Friends of cats

[Ripper Nightshade]

Rip nodded. Greenwood. Was he allowed to say that? Or was Cori not supposed to know? It didn't seem like information that would break any rules. And... he hadn't been directed not to say where they were. He nodded again, hoping that it was true, that Mik was okay. Pax said he would be, didn't he? That didn't mean he couldn't lie about it, though, to get Rip to go with him.

"Ah... I don't know..."

He didn't know where Keith was now. Normally, he could follow the psychic line to feel him out but that seemed to have been shut down with the trade in ownership. Rip lowered his gaze as Cori pulled his hand back like he thought Rip was going to hurt him. Rip understood; he had been kidnapped so he didn't trust him. But what he said next surprised him.

"Cursed...?" Although Rip tried to get a good look at the one hand that wasn't encased in a mitten, he couldn't see anything because Cori sat on his hands to hide them from him. Rip toyed with one of his necklaces.

"No." He used to be but he wasn't now. Looking to the hands that were hidden, Rip finally said, "You can't corrupt me." Rip put out a hand.

[Cori Viera]

"As long as he's not here," Cori said nervously as he glanced around again, but no scary-looking blond guys came popping out of the woodwork. He still wanted to get away from here and go home, back to Lieve, but it didn't look like he was going to be let out anytime soon. Maybe Rip was another hostage! He looked pretty unhappy, truth be told.

But he wasn't with that other guy! Which made him a friend! At least to Cori's way of thinking he was. Breathing a big sigh of relief, he finally relaxed. Rip could have been lying to him, but Cori was pretty trusting of everyone he met. He liked to take people at their word, and if they proved him wrong... That was on them, not him. Besides, he simply couldn't help but see the best in people, regardless of circumstance or situation.

"No! You don't understand, I killed all of Lieve's plants! I touched them and they withered and died! I'm not gonna risk hurting you too, Rip!" Cori edged away from him as an added precaution. "We gotta get outta here, Rip! I have to get home before Lieve starts to worry! And Mik, he'll be wondering where I am too."

One hand popped out from under him to search around in his pocket. "That guy took my phone! Do you think it's still here? We can use it to call for help!"

[Ripper Nightshade]

Rip couldn't help it. He let out a little laugh.

"I'm not a plant, Cori."

He wasn't going to shrivel under Cori's touch. Besides, that wasn't how the corruption worked. Although... How... odd that he spoke of corrupting things when he had just now been corrupted. Or had he? Did somebody get to him first? Rip tilted his head as he regarded Cori, hands behind his back now, curious. After a moment, he slowly got down on one knee in front of Cori and put out a hand, palm face up.

The poor guy was panicking. That was normal. Anybody taken away like that... It was scary. But there were no phones here. Rip wasn't able to purchase one, especially under the watch of Pax on the ride back. And now that Pax was his master... it was even smarter that he didn't stop to buy one in front of him. What would he do with it, anyway? Call all one friend he had? And even him... He had been lost to this stupid war between the fairies and the fallen.

"Touch my hand, please."

[Cori Viera]

"But you don't know how bad this curse could be! I never tested it on a person!" Cori edged further away from Rip while shaking his head vehemently. Why was Rip so determined to prove that he was immune to the curse? Did he want to get hurt?! It wasn't worth it just to prove that Cori was normal—Cori could keep wearing gloves! It wasn't that big of a deal!

"No! I'm not touching you! I—" He leapt off the bed abruptly and ran over to the window, where a small pot of succulents were positioned to catch maximum sunlight. Cori picked out the smallest bud, one that wasn't touching the others, and he poked it with his fingertip. It wilted immediately; its small vibrant green leaves shrivelled and turned a nasty yellow-brown.

"See Rip? See?! That could happen to you!"

[Ripper Nightshade]

"...I'm not a person."

He kept his hand out but Cori edged away from him and kept on shaking his head, like he thought that was going to somehow convince Rip that he had Evil Hands. He even jumped straight off the bed and for a second, Rip thought he was going to have to chase him down. But he didn't run from the room. He went to the window, where Raphael's little plant was sitting to catch the sunlight.

Rip stood up and dropped his hand, watching as Cori touched the plant and it did immediately die. Strange. He shouldn't even be able to do that until he was fully Fallen. All he should be right now was in the first stages of being corrupted.

"You can learn to control it." Otherwise the Fallen everywhere would be surrounded in constant decay.

[Cori Viera]

"You are so a person," Cori had to say because Rip being 'not a person' made no sense whatsoever. He was breathing, talking, thinking—he was a person! Was he talking metaphorically? Did he have something going on that made him think he wasn't a person? But that didn't mean he needed to try and hurt himself—or that he should use Cori to do it!

Hesitantly he returned to the bed, where he sat on his hands again. "I can control a curse? Is there somebody who can teach me? I don't know who cursed me, you know, so it might be a while before I can go back to normal!"

