#posting cuz i’m obsessed

[occasionaloranges]

barragán spring 2023 ready-to-wear (september 11th, 2022)

[its-your-mind]

*deep breath in*

the fears 👏 have always 👏 been (in one way or another) 👏 parallel 👏 to 👏 desire 👏

let me explain.

so many of the statements given by actual avatars center around some sort of need that was met by their entity. Lots of them even had a positive relationship with the fear that drove them.

Jane Prentiss is an excellent example - the Corruption has always been about a form of toxic and possessive love, but she personally has a deep desire to be “fully consumed by what loves her,” and finds a perverse joy and relief at allowing herself to be a home

Jude Perry is another - she fucking loved watching people’s lives be utterly destroyed. The Desolation only offered her a power of destruction on a grander scale, and then gave her a more intense rush of joy as she did its work. When she tells Jon that he needs to feed the Eye before it feeds on him, it’s almost as an afterthought; she was happily feeding the Desolation long before it burned her into a new existence.

Simon Fairchild. Every time that old loose bag of bones wanders into the picture, he is having a fucking EXCELLENT time playing with the Vast. He loves showing people their own insignificance, and he loves luring them into situations where he can throw them into the void as he smiles and waves.

Peter Lukas (hell, the whole Lukas family (except Evan. RIP Evan.)) hated. people. all he wanted was for them all to go away, to leave him alone. The Lonely only fulfilled that desire.

Daisy, Trevor, and Julia, all devoted to hunting those things they deemed monstrous.

Melanie, holding tight to that bullet in her leg because on some level, she wanted it. It felt good, it felt right, it felt like it fit right alongside the anger and spite that drove her to success.

Annabelle Cane first encountered the Web when she was a child, running away from home in order to tug on her parents’ heartstrings in just the right way to have them wrapped around her little finger. Later on she volunteered to be the subject of an ESP study. Hell, she’s the one who dangled the “Is it really You that wants this?” question over Jon’s head in S4.

And that brings us to Jon, beloved Jarchivist, the Voice that Opened the Door. Ever since he was a child targeted by the Web, he was looking for answers. He joined the Magnus Institute’s Research Department looking for them, he stalked his coworkers in search for them, he broke into Gertrude’s flat and laptop out of desperation for them. And when he realized that all he had to do was Ask to get truthful answers to his questions? It was only natural for him to jump at that opportunity.

Elias told S3 Jon that he did want this, that he chose it, that at every crossroads he kept pushing onwards, and the inner turmoil that caused was one of the focal points for Jon’s character through the rest of the podcast.

There’s a certain line of thinking in many circles about the power of the Devil: he’s not able to create anything new. All he’s able to do is twist and warp that which was already present, making it something ugly and profane while still maintaining the facade of something desirable.

Jon didn’t choose the Eye. But he did wander into its realm of power, exhibiting exactly the qualities it was most capable of hijacking and warping to its own ends. Jon didn’t choose the Apocalypse. But Jonah picked at him little by little, pointing him towards each Fear individually. Jon didn’t want to release the Fears. But the Web tugged on his strings just so and laid a pretty trail for him to follow until he reached its desired conclusion.

Jon didn’t choose ultimate power, or omniscience, or even his own role as Head Archivist. But he said “yes” to the right (wrong?) orders and kept on pushing for the right (wrong?) answers. He wanted to succeed at the work he had been assigned. He wanted to protect his friends. He wanted to rescue them when they were lost. He wanted to prevent the apocalypse, to save the world. He wanted to know why he was still alive, when so many had died right in front of him.

The Great Wheel of Evil Color that is the Entities might not fit as neatly into categories in this universe - maybe there was no Robert Smirke trying to impose strict categories on emotional experiences, or maybe the ways they manifest in the world has turned on its head (goodness knows many of them have been showcased and blended in some very fun and new and horrifying ways so far) - but their fundamental foundations seem to be the same. Hell, in episode one we learned that there had been enough individual incidents to create a distinction between “dolls, watching” and “dolls, human skin.”

