Archive of Our Own

I've got stories to tell, but no means to tell them

There is something oddly melancholy about the way that the night looks.

It is 12:37 A.M on a Monday morning. The stars glisten and the moon casts its' gentle light along the landscape surrounding the house. The birds watch, waiting for the sun to rise, the trees rustle with the wind that rocks against houses and spins leaves along the sidewalk. 

It is nearly spring, but he still keeps finding the pesky leaves hidden along sidewalks, inside his greenhouse, behind the dryer and in the corners of the basement.

They cling to life much like he does, with a desperation to survive just a little longer. Not to live, not to necessarily be alive, but to survive. It's an odd reminiscing feeling he's not sure he really likes, but he stares at one of the dead leaves on the ground, so far from his fingertips, and he finds himself feeling small compared to it.

I've got words to get out, but they'll send me to Hell

The world is so big. He's traveled so little, and now he's settled down for the rest of his life, and to the God that he doesn't believe in, it's worrying.

His chest feels tight and he rests a large, clawed hand over his heart, trying to settle the restless thumping in his chest. His lungs work overtime as they keep up, his blood thrumming beneath his skin, adrenaline rushing and making him unable to rest his eyes as he'd wished.

The roof is flat enough to lay on for a night or two, when his bed is too comfortable, when it makes him scared to be so vulnerable. The hardened material is strong enough to support his (frankly large) weight, even on days where he can barely support himself, when he drags himself to bed with the grace of a bull trudging through fine china. His knees are often bruised, his hands shaking with exertion, and the roughness beneath his legs and back are enough to keep him grounded.

Calm enough to resolve himself to normalcy the next morning, to steady his shaking hands, to pretend he hadn't watched the moon and listen to its' whispering as he wished he could tear his heart free from his chest, if only to stop it from screaming just so loudly.

Something is always, forever wrong with him, with the way his biology is or with the way he acts or the way he thinks. Non-linear patterns appear in his movements and thoughts, he swings his way around banisters and barriers rather than just walking around, his body is too big for a normal human and too small for an experiment. He's never enough, never good, and the very thought makes his blood a little louder and his heart a little faster.

I bet you're drunk at the Franklin

He's too big in his own body. He's not grown into his hands or his feet, he stumbles over himself and watches helplessly with his clumsiness. He crushes glasses, scrapes into tables, and paintbrushes that he could once hold so well fall between his fingers, the handles now splinters. 

No matter how hard he tries to hold onto his humanity, Nat is a monster of many varietal kinds, and he can never get rid of that from his DNA. His hobbies, his sleeping habits, his preference for certain foods, all wiped from him; cursed to only be this. 

Forever.

He can still remember the days when he was able to paint. The days when he would spend hours crouched in front of a canvas, listening to the gentle melodies that rung through his household, the commonplace shouts mellowed behind his music. He'd spend minutes scrutinizing colors, watching the way they blended in the painting, scraping off whatever he'd messed up. He'd watch for little details and overwork them until his hands were sore or bleeding, holding the paintbrush in such a way he was likely to get carpal tunnel.

Once he was done painting, then he drew. He watched the pencil fly over paper, making shapes and then refining, taking glory and pride in the way he brought his drawings to such perfection with only a couple extra lines. He challenged himself, trying not to erase, and then to do everything in one line, then back to how he normally drew. He'd color each drawing carefully, following the lines so gently that it looked like he'd thought the picture might disintegrate if he looked at it a little too hard. He'd try again, and again, and again, until the nose looked right or the hand shaped up to how it was supposed to be.

When he was done drawing, he sculpted. He scraped together projects that he'd never finish and combine it with new clay, sometimes of varying colors, watching as they came together. It didn't matter what he did, it would always come together. He scraped up eyes with fingers and a toothpick, gently pressed strands of hair into place, marked details with the finest of lines. He watched with glory as his piece came to life right before him, and he pressed it perfectly into shape, just as he longed to do to himself. He'd never had the courage to place his sculptures in the kiln, hearing stories of how they'd explode, so he simply let them sit. Once he was ready, he scraped it up and tried again and again.

As he finished sculpting, enough time had passed that the house was quiet, and his day was drowned away by the gentle sorrows that were poured into each piece. He'd place the painting with the rest, the rejects, and throw his drawings onto the wall of sketches that he'd never finish. His sculpture watched longingly from the counter at the kiln across the room, but it knew it would never be fired, only left to melt in the summer sun.

