A Social Experiment Pv Flash & Kazuo Closed

The problem with secrets is that it allows the transmission of misinformation, it facilitates paranoia and it results in poor choices and even worse outcomes. Jack had a thing for Asian people, it was apparent with his relationship with Faust, the strange obviously troubled dhampir (presumption) and obviously that would extend to Flash, a strange name that most European parents would forgo in favor of a 'normal' name such as John or Timothy.

The true interest was the dialogue between the two boys - Jack and Selim. About contracts and Selim's festering jealousy that undermined their relationship. Erin would not intercede, she would get Flash out of there before she did anything else. She would drag Flash (Kazuo) out of the room and take her first and then her next left. Yes, she dragged him deeper into the dungeons rather than towards the exit. Her reasoning was simple, the room had a strange scent that she did not care for, this sour, pungent scent that alerted her senses.

It was the smell of blood.

She did not stay long enough to assess the scene, to see the state of the other fallen stranger who stole Jack's concern but she could smell his fresh wounds. The grievous state of injury an unknown victim had suffered. "The immobulus charm does not last very long," she assured fake Flash. "Going to hide you until you can walk," she explained. Her logic was simple, the outcome would be violent in this basement and he was not in a state where he could protect himself or even flee. She would not be able to do much for him if she was burdened by his weight. He was light enough that she could endure the chore but she would not be able to fight or protect him or herself.

Erin was a poor choice of savior, she dropped Flash (Kazuo) face down on the dungeon floor. An afterthought really as she attempted to turn him onto his side like those books tell her -- recovery position according to those pamphlets. She would have to go, check on Jack. He was too fragile and too much of an asshole to be left alone. At least the spiders would keep Flash (Kazuo) company.

She did not mind spiders, she considered them to be rather misunderstood creatures. They often preferred to keep to their own devices, seeking creatures smaller than themselves much like other animals, including humans did yet in our hypocrisy we revile these creatures in particular. "The spiders are not too bitey," Erin claimed. Well, they were moderately but they were so much bigger than the spiders, there was little these arachnids could do to any of them besides have a dance party on their face.

In fact, if anything they were a source of protection the part-Veela reasoned as she scooped up some cobwebs and a handful of skittering spiders. Yes, an armful of spiders. Linked for the sake of sensibilities. They were still until disturbed, faster than expected she she collected them from their brooding corner. She would dump the pile of spiders over Flash, he was now successfully 'saved.'

Interesting thing to RP - a proliferation of spiders while paralyzed.

She would not stay, the time it would take for him to recover and get back to his feet were important moments. She would have to follow her right hand to return to the trio she had left. In transit she would hear the jabber grow louder as she returned. Her head throbbed in cadence with her heart, calm, even beats that felt like a ballpeen hammer inside her skull. It was not far, between the monologues and her brief utilitarian efforts to protect the presumptive victim Erin would return. A few spiders would have found their way to her hair, she was unfussed as she wandered with a confidence reflective of a low IQ back into Faust's fetish room.

Honestly, it sounded like a lover's squabble. She had thought she had loved Parcelcus but in truth she felt lies. She had no control over what she felt but it was the result of a systematic manipulation, the person she had affection for did not nor did they ever exist. A disheartening truth she had come to accept over the past year, yes year. She was called upon when she was needed, not when she was wanted. A tool rather than a friend.

"Grabbing the bloody one," she announced referring to the real Flash. She was not waiting for permission, she was going to grab the boy and she would level either of them if they stood in her path. Erin was not much for long discussions, manipulative foreplay or the making of deals, she was a juggernaut -- rather than walking over or around a mountain, she would walk directly through it. "Giving someone a scare does not leave people bloody you damn asshole," she muttered at Selim. "And when your friends" or enemies one could suppose with the lack of attention being given "are hurt, you help them. Wasting time talking." Words never fixed anything as far as she was concerned and from what she had learned in both Thomas and Jack's case, words were also rather cheap.

Action for the Round: Cover Kazuo with spiders.
Movement: Return to original room.
Plan for Next Round: Pick up the real Flash while the lover argue.

"I have become insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."
- Edgar Allan Poe

Shimada's words before Selim tackled him to the floor made him scoff. This boy thought he was only talking about his family? No, they were not the only ones who harmed him. His kohai then said he wanted to help him, but hadn't he moments before said he could not? Seems Selim wasn't the only one who had trouble keeping track of conversations.

After his speech for Jack, Selim watched him intensely, listening mutely to his responses. Annoyance and loathing boiled inside him, the haze of their fumes clouding his rationality once more. His mental balance was always precarious, his moments of clarity short-lived.


Selim snarled, irritation flaring in his firey amber hues, and addressed the comment about Selim not having tried to convey his desperate warnings verbally, problem was, he had. "You absolute numbskull. I did try to simply tell you. Multiple times in the past I told you to leave me be. You were just too flea-brained to take my warnings to heart."

A low, animalistic growl rumbled in the back of his throat. "The fact of the matter is that you keep seeing breaking friendships as hard. It isn't, people do often, it takes time."

Selim continued the line of thought, expression dark, "Bonds aren't eternal, that's the harsh truth. We gave you almost a full year to do it, thought it worked. Then you had to crawl back to us."

"You seem to have a stupidly unhealthy addiction for forming toxic bonds." Aku snorted.

