Virgil swallowed hard as the clanging of the cans outside the door grew louder and more frequent. The noise was almost frantic in its pace, and in a scant ten seconds the sounds had turned from the clanging of the rudimentary alarms outside their apartment's door to the sounds of banging and knocking. He clutched at the pistol in his hand and let out a calm and deliberate slow breath. He would not fail here. He would end it alongside his boyfriend. They'd kill this thing and then go out to find their friends. They had to. There was no other option. It was either that or fall prey to the fear and malevolence of this creature as well.

"Good luck, Cyg."

His boyfriend spared him a quick second for a kiss and then smiled at him.

"Yourself as well, V. Good luck."

The apartment door burst open, and immediately he fired off a full magazine into the doorway. Cygnus seemed to be doing something similar to Virgil, being rather liberal with just how many shots he was firing out of his rifle. By the time Cygnus had fired off his forth shot Virgil had his next magazine in the pistol and the gun ready to fire. Three rifle rounds didn't sound like much, but that was a good portion of the maximum number of rounds Cygnus would normally be willing to expend whilst out in the city. The fact that he had fired that many shots so soon was perhaps indicative of just how much the two of them wanted this creature dead.

The dust from the door cleared, and Virgil squinted a little through the murky haze. Why was there so much dust? And why was the dust so dark for that matter

"It's still up, Cyg."

He spluttered out the words almost as a realisation hit him, and at his boyfriend's questioning glance he explained what he had just worked out.

"It isn't dust in the doorway there, it's the same sort of shadowy-shield shit that it wears like I wear my fucking hoodie. It's still there, and if its shield-thing is up then I don't want to let up the pressure."

He barely caught a glimpse of his boyfriend nodding out of the corner of his eye before the man seemed to snap his rifle to a very particular point next to the door. He fired at the internal wall and there was a somewhat angry and somewhat annoyed screech. That didn't concern Virgil though. The bit that concerned him was that it was a screech in Lyla's voice.

The fucking thing was talking using their friend's voices.

For the briefest of moments Virgil saw red, but he made sure to quickly get himself under control. It was absolutely imperative that he kept his emotions under control here, for anger in too great a quantity could be just as debilitating as fear in a fight, especially one as charged and important as this. He had to keep a level head, no matter what this thing had done to his friends.

If it had done anything at all besides stash them away or whatever. Virgil hoped that was all that had happened. Cygnus had spoken his beliefs that the creature was curiously studying them, having likely never encountered anything with a level of cognition on a level similar to its own before, and as such had taken an interest in them. Virgil wasn't convinced, and had made his opinion on the whole thing clear. The creature might have been smarter than the usual, and it may even have only taken their friends as curiosities, but it would only be a matter of time before it either grew bored with them, grew too interested in them and tried to see what was inside them, or just end up neglecting their needs because this thing wasn't a fucking human and had no idea how they worked.

Cygnus had relented on that point and nodded after some deep thought. It wasn't an argument Virgil had particularly enjoyed winning.

"I have reason to believe you may be right, love." There was a sharp edge to his boyfriend's tone, no doubt a response to hearing Lyla's voice leave the creature's mouth. "Weapons ready, discharge on sight."

Virgil snorted.

"Trust me, you don't need to ask me to kill this fucker as soon as we see it. I've got more than a few rounds with its name on it. A few magazines, actually."

Cygnus laughed in response. It was a bravado-filled boisterous laugh, and though Virgil knew that actually meant his partner was just trying to cheer him up he smiled nonetheless. This monster had no idea how much pain it was in for tonight.

The strange monster let out another screech, this one sounding more like a challenge or a war cry than the previous pained exclamations. The creature wasn't playing games here; it had taken the rest of them after a definite and yet totally one-sided struggle, and now it was here for them as well. Virgil wasn't sure why this creature had waited an entire week for this, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't grateful for the extra prep time. This was the sort of scenario that they needed to be extremely fucking careful with, and where carefulness was concerned preparation time was greater than almost anything else.

Seeing a brief flutter of movement into the room he snapped his pistol up and fired twice. He was almost certain he'd hit with at least one of the shots, but the way that this creature moved made it more than a little difficult to discern exactly what it was that he was shooting at in the moment. In some strange way it was almost like punching smoke, though it did seem to have an at least marginal physical effect on the creature.

None of that changed the fact that it had managed to slip into the room with them. It wasn't difficult to see, not with how large and gangly the creature was, but it was definitely more than a little concerning to think about so conspicuous a creature could move so stealthily when it wished to.

