#lose myself and disappear | elias musings

[ritualwritten]

(( elias w only one of jonah’s eyeballs is just fuckin

sb:  what d’you want to eat?

jonah’s cursed eye:  THE SOULS OF THE INNOCENT

elias:  a bagel

jonah’s eye:  NO!!!

elias: ... two bagels ))

[acemenagerie-a]

(( current elias mood: laying face down on the floor blasting sheryl crow ))

[puckinghell]

❝ you really don’t understand how much you mean to me, do you ? ❞ with Petey?😘

Elias is breaking up with you.

He hasn’t said anything, of course. Not yet. He wouldn’t do that to you right before your birthday: he’s too good a person for that.

But you know it. You can feel it, in your veins crawling like a million tiny little pin pricks. All the signs are there, and even if you try to wave them away, there’s too many of them adding up. 

He’s been busy a lot, lately, more than he ever has before. Not answering your phone calls, always a previous engagement he has to attend when you ask him to go on date nights or hang out. 

Whenever you are together, he has his phone pocketed close to him like it’s his greatest treasure. He used to trust you with anything, his phone too: asked you to answer texts when he couldn’t be bothered or gave you his phone to order take out or Google what restaurant is good in Vancouver.

But not anymore. And that’s the biggest tell: there’s a password on his phone that there never was before, and he leaves the room to answer phone calls now. 

“Just work stuff,” he’ll say when you ask, but you don’t believe him. He’s talked to his agent on the phone while you were curled into his arms too many times before to believe him now. 

You know you should just get it over with. Your birthday is ruined anyway, so there’s no reason to wait. If anything, you can keep your dignity at least slightly intact by being the one to beat him to it.

You’ll break your own heart so he can’t. 

Only, it’s like your heart won’t let you. Whenever you decide you’re going to, Elias comes in and wraps his arms around your waist and you think maybe I can give myself just this one evening. 

And you hate it, hate how unsure you feel about every little action of his. Does he mean it when he says he loves you? You tell yourself he does, but it feels like you’re lying to yourself. And that only makes it worse. 

It’s gonna hurt anyway. So you might as well just rip off the bandaid. 

Once you’ve made the decision, it’s like a switch gets flipped. You’ve always been good at building walls around yourself. In fact, you think Elias was the only person that has ever truly broken through those walls, left there in place by a rough upbringing and a heart that’s been broken a few too many times. 

You always thought it would never heal. And then along came Elias, with sharp blue eyes under a raised eyebrow, a smile that became less hard to come by every day, witty one liners that made you laugh even on your worst days. And it healed. Slowly, but surely, it healed.

And now it’s broken again. Another scar added to the collection. Maybe this is the one that breaks your heart forever.

It certainly feels like it.

“Hey,” Elias’ voice sounds, loud in your quiet apartment. It’s late, later than it should be: he promised he’d be there at 7 but it’s 8, now, and it shouldn’t be a big deal except he’s never late. “Where are you?” 

You’re in the bedroom, sitting on your bed with a picture in your hands. You debated just throwing it out, but your heart wouldn’t let you. A picture of Elias and you, smiling. 

He looks happy. You wonder when it went away. 

“Babe?” He sounds worried now, heavy footsteps approaching the bedroom. The door creaks open and he appears, careful like he’s wondering if you’re asleep. 

You know that once he starts speaking, you’ll lose your courage too. And once he touched you, it’ll be too easy to just sink into his embrace, forget all those terrible thoughts clouding your brain. 

So you need to act fast.

“I think we should break up.” 

Elias freezes in the doorway, hands falling limply at his sides. His eyes are wide and the shock is written over his face.

He wasn’t expecting it. It’s enough to bring the tears to your eyes that have been building up for weeks, now. 

“Why?” Elias stutters out, and it’s a fair question. 

You don’t have the answer. It wasn’t your choice. 