He'd had commitment issues for a long, long time, and it reflected in his artwork, his perfectionism never just right. His pieces were too close to home, but too far from the style that really showed who he'd been. Too close to other artists, never original.

He'd never been perfect at the only thing he'd loved enough to carry with him into the other parts of his life, and it tore him up inside that he never would be.

Blowin' off all that grief I gave you

Sometimes, he would listen to his parents scrutinize his paintings, wondering if they would ever approve of the things he drew. He'd sit outside the door of his studio and press his ear as tight to the wall as it would go, small and curled up so they wouldn't hear him.

And he'd listen.

He always listened, he found, when he was later along in his years. It'd been the beginning, when his art began to become more of a reach for attention than a piece to be appraised. He would beg his parents, silently, to say something nice about the works. Notice how the colors showed the perfect sunset in the background, or how he'd done that one hand just right and it'd sat nicely to give the piece composition. Maybe they'd have said something about the way the sculpture's eyes were glossy without ever been covered in a sheen, to show its' true misery behind the guise of something everchanging, but it never came.

He got pitying looks when he asked what they thought, just one time, when he was little enough that he believed the entire world was at his fingertips.

When he'd still believed his parents would be his heroes.

He hadn't asked again, after that, wiping the tears from his face with his own sleeves, sniffling and trying to hide.

Enclosed spaces had become his friend after that, when he realized that his parents would linger in his studio and in his common rooms to try and catch him off guard. He'd stayed in closets and cabinets, hidden compartments scattered along the house where his parents would never think to check. He'd hold his breath for as long as he could and muffle his tears with an old dish towel, the smell of his laundry detergent detached and empty. 

His hands would shake every time his parents passed his hiding spot, his eyes squished tightly shut as if that would help him when he was found. He learned to be quiet, to stay out of sight, to be invisible, and to embrace the fact that nothing about his life and love would ever be real.

The usual love that was put into every day tasks was missing, the love that he saw in shows only faked for cameras and guests, and the frigidity that embraced his small body in those weeks had never fully shaken.

It's cold when you're here and it's cold when you're not

Oftentimes, he would listen to the way that people confessed adoration and professed true love in movies, and he'd gag dramatically. People used to laugh, but he never would, finding that the gagging had become a little too real.

Then, it'd progressed into physical symptoms, and he found himself vomiting after seeing one too many lovey-dovey moments and eating just a little too much. He'd never thought love would make him sick, but he figured he'd never deserved to be loved anyway, and maybe he'd ended up being allergic.

It didn't persist into adulthood, thankfully, but he found that sometimes it lingered- bile would rise in his throat and he'd cough, maybe just slightly sickened, taking only a moment to settle his stomach. He noticed the feeling would ebb and flow, sometimes being weak enough that he could handle gentle touches and soft interactions that he figured he shouldn't be scared of, especially with his size and ability.

On most days, he found himself flinching from the softness that the other members of the house often shared, not ready to bare his underbelly when he'd only known it to backfire. He finds that on his worst days, he can feel the long, serrated scar down his stomach, the way that the skin shifts around it more than just sickening. It enrages him, and he throws whatever he can get his hands on, trashing his room and then himself.

He'd be embarrassed to admit it, but even in the low, dim light of the moon, he finds himself thirsting for the blood that he'd always been told to never spill. It beats beneath his skin, it twists beneath his flesh, and he craves it like a mad person, wants for his knuckles to be scraped if just to lick his wounds clean.

Baring his love, his gentle side, came only on the days where he was too tired to do anything else.

It hit me like a bullet, but I took it cause I'm strong

On those days, he often found that the symptoms of what had happened to him- the experiments, to put it as lightly as he possibly could- were often stronger.

His vision would flicker, and the bandages wrapped tightly over his eyes would make it too hard to see. On those days, he would usually borrow a bandana from someone else, wrapping it just as tight but layering it much less. He even, on days where his vision was fully gone, used a cane, just to get around and not bump into the walls.

He was sure he could walk the house backward, in his sleep, and blind, but he didn't dare to risk any of it, fearing that some day he might be wrong. Some day, the house could change, the wards could shift and he could be caught off guard. Whenever he caught himself off guard, he caught others in his own crossfire, watching as things tumbled just as smoothly as a tower of wooden blocks over a child. 

Even when his vision wasn't affected on those days (which was rarely), other things were. His coordination was often worsened from its' already weakened state, and his body often struggled to support itself under his grand weight and tall height. His tail would thrash around too much, not held taut like it usually was when he had enough energy to do so. He often crashed into things, and people, damaging the world around him. Those days were the worst, and he found that the easiest thing to do was hide, pretending like he was ten again and trying not to watch his parents delve into more arguments. 

