#forever plagued by angsty aeth/dew thoughts

[ghoul-slime]

Dissolve

Rating: Gen

Word Count: 616

Pairing: Aether/Dew

Tags: Angst, hurt no comfort, major character death (or at least some super vague ideas about ghouls who are sent back to the pit), eventual hurt/comfort in part 2

A/N: Wrote a horrible, angsty little thing instead of cleaning house and preparing for trip to the East Coast for Syracuse ritual. Planning on this being part 1 of an Aether/Dew hurt/comfort thing, but as of this chapter it's all hurt, no comfort, so reader beware.

Read on Tumblr for now, will upload to Ao3 whenever part 2 happens:

Aether carried a torch for Dew until his final moments, until the dark ashen hands reached up from the summoning circle to drag him back into the pit. The last thing Aether sees as he’s pulled under, away from his life topside, away from his home and his pack, is Dew. Aether’s mind is screaming out for him in those final moments. Begging. Please. Look at me. Reach out to me, give me a sign, anything. Anything to know that you might have felt even a fraction of the love I felt for you. What he sees instead is Dew with a pained face, staring at the ground in front of him, leaning closer into Swiss’ side.

Even now, as Aether floats in the dark, cool void of the pit, he feels his memories fading, pulled out of his consciousness to dissolve into the nothingness as he becomes one with the quintessence surrounding him. He sees his most precious memories unspool backwards and unravel far, far away from him. Dissipating into nothing like smoke into the air. 

They’re all of Dew. 

He sees Dew asleep on the bus from their last tour, head tipped back in his seat and expression soft as he sleeps. Aether wanted to kiss him awake so badly then. He didn’t know it, but that night was the last time they’d ever play guitar together. He sees it all in vivid detail, down to the loose threads of the seat cushions and the rich green of the trees passing by out the window. 

And then that memory is no more. 

Aether sees before that. It’s summer at the abbey, and all the ghouls are together at the lake. He’s got Dew on his shoulders as they play a game of chicken against Swiss and Rain. They’ve lost every match, but with Dew’s high pitched giggling and his skinny little thighs flexing beneath Aether’s strong hands, Aether thinks, This is where I belong. Holding you up and bathed in your joy, blessed by the holy sound of your laughter. 

And then another memory, gone and dissolved into the darkness of space.

Aether sees farther back, to the moment Dew transitioned from water to fire. He remembers Dew in the infirmary, unconscious and sweating, fighting through his body’s changes, delicate skin angry and charred from where the flames burned away his gills and fins. Aether had been so scared then, but Dew was strong. Stronger than anyone Aether had ever known. He’d come so close to telling Dew he loved him then. But when Dew cracked his tired eyes open, all Aether could manage to do was pull him into a tight hug as he choked back tears and hoped Dew felt what he was trying so desperately to say. 

And then Aether remembers nothing of it.

Finally, he sees Dew on the day they first met. The day that Dew was summoned by the clergy. Aether sees himself watching the most beautiful ghoul he’d ever seen in his life emerge from the glowing circle of the pit. Delicate and slender with hair so long and platinum it almost shone sliver in the dim light of the abbey. Aether sees himself slack-jawed, hands shaking as he moves to wrap a blanket around the new ghoul. He remembers feeling all the air sucked out of the room as Dew looked up at him for the very first time, with wild, flashing eyes and Aether thinks to himself I can’t wait to devote the rest of my life to the worship of you. 

And then, as this last most precious thought is swept away from him, Aether feels himself fade finally into the peace of nothingness.