i hope you know that you were worth it all along

Fenris · #1

This was all feeling real fucking familiar.

Not that he hadn’t been to a Malthusian Catastrophe concert before, because he had, even if he wished he hadn’t because they fucking sucked. No, okay, they were pretty good, he was being unfair, he was just in a real shitty mood all of a sudden, but he didn’t know why, and he also didn’t really remember how he’d gotten here in the first place, but that was probably the alcohol he didn’t remember drinking. Right? Yeah? There was a haze over the crowd around him, probably smoke, probably weed, somewhere, it smelled less like weed and more like copper but that was fine. Lorenzo had just been here.

Lorenzo had just been here.

He pushed through the crowd, following—something. A trail he could see but couldn’t, could sense guiding his footsteps, what kind of stoned bullshit was that, whatever, he opened his mouth to call out but his voice was swallowed by the music and there was blood oozing from his mouth, which was a normal thing that happened sometimes, he was pretty sure?

There was a lot of blood and the crowd wasn’t moving and like that was just, something?

There Lorenzo was.

He was bleeding, too.

>> When Axel opened his eyes, they were still in the trees.

Different trees, though. This clearing was smaller, that was the main giveaway, cause he sure as fuck wasn’t in a brain place to be telling the difference between branch patterns or whatever. The sun was still out, not that much time had passed, but he still had no fucking idea how he got here, so all of that other stuff seemed kind of unimportant by comparison? Took him a minute to remember what “different trees” was even in comparison too because his head was throbbing and his immediate mental association was “hangover” but some cloudy version of reality filled the holes in his head.

Not literal holes! He didn’t have any of those. Besides the one where a tooth was supposed to be. Did that count? Like when you said “hole in his head” in this situation he’d go for bullet before missing tooth but y’know. He didn’t know, actually?

He remembered, barely, his feet shuffling, one in front of another. Hel’s shoulders under one arm, Abe’s under the other. Kinda awkward and lopsided. He only remembered it as a moment, a fragment dug up from a blackout. The rest was nothing.

That didn’t bode super well.

His hand was bandaged. Didn’t seem to be bleeding from the mouth anymore either, so that was a good sign, though he wasn’t sure if it was a good enough sign, if that made any sense, which it objectively didn’t. He still hurt. He was probably still going to hurt for the rest of his life. Something something life was pain something something I want to die but not literally because that was a relevant distinction that also didn’t matter at all god he was so fucking tired he was so fucking tired physically and mentally and just of, himself. Of himself. Of his own brain that couldn’t hold onto a goddamn thing when he probably didn’t have much time to hold onto anything.

He could see Hel and Abe, not far off, talking. He couldn’t hear them, or he could, but it was static or like adults in Peanuts cartoons, it was just noise, they hadn’t noticed his eyes were open.

He didn’t want to close them again.

Hazy. Everything still was. He remembered reaching for Lorenzo in a crowd but he didn’t remember why. He remembered Lorenzo punching his jaw in but he remembered that happening a bunch of times so whatever? Their fights were just ill-advised foreplay and Axel only ever took ill advice.

Something was missing again. He was so fucking tired but he forgot why.

He was dying, probably.

That was stupid, though. He’d be fine.

None of them would be fine.

He was forgetting something important.

He shut his eyes and the world went black.

So Game of Thrones just kinda sucked after season 4, right? Like that was an uncontroversial opinion? Dorne sucked and Ygritte was dead so what was even the point. That was the same year him and Hel had been Jon and Ygritte for Halloween, he thought, maybe. Time getting mixed up. He didn’t remember, which was weird, because it wasn’t a memory. It was right in front of him.

Hel, right in front of him. Hel’s body on his. Not a mistake he could make. Definitely not one he wanted to.

They’d been watching Game of Thrones, still were, technically, bad dialogue playing in the background, barely reaching their ears anymore, it had all been an excuse anyway. Not a “lets be alone so we can fuck” excuse cause they hadn’t fucked at that point, not ever, he’d only ever dreamed, just a “it feels less weird asking to hang out one-on-one when there’s a Thing To Do” excuse, and sometimes there were just better Things To Do. People, even. Haha. He was so sweaty, christ.

He’d loved them for so long. They tasted like copper and he didn’t question it.

He saw the future in their eyes. Their prom dress, their hand in his. He didn’t want to question anything. He hovered in that moment for way longer than made any sense, longer than could be explained away with some cliche about time standing still, but that was fine. It was all fine. They were his and he was theirs and they didn’t know that, yet, but they would, because he knew everything, the air felt heavy with some unavoidable sense of wrongness that he pressed out of his mind and onto their lips, it was fine. It was okay.

It was his moment. It was all he wanted.

