For the ask
Call me?
Oh this was fun! Thank you anon!
Call Me: write a drabble about one character asking for another.
OCs: Whumpee!Arch and Caretaker!Paimon.
CW: None.
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It was a gentle floating, whirling feeling. Like being on a playground swing, steadily climbing to its apex from which there was no descent. If it were real, Arch would have doubled over in nausea by now, but they didn’t because there was no reason to. The darkness granted the illusion of no movement at all, despite what was otherwise felt. They were traveling farther than they had ever traveled before in their mind- in this space they believed to be their mind; an imagined Labyrinth, merely devised in a dream and created out of pure, pathetic need.
They wondered when they would see her. They hoped they might find her. Call out to her somehow.
“Mom!?”
The darkness continued to whirl through the Labyrinth without a sound. Arch’s voice was lost to the darkness too, as though it was sucked up through a vacuum. Without any solid forms to echo their voice back to them, there wasn’t even the illusion that they were not alone.
“Mom!?”
The more they cried out, the more they felt lost in the solitary prison. Maybe mom was calling out too, Arch hoped, maybe I just can’t hear her… Maybe she can’t hear me…
The smallest beacon of light shone at a distance and with sudden charge, Arch flew toward it, and it grew bigger with every moment that passed.
“Mom? Is that you?”
They picked up their pace, and then realized that the light had passed them by already- the strange place had done a number on their sense of distance and time. They turned back and stopped. The light was there, floating by on its own accord and choosing its own direction to travel. Arch simply watched as the light continued on, unresponsive to their cries.
“Mom… Please… Is that you?” Arch could feel themselves crying, though there was nothing to prove that they were. “Mom I know it’s you… I can… I can feel it.”
Arch had no desire to leave the light behind. They followed it as it went on, and they paused by its side when it stopped. There was no way for them to hold the light, to touch it, or to do much else than just watch. The light lowered and remained lower for several moments. When it rose to its normal height, it left a familiar gold crucifix in its wake.
“MOM!”
Arch awoke with a jolt, the sound of their own shouting still filling their ears as they rose up from the pillow, nearly jumping off the side of the mattress onto the hard stone floor of Paimon’s home.
The lights of their room turned on, filling the space with an eerie orange glow. Then, there was a knock at the door.
With their heart still pounding and their sweat collecting at the back of their neck, they waited for the second set of knocks before they welcomed in exactly who they had expected would be knocking at that time.
Paimon opened the door, respectfully. His hooves clattered against the floor as he allowed himself in, and he sat on the edge of the bed in silence.
“Nightmare?” He began. He did not make eye contact with the human- they were not so willing to either.
“I don’t get nightmares,” Arch retorted. “Don’t be stupid.”
“It’s not stupid to become the victim of one’s own mind, it simply happens,” Paimon said, a hand smoothed out his long beard and rested at the end of it, twirling its point. “Every one of us has had to battle with our conscience, our guilt, and our fears at one time or another. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
Arch settled themselves against the headboard, their arms choked out a long cream coloured pillow as they lowered their chin into it, hiding the redness that began to show itself below their eyes.
“Why did you let me remember her?” they asked him, muffled by the pillow.
“Would you have preferred I didn’t?” Paimon inquired, mildly surprised.
“Of course,” they replied. Tears came welling up, but they blinked them away as soon as the temptation to cry had struck them. “She would be so ashamed of me. Of what I’ve done… I’m… evil… I’m a… monster…”
“But my sweet, sweet, thing!” Paimon pressed a hand into their shoulder, eagerly but tenderly. “Don’t you see? Your shame about who you are and what you are- that is not your burden to carry! Your shame began with your family, and it will end with them. You feel their guilt and their fear, and the weight of their conscience. Don’t allow them to bring you down.”
“Then get rid of it for me! Erase them! Erase everything!” Arch pleaded.
Paimon shook his head, and removed his hand from their shoulder.
“That would be too easy. The moment that you can leave behind those you care for of your own volition, is the same moment you will know that you have become more powerful than any other being on Earth. I will not rob you of that victory.” Paimon stood up, and head towards the door. “Not in your wildest dreams.”
“Wait,” Arch felt awkward even thinking this, but it was what they needed. They had a big day tomorrow, and they needed some good rest. “Could you… Could you put me to sleep? No dreams, no nothing?”
Paimon returned to the bedside motioning for them to readjust their sleeping position. Taking the pillow from their arms, he fluffed it once and propped it beneath their head. Arch pulled a blanket up around their shoulders and sunk into the welcoming pillow and soft mattress below, feeling much more comfortable than mere moments before he had come into their room.
“Thank you, Paimon," they sighed.
Paimon nodded, and lifted a hand over their forehead. He lightly touched above their browbone.
“Cwsg sydyn.”
Paimon lowered the lights as he made his way toward the door. He gripped the doorknob and turned back as the sound of Arch’s deep breathing of slumber was already audible.
“Goodnight, sweet thing,” he uttered just before closing the door behind him.