I N T R O D U C I N G: THE HOUSE THAT HOLDS. after this point lies a ever-shifting curation. when something grows comfortable, it becomes honest. this is the law. ( psd by @inspurations)
GENRE: postmodern cosmic horror POV: first person THEMES: love. want. possession. taking. holding. the single law. CONTENT WARNING: body horror, death, one massive liminal space and all that entails.
Before me sits the House, that impossible mass of grey and black, its many windows peering back. Each one is the color of pitch, some black gem that absorbs all and reveals nothing. I have been waiting here for two days on this place I can only describe as a kind of macabre porch, a slab of desolate white rock that stretches out from the door. That door, too — that wretched thing, taunting me with its lack of locks, with the light that creeps underneath it, promising whatever lies on the other side is bright. Light itself bends around it. It is a half-foot taller than me. Sometimes it looks solid. Sometimes it looks like liquid. I have stood in front of it several times during my lonely vigil here, and each time a quality shifts.
The legends say that the House changes on its whims. They say that it is alive, that it feels and thinks but not as we do. In the same way its physical landscape is unknowable to us, so too is its mind. Warroes wrote of it first in his seminal Treatise On Outer Spaces, which I have read many times in preparation for this very expedition. He never ventured into the House, of course. He was, however, lucky enough to be a mere thirty-five years old when the House opened during his lifetime, and so he was there on this same doorstep that I sit when it opened.
“You may expect that it would be a great pit,” he wrote, “fitting of a devourer of things. You may expect the reek of acid rising in its guts, its front hall an esophagus and its doorway a mouth. Yet what I saw was nothing so traditionally grotesque. Indeed, this construction, which I have called the House that Holds, so named because it neither chews nor digests but seems to merely possess, is resplendent with light. The glimpse I saw of its interior reflected the infernal angles of the exterior. It is said that the House once stole a sun for itself. I thought that it might keep the sun in its heart or its stomach, in the same way we keep boilers and steam huffing away in our ships to battle the cold. But perhaps it keeps that captive star there in its front hall like a burning trophy. What further testament to the power of its captivity does it need than to tame the wildest beacon we know, mere steps from its threshold?”
Perhaps he was right. I have long been skeptical of Warroes, as some of his later expeditions were proven to be false. All of those, however, are after the House. I wonder if what he saw here changed him somehow - that it made everything else less of an aspiration, or the wondrous terror he felt settled so deep in his bones that he could no longer allow himself to leave the lights of home.
I know I have felt afraid here, in a way that is new even to me.
[Image description: A digital comic centered on TommyInnit. It’s starts with the line “and in the end you do not die like a hero”. Then, there’s a drawing of Wilbur and Schlatt’s deaths, paired with the line “your death is not poetic and you are not surrounded by your loved ones”. There’s an explosion below and, with the sentence “instead, the only witnesses to such an unjust act are”, there’s a wide and teary eye under the word “witnesses”. Dream’s mask accompanies the sentence “the one who took everything from you”. Nearby, there’s also three blackened hearts. The final line is “and a small red light in the corner of the room”. This is written on top of a security camera. The comic is in greyscale, with the only colour in the art being a small red dot on the bottom of the camera.]
You had hoped you’d see at least one face before you died
The rest of the week passes in a blur of classes and takeaway and leftover takeaway and studying. It’s the way most of Will’s weeks do, if he’s honest. His social life could probably be described generously as lacking – or more accurately as kind of pathetic, Strifey, to borrow a phrase that Parvis is particularly fond of. In fairness to him, he’s snowed under with coursework. Enough so that, when Thursday rolls around, he only realises he’s completely forgotten about going drinking with Kirin when Parvis starts whining at him about it.
“I can’t!” snaps Will, in the face of Parvis’ wheedling, slamming his hands down on his desk in frustration. They’ve had this exact conversation three times in the last half-hour alone, and Parvis doesn’t seem to have grasped that no amount of please with the vowel sound dragged out to impossible lengths is going to change his mind. “I can’t, Parvis, I’ve got coursework to finish and a full day of lectures tomorrow and– I can’t.”
“But it was supposed to be all of us going out together,” whines Parvis, draping his arms over Will’s shoulders, pressing his stomach against Will’s upper back where it sticks up over the back of the chair. He wraps his arms around Will’s chest in a mockery of a hug, resting his chin on the top of Will’s head. “All of us, Strifey. That means you too.”