And if you want to keep your dignity, you should lie. Tell him it’s just not working, you’re not in love with him anymore. But God, you can’t lie to him, not even now. 

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” you ask, and your voice breaks at the end of the sentence. That’s when a sob rises to your throat, escaping your lips without your permission. 

“That’s what I... what?” Elias takes a tentative step closer, one hand reaching out as if to touch you. You shrink back from his touch and his face falls. “What are you talking about?” 

“You’re gonna break up with me.” You haven’t said those words out loud before. They ring too loudly in your ears. “You’re always busy, I barely see you anymore. And I’m not allowed to look on your phone. I know what that means.” 

You stare stubbornly at the floor in front of you. Two sneakers appear in your line of sight, but you refuse to look up. Too scared of what you’ll find: relief that you were the one to bring it up. Or maybe even worse: indifference. 

“You really don’t understand how much you mean to me, do you?” There’s a hint of amusement to Elias’ voice, which is pretty much the last thing you expected. It shocks you enough that you finally look up. 

Elias’ eyes are gentle when they lock with yours. In his hand is his phone: he reaches it out to you. 

“You can look,” he urges. “Password is 4040.” You knew that was going to be his password, as it is for everything: but you figured if he put a password on at all it meant he didn’t want you to see. 

Now you wordlessly take the phone, but you don’t open it. Elias slowly goes down to sit on his knees on the floor in front of you, and one hand disappears into the pocket of his jeans. 

“You’re right that I was hiding something from you,” he hums. From his pocket comes a little box. A ring box. 

Oh God. 

The panic must be clear on your face because he laughs, bright and not at all worried about what’s happening.

“I’m not proposing,” he muses. “Not yet. It’s your birthday present. It took me a while to pick one I knew you’d like and I wanted to make it personal. So.” He nods to the box. “Open it.” 

Inside is a ring, beautiful and exactly like your taste. When you pick it up, you notice the engraving on this inside: the date you met. 

“Happy birthday,” Elias says softly. “I’m sorry for scaring you.” 

Tears are rolling down your cheeks, but for an entirely different reason.

“I’m sorry,” you choke out, and then Elias’ arms are around you and he’s crawling onto the bed next to you, pulling you into his body. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Elias, I’m sorry.” 

“I’m sorry too,” Elias whispers. “If you really thought I didn’t want this anymore I haven’t made it very clear how much you mean to me.” He pulls away a bit to catch your eyes, face entirely serious. “I love you and I want you, and only you, Y/N. You are everything to me and I don’t ever wanna lose you.” 

A soft kiss gets pressed into your hair and you bury your face in the crook of his neck while Elias tells you how it makes sense: the times he was late or busy he was looking at rings, the phone calls were from the jeweler to make sure the engraving was right. He offers to show you the texts, but you believe him.

You should’ve always believed him. 

“So,” Elias finally says, “does this mean we can not break up? Cause I don’t want to.” 

“We’re not ever breaking up,” you tell him, and you hope that he believes you too. 

[ritualwritten]

ELIAS TAGS

[acemenagerie-a]

(( oh come back down is big elias vibes ))

[acemenagerie-a]

How Do You Need to Be Loved?

tagged by:  lifted from @xfaucheuse tagging:  go forth if u’re interested ^^

Elias -  Casually, the same way you love to breathe

You want someone who will see your favorite flower and will give it to you, without even thinking about it. You want someone who will remember all the little details about you, the things so seemingly unimportant but that matter more than you thought they did. You want someone who will still be there, thirty years down the line, holding your hand while the two of you do two separate things. You want the intimacy of being known by someone who makes you feel safe. You don't want expensive dinners or grand proposals. You want someone who will love you consistently.

Joshua -  Casually, the same way you love to breathe

( See above )

Robin -  Deeply, like the vastness of the sea

You are a very passionate person. You feel everything so intensely, and that definitely includes love. You need someone who will match that passion, that intensity. You need someone who will care about you as much as you care about them, but you have a hard time finding that. You're usually the one who loves more, and it's sad sometimes, but it's okay. But you will find someone who loves you just as much as you love them. 

