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The last thing Hastur remembered was the pain.
Bright, blinding, fiery pain shooting across every nerve, darting from atom to atom, eating Him alive in a way He never thought possible. He could be anything, He was everything, and yet the pain bit at Him anyway.
D3rlord3 – Derek – did not move a muscle. The mortal stood there, somehow surviving anything like a stubborn roach, chin tipped up in smug defiance. One by one, Hastur’s eyes blinked out of existence, narrowing His worldview so extremely that it felt sickening, until He only had one left.
The one that Derek was staring at.
Hastur tried to move. He tried to wiggle His form into existence outside of this void. It should have been easy. He was in Carcosa, in His castle, where He held the power. He should have been able to slip between the microscopic gaps between atoms and worm His way free out of this plane, into somewhere that no wretched, disgusting mortal could follow Him.
But instead, His being was caught in an iron fist, and Hastur was forced to watch Derek raise two gloved fingers to his helmet. A salute.
Derek’s voice even dared to carry the sweet lull of amusement. “You lumping moron.”
Then, like the house curtains of a play, the scene fell dark.
–
It took a while for Hastur to open His eyes. Mainly because He couldn’t quite figure out how.
He couldn’t feel them properly, for once. Rather, He couldn’t feel anything He should have been able to. It was as if a silk cloth had been draped across His face, obscuring His senses. He couldn’t even feel His third eye.
What Hastur could feel, though, was the steady ooze of a headache. It seeped in from His left temple – ironic, a voice murmured inside of Him – and began to settle across His brain. It was nauseating.
Hastur felt disgustingly human. He hadn’t felt this way in eons. His being, every magnificent facet of His universal form was squished and shoved into a tiny, weak, mortal body. He wanted to tug His own skin off just to properly stretch out.
It took much longer than He would ever admit, but He finally managed to peel open His eyes.
He was greeted with the dim glow of a laptop screen.
Hastur's form – or, rather, the vessel He was inhabiting, because this body was not His – was slumped over in a desk chair. His back hurt like it had been hunched over for far too many hours. The screen burned His dry eyes. His mouth tasted of artificial strawberries.
Minecraft was open. Hastur watched as His avatar, a rather familiar-looking golden knight, was slowly beaten to death by a zombie.
Funny. Hastur allowed Himself a smile through the awkwardness of this horrid vessel. That was what that infuriating knight deserved.
Now that His avatar had safely respawned back at its respawn point, Hastur turned His attention back to the body He inhabited.
It was sore all over. Its nails were short and jagged from anxious chews, but still held the chipped black pigment of nail polish. Hastur turned it away from the screen and caught its – His – reflection in the window.
Its hair was long and curly, eyes downturned and exhausted behind glasses. He couldn't tell the colour of its irises, but when He tilted its head, they caught the lamplight and flickered golden.
Oh.
Hastur knew who's body this was.
He felt stupid for a moment, and then felt stupid for feeling stupid, because He shouldn't be allowed to feel that way. He was all knowing, wasn't He? Omnipresent and all-powerful, holding all possible knowledge, facts and lies alike. He wasn't allowed to not know something.
It clicked after a moment, though. Derek had bonded them together, so of course the body He now inhabited belonged to that infuriating knight. Of course His vision had narrowed, His mind slowed, because He was now just a husk, a whisper of a God, locked away in a mortal cage.
How annoying.
Something poked at His awareness, gentle and persistent. A butterfly in a cage. Determined. Bright red and glowing with it.
Hastur opened the body's mouth to relay a polite greeting. Maybe He could have some fun with this whole nightmare of a situation, if this body belonged to who He thought it did.
“Hel–”
The body's voice was harsh and clogged with disuse. Hastur attempted to clear its throat, but only ended up choking on saliva.
He hunched over, coughing into the body's fist. How fucking humiliating. He clawed at the body's chest as if He could reach inside and untangle those damned vocal chords.
That presence in the corner of His consciousness seemed to laugh. It was strange, unexplainable, but there all the same.
Hastur reached out and grabbed for the container of liquid beside the laptop. He lifted it to the body's lips and drank it down. It did not taste like much, but it was cool and soothing for His mortal cage's throat.
Don't drink all of that. The voice was quiet, muted, and seemed almost like a thought at first – but Hastur did not think in words, certainly not with the voice of the knight.
The very same knight that Hastur thought had perished.
Hastur straightened Himself up. He brushed away the brown locs that had escaped from their updo and obscured His vision.
He tried again to speak. “Hello.”
His knight – Derek, He supposed He should call Him, since he was not so much of a knight anymore – laughed once again.
You sound weird in my body.
Hastur admitted, only to Himself, that Derek was right. When He spoke it was an odd, rough mix of their voices; His was lower and smoother, more singsong, and Derek's was flat and coarse.
“I did not choose to be here, mortal. This is your fault.”
Well, I didn't know this would happen either, Derek grumbled, almost to himself. I thought you'd be gone.
Hastur rolled His eyes. He rather liked that He could express Himself like that now. “Think before you act next time.”
Something bright flashed through Hastur, sharp and jarring. The edge of a knife. Pure, unadulterated anger.
Maybe I wouldn't have to if You kept Yourself away from Avery.
A small, sinister, mean smile curled the body's lips. “Maybe I would've stayed away if you stopped meddling in my business.”
I didn't–
“Oh, but you did, Little Lord.” Hastur let His voice morph into something sinisterly sly in its calmness. “You entered through My gates, didn't you? You came back. You caused this.”
Derek was quiet, then, and Hastur was glad for it.
The body was aching far too much to keep sitting. Hastur forced it to stand, and His weak mortal legs shook with effort. He leaned heavily against the desk for a moment.