"Cyg, it'd be good to get some more fire into this thing!"

"I'm inclined to agree. Firing!"

Thrice did his boyfriend pull the trigger, and twice did bullets find their mark on the creature's lanky frame. Virgil, understanding that just because this fucker was the toughest creature they'd faced it didn't mean they had any excuse to abandon their usual strategy, bolted away from the creature and into the living room. He squeezed the trigger again, shooting at the back of the creature, and then ducked himself down behind a couch. There was yet another strange screech, and Virgil poked his head up above the couch just long enough to see the creature lunge at his boyfriend who was still in the kitchen.

He watched as Cygnus all but threw himself to the floor and drew his pistol, the rifle having landed a foot or two away. With practiced accuracy and speed his boyfriend unloaded an entire clip into the monster's front, but it didn't seem to have done much. Virgil watched, almost dumbfounded and paralysed by a strange and foreign spike of fear, as the creature howled out a cry and scampered across the floor on all fours towards him.

As soon as it was on the carpeted floor of their living room it suddenly stopped and drew itself up to its full height. Virgil ducked back down behind the sofa and listened to the soft and almost inaudible footsteps of the creature on the carpet, then found himself utterly frozen as he looked up to see the unnaturally tall smile of the creature bent over the couch and staring directly at him.

"Why are you hiding?" It said in the voice of a wonderful and sweet young man. "Was your day good? Do you want to rest for a while?"

Virgil just stood there, stunned, as the creature parroted the words of Wesley in an almost perfect simulacrum of the boy's voice. This wasn't right. This wasn't right.

It seemed that his boyfriend had been having similar thoughts, for as soon as the words had left the creature's... well, Virgil wasn't really sure if he could say that the words came from the creature's mouth, since its mouth never seemed to move the whole time it 'spoke' and its teeth were plastered into a permanent grin, but regardless of the technicalities as soon as the words had left the creature's mouth Cygnus had seemingly been able to leap back to his own feet and unload however many rounds were left in his magazine into the creature's back. If Virgil was counting correctly that was five rounds, and of a rather large calibre as well. That was bound to have done some damage to the fucker.

Good. The only person allowed to speak in Wesley's voice was Wesley, not some rejected hot-topic mascot that had been stretched a little too much during its creation. Nothing was allowed to take their friends from them, and certainly nothing was allowed to mimic their voices to try and put the two of them on the back foot.

No-one hurt their friends and got away with it.

That was the guiding principle they'd all lived by after meeting each other and becoming friends, back before the disappearance of the world. None of them were particularly good at standing up for themselves, but they were all more than willing to stand up for each other. Actually Sterling had never really had a problem with standing up for himself, in fact his problem was more that he didn't really know how to back down, but the thought remained the same. No-one fucked with his friends, whether human or eldritch creature from his fucking fever dreams.

With the creature sufficiently distracted Virgil took this as a good time to shoot sharp and scarper. He quickly took aim at the creature's face hovering directly above him and fired before bolting backwards and away from the fucking thing. It seemed that he needn't have bothered however, for the creature had turned itself back around and was now almost entirely focused on Cygnus once more.

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In a blisteringly quick motion the shadowy figure was back across the room and in the kitchen, and despite the repeated 'crack' from the barrel of the rifle it seemed that the creature was undeterred. Most of the shots were going wide anyway, the creature's movements too swift and erratic for his boyfriend to accurately follow. With a loud thwack followed by a surprised 'oof' Virgil's boyfriend was sent hurtling out of the kitchen and into the living room, hitting his head on the wall. The man's teeth clicked together on impact, and Virgil bit back a wince as he rushed over to make sure his partner was okay. Well, as okay as he could be given the situation anyway.

"Cyg? You good?"

"Yeah, I'm alright. I just- I keep forgetting that the fear isn't real. That it isn't of my own mind. I keep forgetting I'm not supposed to be scared."

Virgil nodded and helped his boyfriend to his feet.

"Yeah, me too. Are you- Christ Cyg, that doesn't look good."

His boyfriend sucked in a few breaths through his teeth and leaned heavily on Virgil. With his other hand Cygnus all but plucked Virgil's pistol out of his hands and fired off another two shots in the creature's general direction, but neither of them were really that accurate.

"Fuck, the world's spinning V."

