#was rust sharing a half-truth or are he and rose sharing the lie

[twobrokenwyngs]

Travis Cohle ⟶ True Detective Season 1: Who Goes There ⟶ True Detective Night Country: Part 2

[ashamefullife]

ash-blond & peacock-blue

On such a pleasantly mild summer evening, surrounded by chirping birds, Albedo sometimes forgot what time it was, forgot to look at his pocket watch, and forgot to ride back to town in time. His old bicycle, slightly rusted in some places, was leaning against an apple tree. He himself dangled his legs half over the rock he had climbed and sat on. From there was truly a fantastic view over Mondstadt, though the spot was a bit too far away to see more than blurry outlines of the city walls and houses.

Albedo exhaled loudly and ran his hand through his loose ash-blond hair. The sun was slowly tilting towards the horizon, which meant that the sky had already changed by several shades and levels of blue. Normally, Albedo would take the opportunity to capture this chart of honey yellow, mandarin, fire red, turquoise and lilac on a canvas. He would crawl over to his backpack and search for matching colors, mixing them if necessary, probably almost missing the sunrise in his search. The painting would still look passable, not that he praised himself for it, but the people in town would have liked it for sure. It was always like that. Still, the young artist couldn’t be satisfied with his talent. Today Albedo didn’t pick up a brush, today there would be no painting to show Klee and the other children in the neighborhood. That was unusual for him.

But usually, Albedo's mind wasn’t on certain person either. He would’ve never imagined that it would throw him off track like this - especially now, at a time when he was so busy trying to hold his life together by any means necessary. A nervous breakdown, he thought and then a soft but panicky laugh escaped his mouth. While his fingers were still caught in the middle of his hair strands, he dropped his back onto the warm rock. Although Albedo couldn’t see the sunset anymore, his thoughts felt lighter and his eyes relaxed after staring into sunlight for so long. To lie here, somewhere surrounded by trees, by nature, by fresh air - gave him the feeling of being alive, of an emotion, even if he did not always feel. Even in moments of inner numbness and dullness.

People, on the other hand, gave him the feeling of being a burden, the feeling of having to be active and productive non-stop. It was important to be someone, to be useful for others. To function right. A human machine until the point one could no longer be or no longer wanted to be human. Albedo had already learned that before he came to Mondstadt and he had never questioned it. He liked to learn and work, he liked to be diligent and he knew a lot from an early age on. Others would describe him as inquisitive and curious, but also as a loner and rather quiet type.

But since he knew Kaeya, Albedo began to question things. All philosophical thoughts he had discussed with Sucrose, a girl who sat next to him in some university courses, never seemed to connect with himself - whether he was blind, whether he just didn't want to see it. He didn’t know.

Since he knew Kaeya, he noticed. He realized how naive he had been, how much energy he had lost in the past, how many things he didn't know, even though he loved to learn and was inquisitive and curious. All these details made sense and they were true, not because Albedo wasn't trying, but because he was trying in the wrong corners or trying too hard. He finally understood that it was okay not to have to please everyone.

Nevertheless, the young artist hated this truth, a reality he would like to avert. And he hated that it was Kaeya who gave him the words, the sense, the feeling of meaning, of emotion.

At best he wanted to tell himself that he hated all of this, but it was surprisingly hard. Because every time Kaeya wore his long peacock-blue hair open and took individual strands in his hand, he looked over to Albedo. Followed by stroking some hair out of his face, slowly, practically in slow motion, and every time he did so, this guy grinned. A small dimple formed in his left cheek, nearly invisible, not for an artist, and a skin incredibly delicate and smooth, darker than of the other Mondstadt citizens. The sky-blue eye on the ash-blond young man, no matter where or when, queer through the lecture hall, around the foyer, in the library. As if Kaeya knew what Albedo was thinking. In fact, he wanted nothing more than to immortalize the peacock-blue hair and the owner of it on paper.

Albedo hardly noticed how it was getting gloomy around him, the sun had passed the horizon by 3/4 and the first fireflies were buzzing around in the air. Warmed up by the sun shining during the day, the rock beneath him still radiated pleasant warmth and he slowly turned on his side and pressed his cheek against the stone. The touch felt not unlike a hand. How lonely. How beautiful.