The thought of not being able to touch anybody ever again made him sad. He wilted, shoulders collapsing and mouth turning down at the corners into a big sad face. "This morning I was normal. And now everything's... like this. I miss my mom... She would've known what to do!"

[Ripper Nightshade]

Rip sighed. He wasn't getting into this again today. The person, non-person argument. He was so sick of it. People who didn't know him thought he was a person. People who knew him well knew that he wasn't. There was no point anymore to trying to explain it. So he ignored the comment--other than the sigh--and he watched Cori sit down, again on his hands, like he thought they would go on a wild rampage without his permission.

"It's not a curse. Somebody must have performed the ritual on you... this morning."

That didn't make sense. Pax didn't touch him until now. Unless he met Cori earlier and lost him... and no... because Pax asked Rip to guide him to Keith. But maybe he knew Cori was with Keith... Rip reached up to massage the side of his head. All of this was giving him such a headache.

"What happened this morning?"

He could do nothing about his mother. Rip could only assume she was dead; he didn't know the details but it sounded like she was--Cori missed her and talked like she was gone.

[Cori Viera]

"A witch!" See, he knew it was a witch! Or a warlock, or someone who had it out for him. Did he have an enemy out there who cast a spell on him or performed some voodoo bad mojo ritual while his back was turned? Who did he annoy so much that they would do this to him?!

He scooted up on the bed to sit more comfortably, as they were going to be here a while. Apparently. Cori didn't even know what his kidnappers wanted—money? If they left a ransom note with Lieve, what would happen?! Would Lieve pay up to get him home safe? He hoped so, but maybe Lieve would call the cops and they would swoop in and nab the bad guys and get both him and Rip out!

"Um. Nothing much. Well I didn't get that much sleep last night cause I had a bad dream about my mom, so my whole morning was kind of a blur." He frowned; his gaze drifted off into the distance, well beyond Rip. "I dreamed that somebody came and took her. My mom, I mean. She disappeared a few months ago... And that guy, he took her and locked her up in a big black castle with huge tall spires and purple flags! Then I woke up after that and this curse—ritual thing happened."

[Ripper Nightshade]

"What? No..."

Not a witch. A fairy. Not the same thing, but Cori didn't know. He didn't know who he was, what he was. Did he? He was still ignorant to all of that and his father probably wanted it left that way until he was fully corrupted. A son that finally could do him proud. Take the throne after him. There were whispers that he was dying, that this was why he was collecting now. Preparing. Somebody had to take his place and that person had to be worthy of his reign.

But... honestly... Rip was so tired of all of it. The politics of it all, the warring. The idea that all fairies had to be erased or folded into the Fallen. Why? What was the point? There were too many different types of fae, too. Why erase all of them to create one ugly kind? It was so... needless. But who was Rip to say? It wasn't even his war to fight. He was just here for one person's pleasure and now even that had been taken from him. Rip didn't know what would be expected from him by Pax but he somehow doubted it had anything to do with sex. He would rather be a sex tool than actually help the cause of the Fallen.

But again. Not something he would ever say, especially not to the second in command.

Rip sat down on the floor, crossing his legs and looking up at Cori, where he made himself more comfortable on the bed. At least he seemed to be calmed down from earlier. But Cori's telling of his dream... He swallowed hard.

"Oh." Rip lowered his gaze. That... did... not bode well. He wondered how Pax could have missed it. Not many of the dream walking fae were around. Most had been killed by the Fallen. But one that hadn't been killed... was Keith. And then Keith found Cori and kidnapped him the very next day. That... couldn't be a coincidence. Keith... what are you planning? He felt an icy cold grip around his heart.

"Well... you can learn to control the corruption power. Close your eyes."

[Cori Viera]

"Okay." Cori was nothing if not obedient, so trustingly he closed his eyes. But when the darkness settled over his closed eyelids, he felt uncomfortably squirrely and had a strong desire to open them again. He wanted to see what was going on! But Rip told him to close em so he squeezed his lids shut tight and focused, scrunching up his face in the process.

"What do I do now? How long do I have to hold it for, Rip?"

Darkness, darkness, everywhere. Cori's leg jiggled faintly on top of the bed. He never did like the dark; he slept with a night light well into his early teens, because he would wake up with night terrors if he didn't. He kept seeing atrocious things, kept having the most horrible nightmares. Sometimes he would be the one doing terrible things in them, killing people, maiming and torturing them—for a little boy's brain to handle that kind of thing, it was quite a feat.

[Ripper Nightshade]

"Imagine your hands are black like they're covered in ink."

