a/n: evil fucking song. Evil Fucking Song. lover is a day when i get you. when i get you lover is a day. when i get y
You are so, so tired.
It’s been an obscenely long day.
You’d think with how many towns you’d been through to get here, you’d be used to the staring people would do. You’d be used to the whispers. The way people point, but don’t laugh. The way that might be even worse than if they did.
You can’t remember the name of this city. You don’t think you’d care to even if you did. You hate it. You don’t want to be here for any longer than you have to. You wish you could just blow the whole thing off the map, everyone who dared to cut an odd glance your way or did a double, sometimes even triple take, going with it.
Obviously, you can’t do that. You don’t know if you’d want to, really. But you wish you could.
…You don’t think that makes any sort of sense, ultimately.
Whatever. Who cares. It didn’t matter.
You were never quite in the business of making sense, anyhow.
Next to you your stardust shivers a bit, pulling you out of your thoughts and into the present. Without a single thought beforehand, you hold him tighter, closer. He makes no noise, but with the dim light provided by your shimmering head, you can see his face relax, the rest of his body following suit.
Stars. You still can’t believe the setup you have going on right now.
In your arms is a slumbering Siffrin. For the most part, they’ve been sleeping soundly this whole night. It was always impressive to you, how quickly they could find rest. And then continue to stay there, too.
You have never been so lucky. Not before, when you yourself were a Siffrin, and certainly not now. You think you’re jealous, but something in the back of your mind always tells you it’s actually called envy, dimwit, and you hate not remembering which one is more accurate. So you can never linger on the thought, because then you’ll get in an argument with yourself and squabble, squabble, squabble until something else interrupts you.
…Besides the point.
You have some sort of feeling about their ability to sleep so fast while also keeping a tight hold on it for hours at a time. Like a normal person might, even. Which was funny, because your stardust was nowhere near normal.
But here they were! Showing you up! Upstaging you again…!
You close your eyes. Tightly. And try to bring Siffrin ever closer to you.
They mumble something incoherent and lean into you. The excuse for a heart you have swells until it becomes uncomfortable. You want to rip it out.
You don’t, though. Your hands are full of stardust right now, after all. And you’d hate to pull away. What if you startled him somehow? You know your limbs radiate no heat, but what if the warmth of your star and head were doing something for them? If you moved, would the points of contact suddenly becoming cold alarm him, waking them up?
…You don’t have to find out. You don’t want to find out.
Your hands close around each other behind the rogue’s back. Something snakes around your mind about the pose, how this is the way people hold themselves in preparation to pray. Pray for hope. Pray for salvation. Pray they live. Pray they mean something. Pray they are something.
You don’t need to pray. You’ve done enough praying—enough wishing—for several lifetimes. You think if you never uttered another prayer before you died (again, something disgusting in your mind reminds you) it would still be too soon.
So no. You don’t need to pray. You don’t want to pray. Your hands are like this for no ulterior reason. It’s nothing special. You’re nothing special.
You’re nothing at all, really.
Your breath hitches, which is stupid. You don’t need to breathe. Not like everyone else on the planet did, at least.
So here you are for some reason, with an unnecessary amount of air in your throat that has no windpipe, suffocating your nonexistent lungs. For no reason to boot, even! What, did you think your stupid blinding emotions causing physical reactions to a body that no longer works the way a normal body should would do something for you? Give you some form of catharsis? Make it all mean something?
You’re not that dumb. You’d like to think as such, at least.
You force yourself to let out the breath, and only get a little mad when it immediately replaces itself.
You get a lot mad when you try twice more and still can’t seem to stop gasping it right back in. Like you needed it. Like it was some form of forewarning that things were starting to get too much and you needed to do something lest you be consumed by your stupid blinding emotions.
But! You!! Didn’t need!! To breathe!!! So this was utterly and completely useless!!!!!!
You wonder, not for the first time, how you would kill yourself. How you could kill yourself.
After all, there was no guarantee that even if Siffrin had wanted you dead way back when you fought in Dormont that his dagger would have done anything.
Were you immortal? Or simply just unkillable? Would you have to pass of natural causes? Or would a big enough boulder put you out of your misery like it should have the first time?
Siffrin trembles and whimpers into your chest. He’s closer than you thought, and the noise reverberates oddly in your star.
Still, you shush him and unfist your hands to stroke his head. You think maybe Mira had recently combed through his mess of hair, as your fingers card through the bouncy strands with ease.
