kind of wild how much fiction still treats torture as something that objectively works when every study has shown that it does not work at all and is possibly the least effective way to get correct information
I mean to be clear I love me some whump and have tortured many of my ocs but like. it doesn't work guys. I'm not saying your characters have to know that, but it doesn't.
opens box that reads "i wanna draw again". inside lies a note. the note says, "mental illness and difficult circumstances have taken years of interest, accessibility, and skill away from me. i want to forgive myself for that. i want to heal my relationship to my hobbies. i want to feel connected to something that once made me feel good, but the cyclic discouragement is difficult to overcome." i turn over the note. on the back it reads "wannta drawe sexy bodies awooga"
Fandom: God there’s like NO content anymore. I wish we could get more art and fanfics :(((
Someone: Hey, I can’t draw anything digitally, because I can’t afford a tablet, but here’s a pen on paper drawing that I spent a lot of time and hard work on. Also, I took a shot at my first fanfic and I’d really like some feedback or at least some kudos if you enjoyed it :)
Fandom: Oh... yeah sorry no... not you. We actually meant writers that are already well known and popular to produce MORE content... I mean, if a popular blog shares your work then maybe. And we don’t really like pen to paper art. We just don’t think it’s professional or even looks good :/
This is why I try to reblog things that have little notes - the fandom NEEDS new people, or it dies, but the OLD people are there to support the new creators! New creators will leave and forget if the fandom doesn't welcome them, because they feel left out. We should remember that all great artists and writers, even the famous ones in big name fandoms, they all started from nothing.
If you don't want a fandom to die feed the sparks that come anew, don't blow on the old burnt ashes hoping they'll start again.
Grayland lets the monster take over the hunt, distractedly fixing his suit’s cuffs. The screams barely reach his ears, and any who do take note of the struggle keep themselves more than busy. Self-preservation without a single consideration for another; it is why Navamora is more than a wonderful place to find food for the Shade.
The Monster comes back to him in a flurry of bones and blood, Grayland clicking his tongue as he dusts off some of the red flecks that follow his shadow. He sighs, easily shifting forward and walking to the man now half-dead, keeping track of the soft thud his cane makes on the bloody alley.
He can see the last desperations of Life's end. They were more than common, Grayland noting every small movement that always comes with the dying corpses. Glassy eyes try to find the noises; heaving lungs try to drag air into a broken body. Limps no longer supporting skin and bones fidget in muscle memory.
Fear, bleeding out further than the blood from their veins, makes the Shade excited.
Grayland smiles as he stops before the body, taps his cane against the head. It makes the body stop, limps trying to move parts they no longer hold to face him. Not even the neck gives much of an effort, the head barely wobbling before it gives up and goes still. He hums with the reaction, drops down to his haunches as he gently brings the face for inspection.
“I do wish you hadn’t been so uncooperative. I merely wished for Knowledge; all you had to do was tell me what I wished to hear.”
He sees the spark that comes, frowns as the dying body actually manages to move according to the brain’s desires.
Spit mingled with blood is poorly launched, sticking to the glove that is holding the chin. Muddy red staining itself into the soft white. Grayland blinks, a hum rising as he watches the body, sees the eyes shining for another moment.
An act before death; the last show of bravado.
Grayland smiles, holds the chin still as he brings his cane into the focus of the dimming eyes.
"How crass. And here I was, about to allow you the mercy of the Shade’s jaws.”
i was reading about the myth of prometheus today when the phrase "new liver, same eagles" popped into my mind, so i'm keeping that in mind for the next time someone asks me how it's going
must a fictional relationship be “healthy” or “functional”? is it not enough to simply watch two made up people destroy each other, hand in unlovable hand???
idk, what is wrong with me? i’m in a healthy and stable relationship with a great partner, i’ve had lots of therapy that has helped me establish strong boundaries and recognize red flags, and i have an active social life and fulfilling career. could it be that i just… like to read books and watch movies and tv shows about dysfunctional people??? you tell me, tumblr user girlcreator!