Will rubs a hand across his forehead, shrugging half-heartedly in an attempt to dislodge Parvis and sighing when it doesn’t work. “I can’t,” he says, quietly, staring at the lines of black type across his computer screen until they blur into squiggles. “I’ve got lectures at nine tomorrow morning, and– and even if I were willing to skip them–” Which, although he hates to admit it, he almost would be, just to see Kirin’s smile again, hear the way Parvis laughs when he’s half-drunk and buzzing manic from the heavy beat of the music. “–this assignment is due in at midnight. I can’t. Just– stop.”
“Assignments,” says Parvis, with a dismissive wave of his hand, pressing his face against Strife’s neck and doing something that can only be described as nuzzling. “I keep forgetting you actually have to do work. Advantages of being a first year, baby!” He laughs, pulling away, teeth flashing white in an over-wide grin. “Our grades this year only count for five percent of our degree. Ah, freedom feels so good.”
Grumbling under his breath, and trying to ignore the way his hands have curled into fists at the feel of Parvis’ laughter against his throat, Will grabs a bit of scrap paper off the corner of his desk. He balls it up, thoroughly tossing it at Parvis’ head. It misses by a mile, hits the wall rather than Parvis, but Parvis ducks nonetheless and just laughs harder. “Get outta here,” says Will, despairingly, shaking his head. “Go on, shoo. Go enjoy your freedom.” He pauses for a moment, chews on his lip. “…Say hi to Kirin for me.”
Parvis shoots him a mock-salute from the doorway, eyes glittering beneath barely-noticeable circles of dark eyeliner. “Aye-aye, Cap’n. Will do!” he agrees cheerfully. “Enjoy being a nerd, or whatever.” He stumbles out the room, letting the door swing shut behind him.
A moment later, there’s a click at the flat door opens, a thump as it closes, and then Parvis is gone.
Sighing quietly, Will turns back to his laptop and piles of paper, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. It’s not jealousy that makes his jaw ache with how hard he’s clenching it, he tells himself. Definitely not. Not regret that’s making his insides turn slow, unsettling backflips.
He ignores it, all of it, and forces his eyes to focus on the screen. There’s another thousand words to written in the next few hours, after all, and he has no idea what he’s going to say for at least half of them.
By the time Parvis gets back at some time past one in the morning, Strife has a completed paper handed in, a second assignment due in on Saturday half-finished, a far clearer desk than before, and a headache throbbing at his temples. He hits the save icon in the top-left of the window, and then again, because he’s tired and it never hurts to be thorough, before closing the window.
Caffeine this close to bed really isn’t a good idea, but there’s no way he’s going to get to sleep without something to ease the pounding in his head. Warm, weak tea and a couple of ibuprofen should do it, so he hauls himself out of his chair and stretches – wincing when his back clicks in three different places, and something in his shoulder grinds unpleasantly as he rotates it – before padding barefoot out into the corridor and down towards their communal kitchen.
He’s barely made it two steps before the door to their little corridor rattles, and drunken singing floats through from the outside. It’s the kind that’s less actual singing, and more mumbling interspersed by an occasional, sharp rise in volume as the singer actually remembers the words.
“Mmmnmn parts to love! Orsomnmn,” goes the song, or at least this drunken rendition of this, and Will snorts as he recognises it as one of Parvis’ band’s. He can’t remember the name of it – can’t remember the name of most of them, really, he’s gotten into plenty of arguments with Parvis about how awful their titling skills are – but he remembers Parvis playing it earlier in the year, when it was still warm enough to be outside.
He’d been sat on the small, scrubby patch of grass outside the student union café, Will remembers, hair in his eyes as he hunched over a battered acoustic guitar. Tongue between his teeth in concentration, fingers plucking carefully at the strings, he’d only noticed Will approaching when he’d sat down next to him. He’d started singing, then, glancing sideways at Will from under the mess that was his fringe and grinning, eyes dancing, and if Will didn’t know better he’d have said Parvis was looking for approval…
“Mmm part that you lose- somethin’ mmmm receive!” The door rattles again, and then thumps, pulling Will out of the memory with a start. “Striiiiiife?” It’s the distinctive cry of a drunk Parvis, and Will sighs, rubbing at one eye socket with the heel of his palm as the noise makes his headache spike. “Strifey, I’ve forgotten my keys! Let me in!”