Fuck. He was weak. Vulnerable and human. What an awful, disgusting, powerless feeling. No wonder mortals were so complicated in their wars and their hatred and their oppression. When their forms were this frail, Hastur almost couldn't blame them for grasping at any bit of control they could.
Almost.
His legs did not stop shaking, but they did gain a bit more stability. There was an odd feeling in His gut that was swimming up into His head – hunger. He did not know it could feel like this. He did not like it.
Derek's tiny residence did, thankfully, have a kitchen, though perhaps calling it that was giving it too much credit. It was nothing more than a corner, a microwave sat on the counter, a run-down fridge humming, a stove that barely looked used.
Mm. That would not do.
“Derek.”
All was quiet. Hastur snapped His fingers.
“Derek. I'm speaking to you.”
Derek's awareness shifted in acknowledgement and slight annoyance. What?
“You can see what I'm doing, yes?” Hastur reached out and tugged open the fridge. Just as He expected, there was little to find: a few lonely bottles of water, a couple microwavable meals. Definitely not enough to feed a normal mortal. “Do you even eat?”
There was a small pause, just enough for a single heartbeat. Hastur noted it anyway.
Of course I do. I just… prefer the meal supplements, is all.
Hastur did not need enhanced perception to know that Derek was lying to Him. He hoped the mortal could feel His disapproval.
Controlling a body like this was very strange. Hastur felt as if He had to think of every movement before He did it, like His consciousness was not big enough to fully expand throughout His form. Matter did not bend to His touch anymore.
He plopped a packaged meal into the microwave and ate it robotically. The flavors did not dance on His tongue, but rather settled there like dry sand. Each swallow brought a strange wave of nausea over Him. The texture seemed to itch at His very brain.
Hastur finished as much as He could stomach before dumping the rest.
Stumbling back to the computer, His vision seemed to skew. Everything slipped away to the left. When Hastur tried to grab for it, tried to pull Himself back and straighten reality out, He found that there was nothing to fix.
He was not there anymore.
Instead, it felt like He was watching from afar. He was seeing out of the body’s eyes, but almost like a backseat passenger and not the driver. He wasn’t in the same place anymore. Instead, the body was sat down in the shower while hot water poured over its head.
Derek.
Oh. That was interesting. His voice sounded better when He didn’t use the body to speak. Derek startled slightly, like He didn’t realize Hastur was there.
“Are–” Derek’s voice was rough. He cleared his throat and wiped his locs out of his face. “Are You just gonna stalk me now, or what?”
Is it stalking? I’m stuck in this cage too, now. I cannot move my consciousness away.
Derek sighed. The body’s eyes were trained on the water droplets trailing down its skin. There were scars on its calf. Derek averted the body’s eyes.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Derek’s voice was small and meek, reserved like he was trying to hold back emotion. “My life isn’t great. My body isn’t great. I don’t actually want You stuck here.”
Hastur hesitated. He tried to reach out in their shared mind, to reach Derek, to untangle how he felt and piece together what he meant. He managed to catch a few fleeting sparks of something – guilt, perhaps? – but when He attempted to solve it, it fell through His fingers like sand.
Fine. He’ll have to communicate the mortal way, then. How annoying.
I did not think you liked Me very much.
Somehow, transmitting the words to Derek was more humiliating than Hastur anticipated. If He had a face, it would be pink with embarrassment.
Gods do not feel embarrassment. Gods do not worry about mortals and their opinions. Hastur felt like He was trapped in a cage. He wanted to claw the walls of their shared head until He cracked the skull and could ooze out.
But He did not. Attempting to would hurt Derek.
Why did He care about that?
Derek began to speak again. “I… don’t like You. Not really. Not in a normal way, at least.”
Hastur wanted to make a euphemism about that, but He stayed silent.
“But I wanted You gone. I didn’t mean for You to be stuck here and essentially tortured with my shitty body for eternity.”
...Why not?
Was that not what Hastur deserved? Did He not torture both Avery and Derek for His own amusement? Did He not, essentially, keep them both as lab rats for His own pleasure and power, with no plans of letting them free? How was this anything less than perfect karma?
Derek did not reply. Hastur felt dazed as He watched Derek stand and wash the body. His touch was careful. Much too kind for the situation.
You are too nice to me. We both know I deserve this.
The only response was a sigh. For a moment, the walls between their minds faltered, and Hastur could feel the tangle of confusion and guilt that Derek’s speeding mind was contemplating. Beneath all of it was a deep, murky sea of nothing else but pure loneliness.
That emotion was from the both of them. It seeped into each one of their actions.
Hastur had always been lonely. Such is the life of a God. For some strange reason, Derek was too. Hopelessly, irrevocably, utterly lonely.
Hm. Hastur pulled back before He drowned in it. Mortal feelings were complicated. He did not want them.
“If you’re gonna stay in my body,” Derek began as he dried himself off, “then you need to stop with the self-loathing. I can hear it. It’s annoying.”
Okay. You first.
Another pause. Hastur then felt the body smile, just slightly, enough to show the faintest bit of amusement. He supposed that was one nice thing about sharing a body. Their emotions and movements seemed to meld – at least, when Derek allowed them to.
The amusement was contagious. Hastur let a little bit of it drip into His words. We can make a deal. I keep My “self-loathing” thoughts to Myself, and you never touch a microwaved meal again.
“You don’t like them?”
I am offended that you think I would, Little Lord.
Derek snorted. “Fine.”
Fine.
Hastur watched Derek clean up, change, and order them an actual meal; noodles and veggies and something spicy that sparked in the body’s – in their – mouth. There was still an itch under His skin, an ache in His non-corporeal bones, a need to break out and stretch. But by the time Derek settled them into his tiny, dingy bed for some much-needed sleep, it eased.
Hastur was mortal now. There was nothing to do but move forward.