Clearly, he imagined Kaeya's hand, he imagined Kaeya lying next to him. On this lukewarm summer evening when it was not worth being productive or depressed. On which Albedo could have painted a sunset but had changed his mind - because the words in his head that had formed into Kaeya-poetry were louder than the inspiration for art. All the rumors Albedo had heard about the Casanova, the macho, the loudmouth, the egotist. All the women who wanted to bring Kaeya a coffee in the morning, get in his way, while he was almost late for his first class. All his jokes, sarcastic replies, his permanent laughter, and grin - how he knew what he was doing to please. Albedo thought he would loathe Kaeya, but when the ash-blond realized, when he absorbed and understood.

Internalized.

The fascination was overwhelming, the interest awakened in him confusing.

All the terms he usually used in chemistry and physics seemed too scientific. A pure theory. Because what did it mean, what was that chemical love formula, it was one with which you couldn't explain it. Red cheeks and butterflies in bellies have nothing in coming with letters and hexagons.

No matter how hard Albedo tried to remember their first conversation or how words eventually turned into sentences, he couldn't recall it. A whole semester long, the two did attend a few classes together, knew each other's names, and probably had a handful of mutual acquaintances - but didn’t talk. Nothing unusual at a rather large university for two students whose majors took different directions. Still, there must have been a moment, something that had shifted Albedo's attention for a second. It seemed to the blond as if his life would hang on this memory. He wanted to know, he longed for this moment. Albedo needed to understand when the first time had been, when he had looked over at Kaeya and felt him no longer as a student among all the other students, but as a man out of a painting. Too beautiful, too bright to look at with the naked eyes.

What he could remember was that Aether, one of their mutual acquaintances, had mentioned how Kaeya liked to drink Death After Noon, a particularly strong wine, and of the fact that shortly afterwards, Albedo had walked into a campus pub and poured himself a glass of it. The ash-blonde had wanted to know what was so special about it, wanted to know what Kaeya might have experienced on his tongue and taste buds. The wine was fine, Albedo was not a connoisseur in the field anyway, in fact he felt rather confused about why he had been drinking alone.

He didn't want more wine, he wanted to know more about Kaeya.

Kaeya revealed little about himself and tried to keep himself and everything around him in check. He lived with his facade, which got him ahead in life, but seemed to suck him dry emotionally. Control was nice, Albedo knew that too, but not long-lasting and very fragile. The peacock-blue haired one was joking, laughing, and giving his best flirts. Everyone around him fell for his charm, wanted to be around him and hung on his lips. No doubt, this man was charming, but Albedo could see that he also had wounds, scratches, places where his facade tore huge holes and left damage.

There probably wasn't that one moment in which Albedo was aware.

At some point random words had spilled out of their mouths, perhaps they had exchanged trivial text answers or planned a project for a course together. Albedo thought about everything they had talked about in the past. What ideas and fantasies had left his mind to connect somewhere and not be lost in the darkness, such as in his head. There was so much he hadn't said because he didn't know how. Perhaps because of insecurity, fear - because he liked to go on as it was right now. Sometimes they would meet on campus after their last class and sit under a tree. No one talked, shared silence. Kaeya read a few pages in his book and Albedo sketched a rose or a cecilia. It was as if they had agreed in advance, but most of the time it happened naturally and without them coordinating. Later in the evening, when they were both in their own homes, Kaeya would usually send passages that he had liked best from the pages he had read earlier. And then he would add a meme or a funny video, completely out of context, yet appropriate. Albedo had meanwhile completed the sketches, not always showing them to Kaeya, but the latter did not push him.

Some days Kaeya completely disappeared from the picture surface. Neither on campus nor in the chats, Albedo could reach him. Although he didn’t appear to be sick, he wasn’t present. These were the days the blond artist felt lonelier than usual. Funnily enough, he had been used to being alone in the past, a state that had never seemed particularly unpleasant to him. These Days, however, something was missing, a part that slipped into his circulation like serotonin and gave energy for everything necessary.

Yes, Albedo wanted to tell himself that he hated that it was Kaeya who gave him the words, the sense, the feeling of meaning, of emotion. That he hated how much he enjoyed Kaeya's attention, his glances, every conversation he was allowed to have with him. He was unhappily and happily attracted to him. Albedo was afraid that it would eventually hurt him and that he would not be able to bear the pain caused.

But it was so incredibly difficult not to long for Kaeya.

