In this world, the storm will pass
Alec sat atop the railing of the balcony, looking up at the sky as it slowly dims to reveal the countless stars awaiting the night to be seen, to twinkle at the life below the vast sky. A cigarette placed between his lips, smoke rising up to the stars that he can only dream of reaching someday.
His eyes were vacant, what was once a vibrant blue, like the sky in a cloudless sunny day, is now merely as dull as the sky in the fog, in the stormy weather that never left. But it's getting better now. Slowly, slowly… Like clouds drifting in a windless day, moving an inch, yet moving still. Slowly… The storm will pass. But for now, he'll stay in the eye of it.
Standing beneath the stars surrounded by a quiet storm all kept inside. In this world, everything is the same, yet different. In this world, everyone is alive, safe from a greater danger than life itself. In this world, Alec is supposed to be dead, yet here he is… Someone else. In this world, his family lost Alec, yet in his world, he lost everything.
So what is he doing here then? Intruding in a world that didn't need someone like him. An Alec that was doomed to have nothing, living in a world that has moved on from Alec's death. He doesn't know, doesn't understand. He gave up understanding the world ever since that day, the day where it collapsed, leaving him with nothing but ruin. He always thought that, it would be better for him to have lost himself to the forest instead than be brought here by whatever force, whatever power, whatever God, who thought it entertaining to put him here, in this world. Is it fun? His life… to be toyed with by fate, by the world itself, is it fun? He gave up wondering about it, gave up on an answer he didn't need to hear.
Alec took a drag on his cigarette, frankly, he isn't one to smoke, he isn't one to drink, he isn't one to do any such things. But what does it matter anyway? His body… won't sustain any damage from it anymore. It's different. Everything is. Nothing was ever the same ever since his world started collapsing. Nothing was. So it didn't matter, whatever damage he does to his body didn't matter, it'll just heal it all anyway. Leaving not even scars on his skin, what a picture perfect body, devoid of scars. One would wonder if he ever went through such things, when there's nothing for him to show for it.
Alec glanced down, it was pretty high. This house, this balcony on the third floor. He gave up on that thought long ago though, it was the only constant he has left, his will to live, even after everything. Foolish, isn't it? To continue wanting to live even after all that, for what reason really? He doesn't know anymore, his memory isn't as good as it was before. So much so, that he's guilty of forgetting what his family looked like. Had he not been living in this world, he would've forgotten their names too.
Alec looked up again, to the pitch black sky, the stars brightly twinkling at him. Back in his world, he found solace in the night, in the stars above. He thought of them as his family watching over him, was it a myth he read back then? The souls of your loved ones becoming stars in the night sky. What of it now, however? In a world where everything is okay, is his family's souls still amongst the sea of stars, watching over him like they did before? What would they think of him now? Would they be happy? Glad? Relieved? Or would they be mad? Upset? Betrayed? To see Alec be happy with someone that's them yet aren't at the same time?
He doesn't want to think about it.
Just as Alec brought the cigarette to his lips to take another drag, the hand of another reached out to take it from his own, he didn't need to turn around to know who it belonged to. He knows it already, by heart.
“You okay?” Ray stood beside him, leaning on the railing as he threw the cigarette to the ground. Putting the fire out with his slippers.
“You're going to ruin that pair soon if you keep that up…”
“Well, that's fine. I forgot to grab the ashtray on the way.” Ray hummed, “You dodged my question again though.” His voice had a slight teasing tone, mouth formed into a small grin as he glanced at Alec.
“It's always the same answer, anyway.” I'm fine. That's the answer he always gives to that question, every single time. He knows it's a lie, they know it's a lie, but what else can he say when words aren't enough to convey whatever he's been feeling ever since then?
“I don't mind that. Maybe, once a lie is repeated enough times, it'd come true someday.” Ray chuckled, “Though that sounds a bit dangerous, now that I think about it.”
Silence fell between the both of them, it isn't heavy nor is it tense. It was comfortable, like the breeze of the night. Ray looked to the sky, and Alec… he looked to Ray's eyes. It was as dark as the night sky, reflecting the countless stars twinkling high above with a light all too familiar yet not at the same time. This is Ray, yet not his Ray. That is Ray, one who've turned into light, amongst the sea of many others, high above the sky, a bright twinkling star. In a way, he did become a ray of light, just not that of sunshine as he would always say.
Alec moved his eyes towards the sky once more, and the two stayed there, in the silence, below the night sky, underneath the stars, they bathed in the light of a hundred promises, a thousand wishes and a million hopes for a future gentler than their present.
