eidxiety | Sticks & Bones // IC Inbox

[Ain would love to not talk about his problems right now, he'd love to not say "I love this guy a lot and I realised it while I was separated from him so being rejected kind of stings" and also "I've been rejected like this before so ouch" and also "I hate being accused of the world's most heinous acts" etc etc he is So romance-traumatized thanks to people here, so it mounts on the rejection feelings and RIP.

So yeah, Till can tell him all his traumas and Ain will be like thank God I'm not the only sad person here :) ]

Not really, haha. It's not like you're going to go telling people that you saw me crying when you came over for cinnamon buns, right?

I’m a dick, but I ain’t that much of a dick. Whatever happens here don’t leave these walls.

[Ain it’s called a venting session for a reason. If Till has to spill his secrets so do you!! But at least Till is uninvolved, so he’d be the perfect guy to vent your problems to. Though maybe not the best…therapist, he at least is good at listening.]

…it’s some real fucking heavy shit. Can you handle that right now?

I'm okay. It's just a rejection. I've lived through worse events.

[Ain, girl

are you fuckin good]

…okay. Fine.

But if I tell you my thing, you tell me your thing. Is that fair?

[Venting session :)]

...okay. That's fair.

You first, though. [lmao]

[Yeahhh it’s fine he saw that one coming.

Till takes a deep, slow breath. He’s done it once, for Mephisto. Surely it’ll be easier the second time.

(It will not, because he has to unpack what happened with Ivan, something he has NOT even breathed about since it happened haha)]

Where I’m from, the alien race is at the top of everything. Humanity dwindled after we were kidnapped from our home planet, and we’re treated like pets. We’re literally raised for it.

Some of us are shipped off to learn how to sing.

[His brow knits as he tilts his head back, hair fanned out across the couch cushions as he looks up towards the ceiling through his lashes.]

If you’re good enough, your guardian will ship you off to be part of the Stage. You’re put up against someone else, and you both have to sing.

If you don’t sing good enough, you’re killed. Survive enough rounds and you win.

[What do you win? Notoriety, fame, money he guesses. The privilege of living.]

[You know, Ain can't exactly say he's thrilled to have his "this man must have been a slave" theory confirmed. God, he fucking hates slavers. He's seen the brand on Till's neck, though; he knows what marks like that means. He doesn't have to understand humans to know that they oftentimes kind of suck — or, in this case, aliens. Whiiiich would explain why he was so cagey when he first showed up here. It makes sense.

Ain feels bad for him.]

...that makes a lot of sense, why you showed up and were scared of everyone. I'm sorry I broke into your room trying to talk to you, and messed with you on the notebooks. [wow you can tell he likes Till because he's issued a Genuine Apology! This will never happen again] Um. ...you lived though, right?

[Look he did not say he was going to be eloquent here.]

[Unfortunately, Till’s reality is indeed just as bad as anything Ain might have imagined. Probably worse than what he could imagine, actually, but Till isn’t going to delve into those parts. No, he has worse to tell!

He grunts, eyes drifting closed.]

If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here talking to you.

[Till does not yet realize that, if he had died instead of Ivan, he could actually be here still. Oops.

The apology though, admittedly, is surprising to hear. He wasn’t expecting it, but…it’s appreciated.]

…it’s fine. Ain’t like you could’ve known. […] The last thing I remember was my last round I was in. With this…guy.

[The way he says it, just. GUY.]

...This "guy"? Who's the guy? Does the guy have a name?

[Ain assumes Till won the round but like. What does that mean. Does he not like the guy?? Did the guy cheat????]

[Lol lmao even]

His name…was Ivan.

[Was. For all his problems with and surrounding Ivan, having to say it like that hits him like a ton of bricks for the first time. It makes it hard for him to speak, at first.]

We grew up in the garden together. [Till you didn’t explain he’s not going to know what that means.] So I knew him. Which…is extra fucked when you end up in the same round, I guess.

[I guess, he says, as if he isn’t legitimately traumatized now by what followed.]

But he was just. I don’t know. He had no boundaries, or sense of personal space. He was always hanging around…but as weird as he was he was. One of the only friends I had, if that’s even saying all that much.

But he did something…

[He trails off.]

[Ain doesn't ask about "the garden", he takes this to mean some sort of housing situation. Or maybe they literally grew up in someone's front lawn. He wouldn't be shocked, he kind of knows how slavers are. Either way, there are more important things to ask about here.]

Right, I get it. Someone you're close to, but you can't stand parts of him? [wow why is that familiar] But you liked him anyway, right?

...

What did he do?

[“Like’s a strong word”, he thinks, but ends up opting to not say that because it feels extra shitty given the story he’s telling.]

