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andyreedwritingposts · 6 years

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save every day like a treasure

writing characters you maybe don’t usually write or fully know and understand yet is difficult. nonetheless, i got this idea, and decided to write it, as a gift.

pathologic fanfic, takes place before the game but i’m not quite sure i have a timeframe nailed down. eva/andrei, early in their relationship, around 600 words. the only content warning i would say is that it does have some themes of human mortality and foreshadows some of what happens with eva a little.

i wrote this while listening to time in a bottle (jim croce song) and so the title comes from that.

You are dancing with her under the streetlights, because you can do that right now. You can dance with some sense of safety in her arms. If she loves you, you are not the only one who she loves, and you don't have to be. However, you think maybe you are the only one she dances with, and that seems significant. And there are things you haven't told each other.

She is humming something you don't know. With her head against your chest you can feel the vibration it makes in your body. Her eyes are closed. You are looking at her so intensely that you're afraid it could hurt her. She is so bright you're afraid it could hurt you. If a human being could stare into the sun with the same ferocity with which it blazes...well, it would be poetic, but it wouldn't compare.

She wrinkles her forehead. Her humming slows, and then stops. She retraces her steps through the same phrase a few times, stopping at the same part again and again.

"Ah!" she says suddenly, and opens her eyes. There are times when you would be embarrassed to be looking at her this way, but you are too in awe to be embarrassed now.

She smiles at you, and then repeats the same refrain, but a little higher this time. She relaxes in your arms again as you move in slow circles to the song you think is maybe playing somewhere only she can hear. Her eyes close, and yours follow suit, and now you're both moving without speaking, without seeing, just by feeling alone.

It's easy to follow the melody now, and you find yourself humming with her this time. You hum softly at first, but you can't stay that quiet for long. Something about her makes you softer, and something about her makes you bolder. There are some things you do because of who you are, and there are some things you do because of who she is, and you want her to know that this right now is for her.

She notices. Her humming fades away, and you're still leading, but she isn't following. You open your eyes and you think that maybe what you're seeing on her face is fear, sadness, shock - it passes over her features like a shadow. It passes over your heart like a shadow.

"Only you can do the things you've done," she says. "Only you can do the things you will do."

And then she kisses you, and it's the first time she has kissed you, and it's maybe the first time you've kissed anyone - it's as if all memories of kisses before this seem mere dreams. You can feel tears on your face and you don't know whose tears they are.

She pulls away, and now she's beaming at you.

"Only you can do the things you will do," she says again. "But if I can help..."

"You can. You do," you tell her. "You already do."

She doesn't stay with you that night, except in the way she always seems to stay with you after you leave her. It reminds you of being haunted, and you don't like that, but you like feeling her close to you even when she isn't there. So since she isn't going to stay with you, you walk with her to her door. You say goodnight.

You can't help but steal a glance over your shoulder as you leave. There she is, in the window, illuminated by the candle she's holding. She's looking out at the world from behind the glass, and you are looking at her, but you don't think she's seeing you. You don't know what she's seeing.

The candle goes out. Too soon, you think. Never enough time - there never will be again, after her.

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andyreedwritingposts · 7 years

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hover with no shape

this is my short pathologic fanfic that i wrote to try to get back into writing. the title is from a perfume genius song.

content warnings: suicidal thoughts, dysphoria. i would probably rate it pg or so i guess but it is a little dark.

about 500 words. i haven’t written anything in a long time and did this as a little exercise. takes place right around the first conversation with andrei in bachelor route but is mostly introspection and flashbacks.

There was a time, when you were young, when you felt your adversary breathing down your neck. When you could count every one of Death's teeth, because daily you saw Death's crooked smile, heard the whispers. You could arrange everything nicely, they would say, end it all in a way that would surely meet anyone's approval. No shame for you. No shame for your family. Your young body sprawled elegantly somewhere, its parts all where they should always be. A tasteful tableau.

You think less of your brushes with Death now - they've become common, almost mundane - as though you are no longer courting - as though you have been married a long time now and you are no longer in love, either. With no children to consider, you have resolved to divorce Death, and every day of your work brings you closer to filing the paperwork. But a brush with Life is astonishing - a brush with Life lingers in the mind some years later.

You will probably always remember the weight of your surgical textbook in your hand - your hands shook, you recall, as you excused yourself from the companions you studied with, dismissing one young man's frown as unwarranted. You will probably always remember pressing your face against the cool metal of a bathroom door as you tried to collect yourself, your textbook in your hand, one finger holding your place. Your eyes narrow as you read the words in the fading light coming from one small window, as you poured over a case study that sounded more like your childhood fantasies than anything you could hope to be true. Your heart hammering in your chest.

It was shocking, but it was one more problem to solve. A logic puzzle in the shape of your life. The strange dread that you felt as you aged was explained. The constant discomfort you'd felt for years had a source - your troubles had a name. Death became your enemy - and Death, you imagined, shuddered upon realizing you had a reason to live. And you were ambitious - if you could save yourself, you could save more.

You still remember the sound of someone knocking softly at the door - almost so quiet you couldn't hear it - and then louder. A voice, calling your name - so it was Andrei after all - and the sound of something else, closer - yourself, half crying and half laughing, and altogether unable to answer him.

"I'm going to open the door," he said firmly, and then he did.

And now, seeing him again calls up those memories. You almost panic, but you are logical - you can think of something to say - an imagined sister, perhaps - someone who looks very much like you did then, someone else, who can bear the burden of the body you carefully sculpted into the one you have now -

- but if he sees you now and remembers you as you were then - softer, perhaps - rounder in the face, crying and shaking, as he supported your weight to keep you from collapsing on the floor - he doesn't show it. He remembers you, that much is clear - and you think he knows, and understands.

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