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Jeff stands in the middle of the apartment.Jeff. Not Jeff, it can't be Jeff, Evan remembers the way his corpse stank like barbeque and the way it crackled and HABIT using his hands to rip Jeff apart, to torture him, Jeff kept calling it Evan because he didn't understand what it was. He didn't understand that Evan wasn't in control until the end when HABIT told him. Evan can still remember how - as if he were swimming, drowning in the murkiest most confusing water - Jeff went so, so wide eyed, calling HABIT’s name as if it were a foreign language, blood dripping off his lips. HABIT? What- what did you do to Evan? and HABIT just laughed at him, used Evan’s long (fuck, he misses them) fingers to pull Jeff’s tongue out and ripped it out at the base just to hear him scream. Jeff stares at him. This Jeff-not-Jeff has wide eyes, that same soft brown color, but his hair is cut shorter. A beard graces his face. He looks slimmer than before and a bit more haggard, but he just stares at Evan. “Hey, Ev.” He says, tense. Confused. Those pretty eyes rove over Evan; they focus on the way his fingers, curled as they are, are stumps at the end. They focus on how Evan’s flat tongue is flicking between his lips in that anxious way he can’t help anymore.“You're dead.” It feels to him like such an obvious fact. He’s dimly aware of Vinny standing off to the side, in between them but not blocking their line of sight. The dog in him is baying and howling- Jeff is dead, it remembers, it knows. Evan knows that Jeff is dead. This is either one of HABIT’s games or he’s hallucinating. Then again, Vinny’s staring at Jeff too like he’s a ghost and Evan doesn’t know what to do. He knows what he wants to do; he wants to attack the imposter. Rip it apart like the fake it is, but what if it is Jeff? The real Jeff?“HABIT-” Jeff starts, but Evan won’t listen. Jeff smells like smoke (burning body, Jeff was alive, he howled and screamed until his vocal chords crisped so much he couldn’t make a sound) and the forest. Decay, but it’s just hanging on him, it’s not him. HABIT. It’s HABIT’s scent, leftover from it being around Jeff-not-Jeff, cloying and raising the hairs on the back of Evan’s neck.“You're dead.” Evan interrupts, growing agitated. He’s dead, he has to be, has Jeff been alive this whole time? Anxiety churns Evan’s stomach - maybe it’s actually the scent of Jeff, a barbeque of human flesh that’s making him feel like he wants to die - as Jeff shifts back and forth. So Jeff, so accurate but he can’t trust it. Not when he’s sure HABIT could recreate Jeff in his entirety. “You aren’t real!” Insistent, a growl starts deep in his chest. Jeff stares at his teeth when they’re bared in agitation.“I- I thought I was, too. I was-” He falters when Evan’s growling becomes audible. Still, he continues, soft eyes so nervous and so confused. “In some place. HABIT was there, but I couldn’t leave and, and HABIT just chased me.” His eyes are averted, for a moment, then he looks at Vinny. At Evan, between them, concerned and confused. Those soft brows are furrowed. It looks like Jeff might move until Evan snaps his teeth at him.Vinny speaks before Evan can. He moves towards him, actually, one hand going to grip the back of his neck. Pressing over the back of the collar that Evan, truthfully, forgot about. The dog in Evan (terrified and confused and enraged) calms at the touch. Evan doesn’t. He doesn’t want to so much as blink. Vinny speaks, and drowns out the low growl. “Jeff, how are you back?” Always going for the truth, Vinny’s heart is pounding and Evan can smell how he’s growing more anxious with the salty scent of sweat. He sounds calm enough, though. Jeff shrugs half heartedly. The jacket he’s wearing (fitted, a soft fabric judging by how little noise it makes) is zipped all the way up, but he pulls the zipper down with shaking fingers. The shirt under it clings and shows that yes, he’s skinnier than before, but he looks healthy enough still. Whole. “I just- I woke up here. No, n- I didn’t even wake up, I just suddenly was here.” Distracted for a moment, Jeff stares at how Vinny’s keeping Evan still, the collar, the teeth. “What happened to you?” He asks, hesitant. Quiet, he steps forward and forward until Evan outright snarls at him. “Ev.” Vinny murmurs, grip around his neck tightening just enough to keep him still. “Um- HABIT, he didn’t just torture you. He-” Sentence stopping, he looks down. "Evan, the vi... we could show him those.” The videos. The videos where Evan was shown to be nothing more than a beast, a tortured animal inside a human body that had to be changed. Mutilated and altered into something that he still hasn’t truly accepted as him, his false hands and false teeth. The videos where Vinny was shown to accept it, forced to because he didn’t have a choice when his dog was always by his side. The videos that lay it all bare.Evan just nods. Even as Jeff looks puzzled, confused by the contextless statement, Evan shakes his head out of Vinny’s grasp and slinks away from Jeff. The fake person, the false friend, the person who can’t possibly be alive.Jeff looks at Evan. Suddenly in the middle of an apartment, small and sparsely furnished, he stares at his best friend who killed him.Well, his hands killed him. Jeff knows it wasn’t Evan. Even in the beginning, the fire in Evan’s eyes wasn’t his own, the way he talked wasn’t right. HABIT didn’t even really try very hard to make it seem like Evan was actually there towards the middle and the end of it all. Jeff remembers the way HABIT shattered his legs, his hips, his spine, every bone one by one until he couldn’t move. HABIT peeled his skin off just to force it to grow back, just to burn it all to a crisp.Evan now looks different. The fire in his eyes is dull. He seems so much more nervous- licking his lips with a flat tongue. Like Sparky’s, a dog’s tongue. The teeth in his mouth are too sharp and there’s too many in front. Dog teeth. Dog teeth, that flat tongue licking over them. A dog’s movement. The way he stands is taut, raw power in muscles that seem so much stronger than the last time Jeff saw him. Around his neck is a collar- a collar. Purple, stained with blood, but Evan doesn’t seem to mind or even notice it.Vinny looks similar, too, but different. Hungry and scared. His facial hair is scruffier and his hair is longer; he looks exhausted, really. The darkness under his eyes (and in them) is so much more obvious, the way he keeps shifting and looking sadly between his friends so much more striking. He hasn’t spoken yet, just staring.Evan growls at him. A genuine growl, right after he insists that Jeff is dead, isn’t real. The sound is so animal coming from his friend’s lips. It feels wrong, even more so when Vinny walks over and grabs the back of Evan’s neck like he’s an enraged dog. Jeff doesn’t know what to think of it all. He doesn’t know what to think of Evan being an animal. HABIT isn’t controlling him, Jeff figures, not with how even the animal rage seems like Evan’s rage before he was very likely changed.Whatever videos Vinny is talking about, he doesn’t ask. Even as Evan slips out of Vinny’s grasp and stalks to the far side of the room (not actually that far away), watching with suspicious eyes, he remains silent. Vinny pulls a laptop out and opens two videos. The whole time Jeff just has to stand, confused and missing the context for it all, what they mean.NEW DOG is the first. It shows the most damning of it all, Evan as a dog. A collar on his neck, a complete lack of human intelligence behind those eyes. On the floor, he’s walking on his hands and knees. And Vinny just goes along with it. Jeff would be disgusted if he didn’t know how HABIT forces people to conform through abuse or having no other choice. The kissing, though? A bit far. Vinny shifts uncomfortably