[she watches del die while still frozen in place, but she'll never known if her failure to turn tail and run was out of some sense of courage and loyalty to her friend, or if the form her terror takes is just this, if she lacks even the meaner courage of andy's sense of self preservation.
she is trying to fight the fear. maybe she doesn't know the rules, but that's what this thing wants, doesn't it?
the wolf isn't the thing to be afraid of. someone had told her that, a long time ago. there are some creatures you ought to be wary of, that you ought to be careful of, but to know that they are only animals trying to survive, same as you but without even the knowledge you have of the many ways you are protected.
in the nightmare, the wolf never actually bites her, never manages to devour her. it's simply there, large and deadly, close, and in contrast to that lesson someone had once taught her, there is a glint of intent in its eye, a sense of threat, a desire to hurt. logically, wolves aren't like that about their prey - maybe if you threaten their pack, but there's no malice in hunger. but it didn't feel that way to her at the time and it doesn't feel that way now.
in the nightmare, someone saves her before anything truly bad can happen. but there's a voice in her head reminding her - that part is the nightmare. that's the thing she should have been afraid of. compared to that, compared to her, there was never any danger in the animal. maybe in life, if she had stood her ground, if she hadn't simply backed away and clung to the first person she found, it never would have bitten her, either.
but she doesn't know why she's thinking these thoughts, why they even matter. even if she could defang this particular shape of nightmare, talk herself out of this specific trauma, it only leads deeper into a nightmare where the thing that wants to hurt her isn't a hungry animal, but something darker and crueler, something that only wants to inflict pain, feeds off what it can do to her, and if she remembers it than it happened and there's nothing she can do to change that it happened. so it probably doesn't matter, but -
It matters because I could help Andy and Del.
if only she could stop seeing a wolf, and was able to will herself to confront what she's really seeing, no matter how much worse it really is, maybe she will know what to do. maybe she will see something familiar, something she can confront.
she's wrong, though. she watches the thing toy with del, she watches the thing bite into him. and she can't, she can't look at it after all, she doesn't want to see what's there after all. she doesn't want to know about these things, she doesn't want to have to face trauma, she wants to be that child who only knew to fear fangs and teeth, and to think that maybe, even though she's terrified, the nightmare won't last so long that she will actually feel its bite.
she'll never know if she would have moved to help fight the thing if she'd managed to steel herself in time, if she was even close. but del is dead, isn't he? he must be dead, the thing locks eyes with her, and she doesn't recognize that expression. she understands, instantly, something that eluded her before, that the wolf in her nightmares wasn't hungry, not at all. but it is hungry this time, and that brings all of her terror to the forefront, and she learns that she was right to be afraid as the wolf's jaws finally after all of these years do close around her.
her legs at first, so she can try desperately to crawl away, the self-preservation instinct suddenly hitting her once it is far too late. and it toys with her like it wants to hurt her, and she screams and screams until her throat threatens to tear, a scream she had to swallow many times. there's no one to punish her, to force her to be harder and stronger, so she lets it out, a scream for all of the times someone has hurt her for no reason other than that they wanted to hurt her.
she lies there, dying, and realizes she can't hear andy, hasn't for a while.
good.
there's no bitterness to him fleeing. she fought so hard for them, for bax, for del, for andy too, because she knew that's how it works. even if there's nothing else about her she has to give, maybe her brittle edges are enough. enough to attach herself to people, for them to want her around. but there's nothing about her that someone would love, that someone would throw themselves into the maws of a monster for like del did for bax.
it's the one happy thought. the worst would be if he had loved her enough to stay, had been dragged into this nightmare with her, suffered for her sake. but she didn't hold onto him so tightly, and he got away.
she has nothing, is nothing, and dies alone, but that's good.]
[ the pounding of his own blood in his ears as he takes off - run run run! - is enough to drown out the first sounds of the consuming, but it's impossible not to hear as he starts to escape, as his body starts to think maybe he can survive this. he doesn't know if they screamed at all, but he hears the sounds of tearing and splashing and somehow that's worse. shouldn't it be louder, when someone dies?
if there were such a thing as true virtue in the world - if things like compassion and faith and justice and love really haunted this earth - there'd be more examples wouldn't there? someone who cares enough to take a stand, a reason to believe that this place is worth saving. but every vision, every dream, every moment walking the waking world has been filled with scenes of violence and hatred. burning bodies and vultures who pick at the remains. maybe there are good people somewhere, but those people are born luckier, with the world on their side. they have beauty and bravery and friendships worth dying for. they have compasses in their heads and the power to inspire others to follow, they remembered to bring the right weapons, they cared enough to be saved.
but at least in derry there are only the baser values. greed and rage and sloth and gluttony. adults who are supposed to care who only see what they care to, which is nothing. that every child in derry is an acceptable sacrifice to a miserable life. he is an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of derry. easy to forget, a nail hammered down. sent here to wither and die and be forgotten in some basement. and he is not above the rest of the sinners. miserable and cowardly and envious. if he was a better person, maybe they all could have deserved to survive.
