#verse: the hollow

[lavampira]

another go around

prompt: ockiss23 — day 3: nostalgia [@ockissweek] pairing: original ocs; angel pavon/sebastian ariti [seb belongs to @consulaaris] word count: 1.3k

Angel is a fucking coward.

He has no choice but to admit it, as long as he’s been leaning against the seat of his motorcycle, one hand around a drink carrier and the other with a cigarette pinched between his fingers. The fact that he’d already walked to a coffee shop up the street and back again says enough. If he had any sense of shame left, he might feel it now, staring down the imposing building unable to move and seeking more excuses to stall the inevitable.

Seb had dropped a pin to the location in a text, not that he’d needed it. He’s been here plenty of times in the past. But it’s an olive branch of sorts, this wordless invitation to visit him at the recording studio, letting Angel back into this part of his life even after he’d messed things up again. If nothing else, he owes Seb the courage to meet him halfway for taking his sorry ass back. Again.

And if he waits much longer, their drinks will be cold, rendering his peace offering useless.

After a long drag of his cigarette, Angel drops it to the pavement and grinds it under his boot, carefully shifting the carrier while tucking away his key, and finally heads for the door. The front desk seems to be expecting him, immediately directing him to the studio room once he’s given his name.

And then he arrives.

Slipping through the door as quietly as possible, not wanting to disrupt if recording is in progress, he glances around the room. He’s surprised to find that the rest of the band is out for the session. Only the producer and mixer sit huddled at the board, barely deigning to pass a glance in his direction, and Seb stands inside the booth, nodding along at whatever they say to him before he seems to spot him through the window.

“I’m taking a break.”

“You only just started on the track,” the producer calls back, trailing off into a sigh at the futility as Seb walks out of the booth with his perfected charming grin, and points a finger at him. “Not too long, you hear me, Sebastian? We’re finishing this one today.”

Seb brushes him off with a flippant wave of his hand. Despite the dismissal, they all know that he’ll be right back in that booth before long, his music most important to him. But no one can truly stop him when he gets an impulse in his head, and right now that means Angel, the drink carrier in his hand, and the balcony they used to escape to for some time alone.

Not much has changed about it since the last time Angel had visited him at the studio. Possibly more greenery in a narrow box pot, somehow well-kept and flourished despite the usual summer drought, but the view remains the same, overlooking the other downtown buildings and notorious traffic, even in mid-afternoon. He settles to lean against the wall after setting the drinks down on the patio table tucked in the corner, glancing at his boyfriend.

It’s almost painful how good Seb looks. His brown curls are tousled more artfully than he could ever manage himself, and in the sunlight, his freckles are illuminated over his skin as well as the tattoos peeking from the low opening of his shirt. He’s missed the sight. But Seb’s voice pulls him from his train of thought, almost making him feel the hint of embarrassment for openly staring at him. Almost.

“You’re late,” Seb mumbles.

“I closed the bar last night. Slept in.” Angel gestures at the cups on the nearby table. “Stopped for these, too.”

“You hate the coffee there.”

“They had your tea, though. Herbal. Bit of honey. I do remember that’s what you like to drink while recording.”

Seb does reach to take a sip of it then, but pauses to stare at him over its lid. “You’d still have to park and walk up the street. Unless you juggled them on your motorcycle, then your hands are more talented than I knew.”

Lifting a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, Angel glances away from that familiar and piercing green gaze, as if he’ll see right through him to pinpoint all the precise reasons why he’d stalled like a fucking tool. Not that it matters. Seb sets aside his tea and crowds in close to him, albeit tentative and slow like he’s equally as off kilter in the wake of their reunion, and his hand cradles Angel’s stubbled cheek to turn him back to him.

It’s stupid, really. It isn’t the first time that they’ve broken up and gotten back together. Far from it, in fact, and knowing their tumultuous track record, odds are higher that it won’t be the last time. But the guilt of his latest screw-up has been eating away at him, acidic and corrosive in his chest even as Seb forgave him again, and the idea of facing his bandmates and what they might’ve heard about him this time was enough to keep him rooted outside the building.

“I was nervous.”

Seb’s brow furrows at the confession. “Why?”

