The 3am Text Confessions Meme

[pantheraliam]

There’s Something I Need You to Know
Please don’t cancel me

Everyone has their secrets. Some are bigger than others, but it may be any number of things that are weighing down on your conscience. One night, whether it induced by lack of sleep, alcohol consumption, or some supernatural force, you decide to come out with it once and for all. It’s time to confess.

Directions:
1. Post a TL with your character name and canon in the subject line. You can either leave your TL blank for others to come confess, or you can put a confession in your top level. Your character’s confession can be anything from “I killed someone” to “I’m in love with my best friend” to “I’ve never eaten chocolate and vanilla swirl ice cream”. Any and all confessions are welcome - in fact, feel free to put a few different ones in your TL if you want people to pick and choose!
2. Respond to other people’s TLs with either your character’s own confession, or with a response to their’s.
3. Be respectful, follow basic dwrp meme rules, etc.!

Open to all fandom characters, OCs, AUs, CRAUs, etc.. Tagging around is highly encouraged!

Comments

[decipi]

[Just like it did when Whelk had first uttered it, when Noah had first been called here, the name "Czerny" feels like a magnet. Only one person had ever called him "Czerny". And only one person had ever called Whelk "Barry". Noah finally lifts his head to meet his old friend's gaze, and the emotions that twist within him feel more palpable and real than his own body does. Every hard, pained edge that had been contorting on Barry's face a moment ago is gone. And Noah wishes desperately that instead of driving him to the woods, he'd parked the car and told him that everything would be alright.

[He swallows down something hard in his throat, and that feels real too. He says:]

I missed you too.

[And it's true. How couldn't he? This man sitting across from him, who may as well have aged twenty years in seven, was once his best friend. Noah Czerny's loyalty runs so much deeper than blood does through the grass.]

[sacrificious]

[So this is a positive visitation. This is Whelk's best friend, his only real friend, the only thing that ever made life make sense... he's finally come back, and by some miracle it's not to drag Whelk down to hell with him.

Later, Whelk will probably consume himself alive with guilt over the fact that Czerny is still so kind and gentle with him. Right now he needs the kindness too badly to question any part of it, and that craving is what drives him up to his hands and knees so he can crawl closer to the smudgy boy and crouch in front of him. He lifts his hands toward Czerny but they just hover uncertainly in front of him - after seven years without any deliberate human contact, he doesn't remember the language of platonic physical affection.

He doesn't even know if he can touch Czerny now.]

[decipi]

[Noah feels apprehension seize him, but it isn't because he's afraid, and he doesn't flinch or flicker. It's just that--]

They're...cold. [He says this lifting his own hands finally from his shoelaces, chewing anxiously on his bottom lips as he moves to take Whelk's. It's true. They are cold - freezing cold, but just as soft and solid and real as anyone's hands, should they have been standing outside in a blizzard for a few hours. He squeezes where he finds warmth in Whelk's, and his chest rises and falls with a deep breath just as if it were one he could actually use.] But I'm here. See?

[I am real, he thinks stubbornly - maybe desperately is a better word. I just used to be more.]

[sacrificious]

[Whelk's mind is so, so quiet. He must have felt this stillness within him before, it must have been his reality for longer than the storm of malevolent noise in which he now lives, but...

... no, nothing has ever felt like this. Czerny's icy hands cradle his psyche like a soothing balm and Whelk feels reborn. He lets out a long, long breath, one that he swears still holds a wisp of air from the moment he hefted Czerny's skateboard over his head, and lists forward to collapse against him. The way he curls around Czerny's body and clings to him resembles nothing more than a frightened child seeking comfort and he knows he's got no right to ask for or take comfort in this situation, but he doesn't give a shit. He has no shit to give. He's just so, so -]

Tired. I'm so tired...

[decipi]

[Noah isn't expecting Whelk to collapse into him, but once he does, it's all instinct that sends the dead boy's arms curling around him. If his hands are cold, surely his body is more so. He's heard how passing through a spirit can chill someone. For all the friends he has now, none have ever gotten close enough for him to know whether or not a hug would be too much.

[He's never asked for one, no matter how desperately he wanted to. Holding someone, being held - surely that would give him away. But he doesn't have to hide from Barry, because Barry knows everything about him. Even to this day, Barry knows everything about him.

[He runs a chilly hand through the man's hair, presses his nose against his collar bone.]

Can you sleep if I stay? [His voice is so soft now, a desperate attempt to conserve as much energy as he can. He'll stay as long as possible, he thinks. At least long enough to let him sleep. He looks like he hasn't in days.]

[sacrificious]

[If only it were just days since he last slept...

The way Czerny says "stay" suggests that he might intend to leave and Whelk grabs fistfuls of his shirt (the same goddamned sweater, he'll torture himself over that later as well) in silent protest at the thought. No, he's not going anywhere. Czerny's never going anywhere again. Whelk won't lose him again.