next to him, eventually wrapping an arm around him.That video is nearly as bad as the second. Something titled DENTIST, Jeff doesn’t realize what it is until he sees someone massive that he knows is HABIT, deep in his heart, standing by Vinny. Vinny’s on the floor sobbing and holding Evan’s face. The pliers deep in Evan’s mouth, ripping teeth - dog teeth - and the teeth splintering, it all makes Jeff fucking sick. HABIT did the same with him. Tooth after tooth, bone after bone shattered. Everything destroyed and ruined. The dog in the video - Evan, terrified and inhuman - is whining and trying to get away even as Vinny grips another one of his teeth and tears it out.Jeff looks at Evan, then. The way he’s shying away from any glances and won’t sit down, shifting back and forth on his feet. The way his fingers are curled- the stumped fingers, Jeff’s eyes slid over them when he first looked. Jeff looks at Vinny, whose eyes have reddened over the course of the videos.Jeff knows that, in his absence, HABIT tortured them worse and worse. The fact that Vinny’s so close to tears and doesn’t quite want to let go of Jeff, holding him a little too tightly. Afraid he’ll disappear again. The fact that Evan won’t come closer, a dog too nervous to approach either of his friends. Truthfully, he doesn’t know what to say. It’s all so much. Knowing that while HABIT was chasing him in the not-quite-death realm, he was torturing his friends, too.So he doesn’t say anything. He just looks mournfully down at the last image of DENTIST, Vinny breaking down and sobbing with his hands dragging over his face. Evan’s blood on his hands, Evan having run off with his proverbial tail between his legs. Jeff mourns for the loss of their innocence. The loss of his life, the loss of any sort of normalcy they might have had.Vinny’s forced to pick up the pieces. He watches as Jeff seems unsure, lost in the dynamic he was torn from years ago. He watches as Evan stays in one corner and won’t talk, won’t move any closer. They’re all afraid of ruining the tense calm they have. Vinny and Jeff stay on the couch, leaning against one another but not getting really close, Evan sits in the corner. They turn on the television for the sake of the noise but it’s just playing a music channel, Sinatra, and Evan growls quietly at it.Jeff is alive. Alive, sort of, maybe. Vinny doesn’t know if he’s alive or a fake, but he’s happy that he’s here anyway. Even if Evan won’t leave the corner, just stares with dark eyes that are a little too animal to say that he’s all there right now, even if Jeff’s hair is different and he smells like charred flesh. Other than that, he's too familiar, a more haggard copy of Jeff so many years ago. The one that's dead and gone.The dog in the corner - because Evan isn’t there right now, whatever he was forced to experience as HABIT tortured Jeff has taken him to a time they all three hate - growls, but doesn’t move. He’s sitting with his elbows on his knees, eyes tracking Jeff when he moves. Vinny wants to go over, calm his dog, hold him tight and run his fingers through the short hair. Evan still won't come any closer even when Vinny murmurs Evan, come-come in his quiet talking to my dog voice.Jeff seems frightened, really. Whether it’s by Vinny’s dog or the fact that they’re all three trapped in one room, or perhaps by the fact that HABIT is probably out there somewhere, Vinny doesn’t know. He just knows that when he leans into Jeff that slim body returns the touch. They don’t talk. None of them make a sound outside of Evan’s low growling that eventually fades as he curls up, staring at them. A beast that he knows Jeff doesn’t believe could ever be Evan.
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The dog is laying in the corner. Jeff doesn't really know what to call it. It's Evan, yes, but the way it's gnawing on the toy bone Vinny gave it tells him that it isn't Evan right now. He doesn't like calling it dog, or Evan, because he doesn't know what it is. He is? Jeff doesn't even know how to refer to the creature in the corner. Vinny’s far too used to this situation, though. He doesn't even question when Evan is on all fours, human intelligence completely gone, he just adjusts the collar a little and gives Evan a toy to keep him occupied. Maybe Jeff just doesn't want to call it Evan. Maybe he just doesn't want to accept that Evan is a dog right now, nothing more than a beast of instinct and need. No thoughts behind his movements. Eventually Evan bores of the bone, and walks over to Jeff and Vinny, who are both on the couch; Vinny had stopped watching him, but looks over. He slides off the couch and kneels in front of Evan. He sits and laughs as Evan licks - licks - him, flat tongue looking so wrong coming out of Evan’s mouth, he plays with the dog as if it isn't is friend.“What the fuck, Vin?” He asks, when he sees how Vinny is actually having fun with Evan like this. He's calm, play wrestling the dog, he's too used to Evan being inhuman. The way he just rolls with it- Jeff hates it. He hates how Evan moves as if he was built to be on all fours. HABIT did that. HABIT did that! “He doesn't remember that he's Evan. Like- Evan remembers this, but not the other way around, right? So you just... treat the dog well while he's here.” Vinny sounds so defeated, even as he smiles when the dog nuzzles him. “Did he eat already?” A question that has Jeff confused, he answers anyway without thinking that yes, he did. He saw Evan gnawing on some leftover meatloaf. Genuinely gnawing, because the guy he doesn’t have many teeth left, and he struggles to eat anything easily. Watching his efforts just made Jeff sad, really. “Thank god. HABIT didn’t leave kibble-” Vinny pauses, considering. With his hands around Evan’s face, he’s still; Evan shifts a little. The tiniest confused animal noise, he bumps his face to Vinny’s chest. “Hush, Ev. Um- man, this is kind of fucked up, huh- sit. Evan, sit.” He says, when Evan rises up to put his hands (paws, would they be called?) on his shoulders. “You taught him to sit?” Incredulous, Jeff can only watch. Evan is practically wagging his tail, so excited; the dog. The dog, it’s - because it isn’t Evan, not the man who was so aggressive and excitable and wonderful - doesn’t follow the order. Somehow, it’s more relieving that he doesn’t. If Evan did? Then the dog would be all he was, right? Jeff isn’t sure about anything going on right now.“I taught him to come to me and to get up onto stuff. Couldn’t manage anything else, he’s kind of stupid like this.” One hand moving to Evan’s back, he pushes down so the guy sits in front of him. “He likes being called good boy. Plays fetch and stuff but- but, he’s just a dog, man. I didn’t want to deal with training him to do tricks. It felt demeaning.” Vinny absentmindedly presses his face into Evan’s. Just a man playing with his dog, he doesn’t so much as blink when Evan starts licking him, only murming No, Ev, as if the beast would ever understand him.