reastless - Tumblr blog

[reastless]

luke rolls syvain’s answer around as he reflexively swipes the inside of the bowl dry. his fingers brushes the smooth inside through a hole in the dish towel.

winter. luke does not disagree. his friend is winter repelling everyone around him back into the safety of their homes, by choice whether consciously or not. sylvain is spring, warm with every type of love but too shy not to be frozen over by a harsh cold. perhaps luke can bridge the gap enough to create some tolerance.  

“ well, I think it says something that siggy is willing to be my friend at all. he likes to look a certain way, and is super worried about how he’s perceived by other people, but he still comes to see me just to see me. he doesn’t want anything, and there’s nothing I could give him that he’d want anyway. he just likes my company. I think that’s sweet. ”

and sad, of course, but he doesn’t mention that yet. besides, it might already be obvious.  

“ a lot of chilly people are sweet on the inside, though. ” he picks up a mug and starts scrubbing the dregs of tea dried to the bottom. “ and I mean, you don’t have to be around him. that’s fine. I would love if you did, but it’s fine if you don’t. I just wanted to understand. ”

sylvain toys with a loose thread on his sleeve. he doesn't really want to have this conversation. even knowing luke isn't mad ( he'd know luke wouldn't be, rationally, but years in human ' care ' had made wariness and bad habit of his ) doesn't make sylvain any more eager to speak an honest and unkind feeling towards someone that luke clearly cares about.

" he doesn't seem very nice when he's here. not that he's mean, he's just . . . " sylvain presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, as he struggles for the words, " he seems like winter. like he's chilly. " he means to say cold, but it doesn't come to him. " his energy is not very good to me. i don't really understand why he's your friend. "

[reastless]

you can be a dickhead to me but my whimsy will always haunt your narrative

[reastless]

luke smiles fondly as the stranger runs her fingers over the frayed ends of his hair. her hands, filthy with soil, rub some dirt off rolling the strands between her fingers. when he cuts his hair off, he’ll have to pick a better piece for her.  

“ not at all! and thank you— do you have something sharp? or we can go to my house and get scissors. you can have as much as you want, I’m so glad you like it! ”

@reastless / cont.

the start does not visibly faze her - she is quite used to this from people, if anything finding it far more uncommon when they do not flinch away or recoil or spit.

oh, and his hair is somehow so much softer than she imagined pressed into her hand, like thread. deep red eyes peer through gnarled oilslick tresses tangled in the brush and brushing the ground, and a wide, toothy grin splits her expression. between filthy fingers, she delicately rolls the golden strand of split dead ends forth and back, reverent of its difference to her own.

" yes, " she croons like a breathy hiss, " how wonderfully kind ... are you sure you won't miss it? it is so lovely. "

[reastless]

" such pretty hair -- " a clammy grey hand reaches out through underbrush, elongated fingers hovering but not touching. she does have some manners, even mesmerized by the gorgeous cuetain of fine gold spun from the stranger's head. it looks so soft, tousled like dry grasses in a breeze. " may I? " - claira who is normal @belfrys

@belfrys

luke wishes he did not startle so easy— it feels rude to be visibly frightened for a moment of someone who is clearly, completely harmless and very friendly! but, as it is, he is not accustomed to hands pale like rain clouds and waxy as the dead reaching from the bushes. black, split nails attached to fingers that bulge a bit at the knuckles and become thin as twigs everywhere else emerge from their hiding place within a dying fern bush and he jumps, a hand clasping his heart.

“ oh! oh, I’m so sorry, miss. yes of course you can! here— ” he sinks down, collects a handful of his tangled, lengthy bushels of blond and places the split ends in her palm.

“ do you want to keep some? I don’t mind, I have so much of it. ”

[reastless]

tea time!

what tea would your muse be ?

tagged by: @lovlorne and @andessence (thanks babes!!)

tagging: @1flesh @writedisaster @ristorantebar <3333

[reastless]

“ it’s only pain, ” he whispers, because he has heard the phrase before used by those stronger than he. everything about luke sings that he should have astute healing abilities, but he does not. the magic has never quite stuck to his fingers the way it should, the way he’s tried to make it.

his grasp is weak, but with the strength he can conjure he remains anchored to charles’ hand. he’s uncertain whether the reek of blood comes from his aching wound or leaks from his nightmares.

he wants to ask charles if he thought about things, but he can’t string the words together in his head much less enunciate the unformed thought. dazedly, he lifts his glassy gaze to search for mismatched eyes.

“ how long was I…? ”

there is a second when it seems he won't wake. charles has been here often enough to recognize the whirlwind that second brings : the terror, and then the grief, as though he is already in mourning blacks, and his hands are already stained with earth from the grave and blood from the person who hurt his love. but the second passes, and the horror with it, and when luke drags open his eyes, only charles' relief, and none of his anger, greets him.

