The Love You Want (sleep token fic - Polyvessels)

I

Tags for this part: hurt/no comfort, graphic depictions of self-harm, gore, suicide, suicidal ideation, religious themes. lemme know if I should tag anything else.

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They came to him in a dream as he was teetering on the edge of life and death.

He had killed himself. Finally succeeded after various other attempts. It was everything he wanted, to finally end the torment of his everyday life and yet he regretted. Regretted that he never made anything of himself, never truly pursued music like he wished. Regretted letting his past lovers, his family, his peers, destroy him so completely that when he died, it was merely his body finally succumbing to the very darkness his mind had long since lived in.

Yet, broken as he was, They came to him. Asked him to be born anew as he floated in a vast expanse of stars, weightless as Their voice echoed around him, an amalgamation of every voice he had ever heard. "Will you be my vessel through which my message, my existence will be spread? I can give you everything you've ever wanted, if only you will accept me into your mind, your body, your very soul."

"I do not even know your name and you come to me and desire to give me everything. I am not deserving of anything."

"You are deserving of everything. I have watched you for your entire life. Witnessed your struggles and the few joys you managed to attain. I have seen others, witnessed their lives as I have yours, and there is no one better suited to be my First than you."

"But I am no one. If you've truly seen everything, you know how broken I am. Everyone I've ever loved has thought so, they've beaten it into me and made sure I would never forget it. I am broken beyond fixing."

"Your potentional, even as broken as you claim to be, is unlike any others' I have seen in millenium. As you are, you do not need fixed. As my vessel, you will be perfect no matter your state."

He wants. He wants more than he should, more than he deserves. He's always been so desperate for any sort of affection he let himself be used in so many ways, broken beyond repair but someone- something wants him. This God, a god, wants him to be their vessel. How many people could claim the same? This has to mean something. It has to.

He might bend, break, shatter beneath his desire to be loved. He is breaking beneath it. Resolve crumbling like the dust of the stars around him.

"I- I still don't understand why you want me but-"

With a blink of his eyes, everything changed. Above him, a moon shone brightly, larger than any he had ever seen before. Lain on his back, bright candlelight flickered around him in a circle, dimmer still than the stars he had been floating amongst what seemed like hours- seconds- minutes before. Time is dilated here, stretching out beyond his comprehension.

Sitting up, he noticed his skin had turned blacker than midnight. Sleep was all around him, every breath inhaled and exhaled a whisper of their name, a prayer echoed in his very soul.

"Be mine, my vessel, and I will give you what you most desire."

"And what is it I most desire, my God?"

"Love. I will give you love. My love, as my First Vessel, the love of your world, its inhabitants. You will be admired and sought after, revered, and in turn you will help spread my word."

"I will finally be loved...? But- Humans, my people are cruel. I have not been loved for even a moment my entire life. I have loved, but not been loved in return. There is something about me that makes me unlovable. I will not make a good vessel for your message. Humans will see me and be deterred, as they have been all my life."