Red Out (Erik)

[Deleted]

Oriel had not expected this. No, he should have expected this, but he'd let himself get distracted from it. After all, Erik was just about as explosive as Oriel was, push the right buttons and he'd go apeshit all over you. Which was one of the reasons why Oriel found the boy so interesting, why he was attracted to him. But Phoenix didn't know that, Phoenix had never seen Erik explode like that, much less been the target of the southern boy's anger. And while these were definitely things that Oriel realized, he was also far too hotheaded himself to dwell on any of these points, to keep him from doing what he was about to do.

It'd started out as just another casual afternoon. Oriel and Phoenix were hanging out as usual, fooling around a bit, when the question came up of, hey! Oriel's not exactly at in top form because of his sprained wrist! This is the perfect opportunity for another group activity! Let's call Erik!

Which didn't actually go over very well when Phoenix explained to(read: was interrogated by) Oriel exactly why he didn't want Erik there. Because the last time they had an encounter, Erik had lost his shit and took it out on Phoenix, even to the point of calling Oriel's boyfriend(even though they hadn't crossed that hurdle yet at the time) a thing to his face, blamed him for everything that happened between Oriel and Kodi, and basically just called him a useless coward even though it was Phoenix who was the victim out of that whole ordeal!

It was probably obvious even to Phen how furious Oriel was after hearing that, seeing his eyes flare up and burn, despite the fact that he managed to stay calm enough to assure Phoenix that he was just going to "talk things out" with their dear friend.

But even as he stormed down the hall to Erik's dorm, he could feel that rage start to build. He just kept hearing it over and over, seeing Phoenix's distressed face as he recanted the story, flashing back to how Phoenix looked when Kodi attacked him, seeing Kodi curled up on the ground as Oriel relentlessly kicked him over and over, it just played in his head over and over.....

By the time he got to Erik's room, he was definitely not thinking straight.

Oriel didn't notice if anyone was in the common room, but if there was, he stormed right past them straight to Erik's bedroom, barely stopping as he swung open the door, grabbed that yodeling hick from wherever he was with his bad hand, and punched him across the face with his good hand. "You do not get to talk to Phoenix that way," he hissed at Erik before he could get a word in, "He is not a thing, he is not a bitch, and it wasn't his fucking fault, you fucking slut!" Oriel had intended to keep himself as calm as possible, but as soon as he started speaking, that thread of reason had completely snapped.

[Erik Stewart]

Erik didn’t think much of the door swinging open. Maybe it was just one of his roommates on a bad day. But he’d always been a perceptive kind of kid – uncanny, in a way – and he caught on pretty quick that those footsteps didn’t belong to any of the others he lived with. They were too quick and too heavy. Hell, Tomer could barely limp.
So he wasn’t caught terribly off guard when his door slammed open, though the sound still made him flinch. Erik got to his feet. He knew just by looking at him that Oriel wasn’t here on pleasantries: his eyes were angry pinpoints. Erik’s fawn-like legs stood rooted to the spot; he turned his shoulder, in a sort of defensive position.

He held his ground when Oriel grabbed him, but his whole head swept to the side with a crack. He made no other sound.

The things Erik did were obscured even to himself. If asked, his only response would likely be that it had made him mad. He was seldom articulate about it. It was hard to be: the thing was less an emotion than a living creature, an instinct, and to him it need not be explained. Anger was his driving force and he hit critical point often. He’d far too much in his little body, and releasing it almost felt good, like pressurized steam.

Erik lifted his head. His black hair was released from its usual ponytail; it was flung over his shoulders as he glared at him. Yanking himself out of Oriel’s grasp, he spat out a glob of red-tinted saliva near the other boy’s feet.

“I’ll talk how I god damn want to,” he snarled.

[Deleted]

His mind was swirling; the anger, the stress, the anxiety that Oriel normally kept bottled up, suppressed and hidden from the world, was now on full display for the world to see, and Erik, his good friend Erik, had unknowingly bought himself front row seats to the show.

Erik and Oriel, since they first met, were a lot of things to each other. Oriel had hoped that one of them was friends. Clearly it was only a one sided sentiment, otherwise Erik might have taken some consideration before exploding at Phen.