[acemenagerie-a]

(( im a quality rp blog idk what u’re talking abt ))

[acemenagerie-a]

spell your characters’ names with songs that you think they’d enjoy listening to, based on the vibe or the lyrics or whatever!

tagged by: @praemetuere bc i cannot resist a music meme tagging: go nuts friends!!

Distortion { Playlist - On YT }

You are about to have a terrible time, but now in technicolor!

D : Devil’s Train - The Lab Rats

I : It’s a Small World - Disney (*shameless ref to this)

S : Stuff Is Way - They Might Be Giants

T : The Mind Electric - Tally Hall

O : Oatmeal - Jack Stauber

R : R.I.P. In The Gossip Sea - cosMo＠暴走P ft. GUMI

T : The Man In Stripes and Glasses - Lemon Demon

I : It’s Another Maze There - Kikuo ft. Hatsune Miku

O : Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads

N : No Healing in Wonderland - TAZ Medley by ShrubRustle

Elias Bouchard { Playlist - On YT }

Bit of a constant genre whiplash of a playlist. Mix of songs that Elias would’ve grown up with, those sorts of sad jams that resonate but also kinda just make you feel worse?, and some silly nonsense because he’d like comedy songs.

E : Everybody Likes You - Lemon Demon

L : Loved - FEiN

I : It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - R.E.M.

A : A Mannequin Adrift - The Scary Jokes

S : Should I Stay, or Should I Go? - The Clash

B : Bright College Days - Tom Lehrer

O : Only Everyone Can Judge Me - Crywank

U : Under Pressure - Queen

C : Coffee - Jack Stauber

H : Hard To Handle - The Black Crowes

A : Adult Nightmares - Cyberbully Mom Club

R : Re: Your Brains - Jonathan Coulton 

D : Dancing in the Dark - Bruce Springsteen 

Jonah Magnus { Playlist - On YT }

Pretentious old bastard energy.  Magnus has been around 200+ years, his music taste has got to be all over the damn place.  Whether he’s actually listened to some of these is, eh, but he’d like the Vibes if he did.

J : Je M’Amuse - Caravan Palace

O : Out of My Mind - Jamie Berry

N : Non, je ne regrette rien - Édith Piaf

A : Alma - Tom Lehrer

H : Hey Little Songbird - Hadestown

M : Machiavellian Bach - Portal 2

A : Anything But Love - Squirrel Nut Zippers

G : Gentlemen Aren’t Nice - Emilie Autumn 

N : Nocturne op. 9 No. 2 - Frédéric Chopin 

U : Unforgettable: III. Ballade - George Tsontakis

S : Still Alive - Portal

[acemenagerie-a]

what do you wish you could say?

tagged by: compelled to submit my muses to the mortifying ordeal of being known by @praemetuere sahgdhjsdgfhjsdgf tagging: go forth and just... get sad

Distortion -  "i don't know how to accept this fact about me."

you have a secret. be it something going on in your life or a revelation about your personal identity, you've just learned something new about yourself and you feel wrong about it. you should be sure about this, but you're just not! even though you aren't comfortable with it, the secret feels important to you and it wants to break free. with the nature of the secret, though, you couldn't stand telling anyone. 

Elias -  "i'm hurting and help is beyond me."

there's something going on with you mentally. you haven't told anyone because you don't want to drag them down with you. it kills you on the daily and you feel like you're falling apart, however, nobody's noticed. you feel like you should be thankful for that, but it just hurts more. you feel selfish and weak for wanting help, yet something deep and knotted beneath your diaphragm is screaming to let go of the pain and let someone else handle it for awhile. 