Our song was a duet. I mean, they usually are. You sing, taking turns, sometimes together…

[But the technicalities don’t matter. He shakes his head a little, pointedly still looking at the ceiling instead of Ain.]

It was going fine for a while. [It was not, he is not mentioning how he was deliberately hoping he’d die up on that stage.] But when it came to his part, he…stopped singing. I didn’t realize until I heard him coming over that he’d thrown his microphone down, and he- he fucking-

[Till lifts both hands up and looks at them for a moment, slowly curling his fingers into his palms.]

He kissed me. He grabbed my face and kissed me. I tried to push him off but he just. He kept me there. Then he grabbed my neck, and.

[He closes his eyes, but it doesn’t stop the memory of it all from playing back in his mind’s eye, exactly as if it was just now happening in front of him.]

Ohhhh. [And suddenly Ain knows everything (he thinks he knows everything).] Ohh my God, Mr. Artist! He was in love with you!! Was he kissing you goodbye? Ohhh, that's so sweet and sad, I'm sorry you lost your boyfriend...!

[I'm sorry Till]

Wait, what happened after that? Don't tell me...

[that motherfucker DIED]

[…okay, Till is SO caught off guard by that he just

Sits forward and starts choking for a second, hold on.

He finally looks at Ain now, his expression incredulous to the point of being just…baffled? He is baffled, truly.]

No! No, that- that ain’t what it was, at all. We were not like that, he was-

[Very. Clingy. And protective. And always around. He always used to take his collar off for him, and-

…

Till tightens his fists even more, mostly because his fingers have started shaking.]

They shot him. To the audience, it looked like he assaulted and attacked me on stage. So they started shooting.

[He has to close his eyes again.]

He wasn’t…even squeezing my neck. He was just holding me there.

[It’s said like he doesn’t understand, even now, just…why.]

[Holy shit, okay, Ain understands everything now.]

He sacrificed himself for you because he loves you. [There's a whispered ohhh my goddddd, very quiet, at the end of that.] He only tried to look like he was hurting you, and kissed you to confess and say goodbye all at once.

[It's SOOOOOOO romantic, Ain's going to die. RIP Ivan you would've loved the gay cult in the Grove.]

Love? You call that love!? This is the same guy who wiped blood off my face unprompted, and like, I didn’t see him do it directly, but I swear he put his fucking fingers in his fucking mouth-

[Oops he’s going off now sorry.]

It was already bad enough we had to sing on the same stage! How do you think I felt, watching him fucking die like that? At least if he just lost it wouldn’t have felt like it was my fault!!!

Sacrificing yourself for someone is one of the most loving things you can do. [Ask him how he knows, haha] So yeah, I'd call that love. What do you think love is? That's just one part of it.

[Also licking a man's wounds is romantic sorry, Ain would start sweating (horny) if someone did that to him. Christ.]

But yeah, I mean... it's a sad ending. It's messed up. And I'm sorry you had to go through it at all. I don't really know what else to say.

[What do you think love is?

Those words are going to stick with Till long after this conversation is over. Even now, he doesn’t know how to respond. His stupid 21 year-old brain wants to take it as an attack, like Ain knows love any more than he does…while the logical side knows he’s just trying to help.

But. He can’t think of Ivan that way. There’s no way. Why would he ever?? Ivan isn’t who his heart belongs to.]

I don’t know. But I do know that he shouldn’t have thrown his life away for me. Not when I…

[Not when he wanted to die instead, so, so badly. He still thinks about it often, that newspaper speculating about Mizi’s disappearance. It makes him feel sick.]

I love someone else anyway. Okay? And it doesn’t matter if I tell you because she’s either missing, or dead, nobody even knows right now.

[He grimaces, pulling his good leg closer to himself.]

She barely knew I existed. She was always with her…

Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that he loved you, right? It doesn't mean you have to return them, but he was still willing to die for you regardless because of that love.

[He flops over onto his bed, looking at Till from where he's laying down on his side.]

I think when you love someone, you're willing to die for them. Of course... I'm kind of a coward, and I didn't like dying the two times I did, but I'd rather it be me versus someone I deeply care for. I guess that makes me a greedy and selfish person, but I live for others. Sort of like how he lived for you.

[The thing is? Till can’t even argue that, because if he could die for Mizi, he would do it without question. He would take her place to protect her, each and every time. Is that what Ain is saying?

He doesn’t know what to think. It’s so…fucked up. He knows Ain is saying it’s romantic, but knowing someone died just so you could live…well. The survivor’s guilt sure is a hell of a thing. The last thing he remembers, period, is looking down at Ivan’s body as his still-warm blood pooled around his shoes, and that.

That really fucks with you.]

I don’t know. I always just thought he was lonely, and really shitty at social cues. He always hung around even if I was making it obvious I wanted to be alone, and he’d say shit that would end with us brawling in the yard.

