insidemyrottenbrain

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Peripeteia - TSH

TW: sensitive topics, explicit content I have two things to specify about Peripeteia: it is written from Henry's point of view and it was inspired by "the master" lines from Vita Nova by Louise Glück. On another note, I feel this is an opportunate time to share my TikTok account: @ aionter. I do post, rarely, but whose to say my fate cannot be altered? My reposts, however, are prominent and mostly informative with a few slip ups. Enjoy indulging in my writing.

Does peripeteia, that cruel rapture discontinuing and altering the string of fate, strike in one clear, definite moment, in a flash of divine, or does it seep into the fabric of time altering it with unforeseen fingers? If such a moment does exist, tell me, can I crawl my way back to the life before it, like the pitiful, pitiful man that I am? If I am truthful, my wish to return to the life before, or rather, more accurately, the perturbation of the current one, is what constitutes the reason for my continuous insomnia, migraines and above all my inability to function. Nothing that has worked as a cure before, or at least an amelioration, has succeeded in aiding me this time. I have tried every familiar remedy but to no avail. This unexpected and unfortunate failure left me with one dangerous, possible solution, one that requires me to put myself under a metaphysical scythe: a histoire, an accurate, mostly truthful, final attempt at understanding the basis of my condition, and respectively of them, the anomalous cause and singular symptom of it all.

Few people know what it means to be embarrassed by your flesh and blood, and even fewer acknowledge the genuineness of this unorthodox sentiment. It is often met with a certain disregard by people who believe it to be the depraved product of an unmeasurable arrogance, instead of the quiet, sombre and perhaps paralysing knowledge that it actually is: a phantom limb of a false connection. It is an unfortunate thing to be acquainted with alienation from a young age. It dissolves any security or sense of belonging and, as compensation, teaches yearning. However, humans, no matter how small, are adaptable beings and they can learn to deal with this longing, as well as with the half self-imposed isolation that inevitably follows. After all, when one is forced to live in exile, one grows fond of one’s cage.

I do not believe in luck, but I do believe I must have done something in another life or must have been born under the wrong star to find myself in this unfortunate category of people. My refuges are two: dead tongues and books (my first read was a children’s copy of Greek mythology procured from the school’s library which sits on my shelf to this day because I couldn’t make myself return it). The former was something which caught my attention later in my adolescence, at around thirteen if neither my memory nor my grey cells are playing tricks on me. This combination of passion and comfort, naturally, turned me towards the classics, and they, without much effort, became my obsession and defined my place in the universe. This mania turned me into somewhat of a monk, a fanatic not of saints but of mad philosophers, not of one inscrutable deity but of a pantheon of dead gods, not of scripture but of the eccentrics of ancient languages. 

Perhaps because of my childhood circumstances, existence still eludes me. It is something I endure rather than inhabit, tolerated like a prolonged fever dream, or the distant, teasing echo of a reality never meant for me. The exception is, of course, what keeps my world spinning, my mania, because everything else is boring and depraved of any sublime.

Throughout my childhood, I’ve often heard the phrase “everything in moderation” repeated by my excuse of a father every time he would catch my nose buried between dust-coated pages until the very words became a mechanical reflex on his lips. Soon followed my books falling all around me on the floor, sometimes even losing their track and deviating towards the open window. I imagine his actions came from his wish that one day I might take over his company, and his firm belief that reading was not something his son should be doing in order to prepare for the task. Nevertheless, that did not stop me from gathering the wet, torn or bent books, and nursing them back to health, only for them to be destroyed once again and for me to mend them until the paper gave out. I never once considered that the phrase he kept muttering might have a seed of truth in it until my devotion towards my studies started to abate. The routine, which to avoid being dramatic was my whole life, had transformed itself into something mundane, devoid of meaning. I knew it was only a matter of time before my knowledge would start to seem too garish until the absolute classics started diminishing. 

The Bacchanal should have stayed what it was meant to be: a precautionary measure designed to halt the growing dullness. Instead, it mutated into a beast far beyond my grasp, an uncontrollable surge of madness that I could neither restrain nor surrender. Alas, I could not let the sublime fade, that was simply out of the discussion. What exactly happened during the ritual I’m afraid I cannot tell with the highest of accuracies, not because I don’t want to, but rather because the numerous places in which the action unfolds have mixed together into a blur of motion without a definite start or end. The sequence of that night had long ago dissolved into a fevered, disjointed nightmare. What I do know is that I followed the guidelines left by Romans: become a vessel of ecstatic torment, feast as if the gods themselves demanded it, and indulge in carnal debauchery until the line between pleasure and agony vanished. 

Anything else that had happened that night did so under the influence of divine madness and at the will of Bacchus. I was not the sole host of my mind when I was running through the woods in the form of a wolf, or at least something similar. I was not myself anymore but rather the most primal version of me, intelligence but without the shackles of civilization. The trees were nothing but a blur of fading lines slowly losing themselves in my peripheral vision. I felt nothing of the twigs and branches that clawed at my limbs, or the penetrating cold that should have stung the cells of my bare skin. I knew I had been blessed. 

That is when I first saw her, one half of them. She was surreal, I remember my instincts telling me, with a glowing aura amplified by her long blonde, almost white hair that taunted me through the darkness of the woods, like blinking stars in an otherwise black desert of void. How could I not follow, when she begged me and my animal self roared in abandon? My vision was focused on her, for she seemed to shine brighter than the moon as if she had eaten it and its luminesce. I chased her for what else should I have done, when she with her skin, an eerie hue of bruised violet and spectral white dress, too short to cover her vulnerable knees, was the only clear thing in my sight? I do not remember the exact amount of time until she slowly found her way inside a lake, each careful step a silent dare, a provocation aimed at me as she succumbed to the darkness.

The forest was without life, but she, oh, she at that moment in the breathing lake she promised to fill my yearning. I had to follow, didn’t I? I wanted to keep her, to ingest her very essence. Into the lake she melted, a liquid tomb swallowing her whole, and I dove. I searched the cold depths with my hands for her like a madman clung to sanity. Then, in the faint serpentine streaks of moonlight that slithered into the water, I saw my limbs darkening towards decay. I reached, curious, unaware with one purple-blue finger towards my other hand only to watch the flesh disintegrate into nothingness, unveiling the smooth, indifferent bone beneath without a single drop of blood. I was rotting. When I opened my mouth to scream, he, the other half of the strange duality, interrupted me. He shoved me down with brutal insistence, my head colliding against the jagged bottom. I remember his white hands, far paler than hers, tightening around my neck and squeezing as if deriving pleasure from my humanless state. His face remained a statue as I struggled, my hands desperately attempting to remove his, to escape his grip but above all his dead, dark eyes. 

I did not care much for drowning at that moment, in fact, I did not care for anything but the delirious rage that made me want to rip out his vision, to shatter his illusion of dominance. I reached out and drove my thumbs into his eyes. With every centimetre I pushed deeper, his eyes gushed out liquid punctuated by a crackling pop.

I do not know the moment when I returned to reality. The only logical theory is that I gradually regained my senses and my consciousness, but nevertheless, I found it strange to see that I am alive and unrotten. 

I have a bad habit of avoiding anything that scares me. And so naturally, when they started reappearing at first as quivering, indistinct shapes and then as unmistakable figures standing in the distance, I decided to convince myself that I was not seeing anything, that it was nothing but a post-traumatic hallucination. Despite my deep-rooted fear, my interest in them grew when I realised they work together towards a common goal. She is the siren, and he the restless weapon, both meant to end me. And perversely, as time passes I find my yearning for her intensifying and a strange curiosity forming for him. Even now, as he is standing twenty meters from my window, watching me, unmoving in the blizzard, I can make out his pure black eyes which along with her blinding blonde crown have etched themselves into my memory for an indefinite amount of time.

Having put the events onto paper as truthfully as I could, I now come to realise that there is one way to reverse my peripeteia: to severe myself with my own hand. Judge me if you will but obsession, no matter how identically raw and consuming it may feel settling inside us, is never truly the same as another’s. It is a rational, simple, final move in their deranged game. The most devoted souls are indeed the ones devoured by their own madness.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

You’re incredible at portraying Henry!! I’d love to know why you’ve chosen to write about him specifically? Looking forward to your next post :)

To be truthful, I read The Secret History years ago and I cannot say I have a very explicit recollection of its events or characters. Nevertheless, writing him comes rather naturally. I think this is not despite, but because of how vague he is in the book. I remember him being rigid and reserved, with an elusive backstory, but with the occasional hint of an intuitive wittiness. This is what the book and my memory offer of him, so we, as readers, tend to fill in the gaps that remain. I choose to complete them with bits of me.

