[SOLO - DRP] Little mourning (twins)

[Melancholies]

everyone has feelings

Shiloh tried a cigarette once when he was sixteen, and he'd coughed his lungs out and sworn he'd never try one again. It'd given him an instant headache.

Years later, he could still taste the smoke on his tongue, but it was all fire and brimstone from the Burning Man. Nothing he drank washed the taste out. It was like the Spinel Lady, how he'd close his eyes and have dreams that he was drowning, except now he was awake and the neighbors down the street sinned every time they started up the BBQ grill. It was annoying.

Nineteen, he tried another cigarette, bought a pack from the 7/11 and smoked it off Jamie's back porch at four in the morning, and it still sucked as much as it had the first time he tried it (albeit, he didn't cough as bad, but his lungs still ached). He gave the rest to some peddler on the street in return for a smile and God Bless.

Now when he has the drowning dreams, he doesn't struggle. He lays awake under the water and watches the surface drift further and further away from him.

Someday the fire's gonna stop bothering him too, he knows.

 

[Melancholies]

everyone has thoughts

Oliver was never the empathetic type. In tenth grade some girl asked him out and he didn't realize what the ******** was going on, and he decided from that day on that relationships were way more work than they were worth.

Years later, he still sort of regretting making her cry like that, but even though he carried a new realization of the moment, he didn't feel bad. There weren't many feelings there in the first place. Now as time progressed, he realized he was entirely too terrified of being alone, and sometimes he saw the girl in his dreams again. Where was she at in life? Did she have friends? It wasn't really his problem, but things not being his problem inevitably turned into his problem anyway.

Nineteen and he was caught between liking not one, but two men romantically, and that was just a whole swell of weird new feelings that he wasn't used to dealing with. The Elliot he knew was largely left behind at this point, but he still saw him sometimes, still saw that callous smile, still saw that impassive dismissal when he waved his hand. He had to make himself see the new one, the one who didn't have quite as much flare or fanfare, the one who looked a little tired because he worked a full time job to keep Oliver in school with a place to stay. Hell, the son of a b***h even turned his back on his family for him.

And Horace is there too, all the kissing they'd done, all the touching, all the smiles and laughing and hardships they'd been through. He almost felt a little dirty because he wanted the same things with Elliot, and he was worried the whole thing would just implode and splinter apart.

Now he just feels guilty about so many things when they never had a place in his heart before. He watches the clock in the middle of the night and wonders if everyone's going to drift further and further away from him.

God help him, he doesn't want to be alone, not again.

 

[Melancholies]

tension

"I dunno." Shiloh said, "I might pop before the cycle does."

Beel looked over, very nearly blithe, "Elaborate?"

"I don't know if I can do it." He confided quietly.

"Have you not been through the worst of it?" The fetch was sitting behind a desk in the new Court, his hand thumbing an ink pen. They were doing paperwork—rather, Shiloh was giving his input and Beel was transcribing it for him. "This was the sort of thing that your trials prepared you for."

"I know, but—" Shiloh looked helpless for a second, "I'm so ******** tired."

Beel sighed, set the pen down, "I know you are, I know. This is what I meant when I said it was dangerous to have hope."

"But then what the ******** else would I be?"

Beel said nothing to that.

 

[Melancholies]

stress

Oliver had a class at seven A.M. After that he studied in the library, spent an hour in the music rooms working through his theory homework, went to work on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. A large chunk of the time spent at home was balanced between take home projects and his magical interests, his ward working and his necromancy research and his spiritbond studying. Other times he was in Court reading through things on the fancy computers located there.

He was watching himself in a mirror back home, his fingers touching the soft squishy bags under his eyes. He pulled them down, looked at his bloodshot sclera.

"Don't you ever stop going?"

The reflection stared back.

Sometimes he wished he'd just snap and start over. Maybe then people would expect less of him.