You’re a bourgeois degenerate who wants to see shitty despicable & violent relationships for your disgusting sense of entertainment— and you should feel fucking ashamed of yourself.
I agree with @girlcreator but I definitely know there’s something wrong with you. People like you are a huge red flag to me. Bad vibes, for sure.
reblog if you’re a bourgeois degenerate who wants to see shitty despicable and violent relationships for your disgusting sense of entertainment (and you should feel fucking ashamed of yourself)
Welcome to the Writing Blog! We are the Not Yet Dead Author, Natsume Rune! You may call us Rune or Natsume, either is fine! Our pronouns are we/they, and we are an aromantic/asexual genderfluid cluster of whispers from the Void who wish to reach out and touch the Worlds in a more pronounced way!
Keep Reading for the Full Introduction! c:
Get To Know Us and Our Own
small thoughts:
As a very passively survivor of the Worlds, we tend to be quiet and have been more just existing in the shadows of the community for a long while now.
Not only an Author, we have other side blogs for our art and our ramblings into the Void, so feel free to check those out in our bio!
Our Main is @365runesofpassion, so follows and asks and other things will come from here, tagged properly so you can know who it is coming from!
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
things to consider:
We are most comfortable writing and conversing in italics! It just feels like it speaks with our souls, so please be aware that most of the posts and such will be within that realm of writing.
Our most comfortable sense of writing is in third person present tense! We also write in first person (sometimes) and second person (rarely) but our comfort lies in others and their present.
We write mostly fantasy! We have our own Worlds and our own universe, the Storyverse, that we will probably both hint, note, and talk about, depending on things!
Our writing forms include: fanfiction, short stories, drabbles, flash fiction, novels, poems, and role playing! We enjoy rolling through forms, so please note that there will be a lot of everything on here.
We do have a few triggers, mostly involved around bodily harm and mental illness, so please be considerate with things!
If there is anything else anyone would like to know, do not hesitate to ask or message us! But be aware that we are not afraid to deal with anything impolite or inappropriate, we have a zero tolerance standard and we will keep it without hesitation.
The Things We Are Creating
current state of our Library:
We actually have many different WIPs that we have bounced around for the past two years or so! Our Muse is quite the fickle darling, and she wishes to give all of the words of our Worlds their chance. So feel free to look over our Masterlist and we will be giving our vibrant works their own space, no worries!
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
a few of the more prominent works:
Mitch's Journals
Initial Concept:
A series of journal entries and notes from the eyes of the Observer who wished to know the entirety of the Storyverse.
- short stories, diary entry style, biography
- outlining, handwritten/physical drafting
Marathon Runners
Initial Concept:
Run.
She wants to do it forever, can’t get enough of the wind and burn and the way her body explodes in joy. She keeps going, not fearing the exhaustion that took most of the Sprinters off the roads, especially nowadays.
Run.
He doesn’t want to, not anymore. The air that once brought him bliss now screams around him. Even so, he barely misses a single noise, the panic setting in on how loud they were becoming.
Run.
There was no stopping, not when the goal is so close, the road to freedom bleeding the lines so hopefully until-
They crash.
- novel, third person present, fantasy (Magicks included)
- outlining, scene drafting
The Plague Begins With Me
Initial Concept
Lost to the devastation of the Plague and destroyed by the aftermath of Humanity's Fall, the World of Zeomia holds nothing but the dystopian devastation of disease and decay.
Shouldering a responsibility that no one else is allowed to know, Zero tries to give mercy to those who have fallen from her own twisted fate.
- novel, third person present, dystopia, horror, survival
- outlining, scene drafting
Vagabond Child
Initial Concept:
It had been a while since the Incident.
Not many people came by anymore, no one daring to venture into the wilderness that had taken over their utopia.