“But the collar and calling him good boy isn’t.” He almost feels sick. Vinny’s so used to it, so familiar with the motions of owning (owning) a dog that he doesn’t seem to recognize that behind the empty eyes and animal movements, Evan’s trapped. Maybe. Either that or he’s just not human anymore and that honestly makes Jeff even sicker, a curling feeling in his gut even worse than his guts hanging out of him too many times before. “Jeff, it’s demeaning, but I- ugh. I didn’t have a choice!” When his voice gets louder, the dog (it can’t be Evan) in front of him barks. Genuinely barks, almost slamming his head into Vinny’s shoulders. Vinny just runs a hand over Evan’s hair as he keeps speaking, more and more agitated. “Sh, Ev. I didn’t- Jeff, I had to take care of him. I couldn’t treat him like Evan because he wasn’t Evan. He was just a dog.” The dog in front of him shifts back and forth. It whines. The sound is so viscerally wrong coming from Evan, but Jeff just has to watch as he lays down next to Vinny. Rests his head on one of Vinny’s soft thighs and whines again. “Look, Vin-” He moves closer as he speaks. This time Evan doesn’t snarl, just looks balefully up at him. When Jeff kneels next to Vinny, keeping him between himself and the dog without thinking, the dog - Evan? - smiles a little. It’s a dog’s smile, mouth open and flat tongue peeking out. Wrong but perhaps not the wrong way for the dog to be. “It’s fine. I’m not judging you, I’m just... not used to this.” He gestures at Evan, hand hovering over the dog before he lowers it to rest on his head. A weird sensation. Jeff doesn’t want to accept this as reality, but he has to; under his hand Evan’s hair is soft. The dog, Evan, makes a tiny hrff noise, happy that he’s being petted. A dog. Jeff pulls his hand back as if he’s burned. It’s wrong, but Vinny’s hand replaces his quickly once Evan whines again. Vinny is silent as he pets Evan. The movements seem to calm him, and he doesn’t say anything when Jeff leans into his side. The dynamic is something new to Jeff. Different, altered so much by that monster, the changes completely unknown to him. A man out of time, he isn’t sure of anything. Jeff doesn’t know how to react. The dog, just a stupid animal that Vinny was forced to care for despite how it used to be their best friend. Jeff doesn’t know how to respond, or what to do, or anything. Like his best friends are total strangers, everything’s foreign and new and wrong.Jeff decides not to say anything else. It’s not like he knows what to say when Evan’s eyes slide shut, the short hair - messy as if he cut it himself, but can he do that with his mutilated fingers? - soft under Vinny’s fingers and the collar too bright around his neck. All he can really do is watch as Vinny falls asleep, too, and then he’s left alone until his own consciousness fades into the dark abyss of sleep.He wakes to the dog sprawled across both his and Vinny’s laps, on its - his? - back. It’s fast asleep (he, it’s Evan, isn’t it? Jeff doesn’t know) and, quite frankly, Jeff isn’t comfortable. Maybe his back is just stiff from sitting up. Maybe his neck is just stiff from lying on Vinny’s shoulder for the entire night. Maybe he just refuses to accept the dog on him for what it is. Evan, but not. An animal that's more comfortable on all fours. Something that Vinny’s too comfortable and familiar with.Vinny wakes slowly, first looking down at the dog. When he shakes it - because it isn't Evan, Jeff refuses to believe this is anything but a bad dream - awake it smiles, happy to see its master; when he starts making breakfast Evan ambles around his feet until he says no and pushes him into the living area with one foot. Once done, Vinny puts some oatmeal into a cereal bowl, sets it on the floor, and taps beside it. “Ev.” The dog doesn't comprehend it. The dog just looks up at him, looks down at the kibble. “The dog is used to kibble. I’d- after his teeth were gone I'd soften it with water and stuff, sometimes HABIT would leave soft dog food, but I don't know if he understands that this is food too.” Evan doesn't do anything but sniff it. “I don't think he does. Shit- I don't know how long HABIT will keep him like this, he can't just not eat.” Vinny’s becoming agitated. With his hand against the bowl, he looks down at the dog who just keeps sniffing the bowl.The dog doesn't understand, Jeff thinks. The way it looks down at the food and tilts its head. It takes a bite anyway; maybe out of curiosity, maybe to appease Vinny, then it keeps eating. Hesitantly like it hates it, but when Vinny murmurs good boy Jeff can see a smile on Evan’s - the dogs - face. The tableau is a stark reminder of how much HABIT changed in Jeff’s absence.When Jeff wakes next he finds Evan standing in the kitchen. Reaching up high to grab a cup, the short man can't quite reach it. He's cursing and finally manages to grab it when he somehow knows Jeff is awake. Somehow, he hears him despite how Jeff was so silent. Slowly he turns his head just enough to acknowledge the other man, but he doesn't turn fully until he's filled the cup with water.Evan looks tired when he faces Jeff. A sniff, nostrils flaring, he still seems so animal despite the humanity in his eyes. “Jeff.” He says. “You don’t like the dog.” An obvious statement, but Evan’s voice is rough and quiet. As if he can't even speak properly anymore. He’s morose and looks like he’s about to fall over, fall onto all fours like the dog is used to. He ignores how Evan knows the truth without even being mentally able for the past few days. “I just- I want to know what you remember, Evan.” He wants to know if he remembers Vinny treating him like an animal. Is he mad? Does he even mind? Is he so broken that he accepts that he's an animal without questioning, despite not being one?Evan laughs, quiet and broken. “You wouldn't pet me. That kind of pissed me- um, the dog off. Like, you're a stranger to it. I knew Vinny likes you so I didn't rip your nuts off but you kept acting weird. You made master--” Evan stops, suddenly. Eyes wide and dog teeth sinking into his lip. A slip, a Freudian slip; the dog’s way of thinking crawling out of his fucking mouth. “V- Vinny mad. He yelled.”“Master?” The world makes his skin crawl. It's wrong for Evan to think of his friend that way, but not wrong for the dog to think that way. Which one is Evan? Is he a man or a dog, or something else? Is Vinny his friend or his owner? A thousand questions run through his mind, a whirlwind of confusion and fear, but Evan’s sudden agitation has him silent.Evan's hand raises to his forehead. Grinding his palm into it, a low snarl is the only noise before he spits out a sentence. “The dog didn't know his name. What kind of dog knows names? It knew- I knew he was the man who fed me and loved me so he was master.” A few smacks, his palm makes a dull noise against the bone of his skull. He drags his hand away when Vinny looks over. “I was a stupid dog, asshole, I didn't know names.”“You weren't a dog, Evan. HABIT just- he just fucked with your head. You were a person,” Jeff insists. He can't believe, he won't, he refuses. It’s too much to consider that this is the new normal. Everything that Jeff missed, a few years of changes, it’s so much to adapt to.“I was- how many times do I have to say it?! I was a DOG, I didn't fucking- I didn't remember anything! Everything was new and fun and damnit, maybe I liked not having to think about everything! I forgot you! I forgot how HABIT burned you alive and I forgot how it killed Steph and I forgot all of the blood on my hands because everything was just fucking playing with master and making him happy! Even after the monster- rrgh, HABIT made him take my teeth and fingers it didn't even matter! Nothing mattered but Vinny! It was stupid and simple and I fucking liked it!” Throughout his tirade, Evan had clenched his fists and prowled close to Jeff. Circling him like an animal around its prey, Evan- little more than a dog, evidently- keeps Jeff in one area with the baring of his teeth. The proclamation hangs in silence. By this point Vinny had woken, and he stares between Jeff who's still like a deer in headlights and the animal circling him. The impasse isn't broken until Vinny coughs. At that, Evan slinks into the corner, frustrated. Jeff is frustrated too. He knew it was different now, but to like being a dog entirely? Then again, though, the concept of not remembering anything that had happened is enticing. A simple existence from before they were tortured and slaughtered and mutilated.Jeff doesn't talk to Evan for the rest of the day.A few days later Evan is back to being a dog. Ripped away again, Jeff is left with the reality that Evan didn't remember him. Evan