Smirke’s Fourteen isn’t going to be relevant as common parlance, RQ said that already, but I don’t think that means the Fears themselves (and their Dream Logic-based rules) are different - I think it means that the levels of understanding, language used, and personal connections among people “in the know” are going to be entirely unfamiliar

[cali-kabi]

~ Happy 10th Anniversary Kirby Triple Deluxe🌿🌸💫🍄this game means so much to me I have so many good memories of this game it helped me get through my sadness from school, the music is also very good and I get eeeeee excited whenever I get a keychain <3💫🌟💖

[occasionally-good-ideas]

The Ancients are Gods

Just straight up Gods, one’s you can pray to, give offerings and such and maybe get a lil blessing or help from

Get nightmares?? Offer Nocturn some tea and dreams in exchange for no more nightmares, ‘man you can Have those dreams as long as I get some good, no nightmare, Rest.’

Your asshole neighbors keep raking your lawn but you need that Free Mulch for your garden next spring? Tell Overgrowth about it. 40% chance you won’t even need to give him anything, the promise of a garden will be enough for him to Smite your neighbors tool shed (and maybe their house but that ain’t your fault)

Need help juggling classes?? Phantoms literally the God of Balance & Discovery (along with Space but only aspiring astronauts call on that part of his domain) most students will give him food and Space Shit in exchange for better work/life balance skills and better understanding In classes. But if you’re really desperate or need a Big Favor… give him one a These

[crazy-fangirl2524]

Seeing people reacting to tsc and them getting shock over things I thought was obvious and I was getting annoyed until I realised maybe not everyone reread aftg like a million times and have read most of the analytical posts and yeah maybe I am the problem instead

[flamingfalcon3]

Nina: “Would you still love me if I was a worm?”

Fabian, with zero hesitation: “Of course! I would build you a little home in a jar. With a little house. And I would talk to you everyday :)”

[pissbbyy]

uhh there’s like 3 hours left b4 it ends buut happy trans day of visibility to one of the most t4t couples in media woo!!

[sampilled]

Hey spn cast 🔫 can you be in things I actually wanna watch? 🔫🔫🔫🔫

[moondal514]

Yo why did no one tell me that Tian Ya Ke is such a comedy? Zhou Zishu is actually the funniest pov character ever. I would’ve read it so much sooner if I knew that

[gaytedlasso]

Honestly, patting myself on the back rn for posting drawings for the last 3 days. Especially cuz I wasn’t 100% happy with them but felt like I wanted to share them anyways 💛

[oflgtfol]

also i really did not anticipatw the way my boredom would manifest on the road trip. so sorry to everyone who gave me music suggestions, they were all good but it was hard to not go insane with songs that i dont recognize and couldnt sing along to. i’ll have to check most of them our when i can actually sit down with them and focus. so ironically i actually had to turn to story driven media. i listened to a few musicals and then by the halfway point of my return back i actually started to listen to my very first ever podcast and yknow what it fucking worked. shoulda been podcasting the whole way

[midnightrings]

love going to my followed tags and seeing my gifs on top <3

[flowerxguts]

What Are We Gonna Do Now? - Indigo De Souza

I know you're worn, you're exhausted / This is love / This is lost on you / I'm holding my night in your hands

———————＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ OC FIC ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊———————

Four days. It had been four days since Damien had so much as shown his face.

Dion had walked by the room at least two dozen times by now, only able to catch a glimpse of a lumped blanket or his friends mysteriously bruised back.

His life went on as usual, only now with two detours.

Everyday he made breakfast, placing a plate on the floor beside the pile of blankets without any reprimands, only a pitying look that would go unseen. He went to work, helped his sister with homework, went through all the general motions of the day. Then, after dinner he’d re-enter the now pitch black room, a plate of food in hand, and place it next to the lump that had sometimes moved, sometimes hadn’t.