[acemenagerie-a]

at the moment, you want…

tagged by: whisked away from @praemetuere tagging: go forth and feel ouch

Joshua -  to realize

it's been hazy for a while, the fog only thickening. sometimes, it feels as though nothing has ever made sense. you're stuck, and often, you can't figure out yourself. you hope to understand yourself, but yourself feels out of reach, behind a locked door. maybe, this locked door has already been opened, and you've yet to process the contents. or maybe, you're still figuring out how to unlock it. perhaps the key is buried deep beneath the dirt of the earth, far in your skin, deep in your brain and your heart. surely, you can feel it if you try. don't whisk away this feeling, the need to realize. let yourself discover, let yourself come to a realization. it's a step forward, think of it as so. are you aware?

Elias -  to be seen

it is so, so loud. everyone around you is talking, crowded together. despite how loud it is, you cannot hear them, even when they talk to you. you try to talk to them, but you can't hear their responses. you take this as no response at all. it feels lonely, and dark, despite you all sitting in the sun together, and everyone's having a great time except you. you keep trying to get their attention, and when you do, it never feels like enough. you can't keep doing more. it's tiring. you see yourself floating in space, it's cold, and dark. they're still down on earth, laughing, so loud. you desire to be seen right now. you feel unappreciated, you feel left out.

[acemenagerie-a]

which richard silken quote are you?

tagged by: lifted from @praemetuere tagging: steal away!!

Michael - “ I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly. ”

Helen - “ I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. ”

Elias -  “ Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you. Quit milling around the yard and come inside. ”

Jonah -  “ I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly. ”

Gertrude -  “ I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. ”

Georgie -  “ we have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero's shoulders and a gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it. ”

Joshua -  “ the radio aches a little tune that tells the story of what the night is thinking it's thinking of love. ”

Robin -  “ I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly. ”

Veronica -  “ you're in a car with a beautiful boy, and you're trying not to tell him that you love him and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for. ”

[acemenagerie-a]

what private expression of love do you most represent

tagged by: deftly pilfered from @praemetuere tagging: have fun!!

Elias -  Watching somebody brush their teeth

it’s intimacy in unusual places. seeing their bare shoulder as they step out of the shower and ask you to pass them a towel. kissing with morning breath. they see you when you ugly cry, and get cut off in traffic, and take out your anger on a text book. you see them with the flu, talking in their sleep, exhausted from a day of work. you go to buy the groceries together: orange juice, eggs, a loaf of bread. none of it is mundane, not when you’re with them. you buy toothbrushes together in complementary colours and they sit together in your bathroom, perfect beside each other. you catch their eye in the mirror and for the first time, everything feels alright.

Jonah -  A deep conversation in an unusual place

an amusement park ride. in the ocean. the roof of your apartment building. the cereal aisle. you’re telling them something you’ve never told anybody before. you don’t expect them to get it but they do. you’ve never felt so known. you’ve never felt so seen. the words you’re saying feel too big to say at the grocery store, on the rollercoaster, anywhere. but they listen and the understand and they love you more now than they ever did before. 

Georgie -  Silence and static over the phone

both of your eyes are closed. you both want to say it but neither of you are speaking. if you listen closely, and focus on their breathing, it’s almost like they’re there with you. when one of you finally breaks the silence with a whisper, they sound so close that your stomach aches.

[acemenagerie-a]

which weirdly specific water vibe are you?

tagged by: @praemetuere bc i cannot resist a challenge to put my muses on blast  tagging: go for it y’all

Pure Distortion - river snail

catching snails in the river is the easiest thing in the world, because the snails don't move. and then your grandma who smells like flowers and is more athletic than you cooks those snails, and you eat them with rice and spicy soup, and you don't even know what the word "escargot" means. it's fun to splash around and get your socks wet, and when you're all rivered out, you can come sit on one of those sun-warmed flat rocks and watch the little tadpoles wiggle around. you come home freshly tanned and collapse into your plush covers and sink into a deep sleep, and awake just in time for dinner. it's bamboo mats and sliding screen doors, and wrinkled skin that's so soft. maybe apathy makes you uncomfortable. it feels great to throw yourself whole-heartedly into everything, and hard work always begets rewards, right? you wanna live your ghibli dream and if the beauty is catching snails in the river, honestly, go for it bro. maybe you're ignoring big, complex feelings you wanna talk about, but you never learned how, and you try to talk to the snails but it's not like they speak English. you feel weird and squirmy thinking about it, and weird and squirmy not thinking about it, so you just sit and keep looking for snails and think about how great that spicy soup will taste. you'll get there. 