Just thinking about it made his chest righted and his muscles twitch. "Yeah, you can get away with that with me. But where the fuck do you get off blaming the victim?" There were just so many things wrong with what Phoenix had told him, and that was a primary one. Phen had gone to Erik looking for a friend but instead got chastised, for what? Because Oriel couldn't control his shit? Because Kodi was a monster who liked to fucking bite people unsuspectingly? Because Oriel and Kodi had their own fucking little rivalry that ended with the psycho beaten half to death?

All these thoughts just came cascading back into his brain like an unending waterfall and his eyes flared up again.

He took another hard swing at the thin, blue-eyed hick.

This wasn't what Oriel came here for. He hadn't left his room with the intention of punching first, punching later. But now that he'd started, Oriel had no intention of stopping. He swung again, not even caring that it was with his bad hand.

[Erik Stewart]

Erik took all his blows with a sort of staunch determination. Oriel wasn’t as strong as his pa, couldn’t hit as hard, and though each one made his head crack to the side and stars flicker before his eyes, he took it all without so much as a stumble or a sound. He could hear his heart start to beat fast in his ears, and the adrenaline keep his pain in check. He’d feel the ache later; for now he was far from subdued. The first blow left him reeling, the second one gave him a taste of his own blood, and right before the third landed his defense mechanisms kicked in, he grew rigid, his pupils turned to dark bullets, he gritted his blood-stained teeth. Erik lifted a hand and stopped Oriel’s fist. His nails dug into his flesh.

“Yew piece a’shit,” he said.

He didn’t bother striking back with his own fists. Erik reached behind him, took a glass bottle of alcohol he’d left sitting beside his desk and swung it hard against Oriel’s right cheek; it connected with a loud thud but luckily did not splinter, or else the other boy would have some glass shards to pick out of his face. He could’ve went on, could’ve just plain attacked him with the thing, but he didn’t – assuming the blow loosened Oriel’s hold on him, Erik would break free and stagger backwards instead. But he wasn’t done. Not by a long shot.

“Yew gonna come in here an’ beat th’ shit outta me too? Huh? Y’thought yew could get away with that?” His voice was rising, starting to bellow, like he’d done to Phoenix. “Well I ain’t a fuckin’ pussy like yer idiot boyfriend. Yew can go back after I’m fuckin’ done with yew an’ tell ‘im t’come fuck with me himself, I’ll fuckin’ give ‘im more n’ a - ”

Erik threw the bottle. The glass shattered into pieces behind Oriel’s head.

“- god damn talk!”

He paused. A cord of muscle stood out in his neck, underneath his pale freckled flesh. For a moment, his furious gaze lost focus. Erik breathed hard, eyes flickering towards his feet, his desk, the wall, as though bewildered; regret and pain flashed just for a second – a scant second – but it was not enough. The boy’s temper was uncontrollable. He regained his resolve then, animalistic rage flooding his reason like high tide, burying it under; one could almost witness it reemerging.

He picked up one of his textbooks and flung that too. Papers scattered out of it as it flew towards Oriel. “Fuck you. Fuck you an’ all yer fuckin’ shit! He’s the victim, what ‘bout all those people ya beat, ya - ”

Erik took another, chucked that one. “ – prick!” Blood showed between his white teeth, and a little on his lower lip.

“He is a fuckin’ thing t’ya an’ ya fuckin’ know it! Don’t ya dare give me yer fuckin’ hero bullshit!”

The ink snake Oriel had made him was the last to go; it too shattered into pieces. “I’ll kill you!” he said.

[Deleted]

"Bring it, ya banjo playing pig fucker," he growled through his teeth, eating through the pain of Barbie's little nail job digging into his skin.

One word after the other, one punch after the other, only served to perpetuate his anger, with no stop in sight. With nerves heightened under the flow of adrenaline, he barely felt the pain of the bottle hitting against his cheek, though that didn't mean it didn't stumble him back and disorient the already mindless child.

"Think a few fuckin' loud words're gonna scare me away? Ya ain't a pussy, you're a goddamn bitch. A fucking whore. An' when I'm done with you, I'm gonna bend ya over an' fuck ya like one!" He ducked, dodging the items being thrown at him from across the room by a fucking sissy.

Had Oriel himself not been completely blind - his face red, his breathing fast and ragged - he might have noticed the millisecond of hesitation that Erik experienced, but it was gone so quickly that Oriel would have to have been looking for it to see. Tunnel vision at it's best. This was also the reason why he didn't even flinch or notice that Erik had thrown the turd-snake Oriel had given him for his birthday, the object shattering into a million pieces behind him.