“Fuck, I don’t know.” Angel runs his tattooed hand through his dyed hair, not caring that he’s tousling it out of place right then. “Maybe because I’m an asshole and you don’t exactly hold back about it when you’re mad at me.”

“But we made up. Multiple times,” Seb adds with a smirk.

Angel huffs a soft laugh, reaching to draw him closer by his hips, and attempts a lazy smirk of his own when he follows suit easily. “I wasn’t sure if your band would be here.”

Realization appears to dawn on Seb then, his face softer but still cautious as he gauges him for something. Possibly because Angel doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks of him. And under normal circumstances, he would be right, but it’s different with them. Seb’s band are some of his closest friends. They matter to him, and as a result, their opinion of Angel apparently matters more to him than either of them previously thought.

“Well, fuck that,” Seb says, his throat bobbing as he swallows hard around the quiet words, but he holds his gaze anyway, still cradling his face like he’s actually something special. “You… make me happy. And if I am, then they’ll be happy, too.”

Angel tilts his head, leaning down to him in silent question, his eyes flitting to his lips. That’s all it takes for Seb to shift on his toes to meet him, closing the gap between them hungrily, though it fizzles into something softer as they savor the moment. Words have never been their strong suit, but slipping into this old pattern is an understanding all their own and one that only they know. And when Angel inevitably draws back enough to catch his breath, resting his forehead against him, he drags his hands up his waist to his shoulders until they find purchase cupping his face, too, long fingers brushing the ends of his hair.

“Missed this,” Angel mumbles against his lips, dragging a thumb over his cheek. “Missed you.”

Seb doesn’t answer him, but he doesn’t need to say anything else. It’s simply another thing that they know. This shitty cycle that they put themselves through is a painful one, but it’s theirs, and the fact is that they miss what they have even more when they’re apart, bringing them back to this place every time. It’s confirmed in the way Seb leans into his chest, tucking under his chin with a gentle press of his lips to the rose tattooed on his neck, their drinks ignored on the table, only them falling back into their old habits.

Angel wouldn’t have it any other way.

[frankensteinmutual]

Signalis (2022) [H.P. Lovecraft, The Festival] /Sagittarius A* / Kathy Acker, Pussy, King of the Pirates / Outer Wilds (2020) / Is There a God-Shaped Hole at the Heart of Mathematics? / Drain for overflowing water at Sambuco Dam, Lavizzara Valley / ? / Thomasin Frances, Hole Theory (15/10/2022) / Bryan’s Ground, a public garden in Herefordshire on the Welsh border. / odd, weird, strange and unusual / Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves / Evil (2019-2014) / Judas H., Overflowing With Empty / Illustration of the Annular Eclipse of 1836 from “A fourteen weeks course in descriptive astronomy”, Joel Dorman Steele (1836-1886) / @imdad_barbhuyan on Instagram / The moon’s Copernicus crater. Through magic glasses. 1890. / Kaveh Akbar / Dune (2021) / x / Dmitry Kochanovich, Epiphany (Russian,b. 1972) / The Silt Verses, Chapter 41: But As My Last Breath Splits My Throat / Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, The Camp is a Bait for Time / Darina Muravjeva, Hole / Hilde Heynen in Heterotopia and the City / x / Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers / x /  Louise Glück, from Descending Figure / Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay. / Caitlyn Siehl, What We Buried; from “A Letter To Love” / Lara de Moor, Orb (2014) / Sam Sax, Pig / The National - Wake Up Your Saints / Aleksander Rostov / Sanna Wani, from “Princess Mononoke (1997)”, My Grief, the Sun / Gregory Orr, [i want to go back] / Thomas Ott / ? / Judas H., Overflowing With Empty / James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room / Massive sinkhole swallows house in Florida / Edna St Vincent Millay, in Letters (1952) /Silent Hill 4 (2004) / @/vren-diagram / Anne Boyer, What Resembles the Grave But Isn’t / Law of Holes / Scarlet Hollow (2021) / China Miéville, from Railsea

(part one)

[lilybug-02]

Bug Research!

Bug Fact: Roly-Polies (Pill bugs) are not insects! They are terrestrial crustaceans that still breathe through gills!

First || Prev // Next

Masterpost

[awzominator]

Mysticwebs save me… Mysticwebs… Save me mystic webs…

I’ve been messing with this for so long I forgot the name of the painting I was referencing :3

got it!! Springtime by Pierre Auguste Cot!