Elias -  balcony ocean

you're sitting on the tiny balcony ledge of your apartment with your legs pushed through the gaps in the railing. the ocean is distant. then, it's lapping at the edge of your balcony, even though you live like twenty stories up, soaking your legs up to the mid-thigh. it's the weird edge between warm and cool, like when your body is just getting used to the swimming pool. the sky is lighter than the water and both are a cool, pale bluish-purple. it's quiet waves and listening to music on your phone speakers instead of your earbuds, matcha milk hard candy and the feeling of concrete. it's the feeling when you found something genuinely funny but just didn't laugh for some reason. honestly, sometimes it all gets a bit much. you're trying to find the beauty in things, and sometimes it's there, but you're trying to replicate the feeling you thought you'd get when you saw it. disappointment is inevitable, bro. you need to be held but at the same time the idea of people touching you right now makes you feel like your entire body fell asleep and now has that weird staticky sensation. balcony ocean is a study in dualities that probably shouldn't exist -- at least, it feels that way. it's that paralyzing indecision coupled with isolation coupled with the weird peacefulness you get from just stepping away from it all.

Jonah - river snail

catching snails in the river is the easiest thing in the world, because the snails don't move. and then your grandma who smells like flowers and is more athletic than you cooks those snails, and you eat them with rice and spicy soup, and you don't even know what the word "escargot" means. it's fun to splash around and get your socks wet, and when you're all rivered out, you can come sit on one of those sun-warmed flat rocks and watch the little tadpoles wiggle around. you come home freshly tanned and collapse into your plush covers and sink into a deep sleep, and awake just in time for dinner. it's bamboo mats and sliding screen doors, and wrinkled skin that's so soft. maybe apathy makes you uncomfortable. it feels great to throw yourself whole-heartedly into everything, and hard work always begets rewards, right? you wanna live your ghibli dream and if the beauty is catching snails in the river, honestly, go for it bro. maybe you're ignoring big, complex feelings you wanna talk about, but you never learned how, and you try to talk to the snails but it's not like they speak English. you feel weird and squirmy thinking about it, and weird and squirmy not thinking about it, so you just sit and keep looking for snails and think about how great that spicy soup will taste. you'll get there.

Gertrude - lakeside fire

these are your people. your bros. your main lads. the autumn air is crisp and cold, the bonfire is crackling in its fire pit, and the quiet sloshing of the lake serves as a casual reminder that this isn't just any hangout: this is THE hangout at THE lake with THE boys. it's everything your fourth-grade self thought high school would be, with 80's sweaters and windbreakers in pink-cyan-purple and jeeps that you never have to pay gas money for. you eat all of the smore's components separately bc it's too hard to eat a smore, and you know everything for the math quiz tomorrow even though you didn't study. it's tall trees without any bugs, and cannonballs into the clean lake, and forks that don't need cleaning. do you really appreciate when you're laughing and flushed with adrenaline? or does that ruin the moment... sorry bro. you're either scared of worrying too much or you've been working too hard and all you want is that energy. or you have this energy and the vibes are already immaculate, in which case, you thought it was fragile for the first time and now you're worrying about preserving it. and like, whenever life catches you looking at it too hard, you yell "act natural!" internally but you're the one throwing the ruse, bro. the worst thing about ideals is that they seem so temporary,,, but perfect things will disappear whether or not you acknowledge how much you want them.

