Work Text:
The time, he remembered: 2 a.m.
The pesky excuse, he remembered: he wanted to go grab a midnight snack and “didn’t want to go alone”.
The weapon, he remembered: a knife he randomly grabbed from their kitchen and prayed it worked.
The reason behind this, however, he does not remember. Or at least, have a foggy recollection of.
The knife pierces through his brother’s chest as blood continues to flow out from the core of the heart for minutes. They were in a dark alley at the brink of night; no one would notice. He looked at his bloody hands stained in red, clearly guilty for the murder.
They had everything any Inphernal could wish for: fame, fortune, friends and fans. They were living the damn dream life of idols. So why were they here, in a corner of a stinking rotten alley with the corpse of one of the brothers?
The yellow horned demon fell to the ground. He wanted to cry, scream, laugh. Anything a maniac with a weapon would do. But part of him is still conscious: do not alert the city. The murder assault must go to plan. Tears streamed down his blood streaked face as his throat closed up, ready to choke him to death. His breath hiccuped with every passing second.
For a moment. He felt himself zoning out. His mind raced from memory to memory spent with the purple demon. They were so young, innocent, having to withstand and witness a progress of divorce between their parents. His brother suffered the most, with a wing and eye gone. He was emotionally hurt by this, and promised to keep him safe ever since.
“You really promise Mic…?”
“I do.”
Over and over, Valk felt like he broke that promise. When he felt like that, Dom was always there to comfort him. If not, one of his close friends or family. However, now he had really crossed the line. No one was there to comfort him. Not Boombox, not Firebrand, not Umbrella, not Dom. Especially not Dom, when the corpse of the purple horned demon is laying right in front of him.
His brother left a face with a stroke of horror bleeding on it. Eyes dead and wide open, pupils no longer glimmering the kind sparkles that used to be in his gaze. Mouth all choked up with blood oozing out and trailing down the left cheek. The lavender hoodie he wore now was tainted in red that mixed together into a horrid combination of colors that Valk wanted to vomit just looking at it.
Valk’s head began to start playing with him. This is it , he thought for a moment. This is when I’m gonna go crazy. Hallucinations began to consume him. He felt like his brother turned his head, just for a moment, to face Valk.
“ Why? ” That was the only thing that came out of the purple demon’s blood filled mouth. “ Why? ”
Why this, why that, why good ol’ shortie Valk here is going to spiral into a vertigo!
He didn’t know. He didn’t know. He wanted to say I’m sorry, I love you. But the word of love was already so twisted and tainted that it could simply place a drop of poison on his tongue and burn it to smithereens. He felt like he was dangling above a volcano, ready to be dipped into the lava and distort his body until his face is unrecognizable.
He didn’t even know why he’s here. What is he doing here. Why is he doing this. Has he really gone insane and mentally ill? Or is he doing this out of fear that he no longer has the willpower to protect his brother and will be overwhelmed with guilt if he doesn’t know that Dom will be safe? …Probably the latter. Maybe it’s the thought that he’d be safer in the afterlife, where no one could hurt him. Not even his own brother can hurt him.
As much as guilt swept over his body like a tsunami, there was a wave of relief afterwards. The idea that Dom will finally be safe. It calms him in the most twisted way possible.
Yet, without someone to comfort him and stay by his side, Valk didn’t want to keep running Flipside alone either. The point of Flipside was to perform shows together with his dear brother. Without his other half, his life is… basically useless.
And then, suddenly, he could feel himself as Microphone again. He no longer has to cling onto that cursed stage name forever. And in front of him was no longer Dom, but young Megaphone, whose soul is now resting peacefully in the heavens above.
There was no use to continue basking in the pride of fame alone. They were free from their shackles of fan expectations. And yet, expectations from their family still awaited. The world was still waiting for his next move. Unless…
Unless…
…
.
Microphone didn’t intend to continue living either. If Megaphone dies, so will he. In other words, it’s an unsaid death pact between the two. Besides, his own hands were the ones responsible for the deed, it’s only right to pay for the death by sending a personal compulsory death sentence to yourself right?
Right?
He yanked the knife out of Megaphone’s chest, tissues of his circulatory system organ plastered onto the knife. Mic planned to make this quick. A fast strike to the throat to silence his death, and if he doesn’t die within 5 seconds of that, he aims for the chest. As he looked over to Megaphone, he sighed for a moment, hands still trembling.
With very shaky hands, he took the blood from the blood puddle that formed under the corpse and began shakily writing on the gravel as if the blood was paint.
I’m sorry.
As he readied himself and braces for the knife, he looked at his long gone brother one last time. “Save me a seat up there,” he whispered. “Or maybe visit me in hell. I’ll say this while I still can. Thanks for being my brother. I- I tried my best to protect you…
Love you.”
x_x
Internet across the Inpherno exploded with viral news, the now dead bodies found and uncovered. The Phights has been put onto an abrupt hiatus. Without the vocalist duo, there wasn’t a way to continue the Phights until someone stepped up to take their place.
Somehow, under the lights of Crossroads, the two escaped the sight of the deities, leaving the entire Inpherno with questions. Who killed them? Could this be a decision done on purpose? Why the hell was the weapon a singular kitchen knife? The only people who would know were the complimentary colored brothers, but they were already long gone by the time they were found in the alleyway.
News stations tried to get as much information as possible, however was met with locked doors from the youngsters’ grandfather, none other than Firebrand. Umbrella, the caretaker of the two, reported with no news either, and is already upset enough with the news they were brought to. The entire production team behind Flipside had no clue either. However, one of the members — Paint Buckét, the duo’s makeup artist — had released interesting intel: the chipper, sun-kissed boy of the two, had an injury on his wing, just a few months ago.
It lead to spiraling conspiracy theories of self harm or hatred towards each other that weren’t displayed to the public. Whatever it was, one thing was for sure: the two were now gone, and the whole world could only wish them a peaceful rest of eternality.
x_x
“You understand what you did was stubborn, did you not? You had a whole life still waiting to be spent, it wasn’t time yet.”
“I’m so sorry, I’m-“
“Hush child. I will have to return to your grandfather with news.”