He didn’t say much, finding no purpose in his words falling onto deaf ears, unlike his little sister, who he knew would talk Damien’s ear off after school before Dion came home despite their friends lack of response. He’d pat the lump of blankets that held his friend occasionally, mumbling a good morning or good night.

He always knew Damien moved at some point, as the two dishes left in his room would miraculously reappear in the cabinets every morning, cleaned. Perhaps that was his way of saying thank you without having to face anyone.

Still, he was catatonic most of the day, avoiding the world.

But today when Dion passed his friends opened door, there he was. Damien in the flesh. He laid sprawled out on his mattress, a thin sheet bundled across his shoulders being the only blanket obscuring any sort of view.

He was staring up at the ceiling, a lit cigarette dangling between his fingers that fell over the side of the mattress.

Dion walked up to the door leaning on the old, rotting frame. He crosses his arms, eyes trained on his friends ghostly figure.

Damien showed no signs of acknowledging him, merely bringing the cigarette to his lips. Either he hadn’t seen Dion, or he was ignoring the intrusion, hoping it would simply disappear if he ignored it for long enough.

Dion purses his lips, exhausted with the avoidance game Damien seems to be playing with everyone since Morgan made her departure.

“You just gonna lay there depressed?”

Silence drones on as Damien lets out a deep breath, smoke wafting into the air. The arm that held the cigarette to his lips flopped down again, bouncing slightly as it hit the mattress.

“Guess so.”

Dion lets out a heavy sigh as his makes his way to the edge of the mattress, plopping himself down beside his friends left side.

“You need to get up sometime, man.”

Damien doesn’t move an inch. He continues staring up at the ceiling with a glassy, lost look in his eyes.

Silence falls once more, weighing down the room. Dion lightly taps his fist on Damien’s core, unsure of what to do with him.

He’s come to accept that there’s nothing he can say, nothing he can do. Morgan is gone. His friend just has to feel this and endure.

Morgan made her choice. To leave.

And Dion made his choice. To stay.

He sighs again, exasperated, accepting that Damien would not get up if he simply asked him. Still, he didn’t want to let him rot in the room a day longer, so he met him halfway.

Dion doesn’t leave, moving to lay on his friend's outstretched arm without another word.

Damien instinctively slings his arm over Dion’s shoulders. It’s progress.

The two boys mirror each other, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

Damien reaches the cigarette out to Dion, who accepts it, taking a drag.

Words are failing both of them in this moment. There’s nothing to be said, really. What can either of them say? That they’re sorry? But for what? For who?

“How are you holding up?”

The question is stupid in and of itself, but Dion couldn’t come up with anything better. Four days, and his friend has done nothing but lay on this mattress, sleeping, crying, watching the snow fall outside, praying.

“I don’t know, Dee. I just…” Damien waves the hand that had been resting on Dion’s shoulder helplessly, taking the cigarette back with his free hand “I feel empty.”

Damien bends his knees, aligning them to Dion’s. He takes a long drag of the cigarette, blowing the smoke out of his nose, watching it dance away into the freezing air of January, before lulling his head towards the boy beside him.

There is an undefined emotion in his eyes, something akin to acceptance, but resting on the fine line between resentment, jealousy.

“Did you know she was gonna leave me?”

His friend's voice, though quiet, was relatively steady. He was sure Damien already knew the answer, but asked anyway, needing confirmation.

The question is unavoidable, so Dion shakes his head, looking down for only a split second before meeting rusted-brown eyes.

“Yeah. I did. I gave her hell for it, but…”

There’s an unnatural pause causing the air between the two to shift. The room is too cold, too small. It’s suffocating. Dion looks back up to the ceiling, trying to escape the weight of the air, a serious look dawning his features.

“You need to get it together, man.”

It’s the truth. Everything he is saying. He fought with Morgan relentlessly the night she told him, barely even able to look at her for the next few days leading up to her departure. Neither of them had been kind in the argument.