The ash-blonde opened his eyes and stared straight up to the sky, simply to find out that it had become pitch dark. Stars offered him the only source of light, even the fireflies were gone. His cheeks felt wet, the hand numb under the weight of his head and the rock under his body had cooled noticeably.

It was not easy to resist someone like Kaeya. And maybe Albedo didn't want to either.

[thekidultlife]

Hey there! I want to request Chan + alarm for the drabbles request, thank you and have a nice day💕

(A/N: Hii anon!! Thanks for requesting!!  i really enjoyed writing this ;;;; this one could be interpreted as two different things. So lemme know if u have any ideas~~ )

Words: 1.3k

The alarm broke out.

11:15 AM

Chan woke up sweating, the midday sun flooding through the half-closed blinds of his apartment. It was still dark inside, as if he had been imprisoned, by someone, by himself, perhaps. Half eaten ramyeon cups lie beside the kitchen sink and a few pots and pans piled on top of each other. He had already forgotten when was the last time he had washed them.

Reaching out for his phone, he turned the blaring alarm off, then noticed a message on the notifications. It was from you.

He sighed, sitting up from where he laid, brushing his bedhead in annoyance. Not again.

July 27th

Chan was supposed to meet you for lunch at half past eleven. Now he had only fifteen minutes left. He sighed once more, his eyes tired, his mind exhausted. He doesn’t want to fight with you, for you anymore. There was nothing left for him to defend.

With a simple shirt and jeans, he didn’t even bother to tidy up his apartment. There was no point in doing that. The sun was already too high and he was already too late. Opening the door, he could feel the heat haze creeping in.

That’s what he hated about summer.

The alarm rang.

11:15 AM

The bed sheets were in disarray, his university papers all strewn on the floor without much care. Chan was so sick of everything. It would only take a matter of time to reach out for the bottle of soju in his cupboards. Alcohol reminded him of his friends, where were they anyway? He had only seen a glimpse of Seungkwan the other day, or when that other day was. He wasn’t sure anymore. Time just flies and stops and skips these days.

The city was like trapped in a foggy haze—too blurry, too bright and too far away. The Seoul skyline simply looked like it was some sort of background for the little caricature he was playing with you. It was all a mirage created by the waves of heat Chan would see as he passed by the traffic of Gangnam-gu.

He had already reached the playground you wanted to meet in before he knew it. He was right. Time does fly lately. Parking his rusty trusty bicycle, he walked towards the center of the park. There was no one there. Nothing was there but him and his loneliness. Does heartbreak do these kinds of things to you? He had wondered that question over and over again for the past few days, or how many days an eternity has. Chan doesn’t know the answer to that question yet. But there’s no need to worry. He had all the time he wanted to have.

That’s what he hated about summer.

The alarm resounded across his apartment.

11:15 AM

It was too loud; like ambulance sirens he had been familiarized with these days. Chan threw his phone across the room, turning into bits and pieces of plastic, glass and metal. He wasn’t worried. Nothing he did ever matters.

“Dammit…”

He had already cried for you for how many times; he had already lost count. He still loves you, he swears he loves you. Yet these days, he just feels like a ghost, only tied to this earth by all the heartbreak and regrets swirling inside of him.

Chan wanted to hold you again, to feel you, to caress your skin. He wanted to see your smile, to hear your laugh. He wanted to relive those days where he knew happiness, where he knew you, not these days were he simply wanted everything to melt and disappear.

These days, these days…he hated it.

The park was still desolate. His bicycle was still leaning against a metal railing, already rusted.

“Chan.”

The swings were singing, and he had heard your voice. The first time he saw you, he was glad. Wrapping you in a tight embrace you barely returned. It was already the end for you. Yet it keeps on repeating for him.

“We’re both tired, Chan,” you told him as his ears kept on ringing. “We need to let this cycle go.”

“No. No, no, no…” he pleaded, desperately. “Don’t go, Y/N. Don’t leave me please. I can’t—you can’t…”

“It’s too late.”

That’s what he hated about summer.

The alarm blared.

11:15AM

Chan screamed and screamed and screamed until his voice ran out, until his lungs could no longer heave. His apartment was in chaos, spiraling into a turmoil he could hardly control. Everything was broken, everything was gone and irreplaceable.

Yet he kept on going in circles; around and around you as if his days had been revolving only around your existence. He was tired yet he can’t stop. He wants this to stop, to end the misery and torment.