My portrayal of Henry is, amusingly, more I than is Henry. When writing, the most frequent question is “What would you, A, do?”. So, in truth and in spirit, these “fanfictions” are my attempts at understanding myself. Similarly to Henry, I am rather distant and detached, so writing, and respectively, this anonymous blog is my way of discovering and expressing my inner world. That is not to say I do not have other pieces of creative writing unrelated to The Secret History that aid me in my quest for self-fulfilment and expression. They are just more intimate and raw, they require a certain vulnerability in contrast to when I “hide” behind a fictional character, and thus require more effort and energy for me to bring them to an end. “But, A,” you’d exclaim “if you do not want to showcase yourself on a silver platter for others to pick and probe at then why have this blog?” The answer is rather simple: feedback. I wanted some kind of confirmation that my writing is decent, as well as the chance of being offered suggestions and improving in their wake. Going to professors with my pieces felt too trusting (not the exact word I am looking for, perhaps something mixed with fear or embarrassment would work better), therefore my next best choice, which gave me the gift of anonymity, was this. This is the most comprehensive answer I can give to your question.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Peripeteia - TSH

TW: sensitive topics, explicit content I have two things to specify about Peripeteia: it is written from Henry's point of view and it was inspired by "the master" lines from Vita Nova by Louise Glück. On another note, I feel this is an opportunate time to share my TikTok account: @ aionter. I do post, rarely, but whose to say my fate cannot be altered? My reposts, however, are prominent and mostly informative with a few slip ups. Enjoy indulging in my writing.

Does peripeteia, that cruel rapture discontinuing and altering the string of fate, strike in one clear, definite moment, in a flash of divine, or does it seep into the fabric of time altering it with unforeseen fingers? If such a moment does exist, tell me, can I crawl my way back to the life before it, like the pitiful, pitiful man that I am? If I am truthful, my wish to return to the life before, or rather, more accurately, the perturbation of the current one, is what constitutes the reason for my continuous insomnia, migraines and above all my inability to function. Nothing that has worked as a cure before, or at least an amelioration, has succeeded in aiding me this time. I have tried every familiar remedy but to no avail. This unexpected and unfortunate failure left me with one dangerous, possible solution, one that requires me to put myself under a metaphysical scythe: a histoire, an accurate, mostly truthful, final attempt at understanding the basis of my condition, and respectively of them, the anomalous cause and singular symptom of it all.

Few people know what it means to be embarrassed by your flesh and blood, and even fewer acknowledge the genuineness of this unorthodox sentiment. It is often met with a certain disregard by people who believe it to be the depraved product of an unmeasurable arrogance, instead of the quiet, sombre and perhaps paralysing knowledge that it actually is: a phantom limb of a false connection. It is an unfortunate thing to be acquainted with alienation from a young age. It dissolves any security or sense of belonging and, as compensation, teaches yearning. However, humans, no matter how small, are adaptable beings and they can learn to deal with this longing, as well as with the half self-imposed isolation that inevitably follows. After all, when one is forced to live in exile, one grows fond of one’s cage.

I do not believe in luck, but I do believe I must have done something in another life or must have been born under the wrong star to find myself in this unfortunate category of people. My refuges are two: dead tongues and books (my first read was a children’s copy of Greek mythology procured from the school’s library which sits on my shelf to this day because I couldn’t make myself return it). The former was something which caught my attention later in my adolescence, at around thirteen if neither my memory nor my grey cells are playing tricks on me. This combination of passion and comfort, naturally, turned me towards the classics, and they, without much effort, became my obsession and defined my place in the universe. This mania turned me into somewhat of a monk, a fanatic not of saints but of mad philosophers, not of one inscrutable deity but of a pantheon of dead gods, not of scripture but of the eccentrics of ancient languages. 

Perhaps because of my childhood circumstances, existence still eludes me. It is something I endure rather than inhabit, tolerated like a prolonged fever dream, or the distant, teasing echo of a reality never meant for me. The exception is, of course, what keeps my world spinning, my mania, because everything else is boring and depraved of any sublime.

Throughout my childhood, I’ve often heard the phrase “everything in moderation” repeated by my excuse of a father every time he would catch my nose buried between dust-coated pages until the very words became a mechanical reflex on his lips. Soon followed my books falling all around me on the floor, sometimes even losing their track and deviating towards the open window. I imagine his actions came from his wish that one day I might take over his company, and his firm belief that reading was not something his son should be doing in order to prepare for the task. Nevertheless, that did not stop me from gathering the wet, torn or bent books, and nursing them back to health, only for them to be destroyed once again and for me to mend them until the paper gave out. I never once considered that the phrase he kept muttering might have a seed of truth in it until my devotion towards my studies started to abate. The routine, which to avoid being dramatic was my whole life, had transformed itself into something mundane, devoid of meaning. I knew it was only a matter of time before my knowledge would start to seem too garish until the absolute classics started diminishing. 

The Bacchanal should have stayed what it was meant to be: a precautionary measure designed to halt the growing dullness. Instead, it mutated into a beast far beyond my grasp, an uncontrollable surge of madness that I could neither restrain nor surrender. Alas, I could not let the sublime fade, that was simply out of the discussion. What exactly happened during the ritual I’m afraid I cannot tell with the highest of accuracies, not because I don’t want to, but rather because the numerous places in which the action unfolds have mixed together into a blur of motion without a definite start or end. The sequence of that night had long ago dissolved into a fevered, disjointed nightmare. What I do know is that I followed the guidelines left by Romans: become a vessel of ecstatic torment, feast as if the gods themselves demanded it, and indulge in carnal debauchery until the line between pleasure and agony vanished. 

Anything else that had happened that night did so under the influence of divine madness and at the will of Bacchus. I was not the sole host of my mind when I was running through the woods in the form of a wolf, or at least something similar. I was not myself anymore but rather the most primal version of me, intelligence but without the shackles of civilization. The trees were nothing but a blur of fading lines slowly losing themselves in my peripheral vision. I felt nothing of the twigs and branches that clawed at my limbs, or the penetrating cold that should have stung the cells of my bare skin. I knew I had been blessed. 

That is when I first saw her, one half of them. She was surreal, I remember my instincts telling me, with a glowing aura amplified by her long blonde, almost white hair that taunted me through the darkness of the woods, like blinking stars in an otherwise black desert of void. How could I not follow, when she begged me and my animal self roared in abandon? My vision was focused on her, for she seemed to shine brighter than the moon as if she had eaten it and its luminesce. I chased her for what else should I have done, when she with her skin, an eerie hue of bruised violet and spectral white dress, too short to cover her vulnerable knees, was the only clear thing in my sight? I do not remember the exact amount of time until she slowly found her way inside a lake, each careful step a silent dare, a provocation aimed at me as she succumbed to the darkness.

The forest was without life, but she, oh, she at that moment in the breathing lake she promised to fill my yearning. I had to follow, didn’t I? I wanted to keep her, to ingest her very essence. Into the lake she melted, a liquid tomb swallowing her whole, and I dove. I searched the cold depths with my hands for her like a madman clung to sanity. Then, in the faint serpentine streaks of moonlight that slithered into the water, I saw my limbs darkening towards decay. I reached, curious, unaware with one purple-blue finger towards my other hand only to watch the flesh disintegrate into nothingness, unveiling the smooth, indifferent bone beneath without a single drop of blood. I was rotting. When I opened my mouth to scream, he, the other half of the strange duality, interrupted me. He shoved me down with brutal insistence, my head colliding against the jagged bottom. I remember his white hands, far paler than hers, tightening around my neck and squeezing as if deriving pleasure from my humanless state. His face remained a statue as I struggled, my hands desperately attempting to remove his, to escape his grip but above all his dead, dark eyes. 