Dion had met her on her way to the tracks, uneasy to let her leave on bad terms. He had experienced it once, with Eleanor, and wasn’t eager to experience months of sleepless, guilt-filled nights again.

‘You need to know that I’m not mad at you.’

They made their peace. In the end, both understood the other as much as they could.

In many respects Morgan and Dion understand each other better than everyone, having both grown up with an addict for a parent.

When they found their approach to Damien contrasted, it was frustrating beyond reason.

They fought, yelled, threw snide remarks they knew should’ve been beneath them. Storming out on one another before agreeing because both were stubborn, having already made up their minds.

But standing with her, his arm slung around her shoulders, her head resting on his chest, waiting for the train that would take her away for possible years, it was hard to say if one of them was right and the other was wrong. In the snow, watching each others breaths manifest in the cold, they realized they were in some grey area that rested in between, together.

‘I’m sorry. I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

All that matters now is that they had at least agreed on one thing: Damien had to get sober.

“Yeah, that’s what everyone seems to be saying.” Damien states, his tone light, but devoid of humor.

“Oh everyone?“ Dion retorts sarcastically, somewhat rolling his eyes. “What? Me and Morgan?”

He questions whether or not it was the right call to say her name for a second, knowing she wasn’t in the picture anymore as everyone, but in the end, she’s the only thing on Damien’s mind right now. Everything about her, from the moment Damien met her, stuck on a loop.

Her name had rolled off his tongue, familiar, because Morgan is not a stranger. Not yet. Not ever.

“Morgan, you… Eleanor.”

Damien’s reply comes easily, Morgan’s name still said with unarmored love. Relief is instantaneous.

Dion makes a clicking noise “That’s not everyone. What about Tiger Lily?”

Damien laughs for a second, tipping his knees to knock into Dion’s “I don’t make leisurely visits.”

They both smile, but the action swirls in sadness. Damien’s legs fall limp once more against the mattress. They continue to pass the cigarette back and forth wordlessly.

It’s awhile before either speaks again. Damien being too preoccupied to pay much notice to the silence. His breathing is slow and his eyes are still staring holes into the ceiling, even after four days of doing nothing else.

Dion observes him closely, taking in his very being. He knows there are bound to be a million and two thoughts in his friends head. This is the longest he’s been sober in three months, and thinking like this was what he was running from, wasn’t it?

Damien turns to him, Dion’s staring finally catching his attention.

“Tell me what’s going to happen, Dee.”

His voice is so soft, barely more than a whisper, but level. Dion opens his mouth to speak, but closes it when no words come out. The look in his friends eyes is leaving him speechless. Because Damien does not look afraid, no, he looks unto him with nothing but genuine concern.

It reminds him of the way Morgan had looked at him, the trains rumble in the near distance. Trembling hands dusting the stray snow off his jacket as a final action of love, ‘I won’t blame you, if you can’t handle it. Leave if you need to. But, as long as you stay, take care of him for me?’

It’s sickening.

He should be afraid for himself, but he’s not. He’s only afraid for his friend because he knows. And Dion gets déjà vu. He knows what Damien is truly saying. He’s asking if he can handle this too. He’s begging him ‘tell me to leave’, because sobriety has given him perspective.

He knows about Dion’s mother, about Morgans father. And if Morgan had left him, why should Dion stay?

There’s a pit in the older boys stomach. He thought he had come to understand why Morgan left, or at the very least accept it, but for a moment, he’s mad again.

‘How can you just up and leave him like this?’

“It’s okay if-“

Dion speaks suddenly, sick of being told to leave. He’s overcome with the urge to fix what his friend is saying, give him his perspective, make him forget Morgan’s.

The picture of Morgan leaving, smiling at him, tears glimmering in the corner of her eyes, is forgotten. Their argument is once again in the forefront of his mind again.

“Damien, you know you can stay here. I love you like a brother. Fuck, when Morgan first told me I was pissed. I told her that she didn’t really love you if she was leaving.”

