#which uhhhh. aha. i might be projecting. (<-they have DPDR)

[code31-onthedancefloor]

you know what im just putting it in a separate post. this is my own ulixes backstory - content warning for parental+familial abuse/neglect.

Another stupid mistake.

Ulixes had forgotten to wash and put away the dishes. This had the immediate effect of enraging his father - who was hitherto consumed in a bad mood - and the expulsion of Ulixes from the family home for the night. Moronic of himself, Ulixes thought, to provoke him so thoughtlessly. Muffled in the kitchen and its yellowing white tiles with that awful, guttural shout, until Ulixes turned and ran - ran out the back door, to where his father would not follow under the siren call of another pyrholidon from the fridge. 

And so he sat, looking up at the house and the pale sky above it. An entire wooden thing slumping dauntless before him. It rotted and shook and groaned through stormy nights, as if aware of its absurd and depressing existence. Embarrassed by the silence of its residents. Apathetic to the omen of another hard winter. On the little porch around the back that nobody ever used - where it wouldn’t dampen his trousers - Ulixes wondered into the thrice-unread pages of his book: why doesn’t it just fall? 

Yet, the clocks kept turning, and the mice wouldn’t stop running through the pantry. Little scampering-scratching in the walls beside his bed. The pigeons that nested in the chimney each Summer. Ulixes Bücher, tucked away where no-one would try to find him. Empty pantries. Cold bed. Crumbling chimney. Ulixes, tucking himself away. That was the way of things. That was how nature was slowly reclaiming the Bücher household. Day by day. Night by night. 

Especially those long, long nights which were as black as pitch and twice as humid. Where he as a little boy would toss and turn and dream of the entire wretched house collapsing. In those dreams, he would wake up in the morning, surrounded by and buried in rubble - the mounted deer head, the ripped clothes, the four-poster bed in his parent’s room, the fine china that was never used - and Ulixes, sole survivor, a tiny dot in the wreckage, emerging. Fifteen tumbling steps to the left, and he would happen upon the remains of the family jewels. In this childish fantasy, Ulixes would sell the jewels and move far, far away. It didn’t matter where. The house just needed to fall. So why didn’t it? 

In a fit of frustration, he snapped his book shut. Wind tousled his hair as he meandered through the overgrown garden: through the long furs of grass - the deadnettle, which his older brothers would pick the flowers off to jokingly whip at him - past the old pine trees, all the way to the back. Here, a shed almost as old as the house itself stands vigil against the elements. A slightly brighter shade of wood, still dulled by years of use and disuse. A musky hint of rainy evenings past, warping the walls. Windowless. 

And no lock, of course - nobody would just let themselves into here, not in the East. Not where you were picked off the street and sent back across the canal for the most minor of public infractions. Except, nobody in the Bücher household has repeatedly accessed this little hovel either. Perhaps since his grandfather, as far as Ulixes knows. He did woodwork, or something to that effect, in his spare time. Back when they employed house-servants, this place could possibly have gone over the rusting equipment with a dust-rag. Now, all the erstwhile sawdust has simply blown away; a blessing for the jacket on Ulixes’ back which is quickly going to become a mattress under the dented, discoloured workbench - one of the only things nailed to the floor. 

He doesn’t know how many hours his grandfather spent here. By all accounts, he was a silent old man, praised by Ulixes’ siblings for scoring a once-in-a-lifetime engineering commission from a previously blossoming city. In fact, the Bücher household seem to have a thing for dying before Ulixes ever meets them. Apart from those who still remain in the house, he knows of one cousin who moved away to Jamrock, never to be heard of again. Every other member is locked in an eternal, poisonous game of one-upmanship over dinner, concerning wage brackets and managerial positions. Quoting the spiteful rants of his oldest brother - there used to be openings. And now there aren’t. Honest, skilled workers like he are forced back across the canal for work, where the jobs are cheap and the turnover is cheaper. His Aunt, spitting into a wine glass about mingling with the lower people, how the trickle-down up-swing has faded, how stagnancy has strangled her aspiration of a nice car and the subsequent respect that would blossom on everyone’s faces when she turns up in that. 

They have made it abundantly clear that whatever blessed the Bücher family three generations ago is never doubling back. The repairs the home direly needs will never be happening. Even if they did, the resounding result would simply be putting a plaster on a stab-wound. It doesn’t matter how much junk his father sells to put him through a return-on-investment education. So, why doesn’t the house fall? 