I did not care much for drowning at that moment, in fact, I did not care for anything but the delirious rage that made me want to rip out his vision, to shatter his illusion of dominance. I reached out and drove my thumbs into his eyes. With every centimetre I pushed deeper, his eyes gushed out liquid punctuated by a crackling pop.

I do not know the moment when I returned to reality. The only logical theory is that I gradually regained my senses and my consciousness, but nevertheless, I found it strange to see that I am alive and unrotten. 

I have a bad habit of avoiding anything that scares me. And so naturally, when they started reappearing at first as quivering, indistinct shapes and then as unmistakable figures standing in the distance, I decided to convince myself that I was not seeing anything, that it was nothing but a post-traumatic hallucination. Despite my deep-rooted fear, my interest in them grew when I realised they work together towards a common goal. She is the siren, and he the restless weapon, both meant to end me. And perversely, as time passes I find my yearning for her intensifying and a strange curiosity forming for him. Even now, as he is standing twenty meters from my window, watching me, unmoving in the blizzard, I can make out his pure black eyes which along with her blinding blonde crown have etched themselves into my memory for an indefinite amount of time.

Having put the events onto paper as truthfully as I could, I now come to realise that there is one way to reverse my peripeteia: to severe myself with my own hand. Judge me if you will but obsession, no matter how identically raw and consuming it may feel settling inside us, is never truly the same as another’s. It is a rational, simple, final move in their deranged game. The most devoted souls are indeed the ones devoured by their own madness.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

you fascinate me. we need more Henry content from you

Therefore, I am taking requests. Anything that runs raw and unfiltered through your mind. I am willing to philosophize, write essays, offer private feedback, as well as continue with creative writing. Requests don't necessarily have to be TSH related. Inspire me.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

considering how henry says “beauty is terror” i believe he does have a pain kink

I believe not. 

Terror does not necessarily implicate violence. It does, however, by definition, require an exaggerated amount of fear. Terror comes from incoherent and inconsistent thoughts, from forgotten annotations in books which should not have been lent, from the persistent hope that the same air will be shared. Moreover, this tachycardia-causing emotion can not only be obtained from the mundane, but also from the trustane. This includes but is not limited to skin caressing skin, beat-mimicking real rhythm and the dooming knowledge that my inner self will at some point in this lifetime, be known so deeply and grasped so unexpectedly that it will have no shadow to spare it from the light that will unfortunately engulf me. And yet, despite reducing me to terror and sentiments alike, I crave it not because of but in spite of its beauty. I hope you now have a more throughout understanding of what the mentioned quote implies.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

I think I am insane

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Clamate auxilium - TSH (The Secret History)

TW: explicit content, questionable content

Your death leaves quite a toll on Henry and Camilla.

I encourage every willing pair of eyes that reads this to leave their thoughts, remarks and critiques under this post, be they one word or one hundred and one.

Hell is other people. When we are alone, we are absorbed in whatever is around us. In solitude, we all are (of course we are, because how could we not be?) an incorporeal omniscient presence that candidly studies humanity's mechanics undisturbed by reciprocal judgment. However, as soon as someone perceives us, we suddenly become the ones observed, and consequently, painfully aware of ourselves (the clench of the jaw, the body’s weight, the tongue between cheeks, the muscle strain). We get covered in labels, defined and thus limited. When painful death obeys fate, we lose all possibilities of changing how we look through another pair of empty eyes than our own. What we once were, the entirety of our souls and the darkest corridors get rendered into a misinterpreted, dehumanised fragment of other people’s minds. I am many things in Henry’s mind; hollow cheeks, cologne and smoke, long fingers turning yellowed pages, a melancholic existence and its absurd hands. Camilla, however, believes me to be rather imposing; long dark coats, cold forgotten coffee eyes, an untouchable paradox and its horrible mind. 

Immortality is humanity’s greatest wish. However, not flesh or rationality, but the absence, along with the longing, of their desire is this species’ most defining characteristic. I no longer am alive but I exist. I am deemed inhuman by the achievement of my desiderium through the unrequested aid of their minds.

You are curious, I am aware, about my death. However, you must realise that your curiosity is not reason enough for me to speak freely about such traumatising events. I suppose you are aware of Aristotle's definition of a tragic hero, yes? Ah, you’re not? Very well then, according to Aristotle, a tragic hero is “A person who must evoke a sense of pity and fear in the audience. He is considered a man of misfortune that comes to him through error of judgment.” There are a few characteristics one should keep in mind: ἁμαρτία (hamartia - sin, missed mark), a fatal flaw that causes the downfall of the hero, ύβρις (hubris - originally towards the gods), excessive pride and disrespect for the natural order of things, περιπέτεια (peripeteia - sudden change), the sudden reversal of fate that the hero experiences, ἀναγνώρισις (anagnorisis - recognition), a moment in time when the hero makes an important discovery, nέμεσις (nemesis - also the goddess who takes vengeance against those who show hubris), a punishment that the protagonist cannot avoid, usually occurring as a result of their hubris, and consequently, κάθαρσις (catharsis - purification, cleansing), feelings of pity and fear felt by the audience, for the inevitable downfall of the protagonist. While Aristotle’s characteristics are, indeed, a reliable guide in identifying and constructing a tragic hero, and respectively, a tragedy, some peculiarities might appear in certain texts and render the guide incomplete. I believe αἰών (aion - a period of existence, everlasting) should be added to the list, designating the extension of the hero’s punishment in a metaphysical form.

When can someone be declared dead? For the sake of the hypothesis, let us define death as the moment when someone or something ceases to exist. Does the exhaustion of the body, the death or the forgetting of the soul represent the beginning of eternal peace? I can rule out for you, living physical being, the exhaustion of the body, for I am quite sure I am not in the way that you are. Alas, our collaboration is of no use for if ever I were to find out, I would have ceased to be and thus unable to communicate, and if you were ever to find out your possibility of contacting me is nonsense. Everything is absurd and it tortures me when I know I am incapable of anything, nothing, expecthing, something, existhing, everything, deathing.

Henry and Camilla, of course, both attended the funeral. Camilla cries with the rest, she’s much more comfortable with emotional displays. Her mascara forms black rivers which shed on the upturned, disturbed earth that covers the casket. She is messy (indeed in a hypnotising way, the one in which girls usually are), but how could she not be? The previous night, she fell asleep sobbing quietly, her swan-like shoulders trembling. The pillow sheets smeared her makeup, but she, nevertheless, still laid her head on them. Over bumps ameliorated by elastic oscillations, she applied dust over dust, before the funereal in the aluminium mimic. What a storm of bows and angel white, what a deserved distinction. If I were to focus my all-knowing being on Henry, the story would go quite differently. The stoic is, as expected, unyielding. However, just as unexpected (due to the eye of the omniscient), his umbrella is (incredible, I almost would not have believed it) clenched in his pale hand! What a pitiful display of emotion from the cold season, wouldn’t you agree? He hopes I don’t, but I do know the ice in his eyes melted la veille au soir et aussi the exact number of tears that rolled over his dry cheek.

The word mourn traces its origins to the Proto-Indo-European root (s)mer-, which means to fall into thinking, to remember, to care for. Its sombre connotation likely stems from the natural link between memory (memoria-Latinae) and sorrowful experiences. Since memory and experience are deeply personal, one might assume that mourning, too, is uniquely individual. Yet this hypothesis falters when considering Henry and Camilla; two people, two pasts, two lives, two distinct memories, one irrevocably ensnared being (which is, assumingly, the reason for their similar past-time activities). They visited the grave, separately, each on their own; 4:12, 16:07, 00:01, 20:39, et cetera. “Et revertatur pulvis in terram suam unde erat et spiritus redeat ad Deum qui dedit illum” and so clothes shed on the grave. The dirt that covered the body stained them; Camilla’s inside, Henry’s outside. During the Bacchanal, her hair was red, but during the visits it was brown. I cannot imagine it must have been very pleasant for her, but she still tried and her lipstick stuck to stone. He was reluctant at first, he found the cold earth unwelcoming, but soon got used to it and found it bearable when his mind conjured the image of the dead. How he huffed and cried through his movements was so sad I wanted to give him a flower.

