eyes closed, i see your face
fandom: prose; light 'em up - fading verse
characters: ely & diego
wordcount: 177O
notes: this is heavily inspired by the song 24 floors by the maine (which i strongly recommend listening to if you're interested in additional pain), and ... listen i am so sorry for this, okay. it's set in the fading verse, which is an alternate version of light 'em up that starts out the same but ends very differently.
tw: major character death, mentions of suicidal thoughts
24 floors
up in some hotel room
feeling so low
thinking of jumping soon.
Ely doesn't break when he wakes up in the hospital with a stiff neck, a hollow feeling in his chest, and Diego's hand cold and unmoving in his own. His heart does - it stutters and stops and as he leans forward to rest his head on Diego's chest, waiting for a beat he'll never hear again, Ely can feel it shatter apart and rip the hope out of his bones, every last bit of it.
He doesn't break.
He doesn't cling to Diego's body as if there's still someone to hold on to because that's how people die while they're still breathing and Ely is too familar with death to let it consume him like that, or at least that's what he hoped when he pulled Diego out of the water weeks ago and inevitably considered a worst case scenario.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Ely lifts his head and uncurls his fingers, one by one, until Diego's hand drops onto the mattress.
He can't remember the last thing they said to each other. It's a stupid thought, sentimental and naive and desperate, but part of him knows he'll keep chasing through the mess of his memories trying to find something, anything that could be mistaken for closure.
Ely looks at Diego's still face, swallowing the words on the tip of his tongue - they're useless; ugly confessions and apologies that make his insides twist, useless weeks ago and now more than ever, and what's a quiet hospital room supposed to do with his "I'm sorry"s and "I'm so scared of missing you"s, anyway?
Ely doesn't break when he pushes himself to his feet, although his knuckles are white where he's clutching the chair and it feels like fighting your way out of a dream before your body is ready to wake up, limbs heavily weighed down by a gravity that seems impossible to overpower. Several minutes pass before he's ready to let go of the chair and once he stands on unsteady feet, the sight of ashen skin and chapped lips and utter, irrevocable stillness has burned itself into Ely's mind like an afterimage of blinding light, except Diego's light has faded long ago and all Ely sees now is a muted grey.
He wonders if he'll remember the colour of Diego's eyes a month from now, a year, and almost gives in to the urge to curl up next to him and close his eyes and pretend.
They would find them in the morning, whoever arrived first - Ariana, with graceful steps and a grave expression, suffering with dignity because that's how she'd been raised; Bonnie, closed-off and clinging to hope with shaky hands; or Yana, with trembling lips and fragile ghosts of smiles, never hesitating to use her last resources of strength to provide comfort. And Ely knows he can't stay. If he sticks around until they're here, he'll see their worlds crash and faces fall. If he sticks around, someone will say it and it will be too real to walk away from.
He forces a breath into his lungs, fingernails digging into his palms until it stings, and suddenly his hand is inches away from Diego's cheek and he wonders, hesitating, if he's imagining the coldness seeping off Diego or if he can really feel death on his fingertips without even touching him. The thought rips a soft sound from Ely's throat, quiet, keening.
He doesn't break, but it's a close thing.
He wants to bend down and kiss him, but he doesn't.
He turns around and leaves the room on steady feet and weightless steps, gravity abandoned and dead just like the universe Ely's leaving behind, and he doesn't look back.
-
Halfway through the building, he runs into a nurse who seems familiar and freezes for a moment, biting his tongue until he tastes blood in his mouth. She frowns, recognizes him, and Ely feels something in his expression crumble when her face softens and she moves towards him. She gives him a moment to reconsider, a silent question in her eyes, but Ely doesn't move and lets her put her arms around him, infinitely careful and gentle and seconds later he's returning the hug like he'll fall apart right here in the hospital hallway if he doesn't.
"He didn't suffer," she tells him softly and Ely tenses, Sanai's trap and the sound of Diego's tortured screams invading his mind and creeping into every corner, suffocating him. He retreats abruptly, taking a step back from the nurse.
She gives him a concerned look. "Will you get home okay? I can call someone for you if you want."
Ely stares at her but what he sees is Diego jumping, hitting the water, waves rippling in circles around his point of impact and he's going to re-surface any second now, just a moment longer, he'll be right there -
Ely runs.
