FellPoth Short Stories and One-Shots

On the Outs: Chapter 4

Chapter warnings: Gaslighting, swearing

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"This is impossible! Magic should not be so difficult to manage, and your persnickety scythe... ughhh!" the imposter screeched, followed by the sound of something being kicked. It seemed in addition to his teleportation, his scythe was refusing to cooperate as well; this made its task as a reaper something of an insurmountable obstacle.

While Lotus was happy it was having a hard time, its continual attempts to force his magic into submission were exhausting him as well; in spite of his fatigue, a breathy laugh escaped him, "For something that claims it can perfectly steal others lives, you're doing a piss-poor job of it; you haven't even been working for an hour yet."

"Enough! This lowly collection task is beneath me; we are going home," the fake snapped.

Lotus perked up and asserted, "You can't just leave; you still have a list full of souls that need to be reaped."

"Watch me." The waspish words were overlaid with another hefty draw from his magic pool; an attempted teleport, no doubt. It then grunted and seethed, "Infernal bush..."

Stomping steps were an agitated staccato to Lotus's words, "You can't leave those souls to rot in the mortal plane."

"It is not my problem."

"It will be your problem when corruption overtakes them, they gain enough power to become corporeal, and they begin destroying everything in a rampage," he heatedly warned, "One would be bad enough, but hundreds would be a literal disaster! You need to at least hand the list off to someone else."

"I do not need to do anything."

A door slammed shut, signaling they were home. He tried pushing again, "I'm serious, you need to call-"

"Enough! I will not take orders from a mere worm like you!" The fake flopped down on something, likely the couch, "Now, I will be taking a nap, and I will expect silence." Lotus opened his mouth to protest further, but the sound of his phone buzzing interrupted. "I said silence!" it snapped, and something hard collided with a wall.

Lotus's rage spiked, "Hey, you better not be breaking my stuff-"

"My stuff," it spitefully corrected, "You own nothing here. Now shut that gaping maw you call a mouth." He could hear his phone buzzing away faintly; it was still working, at least.

Feeling worn out, Lotus decided to comply if only so he could lie down himself and mull over the events of the day. Things had started off well enough, with him managing to wake up super early and pester the imposter awake whenever he thought it had dozed back off; it gave up sleeping after the fourth attempt, lying to Rurik that it couldn't sleep when asked. Outside of that small victory, the morning had gone irritatingly normal; his boyfriend had been their usual self, chatting up the bodysnatcher and complimenting breakfast around casual flirting; he suspected things might have picked up where they left off last night if not for their work schedules... he was secretly dreading the evening for that very reason.

As if summoned, he heard the door open and close along with the barely audible shuffle of feet across the wooden floor; was it already time for Rurik to come home? The constant darkness was really starting to mess with his sense of time.

The footsteps stopped somewhere nearby, then moved farther away before returning once more. There was a faint pop of bones, then silence. Suddenly, Rurik's voice projected around him, '...ith this necklace...'

Praying this was the moment he had been waiting for, Lotus called out softly so as not to wake his captor, "Rurik? Can you hear me?"

"Lo-oof!" A bang and a loud thud with a grunt cut off Rurik's words.

"What the hell?! I thought you were someone else," the fake complained.

"What did you do to him?!" Lotus screeched in a panic when Rurik didn't respond, "Let me see him, dammit!"

'You stay out of-'

"The real Lotus is in there, isn't he?" Though it sounded like a question, the chill in Rurik's voice gave his words the authority of a statement, "Give it here."

A spark of hope ignited as the imposter scoffed, "Have you gone mental? What's this 'real Lotus' shit? I'm right in front of you, dumbass."

It sounded incredulous, but he could hear a tinge of nerves in its voice. He didn't know how, but Rurik had somehow caught on and Lotus cheered, "Hah, I knew it! I told you he'd be able to tell!"

It let out a rumbling growl and Rurik taunted, "I bet he's sassing you right now. Hand over the necklace and I might consider going easy on you."

"I am not giving you anything," it bit back.

There was a grunt and a thud as Rurik rumbled, "Then I'll just have to take it."

"Get off!" it screamed. Lotus felt a drain on his magic followed by the sound of bone constructs impacting the walls; more thuds, the sound of a scuffle, cursing, and another dip into his reservoir were followed by a loud thud and a groan from his captor. "Ugh... why is it not working...?" it whined. He could hear its fingers scraping against the wood floor as footsteps thundered closer. Another thud and it was shouting again, "Ow, get off of me! Ah, s-stop it, you're hurting me! You said you wouldn't do this again!!"

Immediately recognizing it was trying to use his past abuse to manipulate Rurik, Lotus bristled, "You son of a bitch, don't you dare pull that shit!"

There was more scuffling and the sound of splintering wood amid its guilt-laden howls, but Rurik didn't seem phased, "Nice try, but I just need you to hold still for a minute..." '...st until I can-'

"Rurik!" Lotus yelled as soon as his boyfriend's voice began echoing around him.

"No, no, let me go! Please, you're going to kill me! I thought I was your partner; did all these years together mean nothing to you?!" it tried to drown him out with its shrill screams, but he needed to get his theory out before it could do anything to cut the connection again.

"Open the pendant and make it look inside! I think that'll make us switch back!"

There was a sigh of relief as Rurik mumbled, "Just what I needed to hear." There were more screams and desperate grunts, then a blinding light flashed into existence in the darkness of the void. Blinking the spots from his sockets and racing over to the window, he pressed his hands to the surface and dispelled the light just in time to catch a glimpse of Rurik staring back at him in confusion before the scene shifted around to himself. The imposter was thrashing about on the wooden floor, held down at the waist by his boyfriend while their hunter's knife pinned his hands to the ground via the holes in the center; Lotus cringed, suspecting there would be scars left behind from its insistent flailing.

Putting the thought out of his mind, he pressed harder against the window and commanded, "Playtime's over, now get out of my body!"

The fake turned its skull to the side in defiance, but Rurik's hand came into view and grabbed hold of its lower jaw; after a few seconds of struggling, its skull was forced to look in the direction of the pendant. Its red eye light made contact with his for a split second and contracted; the sockets were overtaken by a sickly green glow and a skull-splitting shriek pierced the air, only for the sound to cut off abruptly as everything was engulfed in a flash of light.

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Word Count: 1,280