Your life is not only your own, death has more than one victim. It creates a paradox for those left behind, where change and routine coexist. Henry still brews two cups of coffee in the morning, irons the clothes that should have been picked up from his flat, and writes Julian’s assignments twice, placing one copy on the empty desk. Camilla is haunted by the absence of the scent which she inhaled with every chance, and fearing she might forget it, purchases a bottle. This unrelenting cycle is, of course, followed by the attempt at escapism. Inexorable fate makes them unconsciously aware of the invasion that urges them to tilt each other. Small, transitive comparisons morph into manipulations: similar enough hair, a habit adopted without question, the freckle forgotten. Their bodies reek of my remnants and it stirs them. What begins as unforgivable parallels turns into desperate symmetries. Every time they reach for me, their bodies meet, oblivious to the fact that I am. The illusion of the one who exists neither fully alive nor entirely gone becomes more alluring than any sin. Henry and Camilla murmur, groan and cry the two syllables that define an individual, and I do too, along with them, for I am here, wondering when I will be granted the mercy to draw my last eternal breath.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Letter to my.. - TSH

Henry Marchbanks Winter has been dead for 4 decades.

Inspired by "Letter to my mother" by Georges Simenon.

Tuesday, 12th of November 2024

Dear Henry,

There have been forty-four years since your death, or rather since the day you were proclaimed dead by the doctors at the mere age of twenty and one, and perhaps, it’s only now that I’m beginning to understand you.

Back then, in what I would like to believe was the defining apogee of our lives, we had been lost in a childish rivalry. Stolen toys, mine or yours? Hide and I’ll seek you until night falls; Hop, hop on the chalk-coloured squares, did you ever feel I’m there? Ineludible questions. A petulant game designed to assert superiority. It is comical that to this day, I’m unable to let go of the self-consuming primal need that demands to rise over you, and somehow by disregarding the rules of the Underworld, attempt again to show you that I am singularis sublimis. This spreads and stirs me like I have not been awakened since I last felt your presence. If I’m being completely honest with you, Henry, I’m not sure I can let go.  Alas, my limits are to be transcended in order to achieve my goal. I have theorised and concluded that if I truly wish to understand you I need to forget my ego and allow you to listen to my raw, unfiltered thoughts so that in return I can hear yours whispered to me by Hermes of Cyllene and his golden wings. There will be no more dancing around (forgive me if I occasionally slip), and instead of speaking to you in graciously veiled words, I shall surrender myself to you for the first time. 

Dear Henry, the truth is that you’ve always somehow eluded me. I hope I did too. Of the two of us, I’ve known, for as long as Zeus has reigned, you rank above me. However, I’m not sure if I’m underestimating myself or lifting you on a pedestal, all because of how much my mind perfected you. To understand you, I first must deal with my own selective imagination. I know you weren’t olympian-born. You were more than just the dehumanized idea I have left of you. I remember your quirks, your slight, transitive tics, your stiff way of existing. You had your flaws, as I had mine. My facade lasted longer than I have ever expected in your scrutinizing gaze. Come to think of it, I don’t know if you knew me. Did you see me in the other sense of the word? Did you know the true (rather emotive) self that I desperately tried to conceal? If you did, you never showed it.

You tolerated me, and since we lived under the same roof, shared a sheet and a window, I dare say you approved of me. I lived with you, but you were still a stranger when you left me.

I hope you know, I was with you during the period in which you were half alive, on the narrow hospital bed, after you had put two bullets in your head. I watched you, sedated, my own abdomen bandaged and pulsing. Somehow you had managed to live for more than twelve hours after the gun’s giggle, which made me believe you didn’t want to die. The feat amazed the doctors. Such grave wounds, they said, would have killed most people instantly. I hoped you might survive, that it was all part of your great plan. So I waited and waited, but you never did wake up from your dreamless sleep.

You died of course, but I suppose you could not have done much else. I was there when you flatlined. The beep penetrated me and I did nothing but stare at your eyes, which were then closed once and forever, never for them to pour over ancient texts, roses in full bloom and I (to drown me again). Maybe I should have cried for you Henry, but it seemed to me that my life ended with yours, and perhaps, that is why I was and still am not able to recreate a living being’s emotion. 

And I didn’t want to let go without coming to know you and understand you. But was it my choice? Would I have been able to defy fate and beg Hades to cast you out of his halls with only the aid of my pathetic sobs?

I wonder if you’d approve of the man I’ve become. I’m sixty-five, a classics professor. I’m unmarried, but I do have a cat, a Maine Coon to be specific (unnamed so I call it using the well-known “pspsps.”) I teach a small group of students, and I’ve come to know them well. They are never very interesting to me because I know exactly what they are going to do. Nevertheless, a student touches a professor with their mere existence. Most of the things I do are to guide them, to shape them, to give them a reason to thank me. It’s inevitable for their names or faces to not imprint in my mind and for their entire being to follow. Teaching has become my anchor and I can’t help but wonder what would you have transformed into. A writer, a professor just like me, a translator? If you were to be alive, would you be unemployed depending only on the immense amount of money you would have owned? Would you have been a father, a grandfather? Would we have been living together? What would we have been? Would you have grown to show me your true self? Would I have understood you?

Dear Henry, when it is my turn to join you in Hades’ realm, please, do me one last favour and reveal yourself to me, and so, put me out of my misery.

With kind regards,

Yours

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Astra vide et memento

(Inebriated writer)

The stars are all connected. If you ever have the chance to look at the night sky without the constant men-made lights you'll see the fragile, yet prominent strings that tie them together.

Constellations aren't supposed to be hard to find, quite the contrary, a child should be able to draw them with blues and purples. However, humanity robbed itself of something that was supposed to be theirs from the start, and so, managed to lose it, and consequently, forget about it. The greeks were able to look up at the night sky and project their emotions and visions upon it. Art was created without a stroke on the eternal canvas, right above our mortal heads.

The sky, Uranus' greatest gift to us, is one of the few existing elements that connect us not only to our past and everything that was once and composed us, but also to everything that is and will ever be, transfixing time and intertwining all fates.

So, I beg you, for my sake and for your own revival, astra vide et memento.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Henry, meus cupitus - TSH

TW: gore, toxicity

Where do I even begin? I should start by mentioning that this little piece was inspired by multiple books including but not limited to: "The Meek One" by Dostoyevsky, "Lolita" by Nabokov, "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis and "The Iliad" by the one and only Homer.

This is the toned-down version. I felt that the original was much too explicit to post, but nevertheless it will continue to live in my drafts. Keep in mind, that this version may still be incredibly violent for a part of the audience. Read at your own risk.

Henry, meus cupitus, the last season of the year. My sin, my soul. Henry Winter marching down the banks with his umbrella and books.

He was Henry when we spent our weekends at Francis’ country house, rowing on the lake, finding out about the moon landing. Henry Winter was him, spreading around campus like a dark November mist or in Julian’s attentive green eyes. But he was and still is Henry Marchbanks Winter ever since my ears listened to the convoluted story of the scar; ever since he started forgetting the Latin diary in my sight; ever since our ἕνωσις.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what right have you to judge me? No one should speak of love in the third person, for it is intangible, running so differently through our bones, that it mimics our soul’s very rhythm and so drowns each of us with unique scents, extorted from the desire for which we spill blood. And yet, here it is, my poor heart standing trial for its depth. Little lords and gentlewomen of the jury, I urge you to be magnanimous and instead ask yourself: how will I ever stay behind all on my own? 

We met at Hampden. Our fates intertwined unexpectedly, gloriously, under the pressure of Julian’s classes and consequently under his guiding gaze. We were each other’s equal, neither of us possessing the ability to surpass the other. Though our views on matters weren’t, generally speaking, that different we still somehow managed to find little details so insignificant that the vast majority forget. What I believed in he stood against. What he stated I debated. A continuous chase between cat and mouse, except neither of us hid in walls. Oh, please, listen, how beautifully we were at each other’s throat with winged words whispered by Pallas Athene herself! With every class, my desire to stomp on his toes, to cut out his tongue and compare it to mine, to reduce him to absolute submission grew. As I’m sure did his. My only wish, which Zeus who drives the storm clouds later granted me, was to have him under my despotism. It was sickly divine and it consumed my insides raw. 