Those who did manage to get out of the beds and away from their homes were Scavengers, ghosts in search of the glory of the Old Days.
- timeline short stories, third person present, dystopia, survival
- drafting
Grayland's Shadow
Initial Concept:
The story of the black sheep of the Anderson Immortal Family, it holds onto the perspective of the Observer Mitch, the murderer Grayland, and the soft child that changes the Balance, Molly.
- novel, first/second/third person present, fantasy (magicks included), murder, horror (insanity)
- revising, second rewriting, drafting rounds
Squicks: Mutilation, Body Horror
Triggers: Bugs, Blood/Gore
We block without a single moment of hesitation. This is the warning.
Feel Free To Include Us
We would love to be included and active in the community! Please feel free to be friendly and involve us in tag games, asks, and other things to join in!
All Of The Background Noise
A lot of the beginning work will be mostly shifting our old posts and writing from our Main to this one, and will try to be tagged appropriately.
Feel free to message or send an ask if you want to be tagged for anything!
Would love to gather more writers with similar interests and niches, so feel free to follow and we will follow back with our Main. c:
stay healthy and happy, safe and sound,
until we write again
how is it almost july how are we almost halfway through the year how are we almost closer to the start of 2023 not the start of 2022 what has happened to the last six months why am i continuously shaken by the undeniable passage of time i think I need to lie down
Hello, Anon with the ask about whump getting to you emotionally!
I’m not posting your ask directly because some of the stuff in there felt to me like it might make some current whump writers try to decide if you meant them/their stories or not. But I still want to answer some bits and pieces:
For the past few months (about a year or more, I think) I feel like whump has been giving me more anxiety than enjoyment.
So, this is 100% not uncommon. There are whumpblrs who pretty routinely take breaks from both writing and reading because they need to kind of disconnect out of that whump headspace for a while or they start to feel a little rough. It sounds like you’re empathizing with the characters, especially when you mentioned that the lack of knowing there’s a light at the end of the tunnel seems to affect you really heavily.
I can’t tell you what to do about getting too attached, but I think you might have the right idea on needing to step back from the specific stories you mentioned. One thing you can do without blocking, for the record, is to block specific content tags or filter them out. You can filter a username, or if you know the whumpblr uses a specific tag for the writing on this character, you can filter that (for example: if you filtered #chris the strawberry blond romantic, it would filter my Chris stories). Yes, you can still click to read, but you’ll have to click twice, and maybe that extra moment to choose will help you feel some distance.
Don’t get down on yourself for having feelings, Anon. It’s totally normal to get emotionally wrapped up in a story and struggle when the character struggles, and whump can be especially rough since some of our stories really are just like… so much pain and fear and agony. When that’s the vibe you want, it’s perfection, but please absolutely - do not feel bad if you need to create a sideblog or just step back entirely and maybe just not read whump much at all for a while. You can always bookmark specific blogs you want to check up on still.
I’m not sure if any of this will help you, but I wanted to tell you don’t worry about sending it to me, and I hope venting helped you out a little bit. And I hope you’re able to get some distance and deep breaths and get back to that story when you’re ready.
If it’s ok to add onto this; I would recommend taking a peek at this post I made a bit ago that I find very relevant to this topic of getting too in your own head when it comes to whump and when it’s time to take a step away from it for your own mental health❤️
A small epilogue to Jealousy / Uncertainty, explicitly written for @canniboylism honestly
CW: Recovering whumpee, Kauri’s Poor Life Choices Redux, alcohol use, alcohol abuse, angst, drug use
-
“Hey, Jer.” Tim, the other bartender, nudges Jeremy with his elbow while he pulls a beer, the pint glass expertly tilted, tipping back to normal until it’s full with only the thinnest layer of white foam above the dark stout beneath. “Look over at the corner.”