-
It's still dark outside when he stumbles onto the pavement, street lamps lining the path he'd probably find blind by now after having walked it so many times during the last weeks. Ely inhales shakily and hears himself gasping for breath in the lake while he scanned the surface, counting heads, waiting, waiting, and the cold morning air burns in his throat like a lungful of water.
I should have kissed him, he thinks, slow and syrupy like his mind can't quite wrap itself around the words.
He won't get another chance. He just turned his back on his very last chance.
A car honks at him, the sudden noise startling him out it, and it takes Ely half a minute to realize he's standing in the middle of the street without any recollection of how he got there.
I kissed him when he was alive, Ely thinks and forces his legs to move.
It's not that far anymore.
I kissed him when he was alive.
That's better, right? It has to be better than the alternative. Right?
He doesn't break on the way to the hotel and is genuinely surprised by that.
-
Ely steps out of the lift, 24 floors above the ground when all he wants is to be beneath it.
He thought he'd be prepared when the moment came but the truth is, he's given too much of himself to Diego to just walk away from losing him, no matter how many experiences with death he's made. It's all his fault for letting him in. Diego crashed into him like an avalanche and instead of stepping out of his way, Ely collapsed willingly.
His vision blurs, room numbers barely recognizable as he stumbles through the hallway.
I miss you. Fuck, I miss you so much.
Distantly, Ely remembers pulling the key card out of his pocket and swiping it across the sensor by his door - a soft click, green light, a deep ache in his chest - and then he's in his hotel room, sinking to the floor as the door falls shut behind him.
Part of him wants to be numb and apathetic, wants to sink into bed and sleep and not think about what waking up will mean, but he let that happen several times before and it always, always ends with blood on his hands and a path of destruction Diego would despise him for. Would have.
He's gone. 'He's gone. He's dead.
A pained whine pushes past his lips and after that it's impossible to keep it together any longer. Leaning back against the door, Ely blinks frantically against the blur in his eyes, gasping for breath as choked, ugly sobs wrack his body and he breaks and drowns and feels the dead weight of Diego's hand cold in his palm as if he never left.
-
By noon, he has two missed calls from Yana and messages from her and Ariana.
Ely ignores them.
The floor is hard and digging into his shoulder but he can't bring himself to move to the bed, so he stays where he is instead and eventually passes out from exhaustion.
In his dreams, Diego drowns in the lake more times than Ely can count.
-
The sky is already darkening when Ely feels the numbness settle and make a home in his bones - not the cold, dangerous kind that inevitably explodes into all-consuming anger - the heavy kind of numb, slowing his breaths and heartbeat and movements. The kind that will get him killed if he isn't careful but Ely doesn't plan on looking for new clients in the near future and wasting time killing strangers. He has one goal now, one person he might bother making an actual effort to kill, but right now his legs barely carry him out onto the balcony.
Ely drags himself to the banister and leans on it, shoulders aching, knuckles bitten raw.
He wonders if they already brought him away.
Wonders where they'll bury him and who will come to his funeral.
His chest hurts so fucking much he thinks he might have to throw up. Instead, he bites his tongue again, the taste of blood familiar and almost grounding when his eyes find the stars. They're sparse and their brightness muted by the city lights. But then again, the traffic lights of passing cars and street lamps far down below are just as muted and colourless.
Ely slumps, the edge of the banister digging into his stomach and the ground is so far away he can't help but think about how long a fall would take; how long he'd be dropping and have a chance to anticipate what was coming before he'd hit the ground.
Twenty-four floors are a lot.
Twenty-four floors are enough.
Ely closes his eyes, fingers tightening around the railing.
Behind his eyelids, Diego is alive - not drowning, now that Ely's awake and not as much at the mercy of his subconscious anymore - and Diego is looking at him with warmth and trust and something even more torturous in his eyes and Ely chokes on a breath, a shudder running down his spine that doesn't subside and leaves him trembling.
He knows what Diego would say, just like he knows he isn't going to jump, but that's still not enough to prevent his knees from giving out under him.
He curls up on the balcony like he did on the floor earlier and wills his hands to stop shaking, unsuccessfully, not sure how long he can keep up the act of not making any rash decisions for the sake of a dead man. He can only imagine Diego's voice telling him not to do anything stupid so many times, after all.