Fate is funny in its own sadistic way. And so, despite everything, despite every warning that I’m sure his precious guts gave him, he fell in stride with me. Dangerous, obsessive me. Slowly, with every argument we lost ourselves in the other’s carefully crafted web, our souls moving to do their twisted dance. We couldn’t stop and certainly, we did not want to stop mixing that which made us two. The knot of selves was but a mere preamble to the waltz of unification we performed under the influence of all the gods above. 

Now, most esteemed jury, that you understand the extent of our strange relationship, I can begin to narrate the following events: his demise (and the attempt of mine). I’ll tell it as I myself see fit and understand. That’s the horror of it for me, that I understand everything.

On October 11th of a certain year which I fail to recall, we were sitting against each other on the couch in his apartment, talking, quietly laughing, wasting our minds with wine as one does during the exam period. Take note, that Henry is reserved while his usual self, however, alcohol slightly enables the more emotive side of him. Through our conversation, he grew serious. I didn’t have to ask I knew he was going to tell me.

“You ruin me. You must know since you keep doing it.” Henry mumbled under his breath.  “You lurk through the darkest depths of my mind,” I looked at him, his expression a mirror of mine “I wander dazed, like Hades’ dead undead, unable to form a single coherent thought.” He scoffed. “You are my worst nightmare.” 

I remember closing my eyes for a moment. Knowing he was suffering because of me filled me with bliss. I could see that he was terribly irritated with his emotions, but I wasn’t going to soften anything. Oh no, on the contrary, seeing him in such a state made me deliberately want to intensify it. And then I opened my eyes only to find him, him, holding a knife to my throat.

“This has to stop.” He said solemnly, yet my gaze fell on his shaky hand. “I don’t want to plague my rationality further with you.”

I knew that all he had was his mind. And so, when I felt the sharp metal press against my neck; when I saw his determined, icy gaze I knew I had to twirl around him again. To prove to him that we are far from equals, that I am the sublime.

“You don’t have to love me.” I started out almost desperately, though it was only a trick, I assure you.  “Don’t answer me anything, don’t take any notice of me at all, and only let me look at you from the corner, turn me into your thing, into your little dog..” I whispered.

With his thumb, he wiped away the wetness falling from my eyes (not tears). He was distracted and so I gripped his arm turning it away from my throat and towards his chest. He reacted and used his force to push it in my face. I stopped it with my free hand just before the tempting edge deflated my round eye and all the liquid from it spilled on my face. However, doing so, Henry did severe my ring finger. It ripped from the last jagged skin and juicy flesh that held it tied to my stained hand, fell on the sofa and rolled down onto Henry’s oriental rug with a barely audible thump, all while leaving dark red stains behind. I got up and used my body to push him to the ground. I step on my lost finger. It lets out a crack. He drops the knife due to the force and I get my greedy hands on it. He hurried to get up but I straddled his hips and kissed him, pushing my wet tongue into his warm mouth. I lost myself in it and I only snapped out of my daze when I felt his thick blood staining my skin. Drip, drop, little ladybugs everywhere. 

I opened my eyes only to find his, or rather my, icy eyes still staring at me. What was left of my finger I dipped in blood and licked it. The glorious taste of his fluids mixed with mine exploded on my tongue and a voice whispered. And I believed it blindly, madly, terribly.

You all whom you believe yourself above me, pitiless hermaphrodites, inquire endlessly about the location of his body. It is not good manners to insist. Settle down, brutes, I’ll give you a clue just so you’ll leave me alone to mourn.

I listened to the voice that sang so sweetly in my ear. That is where his body is, in eternity with me.

Pass judgment on me, for that is why you’re here. However, you all are witnesses to my ‘crimes’, so judge yourself too, with the guidance of the Gods, for every accusation that leaves your wretched lips is a cast of your own dark depths. Answer if you are without sin: is it wrong to prove yourself to the one you love?

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Henry, meus cupitus - TSH

TW: gore, toxicity

Where do I even begin? I should start by mentioning that this little piece was inspired by multiple books including but not limited to: "The Meek One" by Dostoyevsky, "Lolita" by Nabokov, "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis and "The Iliad" by the one and only Homer.

This is the toned-down version. I felt that the original was much too explicit to post, but nevertheless it will continue to live in my drafts. Keep in mind, that this version may still be incredibly violent for a part of the audience. Read at your own risk.

Henry, meus cupitus, the last season of the year. My sin, my soul. Henry Winter marching down the banks with his umbrella and books.

He was Henry when we spent our weekends at Francis’ country house, rowing on the lake, finding out about the moon landing. Henry Winter was him, spreading around campus like a dark November mist or in Julian’s attentive green eyes. But he was and still is Henry Marchbanks Winter ever since my ears listened to the convoluted story of the scar; ever since he started forgetting the Latin diary in my sight; ever since our ἕνωσις.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what right have you to judge me? No one should speak of love in the third person, for it is intangible, running so differently through our bones, that it mimics our soul’s very rhythm and so drowns each of us with unique scents, extorted from the desire for which we spill blood. And yet, here it is, my poor heart standing trial for its depth. Little lords and gentlewomen of the jury, I urge you to be magnanimous and instead ask yourself: how will I ever stay behind all on my own? 

We met at Hampden. Our fates intertwined unexpectedly, gloriously, under the pressure of Julian’s classes and consequently under his guiding gaze. We were each other’s equal, neither of us possessing the ability to surpass the other. Though our views on matters weren’t, generally speaking, that different we still somehow managed to find little details so insignificant that the vast majority forget. What I believed in he stood against. What he stated I debated. A continuous chase between cat and mouse, except neither of us hid in walls. Oh, please, listen, how beautifully we were at each other’s throat with winged words whispered by Pallas Athene herself! With every class, my desire to stomp on his toes, to cut out his tongue and compare it to mine, to reduce him to absolute submission grew. As I’m sure did his. My only wish, which Zeus who drives the storm clouds later granted me, was to have him under my despotism. It was sickly divine and it consumed my insides raw. 

Fate is funny in its own sadistic way. And so, despite everything, despite every warning that I’m sure his precious guts gave him, he fell in stride with me. Dangerous, obsessive me. Slowly, with every argument we lost ourselves in the other’s carefully crafted web, our souls moving to do their twisted dance. We couldn’t stop and certainly, we did not want to stop mixing that which made us two. The knot of selves was but a mere preamble to the waltz of unification we performed under the influence of all the gods above. 

Now, most esteemed jury, that you understand the extent of our strange relationship, I can begin to narrate the following events: his demise (and the attempt of mine). I’ll tell it as I myself see fit and understand. That’s the horror of it for me, that I understand everything.

On October 11th of a certain year which I fail to recall, we were sitting against each other on the couch in his apartment, talking, quietly laughing, wasting our minds with wine as one does during the exam period. Take note, that Henry is reserved while his usual self, however, alcohol slightly enables the more emotive side of him. Through our conversation, he grew serious. I didn’t have to ask I knew he was going to tell me.

“You ruin me. You must know since you keep doing it.” Henry mumbled under his breath.  “You lurk through the darkest depths of my mind,” I looked at him, his expression a mirror of mine “I wander dazed, like Hades’ dead undead, unable to form a single coherent thought.” He scoffed. “You are my worst nightmare.” 

I remember closing my eyes for a moment. Knowing he was suffering because of me filled me with bliss. I could see that he was terribly irritated with his emotions, but I wasn’t going to soften anything. Oh no, on the contrary, seeing him in such a state made me deliberately want to intensify it. And then I opened my eyes only to find him, him, holding a knife to my throat.

“This has to stop.” He said solemnly, yet my gaze fell on his shaky hand. “I don’t want to plague my rationality further with you.”

I knew that all he had was his mind. And so, when I felt the sharp metal press against my neck; when I saw his determined, icy gaze I knew I had to twirl around him again. To prove to him that we are far from equals, that I am the sublime.

“You don’t have to love me.” I started out almost desperately, though it was only a trick, I assure you.  “Don’t answer me anything, don’t take any notice of me at all, and only let me look at you from the corner, turn me into your thing, into your little dog..” I whispered.