The moment Will opens the door, Parvis comes toppling in – he was evidently leaning against it, and the sudden lack of support makes him stumble and almost fall before he rights himself. “Strifey!” he says, delightedly, when he notices Will, eyes lighting up. His eyeliner has smudged a little, and he’s wearing lipgloss that Will’s sure he wasn’t wearing when he left, but otherwise looks far too composed to have gone clubbing. “Hello.”
“Morning, Parvis,” says Will, quietly, smiling crookedly at him. Despite the low throbbing at the base of his skull, he can’t help but be amused by the almost puppy-ish expression of happiness on Parvis’ face. “Did you have a good evening with Kirin?”
Parvis sways a little, before catching himself, taking a few stumbling steps forward and kicking the door shut behind him. The steps bring him close enough that Will can see the way his dark eyes are glittering in the low, yellowish light of the corridor, the way it makes his lipgloss shine. “Would have been better with you there,” he says, a little mournfully. “But– yeah. Yeah. It was good. We just– we decided to just stick to the bar. Had some drinks. Talked. It was good.”
He takes another step forward, close enough Will could count his eyelashes if he were so inclined, crowding into Will’s personal space, an odd intensity in his eyes. “Would’ve been better with you.”
This close, Will is painfully aware of where every inch of his body is in relation to Parvis’, of how he can feel Parvis’ breath on his cheek. He smells heavily of copper and vodka and sugar and something else, aftershave Strife vaguely remembers but can’t quite place, sandalwood and patchouli and a hint of citrus. He’s still cold from the outside, the bare skin of his arms cool where it presses against Will, and it’s enough to make Will shiver – from the chill of it, from the contact, from how close Parvis is.
“That’s– that’s good,” manages Will, looking up at Parvis. He’s not sure why he isn’t just stepping backwards, putting some space between them, other than the fact that his lungs have stopped working and his skin’s prickling all over, crawling static between them. His legs aren’t listening to him, all of a sudden. “I’m– glad. That you had a good time.”
Parvis sways again where he stands, leans into Will and grabs at his waist for support – and, suddenly, Will knows. He knows what’s going to happen a split-second before it does, a kind of premonition that leaves him frozen like a deer in the headlights, powerless to stop it.
“Yeah…” murmurs Parvis, quietly, eyes huge and bright under his smudged eyeliner, lips shiny and half-parted as he exhales slowly. “Me too.” And Will should pull away, he really should, it would be so easy to step back, but he doesn’t– and Parvis leans in, and then–
For the shortest moment, everything slots into place – the planets align, the sun rises, the world stops turning, and a thousand other awful metaphors that don’t even come close to describing how right it feels. Pressed chest to chest, Parvis’ arm curled around his waist, soft lips against his… it’s not so different, really, from all the nights they’ve shared a bed, not so different from Parvis curled into him in sleep and breathing against his skin. Kissing him like this, in the quiet space of time past midnight, his lower lip caught lightly between Parvis’ teeth as Parvis kisses like he’s trying to devour him, feels like a natural extension.
It takes all of a heartbeat for Will to come to his senses and push Parvis away, stumbling backwards with a gasp and scrubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand.
His fingers can’t seem to get rid of the taste, the copper-sweetness of Parvis on his lips, nor the way the pit of his stomach feels hot and molten. “What the fuck–” he snaps, because anger is easier than confusion, than trying to process whatever this is. “Parvis–”
Parvis stumbles back a step from the force of the shove, wide-eyed and lost, before his expression crumples into something dark and angry. “…Well,” he says, the word alcohol-thick and exhaustion-slurred. There’s still an edge to it, though, hurt and amusement and something oddly bitter. “Well. That’s your answer, then, isn’t it?”
He barks out a sharp noise that only technically qualifies as a laugh, drags a hand through the sweat-spiked mess of his hair, and takes a stumbling step back. Will makes an aborted movement forward, reaching out a hand – and then curls back in on himself when Parvis steps away again.
“That’s your fucking answer!” shouts Parvis, arms spread wide like Will’s splayed him open, crucified him, and he just keeps stumbling backwards. “You wanted to know what’d happen if you kissed me? Well, there’s your answer, William fucking Strife, and it’s that you wouldn’t! Because you’re a fuckingcoward.”