‘Stop lying to make yourself feel better! You don’t fucking love him! And clearly, you never did! You’re just gonna turn your damn back and run, again, because you still don’t know what the fuck love is. How about some sense of fucking loyalty?’

Dion’s breathing has become labored, every hurtful word said in the heat of the argument drowning out reason. He thinks for a careful moment this time, about his next words, about Morgan.

‘I know the first time he hits me I will forgive him because I love him more than I love myself.’

He closes his eyes, swallowing thickly. All the anger that had resurfaced dissipating within seconds. The statement, and I’m right, dissolves on his tongue.

The way Morgan had declared those words, in raw honestly, so afraid, ring in his head like an alarm. There was a wild look in her eyes, like a match had been lit to her life yet again.

He knows about everything Morgan went through, before. How she had ended up on his door step that cool August night. And she knows everything about him. They hadn’t forgotten that, hell, they had used it against each other.

But now, Morgan’s not in front of him. She’s not even in the same state lines by now. The room is quiet. He images her in his mind, younger, the same look in her eyes.

When he began speaking he wanted to say that Morgan is wrong, assure his friend that her actions shouldn’t reflect on him. That he’s lovable. He’s not beyond saving. Forget her.

But Damien can’t forget her.

Dion can’t either.

He loves her, more than he’ll ever care to admit. And somewhere in his heart, in late night conversations on the couch after the other found them awake, he knows she had to leave.

He wishes he could leave too.

He’s been unfair, because despite leaving Morgan does love Damien. She knows he’s not beyond saving. He’s heard her say it, scream it, a look of pure desperation in her eyes.

A feeling inside himself settles. The picture of Morgan solidifies in his mind. Her, holding back Damien’s hair as he pukes, shoving her fingers down his throat, begging. Her, dragging Damien through the house in the dead of night, eye’s exhausted.

‘I need to stop pretending one day he’ll just wake up and see I’m worth changing for. He needs to feel this.’

She was always there. To a fault, she was there.

She had done her time, paid her dues.

Dion finds closure in the phantom feeling of Morgan’s chapped lips pressed against his cheek. The warmth of a whispered ‘thank you’ ghosting the skin once kissed goodbye and you’re on your own all at once.

Maybe, he thinks, maybe giving her actions more explanation will give Damien closure too. Maybe he will get up.

“But Damien she does. She’s trying to give you the push you need to turn your life around.”

He lets the words sink in. He means it.

“We both love you... we don’t want you stuck like this.”

Dion turns his body inward and Damien does the same, arm still around his shoulders.

“…And I think the best way to help you is for her to go and for me to stay.”

Something in his friends eyes shift. He looks helpless, like his world has just collapsed in on itself yet again.

‘He can’t get better with me here. Dragging his ass home every night because I can’t stand sleeping in bed alone without him.’

“You know… Morgan could never stop herself from helping you. I’d tell her to leave you be, let you come to your senses, but she can’t stand seeing you like that, Dam. She wasn’t trying to enable you, but she was.”

Dion’s jaw clenches and unclenches. He closes his eyes, taking in his own words. It’s hard to accept that somehow Morgan leaving is something crucial to Damien’s recovery. Because for forever, all they’ve ever needed was each other.

Still, he knows Morgan is right. So he meets Damien’s eyes, trying his best to not give into the voice in his head begging him to stop talking. To not make this worse, because what if knowing all this doesn’t end in closure? just hurts him more? Makes him relapse?

“If you’re gonna get better she can’t be here.” Dion declares, voice low, the deliberate eye contact between the two bordering the line of uncomfortable.

Damien’s eyebrows furrow and he looks away almost instantly, not allowing Dion to decipher what he is thinking. Though, his friend does not miss the fresh tears that form in his eyes. He takes a final inhale of smoke, facing entirely away from Dion as he stubs out the cigarette.