With his thumb, he wiped away the wetness falling from my eyes (not tears). He was distracted and so I gripped his arm turning it away from my throat and towards his chest. He reacted and used his force to push it in my face. I stopped it with my free hand just before the tempting edge deflated my round eye and all the liquid from it spilled on my face. However, doing so, Henry did severe my ring finger. It ripped from the last jagged skin and juicy flesh that held it tied to my stained hand, fell on the sofa and rolled down onto Henry’s oriental rug with a barely audible thump, all while leaving dark red stains behind. I got up and used my body to push him to the ground. I step on my lost finger. It lets out a crack. He drops the knife due to the force and I get my greedy hands on it. He hurried to get up but I straddled his hips and kissed him, pushing my wet tongue into his warm mouth. I lost myself in it and I only snapped out of my daze when I felt his thick blood staining my skin. Drip, drop, little ladybugs everywhere. 

I opened my eyes only to find his, or rather my, icy eyes still staring at me. What was left of my finger I dipped in blood and licked it. The glorious taste of his fluids mixed with mine exploded on my tongue and a voice whispered. And I believed it blindly, madly, terribly.

You all whom you believe yourself above me, pitiless hermaphrodites, inquire endlessly about the location of his body. It is not good manners to insist. Settle down, brutes, I’ll give you a clue just so you’ll leave me alone to mourn.

I listened to the voice that sang so sweetly in my ear. That is where his body is, in eternity with me.

Pass judgment on me, for that is why you’re here. However, you all are witnesses to my ‘crimes’, so judge yourself too, with the guidance of the Gods, for every accusation that leaves your wretched lips is a cast of your own dark depths. Answer if you are without sin: is it wrong to prove yourself to the one you love?

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Henry gets jealous because you spend time with Richard

The risk of jealousy - TSH

Henry Marchbanks Winter x GN!Reader

Dearest anonymous, I hope you can forgive him and his denial of jealousy.

The sharp claw of jealousy finally scratches the untouchable Henry.

I’ve always been incredibly particular about whom I associate with. The people around me need to be worthy. Now, I am well aware that my choice of words may make me sound arrogant, so allow me to explain: I want them to have shared interests, to be able to hold late-night debates on esoteric topics, while giving me a sense of belonging and consequently not tiring me out socially. I do not ask for much, really. Alas, one cannot always get what one desires.

The little group of which I’m currently a part of is… pleasant. The twins regularly host dinners which are, of course, the birthplace of many fights and arguments regarding the most trivial subjects that usually end up with Henry winning. Francis unhesitatingly puts his aunt’s house at our disposal whenever desiderium naturae strikes us and amusingly complains about some disease or other the whole way there. I even consider some of Bunny’s jokes witty on the rare occasions when he stops being insufferable. Unfortunately, they all give me a shallow sense of belonging that only manages to make itself felt in transit moments. However, Henry is different. With him, I feel content reading in silence after a long day, waking up in the same bed, legs intertwined under the soft cotton sheets he insists on buying with Apolon tugging at our lazy eyelids or simply challenging one another’s knowledge on whatever topic interests us at a given moment. A continuous childlike rendez-vous.

I do not know why I have been so platonically attracted to Richard of late. When he first joined our Greek class, he did not strike me as someone who would manage to integrate his lowly self into our complexly layered group, or even more, someone who would enjoy my presence. He was and still is flawed and ordinary. However, this normality flowing through every habit, every movement, or expression is a strange refresh in an intangible web of meticulously tangled appearances and facades. Richard is not some ancient scholar buried in paradoxical ideals, Gods-praising rituals, and glorious beliefs, but a modern human. He is aware of the current world, unisolated, present, an active participant. Not only does he attend parties but he also drinks, kisses, and loves strangers. Though an exaggeration to the unknowing eye, he seems to me quite the Epicurean in a cult of Stoics (excluding Bunny).

Despite my writings above which one might foolishly mistake as praise on my part, I must now dive into Richard’s own tendency to fictitiousness. He throws, here and there, long, lavish fabrications (with the aid of which he becomes unconsciously arrogant) and slight inexactitudes he considers too small to pass unnoticed by the attentive ear. And according to my fate and against my trusted intuition, I found myself unable to stop listening whenever he started talking about his (fake) childhood in California filled with swimming pools and orange groves and dissolute, charming show-biz parents, teenage years with a new girlfriend every night, the newest dramas (if they truly do exist and are not yet other fictions) circling Hampden.

There is a quirk. I notice it now, when we’re all standing in the day room of Francis’, or rather his aunt’s, manor. Charles is playing the piano filling the room with gifts for ears, showing off as he always does, while Bunny comments on one rhythm or another, challenging him, fueling him further. Everything is normal, except for one detail that does not escape me. Henry grows more agitated with every single one of Richard’s grant histoires. Albeit, the so-called agitations are rather minuscule, but I pride myself in being able to distinguish them. A small frown, creasing his pale forehead just the right amount for it to disappear just as quickly and nonchalantly as it came, a constant rub of his hand against his limped leg, and a novel proneness to small physical gestures: touching knees, pressing shoulders, his hand on the small of my back or idly playing with my fingers. I settle on questioning him later since I know he will not show any truths of his mind in such large company. 

We share a room, since we stopped bothering to hide our relationship long ago from the others. Henry’s already in bed, his nose buried in a book, dressed in his pyjamas, his initials embroidered upon the left side of his chest; H.M.W. If I had been told years ago that I was to be sharing a bed or be in a relationship with the person I suffered the least, the one that I had to compete with in Julian’s classes, the one that knew how to push my buttons I would have died of agony. But now I’m content. I know of the infatuation rendering me blind. My life has become a continuous torture, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to live without him. Just like Zeus who vows to fulfil his promise with a single sacred nod of his head, so am I unable to change the basis of my passion. He is in all my plans. In all the joys the future holds. In the dead of night, in Julian’s lessons, in the summer by the lake, instead of my mind’s eye being fully focused on one specific task, it always switches without fail to him.

I lower myself onto the bed next to him. “You seemed troubled earlier, in the day room.” I ask casually an indirect question.

“You’ve been spending an awful time with Richard.” He responds swiftly, tonelessly, simply pointing out a fact. 

I consider my answer for a moment. “I suppose so.” I hum, just as my head hits the pillow. “Don’t you find him intriguing? He watches the news on television.”

“Intriguing?” He blurts out, closing his book and putting it on the bedside table. Clearly, I have his attention. He turns on his side to fully face me, his hair falling over his forehead and slightly over his glasses. “His intriguing part eludes me. You are wasting your time with him, listening to his rambles.” He says clearly irritated, not bothering to keep up his stoic facade. “I assure you, you would be much better spending your time wisely.”

I frown. This is unusual of him. “He is in our class, is he not? I cannot avoid him.”

“Of course not, that’s not what I am suggesting.” His eyebrows remain furrowed. “What I do mean is that he does not bring you any benefit.” He continues in a monotone. “Why must you listen to him with the same attention and interest as you listen to me?”

Ah, I see. Henry is jealous.

“Is this jealousy?” I ask attempting desperately to restrain the slight smile forming on my face. 

“You are mistaken.” He ‘corrects’ me sharply, raising his eyebrows.  “I am merely stating that I see no point in your interactions with Richard when you could gain much more from being in my presence.”

I raise a sceptical eyebrow. He acts as if I wouldn’t mourn his death in the same way Achilles mourned Patroclus’, with rage and violence.

Words are imperfect communication devices, so I pull him down by the back of his neck and press my lips against his in a pleasant normality. I feel him slightly relax against me, his hand resting on my neck.

“Henry,” I mumble as we part, forcefully stretching our souls apart. I remove his glasses and place them down next to us and his forehead naturally falls against mine “you know better than to have such doubts.”

“I do.” He mumbles back, not bothering to deny his feelings anymore. “However, it proves to be quite difficult to not have them when-” He stops considering his words. “When you plague me so. There is no day or night in which your existence takes mercy on me and does not destroy the little rationality I have left.” He lowers himself down on the bed next to me. “You inexplicably and absurdly manage to be and eradicate my sanity.” He sighs. “And it certainly does not help when you look at Richard with the same eyes you look at me.” Henry mutters.

My hand finds his and I chuckle. “I’d argue I look at him with entirely different eyes.” At my comment, Henry raises an amused eyebrow. “Perhaps you’ll stop seeing shadows where there are none.”

That is all he needs to defeat his insomnia in my arms once again and to fall prey to sleep’s vicious grasp his body indistinguishable from mine under the sheets, sharing one breath.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Henry wants to move away from the city and surprises you with a country house …

Surprise get away - TSH

Henry Marchbanks Winter x GN!Reader

Precious anonymous, I hope you enjoy Henry's modest get away plan.