He could stay here forever and not regret a thing.

Don’t let me go, he said, or thought, because there wasn’t really a difference, because the moment they let him go he’d be lost forever, and that was the thing he knew most, and their mouth was dripping blood, and so was his.

Something vital was slipping through his fingers.

Please don’t let me go.

He let go first.

When Axel opened his eyes, they were out of the woods, kind of. Literally. Figuratively they were… in the woods. Still. Being creative was hard.

They’d been in the woods. Literally. He remembered that, and the woods were still there, and he was leaning against a tree, but he could see a thing that wasn’t the woods in front of them. Them? Them. The other people. Shadows on his memory that only coalesced into people when he turned and saw Hel sitting next to him. There was someone else. Abe! Abe was someone else. He was somewhere, doing something, probably. His brain was swimming through mud. The thing they were looking at, buildings? Places? Looked vaguely familiar, but not in a way his mind could place. He thought he’d walked here but he didn’t know how.

“Hey,” he slurred at Hel. His mouth wasn’t moving right. “Hey, kitten.”

Something had rocked him real fucking good. He remembered his head hitting the ground. He remembered bleeding. He saw the bandages on his hand. He was missing the rest. He had a feeling he’d had it, not long ago. Something vital was slipping through his fingers.

“Hey.”

They were saying something back, but his heartbeat was louder.

“I can’t…”

He wanted to move closer. He stared at them, like maybe if he looked hard enough they’d know. He saw himself in their eyes. He looked pathetic.

Sorry, he tried to say, but the word stuck to his mouth. He wasn’t allowed to be afraid. He didn’t remember what he was afraid of.

Something about dying.

He let it drift away as his eyelids fluttered closed.

Birds attacking someone was inherently pretty funny, unless it was like, a really big bird, or The Birds, or your best friend having a panic attack.

He remembered the birds. He remembered the fear in his eyes, he remembered a flailing tentacle and a box of ants, he remembered breaking glass and running, he remembered a slap fight, he remembered crying, he remembered the first time he looked at him and realized how much he wanted from him that he could never give, he remembered blood and sweat and smoke and booze and a chord played in concert on two guitars, he remembered anger, he remembered joy, he remembered the look on his face when Hel told him they were dating, he remembered the way he laughed.

He remembered—

He forgot.

He let it slip past him.

He didn’t want that part. He didn’t need it.

There was so much good to hold onto.

When Axel opened his eyes, their surroundings were drowning in orange light. He knew this place, vaguely, only vaguely. He saw Abe and Hel, there. They weren’t, in his memories. Missing pieces, again. Again? He didn’t remember.

His voice was a croak.

“Where’s Andy?”

He hadn’t really thought that hard about it, when he’d asked Abe out. Out like for a thing, not out like out out, like dating out, because that was out of the fucking question, even if he kind of maybe wanted to a lot. But it was just a regular invite, to a particular secluded spot with a good view of the sunset, which was real fucking gay of him let’s be honest here. But they were going to smoke, which was obviously a super not-gay activity, so it wasn’t weird.

It was never weird, with Abe. Never an awkward moment, not back then. The way he looked at him when he was singing made his heart want to explode out of his chest. He shouldn’t do anything because they were friends, best friends, even, maybe, and that was a fragile thing, and Axel shattered fragile things to bits as a matter of course.

He hadn’t made an exception.

It was clumsy in that self-conscious way all sober hookups were and that was good, it felt right that way, he breathed and Abe breathed with him and he breathed him in, all of him, and the light turned orange on his bare skin and he said something like you’re incredible and he’d meant it and the light turned red and it didn’t. That didn’t happen. They had—

He didn’t want to lose this too.

He didn’t know what too was. What had he lost?

Abe’s eyes were clouded, or maybe he was just seeing his reflection in them, again, again? He was clouds, he was smoke, he was nothing.

He’d been in love, for a minute, he thought. Maybe it didn’t matter.

He held on.

He was running out of things to hold on to.

When Axel opened his eyes, it was dark, and Abe was right there in front of him, and everything hurt, and he didn’t remember how he’d gotten here, but Abe was still here, and he remembered.

Abe didn’t push him away.

He tasted like copper, too.

He didn’t remember anything.

It was dark, and it hurt, and he didn’t remember anything.

He saw someone in the distance, but he didn’t know what distance was, really, and he didn’t know who they were, but he did, they were so achingly fucking familiar, he reached out but there was a hole in his hand and there was nothing behind it. There was nothing behind it. There was nothing. There was nothing. There was nothing.

There was lilac hair, and a smile. There was grief he couldn’t name. It was dark, and it hurt.

And he remembered everything, but only for a moment.

It was enough.

>> His eyes refused to open.