Chapter Text
Devastation
Lucio’s room reeks of sorrow and the sickly scent of fever. He is buried under his bedsheets, chin prickly with stubble and eyes crusted with salt and gunk. He is an utter wreck. Lucio does not remember the last time he saw the sun nor the last time he ate. His shriveled stomach aches with hunger and his dry mouth yearns for the sweet relief of water. His spirit hovers above him, watching as his pathetic body lies motionless in bed, too weary and broken to put any effort in anymore.
Time has had little to no meaning since the death of the Apprentice. In fact, Lucio cannot remember how much time has passed since he watched their frail body, covered only by a thin, white sheet, get carted off to the Lazaret. It is well known around Vesuvia that the Count has lost himself to fever, to delirium, and deep sorrow. Months seem to pass with Lucio hardly leaving his room, holed up in the darkness with the curtains drawn and the door firmly shut. His bedroom stinks of devastation, the musty, stuffy scent permeating the very tapestries on the walls. Rage surges through his veins. The hateful creature in Lucio’s heart feeds upon his desolation. It grows with every passing hour, hungrier and hungrier as he simmers in illness and despair. Wronged by his subjects. Wronged by the Devil. Wronged by the only people he thought truly cared for him.
During this time, Lucio’s thoughts are confused, anxious. They circle around one another, chasing rumination after rumination. In the night, he calls out for Julian, for the Apprentice, who are nowhere to be found. He mutters about beetles, wyrms, goatmen, and magicians. Shadow and light wax and wane in his vision. Past merges with present. There are times when he wakes and is shocked to find he is not in a medical tent, with young Julian at his side.
“Jules?” he whispers hoarsely at a shadowy figure in the corner of his room. But when he tries to reach out to them, they disappear, enveloped once again by darkness.
“Jules!” Lucio shouts, agony in his voice.
Where is Jules? Where is he? Why isn’t he here, taking care of me?
Physicians and attendants rush to the aid of their Count whenever they hear one of his outbursts. However, they are never allowed any nearer than the door frame. Anyone who dares to try to gain entrance to the Count’s wing is met with obscenities screamed in a shrill voice, a voice that is broken and gravelly from hours of sobbing. One attendant quits after Lucio hurls a crystal snifter at them, all the while pleading pathetically for Doctor Devorak. For Jules. Luckily, the glass misses (although narrowly) and smashes against the doorframe, shimmering shards of crystal raining down like powdery snow. But the incident leaves the palace staff shaken. After this, the Countess instructs all attendants to leave the day-to-day caretaking of her husband to her.
Lucio’s memories of this time are hazy, at best. Glimmers of Nadia’s warmth permeate the endless darkness that clouds his memory. Her gentle touch and velvet voice soothe his aches and pains. But nothing she says or does can draw him from the guilt, the anger that roils inside him.
All your fault. Rotten brat. Sick with you for nine months, cycles endlessly in Lucio’s mind. Sometimes, when he manages to sleep, he dreams of his mother, berating him as she aims the sharpened tip of her spear at his head. Other times, Lucio is visited by ghosts of the past and he cannot tell if he is dreaming or not. His father nightly stands at the foot of his bed, sallow skin stretched taut over his cheekbones. His withered limbs reach out to grasp Lucio, but his spindly fingers are far too weak to take hold. He swipes futilely at his son, intentions unclear in his pathetic, wavering motions.
“Get out, get out, get out,” Lucio whimpers, paralyzed, his body refusing to move. His father’s blood-red gaze holds him, penetrating and cold, until his ghost grows weary and slowly dissolves into red mist. Lucio is forced to watch as his father dissipates before his very eyes. Thinking himself free of apparitions, Lucio sighs in relief, only to once again find himself staring into the past. In his father’s place at the foot of the bed materializes the shriveled corpse of the late Count Spada.
“I know you’ll do me proud,” his scratchy voice whispers. Spada’s rattling wheezes thunder in Lucio’s ears, lasting for what feels like hours upon hours. When Lucio manages to wrench himself from his frozen fear, it doesn’t matter if he covers his ears or not. The wheezing continues, replaying ceaselessly until Lucio finally manages to fall asleep.
But the worst of his visitors is not Lutz, nor Spada, nor even the thousands of beetles that seem to drown him in their crimson legs each night. No, Lucio dreads the nights he receives visits from them .
The Apprentice first appears to him a week or so after their passing. Lucio’s sleep that night is restless. He lies awake, staring vacantly at a sliver of moonlight that has strayed through his curtains and dared to cast its pale light across the floor. A sudden weight pressing into the mattress beside Lucio draws him from his haze. Thinking perhaps Nadia had crept into the room, Lucio turns to face her, but in the turbid darkness, all he can see is a shadowy figure staring down at him from where they sit. Eyes bore into him, a dull red glow emanating from their sockets. Lucio feels his limbs seize as he gapes back at the unsettlingly familiar figure, frozen in fear.