Henry disappears for weeks, only for him to come back with a surprise.

Henry as a lover is not particularly affectionate. He doesn’t suffocate me with besotted compliments and gentle touches. The space he allows me is welcomed with much gratitude, however, this doesn’t mean I do not enjoy the occasional in-bed morning kisses under Apollon’s playful, morning rays, the hours spent in the comforting silence of each other’s presence, or the way his hand finds its way around my waist or on my thigh so stealthily that I only notice it when the familiar warmth seeps through my clothes and into my skin as if it is the very fuel my body runs on.

Lately, he’s been somewhat more distant than usual. I have not talked or heard from him outside our almost everyday classes with Julian for weeks. The other day I even dropped by his apartment only to be greeted by scattered advertisements, cut-out mail, papers with phone numbers, and announcements ripped out of newspapers all revolving around extravagant countryside houses with imposing, marble columns, vast fairytale-like green gardens, and enough rooms to fit a family of ten. I couldn’t figure out why Henry was looking into houses, but something must have happened otherwise he wouldn’t want to go so far away from Hampden, from Julian, from me.

I am wasting my time worrying about him when I should be writing my assignment. He is more than capable of taking care of himself and I trust that if the situation calls for it he will ask for my help. Just as I pick up my fountain pen to finally start the long-overdue translation of the first few books from the Aeneid I hear the sound of the key turning in my door’s lock. The only one with a copy of my dorm key is Henry. 

‘Where have you been?’ I inquire just as he graciously walks in as if he hasn’t been absent for the past days.

‘Get dressed.’ He orders with no care about what I’m doing whatsoever.

‘I’m working on my assignment.’ I point out sharply. ‘You cannot demand me to get dressed without telling me what you have planned.’

‘I assure you, you will not be displeased.’

Moments later, I’m sat in the passenger’s seat watching humans, shops, and houses blur into moving, indecipherable colours as Henry drives us out of Vermont towards Demeter’s neverending golden plains and dense forests. 

‘I consider it unfair when you use my curiosity against me.’ I sigh, rolling down the window to vent out the smoke from the cigarette I just lit. 

‘It is a great disadvantage which the comfort of love drags after itself.’ Henry half-smirks at me, his blue eyes behind the glasses abnormally warm.

‘And what may this terrible disadvantage be?’ I hold my cigarette to his lips and he takes a long drag from it before I bring it back to mine.

‘The mortifying ordeal of being known.’ The smoke escapes his lungs with every syllable he pronounces and I find it utterly entrancing.

.

.

.

.

.

Henry’s faint voice swirls in my mind, disturbing the unconscious state in which I am. Even in sleep, I can distinguish his precious voice from any other external sounds. He whispers my name and it hits my mind’s walls echoing until I wake up.

‘We have arrived.’ He announces with a slight smile and helps me step out of the car.

It takes me a moment to realise the massive manor towering over me with its aged stone walls covered in wicked ivy, large, arched windows with intricate tracery that allow glimpses into the stately interiors and prominent towers crowned with finials and spires piercing the limitless sky. Two watchful statues stand by the grand wooden doors as if anticipating our arrival. Suddenly, it all clicks together and I glare at Henry.

‘Is this why you’ve barely spoken to me in weeks?’ He was already retrieving his luggage along with another one he had packed for me using the various pieces of clothing I had left at his apartment throughout our relationship. ‘I can’t believe this..’ I shake my head and cross my arms, staring at the incredible purchase, knowing that it probably cost him a fortune. 

‘Let us enjoy this.’ He comes to stand by my side, suitcases in hand. ‘I have already spoken with Julian. I told him we would not be attending classes for a few weeks due to personal matters. Naturally, he wasn’t very pleased, but there is nothing he can do.’

‘Henry Marchbanks Winter skipping classes? I did not think I would live to see this day.’ It is nice to tease him once in a while.

‘I needed a break from society. Everyone does after a while and this place is perfect for such an occasion.’ For once, he looks relaxed and I decide to do as he wishes for the time being.

‘Why bring me here then? Wouldn’t it be better if you were to be alone here with your studies?’ 

Henry looks at me as if he has not been expecting the question and bursts into genuine laughter. ‘And leave my only piece of sanity in Vermont? That is something I couldn’t even dream of.’ He starts guiding me toward the entrance, his hand once again finding its rightful place on my waist.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

First dinner with Henry after a long long time

Finding out why he has been searching for you all these years

And what he wants now

Years later - 2

Henry Marchbanks Winter x GN!Reader

Continuation at the request of my dearest anonymous

Out of guilt and dread you end up leaving Vermont and building a new life. Just as you thought you escaped your past, you once again find yourself in its grasp.

Henry ended up inviting me to dinner, insisting that he had a nice place in the middle of London. It was strange not only because of the rapidness with which he managed to obtain such a place but also because it was deeply uncharacteristic of him to own one in the city’s storm eye. Contradicting my rational thoughts not to go, I accepted the invitation to a promising home-cooked meal.

That is why I now stand at the candle-lit dinner table in his scarcely furnished flat, idly sipping from one of the two glasses filled with the white wine I had brought and had been saving for a special occasion. I watch Henry move around the kitchen as if he hasn’t aged a single day, with the same self-awareness of an old ballerina. Being alone with my thoughts more often than not brings certain things to light. My attention is now enraptured by the reality that I am fighting a losing battle with my yearning for He who never once ceased to infect my mind and torture my soul. 

Henry’s lips gently tug at me by rolling my name off his tongue and he pulls me back to reality by setting two dishes on the table. ‘You seem to be devoured by your thoughts, cupitus.’

‘I didn’t know you cooked.’ I remark as he finds his place on the chair opposite to mine.

‘It is a fairly new development.’ Henry nods. ‘Please, tell me how you find it.’

I pick up what looks like a succulent bite along with some garnish, and eat it. The flavours bless my taste buds.

‘You once again meet my great expectations, Henry. Is there anything in which you don’t excel?’ I half-smirk at him out of habit. I should have expected him to be good even at mundane things such as cooking.

There is a silence. I can feel the atmosphere in the room change into something thicker, more suffocating. Henry seems to be weighing down his words, utterly torn between them. He takes a deep breath as if to steady himself and levels his cold gaze with mine. ‘In existing without you.’ He finally slices through the dense silence. ‘I spiraled into utter madness when you left Vermont. Nothing made sense. I failed to realize how much you influenced my life until your departure.’ He is vigilantly tightening the rosary around my neck.

‘You must understand why I left.’ I say instead of acting on my consuming impulses that beg me to soothe his beating heart.

‘I do.’ Henry nods solemnly. ‘However, knowing the reason for your absence does not bring normality back to me.’

‘Normality is not eternal.’ I say without thinking.

‘It is not.’ He agrees. ‘Regardless, you must be my eternity.’ 

The sentence is so obnoxiously irrational that it has managed to break my whole being, including my equanimity, leaving behind raw emotions on my face. This did not escape Henry’s eyes.

‘I am aware of my thinking’s quixotic nature, yet I fear you must take it as it is.’ He pauses to light up a cigarette. ‘Will you come back to Vermont with me?’

‘No, I-’

‘Then I shall stay here with you.’ He interrupts not wanting to deal with anything that might be in antithesis to his wishes. Once he sees I remained quiet he takes a drag from his cigarette and speaks again. ‘The matter of location is settled then.’

‘I suppose so.’ There is no point in disagreeing with him. I pick up my fork, remembering the food in front of me. We eat in silence, while he finishes his cigarette and lights a second.

‘Let us move on to the matter of our relationship.’ Henry gets up and slowly moves towards the balcony, an unspoken order for me to follow. My feet move on their own accord and I end up by his side.

The city is breathing. It incorporates everyone, blurring mismatched stories and human lives together into one single homogenous mix of souls, yet somehow omitting us. We stand above it, two mortals playing Gods, overlooking a sea of indistinguishable humanity while we ourselves are an obscure pair of animae, strangled and twisted around each other far above recognition. I now understand that he is here because of my holy chains spiraled around him, constantly tugging and demanding his devotion, forbidding him from developing any organized thought or rational emotion. We endlessly torment each other with separation until our transit existences are nothing but purgatory.