Rip didn't actually know how to control the corruption from experience; he was a golem. He wasn't even corruptible. Not with this particular blight. A golem of a fairy was not a fairy, it was a golem. They couldn't be turned. But he had met enough Fallen to know they could control it. Rhys and Keith didn't constantly wear gloves and they touched all kinds of things all day long without leaving behind corruption. It took a concerted effort... normally. But with a new corruption...

"That blackness is the corruption, okay? Now imagine the blackness is fading away..." Rip watched Cori, who looked perturbed. He seemed nervous. Slowly, Rip touched his jiggling leg. "Show me your hands."

[Cori Viera]

"Eww..." Incorrigible Cori whispered, imagining black-stained hands. For some reason it wasn't ink that he imagined, but a goopy black tar-like substance that was drippy and clingy, coating both of his hands. Was that what corruption looked like? He didn't know! But he tried his best to do what Rip said because he trusted him, and thus far Rip hadn't done anything to indicate that he was an evil man like that blond guy.

A touch to his jiggly leg stilled it, but he didn't show his hands yet. His brows were furrowed and an expression of intense focus was on his face. The darkness receded from his hands. He imagined it all dripping off of him, onto the ground, that sticky icky black tar. "You're gonna touch my hand," Cori whispered fearfully with his eyes still tightly squeezed shut.

Slowly he let one hand slip out, the palm held up, fingers shaking. "Please please please don't get hurt!"

[Ripper Nightshade]

Well, the blight was black so that's why he chose black. Like ink, though. Rip thought it was the least gross of the black liquids he could conjure to mind. Apparently, Cori did not think so. Still, he seemed to be imagining it, and that was good. A big part of magic usage was being able to visualize it.

Only one hand was presented and it was the one without the mitten. Good. And it was clean, there was nothing there. Part of the idea of closing his eyes was the part where sometimes... visualizing the elements sometimes made them... actually visual. If Cori was one of those, then he had at least succeeded in pushing back the darkness.

"Yes."

He said that because not saying it would continue to leave Cori anxious. It didn't seem to help much though. While his leg stopped jiggling when Rip touched it, the hand was now shaking in its stead. Using his free hand, Rip touched his hand. Just fingertips to palm, see, nothing there. He traced his fingertips over the palm and down Cori's fingertips. Still nothing. Not really surprising. It would be like a... disease for humans jumping hosts. Even if it tried to spread to him, it would die before it really did any damage to him.

That wouldn't really help Cori with other people but maybe if he saw he wasn't corrupting what he assumed was a person, he would be able to do the same with real people.

"...open your eyes."

[Cori Viera]

"Haah!" Cori winced when he felt warm fingertips on his palm, but he didn't open his eyes for fear of seeing Rip wilt and die, too. His poor heart was hammering in his chest and he had a hard time breathing. What if he killed Rip?! He couldn't even kill a plant without feeling guilty about it--a whole person might just send him off the deep end!

But... Rip didn't make any dying noises. Cori refused to open his eyes. Rip's hand moved down his palm and fingers, indicating that he was alive, and finally Cori opened his eyes when bidden. "Oh," he breathed in awe, as Rip appeared to be perfectly fine. "You're not dead," he whispered as his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

Slowly Cori's fingers curled around Rip's fingers. "Ooh!" He was acting like he was touching a person for the first time, but it sort of felt that way. "It worked!" Cori beamed at Rip, whom he was seeing in a whole new light. A sort of... human meeting superman for the first time kind of light. Then somewhat impulsively he threw his arms around Rip and hugged him. "It worked! I'm not cursed anymore! You cured it!"

[Ripper Nightshade]

No, he was not dead. Cori seemed to think it was a miracle! But then, by the way he was shaking, Rip was pretty confident that Cori really believed he would kill him. To be perfectly honest with himself, Rip wondered if it would work at all, if perhaps Keith had concocted a new breed of the blight. But it wouldn't be in his best interest to create a blight that decimated his own troops. And Keith was a master of golems. There never should have been a shadow of doubt.

Rip's smile was small--things still felt rather dire but this was at least some light in the darkness. And it was kind of cute; Cori was kind of cute. Like a kitten with its eyes fully opened and seeing all kinds of amazing new things. The way he beamed at him abashed Rip, though. He didn't feel like he'd done much to warrant a smile of that caliber. Hard not to smile back at him, though.

"Oh!" The hug, he did not expect. He didn't live in a world where impromptu hugs were given without notice. In fact, he didn't live in a world where hugs really existed. Emotions rarely ran high; everybody was so controlled and stiff and cold. They might as well all be a bunch of walking, talking corpses. (And this... coming from a golem.)

His laugh was a little high with embarrassment but semi-pleased embarrassment. But he felt a bit as if he cheated to get the hug in the first place; he didn't cure anything. He just... taught Cori a trick. One that he wasn't even sure worked because, well. He was a golem. Swallowing, he lightly embraced Cori back, with a gentle couple of pats to his back. Then, "You should try touching the plant again."