This time he had met with you by a deserted carousel, inside a deserted theme park. Where are the other people? He had seen nobody these days but you. He doesn’t remember when it all started. Everything just seemed to be moving around that certain day—it all started and ended and continued on that day, July 27th.

It made no sense.

He had seen you walking by scaffolding, he had seen you walking down the stairs, he had seen you walking across the street, he had seen you waiting by the subway, he had seen you in so many places, he had already forgotten around a hundred similar scenarios. It made no sense.

Yet it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt any less.

That’s what he hated about summer.

The alarm echoed across the room.

11:15AM

For the millionth, billionth time—Chan doesn’t remember. He simply laid there on his bed, staring at the stark white ceiling where shadows and bright sunlight danced with each other. The both of you used to be like that—dancing. Chan enjoyed dancing with you, underneath the stars, by the artificial fairylights, around the skirted dinner table he had prepared as a surprise for you on your first anniversary. Yet time does fly and those memories seemed to be so long ago.

He sighed for the nth time.

He sighed as he rose up from the bed, dressing himself with the same shirt and pants, wondering where you wanted to meet up this time. You used to love taking off the same shirt and pants off of him.

He sighed as he soon learned that you were already outside of his apartment, waiting for him to wake up and get dressed. It was the same driveway you both shared your first kiss on that November night when he had finally told you what he had felt.

He sighed as soon as he saw you, a frown on your face, the heat waves rising from the asphalt road. It was too hot, too scorching, like the words you threw at him; knives that had pierced his broken heart repeatedly these days.

He sighed as he watched you walk away from him with a scathing glare, mad at how he was too silent, too uncaring this time. Chan doesn’t seem to care for anything these days. It doesn’t really matter what he cared for. Things will simply return to square one.

He sighed as he knew what will happen next. A gasoline truck was moving down an alley road it wasn’t supposed to be in, as if the Universe had planned this all along. It was stupid but there was no use in complaining—a truth he had learned that day. It came rolling down the slope, as if it was some sort of horror movie. Chan had to be amused. What a way to end.

He sighed as he walked towards you. He had already called the ambulance, but he knew they will be late anyway. He gazed into your eyes, consciousness slipping steadily, as he held your hand and gave a tight squeeze. If there was nothing he can do about it, then maybe he could be there with you until the end. There was truly nothing he could do, trapped in the heat haze.

It had broke him. It has broken him.

That’s what he hated about summer.

The alarm broke out.

-Hyeri

[cubicscubedemon]

Good End

((This drabble is basically the beginning and the logical end of the permanent puppetry verse.))

………

Well, what to do now?

The end times had officially been a flop. All of Bill’s other creatures and underlings had vanished beyond the Shape’s ability to track them, along with Bill himself. The Nightmare Realm was now permanently closed and going through the last stages of its precarious lifespan. The only option had been to flee to anywhere that might support incorporeal form. There was nothing for it but to hide out in the Mindscape, alone, until a better opportunity came along.

The Shape found that opportunity in a body lying in the trees at the outskirts of a town. Still living—some substance or other had left the human mind that would normally be within wandering the Mindscape. The Shape approached the projection and put on a gentle, ethereal voice that didn’t quite need words. Do you mind if I enter?

If the human in question had been in a more lucid state, their reply would have sounded like: “Is this part of that cosmic consciousness thing they talk about?”

Absolutely, hummed the Shape. So, may I?

By now the human’s mind was drifting off in another direction, figuratively and literally. “Sure, I guess…”

Thank you, have a nice trip! the Shape called after the departing form, before diving into the now completely unoccupied body. Fingers twitched. Knees bent. Two eyes opened, and the Shape hauled themself to their feet. That was easy!

Once they had gotten used to walking (which took a while and scared a good decade out of a passing truck driver), they hiked down the road to figure out where they were in relation to a certain small town in Oregon. They had questions that needed answers.

…..

The full picture of what had happened in August of 2012 came to them in bits and pieces. It took longer than they expected—but then again, maybe it was understandable why the townsfolk were hesitant to speak at length to the stranger with magenta eyes that lived under a bridge in the park. One summer, after a complaint from a tourist to the sheriff, the Shape got thrown out. So they took up residence in Gravity Falls’ junkyard, and thought about the holes remaining in the story they had so far.