I take the cigarette from his lips and bring it to mine, then let its remains fall below. I allow the warm smoke to escape my lungs and brush against his face. Henry desperately inhales it like oxygen.

‘I missed you.’ He whispers, vulnerability clear in his eyes.

I smile at the sight of which I never even dreamed and once again, after countless years, lock my breath and limbs with Henry’s.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Writing requests are open (TSH, however willing to do anything if I possess the needed knowledge)

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Years later - TSH

Henry Marchbanks Winter x GN!Reader

Word count: 1666

TW: religious imagery

Out of guilt and dread you end up leaving Vermont and building a new life. Just as you thought you escaped your past, you once again find yourself in its grasp.

The past haunts me. It has been years—so many I cannot begin to count, and if I’m being completely honest, I was not counting to begin with. Everything I have done was to escape that wretched part of my life in which my naivety and perhaps self-consuming passion, managed to control me. I wanted—want—to forget it all. 

The first time I stepped foot into what would soon come to be one of the few select places in my nightmares was very awe-inducing. The university was large, larger than I’d imagined. The stone walls had arched indents that made it look as if it belonged in one of the novels I read as a teenager and that my family wholeheartedly despised. The hallways were a contorted maze of watchful ancient statues following every movement with their eyes, priceless antiques donated by rich parents and students with more money in their pockets than I could ever dream of having. A multitude of departments found their home in that twisted place, such as theater, arts, modern literature, architecture, history, music, philosophy, and more. I believe you can imagine my excitement when faced with the exact kind of university I dreamed of studying at, especially when I had little to no hope of ever getting anywhere close to it, much less belonging.

One thing, as you know, led to another, and I ended up as one of the infamous Greek pupils. I’m quite sure everyone thought we were some kind of cult, which, if you think about it, isn’t entirely wrong.

The first few years were everything I had ever hoped for. I felt that I had found my place and, most certainly, my kind. We used to do everything together. Being with them was the only time I truly felt alive. It doesn’t matter whether we went to the comforting country house engulfed in trees safely from the outside world, had delicious dinners debating the most obscure topics, or simply studied in the library, sleep-deprived and on immense amounts of caffeine, I always felt as if I was doing something more than just existing.

Where did it all go wrong? I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I do not want to categorize Richard’s arrival as the initiator factor, for it was not his fault. Nor is it correct to say that the Bacchanal was the beginning of it all. It wouldn’t be Henry’s doing either, at least not the start of it. I have speculated on this over the years, and I have come to only one conclusion that seems right. My theory as to what the answer is and my attempt to pinpoint the exact place on the timeline are not as precise as I hoped they would be. It was not a single event that gave birth to our ruin, but rather multiple little moments, that are rather large in the big scheme. I also like to believe that Julian had as much of a role in all of this as the rest of us. Perhaps, even a considerably more sizeable one.

Everything that happened—I wish to leave behind. However, I recently came to realise, that, to my misery, it incorporated and formed my very being. My views, my ideas, my tastes, and my activities are all, to a certain extent, if not fully influenced and ruled over by it. I am my past.

My great, futile attempts to escape the life I once had, led me to London, a perfect setting for someone who wished to hide. A bustling place, where I had the chance to not be me, but a mere shadow lurking throughout the crowded streets, observing every passerby, while trying to guess their life stories, deepest desires, and strongest fears. I was no one, and I adored it. However, my presence became known among museum guides and librarians for its consistency. I have also earned a reputation among university students for being one of the few odd professors. This is probably due to the fact that I am very selective with my pupils, and I teach a couple that are quite brilliant in my office. I often have open discussions with them, for I consider it helps them engage with the topic better and understand the meaning and philosophy behind it in such a way that encourages them to analyze, observe, and critique. One such day, we were talking about the loss of self, Plato’s four divine madnesses:

‘Death is the mother of beauty,’ said Felix, one of my students.

I nodded in approval as I propped myself up on the desk.

‘And what is beauty?’ 

‘Terror,’ a voice answered from my office’s door.

My life up until this moment, along with all my darkest memories and the series of events that led me to where I am today, flash before my eyes, and it feels as if the universe has stopped specifically to play along with his sadistic trick. My jaw clenches involuntarily, my eyes threaten to betray my emotions, and I have to remind myself I’m not the same brainless kid chasing empty promises and impossible dreams, fully convinced that every existing land, no matter how vast it may be, is my playground and that fate will bend according to my petulant will. I have to get out of my head, the silence is stretching. My students, probably confused, are expecting some kind of sign from my disordered self. He is waiting for a reaction. The past has finally caught up to me. After all my futile attempts, it still managed to intrude on my present’s doorway. 

I take a deep breath. I look at my students, curiosity mixed with confusion clear in their expressions. I don’t need to look at him to know who he is.

‘I apologize,’ I start hoping that they cannot hear the tremble in my voice as accentuated as I seem to do, ‘class is dismissed.’

I need not say more before my students start gathering their belongings in complete silence so as to not further disturb the room completely filled with palpable animosity and perhaps something more vivid, cursed to lurk in the depths of our minds. I reach blindly toward my pack of cigarettes, lying somewhere on my desk between books and coffee-stained papers. Lucky Strikes, yet another sign of his hold on me. I light my cigarette, breathing in the curls of smoke spiraling down my throat. The sound of his leather shoes clicking against the wooden floorboards reverberates through my beating heart. I am well aware that even now, after years of attempting to escape from the rosary He entangled around my neck, I am still His most loyal devotee, respecting vigilantly every silent command. Deep and numbing smoke inside my lungs, like a relaxant, washes me with warm Indian summer waves of calmness.

He is fixating me with his cold blue eyes, watching for any sign of defiance. Over the years I’ve spent in his presence, I’ve learned to recognize his transitive facial expressions, his secretive ways, and his small habits, whether it is the way he holds a page between his fingers before turning it or his tendency to dive into long monologues about whatever interests him at that moment. It is a distinct ability that has grown its roots along my blood vessels, twisted and intertwined beyond differentiation. Understanding each other used to be our way of showing our affection. It is something so sacred that I cannot bring myself to weaponize against him and betray the bond we once had. You’d think that after so much time I’d be able to break free from the shackles His divinity holds me in and convert to a different faith. But He is nestled so deeply in me, that I cannot help but like the burns and the imprints upon my skin.

Henry Marchbanks Winter looks the same. But he now has a new pair of glasses and slight crow’s feet, along with faint smile lines framing his lips. He’s wearing one of his dark English suits, which have always fit him incredibly well. And if the wrinkles weren’t enough, the few grey hairs peeking from underneath the familiar dark colour of his hair are a brutal reminder of how much of him I missed. A cruel admonitum of the years that have passed and of all the times I wasn’t next to him, not by chance but by choice. It takes all I have in me to not fall to my knees, confess my sin, and beg for forgiveness. As if all the years I’ve been away from him turned into mere days I find myself falling back to my old habits and once again bowing down to his silent command.

Amor dominus terribilis est.

The cigarette burns, forgotten between my fingers, as I get wasted on his scent, for once, unbothered by the consequences.

‘I’ve finally found you, dilectus.’ Beloved.

‘I suppose you have.’ I cannot help but stare at him, hypnotized by the storm in his eyes.

‘I have been searching for you since the day you left.’ He reaches a gentle, steady hand to brush my cheek ‘London of all places-’

As much as I wish to let him hold me again I find myself interrupting him. ‘You have no business here.’ I walk to the open window and take my second drag from the almost fully burned cigarette.

He sighs, frustration slipping through the cracks of his perfection.

‘Like it or not,’ he emanates divine turmoil as he emphasizes every word  ‘you are my business.’

‘After so long we can’t be anything but strangers.’

‘You are wrong.’ He states immediately as I finish the sentence. ‘You cannot act as if you have forgotten everything we’ve been through.’ His hand once again finds its way to my face and caresses it with smooth, slow motions. This time I let him. ‘One more chance is all I ask for.’ He whispered.

‘One more chance.’ I agree, defeated.

[insidemyrottenbrain]

Can anyone really see anyone?

I wish to be understood, but I fear being known. The possibility of remaining undiscovered, unconquered frightens me.