He quiets and settles against you almost instantaneously. You sigh. You think with relief, but what you’re relieved of, you’re uncertain.
It didn’t really matter. You finally were able to let go of that pesky breath, at least.
Your eyes lid as you continue to pet him. Stars. What would they think, you wonder, if they knew where your stupid spiky head was right now?
They’d hate you, something in your head laughs immediately. They’d hate you for the selfish monster you are. Really, I mean, killing yourself? Way to prove your uselessness in the end!
You do your best to keep your breath steady. You tell yourself it’s so your heaving chest doesn’t disturb your stardust, but you know it’s not true.
Maybe they’d make fun of you, the voice continues, because of course it does. Don’t you remember? How you made fun of him for being able to kill himself again and again and again but not being able to deal the finishing blow on his own echo?
You do, of course. When you said it, it was a feeble last ditch effort to annoy him and make him cave.
You wanted them to kill you.
They didn’t.
You wish they had.
And now here you are! Fantasizing ways to die all by yourself!! Aren’t you a nasty, nasty hypocrite!!!
Maybe, just maybe, if you closed your eyes tight enough and thought hard enough and hoped and prayed and wished, your mind would explode. You’d be free from the voices that plagued you constantly and consistently, and you’d be dead. Wouldn’t that be nice for once? A real live win/win situation…?
“Luuu…” you hear, and snap to attention. Siffrin is shifting, moving his hands from where they’ve been curled up in front of him to slide across your shoulders. “Luuuuuuu…”
Despite yourself, you chuckle lightly. “Yes, stardust~?” you ask playfully, ruffling his hair just enough so that if he’s just sleep talking it won’t wake him, and if he’s waking up it will only vaguely annoy him.
They let out a low grumble, and you giggle earnestly. Waking up it was, then.
“Luuu…” they whine, using one of their open palms to feel around your face, “Turn th’ light down…”
At once, a plethora of emotions rush through you.
Guilt, because you must have started brightening without realizing it because of your dumb feelings and were now disturbing your stardust.
…More guilt, because he groans as you feel and see yourself brighten some more despite that.
Forlorn, because you wish they would call you silly little names in the light of day like they do in these pockets of nighttime.
Resentment, because they’d still be asleep if not for your stupid blinding body.
And pain. A dull ache of a thing, because you know you’ll never get anything you want. Not from Siffrin, not from your friends party, and definitely not from the Universe.
You choose to be the bigger person and don’t engage in a single feeling that plagues you, deciding instead to focus on your stardust.
“Sorry~” you giggle cutely, and act as if you aren’t hollow and bitter inside, “Forgive me for being the Universe's brightest star, I guess~” Your eyes crinkle in a way that suggests you’d stick out a tongue for good measure, if you could. You hope it sells your little tease.
It works. Whether because Siffrin is still so sleepy he has no guard up, or because it genuinely gets to him, you’re unsure. You guess it didn’t really matter much, as long as they were quietly giggling themself now.
“You are,” Siffrin smiles after calming, eye opening and looking at you with love care warmth an emotion you can’t seem to parse at the moment.
You gulp unnecessarily and feel your face pinch despite yourself. “I am…?” you ask, not following entirely.
The rogue’s smile widens. “The Universe's brightest star~” they repeat, mimicking your cadence to boot. You sputter out a few noises, taken aback, and he laughs at you. “You can’t take your own words fr’m someone else~?”
You fight the urge to shove him off the bed. “Oh, hush!!” you hiss. “Or I’ll brighten myself enough to blind your other eye, too!!”
Siffrin laughs, open and loud, and pulls you closer to him. You feel sick, but in a good way.
“You can’t do that if m’eye’s closed~” he teases, pushing his whole face into your chest. It feels weird, like it always does, but it’s almost calming right now for whatever reason.
“You doubt my abilities?” you force yourself to chuckle. “I’ll have you know, I could easily go supernova on you~”
“You w’uldn't, though,” your stardust says, muffled from having a face full of your star.
You balk. “So certain!?” you titter, your hands fisting into the back of his nightgown.
“Mmmhmm…” Siffrin nods. You shiver at the way he snuggles closer.
“You don’t know that…!” you grit out cheerily.
“Do too,” they reply easily.
“You don’t!!” you stress, pushing urgency and danger and desperation into your voice. Maybe he didn’t realize it, since he beat you he won you let him win way back when, but nothing stops you from killing him, if you wanted to. You could kill everyone in this inn, really. This city. The next one over, and the next and the next. You could kill everyone in the whole blinding Universe if you felt like it. You know you could.
