curses you, at one point, wanting you dead by his hands, but being the little shit that you are, you manage to bestow him a mockery.
“You lost to this jealous, lonely man, Illuga.” You smugly smirk at him, tipping your head to signal the arrival of the guards, and his fist stops mid-air, looking at you blankly, so you jab that metaphorical knife into his wound. “Your God is dead and you can’t even hurt me in ways that matter.”
The side of your mouth grows wider and you laugh loudly, even when the pain is excruciating.
“So, who’s pitiful now?”
The guards/executioners start to filter in the stage, taking over the situation. They pull Illuga by his shoulders, hauling him off you, dragging him to the side of the stage as he screams wordlessly at you. He struggles, fights, but his small stature and his strength, no matter overwhelming it is for you, isn’t enough to overpower the guards wearing exoskeleton suit.
“I’ll kill you, I swear, I’ll kill you!” The growl, the murderous contempt, all written over his expression. “—Lohen!”
They shove him down to the ground, face meeting the dirty ground. His clothes are no longer pristine and kept, torn in various parts, his hair gleams with sweat and bits of blood. His glare is deadly, aimed at you then the guards restraining him. A barrel of a gun is aimed at his temple, fearing nothing—shame, you contemplate a bit as you try to sit down, he could’ve gone down elegantly, like his God.
You watch the guard’s finger curling around the trigger, squeezing it tight—
Bang!
—only for the guard to fall down to its back.
The shock momentarily changes your expression, “Wha—?!”
Smoke starts filling in the stage, blurring everything in between, but you see a few of the guards breaking formation, while the others trying to manoeuvre out from the disabling fog. One particular guard takes off its helmet, revealing the blond hair hidden underneath it, the shade all familiar to you.
“No, that can’t—be.”
You watch the figure takes the now-unconscious Illuga on the ground and lifts him up in his arms, while your eyes remain fixed towards this one figure you find nostalgically familiar, someone whom you wish you cherished more in the past.
“Var … ka?”
The syllables of his name is out before you can stop yourself, your hand trying to reach into the dense fog where the figures—traitors, rebels, humans who refuse to bow down, your God—start to retreat into the unknown. Everything is sluggish, every breathe feels like a drag, but you force yourself, even if you have to crawl.
As if the large figure had heard it, he—Varka—turns around, the indifferent shade of the sky meeting your own spinel-coloured eyes, as beautiful still as the day you lost him. That gaze alone freezes your movement; no matter how much your mind screams for you to move, you cannot go to his place and confirm if it’s truly him.
“Varka, don’t go.” You whisper, pushing yourself up, only to fall down again. Numb goes your legs, outstretched still is your hand. “No—!”
You seek, want, and yearn, but your body remains rooted like a statue, regardless. You watch his back getting smaller and smaller, then realise, your God is still alive and that he is watching you all along.
“ … Don’t leave me again.”