#oh god a waking nightmare! i live a life so hollow that im not! even! there!

[jackfrostbufudyne]

i don't need god's forgiveness, i need yours

without text ver.

[sotogalmo]

5:44

Rot For Clout by JamieP.... Luka ALNST.... It. I dunno

Title gives me that vibe, and a few lyrics (in tags). But who knows

[tarpitbell]

10:05

oh god a waking nightmare i live a life so hollow that I'm not even there. oh god the light won't save me. im a perfect tempered instrument; and life is gonna play me! come and fuck me til the sun burns out and i rot for- maybe not a single real reason. my blood's already out of season..so unwanted even by myself. tell me, what the hell? what the hell? i dont like what's at my core. pray to god to fix my soul, but i dont need god's forgiveness— i need yours.

[thedreadgay]

left behind

chapter 1: legacy || chapter 2: months later

series: old soldiers, old love original publish date: feb 5 2018 word count: 1454 warning for: death author’s notes: ah yes...... the beginning of my reaperana76 series. y’all ever think about what would’ve happened right after ana’s legacy comic? y e a h

EDIT: wrote this before jack was revealed to be gay lol im going to be reworking all my shit for this series so it’s anareaper76 polyam V instead. im not super into ovw rn so i’ve been slow, but i will do it!!! thanks for ur patience!

“It’s not true.”

Dread weighed on Jack as Gabriel swept into the empty debriefing room. He didn’t look up from the table’s screen—he couldn’t. There was a tremble beneath Gabriel’s terse denial that Jack was too cowardly to face. Can’t even own up to your own mistake, he thought; and this one cost you. Instead, he stared at the flickering mission statement before him, hoping against hope that maybe the words would change. Maybe she’d walk in behind Gabe, her field uniform still dusty, and laugh her throaty laugh. “How sweet of you two to worry. You must like me,” She’d say, and her smile would turn soft. “Don’t you both know by now I’ll always come home safe?”

But the room stayed dead, the words remained unchanged, and there was a yawning hole in Jack’s chest that kept growing.

“Jack, answer me.” Gabriel’s tone was hard. “The statement has to be wrong.” The first words they’d exchanged in weeks, and it was... this. Like something out of a foggy nightmare. But there was a painful lump in Jack’s throat, and he kept a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the table, and he knew it was real. “You wouldn’t leave Ana behind. Even after everything, you wouldn’t do that.”

That hurt like a knife in the ribs. He managed to look up and meet Gabriel’s gaze (you owe that much to him, to her). The clench of Gabe’s jaw and fists did nothing to mask his terror from Jack; it was in his eyes, just beneath the surface. “Where’s Ana?” Gabriel pressed. Jack tried to swallow, and he sounded like a dying man when he croaked out:

“Gone.”

Ana was gone. Ana was dead, and it was his fault.

Gabriel visibly trembled. “But no body was recovered,” he continued, albeit shakily, and Jack nodded. The thought of just a body instead of Ana made Jack’s stomach churn. “So she could still be out there. She could need our help.”

“Gabe—“

“We need to get her, Jack. Now.”

We. Jack hadn’t heard that in a while. He wanted to take that we and run with it, run with Gabe, run to Ana. “Can’t,” he had to say instead. It came out as a murmur, like he was ashamed of it (he was). “We wouldn’t be authorized. The place is still crawling with Talon operatives; we’d be risking more lives by going back...”

He faltered at the look on Gabriel’s face, wide-open shock like he hadn’t seen in years. “You’re shitting me,” Gabe muttered, and his disbelief gave way to a now familiar glare. “Since when did permissions matter more than Ana’s life?”

The sting of that made Jack stiffen. “We’ve already been under too much heat, you know that,” he ground out. It was an argument as familiar as a dance at this point; maybe once, he would have been stunned it pushed past the screaming in his heart. But bitterness (and pride) was a hell of a thing.

“Blackwatch could be in and out before anyone catches wind. A small, stealthy team—“

“No,” Jack asserted, “Blackwatch is still suspended, and we already crossed a line in King’s Row, even if it turned out well.”

“’Turned out well’? We saved lives!” Gabriel’s voice rose. “We could be saving Ana’s life too, if you weren’t sitting here on your ass moaning about politics!”