And here's a truth: Ely doesn't want to die, he doesn't, but living in a world without Diego Pacana is something he doesn't know how to do, not yet; not when it feels like he left half of himself behind on that hospital bed to be buried with him.
characters: ely & diego
wordcount: 177O
notes: this is heavily inspired by the song 24 floors by the maine (which i strongly recommend listening to if you're interested in additional pain), and ... listen i am so sorry for this, okay. it's set in the fading verse, which is an alternate version of light 'em up that starts out the same but ends very differently.
tw: major character death, mentions of suicidal thoughts
24 floors
up in some hotel room
feeling so low
thinking of jumping soon.
Ely doesn't break when he wakes up in the hospital with a stiff neck, a hollow feeling in his chest, and Diego's hand cold and unmoving in his own. His heart does - it stutters and stops and as he leans forward to rest his head on Diego's chest, waiting for a beat he'll never hear again, Ely can feel it shatter apart and rip the hope out of his bones, every last bit of it.
He doesn't break.
He doesn't cling to Diego's body as if there's still someone to hold on to because that's how people die while they're still breathing and Ely is too familar with death to let it consume him like that, or at least that's what he hoped when he pulled Diego out of the water weeks ago and inevitably considered a worst case scenario.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Ely lifts his head and uncurls his fingers, one by one, until Diego's hand drops onto the mattress.
He can't remember the last thing they said to each other. It's a stupid thought, sentimental and naive and desperate, but part of him knows he'll keep chasing through the mess of his memories trying to find something, anything that could be mistaken for closure.
Ely looks at Diego's still face, swallowing the words on the tip of his tongue - they're useless; ugly confessions and apologies that make his insides twist, useless weeks ago and now more than ever, and what's a quiet hospital room supposed to do with his "I'm sorry"s and "I'm so scared of missing you"s, anyway?
Ely doesn't break when he pushes himself to his feet, although his knuckles are white where he's clutching the chair and it feels like fighting your way out of a dream before your body is ready to wake up, limbs heavily weighed down by a gravity that seems impossible to overpower. Several minutes pass before he's ready to let go of the chair and once he stands on unsteady feet, the sight of ashen skin and chapped lips and utter, irrevocable stillness has burned itself into Ely's mind like an afterimage of blinding light, except Diego's light has faded long ago and all Ely sees now is a muted grey.
He wonders if he'll remember the colour of Diego's eyes a month from now, a year, and almost gives in to the urge to curl up next to him and close his eyes and pretend.
They would find them in the morning, whoever arrived first - Ariana, with graceful steps and a grave expression, suffering with dignity because that's how she'd been raised; Bonnie, closed-off and clinging to hope with shaky hands; or Yana, with trembling lips and fragile ghosts of smiles, never hesitating to use her last resources of strength to provide comfort. And Ely knows he can't stay. If he sticks around until they're here, he'll see their worlds crash and faces fall. If he sticks around, someone will say it and it will be too real to walk away from.
He forces a breath into his lungs, fingernails digging into his palms until it stings, and suddenly his hand is inches away from Diego's cheek and he wonders, hesitating, if he's imagining the coldness seeping off Diego or if he can really feel death on his fingertips without even touching him. The thought rips a soft sound from Ely's throat, quiet, keening.
He doesn't break, but it's a close thing.
He wants to bend down and kiss him, but he doesn't.
He turns around and leaves the room on steady feet and weightless steps, gravity abandoned and dead just like the universe Ely's leaving behind, and he doesn't look back.
-
Halfway through the building, he runs into a nurse who seems familiar and freezes for a moment, biting his tongue until he tastes blood in his mouth. She frowns, recognizes him, and Ely feels something in his expression crumble when her face softens and she moves towards him. She gives him a moment to reconsider, a silent question in her eyes, but Ely doesn't move and lets her put her arms around him, infinitely careful and gentle and seconds later he's returning the hug like he'll fall apart right here in the hospital hallway if he doesn't.
"He didn't suffer," she tells him softly and Ely tenses, Sanai's trap and the sound of Diego's tortured screams invading his mind and creeping into every corner, suffocating him. He retreats abruptly, taking a step back from the nurse.
She gives him a concerned look. "Will you get home okay? I can call someone for you if you want."
Ely stares at her but what he sees is Diego jumping, hitting the water, waves rippling in circles around his point of impact and he's going to re-surface any second now, just a moment longer, he'll be right there -
Ely runs.