liked being the dog, and when the dog tries to play with him, this time he doesn't ignore it. This time he does ignore the bag of kibble that appeared on the counter. He ignores the new collar, purple and studded with spikes. He can't ignore how Vinny actually swaps the tattered and bloodied one currently on Evan for the new one, but by god will he try.The dog is ambling around on the floor, pawing at its new collar curiously, while Vinny’s sitting beside Jeff on the futon. They're both playing some video game that HABIT left them when he left the dog stuff, presumably, and Jeff won't look at the dog. It understands that they're busy, apparently; it still curls by Vinny’s feet, calm and chewing on a new toy bone that was left as well. After some time Vinny looks down at it, looks down at how it's leaning against his legs. Jeff gets one look, a quiet are you okay with him coming up; when he nods Vinny smiles. He doesn't even pause the game when he lowers a hand to snap at the dog for its attention, too familiar with the motion. “Ev, up-up,” He says, patting the couch between them. The dog’s motion is awkward. A half-hop, its hands (paws?) resting on the couch to pull itself up. Once it is up, though, it settles against Vinny's thigh; it looks at Jeff, but doesn't do anything to him. It just chews on the bone in its mouth and stays quiet. Jeff doesn't look at it intentionally. Despite how its legs are against his thigh with the way it's curled between them, he doesn't want to acknowledge how Evan just hopped up when told. Up-up, a reaction trained into him by Vinny. Honestly, the fact that Vinny managed to train the dog is the most astounding. Evan - Evan-Evan, when he was whole and himself - rarely even responded to orders, much less being trained, though admittedly they'd never tried. And anyway, he was human then. He had a mind that wasn't restrained to an idiot dog’s.The dog is calm next to him. When they stop playing video games and turn on some stupid show in a vague attempts at feeling normal, he sees Vinny’s hand move to rest on the dog’s head. Evan's head, the short choppy hair appearing soft and too human for what he is right now. Jeff doesn't want to touch Evan like this, but he just-He wants to make an effort to try. Evan can't help being like this. It wasn't his choice, it's HABIT toying with all three of them and forcing them to adapt to something so wrong. Well, forcing Jeff to; Vinny’s so used to it that he doesn't even question it. Evan’s already adapted solely because he isn't capable of considering the situation, Jeff thinks.So, in his efforts, he decides to start with the touching. The dog has Evan’s body, but it doesn't use it like either HABIT or Evan did. It's loose and relaxed when Jeff puts a palm on its back. It just lifts its head to sniff at Jeff, confused; he then moves his hand to put it in front of Evan’s face. The dog’s face. Something deep inside him can't stand to see Evan debased like this.The dog licks his hand. An animal’s way of showing that it trusts him, it makes Jeff’s stomach churn. To see Evan so low- to be forced to interact with one of his best friends as if he were just a dog. Still, the olive branch is extended; Jeff just has to pet the guy, right?Vinny is watching him. He keeps his hand still in Evan’s hair, looking at Jeff with an expression that screams good job!. It doesn't reassure Jeff, not when Evan suddenly shifts. Jeff tries to pull away, but the dog sets his head down onto his thigh and gets comfortable where he is. It is. Fuck, Jeff doesn't want to call Evan an it even if this isn’t Evan. He does, though, want to run his fingers through Evan’s soft hair, tufted out at the back from where Vinny’s fingers pulled away.He doesn’t. He can’t bring himself to do anything about the animal with its head on his thigh but try and forget that it used to be Evan.The ebb and flow of Evan’s consciousness returns, high tide crashing down in that small body, late into the night. Jeff looks down to find that Evan hasn't moved regardless of being able to think, instead fine with his head on Jeff’s skinny thigh. “Evan.” Jeff says, fingers moving to brush down his spine. Gentle and caring now that the dog is gone. At his tiny rrr?, Jeff hesitates, heart pounding in his chest. “There are pregnancy tests in the trash.” He saw how they’re all negative (Steph had a few negatives) but he can’t get the concern out of his mind. He remembers when Steph wanted to have a child. She came to him for the sperm, explaining how she and Evan had talked about it and he was so excited, it’d be a wonderful present, she just needed someone she knew. She didn’t have enough to go to a sperm bank, evidently, and he was right there. He even looked close enough to Evan that it wouldn’t matter much. He gave her it, of course; he didn’t help her put it in, he just handed off a little tupperware and eventually the pregnancy held, and then they had the baby, and then it all went wrong. HABIT told him. HABIT showed him, the baby crying and Steph’s guts everywhere. Evan growls. Despite the humanity in his eyes, something catches in his throat and that tiny body shudders. The hands lying in front of him curl, blunt fingers digging into the cushion. If Jeff didn’t know any better he’d think Evan was going to cry. Behind him, Vinny is quiet. Evan’s muscles are so taut they might snap, but he just stares forward with terrified eyes. When Vinny speaks, he’s just as quiet as the room. “HABIT, um-” Jeff hates the next part of the sentence. It’s disgusting, depraved, but he’s not surprised. Vinny’s voice grows quieter and quieter until it may as well not exist. “HABIT possessed me. And he, uhm- raped Evan.”Honestly, Jeff’s almost sick. He looks down at Evan who’s started shuddering consistently, tongue flicking out to lick his lips in that anxious dog way, he looks at how the new collar sits snug against his neck. Vinny isn’t looking at them. All Jeff can do is whisper oh, Ev and run his hand down Evan's back, until the frightened animal sits up. He shifts easily from the dog to the man, not looking at either of his friends.When Jeff hugs him he doesn't cry, no. He sits still and allows Jeff the physical contact that he’s missed for so long. HABIT wasn’t Evan, even when he pressed against Jeff and held him close just to make him sob. It wasn’t ever the same as the way Evan would be rough and touch him without caring about how people thought of it. This now is nice, though; Evan is still, small against him, relaxing into the hold.Jeff knows it would kill Evan, if HABIT made him pregnant. He was always so concerned about his appearance. The softness he hated so much, the chest and the pudge of his stomach, he worked so hard to get rid of it. If he was suddenly pregnant, forced into nine months of carrying a monster that would make his stomach round and pull his skin taut over something he didn't want? Evan would probably just kill himself.Another thing he has to think about is how Vinny was possessed. The man who never wants to hurt anyone, much less his only living friend at the time, his body was used and puppeteered to rape Evan. Taking away control and consent and harming both parties, both bodies. No wonder they're so much different now.Vinny’s twitchy and paranoid, clearly not willing to let either of his friends out of his sight. The haunted look in eyes broadcasts everything he’s seen. Having to treat his best - only, at that point, Jeff guesses - friend like a dog so long that he still calls Evan my dog. He doesn’t question the collar, rubs Evan’s hair as if he was petting a dog, stays so clingy to both of them. So physical and so desperate it almost hurts.Evan’s an animal. Under the mutilated skin hides an animal- and it isn’t even the dog. It’s Evan, terrified and traumatized by his teeth being ripped out and his fingers being cut off and Vinny’s cock in him. Relying on his base instincts and the tide of his consciousness staying with him despite how it probably won't for long.Jeff gestures towards Vinny. “C’mon, man,” He says to get Vinny closer; Vinny wraps his arms around them. Evan’s in the middle, tiny body fitting so easily, while Vinny and Jeff have their arms around him. Around each other, it's emotionally comfortable if not physically comfortable. The three back together, Evan sniffling, Vinny crying quietly, Jeff silent but comfortable with the situation as it is right now.