he's never been one to have regrets. regrets are for when the world slows to a crawl, when the fizzle and spark of constant motion fades and leaves you an empty thing, the great heavy pendulum swinging to the other side of his mind. when the great dark beast comes to press its paw against his chest and force him to the ground. but it's difficult not to regret this. he wishes he had stayed. if only because then it would be over, then he wouldn't be hearing the splash and tear in his mind, and thinking of the sun. of rain. of storms. of laughter and freedom and justice. of twin moons. a spark of flame.
he doesn't fight, or even try and escape again at the end.
sorry, del.
sorry, jen.
but the last thought is anger. rage.
he should have burned the whole place to the ground while he had the chance. a blaze bright and loud enough that no one could ignore it ever again. the match goes out. ]
[ all of del's fear was extinguished along with the light in his brother's eyes.
he'd never been afraid of most things other kids were afraid of anyway — scary movies, the dark, rattlesnakes, bullies, getting in trouble — because he could never afford to be when he had someone else he had to be strong for. getting passed around from one house to the next where they'd always been treated like someone's obligation, never like family, he'd learned early on that they could only really rely on themselves; if they didn't want to be crushed by the world's indifference toward them, he would have to be the unshakable pillar supporting them both.
that was the one fear he'd never been able to escape — that he'd fuck up and bax would get hurt or lost or worse. that he would buckle under all the weight that never should have been put on the shoulders of a single kid. and that fear was so constant and pervasive that it ate away at him a little more every day; no matter how hard he tried to steel himself, he'd only ever be able to last so long with a slowly eroding foundation. jen and andy had helped fill some of the cracks, but there was only so much they ever could have done. this wasn't their house to fix anyway.
bax is gone, and it no longer matters if the pillar comes crashing down. it's... freeing, even if it's a freedom he never, ever wanted. freedom from the single fear that's worn on him all his life, the freedom to break and let loose with everything he has.
it's not much. he's under no illusion otherwise. he vaguely remembers bill's advice in that moment as he rushes the monster, about using his imagination to fight this thing. maybe this useless nail file could have been a legendary sword fit for the steward of gondor if he'd been able to believe. but boromir was never supposed to outlive faramir. it's better this way.
in a hopeless fight against a monster that must represent fear itself, he feels none; not as it picks him up and toys with him, not as it rips out little pieces of him, not as it slowly and unrelentingly pulls on his hair and he feels every fiber in his neck straining and ready to snap.
in the end, this was where they'd ended up. down in the sewers with the rest of the refuse. with the decaying goldfish people had brought into their homes with fanfare only to give them the bare minimum of what they needed to continue existing until they could dump them out and move on with their lives, free from the burden of being obligated to care. the world always puts you in your proper place one way or another.
that's all right. this world never wanted them, but he doesn't want this world either. his neck finally gives way, and the final thought he has is that at least he won't be another bill. ]
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holyspirits) wrote2025-03-09 04:46 pm
no subject
she is trying to fight the fear. maybe she doesn't know the rules, but that's what this thing wants, doesn't it?
the wolf isn't the thing to be afraid of. someone had told her that, a long time ago. there are some creatures you ought to be wary of, that you ought to be careful of, but to know that they are only animals trying to survive, same as you but without even the knowledge you have of the many ways you are protected.
in the nightmare, the wolf never actually bites her, never manages to devour her. it's simply there, large and deadly, close, and in contrast to that lesson someone had once taught her, there is a glint of intent in its eye, a sense of threat, a desire to hurt. logically, wolves aren't like that about their prey - maybe if you threaten their pack, but there's no malice in hunger. but it didn't feel that way to her at the time and it doesn't feel that way now.
in the nightmare, someone saves her before anything truly bad can happen. but there's a voice in her head reminding her - that part is the nightmare. that's the thing she should have been afraid of. compared to that, compared to her, there was never any danger in the animal. maybe in life, if she had stood her ground, if she hadn't simply backed away and clung to the first person she found, it never would have bitten her, either.
but she doesn't know why she's thinking these thoughts, why they even matter. even if she could defang this particular shape of nightmare, talk herself out of this specific trauma, it only leads deeper into a nightmare where the thing that wants to hurt her isn't a hungry animal, but something darker and crueler, something that only wants to inflict pain, feeds off what it can do to her, and if she remembers it than it happened and there's nothing she can do to change that it happened. so it probably doesn't matter, but -
It matters because I could help Andy and Del.
if only she could stop seeing a wolf, and was able to will herself to confront what she's really seeing, no matter how much worse it really is, maybe she will know what to do. maybe she will see something familiar, something she can confront.
she's wrong, though. she watches the thing toy with del, she watches the thing bite into him. and she can't, she can't look at it after all, she doesn't want to see what's there after all. she doesn't want to know about these things, she doesn't want to have to face trauma, she wants to be that child who only knew to fear fangs and teeth, and to think that maybe, even though she's terrified, the nightmare won't last so long that she will actually feel its bite.