Jeremy’s busy shaking up a cocktail, but he looks the way that Tim points, both of them going through the motions of their job with mindless perfect precision even as their minds are entirely elsewhere. “What’m I looking at, Tim? I just see the usual crowd.”
“Yeah, maybe a little too usual.” At Jeremy’s obvious confusion, Tim laughs and sets the beer down in front of the customer who ordered, giving him a wave as he grabs it and turns around. “Who do you see who hasn’t come around in a while, huh? Take a look.”
Jeremy checks again.
His eyes roam over the crowd - mostly men, although there’s some women here and there. Men moving together on the dance floor, shimmery with sweat and more than a few with glitter, too. That’s enough of a bitch to clean up after the bar closes for the night that they mostly just let it be.
He sees Kenny, Brent, Ollie, Robert, Emory, Kauri, Isaac, a guy who tells everyone to call him Remington that Jeremy badly wishes he could throw out for that reason alone-
One of Jake’s rescues becoming ill, but managing to keep their condition to themself by mostly sticking to their room. Until their fever spikes, and half the safehouse witnesses them collapse when on their way to the kitchen for water.
CW: Sickfic, feverish whumpee, sick whumpee, memory loss, BBU, past pet whump referenced, caretaker and whumpee
This is for @vickytokio who has been so patient in waiting for this moment.
-
There is a hand at his elbow, and he shakes it off, shifting to press his back to the wall. It's cool, cold enough to make him shiver, and his shirt sticks to the sweat on his lower back as he tips his head back.
"Eli?" Antoni leans over him, eyebrows furrowed in a slight, soft concern.
Better him than anyone else, Eli thinks.
"I'm fine," Eli says, voice low. The music of his natural singsong, the softest hint of an accent from the mystery of his birth, is buried beneath a hoarse, husky overlay. His throat aches, stabbing sharp pains with every swallow, making him wince. "Just thirsty."
Antoni’s lips thin, and there’s a tension to him. Eli’s eyes roam slowly over the lines of his shoulder beneath the heavy sweater he wears, linger on the single ancient round scar on one side of his neck. “You are sick,” He says, softly. “I know sick.”
“Oh, do you.” Eli pushes himself to his feet, using the wall for balance, and when Antoni wordlessly offers a hand he pulls away from it, moving further down the hall towards the kitchen.
He wishes he didn’t have to shuffle not to feel like he’ll fall over. It doesn’t help him seem as fine as he’d like.
“You should… you should rest,” Antoni says, a little helplessly, as he shadows Eli down the hallway. Eli sets his jaw and ignores him. The rough touch of the hallway along his fingertips hurts. His skin feels stretched over empty air inside him, and he shivers at something like a breeze.
“I want a drink of water,” He says. He can’t keep his voice low enough to disguise the roughness of it. There’s a pressure above and beneath his eyes, throbbing as it pushes against the bone beneath. He has to squint against the ache of the light. “I’ll lay down after that, An-... Antoni.”
“Please,” Antoni says, and there’s something tentative and nearly tremulous in his own voice. “Pozhaluysta, Eli, let me help you.”
Eli pauses, and the corner of his mouth twitches, the faintest, faded hint of a smile. “Mne ne nuzhna tvoya pomoshch', Antoni.”
He risks the dizziness to turn, just so he can see the look of shock on the other man’s face. “You-... you-... ty govorish' po-russki?”
“Da.” Eli laughs, raspy and barely-there, and wanders into the kitchen. It feels like it’s taken weeks, months, ages just to walk from his room in the back into here. Sunlight streams in from outside, and he shudders against the stabbing pain of a memory of a warmer sun in a hotter place, of a different kind of hand pressed to his forehead. A whisper of a woman’s voice, Asahaay bachcha. Ab so jao, Jairaj.
Her eyes and skin and hair were all so dark, blocking out the hated, hurtful sun when he burned, warm as a blanket when he froze. Warm hands on cold skin, cool palm to sweating forehead or the back of his neck.