"Yeah, it fucking must be. Give me the pistol back and focus on getting yourself back together at the moment. I'll keep this fucker distracted."

The creature, for its part, had simply stared at them whilst this had occurred. Virgil wasn't exactly sure what to make of it, to be honest. The strange beast seemed to go from a cruel and terrible monster relishing in the hunt and the struggle one moment to a curious and almost bemused figure the next. It was as though they were fighting two creatures at once; there was a half of this monster that was intelligent and curious in an alien manner, and another half that was hardly any different from the rest of the monsters out there.

It was somehow the closest thing they'd encountered to a human in this new world not counting their friends, and yet it was also by far the most alien and strange thing they'd found at the same time. More alien than the other monsters they'd faced, more alien than the strange mass of tendrils and dripping blood they'd found in the zoo back when Virgil had just begun to follow Cyg on his supply-runs across the town, and somehow even more alien than the leviathans that remained impassively in place and oblivious to the world around them.

Whilst Virgil was lost in thought he barely registered the movement of his boyfriend across the room, the man darting towards his rifle. Virgil quickly fired off a succession of shots to draw the creature's attention away and allow his partner to get his hands on the more powerful weapon again, and as soon as Cygnus had got it the man began shouting at the creature once more.

"Come on, you bastard. Come on!"

Cygnus staggered forwards, rifle held almost limply in one hand. Virgil wanted to shout at him, to ask him what the fuck he was doing, but he was so dumbfounded at what his partner did next that he actually found himself unable to speak. Cygnus threw his arms open wide, as though inviting the monster to come closer.

The creature did not miss such an invitation, and in a span of moments Cygnus was being held by his neck as the creature drew him slightly closer. The thing was... the thing was examining him. It's unmoving mouth didn't speak, nor did the creature screech or holler in its victory, in fact it didn't... it didn't even really move. Save drawing Cygnus closer to it the creature didn't really move.

Of course, the relative lull in activity didn't last that long. Virgil watched as his boyfriend slowly, minutely, repositioned his grip on the rifle with his right hand. The left arm came up to clutch at the shadowy limp grasping at his throat, but his right arm began to shift slightly. The rifle came up just a touch, Cygnus let out a small grin of pleasure in knowing that he'd got one over on the creature, and the sound of a rifle firing rang out throughout the room.

The creature thrashed and writhed in pain, never letting go of Cygnus save only to bat the rifle out of his hands and smash it on the floor before taking a firmer grasp on the still grinning man. Virgil looked at where the creature had been shot, and couldn't help but grin a little himself at the thought that Cygnus might have done some damage to this fucking thing. He couldn't actually see the spot it had been shot at properly, but he knew there must have been some sort of damage there.

Still, the grin faded immediately when reality set back in. The creature was still up, it had his boyfriend in its grasp, and until Cygnus could wriggle free there was really nothing Virgil could do to keep the pressure on the beast. Not without risking a shot at his partner anyway, and that sure as shit wasn't going to happen anytime soon. He couldn't help but find this weird though, and by weird he meant weird even for the likes of these strange creatures. It had attempted to injure them, yes, but so far the only real attempts at injury had seemed more likely to knock them out than kill them. The fucking thing had injured Cygnus, yes, but that had been relegated to some bruising on the back and getting the breath knocked out of him, not anything fatal.

Well, the headache his partner must have been sporting from hitting the wall was likely to feel like it was killing him, but that was about it.

"Cyg, get the fuck free, I can't shoot it unless you move. Please Cyg, I can't shoot it if you're there, I can't let myself endanger you."

The creature, as if understanding what was being said, whipped around and held Cygnus between itself and Virgil. That was a cruel fucking move on the part of fate, and Virgil wouldn't have anyone tell him otherwise. Cygnus just smiled at him reassuringly, as if having accepted that he'd lost, and Virgil desperately pleaded with his partner to try and fight and get out of the grip he was being held in so he could shoot the fucking thing.

"Cyg, please, don't give up. We can still do this."

"Give up? Whoever said anything about giving up? We can't do this Virgil, but you can. I know you can. Don't worry, dear. We'll see each other soon, I promise. And I always keep my promises"

The creature groaned out something or other in an almost human voice, but whatever it wanted to say it seemed unable to articulate. After a moment it settled on a deafening screech, and then it turned to flee.

Cygnus gave him one last look before he was carried off, a look filled with so much love and admiration and respect that Virgil knew the man truly had complete and total faith in him. Virgil opened his mouth to scream in protest at what was happening, but his voice was frozen in his throat. Cygnus just smiled at him once more before closing his eyes.

