thank u @pancakehouse xxx my fellow warrior cats veteran <33
the stand, stephen king - well. sorry
the hunger games trilogy, suzanne collins - just lobbing these all together bc they were foundational pieces of work to me
northanger abbey, jane austen - !!! albeit it’s not austen’s most popular (or best) work but it genuinely makes me laugh every time i read it and well :/ i am a mr tilney girl before i am a darcy one
frankenstein, mary shelley - don’t think this needs any explanation! i reread it too often and always come away with smth shiny and new
their eyes were watching god, zora neale hurston - one of the books that jumpstarted my desire to study literature!!
les misérables, victor hugo - read it at thirteen after watching the hamilton musical. we don’t need to talk abt this
catcher in the rye, j.d. salinger - i have so many thoughts abt holden i keep mostly sequestered away in the private gc of the only two people who can stand me
sonny’s blues, james baldwin - not a novel but a short story!!! and one which i read a few years ago sitting on a park bench crying and have now read again several other times and still get choked up
because of winn-dixie, kate dicamillo - i definitely read this as a child but it’s probably mixed up with the movie adaptation; all i remember is it taught me the definition of melancholy a word now inseparable from werther’s original caramel candy
east of eden, john steinbeck - love love love!!! in fact once i hit post i’m making coffee and having a little read of it <3
:^) tagging @winterssunday @dykefever @serethereal @pomegranate-pill and @drowsyanddazed !!
~800 words. Tales of Symphonia. T, M/M-ish. Mithos-focused. Pre-canon, introspection, obsession, implied sexual content. Mostly just some real messed up thought processes. 2018.
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He strokes his fingers in light circles over the raised lines on your back as you lie on the mosaicked floor of the chapel. He likes it here: the stained glass dome casts everything in a gentle blue light, transforming your wheat-gold hair into a gentle green. You know what he’s doing - you’re too smart not to. Sometimes you wish you weren’t. But he’s right, even if he doesn’t say it. It should have been her. It should always have been her.
“I found one,” you say. “We can start the next phase.” He doesn’t need the explanation but you give it anyway, the low hum of your voice filling the silence in a way unique to yourself. A small selfishness you allow now and then.
“How close?” The others say he sounds monotone, sarcastic, no matter what he says, but you can tell the difference. There’s a hunger in it now. He doesn’t hide it, either because he thinks you can’t tell, or because he knows it wouldn’t matter.
An emotion stirs within you, but you can’t quite tell what it is. She left a void in your heart, after the transformation already numbed most of your feeling. Knowing yourself, it could be fear, or envy - not jealousy because you know you never had him at all - or sick satisfaction.
“Not close enough by far. But she’s devout. Phase two should go off without a hitch.”
“Apprehensive?”
He knows your lack of interest in women intimately, but that’s not what he means.
“They don’t look alike.”
It doesn’t matter what she looks like, as long as she - her bloodline - makes a suitable vessel. You’re still grateful, because you don’t know what you’d do if you lost him, too.
“It wouldn’t stop me,” you say, unsure if you’re responding to your last words or thoughts. “It doesn’t matter,” refers to both.
Even if you were the only one left in the whole world, you’d still complete your mission.
“Only a hero could have such single-minded determination.” He sounds mocking, but he truly respects your devotion. It’s something that had been alien to him, something he’d worked towards but which remained elusive - until her. He wants what he can’t have; in this you are exactly the same.
His fingers are in your hair now, trailing the long strands with laser focus. Part of you wants to rip them out.
You sit up to wrap your hands around his neck with a smile and pretend you don’t want them at his throat instead. He knows your smiles, should know this one is fake.
It’s a beautiful, subtle thing you've perfected ever since you took this form. Lips stretched loosely, light crinkles in the corners of your eyes, as if you’re not even aware you’re doing it. It lacks the facade of innocence you once draped yourself in, replaced instead with a serenity you’ve never been capable of. It’s more well-practiced than the one you gave her so very long ago, but he’s also had more time to see through it.
It should have been him instead. Any of them. Not her. Anyone but her.
“Can I help?” he asks, looking up at you through half-lidded eyes, dark in the low light. You’re not sure if he caught you in your rumination or if he’s still talking about phase two. He can’t help with phase two. He can’t help with your rumination. You’re not sure if he really wants to, or if he’s merely showing the expected facsimile of support.
It doesn’t matter.
When he looks at you like that - when he looks at her through you like that - the blue light dancing over the smooth angles of his face, hair mussed out of its delicate style by the evening’s exertions, that devilish smile that says everything and nothing at once, nothing matters. Except her. Always her.
“What did you have in mind?”
He always has something in mind. Whether it’s a plan or an experiment. You wish he could see you the way you do him. You’re sure no two people could understand each other the way you do.
“You should think of me when you’re with her.” Like he does when he’s with you.
He knows obsession. He knows you will. You want to fuck the thought of her out of his mind, replace her with yourself in every fiber of his being. You won’t, because it shouldn’t be you. She’s the one who deserves to be there.
She’s the only one who ever deserved to be alive.
“Then you’d better give me something to remember.”
You’ll bring her back.
He traces the bones of your hips with teasing touches. You slide one hand down his chest.
No matter what happens, you’ll bring her back.
He tips his head back and you follow the curve of his adam’s apple with your tongue. His legs wrap around your waist when you slot yourself between them.
Even if you have to sacrifice everything, you’ll bring her back.