The anger slips off Will’s face in the space between heartbeats, and the noise he makes in the back of this throat is low, involuntary, wounded. It sounds a little like he’s been stabbed. “P– Parvis–”
Parvis barely seems to notice, shoulders shaking and hands curled into fists where they’re his arms are still held open. “You’re a fucking ice queen up there in that goddamn tower of yours with the door barred shut,” he snarls, voice climbing in volume with every word. “And you wonder why no one comes and knocks on the fucking door any more? This–” He gestures at his own face, at the way his lipgloss has been smeared across his cheek by the drag of Will’s lips, and his eyes look so huge and dark and hurt that Will feels like he might drown on them. “This is fucking why!”
“Shut up,” says Will – and now it’s his turn to step back, one arm wrapped almost protectively around his stomach. He feels sick. “Shut– shut up, Parvis.”
Stumbling back again, lurching sideways against his own door, Parvis shakes his head. “I’m right,” he says, quieter this time, something like resignation laced through every syllable – though the words themselves are barbed, sharp and hooked and catching in the soft spaces of Will’s heart. “Just because you don’t want to hear it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
Before Will can say anything in response, he’s gone, shoved his way into his room through the perpetually-open door and shut it behind him. In the sudden silence, Will hears the click of the lock and the faint thump of what he assumes is Parvis collapsing into bed.
Just like that, he’s alone in the corridor.
He knows how this will end – how Parvis will stumble into the kitchen tomorrow morning while Will’s making breakfast, hung over and apologetic. How he’ll say, “Uh, so, about last night–”, and how Will will cut across him, tell him it doesn’t matter, that he’s forgotten it already. How everything will go right back to normal again, or as close to normal as it ever gets with Parvis around.
The thought makes him feel somewhere between sick and dizzy. He wraps arms around himself, fingers clutching at his sides like he might fall apart without the pressure holding him together, and closes his eyes as he fights the urge to just sink to the floor where he stands.
“Um.” Will turns around, sees Xephos’ sleep-ruffled hair and bleary eyes peering at him through the gap between the door and doorframe of his room. “Everything okay out here?” From the hesitant look on his face, he’s probably very well aware that it isn’t – they likely woke him up with their shouting, Will realises, and feels a stab of cold guilt in the pit of his stomach to match the nausea that’s settled heavily there.
“Yes,” he says, because what else is there to say. “Yes, everything’s fine.” He forces a smile onto his face, and can’t quite meet Xephos’ eyes. “Sorry for waking you up. I think– think Parvis had a little too much to drink.”
“Doesn’t he always?” asks Xephos, a faint smile on his face, and in that second Will thinks he might love the other man a little for accepting his shoddy lie without question, despite the fact he must have heard every word of the argument. “He always talks a load of rubbish when he’s drunk, too.”
It’s a transparent attempt at comfort. Will sighs, scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms in a moment of weakness and realises suddenly how badly his hands are shaking. “I– yeah,” he says – because chin up, put on a strong face, play the game. All those little euphemisms for keep smiling while your heart is breaking, and somehow he never noticed that’s what they meant before. “Yes. I know.”
Xephos doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t try and stop Will when Will fumbles with the lock to his room, manages to twist the key and push his way inside, shoving the door shut behind him. Waiting, Xephos listens for the familiar click of the lock.
He sighs quietly when it doesn’t come, drags a hand through his sleep-mussed hair and presses his forehead against the doorframe.
Inside his room, Will barely manages to make it across the room before he’s collapsing face-first into the bed, gasping for breath against the pillow as he wraps his arms around it and squeezes and squeezes like he can crush the life out of it. Like he can make it stay by merit of just holding it down. Like it’s Parvis.
His phone buzzes against his hip and he pulls it out of his pocket, angrily thumbs the screen on and half-hopes it’s Parvis texting to apologise just so he can carefully construct some viciously passive-aggressive reply. It’s not. The words you need more friends glow accusingly at him from the top of the screen.
[you need more friends] did parvis get home okay ??
He stares at it for a long thirty seconds, feels the anger and jealousy rise hot and sickening in his stomach. It’s irrational. He knows it’s irrational – but he can’t help the way it rises up to strangle him, and his fingers are typing out a reply and hitting send before he can stop them.
[Strife] fuck off
He watches the green bar scroll across the top of his screen and waits for it to finish sending. When it’s done, he switches the phone off, throws it across the room at the chair in the corner with a lack of care that he’d never usually allow himself. It hits the chair with a thump, bounces, and by some miracle of chance doesn’t fall off.
Will doesn’t see, face already buried in his pillow once more.