He breathes the afternoon light, perched in the doorframe; leaning. In contrast to the opulence of his grandparents’ tailor-made mansion, the shed is a utilitarian thing. Cuboid and sturdy, with its thick walls and insulated door - telling the tale of a person who would be complained away from the porch by neighbours or would not be dissuaded from partaking in outdoor hobbies in Winter. A floor softened by work boots. Flecks of paint and glue and oil staining in intervals. The whisper of pine needles reverberating around. So much wood, he thinks, like a little hole in a tree. A bird’s nest, from which he is watching the grey bulb of the sky grow dimmer and dimmer. Until the trees and the too-tall fence and the grasses turn into a shadow-puppet show. Until all Ulixes can hear is the wind. Until Ulixes can no longer read his book - only able to see a vague outline of his hands, and the stars still somehow shining through the city smog. Until he whistles, and the air stops whistling that jaunty little tune back into his ears, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. That is when he shuts the door to the shed. 

It is warm, Ulixes’ little nest. Thrumming with that insulation, that warp-curved geometry. It does something comforting to your brain, such like a reinforcing example does for a belief you already hold. He parts his chapped lips, and pushes his tongue to the back of his throat. A little click of sound is released. A pushing of a particularly satisfying button - or the trigger pulled on an empty gun-barrel? 

The click bounces off the walls. It is an instantaneous cacophony, finished in less than a second. But it reels back his mind from wandering back to earlier, where the dishes were stacked and dirty and his father’s face was… 

Click. Click. Click. 

Echo. Echo. It never fails. Nothing is used against him, here - where no one will look for him. 

Ulixes opens his book to the middle before resting his head on it. He knows by experience the floor will mercifully not hurt his body come morning. A jacket, brown, coming apart at the seams, slung over his thin frame. 

Tonight, he dreams again of the house falling down. The wind; terrible and exacting, will extricate the foundations from the tumour of Revachol East and tumble it in a chef-swirl across the street. Miraculously, it would ignore The Shed, just as Ulixes would awake the next day to ruins, only to completely disregard its contents in favour of walking into the encroaching Pale. As if there was something in there for him. In there, where the air whistles back at him. 

[code31-onthedancefloor]

(cw - parental/familial abuse/neglect)

Another stupid mistake.

Ulixes had forgotten to wash and put away the dishes. This had the immediate effect of enraging his father - who was hitherto consumed in a bad mood - and the expulsion of Ulixes from the family home for the night. Moronic of himself, Ulixes thought, to provoke him so thoughtlessly. Muffled in the kitchen and its yellowing white tiles with that awful, guttural shout, until Ulixes turned and ran - ran out the back door, to where his father would not follow under the siren call of another beer from the fridge. 

And so he sat, looking up at the house and the pale sky above it. An entire wooden thing slumping dauntless before him. It rotted and shook and groaned through stormy nights, as if aware of its absurd and depressing existence. Embarrassed by the silence of its residents. Apathetic to the omen of another hard winter. On the little porch around the back that nobody ever used - where it wouldn’t dampen his trousers - Ulixes wondered into the thrice-unread pages of his book: why doesn’t it just fall? 

Yet, the clocks kept turning, and the mice wouldn’t stop running through the pantry. Little scampering-scratching in the walls beside his bed. The pigeons that nested in the chimney each Summer. Ulixes Bücher, tucked away where no-one would try to find him. Empty pantries. Cold bed. Crumbling chimney. Ulixes, tucking himself away. That was the way of things. That was how nature was slowly reclaiming the Bücher household. Day by day. Night by night. 

Especially those long, long nights which were as black as pitch and twice as humid. Where he as a little boy would toss and turn and dream of the entire wretched house collapsing. In those dreams, he would wake up in the morning, surrounded by and buried in rubble - the mounted deer head, the ripped clothes, the four-poster bed in his parent’s room, the fine china that was never used - and Ulixes, sole survivor, a tiny dot in the wreckage, emerging. Fifteen tumbling steps to the left, and he would happen upon the remains of the family jewels. In this childish fantasy, Ulixes would sell the jewels and move far, far away. It didn’t matter where. The house just needed to fall. So why didn’t it? 