The morning had been one of those days, today. The sun had risen and he hadn't gotten up with it, for once, even with his curtains wide open. He'd been unable to see as he awoke, and it took two hours before he could, rising only after everyone else had- except for a handful, most of whom worked the night shift. He'd felt useless, and he'd only left the room for a moment to say good morning before retreating again and spending six hours splayed over the floor, staring emptily at the ceiling.

He'd done nothing all day, except for cooking dinner, of which he didn't try to stomach. He shuffled his food around on his plate, but found no energy to chew or swallow, and returned it to where it belonged- the trash. 

Purposely ignoring the weird looks he'd gotten, he returned to his room again, and waited until the whole house was silent before he slipped open his window and snuck out onto the roof, being as quiet as he possibly could and as careful as his large, uncoordinated body could manage. 

He'd lost his vision for another half an hour after he'd gotten up on the roof, but as it returned, the night had become so dark it felt consuming and the stars were his only path through.

And I'm the closest to a man

Now he finds, even as he pours himself out to the night sky, whispered words slipping between his lips, he still can't ease the emptiness and worthless feeling that settles between his ribs and in his chest. He whispers things to the moon he'd only ever had the strength to put down in writing, but it'd not seemed to want to speak back.

Hallucinations were prominent, on these nights.

The man I never was

He'd heard auditory hallucinations more than he'd seen real hallucinations. He would hear the whispers of a lover long past, the whispers of maybe his mother of his father, the whispers of the other people who had tortured and tormented him. He would hear whispers and voices and footsteps, and he'd pretend he'd heard none of it at all, like it didn't bother him. 

Like he'd never had a fear of the dark, a fear of the people who lurked inside, a fear of someone who would never be real again.

It drove him crazy on his worst days, and gave him slight paranoia on his best. The voices weren't persistent by any means, but they were always there, lurking in the back of his mind ready to strike. They would know more than he knew about himself, muttering curses and wild accusations.

It acted a lot like a demon settled around his shoulders, and when he did get normal hallucinations - rarely, if ever - they rested up, next to his neck, curled around as if they would snap him in two were he to make any mistake. The weight felt particularly heavy, a settling that made it hard to walk straight, but it was never real.

(No matter what he tried, he could still imagine on his worst nights, the bodies that lined the hallway. Their necks contorted and twisted every which way, bruises along their body, guts strewn along the walls. He was, once, horrid. He could never manage to convince himself that they weren't real. The blood on his hands was still sticky. It'd never go away.)

He found that sometimes, listening to the voices of the people he surrounded himself with helped. Listening to Miwu's accent or Vinnie's awkward stutter (in a nice way, they'd always thought of it in a nice way) would drive the voices away. 

As if they'd known, some day, they would be too quiet to ever hear again. 

And I'm drivin' home from the worst night alive

There was a faint creaking, the sound of one of the windows on the house opening. Probably his. He'd known he was being loud with his clamoring, but he'd figured they would give him a little longer, maybe another hour just to pretend. Pretend that everything was okay, that sitting on the roof every night and trying not to think about what would happen if I fell, and what kind of sound would my bones make when they crack, was just going to be okay. 

That he could hide. Hide from the memories that plagued him wherever he went, hide from his past that was rapidly trying to encroach on his future. He'd been getting notes in the mail with no return address, texts and calls on his phone from a burner number, emails from random strings of letters and encrypted sites. Something was rushing up to meet him in his desperate bid to get away from it all, and he wasn't sure what he could do to stop it anymore. 

He'd stopped outside mail, but the notes found their way into his bedroom. He'd changed his phone number, which worked for only a couple hours before the messages started again. He'd changed his emails and shut down the old ones, but just like the phone number, it'd all come back full circle. He'd not found a way to stop the websites yet, but he found he was avoiding the internet all together, avoiding anything that could remind him.

Crosses, burned sigils, blood and gore and guts. Torment in the most horrible of ways; ripped off limbs, carved up bodies, all by his hands. It rushed back to meet him on these days, and he'd always hoped he could just escape it some day, that it wouldn't follow him.

(Just one more job, something inside him croons, just one more time. Go back, go back, just once. Say hello. Initiate a conversation. You know you miss the blood on your hands, the guts that they fed you. You miss eating people, you miss the taste of blood. It would only be once.

Nat is smart enough, just barely, to know that it wouldn't be once.)