He tries to forget it as quickly as he can, to let her voice slip back and away. He can’t take the migraine that comes with memories, on top of all his other hurts. The bones of his very thighs ache as he makes his shuffling way to the fridge, opening it up.
“Since-... since when do you-”
“My master,” Eli says, pulling out a bottle of vaguely-gray-blue Gatorade, twisting off the top and drinking the cool, sweet liquid until it runs out of either side of his mouth. “Loved opera. We went to the Bolshoi at least once a year, the two of us. He had friends who were Russian. I learned to pass the time. There was…” He hesitates, staring at the Gatorade. Somehow, half of it is already gone. “There was so much time.”
Antoni is quiet, but he moves to the side, setting the kettle on the stove full of water to boil, pulling down two mugs. Eli watches him with hazy eyes as he opens two different boxes of tea, the elaichithat Eli prefers, heavy and sweet with cardamom and ginger, his own strong black tea. “The day gets away from you,” Antoni says without looking at him.
Eli considers escaping back to his room from this… this moment that comes between them, uncomfortable intimacy.
Instead, he turns and leans against the fridge, lets the cold of it soothe the burn of his skin right through his shirt. “There are too many days,” He says, wiping at his mouth, looking down to find drips of Gatorade soaked into his shirt. Oh, well. It can join the sweat, can’t it? “Especially after my bonded was gone-... after I came back to my master. What else did I have to do, but learn while locked into my master’s bedroom?”
“Your bonded must miss you,” Antoni says, quietly. He stays on the other side of the room the span of the table and chairs between them, and Eli could cry with gratitude at the air Antoni gives him to breathe, so unlike the suffocating concern of therapists and doctors and Jakob Stanton.
“I assume he is dead,” Eli says, voice flat. “We don’t live long, away from each other. Everyone knows that.”
“But you are here,” Antoni counters, voice gentle. “You are still here, Eli.”
Eli raises his chin, jaw set, dark eyes flashing beneath the fog of his fever. “I am stronger than others.”
“Stronger than your bonded?”
His heart flutters, deep down, beneath the solid breastplate of bone where it is carefully shielded. He can withstand the blows.
“He was never the same kind of strong as I. Why are you making me tea?”
Antoni doesn’t answer at first, turning away to pull down honey in a little plastic jar shaped like a bear, tipping it upside down to add the cloying syrup first to Eli’s mug, then his own. Without looking back, he says quietly, “How else will you allow me to show you that we care if you are ill?”
“I don’t get sick,” Eli says, but he knows his appearance - pale, clammy, with the deep circles beneath his eyes - gives away his lie. “Good pets don’t-”
“We are neither of us very good pets,” Antoni says, and he smiles over his shoulder. Eli can’t help but return it, somehow.
He must be sicker than he thought.
“This is true. But I have always kept to myself, Antoni. I do not intend to stop now-”
“What was your bonded’s name?”
Eli stiffens all over again. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because… because…” The water in the kettle is starting to make a soft sound, as bubbles form on the bottom and break the surface. Not quite boiling, but close. “Because I think everyone should be remembered, this is all. I think we all of us deserve our names, and to be thought of.”
“I never stop thinking about him.” Eli looks down at his fingernails, still carefully filed and trimmed and cared for. “They don’t know what they’ve done to us, when they make us bonded. That it doesn’t stop, that you can’t turn it off. They don’t know what they’ve done-”
“Yes, they do.” The whistle of the kettle starts up, soft as a song, and Antoni pulls it off the stove immediately, pouring the steaming clear water into the mugs, one by one. There’s a silence, as he does it, the strong smell of cardamom rising in the air almost immediately. “They know exactly what they have done.”
“Yes.” Eli sighs heavily, and finally allows himself to sit at a chair at the kitchen table. His legs are nearly weak with relief, and he finds himself resting his forehead on his arms, slumped. Some part of him screams to straighten his posture, keep his chin up, smile warmly when he’s looked at, be seen and not heard, no one cares about his thoughts, recite the words he’s learning in his mind while they talk around and over him. After all, he’s just there to decorate.
