Before It's Voiced

Gothic

Hey! A quick note to thank you for the fob fic award stuff! That's such a cool thing for the fandom to do and it helped me find a bunch of other cool writers, too. 

Un-beta'd because chaotic-panda is at a concert. I think. I hope she's having fun <3

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goth·ic

adjective

 a style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, as well as romantic elements, such as nature, individuality, and very high emotion

Days pass like whispers and nights are the lovers who share them. Sometimes, my dreams connect the two but, more often than not, they appear for no longer than a heartbeat. And I am left with the big black emptiness of nightmares and their voices.

It makes me sick, the way they hiss and coil around my brain, their words my new synapses and neurons. I cannot move without their breath along my spinal chord. I cannot speak without their voices tempting my tongue first. I can never find enough sleep or time or words with their presence always so known.

As their control grows, as I recognize patterns in them and he recognizes patterns in me, I become more and more unsure. Insecure. Impure.

Gray. (Again, no, never again, this isn't that story, this isn't that tale, this isn't that life, this—)

One such pattern is that of fear. The way I recoil from the monsters' suggestions and the way Patrick narrows his eyes as I flinch in the middle of shattered glass conversations, neither of us aware of who should be more afraid.

The monsters, too, have worked their way into this game. At dawn and at dusk, they almost sound human— or siren or anything other than what they are. Reasoning, talking, cajoling me into releasing Patrick to the sea like a fish captured too early. When they remind me of how I hardly know the siren, of how easily he's changed from childish to tormented, they almost make sense.

But then the Sun rises. But then the stars outshine their moon. But then their few hours of control slip away and they are nothing more than snarling sounds and disturbed demands, distorted by mouths created for a more fantastical dialect.

And this isn't to mention how they sound whenever they hear him.

Him.

When Patrick laughs, they scream. When he cries, they shout. When he says siren or prince or home, they shriek as if the sound will grant them mercy from his words.

I do not understand these monsters; I do not wish to.

Despite this, I do know one thing. Something they have tried to hide from me. Something they have hidden from him. Until now.

These monsters are terrified of Patrick.

~

"Well, look here, if it isn't the new guy!" Brendon says brightly when Pete stumbles into the shop one day. Day clings to the horizon, the setting sun making way for darkened thoughts and less control over which words are his own. He glances wearily at Brendon, trying to pretend he hadn't woken up just an hour ago. "I was worried we scared you off with all that talk of myths and stuff. Really, you don't need to think about that crap, my dad's just obsessed with monsters."

Pete starts and he's unsure if it's because of the word or the insinuation Patrick's one of them. He glares at Brendon with more heat than he means. "Then stop talking about it."