Thanksgiving was like Hell, but I give thanks that I'm alive

He watches- moreso listens, his vision is spotting again- as someone's boots clunk across the roof.

(He knows who it is. He knows, intricately, who it is. He remembers the footsteps, remembers the sound of their breathing. At late, late nights, washing blood from the crooks of his fingers and soothing his ever-healing injuries as the stitches healed. When he couldn't cover his own wounds in gauze, because his hands hurt too much from his claws forming, or maybe from butchering another body, they would do it for him. When he'd first been unable to stomach the horrific nature of it all, when he'd finally stopped being manipulated and so desperate for human love and affection, he'd been welcomed with somewhat open arms. It'd been hard to gain his footing, but he had, and he'd developed properly after that. The memory gaps hadn't helped with that process. Even back then, he'd not known the importance of it, too young to really understand. Nine, ten maybe, when it happened. 

He still doesn't remember it all. It's locked behind a prison fortress, as if it'd hurt him to know. He's much older, he can handle it, but his brain doesn't think so. Some days, he's grateful.

Other days-)

A hand shoves him by the shoulder (gently, never hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to jostle and of course being safe to not knock them off) and thunks down next to him. It knocks his thoughts loose, but he doesn't bother looking up, just gives a low flick of his tail. 

(The battle axe hits against the roof louder than he would've liked, knocking one of the shingles loose. He panics, initially, but the calm presence next to him tells him much more than he would ever need to know. 

Nobody else will bother them.)

I don't care that I don't mean it, I don't care that I can't hide it

He'd zoned out again. Again, and again, and again. He loses his footing on reality too often, nowadays, but his housemates are always patient.

Almost deathly patient, in their behavior with him, sometimes leading him around the house.

Like I used to, what's the use to?

On days where he couldn't stand the silence, for fear it might consume him again, Miwu would buzz off in his ear about whatever the hell she'd want to. Sometimes mechanics- sometimes games they'd been playing- sometimes just outright complaining or joking around and including them in jokes. (Nat appreciated the way they were never pressured to speak, but were added into the conversation anyways.) 

Medi was there, sometimes, usually hanging out in one of the communal rooms or their medical quarters. He'd do his daily checks and work and then come to hang out, lingering in the spaces where the house was just a little too cold. (Things were awkward sometimes. Silences, most usually. But the presence of another person, at least, gave them solace that there was no more emptiness, no more death and exhaustion.) 

Jak was a newer member of the household; he'd moved out a bit ago, but had come back recently, after he'd gotten back what he'd lost. He hadn't totally moved in, lingering between the halls sometimes as if trying to map the house in his head, but his presence was still appreciated. (Something had been missing. Missing, gone, removed, cleared. He'd left the room as it was until Jak moved back in, waiting patiently for him to find what he needed. With him back, it felt like that spot was filled, again.)

I will survive, but I'll never recover

Tadrin lingered in their communal quarters, but he had a lot to do. His godhood required much of him, but when he could, he'd hang out. He would summon trains, cars, weapons, stuff for them to play with when he felt like it. He might be not so fond of horses, but they'd made time worth it. (It was a little intimidating, at first, to be playing cards with a god. Over time, he found that later, Tadrin acted far from one. He was casual, calm, rarely upset or angry. Nat especially liked when they played Bullshit, because Tadrin would guess right, every single time.)

Everyone else, no matter who, contributed to the house too. Dishes, cooking, cleaning, maybe setting up for holidays or closing doors and windows when others would forget. Cleaning up the backyard, weeding the gardens, watering the nearly-forgotten houseplant that they kept outside the door to make themselves look more "welcoming". (There was too much Nat could say about each and every one of them, but the very thought of having to think that much was giving them a headache already and making them overwhelmed. There were too many good things, and he couldn't think, so he wouldn't.)

Then, after all was said and done..

Pyxis.

The one who lingered, amongst all else.

The ache comes and goes like stars with the weather

On days where he couldn't see, Pyxis would lead him around by the hand, sometimes by the wrist if he didn't have the strength (or the mental ability) to unclench his fists. On days where his violent urges became so bad, he ripped himself to shreds, Pyxis would leave medkits or bandages at the door, and if it was bad enough that he couldn't do it himself, he'd get Medi to. When he tears up hallways, or rooms, his tail flailing wildly because he's panicked like a cornered dog, Pyxis will herd him back into his room with ease. Psychological tactics worked far too well on him, and Pyxis knew that, using it to their advantage.