In the future, they sometimes wondered if they were really happy to have those holes filled in.

It was discovering Bill’s statue that finally made things completely clear. They had slowly put together its existence and whereabouts by eavesdropping on conversations between children. One part superstition, one part teasing, one part a strange reverence. They knew why their elders never spoke about the thing if they could help it.

“It’s in there? Really?”

“Yeah! Wanna see?”

“But—what happened to Ethan—“

“Well, he got better, didn’t he?”

“Nothing even happens if you don’t say his name.”

“Whose name?”

“Shhhh!”

…

“Hey, who’s that walking in?”

…

They knelt in front of the statue for nine hours. They didn’t say a word. They didn’t even touch the stone surface, always slightly warm even in the cool of the forest shade. They just stared and stared into the great lifeless eye, like they were hoping it would shift to look at them, or into them, instead of through them.

All their life in the Realm, all trillion-odd years of it, they’d imagined themself to be someone who threw off their chains, forged their own path instead of following one imposed upon them. Here, alone in the woods, they recognized that for a lie they’d told themself endlessly. They hadn’t accomplished anything more than following the triangle before them to the end. They were never going to see him again, and now they had no idea where to go, or whether there was anywhere to go.

It was all going to end here for them, too.

…..

But the Shape thought less and less about the end as time wore on. They couldn’t help it. There were just so many things to do!

For a while they entertained ideas about somehow escaping Earth and striking out into the Multiverse at large, but despite the many nights they stayed up by candlelight writing and sketching out their plans, nothing ever quite came to fruition. They occasionally told themself that progress was so slow because they lacked resources, or guidance, but mostly it was because they were distracted by other parts of their daily life. In time, they let go of their single-minded determination, and the Great Escape became nothing more than a daydream.

They liked building new additions onto the house they crafted in the junkyard, not far from where old Fiddleford McGucket used to live before he submitted his patents. Over the years their home became a sprawling, nonsensical structure that twisted all around the northeast corner of the yard, with multiple levels and trapdoor windows and even, at one point, a tower, until the sheriff made them take it down in exchange for being allowed to continue building underground.

And so the Shape turned the space beneath their home into a warren of tunnels and cellar rooms, taking the soil all the way up to the part of the roof that got the most sun. They’d discovered that they enjoyed gardening. (It was almost like a whole little world you could build! Imagine!)

In the spring, they buried baskets worth of pinecones up there, and once they had some saplings, took the baby trees to the edge of the forest they knew Bill rested in. All in all, they were responsible for increasing the reach of that section of the woods by over four hundred feet.

…..

In summer, they hung around the diner, drinking glass after glass of iced coffee and making small talk with truck drivers and road tripping college students as they passed through. They loved learning, and learned quite a bit indeed during these times. They got more pleasant to talk to, although they never lost their edge of…peculiarity. Depending on the day, you could find them either telling jokes that made one side of the diner chuckle and the other shudder, or deep in conversation about some esoteric topic with a few young people, entranced at how much first-hand experience this old stranger seemed to have with things they’d never known except through their books.

It was during one of these seasons that they started giving out a new name.

“Everybody, I want ya to meet…uh…say, bud, what’re you called?”

“Hm? Oh! I’m… Mm…Em. Call me Em.”

‘Lazy’ Susan Wentworth, who by now was half-retired from the diner, fixed her good eye on them. “Finally grew outta those other nicknames?”

‘Em’ stuck out their tongue at her in the most deliberately childish manner they could.

(But they figured there was some truth to what she said.)

…..

One autumn, they spent so much time in the library that the staff hired them. For the first few weeks, they didn’t know that this had actually happened, until their paycheck came.

“Em, dear, do you have a bank account?”

They thought of the small fortune they’d once won on Lottocron 9, and found they couldn’t remember which dimension’s banks they’d stored it in. “Not here, no. Why?”

“Well, I need to give you your pay.”

“Thank you! Pay for what?”

“Em, what did you think you were doing here for the past month?”

They shrugged. “Staying out of the rain?”

…

“I think they must hardly know the difference between work and play,” the head librarian told her co-workers over lunch in the back room.

“Still not sure about this,” one of them muttered. “Have you heard about what happened when Susan let them into the diner kitchen?”

“We haven’t got a deep freeze here!” the head librarian protested.