“I do,” Siffrin insists anyways, “I know you wouldn't.”
You’re on the verge. Of what, you don’t know. But you’re there. You know it’s coming, even if you don’t know what it is. You know it’s coming.
“Prove it,” you sneer, feeling your very being begin to shake with something akin to rage. “Prove. It.”
Without missing a beat, the thing in your arms pulls back and looks you in the eyes. “Do it,” they say blandly. There’s no emotion on their face as they do, even their single eye being completely unreadable.
You..
You……
You tear your gaze away, shame washing over you in droves. You’re almost afraid you’ll drown in it.
Of all the things he could do right now, in this awful, terrible, no good moment, Siffrin laughs at you.
“Told you,” he grins easily, pushing his head back into your aching chest. “You’d never do something like that, Lulu. I know you wouldn’t.”
You’re trembling. You’re just outright trembling. You don’t hyperventilate, because you don’t need to breathe, but you’re quivering like a thin sheet of paper in the wind.
How dare he. How dare he have so much blind faith in you? After all you’ve done? All you continue to do? How dare he?
“I could kill you,” you whisper.
“You won’t,” your stardust shrugs off simply.
“But I could,” you stress.
“But you wooon’t~” they giggle.
“I let you win,” you jab.
“Don’t care,” they assert.
“I—”
“Need to sleep!” Siffrin cuts you off, a laugh in his voice.
“I-I…” you stammer, faltering a bit, “I don’t… I don’t need sleep.”
“Mmm… Well, I don’t care about that either,” the despicable thing you hold so dearly dismisses. “You need sleep. You’re thinkin’ too hard. I can feel it.” They pull back just enough to peer up at you, chin jutting into your star in a way that makes you feel much too real. “Y’know, someone once told me us Siffrins don’t do too good at thinkin’ so hard,” they recount, sticking their tongue out.
“I am not a Siffrin,” you growl, looking away from him as if keeping your eyes on him any longer would burn you into nothingness. “I will never be a Siffrin ever again. I refuse. I can’t. I-I…”
Your breath hitches again and you feel ready to explode.
Curse this stupid body, for not needing air.
Curse your stupid mind, for forcing it to think it does.
Curse your stupid stardust, for making you like this again.
Curse the whole blinding Universe, for putting you in this position to begin with.
Curse them all. Curse them all.
“Loop,” you hear, and pretend like you don’t. “Loop,” Siffrin tries again, pushing his face closer to yours.
You shut your eyes tightly and do not reply.
“Starlight,” they say, and your eyes fly back open against your will, irises as wide as saucers.
“WHAT?” you push out, fighting to keep your air supply in check. “What. Do you. Want.”
Maybe if you ignore the way you shiver, the way your hands are clinging so tightly to the fabric Siffrin is draped in, the way you want to cry and sob and wail, it won’t be real. Maybe you can will yourself into a different existence, where none of this is happening, and they’re still sound asleep in your arms, and you’re still thinking about all the different ways you could kill yourself until the sun rises. Where you can act like you’re just now waking up when he does and like you haven’t been living in the deluded, feverish state of hoping and praying and wishing for your own death.
“I want you to breathe with me,” your darling, disgusting stardust says calmly. When you look at him again, his face has completely sobered from the last time. He’s serious. “Can you do that? For me?”
And, what choice do you have now? For me, he asks. Begs. Pleads.
How can you say no?
You open your nonexistent mouth and try, try, try to agree, but all you can manage is some pathetic little noises. You stop, shut your eyes, and don’t cry.
The weird, hiccupy breaths that leave you are close enough though, you suppose.
“Woah, woah, okay, okay,” Siffrin mumbles, moving his arms so that they wrap around your midsection. It makes you feel tethered to something again. You wish you could thank him. “It’s okay, Starlight. It’s all okay.” You want to believe him. You want to believe him so badly. “Just breathe with me, okay? Don’t try to speak or anything, and don’t feel bad if it takes you a second to fall in line with me. Just do your best.”
You simply nod, unable to do much else.
With confirmation that you’re actively listening now, Siffrin pulls you impossibly closer, cheek resting on your star, and takes a deep breath.
“In…” he starts quietly. You do your best to follow suit and manage to succeed, but you push it out before he instructs as such. “And out.”
As his goes out, yours goes in. You feel stupid.
“In…” they start anew, so you simply hold what you already have and wait, “And out.”