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Evan didn’t expect Jeff to last long, really. He didn’t expect that HABIT would let him stay for any longer than it saw fun. So, maybe he isn’t surprised when he’s woken by Jeff’s hand around his neck, dragging him off the futon they three had fallen asleep on. He isn’t surprised when his back is slammed into the ground. Jeff’s skinny body is above him, over him, pressing him into the floor with a strength that shouldn’t be in it. Evan snarls, but it’s no use. Nothing will work against HABIT, he knows; he knows this is all just a game for it. It slams his face into the ground, snapping his nose- his teeth hurt too, but he doesn’t care.It wasn’t Jeff. How stupid was he, thinking it was Jeff? Jeff died by HABIT’s stolen hands, his hands. A fucking idiot he is, for thinking that the stinking falsehood was his old friend. Something sinks into his back. The raging agony of something sharp, it isn’t clear enough in his mind to tell him what before it rips out and sinks in again, again. The thick bone of his shoulder blade shatters under the force, his ribs are nicked and the thing sinks into his lung and it just make it so much harder to breathe. HABIT’s laughing in the fake Jeff’s voice while the skinny fingers hook under Evan’s collar, yanking back on it to force him to lift his head.Like in gym class when they had to lift their body, some stupid exercise Evan hated because he wasn’t ever flexible enough for it as a little kid. Laying flat on their stomach, lift their chest without using their arm, it ached how his muscles wouldn’t stretch enough. Now it hurts even more. In order to breathe, he has to lift his neck, he has to arch his searing back so much that it seems his spine is about to fucking snap. HABIT laughs at him still. Pulling on the collar, pulling it up further and further so it stays tight against Evan’s skin.The voice is so familiar but so twisted. “Hey, puppy... long time no see. Had fun with Jeff, huh?” Evan doesn’t answer, he can’t answer with his throat pressed so tightly against the leather of his collar. He can barely breathe. The air in his throat catches on the collar, he can smell Vinny somewhere in the room but his vision is starting to slowly go dark. “Yeaaah, you did. You did. That was Jeff, by the way; a gift. You’ve been so good, puppy, what a good boy. Are you getting me, Evan? What a good dog.”“Make-” He chokes, unable to grit any words out without too much effort involved. “dog- just,” He coughs. It aches, the way his throat pulses against the leather. “make m’dog alr-eady.” He wants to be the dog again. So badly he wants it, a life of simple thoughts and simple actions. No remembering his loved ones dying, no remembering being tortured and abused, just making his master Vinny happy. HABIT knows his wants far too well.“So desperate! No, no, puppy, you’re dog enough now. Don’t wanna lose ya!” Evan’s distantly aware of Vinny crying. If it weren’t for the fact that he can feel HABIT’s hands trailing over his bare flesh, the shattered bone of his back (ribs, shoulder blades, he feels so distantly the bone splintered under his skin and shifting every time he breathes, stabbing into his flesh and sending lancing pain throughout his back) he’d try and do something to help Vinny. As is, though? HABIT keeps pulling the collar back, back, back, by this point he’s bent too far and he can’t get any air in. He couldn’t move if he wanted to. The tingling in his lips is like he’s licked a socket, his fingers are numb, HABIT’s knee is suddenly digging into the base of his spine-Blessed relief, blessed air when it lets go of his collar. Something deep inside him screams that he should’ve taken it off, he shouldn’t be used to the dog collar, but it’s too late. HABIT’s on his spine and if he tries to take the collar off he’ll probably just get something else lopped off or torn out. The air burns like he just walked into the freezing outside, so he gasps it in and doesn’t bother struggling. “No, no, puppy. You’re too fun to destroy entirely. I need something to do. The Stick in the Mud has a grudge, baby-” Jeff’s thin body leans over him, chest against his shredded back, how did he just now realize he was bleeding? “and I need you alive. Break the cycle, y’know?” The thin fingers that Evan really did think were Jeff’s thread through his short hair, playing with it. “Ohhhh, of course you don’t. Dumb dog.”He lets HABIT talk. It's easier that way, and Evan can't focus on anything but how he can hear Vinny crying. Somewhere behind them, maybe force to film, maybe curled in the corner or worse or worse. Evan growls without thinking about it; on top of him now, thin legs straddling his hips with Jeff- fake-Jeff’s crotch against his ass with such a massive hard on that Evan starts thinking he’s gonna get raped again, HABIT sinks the thing into his back again. A knife. The size of it makes him think of the Bowie he was given at Christmas, so long ago; the length of the blade slicing directly through his spinal column as if it were butter makes him howl. Everything is suddenly numb but not, agonizing unsurety sparking through his whole body, the world is reduced to slivers of sensation that he can't quite define. The knife through his body, sinking just below his heart, his spine- doesn't he need that? Will HABIT fix him, or will it just let him die?Any concept of movement is overshadowed by how he can't even think. HABIT laughs, distantly, Vinny sobs but Evan’s world is only the metal in his back and the bone splintering and the way everything goes numb after the pain fades. His body is out of his control again. All he has are his arms, his stupid hands that can't hold anything, anything lower may as well be gone.Until it isn't. HABIT’s thin hand, he suddenly feels it on his back along with the sparking of a thousand severed nerves. “Whoops!” It proclaims, pulling its hand away just as Evan starts to be able to feel his legs again. Everything is agony, though, so white-hot Evan couldn't describe it if he had a dictionary. “Cut too deep. Want you to be able to feel it.”Vinny has to watch. He watches as Evan is brutally tortured, called puppy, his collar used against him. The thing they've both gotten far too used to, pulled back until Evan couldn't breathe and Vinny could only hear the high whine of no oxygen coming from his friend’s panicked gasping. The torture- brutal, slow, HABIT having fun.He isn't surprised that it isn't Jeff. He was too angry, too confused, too fake. Jeff from the past but wrong. Now that the fake Jeff reveals itself to be HABIT, it's so much worse; at least the false friend wasn't hurting them. He was real enough to trick both of them, making Vinny’s chest hurt with how much he missed the guy, how much he forgot about him. But now he's HABIT, and Evan is left brutalized.Evan is flayed open in front of him. From the back, his bones shattered and his collar kept too tight for him to get a reliable breath in. That pale skin has been ripped away, blood soaks his shirt and his hair and the floor, and he isn't moving. He isn’t moving. HABIT has his fingers sunk deep in the cavity where Evan’s ribs used to be (they were snapped off and cast towards Vinny, curved and small and fragile when they aren't where they're supposed to be) and is