Valtiel did not, as it turned out, dislike water. In fact, he was quite mesmerized by it. When she turned on the spicket to fill the bath tub, he climbed down to ground level so that he might bat at the falling water with one of his hands. Heather stared at him when he started doing this, and then broke out laughing. The sudden noise made Valtiel jump. After he ascertained that nothing was wrong with her, he went back to batting at the water.
Somehow I'd imagined the attendant to god being a little more dignified, she thought wryly, and was not at all disappointed.
"We have to get your smock off if you want to have a bath," she told him, and reached over to touch the laces at the back of his outfit. Valtiel went very still for a moment and then slowly 'looked' back at her, his tongue slithering out of his mouth and wiggling around in the air. Heather lifted a brow. "What?"
The Metatron didn't say anything and didn't move so much as a muscle. Heather hesitated for a moment, uncertain about the proper course of action. Then, assuming that Valtiel would stop her if she was doing anything wrong, she carefully felt along the laces. It took a moment of feeling around, but then she realized the laces formed a continuous circuit. They weren't tied off anywhere, and they were never meant to be untied.
Hmm. Heather tilted her head to the side, and then reached over and opened up a drawer beside the sink. After rummaging around for a bit, her hands alighted on a pair of scissors, and she pulled the tool out and brought them to the monster's smock. She glanced at Valtiel's face, hoping for some kind of permission, but the Metatron didn't budge except to twitch subtly.
Well, here goes nothing. She put one blade of the scissors under the laces, one on top, and then squeezed the pair closed. The touch leather material resisted cutting for a moment, and Heather found herself wondering if perhaps they were indestructible. A moment later, however, the scissor blades chewed successfully through the leather, and the lace came undone.
Valtiel shifted slightly, but did not protest. Heather glanced at his face and then took both sides of the smock's opening, and carefully pulled them apart. She revealed leathery, pale skin, scarred and blue-veined like the rest of him. Like on his arms, areas of his flesh were split open almost aesthetically, in neat and morbidly elegant triangles, revealing pink tissue beneath. The black, smooth skin that covered his neck and shoulders also extended a few inches down his back.
Valtiel didn't move to help her by shrugging off the garment, so she lifted her hands to the thick shoulder straps and eased them down over his shoulders. He didn't budge his arms to pull them out of the straps, just letting the leather tongues sag down to his elbows. Heather lifted a brow. The metatron squirmed a little, and his tongue twirled through the air. She shook her head.
"You are the weirdest..." she trailed off and then shook her head again and leaned over to grab his elbow. He clung to the bathtub with his fingers. Heather cleared her throat and gave his arm a little smack. He released the tub quickly, as if he'd suddenly figured out what she was doing and was making haste to assist. "Thank you." She grabbed his elbow and pulled it carefully through the shoulder strap of the outfit, and then moved to do the same with his other arm.
The smock, which was heavier than it looked, dropped quickly to a puddle around his feet, and Valtiel immediately shook himself, causing Heather to topping back onto her rear. She winced slightly and then sat back to look him over.
Hmm.
She had the strangest feeling, like she was getting a behind-the-scenes tour at a movie studio, and seeing beyond the boundaries of a set. Despite this, there was nothing unfinished about the Metatron. He was consistent from top to bottom. The muscles of his back and legs were as pronounced as those along his arms.
Heather grinned, pushing hair out of her face. "Nice butt," she complemented, and then reached forward to steal one of the Metatron's boots. He twitched and grumbled and snorted, and then finally let her lift up his foot. The boot was permanently laced as well, so she cut the strings and the slipped the boot off. His toes were clubbed slightly, and fused together much in the same way as his fingers. What toenails he had were more like claws, thick, pointed, and curved down over the front of the toes.
Heather glanced at Valtiel, and an evil grin slowly spread over her face. She reached behind her and into the cleaning cabinet, and pulled out a feather duster she knew was stored there. Valtiel blinked. She lifted the feather-duster slowly, carefully, and then tickled the foot. The monster convulsed spasmodically, gave a plaintive yowl, and scrabbled at the side of the tub. His foot kicked rapidly until it broke free of her grip.
The girl broke out laughing. She couldn't help it, especially when Valtiel gave her such a dirty look. She lifted her hands placating, and then slowly went to steal his other boot. He let her.
"Alright, you're undressed. Get in the tub!" she said, and stood up to make shooing motions at him. The monster eyed her crossly, as if asking how he was supposed to follow this order when he couldn't even undress himself. Heather planted her hands on her hips and raised a brow. "Don't give me that look, I know you're not dumb," she told him. "Into the tub, mister, or I'll push you in!" He whined. She tapped her foot playfully. "You're dirty, smelly, covered in god only knows what- literally- and clearly have never bathed. Get in!"
