Categories > Games > Digital Devil Saga
Devil's Rain
Heat and Serph, and all that ties them together. Fifteen-drabble series; spoilers through the last dungeon of the second game.
?Blocked
Devil's Rain
I.
Balance
The pillar shatters and Serph rolls away before Heat can panic, coming up into a perfect, steady crouch and squeezing off half a dozen shots into the doorway ahead of them. The established Tribe has numbers on their side, but not for long -- Heat aims his grenade launcher, feels the kick of its recoil and then the blast of hot air following the explosion. Serph heads for the door and Heat follows, moving easily over the rubble, Argilla covering them with sniper fire. All he knows is that this is /right/: that he will support any Tribe that Serph leads.
Rhythm
After they seize Muladhara, they become the Embryon. A Tribe with a base needs a name to report to the Karma Temple.
On their first night in the new base, Serph comes to find Heat in his bunk. He undresses and climbs into the bed. There's no hostility in his movements, so Heat lets him. He straddles Heat's hips and moves rhythmically on top of him, eyes closed, until they've both convulsed and then relaxed again, leaving Heat's belly wet with something thicker than blood. Serph gets up and leaves.
Heat doesn't ask for an explanation.
Serph doesn't offer one.
Constant
The pattern changes once they have their base, but it's easy enough to adjust; it's still a pattern, after all. They patrol their perimeter. They skirmish with the Vanguards. They execute the plans devised by their strategist. They recruit others to their Tribe when they can, and kill anyone wearing another Tribe's colors.
Serph doesn't come to Heat's room again. There's no more sharing of bunks, no more undressing and no more convulsions or strange fluids. Heat decides the incident was an aberration, caused by the change from one pattern to the next, and puts it out of his mind.
Shift
The light arcs out from the anomaly on the battlefield, driving through Heat's chest in a shock of pain and energy, and then there's a horrible crackling static roaring in his ears: he looks up, and Serph is staggering, face blank with shock and his gun falling from his fingers, before he changes into something tall and lean and strange, howling a counterpoint to the command repeating in Heat's head, /eat them eat them eat them all/, and then he feels his own flesh turn pliable and strange as he becomes something alien himself, something with one need: to devour.
Crave
There's blood dripping from Varna's jaws and running down in bright thin rivulets along his sprung talons. His posture, crouched over his fallen prey, is tense and alert, still on the lookout for other threats even as he feasts.
Agni tears at his own meal, stripping tough flesh away from bone and bolting it down in messy, greedy mouthfuls while he watches Varna with his other face. They made these kills together. The fallen demons are the same strength, the same type, both bodies still warm.
Why is he so certain that the blood in Varna's mouth would taste better?
II.
Aware
It's like falling, like stepping into a fire that blazes up inside him and around him and suddenly Heat can't make anything seem logical anymore. Harley changes, so they change, too, and during the fight at least Agni's instincts guide him, but after that....
After that he wants to get back to the base so bad he can taste it, richer and more immediate than blood: the awareness that he has to get back to the girl, and that Serph has to -- Serph has to -- Heat curses all the way back to base, trying to make the thought finish itself.
Reflection
Serph's eyes are flat and cool as mirrors, as the rain-slick stone of Muladhara. There's no depth to them, even when Heat slams him up against the wall and fumbles open the catches of his body armor with shaking, needy hands. Serph says nothing, like he usually does, like waking up didn't change anything for him, and his body moves just the way it should -- why, Heat will think later, does he know that? -- lean and taut and hungry, but Heat can't tell whether the desire he reads in those silver-blue eyes is Serph's, or just his own.
Again
This story about the fucking princes is giving Heat a headache, and there's a voice in his head that sounds like Serph saying /everything makes you angry these days/, which is ridiculous: it takes days to get Serph to say that much. But it doesn't matter. He's feeling out of control again, and sick of it.
Serph drags him into an empty room and kneels, steady and confident. Heat's not even hard yet when Serph leans in to suck him, it's that fast. But despite Agni's horror that Heat's letting his rival take his cock in his /mouth/, it helps.
Fleeting
It's an irrational outburst, like Gale says.
One minute he's arguing with her, trying to make her understand when he doesn't even understand himself, and then the next minute she's trying to tell him something about /Serph/, when who the hell knows Serph better than he does? So he does the first thing he can think of, presses his mouth to hers like he can devour the words before they hurt too much. She's too short, too slender, too delicate, but just before she starts to cry he remembers somebody, like Serph but with Sera's black hair, kissing him back.
Wait
There isn't enough time, hasn't been enough time since the demons came or happened or whatever. They've been running constantly, trying to figure out what's going on and then trying to save Sera, more than once, and now things are going so wrong as they fight their way through the fucking Karma Temple that Heat doesn't think the Junkard will ever recover.