laughing, laughing, laughing.Vinny is forced to watch. Evan isn't moving anymore. He - his body - just remains still as HABIT plays with it like a toddler would with food, digging his fingers in and pulling guts out, ripping Evan’s lungs out from behind and sinking his teeth into them. “Vinny, buddy, come here.” He calls, mouth full of what used to be Evan’s lung, now a pink-red mess chewed beyond recognition. “Come here.” A gesture with a handful of gore, perhaps part of his heart, perhaps something else he pulled out of Evan's body. He has to. If he wants Evan back, wants that lifeless body so small on the floor to be full of life again, he has to obey. He can't stop looking at the body - Evan, he looks so tiny with not-Jeff sitting atop him, he looks so tiny when he isn't moving. The way his face is slack and emptier than it is when the dog is there, the way his eyes are wide from fear but blank in death. Vinny can't look away even as he moves closer, obeying HABIT; he can't look away as HABIT offers him some of the heart.Evan's heart. Chewed on and mangled, still bloody. Cold by now, no doubt. HABIT shakes it in front of his face. Vinny would be sick if he wasn't so numb to it all. It hurts, yes, his chest feels tight and he can feel panic roiling in the back of his mind, but it matters most to him that he gets Evan back. Jeff is forever gone, but Evan isn't. Evan can be brought back. Without a noise, without a tear - shed, anyway - he takes the meat in his hands. As he suspected it's cold, slick. Raw meat. When he bites into it it's tough, difficult to chew. Tasting like iron and HABIT’s spit. He wants to be upset, he truly does. It's just that he feels as if he's on autopilot, going through the motions and keeping the emotions for later. As he stares at his only friend, tiny body broken and mangled on the floor, dead? He doesn't feel anything. Or rather, he does, and it's saved for later. For when he can pull the body close to him and bury his face into Evan’s hair, smeared with blood though it is, and mourn as loudly and as often as he wants. HABIT feeds him more and more of Evan. Different parts, whatever HABIT grabs when he plunges his hands into that broken body. At one point he even goes as far as pulling part of Evan’s tongue out, fleshy and pink and dead. Vinny just eats it without thinking about it. It's easier that way: he’ll just shove his fingers down his throat as soon as HABIT leaves, because he always leaves after he's bored.Truthfully, HABIT treats the feeding like he's on a date and playing with Vinny. Quickly he stops actually handing it to Vinny; the monster just puts it up to his mouth, and he has to take it with his lips before HABIT gets angry. And he does, a few times, grabbing the back of Vinny’s neck with thin blood slicked fingers and pressing down hard until he opens his mouth. “Good boy, Vin,” He crows, as if Vinny is the remnants of Evan on the floor. “Isn't this wonderful?” He asks, as if he isn't forcing Vinny to eat the cold remains of his best friend.Quickly he bores, as always. He stands suddenly, leaving without fixing Evan. He leaves behind the mangled and half empty body of Vinny’s best friend. He leaves behind Vinny, nauseous and far too full with Evan's meat. Evan’s body, shredded in front of him. The possibility of Evan not coming back makes his chest crawl with those same feelings of anxiety and fear. He’ll have to deal with those and with the body (Evan will come back, won't he?) later. Now, he has to deal with the parts of the body in him; he stumbles over to the bathroom in the corner. His fingers crooking down his throat, it's a foreign feeling. He's never had to do this before. He's never been forced to eat part of his friend- is this how Evan felt? The dog? His finger scraping in the back of his throat, rubbing the skin there raw until he feels his stomach churn. He's sick, coughing up the barely digested meat, coughing up bitter fluid. In his nose. In his mouth, everywhere, he retches and groans through the way his muscles contract. It's disgusting, how he can feel the flesh sliding through his throat and over his tongue and out of his mouth. Red, red, bitter red and pink of Evan- the organs that kept Evan alive.Alone. Vinny’s alone, when he flushes the toilet and washes his mouth out. The body is still, just as unmoving as it has been the past while now, sits in the middle of the room with its insides strewn about like a toddler’s painting. The body- it's Evan. It was Evan, his best and only friend, his dog, the not quite man who was with him for so long. But he's gone now. Vinny’s alone.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Evan doesn't move for a day after that. Vinny can't bring himself to do anything but wipe up the blood around him; anything more would force him to consider the concept of Evan being gone. The sun outside, peeking through the tiny gaps between the boards in the windows, has gone up and gone down again by the time Vinny manages to look at Evan.It's the same as before. A tiny body on the floor, a broken bird fallen from its tree. Hollowed out from behind with its ribs snapped off and its blood spilt across the floor. Vinny hasn't moved it. He hasn't touched it beyond threading his fingers through the bloodied hair, and even that was too much for him to consider doing for longer than a few seconds. So still. The dog shattered by its abuser, leaving its master to mourn.Vinny dawdles. HABIT left him his video camera, so he films a video; he doesn't really think about how his face still has blood on it, dried down his chin, probably fingerprints from where HABIT touched him. He doesn't think about how he feels like he's about to be sick again. Still, he sits on the couch, keeping Evan’s cold body out of the view of the camera.“Hey, guys... I, I know I look like shit. Um-” He looks at himself in the reflection of the lense. Blood on his face, he's pale and agitated, there's pieces of Evan stuck in his teeth. “Evan's, Evan’s dead. I don't know if he's coming back- HABIT can make people come back. He did it to me- but, um... on that note, Jeff came back. We thought it was Jeff. He seemed so real but he was just HABIT faking and he- oh, god.” He has to cover his mouth. Sick, he's gonna be sick- “Evan's dead. I'm not fucking showing you but HABIT tore him apart. He's so still.” Staring at the body now, he sees the rib stumps. Jagged hunks of bone left over from the brutal torture.A few beats of silence as Vinny collects himself. “The... the thing is, I kind of knew it wasn’t Jeff. It’s just been so long- how long has it been? Um, a while since I’ve seen him. He died so long ago and so much has happened since then. Oh, god…” On the video, he knows anyone watching will see him bury his face into his hands. The blood is visible on both of them - Evan’s blood - and he can still taste it, goddamnit. He sighs only once before looking at the camera again. Catharsis. If he gets it out now, he won’t have to later when (if) Evan comes back. Hot tears brim in his eyes, but he blinks them away. “HABIT made me eat Evan. Parts- parts of him. I honestly don’t even know what, what parts- oh, god. I don’t know what parts they were but I ate them because I thought-” He stops himself, taking a breath. “Okay. I thought if I appeased HABIT he’d bring Evan back, but... it’s been a while. A day at least, but time is so hard to keep track of so I don’t know specifics.” The body is still in his vision. It’s long since gone cold, so cold, and he can’t help but stare again. “I just- I just want Evan back.” He ends the video there. It’s titled Jeff, and he doesn’t bother to put a description in. He just uploads it and forgets about it.Another day passes, another day Vinny spends avoiding the body and trying to ignore how his stomach churns anytime he smells the dried blood (always). It isn’t until the sun