Just there to be his master’s exotic trophy, as lifeless as the head of a lion on the wall.
But he’s not there any longer.
“I found him once, I was able-... able to send a package. But then he was gone again, the house was empty. I don’t know where he went. If he hurts as much as I do at not having each other… maybe he is dead.”
“I am sorry,” Antoni says, softly.
“Ne izvinyaysya.”
“‘Do not be sorry,’” Antoni echoes, opening the fridge. “I could hardly understand that one.”
“Well, I am sick, aren’t I? You can’t blame me for screwing up the emphasis.”
Antoni laughs. There’s an odd warmth in Eli at the sound. “That is fair.”
“In any case… Nine,” Eli says, muffled by the dark soothing prison of his own arms. “His name is-... it was Nine.”
There’s a thunk, the gurgle of liquid pouring out, and Eli looks up from his arms to see Antoni staring at him as milk pours onto the kitchen floor from the half-gallon tipped onto his side at his feet. “Did you say Nine?”
“My master never gave him a name,” Eli says, confused. He stumbles to his feet to grab at a towel, which seems to break Antoni from his strange trance, as he jerks back into motion and picks up the milk, splashing it into the cups before stashing it back in the fridge, nearly empty now.
He drops to a crouch to help Eli clean up the spreading pale liquid, shaking his head. “Eli-”
“I think I did not smile, after we were found,” Eli says, looking at the soaked-through towel, a pale cream with blue stripes. It’s spotted with old stains that never came out in the wash. His master would demand the towel be replaced when the first stain stuck, but here everything is kept until it is threadbare. “What did I have to smile about? Do you see?”
“I-”
“What will I ever have to smile about again?” Eli chuckles, then winces as his throat punishes him for even a hint of cynical, unhappy humor. “This is more than you have heard me speak ever before, I guess. He does that to me. Thinking about-... he could always get me talking when nothing else could. Even if he’s gone… even if he’s gone, he’s still here.”
Antoni is quiet, and then shifts to his feet. He drops a damp towel into the sink. “Eli, he is not gone.”
“No, I know. Memory is-”
“He was good with devices,” Antoni says, suddenly. “Was he not? Good at looking at a phone, a computer, and knowing how it would work inside? Good at knowing how to use them?”
“What? No, we were never allowed to touch anything like that.” Eli pauses. His brain feels too full of fog and his eyes ache too much to fully understand what Antoni is saying. The smell of cardamom is stronger, and it seeps into his mind, brings back to his thoughts the shadowy woman, the scent of her own teas steeping, the steaming samosas on the table, the way she would bring home mangos when he was sad without him having to ask, piling them high and watching as he demolished them-
The pain rises, and he puts his hands over his face, trying to force her back down again, but she doesn’t want to go. Her lips thinned with disappointment, her soft subtle proud smile when she didn’t think he would see it. She loved him in the things she did, not the things she said.
He has a sense of them both covered in color, vibrant as paint, a small boy in a woman’s arms.
His master never wanted him to wear colors at all.
His master talked about adoration but it was only in his words, and his actions were always suffocating and buried Eli, alone.
“I think I know your Nine,” Antoni says, a hand at Eli’s back. It hovers, not quite touching, but Eli can feel the weight of it even so, feel the pressure of the near-contact. He swallows the lump in his throat, pushes past how it hurts.
“My Nine,” He says, a breath. A sigh and nothing more. He doesn’t want to believe it, and so he doesn’t. It’s as simple as that. “It was years ago, Antoni. I was taken back to my master. I was alone for years, and the days were… so long. I’m sure you’ve met people like him. There are so many of us, there must be others who feel like me.”
