Ainchase "Ain" Ishmael (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eidxiety) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sticksandbones2025-08-04 03:43 pm
eidxiety) wrote in sticksandbones2025-08-04 03:43 pm
Entry tags:
[OPEN] gotta get worse before you get better
Who: Ain & Whoever wants to put up with this
What: Add disappeared, so it's time for mental breakdown #3
When: End of month, after the dream event ends
Where: Various places in the Grove, see prompts
Warnings: death and grieving, hallucinations, mentions of suri, probably yandere shit, more TBA
i. Open - Across the River
ii. Closed to the BFs/Elsword - Bakery
iii. Open - Outside the Dimensional Library
What: Add disappeared, so it's time for mental breakdown #3
When: End of month, after the dream event ends
Where: Various places in the Grove, see prompts
Warnings: death and grieving, hallucinations, mentions of suri, probably yandere shit, more TBA
i. Open - Across the River
[And so a glorious dream ends, the flower bud spits Ain onto the ground, and he goes about moping for several days, like everyone else does. The dream's burrs are still hooked underneath his skin, pulling at the corners of his mind. On occasion, something dances behind his vision, a blur at the corner of his eye, a voice he's heard before but cruel and twisted and wrong. Ain's eyes stay unfocused whenever this happens. Such things aren't White Lily's fault — sure, none of that helped Ain's already-fragile mental state, and his awakening had been particularly rude — but it's not like she had ever intended to force these twisted versions of dreams on him. That had been Suri, of course, taking advantage of the fact that Ain's psyche is starting to fragment day by day. Yet he shows no signs of Corruption, dragon-blessed as he is, so it seems this is merely an attack of advantage.
They aren't real. He should know this. It doesn't seem like he does, though, so the cruel hallucinations of his friends continue to torment him. Yes, of course his ideal was that everyone could be together in peaceful times (and maybe he could stay with all his partners forever), why are they being so needlessly brutal toward him about it? Ain doesn't get it, does not everyone want to live peacefully with their friends? Is that, like, weird? Is it the marriage thing? Yeah, it's probably the marriage thing. He always knew he was a freak, that's what people told him anyway, people outside the dream.
In all of this, though, what's gutting Ain the most is that while he was asleep, Add went missing. The bracelet's signal is nonexistent, the metal loop cumbersome and cold. The hallucination version of his friend-turned-partner has nothing helpful to say about this, and although half of Ain's brain logically understands that this isn't real — Add is dead and gone, disappeared while Ain was completely disabled — the part that's too tangled up in itself to escape can't fathom that this could be anyone else talking to him. It's a careful push and pull, tug-o-war with him at the centre of it all.
From where he's seated on the opposite side of the river, the side where Wolfwood and Livio's house is at, nestled away in an alcove that he and Elsword like to camp at. He sits forward, knees pulled to his chest, the amethyst-inlaid bracelet that was once connected to Add's sitting on his right wrist instead of with the others on the left.
He's talking to someone. Well, to you he's talking to himself, but to Ain, he and Add are currently arguing. Bad news all around here.]
You always leave. Why are you getting mad at me? Did you forget all the times you've run off without us? [... ... ...] You're being more of a dick than usual today!
[Nevermind, he's not talking. He's yelling.]
ii. Closed to the BFs/Elsword - Bakery
[The dream-hooks are still wedged into the folds of Ain's brain, but today, it seems that he's somewhat broken out of it and can focus... at least enough to know that things are very wrong, that he's wearing a bracelet-link belonging to a dead man, and that something is wrong with his brain right now. This is not exactly a cry for help, though, because lately Ain hasn't really been doing that. Surely the turbulent emotions, the back-and-forth, has been just as bad for the still-living partners that are bracelet-bound to him? For Ezell in particular, it's not like he needed that aid to see how Ain's doing, but the other two... yeah. Oh yeah. Sorry, boys. At least Elsword is so far spared the wrath of Ain's violent mood swings, right?