On days like this, where he could only breathe night air and hope his lungs would continue to push oxygen around, Pyxis would come up and sit next to him, waiting patiently for him to talk first.

Waiting, waiting, waiting, is that all they ever do, anymore?

"Do you ever miss him?" Nat blurts out, their voice carrying through the wind. They've never learned how to hide themselves from Pyxis, pouring their soul out, especially in the dark.

The dark, where nobody could see them, nobody could hear them, and most of all, it was only them around. 

"Do you-" he starts, his hands lingering in front of him. He tended to do that, and he wasn't sure why, but it made him feel better. His hands shook out slightly, fingers twitching. "Do you ever miss the days when we just.. tore people apart? When we ripped bodies limb from limb and watched as their guts poured from their bodies? Do you ever miss watching the blood pool on the ground and- and praying, praying that some day we would be cleansed, even if that day wasn't then? Do you ever miss the kneeling, the subservience, the not-thinking and instead, being commanded?" 

He paused, out of breath, looking at Pyxis' blank stare. She'd never been too expressive, but this tended to be a sore subject, especially on nights where they both felt a little more uneased than usual. The letters had been kept mostly to his room, but he knew Pyxis popped in sometimes, and there was a chance.

Only a sliver, but a chance nonetheless.

I'm stuck with the pains in the place of all the love

When he'd finally caught his breath, he started again, still just as reverent; "Because- because I miss it, I miss it so much. I don't know why. I hate him, I hate everything he stands for and everything he's ever done and I hate him! But I just want him back, just for one day, just one more mission or commandment or something. Just one more, so maybe my brain will be quiet for a couple hours, so I can take the rest of the world's noise and tune it out like I used to. I don't know why I miss him anymore, I'm so tired of missing him, but it just won't stop." 

His dog tags clunk against his chest. They're heavy, haudy things, a claiming material that hangs around his neck still. His old dog tag, with his old name, was destroyed a long time ago. He melted it down, carved his new name, carved his new identity into it, but it still held the weight of what it used to.

What he used to be.

Pyxis took a deep breath, staring straight outward into the night, letting the stars glaze their eyes over. He was sure Pyxis would scold them, yell at them for ever thinking of missing that, but she didn't. She stayed silent for a long, long moment, before murmuring calmly.

"I don't. But that doesn't mean that you can't."

The weight of their words sits heavy on Nat's chest. It's not something they'd considered, that their symptoms were unique to them, but not an outlying case. There weren't many more that had experienced what they had that the server was still in contact with- one, maybe two- but he'd not felt comfortable enough to ask them, considering the weight of the situation.

He'd wanted to return. Maybe it was hiraeth, yearning for a home that never was, homesickness that wasn't real. Maybe he'd just wanted to be awful, a terrible person, and he'd never really recover. He'd become lost in that for a long time, wondering whether or not he was awful or just sick of being overwhelmed. 

I still have for you, I'm not mad at you (one, two, three)

Pyxis started up again, keeping the same caliber to their voice.

"It's a normal response. Happens to plenty of people. Don't get worked up over it." She kicked her legs over the edge of the roof, swinging back and forth, just barely avoiding hitting the sides of the house and making a large clamor. It's a dance with danger; if Nat remembers correctly, that's Emerald's room. He'd not be happy about being woken up so late- early?- in the night, he'd be insanely annoyed, and he'd stomp his way up onto the roof.

Something Nat would almost be grateful for, if to change the subject of what they were talking about, to take back their words. To act like they'd both never been there at all, and his thoughts had never gone back to the church, and he'd never asked Pyxis about any of it. 

But the church lingered in his mind, like a horrible, rotting omen, or maybe a dead body. 

(A body on his hands.)

I thought I could change you for better

"Will I some day stop wishing? Stop wanting?" Freshly out of anger, Nat's voice had become meek and low and.. empty. There was nothing left to fuel them, having been up for hours upon hours, constantly fighting their thoughts; intrusive and not. "Stop praying he would come back, and maybe.. maybe he would talk to me again, like he used to, like I were a dog and he were a trainer?"

Nat was not religious. Far from it, almost atheistic in belief, but.. but sometimes, when the darkness crept a little too close and there was nothing left for them to do to ward it away, in the comfort of their room.. they'd pray. They'd sit there, on their hands and knees, looking up at the stars through their window. They'd curl a blanket around them sometimes, when it felt like the air itself would give them hypothermia, and they would pray to what was long gone. A false god, who built churches and stories and lands, only to fall after the collapse of the church. But he'd relish in the comfort of the past, pretend he was a child again, someone wholly human, and he would just pray.

