daemonized | RECOLLE IC CONTACT.

[usually, Grell sleeps through the night. usually, once Ardyn is asleep, the house is undisturbed.

but tonight is different. tonight, when everything should be quiet, Grell is awake, slipping out of their bed and heading to the living room, one light clicked on.

she lays there, on the couch, twisting her wedding ring around her finger. trying to ground herself, trying to say it was just a dream. just a memory. the house is quiet, and she's here. that's what she has to remind herself of.]

[A wandering cat is the first to come out and greet her. It’s Rochester, who meanders just close enough to the couch to be in reach, sitting and looking up at Grell. He lets out a meow that matches his perpetually grumpy-looking face.

And only minutes later do footsteps sound. Perhaps if Ardyn were a man who slept deeply, Grell would have the night to herself, her thoughts her own. But he awakens easily, notices that her spot is empty — so much has her presence next to him been the norm, that to be alone in his own bed now feels alien and wrong.

He appears soon after, his form lingering only briefly in the hallway. Ardyn then crosses closer to her, a faint smile on his features.]

You’re picking up bad habits from your husband, I see. Staying up late beyond what is reasonable. Does sleep escape you, too?

[And yet... he’s not surprised, honestly. Something’s been bothering her; he can tell. He had merely been waiting for her to say something, to come to him about whatever was gnawing at her mind.

Now, maybe, he can afford to inquire about it on this sleepless night.]

[her hands still on the ring, and she looks up at him. any trace of a return smile is gone from her features, and her features look drawn, solemn. she's been quiet for a while, trying to manage the feelings inside of her. finally, she pulls her legs up, sitting up. the invitation for him is obvious.]

I remembered something.

[warning words, always, when they're in that tone. but it matches the way she's been, barely held together while she tries to figure out how to voice this. how to be less...

less afraid, if she was to be honest with herself.]

[Words that are indeed the sort to know what to expect afterwards — and with how Grell’s been acting as of late, withdrawn into herself, Ardyn can suspect that it will nothing pleasant.

All the more reason for him to take the seat offered, sinking down into the couch cushions and while his eyes attempt to track her expression. His own smiles wanes, instead replaced by something more solemn.]

What is it you remember, Grell?

[she looks at the ceiling, and keeps her breathing steady. every day she could remember something new that this other self - that she herself did, and it kept finding new ways to haunt her. at this point, she'd take everything at once - get it all over with, if she could. rather than this pointed remembering, things that could be nothing and could be something and one never knew until the chips had already fallen.

here and now. here and now. it keeps things away. if she had enough time, she could make herself pretend like she never felt anything about this at all. but Ardyn sees into her heart, nothing hidden from him. the effort it would take, the lies- she couldn't do that to him.]

You remember how I'm not human?

[of course he does.]

I used to be. I used to be human.

[there's more still to be said, but this is the part she's struggling with. making it something that can be said.]

People...can be changed, into grim reapers. Or rather, they're made to change. It's what they earned by their sins.

[Used to be human.

His heart clenches in his chest, brought forth by empathy. Whispers of his own memories snake around the crevices of his mind. How he had become transformed into something through the years, how his own humanity must have shriveled away across the ceaseless march of time.

That Grell must’ve undergone something similar once makes him feel indignant for her sake; a sharp edge of wishing that something could have been done, even if it was a lifetime ago. Before their souls had yet even been blessed to meet.

His tone is quiet when he replies. His question is simple, and likely expected.]

And what sins should make one change into a grim reaper?

[there's no way about it but to be blunt, no delicate way she can phrase it. still, when she says it, it sounds strained - the way she's felt to be carrying it around for this time.]

They take their own life.

[it was a cold, unfeeling fact in that world. it offered no comfort, did not come with an explanation. it simply was, but it told her enough.]

[Words that would’ve slipped out are instead pinned to the walls of his brain. The weight behind that reveal was impossibly heavy, enough to entrench a soul with questions and shock alike. How long had she been carrying around this memory on her own? Just how much did it rack at her insides, the idea that she would’ve taken her life in another time, another world away?

What does one say? Pathetic attempts at consolation were useless, fleeting things. The feeling of wanting to understand was just as debilitating, for he had no way of knowing if she knew the details, or if she even wanted them ricocheting in her mind if she did. But his heart aches for her, every atom in his being hating that she must know this about her past self; ugly, sorrowful, sometimes broken creatures they both were.

It’s all visible on his face. Even as he encourages her to draw near to him, opening his arms and gently beckoning her to shift close.]

Come here.

[she barely needs the invitation. she comes close and practically collapses into his arms - after being wound so tight inwards, this released outwards and she needs to have support, be held. it frightens her, this knowledge, that one day she might have the memory of what happened in her head, that this job and duty began to take on the shape of a punishment - and she remembers doctrines, words laid down - that this weight will follow her.

sorrow, woven through this past life like scars. anger and viciousness and nothing bright. Ardyn can still likely feel how tension is controlling her, not truly relaxing.]

What am I going to dream about next, Ardyn? What's going to happen the next time I try to sleep?

[He holds her tight against him, fingers gently kneading into her back. Everything about the gesture is a reminder that he’s solid and he’s here. Even if the universe lurches and spins and memories swirl around them, laughing the whole while, she has him. They have each other, the two of them an unmoving anchor point in a life that keeps pivoting around them at baleful angles.]

I don’t know. And it isn’t fair.

[Words that are useless in their consolation, he knows. But he cannot tell her this will be the last of the unpleasant dreams, when so much is still left unanswered.]

But I’m here for you when such dreams visit and take their toll. Here to listen if you wish to speak about it, or just to hold you if you do not. Anything you need of me. What can I do for you now?

[He’ll be consolation, distraction, someone to vent to. Whatever she needs, he will give every part of himself to make her happy. To stave off the pain in moments like these.]

Just...be here.

[remind her that she was alive now, that her heart still beat and that her memories and dreams were not the now. Ardyn was real. this house, full of love, sanctuary in the midst of this storm of reality. this was her life. it had to be. the more that this city wanted to drag them back to who they were, the more desperate she feels to cling onto what she has.]

Tell me it's not real. Only a nightmare.

[they know it's not, but it would be nice to hear.]

[Sometimes the illusion of hearing something comforting is worth the lie, and Ardyn will easily give her what she requests. He can speak the words, as if they are some grand illuminating truth, bolstered by his own lingering desire that they were true. That it all was just a fleeting nightmare, something that the sun would chase away each and every morning.

He tilts his head down, only slightly, just enough to murmur the words into scarlet hair.]

None of it is real. Just a shadow of a person you don’t know, visiting your thoughts at night. A transient specter to be chased away at daybreak.

[And to be defeated, forgotten, in the midst of what was real — their lives here, their friends, the ones which they would call family. The small pleasures that they could reach out and grasp, though they sat in the eerie midst of the eye of a storm.]

And when you wake, I will always be here, waiting for you.

RECOLLE IC CONTACT.

backdated to 6/3 or 6/4

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