He grumbled, and then slowly leaned over the edge of the tub and crawled in. He liked how the water splashed about his arms, and set about to hitting the water happily.
"Hey now- bah, you're going to soak the bathroom!"
He purred. She scowled and then laughed. A thought reoccurred to her, and she leaned to the side, trying to catch a look...
Nothing! Genderless. Everything inside her lit up with a triumphant sense of victory. Silent Hill had just made sense. She'd made a prediction about it, and the prediction had come true.
Words could not describe the sensation. It was more joyful than a thousand Christmasses.
Valtiel 'looked' up at her, twitching only a little now, and cooed enthusiastically about the hot water. Heather laughed and reached out to pat his arm. She stepped back for a moment to grab a washcloth, and then came up again to kneel beside the tub.
I'm almost disappointed," she remarked jovially, "I expected almost expected Silent Hill to do something different this time, out of pure spite." He had no idea what she was talking about, and splashed at her. She got a mouthful of dirty Otherworld water and yelped, spitting it out vigorously and grimacing.
Valtiel gurgled happily at her.
Heather choked out some more water. "I hate you," she told him flatly.
He tapped her gently on the nose. He still had his gloves on and they were gross, and they left a smudge of blood on her face. Heather scowled and wiped viciously at the grime, before frowning at Valtiel. The Seal of the Metatron was a little clearer against his shoulder now, and for some reason her eyes fixated on it.
The Mason girl shivered. She'd been treating Valtiel as if he were a friend or pet; a mute but benevolent companion. Certainly not the angel-attendant to an evil god who demanded blood and suffering from her worshipers. For a moment she promised herself that she wasn't crazy; that Valtiel wasn't a hallucination. But then what was he? Just a psychological construct? Something Alessa had brought to life out of nothingness? That didn't seem like enough to explain him. What if Valtiel really was some other-worldly being, sent by a real god? An evil god? Heather had suggested as much to her shrink.
Valtiel became agitated. He made soft rumbling noises and leaned out of the tub, reaching up to her and pawing at her. Heather shrunk away from him a moment, earning some hisses and yowls before the Metatron went strangely quiet.
She sat on her rump a few feet away from the tub and stared at him, and wondered if she was having a fit or a moment of clarity. The line between the two became smudged once boogiemen took up residence in one's home. Valtiel reoriented himself in the tub so he was on his knees, his hands placed on the edge of the basin, his fingers clenched, and his twitching head hovering above them. For a moment, girl and monster did little more than watch each other. A rubber ducky sponge holder floated past him.
She had a sensation then, a sure instinct, that told her he was going to climb out of the bath and try to touch her. Comfort her. She didn't want that. She wanted to keep him away from her for a moment. She didn't think she could handle this. Was this a liberation from madness, or a meltdown? Was this desperately breaking free of something that was going to lull her into mindlessness, or was this a foolish denial of her only anchor? There was no way of knowing. Everything was nonsense in Silent Hill. "You frighten me," she whispered, trying to hold the insanity at bay.
The creature tilted his head to the side, not with a snap, but with a slow, calculated rotation. That scared her. When Valtiel was upset or agitated, he usually twitched more, not less. The smooth motion felt- felt predatory. Fear rose up in her gut, nameless fear, unexplained fear. She had to run. She had to get out of the room. She had to get out of the house, away from this, away from this monster, away from this insanity, she needed her shrink, she needed-
The lights started flickering. There was steam coating the mirrors and windows in the bathroom, and over each surface, letters started to appear. "HEATHER" "HEATHER" HEATHER" on every glossy tile, on every inch of full length door mirror, in the dampness on her bathroom towels. Every cabinet began to twitch, the door opening, than slamming shut randomly.
The Seal of the Metatron stood out clearly on each of Valtiel's shoulders. His head lowered a bit, his tongue easing out from between the lips of his mouth, tasting the air.
Heather lunged forward. She scrambled across the bathroom tiles on all fours, not towards the door, but towards the bath tub. She grabbed the Metatron's face in both hands, and jerked it down to her level, staring into where his eyes would be if he had possessed them.
"Stop!" she pleaded with him. "Please! Stop!"