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it’s taking me a while to write and draw stuff cause of the injury i’ve been talking about and it making me feel like my brain has been replaced with a towel filled with piss so take some creature tommy au headcanons in the meantime (i would read the rest of the au for context also these are long so i apologize especially the third one)
tw: vore for the third headcanon, mentions of hard vore (none happen), and general mostly non-descriptive violence
-Tubbo still constantly checks in with how Tommy’s doing through Wilbur, even though he doesn’t want anything to do with him in person. Wilbur occasionally lets Tommy know that Tubbo is concerned about his well-being, and Tommy would be lying if he said that it didn’t make him feel a bit bad, but he’s more so just confused as to why Tubbo cares. After all, he’s the one who almost killed and permanently maimed the borrower, what does he gain from checking in on Tommy? Why doesn’t he want him dead? But turns out, Tubbo is aware of how badly the lab fucked Tommy up after Wil told him, and is cheering his human friend on from the sidelines in his mission to help Tommy change for the better. And once Tommy does change and see borrowers as people, Tubbo will be the first one to congratulate him and teach him about proper borrower culture. As for now, though, even if Tubbo doesn’t want to be near him, he’s glad that Tommy has someone who cares about him and who he feels comfortable with.
-Wilbur invited his tiny friend, Jack, over to his house and had completely forgotten about Tommy until he and Jack got there. Tommy introduces himself and Jack is immediately off-put when Tommy starts making a lot of comments about how good he smells and how he wonders if he tastes as good, and Wilbur is fucking terrified. This is far enough along that Tommy and Wilbur get along really well, and Tommy genuinely cares about Wilbur and doesn’t want to disappoint him (though he’d be hard pressed to admit it). So he won’t kill Jack for Wil’s sake, even though he really wants to, but that doesn’t stop him from making not-so-subtle remarks about how he wants to eat Jack. So Wil is high strung all night and Jack is just really really confused cause he assumes Tommy is a normal borrower.
-All of the creature lab borrowers were made stomach acid resistant, and whenever the creatures would disobey or fail at something, the scientists would nom them as punishment. Tommy nonchalantly mentions once that he can’t be harmed by stomach acids, so later when one of Wilbur’s friends comes over with a borrower, Wilbur panics, knowing Tommy hadn’t eaten yet that way. So, he noms Tommy, and this is the first time Tommy shows actual fear towards Wil. He’s generally very deadpan and sarcastic, but he’s getting bad traumatic flashbacks from the lab, so he panics and shifts, trying to claw his way out of Wil. Wil can’t get him out now cause he’s too big but Tommy can’t reason enough through his panic to realize that Wilbur is practically begging him to shrink back down so he can let him out. Tommy eventually passes out from exhaustion and fear and shrinks and Wil spits him out immediately. Tommy wakes up about an hour later, and Wilbur isn’t home. And he doesn’t get home that day. For the first time in his life, Tommy is left fully alone all night, and he’s only getting more and more worried. As much as he pretends to be entirely soulless, he does genuinely care about Wil, and he’s devastated to think that Wilbur abandoned him, even though he knows that’s an irrational thought. Wil eventually does get home at about noon the next day, and Tommy is all over him with questions, half worried and half angry that Wil would let him think he was abandoned. But that anger dissipates pretty quickly when he learns that in his panic, he caused some major internal bleeding for Wil, and he had to go to the hospital to make sure none of his internal organs were damaged by Tommy’s claws. He was mostly fine, but the doctors kept him overnight anyway to make sure he wouldn’t get worse. Wil still wasn’t fully better, and was still mostly bedridden, but had argued against anymore time in the hospital cause he was genuinely worried about Tommy after the kind of ptsd flashback he had. Tommy actually feels really really bad about this, and decides that maybe he owes it to Wilbur to be a bit nicer after doing that to him. Tommy still doesn’t fully let his guard down, and he isn’t automatically more genuine, but he starts to open up about what he went through at the lab, and lets Wilbur know how much it means to him that he’s been there for him. Wilbur thinks that suffering a little internal bleeding was maybe worth it. •adding on to this, Tommy sleeps in his creature form curled up like a cat on Wil’s chest from this point on.
-Wilbur mostly works from home, but whenever he has to leave, Tommy stays home. Tommy was never left alone at the lab and doesn’t know what to do with himself, so he just kinda runs around. Wil comes home early once to see Tommy doing parkour like six feet above the ground (well over a high enough height to kill him) so Wilbur decides that it’s time to give Tommy a hobby. He buys him a phone so at the very least he can entertain himself with youtube, but teaches him about gardening and music. Tommy especially loves listening to Wilbur play guitar. Also Wilbur gives Tommy coca cola for the first time after he sees that Tommy may have a blood sugar problem that the lab just ignored and he gets addicted fast, partially cause he likes it a lot and partially cause oh this is what if feels like to go long periods of time without feeling like you’re gonna pass out.
-Tommy hoards blankets and makes himself little beds with them when he needs a nap. Wilbur has a lot of blackmail photos. Ranboo gets all of these photos and has a separate photo album on his phone for them titled “Wil’s weird cat.” In fact, Ranboo made a collage of all the weirdest and most embarrassing (aka adorable but embarrassing to Tommy) ones, printed and framed it, and gave it to Will. It’s been hanging in his living room for over a month and Tommy has yet to notice it.
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