“No, Eli. Nyet, listen to me, I know your Nine. He is hiding in a place north of the city, he is-... he is-... he helps us all now. Your Nine, I know it must be yours, he told me once he knew what it means to lose, and he asked if I had a bonded, then. I did not understand that he meant he had one.”
Eli’s body is frozen, torn with equal strength between denying it - he cannot grieve Nine all over again, his heart won’t withstand the pain of the loss, if it isn’t him Eli may lose his mind this time - and wanting to ask.
He settles on the question.
“What does he look like?”
“This Nine that I know is tall, but he slouches. His hair is brown-”
“Everyone’s hair is brown,” Eli says, acid-laced, his eyes closing at the memory of Nine and his wide bright smile, slouching in the heavy oversized sweats he wore day-in and day-out in shades of beige or gray, compared to Eli’s perfectly tailored suits and silk pajama sets. “It is a common color of hair and it means nothing-”
“He wears a brace when he works,” Antoni says, “and he is telling me once it is because his arm was broken so many times by his master that it never healed right in the end. He has scars-”
“Stop,” Eli says, and the heels of his hands push into his closed eyes, sparking bright colors behind the darkness of his eyelids. “Do not say-”
“His bonded loved stained glass, he tells me, one day we are working together. His bonded loved color but could not have any of his own, his bonded had dark eyes and dark hair, his bonded would sing sometimes in-”
“Hindi,” Eli cuts him off, and his voice sounds strangled. Hands around his throat that are nothing but memories of those bare moments of happiness they had together, lying on his master’s bed whiling away the day, teaching his bonded the songs he couldn’t forget, child rhymes from a home he couldn’t remember. "I like to sing in Hindi."
“Da,” Antoni breathes, and Eli opens his eyes to find Antoni setting the mug down in front of him, milky and pale brown, looking at him with his deep brown eyes, an urgent expression.
“Chto, yesli eto ne on?” It seems safer to ask in a language that isn’t his in any way.
“It is him,” Antoni whispers, and puts his cool hands over Eli’s. To be touched directly by Antoni is so rare that it occurs to Eli he has never seen Antoni touch anyone first, only react to be touched by others. But now, he puts his hands on Eli’s, and his fingers are cold but they warm to Eli’s skin quickly.
The sleeve of his sweater pulls back at the motion, and Eli seems circle-scars along the inside of his wrist, disappearing up inside his sleeve. When his eyes raise, he can see more through the shadowed neckline of Antoni’s shirt, traveling down his collarbone until the shadows overtake them.
“Eli, I am sure it is him.”
“If it isn’t, I won’t survive it,” Eli admits, voice cracking, his smooth soft singsong shattering beneath the insistence. “I won’t. I can’t lose him again, even if it is only a dream of him, I cannot lose him again-”
“But what if you find him, instead?” Antoni meets his gaze, his messy dark hair falling over his own eyes in contrast to how neatly short Eli keeps his. There is an uncertain, hopeful smile on his face. “Will you survive that?”
“I might.” Eli is whispering, now. “I might. But-”
“Then I will call him.” Antoni pulls out his cell phone, and Eli exhales, closing his eyes. He’s too sick to say no to hope, when he has kept himself safe by doing exactly that, over and over again, ever since he lost Nine in the first place.
The ring of the phone is audible, just barely, against Antoni’s ear.
Nothing will come of it.
Nothing has ever come of his hopes-
“I know I am waking you,” Antoni says, cutting off whoever is speaking on the other end. “I know.”
Eli looks to the clock over the oven, and it reads 11:34. Nine always could stay up all night and sleep the day away, if allowed to.
He fights the way his heart starts to flutter, as if trying to escape how tightly he has caged it under the stone of his skeleton to keep it safe. It isn’t him, he tells himself, desperate not to feel the tearing, screaming grief he has felt once before. It isn’t him, it isn’t him, it isn’t him.
