Bloom || HOPE MIKAELSON x RYAN CLARKE

1] DARKNESS OVERWHELMS

And there he thought he could handle the loneliness.

He'd had enough of it to last all of the lifetimes he'd spent, however shortened by his cruel father they'd been, and he'd liked to think it made it easier.

In all fairness, growing accustomed to being alone wasn't something he'd wish on anyone, but now that he wasn't technically alone anymore, he'd do anything to take it back.
He found himself lost now that he had to pluck up all his courage and actually face everything else.

Alone with everybody. How ironically fitting.

He couldn't bring himself to laugh.

It felt funny at first.
Almost like a tingle.
The fleeting feeling anything could and would happen.
The split second thought that he could have a companion, a partner, a friend.
And then, just like everything else, it had vanished.

She was whisked out of his hands and into even deadlier claws, and back to the land of the living to bask in the love of her actual friends, while he lay there, pathetic and alone.

The vortex, whirlpool, reminder of his doom -call it what you want- closed behind her, leaving the surrounding darkness unscathed.

It was as if it had never ripped a tear through the black veil in the first place, defying the very laws of Malivore itself, but Ryan couldn't decide whether it was a good or bad omen.

Glancing around into oblivion, he'd never fancied himself a man of philosophy, and yet, he finally found Nietzsche to be right. The abyss had him cornered from every angle, he, who was so used to being ten steps ahead of everyone. And it was all because of her.

His second wish was to make her pay.

But for a moment, the single second of hope that only befell him once every century, he also found himself wanting her back.

His eyes pierced through the everlasting darkness again, pushing thoughts of her to the back of his mind. He stood in the middle of a hunt, to which he was the prey.

Sound came back eventually and footsteps surrounded him, but with his eyes, he could only make out inexistant shapes, almost as if he could see her walking back to the real world.

He wondered if she'd feel the same joy he had when the time had come for him to be freed.
Whether she would feel every hair on her body stand alert at the first passing gust of wind, or the oddly pleasant searing sting the air left as it wafted to her nostrils.
Gosh, he missed it.

Their situations were not similar; he knew that -he'd only been freed of one hell to fall back into another, but still, the thought was there.

Even given his current predicament, his father had granted him a sort of freedom he ought to be thankful for. But the last time he'd been in this place, he'd spent his years in isolation reminiscing his long life.

He was at it again now, and when his thoughts eventually came back to her -wasn't it always about her?- he found himself hoping she'd feel the aching loneliness that came with realizing that everyone she'd known had forgotten her, as they had him.

He'd never really pushed for love -for even the word sounded foreign to him- but he'd had friends, or the next best thing.