“L-l-lucio?” a choked voice sounds, straining desperately to speak with a voice box long burnt away. The figure dissolves into a terrible coughing fit, dispelling smoke from their lungs, filling the room with the putrid scent of burning flesh.
“It’s dark,” the familiar voice whimpers when they get a hold of themselves, “It’s so dark and I’m- I’m so cold, Lucio.”
Lucio clenches, rigid and limp all at once, watching in horror as fingers tipped in blood-red reach out to gently caress his cheek.
“You’ll be with me soon,” the voice of the Apprentice coos, chilly fingertips dragging softly along his jaw, “You deserve it.”
For a moment, Lucio welcomes their familiar caress. For a singular moment, Lucio is reminded of their warmth, their brightness, their affection. He loses himself to the memory, the joy, before he is wrenched back to reality when the grasp on his jaw suddenly tightens. The Apprentice clutches Lucio’s jaw iron tight and roughly turns his head to face them. Nails dig into his skin as the Count desperately tries to yank their hand away. But this only strengthens their grasp.
“You’ll burn just like I did,” a distorted voice hisses before bursting into flames, a blood-curdling shriek echoing through the room. The lick of flames sends Lucio scrambling out of bed, twisting in his sheets and falling unceremoniously to the floor beneath. He lies shivering on the ground for the remainder of the night, eyes squeezed shut and heart racing. Bruise marks in the shape of fingernails litter his jawline the following morning. Lucio does not sleep for nearly a week following this incident.
Since that visit, his visions of the Apprentice have been of a similar vein and increasing in frequency. He’s learned to bury himself under the covers and wait for things to pass. Their fingers are insistent, shoving underneath any crack in Lucio’s fort of sheets. They try to drag him out of his shelter, but he refuses. Their cries of agony and sorrow shatter the last of Lucio’s composure. He wails alongside them.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he weeps, struggling to breathe, sucking in shuddering breath after shuddering breath when the moment passes.
Lucio tries locking his door, sleeping on the ottoman in his bathroom, staying up for as long as his tired eyes will allow. Nothing seems to matter, however. He is visited regardless. Lucio has learned to sense when he might receive his unwanted guest. A cavernous feeling in his room precedes his otherworldly visitor. A sinking feeling in his chest tells him they are near. Smoke, sickly sweet, floods his nose.
Tonight, the vacuous sensation in his chambers is as strong as ever. He lays motionless, hoping that if he stays still enough, the Apprentice will lose interest or might not materialize at all. He clutches his bedsheets so tight, his fingernails rip tiny holes in them. He has had enough of this. The exhaustion, the fear, the pain. He can’t think straight. He hardly knows left from right anymore. And the acidic anxiety building in his stomach threatens to liquify his insides. Something must be done.
A weight on his mattress, insistent fingers pushing underneath his sheets.
“Lucio,” whispered in a familiar voice. Lucio prepares himself to throw off his covers, to grasp the wrist of this apparition, and curse it back to whatever hellish realm it came from. But just as he is about to enact his plan, there is a prickling sensation at his toes. Heat spreads at the bottom of his bed, climbing up his sheets before he has time to do anything about it. When he lifts the covers from his eyes, fire rips through the room. His paintings smolder, his furniture crackles under the blazing heat. All the air is sucked out of his lungs and he is left sputtering for breath. Amongst the chaos stands a figure, eyes glowering and fingers stained red. The Apprentice smiles softly at him.
“You’ve brought this on yourself,” they whisper before a bloom of flame engulfs them.
Lucio jolts awake, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, panting hard. He glances frantically around, in search of any hint of smoke or fire. He finds none, his bedroom perfectly cool and intact. Despite this grateful discovery, Lucio is left utterly shaken, heart beating in his throat and hands trembling. There is no sign of the Apprentice anywhere, much to his relief.
Gritting his teeth, willing himself not to shed anymore tears, Lucio throws back his sheets and pulls on his robe. Enough is enough. Too long has he allowed the shadows of his past to rule him. Too long has he wallowed in misery, piteous and weak. He is Count Lucio, Light of Vesuvia, and he will not be felled by illness or grief.
Still not of sound mind, fueled by a resolve born of fury and fear, Lucio wrenches his bedroom doors open and storms down the hallway. It is mid-morning, the sun streaming brightly through the palace windows. The halls are busy with the usual morning activity- servants replacing dying flowers in their vases, physicians milling about. Lucio barrels through a gaggle of attendants and ignores the worried calls of Nadia trailing after him down the corridors. When he reaches his study, he slams the double doors shut behind him, locking himself within. A fire is already lit in the hearth, illuminating Lucio’s patient guest. The Devil’s horns cast strange shadows on the ground as he swivels his head to greet the Count.
“Welcome back, your Highness,” he mockingly drawls, a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips, “You’re looking- well, not quite like your usual, robust self.”
Lucio gives a hateful huff, ignoring this snide commentary as he plops down in the chair opposite the goatman. His gaze is piercing as he meets the black eyes of the Devil.
“I did what you asked,” Lucio begins, “What now?”