[crystalskyz]

I present to you: ✨my sillies chart✨

[snorp-gorp]

Art style challenge with my oc Bea!!!! Yippee!!!!

[whimsicallywiddershins]

One of my favorite moments in the Silt Verses is when Carpenter finds that girl, Eliza, who was hollowed by a god of solitude and can't hear or see anyone around her, who thinks she's been abandoned. When Carpenter, full of rage and fire that we have missed in her, goes to that outpost and kills the people responsible.

I love it because, in the long run, it didn't really matter. It didn't help anyone. It didn't help Eliza, it stopped the government from hurting more people yes, but only for a little while. In a month, the outpost will be all cleaned up and the experiments will start again. Carpenter didn't really make a difference. It was pointless.

But it still needed to be done.

Eliza needed to be avenged. All of those people that were hollowed and killed needed to be avenged. In the end, that act of vengeance was pointless, but that doesn't mean it didn't need to be done regardless.

Sometimes, our actions are pointless. Sometimes, something we do does nothing, it changes nothing, it helps no-one. But it still needs to be done anyway.

[auroranekai]

What is it with me and spider related women....

Anyway,, Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse cured my anxiety, cleared my skin and cleansed my aura at thesame time. (It's great and I love it and I had a hard time not screaming the two times I went to the cinema.)

[fukmeintheassandcallmecastiel]

I've completely forgotten how to make friends online and would like to start again after a years long tumblr hiatus.

In an attempt, I am going to try and list every one of my favorite shows, games and so on and have my DMs open for people to say hi if they'd like. No pressure to message, of course. You can also comment on or reblog this post if you're more comfortable with that!

-J

Shows: Hannibal, Moral Orel, Loki, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Sherlock, Good Omens, The Boys, Invincible, Legend of Vox Machina, Gravity Falls, Inside Job, Bojack Horseman, Futurama, Over the Garden Wall, Cowboy Bebop, Shameless

Games: Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium, Cult of the Lamb, Hollow Knight, Detroit: Become Human, Rimworld, Scarlet Hollow, the Stanley Parable (and sequel), Terraria, Transistor, Vampire Survivors, Hades, Oxenfree 1+2, Slay the Spire, Little Misfortune, Detention, Legend of Zelda, Geometry Dash, Norco

Podcasts: Malevolent, The Magnus Archives, Old Gods of Appalachia, the Silt Verses

Hobbies/interests: Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons (and PF2e), hiking, walks in nature, music, podcasts, Norse mythology, eldritch horror, writing, reading, pirates, the Salem witch trials, birds and plants

Music: MGMT, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Tame Impala, Ween, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Marina, The Amazing Devil, Fish in a Birdcage, Half Alive, AJR, Will Wood, Tally Hall, Cosmo Sheldrake, I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME, SEATBELTS, SKÁLD

[paperbvnny]

love these dudes they're just vibing in like a threateningly strong way

[silksongeveryday]

Drawing Hornet everyday until Silksong comes out - Day 159

Requested by @/the-lorekeeper69 !

hmm, good question…

what do you guys think???

[little--ghost]

my quirrel but from mostly memory

[qweaenr]

BLEACH - Kurosaki Ichigo 2/2

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i am on the verge of falling asleep so don't blame me if i'm onto nothing but if you think about it val and carson are both nameless characters. but she had her name stolen from her and replaced with her purpose ("valuable") whereas he willingly gave his away in order to replace it with something that granted him more power ("press secretary"). and we never get to find out their real first names because the people those first names actually belonged to died way before either character was even introduced

[din-skywalker]

me trying not to flip out when i see people thinking miguel is actually a vampire:

[dunaldoodles]

Devotion - Tristam - Eyka Remix

Have you ever thought of how these two parallel with one another? How similar their stories are? How they strived so hard for something they could never attain, for love, out of love, trying to be better for others' approval?

I don't just love this ship because it's cute. I love it because of the character interaction. The vibes. They embody one another, what the other wanted to be, what they could have been. What they became. Failures, suffering, broken.

Two great warriors, brought down from pedestals, either made by themselves, or forcibly placed on it, and made to accept their failure.

I think they'd understand one another in a way no one else really could, yknow?