#thread; dylan

[normallyxstranger]

when's the last time you slept? @ Dylan

A WHOLE BUNCH OF QUESTIONS // @mindxthief

"Oh, I dunno... a long time ago."

It had been, in fact, the last night of his human life. And it had been a fitful sleep. Fever raged through him, the fever-dreams—the last dreams he'd ever have—relentlessly troubling him. He dreamed of the devil in a white mask. Death. When he woke, he found her dead. She... who was she? Name forgotten to time.

Yes, that had been a very long time ago.

"I don't sleep," Dylan went on, half-smile on his lips, pulling the conversation away from the past and those thoughts. "And I don't mean it like I'm an insomniac and can't sleep—I don't sleep. Ever. Don't need to."

He paused, inclined his head at Ayesha, smile growing. "Why do you ask? Am I lookin' a lil rough?"

[normallyxstranger1]

@draggeddowntothedark sent: ‘  give me a heads up if you start to feel murderous. i would appreciate that.  ’ Ick to Dylan

     “I’ll try,” he said, not bothering to look up while he used the tip of the blade to clean beneath his fingernails. Meticulous work, that. Dried blood caked there. “I was murderous earlier. Might not feel it for a while.”

     Then Dylan lifted his head, brown eyes darker than usual, as he regarded Ick with faint amusement. “But, ya know, that could change. And m’not much for warnin’.” He gestured with the knife, pointing the blade at the human. “But I kinda like you, so I’ll try.”

[normallyxstrange]

@murderousbitch​ sent: “For you, I’ve waited all these years.“ (dylan / but faith/elizabeth comes through asdkjh)

     Deep inside his chest, something cracked. The pain made it hard to breathe. The air around him went cold and her words came at him through a tunnel. Narrowed. Echoed. Loud, then soft, then gone. He swallowed down the lump in his throat.

     “Don’t--”

     She’d waited. Of course, she’d waited. All she could do was wait. Years. Centuries. Reborn into another and another. And another. Always waiting. Waiting for him to break a curse he never would.

     She would be forever waiting. How long had it been? Five hundred years? Six hundred? Too long to wait for him.

     “You were never meanta wait--” Dylan said, when he found his voice. He touched Elizabeth’s cheek--Faith’s cheek, now. Her skin was hot, his cold, and her aura burned. “I was never meant--” Words failed him. His eyes slid closed and his forehead met hers.

     She’d never know how tremendously sorry he was for that, for his inability to break the cycle. Soon, Faith would fall victim and die like all the others and Elizabeth would go back to waiting, waiting, waiting.

⛤

[theoutsidersx-archive]

“so, i have my beer in my hand and i’m talking to you and the kid just knocks into you and no one knocks into you around me, and without an apology?” dylan murmurs, “it was right that i knocked him out,” the man slurred, “he had it coming to him.” the brunette growled picking up the ice pack off his bloody knuckles momentarily to see the damage. the reality of the story was, dylan got jealous when he saw this guy talking to alexandria, and he interrupted their conversation earlier, and when the kid ‘accidentally’ bumped alex while she was speaking with dylan, and started flirting he couldn’t cool off, but at the sight of the man’s phone coming out, dylan assuming to ask alex for her number, he saw red and hit the guy. there was an obvious clear fuzzy line between reality and fiction in this moment with dylan but his adrenaline was running and he was hammered. @thesadlittleghost

[normallyxstranger]

"You talk in your sleep. I've heard you begging them to stop." For Dylan from Jane

Concerned Sentences, Vol. 12 // @gentle-hearted

———

It wasn't sleep, not as Jane knew it. It was closer to a semi-comatose state, where his thoughts could wander or not, and he could pull himself back to consciousness at will.

Most of the time.

Now and again Dylan slipped far down, so far into himself that memories surfaced, like chum in the water, this forgotten or forced away, things he'd rather keep forgotten. He lived it over again. It was probably the closest thing to dreaming the soultaker had known in many centuries.

But he had not been aware of any sleep-talking, or other sorts of escapades while he fell into his version of slumber. Hearing Jane say so came as a shock to him. For a moment, he could only stare, his eyes darting back and forth from her face to her aura. She wasn't teasing. or lying. Sweet Jane... she only spoke the truth.

"Huh." Dylan sat back, glancing up to the ceiling, searching his thoughts, thinking, remembering. Begging.... then that meant—

His widening eyes met hers

"What'd I say?" he asked, drawing out the words slow, biding time until... until she knew.

[normallyxstranger]

“Why does this feel like more than it should?” @ Dylan (in whatever direction, if any, you feel like taking it)

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 — 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 // @mindxthief

"What—"

He started to ask, but stopped himself. It would do no good to ask a question to which he already knew the answer:

"Why does this feel like more than it should?"

"What do you feel?"

"Love."

Even if Ayesha didn't say it aloud or so succinctly, even if she hadn't become aware of it by name, even if she didn't believe in it, there it was and she felt it. Bright as day, clear as crystal. Dylan could see flashes of it in her aura—a deepening pink, blooming into soft reds, the same colors in the sunrise before them. Barely there, tiny flickers of affection growing, growing—

There was no hiding secrets in the soul, not from a soultaker anyway.

"Why does this feel like more than it should?"

"Love is always more."

But Dylan said nothing. He glanced away, once more to the sky. The stars had burned bright last night and into the morning, and now dawn chased them away.

They'd watched them all night, from the rooftop of his building, a departure from their usual nighttime walks. Sunset to sunrise, stars twinkling against velvet blues, purples, blacks. They'd picked out constellations, dismissed planes and satellites, fell into easy conversations as they lay on the blankets.

They were close without touching, Dylan remaining just outside where her aura danced... at first. Then, he was beside her shoulder-to-shoulder, Ayesha's aura covering him. Dylan didn't touch it—no, he shouldn't even consider it—but it touched him. And because she felt it, he felt it too.

That was something, wasn't it?

"Why does this feel like more than it should?"

"I dunno, love," Dylan murmured, his dark eyes searching her face. "but it does feel like more, doesn't it?"

[normallyxstranger]

@southern-belle-outcasts

He never slept. Oh, he could pretend, go into that place in his head, go quiet, still. It looked like sleeping, sometimes that was enough. Tonight though, Dylan couldn't even do that. He left Rogue to sleep and went into the living room.

Dark, quiet—too dark, too quiet. That was how the TV came to be on, volume low, some old show playing. He watched with little interest, glad for the bit of noise—

A softer sound from behind him grabbed his attention—the tiny pit-pat of Finch's lil feet.

[normallyxstranger]

“help me understand.” @ Dylan

not sure what this is from so here we go // @mindxthief

Understand.

When Ayesha said it, it seemed doable. Simple, even. He could fool his head, for a time, by latching onto possibilities and hope. He could explain. He could make her understand. The words would come easily, flowing like water, floodgates open, high tide, and Ayesha would know and she would understand.

No, that wasn't right. It was a lie. He saw right through it.

Hope never lasted very long inside his fractured mind.

Dylan drew his arms around himself, fingers gripping the fabric of his t-shirt in both hands. The Shadows moved with him, darkening against his back and shoulders. They stayed close, Their cold permeating the air around him.

His head rolled listlessly against the back of the couch until he fixed his eyes on Ayesha. Dylan went still, gaze barely lingering on the concern sweeping through her aura. The soul he'd taken earlier had been lively, bright, all that sadness hidden under false happiness. It made the soul-sickness worse, but there was nothing he could do about it now but let it pass.

Ayesha should never know.

"S'alright, love," he murmured, ignoring her request, though his dark eyes stayed on her. "S'nothin' that won't pass in a bit."