"Good luck, love. I'll see you soon."

----------------------------------------

Virgil just stood and stared at the spot where the creature had been. Where his boyfriend had been. He didn't know how long it was that he stood there, staring. Minutes? Hours? He didn't know. He could practically hear the rushing of blood in his ears, the shaking and heavy breaths he took as he attempted to hold himself together, the

And then he screamed.

He screamed and he raged, shouting and ranting to the empty apartment. This wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. This just- he-

"IT'S NOT FUCKING FAIR!" He screamed, barely even registering how badly his voice was cracking. "IT'S NOT FUCKING-"

He picked up one of the two mugs that had been on the table and hurled it at the wall.

"-FAIR!"

He slumped to his knees on the kitchen floor and continued breathing heavily, though for how long he couldn't say. He cried to himself the whole time, making no effort to even begin trying to stop the seemingly endless flow of tears. He couldn't move from down there on the floor no matter how much he tried, his limbs refusing to obey his trembling mind's commands. He was in no position to do anything bar attempt to begin processing the events of the day. What had they done wrong? What could he and Cygnus have missed, have forgotten, that could have resulted in so terrible a series of events? They'd set the alarms, they'd ensured the door was barred, they'd been up and ready with their weapons and paid no heed to the amount of ammunition they'd burned through in their attempt to fell the beast.

They'd done everything right. He'd done everything right.

A moment later and his pistol went flying across the room with a frustrated shout, unsure as to exactly when he'd gotten back onto his feet and not really caring either. This wasn't how everything was supposed to have gone. The two of them were supposed to kill the fucking thing and be done with this all, then head on out into the town to find their friends. This wasn't supposed to have happened.

But it had happened. It had happened, and this was real.

But Virgil was still here. He was still standing. What was left to do but carry on? Not carry on like normal, or at least as normal as the world had allowed them all to be this last... seven? Eight? This last half-and-a-bit of a year. He couldn't go on normally, not even as normally as things had been since the world had disappeared, but he could go on nonetheless. Not for very long mind you, for he had no doubt that he'd not make it far alone, but he was alive. And if he was alive then he could start trying to do something about this situation.

He wasn't exactly in a state of mind that was conductive to thinking at the moment, and he knew it. He wasn't going to try and strategise for his next steps, or to try and make runs in town to stores and the like. No, he was going to rage until the worst of his anger was burnt out and then start trying to clean up the flat a little. There were bullet holes in the walls from where gunshots had missed their mark, some slightly larger than others. He supposed that Cygnus must have aimed poorly or too quickly for one or two shots as well, but some of those bullet marks were from the week prior when the others had been taken. Virgil was certain that he'd be able to work out which ones were which from some identifying markers or whatever if he was someone who had those sorts of skills, but he didn't. He also didn't have the skills to plaster over the aforementioned holes, so he wasn't going to be able to busy himself with that.

What he could do was mop the blood up off of the floor and walls, clear away the shards of the broken mug, and start picking up the shell casings that littered the floor. It wouldn't be fun to do, but it would give him something to occupy himself with in the short term.

There was something he saw that did interest him as he inspected the room in the aftermath of the fight, however. Though he'd missed it before now, not really having had the luxury of stopping to check what every little splash of colour was, when he looked near the doorway that marked the entrance to the apartment he saw the stain of red by the door. Not the red of human blood, but a congealed and darker colour. The howl. That made sense now. They had damaged it. They'd made it bleed.

And creatures didn't heal.

Virgil picked his pistol up off of the floor and gave it a once-over. He'd need to thoroughly clean and check it to make sure he hadn't damaged it when he threw it at the wall, but it all felt alright in his hand. He wasn't sure if he was still crying or not to be honest, but he didn't care anymore. This thing had come for their little group on the same day the last two weeks. It had taken his family, and now it had taken his partner. It would be here to take him as well next week, he knew it. It would come for him.

But this time, when it had come for both him and Cygnus, they'd been able to make it bleed.

And if they were able to make it bleed then... well, surely it must have been killable, right?

He didn't know where his friends were, he didn't know where this creature was taking them, and for that matter he had no way of knowing if any of the family he had found over the last few years were even still alive.

But what he did know was that the monster would be coming here for him soon enough, and if it was bleeding then it wasn't invincible.

If it bled, then it was mortal. And that was all he needed to know.