("Lose?" Surely he means "throw away" or "sell out." But again, that's torment for another time.)]

Stay. Don't go.

[decipi]

[Noah feels something in his throat catch, and his eyes, still just as blue as the day he died, go glassy.

[It's hard to fathom how he feels right now. Barry wants him to stay, and the emotion that sparks in Noah can only be described as grief. If only he could stay forever. If only he could be twenty-four years old with a beating heart. If only Whelk had allowed for that to happen. He wants him to stay now?

[It could have been okay, he thinks again. We could have been okay.

[He puts on a smile that's utterly broken, and runs another hand through Whelk's hair, nodding. Usually he feels like he's about to disappear. Right now he feels like he's about to shatter.]

Okay. [He takes Whelk's hands again then, and shifts on the ground to move, tugging them lightly.] Show me where you sleep.

[sacrificious]

[He's still unsteady on his feet, but Whelk is able to carry just enough of his own weight for the two of them to shuffle into his bedroom, or what passes for one - his home's layout is so open it's practically a studio apartment, but he's managed to arrange some tall bookshelves to create the illusion of separate rooms.

All he bothers to strip off before collapsing onto the bed are his pants, and he's so accustomed to not sleeping that he doesn't even bother climbing under the blankets. Once he's somewhat settled, his head heavy (and still blissfully free of racket) on his pillow, he reaches for Czerny again.]

Don't go. Please, Czerny. This isn't... I'm not always like this.

[Sometimes he's able to function. He drags himself through one day to the next, god only knows how. If Czerny just stays with him, maybe he can pull himself together and learn to do something other than exist.

They could never have been okay. Whelk would never have been able to shake his obsession with waking and controlling the ley line. But now...? Maybe it's possible.

(Leave it to Whelk not to consider that Noah may carry some lingering resentment about being dead.)]

[decipi]

[The resentment is there somewhere, buried so deeply that Noah can't bear to dredge it up. It would be too painful to be angry. He doesn't want to be angry, especially when Whelk himself is so miserable. What good would that do now? The realization that Noah, the dead one, has more of life than the beating heart beside him is...discomfiting.

[Maybe it shouldn't hurt so badly to see him like this. Maybe if Noah were Whelk, he would hate his old friend. But he doesn't. He stretches out on the bed beside him, and takes a pillow to put under his own head, then scoots closer, allows Whelk to reach for him and take him.

[He'll be cold without the blankets, he thinks idly.]

I said I won't. [He tries to smile, and still, it's a pained thing.] I know you're not.

I've seen you. At school. [Just you couldn't see me, he thinks. He doesn't think that anyone at Aglionby does. Even his own roommates who expect him to be there every day, and then never notice when he isn't.]

You're a good teacher.

[sacrificious]

[Whelk almost asks what Czerny was even doing at the school, how long and how often he's been able to take this form, but... he doesn't want to think about school. At least not school as he knows it now. Czerny's so close to him now, so soft and alive under his touch with only the chill of his skin as a reminder that they were parted, and the shadow under one eye as a reminder of how they were parted. Why waste any breath on school?

He brushes his fingers through Czerny's pale hair, then wraps an arm around him and pulls him closer than he ever would've dared while they were both alive. There may have been a heated incident here, an incriminating look or statement there, but Whelk never considered the feelings behind them as anything worth entertaining. Two boys in their position could easily find themselves disinherited if they took such inclinations too seriously.

Now, as a rather pitiful grown man with nothing left to lose except, quite possibly, another chance to hold Czerny like this, Whelk's priorities have made quite the shift. He lies so close to his old friend that their legs knock together and the tips of their noses touch, and offers his own shaky smile.]

[decipi]

[It feels so strange to lie like this. There's something inherently wrong about the entire thing, and it feeling so natural somehow only lends to that wrongness. Whelk might be grown - he definitely looks older - but his face is still the same, with his large eyes, and his strange smile. They'd never gotten this close while the two of them were alive, and once again Noah thinks, why now?

[Why couldn't it have been this way before?

[If you loved me, then how could you kill me?

[It's easier not to think about those things. Whelk feels so warm next to him, and their noses are touching. Noah had spent so long wanting this when he was alive. It's easy - maybe too easy - to pretend that he's alive right now. Maybe they would have grown out of their fear and denial. Maybe they could have gotten married - it's legal now. Maybe they'd both be teachers. Maybe Whelk would have all the money he needed after all.

[Things could have been different, he thinks again. Things could have been okay. But he doesn't say it. He doesn't dare. He doesn't want to scare Barry away again. It's as much effort not to speak his feelings as it is to bite them back from pouring out of his eyes. He lets them fall closed now, and moves until their foreheads are pressed together, letting out an icy breath, bumping his shoed feet against Whelk's bare ones.]