Sometimes, he'd spend hours in that position, his knees aching. He'd lose circulation in his legs, unable to move until someone physically dragged him from his spot, up onto his knees and laid him to rest. His prayers were sometimes fruitless, other times full of real wants and wishes, but it was impossible to tell which it would be.

All I did was break you forever

Pyxis was quiet for a long time. Several minutes passed, and they were still quiet, as if thinking. Their eyes flitted along the horizon, watching as birds crooned over the sky, looking at the clouds that passed, watching the occasional wild animal or car pass by on the road miles away. The silence lingered like a blanket of spider webs on a plant, suffocating yet breathable all at once. Nat wasn't sure what they wanted Pyxis to say; entertain their delusion that he would come back, better, and apologize, or tell them the honest truth?

Either option seemed to be awful, considering neither would bring Him back.

You needed saving, and I couldn't save you this time

"I'm not sure what you want to hear." Pyxis broke the silence being, debatably, honest. Nat was sure she knew, realistically, what they wanted to hear: that everything would be okay, that it would all smooth over with time, sugar sweet lies that pressed salt into the wound when they inevitably relapsed into another state of yearning. That, no matter, wasn't what they needed- it'd only hurt them worse, so Pyxis decided to be honest with them as kindly as they could- "But you will survive, some day."

You will survive.

(Nat appreciated that they didn't lie. That they didn't say things were going to just magically get better. It'd been years, and it hadn't gotten much better. They'd gained friends, family, things to do, but they'd not gotten better mentally. They were permanently changed from what happened, and their episodes of self-destructive behavior, brain fog, dissociation, and psychosis only got worse with time. But they'd gained and lost in equal stride, and so far, they'd survived.

Pyxis was only reassuring they would continue to do so, every time, over and over again.)

The time was ticking, slowly but surely, as the sun began to rise. Miwu would likely be the first to awaken from their full slumber, after the first flicks of light entered into their room. Next would be Emerald and Medi, as they had work, and then Abel, since he didn't sleep much anyways. Whoever woke up next would be a gamble- maybe Tadrin, but he usually never slept. Sometimes the Guests, but they tended to work overnight shifts anyway, lingering only in the hallways during major events or holidays. Vinnie might wake early, but they stayed up late on certain nights, letting time pass as they spent more and more time with their boyfriend. Or, maybe Gnarpy, doing some sort of experiment, but they tended to wake up later.

All I did was break you forever

The sun was rising over the horizon line. It looked to be a gloomy, grey morning, clouds forming far away, soon to cover the house in pouring rain. The rain was nice for them, watered the garden so none of them had to, but it could- sometimes, on very rare days- bring more emotional facets to the house, make them all a little less stable. 

He registers, vaguely, that it's been nearly six hours since he's come upon the roof. He'd left his phone behind, desperate to just escape the thoughts of the church for a couple hours, but he figured it hadn't done much to help him anyways. It had to be around six in the morning, maybe a little later. The sun hadn't yet breached the trees, so everyone still had to be asleep. 

Probably. He'd really hoped so.

I had reasons to run and reasons to fight

A bird tweeted, far away, lingering at the edge of the forest, loud enough to be heard. Screaming, almost, crying.

Life persisted, beyond all measures. Weeds grew in the cracks in the sidewalk, people persisted through horribly traumatic events or through mental breaks, ghosts lingered in the hallways even after exorcisms (which, that didn't really count, but he thought he'd seen enough ghosts for one lifetime for them to be real enough). He figured maybe that could apply to him, though he wasn't really human anymore. 

Pyxis lingered, for a little longer. They didn't quite like the morning hours as much as they did the night ones, staying up late and waking just as late. But they lingered anyway, knowing the precarious balance that still rested on Nat's feelings. Things like this were a dangerous topic to verse, but eventually they would both be fine enough to walk away, to hide again until this happened once more. Every day, it was getting closer and closer to the apex of the problem, but it was ignorable.

Ignorable for now, careful enough for now. 

He would survive, maybe. Probably.

Don't ask me why I stayed cause I couldn't tell you why

What he did know was that life would persist, and he would keep moving, and Pyxis would not let him die. In the small movements of affection- or support, maybe, he was never really sure- they would keep going, like a machine chugging on old gears and rotting oil. They were a suffering, blundering thing, but they would continue to move.

They would forever, always, continue to move, even beyond the bad.

I was hopeless, I was young, I was angry

And some day, they- his family- would survive.

But I thought I was fine