Work Text:
It was around a cold, cold winter night around 2014 where the Author had captured another victim for his story: a young woman, she didn’t really have any discernible qualities aside from her long hair. Mid thirties, bit of a parrot, not cooperative at all, the whole sh-bang. But she did something many didn’t. While she didn’t cooperate, what she did instead conflicted him: she psychoanalyzed the hell out of him, right off the bat spewing crazy theories as to why he did what he did, why she was there in the first place and how this was even possible yadda yadda. About 2 hours into the storymaking she had an epiphany: she asked, “If you’re an Author, and your precious “characters” never follow your orders, are you really the author when we’re just living in the world you created? I mean, c’mon man. If you’re gonna be like this your entire life might as well choose a better title, y’know.”
The Author paused. He never… he never thought of it that way. Was he really the author? He created the worlds, the plots, the drama, but the characters were never his own creation. He couldn’t create characters, that’s why he snatched- cooperated with others to create stories. His whole world had shifted, what he’d thought his entire life –no, what he’d thought his entire existence was had changed, he was never the author, he was merely hosting others in his own fantasies, making them real through his gift. He’d never been the author, the man he thought he was was never real, just like his stories.
The Author was in pure, mental agony. He had a massive breakdown and immediately killed off his character– no, no! His guest. He had turned to violence, tearing the place apart wall to wall, tearing his books, his best sellers, his pages to shreds, his entire lifes work. He couldn’t bear the thought, the realization, the reality he was pushed into, he couldn’t bear to even look at his work. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? His home, his shack, it was covered in his life's work. He’d had pages along every surface, piles upon piles of books on the floors, tables, chairs even! He was surrounded by what he’d thought gave him purpose, a purpose now gone.
He was in such anguish, in so much pain that he couldn’t stand it any longer, he couldn’t look, wouldn’t. And so, he tore off his eyes with his bare hands. Growling and howling like a dying animal.
As his body hit the wooden floorboards of his home, he bled to death alone, on a cold, cold winter night with no one by his side.
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It was only about a day or two of Dr. Iplier not receiving any messages or phone calls from the Author that he started to worry. Author was one clingy man, a day or two gone by silent wasn’t out of the ordinary, after all he was a busy man! But not even a call? Or, a surprise visit after dark? Dr. Iplier hurried over to his shack, no matter how scary and frightening the forest was to him.
And out of all the speculations he’d conjured up in his head on the way there, he never in a million years thought he’d be staring at the weak, nearly decaying body of the man he loved.
He was… beyond heart broken. He gagged once he’d turned him around and realized that he was missing his eyes, just blank empty eye sockets staring back at him. They looked like his eyes had been scraped off with a fork or some sort of sharp weapon from how deep and cracked the wounds were on the inside, he was queasy and it took him a bit to regain his senses before jumping back to reality and taking him to the hospital.
—————
Of course, once the news of Authors –well he wouldn’t exactly call it death but the guy sure as hell wasn’t getting any more alive– state, they seemed almost relieved to have him put out of their misery, he could understand him being a bit of a jerk, a scumbag, weirdo, other mean sets of words, but at the end of the day he was beginning to change. He was so close to normalcy, he was… everything. And he was taken from him. He doesn’t know by who, or if it was even someone else, but… he just couldn’t look at him the same again. And he never did.
By the time the Author regained his senses, sort of, he’d adopted a new name– The Host. Dr. Iplier asked him, “The Host? But… Author, you’re– well, an author I don’t exactly see you being this year's host for the annual Christmas party”, he’d joked but the Author- Host, he reminded himself, just sort of had this blank expression to him. The Author's eyes had been so, so expressive, it was his one tell if he was really mad or just playing along. But now, he couldn’t even tell if he was the same man as before. A part of him knew that, that the man he loved was never coming back and that he was dead. But the grief in him just made him deny it, he knew the Author just had to be somewhere in there, right…?
As the years passed, the Host changed, and so did he. The Host now lived alongside the other egos, living in his own little corner in the lower levels of the mansion in some giant library, hosting a radio show where he’d narrate horror stories to his viewers. He’d gained the power of being able to see things in the future, narrating constantly his surroundings, peoples actions, thoughts, etcetera.
He never truly gained his relationship back with the man, the Host was entirely different from the Author. More, mature, wiser, less of an ass (but still one sarcastic jerk) and committed no crimes against humans. In a way, you could say he was the “bettered” pacifist version of Author.
He and the Host… they just couldn’t click. He wanted to, of course. And the Host knew exactly why as well, it was a little creepy that he could basically have an instant read of Dr. Iplier without him even saying a word, something the Host tried not to do, at least in front of others. While they remained friends, that sort of closeness, that bond that they had was not the same as the one he had with the Author. And as the years passed by…
He found, he didn't mind.