Ain has dragged you upstairs to his room. His room, exclusively. No longer his and Add's, where the plushies of the man in particular are dragged to the forefront of the room, no longer hidden because Add was weird about them at the time; they're sitting on the top bunk of the bed now where he normally keeps the ones of Elsword (sorry Elsword, hi Elsword), staring down at you as Ain grabs you by the wrist and pulls you into the room.]
You have to stay here tonight. I don't want anything to happen to you, or for us to enter another dream and one of us to go missing overnight.
[It sounds so rational when he phrases it like that, but the way his eyes dart around say he hasn't at all woken fully up yet himself. That, and the fact that the bracelet basically pings with the emotional equivalent of if you leave me alone right now I will chase you down and knock you unconscious and drag you back here to be supervised by me personally might be a dead giveaway that this request is not based in anything rational at all.]
iii. Open - Outside the Dimensional Library
[And then Ain disappears for a bit, both to pray to Ourania and ask her to fix the nasty scars Suri gave him ages ago — they're cute, swirling whorls of silver now, still there but far less damaging to look at — and to head off to the strange portal-library. Despite his best judgement, of course. The last time he was there, he walked out and Vash was dead on the ground.
That was nice.
He's gone for a few hours. Part of it is spent crying into the Bibcoons. Part of it is spent talking to something within it. He emerges just fine after, though, no worse for wear and having presumably gotten his fill of books. The dream still has him, but it's lighter now. Less harmful, less of Suri's claws, more peaceful. His eyes still dart around, and he still answers things that aren't there to your eyes, but he seems... better. Happier? As though he's mysteriously bounced back from everything that's been happening over the last while.
He's laughing at something over his left shoulder, having a full conversation seconds later. Behind his heels is Dachie, trotting along after his master as usual. The owldog's eyes lock with yours, and he tilts his head, ears flicking back in that way disturbed animals often do.
Something isn't right.]
no subject
It's not your fault. We were sleeping...
[That's the thing, isn't it? He can track everyone — and they can track him — as much he wants, but if Suri makes them all go comatose for a month and people disappear and die, what can Ain do? He could march into the Garden, but Nene hasn't come to talk to him yet... he might really never come back.
If they go home now, does that mean neither of them will see Add ever again? The thought weighs heavy on Ain's mind, as he shuffles backwards and starts dragging Elsword further into the room.]
We'll... figure it out... he's probably out there being stubborn. Surely...
no subject
He follows Ain relatively easily, though refuses to let go of him. ]
…I can go and look for him. [ But… ] I don't think I should leave you here, though.
no subject
He shakes his head.]
It's hard to explain, but the bracelets we were sharing let me track him. The fact I can't pick up any signal at all means he's either taken it off, or he's really gone... and even if he's taken it off, there's not much point to looking. Maybe he doesn't want to be found, if he's still alive.
[But the fact that not even Karte is here and all his stuff is perfectly untouched says he died in some horrid way.
Ain takes a shaky, careful breath.]
I was lying to make myself feel better. He might be in the Garden... but otherwise, I don't think we should look right now, h-haha...
no subject
So now he's just sad because he doesn't know if that mean Add is back home, or ????
He doesn't want to linger on it, mostly because he has to be there for Ain, right? He can't also be sad because than who's gonna help his friend not be sad?? Ain has been through so, so, so much here. So he just goes to hold Ain once again and swallows his urge to cry. ]
...We'll find him eventually, then. I know it. Everything is going to work out, okay?
no subject
Human emotions... are rough. He wasn't ever prepared for them, and now he feels even less prepared than he did years ago when he first figured out what joy felt like. That emotion is what he misses the most right now.]
...okay. Yeah, it'll work out... it has to. And it usually does for us.
["Usually".]
no subject
[ He doesn't know for sure that things will be hunky dory from here on or anything like that, but the confidence in his voice here almost makes it seem like he does. ]
For tonight, though, I'll stay here. Is there... anything you'd like me to do for you?
no subject
[Wow, what a great question.]
Can we just... lay down for a while? I just want to be held. I don't think I want to do anything other than sink into the bed and not think.