He rubs a hand over his eyes, turning back over, mumbling words incoherently in a language he knew Dion couldn’t understand. Silent tears painted his eyes with a misty hue, making him look worn down well behind his years. His tears sparkled in the afternoon sun that spilt through the open window, cascading over the unmade mattress haphazardly dumped in the middle of the messy room.

Dion thinks, for a moment, that maybe this is normal to an extent. Two teenage boys, one a wreck, the other not too far off, laying in one of their messy bedrooms. A boy comforting his best friend after a break up with a girl he was never officially with. It’s foreign. In a way, comforting, but he remembers the circumstances, and suddenly the reality of it all seems to come crashing in once again. Morgan did not leave because she’s just a girl, not because of something slightly insensitive Damien said, but because their friend was an addict. She was afraid of him, and who he was becoming.

Truth be told, he was too.

So no. Dion does not get the leisure of being a teenage boy, simply comforting his friend. He had chosen to stay, and in that, had chosen to take responsibility for this, even if it terrified him.

He feels like he’s drowning in Damien’s world, in this room, in his bed. Morgan had told him that she was afraid that in staying, in continuing to love him, she’d loose herself entirely. She said she had met herself, for a brief moment, and she wanted to see that girl again.

Dion squeezes his eyes shut, colors swirling behind the lids.

He is five again. A year before his world would be turned on its side and he would suddenly become a father, a mother, a brother, and a sister the second a pink bundle is dropped into his arms on an old rotting couch with needles stuffed between its cushions. He is laying in bed with his mother, who’s out of it almost entirely. He’s squeezing his eyes shut and finding patterns of stars in the colors and wonders if his mom, who has had her eyes closed for hours now, can see the same patterns. He wonders if so, why she’s entranced by them. Because she has not gotten up in a day, even though he has begged, screamed, and cried. She did not even get out of bed when it was time for Dion to go to school this morning. So he didn’t go, simply kept laying by her side, patiently waiting for her to greet him a late good night and a good morning simultaneously. He didn’t want his mom to wake up worried, wondering where he was.

He knew the feeling, and it wasn’t pleasant.

He mindlessly reaches a hand out to Damien, placing it on the side of his neck, an action familiar, yet once believed to be long forgotten. He feels the strong thrum of his best friends heartbeat. He holds it in his palm, matching his breathing to the pulse. This is the strongest he’s felt his heartbeat has been in months.

When he was five he reached out all the same to his mother, small hands wandering, pressing, waiting to feel a heartbeat. For some kind of sign that he was not alone right now. That he was not beside his mothers corpse. He would panic when he couldn’t find one, sitting up on his knees, pressing into his mothers neck wildly with both hands, eyes blurred by tears, until relief would finally come in the form of a heartbeat. A heartbeat so low it could go undetected by doctors, but not from a son so desperate.

Dion’s thumb rests on the base of Damien’s ear and his fingers tethering firmly into the root of long brunette strands. He tries to ground himself, but the shapes and colors form into the figure of his mother and he’s five. He is just barely three feet tall and last year he lost his first tooth at his grandparents house in the summer. Then he is eight, his two year old sister in his arms as he tries to beat down the bathroom door. He’s terrified, he begs, he yells, and then he is in the bathroom. He calls an ambulance. He stays with his grandparents until he is nine and his mother is deemed fit again. When his mother hugs him he tells him that his little sister lost her first tooth the same way he had, and then asks, quieter now, why she left him again. She says nothing. But there is a steady heartbeat.

The colors and shapes transform rapidly into a million different images of his mother. Her smile, her shaking hands, his eyes rolled back to her skull.

She is what passes as “sober” for DCFS intermittently for the next six years. Though, she is never there, not truly. She is always preoccupied with a substance or some new boyfriend she swears she loves.

Then Dion is barely fifteen, his eight year old sisters hand in his. His back faces a house, not a home. His little sisters eyes are trained back on the house, but Dion’s eyes are on her.