And even that he could fucking deal with, if he could just stop and figure out what he wants from Serph and how Sera fits into that, but rescuing her can't wait, so his problems will have to.
III.
Vertigo
On the tape the old woman shows him, they're fighting over Sera. Some things never change. But Serph is so cruel in the video, so monstrous, that Heat is barely surprised to see himself pull a gun. Then there's the shot, and he watches himself fall, stunned and betrayed. Black spots swim in front of his eyes as he sees himself /dying/, sees himself trying to reach out to Serph with the last of his strength.
He clutches at the desk, feeling sick, trying not to give himself away. Something in him would still reach out to Serph, even now.
Transparent
He follows the Society's troops up the hallway, toward the lab where they're going to intercept the renegades. The bastards think they're clever, but it's obvious they think Heat's a monster, a mistake, less than human.
But if he were just a program, then seeing Serph through the glass wouldn't make him feel like this, wouldn't make him want to push Serph up against the wall and -- and --
He knows what he has to do: stop the others from taking Sera away. He won't fail to protect her again. But what he wants has nothing to do with his orders.
Fate
That little smile curves Serph's lips as he tightens his grip on Heat and they start to fall, and all at once Heat knows he couldn't have avoided this: it's one of those reversals of destiny that can't be stopped. Now they've both bled for her; in some horrible way they're even. Serph's blood billows out in threads around them as they sink to the bottom of the EGG, and Heat wonders if he's going to die, prays that the fluid that sustained Sera will do the same for Serph. Heat still needs him too much to let him go.
Without
They've done things like this before; they used to do things like this before the Junkyard, even. Heat knows that now. He even remembers some of it, or thinks he does. Memory is never trustworthy.
But this doesn't feel like the old Serph, with the nasty smile and the poisoned tongue. This is the leader of his Tribe, under him, holding tight to Heat's shoulders and promising without words that they'll get out of the EGG together. Heat slides his hand down between them to take hold of Serph's cock, and Serph smiles, warm, without any hint of their past.
Inverse
He's /dead/, they all are, so to claim that it makes his heart race when Seraph turns hir smile on him is ridiculous. But it's also true; Heat feels the radiance of hir affection and realizes that it doesn't matter that he's never been good enough. They both forgive him, both sides of hir, light and dark, male and female. S/he settles gracefully into his lap, almost weightless, and lets his cock slide into hir cunt. When he reaches down and wraps a hand around hir cock, s/he smiles again, and finally, he believes it's going to be all right.
I.
Balance
The pillar shatters and Serph rolls away before Heat can panic, coming up into a perfect, steady crouch and squeezing off half a dozen shots into the doorway ahead of them. The established Tribe has numbers on their side, but not for long -- Heat aims his grenade launcher, feels the kick of its recoil and then the blast of hot air following the explosion. Serph heads for the door and Heat follows, moving easily over the rubble, Argilla covering them with sniper fire. All he knows is that this is /right/: that he will support any Tribe that Serph leads.
Rhythm
After they seize Muladhara, they become the Embryon. A Tribe with a base needs a name to report to the Karma Temple.
On their first night in the new base, Serph comes to find Heat in his bunk. He undresses and climbs into the bed. There's no hostility in his movements, so Heat lets him. He straddles Heat's hips and moves rhythmically on top of him, eyes closed, until they've both convulsed and then relaxed again, leaving Heat's belly wet with something thicker than blood. Serph gets up and leaves.
Heat doesn't ask for an explanation.
Serph doesn't offer one.
Constant
The pattern changes once they have their base, but it's easy enough to adjust; it's still a pattern, after all. They patrol their perimeter. They skirmish with the Vanguards. They execute the plans devised by their strategist. They recruit others to their Tribe when they can, and kill anyone wearing another Tribe's colors.
Serph doesn't come to Heat's room again. There's no more sharing of bunks, no more undressing and no more convulsions or strange fluids. Heat decides the incident was an aberration, caused by the change from one pattern to the next, and puts it out of his mind.
Shift
The light arcs out from the anomaly on the battlefield, driving through Heat's chest in a shock of pain and energy, and then there's a horrible crackling static roaring in his ears: he looks up, and Serph is staggering, face blank with shock and his gun falling from his fingers, before he changes into something tall and lean and strange, howling a counterpoint to the command repeating in Heat's head, /eat them eat them eat them all/, and then he feels his own flesh turn pliable and strange as he becomes something alien himself, something with one need: to devour.
Crave
There's blood dripping from Varna's jaws and running down in bright thin rivulets along his sprung talons. His posture, crouched over his fallen prey, is tense and alert, still on the lookout for other threats even as he feasts.