In a fit of frustration, he snapped his book shut. Wind tousled his hair as he meandered through the overgrown garden: through the long furs of grass - the deadnettle, which his older brothers would pick the flowers off to jokingly whip at him - past the old pine trees, all the way to the back. Here, a shed almost as old as the house itself stands vigil against the elements. A slightly brighter shade of wood, still dulled by years of use and disuse. A musky hint of rainy evenings past, warping the walls. Windowless. 

And no lock, of course - nobody would just let themselves into here, not in the East. Not where you were picked off the street and sent back across the canal for the most minor of public infractions. Except, nobody in the Bücher household has repeatedly accessed this little hovel either. Perhaps since his grandfather, as far as Ulixes knows. He did woodwork, or something to that effect, in his spare time. Back when they employed house-servants, this place could possibly have gone over the rusting equipment with a dust-rag. Now, all the erstwhile sawdust has simply blown away; a blessing for the jacket on Ulixes’ back which is quickly going to become a mattress under the dented, discoloured workbench - one of the only things nailed to the floor. 

He doesn’t know how many hours his grandfather spent here. By all accounts, he was a silent old man, praised by Ulixes’ siblings for scoring a once-in-a-lifetime engineering commission from a previously blossoming city. In fact, the Bücher household seem to have a thing for dying before Ulixes ever meets them. Apart from those who still remain in the house, he knows of one cousin who moved away to Jamrock, never to be heard of again. Every other member is locked in an eternal, poisonous game of one-upmanship over dinner, concerning wage brackets and managerial positions. Quoting the spiteful rants of his oldest brother - there used to be openings. And now there aren’t. Honest, skilled workers like he are forced back across the canal for work, where the jobs are cheap and the turnover is cheaper. His Aunt, spitting into a wine glass about mingling with the lower people, how the trickle-down up-swing has faded, how stagnancy has strangled her aspiration of a nice car and the subsequent respect that would blossom on everyone’s faces when she turns up in that. 

They have made it abundantly clear that whatever blessed the Bücher family three generations ago is never doubling back. The repairs the home direly needs will never be happening. Even if they did, the resounding result would simply be putting a plaster on a stab-wound. It doesn’t matter how much junk his father sells to put him through a return-on-investment education. So, why doesn’t the house fall? 

He breathes the afternoon light, perched in the doorframe; leaning. In contrast to the opulence of his grandparents’ tailor-made mansion, the shed is a utilitarian thing. Cuboid and sturdy, with its thick walls and insulated door - telling the tale of a person who would be complained away from the porch by neighbours or would not be dissuaded from partaking in outdoor hobbies in Winter. A floor softened by work boots. Flecks of paint and glue and oil staining in intervals. The whisper of pine needles reverberating around. So much wood, he thinks, like a little hole in a tree. A bird’s nest, from which he is watching the grey bulb of the sky grow dimmer and dimmer. Until the trees and the too-tall fence and the grasses turn into a shadow-puppet show. Until all Ulixes can hear is the wind. Until all Ulixes can no longer read his book - only able to see a vague outline of his hands, and the stars still somehow shining through the city smog. Until he whistles, and the air stops whistling that jaunty little tune back into his ears, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. That is when he shuts the door to the shed. 

It is warm, Ulixes’ little nest. Thrumming with that insulation, that warp-curved geometry. It does something comforting to your brain, such like a reinforcing example does for a belief you already hold. He parts his chapped lips, and pushes his tongue to the back of his throat. A little click of sound is released. A pushing of a particularly satisfying button - or the trigger pulled on an empty gun-barrel? 

The click bounces off the walls. It is an instantaneous cacophony, finished in less than a second. But it reels back his mind from wandering back to earlier, where the dishes were stacked and dirty and his father’s face was… 

Click. Click. Click. 

Echo. Echo. It never fails. Nothing is used against him, here - where no one will look for him. 

Ulixes opens his book to the middle before resting his head on it. He knows by experience the floor will mercifully not hurt his body come morning. A jacket, brown, coming apart at the seams, slung over his thin frame. 

Tonight, he dreams again of the house falling down. The wind; terrible and exacting, will extricate the foundations from the tumour of Revachol East and tumble it in a chef-swirl across the street. Miraculously, it would ignore The Shed, just as Ulixes would awake the next day to ruins, only to completely disregard its contents in favour of walking into the encroaching Pale. As if there was something in there for him. In there, where the air whistles back at him. 

ok ive got somethin but i need to proofread it first