He kept count of how many times his mother had promised to stay clean. Two hundred seventy four broken promises. He takes two hundred seventy four steps away from the house. And then he looks back. He takes one more.

He’s accepted that his mother is beyond saving and that ever glimmer of hope he had felt when he was younger was for naught.

Once when he was twelve, visiting his dad, he had pressed the phone so hard into his ear it had left a mark. He told his dad that mom was sober again, but he was scared. His dad lifted his hand to the glass, the act gentle, loving. Dion copied the action. He looked into his fathers eyes and trusted him.

His dad had smiled, the scatted gash on his check scrunching up to his eye.

‘Some people are just not strong enough, baby. Addicts don’t always get better.’

And two days later, when he found his mom leaned over the kitchen table when he came home from school, he wasn’t disappointed.

The surge of memories is nauseating, and all he can hear is his fathers voice in his head. Addicts don’t always get better. Dion swallows thickly. It takes a minute for his eyes to adjust after he opens them. The light in the seemed blinding for a moment.

There’s a thrum steady under his fingers, a heartbeat, that pulls him to his senses. When his eyes focus on Damien something in him breaks. His friends mouth is pressed against his arm and his eyes are half obscured by the pillow beneath them. His shoulders shake slightly, but every noise he’s making is suppressed.

He wonders why he didn’t leave. Why Morgan ran before he did. They had both grown up in the homes of addicts, but surely this was closer to Dion’s territory than her own. Morgan had said it herself, asked the question Dion still couldn’t answer. He should hate Damien for this, for bringing him back to a reality he had done everything to escape from. But he doesn’t. Looking at Damien now, he tries to understand his fathers words. He hears them, clear as day, but for some reason, he no longer believes they’re true.

When Damien’s eyes meet his, he understands.

Damien will get better.

Because he can feel his heartbeat now. He will get better because the look in his eyes is no longer far away, it is present, and he is in pain, but he is withstanding.

He is feeling everything Dion’s mother never had. He knows remorse and he knows guilt.

He is not a lost cause.

Dion readjusts his hand, petting down his friends hair, before the words spill out without permission.

“And that doesn’t mean I won’t be here for you, I’ll listen to you, help you find a job, fuck, whatever you need.” He means it. To a fault, he means it. “But I’m not going to drag your ass two blocks to bed if I find you wasted in an alley at three in the morning.” He concludes, tone stern, but not mean.

He hears Morgan in his subconscious, ‘I’m not going to become my mother. And I hope you don’t become your mothers son again.’

The room is silent for a long time. Damien continues staring at Dion, though it seems he is lost in his head, more than he is truly looking at Dion.

When Damien finally speaks, his voice is small, rough, “…I’m sorry. I never realized it was getting this bad.”

“I know, Damien.” Dion wraps his arm around him, encasing him in a hug. “I know.”

His friend lets out a few shakey sobs, holding onto him like a lifeline. Dion decides to lay with him for as long as he can, sneaking looks at his watch every so often. His shift starts at three, but he has to include the forty minute walk to the the hotel.

He didn’t mind it. Laying here like this. His friend was warm, not the boiling hot he had come accustomed to when grabbing his face, begging him to tell him how much he had taken, but a cozy warm he remembered from three winters ago when he and Damien would fall asleep in his bed after they’d stayed up talking all night about nothing. They’d wake up inches apart, just like they had fallen asleep, soaking in each other warmth, feigning off the cold under a shared comforter stolen from a dumpster behind a old home decor store that was going out of business a few years back. In a few minutes they’d both get up and curse the cold, play wrestling when Damien decides it’s a great idea to put his freezing hands on the back of his best friends neck. They’ll walk Eleanor to the middle school, together, then Damien will walk him to work before disappearing until the night, where he’d come home. Dion closed his eyes, pretending for a moment that he was three years younger, that nothing had changed.

He wanted to sink into the hug, let it surround him entirely. If he could only drown out the present for a moment and be young again, more wide-eyed and optimistic, leaving the unknown future a mystery for an older version of himself to face.