“Don’t you think I want to?” Jack snapped, “And even if we could, I—“ he stopped short at the sudden twist in his chest. “I don’t think there’s anything left to bring back,” he finished, quieter again.

“Bullshit.” Gabriel’s voice wavered, and Jack winced. That’s your fault, too, his conscious reminded him. “This is Ana Amari. She’s a survivor,” Gabriel insisted, but it was unsteady. “This is Ana.” The weight of her name was like a thousand dead bodies.

“You weren’t there,” Jack murmured, wrapping his arms around his midsection. “You didn’t hear her scream.” Gabriel took a sharp breath, and leaned heavily with his palms on the table. Jack had barely heard it himself over the thrum of the evac shuttle, but he would recognize her voice anywhere—and he couldn’t begin to think of her chuckles or triumphant shouts without that distant, agonized cry tearing him apart. “She’s gone. We’re not going back.”

“Then you’re leaving her to die?”

“We always knew this could happen.” And it was true; they all knew that from day one. Over twenty years ago, it was the unspoken thought behind every hesitation: what if this mission was it? What if this would be the last kiss, the last time their eyes met? Jack thought he could handle that day if it ever came. What a fucking fool, he thought to himself.

“But it happened on your watch.” It was venomous, and anguished, and Jack couldn’t tell which hurt worse.

“She disobeyed a direct order to fall back,” Jack said, and regretted it as soon as the words left him. His eyes widened in horror, and there was revulsion in every line on Gabriel’s face. “Shit, I—“

“That’s not an excuse!” Gabe cried, almost shrilly.

“I know it’s not!” Jack shouted, “I—“

“For God’s sake, Jack, listen to yourself!” Gabriel’s contempt—and grief—was palpable, like suffocation. A thread of war strung tight between them, threatening to snap when Gabe continued: “What happened to you?”

The thread slackened as Jack deflated. I don’t know, he thought, but it was an unworthy half-answer.

Gabriel stared, expectant—desperate, maybe. But Jack didn’t speak, and Gabriel looked away. For some reason, it struck a blow to him.

The desolate silence was their only companion now. Gabe’s eyes fell to the mission statement once more, but Jack couldn’t bear to look again. He knew every word by now, they were burned into him: Cpt. Amari, Ana, presumed dead. It buried him like the grave.

Gabriel blinked rapidly, his lip quivered... and his face crumpled, the force of his despair bringing him to his knees. Stricken, Jack could do nothing but watch as he fell apart.

“Ana.” Gabriel’s voice broke on her name, and Jack’s heart broke with it. Tears sprang forth and streamed down his face now, unbidden, but Jack clamped down the wail that threatened to break loose. He had no place crying out for her, he thought; hunched over, teeth clenched so hard they creaked. Jack could only stare down, unseeing, while Gabriel sobbed and sobbed. Through the blur of tears, he saw those words again, saw her photo, saw their lives together and the cracks deepened—and shattered. Jack heaved like there were hands around his throat, collapsing to the table, held up only by his elbows, but they quaked, quaked further when Gabriel slammed a palm to the surface and screamed in anguish. They bawled alone, separated by the mission statement between them, and by the sterile, professional, neutral photo on Ana’s profile. The weak mirror of her stared with blank eyes—with dead eyes.

“Oh god,” Gabe rattled suddenly, brutal realization seeping into his ruin: “Fareeha.”

Jack felt sick, and his blood ran cold. In all his years—in the decades since he fought his first battle, called his first shot—he had never felt more helpless than now.

“And Jesse,” Gabriel continued frantically, “Angela—“

“They’re not kids anymore, Gabe.” Distantly, he couldn’t believe that wrecked voice belonged to him. “They’ll be okay.” The words felt about as hollow as he did.

“They still lost a mother today.” It was murmured with a bitterness like poison, and it was true.

The air stilled, and emptied, leaving nothing between them but jagged edges. Numb, Jack just let the tears drip from his nose to the table, let his bones tremor in the wake of such destruction.

He could hear the soft, slow movement of Gabriel rising to stand. Jack swallowed, gathered the will to look up—and was run through by Gabriel’s red-rimmed glare. Agony, horror, and loneliness clawed at him. In times past, they would have wept together (they would have had no reason to weep; he wouldn’t have left Ana behind). Now... lovers were facing off like enemies. What happened to us?

