[SIDESTORY] Morbit Oneshots

[skinstealer]

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Pareidolia- 2018

Ringor Mortis, Punch Clock Animal/General Morbit

CW: Alcohol, intrusive thoughts, self destruction, grief

Wax tries to make sense of it all. Request. 

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It’s not quite right, but you’ve done your best. At least, that’s what you try to tell yourself as you try not to tumble out of your seat, legs of the newly made stool wobbling underneath you. You’ll never know what one of these things look like up close, like everything else you’ve made for yourself here. It’s all guesswork, desperately trying to grasp onto bits and pieces floating around in the collective mess.

Like some kind of patchwork disaster. Some kind of holy creator I am, can’t even make a barstool right. The so-called king of Taverne, or whatever the hell they call me these days.

The walls aren’t right either, with discordant, confusing patterns papered on. Looking at them makes you nervous, seeing faces and figures where there’s nothing but blobs and streaks. You desperately try to find something else to look at, settling on the bar in front of you.

Well, I did come here for a reason.

You don’t have to focus very hard to conjure up a mug, godspace filling in the blanks of what you don’t know. It’s a shitty mug, but it’s yours now, at least for however long you mope in here. Getting an actual drink in there is trickier, and you don’t think the result is any one kind of booze. Mortals were so obsessed with alcohol, even other gods- but being the size you are, you’ve never actually tried-

Except once

-before in your very long life. One of Wretch’s lesser gods was notorious for consuming this stuff, and you always dismissed it. He was drinking to stop feeling, to kill himself slowly, to abuse his body until it rotted. Hell, you looked down on him for it. But in this moment, can’t anymore. You almost understand it now.

If this could take even a fraction of the pain away, it would be worth it.

Downing the drink is horrible from start to finish, coughing without lungs and struggling to keep it down- not that there was any way to spit it back up, with your body. All of these feelings and vestigial behaviors for functions you don’t have, choking, crying, gagging and swallowing. But it does go down, and you let it settle, bracing yourself for whatever effect it may have.

What am I doing here, waiting for some...mortal drug to kick my ass. I’m supposed to be on top of this. I’m not supposed to be sitting here, hoping that this foul drink either gives me some sort of foolish enlightenment or wrecks me to the point where I don’t think anymore. I’m not supposed to be this weak, pathetic shell of a god.

You look down at your hands, clenching and unclenching them into fists.

But I always was, wasn’t I?

You hate them. Useless, fingerless hands, crayon outlines shaking and distorting slightly. Hands too large to protect, the slightest motion risking destruction outside of these planes, your body kept still and quiet back in a lonely cave, isolated from the outside world.  

Wane was always the strongest, the one people looked to and cheered for. People loved them, and looked to them for everything- and they gave. They were adored.

Their smile flashes in your mind, all teeth and confidence. It’s paired with that look in their eyes that they got after winning yet another game against you, so obviously letting you get ahead- but allowing that, just so that you could run ahead laughing, and they could chase you, and catch you, and hold you.

They deserved it. All of it.

Nights spent together in this very plane, poking at concepts floating by and seeing what new inventions the mortals had come up with- and how you know they would enjoy the things of today, with all of the sports and television , how they would adore television, just as they enjoyed the theater, asking you again and again if you could conjure a play for them.

They had so much love to give, and I had so little, and what little I had I was either too afraid to give it away, or gave it to them. And even then, it wasn’t enough.

There were fights, of course there were fights. Millenia upon millenia passed and to this day you cannot remember how many times arguments broke out, over creation, over the ethics of mortals, over their children, over raising them right- and who was to define right, you or them?  

It’ll never be enough, and I’ll never be able to tell them just how much they meant to me. How much they still mean to me.

There were times that they grew quiet, refusing to answer for weeks at a time. Months, at worst, at one point perhaps even a year- you had stopped counting, every day spent primarily here, creating environments they liked in a desperate attempt to bring them back to you. When they returned, it was without fanfare, only guilt deep in their eyes and attempts to reassure you that everything was fine. That they were home now, and that was what mattered.

I know they had secrets, I know they lied to me. I know there were things unspoken between us and maybe, maybe that was for the best. Maybe it was for my own safety, but I know they used their powers at least once.

Memory blanks, not often, but there. Things that don’t add up, but nothing so solid that you could say anything, and never about anything important. Some still linger, holes in your mind that you try to ignore, shoving them away almost frantically.

At least once, and on me.

They had stopped playing games with you as much, towards the end. Of course the both of you would try, and it was almost as much fun as it always was, until you saw the corner of their mouth twitch. Even if just a single smile was forced, you felt your energy fade, and wished desperately that they would let you in, if only for a moment. That they would let you help them.

I loved them still. I love them now. Perhaps it’s delusional to forgive someone for betraying you like that but god damn it I can’t see them as a bad person, I can’t see them as someone-  

Wane’s sleeping face next to yours was the most serene thing you’d ever seen, even with the ability to conjure as many natural wonders in this space as you could ever want. None of it came close to how precious they were to you, and in that moment you forgave everything, and hoped with all of your heart that the next day, maybe the next day they would talk to you. Please, let them talk to you.

I can’t see them as anyone other than who I do now.

They were an ideal to you, the perfect partner, even with all of the flaws and dishonesty, so ironic for a god of truth. Even after the worst of it, they would sit gently by your side and you would lean on them, no one saying a single word. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but that’s what it was, and it was still better than anything you deserved. Anything you could ever hope for.

Maybe that’s not right, either. Right of me, or right to say so. But I’ll never know. It’s just this endless, having to admit to myself “I don’t know, I never will!” and it goes on and on and on until it suffocates me and there it is again, a useless process I’ll never actually experience and yet my mind screams of suffocation and losing air and

You throw your mug against the wall, shoulders heaving and form distorting hard, tears rolling down your face.

....

You look up at that horrible wallpaper, and you swear in all of your blurred vision that you can see their face, eyes lidded and mouth wide in a drunken smile, blissed out and warm.

This was better with you, Wane.

You don’t look away this time, staring dead into the wallpaper face’s eyes as the tears stream down.

I’m sorry. 

I’ll be better tomorrow. I promise.

I promise.