As he squeezed he felt for the first time how small Damien’s frame had become. He swallows thickly, feeling the sudden urge to sob along with his best friend.

He used to be lean, all muscle from his time working in demolition. He used to exercise before he started using. He’d make stupid bets with Eleanor over dinner about how many push-ups he could do and would go on these hour long runs in the early mornings of autumn. Dion used to shake his head when he’d reappear to mooch some breakfast off him, asking him ‘how the hell was that any fun?’ as the brunette strode in, stealing a bite off his plate, wrapping around the table to greet Eleanor. He misses the stupid smile Damien would stop and give him. There was nothing he loved more than running, the cold air that filled his lungs gave him a rush nothing else could at the time. At some indistinguishable point he had replaced his runners high for the high that came from the injection of a needle. His body was always heavy after he started using, he was a dead weight, in an out of consciousness half the time, sometimes he got nauseous just standing up. He only ate when he was force fed.

All this resulted in Dion being able to feel his best friends ribs digging into his chest as he heaved in and out, exhausted from such little action.

Damien was shaking and his skin was flushed, but not in a recently familiar way, in a way Dion remembered from years ago when Damien was in his doorframe, speaking in a frenzy, half the words he spoke in Spanish and the other half in slurred English.

He squeezed his friend tighter, remembering the mess of that night. A grateful feeling washed over him. Damien was here with him. He wasn’t dead and he wasn’t gone, he was simply lost for awhile, but he’s wandering his way back. He digs his nose into his friends neck, his next sentence coming out more muffled than intended.

“You want something to do today?” Dion asks rather slowly, “Something small to get you out of the house?”

“Yeah. That’d probably be good.” He can feel Damien nod against his shoulder, pulling back to meet his eyes.

Dion smiles, taking in his friends face. For once, his eyes are clear. He’s present, He’s here. The boy reaches a hand up to his companions cheek, patting it lightly.

There’s something in the air between them. Something that makes both the corner of their eyes soften. Something akin to hope.

“Go pick up Eleanor from school? It’s been awhile and you can surprise her.”

He pushes himself up, the cold air assaulting him while doing so. Damien follows in suit.

“What time is it?”

“Like twooooooo..” Dion checks his watch as if he hadn’t sneakily checked it four times within the last half hour, “twenty. She gets out at forty five”

“Jesus.” Damien has scooted over to the front edge of the bed, feet touching the freezing concrete ground. He’s hunched over, face is buried in his hands.

Dion snorts, smirking.

He gets up with a groan, stretching. He pats Damien’s knee twice whilst padding his way over to the door. But just before he can leave room, Damien’s voice stops him.

“Dion… thank you.”

The words are so honest, raw. They stop the boy in his tracks. He falters, back still facing Damien. Dion’s eyebrows knit together and the feeling of horror causes a sinking feeling in his gut. He is responsible. Everything sinks in.

Regardless of the sudden terror, he acts quickly, turning back to his friend with a shit-eating grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Yeah yeah, we don’t have two hours for you to waste time thanking me for everything I’ve ever done for your ass.” He teases, rolling his eyes and waving it off. He doesn’t think he can really accept a thank you right now. A thank you is a liability. Once Damien is a year sober he can accept it.

As he leaves the room, shutting the door, attempting to ride the high that Damien is moving, and bury his fears, he hears Damien’s muffled voice. It’s lined with amusement but also a tinge of annoyance.

“Pinche pendejo.”

That one he knew.

[dressycobra7]

(For the 3 things I associate with you ask game!) Fnaf and JJK and Black and White (probably because of your profile pic lol)

ya haha that’s fair

[foxtrot-broadcasts]

Aggie doodles are fun :3

[fragilebrwndoll]

not to kink shame but I only want the attention of stalkers with large cocks that wanna make me cum over and over again against my will, NOT the ones that wanna dice me up and add me to their soup and salad sorry not sorry