“I know you’ve got a soft spot for those in need, Lorraine, but you know they’re a…well…” the other woman pointed ceiling-ward and drew an X-mark in the air with her index finger.

“Well, yes, but that’s beside the point.” Lorraine picked up her fork in that way which meant she was keeping the upper hand in this little debate. “I’m from Coburg. They’re from some other planet or wherever. What’s the difference?”

…..

In winter, the town slept, and so did Em. They already had a lazy streak the rest of the year, but during the coldest part of the year they were especially sedentary, hardly leaving their junkyard house except to buy groceries and smokes, check on the saplings from the previous spring, or to sit on their own porch, having a cigarette and watching the ice twinkle on all the rusted metal around them. The rest of their time was spent in the cellar rooms, writing. They could fill up a four inch notebook in one season, but never shared the contents with a soul.

For all their gregariousness, they really did prefer to be solitary much of the time. One winter, a few middle schoolers were aiming snowballs at their windows. After several good shots and a cracked pane, Em emerged, the town weirdo, grinning like a Cheshire Cat, to return fire. The kids quickly found out that Em favored snowballs that contained shards of ice.

Later, those kids would buy Em cocktails at the bar, and joke that they were doing it for forgiveness. “Maybe I’ll consider the debt repaid next year,” Em always said.

…..

The passage of time, once something they couldn’t bear to consider, became a thing of fascination for them. Year after year, they watched Gravity Falls change with the seasons, and the transformation was not only dependable but fluid and beautiful. Em sat on their porch and thought about the way blood rose in a bruise and flowed away, and how comets stayed inert and frozen until they flew close to the sun, when ice and vapor streamed out behind them. Cycles were not a new concept to them. But they’d never had the chance before to truly understand what they were and what they meant. They used to think time was something small and divisive, a cell one had to break out of to achieve anything.

“But it looks downright grand from in here.”

…

Em lived about thirty years in Gravity Falls. Long enough for time to catch up with them. They did not get many visitors, but late one October, as the town’s thoughts were turning once again to the day the sky had torn open, a librarian entered the junkyard to see why they hadn’t shown up the day before.

It was determined that Em passed in their sleep, and that the cause of death was their smoking habit.

Found in their house was the following:

- Seventy-nine books they had stolen from the library, mostly nonfiction

- Dozens of batches of Halloween cookies, still not ideal but better than when they’d started baking

- The deed to the junkyard, which they took under the Finders Keepers Law

- An elaborate system of booby traps

- An entire cellar of homemade mechanical…things…that eventually got donated to a museum in another city, but were not displayed for the next decade

- Eight Cubics Cubes

- Hundreds and hundreds of letters to Em from several mystery correspondents. About 40% of the envelopes were marked with the Eye of Providence: these invariably contained deeply encrypted contents. None of those particular letters were more recent than over fifteen years ago.

- All of their notes, amounting to over six thousand pages. Much of it was also in code. Many drawings were included, of intricate geometrical patterns and charts, and alien machinery, among other things. The parts that were in readable English were a simple diary: these parts grew to outnumber the unreadable parts the more recent the writings were. Despite the library’s pleading, all of Em’s notes and letters were taken away that same day by an anonymous man in a brown leather jacket.

The funeral was very modest, but a few people still came to pay their respects. Lorraine was not there—she had died several years before—but most of the rest of the library staff were, along with a few regulars from the diner. The new head of the library had the wisdom not to make the eulogy very long.

“Em doesn’t have any kin that we know of, but I think they would’ve been alright with me saying a few words, instead…”

“They were always friendly enough to us. Did good work at the library. That’s not to say there weren’t some hiccups from time to time, but mostly they were a good librarian. They were a chatterbox, though, I remember they would go on about the strangest things…things that sounded like big old fibs until they’d take out a book and show us what it all meant. Y’all remember that business with the telescope and the dinosaurs?”

The assembled knew they were never Em’s friends. That had become clear to them that morning, as they watched the remains of Em’s private life come to light. The diary entries never once spoke of anyone in Gravity Falls as more than a passing amusement or curiosity. 

In the end, human life was still just a game, and Em had only been playing along. Until the end of the game had caught them unawares. Was it still ‘natural causes’ if you let yourself die accidentally?

“They did alright in the end, I think.”

The first spadeful of cold soil hit the casket.

“God rest their odd soul.”