“Overwatch was supposed to help people. Overwatch was supposed to protect people.” Gabriel was raw as an open wound. “What is it doing, if it couldn’t even protect her?”

Jack should have jumped to Overwatch’s defence—he always did. But exhaustion bore down on him, like he saw in Ana just hours ago, though it felt a lifetime away. “Are you okay?” he had whispered en route to the drop point. Ana didn’t look at him. “I’m tired, Jack,” was her only reply.

I’m tired, too, he thought as Gabriel turned away.

Jack turned as well, while the door slid shut.

[enricodandolo]

Amfortas! Die Wunde

Die Wunde sah ich bluten, nun blutet sie in mir! Hier - hier! Nein! Nein! Nicht die Wunde ist es. Fließe ihr Blut in Strömen dahin! Hier! Hier im Herzen der Brand! Das Sehnen, das furchtbare Sehnen, das alle Sinne mir fasst und zwingt! Oh! - Qual der Liebe! Wie alles schauert, bebt und zuckt in sündigem Verlangen!

 I saw the wound  bleeding: now it bleeds in me! Here – here! No, no! It is not the  wound. Flow in streams, my  blood, from it! Here! Here in my heart  is the flame! The longing, the terrible longing which seizes and grips  all my senses! O torment of love! How all trembles, quakes,  and quivers in sinful desire!

 (R. Wagner, Parsifal,  act II)

  Marian had always known she was broken.

The Beast had been there, burrowing inside her heart, as long as she could recall. Always there, hideous to behold, a demon of her very own. She could hear its whispers when her eyes slipped, soft and comforting to the drumroll of her heart. She could feel it tugging at her insides, dragging out her every organ until she was a hollow vessel for its awful desire. She could feel it burning away at her, searing sweet and hot inside her nethers whenever skin brushed innocently against skin.

It had always been there, a parasite bent on controlling her, on making her its creature, as vile and abhorrent as the Beast itself. And every day, she did battle with it.

She wasn’t winning the war. But she hadn’t lost a battle yet, and that was all that mattered.

When she first learned of the Beast, she’d been a kindergartener. She doesn’t remember how, exactly—she remembers autumn sunlight warm in her hair, colourful crayons. Just quietly drawing, humming to herself, for once giving the teacher some peace. She must have worked on that drawing a long time, she remembers that—remembers her pride when she showed it to the teacher, the two pretty brides in white gowns, smiling hand in hand.

The teacher had laughed, quietly to herself, and gone to her knee. Told her that it was a very sweet painting, but it wasn’t quite right, was it? Perhaps she’d like to add a nice groom for each of them, a handsome prince? She’d understand once she got older.

So by the time mother picked her up that day, little Marian had scrunched up the drawing and thrown it away.

  She doesn’t remember the names of her friends at elementary school, but she does remember the looks they gave her. She’s not sure how it started, or when—only knows that they, too, had noticed the Beast, and were afraid of it. She remembers the frowns, then the mocking comments, the snide jokes. You’re such a weirdo, Marian. She laughed it off, all of it, and made sure the comments stopped. There was no language ten-year-old boys understood as well as a sliver of a ten-year-old girl biting, scratching and kicking. What she lacked in size, she more than made up for in viciousness.

Sometimes, even years later, the teasing would return—some chance gesture, some overly intense look, some ill-considered choice of words, the Beast churning within her. This is so you, Marian. Part of her wanted to scream, no, no, it wasn’t, she was fine and normal. Instead, she smiled, and laughed it off, and changed the subject, while inside her the Beast chuckled.

  Her first boyfriend—Devan? Dennan? something like that—was a sweet kid. They were twelve, maybe thirteen, and they were on the school football team together. Marian barely remembers his face, but she does remember a shock of hair the colour of an overripe carrot. She’d caught him staring at her, turning red whenever she noticed, and one day he’d stammered out something about getting burgers to her boots.

She froze.

There was no word for the nausea that came over her in the long seconds that followed. The Beast roared. Every fibre of her being screamed for her to run, to fight.

She bit her tongue and said yes.