No, Oriel was focused far more on something else Erik said. "Thing? I told you, Phoenix is not a thing!" he cried out, the sting in his chest also stinging the corners of his eyes. Oriel lunged forward to wrestle Erik to the ground. "There was only one fucker I beat, and that was your goddamn boyfriend, ya goat fucker!" Oh yes, Oriel had definitely heard from Phoenix about Erik's little close-encounters-of-a-pelvic-kind" with that biting psycho.

Oriel broke from their grapple and threw yet another punch at Erik's temple. "What's a matter, skinny bitch? Can't fight like a real man?" He returned the previous favor and launched a bead of bloodied spit into Erik's face.

[Erik Stewart]

Forced to the ground, Erik still fought like a wildcat, his fingers clawing at his face, pushing at his chest, struggling with his hold on him. There was a light in his eyes. It was without reason; all he wanted now was to cause the most damage as possible to the boy atop him.

But he was small and frail, no matter how fierce he proposed to be, and though Erik was quite capable of delivering harm to someone there wasn’t much he could do in this position. It only served to frustrate him. His teeth bared: Oriel would see lines of red filling the spaces between them. His blue eyes were wild and cold, the black pupils punched in the middle.

He took another blow to the head, still silent, but for a half-grunt, half-growl. His eyes screwed shut as blood-tinted saliva splashed on his face. Oriel had done it now.

He’d hear the cracks before he saw the change – like branches breaking, bones creaking. “Ya son a’uh bitch. Yew fuckin’…” he managed to utter, before the transformation swept over his face, and his skin was covered in scales. Within seconds, Oriel had nearly six feet of pissed off viper underneath him.

Erik couldn’t exactly reason as a snake the same way he could as a boy. He could understand simple things, or simple commands: ‘go’, ‘stop’, ‘yes’…but complicated ideas went beyond him. His brain underwent quite a transformation, too, after all. Besides his intellectual capacity, his emotional faculties suffered as well: happiness was contentedness, sadness did not exist, and anger became an intense need to strike. The serpent coiled around to face Oriel, tongue flickering; it hissed, showing the distinctive white tissue of its mouth.

When Oriel got up, perhaps to put some distance between himself and the water moccasin, the snake struck. It left two bloody pinpricks on his ankle. Oriel would know right away that the deadly venom had infected his veins; the sudden, livid burning would erase all doubt, and it would only get worse with time.

[Deleted]

With claw marks now covering all sides of his face, Oriel looked like he's just been mauled by a feral cat, the tiniest droplets of blood daring to sprinkle down on the boy beneath him. Oriel pinned the thin, weightless boy easily, having a good 50 over him, with his knees over his legs and left forearm on his chest. He held pushed his arm down against his chest and then up over his neck, intending to slowly cut off his air supply.

Oriel gave him a little assistance with a quick jab to his gut. Oriel wasn't about to let this skinny kid get the best of him. Of course in his rage, Oriel had completely forgotten about Erik's little snake trick.

He heard the pops and took no notice of them, still pressing down on Erik's neck. But before his eyes, in only a few seconds, he saw the transformation take place. The mass of skin and bones beneath him retreated, replaced by a thin scaley whip of a body.

Oriel leaned back on his knees, his eyes wide in to see the thing that Erik had transformed into, it's slithering body and those fangs hissing out at him. The blood quickly drained from his face, he could feel the air grow cold at his neck, and stumbled back with a blood-curdling scream. The suddenly terrified boy crawled backwards, running into the legs of the desk, knocking over anything that was left on it, and turning around to quickly get away, his retreat impeded by the chair.

The bite itself was nothing, it felt like a cat scratch and was practically nothing. It was the burning that suddenly shot up his leg that had him crying out in short burst of agony. The shock dropped him flat on the carpet and he rolled to bend up his leg and cradle the small injury between his hands. He scooted across the floor to the wall, his breathing already becoming rapid and shallow, though it was unclear if that was from the effects of the venom, or from the shock of the bite, or from the fear causing adrenaline to course even more through his veins.

Oriel held his knee up, closing his eyes to try to breath through the most agonizing pain he'd ever felt. He could see stars behind his eyes. "…Erik!" He called out. He didn't know what he was hoping for. There would be no response from a snake. He felt warm tears stream down his cheeks.