[Is that love? Is that what it’s supposed to be like?]

He never made it really obvious he felt…that way.

[Not until it was too late, anyway.

Till looks at the floor.]

…he asked me once if I would kiss him, so we could figure out what kissing was like. I said no, obviously, but he just kept begging…so I told him I’d think about it for his birthday just to get him off my back.

I thought he was fucking with me.

[Unfortunately according to Ain who is very much not used to "normal" social interactions (especially if judged according to how his interactions with others have gone; Min-Gi hates his fucking guts and he still thinks they're friends somehow), this is all pretty regular. Yeah he brawls with you, so what? You're friends right? Part of this is coloured by how his group met Raven, and then how Add typically acts, and how Ciel was willing to kill them all at one point if it meant protecting Lu shortly before everyone went "yeah bro we're on your side"...

Yeah no this is par for the course.]

Haha... I guess his insistence when you said no was pretty bad, yeah. I also struggle with social cues a lot too, so I get that part. Either way, it sounds like he really loved you. I still stand by that opinion, Mr. Artist. Everyone loves differently.

[It’s still hard for Till to wrap his head around. I’m not gay, his brain wails at him, because his heart is only for Mizi and nobody else. He doesn’t realize, or maybe is in denial too deeply, that she’s in love with Sua despite the fact she’s already gone. It’s unlikely she’d ever move on from her, regardless of being into girls or not.

Maybe it doesn’t matter now either way. Ivan…is gone, too. It’s just Till and Luka left, which leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

Till sighs again, more shaky this time as he rests his cheek on his good knee.]

Maybe he did.

…It’s your turn.

[God dammit but what if Ain tried to give you therapy insteaddddd (he does not know therapy).]

Um.

...

Well, I mean, it's on our phones, right? [He reaches over to his nightstand and waves his around, like Till doesn't know what a phone is and definitely has never received a text message since he's been here.] I was flirting with Add, and he said he was straight and then I guess I pushed too far or something, because he rejected me and told me to stop flirting with him. It's fair and all, I dunno, but I'm still sad about it.

It's also weird to be straight. Straight people are really rare. [no, ain]

I haven’t read mine today.

[He’s been too busy playing guitar and brooding, it’s a whole thing.

He frowns, though. Add? The guy who owns Karte? The guy from prison? Yeah, Till isn’t too shocked to hear HE’S straight, but he must have been pretty harsh to upset Ain. Hm…]

I’m straight.

[He starts, just. Immediately.]

When you say you were flirting…what did you, uh. Say, exactly? Maybe…I dunno, there was a misunderstanding somewhere or something.

[...]

I doubt that. [AINCHASE ISHMAEL] Haha, anyway.

Um. Goddess, okay, this is a long story. He showed up here, and we've known each other for years, so I was pretty excited to see him. He got bitten by one of those stupid poisonous snakes, though, so I took him back to the bakery and upstairs into our living room so I could monitor his condition. Actually, before that, I told him about how I died and pulled my shirt up to show him the scar the False God left on me, and he stuck his hands up my shirt about it. Anyway—

[Ain you cannot just gloss over that part]

He's not much of a cuddler. I love hugs and giving them, so I'll admit I did take advantage of the fact he was growing a bit sick so I could snuggle up to him. I acknowledge that wasn't the right thing to do, though. But while he was sick from the poison, he was babbling and touching my face and hair and horns and stuff, saying I was cute and all. I was swooning. ...it was stupid, but I was.

We fell asleep on the couch, and then he left me with his jacket and sneaked off without waking me up the morning after. Then I went to bring him some stuff from the tailor shop 'cause his clothes are always ripped and he looks stupid [ain] and we got into a screaming match. Not because of the clothes. He was upset because I wasn't calling him by name and a whole bunch of other stuff came up. I tried flirting with him there before that, though, and he said something like... "Is this why everyone calls you the town whore?"

[Sighs.]

Well, I don't really like being called that, so I moped about it. Maybe that's it? He thinks I'm a whore, so he wouldn't want to be with someone like me, obviously. [go to therapy] Either way, when we arrived here, we went to the movie theatre together, and it was kind of datelike... I guess I was wrong to assume still, but I guess I thought he'd know...? [In retrospect, Ain does not know why this is the case.] So I said over text message that he should let me take him out on a second date and he flipped out and told me to quit.

So! I've been rejected and it kinda sucks. [He is glossing over the fact that accusations like "being a whore" and "being manipulative" really hurt him badly due to the whoooole Affogato thing that happened last summer. Some things really stick with you man.]

Sticks & Bones // IC Inbox

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: human slavery weee

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: suicidal ideation, non consensual kissing??? Also choking, uh-

cw: ainchase ishmael

SOBBING

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)