Blindsided

Death of a Bachelor

Song is Death of a Bachelor by Panic! At The Disco. We're drawing closer to the end.

Major thanks to Dotemms for beta work and my Hole People for putting up with me pinging them at god awful hours to scream because of accidental realizations and dump lore and weird rambles on them.

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  The storm lashed the windows, the echoes of the choir singing hymns floating to the back of the cloister and ringing in the air. The air was damp and freezing, the autumn wind a howling thing in the torrent.

  Ruv stared at the box in his hands, fiddling with the lid. Flip open. Flip closed. Flip open.

  Flash of gold. Wink in. Wink out. Blue velvet on his fingertips like the petals of a flower, delicate and so easy to crush.

  "You'll have to ask her eventually."

  His head snapped up. Selever and Rasazy stood in the doorway, the former leaning casually against the frame with his hands in his pockets and the latter with her hands in her hoodie. Rasazy pulled her hand free and held it out.

  "May I?"

  He held it in his fingertips, hesitantly, then passed the box to her. She flipped it open and plucked the ring from the velvet. It shone like a star in the low light of the overcast sky, a gold vintage signet ring engraved with a floral motif.

  "Anemones," she breathed. "Protection and forgotten love. Anticipation."

  His shoulders slumped. "I have it, but I won't ask until she's sure."

  Selever pushed off the frame and planted his feet. "There you go, letting her take the lead. You know she's gonna follow you, not the other way around. Right?"

  Ruv huffed to himself and Rasazy handed the ring and box back to him. He tucked it back in the velvet and pocketed the box again. Straightening up on his feet, he wiped at his face with one hand.

  "Not as simple as just asking. She wants to take it slow but it's driving me fucking nuts. It's like it's not enough to be in love with her, I need to protect her and show her she's mine as much as I'm hers." He groaned and pressed his fist to his eyes. "Why does this have to be so hard?"

  Selever and Rasazy said nothing, and the trio stood like that for a long while. Finally, Selever broke the silence with a yawn and stretch.

  "Well we're doing another jump this weekend. Maybe I'm going to make it longer than a week forward this time. Who knows."

  He nudged Rasazy. "C'mon, let's go. Mom's probably nearly done with choir practice and I wanna hear the tenor choke on his part again."

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  He felt like Selever knew something more than he was letting on. He watched his son closely the whole week, him popping in and out of existence, practicing with small trinkets and bits of food that later in the week would turn up missing. Sel still reported a block, the frustration evident in his tone whenever he mentioned it, and he'd begun thinking the problem had nothing to do with his son's ability and everything to do with the situation at large.

  Ruv was playing hooky from chores, wandering the garden, hands shoved deep in his hoodie and ushanka pulled low over his hair. The wind was chill today, whipping at exposed skin and chafing his face flushed. Didn't really bother him; not much did when his mind was on other things.

  He didn't know how he could get Sarv to agree to marry him. Three months of this, three months of officially dating. It didn't seem like a lot on paper; it seemed way too quick, rash even. But he felt it deep in his bones, felt it in a visceral way: he was ready to make her honest. He was already bound to her side for eternity. What was a ring and another Vow between two souls entwined?

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  Selever popped out in a flash of pink light and Ruv counted three seconds in his head before his son reappeared, clutching something in his fist.

  This had been going on for an hour now, the jumps getting minimally further and further out. Still blocked from going further than a fortnight, it was getting late and he could tell that Sel and Sarv were beginning to flag.

  Selever walked up to his parents, starting to breathe a little heavier and looking frazzled, his nerves shot. He pressed a scrap of paper into his mother's hand. She flipped it over; it was a receipt, dated for the tenth of October. She smiled. It was the twenty-seventh of September.

  "That's a whole two weeks!" She ruffled his hair and he spluttered, waving his hands to fend her off.

  "The block is still there though," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets after he fixed his hair. "It's better now, but there's something I'm missing." He threw a pointed look at his father. "I think I need more time."

  He turned on his heel and walked out of the library, Rasazy trailing behind him, his tread heavy and shoulders slumped in defeat. Sarv watched him go, hand outstretched, confusion on her face.

  Ruv scuffed the floorboards. Selever definitely knew more than he was letting on. Were his suspicions correct? Was the thing holding Sel back the very thing stopping Ruv from having everything he wanted?

  He didn't know.

  Sarv sighed and walked over to him, and he wrapped her in a hug as she nearly collapsed into his arms. "What is going on ? There's no reason he can't go past this, it just makes no sense!"

  He held her tighter, his throat constricting, the slippery blackness fighting to come out. He gritted his teeth; he had to keep it together. He had to cut off his mind before he ruined everything.

  After a while, she pulled away. "Maybe it'll come to me after a night's sleep. You coming?"

  He stared at her, before shaking his head. "No. I'm going to go into the garden a bit. Be alone a little while."

  He made his way to the door. "I'm not leaving the church. I think I just need to clear my mind. Don't wait up."

  He loped down the hall, into the kitchen, out the door, out of the greenhouse into the open air. He hated leaving her behind like that, but he had to get a hold of himself. The sky was dark with angry cumulonimbus, a seething purple underbelly threatening freezing rain. The wind was whipping the ties of his ushanka, and he squared his shoulders as he slumped into the seat of a potting bench.

  He gripped his head, ripping his ushanka off his head and tugging at the roots of his hair. He felt the shadows obscure his face, the ghost of the lace on Sarv's costume still prickling his neck. The smell of her hair still in his nose, the heat of her imprinted in his skin.

  What was a lifetime of laughter, an eternity of happiness, when compared to the death of his lonesome existence? Why was it so hard to put into words how he felt for her, this oppressive and heavy need to possess her and never let go? This yearning to be the one to light her world, just as she lit his?

  The rain began to fall, a pattering that quickly soaked his hoodie through and had his hair lank and wet in moments. He turned his face to the sky, letting the water fall down his face and baptise him clean.

  It seemed fitting that he be caught in the rain like this, contemplating everything . It seemed fitting that he let the water soak him to the bone, surprisingly warm in the autumn chill. After all, in a way he was mourning the end of an era and chasing his happily ever after. In the rain, what else was worth mourning more than the death of a bachelor?

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(written 05/05/21) I'm 29. I'm surprised I've made it this long, but this has been such a wild fucking ride and I wake up to Blindsided being at 5k+ views, 300+ comments, and over 280 kudos. I've been doing this for only a month and so many amazing fucking things are happening, I'm completely overwhelmed in the best way. And I'm probably wrapping this up within the next week, which means I can move on to the next big thing.

Guys, you're never too old to start something amazing.

Crossposted from Ao3: 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30624293/chapters/76867718