abraxaslogs | [closed] when my depression works the graveyard shift

Feeling like a wound that hasn't healed right, Wilhelm isn't in much of a party mood. He lets Elrond drag him along to the banquet anyway, because the alternative is rotting alone in the room with all his thoughts. The promise of alcohol is persuasive enough. No, he doesn't want to examine the timeline of when and how booze evolved beyond something fun to do, something to help him loosen up in social situations.

Anyway, after dinner concludes, he sticks to the edges of the ballroom. He debates slipping out after the first song, but somehow that makes him feel worse. If Lucifer can find someone to dance with, then what the hell is wrong with him that he can't? He's been hoping to catch Rhy alone, his eyes finding him all night without ever really meaning to. The problem with him being so gorgeous, though, is that he's never alone. There's a wall around him, too, that he isn't sure how to breach.

That's when he catches a glimpse of Robin wallflowering by an elaborate display of cakes. She'd helped him stave off boredom while he recovered in Nocwich, and kept visiting him after they returned to Thorne. Supposing he owes her, Wilhelm cuts across the room, hands folded behind his back and shoulders straight. In his embroidered jacket he looks, well, princely.

"Wanna dance?" With a little grin, he offers his hand to her.

For the length of about two songs, Wilhelm watches Rhy from across the room. To be fair, he doesn't watch him every second — it's not like he's stalking him. It's just that his eyes keep circling back to him, like comets in orbit, all the fault of gravity. Then, finally, he works up the nerve to barge into his space and ask for a dance. He becomes a different person, possessed by a confidence that he doesn't feel, borrowing a casualness that belies the fact that Rhy has the power to sink his whole night or lift it up into the stratosphere.

For whatever reason, Rhy agrees. Boredom or politeness — Wilhelm bans himself from reading into things too much. The problem is, the number of dance steps they know in common is, like, next to zero, and Wilhelm can't make up his mind if he's leading or following. It's a mess, but it's fun, and that's all that really matters.

"You seemed a little down," he says unprompted mid-song, when they've found some kind of rhythm together. Pot and kettle, or whatever — as if sulking doesn't rank among his top activities. But there's sincerity in his voice, concern in his eyes as he watches Rhy, now from the vantage point of his arms.

These meet ups in the Horizon have become a part of Wilhelm's routine. Dates, Jesper calls them, and he supposes they are. They always lead to their clothes scattered on the floor and their bodies tangled together.

Today brings a change in the routine. Jesper's domain, the usual setting for their rendezvous, gets swapped for Wilhelm's. He rarely invites anyone over to his little corner of the Horizon. It's not that interesting — and anyway, it's designed as a place to retreat to, not to share. At some point, though, he'd brought up the car he's manifested here, and Jesper, always a fan of shiny new thrills, begged to check it out.

When he sees Jesper sauntering up to the house overlooking the lake, Wilhelm rushes over to meet him. The house itself has gone through several transformations in the past year as he figures out what he wants. Once, it looked like an echo of Simon's house. Somewhere he only ever spent a handful of hours, but that was long enough to leave him with the impression that this was what a home is supposed to feel like. These days, it's something constructed out of his own imagination: sleek and modern in contrast to the ornate trappings of the palace he'd grown up in, which felt preserved in time like a fly in amber. The car, a perfect replica of his brother's Ferrari, sits in the driveway.

"Hey," he smiles at Jesper.

His nightmares are all variations on the same theme. Vines tangle around his limbs, meld with his skin, strangle him, while something lurches nearer and nearer. He doesn't know what it is; he just knows he should be afraid of it. Sometimes he's left to die alone, and sometimes there are others caught in the writhing thicket of vines, familiar faces shaped around screams as their flesh splits into mouths lined with thorny teeth. Masks watch impassively in a circle that draws tighter and tighter.

When Wilhelm hurtles awake, the darkness is still and silent. But it has a weight to it that suffocates him, and he has to thrash free of the blankets twisted around his legs. It takes him a moment to lock into reality: he's not in the pit anymore, but a room at an inn in Hayle. Elrond lies in the next bed over. Moonlight spills through the window.

He stumbles over to it and, fumbling with the latch, pushes the window open. Cool night air splashes his face. Like someone who has just almost drowned, he gulps it into his lungs. When he doesn't have to struggle so much to breath, he melts onto the floor with his back curled against the wall and his knees folded to his chest.

Well, fuck. Turns out that sweet dreams potion doesn't work if you skimp on the dose.

robin - april event

rhy - april event

jesper - horizon date

elrond - pretend it's still april