Georgie - ocean cliff

you're like twelve, and you've just come upon a shoreline of jagged rocks with perfect natural steps and places to sit high above the water. the waves crash up against where you sit and foam wets the bottom of your feet, which are bare but unharmed from climbing up. the only other people you see are a couple walking far in the distance and even though it was easy to get here, you feel like no one else can find this place but you. it makes you feel special. it's when your knees are skinned but a bandaid makes it better, or you're bumping your head against the sides of the train as you're sorta trying to fall asleep, or you're eating candy so sour it hurts your mouth, or you're sitting in the car as a kid and you don't know about the rules of the road yet. where did it all go, bro? why are you trying to feel physical sensations? it's almost like you wish someone would take care of you or even just notice, for once, even if it seems really cool in theory to be by yourself. maybe it's not so easy to ask for help, but you really want someone to ask you. even if it's easy for you to laugh and jump and stuff, it sucks when you don't have anything to smile for and your face feels slack and a little sore. life's comprised of a whole lot of monotony, it feels like, so you teeter right on the edge of something big like you're tempting it. it's a game of chicken and you keep winning... try losing for once bro

[acemenagerie-a]

what do you desperately long for in life (based on words i find pretty)?

pilfered from: @praemetuere tagging: go for it!!

Elias -  aurora

you long for community. you likely spent your school years isolated from your peers, either for being a "weird" kid or being mentally ill. you've spent years with only yourself for company, and you wrestle with whether you're good enough for other people and worthy of the love you crave. making friends is hard for you, but you have so much love to give. though you hunger for a group of friends to share the rest of your life with, you often close yourself off to potential friends out of self-doubt and fear of being hurt again. you've never felt truly loved and wonder if you ever will. 

Jonah -  lover

you long for intimacy, someone to share your life, a loyal partner. you spent most of your teen years lonely, few friends and absent parents. you have known little love, and you desire to feel love in its entirety. you yearn for passion, for devotion. you have so much love to give, and long for someone to give it to. you have your concerns about raising a family, but so desire to give your children the love you were deprived of for so many years. you long for a loud kind of love, full of pure adoration.

Gertrude -  opulence

you long for security. you likely grew up poor with parents who worked constantly and never had time for you, even if they really cared. you feel uncertain in almost everything you do, and long for some kind of respite from the violent sea of modern life. you're likely very career-motivated and attempt to find at least financial security, if you can't feel secure in anything else. you're probably studying in a stem / law field, because you saw it as an easy route to a secure position. the weight of your loneliness is crushing and you desire people you can share your life with in a way you never have been able to before, but making connections has always been hard for you. you desire to feel at peace with life and your decisions, but you question whether you ever will.

Georgie -  ethereal

you long for peace of mind. you've spent your life looking over your shoulder and you desire a quiet life where you can rest. you enjoy solitude, but you desire a closeknit group of friends and maybe a lover - a handful of people you can share your life with. you've never liked the clamour and impersonality of hookup culture or the nightlife scene. for you, intimacy is gentle kisses. a hand on the small of the back. warm glances. two hands clasped. intimacy is knowing each other fully and deeply. a quiet kind of love. you long for someone to share this with. you long to retire to a small cottage in the european countryside and spend your days rearing animals and nurturing crops. you long for a quiet life after years of the uncertainty of modernity.

[acemenagerie-a]

♬ for elias ??

Theme Music || ACCEPTING

I Left My Body - They Might Be Giants

I left my body And right away I knew I'd made a mistake I left without my senses And I can't see anything Can't see anything Can't see anything I'm waiting endlessly On the receptionist at the desk I'm searching high and low But I don't see anyone Don't see anyone Don't see anyone there

[acemenagerie-a]

During Elias's interview

Jonah: So I have to ask, do you believe in the supernatural?

Elias, panicking: I believe in... you? ... and the future of this Institute?

Jonah: That's not... actually, that's a perfect answer, you're hired.