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ice cream ([personal profile] bluedreaming) wrote in [community profile] writetomyheart2017-05-03 08:51 am

[team sonic] maelbeek

First words were originally from here, then here, now it's expired but I figured I'd start it up again and get this off my chest. I'm posting on my iPad directly from scrivener so I expect the internal HTML is a mess and I'll fix it after work! Edited. What a mess it was!



"You don't know how long I've been waiting..."

It's dark, more than dark: the sticky tar-like shadows swallow his motions, cling to his eyes, crawl down his throat.

How long has he been here? He has no idea of time or space. He tries to move forward but every step seems to only push him backwards, fighting against the tides of nothing, moving only deeper and deeper into dark.

"You don't know how long I've been waiting..."

The words are his, aren't his, hanging in the clotting dark and sitting heavy on his bones. He's not not sure who is waiting and what they're waiting for. It could even be himself.

The only thing that he knows with any certainty is that somehow this waiting already tastes like regret.

He opens his mouth again to ask, and only swallows the night. His hands reach out and close around nothing.

"You don't know how long I've been waiting..."







There are many ways in which God can make us lonely and lead us to ourselves. This was the path he took with me. It was like a bad dream. I see myself under the spell of some kind of dream, crawling restless and tormented through the dirt and sticky muck, through broken beer glasses and nights spent cynically chattering away—an ugly and unclean path. There are dreams like that, where on the way to a princess you stay stuck in a pool of shit, or a stinking back street full of filth. That’s how it was with me. It was given to me to grow lonely in this undignified way, and to place between myself and my childhood the gates of Eden, closed forever and watched over by implacable, radiant guards. It was a new beginning, and the awakening of a hopeless longing for my former self.

—Hermann Hesse, Demian








He swallows back a shout as his eyes fly open, the unformed words muffled behind clenched teeth. Draco doesn’t remember the dream—he doesn’t remember what he was so desperate to say. The sky is still dark outside his window as he slips between crumpled sheet, sticky with sweat. It could be almost dawn, or it could be barely after dark.

Pop.

Draco twitches, startled despite the fact that the arrival of a house elf shouldn't be a surprise but rather an expectation. He can't help his reflex to glance anxiously around, consoling himself for his slip up in the absence of his father and his heavy frowns of disapproval.

“Master Draco, you is having a nightmare,” the elf says, wringing his hands. Draco’s eyes catch on the knuckles of his fingers, watch him bring forefinger and thumb together in a snap as a tray with hot milk materializes on the side table.

“Thank you, Dobby,” Draco says automatically, and then bites his tongue. Dobby just watches him with big eyes. The sip of hot milk sits heavy in his stomach, and he sets the mug back on the tray.

“I’m to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow with father,” Draco says. He’s not entirely sure why. This appointment is a fact, something he’s been privately looking forward to for a long time. His father will have most of a whole day to spend with him, and Draco is very much anticipating the coming year. In the dark though, the stars hidden from the window’s view by the leaves of the tree standing outside his bedroom window, Draco can’t help but think about the fact that he’s not sure he’ll be able to live up to his father’s expectations.

Does he even want to live up to his father’s expectations?

“Dobby is sorry,” Dobby says, bowing his head as his ears droop. “Master Malfoy is leaving some hours ago.”

Draco swallows against the disappointment, curdled with sour relief. His fingers twist in the fabric of his pyjamas. The feeling of waiting surfaces again, recalling the twisting darkness of his dream. In this moment he's certain that this has nothing to do with his father, but he has no idea what else it could be about.

“Master Draco is sleeping now,” Dobby says, interrupting his spiralling thoughts, taking a half-step forward as though to nudge him back towards his bed. The sheets are fresh now, uncrumpled and smooth, but the darkness still lingers in the shadows of the folds.

“Could you tell me a story?” Draco asks, closing his eyes rather than trace the bed canopy above him.

“Dobby be telling Master Draco about Harry Potter,” Dobby says. It's dark behind Draco’s eyelids, but this feeling is warm, and familiar. Perhaps his mother will accompany him to Diagon Alley instead, or send Dobby with him. Perhaps he’ll stop for ice cream at Fortescue’s. He smiles.