is setting that he hears anything other than his own breathing and the television he turned on for noise. Something in the background, a quiet groan. Vinny thinks it's the television until he hears it again.The body shifts. Breathless, terrified, he can only stare as the body shifts. Tiny movements fitting the tiny body, disjointed and confused, Evan’s broad back is still split open like he was a chicken being carved. The bone in that back is entirely visible to Vinny. It shifts, the severed muscles shift where they aren't ripped out. A groan filters out past the torn out tongue. A noise like Evan’s trying so hard to form a word, any word, but all that comes out is that quiet sound of pain. “Evan.” Vinny gasps, moving closer to his fallen friend. Pulsating meat, there isn't enough left inside that body cavity for Evan to breathe, much less move. How he's conscious right now Vinny doesn't think he’ll ever know. Is it Evan or the dog? He isn’t sure about that either until he approaches.Evan. The pain in the eyes is so human, his eyes rolled back and his teeth bared, but Vinny knows it’s Evan. He doesn’t whine, he groans. Human sounds even though Evan shouldn’t be able to breathe right now. As Vinny kneels next to him, he sees that yes, HABIT’s fixing Evan. Slowly the cavity is filling with the organs it’s supposed to have, slowly Evan’s bones are realigning and growing back. It’s all very gross and if Vinny cared more he’d wonder how HABIT does it.He doesn’t care about that, though. He just cares that Evan’s back. He’s in complete agony, Vinny knows- the way he pants with half-there lungs and the way his lips pull back- so he puts one hand gently on Evan’s head. Petting it, to comfort him, Vinny murmurs quietly Hey, Ev. He doesn’t think Evan can tell who he is; whatever’s going on in that head of his, it manifests only in his vague attempt at moving. A hitched breath, the meat in him pulsing - a lung? it’s all so red - and an arm moving is all he manages.“Evan, Evan, don’t move.” He murmurs as he keeps running his fingers through the choppy blood soaked hair. “You- you’re fine.” Evan’s breath rasps through his throat. It’s clear to Vinny that Evan’s tongue isn’t back, not with how blood is starting to drip anew from his ripped tongue and over his lips. There’s more blood, fresh and red, but Evan still doesn’t have enough for it to spurt out like it was before.Evan doesn't manage to sit up or speak for a while. The healing process is slow, cracking bones and knitting flesh back together; he just breathes heavily, eyes wide and far away. Not scared, no; just lost. Unsure of where he is, the pain consuming his thoughts, Vinny thinks. All he can do is remain there, a presence to ground Evan’s scattered mind. Maybe Vinny’s trying to calm his own racing heart. The sight of the broken body on the ground for days, days, was too much to bear most of the time. Maybe he just wants to make sure that Evan is breathing, maybe he like how Evan tilts his head into the touch without thinking about it. He just wants to be sure that this isn’t a trick, really. He wants to be sure that Evan isn’t going to be ripped away from him again.Another few hours of Vinny sitting there, talking about nothing at all just to give Evan something to focus on along with the way he keeps gently petting that soft hair, and Evan’s healed almost completely. The brutal injury on his back has faded into an ugly, twisted scar that spans the breadth of his shoulder and down his spine. The whole thing is massive. Vinny stares at it until he hears Evan try to speak again. Despite hushing him, despite sliding a hand down to rest on his shoulders, Vinny can’t make him stop.“Vi- Vihn,” His tongue is new. Flat still, the dog’s tongue, but Vinny can hear how Evan can’t enunciate the sound fully. Evan hisses quietly; ever so slowly, he pushes himself up. The new muscle in his back flexes and stretches tightly over his bone, under his skin. It’s frankly one of the more attractive things Vinny’s seen in a while, but it hurts Evan to move. Everything is too new, too strange in his body. Vinny can only tell this because Evan mutters wha’ h-fuck as he reaches to touch his back. “Vihn. HAB- hur’you?” The hard sounds, the tongue sounds are messing Evan up. Vinny would find it endearing if it wasn’t because his friend was tortured so brutally he died.“No, Ev, he just... made me, um, eat.” Hesitant. Vinny doesn’t want to admit that he just sat there and ate Evan, allowed HABIT to push piece after piece of his friend’s flesh and organs into his mouth. Then again, though? Evan knows the feeling. Even if he was a dog at the time, HABIT did force him to eat Vinny. The organs too, after torture. It’s such a similar situation that Vinny thinks Evan won’t mind. Evan’s sitting up now. Shaky, he accepts Vinny’s outstretched arm and leans into his friend. The mess coating him - blood, mystery fluids from inside his chest that leaked when HABIT had his organs hanging from his back - is largely ignored by both of them. The only answer Vinny gets to his statement is a low grunt for a few moments while Evan lays his head on Vinny’s shoulder; his movements are unsure, like he isn’t used to his body. “Vh. Nno- fuck-” The flat tongue, pink and new, flicks out to lick his lips a few times. “Nhot your faul’.” The garbled speech doesn’t stop Vinny from understanding. Evan knows. He won’t blame Vinny for not having a choice.“I know, Ev. We should... we should get you cleaned up. You’ve got all this shit on you.” He really does. Fresh blood from healing, old blood from days ago dried onto his skin in hideous dripping patterns. Other fluids that smelled like acid and death when they leaked, now dried in a similar pattern. Blood dried under his nose from where it was broken and on his lips from his tongue being torn out.Evan nods slowly. The look in his eyes is distant, fuzzy from blood loss and the cold grasp of death. He doesn’t struggle when Vinny helps him up, he just leans into the touch and falls silent. Comfortable despite the new scar and the meat no longer sitting in Vinny’s stomach.Evan doesn’t mind Vinny washing him. The dog hated it, but the dog didn’t understand the necessity for it; Evan does. Evan knows his back still aches, a dull throb that’s fairly distracting and frustrating, he knows his muscles won’t move as far as they should. New and fresh and unused to movement. He doesn’t mind how gentle Vinny is. They don’t really talk, not with how Evan’s tongue won’t obey him; Vinny hums some tune Evan can’t quite recognize. Vinny hums, running his fingers through Evan’s hair, doing everything he did when Evan was the dog. Shampoo, soap, running the showerhead over his back carefully. Idle as if he’s used to doing this.Come to think of it, he probably is. Evan can’t quite remember how often the dog - he - had to be bathed. He remembers the first time, because the spray confused and frightened him, and he remembered the time Vinny was in there with him. His arm ached, but he didn’t whine because master- Vinny, Vinny had been cold and still. He was forced to eat the organs in Vinny’s chest just like Vinny was forced to eat his. Evan’s sure that this is relaxing to Vinny anyway, despite the blood and whatever on his back and side. Vinny just keeps humming, running the washcloth over Evan’s back again, the thick scar. He even goes so far as to towel Evan’s hair off.Evan allows it all. He doesn’t mind it. While he most definitely could do it himself, despite the freshly healed wounds, he knows Vinny likes feeling useful. Vinny’s always liked that, and he’s always been far too caring for his own good; waiting probably a long time (Evan still hasn’t asked how long he was dead) for Evan to come back, despite how he might not have, isn’t surprising for Vinny.Evan dresses himself. He remembers as the dog that Vinny had to for him. The