" there he is, " charles murmurs, brushing the damp hair from his lover's cheeks. this ( their argument, but also, luke's mortal danger ) isn't over yet, he knows. but they've passed through the first night. even he can be grateful for something as small as that.

charles gently takes luke's reaching hand, and brings it to his lips to kiss. his lover tastes of sweat and pain. once again, he must swallow down and lock away the anger he feels for whoever did this. as much as his insides boil, on the outside, he must be cool, caring, calm. he places down luke's hand, for he needs both his own, and draws down the covers a bit to see how his lover's bandages, charles' shoddy handiwork, had withstood the night.

" how badly does it hurt? " charles asks, lifting his eyes back to luke's face, " i have herbal tea boiling, but if need be, we can send down to the apothecary for something stronger. " on cue, the kettle sings, and the fire is close enough that charles need only read over and lift the pot away from the flame with a poker, before settling himself back down on the bedside.

[reastless]

“ no, of course not, sylvain. you haven’t done anything wrong, ”  luke says, having expected the insecurity and is quick to assure him it is not necessary. sylvain wasn’t trying to be unkind. and he certainly doesn’t have to be around siggy, but there is no need not to tell the truth.

“ I just caught on that there was something I didn’t understand, so I’m trying to understand. I’m not upset about it, ” he shrugs, rinsing a bowl free of its coat of suds. “ why do you think he’s scary? I promise, he’s very nice. he’s been good to me. maybe it would help if you asked me things you don’t understand about him? ”

sylvain believed his excuses were very convincing. he's not a very good liar ( he'd never, for many years, had anyone to lie to ) but he thought there was probably some reason for him to be in the forest, so he'd said there was. and then the second time, and the third time . . . he guesses it had to come to an end. he stares down at the table cloth, his cheeks glowing with blush. despite his actions, he didn't meant to be rude!

( he feels just a little like the child he'd been once, being told he shouldn't wear trousers, or shouldn't talk to the sailors on the supply ship, even if they were nice to him, and especially if any of them said he was pretty. )

" i didn't think you or siggy really cared if i wasn't there, " sylvain says, which is true, as far as he knows, but is not the reason that he manages to slip away every time with ' suddenly remembered ' holidays and ceremonies that he'd just made up, the way his mother had sometimes done when she grew tired of his father's presence.

" are you mad at me for leaving? i don't want to hurt your feelings, or his feelings. but . . . " sylvain exhales. he doesn't have the tact, or the motivation, to lie. " i don't really like being around him. i think he's a little scary, luke. "

[reastless]

@polarean

all luke’s plates are a little broken in some way. he dries off one with a yellow rim speckled with lavender flowers and thumbs idly over a rough patch before returning it home to a stack in the cabinet.

“ I’ve been meaning to ask you something, ” he calls over his shoulder to sylvain at the dining table, beginning to scrub clean another dirty dish. “ why don’t you want to be around siggy? ”

siggy has only been over three times in luke’s time with sylvain. the first time, luke bought sylvain’s excuse. the second time, he decided it was a coincidence and was appropriately disappointed he would again miss out on time with his friend. the third time however, *well*…  

“ I know you don’t mean it to come across this way, but it’s rude to make up an excuse whenever he comes over. I’d just like to know what’s going on. ”

[reastless]

feverish dreams haunt his involuntary rest. he dreams of a doe, and of a hunter. he dreams of an antlered beast and of a hunter. he dreams of blood. it is all soaked in blood. the rusty taste coats his tongue and chokes his lungs and sloshes beneath his hooves.

he does not wake like snapping fingers, but instead like he is a body being dragged from a lagoon, heavy and cold. heavy eyes drag open by willpower alone. It quickly becomes clear that the adrenaline masking the pain of ripping open the halves of his wound has vanished. He feels it fully, a horrible crawling, itching sting. 

luke does not believe himself brave about pain. he can swallow it down like hard alcohol, but he hates every second of it. 

he drips in sticky sweat that beads his bare chest and makes his hair stringy. He feels his stomach, delicately examining the swelling beneath the gauze with his fingers.

“ i’m awake. ” he whispers. he tries to focus on charles, but his vision is wavering at the edges. he wants to say something, but his words are waterlogged, and so instead he outstretches a hand for his love to take.

@reastless / consequences of this thread

years of experience have not taught him proficiency : the bandages that charles ties around luke's wound will keep the blood in his body, but they are, by no means, beautiful or elegant. the sheets are ruined, even so, and the old bandages have stained charles' hands with red and the scent of iron. he cannot help but choke on that bitter truth as he lays luke's unconscious and tended body in the woolen blanket that will have to do for sheets until they can wash them down at the river.

and then charles sits, not in bed, but beside, as one does with the ailing. he has been instructed to think, and so he thinks. he thinks about how much it would hurt to lose luke. he thinks about the hole he would tear in the world as revenge for that loss. he thinks about how stained and red his body is with blood, with luke's and others, and how he could bear to stain it again and again, to save someone he love, or to protect those who couldn't do it themselves. he knows this is not what luke wants, and he knows that the violence he chooses is, on its face, an evil. but what makes an action good or evil beyond its outcome? hasn't that always guided him : strife, his mother, is evil because the violence she does is for no one and nothing but the sating of chaos. charles has tried to be good, and do good, with the instinct that his blood had given him.

he knows luke will never agree with his methods, but never before has he been forced to make a choice between what he knows and what he loves. it is not worth losing luke to another's violence . . . but it is also not worth losing luke to his own.

when the morning comes, charles remains in turmoil. even so, the days must pass. as the the sun rises, charles goes to pump water from the well, and the activity makes his head feel less foggy. having brought the full jugs of water into their hovel, he pours some of the water in the kettle and sets it to boil over the fire he'd maintained in the hearth, before going back to the bed and nudging at luke's shoulder.