A growing quantity of red on the corners of her vision told her something very, very, very bad was happening in her bathroom. She had no doubt about what she would see should she choose to look. She heard creaking rust and breaking pipes. The Metatron was more or less staring at her, not twitching, not shaking. She gaped at him a moment, and then shut her eyes and grit her teeth, leaning her temple against his chin.
"Valtiel," she muttered, slowly easing her arms around his neck as liquid hot, warm, and smelling of copper lapped against her feet. "Fine. Fuck it!" she hissed. "Drop me into the fog, the Otherworld, whatever, fuck you, But if you disappear on me, if you leave me alone there, over one fucking relapse, if you abandon me, I am going to be so unbelievably pissed with you."
Pipes stopped creaking. The heat and smell and dampness of blood was gone. The creature beneath her temple was twitching. She swallowed hard and slowly opened her eyes to a very normal bathroom, with normally foggy windows, and a very abnormal resident still curled up in the tub. She could see the smooth black skin about his throat, and just the very edge of the Metatron's red brand where it stood out on his shoulder. He lifted his hands and pawed uncertainly at her, and then made a very strange sound, almost a pained sound, deep and flat and low in his vocal range.
Heather took in a long, slow breath. Then she tilted her head back, looking up at the Boogieman's near featureless face. He was starting to twitch a lot now. The muscles in his neck were taut. She grimaced slightly, not at him, but more at what had almost happened. After a moment she moved a hand back to his face, watching as he stilled on one axis of motion to make the touch possible.
"You're real," she murmured suddenly. He flinched away from her. She followed his face with her hand and her eyes. "You're real," she said again, her fingers caressing over the rough leather, like one might appraise the crude texture of a ragdoll. But this ragdoll was warm. She could feel life under her fingertips. His skin twitched slightly, it was clear he could feel her. He twitched and spasmed. His fingers clutched at the air about her helplessly. He made another pained utterance. A moment passed. Then he suddenly seized her and clutched him to her painfully tight. Heather grunted in alarm.
"Breaking ribs!" she gasped out.
He released her instantaneously, darting back away from her, smacking into the other side of the tub, cowering down from her. Heather winced, choked, looked around her bathroom for a moment, and finally looked back to the Boogeyman huddled somewhat frightened, somewhat bashful, against the other side of the bath tub. Then she groaned and plopped down on her ass. She glanced briefly at where she'd stowed the feather duster, and then slowly leaned over the edge of the bathtub, and reached into the water to grab her original washcloth.
She grabbed it in hand and wrung icky rust water from it, and then lifted her gaze to her Boogieman. Her Boogieman. "Come here," she told him. He hesitated. "Come on," she encouraged. "You won't hurt me." After a moment, he peeled himself off the back wall of the tub, and slowly shifted towards her again. She lifted the washcloth and pressed it to his shoulder, and started wiping away ancient grime and rust. It worked. The grime loosened. She sidled closer to the edge of the tub, and grasped his arm with her other hand to stabilize it, and began the task of scrubbing away the filth. The Metatron twitched and flinched occasionally, but did not pull away from her.
Her mind was working rapidly; at the same time she thought of almost nothing. After a moment she leaned closer to examine her handiwork, and was pleased to see that she was making some headway. Right. Well. Time to break out the soap, and maybe turn the shower head on. The water was filthy. She needed a cleaner washcloth most likely. This was going to be a long job.
She set the washcloth down and looked up at his face, at his twitching, unnatural, spastic, epileptic twitching.
"I'm keeping you," she told him. He convulsed, and went very still. She was still a moment. Then she reached over and pet what she could reach of his head and back, getting up to her knees, and then sitting on the edge of the bath. He didn't lift himself up any farther or follow her face with his gaze. He seemed to still be cowering a little. He twitched under her fingers and slowly placed his forearms back on the edge of the bath."Let me keep you," she requested this time. "Angel. God. Monster. Guardian. Executioner. Healer. Whatever you are." Fused fingers kneaded the tub. "I'm braver when you're here. Don't leave me alone. I can see you are trying to help."
He grumbled weakly and then rubbed his face against her leg.
Heather swallowed and took a few calming breathes. She felt like she had just run a psychiatric marathon. She felt like she'd accomplished more in the last hour than she had in the last year. "Whatever I did to set you off," she murmured, "Try to warn me next time." He shuddered and nuzzled a little more firmly. Heather tilted her head to the side. Then she reached out to pry one of his hands from the side of the tub. For a moment he resisted her, so she scooped both hands under his palm and tried to loosen one finger at a time. His grip was like steel for a moment. Then it softened. She pulled his hand into both of hers, and then pulled the glove off to his helpless twitching.