“Just bear with me. I will put you on speaker.” Antoni sets the phone down in front of Eli on the table. “Say hello to one of our residents.”
There’s a pause. Then, tired and hazy, a familiar voice. A little deeper, with time, but still… familiar. “Hello? Is there a reason I’m saying hello to-”
“Nine,” Eli breathes, his fingers twitching towards the phone and stopping themselves. His vision blurs, and it takes him a few seconds to realize it’s because he can’t see through his tears. “Nine. Nine, my Nine, my Nine, it’s me.”
There’s a silence, and then a thunk, and a curse comes through the phone. Eli puts his hands over his mouth to hide the way he wants to laugh, high and crazy, because he knows exactly what happened.
“You fell out of bed, didn’t you?”
“I sleep on a mattress on the floor, but I managed to fall out of that anyway,” comes the voice on the other end. “I always-... is this really Eli?”
“It’s me,” He manages. “Did you g-... did you get my gift when I sent it-”
“Yes. Don’t leave that fucking house, I’m coming to you.” He can hear Nine moving, shuffling and rustling through the speakerphone, the jingle of keys. “Don’t you dare leave, don’t you dare, it’s going to take me like five hours to get to you, don’t you fucking leave-”
“I w-won’t, I’ll be right here, Nine, I’m right h-here-” He lets out a single, uncontrolled sob before he tightens himself, before he forces the emotion as deep down as he can force it to go.
“I’ve been keeping that stained glass in the window of my last four houses,” Nine says, breathless. Eli closes his eyes and imagines his bonded running down the stairs of some house somewhere, the focus on his face.
How has his face changed? Has it? Or will he look just the same?
“I couldn’t find you again,” He says, voice shaking still. Cautiously - he allows his heart to beat fast. He lets the cage of his emotions crack, just the slightest bit, open. Lets himself breathe. “You should know, I am very sick-”
“Let me guess, you’re telling all of them you’re fine and you can handle it and do it all yourself, like always.”
Eli laughs, startled into the freedom of the sound. “Yes.”
“Good to know I still know you as well as I used to.”
“We always knew each other best,” Eli says, and then his voice dips, and he leans forward to whisper. “I missed you so much.”
“I thought of you every day, Eli. Every damn day. I’ve been looking for you, every single day.”
“Well… here I am.”
“Don’t hang up the phone.” Eli hears Nine’s ignition start, the rumble of some ancient car. “Please. Please just keep talking to me, I’m afraid if you hang up I’ll wake up and this was just dreaming about you again.”
“Do you dream about me?”
“Always. Do you remember how we used to sing?”
“Yes.”
Antoni taps the back of Eli’s hand, lightly. His smile is wide, and there is a shimmer in his own eyes, too. “Take my phone to your room with your tea,” He offers. “I will bring you the charger.”
“Thank you,” Eli says, and he doesn’t just mean about the phone.
Antoni only turns away, leaving to head for his own room. Eli stands, balancing phone in one hand and mug in the other, moving slowly down the hall. Nine starts to talk to him about where he’s staying now, and Eli lets the familiarity of that voice wash over him. The empty spot they made inside of him during training starts to refill.
His bonded, after all, always meant far more to him than any master he was meant to love.
They didn’t know what they had done, when they came up with bonded pairs. They didn’t just give Eli a built-in nursemaid, companion, or servant. They didn’t make him a weakness.
They gave him a way to break through the love he was supposed to feel and remember what actual love felt like. They gave him the first steps towards escape, they made it so they couldn’t paint over the person he is with someone else he was supposed to be. Not entirely.
He showed through, an oil painting with a second one hidden just beneath the first.
Nine made it out earlier, but the love of Nine had led Eli here anyway.
“I can’t wait to see you again,” Nine says as Eli drops onto his bed, closing his eyes, letting the phone rest warm just beneath his collarbone.
Over his heart.
His fever burns, but the knowledge that Nine is coming burns brighter.