  After Dennan (Devan?) there was Maric, and Aydin, and Huon, and—she doesn’t remember. They pass by in a blur in her memories, none lasting longer than a couple months—her mother took to referring to them as “interchangeable Edwins” at some point. She could not give them what they want, try as she might.

She did get better, though, training herself to accept their affections. When they tried to kiss her, she no longer recoiled. One of them—she can’t quite recall his name—she let fuck her. A few minutes of staring up at the ceiling while he pumped away at her, hands here, mouth there, penis there again. I’m enjoying this, she told herself, a mantra to drown out the Beast.

She’d close her eyes, and the boys before or inside her would change, soften, sweeten, and every time the Beast would drive her closer towards the edge before she could tear open her eyes, gasp out, reassert herself. I’m enjoying this. This is normal. Then why did she hate herself so?

  She could not deny the effects the Beast had on her body, but she’d be damned (literally) if she didn’t fight them.

By the time she was sixteen, Marian had self-discipline down to a science. She played in three sports teams after school. In between training sessions, she ran, for hours at a time with no regard for storm or strain. The exertion numbed her senses, burnt away whatever energy she might otherwise have spent self-abusing, or worse. When that wasn’t enough, she drank, smoked, had sex—whatever it took to distract herself, to keep the Beast in check for another hour. She wasn’t quite flogging herself like a penitent Chantry sister, but she’d developed a habit of subtly digging her nails into her skin or scratching herself whenever she caught herself paying tribute to the Beast within her. The pain usually dispelled whatever foul notions it had implanted in her before long.

Besides, a little blood was a small price to pay.

  She had never believed in the Maker’s grace. What kind of benevolent god would make her like this, broken from the start, and make her live with these desires?

And yet, in the dark of night, when she sank her teeth into her pillow to keep from screaming out, she prayed. Prayed for strength to fight the Beast, prayed for release, prayed for death.

  She didn’t wait for the recruiting officer’s sales pitch before asking for the enlistment papers. It was her seventeenth birthday.

Explaining her decision was the hardest thing she’d ever done, and it took her weeks until she finally confessed what she had done. She knelt in the study, mumbling something unsatisfactory, watching the tears and trying not to break down herself. It was the eve of father’s funeral.

She tried to make excuses, but of course she couldn’t take this away from them. None of them deserved this, it wasn’t their fault she was broken. They accompanied her to the station. She was in tears, and Marian wanted nothing more than to give in to the Beast right there and then.

She had to get away from her, she reminded herself. That was all that mattered. She smiled, waved, and got on the train.

  Ostagar is madness, a conflagration of waking nightmares. The tastes of blood, vomit and mud, the smells of gore, decay and taint—all blend together in her memories. For the first time in her life, though, her dreams are, if not pleasant, at least free of the Beast’s illusions. She dreams of her still, she suspects she always will, but it is the darkspawn disease that now distorts her dream-image, not Marian’s own horrid hunger.

She tries to imagine her own fall, struck down by a tainted musket ball or blade. She doesn’t much care for king and country, but she can’t think of anything sweeter and more fitting than to die for her despite the Beast.

  She does not get her wish. When the line collapses, she flees north, possessed only by the atavistic urge to protect what is (not, never can be) hers. The moment she sees her again, the Beast she thought defeated is back, and when she embraces her, she can scarce tear herself away again. Templars and demons, soldiers and darkspawn—none of it matters for those few, blissful moments that would earn her hatred and revulsion on top of everlasting damnation if the Beast had its way.

She is warm, and firm. There is nothing they cannot do.

  Ringing in her ears.

Lead. Iron. Gun oil under her fingernails, mixing with blood.

Grey sky, grey land, grey ogre speckled red.

Her ears—

She stumbles over, like one who walks across a room in a shuttered house naked and unwatched. She kneels.

She stares blankly. Takes her hand. Cold. She wants to kiss her even now.

The Beast chuckles darkly. Tip of the hat, bow and curtain. It departs. She has won. She is free.

“… Bethany?”

  Nun banne das Bangen, holder Tod, sehnend verlangter Liebestod! In deinen Armen, dir geweiht, urheilig Erwarmen, von Erwachens Not befreit!

 Now banish dread, sweet death, yearned for, longed for death-in-love! In your arms, consecrated to you, sacred elemental quickening force, free from the peril of waking! 

(R. Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, act II)