-
It's still dark outside when he stumbles onto the pavement, street lamps lining the path he'd probably find blind by now after having walked it so many times during the last weeks. Ely inhales shakily and hears himself gasping for breath in the lake while he scanned the surface, counting heads, waiting, waiting, and the cold morning air burns in his throat like a lungful of water.
I should have kissed him, he thinks, slow and syrupy like his mind can't quite wrap itself around the words.
He won't get another chance. He just turned his back on his very last chance.
A car honks at him, the sudden noise startling him out it, and it takes Ely half a minute to realize he's standing in the middle of the street without any recollection of how he got there.
I kissed him when he was alive, Ely thinks and forces his legs to move.
It's not that far anymore.
I kissed him when he was alive.
That's better, right? It has to be better than the alternative. Right?
He doesn't break on the way to the hotel and is genuinely surprised by that.
-
Ely steps out of the lift, 24 floors above the ground when all he wants is to be beneath it.
He thought he'd be prepared when the moment came but the truth is, he's given too much of himself to Diego to just walk away from losing him, no matter how many experiences with death he's made. It's all his fault for letting him in. Diego crashed into him like an avalanche and instead of stepping out of his way, Ely collapsed willingly.
His vision blurs, room numbers barely recognizable as he stumbles through the hallway.
I miss you. Fuck, I miss you so much.
Distantly, Ely remembers pulling the key card out of his pocket and swiping it across the sensor by his door - a soft click, green light, a deep ache in his chest - and then he's in his hotel room, sinking to the floor as the door falls shut behind him.
Part of him wants to be numb and apathetic, wants to sink into bed and sleep and not think about what waking up will mean, but he let that happen several times before and it always, always ends with blood on his hands and a path of destruction Diego would despise him for. Would have.
He's gone. 'He's gone. He's dead.
A pained whine pushes past his lips and after that it's impossible to keep it together any longer. Leaning back against the door, Ely blinks frantically against the blur in his eyes, gasping for breath as choked, ugly sobs wrack his body and he breaks and drowns and feels the dead weight of Diego's hand cold in his palm as if he never left.
-
By noon, he has two missed calls from Yana and messages from her and Ariana.
Ely ignores them.
The floor is hard and digging into his shoulder but he can't bring himself to move to the bed, so he stays where he is instead and eventually passes out from exhaustion.
In his dreams, Diego drowns in the lake more times than Ely can count.
-
The sky is already darkening when Ely feels the numbness settle and make a home in his bones - not the cold, dangerous kind that inevitably explodes into all-consuming anger - the heavy kind of numb, slowing his breaths and heartbeat and movements. The kind that will get him killed if he isn't careful but Ely doesn't plan on looking for new clients in the near future and wasting time killing strangers. He has one goal now, one person he might bother making an actual effort to kill, but right now his legs barely carry him out onto the balcony.
Ely drags himself to the banister and leans on it, shoulders aching, knuckles bitten raw.
He wonders if they already brought him away.
Wonders where they'll bury him and who will come to his funeral.
His chest hurts so fucking much he thinks he might have to throw up. Instead, he bites his tongue again, the taste of blood familiar and almost grounding when his eyes find the stars. They're sparse and their brightness muted by the city lights. But then again, the traffic lights of passing cars and street lamps far down below are just as muted and colourless.
Ely slumps, the edge of the banister digging into his stomach and the ground is so far away he can't help but think about how long a fall would take; how long he'd be dropping and have a chance to anticipate what was coming before he'd hit the ground.
Twenty-four floors are a lot.
Twenty-four floors are enough.
Ely closes his eyes, fingers tightening around the railing.
Behind his eyelids, Diego is alive - not drowning, now that Ely's awake and not as much at the mercy of his subconscious anymore - and Diego is looking at him with warmth and trust and something even more torturous in his eyes and Ely chokes on a breath, a shudder running down his spine that doesn't subside and leaves him trembling.
He knows what Diego would say, just like he knows he isn't going to jump, but that's still not enough to prevent his knees from giving out under him.
He curls up on the balcony like he did on the floor earlier and wills his hands to stop shaking, unsuccessfully, not sure how long he can keep up the act of not making any rash decisions for the sake of a dead man. He can only imagine Diego's voice telling him not to do anything stupid so many times, after all.
And here's a truth: Ely doesn't want to die, he doesn't, but living in a world without Diego Pacana is something he doesn't know how to do, not yet; not when it feels like he left half of himself behind on that hospital bed to be buried with him.