she'll never know if she would have moved to help fight the thing if she'd managed to steel herself in time, if she was even close. but del is dead, isn't he? he must be dead, the thing locks eyes with her, and she doesn't recognize that expression. she understands, instantly, something that eluded her before, that the wolf in her nightmares wasn't hungry, not at all. but it is hungry this time, and that brings all of her terror to the forefront, and she learns that she was right to be afraid as the wolf's jaws finally after all of these years do close around her.
her legs at first, so she can try desperately to crawl away, the self-preservation instinct suddenly hitting her once it is far too late. and it toys with her like it wants to hurt her, and she screams and screams until her throat threatens to tear, a scream she had to swallow many times. there's no one to punish her, to force her to be harder and stronger, so she lets it out, a scream for all of the times someone has hurt her for no reason other than that they wanted to hurt her.
she lies there, dying, and realizes she can't hear andy, hasn't for a while.
good.
there's no bitterness to him fleeing. she fought so hard for them, for bax, for del, for andy too, because she knew that's how it works. even if there's nothing else about her she has to give, maybe her brittle edges are enough. enough to attach herself to people, for them to want her around. but there's nothing about her that someone would love, that someone would throw themselves into the maws of a monster for like del did for bax.
it's the one happy thought. the worst would be if he had loved her enough to stay, had been dragged into this nightmare with her, suffered for her sake. but she didn't hold onto him so tightly, and he got away.
she has nothing, is nothing, and dies alone, but that's good.]
no subject
if there were such a thing as true virtue in the world - if things like compassion and faith and justice and love really haunted this earth - there'd be more examples wouldn't there? someone who cares enough to take a stand, a reason to believe that this place is worth saving. but every vision, every dream, every moment walking the waking world has been filled with scenes of violence and hatred. burning bodies and vultures who pick at the remains. maybe there are good people somewhere, but those people are born luckier, with the world on their side. they have beauty and bravery and friendships worth dying for. they have compasses in their heads and the power to inspire others to follow, they remembered to bring the right weapons, they cared enough to be saved.
but at least in derry there are only the baser values. greed and rage and sloth and gluttony. adults who are supposed to care who only see what they care to, which is nothing. that every child in derry is an acceptable sacrifice to a miserable life. he is an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of derry. easy to forget, a nail hammered down. sent here to wither and die and be forgotten in some basement. and he is not above the rest of the sinners. miserable and cowardly and envious. if he was a better person, maybe they all could have deserved to survive.
he's never been one to have regrets. regrets are for when the world slows to a crawl, when the fizzle and spark of constant motion fades and leaves you an empty thing, the great heavy pendulum swinging to the other side of his mind. when the great dark beast comes to press its paw against his chest and force him to the ground. but it's difficult not to regret this. he wishes he had stayed. if only because then it would be over, then he wouldn't be hearing the splash and tear in his mind, and thinking of the sun. of rain. of storms. of laughter and freedom and justice. of twin moons. a spark of flame.
he doesn't fight, or even try and escape again at the end.
sorry, del.
sorry, jen.
but the last thought is anger. rage.
he should have burned the whole place to the ground while he had the chance. a blaze bright and loud enough that no one could ignore it ever again. the match goes out. ]
no subject
he'd never been afraid of most things other kids were afraid of anyway — scary movies, the dark, rattlesnakes, bullies, getting in trouble — because he could never afford to be when he had someone else he had to be strong for. getting passed around from one house to the next where they'd always been treated like someone's obligation, never like family, he'd learned early on that they could only really rely on themselves; if they didn't want to be crushed by the world's indifference toward them, he would have to be the unshakable pillar supporting them both.
that was the one fear he'd never been able to escape — that he'd fuck up and bax would get hurt or lost or worse. that he would buckle under all the weight that never should have been put on the shoulders of a single kid. and that fear was so constant and pervasive that it ate away at him a little more every day; no matter how hard he tried to steel himself, he'd only ever be able to last so long with a slowly eroding foundation. jen and andy had helped fill some of the cracks, but there was only so much they ever could have done. this wasn't their house to fix anyway.
bax is gone, and it no longer matters if the pillar comes crashing down. it's... freeing, even if it's a freedom he never, ever wanted. freedom from the single fear that's worn on him all his life, the freedom to break and let loose with everything he has.
it's not much. he's under no illusion otherwise. he vaguely remembers bill's advice in that moment as he rushes the monster, about using his imagination to fight this thing. maybe this useless nail file could have been a legendary sword fit for the steward of gondor if he'd been able to believe. but boromir was never supposed to outlive faramir. it's better this way.
in a hopeless fight against a monster that must represent fear itself, he feels none; not as it picks him up and toys with him, not as it rips out little pieces of him, not as it slowly and unrelentingly pulls on his hair and he feels every fiber in his neck straining and ready to snap.
in the end, this was where they'd ended up. down in the sewers with the rest of the refuse. with the decaying goldfish people had brought into their homes with fanfare only to give them the bare minimum of what they needed to continue existing until they could dump them out and move on with their lives, free from the burden of being obligated to care. the world always puts you in your proper place one way or another.
that's all right. this world never wanted them, but he doesn't want this world either. his neck finally gives way, and the final thought he has is that at least he won't be another bill. ]