Fuck Life || Tom Marvolo Riddle

Bad day and Dumbledore has ugly robes

It was a bad day.

The sky poured in grief as the unforgiving raindrops hit the panes of the window with no remorse. The dark sky rolled about grey and bleak sucking the life out of the atmosphere as it shrouded the world in shadows. It was the 28th of August 1939 and in four days Ailill and Tom were to be heading to Hogwarts for nine glorious months of magical schooling. Only Ailill from the looks of it wasn't going to be in the best of conditions.

Tom sat on the chair beside Ailill's bed sick with anxiety and furious with his inability to help the boy. He hates when Ailill gets like this, the dead unresponsive tunnel of his eyes, the empty mannerisms to his actions. The constant dazed look on his face as he lays in bed all day forgoing food and company. The boy gets like this every once in a while, there are times where he will just float away into his own head not caring for the world around him not caring for Tom. And Tom despises it.

Ailill will be fine one day and the next he will be laying in bed with his eyes wide open but unseeing. He will feel like he's floating inside his body but too tired and far away to reach for the safety bars to help pull him away from the never-fading currents of his mind. He forgets who he is, what he's doing, and who he cares about. All he feels is a soft caressing of his mind as he lay floating on an empty sea of blackness.

Tom always stays by his side during these episodes, bypassing food and sleep to make sure Ailill is okay. When they first started to happen and the matron called in the doctor Tom was raging, this stranger wasn't qualified to look after his Ailill, what if he hurt him? Alas, the doctor claimed Ailill was showing signs of disassociation, a trauma response. Both the matron and Tom were skeptical, sure the orphanage wasn't the kindest of places but no one ever stirred up trouble for Ailill, nothing to warrant disassociating anyways. With the diagnosis in place, all they could do was be there for Ailill and hope he comes out the other side relatively unscathed.

Tom had asked once after an episode why he had these intense bouts of dissociation. Ailill had only smiled sadly at him and been quiet the whole day, other times he's been willing to share why he got so numb. He speaks of always feeling tired with the world and feeling too worn out to want to keep living, that yes even with Tom by his side sometimes it's just so hard to not feel disappointed when he wakes up and realises that he's lived another day.

Tom had begged and pleaded and threatened the boy with a shine to his eyes to never leave him, to be forever as one. Ailill couldn't promise the boy anything but he did try to be more engaging, to try and wake in the morning and not feel too bad, to feel the brush of the blankets and realise that he had been tasked with living another bleak day. As much as he'll deny it, Tom does make Ailill's existence a bit more bearable but he couldn't tell the boy, or else the limpet would never detach itself from Ailill.

But still, Ailill had some relapses into the void of numbness every once in a while. Every time it happened it got harder for Tom to not get exceedingly frustrated with himself. He'd do anything for Ailill to be free from the clutches of his mind, he would kill a country, commit mass genocide and even play genuinely nice with others, all for Ailill. These times were the only ones where people within the orphanage would feel actual sympathy for Tom, they could see that while unhealthy the bond Tom cultivated with Ailill was the only thing chaining the boy to his sanity.

Two days went by before Ailill started to show signs of return, Tom had slumped in relief as he saw the trickle of awareness seep into Ailill's eyes, he tried to ignore the stabbing pain that resided in his chest as he could see the cloud of agonising disappointment accompany that awareness. Recovery was slow like usual, Ailill's recoupment is always unrushed to start, he'd be extra quiet for hours before slowly incorporating physical contact that he'd seek out Tom for. Ailill is to never be touched before he looks for it himself after these episodes, making this mistake leads to broken bones and further setbacks. After becoming comfortable with his surroundings once more Ailill will become vocal, for days he will be rather subdued but ever so slightly his known dry wit and crass mannerisms would bleed back in until it was like they never left.