Frail Feathers - OC Oneshots/Roleplays

Memories

Memories.

A quaint sentiment one man couldn't seem to shake, even as each glimpse of a fading joy shook his hands and left his head heavy within them. These memories had once been pure, fruits of the mind now turning rotten with a sharp sickness that pooled deep in the depths of his stomach, warm feelings now faint with loss and regret, laden with a need for redemption. Unsure what had united his own thoughts against him, Crowly fumbled with his glasses, pulling them from his crooked nose and letting them fall loosely onto the desk before him with a light clatter that cut across the darkness of a room that had once been writhe with wonderful memories, now past paintings he could only admire as they chipped and cracked. The paint peeled with each glance the man made towards such a potently perfect past, one he was now left alone to leer over.

They were all gone. Those figures that had forced him to face the light, to walk within it once more. Left little remorse, he cowered alone, fighting against his greatest enemy yet. It seethed with sick guilt, as if his actions could have prevented such a cruel fate but, it was futile to believe otherwise. Somehow he had brought this intense isolation onto himself, left to stew in the acidic substance that spewed from the corners of his mind, drowning any sense of self preservation out. Any self-serving nature was a foreign concept now, each cold embrace of sheets damp with tears fleeting to bring the man back to who he once was. Preservation was a repugnant idea, forged to allow men to thrive in their thick and foul lies, to believe their unjust acts could be justified, validated by each and every self ingested fabrication. He had been foolish to feel deserving, to desire more than a mediocre existence. 

Shivering breath seemed to settle around his thoughts, a faint background hum behind crowded, crashing waves that swept this way and that, leaving mist upon the rough sea of sunken souvenirs, ship wrecks that croaked with the loss of the sun's gaze. No longer would Crowly ever feel the soft light of another, a guiding lighthouse against savage seas he could only call out for. Each decaying memory that dared rear its dying head through fierce waves was soon shut down, shoved aside until another came in its place. Only faint flickers of warm words remained in those desolate eyes, two faced beasts that fed a man his delusions, medication for the melancholy. Every false friend seemed to at least subdue the subtle gasps for air in his scratchy throat, steady breath a foreign sensation, a fond feeling now shadowed with each rise and fall of a taut chest, shaking bones slitting into his sides in all the wrong ways. 

Each creak of his own carcass had become uncanny, as if the tremor-wracked hands before him were not his own. As if the broken blubbering in his bloody mouth was not his own. As if each shiver down his sharp spine was not his own. Each was an enemy, a traitor betraying every feeble attempt made to still the shaking, to subdue the fractured words that weaselled their way from between clenched teeth, deep in his lower lip. Repulsive pain, redemption nagging for his attention, still seemed to sneak between his wheezes, slaves to a lawless tyrant, left unchecked in the melting corners of Crowly's mind. Every order it gave was a slap to the face. A kick to the stomach. An assault on a weakened heart.

The twist of features burned into an agonising emptiness left his face cold. Oh so cold.

Such brilliant flames flicker until they fizzle out into vague, ashy figures now drifting into the dark, dry embers drained of the life those joyful characters had once held. They lay as faceless marionettes in his mind, moving with stiff joints and jagged voices, now sharp and vigorous with their taunts, only seeming to release prickling tears from his eyes. Salty streaks ran softly down his face now with uneven heaves of leaden breath, broken with each beg, incoherent and incomplete, as if they were pages torn from a book, fragments of the larger picture, a putrid sight. 

Keeping the desk before him out of the blurry haze was getting harder and harder, Crowly's shaking hands clenched with white knuckles against the edge, the dark wood a burning sensation beneath his nerves, setting them alight. The traces of reflection in the lenses of glasses gave nothing short of a torturous image for him, hallowed cheeks coated in a soft stubble, eyes wide with each darting red vein popping across white sclera. Tendrils of dark, greying hair graced a wrinkled forehead, clutched in the grip of his tense brow, tight and damp with sweat. The loose form of his hoodie, slipping down one shoulder was barely distinguishable from the shifting shades behind him, dark figures that had phantoms for faces, silence for cries and shadows for claws. Hunching his back, he could only bring his body to reconcile with itself curled forward, slumped in the trails of morning light now bleaching the shadows that roamed his bedroom. His knee continued to bounce, broken sobs still stark across his throat, his breath slowing to a steadier shake. White knuckles began to redden again as he removed them from the table's edge, letting the limbs loosely flop beside him as if they were plants, deprived of the sunlight that had once been abundant. 

Crowly knew that soon the tremors would subside completely and the hoarse nature of his throat would barely be noticeable with each flat sentence he delivered. He knew his cries of pain would soon be lost to the night once more, sinking into the sheets of darkness that were now releasing the world from their grasp. He knew it would all be over until he sat at this desk again, his thoughts threatening to wage their war, the combat that left him drained, skin tinged with soft tears and his eyes empty. 

Letting out a weighted sigh, Crowly shifted himself away from the curled up position he had been in, standing on quivering legs as he stumbled to the bathroom in strenuous routine.

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> Finished 22/09/23