His gaze returned to the doorway as Erin returned, grabbing Flash, Kazuo was nowhere in sight. He gave here a dry look at her words. "Look who's talking. You're no saint, Ryan, so you have no right to spew your words at us." He gestured to Jack, "The fact that you're enabling him to continue pursuing this toxic relationship is just as disgusting."

He felt coiled, tense, and the whispers were loud and making him wonder why his ears weren't bleeding. The influx of saturated emotions made the world distort even more than it usually did.

He turned back to Jack as he gave the final verdict, firmly locking himself to a sinking ship, like an idiot.



He snarled, another piece of his mind unknowingly taking over before the other one caused more issues, "For --ck's sake, Burnett. YOU CAN STOP IT. Guess what's making it that hard? The fact that you think it's hard. You're struggling with 'cognitive dissonance', Jack. What does that mean? Cognitive dissonance is a phenomenon where we have a natural drive for consistency in that our belief system must be consistent with itself and it must be consistent with our actions. You convince yourself that you can't get out of relationships, so you're actions, your brain, tries to make that feeling justifiable. Or else there'd be dissonance"

Selim marched around the table-bed-thing, poking Jack harshly in the chest, eyes blazing. "Your screwing yourself over, because of something you can't fix, us. Guess what you can fix? Yourself. If you start thinking you can break off your bonds, you will. Move on to the next problem, Jack, just like we do in tests, because this-?" He stepped back gesturing vaguely to the two of them. "Is ruining, both of us, and screwing over other people. I'm trying to fix our issues, and you. Are. Not. Helping." He wasn't talking about him and Jack, he was talking about the collective consciousness of his own shattered brain. "It took all I could give to keep us from slitting Holmwood's throat in that cursed bloodlust, and guess what? Now they want to slit your throat."

Twisting, he grabbed the contract, pulling out his wand from under Aku's cloth. And tapped the paper, muttering one spell. "Incendio."

For once his wand listened, the document caught fire. The Raven-haired boy held it until it was growing too close to his fingertips, and dropped it on the termination document. That also caught alight, and they both burned until they were naught but a pile of ashes. The dim glow of embers lit the dim room slightly, the nondescript char signifying how pointless Jack was acting.

The snake's amber hues glowed with promises of more pain to come, and he spoke, voice low and gravelly. The previous piece slipped back into the hazy mindscape, spinning slowly as it tried to heal the massive scars riddling the space. The dominant piece returned once again, and so did that aura of danger.

"Leave. Now." He hissed, "And use your brain, for once, to actually think on our words."

You hope I get better as soon as possible?! Kazuo echoed Jack’s words back at him, displeasure clear in his mental voice. As Erin carried him away from the conflict, Jack’s completely not helpful or reassuring words in his head drew out a flicker of genuine anger. Tell your damn girlfriend to put me down Burnett! This was awful. Jack’s ‘help’ was a girl who couldn’t even tell the difference between him and Flash. He couldn’t even clarify the situation because Jack thought firing a spell at two people fighting was a good idea. His inability to move was annoying but his inability to speak, that was infuriating.

Erin didn’t carry him very far, just a couple passageways down from the room, two lefts. It wasn't in the right direction. He didn't know the dungeons well -yet- but he had remembered the path Selim had led him down and this was not it. This was not the way out.

"Going to hide you until you can walk,"

Hide him? Hide him where…? Erin unceremoniously dropped him on the floor, face first - why face first, Erin? Why must you do damage to this poor pretty boy's face? - and the answer to the question he could only think was answered. Apparently it was right here, in the middle of the floor of the dungeon. How much longer before the damn charm wore off? As Erin rolled him onto his side, he tried to move, to speak, anything but the charm held fast.

Damnit Burnett how- He began but his thoughts turned to concern as he heard Erin speak again.

"The spiders are not too bitey,"

No. Oh no. Nonononono.

It wasn't that Kazuo had a particular fear of spiders. On their own, especially, they were relatively harmless and mostly beneficial. Yet this situation was not a normal one. He could not react to brush away the writhing mass that Erin was about to dump on him. They might be small but there were so many and he couldn't move. His mind went to the worst possible place, chasing an irrational fear that hadn't existed until he'd come to Hagwarts. Spiders. Dungeon. Half-heard rumours about things that had happened in Slytherin. These spiders were unlikely to be those spiders… right? Surely not. Those spiders were probably long gone… right?

Jack. JACK. JAAAACK. He thought desperately at his friend. SPIDERS. SHE PUT SPIDERS ON ME JACK! This is your idea of HELP?!

His heart was pounding in his chest as the little arachnids crawled over him. His breath quickened, a physical response to the mental anguish he was currently experiencing. How much longer would it be before he could move? He just had to endure until then. One spider skittered across his cheek and if he could have shuddered, he definitely would have. Don’t think about the spiders. Think about moving. Focus on trying to move. Kazuo thought to himself, clinging to his rational mind, focusing on helpful actions instead of the helplessness and irrational fear that threatened to overwhelm him. As he struggled against Jack;s magic and his own fears, he also imagined dropping a bucketful of the creepy spiders on Jack while he was sleeping. Just a teeny tiny harmless revenge fantasy. Maybe he’d cast Immobulus on Jack first, while he was at it.

@Jack Burnett @Flash Holmwood @Selim Faust @Erin Ryan

Reducio

This is my disappointed face Jack.