dog didn’t think anything of it, no, mostly due to the fact that it didn’t understand how to use its hands. It had paws, as far as it knew. It had to stand still as Vinny pulled the clothing (not that it understood what the clothing was, what it was meant for) off and put it into new ones. Evan, though? He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like feeling so useless that he can’t dress himself. Of coursse, it’s more difficult now. The fingers he has left can’t handle the buttons as easily as before, or the zippers.Vinny’s antsy when Evan finishes dressing. Like the man is convinced Evan might collapse as soon as he stops looking at him, Vinny stares and won’t stop. It’d be unsettling if Evan didn’t know that Vinny’s just frightened. On instinct, some instinct he and the dog share, he lays down on the couch. The animal in him - maybe it is him, but who cares at this point - enjoys it when Vinny sits next to him, the man upright and the dog on its (his) side. Evan puts his head onto Vinny’s thigh. Vinny, as usual, as always puts his hand on Evan’s head. Slowly that soft hands trails down and rests over his neck- he's reminded of something. “Vin.” He's getting used to the new to tongue. It isn't much different, it just hurts to move it too much, or even at all. “Co- co’ar off. Wan’ off.” “Your collar?” Vinny sounds hesitant. Evan doesn’t care, the leather hurt, he remember so vividly having to arch his spine in ways it just couldn’t manage to avoid being throttled by the thing. Evan nods against that soft thigh, he grunts, he wants it off. He doesn’t want to be choked by the thing he doesn’t even mind all that much anymore. Vinny, though? He seems sad about taking the collar off. It's the new one, thick leather band studded with spikes. It's the one that was used to rip air from his lungs. Vinny takes the buckle in his long fingers. The pads of his fingers let him push buckle up, take the thin metal stick that Evan can’t grasp. His fingers just won’t let him, but Vinny’s do. Vinny takes the collar off and Evan feels like he can breathe properly for the first time since HABIT started pulling on it.He doesn’t verbalize his thanks. Verbality is so finicky with the tongue, and while practice would be better to fix that, he just bumps his head into Vinny’s stomach and rrrs in that way Vinny likes. Vinny, absent minded, pets his head again. Soft hands over soft hair. Vinny’s soft touches pull him into a satisfied sleep.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He wakes in the forest. Leaning against a tree, Evan's blood is on his hands and the taste of Evan's flesh is in his mouth. HABIT is near him, wearing Evan’s old body, but different. Sharp fangs, long hair, dark claws; nothing like the dog Jeff saw earlier.He saw the dog under him. Evan, human in a dog's body. Jeff’s hands sunk a knife into Evan. Through his back, pulling him asunder and killing him. Eating him. Feeding him to Vinny, the tiny body so still on the floor. It felt foggy, confusing; Jeff wasn't in control. It just be what Evan felt for so long. His friend under him, blood and guts and Evan’s body going so, so still. The horror of no control, of being the marionette HABIT plucked the strings of. HABIT laughs at Jeff's so visible horror. “Oh, Jeffers,” He says too sweetly. “Don't worry. The puppy is fine.” Full fingers run over Jeff's face. “You, though? I need to send you back... I have to have all of my puppets together, afterall.” Evan’s strong thighs straddle his too suddenly. Leaning too close, HABIT smiles with those daggers in his mouth.“Why?” Is all Jeff can spit out with the taste of flesh still in his mouth and HABIT’s stolen body pinning him to the ground. It really only gets him a harsh cackle and HABIT’s stolen lips pressing into his neck. “The real question is why not?” He smiles sharply, Evan's lips warping over the teeth. “I need you three - four, but who gives a fuck about a whore? - alive, but I can have fun. Vinny cries to sweetly... and you, Jeffers? A decent host. A mediocre vessel but the betrayal in Vinny’s eyes was so worth it, don't you think?” HABIT kisses him with lips that still taste like Evan.Jeff doesn't fight. There's no use when he's in the forest until HABIT wants him out. He just sits and wait for HABIT to stop forcing a far too long tongue down his throat, unmoving even when HABIT thrashes it throughout and he can feel this throat stretching, it hurts, but he doesn't make a sound. There's been worse, there always will be worse. With the tongue in his throat and the feeling of HABIT’s thighs over his, he's forced to see. He isn't sure what, nor is he sure how HABIT is doing this, but he sees; he sees Vinny sitting on the floor by a prone Evan, the blood and guts of the hollowed out body all varying shades of red. Vinny’s crying. He's sobbing as he looks at the broken body, the tiny body that's empty of life. He sees Vinny running to the bathroom to puke, over and over until it's just stomach acid that's coming up, he sees Vinny recording a video with blood on his face and a distant look in his eyes. Most of this is, apparently, from a camera in the corner; the video, Jeff is forced to watch.How HABIT’s doing this he doesn't know. He does know that Vinny in the video is fucking heartbroken; he doesn't talk about Jeff much, just a sentence or two, but Vinny believes that Jeff was HABIT the whole time. A falsehood and a faker, not the friend that was stolen from him so long ago. Honestly, though? He can't blame them for their suspicions. The fear buried so far in them about being tortured by HABIT, abused by him, it practically rules all of them. s him do. Jeff misses them. As long as he did think Evan was the one killing him, torturing him and burning him alive, he knows it wasn’t Evan now. He knows Evan suffered for what HABIT did. He knows Vinny suffered under HABIT’s control, trapped and abused and manipulated into playing master. He knows he’s suffered, too. Torture and death and just as much abuse as the others. He died, actually died, and HABIT’s just using him to abuse his friends further.He doesn’t know if he’ll ever go back, if he’ll ever get to see his friends again. It’s really all up to HABIT’s whims- and the guy’s current objective seems to be shoving his tongue so far down Jeff’s throat that he swears he can feel it in his stomach, but that’s impossible, right? Of course, Jeff’s convinced nothing is truly impossible anymore. Finally, HABIT pulls back. His long tongue slips out and back into his own mouth, an endless length that disappears just as quickly as it came, the tip warping into a human tongue just as it reaches a normal length peeking out of his stolen lips. “Not gonna say anything? No fuck you? No why are you doing this? Are you- son of a bitch, I’ve broken my toys.” HABIT says, sitting up straight. Those pretty blue eyes of Evan’s are wide and alarmed. Evan’s lips curl under HABIT’s control and he laughs, shaking his head. “Even the Fairmount kids were stronger than you- while they lasted, anyway.”“Fairmount kids?” Jeff asks, just to keep HABIT talking. He’s always easier to deal with if he’s distracted, talking about himself or things he won’t let Jeff understand. It really never works for him because it always ends with HABIT getting back on track, the torture continuing, but he takes what little he can get. “Oh, you three, you four. You went through so much and died choking but you never gave up... maybe because you didn’t have time. Whatever! We’ve got shit to do, Jeffers... it’s time for you to go back, brother. What was that fuckin’ show? Samurai- Samurai Jack? Where the guy, he, yeah? You get it, Jeffers.” Jeff doesn’t, but HABIT leans closer regardless and presses another kiss to his lips chastely. He wakes to a world that isn't that damned forest and a body that doesn't feel like it's still on fire.