" luke? " he murmurs. he'd checked time and time over throughout the course of the night to make sure his love still breathed, but until now, hadn't tried to rouse him. " you have to wake up now. "

[reastless]

Mary Oliver, from Swan; "More Evidence"

[Text ID: Refuse all cooperation with the heart's death.]

[reastless]

fr though anyone want to do something with possession ;)

i don't think i've ever mentioned that luke gets possessed in his canon?

[reastless]

i don't think i've ever mentioned that luke gets possessed in his canon?

[reastless]

HE FEELS A BUZZING LIGHTHEADEDNESS BETWEEN HIS EARS. luke grits his teeth, demanding himself to swallow the pain, to endure more exertion. he closes his eyes, dragging in tight, ragged breaths through grit teeth. when he speaks again, it is drained of ferocity. he speaks like he is reading an epitaph.

“ hunting them down and hurting them is not protecting me, charles. I’m at a loss as to how you could think that it is. I hear you’re hurting, I hear you’re scared for me, but I need to ask the world of you again. trust me, and let it go. stay by my side and protect me here, or I have no choice but to find them and warn them. ”

he is completed devoid of his healing energy, much less enough to re-stitch what has been ripped open. it fucking hurts, and it’s incredibly frustration that injury alone would be enough to stifle the maddened frenzied devotion spilling from his torn open heart. he has more to argue, more to ask. he has a new objective of protecting his attacker making it to the top of his priorities. sometimes he feels like he lives in a vessel too small for all the planets of emotion living and dying in his heart.

“ think about your answer, but I’m afraid I have to pass out. ”

this comes out with a weakness he despises. he wishes he could spit it out. instead blackness trickles into the edges of his vision, and like a puppet sliced of strings, he begins to collapse.

what can charles say that he hasn’t already? what can he tell luke, to convince him that he is scared —- that he will grieve, because of this? how can he tell luke that he loves him and if afraid to lose him in a way he hasn’t already? he feels, he feels, as much and as strongly as luke. but he cares whether luke lives. and sometimes, he doesn’t think luke cares quite so much about that.

“ what about how i feel? ” charles hisses, before he has though about how wretched it is. he’s not selfish : he’d done everything, survived everything, for others. and over and over, luke tells him he must care about himself, that he must do something for his own heart. yet here luke sits, bleeding, promising to throw away his chance for safety to protect someone they do not know, who cares so little for luke that they’d stabbed him. charles as a rule tries not to be angry, but there’s heat in his face, the frightening simmer of a power in him, a strife that cries out why do you want me to hurt?

he doesn’t lash out. he doesn’t try to move them. he lets luke bleed on him. he can taste his blood : it has trickled into his mouth and stained his teeth red.

“ you would throw yourself into someone who would just as soon thrust a knife into your back, and what then? what happens to me when they kill you? i have lost everyone over and over, and i am not going to lose you, whether you like it or not. you may not care about your life, but i do. i’m going to do what i have to, so you don’t come back to me dead someday. ”

[reastless]

So if you need to be mean, be mean to me I can take it and put it inside of me

[reastless]

“ no, no, it’s okay to get eggshell in it, I do it all the time! you just pick it out. here— ” luke pushes the egg into charles’ palm with utter confidence. “ you can do it, go ahead and crack it. ”

how in the world an egg and flour will help, charles doesn't understand. but then, his cooking experience is heavily microwave - based. he's great with a can opener and a box of non - perishables from the food bank. still, he finishes ricing the last of his potatoes, and puts the device down before wiping his forehead with the back of his wrist.

" i don't mind mixing. you should crack the egg, though, i can't seem to manage it without getting pieces of eggshell in everything. "

[reastless]

In two to three sentences, write a brief elevator pitch, or synopsis, to get someone interested in your character! Ideally, an elevator pitch is said within 30 seconds, the length of an elevator ride. Use this opportunity to summarize the best of your muse's story, without giving too much away! Get the "audience" hooked!

Lucian “Luke” Andersen killed his father with a kitchen knife as a child and believes, through that experience, that he has discovered the following simple truths: Everything in life is about loving and being loved, and violence is the most abhorrent thing in the universe. Luke became a devout pacifist and behaves as a vessel for ceaselessly, relentlessly, ruthlessly loving others. He adheres rigidly to his pacifism and love with very few exceptions to the detriment of himself and oftentimes his loved ones.

[reastless]

oooghh,, possession