This time you both breathe out at the same time. Theirs is much more exaggerated than yours, pushed out for longer. It allows you enough time to get in two more normal breaths before he begins once again.
“In…” he goes, and you actually do it along with him, “And out.” Again you exhale in sync, and you match his length this time as well.
This continues for some time. You don’t know how long, and frankly you think if you did know it would just send you into another fit, so you’re thankful you don’t. The sky is still dark and the sun hasn’t threatened the moon quite yet, so you settle on saying it was enough time, and leave it at that.
“I-I’m… okay now,” you say once you feel like a living thing again. You push your chin to rest in his hair, unwilling to look him in the eye. “Thank you.”
If he puts two and two together, he doesn’t say as such. “No prob, Lulu.” You can hear the sincerity pouring out of his voice in droves. It makes you feel ill in an extremely particular way, but you decide not to dwell on it.
“I’m sorry for waking you,” you say instead through a lump in your throat.
“S’okay,” they shrug, giving a little yawn. “I don’t mind bein’ here for you ever.”
You’d swear at the way your breath hitches again, if not for the way Siffrin’s arms immediately tighten around you, pulling you back down.
You’re real, he doesn’t say, but doesn’t need to. You’re real, you’re here with me, and we’re both together and more real than anything else in this world.
You struggle to believe him, but try your best.
“...Siffrin,” you mumble after a few beats of silence.
He startles just a bit. “Mm—?”
You feel bad for keeping him from his rest, but you need the reassurance. “Tell me something?”
“Anyth’ng,” he replies.
You take a deep breath. “...I-if I hadn't… If you didn’t invite me along on this journey with you and your family—”
“Our family,” he stresses, squeezing you. “They’re our family. You’re a part of it, too.”
You… choose not to comment.
“If you had left me in Dormont,” you press on, “What do you think would have become of me…?”
This is something you have thought about countless times, now. You have your own theories (hypotheses, that stupid, has-to-be-correct part in your mind rectifies immediately) about it of course, but you want to know theirs.
Would it match with your most believed one? Where you would sit at the Favor tree for the rest of eternity, an old, sore memory stuck in time? Able yet unwilling to move?
Or would it differ completely? Would it be something you hadn’t even considered? Would it—
“Does it matter?” Siffrin asks, and all at once you’re underneath that starforsaken tree again. You’re fading, fading, fading. You don’t know what’s going to happen to you. You don’t know why he wants to know. You don’t think it matters.
“...No, I guess not,” you breathe, a small laugh in it. He had said otherwise, back then. He had insisted it was of extreme importance and looked at you with so many emotions it felt like he might keel over just from the amount of them. You were too hazy to be able to discern any of them at the time, and now it just hurts too much to think about, so you’ll never truly know what he had felt in that moment, but…
It didn’t matter now, you suppose.
“Glad we agree,” Siffrin laughs back quietly. “M’glad you’re here, Lulu.”
“I…”
I am too, you desperately want to say. I’m so glad. So happy. I could never imagine a life as I am now without you. Without everybody. I want to be here. I want to be here, with you, with them. I want, I want, I want…
Your stardust giggles. “I know,” they say.
You don’t cry, because you think it’d be a bit melodramatic right now, but stars do you want to. You want to cry so badly.
But you don’t. Instead, you take an impossibly deep breath. Deeper than any human could, you’re sure. And you hold it, hold it, hold it… And then let it go.
“I…” you try once again.
I love you.
…You can’t force it out.
But.
You don’t have to.
“I know,” Siffrin says again. “And I, you.”
You sigh heavily and let your eyes close gently, tightening your hold on the body next to you. They do the same.
Soon, you know, the sun will rise. And this… this, will be over. And you will have to go back into the city, collect supplies, ignore onlookers, and move on. Back on the road, where everyone will share the same space and you will force yourself to stay up at night and not dwell on the fact you oh so desperately wish to share a tent with your stardust and his fighter, but won’t allow yourself the privilege.
But, you remind yourself, that is not now.
Now, you are here with the one person in the whole entire Universe who could ever possibly understand you fully and entirely.
Now, you are snuggled up comfortably with them, warm skin touching starry flesh.
Now, things are okay.
You sigh softly, and allow things to be alright.
If nothing else, you have your stardust. As long as you can, you will hold them close to you, and you will breathe unnecessary breaths, and you will have an unnecessary slumber, and you will be okay.
Because of them, you will be okay.