Agni tears at his own meal, stripping tough flesh away from bone and bolting it down in messy, greedy mouthfuls while he watches Varna with his other face. They made these kills together. The fallen demons are the same strength, the same type, both bodies still warm.
Why is he so certain that the blood in Varna's mouth would taste better?
II.
Aware
It's like falling, like stepping into a fire that blazes up inside him and around him and suddenly Heat can't make anything seem logical anymore. Harley changes, so they change, too, and during the fight at least Agni's instincts guide him, but after that....
After that he wants to get back to the base so bad he can taste it, richer and more immediate than blood: the awareness that he has to get back to the girl, and that Serph has to -- Serph has to -- Heat curses all the way back to base, trying to make the thought finish itself.
Reflection
Serph's eyes are flat and cool as mirrors, as the rain-slick stone of Muladhara. There's no depth to them, even when Heat slams him up against the wall and fumbles open the catches of his body armor with shaking, needy hands. Serph says nothing, like he usually does, like waking up didn't change anything for him, and his body moves just the way it should -- why, Heat will think later, does he know that? -- lean and taut and hungry, but Heat can't tell whether the desire he reads in those silver-blue eyes is Serph's, or just his own.
Again
This story about the fucking princes is giving Heat a headache, and there's a voice in his head that sounds like Serph saying /everything makes you angry these days/, which is ridiculous: it takes days to get Serph to say that much. But it doesn't matter. He's feeling out of control again, and sick of it.
Serph drags him into an empty room and kneels, steady and confident. Heat's not even hard yet when Serph leans in to suck him, it's that fast. But despite Agni's horror that Heat's letting his rival take his cock in his /mouth/, it helps.
Fleeting
It's an irrational outburst, like Gale says.
One minute he's arguing with her, trying to make her understand when he doesn't even understand himself, and then the next minute she's trying to tell him something about /Serph/, when who the hell knows Serph better than he does? So he does the first thing he can think of, presses his mouth to hers like he can devour the words before they hurt too much. She's too short, too slender, too delicate, but just before she starts to cry he remembers somebody, like Serph but with Sera's black hair, kissing him back.
Wait
There isn't enough time, hasn't been enough time since the demons came or happened or whatever. They've been running constantly, trying to figure out what's going on and then trying to save Sera, more than once, and now things are going so wrong as they fight their way through the fucking Karma Temple that Heat doesn't think the Junkard will ever recover.
And even that he could fucking deal with, if he could just stop and figure out what he wants from Serph and how Sera fits into that, but rescuing her can't wait, so his problems will have to.
III.
Vertigo
On the tape the old woman shows him, they're fighting over Sera. Some things never change. But Serph is so cruel in the video, so monstrous, that Heat is barely surprised to see himself pull a gun. Then there's the shot, and he watches himself fall, stunned and betrayed. Black spots swim in front of his eyes as he sees himself /dying/, sees himself trying to reach out to Serph with the last of his strength.
He clutches at the desk, feeling sick, trying not to give himself away. Something in him would still reach out to Serph, even now.
Transparent
He follows the Society's troops up the hallway, toward the lab where they're going to intercept the renegades. The bastards think they're clever, but it's obvious they think Heat's a monster, a mistake, less than human.
But if he were just a program, then seeing Serph through the glass wouldn't make him feel like this, wouldn't make him want to push Serph up against the wall and -- and --
He knows what he has to do: stop the others from taking Sera away. He won't fail to protect her again. But what he wants has nothing to do with his orders.
Fate
That little smile curves Serph's lips as he tightens his grip on Heat and they start to fall, and all at once Heat knows he couldn't have avoided this: it's one of those reversals of destiny that can't be stopped. Now they've both bled for her; in some horrible way they're even. Serph's blood billows out in threads around them as they sink to the bottom of the EGG, and Heat wonders if he's going to die, prays that the fluid that sustained Sera will do the same for Serph. Heat still needs him too much to let him go.
Without
They've done things like this before; they used to do things like this before the Junkyard, even. Heat knows that now. He even remembers some of it, or thinks he does. Memory is never trustworthy.
But this doesn't feel like the old Serph, with the nasty smile and the poisoned tongue. This is the leader of his Tribe, under him, holding tight to Heat's shoulders and promising without words that they'll get out of the EGG together. Heat slides his hand down between them to take hold of Serph's cock, and Serph smiles, warm, without any hint of their past.
Inverse
He's /dead/, they all are, so to claim that it makes his heart race when Seraph turns hir smile on him is ridiculous. But it's also true; Heat feels the radiance of hir affection and realizes that it doesn't matter that he's never been good enough. They both forgive him, both sides of hir, light and dark, male and female. S/he settles gracefully into his lap, almost weightless, and lets his cock slide into hir cunt. When he reaches down and wraps a hand around hir cock, s/he smiles again, and finally, he believes it's going to be all right.
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